The Sword and the Sorcerer (13 page)

Because of its fanglike stalactites and stalagmites, the largest of these caverns resembled the wide-open mouth of a dragon, and the tongues of fires that shot up from its moat were like the dragon’s fiery breaths.

It was to this cavern that Xusia had retreated for rest and reflection ever since the day eleven years ago when he reassembled the atoms of his own body after Cromwell had ripped it open. Here was where Xusia contemplated bizarre lessons of pain and humiliation for Cromwell, his betrayer. And plotting the abhorred king’s final and inglorious annihilation became the sorcerer’s
raison d’être
—and he cared not one whit how many innocent people were victimized in order to peel the skin and meat from Cromwell’s abominable bones!

These were some of the dark thoughts Xusia had shared aloud many times with Roba—the young witch who had left her livelihood of reading Tarot cards and making sterile women fertile to service Xusia, her beloved master. Roba watched over him while he slept, cooked his inhuman meals for him and willingly submitted her body to the punishment of his bestial organ whenever his passions roared for her.

Roba was lounging on the stone steps that led to the massive granite throne where Xusia now slept. Cupping her pointy breasts through a long black robe, to amuse herself while the sorcerer slumbered, she imagined the leaping and weaving flames in the moat encircling the steps to be the virgins Xusia had had her abduct and have carnal perversion with—while the sorcerer had watched, cackled and fondled himself. But while these imaginings excited her greatly, and though her eyes were green-wild on drugs, her cat’s ears were ever attuned to any foreign sound that might intrude upon her master’s sleep. From time to time Roba would lovingly glance up at Xusia’s leathery reptilian features, then return to staring into the fire. How blessed she was to be the master wizard’s chosen acolyte!

The rattle of a sword in its sheath instantly galvanized her to her feet. She trained her blazing green eyes in the direction of the intrusion. Then, through the haze of smoke and fire Roba saw the spy Xusia had planted among the rebels, Ninshu. He was stumbling toward the drawbridge across the fiery moat and one of his arms hung limp at his side, bearing an ugly dry wound. Roba jumped in front of the bridge and blocked his way, hissing at him because she would not permit her master’s sleep to be broken, and because she distrusted all spies on general principle.

“Stop!” she hissed again. “Thou shall not disturb our Dark Father! He is in his Black Sleep!”

Ninshu stormed across the bridge and pushed her aside. She fell on the steps. “Out of my way, witch! I have business with Xusia and Xusia alone!”

Roba crouched on the steps like a cat ready to spring, pondering whether to rush Ninshu into the fire. Then a smug smile twisted her thin blue lips. Let the idiot spy disturb the master’s sleep. Xusia’s wrath would be far worse than anything she could do to him.

Ninshu dropped to his knees at the foot of Xusia’s throne and, in the most obsequious and urgent of voices shouted, “I implore you, lord and master of all things powerful, forgive my intrusion!”

Xusia shuddered and his hooded eyes flickered open, his wide slit of a mouth curling contemptuously when he saw who had dared violate his much needed sleep. For powerful as he was he had been working his magic hard and even a sorcerer must sleep.

“Master,” Ninshu hurried on. “Cromwell has clipped the balls of the rebellion!”

“How so?” Xusia demanded. It was bad enough to have his sleep shattered but to be awakened to such news was unforgivable!

“He has taken Mikah prisoner. Reports are that he has also captured Alana.”

The perpetually exploding flames behind Ninshu were not nearly as awesome as the red glow of hate that bathed Xusia’s churning features now.

“Thou art a blundering pile of flesh!” the sorcerer railed. “I should never have entrusted thee as my spy amongst the rebels!”

Ninshu knew his life was in danger and he quaked with fear. “It was not my fault, master! Somehow Cromwell learned of our plans!”

Xusia stared at the groveling, bedraggled spy with unmitigated scorn. Cromwell’s men must have recognized Mikah on the street and followed him to the rebels’ lair. But to learn that his carefully laid plans had been foiled by a fluke from such scum as Ninshu was insufferable. Besides, he had no further use for the spy. “You dare bring me such outrageous news, dog! Without Mikah the revolt has lost its cause!”

