Kyrik and the Lost Queen

by Gardner F Fox

  Overhead the twin moons shone with a pearly radiance that cast black shadows where the stones of that ancient building once stood and now lay tumbled about the ground. Those shadows seemed to move, they quivered here and there, and sometimes they disappeared, when that terrible light touched them, ever so gently.

  It was as if—those lights were alive. As if—they extended outward, questing for what had been for gotten in the many centuries that Marrassa had been a prisoner. There was a faint susurration where they touched, and a whisper of many voices, muted by distance.

  "Damned wizardry," growled Kyrik. Slightly behind him, Adorla Mathandis was whimpering. Her feet carried her where Kyrik walked, but the terror in her was like a barrier forcing her back. If it had not been for her hand that clung to a strap of his armament, she would have fallen.

  They came at last to the first of the tumbled stones, and Kyrik could see that these were seared with a faint radiance in the moonlight, as though—something—had brushed against them long ago and left its mark. He paused to study those stones, wondering at the force which must have been used to level them.

  Now as they stood so silently, they could hear the chanting. It rose and fell, throbbing strongly now, becoming weaker at times.

  Kyrik moved on. He came to what had been a stairway, long ago, and he saw that the stones of that staircase had been worn smooth by many feet. It led downward into brilliance, for from some chamber underground those eerie lights were flooding outward, escaping between chinks and openings of the stones of this ancient temple.

  Kyrik put a foot on that staircase, went down it. His grip on Bluefang had not lessened, the skin above his knuckles gleamed white against the sun-brown of his hand. He walked warily, as might a wild beast entering strange territory.

  Down that passageway he moved, until he came to the tiled floor of the chamber below. His eyes touched the walls of that chamber and he saw painted there representations of the demon-god Marrassa in his many guises. The floor was also tiled in such a manner that the demon-god was represented as a black, amorphous shape, writhing, twisted into convolutions alien to the eyes.

  He growled in his throat, strode toward a great doorway.

  On the threshold of that doorway he halted. He looked into a vast room, high-ceilinged, without windows, with an arching ceiling. At the far end of the room lay a great block of utter blackness. Obsidian? Ebony? He did not know.

  Between himself and that blackness stood many men. Most of them were soldiers, leaning on their spears, some with their heads turned from that massive stone, some with hanging heads. On the faces he could see, there was an awful fear.

  Two men alone seemed unafraid. They stood before the eerie altar—if altar it was—and their faces seemed to shine with expectation. Without being told, Kyrik knew those men. One was Ulmaran Dho, high councilor of Alkinoor, the other was Lyrrin Odanyor, high priest of Marrassa.

  Their arms were uplifted, they chanted together, an unholy hymn that rose and fell in a hypnopompic cadence.

  Very dimly, in that black stone, a light was forming. It was not a brilliant light, it was muted, almost dark—and yet, framed by the utter blackness of the stone, it seemed almost to glow.

  "Marrassa," whispered Adorla, between chattering teeth.

  A voice whispered to the warlock-warrior. It is time to use the Firestar! His left hand slid into his pouch, touched the crystal ball and slid from it to the jewel which was called the Firestar. His fingers closed on it, lifted it Out.

  Touch that to the ebon altar, Kyrik! He grunted. What Illis suggested would not be so easy to do. A score of warriors stood between him and that black altar, to say nothing of Ulmaran Dho and Lyrrin Odanyor. Yet he would do what she said—or die trying. Bluefang rose into the air. With a battle cry on his lips, Kyrik lunged forward.

  He was upon those soldiers before they woke from their bemused state. His cry had alerted them, but they were too lost in their dreaming to react swiftly.

  The keen edge of Bluefang slashed through flesh and blood. Its sharp point drove forward into chests, transfixing hearts and lungs. In moments he was like a maddened bull in the midst of those warriors, and where Bluefang fell, Bluefang slew.

  Always he drove forward toward the altar. Men shouted, men came rushing to surround him, their swords raised and slashing. But Kyrik was like the wind, he was here and then there, never once did he pause in his attacking, always he was moving, and the swords that were aimed at him touched only empty air.

