EXILED Defenders of Ar

by Jack Lovejoy

  Evil Beneath the Mountain

  TWO OTHER pairs of eyes were gazing down at another ruby fragment at that very moment. The mug-house stood less than two streets from the Blue Dragon, but a whole world separated it in character. So unsavory were his surroundings that for once even Nizzam’s pompousness was deflated. He had never suspected there were so many villainous types living here in Kazerclawm. Or were they all outlanders?

  “Of course I recognize what’s on your ring.” He tried to conceal his growing nervousness with a display of omniscience. “My master has an identical fragment. He keeps it, uh, always within reach.”

  “Then you’ve discovered the secret of the lavaliere he wears around his neck?” The young mrem seated at the corner table with him spoke in a gutteral accent. “Very clever. I was sure The Three could count on you.” He glanced over his shoulder to reassure himself that no stranger was within earshot, and lowered his voice. “The events of the next few days could determine our very survival. Your master was not suspicious about your coming here tonight?”

  Nizzam shrugged, as if to say that his master’s opinion was of no consequence to him, although he had in fact been taken by surprise. The lavaliere! Of course! He could hardly suppress the twitching of his whisker pads, at the thought of having missed so obvious a hiding place himself. Once more he glanced nervously around the low mug-house. The five villainous companions of the young fellow seated with him had ranged themselves along the bar, isolating their table from possible eavesdropping. One of them had his head bandaged.

  “I hate this sneaking about after dark as much as you do,” the young mrem continued. “But I’ m sure you know yourself why it’s necessary. We of the younger generation must redeem the mistakes of the elder. They would hold us back if they could. Yes, I can see that you too have suffered from the lack of recognition by a jealous master. A master who would still hoard all the glory for himself, if he could. What a shame! That such learning should be denied it’s just reward out of senile envy.”

  Nizzam frowned down at the table. He had felt for years now that his merits were slighted, that The Three were being disinformed about his progress. Why else had he not already been qualified as a master wizard?

  The young mrem studied him for a moment with cunning satisfaction, then lowered his voice to an insinuating whisper: “Hold out your hand.” He slipped the ring, whose bezel mounted the sliver of ruby phosphorescence, onto Nizzam’s finger. “If your master hinders your advancement, be assured that The Three know you for what you really are. But have you the courage? That is now the question of questions.”

  “I believe I can be counted on to do my duty,” Nizzam replied pompously. “Though some may not think so.”

  “We do,” said the stranger. “Oh yes, we have long waited for just such a mrem as yourself.” There was a hint of mockery in his voice, but Nizzam was still too rapt in his own grievances to notice it. “If your master has withheld due respect from you, I hope he has at least not withheld a full account of what lies entombed beneath the Kazerclaw.”

  “He has tried to,” said Nizzam, “But I am not without mine own sources of information.”

  “Then we needn’t mention any names? Good.” He glanced suspiciously over his shoulder, then leaned forward and whispered: “A flaw has been discovered in the vault of enchantment. Not even your master, the very Sentinel himself, for all his imposing reputation as a wizard” —Nizzam snorted—“was alert enough to detect it. Let us be charitable, and say he has merely outlived his reputation. Once upon a time he may have had the prowess, even the courage, to attempt such an ordeal as I am now proposing. The Three fear that he might still attempt it, though no longer capable, rather than see another rival his glory. Or do we misjudge him?”

  “You do not. He would rise from his very deathbed, before allowing anyone else a chance to earn recognition.”

  “So we feared. It has also been suggested that he might turn others against you in his own household.”

  Nizzam looked quickly at him, then lowered his eyes.

  Could that explain Srana’s coldness toward him? It must. He had made it clear to her that, no matter what she lacked in fortune or noble ancestry, he considered her a worthy consort for the eminent position he would someday assume. Yet her response had lacked the warmth to be expected from a shemrem in her position. Could her grandfather indeed be poisoning her mind against him?

  The young mrem again studied him with cunning satisfaction. A sneer crossed his face, but he quickly suppressed it.

