“Oh, this is surely Hell,” cried von Bek, “and these are the souls of the damned!”
The faces flowed up into the sky, turning into great metal blades in the form of fern leaves.
And still we made our way slowly along the shadow path. I forced myself to think only of our goal, of the Dragon Sword which could take the Eldren women to their homeland, which must not be allowed to fall into the hands of Chaos. I wondered what means Sharadim would use in trying to defeat us. For how long could she maintain a semblance of life in that corpse, my doppelgänger?
A wind howled through the metallic leaves. They clashed and jangled and set my teeth on edge. They offered us no direct danger, however. Chaos was not in herself malevolent. But her ambitions were inimical to the desires of both human and Eldren as well as all the other races of the multiverse.
Once, in that iron jungle, I thought I saw figures moving parallel to us. I lifted the Actorios. It could easily detect creatures of ordinary flesh and blood. But if someone had been trailing us, they were now too far away for the stone to find them.
In seconds the ferns became frozen snakes; then the snakes came to life. Next the living snakes began to devour one another. All around us was a great swaying and writhing and hissing. It was as if a tangled hedge of serpents lined both sides of the shadow path. I held tight to Alisaard’s trembling hand. “Remember, they will not attack us unless directed. They are hardly real.”
But though I reassured her, I knew that any of Chaos’s illusions were real enough to do harm in the short span of their existence.
But now the snakes had become country brambles and our path was a sandy lane leading towards the distant sea.
I began to feel a little more optimistic, in spite of knowing how false my security was, and had begun to whistle when I rounded a turn in the path and saw that our way was blocked by a mass of riders. At their head our old enemy Baron Captain Armiad of the Frowning Shield. His features had become even more bestial in the time since we had last seen him. His nostrils had widened so much that they now resembled the snout of a pig. There were tufts of hair sprouting from his face and neck and when he spoke I was reminded of the lowing of a cow.
These were Sharadim’s retainers. The same we had left behind when we dashed for the gateway into this realm. Evidently they had lost no time in following us.
We were still without weapons. We could not fight them. The bramble hedges were solid enough and blocked flight in that direction. If we wished to flee, we would have to run back the way we had come. And we would easily be ridden down by the horsemen.
“Where’s your mistress, Baron Porker?” I called, standing my ground. “Was she too cowardly to enter Chaos herself?”
Armiad’s already narrow eyes came closer together still. He grunted and sniffed. His nose and eyes seemed permanently wet.
“The Empress Sharadim has more important business than to chase after vermin when there is the greatest prey of all to hand.”
Armiad’s remark was greeted appreciatively by his fellows who gave forth a great chorus of snorts and grunts. All of them had faces and bodies transformed by their espousal of Chaos’s cause. I wondered if they had noticed these changes or if their brains were warped as thoroughly as their physical appearance. I could barely recognise some of them. Duke Perichost’s thin, unpleasant face now bore a distinct resemblance to a starved hamster. I wondered how long, in relative time, they had been here.
“And what’s the greatest prey of all?” von Bek asked him. Again we were talking in the hope that the next change in the landscape would be to our advantage.
“You know what it is!” shouted Armiad, his snout twitching with rage and turning red. “For you seek it yourself. You must do. You cannot deny it!”
“But do you know what it is, Baron Captain Armiad?” said Alisaard. “Has the Empress allowed you into her confidence? It seems unlikely when the last time she spoke of you she complained that you were poor material for her purposes. She said you would be disposed of when your turn was served. Is it served now, do you think, Lord Baron Captain? Or have you been given what you most desired? Are you respected by your peers at last? Do they cheer their King Admiral whenever his hull passes by? Or are they silent, because the Frowning Shield is as filthy and disgusting as ever, but is now one of the last hulls still rolling in the Maaschanheem?”
She mocked him. She goaded him. And all the time she was testing him. I could see that she was finding out what Sharadim’s instructions had been. And it was becoming plain, from Armiad’s restraint, that he had been ordered to take us alive.
