WoP - 01 - War of Powers

by Robert E. Vardeman

  He stopped, eyes black circles of amazement in his skull-white face. Moriana stared back, mind staggered by the hammerblow of recognition. 'Odon!' she gasped. 'My friend in my youth, what are you doing here?'

  'Lady,' he said, his mouth working like a fish's. 'Oh, lady, I am sorry . . .' His hand came up, sword aimed as duty overcame sentiment. She read his intent. Her sword ripped out his throat like the claw of a beast. He died with his eyes fixed on her. Tears fogged her own as two more men engaged her.

  By unspoken agreement the bird-riders let their leader have the big Northland courier to himself. Fost hadn't fared so well the last time he'd crossed swords with Rann and he wasn't eager to face the prince again. Though healed by jennas's poultices, the wound in his thigh began to throb as if recalling the last encounter.

  Fost had the advantage of strength and reach over the small Sky City noble and he wore the mail vest the bear-folk had given him, while Rann had no protection beyond his heavy cloak. On his side the prince had speed, lesser size and - much as Fost hated to admit it - greater skill. They came together again, blades splashing the soft glow of the city in streaks across their sweating faces, singing the mating song of steel.

  Back and back the prince forced Fost. Occasionally a massive blow by Fost made the eunuch give way instead, but the great overpowering sweep left Fost's body exposed. After a lightning riposte laid open his hauberk and the belly beneath, Fost let well enough alone and concentrated on fighting a delaying action.

  He tried to break for the door of the Palace. A grinning trio of Sky Guardsmen blocked him. His flowing wounds had sapped him of strength. He lacked the power for the berserk charge that would have bowled them over and let him through.

  'Kill!' a voice cried. Fost's eyes snapped to his side. Forgotten, Erimenes stood by, clapping spectral hands in glee. 'Oh, the blood. Never has Athalau known such a spectacle!'

  'Erimenes, make us invisible,' Fost cried. Taking advantage of the distraction, Rann lunged-and pulled up short, a puzzled look on his face.

  Then comprehension glowed in his eyes. His sword licked out. Fost gasped as it sliced at his left biceps.

  'Your blood,' the prince said, 'falls to the pavement and reveals your presence. A moment now and we'll let the rest out.'

  Undaunted by his foe's invisibility, he came in, his sword a sighing whirlwind of death. Beyond him Fost saw Moriana likewise being driven to the wall by a jeering half-ring of foes. Though he could see her, they could not. Like Rann they traced her by the drops of blood she shed.

  Five Sky City men were out of the fight, but the odds remained three to one against Fost and Moriana. Weakened as they were, they couldn't hold out much longer.

  'Erimenes,' Fost shouted in desperation. 'Aid us! Have you no other powers that can help?'

  Standing beside him, not changing his gleeful expression when an occasional sword-cut slashed through his torso, Erimenes nodded. 'Many are my powers,' he said. 'Watch.'

  At the very apex of the ice dome, half a thousand feet overhead, the glacier was latticed with deep cracks. The shifting and endless motion of the glacier had weakened the ice over the years. Now a great block hung barely suspended, ready to break away at any instant.

  The pull of mental power from below was slight. But it sufficed. A rumbling brought Fost's eyes up. 'Back!' he screamed to Moriana. 'Against the wall!' He drove at Rann with all his strength. Taken by surprise, Rann was caught high in the left breast. He stumbled back, sword slipping from his hands. His gaze followed Fost's.

  He bellowed in rage and pain as thirty tons of ice engulfed him and his men.

  For a moment Fost could do no more than stand with his forehead resting in his palm. Then Moriana was beside him, clutching him, kissing him.

  'We won,' she said, eyes disbelieving. 'With Erimenes's help. Did you bring the ice down, spirit?'

  'Oh yes, yes, I did indeed. Of course it was almost ready to fall, else I should not have been able to budge it. But yes, my powers brought the ice block crashing down upon our foes.' A sudden thought brightened his countenance. 'Say, that means I killed them, didn't I? I, a spirit, shed the blood of living mortals. Oh, this is a great day!'

  Fost gnawed his lip. Myriad red streams trickled out from under the ice, scarlet threads weaving a tapestry on the pavement. He saw little to gloat over in the spirit's loss of innocence.

  'My thanks, spirit, for what they're worth.' He and Moriana supported each other up the steps into the Palace. It was a scramble at first. The falling block had shorn off the front of the portico and obstructed the foot of the steps, so the travelers had to climb up the side to gain the entrance. Still unimpressed by the Palace, Fost had to admit the Athalar had built well. Except where the ice had hit, the portico was undamaged. The pillars weren't even cracked. Painfully the two mounted the steps and pushed at the single copper door.

  It swung open easily. They stepped inside. At first their eyes were dazzled by the quicksilver coruscations that met them. Then vision cleared.

  'The amulet,' Fost said, scarcely able to move his lips. The nave of the Palace was fifty yards long, yet the altar seemed only the length of an arm away. A pendant hung from a black marble stand by a silver chain, a great gem set in a silver sunburst. The silver glow pulsed from the white jewel.

