Thief of Destiny: The Collected Saga of the Panther Read online

  "Have either of you dared to look at the ground?" Folami asked. "I feel like we've been walking on shells."

  "Odd..." Cleon directed his weir-light to the floor. The ground sparkled with the luster of pearl and malachite-hued lavender, robin's egg, and daffodil petals. Smeared on their path, a drying husk carpeted the floor.

  Folami dared the question. "What if that ferocious power is a ferocious beast?"

  Manwe’s two accomplices stood perfectly still. Cleon's light sputtered out, leaving them in the shadow-less dark again.

  "What say you, sorcerer?" Folami asked. "What are we doing here at this point?"

  "Searching," said Cleon, his voice filled with light amusement. "For a clue."

  "A clue." Manwe screwed his face, blind to anything around him. "What kind of clue can you find in a dead city?"

  "The kind that is required in understanding how a powerful enemy wishes to raise the dead," Cleon responded, as if the idea were the simplest thing in the world.

  Manwe looked to where he thought Folami stood, imagining the sour expression on her face.

  "Look," said Cleon, taking up the fresh silence, "let's keep going until we have to make camp again. If we don't find a way out of this tower, we can work our way back to the channel. From there, we can return to the surface, having wasted our time finding something to use against Voduni Calla, or we can go down some other way and hope, against the odds of these underworlders and gods-know-what else lives here, that we find what we are searching for."

  Folami signaled her surrender first in the dark, her sigh heavy. "If we run into this beast, I'm throwing the sorcerer at it first."

  They traced the trail of sloughed scale, though the only sign they knew of its presence was the odd crunching beneath their feet, a sound that fed the terror crawling Manwe's back the longer he walked.

  Manwe found that terror at the bottom of the stalactite tower.

  The approach had started as the day had, trapped in the absolute absence of light save for the spells Cleon sometimes conjured. The rooms they passed, the wreckage of what had been once-fine apartments, were appropriately furnished to allow wholesome comforts—a soft bed, a solid bench, and places to gather around what light there was. Manwe spotted reflective mirrors knocked out of alignment, a sure sign that who lived there did so with impressive technological achievement.

  For a city beneath the earth that was clearly ancient, these small things bore solid testaments to something man had done in a place where man was not supposed to be. Beautiful columns carved from the rock, decorative only, accented what Cleon guessed to be temple halls, chambers for quiet contemplation and learning of what lay beneath the material of humanity.

  Perhaps, Manwe admitted to himself, these halls were the places holy ones should go, the darkness where they stripped senses for the sharpening of the mind. Before the beast, he guessed—before the beast and the underworlders picked their civilization clean, leaving behind the desolation he now mired in.

  Were the underworlders not like the Gypians if the westerners had simply been more honest? Or what if the underworlders were stronger than the westerners? What if only the sun kept them from doing what all conquerors were born to do?

  Manwe was the first to spot the light in the hall. Faint and aubergine, it lit the place where the wall met the floor in a broken strip, its third quarter bent at an obtuse angle. "Look," he said, desperate. The hope of light called too loudly.

  Renewed by the sheer idea of something other than darkness, the trio charged through the rooms without the stealth they had maintained. They reached the lighted hallway cast purple by the ensconced flames burning in a pair of stone holders.

  At the end of the passage opened a way to a wide bridge in the open air, connecting the first tower with the second.

  And someone stood upon it.

  Peering toward them, he held his loaded sling at the ready. A slight man with dark skin powdered to a coarse ivory, he stood vigilant, his focus exuded in his poise. Behind him rose the doorway to the next tower, its entrance barricade by pile of broken furniture.

  "He doesn't look like an underworlder," Manwe said. "He knows we're coming."

  "There's no scale on the bridge," noted Folami, crouched behind him. Cleon waited behind her, his gaze set on Manwe. The sorcerer had folded his arms together, deep in thought.

  "What is it, Cleon?" Manwe asked.

  "Folami is right." The sorcerer examined to the flat stone floor. "Look around. There is not a speck of it, even in here."

  "Which means the beast didn't make it this far down the tower," Folami concluded. Her obsidian eyes widened. "That means it left before we came or we sneaked right past it."

