A Triumph of Souls

by Alan Dean Foster

  But out on the fringes of the future it had detected something. Something active, and advancing, and imbued with might. In keeping with the covenant it had made with the man, it duly remarked upon this commotion.

  “He comes. And he is not alone.”

  Hymneth had lowered his arms. As the eromakadi spread small deaths throughout the chamber, he concen- trated on the tapering head of the Worm swaying high above his own. “Who comes, eater of dirt?”

  The Worm’s voice was a high hollowness. “A master of the necromantic arts. A questioner of all that is unanswered. One who seeks justice wherever he treads. He comes this way from across the Semordria.”

  “That is not possible. The eastern ocean is not a lake, to be crossed at will by casual travelers. They would have to travel far to the south, pass through the Straits of Duenclask, and then sail north against the current through the waters of the Aurreal.”

  “A strong boat guided by a bold Captain brings him, and the three who journey by his side.”

  “Only three?” Hymneth relaxed. This descent to the depths had been unnecessary after all. “That is a small army indeed.”

  “I render no judgment. I speak only of what I sense.”

  The Possessed chuckled softly, the crimson helmet reverberating with his laughter. “I will alert the navy to keep watch for any odd vessels entering the harbor. As always, I thank you for your attention, Worm. But in this matter your insight seems to be sorely lacking.”

  “Sense,” the Worm whispered. “Not judgment.” It was silent for several moments, its upper length weaving slowly back and forth above the churned surface of the Pit. “They come for the woman.”

  That piqued Hymneth’s interest. “So the young Beckwith was not the last. I thought with putting paid to him and his crew I had seen the last of these misguided aristocrats. They worry me like fleas.” He sighed. “Well, in the unlikely event that any of them should reach Ehl-Larimar I will tell Peregriff to alert the castle guards. But I have more confidence in the ocean. Even if they reach these shores my gunboats will stop them before they can cross the outer reefs.” He shook his head sadly.

  “You would think they would recognize who they were dealing with, and stop shipping their sons off to be slaughtered. The error of false pride. As if running this kingdom didn’t make demands enough upon my time.”

  “Feed me.” The immense, looming mass of the Worm swayed hypnotically back and forth, the flickering light of the stairway torches gleaming off its terrible piercing teeth. “I tire of soil. I have done my share. Feed me.”

  “Yes, yes,” Hymneth replied irritably. He had already virtually forgotten all that the Worm had told him. As if a mere four possible invaders were anything to worry about, even if one happened to be a so-called master of the necromantic arts. There was only one dominating master of matters sorcerous and alchemical, and that was Hymneth the Possessed.

  As he started back up the stairs he almost hoped these predicted intruders did manage to survive the impossible journey across the ocean. It had been a long time since he had fought a duel, and it would be good to have someone worthy to exercise his powers against. Though he doubted any of these potential assailants would qualify. To the best of his knowledge, there were no worthy masters living on the other side of the Semordria in the Thinking Kingdoms. For all the threat it posed to him, the Worm might as well have kept the information to itself and not disturbed him. He departed disappointed.

  “Feed me!” The reverberant moan rose insistently behind him.

  Where the stairs began to disappear upward, Hymneth paused to lean over and peer downward. The head of the Worm vacillated below him now. “For information like that you deserve nothing. But I am mindful of the covenant between us. I’m sure Peregriff can find a few condemned, or condemnable, to bring to you. The axman will gain a rest.”

  “I await.” With a wet, sucking sound the Worm began to withdraw into the damp earth. It would lie there, Hymneth knew, with only its head above the surface, until the promised unfortunates were brought. Cast into the Pit, they would be pierced by the creature’s mouth parts, their internal organs and muscles and flesh liquefied, and the consequent putrid, gelatinous mush sucked out. No one could complain, Hymneth mused virtuously, that his dungeons suffered from overcrowding.

