Night Winds (31 page)

"Come, revered gentlemen, don't judge too harshly. After all, there is precedent for Dualism in the history of your priesthood."

A short, stocky gentleman with a fine grey beard looked gravely at the priests. He straightened from the fire where he had stooped to light his pipe. A silver medallion embossed with a university seal depended from a chain about his thick neck.

"Precedent?" the abbot snapped.

The short man nodded through a puff of smoke. "Yes. I refer to the dogma formalized under the reign of King Halbros I that Thro'ellet and Tloluvin are but dual identities of the evil principle. No one in the days of the monarchy considered such doctrine heretical, although ancient beliefs plainly ascribe separate identities to these demonlords."

The abbot paused to consider. "An interesting point," he conceded grudgingly, "although the manifold embodiments of evil are certainly acknowledged by our doctrine. Nonetheless, your argument does not hold in this instance, for there is but one true cosmic principle of good, whom true believers worship as Thoem. May I inquire, sir...?"

The grey-bearded gentleman blew smoke in a flourish. "I am Claesna, of the Imperial University at Chrosanthe. Your proposal of theological debate caught my ear, eminence. The prospect of intelligent discussion promises salvation from what I had previously feared would be a dull evening in a back-woods tavern. May I join you?"

"Claesna?" The abbot's tone was surprise. "Yes, I've beard a great deal of you, sit. Please join us! Why does a scholar of your high renown pass through these dismal mountains?"

Claesna smiled acknowledgment. "I'm headed for Rader myself, actually. I've heard of certain inscriptions on what are said to be prehuman ruins near there. If so, I'd like to copy them for study and comparison with others that I've seen."

"So it's true that you plan to supplement Nentali's Interpretation of Elder Glyphics?" suggested the grey-cowled priest.

Claesna lifted a bushy eyebrow. "Supplant, not supplement, Revered Callistratis. Well, I see you are an extraordinarily well-informed man yourself. This does promise to be an illuminating evening."

"Oh, please, learned gentlemen," mimicked a sneering voice from the corner. "Don't bore us all to death with such learned discussions."

"Shut up, Hef!" A gruff voice cut him off. "You'll find a neater death than boredom when we get to Rader!"

The other made an obscene reply. An open fist slapped on flesh, then sounded the clash of chains, subdued cursing.

"Ranvyas, you son of a pox-eaten whore, you busted that tooth half out of my head. Takes guts for a pissant bounty hunter like you to bust a man all chained up."

"You had an even chance before the chains went on, Hef," growled Ranvyas. "And you won't need that tooth once I get you to Rader."

"We'll see, Ranvyas. Oh, we'll see, won't we? There was other smart bastards all set to count their bounty money, but ain't one of them lived to touch a coin of it."

Claesna indicated the two men in the near corner. One was a tall, lantern-jawed swordsman with iron-grey hair who wore the green tunic of a ranger. The other, his prisoner, was a wiry man with pinched face and stained yellow heard, whose blue eyes seemed startlingly innocent for one weighed down with wrist and leg irons.

"That's Mad Hef over there, whose black fame ought to be known even to you, revered sirs. Looks harmless enough, though I doubt all the prayers of your priesthood could cleanse his soul of the deeds he's committed here in the mountains. They were talking about it before you came in. The ranger finally tracked him to the cave where he laired, and if he succeeds where so many other brave men have failed, the public executioner at Rader is due for a strenuous afternoon."

From the rooms above came the echoing moan of a woman in agony.

The priest started from his chair, then halted half-crouched when none of the room's other occupants seemed to pay heed.

Again the cry of pain ripped through the panelled hallway above, down the narrow log stairway. A door slammed at the foot of the stairs, muffled the outcry.

Two other travellers exchanged glances. One, grotesquely fat, shrugged and continued to devour an apple pastry. His smaller companion shuddered and buried his chinless face in his hands.

"Pray Thoem, make her stop!" he moaned.

The fat man wiped his slobbery lips and reached for another pastry. "Drink more wine, Dordron. Good for the nerves."

Passlo's hand pulled at the priest's arm. "Don't be alarmed, Revered Callistratis. The merchant's young wife is giving birth upstairs. No one thought to mention it. As you see, the father is untroubled. Only his brother seems a bit shaken."

