The Spectre Cycle

Chapter five

Chapter fiveSloshing water away I went over to the door. Even though the chair that had brought me here was gone, I fancied I could still walk out. The door was locked. Well, I expected that, didn’t I? The panels were thick. I thumped a couple of them and the solid thunk told me I wouldn’t break through this side of reasonable.

A sound drifted on the air, a very definite snigger.

Those two Opaz-benighted Everoinye were enjoying this, bad cess to ’em and may their extremities drop off.

Back at the enigmatic table a fresh look at the combination of symbols suggested Jikaida might be involved. The pre-eminent board game of Kregen was hardly likely to be overlooked by beings facing thousands of years of life. Another swig of the ale did not bring enlightenment any closer.

If I climbed on the table it might float — or might not — but then when the water reached the ceiling I’d be done for anyway.

Water gurgled from the pipe. The flow was not forceful, rather it poured out with a relentless inevitability, very menacing.

“Well, Emperor of Emperors? Get on with it!”

“Sarcasm is an extraordinarily low form of wit.” If I was going to die then I wasn’t prepared to die with a still tongue in my head. Oh, no, by Krun! I’d tell these couple of cramphs what I thought of them and their murderous tricks.

Body language must have spoken again, and no doubt my emotions were boiling up a sizeable aura about me, for Ahrinye snapped out in a pettish fashion: “You are ungrateful, Dray Prescot! You have no thanks for the repair to the damage from the ankster.”

A quick glance down my side showed a few dried blood streaks on my leg. I frowned. So that damned double-curved Shank sword had not missed me, as I’d thought. In the hectic events I’d not heeded the wound. This is not uncommon on a battlefield. The ankster, the double-curved blade, had bitten me and Ahrinye had patched me up.

“I did not know,” I said, trying not to sound too surly. “Of course I give you thanks for that. But not for this.”

“The water rises. The puzzle awaits.”

So, perforce, with the water rising over my thighs, I studied the problem more carefully. I began to see a possible answer; but it rapidly became clear I’d need more time. The water would creep up to the ceiling before I was finished — then I would be finished.

Another swig of ale and a blinding image of Delia struck clean through my brain. There she was, glorious, glorious! Her wonderful brown hair with those outrageous auburn tints adding a new luster swung back in a plain silver band. She was binding up young Inky’s leg where he’d tripped and gashed himself. He was not crying, although I remembered the cut had been painful. Carefully my gorgeous Delia wrapped the yellow bandage around his leg. I saw this vision in a flash that pierced me to the core.

The sash I was wearing was, naturally, in the brave old scarlet. I finished off the ale. The drink took on an altogether more marvelous taste. With a softly breathed: “Delia!” I went to work.

The soft metal of the jug squashed easily. I checked the diameter and squeezed and forced the pewter into about the right shape. The red sash wrapped about it tightly. With my construct in my hand I crossed to the water-gurgling pipe. The force I used was, I own, savage. That, I felt, was necessary. Slap bang into the pipe rammed the emergency plug. Viciously I stuffed the plug up.

Water spurted about me in a fan, and then stopped. Only a few drips fell to splash into the water. I stepped back.

“You cheat, Dray Prescot!”

“Yeh?”

The voices of the two Everoinye blended and faded. The time needed to solve the problem could be anything; all I knew was that I must get a move on and not waste this reprieve.

The Star Lords appeared to have taken themselves off. Very little sound echoed in the room — the drip from the pipe, and my own frustrated exclamations as I wrestled with the damned puzzle.

Eventually I got the hang of the thing. It was a problem in Jikaida, an end-game situation. The notations were in code, which made it more difficult. I did not recognize the position, had I done so I would have been quicker without doubt.

Then — and this is not to be marveled at — I found myself admiring the elegance of the Jikaidast’s solution. With the final notation decrypted and written down a loud gurgling permeated the room. For an instant I imagined my emergency plug had been washed out. The truth came very refreshingly. The water was subsiding, was running away, was glugging and gurgling down a hidden drain.

Thank Opaz! But, far more wonderfully, thank Delia!

Unfortunately all the ale had been drunk. Still, I hoisted a mental draught in honor of Beng Dikkane, the patron saint of all the ale drinkers of Paz.

The door was no longer locked. The ochre passage did not look inviting. Now, assuming I would be allowed to walk down the corridor, use the elevator, find my way through the airlock of seaweed, why, then, how would that benefit me?

