Empire of the East (16 page)

Rolf at last managed to grab another weapon from another fallen soldier's hand. But then, as for fighting his way through, he had all that he could do to defend himself against the nearest of the soldier's mates. This opponent had nothing like Chup's power and skill, but he was still less of a novice with the sword than Rolf. Rolf found himself being forced farther from the breached wall and the Elephant.

His duel reached no clean conclusion; he and his opponent were swept apart by the confused, headlong retreat of the soldiers to an inner courtyard. Knocked to the ground again, Rolf played dead while the throng stampeded over him. He had a moment in which to wonder if all battles were as mad and stupidly desperate as this one. When the rush had stopped and he raised his head he found that his friends were in possession of the field around him.

All was not well, though. The last of the Free Folk to come pelting through the ruined gateway were not charging forward, but rather in retreat. Right on their heels there sounded trumpet calls, and a thunder of arriving hooves—cavalry, and in substantial force.

The first few of the riders entered the courtyard, but their mounts stumbled in the ruins of the tower, and shied from the Elephant and from the burning timbers that lay about. Thomas rallied his men to hold back the cavalry at the gate. The enemy dismounted, and with leveled lances held the breach from their side—held the Elephant too, though none of them would touch it. The hundred fighters who had rushed in with Thomas were now effectively trapped inside the Castle. Cheers echoed back and forth, between Ekuman's men at the gate and their mates atop the keep.

The thicket of lances defending Elephant looked impenetrable. “Toward the keep, then!” Thomas shouted, making a quick decision. Before Rolf could reach his side to argue, the Free Folk were charging deeper into the Castle, and Rolf could do nothing but join them. His sword remained unblooded, for the charge met little resistance until it had swept the warren of walls and sheds up to the forbidding mass of the keep itself. At that point the Free Folk met doors as strong as the outer gate had been, closed and barred against them. And missiles began to drop on them from above.

This courtyard held many carts and other objects under which men might shelter. Rolf had just scrambled under a cart, panting, when a big man with a sword in hand came crashing down beside him. Turning, Rolf recognized Thomas.

Laboring for breath like Rolf, Thomas demanded, “The Elephant's wrecked? Crippled?”

“No…”

“
No?
Then what demon possessed you that you left it?”

“The demon Chup. He got the door open—I don't know how—”

Thomas groaned. “Never mind how. But the enemy can use the Elephant, then? It'll obey them if they dare to try?”

“It might.” Rolf started trying to explain the controls.

“All right, all right. Then we must just get you back into it. Take good care of your life until we do. What's that? The birds! There's a distraction for us, if we can use it!”

A mighty polyphonic shrieking had burst up from the high places of the Castle. The defensive system of nets and cords, probably weakened by the fall of the tower beside the gate, was now under heavy assault by birds, who seemed to be carrying some edged weapons for the work. Sections of severed net came sagging and dangling into the courtyards, brushing Thomas's men as he led them out in another charge against the outer gate.

There was too much fire there for the birds to be of help. And in the light of burning timbers the backs of the Free Folk were exposed to the missiles that now hailed more thickly from the roof of the keep. And the dismounted lancers' long weapons, pointed as thick as hedgethorns into the yard, still formed a wall proof against sword and mace and farmer's pitchfork. “Back! Back inside!” Thomas bawled out.

Once more they scrambled panting into the relative shelter of the inner court. Now Thomas cried out, “Find a timber! We must break in the door of the keep!” And at last the desperation was plain in his voice. This door would sturdily resist the biggest ram that men might lift; and the missiles would keep coming down from above; and, given time, Ekuman could summon more reinforcements.

Rolf felt the weight of the Prisoner's Stone, still inside his shirt. It was no help in breaking
in
a door…

There came a sudden flash of understanding. Rolf seized Thomas by the sleeve, at the same time holding up the Stone of Freedom. “It was this that opened the door for Chup, when I was in the Elephant! No doors will hold, that guard whoever holds this Stone!”

Thomas stared at him blankly for just a moment, then understood. He raised his arm and signaled urgently, calling down a bird.