His tiny eyes glared Murder, but his hands twitched on his saddle horn.
He was about to speak when von Bek broke in. “You are a foolish, stupid, greedy man, Baron Captain. Can you not see that she has rid herself of unwanted allies? She sends you into Chaos. Meanwhile she continues her conquest of the Six Realms. Where is she now? Fighting the Eldren women? Wiping out the Red Weepers?”
Now Armiad lifted a triumphant snout and voiced something close to laughter. “What need has she to fight the Eldren? They are gone. They are all gone from Gheestenheem. They have fled before our navies. Gheestenheem is absolutely ours!”
Alisaard believed him. It was plain he did not lie. White and trembling she yet controlled herself. “Where have they fled? There is nowhere, surely, they could go.”
“Where else but to sanctuary with their ancient allies? They have gone into Adelstane and crouch with the Ursine Princes behind their defences while my Empress’s army lays siege. Their defeat is inevitable. A few fight on, with the pirates of my own realm, but most huddle in Adelstane awaiting slaughter.”
“They have used the gateway between Barobanay and the Ursine stronghold,” murmured Alisaard. “It is their only possible strategy against such forces as Sharadim commands.”
Again Baron Captain Armiad lifted his snout in a kind of laugh. “Conquest has been swift across all the Six Realms. For years my lady made her plans. And when the time came to put them into action, how wonderfully she was able to achieve her ambitions.”
“Only because few rational people can ever begin to understand such a lust for power,” said von Bek feelingly. “There is nothing more puerile than the mind of a tyrant.”
“And nothing more frightening,” I added under my breath.
The bramble hedges began to curl upwards, forming spirals of gauze in a thousand colours.
Without a word, Alisaard, von Bek and myself dived from the path and into the tangle of rustling linen while at our backs charged the yelling, clumsy pack, made clumsier still by the grotesque distortions of their bodies. Yet they were mounted and had the advantage of us.
We had lost the shadow path. We darted from one piece of cover to the next. Baron Captain Armiad and his companions blundered in pursuit, hooting and bellowing. It was as if we were chased by a pack of farmyard beasts.
There was nothing comical, however, about our terror. All we had was an idea that Sharadim had ordered us taken alive, but in their blind stupidity these creatures might easily kill us by accident!
Desperately I sought for another shadow trail, holding the Actorios out before me.
The streamers of gauze became great fountains of water, shooting high into the sky. It was between these that we now ducked and dodged. Then Duke Perichost had sighted Alisaard and with a triumphant snort had drawn his sword and was bearing down on her. I saw von Bek turn and try to reach her. But I was closer. I flung myself upwards, grasping the Draachenheemer’s wrist and twisting the sword from a hand which now more closely resembled a paw. Alisaard dropped down and picked up the blade even as I threw my whole weight against the duke and forced him off the horse and onto the ground.
“Von Bek!” I cried. “Into the saddle, man.” I thrust the Actorios upon Alisaard who took it, looking baffled. Now more of the Chaos creatures had sighted us and were charging in crowded formation towards us.
Von Bek swung up and helped Alisaar
d seat herself behind him. I ran for a while beside the horse, yelling for them to go ahead of me and try to find a new trail. I would do my best to find them.
Then I was turning to face the charge of a Mabden barbarian whose lance was aimed directly at my groin. I sidestepped the lance and grasped the haft, dragging it down and to the right, hoping the Mabden was fool enough to hang on to it.
He came off the saddle as smoothly as if it had been greased. And now I had his lance.
In seconds I had taken the barbarian’s place on the horse and was riding after my friends. Both von Bek and myself were more proficient horsemen than the warriors who came in our wake. Darting in and out of the great fountains we gradually escaped Baron Captain Armiad and his pack. Then another reflecting wall came between us and them. We dimly saw them on the other side. There was no particular reason for the wall to compose itself at that particular point. It was merely a random whim of Chaos. But it proved lucky for us as, sweating, we slowed our pace.
