Chapter 40
Thomas ducked into the nearest cleft, without waiting for the wonderer. Strange creatures were coming out of the lake, water streaming off them, claws and fangs glittering in the semi-dark. The two men ran several steps bending, their heads touching the vaulted ceiling. Then the tunnel widened, they ran faster. Thomas was ahead, but suddenly he screamed and stopped so abruptly that Oleg ran into his iron back, hurt himself and hissed angrily, like a giant snake.
They were on the threshold of a colossal cave, its roof invisible high in the dark, walls separated by hundreds of steps. Something about that place reminded Thomas of the Agathyrsian underground. In the middle, there was a colossal blood-red stone slab, with writing on both sides in ancient lines and cuts, which, as Thomas knew from old legends, had been brought to Britain by settlers from Cimmeria or Scythia26. The slab was about seventy feet in length and Thomas grasped at first glance that it was no rock, but a giant tomb. A grave of an unknown giant! The stone lid was made of red granite, the thick edges seemed to be pressed down by their own weight to merge with the lower part, like two wax halves merge on a hot day.
Oleg pushed his back angrily with both hands. “Quick, you fool! Quick!”
Thomas rounded the stone tomb clumsily, felt a strange blow of warm air from it.
Oleg clung to the stone for a moment. “Svyatogor! Svyatogor!”
Thomas glanced back from the other end of the cave. He rather imagined that he heard a heavy sigh, as though uttered by a mountain. The cave seemed small at once. “Muromets? Is that you?”
“Oleg the Wise! Any old arms here, Svyatogor?”
Thomas strained his ears. That time he heard it distinctly; a mighty low voice that filled the cave and seemed to move its close walls apart. “Oleg the Wise? I was preparing to become a hermit like you. Only holy books here.”
Thomas heard nothing more but the loud clatter of the wonderer’s boots. The tunnel made an abrupt turn, they ran across a small cave. Their feet raised colored dust. There were rows of narrow-necked vessels in the corners, a huge metal mirror on the wall, two giant chests beneath it, heaps of woman’s dresses everywhere.
Thomas cast a searching look around, but Oleg hit him between the iron shoulder blades. “The room of Sinegorka! Svyatogor’s wife. No cup here!”
They ran out, gasping for air. Thomas was the first to hear heavy footfall, so he slowed down his pace, twisted his head round, and stopped. The wall-shaking steps were coming from ahead, approaching.
Thomas drew his sword, almost with relief, leaned against the wall. His chest was heaving, his eyes poured over with sweat, his breath burst out as though from a rusty trumpet. Oleg stopped, his breath rattling, his face exhausted and aged.
Heavy footsteps stopped. On the threshold of the cave, blocking the way out, there stood a colossal – twice as tall as a man – heavy beast; a scary ancient lizard covered with thick horny shield plates so tight that there were no slits at all. His sharp, wide-set eyes looked coldly out from a slit in his thick skull. For not a moment would they let the wonderer out of sight. The beast stood on his hind legs, resting also on his thick tail studded with spikes and horny excruciations on bony plates. The dragon’s chest had a metal glitter, and his forepaws, short and apparently weak, were twice as thick as Thomas’s arms.
“Goodness!” Thomas babbled. He took a firmer grip of his sword, clenched his jaws, ready to strike and crush till he fell dead in the glorious battle.
The wonderer sounded unusually strained. “Thomas, wait. Is it you, Sardan? Don’t hide, I can see you in any guise!”
The dragon made a heavy step forward, his jaws flung open suddenly. His roar stunned Thomas; the knight squatted, as though hammered on his helmet, barely kept his sword in hand. His head was ringing, he felt helpless, his own voice came out as thin as a gnat’s chirp. The wonderer yelled back, the dragon roared again, then, through pounding in Thomas’s ears, came a harsh, enraged voice. “Adept of Ancient Arts? Magic of transformation into a beast?”
The wonderer’s fingers began to tremble – so it seemed to startled Thomas – then became blurred. The pilgrim’s pure appearance showed some beastliness, more dreadful than a dragon’s, his face started to lengthen into a scary snout, but the next moment Thomas heard his voice, hoarse with hatred. “No, an adept of the subhuman. I’m the Wise, I look in the future! You took what man had been, I take what he will be!”
There were bright bloody-red flashes about the cave, then it was flooded by the rich color of fresh blood. The wonderer’s rags flared up, fell down in burning pieces. He stepped over the fire and smoke, bare and red-hot, his strained muscle seemed metal to Thomas. There were no more than five steps between the foes, both stared at each other in a duel of eyes; a huge beast and a man unarmed but strangely dangerous.
