Lamp Medusa + Players of Hell, page 18
The sight somehow was infinitely more horrible than the gaphalon,- and Konarr wrenched his eyes away from… whatever lurked at the bottom of that funnel.
As they reached the other side of the bridge, they could clearly see the swarming guards frozen in their strides as they ran toward the Ebon Tower. In their forefront still was the Lady Tza herself, now only half a dozen strides from them.
Konarr shuddered in another spasm of deeper horror than any before.
For as they ran past the Lady Tza on a quartering run away from the body of men she led, he looked into her blue eyes—and saw her eyes move, following the two interlopers as they ran!
Then they were past and away from the mass of soldiers and the Lady, and ahead was only one more barrier—the great iron gates to the Queen’s Quarter.
If the Spell of Holding continued to work long enough, they could be outside of the city of Zetri, and with a fighting chance to find a bolthole should neither Zantain nor Shagon come to their aid.
Konarr shot one look back at the lady and her men—and saw that the Lady had moved forward a stride, one single, slow, and almost meaningless step forward.
It made no difference if she were slowing down the two thieves or herself speeding up to their rate—if she increased the similarity of their rates, she could catch them—her magic would quickly undo their borrowed spells. There was no time to worry. He found the endurance to warn Tassoran of the new threat by speeding past the younger man for a moment, and indicating their rear.
Tassoran looked back—and saw the Lady complete another long slow stride. Her arms had also moved upward, were beginning an ice-river-slow gesture that could mean… anything, but certainly something dangerous.
Tassoran ran faster.
The spell held till they reached the main gates—then with a shock that wrenched their insides, the two men were halted in mid-stride—held fast, unable to move!
They did not need to do the now-impossible, to look back, in order to know the Lady would be up to them soon.
And they could not even speak, to offer each other so much as one man’s final gesture of regret to another for friendship involuntarily cut short, or even to curse whatever they might have wished to curse…
There was a great bright white crackle of sound and light, and a high toneless female shriek of rage.
Immediately the two men felt themselves falling forward, released from the Lady’s own Holding spell. They caught themselves, and ran forward, looking about uncertainly.
“Onto those beasts there,” came a shout. “Quick, there’s no more time! I barely got these monsters here in time as it was. Run, curse you, or by the Spear of…
Konarr slapped at Tassoran’s shoulder, grinned weakly, gestured at a tall figure in black cloak who bestrode one of several low-to-the-ground beasts, and said only “Zantain.” Then they made for the other two beasts that stood next to Zantain’s.
The riding was almost too much for Konarr, as exhaustion swept over him.
He found he hadn’t noticed, before climbing onto the beast, how many legs the thing had. He thought it might be six, but he could not believe that. Odd, he reflected groggily, how the mind refused to do anything to help a man sometimes. But he didn’t really care.
There was now only jouncing and forgetting and slipping away into moments of unconsciousness. He had noticed glow-ings and flashings of fire behind them on their trail, after they’d started away on the beasts, and somebody had said that would delay ’them’ a while, but it made no sense to Konarr whatever, and he wondered only about those six legs. He knew of two-legged burden-animals, and four-legged, and in the eastern lands eight-legged animals were far more common than any other, but he had never heard of a six-legged animal before, though now he was certain this one was…
Konarr was grateful to realize, in one last brief lucid moment before falling soundly unconscious from fatigue, that the beast’s back had a natural, if somewhat bony, saddle, and that a man trained to the horse and the arall could doze and even sleep deeply if necessary, and then there was no need to do anything but relax and let whatever was to happen do as it wished with him, and he fell asleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT: Immortal’s Dawn
Konarr was jolted awake when the three animals came to a sudden stop.
“The kephts can go no further,” said Zantain. “They were not bred to run for many hours without rest or pause.”
“Are we safe?” Konarr asked, groggy with the unsatisfied hunger for more sleep.
