Warlords Of Gaikon rb-18

by Джеффри Лорд

  Still faster. Blade began to feel a weight pressing on his chest, making it hard to breathe. He tried to raise one hand to shade his eyes against the fire from the golden streamers. His arm seemed to weigh a ton.

  He looked down and saw that his feet were beginning to flow, melting into the plain like hot wax under the weight pressing down on him. His feet went, then his ankles, then he was standing on fast-dissolving knees. He melted up as far as the waist, stayed there for a moment, then continued to vanish. In seconds he could no longer see how far his body had spread, for the horizon was getting closer and closer as he shrank down and melted into the plain. In a few more seconds all that was left was his head, his chin resting on the plain itself. Somehow he managed to raise his eyes for a final look at the nightmarish dance of the golden streamers against the black sky.

  Then his head dissolved, and there was only blackness.

  Chapter 3

  Blade's first sensation was the usual pounding headache that followed a transition into Dimension X. It proved that he was alive, and it always went away after a few minutes. Meanwhile the best plan was to lie quietly. Blade cautiously opened his eyes and looked around him.

  A chilly wind was blowing over him and whistling in the tops of nearby trees, and mist swirled above him. Under his naked body he could feel a thick layer of dead needles and leaves on rocky soil. He was lying with his feet higher than his aching head, which lay between the half-exposed roots of a tree that soared up into the gray mist. A branch heavy with long green needles hung down almost to Blade's nose, arching and curving as the brisk wind tossed it. There was no sight or sound or smell of anything dangerous, human or animal. Blade decided to go on lying still until his head cleared.

  The fresh air helped, and soon Blade could stand up. He stepped around the tree to get its thick trunk between himself and the wind and took a more thorough look around.

  The dense forest and the swirling gray mist cut off his vision close at hand-sometimes to only a few yards. But he could see enough to gather that he was in rugged, heavily forested country. It looked like uninhabited, almost virgin wilderness.

  It was pointless to try to tell the time of day as long as the mist cut off the view. But if it was this raw and cold by day, Blade had no intention of staying out here to face the night in the forest, naked and alone. He was tough enough to do it if he had to, but exhaustion from exposure could leave him less able to fight or run. Much better to find whoever lived in this dimension, get fed, get warm, and start learning his way around. If anybody lived in this dimension. So far he had never landed in a totally uninhabited dimension, but there was always a first time for-

  This dimension would not be it. Before Blade could complete the thought, an unmistakably artificial sound came floating down to his ears. Somewhere, apparently close upwind, someone was beating a large gong. Blade listened more carefully. A very large gong. Its notes had a deep, booming quality, and went on and on and on, fading away only gradually. Each note had barely time to die away before another followed on its heels.

  The gong seemed to be somewhere farther up the hill. Blade peered as intently as he could at the forest above, but the trees grew so thickly that it was like trying to peer through a brick wall. Blade gave up the effort and struck off uphill, letting the sound of the gong guide him over the rough ground.

  The gong fell silent before Blade had covered more than two hundred yards. But barely fifty yards farther on, he saw a double line of white stones gleaming ahead in the twilight. He froze until he was reasonably sure there was no one within sight or earshot. Then he slipped forward to stand by the nearer line of stones.

  As he had suspected, the stones marked out a path of bare earth, beaten almost rock-hard by the passage of many feet over many years. The path ran up and down the hill, rapidly losing itself in the mist and shadows under the trees in either direction. Blade looked toward the top of the hill and thought he could see a dark mass looming through the trees, a dark mass too regular in shape to be a natural feature.

  So he headed uphill, following the line of the path but far enough from it so that the white stones were barely visible. He didn't want to unexpectedly meet whoever used the path.

  The slope soon became noticeably steeper and the undergrowth not only more tangled, but thorny. By the time Blade reached the top, he was sweating heavily in spite of the chill. Blood from dozens of places where the thorns had jabbed him ran down his legs, arms, and chest. He stripped a handful of wet leaves off a nearby bush and used them to wipe off his body while he looked at the building on top of the hill.

