The Sword & Sorcery Anthology (31 page)

There was dread in her face. “I can’t.”

Mavrsal frowned, thinking he had been snubbed, and started to
make an angry retort.

“I dare not...stay here too long,” Dessylyn interposed, fear glowing
in her eyes.

Mavrsal made an exasperated grimace. “Girl, you sneaked aboard
my ship like a thief, but I’m inclined to forget your trespassing. Now,
my cabin’s cozy, girls tell me I’m a pleasant companion, and I’m
generous with my coin. So why wander off into the night, where in
the first filthy alley some pox-ridden drunk is going to take for free
what I’m willing to pay for?”

“You don’t understand!”

“Very plainly I don’t.” He watched her fidget with the pewter mug
for a moment, then added pointedly, “Besides, you can hide here.”

“By the gods! I wish I could!” she cried out. “If only I
could
hide
from him!”

Brows knit in puzzlement, Mavrsal listened to the strangled sobs
that rose muffled through the tousled auburn mane. He had not
expected so unsettling a response to his probe. Thinking that every
effort to penetrate the mystery surrounding Dessylyn only left him
further in the dark, he measured out another portion of wine—and
wondered if he should apologize for something.

“I suppose that’s why I did it,” she was mumbling. “I was able to
slip away for a short while. So I walked along the shore, and I saw
all the ships poised for flight along the harbor, and I thought how
wonderful to be free like that! To step on board some strange ship,
and to sail into the night to some unknown land—where
he
could
never find me!
To be free!
Oh, I knew I could never escape him like
that, but still when I walked by your ship, I wanted to try! I thought I
could go through the motions—pretend I was escaping him!

“Only I know there’s no escape from Kane!”

“Kane!” Mavrsal breathed a curse. Anger toward the girl’s
tormentor that had started to flare within him abruptly shuddered
under the chill blast of fear.

Kane!
Even to a stranger in Carsultyal, greatest city of mankind’s
dawn, that name evoked the specter of terror. A thousand tales
were whispered of Kane; even in this city of sorcery, where the lost
knowledge of pre-human Earth had been recovered to forge man’s
stolen civilization, Kane was a figure of awe and mystery. Despite
uncounted tales of strange and disturbing nature, almost nothing was
known for certain of the man save that for generations his tower had
brooded over Carsultyal. There he followed the secret paths along
which his dark genius led him, and the hand of Kane was rarely seen
(though it was often felt) in the affairs of Carsultyal. Brother sorcerers
and masters of powers temporal alike spoke his name with dread, and
those who dared to make him an enemy seldom were given long, to
repent their audacity.

“Are you Kane’s woman?” he blurted out.

Her voice was bitter. “So Kane would have it. His mistress. His
possession. Once, though, I was my own woman—before I was fool
enough to let Kane draw me into his web!”

“Can’t you leave him—leave this city?”

“You don’t know the power Kane commands! Who would risk his
anger to help me?”

Mavrsal squared his shoulders. “I owe no allegiance to Kane, nor
to his minions in Carsultyal. This ship may be weathered and leaky,
but she’s mine, and I sail her where I please. If you’re set on—”

Fear twisted her face. “Don’t!” she gasped. “Don’t even hint this
to me! You can’t realize what power Kane—

“What was that!”

Mavrsal tensed. From the night sounded the soft buffeting of great
leathery wings. Claws scraped against the timbers of the deck outside.
Suddenly the lantern flames seemed to shrink and waver; shadow fell
deep within the cabin.

“He’s missed me!” Dessylyn moaned. “He’s sent it to bring me
back!”

His belly cold, Mavrsal drew his cutlass and turned stiffly toward
the door. The lamp flames were no more than a dying blue gleam.
Beyond the door a shuffling weight caused a loosened plank to groan
dully.

“No! Please!” she cried in desperation. “There’s nothing you can
do! Stay back from the door!”

Mavrsal snarled, his face reflecting the rage and terror that gripped
him. Dessylyn pulled at his arm to draw him back.

He had locked the cabin door; a heavy iron bolt secured the stout
timbers. Now an unseen hand was drawing the bolt aside. Silently,
slowly, the iron bar turned and crept back along its mounting
brackets. The lock snapped open. With nightmarish suddenness, the
door swung wide.

Darkness hung in the passageway. Burning eyes regarded them.
Advanced.

Dessylyn screamed hopelessly. Numb with terror, Mavrsal clumsily
swung his blade toward the glowing eyes. Blackness reached out,
hurled him with irresistible strength across the cabin. Pain burst
across his consciousness, and then was only the darkness.

II. “Never, Dessylyn”

She shuddered and drew the fur cloak tighter about her thin shoulders.
Would there ever again be a time when she wouldn’t feel this remorseless
cold?

Kane, his cruel face haggard in the glow of the brazier, stood
hunched over the crimson alembic.
How red the coals made his hair and
beard; how sinister was the blue flame of his eyes....
He craned intently
forward to trap the last few drops of the phosphorescent elixir in a
chalice of ruby crystal.

