Gangs of Antares [Dray Prescot #45] Read online

  But a fellow knows when he's been through something more than usually warm.

  In the saloon Sans Paynor, Logan and Duven joined me. Also the priestess who had assisted Paynor with Tiri came in, looking serene. She was Sana Lally. At least, that was what she was called now. I learned she had been the Vadni L'Lallistafuros. When we settled down to a delightful repast served by attentive acolytes, I brought up the intriguing subject of these double capital-lettered names. They weren't exactly embarrassed by the remark as reserved. Eventually, by piecing bits of information gathered there and later, I now know that just about all the great families had the double capital letter. Some still used the form; some did not. Some said it was necessary for the dignity of their house, others that the form was old fashioned and cumbersome. In one vague sense it was somewhat like using a simple v for von.

  I might have guessed, by Krun! Young Tiri was, of course and naturally, really T'Tirivenswatha.

  “The fashion of use comes and goes,” explained Paynor, and he smiled upon Sana Lally.

  They talked upon inconsequential subjects for a time. I saw this small talk was designed to soothe me and ease me back into the real world from the nightmares that had nearly driven me insane.

  Presently Logan chanced on the subject of the spate of horrible murders of young girls.

  Sana Lally, a smooth-featured woman with a generous mouth, drew her eyebrows down, and lines appeared around that curved mouth.

  “It is disgusting. If the City Guard do not find the killer soon, who knows what will happen?”

  “The answer is plain enough.” Duven's words ripped out like the sleeting hail of crossbow bolts. His intense face was drawn, hollowed, the eyes feverish. “Dokerty. It has to be.”

  “I do agree with that summation,” murmured Logan.

  Paynor nodded. “They practice revolting rites, it is true. But they take place in the privacy of their temples.” He passed a hand across his brow. “Why kill young girls out in the street?”

  “Because they are decadent and should be put down!” blazed Duven.

  Lally sighed. “If only they could be.”

  They went on discussing the murders for a time, and it was noticeable that they ate very little. Presently I ventured to change the topic of discussion.

  “You are religious, and have access to arcane knowledge. Your libraries must be extensive, your records comprehensive. Also, you know far more of Oxonium and Tolindrin than do I.” I paused, not for effect—I swear!—but to take a sip of the excellent wine they had served. “I have seen a—thing—that puzzles and horrifies me.” I went on to describe the red-robed manic monstrosity. I finished: “However, I doubt if this thing is murdering these girls.”

  They sat without moving, without talking, frozen. I could have tossed a freeze spell among them.

  I gave my lips a tongue swipe. “If I have offended you, I apologize—”

  “No, Drajak the Sudden. You have earned your nickname. It is just that...” here Paynor held a napkin to his lips.

  “This thing—these things—are known.” Logan looked distressed. He took a gulp of wine. “Perhaps, San Paynor, we could show Drajak the records?”

  We all looked at the priest. He deliberated with himself for some time. Eventually, very somberly, he said: “You have seen an ibmanzy, Drajak, you are certain sure?”

  “If an ibmanzy is a monstrous maniacal thing clawing people—”

  “Quite. Very well. Come.”

  We went through the halls to a library. I say a library, for there were clearly other, ordinary libraries. Getting into this one behind its solid iron door was a rigmarole of keys held by Paynor, of bolts and bars, of literally opening up a most secure safe deposit.

  Inside—! I knew that my comrade Wizards and Witch of Loh would give a very great deal to spend a few months of the Maiden with the Many Smiles in here, diligently perusing the arcane lore stored in hundreds of scrolls and enormous bronze-bound books.

  “This is what we call our Black Library. It is not for those of feeble mind.”

  “I believe it.”

  Logan climbed the ladder to bring down the tomes indicated by Paynor. The priests together opened the vast pages and the leather binding creaked, dust and paper dust flew in a cloud. The page was smoothed out. Paynor pointed a finger, and, by Vox, that thin finger trembled.

  “This?”

  I looked. “Aye. That.”

