Shadow of a Demon

The Dragon is very pleased to welcome Gardner Fox and to
introduce to you Niall of the Far Travels, a brand new hero of
many talents. Relax, and join Niall on his troubled path through
life. But remember that you, too, should fear the. . .

SHADOW OF A DEMON

1
He came into Angalore from the eastern deserts, a big man
wearing a kaunake of spotted fur over his linkmail, his legs bare
above warboots trimmed with miniver, with a sense of his own
doom riding him. Niall of the Far Travels had not wanted to come
to Angalore, for an old seeress had prophesied that he would be
taken from this world by demons, should those warboots carry
him into that ancient, brooding city.

Yet he had come here because his fate had so decreed.

He was a mercenary, a sell-sword, a barbarian out of the
forested mountains of Norumbria. A wanderer by nature, he
earned his keep wherever he went by the might of his sword-arm,
by his skill with weapons. He feared no living thing, man or
animal, though the thought of demons put a coldness down his
spine.

Now he paused on the crest of a hill and stared at the city.
Massive it was, and old, so old that some men said it had been
here since men had first learned to walk upright. It lay between
the river and the desert over which the caravans came from Sensanall
to the south and Urgrik to the north. Ships lay in the little
harbor that was formed by the river, riding easily to the lift and
fall of its tides.

Angalore was the city of Maylok the magician.

An evil man, Maylok. Niall had heard tales about him, over
campfires and in the taverns where men drank wine and watched
dancing girls perform. Rumor had it that he used demons as men
used pawns when they played their games of chance. Gossips also
said that in the dungeons and stone labyrinths below his palace,
Maylok had stored the treasures of his world, gold and silver,
diamonds and rubies and emeralds, and golden vessels carved
and fashioned by famous sculptors.

Niall moved his heavily muscled shoulders, uneasy as a wild
animal might be, walking into strange country where it knew
nothing of the dangers to be faced. Yet he had to go to Angalore.
There was no way out, if he wanted to eat and drink. The desert
had offered no oasis, no plant from which to pull the roots to allay
his hunger. He had been offered employment by a captain of mercenaries,
and was on his way to join up with the black eagle banner
of Lurlyr Manakor of Urgrik when he had been attacked by a
huge mountain lion out of the Styrethian Hills. He had killed the
lion but not before it had broken the neck of his horse.

On foot, he could never reach Urgrik. He had known that,
and so he had set his feet to the westward, to reach the river that
ran through these lands. On the river he might find a boat to
carry him to Urgrik.

His wandering had brought him to Angalore, instead.

Niall hitched at his swordbelt and gave the city a hard grin.
There would be food in Angalore, and cold wine. Niall had a need
for both, maybe even a wench if he could find an agreeable one.

His feet carried him down the slope toward the landward
gate. Niall was not a fearful man, nothing frightened him; still,
that threat of demons made him wary. He was not one to put
overmuch confidence in the babblings of soothsayers, but old
Thallia was not your usual prophetess.

He had stumbled onto Thallia in Cassamunda, where he had
met that mercenary captain. She was an old woman, clad in rags,
but she carried a small bag that clinked as she moved, and two
ruffians had tried to take it from her. Niall had been passing, had
leaped to her protection, had buffeted the ruffians with his big
fist and knocked them senseless.

Old Thallia had been grateful. Her bag held her wealth, such
as it was, a few coins and some jewels which she kept by her to sell
when she needed food. He had escorted her to the cheap little
room above the tavern where she lived, and she had insisted on
giving him some wine and a barleycake.

She had read his fortune, too.

‘Beware of Angalore,’ she had whispered, her rheumy eyes
wide and fear-filled. ‘There are demons there, who serve Maylok
the wizard. They will snatch you away with them when they come.
And — there is no return from a demon world.’

The landward gate was closed, at this time of day, with the
late afternoon shadows black and ominous. No caravans were expected
in before the morrow, and guards stood their watch on the
walls, half drowsing in the sunset. Niall stopped before the wall
and shouted upward that he was a stranger in need of food and
drink, and desired also a cot on which to lay his body.

After a time, a small door inset in a larger one creaked open.
Two warriors wearing the griffin insignia of Angalore scowled at
him suspiciously. Niall grinned and moved forward.

“There is a fee to be paid,” one of them said, “It is after the
hour when we admit travelers.”

Nial shrugged. He had no wish to remain outside these high
stone walls, knowing that inside them he would find what his
belly told him he so desperately needed. His big hand fumbled at
his worn leather belt-pouch, extracted a few coins, and dribbled
them into the outstretched palms. The stink of bribery was strong
in his nostrils, but beggars had little choice.

He moved off along a cobbled street, his eyes hunting a sign
that might tell him where a tavern waited with its warmth and
merriment. These buildings past which he walked were
warehouses where were stored the goods that came by caravan,
with no hint of roasting meat nor smell of chilling wine.

Niall had never been in Angalore before and so he lost his
way, moving down narrow little alleys and into cul-de-sacs, always
aware that his hunger and his thirst were growing with the
darkness. And then in a narrow passageway between buildings
which seemed to lean their walls together, he saw the girl.

She was clad in leather rags that fluttered in the wind
moving off the river. Her long legs were brown and shapely, and
the hair that fell almost to her haunches was black as Corassian
ebony. She was turning her head to stare back at him, shrinking
against the wall behind her.

