Flame Winds Page 6

  For moments longer, the smiling yellow face of Tsien Hui seemed to float before his eyes; then it was gone, and he could see clearly. He stood alone in the midst of a great concourse, beneath a groined and vaulted ceiling that lifted into dim distance above his head. On either side were the twining, fluted columns, carved from ivory and alabaster and sweet-smelling cedar. About them writhed golden, fire-tongued dragons. Beneath them, the thick-pressed ranks of people were dwarfed. Wan Tengri’s eyes followed the sweep of the columns and widened to the shock of the figure that filled the entire end of this great hall. A great, many-armed body rose from a robe of cloth-of-gold that glittered with jewels, and the face was a horror of burning blue and scarlet. Tusks thrust out between blood-dripping lips, and the horns that jutted from the temples were tipped in flame. He stood—Christos, he stood before Ahriman for judgment!

  Weakness flowed through the marrow of his bones and a great cry swelled his chest. He held it down with an effort that made the veins swell in his temples and suffused his eyes so that he saw through a dancing, reddened veil. He was Prester John. No man, not even Ahriman amid his hell fire, should see him show fear. He clenched his giant’s fists and became aware of the brass that manacled him. Slowly, his vision cleared and he looked down at his weathered, scar-wealed body. He had been stripped to a loincloth, and the thews of his legs, like his arms, were festooned with chains that tinkled like silvery bells to his every movement, like the silvery bells that graced the throat of bulls sacrificed to Isis. Every muscle stood out in rigid relief as he strained his wrists apart against the grip of those chains. They seemed so light, a mockery of captivity, yet his utmost strength served not to strain a link. Enchantment again. Ah, to Ahriman with all of them! They could do no more than kill him!

  Prester John’s fiery red head lifted and his crimson beard bristled in defiance. He set his gray eyes, under lowered brows, against the fire-dancing eyes of the god, Ahriman. The fragment of the True Cross lifted with the surge of his great chest.

  “I await,” his mighty voice boomed. “I await the judgment of Ahriman. And may the wind-devils who sired me fly away with you.”

  A murmur ran over the waiting throng as the echoes of his challenge died out in the groined vaults above. Robed priests were filing out from black doorways and, like the soldiers who surrounded the enchanted fountain, their robes were of seven colors, and each file was led by a man in the livery of a different wizard. Despite the certainty of approaching death, Wan Tengri’s lips twitched in a smile. Even here, in the temple of the Ahriman, the wizards did not trust each other. He wondered, absently, which of those priests were the men of Tsien Hui? His humor came to the aid of his courage. What was that Ahriman there but a fabric of man-made wood or stone, draped in man-wrought cloth-of-gold? It was true mat men said the spirit of a god came to inhabit the figures men made in his worship. Only Christos forbade all that. Some of his followers had been crucified for smashing the little terracotta home gods of the Romans. It was comforting to remember that it had been the hands of men, and not the gods, that had punished the Christians for that.

  Prester John jangled his wrist chains in time to the slow, chanting march of the priests, and they made a sound like light laughter. He saw that they were fastened to a block of stone in the floor. Despite their enchantments, the wizards were taking no chances with him! Wan Tengri allowed his eyes to roam over the waiting crowds. A saucy wench peered at him from behind an alabaster column; a brass-cuirassed guard glared at him from beneath his helmet’s brim. From a litter, a wealthy merchant in his silks and furs lifted himself on a languorous elbow to peer beneath incurious lids.

  A sudden rumble, like distant thunder, whipped Wan Tengri’s eyes back to Ahriman. Sparks were flying from those awful eyes and, as Wan Tengri stared, those evil-tusked jaws began to champ. There was a wail of terror from the crowd. The priests were on their knees and, as one man, the waiting throng hurled itself prone, drummed foreheads in supplication upon the stone floor. Prester John’s face paled, but he stood erect. He lifted his manacled hands to touch the bit of the True Cross about his throat.

  “I have given allegiance,” Prester John muttered. “After my fashion, I have given allegiance. If a soldier’s word means anything, hear my pledge now. Stand beside me, before me, behind me, and I’ll bring a thousand, a hundred thousand men to bow before you. A hundred thousand, Christos, if I have to cut their throats to make them.”

