“What may I expect for the information?”
“Salt — as much as you can bear away.”
The Twk-man flourished his lance. “Salt? No. Liane the Wayfarer provides the chieftain Dandanflores salt for all the tribe.”
Mazirian could surmise the services for which the bandit-troubadour paid salt. The Twk-men, flying fast on their dragon-flies, saw all that happened in the forest.
“A vial of oil from my telanxis blooms?”
“Good,” said the Twk-man. “Show me the vial.”
Mazirian did so.
“She left the trail at the lightning-blasted oak lying a little before you. She made directly for the river valley, the shortest route to the lake.”
Mazirian laid the vial beside the dragon-fly and went off toward the river oak. The Twk-man watched him go, then dismounted and lashed the vial to the underside of the dragon-fly, next to the skein of fine haft the woman had given him thus to direct Mazirian.
The Magician turned at the oak and soon discovered the trail over the dead leaves. A long open glade lay before him, sloping gently to the river. Trees towered to either side and the long sundown rays steeped one side in blood, left the other deep in black shadow. So deep was the shade that Mazirian did not see the creature seated on a fallen tree; and he sensed it only as it prepared to leap on his back.
Mazirian sprang about to face the thing, which subsided again to sitting posture. It was a Deodand, formed and featured like a handsome man, finely muscled, but with a dead black lusterless skin and long slit eyes.
“Ah, Mazirian, you roam the woods far from home,” the black thing’s soft voice rose through the glade.
The Deodand, Mazirian knew, craved his body for meat. How had the girl escaped? Her trail led directly past.
“I come seeking, Deodand. Answer my questions, and I undertake to feed you much flesh.”
The Deodand’s eyes glinted, flitting over Mazirian’s body. “You may in any event, Mazirian. Are you with powerful spells today?”
“I am. Tell me, how long has it been since the girl passed? Went she fast, slow, alone or in company? Answer, and I give you meat at such time as you desire.”
The Deodand’s lips curled mockingly. “Blind Magician! She has not left the glade.” He pointed, and Mazirian followed the direction of the dead black arm. But he jumped back as the Deodand sprang. From his mouth gushed the syllables of Phandaal’s Gyrator Spell. The Deodand was jerked off his feet and flung high in the air, where he hung whirling, high and low, faster and slower, up to the treetops, low to the ground. Mazirian watched with a half-smile. After a moment he brought the Deodand low and caused the rotations to slacken.
“Will you die quickly or slow?” asked Mazirian. “Help me and I kill you at once. Otherwise you shall rise high where the pelgrane fly.”
Fury and fear choked the Deodand.
“May dark Thial spike your eyes! May Kraan hold your living brain in acid!” And it added such charges that Mazirian felt forced to mutter countercurses.
“Up then,” said Mazirian at last, with a wave of his hand. The black sprawling body jerked high above the tree-tops to revolve slowly in the crimson bask of setting sun. In a moment a mottled bat-shaped thing with hooked snout swept close and its beak tore the black leg before the crying Deodand could kick it away. Another and another of the shapes flitted across the sun.
“Down, Mazirian!” came the faint call. “I tell what I know.”
Mazirian brought him close to earth.
“She passed alone before you came. I made to attack her but she repelled me with a handful of thyle-dust. She went to the end of the glade and took the trail to the river. This trail leads also past the lair of Thrang. So is she lost, for he will sate himself on her till she dies.”
Mazirian rubbed his chin. “Had she spells with her?”
“I know not. She will need strong magic to escape the demon Thrang.”
“Is there anything else to tell?”
“Nothing.”
“Then you may die.” And Mazirian caused the creature to revolve at ever greater speed, faster and faster, until there was only a blur. A strangled wailing came and presently the Deodand’s frame parted. The head shot like a bullet far down the glade; arms, legs, viscera flew in all directions.
Mazirian went his way. At the end of the glade the trail led steeply down ledges of dark green serpentine to the River Derna. The sun had set and shade filled the valley. Mazirian gained the riverside and set off downstream toward a far shimmer known as Sanra Water, the Lake of Dreams.
An evil odor came to the air, a stink of putrescence and filth. Mazirian went ahead more cautiously, for the lair of Thrang the ghoul-bear was near, and in the air was the feel of magic — strong brutal sorcery his own more subtle spells might not contain.
The sound of voices reached him, the throaty tones of Thrang and gasping cries of terror. Mazirian stepped around a shoulder of rock, inspected the origin of the sounds.
Thrang’s lair was an alcove in the rock, where a fetid pile of grass and skins served him for a couch. He had built a rude pen to cage three women, these wearing many bruises on their bodies and the effects of much horror on their faces. Thrang had taken them from the tribe that dwelt in silk-hung barges along the lake-shore. Now they watched as he struggled to subdue the woman he had just captured. His round gray man’s face was contorted and he tore away her jerkin with his human hands. But she held away the great sweating body with an amazing dexterity. Mazirian’s eyes narrowed. Magic, magic!
So he stood watching, considering how to destroy Thrang with no harm to the woman. But she spied him over Thrang’s shoulder.
“See,” she panted, “Mazirian has come to kill you.”
Thrang twisted about. He saw Mazirian and came charging on all fours, venting roars of wild passion. Mazirian later wondered if the ghoul had cast some sort of spell, for a strange paralysis strove to bind his brain. Perhaps the spell lay in the sight of Thrang’s raging gray-white face, the great arms thrust out to grasp.
Mazirian shook off the spell, if such it were, and uttered a spell of his own, and all the valley was lit by streaming darts of fire, lashing in from all directions to spit Thrang’s blundering body in a thousand places. This was the Excellent Prismatic Spray — many-colored stabbing lines. Thrang was dead almost at once, purple blood flowing from countless holes where the radiant rain had pierced him.
But Mazirian heeded little. The girl had fled. Mazirian saw her white form running along the river toward the lake, and took up the chase, heedless of the piteous cries of the three women in the pen.
The lake presently lay before him, a great sheet of water whose further rim was but dimly visible. Mazirian came down to the sandy shore and stood seeking across the dark face of Sanra Water, the Lake of Dreams. Deep night with only a verge of afterglow ruled the sky, and stars glistened on the smooth surface. The water lay cool and still, tideless as all Earth’s waters had been since the moon had departed the sky.
Where was the woman? There, a pale white form, quiet in the shadow across the river. Mazirian stood on the riverbank, tall and commanding, a light breeze ruffling the cloak around his legs.
