Kyrik and the Lost Queen

by Gardner F Fox

  Four days it took them to cross that vast plain east of Domilok. Only occasionally did they see a human, and these were the outriders who attended the great flocks of grazing sheep and cattie which belonged to the merchants of Domilok or Sokarjis.

  They skirted those herds, when they saw them in the distance they rode far round them. Kyrik wanted no news of their traveling to reach a city where spies of Ulmaran Dho or Lyrrin Odanyor might learn about them. The sun beat down by day, tinting Adorla a dark golden hue, and adding to the bronze of Kyrik's skin. By night, beneath the two moons, a wind swept cool and fragrant past their blankets.

  When they came to the river Hister, they drew rein to stare across its gently flowing waters. A mile in width, it was deep in the middle, and their horses could never swim against that tide. Kyrik turned the Karanyan stallion and walked him steadily southward.

  In time, they came to a collection of huts that formed a fishing village. Wharfs jutted out into the river, and a number of small fishing boats swung lazily at anchor.

  Kyrik rode into the village and dismounted. Men and women came out of the huts to stare at him and at Adorla. Few travelers ever came this way, and none by land. There was suspicion and unease in their eyes, and they seemed poised to flee at the slightest movement.

  The warrior-wizard reached into his belt pouch and produced a golden griff. This he tossed into the air so that the sunlight caught its metal and made it gleam.

  "I need a ship," he said.

  A graybeard who leaned on a cane came tottering forward, eyes sharp. “There are pirates on the river these days," he said, gesturing at the ships. "We keep close to the shore. We have nothing for them to steal but our catches, and since we do not fish, there is nothing we have that they want.”

  "I'll risk pirates.” The old man eyed him up and down. “One man has no chance against Olyxus." The sharp eyes touched Adorla where she sat in her saddle. "That one would fetch good money in the slave market at Tizone."

  Kyrik grinned coldly. "Let me worry about the woman." In sharper tones he asked, “Well, what about it? Do I get a boat or don't I?"

  He put his hand into the leather sack and brought out two more griffs. The old man's eyes widened. To these fisher-folk three gold pieces represented a small fortune. The aged shoulders shrugged.

  “I have a boat. I'll sell it to you for those coins."

  They walked out onto the quay, and the old man pointed a quavering finger toward a lean shallop. Its sail was furled on the boom attached to the upright mast. It looked like a fast sailer, Kyrik thought.

  He handed the gold pieces to the old man, saying, "If the pirates catch us, they won't need that shallop. You'll find it drifting somewhere on the river and you can have it back."

  The old man chuckled slyly. “That was in my mind, stranger."

  He accepted the coins and made a hand motion to a young man standing close by. Instantly the youth dove into the water and swam to the shallop, clambering aboard and raising the anchor.

  With a long pole, the youth brought the shallop in close to the wharf. Adorla leaped nimbly aboard, took the sacks that Kyrik handed her. Then, one by one, their horses were brought on board, where they shifted their feet uneasily until Kyrik calmed them.

  He ran up the sail under the watching eyes of the fisher-folk, and he did it neatly and quickly. Long years before, Kyrik had sailed the waters of the Nameless Ocean in boats such as this. It had been a thousand years ago, when he had been king in Tantagol, but the memory was still as sharp as though it had been yesterday.

  Wind filled the sail, the shallop moved outward, and when it was in the middle of the river, Kyrik swung the rudder so that the prow pointed northward. He sat at the bow and his eyes scanned the river waters, and the little fishing village receded from view.

  The air was sweet around them, the sun was warm. At any other time, Kyrik might have enjoyed this sail. But that talk of river pirates and the trouble that lay ahead of him in Alkinoor put an uneasiness in his middle.

  All the rest of that day they sailed, and when it grew toward nightfall, Kyrik put his eyes along the shore, seeking out a place to camp. He would fish for food, he would cook that fish over hastily built fires, but when they had eaten, he would put out that fire lest it draw unfriendly stares.

  He was about to say something of this to Adorla when he saw her stiffen. His eyes followed hers.

