by Bill Fawcett
Kellach had heard that sentiment before, directed by brainproud northerners at the Cengari people. He’d have challenged Praetor to justify his remark then and there, but it was neither the time nor the place for a steely discussion. Instead he grunted. “More reason to rescue Serinna.”
“The girl, yes.”
Working upslope from the sandbar they located the berrypickers’ meandering trail. It took them through several stands of bushes that had been picked clean. Multiple tracks overlaid one another, revealing more misshapen feet and many days’ work to harvest all the berries. Kellach saw no more collections of pits, but did see evidence of brush having been cleared to allow the berry groves to expand. He’d not seen many animals do that.
Working their way up, they also came around toward the east. Given the maggot-folks’ aversion to sunlight, they would be less watchful from that direction. As they reached the level of the cave mouth, they headed west and upward. Praetor slipped into the lead. He apparently found no alarms or ambushes through a Veiled glance, so he waved Kellach on. When the Cengar drew parallel, the warmage pointed with two fingers down below.
Kellach had seen maggot-folk before, but that hardly mattered. No two were the same. Corpse-white flesh with gray blemishes covered them. Excess flesh bulged here and there, though they weren’t fat. It seemed as if their skin was exceedingly thick and hanging there as if waiting for its owner to double or triple in size. Naked save for a gold armlet on one’s third arm—the trinket had likely once been a child’s bracelet—and a rusty iron torc around the other’s neck, one clutched a stone axe, the other a stone-tipped spear. The taller one had no hair, while the smaller had brown pigeon feathers woven into long white locks. They hunched in plain sight, largely immobile, not speaking to or even looking at each other.
Kellach glanced at his companion, then held up a hand and waggled his ring finger.
Praetor shook his head and covered his mouth with his hand. “Magick can be detected.”
Kellach nodded. Praetor wasn’t the first warmage of his acquaintance who hadn’t hidden behind that bit of truth. They don’t mind killing. They mind getting wet.
Though a large man, Kellach moved to the cave mouth with the fluid stealth of a shadow’s sigh. He hid against a large plinth, close enough to hear the guards’ raspy breath, waiting for his final rush. Kellach reversed the longknife, such that the blade ran back along his forearm, well past his elbow, the razored edge outermost. As he straightened, he cocked his wrist so the blade’s tip pointed up near his right shoulder. With the knife thus hidden behind his arm, he stepped into the cave mouth and went to work.
No war cry. No time for the maggot-folk to raise an alarm. Kellach’s right arm swept up, bending at the elbow. The blade slashed the first from breastbone to chin. Blood flew dark, the air full of the foul stench of a lanced boil. The Cengar twisted, driving the longknife back, stabbing the second through the throat. He yanked the blade free, more misty blood staining the fog, and shifted the longknife to a more conventional grip. He brought the blade back around, the return stroke biting deeply into the first guard’s throat. More blood spurted from an open neck.
Both guards crumpled, mortally wounded before either hit the ground.
Praetor came scrambling along quickly, his face a shade paler than before. “God’s breath you’re fast.”
Kellach slid the longknife back into its scabbard. “Fast or slow, killing is killing.” He slipped the great-axe off his back and removed its hood.
The warmage pulled the gold armlet off the dead guard’s third arm. “Opaniri in manufacture. Stolen, obviously.”
Opanir existed an ocean away. Chances were that the mystery of how the bracelet got into the mountains of Zethanis would never be solved. Kellach found the mystery intriguing, but spared it no more than a fleeting thought. The bracelet was there, and the how of its being there would not change that fact. If he later perceived a value to learning the means by which it reached the maggot-folk, he would be relentless in hunting the answer down. Until such a circumstance arose, however, it mattered not.
Without giving Praetor Azurean the option of preceding him, Kellach headed into the cavern. It had begun life as a natural cave, but a dozen yards in showed signs of work. Generations of feet had worn paths smooth. Tools had widened passages. Bridges spanned crevasses, crudely hacked stairs and simple ladders provided access to side tunnels and catwalks. The maggot-folk had created their own little warren within the cave. It reminded Kellach of slum dwellings in the world’s larger cities.
