Istu Awakened

by Robert E Vardeman;Victor Milan

  Zak'zar gripped the stone guardwall and stared ahead. In the distance he saw a pool of paleness lying against the blackness of the mountains. A glacier. Within it lay his fate.

  The wind tore at his eyes.

  Hours passed like days, like years.

  'Vast is the World Spirit,' Selamyl said when Moriana asked him if the summoning was done, if the Spirit had risen to smite its starborn foe. 'It is slow to anger but its wrath is great.'

  Fost sat with his back against the wall of the Nexus chamber. He drifted in and out of sleep. When his body realized that no amount of adrenaline was going to make things happen any quicker, it surrendered to the exertions of the day before. But still an urgency nagged at him causing him to half-rise from sleep and dream images.

  At some point a servant brought the spirit jars. Fost roused to listen briefly to Erimenes describing how the whole city now pulsed with the same green light that came from the Nexus. Fost thought the pattern's glow brighter than before, but thinking took too great an effort and he slept again.

  He came awake abruptly, sensing something vital was about to happen.

  The first thing he saw was the City in the Sky. He shook his head, shut his eyes and opened them again. Still it hung in the midst of his vision, above sharp peaks turned molten gold by the rising sun.

  'Disconcerting, isn't it?' Erimenes chuckled dryly at his elbow. 'My humble contribution.'

  'You caused that?' Somehow, a vision of what was happening miles away had been conjured forth, inside the room.

  'Well ... no. But it was I who remembered the old stories and told the princess how to call it up.'

  Moriana stood where she had before, staring at the picture which occupied one whole wall of the chamber.

  'And the Spirit?' he asked. 'Has it come yet?'

  'No,' said Ziore from his other side. Her face was stark with worry. 'And soon it will be too late. Poor Moriana.'

  'It is come.'

  The chamber reverberated to the words. The voice was Selamyl's and yet was not. It was deeper, transformed, as vital and surging as the boom of surf on sand.

  Moriana raised her eyes to the scene of the Sky City. It jumped forward. Fost gasped. Then he realized that it was the picture that moved with such speed, not the City itself. He saw the black, horned shape on the parapet and felt a cold greater than that of the Waste seize his bones.

  'I call upon the World Spirit to destroy the Demon Istu!' Her words rang out like trumpets. Fost caught his breath. Nothing happened.

  'World Spirit! Strike! Raise up your power against the dark destroyer as you did ten thousand years ago!'

  Fost felt it now. The energy folded him, restoring strength to his limbs, clearing his weary, scratchy eyes. Each breath was wine. But still nothing happened, no energies leapt forward to oppose the black Demon.

  'World Spirit!' screamed Moriana. 'What's wrong?'

  'Will,' said that voice which had once belonged to Selamyl. 'It needs a will to guide it.'

  'But what of you, you Ethereals?'

  A pause. Fost thought of the awesome deliberation of Guardian. The world was much bigger than the glacier. Would the Spirit be commensurately slower?

  'We . . .' For the first time that transcendent voice faltered. 'We lack the will. We have forgotten how to strike out in anger and lack the time to learn.'

  Synalon rose, stretched catlike and sensuous.

  'One thing I've plenty of is will. Sister, shall I?'

  Moriana stared into the green fire of the Nexus. This was what she'd feared, that she must enter rapport with the World Spirit and risk the dissolution of that small spark that was her soul, her inner being, her self. The time had come for her to match the dedication already shown by the Ethereals.

  'No,' Moriana said and stepped forward.

  Fost leaped to his feet, lunged forward and caught her wrist, crying, 'You can't!'

  'I must.' Her voice was calm.

  'You'll die!'

  'And what of that?' She reached out and stroked his cheek with the backs of her fingers. They rasped on stubble. 'I must do this. Only then can I expiate the wrong I created when I helped the Fallen Ones capture the City.'

  She dropped her hand.

  'I love you,' she said. 'Live long and take what happiness you find.' And she stepped into the middle of the Nexus.

  Green fire enveloped her. Fost cried out again and started to follow. A steel claw caught his arm. He struggled, then turned back in fury. Ziore held his wrist. There was nothing wispy or insubstantial about her now.