Scowling, intent on his labors, Elslood stood at a table flanked by torches, at the side of the lightning-blasted Presence Chamber opposite the empty throne. The floor around him was still strewn with stones from the riven window, with clots and patches of the durable fire-extinguishing foam, and other debris of the afternoon's disaster, a corpse or two included. But the bodies of Zarf and Zarf's familiar had been removed; a wizard's corpse was still a thing of power, liable to disrupt another man's magic.

Here in his own place, where his closet had once been covered by rich hangings and protected by a spider, Elslood had set up his worktable and reestablished a measure of order. Gesturing and reciting now over the diagrams and objects he had disposed upon the tabletop, Elslood foresaw that his labor was likely to be futile. The subtler arts were hard to use against an enemy in the field, when swords were out and blood a-spilling. Elementals were sometimes employable in such situations, of course—his industrious opponent Loford had quite a knack for raising them, though he was hardly Elslood's match in other ways. But no one could raise an elemental from the worked stones of the Castle, nor from the man-trampled patch of earth the Castle stood on.

On the table was a flat-sided crystal, which had been darkening steadily as Elslood worked. He could not bring the darkness to fruition, could not summon out of it the dread power that he wanted—but the crystal in its present state did act prosaically as a mirror. The mirror distracted Elslood with its reflection of a tableau set on the far side of the chamber, not far from Ekuman's empty throne. Soldiers were constantly coming and going through the room on various errands, but always one of them stood guard there, over the litter holding the prisoner who today had fallen in the arena. And always the dark-haired girl was there, keeping her gentler watch.

Elslood knew that even battle and invasion had not made Ekuman forget the warning of the day's intrigue. Ekuman never forgot. And when Ekuman had won the night's battle, as it seemed now that he would, he would take up the investigation as before.

Elslood had effectively silenced the sergeant by inflicting fits of madness. And the mysterious youth who had called himself Ardneh had escaped. The one on the litter, though, might still give testimony that would ultimately involve Elslood. Certainly the one on the litter should be silenced. But there was the soldier on guard, and the dark-haired harem-girl presenting a greater if unconscious obstacle. Her devotion radiated like a torch to keep the dark arts of madness at a distance. Still it should be possible to do
something,
to finish off one who was so gravely hurt….

So it happened that Elslood, distracted from his duty to his Lord, was looking behind him through the crystal's mirror, and in one flat surface of it saw a winged shape enter at the blasted window. At first he thought it was a reptile; then he heard the sharp, loud hoot. He spun around, in time to see the great bird's taloned foot fling into the room an object that looked insanely like an egg. The thing skittered and bounded a short distance over the burned floor, straight to the girl beside the litter. She leaned across the litter and caught it; more, it seemed to keep it from hitting her beloved, than for any other reason.

The bird was already gone from the window. The girl, standing up like a frightened awkward doe, took a step backward with the unknown object clutched against her breast. She did not want the thing. Elslood saw in her face that she wanted only to get rid of it, to hide it, to get back again unnoticed to her job of nursing.

The soldier standing guard had yelled at the bird, which was gone again before he could do more. Now he grabbed at the girl. Though she made no attempt to flee, his hands only slid from her arms and clothing as he grabbed again and again, so he seemed to be attempting some sort of frantic caress. Frightened at running into magic, the soldier jumped back just as Elslood came stalking up.

He did not try to restrain the girl. She did not want to flee, not without her man. The birds had blundered, this time, trying to rescue the wrong prisoner. Towering over the terrified girl, Elslood did nothing but extend his open hand, palm up.

She gave the Stone to him. At that moment a great crash and a burst of wild yelling mounted up from somewhere at the base of the keep. The shock, first of suspicion and then of understanding, hit Elslood's mind, as the girl dropped back on her knees beside the litter. Elslood's skilled fingers swept hastily over the blurred and ancient carvings on the thing that she had given him:
“…neither by spell nor by chain, neither by moat nor by cliff, can the holder of this Stone be confined. Not lock nor key nor bar can bind him in. Now powerless be all doors, and sentries, all watchers and all walls, that are set to guard him round about…”

Elslood stood for a moment staring blankly at nothing, then on his face there grew a twisted smile:
So, Loford. I was too contemptuous of you, and you have won after all.

