Angus Wells - The God Wars 01 (78 page)

 
          
The
flame faded behind. His hand touched cool stone, slick, curving. His eyes saw
nothing: he felt Katya's hand on his shoulder; heard Bracht's muffled curse.
Warily he eased a foot forward, finding the step's edge, the next,'the one
after that, the wall smooth beneath his nervous palm, his heartbeat a thunder
against his ribs. The smell of incense receded, replaced with a musty odor. The
stairway wound down, turning around an axis of stone, the walls crowding
closer. He looked back and saw only blackness: he continued into the ancient
bowels of the keep.

 
          
Flat
stone was a shock that jarred his spine, Katya gasping as she fetched up hard
against him. He heard Ahrd, where are we?" and moved forward allowing the
Kern room.

           
Then pale light glowed silvery, a
will-o'-the-wisp suspended m the darkness at first, but growing, spreading
until he saw that they stood in a chamber of solid rock, circular, walls and
floor and roof merged. All around were niches cut into the stone, and in them
bones, dull- gleaming in the light. More littered the floor, these ill- ordered
and of more recent vintage, some still cased in tattered remnants of
long-rotted clothing. At the center, the light brightest above it, was a bier,
a square slab of stone on which lay a body. It had belonged to a man, he saw, but
one possessed of more years than any human man might claim. Hair yellowed by
age spread over the shoulders and the nails of the hands crossed on the chest
were long, curved like some bird's probing beak. The body wore a simple robe of
rough blue cloth, belted with a cord of white. The feet were bare, those nails,
too, grown long. He stared at the face, seeing a proud nose thinned by age,
cheeks sunken by the years, the mouth thin-lipped above a beard that stretched
to the belt.

 
          
He
cried out as the eyes opened.

           
Katya made a sound half shout, half
shriek; Bracht grunted a soft curse.

 
          
The
body seemed to creak as it rose, as if the joints protested such movement,
locked stiff by time. The hair rustled, like shifting spiders' webs
_;
dust fell soundlessly from the robe. Calandryll found himself transfixed by the
eyes. Once, he thought, they had been blue: now they were white, the milky
stare of blindness, save that he knew, somehow, they focused; saw him. He held
his breath.           „

 
          
The
body—the Old One, he guessed—sighed: a whisper, dry as dust. Painfully
he—it—eased from the bier, swaying slightly, as if their breath alone
threatened his fragile stability, rising to face them with the husks of
long-dead insects dropping from robe and hair. The bloodless lips parted.

 
          
"I
have awaited your coming." The voice was a rattle, like shaken bones.
"How long? Does Gess-ytha stand still?"

 
          
Numbly,
Calandryll realized the words came in the Old Tongue. He cleared his throat and
said, "Men name it Gessyth now," in the same language. "And it
is swamp. The domain of the Syfalheen."

 
          
"Ah,"
sighed the Old One, "so they dwell here still. That is good. And you—why
come you here to disturb my rest?"

 
          
"We
seek the Arcanum," Calandryll said. "In Tezin-

 
          
Laughter
like things crawling among the relics of the dead echoed softly.

 
          
"The
Arcanum, eh? Why?"

 
          
"That
it might be destroyed. We come to bring it out from Tezin-dar to Vanu, that the
holy men there may destroy it."

 
          
"The
Arcanum is a thing of power—power corrupt. With the Arcanum the Mad God may be
raised. Do you seek that end?"

 
          
"No!"
Urgently. "But one does—a mage named Rhythamun, though he goes by Varent
now, and inhabits another's body—and he would return the Mad God to life."

 
          
"Insanity!"

           
“Aye—insanity. And yet he would
attempt it. He seeks the book to that end and we three would deny him. He sought
to deceive us. To seduce me, Bracht," he gestured instinctively at the
Kern, "to his purpose. Katya was sent from Vanu by the holy men of her
folk, and warned us of his design. We stand together now."

 
          
"Or
fall if you lie. Name yourself and your companions."

 
          
"I
am Calandryll den Karynth, once of Secca in Lysse. With me stand Bracht of the
clan Asyth, of Cuan na'For, and Katya of Vanu."

 
          
"So—it
has come to pass, just as we scried." The milky orbs surveyed them each in
turn. "The three have come. Now come you to me, that I may judge you. But
first be warned—are you false, you shall not leave this place! You shall rest
here with those other deceivers who thought themselves the equal of our
knowledge. That we guard jealously—as they learned."

 
          
A
withered hand indicated the confines of the chamber. Calandryll stared at the
bones there; and knew other judgments had been passed.

 
          
"Judge
us," he said. "You shall find us true."

 
          
"Do
you turn back now, you go with your lives. Do you submit to this and I find you
false, your fate lies here—your bones shall join these others."

 
          
"We
are not false," he said. "Judge us."

 
          
"So
be it."

 
          
A
long-taloned hand beckoned him forward. He approached the ancient. The hands
rose, cupped his face, the dead eyes peering deep into his: into his very soul,
it seemed. No breath came from the parted lips, not even when the bone-white
head ducked and the lips moved.

 
          
"I
judge you true, Calandryll den Karynth. Let your companions approach."

