Darkness Weaves (20 page)

Lages whispered to her then, not daring to raise his voice for fear it would shake. "Listen to me, M'Cori! When this is all over, Maril should be reconciled with me. And I'm through with this blood feud now. I'll no longer be a fugitive; I won't be a landless traitor's son, trying to prove himself worthy of the Emperor's grace. I'm going to ask Maril for your hand, M'Cori--and I know he'll consent."

He looked at her with painful intensity, as if he would hear her thoughts before she could form the words. "And will you have me? Will you be my wife, M'Cori?"

M'Cori clasped him with fierce passion. The words had been formed years before. "Oh, Lages--beloved! You know the answer to that!"

She kissed him deeply. For the next minutes Lages forgot all about his exhaustion and pain. Forgot about the web of darkness whose patterns were not yet completely woven.

Late one night several days after the battle, Kane sat reading over reports is the tower room he had chosen for his headquarters. Assuming that repairs on the captured warships and others could be completed in time, his fleet had about broken even--maybe better, since the acquisition of a few first-class warships more than made up for the loss of many of the less serviceable craft. Casualties had been high, though, which was more serious. A lot of replacements had to be found. Common soldiers were not too hard to scare up, but trained officers were another story.

Assuming Arbas recovered in time, he could probably be trusted with a command. The assassin was a loner, Kane knew, but he was a formidable swordsman, and as such could command the respect and obedience of his men--making him a good battle leader, even though he cared for none of the responsibilities of long-term leadership. Arbas just might be talked into it, Kane reflected, if he could appeal to the assassin's ego. And perhaps Imel could persuade some more of his acquaintances to come over to his side. The aristocracy had all the experience and mystique needed to command--the common folk were used to taking orders from their superiors. The same tradition of subservience to the nobility caused problems with promotions from the ranks.

Kane laid the papers aside. Some sixth sense detected the presence of Efrel even before his keen hearing caught the clump of her wooden leg on the stairs. What cause drove her up such a difficult climb, he wondered? He had chosen this tower room for his study partly because it made such excursions inconvenient for Efrel.

Kane considered his relationship with the sorceress a difficult one. At present she was altogether pleased with him, but catering to the whims of a madwoman taxed even Kane's nerves. Her attitude of elaborate secrecy and incessant insinuation annoyed him far more than he cared to show, and her unpredictable seizures of raving insanity were trying, to say the least. Kane's jaded senses found slight fascination in seeking to satisfy Efrel's almost bestial lusts, but there always persisted a deeper feeling of disgust that could not be dispelled. Unconsciously Kane found himself counting each step of the passageway by the echoing thump of Efrel's demon's-paw limb. There was an almost hypnotic rhythm to her progress, he decided.

Soon Efrel's maimed figure limped through the doorway. He looked at her expectantly. "Good evening, Kane," she began in her strange voice--beautiful tones as mutilated as her nightmarish body. "So I find you here working late hours like a clerk."

"A good general should know his strengths and weakness to the smallest detail," Kane stated, somewhat annoyed. Actually it had been insomnia, not diligence, that kept him here so late. "Success in battle isn't won by accepting the standards and incompetence of others. So many hot-headed amateurs think wars are fought by throwing two armies together and letting justice and the gods grant victory to their cause. My sword has dulled its edge on such fools, settled causes past counting."

"Don't take offense--I was only jesting. Certainly, after last week's victory I have no criticisms either of your ability or your philosophy."

Efrel sank into a chair beside Kane. "But I came to tell you that Imel has once more proved his worth to me. Another of his highborn friends has yielded to his persuasion. Imel has just informed me that Lord Gall of Tresli has thrown his lot in with us. He's the most powerful lord on that island, as you should know, and he'll come to us presently with a fleet of eighteen warships. I must find some new way to show Imel my appreciation."

Kane smiled. "There's a coincidence--I was just wondering if Imel might come through for us. Buy him a new wardrobe, and he'll win over all of Tresli. But this is good news. I've needed a fresh fleet to guard Pellin's waters--in case Maril sends another expedition sooner than expected. If I were in his place, I'd attempt a raid of, some sort--a quick strike to disrupt operations in Prisarte. But after the beating we gave Lages, I imagine Maril will wait to bring the entire might of the Imperial navy against us before he mounts another attack."

