Flame Winds (11 page)

He groped for the sandals and abruptly, softly he laughed. “Aye, this Bourtai is a clever scoundrel! He has called back his soul. Now, surely a man may do that. If he can place it where he will, surely he may call his soul his own?”

And now Wan Tengri had no weapon over Bourtai save his own magic and the things he had learned in the waging of those three battles. He had a shrewd suspicion that the things Death had told him—if, indeed. Death had spoken at all—were only a small part of what he needed to know; he thought he had learned how a man who had survived the three battles might rule Turgohl.

Dimly, he could glimpse a small clustering of figures against the last red glow of the dying flames. He saw the crystal ball held on high by a twisted small figure that, now and again, stared furtively into the fading dark fog. And Bourtai’s thin, cracking voice lifted, plaintively:

“I bring you, princess, the gift of the ball. Open now to thy friend, Bourtai!”

“Hold!” boomed Wan Tengri. “Hold there, thou soulless apekin!”

Bourtai spun around to face him, and the hunching of his shoulders above the iridescent globe of the crystal ball was darkly evil. Behind him was the group of his thieves’ guard, each bearing on his shoulder a hulk with the form of a corpse. And ever above them the tower sparkled in the breath of the flame wind. Across the narrowing cubits between them, he could feel the hostile glare of Bourtai’s eyes and, as he strode on, a roseate glow bloomed in the air over Wan Tengri’s head and a sibilant, mocking whisper he had learned to know and dread spoke from the air, or perhaps within his own heart.

“Stand, slave, and wait for thy masters! See, the ground has imprisoned thy feet!”

Wan Tengri’s brows knotted into a lowering frown. The things he had learned in the arena: a sword changed to a snake in his hand, yet it still could kill a man and when he hurled it from him it rang like steel upon a brass shield. A pillar of flame had roasted him, yet when he grasped it—the fire was gone.

“My magic is greater than thine, thou wizard of the twisted soul,” Wan Tengri thundered. “The boots of Kasimer cannot hold me.” He believed it, and the pale-red light above his head flickered and died—and the ground did not hold him. His strides lengthened toward Bourtai.

The scrawny arm of the wizard shot high from his brown rags and a flaming sword suddenly glowed in his hand. “To me, red guards,” he cried. “To me, guards in silver and gold and purple. To the defense of the All-High.”

He spoke, and his voice was drowned in the crash of marching feet, in the clank of steel swords upon brazen shields and a great roar went up from many throats. The beggars about him threw off their rags and revealed themselves in shining brass and scarlet tunics of the guard. The corpselike figures they carried sprang to life, and there were a score more of the armored men. Wan Tengri’s fist tightened on his sword and one hand flew to the bow about his throat—then his hands dropped and he laughed, threw back his head and laughed again.

“My magic is greater than thine, Monkey-face,” he cried. “Thy phantom hosts cannot harm me!”

He strode on, and the tramp of marching feet died and beggars in rags fumbled their daggers and slunk from his path to catch up again, defensively, their burdens of salt—and Wan Tengri stood face to face with Bourtai.

“Now, Bourtai,” he said gently, “I thank thee for performing this little task for thy master. I will take now the crystal ball!”

The Wizard’s eyes were glittering black fires, and his wrinkled monkey’s face was an animal mask of rage. His shoulders hunched like a vulture’s above the crystal ball; then, abruptly, he cackled. He bobbed his head and held out the crystal ball.

“Aye, Wan Tengri,” he giggled. “Thou art the godson of the wind-devils! Thou art the man!”

Wan Tengri accepted the crystal ball in his left hand, and his thick fingers curled around its base while he stared down into the thousand colors that swirled in its depths. It was feather-light, this ball of crystal. Wan Tengri rolled his heavy shoulders and lifted his head to glare on the Flame Tower.

“Let down the bridge,” he called shortly. “I am the man.” He stepped to the wall of the moat beside the spot where the drawbridge must fall, and gestured to the beggars. “Down there is a hole where my magic has sucked out the flames. Throw down thy sacks of magic salt into the moat.” He passed his hand over the crystal in a mystical gesture and smiled in his beard. “Winds of the heaven that sired me,” he cried, “I bid thee close this moat!”

Behind him, he heard the creak of the lowering drawbridge. Out of his eye corners, he peered toward Bourtai. The small man was rubbing his monkey’s face with a scrawny hand. “Aye, Wan Tengri,” he murmured, “thou didst indeed learn things from Death.”

The timbers of the drawbridge thudded to the stone wall of the moat, and Wan Tengri set casual foot upon it. “Flee, thieves,” he ordered softly. “Flee before the wrath of six wizards and their piebald hosts. Bourtai, follow me.”

