Book of Silence

CHAPTER EIGHT

The eastern gate of the ancient walled city of Ur-Dormulk stood between two massive stone towers, set in a gap in the ridge that supported the eastern ramparts; the great valves themselves were carved from two immense sheets of ebony, bound in the brown-black hide of some extinct monster. There was no shining metal or bright paint anywhere on the gate or the somber gray walls to either side. The tower walls, Garth saw, were carven from roadbed to battlement with spidery runes of a tongue that he had never seen before.

Some of the runes seemed to have an odd familiarity about them that Garth could not explain to himself; he wondered idly what language they represented, and what they said. Perhaps they gave a history of the city's founding, he thought, or were protective incantations of some kind.

He was quite sure from the very first that they were not Eramman or anything like it. As a child, he had come across other, older languages, all dead, and this strange script was none of them.

Of course, he told himself, Ur-Dormulk was very old. It had stood, much as it was now, before Eramma became a nation half a millennium ago. There had been plenty of time for the builders' native tongue to die out.

The whole matter was irrelevant, he told himself. He had an errand to perform. Despite the protests of the Baron and Baroness, and the arguments Galt had made when he had been informed of the situation, Garth intended to find the Book of Silence and return to Skelleth with it.

He was not completely certain as to exactly what he would do then, save that he would somehow pursue his vengeance against Aghad's followers. He was not sure whether he would give the Forgotten King the book or whether he would take the Sword of Bheleu, but he had not cared to say anything that might cause anyone to doubt his intention of honoring his agreement with the King.

Saram had gone so far in his concern for the overman as to offer to accompany him on his journey; Frima had protested, and Garth had turned him down. Saram had a barony to run, and could not go haring off on adventures without warning. Garth had no commitments, save his vows to fetch the Book of Silence and to destroy the cult and temple of Aghad. He did not want to involve anyone else in either of these.

As a compromise of sorts, he had accepted a letter of introduction to the overlord of Ur-Dormulk, signed by both Saram and Galt. That had been his only concession, and it was a practical one. If he was going to search the city looking for signs and portents, he would very much prefer not to have to worry about explaining himself to guardsmen or homeowners while doing so.

His only other delays had been to make a few basic preparations. He had left the copper gull at his house, borrowed a sword, and bought a few supplies, but had been in Skelleth so briefly that this new journey seemed almost a continuation of his trip to Orgul. The mood, however, was very different; this was a task of real personal consequence, not the casual lark his attempt at dragon-slaying had been.

Since he intended to introduce himself to the overlord or at least to his representatives, he had no need for stealth in entering the city. That was just as well, as he saw no easy way to pass the fortifications unseen. Unlike Skelleth's ruinous outer wall, these were intact and well maintained, extending quite some distance along the ridge top and then turning back westward out of sight.

Seeing no other entrance, he had ridden directly up to the huge gate, and now sat for a moment looking up at the black portal and rune-covered towers.

This was the sort of fortress the legends of Ordunin had described Skelleth to be, until he had ventured down and discovered for himself how greatly the stories had exaggerated. He wondered why he had heard no tales describing Ur-Dormulk.

It didn't matter, he told himself. He was stalling, putting off the necessity of announcing himself and having to deal with unfamiliar humans.

"Ho, the gate!" he bellowed, refusing to delay any longer.

An answering shout came, much more loudly than he had expected.

"State your business, overman!"

He looked, but could not see any face above the parapet, and the echo from the towers made it impossible to judge just where the sound had originated.

That, he decided, was probably intentional; the builders of this city had done their work well.

"I come from Skelleth on a personal errand; I bear a message, as well, from the Baron of Skelleth to the overlord of Ur-Dormulk!"

"Dismount and approach," the voice called. "Leave your sword and axe on the saddle!"

Garth realized that the voice was not coming from above, or at least not from very far above; the speaker was, therefore, not on the battlements at all. The only other place that he could be was in one of the towers, and the overman looked at the runes with new interest, noticing how deeply some of the symbols had been cut. Somewhere in those shadowy tracings were openings into the towers, from which a man could peer out, or shout commands, or perhaps aim a crossbow.

