“Perhaps you might have asked Titus Sulla what visions he saw, before judging him carelessly,” Ssrhythssaa advised, toying with his captive.
“King of Pictdom, you are a greater fool than these who serve me! Your bluster and brash arrogance can only be stupidity-or madness. But madman or bold fool, you shall come to serve me as do these slaves!
“If only more of the ancient wisdom survived, this tedious game would have been needless. In that lost age we would have secretly slain a fool such as you, and another king would have ruled in your guise-the exact image of Bran Mak Morn until death shattered the spell, and a betrayed nation beheld the visage of the serpent beneath the crown. But King Kull broke our power in that age, and in the eons since, our race has sunk far, too far.”
Ssrhythssaa paused, lost in reflection. “I am old, Bran Mak Morn, old enough to have watched the relentless degeneracy of my race into what it has now become. I have waited long centuries for a chance to reverse that ineluctable decline into final bestiality. Often I believed I had waited too long for my race-that we of the Serpent had sunk into such an abyss we could never resume our destined mastery of the earth. Your race usurped that mastery, stole our destiny from us. Helpless to turn the ebbing tide of my race, I could only wait and watch the inevitable descent into the slime.
“How ironic that your race-the Picts, our oldest and deadliest enemies-should cast into my possession the weapons I needed to reverse that ebbing tide! Many of the Romans survived massacre when we rushed upon them in the caverns beneath Serpent Gorge. For millennia we have stolen your women, set upon them on dark nights upon the moors. The progeny of such sporadic matings were a scale above the degenerate offspring of our own sickly blood, so I had observed.”
Ssrhythssaa’s inhuman laughter was as obscene as the long black tongue that flickered over his double row of curved fangs.
“The capture of the Ninth presented me with a considerable breeding stock. There were many of their women, and we spared a few of the males for slaves who eventually forgot their abhorrence of our women. Some of their offspring seemed to have slipped into curious mutations of the evolutionary scale, but after several generations I had bred a considerable body of strong warriors-although I think you would deem some of them not so stalwart to look upon as Claudius Nero.”
Bran’s curses could not express a portion of the revulsion that underscored his hate. Ssrhythssaa chittered in obscene revery.
“Almost a century was the breeding of my legion, Bran Mak Morn-but what are centuries to Ssrhythssaa the Deathless? And was not the time pleasantly spent?
“Were it not for Rome, I should have waited another century perhaps-bred a hundred such legions to sweep the earth. But Rome with its continent-ruling might is a threat to me. Not since in ages far beyond even my span of centuries has such an empire ruled the earth. I must strike soon, before the Romans suspect what waits even beneath the hills of their lands-soon, before Severus and his legions make even the wild Highlands of Caledon a conquered province.”
Ssrhythssaa’s hissing voice somehow achieved a ring of fanaticism. “Soon-for I yearn to lead my race forth from their burrows-forth beneath the moonless night, where the silent temples of the Serpent shall once more resound with the bleating of sacrifices…”
His voice drifted into unintelligible harangue. And Bran Mak Morn knew he must kill this serpent, even if his ghost must tear itself out of the fires of hell to slay Ssrhythssaa.
The ancient serpent-wizard returned from his dreams of unleashed abomination. Again the Pict felt the full force of those hypnotic eyes-and through utter revulsion fought back the psychic intrusion.
“You are strong, King Bran/ hissed Ssrhythssaa, breaking that loathsome contact. “But we shall soon see who is stronger.
“I need you, man!” the serpent-wizard demanded, frustrated anger giving birth to candor, candor of ominous portent for the Pict. “I need the armies of Pictdom to hurl against the swords of Rome’s legions. Claudius Nero’s legion is trained, after a fashion, armed with the plunder of the Ninth and of the Roman camp they massacred. But Legio IX Infernalis, as he pleases to style it, has not even the (strength of a full legion. I can recruit no more troops from my race. But Bran Mak Morn can summon the hordes of Pictdom to his victorious standard. Yes, and even the Celts will follow you once your conquests sweep the Romans from the land.
“I must have you, Bran Mak Morn! I must have your apish hordes as inexhaustible meat for the legions’ stabbing spears and chopping swords! The legions have butchered such barbarian hordes by the tens of thousands in a single battle. Your army shall dull their blades, exhaust their swordarms-crush the legions beneath your slain thousands so that Claudius Nero can easily destroy what is left.
“Pictish blood shall wash Roman steel from this land! Pictish blood shall win for my race its return from the shadows! Pictish blood shall pay the price for the eons your race has driven my race into hiding beneath the land that is ours by right of destiny!”
The ancient serpent-wizard glared at the man in the cage with that hatred which is deadliest because the hated object is also indispensable.
“So you understand, Bran Mak Morn, why there can be no possible fate for you but to obey. Only you can lead the armies of Pictdom. Five centuries have passed since I saw the last king of all Pictland; five centuries more shall not bring forth another.
“Had the knowledge our race once commanded survived the age of King Kull, this game should not have been necessary. Could I have bound you to me through deception, through temptations and threats that would have swayed a hundred other barbarian kings, it would have been far better for both of us. Enough! I sought to ensnare your will with all my craft and cunning.
“I failed. But your victory has cost you your soul.” Ssrhythssaa’s voice was almost impossible to understand for the hatred that poisoned each sibilance.
“I shall destroy your soul, King Bran. I shall pluck it forth as cautiously and as painfully as when these hands have flayed the skin of a maiden without flawing the delicate hide. And just as the skinless wretch still screams from the life that refuses to quit her raw flesh-so shall your disembodied soul howl in the shadows of hell, while the mindless husk, that men shall still call Bran Mak Morn, shall posture and prance as my consciousness gives it will!”
“I think I shall die first,” Bran stated flatly.
“I think not,” Ssrhythssaa mocked him. “For I shall be very, very careful. Infinitely more careful than when I amuse myself with the flaying knife, and it has been very many years since one of my subjects has died before I could hold the perfect skin up before her lidless eyes to admire.”
Ssrhythssaa gloated, “You understand something of the powers of the Black Stone, Bran Mak Morn. Do I now make idle boasts?”
“You lie, as your serpent-race has always lied,” Bran snarled, knowing that Ssrhythssaa spoke no lie.
“Claudius Nero is right,” Ssrhythssaa sneered. “Your bravado is tedious. Come, Atla. There are crucial points of this where I must make no mistake. I have certain materials that you shall examine with me.
“When I return, King Bran, I think you will then share certain knowledge with us as to the powers of the Black Stone. Perhaps such wisdom will amuse you, as your soul drifts forever in hell.”
17
THE THIRD TIME
That moment in the darkness transcended all the terrors Morgain had thus far endured. The false hope of her escape, cruelly stifled after hours of blind wandering through this maze of enclosing stone-hope now stirred from the ashes by the distant rush of water, an unseen river that must flow somewhere beyond these caverns-a surge and fall of emotion that left the girl racked between utter despair and reborn hope. And as she sprawled amongst a litter of charnel refuse, exhausted and in pain, and clutched at the desperate hope of the distant river-the stealthy rattle of bones warned her that she was not alone in this place.