“Please,” said I, “your hospitality is too much. A simple bowl of rice is all we need to eat.”
“You must eat meat.” The chief was firm. “We have few guests and would hear your news.”
I was amused, wondering what he would make of our real story. I had teamed in such circumstances to be a little vague, since oftentimes we had not even journeyed from any neighbouring kingdom, and thus could be unfamiliar with geography, customs and politics which might be the only experience of our hosts. We had become used to saying that we were upon a pilgrimage, in quest of a holy thing; that we were vowed not to mention it, nor the name of the Deity we worshipped. This way I, at least, was able to identify this fictitious god of mine with the gods of those we met. Sedenko, being still somewhat more pious than myself, preferred to say nothing.
As best I could, I described some of my adventures in the Mittelmarch and some of our experiences in our journey across Europe. There was quite enough for the Tatar chief to hear, and by the time we were setting to about the dog and the goat (both of which were stewed in the same pot, with a few vegetables) I think we had paid more than amply for our food and it was time for me to ask the chief:
“And what is this Genie which you guard?”
“A powerful creature,” he said soberly, “which resides in a jar. It has been imprisoned there for eons. Philander Groot gave it to us. In return for the gift of horses, we guard the Genie.”
“And what did you do before you became Guardians of the Genie?” I asked.
“We made war on other tribes. We conquered them and took away their horses, their livestock, their women.”
“You no longer make war on them?”
The Tatar shook his head. “We cannot. Even by the time Philander Groot came to us we had destroyed everyone but ourselves.”
“You wiped out every other tribe?”
“The Plague weakened them. We considered attacking Bakinax, but we are too few. Philander Groot said that with the power of the Genie we should not have to fear the Plague. And this seems to be so.”
“And what is Bakinax?” asked Sedenko.
“The City of the Plague,” said the Tatar chief, “It is where the Plague came from in the first place. It is created by a demon the citizens have with them. I have heard that they try to destroy the demon but that it feeds on the souls of men and beasts and that is why it sends the Plague to them. It sits in a sphere at the centre of Bakinax, eating its fill.”
“Yet your souls are untouched.”
“Quite. We have the Genie.”
“Of course.”
After we had eaten, the Tatar chief caused a brand to be lit and he took us to the outskirts of the camp where a little wooden scaffolding had been erected. From it, hanging by plaited horsehair, was a decorated jar of dark yellow glass. The Tatar held the brand close and I thought I saw something stirring within, but it might have been nothing more than reflected light.
“If the jar is broken,” said the chief, “and the Genie is released, it will grow to immense proportions and wreak a horrible destruction throughout Mittelmarch. The demon knows this and the folk of Bakinax know this and that is why we are left untroubled.”
He took a woven blanket and with some reverence draped it over the scaffolding, hiding the jar from our sight. “We cover it at night,” he said. “Now I will show you to our guest yurt. Do you require women?”
I shook my head. I had known no other woman since I had taken the Lady Sabrina’s ring. Sedenko considered the offer a little longer than did I. But then he also decided not to accept. As he murmured to me: “To sleep with a Tatar woman would be tantamount to heresy amongst the Kazak people.”
The yurt in which we were to sleep was relatively clean and had sweet straw upon the floor. We stretched out on mats and were soon asleep, although not before Sedenko had grumbled that he had lost considerable pride by missing the opportunity to kill a Tatar or two. “At very least I should have stolen something from them.”
When I awoke at dawn Sedenko had already been out, to relieve himself, he said. “It’s stopped raining, captain. One of the children said that it is only about a day’s ride to Bakinax, due west. It lies directly on our way. What do you think? We’re low on provisions.”
“Are you anxious to visit a place known as the City of the Plague?”
“I am anxious to eat something other than dog or goat,” he said feelingly.
I laughed at this. “Very well. We shall take the risk.”
