Empire of the East (29 page)

In the earthworks, men had already methodically separated the slaughtered Guardsmen's heads from their bodies, gathered the freed collars and thrown them down the cliff; the valkyries, coming down from the high mountain, hovered and sniffed but could find no one to save. Rolf and the others, taught by Gray to expect the flying things, still stared at them, Rolf with particular fascination.

“Demons!” someone called out. It was not an expletive, but a warning.

Faces turned to Gray. He had already seen the disturbances in the air a little way from the citadel, hanging low, more like the roiling of heat above fires than like rainclouds. Opening his satchel, he pulled out of it a flowery little vine, wrapped as if for sustenance around a piece of damp and maggoty wood. In Gray's other hand was a silvery-gleaming knife.

As the two presences drifted nearer in the lower air, sweeping reptiles in a timid swarm before them. Gray brought the blade near the tender, innocent green tendrils of the vine. He muttered a few words in a low voice—and cut.

Silver flashed in the sky above the citadel, like a reflection or mirage of an enormous axe. The blow that struck one of the demons came in utter silence, but was irresistable nonetheless; its image in the air split in two spinning halves. Gray scarcely looked up; his hands, those of a gardener, kept at their work, severing and plucking leaf from stem, slicing, splitting, and demolishing the vine. Gray breathed upon the rotten wood, and green flame sprouted from it. In unburned hands he held it up, watching the clean flame devour the clinging fragments of the petals, leaves and stems. “Yiggul,” he said with feeling, “trouble our fair world no more.” And he chanted verses in a language Rolf did not know.

Fire burned now in the sky as well consuming the scattered pieces of the demon. Its companion paused in his advance, but then came drifting on again.

“Now, Kion, let us say farewell to you.” Gray reached into his satchel once more.

The roiling disturbance in the air, the size of a small house, shook for a moment as if with fear or rage, then came toward Gray like a hurled missile. Some of the men around the wizard threw up their arms or ducked their heads; others, just as uselessly, raised shield and blade. Gray shot forth his arm, and the object he had pulled from his satchel—it looked like some trinket of cheap metal—was held above the chunk of burning wood. The hurtling demon was transformed into a ball of glowing heat. Rolf heard, more in his mind than in his ears, a scream of pain beyond anything he had yet heard upon a field of war. Kion's course was bent from what he had intended. He struck the earth far from the Western men, spattering flames and rock about his point of impact, where he left a molten scar; he bounded up again, twisting and spinning like an unguided firework, and all the while the scream went on unbreathingly, and Gray's unburning hand continued to hold the bauble in the fire. The metal of it, tin or lead mayhap, melted in beautiful silvery drops that fell into the flame and there unnaturally disappeared. And as the bauble melted, so diminished the fireball that had been the mighty demon Kion, flashing madly from one part of the sky to another until it vanished in a final streak of brilliancy.

Gray pressed his hand down on the fiercely burning wood, and it went out like a candle. “What are these others here?” Gray asked in a low voice. “Do they propose to try our strength, after what we have just done?” Rolf saw that there were indeed a scattering of other disturbances in the air, man-sized waverings visible to him only now when the larger two were gone. He heard, or felt, the thrummings of their power. Alone, he might have fallen down or fled before the least of them. Standing here with Gray and Loford, now, he found he minded these minor demons no more than so many sweat-bees or mosquitoes. And now as if they had heard Gray's challenge, and chose not to accept it, the swarm of them began to disappear. Rolf could not have said just how; one moment the air above the citadel was thick with them, then they were fewer, and soon they were no more.

“So, then, masters of the Black Mountains,” mused Gray, still in the same low tone of conversation, that you would not think was audible ten meters off. He stood straight, dusting his hands absently against one another. “So. Do you mean then to let our differences be settled by the sword? In the name of my bold companions here I challenge you: march out and try with blades to pry us from this rock!”

Rolf heard no answer from the citadel, only a shouting from behind him, where more balloons were ready to discharge their fighting men. He ran back to take charge of the docking. Thomas, in a gleaming barbut-helm, was arriving in the ninth pair of airships, a position he had hoped would allow him to oversee both ends of the operation.

