Prince of Outcasts (51 page)

“We walk in dreams, and wake, and find ourselves still in dreams within dreams, as the black stars shift and the moon sets before the towers of the sacred city. And who is the dreamer, and who, messieurs, the dream itself?”

A deep rumble came from within the hill-high ruin before them. A line of brightness ran down the middle of it from the tall peak to the base, and the rumble grew. The great mass parted, like a door swinging open, ponderous and sure. Through it poured . . . things.

At first he thought they were men, but then he saw that they would reach no higher than his standing waist. Naked and stick-thin, childish faces and huge dark eyes below shocks of hair and a thin bristle of whiskers around withered lips, loincloths and spears and hatchets tipped with chipped volcanic glass. They piled on one another until there was a seething heap of them, and then they looked at him.

And blinked, in unison, hundreds of eyes vanishing in the purple gloom and opening in a single glinting motion. Then the mouths gaped, showing pointed teeth and fluttering tongues, and they
squealed
. John felt himself grunt and his head went back in an arc of pain as the sound trilled and drilled into his ears.

“EEEEeeeeeeEEEEEeeeeeeEEEEE—”

He sagged as it stopped, feeling blood running warm and salt from his ears and nose, eyes and bitten lips. A figure danced down from that opening, and at first he thought it was the dancer of the
tari Cendrawasih
. But the hair that tossed about her head was white-blond . . . or rather the white of polished bone. When she stopped in the final figure of the dance he saw that her fingernails were long and had the glint of razors, and the necklace about her neck was of gut and skulls. Then she lifted her head and the hair parted, and he made a hoarse sound of denial at muzzle and tusks and narrow red eyes, the flesh with the moist living pliancy of real life.

“Most beautiful Madam Rangda,” the Pallid Mask said, with a flourishing
bow and movement of his hands that was as much Old Europe as the language in which he spoke.

“Dearest ally of my monarch. I kiss your hands and feet at this most generous aid. It shall be repaid in overflowing measure.”

There were men following behind those who carried John, men bloodied and weary and still bearing weapons. The Pallid Mask gestured towards them, and the little lemur-eyed creatures chittered and
flowed
towards them. The shrieks were brief, and a long red tongue lapped at the dancer-thing's fanged chops.

“A good appetite, my lady,” the robed man said. He turned to John. “Now to Carcosa . . . the earthly Carcosa which strives always to be worthy of its namesake . . . for our better acquaintance, most well and highborn guest.”

John forced himself to look into the lambent eyes. “I doubt you'll get much satisfaction from it,” he said. “If you don't dare face me without a mask.”

The man signaled, and the bearers began to drag John towards the cleft in the rock.

He chuckled as the young man was borne past him. “Oh, my Prince . . . I wear no mask.”

“No mask?” John said numbly. The scream bubbled in his throat, choking him.
“No mask?”

S. M. Stirling
is the
New York Times
bestselling author of many science fiction and fantasy novels. A former lawyer and an amateur historian, he lives in the Southwest with his wife, Jan.

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