by Gene Wolfe
Besides, he had an irrational feeling that by bringing them he had brought the three false wizards, too. Once, looking back through the trees at his straggling column, he had thought he had actually seen one, a bearded old man in a black robe and slouch hat. He had called a halt then, inspected the players a second time, and found no one who in the least resembled the flitting figure he had glimpsed. After that he had put Dinnile and two burly hands at the end of the column with orders to hustle along stragglers and keep their eyes open. They had seen nothing, or at least nothing they felt worth reporting. There had been no trace of Lady’s missing captain, his sailors, or Amail Destrop.
Oeuni said, “You’d think it would be cool because of the shade, but I’d trade it for a sea breeze.” Her face was bright with sweat.
For the hundredth time, he took out his handkerchief, mopped his own face, and studied the compass. “We should be nearly across the island now.”
“We could have missed it easily enough, sir.”
Noen had an uncomfortable feeling that despite her verbal support Oeuni did not really believe the white-walled building he had seen from Windsong’s maintop existed. He said, “If so, we’ll sweep the seaward side until we find it.”
As soon as he had spoken, he realized he had been looking at it for the past few seconds. That pale blur to the left could be nothing else—too dim for sunshine, too regular for a natural rock mass, too light for foliage. Striving to keep any exultation from his voice and terrified he might yet be wrong, he added laconically, “Port two points, I think, Lieutenant.”
It was a building more impressive for its beauty than its size, a perfectly proportioned rectangle of white marble surmounted by a dome of the same material. Once its marble walls had been carved in a tracery as fine as lace. Now pounding jungle rain had eroded the graceful curves to cobweb; vines clutched at the delicate threads of stone that remained, which bent backward as if fainting in their embrace. Strange letters, angular yet in harmony with the structure, bowed above its dark doorway.
Noen turned to the sailors, who were edging toward the building, curious but still mindful of discipline. “Can anybody read this?”
The hand who stepped forward had been a nomad of the Great Waste before signing aboard Windsong. “I can, sir. It’s Old Tichenese: ‘The Black Warrior Woman, Precious Helper of Men.’”
Oeuni whispered, “I can read something more, Noen. The vines have been cut away so somebody else could read the lettering.”
Noen nodded absently, having made the same observation himself. It seemed probable, though not certain, that it had been done by Lady’s captain, though—“Pass the word for Baldy, Lieutenant,” he said. “No, make that all the players.”
As they came crowding up he asked, “Did any of you know your captain well? Could he have read Old Tichenese?”
They looked at one another blankly. At last Nordread rumbled, “I doubt it, Captain. He didn’t seem like an educated man. Amail and I dined with him once or twice.”
“What about the sailors he took with him?”
“I suppose there’s always a chance, but …”
“What about Destrop? Could he read Old Tichenese?”
Nordread snorted. “Absolutely not, Captain.”
“I see.”
Greatly daring, Oeuni said, “Well, I don’t, sir.”
Noen pointed. “You or I would have cut away enough to discover we couldn’t read the inscription and stopped. Somebody’s cleared every word. He could read them, so he wanted to see the entire—Dinnile, what the blazes is wrong with you?”
The second mate slapped his leg again and looked apologetic. “Ants, sir. There’s a whole line of ants, and I stepped in ’em, sir, not noticing.”
“Noen, they’re going into the temple.”
He nodded, winding his wheellock. “I imagine there’s an altar in there, and we’re about to find a recent sacrifice on it.” He wondered whether it would be a human sacrifice—with four people missing it seemed almost inevitable—but thought it best to keep the speculation to himself “See that everyone stays here. That’s an order.”
Three shallow steps led up to the doorway. He paused there to study the dim interior before entering. Nothing moved except the line of ants vanishing into the shadows. There was no altar and no sacrifice, only a statue on a pedestal.
Two more strides showed him that it was, as seemed logical, a beautiful woman carved in black stone. The crest surmounting her helmet was a bird with outspread wings. He moved nearer to examine it, and one of the squares of the tessellated floor gave ever so slightly under his feet.
