Time passed. endlessly. Tunnels passed. To their left. To their right. Up. Down. And sometimes sideways. RedTail led and Mika followed.
The passage grew more and more elaborate once they left the great hall. The walls were smooth dressed stone or inlaid with mosaics that glittered in the torchlight. Intersecting passageways were cause for high vaulting ribbed ceilings and elaborate columns and pillars with delicate carvings that Mika did not care to examine.
It was an extraordinary, fascinating place, rich with the artifacts of some bygone culture. But Mika was not interested in architecture, nor in solving the mystery of the vanished inhabitants. All he cared about was getting out.
The meat was beginning to go rancid; grass, water, and wood for the torches were nearly depleted. Mika and TamTur were exhausted and frightened. Horns-buck still drooled and the princess still slept, dirty and uncombed, her dress hanging about her in tattered disarray.
"Man the barricades!" shouted Hornsbuck, his mind obviously drifting back to some ancient battle. Mika ignored the outburst, plodding stolidly ahead through the dark corridor, trying to believe that the wolf really knew where he was going and that they would not die down here in the dark, surrounded by cold stone.
The first time Hornsbuck spoke after the encounter with the umber hulk, Mika had rushed to his side, thinking that perhaps the older man had shaken off the effects of the spell. But it had not been so. "Flay him alive! Boil the rascal in oil!" he commanded, ordering unseen underlings to do his bidding.
Since that moment, Hornsbuck was alternately silent and staring, or loudly vocal, reliving much of his life in disjointed bits and pieces. He raved and hollered, chuckled and cajoled, and gave orders that went unanswered. But the worst of it was that he mistook Mika for someone named Lotus Blossom and frequently sought to enfold him in his hairy embrace. After the first mustachioed kiss, Mika was careful not to be taken unawares and made certain that Hornsbuck walked behind the roan.
Perhaps it is true that the gods protect fools and small children because the party met nothing more fearful during the rest of their journey than one measly foot-long centipede which quickly scurried out of their way.
Mika thought his eyes or the torch were failing when everything suddenly paled to grey. Slowly he realized that the passage had been rising for some time and that it was daylight, blessed daylight, filtering down through the tunnel ahead.
Mika's step quickened as he hurried up the passage, while Hornsbuck bellowed out some fragment of a nightmare.
"Greed! Sloth! Envy! Avarice! Hatred! Deceit! War! Obsession!" roared Hornsbuck, a litany of all the evils of the world spewing from his mouth like stones from a sling.
"Keep it down, Hornsbuck," said Mika. "No telling what's waiting out there."
"Oppression! Wickedness! Pain!" hollered Hornsbuck, and Mika shook his head and gave up, concentrating on the growing light ahead of him.
The roan snorted happily and trotted up the last few feet of the passage, the light outlining his body in a shimmering aura. RedTail and Tamlur followed, tails curled high above their backs.
Mika stood at the mouth of the passage and leaned against the marble pillar that flanked it. He rested his forehead against the cool stone, closing his eyes against the bright sunlight that filtered down in dust-filled beams from the narrow openings that circled the columned dome high above his head.
In his heart he gave thanks to the Great She Wolf for bringing him out of the dark passageways. Then he heard the roan neigh and stamp his feet in alarm and Tam growl low in his throat.
Danger! Mika lifted his head quickly and moved forward into the room, squinting his eyes against the bright light. He stepped over the hunks of broken stone that littered the floor, trying to focus. He drew his sword and blinked his watering eyes. Behind him, he heard Hornsbuck trudge into the room and stop.
"I thank you for bringing me the princess," said a creaky old voice, somewhere off to his left. Mika crouched low and whirled, facing the direction the voice had come from, holding his sword out in front of him and sweeping it back and forth.
"Put down the sword like a good lad," the voice said soothingly. "I know you don't want me to hurt you again."
Mika blinked his eyes furiously and things began to come into focus. Light and dark separated, flowed together, blurred, and then separated once again.
Outlined in the bright sunlight, dust motes raining softly on his shoulders, stood a small dark figure holding the horse's reins. The sunlight was so beautiful, the voice so gentle. And Mika was tired. Tired of danger. Tired of fighting. Tired of being afraid. All he wanted was for things to go back the way they had been, to be normal again. For one brief moment, his sword arm wavered, and he was sorely tempted to do as he was told.
