The Man of Gold t-2 Page 18

  “Come, boy, the keep of Baron Aid’s fortress is famed throughout all the northlands. How is it that you know that place?” “My Lord, I know not what you mean! I have never been north of our monastery-” Suddenly he saw again that vision of the grim citadel clinging to the crags above the gloomy sea. He was too amazed to continue.

  “Mighty Prince,” Vridekka interjected softly, “my probe was strong-so strong that it may have picked up images from the minds of others than this priest. The ritual he saw-and I saw with him-was almost certainly from the girl: it is the initiation into the Third Circle of the Temple of Hrihayal.”

  “But Ke’er, man! Has she ever seen Ke’er?”

  “I think not, my Lord. I shall try to discover who amongst us here has so clear a picture of the Baron’s capital.”

  The old Mind-seer pivoted to face the chamber. Sensing something amiss, all stood transfixed, an orange and brown tableau. The scribes glanced at one another with faces of fear; those guards who bore swords loosened them in their belt-clips, and those with halberds gripped them the tighter. Harsan raised his head and saw that Eyil, too, was watching.

  Vridekka pulled at his long chin. His scuffed leather sandals made soft hushing noises upon the flagstones of the floor. He went to a scribe, looked him up and down; then to a guard, hooked a finger against the man’s cheek and drew his head around to face him; then to the dais, and then back again to the table upon which Harsan lay.

  At last he approached Prince Dhich’une and whispered, “Mighty Master, there is now no sign of Ke’er in anyone’s mind. Someone knows well how to block his thoughts.”

  He turned to Eyil-and as quickly whirled back again; he shouted, “Yan Kor! Victory to the Baron of Yan Kor!”

  Scribes scattered, pencases clattering. Swords flew out, and halberds leaped up to menace him.

  Prince Dhich’une smiled.

  “What did you see?”

  “A hint, master. A flash as of green-lacquered armour in someone’s memory.” Without warning, he cried again, “Yilrana! Avenge my Yilrana!”

  There was tumult. A glimpse of a strangely beautiful, sloeeyed woman with tresses piled in curls and ringlets flickered through Harsan’s mind, but he could not tell whether this came from within himself or from without. Soldiers stared this way and that. The scribes below the dais huddled amidst their clutter of papers and pigments, terrified. A servant dropped an ewer with a mighty clang-

  And that seemed to do it.

  Vridekka’s bony finger swung round as surely as the needle of a compass, pointing, pointing-

  To Hele’a of Ghaton!

  There was a blur of motion. The tiny silver casket flew from the Ghatoni’s hand to clatter open upon the floor; five wriggling brown worms spilled out. His other hand dipped into his robe and came forth again as swiftly as an Alash- snake’s striking. He held a nut-sized, grey object in his fingers.

  “An ‘Eye!’ ” someone yelled.

  There was bedlam.

  A sword grated awkwardly upon the wall by Hele’a’s head. Two halberds clashed and tangled as their wielders both attempted to engage the Ghatoni at once. Scribes bleated and scrambled for nonexistent cover. Prince Dhich’une shouted something, but none heard him over the uproar. The dishes and globlets went ringing and bouncing in all directions. Someone hurled himself against the table upon which Harsan lay, overturned it, and sent him toppling helplessly to the floor beneath it.

  It was this that saved his life.

  A faint, sweet, musical note sang through the chamber, a vibration almost too high for hearing, and Harsan felt the passage of a cascade of cold above him, so bitter that it burned. Crystals of ice showered down, and the planks of the table became agony, so frigid that he wrenched himself wildly away from contact with them.

  Vridekka was scrambling up beside him-it had been he who had tipped over the table-fumbling for something within his tattered robe.

  There was light.

  Not the ruddy, orange-red warmth of the torches, but a flaring, bloody, crimson glare that burned itself into Harsan’s retinas even though he lay behind the fallen table.

  All was silence.

  Then he heard Prince Dhich’une’s voice calling something, and a babble of voices poured forth in reply. Vridekka clambered to his feet, one bony knee in Harsan’s ribs. There were footsteps, shouts, and the rattle of armour and weapons, excited yelling… Hands tugged at the table, and someone cursed at its unexpected cold. It was dragged upright, Harsan perforce along with it. He writhed against the icy surface, yelped involuntarily in pain. The table was still almost too frigid to touch!

