Scorpio Drums [Dray Prescot #42] Read online

  Back aboard, plans were made to deal with this unforeseen situation.

  “Everyone is absolutely motionless, like statues,” said Rollo.

  “Yes, yes.” Deb-Lu nodded. “There are many ways to achieve that.”

  “And the fireballs—”

  “Nasty, brutish, ignorant—yet unfortunately effective.”

  I'd seen Deb-Lu and Khe-Hi hurling fireballs against a certain sorcerer and his accomplice to form that awe-inspiring if horrific Quern of Gramarye between them. Oh, yes, I didn't want anything to do with bolts of fire chucked at my head.

  Delia, crisply, said: “If everyone down there is turned to stone, who is hurling firebolts?”

  Rollo coughed, and said: “They only started when we began to lift up. The other two vollers went on down and weren't shot at. Could the firebolts be shot off without a living person to trigger them?”

  “That would present little problem,” commented Deb-Lu.

  “Or,” I said, “that could be Fantong down there already and he's got some protection against the freezing spell.”

  “Quite possible.”

  “Let's go down there heavy-handed and blatter him.” That was Inch.

  “You can cancel the spell?” Seg turned to the Wizard of Loh.

  “I shall need to know what kind it is first. I said I was aware only of residual magic below the trees. Whoever placed this glamour must have been careless. It will be most interesting to find out.”

  “The power it must have taken,” said Rollo. “Surely that must show up?”

  “And for how long it's been going on for.”

  “Let us,” I said. “Get on with it.”

  Something of the old intemperate Dray Prescot must have echoed in my words. At any rate, the plans were immediately finalized and the whole squadron dropped carefully down between the leaves.

  The scene looked exactly as it had before. How long, I wondered, had this city been doomed to motionless timelessness?

  The ships spread out. A firebolt lashed up when it was clear the ships were not intending to drop lower. Each pilot had been given the most explicit instructions. They were to keep on moving and weaving and on no account were they to allow their ships to be hit.

  Deb-Lu-Quienyin, as always in these situations, lost all his friendly comicalness. He became remote, awe-inspiring, a sorcerer practicing his arcane arts. He held up his hands, an extravagant gesture for him. He looked with a long down-drawn stare upon the tower from which the firebolts spat. I knew what we were in for.

  The moment Deb-Lu drew upon his kharrna and instigated his protection the spinning succession of firebolts spat up at us. All the other ships would be safe now. Now, we alone could be fried and crisped like best vosk rashers.

  Halfway between the tower and our ship a dish of light grew. It spun in a multitude of colors, spitting sparks. And it grew. This was the Quern of Gramarye. Deb-Lu and the mage below were putting forth their powers. At first the spinning light moved towards us. Deb-Lu exerted more power, his face calm, composed, without a trickle of sweat. The Quern of Gramarye moved back through the air, approached the tower.

  As the plasma of thaumaturgy overflowed so it shot off sparks and flames and heat from the disc of light. Nearer and nearer the tower it crept. With the remorseless logic of his profession, Deb-Lu knew what must be done.

  Coruscating with light, shooting off great discharges of molten matter, spinning like a crazy Catherine Wheel, the Quern of Gramarye smashed back. The tower was engulfed in flame. Chunks of masonry broke off and flew through the air like crumbs from a snapped bread roll. Destruction shattered the top of the tower. Stone slagged and dripped like treacle.

  No more bolts of fire lanced from that tower.

  We were all impressed. Of us all, I suppose Rollo understood most. He said, in a low voice: “There is much to learn.”

  “Aye, my boy,” Deb-Lu-Quienyin told him, perfectly composed after his demonstration of sorcerous power. “There always is.”

  “Now,” said Delia. “We can deal with the rest of it.”

  “Ask Oby to bring the ship directly over that crowd of people on the platform in the central kyro.” Deb-Lu was brisk. “And make sure we don't drop down.”

