by Джеффри Лорд
From the water’s edge to the uppermost of the Captains’ stout brick homes the slope stretched more than a mile and rose five hundred feet in that mile. Beyond the houses another wall studded with towers wrapped itself around the whole base, and beyond that rose the frowning peak of the Mountain. Not only did this base represent an incredible amount of labor, it also represented incredible wealth. Blade could easily see why the Neralers had bled the Four Kingdoms white for a century, where the wealth had gone-and how the masters of such a fortress might begin to think of becoming masters of a Kingdom.
There was a sudden flurry of running figures all up and down the slopes as Thunderbolt slid across the basin toward her dock. At Blade’s side Tuabir grinned. «So we are indeed the first back from all the fleet that took the duke. I thought that, from what Cayla said, but it was almost too much to hope.»
On the roof of one of the covered docks somebody stood now, frenziedly going through a complicated series of passes with a pair of orange and black signal flags. Tuabir barked an order, and a sailor sprang up onto Thunderbolt’s prow and set a similar pair dancing. A moment’s pause ashore, and then cheers that spread like a fire around the basin and up the slope until it seemed the whole vast bowl was ringing with them. From two stout, high red brick towers of a building on the Captains’ street yellow smoke began to stream up into the sky in a sinuous cloud.
«Eh, the call to Festival!» said Tuabir with another grin. «And few of the fleet will be home to share the wine, the women, and the joy. Have you a stout head as well as a stout arm, Master Blahyd? You’ll truly be needing it tonight for a Festival of the Brotherhood.»
Blade nodded absently. Festival-some sort of massive celebration? It would be one way of getting a chance to look around him, meet people, get a better impression of this colossal den of thieves which had sucked him in. But he would rather have had a chance to be alone and think out his next move.
He was utterly certain by now that Khystros’ assumptions about a pirate conspiracy were absolutely right, and he was more than inclined to believe the duke’s suspicions about the Chancellor as well. He had heard too much over the past eighteen days, and now these cheers were one more piece of evidence. Fighting and intriguing. In every world, it seemed he sooner or later wound up doing one or both.
CHAPTER 8
Tuabir armed four of his toughest sailors to the teeth and escorted Blade, Brora, and Alixa up to a house on the Captains’ street. Like its neighbor, from which the Festival signal was still streaming, it had two high towers with slit-narrow windows. It was into a room high up in one of these towers that Tuabir led his charges, up a winding circular staircase. Although the room was comfortable and well heated, there was a certain austerity about it that made Blade ask if he and his companions were guests, prisoners, or something in between.
«Say that you are prisoners for the time of Festival, so you’ll still be living when it’s over,» replied Tuabir. «No Free Woman and no man not prepared for a fight goes out beyond locked doors tonight. And for you three, not yet initiated into any status among the Brotherhood…» The sailor shrugged. «The Master Blahyd may well go out with proper care, being a well-set-up fighting man even if not yet known as such. But even he would do well to wear a Candidate’s belt.» He pulled out of his pouch a length of blue and gold cloth and handed it to Blade. «That shows you be Free but not Initiated. You can neither challenge nor be challenged to duel.»
After a moment’s hesitation Blade tied the belt around his waist. He intensely disliked going out and relying on anything but his own strength and skill. But he had to get out and look around before he could do any planning for anything. And it was too soon to get caught up in any more fights, not if his status was so uncertain.
After removing all of his weapons except a sheathed dagger in his belt for eating and another knife concealed in his boot top, Blade turned to Brora and Tuabir. «I call you both friends now. May I ask you, as friends, to take care that nothing happens to the Lady Alixa?»
Brora nodded and looked hard at Tuabir, who also nodded after a moment. During the nearly three weeks of the voyage to Neral, Blade had seen something far short of friendship but close to mutual respect growing up between the two tough sailors. Each saw that the other was a man who could handle a ship and a crew nearly as well as himself, and neither could quite bring himself to wholly reject such a man. So Blade knew that he had at least two friends to guard his back as he went out to sample the Festival.
