The Warrior's Tale (50 page)

'It's not possible,' I heard him mutter.

'What isn't possible?' I asked.

He gave a querulous hiss and so I left him alone. We didn't speak the rest of the day. That night as I prepared for bed he was still sitting on the edge of the mattress, toying endlessly with his beard. I started to ask him what was amiss, but thought better of it.

I no sooner closed my eyes than I plummeted into sleep. This time, there was no warning sensation of being pulled at by some dark force. I felt as if I were falling at great speed from a mountainous height. I wanted to scream, to sit bolt upright and break the grip of the dream, but I couldn't. I heard a voice calling my name. It was deep, and harsh and full of evil. I thought I recognized the voice, but couldn't recall who it might be. Rocky ground rushed up at me, but just before my fall ended a hot wind gusted, carrying me up again and then I was sailing through stark, cloudless skies.

I flew like that for what seemed to be a long time. An endless sea, devoid of life, rushed under me. Then up ahead I saw an island. Flame and smoke poured from it and I saw villages on fire and hordes of soldiers making sport with its inhabitants. Men and young boys were being speared, or ripped to pieces. Women and girls were suffering all sorts of degradation. A long line of horse-drawn carts was coming down a hillside road that led to the summit.

I willed myself to move in that direction and a moment later I found myself hovering over the hill. Beneath me was a splendid temple. It had a large golden dome and its vast gardens were decorated with the statues of what were obviously important deities. Soldiers, laden with booty, were pouring out of the temple. I saw others with the temple's priestesses, forcing them to perform all sorts of obscene acts. Then, atop a small knoll at the edge of the garden, I saw The Sarzana. He was seated on a black warhorse. He was laughing and urging the despoilers on. They began to topple the idols, stripping them of any rare metals that might decorate them. Some of the priestesses were dragged to those fallen idols, thrown across them and raped. When the soldiers were done with the women they were killed. I was too numb for anger, or even horror-.

The Sarzana raised his head and looked up towards me. He laughed and the sound of his laughter boomed out as if he were a giant. Then I heard someone laugh in return. It rolled and buffeted me like thunder. It came from above and I craned my head back to see a thick black cloud knuckling under the sky. The cloud swirled and whip-cracked with lightning. Laughter seemed to pour from a hideous, mouth-like hole. A face began to take shape in the cloud -fiery eyes, beaked nose and yellowed fangs. It was the Archon!

He saw me and hissed: 'It's Antero. The bitch ferret!'

He formed his lips into a funnel and began to draw in his breath. I shouted in fear as I was sucked towards him. I was falling upward, hurtling for the foulness of his mouth.

The nightmare shattered and I bolted up in my bed. Sweat was flooding from every pore and I was shaken and weak. I looked over at Gamelan and saw by the light of the guttering torch the wizard was still asleep. I swung off the shelf, gasping with effort. I lit a new torch, then strode to the water pail and scrubbed my skin until it was raw. Then I sat on the edge of my mattress, waiting for morning.

Finally, a rattle of food buckets and a shuffle of feet announced Oolumph's approach. A new day had begun. Gamelan groaned awake.

'Here yer be, Cap'n,' Oolumph said as he passed the pails through the food hole.

Usually Oolumph was full of cheer and foul jests. Today he was glum, withdrawn.

'What's the matter, Oolumph?' I said. 'Are you ill?'

He shook his head. 'I'm well enough,' he said. 'But it's best not to speak. Today's an unlucky day.'

'I'd call a city besieged by the plague about as unlucky as it can get,' I said. 'Why is this day any worse than the others?'

Oolumph was quiet for a moment. Then he looked this way and that to see if anyone was near. He came close to the bars. 'Somethin' terrible's happened,' he said. 'The Sarzana's finally gone too far. He wrecked th' temple at Chalcidice yestiddy. Desecrated it, they says. Looted it of ever' stone, and raped the priestesses to boot.'

