Kellory the Warlock

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 1ON FIRE MOUNTAIN

It was the hour of sunfall. In the depths of the great green sea to the west, the sun-star, Kylix, died in a welter of crimson flame. And in the east the first of the three moons of Zephrondus had new-risen above the dark drear edges of the world, Sligon was its name: the Moon of Pallid Opal.

For three days now, the boy Kellory had made his slow and laborious way along the skyline of the mountains, and now he was in view of his goal at last. He stood on the scarps of glassy obsidian and stared upon Fire Mountain. And despite himself, he felt the taste of fear like brass upon his tongue.

He was tall, this youth, and nearly naked save for a scrap of cloth about his loins and dragonhide sandals strapped high on his long bare legs. Sun and wind had burnt him the hue of old, seasoned leather and his wild unruly mane of black hair—not yet woven in the single braid of a warrior—was held back from his eyes by a leathern thong about the brows. For all the bitter cold of the mountains and the fierce winds that, howling, roved about their wintry peaks, he went bare. The better to climb, unencumbered with the weight of furs: and, as well, he had dwelt among these icy peaks for five of his fifteen years, and the cold he was well accustomed to endure.

As the boy stared up at the great mountain, Yothlymbris, he felt aware again of the grim futility of his quest; yet the thought of turning back did not even occur to him. For five years had he fended for himself in this wild and lonely land, tracking the great apes of the mountains for his meat and, in winter, battling the snow wolves with flaming brands.

He had not seen or spoken to a human being now for three years. His life he held at little worth; what if he lose it among the perils of the peak? No one in all this world of Zephrondus would know or care of his passing, why then should he?

He was dark and lean, this boy, with hard, tough sinewy limbs and strength far beyond his young years. Under the wild mat of his unshorn mane, a narrow white scar snaked across his forehead to lose itself in his scowling black brows. Under those brows—strange in his dark, somber, bitter face—his eyes burned like weird green jewels. There was no laughter in them at all, nor softness in the hard, grim straight line of his mouth or the firm stubborn set of his well-molded jaw.

A long spear of thoyak wood was strapped across his broad shoulders. A crude dagger of rough-hammered iron lay in a scabbard strapped to his lean thigh. The cloth about his loins was held by a girdle of black supple leather about his waist, and fastened to this was a huge moontree-seed hollowed to make a water-gourd, and a coil of rope and a three-pronged bronze hook wherewith he had ascended the dizzying heights of the sheer cliff-walled chasms of these mountains. Save for these, he had nothing in the world. Except his memories, which burned like frozen iron. And the black leather glove he wore on his right hand.

Above him soared the sky-tall height of Yothlymbris: Fire Mountain, his people called it once. Now he saw the reason why. And, for the first time, he felt the sour taste of hopelessness.

Kellory was a savage of Barbaria, although his ancestors had been mighty kings. He could not read, neither could he write. And he had never seen a book in all his young life. Thus he had never heard the word volcano. But now as he stared up grimly at the flickering sheet of crimson flame that danced about the crest of Mount Yothlymbris, he knew why no man had ever come to the gates of Phazdaliom the Enchanter. With a moat of liquid fire about the castle on the crest, it was not surprising.

Not that any idle traveler would care to disturb the Green Enchanter, even without his blazing moat. In Zephrondus, as in every other world whereof I have knowledge (and they are legion), one does not lightly intrude upon the seclusion of magicians.

But Kellory had a very good reason: vengeance!

Now that he had paused long enough to catch his breath, he continued on his journey. From the glassy scarp whereon he stood, the chasm plunged down two thousand feet to dim enshadowed depths below. But across the chasm a flat boulder of black gneiss lay. If he could spring across the gap, he would be on the walls of Fire Mountain.

There was no spire or ledge above the level coign of gneiss which he could snag with the tri-pronged brazen hook that swung at his hip. So he would have to jump the gap. It was, or looked to be, twelve feet wide. So near. So very near. Yet to miss… He would not even live to feel the crimson agony as his body broke on the cruel rocks far below: the speed of his fall would smother him long ere he reached the bottom.

Kellory drew back to the farthest corner of the scarp of sleek obsidian—back, until his naked shoulders pressed against the ragged granite wall down which he had lithely clambered a few moments before. Then, bracing the sole of one foot against the wall, he pushed against it for extra leverage—and threw himself out, over the dizzying abyss and into space.

For one brief, flashing instant, he flew between earth and heaven. Then, in the next, he crashed flat, chest and arms and lean belly, against the edge of the black gneiss boulder. His legs hung over the lip of the chasm. His hands clawed desperately for a purchase on the smooth stone. They slipped, and he slid back a pace, so that his narrow hips were over the edge. But he bit his lip fiercely, and clawed for a purchase on the stone—and found one.

Slowly, inch by inch, he hauled himself up over the edge until he could slide one bare knee over the ledge.

At length, he lay flat on the gneiss boulder, exhausted, sobbing for breath, aching in every muscle, bruised.

But he had traversed the chasm. And he was on Fire Mountain at last.