Dahut

by Poul Anderson

  They found the chain that secured the bar.

  They found the lock that closed the chain.

  They took the Key and felt after the hole.

  It seemed like forever while he fumbled blind. A horror was in him, that he would drop the Key, that it would skitter off and be lost in the harbor which the gate guarded. He forced the fear aside and continued seeking.

  The Key entered. He felt it engage. He turned it and felt the pins click.

  He withdrew the Key, unclasped the lock, cast it from him to sink. A moment he stood moveless: then, with a yell, flung the Key after it.

  The chain slithered through his grasp. The bar was free.

  It would not likely rise of itself, however much it and the portal that it held shivered beneath blows. Niall was not finished yet.

  He made his way onward. The south door had its own platform, butting against that of the north door at their juncture. There was another bracket. Beyond it was the pivot on which the beam turned.

  A light cable ran from the north end of the bar, through a block high on the south door, and down. When Niall reached its cleat, he bayed laughter. He knew what to do, as fully as if he could see.

  He hauled on the line. The effort was small, so craftsmanly counter-weighted was the timber. Through wind and sea, did he hear it creak while it rose?

  Soon he could pull in no more, and knew the beam rested entirely against the south door, that the gate of Ys stood unbarred. Niall cleated the cable fast.

  He hurried back over platforms and catwalk, up stairs, to the top of the wall.

  Wildness greeted him. Let the floats haul the doors open just once, just part of the way. The tide would rush in. Striking from both sides, waves would rip the barriers from their hinges. Dry-laid, the wall of the city might fall to pieces. Surely a flood as high as Hightown would ride into Ys.

  A wave smashed home. Its crest cataracted over Niall of the Nine Hostages. He stood fast. After the salt rain was over, he cupped hands around mouth and shouted seaward: “I have done what was my will. Now do You do what is Yours!”

  He turned and ran, to get clear while the time remained.

  6

  Gratillonius woke inch by inch. In half-awareness he felt himself struggle heavily against it. He sank back toward nothingness. Before he had escaped, the drag recalled him. It was as if he were a fish, huge and sluggish, hooked where he had lain at the bottom of the sea. That was a strong fisherman who pulled him nearer and nearer the light above.

  He broke surface. Radiance ravaged him. He plunged. His captor played him, denied him the deeps, compelled him to breathe air under open sky. On his second rising, he saw the gray-bearded craggy face. The sea lured him with its peace. He went below. That was briefly and shallowly. Once more he must ascend, and now he came altogether out.

  Corentinus’s hands were bony and hard, shaking him. “Rouse, rouse, man!” the pastor barked. “What’s got into the lot of you? Lying like dead folk—” He noticed eyes blink. Stingingly, he slapped the King’s cheeks, left and right.

  Gratillonius sat up. Astonishment and anger flared. The fish burned away, and he was on earth, himself. “You! By Hercules—”

  Corentinus stepped back and straightened. “Use your wits,” he said. “Shake off that torpor. Get dressed. Help me kick the men awake. You’re in bad danger, my friend.”

  Gratillonius drew rein on his temper. This fellow wouldn’t come here on a midnight whim.

  Midnight? What hour was it? Wind yowled and rattled shutters. The room was musty-cold. His candles guttered, stubs. So a long while had passed since he dropped off—at last, at last—into blessed Lethe. Darkness outside must be nearing an end.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  Corentinus took his staff, which he had leaned against the wall. He clung to it and let it bear his weight, stared before him and answered low: “A vision. I saw a mighty angel come down from Heaven, clothed with a cloud; and a rainbow was upon his head; and his face was like the sun and his feet like pillars of fire. And seven thunders resounded while he cried, ‘Woe to the city! For it shall perish by the sea, whose queen it was; and the saints shall mourn. But go you, servant of God, make haste to the King of the city, and call him forth ere his foeman find him, that he may live; for the world shall have need of him. It is spoken.’

