M A R Barker - [Tekumel- The Empire of the Petal Throne 01]

by Flamesong (v0. 9) (epub)

  The scarlet thread-things spoiled the attempt. He ended asprawl upon the lip of the rocky slope, feeling warmth and a horrid, rhythmic pulsing beneath his outstretched fingers. His hands hurt, and he dragged them loose. Their palms were bloody, as though cut with sharp sea-coral. His boot-tops were no longer visible, and he felt the gentle, crawling palpation of the thread-things moving up his thighs beneath the white /yrya-cloth tunic his mother had given him that morning.

  He could endure no more. “Aluja!” he howled. “Help

  me!”

  A shadow swept over him from behind. “Aluja,” he gasped with relief.

  But it was not the Mihalli. A nightmare loomed there, a blackish-yellowish-greenish thing made up of many pods and spindles and glistening sacs, a monster out of half-remembered baby-dreams of terror.

  Ridek fainted.

  And awoke to scream again. He lay upon his back, his limbs wrapped with squishy russet bindings like strips of ghastly seaweed, his body a mass of itching and torment. He could not move. A saw-toothed feeler approached from above and behind his head to caress his face. It passed down over his bulging eyes and crawled along his cheek toward his mouth. He struggled but his raw throat refused

  to scream, and he gagged and choked. Mercifully, he fainted once more.

  Consciousness returned amidst wavering, tenebrous shadows. He tried to cry out, but a hand—a humanoid hand this time, slender, red brown, and six-fingered—rose before his eyes to reassure him.

  Aluja—beloved, familiar Aluja—swam into view. Ridek could only hold out his arms—he found them now free and unfettered—and moan.

  “Oh, Ridek! That you should have followed me!”

  “How—? 1 saw you go . .

  “The demons who dwell upon this Plane summoned me back. Lord Nere and his creatures owed a debt to me, as now do 1 to them.”

  “Lord Nere—?”

  “The master of the Fiftieth Circle of the Planes Beyond. Here—” A ladle of something hot and honey-sweet appeared before Ridek’s lips. “I had not intended to pass unbidden through his domain, but it was needful. ...”

  There were too many questions. Ridek drank gratefully and slept.

  He opened his eyes, and for a moment the terror of the thread-things overwhelmed him all over again. He sat up—and saw not one but three of the gangling, stalklike monsters who had come upon him before. He screamed, involuntarily, and Aluja rose gracefully from the floor where he had been sitting.

  “Peace, boy. These are Lord Nere’s ‘Many-Bodied.’ They rescued you and hence deserve your gratitude.”

  How did one thank a creature that resembled a series of bladders and puffy, bloated pods strung together in no discernible order with mucid sinews supported upon several sets of mismatched legs?

  “We must decide what to do with you,” Aluja was saying. “There is no time to return you to your father now, nor do I dare tamper with the Planes of Time and put you back before—or even shortly after—you left. To leave you here is also quite impossible—” Ridek was grateful for that “—and to carry you with me upon my mission is madness. Your father has a hold upon some of us Mihalli that enforces our service and prevents us from harming his purposes. Now I am tom, indeed.”

  Ridek could only whisper, “I came to be with you.”

  “I know. I must think upon it.” Aluja touched Ridek’s brow. “You seem well enough. Lord Nere’s servitors are unfamiliar with your human internal workings, yet all appears in order. You have only to regain your strength. Rest.”

  He did not want to rest. He struggled to his feet and found that he was naked, his feet and hands covered with a labyrinth of tiny bluish lines, like the Aomiiz tattoos that a Livyani noble wore to display his rank, his clan, and his religious affiliation.

  The Mihalli saw his expression and said, “Those will pass. You will have no scars.”

  Ridek felt a rush of relief. Then Hris’ piquant features rose incongruously before him, and he wondered a little regretfully what she would have thought of a hero returned from the Planes Beyond, all scarred with mysterious markings . . .

  Aluja essayed a smile. “Your boots and clothing are there, quite restored, though with materials that would confound your Yan Koryani artisans. There is also food. Lord Nere’s creatures have scoured their world for sustenance you can digest.”

