Sorcery in Shad Read online

  ‘The hour of reckoning, Orbiquita,’ said Iniquiss, folding back her wings to seat herself in a lava niche in the great cavern’s splash-stone wall.

  ‘When we must make it plain,’ Hissiliss added, finding herself a comfortable scab of tephrite lying sullen in the molten reek, ‘just what your renounciation means to you, delineate your many losses as set against no gains whatever!’

  ‘No gains?’ Orbiquita repeated her. ‘Except I’ll be a woman. Gains enough there – so get on with it.’

  ‘Defiant to the bitter end,’ Iniquiss gloomed. ‘So be it.’ And in another moment, reading from a bone-leaved runebook: ‘Insomuch as you have renounced the Sisterhood, word of which we have rightfully relayed to all loyal sisters, these things which I shall now read are reckoned to be your lot. Now hear me:

  ‘You, Orbiquita, who have known unbridled power, henceforth shall suffer total loss of strength.’

  ‘Not so,’ Orbiquita shook her head, ‘for I’ll have a woman’s strength, and they’re not such weaklings as you’d make out. Strong men fall down before them, anyway.’

  ‘Loss of lamia strength, she meant,’ Hissiliss hissed. ‘Soft hands and feet, you’ll have, with human fingers and toes. Not the great scythes you wear now, against which no creature in all the Primal Land may stand unscathed.’

  ‘Soft fingers, soft toes?’ said Orbiquita. ‘Soft breasts, too, soft belly and thighs. Not your loathsome limbs and warty paps! Oh, I’ll manage. Your sort of magick’s not the only sort, snakeface.’

  ‘You shall have neither your own former strength,’ Iniquiss continued, while Hissiliss fumed and smouldered, ‘nor that of the Sisterhood and its individual members. You will be on your own, Orbiquita, for all future time – or for all the time the future allows you.’

  Again Orbiquita disagreed. ‘Three calls for aid I’m allowed!’ she cried. ‘Don’t rob me of my rights, Iniquiss. I’ve read the rules too, you know. Three times I may call on the Sisterhood for its aid, or individual members thereof, and then no more. So it’s written.’

  ‘She talks of her rights!’ Hissiliss jumped up and set her cake of lava tilting. ‘Rights? When you’ve renounced the Sisterhood?’

  Iniquiss merely shrugged. ‘It is her right, and so it is written – but it’s also written that her sisters have the right to refuse such calls, if they see fit. You’ve not made many friends in the Sisterhood, Orbiquita.’

  ‘Name me one dear sister who has!’ Their subject was unrepentant.

  ‘Just so long as we understand one another,’ Iniquiss told her, turning a bone page. And finding her place:

  ‘Your lamia powers – of metamorphosis, into dragon, lizard, harpy, bat, clinging gas and seeping moisture – are all foresaken, yours no longer. In the one shape you have chosen, that of a human female, you’ll remain. Aye, and you’ll live out only that number of years appropriate. The thousands you might have known are already flown forever!’

  ‘I’ll know the days of a woman,’ answered Orbiquita, but with something less of defiance, ‘and her nights.’ But then, brightening: ‘And in the arms of my chosen man, they’ll be long nights and sweet. Not the noisome nights of the Sisterhood.’

  ‘Your “chosen” man?’ Hissiliss’ sibilant whisper was amplified by cavern acoustics. ‘Have you paused to consider, he may not want you?’

  In her vast armoured body, Orbiquita’s heart quaked. Indeed she had considered it, and she knew that certain men were fickle. But if love is blind, hers for Tarra Khash was also deaf. Not dumb, however. ‘Snakeface,’ she said, ‘this I vow: that when I die they’ll write on my stone, “Here lies a woman who loved and was loved.” But what will they write on your monstrous menhir? I’ll tell you:

  “Here lies a beast with gorgon’s crown –

  This stone was raised to keep her down!”

  ‘Hissiliss!’ Iniquiss’ cutting voice terminated her sister’s shriek of impotent rage. ‘You’re no match for this one where sarcasm’s concerned. Can you not console yourself that you’ll soon be rid of her?’

  ‘We’ll all be rid of her!’ Hissiliss cried.

  ‘For myself, I think it a shame,’ said Iniquiss, which was as much of emotion as she cared to show. And to Orbiquita:

  ‘You know of course that you must give up, along with all the powers and years you might have known, all personal possessions?’

