To Rescue Tanelorn (17 page)

But now the year was 323
BC
and Alexander was aged thirty-two. He had ruled over twelve years—soon he would have reigned thirteen…

In the dark caverns of creation, existing within a multiplicity of dimensions, vital evil thrived, chuckling and plotting—crime.

For thirteen years had the forces of Light and Darkness warred in poor Alexander’s soul and body, unbeknownst to the proud, grandiose and arrogant world-conqueror. But now the stars proclaimed that a certain time had come.

And Alexander suffered…

Riders galloped towards the corners of the world. Bright banners whipped in the wind as armies sped across the lands around the Mediterranean. Ships groaned with the weight of armoured soldiers. Blood flowed like wine and wine like water. Corpses roasted in guttering castles and the earth shook to the coming of Alexander’s cavalry.

And now messengers rode to the camps of his captains, recalling them. They were needed. The final conquest was to be made. But it would not be Alexander’s triumph. The triumph would belong to a greater conqueror. Some called him Ahriman.

Hastily now Alexander’s captains mounted their chariots and headed towards Babylon. Many had to cross oceans, continents.

Every oracle prophesied doom—some said for Alexander, some said for the world. Never, they said, had evil clouded the world as much as now.

Ahriman had prepared the world through Alexander.

Soon the powers of Light would be destroyed for ever and, though it might take many more centuries of completion, Ahriman could begin his plans of conquest and, finally, destruction.

There were more vehicles for his plans.

Simon lazed back on a bench and ran his hand over Camilla’s warm shoulders.

“Do not the heroes of legend always claim such reward from the maidens they rescue?” he asked mockingly.

She smiled at him affectionately.

“The Camilla of legend, if you remember, had nought to do with men. I’ve a mind to emulate her.”

“A sad waste.”

“For you, perhaps, but not for me…”

Simon pretended to sigh. “Very well,” he said, “I can see I shall have to wait until you eventually succumb to my undoubted attraction.”

Again she smiled. “You have been here a week and I have not fallen yet.”

“It was good of your father to give me the position of Captain of his Bodyguard, particularly since he is risking arrest if Olympias should ever discover that I slew her servants.”

“Merates is a good and wise man,” Camilla said seriously, “one of the few left in Pela, these days. He was close to Philip and admired him greatly. But Philip’s son would have nothing to do with his father’s councilors so now Merates lives in quiet retirement.”

Simon had already learned that Camilla was the foster daughter of Merates, that she had been born to a loved and trusted Paeonian slave who had died when she was a child.

He had grown to respect the old nobleman and planned, though it was dangerous for him, to stay in Pela and probably settle there. He had already fallen in love with Camilla.

And so he courted her and although she gave him no reason to cease this courtship, on the other hand she did not encourage him overmuch. She knew him for a soldier-of-fortune and a wanderer. Perhaps she wanted to be certain of him.

But they were dark times and Simon, rationalist though he was, could not be unaware of them. He sensed the gathering storm and was restless.

One day as he was instructing a group of slaves in the art of using the shield, Merates came hurrying into the courtyard.

“Simon—a word with you.”

The Thracian propped a sword against the wall and went with Merates into the house.

There were tears in Merates’s eyes when he spoke.

“Camilla is gone. She had to go on an errand in the market—a regular monthly visit to settle our score with the merchants with whom we trade. She has been gone four hours—she is normally gone one…”

Simon’s body grew taut. “Olympias? Do you think…?”

Merates nodded.

Simon turned, went swiftly to his quarters where he buckled on his leather belt bearing the scabbarded sword the Magi had given him.

He flung a blanket over his horse’s back, rode it from the stable, ducking his head beneath the door beam, through the gates of the house and down the streets of Pela to the city centre.

He enquired in the market for her. She had not been seen there for well over two hours. Thinking swiftly, he headed for the slums of the city, dismounted outside a certain door and knocked.

Massiva, the black Numidian priest, answered the door himself. He was dressed like a slave—evidently disguised.

“Come in, Simon. It is good to see you.”

“I wish aid, Massiva. And in return I may be able to help you.”

Massiva ushered him inside.

“What is it?”

“I am certain that Queen Olympias has kidnapped Camilla, Lord Merates’s daughter.”

Massiva’s expression did not change. “It is likely—Camilla is reputed beautiful and a virgin. Olympias seeks such qualities. Either she will corrupt Camilla and force her to take an active part in the rites—or else she will make her take a passive part.”

“Passive? What do you mean?”

“The blood of virgins is needed in several spells.”

Simon shuddered.

“Can you help me? Tell me where I may find her!”

“The Rites of Cottyttia begin tonight. That is where to look.”

“Where do they take place?”

“Come, I will draw you a map. You will most likely perish in this, Simon. But you will be convinced that we have spoken the truth in the past.”

Simon looked at the negro sharply. Massiva’s face was expressionless.

They called her Cotys and she was worshipped as a goddess in Thrace, Macedonia, Athens and Corinth. For centuries her name had been connected with licentious revelry—but never had she prospered so well than in Pela where Queen Olympias danced with snakes in her honour. Though only part of a greater Evil One, she flourished and grew on the tormented souls of her acolytes and their victims.

The house stood on its own on a hill.