I arose and washed myself in the bowl of water provided us, breakfasted off the rice brought by a shy Tatar maiden and stepped out of the yurt. The camp was only just beginning to wake. I strode through it to the yurt of the chieftain. He greeted me civilly.
“Should you come upon our friend Philander Groot,” he said, “tell him that we long to see him again, to do him honour for the honour he does us.”
“It is unlikely,” said I, “but I will remember your message.”
We departed on good terms. Sedenko seemed overeager to reach Bakinax and I suggested, after about half an hour, that he slow his pace. “Do the fleshpots become so attractive to you, my friend?”
“I would feel more comfortable with a city wall between myself and the Tatars,” he admitted.
“They plainly mean us no harm.”
“They might wish us harm now,” he said. He looked back in the direction of the camp. It was no longer visible. Then he reached behind him into a saddlebag and withdrew something which he displayed in his gloved hand.
It was the jar containing the Tatars’ Genie.
“You are a fool, Sedenko,” I said grimly. “That was a treacherous action to perform upon those who treated us so kindly. You must return it.”
“Return it!” He was amazed. “It is a question of honour, captain. No Kazak could leave a Tatar village without something they value!”
“Our friend Philander Groot gave that to them, and they gave us their hospitality in the name of Groot. You must take it back!” I drew rein and reached out for the jar.
Sedenko cursed me and pulled on his horse’s head to move out of range. “It is mine!”
I sprang from my horse and ran towards him. “Take it back or let me!”
“No!”
I jumped for the jar. His horse reared. He tried to control it and the jar slipped from his hand. I flew forward in an effort to save the thing, but it had already fallen to the hard earth. Sedenko was yelling something at me in his own barbaric tongue. I stopped to pick the jar up, noticing that the stopper had come loose, and then Sedenko had struck me from behind with the flat of his sword and I momentarily lost my senses, waking to see him clasping the jar to his chest as he ran back for his horse.
“Sedenko! You have gone mad!”
He turned, glaring at me. “They were Tatars!” he cried, as if reasoning with a fool. “They were Tatars, captain!”
“Take the jar back to them!” I clambered to my feet.
He stood his ground defiantly. Then he shouted wildly, as I came up: “They can have their damned jar, but they shall not have their Genie!” He dragged forth the stopper of the jar.
I stopped in horror, expecting the creature to emerge.
Sedenko began to laugh. He tossed the jar at me. “It’s empty! It was all a deception. Groot tricked them!”
This seemed to please him. “Let them have it, if you wish, captain.” He laughed harder. “What a splendid joke. I knew Philander Groot was a fellow after my own heart.”
Now, as I held the jar, I saw tiny, pale hands clutching at the rim. I looked down into it. There was a small, helpless, fading thing. As the air reached it, it was evidently dying. It was manlike in form, but naked and thin. A tiny, mewling noise escaped its wizened lips and I thought I detected a word or two. Then the miniature hands slipped from the rim and the creature fell to the bottom of the jar where it began to shiver.
There was nothing for it but to replace the stopper. I looked at Sedenko in disgust.
“Empty!” He guffawed. “Empty, captain. Oh, let me take it back to them. I threatened to ruin Groot’s joke.”
I forced the stopper down into the jar and held the thing out to Sedenko. “Empty,” said I. “Take it back then, Kazak.”
He dropped the jar into his saddlebag, mounted his horse and rode away at that breakneck pace he and his kind preferred.
I waited for some forty minutes, then I continued on westward, towards Bakinax, not much caring at that moment if Sedenko survived or not. I had consulted my maps. Bakinax lay not much more than a week’s ride from the Forest at the Edge of Heaven.
My foreboding grew, however, as I came closer to the city.
Sedenko, grinning all over his face, soon caught me up.
“They had not noticed its disappearance,” he said. “Is not Philander Groot a wily fellow, captain?”
“Oh, indeed,” said I. It seemed to me that Groot had had his own reasons for deceiving the Tatars. By means of that Genie, alive or dead, they survived and the people of Bakinax dared not attack them. Groot had given the Tatars life and a reason, of sorts, for living. My admiration for the dandy, as well as my curiosity about him, continued to increase.
