The street below was deserted now. They jumped down to it and darted into the shadows on the other side. Slipping along the walls of buildings they followed its twisting length for some time. An occasional cloaked form passed silently by; otherwise there was only the bitter wind echoing hollowly along the tunnel-like streets.
Of a sudden Alfric stiffened. He heard the measured tramp of feet—a city patrol approaching, just around the next corner. Whirling, he led the way into an alley black as a cave mouth. It was blind, but there was a door at the end, from behind which came the twanging of harps and the thin evil whine of desert flutes. A tavern—shelter, of a sort—
Moonlight glistened on steel as the half-dozen guardsmen passed the alley—passed, stopped, and turned back. “They may be here,” Alfric heard a voice.
Cursing under his breath, the northerner opened the door and stepped through, into a room barely lit by a few tapers, thick with smoke and the smell of unwashed bodies. Alfric’s nostrils quivered at the heavy sweet odor of shivash, and he noticed the floor covered with stupefied smokers. A little yellow man scurried back and forth, filling the pipes. At the farther end, with music and girls, were wine-drinkers, ragged men of ill aspect who looked up with hands on knives.
Freha slammed the bolt down behind them, and Alfric brandished his great sword and said to them all: “Show us a way out.”
A fist beat on the door, a voice shouted: “Open, in the name of the Holy Temple!”
“No way out,” gasped the landlord.
“There is always an exit to these dens,” snapped Freha. “Show us, or we split your skull.”
A man’s knife-hand moved with blurring speed. Alfric stopped the thrown dagger with his sword-blade in a clang of steel, caught it in midair, and hurled it back. The man screamed as it thunked into his belly.
“Out!” snarled the barbarian, and his glaive sang about the landlord’s ears.
“Here,” cried the little man, running toward the end of the room.
The door groaned as the guardsmen hurled themselves against it.
The landlord opened a concealed trapdoor. Only darkness was visible below. Alfric snatched a torch from the wall and saw a tunnel of dark stone. “Down!” he rapped, and Freha jumped. He followed, bolting the trap behind him. It was of heavy iron—the soldiers would have to work to break through it.
The tunnel stretched hollowly away on either side. Freha broke into a run and Alfric loped beside her, the torch streaming in one hand and the sword agleam in the other. Their footfalls echoed through the cold moist dark.
“What is this?” he asked.
“Old sewers—not used now when water is scarce—a warren under the city—” gasped Freha.
“We can hide here, then,” he panted.
“No—only the Temple knows all the passages—they’ll have slaves guarding every exit—we’ll be trapped unless we get out soon—”
Dim sky showed ahead, a hole with a rusted iron ladder leading up into it. Alfric doused his torch and swung noiselessly up the rungs to peer out.
The manhole opened into one of the ruinous abandoned districts, crumbling structures and shards of stone half buried by the drifting sand. Three guardsmen stood watching, spears at the ready. Otherwise there were only the moons and the wind and the silently watching stars.
Alfric’s lip twisted in a snarl. So—the holes were already plugged! But—wait, all egresses could not be guarded yet; best to go on in search of another—no, by the time the fugitives got there it might be watched too. Here there was as least an absence of people to interfere.
* * * *
He sprang out and rushed at the three, so swiftly that they were hardly aware of him before his blade was shrieking about them. One man tumbled with his head nearly sheared off. Another yelled, leaping back to thrust with his spear. Alfric dodged the jab, grabbed the shaft in one hand and pulled. The guardsman stumbled forward and Alfric’s sword rang on his helmet. He dropped, stunned by the fury of the blow.
The third was on Alfric like an angry jaccur. His spear-thrust furrowed along the barbarian’s ribs. Alfric closed in, grinning savagely in the cold white moonlight, and thrust with his sword. The guard parried the blow with his small buckler, dropped his spear, and drew his shortsword. Bending low, he rushed in, probing for Alfric’s guts, and the northerner skipped aside barely in time. The broadsword chopped down, through the guard’s left leg. Blood spurted, the man crashed to earth, and Alfric stabbed him through the face before he could scream.
The second was climbing dizzily to his feet. Alfric knocked the sword from a nerveless hand and brought his own blade against the guardsman’s throat. “Hold,” he said. “One word, one movement, and you’ll roll in the gutter with your comrades.”
Freha came up, the cloak blowing about her wonderful naked body in the wild wind. She was a fay sight under the moons, and the prisoner groaned as he saw her. “Lady—lady, forgive—”
“Forgive a traitor?” she asked, wrath sparking in her voice.
“Why are the priests after me?” rapped Alfric.
