by Jack Lovejoy
Mithmid alone failed to understand what he meant. The bandit gangs that had harmed them for weeks past now invested the city; to get by them, or evade their pursuit afterwards, now seemed impossible. Fight their way through them? Even if successful, so determined a movement in the direction of Namakhazar would surely alert the Evil One to their objective.
“Oh, uh, sir,” Cajhet began self-consciously. “I’ve made, shall we say, a friend here in town. She, I mean, this friend seems to know a lot of bandits, Perhaps, uh, this friend I’ve made could arrange some kind of safe passage for us ….” He fell silent as he sensed the fierce old warrior glowering at him.
“Who could have believed that it would someday come to this?” Severakh shook his head. “Two generations a soldier, and I end up haggling with bandits for our salvation. And I have no doubt who this friend is, or at least what she is. All right, scoundrel, see what kind of passage you can wrangle for us. There’s money if you need it—and you probably will—but hurry! The very appearance of a wizard here in Ravarbal may be reported to the Evil One.” He glanced toward Mithmid, but found he had retired into a corner with Srana. He turned to one of his captains: “Accompany this wretch wherever he wants to go, or the platoon I sent out may just pick him up and drag him hack here again.”
The conversation between Mithmid and Srana was brief and disappointing to the former. He had brought her a message from Sruss, for her ears only, and was again touched with nostalgia at the way her lovely eyes shone with courage and determination. But while he was thus softened, her reaction was exactly the reverse.
“No.” She declined his request firmly. “I must keep the fragment of the Khavala bequeathed to me by my grandfather. Not for my own sake, but for that of this entire band of refugees. Without it, we would long since have been surprised by our pursuers and destroyed. I realize that it would further multiply the power of The Three to defend Ar from ruin, but you yourself have just said that the recovery—or destruction, if need be—of the Khavala is ultimately more important.”
“But anything that now multiplies our power is critical,” he protested. “If Ar falls, what then could stand against the onslaught of the Eastern Lords? Half the land is already laid waste, and each city-state of the other half now foolishly arms to defend itself only. Independence is the strength of the mrem, but it can also be a weakness. In this case, a fatal weakness. The final assault upon Ar may not be launched for months yet, but this time the Evil One himself will direct it, with all the force of the Third Eye. We must somehow remultiply our powers against him.”
“Another sliver of magic will make little impact,” she said.
“Only the Khavala itself can do that. Which means, in the event we recover it, that it must somehow be transported to Ar. Your teleportation here was a grave risk. It must never be chanced with the Khavala, which would then be vulnerable to the Evil One.”
“But its powers would overwhelm those of the Third Eye,” he said. “At least, wielded by a magician.”
“Exactly my point. According to my grandfather, the Khavala has no powers of its own, but only multiplies a force of magic. No magic, no power. For you may multiply nothing as many times as you please, and the result will always be naught. I possess only the knowledge my grandfather was able to impart to me in the weeks before his death, but it is a real quantity, and hence can be multiplied. Perhaps not enough to challenge so mighty a sorcerer as the Evil One, but sufficient to transport the Khavala to Ar—:”should it be recovered.”
He bowed acquiescence, then gazed fondly at her. “You have not only her beauty, but her wisdom as well. It shall be as you wish. But will you be safe here until the expedition returns?”
“One more reason why I must retain my fragment,” she said.
He bowed again, and again gazed fondly at her. Then he realized that young Branwe was also looking at her, and felt a twinge of jealousy, both for his youth and good looks and for the shining Demon Sword he now wore in his scabbard.
•
The two largest moons were now in the sky, dimmed alternately by scudding clouds, and the crooked narrow streets seemed to throb with silvery light. Wild music throbbed from the doorway of the thieves’ den—nameless, for anything Cajhet ever learned—outside which sat a ragged young thug, groggily nursing his right ear, or rather the side of his head where his right ear should have been.
Cajhet found Kizzlecosh nailing it up along the bottom row of her collection, behind the bar.
