Tithe to Tartarus: The Dark Avenger's Sidekick Book Three (Moth & Cobweb 6)

by John C. Wright

  Yumiko was fearful that Sir Garlot would be able to see her as easily as she saw him. But it proved to be not so. Garlot’s frog-mouth-shaped jousting helm was not a battle helm, and the eyeslits were placed too high for him to see around him, except when he leaned forward in the posture of a lancer ready to strike. Whether he was awake or had fainted in his armor, Yumiko could not say, for he lolled and swayed alarmingly in the high saddle, and only the rope binding him in place prevented his fall.

  The squire lad came alongside the Eft’s horse to which Yumiko clung. Without slowing his gallop, he dexterously snared the trailing reins with his spearhaft, took them up, and tied them to his saddle pommel. It was neatly done. On the two horses ran. Neither he nor any other saw her.

  In the second hundred yards, they turned and went down a slope. The change was gradual, and the horses were galloping, so Yumiko did not see and did not after clearly recall how it had been done, but suddenly they were among buildings that looked like the buildings of New York, but were not. These had no glass in the windows, and their facades were overgrown and draped with grapevines and ivy, and plants filled all the sidewalks in wild profusion: deadly nightshade, henbane, mandrake, datura, felonwort, and various bright mushrooms gleaming with fungoid light.

  The road under their hooves was not macadam nor concrete, but a crystal that gleamed in the shadows.

  There were no people here, no street signs, no automobiles. Between the skyscrapers in the harbor, she saw a colossal statue of a stern and kingly bat-winged being, crowned in rays, holding aloft a mace to smite, not a torch to illume.

  The sound of Sir Gilberec and the gleam from his sword were lost behind them, for the pursuer could not see nor scent them. Yumiko did not see any bats flying after.

  Sir Garlot reined his steed and gathered all the fogs of his cloak to himself. With the help of his squire, he broke the arrow shaft from his thigh and mounted a palfrey. This let his warsteed gallop after with no other burden but the horse’s barding. But the red arrowhead must have penetrated the great steed’s side and must have pained him, for the footfalls were not as strong as they should have been.

  The squire said, “Sir, let us have the harness off you that I might bind up your hurt.”

  But Garlot kicked the palfrey into a trot, not pausing to undo his helm or heavy armor. He said, “The Cauldron of Youth awaits in Is-Elfydd. If but one blood drop or strand of hair of mine yet lives, all life will be restored to me.”

  The horses were swift and not allowed to rest. Quickly, they arrived at a place that was not Central Park. Yumiko had seen this landscape before. Here was the palatial fortress in the place of Belvedere Castle; this time she clearly saw the fair-featured and cold-faced elfs with silver spears and black silk surcoats standing watch, their eyes as bright and regal as the eyes of falcons.

  Past the jousting grounds at the Great Lawn’s outdoor theater Garlot and his men galloped. Bloodstains were all along the side and flank of the palfrey Garlot rode. Here, three other elfin knights riding strange split-hoofed steeds with a horse’s head and tails of a lioness came riding alongside, calling out and asking the news.

  The Nephilim cried back, “Woe and treachery! Sir Garlot was struck unmannerly a blow most dolorous! Make way! Open the gate! Open wide the gate!” And these three other knights raised ram horns to their lips, and blew a blast, and added their clear and penetrating voices to his.

  Other riders came running alongside or went before. Now they approached the tall hills, crowned with stone tables and standing stones, looming in the shadows of vast trees up from whose branches villages and towers of bright glass, transparent stones, and shining ceramic rose.

  Soon a brightly colored cavalry was all about them as an escort, and two gold-eyed young maidens in cloaks of owl feathers soared along just above their heads, calling out blessings, healing chants, and kind words. And still no one saw Yumiko.

  The ground opened, and a corridor as broad as a tunnel dove into the ground. The air was bright and dancing with a myriad of colored lamps, scented with soft spring winds, and haunted by soft echoes of a silvery music that had no name.

  Her horse trotted on the heels of Garlot’s squire’s. Into the underground realm she passed, and nothing hindered her. The cave mouth closed behind her, leaving the surface realm behind.