Out on the roof terrace Ekuman was bellowing in bewildered rage, and on the stairs below the clamor of a panicked retreat already mounted closer. There were not enough soldiers left in the keep to hold it, with the great doors they had relied upon suddenly burst open.

The thought of Charmian brought all of Elslood's energy back. Ignoring Ekuman's shouts, ignoring everything else, the tall gray wizard ran from the Presence Chamber to the stair. On legs as springy as a youth's he bounded down one flight, passing visiting Satraps who were reeling upward in retreat, grim-faced and bloody in their battle-harness.

Elslood left the stair on the level of the keep just below the roof-terrace. He raced down a corridor that was thick with the smell of dying flowers, and burst without ceremony into Charmian's exquisitely decorated rooms. From the corridor he had heard women already screaming within.

The uproar ceased abruptly on his entrance. The enemy was not here yet; it was only some hair-pulling fight. During the fighting all the Ladies of the visiting Satraps had been gathered here for safety, here amid the mocking gaiety of massed flowers, in the rooms that were to have been tonight a bridal suite. And some of the Ladies and Charmian had fought. She raised her head now in the midst of an ugly wrestling group of them, her own face as near to ugliness as ever it had been in Elslood's eyes. Her long hair had just been pulled into a painful disarray, her face was swollen with her tears and rage—none of these things did Elslood wholly see. For he saw that his Princess was, for whatever reason, overjoyed to see him.

“Change them!” she shrieked at him. “Blast these bitches with your spells, wither them into hags and crones—”

Elslood had no time to be subservient or soothing. He raised his voice, overriding hers even as his hands held out the Stone of Freedom to her.

“My Lady, take this! The ruler's doom, but the blessing of the fugitive. As you pass from power to wretchedness, its constant effect will change from harm to help. It is all that I can give you now.”

Her face softened with fright at his tone. She took the Stone obediently. “‘Wretchedness'? Then we have lost?”

He had heard her voice sound just like that when she was ten years old. While the other women cowered away from him in terror, he took Charmian by the wrist and led her out of the suite. He knew where Ekuman's secret passage of escape began, and how that passage ran, dark and windowless beneath the other stair all through the Castle's wall, to emerge from under ground only when it was kilometers out in the eastern desert. And he knew of the secret cache at the tunnel's end, the water and food and weapons laid by for just such a time as this.

Ekuman was waiting for them on the first curve of the stair above the Presence Chamber, near the entrance to the secret way.

“So,” the Satrap said, and not another word, at first. But the golden child-woman and the towering gray man both stood mute and quivering before him.

Charmian broke the silence. “Father?” she pleaded in her frightened child's voice. And when Ekuman, who was staring at Elslood, did not move his eyes or speak, she pulled her hand free of Elslood's grasp and darted forward, past her father, on up the stair and around its curve and out of sight.

“I thought it was you who had betrayed me,” said Ekuman. His eyes locked Elslood's. His face was granite. “When the soldier fell in his strangling fit, I thought so. Yet I delayed, wanting to make sure.” The Satrap shook his head in wonderment. “You may have destroyed me—for nothing. For an infatuation.”

Elslood had long schooled himself, not to bear fear, but to avoid it. So it struck him now as a sudden overburdening weight would hit the muscles of a man grown slack and soft with long neglect of exercise. Looking now at Ekuman, he could see his own certain fate, and he felt the great fear rushing up like vomit from his middle to his head. It could not be that this thing was really going to be done to him, no, not now; there was always one more cranny of escape….

In a defensive reflex Elslood began the casting of a spell of his own, but he could not finish it. Great as his powers were, they were helpless against those that Ekuman had been given, for this one purpose, by Som the Dead in the Black Mountains. Still Elslood could not comprehend that this was really happening. Unbelievingly he watched as the Satrap's hand made the gesture of power, he listened as Ekuman's voice uttered the one necessary word.

