by Michael Shea
Sadly, easily, he waved away my words. "You're fooling yourself, Nifft. The great tricks are gone now, don't you see? Those feats of deep cunning and brave flair—we're all alloted a few of them, and we get no more, no matter what our longing is. And you know, you're lucky if you even recognize when you're having your best moments. Half the time your soul is looking the other way when they come. And you never grow wise enough to know what they were until you have passed the hope of having more. Then, the rest of life is this—" he waved at the moonlit plain "—greedy four-legged scavenging through a desolation."
Well normally I can turn a sharp retort to such elegiac horse-flop, and so too, surely, could Haldar himself at another time. But just then I hadn't the spit for it. I felt such a freezing, putrid sadness! And all at once I understood that it was—still—the place we were camped. For the feeling was seeping into me. These boulders and this gravel were giving it off the way ice gives off cold. There was something here, and its presence was getting stronger moment by moment.
Haldar, it was clear, was reacting to it without realizing its source. He sat jabbing a stick into the fire, as if trying to stab it to death. I tried to speak but my throat caught, and it seemed for a moment I couldn't find even the simplest words. My friend threw down his stick, rubbed his forehead, and then jumped up and shook his fist at the sky.
"By the Crack," he shouted, "I'd give my life to work just one great feat more—one greater than any I've yet accomplished. My life! I swear it by the Wizard's Key!"
Well his words shocked me. Even though my dread of this place hung heavier and heavier from my heart, like a poison fruit that would fall and break and cause something foul and dark to be born—I still had the wit to be both alarmed and startled. I was alarmed because Haldar wasn't a man to bandy oaths, and if he spoke one he was dead serious about it. And I was startled by the oddity of the oath itself. Have you ever heard anyone but some Kairnish outlander swear by the Wizard's Key? It certainly wasn't Haldar's custom. We stared at each other and he looked as surprised as I was. And then I got a feeling.
"There's something here," I said. "Do you feel it? Not far. Under us maybe . . . but approaching."
Halder looked around, nodding grimly, scowling at the shadows. "Mark me!" he cried aloud, "who- or whatever you are that stand near us now. You have put a thought in my mind, and a word in my mouth. But I defy you! I claim my oath as my own. I stand by it as mine. So stand forth now, if you mean to offer what I ask!"
That was the man all over, Barnar. No one spoke straighter to the point. Let nameless things skulk, if he heard them in the woodwork he'd call them out to state their business.
We waited in silence. The ugly weight still dragged on my heart. I was so absorbed I didn't realize my hand was on my swordhilt until I had the blade half out of the sheath. I remember hearing, as I listened, a sound of toenails on stone, and thinking to myself, No, that's only a wolf.
So in a way I wasn't surprised when Haldar's mount screamed and we turned to see its legs buckling as two huge wolves dragged it down by the throat. Two more swarmed onto it while my mount rose and stove in the skull of a fifth with its forehoof. I was already launched toward it when I saw the wolf above and behind us on the rock overhanging our fire. I shouted to Haldar and as I completed my spring, I had a last sight of the wolf leaping down on him: a giant silver dog that hung above him on the firelit air.
Then there was only the work at hand. After that cold, festering dread, the bloody uproar was like fresh air. I brought down a two-handed stroke on one of the beasts, and no more than half clove its neck, though I had my broad-blade then, and a full swing. That's how big those brutes were. Its spine held my blade almost too long as a new wolf plunged in from the dark, but I got my point up to its throat and its own leap killed it, though both my shoulders were nearly unsocketed. I slashed my mount's hobble and it stood its ground unhindered. Halder's already had four beasts sunk to their shoulders in its opened belly, while it still screamed. My friend shouted.
That leaping wolf had taken his blade in its open jaws, but the thing was so big that its heart wasn't cleft till its jaws had reached the hilt, and Haldar had had to drop the sword or lose his hand. The animal lay twitching now, the sword-pommel between its teeth, and Haldar had only a brand from the fire in one hand, and a knife in the other, with which to face a new attacker up on the rock. I swear, this wolf was two-thirds as big as a horse. It had shoulders like a northron bear. Its ribs showed as distinctly as so many peals of a deathknell—ours. Its eyes were as yellow as honey and insane with hunger and from the dark behind it, in the intervals between the horse's screams, came the sound of other paws scrabbling on stone.