I saw von Bek turn in his saddle and kiss Alisaard. She responded enthusiastically to this. She flung her arms around him, the Actorios stone clutched in one beautiful hand.
And it was Ermizhad who kissed my friend. It was Ermizhad who betrayed me. The only betrayal I had thought impossible!
Now I knew for certain it was she. All along she had deceived me. I had slain whole peoples because of my love for her. I had fought in a thousand wars. And this was how she returned my loyalty?
What was worse, von Bek, whom I had believed a comrade, had no scruples in the matter. They flaunted themselves. Their embraces mocked everything I held dear. How could I have trusted them?
I knew then that I had no choice but to punish them for the pain they now caused me.
Steadying my horse, I lifted up the lance I had taken from the Mabden. I weighed it in my hand. I was skilled in the use of such weapons and knew that one single cast could pierce the pair of them, uniting them in death. A fair reward for their treachery.
“Ermizhad! How is it possible!”
Now my arm went back as I prepared to throw. I saw von Bek’s cowardly eyes grow big with disbelieving horror. I saw Ermizhad begin to turn, following the direction of his gaze.
I laughed at them.
My laughter found an echo. It seemed to fill the whole realm.
Von Bek was shouting. Ermizhad was shouting. Doubtless they were pleading for mercy. I would give them none. The laughter grew louder and louder. It was not merely my own laughter I heard. There was another voice.
I hesitated.
A tiny shout came from von Bek. “Herr Daker! Are you possessed? What is it?”
I ignored him. I had come to realise how he had tricked me, how he had deliberately courted my friendship, knowing that he was to keep a liaison with my wife. And had Ermizhad helped him plan the deception? It followed logically that she had. How had I failed to guess all this? My mind had been clouded by other, less important issues. I had no need of a Dragon Sword. I had no loyalty to the Six Realms. Why should I let myself be distracted by these problems when my own wife dishonoured me before my eyes?
I ceased to laugh at that point. I poised the lance for the throw.
And then I realised that the laughter was continuing. It was not my laughter.
I looked to one side and saw a man standing there. He wore long robes of black and dark blue. There was a familiarity about his face I could not place. He had the look of a wise, well-balanced statesman in middle years. Only his wild laughter denied this impression.
Now I knew that I looked upon the ruler of this realm, at the Archduke Balarizaaf himself.
And without thinking I flung the lance directly at his heart.
He continued to laugh, even as he looked down at the haft which protruded from his body.
“Oh, this is fine amusement,” he said at last. “So much more interesting, Sir Champion, than conquering worlds and enslaving nations, don’t you think?”
And I realised, just barely, that I was victim of this realm’s hallucinatory influences. I had almost killed my two best friends in my madness.
Then the Archduke Balarizaaf had vanished and Alisaard was crying out to me to look. With the Actorios she had found another shadow path, dimly visible ahead of us. But of still greater interest was the large brown hare which loped along it.
“We must follow it,” I said, even as I began to tremble in reaction to what I had almost done. “Remember what Sepiriz told us. The hare is our first link with the Sword.”
Von Bek offered me a wary glance. “Are you yourself again, my friend?”
“I hope so,” I told him. I was riding ahead now; riding after the hare which continued, with characteristic insouciance, to lead us along the shadow path.
Soon the track had narrowed and the horses were stumbling on loose rocks. I dismounted, leading my mount. Von Bek and Alisaard followed my example.
The hare appeared to wait patiently for us. Then it moved steadily on.
At last the beast stopped at a point where the trail appeared to go through solid rock. We could see a wide valley below us, a river which looked as big as the Mississippi, a massive fortress seemingly all made of silver. Still dismounted, we approached the hare and the wall of rock. I reached out for the beast, but it hopped away from me. And then, quite suddenly, I was falling into blackness, falling through the melancholy emptiness of the cosmic void. And it seemed to me I heard Balarizaaf’s laughter again. Had we allowed ourselves to be trapped by the Archduke of Chaos, after all?
