“Pusillanimous dullard,” Mocker retorted. “In old days friend Hulk would have led charge.”
“In the old days I didn’t have any sense. Thought you’d grown up some, too.”
Mocker shrugged. He no longer was anxious to go on. “Just to end of passage,” he said. “Then we follow example of Tarlson.”
The corridor ended in a blank wall. What was the sense of a passage that went nowhere, that had no doors opening off it?
“We’d better go,” said Ragnarson. The sourceless light was bright now. He turned. “Huh?” His sword jumped into his hand.
Blocking their withdrawal was a curtain of darkness, as if someone had taken a pane of starless night and stretched it from wall to wall.
Mocker slid round him and probed the darkness with his blade. A deep thrust got results. Laughter like the cackling of a mad god.
“Woe!” Mocker cried. “Such petty end for great mind of age, caught like stupidest mouse in trap...” He charged the darkness, sword preceeding him.
“You idiot!” Ragnarson bellowed. He muttered, “What the hell?” when his companion seemed to slide out of existence as he hit the blackness.
“Might as well.” He hit the darkness seconds behind the fat man.
He felt like he was tumbling down the entire well of eternity, rolling aimlessly through a storm of color and sound underlaid by the whispering of wicked things. It went on and on and on and... Without breaking stride he entered a vast, poorly lighted chamber.
That room, or hall, was an assault on rationality. The air was overpoweringly foul. From all-surrounding, shadowed mists came rustlings, and for a moment he thought he saw a manlike, winged thing with the head of a dog, then a small, apelike dwarf with prodigious fangs. Everything seemed unstable, shifting, except the floor, which was of jet, and a huge black throne carved with exceptionally hideous designs. They reminded him of reliefs he had seen in the temples of Arundeputh and Merthregul at Gundgatchcatil. Yet these were worse, as if carved by hands washed more deeply in evil.
Mocker, sword in hand, prowled round that throne. “What is it?” Ragnarson asked, seldom having seen the fat man so upset.
“Shinsan.”
They were trapped fools indeed.
The mists stirred. An old man stepped forth. “Good evening,” he said. “I trust you speak Necremnen? Good.”
The old man turned to the throne, knelt, touched forehead to floor, muttered something Ragnarson couldn’t understand. For an instant new mists gathered there. An incredibly beautiful woman wavered in their depths. She nodded and disappeared. The old man rose and turned.
“My Lady honors me. But to business. You’re going where My Lady wishes you wouldn’t. Kavelin is already too complex. Go home.”
Ragnarson retorted, “Simple as that, eh? Might interfere with your plans, so we should turn back?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t do that.” His fingers, in deaf-mute signs, flashed a message to Mocker. “I’ve given my word.”
“I’ve tried to be reasonable. My Lady won’t tolerate disobedience.”
“Terrible. Hate to disappoint her.”
Mocker suddenly lunged, sword reaching.
A silvery filament lightninged from the old man’s hand, brushed Mocker’s cheek. The fat man collapsed. By then Ragnarson was moving in. The thread darted out again. Bragi tangled it on his blade, ripped it from the old man’s grasp, continued to bore in.
The sorcerer sprang straight up and disappeared in the mists overhead. Bragi, mystified, tried a few desultory sword swipes that got no result, then knelt to check Mocker’s pulse.
A shimmering, sparkling dust drifted down upon him. When the first scintillating flakelet touched his skin, he tumbled across his friend.
SEVEN: Into Kavelin
I) High sorcery
Ragnarson woke with a headache like that memorializing a week-long drunk. The demoniac whispering of his dream-haunts resolved themselves into the mutterings of Mocker.
Their cell was a classic, even to slimy stone walls. Beyond the rusty-barred door stood the winged thing, dog-teeth bared, a glowing dagger in hand. Other creatures stirred behind it, squat things heavily clothed, with faces like owls. The winged man opened the door.
Six owl-faces pounced on Mocker, bound him before Bragi reacted. Bellowing like a thwarted bull in rut, ignoring the agony in his head, he grabbed two, smashed them together, then used his fists on their faces. A neck went snap! He lifted the second overhead, hurled it skull-first against the floor.