  There it was, on the page, drawn and illuminated in bold colors. Red robes flapping, crazed eyes bursting from its head, arms stretched aloft with raking claws, the body shown in more detail than I'd appreciated. The pictured representation showed the ribs breaking through the skin, as though some superhuman force within was bursting its way out from the fragile human body.

  “That!”

  They told me that everything had its spirit, its ib, and the ibma was the materialization of the ib. Aeons ago researchers had discovered ways of uniting a human with her or his ib. In the nature of things there were evil spirits within the spirit world. They waited their chance to emerge into our world. Interfering with the balance one with another could, in certain circumstances, open the doorway within a human body for the ib to emerge. No doubt in the beginning the researchers were motivated by genuine desires to improve mankind.

  “But, of course,” said Paynor, “there were those who saw ends suited to their own dark purposes. A human being taken over by this horrific force, sometimes willingly, sometimes under duress, becomes more than human. Not superhuman, but an ibmanzy, the embodiment of evil breaking from a human body.”

  I saw something in these words, then, and I trembled.

  “Tiri? When we were bonded, and you gave Tiri the knowledge of the keys—?”

  Paynor drew himself up. “Yes, Drajak. The risk was there. An ibmanzy might have seized Tiri had we failed. Had you failed.”

  To think of that! Young Tiri, turned into a bloated screaming monster from hell, her lissom body being literally torn apart from within. She—rather the ibmanzy thing she had become—would have clawed and ripped and destroyed everyone until somehow or other it could in its turn be destroyed.

  “I am glad you didn't tell me this before.”

  “These things are secret, hidden. There have been no ibmanzies for many seasons.”

  Duven in his brittle way said: “Let me show you this.” He turned pages, helped by Logan. The picture they showed me was just as dreadful as the first. The thing wore a green robe. Another page and a picture of an ibmanzy wearing a brown robe.

  Lally wrinkled up her mouth. “Yes. Even an adherent of Cymbaro once fell into evil ways.”

  “The reason I asked you to look at these others, Drajak, is obvious.” Duven trembled in the intensity of his purpose.

  Slowly, I said: “The red robed ibmanzy. The red robes of Dokerty.”

  “As Mabal and Matol rise each morning.”

  No one spoke for a space.

  San Paynor did not so much heave up a sigh as let out a small breath of profound regret at the follies of humanity. “If what we now suspect is true, then we can look forward only to awful dangers. What insane fool would wish to meddle with these spirits of darkness?”

  Duven's mouth curled in contempt. “I can name you the top hierarchy of those blintzes of Dokerty-lovers. Any one of them or all of them together!”

  They quizzed me more on my sighting of the ibmanzy, trying to establish the facts. Maybe, if some deluded fool of Dokerty was creating the monsters, then the murdered girls could have been torn to pieces by other ibmanzies. Now, that became a frightening possibility.

  The tensions of these moments could not be sustained. I could feel the pressure on my skull. San Paynor, abruptly, said:

  “Come. We will return to the saloon. A glass of wine.”

  As we went out I commented: “All this vast wealth of knowledge. All these treasures of wisdom.” I shook my head. “All locked away.”

  “Necessarily so.” Acid stung in Paynor's wo
rds.

  “You are studious, yourself, Drajak?” enquired Lally.

  “I like to know things.”

  “Some things,” began Paynor. Then he stopped himself. Weird echoes of sententious words reverberated. I did not smile. But, by Krun, if a thing was necessary, then that thing must be known.

  Something trembled up from my feet, through my legs, vibrated my backbone, shook me so that I stumbled sideways. Lally grabbed me to support herself. The ground moved.

  The floor, the walls, the ceiling shuddered. The grinding sullen roar that accompanied this earth movement chilled the blood. The whole world gyrated around us.

  “Earthquake!” Logan's yell was entirely unnecessary.

  “Cymbaro will protect us.” Even as he spoke so calmly San Paynor tottered and fell, thrown violently off his feet.

