Chapter Twenty-One
The upper nave was chaos. So thick was the press that the troops of the Legion of Ketl used their halberds to clear a way for the Prince and his entourage. They reached the brink of the broad staircase and looked down through swirling incense smoke into the packed mass of celebrants below. Prince Dhich’une stood for a moment to peer out into the shouting, chanting maelstrom, apparently seeking someone. Vridekka took up a position beside him.
Harsan looked around. The priest who had helped him carry Eyil up from the worm-demon’s shrine was gone, perhaps to join in the revelry. The Lector Priests and the other officiants had broken up into small groups and were scattered about behind them, talking. The guardsmen focussed their attention upon their master. No one was now nearby!
It was perhaps thirty or forty paces across the width of the upper colonnade to the entrance of the balcony by which they had come. If he could reach that, then navigate the dizzy gallery- then leave the temple, traverse the labyrinth, get out into the world above…
What was he thinking of? Improbable, to say the least! Yet there was no other way to cheat the Prince of the Man of Gold. If death came, at least it would be as a consequence of “noble action.”
He glanced down at Eyil. She seemed dazed and only half conscious, staring with tear-smudged eyes into the lamplit uproar below. What to do with her? She would hinder any escape. If he did the logical thing and abandoned her, the Prince might well let her go; why harm her once Harsan had flown from his net? On the other hand, he might well slay her, for now she knew too much of his scheming.
Harsan made up his mind. He shrugged out of the heavy cloak Vridekka had laid over his shoulders, pulled Eyil’s away as well. Such garments would only be in the way. With Eyil nude and himself attired only in his stained and crumpled kilt, they might pass as somebody’s slaves. He took Eyil’s arm in his manacled hands and half- dragged, half-guided her toward the inviting balcony entrance.
Thirty nervous paces later he looked back. The Prince and the Mind-seer were hidden now by a score of beast-masked worshippers bearing black and copper symbols upon tall poles. A few steps more. Now he was there… within… and out upon the narrow walkway!
Shadows clawed up from below. Plumes of oily yellow smoke enveloped him. He ducked involuntarily to avoid the ponderous ribbing of the ceiling arches. The reeling dance of lamplight and corpse-candles, the racking, rhythmic thunder of drums and chanting, the sick-sweet stench, all turned the long gallery before him into a swooping, undulating tightrope, hard enough to cross alone, much less burdened as he was with Eyil. He steeled himself and took a cautious look at the footing. He had often carried game along the lofty avenues of the trees of the Pe Choi forests, and now he could only pray that his childhood reflexes would not desert him. He set off as fast as he dared.
Someone approached from the other end: a temple guard by the gleam of his burnished copper cuirass! There was no retreat. He let Eyil go and saw that she had become fully aware of her surroundings. He motioned her to lean against the wall beside him.
The man came up, a broad-shouldered, thickset soldier with features that appeared carven of brown lava. He stopped a pace away and looked them up and down.
“Slaves? What do you here?”
“I–I return to my master, — With his bondmaiden,” Harsan improvised. “She ran away-afraid of those below. She is young and untrained.” He hoped he sounded credible.
The soldier peered. “You both wear manacles. How is this? To whom do you belong?”
“My master punishes me for-” Harsan began.
Eyil smiled then. Smoothly she broke in, “Sir, I-we-are taught to accept, nay, to prefer-punishment. And I admit to an enjoyment of the embraces of the living over those of the dead.” She ran her hands up from the velvety shadows between her thighs over her belly to cup her breasts.
The soldier stared. He reached past Harsan to touch a fingertip to one dark nipple. “Ohe, your owner must be more a lover of Lady Dlamelish than of the Worm Lord!” He grinned at Harsan. “Go back to your master, slave. I shall send this bit of property along to you presently. He-or she-will not miss her for a few minutes more.”
