XXX
My recollections of the next hour or so are somewhat sketchy. Being marched into Madame Karracel's establishment via the concealed passageway. Madame Yvendel confronting Madame Karracel with a bag of gold coins. The male patrons being ejected in various stages of dress and undress, each with a handful of florins. Being stripped naked and bathed in perfumed, soapy water by Wensomer in a room whose door bore the sign chaymbye of bubble fantasyes. Having my hair dried by some sort of minor heat casting spoken by Wensomer. Being shown into a huge bedchamber smothered in hangings and carpets, with blue lanterns burning and star-shaped mirrors shining down from the ceiling. Seeing Lavenci standing there in a chamber gown of white silk, then watching her unfasten the gown and let it fall to the floor. Watching her unfasten and discard various other items of negligible white clothing, then step clear of the pile and do a pirouette with her arms extended.
"The Lupanians have killed us all, and I have gone to paradise" was the only response that I could manage.
"Your turn," she purred.
The red chamber gown was all that I was wearing, and it was the work of a moment to discard it and do my own pirouette. Lavenci shrieked in shock.
"Danolarian, your back!"
"Oh, er, that was a flogging on the voyage from Torea. Fifty lashes, for insubordination." "And your leg!"
"Battle of Racewater Bridge, it was a lance." "Your arm?"
"That was the invasion of Diomeda, another lance."
"No, no, the other arm!" said Lavenci, putting her hands over her head.
"A knife fight in Gatrov—actually you were there."
"That burn!" she said, advancing on me.
"Oh, now that time I really did think I was going to die. We were in the Sargolan town of Clovesser, defending Princess Senterri against a glass dragon and mmmff."
Lavenci wrapped her arms around me and again smothered my lips with kisses. For a long time we stood there, perfectly at peace in spite of the terrible doom hanging over both ourselves and the city. Presendy Lavenci gestured in the direction of the bed.
"This is enchanting, but lying down will be better still," she whispered to me.
There is something profoundly pleasant and exciting about the commencement of lovemaking with a new partner for the very first time. Every sensation is exquisite, and every memory stays with you. For a long time we said nothing at all. The heat of the summer night was perhaps all that marred the experience a trifle. The pain from Lavenci's teeth in my neck did not seem to matter at all.
"Am I as good as the princesses?" Lavenci asked not long after a bell was rung for midnight.
"They just wanted to please, but you love," I replied. "Every move, every purr is saturated with love. I must look a bit of a mess, though."
"You are a hero and scholar, all in one. You are strong, bold, tender, and loving. I have never felt that before." "Not even from Laron?"
"Laron is not strong, and he made love, rather than loved. Pelmore was a shell of muscle over emptiness, nothing more. When I think that we could have had all this three months ago, I—I just feel so ill."
"Lavenci, Lavenci, it happened the way it did, and we are in each other's arms now. Before us is the rest of the night, and after that... an exciting day."
"Doomsday."
"No, no. Tomorrow night we shall be back in your bed, and doing much the same as we are doing now." "Pretty words, and oh so easy."
"Not just words. How do you think I broke the glamour?" "I have not stopped to think of that, I must admit." "I met myself." "Pardon?"
"Myself, from some months or years hence. He—I—had a time engine. I plucked Pelmore out of this existence without killing him. Because he did not die, the glamour was violated, and it collapsed. Pelmore is now in the distant past." I thought it wise not to mention the lady who had arrived with the time engine.
"So, you told yourself that, er, both of us survive what tomorrow brings?" she said, struggling to comprehend what even I did not entirely grasp.
"Yes, but nothing more."
"Nothing more. Well, that will have to do then, will it not?"
>: >: >:
For all the delights of our hours together, they lasted only until the third hour past midnight. Madame Yvendel tapped at the door and called that both Lavenci and I were being summoned by Laron. Lupanian towers had been seen moving beyond the city walls.