  Harsan would have cried a further warning, for Hele’a of Ghaton still stood, the dull-gleaming “Eye” in his fingers, mouth open, poised to fire. Then he saw that Hele’a did not move, did not seem to breathe. The man’s posture was curiously stiff, as though he were a waxen doll.

  Prince Dhich’une now stepped around a soldier who was gingerly flicking the Worms of Death back into their casket. The Prince carried another “Eye,” one with an iris that glinted darkly red.

  “Mighty Prince,” Vridekka wheezed, “you are safe?”

  “Had I to depend upon my favoured Legion of Ketl, I might have been as empty of life as the Desert of Sighs! Fortunately I am not one to go without a second shaft for my bow. The ‘Excellent Ruby Eye’ has drawn his fangs-”

  “ ‘Excellent Ruby Eye?’ ” Harsan hardly knew that he had spoken.

  “Yes, priest. But for it-and me-you would now be frozen meat to baffle the embalmers in the City of the Dead! For it was at you that Hele’a aimed his own ‘Eye of Frigid Breath,’ not at me, not at Vridekka. It seems that the Baron of Yan Kor prefers the Man of Gold to remain lost for all time to come, rather than see it in our hands.”

  “But Hele’a, mighty Prince?” That was Vridekka. “An agent of such loyalty-he could have slain you at any moment…” “Baron Aid doubtless schooled him well.” The bone-painted lips curved up in a wry grimace. “The best dagger is the one your foe cannot see. Hele’a served me faithfully for many years, and I was remiss to trust so many of my purposes to him. But… thus it is. We have been lucky to unveil him this night; else he might have done us greater harm in the days to come. You, Vridekka, were clever to try him with the name of the Baron’s dead mistress.”

  “Mention of Yilrana carries much emotion for all who dwell near to the Baron of Yan Kor, my Lord. This I knew.”

  “We are grateful.” Prince Dhich’une moved to stand before the motionless figure of Hele’a. “He is trapped now, as a fish in the ice of his own northern seas, frozen forever in one long, eternal moment out of time. He knows nothing, senses nothing- until he is released again by the ‘Eye.’ Were I to use it to free him, he would return to that precise instant in which he was caught: take another breath, depress the stud of his weapon, and think those same thoughts he held at the moment of his capture.” “None can touch him now, mighty Prince.” The old mind-seer, too, went to gaze into Hele’a’s open, staring eyes. “Will you not let me have him, My Lord? His mind-screens may be of the strongest, but I have many strings to pluck as well.”

  The Prince chuckled. “I am tempted to immure him in the pits beneath this prison, Vridekka, even in the Ultimate Labyrinth from which no one has ever come forth again.-Or leave him in his present plight and sink him in the bottomless swamps off Thayuri Isle where he would lie until Lord Vimuhla’s conflagration bums all life from Tekumel at the very terminus of time.” He seemed to shake himself. “No, he may serve us better in still another role. What is the hour?”

  One of the soldiers replied, “The Tunkul — gong of the temple of Ksarul across the river has struck the half-night, my Lord.” “Four Kiren — two hours-still remain, then…” Dhich’une mused. “Vridekka, I entrust Hele’a to you, but your questioning must needs be brief. The High Adept of our Temple of Sarku has appointed me officiant at this night’s Giving of Praise unto the One of Mouths. Would it not be salutary for Hele’a of Gha
ton to be guested at that feast? There will be many present-and some who will doubtless report our hospitality back to the Baron of Yan Kor. He shall thus gain fresh insight into our alertness and our unwillingness to be spied upon.”

  The blank, black marble eyes turned to Harsan and thence to Eyil. “These two shall join our celebrations as well-another lesson in obedience may not be superfluous. And there will be one there whom I wish them to meet. Do you unbind them, Vridekka, place them in a cell, and then escort them to the great hall of our Temple of Rising from the Tomb when the time draws nigh.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Evil collapsed upon the stone floor of the little cell, rubbing her wrists and ankles. One of the guards tossed her soiled street-cloak into the chamber after them, and this Harsan wrapped about her shoulders. He reached for her hand, and silently she drew it to her cheek. He felt hot tears upon his fingers.

  “He will slay us, Harsan,” she said, “just as soon as he has the Man of Gold.” She rocked her body back and forth so that her long tresses cascaded down over his wrists.

  “Prince Dhich’une shall not have it, Eyil. I know now. The Globe will not let me speak. I-tried-when he would have hurt you.”

