Dilvish, The Damned Page 2

  "He strikes the wizard with his hand, knocking him to the ground, and he upsets the brazier. Then he turns to free the girl…"

  Within the pool, the shadow that was the sorcerer rose from off the ground. His face was invisible within the hood, but he lifted his staff on high. Suddenly he seemed to grow to an enormous height, and his staff lengthened and twisted like a serpent. He reached out and touched the girl, lightly, with its tip.

  Thelinde screamed.

  Before her eyes the girl was aging. Wrinkles appeared on her face and her hair grew white. Her skin yellowed and her every bone grew prominent beneath it.

  Finally she stopped breathing, but the spell did not cease. The thing on the altar shriveled and a fine powder, like smoke, arose from it.

  Then a skeleton lay upon the stone.

  Dilvish turned upon the sorcerer, raising Deliverer above his shoulder.

  But as he brought the blade down, the Dark One touched it with his staff and it shattered and fell at his feet. Then Dilvish advanced one step upon the sorcerer.

  Again the staff licked forward, and a nimbus of pale fire played about the form of the Deliverer. After a time it subsided. Still, though, did he stand there, unmoving.

  The picture vanished.

  "What has happened?"

  "The Dark One," said Mildin "wrought him a terrible curse, against which even the High Blood was not proof. Look now."

  Day lay upon the hillside. The skeleton lay upon the altar. The sorcerer was gone. Dilvish stood alone, all marble in the sunfall, with the dew of morning upon him, and his right hand was still raised as if to smite an enemy.

  Later a group of boys came by and stared for a long while. Then they ran back to the town to tell of it. The Elders of Portaroy came up into the hills, and taking the statue as a gift of the many strange ones who were accounted friends of their Deliverer, they had it carted back to Portaroy and set up in the square beside the fountain.

  "He turned him to stone!"

  "Yes, and he stood there in the square for over two centuries, his own monument, fist raised against the enemies of the town he had delivered. None ever knew what had become of him, but his human friends grew old and died, and still his statute stood."

  "… And he slept in stone."

  "No, the Dark One does not curse that kindly. While his body stood rigid, in full battle trappings, his spirit was banished to one of the deepest pits of Hell the Dark One could manage."

  "Oh…"

  "… And whether the spell was meant only to be so, or whether the High Blood prevailed in a time of need, or whether some powerful ally of Dilvish's learned the truth and finally worked his release, no one knows. But one day recent, as Lylish, Colonel of the West, swept across the land, all the men of Portaroy were assembled in the square preparing defense of the town."

  The moon had now crept to the edge of the pool. Beneath it there came another picture:

  The men of Portaroy were arming themselves and drilling in the square. They were too few, but they seemed intent upon selling their lives as dearly as possible. Many looked upon the statue of the Deliverer that morning, as though recalling a legend. Then, as the sun wrapped it in color, it moved…

  For a quarter of an hour, slowly, and with apparent great effort, the limbs changed position. The entire crowd in the square stood and watched, itself unmoving now. Finally Dilvish climbed down from his pedestal and drank from the fountain.

  The people were all around him then, and he turned toward them.

  "His eyes, mother! They have changed!"

  "After what he has seen with the eyes of his spirit, is it a wonder that the outer ones reflect it?"

  The picture vanished. The moon swam farther away.

  "… And from somewhere he got him a horse that was not a horse, but a beast of steel in the likeness of a horse."

  For a moment a dark and running form appeared within the pool.

  "That is Black, his mount. Dilvish rode him into the battle, and though he fought long on foot, too, he rode him out again, much later—the only survivor. In the weeks before the battle he had trained his men well, but they were too few. He was named Colonel of the East by them, in opposition to the title Lord Lylish wears. All fell, however, save he, though the lords and elders of the other cities of the East have now risen in arms and they, too, recognize his rank. This very day, I have been told, he stood before the walls of Dilfar and slew Lance of the Invincible Armor in single combat. But the moon falls now and the water darkens…"

  "But the name? Why must I not mention the name of Jelerak?"

