The Sword and the Sorcerer (12 page)

“Whatever you want.”

“But don’t you have any orders for us from Mikah?”

Talon felt a little eddy of warmth inside his chest at the mention of Mikah. He had not seen his childhood friend in more than eleven years. Would they recognize each other when they finally did meet? “From Mikah? No. None.”

Rodrigo was crestfallen. The inscrutable and imperious-looking warrior obviously wished to be left alone. Rodrigo stopped, as did his men. But Talon forged ahead without once looking back.

Still Rodrigo could not let this potentially invaluable ally slip away so easily. “Take us with you, sir!” he shouted after him. “I’m sure we’re on the same side!”

“Go home!” Talon shouted back. “Your men look starved, tired and in dire need of rest! You’ll fight another day!”

Rodrigo and his men stood watching the proud stranger fade into the night, bewildered and disappointed. Kabal, the young sentry who had guarded the mouth of the cave, pushed up beside Rodrigo.

“Where’s he going?” he asked his leader.

“Into another battle, I suspect. Did you not hear him say, ‘I have another equally important mission to handle’?”

“Did he say anything about what we should do?” the youth persisted.

“He told us to go home. I think he believes we’re too battle-weary to be of service to him.”

Rodrigo turned around and faced his ragged band of improvised soldiers. “What say you, men? Are we too weak and sissified by war to be of service to the man who saved our lives?”

“No!”
they roared back in unison.

“Then let’s hurry after him or we’ll miss out on the rebellion!”

ELEVEN

rom the outside, with its gleaming gold walls and Gothic spires piercing the midnight heavens, Cromwell’s castle was the epitome of serenity in stone. Built on a base of solid rock, commanding an uncluttered sweep of somnolent Elysium below, surrounded by a huge moat where ivory swans sailed during the day, there was nothing in the tranquil façade of this magnificent pile to indicate that anything untoward or cruel ever occurred inside its prodigious bulk. Most of the tall arched windows were dark at this late hour. But even the few that remained torchlit suggested an impregnable haven of peace and rest.

In reality, deep within the sweating stone bowels of the castle, where there was always more darkness than light, manmade horrors were manufactured all the time, even as they transpired now, belying the citadel’s outward appearance of cozy bonhomie.

The whisper of diaphanous veils, a whiff of perfume, and the sight of curvaceous flesh was rare in this part of the castle. But the exotically beautiful harem girl who sinuously moved through it now seldom had cause to come here.

Elizabeth hated descending the spiraling stone steps to the gloomy dungeons below the castle’s upstairs opulence. They were scary and crawly with roaches and rats. Besides, ever since she was a little girl and had been given by her parents to the harem-mistress she had been a concubine, not a common slave girl. Which was why she so resented bearing a silver tray of carafes and ornate goblets of wine to the dungeons tonight. The girl regularly assigned to these menial duties was sick and she had been snared into substituting. That was why she wore veils and hardly anything more underneath, rather than the boring robes the ordinary slave girls wore. The only gratification Elizabeth received from these rare occasions when she visited the dungeons was the pleasure of seeing lust in the eyes of the guards when they saw her. If she was in a generous mood, Elizabeth might even let one of the guards cup one of her ample breasts or run a finger on the outside of her bushy cleft.

As she descended lower into the bowels of the castle Elizabeth tried to stop her ears to the moans and sporadic screams of the prisoners in the numerous cells. Poor dears. King Cromwell was bestially cruel, that was for sure. And he carried his taste for pain with him into the harem in the form of a short mean whip. But what could a poor girl like her do but submit to anything he desired of her, along with praying that the rebels would one day eject Cromwell from the throne?

As Elizabeth approached the huge iron door that led to the torture chamber, two thoughts flashed through her mind; the prisoner inside had to be very important indeed for the king himself to visit him at this late hour—and who could he be?

She raised the knocker and banged three times, metal on metal resounding throughout the dungeons. The door creaked open and Victor, the rough but well-endowed guard, ushered her inside, winking as she slid into the musty gloom.

