Empire of the East (47 page)

Charmian crouched motionless as the vile rabble of the demons began to appear in the torchlit night before her. One after another their hulking, obscure shapes blurred into the world, and almost at once vanished again for other parts of it. Wood when he awoke, or some other magician of comparable stature, could round them up again, and no doubt would; but they were not going to stand still and wait for it.

Charmian had good reason to be afraid. That she herself was of the East might mean very little to these ill-disciplined powers. Any one of them, hungry to inflict pain, or yearning for the taste of some immaterial human essence, might destroy her on impulse—or, worse, swallow her without destroying. Imagine the emotions of a spoiled infant, combined with the force of some huge animal or elemental power, and cleverness above the human average.

To try to run away might draw attention to herself, but still she was on the brink of doing so. She was distracted by the realization that the Western prisoners still alive were now awakening. The light spells Wood had placed on them were loosened by his unconsciousness. No one had thought to bind them physically, or perhaps the thought had been that to do so might insult the chief wizard of the East.

Now Charmian saw her husband stir. An instant later Chup got to his feet. He was only a few meters away, and when his eyes fastened on her she did not dare to run.

He was a more immediate threat than any of the demons, who so far had ignored her as they came into sight and vanished again. She took a step nearer to him, and with hands clasped beseechingly cried out: “Help me, Chup! I've released you, saved your life. You must get me away from here!”

Chup continued looking at her. She read cold rage into his fixed stare, and then realized that it was only blank. Now his forehead wrinkled. With men screaming and demons flickering in the background, he gave the impression of a man with all the time in the world, trying to understand some interesting problem. Now she noted that the other surviving Westerners were wandering around witlessly; their minds must be still half-imprisoned by Wood's spells.

Now she drew back from Chup again, but he moved with her, studying her face as if he sought some answer there. She feared to turn and run lest some predator's instinct make him chase her and attack. “Come, Chup! I beg of you. Save me! Help me get away!” The Constable was dead, Wood fallen, and demons seemed to rule the world. There was nowhere else for Charmian to turn. She pleaded, tugged at Chup's unyielding arm, and at last in her desperation slapped his face. This last made him frown at her most villainously, though he gave no sign of retaliation. The frown frightened Charmian, and she hastened to soothe him with strokings and soft words. His face smoothed and he looked content once again, while above him and Charmian the insubstantial horrors of demons came and went, casting light of purple and gold and green, and leaving waves of sickness in the air.

An Eastern soldier, probably maddened by some passing demon's touch, came bounding at them. Charmian saw his contorted face and his uplifted sword. She turned to try to run, but slipped and fell. As the man leaped toward her, Chup caught him by one arm, seemed to wave him in midair as if he were a banner, and threw him sprawling on his face, so heavily that he did not rise.

Recovering, Charmian crawled to pick up the sword the man had dropped. Murmuring “Come, My Lord Chup, come with me. We will help each other,” she held it out toward Chup, whose hand closed on the pommel as naturally as a mouth might close on food. Taking hold of his other hand, big and hard, docile and trusting, Charmian led him out away from the remains of smoldering tents and torches, away from the passing pyrotechnic demons, out into the summer night. Other humans could be heard running and crying out around them in the dark, but no one paid them any heed.

“Wolf tracks, if I've ever seen them,” Rolf announced. It was mid-morning on the day after their arrival at Ardneh's base. They had camped overnight wrapped in their cloaks in a small, ancient dormitory, where the plumbing still worked but the ancient furnishings had otherwise crumbled long ago. Ardneh, still busy integrating into his own complex being the strange artifact that had been their gift, had not yet explained to them in any detail what their chief tasks here were to be. But he had asked them to make a short reconnaissance round the old mine entrance, to see if there were any signs of their having been followed. When this request puzzled them, Ardneh explained: “It is here, inside my own physical structure, that my powers are in some ways most limited.” And there came to Rolf, with seeming naturalness, the mental image of a hand trying to bandage itself.

Now he stood with Catherine at the mouth of the ancient adit. A thunderstorm had come and gone during the night, unheard by them inside, leaving fresh mud where the small stream's banks had been dry dirt. The splayed prints in the mud were those of large and heavy animals. “Only natural beasts of some kind, we can hope,” Rolf added now.

“Look.” Catherine was pointing at the hard rock ledge a couple of meters in from the entrance. Rolf crouched beside her. The faint smear of mud on rock was not yet quite dry. His eyes could not really make it into a large paw-print. But something, or someone, had left it there within the last few hours.

“Are there wolves that serve the East?” Catherine asked.

“I have heard stories of such, but never seen them. Ardneh will know.”

“We were to scout outside; I suppose we had better not retreat at the mere sight of a track.”