  As she spoke it, there came a rustling sound, as of great dry wings beating at the air overhead, and the moon was obscured by a cloud, and a dark shape was reflected deep within the pool.

  Mildin drew her daughter within the were-cloak. The rustling grew louder and a faint mist sprang up about them.

  Mildin made the Sign of the Moon, and she began to speak softly:

  "Back with thee—in the Name of the Coven, of which I am Mistress, I charge thee return. Go back where thou earnest. We desire not thy dark wings above Caer Devash."

  There was a downdraft of air, and a flat expressionless face hovered just above them, couched between wide bat wings. Its talons were faintly glowing, red, as of metal just heated at the forge.

  It circled them, and Mildin drew the cloak tighter and raised her hand.

  "By the Moon, our Mother, in all her guises, I charge thee depart. Now! This instant! Get away from Caer Devash!"

  It landed upon the ground beside them, but Mildin's cloak began to glow and the Stone of the Moon blazed like a milky flame. It drew back from the light, back within the mists.

  Then an opening appeared in the cloud and a shaft of moonlight passed through it. A single moonbeam touched upon the creature.

  It screamed once, like a man in great pain, then mounted into the air heading southwest.

  Thelinde looked up into her mother's face, which suddenly appeared very tried, older…

  "What was it?" she asked her.

  "It was a servant of the Dark One. I tried to warn you, in the most graphic way possible, of his power. For so long has his name been used in the conjuring and compelling of fell spirits and dark wights that his has become a Name of Power. They rush to find the speaker, whenever they hear it uttered, lest it should be he and he should grow angry at their tardiness. If it is not he, they often seek vengeance upon the presumptuous speaker. It is also said, though, that if his name be pronounced too often by one person, then he himself becomes aware of this and sends a doom upon that person. Either way, it is not wise to go about singing such songs."

  "I will not, ever. How can a sorcerer be that strong?"

  "He is as old as the hills. He was once a white wizard and he fell into dark ways, which makes him particularly malicious—you know, they seldom ever change for the better—and he is now accounted to be one of the three most powerful, possibly the most powerful, of all the wizards in all the kingdoms of all the Earths. He is still alive and very strong, though the story which you saw took place centuries ago. But even he is not without his problems…"

  "Why is that?" asked the witch's daughter.

  "Because Dilvish is come alive once more, and I believe he is somewhat angry."

  The moon emerged from behind the cloud, and huge it was, and it had turned to fallow gold during its absence.

  Mildin and her daughter headed back up the hill then, toward Caer Devash rung round with pines, high above Denesh, the silver river.

  The Bells Of Shoredan

  No living thing dwelled in the land of Rahoringhast.

  Since an age before this age had the dead realm been empty of sound, save for the crashing of thunders and the spit-spit of raindrops ricocheting from off its stonework and the stones. The towers of the Citadel of Rahoring still stood; the great archway from which the gates had been stricken continued to gape, like a mouth frozen in a howl of pain and surprise, of death; the countryside about
the place resembled the sterile landscape of the moon.

  The rider followed the Way of the Armies, which led at last to the archway, and on through into the Citadel. Behind him lay a twisted trail leading downward, downward, and back, toward the south and the west. It ran through chill patterns of morning mist that clung, swollen, to dark and pitted ground, like squadrons of gigantic leeches. It looped about the ancient towers, still standing only by virtue of enchantments placed upon them in foregone days. Black and awesome, high rearing, and limned in nightmare's clarity, the towers and the citadel were the final visible extensions of the character of their dead maker: Hohorga, King of the World.

  The rider, the green-booted rider who left no footprints when he walked, must have felt something of the dark power that still remained within the place, for he halted and sat silent, staring for a long while at the broken gates and the high battlements. Then he spoke a word to the black, horselike thing he rode upon, and they pressed ahead.

