by Andre Norton
Still partly hidden by the cloak, that writhed. Not here, but far away as if that which gave it life was at a distance, the girl heard a cry of rage and agony. The cloak charred, giving forth a vile-smelling black smoke. Flame ran back and forth across the material, leaving only ash behind. As the burned fabric fell away, the noisome thing beneath it struggled a little before it followed the cloak into ashes. Still that residue lay in a distinct pattern on the floor, forming the outline of a nude body, not the near-skeleton they had seen when Borkin had begun to uncover it—but rather as if what had been destroyed was full fleshed.
Now the light of the sword swept up and down its length. There came a gleam from the pavement, reddish, as if there were coals there still sullenly alive. From head to foot Makil pointed the beam—then back again, until there was nothing left—not even the powder of the ashes.
“They know now—surely—” Eban commented as they stood staring at the stretch of flooring on which now an already fading stain marked the ancient death.
“Yes,” Borkin agreed heavily, “there was a linkage. They might have already been seeking, and what there remained of this one of them was enough to draw their power. He must have been a great master of evil in his time.”
“But—” Thora paused, ran her tongue over lips which were suddenly dry, “that—that thing could not have been alive!”
“It was not. However, with a linkage another will could animate it for a moment. It might have done even more, had there been time and opportunity. I would say—” Borkin glanced about at the dim stretch of pillar framed aisles, “that it will be well for us to search this place carefully. If, by chance, another such as this one lies here—” He shook his head.
“That is well said!” Martan agreed. “I would not have thought that they were so powerful. After all we have been many years—generations—learning what we can do. This awakening of the dead is a powerful ensorcellment indeed. How much else may they have to draw upon?”
Eban shrugged. “It is enough that they have any. But at least for now we have put an end to this particular game. Also our purpose is in part accomplished, when the master who strove to work his black art here met Lur's light he, himself, may have left this place of existence. Defeated spells can recoil threefold or more on those who launch them. However, his hounds will be out now, roused to the hunt. I would suggest we learn all we can in as short a time as possible—we may not go undisturbed for long.”
Thus once more Thora paced between the rows of boxes and containers—up one long aisle and down the next. There was little to be seen save that which was so carefully storaged. Though, when they reached that place where she and Malkin had camped, the furred people scattered, seeking other containers of the blood powder, seizing eagerly on more vials after Eban had taken the tight lid off a cylinder they pointed out. They stored their prizes in a large bag Malkin swung from one shoulder.
Kort ranged here and there, sometimes wedging his massive body through narrow spaces, to go sniffing along high piles. Then they came to the bulky things covered with the thick fabric. The valley men, Martan in the lead, cut the lashings on a couple of these and pulled away lengths of the protections, to uncover what were not unlike massive wagons of a kind Thora had never seen. Martan, eagerly crawling up, around, and over these, announced that he was certain they had once been fashioned to travel across land, even as the wings had been meant to aid man into the sky. But there was no way he could see to bring these to life again.
Yet Martan continued to look back at them wistfully as they moved on, and Thora believed that he wanted more than anything a chance to master one of those strange metal monsters and make it serve him even as it has served men of a near-forgotten time.
Why had these been left here so protected, she wondered? Were they intended to carry away the other materials stored here? Were they to transport people? Or were they really weapons of some kind—stored ready for other raiders to carry red ruin across the land? Had those Before had such deadly enemies? No one might ever know now. Whatever purpose they were left here to answer would go now forever undiscovered.
The size of this place amazed her more and more. They discovered again the sentry at his everlasting watch, found that other door through which Thora, Malkin and Kort had come—continued past and on. The length of the shadowed cavern-hall was almost beyond their reckoning and they came to a stop at last, tired and hungry, to rest among the boxes, so awed by the mere sight of all this hidden store of the unknown that they spoke very little.
Kort had vanished and Thora grew worried. There were the rat things—Did those come inside? Also, though they had found no more evidence of any invasion by Dark forces, they had not explored completely. And every time she thought of that body which had tried to rise, imbued with false life, she shivered. Tarkin laid her hand gently on the girl's arm and looked up into her face.
“The dead—they are gone—”
“But you saw—what if the power might use—others—so ?'’
Just as she spoke there rang out a furious barking, a sound which was both a challenge and a warning. Kort's alert brought them all to their feet, facing toward the other end of the high chamber—to where they had entered and the Weapon of Lur had proven its power.
13
Thora began to run, taking no heed of the others. In spite of the distortion caused by echoes, she was sure of her goal. Kort's clamor meant there was danger, something very much to be feared. She began to school her first unthinking response into more fruitful caution, not cutting the speed with which she ran, but rather watching ahead for any cover which the storage might provide. She watched, too, for any shadow or movement which might have no place there, ever glancing overhead now and then. The valley men had wings—though those could not have been used here. But who knew what surprises the Dark Ones might have uncovered when there was need? However all she sighted was the grey form of one of the furred people who had clambered up to the top of those piles of boxes and was running along there even more swiftly than she.
