Flame Winds (9 page)

“To Ahriman, or to hell,” Prester John said savagely. “Does it matter?”

“N-nay, master, but why flee? T-the city is yours for the t-tak-ing.”

Prester John made no answer. His weighty right hand pinned Bourtai down. His left, knotted in the bridle, guided the horse. There was a joy in the glide of muscles between his thighs, in the sweet clean sweep of air in his face. The rhythm of the beating hoofs flowed through him. Bourtai kept gasping questions, but there was no answer from the grim bearded lips, and after a while he was silent. Prester John was beginning to feel his weariness. The wound in his thigh throbbed, and there was stiffness in his dagger-slashed cheek. The whip of the wind was cold against his sweat-streaked, naked chest, but the South Gate loomed ahead. He bent far forward and thudded his heels against the horse’s flanks. Guards atop the portal were staring toward him, and there was a hunched and cowled figure standing there beside the way, a figure draped in unrelieved black and with a black mask across his face!

Anger surged into Prester John’s chest, and he whirled the horse that way. In a moment, there would be one wizard less to summon his cohorts, to fight the men of the khan! In a moment—The horse reared sharply, striking the thin air with slashing hoofs, and a neigh of terror burst from distended nostrils. Prester John fought savagely and struck the stallion between the ears. It thudded down, but turned aside from the path in which he had been driven. The wizard had not moved, but Prester John could feel the pressure of the malignant eyes behind the slits of the mask.

Once more, Prester John wheeled the stallion to the charge, and once more the horse reared and all but threw him. Savagely, Prester John flung himself to earth and leaped toward the still figure. One stride, two, he took, then something that remained invisible struck him violently on chest and forehead and thigh as if he had plunged against a stone wall. His head rang from the blow, and he reeled backward, tried once more to hurl himself to the attack. This time he took only a single stride before the fearful impact stopped him.

“You are my prisoner, man!” intoned the figure in black, softly. “You must go where I tell you.”

“To Ahriman with you!” Prester John snarled. He knotted a hand into the horse’s mane and leaped upon its back, flung it toward the South Gate. A single great stride the stallion took, then its head doubled under and there was a crunching sound of bone cracking under impact. Prester John was hurled to earth—and the horse was dead!

“This way, quickly, Wan Tengri!” called Bourtai.

Prester John reeled to his feet and turned in answer to the call, then saw Bourtai gesturing from a dark runway between two mud-walled houses. Prester John’s challenging gaze swept a swift circuit of the narrow way before the gate. Out of narrow streets, two other tall, masked figures strode, one in silver and one in blue.

“Hold, man!” they shouted.

With an oath, Prester John hurled himself toward the runway where Bourtai crouched and stumbled in darkness to follow the light touch of the crippled thief s hand. “They will not let you leave Turgohl, Wan Tengri,” whispered the thief. “Any one of them will kill you rather than let you fall into another’s hands. If one seizes you, and you will not talk, he might change you into an ape to guard his garden or send you, a dull slave, to the galley oars until you had learned obedience. The honors Ahriman promised you, master, you must win.”

Prester John’s words snarled in his throat. “I will win,” he said violently. “Ahriman will do well to guard his own!”

On silent feet, he padded through the dark where Bourtai led him. More than once he stumbled and the thief’s hand briefly steadied his arm. He was consumed with weariness. When finally Bourtai pointed to a dark doorway and afterward to a pit that led downward, Prester John flung himself into it with a violence that almost cost a bad fall. The smoky flare of torchlight and the fetid stench of the salt-mine tunnels was welcome in his nostrils. He braced a rigid arm against the wall and stood with his chest heaving for breath.

“Bourtai,” he muttered, “I must rest. What night is this?”

“The fifth, master, of the Mating Moon.”

Prester John gulped a breath of relief and afterward walked on more steadily until he came to the chamber where a dung fire sent up its smoky flames and the feverish-eyed rats of Turgohl crouched to feed. Without a word, he flung himself down upon the couch and plunged into sleep.

Now, when a man has exhausted the last reservoirs of his strength, his sleep should be deep and dreamless. It was strange, then, that gargoyles of humanity began to flit through Prester John’s brain. Slumbering, he fought again through the three battles of Ahriman; he heard again the luring song of Death and his own commanding voice shout the question:
“How may one man rule Turgohl?”