As they moved on, their way lit dimly by luminescent lichen and tiny globes glowing with wan magelight, Kellach noticed things he’d never seen in the slums. The maggot-folk had carved alcoves of various sizes and appropriate shapes into stone walls. Within each they’d placed a statue or marble tile with some god’s visage on it. Some he recognized outright. Others he recognized by style—not knowing who they were but certain of where they came from. Opanir found itself represented well. Likewise statues of Imperial manufacture from before the flood and even a Sepheri totem or two warded the walls. Even more remarkable than the presence of the shrines was the pristine nature of their keeping. It contrasted sharply with the squalor the maggot-folk otherwise endured.
They slipped deeper into the cavern, remaining on the wider, well-traveled track, ignoring side passages that led to more residential chaos. A steady and solemn drumbeat drew them on. As regular as a martial beat, different notes lifted it above mere mechanical timing. It had purpose, but exactly what Kellach could not discern.
Their path took them gently down until, after a brief narrowing, it opened onto a vast chamber. The bowl- shaped floor featured a lozenge of a dark lake thrusting away from them, the shore studded with stalagmites. Only the occasional water drop falling from stalactites above disturbed the placid surface. Opposite the entry tunnel, a small stone dais stood flush against the wall. Dark tunnels led off and down to either side. Tall statues edged the dais, making it a communion place of gods easily recognized, ancient and forgotten.
Kellach dropped to a knee in the shadows and Praetor beside him. He found the statues unsettling, and not simply because some of them predated the Sepheri empire. Their sheer size, the weight of stone and their limbs, would have made it impossible to have gotten them into the chamber. The statues could have been broken down and hauled in, but Kellach saw no evidence of joinery. This meant that either they’d been reconstructed with sorcery, or sorcery had been used to move them to their new home. Neither prospect pleased him.
The maggot-folk filled the basin, surrounding the slender lake, some clinging to stalagmites to give them a greater vantage. They clearly had a hierarchy, for the most misshapen kept to shadows. Those who were easier to look at sat nearest the dais, their faces filled with ecstatic joy. To the right, several of the multi-armed creatures held and beat drums of various sizes. The musicians were well practiced, but Kellach noted something about how they moved. They swayed with the rhythm, their eyes closed. He suspected magick united their efforts and, in turn, would unite those below.
A soft golden light appeared in the tunnel to the dais’s right. Two children emerged first, each wearing a golden helm with a spike. Small globes had been fixed to those spikes. They cast the gentle glow. The children, one as clean-limbed as could be expected among the maggot-folk, the other more comfortable moving apelike on all fours, kept pace with the drumming.
Serinna followed them, her measured steps in time with theirs. Kellach recognized her because the woman could be no one else, yet she looked entirely different from the girl he’d met before. Her long white hair had been washed and dried, combed free of brambles and twigs. A gold cloak clasp gathered it at the back of her neck. A simple girdle of gold links and white silk provided her only other raiment. The cloth lovingly caressed long legs—naturally, not with the clingy obsession of Praetor’s cloak.
The bird berries had not been gathered for consumption, but had been crushed. Th
eir indigo juice painted her body. Odd sigils decorated her forehead and abdomen, shoulders, arms, and thighs. Kellach had seen slaves similarly marked, but never with these symbols. He could not decipher them, but they all shared something that suggested they were feminine, perhaps part of a pair.
“She is magnificent.”
Kellach glanced at his companion. From the way Praetor’s eyes focused beyond Serinna, Kellach realized the remark had nothing to do with her physical beauty. He studied her through the Veils. His jaw slackened at what he saw.
“What do the symbols mean?”
“Life, gateways, potential.” Praetor’s eyes cleared. “Fertility symbols many of them, but some speak to incredible power.”
The drumming grew stronger, though no louder. It vibrated through Kellach’s chest. A ripple spread over the lake and rebounded in legion from the shore. Where the ripples collided against one another, water rose in fluid silvery bubbles, floating gently upward. At the center, where all the ripples came together, a larger droplet formed. Perfectly spherical, it rose slowly. The others began to orbit it and one another in an elaborate dance.
