The Ban of Irsisri_An Epic Fantasy

by Mark E Lacy

  “Give you a little time with her, keep her restrained so you don't get hurt,” said Herkar with a leer. “I’d recommend you leave the gag on. She might bite something off.”

  Enkinor stood before Maeryl, ignoring the laughter behind him, and continued to play the part of a stranger. He looked her over, pausing at the breasts and hips for emphasis.

  “I don't know,” said the Saerani. “She looks a bit past her prime.”

  “Particular, are we? There's a lot here to love,” said Herkar, stepping up and fondling her.

  Enkinor noted the flash in her eyes and the rise and fall of her breasts and knew Maeryl was not afraid but enraged.

  The tendara saw Panta waiting in the underbrush and nodded.

  The jaguar leapt at Herkar and slashed the man's throat open with a single swipe of his extended claws.

  There was no time for plans now.

  Before Herkar hit the ground, Enkinor slid the man’s sword from its scabbard. The others shouted, drawing their swords, frightened by the speed at which death had struck down their leader. Enkinor plunged into their midst, attacking with fury, not pausing to finish any of them, only injuring them enough to slow them down so he could shift his attention to the next attacker. He parried and blocked one of the men before cutting him down at the legs. Panta brought another one down, fangs sunk deep in the man's throat. Enkinor locked blades with another but pushed him back against a slab and bashed his head with a crack against the stone. The jaguar caught a knife-slash across one paw and shrieked in pain. Panta was only a blur as the jaguar brought his attacker down and seconds later left a mutilated corpse beside the others.

  Enkinor was running to Maeryl to cut her loose when pain exploded in his head, and everything went black.

  Slowly, Enkinor came to. What he saw bewildered him. He thought he was dreaming yet again, victim once more of the Dreamtunnel.

  He was lashed with long ropes to the face of one of the outer monoliths. The ropes were tied to his wrists with his arms spread wide. Between him and the central black obelisk, a soldier lay in a large pool of his own blood. Maeryl stood before the obelisk, clothed in her torn tunic. As she pressed her hands against the obelisk, she murmured something unintelligible.

  “Maeryl,” said Enkinor. With no strength behind his speech, she was not able to hear him. “Maeryl,” he repeated, louder this time. She turned toward him with annoyance. “Maeryl, what happened? Cut me loose!”

  She walked over, carefully avoiding the crimson-stained mud on the jungle floor.

  “I can't. I'm sure you'd try to interfere.”

  “Interfere? What are you talking about?”

  “See that soldier? He clubbed you and tied you up, but Panta killed him and then chewed my ropes apart.”

  “Why have you not released me?”

  “I told you. You would only interfere. I was coming to this place when these men caught me. Now, I'm free, and I must complete my task. When I'm finished, Panta will free you.” She looked away. “I will make amends.”

  A sense of foreboding began to clutch at the Saerani tribesman. Maeryl seemed like another person.

  “Task?” he said. “What task? Why can't you free me when you're finished?”

  Maeryl did not answer. Instead, she returned to the obelisk and resumed her murmuring. As the minutes passed, the tone of her words grew sharper, the volume higher. Enkinor realized she was chanting.

  “Maeryl!”

  Though her chanting seemed to pause for a moment, she resumed her efforts and ignored him, clasping the obelisk to her breasts.

  For long, unbearable minutes Enkinor struggled against his bonds. He tried to fray the ropes on the corners of the slab, but the monolith was too large and the ropes too long for him to apply much friction between them.

  The former abrasentara continued her chanting, putting more and more effort into what she was doing, her ragged tunic stained with large patches of sweat. Her muscles flexed as if she were trying to infuse her own strength into the obelisk.

  The sky began to fill with angry clouds, plunging the jungle into early twilight. In the growing darkness, as Maeryl continued her chanting, Enkinor noted a barely perceptible change in the obelisk that now grew more visible minute by minute. Its bare surface was now marked by glowing designs of great intricacy from the capital to the base. There were spirals blended with stylized symbols of people and unknown animals, each of them shining with a light of its own. The obelisk was gathering power to itself through Maeryl's work.

