The Complete Dilvish, The Damned

by Roger Zelazny

  "Now, here is my plan…" he began.

  Semirama crouched on the stone lip of the pit, leaning forward, hands resting upon its edge, the dozen golden bracelets on her pale arms gleaming in the faint light, her long black hair in perfect array. Her garment was yellow and scanty, the room warm and humid. A long series of chirping noises emerged from her puckered lips. At various points near and about the pit, the slaves leaned upon their shovels and held their breaths. Half a dozen paces behind her and several to the right, Baran of the Extra Hand stood—a tall, barrel-shaped man, thumbs hooked behind his sharp-studded belt, bearded head cocked to the side as if he half understood the meaning behind the sounds she made. His eyes were upon her half-exposed buttocks, however, as were a number of his thoughts.

  A pity she is so necessary to the operation and cares not a whit for me, he mused. A pity I must treat her with respect and courtesy, rather than, say, insolence and rape. Working with her would be so much easier if she were, say, ugly. Still, the view is good, and perhaps one day…

  She rocked back on her heels and ceased making the sounds which had filled the fetid chamber. Baran wrinkled his nose as a draft of air bore certain odors to it. They all waited.

  Splashing sounds commenced deep within the pit, and an occasional thud caused the floor to vibrate. The slaves retreated to positions against the wall. Fiery flakes began to form and descend from somewhere beneath the ceiling. Brushing at her garment, Semirama trilled high notes. Immediately, the firefall ceased and something within the pit chirped in response. The room grew perceptibly cooler. Baran sighed.

  "At last…" he breathed.

  The sounds continued to emerge from the pit for a long while. Semirama stiffened, to begin a reply or an attempted interruption. It was as if she were ignored, however, for the other sounds continued, drowning out her own. The thrashing commenced again, and a tongue of flame rose above the pit, wavered, and fell, all in a matter of moments. A face—long, twisted, anguished—had appeared for an instant within the orange glow. She drew back from the pit. A sound like that of a great bell tolling filled the room. Suddenly, hundreds of live frogs were falling, leaping about them, tumbling into the pit, bounding up and down the high heaps of excrement at which the slaves had been laboring, escaping through the far archway. A cake of ice larger than two men crashed to the floor nearby.

  Semirama rose slowly, stepped back a pace, and turned toward the slaves.

  "Continue your work," she ordered.

  The men hesitated. Baran rushed forward, seizing the nearest shoulder and thigh. He raised the man off his feet and thrust him forward, out over the edge, into the pit. The scream that followed was a brief one.

  "Shovel that shit!" Baran cried.

  The others hastened to return to work, digging rapidly at the reeking mounds, casting the material out over the edge of the dark hole.

  Baran turned suddenly as Semirama's hand fell upon his arm.

  "In the future, restrain yourself," she said. "Labor is dear."

  He opened his mouth, closed it, nodded sharply. Even as she spoke, the heavier splashings subsided, the trilling ceased.

  "… On the other hand, he probably welcomed the diversion." A smile crossed her full lips. She released his biceps, smoothed her garment.

  "What—what did he have to say— this time?"

  "Come," she said.

  They circled the pit, avoided the melting cake of ice, and passed through the archway into a long gallery with a low ceiling. She crossed it to a wide window, where she waited, regarding the morning's shining landscape through the haze. He followed her, stood beside her, hands clasped behind his back

  "Well?" he finally asked. "What had Tualua to say?"

  She continued to study the flashing colors and the metamorphosing rocks beyond the streamers of fog. Then, "He is completely irrational," she said.

  "Not angry?"

  "Occasionally. It comes and goes. But it is not a thing in itself. It is part of the entire condition. His kind has always had a streak of madness."

  "All these months, then—he has not really been seeking to punish us?"

  She smiled.

  "No more than usual," she said. "But the wards always took care of his normal hostility toward mankind."

  "How did he manage to break them?"