“Ha!” said Zantain, and laughed. “We are pursued closely by the Lady Tza herself and twice a hundred of her finest Hawk Guards. And by a different route Shagon trails us, by himself, and I think that he is more dangerous than she and all her men.”
“Mmmm,” Konarr said, his soldier’s instincts rousing. He looked about in the darkness, aware that there was that slight but growing tension in the air that indicated dawn was approaching. “We must be near the Baragan Hills, by the scent of tarnflower and songleaf in the air.”
“We passed the Tomb of Lord Vurda a quarter of an hour back,” agreed Zantain.
“I see a low cliff over there,” said Tassoran. “And I can hear the sound of running water. Perhaps we might make a kind of stand with our backs against the cliff, with Zantain’s aid, for he seems a mighty worker in these hidden matters…
“I think we shall make a stand here,” said Zantain, “but do not look for me to save you with some gesture of the hand. Only if Shagon reaches us in time will this night end in a good clean dawn…”
They rode the kephts out of a wooded glade heavy with the scent and nighttime murmur of a carpet of songleaf herb, till they came to a shallow, swift-running stream, perhaps twice or thrice wider than a tall man’s stride.
Beyond the brook was a patch of low, grassy land. Directly behind that stood a low cliff that fronted the stream as far up and down it as they could see, save for the half-acre or so of grass in front of them.
The kephts splashed ponderously through the stream and clambered exhaustedly up a low bank on the far side, and the three men slid off their mounts.
Silently Konarr and Tassoran looked to Zantain to speak or act, that they might follow. The two needed the exchange of only one glance to agree that here was a man who knew what he was doing…They were both grateful for the removal, at last, of the burdens of unaccustomed heights of responsibility.
Their mood was broken almost immediately, by a low distant roll of thunder reverberating over the plains from Zetri to the Baragan Hills in an ominous overture.
“Not a cloud in the starry sky,” whispered Tassoran, looking upward in awe.
The thunder died away, then began again, louder—nearer.
There was a crackle, and a gigantic stroke of lightning slammed into the top of the cliff behind them, toppling several small boulders over the verge to come crashing down onto their grassy haven.
“He is almost upon us,” observed Zantain calmly. “You might draw your swords, my comrades. It will not deter him. But he had a certain admiration for bravery once.”
Tassoran looked doubtful, but Konarr laughed aloud and drew his sword with a flourish.
“Weapons are useless!”
The rolling of distant thunder and the echo of the clap at the clifftop died away suddenly.
The strange new voice boomed over the grassy patch between cliff and stream.
“I want only the Sigil of Tron. Give me it, and you shall depart in peace.”
The strange voice died away, and they looked about.
Presently Tassoran pointed to the top of the cliff. “Shagon,” he said to the other two.
Zantain shook his head. “That is not anyone called Shagon,” he said, and was interrupted by the voice.
“I am Shagon” it said. “But Shagon is Azeltarem. As you 163 know that, you must now die. Unfortunate. I would have kept my word and let you leave in peace.”
Konarr and Tassoran looked as one toward Zantain.
Zantain stood wrapped in black, only his strong face visible. On it was a smile, a smile which broadened as they watched.
Then in the distance Konarr heard the sound of a horn. He recognized it—a scout, signaling their trail back to the main body of men accompanying the Lady Tza. Doubtless she would be here in minutes. The thought did not cheer him, nor, when he glanced at Tassoran, did the lad seem entirely contented…
But Zantain laughed and clapped the two of them on the shoulder. “Stalemate at least,” he said, the first word in a tongue unknown to them—which caused Tassoran to start with alarm.
Zantain looked upward to the top of the cliff, perhaps three stories above them. Shagon—or Azeltarem—had stepped to the verge and was now clearly visible to those below.
It was clear the Black Magician’s attention had been suddenly drawn elsewhere.
“See,” Zantain said, “how he feels the presence of another power whose vastnesses resemble his own. The Lady approaches!”
There was a growing thunder of hoofs, almost loud enough to rival the mutter of the heavens at Azeltarem’s approach.