  There was no weariness in him. His massive muscles rolled under his suntanned skin, his lips were drawn back in a feral grin to show his teeth. Battle was a part of Kyrik of the Victories. For battle he had been born, and for battle he lived.

  He fought with his love for weapon strokes clear to read in his eyes. The love he bore for women was rivaled by this love he had for fighting. Other men fight for money, or because it was a trade they had learned early in life and knew no other. Kyrik fought because of his love for it.

  The clang of steel on steel, the quiver that ran up from Bluefang's blade into its hilt and then through his hand and arm into his heart, the panting of men battling him to stay him from slaying them, were as rare wine to his senses. He shouted as he fought, sometimes, yet at other moments he was grim and silent.

  Men fell before him as wheat before the sickle. He stepped over fallen bodies. At times his war-boots slipped in the blood he spilled, but always he recovered. As he wove a web of death, with Bluefang, he advanced toward that ebon altar.

  Nothing stopped him. Only vaguely was he aware that Ulmaran Dho and Lyrrin Odanyor had turned from the altar, had stopped their chanting to stare at him with wide disbelieving eyes. He had no thought for them, nor time. His every sense was occupied with the swords he faced and beat aside, with the men into whom he drove his blade. In time, there were no men. He stood alone in the vast chamber, and Bluefang lowered its point to the floor, where it dripped red blood upon the mosaics. His lungs needed air, and so he panted, chest rising and falling. His yellow hair hung awry, half before his face, out of which his hard green eyes peered hungrily.

  The room was empty. Except for Adorla Mathandis, that is, who crouched in a far corner and stared at the dead bodies in awe. From those bodies her eyes lifted to this giant of a man who stood amid the dead, breathing deeply.

  Kyrik growled, "The other What happened to them?"

  She stirred at his voice, pushed away from the wall, and walked toward him. Her knees were weak with recent fear, but she understood that with this man called Kyrik beside her there was no need for fear.

  What a king he would make Adorla said, "They ran. They watched you slay their warriors, they saw those warriors could not harm you—and so they ran."

  He swung toward the black block. The faint light he had seen inside that stone was quiescent now, but it was still there. Faintly, so faintly that Kyrik thought he might be dreaming it, he sensed a presence inside that block.

  An evil presence, a thwarted presence. His mind felt the touch of hate, of evil so corrupt it numbed him for the moment. Like a great bear waking after a long sleep, he shook himself. And yet the touch of that evil presence lingered.

  Kyrik! Wake to your danger. That hidden voice was like a warm cloak thrown about him, driving away that coldness that had been seeping into his flesh. The firestone. Use it! Kyrik glanced down at his left fist. Throughout the fighting, he had kept that left hand clenched about the firestone.

  Shatter it—against that altar He transferred the firestone into his right hand, sheathing Bluefang. He stood at a little distance from that ebon altar and he raised his right hand.

  Hate and fury blazed out at him. Whatever was inside that ebon block was aware of what he intended doing, and it fought him. Blackness seemed to close about his mind, holding him in thrall. Yet to fight that darkness came a touch of light, of brightness.

  Slowly, grudgingly, that darkness lifted, fled back to whence it had come.

  Now! He hu
rled the firestone, watched it shatter against that black altar. Into tiny pieces that stone broke, but from inside it the cold fire that was its heart spread outwards. Over all that dark altar ran that cold fire, and as it did, Kyrik could hear the faint whisper of shattering stone.

  Aie! And with that whispering—a cry. Forlorn and savage was that wailing shout that came across the vast gulfs of space, from out of those hells into which the gods had driven Marrassa long ago. There was rage in that lone cry, and hate. It was a call from the heart, and it promised eternal torment to the human who had shattered his altar.

  The altar was covered with white fire now. It ate at the black stone, it lapped at it, it shredded it, slowly but surely. With a convulsive shudder, that stone split apart into many tiny fragments.

  It lay upon the floor, and slowly the white fire ate it until there was nothing left.