  “I know. I saw. Yet he does not need your telling, my love. He can make you guide him, and at each turning of the path that hateful old man will be there to try you, to test you, and to trick you. Whenever the seal drops across your mind, Vridekka will know that he stands all the closer to the truth.”

  “There will be a way-”

  “He will use me against you!” she burst out. She realised, as though struck by a summer lightning bolt, that this man-this Harsan, this priest of a God opposed to hers-meant much indeed. His wide, high-boned, serious, rustic-silly-scholarly face was more dear than ever she had thought her emerald and purple Goddess to be. Prince Dhich’une had inadvertently opened one door too many within her mind.

  How could she right this wrong?

  “Oh, Harsan, the Skull-Prince made me agree to aid him-to plead with you, to let you play the romantic hero of the epics-” Her fingers tightened about his wrists, nails digging into his flesh. “Listen well, Harsan! If ever you felt-affection-for me, you must cease to feel it now! You must hate me, care nothing for me. If you do not, he will herd you before him as a peasant goads his Chlen- beast, and the Man of Gold will be his.”

  “How can I hate you, Eyil?”

  “You-you will.” She drew a deep and ragged breath. He saw that she was trembling, near to breaking, still so shaken by the events of this awful night that she could hardly collect her thoughts.

  “I shall tell you what I am, and then you will despise me. The Eyil you know is head to foot a scroll of lies, Harsan! I am no worshipper of your motherly, cherubic Avanthe! I am a priestess of Lady Hrihayal, the Whore of the Five Worlds and Mistress of the Thirty-Two Unspeakable Acts! There is no Lord Retlan, no clan-elders sending a naive little girl to be wed in Bey Sii! I am Aridani, Harsan, Aridani — one who has renounced your domestic, bucolic life-and obedience to her clan, and all else that you seem to hold dear!”

  It had all poured out in a rush. She paused for breath, then hurried on. It was important to say it before the Worm Prince-or her own devious subconscious mind-made her stop, dissemble, and try to befool him again.

  ‘‘For twenty generations we of the Green Kirtle Clan have sent our most beautiful and talented daughters to serve either mighty Dlamelish or else her Cohort, Lady Hrihayal. Five of those women became High Priestesses, three achieved the final and greatest of all devotions, the Thirty-Second Act! I am one of Hrihayal’s handmaidens, Harsan, a member of the Fourth Circle. The things I have done-and have gladly had done to me-the rituajs-your sexless, high-minded grey-robes could never imagine-!”

  He stood blinking at her. “Eyil-it does not matter now.” “You ask why I drew you into my net? Because our temple desires your treasure too, as badly as does the Skull-Prince-or your pious Lord Durugen hiNashomai, or a half dozen other temples. What we would do with the Man of Gold I know not-I was not told. But we sought it so mightily that the Lady Misenla, our High Priestess, sent to the Lady Elulen hiQolyelmu, the Commandant of the Rituals in our temple in Tumissa, and bid her choose just such a girl who could appeal to you, a young scholar of Thumis, untried in the world outside of his monastery, filled with zeal and-and-” She strove to gain control of her voice. “Yes, I was to prevent you from reaching the Man of Gold, steal its secrets if possible, and above all to make certain that it fell into no hands but ours.”

  “Why, then, did you not slay me and take the relics?” he asked gently. “You had every opportunity.”

  She waved him to silence. “My Lady Elulen is not of the Clan of the Emerald and Silver Crown, the inner society within our hierarchy which Lady Misenla leads. The Clan favours violent action. But Lady Elulen is not eager to break the Concordat- there are political reasons, as well as theological ones. She thus chose me-she knows I am no murderer-and she was sure that Misenla did not know me. I was to do with my body-and my arts-what Misenla would have accomplished with a dagger or with poison or with sorcery. Our teachings say that the flame of sex will always' triumph; little need for swords or arrows or spells!”

  “In this your teachings speak truth,” Harsan muttered ruefully. “Yes, and soon I would have had it all, too. Then that stupid girl Sriya tried to drug you-Misenla’s doing, for she is impatient and would not wait for my slower methods to work. Sriya’s blunder did open a path into the heart of your temple for me. Oh, Harsan, I could have made you betray your God and your duty and your soul itself with no more than these poor, small breasts and these thighs! Do you not hate me for this?”

