by Brian Lumley
Of course, he could go out onto the tiny balcony and spy out the land from there, but it was a spooky light in the desert at night and not to be trusted; likewise the wizard’s eyes weren’t what they used to be. By now the Suhm-yi couple had doubtless seen Teh Atht’s lantern blazing forth from the window of a room on this same floor, and he must hope they’d be attracted to it. One small lamp in habitation huge as this must signal a single habitant; and this Suhm-yi male, who’d helped slay Gorgos and bring down his temple, would hardly be the sort to turn aside or flee from one lone dweller.
Indeed, the friendly light should lure these weary travellers, and they’d find Teh Atht the perfect host when they came knocking on his door. So thought the wizard; and but for the fact that he was a wizard (with all the habits of that species, including scrying), so it might have worked out. But—
—Teh Atht frowned and peered closer at the shewstone, and wondered what was wrong here. Male, female and beast, all three had passed into the shadow of that fang of rock there, and by now should have reappeared on the other side. So what was holding them up? Could it be they were making camp there, with the castle a mere stone’s throw away, and welcoming lantern blazing for all to see?
He drew the picture closer; which is to say, he soared down upon the crag from on high, fighting back the vertigo he felt welling inside as the scene in the stone rushed up to meet his gaze. Now he was in the shadow of the slanting rock, poised directly over the girl-creature where she sat silent and tranquil and waiting upon the back of her yak. But waiting for what? Then, scanning the shadowed area all about, Teh Atht gave an odd little twitch when he saw that Ulli Eys was quite alone!
He caused his view to retreat from her, gazed down on the desert between fang of rock and castle, saw – nothing! And where was the Suhm-yi male now? And what was he up to?
At that precise moment Amyr Arn’s spatulate four-fingered hands came up one at a time over the carved parapet wall, where like a great slender gecko he clung to the vertical stonework. His crested head followed, a silver shimmer against the dark of the night, and his golden eyes took in at a glance the scene in the secret room: a candle’s glow silhouetting the seated form of a rune-cloaked wizard where he hunched over his shewstone, his back to the intruder. Then, silent as a shadow, Amyr was up onto the balcony, inside the room, closing the distance between himself and his target. And in his hand a gleam of silver brighter far than the shimmer of his own un-human flesh.
‘Where is he?’ Teh Atht mutteringly demanded of Orbiquita’s crystal. ‘Show him to me at once!’
‘Why scry?’ whispered Amyr from behind, in Teh Atht’s very ear. ‘Save your eyesight, wizard. Spy on me no more from afar, but only turn your head!’
Teh Atht gave a gasp, began to do just that – and froze! Cold steel touched the soft umber leather of his throat, and a four-fingered hand of iron gripped his shoulder. ‘I …’ he gulped, aware that death stood only a breath away. And again: ‘I …’
‘Utter no runes, wizard,’ warned Amyr Arn, ‘no crafty spells. Ah, for your first sorcerous syllable will likewise be your last!’
The biter bit! thought Teh Atht. And how’s this for wizardry! But out loud and hurriedly, he husked: ‘I know this looks bad, my young friend, but believe me I acted in all innocence. Old habits die hard, that’s all, and the shewstone is merely a tool of my trade.’
‘Clever words won’t sway me,’ said Amyr, ‘nor lies deceive. Your hourglass is tipped and the sands are running. Speak swift, ‘ere they run out.’
Teh Atht at once commenced to babble, each word coming fast on the heels of the last. As he spoke Amyr looked behind the words, used the mentalist art of the Suhm-yi to penetrate the wizard’s mind and read what was written there. In the old times that were unthinkable, but the old mores no longer applied. He saw the wizard’s quest clearly delineated – his search for immortality – and read names a-plenty in connection with that quest. Among those names were his own, his darling Ulli’s, that of Tarra Khash, and – and also the name of the mercifully exanimate Gorgos!
‘Hold!’ said Amyr then. ‘What? And is that what you are? Blood of Gorgos, his sorcerous kin, corrupted by him? You know of him, for I’ve read it in your mind. Aye, and you know something of a certain Hrossak, too, who has been my one friend among men. Now cease your babbling and answer only my specific questions.
‘First, why have you lain in wait for us here? What was your plan for us?’
