The Plague Knight and Other Stories Read online

  I spun around just as the noble swung his long, heavy sword in a horizontal arc. I ducked underneath it and stabbed the tip of my weapon into his groin at the same time. His mouth fell open, and he froze.

  That gave me the chance to break away. And I needed to, because three more of Alexos’s slaves were only a few strides away, with still more pounding up behind them.

  I ran, sometimes dodging in and out of the split and tangled buildings in an effort to shake my pursuers off my track. It didn’t work.

  Perhaps it would have, except that the watchtower stood near the edge of the city, which limited my room to maneuver. And in time, the preeminent lords and ladies of the city herded me to a spot where light and shape gave way to murk. When I looked out at the darkness, I could feel depth, that space extended on and on in front of me, but I can’t tell you how, because I certainly couldn’t see that. Since the gloom was absolute, I might as well have been looking at a black wall. In fact, if I hadn’t still had bits of the city at the edges of my vision when I peered at what lay beyond, I might have imagined I’d been struck blind.

  There were at least twenty pursuers rapidly closing in on me. Even if I hadn’t been winded, it would have been preposterous to imagine I could withstand them all. And then Alexos himself appeared behind them.

  He was a small man with only a few wisps of mouse-colored hair left on the top of his head, who didn’t look like the popular notion of an evil sorcerer. He didn’t move in a swirl of black robes or laugh fiendishly, nor did a red light gleam in his eyes. But there was a sly, unwholesome avidity in his face. You wouldn’t suspect him of casting the enchantments that brought a city to its knees, but you would have had no trouble imagining him peeping at lovers through a window.

  He smirked at me and raised a small round mirror he held palmed in his left hand.

  That final threat spurred me into motion. Frightened at the prospect but believing it my only chance, I whirled, ran into the dark, and discovered that being inside it didn’t make whatever it hid any more visible. At that moment, it was like I truly was blind, and blundering through a place as chilly as a late autumn night.

  I half expected to fall, but didn’t. I still had solid ground beneath my feet, even if I couldn’t see it anymore, or my feet, either.

  I glanced back, and then, somewhat to my surprise, there was something to see. Glowing with their subtle inner light, the false Balathex and its inhabitants were still visible even though nothing else was. So I could tell that no one was pursuing me over the border.

  But Alexos was chanting and sweeping the little mirror through serpentine passes. Perhaps he could still see me, even shrouded in the gloom.

  I ran a zigzag course to throw off his aim. I didn’t know if that would help, but I didn’t know that it wouldn’t, either.

  The ground rose beneath me. The incline tripped me and nearly made me fall, but I caught my balance and dashed on. I passed over the crest of the rise and threw myself down on the other side, where I had cover.

  Then I crawled over what felt like pebbles and weeds. When I raised my head and looked around again, the false Balathex was far enough away that it seemed reasonable to hope Alexos had lost track of me. Although he’d no doubt have guards patrolling the perimeter to catch me when I tried to sneak back in.

  Maybe they wouldn’t intercept me if I slipped all the way around to the opposite side. Was I willing to trek that far through the darkland? I decided I was, and then a spasm of nausea churned my guts.

  I realized another devil had found me. I tossed the cudgel to my off hand and snatched for the hilt of my sword.

  Cold hands gripped my forearm. Something hard bashed the back of my head. Stunned, I dropped to my knees. Tregan’s club twisted out of my hand, and my sword and dagger whispered out of their sheaths. I belatedly comprehended that a whole pack of darklanders had accosted me.

  Their hatred hammered me until I retched, and my head felt like an egg hatching an impatient chick. Finally they stopped giving me the evil eye. Then a couple of them grabbed me, hoisted me up, and held me from behind.

  “Hurt him!” a darklander rasped. “Pick the soft things out of his face.”

  I still felt sick, but since I surmised the creature meant my eyes, that suggestion roused me. I stamped on feet and kicked backward into shins. Wrenched free of grasping fingers, lashed out with a punch, and connected. Since I was blind and outnumbered, I must have caught the darklanders by surprise to accomplish even that much. They hadn’t imagined I had any fight left in me.

