Chapter 07 - Kyrik Warlock Warrior by Gardner Fox

1975 Genre: Vintage Paperback / Sword and Sorcery

KYRIK THE MIGHTY:

Kyrik the mighty-muscled warlock swordsman is a hero for this or any other age. From Mankind's darkest and most unremembered past he comes striding, the ever-unvanquished sword Blue Fang glittering in his granite-like hand. Through the mists of Man's pre-history he comes a-questing for those who would enslave or destroy him for their evil gain. The greatest champion of all the known world, from the Endless Green Sea to the Red Desert, Kyrik dominated his world and his era.

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Chapter 7

The outlaws stared at that darkness, saw it shot through with streaks of vivid lightnings, red as the fires of Haderon. The ebon mist grew, it stretched now as far as they could see, between them and the road to Tantagol City. And Kyrik laughed, and his laughter was a booming note of triumph.

His big hand tightened on Aryalla. “You’ve done well, woman! By Illis, but you have. And you say that thing will obey me?"

She nodded, black eyes watching him. “Go before us," bellowed the barbarian. “But cling you to the ground, you clouds. I don't want to warn the caravan what will happen. Come, you others!"

He plunged between the trees, running easily. Yet more easily, the blackness and the lightnings went before him, slipping between the tree-boles and close to the little forest flowers clustering at their bases, not harming anyone, merely running as a sea-wave runs upon the shore.

"Kyrik! Jokaline will know Aryalla made magic!"

"Let him," he growled to the serpent voice. "The deed will be done by the time he can send soldiers.”

Then the road was before them, broad and dusty, and they could hear the camel bells, for this caravan was from distant Arazalla, and the creaking of saddle leather, and the shouts of marching men. It came around a bend in that road and straightened ranks for the last long pull toward Tantagol City. Kyrik could see the painted wagons, the covered carts, the armed riders who cantered beside them. For almost a mile that vast cortege stretched, raising dust clouds that hovered over them and made men cough and spit to clear their throats.

The blackness lay curled at his feet, waiting. When the caravan was fully extended along the road so that he could see how long it was, Kyrik rose to his full height. His hand waved with Bluefang.

"At them," he told the blackness. “Take the men—but touch not the horses or the slave girls."

From the woodlands the black cloud poured like smoke, rising upward in the manner of a wave, and it fell upon the warriors and the merchants. The darkness was silent, its red lightnings made no sound. Yet now the man began to scream, and in their throats was the agony of tortured flesh. A few broke free, and Kyrik with the outlaws ran to meet them. His great sword swung, clove a rider half in two. Him, Kyrik jerked lifeless from the saddle, mounted in his place. He turned the horse, rode in upon the others, blued blade flashing in the sunlight.

Heavily armed and guarded was that caravan. Yet it was as nothing before the outlaws' swords and daggers, and the ebon mist that ate at living human flesh as if with the fanged mouths of a demon multitude. Dust rose upward into the air, men screamed and bellowed

Death is always silent. And death lay like a pall upon the crumpled cloaks and mail shirts of the caravan warriors, on the fallen silks of the merchants. For no flesh remained to them, it was gone as if picked clean by carrion birds. Only their bones remained, glistening whitely in the sun.

Kyrik stood in his stirrups. "Begone, black cloud of Aryalla! You have served me well this day. I will not forget!"

Slowly, as though the wind itself blew it away, the darkness shifted, lost color, its red lightnings faded out, and in wisps of the grayish smoke, it blew across the wild-wood and was gone. There remained only the outlaws and the screaming slave girls bound for the Tantagol marketplace, with Kyrik.

Almorak was at his elbow, "What now, Lord?" Kyrik grinned, "I'd give the women to your men, but I have a need for them, as you have for the armor and the trappings of the caravan warriors. Bid your men hide themselves also in the silken robes of the merchants—Illis knows they're big enough to hide them, armor and all—those merchants were so fat."

Aryalla came to the edge of the road, “What now?" she called.

