by Chris Turner
“How do you know?” grunted Jurna.
“I studied the scripts. My mother was adept before she died. She imparted me the gift.”
“What does it say?” Jurna asked.
“It says, ‘Seek virtue in kind hearts. Forgive the wounds your enemies have inflicted on you, though they will never be your allies.’”
“Right,” Kahel snorted, “like anyone’s going to forgive that scum Mygar and his gang. Does it say we should maybe give the brutes a charity hug for all the woe they’ve caused you and your clan?”
“Enough, Kahel,” said Risgan.
Arcadia laughed. “You have a way with words, Kahel. I’ll give you that.”
Risgan paced back and forth, seeing no solution to their dilemma. His pacing brought him past the endless rows of figures and script and closer to the altar and his fingers instinctively reached for the wish bone in his pouch. He closed his eyes, rubbed the pale bluish bone and wished for a miracle.
“Staring at a miserable altar isn’t going to help us, relic hunter,” muttered Kahel behind his back.
Risgan nodded and turned with grim resolve, forcing a tight smile, almost tripping over the thick vine that crawled across the floor. “More of Mygar’s horsemen may be lurking about the shadows and it won’t take them long to find us.”
“They can’t get in though, can they?” Jurna pointed out.
“If they do—”
At that instant the altar trembled and a pale blue form rose again, its luminous glow lighting the ancient stone. A slender woman garbed in leathers of the hunt rose this time, but with the same headdress of a unicorn.
They stepped back with croaked murmurs in their throats.
“Goddess!” Arcadia gasped. She immediately dropped to a knee and bowed her head.
The luminous figure nodded and lifted a pale hand. “Child, do not flee, there is nowhere to run.” Risgan blinked and stopped dead in his tracks.
The head turned to gaze upon Kahel and Jurna who had raised bow and sword at her shimmering form. Slowly the weapons hung slack in their nerveless hands. Moeze approached and stood pinched-lipped. Hape was at his side, his mouth hanging speechless. Risgan sniffed and licked his lips, his mind in a turmoil, a flurry of thoughts racing down shadowy corridors.
The disembodied voice spoke, “The huntress and the outlaws have finally teamed up. I’m glad of that.”
“Wh-what do you want?” Arcadia asked.
“I want nothing. It is more, what do you want?”
“ I—I really don’t know.”
“Isks haunt the skies and you don’t know? The power of Driadis wanes in these dark days, and you have no desire?”
“Goddess, I—”
“No need to backpedal, Arcadia. The isk is the dark minion of Wülv, you know it, child—an instrument of terror, rapine and bloodshed, and the embodiment of cruelty. Spawned in the underworld itself, through the devotion of ignorant worshipers who don’t know what they pray for. The unicorn, the splendid avatar of Driadis, is ever pure, protector and healer that watches over the forest and its innocent denizens. Anyone who reveres the unicorn is brought luck and prosperity. So it is taught by the priestesses of the old ways. Those who go the way of the isk and worship death are rewarded with blood and pain—like those wild huntsmen who languish in the pit, the ones you fear and the ones whom you fight.”
Arcadia stammered. “But—”
“You abandoned your old gods, the Driadis whom your mother showed you at age six. That is why your sacred arrow has been snatched from you and even now lies in the clutches of your enemies.”
“But, I had the arrow,” she protested.
“By whose grace did you have it?”
Risgan recalled the strange light in the trees back in Mygar’s camp and what had prompted him to win back the talisman. He stifled the rasp in his throat that grew to an ache of sadness.
A tear raced down Arcadia’s cheek. “I didn’t abandon you, goddess, I swear. I say a prayer to you every morning!”
“And that is why I protect you, child. Never fear, the others who worship false gods will fall prey to isks and worse. Close your eyes and dream. All of you!” She gave a gentle command, soft but firm.