With a roar, the dragon rushed on the man. Thomas shrank back to the wall, raised his sword overhead. The dragon’s terrible claws, shiny like diamonds, went into the wonderer’s bare back. Red blood spurted out. Thomas bustled along the wall, escaping the rolling rock of bones and claws by a miracle. Several times he raised his sword but dared not strike, the beast and the wonderer had grappled each other so tightly that the one atop changed at every moment.
The beast roared with triumphant malice, his mouth breathed fire, his teeth looked like white-hot knives. He had no chance to use his teeth to end the battle; the wonderer’s fingers were breaking his jaw off, the dragon bellowed fervently, tried to crush the man in his forepaws. Once the beast got used to pressure coming from one side, Oleg yanked the jaw suddenly in another direction. There was a crack, a crunch of joints, the dragon choked with his own roar. His jaw dropped, as though suspended on a cloth, a trickle of blood ran down his narrow snake tongue, black and forked. With a hoarse roar, the dragon thrust the man overhead, all but reached the ceiling, trying to smash him on the stone floor.
Thomas slashed the beast’s leg, holding his sword with both hands. It was like slashing stone, the blade bounced off with such a force that his arms went numb up to the shoulders, yellow sparks flew sideways. Then the sword was thrown down, its point produced sparks out of the floor too… Suddenly the dragon uttered a terrible roar of fear and pain; the knight’s sword reached his foot and cut three clawed toes off. Within the cut, there was a brief glitter of big bones, then dark blood gushed out at once over the floor. The chopped toes twitched, scratched with their claws.
The dragon lowered his head, his blazing eyes searched for Thomas. The wonderer thrust his fingers with force into the red of them, Thomas heard a distinct crunch, then the dragon bellowed even louder. Feeling himself fainting, Thomas slashed with the last of his strength on another foot, the same vulnerable spot on it. At once he was yanked up and flung across the cave. He hit against the floor, rolled with a thunder of steel. For a moment it was dark before his eyes, he felt blood in his mouth, all of his bones aching. With great effort, he struggled up to his feet, the way he had risen, even more exhausted, for the seventh storm of the Tower of David.
In three score steps there was a creepy ball rolling with a roar, crunch, crackle, rattling breath. Thomas hurried there, oblivious of himself leaning on the sword as though it were a staff and dragging his right leg.
The roar was muffled till it turned to a hiss. The monstrous ball unrolled, the beast’s head fell on the floor with a heavy, bony thud. He lay on his back, his forepaws gripping his blooded mug, his hind paws twitching convulsively, scratching the floor. There were two deep wounds in the dragon’s throat. The wonderer, if that man really was him, sat on the dragon’s chest. He was blood-stained all over.
Thomas turned away hastily. The beast’s belly is torn apart, like a rotten cloth, two ribs protruding through the broad cut. The slime is gurgling in it, the liver, as huge as a boulder, twitching, craving for life, but the head does not move as though glued to the floor. Thomas kept his sword ready for a strike, just in case, came closer and saw the sharp cervical vertebrae broken and smashed mercilessly, juttin
g out through the broken skin. The head, as large as a rock, was only kept on by sinews.
Oleg stood up, ferocious, bathed in the dragon’s blood, and Thomas froze all over – the wonderer seemed more dreadful than the dead beast. “Oleg,” he said in a shaky voice, “is this what man will be?”
The wonderer’s face, twisted in a beastly convulsion, smoothed down slowly, like high storm waves when a barrel of oil is poured over them. His furious eyes were still blazing like two blooded stars, but his creepy, bulging muscle subsided and smoothed out. He spoke in a scary inhuman voice, “He may be that…”
He jumped off the huge corpse. His mouth was dripping with blood, he wiped it off his lips disgustedly with the back of his hand. His chest made one more mighty rise and fall, his eyes lost their bloody glitter. He spoke in his usual, but dead tired, voice. “People can be different… but they will be what we’ll make them.”
In a dark side passage Oleg slowed down his pace. “To the left! Two guards there. Sir Thomas, we need no knightly tricks, such as a challenge for jousting…”
“I see,” Thomas interrupted. “Your company has made me a Scyth, even a Rus. I must kill them without noise, yes? As common men?”
“As robbers,” Oleg grumbled.
Thomas could hardly see Oleg’s figure; it was almost pitch-dark, with only a torch lit far beyond the turn casting a faint gleam on the granite crystals. Beneath the torch, two guards sat straight on the floor, their backs leaned against the wall. They held bare swords on their laps and seemed drowsy.
Thomas tried to step as silently in his armor as the wonderer did barefoot and naked, but the corridor was filled with crashing, clanging, ringing sounds – those could be made by the beast if he’d crushed them and were coming back. The guards stood up hastily. One asked loudly, apparently briskly, to demonstrate they had been wide awake, “Your Might? Are the outlaws captured?”
“Only one,” Thomas replied in a rude voice, nodded at Oleg. “The other is hiding.”