  As he drew near, he saw that something was moving in the shadows of the archway.

  He knew that no living thing dwelled in the land of Rahoringhast…

  The battle had gone well, considering the number of the defenders.

  On the first day, the emissaries of Lylish had approached the walls of Dilfar, sought parley, requested surrender of the city, and been refused. There followed a brief truce to permit single combat between Lance, the Hand of Lylish, and Dilvish called the Damned, Colonel of the East, Deliverer of Portaroy, scion of the Elvish House of Selar and the human House that hath been stricken.

  The trial lasted but a quarter of an hour, until Dilvish, whose wounded leg had caused his collapse, did strike upward from behind his buckler with the point of his blade. The armor of Lance, which had been deemed invincible, gave way then, when the blade of Dilvish smote at one of the two devices upon the breastplate—those that were cast in the form of cloven hoof marks. Men muttered that these devices had not been present previously and an attempt was made to take the colonel prisoner. His horse, however, which had stood on the sidelines like a steel statue, did again come to his aid, bearing him to safety within the city.

  The assault was then begun, but the defenders were prepared and held well their walls. Well fortified and well provided was Dilfar. Fighting from a position of strength, the defenders cast down much destruction upon the men of the West.

  After four days the army of Lylish had withdrawn with the great rams that it had been unable to use. The men of the West commenced the construction of helepoles, while they awaited the arrival of catapults from Bildesh.

  Above the walls of Dilfar, high in the Keep of Eagles, there were two who watched.

  "It will not go well, Lord Dilvish," said the king, whose name was Malacar the Mighty, though he was short of stature and long of year. "If they complete the towers-that-walk and bring catapults, they will strike us from afar. We will not be able to defend against this. Then the towers will walk when we are weakened from the bombardment."

  "It is true," said Dilvish.

  "Dilfar must not fall."

  "No."

  "Reinforcements have been sent for, but they are many leagues distant. None were prepared for the assault of Lord Lylish, and it will be long before sufficient troops will be mustered and be come here to the battle."

  "That is also true, and by then may it be too late."

  "You are said by some to be the same Lord Dilvish who liberated Portaroy in days long gone by."

  "I am that Dilvish."

  "If so, that Dilvish was of the House of Selar of the Invisible Blade."

  "Yes."

  "Is it true also, then—what is told of the House of Selar and the bells of Shoredan in Rahoringhast?"

  Malacar looked away as he said it.

  "This thing I do not know," said Dilvish. "I have never attempted to raise the cursed legions of Shoredan. My grandmother told me that only twice in all the ages of Time has this been done. I have also read of it in the Green Books of Time at the keep of Mirata. I do not know, however."

  "Only to one of the House of Selar will the bells respond. Else they swing noiseless, it is said."

  "So is it said."

  "Rahoringhast lies far to the north and east, and distressful is the way. One with a mount such as yours might make the journey, might ring there the bells, might call forth the doomed legions, though. It is said they will follow such a one of Selar to battle."

  "Aye, this thought has come to me, also."

  "Willst essay this thing?"

  "Aye, sir. Tonight. I am already prepared."

  "Kneel then and receive thou my blessing, Dilvish of Selar. I knew thou wert he when I saw thee on the field before these walls."

  And Dilvish did kneel and receive the blessing of Malacar, called the Mighty, Liege of the Eastern Reach, whose realm held Dilfar, Bildesh, Maestar, Mycar, Portaroy, Princeaton, and Poind.

  The way was difficult, but the passage of leagues and hours was as the movement of clouds. The western portal to Dilfar had within it a smaller passing-place, a man-sized door studded with spikes and slitted for the discharge of bolts.

  Like a shutter in the wind, this door opened and closed. Crouched low, mounted on a piece of the night, the colonel passed out through the opening and raced across the plain, entering for a moment the outskirts of the enemy camp.

  A cry went up as he rode, and weapons rattled in the darkness.