But the roan had no such problems. His ears were plastered flat against his head and his eyes rolled wildly. His teeth were bared in a square-toothed grimace, and his breathing was harsh and rattled in his throat. His legs were stiff and braced hard against the pull of the bridle.
The wolves were in total agreement with the horse. Tam and RedTail circled the small dark figure, their tails curled above their backs and their ears twitched forward, alert, watchful.
Abruptly, Mika straightened up, alert now to the danger. He had no need to go closer. He knew who the old man was.
"I see you recognize me," said the little old man, his features slowly coming into focus. Mika shuddered and took a step backward.
"You have no reason to fear me," said the old man, his body still shrouded by the long, voluminous cape. "I have what I want now. Before, you made the mistake of coming between me and that which I sought. Now, thanks to your efforts, I have my prize."
"You mean the princess?" Mika blurted out in puzzlement. "Why would you want the princess?"
"It's a long story," said the old man with a dry chuckle. "A very long story. But since you've brought her to me, I suppose an explanation is the least I can offer."
"Lies! Oppression! Murder!" ranted Hornsbuck.
"Your friend understands," said the old man, nodding toward Hornsbuck, an amused look flitting across his withered face.
"This is my temple," he said, gesturing around him at the ruined building with a bony hand. "Or what little remains of it."
"There," he said, pointing at a massive block of marble that had broken in two and fallen on its side, "was the altar. Sacrifices were laid on its surface, and the floor ran deep with their blood.
"These walls," he said, waving around the apse with his bony hands, "were filled with those who worshipped me and did homage in my name in honor or in fear.
"Once, this land was nearly mine. I held it in thrall and squeezed it tight. Nearly, nearly, was it mine. Then, other forces rose up, conspired against me and broke my hold, but never, never have I forgotten. I pledged that I would return and take back what is mine. And you, lad, have given me, this day, the instrument of power," the old man said with a trembling voice as flecks of spittle sprayed from his mouth and fell to the dusty floor with a soft hiss.
"What are you talking about?" asked Mika, beginning to wonder if the little man had taken leave of his senses. Magic-user he might be, but the Great She Wolf knew that the cities were crawling with hundreds of old has-beens who bored passersby with imagined tales of their days of glory.
"You do not recognize me in this old and tired body," said the old man. "But perhaps you would know me by another name."
"And what would that be?" asked Mika, casually resting the point of his sword on the ground.
"Some know me as Iuz," said the old man, a harsh light glittering in his eyes.
Mika's blood ran cold.
"That is not a name one uses lightly in these parts," Mika said sharply.
"Well, I'm pleased to hear that," said the old man in a pleasant tone as though he were discussing the weather. Then, still smiling gently, he drew the roan closer and began to fumble with the bonds that held the princess.
"Death! Destruction! Pestilence!" thundered Hornsbuck as he turned round and round, holding up his arms and staring up at the broken dome.
"Leave her alone, old man!" cried Mika, lifting his sword once more. "Take your hands off her and stand back. I will listen to no more of your nonsense, and do not think to stun me again. I will slice you through with my blade before you can say the words."
"You do not believe me," the old man said sadly as he turned around and gazed at Mika. His expression was mournful as though Mika were a prize pupil who had suddenly fallen stupid.
"Perhaps you would recognize me if I looked different. Like this, perhaps." And the old man's body began to change. His back humped under the dark cape and then it seemed to fill out, bulging strangely in odd places.
Then the cape fell away from his head and the skull itself began to twist and move as though it were made of soft clay and being shaped by an unseen hand.
The skull lost what few threads of hair it possessed and swelled to three times greater in size. The forehead bulged grotesquely and eyebrows, great bushy red eyebrows, pushed through the skin and grew before Mika's startled eyes.
Red eyes. Red, the color of warm blood, with no pupils, looked out at Mika and seemed to gleam with an evil light.
The withered cheeks grew fat, the deep wrinkles smoothing away as though they had never been. The nose became bulbous and misshapen, and a gold stud was fixed in each nostril. The mouth formed wide and cruel and the lips fleshy and somehow obscene. The ears were mere slits in the sides of the skull.