  “If that is the case…” Manwe stepped out into the hall, making sure his knife was hidden behind his back. The powdered peltast froze when he walked under the purple torches and out into the cool air of the underground. His hands out at his sides and open, he presented himself to the native, showing no sign of threat.

  "Do you speak?" he called.

  "Of course I speak," the peltast said in a smooth, low tone. "Who are you? How did you get here?"

  "My name is Manwe. The vodunis on the surface told us that the vodunis beneath could help us. We face a grim evil in the world the sun touches."

  "You come at a horrid time." The peltast looked past him into the purple tunnel. "Who else is with you?"

  "Two others," revealed Manwe, seeing no point in a lie. The way went forward or back, and he dreaded what they might find if they went back. "We came from the channels that lead to The Maw."

  "We know of the door." The peltast loosened his hold on his weapon. He stared hard at Manwe with a deep curiosity. Manwe noticed his attention wane for only a moment as Folami and Cleon made their sojourn down the magenta passage. "Did you see it? Is it gone?"

  "Is what gone?" Manwe asked.

  "The Koebeeng," he said. "The Dead Man brought it here when the Witch People invaded. The beast forced us into the Tower of the Elegba when it took the Tower of Lacroi, where we thought it had nested."

  Cleon approached Manwe's side with Folami in tow, his red robes fluttering in the slight breeze flowing through the great cavern. "Why the barricade then, my friend?"

  "It is to stop the Witch People," answered the peltast.

  "And who are they—"

  The bridge rocked when a force struck underneath its wide stone platform. Both Manwe and Folami took a knee, a more stable position, while Cleon, without a moment of hesitation, whipped out his wand on his way to the edge. The peltast ran to stop him when a second impact rumbled, this time with a flash of strange light. Rocking to the side to save his balance and stay away from the edge, he reached out toward Cleon.

  The dead city below launched another volley of strange black orbs that seemed to float up toward the ceiling of the cave. Illuminated in a light that was not light, Manwe was the first to notice a shifting line on the face of the nearest cave wall. A tail slipped from sight, hidden by shadow.

  The Tower of Lacroi shuddered suddenly, as if a great weight had entered so violently Manwe wandered how it all did not fall away. A hard scraping sound grew in its wake.

  The sound panicked the peltast. “We must flee!"

  Manwe stood frozen as the tower shuddered, ignoring Cleon when his lover yanked on his arm to pull him to the other side. Folami sprinted to the other end of the bridge, letting the peltast lead her through the odd angles of the barricade.

  "We have to leave," Cleon shouted as more black lights slammed into the towers. "Panther!"

  "I have to see it," Manwe said, hollow. "I need to look it in the eye."

  "I've no time for your heroics! We must evade if—"

  The tremendous bellow of the Koebeeng silenced him. At the end of the purple tunnel where the darkness fought at the edge of torch light, six luminescent eyes radiated azure. Bright enough to reveal the beast’s horrid face terrible visage, fangs longer than a man's forearm protruded from a tall
, wedge-like head, the flats scarred by the bleeding cuts the stone had made where it passed. Strange whiskers along its bloody lips writhed like maggots.

  Cleon raised his wand and fired.

  Manwe leaned back against the stone door, his eyes to the blue lamp hanging above them. The bowl filled by the cerulean flame swung and shuddered each time the Koebeeng's hammer face crashed the other side, filling him with dread that it would spill, burning them alive.

  "I don't know what came over me." Cleon braced beside him in the pause between the cryptid's strikes. He pushed his thumbs on the length of his wand, bending the copper ever so slightly. He looked at Manwe, honest surprise in his eyes. "I didn't even think."

  "I know." He clenched his hands into fist as the Koebeeng drove hard into the door. He grunted in frustration and thrust his elbow back, nearly shouting at the bone sting. "I should have listened when you told me to run."

  "Oh, my dear Manwe," said Cleon, "what would ever happen in the world if you listened to me?"

