Kavin's World (20 page)

I had learned that these beasts had most acute senses of smell; yet, somehow they seemed unable to find me. Their still-human aides clustered behind the beasts, as the creatures lunged here and there, teeth gleaming. For a moment, they must have taken heart, thinking their monster leaders would save them.

Then a still less human howl came from the direction of the ruined altar, and the beasts lifted their heads toward it. Kakk Marag, who had evidently broken free in the tumult, stood up, on the
altar’s
top, and he had his bow… and the silvered arrows. He was… in his own terms… singing… what I learned later was a death-song. He fully expected to die, soon enough. The beasts sprang toward him, and he loosed an arrow, and another, and a third.

The first beast rolled over, two of the arrows in its throat; but his third shot had missed, and another was almost on him. Dragging at the invisible hand, I leaped after it, slashing down at a hind leg; it screamed, and rolled, biting at the wound. The third passed me, heading for Kakk Marag; and an arrow lanced into its eye, as at the same moment I thrust through its side.

Two of the beasts were dead, and one crippled, roaring in helpless agony; I earnestly hoped the living one was the Abbot, since I had thought of several things I would like to do with him before he died.

And as I slashed again at a fleeing black robe, there was a tremendous explosion echoing in the moldering halls. I was so startled that I let go the woman’s hand; and stood revealed.

But there seemed to be no more eyes to see, except Kakk Marag’s, who came down from his fighting perch in a single bound, weeping with joy, and babbling in his own language. There were dead
everywhere,
some slashed and chopped by me, some feathered by Kakk Marag’s arrows. He yanked at arrows, refilling his quiver, still weeping and babbling as he retrieved them.

The sounds outside had grown still
more busy
, and now I was sure I heard Caltus’s hoarse voice bellowing somewhere, not far away. There were other sounds, resembling a smithy at work, and considerable squalling shrieks for mercy. The whiff of powder drifted through; Caltus had used a bag of it to blow down the gate, I guessed.

And at the moment, Isa, followed by Thuramon, came striding through the other door from the courtyards, and I stared at her, feeling such joy as a man brought back from death itself might feel.
And unable to say a word.

She was spattered with blood, her hair loose about her shoulders, and she carried a peasant’s broad-ax in her hand. She had evidently used it, I could see.

She came to me, and I could still say nothing; I gripped her arms so hard it must have bruised her, and stared at her. She dropped the axe, ringing on the stone, and came close against me, and took belated advantage of her womanhood by weeping.

Thuramon, behind her, flung down a broken hoe and grinned at me, his old self returned.

“A most unnatural weapon,” he said. “Myself, a man of scholarly arts, would find any weapon difficult… but a hoe… the thing had no balance. Still, it served till it broke.”

“Where is… she?” came Isa’s voice, from under my chin.

“She?”
I stared about. “The invisible…”

“She paid you for her board and passage,” Thuramon said, rubbing his beard, “give greeting to Macha Emmrin, and thank her. If she hears us…”

“Macha Emmrin,” I said.
“Our invisible passenger, eh?
And it seems she can give others her gift, too.
Hey, Lady Macha.
Are you listening?”

A laugh came from nowhere, but no answer.

“Her folk are… not usually so friendly,” Thuramon said. “It would seem she has taken a fancy to you. I can’t say I understand her taste… in her own
place,
she must have had full choice of her own menfolk, since she seemed quite well-favored. At least, on the only occasion I saw her, I judged so.” He grinned at me.
“While you, my lord, are not only plainly visible, but as grimed and spattered as a slaughterer’s apprentice.
Even washed and perfumed, I have never understood your charm for women folk, though…”

The doors crashed open, and Caltus burst in, followed by armed men.

“Lord Kavin!” he roared, and slammed his sword hilt against his iron shield with a great clang. “You’re safe, my lord! And we’ve taken the place! There are no more than a score of them left, penned back there.” He stared at the writhing crippled beast which lay now against the altar, snarling at us. “Some of them tried that trick, but we speared them just as well as when they wore their human shape,” he said.

“Well done, Caltus, well indeed.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “Tana’s luck on the day I brought you to my service.”

“Now, then,” he said, in a businesslike voice. “All we need do is put this den to the torch and slay the rest. Shall I begin, lord?”