"Offers of aid are pouring in from every quarter," Efrel exulted. "Every adventurous rogue, every greedy nobleman, all those who have cause to hate the house of Netisten--they are rallying to me as news of our victory spreads throughout the Empire."

The sorceress paused to gloat, and her eye caught sight of the puckered seams of the minor gashes Kane had suffered in the battle. Strange, she mused, only slight scabs or pinkish scars marked them now. So the immortal had strong recuperative powers, as well. She recalled the demon's words that Kane could receive no permanent scar, since his body never altered from its original state. Considering his past career, she wondered whether his body might not otherwise be as scarred as her own. It was pleasant to think that another creature might live through such mutilation.

Kane was speaking. "Yes, I can see that response to our cause is mounting. But, as Hedusi complained:

Speak no more to me of numbers,

'Though truth, your words are lies-

I fill my goblet drop by drop,

While you pour from the amphora."

"I've never heard the proverb in that form before," returned Efrel.

Kane had forgotten the passage's antiquity. Vexed at having been trapped into pedantry, he told her bitterly, "It isn't a proverb originally. It's a familiar quotation from one of Gorovin's plays. Don't tell me that Gorovin's work has been lost here in the East."

"So Kane is a scholar as well as a warrior. How unusual! We must talk together at length over the knowledge you've acquired over the centuries." Efrel had caught Kane's unconscious reference to the Thovnosian Empire as the East. This was clearly the West with respect to the Lartroxian supercontinent, and if Kane had not merely made a slip of the tongue... She wondered how long Kane had lived in the semi-mythical lands beyond the Western Sea.

"You wouldn't like Gorovin," Kane said caustically. "No one ever gets flayed alive in his plays. But my meaning should be clear--certainly I've repeated myself often enough. We can't take on Netisten Maril and the entire Empire with just bits and pieces from here and there--not when he has the resources of his Empire to draw upon. Why, most of these recruits we've gathered since the battle are useless against seasoned troops. Just sword-meat to waste the strength of the Imperial forces. If I'm to be of any real use to you, I'm going to have to be told exactly what manner of supernatural powers you've made an allegiance with. Tell me what this mysterious force is that you've so devilishly hinted of all along. Then maybe I can make plans accordingly."

Efrel laughed wildly, and for a moment Kane feared that she was entering into another of her spells of incoherent madness. But the sorceress was merely enjoying her moment of triumph, and presently she grew calmer. Efrel must have been anticipating the unveiling of this final mystery for some time, judging from her secret amusement. She assumed a grimace that her torn features interpreted as a mysterious smile--Kane had grown to recognize the expression--and asked: "What do you know of the Scylredi?"

Though the direction Efrel's revelation was taking was not an unsuspected one, Kane remained impassive. His thoughts at that moment might have shaken the sorceress, but he only said, "I have heard a few bizarre tales of the Scylredi from the seamen of this region. Some sort of malevolent sea gods, they say."

Efrel tittered scornfully. "Yes, so they say. Garbled legends and old wives' tales. They are but frightened guesses--pale shadows of the hidden truth. Listen, Kane!

"In the eons before man walked the earth--when the sea was a vast, teeming wilderness of primitive life, its oceans far more immense than those of today--the race of creatures known to mankind as the Scylredi arose and flourished. Most of the continents we know today had not yet risen from the primeval sea, and only a few jungle-choked land masses stood out from the boundless seas of Elder Earth. The Scylredi lived beneath this ancient sea and created for themselves a civilization beyond man's wildest conception. Here in this very region they built their cities, for at that time all these islands lay upon the ocean floor.

"They were a strange race, these creatures of awesome antiquity. Nothing on earth truly resembled them, even then. Were they some freak of evolution, a race from another world--or perhaps, like man, the result of some insane god's whimsy? Who can say at this distant age? The most ancient writings that I have studied are uncertain on so many points. But then, this earth has held many strange races about which mankind can only speculate, and all but a fragment of the secrets of prehuman history has been lost forever.

