She laughed and tinkled a fingernail against the clepsydra.
I stood up.
“Then let us go and see how the Sans have got on with that damned black idol.”
So as I stood up and spoke I saw Delia, half turned in the doorway, looking back at me, and the breath caught in my throat.
Often and often I have tried to find expression to convey some sense of the beauty of my Delia. How impossible a task! As she stood there, half laughing at me, the sheer ivory-white gown relieved only by a small brooch of brilliant scarlet scarrons, her brown hair with those shimmering tints of chestnut striking through and making a wonder and a halo around her head — yes, I felt my flinty old heart thump and the blood pulse through my veins. By Zair! Was there ever a girl like Delia, my Delia of Delphond, my Delia of the Blue Mountains?
Sweetly she looked at me, mocking, knowing very well what thoughts were prancing through my mind. I scowled. What chance of that! The scowl died and I realized I was smiling, grinning away like a loon.
“There will be plenty of time, my love,” said Delia, the Princess Majestrix of Vallia, “for you to catch up.”
If I do not give my reply to that I fancy each of you, in his or her own way, will furbish up the retort suitable. The effect of all this was that we were smiling foolishly away as we walked through the hall of the images toward the laboratory. These images, of ivory and bronze and precious stones, commemorate the Stroms of Valka. I still had not made up my mind if I relished their presence forever lowering down on me, the latest Strom, or if I resented them as reminding me of past glories and past shames. We had just passed the bust of Strom Natival, I recall, around whom legends clustered, when we heard the explosion. For a single shocked instant I thought gunpowder had been touched by a spark. But gunpowder was not used here. All my old training in a wooden ship of the line, with felt slippers and flash curtains and water buckets and hoses forever at the ready, reared up in me. With a curse I leaped forward and the billowing mass of black smoke choked around the far corner and boiled swiftly forward. The black smoke engulfed me. I swung about, reaching for Delia, waiting for the blast to take us. It was all a screaming nightmare with the concussion still ringing in my ears. The smoke roiled and eddied. I blundered into Strom Pagan’s bust — I knew it was his by the size of the vinous nose — and it went over with a smash. Delia clung to me, saying nothing. Our eyes and noses ran with the stink. This was not ordinary smoke. There was about it a charnel tang, a foul-tasting vileness on our tongues, rasping our throats.
No further blast came.
The smoke thinned. I gasped for air. We waved our hands about, wafting the smoke away. Delia’s ivory dress was spattered with black dots, like mold on cheese. My eyelids felt redly granular, itching. I spat.
“By the foul intestines of Makki-Grodno!” I bellowed. “The infernal idol!”
I pushed Delia away.
“Go back, Delia!”
I started to run for the laboratory.
My Delia ran at my side.
“Go back! Who knows what has happened?”
“I intend to find out. Why don’t you go back?”
I saved my breath.
As I ran on I was cursing away at myself for being such a fool as to bring the damned idol into the palace. What a blind idiot! Had I never heard of Troy, and the White Horse? What sorcerous mischief had I unloosed in Esser Rarioch?
A figure blundered into me and I grasped old Evold by the arms and shook him.
“Tell me, Evold!”
“My Prince-” He babbled on, shaking. “The eyes lit up again, just as you said!” He coughed and choked and spluttered and I let him go as he swiped at his streaming eyes. “San Khe-Hi, he was almost prepared as he had promised, and then it was as though the lightning struck. The idol shrieked! There was smoke and flame and a blue-green fire and-”
He had no need to say more.
From the wrecked door of the laboratory Khe-Hi-Bjanching stumbled, beating wildly at the darting black forms surrounding him. They dived from the air, swirling their ebony wings, and their shrill chittering filled the hall with the rustling whispers of the tomb.
Chyyans! Scores of tiny chyyans, with a wing spread of no more than two feet, swooped and darted and struck and clawed. I saw their baleful red eyes, the raking dart of their scarlet talons. Their beaks gaped wide. Khe-Hi stumbled and fell. I leaped forward, ripping the rapier and main gauche free. I stood over him, straddle-legged, and at once my blades swirled and swished to cut down the fluttering horrors. They appeared almost like bats, vampire bats, lunging in to sink their fangs into my neck and suck me dry.
