Witch of the Four Winds & When the Idols Walked by John Jakes

Author:John Jakes [Jakes, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-6329-7
Published: 2012-07-06T01:29:00+00:00

Chapter IV

DLSBELIEF SAGGED BRAK’S JAWBONE in the awful instant when he realized that the idol in the yard below was no specter from stale dreams, but hard stone reality, somehow imbued with the power to move, to lift its ponderous feet as it was doing now, marching on a straight path toward the great house.

In the upper window from which the slave-girl had screamed, other heads appeared. Weird shadows bobbed inside the various wings of the house as lamps were hastily lighted. Male slaves, sleepy-eyed, stumbled onto the high porch behind Brak. One or two were armed with short clubs. Their talk was loud, confused, as they goggled at the stone thing marching across the yard below, its carved head swinging slowly from side to side as the white-fire cyclops eye in its forehead pulsed like some hideous gem.

Other slaves ran to the parapet of the roof. Against the misty moon, one girl was outlined stark and black, tearing at her garments and wailing, “It is Jaal! Jaal moving! Come to bring destruction on this house! Woe to all of us who wear the livery of Phonicios. The god is angered with him, and will surely murder us—”

“Simple woman!” bellowed a voice just behind Brak. He whipped his head around. The freedman Calix thrust through the frightened slaves. The moon shone on Calix’s sweating-cold cheeks, glinted on his curly red hair. But Calix had self-possession enough to bring along a short-sword. Now he waved it savagely toward the roof.

“Quiet that mewling female, you oafs up there! The rest of you be quiet as well!”

Immediately, from rooftop to porch, silence fell, except for the last, pitiful moanings of the girl who had been carried away from the parapet like one deranged. Calix crowded up close beside Brak. The two men leaned on the wide balustrade of the stone staircase. This stair led down the outer face of the house to the yard. There, the Jaal statue was advancing in a slow straight course toward the fountain which occupied the courtyard’s center.

The fountain’s circular wall was high as a man’s belly, constructed of granite blocks mortared together. In the fountain’s center a carved unicorn on a pedestal spurted a stream from its whorled horn. The water shone like black blood, highlighted by the glare from the statue’s eye.

The slave-girl’s hysterical cries died away. Only two sounds remained—the ripple of the splashing fountain, and the heavy crunch of the idol’s immense feet.

It was six lumbering steps from the fountain.

Now five.

Now four—

“This must be a mummer’s trick,” Calix whispered. “Often they disguise themselves as the Leveller at the time of the showing of the Sacred Lamb Fleece.”

Brak’s long braid bobbed as he shook his head. “No. Look how the moon glows on its shoulders. As it shines on marble. That is not painted cloth. See how the gates lie smashed. Mummers could not do that.”

“Then why should we wait? Let us attack the thing, destroy it.”

The steward started forward to the first step leading down to the yard.

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