  As he climbed upward, the two eromakadi reluctantly left the last of the surviving fungi to accompany him, impenetrable black clouds that hovered at his heels. Occasionally they would show very small, slanted red eyes, but most of the time they kept themselves as black as pitch. Visitors who knew what they represented were as terrified by their silence as by their shapes.

  Hymneth had mounted nearly to the top of the corkscrewing stairwell when a voice, pure and melodious as the golden bells of a benign spirit, called down to him accusingly.

  “So this is where you spend your time. In the depths of the Earth, consorting with demons!”

  Taken aback by the unexpected intrusion, he tilted his head to peer upward. High above him, a portrait of beauty unsurpassed gazed down. Not even the look of utter disgust on her face could mar the perfection of her countenance.

  “My beloved Themaryl, this is business of state! Nothing more. I converse in the depths. I do not consort.”

  Her face furrowed with loathing. “You smell of things diseased and rotting. I thought—I thought we might talk, so I sought you out. I’m glad that I did, for it gave me the chance to see yet again your true self!” With that she whirled and fled upward, back to her rooms, back to the tower that she had made a prison for herself.

  Bad timing, Hymneth thought in an agony of frustration. Of all the mornings and moments to parley with the Worm, of all the hours available to all the days, he had chosen the one time she had relented enough to descend from her steeple. Falling to his knees, he let out a cry of utter despair, knowing even as he did so that it would have no effect on her. Delighting in his anguish, the eromakadi clustered closer, inhaling of the darkness that had suddenly suffused his soul.

  Slowly, his clenched fists fell away from the eye slits of his helmet. Someone had told her where he was. Someone had shown her where he was. Admittedly, he had decreed that she be given the run of the castle. But whatever fool had believed that included access to the Pit had, while displaying adherence to the letter of his command, shown excruciatingly bad judgment.

  He rose to his feet. With all of Ehl-Larimar to administer and govern, he could not afford to tolerate those who exhibited bad judgment. Especially not those who did so in his own home, his sanctuary. When she had inquired as to his whereabouts, someone had taken her by the hand and guided her to the door that led to the Pit. It was a given. Mere directions would not have allowed her to find the unprepossessing door by herself, much less to enter.

  Talk. She had thought they might talk. It had been months since she had said a word to him other than to demand that he return her to her home and people, and today, this morning, she had been ready to talk. A major breakthrough in their relationship shattered like cheap glass. Another setback when he might have hoped, just a little, for progress. And all because of someone’s bad judgment.

  That night the villagers who lived below the castle, on the slopes of the mountains, put cotton in the ears of their children and laid extra blankets across their beds. They slept in the same rooms with them, sharing their beds or lying on linens spread out on the floor. They made sure all animals were secured tightly in their barns and corrals, paddocks and pens. They did this because of the screaming that drifted down from the castle like black snow.

  Up above, the unfortunate were being punished for a lack of good judgment. It went on all through the night. As dawn neared it grew so bad that even the bats fled the vicinity. The children slept, but their parents were not so lucky. One family lost two horses, dead from heart attacks, and another a brace of goats that, maddened by the sounds, broke free of their pens and fled into the forest, never to be seen again.

  All told, the slope-
dwelling citizens of Ehl-Larimar counted themselves lucky when the sun finally appeared over the mountaintops and the last of the shrieking died in a sudden, violent choking. They proceeded to go about their morning chores and business as if nothing had happened, as if the previous night had been only a bad dream, to be quickly forgotten like any bad dream. The women of the villages, however, found themselves with extra washing. Having spent the night oozing fearful sweat in great profusion, they and their husbands had stained many a nightdress beyond immediate reuse.

  High above, government officials and administrators came and went, unaware of the frightfulness that had subsumed the fortress the night before. If they noticed anything out of the ordinary, it was that the castle’s retainers moved a little faster than usual, and that they were less inclined to meet the eyes of visitors.

  Far below, in the depths of the mountain, where earth met rock and where normal folk did not go, the Worm slept, its midsection swollen and bloated.