  ‘All save one,’ Orbiquita nodded. ‘I may keep one small thing, according to lamia law.’

  ‘Possessions!’ Hissiliss seemed hardly surprised. ‘She has possessions, does she? Another human attribute, this garnering of goods. Obviously she was never a true lamia! What possessions does she have?’

  ‘Several,’ Orbiquita answered for herself. ‘My castle in the Desert of Sheb, I leave to the winds and sands of times I’ll not know. My Roc’s eye shewstone, to whosoever finds it there. Then there’s my runebook, which I bequeath to you, Iniquiss; perhaps there’s that in it which might increase your knowledge, or at least amuse you. But the one thing which I shall keep is a ring, too small for lamia digits but perfect for the finger of a woman. It is of jade and gold and bears the skull and serpent crest of my ancestor Mylakhrion. This I shall keep, for it’s all I have of family, of noble ancestry.’

  ‘Noble! Noble!’ Hissiliss snorted.

  “Ware, sister!’ Orbiquita warned, dangerously low-voiced. ‘I’m still lamia for the moment, and you still have eyes!’

  ‘Now hear this, my final statement and decree,’ Iniquiss’ voice of authority got between them. ‘Orbiquita, you have renounced the Sisterhood. So be it. There is no turning back. Here you stay for however long the final metamorphosis requires. At the end, the cavern imps shall warn of your imminent death, for a merely human female could never survive in this lava heat and reek and sulphurous cavern atmosphere. At that time you’ll be borne to the surface, naked and shorn of all lamia trappings and skills. Do you understand?’

  ‘I do,’ said Orbiquita.

  ‘Your lamia memories will fade, though they may briefly recur from time to time. Likewise, it is possible that on occasion, in desperate times, the lamia which must now lie forever locked within you may briefly surface. This at your own peril, for humankind abhors us and they would rid themselves of us if they could. Is this clear?’

  ‘It is clear.’

  ‘The Primal Land is harsh,’ Iniquiss continued. ‘What merely irritated you as a lamia may easily destroy you as a girl. Snake’s bite and scorpion’s sting will be fatal; knives, arrows, axes and swords likewise. And in lonesome places, men may molest you. Do you recognize these hazards all?’

  ‘I recognize these hazards,’ Orbiquita repeated. ‘But I also know that I might bask in sunlight unharmed and unafraid, and walk with a lover under the full moon and never fear Gleeth’s rays.’

  ‘Then it is done,’ said Iniquiss. ‘Orbiquita, you are – or very soon will be – lamia no more!’

  She closed with finality her book of bone leaves, whose sound was that of some great sepulchral door slamming, or perhaps a gong heralding a new dawn …

  Blind old Gleeth the moon-god (though why ‘blind’ is hard to explain, for indeed when he wished to he could ‘see’, or at least know intuitively, almost all the many, mazy doings of men) looked down blearily on the Primal Land and frowned; or perhaps it was just a cloud passing over his crescent face. Waxing steadily, his silver horns were filling out and his reflective plains and dry ocean beds were dazzling. A fairly ‘young’ moon in that ancient time, his face was far less cratered than it would be in, say, another two hundred million years.

  As for his frown: it might be caused by something he saw through sleepfilmed eyes, which displeased him; or it could be that he ‘heard’ something drifting up to him from the surface of his parent planet, which made him irritable. Something, perhaps, like the distant, tinkling prayers of a silver-skinned priestling. What? Suhm-yi prayers? But how could that be, since the Suhm-yi were no more? Then Gleeth remembered that the Crater Sea’s secret
race was not extinct, not entirely, and he grudgingly roused himself up from rarely disturbed slumbers.

  His crater-walled eyes sought out the Inner Isles where once the Suhm-yi dwelled, especially that rock called Na-dom, beloved of the gods. For indeed Na-dom was Holy of Holies, whose aspect alone would turn back the merely curious. No jewel isle this but a gaunt and solitary crag rearing like some sea-beast’s talon from the Crater Sea, which beckoned not but merely forbade intrusion. Black as night, that needle rock, and standing well apart from more mundane islets, for which reason the gods were sometimes wont to visit there. Or at least give ear to the priests who hailed them therefrom. Even as Gleeth now gave ear. And in a little while, drifting up to him from Na-dom, this is what he heard:

  ‘Gleeth! Old Gleeth!’ cried Amyr Arn, who knew almost nothing of the priestly preparations and ceremonies requisite to reaching out and speaking to the gods. ‘Old god of the moon, hear me now, as once before you heard me.’

