The Chaos Gate, page 22
Things such as fear.
He would not have admitted it to Tich’ki or Lydia or anyone else, but with each step that brought him closer to that final, fateful confrontation, the terror grew. Worse, the old Naitachal, the true Nithathil who still hid deep within him for all his forswearing of that bitter, former way of life, whispered to him that none of this is needed. He is a human, nothing more, you need not risk your life for him, for any human.
He is my friend, Naitachal countered silently. I will not let him die for me.
But the inner whispers continued no matter how fiercely he sought to block them:
Remember how it was when you were among your clanfolk.
Remember the harshness, the lack of love or trust or laughter. Remember the punishments.
Remember the altar and the screaming of the sacrifice or the failure, remember the darkness and the coldness and the pain echoing throughout the caverns.
There will be that pain for you if they take you, that endless pain, that endless torment, there will be no escape for you, there will he endless torment for a human’s sake.
He is my friend, Naitachal repeated, and whatever fate may wait, I will not abandon him.
Haunted by the past, he grimly pushed on.
Chapter XXVII
Alarms And Attacks
Rualath sat hunched over her sorcerous scrolls, pausing only long enough to impatiently braid her long silver hair out of her way, then returned to studying each twisting rune, each notation she’d added, hunting for a specific spell that would accomplish all that Haralachan had ordered.
No. That spell was far too dangerous; she cared nothing at all for the safety of the human, but Haralachan had forbidden her to actually harm him. Drugging the human’s food or drink would have been an easy way out, but again, Haralachan had forbidden her to do anything that might permanently injure Kevin’s mind.
This spell, then? No, again. It was so lightweight the human would never believe it. He would probably laugh at the thing!
Ae, you wouldn’t set me a simple task, would you, my lord?
But then again, Rualath admitted with a touch of pride, her abilities were also far from simple. Any lesser sorcerous task would have been an insult.
So. Rualath bent over her scrolls again, hunting something subtle, something effective, something terrifying yet basically harmless…
All at once she straightened with a thin smile, one finger tapping the chosen spell. Ah yes, what an interesting thing! Just enough Power to be effective, not so much it would drive the human mad—not for a long time, at any rate.
Bending over the scroll once more, Rualath began to chant the Words of the spell, softly at first, then more loudly and ever more loudly still, feeling the Power gathering, chanting the Words over and over and—
Yes! Yes! With a gasp, Rualath hurled the Power away—straight at the human, Kevin.
###
Kevin stirred restlessly in his sleep. He had been dreaming of wandering peacefully in the woods, hearing the sweet chirpings of the birds, trying to turn the bits of their songs into music. But the chirpings were subtly changing to whispers he couldn’t quite understand no matter how much he strained, the sense of them not quite perceivable yet filling him with such a feeling of growing menace that the Bard awoke with a gasp, staring blankly up at the black silk canopy, a darker mass in the room’s darkness, his heart pounding fiercely
A dream, he told himself. That’s all it was. There’s no one else in the room, no one menacing me. It was just a foul dream.
After a time, his racing heartbeat slowed to normal. Kevin sat up, rubbing a weary hand over his eyes. No wonder he was starting to have nightmares, trapped in this place!
Ah well, he wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep, not after that dream. Besides, he wasn’t really sleepy any longer. Since there wasn’t anything like night and day down here, it really didn’t matter if he arbitrarily declared this to be early morning.
Yawning, Kevin got to his feet, stretching luxuriously. The dim blue magical lamps would light as soon as he started moving around with sufficient vigor; he’d learned by now that they always did Kevin stretched again—
And froze in the middle of it.
What was that? There had been the softest, most furtive of sounds coming from the outer room. Heart racing all over again, Kevin fumbled around for a weapon in the darkness, trying not to make any noise or enough movement to trigger the lights and reveal him to the foe, but came up only with his lute. Ah no, he wasn’t ready to give away the secret of his Bardic Magic, not yet. And he could hardly use the lute to hit someone! Carefully putting the instrument down on the bed, he warily stalked forward. The dim lights suddenly flared into life at his movement, but there wasn’t anyone to see. And yet someone was—
Behind him! Something cold and dank wrapped itself about his throat with terrifying strength, dragging Kevin over backwards, struggling wildly to fight back, his flailing arms finding nothing but empty air as the coldness tightened, tightened…the blood was surging in his ears, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t even—
It was gone. So suddenly he staggered and fell to the cold stone floor, the Something was gone and he could breathe freely again.
For a long time, Kevin sprawled where he had fallen, too busy with drawing air back into his lungs to worry about anything else. Surprisingly, after that near strangulation, it didn’t hurt at all to breathe. He raised a shaking hand to his throat, expecting to find bruises.
But to his bewilderment, there wasn’t so much as the slightest soreness there, either. As soon as he could manage his quivering legs, Kevin scrambled up, looking wildly about.