A tide of weird creatures washed in. He went down. In moments he was trussed and being carried away. He tried counting turns and steps, but it was hopeless. Not only did his head hurt too much, his captors kept jabbing him in retribution for his attack.
They reached a vast room. It might have been the onewhere he and Mocker had been received, with the mists removed. It was huge. Every fixture was black. The monsters dumped him onto a stone table. He heard voices. Forcing his head around, he saw the old man arguing with the woman in the mists.. The old man suddenly slumped in defeat.
The mist-woman faded. The man turned, selected a bronze dagger from a collection on a table, faced Ragnarson, raised his arms, began to chant.
Ragnarson noticed a pentagram chalked on the floor. A conjuration! He and Mocker were to be delivered to some Thing from Outside. He struggled against his bonds. The porters ignored him, nervously concentrated on their master.
A darkness animate became pregnant and gave birth to itself in the pentagram. The sorcerer stopped singing. Sighs escaped the creatures around Ragnarson.
Bragi snouted, hoping to disturb the wizard. It did no good. Furious with frustration, because his bonds would not yield, he performed the only act of defiance left him. He spit in the eye of one of the owl-faces.
It jumped as if hornet-stung, staggered, flailed its arms.
One crossed the barrier of the pentagram.
It withered swiftly, blackened. The creature screamed in soul-deep terror. The sorcerer tried to pull it out, then to chant the demon down. ‘Too late. The owl-face was lost. The darkness in the pentagram gradually sucked it in.
The remainder of the old man’s servants fled, shrieking. Their rush washed against and overturned the table where Bragi lay. He hit the floor hard, groaned, found one hand had been wrenched free. And not five feet away lay the sorcerer’s dagger, that he had dropped when he had tried to save his servant. Bragi slithered to the blade, cut his bonds, then did likewise for a Mocker whose eyes were wide with terror.
A finger of blackness began to leak from the pentagram where the owl-face had broken its barrier.
The old man had disappeared again.
Staggering weak, Bragi and Mocker prepared to pursue his example. Mocker’s gaze fell on a table wheretheir weapons lay. He moved to get them. His fat man’s run would have been amusing in other circumstances. He passed perilously near the pentagram, but the darkness within remained preoccupied with its victim.
It finished with the owl-face as Bragi and Mocker considered how best to escape, began slithering from the pentagram, writhing like a cat getting through a small hole.
“Self,” said Mocker, “am of opinion any place elsewhere is better than here.”
“Where’s here?” Ragnarson asked. “Maybe I could figure where I’m going if I knew where I’m starting.”
“Friend Bear doesn’t want to know,” Mocker replied.
“Bullfeathers. If you know, tell me.”
Mocker shrugged. “Are in small quill of Shinsan poked through cloth of universe into Ruderin. Are in two places at same time, Ruderin valley and small frontier castle in Pillars of Ivory on Shinsan border with Sendelin Steppe. Could be long walk home if luck turns bad.”
“Turns bad?” Ragnarson snorted. “Can’t be worse than it is.” The darkness still confined had grown visibly smaller. “I vote we walk while we talk.”
The darkness chose that moment to strike. They managed to evade it
and flee.
The flight was an eon of fear, of oxygen-starved lungs and already punished muscles refusing to be tortured more but going on all the same. Always close behind was a snakelike black tendril.
Something came hurtling at them. Ragnarson grabbed it, Mocker stabbed it, and together they sacrificed it to the tendril. Only after the darkness began surrounding it did they see that it was another of the old sorcerer’s servants.
Chance eventually brought them back to the point where their flight had begun. The demon had evacuated the chamber completely. The uproar it had caused echoed from corridors opening on the room.
Feeling momentarily secure, Ragnarson prowled round the throne. “Hey,” he said suddenly. “I think I’ve found a way out.” He had noticed that, from a certain angle, he could vaguely discern a rectangle of darkness that obscured the black pillars and walls behind it. Itseemed the same size as the curtain they had plunged into getting here.
“Self, would be grateful for same,” said Mocker. “Magic binding two localities together is unraveling.”