  White? Fost thought. Was it not black as midnight a heartbeat ago? Almost invisible in the shine of the radiant gem, a second amulet hung beside it, a poor thing hardly more than a polished grey stone knotted to a leather thong. Fost was amazed to see such dross so near such magnificence.

  Moriana started forward as if in a trance, fingers stretching toward the brilliant, half-black, half-white gem. Fost caught her arm with iron fingers. She turned on him, eyes hot and angry.

  'Let me go!' she spat. 'I must have the amulet. My people groan beneath my sister's heel.'

  'No!' Fost dragged her face to his. 'I have suffered, bled and almost died on your behalf. How would you have fared if I'd left you to the Vicar of Istu?'

  Rage was shaken from her by a tremor of revulsion. The green balefire died from her eyes. She slumped in the big man's grip. 'Ill,' she admitted, dropping her gaze. 'Even now I'd be trapped in the mind of the sleeping Demon, prey to his every horrid fantasy, and damnation would seem the purest of blessings.'

  He let her go. He felt ashamed. But life, life everlasting! I cannot let that go!

  'I'll take the amulet,' he said quietly. 'It's mine. It is only right, don't you see?' The woman nodded convulsively. Tears shone on her cheeks. 'There, I'm sorry. I . . . I'll help you fight your sister. How's that? I'll aid you in overthrowing Synalon. Everything will work out, don't you see? But, but I must have the amulet.' He finished with his hands cupping the air in front of him, spreading them in a lame gesture.

  'I understand,' she whispered. 'I . . . I'll say no more about it.' He nodded briskly. A little spirit seeped back into him. It's difficult for gloom to keep a grasp on a man with immortality within his reach.

  He walked to the altar. Erimenes and Moriana followed like shadows in that shadowless place. Not even the pillars flanking the nave cast shadows into the walk-ways beyond. The floor, blocks of black marble interspersed with white, thumped like a drum under their boots.

  Visions filled his head as he neared the mostly-white jewel. A lifetime - many lifetimes - to spend or squander as he would. Drinking, wenching, fighting his way through rollicking centuries. And more than that. He would make a fortune, a dozen fortunes, return to Medurim as equal to the wealthy to whom he'd once been less than filth. He would devote the span of a dozen natural lives to gleaning the untold wealth from the libraries of the ancient city, wealth he but glimpsed before. All knowledge lay open to his questing hand. He could be the world's wisest man, as well as its doughtiest warrior.

  So caught up was he in his imaginings that he didn't notice how his steps slowed until they stopped completely.

  'What's this?' he asked aloud. His jaw moved slowly, as though dipped in glue. He tr
ied to raise his foot. It felt rooted to the marble. 'Moriana, what treachery is this?' The words came as slowly as Guardian's speech.

  'None of mine, I swear it,' the princess said, her voice a slow roll of molasses.

  Fost's head weighed tons, but he forced it round to bear on Erimenes. A whirlwind of suns shone from his blue body. 'Spirit,' Fost said thickly. 'This is your doing.' 'Naturally.' Erimenes beamed.

  Fost's lips formed the word why? 'How can you ask?' The aquiline face twisted with fury. 'You stupid, selfish, senseless clod! I would have what you so blithely take for granted, what you so obdurately fail to appreciate. I would have life-true life! Yes, you understand, I read it in your eyes!

  'The amulet gives the blessing of life. It will return me to my body. No more being dependent upon the whim of other, lesser beings for my sensation. I will take life in my own two hands and wring it until its sweet juices pour down my throat.' He raised his hands before him, shaking with passion. 'I will still live forever, with the amulet's aid. But I shall have a body that sees and smells and feels-aye, and lusts.' He laughed a sad laugh. 'Oh, dear Fost, dear Moriana, how could you be so foolish to believe I'd let you have the Amulet of Living Flame?'

  'What happens to us?' Moriana asked. It was a struggle even to utter the words. 'I feel the cold entering my bones. Soon we will freeze.'

  'No, you won't. You're young and strong, resilient. I shall take the amulet and restore my body. Then I'll tie you, though not so well that you can't in time escape, and leave you to your own devices. There's a good deal of treasure about, of a more mundane variety. Content yourselves with that.' He turned toward the altar, busily rubbing his hands together. 'Now, Fost, my good man, reach out and bring the amulet to my jar.'

  The man's arm did not lift of its own accord. It stretched toward the amulets hanging from the altar. His eyes followed its progress. Then his gaze slid past it to the blazing gem.

  Amulet of Living Flame, he thought. It's mine. Mine. MINE! His hand stopped. 'What's this?' Erimenes demanded. 'Are you trying to resist me? Come, come, my man. It can't be done. I am at the center of my power. Give in and save yourself the effort.'

  Fost frowned. The jewel burned like a sun within his brain. The black eclipsed the white. He ground his jaws together. He recalled the way Erimenes had controlled his limbs near the city of the Ethereals and the softly insidious ways the Ethereals trapped his mind. He recalled the helpless horror the way the tentacled thing, hideous and lovely, had wrapped him in the chains of temptation. And he remembered what had saved him then, starting with a spark within, growing, expanding, eating at his limbs, his rage like a spreading conflagration . . .