  Sparks flew from unshod steel hooves.

  "All the speed at thy command now, Black, my mount!"

  He was through the campsite and away before arrow could be set to bow.

  High on the hill to the east, a small fire throbbed in the wind. Pennons, mounted on tall poles, flopped against the night, and it was too dark for Dilvish to read the devices thereon, but he knew that they stood before the tents of Lylish, Colonel of the West.

  Dilvish spoke the words in the language of the damned, and as he spoke them the eyes of his mount glowed like embers in the night. The small fire on the hilltop leapt, one great leaf of flame, to the height of four men. It did not reach the tent, however. Then there was no fire at all, only the embers of all the fuels consumed in a single moment.

  Dilvish rode on, and the hooves of Black made lightning on the hillside.

  They pursued him a small while only. Then he was away and alone.

  All that night did he ride through places of rock. Shapes reared high above him and fell again, like staggering giants surprised in their drunkenness. He felt himself launched, countless times, through empty air, and when he looked down on these occasions, there was only empty air beneath him.

  With the morning, there came a leveling of his path, and the far edge of the Eastern Plain lay before him, then under him. His leg began to throb beneath its dressing, but he had lived in the Houses of Pain for more than the lifetimes of Men, and he put the feeling far from his thoughts.

  After the sun had raised itself over the jagged horizon at his back, he stopped to eat and to drink, to stretch his limbs.

  In the sky then he saw the shapes of the nine black doves that must circle the world forever, never to land, seeing all things on the earth and on the sea, and passing all things by.

  "An omen," he said. "Be it a good one?"

  "I know not," replied the creature of steel.

  "Then let us make haste to learn."

  He remounted.

  For four days did he pass over the plain, until the yellow and green waving grasses gave way and the land lay sandy before him.

  The winds of the desert cut at his eyes. He fixed his scarf as a muffle, but it could not stop the entire assault. When he would cough and spit, he needed to lower it, and the sand entered again. He would blink and his face would burn, and he would curse, but no spell he knew could lay the entire desert like yellow tapestry, smooth and unruffled below him. Black was an opposing wind, and the airs of the land rushed to contest his passage.

  On the third day in the desert, a mad wight fl
ew invisible and gibbering at his back. Even Black could not outrun it, and it ignored the foulest imprecations of Mabrahoring, language of the demons and the damned.

  The following day, more joined with it. They would not pass the protective circle in which Dilvish slept, but they screamed across his dreams—meaningless fragments of a dozen tongues—troubling his sleep.

  He left them when he left the desert. He left them as he entered the land of stone and marshes and gravel and dark pools and evil openings in the ground from which the fumes of the underworld came forth.

  He had come to the border of Rahoringhast.

  It was damp and gray, everywhere.

  It was misty in places, and the water oozed forth from the rocks, came up from out of the ground.

  There were no trees, shrubs, flowers, grasses. No birds sang, no insects hummed… No living thing dwelled in the land of Rahoringhast.

  Dilvish rode on and entered through the broken jaws of the city.

  All within was shadow and ruin.

  He passed up the Way of the Armies.

  Silent was Rahoringhast, a city of the dead.

  He could feel this, not as the silence of nothingness now, but as the silence of a still presence.

  Only the steel cloven hooves sounded within the city.

  There came no echoes.

  Sound… Nothing. Sound… Nothing. Sound…

  It was as though something unseen moved to absorb every evidence of life as soon as it noised itself.

  Red was the palace, like bricks hot from the kiln and flushed with the tempers of their making. But of one piece were the walls. No seams, no divisions were there in the sheet of red. It was solid, was imponderable, broad of base, and reached with its thirteen towers higher than any building Dilvish had ever seen, though he had dwelled in the high keep of Mirata itself, where the Lords of Illusion hold sway, bending space to their will.

  Dilvish dismounted and regarded the enormous stairway that lay before him. "That which we seek lies within."