The Warrior's Tale Part 26

The general - whose legs were crushed - wept as he told us of how the direwolves came back to feed on the men they'd hamstrung. He listened to his soldiers' screams until dawn.

'A few of my bravest officers returned to rescue me,' the general said, 'but I wish to the G.o.ds they'd cut my throat instead.'

The general proved to be a brave man himself. He made no protest when they came for him - in fact, he seemed glad. We heard the torturers working on him and he only cried out a little; but not once did he beg for mercy.

A few days later Oolumph brought word of an even greater disaster.

'I'll be needin' another coin sooner'n usual, Cap'n,' he told me as he doled out our day's rations. 'Thing's are gettin' right dear on th' outside, they is.'

I made some sarcastic reply about the greedy farmers and merchants who afflict people whenever any crisis arises.

'Oh, that's been goin' on from the beginnin',' he said quite cheerfully. 'Way old Oolumph sees it, they's doin' folks a favour, they is. Why, everythin'd disappear right outer the stalls from all th' h.o.a.rders ifn they didn't b.u.mp up th' prices high 'nough. But when food 'n stuff's real dear, like; there'll al'as be plenty for them that's got the price. It's almos' a duty, ifn yer looks at her right. 'N it's not so bad, really. Th' poor's used to starvin', so they ain't too worst off. 'N it makes th' folks wit' coin to spare spread it around for those of us who're lackin', ifn you sees what ol Oolumph means.'

I started to get angry, but he was such an unabashed rogue, it seemed pointless. I flipped him a coin instead.

'Are you saying things are worse than before?' I asked.

'Indeedy, they is,' Oolumph said. 'Week 'r so ago, I hear tell, a hot wind started blowin'. Blew day 'n night, it did. Sucked th' juice right outter th' crops, it was so hot. 'N it's still blowin'. Even th' old folks say they never seen nothin' like. We don't feel it none down here 'cause we's so deep.'

I nodded, reflexively pulling my blanket coat closer. In the dungeons of Konya it was always winter.

'But it ain't just th' wind,' he continued. 'Folks started gettin' sick. Real sick. Some kinda plague, I guess. They tells me there's gettin' to be so many dead folks, there soon won't be enough of the livin' left to bury 'em.'

'The Sarzana!' Gamelan rasped.

'At's a way they figure,' Oolumph chortled. 'Looks likes he's a conjurin' fool. Hittin' Isolde wit' ever'thin' he's got!'

'It doesn't seem to make any difference to you who wins,' I said.

Oolumph cackled louder. 'I tol' yer afore,' he said, 'these be good times for Old Oolumph. But not near so good as when Th' Sarzana was on top. Why, last time they added to th' dungeons was durin' his day. You'd brand me a liar, if'n I tol' yer I was sorry that it looks like he's comin' back for good!' He popped the coin I'd given him in his purse, gave it a good, loud rattling, then hobbled off on his dirty business.

'No wonder they haven't come for us yet,' I said. 'They're too busy for revenge.'

Gamelan didn't answer. I looked at him and saw his brow was beetled in concentration. His fingers were curling around and around in his beard.

'It's not possible,' I heard him mutter.

'What isn't possible?' I asked.

He gave a querulous hiss and so I left him alone. We didn't speak the rest of the day. That night as I prepared for bed he was still sitting on the edge of the mattress, toying endlessly with his beard. I started to ask him what was amiss, but thought better of it.

I no sooner closed my eyes than I plummeted into sleep. This time, there was no warning sensation of being pulled at by some dark force. I felt as if I were falling at great speed from a mountainous height. I wanted to scream, to sit bolt upright and break the grip of the dream, but I couldn't. I heard a voice calling my name. It was deep, and harsh and full of evil. I thought I recognized the voice, but couldn't recall who it might be. Rocky ground rushed up at me, but just before my fall ended a hot wind gusted, carrying me up again and then I was sailing through stark, cloudless skies.

I flew like that for what seemed to be a long time. An endless sea, devoid of life, rushed under me. Then up ahead I saw an island. Flame and smoke poured from it and I saw villages on fire and hordes of soldiers making sport with its inhabitants. Men and young boys were being speared, or ripped to pieces. Women and girls were suffering all sorts of degradation. A long line of horse-drawn carts was coming down a hillside road that led to the summit.

I willed myself to move in that direction and a moment later I found myself hovering over the hill. Beneath me was a splendid temple. It had a large golden dome and its vast gardens were decorated with the statues of what were obviously important deities. Soldiers, laden with booty, were pouring out of the temple. I saw others with the temple's priestesses, forcing them to perform all sorts of obscene acts. Then, atop a small knoll at the edge of the garden, I saw The Sarzana. He was seated on a black warhorse. He was laughing and urging the despoilers on. They began to topple the idols, stripping them of any rare metals that might decorate them. Some of the priestesses were dragged to those fallen idols, thrown across them and raped. When the soldiers were done with the women they were killed. I was too numb for anger, or even horror-.

