Pearl Of Patmos

CHAPTER 9

Blade marveled at his own cruelty. He knew that the Richard Blade of Dimension X was not the gentlemanly Blade of Home Dimension; still he wondered. And wondered also at the Patmosian idea of torture. They had merely locked the fat priest into a dungeon and there, after bleeding him a little, and touching him lightly with hot irons, had left him for Blade to deal with.

Ptol cowered at the sight of Blade. He whimpered and lisped and clutched his leather-cuffed right stump to his flabby chest. Blade, accoutered all in black leather and metal harness, wearing a gleaming helmet with the medallion of Izmia on it, loomed near seven feet tall. He drew his great sword and, leaning easily on it, surveyed the priest. He remembered nothing of Ptol save what Nob had told him. Ptol did not know that.

Blade prodded with his sword at the leather bandage. Ptol screamed and tried to squirm away.

«What happened to your hand, priest?»

Ptol had lost weight. His flabby jowls swayed as he raised his head to stare at Blade. Blade credited him his due-there was still a hint of defiance in-the man.

«You ask that?» Ptol was sullen. «You who struck it from me?»

Blade touched his sword to the man's remaining hand.

«So I did. And it occurs to me that, since I have taken one of your hands, I may as well have the other. What say you to that, priest?»

Ptol thrust his left hand at Blade. «I say strike it off and be damned! Kill me. Juna will revenge me.»

Blade smiled. «You are hardly one to call on Juna,

priest. But keep your hand. There are other ways. But first will you talk? I would know everything you hide in that fat little carcass. Everythingl The plans of Hectoris,

his numbers of men and ships, his landing places and, not least, the intrigue you were sent to carry out in the Pal ace.»

Something flickered in Ptol's eyes, then was gone. Blade turned on his heel and stalked out. «You have five minutes, priest.»

It took ten minutes for Blade to make his arrangements. When he returned to the dungeon Ptol was still defiant. To Blade's vast amusement he offered Blade a deal.

«We should be friends,» Rol lisped. «I come bearing an offer of great honor from Hectoris-he has heard of you and wants you for his friend and companion in arms.» He stared bitterly at his leather stump, then added, «I will forgive this, Blade. Come over to us. Patmos is doomed and you cannot save her. The king and queen have declared war on lzmia and have fled to the safety of Thyrne, which Hectoris now rules. They-«

A faint memory stirred in Blade's mind. A will-o'-thewisp, yet he thought it of something physical remembered, something physical and emotional. He broke in.

«What of Juna, priest?»

Ptol did exactly the wrong thing. He smiled craftily and, with spite, said, «She is taken along as hostage, naturally.» Again the crafty smile.

Blade leaned on his sword and frowned. «What value could she have as hostage?»

Ptol's small eyes were lewd. He nodded and a thread of spittle dribbled from a corner of his pursy mouth. «We have many spies in both Patmos and Thyrne-there was a spy in the party you took through the salt marshes, Blade. We have heard that the goddess Juna, or Vilja, if you will,

is very fond of you. And you of her. It is rumored that you have lain together and were seen thus.»

«A lie,» said Blade. Or was it? He did not know the truth himself. If it had happened he had not confided it to Nob, so could not hear it back. And yet Nob must have guessed, or suspicioned.

Ptol touched his stub with dirty fingers. It must be painful, thought Blade.

«We do not think it a lie,» said Ptol. «But no matterthere is lzmia and she is grandmother to Juna. Yet another string to our bow. Would she see Per grandchild torn apart and fed to dogs? For such it may come to.»

Blade fingered his beard. «You mistake lzmia,» he said. «I think she would do just that. But enough of talk. You have had your chance. Bring him along, guards.»

By this time Blade well knew that he was inside a living volcano. The quakings. and the rumblings, the jets of steam and scalding water, and ever and anon a thunderous explosion, all bore witness to that. It did not take him long to find what he — sought.

When they reached it the pulley and scaffold had been rigged as Blade ordered. The crevice was deep and jagged, irregular, and some hundred feet down was the terrible surge and writhing of molten lava. The heat and stink of it spewed from the crevice. Some of the guards, brawny men wearing the black pearl, looked fearful and tried to hang back. Blade urged them with the flat of his sword.

He pointed to the priest. «Rig him by the heels, and mind you do it securely, and swing him out over the pit. Hurry.»