Nothing had been disturbed. There wasn’t the slightest sign anyone but he had ever been in here.
A…dream? he wondered doubtfully. After all, some of them could seem pretty realistic. Maybe waking and hearing the noise, and feeling that weird, impossible attack had all been part of the same dream.
And I don’t believe that for a moment.
A genuine attack? Then why break it off just when he was about to pass out? Someone’s idea of a jest? From all he’d seen so far, the Dark Elves didn’t have much of a sense of humor, or at least not something humans could recognize as a sense of humor, but for all he knew, something this sadistic might be just then-idea of a hilarious prank.
Kevin sank to the bed, pulling the lute into his arms. For a moment his hands hesitated over the strings.
Oh, right. What was he going to do? Reveal his only weapon prematurely? Waste Bardic Magic warding off something that wasn’t there? Kevin bit his lip, wondering, then settled for playing simple, Powerless exercises instead.
Gradually, the quiet discipline of the scales calmed his nerves. Kevin bent over the lute in earnest, playing every song he could remember that had to do with sunlight and joy and life. And just then, the only magic in his music was the pure glory of music itself.
Kevin sat wearily on the edge of his bed, his hand rubbing eyes that felt full of sand. This was getting ridiculous! Every time he had managed to fall asleep, his dreams had taken a dark turn, sometimes becoming merely depressing, sometimes downright terrifying. At least there hadn’t been anything as bizarre as that maybe-dreamed attack on him by the Whatever-It-Had-Been.
There doesn’t have to be anything that dramatic. If I don’t get one good, unbroken stretch of sleep . . .
The worst part of it was that he knew enough Bardic Magic songs to ensure a peaceful night’s rest—but using any of them would scream out spellcaster to anyone with psychic hearing.
Ah well, the longer he spent worrying about it, the less likely sweet sleep would become. This time he wouldn’t let himself even think of the possibility of foul dreams.
Right. It’s like the story of the man who’s not supposed to think of the right wing of the eagle. Just try not thinking of something if you want it to really haunt you.
Kevin sighed and lay back once more, staring grimly up at nothing till at last he slipped into sleep once more.
###
Kevin started awake, surrounded by blackness, feeling it pressing down on him on all sides, smothering him, crushing him. Where was he? What was this—
“Why, what is it, human?” a sneering voice asked, and Kevin nearly cried out in shock, gasping out a confused, “I—”
But suddenly reality came flooding back over him and Kevin knew where he was, and why. He had been walking the endless dark corridors for what little exercise was allowed him, with his usual armed guard in attendance, and—and for a moment he actually must have been hypnotized by the smooth, unchanging expanse of walls on all sides into falling asleep on his feet. Not an unlikely thing to happen, Kevin thought bitterly, considering the lack of solid sleep he’d had lately.
“I was lost in thought,” he said feebly, and did his best to ignore the contempt fairly radiating from the guards.
That was a stupid thing, the Bard scolded himself as they walked on. They think you their inferior as it is just because you’re human. Why not finish the job and scream out, “I’m a weakling! Destroy me!” while you’re at it?
Grimly alert, Kevin stalked on, surrounded by his disdainful escort. At least there was some variation now, a few jagged places in walls and ceiling. The Dark Elves weren’t perfect after all! And the jaggedness showed a hint of the natural world that was wonderfully comforting after all the sterile perfection. Kevin nearly stubbed his toe on a rock, but almost welcomed the pain that at least reminded him there was a world outside. A sudden groaning made him glance sharply up—and gasp in horror.
“Look out! The ceiling’s cracking!”
He sprang back into a tangle of warriors, nearly knocking some of them over. They cursed at him, shoving him rudely forward again.
“No! Don’t you see the whole things about to fall on us? We’ve got to—”
Someone shook him, hard. “Look, fool. Look!”
“But—”
“Look! Do you see the slightest crack anywhere up there? Well, human? Do you?”
Kevin looked. The ceiling was totally smooth, smooth as the walls. There wasn’t so much as a pebble out of place.
“But I…stubbed my toe on a rock. I felt it.”
“Stubbed your toe on empty air, more likely,” a warrior muttered, and added something sharp in the elven tongue that needed no translation.
I wasn’t asleep that time, I know it. And I’m not so far gone that I’m hallucinating. That could only mean someone really was working a spell on him. But dammit, I am not going to be caught again!
“Stop, you idiot!”
Suddenly hard hands were dragging him backwards, nearly pulling him off his feet. Startled, Kevin started to struggle against their bruising grip, then froze in shock.
He was standing on the lip of a narrow stone bridge over a chasm like a bottomless black pit. If the guards hadn’t grabbed him when they had, he would have stepped right off the edge.
“Dear gods,” he breathed.
The guards muttered something in their own tongue. Kevin didn’t doubt they were calling him a fool who didn’t deserve to live.
