Darkness Weaves

by Karl Edward Wagner

Genres: Fantasy; Historical Thrillers; Historical Fantasy

Synopsis

Kane - indestructible swordsman, invincible sorcerer, immortal wanderer through strange worlds. Efrel, Empress of Pellin, seeks vengeance on the King of Thovnos and chooses Kane as her champion.

Release date: May 29, 2014

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 167

Sample

“He’s evil incarnate! Stay away from him!” Arbas glared at the young outlander across from him and took a deep drink from the mug of ale the stranger had bought him. At present he felt only contempt for the free-spending youth who had sought him out here in the Tavern of Selram Honest.

Arbas — called by many Arbas the Assassin — was in a foul mood. A sudden and ill-timed (suspiciously ill-timed, it seemed to Arbas) run of bad luck with the dice earlier this evening had stripped from him a comfortable pile of winnings and all his ready coin as well. The adoring tavern maid, who had been slipping teasing fingers over the lean muscles beneath his leather vest, then turned coldly aloof and left him with a scornful air. Perhaps it was a disappointed air, Arbas mused sourly.

Then had come this stranger, whose upper-class manner was in dubious contrast to the rough dress he displayed. The stranger had simply introduced himself as Imel and volunteered no further information other than cautiously chosen gossip. Seemingly he was an altruist solely devoted to keeping Arbas’s mug filled to the brim with strong ale. Unconvinced, Arbas decided to let the fool throw away his money. He was not a man who got drunk easily. Eventually Arbas knew that the other would in some very offhand, so very casual manner, begin to talk about some rival, some black-hearted son of a bitch — someone for whose demise Imel would pay.

Arbas had been professionally estimating exactly how much Imel might be able to pay when the stranger had abruptly demolished all the assassin’s calculations. Somehow the conversation had shifted to the one man whose death the Combine authorities so fervently prayed for. With a start Arbas realized that the outlander was seeking information about Kane.

“Evil? But then, his character is not my concern. Anyway, I’m not searching the slums of Nostoblet to recruit a household treasurer. I simply wish to talk with him, is all — and I was told that you can tell me how to reach him.” The stranger spoke the dialect of the Southern Lartroxian Combine with a burr that marked him a native of the island of Thovnos, capital of the Thovnosian Empire about five hundred miles to the southwest.

“Then you’re a fool!” retorted Arbas and emptied his mug. Beneath his hood the stranger’s thin face flushed with anger. Silently damning the assassin’s impertinence, he signalled a passing tavern maid to refill Arbas’s mug. Carelessly he tossed her three bronze coins from his purse, making certain that Arbas noticed its weight. The tavern maid did, and she brushed against Imel’s shoulder as she poured, smiling as she swung away.

“Fickle bitch!” mused Arbas illogically, studying the crimson imprint of her rouged breast on the Thovnosian’s gray cloak. The assassin slowly sipped his ale, but gave no indication he had noticed the almoner. “Someone talks too much for me. Too damn much! Who told you I could find him?”

“He asked me not to give his name.”

“Names, names, please mention no names. By Lato! You’ll give me the name of that loose-tongued lying bastard who sent you to me — or you can go look for him in the Seventh Hell, where he damn well belongs! With that price on his head, there’s not a handful of men in the Combine who’d not sell their souls for a chance to turn him in.”

About them the tavern was bustling with activity. The cadaverous form of Selram Honest could be seen near the door to his wine cellar. A smile was etched through the grease of the gaunt proprietor’s face as he looked over the noisy crowd. Most were in a festive mood, loudly going about their pleasures, gambling, whoring, carousing. Boisterous thugs from the ill-lit streets of Nostoblet, reckless mercenaries in the dark green shirts and leather trousers of the Combine’s cavalry, strange-accented wanderers passing through the city for unguessable purposes, seductively clad street tarts whose hard laughter never echoed in their too-wise eyes. Two blond mercenaries from Waldann were about to cast aside the bonds of long companionship and draw knives over some lethal quarrel intelligible only to themselves. A pretty-faced whore with curious scars spiralling each bright-rouged breast was expertly rifling the purse of the incautious seaman who embraced her. A balding, filthy onetime sergeant of the Nostoblet city guard was amusing several jeering rednecks with his whining plea for a drink.

Here and there small groups of men sat hunched over their tables in low whispers, hatching plans of which the city guard would give much to learn. But the city guard seldom ventured into the riverport alleys of Nostoblet except to collect bribes, and Selram Honest cared nothing for his guests’ affairs, so long as they had money for his hospitality. Each man’s business was his own. No one paid the least attention, therefore, to the hushed exchange that was taking place between Arbas the assassin and the stranger from Thovnos.