For some time there had been a gentle trembling in the floor. Ragnarson hadn’t paid it any heed, thinking it the demon rumbling around. “What if?...”
“If fool-headed venturers don’t find exit, then long walk home from Shinsan for same,” Mocker replied.
“Here, then. Looks like the way we came in.” He ran at the rectangle. The whirling, kaleidoscopic sensations returned. After a stench-filled eternity he stepped into the corridor where they had originally been entrapped. Mocker appeared an instant behind him.
They were still trapped.
“Make yourself comfortable,” said Ragnarson, sitting with his back to a wall and his sword across his lap. “I’m not going back through that.”
“Self, would prefer dying in west, too,” said Mocker. “Though in Ruderin back country of own stupidity? Not even battle to end heroic life with heroic death, lots of witnesses to final bravery? Woe!”
Stone grumbled around them. Dust fell from the ceiling.
“Sounds bad,” said Ragnarson.
“Crushed to death. Ignominious end for great mind. Am fool. Friend should have pointed out same, dragged fat idiot to camp kicking and screaming if needful.”
“Is the light getting weaker?”
“Verity. Magicks devolving. Portal to Shinsan weak-ening also.”
Indeed it was, getting fluttery around the edges and occasionally showing a swift-running shot of color.
“Maybe we can get out. If the place don’t fall down first.”
“Maybe so.”
The curtain winked out of existence. They found themselves staring into the startled faces of several mercenaries. “Ghosts!” one cried.
“Boo!” said Mocker, then cackled madly. “Out of way. Everybody’s out of way before very important head, headof self, gets mashed by falling castle.”
Fifteen minutes later they were astride their mounts, atop a hill, watching the castle collapse. Fogs of darkness engulfed its base, darkness untouched by the morning sun. A plume of that blackness, like smoke, rose against the dawn and bent its head eastward. The destruction proceeded in unnatural silence.
“Going home,” said Mocker.
“We’ll hear from them again,” Ragnarson replied.
Tarlson and Blackfang, who had been working round the rim of the valley, arrived. “You’re lucky I mentioned the castle to the guide,” said Eanred. “He said there wasn’t any such place, so I scared up a rescue party.”
“I’m grateful,” said Ragnarson.
They talked at some length. When Ragnarson mentioned the winged man, Tarlson grew silent and withdrawn.
II) Passage to Ravelin
The march to the Altean ferry was disconcerting. A regiment of Anstokin infantry paced them along the Ruderin border, making no overt moves but slowing their progress by forcing them to remain battle-ready. Crossing the River Scarlotti while Anstokin’s force maneuvered nearby was a laborious business that took two days.
Tarlson grew jumpy as a cat. Still there were no messages from Kavelin, just rumors relayed by Altean officers. Those were not good. Skirmishing had broken out all over the kingdom. The Queen still held Vorgreberg, but the populace were being whipped up by a dozen propagandists.’ Lord Breitbarth, a cousin of the dead King and the strongest pretender, was assembling a major force at Damhorst, near the Kavelin-Altean border, where Ragnarson was expected to cross. Damhorst lay on the great eastern trade route, which linked Vorgreberg with the Altean capital and the coastal city-kingdoms.
Ragnarson, too, grew concerned at the paucity of news. He had expected to hear from Haroun by now. All he knew was what he had coaxed from the Alteans. One went so far as to loan him a map of the border country, a violation of his orders. Though Kendel, Ruderin, and Altea covertly supported bin Yousif’s scheme, openly none could do more than grant passage to mercenaries. There was a point, Ragnarson saw while studying the map, where the borders of Anstokin, Volstokin, Kavelin and Altea all came together. It was hilly country, almost without roads.
“What I’m thinking about,” said Ragnarson, meeting with Blackfang, Kildragon, and Tarlson, “is following the highway to this town, Staake, so it looks like I’m committed to it. Then I’ll abandon the wagons, make a night march north, and enter Kavelin through the hills above this Lake Berberich. I’ll swing around and take Breitbarth in the flank. Assuming he’s surprised. Mocker’11 let us know.”
Mocker had vanished at the ferry.
