EXILED Defenders of Ar

by Jack Lovejoy

  “No, no,” she insisted, “I’m sure we can escape together.

  Where is Nizzam? He can help us.”

  The old wizard shook his head. “No one can help us now but ourselves. Nizzam has not returned home. Nor does it matter any more, so far as I’m concerned. The potion that has given me the strength to rise from my sickbed will leave me more debilitated than ever, when its effects wear off. Perhaps too debilitated even to live. But by then it won’t matter. All that matters now is your safety, and I know a way—”

  They were both startled by a crash at the outer gate, then running footsteps. The old wizard reacted with a power that awed his granddaughter although she knew he had been the great wizard of his generation. The house door burst open and five-armed mrem rushed into the vestibule, one of whom had a bandaged head. They expected to find only a sick old wizard, too feeble to resist capture. Instead they found themselves confronted by monstrous highland berserkers, armed with terrible claw-swords. Appalled, they froze in their tracks, then step by step began to retreat back down the corridor.

  “They can’t hurt you!” cried their leader, in the same gutteral accent with which he had earlier beguiled Nizzam. “They’re only illusions. Charge boldly into them and they’ll disappear. Remember who’s waiting to reward or punish you.”

  This last was a forceful incentive, although the leader himself continued to hang back. He knew, as his henchmrem did not, how formidable the old wizard had been in his day, and was chary about what powers of magic he might still wield, redoubled as they would be by a fragment of the Khavala.

  The first to charge down the corridor was the thug with the bandaged head, and sure enough the illusions vanished before him—until a shadowy figure leapt out of a bedroom doorway. And for the second time that night a stool cracked his skull.

  Dazed, nursing his broken head, he retreated down the corridor, whimpering in pain. It was no illusion that had just brained him out of the shadows. He and his comrades bore only assassins’ daggers, while the berserkers looming before them more vividly than ever brandished terrible claw-swords. They rushed from the house more resolutely than they had entered, their leader foremost.

  “They’ll be back with reinforcements,” said the old wizard.

  “We have only minutes, so listen carefully and do everything I say. The very survival of our people may be at stake.”

  “I promise,” said Srana, replacing the bedroom stool against the wall, and following him toward the rear of the house. She well understood the horrors awaiting either of them, should they fall into Khal’s reptilian clutches. Nor was it likely that her grandfather could long survive the reaction to a potion that had given him such temporary strength. “An amulet?” she exclaimed, as he handed her the little leather pouch. “It’s just like the one poor superstitious little Wilba wears around her neck.”

  “Yes, and here’s her laundry bag. Wearing her shabby old dress—none too clean, I’ m afraid—with this amulet around your neck, you’ll pass for a scullery wench.” He opened the pendant he wore around his own neck, and dropped the fragment of the Khavala into the pouch. “My powers of magic are strong enough by themselves to do what must be done. I regret that I can do nothing more for you, once you escape the house.”

  “I’ll be brave, Grandfather.” She fought back her tears.

  “Do you want me to get this fragment of the Khavala to The Three?”

  He nodded. “Anything that reinforces their power to resist Khal is now important. Meanwhile the stone will redouble your own powers, but be very careful how you use it. Above all, you must never try to teleport yourself.”

  “That’s one feat you’ve never taught me,” she said.

  “Just as well, for then you’d be vulnerable to Khal. Use concealment. You won’t be captured if nobody looks at you.” He noticed her grow tense, and listened. “Yes, I hear them too. Hurry! Into the front garden!”

  She could no longer restrain her tears, and affectionately tried to embrace him, but he hurried her back up the corridor and out the front door. Then with all the forces of magic still at his command he braced himself to meet the onslaught he knew must soon come. His one great advantage was a knowledge of Khal’s insane lust for vengeance. No matter how many reinforcements the first band of attackers recruited in the streets, they would do everything in their power to take him alive, for only thus would they be rewarded by their reptilian overlord. He positioned himself at the very center of the house.

