Wizards’ Worlds (3 page)

“No!” Had she shouted that aloud or was the denial only in her mind? Those were stones
(artfully fitted together, to be sure) but still only old, old stones. She shut her
eyes, held them firmly shut, and then, after a few deep breaths, opened them again.
No head, only stones.

But in those moments while she had fought to defeat illusion her companion had lurched
forward. He pulled himself from one outcrop of ruin to the next and his Falcon had
settled on his shoulder, though he did not appear aware of the weight of the bird.
There was bemusement on his face, smoothing away his habitual frown. He was like a
man ensorceled, and Tanree drew away from him as he staggered past her, his gaze
only for the wall.

Stones only, she continued to tell herself firmly. There was no reason for her to
remain here. Shelter, food (she realized then that hunger did bite at her), what they
needed to keep life in them could only lie in this land. Purposefully she followed
the Falconer, but she carried her blade ready in her hand.

He stumbled along until he was under the overhang of that giant beak. The shadow of
whatever it held fell on him. Now he halted, drew himself up as a man might face his
officer on some occasion of import—or—a priest might begin a rite.

His voice rang out hollowly among the ruins, repeating words—or sounds (for some held
the tones of those he had used in addressing his hawk). They came as wild beating
cadence. Tanree shivered. She had a queer feeling that he might just be answered—by
whom—or
what?

Up near to the range of a falcon’s cry rose his voice. Now the bird on his shoulder
took wing. It screamed its own challenge, or greeting—so that man-voice and bird-voice
mingled until Tanree could not distinguish one from the other.

Both fell into silence; once more the Falconer was moving on. He walked more steadily,
not reaching out for any support, as if new strength had filled him. Passing under
the beak he was—gone!

Tanree pressed one fist against her teeth. There was no doorway there! Her eyes could
not deceive her that much. She wanted to run, anywhere, but as she looked wildly about
her she perceived that the ruins funneled forward toward that one place and there
only led the path.

This was a path of the Old Ones; evil lurked here. She could feel the crawl of it
as if a slug passed, befouling her skin. Only—Tanree’s chin came up, her jaw set stubbornly.
She was Sulcar. If there was no other road, then this one she would take.

Forward she went, forcing herself to walk with confidence, though she was ever alert.
Now the shadow of the beak enveloped her, and, though there was no warmth of sunlight
to be shut out, still she was chilled.

Also—there
was
a door. Some trick of the stone setting and the beak shadow had concealed it from
sight until one was near touching distance. With a deep breath which was more than
half protest against her own action, Tanree advanced.

Through darkness within, she could see a gray of light. This wall must be thick enough
to provide not just a door or gate but a tunnel way. And she could see movement between
her and that light; the Falconer.

She quickened step so that she was only a little behind him when they came out in
what was a mighty courtyard. Walls towered all about, but it was what was within the
courtyard itself which stopped Tanree near in mid-step.

Men! Horses!

Then she saw the breakage, here a headless body, there only the shards of a mount.
They had been painted once and the color in some way had sunk far into the substance
which formed them, for it remained, if faded.

The motionless company was drawn up in good order, all facing to her left. Men stood,
the reins of their mounts in their hands, and on the forks of their saddles falcons
perched. A regiment of fighting men awaiting orders.

Her companion skirted that array of the ancient soldiers, almost as if he had not
seen them, or, if he had, they were of no matter. He headed in the direction toward
which they faced.

There were two wide steps there, and beyond the cavern of another door, wide as a
monster mouth ready to suck them in. Up one step he pulled, now the second. . . .
He
knew
what lay beyond; this was Falconer past, not of her people. But Tanree could not
remain behind. She studied the faces of the warriors as she passed by. They each held
their masking helm upon one hip as if it was
needful to bare their faces, as they did not generally do. So she noted that each
of the company differed from his fellows in some degree, though they were all plainly
of the same race. These had been modeled from life.

As she came also into the doorway, Tanree heard again the mingled call of bird and
man. At least the two she followed were still unharmed, though her sense of lurking
evil was strong.

