Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 4 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Parallel Universe Publications
Published: 2022-06-11T05:00:00+00:00

IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

Edward Ahern

The evening before his departure, Ishtal the Old One provided last instructions. They knelt on the dirt floor within touch of each other, under Ishtal’s lizard skin covering, and spoke in a dead tribal dialect.

“You clutch at feelings for Hastet’s chattel and the urchin you two produced. The bitch sorceress will use that against you.”

Malame held silent. The Old One spoke truth. He still harboured feelings for Charlong and the child he had never met. And knew that Hastet, a woman magus as remorseless as his own master, would use those emotions against him.

“The sag-dugged sow will violate our agreement if there is the slightest discrepancy in what you provide from the unnamed beast. Observe all its terms. The beast has destroyed and consumed every mage and adept who has gone against it. I have advanced you as best I know, but I fear that in the end you will have to use your aberrant wits.

“As to your procreation, as the shrew and I agreed, she has kept the girl child. Do not fumble the spells which will ensure a boy, for that will be mine.”

The Old One stared at nothing for several seconds. “You have begun to inhale the winds of existence beyond our world, do not choke yourself on the fumes of this one.”

Malame nodded. He’d renounced comfort and the company of both women and men to start to achieve this. He didn’t rue his choice despite the deprivations that came with it.

As the Old One continued, Malame wondered about the rumours that his master and Hastet had, a century before, also been lovers. And knew enough to keep the question to himself.

Malame set out with the sunrise the next morning. Ishtal did not see him off. He rode for four days through wilderness and abandoned villages.

In the false dawn of the fifth day, as he was breaking camp, four warriors accosted him. Malame backed away and began to conjure. The two women and two men were lightly armoured and quick moving.

As they circled him, Malame’s spell took hold, and they turned against each other. The smaller woman had snake-strike quickness and was the last left standing. But not unharmed. She bled vigorously from cuts on her spear arm and thigh. Malame decided against exerting another spell and waited outside of thrusting range while she bled out. Once she began to stagger, he stepped in and cut her throat.

He left them as they lay, saddled up, and rode off. Two days later he came to Hastet’s compound. She remained as he remembered, sinewy, thin of body and hair, with rheumy eyes that seemed always to glare. She was dressed in an undyed wool shift whose thick, coarse fibres would give comfortable home to insects.

She faced him in the doorway of her stone-on-stone manse, studied him for several seconds, and gestured him inside. Malame noticed several alcoves with their own hearths. He and his magus were not used to such amenities. Both lived

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