  Anger! It drove the creeping cold from his limbs, the lethargy that settled on his brain. Come, rage, consume me and give me strength! he thought. His eyes were fixed on the jewel. The fury built, and did the white push away the black?

  He saw Erimenes's face twisted in anguish. He saw Moriana's lovely features slack with awe. But before all he saw the jewel, its silver fire feeding his rage, the blackness, yes, the blackness giving way like the shadow of the moon after an eclipse.

  His hands backed from the amulet. Erimenes's fingers flew to his temples and clung like spiders. Slowly Fost fought his hand down toward his waist, the satchel, the jug. Eternal life. He tries to cheat you. Remember!

  His fingers touched the basalt plug. Erimenes shrieked like one damned. The jewel blazed blinding white within Fost's brain. With a muscle-cracking heave he thrust the plug into the mouth of the spirit jar.

  'Nooooooooo!' the spirit screamed as he faded from sight. 'Fost! Don't do this to me! I must touch the amulet, I must! I am so weak, so weak!' His voice died to a sobbing lament.

  Air gusted from Fost's lungs. He seemed to deflate, falling to his knees on the cold stone. Still the sun-stone burned in his mind. Life, life, life everlasting! Did he say the words or merely think them?

  It took all his strength, but he made it to his feet. His hand stretched out, and this time it was of his own desire.

  Agony exploded in his heart. His hand jerked closed spasmodically. His fingers brushed past the radiant jewel to clamp around the rude stone pendant. He turned, feeling his legs dissolve beneath him.

  Moriana stood, and Fost saw his own heart's blood dripping from the knife in her hand.

  'Fost, I love you - but I must have the amulet. Tell me you understand. Oh please, my darling, tell me you understand.' Her words came from far away, an infinity away, across a chasm of endless dark.

  The dark encompassed him, drew tight like a noose and narrowed his vision to a single point: Moriana's face, beautiful, grieving, lost. Then Fost Longstrider died.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Fost sprawled in the gracelessness of death before the altar of the Palace of Esoteric Wisdom. The stone amulet rested like an offering in the center of his chest. His eyes gaped at the ceiling, framing the last of all questions.

  Moriana fell weeping to her knees. She covered her face with her hands. The courier's blood had drenched them, and they turned her features to a crimson mask.

  'Oh, Fost. Oh, my only love.''Hypocritical bitch,' came weakly from the jug.'Be silent!' she shrieked, beating gory hands on the satchel. 'Why? Haven't I ample reason for complaint? I have lost my chance to live again. Oh, ashes, ashes!'

  'I have lost my love.' She sat back, wiping tears from her eyes. The first frenzy of remorse had calmed, leaving emptiness and aching.

  'Love.' Erimenes snorted. 'A deadly way you have of showing it. More like a spider than a woman. What happens now? Do you eat the body?'

  The princess rose. 'I'll have no more of you, spirit.' She went to the altar, picked up the glowing amulet and looped the chain around her neck. She held the gem in her palm. An electric tingle passed through her body. The jewel shone black like a dark sun. She sighed and let it drop between her breasts. Its touch chilled her.

  She turned to kneel by Fost's body. Foolish hope brought fingertips to his throat, seeking any faint thread of pulse. There was none. She gently closed his eyelids and crossed his hands over his chest and the grey stone that rested there.

  Tears spattered the lifeless face as she bent to kiss him. 'Farewell, beloved,' she said, her voice cracking like clay in the hot sun. 'I promise you shall not have died in vain. When I have freed my City, and sent my sister shrieking to hell to join her eunuch lackey Rann, I will return and erect a shrine here to your memory.'

  'I'm sure that will bring him solace,' Erimenes said acidly. Moriana rose and turned her back. 'I hope you will enjoy his company here until the sun itself receives Hell Call.' Fighting to hold in her sobs, she began to walk away.

  'Wait,' Erimenes called. 'Don't go! You can't leave me here!' 'Fost deserves better company than yours, faithless one,' she said. 'Still, here you will stay to guard over his body until my return. And ever after as well, accursed spirit.'

  'Don't be hasty.' The philosopher's voice turned to honey. 'I know something yet that could be of advantage to you . . .'

  Moriana paused, then fled, the tears streaming down her cheeks, the amulet beating like a second heart between her breasts. Erimenes called after her, voice rising in desperation. Only the echoing silence of Athalau answered him.

  Silence settled in the chamber. Hours made soft transition from future to past. Then, dimly, sound encroached upon the stillness. It started as a rustling, grew to a dry crackling, became at last a rushing roar. A blue glow oozed between Fost's fingers. It seeped out to cover him, leaping ceilingward in a sudden wild dance.

  Fost opened his eyes to flames. Am I in hell? he thought. Fire wrapped him in pain. A shuddering inhalation filled his lungs with flame. An incandescent point seared the flesh of his chest and ate into his palm. He snatched away the hand and sat up beating at the flames.

  They were gone. He looked down at his chest. The mail had been burned away in a perfect circle. Yet the flesh beneath was not charred. An angry round red mark glowed there, but the skin was intact. To th
e side the rent left by the ice-worm's teeth exposed unmarked skin.