Voidfarer

by Sean McMullen

  "Danol, you too speak with the tone and authority of a scholar," he observed.

  "How came you to be a Wayfarer?"

  "An unfortunate incident in my past," I volunteered without looking away from the eyepiece.

  "Would you consider a vocation to the Order of Skepticals?"

  "Such a vocation would not suit me, sir. It shames me to admit it, but I am too fond of drink, song, and alluring women."

  "Ah, pity. So, do you like the farsight? It is called Gigop-tica, and it is the largest in the known world. The brass tube is twenty feet long, with a silvered concave mirror at the base and a secondary at the top. The main mirror is the real treasure. It is fourteen inches in diameter, two inches greater than the next largest anywhere."

  "And where is that, sir?"

  "Why in the north dome, of course. We have here the four largest farsights ever made. This one, the twelve-inch, and two eleven-inch reflectors. There is also a very-short-focus ten-inch reflector. That one is for wide-field viewing, we use it to hunt comets and other moonworlds."

  "Others, sir?" I asked innocently. "There are only four."

  "Oh no, there are nine now. The five new ones are quite tiny, in fact the two smallest are in orbit around Lupan. Moons of a moonworld, can you imagine that? We discovered them all. What sorcerer could ever do that with magic? Let me check my tables, I'll try to find a comet for you." He went off to a side room, leaving me to observe Lupan alone. The farsight was of the type that had a second, smaller mirror at the top end, and a hole for an eyepiece in the main mirror at the base. As I gazed into the eyepiece, I saw what was familiar to me from drawings, except that it was now so real that it seemed almost artificial. Lupan was strangely sharp in the field, too bright, too well defined, too stark, too intensely colored. The clockwork drive clacked steadily, keeping the moonworld in the field of view. Its two tiny moons gleamed like luminescent diamonds beside it.

  "I see very few clouds in Lupan's atmosphere," I said as Nortan returned.

  "That's why it shines so red tonight," he replied. Through the largest farsight that existed, I was gazing at another world's orange deserts, little blue seas, and dark green vegetation. Forests or cultivated fields? I wondered. The lines

  looked so deliberate, they had to be artificial canals across the deserts. Where they intersected there was always a dark dot. Were these cities? Several canals ran to the gleaming white polar cap.

  "Lupan is always good value for a viewing," Nortan remarked.

  "It's quite beautiful," said I, enraptured.

  '^Your interest gratifies me. I have had dukes, counts, princes, even kings in here, but they merely squint, grunt, then ask what else they might look at."

  "Those canals simply have to be artificial," I speculated again.

  "Why? Is there evidence?"

  "Some sorcerers say that they are aware of castings done on Lupan. They say that they could make contact with the minds of Lupanian sorcerers if—"

  "If they had a sufficiently large research bequest," interjected the astronomer. "Sorcerers just talk, but what we have here is a direct view, not some dream journey that nonsorcer-ers are cut off from forever. I am a Skeptical, all of us here in the palace are Skepticals. We believe only what is before us, and what is before us is the face of Lupan, with seas, rivers, forests, deserts, and polar wastelands. That is fact, and fact is all that there is."

  As he was speaking there was a faint flash, no more than a twinkle, on the darkened area of Lupan's disk. I gasped, and the astronomer general asked what was the matter.

  "I saw a small flash on the dark side of Lupan."

  "A flash?"

  "And now there's a sort of faint glowing dot against the darkness." "A dot?"

  "It's very, very faint."

  iTwenty-one minutes past the ninth hour of noon by our escarpment clock," mumbled the astronomer general, and I heard the frantic scratching of chalk on slate. "Quickly now, let me see!"

  He was at the eyepiece for a long time, all the while writing and sketching on his slateboard.

  "I estimate that it is squarely on the equator, where the Lon-tassimar Canal crosses the Florastia Desert. There are known

  to be isolated mountains in that area ... and there is a definite glow that is spreading in a circle, but it is fading as it spreads. A volcanic eruption, I would say."

  "Might it have been artificial?" I suggested.

  "Oh no. That cloud is by now larger than a small kingdom. No civilization could stage such a massive blast."