  It rose a good sixty feet above the wall that surrounded it on three sides and had a distinctly Oriental flavor. It looked like a mass of heavily tiled overhanging roofs, heavy beams carved in elaborate floral designs, gilded dragons' heads, and small windows with even more elaborately carved shutters. The protecting wall was eight feet high, overgrown with thorny vines and creepers, and surmounted with a double row of foot-long iron spikes. On one side of the building a rather rickety-looking mass of scaffolding rose halfway to the top floor, but there was nobody on it.

  In fact, there was nobody in sight around the entire building. The fourth side of the enclosure was wide open except for a solid wooden hut about twenty feet square blocking off part of it. Blade could see almost the entire space within the walls. Most of it was laid out with delicately pruned shrubs between white gravel paths and small pools, but there was nobody in it. The building-a temple, probably-seemed deserted.

  That was obviously impossible. Behind the hut stood a bronze gong at least nine feet in diameter, hanging on a heavy frame of blackish brown wood. Somebody had been beating that gong not more than twenty minutes ago. Where had they gone? Perhaps there was only a caretaker in the hut, who beat the gong at regular intervals for some religious reason and had now gone back into the hut to get out of the weather.

  That seemed likely enough. Blade decided to explore further. He was going to need to get out of the weather himself, sooner or later. So he headed straight in, walking carefully so that his bare feet made no sound on the gravel.

  In the rear of the temple, out of sight of the hut, Blade stopped and looked again. A small, polished door with a gilded, many-rayed bronze sun on it let him into the temple itself. Inside was darkness that smelled of varnish, old wood, dust, and incense. A narrow flight of stairs rose upward and vanished.

  The second floor was a single, large, bare chamber, its walls and floor both whitewashed. In one corner was a pile of what seemed to be temple gear-brass and porcelain urns, censers on gilded chains, screens, mats, small lacquered boxes, and assorted bamboolike poles of various lengths. Blade picked up an eight-foot pole and tested it for balance and ease of handling. It wasn't much of a weapon, even for a quarterstaff expert like Blade. But it was a damned sight better than bare hands!

  Blade was turning toward the stairs to the third floor when he heard the gong sounding again from below. It sounded eight times, in two groups of four beats. As the echoes of the last beat faded away into the forest, Blade heard quick, light footsteps descending the stairs from above. He froze, realized there was no place to hide in the room, and dashed for the stairs leading down.

  Before he could get out of sight, a woman appeared at the foot of the stairs from the third floor and froze to stare in amazement at Blade. She wore a blue and white patterned kimono-like robe with a golden sash and a large, gold-lacquered mask shoved up onto the top of her head. In one hand she carried a blue porcelain urn and in the other a small, gilded bronze censer on a chain.

  Before Blade could move or speak, the woman leaped violently to one side. The leap carried her halfway to the pile of temple gear. As she landed she let out a raw, wordless screech that sounded more like a wildcat than anything human. Then she ran to the open window on the side of the building toward the hut and screamed:

  «Blasphemy! Blasphemy! A madman in the Temple of Kunkoi! A naked madman! Avenge the honor of the goddess
!»

  Blade raised the bamboo pole. The woman spun around and hurled the urn straight at Blade's head. He ducked, just in time for the urn to sail past his ear and smash into the wall behind him. From the crash it made, he knew that it would have smashed his skull if it had connected. Then the priestess was advancing on him, swinging the censer around and around her head on its chain. Not wildly, like a panic-stricken woman, but like someone who knew very well what she was doing and had trained for years with the weapon she was using.

  Blade held his ground. If he could disarm the woman without hurting her, perhaps he could- The woman suddenly let out another foot of chain, and the censer whirled close enough to Blade to make him jump back.

