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Authors: Brian Lumley

BOOK: Mad Moon of Dreams
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The Dukes of Isharra
Trussed up in termen threads like flies in a spider's cocoons, with only their faces showing through glossy silken surfaces, Hero and Eldin were borne away like centuried mummies into the base of steep-rising cliffs, through reeking labyrinthine tunnels, interminably downward to vast caverns of elder horror. Among their captors were a few horned ones, a large number of zombies (which, being expendable, had performed the actual dirty work) and a handful of Lathi's termen.
Now they were bundled along horizontally through great caves, their way illumined by torches held in the paws of horned ones, amidst the massed and monstrous polyglot horde, toward some doom as yet unknown and probably best unguessed. And all around them the rush and patter of feet and paws in damply reeking bowels of earth.
“Mmf, mff!” mumbled Eldin, who couldn't get his jaws open wide enough to speak.
“Damn right!” Hero emphatically agreed. “Mmf!” And less restricted in respect of facial movements, he went on to berate his burly friend: “Of all the stupid, brainless, wild-goosiest wild-goose chases you ever got me into, this—”
“Mmf?” Eldin was astonished. “Mmf mff
mff
!” he in turn accused.
“It was you heard the cries first,” said Hero.
“Mmf mff
mff
mff!” Eldin answered, his astonishment turning to outrage.
“Now just you hold on there, old lad,” Hero snarled. “And don't go taking that tone of mmf with-” Abruptly he broke off as they were bundled out from torch-flickered gloom into an open space which stretched away for miles to the murmuring ocean. It was dark and misty and the pair could not see that distant shoreline, but they could hear the dull
hush
of waves and taste the salt in the dank night air.
Above—high, high above black cliffs that went up in massive and vertiginous steps—the phosphorescent clouds of the north hurried southwards in great belts; and such was their glow that the eyes of the pair soon grew accustomed to the weird light which they lent the place. And a strange and terrible place it appeared to be.
There were crumbling walls and shattered columns everywhere, and grayish shrubs that forced their way through weirdly-patterned pavements, breaking them upward and forming small piles of debris. The gaping ruins of great houses stood or lay fallen at every angle, and following the contours of their mounds the pair of trussed-up questers could see that this had once been a mighty and thronging city—but how many thousands of years ago? There were legends in the dreamlands which had it that a certain primordial city had perished a million years before ever the first true humans discovered and inhabited Earth's dreamland …
The thought must have found its way simultaneously into both Hero's and Eldin's minds; for as the truth of their whereabouts dawned on them Eldin gave an exclamatory mmf! and Hero whispered, “Sarkomand!”
“Sarkomand, aye,” agreed an evilly grinning horned one, coming close and shoving his face near to those of the captive pair. “Sarkomand, which is where the glorious careers of dreamland's most famed questers must surely end—but not before you have seen the so-called Lords. And the so-called Ladies …”
“Ladies?” said Hero. “Ula and Una? They really are here then?”
“Eh? Oh, those two,” the horned one answered. “Aye, they're here—but they are not the ladies I meant.” And he urged the throng of monsters to more speed as they hurried through the dark and primal ruins.
Hero's eyes met Eldin's as the pair were rushed headlong through the centuried streets. “He means Zura,” Hero grunted sourly.
“And—
mmf!
—Lathi,” Eldin answered. He had finally succeeded in working his jaw loose and could now speak—with difficulty. “And speaking of—
mmf!
—Lathi, did you ever see a ship like that before?”
Hero, unable to turn his head, had to wait until he was jostled into the required position. There, looming in the mists some fifty or so yards away, a totally unique vessel was moored. The ship was a leprous white and its outline was indistinct, but even at that distance and in the misty gloom Hero was able to recognize the mushroomy color as one and the same with the city of Thalarion, the Eidolon Lathi's fire-doomed seat, which Eldin had razed to the ground by use of his firestones.
“So,” Hero said. “The grub-Queen has ships now, does she?”
