Days of High Adventure (6 page)

“How do you know his name?” she asked warily.

“I know much, Amanda. I see much. Bel-Danab invoked my power along with others when he conveyed you here. Look to your friend.”

Swallowing hard once more, Amanda looked into the bowl. The waters looked dark and deep. At first she saw only the dark clouds overhead. Then there were shadows, and then light. She saw Eric crawling over rocks in some tunnel, pounding away with a hammer and chisel. He bore scars from a whip on his well-muscled back.

Amanda inhaled sharply. She’d never seen Eric with his shirt off, but even so, she never would’ve guessed that he had such muscles. In fact, she was sure he
never had arms like that.

Eric work
ed hard, sweat like a pig...but also occasionally grinned. Some woman stayed beside him in that tunnel, performing the same task. They seemed to share the occasional jest or comment. He didn’t look entirely happy, but wherever he was, at least he wasn’t alone.

“How can he look so different?” Amanda asked. “We haven’t even been here
a few weeks.”

“On the night you were summoned, Bel-Danab had intended to claim the strength of a
barbarian mercenary for himself. The ritual required the invocation of great spirits across time and space. Under those conditions, he heard you call his name, and mistook that for something greater than your simple jest. You and Eric distracted him in his work. The mercenary escaped his bonds and tried to flee, but died on a sword in completion of the ritual. Eric benefited from the vitality Bel-Danab had hoped to steal for himself.”

“Where is he? What is
Eric doing?”

“Bel-Danab works to reclaim a great power buried ages ago,” the water answered. “
Eric toils among the slaves there. It is not far from this city. Your friend appears to have found an ally.

“You, too, are in need of allies, Amanda.”

The image faded away. Amanda found herself looking at simple water again, though the clouds above soon parted. She could see stars reflected on the surface.

“Can you get me out of here? Can you tell me how Eric and I can get home?”

“No. To return to your home, you will need Bel-Danab’s staff, for it is keyed to the magic that brought you here. The staff is bound to him. For another to claim it, Bel-Danab must die.

“You have already begun the path to your freedom. You have the intelligence and the strength you require. You have the courage.
You lack freedom and time to study. My guidance can make up for that. I cannot take physical action, but I can grant knowledge.”

Amanda swallowed. She glanced at the dead man hanging from chains. “At what price?”

The waters chuckled. “I have no use for blood sacrifices. I want no souls. I share your desires. I would deny Bel-Danab that which he seeks. I want freedom. I want
revenge
.”

Her eyes narrowed. She took another look at the body of the poor, harmless cook. Her gaze then fell upon the open trap door. She crossed the roof once more, closing the door and turning the latch before she returned to the bowl.

“Teach me.”

***

“It’s as if they fear a little bit of rainfall,” Fallon shrugged softly. “Look. How many guards do you see with bows over there by the tents? Aren’t they supposed to patrol for escaping slaves?”

Eric took note of the cluster
of guards, but had little to say about them. He and Fallon sat upon the back of a wagon, letting the rain pour down on top of them. The majority of the slaves slept that night in the mine shafts, doing what they could to avoid the water that trickled in small streams down the tunnels. No one had stopped Eric or his barbarian companion as they strode out to find a spot to sit out in the open. No one cared.

“I’m sorry about Hagan,”
Eric ventured.

Fallon waved it off
. “He was a dog and a bastard, and I owed him a beating for cheating me in a deal. I thought he’d been captured by the city guard and that they would eventually send him here, but if he was in that tower as you say, it is more likely that he hired himself out to them. If he’s dead through foul sorcery, then more the fool was he.

“Still. If he did not sell out, he should be avenged
,” she considered. “And even if he did...Bel-Danab should learn that treachery against a Northerner does not go unanswered.”

After another long moment of silence, Eric couldn’t hold it back. “You seriously stayed here in this slave camp doing hard labor just for the chance to kick a guy’s ass?”

“I would have done more than kick him in his ass,” Fallon shrugged. She realized he was looking at her strangely. “What?”

“So you’ve never, like...had a
job
or anything, have you?”

“I have taken on jobs,” Fallon said with mild indignation. “I’ve served as a mercenary. An escort through wilderness. I’ve guarded caravans, recovered stolen goods, carried dispatches...I’ve worked
all across the Eight Kingdoms and in a half-dozen city-states besides.”

“And you’re only twenty-
three?”

“I left home when I was sixteen,” Fallon grunted. “If you ask me, that’s a late start. I should have left earlier. I was sick of snow and waking up cold every morning, anyway.”

“That why you left home?”

“No,” she shook her head. “I left home to avoid a blood feud. My sister’s husband beat her. No one else
had the courage to deal with it. I did.”

It was Eric’s turn to grunt. “They put
men in jail for beating their wives where I’m from,” he said. “If it can be proven, anyway.”

Fallon looked up at him thoughtfully. He star
ed at the guards near their tents again, otherwise he might have been surprised at the look in her eyes.

“Bel-Danab wanted Amanda for something,” Eric said. “
They said that Amanda’s virginity made her worth something at the end of summer.”

“Probably as some foul mystic sacrifice. Or to be sold off as a slave-wife to some other wizard. If you care about her, you should rescue her.”

“I mean to, but I just...I’ve never fought before. Not really. Life in my country is peaceful for most people. I took some karate in high school—er, I learned a little about fighting with my hands and feet, but not nearly enough. And nothing with weapons.” Again, Fallon grunted. She wasn’t looking his way. “Could you teach me?”

The barbarian woman’s head tilted. She looked at him strangely, almost with suspicion. “You want to learn how to fight from a woman?”

“What difference does that make?” Eric blinked.

Fallon’s
dark eyes seemed to light up in the darkness as the rains parted. “You mean that?”

