The Third Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK ™: Poul Anderson. Poul Anderson
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“Your majesty’s hospitality overwhelms me,” said Corun ironically.
A stooped old Xanthian beside the king plucked his sleeve and hissed rapidly: “I told you, sire, I told you he would come back with the ruin of worlds in his train. Cut them all down now, before the fates strike. Kill them while there is time!”
“There will be time,” said Tsathu.
His unblinking eyes locked with Shorzon’s and suddenly the twilight shimmered and trembled, the nerves of men shook and out in the water the sea-beasts snorted with panic. For a long moment that silent duel of wizardry quivered in the air, and then it faded and the unreality receded into the background of dusk.
Slowly the Xanthian monarch nodded, as if satisfied to find an opponent he could not overcome.
“I am Shorzon of Achaera,” said the man, “and I would speak with the chiefs of the Xanthi.”
“You may do so,” replied the reptile. “Come up to the castle and we will quarter your folk.”
At Imazu’s order, the sailors began unloading the gifts that had been brought: weapons, vessels and ornaments of precious metals set with jewels, rare tapestries and incenses. Tsathu hardly glanced at them. “Follow me,” he said curtly. “All your people.”
“I’d hoped at least to leave a guard on the ship,” murmured Imazu to Corun.
“Would have done little good if they really wanted to seize her,” whispered the Conahurian.
It did not seem as if Tsathu could have heard them, but he turned and his bass boom rolled over the mumbling surf: “That is right. You may as well relax your petty precautions. They will avail nothing.”
* * * *
In a long file, they went up a narrow trail toward the black palace. The Xanthian rulers went first, with deliberately paced dignity, thereafter the human captains, their men, and a silent troop of armed reptile soldiery. Hemmed in, thought Corun grimly. If they want to start shooting-
Chryseis’ hand clasped his, a warm grip in the misty gloom. He responded gratefully. She came right behind him, her other hand on the nervous and growling erinye.
The castle loomed ahead, blacker than the night that was gathering, the gigantic walls climbing sheer toward the sky, the spear-like towers half lost in the swirling fog. There was always fog here, Corun remembered, mist and rain and shadow; it was never full day on the island. He sniffed the dank sea-smell that blew from the gaping portals and bristled in recollection.
They entered the cavernous doorway and went down a high narrow corridor which seemed to stretch on forever. Its bare stone walls were wet and green-slimed, tendrils of mist drifted under the invisibly high ceiling, and he heard the hooting and muttering of unknown voices somewhere in the murk. The only light was a dim bluish radiance from fungoid balls growing on the walls, a cold unhealthy shadowless illumination in which the white humans looked like drowned corpses. Looking behind, Corun could barely make out the frightened faces of the Umlotuans, huddled close together and gripping their weapons with futile strength.
The Xanthi glided noiselessly through the mumbling gloom, tall spectral forms with faint golden light streaming from their damp scales. It seemed as if there were other presences in the castle too, things flitting just beyond sight, hiding in lightless corners and fluttering between the streamers of fog. Always, it seemed, there were watching eyes, watching and waiting in the dark.
They came into a cavernous antechamber whose walls were lost in the dripping twilight. Tsathu’s voice boomed hollowly between the chill immensities of it: “Follow those who will show you to your quarters.”
Silent Xanthi slipped between the human ranks, herding them with spears—the sailors one way, their chiefs another.
“Where are you taking the men?” asked Imazu with an anger sharpened by fear. “Where are you keeping them?” The echoes flew from wall to wall, jeering him—keeping them, keeping them, them, them—
“They go below the castle,” said a Xanthian. “You will have more suitable rooms.”
Our men down in the old dungeons— Corun’s hand whitened on the hilt of his sword. But it was useless to protest, unless they wanted to start a battle now.
The four human leaders were taken down another whispering, echoing tunnel of a corridor, up a long ramp that seemed to wind inside one of the towers, and into a circular room in whose walls were six doors. There the guards left them, fading back down the impenetrable night of the ramp.
The rooms were furnished with grotesque ornateness—huge hideously carved beds and tables, scaled tapestries and rugs, shells and jewels set in the mold-covered walls. Narrow slits of windows opened on the wet night. Darkness and mist hid Corun’s view of the ground, but the faintness of the surf told them they must be dizzyingly high up.
“Ill is this,” he said. “A few guards on that ramp can bottle us up here forever. And they need only lock the dungeon gates to have our men imprisoned below.”
“We will feast with them. Before long they will be our allies,” said Shorzon. His hooded eyes were on Chryseis. It was with a sudden shock that Corun remembered. Days and nights of bliss, and then the violence of battle and the tension of approach, had driven from his mind the fact that he had never been told what the witch-pair was really here for. It was their voyage, not his, and what real good could have brought them to this place of evil?
He shoved his big body forward, a tawny giant in the foggy chill of the central room. “It is near time I was told something of what you intend,” he said. “I have guided you and taught you and battled at your side, and I’ll not be kept blindfolded any longer.”
“You will be told what I tell you—no more,” said Shorzon haughtily. “You have me to thank for your miserable life—let that be enough.”
“You can thank me that you’re not being eaten by fish at the bottom of the sea right now,” snapped Corun. “By Breannach Brannor, I’ve had enough of this!”
He stood with his back against the wall, sweeping them with ice-blue eyes. Shorzon stood black and ominous, wrath in the smoldering, sunken eyes. Chryseis shrank back a little from both of them, but Perias the erinye growled and flattened his belly to the floor and stared greenly at Corun. Imazu shifted from foot to foot, his wide blue face twisted with indecision.
“I can strike you dead where you stand,” warned Shorzon. “I can become a monster that will rip you to rags.”
“Try it!” snarled Corun. “Just try it!”
Chryseis slipped between them and the huge dark eyes were bright with tears. “Are we not in enough danger now, four humans against a land of walking beasts, without falling at each other’s throats? I think it is the witchcraft of Tsagu working an us, dividing us—fight him!”
She swayed against the Conahurian. “Corun,” she breathed. “Corun, my dearest of all—you shall know, you shall be told everything as soon as we dare. But don’t you see—you haven’t the skill to protect yourself and your knowledge against the Xanthian magic?”
Or against your illogic, beloved.
She laughed softly and drew him after her, into