Soldier of the Legion (23 page)

“What did Longwalker see in the hive?”

“He found his way with fire into the House of the Living Dead. He fought the Beasts and freed the virgin and raised the Phantoms of the March,” the Loremaster repeated.

“What does it mean, ‘the Phantoms of the March’?”

The Loremaster’s face clouded over, impatiently. “The March of the Sun, Slayer. The Golden March, when the Men of the Sword carried their flags to the Southern Sea. This is the March—there is no other March.”

“But what does it mean—Phantoms of the March?”

“You have heard the Past, Starman. ‘He fought the Beasts and freed the virgin and raised the Phantoms of the March.’ I am only a Loremaster. I tell you the Past, as it was written. I cannot tell what it means. The Gods have the meaning—ask the Gods.”

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Moontouch appeared distressed that I was not satisfied with the Loremaster’s words. When we left him behind, she whispered to me, “Follow me, and trust me. I will take you into the past, and all your questions will be answered.”

She led us to what was clearly a secret place, a crumbling temple hidden behind whispering trees and a collapsed wall of green mossy stones near where the Library had been. Her Dark Cloud escorts waited outside the wall, but Moontouch motioned Dragon and me to follow her.

Deadeye waited with the others, but his face was dark. “Be careful, Slayer—guard your back!”

Moontouch ignored him. I knew the problem—it was sacred ground, the temple of the virgins, and no Taka man would dare set foot within these walls. But the rules didn’t apply to Dragon and me, creatures from another world.

A stone fountain stood, cold and dry, in a courtyard full of wild grass. It led up to a roofless building covered with wild flowers. Three silent Taka girls appeared from the shadows, blinking, wearing dark cloaks, golden slave necklaces at their throats. Moontouch turned, and spoke.

“My sisters,” she said. “Children of the Book. We live here, in the past. You two are travelers from the future. Be wary of the road—watch your footing.” Her eyes darted past mine, expressionless.

“And you,” I asked. “Are you also a child of the Book?”

“I am an interpreter,” she responded. “I am the delegate from the past—I am the voice of the dead.” A shaft of morning sunlight played with her face—skin of golden silk, high delicate cheekbones, her eyes flashing like black diamonds, her hair rippling over her shoulders.

The girls brought a black cloak for Moontouch. She slipped it on. Dragon warily watched the girls and the trees. One finger rested on the trigger of his E. I knew nothing would get past him.

They apparently lived here, in a cold damp chamber that still had a roof. The floor was covered with pillows and blankets of fine woven cloth and delicate jeweled scale-work, but the bare walls rotted with age and moisture.

The girls added some branches to a smouldering campfire in a corner, and wisps of blue smoke curled up to escape through a crack in the roof. An ancient slab of dark wood served as a table. The girls served a warm pink tea brewed from flowers, in tiny silvery cups. Moontouch raised her cup, and her eyes met mine.

“May you return.” She swallowed the tea in one gulp. I did the same. It was light and fragrant.

“You sure this is a good idea?” Dragon asked, hesitating.

“Try it,” I replied. “You want to live forever?” A private joke—Dragon had overused the phrase during our worst days in Hell. Dragon frowned, but downed his tea. The three slave girls gazed quietly at Dragon and me. Beautiful, tender children of the dark, blinking their eyes and wetting their lips with their tongues.

“Did the Loremaster tell us everything?” I asked Moontouch.

“Words,” she replied. “He is the fountain of words. He remembers all. He is the Book, and the History. He is the Master, and the Way. He looks into the past, and sees the future.”

She did not answer the question, I noted.

“What did you think of him, Dragon?” I asked.

“I think we can do just fine without his help.”

“Yeah, so do I,” I confessed.

“Let’s just forget him, all right?” Dragon urged me. “This was not one of your better ideas. I don’t believe a word the old creep says.”

But I could not forget the words. “Moontouch, tell me about the Woodmen.”

“Cutters of wood, Slayer. They dared the Forest of Bones, when the stars fell.”

“Can you tell me more about Longwalker, or Starlight?”

A cloud seemed to pass over her lovely features. “There is no more to tell. He was a mighty warrior, proud and fierce and strong. She was a virgin princess, and her beauty shamed the sun. Together they defied the Gods, and stopped the world in its tracks. Now they are dust.” Her eyes glimmered with unshed tears.

