Gary Gygax - Dangerous Journeys 1 - Anubis Murders (18 page)

"Hmmmh, mmmth!" she said, wild-eyed and panting.

"Yes, of course," Setne said with a slight grin. "It was merely a matter of priorities. . . . He severed the heavy cloth strip holding the gag in place.

"Setne! I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever show up and get—" Rachelle cut off her words when she saw that the fallen bard had suddenly changed into a monstrous bear.

As the amazon looked frantically around for some weapon, Inhetep used his little wand to good effect. Aldriss had arisen, his bear-form a towering threat of claws and huge fangs about to sweep priest and warrior into its deadly hug. Setne was suddenly a thing of spines, a ball-like hedgehog with quills two feet long. The bear's paws swept out heedlessly. There came a snapping as of dry twigs and rattling of spines. The blow knocked Inhetep some distance away. At the same time, there was a roar from the bruin; the striking paws were now pierced, each looking like a pin cushion thrust through and through with the barbed spines. The injured, bloody bear paws beat the air as Aldriss-bruin vented his fury and pain. Then the form shimmered, and instead of a brown bear there was a pit viper whose body was as thick as a man's thigh and whose length was greater than two tall men.

"Very wise, bard," Inhetep cried. "The serpent has no extremities to remain pierced by quills. I give you credit for your cleverness." The wizard-priest had himself returned to human form, his garments torn and stained by a splotch of red where the claws had done damage. He seemed little harmed, though, and even as the giant viper coiled to strike, Setne was busy with his own magick. Perhaps the sudden transformation would have given Aldriss the edge he sought, but the bard reckoned without Rachelle again. The girl saw the serpent readying to strike, and this time she flung a chair at Aldriss.

The missile didn't harm the viper, but the impact caused the deadly strike to miss its target by a fair margin. "Thanks!" Inhetep called to Rachelle, and then the magister became a huge, thick-scaled lizard whose long jaws sported scores of small, needle-sharp teeth. It was just the sort of reptile made to dine on poisonous snakes the size of Aldriss the Great Bard of Lyonnesse.

Of course, that left little choice. As Aldriss shed his viper-form, the coils sprouted feathers. In another instant, a huge marsh hawk stood where the serpent had been. "Keeaah!" the raptor shrieked in triumph as its wings beat the air. Aldriss was obviously going to fly from the contest now, content with escape, victory forgotten.

As the hawk rose so did an equally huge eagle owl, for Inhetep too had altered form to counter the bard's tactic. The two fierce birds met in the air, and with a storm of flying feathers, fought and fell to the floor. As the two struck, they changed again, Aldriss and Inhetep throttling each other.

"Enough!" The word of command came from Rachelle's throat as she held a sword to the bard's neck. Aldriss stopped his struggle.

"Now I recall just why I went to so much trouble to rescue you," Inhetep remarked as he arose and straightened his garments. "Admirable work, girl!"

Aldriss lay unmoving, glaring up at Rachelle and the tall Egyptian with equal hatred. "Shall I finish this foul and treacherous kidnapper now?" The warrior woman put a little more pressure on the steel so that the blade's edge just barely cut Aldriss' skin.

"Great gods, no," Inhetep said with feigned shock, as if he thought Rachelle was actually about to sever the man's neck. "Master Aldriss will surely have a lot to say to us now, and I believe that his words will buy his life. Do spare it until we find out if my prediction is correct, Rachelle." The wizard-priest looked down mildly at the pale-faced bard. "You do have some things to tell me about, don't you, Gwyddorr?"

The girl held the brand hard against the bard's neck, but Aldriss was no coward. "You may rot in your foreign hell, Inhetep, before I say anything to you."

"Tch. I am shocked," Setne responded. "Yet I believe you will certainly admit that you are the one who kidnapped Rachelle, won't you?"

"She came with me of her own accord," the man snapped back. "I merely held her here after she had willingly come."

"He speaks but a half truth, Setne," the amazon said hotly. "He called on me that evening after the revel and said you had sent him to get me and bring me to where you waited."

