Rise of a Merchant Prince (46 page)

“What?” asked the still-confused woman again, sitting up. “I said,
get out!
” he shouted. For emphasis, he slapped her hard across the face. “I need to bathe. Be gone by the time I'm done.”

He left the shocked and crying woman in the bedroom and moved down to the end of the hail, where a tub sat next to a small stove. He heated water and inspected his face in a polished metal mirror. Rubbing his hand over his chin, he decided he needed to shave. Stropping a razor, he hummed a nameless tune while in the next room the whore whose
name he couldn't recall gathered up her belongings and cursed him under her breath.

The screams echoed down the tunnels and Erik, Calis, and the rest of the company moved as cautiously as possible. A bright light shone ahead, from where a battle appeared to be taking place. Occasionally the sound of struggle paused, and then the clash of steel and shouts resumed. The hissing scream of Pantathians was punctuated by what Erik recognized as Saaur war cries and something else, something that raised the hair on the back of his neck.

Erik used hand signals, despite the din sounding ahead, against the faint possibility that someone might hear them coming. Renaldo moved to where Erik stood, at the van, and both of them stepped forward far enough to see what was ahead.

A vast cavern, as big as any they had encountered opened before them, a circular well similar to the one when they had used to enter the mountains. It rose so high overhead that Erik had no idea where it stopped, but they had arrived near the bottom.

Below them, one revolution down the circular ramp that hugged the inside of the well, a scene of desperate horror greeted them. The largest cache of Pantathian eggs they had seen so far lay in a vast pool of bubbling water. Erik quickly apprehended details. A stream of water ran down a wall into the pool, and Erik presumed it was cold, for the eggs would be cooked otherwise. The ice melt from above and the hot water from below must be mixed to keep the eggs incubated.

The pool was easily sixty feet across, and
crouched in the middle was a creature so alien Erik couldn't define it. He waved to those behind him and stared while the rest of the company filed out of the tunnel and spread out along the lip of the ramp. Erik felt pain in his shoulder and found Calis's hand gripping him tightly. Erik whispered, “Captain?”

Calis blinked and said, “Sorry,” as he removed his hand.

Erik knew he was startled but was surprised at how much.

The creature in the pool stood seventeen or eighteen feet tall, with large leathery wings on its back. It was a pearlescent black in color, with emerald green eyes. It divided its attention between savaging the remaining eggs in the pool—picking them apart and pulling the tiny Pantathians from within, devouring them with a gulp—and fighting a battle with the surviving defenders. The creature's head was horselike, but it had wide-set curved horns, like a goat, and each arm ended with human-looking hands, five fingers with long sharp talons where nails should be.

“What is that thing?” asked de Loungville.

“Mantrecoe,”
said Boldar. “You'd call it a demon, I guess. It's a being from a different plane of reality. I've never seen one, but I know about them.” He turned to Miranda and said, “Did you know?”

She shook her head and said, “No. I thought we faced something else entirely.”

“How did it get here?” asked Boldar. “The seals between this realm and the Fifth Circle have been intact for centuries. If one of those things had come through the Hall, we would have known.”

“It didn't come through the Hall of Worlds, obviously,” said Miranda, straining to watch. Then she
said, “Now we know where the Pantathian magic users are.”

Suddenly a keening howl filled the room as the creature screamed in pain. It turned to face a group of serpent men who were incanting a spell against it.

Calis said, “Over there!”

He pointed and Erik saw a tunnel, about twenty feet beyond the other side of the struggle. “What?”

“That's where we need to go.”

“Are you mad?” asked Erik, before he could remember who he was speaking to.

“Unfortunately, no,” said Calis. To Bobby he said, “Start walking the men around the ramp to just above that door and then drop a rope. Try not to call attention to yourself. I don't want to have to deal with either side of this struggle if we can avoid it.”

De Loungville signaled and Erik took the lead, moving as close to the wall as he could, so that at times as he circled the well, following the ramp's rise, he saw only the head of the creature as it ducked, weaved, and tried to get past magic wards and blasts of energy. Twice waves of searing heat rose off the battle below, and once he was almost blinded by a flash of light so bright it left him blinking for a moment.

