Quag Keep

by Andre Norton

  Milo glanced at Deav Dyne, the one among them best trained to pick up any emanation of Chaos, or perhaps of some other evil even older than men now living could guess. But the cleric’s eyes were fast closed, he must be concentrating upon his own petitions. The swordsman went after the berserker. Even Yevele had picked a way to that opening, avoiding the noisome litter on the deck.

  The faint stench of corruption was stronger here. Ingrge snapped his firestone and caught up a bit of ancient rag to bind about an arrow shaft. He did not use his bow, but rather sent the small flame down as a hand-thrown dart. It stuck into a chest, burning brightly enough to let them see that nothing now moved there.

  What they looked into was a well, over which reached, fore and aft, a walkway. On either side of it were wedged great stoppered jars, plus a few chests piled one upon the other. Afreeta fluttered down to perch on the sealed lid of one of those mantall jars, pecking away at it between intervals of hissing. For the third time Naile laughed.

  “She has found us what we asked of her. Down there lies something drinkable.”

  Milo could hardly believe that countless centuries might have left any water unevaporated. He swung over and down, making his way cautiously toward the jar Afreeta indicated, alert to any sound from out of the dark which might signal that all the liches had not yet come forth to fight. Reluctantly he sheathed his sword, used his dagger to pick at the black sealing stuff on the jar which was near iron-hard. At last, using the blade as a chisel and the pommel of his sword as a hammer, he broke loose a first small chunk. Once that was free the rest flaked into a dust Milo could brush away.

  He levered up the lid.

  “What have we then?” Naile demanded as the swordsman leaned over to sniff at the contents. “Wine of the gods?”

  The smell was faint but the jar was full to within two fingers’ breadth of the top. Milo wiped a finger on his breeches and lowered it. Wet and thin—not like something that had begun to solidify. He drew forth his finger, holding it close to his nose. The skin was pink, as if flushed by blood. But the smell that came to his nostrils was not unpleasant.

  “Not water, but liquid,” he reported to those above. Afreeta clung to the lip of the jar and sent her spade-tipped tongue within, to lick and lick again at its contents. An object dangled down to swing within Milo’s reach. He recognized one of the smaller bottles that had been fastened to their saddles.

  “Give me a sample!” Naile boomed from above.

  Obediently the swordsman wiped off the outer skin of the bottle, pushed it deep enough into the container so that a wave of liquid was sent gurgling into the bottle. Then he allowed it to swing aloft.

  Prying loose the burning arrow he trod carefully along the runway of the hold. There were at least fifty of the great jars, all sealed and wedged upright, as if their one-time owners were determined they would not leave their racks before the ship came to harbor once more.

  The chests were less well protected against the ravages of time. He threw open two, to expose masses of ill-smelling stuff that might have either been food or material now near rotted into slime. Of the liches or where they had been during their imprisonment here he could see no sign. He had no wish to move far from the promise of escape the open hatch gave.

  When Milo swung up, via a helping rope of two capes twisted together, he found Deav Dyne with his healing potions. Wymarc’s arm was already bound, and the bard held his hand out before him, flexing his fingers one after the other to test their suppleness. Ingrge and Yevele, portions of material wrapped about their noses and mouths, were using the sweep of their swords and Yevele’s shield to push from the deck, over into the dust, the remains of the spectre force.

  Gulth squatted by the far mast. His quartz-studded weapon lay across his knees, and he had bowed his head on his folded arms, as if he had withdrawn into some inner misery. Naile lay on the deck, his hairy thigh exposed. Into his wound Deav Dyne was dribbling some of the liquid from the newly opened jar below.

  “Ha, swordsman.” Naile hailed Milo. “It would seem these dead men had something to fight for after all.” He took the flask from the cleric’s hand and allowed a goodly portion to pour from its spout into his mouth. Deav Dyne gave one of his narrow, grudging smiles.

