Pearl Of Patmos

CHAPTER 10

Nob, as he prepared Blade's bath and laid out fresh clothing, was full of chatter.

«The Samostans will land at dawn at North Harbor, master. I have had a score of reports from my beggars and they all agree.»

Blade, scrubbing away, nodded. «That is stale news, man. Have you nothing later to report?»

Nob grinned his toothless grin. «Aye. Hectoris has put a hundred foot and a hundred horse ashore near Cybar Port, but that is only a feint, a scouting party. They are pushing this way.»

«That is better,» conceded Blade. «We will let them push in a little way and then we shall see. That will be your task, Nob. I have given orders as to it when you leave me you will go straight to Edyrn and he will give you command of a squad of the Guard. Listen well, for this is exactly what I want you to do. .»

Ina, the Gray girl, led Blade down and down into the bowels of the volcano. There seemed no end to the passage. At first it was hot and Blade sweated, then it grew cool and even cold and he found himself chilling. Ile girl spoke not a word all the while.

They came into a vast open space and Blade heard the music again. Sensuous, sweet and strange harmony, and now he found himself in the very center of the music. It was not loud; he barely heard it, and yet it filled his brain. The girl left him without a word and Blade began to make his way through a glistening maze of what looked like. giant cobwebs stretching from floor to ceiling of the cav-

em. He touched one of the shining strands and it gave off a faint and plangent twang. It felt like rubber or plastic. At the same time he was aware of air moving through the cavern in a constant stream. Air that brushed through the billions of cobweblike strands and produced the music.

That was the secret. The whole island, Patmos itself, was a great volcano. It was riven by volcanic tubes, perhaps hundreds of them, and through these the music drifted to all parts of the island.

«BLADE!»

Iznua's voice. He could not see her, yet the sound came from in front of him, deeper in the cavern. Blade pushed on through the harplike strands, each one humming and vibrating in the air. There was a path, easily discerned when you were close enough, and he pushed on like Theseus in the Labyrinth.

«BLADE!»

Close now. Blade halted in the midst of siren song and looked about. Music engulfed him.

«BLADE!»

He saw a light and made for it. He left the giant harps and entered a smaller cavern. In the center stood a great catafalque all draped in black. On it, her naked body gleaming and changing color even as he approached, lay Izmia. Her silver hair was draped over her breasts and on her flat belly something gleamed. He recognized it as the metal bowl in which she had caught his semen.

Izmia spoke again, softly this time. A single word. «Blade.»

He halted and contemplated her, arms akimbo, frowning a bit. «I am here, Pearl of Patmos. Come as you bid me. What now?»

His eyes roved over her massive and perfect body and he felt no stir of excitement. There was to be no sex, no mingling of flesh, this time and he felt an odd mingling of diappointment and relief. And felt something else-something that chilled the flesh along his spine. There was no warmth in her golden eyes. this night-only a blankness and a far-seeing look.

She did not speak. She watched him and Blade felt himself as drowning in the lambent whorls of those amber depths. He shrugged impatiently and scowled.

«Did you summon me to exchange stares, Izmia. It is not a time for games. I will tell you the truth of things as they are on Patmos. Your island is lost unless I can bring Hectoris to private battle and-and thereby hinges everything-defeat him!»

Izmia held up a hand. «I did not send to hear of that. It is no longer my concern.»

Blade gaped. «It is not? Whose, then?»

The golden eyes narrowed. «Yours, glade. In your hands it lies. And in the hands and body of Juna, if it so be that you can save her and bring her to this place and to her heritage.»

Blade was beginning to feel awe and he did not like it. He feigned anger to disguise his uneasiness. «You may have time for such riddles, Izmia. I have not. Dawn comes in a few hours and I must be at North Harbor to face Hectoris.» He bowed curtly. «So by your leave I-« lzmia raised herself on an elbow. She took the bowl from her belly and held it aloft. «You will remain, Blade. You will listen and you will obey. Without question.»

And Blade somehow knew that it would be so.

Izmia pointed. «You will find a chalice in the cabinet yonder. And a vessel of wine. Fetch them to me.»

Blade did so. When he returned Izmia was standing on the catafalque and holding the metal bowl aloft in both hands. Blade put the chalice and the wine at her feet and gazed up at her magnificent naked body and now desire moved in him. His loins tightened.

Izmia smiled down at him and shook her head. «No, Blade. That is over for us. It is the time of my Weird and I must face it. I leave this life and you will bring another to take my place.»

Juna? And how was he to wrest Juna from Hectoris?

Izmia was tipping a powder into the metal bowl. She took a small instrument and scraped and stirred and crushed, using the instrument as a chemist uses a pestle. Her flesh quivered, the huge firm breasts trembling as she moved. An aromatic smell drifted from the bowl to Blade's nostrils.