He reached the position above the tunnel entrance Calis wanted, and turned so the man behind him could pull a rope out of Erik's backpack. Erik saw nothing to which he could tie the rope, so he braced himself and nodded for the next soldier to shinny down the rope and head up the tunnel.

Each man followed orders without thought or hesitation. Two archers waited nearby, ready to fire at either the Pantathian magicians or the demon, but
both sides seemed intent on their struggle.

After the tenth man descended, Calis approached and said, “How are you doing?”

“My arms ache, but I'm all right,” said Erik.

Calis said, “I'll hold this for a bit.” He took the rope with one hand, and Erik was again impressed with just how much more powerful the Captain was than he appeared to be.

More men climbed down, ducking into the tunnel. Erik couldn't judge, but it seemed to him the contest was slowly turning the demon's way. Each time the Pantathian magicians launched an assault, the creature returned even more viciously. The magicians appeared to be tiring, if Erik could judge these alien creatures.

Suddenly it was Miranda climbing down and Calis said, “Erik, you next.”

Erik complied, and was followed by de Loungville; then the rope fell. Calis leaped the twenty and more feet to the stone floor, landing as lightly as if he had jumped only a few. He found his company spread out down the tunnel, backs against the wall. Calis moved past and said, “Follow me,” when he reached the other end of the line.

The men fell in, and Erik took up a position at the rear, glancing back at the struggle. A strange hissing scream cut through the air and Erik judged one of the magicians had been taken by the demon.

They came to a small chamber, barely large enough to hold the company. Calis said, “Listen, everyone. Something has changed the balance of forces we find opposing us and we need to discover what this new agent is.” He glanced about, “Boldar?”

“Yes?” asked the mercenary.

“You put a name to that thing. What do you know about it?”

Boldar's helm turned in Miranda's direction and she nodded once. “Tell him.”

Boldar removed his helm. “It's a
mantrecoe,
in the language of the priests of Ast'hap'ut, a world I've visited. I've never seen one, but I've seen temple paintings.”

Boldar paused, as if considering his words. “Other worlds live by other rules,” he began. “On Ast'hap'ut, they've had . . . dealings with these creatures. Ritual sacrifices and invocations, and a sort of worship.

“On other worlds they're considered creatures from a different energy plane.”

“Energy plane?” said Calis.

Miranda spoke. “A lot of beings exist out there in the universe in places that follow different rules than this world does, Calis. You've heard your father speak of the Dread?”

He nodded and no small number of the men made signs of protection against evil. “He defeated a Dread Master once.” The Dread were the stuff of legends, along with the Dragon Lords. The Dread were considered the mightiest of the creatures of the void, the soul-suckers and life-drainers. The tread of their foot withered the grass, and only the mightiest magic could defeat them.

“Well,” continued Miranda, “that creature out there, that demon, is similar; the universe it lives in is governed by different laws from our own.” She glanced back down the tunnel and said, “It's not as alien to our sense of how things work as the Dread may be, but it is different enough that its presence
means some very difficult days are ahead.”

“How did it come here?” asked Calis.

“I don't know,” Miranda answered. “Perhaps we'll find out ahead.” She pointed at the tunnel leading away from the struggle.

Calis nodded. “Let's go.”

He led the way, with Erik, Boldar, de Loungville, and the others trailing behind. “At least we understand why we found some untouched pockets of young here and there,” said de Loungville.

Erik nodded. “That thing is too big for some of the chambers.”

Boldar said, “It might not always have been that way.”

“What do you mean?” asked Calis, not stopping as he moved through the dark tunnel. They had returned to their single torch in the center of the line and Erik found it odd hearing his voice in the gloom.

“It may be that this creature slipped through a dimensional scission.”

“Scission?” said Calis.