Then the giant, instead of springing, scrambled desperately backward from the edge of the rock. The bush of its tail glinted in the firelight as it turned, and it was gone. A noise of many hard, fleet paws scattered away through the dark around us, and the ones that were feeding plucked their drenched heads from the horse's ribs and fled away, their sticky ears flattened in fear. The horse still screamed, but with less strength. I almost clung to the sound, in my fear of the silence it covered, but pity won and I split its skull.
"It's coming," Haldar said in the silence. "But from where?" He sounded hushed, fascinated. There was no mistaking the terrible nearness of something. The air swarmed with ticklish sensation. The very stones were crawling with premonitions like a million invisible ants. I felt fascinated too; but far more strongly I felt loathing. I could not wish to leave—you can't, you know, if you come as near as we were, and if you have any enterprise or fire of soul in you. But I could not bear to wait in stillness. Like some housekeeper in a frenzy, I began, insanely, to tidy up. I freed Haldar's blade and wiped it on the beast's coat. I began to drag wolf corpses out of our clearing. I cursed and snarled and hauled on them with furious strength and with each instant I felt the air swarming and breathing more intensely. Halder shouted: "Nifft! Look at the rock!"
Even as I turned, one of the big boulders near our fire bulged. It swelled out sharply, just as pliant as a mother's belly where a child, impatient to be born, gives a kick and a shove. It settled back. Then it bulged a second, and a third time. Then it peaked out again, and this time, did not return to shape. The thing within stretched it unrelentingly now, with all its force. A crack appeared in the apex of the bulge and with it, as if pouring out of the crack, a charnel stink entered the air. The crack widened with a snap, and a skeleton hand thrust out.
It had just enough yellow gristle and tendon on it to keep the bones together. It clutched and plucked at the air like some nightmare crab feeding on a kelp-leaf. Then the rock heaved again, split farther, and the entire forearm sprouted out with its one straight and one curving bone. Arm and hand flailed and scooped at the air, and the stone tore again—mightily this time. Our knees buckled in the reeking gust that hit us. The other hand and arm thrust out—this hand grasping a large golden key. A being of bone and parched ligament dragged itself out onto the gravel. Its skull was patched with swatches of black, rotten hair that looked wet and flattened like the womb-licked hair of babes just born.
The boulder lay in halves now, and the thing writhed toward us, its ribs leaving scalloped furrows in the earth. It moved like a spent swimmer hauling himself from a punishing surf—from an icy, stinking sea. The chill those bones gave off was as powerful as their stench. When the thing collapsed near the fire, the flames turned red and shrank, as if crushed by the cold.
But have I talked of stench? By the Crack, I did not yet know the meaning of the word. For as it lay, weakly stirring, the thing began to change, and as it changed, it seemed our noses and throats were being crammed with grave-dirt, so fiercely did the thing reek. We leaned against the rocks and stared, our wills not ours. Flesh had begun to web and drape the bones.
Not flesh, mind you—but just such gluey rags as comes before it's utterly gone. This foul paste spread. Lumps of it rose within the ribs' cage like loaves in an oven, an
d the festoons on the rest of the skeleton thickened, and wove, and knit into skin. And that skin began to stir, and then to crawl, and then to boil—with worms.
In my heart I thanked the fire's weakness, for I had no power to look away. Both of us had our hands covering nose and mouth, but the stench came through mine as though they weren't there. The thing rolled onto its back.
The twisting maggots covered it so thick that it shed clumps of them as the swimmer might shed the foam he's crawled from. The worms dripped, and then drained down. Here and there they fell away completely, and left patches of fresh, pale skin. Over the ribs they rose in a pair of squirming domes, and then avalanched away and left behind two fat, rose-nippled breasts as luminous as full moons. And at the same time, luscious thighs and loins shed their foulness and glowed, and her skull sockets spilled out their contents as great black eyes filled them.
