Angus Wells - The Kingdoms 02 (30 page)

           
She halted, confused. What she
sensed came not from Hattim, though she felt he was . . . involved ... in it,
but from somewhere—some
thing
—in the
room. She had not sailed with the king’s party to the Lozin Gate, but Sisters
who did had described to her the sense of palpable evil that clouded beyond the
walls and she felt intuitively that she experienced the same oppression here.
She frowned, telling herself it was ridiculous to even consider that Ashar’s
malignancy might fester in Andurel, in the chambers of the Lord of Ust-Galich
moreover. Yet it
was
there. She felt
it in the chilling of her bones; the tingling at the nape of her neck, where
hair stood rigid as in a lightning storm.

           
She said, “My Lord Hattim,” in a
faltering tone and then felt her eyes drawn upward as if by some
incontrovertible power.

           
What she saw there transformed her
eyes to wide staring globes of stark horror, springing her mouth open in
formation of a scream.

           
No sound escaped her yawning jaws,
however. There was no time, for the great red spider descended a silken line
with dreadful rapidity, falling onto her upturned face to clamp its legs about
her cheeks and jam her mouth with the obscene bulb of its abdomen.

           
Hattim leapt backward, his own eyes
wild with revulsion, his own mouth gaping as genuine nausea roiled his belly.
He stared, fascinated despite himself, as the spider fastened itself to the
Sister’s features, seeing every detail of the swollen body, the hairs that
bristled rusty as dried blood, the multiple eyes that gleamed a hellish red
above the clicking mandibles, the swollen sac that thrust obscenely between her
lips. Cold sweat chilled his back as he watched, unable to prevent himself, as
the spider turned full circle and lowered itself into Sister Thera’s mouth. The
head disappeared, propelled by the eight jointed legs, and he saw the Sister’s
throat bulge, a madness bom of stark terror shining in her tear-filled eyes, as
the sac dragged over her lips and forced her jaws wide apart. He heard a
choking sound and it was too much: he spun about, clutching at his stomach as
he stumbled toward the balcony.

           
He tore the doors open and doubled
over, his belly heaving as yellow bile gushed from his mouth. Pain clamped
fiercely on his intestines and he clutched at the carved stone of the
balustrade to prevent himself from pitching into the pool of vomit.

           
His hands were trembling as he
forced himself upright and he heard his own teeth chattering in jaws he could
no longer control. For a wild instant he contemplated shouting for guards, for
Sisters versed in thaumatology; thought of screaming a warning that the

           
Messenger was come to Andurel, that
Ashar’s minion stood in the
White
Palace
.

           
Then Taws’s voice jerked his eyes
back to the chamber and he knew it was too late. Had been too late from the
moment in Nyrwan when he bent his knee to the mage and accepted the compact
offered. Slowly, his feet leaden, he entered the chamber.

           
“They cannot find me now.”

           
The words came from Sister Thera,
sibilant with triumph.

           
“Taws?” Hattim mumbled, his tongue
sour with bile.

           
“I possess her now.” The voice
changed as the Sister—no! Hattim reminded himself, Taws—spoke, losing the
susurrant intonation, becoming that of Thera. “She lives, and that life
protects me from discovery. They will not see past her to me, so we are safe.”

           
Hattim walked falteringly to the
ewer and swilled water around his mouth. He stooped, splashing his face, then
crossed quickly to the flask of evshan and filled a goblet.

           
“You find my magic distasteful?” It
was fully the Sister’s voice now and somehow that was worse: Hattim drained the
evshan in a single swallow, gasping as it lit fire in his emptied belly. “How
could I give you what you want if I must hide in these chambers? Now I can go
freely about the palace; unsuspected. Now I can fulfill all your dreams.”

           
Hattim stared, seeking some change
in the woman, seeking some sign of Taws, but there was none. The voice was that
of the Sister, the movements hers; there was nothing to indicate the body was
possessed.

           
“You will announce yourself
recovered,” she—Taws!—said, the voice calm, “and praise the excellent Sister
Thera. You will request King Darr release her from palace service to tend you
as part of your retinue. Do you understand?”

           
“Aye,” Hattim answered hoarsely.

           
“In all other respects you will
behave in your customary fashion,” Taws ordered, “and proceed with your
courtship of Ashrivelle. In a little while you will introduce the princess to
your new-found Hospitaler, and then I will make her yours. I will give her to
you so that you may possess her as surely as I possess this bitch’s carcass,
and you may do whatever you wish with her.”

           
“And Darr?” Hattim asked slowly.
“What of the throne?”

           
“That, too, will be yours in time,”
Taws promised. “But first, the princess.”

           
He stepped close to Hattim then and
the Lord of Ust-Galich found himself looking into green eyes that dissolved
abruptly into red, fiery pits that burned with an awful intensity, driving out
doubt with their menace.

           
“As you order it,” said Hattim.

           
“Aye,” said Taws, and the fires
died, the eyes becoming green again, “as I and Ashar order it.”

           
The
Fedyn
Pass
remained gloomy late into the morning and
even when the sun was risen high enough that it breasted the confining crags
the light was poor. It was as though the canyon resented the intrusion of day,
preferring sullen shadows, a place of darkness and night. The sky above was dull,
metallic with the threat of snow, the sun—when it at last became visible—a
faint memory of the brilliant orb that had greeted their entry. They rode in
silence, as if the great stone walls denied them the right of speech, and after
observing the trail, Kedryn let go his hold of Wynett’s hand, content to ride
in darkness, letting the Keshi stallion pick a way behind Tepshen Lahl’s mount.

           
He heard the kyo call a halt and
reined in as Wynett heeled her bay in close, taking his hand that he might see
their stopping place.