“Rift,” supplied Miranda. “That might make sense. If a tiny demon came through unnoticed and spent some time gathering its strength, preying upon the unwary in these tunnels until it could raid the outlying crèches . . .”

“But that doesn't answer how it got here, or why,” said Calis.

They moved quickly down the tunnel until it suddenly emptied into a large chamber. A half-dozen other tunnels also entered, and before them rose up gigantic double doors of ancient wood.

The doors were open and they moved through the doorway into the biggest hall encountered so far.
Erik's eyes had difficulty understanding what he saw. It was a temple, but unlike any human temple he had ever encountered. “Mother of all gods!” said one of the men coming into the hall behind Erik.

A full hundred yards of floor stretched out before them, and everywhere they looked, torn and mutilated bodies were strewn. The stench was nearly overwhelming, even to men who had been smelling the stink of dead for days now.

A thousand torches had once lit the room to what must have been brilliance, but presently only one torch in ten still burned. The hall was rendered into gloomy darkness and flickering shadows that danced on every surface, giving the room an even more terrifying aspect than it would have held.

And that aspect would have been frightening at the light of noon.

The rear wall was cut to form a statue of heroic proportion. A regal-looking woman sat atop a throne, a figure measuring over one hundred feet from toe to crown. Her robes flowed down from her shoulders, leaving her breasts bare. In two arms she held life-size creatures, one obviously Pantathian, the other resembling the Saaur, though of smaller stature than any Saaur Erik had seen. The entire statue was green, as if cut from the largest single piece of jade in the universe.

Before her a huge pit yawned, and Erik picked his way through the litter of bodies to glance downward. “Gods!” he whispered.

He couldn't begin to estimate the number of humans who must have gone into that pit to fill it, because he had no concept of the depth. But just from what he could see, it had been a staggering population.
Then he realized the dark railing wasn't that color from paint or stain but from generations of human blood.

Boldar came forward and said, “This begs repayment. I thought you a rather cold-blooded crew when Miranda told me where we were headed and why, but now I understand why you must destroy these creatures.”

“This is only a part of it,” said Calis from behind. He pointed to cases used to display artifacts arrayed on both sides of the huge statue. “There. That is where we must go.”

Erik looked around. He didn't much like the idea of attempting to walk across the mountain of bones. Then he spied an entrance near the base of the pit. “Maybe that way?”

Calis nodded. “You, Boldar, and Miranda, with me.” To de Loungville he said, “Spread out the men and search. Anything that looks as if it might be remotely important is to be carried back here.”

Miranda said, “But carefully. Do not let alien devices or objects come into contact with one another.”

Boldar echoed that. “There can be nasty consequences if the wrong sorts of magic come into contact.”

De Loungville ordered the men to spread out, and torches were distributed so the men could have more light to inspect the ruins of this temple. Calis led the others to the small door Erik had seen, and it was indeed an access to the altar, so that they could get to the huge idol without crossing the pit.

As they reached the large dais upon which the idol sat, Calis motioned for Boldar and Erik to stand
back while he and Miranda cautiously approached the nearest case. Looking like nothing so much as bookcases, thought Erik, these were fashioned of stone, blackened by what he knew now to be centuries of human blood. He saw Miranda and Calis were indifferent to the cases. They studied the items displayed within them.

Erik didn't see anything remarkable about any of them; they mostly consisted of jewelry, a few weapons, and some other nondescript items. But Calis and Miranda approached them as if they were repositories of evil.

Quietly they looked, moving toward the cases and away, then barely touching them. Suddenly Calis said, “They are wrong!”

Miranda said, “Are you certain?”

“As I know my own heritage!” He picked up a dagger and said, “The helm that we carry brings sounds, tastes, ancient visions. There is nothing of that here.”

Miranda took another weapon, and examined it, then she tossed the shortsword to Erik, hilt first, and said, “Von Darkmoor: strike something.”

Erik glanced around, and saw nothing close by that looked a likely target. He moved to the other side of the huge idol and struck the edge of one of the large stone cases. The sword shattered as if it had been fashioned of base metal.