  Suddenly he was ravenous. The bilious-looking blue gourd Aluja laid before him contained round, black granules that popped in his mouth and filled his nostrils with pungent fragrance, like Ngalu-berries but sweeter. There were also a thick, ocher-hued cake that he did not like and a melon-thing that tasted of roasted meat mixed with nuts and spices. He wolfed down most of it.

  He looked around. The room—if such it was—consisted of curved surfaces, odd holes, and amorphous lumps of no obvious purpose. Symmetry seemed to be in ill repute here. All was of one piece, reddish-gray in color, and strangely veined—unpleasant memory!—with darker striations of black and brown and maroon. Three of the “Many-Bodied” sat— stood?—-just beyond the flat protuberance that served as Ridek’s bed. They remained motionless, save for the rhythmic in-and-out of various of their drooping, purple-mottled sacs. He looked for something like a conventional face but found none. There were indeed wrinkled white patches that might be eyes, orifices that could serve as mouths, round knobs that were perhaps organs of other, alien senses. He could not tell. In the end he gave up. Whatever—and however—the “Many-Bodied” were, Aluja had said that they had saved his life.

  He sat down again upon the oddly resilient couch. The dark brown coverlet did have a curiously elastic feel, now that he thought about it. He watched for a moment as Aluja spoke, if that was the proper term, with his hosts, then lay back.

  This time it was only the sleep-demons who seized him all unawares.

  A blink, a moment, a dream of Hris—her face queerly commingled with that of a taller, older, more strikingly beautiful woman: the Lady Deq Dimani?—and then he was awake, Aluja’s hand upon his shoulder. There was more food and an egg-shaped basin of yellow glass that held water in which to wash. As he dressed, he noticed that the marbled markings upon his hands and feet were already growing fainter; a whisper of disappointment crossed his mind.

  “You are ready,” Aluja said. The Mihalli held out a knurled stick of what looked like polished black wood. “This is the best I can manage within the time we have. Carry it wherever you go, for it contains magic: a spell of warding against blows and anything else that would strike your person violently. It is no defense against slower-moving perils, however: fire, gases, and the like.”

  Ridek hardly heard him. “Then I am to go with you?” he cried. “Not return to Yan Kor?” He was greatly cheered when Aluja nodded. The prospect was too exciting for thoughts of danger. He hefted the staff. It felt better as a weapon than a device of sorcery, for it was very like the quarterstaff used by the Saa Allaqiyani. They had developed it into an art, called Kichana, of which the Baron Aid was an acknowledged master.

  “It is the only way,” Aluja said thoughtfully. “You must accompany me. But you will stay back, well in the rear, and you will obey my every command as though it were your own heart’s wish! You will not stray, nor will you speak, nor interfere, nor attempt any feat of bravery.”

  Ridek was offended. “I have already been instructed in the elements of soldiery! The first lesson is obedience.”

  “See tha{ you remember that when we cross the Planes. There are things worse than Lord Nere’s scarlet threadlets and the ‘Many-Bodied,’ and we have a long way to travel.”

  His curiosity would not be denied. “You—we—go to rescue the Lady Deq Dimani?”

  “So you heard! As big-eared as a Nyenul Cha, boy! Yes, it is she whom we seek.”

  “Why? What has happened to her?”

  “Nothing, perhaps.” Aluja sighed and fished Lord Fu Shi’i’s amulet from one of the pouches of his harness. “This is a ‘linking amulet’; the Lady wears the original, and its mate
—this duplicate—then keeps track of her movements.” Ridek saw that the surface was covered with intersecting lines and whorls, like the astrolabe of an astrologer. “You see this spark? It was there when she was at the town of Mar—” the Mihalli’s peculiarly jointed brown finger touched a spot upon the stone “—and now it is here, not far away, but it moved too quickly and suddenly to indicate a march on foot. She could only have made that journey with the aid of some artifact of your ancestors, the technology of the human Ancients.”

  “The war-council spoke of Mar—”

  “Bigger and bigger ears! She was to travel from there to a small castle—a stronghold of no account—behind Tsolyani lines: Fortress Ninu’ur.”

  “Why?”

  “Your father’s troops discovered an important site beneath that place: a travel-station of the Ancients’ transport system that once ran like Shqa-beetle tunnels beneath the surface of Tekumel. Did your teachers tell you of the tubeway cars?” They had not, but Ridek said, “Certainly.”