The advantage of an advance aloft caught Thora's instant attention and she took precious moments to mount a stairway of containers and follow (with leaps between piles) the same path. Just as quickly as it had begun, Kort's warning was cut off.
Had he been killed? Thora choked down, brought under control, her instant flare of rage at that thought. This was no time to allow emotion to cloud her judgment, hamper what skills she had so painfully learned.
The furred one ahead (though the light was dimmer here aloft)—she was sure that was Tarkin. But this was no easy road. Many times Thora went to her hands and knees, not daring to look down as she balanced on one pile or another, lest she be forced into a misstep. Nor did she glance back to see if the valley men followed. Kort was not their comrade—they owed him nothing. They might even consider, that, for the success of their own mission, they should sacrifice the hound—or her. She still mistrusted Borkin, at least, if it came to a matter of such a choice.
She reached the end of the long aisle and could see, across a wide space of open, the wall of the cavern hall. Yes, it was Tarkin who crouched there before her. And to their right, not too far away was the muddle of the dead. To the left—
That direction looked oddly murky, more shadowy, as if whatever source lighted this place had begun to fail or had been deliberately tampered with. And it was from that direction, the girl was sure, Kort had sounded his alarm.
She hesitated and then forced herself to jump to the next pile in the companion aisle to the one down from which she had come. But she was too uncertain of her footing to leap a wider space now before her though Tarkin sailed across with ease.
Instead she must cross at floor level, and, since to descend and mount thus at every aisle would only waste time, Thora scuttled across the pavement. She had thus passed the mouths of two more aisles when a stench clogged her nostrils, bringing acrid bile into her throat. If evil could be distilled as the Craig women distilled the
scents of herbs and flowers to make sweet their homes and their persons, this was then its very essence.
Fighting down nausea, Thora slowed pace. That smell was a warning enough. It would not do for her to plunge blindly on into the midst of what might be a band of well-armed enemies—those who controlled in addition unknown forces.
Reaching down, she caught at the gem which she had brought into the open after their encounter with the unquiet dead. The stone was warm in her hand, and not because her touch had made it so. A single glance was enough to show it was glowing. Hastily she grasped it tightly, her fingers hiding that gleam, feeling confident that those she went to face would be warned by their sensing, if not by sight of it. Then she strove to order and quiet her own thoughts, to build a wall behind which to imprison emotion. So she might go into battle with all the strength of will she possessed.
Tarkin had not descended from her more lofty path, being able to make easily the leaps which carried her from one line of storage containers to the next. Now the furred one paused and with a wide sweep of her arm, signalled to Thora. Unwillingly the girl pressed against the next barrier of boxes, while the furred one swung down until her head was not far from Thora's.
Her hissing speech was no louder than the faintest of human whispers. Though any sound in this heavy silence seemed so acute that Thora had even limited her breathing to the most shallow and lightest of gasps—still fearing that that might be heard.
“Near—up!”
Another wave of the claw hand. Tarkin scuttled back to the top of the box wall. Thora, gripping the haft of her spear between her jaws with a pressure which made them ache, followed her up, to lie belly down on the perch and survey what lay ahead.
At first she could see nothing of Kort. But there were indeed others there. The sight of them froze her, sent her again striving to regulate her breathing.
She counted some ten men—not red robes—but men, such as she had seen among the river pirates. Save that these wore—like the valley men—a single form of garment—not odds and ends of looted clothing. That garment—a grey-brown in color not unlike Tarkin's fur—so melted into the shadow which appeared oddly thick here, that, if it was not for their movements and glimpses of their very white faces, she would not have been able to distinguish them. For many of them wore coverings also over their head—not the hoods of cloaks—but rather mufflings which left only a portion of their cheeks and chins showing—the rest being holed for their eyes.
Three well to the fore had doffed those head coverings, revealing only bleached white skin—as if they wore skulls upon their shoulders. Even the tops of their heads sprouted no hair, and their features were odd in cast, possessing an indefinably alien aspect. Thora could not explain that difference—she only knew it existed.
Their eyes were so large and sunken, that, at first glance, one might believe the bony sockets empty pits within the planes of those skulls. The noses were long, thin, and sharp at the tip, not unlike avian bills in contour, while the mouths those noses overhung were wide and very thin-lipped—the lips so dark in color they might have been stained with clotted blood—looking far more like unhealed wounds than normal features.
Each was so like his fellows that all three might have been brothers, of a single family. And, as they stood there, a little apart from their companions, they kept gazing about, the three heads sometimes jerking sharply from left to right and back again, as if they were impatiently waiting for someone else to arrive.
At length Thora located Kort. The struggles of the hound had rolled his body over close to the base of the very pile of boxes on which she now crouched. He was looped around and around with a black cord which showed starkly against the lighter fur of his belly and Thora saw that a couple of strands had been drawn about his muzzle so that he could not open his mouth, though he still writhed and fought against his bonds.
One of the waiting unmasked glanced at the helpless hound and uttered a grating sound which Thora thought might be laughter. He made a slight hand gesture and the nearest of the masked men strode to Kort's side to plant a boot into the hound's ribs, sending him slamming back against the stacked boxes.
