Flame Winds (4 page)

“The old salt mines, master,” Monkey-face gabbled. “The wizards have never learned of them. They go back to the old days when Turgohl was free, when a man and a king sat upon the throne—when we were free and the loot stuck for a while, at least, to a thief s fingers!”

It was a long way they wound through the old levels of the salt mine, but presently Wan Tengri emerged into a vaulted chamber hollowed out of solid salt. A half dozen slattern women crouched around a timid blaze whose smoke lifted straight upward. Stolidly, Wan Tengri slouched across the stinking cavern to a couch over which a shabby rug had been thrown. He dropped upon it and cast off his felt cloak, revealing the tunic and pantaloons of padded silk which had come with him all the long way from Chin. They were a rich golden color and, above it, his crimson hair and beard flamed like a sun. From this vantage point, he watched the thieves file into the cavern, a scant dozen ragged men with hunger-pinched faces and the furtive walk of jackals. Wan Tengri’s nostrils distended in disgust, as he opened his silken tunic to scratch the pelt of his chest. So he was to overthrow the power of the wizards and the stout soldiers of their guard with this band of skulking scavengers!

Monkey-face hurried toward him with an earthen bowl which held a steaming mess. It stank of near-putrefaction, but Wan Tengri had eaten worse in his march across half the civilized world. He gulped it down, tossed the bowl aside.

“And is this all your brotherhood, apekin?” he demanded.

Monkey-face shook a mournful head. “To this low estate are we fallen, master, we who once were the rich and the great! Our halls were draped with the loot of caravans until the accursed wizards came and loosed the flame wind upon our men. They were roasted like a sheep on the spit!”

Deliberately, Wan Tengri began to hack at the earth that still cumbered his feet. “Now, that will change!” he promised shortly.

“But how, master, since jewels fly back to the hands of those who own them so soon as they discover the loss?”

Wan Tengri tossed the jeweled breast plates of Tsien Hui’s slave girl carelessly to the couch beside him. “And is there any need that the owners should live to discover their loss?” he asked. “These wizards who have usurped your city, do you then love them so much?”

A thousand wrinkles showed when Monkey-face flashed his yellow teeth in a smile. “There speaks a man!” he cried. “But no wizard can be slain.”

“Phagh!”
Wan Tengri spat upon the earth. “Can a man breathe, then, with his throat slit?”

The thieves crouched on their heels about him, and sly eyes studied his face through the fringes of ragged hair. They nudged each other and cackled furtively. Wan Tengri eyed them with deliberate scorn. It was a weak and flawed weapon he must swing. Well, he would forge a better one!

“When night falls again,” he said carelessly, “you shall lead me to the house of the chief wizard. We will see what happens when my steel kisses his throat.”

“But, master, first we must find this wizard!” Monkey-face grimaced frantically in his effort not to stir Wan Tengri’s anger. “No man knows who the leader is, nor, indeed, any of the Seven! Nor where they sleep and hide their riches! And their spies are everywhere.”

Wan Tengri stretched himself out on the couch. “Do relieve me of my boots, Monkey-face,” he said carelessly. “When I awake, we will find this wizard—in the Flame Tower. Let there be quiet!” He closed his eyes and, for a space, thoughts whirled fiercely behind his lowered lids. It was a task he had cut out for himself, but he was the man for it. Unknown wizards who whispered from the air and could not die? That was a superstition of fools. Under the proper touch of the steel, any man died! Soon, he would be master of this rich city—for the glory of Christos, of course. He rested his fingers against the bit of the True Cross, and a satisfied smile curled his solid lips. Monkey-face was hacking at the earth that incased his feet, but it did not disturb Wan Tengri. He slept.

IV

WAN TENGRI seemed to place himself completely at the mercy of the thieving brotherhood, but his noisy sleep was light. If any one of that ragged crew had transgressed beyond the bonds of safety, he would have found a fury, and sudden death, upon him. No man who had lived through the wars, through the perilous adventures which had dogged Wan Tengri’s trail, could have survived unless, even in sleep, his senses remained alert. But his bravery in ignoring danger and sleeping would impress these men, which was as it should be. They would need to lean on his leadership very heavily if ever he were to captain them against the wizards.