  "Four years ago our own civilization set off an ancient weapon that destroyed a continent," I pointed out. "That triggered the Torean Storms, and after nearly four years they have only just started to decline."

  "Yes, but that was an accident."

  "Indeed, lordship, but Lupanians might also have accidents." "They would not be so silly."

  "Well, three years ago our sorcerers girdled our entire world with that ether machine Dragonwall, lordship. It melted several cities when some very vindictive people got control of it."

  "And several of our temples! That was a typical sorcerer's endeavor. All lights and spectacle, no theory or principles. No wonder it self-destructed and killed them all."

  "But perhaps there are sorcerers on Lupan, making the same mistakes as did ours."

  "The Lupanian would be far too sensible to build a thing like Dragonwall."

  "What basis in fact do you have for saying that, lordship?" I asked innocently.

  That remark struck at his honor as a Skeptical. He looked up from the eyepiece, glared at me for a moment, seemed to privately concede that I might have a point, then looked back at Lupan about as eagerly as a drunkard taking a swig from a jar of good wine.

  "There's a bell rope to the left of the door," he said urgently. "Kindly give five rings to summon the other astronomers here."

  >: w.

  Five rings was clearly the code for a summons of the very greatest possible urgency. The four other astronomer Skepti-cals arrived within a half minute, followed by the four artisan technicians, a serving maid who wanted to know if anyone

  wanted a cup of tea, the cook with a tray of shortbreads, and nine guards who looked as if they were rather bored and were hoping for a good show. The astronomer general hurriedly explained what I had seen, what he could see, and what it might mean. The other four astronomers scattered to the other four farsights, followed by various members of the palace staff. I considered the situation. There were by now only two guards actually on duty, and they were three thousand feet below in the gate station. Everyone else was in the five farsight domes.

  I slipped away, met with Wallas, and listened to his report on the palace. He had done a fairly thorough general search, but being unable to open doors meant that virtually every small room and bedchamber would have to be checked by me.

  "The thin air makes exertion all the more unpleasant," Wallas complained.

  "So, you finally exerted yourself enough to notice."

  "Can I have my Senderialvin Royal 3140 now?"

  "No! While I check the small rooms, you must keep watch for anyone slinking about, trying to change their hiding place."

  "What about Riellen and Roval?"

  "Riellen has been walking all day, and is liable to faint again unless she gets a few hours of sleep. Roval has taken his sleeping drug, but you spent the day in a saddlebag and are ready for anything. Get moving, exert yourself again."

  I left him, and began to search the palace complex. No doors were padlocked, except for the Senderialvin Royal stores, but the racks of grotesquely expensive wine were visible through a grillework door, and I could see that nobody was hiding in there. The large halls were empty, cold, and still bare, but the greenhouses were planted to capacity and still warm from the day's sunshine. There were literally hundreds of bedchambers, parlors, and sunrooms to check.

  I prowled the corridors, battlements, and cloisters for hour after hour, but found nothing. It was tiring work, for I
had been walking all day and the air was very thin. All the while I was unaware that a thing was now hurtling through the void, on course for our moonworld. Even had I known, I could scarcely have believed it. The night was clear, tranquil, and exceedingly cold, and Lupan seemed so very far away as I caught sight of it through a sunroom window.

  By nearly two hours past midnight I had found nothing, yet I had explored less than a quarter of the palace. I needed help. Roval had drugged himself asleep, so Riellen would have to be roused after all. Returning to her room, I rapped at the door. There was no sound. No sound from my knuckles, that is. Some sort of muffle spell, I guessed. I reached down for the latch, but traceries of blue fire lashed out and stung my hand. Magic, I thought, rubbing my fingers. I knew just enough about sorcery to be wary of guard spells and castings. Some of them could remove a finger. Riellen was probably sleeping safely inside the chamber, unaware that she was trapped. I was still free, of course ... but it was now obvious that my quarry knew we were in Alpindrak to find her. The bell of the clock in the north tower clanged out the second hour past midnight, so I hurried away to my rendezvous with Wallas. He was not there when I arrived, and at fifteen minutes past the hour I decided that he would not be meeting with me. We hunters had become the hunted, and our ranks were already down by three-quarters.