And I almost proved them right, he thought with a shudder. Someone was bespelling him, all right. But why? To wear him down? See if he betrayed himself—or, more likely, Naitachal? So much for guest status, if I ever believed that stupid fiction. But who’s casting the spell? Impossible to tell that in a whole realmful of potential spellcasters. And how do I get them to stop?
“I wish to return to my quarters now,” Kevin said with as much dignity as he could muster.
Once there, he snatched up his lute, staring at it, aching to summon his full Bardic Magic powers and—do what? Take on an entire realm of Dark Elves, one against who knew how many? Kevin felt new shudders rack him, knowing all too well that his endurance wasn’t going to last forever. Unless he did something more than wait, and quickly, his enemies were going to wear him down to the point where he couldn’t act at all.
Easy for them to do, too. All they need to do is keep me from sleeping.
But what could he possibly do in self-defense? Bitterly, Kevin realized why Haralachan had made no attempts to see the human “guest,” and why all of Kevin’s requests to meet with the Dark Elf lord had fallen flat; Haralachan plainly had no intention of seeing him till after he’d broken.
And I can hardly go hunting Haralachan instead.
Of course not. Even if he could somehow miraculously elude the warriors watching over him, he certainly wasn’t going to be able to find Haralachan on his own, not in all that dark, perilous maze of corridors.
There was only one way out of this mess. Kevin would have to force the issue. Danger or no, he needed his music. And so, not giving himself a chance to think twice about it, the Bard raised his lute again, tuning the strings as though his life depended on it—which, he thought darkly, it did—and began to play. After a moment, once the melody was firmly established, he added his voice to it.
And this time Bardic Magic glittered in the music. All at once, with a satisfying crash, the door flew open, and astonished warriors filled the opening.
Kevin smiled at them. “Take me,” he sang sweetly, “to your leader.”
Chapter XXVIII
Bardic Songs
As they hurried him along down the dark corridors, servants hastily squeezing back out of their way, Kevin noted with dour humor that though the Dark Elf warriors kept him closely surrounded, watching him like so many eager predators, not one of them dared to so much as touch him.
They’re afraid of me! he realized with a shock of wonder. Why yes, that’s it exactly! The door bursting open like that, so blatantly magical, startled the wits out of them, and now none of them knows what to expect of me.
Yet now here he was singing and playing away lustily as he walked, obviously doing something magical—but they couldn’t figure out what it was!
Without warning, one of the warriors, bolder or more foolhardy than the others, made a sudden snatch for the lute, and Kevin dodged just in time, hastily improvising a new song, putting as much raw Bardic Magic into it as he could force so that the elves would sense something magical happening:
“The lute of a Bard is sharp as bone,
Hard as stone,
Mine alone.
The lute of a Bard is fierce as flame,
Barbed as shame. . . ”
Came, lame, tame…what rhyme makes sense and—ah.
“Dangerous fame,
Not yours to tame.”
Bad line, that. But he couldn’t do anything about changing it now. Besides, this wasn’t a poetry contest! Kevin sang hastily on:
“All folks save Bards who touch a string,
Shall feel the sting
Its song can bring.
All folk save Bards shall moan and sigh
Yet never die
Although they cry
For ending of their fearful pain,
Again, again,
A harsh refrain.”
Could be better. Has to do. Now how do I end the thing? Ah…yes, I’ve got it.
“The Bard alone may wield its song,
Its Power song,
So fierce and strong.
The Bard alone may wield its song,
Its Power song,
So fierce and harsh and sharp and strong.”
Terrible poetry, just terrible! he added in silent disgust.
But the Dark Elves weren’t in any mood for literary criticism. The warrior who had reached for the lute snatched his hand back again as though he’d been stung, and Kevin could have sworn he saw some of those humorless dark faces actually grey a little in shock.
So, now. Respect me a little more, do you? If only your master feels the same way!
Without saying a word, the warriors hurried the Bard on to the cavern of the thrones. There sat Haralachan and Rualath, not the coolly elegant figures he’d first seen, but looking strangely ruffled, as though they’d only just received word of what was happening and had needed to rush to get here and in place before him.
That didn’t make them any less perilous. Kevin felt his heart falter a moment at the cold wariness in their eyes and the hint of rising Power he sensed growing about them. But Bardic training wouldn’t allow a Bard to panic in front of an audience, and even hostile ones.
All right, let’s give them a decent performance.
With that, Kevin managed to smoothly switch melody and words over to a stronger, more legitimately magical song. It didn’t really have a name as far as he knew, though he’d heard his old Bardic instructor, Master Aidan, casually refer to it once as a “Safety Song,” one that was meant to keep a Bard’s enemies confused, unable to attack him. But it had been intended for near-mindless creatures. Whether or not it would work on intelligent, magical foes as well…
Ha, yes, it was working, at least in part! Look at that helpless fury suddenly blazing in Haralachan’s eyes!
“Take that—that thing away from him!” the Dark Elf lord ordered a servant, clearly struggling to get the words out.