I just stared at him, gaping, as he rambled on describing the things The Sarzana had done at Chalcidice. All of it was identical to my nightmare. And if even Oolumph was shocked by what I now realized I had somehow witnessed, then The Sarzana had gone quite mad. Or worse.

When Oolumph left us I told Gamelan about my vision.

Gamelan's features darkened. 'The Sarzana we knew would never do such a thing,' he said. 'He would not foul his own gods. He'd know that no matter how great his victory, the people he'd once again rule would never forgive him.' The fire cracked and I jumped. 'It's as I feared, Rali,' the old wizard continued. 'Somehow the Archon has returned. And he has made a bargain with The Sarzana. And he is in control.'

More than our own puny lives were now at stake. With the Archon loose, Orissa itself was threatened.

'His ghost has followed us from the reefs,' Gamelan said. 'He's been looking for a path that would allow him to return and he has found it in The Sarzana. Except, it is no mortal wizard we face, but a demi-god whose powers are growing mightily from all the blood being shed.'

When we first pursued the Archon we knew he was on the verge of discovering a great spell that would destroy our homeland. With his new powers that spell was more than ever within his grasp.

'We must foil him here,' Gamelan said.

'That's all very well, wizard,' I said. 'But what makes escape any more possible now than before?'

*We know who our enemy really is,' Gamelan said. 'If the gods are with us, that knowledge alone may be all we need.'

He told me his plan. Four coins from my belt put the first part in motion.

Two days later the soldiers came for me. I was manacled with heavy chains and they
led me along twisting dungeon corridors that wound up, up, up, until the cold was gone, to be replaced by stifling heat. Outside, I could hear wind howling like tormented spirits. I smelled rancid vinegar and the sulphur of plague fires and when we went past the guards' barracks
-
room I saw mottled sunlight through barred windows. We stopped in front of a large iron door framed in heavy timber. One of the soldiers rapped on the door. 'Enter,' came a voice.

We went in. The soldiers bowed low before a cowled figure.

'Remove her chains,' the figure ordered. The soldiers did not argue, but quickly struck them off. Then, one last command: 'You may leave us.'

The soldiers left, muscling the door shut behind them. I heard a large bolt shoot across, barring the door. The figure swept away the cowl and black hair spilled out. It was Princess Xia, so achingly beautiful after all my days in ugly gloom that I nearly swooned. A cool, spiced perfume swirled around and through me as she ran to my side to steady me.

'My poor Captain,' she said, her voice so sweet after all the harshness that my heart lurched in its moorings.

She led me to a bench and helped me sit. A silver flask was thrust into my hands and I smelled strong wine. I drank deeply. Fire blossomed in my veins.

I looked at her and time stood still. It was as if I had suddenly entered a world where only Xia and I existed. All convention, all reason was swept away as I gazed on that exquisite face, skin as pale as new milk, lips red and bursting for a kiss. So I did.

She fed me life through those lips, her tongue honeyed and swirling. Her breasts were crushed to mine and I could feel the swollen fruit of her sex pressing against my thigh. We drew back for air, both of us shuddering with passion.

'I thought I'd never see you again,' I said, nearly weeping.

'Oh, Rali,' Xia said, tears flowing down her cheeks. 'I've thought of nothing else. I've dreamed of you every night. I feel as if I've known you all my life.'

'And I you, Princess,' I said.

We embraced again. She fell back on the broad, hard bench and I fell with her. My hands ached to feel her flesh and I dragged up the hem of her robe, exposing snowy white limbs. She lifted her hips and helped me pull the hem up to her waist. The lips* of her sex were smooth and tender, with a sweet pink bud peeping out. She cried my name as I nibbled my way to it.

Princess Xia and I became lovers in that dismal dungeon where nothing but foul night spores and mosses could ever grow. The bench was our bridal bower. The grey stone room, our chamber of first passion. And nothing before, or since, could ever match it. She was hauntingly familiar - Otara and Tries and all my other lovers combined. But at the same time she was new and teasingly strange and fresh. I poured all my longing into the kisses, and she responded in kind. When we were sated, we held one another, whispering idiocies like two moonstruck girls. In a way, we were. We'd gone from strangers to lovers so quickly that only the goddess who rules the moon could understand. Outside the door there was a chink of chain mail as one of the soldiers shifted at his post. We slowly drew apart.