Simon recognized it from Massiva’s description. It was night, silver with rime and moonlight, but there were movements in the shadows and shapes of evil portent. His breath steaming white against the darkness, Simon pressed on up the hill towards the house.

A slave greeted him as he reached the door.

“Welcome—be you
Baptae
or heretic?”

Baptae,
Simon had learned from Massiva, was the name that the worshippers of Cotys called themselves.

“I come to take part in tonight’s Cottyttia, that’s true,” Simon said and slew the slave.

Inside the house, lighted by a single oil-lamp, Simon located the door which opened on reeking blackness. He bent and entered it and soon was creeping downwards, down into the bowels of the hill. The walls of the tunnel were slippery with clammy moss and the air was thick and difficult to breathe. The sharp sound of his sword coming from its scabbard was comforting to Simon.

His sandaled feet slipped on the moss-covered stones of the passage and, as he drew nearer to his goal, his heart thudded in his rib-cage and his throat was tight for he now had something of the emotion he had felt when confronted by Alexander’s insanity.

Now he heard a low chanting, half ecstatic moaning, half triumphant incantation. The sound grew louder, insinuating itself into his ears until he was caught for a moment in the terrible evil ecstasy which the Cottyttian celebrants were feeling. He controlled himself against an urge to flee, the even stronger urge to join them, and continued to advance, the rare steel sword gleaming in his fist. The iron was a comfort, at least, though he still refused to believe that there was any supernatural agency at work.

Almost tangibly the evil swirled about him as he pressed on and here his rational, doubting nature was to his advantage. Without it, he might easily have succumbed.

The chanting swelled into a great roar of evil joy and through it he heard a name being repeated over and over:

“
Cotys. Cotys. Cotys. Cotys.
”

He was half hypnotized by the sound, stumbled towards a curtain and wrenched it back.

He retreated a pace at what he saw.

The air was thick with incense. Golden light flared from tall black candles on an altar. From the altar rose a pillar and tied to the pillar was Camilla. She had fainted.

But it was not this that sickened him so much as the sight of the things which swarmed about the altar. They were neither men nor women but neuter. Perhaps they had once been men. They were young and good-looking, their hair long and their faces thin, the bones prominent and the eyes flickering with malignant glee. Naked, to one side of the altar, Simon saw an old woman. Her face was that of a woman of sixty, but her body seemed younger. Around it twined great serpents, caressing her. She crooned to them and led the chanting. Young women danced with the neuters, posturing and prancing.

“
Cotys. Cotys. Cotys.
”

The candles spurted seething light and sent shadows leaping around the walls of the caverns. Then a peculiar golden orange brightness appeared at the top of the column to which Camilla was tied and seemed to twine and coil down the pillar.

Other shapes joined the dancing humans. Twisted shapes with great horns on their heads and the faces of beasts, the hoofs of goats.

Simon moved forward, his sword held before him in instinctive protection against the evil in the cavern.

“Cease!” A name came to his lips and he shouted it out: “In the name of Ormuzd—cease!”

A huge swelling of unhuman laughter came from the boiling brightness on the pillar and Simon saw figures form in it. Figures that were man-shaped and seemed to be at the same time part of the structure of a huge face, lined and pouched with a toothless, gaping mouth and closed eyes.

Then the eyes opened and seemed to fix themselves on Simon. The smaller figures writhed about it and it laughed again. Bile was in his throat, his head throbbed, but he gripped the sword and pushed his way through the sweating bodies of the worshippers. They grinned at him maliciously but did not attempt to stop him.

He was lost in the pull of those malicious eyes.

“Ormuzd is too weak to protect thee, mortal,” the mouth said. “Ahriman rules here—and will soon rule the world through his vessel, Alexander.”

Still Simon pushed his way towards the pillar, towards Camilla and the leering face above her.

“Ormuzd will not aid thee, mortal. We are many and stronger. Behold me! What do you see?”

Simon made no reply. He gripped the steel blade tighter and advanced closer.

“Do you see us all? Do you see the one these revelers call Cotys? Do you see the Evil One?”

Simon staggered forwards, the last few paces between him and the entity coiling about the pillar. Olympias now pushed her face forward, the snakes hissing, their forked tongues flickering.

“Go to her, Thracian—my son knows thee—go to her and we’ll have a double sacrifice this night.”

With his free hand, Simon pushed against the scaly bodies of the snakes and sent the woman staggering back.

With trancelike deliberation he cut the bonds that held Camilla to the pillar. But many hands, orange-gold hands, shot out from the column and gripped him in a shuddering, yet ecstatic embrace. He howled and smote at the hands and, at the touch of steel they flickered back again into their scintillating parent body.

Then he felt the clammy hands of the acolytes upon his body. Sensing that he had some advantage, Simon dragged a bunch of herbs from his shirt—herbs which Massiva had given him—and plunged them into the candle flames. A pungent aroma began to come from the flaring herbs and the naked worshippers dropped back. The apparition itself seemed to fade slightly, its light less bright.

Simon sprang at the shape, his sword flashing like silver and passing through the hazy face which snarled and laughed alternately. The sword clanged on the stone of the column. Desperately, he drew back his arm to strike another blow, his whole body weakened. He felt like an old, worn man.