Xusia raised one of his hands and made a beckoning gesture toward the long streaming flames in the moat, as if he were summoning trained serpents. Instantly several of the flames leaped out of the moat to lap at Ninshu’s flesh. He jumped and shrieked with pain, while Roba clapped her hands with vindictive glee. “Mercy!” he begged, slapping at the flames curling around him as if they were indeed attacking serpents. “It must have been Machelli who betrayed Mikah—not me, master! He talked last with the prince!”

For some reason this information angered Xusia even more. “Machelli! You are dumber and more stupid than I thought!”

Xusia raised his hand to the flames again and this time a wall of raging fire surged for Ninshu, enveloping and sucking him into the moat with one belching roar. He squealed like a pig being roasted alive. Roba rushed to the edge of the moat to watch him burn. “Good riddance, master!” she yelled through her own maniacal laugher.

Once Ninshu’s irritating squeals subsided the sorcerer did not give him a second thought. Besides, his eleven-year obsession to crush Cromwell quickly returned to push everything else from his mind. In the light of the recent turn of events it was clear that he had to depend less on the rebels and more on himself to best the renegade king and his betrayer.

Xusia rose from his throne of granite, adjusted his long, sweeping robes and moved down the steps, shouting to Roba, “Leave your entertainment, witch, and make arrangements for the boat. Now I must finish the business at hand!”

THIRTEEN

he sewage system underneath Elysium was badly in need of repairs, as was most everything else in this plundered and sorely neglected city under Cromwell’s reign. Made up of a maze of long, twisting tunnels, caverns and sloshing rivulets of human filth and water, parts of this subterranean labyrinth were drying up but still slimy and overpoweringly odious.

It was through one of these drier but slippery sections of the sewer world that Talon and Rodrigo led the band of rebels from Skull Cave, trudging closer and closer to the castle grounds above.

The only light here came from the dozen flaming torches distributed among the men. Rodrigo carried one of them. And the tricky and illusory play of shimmering light and pulsating shadows on the walls often hindered rather than helped moving over the treacherous ground. At no time did they ever see more than ten feet in front of them, while the uneven rock formations frequently caused the band of warriors to crouch, stoop and come close to crawling on their bellies.

For Talon, being the largest man in the bunch, these cribbed confines were even more difficult to negotiate than for the others. More than once he bumped his head on an unsuspected overhanging rock. Nor did carrying the small cask of oil under his arm make walking over the slippery terrain any easier.

As Talon rounded a bend in the tunnel he lost his footing and nearly went down. “Damn it, Rodrigo! Is this the only way into the dungeon? It stinks—in more ways than one!”

“We can’t possibly get in from the top side, my lord.”

“Don’t call me that!” It embarrassed him to have a man approximately his own age address him with such reverence. Besides, from the moment they met he had taken an instant liking to Rodrigo and considered him an equal.

“Then what should I call you?” Rodrigo asked.

Talon still did not think the time was ripe to disclose his real identify. “For the time being call me T.”

“T?”

“Yes, T. How much—” His sentence was cut short by bumping into another overhanging rock. “What a place!”

Rodrigo and the others laughed at his clumsiness, rendered all the more funny because it was in marked contrast to the grade and deftness he had displayed at Skull Cave. But the friendly laughter did not offend Talon because during their short interval together an air of humorous camaraderie had developed between Talon and the young rebels.

“It’s not much further. In fact, I hear the stream that leads to the castle moat. Our exit is only a short distance from where the stream meets with this sewer.”

Suddenly Talon froze in his tracks, the action bringing the rebels to a halt too.

“What is it?” Rodrigo asked, alarmed by the grave concern on his new friend’s face.

