The Spiral Labyrinth

by Matthew Hughes

  "Or to march over here and get us," I said. I regarded the swirl of red and black a moment longer. Then I said, "Or perhaps it will be too busy with the new factor that has just entered the situation."

  Osk Rievor followed my gaze. "Friends of yours?" he said.

  "Acquaintances, only," I said. "Our interests did not converge."

  For, from out of the heart of the spiral labyrinth, something else had emerged into the black sky above Bille. It took the form of a long, wooden boat with extravagant curlicues of carved and gilded wood at stern and prow. The vessel was surrounded by a great, translucent bubble that was suspended from a net of heavy, braided cables. The open end of the net was firmly grasped by the talons of two great dragons, the larger of the pair magisterial in gray and silver, the smaller fiercely bold in scales of yellow and pinions of blue.

  The dragons beat their wings and the green sphere with the boat nestled within settled smoothly to the barren plain, midway between our hide-out and the fissure leading to the cave where the fungus grew. On the vessel's raised forecastle, a group of figures stood gazing toward the spot where the avatar had last been seen. I recognized Smiling Bol, lean Ovarth, squat Tancro and raven-haired Chay-Chevre. Of Shuppat, at first there was no sign, then he emerged from a midships hatch and joined the other four of the Five.

  An animated colloquy ensued, its energy evident from the movement of arms and stamping of feet that accompanied its spoken component. Clearly, the Powers of Bambles were on edge. Whatever consensus had allowed them to travel here as a body was not deeply seated; no sooner had they arrived, than they had fallen into an argument as to what to do next.

  Shuppat emerged as the moderator. His gestures were less energetic, his posture less pugnacious. When calm had been restored he indicated the crevice where the fungual entity had disappeared, then his arms opened to embrace the plain on which they had landed.

  "He is outlining a plan of action," I said to Osk Rievor.

  "So it would seem," he answered, "and now they are about it."

  The group on the forecastle had split up. Ovarth was climbing over the side of the ship, descending a ladder to the ground. Tancro was laying out row upon row of small objects on the open deck. Bol withdrew to a cabin in the stern of the ship. Chay-Chevre mounted the afterdeck; that brought her to eye level with the lesser of the two dragons that had alighted on the plain behind the ship and stood there with wings folded. The big gray lowered its head to attend to what its mistress was saying.

  Suddenly, all was action. The dragons sprang into the air, the smaller climbing high to fly wide circles around the area, the larger flapping over the plain then landing to take up a position on the slope above the fissure. Meanwhile, Ovarth had walked out onto the flat rock a small distance from the ship and was now directing a wand at the stony ground, his motions like those of an artist sketching. Tancro had finished the laying out of his multitude of small items on the ship's deck, and had ascended to the forecastle, from which he directed a wand of his own at the array he had created.

  The outlines Ovarth had scratched now revealed their shapes as, from out of surface of the plain, four giant figures of solid rock were born. They sat up then pushed themselves out of the man-shaped depressions they left behind. Ovarth claimed their attention with gestures of the wand and words I could not hear. He pointed to the rising land in which Osk Rievor and I were hidden, said a few more words, then the four rough-hewn elementals he had conjured into being turned as one and came across the plain toward us. I could feel the impact of their heavy footfalls vibrating the floor of our cave.

  "Do they come for us?" I wondered aloud.

  "I believe not," said my other self. He was proved right when the giants reached the lower slopes and their massive hands began carving out great oblong blocks of stone as if the slope were made of nothing firmer than cheese. They hoisted the blocks onto their shoulders and carried them back to the vicinity of the ship, where they arranged them as the base of a great wall.

  Back on the ship, Tancro's wandwork was also yielding results. The array of objects he had laid out on the deck were rapidly growing into a double platoon of armored man-like creatures. From this distance they appeared to be like humans cross-bred with crustaceans, their backs and chests covered in carapaces of glistening black, their multi-jointed forelimbs ending in pincers. What looked like weapons of some kind were slung from their shoulders, and bandoleers crossed their chests. At Tancro's order, they swarmed over the side of the ship, dropped to the plain, then rushed forward to form a double skirmish line halfway between the vessel and the place where the fungus-man had disappeared. The forward line knelt while the rear remained standing, the soldiers in both ranks unslinging their weapons and holding them at the ready.

