Soft laughter went around the cell. The crystal ball began to glow. He watched it sullenly, but with an increased thudding of his heart. He saw Illis framed within that globe, saw her laughing at him, mouth open. And as she had before, that tiny figure grew, took shape and stood there in the cell, smiling down into his gloomy face.
"Did you think I would abandon you?" she asked softly.
He grunted. He could never be angry at Illis when she stood before him in all her loveliness. But a tiny core of impatience burned inside him.
He lifted his wrists and shook them, making the chains dangle. "I'm a prisoner here. I have these chains to keep me from fighting."
“Fighting? What could even you do here, alone in the midst of your enemies?"
“Then why am I here?"
“To destroy Marrassa!" He grinned. “By the father of gods. I can't do very much from a cell."
She came across the cell, graceful, lovely. Her eyes were tender as she regarded him. She stood before him and smiled down into his gloomy face.
"We must use what weapons we have. Do you still carry Avalar's jewel-stone, that-which-was-made-at-the-beginning?"
He nodded, and would have lifted it out of the belt-pouch to show her, but she stayed him with a wave of her hand.
"You will be offered up for sacrifice, you and Adorla Mathandis. When that time comes, the gods will guide your hand. And I shall be beside you."
Her green eyes glowed. In them was an awesome pride, an angry pride. She went on, and now her voice grew hard and pitiless, "The gods have been too merciful! They granted Marrassa life when he sinned so long ago.”
She brooded, head bent. "Avalar ought to have destroyed Marrassa, yet his heart was touched by pity. There must be no more pity. Yet the gods cannot act without your help.
"You are the one who must use the jewel-stone. "Yours is the hand which must begin the attack."
There was a silence in the little cell. Illis shook herself, laughed softly, and came to sit upon Kyrik's lap. She was not a goddess now, she was only a woman. Her arms went about his neck, drew his mouth down to hers.
They kissed a long time, until Illis drew away, trembling like a virgin in the first throes of passionate love. She huddled close to the warrior-warlock who held her, and sighed.
"Some time I must beg leave of Avalar and come to this world of yours, Kyrik, and share your strange adventures. I find my own worlds dreary and unexciting. Here there is excitement—danger—all those spices that make life the sweet thing it is."
The green eyes glowed up at him. "Some day you must take me with you on one of your roamings. Not Myrnis. Not a woman such as Adorla Mathandis. But — Illis herself. Would you like that?"
He rumbled laughter. “When?"
Her laughter trilled. "Are you that anxious? Good! It is how I would have you. But it cannot be, not for a time. You must destroy Marrassa first. That—will not be easy."
"Gods I should think not. I have an army against me, an entire priesthood. I'm one man, Illis.”
She nodded. "It is much to ask of one man. Avalar knows this. That is why he may be receptive to the idea of my rewarding you—by coming to share one of your adventures."
They kissed again, until Kyrik's blood was boiling. Her flesh was soft and cool to his palms, but it grew warm when he caressed her breasts and stroked her thighs. She whispered love words into his ears, and she was not selfish in her demands, for she caressed him even as he stroked her body.
Yet after a time she drew away and her eyes became sad. "We have no more time. You must rest. You shall need all your strength."
He protested, but she touched his eyes with her lips, breathing upon him, and a great lassitude came upon Kyrik. Tiredness entered all his body, so that he drooped, even as he held Illis.
Her gentle laughter was a lullaby, and he made no effort to refuse as she whispered for him to lie down upon the cot. When he did so, she lay beside him, an arm flung across his chest, and sang faintly to him in her sweet voice, as a mother might to a babe, and Kyrik slept.
How long he slept, he never knew, yet when he woke, his body was refreshed and his strength was as it had always been. Yet a hunger haunted his belly, so that he rose growling and went to the bars and shook them.
"Do you let men starve who go to meet your god?" he bellowed. "Must my hunger so weaken me that Marrassa will turn his face away and call down curses on his worshipers, who are niggardly Swine?"
He roared more insults until footsteps cane and a guards captain with several men at his back shouted for him to be silent. He drew his sword as he talked, and rattled it against the cage bars.