It was a very clever device, he thought; it would be almost impossible to find the actual holes amid the myriad lines and curlicues. He would want to remember this for later, but for the present he had business to attend to. He swung down from the warbeast's back, checked the axe that hung on the saddle, then took the scabbarded sword from his belt-a sword he had borrowed from Galt, since he had not wanted to take time to have a new one forged after shattering his on the Aghadite protective spell, and since human-sized weapons were not suited to his grip-and hooked it through one of the straps that held the saddle in place.

He looked questioningly up at the nearer tower, his hand on the sheathed dagger that remained on his belt; no command or comment came. The knife was apparently not considered a serious threat. He shrugged, lowered his hand, and strode toward the gate, the dagger still in its place.

With a series of rattles and thuds, the bars were removed from the gate, and one side of the great portal swung slowly ajar. A guard in a peculiarly shaped brass helmet and dull green tunic leaned out through the opening.

"You have a letter?" he said. The voice was not the one that had called from the tower.

Garth said nothing, but proffered the folded parchment.

The guardsman took it, looked at the seal, and hesitated. "It looks genuine," he said, not to Garth, but addressing someone out of sight behind the gate.

A hand appeared, and the guardsman surrendered the letter.

A moment later a new voice called, "Let him in."

The guardsman stepped back and motioned for Garth to enter. The overman hesitated. "What of my weapons and my mount?" he asked.

"Your pardon, my lord, but we prefer to be cautious until we have established that you are what you say you are. Your weapons will be brought, if you like, and returned to you when your identity is confirmed."

"I would appreciate that,'." Garth said. "What about Koros?"

"Your beast? I regret, my lord, that no beasts of burden are welcome in the city, for reasons of sanitation and public safety. We maintain a stable outside the wall to serve visitors such as yourself."

Garth was not happy about that. The indomitable warbeast had served him well in human cities in the past when, on occasion, things had turned nasty. He was, however, on a peaceful errand, one that might well stay peaceful. To the best of his knowledge, even if the people of Ur-Dormulk knew that he meant to take the Book of Silence, they should have no reason to object; he had been told that no one but the Forgotten King could use it and that for anyone else even to handle it might well prove fatal-though his own undesired connection with Bheleu would be sufficient protection to allow him to transport it. Logically, nobody should mind if he were to remove so dangerous an object from the city.

He would just have to hope that nothing went wrong and that no one had any unreasonable objections.

"Do you know anything about handling warbeasts?" he asked the guard, certain of what the answer would be.

"No," the man replied. "I never saw one before."

Garth nodded; he had assumed that to be the case, since the creatures had been invented by the overmen of Kirpa, in the Northern Waste, too late to have been used in any number in the Racial Wars. Even three centuries after the wars ended, they remained rare and valuable and were almost all owned by governments, as being too precious and dangerous to be left in private hands. Garth had one of his own only because he had accepted it in lieu of all further tribute that, under an ancient agreement, the people of Kirpa had owed to him as Prince of Ordunin.

"What sort of animal do you have in the stable ordinarily?" he asked.

The guardsman shrugged. "Horses, I suppose, and oxen; I'm no stableboy. Yackers, too, I think."

Garth glanced at Koros, standing motionless on the highway, triangular ears flattened back slightly, golden eyes half shut, three-inch fangs gleaming dully in the midday sun. The warbeast would have no objection to being stabled, but it wouldn't mind staying out in the open, either, as long as the good weather that had followed the brief rain held. The other occupants of the stable might not care for its presence; the smell of warbeast was not recognizable to most animals as that of a predator, due to its magical origin, but the sight of one tended to make many beasts understandably nervous.

More importantly, it was possible that Garth might find himself fleeing the city, and in that case he would not want to waste time finding the stable. Having the warbeast waiting right at the gate would be far more convenient.

"I think I'll just leave it where it is," he said.

The guardsman shrugged. "As you please."

The voice that had first answered his hail called out, "Did you say you're leaving that monster where it is?"

Garth called back that yes, he had said as much.

"Would it not be better if you were to move it out of the road?"

Garth realized that Koros might be a serious obstruction to traffic where it was. He bellowed a command, and the warbeast turned and padded off the highway. Once well out of the way, it stopped.

"Is that better?" Garth called.

The voice replied that it was.