Then, across the stream, appeared a body of half a dozen horsemen, who drew back immediately upon realizing they had run their quarry to ground. The horses pawed the damp grassy earth, snorting and slavering with their recent exertions, and upset by the presence of the kephts.
Konarr became aware of a chanting from the top of the cliff—Azeltarem preparing some new hell’s work, he realized. But there was no time to wonder. Across the stream now there was a flash of streaming white through the trees, and then the Lady Tza herself at the head of a large troop of Hawk Guards.
“Stop!” came the Lady’s clear strong voice, and Azeltarem halted in the midst of his incantation.
“Very well,” said Azeltarem in a cold hard voice, dry as autumn in the last chill before snows fall heavily. “It seems your power was as reported to me—dangerously close to my own. It will now be necessary to take other actions.”
The Lady’s laughter rang sharply over the innocent splashing of the stream—for, Konarr brooded, only the natural things of the Baragan Hills dared speak when two such adversaries met each other.
“You are too gross to harm me,” said the Lady, “and you burn with conflicting desires, old hellworker. I think my affairs will proceed substantially as I have planned them, as soon as these fools here are wrecked and destroyed and the Sigil of Tron once more in my power to use as 1 see fit!”
“Try,” said Zantain.
Konarr blinked and Tassoran shook his head, realizing he had understood nothing that had been said.
“You…man,” said Tza slowly in a new low voice, speaking the word “man” as if it were not so much unpleasant as an irrelevancy. “You dare to dare my powers? You shall suffer!”
The Lady’s mount stepped nervously about in a half circle and she soothed it with a whispered phrase till it was calm again. Then, as casually as if she were tossing a shuttlecock or a child’s innocent toy, she gestured in a throwing motion toward Zantain, who stood impassive.
A sheet of flame as thick as a man’s body poured from the Lady’s hand toward Zantain—but with a casual gesture of his own hand, the flame seemed to stop at the very surface of his skin, harming him no more than the chill night air might.
For a long moment the Lady Tza held her hand motionless, pointing toward Zantain, and the sheet of flame poured forth upon him, and he smiled as he had smiled before, unconcernedly.
Konarr felt she looked quite uncertain for the first time.
“Very well,” she said. “Then 7—”
“One moment,” said Azeltarem quietly from the low cliff-top. “I too admit that I should like that sigil for my uses, good lady. So …”
Azeltarem uttered a single word in an unknown tongue, and his hands gestured in the air.
In a moment, there stood a pillar of…blackness, taller and bulkier than the figure of a man, hanging in the air in front of Azeltarem.
Hanging over Zantain’s head—and then descending.
The Lady Tza studied the figure of the man as he stood up as impassively to the shape of nightmare black as to her own torrents of white-hot flame.
The blackness enveloped Zantain…
.…and dissolved away in the breeze.
“So,” Azeltarem cried angrily, “you are indeed that danger l have been awaiting. It is good to know one’s enemy—just as, my Lady, it is good at last to see one’s enemy. There are many new things now to occur…
Azeltarem’s voice grew louder as he addressed the white-clad woman across the stream. “But as-for now, let us, you and I, bend our powers and efforts together in a force that shall destroy this stranger to our affairs, who has cast our present projects into confusion.”
Zantain turned to face the Lady Tza, an ironic smile on his face. “You know that now to be impossible, do you not?”
“Yes,” she answered. “But to join forces with…him…
“You pause to think too much, Madame Queen,” said Zantain. “Tassoran, your pouch—give me the wooden cup.”
Tassoran fumbled at the knotted strands of leather that held the pouch securely shut.
“No!” thundered Azeltarem, and his voice was swept away in a mad raging thunder twice as loud as that before. A black flash of lightning blasted into the streambank directly beside Zantain, causing the water of the stream to flicker for a moment with a sickening dark glow, and searing the grass for yards around him.
Tassoran gulped and blessed his hasty knots for delaying him—perhaps this Zantain could take such a bolt, but not he. “There never was such thing as an invulnerable thief before,” he said aloud, without realizing he was speaking.