The cape fell to the ground as the man-thing grew, revealing an immense broad-chested, round-bellied body, thick with layer upon layer of fat.
Its arms and legs were massive, smooth of skin and hairless and red. The entire monstrous manifestation was red. The red of a lobster boiled in seawater.
The man-thing continued to grow, becoming taller and taller and wider and wider till it towered over Mika, more than seven feet tall and four times his weight. And it wore nothing but an evil smile.
The horrible thing stood before Mika clasping the princess against its ugly body like some tiny toy. Mika could hardly bear to look; it was a sacrilege just watching the foul thing touch her.
The dome of the temple seemed to whirl around Mika's head and he closed his eyes to stop the giddy sensation. His heart hammered against his ribs, and his fear was like the taste of cold iron in his mouth. He shivered and his hands could barely grip the handle of his sword. The roan screamed, wheeled, and ran from the frightful apparition. Mika heard Tam and RedTail whine and slink away and wished that he could do the same.
"Do you believe me now?" thundered the awful red demon.
"I believe," whispered Mika with his head bowed, daring to wonder if there was any hope of escape. Opening his eyes, he saw the demon's hand reaching out for him, its long fingers twitching as though they already held him in their grasp.
"Wait!" cried Mika, shrinking back out of reach, totally terrified. He knew that he would not survive if ever the creature touched him.
"Wait!" he croaked through his fear-clenched throat. "Don't kill me! You can't kill someone who's done you a favor. Can you?"
"Of course I can," chuckled the demon, smiling widely, exposing his long sharp fangs. "I've done so many times. But perhaps it would be more fitting if we permitted the princess to reward you herself. Yes, I think I would enjoy that more." And gesturing with his long fingers, waving them over her head in strange arcane moves, the monster muttered soft words beneath his breath and Mika saw the princess stir. A lump filled his throat. He had envisioned this moment many times, but never had he pictured it happening like this.
One grubby slender hand trembled and lifted shakily to press against the tattered silk-clad breast. The magnificent bosom rose and fell, taking in great gulps of air, and her eyelids fluttered and then opened.
Mika recoiled in shock! Peering at him groggily through a dirty tangle of thick black curls was one brilliant blue eye and one as green as the grass of spring!
"I shall allow the princess herself to bestow your reward," said the demon. Then, before Mika's bewildered eyes, the monster began to shrink and whither, until it was once more the same wizened old ugly man in the voluminous black cape.
The princess leaned against him, seemingly too weak to stand alone and, as yet, totally uncomprehending.
The old man gestured with his frail, thickly veined hand, and the princess's hand rose and pointed at Mika.
Mike knew without a doubt that something terrible was about to happen.
"Wait! Wait! Stop!" he yelled. "I don't understand. What's happening? Who are you? All right, I saw some horrible apparition. Something big and red, but maybe it was all illusion, it doesn't prove that you're Iuz.
"Why would Iuz need to kidnap a princess? None of this makes sense. I don't believe you're Iuz at all. I think you're just some old has-been magic-user. You can do some illusion and some spells and you can kill me, but you're not Iuz."
Mike held his breath as he waited for the old man to respond. In his heart he was not at all certain that the old man was not exactly whom he claimed to be. But if he could get the old man talking, he might be able to think of a way to escape what now seemed to be certain death.
"You have touched on more of the truth than you know," sighed the old man and he seemed to stagger off balance for a minute as the princess leaned on him more heavily.
The old man fixed Mika with a baleful eye and his voice rose in cold fury. "I am Iuz! This, this old tired body is that which I have inhabited on this plane of existence for more years than I can number. It is a tired body, no longer strengthened by the blood and spirits of sacrifice. Soon, unless I take steps to prevent it, this body will die, and I will have no access to this material plane for more than a century.
"I have bided my time in the planes of other existence, in other forms of being, one of which you have just witnessed, searching for that which could return me to strength and power. And at last I found it.
"The answer is twofold. First there is the gem which you know as dramadine.
