Castle War

Twenty-one Mizzer

Incarnadine dismounted and climbed the base of a fallen obelisk to survey the temple complex. There were three main structures and many subsidiary ones. All were in ruins, but one of the larger buildings had most of its columns upright. Two colossal statues, seated kingly figures in fancy headdress, flanked the entrance.

Pointing, he asked, “That one?”

Basrim, his guide, nodded. “That is it, Honorable One. The place you seek.”

“You’re sure it’s the Temple of the Universes?”

“Very sure, Honorable One.”

Incarnadine scowled. “Looks like an ordinary funerary temple to me.”

“But it is also a place of great power.”

“There are many such places around here. The Mizzerites knew what they were doing when it came to magic. When they cast a spell, it lasted for millennia.”

Basrim dismounted, came to the edge of the base, and looked up at him. “Will we be staying here, Honorable One?”

“Don’t unpack anything. I want to take a look around first.”

Basrim bowed. “Yes, Honorable One.”

“You stay here.” Incarnadine jumped down and went to his mount. Unhooking his scabbard, he thought better of it and put it back. Going armed into a temple might trip an old anti-sacrilege spell. He didn’t want any trouble.

“The Honorable One is wise,” Basrim said, smiling.

Incarnadine took off his dagger and stashed it in his bundle.

“I shouldn’t be long,” he said, walking past Basrim. “If this is the place, we’ll make camp.”

Basrim’s bow was deep. “Very good, Honorable One.”

The temple was extraordinarily big, and did he indeed get a sense of the unusual. Danger? Perhaps. If only he knew more about the Mizzerites. There were thousands of worlds, and there were ancient and defunct civilizations in practically all of them, many of which were fascinating. He simply had never got around to this one.

A walled walkway led to the main temple and he followed it, treading in the ancient footsteps of the temple priests and pallbearers as they processed from the river with the casket of the king. The cortege of relatives, courtiers, and worshippers would follow.

A needle of stone, inscribed head to foot with arcane glyphs, stood to the right of the walkway, and he looked at it as he passed. He wished he had time to decipher the inscription. He wondered what the glyphs spoke of, what glorious and triumphant events the monument commemorated.

At the entrance to the temple he paused to look at the statues. They appeared to be likenesses of the same king wearing different ceremonial headdresses, one religious, he guessed, the other secular. Whoever he was, the ruins of his temple lay behind him.

He chuckled to himself. “‘Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’”

He mounted the temple steps and crossed the threshold. The interior was a forest of columns, all carved and inscribed. Despite the glaring sun and the absence of a roof, deep shadows lay within. Silence. He stopped and turned slowly. There was the smell of dust. Looking down, he watched a beetle crawl across the stone floor.

He attuned his senses and took the measure of the place. Yes, there was power here, but not nearly enough for his purposes. Basrim probably had not lied, but merely reported the local folklore. Now what? There was nothing to do but search blindly, temple after temple, ruin after ruin. There were hundreds of temples in this area alone, thousands along the river. If only he could have access to books, records, ancient documents. If only they existed! He had asked around, sought out various dealers in antiquities, but they had nothing that went back more than a few centuries. All that was known about the Mizzerites had been carved in stone by the Mizzerites themselves, millennia ago, and little of it had been deciphered. He could effect a translation spell easily enough, but how long would it take to find a reference to the location of the Temple of the Universes, if there was any reference at all? He did not even know what dynasty the temple dated from, let alone the specific king at whose behest it was constructed. Research would take years, and he didn’t have days.

Besides, the temple might not exist; it might never have existed. All he had were vague legends about a place of power, the abode of the god of a thousand universes. There was nothing much else in the way of hard information.

He heard something off in the shadows. The scrape of sandal leather against stone. He searched the darkness.

A man came out from behind a column. Dressed in a tattered cloth cap and threadbare caftan, he also wore a crooked smile. His teeth were black and broken.

“Greetings, Honorable.”

Incarnadine heard more footsteps behind him. He turned his head far enough to see two more men emerge from the shadows. They approached, daggers in hand.

“Are you Basrim’s buddies?” he asked.

The man held out his hand. “It would be easier for us all if you handed over your gold right away. If we have to kill you, here in the temple we must do it in the ancient way. Very slowly, bleeding you like a butchered animal. You would not like it, and it would be work for us.”

Incarnadine was motioning up a spell but the nearest man lunged, and he had to make do with natural defenses; he kicked the dagger away, then spun and landed a high kick alongside his assailant’s head. The man went sprawling on the flagstone.

“Ah, you chose the hard way,” the first thug said, drawing a curved short sword.

“Your heart,” Incarnadine said, extending a hand and making a clawing motion.

“Eh?” The speaker was nonplussed. The third thug had edged closer but now stopped, dagger low and poised for an upward slash.

“I think your heart has stopped beating.”

The snaggle-toothed one guffawed. Suddenly his smile faded.

“Yes, you’re feeling strange. It’s your heart.”

The man put a finger on his pulse. A look of dismay sprang to his face.

“My heart!”

“I told you. Your blood has stopped flowing. You feel faint. The darkness gathers, and soon the long night will come.”

“No, I …”

The man collapsed, sword clattering on the stone.

The third man looked at his fallen accomplice, then at the stranger.

“A sorcerer!”

