by Julian May
***
The morning's events reached their climax, the final match of the Heroic Manifestations of Power. The Howler field attendants pumped up the bellows, making the fountains of fire stretch sky high and pour forth commingled black and rose-colored smoke. The monstrousiron chevaux-de-frise in the midst of the flames glowed white-hot. Glass trumpets sounded a fanfare, kettledrums thundered, and then the Marshal of Sport made his amazing announcement:
"The Tanu hero Kuhal Earthshaker, scheduled to contend in this final Manifestation against the Firvulag Battlemaster Medor, has withdrawn."
A mighty roar of disappointment arose from the Tanu partisans. The Little People cheered roundly and the bookmakers scrambled in a frenzy to cope with the last-minute scratch.
The Marshal declared: "By consent of the Committee of Referees, Lord Kuhal's place will be taken by Minanonn the Proud, also called Heretic, former Battlemaster of the Tanu."
Now tumultuous jubilation seized the Tanu and human spectators while the Firvulag hooted, hummed derisively, and shape-shifted into obscene illusory forms to express their vexation. The points at stake in the contest were sufficient to return the overall advantageto the Little People if Medor should win—and he had been an odds-on favorite over Kuhal because of the latter's status as a precariously healed invalid. Now, however, Medorfaced not a convalescent but one who had been the premier metapsychic warrior of his racebefore retiring to voluntary exile.
The smoke from the central pyre changed. Blue and green smoke gushed up together with the clouds of rose-red and black. The two heroes entered the field. Medor was armed in plates of jet studded with orange diamonds and wicked topaz spikes. Minanonn wore a magnificent panoply embodying his triple coercive, creative, and psychokinetic metafunctions. The triskelion was chased in gold upon his massive cuirass and a golden-winged dolphin crowned his helm. The Firvulag champion and the Tanu took up positions on opposite sides of the surging bonfire. Howler officials handed each contender one end of a stout chain of pyrostatic glass, which passed through the center of the flaming fountain and the incandescent iron hedgehogs that lurked at its heart. Then the Marshal signaled, the crowd howled,and the finale in the Manifestations of Power began.
In the Tanu grandstand, the two of them watched with unseeing eyes and minds distracted.
She said: It was thus between Lawrence and me.
He said: This is the way it was with me and Cyndia.
They agreed: Such perfect soul-consonance may surely be achieved but once and any attempt at reprise is doomed to futility. If this is true even among the small-minded how much more invidious an effort between the grandmasterly. And thrice hopeless when both are proud and untrustful.
Exerting both metapsychic power and physical strength, Minanonn and Medor hauled at each other. At first their pull on the chain was steady. The Firvulag hero found himself dragged closer and closer to the inferno and the two bristling contraptions of blazing blood-metal within it. The Tanu and the humans in the audience whooped in anticipation of a quick victory. But guileful Medor suddenly let himself be yanked wholly into the flames. The crowd shrieked. Minanonn had to shift balance in order to regain purchase lost when the chain fell unexpectedly slack.
Medor gave a mighty leap backward at the same time that his mind slickened the sand with ectoplasmic ichor. The Tanu hero staggered and slid. His own creativity strove to cancel the manifestation of his rival. Medor hauled back with savage, abrupt jerks, intent onpreventing Minanonn from regaining a fair grip on the slithering chain. (If the Heretic let it slip out of hand, the match was lost.) Inexorably, the former Tanu Battlemaster wasdrawn into the fountain of fire. Now his metapsychic strength was divided between shielding his body from the terrible heat and pulling back before Medor managed to bring him up against the white-hot spikes of poisonous iron.
The two humans never noticed.
She said: We lived and loved in Unity. We worked hard formed the strongyoung minds laid secure foundations of mature function. It was so good. He fulfilled me.
He said: I spawned the inhuman thousands and steered the great scheme and she seemed to relate in loving concurrence. And for love of her I begat the Children of her body and sowed the seed of love's death.
They agreed: Such memories form an insuperable rampart between us.
Minanonn flattened the flames. He clutched the tag-end of the glass chain and gave a herculean wrench. Medor was pulled off his feet.