"Good. Now, if one of you would fetch my sword and axe, as you suggested, I trust we may proceed. And might I suggest that you feed my beast a goat or a sheep or two; my business may keep me for some time, and I cannot speak for its behavior if it becomes hungry. Water, too, would be appreciated. I will pay the necessary expenses."

The guardsman at the gate nodded. "I'll have someone see to it." He swung the gate open a few feet farther, allowing Garth past him into a small courtyard enclosed by gray stone, its nearer side comprised of the great portal and its farther side occupied by another, identical barrier. Half a dozen men in green uniforms and brass helmets were scattered about the court; one had a golden plume that curled upward from one side of his helmet and was holding Garth's letter of introduction. The overman took him to be the officer in charge of the squad manning the gates.

As one of the others trotted down to fetch Garth's weapons, Garth called a command to the warbeast so that it would not rip the man apart as it would a thief; ordinarily it allowed no one but Garth to touch anything it carried. When the soldier had retrieved both sword and axe while evoking nothing more than a mild growl of displeasure from Koros, he started back, and Garth ventured to ask the officer, "Do you treat all your visitors like this?"

"No, of course not," the officer replied.

"What makes me worthy of such special attention, then?"

The human looked at him uncertainly, as if he suspected that the overman might be slightly insane, or perhaps attempting some sort of bizarre humor.

"We get very few armored overmen arriving unannounced, riding monstrous giant cats and asking to see the overlord," he said.

"Ah." Garth had to agree that the man had a point. "It's a warbeast, only partly a cat, despite its appearance. See the long legs? And I did not ask to see the overlord, but said merely that I carried a letter intended for him."

"Perhaps I misunderstood, then; would you prefer to wait here while I deliver the letter?"

Garth considered very briefly. "No," he said, after only a slight hesitation, "I would like to speak with him, if I may." Dealing with the head of state directly was bound to be more efficient than working with underlings.

"I think he may well wish to speak with you, as well. We see very few overmen here." The officer ventured a small smile.

The soldier bearing Garth's sword and axe had returned to the courtyard, and the other guardsmen were pushing the gate closed. Garth watched with casual interest, noticing from the corner of his eye that the man carrying his weapons was making a concerted effort to stay as far away from the weapons' owner as the small area between the gates allowed.

When the portal was closed and a half a dozen bars and locks were back in place, the inner gates were opened by men on the other side; to Garth's surprise, they opened away from the city, into the court where he waited. That was not the usual custom.

The officer gestured, and Garth found himself neatly surrounded, two soldiers before him, one on either side, and two behind, while the officer led the way and the weapons-bearer brought up the rear, several paces back. Garth had not realized there were as many as eight humans in the group; he wondered if more had joined them from the towers or behind the inner gate, or whether he simply hadn't been paying close attention.

At a command from the officer, the little party marched forward; Garth cooperated, marching with them. His exact status here was unclear, perhaps intentionally; the men marched with hands on their weapons, but swords stayed sheathed, and the lances borne by the pair behind him were shouldered. He was not chained or hobbled, but he was disarmed. If he was a prisoner, then he was being treated with courtesy and a lack of caution; if he was a guest, he was being treated with great suspicion. The escort could be considered either an honor guard or a party of jailers with equal reason.

This uncertainty, he decided, accurately reflected the guards' attitude; he had committed no crime, and claimed to be a person of some significance, but they had seen no proof of his good intentions. They were not eager either to trust him or to offend him beyond what prudence demanded.

He was not particularly troubled by this. The thought did slip into his mind that, had he carried the Sword of Bheleu on this trip, he would have taken umbrage at such treatment and massacred the lot of them.

His first sight of the city of Ur-Dormulk distracted him from questions of protocol or concern over proper behavior. He had expected the inner gate to open onto a street of packed earth or mud, lined with houses of stone, wood, and plaster, such as he had seen in other human habitations; or, if not onto a street, then perhaps into a market square. Skelleth had been built of fieldstone and half-timbered plaster; the buildings of Mormoreth had been faced with white marble; Dыsarra was a jumble of gleaming black stone and more humble structures.

Ur-Dormulk was built of granite, and rather than on a street, he found himself at the top of a long staircase, easily half a hundred steps, whence he looked out at an array of towers and turrets. Crags of bare rock thrust up in the distance, reminding him that he was in the foothills of the western mountains.