           
It was miserable enough, long sweeps
of ice-crusted snow layered over dark rock, the walls rising to meet the
heavens, black and gray save for where ice glistened. Breath steamed in the
chill air, and Kedryn’s cheeks stung with cold. He looked at Wynett and saw her
face flushed by the brumal wind that sighed and sang a mournful dirge over the
implacable surfaces of the forbidding granite, drawing unbidden tears that
trickled over the black smudges beneath her eyes.

           
“This is a sad place,” he remarked,
smiling despite it.

           
Wynett nodded, drawing the hood of
her cloak tighter about her face.

           
“Grain for the animals and cold food
for us,” announced Tepshen. “We’ll find timber once we clear this place and eat
hot food again.”

           
The Tamurin grunted agreement and
set to opening the provisions Gann Resyth had provided, spreading blankets over
their mounts against the danger of chills. Kedryn allowed a man to take his
horse, settling in a crouch beside Wynett, where she huddled in the lee of a
boulder. Tepshen joined them there, passing Kedryn a slab of near-frozen meat
and a chunk of bread.

           
“The horses are fretful,” he
murmured.

           
“They like this place no better than
us,” said Kedryn.

           
“It is more than that, I think,”
Wynett said softly. “They sense something. I feel it too.”

           
“What?” Tepshen Lahl’s face was
urgent, his jet eyes flickering over the restive animals, back to the Sister’s
face.

           
“I am not sure.” Wynett shrugged,
the movement almost hidden beneath the bulk of her cloak and fur-lined jerkin. “Gwenyl
said this was Ashar’s domain and what I feel here I remember from High Fort,
when the Horde drew close.”

           
“Best we pass through swiftly then,”
said the kyo, rising to his feet to shout, “We move as soon as the horses are
fed!”

           
There was no disagreement and the
Tamurin remounted with hunks of bread and pieces of meat still clutched in
their gloved hands, their animals no less willing to be on the move again.

           
“Stay close,” Tepshen advised,
bringing his gray up alongside Kedryn and the Sister, turning in his saddle to
study the men behind.

           
Wynett nodded, her own mount close
enough to Kedryn’s that their legs touched as the horses picked up the pace,
shod hooves clattering loud in the cathedral silence.

           
Then she gasped and reached for his
hand, not for sake of granting him sight but from innate need of her own.
Kedryn took it, looking about him as he sensed her anxiety.

           
“What is it?”

           
The sharpness of his question
prompted Tepshen Lahl to turn again.

           
“Do you not hear it?” she asked
softly, fearfully, her gaze roving over the surrounding rock faces.

           
“Hear what?” the kyo demanded, a
hand falling instinctively to his sword hilt as he followed her eyes.

           
“Aye!” Kedryn’s voice was hushed, a
question incipient in his tone. “Laughter.”

           
“Mad laughter!” gasped Wynett.
“Tepshen! We must ride from here as swiftly as possible.”

           
The easterner gave no argument, nor
sought any further amplification. He rose in his stirrups to shout a single
word: “Ride!”

           
As one, the Tamurin drove heels to
flanks and brought their animals to a gallop, the steady clattering of the
hooves becoming a thunder that rang from the stone, echoing down the pass even
as the laughter grew louder, rising above the din of their passage so that
every man there heard it and felt the chill of its malignancy.

           
It was as though some insane giant
tittered, chuckling and snorting with malicious glee, the sound rising to a
weird cackling, then a storm-bellow of wild laughter that rang in winter-numbed
ears, filling the Fedyn Pass with its lunacy and its awful threat. It became a
pealing of thunder and Kedryn let go Wynett’s hand as their horses surged
onward, anxious as their riders to escape the ghastly sound.

           
It dinned louder and louder, filling
their minds until it seemed the madness in it must affect them, terrifying the
animals, who galloped with ears laid flat back and eyes rolling, saliva
lathering their necks and chests. It grew louder than sound, becoming a
vibration of the very air that shimmered about them, the walls of rock seeming
to bulge inward, pulsing with the awful resonance. A man screamed a warning
from the rear and Wynett turned, looking back to see the bulging of the rock
become a reality, great shards of stone pitching loose from the walls, great
slabs of frozen snow hurtling downward.

           
“What is it?” Kedryn bellowed.

           
“Ride for your life!” she shouted in
answer.

           
He heard the urgency in her tone
rather than the form of the words, for the thunder that filled the pass drowned
understanding, and slammed his heels against the stallion’s ribs even though
the black horse needed no further urging to speed. Wynett flanked him, Tepshen
Lahl slightly ahead, queue flying in the wind of his passage, lashing his face
as he craned round to stare aghast at the devastation behind.

           
It seemed the whole of the Fedyn
Pass crumbled beneath the onslaught of that wild laughter, the rimrock sharding
as massive blocks broke loose from the walls, crashing down in a tumult of
white, the darkness of the granite lost as an unimaginable weight of snow fell,
erupting a billowing, storm-driven curtain that gusted with hurricane force
along the length of the narrow way. Only the foremost of the Tamurin riders
were visible, those behind lost in that wild, swirling mist, and even as the
kyo stared, horrified, a monumental slab crashed upon them and they were gone
in the coruscating blizzard that accompanied its downfall. Two men emerged,
white-shrouded, then disappeared as more snow fell, an avalanche that drowned
warriors and horses alike in its irrepressible fury. Snow filled the
easterner’s eyes and he blinked furiously, trusting in his mount to find its
own path, trusting the Lady to protect Kedryn and her acolyte, for he knew
there was nothing he could do save ride for his own life, seeking desperately
to outrun the tidal wave of snow and stone that roared behind them.