  To what purpose? Enkinor asked himself.

  But he began to suspect the woman's purpose. She had asked him, “What can I do?” She had given Raethir Del the name Pasaga Dhar, and the sorcerer had imprisoned an innocent man with it. Now, she wanted to set things right.

  But what can she do? Can she break the spell? She told me she couldn’t.

  Enkinor could now hear all her words, but he only understood two of them. Pasaga Dhar. Over and over she repeated them, with strange phrases in between, a certain pattern and rhythm rolling like stones in a creek bed.

  There was great danger at hand, for an unskilled sentara was attempting what few abramusari would dare. Maeryl was trying to control the Dreamtunnel.

  Frantically, Enkinor worked at his bonds. He cried out with frustration over his futile efforts. Maeryl ignored him.

  Then, something came to mind.

  For I hold the Key, Raethir Del had said, the key to a gate that may be opened once, and only once.

  A cloud of embers seemed to be swirling over the obelisk. A humming sound grew moment by moment. Maeryl looked up in fear, and then mustered her determination once again, and continued to chant her spell.

  No! Enkinor renewed his attempts to free himself. The Dreamtunnel can only be used once, Raethir Del had told him. But Maeryl was not opening it; she was drawing it to her. Now, Enkinor began to understand. The Dreamtunnel was always at hand, eager to pluck him up and spit him out again. Being close by, it was not too difficult for someone with the right knowledge to attract it. Maeryl was not just drawing Pasaga Dhar. She was offering herself in Enkinor's place.

  “No!” He yelled it this time. “Maeryl, stop. It will kill you!”

  But I can be free if it takes her. No more fear, no despair. Only a burning need to destroy the sorcerer responsible.

  As Enkinor watched, the spinning mass of sparkling particles began to narrow into a funnel shape and extend down toward the obelisk and Maeryl. Soon, the tendara would feel its touch. Soon, she would be gone forever.

  “No, Maeryl, stop! Run!” There was no way he could allow her to take his place. With a yell of desperation, he almost burst the ropes.

  I am afraid, said Panta, nudging his leg. The tendara is in danger.

  “Free me so I can save her! Hurry!”

  She told me no. What shall I do?

  “Free me. Now! There's no time to explain!”

  In moments, the jaguar had slashed the ropes.

  Enkinor ran to Maeryl, every stride seeming to take forever. He reached her and threw her aside. She fell and turned around, only to see the Dreamtunnel descend and clutch the Saerani. She cried out in rage and frustration and sorrow as man and sorcery vanished together in a clap of thunder.

  There was a profound silence. The Farennets were dead, the obelisk once more dark. And Maeryl sat alone, unabsolved.

  Panta came to her, then, and nuzzled her as she wept.

  Chapter 44

  Swirls of mist billowed away as the eagle gave a last couple of beats of his wings, dropped the Staff of Khymera just inches above the ground, and landed. Raethir Del didn’t shift back to human form immediately, and when he did, he went down on one knee and rested for a minute. It had been a long day’s flight from the Cana Glalith, made worse by not only holding an eagle’s form for so long but carrying the Staff clutched in his talons as well.

  Before him, a grassy causeway led into the mist. There were ruts in the ground from untold numbers of cage-
wagons that had once followed this path. Swamps watched both sides of the causeway. The night was pierced by the cry of a creature meeting its death.

  He stood, exhausted, knowing he needed rest but determined to press on. It was dangerous to proceed, so close to being drained of power, but he had to know. Was this going to work? He would put the task in the hands of someone, some thing, that could accomplish that task, and then he would rest. Maybe.

  On either side of the causeway, moss and vines drooped from dead branches above dead water. The air carried a faint odor of decay. The mist reflected the moonlight as it pooled in the scattered gaps of the swamp.

  Raethir Del made his way along the causeway, fighting both the urge to lie down and rest and the desire to reach his objective. Leaning on the Staff, he walked slowly through the mist until at last, a broken arch materialized. Ferns sprouted from cracks in the masonry.

  The sorcerer muttered a curse.