Yes, by the time I’d traversed the seaweed I’d be breathing air at the pressure of the ocean at that depth. There would be no magical globe of green-glowing filaments to protect me at a normal one Kregan atmosphere. So I’d have to take a deep breath, and hold it, as I floated up. Even if I could hold my breath for the length of time that would take, without staging stops to get rid of the nitrogen bubbles in my bloodstream, I’d be a useless cramped object crippled with the bends. No way, by Vox!

Well, then, there had to be another way.

So far during the time I’d been brought here — wherever here might be — only what one can call mechanical means had been employed. No thaumaturgical powers of the Star Lords had seen their Giant Blue Scorpion snatch me up and deposit me somewhere else on Kregen. Certainly, the seaweed interface partook of the magical, no denying that. But, until the Blue Scorpion or any other of the Everoinye’s arsenal of wizardly tricks materialized, I was treading mundane turf.

So, there was another way out. So, I must find it. As they say on Kregen, Queyd-Arn-Tung, no more need be said.

As I thus prowled around looking for another way out, I found myself wondering what those two unhanged rogues of Star Lords were up to.

If Ahrinye managed to get his way over the other Everoinye then he would run me into the ground. I had a shrewd inkling what he wanted me to do, although apart from the obvious his motives remained shrouded in the typical obscurity of Star Lord thinking.

If I add that I did not wish to contemplate what Ahrinye was requiring, then that must be perfectly understandable.

The corridor just went straight on to where the chair had started from the lift. So I went methodically about the oval room looking for another door.

The scarlet sash could be pulled free of the plug and I waved it about a bit. It would dry in time.

My long experience in locating secret doors and passages hidden between walls served me well. The oval shape of the room was, in fact, more of an egg shape. At the blunt end that small but so often betraying distortion of the wall line indicated a possibility.

A diligent search at last uncovered the answer. Taking a deep breath and squaring my shoulders, I pressed the wall.

An oval door revolved on a central axis with the slightest of grating sounds to betray its existence.

A puff of stale air billowed out.

This was it, then. The blackness before me was not absolute. Many small flickering lights appeared to be dancing about in the distance. Gravel covered the floor. My footsteps crunched. Now this I dislike, habitually moving as silently as possible.

Going further on I came upon the cause of the many little flickers of light. A crystal wall studded with many small facets, set at an angle, reflected the light from whatever originated it around the right angled bend.

Moving as silently as possible I walked around the corner.

A maze of crystal columns and surfaces splashed light everywhere. My distorted reflection jumped at me from hundreds of mirrors. The glittering uncertainty of this place held a weird beauty. No sound apart from my movements disturbed the flash and glitter sparkling everywhere about me. The perfume of blossoms twined tantalizingly on the air, in one part thinning to a mere trace, in another growing overpoweringly pungent.

Oh, yes. On Earth this glittering crystal cavern would be described as magical. On Kregen magical means magical. There was no sorcery involved in the crystal, the rock, the lights. This spectacle represented one of the wonders of nature, the results of aeons of time and the slow movements of the very earth itself.

Whilst I was quite enchanted by this faery grotto, I had to find a way through and out of it, and that, by Krun, was not going to be easy.

Despite that resolve and my usual determination to bash on regardless, I had to resist the strongest temptation to hold my breath in this resplendent display of nature’s magnificence — what a foolish notion! There should have been a cutting reference to Makki Grodno on my lips, and I should have gone barging on.

So it was with some slight feelings of sacrilege I checked to see how easily the crystal nicked under the edge of my blade.

The glittery stuff sharded without problem. I added to the facets already there; only mine were shaped with meaning. If I happened to wander back this way I’d know I’d already passed along before.

With that decided I set off into the forest of sparkling columns. They were probably not stalactites and stalagmites joined evenly over thousands of seasons, although just what type of Kregan crystal they might be I couldn’t guess. Going from the first mark in as straight a line as possible, I chipped signs as I went along.

Using the blade of my sword, slightly offset from my eye to avoid the hilt, I could adjust the angle of two signs so that they were in line. Then the next mark could be chipped out. This is a common and usually effective method of maintaining a straight direction. Mind you, confident though I might be about going around in circles in this maze, if that shint Ahrinye decided to stick his oar in, why then, I might end up anywhere.

There were cleared areas within the clumped columns and here the accuracy of direction became a trifle more tricky. Only when I was satisfied — or as satisfied as possible — would I go on. Some time elapsed and once again I became aware of the hollowness of my inward parts.

The next section contained mirrored pillars set at wider spaces. My image danced crazily from surface to surface.

The faintest of hissing sounds echoed around me, bouncing in the maze. A fleeting glimpse past my own reflection in a mirror ahead showed a humped shape. The image was there and then was not.