  'Do you think she wants you to throw your life away?' the genie asked. 'But . . .'

  'You cannot help her now. You can only distract her.' He stepped back. And the power came up through the floor and shook him and his mind reeled toward blackness.

  At the molten core of the planet burned anger.

  But it was rage without form, without direction. That vast organism which was the World possessed a thousand senses and each one cried out that something was deathly wrong. A pathogen had invaded its system, a black presence, both alien and destructive. It knew that something must be done but it didn't know what or how.

  A feeling tickled the edge of its tiny being, tiny but insistent. Slowly the feeling penetrated it. Slowly it responded.

  It sensed other presences, miniscule, separate from and at the same time part of it. It flowed toward them. Somehow it knew that here was the means to channel its anger, to bring its mighty wrath to bear on the wrongness.

  It touched the lesser entities and became one with them. It stopped. There was nothing, no direction, no guidance, nothing to purge the irritant.

  Then a new presence touched it. Will burned within, a hot, white light. Like a plant questing toward the sun, the World Spirit moved to merge itself with this thing of Will.

  At the core of Moriana's being burned anger.

  Her City was held captive by an enemy who had betrayed her to possess it. She felt it hanging almost overhead now, and her being ached with the longing for it. But more even than Zr'gsz, she hated their Demon ally. He had defiled her, laid surrogate hands of stone on her and ravished her body while his hell-glowing eyes raped her soul. For that her rage would tear the skies asunder, to visit vengeance upon Istu.

  Your enemy is near! she thought. Now reach!

  The mountain called the Throat of the Dark Ones exploded.

  It blasted itself skyward, a mountain launched as a missile into the dawn, riding a column of incandescent gas and ash and the dust of pulverized rock. The Zr'gsz skystone mines disappeared, and those who worked them and those who fought to slow the work. So violent was the blast that huge hunks of the shattered mountain entered orbit around the world to spiral down slowly until the tenuous arms of the atmosphere tangled them and drew them to flaming end.

  Such was Moriana's wrath united with the wrath of the World.

  Though the wavefront of the blast and the titan sound that rode upon it would not reach the Ramparts for over an hour, Istu felt Mount Omizantrim die. He clawed at the heavens and bellowed his rage. His ancient enemy was come. The fight would be to the death this time.

  He turned and strode to the center of the City. His bowed legs straddled the Well of Winds. He spread forth the blackness of his arms. He reached outward, began to flow downward, his form subsiding and swelling to fill the Well. The Black Lens appeared where he had been, glistening, pregnant with power.

  A thirty-foot wall of water washed over the island of Wirix and scoured it clean, driven by the blast that slew Omizantrim. But the Wrath had only begun.

  With the senses she now shared with another, Moriana knew that her first stroke had missed. She struck again -

  - and a range of mountains thrust themselves above the sea on the far side of the world, dark and humped and water-glistening like the back of an aquatic monster.

  And again -

  - and storm clouds gathered above the Ramparts, a thousand times faster than the normal gathering of clouds
. They piled higher, black on black, shot through with lightning. In the streets of the Sky City the Fallen Ones cried out in fear and wonder.

  And again -

  - and part of the Northern Continent split off and sank into the sea with a crack and a roar and a rushing of water.

  Fury raged in silence upon the wall of the Nexus chamber. Fost's back was to the wall and his eyes were wide. He had control of his limbs again, but the power still surged like a drug in his veins.

  'Moriana! What's happening?' cried Ziore.

  'I ... I cannot control it.' Her voice penetrated the bones of those in the chamber, transmuted as Selamyl's had been.

  The room shook then. Synalon lurched into Rann; Fost fell,

  cracking his knee painfully on the stone. Imaged on the wall,

  the western Ramparts tumbled like eightpins to the throes of an

  earthquake. The Ethereals and Moriana sat statue-still, unmoved by

  the spasm beneath the earth.

  The gathering clouds had grown to a black anvil thunderhead, a mountain above mountains. The watchers saw a sheet of lightning flash from the thunderhead and shear off a slice of the City's starboard rim in a coruscating spray of molten stone. Synalon shrieked as if it were her own flesh being sundered.