  I abandoned my lamp and hurried away into the shadows. If the empress knew we were after her, she would certainly not be asleep. She might also have been watching me search the palace. There was no way for her to know that we had not left more constables to form a roadblock on the track down the neighboring mountain, so she would not try to escape that way. She could escape, however. She was a sorceress as well as a monarch.

  My eye was caught by a bright flash of light on the western battlements. Magic, she's there, I thought at once; then I reconsidered. Timed castings were possible; in fact, those on Riellen's door would probably dissolve at dawn. Empress Wensomer's dazzle casting would annoy the astronomers, but was probably meant to catch my attention. Another flash blazed out at the same place, tempting me to go there. The

  wind was coming from the west, meaning that the eastern battlements were relatively sheltered. That was where she would be.

  I was probably more hasty than I should have been as I hurried along to the east of the palace. There was a long, wide balcony built into the main wall, about halfway down. Once courtiers and ambassadors had milled about there, wearing furs against the cold, breathing heavily in the thin air, and sipping warm drinks as they attended the eccentric king who liked to hold court beneath the glory of the stars. Now, for the first time in seven decades, another monarch was present.

  My expectation was that Wensomer would use huge etheric wings to escape. I had never seen such a thing done, but I knew it was possible. Wings of ether could be cast by a really skilled initiate. The wings weighed nothing, and could be used to ride the air currents and glide dozens or even hundreds of miles if the winds were favorable. I had expected that she would have been busy casting the giant wings, putting all of her power and concentration into the task. I was wrong. I have since realized that I had been dealing with one of the most intelligent and cunning people on the continent.

  A dazzle casting burst before my face as I hurried out of the archway leading onto the balcony. I flung myself down at once, but my momentum carried me across to the smooth tiles to the railing at the edge. I clung to a stone pillar, aware that there was an immense amount of nothingness mere inches away, terrified of what I knew was there, and blind. Something lashed at my upper body, something that wrapped itself about me very tightly and bound me to the pillar. Empress Wensomer had not been busy casting wings for an escape, she had been waiting in ambush for me.

  "Your Majesty, I am your servant," I wheezed hopefully. "Inspector Danolarian Scryverin, at your service."

  The reply was some time in coming, but I could hear someone pacing about, and the jingling of buckles.

  "The Wayfarer inspector," she said at last. "I saw you climbing the steps this afternoon, then I watched you searching the palace. You were sent to find me, let us have no stories to the contrary."

  "Yes, Your Majesty."

  "You are the same Wayfarer who nearly caught me at Mal-var, Dekkeridge, and Green Castle?" "Indeed, but—"

  "Your dedication, resourcefulness, and intelligence leaves me astounded. It also annoys me a great deal."

  "I apologize, Your Majesty, but—"

  "You are not trying to kill me. You had the chance at Dekkeridge but did not take it. Just why are you chasing me?"

  "Your empire needs you—"

  "My empire needs me like a fish needs a towel. I am not going back, and there's an end to it." "But a usurper—"

  'There's a usurper already? Wonderful." "It's Regent Corozan."

  "Even better. My rather decadent rule will seem a golden age when compared to his." "You cannot mean that."

  "Oh yes I can. What was all that fuss earlier tonight? I heard talk of a mighty explosion."

  "There was a huge explosion on Lupan, Your Majesty."

  "Lupan the moonworld, or that place in south Alberin— Lupan's Discreet Entertainments for Discerning Ladies?"

  "The moonworld, Your Majesty."

  "So, that is why everyone is in the domes. The astronomers must be as happy as pigs in a cesspit. So, you are Inspector Danolarian Scryverin of the Wayfarer Constables. You saved my sister's life just before I abdicated."

  "Ah, that is not so, Your Majesty," I said after thinking carefully. 'The only princess I ever served was Senterri, daughter of the Sargolan emperor. I was but a humble reccon in her escort."

  "But my sister is also a sorceress—albino girl, your height, and her eyes are black from being treated with squid ink."