When Rolf turned back toward the citadel he could see through the open gates that men were marshalling inside as if to sally out in strength. Confusion had been replaced by the appearance of purpose.

“Som is on the battlement,” said someone. “See, there. I think he wears a crown of gold.”

Rolf shivered. The day was chill. Winter was near at hand, and this place was high.

“If he takes the field,” warned Loford, “do not strike at him, but only ward his blows. The wound you would inflict on Som the Dead is likely to become your own to bear.”

Gray, too was shivering, calling for a cloak.

Why should the sun seem dimmer, when there were no clouds? And Rolf had a feeling in his guts like that of being lost, alone, at night amid a host of enemies…and now, why should he think there mighty be something wrong with the mountain, that it might crumble and collapse beneath his feet? Loford, Thomas, all of them, were beginning to look at one another with dread.

Gray said softly: “Zapranoth is coming.”

Chup nodded once to the expectant-looking jailor—who stood near the door of Charmian's cell. The man responded with a facial contortion that might represent a smile, and took two steps backward to a spot well shaded from the feeble glimmerings of dawn now probing down the demons' chimney. There he let himself down carefully and lay still. Only his feet remained clearly visible, like those of a man laid low by stealthy violence.

At the cell door, Chup paused a moment to try to seating of his new sword in its sheath, and give a loosening shake to the nerve-tight muscles of his shoulders. He thought in wonder that if he were plotting a real escape for Charmian, instead of this safe pledging trickery, he would not be quite as tense as this.

The heavy bar grated as he raised it from the cell door, and he reminded himself to strive more realistically for silence. Cautiously he turned in the lock the key he had been given. The massive door swung outward at his pull. Chup's shadow fell before him into the uncleanness of the cell. There Charmian huddled on the floor, wearing the same black clothing of her audience with Som, shimmering garments, slit revealingly, foolish now as rags would have been at the Emperor's court.

When she recognized Chup, the sharp terror in Charmian's face turned dull; she had evidently expected visitors even more menacing than he.

He stepped back from the doorway and said in a low voice: “Come out, and quickly.” When she did not move at once he added: “I'm going to try to free you.”

The words sounded so utterly false in his own ears that it seemed impossible that clever Charmian could believe them for a moment. But she stood up and came toward him, though hesitantly at first. Her blond hair hung disheveled, half-concealing her face. Without a word she came out of the cell, and stood against the wall, her face averted, while Chup played the game of dragging the shamming guard into the cell and barring up the door again. Then at a motion of Chup's head she followed close behind him as he set foot upon the downward path.

They had gone down perhaps two hundred paces, when Charmian in a small voice broke the silence: “Where are we going?”

He answered, without turning. “We must go down, in order to get out.”

Her footsteps behind him stopped. “But down there is where the demons nest. There is no way out, down there.”

Startled, he too stopped, and turned. “How do you know? Have you come this way before?”

She seemed surprised by the question. “No. No, how could I have?” Still she was not looking directly at him.

“Then follow me,” he growled, and started down again. After a moment her soft footfalls followed. She must believe his masquerade, or she would be screaming at him or pleading. But the evidence of success brought him no satisfaction.

Pretending to be cautious and alert, looking this way and that, pausing now and then as if to listen, he led her down toward the pit. He felt weary and awkward as if he had been fighting to the point of physical exhaustion. It will mean changing yourself, Som had said, you must do violence to your old self. Yet what Chup was supposed to do was basically quite simple, and on the surface there was nothing in it difficult for a bold man. He was to bring her down (by fair words and promises, not by force—that had been emphasized) to the Demon-Lord's chamber at the bottom of this hole. There where she expected a door to freedom he was to give her to the demon. And then he was to run away. If he did not run away, and briskly, the chamberlain had warned him, Zapranoth in his demonic humor might nip him too.

His pledging was a task for one who giggled and ran away, and Chup now liked it less than ever. He did not see how he could succeed, how Charmian could fail from one moment to the next to guess the truth. Well, let her. But no, she still followed him obediently. He realized suddenly how desperate she must have been, how ready to grasp at any hope.

His pretended alertness suddenly became real. From below, where all had been ominous silence, there arose now a murmuring strange sound which he did not at once identify but which he did not like.