"Dramadine is a rare gem, occurring but seldom in nature, and it has never been replicated by man or mage. As you have heard, it heightens one's powers to the greatest potential. Such a gem would strengthen me and make me invincible.
"But it is not the gem alone I desire, for the princess herself is a conduit of power; her eyes, as you have no doubt noticed, give evidence of the strength hidden within."
"But how can you use her power?" asked Mika, noticing with a quickening of pulse and a thread of hope that the princess was standing on her own feet, no longer leaning against the old man, and her eyes seemed to be focusing more clearly. If only he could keep the old man talking until she regained her senses! If she heard what he was saying, she could not fail to recognize their danger. Maybe she would help Mika in some way, or at the very least, allow him the opportunity to escape.
"I will encapsulate her power," the old man said patiently, not seeming to notice that the princess was now erect and was staring down at her hands and arms, examining them in a puzzled manner as though she had never seen them before.
"The power of a virgin is very strong," said the old man. "It will rejuvenate this old tired body and make me young and strong enough to bring this world under my control. And I have you to thank for bringing her to me. Without your special brand of protection, she might never have reached me."
"How do you encapsulate a princess, and wouldn't just any old girl do? Does it have to be a princess?" Mika asked hurriedly, hoping to keep the magic-user from noticing the bright look of fury that Mika detected in the princess's eyes as she picked up the shredded remains of her filthy silk dress between her dirty fingers and stared at it in angry silence.
"It's really a simple process," said the old man, warming to the explanation. "I need only distill the essence of the virgin and place it in a crystal, or in this case, the gem.
"No ordinary virgin will do. This princess, despite her plain exterior, is the end result of several hundreds of years of breeding that have produced kings, queens, magic-users, and men of power. Although her potential is as yet unrealized, I shall bring it to greater heights than she would ever have realized as a mere human.
"But enough talking, let me show you what I mean." And with a gesture, he caused the princess's arm to rise above the filthy skirt and her grubby fingers pointed directly at Mika's chest.
Mika opened his mouth to yell and tensed his body to drop and roll, but before he could even move, a pale, sickly stream of ochre light shot from the princess's filthy fingernail and struck him full in the chest.
"I'm dead," he thought, and waited to die. But nothing happened. He looked at his fingers and wiggled them. He was still alive!
The old man looked as though he had swallowed a bitter potion. Thrusting the princess's hand out again, he seized her finger and pointed it at Mika a second time. He screamed out words that Mika could not understand, and a faint pink light wobbled from the princess's finger and then faded in mid-air before it even reached Mika.
Mika laughed out loud.
Iuz turned the princess around violently and shook her hard, staring into her eyes. She struggled in his tight grip and tried to break away. Iuz pulled her closer and scrutinized her intently as though reading a familiar text whose message had suddenly rearranged itself into strange and peculiar words.
A blank look came over his features, and his fingers loosened their hold. He looked old and lost for a moment and then, feeling Mika's gaze on him, lifted his eyes. Hatred leaped from the dark eyes, hatred so tangible that Mika felt as though he had been physically struck.
Iuz flung the girl away from him furiously, and she staggered for several feet before she gained her balance.
"She is no longer a virgin!" shrieked Iuz. "Not a virgin! And it is your fault! You've ruined everything! Now I shall be forced to depend on the gem alone!" And the edges of his cape began to shimmer. He began to grow taller, and his skin took on a rosy hue. Mika knew that he had waited too long. It was time to leave.
But the princess had other ideas.
She too seemed to have grown in stature. She was no longer asleep, and she marched angrily up to the magic-user.
"Forget it, old man," she said harshly as she shoved him aside, propelling him into the catatonic Hornsbuck. Hornsbuck swung his right arm in a reflex motion and caught Iuz under the chin, knocking him down into a dizzy heap.
"It's my turn, and I've got a few words of my own!" She stalked toward Mika, hatred blazing in her multi-colored eyes.
"You! You're to blame for this… this mess!" she screamed at Mika as Iuz wrapped his skinny hand around Hornsbuck's leg and began struggling to his feet.
