by Dave Morris
The other Coradian turned, swinging his sword desperately but without hope. Seeing Altor and Caelestis on their raft, he called out. The words were lost over the hungry bubbling of the mud.
Again a spout of fire showed above the crater’s rim. The Coradian gave a shriek and tumbled down to join his comrade in death.
Altor resumed paddling with redoubled effort. The raft bumped against the far edge of the crater and the two leapt off, clawing their way up the slope of loose rock until they stood on the rim.
Caelestis glanced back in time to see indistinct fiery shapes gliding across the mud. As he shifted his position, his feet dislodged a few stones which went rattling down the slope a fell with dull plops into the seething mire below. Huge bubbles of sulphur gas rose and broke on the surface. They were followed by heads that emerged grinning with maws of flame. They reminded Caelestis of blazing Hallowe’en effigies—only these were not carved from pumpkins. They were formed of living fire.
Twelve:
The Dirge Man
The creatures rose up the slope as though weightless, flickering talons extended towards the two friends. Those wide hot grins suggested that killing the Coradians had not assuaged their murder-lust—they were still eager to sink molten fingers in frail flesh, to boil human blood in a clutch of flame.
Caelestis stood frozen in horror as the fire elementals glided up towards him. He could feel the waves of heat rising off them like hot breath on his skin.
Altor caught his arm and pointed to an incline leading off from the rim of the crater, down towards the cavern floor. Caelestis nodded mutely, the numbing spell of fear broken, and they set off at a sprint.
The incline was gentle at first, but soon became a steep slide of fused glassy-smooth lava. With the fire creatures behind them there was no time to look for footholds—they careened down, sliding, half falling, sobbing for breath but not daring to stop even if they had been able to on the steep path.
The floor of the cavern loomed ahead. Altor and Caelestis came off the slope at a run and, unable to keep their footing, pitched to the ground in gasping heaps.
Warmth rose palpably through the ground from volcanic furnaces in the heart of the earth. Caelestis found it quite comfortable, despite the hardness of the rock where he was lying. His body ached with the day’s exertions, he was weary, and all he had to get up for was yet more danger and discomfort. How pleasant it might be just to lie here instead, rest a little...
Altor shook him roughly. Caelestis sat up scowling resentfully. ‘It’s no use, I can’t run any further. You’ll have to leave me.’
‘We’re safe,’ said Altor, shaking his head. ‘Apparently the fire demons don’t like to stray too far from their mud lake.’
It was true. The fiery creatures lingered for a short while on the outer slopes of the crater, then turned and flitted back to where the pylon showed dimly in the haze above the ridge.
Caelestis breathed a sigh of relief. ‘What I find it hard to believe now,’ he said, ‘is that I got into all this merely to avoid landing up in Kalugen’s jail. Why? It’s a comfortable enough jail. There’s bedding—admittedly just a bundle of rancid straw, regular rations of cold gruel and rainwater, and looked at in an optimistic light the place is at least as good as the worst peasant hovel. Surely that would have been infinitely preferable to the Battlepits!’
‘Oh, stop griping,’ laughed Altor. ‘We must be nearly at the end. If the witches were telling the truth, there’s only the Oriental wizard ahead of us.’
‘And Droctar the dirge man and Skrymir the giant still to contend with,’ Caelestis reminded him. ‘If indeed they were telling the truth.’
He got to his feet and gazed ahead. Smoke and mist shaded the perspectives of the cavern into an eerily artificial scene. A desolate plain of earthen mounds and standing stones separated them from a swart atoll that reached nearly to the roof of the cavern. At the very top of the atoll, bathed in a stark grey white light that seemed to emanate from no natural source, stood a proud banner emblazoned with bezants of shining metal.
‘The Emblem of Victory!’ cried Altor. ‘We’ve reached our goal, Caelestis.’
‘Not quite,’ said Caelestis dryly.
He pointed as a slow stirring in the hot air moved aside a bank of vapour. They had not seen it at first, but there was a wide chasm stretching right across the plain from one wall of the cavern to the other. Mist seethed thickly within it, white and luminous, so that for a moment they had the impression of standing on a high mountain peak and gazing down at the clouds. The only way to reach the atoll where the Emblem stood was to cross this chasm.
