Rise of the Death Dealer Page 4

  She crossed to the alcove and came away with a fur blanket. She kneeled beside him, covered him tenderly, then took his hand in her hands, pressed it against her. Heat came to her face. Her garment glowed under his hand until the scales dissolved and it cupped a naked breast. A moan of pleasure escaped her lips. Then she kissed his hand, smiled warmly and whispered, “Until next time, Dark One.”

  She stood, picked up her black cloak and put it on. She crossed to the stairwell, climbed it and went out, closing and locking the door behind her.

  Outside Cobra found her giant python sprawled in the open track at the base of the root house. It was shuddering in the moonlight, dying slowly. She moved down to it, confronted the thin slits of its yellow eyes, and said coldly, “Fool!”

  She turned, hurried off into the night. She was a half mile away before she could no longer feel the python’s shuddering in the earth beneath her feet.

  Eight

  THE DARK ALTAR

  Lava staircases climbed the side of a black active volcano, the largest in a range of volcanic mountains. Smoke rose in spires from their craters to form a thick layer of black clouds below a blue afternoon sky. This was the Land of Smoking Skies far to the west of the inhabited parts of the forest.

  The domain of the Queen of Serpents.

  Cobra climbed polished steps cut out of the black lava toward a cave with golden doors. She was stained with dust and perspiration from the three-day march, but exhilarated. Her stride was strong, triumphant; her hand clutched the small turquoise jar as if it were a weapon.

  Reaching the shimmering entrance, Cobra did not break stride and the solid gold doors swung open. Beyond them, in a corridor of shiny obsidian, two soldiers kneeled with their foreheads to the ground. They wore dark green tunics belted with swords and daggers. Jewels glittered on their fingers and earlobes. Traces of scales crusted the backs of their hands.

  With a silent nod, Cobra marched past them down the torch-lit corridor, then past a barracks cave to a tavern room at the end of the corridor. Oil lamps hung from beams casting flickering light over wooden tables, benches and a large red interior door at the cave’s deepest point. Soldiers, both male and female, who had been sitting and drinking, prostrated themselves in front of Cobra as she strode regally through them. She pushed open the red door, closed it behind her.

  She had entered a corridor of black volcanic rock. Torches and incense lamps lighted it. Some distance below, the tunnel leveled off to become a polished obsidian hallway. Cobra descended it to a shallow stairway at its far end.

  At the bottom of the steps was a short length of level floor, then a second flight of steps rising to heavy silver drapes through which passed slivers of golden light. In the center of the ceiling was a hole six feet in diameter. The hole opened onto a tunnel which passed horizontally above. Cobra passed under it and swept through the silver drapes.

  She stood in a large circular cave with a dome ceiling of hammered gold. The floor was silver. The furniture was lacquered black. Highlights raced across the sharp edges like shooting stars at midnight. A massive circular bed of black furs dominated the center. The bedroom of the Queen of Serpents.

  She dropped on the bed clutching the turquoise jar to her breast and sighed with relief.

  Silver columns sculpted as giant serpents circled the room at four-foot intervals. The tails were coiled against the silver floor. The bodies wound up around the columns to the ceiling where their jaws, spread wide, supported the rim of the golden dome. The columns fenced off an outer corridor just large enough to contain a monster snake which lived within it. It was over five feet in diameter, and three times the length of the python Gath had killed. Its scaly skin bore diamond patterns of emerald green and gold.

  The tail of the reptile flopped contentedly to the left of the curtained entrance. The body ran around the room, passed over an interior stairway opposite the entrance, then circled back to the front of the room. There the diamond-shaped head of the snake was feeding on a dead ox. Its jaws were just short of the entrance. The hole in the stairway ceiling provided the giant snake access to the polished obsidian hallway and bedroom when its services as a sentry were required. The reptile swallowed, then its eyelids drooped reverently, but the eyes glowed sensuously as they observed their queen.

