The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein (Mammoth Books) (65 page)

He framed her name with silent lips to feel its sound. “I’m called Dragar,” he told her. “My home lies among the mountains far south of here, though it’s been a few years since last I hunted with my clansmen. Wanderlust drew me away, and since then I’ve followed this banner or another’s – sometimes just the shadow of my own flapping cloak. Then, after hearing tales enough to dull my ears, I decided to see for myself if Carsultyal is the wonder men boast her to be. You a stranger here as well?”

She shook her head. When the colour returned to her cheeks, her face seemed less aloof.

“Thought you might be. Else you’d know better than to wander the
streets of Carsultyal after nightfall. Must be something important for you to take the risk.”

The lift of her shoulders was casual, though her face remained guarded. “No errand . . . but it was important to me.”

Dragar’s look was questioning.

“I wanted to . . . oh, just to be alone, to get away for a while. Lose myself, maybe – I don’t know. I didn’t think anyone would dare touch me if they knew who I was.”

“Your fame must be held somewhat less in awe among these gutter rats than you imagined,” offered Dragar wryly.

“All men fear the name of Kane!” Dessylyn shot back bitterly.

“Kane!” The name exploded from his lips in amazement.
What had this girl to do
. . .? But Dragar looked again at her sophisticated beauty, her luxurious attire, and understanding dawned. Angrily he became aware that the tavern uproar had become subdued on the echo of his outburst. Several faces had turned to him, their expressions uneasy, calculating.

The barbarian clapped a hand to his swordhilt. “Here’s a man who doesn’t fear a name!” he announced. “I’ve heard something of Carsultyal’s most dreaded sorcerer, but his name means less than a fart to me! There’s steel in this sword that can slice through the best your world-famed master smiths can forge, and it thrives on the gore of magicians. I call the blade Wizard’s Bane, and there are souls in Hell who will swear that its naming is no boast!”

Dessylyn stared at him in sudden fascination.

He looked up from his work and saw her standing there on the quay – watching him, her face a strange play of intensity and indecision. Mavrsal grunted in surprise and straightened from his carpentry. She might have been a phantom, so silently had she crept upon him.

“I had to see if . . . if you were all right,” Dessylyn told him with an uncertain smile.

“I am – aside from a crack on my skull,” Mavrsal answered, eyeing her dubiously.

By the dawnlight he had crawled from beneath the overturned furnishings of his cabin. Blood matted his thick hair at the back of his skull, and his head throbbed with a deafening ache, so that he had sat dumbly for a long while, trying to recollect the events of the night.
Something
had come through the door, had hurled him aside like a spurned doll. And the girl had vanished – carried off by the demon? Her warning had been for him; for herself she evidenced not fear, only resigned despair.

Or had some of his men returned to carry out their threats? Had too much wine, the blow on his head . . . ? But no, Mavrsal knew better. His assailants would have robbed him, made certain of his death – had any human agency attacked him. She had called herself a sorcerer’s mistress, and it had been sorcery that spread its black wings over his caravel. Now the girl had returned, and Mavrsal’s greeting was tempered by his awareness of the danger which shadowed her presence.

Dessylyn must have known his thoughts. She backed away, as if to turn and go.

“Wait!” he called suddenly.

“I don’t want to endanger you any further.”

Mavrsal’s quick temper responded. “Danger! Kane can bugger with his demons in Hell, for all I care! My skull was too thick for his creature to split, and if he wants to try his hand in person, I’m here to offer him the chance!”

There was gladness in her wide eyes as Dessylyn stepped toward him. “His necromancies have exhausted him,” she assured the other. “Kane will sleep for hours yet.”

Mavrsal handed her over the rail with rough gallantry. “Then perhaps you’ll join me in my cabin. It’s grown too dark for carpentry, and I’d like to talk with you. After last night, I think I deserve to have some questions answered, anyway.”

He struck fire to a lamp and turned to find her balanced at the edge of a chair, watching him nervously. “What sort of questions?” she asked in an uneasy tone.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

Mavrsal made a vague gesture. “Why everything. Why did you get involved with this sorcerer? Why does he hold to you, if you hate him so? Why can’t you leave him?”

She gave him a sad smile that left him feeling naive. “Kane is . . . a fascinating man; there is a certain magnetism about him. And I won’t deny the attraction his tremendous power and wealth held for me. Does it matter? It’s enough to say that there was a time when we met and I fell under Kane’s spell. It may be that I loved him once – but I’ve since hated too long and too deeply to remember.

“But Kane continues to love me in his way.
Love
! His is the love of a miser for his hoard, the love of a connoisseur for some exquisitely wrought carving, the love a spider feels for its imprisoned prey! I’m his treasure, his possession – and what concern are the feelings of a lifeless object to its owner? Would the curious circumstance that his prized statue might hate him lessen the pleasure its owner derives from its possession?

“And leave him?” Her voice broke. “By the gods, don’t you think I’ve tried?”

His thoughts in a turmoil, Mavrsal studied the girl’s haunted face. “But why accept defeat? Past failure doesn’t mean you can’t try again. If you’re free to roam the streets of Carsultyal at night, your feet can take you farther still. I see no chain clamped to that collar you wear.”

“Not all chains are visible.”

“So I’ve heard, though I’ve never believed it. A weak will can imagine its own fetters.”

“Kane won’t let me leave him.”

“Kane’s power doesn’t reach a tenth so far as he believes.”

“There are men who would dispute that, if the dead cared to share the wisdom that came to them too late.”

Challenge glinted in the girl’s green eyes as they held his. Mavrsal felt the spell of her beauty, and his manhood answered. “A ship sails where its master wills it – may the winds and the tides and perils of the sea be damned!”