They looked in vain for a bridge. Just as failure seemed inevitable, spiralling down out of the haze of steam came a creature with a dark hairy body and wide wings like leather sails. As it swept closer they saw it was like the dirges they had encountered earlier, but this one had an almost human face.
‘This’ll be Droctar, no doubt,’ said Altor out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Remember what the witch said—he’s not to be trusted.’
The dirge man drew up, clawing the air with his wings so that he hovered just overhead. At close inspection his features looked very human indeed, but it still came as a shock when he called out in a croaking voice: ‘Ho, this gulf presents itself as a daunting obstacle to one who lacks wings, would you not agree?’
Caelestis took umbrage at the creature’s mocking tone, but he bit back on the retort that jumped to his lips. The dirge man might be their only hope of getting across the chasm. It would not do to antagonize him.
He forced an affable smile. ‘Perhaps you can help?’
The dirge man settled on a mound of stones nearby, flexing his enormous grey wings as if glad of the rest. For a while he sat deep in thought, then suddenly raised his head and said brightly, ‘I could fly you across.’
‘We’d be very grateful,’ said Altor.
‘And your gratitude would be most precious to me,’ said Droctar. ‘Do not think I’d count it of little worth, oh no! But all the same, there would have to be a proper, real and material remuneration into the bargain. Without it, any transaction between us would seem imprecise and unsatisfactory.’
‘With those wings you must be a strong flyer,’ said Altor warily. ‘If you can fly with half the gusto you put into speech, in fact, you ought to be able to lift a house. No doubt, then, you can carry the pair of us?’
‘Pah!’ cried Droctar. ‘Do you mean to say I am verbose? Unnecessarily prolix? It is only that I feel every bargain should be transacted with perfect clarity.’
‘We admire and value the precision of your bargaining,’ said Caelestis. ‘My friend only seeks reassurance. The chasm is rather deep, after all.’
‘You need not concern yourselves with its depth,’ said Droctar with an odd cracked laugh. ‘It is full of molten lava, you see.’
‘As long as you don’t drop us,’ said Caelestis, ‘neither its depth nor its contents need concern us, surely.’
‘Quite so.’ Droctar stifled a yawn. ‘As to payment, then...’
In reply Caelestis held up his hand. By luck a geyser shot up a glorious spurt of white-hot rock nearby, causing the gold ring to scintillate.
Droctar gave a gasp of admiration and sat forward. ‘An extraordinary treasure!’ he croaked, avarice swamping all reason. ‘Give it to me and I shall convey you across the chasm at once.’
‘Exactly my own sentiments,’ agreed Caelestis, ‘with this minor modification: convey us across the chasm and then you will get the ring.’
Droctar hid a sullen look which he managed with difficulty to twist into a smile. ‘You drive a hard bargain,’ he declared, ‘but I should expect no less from those who venture so far through the Battlepits. So, then, it is agreed—‘
Caelestis raised a finger. ‘Not quite. You are forgetting the ‘abrogation clause’.’
‘Either my vocabulary or my legal expertise are deficient,’ grumbled Droctar. ‘I have never heard of any �
�abrogation clause’.’
‘Essentially it is the option to change your mind, thereby invalidating your right to receive the goods or services agreed under a transaction.’
‘I see. So if you invoke the ‘abrogation clause’ I should simply drop you in the chasm?’
‘Exactly. And if you should do so then it means you’re under no obligation to take the ring.’
Droctar scratched the spray of bristles that corresponded to his beard. ‘It hardly seems worthwhile including such a preposterous clause.’
‘Under current law it is essential if the agreement is to be considered valid!’ insisted Caelestis.
Droctar threw up his arms. ‘Very well.’ He fluttered down to where they stood and waited while they looped their arms around his neck. Then, stretching his great wings wide, he clambered up into the steamy air.
They sailed out over the chasm, the frothy clouds sliding past below. Under them they caught flashes of lava-fire as volcanic spouts spat constantly. Roaring wind currents rose, slamming them to and fro at random, but the dirge man was used to the crossing and manoeuvred with a bizarre elegance.
