Sorcery in Shad Page 12

  Teh Atht puffed himself up. ‘A wizard’s word is his word!’ he said.

  ‘And do you give me your word? That if I tell you what I know of him, and of his sword, you’ll see him master once more of his own destiny?’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ said Teh Atht.

  ‘That isn’t good enough,’ Amyr shook his head. ‘On those terms I’ll tell you nothing.’

  ‘But what do you expect me to do?’ the other protested. ‘Fly in there on my carpet, physically snatch him away?’

  ‘Why not?’ Amyr stared hard at him. ‘Indeed, that seems to me the most direct and logical course. Then, out of gratitude, he’d probably answer all of your questions himself.’

  ‘Logic?’ Teh Atht’s brow took on a darker shade. ‘I’ll have you know, Amyr Arn, that the blood of Mylakhrion himself flows in these veins – and you talk to me of logic? You’ve seen how this Cush Gemal is protected by Black Yoppaloth’s magick. What? He even knows when he is spied upon! And yet you’d have me swoop down in broad daylight—’

  ‘At night,’ Amyr corrected him.

  ‘—swoop down anyway, and steal the Hrossak away? What is that for logic? Madness! Black Yoppaloth would work vile magicks against me, and against you, too – as he worked them upon a time on the person of Exior K’mool. Last of the Suhm-yi, are you? Let me tell you that when the Mage of Shadarabar was done with you, there’d be no more Suhm-yi! None at all!’

  ‘Very well,’ said Amyr, ‘if you fear this Yoppaloth so, then show me how to fly your carpet and I’ll bring Tarra out of there.’

  ‘What?’ the wizard seemed aghast. ‘Are you mad? You, control my carpet? Impossible! Long ago I laid upon its weave irreversible runes so that it might never be stolen. It would fly you into the sun, or maroon you on the moon, or drown you in ocean deeps; aye, and then fly home to me. And even if such a plan were feasible – which it is not – still the necromancer Yoppaloth would trace the source of this…this invasion, back to me. No, there is honour among wizards, Amyr Arn. Codes of conduct exist for us, too, just as they do for the Suhm-yi. I may not be seen to interfere with the legitimate works of another.’

  Amyr nodded. ‘You may spy upon him – so long as he remains in ignorance of it – but you may not openly work against him.’ His silvery tone was scathing. ‘And did you say “legitimate?”’ Now he raised scaled, glinting eyebrows in caustic inquiry. ‘The legitimate works of another?’

  ‘All works of wizardry may be termed legitimate,’ Teh Atht blurted, ‘except where they work against another wizard.’

  Amyr snorted and cried: ‘Enough! Your words have the shape of a maze: we might tramp for hours and get nowhere. Do what you will, but expect no help from me. We thank you for your hospitality, and now we’ll be on our way.’ He took Ulli’s hand and she stood up.

  Flabbergasted, Teh Atht could say nothing. He considered various runes, then un-considered them. None of them seemed of much use here. Curious Concretion wouldn’t solve the problem but only stiffen Amyr’s tongue to stone; his brain, too, so that its secrets could not be stolen. Hypnotism? What? Against a quicksilver mind like this? And as for any sort of threatening move in the female’s direction …

  ‘Wait!’ Ulli Eys held up her tapering, delicately spatulate hands. And to Amyr: ‘Husband, if you refuse Teh Atht your assistance, then it seems to me that Tarra Khash likewise goes without. Is there no middle road?’

  Amyr looked at Teh Atht; the wizard in turn gazed at him; Ulli looked from one to the other and back. And after a while Amyr nodded his crested head. ‘Fly us to Inner Isles – now, tonight – and on the way I’ll tell you all I know of Tarra Khash and his jewelled scimitar, which be sure amounts to a great deal.’

  ‘Done!’ cried Teh Atht at once. ‘But, why didn’t you say so before? Why, that were the simplest of all solutions! Safety for yourself and the lady, and missing pieces of puzzle for me: who can say fairer then that?’

  ‘Hold!’ said Amyr. ‘Hear me out, for I’m not finished. Then, when my wife is safe, fly me to the Eastern Ocean’s strand, there to wait on Tarra’s arrival with the slaver caravan.’

  ‘But—’ Teh Atht began to protest, for he knew there was scarcely time for all of this flying in a single night, and that in any case it went against his plans. But then he saw the stubborn set of Suhm-yi jaw, the glint that brooked no denial in alien, golden eyes. And he shrugged. ‘Very well,’ he said, but at ocean’s rim, there I leave you to your own devices.’