The first whisper of it froze Charmian in her tracks behind him. “Demons!” she whimpered, in a voice of certainty and resignation.

Chup had been assured there would be no interference, no distractions, while they were going down. He took a step back, fighting his own fear of demons, trying to think. Thinking was not easy; the sound grew rapidly louder, and at the same time more plainly wrong. It put Chup in mind of the gasping of some unimaginable animal; it made him think of a terrible wind sent blowing through the solid earth.

Now there was light below, a pinkish glow, as well as sound. Chup could make no plan. As if seeking each other's humanity, by instinct he and Charmian put their arms around each other and crouched down on the narrow path. The sound was almost deafening now, a climbing clamor flying upward from the pit. With it came the aura of sickness that accompanied demonic power, an aura stronger than Chup had ever felt before. The brightening roseate light seemed to drive back the feebly growing glimmerings of the sun. He clenched his eyes shut, held his breath—and the rush, as of a multitude of beings, passed by them and was gone.

“Demons,” Charmian whimpered once more. “Yes…oh, it seems that I remember them, rushing by me in this place. But how?”

“What do you remember? Have you been down this pit?” he rasped at her. He wondered if she was planning some deception. But she only shook her head, and continued to avert her face.

He pulled her to her feet and led her down the curving path once more. What else could he do? Daylight enough came trickling from above to show the way. They came to a doorway, but when Chup peered in there was nothing but an alcove, no way out. No way out…but he must go on to pass his pledging, to reach the power of the inner circles of the East.

What else could he do? Down and down they went, though very slowly now.

Soon it began again, the noise far down below them, climbing fast.

“It is Zapranoth,” said Charmian.

This time a bass quaver, that told of madness rampant in the foundation of the world; this time the whole world shuddered and sickened with the coming up, and the light it cast before was blue and horrible.

Charmian began to scream: “Lord Z—”

Chup grabbed her, stifling her mouth beneath his palm, and cast himself and her once more down upon the narrow curving ledge, this time at full length, with both their faces turned toward the wall of rock. With a twisting and a stretching of the universe, with impacts of great footfalls smiting air and rock, the blaring, glaring Lord of Demons trampled past them. If they were seen, they were ignored, as two ants might have been.

Chup did not see the demon. His eyes had shut themselves, and at the moment of the demon's closest presence all his bones seemed turned to jelly. This must be Zapranoth. Against this, no use to think of showing bravery; compared to this, the demons rising earlier had been small. And the demon who, days ago, had entered his beggar's hovel to heal and threaten him—that one had been a nasty child making faces, nothing more.

When the world was still and sane and tolerable once more, he raised his head, gripped Charmian by the hair, and turned her face toward him. “How did you know that it was him? From far away, when first he started up?”

She looked convincingly bewildered. “I don't know…my Lord Chup, I do not know. By his sound? But how could I ever have heard him, met him, and forgotten it? You are right, I knew at once that it was he. But I don't know how I knew.”

Chup got slowly to his feet. There was one small comfort: the game he was to play could not proceed until the Demon-Lord came back from whatever unforeseen errand had called him out. Chup would have to find some means of stalling until then. But at the moment he could think of no plausible excuse for staying where they were. Slowly he led Charmian downward once again.

They had gone but two more turns around the gradually narrowing chimney when there came a different and more human sound, from far above. It was faint, but to Chup's ears unmistakable—the cry and clash of men at war. Chup listened, knowing now what had called the demons forth. No one in the citadel had thought it possible for Thomas to make a direct assault; well, it was not the first time he had been underestimated.

So the wait for Zapranoth might take some time, though it seemed likely that he ultimately would return triumphant. It was hard to imagine that Thomas could raise a power equal to the Demon Lord, even if he could get his army up the pass. Chup grinned the way he did when he felt pain. He led Charmian on down until they came to another doorway opening into another blind alcove. There he took her by the arm and pulled her in.

“What is it?” she whispered, terrified anew.

“Nothing. Just that we must wait a bit.”

He expected her to ask him why, and wondered how he could answer. But she only stood there with her eyes downcast, face half-hidden by her hair. Surely this behavior was a pose, part of some plan she was evolving. He had seen her terrified before, but never meek and silent.