Not for a single moment could I disbelieve my eyes.

Instantly, I swiveled about.

“By the foully diseased liver and lights of Makki Grodno!” I said to myself. The Scompeto crawled towards me with his scaly legs jerking up and down, his crop of tendrils writhing and the cross of his four jaws opening and closing, dripping slime.

The damn thing looked bigger than I recalled from that first brief meeting before the flood came. Now I abhor with a great abhorrence wanton killing. If something is going to kill you, then in all conscience you have to defend yourself. Unless, that is, your conscience precludes that course of action. In that case, you more often than not end up dead.

So, I decided I would use my brain and be very clever.

Moving swiftly but positively not running, I crossed the open space and passed between two columns. Although I cannot swear to it, my reflection revealed a self-satisfied, not to say smug, expression.

So, clever clever Dray Prescot turned to watch the discomfiture of the Scompeto.

Ha!

Before my very eyes, as they say in Clishdrin, the squat monster began to shrink. He dwindled. In no time at all he had reached a size that could pass easily between the pillars of the maze. “By all the Furnace Fires of Inshurfraz!” I burst out, as hot as any of those fabled furnaces. “The devil take the thing!”

Those tendrils, those jaws, although much smaller than they were, remained of a size to do nasty things to my hide. If I could pass between the columns, then the confounded Scompeto wouldn’t be smaller than me, would he?

Oh, well. Reluctantly I drew my sword. I didn’t intend to give Ahrinye and his crony Razinye the lip-licking satisfaction of seeing me run off. Oh, no, by Vox!

Pride, stupid, selfish pride! Many a high-flown fellow has been brought low by his infantile ideas of honor.

The scaly monster scrabbled across the floor. The slime dropping from those ugly fanged jaws increased to a gush as his appetite and bodily juices anticipated a tasty little tidbit.

He reached me and his tendrils writhed out to seize me up.

They’d pop me between that tooth-cluttered cross and — crunch! — I’d be chopped into four digestible portions.

With all the glittering reflections blinding in this eerie place, the blade of my drexer caught the light and flamed.

The tendrils struck. The blade swept around, lethally.

Even in that moment of smiting the thought occurred to me that this unholy thing could be a phantom. My sword would pass clean through the apparition. The notion struck me that Ahrinye, having proved to Razinye that, indeed, I did possess a brain, was now out to show my mettle in physical prowess.

All that metaphysical nonsense swept away as the avalanches of the Mountains of the North in Vallia sweep everything in their path to oblivion.

The steel struck. I felt the shock. Clumps of tendrils fell off, chopped away as one chops the icicles away from the roof guttering. Without a pause and ignoring the hissing whine of the thing, I whirled the blade back. More bits of the Scompeto tumbled to the floor.

These first two blows whistled in quickly, exceedingly quickly, by Krun. The poor damn monster had suffered, as his high-pitched shrilling indicated. I just hoped he could grow his face-fungus back. Without striking him further, I span about and hared off between the coruscating mirrored facets of the columns.

Should he wish to follow, or if Ahrinye made him go after me, then I’d have to take this confrontation further, Opaz forgive me!

Running now, and with no shame in it, I c****d an eye back over my shoulder.

The Scompeto appeared reflected in the columns, half-a-dozen of him. The fang-jawed head swung from side to side. The scaly legs beat up and down, up and down. But — he did not move.

“Thank Zair for that!” I said, and stopped.

Staring back, the unwelcome realization hit me that I could see only the last sign I’d chipped into the crystal. “The Black Bat Caves of Gratz take it!” I exclaimed, annoyed.

Still, a more considered review of the situation convinced me that I must have run off at a more or less straight prolongation of my course. Anyway, at the worst I would probably only have veered a degree or two off the straight and narrow.

So, hoping that my reading of the situation was reasonably correct, I set about carving the next marker into the crystal column.

The squamous Scompeto with his blasphemous yellow-fanged four-jawed head just humped up and down as though he was lost and what had transpired was completely beyond his grasp. Poor innocent victim of his own nature! I just hoped his tendrils would grow back and Ahrinye would not punish him for his failure.

As for the other cramph, Razinye, would this demonstration have convinced him? Or would he demand further proof?

That, I may say, made me move very smartly along among the crystal pillars. That, as they say in Clishdrin, made me jump to it.

By this time as I forged along with my many dazzling reflections keeping me company I was thoroughly out of countenance with the whole situation. The reasons for all this, of course, were absolutely clear. The quicker Razinye was convinced, the quicker I’d be out of it.