“We’ll find him!” the guard promised with servility. “All entrances are sealed. No way out for gnat, nor for ant. And which has esca–”
He raised the torch higher, it lit the approaching Thomas. The guard’s eyes opened wide, his mouth opened to cry out. Oleg hurled the stone he had ready. A dry crunch of teeth, and the guard leaned against the wall, his throat swallowing his cry along with his blooded teeth and the stone. The second raised his sword, but not for attack; he was definitely going to strike on the iron door, calling out other guards… or something worse. Thomas, having no time to reach him, threw his two-handed sword like a spear. The guard sobbed, lurched; the sword pierced him through just under his throat. He slid down the wall, his back leaving a red trace, a broad steel point looking out between his shoulder blades.
While Thomas tugged out his sword and wiped it clean, Oleg stripped the bigger of the two guards off quickly, pulled his clothes on and became again the same wonderer whom Thomas seemed to have known for lifetime. Though now the wonderer walked with his jaws clenched, the knuckles of his fists white, his eyes narrowed. He looked like a lynx before a risky jump.
“Want your cup back?” Oleg asked suddenly.
“As much as my soul saved!” Thomas blurted.
“It’s behind this door. I mean the cup.”
“My soul too.”
Oleg backed up a step, scowled at the door, dashed ahead, advancing his shoulder. There was a brief flash of fire around the wonderer as he struck, a burst of bolts and bars, and the wings flew open, as if it were a door of doghouse kicked by a giant.
They burst into the room in clouds of dust and blue smoke. Thomas rushed on two big warriors before they could gather their wits, but they gripped their sabers at once, having their heads kept.
Oleg leapt on Isfahan; he had never seen that One before but knew enough of him to use the first opportunity to seize him by throat. They collapsed on the floor, the stone cave gave a shake. It became hot as the Arabian desert, with a smell of burnt stone.
Thomas’s sudden attack pressed his foes to the wall. Two violent blows slashed the shield of one and stunned another on his helmet. The first warrior slipped beneath Thomas’s arm. Fiercely, the knight brought his sword down on the stunned man and, with no second look at the falling body, swung round to the other one, parried a glittering saber, made a wolfish grin and started to press him into the corner.
Oleg and Isfahan were rolling about the cave, grappling and strangling each other. Both emitted heat. Thomas’s armor became hot, he began to gasp for hot air, the sword hilt burning his fingers. His enemy also bared his teeth with malice. Covered with sweat, he looked like an animal at bay. While fighting, he shot glances at the wonderer and his master rolling in the middle of the room, as though expecting help. With his last strength, Thomas pressed on him with heavy blows, feinted with his hand, putting it under the glittering saber; the blade rang and bounced off the steel plate, Thomas’s other hand struck with his sword at once.
The ball of grappling fighters was rattling and crunching on the floor, pebbles under the rolling bodies burst with ringing sounds, as though in an oven. Suddenly the cave walls shook with a hollow rumble, a grey crack ran across the grey floor. The magicians would get up on their knees, seize each other’s necks again, pound with fists, wheeze madly, choking with hate. The crack was moving apart. From the depth, a puff of heat came out, a cloud of smoke raised, an orange flame darted after it and hid again, then red sparks flew out like big flies.
Oleg and the master rolled over the crack. While sliding back, both got stuck in the widening gap. Thomas breathed heavily, reeled in the struggle against torrid heat that made sweat pour over his eyes and dry out at once, leaving a salty crust on his face. Hastily, he stepped up to the fighters, stretched his hand for Oleg to seize him and drag away from danger, but a scorching puff hit his face, his brows and eyelashes crackled. He shielded his face with a palm, advanced another hand, groping in the air blindly, stooped over…
His fingers got burnt; he barely stopped a scream. There was a thunder, a dry crash in his ears. He took his palm off his eyes for a moment, started back.
The cave was crossed, from end to end, by a blazing crack, wide enough to swallow a rider with his horse. Clouds of thick black smoke came belching from it, smelling of burnt flesh, skin, and bones. The cave vault was blazing with the glow of the hellish fire buzzing in the depths. Thomas seemed to hear a long terrible scream, as if someone kept falling down away through the endless flames.
Coughing and rattling with dry throat, Thomas crept to the far wall, pressed his back to it. The smoke was eating his eyes, the stiffened bodies of dead Hazars lay at hand; the blood covering them had dried out in the heat, turned to a brown crust, already cracked, like the bark of old trees. On the other side of the crack, through fire and smoke, Thomas dimly saw a small marble table. The cup, polished by the bag during the journey, was gleaming on it. The Holy Grail!
