Laughter rippled from hunched black rocks over which a silver aura played deceptively. The ground shifted beneath him and faces formed out of the air only to shiver and vanish again before he could name them. But despite the intangibility of this plane -- which, so the Circle Adepts believed, was the highest attainable by any human magician -- Tarod knew that he was drawing close to his objective. A faint, regular pulsing throbbed through the very fabric of the world, and though it was as yet far away it was a sure sign that his instinct was guiding him well.
With a great effort he shook off the seductive illusions and fantasies that urged him to turn aside and stay, and launched his mind towards the sixth and penultimate plane. He had never before dared to reach for such a goal -- but the barriers that might have existed for any purely mortal man crashed around him, and he erupted into a place where a single, gargantuan voice screamed on an endless note. Rage, madness and an unholy delight mingled in the deafening cacophony and Tarod recoiled from its onslaught, all but losing control as the din threatened to push him over the brink of insanity. He took a desperate grip on his senses, knowing he dared not resist the voice but instead must let it flood into and through him....
With a small part of his mind that still clung desperately to earthly reality he felt he was about to break apart under the voice's screeching onslaught -- but in the very moment when it seemed it would overpower him, he exerted his will in a last, defiant surge --
The universe crashed into utter silence.
Tarod felt as though he were back on the physical plane, in his human body. Every muscle movement brought tearing pain and he felt bruised through to his bones, as though he had crawled half alive from some insane battle. But he had succeeded -- he had broken through to the seventh and highest plane. Only one barrier lay in his path now -- and that barrier hung before him.
It was a wall of utter darkness, with no limit in any direction. Beyond it was the greatest and most deadly test of all, and Tarod gathered all the strength he possessed to face and challenge it. He needed to utter just one word for the black wall to break down and allow him to pass... but the mere thought of that word filled him with repulsion. Its language had been created when the fabric of the universe was barely formed and it was so alien to human speech that he could hardly bear to consider it. Even now, as it formed in his mind, he wanted to turn and run....
Tarod gasped, and his hands clenched savagely, straining. His lips parted and he uttered the word, holding tightly to the last tatters of his will, commanding himself to listen and absorb as the monstrous syllables filled his being.
The wall hurled itself at him, and he hung in the very midst of the darkness.
He had succeeded. He had broken through the gateway, and reached the bizarre multidimension that lay beyond all the seven planes -- his final goal.
Unconsciously the knotted muscles of his astral body relaxed, and Tarod began to sway. The rhythm was absolutely perfect. And as he moved, he felt the change beginning. The deep throbbing that had hovered on the fringes of his consciousness drew closer until it became a gigantic heartbeat, echoing in the pulse that coursed through his veins. Currents flowed past him and through him. Time itself dancing and twisting and warping... and at last, shrouded in murky darkness, a monstrous shape appeared to him.
It was a vast Pendulum that moved in the gloom, swinging on a long arc that carried it through a myriad shifting dimensions in faultless rhythm with his swaying. Tarod felt a sense of awe at being in the presence of a power whose true nature was beyond even his comprehension. He knew that the image he faced was only a minute fraction of the Pendulum's true form -- for this was the force that controlled all of Time, in all of the universe's countless planes and dimensions. But the Marble Hall was and had always been a gateway -- for those with the skill to use it -- through to that aspect of the Pendulum which encompassed the Castle's dimension. And here, in this dark moment, Tarod's destiny was inextricably linked with the titanic artifact as it marked out the movements of Time in his own world.
To save himself, he must stop the Pendulum.
If he could do it -- if he could bring Time screaming to a halt -- then day and night would have no meaning, all movement would be arrested, and all living souls would cease to exist until Time should once again be set in motion. All living souls... Tarod smiled thinly. Soulless now, he alone would live on in the Castle, and could fulfill the quest to which he had pledged himself... though the nature of that quest now eluded him. No matter -- with the stone once more in his possession, his will would prevail.
If he could stop the Pendulum...
He focused his concentration into a bright prism with the Pendulum of Time at its very center. Slowly, achingly slowly, the vast bob drew nearer, seeming to swell until its proportions filled the air and swamped Tarod's mind. He knew what must come, and braced himself in trepidation to receive the initial shock. When it came, at the moment when he and the Pendulum fused and became one, the pain that flooded him was far, far worse than he had expected. He had to fight desperately not to scream aloud -- and the Pendulum was carrying him with it, the swing increasing in force. He couldn't hold out against it much longer; its strength would soon overcome him and then he would have no hope of controlling it -- it would shatter and destroy him.