Halfway across, to the surprise of neither Caelestis nor Altor, the question of payment came up again.
‘I have been searching for the proper way to broach this next subject,’ announced Droctar, ‘but I am at a loss to do so without some compromise of delicacy. Therefore I think it is best to be quite candid. If you do not give me the ring now, immediately and at once, I shall loop over and drop you into the lava.’
Altor scowled, but he could not easily draw his sword while clinging to the dirge man’s neck. In any case, what use would a sword be now? He glanced at Caelestis, who warned him with a wink not to do anything hasty.
‘Wouldn’t you like to know why this ring is so special?’ he said to the dirge man. ‘It’s because it contains a magical imp—behold.’
So saying, he called the Faltyn out of the ring. It appeared in the air beside them, clad in bedchamber silks and lounging on a cloud in the form of a huge white pillow. ‘You again?’ it said acidly. ‘I thought you’d be dead by now.’
‘Not quite,’ replied Caelestis, trying not to think how near to the mark the creature was. Keeping his eyes averted from the sheer drop into the abyss, he managed a calm tone as he said: ‘Our friend Droctar here is flying us across this chasm. As a matter of fact he hasn’t always been the hideous winged monster you see now. Once he was a man—’
‘Ho now!’ called Droctar in a voice tinged with suspicion and the first stirrings of alarm. ‘What are you up to?’
‘—A man,’ Caelestis pressed on, ‘transformed by sorcery. I wonder whether your impish magic is up to the task of turning him back?’
The Faltyn glanced at the lava churning in the chasm below, then back to Caelestis with a sly grin. ‘Of course; nothing could be simpler. You are asking me to do so now?’
‘Wait!’ cried Droctar. ‘If I revert to human form we will all fall into the lava and drown.’
‘It’s the fate you intended for us anyhow,’ said Altor, seeing now what Caelestis’ plan was.
‘Unless you’d care to invoke the ‘abrogation clause’, that is?’
‘Yes! Yes! Just send away your genie. I want nothing to do with it or the ring.’
The Faltyn could not mask its expression of disappointment as Caelestis banished it back into the ring. ‘Set us down here,’ he told Droctar. ‘And no more treachery, or you’ll be ash and sparks within an instant.’
Whimpering in fear of his life, the dirge man fluttered down to land on the far brink of the chasm. Altor immediately leapt clear, whipped out his sword, and pressed it to the creature’s belly.
‘Devil!’ he cried in outrage. ‘I should run you through for such double-dealing.’
‘Do so if you wish,’ said Droctar drearily. ‘It would merely be a release from torment. I am heart-sick of my punishment, and would as soon be dead as stay a monster.’
Altor had no taste for slaying a foe who did not fight back. ‘Go,’ he spat. ‘Get out of our sight. You deserve the punishment the Krarthian magi chose when they put their spell on you.’
‘Do I?’ Droctar said as he took to the air once more. ‘Perhaps as a man I was deceitful, but I was never so evil a creature as the magi have made of me. Farewell, then, mortals. If you survive the Battlepits you may discover why it is that the magi are princes of falsehood.’
He climbed into the air until the veils of white steam first blurred and then swallowed him up.
‘What did he mean?’ wondered Caelestis.
‘Just a final spiteful remark to unnerve us,’ said Altor. He turned and gazed towards the atoll, an indistinct grey shape beyond the mist-shrouded plain. ‘Come on, Caelestis. Victory is at hand. We mustn’t falter now.’
Thirteen:
Icon the Ungodly
They set out across the cavern. From time to time came the sounds of small scuttling creatures between the rocks, but they could see no sign of life under the dense white blanket of fog. Light came from the grey sparkling veins in the cavern roof, the streams of phosphorescent sewage leaking from above and the intermittent spouts of flame that vented up from deep under the earth. In one such blast, Caelestis glanced up at the peak of the atoll and thought he caught a glimpse of the Emblem of Victory limned in fire-red against the dark of the cavern roof. Then the flame flickered out and heavy darkness dropped behind the grey mist like a shutter.
