THIRTY-THREE

 

 

As expected, rumors concerning the tenth level were not long in coming. This time it was easier for the rebels to frighten the crew, for they had something genuinely fearsome to work with.

Once again, I cursed my weakness in dealing with these mutineers. Even in irons awaiting death, Barthius was dangerous. We had rounded up his most ardent followers, but we’d clearly not taken them all. The remaining malcontents were more cautious in their actions, making them all that harder to find.

I did what I could; I talked to those who would listen. I set the Ahzir’s sailing date forward, hoping this would give them something to look forward to. I am not certain I made any converts. Those who wanted to listen to reason listened. The others, I am sure, ignored me. This new tenth level business did little to help matters. I had forbidden passage beyond the stairs leading to that place. But they knew what was there. Those who got a quick look at the golden sphere had much to tell their mates.

Thus, if there had ever been a chance to quell rebellion, I believe that chance had passed. Master Aldair had lied, had he not? He said there was nothing to fear in Amazon Keep— what else did this friend of demons have in store?

One morning, there was a crude drawing of myself on the outer wall. I had horns for ears and a wart on my snout. My tail was longer, with a wicked barb at its tip.

“At least, they do not defame Stygianns,” noted Rhalgorn. “I suppose they don’t dare to.”

“They don’t have to,” I said. “Stygianns look close enough to demons as it is.”

He thought about that. “Do you truly think so? It is something I had never considered.” Clearly, he was quite taken with the idea, and bored me with it the rest of the day.

 

It happened, as we knew it would, but not at all in the way we expected. Signar was certain they’d try for Barthius that day, as he was set for execution on the morrow. I agreed. We were wrong.

Showing themselves for the cowards they were, they made no effort to save their leader. Instead, they decided if they were still around after Barthius died, there were those among the crew who’d gladly have their heads--if I didn’t claim them first. Thus, they decided to turn double-traitor and make a profit in the bargain. All this I deduced through the great clarity of hindsight, when I learned the rebels had boarded the Ahzir al’Rhaz and were near to taking it from us.

“If one of those devils mars a plank on that ship I’ll have their ears for breakfast!” raged Signar. He bounded down the trail ahead of me like a great oak uprooted. The fur stood straight up on his back and his war-axe whistled above his head. Friend or foe, it seemed prudent to be at his heels for the moment.

We could hear the howl of battle, the ring-song of metal on metal. The dull brown of the river came to view, and there stood Rhalgorn, leaning comfortably on his sword.

“You are late, fat-fur,” he grinned. “It is near finished, and you’ll have no need to dent that cleaver of yours.”

“Finished?” Signar’s jaw fell in disappointment. He glanced at the Ahzir, which was moored quite close to shore now. In truth, there was little action aboard, though I heard a great deal of cursing and shouting going on.

“Well, by damn, we’re goin’ out there anyway,” growled the Vikonen. “All that fightin’ they likely broke something. Folks got no respect for a fine ship, and that’s for certain!”

Thareesh was the only one of us who’d been near enough to take part in the encounter, for it was indeed a short-lived battle. There was a bit of blood on the decks, and a few arrows stuck about. Otherwise, it seemed a bright and steamy afternoon on the River Amazon.

“We were lucky there were a few loyal warriors lazing about the shore,” said Thareesh, “or we’d have lost the ship for sure.”

Signar discovered there had been perhaps fourteen rebels involved—one being a guard on the ship. Three were killed and one wounded.

The others, appalled to find resistance pulling swiftly out from shore, fled the Ahzir in a longboat and took shelter on the farther bank.

“You goin’ after ‘em?” asked Signar. “They can’t have gotten far.”

“No,” I told him, “they are so eager to fight something, let them have a try at the wilderness out there. I do not think they’ll relish what they find.”

When Barthius heard of his followers’ betrayal, he howled and cursed and jerked at his irons until blood flowed from his wrists. The guards restrained him, tightening his chains so he could not thrash about. “You must not injure yourself,” they told him, “for the rope awaits you in the morning.” These were Vikonen from the cold lands beyond Vhiborg, and it is their belief that it is extremely bad luck to hang a creature who is not in good health.

Sha’diir and the others said nothing. There was neither hope nor rebellion in them now. Their eyes already mirrored the flat, gray luster of death.

 

“Damned if I’ve ever enjoyed a swallow of ale more’n that one!” shouted Signar-Haldring.

“If that’s a swallow, then I’m a hare in a hollow,” said Rhalgorn, spilling most of his cup on his pelt. Signar laughed and near fell out of his chair. It was a sound measure of how much they’d had to drink, if these two found each other amusing.

“A toast!” cried Thareesh, “to Aldair!”

“To Aldair!” echoed the others.

I laughed, and raised my drink to theirs.