Risgan felt his head droop. After a short time and a sharp breath later, he dreamed he was in a lake, swimming with a raven-haired beauty of such enchanting presence as to make his breath catch. She dove with ease into the clear water; he followed her with strength and speed, kicking and diving deep, and they visited many fabulous underwater realms: kingdoms of coral and seaweed and stone. A million years seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Risgan yearned to kiss the fabulous maid and learn her secrets and she turned about with brazen energy, a challenging smile, a fluid heat, and their lips met for an instant, only an instant, then he was whisked back to the present, this strange, fey hall of the goddess, and her unicorn statues, left still feeling wet and damp with seaweed on his skin and the sultry press of the maiden’s warm lips on his.
He wiped his mouth and licked his lips, yearning for that moment when he could still feel the sweet damp taste of her.
The presence of the floating goddess was so peaceful that he wished he could dwell here forever. But that was impossible, and he was snatched back at the sound of a familiar voice.
“What in Douran’s name?” Moeze snapped out of his trance, blinking in astonishment. “What was that all about? I recalled being in a horse-driven carriage. My father had given me a strange toy—a wondrous, fabulous unicorn! All white and gleaming of polished porcelain. A magical thing, some curio from yesteryear. It captivated me and I grew up wanting to be a magician. How crazy is that?” He shook his head, as if not knowing what was reality or fantasy. “I’ve heard it said that sprites can ensorcel a man’s mind in the forest, but…”
The goddess smiled at Moeze’s evident bafflement. “Yes, Moeze, they can. What would you like it to be—real or imaginary?”
For once, Moeze was at a loss for words. His silver disc sagged in his hand.
Hape murmured, “And I was in a bower aside a pool of water amidst the trees of my childhood, surrounded by great animals of the forest—bears, wolves, tigers and lions.”
He shook his head in wonder. “Parts of it didn’t make sense, but then a weird feeling came over me as if I awoke from a poignant dream.”
“We all experienced some wonder,” admitted Jurna.
Yes, all of them had been whisked off to some place or time in their past, thought Risgan.
Kahel grumbled, “Nothing but sorcery. Tricks of the mind,” he refuted. “This unicorn woman before us isn’t real. Just an apparition.” He turned to Arcadia. “Say it, huntress, what fiends of imagination did the magic pull up for you?” But Arcadia would not talk. She only wore a puzzled expression, as did Jurna. Both were so moved by the experience that they looked away from each other and would not share their experiences.
“Goddess, you confuse me,” Arcadia began. “I hew isks, and even hew men and spill their blood yet you ask me to be a ‘protector’? It makes no sense to me.” She clutched at her brow. “My head reels with the discord of it all.”
The goddess shimmered and showed a kindly face. The unicorn horn on her brow shimmered and her eyes were bright. “It is not an easy thing to grasp, child—the cycle of life and death in this strange, violent world is ever complex. Even the greatest philosophers have come to no reasonable conclusions. They shake their fists at the gods and curse fate. But it is not fate—it is destiny. Only this can I say: while you are hunter and warrior, you must fight the moral fight and kill when the need arises. While you are protector, you must protect the weak and just causes, as your heart guides you to.”
Her form began to fade.
“Riddles and maxims,” grumbled Kahel. “What are we but just playthings to the gods?”
Arcadia wailed and beat her fist on the altar. “Wait, goddess, wait, how can we escape this place?”
“In my home you are always free,
child. Follow the light and the secret way out will reveal itself to you.” She shimmered and faded and no more.
Kahel jeered. “Don’t make it too easy for us, goddess.”
Risgan sighed.
“One thing for sure,” intoned Arcadia, “I will protect the ones worth protecting more than ten times the amount I kill!” Her voice echoed with the thunder of defiance.
Risgan nodded his approval. “’Tis a good plan, milady.”
Jurna consoled her with a rough pat on the shoulder. “If it means anything, huntress, I think that’s what the goddess was trying to tell us.”
“But what does she mean, the secret way will reveal itself?” muttered Moeze.
“Don’t look at me,” Jurna hissed. “Maybe time to put some of your fancy pyrotechnics to work here?”
“Oh ho.” Moeze lifted his nose in the air. “When you’re in a bind, you solicit my expertise. Forget it, Jurna. Every other time you’ve rebuffed my services as if they’re a plague of ages.”
“That’s all in fun,” the journeyman persisted. “No time to get uppity, Moeze. One of your firecrackers will do, just bust a hole in—”
But Moeze had already stalked away.