  And this will be Amyr Arn, said Gleeth, but to himself, so that Amyr did not hear him. It can only be him, for he is the last. What can he want of me now?

  ‘Look down on me,’ Amyr cried, as if in answer, ‘and take pity.’

  Pity? Pity? Why should I pity you? You’re alive, young, strong. Pity? Or should I pity you because you are alone, last of the Suhm-yi? Is that your meaning? Very well, then I pity you. Now go away and leave me alone. And still Gleeth spoke only to himself, so that Amyr heard nothing.

  ‘I ask this boon of you not for myself but for a man, whom once before you helped, in time of need.’

  A man? Gleeth wondered what was all of this. An unbeliever? Suhm-yi prayers for help were one thing, but a man …?

  ‘This man believes!’ cried Amyr Arn, for all the world as if he had heard, although he had not. ‘His name is Tarra Khash, who knows you for a kind, benevolent god. Gleeth, listen to me: I know you are old, and that they say you’re deaf and blind, but I believe you see and hear well enow. You heard me before, when last I dared to call your name, and now I call it again.’

  Tarra Khash? Faint memories stir! But I’m tired and can do without all this. Weary of questions, of the very effort of thought itself, the old god of the moon began to drift back into sleep.

  ‘I’ll not give in, old moon-god,’ Amyr shouted his frustration from the roof of Na-dom. ‘I’ll call upon you night after night, forever, if need be, until you answer me one way or the other.’

  Do you threaten, Amyr Arn? The moon sailed all serene and silent on high. Tarra Khash? I know him, aye. A Hrossak. He sails in a boat en route for Shad. What of it?

  ‘Gleeth! Old Gleeth!’ Amyr despaired.

  Aye, you’re right, Amyr Arn. Old and tired…A Hrossak…?He sails in a boat for Shad…Now go away, last son of all the Suhm-yi…Your people worshipped me once, but they are no more…So leave me in peace…A god’s no good without his worshippers…Old and tired…Tarra Khash? I know him, aye …

  And so the old god of the moon went back to his timeless dreaming, and in a little while Amyr Arn climbed wearily down from Na-dom and paddled his canoe back across the Crater Sea to his Ulli on the island they’d now make their home. But be sure he wasn’t finished yet. No, for there’d be another night tomorrow, and when the moon rose into the sky again, Amyr would be back.

  And so Gleeth slept, and the light of his silver crescent swept down and pointed a path right across the Primal Land. Five ships of Shad sailed that silvery swath on the Eastern Ocean, where now they crossed into the Straits of Yhem; and in the stern of the fifth, keeping the tiller, there sat Tarra Khash alone with his thoughts.

  Drowsy in the night, where warm winds blew now from jungled Shadarabar, Tarra’s thoughts weren’t much to speak of: fleeting memories of his travels and travails, his adventures and near-disasters. He saw again a woman, or rather a girl, as he’d seen her once in the badlands under Lohmi. She never had told him her name, though he’d found it out soon enough, and then almost wished he hadn’t. But she’d balmed his back where ambusher’s arrow had nailed him, and her soft breasts had cradled him where he rested against her. Then – she’d kissed his neck with a kiss of fire!

  She’d taken his blood while he slept – a little, a splash – and unbeknown even to herself had put something back in its place, like the fever-fly who sips and imparts poisons. Hers had not been poisons of the flesh but of the spirit, reacting only with blood which was ready for them. Nor were they true poisons, but rather passions. Tarra had known women, females, before. But none like this. And since that time – that kiss, which raised twin craters on his neck, small pinches that ached a little even now – he’d had no time for other loves. Or perhaps more important, no inclination.

  Love? Was that it? He snorted in the night under the blind old moon and straightened the bar of his tiller. Then never a love more hopeless in all of time, in all the Primal Land. For later he had seen that female who kissed him, seen her in her true form, which was a shape out of nightmares and madness!