  He raised his pole, ready to thrust it into the circle and entangle the whirling chain. But as fast as Blade moved, the woman moved just as fast. She swung the censer low, snagging the lower end of Blade's pole. Then she threw herself backward in a complete somersault, putting all of her weight and all her strength behind the pull on the chain. The pole leaped out of Blade's hands, smashing him across the left cheek as it did so and flew like a spear across the room. Before he could recover, the woman was back on her feet. She snatched up another pole from the pile with one hand and drew a short, curved dagger from her sash with the other.

  Then from outside came the booming of the gong. It was sounding in a rapid beat. Along with the gong came the rattle of doors and weapons, the scrape of running feet on gravel, and shouted orders. The temple's guards were turning out in answer to the priestess' call. It went against Blade's instincts to run like a rabbit, but he didn't see what else to do. He couldn't face the guards barehanded until he got some maneuvering room. That meant getting out of the temple, for a starter.

  Blade plunged down the stairs three at a time. The priestess followed close on his heels, waving her dagger and shouting at the top of her lungs, «Blasphemer! Slay, slay, slay for the honor of Kunkoi!»

  As Blade reached the foot of the stairs the temple door flew open and a spear whistled past his nose and chunked into the wall behind him. By pure reflex he whirled, jerked the spear loose, and jabbed it butt-first at the priestess as she came within range. She jumped aside, Blade whirled the spear over and around, then slammed the shaft across the back of her knees. She went down the last four steps with a screech and a clatter of wooden clogs, sprawling face-down on the floor. Her dagger flew out of her hand and went spinning away.

  Blade bent to pick it up. As he did so, the first guard came charging through the open door. In the close quarters and the dim light the man looked at least seven feet tall and six feet wide; he must have been a good deal bigger than Blade. He gave a yell of fury as he saw the priestess sprawled on the floor and charged straight at Blade. As he came he snatched a six-foot curved sword from a scabbard across his back and sent it whistling down toward Blade.

  Blade swung his spear around in front of him and held it out to block the stroke. If the guard had been able to let loose a full swing, the sword would have split Blade down the middle as neatly as a barbecued chicken. But the low ceiling saved him. The sword whistled down in front of him, effortlessly chopping his spear in two.

  Now Blade had the advantage for a moment, the advantage any good fighting man has at close quarters against an opponent with a two-handed weapon. He used that advantage, feinting at the guard's groin with the severed point of his spear. The guard took his eyes off Blade's other hand for a second, long enough for Blade to ram the butt of the spear straight up under his chin. The guard reeled and toppled with a crash that seemed to shake the whole temple.

  Behind him Blade heard the priestess getting to her feet still screeching, «Slay the blasphemer! Avenge the honor of the Sun Goddess!» Having no desire to be slain to avenge the honor of the Sun Goddess, or for any other reason, Blade dashed out of the temple like a sprinter trying to set a world's record.

  He was rounding the corner of the temple on the side where the scaffolding stood when he met six guards coming the other way. They all carried spears and the long curved swords, and wore cotton coats and kilts sewn with small iron discs and lacquered-metal hats and greaves. None of them was much smaller than the one Blade had disabled inside the temple, and all of them looked just as unfriendly.

  Blade had a brief feeling that this was the end of the road for him. But it wasn't in him to die tamely. He grabbed at one of the poles in the scaffolding, jerking it loose and raising it high. If he could keep the guards at bay long enough to explain himself-

  Before he could complete the thought, a sharp crack sounded from high overhead. One of the guards jerked his head upward, then gave a yell of fear and turned to run. The other guards froze in their tracks. Blade risked a quick look of his own-just as the whole scaffolding shivered, shook, and then began to collapse.

  Poles and cross-braces snapped and cracked, tiles, planks, pots of paint, and varnish showered down like hailstones, and the guards scattered in all directions. Blade jumped back too, but not quite fast enough. A pot of paint came plummeting down and scored a direct hit on his left shoulder. It disintegrated as it struck, barely bruising the skin but drenching Blade's chest and left arm with oily brown paint.

