Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn 3 The Iron Gate Read online

  He uncovered his lamp and peered over the side of the stone into the depths of the blood-pit beyond. ‘I would rather face the most terrible warriors of Ara-Karn than climb into this foul hole. There is a prickling about my back like fear of the dark, fear of the snake, fear of … ghosts, say you? Still, I must admit it is an excellent concealment of the opening of our way.’

  The stones of the pit were staggered like a narrow stair. Clambering over the altar, the captain gingerly dangled his legs into the pit. He picked up his lamp, descended, and was gone.

  Kuln-Holn looked about him nervously in the darkness of the grove. High above, between the dark treetops and the rising black rock, a little patch of sky could dimly be seen. ‘Goddess, and dear Queen,’ Kuln-Holn muttered desperately, ‘protect me, please.’ Then he crawled down the stones, which were as slimy as though Elna had slain victims and drunk their blood only an hour before.

  * * *

  Deeper down, the hole stank of the earth. The two men groped their way. Stones and crumbling bricks lined the walls of the passage, barely holding back the press of the earth.

  Fine roots dangled through cracks between the stones, tickling their necks and ears. The steps descended steeply at first. Then the way entered upon what seemed to be a natural cavern in the rock of the mountain like the belly of some monstrous fish. The slope there fell more gently, though still it led them down, back and forth and down some more.

  For brief stretches the age-old vent was high enough to allow the captain to walk upright. Beyond the ring of light from Berowne’s lamp little eyes glared at the two intruders, blinked and were gone. The stale air was thick with the dust of ancient droppings. It seemed as though no man had trod this path for centuries.

  The natural vent narrowed to an end. Before them a stone archway opened onto a manmade passage. The walls beyond still bore the scores of masons’ chisels. The way ran straight onwards and only slightly downward.

  ‘Why have you stopped?’ Kuln-Holn asked in a hoarse whisper.

  ‘There is something here beside the doorway. A bit of parchment, caught up here out of the wet. Here, take the lamp, and I will see—’ Berowne worried the parchment free and held it between his fingertips. ‘Hold the lamp closer, and I’ll try to read it… Forget not my – Nay, it’s no more than couch-stuffing now.’ He strewed the fragments on the stone and wiped his fingers on his thigh. ‘Strange. It was a woman’s hand.’

  Berowne took back the lamp, and they entered the tunnel.

  Forgotten objects from the Imperial past lay about their feet: bits of leather and pottery, broken knives, a rusted length of iron chain. Some discolored, half-rotted silk hung from a hook on the wall. There was a helmet and a broken table.

  The tunnel broadened, so that at its widest point half a dozen men might have walked abreast. Overhead, above the strong archway of closely fitted stones, might have risen the palaces and temples of High Town. Soon they could feel the floor slowly rising again.

  ‘Now keep your tongue a prisoner of your teeth,’ Berowne said. ‘For what the barbarians may be doing on the other side of the doorway, not even the Empress could tell me. Like as not these new neighbors of ours have had their entertainments in the hall where our way emerges.’

  The tunnel came to an end in a little chamber of brick shaped like a beehive. Narrow stone steps led round the walls up to the chamber’s peak.

  ‘I will go first,’ Berowne said softly.

  At the top of the steps, a round door was set in the wall. Berowne set down the lamp and did out its flame. The darkness which followed was absolute, the lightlessnesss of the lands beyond the knife-edged border.

  A slit of a panel was set into the door. Feeling about, Berowne found its knob and wrenched the panel aside. Beyond, the darkness was not so complete. He discerned a gloomy little room whose walls were covered with shelves and stored goods. There was no sign of life.

  The captain set his hands to the bars of the door. Corroded from long disuse, the brass screamed against its hinges. Berowne set the mass of his body to the floor-rings. Raining dirt upon the captain’s head, the ancient door slowly gave way. Berowne squeezed through the door. He crawled over the pile of stuff set against the wall, of which the door on this side had seemed an integral part. He ventured beyond the storage chamber into the dusky corridor beyond.

  In a short while he returned, and called down to Kuln-Holn.

  ‘Good Iocantris, come up. Tarendahardil and the tents of Ara-Karn await us.’