Thomas made a superhuman attempt to rise, but his heat-stricken body could not move. He felt dizzy, delirious visions flashed in his mind. Suddenly he realized he was dying, of the hellish fire and overdried air, but felt no fear, only grief that he failed to deliver the cup…
The walls gave a dull crash, he felt a heavy jerk beneath him, then a ringing clatter of pebbles on his helmet and shoulders. Dust and smoke hid the cup for a moment, then there seemed to be a blow of coolness. Thomas shook his head to clear his sight; the edges of the crack had come together, into a black broken line. They were rising in turns, Thomas heard the stone blocks grinding and crackling.
He pushed himself off the wall, fell to his hands and knees, and crawled across the cave. The floor stopped trembling but kept burning his fingers, and his armor burnt his body. In the smoky room, the cup shone with a pure unearthly light, strangely familiar. Thomas sobbed; a flash of the same pure light came from Oleg, his true friend, when he dashed on the door of that asylum of the dark magician!
As his he
ad hit against the leg of the table, he clung at the burning hot marble, raised his disobedient body. Once his face was on a level with the cup, it shone brighter, as though it recognized him. Thomas took it carefully with trembling fingers, sobbed with exhaustion. The cup was strangely cool, as if it had stood in a shady garden, on the bank of a cold stream. Clutching the cup against his steel breast, Thomas staggered back into the corner where he’d left his sword near the slain Hazars. Leaning on it as on a staff, he hobbled out of the room, struggled to step over the broken door knocked out by the wonderer; it was melted and burnt all over.
He had already passed the door when a thunder came from behind. The stone floor in the middle of the cave rose with a dry crackle and crash, rocks flew sideways like dry leaves. The wonderer came out and up like a stone pillar, breathing heavily, exhausted, staggering with tiredness. Thomas screamed, almost dropped the cup, rushed to his friend. The wonderer leaned on his shoulder, drops of man’s sweat hissed on the steel plate, evaporating at once. The wonderer’s breast was rising fast and high. “You got the cup? Good, It’s very important.”
“Oleg…” Thomas said happily. “Dear sworn brother… I could not guess you are a demon as well. All right, we’ll be in Hell together!”
Oleg took in a deep breath, said hoarsely, “Let’s hurry up.”
“You know the way out?”
“No ideas at all.”
“But how…”
“There’s one more enemy. The Head of the Secret Seven!”
Thomas felt creepy all over, despite the hot air. “Isn’t this enough fighting?” he asked in a husky voice.
“We need to know, why all that fuss about an old copper cup?”
He went out of the cave briskly. There was a rumble behind, the ceiling collapsed. Through the doorway, Thomas could see huge falling stones. He hurried after the wonderer, felt a push of hot air at his back. He glanced over again; the ceiling was down, walls coming closer.
“We have no need of the cave,” Oleg blurted impatiently.
“None we have,” Thomas agreed, then asked cautiously, “And that… magician? Couldn’t he survive as you did?”
“No,” Oleg replied without looking back.
The ceiling two steps behind Thomas subsided, a stream of dirty water gushed out. He mended his pace, ran after the wonderer on the dry ground. “You killed him?”
“I failed to do it. Too much killing! I granted his life to him.”
“How is he?”
“Enclosed in stone. About a verst deep. Or deeper… I don’t remember.”
Thomas hurried, his dumbfounded eyes fixed on the hunched back that once was so broad. His sword sheathed, he pressed the cup to his breast, as he had no bag anymore. “Won’t he get free? That would be bad.”
“Even the Secret Seven have no power to free him! He’s spread inside the stone, merged with it.”
“You are cruel as only a Pagan can be!” Thomas cried hoarsely. “He’d prefer death.”
“Death,” Oleg replied heavily, without looking back at him, “is for a long time, very long. And a live man has hope.” There was a thunder behind them again, sand and pebbles came down in torrents on their heads and shoulders.
“If he’s imprisoned for life… How long do magicians live?” Thomas cried on the go.
“Differently,” the wonderer snapped. “Fagim perished in over a hundred thousand, and Trtsik died of old age in forty. You hold the cup firm! Don’t be distracted. We need to ruin all of this bug-ridden place. No mercy to those who gorge on our blood. Do as you would be done by!”
They climbed downstairs, then the corridor turned twice, Thomas clasped the cup with care to his breast.
The corridor ended with a small ordinary door. Tar torches blazed on both sides of it, scattering sparkles. No guards, no bars. Thomas shrugged his shoulders with chill.
The wonderer pushed the door; it opened with no squeak. There was a middle-sized room with ascetic furniture. A monastic room, Thomas would say if not for the presence of Satan he felt there. The candles burning in the wall niches spread a pleasant sweetish smell around. In the middle of the cave, there was a tall table where a broad-shouldered man in black clothes was sitting with his back to Oleg and Thomas, writing on a parchment with a white goose quill.