Rolf agreed, and they proceeded cautiously. But, once away from the mud at the adit's entrance, they could discover no evidence of enemies or large beasts. New rivulets, still gurgling with rainwater, entered the stream at several points, and a hundred meters downstream from Ardneh's cave it was now much deeper than it had been, overtopping its normal banks to comb long grass with its current.

After following the stream that far they scouted in a circle centered on the entrance to the cave. They climbed the hill, crawling cautiously round its grassy top to observe a peaceful summer world in all directions. From there the circle brought them back to the stream and its swift pools. Catherine knelt to scan the bank closely; her thighs showed white before her skirt fell back demurely into place.

The little glade felt utterly secure, isolated from friend and foe alike. A thought that Rolf had banished came leaping back, with power irresistible:
Maybe the curse has ended now—

 

Two minutes later, feeling numb with fury, he was turning away from Catherine, picking up his just-dropped scabbard from the grass. The sword came out into his right hand, and with it he hacked murderously at the Lady Charmian's image, projected by his rage on a small tree. He was leaving marks to show enemy scouts that someone had been here. All right, then, he was leaving marks.

“I am changed again,” came Catherine's wearily steady voice from behind him. “Changed and dressed.”

Walking behind her, on their silent way back to the cave, he thought that even her normal, youthful shape was after all far from lovely. Those bare legs moving ahead of him were not curved in the way that a man's dreams told him a girl's legs should be curved. Too thin and wiry. My Lady Charmian chooses ugly servants, always—

And Rolf felt sullen, mean, and ugly too.

 

Wood woke with a start, and instantly sprang to his feet. The movement came in a burst of fear-born energy that drained away as quickly as it had come, and left him tottering. He stood swaying in the cheerful sunlight, amid unfamiliar grass and trees, unable to recall how he had come to be here.

Gradually, in bits and pieces, it came back: the error made in weariness, the jolting punishment from Orcus. But that had been during the night, and it was late morning now. Or might it even be early afternoon—

With a shock Wood beheld that the grass where he had lain still remained pressed down, showing the outline of his body. Within the outline it was even yellowed, beginning to die from lack of sun.

How many days had he been lying there? Within the outline of withered grass, beetles were scurrying to find a new shade. But though he must have been motionless as a corpse, apparently no living thing had come closer than that to molesting him. A magician of Wood's power was not completely unprotected even when unconscious.

Now he looked cautiously about. The only other humans remaining in the grove had made food for scavengers already. He faced no immediate threat.

Wood spewed out words of power, barking commands and questions into the air, which soon crackled with invisible presences. His first orders were for food and drink—he was ravenous and thirsty now, as well as stiff in every muscle and joint. Next he demanded information.

What he learned was, for the most part, reassuring. The horde of rogue demons had scattered around the world, which was an annoyance, but no more—obviously Orcus had not escaped. Quickly Wood set in motion the processes necessary to bring the others back under his control. Then, clumsy and aching, he set out on foot across tree-dotted grassland in the direction where, as his invisible informants now assured him, Ominor's army was presently encamped.

With no better means of travel than his old legs, the journey was slow. But the kind of steed he had once ridden was not readily replaceable, and he was saving his powers now for essentials. After an hour, however, the hiking grew oppressively difficult. He took thought, noted that the light breeze was at his back, and nodded to himself with satisfaction. With a few words he changed his shape into that of a wind-rolled, rootless weed, a feat he could manage with no great expenditure of energy.

In this guise he traveled faster than before, and by late afternoon had come within sight of his goal. Resuming his usual shape, he now made himself completely invisible, a condition hard to maintain for more than a brief time. In this way he passed sentries and minor wizards alike without being detected, until he stood inside the pavilion of the Emperor himself. Wood was surprised—though not enormously so—to discover the woman Charmian standing before Ominor. She was simply dressed now, and shy-looking, with downcast eyes. There were a few other people about.

The dialogue between the Emperor and Charmian was interesting to Wood, as it somewhat concerned him; but the first time John Ominor's eyes flicked his way they seemed for just a moment to rest directly on Wood, and after that Wood could no longer completely convince himself that his invisibility was proof against the Emperor's gaze. A fear that he could not master began to grow in Wood and with a faint shudder he retreated, passing out through the pavilion walls as a demon might, or smoke; and once outside he looked for a suitable place nearby where he might let himself be seeable again.

To Charmian, John Ominor was saying, in his customary loud, half-angry tone: “You still seem surprised at the sight of me, girl. What did you think I would be like?”

“That you would be impressive, Lord. As indeed you are.”