Niall grinned. “You seem as lost as I am.”

Green eyes studied him. “I am not lost. I know my way.” She
added, almost ominously, “To where I want to go.”

“There’s no need for hurry.” His gaze took her in, seeing the
tatterings of her worn leather tunic, its stains and spottings, the
manner in which it failed to hide the curve of her breasts and
revealed almost the complete length of a bare leg. “Come eat with
me, I’ll pay the fare. And I’ll give you as much wine as you might
care to drink.”

The green eyes softened, but her voice was cold. “Go your
way, barbarian. Let me go mine..”

Niall shrugged. It mattered little to him whether she went
with him or not, but she was pretty enough, with full lips and a
tilted nose. She would have made a good bed-companion for the
night. He might even have taken her to Urgrik with him and — if
he could afford it — buy her some decent clothes.

He walked away, putting her from his mind.

And then he heard the clank of metal.

The Far-traveler turned his head. Behind him four men were
moving out of a little alley toward the girl. She had seen them and
was shrinking back, away from them. The men were grinning at
her.

“Come along now,” one said, putting out a hand to grasp her
arm.

The barbarian turned and waited.

“No,” she whispered. “I know you men. You serve Maylok.”

“And Maylok needs female blood for his incantations.”

They leaped, all four of them, and the girl disappeared
behind their big bodies. Niall snarled and went on the run, not
bothering to draw his sword. His big fist should be able to handle
these carrion.

He caught a man, swung him about, drove knuckles against
his face, pulping his nose. A second one he caught and rammed
his head against the stone wall so that he went limp and crumpled.

The other two yanked out their blades, swung them at him.
Niall laughed softly, put his own hand to sword-hilt and drew out
Blood-drinker. The barbarian had little wealth, except for his
sword, that had been forged long ago and far away and that Niall
had found in a tomb which he had looted, early in his youth. He
had been offered fortunes for that blade, he had always refused to
part with it.

He fought swiftly and terribly, did Niall of the Far Travels.
With parry and thrust and overhead blows he drove the two ruffians
before him until their backs were to the building wall, and
there he ran them through.

The girl had never moved, but stood erect and as coldly
disdainful as ever. Niall felt surprise at sight of her, he was certain
she would have run away when given the opportunity. He growled
as he wiped his steel clean, “What are you waiting for? Why
didn’t you run?”

“You fool,” she breathed. “You fool!”

She stamped her sandaled foot. Her cold anger beat out at
him like a living entity, and the sell-sword stared. “Has Emelkartha
the Evil stolen your wits? Or did you want to go with those
men to be sucked dry of blood for Maylok’s wizardries?”

Her eyes lidded over and she drew a deep breath. “You
would not understand. You are only a common warrior. Besides,
what do you know of Emalkartha?”

“She is the mother of demons, that one. I’ve heard it said
that all demons regard her wishes as commands.”

The girl shrugged. “I pray to her for vengeance.”

“She ought to hear your prayers, then. She’s malevolent, that
one.”

The green eyes glowed. “Is she, warrior? I hope so. Perhaps
she will grant me my revenge on Maylok then.”

He caught her bare arm, drew her with him. “Tell me about
it. Mayhap I can help a little, though I’ve no fancy for wizards
myself, and usually I stay clear of them.”

She went with him readily enough, but cast a look behind her
where two men were stirring and two others lay in pools of their
own blood. Was it only fancy, or did that face of hers mirror a
faint regret?

“What’s your name? Where are you from?” he asked.

The green eyes slid sideways at him from under long black
lashes. “Call me — Lylthia. And — does it matter where I come
from?”

“Not to me,” he chuckled. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

His eyes ran over the cheap leather tunic that barely hid her
body. She carried no money pouch, the only thing on her besides
the tunic and her tattered sandals was a rope belt about her slim
middle. As the river-wind grew cooler, she began to shiver.

“We’ll get you into a warm tavern and put some meat in
you,” he said. “Also some Kallarian wine.”

“Little good it will do you,” she muttered.

Niall grinned. He had a way with wenches like this. Yet as he
walked with her along the torchlit streets, he failed to notice that
while those torch flames cast his shadow, there was no shadow for
the girl.

2.
The tavern was warm and noisy, filled with seafarers of the
Aztallic Sea, with wanderers from the western lands, with mercenary
warriors and with women who plied their ancient trade
between the tables, to sit where they were welcomed and join in
the feasting and the drinking. A great hearth held a huge log that
blazed with a sullen roar and threw a scarlet hue across those
nearest it.

Niall pushed Lylthia onto a bench and waved an arm at a
servingmaid.

“Thort steaks and Kallarian,” he ordered, then turned his
attention to the girl. She was staring around her with wide eyes,
almost as though she had never been in such a hospice before.

“So you seek vengeance on Maylok,” he murmured. “But
why? What has Maylok done to you?”

The green eyes regarded him. “He has taken that which was
mine. He has not offered to pay for it, nor will he.”

“What could you own that’s so valuable?”

Her leather tunic was stained and discolored, it hardly hid
the swells of her breasts nor the lengths of her supple thighs. She
was a poor girl, that much Niall would swear on the Wargod’s
sword.

She shrugged. “You would not understand.”