  “I came to myself with the voice and the brightness bewildering me still. I didn’t understand—”

  Abrupt tears ran from beneath the tufted brows, across the leathery hide. “I did-didn’t know what it meant,” Corentinus stammered. “Could it be a demon in me? Would God really… let His innocents die by the thousands, unhallowed? I went and prayed for a sign. Nothing, nothing came. I thought, I grabbed after the hope, that God wouldn’t destroy Ys. Wicked men might, the way they destroyed Jerusalem. You could forestall them. The command was to go and warn you”

  He swallowed before he finished in a steadier tone: “Maybe this is a trick of Satan. Or maybe I’m in my dotage. Well, there didn’t seem to be much harm in going to you. At worst, you’d boot me out. At best, you may untangle the thing and do whatever’s needful. Me, I’ll help any way I can. And—” he laid hand over heart—“I’ll be praying for a clear sign, and for Ys.”

  Gratillonius had listened frozen. He recoiled from prophecies and Gods, to immediacies a man could seize. “It’s senseless,” he snapped. “The weather’s easing off. We won’t take any more damage from it. As for enemies, none could possibly come by sea, and the land’s secure at least as far as Treverorum. I know; I just traveled through.”

  The same practicality responded: “No army bound here, no. But a band of sneak murderers could use the storm for cover. Who? Well, what about vengeful Franks? There are men who might well secretly have egged them on.”

  “I doubt that. The orders of the praetorian prefect were strict.” Gratillonius ran fingers through his hair. “In any case, I am alert now.”

  “Your attendants aren’t,” Corentinus reminded him. “Not a man on watch. They’re sleeping like drugged hogs. I say let’s pummel them out of it, and all of you take arms. Might be a good idea to lead them to town. Forget your wretched vigil. Leave this house of death.”

  Remembrance came back of another night. Gratillonius gaped. He swung himself out of bed. “We’d better get going.” His glance fell on the Christian’s bare feet. They bled from a score of slashes. “What happened to you?”

  “High Gate’s choked with wreckage. I stopped and told the guards they ought to clear it, because we might have sudden need of the road. But I couldn’t wait for that, of course.”

  Gratillonius nodded. It was a command such as he would have given, were he not confined to this kennel. Need he be?

  He went after his clothes. Something was missing. What? He felt at his chest. He choked on an oath, sprang about, scrabbled frantically in the bedding.

  The Key was gone.

  Faintness closed in on him.

  It receded. “What’s the matter?” Corentinus asked. “I thought you were about to drop.”

  Gratillonius snatched for his garments. “You wake the men,” he tossed over his shoulder. “Follow me—No, best you stay. They aren’t trained fighters. But they should be able to stand off an attack on the Lodge, if things come to that.”

  “Where are you bound?”

  “Yonder’s a lantern. Light it for me.”

  Corentinus’s voice reached him as if across the breadth of Ocean. He sounded appalled. “The Key of Ys! I should have seen, but you keep that devil’s thing hidden—”

  “It may well be a devil’s thing—now. I’m going after it.”

  “No! God’s word is to save you. If Ys is to fall—”

  “I told you to light me my lantern.”

  A shadow wavered before Gratillonius in the dimness. He turned. Corentinus had raised his staff. Gratillonius snarled. “Would you club me? Stand aside before I kill you.”

  Not troubling with undergarments, he had drawn on breeks,
tunic, boots. His sword hung on the wall, from a belt which also supported knife and purse. He took it and secured the buckle.

  “In Christ’s name, old friend,” Corentinus quavered, “I beg you, think.”

  “I am thinking,” Gratillonius replied.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know what. But it’s too ghastly to sit still with.”

  Gratillonius opened the lantern and lighted its candle himself off a stub. On his way out he took a cloak from its peg.

  Wind squalled, whined, bit. Its passage through the Wood made a noise like surf. The Challenge Oak creaked, the Shield rang. Right, left, and behind, night crouched around the frantic yellow circle of his light. The wood and the meadow beyond were gray under the beams of a moon he could not see but which tinged the bellies of clouds flying low overhead.

  Heedless of fire hazard, he carried the lantern into the stable and set it down. Warmth enfolded him, odors of hay and grain and manure. For an instant Gratillonius was a boy again on his father’s land.

