Gary Gygax - Dangerous Journeys 2 - Samarkand Solution (23 page)

"Lethal thrusts and cuts only, but such have served me well enough in the past. I think those columns ahead mark the entrance to the Blood Temple. Perhaps I'll have the opportunity to test my skills soon, but somehow I can't bring myself to fervently wish for that."

Perhaps it was their unexpected arrival. Then again, the denizens of the place were not an organized community. Certainly the magick from the ankh Inhetep held forth kept at bay all of the lurking monstrosities who might otherwise have assailed them. The priest-wizard and Chief Inspector Tuhorus went on unmolested and soon found themselves on the verge of the maleficent temple. A series of short flights of broad steps between columns did indeed mark the precincts of the dark place of evil worship. They had been traveling along a way almost ten paces wide, and as the two men went down the first set of three stairs, they discovered beyond the pillars a wider, vestibule-like space.

"Careful of those sigils, Tuhorus," the magister cautioned. Snaking runes of a non-Egyptian sort, perhaps not even of human invention, writhed across the floor, down the next flight of steps, and upward to twine around four larger columns. "They bear vile magicks within their forms."

"How do you know? The script isn't natural!"

"You have it there, Inspector. I see now that it's from an age before mankind walked /Erth. I know it, though, for it is still used by a handful of the most wicked dweomercraefters—and those priests who serve Evil in Darfur. At least we can be certain that beyond lies the Blood Temple, and that it is an ancient one, serving Aapep for millennia in gore and death."

Chief Inspector Tuhorus was growing progressively more nervous. "How can we pass? The sigils form a wall-to-wall barrier. We'd need wings. . .."

"That wouldn't serve, either. Those are chiseled there to ward off all entry, and even if we fly above the stone, their effect would be felt. However, at times they are neutralized, for then worshippers pass them to go into the temple and feed the monstrous Evil they serve. Similarly, any cleric bound to those honored within can traverse the warding without ill effect. Seeing that we can't spend hours searching for the means of neutralization, though, I think we'll have to step out and beyond them," the magister said drily. Then he took two little wooden strips from somewhere inside his tunic. Each was a hand's breadth long. One he tossed beyond the four stone posts at the base of the stairway, the other he set down in front of him.

"Do as I do, Tuhorus." Inhetep took a step toward the stairway. One instant he was there, the next he was beyond the columns below. "Don't touch the 'threshold,' Inspector; we'll need it when we return," he called back in a hushed voice across the thirty or so feet of distance.

The police official followed, hoping that no other dweller in these depths decided to investigate the dweomered bit of wood. He felt an awkward moment when he almost fell as he aped the wizard-priest's action, and there was a slight tugging as if he'd broken through a membrane. Then he was beside Magister Inhetep. "I begin to appreciate the true merits of using heka in detection, Utchat-neb," Tuhorus said admiringly. They moved across the intervening landing to yet another broader descent.

"Those four pillars juxtaposed themselves to bar intrusion," Inhetep said as if he hadn't heard his companion. "The three larger ones are proof against all form of radiation or aerial disturbance—light, heat, sound, and even things of an aethereal sort."

"Then we can pass easily enough."

"That we can, but be prepared for what might lie inside. Bright flames, darkness, or a roaring serpent with eyes shooting bolts of destruction might be there. We will see nothing beyond until we step off the third stair and into the temple beyond."

They entered the Blood Temple thus, stepping cautiously from the last of the wide risers, and found themselves in a space totally lightless save for the silvery glow from the priest-wizard's ankh. The stone floor and walls were black as basalt, even the huge pillars which marched to either hand off into the darkness ahead. Side aisles bordered by smaller columns could be discerned behind the massive supports flanking the way, but what lay beyond those smaller pillars was hidden in the darkness, hidden from the metal-hued illumination emanating from the sacred object Setne held high. Somewhere there were ways leading upward, for although the ceiling overhead was lost from sight in the gloom, a railed balcony was visible, its porticoes twenty feet above, paralleling the trunk-like supports.