Something about those green eyes made him murmur, “If I
can help you, I shall. Though I don’t fancy warlocks.”

She smiled suddenly, and those eyes lost their coldness. “I
need no help. Though I thank you.”

Niall was not so sure that she could not use a blade like
Blood-drinker to side her when she went hunting Maylok in his
palace, and said so. “No man can take him by surprise, it’s
rumored. He has set spells and cantraips on all the doors and win-
dows so nothing can catch him unawares. At least, so I’ve been
told. Only by his will can a man or a woman enter his
stronghold.”

“That is true enough.”

“Yet you think you can gain revenge on him? Unarmed and
— well, practically naked? Without coins with which to bribe a
way in?”

“I need neither sword nor gold. Here’s your food. Eat it.”

Niall glanced at her in surprise. There had been an imperiousness
in the way she had spoken that indicated she expected
to be obeyed. It was almost as if she were a princess in
disguise. Niall felt uneasy at that, he had no experience with
people of royal blood. Servingmaids and tavern wenches were
more his familiars.

Still, he ate the savory meat, slicing it with his knife, using
his fingers to wolf down the blood-dripping meat. He loaned his
knife to Lylthia, watched how daintily she ate. He filled her
leathern jack with wine, drank his own empty and then refilled it.

Lylthia drank sparingly, as if not quite trusting the
Kallarian. There was suspicion in her, he knew; she expected him
to take her into a bed and enjoy her body. Well, that was what he
meant to do, all right; he didn’t blame her for eyeing him so
watchfully.

By the Wargod! She was a pretty thing. He liked her. And
she had a body on her, he could tell that easily enough because of
that scanty leather tunic. She would be fun when he got his arms
around her. If she was enough fun, he would carry her to Urgrik.

An almost naked woman came into a cleared space and
danced. Niall was torn between the dancer and watching the
disdain that was so easy to read in Lylthia’s pretty face. As applause
rang out and the girl sniffed, Niall leaned close to her.

“You can do better, I suppose?”

“I would drive you mad were I to dance for you.”

She said it calmly, but there was a ring of truth in her voice.
Niall shifted uneasily on the bench. There was a mystery about
this girl, he knew that much; she was not as other women he had
met in his far travelings, willing to offer smiles and a soft body for
a good meal and some glasses of wine, and a part of him regretted
that. He thought of Lylthia in a warm bed with himself beside
her, and stirred restlessly.

He asked, “Will you stay the night with me? It grows late,
and Maylok may have other men searching the streets.”

She nodded. “I will stay with you.”

He paid for the meal with the last of his gold coins, accepting
silver in change. Then he walked behind Lylthia’s swinging hips
along the narrow stairway to the upper rooms.

There was a bed and a washstand in the room he selected,
and a single window that looked out on the stars and the glittering
ring of matter which wise men said was the remains of the
moon which had circled this world once, and had been shattered
many eons ago, to be caught and held by gravity in the sky. Niall
unbuckled his swordbelt and hung it over the back of a chair,
slipped out of his linkmail shirt and kicked off his warboots.

He lay down on the bed and beckoned to the girl. “Come
here, Lylthia. I want to taste the sweetness of your mouth.”

To his surprise she walked toward him and sat on the edge of
the bed. She leaned closer as if to kiss him, but his gaze was
caught and held by her green eyes that seemed to swell and swell
until they were all that existed in the room.

“Sleep, Niall of the Far Travels,” those eyes commanded.
“Sleep!”

And Niall slept, and Niall dreamed.

He sat on a stone throne in his dream in a great hall, dark except
where tall torches glowed in sconces, forming a pool of light
in which Lylthia danced. Naked she danced, and her body was a
pallid white and disturbingly sensual. She was all the lusts, all the ]
sensuous dreams of man, every need he had for that which would
satisfy his animal nature.

In that dream, Niall hungered for her flesh but he could not
leave the stone throne which seemed almost to hold him back. His
arms stretched out, he called to her to come to him. She was a
dainty promise whispered in the ear, a shapely seduction with her
white legs and quivering haunches. She turned and dipped,
pranced and swirled, and always the need in him for her flesh
grew more sharp.

Niall woke to the first pink rays of dawn, sitting up in bed
and gasping. His dream was still strong upon him, his eyes went
around the room hunting for the girl. She was not here, he was
alone.

He shook himself as might a shaggy mountain bear roused
from its winter sleep, Under his breath he muttered curses as he
stumbled to the washbasin and poured cold water from the
pitcher over his head. The water shocked him to full wakefulness
and he lifted his head and stared out the window.

She was out there, in this city. He knew that. He thought he
also knew where she had gone. He could not see Maylok’s palace
but he would find her there. He reached for his swordbelt and
buckled it about his middle. A flash of light from the corners of
his eyes caught his attention and he stared into a cracked mirror,
seeing his face.

His skin was bronzed and his black hair hung uncut almost
to his shoulders. A scar was white against the dark sun-darkened
skin of his chin. A swordsman in the hire of the Great Kham had
bloodied his face, and had paid with his life for scarring him. His
shoulders were so wide they could scarcely fit between the lintels
of a wide door, ridged with muscles standing out like ropes
beneath his sun-burnt skin.

Well, he was going after her. Now. No matter where his warboots
took him.