  Glow sheened off the coat of Favonius. The stallion should have pricked up ears and whickered. Instead he stood legs locked, head hung, breath deep and slow—asleep. “Hoy!” Gratillonius entered the stall and slapped the soft muzzle. The beast snorted, twitched, slumbered on.

  How long had the Key been missing?

  Gratillonius had not meant to waste time on a saddle. He changed his mind. His foot helped him tighten the cinch to its utmost. The bridle went on despite the awkward position of the head, and the mouth did not resist the bit, but opened slackly when he put thumbs to corners. He donned his cloak and shut its clasp before he released the tether.

  Leaving the stall, he led the reins over its top and kept them in his left hand. His right drew blade. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, and reached between the rails. The flat of his sword smacked ballocks.

  The stallion screamed. He plunged and kicked. Wood flew to flinders. Gratillonius jumped around in front, got a purchase on the reins, and clung with his whole weight.

  Had the animal been disabled by pain or become unmanageable, Gratillonius would have left and run the whole way to Ys. Favonius traveled so much faster, though. “Easy, boy, easy, old chap, there, there.”

  Somehow the man gained control. He led the horse from the demolished stall. A last shying knocked the lantern over. Its cover fell off. Beneath it were wisps of straw scattered across the floor. The crib was full of hay. A tiny flame ran forth. Gratillonius gave it no heed. His task was to get the neighing, trembling beast outside.

  He did. Wind tossed the long mane. He forgot about the lantern.

  A shadow stumbled from the shadows. “I implore you, stay,” cried the voice of Corentinus. “God needs you.”

  Gratillonius hoisted himself into the saddle. “Hoy-a, gallop!” he shouted, and struck heels to ribs.

  “Lord have mercy,” called the chorepiscopus at his back. “Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy.”

  Hoofs banged. Muscles surged. Gratillonius rode off.

  7

  Once on Processional Way, he had Ys before him. Most of the city was as black as the headlands which held it. Towertops shone iron-hued by the light of a moon too far down for him to see above the wall. Tears blurred vision though he squinted, for he raced straight into the gale. Mithras preserve Favonius from tripping and breaking a leg.

  The road bent south. Hoofs racketed on the canal bridge. Water swirled just underneath, dense with soil. It made a restless pond, from crumbled banks to city wall and on around into the sea that besieged the cliffs of Point Vanis.

  Processional Way ended at Aquilonian Way. Here the wind was largely of Gratillonius’s own haste. He was well into the lee of Ys, but likewise into its shadow. Barely could he see the highway heaped with shards of buildings. He kept Favonius bound south a while, to get around. Drenched earth smothered hoofbeats. Or so he supposed, somewhere at the back of his mind. He could not tell in this din.

  When it appeared safe, he reined the stallion to a trot and turned west over grass, shrubs, mud that had been gardens, until they two reached the wall. Northward along it they groped, to High Gate. Somebody hailed. Men were at work clearing debris as Corentinus had urged. Gratillonius thought they were a fair number. The officer of the watch must have summoned everybody in barracks.

  “Who goes?” a voice challenged. Pikeheads lifted.

  “The King,” shouted Gratillonius. “Make way. Keep at your labor. We’ve need of that road!”

  He walked Favonius past, not to trample anyone in the dark. Lir Way opened before him, empty between buildings and sphinxes. He smote heels for a fresh gallop.

  Within the compass of the rampart, seeing was a little better. And he knew the way. After seventeen years, how well he knew it. Nothing obstructed it, either. The colonnades of the Forum passed by, specters under cloudy gravestones of towers. A few windows gleamed. They fell behind. He sped on, deeper into the roar of the sea.

  The gate was his goal. Rather than stumble through tangled and lightless lanes, quickest would be to continue straight down the avenue to the harbor, speed over its wharf to the north end of the basin, turn left past the Temple of Lir to pomoerium and stairs, bound up to the Gull Tower and summon the guards there to join him in defending the city.

  Mithras, God of the Midnight, You have had our sacrifice. Here is my spirit before You, my heart beneath Your eyes. I call, who followed Your eagles since ever my life began: Mithras, also a soldier, keep now faith with Your man!

  Skippers’ Market sheened. Favonius’s feet slipped from him on the wet flags. He skidded and staggered. Barely did Gratillonius hold saddle.