  “If I be not mistaken, today we have found a treasure here. This is the fabled Wine of Pardos, that which heals the body, sharpens the wits, was the delight of the Emperors of Kalastro in the days before the Southern Mountains breathed forth the plague of fire. But,” now Deav Dyne’s smile faded, “we have troubled something that may have been a balance in this land and who knows what will come of that?”

  Naile took another and larger swallow. “Who cares, priest? I have drunk of the vintages of the Great Kingdom—and twice plundered caravans of the Paynim who fancy themselves the greatest vintners of our age. Naught they could offer goes so smoothly down a man’s throat, fuels such a gentle warmth in his belly, or makes him look about him with a brighter eye. Wine of Pardos or not”—he set down the flask and slapped his hand against his chest—“by the Brazen Voice of Ganclang, I am whole and a proper man again!”

  Since Deav Dyne had pronounced the bounty from below good they drew upon it freely, filling the skins that had shrunken to empty flaps. Gulth offered no refusal when the cleric washed down once more the lizardman’s dust-clogged skin and soaked his cloak in another of the jars; leaving it there to become completely saturated.

  They made their camp on board the ship and speculated as to what had brought it boiling out of the dust and set its dead defenders upon them. Perhaps here, too, a geas had been set on ship and defenders which their disturbance of its burial had brought so to fulfillment. Though the elf and the cleric had used their talents to sniff out any form of the Greater Magic that might lie on board, both admitted that they were left with that mystery unresolved. Milo privately believed that the army of the liche had not been set, for what might be a millennium, merely to guard a cargo of wine jars, precious though those might be.

  He could not deny that the wine did have powers of recuperation. Wounds bathed in it closed nearly instantly, while it was as refreshing to the taste as the clearest and coldest of spring water could have been. As he took the second part of the night watch, he moved slowly back and forth along the deck wishing they might use this ship to travel onward. But the masts were bare of any sail, and neither he nor the others, though they had discussed the matter wistfully, could see any other form of propulsion. They had not tried to explore the ship farther than the hatch Naile had originally forced open.

  At the stern there was the bulk of a cabin, the door of which had resisted even Naile’s strength when he had earlier tried it. Milo believed that the berserker was now willing to leave well enough alone. The battle with the liches, a victory though it had been, had left them all shaken. It was one thing to face the living, another to have to batter to pieces things already dead but endowed with the horrible strength and will these had displayed.

  Milo made his way to the bow of the ship. As always, in the Sea of Dust, here came a soft whispering from the dunes. Now it seemed to him that he heard more than just the wind-shift of the dust, that the whispering was real. He strained to catch actual words, words uttered in a voice below, just below, the level of his hearing. So vivid was the impression that out there enemy forces were gathering that he glanced now and then to his bracelet, expecting to see it come to life in warning. Milo made his sentry rounds, up one side of the deck, down the other, passing the cloak-wrapped forms of the others, with an evergrowing urgency. He even went to hang over the side railing and stare down to where the debris of the battle had been flung.

  But there was nothing of it to be seen—shattered bone, rustbreached armor, all had vanished into the dust as if those they had fought had never existed at all. However, there was something abroad in the night—

  The swordsman set a firm rein upon his imagination. There was nothing abroad in the night! He was well aware that his sense
s were far inferior to those of either Ingrge or Naile—that Afreeta, perhaps, had the keenest ability of them all. Surely the wine they had drunk had not brought any dimming of mind with it—only a renewal of strength.

  Then why did he seek what was neither to be seen nor heard?

  Still he tramped the deck and watched and waited. For what he could not have said. Ridden by increasing uneasiness, he went to awaken Naile to take the next watch. Yet the swordsman hesitated to speak of his unrest, knowing full well that the berserker would be far more able to detect anything that was wrong.

  Milo could not remember having dreamed so vividly before as he did now in the sleep into which he swiftly slid. The dream had the same background as when he had been on watch, possessing such reality he might have been fastened by some spell to the mast, immobile and speechless, to watch what happened.