The Emperor half smiled, and enjoyed looking at Charmian a little longer before answering her. “As indeed I am not, you mean. Not loathesome or demonic-looking. Or even particularly handsome.” Though as usual the Emperor gave the impression of impatience, yet he was in no hurry to conclude the conversation. “I have heard of you, most memorable lady,” he went on. “Attempted to attach yourself to Som the Dead, in the Black Mountains; yes, and nearly thawed him back to life, didn't you? I can well believe it…though that man always seemed quite inhuman to me. Whereas I am an ordinary man in all but power. The powers I was born with, and those I have since accumulated—rather greater than those of Som. Or anyone else. Charmian, you will find my desires much more ordinary than those of many other men whom you have tried to please; that is not to say that I am easily satisfied.”

“My Emperor, I wish only that I may someday be granted the privilege of trying to satisfy your every—”

“To take whatever I want. To punish all my overt enemies, and to maintain fear in all who are too frightened of me to be my enemies at the moment—what more is the East but this?”

Charmian, in silence, made deep obeisance toward the carved chair in which the Emperor sat.

Ominor said: “Before you attempt more energetic ways of contributing to my happiness, answer me a question or two; repeat to me how you and the man came to be out there where you were found by my patrol. What went wrong with Abner, and what has become of my chief wizard?” There came a hoarse scream from somewhere not far away, probably from another chamber of the elaborate tent. “They are still asking the same questions of the man who was with you, but it seems he is as witless as he looked. He does nothing but yelp. You may be our only witness, so try to remember things in a little more detail. Exactly where is Wood?”

“My dread Lord, I will do the best I can.” Charmian had already told of Abner's fate and Wood's, leaving out of course her attack on the Constable from behind. She began to repeat the story now, adding such detail as she could remember; still she could not say exactly where it had all happened. She had wandered for two days with the dazed Chup before the Eastern patrol found them. She had no more information about Wood to give the Emperor, who was listening carefully.

Now and then another mindless outcry drifted in from Chup. In a moment of private thought it occurred to Charmian how enjoyable it would be to watch Chup's slow destruction, but then in the next moment she realized that she would miss him when he was no more. She recalled feeling a certain joy mixed with her fear on recognizing him as the man forcing his way into her rooms at the caravanserai, and again in the Constable's tent. Of course Chup might have killed her either time if she had crossed him; but this man here, on whose favor she was counting, might well kill her someday for amusement.

John Ominor asked her: “When this group of demons, as you put it, came pouring out into the world, was there any one among them notably larger or more impressive than the rest?” He seemed to think the question very important.

“I think not, dread Lord, if you can accept the opinion of one not well acquainted with demons, or able to view them without fear.”

“No, of course not,” Ominor mused, as if to himself, “we would have known.” His eye fixed Charmian once more. “And the man with you? He is of the West, you say, and yet you seem to have known him previously?”

There was no telling how much the Emperor might already know, and Charmian now boldly gave the truth. “He was once of the East, my Lord, and he was once my husband. A deserter and a turncoat. I cannot believe his present madness is a sham; but be that as it may, I would be pleased to see his suffering as well as hear it.”

Ominor grunted and flicked a glance back over his shoulder. Apparently the signal was relayed and heeded for presently the dismal outcries ceased. A moment more, and two black-garbed torturers came in bringing with them Chup, bound to an iron frame on wheels. He was stripped and bleeding here and there, where patches of skin were missing; but he was not the mangled object Charmian had imagined. His head turned to and fro, eyes glaring wildly.

Another pair of men had come in, wizards to judge by their dress. Ominor now turned to them. “Try some gentler means of restoring his memory. It could be important. If he knows aught of what was befallen Wood—”

There came a hail from outside the pavilion. A stir at the entrance, and then Wood himself appeared there. He hurried forward, scarcely glancing at Charmian, made obeisance, and quickly rose. “A word with you, at once, my Lord.”

Ominor arose promptly and led the way out of the chamber, motioning Wood to come along. Charmian was left to contemplate her husband, now being treated kindly, with a mixture of anger and relief that she did not fully understand.

Ominor and Wood confronted one another within an inner chamber of black silk, a tent within a tent, guarded round by most dependable powers of secrecy, and filled with a darkness that sometimes could press upon the eye like glaring light.

Wood got to business at once. “Supreme Lord, I can rouse that man that they are working on out there; it is one of my spells that still oppresses him. Has he any information of importance?”

“Not since you are here. Where were you?”

“Mobilizing reserve forces, my lord Emperor. We shall soon have urgent need of them.”

“And you were struck down in the process? So the woman told me, but I doubted…what, who, were you trying to call up?”

There was a pause. Wood began to answer indirectly. “My Lord, shortly before that I faced Ardneh, and I was weakened thereby. Ardneh is now mightier than we have ever suspected he might become. He may be as strong as—one other, whom we both know of, whose name I have not mentioned—”