‘I can show you much better than tell you,’ said Teh Atht. He carefully stood up; and Amyr’s knife slipping easily from his throat to his breast, where it poised just under his heart, so light it might not be there at all.
‘Lead on,’ said Amyr.
They went to the room where the lantern hung on a hook under the arch of a wide balcony, sending its rays out into the still desert. Here a table was set for three, all laden with meats and fruits, water and wines, cheeses and honey. Of hopper and flitter no sign, for Teh Atht had sent them below stairs to find a place of their own.
‘This was my plan for you,’ said the wizard with a wave of his arm. ‘To welcome you here in the castle of my cousin Orbiquita – herself absent, I’m happy to relate – and to satisfy your needs. Here you can eat, drink, bathe, rest your weary bodies from the rigours of the sands, and all in safety absolute. And for payment, why I’d merely follow the customs of civilized folk in this Primal Land and beg of you … a story?’
‘A story?’ Amyr lowered silver shutters on his eyes, until they were golden slits. ‘What sort of story?’
Teh Atht shrugged innocently. ‘Perhaps the story of your wanderings,’ he said, feigning only a polite and routine interest, as required by etiquette. ‘Or maybe a tale of Tarra Khash the Hrossak: how you met him and became his friend, and how with his help you brought down Gorgos’ Temple of Secret Gods in Klühn. Or perhaps something of his past, if you know it – for example: how and where he came by that fancy jewelled scimitar of his?’
Now Amyr’s knife tickled a little where suddenly, however gently, its point pressed through the silk of the wizard’s cloak and rested on his pale flesh. And now: ‘You’re either very brave or very foolish,’ said Amyr, the chimes of his voice more lead than silver. ‘I told you Tarra Khash is my friend. And should I betray him?’
Teh Atht smiled and shook his head. ‘I’m neither brave nor foolish,’ he said. ‘And you are not a killer; not natural born, anyway. Oh, I know you’ve looked at me with your mentalist’s eyes, and I know you’ve found no harm in me. But I’ve looked at you, too, through the eyes of a wizard. Your caution isn’t so much for yourself as for your lady, which I can understand well enow. But betray Tarra Khash? To me? In what way? I merely seek to save his life, and thought you’d like to help me. Indeed, I know you will! So put away the knife.’
For a moment their eyes met: the wizard’s faded and almost colourless, Amyr’s golden as burnished coins. Then the Suhm-yi male nodded, sheathed his knife in the scabbard at his belt, said: ‘But don’t think you can lie to me, Teh Atht. I can read right through your words to the very thoughts that form them. There’s more to this than the saving of Tarra’s life. You seek immortality, and he’s the key. Now tell me: what is it threatens him?’
‘First your lady,’ said the wizard. ‘Bring her in from the desert. There’s food here and wine; I take it you eat like ordinary men? And I need no spells to tell me how weary you are. Now let’s start again, on friendlier footing – the way I planned it in the first place, however badly it were fumbled. Agreed?’
Amyr nodded again, if a trifle slowly, and called out to Ulli in his mind, Wife, come to the castle. You’ll find us waiting below. I think all’s well, but be alert for danger.
Then he followed Teh Atht downstairs to the huge hall, all tidied now and seeming more gaunt and vast than ever, where the wizard called upon hopper and flitter to show themselves. They came and were introduced. ‘My familiars,’ said Teh Atht. ‘Incapable of harm, however ugly. You may he
ar them at their work, but they’ll stay out of sight so as not to alarm your lady. There, and now I have no more secrets.’
Out into the courtyard they went, and the wizard opened the great outer door on Ulli where she waited. Without pause she urged her yak inside, where Amyr helped her dismount and presented her to Teh Atht. ‘Delighted,’ said the wizard, truly awed by Ulli’s alien beauty. ‘But let’s go indoors at once; the air grows chill out here, and there’s all you’ll need of comforts laid out within …’
They entered, climbed to the prepared room, dined well on the food Teh Atht’s familiars had set out for them. And as they ate so the wizard told Amyr all he had learned of the travails of Tarra Khash. Then at last the travellers were done with eating and their host with talking, and now it was Amyr’s turn. He stood up, paced a while, said:
‘Teh Atht, you came here on a flying carpet. So you said.’