At least, no one with the possible exception of a one-eared soldier in nondescript harness, who had entered the Tavern of Selram Honest not long after Imel. The burly warrior’s decrepit battle gear and glowering visage insured his solitude from enterprising whores or talkative drunks. On the hand that raised his alecup occasionally to his lips, there shone a carven silver ring set with a massive amethyst. The crystal flashed violet in the smoky yellow light of the tavern. But the silent man sat far across the crowded room from Arbas and Imel, well out of earshot. And if his gaze seemed too frequently turned in their direction, perhaps it was drawn by the dark-haired girl in multi-colored silks who danced upon the table somewhat beyond the two.

Imel remained in silent speculation for a moment, ignoring the smouldering anger in the assassin’s dark face. This man was more difficult, more dangerous than he had at first judged him to be, and he was uncertain as to how deeply involved Arbas might be with his mission. At least for the present, he knew he must rely on the assassin. Diplomacy, then. Satisfy his suspicions, but tell him nothing important

“Then it was Bindoff who sent me to you,” said the stranger, smiling at Arbas’s startled reaction on hearing the Black Priest’s name. “Now have we a deal?”

Arbas’s estimation of the Thovnosian underwent a radical change. He had half-assumed the stranger was a bounty hunter and was considering a lonely spot for a knifing — but that he even knew of the Black Priest’s connections with the man he sought was a telling point in his favor. Bindoff had guarded that secret with characteristic thoroughness. Perhaps, then, the man had in some inexplicable manner gained Bindoff’s confidence. It might be worth the risk.

“Have you, say, twenty-five mesitsi gold?” Arbas asked casually.

The stranger faked a hesitant pause — no merit in giving the assassin reason to think to ask for more. “I can raise it.”

Arbas licked the foam from his mustache before replying. “All right, then. Bring it to me here two nights from tonight. I’ll arrange for you to meet Kane.”

“Why not tonight?” Imel urged.

“Not a chance, friend. Anyway, I guess I’ll do me some checking on you before we go anywhere.” Noting the stranger’s annoyed impatience, Arbas quoted: “Happy in his folly, the fool embraced the devil.”

The stranger laughed. “Spare me the scriptures. What is there about this Kane, though, that gives him so evil a reputation? Surely one of your position is unjustified in casting aspersions on anyone.”

But Arbas only chuckled and said, “Ask me again after you’ve met Kane!”

Fed by cold springs and tiny streams of the high Myceum Mountains far to the east, the River Cotras cut its twisted path through miles of rocky foothills, until at last it reached the wide belt of lowlands that circled the Lartroxian coast. There it began its rush to the western seas — a fifty-mile stretch of deep navigable channel through fertile farmlands and rich forests. The city Nostoblet stood along the banks of River Cotras, where its waters first rushed from the low hills onto the coastal plains. By virtue of the wide river channel, Nostoblet was an inland port, receiving both exotic trade goods from the merchant ships that plied the western seas, as well as the wealth of the eastern mountains, brought down the roaring waterway on rafts by the half-wild mountaineers.

The hills behind Nostoblet were thinly forested and scarred by great outcroppings and canyons, where long ago mountain streams had slashed through the soft rock. Stone cliffs stood out in endless profusion, some rising hundreds of feet above the valleys below them. An almost uncrossable barrier, they guarded the plains of South Lartroxia, marking the limits where, as some scholars maintained, the ancient seas had once rolled.

The cliffs in the hills behind Nostoblet had been honeycombed with tombs in many places. The comparatively recent southern spread of the worship of Horment had instituted the custom of cremation of the dead. Consequently these tombs had been out of use for over a century now, and the paths that led to them had been unwatched by human guards for almost as long.

The people of old Nostoblet had always been a practical folk, whose religious habits had not required them to furnish lavish tombs for their dead. The custom of the wealthy in those days when the tombs were in use had been to lay their dead to rest in simple wooden boxes, which were set in niches within caverns that had been cut into the cliffs. None of the corpse’s personal belongings were interred except the clothing he wore and occasional bits of jewelry of negligible value. Consequently there was nothing to tempt a would-be graverobber to slip past the few soldiers who had guarded the tombs in the past — or to brave the inhuman guardians. For the tombs of Nostoblet were infamous for ghouls and other worse dwellers, and the ghastly tales of their hauntings made all of Nostoblet scrupulously shun the area even to this time.

It was along the tortuous trails which ascended these cliffs that two men laboriously picked their way one stormy night. Lightning shattered the night’s total blackness at frequent intervals, illuminating by its glare the rain-slick rock path that they followed along the face of the bluff. Its unpredictable flashes lighted the pathway far better than the feebly burning closed lantern Arbas carried.