“He’ll know better next time,” She bit the air menacingly with her sharp, powerful teeth, and Cajhet felt his own ears tingle. Then her fierce look melted into the fondness of love, and she laid down her hammer and tenderly began to groom him. “I’m glad you came back. Some mrem tell me there can be too much of a good thing.”
“Never for me.” He tweaked her whiskers playfully, and she exploded with ribald laughter, and hugged him to her massive bosom. After a moment to catch his breath, he explained why he had come. “Can you do anything for us, love?” He again tweaked her whiskers.
“Haggle owes me a couple of favors,” she said, “and people owe him, and so forth. He’s as treacherous as a liskash, but knows what he’ll get if he tries any tricks with me. Namakhazar, you say?”
“I was born there.”
“Ah, that’s the reason,” she cried. “Peculiar color, you are.”
Seen it mostly in southern ports, among sailors. Know who yer pa is? No, I thought not. “Does yer ma?” She again exploded with ribald laughter, and gave him an affectionate hug. “Anyways, I think I can get your people there safe and sound. About thirty of ‘em, you say? I’ll do it, and it’ll be a nice vacation for me too.”
“Oh, that’s too much trouble. I couldn’t think of imposing—” “No trouble at all—unless you don’t want me to come.”
Her eyes narrowed, and her lips began to draw back from her sharp, powerful teeth, and he unconsciously began to cover his ears with his hands. But he recovered his presence of mind, and winked lecherously and poked a playful finger into her bosom.
“If you don’t go,” he said, “I won’t go myself. This is my lucky night.”
“And it ain’t over yet,” she added, and he found himself being swept once more through the beaded curtain, to the silent delight of the bartender. “You’re sure I’m not, well, too exuberant in bed? Some mrem think I am, and never come back, and that hurts my feelings.”
“You’re exactly the kind of woman I’ve always dreamed about meeting,” Cajhet said tactfully, with a desperate look in his eye.
•
There were many desperate looks among the thirty men gathered in the barroom of the Anglock Inn, two nights later. Impatient as he was to march, Severakh was too experienced a soldier to plunge rashly into the unknown, when a strategem might achieve the same ends.
More bandit gangs turned out to be hovering in the vicinity of Ravarbal than he had realized, almost as if this city too were under siege. Spies now lurked in the neighborhood of the inn itself, probably with the connivance of city officials. It was unlikely that the rogue population would ever allow them to surrender anyone who sought refuge here from any kind of authority. Nonetheless, the two days of waiting had been anxious.
“All arranged, sir.” Cajhet sauntered into the room with Kizzlecosh on his arm. Or perhaps the other way around, since he stood barely to her shoulder. “This is the lovely young lady I told you about, who’s been helping us. Isn’t she a wonder?”
Severakh wasn’t sure what she was, and there was some rude guffawing across the barroom. But a glance from the hulking Kizzlecosh silenced this, and there was no more rudeness that night.
“We’d better shake a leg,” she said, “if we’re going to be out of sight before dawn. We have to make a long detour to the north, before heading south, ‘cause it’s a gang there I’ve made the deal with. The only one I could, which started me thin
king.” She eyed Severakh suspiciously. “There’s something going on I ain’t been told about. Cajhet here don’t know, or I’d have had it out of him by now. Who’s after you, and why? Bandits are usually easy folk to deal with, if you meet their price. But something’s got’ em scared.”
Severakh explained to her as much as he thought she needed to know. About Khal, at least. Only his most trusted captains knew about the Khavala.
“All right.” Kizzlecosh was satisfied. “That’s good enough for me, though I suspect you could tell me more if you had a mind to it. It’s a good long hike to Namakhazar, and we’ll have to carry all our own food. Due south, except for a detour about three days out. We don’t want to come anywheres near Yozgat country. Are you ready? I am, so’s the gatekeeper.”
“And so are the spies watching the inn,” said Severakh.