What lay beyond the door was a dim twilight. She stood at the end of a great hall,
stretching into shadows right and left. Nor was the chamber empty. Rather here were
more statues; and some were robed and coiffed. Women! Women in an Eyrie? She studied
the nearest to make sure.

The weathering which had eroded that company in the courtyard had not done any damage
here. Dust lay heavy on the shoulders of the life-size image to be sure, but that
was all. The face was frozen into immobility. But the expression. Sly exultation,
an avid . . . hunger? Those eyes staring straight ahead, did they indeed hold a spark
of knowledge deep within?

Tanree pushed aside imagination. These were not alive. But their faces—she looked
to another, studied a third—all held that gloating, that hunger-about-to-be-assuaged;
while the male images were as blank of any emotion as if they had never been meant
to suggest life at all.

The Falconer had already reached the other end of the hall. Now he was silent, facing
a dais on which were four figures. These were not in solemn array, rather frozen into
a tableau of action. Deadly action, Tanree saw as she trotted forward, puffs of dust
rising from the floor underfoot.

A man sat, or rather sprawled, in a throne-chair. His head had fallen forward, and
both hands were clenched on the hilt of a dagger driven into him at heart level. Another
and younger man, lunged, sword in his hand, aiming at the
image of a woman who cowered away, such an expression of rage and hate intermingled
on her features as made Tanree shiver.

But the fourth of that company stood a little apart, no fear to be read on
her
countenance. Her robe was plainer than that of the other woman, with no glint of
jewels at wrist, throat or waist. Her unbound hair fell over her shoulders, cascading
down, to
nearly sweep the floor.

In spite of the twilight here that wealth of hair appeared to gleam. Her eyes—they,
too, were dark red—unhuman, knowing, exulting, cruel—alive!

Tanree found she could not turn her gaze from those eyes.

Perhaps she cried out then, or perhaps only some inner defense quailed in answer to
invasion. Snakelike, sluglike, it crawled, oozed into her mind, forging link between
them.

This was no stone image, man-wrought. Tanree swayed against the pull of that which
gnawed and plucked, seeking to control her.

“She-devil!” The Falconer spat, the bead of moisture striking the breast of the red-haired
woman. Tanree almost expected to see the other turn her attention to the man whose
face was twisted with half-insane rage. But his cry had weakened the spell laid upon
her. She was now able to look away from the compelling eyes.

The Falconer swung around. His good hand closed upon the sword which the image of
the young man held. He jerked at that impotently. There was a curious wavering, as
if the chamber and all in it were but part of a wind-riffled painted banner.

“Kill!”

Tanree herself wavered under that command in her mind. Kill this one who would dare
threaten
her,
Jonkara, Opener of Gates, Commander of Shadows.

Rage took fire. Through the blaze she marched, knowing what must be done to this man
who dared to challenge. She was the hand of Jonkara, a tool of force.

Deep within Tanree something else stirred, could not be totally battered into submission.

I am a weapon to serve. I am—

“I am
Tanree!
”
cried that other part of her. “This is no quarrel of mine. I am Sulcar, of the seas—of
another blood and breed!”

She blinked and that insane rippling ceased for an instant of clear sight. The Falconer
still struggled to gain the sword.

“Now!” Once more that wave of compulsion beat against her, heart high, as might a
shore wave. “Now— slay! Blood—give me blood that I may live again. We are women. Nay,
you
shall be more than woman when this blood flows and my door is opened by it. Kill—strike
behind the shoulder. Or, better still, draw your steel across his throat. He is but
a man! He is the enemy—kill!”

Tanree swayed, her body might be answering to the flow of a current. Without her will
her hand arose, blade ready, the distance between her and the Falconer closed. She
could easily do this, blood would indeed flow. Jonkara would be free of the bonds
laid upon her by the meddling of fools.

“Strike!”

Tanree saw her hand move. Then that other will within her flared for a last valiant
effort.