And Konarr grinned.
“The cup,” said Zantain calmly, and strode toward Tassoran, who quickly drew his knife, sliced the knotted thongs, and took out the wooden cup, the wooden sigil rattling inside.
Hastily Tassoran passed the cup to Zantain and stepped back away from him.
There was a freshening of breeze, bearing grass scents, and then, without warning, they were being battered by a high wind, keening through the branches of the trees and whipping about them frantically.
And above it they heard the mighty thundering voice of Azeltarem. Arms spread over his head, his fingers spat tiny black lightnings, while about him the whipping winds lashed furiously out at everything.
“Winds, winds, winds, rise, sweep, destroy, crack the trees and shatter the mountains, at my command rise, rise, break these mortals back to mud and slime, crush, batter, blow, winds, rise, rise, rise—destroy!”
Tassoran fell to his knees at the force of the wind, then threw himself full-length to keep from being swept away.
Konarr planted one knee firmly on the ground, braced himself, and continued to observe the scene as best he could.
Across the stream he saw the Lady Tza, her face clouded with anger, her lips moving to some enchantment of her own, as she tried to keep her men together and protected from the mad cyclonic winds.
And Zantain reached into the wooden cup, drew out the wooden Sigil of Tron, and raised it high in both his hands.
Azeltarem’s thunderous chant fell silent, and the Lady Tza stopped in the middle of a phrase to stare at Zantain’s hands.
In one moment there was ultimately ferocious wind.
In the next, silence. Peace.
Not a person moved, nor a breath of wind, nor was there any kind of sound except for the subdued nickering of the Lady’s horse, upset by the violence of the wind before and the even more shattering quiet now.
No, Konarr realized, everything was not silent, after all. Small insects chirred in the grass, and there were bird songs from the forest.
Dawn approached, and the forest seemed undisturbed by the brutality of the enchanted wind.
Dawn…no, Konarr realized again, the light was not the light of dawn.
Held high in his two hands over Zantain’s head, the Sigil of Tron glowed ever brighter and brighter with a pure dazzling sunshine light, bathing the glade, the stream, the cliff, the forest, and all those assembled with a midday blaze.
Then the glow in Zantain’s hands became so bright no eyes could hold on it, and all looked away, seeing their surroundings ever more and more brightened by the ever more and more impossible blast of pure light energy emanating from the sigil.
Then, at an impossible peak of brilliance, the light winked out.
They rubbed their eyes and tried to see clearly again in the dimness, now lifted somewhat by the growing light of the true and rising sun.
Zantain’s hands were empty.
An inarticulate howl of rage came from Azeltarem, and he started once more to gesture, while the Lady Tza said nothing—but her lips were moving again.
“Enough!” said Zantain with a gesture. “I have absorbed the power of the sigil; it is mine now. This game is done and I have won, for now.”
He did not seem to speak loudly, but Konarr felt the new strength in the man. Zantain stood even taller and straighter, poised and charged with energy. His voice rang with calm assurance.
And Azeltarem uttered a syllable of disgust, started to make a gesture, shook his head with another sound of disgust —and vanished.
Konarr turned to look at the Lady Tza.
Already her men were turning their horses and heading silently and slowly back the way they had come, back to Zetri.
But the Lady Tza stayed at the same spot till the last of her men had left the glade at the far side of the stream, staring over at Zantain.
And Zantain had turned to his kepht, and was gently leading it over to the stream for water. A moment later, Konarr, followed immediately by Tassoran, did the same.
So for a time the three kephts drank deeply and noisily from the splashing stream, while silent hawk-helmeted guardsmen rode stiffly away, and while the silent figure of the Lady Tza sat quietly mounted on her horse, still staring over at Zantain.
As the last hawk-helmet disappeared into the forest, she started a trifle, leaned over, patted her horse on the head, whispered to it, turned its head with the reins, and herself rode away, still in silence.
