by Garrett Boatman
in Issue 107, December 2020
The burning sands scorched Ramadym’s unshod feet and the unrelenting sun lashed his naked back as he pushed over the infinite succession of dunes. He had ridden across the vast wasteland all the day and night before, and when his horse died of exhaustion ere dawn that morning, he had continued on foot. He had been marching for hours, and now noontide bleached the world horizon to horizon.
From white-walled Salsanon he had ridden hard, hounded by the Prince’s Guard, after being discovered in the bed of the Prince’s lady. Ramadym presumed the Guard had given him up for dead, for surely they would have overtaken him, could their horses have outlasted his. Forced to flee in the middle of the night, he’d managed to grab no more than his linen loin-cloth and the damask steel rapier that was never far from his hand. He could not turn back, he knew not what was ahead, but still he pressed on.
Six month’s earlier, Ramadym had arrived in Salsanon. A broad-shouldered, blue-eyed, warrior, fair to look on despite his scars and hard blue eyes, and cunning extremely in soldiership, he had risen to the rank of Captain of the Guard by slaying his competitors and gaining the Prince’s favor by his masterful deeds of battle-deftness. Before that, he had been a leader of a band of mongrel banditti, nomadic desert thieves. Before that he had been a king! Aye, King Ramadym of Zabalisk! But for a season only.
The old king had died, and his wizard, Xcadour, had seized the throne. Xcadour was a monster and a tyrant. He had levied crushing taxes, taken the daughters of nobles for himself, and killed every man who dared voice an utterance against his rule. But Ramadym, naught but a common soldier with an irresistible deftness at swordplay and a magnanimous charisma, had usurped the wizard, and the people had joyfully received him as their new king. He had cut in twain the heavy taxes and liberated Xcadour’s political foes. The wizard he banished with naught but his life and the horse between his legs.
But the tide of public opinion had turned against Ramadym and assassinations were attempted, initiated by powerful nobles, many of whom he had freed from Xcadour’s dungeon. They had fought amongst themselves as well as against him, and finally he had been forced to flee Zabalisk when several of the nobles stormed the palace.
Xcadour, Ramadym discovered, yet lived and had become his everlasting adversary. He had encountered the archimage several times in the past few years since fleeing Zabalisk, never face to face, but always through the sorcerer’s emissaries—assassins wrought by the wizard’s nefarious skills. For Xcadour was an artful assassin, and the creatures he fashioned from clay and brought to pernicious life with his magic were masterpieces of heinous creation. Ramadym remembered the last emissary Xcadour had sent to slay him. He had been leading a scouting party, some two months past, when a giant, apesome creature with voluminous, alutaceous wings and a countenance of hideous voracity had swept unseen from the skies, plucked him from his horse and flitted away with him. He had slain the thing in mid-air and used its grotesque corpse to cushion his fall.
Ramadym recalled the wizard’s face—like parchment skin stretched so tightly over the skull that nary a wrinkle showed, sallow in color, not from sickness, but like leaves of an ancient tome brittle with age. His eyes were black opals, his hooked nose a kite’s beak, his black hair long and unkempt. A flaring beard of the same surrounded his features as a murky lake might surround a rocky isle that broke its surface. Ramadym often reflected with regret upon his not having slain Xcadour when he had him fettered in his dungeon; his puppets had caused him more trouble than the wizard’s life was worth; but then, he was not sure Xcadour could be slain.
Someday he and the sorcerer would meet; then it would be his unenchanted steel against inexorable sorcery. For now, the warrior’s primary concern was to find sustenance and shelter from the furor of the sun.
As Ramadym surmounted the crest of yet another of the desert’s myriad dunes, he spied before him the verdant haven of an oasis, the beckoning nepenthe of which soothed and excited his weary senses.
Movement caught his attention. In a nearby clearing stood a woman of paramount beauty. She was crouched, her sandaled feet spread wide, knees bent. In one hand a dagger’s blade threw a shard of sunlight into his eye. Well he could see why she crouched in a fighting stance. She was surrounded, outnumbered.
The creatures were manlike—if ever men’s arms were so long, their bodies so loathsomely matted with hair. One barked and lunged, and Ramadym caught a glance of wrinkled brow and flattened nose, a maw full of savage canine teeth. Moving with the litheness of a blade of grass, a wisp of fog, the woman dodged, flicked her hand, and came up behind the beast which stopped and clutched its throat with a startled look before toppling to the sand.
Heedless of the danger, Ramadym plowed down the dune, rapier in hand. Then he was among the beasts, slashing and thrusting. Two were down in an instant—one near headless, another struggling to rise on a tendonless leg. He spun, his blade catching the creature trying to jump him from behind in the chest, piercing its heart.