"The fat blob is a half-wit!" sneered Claesna. "I judge his mind is rotten with pox. I pity his wife, poor child. If our host hadn't sent a serving girl to stay with her, these swine would certainly have left her to labor alone."

"The mystery of birth," quoted the abbot, "where pain is joyful duty."

Now the innkeeper moved among them, setting before each guest a wooden trencher and loaf of black bread. Behind him walked a swarthy, bristle-bearded dwarf, the first servant the priest had noted in the inn. His squat, powerful arms carried a great platter of roast meat, which be presented to each guest that he might serve himself as he desired. The fat merchant growled impatiently when the dwarf halted first before the abbot and his two table companions.

"Please, Jarcos!" his brother begged. "Don't offend these revered sirs!"

Hef giggled. "Don't eat it all now! Save a nice hefty bone for poor toothless Hef!"

From overhead the screams, distant through the thick boards, sounded now at closer intervals.

The innkeeper smiled nervously and wrung his black-gloved hands. "I'll bring out more wine, Bodger," he told the dwarf. "Bring out your mandolin and play for them."

The dwarf grinned and scuttled into the back rooms. He cavorted out again in a moment, wearing a flop-brim bat with a feather and carrying a black-stained mandolin. His strangely pointed fingers struck the strings like dagger tips, and he began to caper about the room, singing comic ballads in a bullfrog voice.

The moans from upstairs continued monotonously, and soon the travellers forgot to listen to them, or to notice when they ceased.

"Then, just as the hunter spun around at the sound, the werewolf leaped down from the roof of his cabin! He clawed for the silver dagger at his belt, but the sheath was empty! Too late he remembered the old man's warning! And as he died, he saw that the beast at his throat had the sun-colored eyes of his wife!"

Claesna leaned back against his chair and blew smoke at the listeners circled about the fire.

"Bravo!" squealed Jarcos, the fat merchant. "Oh, that was go, good! Do you mean that the werewolf was really his wife, then?"

Claesna did not deign to reply, instead nodded acceptance of the others' applause.

The meal was a scattering of picked bones and cheese rinds. The autumn night tightened its chill around the inn, where inside the travellers shared the companionship of wine and a warm fire. The hour grew late, but no one yet sought his bed. Pulling chairs in a rough circle about the glowing hearth, they had listened to the ballads of Bodger the dwarf, and as the night wore on someone had suggested that each tell a story.

"The mountains of Halbrosn seem haunted with all manner of inhuman fiends," Dordron remarked with a shiver. "Jarcos, why did you insist we make this journey to Rader? You know the wool market there has been dead for years."

"My astrologer agreed this was a wise venture. Let me worry about our business, little brother." Jarcos contrived to shape his rolls of chins into a resolute expression.

"Not only 'inhuman fiends' to watch for," Ranvyas commented, jerking a gnarled thumb toward his prisoner. "Up until two days ago there was Mad Hef here. Thoem knows how many poor travellers he's waylaid and murdered. Had a favorite trick of crawling out onto the road all covered with blood and moaning he was one of Mad Hef's victims. Too damn many good-hearted folks left their bones in the rocks for the mice to nest in. And I'd as soon forget if I could some of the things I seen back in that cave where he was laired."

Hef snickered and shook his chains against the post. "Got a special niche for your skull there, Ranvyas dear. Old man like you should've brought help along, 'stead of trying to sneak after me all alone. You're just too brave for your--"

Ranvyas raised his fist; Hef broke off in an angry mutter.

"There have been human monsters in these mountains worse than this carrion-eater," the abbot said.

"Oh? Do you know this region, eminence?" asked the innkeeper, who had joined them at the fire.

"Only from my learning. I dare say that the old provinces of the Halbros kings have figured so prominently in our history and literature that all of us know some tale of their mountains--though we are all strangers here."

He glanced around at the others. "Perhaps you observed the stone ruins that crest the ridge along the gap ahead. Quite striking against the sunset, I thought. That was the fortress from which Kane held these mountains in thrall for a hundred years. He ruled the land with a bloody fist, exacted tribute from all who passed through, fought back every expedition led against him. Some say he had made a pact with the forces of evil by which they granted him eternal youth and victory in return for the innocent blood he sacrificed each dark of the moon.