  II

  So still was the morning that the gull feather Simna let fall fell straight down. When it landed on the deck it just lay there, a puff of discarded dirty white that could easily be shifted by a waking woman’s sigh. But it did not move.

  It was more than an absence of wind. It was as if the air itself had become paralyzed, petrified in place. Though they had seen and experienced many things in their travels, the crew of the Grömsketter murmured superstitiously among themselves while anxiously watching the skies for any sign of movement. But the clouds themselves remained exactly where they had appeared at sunup. It was one thing for a ship to be becalmed, quite another for the upper reaches of the sky itself to grow still as death.

  The only way they knew for certain that they still lived in the realm of air was because they continued to breathe. It was possible to make a breeze by blowing, as Simna demonstrated when he dropped to all fours and blew hard against the abandoned feather. It scudded a little ways across the deck, twisting and flipping, before it settled once more into a motionless, trancelike state.

  Just above the helm deck Stanager Rose stood in the rigging, shading her eyes with one hand as she surveyed the surrounding sea. It was smooth as a mirror, undisturbed by wave or, more importantly, wind. They were two days’ sail out from the delta of the Eynharrowk on a due westerly heading, and no longer moving. Nothing was moving. Even the seabirds had deserted them in search of wind to help support their wings. It was uncanny, it was worrisome, and it was hot.

  “Never been becalmed like this before,” she murmured.

  On the deck below, Hunkapa Aub was chatting with Priget, the helmswoman, and trying to learn something about the basics of open-ocean navigation. She had plenty of time to talk to him since the ship’s wheel, left unattended, was not moving. Ahlitah lay on the main deck, sleeping in the shade. The utter absence of a breeze was making the morning too hot even for him. Simna ibn Sind had tied a strip of colorful cloth around his forehead to soak up some of the perspiration. Though as unhappy with the unnatural stillness as anyone else aboard, the sight of Stanager Rose clinging to rigging helped to mitigate his unease.

  Etjole Ehomba stood just below and to one side of the troubled Captain. Though no mariner, he knew well the moods of the sea, and right now the Semordria was not behaving in a proper maritime fashion. He had experienced still air before, while standing on different beaches in the vicinity of his village, but never anything like this. Heavy, hot, and stagnant, it tempted a man to take a whip to it, as if the very components of the atmosphere themselves had gone to sleep.

  Stanager climbed down from the rigging. “The longer we sit here, the more of our supplies we waste. Too much of this and we’ll be forced to return to the delta to reprovision.”

  “We could eat less,” Ehomba proposed, “and catch rainwater to supplement the ship’s stores.”

  “If it rains,” she replied. “I don’t gamble with the lives of my crew. Or my passengers.”

  “Do you ever gamble?” Simna’s forced cheerfulness fooled no one.

  “Only when it’s a sure thing.” Ignoring him as usual, she strained to see past the bow. “May have to try kedging, but in which direction I haven’t decided. It would pain me to have to tuck tail and go back to the delta.” She squinted upward. All sails were set, and hung loose as dead ghosts from both masts.

  “What’s this ‘kedging’?” Simna wanted to know.

  She sighed. “Landsmen. We lower all the small boats and put the anchors in them. They row out as far as the lines will go, then drop anchor. This pulls the ship forward. Raise anchors and repeat, as many times as necessary until a breeze fills the sails. It’s hot, hard work. A last resort for desperate sailors.”

  “I cannot go backward,” Ehomba told her. “I have spent too much time already just in going forward.”

  “Then find me some wind,” she declared curtly, “so we can escape these cursed doldrums!”

  “The sky-metal sword!” Simna blurted. “Surely even a moment’s work with that would bring down enough wind to move the ship.”

  Stanager frowned. “What is the mad elf blabbering about?”

  “Something possible, but dangerous.” Reaching back, Ehomba wrapped his fingers around the haft of the sword. Simna looked on expectantly. Among those aboard the Grömsketter, only he knew what that enchanted blade of otherworldly metal was capable of in the hands of his tall friend.

  Reluctantly, Ehomba released his grip. Simna looked pained.