  So Prester John stood straight on his braced legs and held his gray, frowning eyes on the fire-flashing face of Ahriman. Those rumblings of thunder were taking form, becoming words. Ahriman, it seemed, spoke the Mongol tongue:

  “He shall wage the three battles and win honor—or death!”

  A gust of smoke and a dart of flame put a stop to the words of Ahriman. A mingled cry, it seemed of protest, welled up from the priests, a muted cheer from the waiting throngs and, with a distant murmurous rumble, Ahriman fell silent. Wan Tengri felt tremors race over his body.

  “It’s the strain,” he muttered to himself. “The strain in my muscles. Three battles, eh? Phagh! I could do it with one hand behind me—with your help, Christos. Thou hast heard and heeded. Did I say a hundred thousand men should bow? It shall be—Nay, a hundred thousand was the pledge. I’ll keep my end of the bargain. Turgohl shall be the first—”

  Prester John’s eyes quested grimly, calculatingly over the throng climbing heavily to its feet. A curtain of cloth-of-gold swung before the awful statue of the god, and the priests were filing toward him, chanting as they came.

  “The judgment of Ahriman is just. The judgment of Ahriman is unfailing. Great is the power of Ahriman and his reign shall endure a thousand years.”

  The march of the priests divided and passed by within arm reach of Prester John, and the chain tightened and tugged at his wrists. No man had touched them, but the ring that bound him to the stone was loosened, was sliding along to draw him forward between the ranks of the priests! Wan Tengri’s eyes strained wide, and for an instant he pitted his giant thews against the brazen leash. It was as resistless as time. He relaxed and strode forward between the inclosing priests. His head was high. Draped in chains, he marched like a conqueror.

  “Tell me, comrade,” he said easily to the priest beside him, a dour man in a cowl of scarlet, “tell me, what may these three battles be, and when shall I wage them?”

  The man scowled, and his black eyes slid sideways in their sockets to glare at Wan Tengri. “Thou hast cheated us of our just sacrifice, fool,” he hissed, “but you will not survive the three battles! The battle of the beasts, the battle of men, and the battle of the gods. Aye! I shall laugh to see thy accursed blood flow!”

  Prester John grinned with a flashing of his powerful teeth. “Why, that is as may be. There’s apt to be a deal of blood before we’re through, one way or another. Yet if I win, shaveling, I shall have honors! And the first honor I shall crave will be your ugly skull on a pole! It will serve to frighten children.” He threw back his fiery head to set his booming laughter echoing, and heard a murmur from the crowd that might be applause.

  It was in that same instant that the stone floor seemed to melt away beneath Prester John’s feet and he felt himself plunging downward into blackness! The light snapped out in his brain!

  V

  WHEN Wan Tengri stirred with a groan, that blackness was still close about him, tangibly pressing in upon his brain. And there was a stench that strangled him with horror, a dank sourness of underground pits where water dripped endlessly and starving rats gnawed on rotting flesh; where human animals were chained motionless to stone walls and Ormazd’s sweet sunlight never reached. Rancid, filthy, nauseous—Wan Tengri knew before his eyes strained open in that utter darkness that he was in the dungeons beneath the Temple of Ahriman.

  For a long, half-conscious moment, Wan Tengri fought against a surge of panic. He remembered the hatred that had flared through the eyes of the priest. Would they then dare to gainsay the orders t
heir god had mouthed? A groan pushed against his teeth, and he tried to thrust up from the wet cold of the rocks on which he lay. Chains that seemed to crack his very bones dragged him back. He forced himself to relax all his muscles and lie there waiting, waiting—

  Little sounds drove their way into his consciousness. Water dragged slow drops from the rocks near by. Drip… drip… drip. Unconsciously, he found himself counting between those splashes, and they were monotonously, insistently regular. Drip. The slow, thick pulse in his throat throbbed fifteen times, then drip. And fifteen pulse beats. Then drip. Frantically, Wan Tengri strained his ears to catch some other faint sound, anything but that liquid, dragging pat of falling water. He was thirsty.