 

“You do not have to leave,” she told me. “I can find my way alone.”

“They will never miss us,” I grinned.

“From the sound of things they’ll go on into the dawn, or till the kegs go dry.” She stopped then, and her hand was suddenly cold in mine. “Corysia? What’s wrong?” From the far end of the hall I heard Signar’s deep-throated laughter.

“Nothing, She turned away, dropping my hand. “As you said, until the dawn. And then—I am not a warrior, Aldair, I cannot enjoy good company and think about the morrow at the same time.”

“Barthius and the others.”

She nodded. “I know it has to be.”

“It does, Corysia.”

“But I do not have to enjoy it.”

“None of us will enjoy it. But if it didn’t end this way, it would end in another. They would see us all on the gallows-- or worse.”

“I know.”

I laughed a little and touched her cheek. “You are talking like Aidair himself, now.”

“And why not?” She raised a brow and dared me to fault it, “I spend a great deal of time with that Aldair. It is no wonder I’m growing like him.”

“The gods forbid!” I said.

“Not entirely like him.”

“Let us hope not. Let us hope you retain certain features of your own. I would be most displeased if you did not.” “And so would I,” she said.

“It is a fair arrangement, and I have no desire to change it.” “Only fair?”

“Well, perhaps excellent would be more appropriate.” “Yes, I think so. At least excellent.”

We stood there a long moment, holding one another and saying nothing, savoring a silence that needed no words. I left her, assuring her I would only be a minute, and she said she’d very likely be there if it was no longer than that.

 

From the high window at the end of the corridor I smelled the rich, wet odor of the night, and saw the bright, cold points of a million stars. I know the southern sky, but I will never get used to its unfamiliar patterns. There is no Lame Warrior to point the way; the misty band of the Slave’s Chain is lost beyond the horizon.

Would I see those sights again, I wondered—the skies I knew so well, and the lands beneath them? It is best to put such thoughts aside, for the lands I know are not as I remember them, and I do not care to picture them as they are.

From the far end of the hall came a loud burst of laughter, then another. I grinned to myself. They would rue this night tomorrow, but the day to come is not the proper concern for warriors with a keg of wine.

The laughter came again, louder this time. Damn me, I thought, were they taking the Keep apart? If Signar 

Again, but this time another sound laced through the first— one that set my hair on end. That was no laughter, it was the howl of battle—and the other voice was Corysia’s!

“Corysia!” I was down the hall, boots ringing on hollow stone. Again I heard her, and this time with the unmistakable sound of one blade set against another.

Rounding a corner, I came up hard against them. Two Vikonen and a Niciean soldier. For the smallest part of a second they stopped, surprised to find me. Then all three were on me, weapons at the ready. A Vikonen axe whistled past my head, I ducked beneath it, feinted to the left, and put the Niciean between myself and the others. The fellow’s blade slashed down. I met it, turned it back, whipped my sword ‘round in a short, curving sweep. He gasped, staggered back, holding an empty sleeve. It is no shame to run from two Vikonen warriors.

“Aldair, here!” Rhalgorn bounded into the hall from the stairs above. Behind him, a loyal band of warriors spilled into the passageway. At his quick direction, half went after the rebel Vikonen, the rest spread out around us.

“Corysia,” I said, “Rhalgorn, she’s—”

“She is gone, Aldair,” he said darkly. “I looked. Only minutes ago.”

“Gone!”

“They have her, but we’ll get her back. I swear it, Aldair.” He pulled me along beside him. I stopped, jerked away. “Rhalgorn—we will get her now!”

“We will get her when we can!” he said sharply. “Look, my friend, we have been tricked, taken in. That business with the ship was no more than a ruse to put us at our ease. And it worked very nicely indeed!”

I stared. “The rebels who went after Ahzir?”

“No, I don’t think they are even in this fray. There are others, more than we imagined. The devils didn’t show themselves till now—I’d guess they even helped us rout the others!”

A chill touched my spine. “Then they’ve freed Barthius. If he’s got Corysia, Rhalgorn—”

“If he’s got her, we’ll get her back.”

One of our own shouted a warning. From a hall to our left came a horde of rebel warriors. We raised our battle cries and were on them long before they got their wits about them. My blade passed cleanly through a Niciean and I was gone before he fell. A big Vikonen loomed high over my head. With a howl that shook my skull, he cleaved the fellow behind me near in two, then aimed a heavy boot in my direction. I moved, but not fast enough. It caught my shoulder square and sent me sprawling. He was on me like a darkening cloud; I gripped my blade in both hands and blindly struck upward. The warrior roared, clutching his stomach. A great fount of blood spattered my chest—he reeled, drunkenly, snapping the blade at the hilt against the wall. I heard my name and a crewman I never saw thrust a new weapon in my hand.