Then light approached from the other tunnel. Serinna looked expectantly in that direction. Two twisted warriors bearing glowing shields heralded a man’s arrival. Tall, lithe, and well formed, he came naked save for a wash of gold covering him completely. Even his hair, which fell to his shoulders, was composed of impossibly slender golden threads that danced to the drumbeats.
The maggot-folk bowed their heads reverentially as he mounted the dais. He stopped center stage and gestured languidly with an open hand. The magelight from shields and glowing orbs flew immediately to him, plunging the cavern into darkness. Then a blue light limned him. It traveled out along his hand and leaped away in little sparks that buried themselves in the floating water spheres. There they divided again and again, as if a spray of stars, and the shifting blue light filled the chamber.
Serinna’s joy shone brightly in her smile.
Praetor grabbed Kellach’s shoulder. “You have to get the girl away. If he completes the ritual begun here, they will be united. Their power will be united. They will be invincible.”
Kellach stared at him. “My axe cannot hew a path through that crowd.”
“I’ll scatter them, fool. Go. Go lest the world be overrun by the maggot-folk.”
Praetor stood back. The warmage turned sideways. The cloak wrapped him like a wet sail around a mast. His image twisted slender as a snake, then flattened. It collapsed down into itself, vanishing with nary a sound and the faint scent of spoiled meat.
An eyeblink later lake water boiled beneath the big sphere. Turgid bubbles burst loudly, drowning the drums. Then, as maggot-folk turned to look, dark red tentacles coiled up and out of the water. They smashed floating globes and wrapped round stalagmites. Maggot-folk screamed in a hideous cacophony. They fled in a chaotic tangle of limbs and a riotous wave of broken gaits. They choked pathways, jostling heavily. Some fell back amid the stalagmites, others streamed past the Cengar, blind to his presence in their panic.
Kellach had already moved away from the most direct line of flight and leaped down into the bowl. He headed straight for the dais, but had to swing wider, away from the water. It sloshed out of the basin, dragging down some of the slower maggot-folk. Several clutched at stone spikes to avoid drowning, yelping for succor.
Praetor Azurean rose from the heart of the lake, glorious, supported by his cloak. A tentacle snapped out like a whip, exploding a hapless man who’d slipped in the water. The stink of corruption filled the air. Whether it came from the warmage or the dead man, Kellach did not care. He forced himself forward, happy to reach the dais.
Happier to be out of the tentacles’ striking range.
The gold man stepped to the fore, muscles tense and veins pulsing beneath his flesh. Coruscating red beams flashed from his eyes. One missed, wilting a stalagmite, but the other caught Praetor full in the chest. His tunic smoked. For a brief flash Kellach caught sight of white ribs beneath cracked, blackened flesh. A tentacle wrapped around the warmage, closing the wound; then another whipped forward, cracking off a bloody cloud of barbed darts.
The gold man dodged most of them. Three, however, did strike home: arm, hip, and thigh on the right. The impact spun him away from Serinna, back toward his tunnel. She reached one hand toward him. The other covered her mouth.
Even though staggering and bleeding, the gold man struck back. He brought his hands up and around, conjuring a barbed golden ball. It spun furiously and launched itself at Praetor.
A pair of tentacles rose to ward it off. Gold thorns pierced the cloak. They caught as a burr might in fur. The ball surged forward, wrapping the cloak tightly around itself. Once firmly caught, it shot upward. The cloak ripped free of its clasp. The ball impaled itself and the cloak on a stalactite, striking sparks as it slowly spun down.
Praetor fell, but not far. Light burst from his ring, burning through the glove. His fingers wove and he hung there, in the air. Contempt twisting his lips, Praetor raised a hand, thrust it into the large water globe suspended above him, and hurled it at his opponent.
The gold man thrust a palm forward. It appeared as if he believed the sphere would splash harmlessly against his hand. And, indeed, a dozen yards in front of him, the water globe hit something. It exploded against that invisible shield, infinitely replicating itself into other spheres large and small.