  ‘Good enough,’ Amyr replied. ‘And if worst comes to worst, be certain your name shall not be mentioned.’

  ‘So be it,’ said Teh Atht. ‘And likewise, if I can later be of assistance …’

  As for Ulli: she cried a little inside, but her husband was Suhm-yi and his was a debt of honour. He owed Tarra Khash, and this would be payment in full.

  Then, without more ado, the white wizard of Klühn ushered his passengers aboard the carpet and bade them sit together toward the rear, and he took up a position in front and crossed his arms on his chest. He uttered a rune and the burdened carpet rose up, indented a little where they sat; and windows crashed open at the levitator’s approach; and out into the night they drifted, their destination the dreaming jewel isles of the Suhm-yi …

  Away across deserts and plains and peaks, almost as far east as south, Tarra Khash lay snug in the crook of a saurian elbow, with a blanket draped over him to keep out the chill. Overhead, the stars turned slowly in their titan wheel, Gleeth the moon god waxed a little more full, and clouds were haloed silver where they drifted inland from the sea. At least, most of the clouds were silver.

  But one of them was black and seemed to pulse and throb like some strange angry squid! Aye, and it had positioned itself in the sky so as to shut out the moon’s gleamy glare from Cush Gemal’s tent. Loomar Nindiss, unable to sleep for thoughts of his sister lying chained in the hull of the boat on the platform of the lead wagon, had watched this strange black cloud swell and pulsate as it sped in from the east – and he’d also seen it slow down until it stood on high, stationary over Gemal’s tent.

  Then, only moments ago, the chief of the slavers had thrust aside the flap at tent’s door, stuck out his lacquered topknot and ebony head and beckoned to his black night watch where that pair prowled the outer perimeter. They had flown to him at once, their robes turning them to fluttering rags of movement in moon and starlight; but as they’d approached Gemal more closely, so they had slowed until they barely crept forward. At the last, edging fearfully into the shade of the tent, then they had seemed simply to disappear, jerked inside and out of sight.

  After that …

  … The black cloud turned green at its rim, sent down emerald coruscations like curtains of shimmering rain to engulf Gemal’s travelling pavilion. Then a wind sprang up, at first low and moaning, which gathered up sand-devils and sent them nodding and cavorting, to and fro in the central space. Grit was blown in Loomar’s eyes and he blinked them, and after dabbing away cleansing tears looked again. Ghost-fires danced in the scalloped eaves of Gemal’s tent, which glowed green in its heart like some poisonous gem on night’s dark cushion.

  Then on high, having seemingly emptied itself of morbid energies, the black cloud shrank and quit its peculiar pulsing, turned more nearly yellow and drifted off westward with its commoner cousins. The witch-lights about Gemal’s tent paled to eerie lambencies that finally flickered out; the fretful wind fell to a bluster, then to a gentler, steady breeze. And the night was back to normal.

  Normal?

  Two less frizzies to worry about, come morning, thought Loomar. Little wonder Gemal brought so many of them with him! And if that’s the lot of Gemal’s own people, what of us slaves? And in particular, what’s in store for Jezza?

  It was thoughts such as these which denied him his rest …

  VII

  TEH ATHT’S … TREACHERY? – ORBIQUITA’S DEFIANCE

  Encased in his invisible Climatic Capsule, Teh Atht’s gravity-defying carp
et sped high over the foothills of the Mountains of Lohmi; spied below, there flickered the fires of certain fierce tribesmen who’d inhabited that range since times immemorial. The carpet’s master paid the guttering campfires scant heed, however, for Amyr Arn had commenced his story, which held far more of fascination.

  ‘And so this gang of cut-throat barbarians were come into the Crater Sea,’ Amyr continued, ‘and landed their raft on the beach of the tiny jewel island which Lula and I had made our home.

  ‘Lula was alone when they found her…to this day I cannot speak of what they did. Northern barbarians are…barbaric! At that time we had considered ourselves last of the Suhm-yi; after the Northmen were done, I was the last. It was not until later that I learned of the cruel fate of Ulli Eys, and set off to rescue her from Gorgos.

  ‘Anyway, then there was Tarra Khash the Hrossak. He pursued this evil gang for his own reasons. And when he found my Lula, dead, he was… kind to her. He couldn’t know that I watched – or how close he came to death!

