THE THIEF OF KALIMAR (Graham Diamond's Arabian Nights Adventures) (42 page)

“But what if I help you and you fail?” he said at last. “Such a circumstance will hasten the Druids to sweep down upon my people.” He glanced sadly at the two silent girls still standing at his sides. “My daughters will be captured—ravished and forced into a life of—”

“I know,” said Argyle, trying to comfort his friend. “And you are right. Our failure will indeed cause the enemy to seek your door, the door you so carefully sealed from the world. But think, old friend: this life you lead is daily fraught with danger. Sooner or later you will be found in any case. Death-Stalkers will one day spy you from the sky, and then …” His thoughts needed no conclusion.

“You cannot hope to hide away forever,” reminded Mariana. “Your situation is little better than our own.”

“But I cannot risk my daughters!” protested the chieftain. “They are all I have.”

Mariana nodded with a woman’s understanding. “If you love them as much as you claim,” she told him, “then give them a chance to live, live freely as they were meant to. Let them know the meaning of sunlight. Let them gaze upon the stars …”

Thorhall glanced up toward the window, a sigh emphasizing his wistful expression. He thought upon the stars, those shining baubles he held so dear and had not seen for more than half a lifetime. How very much he missed them. But how very much everyone here in this hall missed them.

“If I could protect my family,” he said after a time, “then I would do anything for you…

“Perhaps there is a way.” It was Ramagar who had spoken. He knelt beside Thorhall, placing a hand on the chieftain’s shoulder. “We have a ship waiting for us. A Cenulamian merchant vessel hiding near the coves in the shallow waters of the coast. Just one signal from us, a beacon flashed three times, will bring our ship to the inlet.”

“A ship!” rasped Thorhall, amazed. And hope, long extinguished, flickered anew in his face.

“I propose a bargain,” Ramagar went on. “We give you our pledge that if you help us now, win or lose in our quest, that beacon will shine and Captain Osari will come. Your daughters can be waiting for him, whether any of us make it out of here alive or not. And be assured that Osari will find the way out of the Darkness the same way he guided us in. His ship will make for Aran with your daughters as passengers, and they will be safe. What do you say to that?”

Thorhall put his head in his hands. “If only it could be so!”

“It can be,” Argyle assured him.

Thorhall searched all their faces. “Do I have your words on this matter?”

“The Prince nodded gravely. “You do.”

“And mine as well,” added the lord of Aran.

Thorhall wet his lips and thought for a moment. Then he beckoned his lovely daughters to him and hugged each girl in turn. All three had tears in their eyes.

“I once made a promise to you both that freedom would come,” he said. “And now it seems that my dream may have come true. Go now, both of you, and collect whatever belongings you must take. Then wait until we send for you, and follow any instructions that Ramagar gives.”

The girls nodded meekly and kissed their father before they hurried from the hall.

“I will do all I can to help,” Thorhall vowed when his daughters had gone.

“Then you
do
know more of this magic than you told?”

The chieftain looked at Mariana and nodded. “I fear I have not been completely honest. Further information can indeed be provided, although I was being truthful when I told you I didn’t know of it personally.”

“Speak plainly, man,” growled the Prince with impatience. “If you can’t help us, who can?”

Thorhall smiled. “Remember that I spoke of a blind man whose daughter I married?”

Everyone nodded.

“Well, that man, my wife’s father, yet lives. Once he was a servant within the unholy citadel itself. He has seen these magicians, even been forced to aid them in their spells. He knows more of the Druids than any man in Speca. His masters burned his eyes out for his knowledge; they would have killed him had his daughter not stolen from the brothels and found a way for them to escape …”

Mariana’s heart was racing. “We must speak with him at once!”

“And so you shall,” promised Thorhall. “But bear in mind that the man is very old. He has seen many horrors and they have sometimes deranged his mind. Often he speaks in riddles …”

“Then we will decipher them,” said the Prince flatly. “Be quick, Thorhall. Time is short; we must be on our way.”

The chieftain of the wildmen clapped his hands and commanded the guards to bring Old Man at once. A long minute later a bent and shriveled shell of a man shuffled slowly into the hall. His face was wrinkled and sagged; he held tightly onto a walking stick, tapping it gently a pace or two before him, and made his way to the semicircle of stone seats. Then sensing the presence of many, he stopped in his place, empty sockets directed at the leader of the clan.