  Out from a little promontory came a low, fast galley, its oars manned by big men whose weapons were at their belts. Those oars flashed red in the dying sunlight as they dipped and raised, lowered to dig once again into the water.

  Kyrik muttered, “ Illis of the soft breasts ! Let the wind freshen."

  The breeze blew and the little shallop fled across the water, but the galley was rowed by sixty men, and its own sail was raised, so that it seemed to skim across the little waves. Kyrik watched it coming, and his face was dark.

  He could never overcome that galley and those pirates. Not alone, unaided. Yet he could not surrender to them. He must fight as best he could and let Rogrod of the Fire-flames take the hindmost.

  He swung the shallop in an arc, drove straight for the oar-bank. Adorla Mathandis screamed, but Kyrik only shouted, "Brace yourself, girl!”

  The prow hit those oars, snapped them. Instantly Kyrik yanked out his sword, caught hold of an ornamentation of gilded wood on the galley, and swung himself upward. He faced close to a hundred river pirates—and on the poop he could see their captain, that man whom the fisher-folk named Olyxus, a big man with a black beard and long black hair who was shouting profanities—but he had never before met defeat with a sword in his hand.

  He leaped in among the pirates. Bluefang hummed as he swung it.

  Chapter THREE

  Men went down before his blade. It struck like a bolt of golden lightning from the sky, and where it touched, men died. They came at him in waves, but he was never still, moving from oar-bench to oar-bench and then up onto the walkway.

  Always his sword swung or darted, and where it touched, blood flowed. His thickly muscled arm seemed tireless, and his lips were drawn back in a battle snarl. Around him men screamed in agony or shouted warnings, and tumbled over one another to get at him.

  Steel cut his flesh, he bled in a dozen places, but these were only flesh wounds and did not sap his strength. From the runway he fought his way to the tented gavon, that small compartment on the poop deck that was the captain's sleeping quarters, and always as he moved, men died.

  He saw Olyxus staring at him, black eyes wide. If he could reach that pirate captain and slay him, he might induce the other pirates to take him as their chief. Always the finest fighter was the captain. Once let him do that and he would have a crew of hard-bitten fighters to do his bidding.

  Yet even as he lunged toward Olyxus, someone hurled a battle-mace. Kyrik had no chance to avoid it, he was lunging for the pirate captain, sword up and swinging, even as that mace caught the back of his skull.

  He saw his blade go into Olyxus—Everything swam about him as that mace thudded home. He stumbled a few feet, tried to catch his balance. The pirates roared with triumph and sprang for him. One man caught hold of his arm.

  His knees struck the low rail about the poop deck. Off balance, he lunged sideways. His body lost its balance and he saw the water coming up to meet him.

  He went down into cold blueness, felt the tug of the current. His right hand still held Bluefang, and despite its weight he would not let it go. The cold water shocked his senses.

  Though he was half out from the blow of the hurled mace, he still retained enough of his wits to know that once he showed his head above water, he would be the target for thrown spears and bowstring-driven arrows. He went down and down, and turned underwater to see the hull of the galleon right above him.

  He swam upward to that hull, caught its slick wood, and lifted his head into the air directly below the poop that jutted out above the water. No one could see him there, unless they leaned far
out above the rail.

  He heard them discussing him, and grinned wryly at the names they called him. After a time they decided that he must be dead, and so they turned their attentions to Adorla Mathandis and the horses.

  They brought the girl onto the galleon, screaming and fighting every foot of the way. Kyrik snarled when he heard her, he came close to clambering up the side of the galleon, but at his first movement, his head exploded.

  He sank back into the cold water and the pain went away.

  Above him, the pirates were gathered about Adorla. He heard cloth rip and knew they were stripping her lone garment from her body. She would be naked now, and prey to their animal lusts.

  But then the voice Olyxus ripped out. “Hands off, you foul scum. This one is worth gold in the marketplace at Tizone."

  Protests were heard, but Olyxus was not to be questioned. "You have your bawds, and we'll be home soon enough. This one goes for sale. By Absothoth. She's a rare piece."