It seemed to Prester John that it was his own throat that must answer that question, and he was a man wrestling with a nightmare. There was a part of him that wanted to voice that answer, and there was another part that would not. Up from the depths of sleep, he soared. He opened his eyes to find the wrinkled, malicious face of Bourtai stooped over him!

Grimly then, Prester John smiled—and closed his eyes again. “Get on with your spells, Bourtai,” he said thickly. “When I wish to speak, I shall, but not before. This is only the fifth night of the Mating Moon.”

“Pardon, master.” Bourtai’s voice was mocking in its humility. “It is the sixth, and the dark hour of the Dog. Thou hast slept long.”

Heavily, Prester John swung his thick limbs to the floor, stretched his great bronzed body. The wound in his thigh had been washed and sealed with balsam. Irritably, he ripped off the gum. “Open wounds heal best, thou fool,” he said roughly. “Where is the food I ordered bought?”

Bourtai’s face wrinkled with delight. “Thy jewels were thought out of being, master. Didst thou not slit Tsien Hui’s throat?”

For a moment, Prester John glowered at the apelike face with its beady eyes, then an answering grin stirred his solid lips. “No doubt I overlooked that one throat among so many,” he agreed. “Give me of thy thieves’ slop, then, for this night there is man’s work to be done!”

Bourtai’s eyes gleamed greedily, and he darted away to fill an earthen bowl. Prester John let his eyes quest gloomily over the cavern where smoke hung in writhing bluish wreaths. The sting of it in his eyes and nostrils was a relief from the filth stench of the hole. His eyes returned to the couch and found there his yellow silken clothing and the great white cloak of the khan. His horn bow, his sword and lariat hung from gleaming crystal knobs on the wall, and the sight of them brought life and joy flooding back to his heart.

“Thou art a good thief, Bourtai,” he said as he accepted the steaming bowl the man brought back. “Else a good wizard. Didst call back my tools to my hand?”

“Nay, master,” Bourtai said humbly. “‘Twas thy own great magic, never doubt it. While thou wast sleeping, and in the dark, thy clothing and thy weapons returned.”

Prester John grunted, his eyes suspiciously on the malicious eyes of Bourtai. “Thou hast spoken, Monkey-face,” he acknowledged flatly. “It is my hope there will be no need for thee to eat thy words.” He tossed off the hot food with a gulp and felt its warmth flow through his veins. He stretched once more and tugged on the padded, golden silk, twined the lariat about his waist. The cloak across his shoulders was next, and he belted home sword and arrow quiver. When the bow hung once more about his neck, he felt a man again, and his good humor returned to flash from his gray eyes.

“We begin, Bourtai,” he said. “Lead me first to a tower near where the flames dance and the crystal ball bobbles in the fountain.”

“That roof, master, where once before we watched?”

Prester John shook his head and smiled in his beard. “Nay, it is not high enough. We must be where I may commune with the spirits of the high air, my godfather and my godmother, the
tengri.”

Bourtai hesitated, then shrugged his crooked shoulders. “This way, master,” he acknowledged. “Thou art the man, and thou knowest.” He led toward one of the many tunnels of the mine.

“I am the man,” Prester John acknowledged solemnly. He walked with a perceptible swagger of his broad shoulders and, softly, he began to hum through his nose. He was feeling his strength again, and his belly was warm. Certain things he had learned in his three battles, and with their aid he soon would be master of Turgohl. There would be a settlement for Kassar, and wealth for himself, and there was that matter of the vow. Almost, he could forget that throughout the city the tall, masked men with their priests and guards were searching for him; and what his fate would be if he fell into their hands. If they ever guessed that he knew no more than they themselves might conjecture—Wan Tengri threw back his head and sent his laughter booming along the smoke-streaked tunnel. Well, until they learned that, they would fear him and he could write his own warrants. There could be no waiting for the thirteenth night and the Hour of the Swine. It was a question of time before the thousands searching everywhere stumbled upon the salt mines, and then—all up with Prester John!

“My master is happy,” Bourtai whispered. “It makes my heart glad.”

“There are certain small things I need to know, my valiant ape,” Wan Tengri said lightly. “After that—why, after that we shall help ourselves to the treasures of Turgohl!”

“And the princess?” Bourtai’s tone was sly.

“Why, as to that, thou chattering ape,” said Wan Tengri lightly, “I have found princesses a somewhat cold and waspish lot. And time answers all questions, Bourtai, even the questions of Death.”