With no backward glance then, Wan Tengri strode across the drawbridge that seemed to stretch into infinity. Above him, the tower was incredibly tall and, on either hand, its beauty shone down into the damp traces of the moat. Already, the ditch was beginning to fill again. He was conscious of the rank, putrid odors from the muddy silt, of another sharper tang that had stung his nostrils once before when the moat of besieged Antioch had burst into flame—and he smiled a little and listened to the hard rhythm of his feet upon the hollow boards, heard the lighter scamper of Bourtai hastening after him. From the wall of the tower, a narrow tongue of yellow flame flowed out, spread dancing across the moat’s floor.

Wan Tengri did not hasten his steps. The portcullis was up and the peaked arch of the doors was swinging open in the tower wall. Wan Tengri carried the crystal ball gently on the palm of his hand and put down his heels with a harder, steadier rhythm. There were shouts in the distance, and this time he thought there was no enchantment about them. The guards of the wizards were rallying.

He stepped from the bridge to the marble ramp before the doors, beneath the portcullis, and the bridge chains began to creak in their pulleys as it once more lifted toward the tower. Bourtai scrambled and fell, cursing in a shrill voice; then he was silent and they were pacing through the wide-open doors.

An aged woman and an aged man flung themselves down on bony knees, and their voices were a rasping whisper: “Indeed, thou art the man!”

Wan Tengri grunted: “Get your creaking bones off that cold floor, or they’ll be aching for a month. Take me to the princess.”

His eyes quested everywhere. The carpets that clung to the walls were mildewed and ragged and everywhere was the taint of dust and decay. A spider had laid its web across a suit of armor against the wall.
Phagh!
And was this the treasure of Turgohl that he had fought for, that Kassar had died to give him? Wan Tengri spat upon the marble floor.

Torches threw their lurid, smoky glare and, through the arrow slits in the wall, the dance of the flames began to show. Yellow shadows chased themselves across the high ceilings. A great stone fireplace was cold and dark. Bourtai plucked at his arm, and there was malicious glee in his cracked voice.

“Surely, master, thy magic, which is so much greater than mine, can transform all this to gold and jewels?”

“Like thy soul, Monkey-face,” Wan Tengri jeered, “it would fly from my hand.”

The aged man and woman rose laboriously from the stones and bowed, backing away from him. Each side of the broad marble stairs that led upward, they paused and gestured that he was to mount. The steps were dusty and bore the traces of dirty feet, and as Wan Tengri moved toward them, a fat gray rat popped from the darkness to scamper across his path. The claws made a loud noise in the silence, and Wan Tengri’s tread raised echoes. The shouts from beyond the moat were louder, but the mounting dance of the flames intervened. They fluttered and hissed and burned with small splutterings that magnified inside these hollow walls.

Bourtai scuttled past to hop along the steps just ahead and turn his bright black eyes upward to Wan Tengri’s face. “Canst tell me now what Death told thee, master?”

Wan Tengri’s bearded lips moved in a curling grin. “Dost think still to trick me, wizard? Why, then do thy best. Death said to me: ‘Who rules the princess, rules Turgohl.’ And Death said: ‘Ask of the crystal ball how that is done.’” Wan Tengri tossed the crystal ball lightly into the air and caught it again on his palm while a gasp of aged, frightened breath sounded from the two servitors behind him. “Perhaps, my apish man, thou hast read the riddle of the ball? Yes, yes, I know thy name is Bourtai, but answer my question.”

Bourtai shook his head, a quivering, nervous gesture, “If it spoke, ‘twas in a language these ears of mine did not know. Nor could I see ought save swirling color in its depths.”

Here, where the stairs had made a full course about the walls of the tower, was a platform of marble, and in the wall was set a door, dull like lead. There was an inscription in a strange and flowing script carved above it.

“Announce me, Bourtai,” Wan Tengri’s voice held mockery. “Announce me to this princess of thine, that we may see what it is we must rule.”

Bourtai skipped toward the door, yet paused to twist about his gray wisped head. “Rule for a day, master, so sayeth the prophecy.” His fingers scratched the leaden surface and the door swung inward, creaking. The thin, off-tune tinkling of a lute twanged on Wan Tengri’s ears, and he saw a great, dusty-draped bed set upon a dais. He saw a doll carved from wood and clothed in a tarnished bit of brocade. He stepped to the door as Bourtai croaked. “Princess, he is the man.”