He had noticed from without that the ramparts stood atop a ridge, and that the gate was set into the top of that ridge, so he had expected to find the city inside sloping downward from the heights; he had not expected to find the drop so sharp that steps were necessary, or so long that only the higher towers reached above eye level.

He had known that there were stone towers, and had even glimpsed them from a distance; he had known that they were old and weathered and strange, but now he could see that they were more bizarre than he had realized. The towers were not merely pitted and dull, but worn down to near shapelessness; not a single sharp corner remained anywhere in sight. Flat-topped or spired, each of the tall buildings seemed more like a rough mound than anything structured by man-save that they stood as much as a hundred feet above the city streets. Some were almost indistinguishable from the weathered humps of rock with which nature had ornamented the city.

Those outcroppings struck Garth as being slightly eerie, rising up in naked splendor throughout Ur-Dormulk, differing from the towers only because they were larger, windowless, and slightly more irregular. They seemed to form a rough line, beyond which he could see nothing of the city; he wondered if they formed part of its western perimeter and if they had been incorporated into the defenses as the ridge had been used in the east.

A cool, damp breeze brushed his face, and he blinked; then the soldiers were escorting him down the steps, and he was too concerned with his footing to look at the city further. The steps themselves were badly worn, polished by the passage of thousands, perhaps millions, of feet; the central portion had been smoothed down until it was almost a ramp, so that his guards directed him to one side, where the steps, though gleaming smooth and worn far below their original level, still had enough of an edge separating one from the next to make them more readily negotiable than the sheer slope.

When he was reasonably sure that he was not going to slip and tumble down the remaining length of the stair, he lifted his gaze from his own feet to the foot of the steps. They ended in a broad plaza, paved with the same gray stone that seemed to make up the entire city and as level as the plains of Skelleth. He was certain that that level surface was not natural, so close to the steep ridge.

He had at first been certain, also, that the gray stone was granite, a familiar substance in his homeland, but doubts began to creep in. Granite was a very hard stone, difficult to work, heavy and brittle-and it did not erode easily. He glanced at the steps again. There was an old granite wall in Ordunin, not far from his home, that had been erected when he was young, a century before; the edge that ran along its top was still sharp enough to cut an overman's finger. These steps, assuming that they had originally been level all the way across, had worn down a good eight inches in the center. If the stone were in truth granite, and had been eroded only by foot traffic, then its age must be incomprehensible.

The stone, he decided, must be something else, some substance that mocked granite in appearance, but which was far softer. Or perhaps water drained down the steps and had cut them away-though the fact that the wear was so broad argued against that, since water ordinarily cut a single channel, not a wide, uneven swath.

It didn't matter, he told himself.

He reached the bottom and looked around with interest. The plaza at the foot, though paved with this seeming granite, was worn down as well, with paths sunk inches deep into the stone showing where the merchants set up their booths on market day, where the traffic was heaviest, and what were the most popular routes across the square. The streets that led off in various directions were likewise paved and level, and likewise worn. Narrow parallel troughs indicated where carts had passed over the centuries, and broader depressions revealed where pedestrians walked. There were no gutters visible anywhere, save for these signs of wear, and no bare earth, and Garth realized why animal traffic was forbidden. Such streets would need careful cleaning; there was no natural drainage, since none of the streets sloped at all, and what drainage the paths provided would carry sewage directly to those areas that enjoyed the heaviest traffic and, therefore, the deepest wear. It struck him as odd that a city in the foothills should be so flat, save for the single ridge and the distant outcroppings. It was obviously contrived, and probably at great expense. He wondered why the builders had thought it worthwhile.

He wondered also, for perhaps a second, what pulled the wagons that had cut the parallel grooves he had noticed, but that question was answered by the sight of a young man pulling a small, two-wheeled cart, balanced on a single axle for ease in hauling.

The buildings that surrounded the plaza were all of the gray stone, ancient and worn. Most stood three or four stories in height, but were weathered into rounded, moundlike shapes, all corners erased by time. Any surface ornamentation that might once have existed had vanished long ago; only the size and location of doors and windows served to distinguish one from another.