"Jokaline will know you worked magic, you've got to ride with us. He'll be sending soldiers here to arrest and imprison any magicians who make magic in Tantagol unless they do it with his consent." Kyrik grinned, “Get in there with the slave girls. You'll be safe enough with them."

“And the families of the outlaws?"

“They'll hide in the haunted valley. They have nothing to fear, now that Isthinissis has been destroyed."

As Aryalla walked toward those painted wagons that held the female slaves, Kyrik saw around him the bustle of order coming out of chaos. The skeletons of dead men lined the roads. The outlaws, neatly clad in the armor and cloaks of the guards, sat their saddles, waiting for their marching orders. Kyrik lifted Bluefang high, pointed down the road. The caravan began to move.

Almorak came riding to join him at the point of the column, bluff in his leather coat with chain-mail shirt over it, a scarlet cloak thrown across his broad shoulders. He was big, not so huge as Kyrik, but the same confidence glowed in his eyes.

He said, "A quick attack on the palace, eh? We take Devadonides and slay him, and after him, his wizards?"

"Not so. The palace is set with traps. I go alone into it. You others—your outlaw band—shall guard the entrances, the exits. Let none pass in or out, and when the palace guard attacks, you fight them."

Almorak showed his teeth in a cold grin. "Fighting, aye. My lads will be for that And when we're done? When the palace guard no longer exists?"

"I shall have found Devadonides and Jokaline. I'll have won by that time—or lost."

Almorak cast a dubious eye at him. "What's this talk of losing?"

Kyrik growled, "I'm not worried about his fighting men. It's only his magicks I fear. And yet—I have certain powers of my own."

They rode on through the heat of the day and the dust and when the sun was beginning to sink westward, they came at last to the great gates of Tantagol City. The merchant banners were recognized by the guards, they waved hands and grinned and tried to catch glimpses of the slave girls where they sat or stood in the painted wagons.

To the market square went the caravan, and when they had taken up their places, Kyrik dismounted and walked to the wagons. Order was coming out of chaos, the outlaws were well trained, well disciplined.

"I'll need gifts for Devadonides," he told Almorak. “Two of the loveliest slave-girls, a coffer or two of gold, of precious gems. Then we ride to the palace."

With the slave-girls, he took Aryalla, still wearing the torn silken tunic that showed her body. They made a little cortege, with them walked the outlaws clad in expensive silks and velvet, as rich merchants. The palace guards grinned at sight of them, for Kyrik had a purse filled with golden griffs, which he scattered with a lavish hand. Most of the armed outlaws paused to talk with the guards while Kyrik with the false merchants passed through the stone doorway into the palace proper.

It had been a thousand years since he had walked these tiled floors, through these palace hallways, hung with old banners of victories long ago won on many fields of battle. There were also ancient weapons, the sword of his grandfather, of his father, left here as spoils of conquest by the first Devadonides. Only the rich draperies, the arrasses of Invaren velvet, of Inisfalian silks, were new. A wide marbled staircase filled the foyer of this lower floor, led upward to the great keep that was the palace proper. It was in this keep with its thick stone walls, whispered the serpent voice in his mind, where Jokaline had his chambers, his necromantic rooms. There would Devadonides be, harking to his mage.

Guardsmen came to prevent them from leaving the staircase and moving onto the upper floor. They scorned the golden griffs Kyrik held out to them. They linked arms and fronted the barbarian with their mailed chests.

"None go above here except on order of King Devadonides," one said.

Kyrik sighed, stood to one side as Aryalla stepped forward. Her hand flashed, and brilliant globes of light lifted from her fingers, sped so swiftly toward the faces of the guardsmen they had no chance to ward them off. Like soap bubbles that children blow from clay pipes, they were; yet when they touched those hard, implacable faces, they burst and the guardsmen sank to the floor as in a coma.

Kyrik, Almorak and Aryalla stepped over them, moved onward, posting as staircase guards the outlaws in merchant's robes. These upper floors, Kyrik knew as he knew his name. Yet he knew also that there were magical traps set for them, traps which only Illis might discover. He drew Bluefang, held it up. And the serpent writhed, came to life. Its scaled head lifted, quested as though it sniffed for danger. Aryalla cried out in surprise, Almorak in awe as the serpent-being hissed softly.