  “No. I guessed long ago that you were not what you seemed.” “I did make mistakes. But-”

  “There were many little things. Even on the road I think I had doubts, though I explained them all away to myself. You knew too little of the doctrines of Lady Avanthe, yet you argued so cleverly about theology. Had you really been just a naive little clan-girl, you could hardly have disputed with me so. And then there was the amulet of Tahele, the Maiden of Beauty, that I bought you. You did not wear it. At first I thought that you did not care for me, or that it was too poor a gift. But it is the custom of the worshippers of Lady Avanthe to wear a symbol of Tahele, especially when it is given by a lover, a suitor… I felt that no true devotee of the Blue Goddess would refuse Her protection thus. Tahele shields a young girl’s beauty from harm and keeps old age at bay.”

  “I see.” Her hands brought his up to cup tear-wet cheeks. “Then th ere was the Legion of Kaikama. I could not have known at the time, but when I met a soldier of that Legion in the governor’s garden, I reali sed that he served Hrihayal-the purple and green uniform…”

  “I had a lie ready for you. That Legion is generalled by Lord Kaikama hiMrachiyaku, a brilliant young man who prefers men. I would have told you that Retlan’s ‘son’ was of that predilection, and that he had abandoned the faith of Avanthe to follow a lover of our sect.”

  “I might have believed it,” he replied, “though by then I was adding up all too many of these little wrongnesses. Still-I managed to conceal all of this from myself. My capacity for self-deception is well-nigh as great as that of others for duping me-alas, greater!” He sighed.

  “As we say, ‘self-deception is one of the Greater Aspects of love.’ ” She pushed him away, then drew him back again with a convulsive shudder. “Hate me, Harsan, hate me! Make me useless to the accursed Skull-Prince! He may kill me, but he may also cast me aside as a pawn who has been captured! In any case I shall not then be a halter for your neck, and they will have to use Vridekka to play at guess-me-not with you! You may find some way to win! Perhaps you can mislead them, delay them, and halloo them hither and thither until there is a chance for escape-or rescue-or for others to find the Man of Gold first! Or at least you can die your own death and cheat them of their goal!”

  The cell was cold. He warmed her body with hi
s.

  “I cannot, Eyil. I care nothing for who you are, or who you were. Now I cannot do your bidding, for you have wrought only too well with your arts.”

  Above them, in the darkness, a tiny aperture closed. Vridekka smiled to himself and rubbed skeletal fingers together. How very wise of his master to place these two together thus. The youthful, gallant bonds Harsan had forged with his lady-love were now reinforced a thousand times over by this exchange of confidences! A city defended by such strength would be impregnable! He chuckled and crept away down the winding passage to report to Prince Dhich’une.

  Chapter Twenty

  Time flowed silently by in the darkness of the cell, its eddies and currents uncharted, its depths unplumbed.

  Four Kiren had Prince Dhich’une said?

  One twelfth of a day: time enough to rise, to eat, to work, to sleep, to plough a field, to recite a cycle from the epics, to enjoy a repast with friends, to win a battle, to make love and then lie all warm and drowsy against one’s mate…

  Yes, time enough, too, to prepare oneself to die, to confront the demons of fear and pain, to contemplate the mournful barque of Lord Belkhanu, the Final Arbiter of the Excellent Dead.

  Harsan lay wrapped together with Eyil in her cloak upon the hard flagstones. She dozed fitfully, for she was exhausted. He could not sleep. Instead, his thoughts wandered whimsically of themselves. A remembered story came to him: of the aristocrats of the high clans who affected to make only subjective distinctions between the measurements of time and space. Four Kiren? When one was in the company of one’s beloved, then a year could be counted as a single Kiren, — while one moment of boredom might be counted as more Kiren than a tree had leaves! The distance from Tumissa to Bey Sii was only one Tsan if one were happy, but that from one’s couch to the wardrobe might be a thousand Tsan if one were weary of life…

  He smiled wryly to himself, recalling chubby, argumentative Wareka hiSanusai and his lessons in philosophy at the Monastery of the Sapient Eye. Wareka affected the Doctrine of the Effulgence of the Now. Rejoice, Harsan, he would say. Enjoy! Do you not lie presently limb to limb with your beloved? The now is the all, the totality of being. As each second passes it becomes only a memory, whilst the future is naught but shadows and vague pathways yet unknown. Let the Weaver of Skeins anguish over the knots of your destiny!