Kyrik laughed at him. "Put that pig-sticker away before I take it from you. Go and bring me food, man.”
The captain flushed, but he nodded. "Aye, I'll have food fetched. Good food, too, that will make you strong so as to suffer the torments Marrassa will bring when he fastens his claws in your flesh.
"Oh, Marrassa remembers you. You're the one who killed my fellow guardsmen in the pits at Akkunar, and only Ulmaran Dho and Lyrrin Odanyor escaped. Marrassa has a special hell prepared for you, fellow."
"It can't be any worse than starving here." They went away but they came back soon enough with platters heaped with steaming meats, with vegetables, with fruits, with greens. They pushed those platters beneath the bars and Kyrik sat before them, and began to eat.
When he was half finished, he woke Adorla Mathandis and brought her to sit and eat, also. There was no appetite in her. There were hollows under her eyes and her lips were drawn down at their corners in her misery.
"Why should I eat?" she asked. "I, who am soon to die?”
"You'll live a long time, girl. Soon enough you'll be queen again in Alkinoor.
She stared at him, and tears ran down her cheeks.
"You mock me," she whispered. Kyrik grinned, reaching out a hand and yanking her toward him. His hand sought her breasts and caressed them, and against her will, her blood was stirred.
"Yes, make love to me,” she murmured, urging herself closer.
"After you eat."
She drew away, flushed and excited, and now she ate, not as a queen might eat—daintily and with lassitude in her every movement —but with both hands, like a street trull or a starving beggar.
When she was done, Kyrik lifted her in his arms and carried her to her cot. He made love to her for a long time, until she forgot where she was and who she was, and knew only that this man who was such a stallion was the one man in all the world for her.
Twice more they ate, twice more they slept, twice more Kyrik made love to Adorla Mathandis before they came to bring them to the new temple of Marrassa. As they lay in each other's arms, they heard the clank of weapons, the approaching guardsmen.
Kyrik stirred. He was loath to leave the body of this woman, but he knew inside himself that Marrassa waited, that Avalar himself, and Illis, were watching to see what happened.
He came off the couch, lifting Adorla Mathandis with him, and they dressed themselves even as a key grated in the lock and the barred cell-door opened. Putting an arm about the girl, Kyrik led her out into the corridor.
Kyrik grinned when he saw the escort. More than fifty armed men, all with drawn swords, stood in the corridor. The guards captain held a dagger in his own hand, and with it he gestured them to walk ahead.
Adorla whimpered, and her legs turned rubbery. "Be easy, girl, the warlock-warrior told her. "This night you shall sit your throne as queen in Alkinoor.”
She looked up at him as though he had gone mad.
"This night we shall be with Marrassa, in what ever hells he inhabits."
"She's right about that," the guards captain chuckled, following them. “I've heard that Marrassa hates you, Kyrik. He has some special torment devised for you—one that will last for centuries."
Kyrik shrugged. It might be as the captain said. It was a risk he had to take. He would not think of what was going to happen to him if he failed. A t
housand lifetimes of torture by Marrassa. It was enough to frighten a man.
Chapter ELEVEN
They walked out of the pits and through the hallways of the palace. By a large doorway, open to the breezes which swept through the city, they walked into a great garden ornate with statues. As they paced the flag-stoned walks, Adorla Mathandis i shuddered.
"Here I used to sit and read the ancient scrolls," she whispered. "There in that pool, I was wont to wade."
Tears rolled down her cheeks. "For the last time I stroll through this garden I loved so much, but now I'm on my way to death." She sobbed. “Kyrik! I don’t want to die.”
“Everyone dies,” he muttered. "But I am young. Young! I have so much love to give!”
He nodded gloomily, wishing the girl would cease her mewlings. He knew how she felt. He didn't feel much better. The only thing sustaining him was the knowledge that Illis would be standing by, to encourage and to guide him.
It might be foolish to put faith in goddesses. But he had an inner feeling that Avalar himself was watching what would happen today in the newly built temple to Marrassa, and Avalar was a mighty god.