He noticed that here and there gaps were visible, as if something had fallen away; here a door lintel was sunk back from the facade, there a few dark holes were arranged above a window. He realized that these must be where substances other than the gray rock had weathered away completely, and guessed that iron fittings had succumbed to rust-though if so, then it must have been a very long time ago, for all trace of rust had washed away.

The stone walls, he saw, were incredibly thick. They would have to be, to weather so badly and still stand strong.

The entire city gave the impression of something indescribably ancient, something that had stood so long that it had been accepted by the earth as part of itself, rather than being a mortal creation erected thereon.

The people of Ur-Dormulk gave no such impression; in contrast to their city, they wore gay silks and embroidered velvets in ornate and fantastical outfits. Garth saw no ordinary homespun anywhere; even the lowliest cart-hauler's garb was brightly dyed and embellished with colored threads. Red, green, blue, and purple-the streets were aswirl in color wherever the people of Ur-Dormulk went abroad.

There were no great crowds, but neither were the streets empty; strollers dawdled along, while others hurried about their business. Many glanced at the overman curiously, but none stopped to stare, and no one ventured too near the forbidding cluster of soldiery.

One figure, wearing a drooping hat and flowing tunic and cape all the color of dried blood, seemed to look at him for longer than most, and Garth was reminded very strongly of the magically protected Aghadite he had fought so futilely in Skelleth. He wondered whether the cult was active in Ur-Dormulk, whether it was an open, tolerated religion here or a secret society working underground.

He had not been molested by the sect since the incident in the market that had cost him his own sword, and his anger had therefore had a chance to cool slightly, but now it flared up again. He resolved that he would see that person who stared at him so insolently gutted by the Sword of Bheleu.

He turned his head to follow the red-garbed human out of sight and found himself looking at the profile of the soldier to his left. That reminded him where he was, and he fought down his ire. The human might not be an Aghadite, he told himself; the color might be coincidence, the gaze simple curiosity.

Or perhaps, his reasonable self had to admit, it was indeed an Aghadite agent, sent to watch him, or to taunt him with his or her presence-he was not certain of the creature's sex beneath the loose robe and overhanging hat. If it were an agent, then Garth had been meant to see him or her; why else would he or she wear the cult's color so ostentatiously?

This assumed, of course, that the cult had known he was coming to Ur-Dormulk, and it was not at all clear how they could have known. It would have required either magic or the presence of spies in Skelleth and some way of sending messages faster than Koros traveled.

The cultists did have magic, of course; he knew that well. He knew also that they had not given up their plans of vengeance, however quiet they might have been during his preparations and journey. The figure in red might indeed have been an Aghadite. The overman would need to be very careful, here in a strange city.

His escort was conducting him up the widest and straightest of the streets that led westward from the market, and they were almost at the palace before Garth noticed that no one wore yellow. Every other color was represented, it seemed, but nowhere was there cloth-of-gold or yellow silk, no amber or straw, saffron or chrome. White and beige were in evidence, and he glimpsed copper or orange occasionally, but no hue that could truly be called yellow.

That struck him as very curious indeed. A tradition, he guessed, dating from some ancient respect for the King in Yellow.

The party of soldiers, with the overman in their midst, arrived at the steps of the palace that closed off the end of the avenue and marched without hesitation up them. Great doors sheathed in some metal blackened with age blocked their way; Garth wondered whether the covering might be silver. Flecks of gold clung to the upper portion, forming broken curves, as if a symbol had once been traced there but had worn away, until only these scant traces remained.

The doors opened as they approached, and Garth was led into an ornate tapestried hall. Two men and a woman, wearing vivid red robes, met the party there. As two of the soldiers closed the huge doors, the woman gestured toward a row of stone benches. "Make yourselves comfortable," she said. "We will announce you, and inform you of the prince's pleasure."

The officer nodded to his men; the six who had ringed the overman found themselves places and sat. After a moment's hesitation, Garth joined them, taking a bench to himself, with three soldiers to either side on adjoining benches. The weapons-carrier remained standing, moving to the far side of the room, where he chatted with one of the red-clad men too quietly for Garth to hear.

The officer and the other red-garbed man walked off through the arch at the inner end of the hall, into the interior of the palace. The woman stood off to one side.

After a moment, noticing Garth glancing about impatiently, she remarked, "The wait may be quite long, my lord; would you care for food or drink?"

Garth shook his head and sat there in silence.