Angus Wells - The Kingdoms 03 (44 page)

 
          
“So,”
hissed the skull, “three fools would quest against Ashar himself.”

 
          
“Shall
you allow me the usage of your blade?” Kedryn asked, advancing a pace closer
still. “Or must I fight you for it?”

 
          
“Fight
me?” The question was the susurration of a serpent sliding over dry leaves,
menace and amusement mingling. “Do you believe you can fight me?”

 
          
"Aye,”
Kedryn said. “With this I can.”

 
          
He
stepped forward, extending the talisman toward the relic, which vied away as
might some dark-dwelling subterranean creature confronting a blazing torch. It
took three slow steps back until the skirt of the brigandine grated against the
stone of the cist, the sword raised defensively.

 
          
“I
should rather you granted me the right,” Kedryn announced, “but should you
refuse that help you must face the talisman.”

 
          
The
blade dropped ponderously, tip clattering on the stones of the floor. A sound
like a sigh came from the lipless jaw and Drul said, “It will be returned.”

 
          
“My
word on it,” promised Kedryn, assuming a question was asked.

 
          
“Not
by you,” declared the corpse. “Ashar will return it to me when he destroys
you.”

 
          
‘Then
what objection can you have?” Kedryn demanded, left hand reaching out to clasp
the hilt.

 
          
This
time there was no resistance. The gauntlets opened to allow him purchase and he
took the blade, drawing it toward him. He let go the talisman, unsheathing his
own sword that he might present it to Drul. The shade took it, the sallet
lowering to study the blade, sighing again, the sibilance echoing with
resignation.

 
          
“Take
it then, for all the good it will do you. It will come back to me in time, by
one means or another.”

 
          
“You
have my word on it,” Kedryn nodded. “Now may we pass?”

 
          
“Aye,”
Drul allowed. “Go to that place from which you shall not return.”

 
          
Kedryn
clutched the great sword tight as the confines of the tomb grew indistinct, the
light from the sun above and the flambeaux alike becoming dim, as though
swirling mist filled the sepulcher. Tepshen and Brannoc stepped closer, moving
slowly, as if through water, flanking him as a red light glowed beyond the
cist, expanding like a torch approaching through fog, burning fiercer, the air
growing warm, then hot, as if the mouth of a furnace opened. A charnel stench
wafted through the chamber, thick and cloying, more offensive even than the
reek that emanated from Drul’s remains.

 
          
“If
you dare,” said the corpse, right hand raised to point toward the rubescent
glare, “that is your way.”

 
          
The
three men stepped around the dais, past the remains of the hef-Ulan. The glow
grew brighter, a circle of flame burning in the rocky wall of the tomb, tongues
licking upward as though in anticipation of living flesh to roast, the stench
worsening. Kedryn set a hand upon the talisman, the other holding Drul’s sword,
and took a deep breath as he steeled himself to enter that hellish portal.

 
          
“Come,”
said Tepshen.

 
          
“Aye,”
said Brannoc, “before my courage deserts me utterly.”

 
          
“May
the Lady ward us, Kedryn murmured, stepping into the circle of flame.

 
          
For
an instant there was a heat so intense he thought his hair must take fire, his
flesh scorch on the bone. Then it was gone, the portal with it, and he stood in
a low-roofed tunnel, the torches held by Tepshen and Brannoc affording poor
illumination against the shadows that appeared to emanate from the rock itself,
oozing like oil, swirling within the narrow confines as though animate.
Tendrils extended toward the three comrades, writhing where they reached the
coronas cast by the flambeaux, exuding the noisome odor of degenerated flesh
and ordure. Kedryn held out the talisman and it began to glow, spreading a blue
radiance that encompassed all three, driving back the oleaginous penumbra, and
advanced along the dismal corridor.

 
          
Around
them the surfaces of the tunnel had the appearance of decayed bone, a foul
yellow-white pocked with a myriad holes from which
came
the shadows, like worms emerging. Tepshen and Brannoc trod close behind,
anxious to remain within the nimbus of the talisman, all three aware of the
sounds coming from the darkness ahead and to their backs, slow, slithery
sounds, and scuttlings, chitterings, all horribly menacing so that hair prickled
on necks and hands clutched sword hilts in preparation for attack.

 
          
None
came, however, and they reached the egress of the shaft to look down into the
enormous cavern Kedryn remembered from his previous descent into this ghastly
limbo.

 
          
The
talisman’s glow faded here, for the hypogeum was lit with its own radiance, a
strange gray illumination of no discernible source. The way ahead sloped down
over slimy rocks, the walls vaulting into misty heights, the roof lost in the
opalescence that seemed to rise like fetid vapor from the gray-surfaced mere
filling the center of the cave. Gray predominated, walls and floor and water
merging in viscid union to defeat perspective, the descent to the shore
appearing both gradual and defiantly steep. The atmosphere was humid and from
the lake came a wailing as if the depths held a myriad lost souls that bemoaned
their misfortune, while above fluttered creatures with ragged gray wings
emitting piercing shrieks that stabbed painftilly at eardrums. These aerial
beings clustered close as the trio began to descend, proximity revealing human
faces set between the tattered wings, tiny hands, and eyes that were filled
with tears. “Go back,” they fluted. “Go back before you are lost.”