  Chapter Seven: The Cauldron of Youth

  1. Unwatchful Guards

  The lamps grew brighter as the underground ramp passed through three gates, one faced with carven slabs of copper, one of bronze, one of a reddish metal Yumiko did not know. Archer’s slits like squinting eyes peered from the walls, and murder holes shaped like gargoyles with dangling tongues glared down from the roof.

  The inner panels of the gates, which had been flung open to receive him, were coated with polished silver. As the cavalcade passed through, she saw many knights and squires, Elfs and Efts, Nephilim and Nibelung, all with plumes and cloaks and banners and torches crowding around Garlot and his retinue in the reflection. She also caught a glimpse of a slender white figure with a white fox-face visible in the reflection. It was her image in the mirrored gate, but the glimpse was lost in the crowd of superhuman and semi-human faces, bodies, steeds, stags, leopards, and feathered riding beasts.

  Only one officer attempt to halt the rush, a tall elf in a black surcoat wearing a wreathe of mandragora and amaranth. He stood in the path, calling that all must be inspected lest a shape-taker or evil ghost smuggle itself in. But the six-fingered Nephilim riding at Garlot’s shoulder, without slowing his galloping steed, shouted, “Garlot is the son of Phanes! Whose son are you, under-creature?” and he flourished his mace at the officer, whose head was turned instantly into the head of a frog and was thus rendered unable to answer.

  Thereafter, no one barred the way.

  2. The Stable

  Past the third gate, the corridor opened into a vast cavern. In the middle of the air were three great lamps like moons of crystal holding silver fire. The cavern floor was a valley shaped like a bowl. Gardens, grape arbors, and groves of cedar trees were here along with groves of giant mushrooms and gleaming fungi with puffballs of phosphorous; all were watered by small, bright, rippling streams that led to a central pond of water clear as air.

  Ignoring all the winding pathways, Garlot and the cavalcade raced directly down the slope, trampling or leaping over rosebushes, fungi beds, short hedges, or garden walls whose bricks were mother of pearl, green smaragds, or black onyx. Yumiko saw no huts or houses in this underground garden, but the booming hooves of their horses ran over doors and windows set in the ground like trapdoors and skylights.

  They came to the central pond and dove in, horses and all, without slowing. The water was around them, but it felt neither cold nor wet. Down they drifted, and a blood cloud rose up from the stomach of Garlot like a plume. The lakebed of the water gave way beneath them, as insubstantial as an illusion, and the horses passed without pause below and were in midair, with a vast well dropping underfoot and the waters like a roof above. Yumiko felt dry, and the coat of her horse was not wet.

  A bridge made of gossamer film, writhing like a live thing, swiftly and gently reached from the balcony at the side of the vast central well gaping beneath them, and the many horses found its crystal surface under their hooves. Without pause the cavalcade continued to run. Down the slope of the gossamer bridge they ran.

  The beams of the colored moons above came through the rippling lake as if through a lens.

  The horse Yumiko rode landed on a balcony whose wide and pointed archways facing inward looked upon the vast shaft of air. There were ranks of archways, each beneath the next, reaching downward as far as the eye could see.

  Flitting like motes through this shaft were winged servants, bug sized or doll sized or child sized, toting mops or yokes of buckets or baskets of laundry, going from lower balconies to higher or back again.

  Yumiko craned her neck. It was all one balcony, winding down like the groove in the horn
of a unicorn. The beam of silver from the lake overhead reached down like a finger of moonlight. From far below, she heard the sound of thousands of hammer blows on anvils: an army of smiths busily at work.

  They passed gates and doorways opening into arsenals, barracks, and underground stalls or kennels or mews where steeds and hounds and hawks were kept, or creatures odder yet, smilodons and woolly mammoths, Tasmanian tigers, Irish elk, shining hippogriffs.

  They came to a stall where Garlot dismounted. The floor was straw. He said, “Batraal son of Barkayal! Into your hands I place my destrier, brave Tachebrun. He is of the blood of Arion, steed of the wind. See to his wound!”

  The six-fingered man was apparently named Batraal, for he answered, “Sir! This is the work of Winged Vengeance. For see! The red arrow is his sign.”

