Mistress of the Catacombs (32 page)

He turned his head to the side and looked out over the darkened city of Durassa. A few yellow glows moved slowly through the streets, lanterns lighting party-goers to their homes. Most of those out at this hour either couldn't afford the price of a linkman or would prefer the dark for their business.

The call of a rattle showed that at least one watchman was alert. Did Hame's cousin wait in a doorway, looking up at the Spike?

Light outlined a score of shuttered windows; the folk in other rooms might be awake as well, staring into the night. Any of them could see Garric and Hakken on the tower, completely exposed.

It probably didn't matter. Human danger wasn't of immediate concern, not now....

"Chermarai!" Metron cried. A wedge of the dome's curve turned black and dissipated like mist struck by the full sun. Perfumed air puffed out, warm and damp and green-smelling.

"Inside quickly!" the wizard said. "I'm holding it until you're inside, but hurry!"

"It's dark as arm's length up a hog's ass!" Hakken protested.

"I'll light it after you're in," Metron said. "Please!"

Garric didn't like the dark interior any better than the sailor did, but it seemed to him that this time Metron was doing the best he could. He stepped forward; gravity changed again. Hakken, more afraid of being alone than of what might be waiting inside, jumped after him.

The wedge of sky vanished, at last silencing the beastgirl's cries. For an instant Garric was in darkness that breathed lush odors. The crystal on his breast crackled. Metron's image stood with its left arm outstretched, its fist balled. Azure wizardlight shot from the sapphire ring, spreading into an ambiance which lit a corridor bent into the organic curves of a muskrat's burrow.

Hakken looked about in silent wonder. Though it appeared to have been chewed from the rock rather than being built, the corridor was luxurious beyond the halls of any palace Garric had seen.

Tapestries of thick, lustrous silk hung the walls, showing different pictures depending on the angle Garric's eye fell on them. Between each pair of hangings was a patch of blank wall, a sconce, and a velvet rope attached to the top of the wall.

Metron spoke a word. The sconces lighted one after another, throwing up pale flames like those of the purest olive oil. The blue glow of moments before sucked back into the ring. Wavering lamp flames made the shadows beneath the cords writhe as if they were alive.

The corridor split twenty feet from where Garric stood. Each of the two branches curved off in its own direction; one of them climbing, the other seeming to slope slightly downward.

"Lord Thalemos will be in one of the cells," said Metron. His voice was broken, but the sound of panting didn't reach Garric's mind the way the words did. "I can't tell which. Open the viewslits one at time and look in, but be careful."

"What viewslits?" said Hakken. "I don't see—"

"The cords!" Metron snapped, angry at his own failure to communicate and taking it out, as people generally did, on those they'd failed. "Pull the cords, you fool!"

Garric pulled the nearest cord, a braid of gold and scarlet plush. It dipped easily; as it did, the section of wall beside it became transparent. Garric touched the space. He felt stone though his eyes told him there was nothing there. He looked in.

A child of no more than six sat on the floor playing with a pull toy, a painted pottery duck on clay wheels. The room was appointed with an ornate gilt bronze table and a chair inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl. There was no bed.

"Go on, go on!" Metron squeaked. "We have to find Thalemos."

"Why—" said Garric.

The child turned to look in his direction. There were pits of orange hellfire where its eyes should have been. Garric dropped the velvet cord and backed away. The stone was again unmarked.

"Hakken, you check the other side of the corridor," Garric said. His voice was hoarse for the first few words. "I'll take these."

He walked quickly to the next pull, this one purple with an ermine tassel on the end. He had to force himself to take the cord in his hand. He tugged it down fiercely to get it over with.

The cell on the other side of the window looked like the interior of a cave covered with the pearly translucence of flow rock. Garric couldn't tell where the light from. Nothing moved, nothing in the room seemed to be alive. He lowered the cord and moved on.

There were four cells on Garric's side of the entrance corridor. Having gotten his breathing back to normal from the shock of the child's eyes, he opened the third window. Hakken was doing the same across from him.