  V

  The Shadow of the Barbarians

  ‘ONCE, THIS PLACE was the Hall of Kings.’

  Berowne walked among its ruins, turning his head this way and that. Beside and somewhat behind him, Kuln-Holn the Northerner followed mutely.

  ‘I knew it in all its splendor. Emperors took up the Ivory Scepter of Elna in this central hall. Before the Palace in the Citadel was complete, Elna dwelt here, in between his many campaigns to set the cities of the North and South beneath his boot. Somewhere within these walls the Prophetess died, her ancient, drug-riddled body half-naked and half covered with rare bandar pelts brought from the siege of Urnostardil beyond the dusky border. In these very halls Elna signed the accords entitling his captains the first Charanti of the Empire. Here they kept the secular relics of the Empire, an empire built upon the great victory over the barbarians.’

  Half the building stood open to the sky, the walls and pillars blackened by fire. Somehow to Kuln-Holn it seemed more terrible and pitiable thus than if it had been utterly stricken into the earth. And yet he still looked upon it with a sense of almost religious awe. Elna, what power lay still in that simple name! He had made all the world fear him.

  They went out upon the stone steps beyond the pillars. Below them lay the central square of High Town. To their sword-hand side rose the Barges of the Bordakasha, under whose depths the tunnel must pass.

  ‘It is the silence strikes me most,’ Berowne said. ‘When Tarendahardil lived, she could not hold her tongue even in the depths of the longsleep. These streets were always thick with beggars, slaves, priestesses, nobles in their litters, merchants, laborers, soldiers, ambassadors, and hetairai.’

  Across the square the Brown Temple of Goddess blotted the pale sky. It alone had escaped the universal devastation. The golden spire above its roof coruscated still with the brilliance of the Mother of Life. Kuln-Holn stooped, and offered Her a voiceless prayer.

  The captain led Kuln-Holn down the ash-smeared, littered steps. Not so much as a dog or rat slunk between the stones.

  ‘Come,’ the captain groaned, ‘let us be gone from this place.’

  At the edge of High Town they reached the barricades, where the last defense of the city had been mounted. There the two men muffled their mouths against the pestilence of the rotting dead and clambered over the high mounds of masonry and broken statuary.

  Through the shadowed, eerie, twisting streets of the lower quarters they proceeded, as dark God descended the pale autumn sky. In a half-burned inn near the edge of the city they ate the fifth meal and slept a little part of the longsleep away. In an hour or two, they resumed their way.

  ‘I could not sleep,’ Berowne said.

  Kuln-Holn shook his head. He had not uttered a word since emerging from the tunnel underneath the tombs.

  Beyond the city the land fell into a deep rocky rift, set with trees and ferns and carpeted with moss. A stream ran over the rocks at the floor of the rift. Berowne and Kuln-Holn drank somewhat of the stream; its waters were warm and sour. They clambered up the far side of the rift and emerged once again into the open light of Goddess.

  Before them on the plain stretched the camp of Ara-Karn.

  Twenty thousand tents and wagons shone in gaudy splendor beyond the camp walls. A dim rumor issued from the camp.

  Berowne squatted and with a stick drew an oval in the dirt. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I would welcome your counsel now, Iocantris. You know these jolly fellows and their laughter-loving chief
. How will they lay out their camp? These grounds were the marshaling field for the city; it is all flat earth here, pounded hard by boots and hoofs from many generations. What would be the best way for us to enter?’

  Kuln-Holn knelt beside the captain, and sketched some marks within the oval. ‘I think the camp will be set in circles around the center. The roads will cut in like the web of a spider. In the middle will stand the tent of Ara-Karn. As for entering, sir, you are the soldier. But if we were two mercenaries in the enemies’ pay, then would we not just walk in? Surely they cannot know all the men by sight. Nor would the tribesmen bother to keep tallies of the Southrons in their pay.’

  The captain chuckled. ‘And you seem like such a timid soul! You belie yourself, Little Doughty. You would make an excellent spy. Come then: as you have spoken, so we’ll try.’

  They followed the wooden barricades around the camp.

