Beneath Strange Stars

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  Kira kept subtle watch over the patrons, and she listened to the music and the laughter, and yearned. Ofttimes she guarded caravans from one place to another. She would pass tents in the night and hear whispered words of love or merely peaceful sighs, and it never failed but that she wondered if she would ever awake safe in the dark and hear another person pass lonely in the night.

  “May I join you?” a young man asked, and Kira realized he had asked her twice. “If I’m intruding…”

  Kira shook her head and gestured to a chair.

  “My name is Gwion,” he said.

  “Kira,” she said. “What do you want?”

  “Where are you bound?”

  “Where my path leads me.”

  He smiled. “As are we all. Your sword and fair skin infer the lands beyond the Central Sea. Is your path north?”

  She shook her head. “South.”

  “A stroke of luck, for which I thank Danu,” he said. “I wish to go with you, under your protection, as it were. I have silver with which to pay you.”

  Kira sighed. “I’ve no desire for a companion, or need of a commission. If you need protection, seek a caravan. Two are a greater invitation to attack than many. Besides, you’ve no idea who I am. I might take your silver only to kill you in some lonely haunt.”

  “I saw you when you came in,” Gwion said. “As you followed the innkeep’s boy upstairs, I saw a flash of bronze. A woman who wears a warrior’s armor, yet dresses as a common pilgrim. Surely, I said to myself, it would be better to declare herself a warrior than a solitary woman.” He whispered: “You are an outcast of the Amazons, and even an outcast Amazon has honor.”

  Kira laughed, and suddenly realized it had been too long since she had laughed without bitterness.

  “I intended no jest,” Gwion said, looking as if he had been slapped. “I’m no foolish believer in myth. I’ve studied in the libraries of Athens and Babylon. If I’m wrong, then I’m wrong, but laughing in my face is…”

  “Calm yourself, Gwion,” Kira said gently. “I laugh at the remark, not the person who uttered it. An Amazon is no more unbelievable than a Kelt educated beyond his sacred trees and rings of standing stones.”

  He frowned. “I suppose neither of us are what we seem. I have reasons for not joining a caravan. I want to go south, and you’re traveling south. Amazon or not, you’re good enough with a sword to make your way in the world. To my father’s chagrin, I was better with pen and ink than sword and shield. I’m no coward but I would feel safer with a good fighter by my side.”

  She was curious about this muscular youth with a Keltic name and a scholar’s disposition. She gazed into his eyes and saw death and darkness were strangers to him, and wondered how her eyes, which had seen all too much of both, appeared to him. He was younger than her by five, maybe ten, years, and possessed an aura of innocence which Kira wondered if she had ever possessed.

  “What’s a Kelt, even a scholarly one, seeking in Zinj?” Kira asked.

  Gwion looked around, then leaned close. “To cross the Styx and enter the shadow empires beyond. You’ve heard of them.”

  Kira nodded. “Rumors, or rumors of rumors. Vague whispers, mostly uttered by holy fools.”

  “All scholars and seekers after wisdom are fools,” Gwion admitted. “I heard about them in Babylon, where many facets of the Primal Earth are preserved on clay tablets. The world is made of two halves, one we see and call the waking world; the other, a twin to the waking world but dark, in a world of shadows. Upon the Styx, there is a place where the worlds of light and shadow meet. At that place, marked by nameless ruins, a man can pass from the world of light to the shadowlands beyond.”

  “And then what?” Kira asked. “A man who passes into shadow cannot return.”

  “Yes,” Gwion said. “The door only opens once.”

  “A high price to pay for idle curiosity,” she said. “You’d be better off ensconced in some king’s library. At least you’d be in the world to which you were born.”

  “A scholar’s curiosity has nothing to do with it,” Gwion protested. “I could spend all my years surrounded by manuscripts, conversing with minds greater than my own, and not be happy. I was never meant for this world. I’ve always known that. But until I read of the shadow empires across the Styx, I never knew where I belonged. I’m seeking a place that I can call home, and not be out of place. Can you understand that?”