I glanced at Thuramon. “Slaying of prisoners, now…” I began. But he shook his head.

“These are… as you’ve seen,” he said. “Let one live, and it begins again.”

“We could serve you well,”
came
a croaking voice, behind me, and I swung around.

There, where the beast had lain, the Abbot now stood, holding himself erect with a hand on the altar. His face was very white, and his eyes still burned; but blood dripped steadily from his wound.

Still, I felt no pity. I remembered what he had planned, and my thought must have been in my face. The Abbot turned, still gripping the altar, and faced it, his back to me. He cried out in a long, rhythmic call, harsh words in an unknown tongue.

I raised my sword,
then
lowered it.

“I won’t slay a man at his prayers, damn it,” I said aloud.

“He prays to his demon,” Thuramon said, seizing my arm. “Kill him!”

But the Abbot had flung up his arms, and croaked a final echoing syllable; and now he turned again to face us, his arms still raised high. His eyes flamed with a demon’s look, and he grinned hideously.

“Heathen filth, you cannot slay the Servant of the Highest One! You are His, and he comes, to save me and to take you to Himself! A thousand years I have served…”

And behind him, a dark presence began to form, a Shadow, at first seeming to be his own shadow cast back behind him on the wall… and growing, denser, and greater. It loomed now, as high as the high roof of the hall; and a glow lit it, as though eyes stared out of it down at us. And the Abbot capered, shrieking with joy.

“Now this,” Thuramon said, quite calmly… although he seemed very pale… “This is my work. Fortunately I seem to recall a barrier…”

And he bent, scrawling hastily on the floor with a bit of chalk. His swift fingers drew a line of twisting characters between that Shadow and his servant, and ourselves.

The Shadow moved forward, and the figure of the Abbot seemed to dim, as it passed over him. Then, it met the chalked line, and stopped. For a long moment, it seemed to press against that wall, and the glow brightened. And then, very swiftly, it seemed to diminish, and was gone.

The Abbot stared at us, his mouth open, but wordless at last. After a long time, he spoke, in a hoarse whisper.

“A thousand years. I forsook the other for him. I served…” And then he shrieked, in hideous agony.

He was… crumbling. Even as we watched, his unnatural span of life left him, and he seemed to fall away in brownish flakes, moldering… and for a few more moments, still horribly alive. His hands, now bone in truth, scrabbled feebly in a strange gesture, back and forth and up and down over his chest… and his crumbling mouth emitted one last cry in a strange language.

“Basiloi… ahh… hagia sophi…”

The black robes lay in a flattened heap, out of which a few brown bones protruded.

“An evil end,” Thuramon said. He rubbed away the chalk marks with his foot, murmuring a phrase under his breath. “It doesn’t pay to serve a master who… requires too much.” He stared down at the dust that had been the Abbot. “He tried to change gods, too.
But very late.”

In the open land, outside the monastery, men from our ships still came along the ancient road, while others leaned on their bloodied weapons; and among them were growing numbers of the small brown people, bringing gifts of food and ale. The place was beginning to resemble a fair. As we came out into the sunlight, we were greeted by a long roar, and shouts of the old victory cries of Dorada. I was very weary, but the sound gave me new strength; I went down among them to where Caltus waited.

“Thuramon,” I said, “tell these other folk, in their language, that we are their friends. Give them our pledges of fair dealing. We will not use one handspan of this land of theirs without their free gift of it; make that clear. But if they will share this fair land of Koremon with our people, we will repay with our arms and our tools, and whatever else they ask.”

Thuramon repeated what I said, in slow words of the native tongue, and a silence fell over his bearers. Then some of them began to mutter together, and finally, an old man stepped forward, and delivered a long speech.

“He says that we are the old ones come back, whatever that means,” Thuramon said. “I imagine there were other tall folk here once. He says many things, praises, I think. Then he says that they wish you to be their king, and to wear the Copper Crown, whatever that is, and all shall live here as it was in the ancient time.” He grinned. “I would highly recommend the idea, Prince. I am heartily sick of water in any form, and these folk make fine ale.”