The Heretic grasped the chain more securely and let the fire rise up aroundhim, as it also did around his antagonist. Medor uttered a farspoken howl, which was echoed by his countrymen in the stand. Both heroes were totally engulfed, but it was Minanonnwho stood firm and the Firvulag who was hauled closer and closer to the glowing metal points.
The man and woman were oblivious.
She said: We feared even amid happiness knowing that life would not be worth living if we were separated. Surely a loving God would know this and take us together. We trusted. In the crash I lost my metafaculties and the Unity. He was killed. I diedthe worse death.
He said: In the very act of love she betrayed me. Murdering Mental Man she wept and said she did it for love of me and all humanity. He is dead in me forever and only the Children can resurrect Him.
They disagreed.
Minanonn, holding the chain fast in preparation for the fatal pull, cried out with mind and voice: "Yield, Medor Battlemaster! Yield or impale yourself on scorching blood-metal, gaining Tana's peace but the obloquy of the Little People as you deprive them of a great leader."
Medor let the chain slip from his hands.
The flames died. Minanonn stood in discolored, soot-filthy armor, holding the entire length of glass chain above his half-melted helmet crest. The Tanu throng cried his name again and again and gave him a shattering accolade of slonshal.
The two up in the royal enclosure were aware only of themselves.
She said: Your vision that you cling to so obstinately is evil. This isnot merely my judgment or Anatoly's. After twenty-seven years the consensus of the Galactic Mind was unanimous. If you can't see that Cyndia was right and you were wrong you're just what Anatoly called you: arrogant and invincibly ignorant but still wrong wrong wrong.
He said: And what about you? At least my flaw is grand while yours is merely pathetic. You evade responsibility deny commitment out of simple cowardice. You pretend to noble despair when you are merely whimpering and self-righteous. You condemn my ignorance and arrogance when your own is equally great ... and you say you can never love and you lie lie lie.
She said: What does a heartless monster like you know about love?
He said: Let me look into your mind. Then say you don't love me.
She said: Never! It's impossible.
He said: Then so is the rehabilitation of the Duat Mind.
They agreed.
***
"Well, Medor?" bellowed the Firvulag King.
Aides, trainers, and hangers-on fled from the dressing room of the defeated champion as they felt the scourge of Sham's wrath. But when he was all alone with his Battlemaster the monarch doffed his robes, helped slather soothing ointment on Medor's blisters, and sprayed them with a painkilling Milieu medicament that was said to be nearly as efficacious as Tanu Skin.
"I did my best," the woebegone general said. "But I knew I was cooked as soon as Heymdol announced that the Foe were entering the Heretic as a ringer. No one but Pallol One-Eye was in Minnie's class." After a moment, he appended diplomatically, "Except you yourself, of course, High King."
Sharn mouthed curses through clenched teeth. "We're not out of the woods yet, either. I lodged protests with the stewards; but there's no valid reason for keeping Minanonn or any other Peace Faction member out of the games, assuming their precious consciences tellthem that the Grand Tourney isn't ritual warfare but just good clean fun. The Heretic's banishment was a matter of politics. If Aiken wants to accept him on the Tanu team, there's not a damn thing we can do to p
revent it."
"Is Minanonn participating in the tug-of-war metaconcert this afternoon, then?"
"I think it's a foregone conclusion," said the King. He helped Medor into a fresh suitof padding and new armor. "But cheer up, old son. In the tug, it's strictly minds, not muscles, that'll cut the mustard. And there's still only thirteen thousand of them—and eighty thousand of us."
***
Both Elizabeth and Marc saw the flagship land on a hastily roped-off area just behind the Tanu grandstand. Not long afterward the King came to the royal enclosure seeking Elizabeth. He was accompanied by Creyn, Basil Wimborne, Peopeo Moxmox Burke, and Brother Anatoly.
"I'm afraid you'll have to miss the rest of the games, lass," Aiken told her. "We're taking you for a little ride."
She jumped up from her seat. "It's—it's ready?"
The King only said, "Come along."
Marc lounged back with an unconcerned smile. He was wearing, with considerable style, the smart plum-and-ochre dress uniform of the King's Own Elite Guard, complete with golden tore and commander's insignia. He said, "The time-gate is not yet operative, Elizabeth. The King is merely anticipating. Or possibly thinking wishfully. If the Guderian device were in working order, the entire Many-Colored Land would know it."