"A stone yonder, that tilts on an iron axis! Kyrik went first, touched the edge of the stone with the tip of his blade. The flagstone pivoted, opened. Below, he could see a pit of alligators slithering here and there in a pool of fetid water.

"By the gods," growled Almorak. "Unwarned, we'd have stumbled into that place. Give me a good, clean death—not something like that."

They skirted the flagstone, moved on. The serpent was quivering, upright on the hilt of Bluefang. Its flat head darted here and there, its blue eyes blazed. "A mist, Kyrik! A mist hidden behind stone walls —ready to spew forth and envelop us all! Go warily, my lover. Wait for a moment until I—I—yes! That shadow on the wall . . . duck below it!”

They bent their heads, they crawled along the paving-stones until they were beyond the reach of that shadow band of power. Kyrik grinned coldly, resuming his normal height.

“Illis! Any fool who might blunder in here would be twice dead already! It's a good thing you're with us, demon-woman!”

The serpent hissed tenderly, wrapping its warmth about the hand that held the blade. Gently she rubbed her scaly head against his knuckles.

Aryalla muttered, “Faugh. In love with a snake. I might have known."

Illis reared, stared at the sorceress with glittering eyes. “Woman, I am Illis! Would you know my power?”

Aryalla shivered, moved closer to Almorak. Once more the she—snake upreared itself, stared along the corridor where they must walk. "There is no danger here. Not until. . ."

They moved on, walking warily despite the assurance of the snake-woman Now they came to a narrow staircase, and paused. Kyrik put a foot on a stone tread, moved upward. The others followed.

His animal instincts were aroused, now, sharpened by the dangers they had passed. His hand took a firmer grip on Bluefang, he moved it ahead of him, wanting to know if any other magicks were at work. And the serpent-being on that hilt quested also, snake-head darting back and forth. It was Kyrik who halted suddenly, eyes lifted to the angled ceiling high above. And Illis asked, “What is it, lover?”

"That shadow on the ceiling. That's not a natural thing; it wasn't there when I ruled in this palace."

"There is no magic!" Kyrik thrust his sword forward at arm's length, stepped up a tread and two. His bull voice roared, "Back, you others!" And from above a great stone square came hurtling downward.

It almost caught the barbarian, only his animal instincts saved him by a backward leap. His body caught Aryalla and Almorak, sent them tumbling heels over head down the staircase. They brought up in a heap at its base, staring upward.

The stone was near enough to touch. Kyrik put out a hand, ran his fingers over the stone block. The stone was quivering against his flesh.

"I sensed it not, Kyrik!”

“Na, na. This was no magic. It was simply a trap set by human means, on a spring that the movement of my sword set off. Sly Devadonides. He trusts neither to magic nor to non-magic, alone. His traps are of every kind."

Kyrik turned, gestured Aryalla and Almorak to follow. They climbed over the stone block that would have crushed the barbarian like an ant under a heel, had it landed. They went even more cautiously, with Kyrik adding his green eyes to those of the serpent-woman as each scanned treads and walls and ceiling for further danger. They came to the upper floor, and now they could hear the sonorous voice of a man evoking help from a demon. Illis hissed, "You must hurry, Kyrik. Haste must be your guardian, now. Jokaline calls on—Absothoth!"

Kyrik knew the name and power of that dread being. Absothoth lived in the nether worlds of Absora and Absoron, he was baleful, malignant. Hate was in his heart, his head, and he obeyed only those who fed his life with human blood. His hand tightened on Bluefang as he leaped forward.

To Haderos with danger. If it came, well and good. If it did not, he would be inside that magical chamber where Jokaline summoned up the evil demons who waited on his call. His war-boots skimmed the floor, ahead were two bronze doors. Tightly barred, he reasoned. He left his feet in a long leap, thudded into those bronze barriers. The sound of his crash against that metal resounded like the strokes of a gong struck with an iron hammer, up and down the hall where Aryalla and Almorak came hurrying. The blow was titanic, Kyrik bounced off that metal as though it had pushed him. On one knee, he studied those doors, scowling.