The guard stared. “Surely—surely you know—”
“I know nothing. Speak, if you want to remain a man.”
“The prophecy—the priests warned us about you, that you were the heathen conqueror of the prophecy…. Later they said that—” the guard’s desperate eyes turned to Freha. “They said you, your majesty—” His voice trailed off.
“Say on,” she snapped. “Give me the priests’ own words. By Dannos, they’ll all swing for this! I am still Empress of Valkarion!”
Alfric looked at her in sudden shock, as if he had been clubbed. Empress—the Empress of Valkarion—
“But—they said you were not, your majesty ... the Emperor is dead, he died soon after sundown—”
“As soon as I was gone, eh? A priest’s work, I am thinking. Someone will answer for that. Go on!”
“The High Priest sent word over the city. He told of the prophecy—we all knew of that, but he told it anew. But he said the heathen king could still be slain, and offered a thousand gildars to the man who did it.” The guard gulped. “Then he said you—forgive me, lady, you asked for his words—he said since the Dynasty was now dead, the Temple would rule till further arrangements could be made. But the Empress Hildaborg, half barbarian, idolatrous witch—those were his words, your majesty—she lay under the Temple’s ban. He said she was to be killed, or better captured, with the heathen stranger, with whom she would probably join forces. He put the most solemn curse of the Two Moons on anyone who should aid you and the man, or even fail to help hunt for you—” The guardsman sank to his knees, shaking. “Lady, forgive me! I have a family, I was afraid to refuse—”
“What of my Household troops?” she snapped.
“The priests sent a detachment of the city guards against them—a dreadful battle. The Household repelled the attack, but now they are besieged in the palace—”
“Little help there, then.” Hildaborg laughed mirthlessly. “All the city against us, and our only friends bottled in a ring of spears. You chose an unlucky time to enter Valkarion, Alfric.”
The barbarian’s head was spinning. “You are—the Empress,” he gasped, “and there’s some nonsense about me…. What is this prophecy? Why did you—” his voice, helpless with bewilderment, faded off into the moaning wind.
“No time now, someone may be along any moment…. Where to hide, where to hide?”
* * * *
Alfric’s eyes traveled down to the two bodies sprawled on the street. Suddenly he laughed, a harsh metallic bark. “Why, in the very lair of the foe!” he said. “As good citizens, it behooves us to join the hunt for the outlaws. Here is suitable clothing for us.”
She nodded, and fell at once to stripping the corpses. Alfric looked narrowly at the prisoner. “If you betray us—” he murmured.
“I won’t—by the Moons, I swear I won’t—”
“Indeed you won’t,” said Alfric, and lifted sword to cut him down.
Hildaborg sprang up and grabbed his arm. “That’s a barbarous trick,” she exclaimed angrily. “You need only bind and gag him, and hide him in one of these ruins.”
“Why worry about the life of a guardsman?” he asked contemptuously.
Her dark head lifted in pride. “I am Empress of the guardsmen too,” she said.
“As you like,” shrugged Alfric.
The captive turned a face of utter worship to the woman. “You must secure me,” he said, his voice shaking. “But when I am released, my body and soul are yours forever, my lady.”
Hildaborg smiled, and proceeded to cut strips of cloth and dispose of the guard as she had said. Then she turned to Alfric. “You are hard of heart,” she murmured, “but perhaps Valkarion needs one like you, strong and ruthless.” Her deep eyes glowed. “How you fought, Alfric! How you fought!”
The barbarian squatted down and began wiping blood off the looted armor. “I’ve had enough,” he growled. “I’ve been hoodwinked and hounded over the whole damned city, I’ve been thrown into a broil I never heard of, and now I want some truth. What is this prophecy? Why are you here? What does everyone want—” he laughed humorlessly—“besides our heads?”
“The prophecy—it is in the Book of the Sibyl, Alfric. It was made I know not how many thousands or tens of thousands of years ago, at the time of the Empire’s greatest glory. There was a half-mad priestess who chanted songs of ruin and desolation, which few believed—what could harm the Empire? But the songs were handed down through many generations by a few who had some faith, and slowly it was seen that the songs spoke truth. One thing came to pass after another, just as it was foretold. Then the songs were collected by the priesthood, who use the book to guide their policies.”
“Hmmmm—I wonder. I’ve no great faith in spaedom myself.”