Thora's grip on her spear was so tight that her fingers ached. But she had only that and her knife, and the enemy were too many to attack blindly. To be captured herself would not help Kort and might well be the end of the trail for them both. To fall into the hands of the Dark Ones did not only mean perhaps torment and bodily death, but worse—an entrapment of the spirit—perhaps just such as they had tried on Karn in their own citadel.
Still the girl was very aware that the callous cruelty of that blow, had, in a small way, been a favor. Now the girl looked to Tarkin, edging closer to the furred one. The murky light here was so great a disguise for that small, slim body that surely Tarkin and the advantage over those below.
The furred one's hand flashed out, claws closed about the hilt of Thora's precious knife, then Tarkin nodded downwards. Did she believe she could so loose, Kort? And, once being loose, might not the enraged hound betray them by attacking at the men? Thora had no sure way of communicating now with Kort. So she gripped tight Tarkin's wrist when her companion would have unsheathed the knife.
The furred one jerked back impatiently. With her other hand Tarkin pointed to the men, shaking her head so vehemently it was plain that she believed any chance to free Kort must be made immediately. Reluctantly Thora allowed her weapon to be drawn. Then Tarkin slipped away across the boxes, moving like a shadow among a haze of shadows—this with the ease of one who might have done this many times over.
She dropped to the floor, disappeared into the well of the dusk which held Kort. He who had laughed at the struggles of the hound impatiently waved a hand. His force appeared alert to the silent command. They melted away—vanishing as quickly and quietly as Tarkin had, perhaps only into hiding where Thora could not detect them.
Into the space where they had stood only moments earlier strode another small party. Here came the glow of a red cloak, the cloth of it seeming to radiate, so that he who wore it carried with him a nebula of bloody mist. He, too, went bareheaded and Thora, with a thrill of what she honestly admitted to herself was fear, recognized the Dark One she had confronted in that other place.
What was so important as to bring him? Did the Dark Ones believe that in this place lay some potent weapon or piece of knowledge which was worth the personal attention of one of their major leaders—so that he had come himself in search of it? Or was it that he had been drawn here by the arrival of the valley party, feeling so secure that he did not have to fear attack? Or was there, too, another possibility—that the red cloak lords, in spite of all their powers, did not trust their undersings? Perhaps it was a combination of all these which had produced this more formidable opponent now.
He stared about him with an arrogant air, not speaking to the waiting men, rather ignoring them completely as if it were his decision alone as to the worth of what might lie here, as if his eyes could pierce each container or box and instantly be aware of the value of its contents. While the unmasked trio, impassive as to countenance, retreated, to stand with the two others who had followed him, leaving the fore field free to their commander.
One of those who had followed him here was a blind drummer. His bare body was crossed by a wide sling to which was attached a drum—neither that tall one, nor the bowl shaped one, which her spear and knife of vision had shattered. This was a cylinder, resting near his hip to one side, and he constantly smoothed the skin of it with his fingertips, producing a low humming not unlike the sound an insect might make. His blind eyes were wide white spheres, and his head was a little atilt as if he listened for something which other ears might not hope to catch. His companion was—
Thora sucked in her breath before she mastered her surprise. She had seen the furred ones—who her people did not know, and those legions of the Red cloaks, who were foreign to the country of the Craigs. Doubtless the western lands held other li
fe strange to those within their own boundaries, and largely discounting the tales of the traders.
What this was—and it was NOT a human, of that she was sure—she could not have said. In the first place she would have believed it would have been more likely to go forefooted because of its shape, yet it padded along on its wide-clawed hind feet, its sinuous body topping the shoulder of the drummer, the front paws dangling against its belly. And those paws were very close in general shape to hands. The head was long and so narrow it seemed merely an elongation of the thick neck. This it swung from side to side, as it also shifted its weight from one foot to the other, while the lips of its pointed muzzle were wrinkled back in an ever present snarl.
The eyes in the head were small but, as with the furred ones, they showed highly luminous—being of a sickly yellow-green. While the fur or hide which covered it was patched with black, gray and yellow splotches in a wild profusion which appeared to make some portions near invisible in this dull light, other parts stood out clearly.
However, the worst of it was the aura of intelligent malignancy which hung about it, even as the red cloak hung about its master. Not only was it utterly vicious, but that viciousness was twined with an alien cast of mind which threatened a new danger.
Instinctively Thora pressed her moon gem to her breast as she had from the moment the Dark Lord and his two companions had come into sight. Now she felt the blaze of warmth in her talisman. Only a near source of great Power could have brought such response from the gem.
Still the cloaked leader stood unmoving, only his eyes traveled over what lay before him. Then he gave a single curt nod. As if he had been able to see, the blind drummer left off his humming strokes, now brought his fingers sharply down in a quick pattering of taps which sounded almost like words spoken in an unknown tongue.
And—
He was answered! Thora half-slewed about on her perch, a sharp fear stabbing at her. For those drum notes came from behind, from out somewhere along those many aisles. Kort must have run into only one party, while the rest of the enemy were exploring the chamber in greater force, setting up a net to capture those who had invaded it before them.