Illis whispered, “Let me handle them, Kyrik.” And now her voice rose in a singsong wail, almost too shrill for the ears of humans to hear. A ringing cry answered the first few notes of that song, and Kyrik heard a man curse. Then the doors were opening. Kyrik leaped forward. Something small and leathery swooped at him from the air above. The barbarian had a glimpse of a great red pentagram, a smaller pentagram, each with a man crouched inside them. One was Jokaline, tall and sinister, with a long white beard and long white hair under a pointed cap. The other was a small, plump man, with moon-face and tiny eyes half hidden under rolls of fat. Jokaline—and Devadonides, the king. And set between the two pentagrams was a great crystal prism.

Kyrik whirled, lifted a hand. He tried to stab that leathery thing with his sword, but he was too slow, too late. Its fanged jaws opened to close on his arm. Inside him, Kyrik knew that once those yellowed fangs drew his blood, he would die in the agonies of a poisoned death.

Aye! Swift was that bat-like entity, swooping low. But—swifter even than it, was Illis. The snake darted outward, keeping contact with the sword Kyrik held only by its tail as its own mouth opened, darted and closed on leathery flesh. The bat-thing howled in agony, fluttered against the fangs that held it, beating at that snake-head with its wings.

Eyes closed, the snake held on. And the leathery thing died, falling to the ground as the snake-woman opened her mouth. Kyrik shook himself from a momentary paralysis, sprang forward.

Toward the greater pentagram he hurled himself, toward Jokaline. The old man screeched, shouted indistinguishable words. The great prism set into the floor darkened, grew black, shot through with green flames.

“Absothoth comes,” whispered Illis. Kyrik was inside the pentagram, had caught the old man in a mighty hand, whirled him upward off his feet, hurled him. Through the air he flung him, right at that great prism. His old body hit the crystal facets of the living gem, collapsed at its base as he slid down those smooth, hard sides.

And Kyrik turned toward Devadonides. The fat little man was crouched in his kingly robes, quivering with fright. His eyes bulged, his mottled jowls shook in the ague of terror that held him in his grasp.

"Stay away, stay away I am the king!”

Kyrik barked laughter. "A king? You? Pah, you disgust me. No king are you, Devadonides—but an usurper. I am the king of Tantagol. I am—Kyrik of the Victories!"

He leaped from the larger pentagram into the smaller. The king scuttled backward to the edge of the design. His face was ashen, he shook as does the aspen in the grip of an autumn gale.

"Kyrik? Kyrik of the—Victories?" he croaked. "That Kyrik is dust, long centuries gone. My forefather slew him."

“Na, na, little man. Your father was no more courageous than you. He had a spell put on me, turned me into a statue. I lived. I thought. I told myself that one day I would have vengeance."

Illis screamed. Kyrik whirled. The prism was melting, flowing into nothingness. And from its deep a dark being was rising upward, amorphous, evil, its fangs showing in a triumphant grin. What served for its eyes—red stars that glittered with demonic fury—glanced down at the gibbering Jokaline who sought to crawl from the base of the great prism that was its doorway into this world, away from that which he had summoned. Outside the great pentagram Jokaline was prey to that which had served him and obeyed his commands across the many years. Well he knew that hatred Absothoth held for him and so he tried to flee.

"Great Absothoth. Mighty lord of the nether hells! Always I have worshiped you. Always have I given sacrifice in your name. Living men, living women, all have been fed to you—by me!"

The black being laughed, booming laughter that rang in the chamber. “Only by that sacrifice could you command me, Jokaline. You gave me helpless humans to further your own ends, to keep me in thrall to you. Now—I find you outside the pentagram !”

Something like a black hand, a clawed paw, darted. It sank into Jokaline, held him motionless as a quivering mouse is motionless under the paws of a cat. The star-like eyes went around the chamber.

