Beneath Ceaseless Skies #165 Read online

  He crawled over to get one of the cans. There was a crowbar leaning in the corner. He got that as well and returned to the door.

  The argument had come to blows. He opened the can and tipped its neck down to the crack under the door. The fuel flowed onto the floor outside. The can was about empty when someone saw the spreading pool. “Hey, look,” he guffawed. “He must be more scared than we thought.”

  Everything got quiet. The owner swore. “That’s not—” There was a scuffling of feet. Keftu threw the can away and brought the bar down on the floor. Sparks flew but didn’t catch. He tried it again. Blue flames licked across the foot of the door and flowed under it. There were shouts and screams out in the saloon now.

  Laughing idiotically, Keftu crawled up the mountain of crates, slid the window open, and wriggled through. He dropped into an alley.

  He got to his feet, using the wall for support, and staggered into the darkness. Soon he was on a lava-ramp between the buildings. He paused every now and then to catch his breath. He got up above the rooftops and struck the path he’d seen the procession on. Now crawling, now staggering, he followed it to the sharp ridge and down into the next valley.

  The moon was shining through tatters of damp cloud. Huge, huddled shapes stood like slouching giants in the drifting light, twisted hillocks rising out of carpets of yellow moss. It was a scrapyard.

  There were furtive noises in the heaps. A shadow flitted from one to another. Something nipped at his calf. His senses swam and he sank to his knees. Sharp fangs began worrying his arm. As he slumped to the sickly turf his only hope was that the maugrethim wouldn’t wake him as they stripped his bones.

  A hunchbacked figure materialized out of the night. With a crutch it began to swing at the beasts, driving them away. Once again Keftu began to laugh madly. He laughed himself asleep.

  * * *

  It was day when he opened his eyes. He was lying on a cot in a little room with white paneled walls. The carpet was a faded yellow-green. Through a dirty window he could see towering nimlathim with canopies of black needles. The sky was overcast.

  Someone had taken his armor off and bathed his wounds. He looked around. His things were piled in the corner. He sat up, groaning, and swung his feet down. “Hello?” he called.

  An old man leaned through the door frame. Keftu recognized him from the scrapyard. He was lame and had a twisted back. His hands were thick and clumsy-looking.

  “You hungry, young sir?” he asked.

  “Sure,” said Keftu. “Listen, regarding last night. I—”

  “Say nothing of it. Come on.”

  Keftu got to his feet. His host led him down a hallway into a kitchen. A table sat before a big window. It looked out upon a mossy sward that ran up to a wall of nimlathim. A gravel path led from the house into the wood. Gaunt gray peaks stood over it all.

  “Where am I?” muttered Keftu.

  “Inner City Lapidaries. Providing Enoch with finest quality work for forty-two years.”

  Keftu turned to face his host. “And who—”

  “Elgin is my name. Have a seat.”

  Keftu sat down. Elgin brought over a plate with a few slabs of gray cake and a jar of pickled eggs. He sat down and poured two mugs of tea. “Here,” he said, handing one to Keftu.

  “Thank you.” Keftu scratched the back of his head. “I had some untoward experiences yesterday, so perhaps my head’s not on quite straight. Did I hear you say you’re a lapidary?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You make a living how?”

  “By selling jewelry, naturally. I make it all right here at my shop. Finest quality. I also sell fossils and crystals.”

  “To whom? The helots around here?”

  “No, no, of course not. Collectors from all around the peninsula know my work.”

  “Do you advertise? You’re not exactly in a central location.”

  “You can’t get more central than the inner city, sir. And quality work doesn’t need to be advertised. Anyhow, you know phylites. They love to find out-of-the-way sellers to show off to their friends.” He grinned. He was missing several teeth. “And what brings you to these parts, might I ask? Eh?”

  Keftu scowled at his tea. “Why did I come here?” He leaped to his feet. “Yani! Did you see a girl when you picked me up?”