  A barrier of sparkling light hung in the archway. There was no other way into Qirik. Stepping into the swamp to go around the arch would be ill advised. Raethir Del considered extending the Staff into the curtain of light, but he could not risk damaging the Staff in any way. He had come too far to throw away his one chance to counter the Gauntletbearer.

  The sorcerer closed his eyes and held out his hand, palm up, bringing it as close as he could to the barrier. He could feel, he could even smell, the power within the curtain. He stilled his mind and slowed his breathing, and when the image he needed finally came to him, he opened his eyes and stepped back. He knew what he had to do.

  He would have to spend more of his dwindling power.

  It took a few moments longer than it should have to transform, but then a jaguar appeared where Raethir Del had stood. With a running start and a bound, he leapt to a low branch and made his way into the network of draped and towering trees in the swamp.

  Every minute the jaguar hunted, Raethir Del grew more anxious. At last, he tracked a wandering deer and ran it down. He found its throat and crushed it as the creature thrashed in death. With a sigh of relief, he returned to human form and wiped the blood from his face.

  He took his knife and sliced the skin above the deer's eyes. Prying the cranial plates apart, he broke into the skull. With a few strokes, he severed the brain stem and pulled the gray, convoluted mass from the skull.

  Now, the sorcerer had a new problem. He needed to return to the causeway with the brain in hand. With a sigh of resignation, he changed back into a jaguar and took the brain gently in his jaws. Fighting the desire to eat the still-warm organ, he wound his way through the trees.

  At the arch, Raethir Del laid the deer's brain on the grass and resumed his human shape. He was relieved to see that the Staff of Khymera was still where he had left it. With the staff in one hand and the brain in the other, he approached the arch. The glittering barrier began to dim. As he held his breath and stepped through it, the curtain of light vanished. The mist around him disappeared, and before him stood the Temple of Qirik.

  The temple was in ruins, as he expected. No one knew how many hundreds of years it had been since a thriving community of demon worship made use of this place. Few were aware it had ever existed.

  Carrying the brain in the palm of his hand, he walked down cobblestone paths pierced by ferns and small shrubs. The few columns that still stood showed where the perimeter of the temple had once been. Most of the outer columns lay broken amid pieces of grotesque statuary. He stepped over a pile of rubble and entered the outer court of the temple. Puddles of stagnant water reflected the moonlight. There was a small splash, followed by a slurping noise. Raethir Del turned quickly but saw nothing except a rustling in the weeds.

  The walls of the temple were covered with vines so thick they seemed to be holding the ancient masonry together.

  He stepped into a narrow gallery lined by more pillars. Above the ornate capitals, an elaborate frieze depicting half-human creatures ran along each wall. Large gaps in the ceiling admitted moonlight that washed the scene in cadaverous white. Broken stone and mortar, spotted with moss, lay scattered across the floor. Pale ferns stood limp among the stones.

  Relying on instinct, he wandered through the maze of halls and galleries. After several minutes, he reached a tall set of double doors standing askew and looking like they would topple at any moment. Raethir Del slipped between the doors without touching them, carrying the brain and the Staff, and entered the inner courtyard.

  The courtyard was sunken, perhaps fifty yards long. An open gallery, lined by tall reddish boulders, ran around the perimeter. Surprisingly dry and free of rubble or weeds, the courtyard was tiled in some long-since faded mosaic that glowed in the moonlight.

  Raethir Del sat on one of the steps descending to the courtyard and rested a minute. What he was searching for would be here. As he studied the scene before him, he noticed nothing out of the ordinary, but when he stood, he realized the mosaic, though faded, was interrupted in a small rectangle in the center of the courtyard.

  Still carrying the deer's brain in one hand, the staff in the other, Raethir Del walked to the middle of the courtyard. Now, close up, he could no longer make out what he'd seen before. There was, though, a strange emblem in the mosaic, like a circle rimmed with long teeth. Raethir Del placed the tip of the Staff of Khymera into a small hole in the middle of the emblem and pushed down. Stone grated against stone as an oblong opening in the mosaic gaped like a black mouth.

  He lowered himself at the edge of the opening and probed with the staff to find the first step of a run of stairs. He found the next one down, then descended and let the darkness swallow him, one elbow against a stone wall for balance as he tried not to drop the brain.