For a while when Wan Tengri awoke, which he did at intervals throughout the time he lay upon the couch, he listened intently to the whispers that, low-voiced, filled the cavern, and he became aware that nothing which happened in Turgohl was completely hidden from these thieves. They knew already how he had entered the city.

“—in a wool cart,” one whispered. “There was blood found upon the floor. One of the spearmen—”

“The Mongol, Kassar, will face the judgment of Ahriman.”

Wan Tengri was hard put to conceal the jerk of his muscles at that news. Now, by all the devils, these wizards were keen to find so soon how he had entered the city and to lay Kassar by the heels! He continued to fake his snores, but between them, he sent a whisper, lipless and piercing, across the cavern.

“
Kassar shall be freed!”

He heard the startled, hushed cries of the thieves about him and, amid his fiery beard, Tengri smiled. It was as well that they should believe him, too, to have magical powers! But there was savagery as well as mirth in the movement of his lips. Kassar had dared things that he feared, as he dreaded not even death itself, to bring his blood brother into Turgohl. Could Prester John do less than go to his aid? There was no question in his mind. Ruthless he was, and ambitious, but no comrade would ever call to him in vain for succor. There would not even be the need to call. Besides, it accorded well with the plans of Wan Tengri! He would put the terror of Christos into these heathens and knit his small, vicious band more closely together.

So Wan Tengri slept and waked through the day. Finally, he rose and stretched himself to find Monkey-face grinning at his bedside.

“Master, we have news for thy ears,” he chattered.

Wan Tengri smiled slowly. “When is the judgment of Ahriman?”

Beady monkey eyes widened, and the wrinkles chased themselves in mad patterns across his ancient face. “Now, surely thou are a wizard!” he whispered.

“Answer, fool!”

The thief prostrated himself in the dust. “Tomorrow, master, at the Hour of the Ape.”

Wan Tengri nodded slowly. “Before that hour, Kassar shall be freed. Thou shall find for me where he is held. Now, fool, the names of the wizards!”

The crippled little man with the hunched back ground his forehead in the dust. “Truly, master, that is a thing no man can say for certainty.” He looked up quickly with his bright, malicious eyes. “One can guess.”

Wan Tengri grunted: “Guess well, Monkey-face. Tonight, I fill the coffers of the brotherhood—and sharpen my steel on wizard’s bones.”

The thief shivered. “The guards hunt thee, master. Never have I seen such searching! And thy head, master, is like the eye of Ormazd for brightness. Better that thou hidest here for a moon until this search fades. Or, mayhap, a bit of dye for that burning beard of thine and thou couldst pass for a Mongol.”

Wan Tengri combed his crisping beard with his fingers and laughed shortly. He was proud of his sun locks—and the eyes of all the thieves were upon him. “Let them find me—at their peril!”

With blunt, lazy fingers, Wan Tengri drew on his cloak and fastened lariat and sword belt about his waist, slung quiver and bow across his shoulders. Fresh deerskin boots were ready for his liberated feet, and he drew them on with infinite relish, felt the lithe strength of his leg muscles as he thrust his feet home. He caught up the jeweled breast plates stolen from Tsien Hui and tossed them into the midst of the thieves.

“If you cannot steal decent food, sell those to the money lenders and purchase food in the bazaars. Monkey-face, I am ready. Lead on—to the Flame Tower!”

“Master, I hear and obey!”

It was through another twisting crystalline cavern that they made their way toward the night-darkened streets of Turgohl. The torches’ red flame turned the saline walls to jewels of blood. Wan Tengri stretched out his great legs and found himself lusting for the struggle ahead while Monkey-face pattered at his side, chattering.

“Master, would it be asking too much if thou didst not demean me before thy other servants?” he pleaded timidly. “My unworthy name is Bourtai.”

Wan Tengri snorted. “Art not of the Bourchikoun, the gray-eyed men? Thy eyes, Monkey-face, are like bits of ice charcoal.”