But each black chyyan had four wings, four wings clad in rusty black feathers. They swooped and darted and struck, and I felt the sting on forehead and arms as they clustered thickly about me and sank their talons into my flesh.
“Wizard!” I bellowed, slashing about me wildly. “Cast a spell or something! Drive them off!”
“I have spelled them already,” came the gasping wheeze from the wizard. He tried to crawl out from between my knees and a tiny chyyan slashed at him, so that he cried out and scuttled back.
“Well, for the sweet sake of Mother Diocaster! Spell them again!”
I heard a furious yell from along the hall and between slashing and ducking turned. Turko was there, laying about him with his parrying-stick. And my Delia, slim and glorious in her slashed ivory gown, my Delia sliced and cut with the long slender jeweled dagger in whose use she is so superbly skilled.
“San!” I bellowed. “You must run for it!”
I shoved the dagger into my mouth, ricking my lips back in the old way so my teeth could grip the blade. I reached down with my left hand and hauled Khe-Hi out by the scruff of the neck. My right hand seemed of its own volition to be flickering the rapier about, chunking great swatches of black feathers away, slicing and cutting, never thrusting, for in a game like this that was the sure way to die. I gave Khe-Hi a good rousing kick up the backside and sent him scuttling and staggering down the long hall.
Then I reached my Delia and with three blades we wove that old deadly net of steel. She flashed me a single smile. We went to work, then, in real earnest.
Jiktar Larghos Glendile appeared, raging, roaring into the fight with a rapier and two daggers, and with a blade gripped in his tailhand. He was worth two men in that kind of fight. Others of my people showed up, and soon we could actually count the numbers of chyyans remaining. I bellowed.
“Save some! Do not slay them all!”
Then ensued a riotous chasing rout as the fluttering birds sought to escape from the palace, and my people, whooping as though on a rampage, chased them through the corridors and up and down the stairs, seeking to cast nets and sacks and whatever came to hand over them. In the end we caught three of them, penned in sacks, and the stout material bulged and strained. Turko hit a bulge with the parrying-stick and the bird in the sack quieted down.
Once again what had begun as a drama, as tragedy, ended in farce.
“Khe-Hi!” I said, and at my tone he stiffened up, looking woebegone in his ruined finery, but nonetheless still retaining his dignity as a Wizard of Loh. “Well?”
We went back to the laboratory and Khe-Hi pointed out what was left of the idol. Bits and pieces of black stone were scattered about the chamber. The windows were blown out. The tables were overturned. The place was a shambles.
“Khe-Hi!” squeaked San Evold. “You’ve ruined my chamber!”
“Not me, old man. Rather this Makfaril of whom the prince speaks.”
“I’ll do more than speak about him,” I said, very nastily. “You said you had spelled them.”
“So I did, my Prince.” Here Khe-Hi pulled himself together and became again a famous Wizard of Loh.
“Had I not done so we would have been beset by full-size chyyans.”
Turko whistled. Jiktar Larghos Glendile nicked his tail-hand about. I said, “So you did well, wizard. Did you seek to open the idol b
efore I arrived?”
“No. No, my Prince! The eyes lit up again as you described when my preparations were almost complete. I understand what happened. A wizard was controlling the idol and saw what I intended. He released the hidden sealing spells and there was a sound as of thunder and a blue-green light as of leprous lightning.”
That was as good a way as any to describe an explosion to those who did not know of gunpowder. The spell I had set reduced whatever was in the idol in stature and power. So the eggs-”
“Eggs?”
“The idol was packed with chyyan eggs that would hatch into full-sized chyyans instantly, bypassing normal growth. It is a trick some wizards employ. My counter-art reduced the size of the chyyans.”
“Lucky for us,” said Glendile. He had four weapons to clean, and was hard at work even as we stood talking.
“And the light was blue-green?”