He ate sausages and eggs in the common room, making
plans in his head. She wanted vengeance on Maylok. The only
place she could get that would be in his palace. He, Niall, would
go also to that palace and find her and bring Lylthia out of it on a
shoulder.

Uneasily, he remembered old Thallia and her prophecy.
Demons would carry him off in Angalore, she had said. No matter.
Maylok would have to cast a spell on him before he could
summon up demons to take him away, and by that time, Maylok
would be dead.

He went out into the sunlight and walked the streets of this
ancient city, angling his feet always toward the huge pile of
masonry standing close to the river’s edge, that was the wizard’s
palace. It was built against the outer wall, and had a wall of its
own, but smaller than the city wall, surrounding it and its gardens.
Niall stood a long time studying that wall.

He could go over it easily enough. But what would he find
when he dropped down onto the other side? He was no fool to go
rushing into danger when there was a safe way out of it. Maylok
would have guards posted. And, probably, big Commopore
hounds trained to drag down any intruder and fang-slay him.

There was a huge oaken door set flush with the cobblestones
of the street. Niall studied it for a moment, hitched at his swordbelt,
then walked toward it. With the pommel of a dagger, he
rapped on the plankings.

After a time the door swung open and two men with naked
swords in their hands stood scowling at him. “What want you at
the walls of Maylok, stranger?” asked the larger man.

“Money to put in my pouch.” Niall grinned and rattled the
little leather sack so they could hear his few coins clinking. “I’m
told the wizard pays well.” His eyes ran over their fleshy bodies.
“Men say also that those who work for Maylok eat only thort
steaks and pasties, and drink wine instead of water.”

“Maylok has enough servants.”

“None like me.”

The man went to close the door but Niall put out his brawney
arm and held the door open, using his eyes on the neat grass and
carefully tended bushes that formed these outer gardens. He
noted that the men grew angry, but he paid no heed to that, for he
was noting the thickness of the walls and surmising that there
would be rooms between outer and inner walls.

The other man came to add his muscles to the first, but Niall
was a strong man whose full strength had never yet been tested,
and he held that door open against both of them.

“Well, if he won’t, he won’t,” he muttered, and released the
door.

It banged shut and Niall grinned. He had seen enough.
When darkness was upon Angalore he would return. Somehow,
he would find a way inside that palace.

He walked around the walls and noted that a big tree grew
outside a portion of those parapets. A nimble man could climb
that tree, move out along a thick branch. It would be a good jump
from the branch to reach the wall, but he could do it.

Whistling, he moved off toward the river gate and through it
to the quays where a dozen ships were loading or unloading
cargoes. He watched them, savoring the hot sunlight on his back,
and fell into converse with two seamen munching on some fruit.

“Your crew works hard,” he commented.

“This is Angalore. The sooner out of it, the better.”

Niall pondered that. He asked slyly, “Is it because of
Maylok?”

“Aye. The mage is like a spider in its web, peering out and
taking that which he covets, be it gold or silver or a man and a
maid. Right now he may be listening to us.”

“I tried to gain employment from him.”

“Count yourself lucky you didn’t. He’d offer you up as a
sacrifice to his demon-gods, in time.”

“I think I’ll sail with you, then. I’m for Urgrik to the north.”

“We lift anchor tomorrow, a little past dawn. Ask for the
Hyssop, bound for the cold countries. We make a stop at
Urgrik.”

Niall ate at a seaside tavern, using his ears to feed on words
as he did his mouth to savor the kama-fish flavored with leeks
and spices. He heard one man tell how he had seen a pretty girl
being pushed into the wall-door of Maylok’s palace just before
down, a girl in ragged leather tunic and with black hair almost to
her haunches. Six men had hold of her, were forcing her along.

“She’s dead by now,” someone muttered.

“Too bad. She was a pretty thing.”

Niall did not betray himself by the slightest quiver of flesh,
but fury was alive inside him. He had liked Lylthia. By the
Wargod! She had been a fool, but his flesh had lusted after her. If
she’d been sensible and spent the night in his arms, she’d be alive,
now. Aye, and happy!

It might be too late to save Lylthia, but maybe he could find
a way to avenge her.

He sat on a piling and watched the sun sink, telling himself
that he was as much of a fool as Lylthia herself. Old Thallia had
warned him that demons would carry him off in Angalore. If he
were sensible, he’d walk over to the Hyssop right now and get
himself a good sleep in a hammock belowdecks, and forget
Lylthia.

Still, no one had ever praised his brains.

When the quays were in total darkness outside the faint
starlight, Niall began his walk. He was in no hurry, indeed, he was
rather reluctant to clamber onto that wall. He could think of better
ways to die than to be captured by demons. Still! A man had
to do what he felt was right.

The tree was big, but his muscles carried him up the thick
bole and in between the heavy branches as though he were a
monkey out of the jungles of Poranga. He ran out on the branch
he had selected earlier in the day and paused.

The gardens were dark, the wall was empty. Lights were on
in the palace, he could see flickering candles and torches through
open windows, and once he thought to hear a scream of agony,
dulled by distance and the palace walls. He trotted forward,
swaying as the branch moved, and leaped.

For an instant he was in the air, then he was dropping down
onto the parapet, clinging to its rough stone with both hands and
swinging himself onto the wallwalk where he crouched, peering
about and listening.