Izmia held out a hand. «The wine.»

She poured wine into the chalice and stirred it again. There was a frothing, bubbling sound and faint smoke rose from the bowl. Izmia held out the bowl to Blade. «Drink.»

He did so. Without protest. This was Dimension X and things would be as they would be-and in this case Blade knew that he did right. Izmia knew what she was about.

She lay down on the catafalque once again and extended her arms to Blade. «Now come lie with me and you shall hear.»

Blade was moving as though in a dream darkly; the potion removed him one step from reality, slightly blurring the focus of things, and gave him a deep sense of inner contentment and a desire to please Izmia, to do whatever she asked.

Izmia enfolded him in her arms as if he were a babe. Her body was cool and warm at once, and she pillowed his head on her naked breasts and whispered of what he must do. Blade listened, half drowsing, and understood and knew that it must be this way and no other.

When she had finished Izmia held him a moment longer. She kissed him on the lips and, for a moment, there was warmth and life in the golden eyes once again, then it vanished and her eyes grew blank.

«Come now,» she whispered. «It is time.»

She took his hand and led him to yet another cavern. It was small and cold and dank. In its center, like a baleful eye, was a dark pool. The black water, smooth as taut velvet, promised an inky coldness and depth that set the big man to shivering. And yet he was not afraid. It must be done.

Izmia stood unspeaking as Blade stripped off his armor and his heavy sword and belt. When he stood naked at the edge of the pool, she came to him and touched him lightly here and there and her smile was sweetly sad and Blade knew that this was the real farewell. Her hands lingered on him for another moment, then she stepped back and nodded toward the pool.

«Go, Blade. I have explained. You have one chance. You will triumph or perish.»

In the gloom of the little cavern her body shimmered like heat lightning. Blade gave her a long look, took a deep breath, and went headfirst into the pool.

He made his way down through black ice. His eyes were open to no avail-the darkness was total. This was a place that had never known light. It was narrow, little more than a well, and at times he brushed the sides of cold stone.

Blade went down and down and down. There was no bottom. The first faint pains began in his lungs. The pressure was a dark hand crushing him. Down-downdown-

No bottom ever. He was diving into eternity.

Pain growing now. Flame in his lungs. Soon it would be unbearable. Still he swam downward. And down-and down-

Bottom.

His fluttering hands encountered them immediately. The sword and the pearl. Just as Izmia had said they would be-waiting for him all the aeons long.

The pearl was the size of a billiard ball and filled his hand with chill convexity. The sword was long and cumbersome and immensely heavy. Blade grasped them and kicked his way upward. Straight into the slimy coils. lzmia had not warned him of this thing, whatever it was, that held him now. Serpent, 'monstrous worm, water dragon, whatever it was, it had him in a firm grip and the coils were multiplying and tightening all the while. The more Blade fought, the harder he struggled, the deeper he became enmeshed. His lungs, already screaming for air, began to collapse under the terrible squeeze the creature exerted.

For a moment Blade panicked: Fear screamed and shivered through him. Not so much fear of death, or pain, as of the unknown terror of the moment-this loathsome beast that he could not see, this great leechlike nightmare attached and sucking and squeezing at his body. His arms were bound tight into the coils and he could not draw the sword and pain was raving in his brain.

One of the thick coils slipped across his mouth. Blade, without thought, knowing only that this was his one chance, fastened his strong teeth in the- rubbery flesh and bit with all his might. He bit and chewed and ravaged like a wolf feeding. The flesh in his mouth was foul and bitter, noisome and stinking, and yet he felt the thing shudder and the coils relax a bit. Blade, near to being a mindless thing himself now, ravened.on. He savaged the flesh of the thing.

The coils fell away. Blade shot toward the surface, still clutching the sword and the pearl.

Izmia was not there. Blade had known she would not be. She had explained it all to him. He dragged himself out of the pool and lay gasping for a few minutes, then donned his armor and his sword and belt. There was no cause for hurry now. Izmia would wait.

When he had dressed and fully recovered he examined the sword and the pearl. The sword was broad and long, handsomely sheathed in a scabbard that glistened with jewels, and when he drew the steel it glimmered and glistened as though it were from the forge. Blade put the point on the floor and held the sword away from him. The hilt came to the level of his chin.

The pearl was as black as the pool from which it had come. It glowed with dark fire. Blade stroked it with his fingers and it seemed to throb and come alive, to take warmth from his body, to glisten and respond and almost breathe. He hefted it again and again in his hand and regretted the eventual use to which he must put it. It was, on closer inspection, larger than a billiard ball and he knew he'would never see its like again in any dimension. For a moment he regarded both pearl and sword intently, then sighed anti went back to the larger cavern where Izmia awaited him on her catafalque.