“Magicians!” Jurna threw his hands up in exasperation.
“Forget him,” Risgan bawled. “We need to find another means.” He pulled Jurna and Hape aside and whispered in their ears. “Hape, you’re a rat, good at quarrying and burrowing and finding hidey holes and secret exits and tucking in for places of the night. Find us a way out of here.”
“Right.”
“Jurna, you help him. I’ll take on Moeze and Arcadia and try to talk some sense into our magician.”
“Follow the light…follow the light,” came Moeze’s echoing voice as he mused. “What could that possibly mean?” He tapped finger to lip.
Hape caught up with him and tapped his shoulder, “Well, the only light is coming from those windows.”
“True, true, and what of it, Hape?” Moeze bit his fingernails. “How to get up there? The staircase to the upper gallery is crumbled, you can see it as well as I, and it’s a good thirty feet up.”
Risgan huffed. “Hey, I thought we were going to split up and try working in groups?”
They ignored him. Kahel grunted and shook his head. “Even if we could get up there, Moeze, how would we get down? We’d break our ankles jumping that distance down to the courtyard.”
Arcadia gave a despondent sigh. She plumped down in the moulder, her head in her hands. The others looked left and right in despair. It seemed hopeless.
Hape rubbed his chin, finger to his lip. He gazed from the wall to the rubble then to the vines that crawled everywhere, then back to the window, his eyes glinting in a sudden inspiration. “What if we could use this vine somehow. Loop it around to make a—”
Arcadia and Hape’s eyes met. “A rope. Of course. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Good one, Hape!” Jurna clapped both of them on the back. “We make an excellent team. We’ll fashion a rope of the strongest cords. Why didn’t I think of that? Kahel, if we can tie enough of those vines together to hold our weights, then we could pull ourselves up.”
“We’d have to hook it up there somehow.” Kahel’s eyes, narrow slits, grew to pinpoints in the dim light. “Possible. Just possible, journeyman. If we could snag it on that projecting beam up there…”
Risgan mused. “Or you could try that unicorn’s horn.”
“Easy,” Jurna affirmed. “We could create a grapple of sorts with some of these fallen blocks.”
Risgan and Kahel withdrew their knives and began hacking at the stoutest vine crawling on the walls and floor. Jurna and Arcadia twined them together.
“We need a rock as ballast, to tie the end to,” asserted Jurna. “Before long they had thirty five feet of vine gathered in a coiled heap. Kahel took the end and tied it around a suitable block, knotting it tight.
Like a sailor whipping a ship’s anchor, he whirled it at his waist and tossed it on high. The rock smacked into the crumbled ledge above and sent broken bits of stone raining on their heads.
“Ow, you clod,” groaned Moeze. They fled, holding hands over their heads.
“Careful, already!” hissed Risgan. “This place is already a walking booby trap.”
Kahel grumbled and tried again. His second attempt yielded better results.
With a grunt of satisfaction, he tossed the grapple and yanked it back at the appropriate moment to get it looping around the unicorn’s horn. No easy feat. He gave it a firm tug and grinned in approval. “Not bad, if I say so myself. “Holds my weight. Any takers?
Risgan looked to Arcadia. “Milady?”
“My pleasure.”
She gripped the vine and began the ascent, grunting with the effort. The vine swayed; eyes looked up and Risgan held it taut. At last she crouched on the narrow ledge, breathless and waving down at them. Jurna was next. He grunted his way up; then came Hape, Kahel, Risgan and Moeze who was afraid of heights.
The magician swayed on the ledge, wiping his brow. “Agh. Don’t feel too good, Risgan. Never been a fan of heights.”
“Well, don’t look down.”
Kahel shook his head, mooning his eyes.
Risgan risked a glance and saw the trapped huntsmen down in the pit glowering with rage at the fugitives making their escape. They shouted curses up at Risgan and his band. Risgan and the others patently ignored them.