  “Don’t hurt me!” I gasped. “I’m not one of the invaders. I came to help you get rid of them.” It was the only thing I could think of to say that had any hope at all of deterring them.

  And it worked. They hesitated. Then one of them--I thought it was the same one who wanted to pluck my eyes out--said, “He’s lying!”

  “No,” I said. “The city shines. Its people shine. But I don’t.”

  “Now he’s just babbling!” my ill-wisher said. At which point I realized that creatures who evidently had no eyes were unlikely to know what glowed and what didn’t.

  But another darklander said, “I think he means the stink. The burning.” This new voice snarled and scraped like the other, but was higher pitched, and I wondered if the speaker was female. “And it’s true, it doesn’t bleed from him like it does from the rest.”

  “But his shape!” said the first darklander. “His shape is exactly the same.”

  “Because I come from the same world,” I said. “Alexos Dambrin--the sorcerer who built the city--is an outlaw, and I followed him here to kill him. When I do, it will break his power, and everything he created will disappear.”

  “It might,” said a third darklander, with the most guttural voice yet, “but you can’t kill the warlock and his guards. You ran from them. I watched.”

  “So kill him,” said my ill-wisher. “He may not sweat poison, but he’s a trespasser like the rest.”

  “I admit,” I said, “the first method I tried didn’t work. But I could kill Alexos if I had allies to keep his servants off my back. If you want to get rid of him, then help me. Let’s storm his fortress together.”

  A prolonged silence followed. Finally the female said, “We can’t.” Her voice still grated and set my teeth on edge, but even so, she sounded sheepish.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “There’s no trace of our realm left in the poison spaces,” she said. “No way in, and nothing to sustain our lives if we did get in.”

  “You mean,” I said, “there’s no true darkness, and there needs to be.”

  “And so,” snarled the first demon, “we have no use for you.”

  “Maybe you do,” I said. “What if I can produce at least a little darkness, a bit of the conditions that are natural to you, inside the city? Will that help?”

  “It might,” the female said. “Open any breach, and my magic should be able to widen it.”

  “Then we have a chance. But you’ll have to let me sneak back across the border.”

  My ill-wisher laughed. “He just wants to escape where we can’t follow.”

  “It wouldn’t be much of an escape,” I said, “since Alexos and his warriors want to kill me, too.”

  “I still don’t like it,” the creature said.

  “Do you like it that several of our people are trapped inside that foul place?” the sorceress asked. “Or that it’s a festering sore making the whole land sick? If the monster claims he can help us, I say, give him the chance. What do we have to lose?”

  Other darklanders clamored in agreement. Eventually it became apparent that the majority favored helping me, which evidently meant they all would.

  “If you’re with me,” I said, “there’s one more thing you need to understand.”

  “What?” the sorceress asked.

  “We should all try to kill Alexos,” I said. “But you can’t kill his servants. They’re innocents enslaved by magic. You can subdue a
nd restrain them, but nothing more.”

  “That isn’t how we fight,” the female said.

  “It has to be this time around. Otherwise, I won’t help you, your trapped friends will stay trapped, and your country will continue to rot.”

  Another silence, long enough for me to wonder if I’d spoiled the deal and so consigned myself to a painful death. Then: “All right. Your kind seem puny enough that we should be able to manage as you say.”

  “In that case, I recommend we go in through the opposite side of the city.” As we made our way there, I likely amused my companions with my periodic stumbles.

  Eventually we reached what looked like a good way in, since none of Alexos’s sentries were in view. Someone placed my weapons in my hand, one at a time. Then somebody else gave me a nudge to start me walking.

  I confess that for a moment, when I crossed back into the light, I felt tempted to forsake the darklanders. They were demons, after all, and who knew what might come of trusting them? But breaking our compact wouldn’t put me any closer to thwarting Alexos.

  So I turned back around toward the dark and positioned myself at the very edge of the false Balathex.

  I’d noted the lack of shadows in the city. But, standing where I was, I had virtually all of its light behind me, and just a narrow section of its fading rim in front. I prayed that here, some hint of my shadow would appear, and it did. A faint gray streak connected my feet to the impenetrable murk less than a pace away.