“Good tidings to you, Old Man,” said Thorhall with reverence. “Did you sleep well?”

Old Man cracked a slight smile. “My dreams were of yesterday,” he replied enigmatically. “Or of tomorrows yet to come.”

“There are strangers in the Hall, Old Man. Friends from Aran and the East who have come to save our land. They wish to speak to you, ask you many questions of your younger days…”

The man nodded. “I am ready for their questions. They may ask what they will.”

Then, refusing the offer of a seat, he leaned heavily on his cane and waited in silence.

The Prince was the first to speak, and Old Man turned his sightless gaze in his direction.

“How do the Druids keep the people of Speca in subjugation?” the Prince asked.

“By the Stones,” came the reply without hesitation. “By the Seeds of Destruction that are tossed to the winds and blown from the hills. By this do my people wither and die. By this are they robbed of minds and wills both.”

“What are these Stones?” asked Mariana. “These Seeds of Destruction you speak of?”

The elderly Specian sucked in his breath and shivered. “A ghastly potion are they, a magician’s concoction harmless against the Druids, but deadly to all others. From evil is it spawned, spreading further evil upon evil and closing in the Darkness.”

Mariana glanced at the Prince. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“From the sky!” cried Old Man. “The Seeds and the sky are one!”

Ramagar scratched at his chin. Obviously Old Man was telling them of some connection between the Eternal Dark and the poison, but what that connection was he could not understand.

“From where are these Seeds scattered?” asked the Prince.

Old Man lifted his face skyward. “From the highest of the highest. From the very pinnacle of stone that rests within the clouds.”

Mariana beat a fist into an open palm. “The Devil’s Tower!” she cried. “It must be! The highest edifice of the land—where stone walls reach up inside the mists!”

“Aye,” wheezed Old Man. And his face tightened with fear and contempt as he continued. “High, high among the clouds, where the winds howl and the world freezes. Up from the labyrinth, winding through the tunnel across the devilish shrines and altars, up the Thirty Thousand Steps until the zenith is reached. From there, aye, from there, do the blackhearted men of magic, these unholy wizards, spawn their brew and their vileness. Up, up in the Tower, up, up, where no man can go, where no man can bear the agony, where no man can see all this and live …”

“Yet you have seen these things,” reminded the girl. “And you still survive.”

Old Man hung his head. “Survive? Do I? Do I yet live? If this be life, then surely death is to be preferred. Like thieves in the night did they steal my mind, like scavengers did they rob me of all I had, like grim vultures did they pluck my eyes from their sockets and render me useless before all those who knew and loved me. Nay, girl, this is not life. My mind knows no peace, no rest. My dreams haunt me with memories I cannot dare to speak of. Eternal damnation is my fate, to have seen what I have seen, to have witnessed the unspeakable and never be able to wipe it from memory.” His entire body sagged; he pressed his weight so heavily against his cane that it seemed he would topple over. “Doom is waiting, doom is waiting. Would that I had eyes so that I might cry!”

“All the world sheds tears in your place,” said the Prince. “But harden your heart and regain your resolve, for we, Old Man, have come to battle these forces. Speca shall be freed!”

Old Man sighed deeply, his ears hearing these bold promises but his heart too broken to have any faith. Again he fell silent, waiting for the next question to be posed.

Mariana turned to her companions. “If the Druids must continually seed the clouds,” she said, “then the effects of the poison must be short-lasting. What we must do is find something certain to counteract these effects …”

“Easily said,” grumbled the haj, crossing his legs and drumming his fingers on the stone. “But how?”

The dancing girl chewed at her lip, then to Thorhall’s father-in-law she said, “The antidote, Old Man! Do you know of one?”

“The world can gather a thousand alchemists and still there would be no solution. The poison cannot be stopped. How can one hope to defeat the epitome of Evil?”

“With the epitome of Good.” It was the Prince who had spoken.

Old Man turned to him sharply. “Have you such a thing?”

“Only this.” And he placed the golden scimitar in the old man’s hand, waiting as the sightless philosopher ran his fingers over the engraver’s mark.

“Will Blue Fire dispel the magic?” asked Mariana breathlessly. “Can the blade’s flame defeat the Seeds spawned in the Black Sky?”