Considering what to do next, he sat down with his back against the wall, watching the entrance to their alcove. Almost timidly, she slid down beside him. In her new, small voice she said: “Lord Chup, when I was in the cell, I hoped it would be you who came for me.”

He grunted. “Why?”

“Oh, not that you would come to help me, I didn't dare hope that. Even now…but I knew that if you came to take revenge, you would be quick and clean about it. Not like Som, not like any of the others.”

He grunted again. Suddenly anxious to know what it would feel like now, freed of all enchantments, he pulled her near, so that their mouths and bodies were crushed together. She gasped and tensed, as if surprised—and then responded, with all her skill and much more willingness than ever before.

And he discovered that to him, the touch of her meant nothing. It was no more than hugging some huge breathing doll. He let her go.

To his surprise, she clung to him, weeping. He had never seen this act before; puzzled, he waited to learn its point.

Between her sobs she choked out: “You—you find me then—not too much changed?”

“Changed?” Then he remembered certain things, that made her puzzling behavior understandable. “No. No, you are not changed at all. Our mighty viceroy was lying about the destruction of your beauty. You look as good as ever, except for a little dirt.” For the first time in days Chup could hear his own voice as an easy, natural thing.

Charmian stared at him for a moment and dared to believe him. Her sobs changed abruptly into cries of joy and relief. “Oh, Chup, you are my lord—high and only Lord.” She choked on fragments of strange laughter.

Feelings Chup had not known were his came fastening on him now like mad familiars. He could not sort them out or put them down. He groaned aloud, jumped up, and pulled Charmian to her feet. He seized her shoulders, gripping them until it seemed that bones might crunch, while she gasped uncomprehendingly. Then, still holding her with his left hand, he drew back his right and swung it, open-palmed but with all his rage. “That, for betraying me, for using me, for trying to have me killed!”

The blow stretched her out flat, and silenced all her cries. A little time passed before she stirred and groaned and sat up, for once ungracefully. Her hair no longer hid her face. Blood dripped from her mouth and there was a lump already swelling on her cheek. She finally could ask him, in the most dazed and tiniest of voices: “Why now? Why hit me now?”

“Why, better later than never. I take my revenge my own way, as you said. Not like Som, nor any of the others here.” Gripping his sword hilt, he looked out of the alcove, up and down the spiral path. Let them come against him now, he was Chup, his own man, and so he meant to die.

When he saw no understanding in her dazed face, he went on: “Shake your head and get it clear. I was not to lead you out of this foul place. I was to play the court jester for Som and Zapranoth; thus should I prove my fitness to join the elite of the East. They will not have a free man's service. They must have pledgings, and grovelings, and for all I know, kissings of their hinder parts as well.
Then
will they open to their tested slave the secrets of power and the doors of wealth. So they say. Liars. Gigglers at cripples, and pullers of wings from flies. I know not if Som stinks of death—or only loadbeast-droppings!”

He felt better for that lengthy speech, and better still for the action that had just preceded it. Now there ensued a silence, while his breathing slowed and Charmian's grew steadier, and she ceased to moan.

And now once more he heard, from far above, the clash and cry of many men at arms.

Charmian, her voice now nearly normal, asked: “Is that Thomas's assault we hear? The one our generals thought could not be made?”

Chup grunted.

“They of the West bear me great hatred,” Charmian said. “But if I've any choice I'll go to them instead of Som.”

“You'd be wise, if you could do so. They in the West are living men, and many would fall down swooning at a flutter of your eyelids. What is it now?”

Some thought or memory had brought a look of new surprise into her face. “Chup. I have never been down into this cave before—and yet I think I have. Things as they happen seem familiar. The winding path, these alcoves. The sounds the demons make in passing, and the feelings that they bring—the wretched feelings most of all.” She shivered. “But how can I have known them, and not remember plainly?”

His thought was practical. “If you have been in this cavern, or seen it in some vision, then remember a way out of it, that we can use.”

She gave him a long, probing look, with something in it of her old haughtiness. Her bruised face did somewhat spoil the effect. “Have you finished now with taking your revenge on me?”

“I have more important things to think of. Getting out of here, now that I've spoiled my pledging. Yes, I'll help you out if you'll help me. But turn treacherous again, and I'll kick you down the pit at once.”