  “Is it enough?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said the female’s voice from out of the gloom. “Back away slowly.”

  I did. I was worried the shadow would disappear, but it didn’t. To the contrary. It darkened, and widened to cover a bigger patch of ground. When it was black and broad enough, the darklanders swarmed in.

  I’d pictured them as we often picture devils, essentially human only uglier, with a bestial feature or two. Now I discovered they were considerably more peculiar. Gray-black in color, they trotted or skittered on round little feet and skinny legs like the limbs of horses. But the number of legs varied from three to as many as eight. The same was true of their arms, which might sprout from their torsos at any point, like branches from a tree trunk. In contrast to the jointed legs, the upper limbs writhed and coiled like snakes, and terminated in a diversity of appendages. Some were hands, others, serrated blades and hooks.

  And, most strangely of all, the darklanders had no heads. Instead, clumps of growths like big leaves waved at the tops of their torsos. The individual leaves drooped, reared, and swiveled from one moment to the next. I guessed they were the demons’ ears, and possibly other sensory organs as well.

  “Ready?” asked the sorceress. Her voice sounded from the center of her sheaf of leaves.

  I took a breath and shook off my astonishment and revulsion at the creatures’ appearances. Well, enough to function, anyway. ”Yes.”

  As we headed deeper into the city, I realized I didn’t see my shadow splashed across the ground anymore. Rather, the darklanders and I advanced in a gloom like deep twilight. Sometimes, when it washed across one of the rifts between reflections, another demon would scuttle forth to join our band.

  We found Alexos and a goodly number of his minions crossing a plaza near the center of town. Evidently he’d gotten tired of waiting for me to reappear at the border. Maybe he assumed that if I hadn’t sneaked back into his domain already, the darklanders must have killed me.

  He certainly hadn’t expected me to ally with them, or find a way to lead them into his territory. His dangling jaw and goggling stare attested to that.

  My companions and I charged.

  Recovering from his shock, Alexos screamed for his slaves to defend him, and the nobles scrambled to obey. Inwardly I cringed, suddenly sure the darklanders would forget their promise and start killing. They didn’t, though. They battered and grappled, but didn’t slash or stab.

  It cost them, too. The lords of Balathex had weapons and were proficient in their use. One demon fell, and then another, blood black as ink spurting from their wounds. But more of the time, it was they who, with their several limbs, pummeled or throttled an opponent until he couldn’t fight anymore.

  Trying to reach Alexos, I circled around knots of struggling combatants. Meanwhile, he brandished his mirror and shrilled words of power. Light blazed from the glass as though it reflected the sun.

  It all but blinded me. Worse, it dispelled the gloom birthed from my shadow. Well, apparently not every trace of it, for the darklanders didn’t drop dead instantly. But some of them screamed, and they all faltered. Taking advantage of their distress, Alexos’s guards struck more of them down.

  The sorceress croaked an incantation perhaps intended to keep the glare from burning the very last of the dark away. I finally reached a spot where I had a clear path to Alexos. I raised my arm to shield my eyes and rushed him.

  Though nearly sightless--it was obviously my day for it--I glimpsed someone big driving in on the left. I pivoted and saw it was Grelldac. I used Tregan’s club to beat aside his rapier thrust, then hit him four times, once in the knee and three times about the head. Afterward, he still clung to consciousness, but was incapable of bothering me for a while.

  I dropped the stick, drew my broadsword, and dashed on.

  Alexos may have done something overt with the mirror, like thrusting it in my direction, but if so, I couldn’t see it. It was a change in the color of the light ahead, from dazzling white to yellow, that prompted me to dodge. Flame crackled past me.

  I plunged into the distance, feinted to the chest, then cut at the place where, amid the glare, I judged Alexos’s forearm to be. My aim was good. The sword sliced flesh, and the mirror tumbled from the warlock’s hand. The blaze inside it died.

  “Wait!” Alexos yelped. “The nobles are going to give in to me! They have to! I’ll share everything with you!”

  I lifted the sword for another attack.