Praetor laughed, and with the echoes of his mirth came waves of cold. The globes froze instantly, orbiting high and low, picking up velocity. Successive sheets of hailstones shot above and around the shield, converging on the gold man.
The gold man reacted, but any chance that he might fend off the assault died when a melon-sized ice chunk struck him full in the face. It cracked his gold flesh and carried away part of his scalp. He reeled. Other ice balls hammered him and battered him backward. He dropped to a knee and sought to rise again, but ice made for treacherous footing, thwarting him. Another large piece smashed into his chest. It pitched him against the marble statue of a god twice his size.
The gold man, streaking the god’s white flesh with scarlet, slid to its stone feet and began a palsied twitching.
Kellach reached the dais in a leap. He grabbed the girl’s arm before she could run to the gold man’s side.
“Let me go.” Her eyes blazed as she turned on Kellach. “He was to have been my husband.”
“Are you insane, girl? Look!”
With the gold man’s magick ebbing slowly, the golden flesh that had defined him ran like candle wax. Firm muscles sagged. Liver spots dotted pale flesh. The strong jaw weakened. The chin receded. The draining magick eroded deep wrinkles into the man’s flesh. His eyes, visible now, had the clouded appearance of the half- blind.
Serinna sagged to her knees and Kellach released her. “No, he wasn’t like that. He was in my dreams, my dreams ever since I became . . . became what I am. He loves me.”
“He loved what you had become, child. He loved what you would give him.” Praetor landed lightly on the dais. “You were his gateway to immortality. You have no idea the power that resides in you. He was not worthy of it. But I know one who is.”
Kellach interposed himself between Praetor and the sobbing girl. “Serinna, to your feet. Run.”
“Ignore him, child.” The warmage shook his head slowly. “Did you think, Kellach, that I believed you were after no bounty? How much will her parents pay for her head?”
Kellach half smiled.
The Northerner blinked. “You were not chasing her, but following, guarding. You, the two of you, colluded in this escape. Oh, very well played, Kellach. But, mark me, girl, he is not the one you want as your protector.”
Kellach raised his axe, the head at his right shoulder. “Leave now.”
Praetor cocked his head. “Cengar, you know not what you are doing. You cannot stand against me.” The warmage stepped to the side so he could see the girl. “Serinna, you ar
e being paid a great honor. My master, the Kesath-Ktheru Quintus Fulvean—of the Major family, not any of the Minors— bids me bring you to him. He would reveal your true power. He would allow you to reach your full potential.”
Kellach’s lower hand twitched and his axe rotated. “By wedding your master?”
“Truth be told, I do not think he wishes to take a maggot-woman to wife. Bed her, certainly, and get upon her children of promise, without a doubt. She, in turn, would have a life of luxury beyond which this or any other warren would provide.” Praetor raised his left hand, but kept his right close to the hilt of his sword. “There is something in this for you, too, Cengar. Last night, during my watch, I reported back on the circumstances of our meeting. Were you to somehow actually defeat me, you would have the whole of Yag-Ktheru hunting you. We are many and relentless. Let her go, and we shall let you go.”
“Major house or Minor, I fear your master no more than I fear you. Run, girl, now.”
Serinna vanished in a rustle of silk and gold, racing back into the tunnel.
“Cengar, you force me to do this. Remember that.” Praetor Azurean’s longsword slithered from its scabbard. Runes and sigils burned on the blade with molten brilliance. The warmage raised his blade in a salute. The thin metal quivered, and then Praetor lunged.
Kellach parried the blade down with the haft of his axe, and then punched forward with the steel cap on its end. The blow should have taken the warmage full in the face. It met empty air. As if he were a snake, the warmage bonelessly dove forward and beneath the axe. He did not bother to roll, but twisted on his knees and came up. Again he thrust, this time at the Cengar’s back.
Had Kellach been fighting a swordsman, he would have spun, the axe sweeping out in a broad arc that would cleave the man in half. He might have been pinked by the slender blade, but Praetor’s parts would have writhed on the dais.