  "There is strength in madness, as well as completely original approaches to problems."

  Baran began tapping his foot.

  "You're our expert on the Elder Gods and their kin," he finally said. "How long is this thing going to last?"

  She shook her head.

  "There is no way to tell. It could be permanent. It could end right now—or anything in between."

  "And there is nothing we can do to… expedite his recovery?"

  "He may become aware of his own condition and propose a remedy. This sometimes happens."

  "You had this problem with them in the old days?"

  "Yes, and the procedure was the same. I have to talk with him regularly, try to reach his other self."

  "In the meantime," Baran said, "he could kill us all at any time—without the wards, with his magic gone wild the way it is."

  "Possibly. We must remain on guard."

  Baran snorted.

  "Guard? If he does move against us, there's nothing we can do—not even flee." He made a sweeping gesture at the scene beyond the window. "What could pass through that wasteland?"

  "The prisoners did."

  "That was earlier, when the effect wasn't so strong. Would you want to go out into that?"

  "Only if there was no alternative," she replied.

  "And the mirror—like most other magic—doesn't work properly now," he continued. "Even Jelerak can't reach us."

  "He may have other problems at the moment. Who knows?"

  Baran shrugged.

  "Either way," he said, "the effect is the same. Nothing can get out or in."

  "But I'll bet there are many trying to get in. This place must seem a real plum to any sorcerer on the outside."

  "Well, it would be—if one could gain control. Of course, no one out there has any way of knowing what is wrong. It would be a gamble."

  "But less of a gamble for those of us on the inside, eh?"

  He licked his lips and turned to stare at her.

  "I am not certain that I catch your meaning…"

  Just then a slave came up from the stables, passed by with a wheelbarrow filled with horse manure. Semirama waited till he was gone.

  "I've watched you," she said. "I can read you, Baran. Do you really think you could hold this place against your master?"

  "He's slipping, Semirama. He's already lost some of his power, and Tualua is another piece of it. I believe it could be done, though I couldn't do it alone. This is the most weakened he's been in ages."

  She laughed.

  "You speak of ages? You speak of his power? I walked this world when it was a far, far younger place. I reigned in the High Court of the West at Jandar. I knew Jelerak when he strove against a god. What are your few centuries, that you talk of the ages?"

  "He was blasted and twisted by the god…"

  "Yet he survived. No, reaching your dream would not be an easy task."

  "I take it," he said, "that you are not interested. All right. Just remember that there is a big difference between a dream and an act. I have done nothing against him."

  "I've no call to inform him of every idle word we pass," she said.

  He sighed.

  "Thank you for that," he replied. "But you were a queen. Have you no desire for such power again?"

  "I grew weary of power. I am grateful just to be alive once more. I do owe him that."

  "He only called you back because he needed one who could speak with Tualua."

  "Whatever the reason…"

  They stood for a moment, staring out the window. The fogs shifted and they had a glimpse of dark forms struggling upon a gleaming, sandy bed. Baran made a gesture near the right side of
the window, and the image rushed toward them until it seemed but a few paces distant: two men and a pack horse were sinking into the ground.

  "They keep coming," Baran observed. "The plum you mentioned… That's a sorcerer and his apprentice, I'll wager."

  As they watched, a horde of red scorpions, each the size of a man's thumb, scuttled across the sand toward the struggling figures. Seeing them, the sinking man in the lead made a long, slow gesture. A circle of flames sprang up about the figures. The insects slowed, drew back, began to trace its perimeter.

  "Yes. Now, that spell worked…" He nodded.

  "Sometimes they do," she said. "Tualua's energies are moving in very erratic patterns."

  After a time, the insects cast themselves forward into the flames, the bodies of those who perished providing bridges for their fellows. The sinking sorcerer gestured again, and a second circle of fire occurred within the first. Again the scorpions were baffled, but for a much briefer time than before. They repeated their assault on the fires and began crossing this barrier also. By then, more of them were moving across the sands to join the first wave. The sorcerer raised his hand once more and commenced another gesture. Flames bloomed in the beginnings of a third circle. At that moment, however, the drifting mists obscured the entire prospect once again.