Talon motioned for him and the others to be quiet. A current of uneasiness went through the rebels as Talon cocked his ears to pierce the inky blackness behind them. And as he bobbed and tilted his head as if listening to voices no one heard but him, the makeshift soldiers clutched their weapons tighter.

“What do you hear?” Rodrigo whispered.

Instead of replying Talon cuffed his steeled hand over Rodrigo’s handsome mouth.
“Listen!”

Silence prevailed once more in the caverns, a silence so pure that every gurgle of the sluggishly flowing sewage nearby was heard with magnified keenness.

Then the sound that Talon had been the first to register became audible to everyone. It came rushing at them from out of the rocky corkscrew interiors through which they had already passed. And as the noise sharpened, the horror on each man’s face bespoke the same recognition; what they were listening to was the muted whir of thousands of squeaking and scurrying rats.

“Run!” Talon shouted, and the rebels shot off like arrows into the darkness lying ahead. In their panicky flight from the stampeding, hunger-crazed rodents they jostled and shoved each other in tight narrow spaces, slipped and fell in other spots, only to resume running at breakneck speed. Their flashing torches cast riotous shadows of themselves on the sweating walls, racing alongside with them. But regardless how fast they ran they knew that sooner than later the rats would overtake them. It was only a matter of time before what must look like a rippling carpet of rats would sweep around one of the tunnels to engulf them.

Struggling vainly to keep up with the young rebels was Cornelius, one of the few elderly men who had early thrown in their lot with the young hotbloods. His torch shaking violently as he pumped his increasingly weakening legs, Cornelius was falling behind the fleeing pack. But the prospect of those vile creatures crawling all over his body drove him on, even as he began to stumble and grind to a leaden pace.

The rebels were a good twenty yards ahead of Cornelius when Kabal—the baby of the squad—glanced over his shoulder and saw the plight of the old man. Cornelius had been like a father to him. Kabal swallowed his terrible fear of rats and doubled back to retrieve his aged mentor. Cornelius grabbed Kabal’s outstretched hand—the old man’s gray eyes teary with gratitude—and let the brave boy pull him along as they ran together. But they only dashed a short distance when Cornelius’ overworked legs began to wobble and falter. He just could not run any more.

“Save yourself, son!” Cornelius shouted, relinquishing Kabal’s hand and motioning him to go ahead.

Kabal ignored Cornelius’ exhortation and lost no time in hooking the old man onto his back. Cornelius held his torch with one hand while locking his arm about Kabal’s chest and the boy sprinted after the others, who were rapidly fading in the distance.

The flaming torches made the fleeing rebels look like the tail end of a comet. Kabal wanted to yell out to them, “Please wait!” But he would not act cowardly, regardless of their fate. So he continued running with the burden of the old man on his back, though in his heart he already knew he would never be able to catch up with them.

“Drop me and go on alone!” Cornelius begged. But Kabal’s arms only tightened under his tired old legs.

“Never, father! Together we live or together we die!” Onward he ran, hoping Cornelius did not smell the piss running down his own legs or feel the cold fear numbing his muscles.

The high-pitched sound of the rats was deafening now. They were so close Kabal and Cornelius could smell them. Suddenly, like a raging flood turning a corner, the dreadful noise reached a piercing crescendo. The boy and old man knew the gray tide of death was directly behind them. Fear was a knife cutting into Kabal’s legs and he tripped and fell, spilling Cornelius off his shoulders. “Mother!” the boy screamed, covering his face with his arms for the oncoming rats. Cornelius swung the torch around to illuminate the darkness and there, surging toward them, was a ferocious sea of red- and green-eyed rats—their tiny pointed teeth bared as they leaped and proceeded to ravish Cornelius and Kabal in a gory feast of living flesh.

The youth’s and old man’s screams reverberated throughout the rocky tunnels, driving the rebels up ahead into a mad, headlong panic. They pushed each other aside, trampling the fallen ones beneath the crazed press. Talon and Rodrigo urged them not to succumb to hysteria but they already had. The terror of being devoured by gluttonous rats was greater than any fear of battle.