  Naile, limping very little, was making the same round Milo himself had followed during his tour as sentry. When the berserker reached the bow of the ship the second time, he stood still, a certain tenseness in his stance, his head turned to stare southward over the billows of the dust sea.

  Then Milo, in the dream, followed Naile’s fixed gaze. It was . . . it was like those shadows that had dogged them across the plains, and yet not the same either. He believed that he did not really see, he only caught, through Naile’s mind, in some odd, indescribable way, the sensation of seeing. As if one were trying to describe to the blind the sense of sight itself. But there was that out there which Naile did not see and which held the berserker’s attention locked fast.

  Naile hitched his cloak about him, axe firmly grasped in his hand. He returned to where the ladder hung. Down he climbed, over the rail and into the dust. As he so passed out of Milo’s sight, the swordsman fought against the bonds of the dream, for he was now certain, without being told, that Naile Fangtooth was being drawn away, led by what he saw.

  Milo’s struggles to awaken did not break the dream. He was forced to watch Naile, dust shoes once more bound to his feet, slip and slide away from the ship, his broad back turned on his companions, as if they had been wiped from his memory. There was an eagerness in Naile’s going. It was almost as if he saw before him someone or something he had long sought. In spite of the unsteady surface beneath his feet, he ploughed steadily southward, while Milo was forced to watch him vanish, wearing a path among the whispering dunes.

  When Naile was swallowed up by the dust sea, Milo himself dropped into a darkness in which there was nothing more to be seen or puzzled over.

  “Milo!” A voice roared through the darkness, broke open his cocoon of not caring.

  He opened his eyes. On one side knelt Wymarc, the laughter lines about his generous mouth, bracketing his eyes, wiped from his suntanned skin. As Milo shifted his head at a touch upon his shoulder, he saw to his left Yevele, her helmet laid aside, so that the red-brown of her tightly-netted hair was fully visible. In her thin face her eyes narrowed in a strange wariness, measuring him.

  “What—?” he began.

  “Where is Naile?” The question drew Milo’s attention back to the bard.

  The swordsman levered himself up on his elbows. Out of the smothering and deadening dark from which they had drawn him came, in a burst of vivid memory, that strange dream. Before he thought of what might be only a vision he spoke aloud.

  “He went south.” And, at the same moment, he knew that he indeed spoke the truth.

  14

  Rockna the Brazen

  SWIFTLY MILO ADDED TO THAT GUESS (WHICH WAS NO GUESS, HE was certain, but the truth) the description of his dream. Deav Dyne nodded before the swordsman had finished. Head high, the cleric had drawn a little away to the same position in the bow that Naile had first held in Milo’s vision. Now he leaned forward, his attention centered afar as the berserker’s had been.

  Milo scrambled up behind him, one hand clutching at the cleric’s shoulder.

  “What do you see?” he demanded.

  His own eyes could pick up nothing but the waves of dust dunes marching on and on until the half-light of early dawn melted one into another.

  “I see nothing.” Deav Dyne did not turn his head. “But there is that out there which awakes a warning. Sorcery carries its own odor—one which can be tainted even as those dead befouled this ship.”

  The cleric’s nostrils were distended, now they quivered a little, as do those of a hound seeking out the trace of a quarry. Ingrge moved up to join them with the noiseless tread of his race.

  “Chaos walks.” His words were without emotion as he, too, stared into the endless rise and fall of the dust billows. “And yet . . .”

  Deav Dyne nodded sharply. “Yes, it is ‘and yet,’ elf-warrior. Evil—but of a new kind—or perhaps old mingled with the new. Our comrade-in-arms goes to seek it—and not with his mind—”

  “What do you mean?” Milo wanted to know.

  “That sorcery has laid a finger on him, and mighty must be the power of that finger. For the were-kin possess their own potent magic. I say that Naile Fangtooth does not govern his body in this hour, and perhaps even not his mind,” Deav Dyne replied slowly.

  The bard and Yevele had drawn closer. Now Wymarc slung his bagged harp over his shoulder.