  "Not a friendly visit," I said.

  We withdrew into the cave as the blue and yellow reconnaissance came our way. When we moved again to the opening, not much had changed. The giants had extended their wall so that it paralleled the length of the ship on one side. They now made a right-angle across the bow and continued to build. Bol was back on deck, and I saw that Pars Lavelan was also part of the expeditionary force. He was assisting his patron by making repeated trips to and from the aft cabin, carrying lengths of metal and coils of glass. These they laid out on the deck and it seemed to me that Smiling Bol was examining each component with minute care.

  The afternoon on Bille was long, the planet rotating slowly. Methodically, as the white dwarf inched toward the ridges above the fungus's cave, the stone giants constructed a substantial fort of black rock, large enough to contain the ship. When it was completed, the forward line of the pincer-men rose to their feet and both ranks backed toward the fortification, their weapons still at the ready. When they reached the front gateway they turned and rushed inside, and moments later I saw them mounting the parapets, weapons slung.

  The giants sealed the opening with gates made from two great slabs of rock that swung to with a sound like millstones grinding against each other. The two dragons flew in to perch on the rear wall, where two wide platforms had been constructed.

  "Well," Osk Rievor said, "I would say that phase one has been completed. What comes next?"

  I said, "Do you remember, at Turgut Therobar's, the device he constructed to connect with the plane from which our juvenile demonic visitor hailed?"

  "I do."

  "When I was a guest of Smiling Bol, I saw a larger and more effective version of it. It was powerful enough to snare a full-grown and very unwilling demon, and to hold him while the thaumaturge did terrible things to him."

  Osk Rievor indicated Bol's activity with Pars Lavelan on the deck of the ship now surrounded by the fort. They were erecting a framework of rods and coils that was several times larger than the model I had seen in the warped green and copper room at Bambles. "It does look much the same," he said.

  "I think I know what they mean to do," I said. "And if they are successful, it will not bode well."

  "For us, you mean?"

  "For anyone. I believe they mean to capture the fungus so that they can tap its immense but naive will and use it to their own ends."

  "To rule the world, you mean? It is the usual goal of such as pursue power for its own end."

  "I doubt that Bol or Ovarth would be content with lording it over just one world," I said. "And with the demonstrated power of the entity's will, even though it has so far been exerted in only its raw form, they might well be able to rule entire planes."

  Osk Rievor shuddered. I knew he wasn't cold, even though the almost starless night of Bille was now creeping across the plain toward us; but I could understand what had chilled him. "We must stop them," he said.

  "I'm afraid you're right, I said. Then I added, "Any intuitive sense of our chances?"

  He raised and lowered the bands of naked flesh where his eyebrows should have been. "They don't look promising. What do your analytical skills tell you?"

  I looked at the solid walls of the fo
rt, guarded by stone giants, dragons and armed lobster-men, not to mention five accomplished magicians and said, "I wish I could tell you that it would be premature to say."

  #

  An advantage of a spell of sufficiency was that sleep could be done away with. My alter ego and I therefore spent the long dark hours in the cave, mulling and pondering as our natures dictated. When dawn came, with no fanfare of color, the cold, white light of the tiny sun suddenly illuminating the rock fort and sheltered ship, we had made little headway toward a solution. We resumed our position near the mouth of the cave, to observe what happened below. Perhaps as events rolled forward we would see an opportunity for useful action.

  "The argument on the forecastle was a hopeful sign," Osk Rievor said. "None of the five can trust any of the others. Though they feign concord, each plays a game of mine-alone."

  My analysis argued for the same hope. As in the children's game he referred to, at the end there could be but one holder of the glass ring. "You believe they will try to undermine each other's efforts?"