There was no one in sight, neither guards nor watchdogs,
that he could discover. It might be a trap, but he had fought his
way out of traps before. And if by any chance Lylthia were still
alive, then he would bring her out of this pile of stones and carry
her with him to Urgrik. His hand loosed Blood-drinker in its
scabbard, made certain that his Orravian dagger was ready to his
grip, and then slid forward between the merlon-shadows.

No sentinel walked these walls, as far as he could tell. NOW
why was that? Did some awesome fiend patrol these pathways after
dark, lurking to attack and perhaps devour — or carry off —
some luckless trespasser? It might be Maylok’s whim to use
demons as his watchdogs. His hand tightened on the daggerhilt as
he moved.

At length he came to a doorway set into a tiny shed built
against an inner wall. His hand opened that door, he stepped into
Stygian darkness and down a flight of worn stone steps. His warboots
made no sound, nor was there any clank of swordchain or
linkmail, yet the hairs at the base of his neck bristled.

It was too easy!

There should have been an alarm, an attack, before this. The
wizard was no simpleton, he must have known that the tales of his
ill-gotten treasures would tempt thieves and footpads. They
would be protected, by what grim guardian he had no way of
knowing.

Men and hounds he did not fear. His steel could handle
those. It was the thought of demons which bothered him. Sooner
or later he would meet some snuffling cacodemon in this
blackness and be forced to fight for his life.

Yet he strode on, down the ancient steps and along a norrow
corridor which must run beneath the gardens. From far away he
could hear the dripping of water and nearer at hand the click of
rats’ nails along a stonework floor. Rats? Or — devil imps?

He lifted out Blood-drinker and moved with the blade always
before him, as a blind man uses a wooden stick. He saw nothing,
the ebon gloom was everywhere, pressing in upon him. And yet —
as he turned a corner of the passageway, he beheld a redness up
ahead.

It was only a wink of light, shifting, quivering. It seemed like
a tiny corner of the Eleven Hells of Emelkartha broken free of the
barriers that kept them from this world. Yet it served as a beacon
to draw his footsteps forward.

He came into a low-ceilinged chamber, the walls of which
were purplish in the radiance of flickering torchflames set into
that stone. A carved and runed altar stood upon a dias reached by
stonework steps, and on the flat surface of that shrine to devilry
lay a naked woman.

Niall took a step forward, and another. He growled low in his
throat. That lifeless body at which he stared belonged to —

Lylthia!

Dead she lay, unmoving, with one arm flung limply over the
edge of the altar, her eyes wide and staring upward at the low
dome above that was marked with strange and alien signs and
sigils. Her black hair was dark and wet, her skin the pallid hue of
death itself. No! Even more! Her smooth skin was so white it
almost hurt the eyes, as though every last drop of blood had been
sucked from her flesh.

Niall glared about him, sword up and ready to thrust, to slay
as Lylthia had been slain. Yet there was no foe, no enemy to
cleave. It was quiet as a tomb, this charnel room, with only his
own breathing to break the stillness.

His eyes went over that face, lovely even now in death. Her
lips had lost their redness, her cheeks their tinting. But the traces
of beauty lingered, and something inside the Sellsword sorrowed
to its sight. They had reaved her tattered leather tunic from her,
her body was nude. As she had come into the world so she had
gone from it.

“He’ll pay,” Niall whispered. “Somehow, I’ll find a way to
make him pay.”

He touched her hand, squeezing the cold flesh just once,
then moved on, past the altar to an ironbound door that opened
beyond it into another corridor. This passageway was lighted by
torches at distant intervals, and as his eyes raked it, he saw that it
was empty — or was it?

For as he walked he seemed almost to see a blackness in the
darker shadows, a blackness that flitted ahead of him, that ran
and curved and leaped, seemed almost to — beckon. Niall
growled in his throat. He did not like such shadows, that went
before him so enticingly.

He followed that shadow, dogged its fluttering steps, for the
urge to slay Maylok was strong within him. He must pay the
warlock with the same fate he had given little Lylthia. Nothing
less would satisfy the barbaric urge to slay that rode him with his
every heartbeat.

When he came to a curving stone staircase, he paused, but it
seemed that the shadow was still before him, lifting an arm as if
to urge him onward. With a grunt, the Sellsword raced up those
steps, his blade ready for instant use —

— and burst into a vast chamber.

He slid to a stop at sight of the lighted bowls about the room,
at sight of the pentagram glistening red in blood, within which
stood a tall man cowled in purple robe on which were stitched in
golden threads the secret symbols of the demon worlds. Rigid
stood the necromancer, his face pale and almost skull-like under
the cowl that covered his head, a grim smile upon his thin, cruel
mouth.

“Welcome, Niall of the Far Travelings. I have waited for you,
even since you came through the land gate, two days hence.”

“You slew Lylthia. For that you die.”

Maylok chuckled. “Do I, Far-traveler? Behold!”

From beyond the blazing bowls men came rushing, big men
in chainmail and with swords and axes, maces and warhammers
in their hands. They rushed at Niall, and their weapons gleamed
redly in the bowl-lights. Niall snarled and went to meet them.

This was why he had been born, to fight, to slay, to wield a
sword as though it were a scythe of Death itself. Maybe he was
allied to Death, for Death rode where Blood-drinker cut and
slashed. With a roar, he fended off a blade and hewed his steel
through a neck.