  After a long moment, Kira said, “We’ll leave at dawn. In Eridu we can book passage to eastern Zinj, and from there set out for the Styx. However, Gwion, it’s a very long river.”

  “I know the signs to look for,” he said happily. He tapped his temple. “They’re engraved in here.”

  “Southward, then, and on to the Styx.” She lifted her mug and downed a good portion. “You buy the supplies, but remember we’ll travel light and fast from Ras-al-Djinn to Eridu.”

  “What about price?” Gwion asked. “We’ve yet to settle on what your fee will be.”

  “Just find your way home,” she said. “That’s my price.”

  He frowned, but nodded. “As you wish. We can talk of it later.” He glanced to his left. “A flea in your ear: you’ve caught the eyes of the priests of Iblis.”

  “The two old men at the far table.”

  He nodded. “I saw them look at you when you first came in. Like men seeing meat after a very long fast.”

  “Old men are sometimes like that,” Kira said. “They want what they cannot have.”

  Gwion reddened somewhat. “No, not that way, Kira. I know that look. Since arriving in Ras-al-Djinn, I’ve heard stories of these men who call themselves priests of Iblis. They have hearts of dust. Watch them.”

  “I’ve no love for any priest,” she admitted. “They’re like children playing with firebrands—liable to burn down someone’s house and laugh about it. Priests, magick workers of all types, alchemists—escaping their ilk drives me southward.” She smiled. “Which is good for you, I suppose.”

  “I’ll take your leave,” he said. “I’ll make preparations before the town falls asleep. And I’ll remember: fast and light.” He stood and smiled down. “Thank you.”

  When Gwion was out the door of the Raven Inn, Kira sighed and shook her head. For all that the world had toughened her, there was within her still a softness which would one day likely be her undoing. She finished her meal and sat listening to the music, a half-filled mug of ale in hand.

  Feeling watched, she shifted her head until she brought her gaze to bear upon the watchers, the blue-and-silver-robed priests of Iblis. Under her relentless stare, they turned away. The ale seemed less sweet now, the music less melodious, and after awhile she went upstairs to her room. Halfway up, she looked back and saw the two priests were gone.

  In her room, latch thrown and secured, Kira again stood at the window and gazed south. Yes, she thought, a soft heart would one day be her undoing. Placing a dagger under her pillow, she lay down and was soon asleep.

  Sometime later, Kira awoke, unsure of where she lay. Her confusion passed in an instant, but her dagger was already in hand. She listened to the night with the alertness of a hunting cat. Soft, furtive sounds came from beyond the door. A hand tried the latch, but the leather thong held. The room was dully lit by the horned moon beyond the lattice window.

  “Hecate preserve me,” she whispered. She knew now who the old woman had been. “If you can.”

  A mistiness formed under the door, flowing inward like a fog, then rising. As the vapor rose, it assumed definite shapes, two eerie forms lit by a cold inner flame, and two pairs of eyes like dying embers. Then the two priests of Iblis stood before her, wreathed in shadow and mist, with countenances grim and dire.

  “What do you want?” Kira demanded.

  “Your spirit is to be devoured by our lord,” one answered. “And when Iblis has shredded your soul, moon worshipper, we shall feast upon your body.”

  “You chance the Goddess’ wrath,” Kira said. “Hers is
the power of earth and moon, the secret places your god cannot know.”

  “The time of the Triple Goddess is past,” the other priest said. “There was a time when men cowered before her, but that time is gone. New gods walk the ancient places, sweeping away the old, as the new metal has brought an end to the time of bronze.”

  “Your blood shall be offered upon altars in rites of which you could never dream,” the first priest said. “You shall die.”

  “Not tonight, I think,” Kira said.

  She loosed her dagger at the nearest priest who had begun to gesture arcanely. The blade penetrated the old man’s chest. He gazed down, a stunned expression on his face, then slowly fell. Kira had leaped immediately after throwing the dagger and had already unsheathed her sword.

  “Come to us, Lord Iblis,” the remaining priest intoned. “Avenge the death of your servant, and shred the soul of your ancient enemy.”

