The Quest of Kadji (12 page)

SHAMAD SPRANG to his feet and behind him the burly, blue-scaled form of his monstrous henchman also rose, snakelike eyes glittering with cold malice.

On the dais, the Ja Chan sat motionless, his rouged and painted face a mask of utter astonishment.

The taut silence that had gripped the hall while the spectre spoke ceased when Shamad sprang to his feet. It was as if by his sudden movement he had broken the spell that had long held the glittering and barbaric assemblage bound. They roared in one shattering crescendo of red rage. Tables went crashing over, swords were drawn in a hiss of steel against leather shouting men sprang up yelling for blood.

By his involuntary motion it seemed that Shamad had flinched from the accusation thus leveled at him from the very halls of the dead. If he had remained unmoving—if he had laughed—perhaps he could have retained his grip on the beliefs of the Horde chieftains. But the way he leaped to his feet had, somehow, betrayed his guilt. In an instant the Horde warriors’ realized how greatly they had been duped. Savages beneath their veneer of civilization, they roared for the blood of the impostor. In an instant the great room was a shambles. Wine lay spilt in spreading gouts, staining the marble pave with pools of scarlet, like blood. Platters of steaming meats went clanging to the floor and were trampled underfoot by angry men, blind with primal fury.

Upon the great dais of the Sun Throne the Ja Chan still had not moved or spoken. His face bore no expression at all, but in his little pig-eyes, as they looked upon Shamad, appeared a glint of relief and—
amusement!

It was even as Kadji had prophesied—no king willingly shares one jot of his, power with another. Not even with the holiest of priests or prophets.

Cold little eyes glinting with cruel satisfaction, the, Ja Chan watched the downfall of him who had pretended to be the Masked Prophet of Kamon-Thaa.

AS FOR Kadji, he had been ready for the moment of his triumph. Even as the first enraged Hordesmen had surged for the chair whereby the false Prophet still stood, the lithe figure of the Red Hawk of the Chayyhn Kozanga Nomads had hurtled to their front From under his uniform tunic he brought forth the Axe of his God and brandished it high.

In the light of ten thousand candles, the Axe of Thom-Ra flashed blindingly as a slice of sun.

And, of all those gathered in that hall, only Shamad recognized it.

The dais whereupon rose the chair of the Prophet towered high above the hall, almost as high as the Sun Throne itself. Six steps led to the summit of the dais where Shamad and Zamog stood facing throng of angry men howling for bloodthirsty vengeance.

Kadjj was the first to reach the foot of that dais and as he went leaping up to where Shamad stood he lifted his young voice in a great cry.

In all that place, only Shamad knew the war challenge of the Chayyim Kozanga when he heard it bayed forth.

In a flash—in an instant—Shamad realized how he had been tricked, and by whom. Oh, doubtless he did not know the name of Kadji Red Hawk, but the pale stern features of the boy warrior; his shock of sunny hair, the fierce exultation in the clear gaze of the youth, told Shamad all he needed to know.

They say on the plains that the vengeance of the Kozanga Nomads has an arm long enough to reach from World’s Edge to World’s Edge. In this swift moment, Shamad realized the truth of that saying, as he stared down frozen into the hawk-bright eyes of Kadji and saw the Sacred Axe glitter through the smoky air as it flashed to sever his throat.

But Shamad the Impostor had been raised in a hard school. They who live by their wits alone—by lie, deception, and deceit—learn early to ward against every turn of the dice or do not survive. And Shamad had survived tighter traps than this. From amidst the very stronghold of his foes, in golden Khôr, he had eluded the assassin’s blade, the watchful eye of the plotters, and the armed hosts who would cut him down, to slink forth in secret when all men thought him safely dead.

As the Axe sped for his throat Shamad touched gloved hands together and then stretched them wide, uttering a guttural Word. From charmed sigil rings which had met when his hands were pressed together—sparks of supernal fire flashed!

