The Changing Land Read online

  Almost immediately, one was placed within it. She commenced washing his face, afterward running her fingertips across his brow, his cheeks, his chin.

  "I thought never to see you again," she said softly, "yet you have come back.

  "The compress," she said more loudly, dropping the washcloth to the floor. A servant handed it to her. Turning Dilvish's head, she found the place where he had been stricken, glared once at the demon, unfolded and refolded the pungent cloth and applied it behind his ear.

  "You, wipe off his scabbard, his belt buckle. You, pour some of that wine upon a clean cloth and bring it here."

  She was wiping his lips with the wine-cloth when Baran stepped into the room.

  "Just what is the occasion?" he demanded. "Who is this man?"

  Semirama looked up suddenly, eyes wide. The servants drew back. Melbriniononsadsazzersteldregandishfeltselior crouched in a corner, in awe of Baran's linguistic abilities.

  "Why—he is one of the many who have come this way," she said, "seeking, I suppose, the power of the place."

  Baran laughed harshly and stepped forward, his hand moving to the hilt of a short blade at his belt. "Well, let us show him some power by dispatching him and removing another nuisance."

  "He has come to us alive," she said steadily. "He should be preserved for your master's judgment." Baran halted, reviving an earlier train of thought. But then he laughed again.

  "But why not let a demon eat him now?" he said. "Why make the poor fellow walk all the way to the prison chamber?"

  "What do you mean?" she asked.

  "Surely you must know where they get those dainties they're always feasting upon?"

  She raised a hand to her mouth.

  "I'd never thought about it. The prisoners?"

  "The same."

  "That should not be. We are supposed to be their jailers."

  Baran shrugged.

  "This is a big castle in a rough world."

  "They are your demons," she said. "Speak to them about it."

  He started to laugh again, but then he saw the look in her eyes and he felt a momentary touch of a power that he did not understand. He thought again of her and of Jelerak, and a moment of his earlier vertigo returned.

  "I'll do that," he said, and he looked down upon the man, studying him.

  "You know why I am here?" he asked. "I was walking in the gallery. You left the window focused upon the pond. I wonder at your rescuing the man and leaving the woman behind. He is a good-looking fellow, isn't he?"

  For the first time in countless centuries, Semirama blushed. Seeing this, Baran smiled.

  "It is a shame to waste them," he added.

  Then he turned toward the demon.

  "Return to the pond," he ordered in Mabrahoring. "Bring me the woman. I could use a little recreation myself."

  The demon beat his breast and bowed until his head touched the floor.

  "Master, she is defended by a spell against those such as myself," he said. "I could not draw near her."

  Baran frowned. A memory of Arlata's profile stirred within his mind for the first time.

  "Very well. I'll get her myself," he said.

  He crossed the chamber and flung the door wide. Seven shallow steps led down to a walkway. He took them quickly and departed the walk moments after that, moving toward the edge of the slope the demon had descended earlier.

  The sun had fallen into the west. It was already behind the castle and the long shadows had merged before him, casting the fore-edge of twilight's cloak across the steep and rocky way. Baran took several steps forward, to the place where the slope dropped sharply.

  He moved to the lee of a large stone and stood with his back against it, looking down. He stared as if hypnotized. He muttered a charm, but it did no good. The prospect seemed to swim before him.

  "Not such a good idea," he muttered, breathing heavily. "… no. The hell with her. It's not worth it."

  Still, he stood as if glued to the stone. The rocks seemed sharper than they had moments before, seemed almost to be reaching for him.

  What am I waiting for? Just go back and say it's not worth the trouble …

  His right foot twitched. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. His lust and anger had died. He thought again of the girl trapped below. Her face troubled him. It was not just her beauty…

  A tiny spark of nobility he would have sworn had never existed, or at least had been extinguished years before, flickered within his breast. He opened his eyes and shuddered as he looked down again.

  "All right, damn it! Go get her."

  He pushed away from the walk and began walking.

  Not quite as bad as it looks. Still…

  He had descended about forty feet before his way took a turn, and he paused to lean upon a lower rock to his left, a position which now afforded him a clear view down to the pond.

  He stared off in that direction for several moments before the scene registered:

  The girl was gone. So was the horse.

  He began to laugh. Abruptly, he halted.

  "Well… well, well…"

  He turned and began to trudge back up the hillside.

  "… the hell with her."

  When Baran reentered the sitting room, he found the scene changed very little. The man was still unconscious, but less pale than he had been earlier.

  Semirama turned her head and smiled.

  "Back so soon, Baran?"

  He nodded.

  "I was too late. She's gone. The horse is, too, for that matter…"

  "Console yourself with a slave-girl."

  He moved nearer.

  "This fellow goes to the cellar now," he said. "You're right. We must keep him around to await the master's judgment."

  "I want to be certain he is going to make it, first," she said.

  At that moment, Dilvish moaned softly.

  "There you are," said Baran with a smile. "He lives. A couple of you jackasses get him to his feet and follow me."

  Semirama rose and stood nearer to him than she usually did.

  "Really, Baran, it might be better if we wait a little longer."

  He raised his right hand to the vicinity of her breasts, then suddenly snapped his fingers.