The Sarzana raised his head and looked up towards me. He laughed and the sound of his laughter boomed out as if he were a giant. Then I heard someone laugh in return. It rolled and buffeted me like thunder. It came from above and I craned my head back to see a thick black cloud knuckling under the sky. The cloud swirled and whip-cracked with lightning. Laughter seemed to pour from a hideous, mouth-like hole. A face began to take shape in the cloud -fiery eyes, beaked nose and yellowed fangs. It was the Archon!

He saw me and hissed: 'It's Antero. The b.i.t.c.h ferret!'

He formed his lips into a funnel and began to draw in his breath. I shouted in fear as I was sucked towards him. I was falling upward, hurtling for the foulness of his mouth.

The nightmare shattered and I bolted up in my bed. Sweat was flooding from every pore and I was shaken and weak. I looked over at Gamelan and saw by the light of the guttering torch the wizard was still asleep. I swung off the shelf, gasping with effort. I lit a new torch, then strode to the water pail and scrubbed my skin until it was raw. Then I sat on the edge of my mattress, waiting for morning.

Finally, a rattle of food buckets and a shuffle of feet announced Oolumph's approach. A new day had begun. Gamelan groaned awake.

'Here yer be, Cap'n,' Oolumph said as he pa.s.sed the pails through the food hole.

Usually Oolumph was full of cheer and foul jests. Today he was glum, withdrawn.

'What's the matter, Oolumph?' I said. 'Are you ill?'

He shook his head. 'I'm well enough,' he said. 'But it's best not to speak. Today's an unlucky day.'

'I'd call a city besieged by the plague about as unlucky as it can get,' I said. 'Why is this day any worse than the others?'

Oolumph was quiet for a moment. Then he looked this way and that to see if anyone was near. He came close to the bars. 'Somethin' terrible's happened,' he said. 'The Sarzana's finally gone too far. He wrecked th' temple at Chalcidice yestiddy. Desecrated it, they says. Looted it of ever' stone, and raped the priestesses to boot.'

I just stared at him, gaping, as he rambled on describing the things The Sarzana had done at Chalcidice. All of it was identical to my nightmare. And if even Oolumph was shocked by what I now realized I had somehow witnessed, then The Sarzana had gone quite mad. Or worse.

When Oolumph left us I told Gamelan about my vision.

Gamelan's features darkened. 'The Sarzana we knew would never do such a thing,' he said. 'He would not foul his own G.o.ds. He'd know that no matter how great his victory, the people he'd once again rule would never forgive him.' The fire cracked and I jumped. 'It's as I feared, Rali,' the old wizard continued. 'Somehow the Archon has returned. And he has made a bargain with The Sarzana. And he is in control.'

More than our own puny lives were now at stake. With the Archon loose, Orissa itself was threatened.

'His ghost has followed us from the reefs,' Gamelan said. 'He's been looking for a path that would allow him to return and he has found it in The Sarzana. Except, it is no mortal wizard we face, but a demi-G.o.d whose powers are growing mightily from all the blood being shed.'

When we first pursued the Archon we knew he was on the verge of discovering a great spell that would destroy our homeland. With his new powers that spell was more than ever within his grasp.

'We must foil him here,' Gamelan said.

'That's all very well, wizard,' I said. 'But what makes escape any more possible now than before?'

*We know who our enemy really is,' Gamelan said. 'If the G.o.ds are with us, that knowledge alone may be all we need.'

He told me his plan. Four coins from my belt put the first part in motion.

Two days later the soldiers came for me. I was manacled with heavy chains and they led me along twisting dungeon corridors that wound up, up, up, until the cold was gone, to be replaced by stifling heat. Outside, I could hear wind howling like tormented spirits. I smelled rancid vinegar and the sulphur of plague fires and when we went past the guards' barracks-room I saw mottled sunlight through barred windows. We stopped in front of a large iron door framed in heavy timber. One of the soldiers rapped on the door. 'Enter,' came a voice.

We went in. The soldiers bowed low before a cowled figure.

'Remove her chains,' the figure ordered. The soldiers did not argue, but quickly struck them off. Then, one last command: 'You may leave us.'

The soldiers left, muscling the door shut behind them. I heard a large bolt shoot across, barring the door. The figure swept away the cowl and black hair spilled out. It was Princess Xia, so achingly beautiful after all my days in ugly gloom that I nearly swooned. A cool, spiced perfume swirled around and through me as she ran to my side to steady me.