The rest ran. Ramadym did not pursue, but watched them lope through the trees. His bloodlust quelled. He was tired. Besides, a beautiful woman stood behind him with a dagger in her hand—ever an alluring combination.
She stood tranquilly, as if her muscles had never tensed with the readiness of combat. Erect, head uptilted—highborn then, not a saucy wench—though the smile playing on her lips as if he’d said something droll was not a blushing virgin’s. The dagger had disappeared somewhere in the folds of her gown.
She greeted him silently with outstretched hand. The arid wind fluttered the gossamer gown that clung about her sensuous form. Passion welled within Ramadym, as he viewed the creamy flesh beneath her translucent raiment, her luxuriant, ebony mane, her lambent smaragdine eyes. Ramadym took the proffered hand. “Are you real?” He squeezed the hand. “Or a mirage? Or jinn?”
Her smile showed even white teeth between sensuous full lips. Her eyes glittered with sunlight. “A woman,” she said. Her voice rippled through his senses and he shivered with desire, as if he were some pubescent lovesick pup rather than a seasoned warrior and artful lover.
He looked beyond her into the oasis to break the spell. “Where is this place? Does it have a name?” His gaze returned to hers. Like staring into the sun, a dark one to be sure but nevertheless blinding. “And what do you call yourself, fair wench?”
“I am called Sirocco, after the wind.”
“I can see why,” Ramadym said. His fierce eyes surveyed her exquisite form, devouring her lineaments and ardent symmetry.
Again she spoke, her voice soft and low like the whisper of shifting sands. “Come.” She turned so that Ramadym viewed her voluptuous figure in profile. She tugged his hand. The warrior responded, followed her into the sheltering shade. Her sandaled feet, small and exquisitely pale, shuffled over the sand. Her gown trailed its white train behind her. As Ramadym followed, he bethought himself of what possibilities the situation might afford.
They passed through a profusion of tropical flora: lofty date palms towered overhead, and in their shade, fig trees and pomegranates grew in abundance, and upon the ground succulent kalanchoes, as if in a garden.
Nowhere along their way did the woman, Sirocco, stop but led Ramadym straight into a rocky hill and into a cave. The passage was narrow and just high enough to suffer Ramadym room to walk upright. The floor of the cave was aslant, and as he followed Sirocco, he discovered the cave was a tunnel leading down beneath the oasis. Anon, the walls of stone shut out the brilliant incandescence of the desert sun. And as Ramadym rounded a bend, he saw directly ahead the tunnel opened into a torch-lit chamber.
Still holding the woman’s hand, Ramadym stopped and surveyed what was before him. The cavern was large and high-ceilinged, its walls smooth, as though the stone had been cut. Affixed to the walls, brass sconces blazed, their flambeaux emitting the scent of attar-of-roses. And in the center of the cavern floor, a wide circular pool of crystalline water fed by an underground spring. About the pool were piles of cushions and sendaline coverlets upon which to lounge. Here, too, were big, golden bowls overflowing with succulent fruit.
Sirocco turned to Ramadym and spoke. “This is my abode. Please.” She waved at the cushions. “I am in your debt. I pray you make yourself at home.” In her gaze there seemed to be a heartfelt longing that touched the warrior’s heart and made him yearn to linger…for a night…a fortnight.
Perhaps forever.
Ramadym drew his rapier from his sash, laid it beside him, and leaning over the brim of the pool, thrust his head into its cool waters. When he withdrew, flinging his soaking, ebon locks back from his brow, Sirocco was seated beside him. She dipped a silken cloth into the water and bathed the dust and sweat from his naked back. Ramadym looked upon the woman. Slowly her green eyes rose to meet his. Nothing was said, but he felt a common fire uniting them. When they had gazed thus for a suspended moment, Sirocco again lowered her eyes and continued bathing the dusty warrior.
When she finished and splashed water upon his feet, she rinsed her hands in the pool and, resting upon an elbow and facing Ramadym, reclined upon the pillows. He lay back and Sirocco placed a fruit-filled bowl between them and bade the warrior eat. He thanked her and lustfully partook of the dates and plump figs she fed him. When he completed his repast, and was spitting out a final pomegranate seed, Sirocco turned from him, and reaching a delicate hand beneath a pillow, withdrew a silver bell and rang it.
Anon, through an orifice at the far end of the cavern, a giant, shaven eunuch, bearing a scimitar and begirt in naught but silken, puff-legged breeks and two aureate armlets which bound his prodigious biceps, approached Sirocco. The mute giant halted and bowed.
Ramadym’s hand was already upon the haft of his rapier, his muscles taut with anticipation, but the eunuch exhibited no aggression.
