The Land Below the Sunset

Chapter Ten

Propriano stood on the balcony and looked down on a city of ruins, a place of marble plazas submerged in moonlight, of broken columns and crumbled domes where the shadows lay like bolts of black silk. It was not a perspective he had ever imagined to see, the scene from this high vantage point in the Old City, south towards the blurred dancing lights of Deliverance. He was enveloped in quiet. It was like gazing out from a tomb.

Directly below spread an ornamental garden. The night made it look like an etching on lead. Wryly Propriano noted that Chendu had been right. Though most of the houses were derelict, this one was as well kept as a mausoleum. The garden too had been tended recently, the creepers hacked back and the hedges trimmed. There were people living still in the Old City.

He did not know how they had brought him here. After the encounter in the garden his memories became faded and frayed. Perhaps a drug had been used. He seemed to recall a scent on the dank night air - or had that just been the musk-rose? The details slipped away and sank in the depths of his mind.

He turned to discover something standing beside him at the window. It was with a slight thrill, not quite of fear, that he realized it was alive.

It was a habdigar, indistinguishable from the one Taltivin had killed on the day of the funeral. It leaned away from him in an eerily graceful high-toed stance that could carry it nimbly out of reach at any sign of threat. At this close range Propriano could see nothing human in the glittering black gaze. The broad crest, hard chitinous face and short raised forelimbs made it look something like a cross between an insect and a flightless bird, though it was obviously neither. Propriano, who had never in his life had to test the limits of his courage, was surprised to find he was not afraid.

The habdigar emitted a range of pipe-like chitterings and stalked to the window. Propriano thought it was inviting him to follow and moved cautiously across the balcony. Then a shadow loomed in the opening and Propriano felt the breathless fear that had so far eluded him.

"Propriano Astralis," said the newcomer through a sharp smile full of fangs, "I am Marquis Urufax En-Raulo of the House of Urlis."

He was big - bigger than any man Propriano had ever met - but it was a misshapen immensity that seemed to have its cause in some obscure malady. The fine robes strained across that swollen musculature like sheets stretched out on a boulder to dry. Under a heavy shelf of a brow, his eyes were slugs of molten metal freshly dripped from a furnace. And his entire jaw jutted outwards to accomodate serried rows of white feral teeth, so that his attempt at urbane speech was transmuted into a distorted rasping growl.

"My habdigars are curious about you," said Urufax. "They recognize you as one of the Invaders who killed their herd kin. It is by sound that they make this identification. The eyesight in fact is poor."

The contrast between Urufax's appearance and his conversation was so surreal that Propriano felt the wave of fear break itself against confusion. "Why have you brought me here?"

Urufax's taut lips tried to frame a smile. "A matter of destiny. But explanations can wait, as my condition makes lengthy exposition inconvenient. It will be easier to show you." He beckoned with a long-taloned hand. "Come, I have arranged an entertainment. You will be the guest of honour."

Propriano caught the sinister cadence. With the habdigar preceeding them down long silent corridors lit by blue candlelight, he fell reluctantly into step beside Urufax. It was unsettling to see the hot gleam in the Ancient lord's eyes and the way his massive hands flexed restlessly while he spoke with that veneer of courtesy. To Propriano it was like being in a cage with a tiger whose feeding time is fast approaching.

He let his mind race while he tried to think of a plan to get away. Chendu's remarks of a week before rose incongruously to mind. "'Urufax' - is that derived from the same source as Seh Refax? The mouth of the serpent?"