'My poor Captain,' she said, her voice so sweet after all the harshness that my heart lurched in its moorings.

She led me to a bench and helped me sit. A silver flask was thrust into my hands and I smelled strong wine. I drank deeply. Fire blossomed in my veins.

I looked at her and time stood still. It was as if I had suddenly entered a world where only Xia and I existed. All convention, all reason was swept away as I gazed on that exquisite face, skin as pale as new milk, lips red and bursting for a kiss. So I did.

She fed me life through those lips, her tongue honeyed and swirling. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were crushed to mine and I could feel the swollen fruit of her s.e.x pressing against my thigh. We drew back for air, both of us shuddering with pa.s.sion.

'I thought I'd never see you again,' I said, nearly weeping.

'Oh, Rali,' Xia said, tears flowing down her cheeks. 'I've thought of nothing else. I've dreamed of you every night. I feel as if I've known you all my life.'

'And I you, Princess,' I said.

We embraced again. She fell back on the broad, hard bench and I fell with her. My hands ached to feel her flesh and I dragged up the hem of her robe, exposing snowy white limbs. She lifted her hips and helped me pull the hem up to her waist. The lips* of her s.e.x were smooth and tender, with a sweet pink bud peeping out. She cried my name as I nibbled my way to it.

Princess Xia and I became lovers in that dismal dungeon where nothing but foul night spores and mosses could ever grow. The bench was our bridal bower. The grey stone room, our chamber of first pa.s.sion. And nothing before, or since, could ever match it. She was hauntingly familiar - Otara and Tries and all my other lovers combined. But at the same time she was new and teasingly strange and fresh. I poured all my longing into the kisses, and she responded in kind. When we were sated, we held one another, whispering idiocies like two moonstruck girls. In a way, we were. We'd gone from strangers to lovers so quickly that only the G.o.ddess who rules the moon could understand. Outside the door there was a c.h.i.n.k of chain mail as one of the soldiers shifted at his post. We slowly drew apart.

'I must go soon, my love,' she said. 'Tell me quickly what you want of me. I shall do all in my power to help.'

'I want to be called before the Council of Purity,' I said.

Xia paled. 'That is beyond me,' she said. She shed a few tears.

'I'd so hoped you had a plan I could help you accomplish. But that is not possible. Who would listen to one such as I?'

'More than you think,' I said. 'As girls we're taught we have no power, so we never test it. But you'd be surprised what can happen when the womanly strength you possess is aimed single-mindedly and with force.'

'But why should the Council-'

'I can help them,' I broke in. 'I can end the plague.'

Xia's eyes widened. But instead of speaking, she only nodded - go on.

I told her about the Archon and our mission, which we'd mistakenly believed we'd accomplished. I told her what a great danger he was to both our peoples and what I had to do to stop him.

'Do you really think you can succeed where our wizards have failed?' she asked.

'Yes,' I said. 'And not because I think little of your sorcerers. But because the Archon and I have a bond. A bond in hatred, to be sure, but sometimes hatred can be an even stronger glue than love.'

One of the soldiers rapped on the door. It was time for her to go.

'Will you see your father for me?' I begged.

'As soon as I return home,' she promised.

We kissed again, then dragged ourselves apart before pa.s.sion overtook us once more. She called out to the soldiers, the bolt shot back and the door swung open. Xia pulled the cowl forward, and after a fleeting glance at the soldiers putting the chains back on, she fled.

I don't know what Xia said to her father, but the spell she cast with her words must have been as good as any sorcerer's, because only a few days lapsed before I found myself standing in front of nine pitiless men.

The guardians of the public good were a motley lot of n.o.bles. Two were so old they drooled; four had less hair among them than it takes to make up one healthy head; and the remaining three - including Lord Kanara, Xia's father - were hammering hard on the last gates of middle-age. If I had been a young soldier in this land it was not a group that would have inspired me with devotion. Even the drooly-lipped ones remembered enough to despise any mere creature who stood before them. I nearly despaired when I swept their faces, looking for a friend, and found none - not even in Lord Kanara. He may have pressed for my appearance to appease his daughter, but he was not going to be an easy wheel to turn when I pleaded our case. In every gaze I saw an ambush waiting. So I took the soldier's way - I attacked.

'My Lords,' I said, 'as I was led up the hill to these chambers I racked my brain for a pretty speech. I was going to fling my life - and the lives of my brave companions - at your feet and beseech you for mercy. I was going to tell you that we were peaceful strangers who came to these sh.o.r.es by misadventure. Just as it was misadventure that led us to injure you. But all those words were swept away when I saw the horror in your once-great city. Your streets are despoiled by the corpses of your subjects. The marketplace is barred and empty. The doors and windows of your homes are shuttered against the plague that stalks the avenues and the hot wind The Sarzana sent has sucked the very life from the trees in your gardens.