The vast plain was behind us at long last when we came to a land of dry grass and hillocks and thousands of tiny streams. It had begun to rain again.
I reflected that the Mittelmarch appeared to have become bleaker in the year of our journey. It was as if less could grow here, as if the soul of the Realm were being sucked from it. I told myself that all I witnessed was a difference of geography, but I was not in my bones content with that at all.
In the evening we saw a city ahead of us and knew that it must be Bakinax.
We rode through the streets in the moonlight. The place seemed very still. We stopped a man who, with a burning torch in each hand, went drunkenly homeward. He spoke a language we could not understand, but by means of signs we got directions from him and found for ourselves a lodging for the night: a small, ill-smelling inn.
In the morning, as we breakfasted from strange cheeses and mysterious meats, we were interrupted by the entrance of five or six men in identical surcoats, bearing halberds, with morion helmets decorated by feathers, their hands and feet both mailed. They made it plain that we were to go with them.
Sedenko was for fighting, but I saw no point. Our horses had been stabled while we slept and we had no knowledge of their exact whereabouts. Moreoever, this whole country was alien to us. I had, as had become my habit, all Lucifer’s gifts about my person and my sword was at my side, so that I did not feel entirely vulnerable as I rose, wiped my lips and bowed to the soldiers as an indication that we were ready to accompany them.
The streets of Bakinax, seen in daylight, were narrow and none too clean. Ragged children with thin, hungry faces stopped to look at us as we passed and old people, in rags for the most part, gaped. It was not an unusually despondent place, this city, compared to many I had seen in Europe, but neither did it seem a cheerful one. There was an atmosphere of gloom hanging over it and I thought it well-named the City of the Plague.
We were escorted through the main square where, upon a great wooden dais, stood a huge globe of dull, unpleasant metal, guarded by soldiers in the same uniform as those who now surrounded us. The square was otherwise empty of citizens.
“That must be the house of the devil the Tatar mentioned,” whispered Sedenko to me. “Do you really think it lives on the souls of the people hereabouts, captain?”
“I do not know,” said I, “but I would cheerfully feed it yours, Sedenko.” I was not yet prepared to forgive him for his foolishness concerning the stolen jar. He, for his part, was absolutely unrepentant. He took my remark, as he had taken others, as a joke, craning his head to look again at the sphere as we were marched up stone steps and through the portal of what was evidently some important public building.
We were taken into a room lined on both sides with pews. Not one of the pews, however, was occupied. At the far end of the room was a lectern and behind the lectern, where a priest might stand, was a tall, thin man with a bright red wig, dressed in a gown of black and gold.
Said he in the Latin language: “Speak you Latin, men?”
“I speak a little,” I told him. “Why have we been brought here so roughly, Your Honour? We are honest travelers.”
“Not so honest. You seek to avoid the tolls. You have ridden through our sacred Burning Grounds and desecrated them. You have entered Bakinax by the East Gate and placed no gold in the plate. And those are only your main crimes. Do not offer me your hypocrisy, sir, as well as your offences! I am the Great Magistrate of Bakinax and it was I who ordered you arrested. Will you speak?”
“We cannot know your laws,” I said, “for we are strangers here. If we had been aware that your Burning Grounds were sacred we should have ridden clear of them, I assure you. As for the gold which must be placed in the plate, we will willingly pay it now. None challenged us as we entered.”
“Too late to pay in gold,” said the Great Magistrate. He cleared his nose and glared at us. “You cannot claim that nobody told you of Bakinax as you journeyed here, for it is a famous place, this City of the Plague. Did no one mention our demon?”
“A demon was mentioned, aye.” I shrugged. “But nothing was said of tolls, Your Honour.”
“Why come here?”
“For fresh supplies.”
“To the City of the Plague?” He sneered. “To this awful City of the Demon? No! You came to cause us distress!”