  Aluja eyed him. “Well, they are—useful. Your people built them long ago, when this world was very different. Some still operate. If one knows their mysteries, one can travel at great speeds—far faster than the fastest messenger can run—to many places beneath Tekumel. If those destinations are unobstructed, one can them emerge—”

  “—With soldiers, to strike the enemy in the rear!” Ridek’s eyes shone as the idea took hold. “Spies, scouts, agents— assassins—!”

  “La! You are as devious as your father,” Aluja said. His fanged mouth opened in a human grin, but his ruby-red eyes did not smile. “In any case, the Lady Deq Dimani escorted a few of her scholars to Fortress Ninu’ur. It was of urgent interest to her—exactly the sort of thing she would dare.” “But why did she go? Surely there were others?”

  A shadow crossed the Mihalli’s features. “She would see for herself. Then, too, she had a second target: a part of her mission of which I know little. There are caverns near Fortress Ninu’ur, the Caves of Klarar. Legends say that a great store of relics from before the Time of Darkness is hidden there. More, the local folk tell of a ruined shrine somewhere in the hills close by Fortress Ninu’ur, a temple once dedicated to the One Other. Have you heard of that deity?”

  Indeed, the priests of Ridek’s temple school had never discussed that dread being, but the acolytes told tales of Him at night in the dormitories. The One Other belonged to the dark, to the terrible Pariah Gods who stood outside the Engsvanyali pantheon of the ten Gods and Their ten “Cohorts,” the Demi-Gods who served Them. That pantheon had been codified by the Priest Pavar of the Isle of Ganga, and it was upon his humble theological foundation that the Priestkings of Engsvan hla Ganga had erected the mightiest empire to exist since the Time of Darkness. Now Pavar’s Gods were worshipped throughout the Five Empires—all save in heretical Livyanu—but the Pariah Gods were anathema; their sects had been stamped out millennia ago, their temples leveled, their devotees slain, and their doctrines cast down into oblivion. Ridek knew of three such outcast deities: the One Other, the One Who Is, and the most hideous of all, the Goddess of the Pale Bone—She Who Cannot Be Named. There might be still more. The Pariah Gods were unknowable, inimical to humankind and to the allied nonhuman races—even to the First Races of Tekumel, the hateful Ssu and the Hliiss.

  Did the Pariah Gods exist? Were they as real as Pavar’s ten deities? The epics—the great “Lament to the Wheel of Black” in particular—stated that during the Time of the Gods, when humankind was young, the One Other had joined with nine of Pavar’s deities to combat the tenth. Lord Ksarul, “the Doomed Prince of the Blue Room,” at the Battle of Dormoron Plain. If this were true—and every priesthood in the Five Empires declared it so—then the Pariah Gods were as real as any other of the Engsvanyali pantheon.

  The dormitory myth-tellers were probably no worse informed than the rest of humankind, all save a few savants at the very center of Lord Ksarul’s involuted hierarchy. Ridek was hazier than most; he had never been interested in the legends of the gods. That was Sihan’s forte, one in which Lord Fu Shi’i provided ample tutelage!

  Aluja brought him back to the matter at hand. “In any event, I am not sure whether the Lady Deq Dimani visited the Caves of Klarar, or whether she found that shrine which was her real goal—”

  “What reason would she have for seeking such a—a place of ghosts and horrors?”

  The Mihalli’s reddish-brown mane rippled as he sat down beside Ridek. “To acquire a thing she knows of through the arts of the priests of her Lord of Sacrifice. He is the same as Lord Vimuhla of Pavar’s pantheon, whom your people also worship. She told your father that the followers of the One Other had stolen that thing away long ago and hidden it in their shrine.”

  “Why—? What is it?”

  “As far as I am aware, it is a force of great power: perhaps an artifact, perhaps a spell, or even a demon-being. She named it ‘Flamesong’ and declared that it is the tool with which the Tsolyani can be defeated once and for all, finally, easily, and without further loss to Yan Kor.”

  “Oh, Aluja! Not magic! The palace servants say that my father has already suffered misfortunes aplenty from sorcerers and wizards and the lying promises of creatures from the Planes Beyond—” Ridek stopped, his hand to his mouth. “I am sorry, Aluja. I ineant no offense to you.”