  “That would argue that we may be needed,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Within himself Milo knew the truth of a decision he had not even been aware of making. Though they were not kin by either blood or choice (he had no strong liking for the were-kind as no fighter did who had not the power of the change) yet at this moment he could walk in no way that did not lead him on the trail of Naile. Tied they were, one to the other, by a bond stronger than choice.

  He glanced at the ring that had led them by its thread-map patterning. A film of dust lay across the veined stone. When Milo rubbed at the setting with his other thumb, striving to clear it, he discovered the haze was no dust but an apparent fading of the lines themselves.

  South and west Naile had tramped in the swordsman’s vision, Alfreeta curled in slumber about his throat. Was it that both the berserker and the pseudo-dragon had been ensnared in a single spell? Across these dust dunes what man could leave a trail to be followed after he himself had disappeared? The rest of them could wander here, lost, until they died from lack of water or were caught in the menace of some trap such as this ship had held. Yet, south and west they must go.

  They busied themselves with their packs. Gulth drew about him the cloak which had been left to soak up all that it might of the wine. Then, one by one, they dropped from the deck of the ship, their dust-walking shoes strapped on firmly, to set out in the wake of the berserker.

  The elf, as he had on the plain, moved to the fore of their party, walking with steady purpose as if he guessed what they sought lay ahead.

  Slowly the sun arose. In this land it had a pallor and was obscured from time to time by wind-driven clouds of grit. Once more they bound those strips cut from their clothing about their mouths, shielding that part of their faces left bare below the outjut of helm, the hood of travel cloak. Milo wondered at the sureness of the elf who led them. In this fog of dust he himself would have been long since lost, might perhaps wander in circles until he died.

  He kept close watch upon his map-ring, hoping that it would flare once more into life, provide a compass. That did not happen.

  Luckily those gusts of wind that carried the dust in swirls and clouds blew only intermittently. There were periods when the fog of particles was stilled. During one such moment, Ingrge paused, raised one hand in a signal that halted the others, the plodding Gulth, muffled in his now dust-covered cloak, plowing into Milo with force enough to nearly knock the swordsman from his feet.

  “What—?” Yevele’s voice was hoarse. She had uttered but that one word when the elf made a second emphatic gesture. Wymarc shifted the harp upon his shoulder. His head was upheld, but his face was so covered by the improvised mask that Milo read urgency only in the movements of his body. Whatever
had alerted the elf had reached the bard also. Still Milo himself was aware of nothing.

  Nothing, until. . . .

  The sound was faint—yet he caught it. A hissing scream. Such a cry came from no human throat.

  “Big scaled one . . .” The slurring in Gulth’s voice nearly matched the hiss of that scream. Though he stood shoulder to shoulder with Milo, the lizardman’s words were muffled and hard to catch. A second and a third time that challenge sounded. For it was a challenge and such as Milo had once heard with dread. A scrap of memory stirred awake in his mind.

  Big scaled one? Dragon! In that moment the bracelet on his wrist gave forth the warmth he both waited and feared. Feverishly he tried to channel his power of thought, not to awaken memory, but to affect the turn of the dice. A dragon in full battle fever. What man—or men—could hope to stand against such? Still, with the rest, he moved toward the source of that cry, his dust shoes shuffling at the fastest pace he could maintain.

  Even a were with power of the change could not hope to front a dragon and come forth unscathed—or even living. . . .

  They tried to make better time by seeking out a way between the dunes, not up and down the treacherous sliding heights of those mounds. Again they heard the dragon call—which did not yet hold any note of triumph. Somehow, he whom they sought, for Milo never doubted that it was Naile Fangtooth who fronted the scaled menace, managed to keep fighting on.

  The hissing of the giant reptile was louder. On their wrists the dice had ceased to live and spin. How successful had they been in raising their power? To fight a dragon—Milo shook his head at his present folly. Still he plowed on, his sword now in his hand, though he could not remember having drawn it.