  Maddened, the Demon retaliated. A black funnel grew from the underside of the Lens and stabbed down. It bit into the ice over Athalau and began tearing chunks from the glacier's body. A moan rolled through Athalau, pitched almost below hearing, so that it rang deep in the bones of the humans within.

  'The Demon's killing Guardian,' shouted Fost. 'Can't you do something?'

  'Yes,' said Moriana. That much she could do. She folded power around herself, around Guardian, strapping the glacier in a cocoon of forces that held him steady against the pull of the vortex.

  Istu squealed with rage as his funnel ceased to bite. He lashed downward repeatedly. But he could no longer gouge the ice that armored Athalau.

  'What now?' asked Zak'zar from the edge of the Skywell. 'Wait,' said Istu, 'and you shall see.'

  Moriana kept trying to wield the power of the World Spirit, to smite Istu with all the force at her command. The watchers in the chamber beneath the Palace saw earthquake and waterspout and eruption devastate the land. The World Spirit flailed about like a blind beast only landing near its foe by accident.

  'Moriana, you've got to stop,' screamed Ziore as they watched Paramount, Lord of Trees, hurled down to smash a hundred lesser trees beneath it. 'You'll destroy the Realm without harming Istu!'

  'What can I do? I cannot aim the power. If only I had some way to focus on the City, on Istu!'

  Synalon shook back her long black hair and turned from the Nexus.

  'I knew I'd find a part to play in this farce,' she said. 'Rann, summon me a bird tender. I wish my eagle made ready at once.' He gaped at her.

  'Because I will be the focus my sister needs.'

  'Highness! Why?'

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  'Madness,' declared Rann.

  'Not so, cousin. Moriana and I are twins. There is a link between us, though we've spent our lives denying it.' She looked back at her sister, who sat like some green idol in the center of the Nexus. 'And my hatred is great. Give me your power, sister. I shall wield it with a fine rage.'

  Moriana did not move. Perhaps she could not; perhaps she was frozen forever in that position with her legs folded under her, her hands resting on her thighs. So complete was her lack of response that Fost feared she had died or utterly lost her identity in the immensity of the World Spirit.

  Then, 'Yes,' filled the chamber.

  Rann raised a hand to halt Synalon as she went to the door.

  'You'll need an escort, cousin. Someone to make sure you have time to achieve rapport with Moriana.'

  'You propose I take an army? Where do we get the time for that?'

  'A small escort will have a chance to approach the City unseen.' He hitched up his sword belt. 'With your permission, Highness.'

  'I'm coming, too,' blurted Fost.

  A shadow crossed Synalon's face.

  'No!' said Moriana firmly, though her expression didn't change. 'Let me congratulate you on your courage, Fost!' cried Erimenes. 'This is the ultimate adventure of a lifetime.' He whirled to face the genie.

  'It's not courage. I'm doing this because I'm afraid, dammit. I've thought I'd carried on with this mad venture for love or loneliness or from sheer curiosity. But there's another reason. I'm afraid to live in a world that gods and devils use as their playground. We're just

  pawns to them, all of us. I can't take that, do you understand?'

  'Go then,' said Moriana with resignation. Still she remained immobile, apparently lifeless.

  Rann clasped forearms with Fost and left the chamber at a run. Fost paused, then picked up Ziore's jug and carried it into the Nexus, jumping across the burning lines and avoiding the nodes. His head swam to tidal surges of power, but he made it, depositing the jug at Moriana's side. He stooped and kissed her forehead; it was icy. Then he turned and ran for the door, slowing only to scoop up Erimenes's jar.

  'Farewell, my love!' sang Erimenes. 'I'm off to the wars!'

  'Dear Erimenes,' sighed Ziore, wavering at Moriana's side. She waved, sparks flying from her fingertips as they crossed a node.

  'Goodbye,' said Moriana.

  Fost felt emotion choke him. The word echoed in his brain with grim finality.

  'Their counterattack has failed,' said Zak'zar. Istu's laugh rumbled from the Well.

  'They've realized that without a mind the scope of Felarod's they cannot wield their power with any precision. They were doing themselves more damage than I inflicted.'

  'Surely, they haven't given up.'

  'Your faith in the Pale Ones is touching, Speaker. But it matters not. They've shown they cannot harm me. While I. . .'He chuckled like a poisoned spring. 'Watch, and you shall see.'