  Cobra rose, set the jar carefully on a stand beside the huge reptile’s head, then shed her garments, and poured a pitcher of water over her naked flesh. She shivered splendidly as a tongue big enough to pull off her arm shot out between two columns and licked her from knee to hip.

  Cobra laughed easily, toweled off with a cloth, then removed a black garment of glittering obsidian scales from a silver chest and stepped into it clasping the hood over her head. Only the creamy white of her face and hands was revealed; the rest was black elegance. Picking up the turquoise jar, Cobra lifted her head regally and descended the interior stairway which led to a tunnel.

  Alternating between gentle inclines and steep steps, the tunnel descended in a circular pattern toward the center of the mountain. Smoke was gathered against the ceiling. As she went deeper it thickened and the rock walls became warm, then hot.

  The tunnel led her to the cone of a living volcano. Flames shot up out of holes bubbling with molten lava to cast active black shadows and moving red light over thousands of flickering forked tongues which protruded from snake holes pockmarking the walls. The devout were at worship.

  Cobra genuflected, then moved towards a dark altar rising out of the largest fire-hole at the center of the cone.

  It was a living altar. The most sacred shrine of Cobra’s god, the Lord of Death and Master of Darkness who provided life with all its appetites. It was a death’s-head altar which served as the god’s mouth. Here he could speak directly to those devoted supplicants who were privileged to comprehend his language of flickering flames and growling thunder.

  A mammoth saurian skull formed the altar. It stood on an island of black rock protruding from a pit of bubbling and smoking lava. Its jaws were spread wide to reveal flames flickering within the skull, rising like fingers around a dark object so that it appeared to float in the brain cavity. A narrow stone bridge emerged like an ancient crusted tongue from the jaws, arched invitingly over the bubbling lava and came to rest on the edge of the pit.

  Cobra’s almond eyes darkened noticeably as she approached and gazed hypnotically at the dark shape within the flames.

  It was a horned helmet, hammered from a dense black ore, carved ornately. A spike stood erect at the crest. Dark horns protruded from either side in slow, cruel curves to point almost back at the masked face. The mask was unadorned except for eye, nose and mouth holes.

  It was stark in its beauty, made starker yet by the power emanating from within it.

  Reaching the bridge, Cobra prostrated herself, touching her forehead to the hot stone floor. Then she stood regally, triumphantly held up the small turquoise jar containing the fingernail clippings, pubic hairs and spittle of Gath of Baal, and offered it to the altar with both hands.

  A flapping of rising flames and a roar of thunder shook the room.

  Cobra knelt, dipping her head, the perfect image of sensual supplication.

  “Thank you, Master, I am privileged to please you.” She rose with anticipation glittering in her dark eyes. “I will now prepare the ingredients…”

  A slap of thunder brought her to a startled choking halt. She blanched. “Forgive me, my Lord, I did not mean…”

  The thunder came again, a hard repetitive clap.

  Anxiety filled her eyes and she protested, “No! I would never let any desire for him interfere with my judgment. I swear it.”

  Flames rose up out of the pits, reached for the ceiling in towering walls, filled the cone with a blinding illumination until she was only a tiny vague shadow. She gasped and dropped to one knee, humbled by the power and majesty of her deity, thrilled and empassioned by his invincible strength.

  “I understand and will obey.” She
spoke with reverence and obedience. “I am to have the totems delivered, by my most trusted servant, to the high priest of the Kitzakks, Dang-Ling, who dwells in their desert city of Bahaara.”

  Thunder rumbled quietly and steadily from the bowels of the earth. Cobra nodded repeatedly as she listened to it, then replied, “I will not forget. The secret of the high priest’s service and devotion to you will not be betrayed. It will be his task, not mine, to use the totems to humble and educate Gath of Baal, and convince him that he must align himself with you, my most holy Lord of Death, in order to satisfy his honor and pride.”

  A slap of thunder echoed through the cone with a peculiar ring of approval.

  She rose obediently, and said respectfully, “Thank you, Master, I understand now. If Gath of Baal is killed by the high priest’s efforts, then he is not the man I have claimed him to be. But if he is that man, then only the threat of death can now instruct him.”