A demon glared at Garric. It opened long jaws and hissed, its forked tongue quivering only a hand's breadth away. Garric jumped back, snatching at his swordhilt. When the cord slipped from his hand, the demon was a blank stone wall again.

Smiling wryly at his fright, Garric opened the next window. His belly was tight, but nobody watching him would have known how ready he was to flinch. Still, he kept his face as far back from the wall as he could and not be obvious in his fear.

Within, a man lay stretched on a rack. His limbs were taut, but as yet he hadn't quite been disjointed. His body was spare, his face ascetic. His eyes were wide open, and his expression was patiently resigned despite what must be swingeing agony. His gaze met Garric's with neither hope nor fear.

"Metron?" Garric said. "Can we let this fellow out along with Thalemos?"

"This one?" the wizard said. "This one? Boy, if I freed him, you would pray the Intercessor to lock him up again—and you would be too late!"

Garric grimaced but closed the window. He started to open the first cell down the left-hand branch but turned to check on Hakken first. The sailor stood transfixed at the window to the second cell on his side.

"Hakken?" Garric said. Hakken seemed paralyzed; only the throb of a vein in his throat proved he wasn't a statue.

Garric walked back and grabbed the man by the shoulder. "Hakken!" he said, glancing through the window as he spoke.

The woman inside was as searingly beautiful as the sun. Garric thought she was nude, but he couldn't be certain even of that. Lust hammered him, crushing his volition.

Reflex was his salvation. He wrenched at Hakken with all his strength, pulling the sailor back. The velvet cord broke; the attached end flopped like a live thing as the window closed.

Garric blinked and rubbed his eyes with his hands. "Duzi help me!" he muttered, still dizzy from the experience. "Hakken, are you all right?"

The sailor had fallen to the floor. He had a stunned look. Rising, he reached again for the broken cord.

Garric caught Hakken's wrist and said, "Leave it alone! Go on to the next one. We've got to find Thalemos and get out of here!"

"I warned you to be careful," Metron said. "The ones the Intercessors have imprisoned here over the ages are those dangerous to them, but some are dangerous to the cosmos."

"Let me go," the sailor snarled. His eyes were wild with passion. He tried to pull his arm free. When he couldn't, he raised the axe in his other hand.

Garric punched Hakken hard in the pit of the stomach, then wrenched the axe away as the man doubled up. "Check the cells on your side!" Garric said. "Shout if you find Lord Thalemos. And don't make me come back for you, Hakken."

The sailor glared at him. He jerked at the next pull in line, glanced within, and let it go. He shambled to the fourth, gave the cell's interior a cursory glance, and looked back over his shoulder at Garric before starting down the branch corridor. Hakken's expression was furious, but he seemed to have recovered from the compulsion he'd felt moments before.

Garric shoved the axe helve under his belt and strode to the branch corridor he'd claimed. He'd return the weapon when they left the prison, though he'd watch his back until he was sure the sailor had buried his wrath. There hadn't been a lot of choice, though.

Garric opened the next window. Unlike previous cells, the only light in this one was a sullen red glow. He thought he saw something flutter within, but as he squinted for a better view he heard Hakken shriek.

"Hakken!" Garric shouted, drawing his sword. He rounded the junction and almost collided with the sailor.

Hakken's face was contorted. He held his right arm out as if he were trying to point. There was nothing in the corridor beyond him. His mouth opened and spewed yellow froth.

Hakken's spine suddenly curved. He pitched backward, dead and rigid before his head hit the floor.

"Metron, what did it?" Garric said, looking behind him and then again down the corridor where Hakken died. There was nothing save for the flaring sconces.

"How would I know?" Metron piped. "It wasn't wizardry, that I swear. Wait and I'll draw the image from his eyes. But it wasn't wizardry!"

Hakken's right arm stuck stiffly into the air. His balled fist and forearm were already black and swollen. There were two raised punctures on the underside of his wrist.

