Dark Magic (16 page)

Immediately before him was a sheer cliff of dark basalt, pocked in places with the scars of old rock-falls, their detritus strewn about the base. Descending thrusts of stone formed horns that curved protectively about the beach, concealing the bulk of its interior. His captors were hauling the boats up, hiding them from sight. To his right he found Katya, trussed as he was, her flaxen hair plastered about her face in damp tendrils, her swordbelt gone. Her eyes opened as he stared—that confirmation that she lived still a relief—and he saw them flash stormy grey with fury. He essayed a smile that she met with a tentative shifting of her lips, her own head moving as she, in turn, looked to define their whereabouts. Of Bracht he saw no sign until he craned his head round and found
the Kern a pace or so behind him on his other side, closer to the river. An ugly bruise purpled the freesword’s cheek, swollen so that his left eye seemed to wink, his mouth distorted in an expression both smile and snarl.

More snarl, Calandryll decided as he saw the Kern strain against his bonds, that useless effort noticed by a Chaipaku, who paused in his labors and kicked the struggling warrior in the belly.

Bracht gasped, teeth gritted, and twisted his grimacing face up toward the kicker.

“Put a sword in my hand, fish-lover, and you’ll not do that again.”

The only response was mocking laughter and a gesture that brought two of the Chaipaku to lift the freesword. They thrust a staff beneath his arms, each taking one end, and dragged him, like a beast to slaughter, toward the cliff. Calandryll saw his comrade’s face pale as his shoulders were wrenched upward, but he bit back any cry. Then he and Katya received the same rough treatment, both following Bracht’s example, refusing to cry out as the joints of their shoulders took their weight and their bearers trotted swiftly across the strand to a low-arched cave mouth hidden behind the rockfall.

The sun lay just beyond the cliff’s rim, the entrance to the cave shadowed. It looked to Calandryll the kind of hollow the sea might scoop out, confirming his impression that they remained within the ocean’s sphere of influence, and when torches were lit he saw wrack littering the floor, the air within the confined space tangy with the smells of salt and seaweed. It was more than just a hollow, however, for the grey-clad men went confidently forward, the cave proving far deeper than cursory examination suggested. At its farther end was a hole, waist high from the floor and small enough the Chaipaku must go through singly, on hands and knees. The captives were dragged through and set upright where the tunnel opened into a far larger cave. Here the torches revealed
a vaulting roof and a flight of roughly carved steps that climbed up one side to a ledge beyond which lay another tunnel mouth. This was wide enough three men might walk abreast, and several handspans higher than the tallest present. It turned sharply leftward, suggesting to Calandryll that it ran back parallel to the river, and along its length unlit flambeaux stood in rusted metal fixings, suggestive of regular use. It ended at a metal door, the leading Chaipaku producing a key that turned smoothly in the lock, the door swinging open on oiled hinges. Beyond, flambeaux spread fitful light about a vast cave, shadow and flame locked in intricate dance, the far reaches, the roof, all lost in darkness. Below, Calandryll caught brief sight of a fiercer brilliance, startling amid the lesser play of the torches. The door clanged shut with a dreadful finality and the captives were borne down the length of more steps, to where the light burned brightest.

They were deposited within a ring of massive slabs, each one surmounted with a wide silver ashet in which pungent oil flared, filling the interior of the circle with merciless white light, on stone that seemed too smooth to be natural. The staffs were removed and the cords connecting ankles to waists cut, allowing them to stretch out cramped legs, their muscles protesting. Calandryll saw that Bracht and Katya lay to his right and that the Chaipaku gathered about them, studying them as might butchers examine pieces of meat prior to carving.

They said nothing, and their silence was more menacing than blows. Bracht cursed them and found no answer; Katya lay silent, though anger still sparked in her eyes. Calandryll, cold dread in his belly now, stared around, aware that he gazed on sights denied all the learned scholars he had read, such sights as only the Brotherhood of Assassins had seen. The stones were carved with images of Burash in all his manifestations, as man and sea beast, and hybrid minglings of both, inscribed in antique language, and he
recalled, briefly and bitterly, Reba’s prophecy: You will travel far and see things no southern man has seen. That much, certainly, was true, for this, he realized, was a sanctum of the Chaipaku, one of their secret temples, forbidden all save the initiates of the Brotherhood: none save the Chaipaku might look upon it and live.

