Timura Trilogy - The Gods Awaken Part 9

Light delivered victory, but it came at a terrible price.

The creatures, with their pale, death-worm skins, cowered on the floor of the vast chamber. Their howls of agony from the light were so intense that even Leiria, the most battle-hardened of soldiers, was moved by pity.

They were like flies in a cruel boy's insect collection--pierced through with needles of light. Pinned to thefloor, their immense wings flapping feebly as they circled those impaling shafts on all fours, shrieking in pain and begging for mercy.

After Leiria had recovered she clambered to her feet and saw Jooli rising from the place where she had fallen--tossing away her broken pike. Blood leaked from a shallow arm wound where a talon had caught her.

About twenty feet away she saw Biner, surrounded by the other members of the Kyranian party, transfixed by the sight of the groaning monsters. The Kyranians were covered with blood, but when they unfroze from the shock and started to move Leiria sighed in relief when she realized that little of the blood was their own.

Biner came up to her, shaking his big head. "What do we do with them, la.s.s?" he asked. "Make them prisoners?"

Before she could form an answer out of the chaotic thoughts and feelings racing through her mind, Palimak stepped down from what Leiria realized for the first time was a dais.

Behind him she saw the great coffin sitting on the platform--the mighty sarcophagus that was also the source of all that brightness. For out of its open lid spilled a blazing river of light, filling every nook and cranny of the chamber with an intensity that forbade the existence of even the smallest shadow.

The coffin light framed Palimak, silhouetting him larger than life. As intense as that light was, Leiria could see his eyes huge and glowing with magical fires. She saw the long talons arcing out from his fingers. And when he opened his mouth to speak she s.h.i.+vered at the sharp teeth he revealed--almost like fangs.

His ears seemed to have points that were more p.r.o.nounced than normal. And his pale skin appeared more translucent than usual, with a green cast just beneath the surface. It was as if, she thought, another Palimak were ready to burst through. His demon side. Which was a Palimak she wasn't so certain she wanted to know.

And then she thought, No, it is a trick of the magical light. He's still my little Palimak. My dear little Palimak. The strange child I carried away from Zanzair on horseback. Chortling the first rude words taught to him by Gundara and Gundaree, "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

He had been still oblivious to the fact that his mother, Nerisa, had just been killed by Iraj Protarus. Or that Iraj and his soldiers were hunting him now, bent on putting Safar, Leiria and the child to the sword.

Palimak turned to her, blazing eyes commanding. But when he spoke, his voice was a soft, almost mournful, counterpoint.

"We have to kill them, Aunt Leiria," he said. "I'm sorry to make you do this, but I don't think we have any choice. They're worse than any nest of vipers."

He drew in a deep breath. "Vipers, at least," he said, "have a purpose that's not so different from ours.

No more terrible than ours, anyway. They have to eat, they have to breed and protect their young. And they only harm us if we threaten those needs and wants."

He gestured at the corpse of one of the beasts. It was much larger than the others, its head sheared from its body and fallen to one side. Eyes glaring hatred even in death.

"That's their queen," he said. "Queen Charize. And she was an evil thing, a hateful thing. And her purpose was something I still really don't understand."He pointed at the open coffin. "That's Asper's tomb," he said. "I think there's promise there. Hope there.

Father said there was, at any rate. And Charize was trying to subvert it. Turn it into an evil force for her own uses."

Palimak picked up his sword, which he'd dropped while making the light spell. He advanced toward one of the cowering creatures, talons retracting into his fingers. Fangs turning back into human teeth again.

Eyes transforming into something more human with each step he took.

He looks so sad now, Leiria thought. And she wondered how hard it must be for him to wear a cloak of human form after living in the steel-hard skin of a demon.

He raised the sword high. "Mercy, master!" the creature shrieked. "Mercy!"

Leiria thought she heard Palimak groan in sorrow. But perhaps it was only a result of the muscular effort it took as he brought the sword down and cut off the creature's begging. Then, without pause, he went to another and took its life. Then another, and another...

Reluctantly, Leiria retrieved her own sword and joined in the slaughter.

After she'd killed her first victim, Biner, Jooli and the soldiers joined in. But just as hesitatingly. Whereas before they had fought and killed with a will, now they just struck out blindly, trying not to look at the poor, mewling things who were their victims.

Sometimes they stopped, sick of themselves and the G.o.ds for requiring such a thing. But Palimak urged them on, saying his light spell wouldn't last much longer.