  We all trooped off to the lower galleries as Oby brought the voller in over the platz. A ceremony was being performed down there—rather, a ceremony had been in process of being performed when everyone became frozen. Customs vary wildly all over Kregen, of course. But it took little nous to see this was a wedding. The man in splendid robes, the woman in even more sumptuous robes, her face veiled, stood side by side, holding hands. The priest marrying them looked a wily old devil, lined with seasons of power. Either side of the pair stood their relations and all were dressed up with gold and jewels, in swathing robes of fine silks. Represented there were money, power and prestige.

  Deb-Lu said: “There. That's the culprit.”

  Among all that glittering show the fellow standing on the next lower platform looked out of place. Where everyone wore grand robes for this important wedding, his clothes were a simple blue and silver breechclout and a light short cape of pale blue. He wore no weapons where the others, men and women both, were festooned with armaments in the Kregan way.

  Open across his palms lay a book. He was in the act of reading from its pages. The book—it was obviously a hyr lif—was bound in skin of a pale sallow yellow, banded with gold bars and chained to his waist belt by a golden chain. Downturned, his face was difficult to see.

  “Another of those idiots of Almuensis,” observed Rollo.

  “Not altogether idiots, they do have real powers.” Deb-Lu's voice carried a mild note of reproval.

  “They must do.” Delia spoke decisively. “If that's the fellow who's done all this.”

  “A Sorcerer of the Cult of Almuensis. Yes. But Rollo is right in one thing.” Deb-Lu's wheezy voice brightened at the joke. “He, I expect, had been bribed to stop the wedding by someone who wanted to marry one or other of the parties involved. So he cast something like “To hold and detain,” or perhaps “To render immoveable.” He worked it all right. The only trouble was—patently obvious, by Hlo-Hli!”

  Well, yes, we could all see that.

  “I doubt if he's the fellow who set up the fireballs, then,” I said. “At the moment the fireballs remain a mystery. Once we can remove this enchantment from the city we might take a look at the remains of the tower.”

  “That leaves us little option.” Deb-Lu sounded quite pleased. He always welcomed a challenge in the ethereal planes of higher thaumaturgy. “I shall try the most simple and obvious way first.” He started in giving orders and the crew sprang to do his bidding. When a Wizard of Loh asks you to do something, you bratch, you jump very quickly!

  Deb-Lu's simple idea saw Oby coaxing the ship gently forward, guided by Rollo at the beginning of a chain of crewmen all passing along directions. Inch held the rope, having bagged the job before anyone else. The rest of us looked on and offered comments. Rollo, perched right forward, called out “left a bit” and “right a bit” until he had us lined up. Inch dangled the rope with its knotted-on wicker basket, trying to keep it steady.

  Keeping the unease I felt out of my voice, I said: “If we bring the book aboard, won't that—?”

  “No danger of that.” Deb-Lu squinted his eyes down past Inch. The wicker basket was irritatingly spinning. Inch tried to steady it. “The effect has occurred. The Almuensis Culter made a mistake, that's all.” Deb-Lu sounded much more cheerful. “A not uncommon happening.”

  “Got it!” called Inch. His lanky form bent and then straightened. The book lay snugged in the basket. Inch hauled in with a will.

  Nobody offered to rush forward and lift up the book when Inch swung the basket over the rail onto the deck.

  Down below us the city continued to show no life or movement.

  “Most Interesting,” observed our own Wizard of Loh. “A few jolly evenings of reading ahead. Excellent!”
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  Rollo came charging along the narrow gallery from the bows and scooped the book up. He did not close it but left it open at the page and handed it across to Deb-Lu. We all saw the sudden graciousness with which he passed the book over. Both sorcerers, the experienced mage and the apprentice, recognized the power in those pages. I looked at the paper; it was a high quality vellum, and not paper from Aphrasöe.

  There was a good chance the binding was made from a virgin's skin.

  I said: “How did you break the chain?”

  The golden end dangled and looked half-melted.

  Rollo looked across swiftly, and his teeth flashed.

  Deb-Lu's wheezy voice was as modest as ever. “Not too difficult. The chain held no extra applied kharrna.”

  The more you witnessed what Wizards of Loh could do without mumbo-jumbo, the more they impressed you.

  “I'll just give a little study...” Deb-Lu's voice trailed off. He began to read.