  Nor had he long to wait. With bloodthirsty cries and the brandishing of weapons, hundreds of desert marauders and bandits assailed the house from every entrance. But for some reason, not one of those pouring in through the smashed front gate looked toward a particular corner of the garden, and hence did not notice anyone standing there.

  There were no illusions confronting them this time, nothing but an old man standing alone in the eerie candlelight of the parlor. Some began pillaging the house, but most crowded into the parlor and the corridors leading to it, to gawk at the legendary old wizard. He seemed too preoccupied with his own thoughts to heed them or their taunts.

  Then all of a sudden he looked up, as if focusing his eyes upon a precise distance, and began very slowly—never relenting the fixed intensity of his gaze—to turn in a complete circle. The taunters fell silent; all now stared at him with superstitious wonder; even the looters hurried back into the corridors to see what was happening. But they all looked the wrong way. By the time they first smelled smoke, it was too late. The outer walls of the house behind them were already a sheet of flame.

  Instinctively they pushed inward, jostling and shoving and crying out in alarm. All the while the old wizard continued to turn slowly round and round, and the inner walls, the very floor beneath them, spiraling ever inward, burst into flames. Then the roof overhead began to smolder, and the pandemonium of the doomed erupted throughout the burning house. Round and round turned the old wizard. Death was his one escape from the ghastly torments awaiting him, but he would not die alone. Nor would any of the hundreds of enemies around him—screaming, choking, clawing, and trampling each other in panic—ever hunt his beloved granddaughter through the streets outside....

  Maglakh, the leader of the original band of five, was congratulating himself on his near escape at that very moment out in the street. The first repulse had shown him that he was dealing with no mere invalid, and this time he had not even entered the house. He was surprised that the Sentinel had used his last magic as a fire-starter, rather than to escape, as he himself would have done. Although he could understand why the old wizard might not want to risk being captured alive.

  And where was Khal all this time? Why wasn’t he abetting the conquest of the city with his invincible magic? For while the invading hordes were indulging themselves in plunder and rapine, someone, somehow, had rallied the garrison inside the fortress. If discipline were not reimposed soon, the whole timetable of invasion could bog down right here in Kazerclawm.

  On second thought, Maglakh reconsidered, perhaps it was best for himself that the great sorcerer was not on the scene after all. Khal would be furious that his archenemy had escaped his vengeance, even through death, and might turn in reprisal upon the agents who had failed him....

  Flames shot explosively skyward, and he staggered back.

  Then he found himself looking down the street, away from the burning house, and minutes passed before he could bring himself to look back again. He doubted that anyone could have survived such an inferno, and started to look up the street to be sure—and found himself again looking down the street instead.

  He had a suspicious mind to begin with, and a penchant for low life, and vicious habits. Such traits were more suitable to a bandit or renegade: the very epithets hurled after him by his former master, a grand wizard of The Three, while driving him from home after a brief and stormy apprenticeship. His successor’s tenure had been b
riefer still. He was murdered only hours after his master had died and bequeathed to him a fragment of the Khavala, to be delivered to The Three in the great city of Ar. Maglakh had delivered it instead to a caitiff he knew from his low haunts as an agent of the Eastern Lords, but who had turned out to represent an even more sinister power.

  Suspicious that some power of magic was compelling him, he exerted his utmost effort of will to look in the very direction he was least inclined to. He caught only a glimpse of a shabbily dressed servant girl hurrying up the street, before unaccountably looking once again down the street away from her. But he did not have to see anything more. He had heard that the Sentinel was being nursed by his granddaughter, a beautiful White dancer. It could only be she, exerting concealment magic; but it was a magic far too powerful for a mere female, unless multiplied by some occult force.

  A cunning smile overspread his face, as he gazed into the raging inferno across the street, now spreading to neighboring houses. So that was the reason for the conflagration! The old wizard himself may have perished, along with hundreds of his enemies, but not his granddaughter—and not his precious fragment of the Khavala. Presenting them both to Khal—the one to enhance his power, the other to indulge his vengeance on—must surely redeem any remissness about capturing the old wizard alive.