Presently, they were climbing rickety ladders and a well gave way to a cellar, and a cellar to stairs that wound upward in the close circuit of a tower.

“Those tunnels of thine lead everywhere, ape,” said Wan Tengri. “I wonder they do not burrow into the Flame Tower itself. Or into the treasury of Turgohl.”

Bourtai, scrambling ahead up the spiraling steps, now running sideways like a crab to peer back and up into Prester John’s face, shook his head violently. “Nay, they are guarded by enchantment, master, by the magic of seven wizards so that no one of them can break its spell.”

“But hast tried, thou tailless ape?”

Bourtai’s eyes, shuttling backward over his shoulder, held a gleam of venom. “Master, my name is Bourtai.”

“Ah, it is hard to remember, looking at you. But you evade my question, I think!”

“Nay, master. There is a tunnel, truly, that leads toward the Flame Tower. But it struck an enchanted wall through which the heat of the flames comes at times. We dared not go farther.”

Prester John grunted and peered toward the top of the tower. The stone steps, without guard or rail, wound upward to the tower’s top, where a narrow door led into the wall. There would be a room there and a balcony.

“Thy tower, Bourtai?” he asked softly.

“Shall a thief have a tower where there is no loot?”

Wan Tengri said, still softly: “I know not, apeling. Nay, come to me!”

His outshot hand gripped the wrist of the thief and, with a sharp swing, he had him dangling over empty space! He stooped, nicely balanced on the edge of the steps, while the thief s wrinkled face twisted upward in surprise.

“I think this is quite high enough, Bourtai,” said Wan Tengri softly. “It is quite threescore cubits to the stones below. I doubt that even thy devil’s magic could save thee. Nay, do not struggle, lest you tip us both into eternity!” His left hand, groping behind him, found the hook he had seen in the wall, and he tested it with a jerk. “Now, my small, lying wizard, thou and I shall talk with the tongues of truth, I think!”

“When have I lied to thee, master?” whined the thief.

“Bourtai,” Wan Tengri said, very softly, “thou art the All-High. Today, at thy orders, a knife was plunged into the belly of my brother and certain portents read therein. What was found?”

“Nay, master, I do not know.”

“Today, men said of me, ‘Thou art the man!’ What did they mean, Bourtai?”

Eagerly, Bourtai’s eyes clung to those of Prester John. “Master, concerning certain things I have lied to thee. I knew when first I saw thee that thou must wage the three battles. For it is written in the stars that only one whose locks rival the sun may ever rule this city completely!”

“Aye, that I shall,” Wan Tengri growled, “and the wizards test each man in their battles so that they can single out the right one. Afterward, any wizard who rules this man can destroy his brothers in sorcery. A nice brotherly love that rules you wizards!”

“Now, master, let thy slave feel stone beneath his feet once more.”

Wan Tengri shook him slightly. “Not yet, small vermin. The prophecy, and one other thing I will ask of thee and, by Ahriman, thou shall answer or try thy magic on the stones beneath thee!”

Wan Tengri’s iron fingers were beginning to feel a little tired, though the man weighed so little, and hung so motionless over space. Peering down beyond him at the hard stones below, Wan Tengri knew a brief dizziness—and found Bourtai’s eyes boring into his own. He laughed shortly and shook him again. “Hast not answered, I think!”

Bourtai’s lips snarled back from discolored teeth. “Hear then, dog, and know thy fate! Thou shall rule but one day, and only one wizard shall be left to reign in thy stead!”

Flame leaped in the gray eyes of Wan Tengri. “Yet I think that one wizard will not be thyself, Bourtai,” he said softly. “Now, thou shall tell me one farther thing. It is a well-known fact that each wizard, for his future safety, deposits his soul in a certain secret spot. Who holds that soul is master over the wizard. Hast sought the souls of thy six brothers, hast thou not, Bourtai, and in vain? That is why you lark sometimes in this garb and use the thieves for spies. Aye, it is as I thought.
But, Bourtai, thou knowest where thy soul is!”

Rage turned the dangling wizard’s face into an animal mask of hatred, and, even as Wan Tengri stared, it was no longer a man he gripped by the wrist, but the five-taloned claw of a mighty tiger! The tiger’s fanged jaws snarled up at him—yet the tiger weighed no more than Bourtai! Wan Tengri leaned yet farther out over the gulf, and there was a tightness in his smiling lips.