Aiken only repeated darkly, "Come along."
"You'll hurry back, I hope," Marc said. "Your heroes missed you during the Heroic Manifestations."
"But won all the same," Aiken snapped. "And now we're leading in the point scoring."
"It wouldn't do for you to miss the tug-of-war, though. Not even for ... strategic reasons. Your subjects would never stand for it. I'm really looking forward to seeing how your metaconcert technique stacks up against Sham and Ayfa's."
"Planning to enter the tussle on the Firvulag side again?" Aiken inquired sweetly.
"I wouldn't dream of it. You taught me my lesson very effectively."
The King herded Elizabeth and the others to the exit. He said over his shoulder, "Nothing personal, Marc—but when I get back I'd better find you gone. We've about come to the end of the line in this friendly enemies routine. Fair warning."
Marc nodded. "En garde, then, Little King." And to Elizabeth: "Au revoir."
***
The true disparity between the Tanu and Firvulag numbers became evident as preparations for the mental tug-of-war neared completion. Emptied of all nonmetafunctional humans, the Tanu grandstand had ominous expanses of empty seats, but the accommodation of the Firvulag was jammed to overflowing.
Greggy and Rowane had been banished from the royal enclosure of the Little People along with the rest of the nonparticipant Howlers. But rather than joining Sugoll and Katlinel on the sidelines, they sneaked down to the booth between the stands that housed the control room of the Staging and Properties staff.
"Rank do hath its privileges," the Genetics Master crowed to hisawed protégée. "And down here, we'll see not only the dragons but also the monitoring panels showing which minds are faltering and ready to drop out of the metaconcert. "
"Ooo!" said Rowane.
Out on the Field of Gold an astonishing contrivance had been erected in place of the morning's fiery fountain. Its base was an artificial hill as wide as the paired grandstands and fifteen meters high. It was roughly conical in shape, with large cavelike apertureson the right and left flanks and a summit crater.
The sham mountain harbored monstrous twin serpents.
The one on the righthand Firvulag side was glistening black with fangs and eyes as redas carbuncles. Its opposite number had golden scales, and eyes and teeth of bright amethyst. The heads of the snakes protruded from their respective lairs with jaws agape. It seemed that somewhere in the depths of the mountain their bodies met, entwined, then reared upward from the central crater mouth to form a great knot high in the air. From this sky-knot the tails of the serpents curved down in identical arcs, the black tail apparently being swallowed by the golden serpent and the golden tail by the black. The overall effectgiven by the huge stage prop was that of an enormous wheel, half golden and half black, mounted in an upright position and partially embedded in the base of imitation rock.
"I call it the double Ourobouros," the senior of the two human technicians in charge of the spectacle informed Greggy and Rowane.
"But old Lars, over there at the grandstand grounding monitors, likes Siamese Mithgarthsormr better."
"Will you explain its functioning, Master Baghdanian?" Rowane requested. "You must pardon my simplicity, but I am not quite able to grasp how such a device is to be used in a metapsychic tug-of-war."
"I'm all at sea, too!" Greggy giggled. "My golden tore's honorary, you know. But I must say, the gadget is madly impressive."
"Wait till you see the electrostatics in action," Lars offered with a grim smile. "I just wish the voltage was high enough to fry these exotic sonsabitches insteada just making their brains twinge."
Baghdanian gave his colleague a resigned look. "Just ignore Lars' xenophobia, folks, and observe instead the displays in front of him that monitor the Tanu and Firvulag grandstands. Red lights for Little People, amber for the Tanu and human torcers. Intensity of light roughly proportional to cerebral wattage."
"The twinkling yellow jobbie on the Tanu display is our Shining Hope, Aiken-Lugonn himself," Lars said.
The senior man listened to some message coming through his corn-set headpiece. He thumbed a few switchpads, checked out something or other, and said, "We'd better make this quick, folks. We're almost ready to start. Okay ... all the people in both grandstands are incorporated into the game's electrical circuitry just as long as they keep their seats. They stand up, that means they resign the game. Got that?"
