by Chris Turner
“You see?” Kahel growled.
Risgan became vexed. “You’re one to talk, Archer. You didn’t even lower yourself to attend the chief’s meeting.” He threw his hands in the air. “Find your own women. Do not involve me in your schemes.” Risgan strode away with rancour.
Holding secret conference with Jurna, he thoughtfully appraised the Ayachi chief. When the chief was disposed, he visited his tent. After some words, the chief whistled in keen agreement. In a quiet voice Gilmin told them to return to his tent in a quarter of an hour...
In lock step with the ghoulmen, Hesgau the Imthus medicine mage came marching up to catch Risgan on his way to his tent and somewhere nearby to relieve himself. The mage seemed adamant to offer further persuasions on the wisdom of Ampfu. The rattle must be handed over to his chief. Risgan, remembering the mage’s earlier treachery, curled his lips in sardonic amusement. He had a sly suspicion that this double-tongued conjurer was a liability and he took him privately aside. “Would your chief consider relinquishing the rattle in exchange for a costly gem found in a crypt near Zanzuria?” Reaching into his pouch, he withdrew the youth talisman. Hands outstretched and conveniently covered by the hems of his cloak, he offered the object.
The medicine mage gave a grunt of dismissal. “You are smoking too many desert weeds, outlander.”
“Touch it!” urged Risgan. “The dark underside is soft as velvet.” He tossed the bauble to the mage and gave a smiling leer.
“By no means!” the mage cried, recoiling from the cursed relic. “The texture is cold and rough.” He tossed it back into Risgan’s hands and gave a contemptuous roar. “Why do you wear your shirt tucked around your fingers like that?”
Risgan’s gesture was casual. “I do not wish to mar the immaculate face of the gem.”
The medicine mage grunted and extended brief sounds to indicate that the possibility was remote.
Kahel approached while the mage stumped off. He spoke in a suspicious tone, “What were you talking to that goblin about? What is this bizarre gem you keep offering people? Or are my eyes playing tricks?”
“Probably the latter,” responded Risgan astutely. “You may have seen me flaunting my father’s belt buckle, another heirloom. Now, if you please—” He motioned to his bladder which seemed to be bulging.
A respectable time later, Risgan and Jurna took formal conference with Gilmin in the confines of his opulent tent replete with padded divans, sweet incense, dates, sweetmeats and wine. Behind a silky back flap was revealed a twain of makeshift divans. A lavish place, thought Risgan. With ceremony, he and Jurna were ushered in by slaves along with a choice of their picking of his lithesome daughters. The drape closed. Risgan pulled back the soft garment of waist-fabric that revealed the gleaming, oiled thigh of Ptava, Gilmin’s youngest daughter, and his favourite. Since he was no puritan, the afternoon passed in ripe, provocative possibilities. The woman looked back at Risgan with quizzical languor, with no great urgency of interest. At a pivotal moment in their congress, she cried out in a voice of seemingly passionless fervour:
“The rattle! Surely you must extend possession of the sacred rattle of Civin to my father’s keeping.”
Risgan rolled back in puzzlement. “What’s that you say?”
“The rattle!”
Risgan stroked the supple, curvaceous form of the girl with amused forbearance. “We shall see, we shall see... Right now I am more interested in attending to your balmy secrets and your sleek thighs, not rattles... incidentally, these thighs of yours could be given more expansive latitude.”
Ptava gave a sultry pout. “That can be easily arranged.”
So passed some more luxurious intervals and keeping close clutch on the rattle, Risgan resumed his exertions. Low bursts of thunder erupted from the cloudless sky in moments of mutual liveliness. Likewise, Jurna had been invited to commit to similar amorous indulgences fraught with sugared requests, to which he remained immune.
Kahel, left to his own devices, was suspicious of the extended layover of his peers and inquired at length. He learned that Risgan and Jurna dallied with the arresting dames of Gilmin’s brood and he ran to the chief’s tent, demanding entrance. He was rebuffed, to his annoyance.
Jurna, relaxed and amiable, intoxicated by the afternoon’s doings, sipped cool refreshments and whispered a suggestion in Risgan’s ear. Risgan coughed loudly, laughing absurdly. “No, I think not, Jurna, that would be pushing it too far. Are women even capable of that?”
