Night Winds (14 page)

And now he understood the cold cruelty of her face...

Ceteol gasped. The shimmering mists that for a moment had obscured the streamers of moonlight about the altar suddenly broke apart, drifted like phantom shapes into the night. Where Opyros and the black statuette had lain there was now only bare stone.

"What did you--where is be?" she exclaimed.

"He's crossed the threshold of dream," murmured Kane, a shadow of wonder touching his face.

"When will he return?" Ceteol persisted. "Hell, how will he return?"

Kane ran a hand over his beard. "That, of course, is the risk we spoke of. He'll return once the dream into which Klinure thrusts him is ended. When--I don't know. It depends on how long they wander through her realm before Opyros is caught up in the flow of a single dream, and then on how long that dream takes to reach its end. Only, how closely does time in a dream world follow the span of time as we know it? There time moves in obedience to the dream, not to natural law--may pass like a second, or the reverse. Hell, for that matter, how does a dream actually end? Is the certain terminus to a single dream, or does one merge into another, endlessly, until the dreamer and shatters the stream of image?"

"You don't know!" Ceteol's aristocratic face with emotion. "Damn you, Kane! You've killed him!"

"Perhaps," he shrugged. "But it was Opyros's decision to try this, and I explained that there were unknown risks."

"Weird," she murmured, her face again expressionless. "You're both weird. I don't know which of stranger." She fell to watching the moonlit circle of the altar, hunched together with knees drawn up, chin on fists, arms compressed between body and thighs.

"This may take most of the night," Kane said with a vague gesture. "My men have a small fire going to keep off the damp. Why not wait out there?"

Ceteol shook her head and muttered something indistinct. Her wide eyes seemed to stare without blinking into the moonlight.

Thus she remained when Kane returned from a hurried check of his men, who had nothing to report. The alchemist had to all appearances abandoned his efforts to recover the simulacrum. Since the night was not cold, Kane told Levardos to let the fire burn out. If enemies still sought them in the darkness, it seemed pointless to illuminate their position with a campfire. The moon--just past full--gave light enough for eyes accustomed to the night. A pair of torches inside the temple afforded all the light Kane might need, and in the darkness without, his men could stand guard unseen by an approaching enemy.

Plainly, there was nothing to do but wait. After Ceteol had declined, Kane drank a little wine from the skin they had brought and settled against a slab of rock to keep watch. After a while, the silence of the ruined temple broken only by the girl's regular breathing, he decided she slept.

But Ceteol was awake. "Kane, there's that shadow again."

Kane spun to look where she pointed--too late to see any definite shape. In time to catch a flicker of movement as something passed through the path of moonlight where its beams pierced the darkness. There was no sound.

"A bat," he told her. "Some night bird."

"That size?"

Only Kane had sensed the chill presence of fear, the sudden aura of danger that whispered through the brooding melancholy of the ruins. And he knew that death stalked the night.

"Stay here," he ordered. "Make no sound unless... you need to." His sword hissed from his scabbard, and Kane vanished into the darkness beyond.

Levardos glanced up from his post near the entrance. "What is it?" he whispered, noting Kane's expression.

"I don't know. Did you see, hear anything?"

The lean-faced man shook his head. "What is it?" he repeated.

Without answer, Kane brushed by him, stepping over the dead ashes of their fire. There was danger in the night, of this he felt certain. But what danger lurked among these ebon-shrouded ruins...?

He began a circuit of the temple. Neither Webbre nor Haigan, posted close by, had noticed anything out of the ordinary; they expressed wonder at their leader's sudden unease. Thinking on the direction from which the shadowy movement had seemed to come, Kane redoubled his caution as he slipped farther away from the walls.

The moon overhead cast thick and misshapen shadows through the tangled trees, shone bright on jutting fragments of stonework that were strewn about like piles of discarded bone. Sodden underbrush clung to the mounds of decayed timber, cloaked the shadowed depressions of rubble-laden cellars. Through this maze of pitfalls and thorny barricades, Kane stalked in silence, sword poised to strike at the nameless menace which he knew to be creeping through the night with him. Yes, there was danger close by--danger that hinted of inhuman evil--for too often had Kane quested along paths of hidden knowledge to doubt this subconscious warning. Perhaps the ghost of unease he had felt earlier this evening had not arisen, as he supposed, from the matter of the dark muse...