He was in the midst of his attackers, then, whirling, darting,
dodging a blow from mace or axe, freeing Blood-drinker to this
feast of flesh which had been provided for it. He did not fight as
an ordinary man fights, with care and caution, as ready to ward
off a blow as he might be to strike one.

Nay! When Niall fought, he sought only to kill. His eyes saw
an opening, his arm controlled the sweep of his sword, and when
that blade fell, it was already lifting to strike again.

Pantherish were his leaps, lionlike his bellowed challenges.
Men fell away before the onslaught of his steel, men died where
they faced him or backed away. Yet always the swords and maces
hammered at him, though more often than not he avoided their
blows.

From his eye-corners, he saw Maylok moving restlessly about
the pentagram, crying out encouragement to his guards. Yet
there was a palsied fear upon the wizard; never had he seen a man
battle as Niall fought now, with a reckless disregard for his own
safety, concerned only with slaying all those he could reach with
that long blade.

More men rushed from behind the lighted bowls, they
hemmed Niall in, they offered their flesh to his blade in order to
bring him down. The flat of an axe took him across the side of his
head, a mace thumped his swordarm, numbing it.

When he had no more room to swing Blood-drinker, he
-dropped it and clawed out his Orravian dagger and buried it in
chest and throat and belly. His other hand he used to sink ironstrong
fingers deep into throatflesh and choke out life from the
man he held.

Even his massive muscles tired, after more than three hours
of such battling. There were dead men on the floor, and pools of
their blood on which his warboots slipped. Once more a mace
thumped his arm, again the flat of a blade landed on his skull. He
went to a knee, half-conscious, but still he fought. Not until hands
caught his arms and held them and someone swung a warhammer
did he go down.

Half-dazed he lay there, held by bleeding, desperate men
who panted and sobbed in their tiredness, seeing Maylok as
through a rheumy veil approach, to stand above him.

“No man has ever fought like you, Far-traveller,” whispered
the exultant wizard. “Your blood shall be a strong elixir in my
vials and alembics. Take him below to the dungeons and chain
him there against my need.”

They dragged and half-carried the still-struggling Niall out
of the spell-chamber, down the worn steps and into the deep pits
below the palace, where the stink of rotting flesh warred with the
moans of men and women imprisoned here, kept for the torment
and the blood-letting.

To huge chains inset in the stone walls they fastened Niall,
his arms apart, so that they seemed almost to be torn from their
sockets. He could stand only with difficulty, for those links
suspended even his giant frame a little. And then they mocked
him.

“The wizard will make you pay for what you’ve done,” one
said with a grin, blood running down his gashed face.

“He’ll keep you alive a long time, torturing you from day to
day, to test your ability to suffer.”

“I’ve known him to cook a man alive, over two weeks,
burning a little of him at a time.”

“Another man he flayed over the period of a full month, to
pay him for a slight.”

They hit him with their fists and kicked him with their boots,
but he stood stoically, with his eyes wide and glaring. One man
carried his dagger and Blood-drinker in his hands, and these he
thrust into his scabbards with a mocking laugh.

“I’ll leave them here with you, but where you can’t reach
them. So near and yet out of reach. It may add to your torment,
having them so close yet unable to use them.”

They went away after a time and left him in the blackness
where only a distant torch shed any light. His head drooped, he
was feeling the cuts and slashes now, the batterings he had taken
from mace and war-hammer. Pain was an agony along his flesh
and veins, and a raging thirst dried his throat and tongue.

He tugged at the chains, but they were tight-set in stone, and
massive. His arms were stretched to their fullest length so he
could exert little or no strength. His legs were tired of standing,
yet he could not sleep for the manacles about his thick wrists dug
their steel into his flesh when he would have relaxed. He stared into
the darkness and muttered curses beneath his breath.

He sought to doze but the rats came, grey monsters that
stood on their hind legs and sought to bite his knees and thighs,
bared above his warboots. These he kicked away, killing some by
the force of those kicks, but they remained away for only a short
time, being driven by starvation. He heard men scream, and
women too, from somewhere off in these pits, and he knew that
Maylok was supervising their torture.

His time for that would come, he supposed, and made a wry
face. He did not mind a clean death, but torture was repugnant to
him. Fury at the wizard burned inside him, and his body shook in
his rage so that the chains rattled.

Something touched him, soft as thistledown, so that it
seemed not so much a touching as a faint caress. And his tiredness
welled up in him so that he hung in his chains and slept. No
rats came now to nibble at him, he heard not the screams of dying
men and women. Deep were his slumbers, and dreamless.

When he woke, he was refreshed. His wrists hurt him where
the manacles had held his sagging body, but there was a renewed
vitality in his great muscles and he stood defiantly, as though
daring his captors to approach. He had no knowledge of the time,
but that distant torch still glowed, though only fitfully, enabling
him to see a little better around him.

Once more that thistledown softness touched him and now
he glanced sideways, and his flesh crawled for a moment. The
shadow was with him!

It was little more than a deeper darkness against the
blackness of the dungeon, but he could make it out. Was this
some fiend sent by Maylok to bring him some undreamed-of torment?
But no. Or if it was, it did nothing but stare at him.

Niall stared back and now — but faintly — he could make
out greenish eyes in that umbrageous shape. He shook himself,
the chains rattled.