  He did. "How could five share control of the fungus? It cannot be divided into portions, but must be conquered as a whole entity. If any one of them looks to be on the verge of confining and directing its immense will, the other four must recognize that they will be the first targets once that will is amplified and focused by the arts of magic."

  It was a valid point. From here on in, the Bambles Five might act like mummers in a farce, continually tripping each other up and pushing each other into the scenery. But that prediction did not take into account the different natures of the five thaumaturges, as became clear almost as soon as the little white sun was up.

  Ovarth appeared on the ramparts, thrust back the sleeves of his robe, and smote the air with his wand. His four elementals had spent the night huddled like tumbled cairns before the fort. Now he gesticulated forcefully and the giants stood up. One of them came to the wall and extended a rocky palm. Their master stepped into it and was carried across the plain as the huge foursome thundered to the crevice behind which the fungus waited. When they reached their goal, Ovarth was lowered to the ground. He stepped clear of his charges, then pointed with his wand to the fissure.

  The elementals ranged themselves to either side of the crack and began to tear at it with their hands. A sound of rock cracking like monstrous bones echoed across the flat as they ripped free great jagged chunks and threw them out onto the plain. Soon they had widened the opening enough to admit one of their number. Ovarth gestured and the three others stood back and became inert piles of rock. Now the thaumaturge moved in close behind his remaining actor, wand slicing the chill air as he directed the elemental to dig its way into the hill.

  "My experience of Ovarth is that he is impulsive," I said, "and prefers to bring force directly to bear on whatever stands in his way. Thus he has decided to steal a march on his competitors by burrowing straight into the hill, to drag out the fungus by its roots."

  "I am glad we are watching it from afar," said my other self. "When one is witnessing a duel between immense powers, distance provides a comforting insulation."

  The other four magicians were themselves at a good remove from the morning's action, yet they did not seem to take Ovarth's preemption calmly. They were astir, lining the front ramparts of the fort and closely watching the assault. "Tancro seems particularly agitated," said Osk Rievor.

  "He would be," I said. "He, too, is of the straight-thrust-to-the-heart school. He probably planned an early assault by his lobster-men."

  "Right now, he is probably glad he did not send them out," my other self said. "Look."

  I looked back to where the giant was digging into the hill, scooping out rock in great handfuls and spewing it out behind from between its legs like a dog digging a hole. Ovarth had climbed upon its back, wand still active. But, his attention so fixed upon the work before him, the magician was not aware of what was happening farther up the slope above him.

  A huge outcropping of friable rock, more than ten times the size of Ovarth's largest elemental, loomed over the upper reaches of the hill, where the slope steepened to the vertical. Now, as the giant burrowed into the hill, the great bulge up-slope suddenly split along several planes and its entire bulk slid and tumbled down the face of the hill, carrying loose rock and breaking off smaller, outcrops to feed the slide.

  Ovarth looked up. I saw his wand and his free hand point at the impending avalanche, gesticulating wildly. The rumbling downflow of rocks slowed, almost stopped. But though he arrested most, indeed, almost all of the landslide, a few independent boulders continued to bounce and ricochet down the hill. One of these flew over the front of the slide and -- call it ill luck, or more likely, the will of the entity that had occasioned the rock-flood -- struck Ovarth square in the face. Even at my distance, I saw the impact raise a spray of blood and other matter. The thaumaturge went down and, instantly, the avalanche rumbled back to life, burying the magician and his now inert digger, then flooding out to cover the three other rockpiles Ovarth had left sitting on the plain.

  "And then there were four," said Osk Rievor.

  "That was no innocent act of nature," I said. "Our friend in the cave knows his geology. This may not be a one-sided contest after all."