  Suddenly his one form multiplied into five, standing in a semicircle around me. Acting in perfect unison, they snapped the arms I hadn’t wounded, and daggers flew out of their sleeves into their hands. They lunged at me, thrusting for my midsection.

  Apparently Alexos thought the trick would so disconcert me that I’d lose track of which opponent was real, and which, illusory. I didn’t. I stepped back and met the genuine mage with a stop thrust to the heart. He and the duplicates crumpled together, but the latter popped like soap bubbles before they reached the ground.

  I looked around and saw that the reflections of the nobles were vanishing, too. The false Balathex started shaking. A tavern shattered into tiny fragments.

  Struggling to keep my footing on the shuddering ground, I peered around for the sorceress. I think I found her, but it was difficult to tell one darklander from another. “Thank you!” I called.

  Before she could answer, the whole city burst, and every bit of its light went out. I reeled through blackness for a dizzy moment, and then I was floundering about in Tregan’s garret.

  He looked stronger already, his color, better. But I still had to ask: “Is everything all right now?”

  “I believe so.” He grinned. “Except that it appears in addition to breaking my speculum, you’ve lost my wand.”

  I glanced around and saw that he was right about the mirror. It lay in pieces on the floor.

  Acorns

  Golden, wavering firelight spilled through an open door. A viol throbbed its way through the opening passage of a Gypsy dance. Dorian Hawkmoon's aimless wandering had brought him near a tavern.

  The gangly blond adolescent grimaced. He hadn't slipped out of his father's palace to sample the night life of Koln, nor to mingle with people who might whisper and snigger behind his back, but because he wanted to brood alone. He pivoted and stalked away from the light, prowling deeper into the claustrophobic passages of the Old City. His boot heels clicked on the cobbles.

  He tried halfheartedly to work his way toward the Rhi
ne. He had a notion it might be soothing to sit at the base of the ancient tower called the Bayenturm and watch the black current flow under the bridges. But the darkness and the labyrinthine streets conspired to addle his sense of direction. Eventually he blundered under a low arch carved with roses and found himself in a cul-de-sac, a courtyard enclosed on three sides by grimy brick tenement walls. A leafless, twisted sapling stood in the center.

  Dorian frowned and turned to retrace his steps. Multicolored light flowered behind him.

  The boy whirled. Balls of phosphorescence now clung to the branches of the dead tree as if someone had decorated it for a festival. The glow revealed what the shadows had hidden before, the silhouetted figure lurking in the far corner.

  Rumor had it that the Old City harbored thieves, who ventured forth at night to rob the unwary. Dorian reached for the hilt of his sword.

  "Please, leave the blade in its scabbard!" exclaimed a strangely accented tenor voice. Advancing into the light, the black figure became a short, plump man clad in a sloppily wrapped turban, a soiled caftan, and muddy pointed shoes. Dark eyes gleamed above his bulbous nose, curling mustache, full, simpering lips, and grizzled, forked goatee. "Tahmasp the All-Seeing means you no ill. Quite the contrary."

  Belatedly remembering his martial training, Dorian glanced around, making sure no one else was creeping up on him while the little man diverted his attention. As far as he could tell, the two of them were alone. And despite the trick with the tree, evidence that Tahmasp had mastered at least a smattering of sorcery, now that the boy could see him plainly, he seemed harmless, indeed, rather clownish.

  Dorian took his hand away from his weapon. "I don't want to hurt you, either. It was just that you startled me. I'm sorry I intruded on you." He began to turn away.

  “Wait!" said Tahmasp. "Did you not hear me? I've come to do you a service, young lord!"

  Dorian wondered if the little man earned his living as a fortuneteller and mountebank. At another time such a charlatan might have amused him, but tonight he doubted that even one of the genuine wizards who performed miracles at his father's court could have done so. Still, his sour mood notwithstanding, he didn't want to be unkind. Perhaps Tahmasp was loitering here at this hour for want of anywhere else to go. Maybe he was penniless and hungry. The youth extracted a newly minted silver mark from his purse. "I don't require any services, but please take this in appreciation of the offer."