‘The very carpet where now you stand,’ the wizard nodded. ‘A little worn, but airworthy still.’
Amyr paused and looked down at the carpet – a fairly unremarkable rug, uniformly fawn except in its corners where four black, oddly curving esoteric symbols were woven into the material – then continued pacing. And in a little while:
‘Teh Atht, when first I … I came upon you,’ Amyr went on, attempting something of diplomacy, ‘you were scrying our slow progress in a crystal ball – doubtless ensuring that no harm befell us along the way. I assume that crystal to be Orbiquita’s shewstone?’
‘Of course, for this is her castle,’ Teh Atht shrugged. He looked back and forth, between Suhm-yi man and maid, then sighed. ‘Have I not made myself understood? Scrying is the way of wizards!’
Amyr nodded thoughtfully, continued pacing. ‘Flying carpets, shewstones – black magick! “The ways of wizards.” Hmmm!’ he mused. ‘And Tarra Khash, our one friend among men, captive of the slavetaker of just such a foul sorcerer, eh?’
Fearing himself ranked alongside Black Yoppaloth of the Yhemnis, now Teh Atht waxed a little indignant. ‘I thought I’d already made myself perfectly clear,’ he said. ‘We’re not all cut of the same cloth!’
‘Oh?’ Amyr turned and stared hard at the wizard through penetrating golden eyes. ‘No, perhaps you’re not,’ he finally allowed, ‘but whichever, I suspect you’re all of a very intricate and mazy weave.’ He nodded again, but more sharply, decisively. ‘Very well, I would see Tarra’s predicament for myself – in the shewstone!’
They all three went to Orbiquita’s secret chamber behind the pivoting slab which was its door, and there the wizard activated the petrified Roc’s eye. Knowing almost exactly where to look, it took only seconds for Teh Atht to locate his target; and then, all three heads together – the wizard’s and those of his silvery, unhuman guests alike – their rapt eyes saw …
… Tarra Khash lay sleeping under the moon and stars. He was curled in the leathery elbow of his big hauler, snoring gently into the corrugations of that hugely folded reptilian limb. His bed, while somewhat musky and subject to sudden, shuddery convulsions, was at least middling warm. Blood did course in those great veins, however sluggishly; and that was important, for this close to the Eastern Ocean the night breezes tended to blow cold. Tarra’s new jacket had kept him warm for a while, but then the big lizard had scratched himself with a blunt claw, and the jacket, caught on a scale, had been snatched away. Now the Hrossak lay exposed to starlight and breezes both, silken shirt ragged on his back, shivering a little as the temperature fell. The cold might wake him up, but unlikely; today had been a hard one for all concerned, and Tarra no exception. He was weary in every limb and would probably sleep through a volcanic eruption.
Standing close by, just now returned from his solitary stroll in the dunes, Cush Gemal looked down on him and his black eyes shone in the darkness. Behind him, keeping a respectful distance, a pair of Yhemni watchmen waited on their master’s command. Nor was it long in coming:
‘Fetch a blanket,’ Gemal ordered, but quietly for all the depths of his tone. ‘Drape it over him – but don’t waken him. He needs his sleep as much as any man. And so do I …’ He turned away, but over his shoulder reminded: ‘Keep well your watch this night.’ Then he strode away toward his black tent – and paused.
He looked up, jerking his head sharply, and his black eyes grew huge. ‘What?’ he said, almost in a whisper. And again, sharp as ice now: ‘What!’
‘Master, what is it?’ his blacks ran toward him, their hands fluttering in sudden alarm …
… In Orbiquita’s secret chamber, Teh Atht knew only too well what ‘it’ was. He commanded the shewstone, ‘Be still!’ And throwing up his hands he turned his face away. At the same time he lurched against his guests, buffeting them aside. And as the picture in the shewstone dwindled and faded into mist, so he sighed long and loud. A close thing, that. Another moment and the eyes of Cush Gemal might well have seen right through the space between, out of eye of Roc and into those of the three who had watched! To Amyr and Ulli, by way of explanation and apology both, he said: ‘He sensed us!’
‘What?’ Amyr was astonished. ‘Is it possible?’
