Hero of Dreams (6 page)

“Which,” (thought Hero), “sooner or later, is exactly what he’ll do!” But to his sick colleague, out loud, he said: “There can’t be a deal wrong with lungs as noisy as those of yours, old friend.”

“Huh!” The other’s spasms finally subsided. “And who was it said that the mountain air was sure to do me good? Well, you’re not often right, David, but you’re wrong again!”

Laughing, Hero stretched, shrugged out of his blanket and came to his feet, careful to avoid cracking his head against the low ceiling. The fire-built of large sticks from the violated nest of a spotted eagle and fortified with dried goat dung-had long since burned itself out and shadows were sharply etched in the cave. Outside, evening had crept over dreamland and soon the first stars would begin to show themselves in the darkening sky.

Leaving all of their necessaries in the cave, the adventurers climbed up again to the vast and now shadowy shelf in silence. Something of a wind blew in their faces as they emerged onto the plateau-like surface, a strangely warm wind that sprang from its unknown source beyond the mountains. The dreamers had already formed the opinion that the old legends and rumors were false and that these mountains were not Kadath’s foothills, and now this wind in their faces seemed fully to confirm their .belief. For Kadath lay in the Cold Waste, and this wind from the north was a warm one.

But the wind soon died away and despite the fact that they were well wrapped, soon the bitter cold of the evening mountains began to gnaw into them, particularly when they passed into the shade of the towering Keep of the First Ones. Both of them shuddered a little then, and drew their clothing more tightly about themselves.

Moving faster now they passed round the foot of the keep, skirting jagged stones and boulders which had worn free and fallen from its looming surface during the passage of countless centuries. And sure enough the face of the mountain that went up beyond the keep did overhang in one place, and where the shadows should have been blackest below this overhang, instead there shone the faintest gleam of yellow light.

Flitting now from shadowed area to shadowed area like a pair of ghouls, the dreamers were brought up short by a sudden call. It was high-pitched, ululant-plainly the cry of a master to his minions, his hounds … or his snow leopards.

“Hritta!” the warbling cry repeated. “Nythlar!” And its echoes rebounded mockingly from distant peaks. Then, plainly audible (for their distance from the cave in the towering wall of rock was no more than a hundred yards), there came to the ears of the adventurers an angry grumbling and cursing; and finally the light retreated, leaving the entrance in darkness.

Still as statues Hero and Eldin stood, until the latter gave a quiet burp. “I wonder,” he whispered, “which one that was: Hritta or Nythlar? Something else: that didn’t sound like the voice of any doddery old priest to me.”

“Shh!” Hero admonished, and they moved forward again.

Warily they entered the cave’s mouth below the overhanging mountain peak and gradually their eyes adapted to the darkness. The cave wound away into the mountain, seemingly a natural tunnel whose ceiling was three times the height of a man and whose width was that of five men laid head to heel. Around the first bend a glimmering light showed, and soon the pair crept into a large chamber lighted by dimly flickering and smoky flambeaux. The place was bare, but iron staples supporting light chains were fixed in the walls. The chains were of ample length to meet across the width of the cave.

“That’s where the snow leopards spend their nights,” murmured Hero. “Or rather, where they used to. Watchdogs, no less!”

“Umm!” answered Eldin. “Strikes me we’ve already gone a long way toward disarming the old lad. What say your*

“I say my hair is prickling,” the first answered. “It’s prickling all the way down my neck …”

For all Hero’s premonition they went swiftly on, emerging in a few moments more into a second chamber. Here the rocky walls were hung with skins and the floor was covered in furs. A rough wooden table bore a flat platter of meat and a stone bottle. A second plate, with an empty goblet standing close at hand, bore the remains of a meal. Eldin cautiously approached the table, lifted the bottle and sniffed at its unstoppered neck. He smiled then, a thirsty smile, and licked his lips.

“Nectar!” he declared in a low rumble like a cat’s purr, tilting the bottle and drinking deeply. Then his eyes went wide and he sighed his appreciation. “By all that’s beautiful, David, taste this!”

Curved blade at the ready, still staring warily all about at the shadows cast by sputtering flambeaux, the younger man crossed to the table and took the proffered bottle, automatically swigging at the sweet, strong liquid before whispering: “Well, obviously he’s had his supper, and doubtless he’s now preparing for bed-or already tucked up. Strikes me he’s not as wise as he might be by any means. Either that or we’re not as clever as we think we are! Now then-where’s mat damned temple, eh?”