They passed out of the garden and along a roofed walkway fitted with alabaster columns. Flowers grew along the borders of this walk, and from here one could run eyes outward across the royal gardens.
Ahead lay a new building, fashioned of black stone out of Ivareen, with here and there decorations set into that stone—of Karalonian silver and gold from Amanoy. The artisans who had built this temple had sought all over the known world for ornaments with which to decorate it.
Crowds were in the streets, beyond the high palace walls. Their talk was low and muted, it was like a dim buzz that quivered in the air. The footfalls of the guardsmen following after them were louder, almost drowning it out.
Kyrik walked with an arm about Adorla Mathandis, for her legs were so weak they would scarcely support her. She was close to fainting, her head lolled and she wept silently, knowing that soon now she would be offered up to Marrassa.
A way had been cleared for them. Lines of armed guards stood along the approach to the temple, their eyes straight ahead but their hands on their weapons.
Kyrik strode along proudly, head held high. Adorla was no burden to him, even with the heavy iron balls that dragged raspingly at the ends of their thick chains on the tessellated walkway. His eyes scanned the temple, seeing the abominations of Marrassa, known by legend to his high priests, carved in lifelike detail on the walls.
"Faugh! It's an evil place," he rasped. A man came down two steps and gestured. The line of soldiers fell in about them and they walked up the two stone steps and into the shadows of the temple.
The interior of the temple was filled with people. These people were not willing worshipers, Kyrik saw at a glance. They were pale, worried, frightened. Their eyes went this way and that but none of them even glanced at the high altar.
Only Kyrik put his gaze there, and held it. He saw a massive block of black marble, much like the one he had shattered in ruined Akkunar. Marrassa would emerge through that altar to take the sacrifices offered to him. In that block, which was his doorway into this world, he would reign supreme.
The walls of the temple were of gold plate, and on them were silver images of Marrassa, evil and repellent to human eyes. There were tiny altars here and there throughout the temple, and golden bowls where worshipers would yield up their offerings to Marrassa's priests.
A space had been cleared in the midst of the people thronging the temple. Down that space walked Kyrik, half carrying Adorla Mathandis.
"Straighten up, girl,” he growled. "Show these people that you are, in truth, their queen."
Adorla tried. Her head lifted, her legs straightened, and she shook herself free of the arm that had been supporting her. Her back straight as any arrow, she walked toward that dark throne, though her cheeks were still silvered by her tears.
Before that throne stood a smiling Lyrrin Odanyor, clad in golden robes streaked with scarlet. A golden rod glimmered in his hand, touched by the rays of sunlight coming through a temple window. His eyes touched the warlock-warrior, but they lingered most on Adorla Mathandis.
There was no pity in those eyes—only exultation. A throne was set to one side of the altar. Myrnis sat on that throne, regal in cloth-of-gold, in a diadem set with brilliant diamonds. Her face was troubled as her eyes studied Kyrik, and her right hand that held her scepter, was seen to tremble faintly.
Standing behind her in purple garments offset by red gold was Ulmaran Dho. His face was grave, but his eyes glittered triumphantly. His gaze was fixed on Adorla Mathandis. He seemed to ignore Kyrik.
Lyrrin Odanyor cried out, "Advance then, you first gifts to mighty Marrassa. Offer to Marrassa your lives, your very souls, that we who worship him may be blessed."
Kyrik rasped, "Foul priest of an even fouler god, this day you die."
Lyrrin Odanyor laughed softly. "The man is mad with fright.”
Yet his eyes touched those iron balls and chains, and he appeared to wonder if they were enough to hold the yellow-haired giant. Kyrik stood still, his arms hanging as though tired by the effort to drag those weights around.
Kyrik bellowed, “This day Marrassa dies!” He cried out in a voice that rang throughout the temple. People gasped and stared, their eyes running from him to the livid Lyrrin Odanyor. The high priest gasped, stepped down from the dais that held the altar, and struck Kyrik across his face.
Kyrik never blinked, but the onlookers saw the muscles bulge on his back and arms. He laughed in the contorted face of the high priest.
"Aye! Strike now—while you may."
