II

 

 

Hego’s self-control broke. He gave a low shuddering moan, and could be heard to shuffle his feet backwards on the floor. Only his intense determination not to show such weakness prevented Kazan from doing the same, but he had to clench his teeth together so tightly that his jaw muscles ached. The rigid cuffs linking his wrists prevented him clasping his hands. He could only drive his nails hard into his palms.

He had thought he knew darkness. But the thing which had appeared in the circle of blue light was absolutely black except for the ember glow of the eyes—if they were eyes; they had neither iris nor pupil, and only the way they turned this way and that suggested that the thing looked out of them. Kazan stared at them greedily. To look anywhere else on that black form was to feel that the soul within him was being sucked out by the totality of the darkness, like air pouring into the vacuum of space.

The voice that came from the blackness was vast and sighing with an overtone of agony, like a gale piping on mountains, a noise that made Kazan shiver and shiver and shiver. At its sound, even Bryda flinched back, although the conjurer sat calm on his cushions.

“What world is this?” the awful voice inquired.

The conjurer, as though prepared for the question, reeled off something Kazan could not follow; he assumed it to be a charm and hoped it was a very strong one. He had never before seen a spirit evoked; although the Dyasthala was full of cheating witches and wizards who played on the superstition of wealthy customers, he knew how most of their tricks were worked and took the rest to be trickery also. But not this.

He felt ice cold, and yet sweat was trickling into his eyes.

“And what do you want with me?” the thing said then.

The conjurer looked at Bryda and indicated that she should speak. Uncertain, she licked her lips. The first time she tried to address the thing, her voice was a whisper; she broke off, swallowed hard and swelled her shapely bosom with a deep breath.

“I am the Lady Bryda,” she said. “Until four years ago my—lover—Prince Luth was ruler of this land of Berak. Foreigners in league with the traders from space had taken the land over piecemeal; at last they grew so bold they dethroned the prince and set up a usurping government. They did not dare to kill the prince outright, but they hold him captive.”

Kazan was beginning to make sense, if not of the thing in the circle, at least of Bryda’s motives. But where did he come into her plan? He did not want to think of that.

“If he could be freed,” Bryda said, “the people would rise and restore him to power.”

For all its inhuman quality, Kazan thought that the thing’s voice matched well with its master’s faintly bored expression when it spoke again. It said, “Did the people desire his return so strongly, they would have released him.”

Kazan reflected that this business was of small interest to the people of the Dyasthala. Who governed them mattered little; what counted was that they were always governed, never governors. Hence they were opposed to Prince Luth, or anyone else, and would not lift a finger to aid him.

“Many attempts have been made,” Bryda said in a subdued tone. “But understand: he is held in a fortress in the middle of a mile-wide lake of sour water, where savage carnivorous monsters dwell. A small boat cannot cross the lake; its crew would be spilled into the water by these creatures, and devoured. We have no way of getting a great boat to the lake, and in any case there are two heavily armed boats that patrol the lake continually, as well as the armed ferry which links the fortress and the mainland. We have considered tunneling, but the lake is too deep; we have considered flying, but there is no place to set down. The fortress completely covers the rocky island on which it is built, and there are rocket stands on the roofs. Yet we can see him at the open window of his apartment, and signal to him.”

“And you wish him to be released,” the thing said.

“Yes,” Bryda said.

“It can be done,” the thing sent on, as though ignoring her. “It can be done at once.”

Bryda did not relax. She looked at Yarco, who sat with his face shiny with sweat and his lips pressed close together. Not turning to the thing again, she said in a barely audible voice, “For what price?”

“There is only one price,” the thing said. “Service for a year and a day.”

What could that terrifying voice mean by service? What could a black thing with eyes like coals want of a human being? Kazan’s blood thundered in his ears, and forgetful of his hobble he tried to get to his feet.

“He will serve you,” he heard Bryda say, and knew she was pointing towards him. Somehow, though, he could see nothing. Except a swimming pattern of dots which seemed to be inside his eyes. He felt himself seized and held, most likely by Hego, because the hands that closed on his arms were slippery—wet with the sweat of pure fear.

“It’s gone,” Yarco said wonderingly.

Then the conjurer’s voice, “I must pass the ring over him. Free him, you!”

For a moment the grip on his arms ended. Something cold touched his nape—metal. The ring! He tried frantically to duck underneath it and escape, but it was let fall. He flung out his arms, but it was too wide to catch, and like the knell of doom he heard it clang as it struck the floor at his feet.

Then he fainted.