“Right!” Eldin agreed, taking back the bottle. “We really can’t afford to dally like this …”

When the bottle was empty to a drop and only the heady scent of the wine remained, then, spirits greatly bolstered, they left the second chamber behind them and continued deeper into the bowels of the mountain.

Occasionally as they went small tunnels would branch off to right and left, all terminating after only a few paces, so that following brief explorations they were obliged to continue down the main shaft. Several of these secondary tunnels were in use, being storage rooms for furs and skins, casks of oil, barrels of fruit and vegetables and other household items. The priest of the as yet unsighted “temple,” whoever he was, seemed to live very well indeed according to the usual standards of the wandering dreamers.

Along the way, at intervals, the tunnel was illuminated by sputtering torches; but after a while these were more widely spaced out, so that there were periods of near-darkness. As they crept through one of these dark sections Eldin whispered: “At this rate we’ll soon come out through the other side of the mountain!” to which Hero replied:

“It only seems a long way. But hi any case, I don’t think we have much farther to go.”

Now they moved a little slower, each touching a wall with outstretched hand while inner arm was linked with that of his companion. The tunnel here had narrowed down somewhat, but shortly they had to extend their inside arms as the cave widened out again. At the last only their fingertips touched; their swords were now sheathed and they carried their knives between clenched teeth; before each step the floor in front was explored by timidly probing, booted feet.

Then, suddenly, the walls widened farther yet and they paused amidst an almost unendurable darkness, conscious now of an inner tingling, of an all-enveloping sensation of extreme danger, and of-a presence!

A presence, aye; and even at the realization-as at a signal-the cave was at once dazzlingly illuminated! Brilliant, blinding bars of brightness criss-crossed the near-solid gloom about them in a coruscating blaze, and this in turn was replaced in the next instant by the steady yellow burning of a dozen wall-bracketed torches that burst almost simultaneously into flame.

Shielding their eyes against the sudden glare (and wondering at the same time how those twelve torches had been struck, since they stood in the presence of only one, small, wrinkled old man), the dreamers drew swords and held them threateningly out in front. Then, back to back, they turned in a slow circle, taking in every detail of the cave in which they now stood, alert for any strange, sudden or menacing movement in the hanging tapestries of the place.

Thinistor LJdd and One Other

CHAPTER IV

The apartment, or “temple,” was huge: fifty feet across and almost as high, with daggerlike stalactites hanging from the ceiling and squat stalagmites rising up through the luxuriant furs that lay three deep upon the floor. The walls were covered with black furs stitched together into drapes, and at intervals these were parted to frame the mouths of inner tunnels that led back into darkness. Two of these entrances were fitted with stout metal gates whose bars were inches thick.

Having satisfied themselves that no immediate danger threatened, none of any mundane nature at least, the pair faced the old man in his wizard’s robes of red and black. He sat upon the cushioned stump of a stalagmite, tasselled conical hat upon his shrunken head, slender, knobbed black wand in his monkey’s hand, peering at them sullenly through eyes which were yellow slits in his crinkled-parchment face.

Behind this evil-looking ancient, standing half in the shadow of a massive stalagmite, the carven figure of Yibb-Tstll loomed, overlooking all else in the temple. And over all else it was this monstrous effigy, despite being partly obscured, which primarily drew the wide eyes of the dreamers.

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Of more or less manlike proportion, the-thing-had a head, a polished black lump atop its sloping shoulders of stone. Two eyes were frozen in oddly unnatural positions on the surface of the head: one was up near the top, the other was low, where the corner of a mouth might have been in a more nearly normal statue. The lower eye was green and shone with an inner luminosity-a massive emerald-but the other was of a reddish, bloody hue, and of the two it looked decidedly more real.

The narrowly sloping shoulders were cloaked, as was the bulky body beneath; but the cloak, carved of the same stalagmite stone as the god, was open in front to reveal many polished black breasts. This was an anomaly in itself since patently the figure was male. Beneath the cloak where it billowed in petrified rigidity, a cluster of stone night-gaunts, their wings folded, clung tightly, almost lovingly, to the unseen body of the god. The idol was a nightmare, made even more nightmarish by its height-which was almost three times that of a tall man!