 
          
There
was a mournful command on their piping voices that was hard to ignore, for
their warnings held an imperative that struck deep, threatening to leech hope,
leaving despair in its place, but the talisman afforded Kedryn the strength to
resist their blandishments and the gramaryes laid by Gerat, combined with the
power of Kyrie’s stone, protected his companions: discarding their torches they
made their way down the slippery descent.

 
          
The
stone gave way to livid shingle that crunched beneath their boots, discernible
from the doleful mere only in its immobility. The lake appeared gripped with a
turgid energy, sluggish wavelets lapping against the strand that extended
beyond the limits of their vision, each one leaving a scum that seethed
acidically, glutinous bubbles rising farther out to burst and release acrid
gases that assailed the nostrils, threatening to induce nausea. Kedryn halted,
hefting Drul’s sword to his shoulder as he starethucross the miserable pond.

 
          
“It
was here I saw the leviathan,” he announced. “Wynett and I crossed by those
stones and the creature rose from the depths.”

 
          
“But
did not halt you,” said Tepshen, looking to where the glistening rocks extended
into the misted distance.

 
          
Kedryn
shook his head: “No. I showed it the talisman and it allowed us passage over.”

 
          
“And
mayhap will again,” said the kyo, although a trifle dubiously.

 
          
“Or
not,” said Kedryn. “The talisman did not prevent it attacking the barge.”

           
“Perchance we should take that
boat,” Brannoc suggested.

 
          
Startled,
Kedryn turned toward the half-breed, following his pointing hand to see a
dinghy beached along the shore.

 
          
“There
was no boat before,” he mused.

 
          
“Mayhap
the Lady provides us with the means of passage,” ventured Brannoc.

 
          
“Mayhap,”
agreed Kedryn; doubtfully.

 
          
They
walked, each step leaving an indentation that steamed, to where the boat
rested. It was a solid, clinker-built craft, two oars resting across the
thwarts. Brannoc knelt to inspect the seams, pronouncing them well caulked;
Kedryn was more interested in the wood from which it was built, for that,
despite the all-pervading gray of the cavern was of that shade of blue
associated with Estrevan.

 
          
“It
is sound enough,” announced the half-breed. “Do we chance its use?”

           
“Do you perceive the color?” asked
Kedryn.
“The color of the Lady.
I suspect she aids
us.”

 
          
“Here?”
Tepshen was dubious. “We walk in Ashar’s shadow here.”

           
“Yet Kyrie is not without power even
here,” Kedryn returned. “Drul’s shade recoiled from the talisman, and I surmise
from Gerat’s words that a balance of some kind appertains. Mayhap the Lady is
able to provide us with material aid, e’en though we traverse her enemy’s
domain.”

 
          
“Or
it may be a trick,” suggested the kyo.

 
          
Kedryn
nodded, aware that he must allow for that possibility. “We have a choice,” he
said. “We must cross the lake, and to do that we must take either this craft or
the stepping stones.”

 
          
“Should
the leviathan rise it will swamp so small a vessel,” warned Tepshen.

 
          
“And
if we use the stones it may swallow us whole, one by one,” said Brannoc.

 
          
“On
the stones we shall be separated,” said Kedryn. “In the boat we should be
together, and likely all within the compass of the talisman’s magic
. ”

 
          
“My
vote is for the boat,” Brannoc declared.

 
          
“And
mine,” nodded Kedryn.

 
          
“So
be it,” Tepshen looked warily to the lake, studying the bubbling, colloidal
surface.

 
          
They
dragged the dinghy the few paces necessary to launching and clambered swiftly
aboard, none willing to allow the liquid of the mere to touch them. Brannoc and
Tepshen manned the sweeps while Kedryn settled on the stem thwart, Drul’s blade
upright between his knees, his right hand clutching the talisman.

 
          
Viscous
ripples marked their passage over the mere and their nostrils pinched at the
stench of the bursting bubbles, the threnody that seemed to come from the very
surface growing louder as they progressed toward the farther shore, but of \the
leviathan there was no sign and after a while even the bat Creatures were left
behind.

           
“What lies ahead?” asked Brannoc as
he plied his oar.

 
          
“Another
strand,” said Kedryn, “and a foul mist inhabited by the shades of the dead. It
was there
^.
I encountered Borsus. I went no further.”

 
          
Brannoc
grunted in response and asked no further questions. Kedryn, too, lapsed into
silence, his eyes fixed on the mist, straining to perceive the shore even as he
wondered what awaited him there.

 
          
Darr,
he hoped, for it had been, in part at least, the notion of releasing the slain
king from Ashar’s bondage that had prompted him to take that fateful journey up
the Idre, and it had seemed, when he spoke with Borsus’s shade, that the
inhabitants of that grim fog were imbued with some knowledge of their confines.
Should that hope prove true, then Darr might well be able to advise him, and
he, through the power of the talisman, to free Darr. If not, well, he knew of
no other way by which he might enter the farther reaches of the underworld to
save Wynett.

 
          
“The
shore!” he warned as the mist thinned to reveal the line erf featureless gray
shingle that banded the lake.