"For a while he aided Halbros-Serrantho in the imperial wars, but even the great emperor sickened of Kane's depravity and finally used the combined armies of the new empire to pull the tyrant's citadel down on his head. They say his evil ghost haunts the ruins to this day."

"A tale somewhat garbled by popular superstition," Claesna remarked. "Actually the legend of Kane has far darker implications. His name, I have observed, reappears in all ages and all lands. The literature of the occult recurrently alludes to him. In fact, there is an ancient compendium of prehuman glyphics that Kane is said to have authored. If it exists, I'd give a fortune to read it."

"A rather long-lived villain, this Kane," said Passlo drily.

"Some occult authors contend that Kane was one of the first true men, damned to eternal wandering for some dark act of rebellion against mankind's creator."

"I doubt Thoem would have damned a blasphemer to immortality," scoffed the abbot. "Doubtless his legend appeals to certain evil types who take his name for their own."

"Then they steal his physical appearance, as well," Claesna countered. "Legend describes him as a man of powerful build, seemingly a warrior in his prime years. His hair is red and he is left-handed."

"So are many others."

"But his eyes are his mark. The eyes of Kane are blue, and in them glows the mad gaze of a ruthless killer. No man may look into Kane's eyes and not know him."

Ranvyas started. "There's talk of an assassin who's behind these murders that are pushing the empire into civil war. Said to be an outlander brought in by Eypurin to remove those who oppose his false claim to the throne. His name is reportedly Kane, and what little is known of him answers to your description. Did this Kane die in the fall of his citadel?"

Passlo looked startled. "Why, of course... I suppose. Yes, he must have. That was centuries ago, man!"

"I had been warned against staying the night in the open," suggested the priest. "While nothing definite was said, I can see that these mountains have more sinister legends than the road has turns."

"That's so, Revered Callistratis," affirmed the ranger, running a hand over his short-cropped hair. "You say you lost your horse on the trail? Lucky for you you didn't meet Valdese while you was limping along in the dark."

"Valdese?"

"A lamia, reverence," explained the innkeeper. "A most beautiful spectre, Valdese is--and most malevolent. Legend says she haunts the mountain trails at night. Entices travellers into her arms and leaves them bloodless beneath the moon."

Suddenly it had grown very quiet. Leaves rustled against the frosted windowpanes.

The innkeeper sensed the unease of his guests. "Had you not heard that legend, gentlemen? But I forget--you're strangers here, all of you. Still I thought you must have heard her song. Do you know the Song of Valdese?" He raised a black-gloved hand. "Come out, Bodger. Sing Valdese's song for our guests."

The dwarf scuttled out of the shadow with his mandolin. Bowing to his audience, he began to sing, his voice comic no longer.

In the dark hills of Halbros' land,

There dwelled a lovely maid-

The brightest flower, the rarest jewel,

Shone dull in Valdese's hand.

Her father's inn stood beside the road,

Great was his wealth of gold-

But the choicest treasure of the land,

Was the heart of fair Valdese.

Then came brash suitors to her door,

Six bright and bold young men-Said they bad come to win the hand,

Of the maiden called Valdese.

"Sirs," she said, "don't think me cruel,

For I love another youth-

He must be gone for seven long years,

To study in a hidden school."

And when she told them the suitors laughed,

"Oh, your beauty is not for him-

Choose instead from one of our band,

And not some wizard's fool."

Then came her lover in a cloak of grey,

Returning from the hidden school-

Said, "I've been gone these seven long years,

Now I've come for the love of Valdese."

"Oh no," swore the suitors in jealousy,

"You'll not steal our prize"-

And with cruel knives they took his life,

And the heart of Valdese after.

Now Valdese lies in the cold, cold ground,

And her spirit haunts these hills-But her lover was sworn in the Grey Lord's name,

To serve seven times seven years.

"That's terrifying!" breathed Dordron, when the dwarf stopped singing. "So uncanny an ending, that last verse!"

"Perhaps the last verse hasn't been written," the innkeeper suggested. "Bodger, see how things are upstairs. It's grown strangely quiet up there."