He found that he needed more than a hard head to get through the Festival. He needed a strong stomach also. And even with both of these, he found it beyond him to enjoy the Festival.
Tuabir, as bloody-handed as any other pirate of long standing, still had considerable decency and self control. And while at sea on a raid the pirates had been as tough and well disciplined as any crew of fighting seamen who want to die in bed must be. But now, safe on shore and with money in their pockets and a victory to celebrate, the pirates ran wild. After a few hours of watching their notions of amusement, Blade knew he would have to get free of Neral as soon as possible before his own revulsion caused him to make some slip that would sign his death warrant. And he also knew he was willing to spend as much time here in this Dimension as might be needed to defeat the pirates’ plans to seize the Kingdom of Royth. The idea of any civilized country in the hands of the pirates made Blade’s stomach turn.
There was only a pale glow on the western horizon when he went out. But the light from the torches spluttering in brackets on the walls of the taverns and brothels made the streets noon-bright. There were sentries patrolling the streets in ominous groups of four. The sentries cast sharp looks at Blade’s size and other looks at his belt but left him alone. Otherwise, everybody was too intent on his own pleasures to pay much attention to the huge newcomer striding along among them and trying not to look disgusted.
There was a House of Dreams. Blade was practically dragged inside it by two burly doormen who bellowed in his ear, «All the dreams Druk can send for only five silver bits! Come, worthy sir, come seek our dreams!» Inside some forty men and women were sitting on padded quilts spread across the stone floor, breathing in blue smoke rising from glazed bowls. As he watched, he saw one of the men turn slowly around, stare at one of the women, then fall backwards on to his quilt and curl up like a dog, knocking over his bowl. It spilled a smoldering dark blueblack powder out onto the floor. A slave attendant rushed across and hastily swept up the powder with a brush.
Blade backed out hastily. Even after only a few whiffs of the blue smoke, he found his head swimming and his eyes peculiarly sensitive to the light. He wondered briefly if the powder was addictive as he brushed past the doormen and headed farther down the streets.
There was a House of Whips. From inside it sounded wild screams of delight and other screams of pain. Blade nerved himself to step inside. He was rewarded by the spectacle of two women dancing, or trying to dance, nude in a sand pit while four brawny attendants sent long lashes tipped with metal slicing over their heads, about their feet, and occasionally into their flesh. They must have been dancing for hours already. Their hair was matted with sweat and their bodies were glazed with sweat, oil, and blood from half a dozen open whip cuts. A man beside Blade muttered, without taking his eyes off the dancers, «They think they will be allowed to go afterwards. But they are to be killed in honor of the Festival. Wait and see that big fellow in the black tights lay on the kill-whip.» Blade swallowed hard and left the House of Whips even faster than he had left the House of Dreams. The pirates, it seemed, were addicted-in mind if not body-to sadism, drugs, everything ugly. Blade wondered if this were deliberate policy on the part of their leaders, who were unwilling to rely on a freely given loyalty and instead chose to manipulate their men in this gruesome fashion.
There were women wrestling naked in tubs of mud or copulating with men on stages. There were other dream places, with the drugs in liquid form rather than in smoking powders. There
were strip shows, although Blade wondered how something so comparatively mild could compete with the more exotic amusements elsewhere on the street. There were bars and brothels, and inevitably there were wandering drunks and prowling whores.
Blade saw one of the drunks solicit one of the whores. When she pushed him away and he staggered over against the wall and sat down, his companion whipped out a razor-edged knife and slashed the girl’s cheek open from hairline to jawline. Blade’s control snapped then. He came up behind the knife-wielder and chopped him across the back of the neck, pulling the blow just enough to avoid leaving a corpse lying in the street. With luck the man would never know that a Candidate had hit him, but Blade at this point hardly cared.