'I must go soon, my love,' she said. 'Tell me quickly what you want of me. I shall do all in my power to help.'

'I want to be called before the Council of Purity,' I said.

Xia paled. 'That is beyond me,' she said. She shed a few tears.

'I'd so hoped you had a plan I could help you accomplish. But that is not possible. Who would listen to one such as I?'

'More than you think,' I said. 'As girls we're taught we have no power, so we never test it. But you'd be surprised what can happen when the womanly strength you possess is aimed single-mindedly and with force.'

'But why should the Council—'

'I can help them,' I broke in. 'I can end the plague.'

Xia's eyes widened. But instead of speaking, she only nodded - go on.

I told her about the Archon and our mission, which we'd mistakenly believed we'd accomplished. I told her what a great danger he was to both our peoples and what I had to do to stop him.

'Do you really think you can succeed where our wizards have failed?' she asked.

'Yes,' I said. 'And not because I think
little
of your sorcerers. But because the Archon and I have a bond. A bond in hatred, to be sure, but sometimes hatred can be an even stronger glue than love.'

One of the soldiers rapped on the door. It was time for her to go.

‘
Will you see your father for me?' I begged.

'As soon as I return home,' she promised.

We kissed again, then dragged ourselves apart before passion overtook us once more. She called out to the soldiers, the bolt shot back and the door swung open. Xia pulled the cowl forward, and after a fleeting glance at the soldiers putting the chains back on, she fled.

I don't know what Xia said to her father, but the spell she cast with her words must have been as good as any sorcerer's, because only a few days lapsed before I found myself standing in front of nine pitiless men.

The guardians of the public good were a
motley
lot of nobles. Two were so old they drooled; four had less hair among them than it takes to make up one healthy head; and the remaining three - including Lord Kanara, Xia's father - were hammering hard on the last gates of middle-age. If I had been a young soldier in this land it was not a group that would have inspired me with devotion. Even the drooly-lipped ones remembered enough to despise any mere creature who stood before them. I nearly despaired when I swept their faces, looking for a friend, and found none - not even in Lord Kanara. He may have pressed for my appearance to appease his daughter, but he was not going to be an easy wheel to turn when I pleaded our case. In every gaze I saw an ambush waiting. So I took the soldier's way - I attacked.

'My Lords,' I said, 'as I was led up the hill to these chambers I racked my brain for a pretty speech. I was going to fling my life - and the lives of my brave companions - at your feet and beseech you for mercy. I was going to tell you that we were peaceful strangers who came to these shores by misadventure. Just as it was misadventure that led us to injure you. But all those words were swept away when I saw the horror in your once-great city. Your streets are despoiled by the corpses of your subjects. The marketplace is barred and empty. The doors and windows of your homes are shuttered against the plague that stalks the avenues and the hot wind The Sarzana sent has sucked the very life from the trees in your gardens.

'It was a city near defeat that I saw, My Lords. And if you do not grant me my request now, I fear we will soon both be at the mercy of our mutual enemy.'

Beside me, Xia quailed. Behind me, I heard Gamelan mutter for me to beware.

One of the droolers spoke first - his voice high-pitched and squeaky like a boy's nearing manhood. 'You're just a woman,' he said. 'Why should I believe you can do what our own wizards can't?'

'If I am such a puny thing,' I answered, 'how is it I stand here at all? I have travelled farther than any man or woman in my homeland to reach these shores. I have fought and defeated great armies, crushed a mighty fleet, and it was I who slew the brother of your real enemy -the Archon of Lycanth. I doubt any of your own subjects - men or women - could claim the same.'

The old Lord cupped a hand around his ear. 'What's that, you say? The Archon? I've never heard of such a fellow. It's The Sarzana who's the cause of all our ills.'