  “All the power of The Three has been concentrated into forging this telesma.” The golden pyx he now set on the table was engraved with occult runes, prominent among which Nizzam recognized the name Khal. “I needn’t ask if you can read the incantation? Good. Then we can proceed at once to the actual ceremony....”

  Nizzam listened intently to the details of the task before him. He was barely able to spell out the incantation engraved on the pyx, but pretended to know its full meaning, although in fact several of the key runes were utterly unknown to him. Nor was he displeased to learn that there were things unknown to his all-knowing master. Once he demonstrated his prowess, The Three would no longer be swayed against him by disparagement, and the beautiful Srana would grant him all he desired of her. But first he must accomplish the task. There were official obstacles to reaching the mountain at all, and only a wizard bearing a fragment of the Khavala could enter it. Now it seemed there were defenses surrounding the very vault of enchantment.

  “I must first return to my home neighborhood,” he began. “Not to beg your master for leave, I hope?” the stranger chided. “No, no, of course not. Pardon me for even suggesting that you can’t come and go as you please. Of course you don’t have to tell anyone about this undertaking. The terrible danger threatening us all has made me nervous. Fortunately for us,” he added with another hint of mockery, “you’re the strong and independent person you are.”

  “I hope so,” Nizzam said complacently. “No, I must return to my home neighborhood merely to obtain an official pass. Two citizens must vouch for me, and register with the garrison duty officer. Then at the mountain itself ... Well, there may be other, shall we say, formalities.”

  “Pronouncing the name Kazerclawm,”—the stranger’s own pronunciation was almost unintelligible—”as well as other words that would betray a foreign accent? My own master warned me of just that problem, else I would probably have had to carry the telesma into the mountain myself. Thank you for your sensitivity. I don’t envy you your ordeal.”

  Nizzam shrugged, as if he were an old hand at derring-do.

  The stranger watched him with the same insidious cunning he had used earlier to provoke a brawl at the Blue Dragon. He kept his right hand under the table, for it was still swollen from the cowardly punch he had thrown at the innkeeper’s wife.

  •

  “It was my mother’s honor I was defending,” said Cajhet.

  “I was a lad about your age, Branwe. But nobody was going to insult my mother, and me not do anything about it. Yes, I fought many duels, in my time.”

  He did not bother to add that he had invariably been thrashed, nor that he had enlisted in the army as a consequence. He stared morosely down into the dregs of his third brimming goblet of iced wine. It had turned out to be a sultry night, and he was still thirsty. He had lost a wager over a knife-throwing match, and now had no more money; though that might have been finessed—there were opportunities galore for free drinks at festival time—he came on duty again just before dawn. To be reported drunk or asleep on watch could mean facing old Severakh in person—an ordeal he had successfully dodged for years. He pushed his goblet away and rose stiffly to his feet.

  “Time to toddle, lad. I’m a soldier, and take my duties seriously, though others may not. You’ve had some trouble in here tonight, I hear. Brawlers, eh?” He tightened his belt, and threw out h
is chest. “Lucky for them I wasn’t around, or they’d have got some brawling they might not have liked. I take no nonsense on the job, or off. ‘Night, lad.”

  Branwe watched him slink timidly through the revelers still crowding the Blue Dragon. Female dancers performed a lascivious highland romp, accompanied by the throbbing beat of drums, pipes, and scrapers. The musicians were drunk, as were most of the waiters and kitchen help, taking advantage of Mamre’s absence. She had retired in dudgeon after her prize mirror was damaged in the brawl. Branwe alone had not celebrated right along with the festival celebrants.

  The throb and beat and skirl of the music ceased, and a wild and ribald hullabaloo rang through the inn. One of the dancers rubbed enticingly against him as she passed. The rankers in the crowd were hardly in a condition to perform with credit in the military exhibition tomorrow. He wondered if they even cared any more. Morale had deteriorated even faster than preparedness, since the accession of the elegant new governor.