  Kyrik clung to the slimy slide of the galleon and fought for his strength. He was in no shape to clamber up the slippery wall and fight for Adorla. Not now. He needed rest and an end to that ache in his skull.

  And then—

  The oars dug in, the galleon moved forward and Kyrik felt the ship sliding away from him. He sank into the water and swam. He would never catch the galleon, he understood that, but he must reach the shore and rest.

  He clambered out onto the low, shelving shoreline and stood a moment, staring at the undergrowth. He must rest, first of all. He needed sleep. more than he needed anything else.

  He sank down beneath a bush and closed his eyes.

  Kyrik woke to the twitter of birds after dawn. The pain in his head was gone, but when he felt of it, he discovered caked blood on his thick yellow hair. He went to the river's edge and washed the caked blood away.

  As he lay there he saw fish moving about, darting this way and that. Very carefully he loosed his dagger from its scabbard and waited.

  In time a fish came nosing in close to the bank. Kyrik poised the dagger, stabbed downward, then drew up that fish, wriggling crazily, on the blade. With a swift blow he killed it.

  He made a small fire and cooked his meal, then ate it, his eyes going up and down the river seeking for the shallop. It was nowhere to be seen, and he grunted. Apparently the fisher-folk had seen what had happened and had come in the night to reclaim their vessel.

  No matter. He would walk southward on this eastern bank of the Hister and would come, sooner or later, to the pirate stronghold. What he would do there, how he would win Adorla Mathandis from their grip, he did not know. Yet he would—or he would die.

  He began his walk along the riverbank, moving with the easy stride of a man who rarely tires. His dagger hung close to his right hand, his sword near his left, and the clanking of the sword-chains made a faint music for his muscles.

  All that day he walked, and another, and yet another, before he saw the tumbled stones that ran across the ground and upward to form the shape of houses and temples. Sunlight touched those stones, turned them golden.

  Kyrik halted, staring. He turned over in his mind what he knew of this land that lay between the rivers Hister and Thrumm. They were barren lands, cursed by forgotten gods, or so the legend went. No men lived here, the land was desolate, empty of all life.

  Yet once there had been a city here, beside the river men had named the Xixith. There was no river now, only a deep depression in the ground where once water had flowed and gurgled. Kyrik did not recall the name of that city. He believed it was so old it had been forgotten by the race of men.

  He moved a dry tongue around in his mouth. It night be that there was water in that city, and possibly food. He had been angling his walk inland, seeking to discover a farm where he might buy a horse.

  He knew now that he would find no farm. He knew now where he was. In disgust, he turned and moved toward that city, almost as though a voice called out to him. It might be that rabbits lived in the ruins of that unknown city, and that there might be wells from which all the water had not gone.

  The sun moved across the sky as he walked. It began setting when he came to the first of the tumbled stones. The stones of this dead city were no longer golden, but blood red. Was there a warning in that color, a hint that any who walked into this city might not leave it?

  He shook himself. He was not a man easily frightened by omens, nor by the bleatings of priests who warned always of deadly dangers to be found in empty cities. His hand loosed Bluefang in its scabbard and he strode forward even as the sun lowered behind him.

  The sky darkened as he walked, and by the time he moved in between those tumbled stones, the first stars were glittering in the heavens. A cool wind came across the stones, chilling him faintly.

  His eyes went from a shattered obelisk with writing on it no man could interpret, to a wall where ivy clung. Ahead of his war-boots was a paved street. At least, once it had been paved, but now the stone blocks were uprooted and lay awry so that he had to step carefully to keep from stumbling.

  The sound of flowing water touched his ears, and he angled his stridings toward a narrower street angling amid deep shadows. It seemed to him that he could hear breathing, as though an animal crouched and waited.

  Yet he saw no one, though once or twice, from the corners of his eyes, he saw movement. Kyrik grinned coldly. If any lay here to entrap strangers —why, let them. He was angry at having been accosted by pirates, more angry at the fact that Adorla Mathandis had been taken from him, and he was in a mood to sink steel into human flesh.