She slept. Blade stood by the catafalque, gazing down at the naked beauty of her, dreading what he must do. But he bad vowed and it must be done. He put the sword on the catafalque beside her and placed the great black pearl in the cabinet with the chalice and the wine. He came back and picked up the sword.

Her flesh was all shimmering flame, the marvelous breasts rising and falling with her slow breath. Her features, in repose, appeared to have shrunken, to have pinched together, and the facial flesh had taken on such a translucence that Blade could have sworn he saw the skull. Slowly Blade raised the sword.

The drug was strong in him, enforcing his will rather than sapping it, giving him a slow and blurred determination. He must do everything exactly right, exactly as he had been instructed. There was no tremor of his hand as he lifted her left breast to place the point of the sword exactly. Her flesh was cold, yet seared his hand, and it was all he could do to keep from snatching it way. He positioned the sword point, then leaped onto the~catafalque and stood astride her.

At that moment the golden eyes flickered open and stared up at him and Blade stared down into a volcano where amber sparks swirled. He grasped the sword hilt firmly in both hands and bore down with all his strength.

Izmia arched and screamed once. Her body writhed, embracing the sword as though it were a steel phallus and she smitten with death desire. Blade, made impassive by the drug, drove the sword through her and into the catafalque beneath. His face contorted and sweat streamed from him and he was unknowing of this. He bent to his task. His massive biceps bulged and quivered as he forced the sword lower and lower, driving it deeper into the catafalque, until the hilt rested on her breast.

His face was close to hers and he saw the beginning of it. Her eyes closed and he saw peace, calmness and tranquility, invade her features like a conquering angel. Her lips fell away from her teeth in a rietus that was more smile than grin and then a kind of ecdysis began and her flesh ceased to shimmer and turned a dull gray. Blade tugged out the sword and leaped from the catafalque to stand beside her. He was only dimly aware of his own sobbing breath.

He watched, bound fast by the web of drug, as Izmia's flesh aged before his eyes. She had been-so she had whispered-an old, old woman and now her flesh, freed from whatever necromancy had held it in thrall, spoke the truth at last. It did not take long.

When the body that had been Izmia became a eronething, a bag of wrinkles and bones, Blade picked it up and left the cavern. He found a door she had said would be there and followed the path laid out for him. He stalked along, not hurrying nor lagging, clutching the thing to his breast, and in a few minutes came out on the stone platform overlooking the maw of the volcano. Had it been light he could have seen the tower room where he and Edyrn had plotted their battle, and from which he had first spied this very platform. He approached the edge and stared down into the reeking mouth. A thin sulfuric mist drifted up to choke and half blind him. In the far depths a tongue of flame leaped up and outward from the walls, as though in signal, then retreated.

Blade lifted the body, as light as a feather pillow now, and hurled it out and down. Again flame licked and smoke roiled and Blade raised his hand in farewell. He stalked back,the way he had come. As he left the Cavern of Music ais head began to clear, the drug faded, and though he had perfect recall of everything he felt no pain, nor regret, but rather the sense of a thing well and rightly done.

He went to his own cavern and threw himself on the bed and slept like a babe. When Nob woke him, half an hour short of dawn; Blade felt refreshed and confident and ready for whatever the day might bring. He sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and grinned at the one-eyed rascal.

Nob handed him a cup of steaming broth and reported that the counter-raid had gone well.

«A dozen horses taken, master, and some fifty Samostans slain. We lost but twenty of the Guard. We took more than a hundred prisoners, but I gave them your message and released them as you ordered. They will make their way back to the beaches and spread the word. I am sure of it.»

Blade finished the broth and beckoned for his armor. «That is good, so far. But it is not enough-all the Samostan army must know of my challenge. You have put your beggars and thieves to work?»

«Aye, I have, sire. I have made loud hailers, of paper as you instructed, and my knaves are all up and down the beaches, on the cliffs, everywhere, shouting your words to those who may come ashore.»

Nob scratched his jaw. «I was not of your mind at first, master, for I have never seen a battle won with words, but now I begin to think it might work. Certainly it is clever enough-as a soldier myself I know that a soldier does not want to die unless he must. He will take an easy and painless victory every time or, lacking that, he will even choose defeat with honor. Either is better than dying. Yes, master, it just might work. You prey on their weaknessone we all have-a desire to live.»

Blade nodded slowly. «We will see,» he said gravely. «If Hectoris is as vain, and as proud and,brave as he is said to be, then it will work. But there is an irony here, Nob-if Hectoris is a coward we are lost.»