“I want
—I
need
to learn from someone who knows what they’re doing. I don’t care if it’s a man or woman. I care if my teacher is good. I want
you
.”

Her face split into a fierce grin. “They don’t teach you to be careful what you ask for in this country of yours, do they, Eric?”

His heart started to pound as she looked at him. She seemed to put a lot of pride in her homeland; maybe that was a place to find common ground. “They teach you not to judge people on appearances where I’m from,” he said. “Man. Woman. Any color. Any religion. Doesn’t matter how you were born. Not everyone really
learns
that, of course...but it’s what we teach.”

“I think I would like to see this place you call home,” Fallon
mused.

***

“The city of Korystos will not simply roll over for you,” said the dignified man in silken robes and jewels. He sat at Bel-Danab’s long dining table, flanked by a pair of clerks who sat at his sides. “Nor will Manand, nor Cufolst...and those are just your neighbors.” He sipped wine from the fine silver goblet, smiling serenely before putting it back on the table.

“It will not even go that far,
Jumarr” said the balding fellow opposite him. He turned back to Bel-Danab at the head of the table. “Your own king and his nobles fear you. Whispers at court predict your approaching end.” He had only a single companion, a blonde waif in a red sarong. She turned to claim a goblet from the platter Amanda held as she passed by, looking up at her with sad eyes sunken into a pretty face. The blonde sipped a little from the goblet, then after a moment placed it in front of her master.

Amanda
gave the blonde a sympathetic look before she moved on to the next space at the table.

All around the table
sat sorcerers and priests. They came from far-off places to speak of matters that Amanda couldn’t entirely follow. She heard something about unearthing an ancient temple to Set, of serpent warriors and some incarnation of the god that had slumbered for ages. Bel-Danab planned a power grab. That much was clear. He also had a number of people he didn’t want standing in his way.

He had gathered those people
here under a truce to discuss his plans. He wanted this city and its neighboring lands. He also wanted to assure the gathered men that he would go no further.

Part of Amanda wanted to tell these people that appeasement never worked, but then, none of them looked all that kind or benevolent themselves.

“How kind of you to share these rumors with us, Lord Oellah,” Randast said from his chair to the right of Bel-Danab at the end of the table.

“As if you didn’t already know,” put forth another guest.

“Indeed,” Bel-Danab nodded, “and as if we have not taken this into account. But again, Lord Oellah’s friendship has been noted.” As usual, his staff was in easy reach. His women were conspicuously absent.

Oellah paused. He glared at his pretty attendant and then gestured to the wine. She took another sip from his silver goblet, paused, and then nodded before handing it to him. Oellah drank down a deep gulp, betraying only a slight tremor in his hands as he moved.

“My plans are already set in motion,” Bel-Danab told them all. “Yet we with enlightenment beyond the ordinary nobility need not fight amongst ourselves.”

“Sorcery is not enlightenment, Bel-Danab,” said
Jumarr. “Nor is it wisdom. What predator is forever sated by a single meal? There is the thrill of the hunt, the glorious feast and a time to bask in the sun with a full belly, but eventually the hunger always....always...ghk...”

Eyes
widened around the table. The guests looked to one another in alarm. “Jumarr!” said one of the man’s attendants. “Jumarr, are you...arghk...gggnnhhh”

Jumarr
froze in place. From her spot standing at the end of the table, Amanda watched in horror as Bel-Danab’s guests sat in mute, unmoving terror. Black bile seeped from their noses and mouths. Her platter of wine goblets clattered to the floor. Sorcerers and servants alike fell forward, collapsing in their seats. All except Jumarr, who remained still and silent but bore no other sign of trouble.

Yaol appeared from thin air at the end of the table, having been concealed by a spell of invisibility the entire time. He plunged his curved dagger into
Jumarr’s flesh again and again, but then Yaol stopped. The wound produced no blood, but rather a flesh-colored goo that slowly bubbled from the pierced skin.

“A simulacrum,” Yaol said, looking to his master at the end of the table.

“Puppetted from his sanctum, most likely,” Randast scowled. “The connection will have been broken by now. He will no longer be watching.”

“Nor will he think us capable of swift retaliation,” Bel-Danab said mildly. “It’s a long way to
Korystos.” He rose from the table and nodded to Yaol. “Excellent work with the poisons, Yaol. Jumarr would have escaped any other ploy in the same fashion, yet we have at least cleared out the rest of our opposition.”

Yaol bowed deeply, his voice crackling with excitement. “Thank you, master!”

Randast was already at the end of a curtain behind Bel-Danab’s seat. He pulled it quickly, revealing a mirror well over seven feet in height. Bel-Danab murmured words of power, reaching out with his staff to touch the gleaming jewel at its top to the mirror until the glass rippled.

“We go now to finish this while
Jumarr believes he is safe,” Bel-Danab said to Yaol. “We shall have to travel back here without the aid of such magic as the portal. Do try to keep things here under control.”

“Yes, master!” Yaol said, bowing again with greater excitement.

Trying to keep hold of herself, Amanda rubbed tears from her eyes as Bel-Danab and Randast passed through the mirror. With that, they were gone. The dining hall fell silent except for her sniffles and Yaol’s gleeful chuckles.

“I knew it would work,” he said to himself in his native tongue. “My ideas always work. Always!” He walked over to where Amanda had sunk to her knees. “You! Girl! Get up!”

“Did you have to kill the servants, too?” she sobbed. “What did they do to you?”

“Bah! Stop your whining!” He kicked her hard on the shoulder, knocking her over. Then he waved his hands at her with a sour expression. “Get up! You have a lot to clean up here. Go down and get the acid vat open and start bringing these people down there, eh? Before they start to stink.” Yaol clinked a couple of rings together, invoking the magical spell that unlocked his laboratory.