The Sword Lord (18 page)

The first fat drops of rain fell upon the bloodied grass and the dark clouds were now directly overhead. Kaseem had dropped low to confirm his fears and even he could read the wide trail left by the perpetrators as they had headed back to the depths of their forest. He soared upward again, like an untouched arrow through the hammering rain, and sped toward the tree line.

The storm lashed down in all its fury. Great bolts of lightning split the black skies in jagged white flashes. Kaseem the priest would have read the wrath of
Indra
in the tumult of the elements, but he was no longer Kaseem the priest. He no longer knew who he was. He no longer cared about or believed in the power of the gods and the sword was a living extension to his arm.

The swirls of smoke from the many cooking fires led him to the great open space in the forest where the monkey tribes had gathered, and he saw instantly the large tent with the Black Leopard banner. Below him, there were hundreds of the near-naked monkey men and almost as many soldiers in leather and steel. The encampment bristled with spear blades and sword blades and the bows of the archers. Maghalla was here in force, and the Black Leopard could only mean that Sardar himself was present.

Kaseem surveyed the milling scene and, for the first time, the thought of caution nudged at his mind. He was suddenly not sure whether he was visible or vulnerable to the enemy below and he prudently lifted himself out of arrow range. The sword in his hand seemed suddenly less potent against the great mass of weapons that could be marshalled against him.

Again, he did not know what to do next. He was too late to help Ramesh and his friends, for they were already a vulture's banquet. The scene below indicated that Sardar had made an alliance with the monkey tribes and that was information which must be passed back to Karakhor. However, he still did not know what had happened to Kananda, and the need to avenge Ramesh was a hot fire within him. Like a leaf in the storm that crashed around him, he was caught up in conflicting whirls of doubt and confusion.

He saw that most of the men below him were cowering and sheltering from the rain. Like the animals on the plains and the raptors in the skies, they seemed unaware of his presence. So far there had been no indication that any living thing had noted his passage and he began to feel more secure. He could choose to watch and observe or to move on and search further. It did not seem that there were any other real options open to him.

The storm raged around him. Although he seemed to be in the very heart of its lightning and thunder, he was untouched and unharmed, protected by his own subtle aureola of diffused light which the elements could not penetrate. The storm was of that other dimension which he had left behind. He could hear it and see it, yet it was not of his present world. He tried to understand this strange fact, trying to focus his mind on the subtle differences of the two dimensions. And suddenly he was aware that there was something up here with him that was not part of the storm—something that also existed on the same plane of his current being.

Kaseem whirled full circle and instinctively let himself fall as he did so. A double-bladed axe head whirled where his throat had been a split second before and he felt its wind whipping his hair. His sword came up to block the axe blade on its reversed downward chop and the clash of steel upon steel rang unexpectedly loud in his ears. The sound startled him as much as the unexpected attack, but he had the wits to keep moving and somersaulted to his left. He came erect again in a defensive crouch, the sword blade held at an angle across his body, and stared at the two nightmare figures that faced him.

One had the squat, powerful body of a man, but with the head of a snarling leopard. He wore silver-coloured armour and carried the wicked double-bladed axe that had almost severed Kaseem's head from his shoulders a moment before. The leopard's eyes blazed and the peeled-back lips revealed slavering jaws. The second creature was also human in basic form, but with the head and powerful hooked beak of an eagle. It carried a knotted wooden staff with a heavy, squared bronze cap on one end.

The eyes of both creatures were again strangely familiar and Kaseem realized that he knew them both. The leopard head and the black leopard banner over the tent below made the connecting link. Kaseem's mind flashed back to that dreadful day when Maryam had almost been married and he knew that he was looking again into the eyes of Sardar.

With one connection made, the other was almost as easy. On that day, the High Priest of Maghalla had carried a wooden staff with a bronze head. Kaseem recalled the name—Nazik—and when he looked into the eagle eyes, he was again certain. In this dimension, they preferred the exotic images before him, but their eyes were unchanged.