He had swung out far enough, he decided, still without finding any reason for his concern. Maybe then it was just nerves; he had started at the shadow of a low-flying owl. Only he could not convince himself of this. Turning toward the silent temple, Kane slipped around to check with his other two men.

A short time later he halted. Unless he had lost his bearing, Boulus should be posted here. There was no sign of the man. Kane bit his lip and looked more closely. No, he was not mistaken. Here was the lightning-spiraled oak in whose shadow Boulus had waited. By the blotches of moonlight, the ground showed no evidence of a struggle. The man should not have left his post... unless he had something to report.

Cursing himself for ignoring the obvious, Kan quickly threaded his way back to the temple. With such stealth did he move that he was standing next to Hef before the other man called a challenge. Hef's sword wavered for an instant, but he recognized Kane's hulking figure.

"Nothing," he whispered, grinning ruefully that his leader had come upon him unseen.

"Boulus hasn't come by." As he asked it, it was no longer a question.

Hef made a negative grunt. "Unless he slipped by me as quiet as you just done."

"Something's wrong then," gritted Kane. "He's not at his post." The sense of danger tightened. Boulus should have checked with Hef if he had noticed anything in their area. But there was only silence about them.

"Maybe he shifted over a ways," Hef suggested. "Quiet as you move, if you didn't see him, he wouldn't of seen you."

"Maybe. I'll check again. Watch it." Kane stole away in the direction he bad just come.

But of Boulus there was still no trace. Softly Kane called his name--alarmed to the point of taking this risk. Not even an echo. Not even the call of a night bird. Had something frightened the forest to silence?

The aura of menace was very near.

Thinking furiously, Kane returned to where he had left Hef. Stronger than ever came the sense of lurking terror. Was there something stalking him?

Again there sounded no challenge. Hef was not at his post.

Feeling the muscles of his neck draw tight, Kane searched about him. There was nothing to be seen; no sign of disturbance here; nothing. He was starting for the temple, when his foot struck something. A boot. Hef's boot. Bewildered, Kane caught it up.

Something warm and damp ran across his wrist as he lifted it. Hef's foot remained in the boot. His calf had been sheared off so cleanly as to clip through the top of the leather.

There had been no sound.

Levardos sensed his leader's alarm as Kane plunged from the nighted forest. He met the urgent question in Kane's look and shook his head, his parchment-fleshed face alert.

In a harsh whisper Kane called for Webbre and Haigan to pull back instantly. Muffled thrashing in the brush indicated they bad heard. Something evil, something deadly, hovered near, very near.

'Kane! What is it!" hissed Levardos.

'I'm not sure," he grated. "Boulus is gone. Hef, too. In the space of a few minutes, something took Hef--not a few score yards from me, though I heard nothing! There was just his foot, lying there on the ground like a cast-off boot!"

"Why no sound of attack? You should have heard the rush of steel. A man would scream as a blade sundered his leg!"

Kane's face was worried. "No blade did that--there was no more blood than from a slopped wine cup. Something snatched him up; something with jaws like a dragon--jaws that could close upon a man in an instant, and never notice if a tiny morsel of flesh dropped away from its scissored fangs!"

"But a beast that huge!" his lieutenant protested, "We'd see it--hear it!"

"But we didn't."

The two brothers burst from the undergrowth. "Quick! Inside the temple!" Kane ordered, snapping out a terse explanation. "Whatever's out there, these walls may give us some defense!"

From their tethers, the horses began to stamp and nicker. For a second Kane debated leaving them to their fate, then decided not to risk being left on foot. "Bring in the mounts!" he ordered Webbre and Haigan.

Then as he dashed through the temple entrance, he knew something was wrong here as well. He had left a torch burning near the altar; it lay dark against the tiles, extinguished. Ceteol had vanished.

Kane snatched up the remaining torch from its crevice within the entrance. The link was nearly burned out; perhaps the other had fallen and gone out. Ceteol?

No time for conjecture. From outside came a shrill scream. A second voice--Webbre's bass roar--cursed and howled. Then the screams of the horses drowned out everything. With a thunder of panic-spurred hooves, their mounts pounded off into the night.