Inhetep paced forward, his companion hanging back and turning to guard against surprise from behind. Neither spoke. It was Tuhorus who noticed darker shapes in the gloom above, fluttering batlike things which swooped and disappeared and reappeared again. "By Hathor's Horns, Magister!" he cried as they moved slowly into the huge temple, "they're
eating
your light."

Wherever one of the imp-visaged creatures contacted the silvery sphere of illumination, a spot of blackness replaced the radiance. They were indeed devouring the light. "Chiropum-brates! The things are from the Shadowsphere, Tuhorus," he called to the chief inspector. "They'll feed on the magickal light until it's destroyed unless we stop them!"

"I'll try to cut them down, but they're small and quick."

"You couldn't do more than bag a dpzen at best, my friend," Inhetep said as he dug inside his tunic again. "We'll need something more efficient." He held out his palm to the policeman.

"A pair of crested heron miniatures wrought in silver. Am I supposed to appreciate their artistic beauty?"

"Not quite correct. Now watch them!" The priest-wizard sent the two little figures soaring into the darkness above with a flick of his wrist and then spoke rapid words of hekau, a summoning of some sort. Two bursts of multi-hued flame roared suddenly high above, the fires making visible the stone ceiling some sixty feet overhead. Clusters of the batlike creatures immediately surrounded the flaring fires. But as they did so, the flames consumed them, and the chiropumbrates fell in an increasing rain of brittle husks which broke into ashes when they struck the stone floor.

"Bennu!" The detective referred to the Egyptian relative to the phoenix. "You conjured a pair of them!"

"Easily. This whole place is closely attuned to the Plane of Fire, Tuhorus. Our quarry is here, no doubt of it!"

As the light-hating creatures of shadow were turned into cindery corpses by the bird beings from the Empyreal Sphere, Inhetep and Tuhorus pressed on into the vaulted place where worship of the hideously evil Aapep was paramount. The blazing forms of the bennu sent dancing light and shadows throughout the Blood Temple in ever-changing patterns. That was sufficient for the two men to determine the general extent of the place and discover that at its upper end were a number of passageways leading to other subterranean places. "The malign priest-mage exudes heka, Inspector, which will draw the bennu to him. All I need to do is release them from their aerial guardianship."

"Then do so, Magister," urged the policeman. "The sooner we can exit this ghastly place, the happier I'll be!"

Inhetep actually needed no encouragement. He was already freeing the binding on the bennu, so that they could leave his vicinity. They would seek energy from their own planes as water seeks its own level. Thus, the winged creatures of pure flame would lead them to the place where lurked the false Absobek-khaibet. There was a massive altar just before them, behind it a wall of solid rock on which was carved a monstrous likeness of the coiling master serpent. The pair of flame creatures flew to it, their many-hued fires making the rank of six idols standing beneath the figure of Aapep seem to shift and sway. The magister's eyes were fixed on that line, for in its center was a seventh, living figure. "I have you, kheri-heb!" he cried out.

"No, fool of Thoth, I have you!" shouted the evil priest-mage. The carved form of the crocodile-headed serpent writhed, and its huge foreclaws shot out. They snatched the bennu from the air, stone talons grated shut, and the light in the Blood Temple went out.

—— 15 ——

MAGICK AMD MURDER

Into that stygian blackness came a mist of vapors which resembled water lit by moonbeams. The cloud formed above the blood-soaked altar, thickened, and grew bright. Then its blue-white radiance came raining down, and phosphors covered the rock wall which was the representation of the progenitor of all Evil serpents Aapep. The viscous light fell upon the idols of those dark deities associated with the terrible wyrm, and starkly outlined the evil priest-mage. This was Inhetep's supernatural light, a dweomer which wove moonlight and water and made the two an inescapable cloak dampening the element of fire and telling the wizard-priest exactly where his evil counterpart was standing.

At the same moment, however, the false Absobek-khaibet had likewise been at work. Something blacker than black now twisted and coiled upon the smooth rock of the temple floor. Although it was not drenched by the phosphorescent shower, it slowly grew visible, as might a mass of cold iron heated by invisible fire. Its heat came from within, though, for it was a serpent of iron whose core was molten. That metal form rose like a cobra, and dull red spots waxed brighter as if it were indeed a living snake with eyes of incandescent metal. All the while, the magickal illumination came raining down, but the priest-mage of Evil ignored that precipitation. He was intent on his own spell, pouring heka into his conjured serpent without regard to anything else. Soon the metal serpent rose, its head swayed back, and the energy within it grew to near-bursting.