  “None taken. We Mihalli do dwell upon many Planes— often at one and the same time, and in ways you cannot comprehend—but we are as much flesh and blood as you.” Aluja wrinkled his beast-snout in distaste. “Your father argued with the Lady Deq Dimani regarding this matter—I know because 1 was present. He ordered her to let ‘Flamesong’ alone. The hilt of such a magical weapon sometimes wounds its wielder more grievously than its blade does its foes.” “She refused?”

  “Of course. The Lady is—ah, headstrong, willful, the sole matriarch of her island of Vridu since she was a girl. Your father had stronger expletives for her. The Lady Deq Dimani answered that this ‘Flamesong’ belongs to her Lord of Sacrifice, that it is harmless to Yan Kor, and that it will win your war with Tsolyanu as surely as a Sro-dragon gobbles up a Hmelul She swore that this flower conceals no thorns, no twisted bargains with monstrous powers, no oaths to the Dark Ones that would grant them entrance into Tekumel’s Plane . . “What if she is wrong?”

  Aluja pondered. Then he said, “You are young, but you have dwelt at the very heart of affairs in the court of Ke’er. You comprehend what I say—more, perhaps than your father, who worshipped his Yilrana and now loves Yan Kor, and who mingles both together in a venomous cup of blind revenge upon the Tsolyani. You may be wiser than he, Ridek—wiser than Lady Deq Dimani as well, in spite of your youth. Her loyalties are to her island, to her fierce and fiery God, and to her own hatred of Tsolyanu—-a stream that flows from some wellspring of which I know nothing. If she is wrong, themshe—and perhaps all who dwell upon your Plane with her—will require our assistance indeed.”

  Ridek had another thought. “My father should have had her escorted by an army to obtain this ‘Flamesong’—at least a legion of soldiers and a host of his mightiest sorcerers. He should have dispatched Lord Fu Shi’i himself!”

  “Only the Lady Deq Dimani can master ‘Flamesong.’ It is a thing of her ancient, secretive faith, and she would not allow meddling by the followers of any other god. Even your father is ignorant of its details.” Aluja looked down, the glowing rubies of his eyes concealed. “As for Lord Fu Shi’i, it were better that he be involved as little as possible ...” Ridek waited, but the Mihalli said no more. They sat together in that curious room that resembled no room upon Tekumel and looked out at the alien, bumt-orange-hued sky.

  “And now some power of the Planes Beyond has carried off the Lady Deq Dimani?” Ridek waved down Aluja’s words of denial. “I read it in your face.”

  “I think not—really! Rather some device of the Ancients, some accident.”

  “Whatever—whoever.” He began lacing his boots. “Come,
Aluja. We go to aid the Lady.”

  The words had a noble ring to them. Ridek did not understand why the Mihalli answered him only with a gentle smile.

  6

  The skins stank, but at least they offered some comfort. Trinesh had acquired them by simply pointing and by giving up his Chlen-hide vambraces in return. What their new owner, a scrawny Milumanayani warrior, would do with the embossed and lacquered arm-guards of a Tsolyani legionary was not immediately evident.

  It was easy enough to get one’s belongings back. A few gestures, some shouting, and a little helpful translating from the renegade, Tse’e, seemed to suffice. During the course of the long evening, Trinesh had had three helmets, two different breastplates—one Saina’s—and so many spears, clubs, desert-cloaks, baskets of foodstuffs, pots of ghastly local liquor brewed from cactus-pods, and other miscellaneous marvels that he could not recount them all. He had also acquired a slightly rusty steel sword—rare and valuable, even in its present condition—and several scraps of Yan Koryani armor and military gear. The Baron’s agents had indeed been here. Trinesh fondly hoped that they had enjoyed the same orgy of

  trading and counter-trading to which his own people had been subjected.

  Tse’e said this happened every time visitors arrived at Na Ngore. Things always quieted down afterwards. As soon as the novelty of owning a set of fancy pauldrons or a pair of greaves wore off, their new proprietor was often willing to hand them back, usually for no consideration in return. Profit was not involved: it was pride of possession that mattered, and there was as much raucous bickering among the tribesmen themselves as between them and their guests.