  But the stout, squat creature in the black coat said, “Let the elfs stand back! Nibelung hands can touch the iron unharmed. This work is Vig’s. Ither! Hale you the master to his cauldron.”

  Ither was the elfin squire. He came forward, and only now did he undo and remove the awkward helm and heavy breastplate of his master. Sir Garlot had made no complaint before; but now he screamed and swore terrible blasphemies as the pain of motion when his habergeon was pulled over his head tore at him, and the sticky red undercoat of linen cut away. Red blood now ran freely down Garlot’s legs and splashed on Ither. The cloak of fogs took on a pink hue as particles of blood floated in the airy fabric.

  Garlot said, “Ither! Your shoulder to me. Batraal! To my treasure house. Let none else come.”

  Ither said, “Sir! A surgeon of skilled hands is nigh. Let us pull the spearhead from your wound before it gets worse.”

  Garlot spat blood and uttered a proud laugh. “The Cauldron of Youth is at hand. What matter if the wound is better or worse?” And he yanked the lance head roughly from his own guts. Now blood and more doubtful fluids gushed in earnest from the wound, and he fainted away as one dead.

  At the same time, two bald grooms with faces like monkeys came and led the horse Yumiko rode to a stall. She nimbly jumped up into the rafters and clung to a roofbeam.

  The grooms undid the saddle and furnishings of the dead man’s mount and began brushing it. From her high angle, she could see into the next stall. The wounded warhorse of Garlot had been freed of barding and saddle and was lying on his side. Its belly rose and fell as it panted. A veterinarian in white, wearing a wreathe of healing herbs on his head, stood peering over the head of Vig the Nibelung, who was drawing the arrow, telling him how to do it. They were preoccupied and did not see what Yumiko saw. A gush of black water came from the throat of the coughing warhorse and spread across the straw.

  Two black mice came out of the steed’s mouth with the water. Their motions seemed stiff, unnatural, unliving but quick, like toys whose mainsprings were tightly wound. Their whiskers did not twitch, and their eyes did not blink. The two black mice scampered into the straw, along the baseboard, and through a knothole in the wood.

  3. The Great Balcony

  As Garlot swayed, Ither caught him in his arms. The squire spoke in a loud voice, ordering the throng of well-wishers and onlookers out of the way. He then called for linen. Batraal the Nephilim came and helped Ither bind their master’s midriff. Batraal insisted they tie the cloak of mists about their master. He was not willing to have any other touch so rare a treasure nor to bear it himself.

  Then, the two each lifted Garlot in their arms and ran quickly out the archway and down the balcony with him. Yumiko followed, running along the tops of the walls of the stalls to reach the door without brushing into anyone in the throng.

  Batraal and Ither were already moving quickly down the spiral ramp of the great balcony, but the heads of all the crowd of elfs gathered before the stable door blocked Yumiko’s way. She shot her grapnel to snag one of the countless pillars lining the balcony rail and swung across the dizzying emptiness. She struck no flying servants but overtook the running pair as they circled the balcony.

  She joined them, running silently behind the two. Down the vast spiral they ran. The doors opening up onto the spiral balcony here were narrow and mean, unadorned. But as they descended, they ran past finer doors, adorned with carvings, hung with painted signs. Farther down, larger doors of finer make were surrounded and supported with statues, bas-relief work, tapestries, and banners. Farther yet were wide gates leading into presence halls and ballrooms lit by gems or miniature moons. Past nicely appointed chambers they went as well as past arched gates revealing indoor lakes of strange fluids beyond, or museums, libraries, shrines, ballrooms, and other chambers whose purposes could not be guessed. At various gates stood sentries, who presented their pikes in salute of Garlot.

  At last they came to a courtyard like a semicircle cut out of the wall and golden doors supported by tall statues of the fanged sea monster with tusks and dorsal fins of gold like unto the crest of Garlot. Elfs and Nephilim in black-and-red livery stood guard.

  4. The Hall of the Red Knight

  Rumor must have flown ahead. Worried scowls sat on the brows of Garlot’s houseguards, but no surprise. The doors were open, and eft linkboys with glowing eyes or burning tongues lined the passage to light the way. At the door stood a squat, round-bellied, and black-skinned Nibelung in a fur-lined cap. His luxurious white beard reached past his belt, and his rich white curls past his shoulders. His coat was red and trimmed with black mink. Yumiko thought he looked like a miniature and sinister Santa Claus. A chain of office was around his shoulders and a key ring at his gem-studded belt.