“The Loremaster said Longwalker ‘raised the Phantoms of the March’. What does it mean?”

“Words,” Moontouch replied. “Words have many meanings. Believe only what you can touch. Come with me, Slayer! Into the past, into the dust and the dark. I want to show you my world. I want to show you the Book. The Phantoms of the March are all around us. Come with me, and face the past. You can raise them yourself—now!” Proud, defiant, she got up and hugged her cloak around her tightly.

Such an invitation was not to be refused. I rose. Dragon started to get up, but the three slave girls put their slim arms around him invitingly—they wanted him to stay.

“Dragon should stay here, Slayer,” Moontouch commanded. “We are only shadows, but he is alive. He should not risk the wrath of the Gods.”

“It sounds shaky to me, Thinker,” Dragon said. “You should have some backup, and I’ll chance the wrath of the Gods.”

“It’s all right, Dragon,” I replied. “It sounds interesting, but she doesn’t want you along. You stay with the honeys. I’ll see what it is, and I’ll squawk if I need you.”

“She’s not all there, Thinker! You’d better be careful. Like Deadeye said, watch your back. You sure you don’t want me?”

“I’m sure. The girls should keep you amused. But stay alert!”

Dragon relaxed, and turned his attention to the girls. “Well, I’ll try to spread some goodwill. But keep in touch.”

“Tenners.”

A slick stone staircase descended into the cellars of the temple, covered with oozing green moss. Moontouch carried a torch of oil-soaked rags, just ahead of me. It smelled of ages long past, and things long dead.

“If you fall into the past,” Moontouch warned softly, “you may never come back.”

“I’ll be careful,” I replied. The staircase became circular, slowly coiling down into the black. I was conscious of the crackling of the torch, the grating of our feet on gritty wet stones and the drip of moisture from the ceiling. It was a lightless, dead world, cold and damp. Moontouch was my guide on this expedition into the past, a flickering shadow.

The staircase led to a gloomy hexagonal room of thick columns and stone walls, an empty doorway in each wall. The torch spat and hissed, and black shadows leaped wildly all around us.

“Which doorway?” I asked.

“Three of six,” Moontouch responded. “Three of six, where the stairwell ends.” She paused at one of the doorways. She turned to face me, and a fiery river of light from the torch flickered off her face. Her features glowed like a mirage, hovering in the dark. “The others lead to death. Follow me closely.”

A very narrow passageway led into the dark. I banged my head on the ceiling immediately, and had to crouch down to proceed. Moontouch proceeded ahead of me, with the torch.

Just when it was closing in on me, we came to another room, considerably smaller, roughly circular, with a roof close overhead. It filled with smoke from the torch. Moontouch laid a hand on my arm.

“Do not move, Slayer. Look at the floor.” She held the torch up, so I could see. Black pits, man-sized, set in the stones of the floor. Four of them.

“All right, now what?” Tons of stone surrounded us, and I hated it.

“Three of four, Slayer, in the room of pits. And the others lead to death.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” I hissed it, impatiently.

A phantom smile for an instant, flickering over her lips. “Follow me.” She chose one of the pits and jumped in, feet first.

Gone in a flash, taking the torch, the glow immediately faded from the pit, darkness rushed into the room.

“Oh, no!” I leaped for the pit and hurled myself in after her. She’s crazy! My back slammed against stone and I found myself sliding almost straight down, my boots scraping against slimy stone, something smashing against an elbow, a wild ride down the gullet of a great stone beast. I landed in a shallow pool of water with a splash, the orange glow of the torch flickering around me. Moontouch stood calmly before me, holding the torch high.

“Follow me, Slayer. The road to the past is long, and perilous.”

I got up, shaken. “Moontouch. Don’t do that again. Stay with me, can you?”

“We are together, Slayer, walking into worlds long gone. Slayer and Moontouch, phantoms in both worlds, shadows in the mist, walking with the living and the dead.”

Spooky!

Another long tunnel, cloaked in cold and rot, peeling walls and slimy floor, Moontouch’s torch flickering up ahead. We walked through endless rows of arches, built into the corridor. Between the arches, black rectangular openings lined the floor, all along both walls, hundreds of them. I did not want to know where they led.

Tired of all the mystery, I flicked on the light in my E, and the corridor lit up. Frozen in all its awful glory, every rotting little pebble glared white-hot in the light.