  Tor a while I was insane, but what was done was done. Eventually Suhm-yi teaching and training took over; my anger subsided and I reverted to type; I could no more pursue and punish the evildoers than blaspheme against my gods. Indeed, to take revenge would be to blaspheme against those gods! So I had been instructed. But Tarra Khash was not Suhm-yi, and against him, too, had these barbarians wronged greatly. He pursued them across the Crater Sea, while I remained behind and prayed for him. In those days, you see, I had standards and a code to live up to. Ah, but I have learned much since then.

  ‘At that time, however, I could only pray. Old Gleeth, so-called “blind” god of the moon, answered those prayers of mine. He took his time about it, as gods are wont to do, but indeed he answered them. By then, Tarra had killed five out of six bullies in a fair fight; but the last, Kon Athar, the massive leader of that band, had broken the Hrossak’s scimitar with his great broadsword. Tarra was in trouble. Wounded, trapped on a beach, he could fight no more. Only magick could save him. But where magick is concerned, old Gleeth is a powerful god indeed!

  ‘I was far, far away from Tarra, upon the Rock of Na-dom where it rises lonely from the sea. Na-dom is a holy place, the only place where Suhm-yi priests might ever commune with the gods. But Gleeth sees far, gazing down “blindly” upon the whole world, on all of Theem’hdra. He hearkened to me and saw me there upon the rock of Na-dom; ah, but at the same time he saw the sore plight of Tarra Khash.

  ‘ “Take up your bow,” he commanded me, “and shoot an arrow into my eye.” Madness? Perhaps. But I did as Gleeth commanded. And the eye of the moon-god blinked, swallowing up my arrow. Later I was to learn that Tarra saw that same blink of the moon’s eye, which for him was salvation!

  ‘For now Gleeth spat out the arrow, which bedded itself in Kon Athar’s back even in that instant when he would deliver his final killing blow. And of course, that blow never fell. The barbarian was dead, and Tarra saved …’

  ‘And so you became friends,’ Teh Atht spoke up without looking back, ‘and eventually the Hrossak told you the secret of his sword?’

  ‘Secret? Has it a secret, then?’ Amyr answered, devious as the wizard himself. ‘I don’t know about that; only that it has a history, which were almost but not quite forgotten. If forgotten things are secrets, then perhaps you are correct. In any case, Tarra could not tell me anything for he did not know. His curved sword had come into his hands almost by accident. Or maybe not. The ways of the gods are strange and mazy. I shall get to the scimitar’s “secret”, never fear, but first let me tell you more of Tarra Khash.

  ‘From the night of my prayers to Gleeth, the shooting of my arrow into his blinking eye, and the subsequent death of Kon Athar, I saw Tarra no more until that recent time in Klühn. Between times I had learned that I was not last of the Suhm-yi, but that Ulli Eys was captive of Gorgos in his Temple of Secret Gods. I was the last male, and Ulli the last female, of our people. I vowed to bring her back to Inner Isles or die in the attempt. For without her, what use to live? And so I journeyed to Klühn.

  ‘In so-called “sophisticate city”, there I found the Hrossak falsely accused and sentenced to death on some trumped-up charge of temple priests. I freed him, which was not difficult, but for which he considered himself in my debt. Once you have won Tarra’s friendship, then it’s yours for life – or for death, as the case might well have been! But prior to freeing Tarra, I had taken the trouble to learn a lot more of this Gorgos: that were necessary, if I was to enter his temple and steal Suhm-yi maid away from him.

  ‘What I had learned was this:

  ‘That Gorgos was in league with the blackest, most monstrous Forces of Evil, and that he would open gates out beyond the nethermost spheres to let in—’

  ‘The Thromb!’ Teh Atht finished it for him, nodding. ‘Yes, that much I’ve already learned. And yet even so – even knowing that he stood against the gates of the very hell itself – still he entered with you into Gorgos temple?’

  ‘Who, Tarra?’ Amyr’s silvery voice was grave. ‘Aye, be sure he did. What’s more, it were no longer sufficient simply to rescue Ulli, but now we must also destroy Gorgos, destroy him utterly!’

  ‘And you succeeded,’ Teh Atht breathed. ‘Flesh and blood against… against that! And still you succeeded …’ And then, turning his head just a little: ‘But surely that must have been the point where his jewelled sword entered the story, eh?’

  Amyr nodded. ‘Aye, and now I shall tell you about that sword – for that was the other reason Tarra must enter Gorgos’ temple. The priests of that place had taken his shattered stump of a sword and made it whole again. That was the reason he’d been falsely accused in the first place: so that they might steal his sword, which one of them had recognized! Ah, but pity the man, or creature, who’d steal from Tarra Khash!’