Ptol cringed back and began to whimper. «No-no-«

Blade bared his strong white teeth at the sniveler. «You are a priest. You should welcome a chance to gaze into hell, if only to avoid it. And you can avoid it, for a time, if you talk. Well?» 0

Ptol began to sob and shook his head. Blade motioned to his men.

The priest was lowered head down into the pit. Blade pointed his sword at the guards manning the tackle. «Drop him and you will follow. And be alert-I do not want him dead. Quite.»

He alone would venture to the edge of the pit. And he alone could bear the sight of the white hot caldron seething and bubbling and sending up its stinking vapors. He did not reckon Ptol to last long, and soon raised a hand. The priest was drawn up. Cold water was douched into 'his face. For a moment Blade feared he had overdone it and bent to listen. The heart was still beating.

When Ptol opened his eyes Blade knew he had won. The priest was finished. He had come back from hell and would not venture again. He nodded and gasped. «I–I will tell you. I will tell everything. Everythingl»

It was no time to show mercy or compassion. Blade put the point of his sword against the priest's throat. «Mind you do. One lie, just one-and I will know-and next time there will be no rope to fetch you up.»

He gave Ptol no chance to recover his nerve or to think of lies. He summoned a council at once of all officers. He invited Izmia, as he knew he must, but she did not appear and he was thankful for it. And he made reacquaintance with Edyrn, whom he now proposed to use as chief liaison with Izmia until he had matters well in hand and could cope with her. If Edyrn, as cool and capable as ever, had suspicions of Blade's loss of memory he avoided mentioning it.

The counsel lasted for hours and Blade gave none of them any respite, least of all Ptol. When he was satisfied, and he had good reason to be, he ordered that the priest's stub be seen to and that he be well treated so long as he behaved. He was to be closely guarded. Then he dismissed them all but Edyrn and Nob, who had not been bidden to the gathering of.his betters, but had come anyway and gained entrance and had been hovering about Blade with the nervous air of a man with something to impart.

While Edyrn gathered a mass of parchment and maps and stuffed them into a carrying bag, Nob sidled close to Blade and caught.his ear.

«She bids you come to her this night, sire, when you have finished your business. She will wait for you in the cavern of music. She bids you come alone.»

Blade cocked an eye at his man. «And where is this cavern of music? And how shall I find it?»

Nob's good eye closed slightly. «My Ina, the Gray girl you know of, sire, will take you there. I have arranged evg.».

Blade smiled and, dismissing him, said, «Have a care that you do not arrange trouble for yourself. And do not waste your time-I have put you in charge of the beggars and mendicants and you know what to do. I expect results-if I do not get them, and I find it is the fault of your lust for women, it will go hard with you.»

«Aye,» said Nob hastily as Edyrn approached with his heavy bag. «Aye, master, I understand. Do,not misdoubt old Nob-always business before pleasure with me, sire.»

Blade smiled. «See to it, then. Your beggars and thieves are all the intelligence I have. I depend on them.»

Edyrn, when Nob had gone, bowed and said, «If you are ready, Sire Blade? I will show you what you wished to see.»

Blade nodded. «I am ready. You say it is a long walk? Good enough, Edyrn. We will talk as we go.»

With his knowledge of events furnished by Nob, Blade found no great difficulty in coping with Edyrn. They left the caverns and walked along a path of crushed lava. They skirted a darkling taro and,Blade glanced back at the looming bulk of the volcano they were leaving behind. There was a lurid flare — for a moment, a movement of flame deep within the bowels of the cone, and Blade was sure he saw the silhouette of a tall woman against the fire, like a puppet seen for a moment before an open furnace door. He stopped and gazed, blinking, wondering if the blow had affected his eyesight as well as his memory. There was nothing there now, nothing but the sullen rumble and belch of volcano.

Edyrn touched his arm. «We must hurry, sire. There is much to do and little time-«

Blade pointed. «I thought I saw-«

«You did, sire. It was Izmia, the Pearl. My grandmother. She goes often to the brink to look and think. For her Weird is an the fire and soon she must meet it.»

Blade did not question. He merely looked at Edyrn and nodded. «You and Juna are brother and sister?»

Edyrn nodded in his turn. «Aye, sire. By another hero who came from nowhere, as you have come, and who vanished into nowhere as you will vanish. Shall we go on, sire?»