He turned to look for the girl, but she darted whimpering away into an alley so black and forbidding that even Blade for a moment hesitated to follow her. Then he plunged into the darkness, guided by the sound of running feet ahead. He would not leave the girl to crawl off like an animal into some corner and heal herself-or die of an infected wound-even if this was the custom of the pirates. He shuddered again at the thought of a civilized community fallen into the hands of the Neralers.
Suddenly he heard the footsteps ahead of him change direction, first bearing off to the right and then beginning to climb. He heard echoes, and knew the passage must lead into one of the tunnels that honeycombed the slope. The girl had turned into the tunnel. Should he follow? Before he could decide, he heard a rumble and felt a vibration in the cobblestoned floor of the alley under his feet. And before he could react to that, the cobblestones dropped out from under him and he plunged down into a blackness even more complete than that of the alley.
The fall was enough to knock the wind out of him, but a thick layer of quilts and cushions broke most of the impact. He sat up instantly, drawing his dagger. As he did so, a pale light suddenly flooded the chamber.
He was sitting in the bottom of a shaft some twenty feet deep and eight feet in diameter at the bottom. The cushions and quilts were made of a uniform dark green cloth glimmering with little sparkles in the light, which Blade saw came from a lantern behind a heavy glass panel set in the door of the shaft. The door itself was also green-old copper-and bare of ornament except for what first looked like a capital W in the middle. Then Blade saw that the W was made up of two pairs of black enameled serpents, their jewel-eyed heads together at the bottom. He felt a cold sinking in his stomach, remembering what Tuabir had said about Cayla’s being a former Serpent Priestess of Mardha. And remembering that, he was not particularly surprised a moment later when the door slid noiselessly open and Cayla’s voice said softly:
«Come to me, Blahyd.»
Blade stepped through the door with his dagger firmly held ready to strike, and found himself in a tunnel sloping downward. The walls and ceiling were rough-hewn slimy rock, but the floor was tiled in smooth green and black patterns through which stylized serpents writhed. Small lanterns in glass-fronted niches filled the tunnel with more of the same pallid light.
He stalked downward, prepared to follow the tunnel as far as it went, even into the foundations of the island. He was therefore a little surprised when it ended in a blank wall after less than fifty feet. Or at least it gave the appearance of a blank wall, because he had barely come to a stop before Cayla’s voice came again, the same words in the same tone. The wall slid aside, and Blade stepped through, went down two shallow steps, and looked about him.
He was in a high-domed, circular chamber about fifty feet across, lit by more of the ubiquitous lanterns, these now hung from brackets set in the walls. The floor was the same uneasily familiar black and green serpent pattern. In the exact center of the chamber, on a dais raised some four feet off the floor, stood a stone altar in the form of a monstrous coiled serpent. Its head was toward Blade, and inside its gaping maw a small fire burned, sending coils of pungent green smoke up between the stabbing gilded fangs. Blade sniffed at the smoke, which hazed the chamber. It was not the same drug as the House of Dreams had offered. He had no time to wonder whether this was good or bad, because Cayla stepped out from behind the altar, uncoiling herself with a grace as sinuous as though she herself was a serpent.
She wore a green robe which covered her completely except for hands and face, a necklace of black stones, and a tiara of more black stones set in silver. Her face-and it was a strong and well-formed face, seen from close range-was totally expressionless.
«So you came, Blahyd?» Her voice, too, was almost expressionless, except for a slightly mocking note of inquiry.
He could not help asking in reply, «Did I have a choice?»
«You could have refused to follow that girl. But I knew you would not. Just as I know you are planning to desert us as soon as you can.»
Blade would have found it convenient at that moment to sink through the floor. He was as close as he had ever been to giving way to raw panic. He wondered if he were facing a telepath and suspected that coping with one would prove beyond him.
When he could get his tongue and lips into motion again, he could only say, «Why do you say that?»