Were we consigned to limbo for all eternity?
2
I FELT THAT I had fallen for months, perhaps years, before I realised the sensation of movement was gone and I was on my feet on firm ground, though still in utter blackness.
A voice was calling to me: “John Daker, are you there?”
“I am here, von Bek, wherever here may be. And Alisaard?”
“With Count von Bek,” she said.
Gradually we managed to grope our way towards each other and link hands.
“What is this place?” von Bek wondered. “Some trap of the Archduke Balarizaaf’s?”
“Possibly,” I said, “though I was under the impression that the hare led us here.”
Von Bek began to laugh. “Aha, so like Alice we have fallen down a rabbit hole, yes?”
I smiled at this. Alisaard remained silent, plainly baffled by the reference. She said: “The realms of Chaos have many places where the fabric of the multiverse has worn thin, others where worlds intersect at random. They cannot be charted, as we chart our own gateways, yet sometimes they exist in one place for centuries. It could be that we have fallen through one of those gaps in the fabric. We could be anywhere in the entire multiverse…”
“Or nowhere, perhaps?” said von Bek.
“Or nowhere,” she agreed.
I still maintained the view that the hare had led us here intentionally. “We were told to find a cup, that the cup would lead us to the horned horse and the horned horse would lead us to the sword. I have faith in Sepiriz’s powers of prediction. I think we are here to find that cup.”
“Even if it were here,” von Bek argued, “we could hardly see it, could we, my friend?”
I bent down to touch the floor. It was damp. There was a mildewy smell about the place. As I ran my hand further I confirmed my guess that we stood on old, worn flagstones. “This is man-made,” I said. “And I would guess we are in an underground chamber of some sort. Which means there must be a wall. And in the wall, perhaps, we’ll find a door. Come,” and I led them slowly across the floor until at last my fingers found a slimy block of stone. The stuff was unpleasant to the touch, but I soon confirmed that this was, indeed, a wall. So we followed the wall, first to one corner, then to another. The chamber was about twenty feet wide. Set in the third wall was a wooden door with iron hinges and a huge old-fashioned lock. I took hold of the ring and turned it. Tumblers clicked with surprising smoothness. I tugged. There was l
ight beyond the door. Cautiously I pulled it open another inch or two and peered into a corridor.
The corridor had a low, curved ceiling and seemed as old as the chamber. Yet at intervals along it there ran what I recognised at once as ordinary twentieth-century light bulbs, strung on visible flexes, as if placed there for temporary use. The corridor ended on my right at another door, but on my left it stretched for some distance before turning a corner. I frowned. I was deeply puzzled.
“We seem to be in the dungeons of a medieval castle, “I whispered to von Bek, “yet there’s modern lighting. Take a look for yourself.”
After a moment he pulled his head back in and closed the door. I heard him breathing heavily, but he said nothing.
“What’s the matter?” I asked him.
“Nothing, my friend. A premonition, call it. We could be anywhere, I know, yet I have a feeling that I recognise that corridor. Which is, you’ll agree, unlikely. One such place is much like another. Well, shall we explore?”
“If you feel ready,” I said.
He uttered a faint laugh. “Of course. My mind’s somewhat disturbed by recent events, that’s all.”
And so we stepped into the corridor. We made a peculiar sight, Alisaard in her ivory armour, myself in the heavy leather of a marsh warrior and von Bek in his imitation twentieth-century costume. We proceeded cautiously until we reached the turn in the passage. The place seemed deserted, yet plainly was in use, judging by the lights. I peered up at the nearest bulb. They were of an unfamiliar pattern to me, yet clearly operated according to the usual principle.
We were so engrossed in exploring this corridor that we were too late to look for cover when one of the doors opened and a man stepped out. We stood there, ready to challenge him as best we could. Although there was a faint imprecision to his form, he seemed solid enough. The sight of his costume was, moreover, enough to shock me, and as for von Bek, the man gasped aloud.