Floating in thin air between his parted hands appeared a spinning globe of white fire!

Brilliant beyond a thousand suns it blazed! Scorching rays seared deep into Kadji’s eyes—he cried out, squeezing shut eyes which watered now from the stab of agony that bit through his very brain. It was as if fiery needles were suddenly thrust through and through his head.

His charge wavered and failed. He lurched to one side, stumbled, and fell.

The flame globe floated up over the throng—and burst!

Light—light—intolerable
light
drenched the hall of the feasting.

And then the darkness came down on them all. Black and deep, as if the ten thousand candles that flared this night to aid the Moon Gods against the Darkness Demon had blown out.

And the hall was filled with men who cursed and cried out and staggered and stumbled, blundering into each other and into the furniture.

They were all struck blind.

THE TOUCH of the wet rag was soothing to his aching eyes. Kadji huddled against the alley wall and drew in sobbing breaths as the, old Easterling wizard bathed his red and bleared eyes with cold water. Old Akthoob made soft, clucking sounds of sympathy as the boy warrior sobbed raggedly.

“So close . . . so very close!
Agh
, Mother Chaya! He was . . . within my grasp! . . . Gods . . . another moment more,” the youth wept.

All around them surged the sound of tumult and battle. Several buildings were aflame and corpses hung from rude, improvised gibbets at the head of every street. Rioting had spread through the capital all night long. Men said the treasury had been sacked—the Ja Chan still lived, but had withdrawn into the inner citadel of his palace to consult with the Gods, leaving the city to his roaring warriors who were drunk on the wine of fury and howled for blood like ravening madmen.

Most men within the city had been struck temporarily blind in that same terrible instant the Flame Globe leaped from the hands of the false Prophet.

Driven mad by the sacrilege of the Impostor, tormented by the agony of their seared and sightless eyes, the Hordesmen had gone wild, rampaging through the streets slaying all whom they encountered. As the hours of night crept on toward morning, it was learned that the magic darkness was a passing thing. But even this did little to assuage the wild drunken fury of the deluded warriors. As Shamad had been an outlander, a white-skinned Westerling, some had seized upon the notion that the imposture was a Westerling plot. This had been shouted out, and it had been like a lighted match touched to a lake of oil. The Horde chieftains had come boiling out of the palace roaring against treason and treachery, thundering through the barracks of the Westerling mercenaries to burn and slay.

The Westerlings, struck blind by the same magic, had fought back, thinking their own blindness the magic of the treacherous Easterlings. Blind armies locked in furious battle had crushed and howled through the streets, slaughtering each other in their madness.

Now buildings were seething infernos and streets were choked with rubble, with hasty barricades, with sprawled and crimson-splashed corpses. The black sky was crimsonly underlit with the glare of flaming palaces.

And thus it was that the vain imperial dreams of the Ja Chan died in one terrible night of slaughter and madness and destruction. Even if he survived the riot, his throne intact, the Ja Chan could not again dare dream of his lost empire . . .

OLD AKTHOOB gently dried Kadji’s wet eyes and applied a soothing ointment from his sachel.

Exhausted, his emotions drained, Kadji huddled like a bundle of soiled rags against the alley wall, staring wearily at the dawn-smudged sky.

The agony of blindness had passed. He could see, although it would be days before his tortured eyes regained once more the hawklike fierceness they had known. Somehow, although as blind as he, the old Easterling wizard had gotten the sightless and trampled boy out of the riot-torn palace and to a safe haven. Kadji laid a hand on the old man’s shoulder by way of thanks.

“And . . . Shamad?” he asked tiredly.

“Gone . . . gone. Vanished into the night, no man knows how or whither,” Akthoob sighed.

“So the road goes on,” Kadji whispered.

“Aye.”

“Will I ever bring him to swordpoint? Will he always elude my vengeance with his clever tricks?” the boy wondered dully.

The old man chuckled.

