The Starfollowers of Coramonde (42 page)

One figure
broke formation and advanced. He was wearing panoply that had once been rich
and burnished, beautiful to see. Now it was green, crumbling with age. He sat a
cadaver-horse, whose eyes were lit like its rider’s. A reek of charnel decay
wafted from them both.

Springbuck’s
skin crawled as if it were too tight on his bones. Fireheel snorted and dug at
the sooty ground. The corpse was implacable and unhurried. Springbuck’s horror
fought hard to take control of him. The face he saw was rotting, areas of bleached
skull showing through. The voice, when it came, was toneless, a whispering
rattle from a throat-box long unused.

It said,
“Where your horses’ hooves stand, that is as far as you ever go toward
Shardishku-Salamá.”

With defiance
he didn’t feel, the
Ku-Mor-Mai
answered, “That has been said before. We
have come for our just returns.”

The
whisper-rattle came so mutedly that they had to bend forward to hear. “We tend
the affairs of the ages here. Die.”

There was the
metallic complaint of its sword, grating out of its sheath.

“Back to
ranks!” shouted the
Ku-Mor-Mai.
All four of them yanked their reins, and
rushed madly back in a shower of soot. Hysteria went at their backs. What good
would lancers, swordsmen, war-drays and warrior-sisters do, when their opponents
were already slain? Springbuck cast one look backward, and shrank from what he
saw. The corpse-army was coming on, not slowly and not quickly, but
irresistibly.

When
Springbuck and the others reached their own lines, their enemies had covered
half the distance in pursuit. The
Ku-Mor-Mai
snapped orders to arrange
his formation. He’d thought for a moment of withdrawing, but to what avail? The
dead would never tire or pause; they’d simply roll across the plain until they
eventually engulfed their exhausted enemies.

He explained
quickly what they faced. “Gabrielle, can you do anything?”

She balanced
the Crook in her hand and traded glances with Andre. “I do not know,” she
confessed, “how can one affect shadows and carrion-meat?”

Springbuck
racked his brain for a way to stave off that attack or escape it. Then, on his
own, Fireheel caracoled, and again, turning and rearing at the onrushing Host,
whistling his fierce invitation. He didn’t care who was coming; the gray only
wanted the chance to fight.

Springbuck
whipped Bar, the Obstructor, from its scabbard; the sword left a white swath of
light in the gray air. Hightower bellowed invective of his own, sweeping free
his two-handed greatsword. Red Pilgrim came up, and Blazetongue and the myriad
weapons of the Crescent Lands. Some found comfort in a gesture, crouching
behind lances or dropping visors. Others just eyed the Host, seeing that the
die was cast, and accepted it in their hearts.

The Host of
the Grave made little sound, riding as if from nightmare. The living dreaded
their touch more than the bite of their swords, but spurred their horses on.

That singular
onset began, men and women in death-lock combat with corpses. Beyond the
desolation, in timeless Shardishku-Salamá, the Five, assured and imperturbable,
awaited the battle’s inevitable outcome.

Symmetries of the
Firmament

Pale Anguish keeps the heavy
gate

And the Warder is Despair

Oscar Wilde

“The Ballad of Reading Gaol”

GIL MacDonald passed some intangible
landmark that told him he was leaving behind something too sinister to be
called unconsciousness. He felt excruciating pain in his eyes.

He tried to
move, but couldn’t, and so tried some more. In the end he did, but his fumbling
hands were slapped away brutally. The pain returned. He tugged, tossing his
head, fighting blindly. There were immovably strong hands clamping his head
steady, thumbs pressing in at his eyeballs. He thrashed, moaned, and the hands
retreated at last. Much of the pain remained. He rubbed his tortured eyes, and
finally blinked them open.

Light blinded
him. Peering through the narrowest slits he could manage, he saw a room in
darkness, but he lay in a cone of light. Beneath him, he felt rough stone. He
heard a raspy voice he didn’t like at all. “You see, my Lord? Enough pressure
on the eyes would awaken a man even from the Dreamdrowse.”

A second
voice spoke. “Adequate, Flaycraft.” The tone was placid, fear-provoking, as the
cold malice of a snake. Shapes wobbled into definition. The first person Gil
saw was the closest. He shook his head, disbelieving. This one was of the tribe
of man, maybe, but a simian extreme. Squat, with long, shaggy brown hair that
was almost a pelt, he slouched, bandy-legged. He was heavy with muscle, beady-eyed
beneath ridges of thick bone. His fingers were long, hirsute and black-nailed.
From him came the odors of instinct, of life at animal level. It came as no
surprise than he was unclothed.