“Careful here!” Arbas shouted back. “The rocks here are really slippery!” Ignoring his own advice, the assassin half slipped on a glistening boulder, and in struggling to keep his footing he very nearly threw the useless lantern over the edge.

The Thovnosian muttered savagely and concentrated on staying on the path. One slip on the streaming rocks would mean certain death among the rubble at the base of the bluffs. From somewhere in the darkness below, he could faintly hear the broken roar of rushing water pounding through the flooded stream bed.

Still there was no trace of fear in his voice as he growled, “Couldn’t you have arranged for Kane to meet me somewhere dry?”

Arbas looked back with a wet grin of sardonic amusement written upon his dark face. “Changing your mind about meeting him, are you?” He laughed as his companion answered him with a torrent of curses. “It’s a good night for our purposes, actually — the storm should give us cover from anyone who might try to follow us. Anyway, you know well enough that Kane couldn’t show his face anywhere in the Combine with that price on his head. And even if it weren’t for that, he’s not too likely to come running for just anyone, unless it’s damn well worth his while.”

He added pointedly, “You still haven’t said why you want to see Kane, you know.”

“That’s something for Kane to hear,” retorted Imel.

Arbas nodded solemnly. “Uh-huh. Something for Kane to hear. Uh-huh. Well, don’t let me be spoiling any dramatic secrets now. Wouldn’t want that, of course.”

But the Thovnosian chose to ignore him and lapsed into silence for the remainder of the climb.

Dark openings arose from the face of the stone wall to the right of them now. These were the doorways of the abandoned burial caverns, hand-hewn passages forced through the soft rock by slaves long dead with their masters. More than high enough to permit entrance of a tall man were these silent openings, and by the lightning flashes it appeared that the vaults within were considerably more spacious. Once-sturdy gates had barred access to the tombs in the past, but all seemed to have been forced at some time over the years. A few of the stronger doors stood ajar on frozen hinges, but most were missing entirely, or hanging at crazy angles — broken relics of rotted timber and corroded metal.

Imel speculated uneasily as to what hands might have torn asunder these stout portals to plunder the tombs they had protected — and why. It was a bad night for such thoughts. The darkness within the burial chambers was a far deeper gloom than that of the night, and time had not fully dispelled the stale odor of mouldering decay that tainted the damp air. His nerves crawled each time he nervously stepped past a gaping doorway, and his spine prickled with a sensation of hidden scrutiny. Now and again he caught the elusive sound of tiny scurrying and soft shuffling from within. Imel prayed it was only large rats startled in their lairs that he heard. But then the storm played eerie tricks upon the senses.

“This should be it. I think,” Arbas announced shortly, and he led the way into the musty shelter of one of the burial caverns. Arbas turned up the lantern, which had miraculously remained burning, and Imel observed that the cavern took the shape of an L. There was a preliminary passage some twenty feet long, then at right angles a second and larger passage about fifty feet in length. The eight-foot walls of this first section had been cut out to form a triple row of niches. Only a few of the mouldering coffins that were laid in these niches remained intact. Most were broken apart and their contents scattered — although whether this was from age or vandalism the Thovnosian could not immediately tell.

A double curtain of hide was hung across the passage just after it made its bend. The curtain had been placed there to cut down the chill draft from outside — and to shut out the light from the lantern within. For as he stepped through the curtain, Imel saw that the chamber had been recently furnished for human occupancy.

Here in this ancient, shadow-haunted burial chamber Kane had made his lair.

“Well, where is he?” asked Imel brusquely. He was eager to get down to business and thereby shake off the dark, half-felt fears that had haunted him ever since he had entered the funerary district.

“Not used to waiting, are we now? Well, he’ll get here in his own time. At least, he knows we’re coming tonight,” said Arbas, and appropriated the chamber’s sole chair.

Cursing the assassin’s insolence, Imel cast about the chamber for another seat. There was none. Still the chamber had been astonishingly well furnished — particularly so considering the difficulty and the danger of surveillance involved in bringing anything to these tombs. In the corner on the floor was a good bed of several large pelts and a mattress. Along with the chair there was a table with two lamps, several bottles, items of food and — most amazing of all — a number of books, scrolls, and writing implements. Scattered about the floor and empty niches were various other items — jars of oil, a crossbow and several quivers of bolts, utensils, more food, a battle-axe, and an assortment of rather ancient daggers, rings, and other bits of metalwork. There was a bed of ashes, still quite warm, where Kane had risked building small cooking fires. A stack of unburned wood indicated the use Kane had found for the coffins whose resting place he had preempted.