Chapter Twenty-Three
ALBERIN ALONE
My account of the final battle for Alberin is one of personal impressions alone, and the truth of it is that I had very little to do with matters of leadership, even though I knew such people as Laron, Halland, Wensomer, and of course Riellen. A carriage was waiting outside as we emerged from Madame Karracel's establishment, and we were driven straight to the palace. There all the squad leaders were being given written orders by Laron himself. My orders had my squad guarding the approaches to the Skeptical temple, not far from the city walls. Once everyone had read their own orders, Laron revealed what Lavenci and I already knew to an audience of several dozen commanders and other senior officers. There were tripod towers beyond the walls. They could be seen in Miral's green light, striding about but keeping their distance.
'There are seven of them so far," said Laron. "My assessment is that they they are waiting for all the towers to arrive, then they will attack together. We have caused them too much trouble, and they now wish to annihilate us. They will stride to the most effective range for their heat weapons, then burn the city to slag and ashes. Are there any comments?"
Halland raised his hand. "Presidian, they could already raze the city with the seven towers they have, yet they do not."
"My thought is that they want to take no chances, and that they want to crush us with their full strength. Alberin has destroyed four of their number, and Alberin is the center of the empire."
Baron Hanzlin of the New Palace Guard waved for attention.
"With due respect to our brave militiamen and sailors, the destruction of the towers was sheer, bare-arsed luck. What can we hope to achieve this time?"
"We know that we were merely lucky, but the Lupanians do not. If we can lure a few of them into the city we may be lucky again. Kavelen Lavenci, do you think that you could activate the distress cry of our captured tower?"
"I know enough of their magic to do that, yes," said Lavenci after a moment's thought.
"Then go there, take a carriage, be ready to do it. I shall have teams of men there with ropes to rotate the hood and make the tentacles sway." Lavenci gave me the most forlorn yet compelling of looks, then hurried away without another word. A noble with the crest of one of the provinces was next to raise his hand.
"Presidian, what is the point of encouraging the towers to come closer? Surely they are bad enough at distance?"
"If a tower steps within the city walls, it will be within range of our ballistas. If we can take down another two of them, it will have their numbers down to a third of what they sent here through the void."
"It is an act of absolute desperation," commented Baron Hanzlin.
"So? We are absolutely desperate. No more questions? Inspector Scryverin?"
"Permission to make my squad part of the guard on the captive tripod, Presidian?" I asked.
"Permission denied. You are dismissed, go to your posts and prepare to carry out your orders—not you, Inspector Scryverin. Stay behind, if you please." Once we were alone, Laron dropped his hard and formal tone.
"The militiamen and recruits guarding the tripod are all more experienced than those in your own squad," he said, his arms folded tightly and his eyes gleaming in the lamplight as they challenged mine.
"I wish to stand in Lavenci's defense, and die with her if it comes to that," I replied simply.
"And I have to defend the city. Alberin has accepted all comers who have sought refuge here. Many of those are supporters of the Lupanians, and I suspect that they have orders to storm the tripod and protect the Lupanian they think is
there. They may also attack the Skeptical temple. I cannot spare troops to defend everything, and you are all that I can spare to protect those in the temple against assassins."
"Sir!" I said, saluting.
"Hate me if you wish, Danolarian, but follow your orders. Now find your squad, position it, and be quick about it. My feeling is that whether it is night or day, the Lupanians will attack once they are all together." XXX
By first light I could see that nine towers were standing ready. The Skeptical temple was located within arrowshot of the walls, and the roof gave a good view of the Lupanian towers gathering to the west. I could also see the captive tower above the buildings of the city, being rotated back and forth by militiamen with ropes. I thought of Lavenci within the hood, pretending to be a Lupanian. In a sense it was the safest place in the city, because once the distress call was started, the invaders would not fire on what they thought was one of their own kind. I had made a hurried assessment of the temple, and then ordered barricades for all four entrances. I then stationed all my archers on the roofs and walls. The rest of us, Essen's men, would meet any attackers on the ground.
