A Fortune for Kregen (19 page)

“It might be her crown.” Together, side by side, we walked across and halted before the marble steps.

The dead Kataki slumbered; the four leems did not move.

The lady Ariane joined us. “You have something?”

“My lady,” said Quienyin in his most bluffly gallant way, a veritable performance for a haughty Wizard of Loh. “My fine friend, Jak here, wonders if the crown...?”

“Maybe. How to reach it? No man is going up those steps. Oh,” she said, cross, “if only silly Longweill had not got himself killed!”

Prince Tyfar stomped across, his right fist curled around his axe haft. “There is no way out that I can find!”

He saw the direction of our quizzical looks.

“The queen’s crown?”

“There
is
emerald in it...”

“And,” pointed out Quienyin, “bones and skulls, also.”

“Well,” said Tyfar, “my heart is not in it, but we will have to send someone up there.”

The group of retainers and slaves who had clustered to find out what was going on suddenly became, as it were, mere wisps of smoke, vanishing into the far corners to prod and pry industriously at the solid walls.

I said, “If we attach a line to an arrow—”

“Capital!” declared Tyfar. “And I have the very man for us. He is renowned in Ruathytu as a bowman.”

At Tyfar’s imperious shout a bear of a man lumbered across. He was apim; but massively built and with a shock of dark hair. He wore a leather jerkin, brass-studded, and his bow was a composite reflex bow of some pull. I was quite content to let him shoot, for I judged the range demanded a flatter trajectory weapon — although I fancied Seg would argue that one.

Kov Loriman objected. He stomped up with a Fristle in tow who was holding a composite reflex bow which, although it looked much the same as the one the man from Ruathytu carried, was by its construction and the curves the product of a different philosophy. Both were good, both would do the job. They were just different tools and both equally efficient.

A wrangle ensued as to which bowman would shoot.

I did not — as you might expect — intemperately loose myself. A piece of fine thread had first to be attached to the arrow. This was done — to both shafts. Kov and prince glared at each other.

Ariane tinkled her laugh. “Let me choose—”

“This is touching honor and is not to be settled at a woman’s whim,” growled Loriman. “Lady.”

Tyfar’s face went white. But Ariane turned her brilliant eyes upon him. She checked her own words.

What she was going to say, what she would have brought to the quarrel, I do not know. I do know that Prince Tyfar was set to knock the boorish kov into Kingdom Come.

Deb-Lu-Quienyin said: “Let us twirl a shaft.”

Rumbling, we all agreed this was the answer and the arrow was tossed. It came down cock-feather down, and Kov Loriman, who had chosen that — unusually — smirked.

About to pass some casual comment that it was a pity all the Hamalese crossbowmen were with Prince Nedfar, I checked, almost choking. By Krun! I wasn’t supposed to know anything about this expedition!

They gave me an odd look as I choked and I turned the movement into a shake of the head and a sneeze. “This dust,” I said. “It gets right up my hooter, by Djan!”

The two bowmen were Professionals, no doubt of that. Loriman’s Fristle drew to cheek and let fly.

Now maybe it wasmerely the weight of the line upon the shaft, light as it was, or maybe there really did come a sudden and fierce gust of wind. Whatever caused the phenomenon — the archer missed. The shaft went skittering off a skull, caroming, and struck the ebon wall at the rear of the throne.

A blaze of crimson light devoured the arrow.

When we hauled in the line the end was charred black.

That did not encourage any of us.

Prince Tyfar’s champion from Ruathytu shot next and exactly the same thing happened.

Three times each they shot, adjusting their deflection for that unpredictable wind. Six shafts burned.

“By Sasco the Wonder!” stormed Loriman. “I’ll have you jikaidered! You hire yourself as a bowman and you cannot shoot as straight as a five-year old coy!”

Prince Tyfar raised his eyebrows at his bear of a man.

“My prince — there is a wind. It cannot be judged.”

Loriman swung on me, his thick face flushed. “A fine idea you had!”

I said: “If a sorcerer were here he might well say the wind was an illusion.”

“The arrows are blown out of true, ninny!”

Prince Tyfar’s gasp was perfectly audible to us all. I ignored both that and Kov Loriman’s insult.