“No, Slayer! Turn it off! You will confuse me, and we will die!”

I killed the light, my eyes dazzled, slowly adjusting again to the smoky torchlight. She had sounded rather insistent about it. “I’m sorry, Moontouch. I wanted to help.”

“No help, please! This is my world, and you cannot help. I am counting, and if I count wrong, we die. Quietly now, follow me.”

“Thinker, Dragon. How about a sitrep?” My comset crackled suddenly. I had not contacted Dragon since my entry into the maze.

“Nothing to report, Dragon. How you?”

“I’m engaged in a little cross-planetary communication, Thinker. And I don’t want to hear ‘nothing to report.’”

“Don’t follow me in here, Dragon. No matter what happens.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s just that I would recommend the guided tour. Solo trips are not encouraged.”

“You call me when you need me, Thinker.”

“Tenners. Thinker out.”

Moontouch paused, one hand against the left wall, poking the torch down to examine the floor. Wisps of smoke curled all around her, and for a moment, in the dim, flickering light, she seemed trapped in some in-between dimension, not quite here, not quite there.

“We are here, Slayer.” She raised her eyes to mine, glowing, excited, transformed.

“Good. Where’s here?” I could see nothing except another stone arch just ahead, and another dark opening in the floor.

“This is the Gate to the Past. Twenty and six on the left, through the avenue of arches.”

“What if we kept going?” I asked. “What’s up there?”

“Death.”

“What if we chose another hole?”

“Death, Slayer.”

“And if you counted wrong?”

“Death.”

“Why don’t we go back and count it again, just to be sure?”

“No, Slayer. I am sure. Now you follow me. We must be quiet, for this is the realm of the gods.”

The slot in the floor was just barely wide enough. We faced another wild slide down into the unknown. Moontouch went first, with the torch—a rush of sparks, then blackness. Pausing at the abyss, I made the sign of the Legion, and released my grip.

A screaming adrenalin rush into the dark, things flashing past beside me, my arms gripped tightly around my E, hugging it to my chest. I landed suddenly, hard, in a soft orange glow. Moontouch stood beside me, a princess of fire in the dark, flames licking along the torch. Her black hood was thrown back, her lovely face revealed. Red-gold skin, eyes of ice, glowing, ecstatic, raising the torch.

“Look, Slayer. Look!” A fierce whisper.

The torchlight flickered softly in a large chamber; smoke stung my eyes and inky shadows teased my vision. An odd element wafted on the smoke, but then I glimpsed something to the right—against a wall, the glint of beaten gold, a faint dark line of steel. A yellowed skull, in the helmet of a King. A skeletal arm, revealed through fragments of rotted cloth. A hand of bones, grasping the pommel of a dark jeweled sword. A skeleton King, still on his throne, reigning over the Kingdom of the Dead.

Moontouch moved the torch. Another one, beside him, a warrior King, clothed in black rusted iron, a massive axe over his bony shoulder, the vacant sockets of his fragile skull staring into the ages. Once an unholy terror, his word was law, and a movement of his hand brought life, or death. Now his bones were turning to dust.

It was all fading into the dark—I could barely see in the dim, smoky light. A long line of Kings, still on their thrones. There was a hollow roaring in my ears and the chamber appeared to be slowly spinning around me. I shook my head to clear it.

The torch moved, the shadows moved, torchlight glittered off a floor covered with glorious relics from ages long lost to history; the opposite wall now came into view. Another Emperor of the Dark, another immortal, a grinning skull, holding court in a pile of dirt littered with ancient tools of war. And beside him, a skeleton Queen, clothed in gold and jewels. Had empires risen and fallen, at her whim? Now even her name was lost. A garland of fresh flowers hung from her tiara. Both walls were lined with the dead. A thrill of horror shot through my veins. I could hardly breathe the hot and musty air, and the smoke from the torch was really starting to bother me.

“The Tomb of the Kings,” Moontouch whispered. “They are all here, all the Kings and Queens of Southmark. They live still, here, in the past. I keep them alive.” Her face flushed and unshed tears gleamed in her eyes. She, a servant of the dead, a slave of the past, was helpless before the terrible bony fingers of those ancient Kings. I understood, completely. For I was a slave of the future. How strange that we should meet like this, in this holy place, in this faraway world.