They passed a stone monolith and, despite his eagerness to reach the atoll, Altor could not resist pausing to study the ancient sigils that covered its pitted grey surface. The sigils seemed alive with magical power, but it was power that was closed to Altor and Caelestis.
Altor traced them with his fingers. ‘What do they say?’ asked Caelestis curtly, impatient to reach their goal.
‘Even the modern magi cannot read those runes.’
It was not Altor who had spoken. The two young adventurers turned to see a black-clad warlock standing only a few paces off, his silver-threaded cloak wrapped around armour of an exotic style. He had approached so suddenly and silently that he might almost have taken shape out of the mist itself.
‘I know you,’ said Altor warily. ‘Icon the Ungodly.’
The warlock made no aggressive move but bowed with elaborate Oriental courtesy, saying, ‘Some in these lands call me that. I am the champion of Magus Uru just as you, I believe, serve the cause of Magus Balhazar.’
Caelestis tucked his hand in his belt where it was reassuringly close to his sword. ‘Are we the only ones to reach this far?’
‘We are,’ said Icon. ‘The way has been arduous and fraught with peril. Many have fallen.’
Altor’s upbringing at Osterlin Abbey now left him in a quandary. On the one hand he knew that a man dishonoured himself by anticipating treachery. On the other, his instincts warned him that the Battlepits were no place to give a stranger the benefit of the doubt. Uncertainly he drew his sword.
Icon looked at the blade of bright silver metal, a cold white thread in the dull red glimmer of the cavern. ‘Is it my time to die, then?’ he said wistfully. ‘I can’t defend myself from you. Most of my magic has been used up getting this far. So do what you must.’
Altor took a step forward, faltered, then thrust his sword back into its scabbard. ‘Why should we slay each other for the magi’s amusement?’ he snarled bitterly. ‘An alliance is permitted under the rules of the contest—and we still have to face the giant.’
‘My friend is a guileless soul, which is to his credit,’ Caelestis said to Icon. He spoke politely, but his tone was like sharpened flint. ‘Personally I trust you no more than I would trust a starving fox to look after my chicken coop.’
‘At least you are being honest, which is a good beginning between allies,’ said Icon with the faintest of smiles. ‘I shall try to win your confidence. As for the prize, we’ll have to share it of course—but even a shared prize will make us all rich.’
; Altor said nothing at this.
‘My friend is infected with saintliness,’ said Caelestis pointedly, angry at Altor for being so trusting. ‘He wanted nothing of the prize, just a single boon from Magus Balhazar.’
Icon’s smile broadened but became no warmer. ‘Honour is merely another currency, like gold or gems. Shall we be off?’
‘You first,’ said Caelestis. Since he didn’t like the idea of allying with Icon in the first place, he had no intention of turning his back on him.
They set off once more across the cavern, Icon leading the way. Altor fell back to speak to his friend in a lowered voice. ‘I realize you don’t approve, but teaming up is the best way to ensure we all survive.’
‘In general principle that’s true,’ admitted Caelestis, ‘but it often fails to hold in practice. For instance, consider the case of two mice allying with a snake. Mutuality of survival is not then guaranteed.’
Altor broke into a smile. ‘You have a colourful way of expressing yourself, my friend.’
Caelestis was not to be mollified. ‘Just keep your eye on this fellow. We must assume that he did not acquire his epithet of ‘the Ungodly’ because of a reputation for good deeds.’
Altor was about to reply, but the words vanished in his throat. He had caught sight of something remarkable in the mist ahead. A heavy basalt platform hung suspended in the air fifty feet above their heads.
Icon had noticed it too. Quickening his pace, he led them over. On the ground directly underneath the platform stood a bronze gong. Taking a small bronze mallet from a pocket in his robes, Icon went to strike the gong.
Caelestis caught his arm. He felt taut, powerful muscles below the black silk sleeve. He knew Icon could have broken his grip with ease, but instead he turned to face them with a placid gaze.
‘First tell us what you’re up to,’ said Caelestis, releasing the hand that gripped the mallet.