Anyway, what could he do in the way of insult and indignity to me, who had played him at Execution Jikaida?

“Then if the wind is real,” I said, still in an even unimpassioned voice. “There must be holes, funnels, something from which the wind blows.”

They all craned their necks to peer up into the shadows fringing the throne.

Loriman was completely unaware of his insulting behavior.

“I do not see any! Lights, you rasts, bring lights!”

Torches were brought and their light smoked up into the shadows of the throne, and a cloud of bats swooped out, red-eyed, squeaking, to fly madly away around the walls. We watched them narrowly. But they appeared harmless, and perched themselves upside down on tall crannies of rock.

I said, “And, if I am right, as it seems I am, seeing some force prevents us from toppling the crown down

— what happens when we do bring it down?”

“We will meet that when it comes.” Prince Tyfar spoke firmly. “And I am now convinced the part to the key is there.”

“In that case,” I said, “prince, call up a slinger.”

“Of course, Notor Jak. Of course!”

Quickly a slinger was hauled out, a tough-bodied Brokelsh whose coarse body bristle was armored on his left side and mother naked on his right. The line was attached to one of his leaden bullets. He looked at the crown, and shrugged his shoulders, and winked his eyes, and licked his lips.

“Give me room, doms,” he said, in that brokelsh way.

He swung and let fly.

The slingshot arched. The wind blew — we all knew that supernatural wind blew. The bullet flew true.

He was a good slinger, that uncouth Brokelsh.

The line tightened as the leaden bullet swung about with a clatter against the crown. Prince Tyfar was among the first who took a grip and hauled.

The crown tilted. Sparks of green fire shot from it, irradiating the chamber in an eerie green glow.

“Oh, no!” cried the lady Ariane.

But the crown tilted, toppled, fell.

It crashed down onto the steps, bouncing, shedding shards of green light. It struck the Kataki corpse and rebounded high, spinning, refulgent with a glitter of gold and gems.

When it struck the bottom step a long, wailing moaning began vibrating throughout the chamber.

And the steps revolved, the throne and the drapes and the wizened crone vanished out of our sight and from the revealed black hell hole a horde of ravenous shapes from nightmare leaped full on us.

The horrors skittered and hopped and flew upon us. They were hairy, squamous, warty-hided. They ran on four legs or six legs, their tails were scaled and barbed. Their eyes were red or yellow and they blazed maniacally with hate, or were smoldering green and glared with crazed venom. A whole heaping stinking gargoyle menagerie of monsters fell upon us — and not one was larger than a terrestrial cat.

We slashed away at them beating them off, seeing men fall shrieking with long orange fangs fastened through corded throats. The uproar, the stench, the sheer horror of it all beat frenziedly upon us.

Exactly how many different types of monster there were I do not know. Certainly among the hundreds that poured screeching from that hell hole there were at least twenty different sorts. And all of them, every single one, was bent upon our destruction.

The slaves did not last long.

Near naked, unarmored, weaponless, the slaves were stripped of flesh in a twinkling, and it seemed their macabre skeletons still ran, the bony jaws clacking in fear.

I saw Quienyin striking bravely about him with his shortsword, surrounded by a cloud of fluttering horrors. It was a case of wading through clutching scratching teeth and talons to reach him and assist in beating away the mind-congealing host.

“Fliktitors, Jak!” The Wizard of Loh panted as he struck. “That is what they are, Fliktitors.”

The drexer in my right fist slashed and hewed. The main gauche carved a bloody path — as the saying is

— and yet that was as near as you would come to the truth of the saying. For the horrors formed a tightly packed host and each blow struck them down so that I did, in truth, carve a way through them.

Prince Tyfar battled with superb fury and cunning, and his axe hissed as it clove through spiny back and leathery wing.

The two Pachaks and the numim closed up around their lady and fought as only Pachaks and numims can fight.

The outpouring of scaled horrors ceased. The warty-hided ones ran on their six legs and were crushed.

The hairy ones clawed up with curved talons and were cut down.

But men were cut down also.

When, in the end — in the long bloody end — we had finished the last mewling one, the Brokelsh slinger planting a heavy and uncouth boot upon its black and squirming neck, we stood back, panting, and surveyed the carnage.