In the end Charize's underground kingdom sank in a welter of gore. A place where the Butcher King had set up market with enough corpses to feed the greatest of cities. Except no one would ever feed on this flesh, so in their deaths Charize's subjects were denied even that most basic honor. They would putrefy here. Unwanted, unneeded, and mourned only in the nightmares of Leiria and the others who would most certainly never boast of their victory in this place. Because it was ma.s.s murder, nothing more.

So went the false Sisters of Asper. And as Leiria slew her last she remembered their refrain: "We take the sin/ We take the sin./ Lady, Lady, Lady."

The words would remain with her for the rest of her life.

Palimak could feel himself transforming. Sharp pin-p.r.i.c.kles stabbed his skin as if he'd just been caught out in a lightning storm in the High Caravans of Kyrania. Hair like barbs in his skull. Eyes so dry it was painful to blink. The air was oppressive, crackling with energy.

He felt like he was two animals stuffed into one skin. One was cold logic: what was required, must be done. The other wanted to weep in empathy for his enemy. As he struck another scaly head from its shoulders, he thought, What if this were me?

Gradually, the softer side--the human side, he realized--superseded the first. And each killing blow became more difficult. No, that wasn't correct. It wasn't harder to kill, but it took more pa.s.sion. He had to conjure up hate to power his muscles as if it were a magical spell. He had to hate these things to kill them. Invest them with all the deviltry the human world could imagine that he could deliver the blow.

And when he was done and there were no more creatures left to kill, he stood panting over the last corpse. Blood singing for more. Mind horrified at what he had done.It was then that he realized he was fully human again. It was then that he realized he'd been fully demon before.

And on the whole, he thought, he much preferred the demon state.

Palimak mentally shook himself. Appalled at that thought. He was human, dammit! More human than demon!

Wasn't he?

Palimak buried this doubt. Triggered an avalanche of excuses and rationalizations, plummeting so quickly down that mountain of emotions that all other thought was smothered.

He looked at Leiria and saw ... what was it? ... relief? ... in her eyes. Glanced down at his hands and saw that the claws had retracted into ... normal? ... human fingers. And then the rest of him felt human as well.

Body and mind. Mind and body.

And there was blood everywhere he looked. Blood that he had spilled.

He felt sick and wanted badly to flee from this place.

Then he threw his sword away. By the G.o.ds, he didn't want that blade in his hand anymore! It felt filthy.

Defiled. And he was glad to be rid of it.

He also badly wanted to get out of this chamber. To seal its horrors off from the rest of the world with the largest boulder he could find.

A small voice chattered in his ear. "The coffin, Little Master," Gundara said. "Remember Asper's tomb."

And Gundaree added, "That's why we came here, wasn't it?"

Mind swirling with weariness, Palimak turned to face the tomb. The light spilling out was so hot and bright that he had raise a hand to s.h.i.+eld his face. He was vaguely aware that Leiria and the others were watching him; probably wondering if he were possessed, so forced were his movements. But he didn't have the strength to voice rea.s.surance.

He made a weak gesture, but the light only barely dimmed. It was still too hot to approach and he didn't have the strength to make a better spell.

"I'm hungry!" Gundara announced. It sounded loud in his ear, but Palimak knew from experience that the others couldn't hear.

"Me too," Gundaree added. "I want something sweet to eat. Like some honey cakes."

"With syrup all over them," Gundara put in. "Yum, yum."

"I don't have any honey cakes on me at the moment," Palimak said, too tired to worry that his human friends would think he was talking to himself. He patted the pocket where he kept their treats. "Maybe some currants. But that's it."

"They probably have pocket lint on them," Gundaree sniffed. "I hate lint!"

"Besides," Gundara said, "currants give me gas. You can't imagine what it's like living in a stone turtle when you have gas all the time."Palimak couldn't help but grin. In the middle of all this blood the twins remained true to form. They were safe now, that was all that mattered. Base needs came first, bless their greedy little souls.

"I'll get you some honey cakes when we get back to the airs.h.i.+p," Palimak promised.

Gundara sighed. "All right. If that's how it has to be. I guess we can't do anything else."

"But I want doubles," Gundaree insisted. "You have to promise doubles. Plus some really old cheese.

Smelly as you can get it."

"Doubles it is," Palimak said. "And all the smelly cheese you can eat."