He had labored sleepless hours over the glowing liquid, she knew.
Hours precious to her because these were hours of freedom—a time
when she might escape his loathed attention. Her lips pressed a tight,
bloodless line. The abominable formulae from which he prepared the
elixir! Dessylyn thought again of the mutilated corpse of the young
girl Kane had directed his servant to carry off. Again a spasm slid
across her lithe form.

“Why won’t you let me go?” she heard herself ask dully for the...
how many times had she asked that?

“I’ll not let you go, Dessylyn,” Kane replied in a tired voice. “You
know that.”

“Someday I’ll leave you.”

“No, Dessylyn. You’ll never leave me.”

“Someday.”

“Never, Dessylyn.”

“Why, Kane!”

With painful care, he allowed a few drops of an amber liqueur to
fall into the glowing chalice. Blue flame hovered over its surface.

“Why!”

“Because I love you, Dessylyn.”

A bitter sob, parody of laughter, shook her throat. “You love me.”
She enclosed a hopeless scream in those slow, grinding syllables.

“Kane, can I ever make you understand how utterly I loathe you?”

“Perhaps. But I love you, Dessylyn.” The sobbing laugh returned.

Glancing at her in concern, Kane carefully extended the chalice
toward her. “Drink this. Quickly—before the nimbus dies.”

She looked at him through eyes dark with horror. “Another bitter
draught of some foul drug to bind me to you?”

“Whatever you wish to call it.”

“I won’t drink it.”

“Yes, Dessylyn, you will drink it.”

His killer’s eyes held her with bonds of eternal ice. Mechanically
she accepted the crimson chalice, let its phosphorescent liqueur pass
between her lips, seep down her throat.

Kane sighed and took the empty goblet from her listless grip. His
massive frame seemed to shudder from fatigue, and he passed a broad
hand across his eyes. Blood rimmed their dark hollows.

“I’ll leave you, Kane.”

The sea wind gusted through the tower window and swirled the
long red hair about his haunted face. “Never, Dessylyn.”

III. At the Inn of the Blue Window

He called himself Dragar....

Thinking of the lithe, white limbs he had glimpsed—the patrician
beauty of the face that coolly returned his curious stare as she came
toward him—Dragar unsheathed the heavy blade at his hip and
dashed back along the street he had just entered.

There was moonlight enough to see, although the alley was well
removed from the nearest flaring streetlamp. Cloak torn away, her
gown ripped from her shoulders, the girl writhed in the grasp of two
thugs. A third tough warned by the rush of the barbarian’s boots,
angrily spun to face him, sword streaking for the youth’s belly.

Dragar laughed and flung the lighter blade aside with a powerful
blow of his sword. Scarcely seeming to pause in his attack, he gashed
his assailant’s arm with an upward swing, and as the other’s blade
faltered, he split the thug’s skull. One of the two who held the girl
lunged forward, but Dragar sidestepped his rush, and with a sudden
thrust sent his sword ripping into the man’s chest. The remaining
assailant shoved the girl against the barbarian’s legs, whirled, and fled
down the alley.

Ignoring the fugitive, Dragar helped the stunned girl to her feet.
Terror yet twisted her face, as she distractedly arranged the torn
bodice of her silken gown. Livid scratches streaked the pale skin of
her breasts, and a bruise was swelling out her lip. Dragar caught up
her fallen cloak and draped it over her shoulders.

“Thank you,” she breathed in a shaky whisper, speaking at last.

“My pleasure,” he rumbled. “Killing rats is good exercise. Are you
all right, though?”

She nodded, then clutched his arm for support.

“The hell you are! There’s a tavern close by, girl. Come—I’ve
silver enough for a brandy to put the fire back in your heart.”

She looked as if she might refuse, were her knees steadier. In a
daze, the girl let him half-carry her into the Inn of the Blue Window.
There he led her to an unoccupied booth and called for brandy.

“What’s your name?” he asked, after she had tasted the heady
liqueur.

“Dessylyn.”

He framed her name with silent lips to feel its sound. “I’m called
Dragar,” he told her. “My home lies among the mountains far south
of here, though it’s been a few years since last I hunted with my
clansmen. Wanderlust drew me away, and since then I’ve followed
this banner or another’s—sometimes just the shadow of my own
flapping cloak. Then, after hearing tales enough to dull my ears, I
decided to see for myself if Carsultyal is the wonder men boast her to
be. You a stranger here as well?”

She shook her head. When the color returned to her cheeks, her
face seemed less aloof.

“Thought you might be. Else you’d know better than to wander
the streets of Carsultyal after nightfall. Must be something important
for you to take the risk.”

The lift of her shoulders was casual, though her face remained
guarded. “No errand...but it was important to me.”

Dragar’s look was questioning.

“I wanted to...oh, just to be alone, to get away for a while. Lose
myself, maybe—I don’t know. I didn’t think anyone would dare touch
me if they knew who I was.”

“Your fame must be held somewhat less in awe among these gutter
rats than you imagined,” offered Dragar wryly.

“All men fear the name of Kane!” Dessylyn shot back bitterly.