  Some small irritation, on his leg where his pants were torn, distracted him. Something moved there. He went to swat, but paused when he saw what perched upon his knee. A small scorpion, greeny-grey: the sort which lives on the weeds and under the stones of certain tropical islands, whose venom is invariably fatal – or very nearly so. But Tarra Khash was immune, who’d been stung so often as a youth that the poisons no longer worked. Indeed, as a lad he’d been a legend on the steppes, renowned for the number of stings he’d taken, which should have killed but merely sickened and in the end had no effect at all.

  Now, in the star- and moon-cast shadow of the sail, he peered at his small passenger and it peered back, with tiny faceted eyes yellow as flames. Doubtless he’d picked the creature up on the isle of the almost-shipwreck. Well, and he had nothing against scorpions, of whatever sort. He took it up between thumb and finger, stared at it where it made no effort to sting him, said: ‘Best go where you’re safe, small friend. Find a niche for yourself between the strakes, where it’s nice and damp.’ And so saying he put the scorpion down behind the box of the tiller. It quickly scuttled out of sight.

  ‘Hah!’ said a now familiar voice close by. ‘Is there nothing you’re afraid of, Hrossak?’ Cush Gemal (for the moment Tarra continued to think of him under that name) stood watching, though how he’d drawn so close, so quietly, were a mystery.

  ‘I’m afraid of some things,’ Tarra answered. ‘Sorcery, maybe – and maybe people who appear in the night out of nowhere, all sudden-like and unannounced.’

  They stared at each other for long moments, until Gemal sensed the Hrossak’s new awareness and noticed a certain light in his eyes – the light of knowledge. He nodded then, and very quietly said: ‘I can see that you’ve learned something of the truth …’ And then, after a moment’s consideration: ‘Very well, you shall know all of it. Accompany me.’ He snapped skeletally thin fingers and one of his Yhemnis came running, took the tiller and left Tarra free to follow Gemal as he made off down the ship’s wide central space, between the sleeping girls where they lay chained together under their blankets, toward his repaired tent standing as before in the prow …

  As they went, the small greeny-grey scorpion came out from behind the tiller frame, stared silently after them with tiny flame eyes from between the steersman’s spread legs. And all it had seen with those faceted eyes, and all it had heard in its scorpion fashion, were seen and heard and known in certain other places: in the deep, all but forgotten fane of the Scarlet Scorpion himself, Ahorra Izz, and also in Shad, in a certain arena of death, where stood a likeness of that same arachnid deity.

  Both facets in their separate places had received the selfsame message, which was this: that Tarra Khash was on his way to Shad. And from deep below the creeper-entwined crypt which was his fane, the true god Ahorra Izz now spoke across all the leagues between to lesser idol, who however awe-inspiring in his way, was nevertheless only a simulacrum of himself:

  ‘Have ye seen?’ he clac
ked his mentalist message. ‘Tarra Khash, a Hrossak, is coming to Shad. Ye may come across him, or perhaps he shall stumble across ye. Now hear ye: this man may not be harmed by any scorpion, neither creature, graven image, nor even myself. I forbid it, for we stand in his debt.’

  ‘Here in the arena of death,’ came back the answer on the winds of night, ‘I hold small sway. There are many gods here, Ahorra Izz, where I am but a one. And I am but an image, with nothing of magick in me. Hewn in stone out of your likeness, I stand and stare with crystal eyes, impotent of all save the seeing of sights and the hearing of sounds.’

  ‘And yet I say to ye,’ Ahorra Izz insisted, ‘that if ye hear him cry out for aid, or see him in dire peril, then shall ye give assist.’ And he explained his meaning.

  And deep down beneath Black Yoppaloth’s ziggurat palace in Shad, around the rim of the subterranean arena of death, standing in a circle formed of other earth gods and many far more blasphemous effigies, a huge scorpion carved of chalcedony heard the words of its parent god and grimly acknowledged them …

  Way across the Straits of Yhem low in the sky over Theem’hdra’s farthest horizon, Gleeth the moon-god rode silent and serene, but not entirely deaf or blind. He had ‘seen’ and ‘heard’ many things this night, and not alone the pleading of Amyr Arn of the Suhm-yi. Of the latter: even now Amyr paddled a canoe across the deathly calm waters of the crater sea, and beached it on that tiny island where Ulli waited on the shore to melt into his arms. And this, too, was witnessed by old Gleeth, not yet quite asleep.