  Kira crouched, her sword at the ready. But the priest did not advance. He made quick gestures, repeating them, faster, until his hands became a blur, and there seemed faint tracings of light in their wake which waxed brighter. And he muttered in a savage guttural language that was totally unknown to Kira.

  A shape formed between Kira and the priest, a shifting mass of shadows. Eyes, tentacles, serrated mouths, odd appendages that had no earthly correspondence—Kira received impressions of all those and more. Scythed arms reached for her, but when she swung her sword at them, the blade passed through a cold, congealed fog.

  There was no reaching the priest. Every path to him led through the grotesque and morphitic beast he had summoned. The great god Iblis no doubt, Kira thought. Its demonic nature and appearance made even the blood-imbibing gods brought by the eastern invaders seem harmless.

  One of the demon-god’s sinewy tentacles lashed Kira’s arm. Pain and an icy darkness shot through her. Kira did not cry out. She thrust her bronze blade into the heart of the pulsating shadowy mass. Iblis surged toward her, forcing her back.

  That which had at first seemed shadowy and unsubstantial was now corporeal enough to grab Kira’s sword. It was all Kira could do to keep it from being ripped from her grasp.

  Something solid slammed against the door from the outside The latch snapped in half. Gwion stood in the doorway, clad only in a loincloth, silhouetted against the light of a low-burning torch in the hallway.

  The priest stopped gesturing and chanting and staggered back. When he turned to Gwion, the Kelt struck him hard enough to send him across the room.

  The pulsating demon-god hanging in the center of the room turned from Kira and sent a tentacle toward the man attacking its slave. Kira pressed forward and struck with the cleaving edge of her sword. When the god howled, the god’s servant screamed an incantation.

  The priest’s words abruptly ended when Gwion crashed into him. They struggled a moment, locked in each other’s embrace, then plunged through the lattice window. Kira rushed to the window, but they were already gone, swallowed by the darkness beyond the edge of the precipice.

  Kira turned to confront the demon-god, but its body was losing the cohesion it had attained in the presence of its ardent believer. It swiped at Kira with an undulating tentacle, but Kira felt a dank chilliness, nothing more. It degenerated into a cold greasy fog, then vanished into the nothingness from which it had been summoned.

  By the time Abdenna ibn Abrim and Ishmael arrived, peering fearfully into the room, Kira was alone with the body of the priest she had killed. The innkeep stood staring at the dead man, pale with terror. When Ishmael grabbed the priest’s shoulders, Kira dropped her sword and lifted his feet. Together, they threw the body through the broken window, making sure it had enough momentum to clear the edge.

  Shuddering uncontrollably, the innkeep rushed from the room, as if pursued by the living god of the dead priests.

  Kira moved her belongings out of the room and spent the remainder of the night near the hearth.

  In the grey dawn, Kira donned her bronze armor, then the anonymity of a traveler’s cloak. Ishmael brought her food and water for her journey, but there was no sign of his uncle.

  “Uncle cowers in terror,” Ishmael said. “He fears we shall see the wrath of Iblis.”

  Kira nodded. “He has reason to.”

  She passed through the silent town, out the gates of Ras-al-Djinn and down the wide road to the floor of the desert. She passed where three dead men lay. Predators of the desert had already disturbed the bodies. Soon little would remain to mark the place.

  No homeward journey, she thought. Perhaps not for anyone.

  Away from the city, she looked back. The cresting sun lit the face of the demon of the rock, deepening shadows. The demon’s eyes were wide and staring, and the thick-lipped mouth seemed stretched in a mocking grin. After a few moments, she turned away and told herself it was nothing more than a trick of the light.

  She headed south, toward Eridu upon the Gulf of Albla, as was her wont, ever alone.

  If, in the theater of your mind, you imagine these people and their castoff civilization in a vaguely Art Nouveau setting, you would not be far from what I had in mind when I wrote the tale. I had bought quite a few books about the art style, coinciding with a phase of my own drawing, and was also reading about the life and work of Aubrey Beardsley, the influential and controversial artist who died a too-young death. As I perused one of the excellent art books published by Dover, I was quite taken with his interpretation of “Salome,” perhaps the original “bad seed.” As I thought about old Herod, consumed equally by lust and fear, I imagined the Biblical morality tale set amongst the stars, a long way off from everywhere, deep in the heart of darkness.