“Yes.”
That did not square with a gunpowder explosion.
“Damned sorcery,” I said. “I don’t hold with it. Another wizard?”
“A most potent practitioner of the arts.”
I looked at Khe-Hi-Bjanching. We all knew of whom we thought.
It was left to Delia to say, in a calm, even voice, “Do you think, San, it was this infamous Phu-si-Yantong?”
Khe-Hi scowled. “I do not know. By Hlo-Hli, my Princess, I do not know!”
This was a poser. I was prepared to credit Yantong with any evil you care to imagine. Once a fellow has run into evil of that nature he tends to see his opponent as more black than a night of Notor Zan, until, with wisdom, comes the understanding that character shades into gray and purple and bilious green. All the same, Phu-si-Yantong!
“I have told you of the Wizard of Loh, Que-si-Rening, kept by the Empress Thyllis in Hamal. Do you think it could have been him? After all,” I added, trying to appear casual and making a dismal mess of it,
“after all, everything about the Chyyanists points to another ploy from Hamal.”
“I swear by the Seven Arcades, my Prince! I cannot tell. The sorcery was sealed by great power. It is possible among high adepts to conceal ego-traces, to hide the personality patterns. I can do this to an extent. There are few wizards, I venture to think, who would discover what I did if I did not wish them to, but of course there could be a few who would have the power.”
This was mighty humble pie for Khe-Hi, I saw.
I nodded, not satisfied, but unable to do anything about that dissatisfaction for the moment. A clatter of dislodged stones and debris from one of Evold’s smashed tables turned our attention to Balass, who straightened up lifting a dusty round object from the jumble. He blew on it and dust flew.
“Now what is this?” he said, turning, walking across with the round plate balanced on his upturned palms.
I was aware of Khe-Hi at my side, of the way a tremor shook through him. I shot a swift searching glance at him. The wizard’s face looked strained, a deep furrow dinting down between his eyebrows. He sucked in his breath.
“Whatever it is, Balass,” I sang out cheerily, “our potent wizard knows!”
“Aye, my Prince! By Hlo-Hli. I know!”
“Well, then, tell us.”
He took the plate from Balass, by which I judged the thing exerted no immediately dangerous evil influence. He turned it over. We all craned to look. The plate was fashioned from bronze, as thick as two fingers, as wide around as an Och’s shield. Inset around the edge were cabalistic signs; these Khe-Hi ignored and I judged them decoration. Nine sigils surrounded a blank center. That center either had once had or had space left for five further signs. Each of the nine signs was different and I recognized none.
“Well?”
“This was secreted in the compartment in the back of the idol.”
“Well,” exclaimed Balass. “Anyone knows that!”
“Go on, Khe-Hi,” I said. Balass shut his jaws with a snap.
“The wizard controlling the idol is able to observe at a distance without the necessity of forcing a representation of himself to the needful point and looking through his own immaterial eyes. This saves psychic energy.”
Delia was looking carefully at the disk and its nine emblazoned signs, and Turko lifted it from Khe-Hi’s hands so the princess might view it more easily.
I said, “You mean when the eyes light up with that baleful green fire this damned wizard is spying out of them?”
“Yes, my Prince. I also think this is a sign for the priest, in this case Himet the Mak, to open the back in safety.”
“But the confounded thing blew up when the eyes lit up!”
“Yes. Because the wizard observed what was happening and knew that in the next few murs I would have reduced his sorceries and rendered the chyyan eggs harmless.”
“Hmm,” I said. “And these signs? Nine of them?”
Nine is perhaps the most magical number on Kregen. There was a fanciful touch about this round plate and the nine symbols that reminded me, vaguely, of the Krozairs of Zy and their sign, the hubless spoked wheel within the circle.
“Each sign, I think, is a location. Probably where a temple of the Great Chyyan is situated. When the sign lights up, it must be a signal to meet there.”
Every symbol lay flat and dull and lifeless.