  Quietly, Rollo said: “There are two sorts of kharrna—at least, two to my current knowledge. There may be more, and study will reveal them when the san considers I am ready. One is passive, the other active. Passive kharrna exists in all the objects of nature. Active kharrna is that within and controlled by a wizard. This comes only from study.” He took a meaningful breath. “Hard study, by Hlo-Hli!”

  I smiled inwardly at this. Deb-Lu really was taming this tearaway to good use.

  Seg said: “I'm for a wet. Anybody?”

  This was a highly sensible suggestion.

  Emder and Tim Timutorio brought up the sazz and parclear. As we all wet our throstles Deb-Lu looked up. He nodded in satisfaction and Rollo, who was watching carefully, caught the toppling turban.

  “Kharrna.” Deb-Lu's eyebrows drew down. “There is a division of active kharrna, applied kharrna, as you very well know, Rollo. Also you are aware that it is not customary for an adept to discuss his art outside.”

  Rollo did not look so much put down or disciplined as uncomfortable.

  “Now,” said Deb-Lu briskly. “When you wish to undo something it is always useful to know how it was done. The mistake was not easy to make; this fellow down there made it. I can redo and then undo.”

  “Hold on a moment, Deb-Lu.” I rubbed my chin. “Now this fellow froze himself along with the rest of the city. We are hoping Fantong will lead us where we want to go. Wouldn't it be useful if we could walk about down there and everyone else remained frozen?”

  “Now I know exactly how it was done I can reverse the—well, never mind that.” Deb-Lu pondered, the book open on the table before him. Rollo stood to one side, looking at the book. Presently, Deb-Lu lifted his head. “All right. By a combination I can do that.”

  “Excellent!”

  Rollo said: “But there will be an area around—”

  “Oh, quite,” confirmed Deb-Lu. “If you approach near a frozen person the applied kharrna you're carrying will interact and wake them up.”

  “We'll just have to steer clear of any ugly customers, then.”

  Delia, who has a sharp eye when it comes to matters of cleanliness and always keeps our residences spotless said: “There's no dust down there. If they've been like that for some time you'd expect dust everywhere.”

  “And the rain,” pointed out Milsi, whose realm lay along the forested River of Bloody Jaws.

  “The answer is,” said Rollo, “that the aura prevents rain and dust falling.” He threw a quick glance at his master to see if Deb-Lu wished to amplify, and then went on: “The air is inanimate down there.”

  “Then how do we breathe?” demanded Seg.

  “By the same means you will wake up a frozen person. You will also reanimate the air about you as you go.”

  “Nice to be a bit lofty, then,” observed Inch.

  “Except,” said Sasha, giving her husband a look, “when you get your ears frostbitten.”

  This old chestnut produced the expected smiles. Mind you, I am making all this sound as though we did not have a care in the world. The truth, obviously, was that we were embroiled with magic of a very high order.

  Every step could lead to disaster. There were grim days ahead.

  “How long, san, d'you think these folk have been like it?” Hack ‘n’ Slay looked meanly over the side. He and Seg and I had gone up against magic before, and we didn't relish all the memories.

  “A good few seasons, I'd judge. But I can't tell exactly.”

  “We'd best get on with it,” I said, rousing myself. “Let's go and get our scouts and their vollers back.”

  This was accomplished. The scouts were uninjured, for the airboats had made gentle landings, and the kreutzin were astounded at the rapidity with which we'd joined them. They gaped when they were told.

  After that we landed in a deserted avenue well away from the main platz. Exploration parties were detailed off with instructions not to go near enough to any living souls to awaken them. From our experiences with our scouts we were a trifle perturbed to discover that the distance varied and did not seem predictable. Deb-Lu commented that it was probably down to the person's own possession of kharrna. It appeared that everyone had one form of kharrna, at least. I got the impression, a fleeting one only, that Deb-Lu's slight hesitation as he spoke might indicate that there were other forms of thaumaturgical energy besides kharrna.

  As they say—so rightly—in Clishdrin, “Anything can happen on Kregen and it probably will.”

  An imposing domed building looked promising. I found myself walking up a sloping ramp with my comrades towards half-open bronze doors. Whether or not magic was abroad on the air, that air still carried the scents of the rain forest, and I guessed we brought them with us. Weird, the sorcerer's game, and not to be trifled with, by Krun!