  "Better for whom?" he asked. "No, my dear. He is a prisoner like all the rest. We must do our duty and store him safely away. You have shown me the light."

  He turned to the two slaves who had drawn Dilvish's arms across their shoulders and raised him, head hanging, feet dragging.

  "This way," he called, walking toward the door. "I'll do the honors myself."

  Semirama followed.

  "I'll just come along," she said, "to be sure that he makes it."

  "Can't take your eyes off him, eh?"

  She did not reply, but went with them out of the room and across the great hall. Her eyes wandered for a moment as she wondered again at the strange decorations and furnishings that marked it so distinctively—the mighty glass tree which hung inverted from the ceiling; the tapestries depicting young men with white hair drawn back, almost like some sort of headgear, the ladies with impossibly towering hairdos, skirts enormously billowed; elaborately carved and inlaid tables; carved chairs, all curves, upholstered only in places, colorful medallions worked into their fabrics; long mirrors; tiles of peculiar composition upon the floors; long, heavy drapes; a strange piece of furniture possessed of a keyboard, which produced musical tones when the keys were depressed.

  There was something about the room which seemed unnatural even in this most unnatural of places. Occasionally, in passing through it, she had glimpsed in the depths of the mirrors reflections of persons and things not present—fleeing, fading—too briefly seen to be identified. And one night she had heard a great deal of music and laughter and babbling in a foreign tongue she could not identify, coming from this hall. Intending either to join the party or to blast a horde of supernatural intruders with two extended fingers, she had made her way down the stairs and
along the corridor, had entered. The music ceased. The room was empty. But within the mirrors, a great crowd of beautiful and variously dressed people stood almost frozen in mid-movement, heads turned to regard her—and in particular there had been a tall, almost familiar man in some sort of pale uniform, a bright ribbon running diagonally across its breast, who had turned away from his partner and smiled at her. For a moment only she had hesitated, then moved to enter the mirror and join him. The entire tableau had vanished instantly, leaving the mirror as empty as the hall, her arms, a sorcerer's conscience.

  When she had asked Tualua about it, he did not know or seem to care what had happened. The castle, he had told her, writhing luxuriously in his fetid pool, had always existed and always would exist. It contained many strange things, and many strange things passed through it. None of them meant much to him.

  As they departed the great hall, four notes were somehow struck from the piece of furniture with the keyboard, though no one was near it. Baran paused and looked back, looked at it, looked at her, shrugged, and passed on.

  She followed them to the rear of the hall. The unconscious man moaned again, and she reached out and seized his wrist, satisfying herself that the pulse there was strong.

  "… nor your hands, either," said Baran, noting the gesture.

  Behind them, Melbriniononsadsazzersteldregandishfeltselior screamed and raced for another exit. He had seen something in a mirror which had frightened him.

  They made their way to a stairwell which led down into the chamber beneath the castle. At its head, Baran trimmed a lantern and lighted it from a nearby brazier. Then, holding it aloft, he led the way down into the murky recess, apparently untroubled by his intermittent vertigo.

  As they descended, their prisoner gave signs of awakening, tossing his head and seeking to obtain footing. Semirama reached forward to touch his cheek.

  "It's going to be all right, Selar," she said. "It is going to be all right."

  She heard Baran chuckle.

  "How do you propose making good on that promise, dearie?" he asked.

  Could he be faking? she wondered suddenly. Already recovered, gathering his strength, getting ready to break loose and flee through the darkness? Baran is strong and armed, and Selar does not even know where he is. And if he escapes now, Baran will set up a search that will result in his death. How to tell him to wait, to continue the ruse, to remain a prisoner for a time?

  They reached the bottom of the stair, turned left. The darkness was heavy with chill, moisture-laden air. The gray stone of the wall to their left glistened and trickled in the lantern light.

  The story of Corbryant and Thyseld had been popular in her day—the girl who had had to act as her lover's jailer, lest her father kill him. She wondered whether it was still current, whether Baran would have heard of it at all. It was an Elvish tale… Did Baran understand High Elvish—a difficult tongue, unlike any other she knew or knew of?

  She reached out and took hold of Dilvish's right biceps. The arm grew tense.

  "Know you the fate of Corbryant?" she asked quickly and softly in that tongue.

  There was a long pause.

  Then, "I do," he stated.

  "So I to thee," she told him.

  She felt his arm relax. She hoped that he was counting his footsteps, numbering the turns. She squeezed his arm and released it.

  They passed a series of cross-corridors, down some of which rapid clicking noises and grunting sounds echoed. As they neared one, the sounds seemed to be approaching rapidly from their right. Baran raised his head and halted. He lowered the lantern.

  So quickly that she was almost uncertain as to what had occurred, a horde of snouted, piglike creatures of considerable size, running on their hind legs, tore past with snuffling, panting noises. Some of them appeared to be carrying cushions and earthenware jugs. As they vanished in the distance, it seemed almost as if they had begun chanting.

  "The little bastards are out in force," Baran remarked. "A few of them always manage to make it upstairs and disturb me when I'm in the library."