With everything done and everyone in place, I looked out over the flood plain with my farsight. There were the nine tripod towers visible—and they were slowly advancing from the direction of the Westcrag Ranges. I knew their walk only too well by now, the loping gait, swaying tentacles holding the heat weapons, and ever-vigilant upper cowls. They were about five miles away, moving at about the speed of a cantering horse, which was a lot slower than their maximum.
"From what I know of their size, I put them at five miles from the walls," I said to Essen.
"They will do that distance in a quarter hour," he estimated, making quite a good assessment of their speed.
"They will bring their heat weapons to bear long before they reach the walls," I replied. "Individually at one mile, or combined from much farther. If they are of a mind to roast the city from such distances, we might as well give up now. If Kavelen Lavenci can convince them that she is a Lupanian, well, who knows?"
The ruse was simple. Lure one or more towers into Alberin to rescue their captive comrade, then attack them from cover, at close range. That was always the trick. I scanned the city, then returned my attention to the towers. At that range, I could not distinguish one tower from another, but they were arrayed in a straight line.
The first I knew of the battle commencing was the third and fourth tower from the left raising their heat weapons, and green smoke trailing up into the air. They played the beams of heat along the crenellations atop the city walls. I knew that the tiny sparkles of brightness were men and women being turned to ash in an instant—and suddenly the upper cowl of one of the towers burst apart.
"The tower, our tower!" shouted Essen. "It's a-firing on the Lupanians!" I saw the captive tower with its tentacles held high by ropes and poles. Thick green smoke was pouring from a dark object
between the tentacles. Lavenci! She had somehow got the heat weapon working. Even while that thought was in my mind the upper cowl of the captive tripod burst apart as a heat beam from the Lupanians slashed across it. I cannot remember whether I cried out or not, but Essen later said that I shouted Lavenci's name. Then the incredible happened, because the ropes and spars holding the tentacles up were still intact, and the heat casting continued to belch green smoke. It must have fired, I could not tell because the heat beam itself is as invisible as any other heat, and the distance was too great to see other effects. Another Lupanian on the floodplain fell, this time chopped messily apart by a downward slice of the beam. A third tripod's heat casting belched green smoke, then the remains of the captive tower burst apart from a direct hit from the Lupanian's weapon. Suddenly I noticed that all along behind the city wall, more than half a dozen tall buildings were emitting green smoke. Decoys, I remember thinking.
"She took two, Danol!" Essen seemed to be shouting from a long way away. "She fooled 'em, she was in the lower cowl, and she took two before they got her!" Out on the floodplain just one of the seven surviving Lupanian towers had green smoke trailing from its heat weapon. It raked two buildings—and then its upper cowl exploded as well! One of the men turned back to speak to me, then cried out and pointed back over my head. Green smoke was pouring from the temple's observatory dome. The observatory! I suddenly realized. A telescope on a precision mounting. A telescope that could be used for aiming. Lavenci and her heat Weapon had not been in the captured tower, but right above us, she was powering Alberin's only heat weapon, one formed around a mirror crystal taken from the fifth voidship. Lavenci could power the casting because Azorian had fabricated her etheric aura to be a Lupanian. Although he did not know the magical arts of fire castings, Lavenci had apparently been able to work them out for herself.
I looked back to the plain. The remaining six towers were standing still, their tentacles holding their heat weapons high, but none of those heat weapons trailed green smoke. One of the towers now tossed a globe of the poison smoke, but it did not travel even a third of the distance to the walls before hitting the ground and dispersing harmlessly across the countryside on a light wind. A moment later the upper cowl of the tower burst apart like a melon struck with a brick, and the structure beneath it toppled. The other towers now turned and began to flee. The entire city cheered. Someone who was less emotionally involved than myself declared that at this point the third battle for Alberin had been in progress no longer than a single minute. That was not the end of the fighting, however. Although the smoke from the brief but deadly battle was thickening and beginning to spoil the view from where we stood, the observatory's heat weapon managed to hit the leg of one of the fleeing towers. It toppled, then cartwheeled messily as it crashed to the ground. My last clear view of events on the floodplain included our city's makeshift cavalry pouring out of South Gate's ruins and converging on the floundering, fallen tower. I later learned that it fought back with its tentacles, and at least a score of men were killed or injured in the hour of fighting before the cowl was hacked open, the Lupanian relieved of his head, and the handling beast sliced into bloody strips of meat.