  Although it would not be prudent to challenge the Sentinel’s granddaughter in person. Let others suffer from her claws and enchantments. He would concern himself solely with how best to exploit her capture. No amount of concealment magic would save the wench, once he surrounded her with enough pursuers.

  A brawl had erupted just down the street, probably over drink or females or booty, perhaps all three. Ruffians were everywhere in this quarter of the city; he would have little trouble collecting a troupe along the way. Still disinclined to look up the street, he turned and hurried in that very direction.

  Branwe leapt out of range with an agility that caught his assailants off guard. Before they could respond, he returned to the attack, slashing one on the sword arm, hacking an ear off another. Then he leapt out of range again.

  He had eluded his pursuers until they finally cornered him, just down the street from Srana’s house. The flames he had seen were indeed coming from that direction, perhaps from her very house. Was he too late to save her? He had to know and soon, or it really would be too late. His frustration turned him into a leaping, dodging, slashing, jabbing fury. Too elusive to wound; too skilled to overmaster.

  Too troublesome an opponent, in fact, to be worth the while of his assailants. All six were of the foulest type of desert marauder. They hated civilization in its every unfolding; they killed city folk for the sheer joy of killing. But there was no joy in having their ears hacked off by a swordsmrem who would not stand still and fight (six against one). Not when a whole city of easier prey lay prostrate before them. Cursing and brandishing their book-bladed swords, they at last let Branwe dodge out of the trap.

  He raced as fast as he could up the street—which was very fast indeed—his fears mounting with every step. It was her house on fire! The blaze reddened the night sky, one of many fires now raging across doomed Kazerclawm. The houses on either side of it were already burning, and flaming brands arched onto rooftops all around.

  He staggered back from the heat and showers of sparks; he had never seen so explosive a fire. Then he realized that the street was no longer deserted. Timidly, their only choice now between certain death and the deadly perils of the city, people were creeping out of their hiding places before they were roasted alive or asphyxiated.

  “Did anyone escape?” he pointed to the burning house. “Hundreds went in, but not a soul ever came out again,” said a shopkeeper. “Watched it all, peeking out my window up yonder. Poor old mrem, magician though he was! Poor little Srana! She was good to our children when they were sick.”

  Others confirmed his account; all were certain that nobody had escaped the blaze. The reek of burnt fur now tainted the air. But this was no time to waste in regret. Their chances of ever reaching the fortress alive—three of the she-mrem carried kits in their arms—lessened every moment they stood here.

  Branwe’s first impulse was to accompany them. The towering stone fortress had been built generations ago, over the old cisterns, so it would have a sure water supply in times of siege. It was the nucleus from which Kazerclawm had spread outward, ring upon ring, and still the citadel in times of emergency: the last refuge of the populace. But he was too overwhelmed by despair to go anywhere. Let the enemy corner him in the streets again. If he never lived to become a warrior, he could at least die like one—sword in hand, in mortal combat, valiant to the last.

  He sat in the doorway across the street from Srana’s house, and stared despondently into the flames.

  Srana was also becoming despondent. The fragment of the Khavala doubled her powers of concealment, but these were not infinite; not with so many mrem closing in on her from all sides. There were just too many of them, and they wanted her in particular. Somebody, somehow, knew who she was and what she carried in the amulet pouch around her neck. She had overheard one captain encourage his mrem with promises of reward, if she was captured alive. Another ordered his mrem to watch out for a “red jewel.”

  Had Khal himself set them after her? Her tail twitched nervously. Was she doomed to become the plaything of his vengeance after all? Even doubled by the fragment of the Khavala, her fire-starting magic reached no more than a few feet; else she might have escaped capture as heroically as had her grandfather. Her only resort now was concealment. Though with each alleyway, street, or plundered shop she dodged through there seemed to be more and more pursuers from whom to conceal herself. Too many, in fact.

  “There she goes!” She heard a shout behind her.