Wan Tengri’s eyes swept the barren chamber and found a small figure hunched on a cushion, cross-legged before a leaping, fuelless fire. A child’s grave gray eyes lifted to his beneath a calm, white brow, and her hair was burnished like gold where it rippled to the floor. Slender fingers toyed with the strings of a lute and he saw that one bit of string was broken. Hesitantly, the princess smiled—a child of seven.

“Come in, man,” she said in a tinkling thin voice. “Did you bring me a new toy?”

Wan Tengri could not hold the scowl that had set upon his forehead. He grinned and there was no fierceness in his face at all. “Why, now, little lady,” he said gently, “you might call it a toy. So you might. Men have fought for it and men have died for it, but it is no more than a pretty bauble.” He held out on his palm the crystal ball. Light from the fire danced across its surface and a thousand bright colors glowed in its heart, crimson and purple and blue and green, gold and silver and, where Bourtai’s envious eyes turned upon it, two little specks of black.

The princess dropped her lute and clapped her tiny hands. “Oh, a new toy for me! I have had no new toy in seventeen years.” She held out her cupped palms for the crystal ball.

“Master,” Bourtai protested hoarsely, “do not give it to her. Evil will come of this!”

Wan Tengri laughed, and the sound of it was soft thunder in the narrow room. “Now, thou art a very wolf among thieves, apeling, to steal a child’s bauble. Catch, princess.” He tossed the crystal ball lightly through the air. It spun like a soap bubble, and seemed as light. It glanced from the princess’ hands and, striking with a thin, musical tinkle against the rocks of the fireplace, it burst and fell in a thousand glancing fragments.

The princess clasped her hands to her face. “It is done,” she whispered. “It is done.”

And even as she spoke, her stature increased, and the robes she wore began to glow and sparkle with gems. A perfume wafted through the room and, where the ball had fallen, flowers grew—flowers whose petals were gems of ruby and diamond and chrysoberyl. And, staring at the transformation, at the beautiful woman who lifted a tearstained face, Wan Tengri threw back his head again to laugh.

“Did I not say, Bourtai, that a crystal globe was made to break?”

The princess gazed at him with her gray eyes and a soft flush stole up her throat, and Wan Tengri’s smile grew uncertain on his lips. Under his lids, his eyes took on a wary light.

“Thou art the man,” the princess whispered. “Thou hast come to save me and my city. Claim thy reward. Claim any three wishes thou canst make and, within the scope of my city and my power, they shall be yours.” Her cheeks grew rosy and her head bowed like a drooping flower.

Wan Tengri cleared his throat and Bourtai tugged at his arm to whisper shrill advice. A movement of a stout arm brushed him aside. “Why, as to that, princess,” Wan Tengri said heavily, “it is a bit beforehand to speak of rewards. There are six wizards still abroad within thy city with many thousand armed men. And there is one small wizard within thy walls that wants some careful handling.”

“He shall be hanged,” the princess said shortly. “As for the other wizards and their guards, you will destroy them.”

Wan Tengri looked at her, and the smile crept back to his mouth corners. “Yes,” he said. “Oh, yes, of course—princess.” He swung on his heel, while Bourtai scuttled close against his side.

“Protect me, master,” he whispered. “Against her magic, I am helpless. It took the combined power of our seven magics to subdue her, and even then we could not prevent thee from coming. Protect me. My neck is too thin and soft to bear the gripe of a rope.”

“Stay, man,” whispered the princess. “Where do you go?”

Wan Tengri checked on the threshold. “Why, there is this small matter of destroying certain wizards to be attended to,” he said, “before I may claim my reward—and I am rather anxious to grasp this same reward with my two hands.”

The princess’ rich lips curved in a smile of approval and promise. “I will await thee,” she whispered.

“She will,” Wan Tengri muttered to himself while he strode up the marble stairs. “She will. Did I not tell thee, Bourtai, these princesses are a waspish and arrogant lot?”

“Yet, master, she did not seem cold to me.”

Wan Tengri snorted. “She has broken her toy,” he said, and offered no other word. The cold walls of the tower were hung now with exquisite silks and the stairs were glistening white. He peered down and the aged crone and man were moving up the steps toward the room of the princess, and their rags were fine raiment, and their backs were straight. Jewels glinted as they walked. Wan Tengri snorted again. He had heard tales of these enchanted princesses and their castles. There should be a jinni somewhere about to carry the whole works off to some green and lovely isle, far from such things as wizards and armies. But lacking that—lacking that he must do some more fighting before he could loot. Wan Tengri sucked in a slow, resolute breath and turned in through another door that no longer resembled lead, but glowed softly with burnished gold. His eyes narrowed a little. Now, if he could carry such a door as that back to the narrow seas from which he came, that villa on the Lebanon hills might well become reality!