Gil tracked
his gaze to the other, making himself confront him. Yardiff Bey was calm,
secure in his own environment. The cold ocular shone in the dark room; Bey’s
face held an icy pleasure.

Gil’s stomach
contorted in fear, and his bowels threatened rebellion. He doubled over for a
moment, but the spasm passed. He couldn’t imagine how long he’d been out. He
sat up and swung his legs around. He was sitting on a stone slab that managed
to combine the clinical with the sacrificial. His head spun, and he could see
nothing outside the cone of light.

Yardiff Bey
watched the play of the outlander’s thoughts, each predicted, in sequence. The
last of them, renewed fear, pleased the sorcerer. The creature, whom Gil took
to be Flaycraft, was toying with something on his chest, a necklace. Gil saw it
was the Ace of Swords, on its chain. Flaycraft grinned, displaying long yellow
canines.

Gil lurched,
grabbing for his tarot. “Okay, ape-guts; give it here.” Weak, he lost balance.
Flaycraft, shorter than the American but broader, eluded him easily and kicked
him as he went down. He curled up and groaned. The beast-man seized him by his
hair, yanked him to his feet, flung him back on the slab. Gil filed the
information that Flaycraft was one strong animal.

“So, that is
your tarot now?” Bey asked. “The Ace of Swords? Reversed, I should think.”

Gil rubbed
his aching head. “Where’s Dunstan?” he managed.

“Near.”
Something like a smile crossed Bey’s face. At his side hung Dirge, recovered,
apparently, from the wounded Acre-Fin. Those events all came back in a jumble.

The sorcerer
purred. “You do Dunstan and yourself ill service by being difficult. The
regimen here is strictest compliance; punishment is Flaycraft’s trade. You
erred in going against me and the convections of destiny. Your friend’s
well-being as much as your own rests in your submission.”

The
dark-robed Hand of Shardishku-Salamá glided away, silent and stately as a
manta-ray in deep water. Gil wanted to answer, but was preoccupied with the
twin assertions that his friend was alive and that he, Gil, must behave. It
begged the question, why was he still alive? The sorcerer would only tolerate
him for some well-defined purpose, and was obviously using the Horseblooded for
leverage.
Goddam Bey, always knows just which button to push!

Flaycraft
watched him now, a cat with a new mouse.
Got a crazy one here,
Gil
reminded himself. The beast-man caught his arm in an excruciating grip, shaking
him like a doll. “Disobey once, I entreat you. Then, I can school you in
lessons of torment. Already, I have taught your friend Dunstan!”

He let go.
Gil’s arm throbbed from that one brief squeeze. Flaycraft went off behind his
patron. Gil wobbled after them a few steps, stopping at the edge of light. He
saw Bey framed in orange radiance at the end of a passageway. Flaycraft went to
stand by his side. Yardiff Bey waved a hand, and the passageway walls rumbled
inward. In seconds, the corridor had contracted shut with a vibration that
traveled through the floor.

Gil took a
few steps, groping at the blank wall. All he could feel was solid rock, nicked
and chipped by ancient tooling. He blinked up owlishly at the light, but it was
far overhead; he couldn’t make out just what it was or how it worked.

Then he
realized he wasn’t alone. In the silence left by the closure of the passageway,
he heard breathing. He edged back to the slab. His pulse pounded behind his
ears and beat at his temples.

“There isn’t
cause for alarm, Gil MacDonald. This is a sad thing, seeing you here.”

Gil strained
to see. The voice had been quiet, familiar. “Dunstan? Hey, Dunstan?”

“Yes, I, my
friend.” Gil stumbled into the dark again, tracing the words. “Just ahead of
you. Pause a moment, sit, accustom your eyes to the dark.”

Gil felt his
way to the wall. A low shelf, like a bench cut from stone, ran along it. He
sat. Gradually, he made out his friend’s outline. Dunstan was seated with his
back to the wall, vague in the dim wash of the beam focused on the slab.
Finding Dunstan lifted some of his anguish and fright, but robbed him of words.
He blurted, “Oh man, man, I’m sorry. I was going to spring you, but I screwed
it up good.”