  ‘Oddly quiet it is, for so great a gathering,’ the captain said. ‘Could they be all asleep? Or might the Empress be right when she suggested that much of the barbarian army have ridden away to some other conquest?’

  Kuln-Holn clutched at Berowne’s sleeve. A look of dread stole across his features. ‘Captain, come away, let us leave this place!’

  ‘Why, Iocantris? What do you sense?’

  ‘I do not know. Something is wrong here. I cannot … I cannot go there, do not ask me, do not leave me alone here!’

  ‘Well, well, my friend, calm yourself. Look you – do you see that wood upon the ridge beyond? I played there when a boy. We will hide among the trees and consider. In truth, I like not the silence of this camp either. Something about it stinks of death to me.’

  They followed the inland road beyond the marshaling fields. Kuln-Holn felt his breath come easier as he put the camp behind him. Beyond the ridge, a column of dark smoke curled in the wind.

  ‘Captain, do you know what that could be?’

  ‘Some great fire, surely,’ the captain said, shading his eyes with the fat of his hand. ‘But of whose making I could not guess. No city folk would be so brazen, so close to the enemy’s camp. That ridge is what we call the Ship. Upon its seaward side is the necropolis of Tarendahardil, where common folk have their barges. But beyond the Ship there is only a wasteland of hills and rocky valleys, wolves and thorsas.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘Well, just upon the far side of the Ship an anvil-shaped headland juts out over ravines. Some bandit bands had their quarters in the caves that run through it like maggots in an old cheese; but the last of them were taken and beheaded thirteen years ago.’

  ‘Come with me, then,’ Kuln-Holn said. ‘For now I know what that fire means.’

  They struck out toward the sea first, aware of how starkly they stood out on the road from the camp barricades behind them. They scrambled down the plain and made their way between boulders and brambles until they gained the Sea Road, the stone-paved highway connecting Tarendahardil with the cities of the Delba far away Goddess-ward. They left the road where it looped round the northern end of the ridge. Berowne led the way into the necropolis, among the barge-shaped markers.

  ‘Bones on bones, and stones by stones,’ Berowne chanted softly. ‘These here died of illness or age, the lucky ones of love-play. Maybe they would not have approved of the shoddy barges their silver-grasping relatives set up for them, but they knew not their fortune, compared to the poor beasts whose bones litter the barricades in High Town.’

  ‘Captain, is it right for you to be so loud here?’

  ‘What better place for humor, eh? These folk have reached the Blessed Lands, where the sweetest nymphs await them. It would take more than my voice to call them back to this wretched vale. My old dad lies there above.’

  Near the summit of the ridge, upon the flat, some clusters of trees stood bent and broken in the winds. The sea-winds brought distant calls of birds and the sound of breakers on the jagged rocks, a whispering, sleepy sound. Beyond the trees the land fell away, naked and rough and hostile. The smell of smoke was strong in their noses as Kuln-Holn and the captain looked down upon the armies of Ara-Karn.

  * * *

  They thronged the flat summit of the anvil-shaped rock in the thousands. To one side a great bonfire blazed, hurling aloft billows of black smoke. Goddess-light shone off armor, helms, and greaves, off axe-heads, shields, and lance-heads, off gold and silver bowls brimming with northern beer and southern wine, and off the eyes and yellowed teeth of men.

  Now another warrior, his arms and legs purple with the scars of battle, stood forth and roared out his words in the manner of some wild beast issuing its challenge on the world. When he ended, the warriors behind him shouted and beat their weapons against their shields. The clangor echoed off the desolate hills. Then another stood forth in equal pride, and roared his words to outshout the one who had preceded him.

  Berowne knelt in the shelter of the trees. ‘What does it mean?’ he asked. ‘What do they here?’

  ‘It is the Assembly of the Tribes,’ Kuln-Holn answered. ‘Each year, before the first winter snows, the chieftains gather on Urnostardil beyond the dusky border. Every tribe brought wood from its hills to add to the fire. It was the smoke that made me think of it.’

  ‘The first snows are many passes hence, my friend.’

  ‘Yes, here. It is early here, but in the far North it must be winter now.’