A single bowl of fire on a mossy block of stone was the only light in the shadowy torture chamber. But there was no mistaking the king in his royal red cape, gold breastplate and hair like yellow wool. Nor did she have to strain her eyes to recognize the terrifying presence of Verdugo, the Royal Torturer; his large shaved head and massive bare arms and bare chest under a short leather vest often appeared in her worst nightmares. But who was the wretched young man strapped on two wooden crosspieces, his beautiful chest glistening with sweat and smears of blood and bruises, his brown soulful eyes mirroring hideous tortures just lived through?

“So,
Prince
Mikah,” Cromwell jeered the young man on the cross-rack, “are you ready now to tell me the whereabouts of Xusia?”

Elizabeth had to bite her lips to keep from gasping. Mikah! The leader of the uprising himself! The torturer and the sad prince watched Cromwell whisk one of the goblets off the tray and down the wine to its dregs in one lusty gulp. How she wished she could comfort Mikah’s parched lips with wine too!

Cromwell grabbed a second goblet and motioned that Elizabeth leave the chamber. “Out, harlot. And say nothing of what you’ve seen here tonight—or you too will end on the rack!”

“My lips are forever sealed, my lord!” she vowed and scurried out of the torture chamber, hardly able to contain herself until she told the harem who was held prisoner below them.

Perhaps it was the residual pain of having had his arms stretched from their sockets or the sulpherous sting of lashes across his back, but Mikah had difficulty understanding what the tyrant was talking about. “Xusia? I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Come, come, Mikah. How else could this rabble uprising have come this far? Xusia’s powers and evil genuis must be behind it. He is the only one who is equal to challenging me.”

Some dim light of comprehension came into Mikah’s salty eyes. “If you’re referring to the sorcerer, Xusia of Delos supposedly died a thousand years ago.” Then he added sarcastically, “Is it possible that the mighty Cromwell is frightened by a myth?”

The King scowled and slapped Mikah across the face. “Don’t get flippant with me, boy! I am not some superstitious shepherd. I myself raised Xusia from the dead.” He cracked his knuckles with anger directed at himself. “Little did I know what I let loose upon the world!”

The slap had the bite of a butterfly compared with the pain Mikah had already suffered. And he’d brook a lot more pain if that was the price he had to pay for getting Cromwell’s goat. “A wild tale you tell, outlaw king!”

Driven by ire and frustration, Cromwell paced frantically back and forth in front of Mikah and the Royal Torturer. Verdugo scratched his huge shaved dome, filled with misgivings and confusion. He had never seen the king act this way. He had always thought the king was a man of steel. Nothing could bend him until now.

“It is no tale, I assure you! I have stalked Xusia for eleven years watching for signs of his handiwork. When you and Alana were snatched from beneath my blade, I knew that Xusia was going to use you against me. And he
has
been using you two as pawns to usurp my kingdom, hasn’t he?”

“Your
kingdom?”

“Dammit, boy, accept things as they are! I am the king and you are not! And don’t pretend you know nothing of what I speak!”

“I cannot believe what you’re saying. All this talk of Xusia and bringing him back to life. What kind of a game are you playing with me?”

Cromwell suddenly halted in front of Mikah, bringing his face close to his. The tyrant who was notorious for masking any sign of emotion was falling apart before his very eyes.

“Are you blind, Mikah, to the menace before us all? The signs are visible everywhere. The earthquakes, the plagues, the locusts. And haven’t you heard of the virgins disappearing from the villages? Or the howling and shrieking echoing up from graves? The heads of pigs and disemboweled carcasses litter the roadside. Have you been so busy trying to topple my throne that you haven’t heard of all this?”

“I don’t know about the earthquakes and plagues, but if there are virgins missing and animals senselessly mutilated I suspect your own Black Klaws are responsible.”

“Ass!” Cromwell exploded, continuing to fulminate in front of Mikah. “My god, man, I tell you there’s a demon in our midst and I know he is the leader of your cause! Now tell me where he is and I may spare you and your sister!”