“He has not much farther to run, young sir, so this humble person dares to suggest the noble youth will set his back against the wall at last, ere long. For naught lies beyond here save for the measureless sands of a great waste . . . waves of desolation like a bitter and lifeless sea that wash across the leagues to break at last at the world’s very Edge! Beyond World’s Edge even the cunning Impostor cannot go. . . .”

“I wonder,” said Kadji.

“It is truth, young sir. But come! It is death to linger here now that men are beginning to recover from their blindness. The Hordes are slaughtering all Westerlings this night. We must be up and on our way . . . this cowl will mask your white skin from any suspicious eye . . . we must forth to the inn for our ponies, and thence from the gates of Chemedis, and forth on the track of the Impostor before the world’s an hour older.”

AND THOSE things were done, and as Kylix the sun star rose up over the Edge of this world of Gulzund the two adventurers rode forth from the broken walls of Chemedis into the morning.

Far ahead of them some where rode Shamad, accompanied by his monstrous servant.

And one other rode fast and far. For hard on the heels of the fleeing Impostor rode a young girl with flamegold hair, mounted on a great horse, with a grey plains-wolf loping by her side.

For Thyra alone had observed the flight of Shamad. Perhaps the magic powers invested in her by the White Witches of Zoromesh had been strong enough to shield her from the blinding beams of the Flame Globe. At any rate she had seen the false Prophet and his dragonish henchman as they fled into the early dawn, and the fiamehaired girl had followed not far behind.

This was not known to Kadji.

Neither was it known to Shamad.

But they were destined to meet together, all of them, at World’s End.

THE ROAD TO

WORLD’S END

Ah, it must be a pleasant thing,

To drink and feast the night away!

But we with empty bellies sing,

And ride all night-to fight all day!

—
Road Song of the Kozanga Nomads

THE HILLS rose, rounded hummocks of grey earth, like the knees of giants, and beyond them to the east, like the giants themselves, huge bumped mountains thrust up athwart the sky. They were old and tired, those mountains, and the wind and weather of millions of years had worn their sharp spires and bladelike crags to smooth rondures.

The mountains marched from north to south, cutting across the drear wastes that lay to the east of Chemedis, and they made an all but impassable barrier to any traveler who dared to venture further east than this, But the flamehaired girl had traversed many thousand leagues of the world on the track of Shamad the Impostor, and mere mountains were not enough to stop her now.

Twilight was falling; the sky darkened slowly. She tugged at the reins and turned the nose of her steed about and thumped her heels in the horse’s ribs to spur the weary stumbling steps. Night must not take them here in the waste; higher up in the mountain country they could perhaps find shelter from the creatures which rumour whispered dwelt about and made the night hideous with their cries.

The old, worn map she had borne with her all the way from Zoromesh on the other side of the world, and which still lay folded and tucked in her sash, told of a safe pass through the wall of mountains that marched down from the ultimate pole. The Khondru, it was called. From here she could almost see it, a notch cut by the Gods in the granite wall that locked the east away behind the frowning ramparts of worn old stone.

At the heels of her steed the great plains-wolf loped, but he too was very weary. His tongue hung from between open, panting jaws, and his plume of a tail dragged in the dust. But he did not desert her side: like, a gliding phantom, silent as a grey shadow the wolf slunk after her, lambent eyes of gold flame blazing through the murk of dusk.

She took an ancient track that rose slowly toward the mouth of the pass, winding between the rounded hills. The mare cantered along slowly, lathered and weary. The girl, Thyra, was weary too, aye, bone-weary with hard riding, but she could not let them rest—not here—not yet.

The world darkened around them. The road lifted under them, and the Khondru grew larger till it loomed mighty through the dusk, like the portal of some unknown world, pillared with darkness.

Beyond the pass the plain stretched away east to the Edge of the World. There was naught to see, for night was upon them now and the first of the Seven Moons of Gulzund trembled on the edge of the sky, an orb of dim opal light.

