Winding one end around a pilaster of marble, he tossed the rest of the line out the open window, swung over the sill, took a firm hold of it, and let go with his feet.
Giddily, he swung through space, far above the paved forum below. Looking down, he was disconcerted to discover how high in the air he actually was. But he was not much disconcerted by the giddy height; like all Laonese, Janchan was immune to acrophobia.
Slowly he swung down, hand over hand..
The wind caught his cloak and spread it like black wings.
The pavement swung to and fro, two hundred feet under his heels.
The descent was not as difficult as it might have been. For one thing, the outer wall of the Temple was covered with carved ornament, which afforded him a variety of footholds. For another, he did not have to climb far, as the stories at this height were only about twenty-five feet apart.
At length his heel rasped against the stone of Niamh’s sill. Wooden shutters locked away the night wind, but he broke them open easily enough, and climbed in to greet the astonished girl.
The excitement of the promised rescue whipped color into her cheeks and brought a sparkle to her eyes. She laughed a bit excitedly.
“Last time you came in by the door; this time, by the window. What will it be next time—the flue of the chimney?”
He grinned, but laid a finger across his lips, enjoining her to silence.
“The guards are back outside your door,” he whispered. “Have you a lamp?”
“A lamp?” She frowned uncertainly.
He nodded and she fetched one, a hollowed sphere of lucent alabaster, filled with oil. At his gesture, she lighted the wick and he took it in both hands to set it on the windowsill, handing her the sword to hold.
A sound behind them—the rasp of sandal-leather.
They turned. The door stood open, and within the portal stood a tall woman between the two eunuchs. It would be hard to say which party was the most surprised.
The woman was superb and voluptuous, with full breasts cupped in sparkling blue jaonce and a girdle of strung pearls clasping her waist and draped across her swelling thighs. A bright red gem glittered in her navel, and her silky hair, faintly luminous with gold highlights, was woven through with small metal bells which chimed sweetly as she tossed her head, tiara flashing.
She stared at them incredulously. Under arched brows, her eyes were wells of amber flame, and her lips were full, moistly scarlet. She was remarkably beautiful, but her face was cold, proud, imperious, and lacked the softness and warmth that could have made it womanly.
It was, of course, Holy Arjala. Janchan was never to know what had impelled her to come to Niamh’s chamber on this night of Festival; suffice it to say that she had come at the worst possible time. For now her nostrils flared, her face whitened with fury, and she gestured with a small ceremonial jeweled whip.
The huge eunuchs lumbered forward, their calloused hands swinging from anthropoid shoulders, lamplight gleaming on their oiled torsos.
Janchan was disarmed. He had handed his sword to Niamh, while taking up the lamp. And now it was out of reach, for at the sight of the Goddess Incarnate the princess had shrunk back against the window.
He had nothing to fight with but the heavy bowl of alabaster, filled with liquid fire. So he hurled it at the first eunuch just as the huge creature sprang at him with a soundless snarl, massive paws flashing for his throat, to crush and maim.
The bowl caught him on the skull like a hammer-blow and shattered his skull. It, too, shattered, and rivulets of flaming oil ran across the floor in every direction. The heavy draperies with which the walls were hung went up in a sheet of flame; the heavily waxed parquet flooring ignited in a flash, and within a few seconds the room was a roaring inferno.
Arjala had leaped to the left of her eunuch when the lamp struck him, and she was now within reach of Janchan. She whirled on him, her face ablaze with fury, and struck out with the little jeweled whip. He seized it, twisted it from her hand, and flung her from him. She reeled back and fell against a table, striking her head. She lay there, stunned, a trickle of blood leaking down between her breasts from a small cut on her brow.
The second eunuch still lived, but there was nothing he could do, for a wall of seething flame now divided him from his mistress and the two they had surprised in attempting to escape.
He turned and ran from the room. But he did not call out to rouse the guards on the lower levels, which was peculiar. The answer flashed into Janchan’s mind, and he grinned slightly.
The Temple surgeons had cut more from the two eunuchs than just their gender. Janchan uttered a grim, ironic laugh. All of this mess had come about because he thought it too dangerous to try to cut down the guards with his blade, because he feared they would yell for assistance and rouse the place.
But they had been tongueless mutes, all the while!
They were doomed, of course. The room was a blinding furnace by now. Waves of heat baked them, singeing the floating silken locks off the princess and scorching the edges of Janchan’s cloak. They could escape the flames only by leaping from the window to the distant tiles far below. It was certain death; still, it was faster and cleaner than what they would face if they stayed here. For here they would be burned alive.
Suddenly, Janchan thought of the dangling satin cord whereby he had climbed down from the floor above! It still dangled before the open window, and by it perhaps they could climb to a higher level. It might thrust them into the hands of Temple Guards, for the halls must be alive with them by now, but even capture was preferable to death.
He bent to take up the limp body of Arjala. Enemy or not, he could not leave her here to die in the flames. That was too terrible a death to envision for one so beautiful, and he was too innately chivalrous to leave the helpless woman to such a doom.
Behind him, Niamh crouched against the window, staring into the flames.
Suddenly, from behind, a great clawed hand touched her shoulder, and she whirled about to stare into a weirdly inhuman face that peered down at her like something from a nightmare.
As its claws clutched her by the shoulders she screamed.
Part 5
THE BOOK OF KLYGON THE ASSASSIN
Chapter 21
WINGED HORROR
In these events I did not, of course, partake. I knew utterly nothing of them at the time, and it was not until very much later that I heard enough of the separate adventures of Zarqa and Janchan to reconstruct them; which reconstruction I have recorded here, so that these chronicles will be as complete and perfect as my poor skill can make them.
On that night when Prince Janchan left us to venture alone into the Yellow City, I lay awake, staring into the darkness, bitterly bemoaning my fate. That it should be by the hand of another that my beloved princess should be set free was intolerable to me and I viewed the notion with loathing.
At length I rose and silently dressed myself in warriors’ trappings and gathered up my gear, borrowing certain of the instruments which Zarqa had purloined from the Scarlet Pylon, and filling my pouch with the precious coins we had taken from the coffers of Sarchimus. Then I crept out of the tent of leaves into the darkness where the gaunt and faithful Kalood lay sleeping soundly on his pallet.
I could not endure the thought that it should be another who should rescue the woman I loved from peril, and not I myself. Prince Janchan was my tried and loyal friend, and a man of honor and chivalry, but I came close to hating him there in the secret watches of the night. That he should perform brave and gallant deeds before the admiring eyes of Niamh the Fair made me quiver with impotent fury.