  “Why the hesitation, bruther?”

  “It is a chancy thing to consider, Simna, and not something to be attempted in haste. I have to think first how best to go about it. Too little wind is not a problem. But too much wind could shred the sails or even capsize the ship. And what if I thrust it wrongly to the heavens and call down another piece of sky? Here there are no holes in the ground for us to hide in, and nowhere to run.”

  “That’s fine, Etjole.” The swordsman made placating motions. “Take your time. Decide how to hold the weapon, which way to point it, what angle to incline the blade against the Earth. Only when you’re satisfied that you know what you’re doing should you go ahead.”

  Ehomba eyed his friend speculatively. “And if I’m not satisfied?”

  Simna shrugged. “Then we sit. And sweat. And try to think of something else.”

  A thin smile curled the Captain’s delectable upper lip. “I’ve heard you boasting endlessly to the crew, swordsman. Perhaps we should put you in a small boat behind the Grömsketter and let you jabber there all you wish. Maybe that would generate hot air enough to fill the mains’l just enough to get us moving.”

  He smiled back. “You don’t like me very much, do you, Captain?”

  “Not very much, no. If you were under my command, I’d have you swabbing decks and bailing bilges all the way to Doroune.”

  “I wouldn’t mind being under your command, Stanager—depending on the commands, of course.” He grinned irrepressibly.

  She turned away, disgusted. “You are incorrigible!”

  “Actually, I’m from a little village near Rakosy. Incorrigible is a bigger town that lies to the northwest.”

  “Boat ho!”

  At the cry, everyone tilted their heads back to look up at the mainmast. The lookout was gesturing slightly to port.

  It took the better part of an hour for the small, single-masted craft to drift into view. Stolid and unimpressive, a wholly utilitarian little boat, its aft half was piled high with pilchard and sardine, so much so that it rode lower in the water than otherwise would have been expected. Nets fashioned of strong cord and spotted with cork floats hung from the boom and over the sides. Its lone sail hung as limp from the mast as did those of the Grömsketter.

  The single occupant was busy hauling in one of the nets, but not too busy to wave at the much larger vessel.

  “Ayesh!” the fisherman sang out. “What ship?”

  From near the bow, the first mate responded. “Good fishing?” Terious added by way
of making conversation.

  Grinning through his white-flecked beard, the lone sailor gestured at his catch. “As you see.”

  “You’re not afraid to be out of sight of land, all by yourself?” the mate inquired. Several of the other members of the crew had moved to the railing to watch the discourse. In the detestable stillness, any diversion was a welcome one.

  “Not I. Crice is the name, sir, and I am known throughout the delta for my bravery.” He indicated his mast and sail. “I know the winds hereabouts better than any man, you see, and am always confident of finding one to carry me home.”

  Cupping her hands to her mouth, Stanager shouted across to the solitary harvester of the sea. “Ayesh, can you find one for us, good sir? We have been stalled here this past day and a half.”

  “Sorry.” He waved again. “I have the last of my catch to bring in and then I must return home. You know that every ship must find its own wind. Not all have my skill.”

  Stanager flushed, her cheeks reddening. It was an oblique insult and probably unintended, but it still set the Captain’s blood to racing. When it came to seamanship, she took a back seat to no man or woman. This solitary sailor who stank of fish guts and oil was taunting her, albeit gently.

  Persistent he might be, even irritating, but Simna knew when to keep his mouth shut. Observing the look on the Captain’s beauteous face, he sidled away from her and closer to Ehomba.

  “What do you think, long bruther?” He nodded in the direction of the little fishing boat. “Is his an empty boast?”

  “I was admiring his catch.” Ehomba gestured at the glistening mound that weighed down the boat. “All small fish, all silver of side. Very difficult to see under normal conditions. When looking down into the water from the deck of a boat, it is hard to separate such a school from sunlight. But in these conditions, with the surface absolutely calm and undisturbed by wind, they would stand out much more clearly to a man with a net.”