by Brian Craig
"I fear that my storytelling skills would not suffice to make it last as long as that? said Orfeo, blandly. "I have lost track of the hours, but another session as long as this should bring the tale close to its conclusion. I assure your highness that I am no more anxious than you are to spend another thousand nights in this manner."
"Then you must go to your room now, and sleep. Tonight, when I summon you again, you will take the tale to its conclusion. Then we will see what has become of our bargain."
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So saying, the Caliph clapped his hands loudly, and there came into the room the same female servant who had led Orfeo from his prison so many hours before. He could not believe that she had stayed awake so long, waiting outside the door, and concluded that she must have a couch nearby where she had taken her rest.
He was very tired himself, and longed to throw himself down on a soft bed. His wounded shoulder pained him, and so too did an older wound upon his breast, which he had thought quite healed.
Is this old age which creeps upon me? he thought. Perhaps Estalia took a greater toll than I thought.
But he did not really mean 'Estalia'. He meant Zaragoz. The name held no particular terrors for him now, but there was much that he did not care to remember in the record of his adventures there. The memory of diAvila's dungeons, and the things which lurked beneath them, was something which came to him now and again in nightmares, but this was the first time that he had ever undertaken to describe what had occurred there in detail. To tell the story, leaving nothing out, would be to relive the darkest and most dangerous hours of his life, and it would tax his strength and spirit. Still, it must be done.
When he was put back in the room which served as his prison the boy Maro promptly woke up, and greeted him.
"Did the Caliph like your tale?" asked the boy, fearfully.
Orfeo threw himself down upon a bed of cushions, and said:
"I cannot tell, for it is only half told. I had hoped to see in his eyes whether he was a friend or enemy of the men of Zaragoz who came to hate me, but I cannot. Reason tells me that if he were not their enemy, he would not have quit the town.. .and yet, I cannot be sure. Even if he is Quixana, there may be less in the tale to please him than I could put in, if I dared to invent an ending other than the true one."
"Well," said the boy, bravely, "we have one more day to live, and I am not made a eunuch yet."
"No," said Orfeo, "and I have been in too many prisons, harsher by far than this one, not to hope for release. I have been a lucky man where prisons are concerned, and have sometimes thought that the gods must like me very much as a wanderer, to set me free so often and send me on my way. I must trust in Morr and Manann, by whom he made me swear, that they will save me now."
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So saying, he let his eyes fall shut—and very soon was fast asleep.
But Maro, watching him carefully, saw that he was troubled in his sleep by dreams which made him move, and sometimes make as if to cry out, though very little actual sound spilled from his lips.
He is dreaming, thought the boy, or else foul daemons are taunting him, telling him that he will soon be theirs.
Then he got up, and went to the window to watch the birth of the new and hopeful day.
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Chapter Nine
Arcangelo seemed startled himself, and it was obvious to Orfeo that he had not expected to discover two prisoners whom he knew.
But the wizard recovered his composure quickly, and put a finger to his lips to ask for silence. His eyes darted first one way and then the other, as if he did not know which of them to speak to first, but after a moment's hesitation he went to his left, to that side of the pit where poor Falquero had been chained for five long years, and embraced him with one arm, while the other held his tiny light aloft.
Falquero had burst into another fit of sobbing, but he stifled the sound in Arcangelo's cloak as he pressed his face into the older man's shoulder.
The spellcaster turned then, to look across the empty space at Orfeo.
"You here?" he said, in a very low tone. "Did I not warn you to tread carefully in Zaragoz?"
"Aye," Orfeo replied, in a whisper. "And so did Semjaza—but I became entangled nevertheless, and had thought like your friend that I might never see the light of day again. Of the people I hoped might come to save me, you are the last I thought to see. But you did not come for me, did you?"
"No," said Arcangelo. "I came for Jacomo, who was once 125
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unwittingly betrayed by me, when I entrusted him with a mission far too dangerous for him to carry out. I should not have sent him, but I could not bear to send the child alone to Zaragoz."
Orfeo nodded. "So you were Serafima Quixana's guardian. Why did you send her at all, when you knew that the diAvilas could mean her no good?"
"Once they had found us, there was no other way. Had I refused, they would have taken her any way—even if we had succeeded in gaining a fuller measure of protection from the rulers of Gualcazar, diAvila could have sent assassins to kill her. My wizardry was a poorer thing, then, and when I tested it against Semjaza and the sorceress I knew that I could not prevail. My only hope was to gain time."
"Why did they not kill her anyway," asked Orfeo, "if she is the last of the Quixana line?"
"A family which has extended over centuries cannot be made extinct," said Arcangelo. "The bearers of the name may be destroyed, but there is always one more branch to be traced, one more chain of kinship. It is a matter of taking one more step towards the root, to find another place where the blood is leaked into the meshes of a dozen marriages. Had they killed Serafima, there would have been another heir, somewhere in Zaragoz or in the wider world. Safer, they thought, to make frail Serafima the anchor of such hope as their opponents had, and make her blood a prisoner of their own."