Balael was instructed to translate into tribespeak and the chief gave a nervous laugh and shook his head, eyes to the ceiling. “Perhaps a sample of each?
The two relic hunters blinked at each other and gave whimsical shrugs. Another hour passed blissfully in halcyon ease.
The two emerged, somewhat buoyant and light of leg, and Gilmin asked of the pending deal of trade regarding rattle for the women and here Jurna and Risgan both registered blankness. They explained that in all fairness they must consult with the Imthus leader, Ampfu, to ensure that fair adjudication of his maids was made, and that Gilmin would certainly be informed of the decision.
The chief grit his teeth but agreed that the interaction was only fair.
The two swung drunkenly out of his tent where they were instantly besieged by an incensed Kahel who was left speechless, upon learning that he was left out of the rite—if rite it was; indeed, he had not even been considered as one of the ‘judges’.
Risgan spoke, “Calm yourself, Kahel. I found the rattle, and besides, somebody has to volunteer for such a sordid task.”
“Sordid? Sampling the wares?” Kahel railed in biting sarcasm.
Jurna straightened his belt. A cherubic smile was writ on his face. “We would not want to insult the chief.”
“We would not want to insult the chief,” mimicked Kahel angrily. The explanation served as a spur to vex him further. Flexing fists and muttering oaths, he stalked off, his thoughts dark.
Risgan, flush faced and light-footed, termed Kahel’s childish behaviour as that of an ingrate. He slipped off with Jurna to visit Ampfu’s tent.
The Isthmus maids, though not of kin to the chief, were just as ample as Gilmin’s, if not equally comely. He was not surprised to hear persuasions of similar nature exuding from their honeyed lips. At one time behind the back flaps of the Imthus tent Risgan halted his industry to voice a sharp complaint, noticing the harsh rustle of black fabric nearby. A ghoulish eye had retreated behind the drape. Risgan looked further to discover the toes of one of the detestable ghoulmen pointed his way: a greenish mouldiness of colour and a flick of an ugly toe-like member fitted in sharp iron clips. Likely these instruments were for preventing a hen-scratching of a victim in the height of night. Risgan pondered the mystery, musing that such creatures guarded the entrance on chance that a curious clansman or eavesdropper might blunder in on the sound of a passionate cry... Perhaps the fiends were there to choke the life out of him and his companion should his hand slip or back track from the rattle.
More likely... Risgan voiced a strident disapproval of that possibility and Ampfu came running to discover the source of Risgan’s distress. Clutching the ceremonial rattle and covering himself with a blanket, Risgan nearly gagged at the sight and smell of the two encroaching ghoulmen. “I find it difficult to concentrate with the presence of these quasi-humans poised at opposite ends of the drapery. They sneak up like voyeurs, peering in at me and sweet Basana with eyes of predacious owls.”
Ampfu, flustered by the accusation, made abrupt gestures to his mascots and the ghoulmen were shortly removed from the premises. “As I hinted,” the chief grumbled, “the two are a twain, secured from an Imthus raid two years back at Az-Dalon. Both are relatively harmless, at least with respect to their nose-torques installed.”
Risgan did not give much credence to this defence; in fact, his stomach gave an unpleasant lurch upon future speculations as to the ghoulmen’s habits, as he casually retched to the side, much to his bedpartner’s c
ontempt.
Catching sight of Risgan’s greenness, the chief uttered a querulous complaint, “You do not like my women? This comprises a serious insult. My honour is assailed and I must sadly summon my axeman.”
“Are you mad?” cried Risgan. “Go!” he thundered, lofting high the rattle. He elicited a perilous outpouring from the heavens. “Do not bother us again! Bring no more vile ghoulmen in here!”
Ampfu, pursing lips, tramped away.
With the removal of the ghoulmen, Risgan resumed his labours. After a rigorous interlude, he swayed back on the divan. A quarter of an hour later he stumbled light-headedly out of the tent. Jurna was left inside still finishing up his important business. When the journeyman finally emerged, there was a company of tribesmen gathered around the sides, milling and muttering.