"Whatever their origin, the Scylredi were as gods themselves. They had control of powers both natural and supernatural. They used the great beasts of the primordial sea for their own purposes, controlling fantastic monsters known to mankind only through legend. With their knowledge of the physical sciences, they built great submarine seacraft--unearthly engines in which they traveled the oceans and waged war with the other inhuman races of Elder Earth. That age was a far more violent world than the earth of our day, and there were many powerful forces the prehuman races must constantly contend against in the battle to survive. They were versed in the elder sorceries, as well--the secrets of the gulfs beyond our stars--and legend only hints at some of the hideous deeds that were committed by the Scylredi in their wars.

"Magnificent fortresses they raised--huge basalt structures that surpassed human imagination. The ruins of these great castles can be seen today--on hillsides where they have crumbled for millennia, ever since the waters receded from these islands. This very fortress, Dan-Legeh, is their creation. For the Scylredi, it is only a minor citadel, and built after their race had declined. It was an age of giants, and the Scylredi commanded both sorcery and science in their constant battle for supremacy in that prehistoric age of chaos.

"But as the centuries passed, their power slipped from them. Perhaps it was the shrinking of the great seas, or the cooling of the earth that caused their decline. It is recorded that there was a long period of horrific warfare between the Scylredi and some other race of elder beings. The conflict was waged with weapons of unimaginable power. Many of their colossal basalt castles were blasted into fused rubble, their gigantic seacraft destroyed, their fearsome servants annihilated, and the greater part of the Scylredi were killed. Both races lay near to extinction upon the termination of that war, and the scattered survivors were left to mourn amidst the ruins of their vanished civilizations.

"Then mighty quakes and tremors shook the earth. Mountains rose from the muck, and great cracks split apart the ocean floor. The waters receded, as the ocean floor buckled and heaved forth to form new lands. The ruins of the Scylredi's titanic fortresses were left to moulder in the sun. And Dan-Legeh itself finally emerged, to dry beneath lonely grey skies until the day some centuries-removed ancestor of mine conquered his superstitious fears and adapted the fortress for his own use. Surely you have noticed the alienness of this citadel. The innumerable additions and modifications man has made--new walls and chambers, stairways and ceilings--they can't disguise this inhuman heritage.

"As for the Scylredi themselves, their numbers were dwindling. Creatures of preternaturally long lives, they were slow to reproduce--but this was only a fragment of their dilemma. Most of the great beasts that had served them were dead; their fortresses were virtually destroyed, as were the strange machines they had created. Their power broken, the Scylredi were too weakened to confront that hostile age. As time passed, they were not prepared to cope with the changing world--and after the oceans receded, their remnants withdrew into the depths of the Sorn-Ellyn, to the north of what is today Pellin. "Here in this deep trench whose abyss has never been plumbed, the last survivors of this once mighty race yet dwell. Few men have guessed that they still survive, or that there is truth to the many legends concerning these vanished sea demons. Seldom do they venture forth, and the seas over this abyss are shunned by the wise. Still, it is not uncommon to hear tales whispered among the seamen of poor fools who have strayed into the Sorn-Ellyn and paid horribly for their trespass. The Scylredi care little for the puny race of man--the weaklings who fell heir to their ancient home.

"But I have not been bound by human ignorance or weakness. Through my sorceries I have established contact with the Scylredi. I have learned to communicate with them, and have drawn them to me from their lair in the depths of the Sorn-Ellyn. Far below this fortress is cut from the bedrock a gigantic chamber. You have seen my pretty toys there on the day we played with that fat little spy. Here also is where I perform my incantations and rituals of the black arts. But the chamber has other uses than you may have guessed. Located there is a circular pool. I saw you peering into it; it is very deep, this pool--bottomless, to be truthful. For the pool is nothing less than one end of a tremendous tunnel that runs beneath this island and terminates within the Sorn-Ellyn. The Scylredi cut this and other such tunnels through the rock beneath our feet in the age when Dan-Legeh was still their citadel. Through this tunnel I am able to communicate with the Scylredi at will.