“I’ll send out a platoon—”
“Don’t bother, old darling,” said Kizzlecosh. “When I do a job, I do it right. There were four spies posted tonight, but it seems they all suffered a mysterious accident about the same time. Got their heads busted when they wasn’t looking. Split up, keep the noise down, and meet again at the north gate. We got a long march tonight, so say your goodbyes, and make’ em quick.”
Severakh repressed his vexation at being treated so familiarly, at having anybody give orders but himself, and got everything ready for departure. The entrance of Srana and Branwe, followed by Mithmid, caused a brief delay. But for Cajhet’s adroitness, the delay might have been serious. First of all, Kizzlecosh did not like magicians, which was why she had so willingly assented to help them elude the vengeance of a sorcerer; secondly, her dislike of beautiful young shemrem could sometimes turn violent. But Cajhet so humored, distracted, and jollied her that Srana was able to conclude her final interview with Severakh without incident.
Srana was to remain with the bulk of the refugees, to camouflage the departure of the others for Namakhazar as long as possible. Once these put to sea, not all the magic of the Evil One could impede them; for they would soon sail beyond the range of even the Third Eye.
“It is a brave thing you do.” She addressed Branwe. “A quest that shall never be forgotten, an adventure that may someday be recorded in the Dragon Book itself, so schoolkits for generations to come might be inspired by your exploits. I know you will succeed, Branwe. May the All-Mother guide and protect you.”
Branwe clasped the hilt of the Demon Sword; his eyes sparkling, his nostrils flared. He would succeed if he had to cut his way to Namakhazar and back again single-handed. Srana’s words may have sounded to the others present like no more than formal leave-taking; he alone saw the deep concern for his safety—and perhaps something more intimate—sparkling in her eyes. Never had she seemed to him so beautiful.
This beauty caused Kizzlecosh’s nostrils to flare also, but her eyes glowered, rather than sparkled, and the deeds she was inspired to were not at all noble. But Cajhet nudged her from the barroom, and the others, in silent threes and fours, dispersed by different, routes toward the north gate.
Srana was left alone with Mithmid. She had already given the old wizard a message for Sruss—perhaps their last for months to come, for any other form of communication now left them too vulnerable to the Evil One—and bade him farewell. Then she was alone in the barroom of the Anglock Inn.
Mithmid had kept his growing apprehensions over the delay here in Ravarbal to himself. He had expected his sojourn to last only hours, not days, and no longer had the Demon Sword to defend himself with. His timing for the teleport here had been perfect. He had expected messengers to bring word to Cragsclaw of the failure to carry Ar by assault, but was informed by scouts that the very generalissimo himself had been summoned there. A canvass of merchants had given him a close estimate on how long the journey would last; he knew himself how soon the Evil One would be thrown into a blind orgy of vengeance at the news—although not how long that orgy would last. This teleport was a far graver risk.
He rematerialized, and waited for the strange sense of disorientation to resolve. But it did not. Dark reptilian creatures lumbered toward him across a tortured landscape of volcanic fires, smoke, and skeletal trees. An eternal crimson twilight made everything around him lurid and hideous.
Then from near and far, seeming to echo across the crimson skies, a sardonic laugh resounded all about him. And he knew he had delayed his departure too long.
The Zanira
THE PALACE gardens in Cragsclaw had long been renowned for their luxuriant splendor. They were now a reeking hellhole of liskash nastiness. This seemed to delight Khal, as he gazed down upon them from the royal balcony on the morning of a gloomy overcast day. Most of the foulness below had been perpetrated by the monstrous dragon chained securely by its left rear leg.
“He’s a mighty levitator,” Khal explained to the eight mrem reluctantly gathered around him, the commanders of the hordes besieging Ar. “The mightiest I have yet discovered. He is being tamed by me, so that I may ride a fitting mount when I lead the final conquest over my enemies.” His eyes swept over the eight mrem as if he included them in the designation.