  The altar rumbled like a thousand well-fed stomachs, and Cobra, bowing low, backed slowly out of the room.

  Returning to her chamber, she sent for Schraak, a small, devious, grey-skinned alchemist with perpetually blinking eyes who sidled into the room like a favored pet. She reluctantly handed him the turquoise jar and told him to deliver it promptly and secretly to the high priest Dang-Ling in the distant desert city of Bahaara.

  When he had left, Cobra paced her chambers frantically without relief. She threw herself on the bed and writhed in an agony of rage and frustration, then surrendered and moaned hungrily as a craving to feel Gath’s human power again possessed her. It would be days, perhaps, weeks, before Schraak could deliver the jar, and Dang-Ling could prepare his magic and act. And all she could do was wait.

  Nine

  BAUBLES & BONES

  A new sound came from Rag Camp. The daily jangle of tambourines, thumping drums, singing flutes and children’s laughter now mixed with the music of tinkling silver. The Grillards, whose specialty was low farce, had been thrust into the high drama of good fortune.

  The camp was situated at the northeastern edge of the valley where the river called Whitewater formed the natural border between the territories of the lawfully established Barbarian tribes and the Valley of Miracles. Outlaw territory. A massive grey rock, Stone Crossing, straddled the river which passed through a natural tunnel at its base. The trail called the Way of the Outlaw passed over Stone Crossing then came to an end in a spread of bald dusty ground which formed the center of Rag Camp, a name derived from the Grillard dependence on and preference for rag patches.

  A scatter of women, children, big young country louts, itinerant peddlers, traveling merchants and charlatans were coming down the trail. Their pace was anxious. Their manner was both excited and furtive. They were doing something that was at least suspect, if not downright punishable, and were having a fine time doing it.

  Wagons and horses, belonging to strangers as well as recognized members of various nearby tribes, were already parked at the edge of the clearing. The occupants were moving about the camp excitedly. No lords or nobles were among them. They were common folk with tight pockets and tight minds. But their normally country-sharp and forest-wise faces reflected no suspicion. Instead they were giddy and gullible. Eager to be amazed.

  With oohs and aahs, they shopped along a row of homespun blankets spread in front of eleven house-wagons which formed the body of a camp. Displayed on the blankets were the carefully butchered and brightly painted bones of the dead Kitzakk scouts: totems which were assured to make the child safe and the sword arm strong. They were arranged according to anatomy and size. Wrists and anklebones began the line, and boiled and scraped skulls mounted on poles and painted with macabre blacks, indigos and blues, ended it.

  The buying was active, and, as the Grillards had been instructed by their bukko to take nothing but silver, the sound of it was loud and constant.

  Dowats, being the largest tribe of the forest, were the most numerous and outstanding in their traditional bright persimmon tunics. A careful people, they bought quickly and left immediately, avoiding the main trail over Stone Crossing. Savage Kraniks from the north were numerous. They were still ruled by women, and wore loincloths, white clay markings and had wide dazzled eyes. They had arrived the day before, showed no sign of leaving, and haggled over the relative strength of each totem they examined. There were also Cytherians from Weaver in white tunics, and small groups of outlaws in bushy furs and as many weapons as their belts and chests could display. Also among the crowd were traveling vendors and charlatans selling rejuvenating waters, painkillers for toothaches, racy jokes and love philters.

  At the end of the village the Wowell witches from Bone Camp offered their talents as surgeons, cut hair, pulled teeth and appraised totems for a price. They had done the butchering for Brown John and were proud of it. They had not washed since doing the work so everyone would know it. Old blood clotted their dark bony arms up to their elbows. As payment for their work they had been given Sergeant Yat’s body, and had carefully reconstructed his bones. Displayed on their wagon bed were two complete hands, feet, legs, arms, and a pelvic region, chest and skull. Expensive totems, but capable of spreading their magic throughout an entire household or small outlaw band.