The deep-cut images were hypnotic in their implicit threat and he found it hard to tear his gaze away, to look from them to the cold eyes observing him. They held neither compassion nor compunction, only the awful certainty that their owners looked upon victims so close to death as to be already beyond consideration. He felt a great urge to cry out, to protest his fate, to tell these implacable watchers of the quest he essayed, the terrible outcome of the sacrifice they so obviously intended. He stamped his teeth closed on the desire—there was no mercy to be found here; those eyes offered no hope—and instead spoke to his companions.

“What think you they intend?”

He was more than a little surprised that the question elicited no response from the Chaipaku: such indifference was more unnerving than a blow, but none came, nor when Bracht snorted grim laughter and answered bluntly: “To slay us.”

“Aye, that I know.” His surprise grew as he heard his voice ring firm, tinged with regret, perhaps, but neither shrill nor quaking. “But in what manner?”

“Not as warriors would,” returned the Kern, favoring their silent watchers with a contemptuous glare. “Such fish-worshippers fear honest swordwork, I think.”

“Did my folk sail free?”

Katya’s question was directed as much at the Chaipaku as at her comrades, and met the same stony silence; it was Calandryll who said, “I saw ek’Barre club Tekkan down.”

“May all the gods deny him rest,” she snarled.

“But I believe their quarrel is with us,” he continued. “Not with your folk. Mayhap the boat sails on.”

“We’ve that hope, at least,” she muttered.

“And little else,” said Bracht. His damaged eye was almost closed now, his mouth curled in a rueful grin as he turned the other toward her. “A pity, that.”

“That Rhythamun shall succeed, thanks to this scum?” Katya ducked her head in fervent agreement. “Aye.”

“That, too,” Bracht murmured, “though I thought on other matters.”

Katya frowned. “What mean you?” she demanded.

“That now we shall never reach Vanu,” said the Kern. “That now I may never hold you to that promise.”

Calandryll stared at the freesword, amazed that even now desire could motivate his words. He saw Bracht’s grin widen as Katya’s frown became a hesitant smile, a blush suffusing her tanned face.

“No,” she said softly.

“Had we,” Bracht pressed. “How might you have answered?”

For long moments the warrior woman looked into the Kern’s eyes, then her gaze faltered, lowering as she said, almost too softly to be heard, “Aye.”

Now Calandryll’s mouth gaped open in naked shock as Bracht roared proud laughter. The Chaipaku, too, looked on in wonder. “Then I shall die happy,” declared the Kern, and grinned again as he added, “albeit not so happy as I might.”

Katya shook her head, but now she, too, was smiling, and Calandryll found his own lips were curved. He drew strength from Bracht’s calm acceptance of the inevitable, determined that whatever manner of death awaited them he would meet it with a fortitude to match his comrade’s.

That resolution wavered somewhat as his captors stirred, bowing reverentially as they parted to allow a new figure entry into the stone circle. This one was not dressed in concealing grey, but wore a flowing
robe of deep sea-green that rippled like wind-tossed water as its wearer strode forward, towering above the three prone captives. The hem and sleeves were embroidered with depictions of predatory fish and a silver rilievo hung upon his chest, suspended from a golden chain, the face of Burash glowering from the metal, that image echoed by the mask he wore. Age had tarnished the gold, lending it a greenish tint that emphasized its relationship with the seas, and its expression was angry, the lips downturned, the eyeholes slits. From them glittered orbs of menacing black.

A hand of indeterminate age, black hairs curling over the back, thrust out, a finger pointed in accusation.

“These are the ones.” The voice seemed amplified by the mask, booming out like waves crashing on rock. “Those who slew our brethren.”

“Who slew brothers,” cried the audience. “Who slew the chosen of Burash.”

“Who slew Mehemmed,” cried the masked man; a priest, Calandryll realized, or at least hailed as such by the Chaipaku.

“And Xanthese,” returned the others. One by one, ritually, they recited the names of the Chaipaku slain in Kharasul and when they were done the masked priest cried, “How shall they atone?”

“Let Burash judge them,” came the response.