“One, at least,” Eldin answered in disgust. “A vessel such as that could not belong to any other.”
“And look!” Hero exclaimed. “That black ship there, with the octopus figurehead. We've seen her before, I fear.”
“Zura!” Eldin spat out the word. “A pretty writhing of maggots here, Hero.”
Now they were passing ship after ship, all gently rocking at anchor some twenty or thirty feet above the crumbling ruins of the ancient city. “Leng ships, these,” said Hero. “Black as Zura's vessel but bigger, squatter. Looks like the fiendish females have only one ship each, and that the rest of the fleet belongs to the horned ones.”
“That fits,” Eldin muttered. “We smashed Zura's fleet at
Serannian, all except her flagship. As for Lathi: she didn't have any ships. That one we passed back there, it must be her prototype.”
“And the Isharrans?” Hero wondered.
“Too small a community, ingrown, degenerate. A goldmine grown all out of proportion. Shantytown at one end, palatial residences at the other. A veritable slave community governed by the Dukes. Sky-ships would be too modern in concept for them. Yak-carts with wooden wheels, more like. I would guess that they've borrowed a Leng ship, and a Leng crew to boot. Knowing what's in store for them at the end—at least according to old Hrill—that would seem most logical, don't you agree?”
“Oh, I do, I do,” answered Hero, impressed. “You've obviously given these Dukes of Isharra a deal of thought.”
“I do my homework,” the other stated, a little too smugly for Hero's liking.
“Oh, good!” he said, straining his eyes to peer up, down and sideways at the cocoon encasing his head. “Fore-warned is fore-armed, eh? Whatever would we have done if you hadn't done your homework?”
“Listen, scut—” warned Eldin, but before he could continue the ambush party came to a halt where the ruins of a house formed a square of broken walls. The walls were rough and thick, forming black shadows away from the building, while inside all was yellow and orange glare reflected from a central fire … and a circle of ruddy faces, turning as one to stare at the captives where they were bundled through a gap in the wall and into the firelight.
“A warm, healthy glow, that,” Hero observed under his breath.
“A fire to serve human needs,” Eldin returned, his ire quickly evaporating. “I think we're about to be introduced to those so-called ‘Lords' our squat little friend was talking about. Namely, the so-called—”
“Dukes of Isharra,” a steely, ringing voice cut him short. “At your service, gentlemen.”
Two figures stood up and stepped clear of the seated circle, peering curiously at the questers where they were now propped upright in their cocoons. Held in that position by several of Zura's zombies, the pair could only stare back. The rest of their escort, having fulfilled their task, now melted away into the night.
The Dukes stepped closer, and it could now be seen that they were near-identical twins. Dressed in gold-threaded jackets and fur-lined silken breeches—with thigh-boots of red leather, belts bearing gold-filigreed swords, their hands and wrists heavy with gold—the only immediate difference between them appeared to be the livid scar which one of them wore above his right eye; whose gouge faded away vertically into his crew-cut hair, giving his eye a fixed and permanently devilish cast. Of the two, however, this one seemed most talkative; and if his voice had the ring of steel, certainly his words were no less cutting:
“You'll be Eldin the Wanderer,” he said, prodding Eldin's cocooned chest with a stiff, blunt finger. “Oh, yes, you fit your description well enough. Ugly, brutish—full of a false bravado …”
“See here—” Eldin growled, the very rumble of his voice threatening to burst the cocoon. But the steely-voiced speaker merely flipped him in the mouth with a gold-worked glove. At that Eldin snarled incoherently, almost mindlessly, and gritting his teeth strained desperately against the tough strands which bound him.
“Be still!” snapped the Duke. “And be
quiet
! When I want you to speak I'll say so. No man talks back to Byharrid-Imon Isharra without his permission.”