A woman had been born, nude and whole. The earth she lay on was clean, and the air was pure again, though when she moved she still gave off a gust of cold like wind off a glacier. She touched her cheek with one hand. With the other, the one that held the key, she touched one of her nipples. She smiled up at the sky. Her teeth were clenched and there was a bitter joy in her eyes. She began to run her fingertips all over her body. Her hands were swift and trembly, like those of a miser searching over a treasure he had thought lost. Two great tears slid out of her eyes, and drenched the black hair at her temples. She rolled her head to stare at us across the fire. For several heartbeats she only stared at us, smiling that clench-jawed smile, her breasts surging softly. Then she said: "Raise me, mortals. My strength is nearly spent with climbing up to you. There will be little time."
Her voice, Barnar! It entered your thoughts like cold silk scarves being pulled through your ears—one sounds mad describing it! I moved to obey her, but leadenly, and I'd hardly stirred before Haldar was at her side. He reached his hands down to her, this woman of the living dead, just as promptly as a thirsty man might reach to pluck his flagon from the counter.
But he had to bite back a cry as she took his hands. Heroically, he held on as she rose, and in the end fell to one knee so she could steady herself, totteringly, by putting her hands on his shoulders. He was hard-put to mask the pain of her touch. And she—her body was full, smooth, and sturdy as a woman's in her twenties. But it seemed she could only hold it upright with the greatest concentration. She kept one hand on the boulder beside her to steady her, once she had gained her feet. Haldar, still kneeling, bowed his head and said shamefacedly: "Forgive my outcry, Lady. It was . . ."
"It was cold, Haldar Dirkniss," she said, looking down at him as a spirited queen might look down on one of her favored young earls. "It was the cold, and the sorcery of the key, which you touched. But you must stand away now, little hawk-faced mortal. I must speak quickly."
Oh well-beloved Haldar! He never lost the power to astonish me, Barnar! He was always correct, but seldom courtly with women. The way he was acting could only mean that he had been . . . smitten by this grave-delivered ghost. There could be no mistaking. The way he jumped up at the word "little," and drew himself up to full height, and stared at her with deep reproach and bitterness—and the way he had called her "Lady." He was no hypocrite with terms. He would have called her Darkling, as is generally prescribed, but for some sudden, special passion.
Not that she wasn't harrowingly female. She was fine, ample and free, even in her tired stance. Her face was small and square, with animal-black eyes and strong teeth. The eyes were wide-set and she had the planed-back cheekbones of a Sargalese peasant, or a Green Plains woman. Her lips were full, restless. She smiled ironically at Haldar's eyes. "Dear mortal, it is deadly, unendingly hard to rise. It is a long way up and a long way back through the paths of decay. Merely to stand and speak in the living air is a titan's work. The moonlight scorches me. Sweet thief, don't balk at trifles. Stand away and hear me." Haldar stepped back, bowing his contrition.
She nodded to me. "Hail to you, northron Nifft, called also Nifft the Lean. You and Haldar both are known to me—your qualities of craft and soul. It is your luck that you chose this camp, and mine that I reached you in it. Know, gentle thieves, that your fortune has turned. I am your gate to fame, to wealth and power past the tongue's telling. If you go through me you will go, at first, through terrible darkness, but at the last you will go in brightest daylight, amid pomp and acclamation. I am Dalissem. I was a temple-child of Lurkna Downs. I have been dead these seven years."
It seemed that I heard each thing she said one instant before her lips finished forming it. I felt her voice twice with each word—a double echo of no sound at all. Haldar made a half step toward her, meaning to swear unconditional fealty then and there, no doubt. She thrust out her hand warningly and shook her head, causing her black hair to move in snakes upon her shoulders.
"Listen only! I cannot stand up long against the pull of the Underground. It is true I put a thought in your mind, Haldar—but you were not betrayed. I caused you to swear by the Key, because I have the Key, the Key itself of the Marmian Wizard's Manse. It is this one. Now I come to you to offer what you seek. I'll give you your life's transcendent feat—your greatest exploit—and I will not ask your life in fee, though you have sworn it. Instead, I shall fee you—I'll give you the Wizard's Key. For this, you must bring down to me one living man, one man still living down to me in the Winds of Warr, down where I dwell in the Place of the Raging Dead."
She pointed again and again to the ground as she spoke. Haldar and I exchanged a look. It cost him something, I believe, to tear his eyes off her, and his face held no doubts of this exploit. His look said simply: What fortune, eh Nifft? What colossal luck!