The way now trended upwards. The air remained sweet. The floor changed to sharded crystal gravel, very crunchy and very blinding underfoot, so that I blinked. Only the steady crunch of my footfalls disturbed the silence.

By Makki Grodno’s internal disasters! How much longer would this nonsense have to go on?

Now, for the sweet sake of Opaz, I cannot exactly say that the eerie silence of this weird place began to get me down; but, then, why did I deliberately stamp my feet as I went along? I crashed my feet into the crystal gravel so that the echoes rang in some kind of pathetic defiance. Defiance of the Star Lords? Ha! Still, that was me, the plain sailorman Dray Prescot, who would venture on beyond the bounds of commonsense.

Whether or not Ahrinye at last tired of toying with me, I couldn’t say. He had to prove his plans to his new accomplice Razinye, and he was scarcely any longer doing that.

The forest of crystal columns abruptly ended and before me stood an open archway. As I say, I might have come to the end of the place because this was the end, or because the Star Lord had shuffled his artifact around to set me on the next step.

Inside the archway a stair rose up out of sight, luridly lit by a mixture of lights springing from the walls. The treads were formed from solid blocks of crystal. Ashlar masonry never fitted as well. The edges were sharp and clean cut.

Again, by Krun, the stairs could be natural, hewed out by consummate masons, or erected by sorcery.

What they were, I didn’t care. I started up.

Now, on Kregen in perilous situations when you have to use a staircase it behooves you to proceed with the utmost caution.

I had no ten foot pole, so I used the sword to test each step. The crystal rang solid each time and up and up I climbed.

The head of the stairs arrived at last. The treads debouched onto a platform under a crystal dome not quite large enough to house a fair-sized city villa. The space under the dome lay bare, completely devoid of carpets, furniture, windows or people. The silence that I’d vowed would not bother me persisted so that I began to believe I could hear a ghostly echoing ringing in my ears. What appeared to be blue sky lay over the dome; it might have been sky, it could just as easily have been an Illusionist’s trick and I was still deep underground.

The place was empty. So I sheathed my sword.

On Kregen, of course, one should never take anything for granted.

My irritable impatience with the brooding silence and the empty state of my insides, together with a general feeling of resentment and anger directed at Ahrinye and his crony combined to make me careless. Perhaps that was what the Everoinye were after. The instant my hand left the hilt of the drexer four men all dressed in green appeared directly to my front. They charged headlong for me, swords high.

Well, that was a comfort, by the Blade of Kurin!

Proper professional assassins do not as a rule run about waving their swords in the air like farm boys hoicked into the army.

Out whipped the drexer in ample time to meet the first blade. The two steels scraped together. So these lads were real and not apparitions. Very good. As I swung the sword to check the next attack I decided these would-be assassins must take their chances.

The fight did not last long. Everything that had happened lately must have got under my skin, infuriating me, to my shame. The clash of steel echoed under the crystal dome. They skipped about and cut and thrust so that I was able to take them in proper Krozair style.

They bled. Their wounds spouted red blood as I withdrew. When the last one fell I shook my head. That great blintz Ahrinye cared nothing for his tools. Mind you, I, Dray Prescot, was just one more poor devil he wished to employ to death.

A soft scraping above me made me whirl about, sword snouting. I looked up. A segment of the dome slid sideways revealing blue sky and white clouds, both apparently real.

When the opening grew wide enough to let me walk through I marched across the floor and looked out. A small railed platform glittered under the lights of the twin Suns of Scorpio. Stepping out I sniffed the breeze. Ah, wonderful, the bracing fresh air of Kregen!

A quick look back showed the four pathetic would-be assassins lying on the floor in their own blood. As I watched they thinned with the faintest suggestion of green light, and disappeared.

That blasted Ahrinye!

An enormous crash of thunder smote down so that I jumped.

The blue sky and white clouds seemed to revolve. The Suns vanished under the lip of the platform. Light smashed all across the void about me. A green spear-shaped wedge darted across to collide with a bar of red radiance. A spinning circle of blue flame coruscated between the two. Was there a hint of yellow, creeping up over the unseen horizon?

The upside-down sky crackled with noise and fire as the colors clashed. Everoinye, Ahrinye, Zena Iztar, oh, yes, they battled it out.

There was no Giant Blue Scorpion of the Star Lords. There was no pitching headlong into an icy nothingness. I felt myself dragged up. I could breathe — just. My eyes snapped shut as intolerable white light burned the universe about me.

The crash as I landed almost broke my back. I let out a huge gasp. I opened my eyes. Stark naked, weaponless, I was lying on a sandy beach where the sea lapped, and a hungry crab the size of a dog scuttled towards me with pincers raised.