  From the surface of the orange-red sun a wisp of starstuff was pared like skin from a fruit. An invisible force bent it into a flaming hoop, a strand, and drew it across space toward a green world waiting eighty million miles away . . .

  The roar of eagles' wings filled the corridor Guardian had opened to the east. Four war birds flew in a line, their wingtips brushing the frigid walls. Fost hunched close to the neck of his mount and tried to decide whether he preferred the claustrophobic feeling the shining walls rushing by gave him or the dread of falling from the bird.

  'Thank you for bringing me along, Fost,' said Erimenes at his side. 'I always knew you were a considerate soul.'

  'Don't thank me yet, Erimenes. You yourself said Istu could destroy you.'

  'And so he can. But he can destroy me as easily if I'm cowering in the belly of this garrulous glacier. I'd rather be where the battle rages and the blood flows.'

  'I'm glad you enjoy the prospect,' said Fost grimly. He shifted the buckler strapped to his left arm so its bronze-bound rim wouldn't gouge his hip. 'As for me, I'm ready to swallow the bravado speech I made back in the Palace, syllable by syllable.'

  'Nonsense, Fost. You, too, feel the thrill of approaching battle. And this isn't just any fight, you know. Your feats this day will live in ballads forever, as long as there are men to sing them.'

  'There may not be, after today.'

  They broke into the light. Fost squinted and let his eagle have its head. It was huge, almost as large as the midnight-black Nightwind Synalon rode, brown with white head and a white bib on its chest, and it knew what to do far better than Fost.

  Rann's eagle, as gray as a cloudy sky, moved into the lead. The fourth bird was pure white. Its rider raised a gloved hand in salute to Fost as they took station on opposite sides of Nightwind. Fost waved back. Cerestan was a fool for coming along, but Fost was in no position to be critical.

  Rann banked. Fost felt his bird tilt to follow the leftward turn, surging upward toward the City hanging above them, black against muttering storm clouds. He tried not to p
anic, tried not to think about losing his seat and tumbling end over end to the hard rocks below. He was strapped into the saddle and had both hands clinging to the harness. He looked up, up . . .

  The sun reached down and drove its fist into the middle of the glacier.

  As the solar prominence Istu had torn from the face of the sun bathed the glacier in flame, great clouds of steam billowed upward with a serpent's hiss magnified a millionfold. A groaning scream rang through Athalau, shaking loose great spires of ice, toppling ancient buildings. Men, women and children fled through the streets, covering their ears as they ran.

  Zak'zar reeled back from the rimwall, shielding his eyes against the hellish brilliance. The Sky City began to rock with the force of the superheated steam boiling from below.

  When the Speaker's eyes worked again, he beheld Istu standing braced on the rimwall, laughing and laughing as he raised his arms to bring down more sunfire.

  Hot water washed down the nave of the Palace of Esoteric Wisdom and cascaded over the steps. The Ethereals did not stir as the tide came surging around them. They were one with the World Spirit and beyond feeling; some had turned dark, no longer touched with the green glow. These would never again feel physical agony.

  'Princess.' The word was ground from a giant mill of agony. 'Princess, I ... I melt! I cannot shield you much longer.' The words came scarcely less quickly than a human would have spoken, so great was Guardian's pain.

  'Moriana, do something!' cried Ziore.

  'I can stop the waters from flooding the city,' Moriana said, and this was done, the near-scalding tide receding until only an inch of cooling water swirled on the floor. 'But I cannot stop the burning.'

  'If Synalon doesn't reach the City soon, we all shall die with Guardian.'

  'Great merciful heavens,' cried Erimenes. 'What's going on?'

  'They don't seem merciful to me. And I don't know,' snapped Fost, more intent on remaining on top of his eagle than on examining their plight.

  There had come a blinding streak of light. It had been obscured at once by an explosion of steam. Only because the bird riders had flown to the eastern edge of Guardian were they saved from being scalded to death. Fost managed to blink back the green line of afterimage that split his sight, and he occasionally saw flashes of the fire streaming down from above through rents in the cloud as though a curtain were being drawn aside to give him a view of Hell.