“I am Tanree!” A feeble cry against a potent spell. “There is no power here before
whom Sulcar bows!”

The Falconer whirled, looked to her. No fear in his eyes, only cold hate. The bird
on his shoulder spread wings, screamed. Tanree could not be sure—was there indeed
a curl of red about its feet, anchoring it to its human perch?

“She-devil!” he flung at her. Abandoning his fight for the sword, he raised his hand
as if to strike Tanree across the face. Out of the air came a curl of tenuous red,
to catch about his upraised wrist, so, even though he fought furiously, he was held
prisoner.

“Strike quickly!” The demand came with mind-bruising force.

“I do not kill!” Finger by finger Tanree forced her hand to open. The blade fell,
to clang on the stone floor.

“
Fool!”
The power sent swift punishing pain into her head. Crying out, Tanree staggered.
Her outflung hand fell upon that same sword the Falconer had sought to loosen. It
turned, came into her hold swiftly and easily.

“Kill!”

That current of hate and power filled her. Her flesh tingled, there was heat within
her as if she blazed like an oil-dipped feast torch.

“Kill!”

She could not control the stone sword. Both of her hands closed about its cold hilt.
She raised it. The man before her did not move, seek in any way to dodge the threat
she offered. Only his eyes were alive now—no fear in them, only a hate as hot as what
filled her.

Fight—she must fight as she had the waves of the storm lashed sea. She was herself,
Tanree—Sulcar—no tool for something evil which should long since have gone into the
Middle Dark.

“Kill!”

With the greatest effort she made her body move, drawing upon that will within her
which the other could not master. The sword fell.

Stone struck stone—or was that true? Once more the air rippled, life overrode ancient
death for a fraction of time between two beats of the heart, two breaths. The sword
had jarred against Jonkara.

“Fool—” a fading cry.

There was no sword hilt in her hands, only powder sifting between her fingers. And
no sparks of life in those red eyes either. From where the stone sword had struck
full on the image’s shoulder cracks opened. The figure crumbled, fell. Nor did what
Jonkara had been vanish alone. All
those others were breaking too, becoming dust which set Tanree coughing, raising
her hands to protect her eyes.

Evil had ebbed. The chamber was cold, empty of what had waited here. A hand caught
her shoulder, pulling at her.

“Out!” This voice was human. “Out—Salzarat falls!”

Rubbing at her smarting eyes, Tanree allowed him to lead her. There were crashing
sounds, a rumbling. She cringed as a huge block landed nearby. They fled, dodging
and twisting. Until at last they were under the open sky, still coughing, tears streaming
from their eyes, their faces smeared with gray grit.

Fresh wind, carrying with it the clean savor of the sea, lapped about them. Tanree
crouched on a mat of dead grass through which the first green spears of spring pushed.
So close to her that their shoulders touched was the Falconer. His bird was gone.

They shared a small rise Tanree did not remember climbing. What lay below, between
them and the sea cliff’s edge, was a tumble of stone so shattered no one now could
define wall or passage. Her companion turned his head to look directly into her face.
His expression was one of wonder.

“It is all gone! The curse is gone. So she is beaten at last! But you are a woman,
and Jonkara could always work her will through any woman—that was her power and our
undoing. She held every woman within her grasp. Knowing that, we raised what defenses
we could. For we could never trust those who might again open Jonkara’s dread door.
Why in truth did you not slay me? My blood would have freed her, and she would have
given you a measure of her power—as always she had done.”

“She was no one to command
me!
”
Tanree’s self-confidence returned with every breath she drew. “I am Sulcar, not one
of your women. So—this Jonkara—she was why you hate and fear women?”

“Perhaps. She ruled us so. Her curse held us until the
death of Langward, who dying, as you saw, from the steel of his own Queen, somehow
freed a portion of us. He had been seeking long for a key to imprison Jonkara. He
succeeded in part. Those of us still free fled, so our legends say, making sure no
woman would ever again hold us in bond.”

He rubbed his hands across his face, streaking the dust of vanished Salzarat.