  At the middle of the clearing, children battled with swords made from twigs and branches. The largest wore tattered black furs and swung an axelike stick with a ball of rags tied around its working end. The smaller children, boys and girls alike, fed their small bodies to this weapon with abandon and went reeling about to roll in the dirt and die in spectacular fashion, with terrible gagging, prolonged choking, and howling screams.

  The music for this occasion was provided by tambourines and flutes of Grillard players who sat or squatted at the front of the large stage at the opposite side of the clearing from the wagons. Behind the stage was a two-story, red house-wagon which served as a backdrop for the stage as well as being home to the bukko. At the sides of the stage were two yellow wagons which were used as stage wings, dressing rooms and homes for the dancing girls. They also made convenient brothels during the cold season.

  At midday the players put down their flutes and tambourines, gathered up drums and beat out a strident drumroll to announce the main entertainment.

  A small crowd gathered in front of the stage, and Brown John stepped out of the red wagon to greet them with open arms. He bowed with great respect to their scattered ovation and, with sonorous voice and elaborate gestures, informed them they were about to see a tale performed that was so daring and realistically portrayed that it was only for the stouthearted. This increased the size of the crowd substantially, especially with children. He stepped aside, the performers arranged themselves on the stage, and a young boy with a soaring tenor voice delivered the song with which the Grillard minstrels had been attracting customers to Rag Camp.

  The ballad sang the praises of Gath of Baal, his axe, his strength, his black furs, his hot blood, and his brave heart and magic powers while telling the blow-by-blow story of his defense of Lemontrail Crossing. The refrain was lyrically even less modest. It sang of a great Lord of the Forest, a Defender of the Trees, a mighty one named Gath of Baal who had arisen from The Shades to strike down the evil invaders and defend the forest tribes.

  As the boy sang, the players performed in the same spirit of modesty.

  Bone, in the role of Gath, wore a black fur cloak and black helmet, and stood at one end of a shallow bridge defending it with a wooden axe as the Kitzakk scouts attacked. Dirken, in the role of Sergeant Yat, looking as dark and sinister as possible, led the Kitzakks. Bone wheeled about, slashed and hacked. The Kitzakks, upon being hit, spit up mouthfuls of red syrup, then rose up shuddering terribly and announced their impending deaths with prolonged screaming. Then they pitched off the bridge and died acrobatically.

  Brown John, who had staged this drama, had, of course, embellished it. There were now sixteen scouts instead of eight. Among them were two clowns and a barking dog, w
ho managed to get mixed up and do each other more damage than they did Bone. In addition a large cage had been erected at one end of the bridge. Inside the cage five dancing girls clung to the bars and screamed almost musically for the Dark One to save them.

  At the climax of the story, Bone broke open the cage, and the girls leaped alluringly around the stage. As they did, they managed to lose most of their clothing to artfully placed protrusions of the cage and bridge. What was left was pillaged from their tawny, oiled bodies by the clutching fists of the dying Kitzakks. Naked, the girls circled the bridge as Bone hammered it down. He was helped in this effort by a mechanical lever which made the bridge collapse in two. Dirken, of course, was standing at its center v/hen this happened and plunged three feet to a howling ignoble death which he would have prolonged indefinitely if the impatient dancing girls had not run over him to swarm around, the proud, magnificent Bone and drop at his feet in prone adoration.

  The audience cheered, howled, clapped.

  Bone, grinning widely, was bowing for the fifth time when Brown John strode abruptly on stage, raised his arm and shouted for silence. The players and audience, startled and suddenly afraid, looked around, then off at Stone Crossing, and went silent.

  Six armed riders on large groomed stallions were coming ever the crest of the crossing in a steady, determined pace towards the camp.

  The main body of the crowd stepped aside, making way for the riders, while others fled with their precious totems clutched to their breasts. The Grillards gathered up the blankets and carried them out of sight.

  The performers edged back to the yellow wagons, their eyes moving back and forth from the riders to Brown John. Bone and Dirken, who remained at the front of the stage with their father, now held real swords in their hands.