  ‘And all their warriors are here?’ Berowne asked. ‘By Goddess’ eyes, there are more than the reports told us. Which is Ara-Karn? Can you see him?’

  ‘If he is there, he would be near the center,’ Kuln-Holn answered after a pause. ‘Captain, is there not some way we could get closer without being seen? I want to hear what they say.’

  ‘Yes,’ the captain said, shaking himself. ‘Come with me.’

  They went to the shadow side of the Ship, and crept down a deep ravine. The anvil rose dark over their heads, crowned by coils of smoke. The acclamations rolled like thunder off the faces of the hills.

  Berowne led Kuln-Holn up the base of the anvil. A smooth track led up to a small cave half-concealed by clumps of grass. The captain plunged into the hole. Kuln-Holn followed.

  ‘This was the shelter of the bandits,’ Berowne said, as they crept deeper into the cave. ‘When I was a boy, my mates and I would come spy on them. A score of caves cut into this rock from all sides. We explored them all after the bandits had been taken. We searched for their treasure, but never found it.’

  The sound of voices swelled among the rocks. They entered a domed chamber where several cave-mouths opened. It was like the heart of a great drum, across whose skin ten thousand barbarians roared. The thunder was deafening. Then the shouts fell away.

  A tremulous silence ensued, as Berowne and Kuln-Holn reached the center of the chamber. Seven sharp raps, like a knocking at a door, sounded. The silence above fell deeper.

  At length a voice, reedy and piercing, danced across the stone walls. The voice spoke at length in the harsh, guttural tongue of the far North. It ended with a question, which was answered by silence.

  ‘What is it?’ Berowne asked. ‘Could you make out his words, Iocantris? Surely that was not Ara-Karn the Fist of God!’

  ‘It was Bar-East,’ Kuln-Holn said miserably. ‘He is the Speaker of the Law for all the tribes. He just called the Assembly gathered.’

  ‘It sounded like a question.’

  ‘It was. He asked who among the warriors would challenge Ara-Karn, in a duel to the death.’

  VI

  The Lost Thing

  AMPEÁNOR TURNED and ran.

  From behind him spread a vague, dreadful sound, half slithering, half shambling, as of some enormous thing half sliding, half crawling up the hollow path.

  Despite himself, Ampeánor had been seized by panic. In the gloom, the very odor of the beast was immense. Against that shadow, he held in his right hand a sword, in his left a war-knife. No more.

  The moment of panic was not long-lived. Quickly a
s he ran, the Charan of Rukor took himself in hand.

  He was running in the central hollow of the path. At the lip on either side, roots emerged like black fingers. The path was deeper here, the lip of it a full fathom above his head. The path below was a black deep ditch, a tunnel through the slimy earth.

  The sound was closer now.

  Ampeánor put up his sword and mounted the hollow. But the sides were too slick: he fell, rose, fell again. He used the war-knife as a claw to gain a purchase in the earth. He reached half way up, cut two footholds in the earth, put the blade of the knife between his teeth and leaped.

  He caught one of the root-ends. The roots writhed and all but slipped out of his grasp, but somehow he hurled himself up on his belly on the moss. Gasping, he felt the knife fall from his mouth. He spat and picked it up again.

  The black towers of tree-trunks loomed and beckoned. Coiling roots surrounded him as he fell against a trunk.

  Behind him, the slithering became a roar.

  The ditch was a score of paces away. He could see nothing inside it. The outlines of the break in the ground ran past like the banks of a river. And it was like a river that the monster passed. Ampeánor saw a scaly black hummock scored with green lines above the banks. From the hummock long, curving shafts emerged like tent-poles, linked by folds of shiny membrane. The river of scales rose and fell in waves. It slid past like a dark dream, too fast for anything so huge.

  Ampeánor pushed back against the rough wall of the tree, held moveless by horror. The thing was an abomination. The distended shapes of encrusted flesh had no order or pattern. It was the masterwork of a god gone mad. The sound now came from ahead and behind, as if the thing ran on forever.

  Finally the last bend in the hummock subsided and was gone. The roar diminished. The slither became a rasp, an echo, a whisper. Then the whisper was no more.