The ropes on Mikah’s wrists were cutting into his flesh but he managed to puff out his chest and proudly throw back his head. “I, and I only, am the leader of our glorious rebellion!”

Cromwell would not be placated. “Very well. Perhaps you don’t know Xusia’s real identity. He may be posing as your mentor or advisor.”

“There is no such person.”

“He might not look like a demon. In human form, he could look like anyone. But there would be traces of a serpent in his face or the wildness of a jackal in his eyes.”

Mikal was suddenly weary of all this absurd talk about sorcery, plagues and lycanthropy. His body was shot through with thumping aches and searing pain, and death was a large black bird hovering over him. “There is no one leading the revolution but me, I said!” He was monumentally tired and resigned to whatever be his fate. Cromwell had obviously gone quite mad.

Cromwell threw his goblet against the wall, splashing wine on himself. “Verdugo!” he shouted to the Royal Torturer. “Go again at the dog!”

But Verdugo no sooner reached for the crank on the rack when the chamber door flew open, admitting a guard practically carrying a badly burned and blooded Red Dragon. One arm around the archer’s waist, he dragged him in front of Cromwell. The king scrutinized the obviously dying soldier, fearing the worst kind of news. “What’s this?” he demanded.

“Skull Cave.” Spittle dribbled from the corners of his mouth as the archer labored to speak. “The rebels escaped . . . The Red Dragons—no more!”

Mikah’s face lit up. Hope surged through his pain-racked body again. Perhaps the rebellion would succeed yet!

Cromwell was beside himself with rage. He grabbed the straps of the archer’s empty quiver and shook him violently. “My Red Dragons destroyed! Be specific, damn you!”

Somehow the rapidly expiring archer found the strength to speak. “A giant barbarian . . . with a steel hand . . . appeared from nowhere. He was a beast—a demon . . . He conjured fire out of the sky and set us all aflame! It was awful . . . The charred flesh! Men running into the ocean to drown! Awful! Then night became day . . . the rebels turned into wild men, chopping heads, legs, hands. Then . . . then—”

He died with Cromwell still shaking him. When the king released him the archer collapsed on the filthy stone floor.

Cromwell was convinced that the so-called “barbarian” the Red Dragon had referred to was in reality Xusia. The sorcerer’s magic enabled him to assume any form, man or beast. He was convinced too that Mikah knew this as well. He shot an accusing finger a few inches from Mikah’s eyes. “It’s the work of Xusia again—isn’t it,
prince
? Your vile leader!” He faced the guard who had brought the archer into the torture chamber. “Throw his carcass to the dogs and double the guards in the castle!”

Cromwell drew close to Mikah again and adopted a more conciliatory mien. “Mikah, listen. It’s not just for my life that I fear Xusia. He’s an utterly depraved, power-hungry monster—more beast than human. Unless I find him he will wreck havoc upon us all—including the Eh-Danians you claim you love so much. For the love of mankind itself, I beg you to tell me where I’m likely to watch the barbarian—for I know, as you know, that he is in actuality the sorcerer!”

Mikah sighed with powerlessness, steeling himself for the next round of torture he knew would inevitably come. There was no reasoning with Cromwell. This obsession with a sorcerer coming back to life to plague him had unhinged Cromwell’s mind. “I know nothing either of the barbarian or your alleged sorcerer!”

“Tear the flesh from his bones!” Cromwell shrieked at Verdugo, who at once and with alacrity began to crank the cross-rack that would stretch Mikah’s muscles another inch.

“Do as thou wilt—Cromwell!” Mikah snapped back at him, with every drop of venom he could pour into the shout. “It won’t change my answer or save your ass! Your downfall is written in the stars! Your—aaaaahhh!” A tendon ripping cut short the denounciation.

TWELVE

eneath the savage mountain range that girded Elysium was a subterranean world of bubbling, flaming tar pits and caverns. It was a world known only to Eh-Dan’s handful of wizards and witches, and its entrance was kept tightly secret.