  ‘Recognized it, you say?’ Now Teh Atht turned his head fully to look back at Amyr where he sat upon the carpet, one arm holding safe his Ulli.

  ‘Indeed,’ Amyr nodded. ‘Even as you yourself would seem to have recognized it …’ And he watched Teh Atht’s reaction.

  The wizard frowned. ‘Have I?’ he said. ‘I think not. Oh, faint memories stir, but—’ Then his eyes went wide, and suddenly he snapped his fingers. ‘Here I sit in conversation with a man of the Inner Isles, of the very Suhm-yi, and my mind so mazed in the puzzle that I can’t see the twists for the turns! A sword, aye! A great curved scimitar, with jewelled hilt, ceremonial until the day a certain Hrossak gave it life by taking it in his calloused hand! Ah, but what sort of ceremonies had it known before that, eh? Strange ceremonies indeed! And did not the Suhm-yi in their heyday boast the finest white – or silver – wizards of all? That they did. I’ve read of it in runebooks older than my ancestor Mylakhrion himself!’ He slapped his thigh. ‘A sword, aye! Why, it’s one of the three Suhm-yi Swords of Power!’

  ‘And there you have it,’ Amyr Arn slowly nodded.

  ‘What?’ Teh Atht half-turned his body, the better to see who he was talking to, and the carpet at once began to fly in a vast circle. Its flight-path was controlled by the directional attitude of its master. ‘But I disagree, for there I don’t have it! I know that the Hrossak’s sword is one of the three legended Suhm-yi Swords of Power, but not how it was lost from Inner Isles, or how it came into his possession. I know that it’s now the property of one Cush Gemal, slaver in the employ of Black Yoppaloth, but not how—’ He sat himself bolt upright and his jaw fell open.

  ‘Not how?’ Amyr prompted him.

  ‘Not how it will benefit Black Yoppaloth!’ Teh Atht blurted out. ‘What? That mighty necromancer of jungled Shadarabar? Why, he’ll know the sword in a trice, the moment he claps eyes on it! And with its mystical, magickal properties, it will make him master of all Theem’hdra!’

  ‘Good!’ said Amyr, vigorously.

  ‘Good? But then you are mad!’ Teh Atht cried. ‘How, good?’

  ‘Because now you have a real reason to see Tarra set fr
ee,’ Amyr answered, smiling. ‘One thing for Black Yoppaloth to be immortal, but another entirely that he’s also omnipotent! And what of all you lesser wizards then, eh? Would he even tolerate your petty squabbles and runecastings? I doubt it.’

  There was no answer to that, and so Teh Atht simply groaned and said, in lowered tone: ‘Come, tell me the rest of it, for the more I know the more clearly I might see how to deal with this problem. If I can deal with it at all!’

  And in a little while, when the carpet flew straight once more and passed over the yellow fringe of the Desert of Ell, so Amyr continued:

  ‘It was Gorgos stole the swords, at the same time as he stole away the maiden Ulli Eys. She would guarantee his escape, for no Suhm-yi would interfere while there was slightest danger to Ulli. Later, he used her as a mentalist, to steal the secrets of his rivals and opponents. And all against her will, she was his “oracle” in the Temple of Secret Gods. He stole all three swords from the place of treasures on Na-dom.

  ‘But the priests of my people cursed him: that so long as a single member of our race survived in the jewel isles of the Crater Sea, he would know no peace. His truest servants would sicken and die, his most treasured possessions would be lost or stolen. It was a very powerful curse, of course, and the first things he lost were the Swords of Power. For years he searched for them, to make them his again, but to no avail; and always the Suhm-yi curse worked against him. In the end he must have divined that he was cursed, and then it would have been a simple matter to discover the source of his torment. His answer was…devastation! He sent a poisoned cloud from volcano’s vent to choke all Suhm-yi to death! All were killed, except myself and my young wife. Following which…but the rest of it you know.’

  ‘But Gorgos’ troubles weren’t over yet,’ Teh Atht nodded, ‘for you were left alive. Aye, and Suhm-yi curse fully realized in the end. Now tell me: what of the swords, after he had lost them?’

  ‘When Gorgos had made himself something of a force to be reckoned with in Theem’hdra,’ Amyr answered, ‘then he sent out false priests into the land. They, too, searched for the swords. One of them was eventually found in the gut of a whale, harpooned by a whaler out of Khrissa. Gorgos acquired it for a song. A princeling of Klühn bought the second sword in auction to hang on the wall of his apartments. Later, when Gorgos was established there in his temple, the princeling disappeared without trace. Likewise his gem-studded scimitar.