Tarlson paced, mumbled, shook his head. “Your men are green. They won’t stand up to it.”
“Maybe not. Now’s a good time to find out. I’ve never had much use for positional warfare.”
“Bin Yousif’s influence.”
Bragi studied Tarlson thoughtfully. How much did he know? Or suspect? ‘“Possibly. I’ve followed his career.”
“As you said when we met, it’s your command. I’ll help any way I can.”
“What I want is guides. Scouts. Woodsmen for outrunners.”
“That’s Marena Dimura country. They’re touchy-people. They could go either way.”
“How do they stand on Breitbarth?”
“They’d like his head. He hunts them like animals.”
“Lesser of two evils, then. Ride over and sign them up. Promise them Breitbarth if we catch him.”
“A noble? You’d buy those savages with the life of a noble?”
“J ust another man to me.” He was puzzled by Tarlson’sincredulity. Eanred didn’t hold the Nordmen in high esteem. “I’m not one of your Kaveliner chevaliers. War’s serious business. I fight to win.”
“But you’ll unite the Nordmen against you.”
“They’re unanimous already: the Queen, my employer, has to go. They’re all against me anyway.” He felt like saying more, but held his tongue. They might be enemies some day.
“All right. I’ll go.”
Reliable news awaited them at Staake, little of it good. None had come before because Baron Breitbarth had intercepted all the messengers. But one of Tarlson’s men finally reached Ragnarson.
Breitbarth had convinced several barons that dispos-ing of Ragnarson was the chief business at hand. He had gathered twenty-two hundred men at Damhorst. Further, his claim to Kavelin’s crown had been recognized by Volstokin, which threatened intercession. There were rumors of a pact between Breitbarth and Volstokin’s King. And, grimmest news of all, Breitbarth had seized the money meant for Ragnarson’s mercenaries.
From Vorgreberg the news was better. The Queen’s Own had remained loyal, and the Queen herself had managed to still unrest by going to the people in the streets. But bands of partisans had begun raiding in the country.
And there was a letter from Haroun, that came to him he knew not how. It appeared in his tent while he was out.
It covered the same information, in greater detail, and said more about Volstokin.
Not only had King Vodicka made an agreement with Breitbarth, he h
ad made another with El Murid. After the dust had settled and Breitbarth had been crowned, Volstokin, with aid from El Murid, would occupy Kavelin...
After reflection, Bragi called Blackfang. “Make sure there’s plenty of wood for the watchfires. I want them kept burning all night.” The Kavelin border was just two miles away, and Damhorst only ten beyond. If his ruse were detected, Breitbarth would soon know. He needed every minute.
III) Saltimbanco
Moonrise came early, just after nightfall, but it was little help, being a barely visible slice.
“Has Tarlson shown yet?” he asked. He had Alteans to lead him to the border, but after that he would be on his own. Unless Tarlson turned up.
He didn’t. They had to start. It took four hours to reach the border, every minute of which Ragnarson grew more worried. The men performed well enough, moving excitedly but quietly. For them it was still an adventure.
Tarlson met them at the border. “They’ll help,” he said, sounding surprised. “Didn’t have to promise anything. Said our victory would be reward enough.”
“Uhm.” Bragi thought he sensed the touch of Haroun. What had bin Yousif promised?
“But we’ve got a problem. Two thousand Volstokiners are camped just north of here, right over their border. Rumor is they’ll move to support Breitbarth if he needs it.”
Ragnarson wondered if he were entering a trap.
As the night waned, his patrols reached Lake Berberich. Going slowed because of heavy fog. He didn’t know whether to curse or praise it. It slowed him, but concealed him.
A Marena Dimura runner, badly winded, came sprinting up the column. Tarlson translated.
“Volstokin’s moving. Their vanguard’s only a mile behind us...”
Could an oddly dressed, short fat man on a donkey, remarkable for his inability to handle any language properly, slide unnoticed through a hundred miles of Altean farmlands, cross a heavily patrolled border, penetrate forty miles of soldier-dense Kavelin, then appear as if by magic on the cavern route from Vorgreberg to the west? Mocker had his doubts. But also his years of experience. He dropped out of sight at the