  Batraal the Nephilim called, “Althjof! Is all ready?”

  The whitebeard answered, “The wood is lit; the elixir is boiling. I have the amber key in hand.” And he turned. He trotted briskly on his stubby legs to keep ahead of the long and rapid strides of the elf squire and longer but slower gait of the tall Nephilim.

  They passed through a wide entrance hall, where tusked fish of flesh and blood sported in a fountain of black marble above a floor of blood-red jasper. Above was a dome of aventurine, carnelian, and red agate held on the tailfins of fanged and frog-mouthed sea-beasts made of stone and standing on their heads. Into a narrow corridor they went.

  Whatever marvels or riches filled the apartments of Sir Garlot were not seen since this narrow corridor had each door shut, and each archway was either covered with a curtain of hissing snakes or a curtain of flames, hotter than a fireplace. Such fires were the only light. No servants were here.

  The way was blocked by three doors. The first was a cedar door adorned with pearls and painted runes. The second was a door of black iron which Ither, the elfin squire, was warned not to touch. The third was a door of solid fire whose latch and hinges were made of living snakes, unconsumed, petrified, and held in place, agony in their eyes. They held the door shut by biting each others’ tails.

  Althjof opened the first with a touch on the correct rune, the second with a key, the third with a word whispered to the burning serpents, who released each others’ tails from their fangs and hissed. Each time, he held the door for the pair bearing Garlot, and, each time, Yumiko had to slide or somersault nimbly by him and then cling to the carven roofbeam when he trotted swiftly past her underfoot to overtake the others.

  Beyond the door of fire, the walls to either side fell away, and the roof rose beyond sight. The floor of the corridor continued three more paces, as a tongue extending to nowhere, and ended at a brink. Underfoot was black abyss. At the far side of the chasm, a bowshot away, was a wall of cyclopean blocks of black marble. Each block was two yards on a side. In the middle of this wall was an oval door made of amber planks bound with hasps and hinges of silver.

  Althjof put one of the keys of his keyring to his mouth and blew. A shrill whistle issued from the metal. At this noise, a gossamer scarf, thin enough for light to pass through, unfolded from the threshold of the amber door. It reached across the abyss as lightly as a spider’s thread might reach, to touch the brink of the tongue
of floor.

  5. The Gossamer Span

  Althjof went first across the filmy bridge, trotting swiftly, and he took out a key whose wards and shank and bow were carved all of one piece of yellow amber. Ither went next, carrying the wounded Garlot on his back. Batraal came third, his hand on his master’s back, helping to steady the burden. Yumiko came after.

  The flimsy gossamer trembled and swayed under their footfalls. Althjof reached the far end before the others. “Light!” he called. “I must have light to work the lock!”

  Two thin, high cries of pain echoed in the air, and suddenly two glass vessels, no larger than wine bottles, one hanging on either side of the amber door, lit up with bright light. Inside were miniature women sporting butterfly wings. They were clad in short tunics that left their limbs bare, and the hues and patterns matched their wings. The light was shining from their hair and skin.

  In that light, Yumiko saw two small and swift shapes dart by underfoot. It was a pair of black mice, clinging to the underside of the gossamer bridge, visible only because the surface was so thin. She saw their paws and bellies, their motionless eyes, as they scampered by, quick as birds in flight.

  Yumiko stopped on the gossamer bridge long enough to draw her baton, unfold it into a bowstaff, and string the bow. The others were drawing away. She ran to catch up.

  There came a chime of noise like a ringing bell when the bolt of the amber door was drawn. The door opened by parting in the middle and sliding aside. Within was a blaze of light. Yumiko saw in the middle of the chamber beyond a crystal orb, larger in diameter than a man is tall, hovering above a fire blazing in an open hearth of veined red marble. There was no smoke. A nest of snakes were living in the burning wood and consuming the smoke in their mouths as the wood burned. A fluid clearer than water was in the orb, roiling and boiling.