“Yes. And a pretty nasty one at that. Have you ever heard of the creeping phlox?”

“The what?”

“The creeping phlox. It starts on the toes — little red boils that turn to pustules. Then it works its way up the body. The pustules turn to oozing sores, the sores to masses of corruption. Every extremity of the body falls off, starting with the soft kind that hangs. Then the rot really sets in.… Well, not to put too fine a point on it, you got it, babe.”

Terror-stricken, the man fled out the back of the temple.

Incarnadine went behind a column and waited.

Presently Basrim came creeping into the shadows. He knelt over the one who had spoken first, then looked around fearfully.

Incarnadine stepped out from behind the pillar.

“Honorable One! You are safe. Thank the heavens, I thought you had met your end at the hands of these —”

“Your friends, Basrim?”

“My fr —? Oh, never, Honorable One! I have never laid eyes on them!”

“Now, why do I think you’re lying, just like you lied about this temple?”

“But … Honorable One, please! Let me explain!”

“Be quiet. Do the local legends say that this is the Temple of the Universes?”

“Yes, they do.

“Basrim, I’m warning you.…”

“No! I made it up! Forgive me, Honorable One! An eternity of pardon!”

“Get up, get up. God, I hate it when they grovel.”

“An eternity of pardon, Honorable One! Forgive your humble servant and I will do anything, I will serve you always, faithfully, I will clean any part of your body with my tongue —!”

“Get your lips off the floor. Now, look. All I want from you is the truth. Do you know where that temple is or don’t you? If you don’t, do you know anyone who does know? Answer me!”

Desolated, Basrim slowly shook his head.

“I thought so. Tourists really get taken to the cleaners around here, don’t they? Well, I should have known better. Okay, Basrim. That’s all.”

Basrim got up slowly. “I … I may go?”

“Yes.”

Basrim began to slink away.

“Oh, by the way, your first wife, the one with the lip sore?”

Basrim stopped dead. “My first … you mean Altma?”

“Yes, Altma, the one with the chancre and the hairy mole on the left breast. She’ll be paying you a visit soon, with her solicitor and the vizier’s deputy. They’ll be taking all your goats and most of the grain. How in the world you’ll get through the winter is beyond me.”

“No!”

“Yes! She bribed the magistrate. Actually, if I were you I wouldn’t go back to town at all.”

The miserable Basrim departed.

He toured the temple, puzzling over the glyphs and the stylized art: the king crushing enemies beneath his heel, the king propitiating the gods, the king presiding over the bountiful harvest, the king … and so forth.

He left the temple and went back to his mount. Now he had the choice of hiring another probably unreliable and potentially treacherous guide, or going it alone. He thought the latter would be the better course. He might stumble around and get lost, but at least he wouldn’t have to worry about wasting time on wild-goose chases and deliberate deceptions, to say nothing of being waylaid by enterprising locals. Alone, he probably wouldn’t be spotted. He would keep low and to himself. The superstitious natives rarely mucked about in the ruins. They had reason to be superstitious, because the indigenous magic was both real and dangerous.

Having retied his bundle, he turned around. A gray-bearded old man was standing by the fallen obelisk, watching. He wore a white cap, and his blue-striped caftan was clean. Carrying a cane, he stood slightly stooped.

“Yes?”

“An eternity of pardon, Honorable. I did not mean to spy.”

“Anything you want?”

“Nothing, Honorable. But perhaps you want something of me.”

“What have you got, old man?” He strapped on his sword, then his dagger. “Excuse me, I’m not myself. Just had a spot of trouble with some of your compatriots.”

The old man nodded. “I heard them conspiring in the village. If I had warned you, they would have cut off an ear, perhaps more.”

“I understand. You said you had something I might want.”

“My knowledge,” the man said.

“Of?”

“Of places, of things, of gods and their abodes.”

“Indeed. I have a feeling you know what I’m looking for.”

“I do.”

“Can you help me?”

“I can,” the man said.

“Will you?”

“Yes.”

“Good. What payment do you require?”

“None, if you mean gold.”

“What do you want, then?”

“Only to see the face of Mordek again.”

“Mordek?”

“The god of a thousand universes. I am his humble servant.”

“I thought no one was left who worshipped the old gods.”

“There are some,” the old man said.

“What’s your name, by the way?”

“Jonath.”

“You say you want to see the face of your god. Why do you need me to do it?”

“You are a magician, and a great warrior.”

“Nice of you to say. I won’t ask you how you know this, but what can a great mage and warrior do for you?”

“You can get past the trip spells and mantraps that guard the temple.”

“Why are these things in place?”

“Because Mordek is angry. No one comes to worship, so he shuts himself in and broods.”

“But you are left, and you implied there were others.”

“The few are not enough. In the great days, multitudes would come to Mordek’s temple to seek favor. Those days are dust, and Mordek sits in his abode, a moody, frustrated god.”

“Doesn’t sound inviting, this place of yours. Was it known as the Temple of the Universes?”

“Yes, that is the name of the dwelling place of Mordek.”

“Then I would like to go to it.”

Jonath said, “I will take you.”

“Where is it?”

Jonath pointed to the hills. “In the high desert.”

“Far?”

“Half a day’s walk.”

Incarnadine took a deep breath. “Lead on, then.”