'It was a city near defeat that I saw, My Lords. And if you do not grant me my request now, I fear we will soon both be at the mercy of our mutual enemy.'

Beside me, Xia quailed. Behind me, I heard Gamelan mutter for me to beware.

One of the droolers spoke first - his voice high-pitched and squeaky like a boy's nearing manhood. 'You're just a woman,' he said. 'Why should I believe you can do what our own wizards can't?'

'If I am such a puny thing,' I answered, 'how is it I stand here at all? I have travelled farther than any man or woman in my homeland to reach these sh.o.r.es. I have fought and defeated great armies, crushed a mighty fleet, and it was I who slew the brother of your real enemy -the Archon of Lycanth. I doubt any of your own subjects - men or women - could claim the same.'

The old Lord cupped a hand around his ear. 'What's that, you say? The Archon? I've never heard of such a fellow. It's The Sarzana who's the cause of all our ills.'

I shifted my attention to Lord Kanara. 'Ask your own wizards why they are helpless before The Sarzana. To be certain, he is a powerful sorcerer. But how can he stand against all of them? He's not that that powerful.' powerful.'

A black-robed sorcerer leaned close to Lord Kanara and whispered in his ear. Kanara nodded. He turned to his companions of authority.

'Our chief wizard agrees,' he said. 'It is a mystery that has been puzzling them mightily.'

'Ask him,' I said, 'if he and the others have wondered if perhaps The Sarzana has made an alliance with some other dark force.'

The sorcerer bent low again to whisper fiercely. When he was done, Kanara said: 'Yes, it is true, Captain. They have speculated on such a possibility.'

'Your wizards' suspicions. .h.i.t the mark,' I said. 'It is the Archon he made his bargain with.'

'What do you propose?' Lord Kanara asked.

'First, I urge you to allow me to attack this cursed plague. Once I have ended it, you will know whether I am woman enough to carry out the rest.'

'Pure foolishness,' the drooler said. 'It might even be heresy, to allow a foreign woman to practise magic in Isolde.'

'Is it heresy?' I said, aiming my question direcdy at the chief wizard.

He looked at me, then shook his head - no.

'Then what do you have to lose, My Lords?' I said. 'If I fail, back in the dungeon I go and good luck to you. But if I don't, the plague is ended. It can't be the worst gamble you've ever been asked to make.'

The nine men conferred, voices too low to hear. They'd had long practice with secrecy. Finally, they turned back to me. Princess Xia gripped my hand hard.

'Very well,' Lord Kanara said. 'You shall have your chance.'

The drooling lord broke in. 'Do not fail, Captain,' he warned. 'Our torturers have no match when it comes to ways of making, and prolonging, pain.'

My words to the Council of Purity may have been bold, but inside I quaked with doubt. Gamelan said the plague spell could be lifted. I was certain he he could have done so before he was blinded, but I had serious reservations about my own abilities. I was no more than a green apprentice. What chance did I have against the Archon? Gamelan's continued a.s.surances did not soothe me; but what choice did I have but to carry on with the bluff? could have done so before he was blinded, but I had serious reservations about my own abilities. I was no more than a green apprentice. What chance did I have against the Archon? Gamelan's continued a.s.surances did not soothe me; but what choice did I have but to carry on with the bluff?

They put us in a guarded stone hut at the edge of the palace grounds. Gamelan's captured implements were brought to us, and we began. I did not see Princess Xia in the two days it took us to prepare, but her seamstress came to measure me for the costume I required - a simple red sleeveless tunic cut at mid-thigh, so my arms and legs would have freedom of movement. It would be tied with a golden sash. Gamelan warned me not wear jewellery of any kind, especially metal, and he said my feet must be bare. Using Gamelan's magical book, with many annotations from my wizard friend that he'd learned over his many years, I ground up disgusting powders and mixed evil-smelling and highly volatile oils. We worked without stop, the eerie wind howling outside and buffeting the stone hut. Finally, we were nearly ready.

There was no visible audience - other than a few nervous guards -awaiting us in the small park that had been set aside for our efforts. There was a pool in the centre of the park. Placed about it - forming a square - were four pyres of rare wood. As we entered the park, a wagon thundered across the cobblestone path. The driver was terror-stricken, lashing at his horses. He nearly wrecked the wagon stopping it. He leaped off, cut the wagon loose, took one last horrified look at the contents, and ran off, driving the horses before him.