As he stepped hastily back, his heel struck something that rolled clattering nearly to the wall. He turned to look at it and saw that Dinnile was standing in the narrow doorway, with Oeuni trying to crowd past him. “Rotten stink in here, sir,” Dinnile said cheerfully.
Noen nodded. “I think I’ve just discovered why.” He crossed the wide room and picked up the skull he had kicked, then dropped it at once. Despite its tumble over the floor, it was black with ants.
Dinnile took a step and Oeuni rushed past him, the sword she now wore at her right side clutched in her left hand.
“Recent,” Noen said. “The ants aren’t finished with it yet.” He gestured toward two more skulls, clean and white, lying in a corner among a pile of bones. “He—or she—was probably killed last night.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Oeuni said. Then, “Noen …”
“What is it?”
The point of her sword was probing the back of the skull. “I’ve seen animals sacrificed. There was a fire, and they cut off the heads and hooves and threw them in, and then the skin and some of the organs. Then whoever had paid for each animal gave part of the meat to the priests and kept the rest. And for magic, when they sacrifice a little animal, don’t they usually burn the whole thing?”
Noen nodded. “So I’ve heard.”
“Someone’s opened the back of this to get at the brain.”
Dinnile had been examining the floor while Oeuni looked at the skull. Now he said, “Captain, here’s a crown here.”
Noen turned, not sure he had heard correctly. “A crown?”
“Like the one on the shah, in that game.” Dinnile looked sheepish at the mere mention of it; he was a poor player, and Noen, an excellent one, sometimes invited him for a game when Oeuni was on watch. “And next to it’s a wizard’s hat, sir, and next to that’s the warrior’s horse.”
Noen hurried over.
“See what I mean, sir? It’s like the whole place’s just a big shah board. Only the only piece left’s the black sultana, and that’s it over there.”
Oeuni kicked aside bones to examine the floor on her side of the room. “He’s right, Noen. There are pictures here too, for the white pieces. But the game’s already started—some of them have been moved. And the squares move too, a little, when you stand on them. That must be how you invoke the goddess.”
Noen stared at her. “Invoke the goddess?”
“Well, this place is obviously a temple, and there’s no altar and so on. So what does she want us to do? It must be to play this game, putting a worshiper on each square for a piece. Then she’s the black sultana, as Dinnile said.” Oeuni paused. “If we did it, maybe she’d help us.”
“I’m not so sure we need help. Windsong‘s patched and both ships are in the water again. As for Lady’s captain and his crew, I’m afraid we’ve found them.”
From the doorway, Baldy said, “Maybe you don’t, Captain, but we do as long as Amail’s missing.”
Oeuni added, “And what about whatever took the sailors, Noen? Suppose it’s still on Lady? I know invoking a goddess is liable to be dangerous, but she must be a good goddess—remember what it says outside? ‘Precious Helper of Men’?”
Baldy came into the temple, looking curiously at the statue and the designs on the floor. “If you won’t, Captain, we will.”
The very impracticality of the idea decided Noen. “
You haven’t got enough people. You’d have to go back to the beach and get the rest, and even that might not be enough. It would take all day, and I intend to sail with the dawn wind.” He turned to his first mate. “All right, Oeuni, I’m no priest and you’re no priestess, but we’ll try. Get them all in here. Dinnile, you’re the tallest; I want you for the white shah. Where’s that fellow Nordread? Nordread, you’re the black shah. Marin, you’re the white sultana—stand there beside Lieutenant Dinnile.”
Oeuni said, “One black soldier’s been taken, Noen, so we can use the hands for soldiers—there should be just enough. And the players in armor for warriors, and there are four tall women for towers.” She gestured toward one of the armored thespians. “Here, you! You’re a black warrior. Stand on this mark, in front of the sultana’s wizard’s soldier. Su, line up those hands on the symbols; I want the other black warrior in front of the shah’s tower’s soldier. Sir, I need a white soldier three squares in front of Nordread.”