Kane whipped the torch to flaring life. Their blades wavered yellow as he and Levardos leaped from the deserted temple. Branches shook; the last of the horses could just be glimpsed as darkness engulfed them. The two brothers had disappeared. Kane called only once, for he did not expect an answer.

"That shadow!" breathed Levardos, pointing.

"Ah!" hissed Kane, and thrust out his torch.

No shape. Only a looming shadow that writhed against the trees, swept across the fallen stories. Retreating too quickly for the eye to judge its form.

"What is it? Where is it!" gasped Levardos. For the torchlight disclosed nothing that might cast such a shadow--nor was there any sound or show of movement to mark its passage.

"Something overhead?" guessed Kane, though the angle of the creeping shadows denied this.

The link flickered and smoked. Its pitch was almost exhausted, so that the tow was beginning to smoulder.

As its light failed, the misshapen shadow surged across the moonlight toward them. Terror brushed chill talons toward their throats. With a curse, Kane whirled the torch about; bits of the tow spun loose and dashed like tiny stars across the night. Flame leaped up once more. The onrushing shadow fell back. Still there was no sign of what cast it.

"Back into the temple!" Kane ordered. "I think it hates the light!''

Breathlessly they stumbled past the rubble of the portal. The thick walls afforded some sense of protection from the unknown horror that lurked beyond the light.

The link snapped and fumed. "The other torches?" asked Kane anxiously.

"They were with the horses and gear!" groaned Levardos.

"Then we'd better find something to burn!" Kane scrambled through the litter of the temple. His boot kicked through the mounds of rotted timber; the material sprayed from his thrusting foot, damp and crumbling loam. Only bare stone and mould-eaten decay. The enclosing roof had held out the undergrowth, fallen branches that cluttered the ground outside.

The sputtering flame threatened to leap and die. "Isn't there any dry wood in here?" cursed Kane.

"Outside..." began Levardos, glancing toward the doorway. He did not finish. Shadow blocked the entrance.

Kane lunged with the dwindling torch. Moonlight again fell through the opening.

"Here's something!" Levardos crushed together an armload of dead wood--a few branches that had fallen though the broken roof. With frantic care, Kane thrust the link into the heap of brush. It was damp, rotten. The flame dwindled, refused to catch. Desperate breaths fanned the smouldering tow. From the corner of his eye, Kane saw the shadow spread across the doorway.

Then the branches caught. Painfully, unsteadily, the flickering heat crept through the broken tinder. Ignoring blistered hands, the two men nudged embers together and fed the trembling flames--cursed as the damp wood smoked and steamed without igniting.

Somehow they got the fire burning. Moonlight spilled past the portal once again. But the smothering cloud of deadly fear did not leave them. Beyond the walls, an unseen stalker paced in silent hunger, blotted out the shafts of moonbeam as it crept about the ruin.

"We'll need more wood than this," judged Kane. In the dancing firelight he could see other branches and scraps of crumbling timber--pitifully few. When these were gone?

"Maybe with a torch we could bring wood in from outside," he considered. Levardos nodded uneasily, not wanting to think of the death that waited beyond the light.

With this in mind, Kane left the fire to retrieve the fallen torch by the altar. As he bent, his brow furrowed. The link had not burned out; someone's foot had crushed it against the tiles. Wondering, Kane picked it up. In the horror of the moment, he had spared little thought for Ceteol. Her disappearance now took on another aspect.

"Kane! Above you!"

Kane hurtled back from the altar. The pool of moonlight no longer poured down. Its circle was broken as a writhing shadow crept across the opening in the roof. Risking a glance upward, Kane saw only darkness, flowing darkness that blotted out the stars. A crawling, obscene shadow wriggled across the altar--slithered too rapidly to suggest more than vaguely its true shape. If indeed it had true shape. The aura of alien evil bore down upon them in crushing waves.

"It makes no sound!" cried Levardos as Kane retreated to the fire. "And its size! How can these mouldering stones bear its weight?"

"It has no weight--no substance as we understand!" Kane snarled, recognizing the creature at last. "It's a sort of demon--an elemental from the subworld of chaos, 'in elemental fashioned of darkness! Darkness lends it substance, but light strips away its borrowed flesh--shows only the shadow of its malevolent spirit. Moonlight doesn't affect it, since the moon casts no true light. The demon must have followed us here; waited for nightfall, for our fires to die. If we can keep a fire going until dawn, we can escape it."