  Up ahead. Yes, he could hear it now: the faint tinkle that flowing water makes when it runs over loose stones. Kyrik increased his pace.

  He came to the edge of a great square and in the middle of that square was a fountain. There was no fountain any longer, no water rose upward in graceful curves to fall splashing back into the wide marble basin that

  “By Illis,” Kyrik rumbled. There was water in that basin. He could see it now, catch the reflection of the first stars on its surface. He moved more swiftly, began to run. He came to that fountain's edge and he could see the water in it.

  Warily he cupped some of that water, lifted it to his lips. He sipped. The water was sweet and cold.

  Kyrik needed no more than that hint. He bent and drank greedily, lifted his head to breathe, then lowered it again. He was still drinking when he heard the sound of a pebble rolling.

  Kyrik swung to one side, his hand going to his dagger-hilt.

  Three men were racing for him—or what he assumed were men. They were gaunt scarecrows, so thin he could see all their bones pressing into their flesh. They held weapons in their hands, curved swords and straight swords, and they aimed their points at his heart.

  Bluefang came out, parried the first of those blades that reached out to drink his blood. His steel brushed those blades aside, then he swept Bluefang forward.

  A man died with that sword deep in his chest, coughing and spitting blood. Kyrik shook his blade and the dead body tumbled to sprawl on the cobbles.

  Again he swung his sword, and yet again, and now three men lay dying at his feet. Kyrik stared down at their twitching bodies, wondering how such things as these managed to survive in a dead city.

  He wished he had only wounded one of them, so he could get him to talk, to tell him what city this had been, and where it was located. He bent above each of them, but Bluefang had done its work well. Even now they were stiffening in death.

  And yet, where men such as these had eaten, he could too.

  His war-boots took him down empty avenues where only the wind and his own echoes made any sound. He wandered into buildings and out of them, but it was only when he came to the great square building with the ornamental carvings on its stones, that he began to understand.

  The door of the building stood open, and from that opening came a charnel stench. Kyrik made a gesture of disgust.

  Were those men ghouls, then, who f
ed upon the dead?

  Yet this city was old. There would be nothing left of its inhabitants, even those who were dead and buried, but dry bones, after all these ages. And then he began to remember.

  This was Fildereth, the city of the dead. Here came funeral barges from Tizone, from Kulath and from Uthapor, and here those barges were emptied of the dead bodies they contained, to be put to rest amid the dry stones of this forgotten city. City? Nay, it was more like a gigantic tomb.

  He was turning away from the huge building when he saw the hare. It was nibbling at some leaves, less than twenty feet away. Very silently, Kyrik drew his dagger.

  As silently, he threw it. The big hare died transfixed, Apparently those ghouls did not bother with what hares and rabbits might live in these ruins. It had not feared him, it had gone on eating.

  Kyrik chuckled. He skinned the hare and made a fire of dried sticks of wood and he roasted the hare by starlight and ate it slowly. When he was thirsty he walked to the fountain and drank once more from its waters.

  After that, he lay down to sleep.

  He did not sleep long. He had barely begun to dream when the voice whispered across the dead city like a wandering breeze, half sobbing, half laughing.

  "Kyrik... Kyrik of the Victories Hear me, Kyrik.

  Hear me call to you...."

  He turned in his sleep, restless. Again the voice cried out to him, saying, "Up, sluggard Up, Kyrik who is king in Tantagol yet chooses to roam the land in search of a pretty gypsy Rise up, sleepy one...."

  He came out of sleep with his hand on the hilt of Bluefang, and his senses alert. Quietly he rose and stood erect, his gaze taking in the moon-whitened stones, the bulking bigness of the buildings.

  Once again that eerie call came wailing. "Kyrik... Kyrik of the Victories...." His skin crawled and the hairs at the base of his thick neck stood up. Who called to him in this city of the dead? Who knew his name?

  It had been no dream, then. Someone—or something—cried out to him, in this city where only the dead could claim a home. A ghoul? Something such as those sub-human things he had slain earlier? Na, na. Such as they did not know his name.