Noen nodded and sent a woman over. “I’ll play white, Lieutenant. You play black. I must say it looks to me as though white has the better position, besides a lead of one soldier.”
“But it’s my move, and I’m going to take one of yours, I think. I’ve got my choice—no, I don’t. Captain, you’re supposed to have a wizard there by the door, protecting that other white soldier, but we don’t have anybody left to play the wizards.”
“We have one,” Noen told her. “Baldy, you’re a wizard. Take your choice of positions.”
Baldy walked to the square to the left of the black statue. “If this goddess knows where Amail is, I want to hear it.”
When the little temple was no longer filled with the sound of shuffling feet, the silence became oppressive. Dinnile fidgeted and coughed, then pretended he had not.
“Great goddess,” Oeuni pronounced. “Black warrior woman and precious helper, I, too, am a woman warrior. I beg you to reveal the fate of Amail Destrop to us and aid us against the slayers of our fellow mariners.”
There was no reply. Outside a monkey screeched, swinging away through the trees until it could no longer be heard.
Noen cleared his throat. “I’m Windsong’s captain, and I’m in charge here. We’ve done what we think you want. Now we’d like your help. If you want something more, just tell us what it is.”
Nothing happened. The statue did not move; no voice was heard in the temple.
“Captain, I’m afraid it’s not going to work without—”
“What is it?”
“—the wizards! Noen, don’t you see? Everyone kept saying three wizards, three wizards, Marin and Baldy and Nordread and even you. But there aren’t three wizards, because Baldy’s a wizard, too, and that makes four. Four wizards for the shah board! We have to get the other three, and it won’t work without them.”
A new voice, deep and eerie, seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, echoing from the bare white walls: “You have one.” The tall, black-cloaked man who strode into the temple looked old, his face lined with wrinkles and his long beard gray where it was not white; yet his eyes seemed to glow under his slouching wizard’s hat, and he stood as straight as any rapier. Saluting Ler Oeuni with his crooked staff, he took the square beside Nordread.
“Goddess!” Oeuni cried to the statue. “Behold! Aren’t two wizards enough? We’ve given you your shah’s wizard, as well as your own.”
Nordread stepped forward and touched her shoulder to get her attention. “Three, actually, Lieutenant,” the deep-voiced player rumbled, and pointed. A third wizard, smaller than the second but dressed in much the same fashion, stood at Dinnile’s right hand.
Noen roared, “Where’d that man come from?”
The burly second mate touched his forehead. “I dunno, sir. I was watchin’ you ’n’ Oeuni, and then he was there.”
“One more,” Oeuni said. “If we had the last—”
She stopped because something uncanny was taking place on the square black stone behind and to the left of Syb, the seaman who portrayed Marin’s warrior’s soldier. A cloud that was black and yet not smoke swirled there, as though a waterspout had somehow formed over the dry floor. Then it was gone, and the fourth wizard grinned at them, rubbing his hands and chuckling.
“Now, goddess!” Oeuni called.
Noen, Oeuni, and Dinnile, every sailor and every player watched the statue; but it did not move nor speak, nor give the slightest sign of magic or of miracle.
As the awful silence lengthened, it brought a sense of hopelessness.
“Maybe we have to continue the game,” Oeuni sighed at last. “My warrior there takes Marin’s soldier.” She pointed to the player in question. “That’s you. You go over there, and she goes”—Oeuni hesitated—“outside, I guess.”
The player remained where he was.
“You heard me!”
He looked embarrassed. “I did, ah, Lieutenant Oeuni. But I can’t. I can’t go.”
She stared at him, and Noen asked, “Are you paralyzed, man?”
“No.” The player lifted one foot, then the other. “But I can’t go over there. When I try, nothing happens.”
“Sir … ?”
It was Syb, and Noen turned to face him. “What is it?”
“Cap’n, when that wizard there started to appear like he did behind me, I tried to run, sir. Only I couldn’t. Just like him.”
Noen whirled to Nordread. “You walked over to Lieutenant Oeuni and touched her a moment ago. Do it again!”