They came out onto the plain and walked through fields of fragrant loti. Ahead of them loomed an angular, open work tower supported by three legs. The fields were deserted.

Edyrn said, «All supplies of penthe have been destroyed as you ordered, sire. The Gray People have been put to work on fortifications and fire trenching, such as are able to work after withdrawal.»

Blade cast him a sidelong glance. «How did that go, Edyrn?»

«Badly at first. There was much murdering and rioting, and a deal of insanity. Cybar was destroyed by flames.»

«A pity,» murmured Blade. «It was a beautiful city.»

Edyrn stared at him in surprise. «But you yourself ordered it burnt, sire.»

Nob had not told him that. Damn the rascal. Then Blade withdrew the thought. Nob was only Nob, after all, and it was not his fault that Blade had amnesia. And Nob had saved his life after he had taken the blow on the head in the beach skirmish. But Blade began to wonder what other things he had done, or ordered done, that he could not remember and of which Nob did not know. Edyrn would have to help him there.

The tower was some three-hundred feet tall. Several Gray People manned a winch and basket and Blade and Edyrn were lifted to the top. On the way up Blade said, «How as to horses, lad? We are going to need them badly.»

«There are no horses on Patmos, sire. There never have been. We have never felt need of them.»

Blade remembered what Nob had told him of the charging Samostan cavalry in the Beggar's Square in Thyme-and scowled.

«Well, Patmos has need of them now.»

They were nearing the top of the tower. «Hectoris has horses,» said Edyrn. «Thousands of them on transports. They lie off our coasts at this very moment.»

Blade fingered his newly shorn beard and smiled. «Yes I had that thought myself.»

A single great room perched atop the tower. All four sides were transparent. There were desks and chairs. Edyrn went to a large desk and began to unload his bag of maps and papers. Blade walked about the room. From this vantage he could see the whole of the island and was surprised. He had not thought Patmos so small. To his right, and level with his line of sight, was the smoky maw of the volcano. This coign of vantage allowed Blade to see what he had not seen before-.a path leading to the edge of the crater and ending there in a fiat stone platform. Blade felt a visceral twinge and knew, without any conscious knowledge, the purpose of the platform.

«Her Weird is in the fire.»

For a moment he thought Edym had spoken the words again, but when he turned he saw the boy still busy with his maps and documents. Blade went to join him. And got straight to the point.

«How many real soldiers do I have?»

Edyrn straightened and squared his shoulders. «There is only the Pearl's Guard, sire. Which I command. The toy soldiers of Kador and Smyr are useless and anyway most of them have fled the island. The Gray People, even without penthe, are cattle and can only be used as such. And your man, Nob, has gathered some ragamuffins and knaves, but-«

Blade gestured impatiently. «No matter that! How many men?»

Edyrn consulted a paper. «A thousand and three, sire. Counting myself.»

Blade turned away so that the boy could not see his face. It was not much of an army with which to face Hectoris, the barbarian, with his lancers and his bowmen and his cavalry, his catapults and his battering rams. It was, in fact, no army at all and Blade knew that Patmos was lost, and so was he, unless he could somehow bring Hea. toris to single combat and kill him. This had been in his mind all along and now.he examined it openly and did not see how it could be accomplished. Hectoris was any-

thing but a fool. Blade let it go for the moment. When the time came he would have to think of a way.

One- great advantage he had-he knew of the Samostan plans. Unless Ptol had lied, and Blade did not think he had. There was a chance, a bare chance, that he could force a confrontation with Hectoris and taunt him into battle, hurl the gauntlet, force the Samostan chief into a position from which he could not retreat with honor. All that would have to wait. First things first.

Edyrn came to stand beside him. Blade, realizing that by now the boy must have guessed the truth-and yet for some strange quirk of his own not wishing to admit itkept mostly silent as Edyrn pointed out this and that and kept talking.

«Your orders, sire, have been obeyed to the letter. The Gray People, and all others who can be pressed, toil at the fortifications and shore barricades and cavalry traps. Most of them are fakes, manned by dummies as you ordered. Such of the Gray People who can fight have been armed with wooden swords and lances, for we have not enough arms, and we keep them marching and counter-marching to give the impression of numbers. We keep a diligent watch for spies and do not slay them, but treat them well, question them, and try to win them over to our side. In this we have been many times successful, for Hectoris is not loved.