  The question elicited laughter, a sound at odds with the pounding of the fell beast outside. Slowly but surely Manwe’s hand slid to the sorcerer’s, fingers playing until they rested, intertwined in a surprising moment of peace. Theirs remained together until the attack stopped. The Koebeeng slithered across the bridge, rising up into the Tower of Lacroi, and fell silent.

  Sore from the monstrous assault, the pair rose from their places and stretched their tired backs. The next chamber of the Tower of Elegba's lowest level lay a short distance, ending in another hallway lit by a second blue lamp hung from the ceiling.

  Folami waited in the corner with a cadre of the peltast's companions, young vodunis who had come beneath the earth. They stood ready, peering around corners with slings and spears in their grasps. Easing when Manwe and Cleon cornered the hall, the entire mass met them.

  "Do you two need help?" the Songbird asked, concern on her dark face.

  "It must be able to carve off chunks of the wedge on its face," mused the peltast, disconnected from the conversation. "It couldn't fit past the other tower's door the last time."

  "What happened here?" Manwe asked.

  The peltast cast his eyes to the ground, avoiding the question. "I am Voduni Anansi. By what names would you take? Why have you traveled to this realm beneath?"

  "We seek the wisdom of your brethren," said Cleon, his robe tomato red, a curious enchantment in the azure light. "One who came from beneath wars against life above. We seek to know what you can tell us about Voduni Calla, a cursed shaman who raises dead from the earth."

  Anansi's eyes lifted. "Who are you to know of a Dead Man in the sunlit world?"

  "A dead man," Cleon replied, pleased with the unbidden revelation. "What an apt name."

  "It is true," said Manwe. "The revolution to free the savannah of the Gypians sullied itself to bloody evils. Even now ruin marches upon us, a meeting of forces that will bring nothing but hell."

  "And so you thought to seek an answer to a Dead Man's power." Anansi traced his powdered fingers in his brown palm, his eyes far off for a moment. "And the rise of the Witch People is recent compared to even that. Perhaps we are upon the crack of an age again." He looked to both Manwe and Cleon, his hard, black eyes focused on both of them, as if appraising the pair before he turned to study Folami. She seemed to flinch beneath his stare, a slight movement betraying her disturbance.

  "These Witch People," Manwe said, "I've seen their kind before—what are they?"

  "Some people go the wrong way. Some of them get lost in the darkness. They find others, huddle around black fires, breed with their cousins, and feast upon each other if the hunger takes them. They are us evolved in the depths of the earth, young man, and they are filled with a void where the soul would be. They are often the thralls of those you would seek to defeat."

  "And from where do these necromancers draw their power?" Cleon asked, drawing a glare from Voduni Anansi. The dreaming gaze of the underworlder sharpened to hard steel, which the red-robed sorcerer met with a mocking respect.

  Folami scoffed. "Kings and queens," she whispered.

  The two mystics broke their glowering.

  "Does your Dead Man wear anything of note, or carry an item featuring a stone?" Anansi asked.

  "His staff is simple wood, burned and carved by a lunatic hand. But it features no stone," said Manwe. He measured the interplay between Voduni Anansi and Folami. The two exchanged furtive glances, a surprising transmission that he never expected out of the Songbird for the many years he knew her. Leaving the thought behind to focus, he noticed Anansi's people moving in the next hall. Their bodies as nude and powdered as their host, Manwe let silence take him as they neared.

  Anansi ushered them through the bottom floor of the Tower of Elegba, to the first of many staircases where they climbed upward. Unlike the dead, barren chambers of Lacroi, decorated rooms gleamed bright, cast iridescent by the weir-lights summoned from the mouths of children, the youngest adherents of the old ways of the Juutans.

  Through timeless halls of gentle dimness, they came to a large sitting room, its round walls encircling a platform piled with seashell pillows and stuffed cushions beaded in suns. The glittering spheres dazzled beneath the mixed lamps that shone orange and purple. Anansi bid Manwe and his companions to sit, an offer they took without a word of protest. Hard floors, lost in harsh darkness, melted away as they lounged in gentle comfort.