"I see Devadonides, in whose name you called me."

The little man hurled himself at Kyrik's feet, clasped his brawny legs. "Save me from it. Don't throw me to that thing the way you did Jokaline. Save me, and anything in my kingdom belongs to you.

“Na, na. You have no kingdom. Not any longer. Tantagol is mine. It belongs to Kyrik of the Victories. As once it did, long and long ago."

Booming laughter rose upward. "Fools You all belong to me, all of you.

"Jokaline—the only one among you who might have commanded my obedience—is out of the pentagram and helpless. And you others—pahh! You are as nothing to Absothoth. As motes of sand in a desert. Yet you live—and while you live, I am not pleased. And so. . ."

The blackness surged forward. A woman screamed.

Aryalla, thought Kyrik, swinging Bluefang at the blackness, striving to reach the glowing red green flames in that ebon being with his point. She would be swept up by Absothoth, carried with him and the others into his nether hells. As would he, himself. The blackness was closing on him, he could feel it like clinging wetness all about him—evil, evil Rapacious and greedy for human life, for the blood of living men and women.

“Illis!” he bellowed, struggling. The snake-woman was silent. Borne off his feet—he collided with Almorak and Aryalla as they were drawn toward the giant gem he toppled sideways, not daring to use Bluefang any longer, fearful of slicing its edges into human flesh. He waited like a trapped animal, patient and unmoving, no longer fighting the whipping folds of the blackness devouring him, drawing him toward the huge gem and into it, into glittering prisms of light and color.

Downward, downward, ever downward. . . . . Winds howled. Coldness numbed his flesh. Heat seared his bones. His head pounded with pain and his mouth opened to cry out in agony. Was he being devoured alive? Could this be—death?

Then his war-boots hit solid ground and he stood erect, Bluefang still in his right hand, with the serpent twined about his wrist. Illis was warm, alive, thank her tinted toenails. His eyelids unlocked and he stared around him.

He saw a barren land, of gray rocks and gray dirt, and a wind blowing, far away, where dust crawled across the landscape. The sky was gray, with no clouds, with no familiar blueness in it. And the cold He shivered, stamped his feet. He could see a long way across this flat land. Here and there was a broken pillar, a tumbled—in dwelling—a temple of some sort?—and a few scattered shards of masonry. There was no sign of Absothoth. In this world he ruled, he might not be a black cloud, Kyrik knew. He might be—anything. The barbarian rumbled fury in his throat at sight of Jokaline, even now staggering to his feet, and fat Devadonides, lying prone on the cold ground.

"At least, I can slay you both," he growled. "No, Kyrik. They must live!" His mind questioned, but Illis would not answer. The demon woman had her own reasons for saving the mage and the king; their being alive would serve his purpose best, and so he turned to Aryalla, who was leaning against Almorak, seeking warmth from her nearness to his big body.

"Well, sorceress? Can you get us out of here?" Aryalla pushed away from the outlaw chieftain, ran her eyes around the bare rocks and barren land. She shivered.

"I have not my coffer, my magical materials." Kyrik grinned at her. "I told you I could never fully succeed in my quest for the throne of Tantagol, when we started out on this quest. This is where it ends, here in this dead world." He scowled. "We're here like pigs in a pen, waiting for Absothoth to feed on us at his leisure."

"Not—quite, Kyrik!"

“Now what will you mean, Illis of the blue eyes?”

I—wait. Soon will Absothoth come in his real guise. Ahh, and only then can I attack him. Only then will my own godhood fully touch his own."

The wind grew colder. It whistled across these gray waters and Devadonides wept, huddled in his garments. "I was a fool to listen to you," he said to Jokaline, who stood with head bowed, white beard and hair flying. “You counseled me to ask for Absothoth, you said he would have to obey." The little pig eyes looked at Kyrik. “You said none could come at me, safe in the protection of your spells. Yet that barbarian walked through...the traps you set."

Jokaline stirred. “Not by wit alone. There was magic involved. The girl?" He stared at Aryalla. "Was it her spells that passed them by the shadow band, the reptile pit? I—know not."