Once again he gestured, but this time he felt a surge of extra power from the Favorites. The light dimmed until it was bearable enough for him to look at the coffin straight on.

He clumped up the steps, boots heavy, feeling like he was walking through mud. But as he advanced up the stairs the Favorites were giggling to themselves, as if they had a great secret. Palimak figured they had something up their sleeves to get further promises of treats.

Then he was at the coffin.

He peered inside, expecting to see the mummified remains of the demon wizard, Lord Asper.

Instead a man, wearing the very same robes Asper had been entombed in, stared blindly up at him.

And the twins chorused: "Surprise, Little Master! Surprise!"

It was his father...

Safar Timura!

Palimak blinked, stunned.

Then Safar's eyes came open. His lips moved, forming words.

In a haze of unreality, Palimak leaned forward to listen.

"Khysmet," Safar whispered.

Then a hand came out, gripping Palimak's tunic and drawing him down with surprising strength.

And Safar said, insistent, "Where is Khysmet?"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE WITCH QUEEN.

It was near the end of day when the king's spies brought him the news. Rhodes hurried out to his castle's seaward wall and clambered up onto one of the big s.h.i.+p-killing catapults that defended this portion of his fortress.

According to his spies, Palimak and his party had left the warrens of the Idol of Asper and were now carrying a strange burden to the airs.h.i.+p.

The catapult--hewn from the largest timbers in Syrapis--made a difficult climb for a man of Rhodes'

bulk and he gasped curses at his underlings. But the curses were really directed at himself for the sloththat had turned his once muscular body into such a wheezing ma.s.s of fat.

This was the reason, he thought, that Palimak and the Kyranians had been able to best him. He'd not only allowed his body to become larded, but his mind as well. He'd grown lax--and by example had allowed his subjects to become lax. His own mother had belabored Rhodes when he was a prince for his lazy tendencies.

Barbarian though he might be, Rhodes had a good mind and a natural instinct for strategy, plus an unerring eye for spotting his enemy's weaknesses.

He was also blessed with formidable strength and speed, especially for someone so large. At birth he'd been over fifteen pounds, which would have made for a difficult delivery if his mother had been a normal woman. But she came from a race of overly large people--not quite giants--and Rhodes' entrance to the world through her wide hips and iron womb had been rather routine. If pa.s.sing a cart horse could ever be called routine.

This combination of superior size and mental acuity had made Rhodes an easy winner over the other petty kings and queens in Syrapis. That was what had made him lazy, he thought. It had been too easy.

And when Palimak and the Kyranians had arrived he had not been prepared for their new forms of warfare.

Rhodes finally reached the top of the catapult and peered over the walls to see what his enemy was up to. Across from him, hovering over the little island that was home to the Idol of Asper, was the airs.h.i.+p.

Not for the first time, envy gripped him as he gazed on that remarkable machine.

It was this magical device, he thought, that had been the key to the Kyranians' many victories over him and his royal Syrapian cousins. If only he had been blessed with such a thing the tale might have had a different ending. The humiliating scene in the courtyard two days before would not have happened.

Instead it would have been Palimak and that b.i.t.c.h warrior woman of his who would have suffered the shame of defeat.

He lapsed momentarily into a reverie in which the two of them were being dragged before his throne to be condemned to the nastiest agonies that Rhodes' best torturers could devise.

Rhodes brought himself up short. No time for imaginary pleasures. He must be stronger than ever before.

He must spy out his enemies' doings and look for the weakness that might deliver them into his hands.

He saw the tide was turning below. Waves were already beginning to wash over the island. In an hour or so there would be no dry ground. An hour after that the idol itself would disappear beneath the creamy froth of the waves.

He gestured and an aide handed him a spygla.s.s. Rhodes peered through it and made out Palimak directing four soldiers who were swaying up a large, mysterious object. What in the h.e.l.ls was it?

He adjusted the focus, following the object up as it rose in the net that enclosed it. Was it some sort of box? And what was that carving on the lid? Then he realized it was shaped like a coffin. If so, it was a very big coffin indeed. Large enough to hold a man twice Rhodes' size, that was for certain.

Once again he studied the carving on the lid. Just before the coffin came level with his eyes, he realized what the carving was. It was a demon! Not only that, but the demon's face had the same features that were carved into the stone idol.It was none other than Asper! He was certain of it. Then the coffin rose out of sight and a moment later the airs.h.i.+p crew were muscling it over the rails to the deck.