 
          
He
motioned them forward, aware that they neither understood what had been said,
watching as the Old One stared into Katya's eyes, into Bracht's, each in turn,
and pronounced his formula of acceptance.

 
          
"So,
it is done. You grant me rest at last, and I thank you for that solace. Go to
the Syfalheen and they will bring you to Tezin-dar. The Arcanum rests there and
the Guardians will know you. Take that cursed book and destroy it, with the
blessing of Yl and Kyta."

 
          
He
waved them away. The silvery light began to fade. Bracht urged Katya to the
stairs. Calandryll looked back as he reached the well, and gasped as he saw the
ancient face fall in, the white robe collapsing, all become dust that swirled
briefly in the dying light, drifting on the still air.

 
          
Then
there was only darkness through which they climbed, back to the dim light of
the rotunda and the waiting elders.

           
Welcome
daylight illumined
the entrance of the rotunda as they emerged from the crypt. The elders stood
waiting, greeting them now in the sibilant language of the Syfalheen, touching
them each upon the right shoulder as if in blessing, their yellow eyes no
longer impassive but glowing with approbation, leading them triumphantly out to
the courtyard. All the village stood there, a shout rising as they appeared,
Yssym and the anxious Vanu folk crowding forward, plying them with questions.
Calandryll reported the Old One's words to his comrades and left Katya to pass
that knowledge on to her people, himself intent on questioning Yssym.

 
          
"We
are not the first," he said as he was brought across the yard, a mug of
chrysse
pressed into his hand.

 
          
Yssym's
head turned solemnly. "You not first... Others come, false ones who not
come out... Old Ones judge and false ones stay with Old Ones." He barked
laughter. "But you not false and Yssym have honor now ... Watcher who
bring True Ones."

 
          
Calandryll
nodded, wondering what manner of death befell such false questors. He asked,
"Have you seen the crypt? The Old One?"

 
          
"Only
elders see Old One," Yssym replied. "Guard his resting place ... Seal
it now."

 
          
"He
said you—the Syfalheen—would bring us to Tezin- dar. That the Guardians will
bring us to the Arcanum."

 
          
"We
show you way," Yssym confirmed. "Syfalheen not enter Tezin-dar, but
you go there."

 
          
"And
these Guardians?" Bracht settled beside them. "Are they Old Ones, or
something else?"

 
          
"Yssym
not know," said the halfling. "Elders not know. Syfalheen not go to
Tezin-dar ... Forbidden."

 
          
"They
must be Old Ones," Calandryll murmured. "But, Dera! How old?"

 
          
"How
shall you bring us to the city if you are forbidden there?" asked Bracht,
pragmatic as ever.

 
          
"Show
you road," Yssym promised. "Safe way ... You go, no harm come ...
Road safe for you."

 
          
"When?"
Bracht demanded.

 
          
"Dawn,"
said Yssym, "This day we feast... You True Ones ... Syfalheen wait long
time for you."

 
          
They
were allowed no other choice: preparations for the promised feast were already
under way. The fires that had cooked their breakfast—and that likely their last
meal had the Old One judged them false—were banked and meat set to turning on
the spits. Loaves were baked, and their mugs filled and refilled with
chrysse
until' laughing, they protested they should be too drunk to travel farther than
their beds did the Syfalheen not moderate their hospitality. Small harps and
flutes of bone were produced and the villagers began to sing, strange melodies
and likely, Calandryll thought, not heard by human ears in long ages.

 
          
"I
had not thought to be preceded," he remarked as the feast progressed.

 
          
"The
bones?" Bracht shmgged, wiping grease from his chin. "So powerful a
thing as the Arcanum is likely known to others than Varent-Rhythamun."

 
          
"They
were old," Katya offered. Then frowned: Though so is he, and he has long
sought it."

 
          
"He
made no mention of other questers," Calandryll said. "Though he spoke
of guardians."

 
          
"Perhaps
he forbore to warn us," suggested Bracht. "From the start he was a
deceiver."

 
          
“Likely,"
Calandryll agreed after a moment's thought, "and likely that is why he did
not come here himself— he knew he must fail the Old One's judgment."

 
          
"Aye—and
knowing he must fail, he sought dupes." Bracht chuckled cynical laughter.
"Innocents who might pass the test and bring the book from Tezin-dar into
his waiting hands. Well, that shall not be!"

 
          
"But,"
Calandryll frowned, "the Old One spoke of three—three seen in their
scrying—yet Varent sent but wetwo. He could not know that Katya should join
us."

 
          
"Perhaps
he did not know of that augury," Bracht said, smiling his thanks as a
halfling woman piled more meat on his plate. "He is not infallible."

 
          
"The
gods work in mysterious ways," Katya murmured, "and it seems to me
there is a pattern, a balancing. The Old Ones foresaw that there should come a
time when the Arcanum must be destroyed and set these obstacles in the way of
such as Rhythamun—likely they would not make such knowledge public, lest such
as he find a way to the book."

 
          
Bracht
nodded and said, "Certainly their plan was set long ages past—and more
skillfully, it seems, than his."

 
          
"Aye,"
Calandryll allowed, "but even so we've yet to bring the book to
Vanu."