"Might it not have been best to let them do it?" said Orfeo, with a hint of bitterness. "If a marriage can put an end to centuries of hatred and violence.. .would that not be the preferable way?"
"Only if justice were to be forgotten...only if right were to be abandoned. You are a clever man, Orfeo, and I think that you know well enough what a dreadful kind these diAvilas have become, in the pursuit of their pleasure and ambition. I have one thing left to do with my life, and that is to save the lady Serafima—whether or not it requires my own damnation to secure that end."
Orfeo accepted the rebuke. He did know what Arcangelo meant, perhaps better than the spellcaster knew.
Jacomo Falquero spoke for the first time. "Can your magic break the shackle on my leg?" he whispered, in a voice tremulous with resurrected hope. "Can you bring me safe from these 126
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loathsome walls?"
Arcangelo pushed him away, but very gently, and looked him up and down: "Poor Jacomo," he said, "I had a picture of you in my mind, which was the image of a very different man. I had not imagined that they could reduce you so far, and hurt you so much. Five years has not been an easy span for me to bear, but I did not know it had been eternity for you."
"But it is over now!" said the other, perhaps too loudly, with another sob gathering in his heart.
"No," replied Arcangelo, in a tone which said that he wished that it were so. "It is barely begun—and the hardest work is yet to do."
He looked again at Orfeo, and though he said nothing Orfeo knew only too well that his help was being asked. Arcangelo had come here—by what miraculous means Orfeo could only guess-not to lead Jacomo Falquero to freedom, but to enlist his help in securing the release of another prisoner: the lady Serafima.
In order to accomplish that end, Arcangelo's magic must not only claim its first victory over Semjaza's, but sow sufficient confusion to reduce a hundred men-at-arms to impotence. He had looked to have a stout swordsman of his own to help him, but he had found out now that Jacomo Falquero was ill-fitted to be that man.
"I
have a score to settle with Sceberra," said Orfeo, grimly.
"Only break this shackle, and I will do what I can. Nothing would give me more pleasure than to snatch the prize from Sceberra's very grasp—and though I cannot see how you hope to get her out of Zaragoz, or make her safe from assassins if you do, I am with you to the end."
"I have given fair warning," said Arcangelo, gently, "that if justice cannot prevail, then Zaragoz is doomed. There is a place where the lady will be safe for a while, if only we can get her there—a place where the walls themselves will try to hold her safe."
Orfeo knew where those walls were, though he was not yet convinced that the magic within them had really been awakened by the blast which Arcangelo had tempted from Semjaza. He was glad to think, though, that they might be able to hold Rodrigo Cordova protectively, now that the attempt to keep him from them had been thwarted.
"I pray that your magic will be powerful enough," said Orfeo, 127
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and could not help himself from adding: "this time."
"I let Semjaza lay me low," said Arcangelo, "for I had to go to that house, before I came here. All has been planned—as I think you now suspect, I have chosen every move since I drew Rodrigo Cordova to the tavern where we rested on that first night. Semjaza thought that I was helpless, but you can see that I am not, and I think that he is anxious now that he knows how badly he mistook my strength. I am a more powerful man by far than I was when first I met my enemy, and I think he may be frailer. But magic is by no means mere brute force—victory goes to those who use their power deftly, with cleverness and cunning."
Orfeo remembered Semjaza's face, as it had peered into his own while he was being questioned, and as it had appeared again in his nightmare. Though he had no sensible way of judging, he was not yet prepared to agree that Semjaza was less strong than once he had been—nor was he certain that the advantage of cleverness and cunning lay with Arcangelo.
It was as if he heard again in his mind those words which Semjaza had spoken to him: Something might be made of a man like you.
It was Sceberra, not Semjaza, who had made him into an enemy—but it was Semjaza, not Sceberra, who made him afraid of the coming conflict.
"Well," he said, gruffly. "I hope that your strength will not be too severely sapped by the effort of casting off an extra shackle—and I hope too that your plan for invading that citadel above us is a very careful one. If I am destined to be food for those foul things down below, then I do not suppose it will matter whether I go to their feast tonight or another night, but I had far rather that I did not go at all."
Orfeo watched closely as Arcangelo worked on the shackles which bound their feet. Though the wizard needed no more equipment to make them loose than his own two hands it did not seem to be an easy task, and he could see the muscles in the spellcaster's neck become tense with the effort. He knew that magicians did not like to admit, even to themselves, how much their spells cost them, so he said nothing—but he had some suspicion of how much strength and skill a cunning man might have accumulated within his body during five years of preparation, and he knew how very 128
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quickly that store might be depleted, even in spells of an apparently trivial nature.
When they came out of the cell, Arcangelo led them quickly along a passage to an open door. There were five other doors in the passage, each one of which marked a cell like the one where they had been confined, but Arcangelo was not concerned with other prisoners—and Orfeo thanked the whim of fortune which had chained him alongside Falquero.
Beyond the open door there was a chair for a guard to sit, and there was indeed a fearsome guard sitting upon it—but the huge man was so deeply asleep that only the release of the spell which had put him there would let him wake. Arcangelo removed the sword from the giant's belt and gave it to Falquero. Then he picked up the candle which lit the corridor; his own magical light had gone out when they emerged from the darkness.