Thyra made camp in the foothills beyond the world-separating range of mountains. She gathered dry dead brush and touched it to crackling flame with a Word she, had learned in young girlhood from the White Witches of her homeland. The wickerwork pannier slung across the withers of the grey mare held provisions for many days; dried meat and rank green cheese, black coarse bread and a strong dark wine that had honey in its heart and left the taste of forgotten summer on her tongue.

Wrapped in a fringed and hooded cloak, huddled near the fire for warmth, Thyra munched down bread and cheese, sharing the meat with Bazan the grey wolf. Behind her back, warm and breathing hoarsely, the mare crunched and mumbled its portion of grain.

Even in Chemedis, Thyra had taken precautions of keeping fresh foodstores packed and ready against the need for immediate departure. She knew the wily and cunning ways of Shamad the Impostor; thrice he had eluded her ere this. He had a talent for slipping away suddenly from the center of things; she had resolved that never again should he catch her napping and unprepared.

Finishing her rough meal, the young girl leaned back against the haunches of the mare and stretched out her booted legs wearily, drinking the dark honeyed wine. Thinking of Shamad made her think of Kadji. She wondered what had become of him. She remembered everything about him, his clear and fearless blue eyes, his shock of bright gold hair, the warm tenor of his voice, the way his eyes crinkled when he grinned, the sound of his laughter. Her face expressionless, the flamehaired girl thought back over the list of days to the time he had come to her rescue on the plain, joining the fight against the wolves in the whirling snow . . . and how gloriously he had battled against the villainous treachery of the Perushka at the ambush after leaving golden Khôr.

Her smoky, amber-flaked eyes fathomless, the girl brooded, staring deep into the crackling flames of her small fire.

Kadji . . . Kadji!

She remembered the clean-limbed strength of his young body when she had tended him during the dark time in the cave when he hovered on the brink of death and only her witch arts had stood between the Nomad youth and the Great Shadow. She had handled his body with hands tender yet impersonal, cleansing him, tending to his bodily needs as he lay helpless, raving . . . her Vows she had kept ever in mind during the proximity forced upon them by the smallness of the cramped cave and the cold inhospitality of winter . . . but she was very young and she was very much a woman, and she could not shut out of her mind and heart the strong young manhood of him, or the masculine beauty of his body.

She thought of him now with an odd mixture of tenderness and stubborn anger, remembering how he had seemed to spur her timorous, tentative advances. She had been half a traitor to her own Vows in allowing herself to think of him as a woman though of a man . . . surely, he had no such soul-sworn oaths to restrain him from thinking her desirable! But he had spurned her overtures coldly and without interest . . .
Kadji!

These thoughts, burning through her heart, made her, ignore the sudden stillness of Bazan at her side, and the sudden tension in the air, until the grey wolf growled, She looked up into the cold, cruel eyes of scarlet flame that glared down at her from the black form that towered up against the night.

HE WAS all packed and ready and eager to be gone. In his urgency, Shamad begrudged even the little interval of time during which they had rested and eaten and fed the horses. He paced up and down beside the small fire, impatiently flicking his boots with a riding-crop, turning his coldly handsome face to the darkness beyond at every fancied stir or movement.

Flight had become a way of life to him now; but soon—very soon—he would no longer have to flee. Shamad smiled at the thought and stood motionless, gaze turned inward as if contemplating a golden future. Even in repose he betrayed himself, however. A small nerve jumped at the corner of his mouth, and there were lines of strain etched about his eyes. Those eyes had the fixed glare of a madman, inwardly consumed, burning. His wild eyes, stark in the tragic beauty of his perfect features, formed a fearful contrast. Even motionless, his body as well seemed to strain in tension.

“Lord?”

The deep sibilant voice spoke from the dark shadows beyond the circle of light shed by the campfire. Shamad snarled a curse—turned his wild haggard eyes toward the source of the voice—then stiffened again as he saw what his slave had found.