"One minute, I'm at home safe in my castle where I belong. And the next minute I'm here! Wherever here is! And just look at me! I'm dirty! I'm filthy! My hair's a mess! My dress… my dress, or what little there is of it, is totally ruined! I even smell bad, if you can even imagine such a thing! And now! Now… thanks to you, whoever you even are! Certainly no one I would ever even talk to by choice! Look at you! You're… you're… YOU'RE NOBODY! I find out that I'm not even a virgin any more, and I don't even remember what happened!"
Iuz staggered up, clinging to Hornsbuck's tunic. He steadied himself and then turned and stumbled forward, his face a contorted mask of rage, his hands outstretched, reaching for Mika like claws.
The princess, never ceasing her litany of rage, batted him out of the way with the back of her hand. So accustomed was he to inspiring fear, the demon had no reason to expect an attack on his frail person. The princess dispatched Iuz with ease, knocking him to the floor at Hornsbuck's feet, where he lay stunned.
Mika almost felt sorry for Iuz. He could have told him that even a demon has something to fear from an angry woman.
The princess looked around with a stormy gaze as though searching for something to throw. Not finding it, she reached down the front of her dress and pulled out the tiny crystal bead that Mika had used for his spell of invulnerability. She gazed at it with a curled lip as though it were a slimy slug. She knotted her fist around it and yanked it hard, breaking the chain, then tossed it aside with distaste.
Her fingers sought and found a second chain, which Mika had never noticed, tucked at the edges of her dress. Dangling on the end of the chain was a gem the size of a goose egg that glittered a brilliant rainbow of green and blue.
"The stone. Dramadine!" Iuz muttered hoarsely as he tried to crawl to his feet. Mika stared at it with awe. So much death and anguish for one pretty stone and one unpleasant princess.
The unpleasant princess's nostrils were pinched and white, her brow was creased with a frown, and her eyes glittered with anger no less brightly than the gem. Her mouth was an angry slash in her dirty face.
She snapped the gem free of the chain and, drawing back her arm, she let fly. The shining stone flew through the air and struck Mika in the center of his forehead. Mika staggered off balance and the gem fell at his feet and bounced along the floor before coming to a halt several feet away. Iuz scrambled to his feet, his eyes fastened on the stone. Then he halted and screamed a hoarse flow of words, pointing his own claw-like finger at Mika.
Just then, Hornsbuck, who had been staring upward, his face bathed in the warm sunlight, looked toward them, his attention captured, finally, by all the noise.
Blinded by the bright light that had been shining directly in his eyes, he looked at the small dark figure in front of him and exclaimed joyously, "Lotus Blossom!" and wrapped his arms around the magic-user, interrupting him in the middle of his incantation.
A bright bolt of fiery red light shot out of the end of Iuz's finger and then, as Hornsbuck touched him, breaking his concentration and disturbing the elements of the spell, the red light doubled back upon itself and entered the magic-user's body.
Iuz shivered and stiffened as the red light spread throughout his being. His eyes turned up in his skull and his lips peeled back from his teeth in a terrible rictus. His body twitched and jerked as the red light pierced his skin, illuminating him from within like a cruel aura. The air about him seemed to resonate as though echoing to unheard music. Then, there was a thin curdled scream, and the demon disappeared completely, banished from the material plane.
"Lotus Blossom?" Hornsbuck said plaintively, looking at his huge hands as though she might somehow be concealed behind one of his immense fingers.
Mika gaped at the spot where the demon had stood, then at Hornsbuck, then at the gem at his feet. Then he stared at the princess. It was almost more than he could comprehend.
There was a faint whine. Mika looked down and saw Tam crouched at his feet, his eyes filled with bewilderment.
"I hate you!" cried the princess, as she stamped her foot on the dusty floor. Her strange eyes were huge and wild. She did not even seem to realize that she had just helped dispatch a major demon.
"I'll kill you," she screamed. "I'm royalty! I'm a princess! "You just can't treat me like this and live!" "Now wait a minute," Mika said appeasingly as he took a step forward and picked up the stone, meaning to hand it back to her as a conciliatory gesture. Maybe something could be salvaged yet. After all, it was a long way back to her island.
"Give it back! Give me back my stone!" shrilled the princess, her hands curling into threatening claws.
"Now hold on!" said Mika, beginning to get angry. "I didn't exactly take it from you. You threw it at me, if you remember. And you've got this thing all wrong. I didn't do anything to you. It was Iuz, not me."