None of them noticed, for they could not meet Khal’s eyes—any of the three, which glittered like rubies with an alien madness. They were rogues who practiced deceit as naturally as they breathed. But if they succeeded outwardly in disguising their revulsion, their fur rising instinctively again and again—betrayed them. Khal noticed, and in some insane fashion it seemed to please him.
He had taken special measures to appall them, to flaunt his alienness for its full shock value. His fantastic robe glittered with an iridescence that seemed electrical; the rings he wore too near the tips of every digit made the webbing of his hands all the more grotesque.
“Have you any questions, gentlemrem?” he asked in a guttural rasp like the hissing of serpents. “Anybody in particular you wish to know about?”
All assured him there was nothing at all they were curious about, self-conscious that their fur was again rising in abhorrence.
“You’re quite certain?” Khal’s two ruby eyes gleamed with malice, the Third Eye shone between them with an evil greater still.
No, they were quite certain there was nothing they wanted to know, nobody they were the least bit curious about, especially the two warlords who had preceded them here to Cragsclaw, several days ago, with their personal entourages.
“Very well, then.” Khal signaled to one of his liskash servitors, with which, as they were recruited from caves and desert fastnesses, he was replacing the original palace staff. “We’ll enjoy the feeding of my pet below, then adjourn for our own dinner. Unless any of you has other plans?”
No, they had no other plans; certainly not. Nothing in the world they would rather be doing at this minute than standing here with him on this very balcony, as he fed his dragon.
Then their fur truly stood on end, as they saw what he was feeding it with. All recognized the mrem shoved naked into the garden as the personal steward of their generalissimo. The dragon recognized him only as a meal, vanished, then reappeared beside him, and caught him in its terrible jaws. The steward’s screams died at a snap, as he was literally bitten in half and devoured.
“Have no fears, gentlemrem,” Khal said mockingly. “He’s fastened by a chain of my own creation. Not all his magic will loose him, only mine. But I see my pet is still hungry. He’s grown quite sleek on his new diet since I brought him here. I indulge him, you see, for he must one day render me a valuable service. It’s wonderful how much more efficient my slaves have become since I first stabled him here.”
His dark laughter echoed across the gardens below, and the dragon raised its head and looked at him. Khal pointed toward the overcast sky, and the dragon at once began to levitate, rising until it was level with the balcony. Khal then pointed toward the gate below, and the dragon looked downward as another naked mrem was shov
ed into the garden.
The dragon’s chain had faded into a smoke like wisp, hardly visible, and the mrem glanced apprehensively into every corner of the garden, in fact in every direction but up. Warily he crept forward, his head moving from side to side as he advanced—until he was directly below the dragon. He never saw it; never even cried out. It dropped on him out of the sky like an avalanche, crushing him in an instant.
“He could levitate half again as high, as if I let him.” Khal looked on with satisfaction at the wretched mrem being devoured below, and with still more satisfaction at the undisguiseable horror reflected by the fur and features of the eight commanders around him. “How many more?” he called down to his liskash servitor.
“Just one, master,” he hissed in a raspy voice. “Bring him forth, while I decide.”
The last to be dragged between two liskash into the garden was none other than the wretched Nizzam, stripped pathetically naked, half dead with fright. The dragon glanced evilly at him, but continued its meal, with a hideous slavering and the crackle of bone and cartilage.
“No, perhaps we’ll save this one for another day,” Khal said, reconsidering. “I mustn’t overfeed my pet. It could spoil him and ruin his digestion. Give this one back his clothes, and send him up to my special chamber.”
Nizzam fairly sobbed with relief, as he was half-carried out of the garden, although this same charade had been performed every few days for the last month, ever since the dragon was first brought here. No servant in the palace now groveled more abjectly. As he hurried to his master’s side, he hardly noticed the stuffed hat rack, once the magician Maglakh, or the other stuffed effigies of mrem kings and queens, lords, ladies, priests and generals, arranged in a tasteful color scheme on exquisite pieces of furniture all around the hall.