The theatrical company’s menace nodded, lifted one foot, and put it down where it had been.
“Noen,” Oeuni’s voice trembled, “are you frightened?”
He was, but he shook his head stubbornly. “Why should I be? We’re getting somewhere at last.”
“Well, I am. And I’m not afraid to say so. We said we were the shah players, Noen. You were supposed to be white and I was supposed to be black. But we aren’t really, or we could move the pieces, couldn’t we? Are the real ones good and evil, Noen? Or the Black Faith and the White? Or what?”
Dinnile’s wizard said, “It would be better, perhaps, if you were not to ask to know too much.” His speech was soft, so low that only the utter silence of the temple made it possible for them to hear him.
“Who are you, anyway?” Oeuni asked. And then, “Why didn’t we ask that before?”
The wizard only repeated, “It would be better, perhaps, if you were not to ask to know too much.”
Noen said, “We won’t ask you any more questions, but I would appreciate your advice. Tell me what to do, and we’ll do just as you say.”
There was no reply, but Nordread and Baldy gasped. The statue, the black sultana, had begun to move, rocking ever so slightly to the right and to the left, like the pendulum of a metronome that had almost run down.
Slowly it slid from the black square upon which it had stood to the square in front of Nordread, and then to the square beyond that. It was only then that Noen realized the black square where it had been was not a stone at all, but a dark cavity in the floor, a pit or a sunken vault.
There was a sudden cry, unearthly and utterly evil, and some dark thing streaked from the dome over their heads and vanished into the pit.
Baldy and Nordread turned, white-faced, to stare after it. Oeuni, only a step or two farther from the pit than they, threw down her sword and dashed to it, dropping to her knees beside it and reaching inside with both her arms. Her hook emerged with an emerald necklace caught like some shining fish, her right hand with a handful of gold. She reached in again; as she did, a hideous face topped with such a crown as the Levar herself could not boast emerged. It seemed almost a skull, but flames blazed behind the sockets of its eyes, and the fangs of its mouth were smeared with blood.
At once the missing black stone appeared, sliding swiftly from the wall to seal the pit. The hideous face ducked, the crown toppling from its head. Noen called, “Look out!”
He was aware, even as the shout left his
lips, that it had come too late. The sliding stone clicked to a stop against Oeuni’s iron hook.
At the same instant, the gliding statue reached the wall opposite the door. It seemed to Noen that it must crash into it, crash and perhaps even shatter, for it had been picking up speed, accelerating faster and faster as it moved. It did not. For the black sultana the solid stone seemed no more than a mist. The statue entered that mist and was gone.
He knelt beside Oeuni. The point of her hook was against the edge of the floor, actually driven some minute distance into the stone; the bend was jammed against the slab. Her other arm vanished into the dark crevice that remained, which was about the width of his own hand.
“Noen,” she gasped. And then again. “Oh, Noen …”
“Let go!” he told her. “That hook could break.” Bracing his feet against the edge of the floor, he heaved at the slab with all his strength; it did not move.
“Noen, I can’t let go! It’s got me, that thing, that devil—it’s got my hand!”
He pulled at her arm until she cried out. Across the room, Dinnile raged against the confinement of his square, but neither his curses nor his frantic gestures freed him. Nordread had drawn a rapier, but could not thrust into the pit. Baldy muttered words that sounded like spells—and the reality of the situation altered not at all.
The demon’s face appeared at the crevice. Noen fired both barrels of his pistol point blank, the shots deafening in the bare stone chamber; if he had fired instead into a raging sea, his bullets could have been no more futile.
“Noen,” Oeuni gasped. “It’s got me. That thing!” Bright tears filled the eyes that never wept.
The hook slipped. Its movement was slight, and yet Noen saw it and felt it too, for he was standing upon the slab. The demon’s hand emerged from the crevice, groping for his ankle. He jumped back, drew his sword, and slashed at the scaly wrist with all his strength; the wide blade broke like glass, and he flung down the hilt.