  The Stranger

  A Tale of Earth’s Lost Children

  Diaban saw her by the light of the risen moons, saw her dash furtively through cobalt shadows to the forbidden Tower of Portents. He well knew his duty called for him to raise an alarum against the intruder, for he was a Captain of the Palace Guards, a loyal and trusted servant of Xenarch Calimosh.

  It was unthinkable he would not do his duty, for he had been born and raised to live, serve and die in the shadow of the Xenarch. In faithful service to the House of Calimosh, he had gutted hundreds of enemies; at his Xenarch’s behest, he had sliced wagging tongues and plucked curious eyes without number. He opened his mouth to cry out against the young girl who flitted pale and spiritlike beneath the three moons ascendant in the solid sky. No matter how much he tried, however, there emerged from his constricted throat naught but a dry croak heard only by his own ears.

  The law of the Xenarch was for all. No one was immune by birth or rank from the scientific excruciations of the crimson-robed Holders of Silence.

  No, not even, Diaban thought, Lhalorin, the beautiful daughter of the Xenarch.

  Myriad guards patrolled the palace walls, walked all the twisting corridors of the ancient structure to keep their master safe from all manner of evil, real or imagined. A shout of Intruder! would bring the armed cohorts Lhalorin had evaded so well; even an inarticulate cry of dismay would summon the troops.

  But he held silent, burning with guilt and passion.

  Lhalorin vanished into the blackness beyond the Tower’s baroque archway. A moment later, he discovered his feet following hers, following the same forbidden path upon crystalline stairs sweeping upward to a never-glimpsed cupola.

  Trembling, he stealthily trekked after her barely audible footfalls, praying to the wrathful chthonic gods just beneath his boots that his own sounds would not be heard by guards, by excruciators…or by her.

  All the way up, he was intently watched by the forms of jewel-eyed gods in their niches. He averted his gaze.

  Near the top of the stairs, just before he would have committed the ultimate sacrilege of actually entering the denied chamber, he lowered himself to his belly like a sand-crawler and peered over the last riser. Even as he watched, captivated by the vision of Lhalorin, thrilled by the sight of her among the forbidde
n Mysteries, he felt the hot gazes of the gods burning against his back.

  Lhalorin stood in the balustraded archways that ringed the cupola, pale against the night. She picked up from a table the shining brass tube the Keeper had confiscated from the Stranger upon his capture, and put it to her eye.

  He expected her to be struck down for her sins.

  He expected her to be blinded for her temerity.

  Instead she murmured: “The stars. They are neither lanterns hung by the gods nor reflections of our own fires. They burn in a sky that is not solid.”

  Diaban instinctively clapped his hands to his ears, but too late. The heresy had been spoken, he had heard the terrible words, and he was as damned as she who had uttered them.

  She drew a sharp, short gasp, and he wondered if he had made some slight sound.

  Then he heard what she had heard – many footfalls clicking up the stairs from below.

  They were dead, both he and she. She had trespassed, and he had allowed it. His dereliction of duty had permitted her to utter the blasphemy that had doomed them both. He felt as if his soul had been transformed to lead and was dragging him into the Pit. He only hoped that his years of service would allow him a quicker death than the other damned souls who had gone before.

  Though he could reasonably hold forth no hope for either of them, he still wanted to save her, but he had no idea how to do so. If he announced himself loudly to those ascending the stairs she might escape in the confusion, but it was more likely any sound on his part would only serve to betray her sooner.

  She hurriedly replaced the alien device on the table from where she had taken it, but not, he noticed grimly, in the same attitude it had lain. And it rolled across the table’s top, lingering frighteningly at the edge, ready to plummet. Lhalorin did not see the impending disaster obvious to Diaban, for she now crouched in shadows, behind jars crammed full of ancient parchments. But the brass tube, miraculously, did not fall.