  And it was not a contest in which we would have long to wait before the second round. Tancro and his double platoon of chitin-covered warriors were already descending to the plain. The huge gates were immovable without Ovarth's rock-giants but the lobster-men formed a living ladder down the walls, holding each other's limbs in their pincers, as marching ants will use their linked bodies to cross rivulets that bar their way. Tancro climbed energetically down his creatures' bodies, then formed them into a column of twos before the fort, weapons at the port. He took position beside the front pair. His arm came up and swung down, and the formation moved off at the trot.

  Nothing happened as they crossed the plain, save that Chay-Chevre ordered her gray and silver dragon into the air. It lifted itself high above the advancing column and began to circle.

  "Aerial support?" I wondered aloud.

  "I sense no spirit of cooperation at play," my other self said.

  The assault column had reached the strew of boulders and slowed to pick their way over the uneven footing. The tall crack in the slope was mostly covered by the rockfall, but at the top of the tumbled debris a man-sized crevice was still open. At the base of the slide, Tancro halted his warriors and gave instructions. One platoon scrambled upwards, while their comrades spread out, ready to repel a counterattack if the first assault was thrown back.

  The first contingent made it to the fissure. One lobster-man went in. Moments later, another followed, then another, until the entire platoon had gone inside the hill. There followed a pause during which nothing moved except the dragon circling high above. Then I saw motion in the crevice. One of the lobster-men reappeared. He stood in the crack a moment, then began to descend through the heaped boulders, moving slowly. A second warrior filled the opening then followed after the first. One after another, the first platoon emerged from the cave, fanning out across the heaped and broken rock.

  I could see Tancro gesticulating at them, his wand cutting figures in the air. But the lobster-men still methodically came down the slope, moving, it seemed to me, like men who walked in their sleep -- if magically conjured lobster-men were given to slumber. A short distance above their master and the second platoon, they came to a halt, as uniformly as if they had been ordered on a parade ground.

  "Oh, oh," said Osk Rievor softly.

  And then the first platoon, as one, raised their weapons and fired at their comrades. Jagged lines of black energy sprang from the tips of their weapons, bathing their targets in a stygian effulgence. Most of the second platoon were caught by the first discharge. From my distant vantage, they seemed to burst or shatter silently, collapsing into shards of black chitin and multi-jointed limbs that were sent spinning away. A few of them returned fire, and some
members of the turncoat platoon died under lashes of black fire.

  But the battle was made unequal by the surprise with which the first platoon had struck. In a few moments, all of the second platoon were destroyed, while a dozen survivors of the treacherous first were making their methodical way down the slope, converging toward Tancro.

  The thaumaturge backed and scrabbled away from the oncoming lobster-men. He paused to aim his wand at the nearest and I saw a bolt of white force consume the warrior, withering it to ashes that retained their arrangement for a moment, then collapsed into a heap.

  Tancro aimed at another and blasted it, but now the others were getting closer. "The blast from the wand must need time to recharge," Osk Rievor said. "He has not time to reload and kill them all before they catch him."

  He was right, and the thaumaturge had come to the same conclusion. He turned and clawed his way past a boulder that stood in his path, stumbled on some loose fragments beyond and slipped and sprawled face down on the rubble of the landslide. He rose to his knees, felt around for the wand that had fallen from his hand. I saw his head turn to look behind him. A lobster-man was almost upon him, pincered hands reaching to seize him.

  Tancro threw himself forward, still on all fours, scrambling down the scree of broken rock. The lobster-man came on relentlessly and, apparently, without its chitin suffering the kind of damage that the jagged fragments were causing the magician's unprotected flesh.

  "He will not make it," I said. "In a moment, they will have him."

  "That would not be good," my other self said. "Almost as bad as a magician controlling the entity's will would be the entity absorbing the knowledge of a thaumaturge."

  "Almost?" I said.

  He agreed that the degree of awfulness between the two possibilities was perhaps equal. "In any case, the issue remains moot."

  Indeed, it did, because as the lobster-men seized Tancro and began hauling him, struggling, up toward the crevice, Chay-Chevre's silver and gray dragon swooped down. As it passed over the knot of figures it let fly a blast of red flame that incinerated them all.