Suddenly many things became clear. Sardar's rapid rise to power and the ease with which he dominated the lesser tribes around him were now all too easy to explain. Even if the two dimensions could not interact, one was still an open window to the other. Old Jahan's laboriously constructed intelligence network paled into insignificance by comparison.

The thoughts flashed through his mind, but it was as though he had spoken aloud. Sardar chuckled and said harshly, “You are right, of course. And you are Kaseem, the High Priest of Karakhor, a foolish old man in a young warrior's body. Your eyes betray you too.”

Kaseem realized that Sardar was talking to distract him and flicked his gaze to Nazik. The eagle beak opened and the man shrieked at him and in the same instant, the staff in the creature's hand became a full-length cobra, the hooded head striking viciously forward and spitting venom toward him. Was this the real danger or another distraction? Kaseem was uncertain but he skipped back in midair and again he nearly died.

“Kharga!” The warning voice snapped in his mind and again he ducked and turned.

A third creature was behind him, a man-sized blue baboon with a mottled red face and fearsome teeth. It clutched a massive wooden club in both hands and the long hairy arms gave it a wide, murderous swing. He saw bloodstains and scraps of hair and brains stuck to the sharp steel spikes that were hammered into the thick timber as it whirled within inches of his eyes.

Screaming blasphemies, Sardar and Nazik hurled themselves at him in a concerted attack. Caught between three opponents, Kaseem could only fight in desperate defence and would not have lasted more than a few minutes if a fourth unexpected figure had not hurtled into the fray. This time the surprise was to Sardar and his allies and this was no monster. Instead, a beautiful and naked woman burst upon them from above with only a sword and arm shield.

Kaseem saw the flash of angry green eyes. The colour of a forest pool or a sunbird's wing, he was still not sure. But her nakedness was more effective than any image of hell or horror. Glimpses of her perfect nude limbs, the ripe full breasts and the golden cleft between her magnificent thighs were all the distractions she needed. As the leopard and the eagle both fractionally dropped their guard and gaped, she swept through them with all the speed of a hurricane. One accurate kick landed between the startled eyes of Sardar, and then her sword was slicing down and cleaving into the neck of the shocked baboon. As the creature screamed and tumbled forward, Kaseem saw a fine silver thread which seemed to trail from the back of its neck and drop toward the ground. Laurya severed the thread with the second swing of her sword and in a flash of dark blue light the creature vanished.

Kasseem would have joined her in an immediate attack on their enemies, but the heavens cracked with thunder and a sheet of lightning split the skies between the two opposing pairs. Laurya spun in midair and dropped like a stone, catching Kaseem's arm with her free hand and pulling him into a direct dive into the treetops. Bewildered by the fast-changing speed of events, Kaseem gave up any attempt to resist and allowed her to lead him in headlong flight. If they had crashed into one of the huge trunks, Kaseem had no idea whether it would have brought them to a senseless full stop or whether they would have simply passed through. All he knew was that Laurya chose to weave through them, using the green-black canopy and the torrential thunderstorm to mask their escape.

Several times she zigzagged, turning sharp left or right to throw off any possible pursuit. His own sense of direction was confused, but he had the feeling that she had dived deeper into the jungle before doubling back on her tracks. He felt frustrated and helpless, like a child holding her hand, for he was still not sure of his own capabilities, or hers, in this bizarre new situation. His one overpowering emotion was that of ecstatic triumph now that he had found her, or to be precise, now that she had found him.

They came suddenly to the edge of the forest and she stopped, pulling him down into a crouch beside her. For a moment she was silent as she stared up into the storm-wracked skies. The rain still created an almost solid curtain and even in the white-streaked lightning flashes there was nothing to be seen.

“We should have fought them,” Kaseem said at last. “We could have killed them.”

Laurya turned her face toward him and smiled faintly. “Dear foolish Kharga, they almost killed you!”