The Dragonman knelt and lay Thyra’s body on the sand. Her face was white and still, like a mask of carven alabaster. The flame of her hair lay about her thickly, glowing with burnished highlights in the fire’s illumination. Shamad mouthed an obscene word and bent to look more closely at the girl who lay dead or unconscious.

Zamog had brought the horse as well. The mare’s eyes rolled nervously, showing the whites, and it snorted and tugged, trying to drag its reins from the grip of the manlike thing that held them. Perhaps the mare’s velvet nostrils found the snaky odor of his monstrousness repulsive.

Shamad looked the girl over, eyeing the firm rondure of her proud young breasts. They rose and fell, straining the fabric of her tunic, as she breathed shallowly. She yet lived, it would seem.

He barked a query at the Dragonman.

“Where?”

“In the foothills, some ways behind us. There was a dog or wolf with her but it feared me and fled away in the night,” the scaly monsterling said solemnly.

The Impostor grunted. “What of the warrior boy and the old wizard?”

Zamog shrugged, a heaving of broad, apeish shoulders. Firelight glinted on the edges of his scales. His body was entirely scaled, like a serpent, but the scales were different in size and texture. Those on his back and shoulders and upper chest were broad horny plates, tough and thick. They narrowed to fine-grained texture on his face and belly and throat.

“No sign of them, and from the tracks in the sand, they did not accompany her. I wish I could have killed the dog . . .”

“I wish you had, now it has gotten away and may find the others,” Sharnad said coldly. “They will know something is wrong, for the brute would not willingly have left her side. Odd that it did not fight you.”

The blunt-nose, slope-browed face of the monsterling was inscrutable, scarlet eyes inhuman and feral in the glow of the fire. “Dogs do not like me,” he grunted slowly. “Something about me strikes them mad with terror . . .”

“Your smell, I suppose,” said Shamad carelessly. “Well, at least you were wise enough to take the horse. We can use it to carry our gear, and we can use whatever provisions the girl had with her . . . what did you do to her anyway?”

The monster man shrugged and spread blunt-clawed hands wide.

“She did not move after she saw me. I think terror froze her at the sight of me. So I struck her at the base of the neck and she fell. I was afraid she would cry out and warn the others, for I did not at first realize they were not near. I did not kill her . . .”

Shamad smiled fleetingly. “A good thing you did not! Or I would have made you suffer pain, as I did that time you slew the old noble to get his keys. Do you remember how I bound you to the post and hurt you with hot coals?”

The monsterling’s eyes were dull and opaque, and his voice was heavy and lifeless. “I remember.”

“Very well; keep it in mind, and do not harm the girl. We shall take her with us.”

Zamog stirred uncomfortably.

“Why do we need the girl?” he inquired.

Shamad laughed. “You do not need her, but I do! I have not had a woman in many weeks. Also, if the others catch up with us, we can use her as hostage. The boy warrior is chivalrous and noble of heart . . . I think he would not like to see me do to the girl what I did to you that time with the burning coals. I think he will lay down his sword and let me take him, to spare her the pain. Then you can kill him—as slowly as you wish!”

The Dragonman flexed his massive hands slowly.

“I like to kill men,” he said thoughtfully.

“I know you do, you ugly beast!” Shamad laughed. “It gives you the same pleasure that I take from women, I have often thought. Well, we are wasting time. Pleasures can come later . . . I would like to put a league between myself and that Nomad boy before day breaks. Saddle up, and put the girl behind you. Bind her wrists together at your belly so she cannot get free when she awakens. And let us be gone, for the love of the Gods! These hills are not healthy at night.”

A few moments later they rode on. The fourth moon was above the horizon by now and the desert beyond the low humped hills was awash in hazy shifting shadows. The young moon peered down with cold curiosity as the man and the monster and their captive rode straight across the soft sands into the east and vanished slowly from the sight of any eye but hers.