That was not the last of the fighting within the city, either. A thousand enemy infantrymen had infiltrated the city among the refugees, then reformed into a single, fearsome brigade. These had initially tried to retake the captive tower, but once they realized that the observatory on the temple was the location of our single heat weapon, they had run a half mile through the city streets and smashed into Essen's minimally trained militia. The archers on the roof dropped some, but those of us on the ground had to face the rest. I descended to the street and ordered the ladder pulled up behind me. The enemy warriors were wearied from dashing a half mile with their weapons and armor, while Essen's people were fresh, but we were outnumbered. We were on the temple steps with our backs to the outer wall, however, so the enemy's superior numbers were far less of an advantage.
We held the infiltrators back from the temple doors for a full quarter hour, and had we not been there they would surely have burst into the temple and killed everyone inside. All along the wall, more infiltrators were attacking other buildings, decoy buildings that were undefended.
Lavenci's heat weapon was no help, because it was mounted on a telescope in the observatory. Thus it could not be lowered far enough to fire into the city. Gradually other militia squads arrived at the outer edges of the brigade of infiltrators, and very quickly their advantage was balanced with ours, then tipped in our favor. Not three out of every ten ax-men in Essen's squad were alive by the time the fighting ended. Had I not been using the glass sword that Azorian had given me, I probably would not have survived. Again my memories were clouded by exhaustion, pain, and trauma, but I do remember Laron kneeling beside me as I sat with my back to the blood-spattered temple doors.
"Lavenci is in the observatory," he whispered.
I looked up at him and managed to move my lips. "I knew you would let me fight for her," I man
aged.
XXX
By noon those who had fought in the most conspicuous of the actions were being paraded down the Avenue of the Conquerors. There were cavalrymen, the remains of Essen's squad, the sorcerers from the Metrologan temple, and other ranks of brave people who had fought in skirmishes that I had not witnessed. All the while the crowds chanted:
"Riellen
"Unites us.
"We'll never be defeated!"
I saw none of this, and only heard the chanting and cheers like the distant, rolling rumble of surf after a storm. Lavenci and I were lying in each other's arms on the observatory floor, both utterly spent. Above us, pointed out over the plain, was an astronomical telescope with a mirror crystal attached to it by hastily cut brass plates and rods. Essen was looking out through the telescope portal, his arms folded on the railing.
"Reckon you're right, ladyship, those other Lupanian buggers lost their talent for casting the heat weapon," he said without turning. "You say it's from feeding on the life force of folk from our world?"
"Yes, it changed them, it made them as you are," said Lavenci. "Azorian and I worked it out before he died."
XXX
Laron gave a speech at the conclusion of the parade. He explained that the captive tower and other decoy buildings merely contained canisters of hellfire oil mixed with copper salts to produce green smoke. It had been a decoy from the very beginning, designed to distract attention from the Metrologan temple, where Alberin's surviving sorcerers cast a spell that would destroy the Lupanians with their own heat castings. The sorcerers were the heroes who saved the city, or at least that was the official story.
The truth was almost as unlikely. The decoys had been a trick to determine which of the glasswalkers in the tripod towers were the three most recendy arrived, and so still able to cast the heat weapon. Once they opened fire, Lavenci then picked them off. The Lupanians were in fact closer to defeat than anyone other than Lavenci had realized. Continual gorging on the life force of those from our world had made their etheric selves resemble the folk of our world, Verral. It was only after the arrival of the seventh cylinder that they realized why their glasswalkers were beginning to lose their talent for generating the heat weapon.
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