  'They've never bothered me," she answered. "But then, I read in my room. Grotesque little things…"

  "Bet they'd make good eating. Which reminds me, my dinner is growing cold. Come along…"

  He proceeded, coming at length into a large chamber where one torch flamed, one guttered, and two had turned to ashes in wall sockets. He took up two fresh ones from a bundle by the wall, lit them from the flaming one, hung them in the empty sockets. He headed toward the third doorless opening to the left.

  "Get chains," he said.

  A rack of chains with a shelf of locks stood near the pile of torches. The slave on Dilvish's left reached out and seized a set of chains as they passed. Semirama moved to his side and chose a set of locks from the shelf.

  "I'll carry them," she said. "Your hands are full."

  The man nodded, chains hung over his left arm, and continued. She followed, going after them all into the room where Hodgson, Derkon, Odil, Vane, Galt, and Lorman were chained to the curved walls. It seemed that there had been another…

  Baran raised his lantern and nodded in the direction of the empty chains and gore-bespattered wall where the fat sorcerer whom the demon was now digesting had hung.

  "Over there," he said. "Chain him to that ring."

  The other prisoners looked on in complete silence, not stirring from the positions into which they had frozen upon Baran's entry.

  The slaves half carried, half walked Dilvish to the position along the wall and threaded the chains through the massive ring fastened there, ignoring those which already hung slack along the damp stone.

  "Now you'll know right where he is any time you need him," Baran remarked, "if you don't mind an audience."

  She turned and looked Baran up and down, once.

  "You long ago ceased to be amusing," she said. "Now I only find you vulgar—and more than a little disgusting."

  She turned away and moved toward the place where the slaves were wrapping the chains about Dilvish's limbs. She passed them the locks and they secured them in place. She locked each in turn as it was positioned. Baran followed her over and tested the fastenings.

  He grunted an affirmative as he checked the last. He rattled the chains as he rose, gave Semirama a sidelong look, and smiled slyly.

  "Makes quite a racket," he observed. "If you come by, the whole castle will know what you're about."

  Semirama covered her mouth and yawned.

  "Takes your breath away, eh?"

  She smiled and turned toward Dilvish.

  "Is this what you wanted to see?" she said to Baran.

  She embraced Dilvish and kissed him full on the mouth, pressing her entire body up against him.

  As the seconds passed, Baran began to shift uneasily. The slaves looked away.

  Finally, she drew away with a laugh.

  "Of course, I'm passionately devoted to this stranger who has come as a trespasser to steal from us," she said. She turned suddenly and slapped Dilvish. "Insolent dog!" she announced, her face a mask of fury.

  She stalked from the cell without looking back.

  Baran glanced at Dilvish and grinned. Then he recovered the lantern from the ledge where he had set it and departed the room, followed by the slaves.

  Outside, Semirama was pacing near the mouth of the corridor they had followed.

  "I knew you'd wait for the light," Baran remarked as he approached.

  She did not reply.

  "You've no idea how peculiar it looked," he said when he came abreast of her.

  "A kiss?" she replied with much puzzlement. "Really, Baran…"

  "Finding you ministering to the lout the way you were," he said.

  "I didn't want him to die," she answered.

  "Now or later? Why not?"

  "He's a curiosity… the first Elf to come this way. They're a peculiar people. Usually keep to themselves. Some say 'arrogant.' I thought it might amuse your master to di
scover this one's reasons for being here."

  "And some say 'unlucky,' " Baran stated. "They can be dangerous also."

  "So I've heard. Well, this one's secure."

  "When I came in and saw you taking care of an interloper that way—it disturbed me, of course…"

  "Are you trying to apologize for all of your nasty little remarks?"

  Baran stalked on into the corridor, his shadow writhing in the lantern light.

  "Yes," his voice came back.

  "Good," she said, following him. "Not as gracious as a queen deserves, but doubtless the best I'll get from you."

  Baran grunted and continued. Whether he intended to expand upon his most recent comment was never to be known, as he halted abruptly, his grunt submerged by a wave of louder ones.

  He lowered the lantern and pressed back against the wall. Semirama and the slaves did the same. The noises in the cross-corridor grew louder.

  Suddenly, heading in the same direction the others had earlier, the shadowy forms of eleven of the piglike figures, tusks gleaming, went jogging past in the gloom, each clad in a long-sleeved, tunic-like garment bearing strange numerals. One carried a human skull under its left forelimb.

  "My dinner must be getting cold," said Baran, raising the lantern. "Let's get out of here."

  Several minutes later, they were making their way up the long stair. Near the top, a shadowy figure came into view. Baran raised the lantern.

  As soon as the face became visible, Baran called out, "I thought I left you to watch the mirror. What are you doing here?"

  "Another servant told me you were below, sir. The light you set me to watching—it's gone out!"

  "What! So soon? I'll have to summon a replacement immediately. Very well. You're dismissed."

  "Wait!" Semirama ordered.

  The slave looked at her and fear came into his heart.

  "Just what mirror are you talking about?" she asked as she mounted the final stairs. "Surely not that in the north room upstairs—the one in the iron frame?"

  The man grew pale.

  "Yes, Highness," he said, "the same."