“Nevertheless, it is my name, master.” The crippled thief scurried ahead, moving sideways like a crab to peer up beseechingly into the fiercely bearded face of Prester John. “ Wilt thou not increase thy own stature by honoring thy servant with a name?”

Wan Tengri boomed out his great laughter. “Well enough, Monkey-face. Henceforth, before thy brethren, thou art Bourtai. Tell me of this Flame Tower and the wizard that dwells there.”

Bourtai peered furtively behind him, sent his quick, birdlike gaze up a side shaft. “Not here, master,” he whispered. “It is a thing no one knows—no one save the wizards and Bourtai.” His sunken chest swelled a little and he struck a small, dirty fist against it. “I… I stole into the temple of Ahriman and the god talked to me. We climb here, master. Let me go first, lest the guards be waiting. We must not lose thee, master. Thou art our freedom.”

Wan Tengri’s solid lips parted as he watched Monkey-face scramble up the wall, using knobs of salt as a ladder. He shrugged his quiver around between his shoulders. He was not so mad or careless as he would have these thieving rascals think. True, he would not fear to take on a half score of guards, but it was better to bide his time, to save his lightnings for the moment of need. And there was always the chance that a stray arrow might take him through the throat. Prester John was a man careless of death, but he thought that now it would be good to live. There was good fighting ahead and, at the end of the road, riches such as he had never dreamed. If he died—well, the gods took care of those who perished in their holy cause! And whether he fought in the name of Christos or Mithra or Ormazd who ruled the sun, they would honor a man who slit a few black wizard throats.

So, with the smile on his lips—and the blade of his sword between his teeth—Wan Tengri seized the knobs of salt that made a way upward and climbed into the darkness where Bourtai’s cracked, small voice called to him. Presently, he emerged into a dark hole where, only faintly, he could make out heaped mounds of furs. The stench of the underclean hides, of rotting fat, plugged his nostrils, and there was the rich, sense-stirring scent of musk.

“This way, master,” piped Bourtai. “This trapdoor is too heavy for thy servant’s poor strength.”

Wan Tengri grinned at this obvious flattery, but he minimized the strain of the load he lifted, doing it with one hand while his muscles shrieked at the burden. They clambered up into a mud-walled room where a flickering rosy light, as of flames, danced in through a high arrow slit.

“A warehouse, master,” whispered Bourtai. “It is only from such as these that we can profit for a little while. For see you, if the loot is not missed, how can the wizards call it back? From its roof, we can look down upon the court of the Flame Tower.”

Once more they were climbing, and presently Bourtai gestured Wan Tengri obsequiously to his side where he stretched out flat upon the packed-earth roof of the building to gaze over its low parapet. Wan Tengri crouched and peered up at the spire of the Flame Tower with its cap of gold. He caught his breath at the beauty of it, and then he stared down—and saw whence the flame light came. All around the base of that tower, and for a score of cubits in all directions, flames leaped upward from a moat in a frantic guttering dance. Red and white and purple-streaked, they swayed and quivered like ecstatic odalisques, throwing high brilliant arms into the air, lovingly caressing the tower, swaying back as if in sudden fright, then rushing all together in a new uptossing of adoring hands of flame.

“Always, master,” whispered Bourtai, “save only on one night, and then only so long as Ahriman speaks the prayer of the Mating Moon, the flames dance like this.”

Wan Tengri grunted. If the chief wizard hid behind that shield, it would take a true and mighty magic to reach him. He thought dubiously of the things he had seen in far Hind where men had walked on glowing coals, and of the stories that the followers of Christos told—three children thrown into a fiery furnace to emerge unhurt. He shook his head dubiously. A man would need a very holy cause indeed to brave that heat.

“On what do those flames feed?” he demanded harshly.

“On the bodies of slaves, master,” Bourtai whispered, as if those flames might hear. “And if not enough die each day, then they throw in living men. The flames like that, master.”