‘For a great wizard, aye,’ Teh Atht nodded, his face chalk now in place of its usual faded umber.
‘But he’s only a slaver, in Black Yoppaloth’s employ!’ Amyr was plainly puzzled.
Teh Atht nodded slowly, gave the matter some consideration. ‘That he is,’ he finally muttered, ‘and under his protection, too. It becomes obvious: Yoppaloth has spelled him, given him a guardian aura. Only penetrate it – which with our combined and concentrated gazing we did – and Gemal knows it! Ah, but his master, Shad’s sorcerer, is cautious to a fault! He would keep all of his works secret, even the business of his hirelings; and the closer we draw to the appointed hour, the more effective his protections become.’
‘The appointed hour?’ This time it was Ulli’s tinkling voice that questioned.
‘The hour of his renewal, when like the phoenix he’ll rise up again restored! That’s what this is all about: somewhere in this mystery lies the secret of Yoppaloth’s immortality …’
They went back to the room where they had dined, found the table standing empty of every last trace of their meal, and Teh Atht bade his guests be comfortable on a low, cushioned couch. Amyr declined, but paced the floor as before. ‘Now here’s the thing,’ he said in a while. ‘I do believe you will help Tarra Khash if and when you can, and if he needs it, if only to appease your dreadful cousin. But as for saving his life – why, it hardly seems threatened! Indeed, this curious slaver Cush Gemal appears to have taken to him. So what is it you’re really up to, Teh Atht? Is it perhaps that you’ve caught a whiff of Yoppaloth’s immortality, and that now you fear to lose it?’
Teh Atht appeared hurt. Then: ‘Very shrewd,’ he said, unsmiling. But why ask, when you can read it all in my mind?’
‘That is not our way,’ said Ulli at once. ‘Before, Amyr read your thoughts to protect me. Now that you’ve proclaimed yourself a friend, he may no longer intrude. We are all private people, Teh Atht, and our minds inviolate.’
Amyr frowned. Ulli had it right, of course, but on this occasion he wished that she had not.
‘Madam,’ said the wizard, ‘your candour in this matter fills me with a great relief.’ He gravely nodded his approval. ‘But still I fear your husband distrusts me.’
Amyr’s golden eyes narrowed a little. ‘Is that so strange?’ he said. ‘After all, we already know of this lusting of yours after immortality, which seems to me unnatural. It is nature’s way that things are born to die; without death there can be no purpose in living; what man would grasp at each new day, if days were interminable? And yet you insist upon this immortality.’
‘Am I lectured?’ Teh Atht cried, apparently amazed. ‘I am what I am, and I cannot change it. I’m a wizard, and the world full of wonders which I can never hope to grasp. Not in one short span. Can’t you see? I have runes to unriddle, mysteries to plumb, all the secrets of space
and time to unravel – and neither time nor space to even begin! I’m a quester – no, a hunter – after knowledge, Amyr Arn; but as any hunter will tell you, it’s the chase that counts, not the kill! This thing is a puzzle of a thousand pieces, and one by one I track them down and fit them in until the picture is complete.’
‘I see,’ said Amyr, nodding. ‘So one by one you’re gradually fitting together all the pieces of this great puzzle, are you? And who can say but that as I tell you my pieces, they too will fit in place, so that the puzzle more rapidly nears completion.’
‘But that’s it exactly!’ cried Teh Atht. ‘And Tarra Khash would seem to be a key piece, as you correctly deduced from just one small peep into my mind. Which is, of course – entirely in keeping with my altruistic nature, and not to mention Orbiquita’s vile threats – the reason I’ll keep Tarra Khash from harm. If I can.’
Amyr stopped pacing, faced the wizard squarely. ‘And if the puzzle completes itself before Tarra is safe…what then? Immortality is immortality: an infinite extension of life. What weight would a lamia’s threats carry then, Teh Atht, to one who cannot die? And of what value the life of a mere man to a mage immortal, eh?’
‘Eh?’ Teh Atht repeated him, blinking rapidly. ‘What are you saying?’
‘Who will there be,’ Amyr pressed home his point, ‘in the house of your triumph, to ensure you don’t desert the Hrossak’s cause and leave him to whichever fate awaits him?’