Now his brother came forward, tilting his head up a little to gaze into Hero's ice-blue eyes. Tall though the brothers were by the standards of dreamland, still Hero stood taller. “And you'll be David Hero,” this one said, his voice like the smoke of hot oil. “Or Hero of Dreams, as you are known.” There was a strangely hybrid look about his sallow, unpleasant, overlarge features—an almost feminine tilt to his cheekbones
and eyebrows. “A singer of songs, eh?” he continued. “A poet …” He reached out to touch Hero's cheek with a pointed, manicured fingernail.
Hero drew back his head (as best he could) and spat straight into the Duke's eye. “And you'll be Gathnod-Natz'ill Isharra,” he evenly answered as the other staggered away dabbing at his face. “As woolly a woofter as ever I saw—in dreams or out of 'em!”
“I do believe he's discovered one of your little vices, brother,” Byharrid-Imon gave a dry, barking laugh.
“Damned right!” Hero quietly agreed. “And to think I worried about my Ula with him. Why, he'd not know what to do with her!”
“Oh, he surely would,” laughed Byharnd-Imon. “His tastes are wide-ranging, that's all.”
Now the circle of figures seated around the fire stood up as Gathnod-Natz'ill finally got Hero's spit out of his eye and drew his sword. “Damn you!” he cried in his girlish voice. “First you wound us sorely by stealing off with our future brides, and now you add insult to injury! We'll see how well you can spit without a tongue, David Hero.”
The zombies holding the pair upright backed stumblingly away, leaving them to rock in their silk-paper cocoons—which it now fully appeared would be their coffins. Byharrid-Imon also drew his sword, aiming it at Eldin.
“Aye,” he said, his voice low now but ringing still, “my brother's right. We've suffered enough from you two. Not only did we lose face when you stole our brides-to-be, but we lost money, too. Why, we've paid bounty-hunters a small fortune for your heads! And now you come along, delivering them to us yourselves, and all of your own free will.” He chuckled, however bleakly. “Oh, don't worry, Hero, for I shan't let my brother kill you. Not just yet. If he desires your tongue, however—”
“Cowardly dogs!” Eldin roared. “If my arms were only free—”
“Your voice,” said Byharrid-Imon warningly, “continues to
annoy me. It is altogether too deep and strong.” He pointed his sword at Eldin's lower middle. “I think I should prefer it castrato. After all, if my brother intends taking a trophy … well, shouldn't I claim one also! Perhaps two?”
Now the figures about the fire came forward and closed upon the questers. Some of them were true men, Isharrans, with the same unhandsome looks as their leaders, and the rest were almost-humans. The men were silent, perhaps a little resentful of their masters (or else just naturally surly) but the Lengites were filled with a hideous excitement.
“Go on,” one of them chortled to Gathnod-Natz'ill. “Take his tongue. Here, let me reach up and open his jaws for you.” And Hero felt foul paws groping at his face.
Another tore at the terman webbing binding Eldin's lower body. “And you, Lord Byharnd-Imon. Here, let me fix this for you, so that you may take—”
“Take nothing—touch nothing!” came a commanding female voice from on high. And as the Isharran party fell back in astonishment, so a black shadow drifted slowly over the ruins. Up above, a leprous white ship had moved silently into view.
“I have first claim on those two,” came the voice again, “for they have sinned more against me than any other. Lucky for me that my siblings brought word of their capture. Lucky, too, for you Dukes; for if you had harmed them you would pay. I have my own plans for them.”
A window in the ship's side framed a face of incredible beauty. Rocking back on his heels to see that face more clearly, Eldin gasped: “Lathi!”
“Aye, Lathi,” she answered, her voice utterly humourless. “The Eidolon Lathi, whose city, Thalarion, you burned to the ground!”
As she spoke, termen on the ship's deck let down sticky silken gobs of stuff on strong threads, swinging them until they contacted and adhered to the cocoons of the questers. Before the Isharrans could make a move, Hero and Eldin were hauled up from the ruins and out of their reach. In a
matter of seconds they were being dragged aboard the white ship.

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