Suddenly, we were through them. Not many rose to flee, and some of our own lay still among them.

 

Signar and Thareesh met us at the stairs, small, force of their own behind them. The Vikonen was covered with blood, but not a drop was his own. “They’re all down that way,” he shouted, “the main lot of ‘em!”

“Did you see Corysia?”

He shook his great head. “I didn’t, Aldair, but Barthius is loose down below, I know that, for sure.”

“Then Corysia’s there too.”

“That’s likely—he’s got Sha’diir and the worst of ‘em right with him. We hit the tail end of his crew back there a ways.”

“Not Sha’diir,” hissed Thareesh. His black-agate eyes were cold with anger. “I have finished that one myself!”

His words trailed off behind me for I was down the stairs and gone. I could see nothing before me but Barthius and Corysia. I was blind to all else. A cold blade of ice found my stomach and stayed there.

“Damn it all,” said Signar, grabbing my shoulder hard in his big fist, “you ain’t going to get there any quicker than the rest of us!”

I shook him off. “Rhalgorn—check the floor. Send warriors down that hallway.”

In minutes they were back. There was not a rebel in sight. The ice-blade grew sharper inside. “Creator’s Eyes, they’ve gone down again—to the tenth level!”

They were there, and waiting for us.

A volley of arrows whispered up the stairs to meet us. A great Vikonen, one of Sergrid Bad-Beard’s exiles, took them on his shield and laughed. The rebels had formed a blade-wall to meet us, but we were on them like a river—cutting, slicing, hacking a death- line through their numbers. Signar carved his own path into the pack, leaving darkness in his wake. . Thareesh was an angry blur of green making bright new throats wherever he touched. . . And Rhalgorn, that gray and silent wraith who brings death as quick as a shadow—he they feared most of all. Even the great Vikonen shrank from his presence, for a Stygiann warrior is the soul-killer, the night-bringer, the grave- maker of the world.

I spotted Barthius near the far edge of the fighting. A warrior barred my way, and when I looked again he was gone. A blade hit flat against my helm, near knocking me senseless. I turned, drove the fellow back, and I was through them all.

Barthius saw me, grinned, stood his ground a moment, then ran for the shadows. I started for him, stopped—and went suddenly cold all over. When he turned again she was there, hard against him. One arm grasped her waist, the other held a small, thin blade to her throat.

“Don’t, Master Aldair,” he said calmly, “you know I will do it, and gladly!”

“Put her aside, Barthius.”

He laughed. “Not likely, Master Aldair.”

“It is not her fight. It is ours. Yours and mine.” I moved a step closer. His eyes went dark with anger and he brought the blade up tight against her skin.

“It’s her death if you come farther,” he shouted, “I’ll kill her certain!”

I didn’t stop. I took one step—another. He stared as if I’d lost my senses.

“Don’t!”

“I will. I’m coming for you, Barthius.”

“I’ll—kill her. I’ll do it sure!”

“No, you will not. For when you do you kill yourself. You are a coward, and you do not wish to die. Not the way I will make you die.” I prayed he couldn’t see the fear that held me, for it had to be this way. If I gave ground, did as he asked— she was dead.

He searched about, frantically. There was no help coming. His friends had troubles of their own. He moved back, another step, glanced over his shoulder and tightened his grip on Corysia. The ice-blade touched my spine and I suddenly knew what he was doing—he had no intention of making for the stairs or anywhere else. He was angling the other way, and there was nothing in his path but the door to the chamber itself.

I stopped. “Don’t, Barthius!”

He looked up, then behind him. A half-smile creased his face.

“Don’t want me to see what you got in there, Master Aldair?”

“You cannot know what’s in there. You don’t want to.”

“But I do!”

“Barthius, listen to me!”

He moved away quickly, pulling her through the open portal. Corysia’s eyes went wide and I knew I could wait no longer. Whatever happened, I could not let him take her in there! I ran, not thinking what he might do. I could already sense the terrible presence in that place.

He looked up, saw me. Knew only that I was coming for him. Bewilderment touched his features. Now, he could feel what was in there. Behind him loomed a golden sphere, aglow like the breath of a god.

“Barthius!”

He was too far away and I knew I could never get there. All I could do was watch as he stumbled blindly into the thing, taking Corysia with him.

 

Time shattered in a billion pieces, and they were gone.

A quick wink, a color that was no color at all. Where the golden sphere had been, there was nothing.

“Corysia!”

I called her name, but she did not answer.

“Corysia!”

I cried her name, but she could not hear.

“Corysia!”

I screamed a thousand screams, but she would not come. And if she would not, then I would go where she had gone.

“Aldair—by all the gods. . . !” Rhalgorn held me in fingers of iron. I shook him off, breathed gold and silver dust, and fell into tomorrow.