"Did you bring me here?" asked the princess, now deadly calm.
"Well, yes, in a matter of speaking," admitted Mika. "But…"
"Are you responsible for the way I look?"
"Well, yes. I guess you could say that. But there were a few things…"
"Am I still a virgin?" asked the princess, tight-lipped.
"Well, I guess not," Mika said diffidently, "but I didn't…"
"Shut up!" screamed the princess. "Just close your stupid mouth. There's nothing else to be said." And walking up to Mika, she seized his arm and tried to pull his sword free.
Mika looked down at her in disbelief, tempted to laugh as she flung her tiny self, scarcely taller than his chin, on his sword arm with intense fury.
"Oh, come on now," he said, tucking his sword behind his back and trying to put a calming hand on her shoulder.
"Leave off," he said with a laugh. But his laughter drove her further into her rage, and she turned her head and sank her teeth into his hand.
Mika yelled in pain and surprise.
Tam leaped for her, snarling. This! This was something he could understand! Demons were one thing, but no human threatened Mika and emerged unscathed!
"No, Tam!" shouted Mika as he stepped in front of the wolf and flung the princess from him with ease, scarcely believing her ferocity. He examined his bleeding hand, putting it to his mouth and sucking the blood. What had happened to the sweet gentle beauty he had believed her to be? If this was her true nature, it was no wonder she had never married!
The momentum of his push carried her back toward the entrance to the tunnel. Back toward Horns-buck who was still standing in the beam of sunlight, gazing at his hands, still in the grip of confusion.
"Lotus Blossom," he said in wonderment as the princess careened into him, his face spreading in a beatific smile.
"Oh, Lotus Blossom your stupid fat self," screamed the princess, and ripping his knife from his belt, she turned and threw the knife at Mika with all her strength.
The knife flew through the air, straight as a sable-wood arrow. Tam, knowing only that she was still a threat, leaped into the air at the same moment and caught the knife square in the center of his chest.
Things seemed to go very, very slowly from that moment on. Mika felt, saw, each and every separate movement around him as though it had been caught in a crystal and hung up to view at his leisure.
The princess bared her teeth in unreasoning hatred and came toward him again.
Hornsbuck sat down and began singing a raucous nomad drinking song.
RedTail crawled into Hornsbuck's lap and sighed deeply.
Tam crumpled like a body without bones, and his blood ran red over the hilt of the knife and puddled on the dusty floor.
Mika sank to his knees and lifted Tam in his arms, cradling the massive head and holding the wolf to him like a child. Tam's eyes were open, the magnificent gold now dark with pain. He looked at Mika and held him in his gaze as though imprinting his vision on his faltering heart and mind.
"Tam," whispered Mika, willing the wolf to live with all of his being. He started to rise, time still frozen, and saw the princess coming at him.
Without thinking, without premeditation, Mika held out his hand, the one that held the gem, and said the magic words, the wolf spell, at the very moment she sank her nails into his arm.
Time fragmented. Splintered apart. Then slowly reassembled. Everything was the same, but everything was different.
Hornsbuck sat on the floor still singing his song.
RedTail lifted his muzzle and howled.
The roan stamped his foot and snorted, tentatively nibbling a weed that had sprung up behind the broken altar. The warm sun filtered down on the strange tableau in the ruined temple. Shone down on Mika as he walked slowly out of the temple cradling Tam in his arms. Shone down on the small female wolf that followed closely at his heels, her thin pointed muzzle bumping into his legs at his every step. She whined uncertainly, as though afraid of being left behind. Her tail was held low, curled between her long delicate hind quarters.
She whimpered as the man walked away as though she did not exist. Then she sat down on her black furry haunches and lifted her dainty muzzle to the warm sun and howled. The sound echoed through the empty ruin, reverberating from one rounded wall to the next, a peculiar keening wail that held an oddly human quality of pain and grief.
As the last echo faded from the air, the wolf lowered her head. She turned her eyes, one green, one blue, and sought out the retreating figure of the man. Rising slowly, she stared after him for a long uncertain moment, then hesitantly, she crept forward, and followed in his footsteps.