 

He was lying on his back, his mouth slackly open. A taste of something warm and sweet invited him to swallow, and he did. Passive, he let the fluid run down his throat.

Memory seemed to trickle back with it. When the flow ended he opened his eyes. He was on a padded couch against the wall of the same room. A wheeled trolley stood next to the couch, with a steaming tureen on it. Yarco was ladling the contents into a spouted jug. It was that spout which had come between his teeth, Kazan decided.

Yarco’s hand was shaking so badly that the ladle clinked against the jug each time he lifted it, and his face was as shiny as it had been when the thing was present. But he went on methodically with what he was doing.

“I suppose the others were afraid,” Kazan said. He licked his lips.

Startled, Yarco almost dropped both jug and ladle. He said, “I—yes, I guess they are.”

“And you?”

“I don’t believe in being afraid,” Yarco said. “We are at the mercy of the stars. If I am to be killed by a man possessed of a devil, it’s the decree of the wyrds and I can’t change it. Meantime, possessed or not, you seemed to have fainted with hunger. Do you want more of this?”

Kazan sat up, wondering at the calmness in his mind. He took the full jug from Yarco and drained it. Yarco stood watching, his face relaxing from tension to puzzlement.

He said at last, “You’re all right?”

Kazan nodded. He stretched his arms out and flexed them. “Did you take off my manacles?” he asked.

“I did. For the same reason. Moreover, the thing which was called up seemed powerful, and you were pledged to it, and it would be well to attend to your needs.” He hesitated, and then put the question that had clearly been itching in his mind.

“Do I speak to Kazan, or to the thing?”

For a moment Kazan was startled. Then the words made sense, and he realized that he might have asked the same of himself.

“How can I answer?” he said. “I feel like Kazan, I think-no, I think I think like Kazan.”

Abruptly he leaped from the couch. He took a pace away from it and planted his feet together on the floor. His face went pale as death, and he began to shake from head to foot.

“For the love of life!” he forced between his teeth. “What have you done to me? What have you done to me?”

Accusing, his eyes sought Yarco’s. The stout man met his gaze unflinchingly, and after a moment gave a sorrowful shake of the head.

Behind Kazan there were footsteps on the stairs leading from the upper story. Not changing the direction of his gaze, Yarco said, “He has not harmed me. Nor will he. You may come here.”

It was Bryda. Her face showed the ravages of tiredness when she moved into Kazan’s field of view, but her eyes were keen and searched his face eagerly.

Under her breath she said, “To think that this—this ragged wretch will be his salvation and mine.” And then more sharply to Yarco, “What’s to be done? Have you learned yet?”

“Did the conjurer say nothing?” Yarco countered, sounding puzzled.

“No! He said that the—the devil, if it was a devil, had entered into him and would know what needed to be done.” A flash of dark suspicion crossed her face. “If he should try to trick us—!”

“What will you do?” Yarco broke in. “He’s powerful—not one of these rune-casters and gibberers. I have not seen a devil before,” he added in a lower tone.

Bryda shot out her hand and swung the unresisting Kazan to face her. She said, “What’s to be done? How do we rescue the prince?”

Eyes haunted, Kazan returned her gaze. The unnatural calm which he had felt on waking from his faint was gradually returning. Yet in a detached way he was still frightened. To himself, the strange episode of the thing in the circle felt like a nightmare—unreal, and over now. But this was impossible, for here Yarco and the Lady Bryda were speaking of it as a reality.

“If you don’t speak,” Bryda spat at him, “I’ll send for Hego and make him beat you till you do!”

“Hego won’t come,” Yarco said. “It will be days before he can recover his wits.”

Bryda, a prince’s mistress, waiting for his word. His! Kazan’s. Who spoke of devils? Were a man to be filled with a devil, he would know it for sure! And here he was, himself, thinking like himself, talking like himself—Kazan, the waif of the Dyasthala, self-taught thief, hungry, despised. With the calm, a cunning thought was entering his mind. Why not, for a while at least, make the pretense? Why not make Bryda for all her rank and airs squirm on his hook? He turned the idea over, as it were to taste it, and it tasted as sweet as honey.

He gave a little crooked smile. He said, “Of course I know what must be done. But I’m a ragged wretch, Lady Bryda. I’m a starving wretch, too. You get nothing without paying for it, Lady Bryda, not unless you’re a thief like me. You’ve tried it, and you’ve failed. You’ve got to pay. You don’t like it, do you? But that’s the risk you run if you take without asking.”

He threw his hand out in front of him, palm up, not in the beggar’s gesture, but as a merchant would wait for payment.