Risgan tossed his comrade a quizzical glance. Jurna added a terse nod. “Though a tough choice,” Risgan said, “I think I favour Ampfu’s women overall. They have a softer and more yielding touch, as I’m sure is common opinion.” Jurna nodded, though he pointed out that the middlemost daughter of Gilmin’s probably was the most original in her feigned pleasures.
Risgan agreed. The two chiefs simultaneously approached and pressed Risgan and Jurna for their verdicts on the women.
“All in good time,” counselled Risgan. “We must first deliberate over our decision. By sundown, we will give our final determination.”
There was much stir amongst the tribesmen. The proclamation came unexpectedly, given the criticality of the circumstances, much as Risgan had planned. Gilmin was incensed at the delay and chanced to overhear a hint of their earlier conversation that they preferred the Isthmus women. He made threatening motions with his spirit-stick.
Risgan reached suggestively for his rattle. An unmeditated rumble of thunder rolled across the clear sky. Gilmin and his entourage halted their displays. “May I remind you,” advised Risgan bluffly, “Moeze’s magic stench tube is not far on the wings of this thunder.”
Gilmin grumbled and turned about.
The final hour arrived. Risgan sat weighing the size and strength of the armies and thought the Imthus might have the slighter edge. With this in mind, he handed over the rattle to Gilmin, the opposing chief, and stood back, waiting for their reaction.
Instead of the predictable, amicable partings, coarse grumbles were exchanged and insults quickly grew to diatribe and perilous ultimatums.
A ring of enemies surrounded the Ayachi and their devotees, prompting Gilmin to demonstrate a use of the rattle. A thin fork of lighting arched silently across the heavens to explode to bits a nearby dagbar tree.
The Imthus warriors shrank back in loathing, lips peeled back in fright. Howling in glee, Gilmin shook the sacred talisman again. Triumph and exultation brimmed from his lips. Another fork of lightning slid through the sky, slithering like an insidious snake and descended wildly upon Gilmin to slit him in two.
Chaos and bedlam smote the tribespeople. Amidst the smoke and the charnel stench of sizzled flesh, warriors scrambled to snatch up weapons and seize the all-powerful, doom-dealing talisman.
Risgan and company scrambled back; they watched in silent amazement. Amidst the chaos, they took up positions behind their sagging tent. Then the band quietly crept away with mounts muzzled, hoping to gain safer but nearby climes.
Dust devils and mini-tornadoes dropped from the sky and wherever pockets of tribesmen gathered to snatch up the rattle, the whirlwinds descended indiscriminately.
The nomads were swept up, carried off to oblivion.
Opposing warriors, seeing the lie of the land, snatched up spears and bows and slingshots and took to their turlyns. In a thunder of hooves and battle cries, the plains warriors soon were killing each other with passion, hurling poison darts, circling and howling, each trying to wrest the sacred rattle from the other’s hands.
The ghoulmen, winning free of their vile nose-torques, ran amok. They devoured Ayachi and Imthus alike. Finally they were succumbed by Ayachi sabres and were hacked to pieces. But in the final skirmish barely a few doddering old warriors were left in the sea of blood.
Risgan stumbled dazedly through the mounds of corpses. He hurried to reclaim the ceremonial rattle from the upthrust blood-clawed finger of the slain Ampfu, or was it Hesgau? It was difficult to say, so disfigured were the remains.
Kahel picked his through the butchered mounts and grimaced at the senseless carnage of it all. He replenished his arrow supply from dead men while the others gained new weapons from the corpses. A survivor of the Ayachi tribe held up his palms in distress, thinking he was about to be cut down.
Risgan raised a hand of truce. He learned the man was a didor tracker. Also that he clung desperately to life. As the tribesman was somewhat sympathetic to the gathering of treasure, Risgan allowed him a small place in their band—a supplement to replace the unfortunate Yimbir. His name was Ucyglix, a gaunt, flat-faced, sling-shot wielder with grey streams of hair in his matted crown. Feather ribbons decorated his barbarous cloak; a tooth of a great ghoulman hung on a beaded string at his chest which Risgan took cordial offence to and told him to remove it at once.
The man complied. The treasure hunters gave Ucyglix one of the pack-beasts. They distributed the company’s wares to the last remaining didor and pack-beasts. Hape had fallen to a desert fever, but luckily recovered in a short day.