Staring at the loathsome thing, the dreamers felt mat they had left the sane world of dreams and now inhabited an alien dimension at the very rim of sanity. Their eyes went from the idol to the yellow eyes of the wizard, back to the idol, and finally-

“So!” the wizard-priest’s thin, reedy voice-which yet hinted of an awful strength, a sorcerous power-drew their thoughts back to earth. “And you two are the murderers of my pets, are you? The cruel butchers of poor Hritta and Nythlar? Well, welcome, dreamers-welcome to the Temple of Yibb-Tstll. I, Thinistor Udd, need not ask why you have come. For surely, like all the others recently ventured this way, you were sent by the Ossaran, Ebraim Borak, on behalf of my cousin Nyrass of Theelys, to steal my wand. And did you, too, like the others, think that it would be so very easy?”

“Old man, Thinistor Udd,” answered Hero, “we’ve no quarrel with you. We’re after the wand, that’s true enough, but no need for any violence. And no magic, please, for our knives are surely faster than any of your spells!”

The two had separated as Hero talked, widening the distance between themselves, moving forward now with swords once more sheathed and replaced by long, curving knives.

Suddenly and for no apparent reason, Eldin blundered into a naked stump of stone and fell over it, his knife flying from his hand. At the same time Hero felt a dull ache spreading behind his eyes, clouding his mind. He, too, reeled and only managed to steady himself by leaning against a rocky knob that jutted up waist-high from the floor.

Eldin gropingly retrieved his knife and hauled himself to his feet. “You were warned, wizard,” he rumbled. “No magic!” His arm went back, curved blade gripped between thumb and forefinger, and-

“No!” cried Hero. “No, Eldin-don’t kill him!”

“Magic?” cackled the evil ancient. “No, no, my friends from the waking world, not magic. Merely … a drug!”

“The wine!” gasped Eldin and Hero in unison.

“Aye, the wine. You see, I was expecting you. It’s been a while since Borak sent me two such as you; indeed, you are long overdue. Ah, but this time he excels himself!”

“Borak!” snarled Eldin. And then-despite or perhaps because of one last attempt to throw his knife-the older dreamer gave a strangled cough, crumpled and sagged to his knees, fell face down among the furs. Hero took two more paces forward while the great cave seemed to revolve around him, then he too toppled, feeling nothing of the impact as his body brought a cloud of dust up from the fur-strewn floor …

Eldin was dying. He knew it from the very moment he awoke to the none-too-gentle slapping of tiny hands about his bearded face. There was a searing fire in his lungs, burning as never before, and all his great strength seemed to have evaporated within him, steamed out of his body by the consuming fire. He awoke with a great bloody cough bursting upward-which expired unaltered when scented, delicate fingers clamped firmly over his agonized mouth.

“Shh! Quiet, dreamer!” a girl’s tremulous, fear-filled voice whispered. “Hush, now-lest you wake Thinistor Udd!”

At that Eldin remembered where he was and all that had gone before. He opened his eyes and stared straight into those of an apparition. By the flickering flame of a small stone lamp he studied the girl. Slim as a willow twig, she was; blue-eyed and fair-skinned, with delicate features much like the aristocrats of Ilek-Vad; long-limbed for all that she was tiny, with soft golden hair falling about her bosom. In all-and dressed as she was in the flimsiest of gauzes and wraps, and certainly in any place other than this-she was a sight for sore eyes!

Eldin forced back the tearing coughs he felt welling inside to wheezingly ask: “Who are you, girl? And what by all the gods are you doing here? Aye,”-he stared about at the small, featureless cave-“and for that matter, where exactly is ‘here,’ eh?”

“You are in one of Thinistor’s gated cells,” she told him. “But hush, hush!”

She turned her attentions to David Hero who lay nearby. Eldin tried to get up, discovered himself to be bound hand and foot, lay back again and watched the girl as she slapped Hero’s drawn face until his eyes flickered open.

“Eh?” Hero said-then: “What in the name of-?”

“Shh!” the girl once more admonished. And again she suffered the burning gaze of a dreamer as Hero studied her where she sat upon her haunches. “Do not struggle,” she said, as he began to strain against his ropes, “for you’ll only tighten Thinistor’s bonds.”