There was another door at the corridor's further end, standing open like the first. Beyond it was the larger chamber where Sceberra had tortured Orfeo—and there, left carelessly on the slab with the other instruments, was the player's slender sword, which he picked up. There was also a lantern, burning somewhat brighter than the candle which they already had—Arcangelo picked it up and lit it, passing the other light to Orfeo.
There was a stairway from this chamber leading up towards the courtyard of the castle, but Arcangelo did not take them that way yet. Instead he went to another door, smaller than the others, which had the appearance of being rarely used. Its two locks must have been rusted solid for many years, but Arcangelo had broken them already, and now he led his companions down a stair which spiralled into the very heart of the rock.
"Remember the way!" commanded the spellcaster, as he descended.
The passage was wide enough for comfort, but not high enough, so that Orfeo, being a tall man, had almost to crouch in order to make his way down.
Arcangelo saw Orfeo's difficulty when he looked back, and said:
"There was a castle on this rock before humans ever came to Zaragoz, and the tunnels which connect the many caves were hollowed out by the dwarfs who were masters of the Old World before men began their rise from savagery. This crag was a 129
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stronghold which the dwarfs must have struggled long and hard to hold against their goblin enemies before their race began its slow decline."
Orfeo had rarely seen a dwarf, and had inherited from his elvish one-time guardians something of their amused contempt for that race, but while he had made his own way in the world of men the lore of legend had told him how much men owed to the race which had preceded them, and how much of human civilization was raised from the ruins of what the dwarfs had left behind.
"The sewer which collects the castle's wastes widens as it spirals downwards," Arcangelo continued. "This is part of another sequence of passages which runs always above it. There arc several pits where the two conjoin, but in other times all were very carefully bridged so that a man—or a dwarf—might pass safely from the castle to any one of a dozen caves giving access to the lower slopes. Around those entrances houses were built when men first came to Zaragoz, but many of the bridges had already crumbled away. The one remaining line of connection was used to invade the castle when the last Quixana Duke was deposed, but when it had been done the path was deliberately broken, and the way to the heart of the rock was sealed. Men are not like dwarfs, and they shun the inner spaces of the world, except when necessity drives them downwards into the darkness."
They went down and around until they came to a branching of the tunnels. Arcangelo showed them a sign which he had scored on the wall with a soft white stone.
"These are the marks which you must follow when you come this way with the lady Serafima," he said. "You must know them, for when the alarm is raised in the castle, I must stay to counter Semjaza's tricks, while you must make all possible haste to escape."
There were two more branches, each clearly marked. Then they came through an arch which let them through not to a further corridor but to a narrow ledge above a sheer slope.
"Take care!" said Arcangelo, urgently. "It is not deep, but should you fall, I think you know what waits at the bottom."
There was not die same sound of scampering which Orfeo had heard in the cell, for below him then there had been a place where the rats foraged for food, and gathered in huge numbers. Below this sheer slope was an emptier region, where the rats went to 130
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hide and make nests—and where other things may have waited to catch them. But if a man were to fall, the rats would assemble quickly enough about his broken body.
The ledge ran along the lip of this abyss for a hundred yards and more, curving all the while, and then it came abruptly to its end. The wall of rock cut sharply away to the left, but the ledge did not follow it around—the abyss was narrow here and another r
ock-face could be seen by the light of Arcangelo's lantern, no more than fifteen feet ahead of them. That other face had an arch set in it, and another tunnel leading away into the depths of the crag, but here the path was broken, and the bridge which had connected the ledge to the tunnel was gone—destroyed and cast into the pit.
Arcangelo stopped, and Orfeo turned to look at Falquero, who was breathing very heavily, and whose legs semed hardly able to support him. He was moving drunkenly, and Orfeo had to catch him by the arm. Falquero looked into his face, his eyes full of pain and fear.
"I cannot," he whispered. "I cannot."
"Wait!" commanded Arcangelo. He looked out into the gloom, then passed his lantern back to Orfeo, so that the player now held both their lights;
Suddenly, there was a flutter of wings in the darkness, and something came huriedly towards them. Orfeo raised an arm instinctively, thinking of some monstrous bat, but Arcangelo put out his other arm as though to catch a hunting falcon, and the thing came swiftly to him, grabbing his arm with its claws and steadying itself with a last few beats of its sleek black wings.
It was in fact a raven, and though it was huge enough by the standards of its kind, it was not quite the giant which Orfeo had imagined from the rushing sound of its arrival.
Orfeo had moved the brighter lantern back when he started in surprise, and Jacomo Falquero had caught his arm, so that he could not immediately lift it again to see the bird more clearly—but he could see that in its beak it held a pouch, which it surrendered to Arcangelo.
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the spellcaster's wrist before squirming sinuously into the shadow of his sleeve. The thing was gone within a second, leaving Orfeo to doubt the evidence of his eyes, but he felt some disquiet.