THE OLD Easterling wizard was brewing herb tea over the small fire, stirring the steaming fluid in a small iron pot with along-handled spoon of carved horn and sniffing in the rich aromatic fragrance with sleepy pleasure when the thing came out of the darkness toward them.

They had ridden hard, to the edge of their horses’ endurance, and a while ago they had made a rude camp amidst the waste. Now they had eaten and, while old Akthoob brewed his tea, the boy Kadji rested, sprawled out on his blankets, using the saddle as a sort of pillow. Behind him in the lengthening shadows, his black Feridoon pony and the old wizard’s steed munched dried grain from leather feedbags.

The first two moons had just arisen to tremble like orbs of magical colored light on the dim horizon, when the shadowy shape came without a sound out of the blackness of night to stand before them.

It was a great grey shaggy brute with scarlet, lolling tongue and glistening white fangs, and it was enormous—almost as big as the young Nomad warrior himself.

Akthoob uttered a shocked squeal and knocked his herb tea, pot, spoon and all, into the small turf fire.

Kadji sprang to his feet, snatching at his weapons. Then he stayed his hand, for the shaggy grey animal was not making any signs of attack. And it looked familiar. . . .

He stared into the lambent golden eyes of the creature and whispered a name, “Bazan!”

The grey plains-wolf whined deep in his throat and wagged the shadowy plume of his tail, for all the world like a gigantic dog.

“Kill it—kill it!” old Akthoob squeaked, fluttering his bony hands nervously as if hoping to shoo the wolf away. Then he paused, blinking owlishly at the beast, which had padded over to kneel at Kadji’s feet. Akthoob sucked in his breath between his teeth with a little whistling sound as, greatly daring, the boy warrior bent slowly and scratched his fingers deep in the thick coarse fur that grew behind the wolf’s pointed ears.

The long pink tongue came lolling out and timidly licked the boy’s wrist.

“It
is
Bazan,” said Kadji slowly, trying to keep the tense excitement out of his voice. “It
must
be! The plains-wolves do not roam these far wastes at the World’s Edge . . . and if it is not Thyra’s pet, why should a strange plains-wolf be so friendly . . . or be here at all, a thousand leagues and more from the habitat of his own kind?”

Akthoob blinked nervously, but was forced to admit that the beast bore much resemblance to the tame wolf who had followed the flamehaired girl.

“It knows the smell of my body from the weeks we dwelt together in the cave, that time I lay sorely injured and close to the black gates of Death,” the boy reasoned. “It knows me for a friend—but why has Bazan left the side of his mistress?”

The old Easterling wizard cleared his throat with a dry cough. “This humble person might suggest that, uh, the honorable lady has met with an accident . . . some enemy, perchance . . .”

The firelight flared in Kadji’s eyes. He chewed restlessly on his knuckles.

“You may be right, old man. Shamad is somewhere in this waste of dreary sand . . .”

“Ay, young sir! But it need not he him we seek has harmed or captured the flamehaired one. There are beasts haunt these desolate wastes at the World’s Edge. Aye, and the shades of long-dead men roam the shadowy margins of the world, if old tales be true . . .”

“Well, whatever has become of Thyra, her wolf will lead us to where she lies,” the boy warrior said. If hurt or—or—slain,” the youth gulped, choking a little on the word, “Bazan will guide us to the spot. And if taken captive by Shamad or by some other, the wolf will aid us in tracking her and her captors, as he can follow her scent.”

Old Akthoob wearily agreed. “But on the morrow, surely! These old bones ache from hours in the saddle, and the horses are worn to their limit and must rest!”

Reluctantly, Kadji permitted himself to be persuaded, although every fibre of his hot young heart urged him to ride forth into the night on the trail of the flamehaired girl. But he knew it was not a wise course, for if pressed beyond their endurance, the steeds would founder and they must thence forward attempt the crossing of the waste afoot, which were very great folly.