“But, sir, how can we two cause a whole city distress?” I asked. The man was mad. I believed, reluctantly, that probably all Bakinax was mad. I regretted my decision to come here and felt in agreement with the Great Magistrate when he suggested that only a fool would seek out Bakinax.
“By being what you are. By seeing what you see!” replied the Magistrate. “We shall not be mocked, travelers! We shall not be mocked.”
“We do not mock,” I told him. “We promise that we shall not ever mention Bakinax again. Only, good sir, let us continue on our way, for we have a holy mission to perform.”
“Aye, indeed you have,” said the old man with some relish. “You must pay for your stupidity and your contempt for us with your souls. You will be given to our demon. Two of us shall thus be saved for a little longer and you will receive fitting punishment for your crimes. Your souls will go to Hell.”
At this I laughed. Sedenko had no idea what had passed between us. I told him roughly what had been said.
He was not as amused as I. Perhaps he did not really believe that his soul was already destined for Lucifer’s Realm.
Chapter XIII
“YOU, SIR,” SAID the Great Magistrate, addressing me, “shall be the first to fight our demon. None has ever beaten him. Should you, however, manage to kill him, the door of the sphere shall be released and you will be free. If you have not emerged in an hour, your friend will be sent to join you.”
“I am to be allowed to carry my sword?” said I.
“All you possess you may take with you,” he told me.
“Then I am ready,” I said.
The Great Magistrate spoke to his soldiers in their own tongue. One stood guard over Sedenko, while the rest escorted me from the Court and back into the square where the rain had again begun to fall.
We mounted steps onto the platform. The sphere had set in it a small round door which one of the guards approached. He was nervous. He put his palm against the handle and hesitated.
I saw a figure enter the square.
If anything, Klosterheim was even more gaunt than when last I saw him. He was grinning at me now. He was almost trembling with pleasurable anticipation. His black garments were stained and neglected; the purple feathers in his hat were matted and stringy and he had developed a peculiar, almost undetectable stoop. His eyes had that same in-turned insanity. He removed his hat in a mock salute as the door groaned open and the soldiers pushed me forwa
rd.
“Was this your doing, Klosterheim?” I asked.
The witch-seeker shrugged. “I am a friend,” he said, “to Bakinax.”
“Is this demon your gift to the city?”
He ignored me, signing casually to the guards.
With a wave to him I bent and entered the foul-smelling darkness, salty and damp, of the sphere. Crouching there, I blinked, peered, but saw nothing. The round door clanked shut behind me. Gradually I began to see. The light came from a peculiar substance washing the floor of the sphere. It was white and it was viscous and it was obviously, too, the source of the smell. Something emerged from it at the farthest point from me. The fluid at the bottom of the sphere made sucking sounds. There was no colour here. All seemed grey, black and white. The thing which moved through the liquid was larger than I. It had scales. It had a great, sad, misshapen head which had fallen to one side and almost rested on its left shoulder. Its long teeth were broken and its lips were ragged, as if they had been chewed to destruction. From one large nostril came a little vapour. The monster squeaked at me, almost a question.
“Art thou the Demon of the Sphere?” I asked him.
The head lifted a fraction. Then, after some while, a voice came from the back of its throat.
“I am.”
“Thou must know,” said I, “that my soul is not for eating. It already belongs to our Master, Lucifer.”
“Lucifer.” The word was distorted. “Lucifer?”
“He owns it. I can offer you no sustenance, therefore, Sir Demon. I can only offer you death.”
“Death?” It licked its torn lips with a ruined tongue. A smile seemed to appear on its features. “Lucifer? I wish to be free. I want to eat nothing more. Why do they feed me so much? All they have to do is release me from the pact and I will fly straight back to Hell.”
“You do not want to be here?”
“I have never wanted to be here. I was tricked. Through my own greed I was tricked. I know your soul is not for me, mortal. I could smell it if it were mine. I cannot smell your soul.”