Risgan pulled the vine rope up and fed it through the nearby window from where cool air drifted in. He couldn’t help but notice the gargoyle-like realism of the nearby unicorn whose stone horn had saved their skins, half leaning over the edge of the ledge. The work of a master craftsman. This one sported wings and yearned to fly over the forsaken temple and its time-eaten grandeur like an angel. After double-checking the line was snug, one by one, they climbed down, hand over hand, to the dark puddles of the court below. Risgan paved the way, the first to stand on solid ground. He held the vine and called notes of encouragement to the others.
The sky was grey and the drizzle had abated but a chill wind still blew through the courtyard, rattling the bushes and tousling their hair.
Arcadia shivered and wrapped her arms about her waist. “As much as I adore Driadis, I’m glad to be out of her house and back in the fresh air again.”
“Not so lucky our chums back there,” said Risgan, jerking a thumb to the looming dome that towered above.
“My heart bleeds,” said Kahel.
“Let’s get as much distance as we can from here. Arcadia, we need to see you back with your father.”
Arcadia’s eyes lit with gratitude. They loped off at a respectable pace, their boots crunching on the shattered flagstones. They left the ancient temple far behind…though Arcadia’s mood was as grey as the sky at the loss of her good steed Spinifex.
* * *
“My aching head,” groaned Svengar. “Who in the seven hells built this pit?”
“How should I know?” Mygar scratched his brow and wiped away the blood that trickled down his scalp. “I should club you for triggering that trap.”
“Me? It was you.” Svengar rounded on him and each looked on with daggers of contempt, fists clenched, ready to bash in each other’s skulls. They crept about, exploring the wall with their fingers, ignoring the third man of their party, one of Mygar’s troop. No handholds worth mentioning, just some ancient cracks running far up the marble. Also a black tunnel carved in the stone wall that wandered off into illimitable gloom. The smell of rot and damp wafted to their nostrils.
Mygar poked his head in and pulled it back out, wincing with disgust. “Ew. Stinks down there. Like wet dog or something.”
“Should we explore it?” suggested Svengar, studying its crudely rounded edges. “Could lead to some way outside this ruined temple.”
“After you.” He nudged his boot at the two dead men lying at their feet with cracked skulls. “Maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t.�
�� The only other survivor swallowed the lump in his throat, the whites of his eyes little pinpricks of light, darting left and right in fear.
“How do you suppose the floor gave away?”
Mygar shrugged and gazed at the notched grooves inches from the top of the pit where the disappearing floor, the thin sheet of slate, had mysteriously slid aside. “Levers, tripwires, ropes weighted with blocks.”
There came an eerie sound to their ears, like some claw or nail scraping on stone.
“What was that?” Mygar blurted. He whirled around.
Svengar just shook his head, sick with apprehension.
Another noise came. This one like a low growl. Some hellhound creeping through the dark. Mygar swallowed and shook his head, massaging his aching temple.
Mygar tensed, his fearful scowl betraying the fact he thought it was some predator. “Where does this damn, wretched tunnel lead? I’ve heard stories about ancient beasts, Svengar, kept hidden in these temples to punish the sinners. They’d sacrifice the blasphemers to them, then feast on their skulls during the full moon and commit rites to worship the god after the sacrifice was made.”
Svengar scoffed. “That was ages ago, Mygar. You think these pansy-faced Driadis do-gooders would stoop to such atrocities? I doubt it. How long ago was it? What beast could—”
The growl came louder from the tunnel, and this time accompanied by clacking feet. Many feet.
Svengar drew the golden arrow back in the bowstrings and trained it at the black gap. He gave an audible gulp and the third man quailed at the lumbering shape of a troglodyte monster emerging from the tunnel. It was some hairy, four-legged thing with spikes protruding from a humped back like a monster porcupine. Svengar grew pale. The creature scurried forward, spider-like, with beady yellow eyes fixing on them like daggers; tusks, fangs outspread and curled back like a sickle.
Mygar thrust the rider forward. “Kill it.”
“Me, lord. How shall—?”
“With your sword, you idiot. What else? Your nails, your teeth?”
“I don’t think—”
Mygar kicked him forward. “Do it, man!” Svengar took aim. The arrow flew and plucked the beast in its side. It stuck out like one of its quills. Not a killing blow, the thing’s hide was too thick for that, but it slowed it.