“The first thing,” I said with enough acerbity in my voice to make them understand the seriousness of all this and my inflexible determination to rise above the farcical element that had been dogging us lately, “the very first thing is to read the symbols. We must find out where these damned temples are.”
Evold peered at the plate. “They mean nothing to me at the moment. But mayhap I have books. San Drozhimo the Lame may have somewhat to say on these signs. And there is the Hyr-Derengil-Notash. Also I have hopes of the hyr-lif of Monumentor ti Unismot.”
There were one or two small smiles in the group. We all knew old Evold and the lore he culled from his musty books. All the same, he did come up with answers to problems. No one could deny that. Khe-Hi sniffed. “This is wizard’s work, San. The Hyr-Derengil-Notash was compiled by a great wizard two thousand five hundred seasons ago. I know it well. If whoever is controlling the idol used it, you may find what we seek. I doubt it.”
San Evold did not look disgruntled. He was used to this kind of deprecation from Khe-Hi. The Hyr-Derengil-Notash — the title means, very roughly, the high palace of pleasure and wisdom — is used by philosophers and in its pages they can find whatever they seek. It is read as the heart commands. If, and I did not savor the thought, if Phu-si-Yantong was the wizard controlling the idol, I did not think he would have recourse to that hyr-lif. Only very important books on Kregen are called lifs, and only the most highly important of all receive the appellation of hyr-lif.
The signs meant nothing to me. One looked like a mess of worms. Another like a ship of no recognizable type, with a fork of lightning joined to the mainmast. Another seemed merely a formal angular maze. Delia looked up at me, and at the look in her eyes I jumped.
“I think,” said Delia slowly, her face more flushed than usual, “I think I know where is the place one of these signs refers to.”
Five
The Stromni of Valka explains
The plate, with its outer ring of nine symbols and its inner ring of five empty places surrounding the blank center, was very heavy, being fashioned of bronze. The idea, undoubtedly, was to make it difficult to steal. Khe-Hi-Bjanching told us that this kind of plate with symbols, used by the wizards as a means of conveying information, was called a signomant, employing signomancy to give instructions that could not be misunderstood by those who had the key.
I refused to allow Delia to speak until we had all left the laboratory, Turko and Balass taking turns to carry the signomant, and until we had all settled down in an airy upper chamber after we had washed the muck of the explosion from ourselves. A light white wine was served, for the suns were almost gone, and the birds flitted about the grim stone face of the
castle. Wearing a delicious cool laypom-yellow gown, Delia sat in her comfortable chair, gazing upon us in some delight, her cheeks still rosy and her eyes bright with the secret revelations she was about to tell us.
No one was fool enough to mumble some sycophantic nonsense about not being at all surprised that the Princess Majestrix should understand the signs. We all sensed that only some local knowledge had given the clue to Delia. This proved true as she spoke.
“I am called Delia of Delphond,” she began. “My estate of Delphond is very dear to me and I have studied all that I can find about it.”
Now I am aware that I have said very little about Vallia. One reason is that its puissant empire tended to stifle coherent thought in me. Also, much of my adventuring on Kregen has taken place in countries outside Vallia. But, all the same, as I go on I must tell you of important facts. In the long ago the main island of Vallia and the surrounding islands were all separate, petty kingdoms and kovnates — and some not so petty — and it was only after long-drawn-out and bloody wars that finally the empire drew together with its capital at Vondium.
Delphond is situated on the southern coast of Vallia, not too far to the west of Vondium, and it had been a kingdom in its own right, small and tight and sweet. When the empire-builders advanced from Vondium, the kingdom of Delphond retained an individual identity for much longer than anyone might have expected. There was much trouble with the far southwest, and Rahartdrin resisted stubbornly. Also the northeast maintained a hostility to Vondium that persisted for centuries. So it was that when at last Delphond was incorporated into the empire the final capitulation was swift, with little damage done to the ancient monuments of the past. The old history twined with passion and intrigue — just as these times of which I tell you now hummed with plot and counterplot — and Delphond, when at last she entered the empire, was given over to the empress and her descendants, alternating the generations with other estates of Vallia.
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