  Returning from an hour of kitchen duty, he discovered that meanwhile Mamre had also returned, and had had her prize mirror remounted on the wall behind the bar. Three jagged cracks flowered upwards from the lower right-hand corner of the glass, whose replacement would cost little trouble or expense. Repairing the gem-encrusted frame was a more delicate matter, and she stood on a wine chest, trying to refit the loosened gemstones into their proper sockets.

  Branwe made his way toward her. He needed time off tomorrow to help Srana’s grandfather haul some books down from his loft, but as he approached the bar he had second thoughts. This was obviously not the opportune moment for his request.

  “I’ll haul the wretches in front of Severakh myself, if I have to,” Mamre complained bitterly. There was still some swelling on the side of her face where she had been punched. “By the scruff of the neck, if I must. They’ll pay damages. Oh yes, they will! And just let them try and peddle the beautiful gemstone they stole. Violet as the morning sky! I’ve passed the word already. Every dealer in town will be on the lookout for it.”

  “They’ll never recognize it then, if that’s the way you described it to ‘em,” volunteered a scrawny elderly patron seated at the bar nearby. “That the socket it was stuck in? Well then, the stone is probably just plain red, like a ruby. See how that one socket there is dark blue, while all the others are backed by tiny little mirrors? I bet that’s why the stones glowed the way they did.” He withered under Mamre’s angry glare, and hastily added: “Don’t really know anything about it, of course. Mighty pretty, though. About the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen, I expect.” Which was the last observation he volunteered on any subject that night.

  Branwe helped Mamre down from the wine chest. She had had no success in refitting the loose stones, and he climbed up and examined the sockets himself. There were no prongs or flanges; the stones had evidently been held in place by some invisible adhesive. Only an expert craftsman could refit them.

  Mamre sighed and shook her head. There was nothing more she could do about it tonight, with a thirsty crowd rapping the tables for food, drink, and entertainment. She sent Branwe back to work, and stalked off toward the kitchen. Those scullery wenches and musicians who had taken advantage of her absence would know better the next time....

  •

  There were four sentries posted at the Sacred Gate, only one of whom was still awake, and even he himself barely glanced at the pass in Nizzam’s hand.

  The air was still and sultry. The Kazerclaw loomed into the cloudless night sky, glistening with the supernatural radiance of two of the planet’s three moons. The hubbub of thousands of revelers reverberated from the city below, while beyond the gate all was as still as death.

  “Kazerclawm.” Nizzam pronounced the name as only a native could, and the sentry waved him on, too sleepy for any deeper investigation, too bored to care why anybody wanted to climb the mountain at this hour of night.

  It had been months, in fact not since the old wizard became too ill to leave his sickbed, since anyone had climbed the grim mountain path at any hour, day or night. Nizzam himself had never been there before. An ancient wall, built by unknown hands, indicated that the impregnability of the great mountain had been recognized eons before the garrison city arose at its foot. Landslides and gravitational creep had wrenched gaps in the wall; a narrow path wound through one of these, and when it emerged on the other side Nizzam found himself out of sight and hearing of all living things.

  He patted the side pouch of his robe; whether it was to assure himself that the telesma was still there, or hoping that it was not so he could honorably turn back, was unclear even to himself. Tongues of black volcanic rock seemed to pant like overheated animals. The echoes of his footfalls whispered behind him as if he were being followed. He reminded himself that his powers of magic, redoubled by the mystic stone glimmering on his ring finger, were more than equal to any danger he might encounter.

  In fact, what dangers could he encounter? Sheer precipices on all other sides of the Kazerclaw left this the only scalable face; there were sentries posted at the gate below; most important of all, The Three had prepared some nasty surprises for any alien sorcerer who teleported himself there—an improbable feat of magic in any case. Reassuming his pompous airs, he ascended the winding path, silvered with moonlight, at the fastest pace consonant with his dignity.