Lyrrin Odanyor shook himself. An angry flush tinted his cheeks. He rasped, "You will soon wish you stood here so I could strike you again, madman. When Marrassa has you in his clutches, you will scream for ten times a thousand years!”
He turned away abruptly and ascended the dais. His arms lifted, and he began to chant. The words of that chant were in no known tongue, yet he did not stumble in his pronunciation. And as his voice gained power, as those words went out across the temple to be flung back from wall to wall so their echoes made an evil music, there came a coldness into the air.
Men shivered. Women trembled. Yet always that voice went on, chanting that almost lost and forbidden hymn to Marrassa. Where Lyrrin Odanyor had found those words, no one knew. Yet he had studied them, learned them, and now he gave them forth into a world that seemed almost to quiver in resentment.
The cold increased. And the ebon black began to gleam. No one noticed how Kyrik had put a hand into his belt-pouch, nor how his arm muscles tightened as he closed his fingers about the silken scarf that held the jewel-stone. In his grip he held it—and waited.
On her throne, Myrnis leaned forward, caught by the evil spell, eyes glistening. Her eyes slid from the black stone to Kyrik, and she studied him with a worried frown.
Had she known this big man with the golden hair? Had he spoken the truth in her bedroom? And that woman who could be her own twin: who was she, really? Was it as Kyrik had hinted? Was that woman the queen, and she herself the interloper?
No! It could not be The black altar was fading into nothingness. In its place the onlookers glimpsed the dark gulfs of space and time that lay between themselves and the hells into which the gods had thrust Marrassa ages ago. Those gulfs were opening now, giving way to these forbidden chantings.
Where had been the block was now—a dripping 2SS. Black it was, and pitted, and its sides heaved as though with the burden of its far traveling. Eyes that were crimson with inner fires blinked as they looked out upon the congregation gathered in its temple. Something that might be a mouth slavered and dripped a greenish slime.
Adorla Mathandis fainted. She crumpled and lay at the war-booted feet of the rigid Kyrik. He did not notice her, he had eyes only for this bloated abomination that had risen out of the prison into which it had been cast, before the memory of man. His hand s
queezed that-which-was-made-at-the-Beginning.
Not now. Not—yet! More and more of that bloated blackness oozed into sight where the altar had been. Its many eyelids blinked as the red eyes stared at the temple, at the high priest, at the people cringing and terrified. Myrnis shrank back in her jeweled throne, the back of her hand to her lips. Ulmaran Dho trembled himself, sought to lose himself in the shadows.
Only two men stood unafraid. Lyrrin Odanyor was poised with his arms held high. Triumph flushed his face, showed in his glittering eyes. He had done what wise men had hinted could never be done: he had freed Marrassa from the hells into which the other gods had prisoned him.
Marrassa was free. Free Now, Kyrik—now! His big hand came out of the belt-pouch. The silken scarf fluttered to the floor. He held that-which-had-been-made-at-the-Beginning.
Kyrik leaped. The leaden balls attached to his wrists slowed him, but not by much. Up the steps of the dais he leaped, and straight at Marrassa.
Lyrrin Odanyor screamed, and would have stopped him if he could. With his left arm, Kyrik brushed the high priest aside.
Half a hundred hell-red eyes stared at him. That blackly bloated bulk surged upward, something came out of it and reached for this rash human Marrassa hated. He would have preferred to make the fool suffer, to prolong his agony with pleasant torments, but if this way the way he wanted it....
Too late, Marrassa saw what Kyrik held. Marrassa screamed. High and frightful was that scream. It held in it the knowledge of the fate that this human was bringing to Marrassa. Aye, it knew what that jewel-stone meant to it. It knew and so it shrieked out its fear and its despair.
Even as it shrilled out its terror, it reached for him. Blackness that oozed came outward from its bulk and sought to embrace this man who held the firestone.
Throw it, Kyrik! He hurled that-which-had-been-made-at-the-Beginning. Straight into the hideous maw of Marrassa he threw the jewel. He saw it hit and shatter, spread outward in sullen, angry crimson waves. Those scarlet waves touched Marrassa, ran swiftly over its heaving bulk.
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