“What are you?” he rasped. “What?”

The shadow did not speak, but stretched out a slim arm at
the end of which was a shadow-hand. And at the tips of slim
fingers, greenish balls of fire began to glow.

His torture would begin now, the Far-traveler knew. Curse
Maylok by all the eleven hells for —

The green balls touched a manacle, not his flesh.

And where the manacle had been was only — rusted powder.
That powder fell away, the chain dropped and his mightily
thewed left arm was free. Again those green balls moved, to touch
the other manacle and Niall stepped away from the stone wall.

“My thanks,” he growled. “Whoever you are.”

The shadow danced before him as if to lead him away from
the dungeon wall. Niall put hands to his swordhilt and his dagger,
lifting them half out of their scabbards, and then he went after
that flitting shape.

It ran before him, dancing almost in its eagerness, luring
him as once before it had beckoned him on. But there was a difference
in the shadow-being now; it did not slink but cavorted,
spiralled and swayed — more gracefully than any dancing girl he
had ever seen. It reminded him almost of that dream he had had,
in which Lylthia had danced for him.

The shadow moved and where it went, Niall followed. To a
small chamber it led him, and touched the iron bars and locks of
its vast oak door with the green balls at the tips of its fingers.
Niall put a hand to those plankings and pushed the door inward.

Chests lay piled one atop the other here, with small coffers
and caskets above and beside them. The shadow gestured and the
Sell-sword lifted the cover of one and then another.

He saw diamonds piled high in one, emeralds in another,
golden coins in yet a third. Again the shadow-being waved a hand
and Niall filled his money pouch with jewels and golden coins until
it overflowed. There were treasures here gathered during
Maylok’s lifetime and the lifetimes of his father and grandfather,
who had been famous sorcerers in their own right. He would have
liked to take it all, but knew it was beyond his power to carry.

At the far door, the shadow waited, and finally Niall went
with it, running after it as it picked up speed. Through winding
passageways and up dusty stairways long forgotten did the
shadow-being take him, until they came at last to a walled-up
doorway.

With the green balls, the shadow touched those stones and
the stones melted to run in molten slag down onto the floor.
Beyond the opening thus made was a dark drapery. This, Niall
pushed aside.

He stood on the rim of the necromantic chamber where
Maylok could be seen through the smoke of the flaming bowls,
head flung back and arms raised high, as he chanted in some
Forgotten, phylogenetic tongue. He was not aware that Niall was
in his necromantic chamber, he was engrossed in his incantation.
The shadow danced forward, pointing to Maylok and gesturing
the Sell-sword forward.

Niall went at the run, yanking out the Orravian dagger. He
would not bother to use his blade on the wizard, deeming him not
worth the trouble of lifting Blood-drinker. As he ran, the shadow
went with him and now he felt again that thistledown softness of
its touch, where it clasped his wrist.

Maylok whipped around, startled by the faint sound of warboots
on stone. His eyes opened wide, his lips parted to scream.

Then Niall was over the blood-wet pentagram and raising his
dagger for the death stroke. But the shadow was ahead of him,
reaching out with its dainty hands for Maylok and the wizard
screamed indeed when he saw that graceful blackness reaching
out to gather him into its embrace.

Niall could not move. He paused in midstroke, not wanting
to harm the shadow — not even knowing if he could — but seeing
that shadow now as that of a pretty girl.
“Lylthia,” he whispered.

“Not Lylthia, no. But once I was — yes,” hissed a voice.

Laughter rang out, cruel and mirthless.

The palace swirled about Niall as he swayed drunkenly inside
that pentagram, feeling feeling the floor shift under his warboots,
knowing a dizziness induced not by blow of weapon but by
some demonaic spell. Faster the palace moved, faster, faster. He
could not stand, but reeled and would have fallen but for the cool
hand that caught and held him.

He stood in redness.

Beneath him the floor was of scarlet stone, faintly hot.
Around him rose gargantuan walls of a brilliant carmine streaked
with slashes of deepest ebony, on which were hung strange
tapestries and golden vessels. Massive columns of black and vermilion
rose upward toward a distant roof half-hidden by redly
glowing mists.

A thin high squealing caught his ears. Maylok was groveling
on the warm stone floor, beating at it with his fists and scratching
with his nails. His purple cloak and cowl were already smoking,
his body writhed as though he were in torment.

“Save me, Far-traveler,” he mewled. “Save me and my
treasure is yours. All the jewels, all the gold that my forefathers
and I have gathered together, shall all be yours. And I — Maylok
the Mighty, the wiseest wizard in the world, shall be your slave!”

Niall growled, “I ought to kill you, you foul slug.”

“Yes!” Maylok screamed, struggling upward to his knees
and presenting his scrawney throat. “Slay me! Slay me and take
my treasures. Only do me this favor, Niall of the Mighty Arms —
kill me, kill me!”

Soft laughter floated through the vast room. It mocked and
taunted and when it touched the necromancer he grovelled on the
floor.

“Great Emelkartha — spare me,” he bleated.

“Too late for mercy, Maylok. Nah, nah. You pay the price.”

And Maylok screamed.

In the midst of that screaming, a woman came forward, clad
in diaphanous robes of crimson streaked with jet through which
Niall could see the flesh tints of her body. Long black hair floated
down about her shoulders and her green eyes blazed with fury.
On her full mouth was a cold, cruel smile.