  "Damn!" Baran said. "Just when it was getting interesting. How many more circles do you think he'll raise?"

  "Five," she replied. "That's about all he had room for."

  "I'd have guessed four, but perhaps you're right. There was a little distortion."

  A faint thumping, flapping sound arose somewhere in the distance.

  "What was it like?" he said a little while later.

  "What?"

  "Being dead. Being summoned back after all this time. You never talk about it."

  She averted her gaze.

  "You think perhaps that I passed the time in some horrid hell? Or possibly in some place of delight? Or that it is all shadowy and dreamlike to me now? Or else that nothing intervened? An empty blackness?"

  "All of these had occurred to me at one time or another. Which one was it?"

  "Actually, none of them," she said. "I underwent a series of reincarnations —some of them very interesting, many quite tedious."

  "Really?"

  "Yes. In the past, I was a serving wench in a kingdom far to the east, where I soon came to be a secret favorite of the king's. When Jelerak reanimated my original dust and called my spirit back to it, that poor girl was left a gibbering idiot. At a most awkward moment, I might add—while enjoying the royal embrace." She paused a moment. Then, "He never noticed," she finished.

  Baran moved so as to view her face. She was laughing.

  "Bitch!" he said. "Always mocking. You never give a man a straight answer!"

  "You've noticed. Yes. It pleases me to be perhaps the only person around with some knowledge of such a profound matter—and not to share it." The irregular noises of approach had grown louder.

  "Oh, look! It's cleared! He's drawing the sixth circle now!"

  Baran chuckled.

  "So he is. But he can barely move that hand. I don't know whether he'll get another one inscribed. It's even possible he'll go under before they get to him. He seems to be sinking faster now."

  "Misted over again! We'll never know…"

  The noises increased in tempo, and they turned in time to see a purple creature with mismatched eyes and legs scurry past them in the direction of the chamber they had quitted.

  "Don't go in there!" she shouted in Mabrahoring. Then, "Baran! Stop it! I won't be responsible for the results if Tualua's disturbed by a demon! If this place comes unmoored—"

  "Halt!" Baran cried, turning.

  But the demon, a suspicious object held close to the source of its chuckle, scurried across a dung-heap and rushed toward the edge of the pit.

  An instant later, the empty space directly before it seemed to come open with a sound like tearing fabric, revealing a brief field of absolute blackness. The slaves rushed away. The demon halted, cowered.

  There was movement within the dark opening. An enormous pale hand emerged from it. The demon moved quickly then, to sidestep and retreat, but the hand was quicker. It shot forward and seized it by the neck, raising it above the floor. Then it moved, the dark area drifting with it, bearing its writhing, choking burden back over the heap, across the chamber, out the doorway and along the gallery.

  It approached Baran and Semirama and dropped the creature at the former's feet. Then the Hand withdrew into the darkness, the tearing sound followed, and the air was still once more.

  Semirama gasped. The object still clutched by the writhing demon was a human leg, upon which it had been chewing.

  "It's been among the prisoners again!" she cried. "I recognize that tattoo! It was Joab, the fat sorcerer from the East."

  Baran kicked the cowering creature on the buttocks.

  "Stay out of that chamber! Stay away from that pit!" he shouted in Mabrahoring, gesturing back up the hall. "If you go near that place again, the full wrath of the Hand will descend upon you!"

  He kicked again, sending the large creature sprawling. It began to moan, it clutched the leg more closely.

  "Do you understand?"

  "Yes," it whimpered in the same tongue.

  "Then remember my words—and get out of my sight!"

  The demon rushed back in the direction from which it had originally come.

  "But the prisoners—" Semirama put in again.

  "What of them?" Baran asked.

  "It shouldn't be allowed to regard them as its personal larder."