  We went in cautiously. There were no lights or windows and the interior looked gloomy and not at all inviting.

  “By the Veiled Froyvil, this is a miserable dump!”

  “Light up the torches,” commanded Delia.

  The lights showed us a considerable area and that consisted of curved walls of dull stone and ranked statues of all manner of diffs in armor.

  “A mausoleum?” Milsi sounded doubtful.

  “They build them like this over in Chem of the Cataracts.” Sasha spoke with authority. “They burn the corpses, though.”

  “Yeh,” added Inch. “Frightened their ibs will come out at night and chase ‘em.”

  This domed building didn't appear to hold much promise to me. I swung about and headed off for the door and the suns shine. A shout reached me as I stepped outside.

  “Drajak! Here—this looks interesting.”

  Rollo was beckoning from a doorway farther along. I sauntered across. Other parties were foraging about in and out of doorways. For our explorations we were fortunate that almost all the citizens were congregated in the main kyro. I stepped in after Rollo, blinking. “Well?”

  This was a side entrance and a few windows admitted ruby and jade streamers of light. Tall double-doors of ivory, studded in gold, stood imposingly to one side, away from the mausoleum. Above the centre of the architrave a shining golden statue glowered down on us. Its long sinuous neck thrust forward, the small head darting, as it were, at us, the jaws stuffed with needle teeth. The scaled body and tail and clawed legs were sculpted in perfect detail, and the strongly curved wings were outspread as though the xichun was about to leap into the air and descend to devour us.

  “Xichun!” said Rollo, in a savage voice. “Well, we've had our fill of them, may Jallalak the Merciless be contumed!”

  “He don't look a pretty sight, not with them teeth an’ all,” said a voice at my back.

  Mevancy's voice said: “We'd better go in and take a look, anyway, cabbage.”

  “I suppose so, pigeon.”

  I pushed against one leaf and Rollo the other. The four of us stepped through into a bright blaze of light.

  “Go carefully!” I snapped out very sharply.

  Foolish fatu
ous words!

  The soft sibilant hissing at our backs made us all swing about. A stone slab descended with a swift remorseless rush beyond the opened door. The two doors closed inwards, shutting with a thud followed by an ominous click.

  “Caught!” I exclaimed in blazing wrath. “Trapped like a fly in a flick-flick plant!”

  The floor tilted. We staggered and then slid in a tumbled heap down and down the long slope into a light of intolerable brilliance.

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  * * *

  Chapter eleven

  My eyes were clamped shut against that brightness yet the light struck through, black spots danced among a deep and menacing redness before me. We hit bottom in a wild tangle, with Mevancy's hair in my mouth and my leg fiercely gripped by a pair of powerful fists. We rolled over and over on straw that stank like a cess pit, and eventually cracked into a stone wall.

  “By Spurl!” choked out Mevancy. “What happened?”

  The fists gripping my legs went away. “Jangflor alone knows, and he ain't telling, not with us down here an’ all.”

  I spat and got rid of pleasantly scented hair and sat up. I kept my eyes shut; but I knew Rollo and Mevancy and Llodi with his enormous purple flower of a nose would be sorting themselves out. If we couldn't see where we were, how in a Herrelldrin Hell were we to see where we were going?

  Rollo said: “Hold on a moment. I'll try—”

  The rest of us had the sense to remain still and silent. After a short time Rollo let rip a snort and said: “All hold on, form a chain, and I hope, by Chusto, I'm going in the right direction.”

  I got my arm about Mevancy's waist and Llodi gripped onto me. With Rollo in the lead, we staggered up and started blindly off.

  I felt the coolness drop over me and the malefic red light faded before my eyes. Gingerly, I opened one eyelid.

  The light beat down with a soft pulse of ivory and pearl, very soothing after the searing blast scorching our eyes. Facing me, a wall of veined marble stretched to a low ceiling. In my ears the splashing thunder of water echoed off the walls. The air smelled musky, of the earth, and cool and refreshing after the heat of the jungles of Chem outside.