They left the sorrowful place, making good time, eager to be away from the smell of blood and the aura of slaughter.
The sun dipped in a wash of purple on the horizon and they made camp in a section of natural caves a day’s ride away under the advice of Balael.
2: The Last Magician of Mirdask
The sun arched high. The relic-seekers were plunged in a sultry haze of dawn. The ride west was permeated by a heavy plod of hooves, the low snuffling of the didor, and the swishing of where-back tails which chased away the pestering sand flies.
From a distance of a half league they saw meandering lines of weathered pillars flanking an old road, somewhat of an enclosing fence, Risgan saw. Winding like a snake, the wall of columns stretched as far as the eye could see. With curiosity and misgiving they rode to investigate.
The first sandstone pillars presently came into view. These were of a dull pink colour and set at intervals of roughly a dozen feet. Once they had been flanking supports of a long temple causeway, with a roof perhaps, of wood, or clay, but had long since disintegrated.
The travellers thought the mirage was an atmospheric trick, but the desert trail grew to a stone roadway swinging between the columns like a thoroughfare, a route which Balael identified as the causeway to what was known as the Land of Falling Favour. “Here, we are nearing the place of Lim-Lalyn,” he proposed. “The emperor Vhaud spent fifty years toiling with a thousand slaves to erect these columns, sprinkling them with a potency, the warding spells of his own magicians.”
Risgan squinted dubiously at the near-crumbling pillars. “They look as old as the moon.”
“You can even see the signs of his heritage,” Balael bubbled on. “A half league to the north, you will see a faint sprawl of ruins hidden amongst rounded dunes and cadaverous cypress. It’s a derelict city of sorts—domes, spires, and pylons crouching amongst fallen masonry and wind-blown sand.” The company saw that long since had the spires toppled, and the domes had split or cracked, nor was there any lustre to those big black broken blocks.
Balael motioned gravely: “Once a beautiful city was Tuvvost, the hearthstone of Zanthia! Now a dilapidated ruin, given to dust and decay by the arrows of the warlike Negir. Vhaud was once happy here.”
Hape scratched his head with puzzlement. “Vhaud seems like an easy man to please.”
“Hardly,” warned Balael. “He was known for his bizarre caprice. The ghoulmen made this their haunt and one is safe only within the confines of the causeway.” He gesticulated to the path. “Stay on the path! The emperor erected it for this reason, as a fence for all citizens to pass free from th
e assaults of the ghoulmen. Stray from the road only at your own peril!”
“We shan’t,” assured Risgan.
“I commend the efforts of Vhaud,” asserted Jurna.
“I no less,” cried Risgan, “particularly Vhaud’s scions who must have upheld the tradition and repaired the mortar.” Risgan hoped the implicit compliment might ensure a hopeful appeal for safe passage, spoken aloud to the spirits.
“Remember!” called Balael sternly. “Tread within the safe confines of the columns. Venturing beyond is an act of folly and death.”
Jurna made an ingenuous reply: “And what, pray tell, specifically are these ghoulmen?”
“As you have witnessed,” barked Balael, “like Ampfu’s ghoulmen. Long ago, the mad satrap Gohost took it in his addled brain to thwart the wizard, Wozganon. The mage, a macabre and eldritch sort, a hunchback, set a banquet for his monarch to trap his fellows into eating a toxic meat laced with cinocide, a rare boric herb. It turned out that the herb was potent and transformed most of his trusted citizens and courtiers into ghouls—creatures of empty mind, with cravings only for human flesh. The brutes wander about the steppes even now only able to utter monosyllables. Ages ago the original breed ran amok, fleeing into the desert. They formed the cabal of ‘Xixtich’, the modern day ghoulmen, which you see and hear of today in urban myth—hence, which prompted Vhaud’s eccentric constructions.”
A pause of sardonic reflection gripped the company.
“And these then are the ghoulmen?” inquired Kahel.
“None other.”
“Well,” ventured Risgan, “let us hope then that we do not fall foul of Gohost or his henchmen.”
Balael pursed his lips. “A practical wish, Risgan, now I suggest that we be on our way. Nighttime descends quickly in the desert, and I have heard rumours that the column shield is not as secure as it ought to be, especially where the rocks tilt and teeter askew, or lie in broken clumps.”