«I am adept at reading the subtle messages of voice and face and stance, Master Blahyd. It is an art that can be acquired by proper training, just as the swordsmanship of which you seem so rightly proud.»
Blade, after a moment of indulging his relief that nothing paranormal was working here, looked about the chamber again. «This is not the work of the pirates.»
«No, nor of any man living. These swinish animals who crawl over the surface of the island and think they are burrowing deep into it know nothing of what lies inside. No more than lice know what lies inside a man.»
«Indeed.» It again seemed a useful enough word, when one absolutely had to say something.
«You fear me, Blahyd.»
«I do. You are the unknown.»
«Am I, Blahyd?» She stepped forward and he caught her musky scent. He was conscious that it was beginning to arouse him. «Are women unknown to you?»
«I have known many women.»
«And you shall know one more.» She reached back to undo the clasp of the necklace and laid it gently on the stone floor. She took the tiara off and laid it beside the necklace. Blade’s arousal was now well past the beginning stage. She noticed it, and Blade could not help being gratified as her eyes wandered over him and widened noticeably. Then she stepped forward until she grasped his hands and lifted them to the collar of her robe. He found the small black metal catch there, fumbled for a moment, then undid it.
The robe fell away like the veil falling from a statue. As he had expected, she was nude under it. And she was superbly built, better than he had expected: without Alixa’s grace, but trim, compact, well muscled. He lifted his hands to her small, firm breasts and stroked the pink nipples with his thumbs, feeling the nipples bud and swell and hearing her gasp. Her own hands drifted lightly over his chest, playing with the hair, then down across his belly to flick gently his swollen phallus. His hands left her breasts and crept downward to play finger games in her blonde bush-a darker blonde than her gleaming, close-trimmed head and curly where the other grew straight. Again she gasped. Her hands rose to his shoulders, pressed down. She gave a little leap upwards and her supple legs wrapped themselves serpentlike (the idea gave Blade a momentary chill) around his massive torso. As her arms and legs pulled her against him, he drove into her and felt her shudder almost at once. It had been a long time since this one had had a man. He was determined to make sure that it would be a long time before she needed one again. It was the only way he could see to take away that maddening coolness and contempt and perhaps make her willing or able to tell more about her plans.
He was able to hold her clear of the floor as he continued his thrusting; she was light and his own strength seemed to peak. On and on he went, until he felt her body becoming slick with sweat and felt it dripping down his own. Still he kept on, hearing her begin to moan in protest, feeling her body writhe in his arms, until those
arms themselves began to turn heavy and ache. Still he kept on, until her mouth opened to emit a sound that was more of a gurgle than anything else and her legs unlocked themselves by pure reflex. She would have fallen if he had not still kept his own aching arms around her.
It was not until he had placed her on the cushions in front of the altar that her eyes flickered open and once more stared expressionlessly into his. Blade found her continued detachment after such a bout a little frightening, but even more what she said.
«I have mated before the eyes of the Serpent. I could have done so years ago, but none of the pigs and sots among the pirates were worthy. None of them had a mind. But you-you-«
«What about me?»
«You are so eager to know what you must do! As eager as you were a few minutes ago. Well, you have pleased me so greatly in the mating that I shall tell you.»
Blade was even more appalled by what he learned in the next few minutes than he had been by the Festival. The pirates at least limited themselves to human vices, however ugly. This-this female thing-had notions far beyond those.
She had indeed been a Serpent Priestess in Mardha, and was one still. The island of Neral had once been the great sacred place of the Serpent Cult, the school of its priestesses, the breeding place of the sacred serpents. This chamber was one of the uppermost of many, connected by miles of tunnels that did in fact plunge to the foundations of the island and below, all carved out over many, many centuries.
But the cult had fallen on lean days as its worshipers dropped away or were slain in the persecutions launched by all the Four Kingdoms. Finally, it had been decided by a secret conclave of the surviving priestesses to abandon Neral. They would keep the cult alive in smaller, less vulnerable centers all over the world.