The serpent quivered against Kyrik's hand. "There is other danger, Kyrik Danger—I sense! Yet I cannot act on it. It threatens us all. Not as Absothoth threatens, but in some other way. A way I cannot guard against!"

Kyrik growled low in his throat. His hand touched the hilt of his sword, fell away. What need of a sword here, where none could do him harm? Jokaline was an old man, Devadonides but a bundle of whimpering flesh that bore him no more danger than might a plump pudding.

They walked about, Kyrik taking Aryalla and Almorak with him, studying the gray landscape, the rocks and the very ground. From time to time he growled low in his throat, he lacked an enemy to fight.

"Somewhere, there is an answer," he told them at last.

Aryalla stared at him. “What answer?"

"You're a sorceress, alive to these things. You say you studied with your father, Gorsifal. From a very child, you studied magicks. Can't you think of something that will get us out of this place?"

"It's the realm of Absothoth. Something links us to it. Yes, this much I know. What that something is, I know not."

"Think, then," he snapped. “Our lives depend on you."

Almorak said, "Give me an enemy I can see, can fight. This land—bah! It's dead. There isn't a bird in the sky, not even a lizard crawling along the ground.

"And without an enemy to strike at, our swords are useless," nodded Kyrik. "Still, there must be a way. . . . . ?”

He stood with bent head; he himself was a warlock. He had made magicks long and long ago, in Tantagol City, for this gift of necromancy he had inherited from his ancestors who had been wizards as well as warriors. He waited, patient as the cat, for some sign, some rhythm out of line with nature, which might afford him the clue he needed to act.

Illis too, quested. He could feel the stabbings of her spirit, the curiosity which was a palpable thing in his mind. She went this way and that with her keen brain, seeking that which she would know and recognize as the link between them and Absothoth which must be severed if they hoped to stay alive.

And then Devadonides screamed. They whirled, they saw him flapping his robes as though he were a giant bat caught by its claws on the ground and trying to fly upward. They saw the stark terror on his fat face, the protruding eyes, the contorted mouth. His arms he waved as if they might carry him away from that which held him. Aryalla screamed.

“Illis,” breathed Kyrik. "I hear, I see, lover Ansothoth—feeds!" From side to side, Devadonides twisted, but his feet remained in the same place. And now Kyrik felt the skin crawl upon his neck and back, for he could see, where his royal robes flapped back, that Devadonides' feet were implanted on the ground and seemed to be—melting.

Aye! The flesh ran like molten wax down to the gray rock and the rock sucked at his flesh, his blood, and Devadonides shrank a little at every moment. He was not big to begin with, he was mostly fat, he could offer little opposition to that which held him in its grip. His mouth was open; he howled in abysmal fear.

Kyrik snarled, yanked Bluefang out, sprang forward. Jokaline shrank back, staring from Devadonides to the leaping barbarian in fright that matched that of the king.

“I cannot tell what it is, Kyrik! Kyrik slid to a halt before the plump little man. He stared at him from head to toe. He saw nothing that was causing this except the ground itself. And so he drove the point of Bluefang into the dirt, stabbing again and again.

Laughter boomed down from the sky. “Fool. Think you to deprive Absothoth of his just reward? Long have I hungered for the blood and flesh of this stupid little thing, who used Jokaline to order me to help him commit his sins. My power fed his greed, his lusts. Without me and Isthinissis, he would have been nothing Well, Isthinissis is dead. Slain by you, barbarian. But you can never kill me. For here, I am the world itself. Aye, I am the ground you stand on, which will drink your blood, your flesh—next And there is nothing you can do about it."

Kyrik quivered with the helplessness that ran in him with his blood. “Give me a foe. A dozen foes to strike down with my sword. This way—I am nothing!”

With a grim snarl he lifted Bluefang and drove it at Devadonides. "At least, I can deprive Absothoth of the life he craves—must have."

"No, Kyrik There is—another way! Illis' scream rang in his mind as he slid to a halt.

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