  Duven leaped to his assistance.

  The whole wall fronting the room fell away in a thunderous avalanche and chunks of rubble cascaded down around our ears. A chip hit me on the thigh and a larger piece struck nastily across Duven's skull as he shielded the san.

  People stumbled through the roils of dust, screaming, trying to avoid the collapse at their backs. Priests, girls, acolytes, they disappeared with awful finality as the floor opened before them.

  They were swallowed up as a leem swallows a lopy.

  The shaking shudderings of the whole place abruptly ceased.

  Dust hung smokily on the close air, choking us, bringing stinging tears. I shook my head and stood Lally up, making sure she understood that the immediate danger was past. This was a foreshock. There might be more before the big quake. That would be followed by the aftershocks. Perhaps, I hoped, this was a mere warning, and the main earthquake would not arrive. No one could tell.

  San Paynor stood up. Duven, as I had with Lally, made sure the san was in possession of his senses. Then the young priest crossed to the newly-created crevasse. He peered down.

  Joining him, I too peered down through the hanging dust.

  “The folk are trapped on the ledge.” Duven spoke flatly.

  What he said was frightfully true. A huddle of people, those who so far had been lucky, clung together on a narrow ledge of the floor below. At their backs, the sheered side of the torn earth, reared a wall. Before them across the narrow lip of the ledge the black emptiness went on down and down and down.

  Rather unhelpfully, I commented: “That looks like the entrance to the Ice Floes of Sicce down there.”

  Duven did not reply.

  The sheered wall offered precarious hand and foot holds. I thought that even if we climbed down safely, we'd never get those frightened people to climb that vertical face.

  The whole situation was one of deadly peril. Many of the lamps had fallen; but there was ample light—light from burning curtains and furniture. The oppressiveness of the scene, the sense of being deep underground, the pressure of the rock all about, the smoke and dust, the flickering eerie lights, the shadows, threatened to overwhelm us. We could all be buried alive down here.

  And the next shock might occur at any moment.

  When it did those trapped people on their fragile ledge below would be tossed into eternity.

  Duven threw off his robe and stood forth in a brown breech clout. He flexed his muscles. He swung himself over the edge of the chasm.

  “Cymbaro the Just is with me, Drajak. So fetch a rope.”

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Chapter twelve

  There was absolutely no question of protocol here. Duven had acted. I must respond immediately.

  Running back I shook Logan's arm. He was staring about vacantly, trembling in expectation of the next shock.

  “A rope!”

  He looked at me, and he didn't see me.

  What of curtains there might be in this windowless space were burning, their pullcords flaring with them.

  San Paynor in his firm soft voice, said: “The serving hatch from the kitchens, Drajak.”

  I grasped his meaning at once and as he pointed I hared off to the undamaged wall. A small counter fronted a wooden hatch. I shoved this open viciously and, yes, there was the food lift with its rope. Wasting no time I hauled the rope in, flinging the coils back onto the floor. All the time I expected the next quake to bring everything tumbling down in final destruction about us.

  I had no weapons, no knife. I bit through the rope where it was fixed to the food platform. Hauling the line abaft I raced back to the lip of the chasm. Dust still hung stingingly in the air.

  Paynor was speaking to Logan in a quiet, almost cooing voice. He mentioned Cymbaro a number of times, and the love of life, and the utmost necessity of helping. There was no time to worry over that.

  Looking over the lip I saw that Duven had almost reached the ledge. He descended with cautious and limited movements. I judged that he had done his share of rock climbing and knew what he was about, although just before he reached his goal he made two steps I considered risky, hanging from only one point before clamping onto a second. The situation was so desperate that I concurred with his judgment that the risk had to be taken. He was one tough bird, all right, by Krun!

  Some of the trapped people were screaming, others sobbing, most were praying to Cymbaro. You could taste the stink of their fear. Duven climbed down to reach them.

  Rapidly knotting a bowline on a bight I ladled the rope over the edge. “Rope below!”