"And you went like a lamb? Rachelle! Why didn't you heed the warning?!"

The girl looked puzzled, and so for that matter did Aldriss. "You warned her about me? How in—" He bit his query off short.

"That's right, Master Great Bard and murderous plotter, I did just that. But why did you ignore the caution, dear girl?"

"Well, I ... I didn't get the warning," Rachelle admitted.

"Of course you did," Inhetep countered. "I placed it in the note I left for you about my not going to the festivities at the castle. Down the left-hand margin, as clearly as anything, I told you B E W A R E A L D R etc'."

"Oh." The pretty mouth was hesitant. Before she had opportunity to explain that, in her haste and anger at the wizard-priest, she had failed to pay attention to his note, Aldriss spoke.

"You are a filthy Eastern dog, Inhetep!" the bard spat. "I said from the first that you would be trouble!"

"Really?" Setne said mockingly. "And just who was it you said that to?"

"No matter to you, burn-skin, and your doxy either, for that matter. You'll find out soon enough, and then it will be too late!"

"Doxy!" Rachelle cried with fire in her dark eyes. "And you, doing your utmost to get me into bed, putting your hands all over me when I was tied and helpless! You . . . you ... Now I'll show
you
what it's like to have unwanted attention when there's nothing to be done to prevent it." Her arm tensed, grip tightening on the sword.

"Easy, Rachelle," Inhetep cautioned. "Aldriss is going to explain just who he was warning about me—aren't you bard?" There was stoni-ness in the Egyptian's eyes as he spoke.

If the Kellt saw danger in those emerald-hard eyes, he was either very brave or very foolish— or both, for he ignored the look. "Both of you are now as good as dead," Aldriss spat. "Think you that the Master of Jackals would let two petty ones such as yourselves upset his plans? Never!" There was such conviction in Aldriss's voice that a chill went flashing up Rachelle's spine. Even Inhetep drew back a little. "You are doomed now!" the bard cried, one arm shooting suddenly up and pointing.

Perhaps it was the oldest trick in the book, but Rachelle grabbed Setne and the two of them went sprawling away from where Aldriss pointed. This allowed their prisoner to regain his feet and mount a new attack.

"Fallen foes abandon action," Aldriss sang even as he stood upright. "Helpless, hopeless, stifling sanction. Fearful, frozen, pitifully palsied; Laid low, the fallen foe!" The last couplet completed his quatrain and bore the ring of the bard's triumph as he voiced the strain of the cantrip. Its power was slow to come, but the initial singing had sufficient effect to give Aldriss the chance he needed. Suggestion was strong, and the dweomer he spun by his lyrical chanting weighed down the two and made their movements ponderous and uncertain.

With grim satisfaction, the bard went on with his magickal singing. Setne seemed to be getting sloth-like, the long fingers of one coppery hand gradually disappearing inside his short jacket. "I . . . reject . . . your . . . heka. . . ." Inhetep was saying slowly as he fought to break the weight of the casting, which was enfolding them in its magick. He had just managed to grasp the energizing form of his golden ankh and had the amulet partially withdrawn from his garment as the bard finished the second quatrain.

Rachelle too was trying to break the power of Aldriss' singing by sheer will force. In truth, the amazon was moving more quickly than the ur-kheri-heb, rolling slightly away from the bard and about to come erect. The sword she had picked up was still in her hand, and Rachelle's arm was drawing back as if to hurl the blade at Aldriss.

"Useless!" the man shouted in triumph as he drew forth a figurine. "I call upon—" But that's as far as Aldriss got. Two red beams were issuing from the statuette when a Kelltic symbol of power manifested itself in the air directly before the unsuspecting bard. The bright fire of the wheel met the bloody rays. The spoked torus blazed and grew to twice its potency even as the deadly beams rebounded and struck the bard full in the face. Aldriss uttered a horrified cry that turned into an awful, rising shriek of agony, then his head exploded, and the fire of the raging magickal sign roared out and consumed him utterly.

= 12 =

MISTAKE

"Are you two all right?" It was Tallesian's voice.

"But I thought . . ." Rachelle began. Inhetep's touch caused the warrior girl's words to fade.