Molten venom would vomit forth from its mouth even as its hard, flesh-searing coils would writhe forward to entwine the ones who dared to oppose the power of a kheri-heb of Aapep, resist the priest-mage in his own sanctum! After all, the malign practitioner was standing at the focus of Aapep's power, and the heka at his command was immeasurably more potent here than anywhere else. "So you die, Magister Inhetep!" the man screamed in triumph. His last words sent the gigantic iron cobra into action.

Tuhorus was powerless. The enemy mage-priest had snuffed out the magister's magickal light; the policeman crouched back. Before he could do more, Tuhorus heard Inhetep whispering a chant and the pearlescent mist brought light back to the darkened Blood Temple. Then he saw the blacker-than-black shape appear. He wasn't sure what it was, but he knew that the thing was a creation of the malign kheri-heb, so he did what he could. Still crouched low, the policeman scuttled off to the right. When he was past the line of the three-foot thick columns, he sprinted at a right angle, heading for the altar area. You can use your magickal force against the utchat-neb, or you can try to stop me, but you can't do both! Tuhorus thought, and he kept that fixed in his mind as he advanced. His sword was before him, and he was ready to die.

In the meantime, the conjured snake came at Inhetep, rose, and as a fiery redness split its jaws, the iron length lashed forward. Livid crimson venom spurted forth in a thick jet. It struck a shining disc which had appeared in an instant, splattering into burning droplets, and hissed into nothingness as the molten stuff shot into a harmless spray before the magister. But then the iron head of the cobra hit the silvery shield, and the disc split into metallic shards, which fell chiming to the stone and disappeared.

"Useless!" cried the gloating voice of Aapep's servant.

"Melodious!" countered the magister, and as he spoke the chiming sounds of the falling bits of silvery disc continued, were drawn out, and their tinkling became deeper. A plangent three-note sequence grew from that, and it resonated in rhythmic waves which filled the cavernous temple. "You pet cobra seems charmed!" he called out, for the iron monster was now swaying before him as if it were some strange metronome. Left, right, back and forth it went, but never quite in time with the three sounds which now rolled and pulsed throughout the grim underground temple. Faster and faster went the unnatural snake as the waves of sound peaked and sank and charged. The reverberations were renewed, restated, and repeated, so that ever closer notes formed an impossible mesh around the dark priest-mage's metal monster of death.

Knowing that his magick was failing, the man was about to try and withdraw the iron snake, or send it in a destructive rush to overwhelm his foe, when he caught a glimpse of Tuhorus out of the corner of his eye. Letting go of his mental link with the cobra, the evil kheri-heb spun and flung a shower of fiery darts in the direction of the policeman. Then he continued turning and ran, disappearing down one of the tunnels beside the wall of Aapep.

Inspector Tuhorus used his blade to bat aside the pair of flaming darts which knifed toward his face. Another seared his chest as it hissed past. His shirt burst into flames where the fiery missile had touched it, and his short cape was likewise set ablaze by another dart which passed through its cloth. Then he was struck in the body and limbs by yet more of the things. He fell to the floor, writhing in pain, rolling to extinguish the fire which now played over him with greedy, searing tongues.

The storm of sound engendered by Inhetep's counter-heka reached a crescendo, and those ringing notes shook the iron snake; it flew suddenly in ten thousand pieces, each a tiny meteor that burned hellishly for a split second, then winked into nothingness. After the massive pyrotechnic display, the waves of metallic sound ceased, and the red light was replaced once again by the faint wash of moonlike glow from beyond. The magister had seen the attack upon Tuhorus, for his casting needed no concentration to sustain its effect. Setne was hurrying to help the policeman when something else distracted him. The six stone statues began to move with ponderous steps, and the sinuous depiction of the serpent-dragon started to come alive.