  Duven glanced up, his eyes white rinds. Bracing himself against the back wall he threw the loop over the nearest person, a mature priestess. He held the line, taking up the slack, and pulled her into position.

  “Haul away.”

  Obediently, I hauled in, knowing the poor woman was being scraped and bounced against the wall and collecting more bruises. When she came in over the top her face was beet red, tears gushed, and her robe was ripped to her waist. She fell against me. Working as fast as I could I took the loop off and payed it out again.

  “Logan!” I bellowed, without turning around, supporting the priestess with my left arm. “Brassud, dom! Come and help.”

  What San Paynor said to Logan I didn't know; but they both came across and took the woman away. I looked down into the chasm.

  Duven yelled: “Hurry up, Drajak!”

  The next was a girl who came up surprisingly lightly. Her bright black face with the cut glass features composed. “Thank you,” she said, as she pulled the loop from around her and tossed it down. She needed no help from the two sans at my back. She was a splendid example of the best of the Xuntalese women allied to her faith in Cymbaro. So, one by one, I hauled them up.

  Whether or not they were being pulled to safety was entirely another matter, by Krun.

  By the time there were only three priests left I began to hope that the quake had been an isolated shock. The crowd in the shambles of the saloon were quietening down. Logan had recovered from his first terrors and worked like a hero.

  One more came up, then the penultimate one and the rope went down for the last.

  With the bight safely around him I leaned back and hauled away and the ground shuddered like a beast in torment.

  It was very necessary to spread my legs wide and to lean back and not to lose my balance and to haul like a madman.

  The world vibrated all about me. People were screaming. Rubble fell and the noise hammered mercilessly. I slipped and recovered and clawed at the line and so brought the last priest inboard. Then I looked over the edge.

  The ledge had vanished.

  Duven was still there.

  He clung to a knob projecting from the face, legs dangling. The look on his face was one of ecstatic joy.

  Any second and he'd be gone, slipping down and away and vanishing in the turmoil of dust boiling in the abyss.

  The reason for his heightened sensory state was obvious. He had performed a great deed in the service of Cymbaro and now he was about to die. His name would be remembered. Cymbaro would welcome him. There
would be no long and painful struggle through the Ice Floes of Sicce, through the mists and the perils to the sunny uplands beyond. He would die a hero and a martyr to the dread forces of evil that lurked deep within the earth.

  Well, by the disgusting diseased eyeballs and putrescent nostrils of Makki Grodno! He'd proved himself. He shouldn't have to die now. Not if I could prevent it.

  I yelled at Logan and Paynor as the shocks ceased abruptly.

  “Get some people! Tail onto this line!”

  Give Paynor his due. He was the first. He marshaled the others and a party tailed on. Over and down I went like a grundal.

  Twice the line jolted and swung down savagely as those above relaxed their grips. If those people up there let go I'd be taking a swallow dive out and down headfirst into the Ice Floes of Sicce.

  When I reached him, Duven said with a twist to his lips: “You needn't have—”

  “Get this bight around you, dom, sharpish.”

  The old Dray Prescot intolerance must have blazed out then for he did as I'd bidden him. I had a hand over the projection; but my feet had no support. Between us, one hand each, we got the rope around him. I thought back grimly to my assessment of the risks he'd taken first climbing down here.

  When we were settled, he in the bight and I with a fist clutching the line, I leaned my head back and hollered: “Haul away!”

  They'd make heavy work of it, the frightened folk up there. I did not wish to contemplate sticking to the sheer face like a fly whilst they pulled Duven up and then lowered the line for me.

  But—if they couldn't haul both of us, then, by Vox, that was precisely what I'd have to do.

  We lurched away from the wall, swung, and then started to inch up and at that self-same instant the next shock struck.

  I swear blind the wall before me danced a saraband. We were swaying and swinging, swinging and swaying, as though perched in a swinger of far off Aphrasöe.

  We'd have been all right, too, for the people up there stuck bravely to their task. They did not let the rope slip.