Heaped in a pile were the discarded bones of the coffins’ tenants, and as Imel looked at this mound he felt the hackles of his neck rise. He had never been known as a squeamish man, and there had been no indication that the spirits of these dead were to be reckoned with. Rather, his disquiet stemmed from the state of these mouldering bones. It was enough that they had been gnawed — this could have been done by rats — but beyond that, they had been meticulously cracked apart and the marrow scraped from within. Something human — or vaguely human — would have devoured the rotting corpses like thus, reflected Imel. He shuddered even though the bones were old and crumbling.

Idly Imel stirred a curious finger through the litter of antique ornaments and metalwork. He was slightly disappointed to discover nothing of consequence. “Kane been pilfering tombs for this junk?” he asked, startled at the loudness of his voice.

The assassin shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s been holed up here long enough to go stir-crazy, but I’d guess he was just collecting the stuff to keep busy. Maybe he’s thinking about making something with it. Maybe write up a catalogue for the pedants at the academy up in Matnabla. You know, I mean what would you do up here all the time? Kane’s … I don’t know.” He broke off in a mutter and became interested in his dagger.

Imel sighed in frustration, searching about the chamber for diversion. He noticed a cryptic pattern of intricate design and archaic pictographs arched over the threshold. Based on what he had seen thus far, he shrewdly guessed that this represented some manner of charm against the supernatural. Without comprehension he studied the talisman for a space, scratching slowly at the unaccustomed stubble he had let grow over his features.

The noise of the tempest outside, coupled with his unnatural surroundings, was making Imel more nervous by the minute. He crossed over to the table where Arbas nonchalantly honed his dagger upon a stone Kane had placed there. Leaning over, he looked at the books there in admiration — although more for their monetary than intellectual value. Curiously he leafed through several of them. Two were in the language of the Combine, and of the others, only one was in a language that looked even vaguely familiar. One very old one was extremely unusual, for the strange characters on its pages did not quite appear to have been handwritten. Imel wondered what type of book would seem so interesting to Kane that he would have transported several of them to the crypt. It was surprising enough to see that Kane could actually read, mused Imel. What little information he had compiled gave Kane the reputation of being a rugged and skillful warrior — a violent personality by all accounts. In Imel’s experience, such a man usually was contemptuous of anything concerned with the arts.

Idly he looked through one of the two volumes written in the language of the Combine. Suddenly his eyes were held by a page filled entirely by a strange diagram. Startled, he slowly read the script on the page opposite and found his suspicions verified. With horror he shut the book and abruptly set it down. A grimoire. Was Kane then a sorcerer as well as a soldier? Imel remembered Arbas’s warning and began to feel fear.

He looked at Arbas and found the assassin grinning at him over his dagger. Sidelong he had been watching Imel and had seen the sudden terror in his eyes. Anger at revealing his emotions flooded Imel, washing away the fear — fear, he told himself, that any sane man feels when confronted with the paraphernalia of black sorcery.

“Stop your stupid smirking!” he snarled at Arbas, who merely chuckled in reply. Cursing fervently, the Thovnosian paced the chamber. By Tloluvin! He was a fool ever to have undertaken this mission — a fool ever to have become involved in her insane schemes! Realizing that he was fast losing control, he halted and struggled to regain his composure.

“Is Kane going to get here or not?” he demanded.

Arbas shrugged; he seemed to be getting impatient himself. “Perhaps he doesn’t realize we’re here yet,” he offered. “Let’s just take a lantern and show its light out on the ledge for a bit. I doubt if anyone other than Kane is around here to see it on a night like this.” So saying, he picked up his battered lantern and moved toward the curtain wall.

They had just gone through the curtain and were starting toward the tunnel’s mouth when an extended burst of chain lightning split the midnight skies and threw a flickering bluish light on the figure just entering the crypt. Startled, Imel was unable to suppress a gasp at the sight of the looming cloaked figure silhouetted darkly against the lightning-blasted torrent. Arbas’s words at their first meeting flashed through Imel’s mind: Look for him in the Seventh Hell! Truly this nightmarish scene could justifiably be that of a demon — or Lord Tloluvin himself — emerging from the Seventh Hell.

For the space of a heartbeat the lightning gave hellish illumination upon the figure. No features were discernible in the glare. He appeared only as a black shadow, the wind whipping his rain-drenched cloak and garments, his powerful body braced against the storm. His drawn sword glinted in the lightning, as did his eyes — sinister spots of fire in the darkness.

Then the lightning burst faded, and the figure stalked into the crypt. “Get that light under cover!” snapped Kane.

Arbas moved the curtain aside, and Kane stepped through, flinging off his sodden cloak. . .