And I confess I was no more than a shade off feeling the same. Imagine being presented with Sark's Wand, say, or the Sandals of Speedy Flight. You don't really believe that they must exist in one particular place or another. It's dumbfounding to consider that some one person actually possesses the Key of the Marmian Wizard's Manse—let alone that he might be standing before you, holding it in his hand! She brandished it to us now, the way you hold a sword up in anger and challenge to someone who stands far off. The head of it was a quincunx of wrought-gold roses—just as the tales have it. It was so massive that the holding of it etched little lines of strain in Dalissem's forearm. Of course there was only one good test of the key, lacking the door of the Manse to fit it into. I said, courteously,
"May I touch it, Darkling, to be sure?" I forced myself not to say "Lady" which, once spoken, seemed so right for what she was. I wanted to irk her slightly, interrupt her, to loose the trance she was weaving in my mind. This you must remember to do when you talk with the more-than-mortal. Dalissem chuckled. It felt like being grinned at by a big mountain cat—delightful for the beauty of the animal, disturbing for the possible sequel. Her face now was showing the wear of a continued effort, along with its bitterness and black delight. She said: "Dear Nifft, your insolence is what this work requires. I honor your impudence, for you'll need it all. Come here and touch it, then. Come and feel the power in it."
I approached her, sinking deeper into her cold with each step. The cold drenched you—even through the bone—but it did not freeze your movement. As I stood near her I feared to smell the grave, and smelt instead a rainstorm, the smell of wet wind, chill and lightning-purged. By the Crack, her eyes were dark and deep. I looked at the key, and gently, gently, put my finger to it.
Though prepared, I almost cried out in my turn at the fierce charge humming and grinding within the gold. I pulled my hand back, but the briefest contact sent towering hallucinations skidding across vast polished floors in my mind. I nodded and stepped back.
Dalissem now swayed slightly on her legs. She'd locked her knees, the way a strongman at a fair will do when he's holding a weight aloft. She pressed the key against her belly and it vanished within her substance. She put both hands to the boulder for support, and smiled at us haggardly.
"You'r
e just men. It will matter to you that the life of him I seek stands forefeit by the oldest laws of every land and subworld. It is Defalk of Lurkna Downs I want. He swore away his life in pledge to me, as I did mine to him. I paid my debt to death, swiftly on the promised hour. He has these seven years turned his back upon his oath, and cherished his flesh, and walked in the light of the world. You may ask any of that city for my story, and know my truth.
"My mother is a Purgatrix, one of the chief seven of Lurkna's temple. She still lives. She swore me to the white tunic at my first blood. Because she hated me. Because I told her that I wished to know the love of men. I found Defalk, Defalk and I found ways. And we had much together.
"Until I was followed, and we were taken at a trysting. Upon that bed, as they were breaking in the door, we swore our deaths. Their ways and hour. For we were sure not to meet again. He would be freed, with reprimand. I, who had stained the Tunic, stood liable to death at my mother's hand on the next Purgation's eve. I meant to forestall her."
Dalissem had begun to sweat. To see the drops snake down her flanks reminded me of horrible earlier sights. She hugged the boulder now, rested her head against it, while her back registered the earth's pull with shadow-lines of strain. She grinned with an exquisite, almost savored hate.
"But my mother did not mean I should escape her in Death. She condemned me to grow old and die in a small room that had one window too high to reach. But I . . . escaped."
She let her legs go. Her bare knees hit the gravel with a painful sound. She still hugged the rock with arms too small by far to encompass it.
"My guard, still raw. I killed her on her second day of duty, a Post she'd thought . . . she'd have for life. . . . Indeed, she did. That morning of my escape. The world seemed almost in my arms.
"I got a mount. I rounded Lurkna's walls to reach Defalk. I did not keep well off. I was sighted. A patrol set on me. I rode all day. I could not circle back. They contained me though they could not close my lead. My mount was strong, but he must die at last. Near here. It was near the hour of my vow. I had time to strip, to bind my hair, to raise the knife, and cry my lover hail and farewell. The captain was so close I read his eyes. He saw his death in mine. Behind him I saw, with joy, my mother's rage. I must lie down, I cannot choose, I must lie down."