Kharga, that name again. Kaseem blinked and struggled to focus his mind. He was Kharga—had been Kharga—and she was—

“Liane!” The floodgates of memories opened. There had been so many incarnations when they had been lovers, on Alpha, on Ghedda, and on Earth. Through centuries they had been eternal soul mates and the past lives they had not shared together were the ones that were not worth remembering.

The lights of laughter danced in her green eyes and she leaned forward and kissed him. Her lips were soft and sweet, the promise of a million delights. But when he moved to embrace her, she drew back.

“Kharga, we have no time. We are in great danger here. And there is a desperate need for us to return.”

“Danger!” He looked at the sword in his hand and smiled his contempt for anything that might attempt to come between them now.

She shook her head sadly. “Kharga, in this life you are still a child on the astral plane. You have forgotten how to screen your thoughts. Until now, you could not even recognize me. When you found the bodies of those you sought, you howled your anguish and made your presence known. That is how your enemies found you so quickly and fortunately how I found you also.”

Kaseem stared at her, unable to deny that he was out of his depth. The new abilities he had suddenly discovered within himself, he now realized, could be dwarfed by those who were more familiar with this dimension.

“Nazik,” he said slowly. “The high priest of Maghalla—“

Laurya nodded in affirmation. “The eagle man you call Nazik is obviously a very powerful presence here on the astral plane. That trick of turning his staff into a striking serpent requires a frightening level of mind and will control. That is why I pulled you out of there quickly. Even though I destroyed one of their number, we were still no match for them.”

“We cannot be destroyed.” He spoke with a false certainty, for although he could now remember flashes of many past lives, he was not really sure.

Laurya half turned so that he could see the beginning of the silver cord that emerged from the nape of her neck, and he vividly remembered her cutting a similar cord just behind the cloven neck of the baboon creature seconds before it had vanished. He remembered then: the cords were the invisible link between their physical and their astral bodies. If the silver cord could be severed, then both bodies would die. Even here on the astral plane, they were not immortal. Now that his mind was opened, many things were slowly coming back into his awareness.

Laurya smiled at him again. “When we return to the astral with each new life span, it takes time to recall all that we know. And sometimes we never remember. That is why you are not yet ready to challenge your friend Nazik or his ally with the leopard head. Also, there is another reason why we must return swiftly to our physical bodies.”

Kaseem remembered his original mission and asked quickly, “Kananda?”

She nodded. “And Commander Zela. I saw them while scouting for you. They need help but we cannot give it to them. Somehow we must alert Blair and the others on the physical plane.”

They moved out from the concealing edge of the forest and made one last searching scan of the rain-lashed skies before they felt safe to thrust upward and speed back toward the north. Kaseem had a million more questions to ask, but had recognized the urgency in her last words. The plains blurred below them and they came out of the storm into bright blue skies. They were moving too fast now to pick out any individual animals or landmarks below, and it was only when the grasslands ended at the first jungle ridge that he was sure that they were on the right course.

Laurya led them over the tall spire of the Tri-Thruster command ship and dropped down over the small upstream beach where the sacrificial fire was now a smouldering pocket of grey ash. Kaseem saw his own priest's body exactly as he had left it and nearby a golden-haired, silver suited body that lay as though more peacefully asleep.

It was too soon. He felt Laurya's hand slipping out of his own and he did not want this reunion to end. He tried to hold onto her fingers, but they were gone and there seemed no way to halt his headlong downward rush toward the stream. The sunlight faded and the blue sky and green branches became a black tunnel. A scream of rejection rose in his throat, but then his mind was swamped by darkness and it seemed as though he was sucked down into a lost whirlpool of pain and despair.

 

 

 

Above the jungle encampment to the south, the storm still raged, and the sheeting downpour of rain hammered heavily on the large tent where the Black Leopard banner of Sardar was humbled and plastered to its mast. Inside the tent, Sardar sat cross-legged on silken cushions, scowling into the heart of a small fire. His hunched, hairy body was naked except for a loincloth, and his face was a dark and thunderous mirror of the elements outside.