“The forces of Good against the forces of Evil,” contemplated Old Man. “I cannot say. But this I am sure of: the Druids fear Blue Fire as nothing else. For centuries they have toiled to duplicate it…”

“So we have been told,” said Ramagar. “But its powers must not be wasted. Tell us what we must do, Old Man. Tell us how to use our weapon against theirs.”

Silver hair tumbled across his shoulders as the philosopher bent his head and pondered. The thief fidgeted uncomfortably while they waited for the answer. It was not long in coming.

“On the first day of the full moon, Moon Time, the magicians in holy procession carry the Seeds for the new month into the clouds. To the Devil’s Tower your blade must be brought. The Thirty Thousand Steps must be climbed—but in secret, lest you be caught—and then, while aflame, the dagger must be hurled from the zenith into the Eternal Dark itself …”

“Throw away the dagger?” gasped Oro, who had listened in disbelief.

Old Man nodded darkly. “It is the only way. The Blue Flame must then battle on its own against the very Blackness and the poisons within. And a terrible battle it shall be; the world itself shall seem to go mad. But
if
Blue Fire succeeds, and I fear the chances are slight after so many centuries, then the cloud will swirl and shatter, the light of the sun shall pour across Speca, and the Druids will be devoid of their powers…”

“As I suspected,” sighed the Prince. “The clouds themselves hold the key.”

“Aye. And the Evil will consume the Good. Blue Fire will be lost to mankind forever. Yet if we are fortunate, so shall Good destroy Evil. The Specian people shall awake from their trances and overthrow their tyrannical masters. The scimitar shall be lost, but the North shall be saved.”

“But we cannot destroy the blade!” cried Oro frantically.

“You are a fool,” snapped the Prince. “The safety of the world is at stake and must be preserved. It grieves me to think that the scepter of my fathers should be consumed—yet to save my land, to save the North, there is no price I would not pay.”

“Then to this Devil’s Tower we must hasten,” said the haj. “By the calendar, if my calculations are correct, Moon Time comes in three days.”

The Prince pounded a fist. “Can the Tower be reached in so short a period?” he asked.

Old Man looked at him worriedly. “Only if your travel is unhampered. You will have to walk the Valley of Morose, the place where Death-Stalkers nest, where the birds of prey scour the skies and keep careful watch over the road to the citadel.”

“We are armed,” reminded Argyle.

A grim laugh sifted from between the philosopher’s cracked lips. “Axes and swords do not frighten Death-Stalkers. If you are set upon, many of you will not live to reach the Tower.”

The group of adventurers exchanged sour expressions. Ramagar took Mariana’s hand and held it tightly. “We have no choice,” he said quietly. “We’ll have to take our chances and do the best we can.”

“No more than that can be asked,” replied Old Man in wise observance.

Argyle turned to his friend Thorhall. “Your aid has been of great value to us,” he said. “And our part of the bargain shall be kept. But there is one last favor we would ask before we depart on our journey.”

Thorhall nodded. “Ask anything. It shall be granted.”

Argyle smiled. “We need you to lead us into the Valley of Morose.”

20

Several leagues past Thorhall’s village and the defile, at the very foot of the hideous Black Forest where only the ghosts of the dead can be heard, the band came to the heinous Valley of Morose.

High atop a craggy hillock the adventurers stood, their cloaks tossing wildly amid the vicious winds that screamed around them. Wordlessly they looked across, hardly aware of the open plain to the south and its meandering riverbeds long since turned to stone and chalky powders.

The Valley of Morose seemed to be the eye of a tempest of bedrock. At either side, bleak walls of gray swept up toward the sky a thousand meters and more, looming over their heads like malevolent breakers ready to come crashing down at any moment. Mist, white as soft clouds, shredded eerily among the fingers of slate and rock, silently rising from the bogs below to greet the dim brightness of Specian day. In parts the valley showed hints of the palest green, places where weed and tussock poked from between cracks in gravel and caked soils. Overall, though, it was easy to understand why the place had been named Morose; grimly the valley maintained its dulled brown sameness, a monotonous stretch of grisly marsh and bogs and fog punctuated occasionally by the remains of decayed bones—bones of unknown creatures who had dared to chance a crossing and who now rotted along the ruts and ridges.