"Mm," said Greggy, suppressing a snicker. "Fundamental antagonism!"
"You know about mindpower, metafunction having electromagnetic components?" the technician asked rather dubiously.
Greggy sighed. "In my less irrational moments I am a doctor of medicine, of genetic science, of philosophy, and of humane letters (honorary)."
"Right," said Baghdanian. "Now just take a careful look at the snake setup out there. What we've really got is a gigantic ring, standing up like a skinny ferris wheel. The tails of the snakes going into the mouths make a complete circle through the inside of the mountain and also through the knot up top. The central twisty-twiney part just disguises the frame that supports this big scaly ring made of electroconductive material."
"The whole ring's not conductive," Lars interrupted.
Baghdanian gave him another look. "As I was about to say, the conductivity of the ringis broken by insulating material—glass—in two places: up inside the knot where you can't see it, and just inside the jaws of the two snake heads. The entire arc section through the central mountain is nonconductive at the moment. But! If the ring rotates—say, to our right—it'll look like the black Firvulag serpent has let the golden tail of the Tanu serpent slip out of its mouth. At the same time, of course, the Firvulag serpent's bod would go deeper and deeper into the gold snake's mouth."
"But really into the mountain." Greggy nodded sagely.
The technician's eyes had an odd glint. "Inside the hill, we have multiple arrays of Van de Graaffs—electrostatic generators similar to the ones in the old Frankenstein movies. If your snake's tail gets gulped just a little, you'll feel a small mental shock. But the farther that tail goes down the enemy gullet, the more intense the mind-zap."
"Merciful heavens!" Greggy exclaimed.
Baghdanian said, "Notice the large jeweled cuffs that clasp the tail of each snake about three meters away from the enemy teeth. We call those the bracelets. Those are the places where the minds have to grip—and pull. The more powerfully your team hauls awayon the tail bracelet of your snake, the deeper the tail of the other team will be swallowed."
"And the more agonizing it is for the opponent to hold on," Lars added.
Greggy shuddered. "What a perfectly beastly piece of ingenuity!"
Baghdanian gave a modest shrug. "Twenty-two years in the special-effects department of Industrial Light and Magic."
"How is the winner known?" Rowane asked.
"The guys who get their bracelet devoured," Lars said, "not only lose, but end up withskulls full of half-fried neurons."
Baghdanian wore an abstracted look as he listened to his comset, watched a digital clock, and monitored the occasionally flickering patterns on the Tanu and Firvulag grandstand monitors. "Two minutes."
"Start praying," Lars told Greggy and Rowane. "If the Firvulag lose big, maybe they'llcall off the Nightfall War. Then us humans will be free to go home through the time-gate and forget we ever saw this crazy place!"
"Not all humans want to leave," Rowane protested uneasily. "Some hate the future worldand have loving ties to this one."
"Don't you believe it," Lars scoffed. "Show any sane human being a time-gate leading back to the Milieu, he'd take a running jump. Even King Golden Britches himself! Stands toreason." He pointed rudely at Greggy. "Wouldn't you go?"
"Well—er—" the geneticist mumbled.
"My Tonee wouldn't go!" Rowane cried. "He wouldn't!"
The chief technician said, "ESGs on full. FX crew stand by with the pyrotechnic intro. Music track go! Tanu metaconcert established. Firvulag ditto. On your mark ... get a grip... heave ho!"
***
Out on the Field of Gold, the colossal twin serpents seemed to coil amid a thicket of bramble-branched lightnings. The maws of the fabulous reptiles belched luminous clouds ofgreen smoke that rose up into the low-hanging overcast that now made an eerie roof over the tournament ground. Another ten centimeters of black tail went down the golden weasand.
"Hold, Tanu, hold!" yelled the sidelines crowd, humans and Howlers together. The mutants no longer bothered to pretend that they were on the side of their Firvulag cousins.
Up in the enclosure of King Aiken-Lugonn, the combined aura of the triumphing Great Ones was a solar flare, the subordinate minds sleeving it in a golden swarm of blazing bees. This astral arm appeared to grip the bracelet of the Tanu serpent and haul firmly upwards.