  “A girl?”

  “A tiny thing, with dark hair in a bun, wearing a white shawl or some such thing.”

  “I didn’t see any girl. But if you came over the ridge there—”

  “Yes? What?”

  “Well, they’re probably going to sacrifice her to the black god.”

  “When? How? In that temple?”

  “No, no. They hold a rite in the temple, then take the victim up the mountain to be devoured by the god.”

  “I need to save her!”

  “You’ll not find her in the temple and get out alive. Best wait until they’re bringing her by. Won’t be until midday at the earliest. Sit down, have some breakfast.” He pushed the plate toward Keftu.

  “Well,” said Keftu, “if you’re absolutely sure...”

  “Sure I’m sure. Have a seat.”

  Keftu sat down. He took a slab and began to eat. “Since you’re feeding me rather than killing me, I presume it’s safe to ask what’s going on around here.”

  “Nothing much to tell. There’s just me and those people over yonder and the temple and the black god.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What is this black god? An idol?”

  “Oh, no. Nothing like that. He’s one of the Old Ones, descended out of the deeps of time. Older than some of the fossils I have around here. Say. That reminds me. Do you like fossils?”

  “Well, I—yes, as a matter of fact, I have a professional interest in them—but I don’t—”

  Elgin got up. “Come on,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

  Keftu wiped his lips and pushed back from the table.

  They went into a little shop at the front of the house. Exquisitely made jewelry sat under glass cases. A shelf along the wall held fossils, some of which were beautifully finished. Through the screen door could be seen tables with bins. Beyond them was a sagging shed.

  Elgin showed him all over the shop, discussing the finer points of his craft. Bells and gongs could now be heard ringing through the trees outside. “What’s that?” asked Keftu.

  “That? Oh, that’s the procession up the mountain. They’re taking a victim to the black god.”

  “Now? I thought you said they wait until later in the day!”

  “Well, not always. Now, over here—”

  Keftu rushed past him to the room where he’d spent the night. He hastily donned his armor and girded himself with his sword. Elgin was in the corridor when he came out.

  “Wait a minute, young fellow—” Elgin stammered.

  Keftu stumbled past him and through the shop to the front door. He went bounding across the sward and into the shadow of the trees. Elgin kept calling for him to come back, but Keftu ignored him.

  * * *

  He was running uphill. The black pines soughed balefully over his head. He emerged upon the path, at a place the procession had already passed. Cautiously he followed along behind.

  Soon he came out into the open. Above him stretched a rocky hillside clothed in mosses and lichens. It was a cinder cone linked to the larger one by a sheer curtain of basalt columns. The path wove back and forth to a notch in the crater.

  The procession was halfway up, a long line of robed helots, with Yani riding the starved saurian at their head. She wasn’t tied, and Keftu wondered why she didn’t try to escape.

  He went after them, cutting across the switchbacks, keeping under the cover of boulders as much as possible. He blended in well with the vegetation, for the vitality of elder ages coursed along his clean limbs, lent by his ancient panoply. He was close to the tail as it vanished into an archway in the black wall that
reached across the notch. With a single bound he leaped to the top.

  The bowl held a lush moss garden, cool and moist and dark, overshadowed by towering pernathim whose pale, scaly stems bifurcated high above into waving white boughs bearing livid leaves. The procession was already invisible amongst the herbaceous pillars.

  Keftu dropped lightly down and dashed along the path, his sandaled feet making no noise on the coarse black sand. As he neared an open place he circled around through the undergrowth.

  A dark pool was cupped in the pit of the basin. The helots stood on the hither shore. Two were poling a raft across to the far side, with Yani standing upright between them. There an altar of black obsidian sat upon a level terrace.

  A tall, thin black figure stood over the altar. It looked to be covered in soft fur. Aside from its small, circular eyes, which were yellow, it had no visible features. It was like something cut out of black velvet. Its form was vaguely manlike, but its narrow head was crowned with two tufts that might have been either ears or hair-covered horns.