  Fighting the need for sleep, Manwe focused on the form of the sorcerer lying upon a nearby hill of black pillows. A bright crimson splotch, Cleon's eyes drifted across the space between himself and Anansi. The voduni rested upright, his back supported by a cushion to help achieve his meditative posture. Tension exchanged between the magic-users, a type Manwe could not decode through their shining eyes and passive faces.

  "He wears the skull of a vulture on his chest," Manwe murmured, straightening on the dais. "I have never seen him without it."

  "I imagine this stone is the equivalent of a phylactery, a vessel that most necromancers attempt at making—though few rarely succeed," said Cleon.

  "True enough, Gypian," said Voduni Anansi. He untied the stout thongs of his sling from his body, which fell open upon his great pillow to give him four more thin arms, as if he were some weird spider. "One would need a stone of fine distinction, pure in quality and structure to perform the direst of witchcraft."

  "Witchcraft?" asked Folami. Nested in a pile of old camp blankets and a few large bags filled with down, she watched both the voduni and Cleon as much as Manwe did, her darts spread across her covered lap as she mimed a restive look.

  "What his kind does." Anansi nodded in Cleon's direction. "Those who fancy themselves 'sorcerers'."

  "Taken from a man who cuts the throats of chickens and moans for spirits," Cleon said with a laugh. "I'd never deign to raise the dead..." He almost glanced in Manwe's direction. "Even if the loss devastated me."

  Anansi eased his bearing, breathing his annoyance through his broad nose. He scratched at his side, digging fingernails into his ribs. "Our people use stones as well to gather spirits to us, and for all the spirits of power and will they muster, they are meant for clairvoyance of the inner, nothing more."

  Cleon's mirth widened his grin. "These stones amplify magic."

  Anansi's firm baritone regained its edge. "Aye, sorcerer. For good or for ill."

  "But what does that have to do with defeating Voduni Calla?" asked Manwe. "If he does have a stone that empowers him, it is in the vulture skull he wears. What do we need to counter its foulness?"

  "If it was easy enough, you would simply crush it," said Anansi. "But with this power to raise the dead, it will require more to neutralize... a countering spell mirroring his own, but fueled with a different sort of magic."

  "Your spirits of knowledge and assistance may help with that," guessed Folami.

  "We will need to find a way down to the crystal caverns at the bottom of the city," Anansi proposed. "The vault ha
s been conquered by the Witch People and their great monster. This time of foulness, as above and so below, speaks volumes of tales that few hear, though they resound throughout the earth. The march down will be treacherous unless one has a keener mind for a plan."

  "How long of a march?" Manwe asked, hesitant of re-embracing the gloom. Even in the false weir-light, he was glad for it, whether it was illusion or not.

  "Five days if one marches without foul." Anansi flashed a silver smile. "And the way is rife."

  "And we do not have five days," added Folami. She looked at Manwe, no longer tired. "It looks as if we have to plan a heist, Panther."

  They slept for hours, unconscious of time and space, save the warped realms of their dreams. When they awoke, they tracked back to the stone slab door, bring with them a crew of younger, stronger men to carry the cables of rope Anansi produced from the Tower of Elegba's upper storerooms.

  "We used to hang a spider tapestry with this rope," he whispered to Manwe as he ordered his youths to secure it to the stone rings on at their end of the bridge. "It will do more than enough to hold you on the way down."

  The grand vault of the underground city was silent, an echoing twilight grand in its coloration. Striations of blue and purple rock rippled in the source-less light, and down below, the dead city sprouted like a thorn bush—black, prickly, and flowered with guttering fires throughout.

  The hush held as Anansi signaled his young crew to continue lowering the cable toward the city below. The rope hung near one of the city's high towers when its fall ended, an old turret supported by the many platforms erected around its wall.

  Manwe stared down at the point where Cleon would levitate them, bewildered when he considered that the rope passed through a nether between the ebbing, flicking lights of the city and the stalactite towers.

  "We're ready," Anansi whispered, his words dancing off nearby surfaces and into distant crevices.

  Folami lowered herself onto the rope first without a moment of doubt to its security, hands and feet wrapped in stands of cotton and silk torn from the vodunis' silk pillows. Sliding down the length, she started the long descent to the tower.