“Bring us wine,” Sirocco said.
The eunuch left and returned anon with a large, red-figured amphora. Sirocco produced two gilt-silver goblets and handed one to Ramadym. The eunuch filled the chalices to their brim with chilled malmsey. Sirocco dismissed the menial with a wave of her delicate hand. The giant disappeared into his quarter. Sirocco raised her goblet to her lips and, peering alluringly at Ramadym over its rim, sipped her wine. While Ramadym quaffed, Sirocco spoke.
“I told you my name,” the maiden said. “You have not told me yours. Surely, so great a warrior as you must be known the world over. Tell me your name that I might know of your exploits.”
“Ramadym is the name with which my sire saddled me. I will admit you may have heard of me: Ramadym—soldier, adventurer, king and thief.”
“Well, Ramadym, man above men, I know what you were, but what shall you be tomorrow? Where were you heading in this desolate land?”
His gaze travelled up her long legs, surmounted her sensuous bosom, rested on her eyes. “Not so desolate.”
Did he perceive the slightest blush there in her alabaster cheeks? Her gaze dipped as her smile spread.
Ramadym chuckled. “To your question—I know not. I cannot return whence I came, and I know not whether there is any city within walking distance ahead.”
“There is a city,” the maiden said, “a meeting place of caravans south of here. No more than ten or twelve hours walking distance for your stout legs.”
Her fingers tracing the muscle of his thigh, sent shivers up his spine.
“Erstwhile,” said Ramadym, “I asked you why you were in this place. You didn’t answer.”
“There are reasons for my presence.”
Ramadym sipped his wine. Sirocco saw that he wished her to continue.
“At the present, you are much a part of the reason,” she purred as she twirled her goblet between thumb and forefinger, rotating the crimson contents.
Ramadym set his goblet on the pool’s stony brim and returned his gaze upon the seductive woman beside him. “You are enigmatic. How much a part and what the content?”
“This much a part.” She leaned forward and slowly pursed her carmine lips as she closed her long-lashed lids.
Ramadym responded. Leaning toward her and running his hand over the curves of her body, he pressed his mouth to her feverish lips. They embraced, and Sirocco clung to the warrior in much the way her gossamer gown clung to her body. When the kiss ended, Sirocco whispered, “And this be the contents.” She withdrew the clasp from her shoulder and her gown fell away, revealing the intimate contours of her body.
Ramadym’s maleness rose beneath his loincloth. Sirocco’s mignon hand dexterously unbound his sash, and momentarily, the pair lay upon the cushions naked in the light of the flickering flambeaux. Ramadym’s lips were upon Sirocco’s breast. Her breathing quickened. The muscles of her belly contracted. She drew Ramadym upon her. He did not resist, but ardently responded. Sirocco took the warrior into herself. Their passion rose to empyreal heights. His hips rose and fell in strong, rhythmic strokes; hers rotated and grasped. His lips roved the inflaming softness of her neck; hers emitted moans of pleasure. Time quickened—seconds pulsing to their rhythm—sped as it matched the intensity of their climax, exploded, sending vibrations through the cavern as the thrashing pair reached sublimity.
Ramadym lay lax in the arms of his paramour. Sirocco stroked his perspired back, her long naked legs twined about him. Shortly, Ramadym turned on his back and closed his eyes. Sirocco placed her head in the crook of his shoulder, a finger gently coiling the hair on his chest.
The warrior slept.
Ramadym was yet asleep but his innate instinct of for self-preservation, sharply refined by years of soldiering, warned him of impending danger. He woke. He did not move, but watched Sirocco through his lashes. She sat beside him, as naked and as lovely as before. In one hand, she clutched a dagger’s chryselephantine sheath; in the other, she held her ivory-hilted dagger. He studied its keen, straight blade. As he watched, a tear escaped her emerald eye and trailed its moist path down her cheek. She slid the dagger into the sheath and placed the weapon beneath a pillow. She gazed upon the warrior’s face.
“You’re awake!” she said, startled.
Ramadym sat up. “What brings you to tears?” He wiped the drop from her cheek, but another took its place.
“I am not what I seem,” sobbed Sirocco. “I am naught but a puppet—a puppet wrought by my master, Xcadour.”
Her eyes searched his. There seemed to be pleading in them. For the first time since their meeting, her features were marred by a crease between her brows. “But Xcadour is no longer my master. I will obey him no longer, yet I cannot follow you. I am Xcadour’s creation, his to destroy.” With that she wept upon his broad shoulder.
The air trembled as a voice resonated through the cavern. “You betray me, puppet!”
“Aiieee!” screamed Sirocco, pressing herself harder against Ramadym. “It is the voice of my master!”