  Suddenly the creature spread pinions like sheets of starless night and raised its long arms. The men on the barge shouted and jumped into the water. They splashed back ashore as the rest of the party scattered into the garden with a jingling of many bells. One helot stumbled against Keftu, got up, and ran on.

  The black figure stooped down and lifted Yani from the raft. It set her on the altar and appeared to speak to her.

  With a shout Keftu took two mighty bounds and leaped into the air. He kicked his legs, spreading wide the wings that had been hidden in their case at his back. They were like insect wings, with veins of carved bone and membranes of golden resin, and he drove their gear box with chains linked to his greaves. Like a dragonfly he shot straight over the pool at the black god.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Yani cried.

  He faltered in his flight. The giant seized him in its black hands—it was like being brushed by a warm night wind—and swung him back around to the other side of the pool. He had just time enough to retract his wings before he passed between the stems. He crashed into a bed of bracken, momentarily stunned.

  Undaunted, he sat up, shook himself, and shot across the pond a second time. He alit on the altar between the girl and the black god. It reared up above him like an eidolon of Night. With a hoarse cry he drove his sword into its chest, but when he pulled the blade back out it was clean.

  “Stop that, you idiot!” Yani cried. “This is one of the Guardians of Anadogra!”

  “What?”

  “It was set to watch over this gate by my ancestors. The people here have apparently taken to worshiping it. But I knew it would recognize one of the House of Zim.”

  “But I—”

  “Get rid of him!” she said to the Guardian. “He’s just an autochthon who’s been following me about. He’ll only make things worse for my sister.”

  The Guardian picked Keftu up, holding his arms firmly against his sides. It drew back and launched him like a javelin. He rocketed through the air, over the pernathim, past the notch, and down the outer slope.

  As the black canopy drew near he kicked his legs and extended his wings. He barely had time to adjust his trajectory. With the touch of the first needles he retracted them again and closed his eyes tight.

  The boughs lashed his limbs. As he slowed he caught hold of a branch and stopped himself. His body swung down until he was dangling above the earth. He released his grip and dropped, landing on his feet in a bed of needles. The lapidary could be seen through the trunks just ahead.

  Elgin came limping up the slope on his crutch. “You rushed off before I could tell you what to do,” he chided.

  “What to do about what?”

  “About the god up yonder. You can’t kill him, young sir, because his heart is kept somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  “In the temple across the ridge. The one the mountain covered over. They keep the heart in a casket inside. It’s an old tradition. There’s always a lookout posted, to destroy the heart if the god comes looking for it. They hold him hostage, in a manner of speaking, though no one remembers why anymore. Perhaps even the god has forgotten, it’s been so long.”

  “You mean, all I have to do is find this heart, and the god’s life will be in my hands?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But why should I bother? Yani is past him by now. I’ll just go around.”

  Elgin laughed and shook his head knowingly. “If you’re wanting to follow her to the inner lands, you’d best take her path. The interior of Panormus is wrinkled, folded you might say, so that it gets bigger than it ought as you go further inside. You could wander a lifetime before finding even a large place, unless you know the way.”

  “Hm. She hinted as much to me yesterday. Perhaps I’ll do what you suggest.”

  “Very good, sir. Come back any time. Inner City Lapidaries.”

  * * *

  Several minutes later Keftu was creeping up the rippled stone between the arm of the city and the twin campaniles. The sun was a hazy disk behind the white clouds, and he felt dreadfully exposed against the slope. There was a lookout in one of the towers, but his attention was directed toward the god’s cone, and not at the hillside below.

  Keftu reached the shadow of the tower without being seen. The magma had poured down it and hardened into a funnel of stone, a twisted tube widened by hand and worn smooth by the passage of votaries. He slipped into the darkness of its mouth.