“Lylthia,” he whispered.

The green eyes slid sideways from the cringing necromancer
to touch the Sell-sword, and it seemed to him they softened. “Not
Lylthia, no. Not any more. Know me, barbarian, for Emelkartha
herself.”

Niall said boldly, “Too bad. I think I could have loved
Lylthia.”

Her mouth lost its cruelty, grew softly amorous. “The
woman part of me knows that, Niall of the Far Travelings, and —
thanks you.

“At first I was angry with you for saving me from Maylok’s
men. I wanted to be taken by them, to be drained of blood, so that
I could become — a shadow being. Yet you did me a favor and for
that I am not ungrateful.

“You could pass the pentagram. Not even I could do that,
not as Lylthia nor as her shadow. Yet by touching you, your
strength drew me along — to catch Maylok in my arms and bring
him here to my eleven hells, as men name this domain over which
I rule.”

She was silent and Niall scanned her features, finding them
more beautiful than ever, with broad brow and tiptilted nose and
those full lips exerting a sensuous appeal that shook him to his
marrow. He licked his lips. Old Thallia had been right. A demonwoman
had carried him off the world and into her abode. He
wondered if he would ever return.

The green eyes glanced at him slyly.

“Well, Niall? Would you stay with me and be my lover?”

He found himself nodding, and she smiled but shook her
head. “Nah, nah, you may not — though a part of me would like
to keep you here. This place is not made for — human flesh. It
cannot endure the heat and mephitic vapors for very long —
without pain.”

Demon from page 23

Maylok screeched and banged his head against the hot floor.

Emelkartha whispered and now eerie shapes to which Niall
could not put a name ran from the walls to lay tentacles upon
Maylok and lift him to his feet. He was sweating, gasping for
breath, trembling as with the ague.

“You made a mock of me, magician,” whispered Emelkartha,
and how her voice burned the eardrums with its rage. “For
that you shall suffer. As you have made your fellow-man suffer, so
now shall you, from the first to the last of my eleven hells. You
shall be tortured to death, yet shall be reborn after each death so
that you may suffer even worse torments. Eleven times shall you
die, eleven times shall you be reborn, to begin anew — until the
end of Time itself!”

Maylok screamed and screamed. His body contorted and
twisted, but he was helpless in those rubbery tentacles that held
him. In this manner he was dragged across that hot stone floor
toward a distant doorway through which Niall could glimpse
blazing fires and upreaching flames.

They drew the wizard through the doorway.

For an instant he seemed to come to a dead stop, with his
sandals digging in at the stone floor. Peal after peal of agonized
fear burst from his throat when he saw what lay before him. Then
he was gone and steam rose up to blot out the sight of what was
being done to him.

The demon-woman looked at Niall inquiringly. “You do not
approve,” she whispered. “Yet Maylok has sinned against the
demon world for too long a time, holding us in thrall. Soon — he
would have been too strong for me to act against him, for he intended
summoning up megademons known to me who would
have prevented my disposing of him. His incantations are incomplete
and so my world — and yours — is safe from him,
forever.”

He nodded, he knew what wickednesses Maylok had done, of
girls ravished and tormented, of brave men broken and tortured
into mindless hulks, of treasures taken from rightful owners.
Maylok deserved these eleven hells.

There was nothing he, Niall, could do about it, anyhow.

His eyes ran over her body, so much revealed in the black
and scarlet transparencies she wore. He sighed, and with that
sigh, the woman-demon floated closer, tilting up her head and
lifting her bare arms.

Niall caught her in his embrace, held her a moment, and
kissed her. He would never forget that kiss. It burned deep into
him, seemed to lift him out of his flesh into another state of being
where pleasure was almost unendurable. His arms held this
lissom woman to him, and something inside him told him that no
mortal woman could ever afterward affect him as did this one
whom he had known as Lylthia.

“For now — farewell,” her voice whispered .

She was gone and he stood alone inside the pentagram in the
palace of the doomed wizard. A cold wind was blowing through
the building, that chilled and refreshed him. He shook himself,
touching his swordhilt for reassurance that he still lived, that he
was back in his own world.

His heart still thudded with the excitement of that last embrace.
Whatever else she was, Emelkartha was a woman, her
mouth had whispered to him of indescribable delights in that
kiss. He shook his head, telling himself that he had gained a rich
treasure in the gold and diamonds in his money pouch, but had
lost something worth much more.

“Lylthia,” he whispered as he walked through the forsaken
halls of the ancient palace. “Lylthia. . .”

Would Emelkartha ever appear to him again — in human
form? As — Lylthia? She had the power, certainly, being a
woman-demon. But would she? He did not know, all he could do
was hope.

He walked out into the gathering dawn and made his way to
the wall-gate, unmolested. It was as if, with the wizard’s death,
his servants had all fled away. Or — been destroyed.

A river breeze had sprung up. He moved along the street
toward the Hyssop, which would carry him to Urgrik. Yet there
was a sadness in him, despite the wealth in his pouch.

“Lylthia,” he whispered once again.

But the seawind caught the name and carried it away.

One	-	Two	-	Three
Dungeons & Dragons	-	Dragon magazine	-	The Dragon #2