No slaves survived.

Kov Loriman was berserk with rage, and went about slashing with his sword at the putrid corpses of the Fliktitors.

The Lady Ariane’s white gown shook with her panting, and it was stained and splattered with blood, red and green.

We all felt, we survivors, that we would rest and refresh ourselves before we essayed any further the mystery and terror of this haunted place.

Loud were the voices raised in argument, loud were the quarrels between diff and apim, between men of the same race, between warrior and retainer. But we all knew, every one of us, that we must stick together.

Loriman stalked over to me, livid. “So your idea was a fine idea, ninny! This is what you have brought us to!”

I picked up the tumbled crown. It was ice cold.

“Look in this, kov, and see what there is to be seen.”

The leaders crowded around as Loriman snatched the crown and shook it. An oddly shaped piece of bronze tumbled out.

“Ah!” said Tyfar.

“The key!” exclaimed Ariane. “The part from the fifth zone!”

Loriman grunted and picked it up, started to stuff it away under his armor.

I said, “I think, kov, I will take care of that.”

“You rast! I am a kov — I shall—”

“You will hand that over, or, kov or no kov, you will...” And then I caught myself. I breathed in deeply and slowly. Vosk-skulled onker of onkers, Dray Prescot! Quienyin stepped forward. The inflection in his voice took our attention.

“Perhaps, as she is so well guarded, the lady Ariane...?”

“I would offer to carry the part of the key,” said Prince Tyfar. “But will gladly yield the honor to the lady.”

Loriman was outvoted. I looked curiously at Tyfar. A bright, bonny prince, the slaves had said. But a bit of a ninny, also... The axe was pure compensation. He tended to glow a bit around the edges when confronted with women. And he regarded carrying the damned bit of key as some kind of honor. Well, given romantic notions and frames of reference, of course it was. But down here in this Moder with Monsters and Magic were, if you thought about it, fine times for chivalry and honor.

Everyone was glad of the food and rest. A round umbrella-shaped object, translucently white and shining, drifted in through the center door. It was some three feet in diameter and from its center a long thin tendril drooped twelve to fifteen feet, for it was rising and falling, and occasionally flicking about.

Quienyin called out, “Don’t touch the feeler!”

By this time down here no one touched anything if they hadn’t given it all the tests they could think of —

which made progress slow. This round umbrella was quick. From that slow drifting floating it exploded into action the instant its dangling tendril touched living organic substance.

That feeler locked around the neck of a Brokelsh who was not quick enough.

We expected, given the horror of this place, that the unfortunate man would be reeled in like a fish at the end of a line. Instead the round translucent horror reeled itself in, swooping down, positioning itself exactly above the man’s head. I was irresistibly reminded of the cone of a flick-flick as the translucent circle closed over the man’s head. It drew itself in like a hood over his head, tightly, tightly — his staring features were clearly outlined in the translucent material.

“It is a Suffocating Hood!” shouted Quienyin.

“Cut it off!” commanded Ariane.

Loriman lifted his sword.

“You will cut the man, also.” Quienyin looked sick.

The Brokelsh was running in crazy circles, as though controlled, and his chest jerked spasmodically. He collapsed quickly enough, suffocated, and we could see the blueness of his face through the translucent material of the Suffocating Hood.

“Has anyone an atra with the symbol for air?” demanded the Wizard of Loh. “Hurry!”

Everyone — except me — began searching desperately through the amulets they wore around their necks or hidden upon their persons. Most folk of Kregen — not all — carry an atra or two to ward off various kinds of evil. A Fristle let out a yell. With remarkable speed, Quienyin had the atra in his hand, with a quick jerk breaking the leather thong around the Fristle’s neck. The cat-man jumped. Quienyin started to force the atra up inside the tiniest of wrinkles in the lower edge of the Suffocating Hood as we gripped the shivering, dying Brokelsh. The atra was a simple, clumsily cast chunk of silver in the shape of a nine-sided figure, with the symbols for Fur, Lightning, Air and Milk, engraved on its dull surface.

After what seemed a long time, the Brokelsh breathed again, his blueness seeped away — but the horrific Suffocating Hood remained clamped around his head.