“Traitor, you were the most sublime of my creations! Paramount among assassins! Rue your crime! Sink back into the clay from whence you came!”
Sirocco screamed and flung herself from Ramadym’s embrace. She stood and clawed her face and panting breast. The warrior beheld smoke, like the reeking miasma of a fen, rising from her flesh. She seemed to shrink before his gaze. Her features, so lovely and alluring moments ago, ran like melting wax. Fuming dollops of slimy matter sloughed off her upon the coverlets. The perversion flung itself into the pool. Ramadym was upon his feet peering into the pool. Sirocco’s sensuous flesh, so recently alive under his hand, was dissolving, the water churning with her anguished thrashing as the maiden’s sensuous flesh, recently so alive under his hand, transformed into a mass of amorphous clay which fell apart in the water.
The wizard’s voice rang out:
“You thwart me again, Ramadym! Like the fleeing slave who escapes the master’s hounds, you live only to be hunted again! And found! And slain! I am ever thy master!” The bellowing transformed to mad laughter.
Ramadym waxed ireful, and he yelled at Xcadour above the wizard’s insane peals.
“If you were ever my master—blasphemous miscreant—then appear and fight me!”
The laughter ceased, and the voice that followed was frore and baneful:
“You’ve not yet escaped, slave! I have still another implement to work your destruction. Eunuch! Slay me this man!” As the echoing words faded, the giant menial debouched from his chamber and charged across the cavern floor, brandishing his scimitar before him.
Ramadym reached for his rapier, but it was not to be found. His rushing thoughts suggested the pool had become his weapon’s scabbard. Remembering the woman’s dagger, he snatched it up, cast aside the sheath, and just as the giant was upon him, hurled it. The blade punched its length into the eunuch’s throat but did not halt his charge. He slashed at Ramadym with his scimitar. The warrior leapt aside, caught the eunuch’s sword-hand, and continuing his fluid movement, smashed the hand against his knee. The scimitar clattered to the floor. The giant hammer-fisted Ramadym’s skull, sent him sprawling upon the cushions, head reeling from the blow, and dove upon him. Instinctively, the warrior contracted his knees to his chest, and, catching the eunuch with his feet, shot his legs upward like the loosing of an arrow. The eunuch flew backwards. Ramadym dove for the scimitar. The giant jerked the dagger from his throat and threw it. No blood spewed from the wound. Ramadym had seen the sight before: this was no man but a creature of Xcadour’s making! The dagger whizzed past Ramadym’s ear. He won the scimitar, leapt to his feet and turned upon the eunuch, but the giant rushed head-first against the warrior like a battering ram. Ramadym, with the agility of a gazelle, leapt from the eunuch’s path, brought the scimitar down upon the menial’s brawny neck. A meaty chop, a cleaving of spine, and the eunuch’s shaven head spun free. The headless torso did a brief, grotesque jig before it crashed to the floor.
Ramadym wiped an ichorous slime from the scimitar. More of the reeking putrescence besplattered his body, but remembering the gruesome sight of Sirocco’s disintegration, he was loath to bath in the pool. He wiped himself with a coverlet. As he no longer heard Xcadour’s bombastic threats, he deemed the wizard, swallowing bitter defeat, was smoldering in silence.
Searching the cavern, Ramadym discovered the side cave from which the eunuch had emerged. Therein, he found a goatskin flask filled with wine and a burnoose of fine muslin. The garment was too big for him but would protect him from the desert sun and frigid night. He returned to the cavern and found his sash. He bound it about him and sheathed the scimitar. He gazed wistfully into the pool where his rapier lay somewhere on the murky bottom, but again declined to enter.
He took a swath of silk, loaded it with fruit, drew the four corners together and knotted them. He thrust the two silver goblets into his sash; they would purchase a grubstake when he reached the city. So, girt with clothing and weapon and provisioned with food and wine, Ramadym started up the tunnel to the wide world.
Epilogue
Anon, the warrior was treading the desert sands southward toward the city, the meeting of caravans, of which Sirocco had told him. He had been hours in the cavern, and now the red sun was setting upon his right hand, painting the sky and desert crimson. And as Ramadym wended his steady way beneath the oncoming night, his scimitar warming his side, and the silver goblets clinking together like coins within his sash, he laughed to himself. Ha, ha! thought he. Xcadour would have to do better than that to slay stout Ramadym.
©December 2020 Garrett Boatman
Garrett Boatman’s novel Stage Fright was recently reissued as Paperback from Hell #11 from Valancourt Books. His story “Rain” appears in the Valancourt Book of Horror Stories, Volume Four. His 1890’s horror novella Floaters will be out next summer.