«I have stationed small units of the Guard about the island, sire, but keep the main force in reserve near the volcano.»

Edym pointed past Blade's shoulder to a largish camp laid out in rectangular fashion. Much, Blade thought, as an old Roman camp would have been. Had he ordered that, too? Again he damned his amnesia and the computer and the whole of Dimension X. He felt a longing for the head pains that would presage his return to Home D, and pushed the thought away. His duty was here. Duty? The thought was not supportable by logic, made no sense at all, and yet there it was.

This was a wasted mission and he knew it. There was nothing to be gained for England in this particular Dimension X and every moment he lingered he risked death.

Worse, in this case, because if he were taken alive and given to Ptol's priests they would find means of keeping him alive a long time. A burning helmet would be the least of it. Yet, deep in his heart, he was content that the computer did not reach for him. He was stubborn, and probably quite mad, but he wanted to see this thing through. Blade laughed aloud. He was, in short, a fooll

Edym broke off his recountal to stare at the big man. «You laugh, sire? Perhaps you will share the joke with me, for I find little enough to be cheerful about.»

Blade smote him on the shoulder and laughed again. «I wish I could, lad, but I cannot and it is no matter.

Now you were saying of how clever I had been. Tell me that again, lad, for I like praise as much as any man. And it will refresh my memory.»

Edym cast him an odd glance but did — not comment. He picked up a paper. «I will read it back to you, sire, just as you dictated it to me.» He began to read from the paper.

It was a strange feeling, listening to words that he could not remember having spoken. One thing Blade recognized immediately-the cunning and the knowledge of making primitive war upon which he had always before been able to rely in Dimension X. The question now was, as he heard his own strategy revealed, would it work? Would Hectoris be baited into the trap that Blade had set?

«. . you spoke of a scorched earth policy,» Edym was saying. «You promised that all of Patmos would be destroyed, that Hectoris would capture nothing but ashes and desolation. Such was the message you sent him.»

Blade nodded. «You have a record of his reply? If any?»

Edym half smiled. «I have, sire. He sent back word that if Patmos was destroyed he would come anyway, come in revenge, for he had always had a mind to settle and live out his days on Patmos. He also threatened tortures of the worst kind and has set a special force of priests to thinking up new ways of prolonging life and agony.»

Blade battered a great fist into his palm and his laugh was harsh. «We had best see to it, then, that if worse comes to worst we all die.»

Edyrn said calmly that he had seen to that, at least among the Guard. If the battle was lost they had compacted to slay each other, and had drawn lots to arrange the order of it.

«You, sire, must do as you list. As will Izhmia, the Pearl. But there is still Juna to consider. She is prisoner of Hectoris, betrayed by Kador and Smyr, and Hectoris is sure to bring her along as a captive and seek to bargain with her. It is all important to Patmos, sire, that Juna live. But Izmia, my grandmother, will have spoken to you of that?»

Blade nodded vaguely. Izmia had done no such thing. Perhaps this night, when he met her in the Cavern of Music, she would explain. That too would have to wait.

Edyrn was unrolling maps and weighting them with metal blocks. «So far, sire, your plan has worked. Our defenses are so built as to channel the attack to North Harbor, to make Hectoris think it is our weakest point when in fact it is our strongest. It is at North Harbor that his main attack will no doubt fall, though it is to be expected that he will mount feints at other spots along our coast.»

Blade gazed out over the island. It was getting dark and thousands of fires were blazing. Off to his right was a great glow in the sky that could only be the remains of Cybar.

A lick of flame, like a dragon's tongue, leaped from the volcano nearby and then withdrew. Aes Triplex, thought Blade, remembering some of the classics he had read at Oxford. Triple Brass bound, the hearts of men who lived in the shadow of a volcano. The Guard was brave enough-and the Guard would die.

His own head must have been stuffed with brass, Blade admitted now, to think that even if his plan worked and he brought Hectoris to battle at a place of his own choosing, that he could defeat the barbarian hordes. He simply did not have the men. Hectoris would overwhelm him by sheer force of numbers.

Edyrn pointed to a spot on the map and then to its counterpart on the darkling horizon. «North Harbor, sire. The Samostan scout ships approach it even now. By dawn Hectoris will be ready to invade in force. Everything has been done that can be done, sire, and all your orders carried out. And now?»

Blade gave him new orders, brief and to the point, and left to keep his appointment with Izmia.