  Every muscle in my body clenched for a moment; then everything collapsed from beneath me. My stomach became a chasm deeper and darker than that whose edge I was lying on.

  "Lavenci?" I gasped. "Er, that is, Lady Lavenci? She is your sisterT

  "My half sister, we have a mother in common, with whom she runs a secret academy of sorcery. I made her a noble before I abdicated, she's now a kavelen. Anything more elevated and she might get ideas." That had been a bad moment. Wensomer as my sweetheart's sister would have meant that my sweetheart was my half sister. The world suddenly became a warm, bright, and wonderful place again—even though I was still blinded, and bound to a pillar at the edge of a shadowy chasm that was about a thousand times deeper than was necessary to kill me.

  "So, where did she have you?" asked Wensomer. "The pantry, or the towel cupboard?"

  "I—er, your pardon?"

  "You know, skirts up, drawers down. Don't tellme it was in bed! She's such a biter, Laron still had the marks on his neck twenty days after their first night together."

  "Laron, as in the presiding advisor to the regent of Alberin?" I asked as the solid flagstones beneath me suddenly became a mixture of chilly quicksand and acid.

  "Didn't you know? Oops, what a gossip I am."

  "Your Majesty, I'm but a lowly inspector with the Wayfarers," I said, reeling from her candor. "I'd not have dreamed of courting a great and powerful noblewoman, had I known."

  "I'd not let that worry you, Danolarian. Lavenci has laid amorous ambushes for more than her share of spotty students in Mother's academy—she likes them intelligent, you know. She raised her skirts for... Ulderver, Decrullin, and Laron, to name but a few. Then there was the prefect, Lees, oh, and that chinless tutor, Haravigel. Actually, she managed an encounter with Laron on the roof, I chanced upon them during the very act."

  "Never!" I cried involuntarily. "Never! Never! Stop it, damn you! Stop it!"

  "Whatever is the matter?" asked Wensomer, her tone suddenly one of puzzlement, and sounding almost concerned. "Just what did she do with you?" By now I was beyond humiliation. The world had ended; what did I care what people knew of me, or thought?

  "We held hands, danced, kissed goodnight five times, shar
ed groundnut rolls at the market, and watched two sunsets."

  For a moment or two Wensomer actually had to stop and think.

  "And that's all?"

  "Once ... once I made so bold as to caress her breast. She slapped my hand away."

  "What? She's had more hands on her breasts than I've had hangovers. Dear me, why were you so low in her esteem, Danolarian?"

  "You must have another sister," I said desperately.

  "Only one is still alive. I know she likes a bit of adventure to spice her lust, she's the grope and fumble type. I, on the other hand, like huge beds, silk sheets, a feather-down mattress deep enough to suffocate in, sweet pastries and fine wine to hand, and the privacy that locked doors provide. So you and she never, you know, did it?"

  I was lying on cold flagstones, blinded, and bound to the base of a pillar by etheric tendrils with the strength of steel, yet the distress caused by what I had just been told was far worse. In an instant I had learned for myself what had made Roval curse the image in his locket for three years. My only attempt at love, flung down, shattered, and trampled. I resolved to preserve a little of my pride, if that was at all possible.

  "No," I said with as much dignity as I could muster.

  "Really? I wonder why. She had two broken ribs the night she met you, care of the Inquisition Constables. Perhaps she was waiting for them to heal before supporting your weight... yet there was nothing to stop you supporting hers. I know that she researched your background in the government archives."

  "She did?"

  "Yes. She said you were once a rather thick-witted sailor, and that you vanished on a voyage to Diomeda. Two years later you were back in Alberin, speaking nine languages, able to read, write, and quote from the classics, and proficient with half a dozen weapons. You had been in the escort of a Sar-golan princess, a hero at the Battle of Racewater Bridge, and a member of the Regency Guard of Capefang."

  "I believe in self-improvement."

  "And eleven inches taller."

  "Nutritious food and healthy exercise."

  "You seem to have grown back an eye lost in a tavern brawl."

  "I, er, met a skilled sorcerer."