He couldn’t
see the Horseblooded’s wan smile, but heard it in his tone. “Berating yourself
is unfair. Few men ever came alive to Shardishku-Salamá; none ever imposed his
will here.”

“Salamá? This
is it? Lay it out for me a bit at a time, okay?”

“You broach
two long and separate stories.”

“Oh. Look,
let’s go back into the light, huh? I’m not much for the dark, personally.” He
labored to his feet, but Dunstan stayed seated. “What’s wrong?”

The other was
long in answering. “I have been confined here far longer than you, Gil. Bey
proved his genius, restraining and punishing me with a single spell.”

Gil groped
for him. “What are you, tied or something? Maybe I can—” He snatched his hands
away.
“Oh, sweet Jesus Christ!”
He’d felt down the Horseblooded’s arms
for shackles or bonds, but where the wrists should have been, he’d felt only
columns of stone. He touched again, gingerly. “Dunstan, your arms; what’s wrong
with your—”

“Not arms
alone. It’s as I said. Yardiff Bey fettered me by his arts, as only he would
think to do.”

It was true.
The flesh of Dunstan’s arms gave way to cold stone, and his legs were the same.
The sorcerer had joined him to the perpetual custody of naked rock. Gil backed
away and sat, head hung in defeat. “How long have you been like this?”

“I do not
know, and do not wish to. My foremost aspiration has been to forget time. I
think I was close to success, but perhaps I was only on the rim of madness. I
am in no pain, and hunger and thirst do not come to me, nor any agony of the
body. But the unknown progress of time, that was a terrible affliction.”

Gil began to
tremble. “Does that mean I’m gonna be… will he do that to me?” He was ashamed,
but it was his overriding thought and stark terror.

“I think not.
You were awakened for a different purpose than torment.”

Awakened?
The last thing he recalled, and that none too clearly, Bey had plucked him up.
He’d thought he’d recognized an astounded Andre deCourteney. Then something had
hit him like megavoltage.

“Dunstan,
I’ve been down for the long count, haven’t I?”

“Yes. You
were brought to Salamá unliving, I understand. I only heard a little besides
what passed between Bey and Flaycraft. A mystic bolt and a Dismissal struck you
concurrently, and balanced one another.”

“I died?”

“No, you are
no ghost. Magics in contention will eliminate first those elements common to
both. When those forces are canceled, the remaining energies compete. But in
your case, both the bolt and the Dismissal were Andre’s, and held all forces in
common. Thus, all energies, all influences, were neutralized. All activity
stopped; you were neither dead nor alive, until Yardiff Bey quickened your life
once again. There is one who wishes to speak with you, you see.”

“With me?
Who?”

“His name is
Evergray. He is a Lord of Shardishku-Salamá; not one of the Masters, but high
in authority.”

“And he’s why
Bey brought me around? But what’s it for?”

Dunstan
sighed, resting his head on the stone behind him. “After Yardiff Bey captured
me, he fled to Death’s Hold in
Cloud Ruler.
It was the only place that
would receive him; a few of his adherents still lurked there in hiding.”

“Yeah,
Gabrielle and I thought you were there. She did this thing, this seance-like.”

“I was
interrogated by Flaycraft. Under his hand, I told whatever little I could. I
was put to great pain, and lost all bearings. I gather that Bey regained his
Masters’ favor, and I was moved here, to Salamá, but for long and long I
thought myself still to be in Death’s Hold.”

“What about this
Evergray?”

“I was placed
here by Yardiff Bey, but one day Evergray came, having heard about me from
Flaycraft, who is his servant. Prisoners, outsiders of any kind, are almost
unknown in Salamá. He wished to question me about the world. Until then I had
sat in the dark, for there was no light until Evergray came. I used to sit and
sing, sing every saga and ditty and ballad I knew, just to fill the blankness.”

“And
Evergray?” Gil encouraged gently.

“Yes. He
wanted to know what my songs were, at first. He treated my every word like a
report from an undiscovered continent. On one visit he mentioned that there was
another outsider here, enemy of Yardiff Bey, in a mystic coma. He asked me if I
knew the man, but when he described you, I said I thought not. When last I saw
you, Gil, there was no burn-mark on your cheek, nor any scar cut in your brow.”