  The minute scamper of small claws as a rat flicked across the cell was a relief for a moment, and then horror. If those slimy beasts of the dungeons attacked him, he was helpless. They would know it. They were wise with a thousand generations of rats that had preyed on the helpless victims of these dungeons. The claws skittered nearer, flicked coldy across his thighs. Wan Tengri’s muscles jerked, but the rat was gone. If it came back—Drip… drip… drip.

  Out of the aching silence, a scream burst. It was torn from a human throat by agony, and it was formless, hoarse—the shriek of an animal in deathly pain. The sound clapped hollowly through the fetid air, then it broke with a retching groan. So the torture chambers were here, too. Wan Tengri found that all his body was straining against the chains. It was his utter helplessness that was sapping the marrow from his bones. He feared death no more than any other man, less than many. It was a thing a soldier learned to face. But the silence. And the water drip—

  He forced his mind back in time, away from the contemplation of the priests of Ahriman and what might lie ahead. He was clinging desperately to the hope of those promised three battles. Beasts—and men—and gods. Perhaps they were only weakening his spirit for the encounter. Perhaps—To Ahriman with them all! He would be ready!

  That tower amid its dancing flames seemed years away, and the roof on which he had lain beside Bourtai. Had that evil gnome sent him into this hell? Or had it been his own cocksureness when he had broken into the home of Tsien Hui? What did it matter—now. Drip-drip-drip. God, the sounds were wearing on his very brain! Seven wizards, Bourtai had said, who did not trust each other. When he got out of this—Self-mockery stirred in his brain and the ever-saving humor twisted his lips in a wry smile.

  “Come, Prester John,” he mocked. “Thou art a hurricane for strength. That priest of Christos said that faith moveth mountains. Heave up this mountain of thy flesh. What, nothing but a few chains?”

  Out of the darkness a voice spoke: “Wan Tengri? No, I am dreaming, Ah, drip, and may the devils of Ahriman—”

  “Kassar! Kassar, my brother!” Wan Tengri’s voice burst joyously into the dark. “Thou art here? Then all is not lost! Together, brother, what can we not do?”

  There was silence in the darkness, save for the heavy sound of labored breathing, until Kassar’s voice came, hoarsely:

  “Thou art chained, John of the Wind-devils?”

  “Chained, brother,” Wan Tengri admitted, “but at least we need no longer hear silence. They must come to us some time, and if it be death… why, we have seen death before.”

  Kassar laughed, sharply. “Aye, it will be easier now. I had hoped these dogs of wizards had missed you. That accursed Bourtai—”

  Wan Tengri’s body tautened under the chains. “How say you—Bourtai? What Bourtai?”

  “Him whom they call the All-High,” Kassar said curtly. “The chief of the seven wizards of Kasimer. May Ahriman blind him and wither up his bowels! May Ahriman pierce his brain with madness!”

  Wan Tengri’s eyes, staring blindly up into the darkness, narrowed in thought. That withered cripple of a man, burrowing in the salt mines and companion of filthy thieves, the All-High? Nay, surely, this was some other Bourtai. Or perhaps an ass who wished to wear a lion’s skin for an hour—yet he could remember a moment when he had almost feared this same rat of the salt mines; he, Prester John! And a wizard could use such spies as those slinking thieves.

  Wan Tengri spoke heavily: “Yet I thought these wizards were unknown, that they hid behind enchantments. One told me that this same Tsien Hui, the money lender, was a wizard and, in truth, he must be, since he turned my blood to water and froze me into an enchanted sleep when I had an arrow notched to drive to his yellow heart!”

  “In this accursed city,” Kassar told him fiercely, “all men are wizards since the black thieves came from Kasimer. And this same Bourtai may have lied. He came to the yurt of the khan asking aid to drive out his six brothers in sorcery and promising many things. My brother, the khan, drove him from the ordu with whips. The khan worships the One True God and does not love a wizard. Now surely, had he been the All-High, this Bourtai would have laid a curse upon my brother. It is a thing I do not understand. But this I know: I shall die soon. It is written.”

  “What is written, no man can avoid,” Wan Tengri agreed soberly, “yet I do not feel that death is near. Not since I have found you again, my brother. And I have made a vow which surely I must live to fulfill.”