“Aye. They have offended against our god—so let our god decide their fate.” The priest gestured. “Lift them up.”

Roughly, the Chaipaku hauled them to their feet. The priest touched them each in turn upon the chest.

“Burash shall judge,” he said. “For none may harm his chosen ones, save on pain of his wrath.”

“Return me my blade,” Bracht rasped, “and I’ll teach your fishy god how a warrior of Cuan na’For judges him.”

The priest ignored the challenge, merely beckoning as he turned away, his robe rustling as he passed between two stones into the darkness beyond. Hard
hands gripped Calandryll’s arms as he was urged to follow, his captors chanting softly now, their voices rising and falling in vocal emulation of the ocean, the words too low that he might understand, but the intonation chilling as the winter sea itself. He was brought after the priest, between the great slabs and along a kind of avenue of lesser stones, unlit save by the receding brightness of the ashets, the way sloping downward so that he thought they must approach the river. Katya and Bracht were at his back, the remaining assassins forming a procession behind. The path steepened, then leveled, running straight and smooth toward a low-arched opening through which pale radiance glowed.

It was not the light of torches or flambeaux but a softer, more regular illumination, as if moonlight played on calm water, green and silver mingled, each color vying briefly for mastery before conceding dominance to its fellow. The pungency of burning oil and the sooty odor of the torches faded, replaced by the sharper perfume of the ocean, such as comes from rock pools, from seaweed and shellfish. Calandryll felt it smart in his nostrils as he was hauled beneath the arch into a cavern vaulted round and smooth as the carapace of an oyster. The priest halted and Calandryll saw clearer where he had been brought; where he was to die. The light came from all around him, some natural phosphorescence, glowing like witchfire from the algae that covered the walls and roof. Immediately beyond the arch a shelf of rock jutted over a deep bowl, wide steps carved in its side, going down to where water puddled, scattered with shells and weed, the ocean smell heady now. Among the smaller items lay larger pieces, bleached white, some straight, others curved, some . . . were skulls, he saw, separated from rib cages, the bones of legs and arms.

He steeled himself against the involuntary shudder of horror that threatened to tremble his as-yet fleshed limbs as he recognized the manner in which he was
to be sacrificed: he sensed that the priest anticipated such reaction, and refused to grant that satisfaction.

Across the bowl, lower than the rim of the ledge, the phosphorescence was broken by a single dark eyelet. It seemed to stare at him, or he at it, for he saw its purpose and it drew his gaze with horrid fascination. His surmise that their journey inward from the cove had run parallel to the river was correct. The descending path from the cavern temple had wound counter to that, bringing them close again to the water, but dropping, bringing them to the tidal levels of the Yst, within reach of the sea, into the domain of Burash. The Vanu warboat had quit Vishat’yi on the outgoing tide; by now the race must be turning, incoming. Ere long, it would reach this place, the ocean flow down whatever tunnel ran from shore to cave to flood out through that eyelet. It would be a slow death.

Dimly, an intrusion on his horrid speculation, he heard the priest intone some plea that Burash deliver judgment. He looked about, fighting rank fear, and saw that the shelf bore no sign of flooding, presumably standing above the water’s highest level. Victims, then, must be taken down those steps, likely chained there, to await the salty caress of their fate; likely, too, the Chaipaku would wait upon the ledge, gloating. He clenched his teeth, standing straighter, hoping that he could deny them the reward of his terror. He caught Bracht’s eye and the Kern grinned. Past him, Katya stood grim-visaged, her grey eyes stormy.

Then the droning of the priest’s voice ended and they were bundled down the slick steps. The Chaipaku kicked bones aside to expose manacles set into the bowl’s rock, snapping them about ankles before cutting the cords that bound their victims’ hands. Katya was fastened between Calandryll and Bracht, he to her left, the Kern to her right. Bracht stooped instantly, testing the chains: finding them solid. From above came laughter and the priest’s booming voice.

“Too stout to break, those bonds. Save Burash grant you mercy, you pay for your affront.”

The Kern swung round, as much as he might, and said, “Affront to rid the world of such as you? For such duty I think the gods more likely to reward us.” Through the mouthpiece of the concealing mask he was answered with laughter. He spat and turned away.