  By the time he could see nothing but a dim little rectangle of sky above and behind him, the air had become warmer rather than cooler and dry like parched bones in a desert.

  Raethir Del knew the darkness before him enclosed a labyrinth. He knew he was to use neither torch nor sorcery to light his way. And he knew at the end of the twisting passages, he could summon the help he needed to defeat the Gauntletbearer.

  The farther he descended, the more he heard flies buzzing, dozens of them, as if massed on a fresh carcass. He swung the end of the staff in a small arc and scraped a floor instead of another step. He waited a moment, listening to the flies, wondering if someone had preceded him, if something dead waited, something upon which the flies fed, crawling with maggots.

  The buzz of the flies stopped abruptly. As they went silent, the flies flashed blood-red as if he had startled them. They pulsed with color, each on its own accord, till they synchronized and gave off a strong red glow every few seconds. In the second or two of each pulse, Raethir Del could barely make out stone walls chiseled with petroglyphs. The swarm of flies flew at him and covered the brain in his hand, pulsing with light for several moments before slowly moving down the passage.

  Each time the swarm of flies glowed, he memorized the next several feet of passage ahead of him and stepped forward. The flies led him, lighting the way, and he followed, tentatively at first but then with growing trust. When he came to a junction in the passage, the red swarm moved to the left, and he followed.

  In this fashion, he made his way through the labyrinth until, after many turns, he reached a point where the flies dispersed in front of him. By their dim light, he saw he was in a large room, the center of the labyrinth, his objective, the one place where he could bring power to bear.

  A broad stone table stood in the middle of the room, its surfaces decorated with folds and fissures like a giant flattened brain. The table was studded with posts and rings. He could easily picture a sacrificial victim lying spread and bound on the table.

  Raethir Del took the deer brain and laid it where a victim's head would lie. The flies now gathered on the stone brain altar and aligned themselves along the fissures. They glowed constantly now, and as they crawled down the folds of the brain, the flies at the bottom of each fissure
fell off and disappeared, making it look like dripping blood.

  In only a short time, the flies were gone, and Raethir Del stood enveloped by darkness and quiet.

  This was the place, and this was the time.

  Raethir Del steeled himself. Recalling the vradu name the cumulae had shared, he held the Staff of Khymera above his head and shouted, “Septra Prolir!”

  The staff flared with light before settling down to a dull red glow.

  “Jogaziddarak, come forth!”

  A low rumbling echoed through the chamber, growing in intensity till Raethir Del was forced to clap his hands to his ears. A tall, red cloud materialized in front of the altar.

  Accompanied by the stench of carrion, Jogaziddarak entered the world of man.

  The cloud pulsed and coalesced into something anthropomorphic. With each moment, features became more distinct, muscles took form over bone and sinew. A large saurian head appeared atop a towering, naked, human body.

  Who are you? said Jogaziddarak.

  “I am the Gatekeeper,” said Raethir Del, trying to conceal his awe.

  I do not know you. Jogaziddarak clenched his fists and flexed his arms, muscles rippling, rows of pointed teeth gnashing.

  “No, you do not.”

  By what power do you call me to this place?

  Raethir Del lifted the Staff of Khymera above his head. “By this power.”

  Jogaziddarak growled low in his throat and glared at the sorcerer with large and fierce red eyes.

  “By this power I command you to obey me,” continued Raethir Del.

  Are you prepared to pay the price, mortal?

  “I do not bargain with demons.”

  You, an abramusara, do not understand? Jogaziddarak chuckled, a derisive and mocking sound. By calling me onto this plane of existence, you are now bound by certain conditions.

  “Conditions? What conditions?”

  What do you require of me?

  Raethir Del paused. “A Saerani tribesman bears the Gauntlets. The Gauntlets are protecting him. There is a bond between them, the results of a secondary spell that protects the Gauntlets. On your own plane this bond, this spell, will appear as chains connecting the tribesman and the Gauntlets. Break these chains, sever this spell, that I may take the Gauntlets, and this man's life.”