“These prophecies are true, Alfric! Now and again they have erred, but I think that is simply because the songs had become garbled in the long time they were handed down without much belief. All too often, the future history in the Book has been written anew by time’s own pen.” Hildaborg slipped a guardsman’s tunic over her slim form. Her eyes were half-shut, dreaming. “They say the Sibyl was loved by Dannos, who gave her the gift of prophecy, and that Amaris jealously decreed she should foretell evil oftener than good. But a wise man at court, who had read much of the almost forgotten science of the ancients, told me he thought the prophecies could be explained rationally. He said sometimes the mind can slip forward along the—the world line, he called it, the body’s path through a space and time that are one space-time. Sometimes, he said, one can ‘remember’ the future. He said the Sibyl’s mind could have followed the world lines of her descendants too, thus traveling many ages ahead ... but be that as it may, she spaed truly, and her prophecy of tonight is of—you!”
The warrior shook his dark head, feeling a sudden eerie weight of destiny. “What was the tale?” he whispered. The wind whipped the words from his mouth and whirled them down the empty street.
* * * *
Hildaborg stood while he buckled the corselet on her, and her voice rose in a weird chant that sang raggedly across the ruined buildings, under the stars and the two flying moons. Even Alfric’s hardy soul was shaken by the ominous words, his hands trembling ever so faintly as he worked.
“Woe, woe to Dannos and to Amaris and to those who serve them, cry woe on Valkarion and the world! The Thirty-ninth Dynasty shall end on the night when Dannos weds again with Amaris; winds shall howl in the streets and bear away his soul. Childless shall the Emperor die, the Imperial line shall die with him, and a stranger shall sit in the high throne of Valkarion.
“He shall come riding alone and friendless, riding a gray hengist into Valkarion on the evening of that night. A heathen from the north is he, a worshipper of the wind and the stars, a storm which shall blow out the last guttering candles of the Empire. From the boundless wastes of the desert shall he ride, ruin and darkness in his train, and the last long night of the Empire will fall when he comes.
“Woe, Dannos, your temple will stand in flames when the heathen king is come! Woe, Mother Amaris, he will defile your holy altars and break them down! Gods themselves must die, their dust will whirl, on the breath of his wind-god, the last blood of the Empire will be swallowed by the thirsty desert.
“Woe, for the heathen night which falls! Woe, for the bitter gray dawn which follows! The Moons of the Empire have set, and an alien sun rides baleful over Valkarion.”
There was silence after that, save for the hooting of wind and the thin dry whisper of blowing sand. Dannos swung higher, a pale cold eye in the frosty heavens. Alfric clamped his teeth together and finished the disguise.
The armor and clothing were strained on his tall form, ill-fitting, but with the cloak draped over, and the helmet shadowing his face, he should pass muster. Under the cloak, across his back, he had his broadsword—these short southern stabbers were no good.
Hildaborg was better fitted. Slim and boyish in the shining steel, her long hair tucked under the crested helm, spear carried proudly erect, she seemed a young goddess of war. Alfric thought dizzily that no such woman had ever crossed even his dreams.
He hid the corpses in the ruins and they started down the street together. “We’ll try to work through the line of siege, into the palace,” he said. “Once we’re with your troops, something may still be done.”
“I doubt it. They are brave men, but few—few.” Her voice was bitter.
“If we can—” Alfric sank into thought for a while. Then suddenly he said: “Now I know why the priests are after me. But what of you? Where do you come into this picture?”
“I knew about the prophecy,” she replied. “Also, I knew what my fate was likely to be when Aureon died. The Temple and the Imperium, ostensibly the two pillars of the Empire, have long been struggling for power. Each side has its warriors and spies, its adherents among the nobles and commons—oh, the last several generations have been a weary tale of intrigue, murder, corruption, with first one side and now another on top. The Temple wants a figurehead Emperor, the Imperium wants a subservient priesthood—well, you know the story.”
“Aye. A sorry one. It should be ended with the sword. Wipe both miserable factions out and start anew.”
* * * *
She looked curiously at him. “So the Sibyl was not wrong,” she murmured. “The heathen come out of the north with destruction alike for the Empire and the gods.”
“Luigur take it, I don’t care about Valkarion! Not even enough to destroy it. I only want to save my own neck.” His hand stroked her arm, softly. “And yours. But go on.”
“The Thirty-ninth Dynasty was the last family with any pretensions to even a trace of the legendary Imperial blood, the line of Dannos himself. And Aureon was the last of them—his sons slain in war, himself an old man without relatives. The Imperial line had been weakening and dying for generations—inbred, enfeebled, degenerate, the blood of Dannos running thinner in each new birth. Aureon had sense enough to take a second wife of different stock—myself, princess of Choredon. Thereby he gained a valuable ally for Valkarion—but no children, and now he is dead.” Hildaborg sighed. “So the Imperium is gone, the Temple is the sole power, and a strong and unscrupling High Priest rules Valkarion. I think the Priest, Therokos, intends to proclaim Valkarion a theocracy with himself as the head. But first, for reasons of politics and personal hatred, he must get rid of me.”