  Underfoot, the tessellated floor quivered. It rocked slowly back and forth, so that Adorla Mathandis lost her balance and fell flat, and Kyrik was hard put to keep his feet. All around them the walls began to crack. From somewhere behind them, stone split and toppled with a thunderous roar.

  “ Illis,” Kyrik whispered, “Illis of the soft breasts—save us."

  Soft laughter was his answer.

  The lair of the demon-god is sinking into oblivion! The magic that has held it for so long is ending.

  The black altar was gone. Slowly the rumbling and the quaking ceased. Kyrik put out a hand to Adorla and lifted her. “Our task here is finished. We can go."

  She came off the floor to lean against him, trembling. Her soft arms went about him, holding him.

  "What kind of man are you?" she whispered through trembling lips. "You fight like a regiment and you talk with demons."

  He grinned down at her. She was a pretty thing, but then she would be, looking so much like Myrnis. It felt good to have her breasts against his ribs, her loins cradled into his thigh. Almost of its own volition, his arm that held her tightened its grip.

  "I am Kyrik of the Victories."

  "I know that. But you are more than a man. You are...you are...."

  Her words fell away as her eyes looked with his. Something inside her woke to the touch of those eyes, to the challenge they held to her womanhood. Almost without thought she pressed her body even closer to his so that he must feel her softness, her attraction.

  Kyrik had been a long time without a woman. Not since Olvia had gone back to her own worlds had he eased the hungers of his male flesh. So what if Adorla Mathandis was a queen? She was a woman, first and foremost.

  He kissed her. His mouth came down on her lips and bruised them, but she joyed in his savagery, her mouth opened to his caress and she urged her body against his own.

  When he let her go, she smiled up at him. He read the invitation in her eyes, as he had read it in the eyes/ of other women he had known.

  He said, “I must go after those other two, Lyrrin Odanyor and Ulmaran Dho.” "I suppose so," she whispered. His arm still about her middle, he brought her away from the shattered altar and toward the door through which they had entered. They took three steps, and then they stopped.

  That doorway was filled with rubble. There was no way out of this underground temple, no pathway they could follow to the outer world.

  Kyrik ran forward, put his hands on fallen stone, and tried to move it. Until his muscles cracked did he stand spraddle-legged and bent over, but he could not budge that stone. Uncounted tons of rock lay here. A thousand men working day and night could never uncover the rubble in time to save their lives.

  He moved away from the shattered doorway and ran his eyes about the room. There was no other door, no other way out. He slid his hand into his pouch and brought out the crystal ball, and stared hard at it.

  "Illis, we're trapped,” he said. The crystal remained blank. Kyrik grumbled curses under his breath and shoved the ball back into the pouch. He moved up and down the big chamber, telling himself that the service of goddesses was not too rewarding to a human being.

  After a time, he grew aware that Adorla Mathandis walked with him, up and down, ever at his side. Tears ran down her cheeks, and she limped slightly where she had turned her ankle.

  “We’re going to die,” she whispered. “We’re going to die.”

  That was true enough, Kyrik thought glumly.

  Chapter SEVEN

  After a time, he made Adorla Mathandis lie down and rest. He stalked the four walls of the great chamber, and he went twice about those walls before he saw the crack. It was only a faint crack. In the dim light he had at first failed to notice it.

  He ran his fingers up and down that crack. At one point, Kyrik discovered that he could wedge the fingers of both hands into the opening. The wall seemed not so thick at this one point, and as he examined the wall more closely, he found that at some time there had been an opening in this wall which had been filled in later.

  His fingers slid into that opening, gripped mortar and brick. His thickly thewed legs braced themselves. He tugged. Part of the wall broke in his hands.

  Cool air flowed in upon him.

  Excitement made his blood pound. He put his hands again to the bricks and, bracing himself, yanked until his back muscles stood out in thick ridges. The brick yielded, fell inward with a clatter.

  He could peer through that opening now. There was a passageway running parallel with the chamber in which he stood, and opposite it another wall.