The Elslood's vision left him—for a while. He still remained conscious. It seemed to him that he could feel the water gushing from every pore of his body, the bulk that made him tall and strong rushing away in liquid and in steam to leave him infant-sized. His brain knew that it shrank, keeping in close proportion with his every other organ. More horrible yet, he knew even as it happened that his mind was shrinking with his brain. The intellect was aware, step by step, of its own maiming.

His senses were disorganized then, but they came quickly back to him, to his new-shaped body muffled under the heap of human clothes collapsed upon the floor. The thing that regained sense had forgotten what magic was, and even speech. But its memory still held, and knew that it would always hold, the knowledge that once it had been man.

 

Ekuman kicked at the creature and it flopped away from him in terror, struggling to master its new webbed feet. It croaked and bounded and hopped away, as if it would flee its very self. The Satrap wasted no more thought on it, for the sounds of violence on the stair below were drawing nearer. He spun around and followed the way his daughter had taken, into the secret passage. He took care that the door was tight shut behind him. Charmian's footsteps had already gone ahead out of hearing in the darkness. Ekuman followed, needing no light. But he was scarcely thinking of Charmian. He was not heading for the desert, no, not yet. There was a chance yet of his saving all.

His mind was still fixed on the Elephant. He had been watching from atop the keep when the fearless Chup entered the Elephant and drove out the youth. Then he had watched it standing open, riderless, watched balanced between rage and satisfaction when he realized that none of his men who could reach it dared to enter.

Ekuman would dare anything now. His secret passage had another door, hard by the ruined gate where Elephant sat.

 

When someone's hands inside the keep took up the Prisoner's Stone, and its power burst in the great door of the keep, Rolf was one of the first of the Free Folk to enter. In the lower halls of the keep he used his sword—as inconclusively as before. But there were stronger fighters at Rolf's sides. The enemy was rapidly pushed back, cut down, being taken by surprise, being outnumbered now in the stronghold where they had thought themselves finally secure.

Rolf joined others then in pressing up the stairway, fighting now against the last desperate defense of the visiting Satraps and their bodyguards. Chup was not among them. Rolf had not seen Chup, nor Mewick either, since the two of them had begun their duel in the outer court.

When resistance had failed completely, Rolf, who knew the lay of the land better than anyone else, led the advance into the upper level of the keep. Sword in hand, he was the first of the Free Folk to enter the Presence Chamber, the room from which he had been taken under guard only a few hours earlier. His knees quivered with his relief when he saw that Sarah was alive and unhurt. She was still where Rolf had seen her last, kneeling beside Nils's stretcher—as if all the time between had found her immune to danger and had flowed around her.

She raised her eyes joyfully at the entrance of the Free Folk—but when she recognized Rolf under the blood and grime that masked his face, her eyes turned cold. Nils still breathed; he turned drained but living eyes to his rescuers as they entered.

Thomas swept his glance around the chamber, then faced Sarah. “Did you see which way our gracious Lord Ekuman retired?”

She could only shake her head, no. The Free Folk spread out, searching. Some went out onto the roof-terrace. Others poked among the hangings on the wall and tested corpses with their blades.

Rolf chose to follow the stairs that went up to the top-most level of the tower. Only a few steps up, a bundle of clothing lay. He lifted the upper garment with his sword. It was a long gray robe. It caught at his memory, but for the moment he could not remember who….

A small circlet woven of the sun fell from the robe and dropped upon the stair just at his feet. It flashed across his mind how cold and deadly Sarah's eyes had been just now, looking at him. Her hair was dark, not at all like this. It was Sarah that he loved, so why should he bend swiftly and pick up this yellow charm?

The circlet was soft and flawless and intricately knotted, and he thought he could feel power in it. But why should he quickly put it into the inner pocket of his shirt?

Thomas came up beside him then, and together they went on up the stair. When they saw the richness of the furnishings in the apartment at the top, they felt certain it was Ekuman's. But the Satrap was not there. In a small anteroom two harem girls were cowering; they screamed in terror when Rolf and Thomas came bursting in on them.