  She had been too occupied in concealing herself from the bandits who blocked the mouth of the narrow lane before her to deal effectively with the desert marauders behind her. She dodged into a looted pottery shop.

  The potter himself lay sprawled on the floor, his throat cut, among shards of broken jars, vases, and glassware. The damage was wanton, senseless, as if the looters had merely avenged themselves for not finding anything here worth stealing. Just as they had wantonly murdered the harmless old potter.

  There had been no escape for him, for his snug little shop was also his pottery, and had no rear exit. Srana’s eyes, their irises opened full, seemed jet black in the feeble light; but one glance told her that there was no escape here for her either. Her chances of escaping at all were now too slight to risk the fragment of the Khavala’s falling into Khal’s hands any longer. But some sort of “red jewel” would have to be found on her person, or her brutal pursuers would torture her until she revealed where she had hidden it. She hurriedly began rummaging among the shards of broken glass and pottery. Shouts and running footsteps were converging in the lane outside.

  Three times she had to risk approaching the moonlight at the doorway, before she was certain that she had a crystal of about the right size and color, originally part of the decoration of an oil lamp. Slipping it into the amulet pouch around her neck, she secreted the Khavala fragment in a broken pot, and focused such powers of concealment that remained to her on her pursuers.

  These might have concealed her from a dozen mrem. But scores had converged in the lane, and she was seized only steps beyond the shop door, and her person roughly searched.

  “Here it is,” cried a captain, ripping open the leather pouch. “Thought she could fool me by disguising it as an amulet. There s a reward in this for all of us, lads.”

  Several villainous desert marauders had now joined the mob encompassing Srana, and they suggested another kind of reward they might take, before relinquishing her to whoever wanted her. Such beautiful females were never seen in the eastern deserts, not even those raped from caravans. A few others shouted agreement.

  “Not this one, lad
s.” The captain drew his dagger. He knew he could count on at least the renegade highlanders to back him, with their terrible claw-swords. “We’ll take her straight to the fortress. It’s either fallen already, or soon will. Somebody wants this wench in particular. Somebody who might not like it if she came to him damaged. Now let’s go!”

  There was no more opposition, for they all knew who that “somebody” was. Even the most brutal of the desert marauders was intimidated. Besides, there would be countless other chances for rapine, when the Eastern Lords launched their long-prepared invasion. Then all the land, all the hated cities and civilized peoples, would be left like their own homeland, a howling desert.

  Srana marched unresisting among her savage captors, silent, her eyes cast down, her thoughts examining the contingencies that lay before her. She had still not abandoned hope. Even without the Khavala fragment, she wielded a powerful magic. All she needed was the right opportunity to use it—before she fell into the vindictive clutches from which there would be no escape. Where Khal was now, she had no idea. Nor, it seemed, had any of the scores of thugs and miscreants surrounding her.

  Not even Maglakh himself, straggling unnoticed at the rear of the troop, as it marched through the plundered, burning city, could answer that question. The sky was graying with dawn. Soon many questions would have to be answered.

  Cajhet Disposes

  “TASTIEST FISH crisps I’ve ever ate, lads.” Cajhet smacked his chops and belched. He had a special arrangement with the duty cook to get his breakfast on watch, rather than eating out like the other turnkeys. It was costly and against regulations, but the eyes of the prisoners, staring longingly out through the bars while he regaled himself, added a wonderful zest to his meals. Besides, he was a bachelor, and getting a decent breakfast hours before dawn was not easy. “Spicy batter, and done to a turn, just the way I like’ em. I’ll just take this tray back to the kitchen myself, so’s I can compliment the chef in person. Mighty tasty, mighty tasty.” He strolled complacently toward the stone staircase, picking his teeth with the claw of his forefinger. “Now don’t go away. I’ll be right back.” Every cell was now occupied to capacity with thieves, hookpurses, and festival rowdies. Their only meal, hours ago, had been a bowl of rancid mush, and they glowered at Cajhet’s back as he shuffled upward out of the deep underground prison. His complacent smile broadened as he climbed.