  The stallion recovered. “On!” yelled Gratillonius, and flogged him with the reins. He neighed. The arch of triumph echoed to his passage.

  They came between the waterfront buildings, out onto the dock. Its stone rang under the hoofs. Ahead, the basin flickered, full of a heavy chop. Ships swayed at their piers. Half-seen under moonlit, racing clouds, they might have been whales harpooned. The outer wall thrust bulk and battlements into heaven. Foam fountained above and blew away on the wind. The copper on the gate caught such light as to make it stand forth like a phantom. Surf sundered.

  Favonius reared and screamed.

  The doors opened. The moon shone through from the horizon. It frosted the combers that charged inward, rank upon rank upon rank. Ahead of them, below the wall, gaped a trough as deep as a valley. Amidst the wind that suddenly smote him with full force, Gratillonius heard a monstrous sucking noise. It was the basin spilling out into the depth. That rush of water flung the gate wide.

  A crest advanced. As the ground shoaled between the headlands, it gathered speed and height. The sound of it made stone tremble. Yet when it reached Ys it seemed to stand there, taller than the rampart, under spindrift banners, a thing that would never break.

  Favonius reared again. Panic had him—no, the Dread of Lir. Gratillonius fought to bring him back.

  The wave toppled.

  The gate had no time to close itself. The torrent broke past, into the basin, over ships and wharf. There it rebounded. The next wave met it. Between them, they tore the doors from the wall.

  With the full strength of his shoulders, Gratillonius had gotten his horse turned around. Hoofs fled between buildings and under the arch. The sea hounded them. Pastern-deep, it churned across Skippers’ Market, sprayed in sheets from the hasty legs, before it withdrew.

  Up Lir Way! Gratillonius felt nothing but his duty to survive. The Key had turned in the Lock and the old Gods were riding into Ys. Let him save what he could.

  A second billow overtook him, surged hock-deep. Wavelets ran across its back and flung spiteful gouts of foam. It would have peaked higher save that along the way it broke through windows, pounded down doors, and gushed into the homes of men.

  When he crossed the Forum, Favonius swam. Against the turmoil around him, Gratillonius made out heads, arms, bodies. They struggled and went under. He could do nau
ght to help them, he must seek toward where the need was greatest.

  The avenue climbed. For a small space, he galloped over clear pavement. Clouds ripped apart and he had some light from above. A few stars fluttered yonder. The east was gray.

  Favonius throbbed beneath him. The stallion had shed blind terror, or the tide had leached it from him. He heeded the reins. Gratillonius turned him left.

  Rising narrow between Suffete houses, the side street brought him to a point where he saw widely around. Ahead, that jewel which was the Temple of Belisama shone pale behind Elven Gardens. Beyond, Point Vanis heaved its cliffs heavenward and cast back the legions of Ocean.

  South of it they charged into Lowtown. The wall disintegrated before them. Glancing backward, Gratillonius saw the Raven Tower drop stone by stone into its drowned crypt. Through breaches ever wider, the waves marched ever stronger. They undercut their first highdweller’s tower. It swayed, leaned, avalanched. The fall of its mass begot new, terrible upheavals. Its spire soared like a javelin into the flank of a neighbor, which lurched mortally wounded. From Northbridge to Aurochs Gate, the sea front rolled onward.

  Gratillonius had not stopped while he looked. A glimpse into the wind, across what roofs remained, was enough. Already the flood seethed bare yards at his back. He galloped on through the gully of darkness, the noise of destruction.

  Ahead on his left was the house of Dahut. Her alone could he hope to save.

  It cracked wide. A wave engirdled it, hurled out of the spate that was Taranis Way. Stones and tiles became rubble. They slid into the water. It spouted, churned, and momentarily retreated.

  Though the moon had gone down, light as well as wind streamed through the gap. Night still held out against day, but Gratillonius could see farther. He saw the daughter of Dahilis. She had escaped barely in time. Naked she fled up the street ahead of him. “Dahut! Wait for me!” The wind tattered his cry, the sea overran it. Her hair blew wild about her whiteness.