“Why should he hate you?”
Hildaborg smiled twistedly. “He disapproves of barbarians, and my mother was from Valmannstad. He disapproves of my laxness in religious matters. He knows I stand between him and absolute power. I gave Aureon strength to oppose him and thwarted many of his measures. The commons think well of me, I have done what I could to improve their lot, and he hates any hold on Valkarion’s soul other than his own.
“I knew that with Aureon dead and no heir of the blood, Therokos would feel free to strike. I could not hope to match him for long, especially since the law is that no woman may rule in Valkarion. My one chance seemed to lie in the new conqueror who was to come. Yet I could not approach him openly—the Temple spies were everywhere, and anyway the prophecy was that he would be a destroying fury, worse perhaps than the priests. I had to sound him out first, and secretly.
“So I put a trustworthy guards-captain in charge of the gate today, with instructions to direct the stranger to the Falkh and Firedrake. The landlord there was paid to make sure you would stay, and would take the room where I was in my guise of tavern girl.
“So you came. But now it seems the priests were ware to my plan. They have acted swifter than I thought, striking instantly at my men—I expected at least a few days of truce. And I played into their hands by thus cutting myself off from all help. Now they need only hunt us down and kill us.”
“‘Twill take some doing,” growled Alfric. “Ha, we may yet pull their cursed temple down about their shaven skulls!”
“And so the prophecy would be fulfilled—you would blow out the last dim flicker of light—” She stopped, staring at him, and her voice came slowly: “Valkarion, the last citadel of civilization, the last hope of the dying world, to be wasted by a heathen bandit—perhaps the priests are right, Alfric of Aslak. Perhaps you should die.”
“Luigur take your damned prophecy!” he snarled.
* * * *
They stood tautly facing each other in the thin chill moonlight. The wind blew and blew, whining between the empty ruins of houses, blowing the dust of their erosion along the empty street.
“I know your old Imperial towns,” said Alfric savagely. “I’ve seen them, moldering shells, half the place deserted because the population has shrunk so far—wearily dreaming of a dead past, grubbing up the old works and sitting with noses buried in the old books, while robbers howl in the deserts and thieving politicians loot the treasury. Year by year, the towns crumble, bridges fall, canals dry up, people grow fewer—and nobody cares. A world is blowing away in red dust, and nobody stirs to help. By the winds of Ruho, it’s about time someone pulled down that tottering wreck you call Imperial civilization! It’s about time we forgot the past and started thinking—and doing—something about the present. The man who burns Valkarion will be doing the world a service!”
Silence, under the wind and the stars and the two moons marching toward their union. Hildaborg hefted her spear until the point gleamed near Alfric’s throat.
He sneered, out of bitterness and despair and a sudden longing for her lips. “Don’t try to stick me with that toy. You saw what happened to the guards.”
“And you would kill me?” Her voice was all at once desolate; she dropped the spearhead to the ground.
“No. But I would leave you—no, by the Holy Well, I wouldn’t. But I’d leave the damned city.” He stepped forward, laying his hands on her mailed shoulders, and his voice rang with sudden earnestness. “Hildaborg, that is your answer. No need to stay in this place of death. We can steal hengists and bluff our way past the gates and be in the hills ere dawn. If you fear for Valkarion at my hands, leave it—leave it to rot and come with me.”
“Come—where?”
“Home, back to Aslak. Back to the blue hills and the windy trees and the little lakes dancing in the sun—to an open heaven and a wide land and free folk who look you honestly in the eye. Luigur take the Empire, as he will whatever we do.” He laughed, a joyous sound echoing in the night. “We’ll build our own stead and live as freefolk and raise a dozen tall sons. Hildaborg, let’s go!”
For a moment she stood silent. When she spoke, her voice trembled a little, and the moonlight glinted off tears in her eyes.
“I love you for it, Alfric, and gladly would go. But Therokos is besieging the palace—he is gathering in all who ever spoke well of me ... shall my friends be hanged and burned and hacked to bits, and I safe in Aslak?”
“You’re a fool. What could you do for them?”
“Die. But this is no quarrel of yours, Alfric. If you wish, go, and I shall not think of the less of you. Go—my dearest—”
He laughed again, and kissed her for a very long moment. “You are a fool and a madwoman, and I love you for that,” he said. “Come—we can still show these priests the color of steel!”