  At the tower’s base the lava gave out. He stepped into the nave of the temple, which was filled with the dim golden glow of votive candles before images in niches. It was a tall, narrow space, suffocatingly hot, and the air was thick with stale incense.

  A low iron fence separated the dais from the floor. The high altar lay beyond. A crystal casket reposed in a house of gold in the high ornate reredos. Beside it a vested priest nodded in a chair. He was a small, hairless man, with plump hands like a baby’s.

  Keftu strode up the nave and leaped over the fence. The priest stirred and awoke. When he saw Keftu his pink eyes opened wide. “What do you want?” he stammered.

  “I’m here for the giant’s heart.”

  “Are you going to kill him?”

  “Not if he’ll do as I wish.”

  “Oh, please don’t kill him. We love him so. Please don’t kill him.”

  “I’ll try not to,” said Keftu. He circled the altar and took the casket from its tabernacle. It was warm to the touch and held a large, black, glistening heart that palpitated spasmodically. It was long and thin and looked to have fewer chambers than a man’s heart.

  “Thank you,” said Keftu. “I’ll bring it back if I can.”

  * * *

  It was midday when he reached the pond again. The Guardian was nowhere in sight. There was a pillar with a small gong nearby. He took up the hammer and struck it.

  The black god strode out of the shadows beyond the altar. When it saw Keftu it opened its mouth, which was filled with small white teeth, and spread its wings and lifted its arms menacingly.

  Keftu held up the casket. The Guardian froze. “Let me past or I’ll destroy it,” Keftu said.

  The Guardian seemed to hesitate, then withdrew to the side. It folded its wings and appeared to shrink somewhat.

  With a single bound Keftu leaped across. But as he went past the god it sprang at him. He glimpsed it out of the corner of his eye and spun, holding the casket away, threatening to dash it against the rocks. The Guardian retreated to the altar and crouched there.

  Walking backward, Keftu made his way up the path between the towering stems. As soon as Guardian was out of sight he turned and ran. He reached a tunnel cut through the side of the basin and threw himself down it. It was long and straight. The point of light far ahead grew larger and larger, and at last he was outside.

  An ashy slope fell away before his feet. The few green fronds that grew around the tunnel’s mouth were the only living
things he could see. The wrinkled lands rolled away into the distance, dun and gray, touched with pale gold and blue-gray and gray-green and ochre.

  The path was a ribbon winding in and out of the pits and chasms, faint but clear. He pursued it with a passion, black heart in one hand and sword in the other, singing a song of his fathers. There were no signs of Enoch, no warehouses or chimneys, no railways or roads. Works of cyclopean masonry crowned some of the ridges, but all was silent and empty.

  It was evening when he caught up with Yani. She was traversing a long valley with sloping walls of igneous scree that fell from basalt curtains high above. He sprang silently into the air and flew past her to wait at some clustered obelisks of white quartz.

  She must already have seen him, for she wasn’t surprised when he hailed her. “Haven’t had enough? How did you get past the Guardian?”

  “Simple. I reasoned with it.”

  “You reasoned with it. What a liar you are. What did you do? Wait till it was napping, and sneak past like a thief?”

  In reply he held up the heart.

  Her jaw dropped. “You didn’t.”

  “I did.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you kill it?”

  “I thought it might be better for Anadogra if I didn’t.”

  She shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter. No one even knew before now that the Guardians still watch some of the ways. It’s been chiliads since Enoch posed any real threat. You could even have let it go, if you’d wanted to.”

  “I wonder. Perhaps I’ll try it later. For now my way lies with you.”

  She sighed. “On we go, then. We won’t get much farther tonight. We’re a bit behind schedule, and it’s not safe to wander out here in the dark. We’ll find a cave to shelter in.”

  They made their way over a land of ash-hills and entered a chasm. A clear stream ran down it, and they drank their fill. After a few turns they came to a sand hill that spilled out of a high wind cave. They struggled up to it and sat on a ledge at the back.