  As the wreckage settled Blade looked toward the entrance. The, guards were forming a line across it, so there would be no getting out that way. It would have to be over the walls and then outrun the guards. The second part wouldn't be hard-they didn't look built for speed. But the first part-well, there was the pole in his hands. Blade hefted it and flexed it. It would have to do.

  He moved back as far as possible to give himself a longer run. He could only hope that the guards wouldn't realize what he was doing until it was too late. He threw a quick look back over his shoulder.

  Good. They apparently thought they had him trapped.

  Now-raise the pole, take a deep breath-several deep breaths-and RUN!

  Blade charged toward the wall even faster than he had gone out of the temple. His long legs ate up the ground. As he judged the right second, the pole swung down in a long arc, driving down into the ground as Blade drove upward with all the strength in his body. Blade felt himself soaring upward, rising up to the level of the spikes on top of the wall, rising over them-

  Crack! The pole slammed into the wall and snapped like a twig, twisting Blade in midair. He flung himself over into a complete somersault, desperately trying to avoid landing headfirst. By a minor miracle he managed to land rolling, on his shoulders and back. He kept rolling, doing another complete somersault and leaping to his feet at the end. Five careful deep breaths, and he was off down the hill, ignoring all the bruises and scrapes and twinges in his protesting muscles. He did not run blindly, like a panic-stricken animal. He ran like a distance runner, pacing himself for the best combination of speed and endurance.

  He hoped his guess was right about those temple guards not being built or trained for running.

  Chapter 4

  Blade never found out whether the guards came after him or not. They would have had a job catching up with him if they had. He kept on at a steady lope for nearly half an hour, heading downhill as much as possible. When his breath began to come short, he slowed down to an equally steady jog. He kept that up for another full hour. By that time he estimated he was at least six miles from the temple and decided it was safe enough to stop and rest. He badly needed to catch his breath and reorient himself. He didn't want to wind up marching steadily away from civilization, on top of everything else that had gone wrong since he had arrived in this dimension. So far about the only things he had done right were not getting himself killed and not killing anybody else. For all he knew, the affair at the temple might even now have the guards scattering all over the countryside, with a description of him and a «kill this man on sight» order.

  So he rested just long enough to catch his breath and get some of the aches out of his legs. Then he was on his feet again and on his way downhill. Sooner or later going downhill should bring him to civiliz
ation. He had never heard of a people who built all their homes on the tops of the hills and none in the valleys.

  He had been walking for about another hour when it started to rain, a miserable, chill drizzle that soon strengthened into an even more miserable and chillier downpour. The rain made some of the caked and smeared brown paint run, so that before long he looked like the victim of some particularly repulsive skin disease. Blade was too disgusted and almost too tired to even swear at this.

  It was beginning to get dark when Blade finally came out on the bank of a small swift stream tumbling downhill through a series of pools and rapids. Unmistakable paths ran along both banks of the stream. Blade nearly let out a cheer, and then swallowed it as the sound of human voices reached him over the patter of the rain and the gurgle of water boiling over the stones.

  It was women singing-or rather, chanting rhythmically. Their voices were punctuated by wet, slapping noises. Blade slipped silently through fifty feet of trees and dripping bushes, then crouched and watched even more silently.

  Two half-nude young women-hardly more than girls, judging from their slight figures-squatted on the edge of the stream, washing clothes and singing to themselves as they worked. They pounded each garment on a convenient rock to get the dirt out and then spread it out on one of the bushes behind them. Blade saw loincloths, long socks, sashes and scarves, and more of the kimonolike robes in half a dozen different styles and colors. If he could just sneak in and make a quick grab, his clothing problem at least would be solved.

  Blade had once made it safely through a Communist minefield with a sixty-pound pack on his back, so there wasn't much he had to learn about moving silently and carefully. Inch by inch he crept closer, belly flat to the mound most of the time, raising his head to take an occasional bearing. It took him five minutes to cover five yards. By the time he did, all his bruises and strained muscles were protesting angrily. His spine felt as though it were going to snap with a crack loud enough to alert the women.