  The cave entrance was not a natural formation, at least, not entirely. The entrance of some prehistoric mine shaft? Typically, the old wizard had never deigned to instruct him in the topography surrounding the vault of enchantment. The strange outlander who had brought him this commission, a journeyman wizard like himself, may also have suffered wrongs from a jealous master. But nobody had ever been so belittled or held back as he had himself. That would all be changed after tonight. Then would his merits at last be recognized. Then nobody would hold him back, ever again.

  In spite of diligent study, he had never succeeded in stretching his range as a fire-starter beyond a few inches—so close, in fact, that he was in danger of singeing his own whiskers whenever he attempted the feat. Unhitching the lantern from his belt, he had to concentrate for several minutes before a feeble glow at last ignited its wick.

  The stout wooden door was studded with nails, but there was no lock, nor any need for one. No ax or battering ram could have burst it open; no ordinary flame so much as scorched it. Nizzam opened it at a touch.

  One glance inside confirmed his suspicion that this was indeed a prehistoric mine. The shaft had been delved out of the living rock by the crudest of tools; its floor dipped unevenly and bent to the right. He had heard about the debate which had followed the entombment: whether or not the passages to the vault of enchantment should be sealed. It had been decided to leave them open, for no mere rock could keep a powerful sorcerer from teleporting himself, once he possessed the power. Besides, it was better that Khal remain accessible, in case the Third Eye was discovered. Only then would The Three be strong enough to annihilate him. But the ancient tunnel, its props fallen or rotted through, seemed ready to seal itself at any moment. Nizzam glanced nervously at the ceiling again and again as he tiptoed ever deeper into the mountain.

  The little golden table had three legs, and was engraved with runes; it stood in the entrance of what seemed to be a large room, or perhaps a natural cavern, and Nizzam raised his lantern and peered inside. He could see nothing except that the mine room or cavern opened into an even larger cavity beyond. He did not enter. He probably could not have had he tried, for this was the vault of enchantment, and the little golden table concentrated all the united powers of The Three.

  He smiled as he thought of the way he would tell his master how he himself, Nizzam, had succeeded where The Three had failed. Of course Srana would be present. Nothing her grandfather might say against him afterwards could then poison her mind. She need not even apologize for failing to appreciate his merits. It was hardly to be expected th
at a she-mrem of her youth and inexperience should possess a mature judgment.

  He held the lantern up so he could read the engraved characters on the telesma, recited them as if he actually knew what they meant, then placed the golden pyx at the very center of the little golden table, just as the emissary of The Three had instructed him to—and that was that. He congratulated himself on so easily redeeming his master’s oversight, but as he turned away, to retrace his steps back up the prehistoric mine shaft, he was startled by the sound of footsteps, footsteps so alien that his fur stood on end, and the lantern light trembled eerily on the cavern walls around him.

  The creature walked on two legs, with a curious stalking gait, as if creeping up on its prey. But this was no mere cave reptile. Green-white flesh, a wide mouth, eyes that glittered like twin rubies, and a sloping forehead; it was almost chinless, with no external ears. Its iridescent robe shone weirdly in the trembling light, its barbarous array of jewelry glinted electrically. Its hands were partially webbed, and its many rings worn oddly close to its fingertips. It ignored Nizzam as it stalked toward the little golden table.

  At last he realized that this could be none other than Khal himself He had always envisioned the liskash sorcerer entombed in some kind of sarcophagus, but evidently he was allowed to roam at large within the vault of enchantment. Nizzam reassured himself that its confines were impregnable, and compensated for his initial fright with a ridiculous swagger.

  “If you think to exploit any flaws in your vault, Khal—oh, yes, I know who you are—it’s too late. My name is Nizzam. Unknown to you now, perhaps, but a name that you and your kind will soon have to reckon with. That’s right, look down at what I’ve brought, and despair. The telesma seals your fate. In this case, literally so.”

  The reptilian sorcerer glanced at him for a moment; there was neither anger nor resentment in his glittering ruby eyes, but only a kind of sardonic anticipation, like a child at last permitted to indulge itself in some long-denied pleasure. Then he bent and picked up the telesma.