Wan Tengri’s brilliant gray eyes narrowed, and he scanned that tower with a soldier’s mind, saw then the farther barrier he would need to pass. In the court beyond the heat of the flames, a great fountain threw up a spray like coruscating jewels, and ever in its jet there danced a great crystal ball, rising and falling, bouncing on the rising water as if it beat a deep rhythm for those dancing girls of flame. And around that fountain stood ranks of guards, seven ranks deep. Each row of them wore a different livery. Their tunics were crimson and blue and purple, cloth of gold and silver, and one was green, and the innermost rank wore robes of black that fell to their armored feet. Their heads and throats were bare, and the outermost rank faced outward, drawn swords in hand; but the other six ranks faced each other, two by two, and their naked swords rested each against the throat of the man who confronted him!

“What mummery is this?” Wan Tengri demanded roughly. “Were they frozen there in the midst of battle? Or will they kill each other all together, at a command?”

Bourtai giggled. “It is only that the wizards do not trust each other, master. Each of those liveried guards wears the colors of his master. Thus the guards of no single wizard can overpower the others and reach the crystal ball. If a man could learn the secret of that ball, the flames and the flame wind would die, and any man could reach the princess. The princess in the tower. So Ahriman told me in the temple.”

With a thin smile on his lips, Wan Tengri whipped his great horn bow from across his shoulder and bent it with his knee to tauten the gut. “It is plain,” he said, “a crystal ball is made to break!” Bourtai clutched at his arm, then prostrated himself. “In Ahriman’s name,” he cried, “do not do this thing! It would avail nothing until the Hour of the Swine on the thirteenth night of the Red, the Mating Moon!”

Wan Tengri pulled his eyes reluctantly from that bobbling crystal mark. It was a mark a good bowman might hit, and if he caught it squarely where the arrow would not glance, he might shatter it in a heartbeat of time. A princess in the tower—and since they guarded her so it was plain that somehow princess and tower held the key to this fabulous city of Turgohl.

“The Hour of the Swine,” Wan Tengri whispered. “That would be the twelfth, the midnight hour. When is this Mating Moon of thine?”

Bourtai lifted an affrighted face and pointed where the Volapoi hills raised their black shoulders against the eastern sky. Over the tips of the fir trees, the bloodshot eye of a crimson moon was peering. “Master, this is the first night of the Mating Moon. When the thirteenth night falls—”

“Out with it,” Wan Tengri ordered, growling. “Man, time is wasting! We have many things to do this night.”

For an instant, the glitter in Bourtai’s eyes startled Wan Tengri so that his hand flew to the hilt of his sword. The twisted man still crouched upon his knees, but on the moment there was something so venomous, so deadly there that Prester John felt a coldness race through all his great body. It was such a chill as had struck him in the siege of Antioch when a catapult’s great jagged stone had hurled him to the earth with its wind of passage.

“Thou small, stingless viper,” Wan Tengri hissed, “I think it would be well if I snapped off thy head now!”

Bourtai’s voice was a whine. “How, master, think you I know these things if I lied concerning Ahriman’s temple?”

There was breathless waiting there on that roof in Turgohl. The whimper of the high flame wind seemed to fade and, through the silence, came the flutter of the dancing fires. Wan Tengri rolled his great shoulders, but his hand did not leave his sword hilt.

“How shall any sneaking jackal learn secrets?” he growled. “I think, my monkey-faced viper, that thou knowest at least one wizard. I think that thou didst lie concerning that.”

Bourtai cackled softly. “Thou art shrewd, my master! It is true, what thou sayest. I did but seek to add a cubit to my stature in thy eyes.”

“On, with thy story, fool,” Wan Tengri growled. He felt that the wing of the death demon had passed him by, yet still hovered there in the high air. Respect for this twisted leader of thieves touched him briefly. There was some mystery here—but there were greater mysteries to be solved. Bourtai was talking softly.

“This then, master,” he whispered “is the story of the princess in the Flame Tower. Under enchantment, she is kept as a little child in stature and in mind, though truly she knew many hidden things. She is the true ruler of Turgohl, but when the wizards came secretly from Taghdumbash, the roof of the world, they built this tower in a single night and threw the Flames of Kasimer about it. All the magic of the princess accomplished only this one thing, that the crystal ball should dance there in the fountain’s perfumed spray and that, for the length of Ahriman’s prayer on the thirteenth night of the Mating Moon, she should once more regain her full stature and mind.”