Her face craned closer. Tendrils of her auburn hair touched his arm. “There is courage in your words. But you know little of Kane’s power.”

He laughed recklessly. “Let’s say I’m not cowed by his name.”

From the belt of her gown, Dessylyn unfastened a small scrip. She tossed the leather pouch toward him.

Catching it, Mavrsal untied the braided thong and dumped its contents onto his palm. His hand shook. Gleaming gemstones tumbled a
tiny rainbow, clattered onto the cabin table. In his hand lay a fortune in roughcut diamonds, emeralds, other precious stones.

Through their multihued reflections his face framed a question.

“I think there is enough to repair your ship, to pay her crew . . .” She paused; brighter flamed the challenge in her eyes. “Perhaps to buy my passage to a distant port – if you dare!”

The captain of the
Tuab
swore. “I meant what I said, girl! Give me another few days to refit her, and I’ll sail you to lands where no man has ever heard the name of Kane!”

“Later you may change your mind,” Dessylyn warned.

She rose from her chair. Mavrsal thought she meant to leave, but then he saw that her fingers had loosened other fastenings at her belt. His breath caught as the silken gown began to slip from her shoulders.

“I won’t change my mind,” he promised, understanding why Kane might go to any extreme to keep Dessylyn with him.

“Your skin is like the purest honey,” proclaimed Dragar ardently. “By the gods, I swear you even taste like honey!”

Dessylyn squirmed in pleasure and hugged the barbarian’s shaggy blond head to her breasts. After a moment she sighed and languorously pulled from his embrace. Sitting up, she brushed her slim fingers through the tousled auburn wave that cascaded over her bare shoulders and back, clung in damp curls to her flushed skin.

Dragar’s calloused hand imprisoned her slender wrist as she sought to rise from the rumpled bed. “Don’t prance away like a contrite virgin, girl. Your rider has dismounted but for a moment’s rest – then he’s ready to gallop through the palace gates another time or more, before the sun drops beneath the sea.”

“Pretty, but I have to go,” she protested. “Kane may grow suspicious . . .”

“Bugger Kane!” cursed Dragar, pulling the girl back against him. His thick arms locked about her, and their lips crushed savagely. Cupped over a small breast, his hand felt the pounding of her heart, and the youth laughed and tilted back her feverish face. “Now tell me you prefer Kane’s effete pawings to a man’s embrace!”

A frown drifted like a sudden thunderhead. “You underestimate Kane. He’s no soft-fleshed weakling.”

The youth snarled in jealousy. “A foul sorcerer who’s skulked in his tower no one knows how long! He’ll have dust for blood, and dry
rot in his bones! But go to him if you prefer his toothless kisses and withered loins!”

“No, dearest! Yours are the arms I love to lie within!” Dessylyn cried, entwining herself about him and soothing his anger with kisses. “It’s just that I’m frightened for you. Kane isn’t a withered greybeard. Except for the madness in his eyes, you would think Kane a hardened warrior in his prime. And you’ve more than his sorcery to fear. I’ve seen Kane kill with his sword – he’s a deadly fighter!”

Dragar snorted and stretched his brawny frame. “No warrior hides behind a magician’s robes. He’s but a name – an ogre’s name to frighten children into obedience. Well, I don’t fear his name, nor do I fear his magic, and my blade has drunk the blood of better swordsmen than your black-hearted tyrant ever was!”

“By the gods!” whispered Dessylyn, burrowing against his thick shoulder. “Why did fate throw me into Kane’s web instead of into your arms!”

“Fate is what man wills it. If you wish it, you are my woman now.”

“But Kane . . .!”

The barbarian leaped to his feet and glowered down at her. “Enough snivelling about Kane, girl! Do you love me or not?”

“Dragar, beloved, you know I love you! Haven’t these past days . . .”

“These past days have been filled with woeful whimperings about Kane, and my belly grows sick from hearing it! Forget Kane! I’m taking you from him, Dessylyn! For all her glorious legend and over-mighty towers, Carsultyal is a stinking pesthole like every other city I’ve known. Well, I’ll waste no more days here.

“I’ll ride from Carsultyal tomorrow, or take passage on a ship, perhaps. Go to some less stagnant land, where a bold man and a strong blade can win wealth and adventure! You’re going with me.”

“Can you mean it, Dragar?”

“If you think I lie, then stay behind.”

“Kane will follow.”

“Then he’ll lose his life along with his love!” sneered Dragar.

With confident hands, he slid from its scabbard his great sword of silver-blue metal. “See this blade,” he hissed, flourishing its massive length easily. “I call it Wizard’s Bane, and there’s reason to the name. Look at the blade. It’s steel, but not steel such as your secretive smiths forge in their dragon-breath furnaces. See the symbols carved into the forte. This blade has power! It was forged long ago by a master smith who used the glowing heart of a fallen star for his ore, who set runes of protection into the finished sword. Who wields Wizard’s Bane need not fear magic, for sorcery can have no power over him. My sword can
cleave through the hellish flesh of demons. It can ward off a sorcerer’s enchantments and skewer his evil heart!

“Let Kane send his demons to find us! My blade will shield us from his spells, and I’ll send his minions howling in fear back to his dread tower! Let him creep from his lair if he dares! I’ll feed him bits of his liver and laugh in his face while he dies!”

Dessylyn’s eyes brimmed with adoration. “You can do it, Dragar! You’re strong enough to take me from Kane! No man has your courage, beloved!”

The youth laughed and twisted her hair, “No man? What do you know of men? Did you think these spineless city-bred fops, who tremble at the shadow of a senile cuckold, were men? Think no more of slinking back to Kane’s tower before your keeper misses you. Tonight, girl, I’m going to show you how a
man
loves his woman!”