"Don't bother," Garric said tightly, advancing in a shuffle with his sword raised at his side. "I've got it."

The cord that Hakken would have pulled to open the next window was of red and black bands separated by thin yellow rings. It hung as still as any of the others—now. Only close examination showed that the two black beads on the end were eyes.

Garric's sword whistled, taking off the serpent's head without touching the stone against which it hung. Fangs glittered in the light of the sconces as the tiny jaws yawned in death.

The body twitched and knotted harmlessly. Garric pulled it, clearing the stone. The reptile continued to squirm, wetting his left palm with its blood.

A young man in silk tunics sat inside the cell, playing with a set of ivory game pieces on a board of inlaid wood. Unlike some of the other prisoners, he showed no awareness of being watched through the solid wall.

"That's him!" Metron said. "Don't move, now!"

The wizard paused, then resumed in a singsong, "Triskydin amat lahaha...."

Thalemos—even without Metron's statement, Garric would have recognized the youth from the statue he'd disintered on Serpent's Isle—rolled an ebony dice cup, checked the throw, and moved a piece. His face was drawn and resigned.

"Genio gidiba," Metron chanted. "Loumas!"

The blank wall between the hangings dissolved in a vanishing sparkle. Thalemos jumped up, spilling the game board. He grabbed the stool he'd been sitting on but fumbled as he tried to lift it as a weapon.

"Come on!" Garric said, grabbing the youth's sleeve. In terms of years lived, Thalemos was probably older than Garric himself. In all ways that mattered, though, he seemed younger and as malleable as wax. "We're getting out of here!"

"Yes!" Metron chirped. "I've rescued you, Lord Thalemos!"

Which was only one way of putting it, but this wasn't the time to argue. Tugging the boy along with him, Garric sprinted down the corridor. A flash of blue wizardlight touched the curved section of the roof dome at the end. It went black and was gone without the delay and chanting which Metron had required when he won entry.

Hakken's stiff corpse lay behind them. All men die, and the flesh doesn't matter.... But Garric would have brought the sailor along if he possibly could have.

"You'll have to carry Lord Thalemos," the wizard said. "I don't have time or the power to prepare him. Quickly, quickly!"

"What?" said Thalemos.

Garric caught the youth around the shoulders, knelt to put his left arm behind Thalemos' knees, and toppled him backward. There was no point in explaining; mere action was sufficient. "I've got him."

"Belhorwa!" Metron said, only that. Garric felt gravity shift again. He stepped out onto the tower, ignoring Thalemos' cry and clutching fear.

The city was still in night, but the moon had begun to rise. Garric jogged toward the bushes at the base of the tower, no longer nervous to see the ground so far below. Tint was where he'd left her. She was as still as a statue, now; and, thank Duzi, silent.

"Quickly!" Metron pleaded. No longer was the wizard pretending to be unfazed by the work of wizardry. "Even with the ring I won't be able to hold very much longer."

The bushes quivered. Something rose out of the foliage. A man's been hiding there, Garric thought; but as the shadow continued to extend up the wall of the tower, he knew he was wrong.

It was a snake. From the size of the head rising toward him, it was a snake as long as the tower was high.

"Metron!" Garric said. "Stop that thing!"

He tried to draw his sword and almost dropped Thalemos. The youth cried out again and wrapped his arms tightly around Garric's neck. That took care of the problem of dropping him, but trying to fight the creature while burdened with this terrified weight would be an exercise in futility.

Terrified. Garric remembered the effect the viper on Serpent's Isle had on Tint. No wonder she was silent: she was paralyzed with fear!

"Quickly!" the wizard wheezed. "I'm losing you!"

"Gar!" Tint screamed despairingly and leaped. She touched the sheer wall twenty feet above the ground and got enough purchase from it to spring another dozen feet upward. She grasped the serpent behind the head with all four limbs and bit viciously into the neck.