  The hours dripped past in the darkness and no man came near them, nor was there any sound. The torture of thirst grew upon them there in the dungeon until the plash of the falling drops was an agony almost too great to be borne. Yet presently, when they were replete with hopeless talk, Wan Tengri forced sleep upon his aching brain, nor did he awake until the far whisper of footsteps struck like thunder into his consciousness.

  “Kassar,” he said quietly, “I think they come for us.”

  “For me,” Kassar said, with sure knowledge. “Farewell, brother. I would I could have seen thee fight again.”

  “Nay, we shall meet!”

  “If it is written,” Kassar agreed calmly. “Or perhaps when I return in new flesh. Surely, we will know each other! Until then, my honor is safe in my blood brother’s hands.”

  “It is safe,” Wan Tengri told him curtly. “Nor will I forget that it was for me you came to this wizard’s hell. It was my blood that snared you. What my blood can do to free you shall be done.”

  He could catch the red glisten of torchlight on the damp walls and the footsteps came steadily nearer. Presently, the glare of the smoking flares blinded his dark-accustomed eyes, and afterward, when he could see there were seven priests in their seven-colored robes standing at the gaping mouth of the cell. Wan Tengri could see now what he had not guessed before, that Kassar swung by his thumbs from a hook in the ceiling, and that his face was channeled deep by pain! His own mouth twisted in fury.

  “Ha, shavelings!” he cried. “This man is my blood brother. Take me in his place, and give to him the right of the three battles. You will see such fighting as will please even Ahriman himself!”

  Kassar said steadily: “Let be, brother.” The shavelings made no answer to Wan Tengri’s curses. They stepped over his chained and helpless body to drop Kassar from his torture rack, and afterward, in chains, they led Kassar away while Prester John sent his raging fury echoing after them. The gleam of torches died and the faint fall of their feet, and afterward the silence came back more heavily than before.

  When, from the dark, a voice whispered, Wan Tengri did not answer. It was some trick of his brain, he thought, some illusion conjured out of his intense need. But the voice came again:

  “Wan Tengri, thy turn comes next. Canst hear?”

  Prester John swore raggedly, “I hear, thou skulker! Free me, Bourtai, Monkey-face! Kassar—”

  “Nay, no man can help Kassar,” came the faint whisper of the voice. “Nor can I free thee. The rocks between are too thick even could I break those enchanted chains. But listen, Wan Tengri. When you enter the arena, look for the portal of the scarlet ones. Behind it, a swift horse will wait. A quick and valiant dash will win you through.”

  Wan Tengri glowered into the darkness. “First, I have a score to settle with th
ose same priests,” he said thickly.

  He caught the faint echo of Bourtai’s giggle. “It would be worth the seeing. Hark, master, they will trick thee out of thy honors, for it is written that if a man shall win the battle of the beasts, and the battle of the men, that these priests may fight against thee in the battle of the gods. Yet if a man can win there, too—”

  Wan Tengri stirred restlessly and his chains made their faint silvery music. He cursed. “A curse on thee, ratface! Speak out, even though it try thy rat’s courage to the breaking! If a man can win the battle of the gods, what then?”

  “Before the god dies, master, ask a question. Dying, the god must answer. Ask this: How may one man rule Turgohl?”

  “Aye,” Wan Tengri laughed sharply. “I will ask!”

  The cackle of the thief sounded faintly: “Yet it might be wiser to mount the horse and flee. In seventeen years, master, no man has lived to ask that question; and there have been many to try those three battles. Many, master—many.”

  Wan Tengri swore harshly and presently called a question, but there was no answer. Bourtai had gone his rat’s way through the warrens under the city and there was nothing left save waiting, and the silent darkness, and the tormenting drip of the water. And Kassar—where was Kassar? There was no answer to that question, and presently, with a shuffle of sandaled feet and the bloody glitter of their torches, the priests of the seven wizards came back. Their leader, in scarlet, stooped to touch the chains and Wan Tengri felt them relax. With a great bound, he was on his feet—then his lips twisted in grim mockery. He was free of the earth, but not free of the chains. Still they clamped wrists and ankles and, once more, the ring to which they linked him glided irresistibly along the floor stones. Wan Tengri followed.