There was nothing to be said. Harsan could not return to the upper colonnade-nor did he really want to leave Eyil to the mercies of this stone-faced guardsman. (She might not mind all that much, a little thought whispered, since priestesses of Hrihayal were supposed to exercise good taste in such matters but little reticence otherwise…)
Harsan decided. His hand shot out to seize the soldier’s outstretched arm, to topple him over into the abyss below. Astounded, the man teetered, yelled, flailed with his other hand. They grappled for a long moment, swaying this way and that, struggling as much for balance as for victory. Then the guardsman heaved himself backward to fall with an audible crack of muscles upon the balcony floor. Harsan sprawled on top of him, rolled, tumbled, flung up a hand to clutch only empty space-and fell head downward over the railing toward the nave far beneath!
Calloused fingers grasped at his calf, slid down to clamp upon his ankle. Harsan swung down to smash with blinding force against the frieze of worm lords carved on the outside of the balcony railing. The soldier shouted hoarsely, and his hand slipped but caught again. Harsan dangled by one leg, scrabbling with his hands at the stony eyes and pitted teeth of the bas-reliefs. He did not know whether he wanted the man to save his life or to let him fall to a quick and final death. The chandeliers whirled before his vision; the crowds of devotees were black and ochre beetles below. His shins scraped stone as the guardsman-and possibly Eyil-hauled his legs back up over the balustrade to safety.
A crunching crack sounded above him. Pebbles, crumbling mortar, and a fist-sized chunk of rock struck his shoulders and went plummeting on past him into the nave. The balustrade! He heard a curse, a panting cry, Eyil’s voice screaming. The hand on his ankle slipped away entirely, and he knew that he must fall.
A strange and easy peace overcame him. This was the last knot of his Skein. No more decisions, no more pain. No more desiring. Nothing was left but that last burst of agony before he joined the concourse of the Dead on their way to BeiVhanu’s Isles.
He fell free.
There was a clattering in the air all around, wind beat at his face, and he thrashed out wildly with his arms. Clbws dug into the flesh of his back, raked along his ribs, his thighs, encircled his waist. Something chittered in his ear, smelling of mouldy leather and death and carrion. He was lifted horizontally out over nothingness, drawn entirely away from the balcony to kick his heels above that fearsome drop! He must have screamed, but he could not hear his own voice. Blood pounded in his ears. A great bronze chandelier hurtled toward him. He snatched at it instinctively, only to have the claws drag him away again and carry him on upward, so close under the roof that he could see the peeling paint and the webbing of cracks in the murals there.
Behind him he heard a shriek. He caught a glimpse of a figure, arms windmilling, tumbling over and over to disappear amongst the little insects below. Was it Eyil? He could see no more. Blood rushed to his head. Wings of clammy leather flapped in his face. The stairs and columns of the colonnade swooped up at him. Tiny dolls there pointed and gesticulated as he was brought down to a jouncing, painful landing.
Prince Dhich’une waited upon the steps, once again skullfaced and rigid as Harsan had first seen him. The pupilless eyes glowed yellow in the fires of the lamps.
“So, little priestling, you have learned to fly? Were it not for our Vorodla here you might have joined the Worm Lord all too soon.”
Harsan rolled over and saw for the first time the things that had rescued him: three tall, dingy ^: black, bat-winged beings with powerfully muscled torsos, elongated limbs, and narrow, triangular faces. They had never been spawned of living flesh, however; their eyes were the pallid white of the Undead. Somehow he knew that they-or parts of them-had been human once; now they were numbered among Lord Sarku’s legions. The Vorodla were mentioned in the Epic of Hrugga, but he had never dreamed that they existed in fact!
The Prince addressed the creatures. “Go,” he said, “and harry the girl to one end of the gallery or the other. I do not think she will find the courage to hurl herself down as this priest almost did.” He turned back to Harsan. “As it is, you have cost the Temple of Sarku a soldier this night. Perhaps I shall let you live long enough to pay Shamtla in kind for that offence! I grow impatient with you, priest, and I freely confess that you try my skills as a teacher. The lessons I can yet impart are severe ones indeed!”