I stood silently, thinking for a moment, and looking toward Isa. This land could be a fairer Dorada, a great and fair land; and here, my sons and my sons’ sons would reign…
Isa’s sons, too.
Not merely princes under a priestesshood’s whim, either, but true of kings. But then, I had seen a few kings in the west. Even good blood might thin, after a few generations; possibly our old Doradan way
had
its points, too.

Now what, in Tana’s name, was a Copper Crown, and what did it entail?

“Thuramon,” I said slowly. “Tell them we will gladly stay here, with them, as brothers in this land. Or perhaps another word… brother may not be best, considering. But on this matter of kinging it over them: say we have a vow, that I may not call myself a king. Not for a while yet, at any rate, not till we finish that other fight to come. It may be that to be their king has obligations. I’d wait a while.”

“You learn wisdom, boy,” Thuramon said, and turned to the peasant who had spoken.

More lengthy debate followed, and weariness crept on me again, till I leaned on my sword like an old man on a staff. Isa moved closer to me, and grasped my arm, smiling.

Thuramon finished his longwinded chaffering at last, and turned to me again.

“These are most interesting matters, Lord Prince,” he said. “But I’ll save all but the meat of it for another time. Briefly, then: they accept, and we do. Their Copper Crown they believe is sacred, a relic hidden from the old times when others ruled here. It will wait your pleasure, but they obey you in any case. They say there are few of them, and more land than all of us can fill, and they give us welcome.”

I raised my voice, speaking to all of our own folk.

“These brown people are our friends and brothers,” I said. “This land of Koremon belongs now to all of us, together, and we shall build our houses here, and live. Dorada is dead. I am not Prince of Dorada, but of Koremon, and you are all the men of Koremon from this day forth. And as for the rest, we shall land all from the ships, and hold feast time in this place.”

The cheering rolled like a sea wave at that, but Caltus, at my elbow, pointed to the monastery. There, against the wall, a handful of the black-robes cowered under the spears of guards and the axes of scowling brown men.

“Burn them all under their own foul rooftree,” Caltus said.

I shook my head. “We may tear down that hall of evil,” I said. “But I think Thuramon may wish to poke about in it first, looking for what crumbs of wisdom he can gather. Am I right, fat wizard?”

He nodded, grinning. “They’d have books, Lord Prince, and evil or not, I’d not burn books.
And maybe other things.”

I studied the huddled group in the distance.

“It might be wisdom to kill them all,” I said slowly.
“But… no, not thus, prisoners.
A bad way to bring a new land to birth.
Thuramon, do you think these can change skins as the rest did? If they can, they’ll be a great danger to let free.”

“It’s a plant, eaten with certain spells,” he said. “Once taken, they can change when they wish. It may be that these we took are all lesser ones, who had never been given the gift, since they surrendered without trying that way. But there’s a way to keep them in their present skins, even so. Lock them away for now, and tomorrow I’ll work such tricks on them that they’ll seem as meek as mice from now on.”

Caltus scowled. “I’d finish them now,” he said. “Or at least, let them run free. There are two dragons flying up there, singing for such meat.” He thrust his sword point toward the sky, where specks wheeled high in the blue.

During the months that followed, I remember chiefly a burden of labor that would make no man envy a ruler’s rank. There were days when I managed to gain four hours sleep all together, but not many of them; and there seemed always to be new tasks waiting as the first were done.

In the first days, we sent a ship back along the coast, to call at those ports in the west where our folk had been sent. I gave them instructions to gather any who wished to come, Doradans or others; but to seek particularly for those who knew useful crafts, smiths, builders, and workmen. I sent letters, also, with the ship, addressed to such rulers as might soon be menaced by the same sorrows that had ruined Dorada. The letters spoke of a
danger,
and of the need to raise men to move against a distant evil; but I dared not be too specific. Those three might have their eyes and ears open in the west, and too loud a noise might attract them before I was ready.

It was the gifts I sent, rather than the vague words, that I hoped might move those rulers. There were vaults under that monastery, and in them an age’s worth of plunder. It was difficult to believe such hoards
could be
gained and hidden, nor could I understand where the jewels and gold had come from. But I used that hoard; here in Koremon we did not need the stuff yet, but in the west gold was a great mover of men’s minds.