"We are well enough, thank you, but what did you do to Aldriss, druid?" The question had a sharp edge, and Setne's hawk nose seemed aimed at the man.

"Good—excellent! I feared the worst there for a second," Tallesian said with some heartiness and warmth. "I'd have acted far sooner, I assure you, Magister, save for doubt."

"Doubt?"

"Well, to be forthright, sir, I thought you a most dire enemy." He looked squarely at Inhetep. "When you came strutting into the festivities here, I was set to do my best to lay you by the heels. You knocked me down, stunned me in the process, too, I might add." Tallesian made a wry face and rubbed the back of his head, flinching a little from his own hand. "Quite a goose-egg there. Anyway, when I finally came round and managed to figure out what was going on, I saw you, and your amazon companion with a sword at Aldriss' throat. For a second or two, it was a near thing—going to use the last resort against you rather than that blackguard, who was supposed to be the Gwyddorr and my peer, you know."

Inhetep raised a hand, and the druid looked at him inquiringly. "I do appreciate your explanation, Lord Tallesian, but something you said . . ."

"What was that?"

"You referred to a 'last resort,' I believe. By that do you mean the sigil of energy you sent at the bard?"

"None other," the man confirmed, nodding vigorously. "Not at all sure what happened to it, though. It went all wrong at the end and—"

"Never mind. I thought it rather strange, too, for the thing went from one grade of power to another and seemed a nonesuch. Do you suppose it was an interaction with whatever Aldriss was trying to use against Rachelle and me?"

"Unquestionably," Tallesian concurred.

Rachelle couldn't understand why the druid had come round so suddenly to their side. "You were here celebrating with him, and you have evidently favored the ones who dared accuse my lord Inhetep of some crime—and after you yourself induced him to this island, too!"

"Come to the point, please, dear girl," the Magister urged.

"What made you blast your countryman and peer?" she demanded of Tallesian.

"Why, he was the one responsible for all this— he was the Master of Jackals!"

"Was he?" Rachelle demanded. "I never heard him admit to anything like that."

Tallesian seemed a little flustered. "He most certainly was about to try to kill you both, and he as much as admitted that he was the mastermind behind all this terrible business when he said he wouldn't allow the pair of you to foil his plot!"

"He asked if we thought the Master of Jackals would allow Rachelle and me to interfere in the plan he was part of," Setne said forcefully, picking up from where his companion had left off. "He neither admitted to being the mastermind— boastfulness was something Aldriss was known for, too, I think—nor claimed he had spun the web. But he did mention warning others."

"Others? Did he now . . ." the druid said reflectively. "Wish I'd have overheard that bit better. No help for it now; the blighter has gone beyond even your questioning, Magister Inhetep. If you ask me, though, I'd say that with his death we've heard the last of the Master of Jackals!"

The tall Egyptian gazed at the ash-strewn place where the energy of the magickal wheel of force had devoured Aldriss. "You are likely to be correct about that, druid, although I think I will try to learn what I can anyway."

"By all means, Magister, by all means. While you and your assistant are checking on that, I believe I should settle things here," Tallesian said, walking back toward the hall. "Bound to be a frightful commotion after all this row. Important folk to reassure, guests to placate, rumors to squelch, and all manner of things to set straight."

"Such as Magister Inhetep's guiltlessness?" Rachelle called after the druid.

"That, too," he called back, and then he was off to find the staff and guests who had taken refuge when the battle began.

"You think that Aldriss was actually the Master Jackal?" Rachelle asked when Tallesian was gone.

"Hmmm . . ." the wizard-priest responded vaguely, without turning to look at her. He was stooped over the place where Aldriss had stood, palms outward, fingers spread as if to catch vibrations. His green eyes were fixed in an odd stare. "As I suspected."

"Suspected? You suspected Aldriss of being the Master of Jackals?!"

Inhetep turned then and looked at the lovely face framed in its disheveled mop of dark curls. "I can't recall you ever looking more beautiful, Rachelle," he said with a smile. "I trust you weren't despairing of rescue."