  "Why not?"

  "Jelerak will want all of them intact, to face his personal judgment."

  "I doubt it. They're not that important. And for that matter, he'd be hard put to find a worse fate for them, on the edge of a moment."

  "Still… they are technically his prisoners. Not ours."

  Baran shrugged.

  "I doubt we'll ever be called to task for it. If so, I take full responsibility." He paused. Then, "I'm not at all that certain he'll be coming back," he continued. Another pause. "Are you?"

  She turned to regard the murky view beyond the window once again.

  "I couldn't really say. And for that matter, I'm not sure that I'd care to if I could—at, this point."

  "Why is this point different from any other point?"

  "It's too soon. He's been away longer than this on other occasions."

  "We both know that something happened to him up in the Arctic."

  "He's been through worse. I'm certain. I was there in the early days —remember?"

  "And supposing he never returns?"

  "It's an academic question unless Tualua comes around."

  Baran's eyes flashed, then almost twinkled.

  "Say your charge recovers tomorrow?"

  "You can ask me then."

  Baran snorted, turned on his heel, and stalked off in the same direction the demon had taken. As he did, Semirama counted slowly on her fingers until she reached six. Then she stopped. There were tears in her eyes.

  It was moderately hilly country, with a rich growth of spring vegetation. Meliash sat upon a low hillock with his back to most of it, his arm-length ebony wand standing upright before him, its nether end driven a span into the ground. He stared past, to where the mists, pinked over with morning sunlight, shifted about the enchanted area, revealing the transformations and retransformations of the landscape. He was a broad-shouldered man with tawny hair. His mainly orange garments were surprisingly rich for the area and the situation he had assumed. A golden chain hung about his neck, supporting a bright blue stone which matched his eyes. At his back, both his servants moved about the camp, preparing the morning meal. He leaned forward slowly and placed his fingertips upon the wand. He continued to stare past it. As eddies occurred in the mist, as waves of shadows rolled, he turned his eyes to regard them. Finally, he grew still and assumed a listening attitu
de. Then he spoke softly and waited. He repeated his performance a number of times before he rose and walked back to his camp.

  "Set an extra place for breakfast," he told the servants, "but put on enough food for several more people and keep it warm. It is going to be an interesting day."

  The men grumbled, but one began removing vegetables from a sack and scraping them. He passed them to the other, who chopped them into the stewpot.

  "A bit of meat there, too."

  "Ay, Meliash. But we're getting low," said the older, a small man with a faded beard.

  "Then one of you must do some hunting this afternoon."

  "I've no liking for these woods," said the other, a thin, sharp-featured man with very dark eyes. "Could be some werebeast or other ill-gotten wight has wandered over."

  "The woods are safe," Meliash replied.

  The smaller man began dicing a piece of meat.

  "How long until your guest arrives?" he asked.

  Meliash shrugged and moved away, facing up the hill to the rear of the camp.

  "I've no way of estimating how rapidly another will travel. I—"

  Something moved, and he realized that it was a green boot beside the twisted tree ahead of him. A pair of them…

  He halted and raised his head. A tall figure, the sun at its back…

  "Good morning," he said, squinting and shading his eyes. "I am Meliash, Society warden for this sector—"

  "I know," came the reply. "Good morning to you, Meliash."

  The figure advanced, soundlessly. A slim woman, with pale hair and complexion, green eyes, delicate features, she wore a cloak, belt, and headband to match her green boots; her breeches and blouse were black, her vest of brown leather. Heavy black gloves hung from her belt, along with a short sword and a long dagger. In her left hand was a light bow, unstrung, of a reddish wood Meliash did not recognize. He did recognize the heavy black ring with the green design on the second finger of that hand, however. Dispensing with the recognition sign of the Society, he fell to one knee, bowing.

  "Lady of Marinta…" he said.

  "Rise, Meliash," she replied. "I am here on the business you serve as witness. Call me Arlata."