  Kyrik worked until he had made the opening big enough to permit him to step through. Then he went back to Adorla.

  She lay on her side, gently sleeping. Kyrik looked around him, sighed and lay down beside her. They might as well sleep now. That opening would still be there when they woke up.

  There was no night and no daytime in this underground chamber. When Kyrik woke, everything was as it had been when he had gone to sleep. Except for the fact that Adorla Mathandis lay close beside him, her head pillowed on his chest, her arm about him.

  His eyes went first to the opening in the wall he had made. Then he glanced down at the girl. There was perfume in her hair, or so it seemed, and the touch of her flesh to his was exciting.

  Almost of its own volition, his hand slid from her shoulder down her side to her rump. His palm caressed her buttocks, found them soft and yielding.

  It was then that Adorla woke. She lay a moment, aware of that hand on her behind, and thrilling to it. No man had ever caressed her so. Her eyelids quivered, but she kept them shut, and even stirred closer, so that her breasts nudged this big man's rib-cage. Her full red mouth smiled as though to secret dreams.

  If only he would take her in his arms. He was a great bear of a man, he would crush her delightfully in those massive arms, his mouth would eat at hers, she would be utterly helpless in his embrace.

  Yet his hand fell away and lay still. Adorla Mathandis frowned. She had never been so close to a man before, had never offered herself so—so wantonly. How could he resist her? Why didn't he just grab her and cover her with kisses? Almost angrily, she pushed away from him. Through her tumbled hair she glared down at him. He lay watching her, his eyes filled with strange lights that seemed to send erotic thrills down into her loins. What was the matter with this man? Didn't he want her?

  She raised her hands, pushed back her tumbled hair.

  Kyrik grinned, "I've been lying here waiting for you to wake up. We can leave whenever you're ready."

  "I'm ready enough," she sniffed. Kyrik rose to his feet. Like some kind of animal, so gracefully, Adorla thought. His hand caught her wrist, jerked her upwards as if she were a rag doll.

  His hand clapped her buttock. “That way. Go on. I've made a way out of this place."

  She saw the opening and walked to it, her blood churning. Every time he put his hand on her body, she went weak. She had never realized that a man such as this Kyrik existed. As she peered into that opening, she felt him come up behind her and put a hand on her back.

  His touch made h
er heart pound. She opened her lips to breathe.

  "Keep going," he growled. She moved ahead of him into a passageway dimly lighted by cracks in the masonry above, through which shafts of sunlight came pouring. She walked down that passageway into another. This second walkway went only a little way before it opened into two lanes.

  Puzzled, she glanced back over her shoulder. Kyrik was scowling, and she heard him mutter, "It cannot be. It was only an almost forgotten legend.“

  “What was a legend?"

  "The maze of Marrassa." She shook her head, still looking up at him. “I never heard of such a maze."

  "It was a long time ago, thousands of years. But at one time when the worship of Marrassa was at its height, legend says that victims were forced into a maze, that all doors were closed and locked behind them, and that Marrassa would come questing for those victims in this maze."

  He shook his head. “It was a refined cruelty, this place. You can imagine the victims, running up one corridor and down another, seeking escape. An escape they would never find. Not with Marrassa questing for them.

  “Well, this is the maze. Marrassa came out of that black altar and through the opening we came through—it was wider, larger, in those days—and he would sniff out the men and women sent to him and—devour them."

  Adorla Mathandis shuddered. His hand pushed against her. "The maze is still here, but Marrassa isn't. We're safe enough if we can find our way out."

  For hours they sought to discover the pathway which would take them out of this place. Overhead the sun beamed down through the cracks in the roof, showing them bits of tumbled stone underfoot along the passageways, with here and there flecks of blood on the walls which were no more now than brownish stains.

  At every turn, they met with disappointment. Each narrow walkway seemed to offer hope, but ended at a dead wall, or between two other passages, which led to nowhere.

  Overhead, the sunlight was dying into long shadows.

  Where a stone block lay, broken from the ceiling, Adorla sat down. “I can go no further. We've walked all day. I don't think there is a way out of this place."