Tarod thought of the White Flame, which even now Keridil must be calling from its netherworld into manifestation. He drew breath as he swayed, as the Pendulum of Time swayed; and summoned every last dreg of his resources into a single bolt of pure power. The moment had to be perfect --
A cry that could never have been uttered by a human throat wailed through the dimension, and suddenly, violently, Tarod stopped.
It was as if he had been hurled into the epicenter of a gigantic earthquake. Shock upon shock roiled over him, racking and pounding and tearing; the darkness warped and shredded into a million fragments -- as the Pendulum of Time screeched to a tortured halt.
As the massive swing was arrested in mid-motion, a shattering explosion smashed Tarod backwards. Unbearable light blazed in his head -- then his body struck a hard and agonizingly physical surface, and he blacked out.
When he came to he was sprawled face down on stone, with dust clogging his mouth and nostrils. Coughing, his head spinning, he tried to raise himself and fell back with a gasp as pain shot through his left arm. The force that had hurled him back to the material world had slammed him against the floor with a terrible impact, and the bone was broken. For an instant he wanted to laugh -- the Circle had seemingly come full turn, and for the second time in his life he had arrived at the Castle of the Star Peninsula as an injured and disoriented stranger.
But this time there were great differences... Tarod silently willed the bone to heal, and the pain flowed away into nothing. He flexed shoulder and wrist, and smiled grimly to himself. Whatever else he might have achieved, the power reawakened by his loss of humanity was undiminished. He lived, and he was free. What he would see when enough physical strength returned for him to rise and look about him, he didn't even try to imagine. All he knew was that the Circle had been thwarted, and the knowledge made him weak with relief.
He craved sleep. Despite his healing abilities, his soul -- no, he corrected himself, his mind -- ached with the titanic strain imposed by what he had done, and he could have simply rested his head on his arm and slept where he lay. But that must wait -- he had to know the final outcome of what he had done.
Stiffly, he rose. The Marble Hall was dark, and that disconcerted him -- the coruscating mists with their peculiar intrinsic light had vanished, and his senses warned him that he wasn't surrounded by a vast space, as he had expected, but by walls that were perhaps only a few handsbreadths away....
Realization came with a sudden shock. He wasn't in the Marble Hall -- this was the Castle library! Quickly Tarod attuned his green eyes to the darkness, and made out the dim silhouettes of shelves surrounding him on every side. Many had been splintered by the force of the upheaval,
and the Castle's collection of books and manuscripts lay wildly scattered about his feet.
An unnatural stillness hung in the vault. Nothing moved. Tarod felt a foreboding growing in him, a certainty that something was wrong; and as the dread took a tighter hold he moved towards the open door that would lead him to the Marble Hall.
This time, there was no blinding silver light. The door of the Marble Hall glowed a sullen pewter, and even before he reached it Tarod's intuition forewarned him of what would happen. He reached out towards the door -- and, three inches from its surface, his hand was stopped by an invisible barrier. He tried a second time, and a third; but the result was the same. And at last he realized the truth.
The forces that the Castle's unhuman architects had imbued in the Marble Hall were as capricious and devious as their creators. Oh, he had succeeded in halting the Pendulum of Time; the Castle and its inhabitants were caught and held in limbo, and he had gained a kind of immortality. But Time had shifted more subtly than Tarod had bargained for -- the moment that held the Marble Hall was fractionally out of synchronization with that in which the Castle itself had been frozen, and thus the Hall was barred from his reach.
And the soul-stone was trapped, together with the Adepts of the Circle, like a fly in amber beyond that door....
Tarod felt something akin to despair flower in him. To have achieved so much, only to be thwarted by a quirk of fate when everything seemed to be in his grasp, was a cruel irony. He raised his left hand, looking at the twisted silver base of the ring which still clung to the index finger. Without the stone he was at a hopeless impasse -- he needed to retrieve it if he was to stand any hope of finally bringing about its destruction, and yet he couldn't possess it without bringing back time, and with it the full wrath of the Circle.
Slowly, he turned from the dully glowing door and retraced his steps to the library. For a while then he stood motionless among the scattered books, absorbing the dead and silent atmosphere. He was the only living thing here, now.
Now. Tarod smiled bleakly as he realized that the word no longer held any meaning. What became of a world in limbo? What became of its inhabitants? He felt no pity for Keridil and the Circle, and very little anger or malice. The bitter taste of betrayal was still there, but it no longer gnawed at him; it was as if his heart had chilled within him. By surrendering his humanity he had also surrendered the emotions of a human being, and, detachedly, he reflected that it seemed a small price to pay.
At last Tarod left the library. Reaching the courtyard, he paused to look up at the sky. A dark red, lurid glow seemed to hover beyond the Castle's black walls, throwing the four gigantic spires into brooding relief and casting an eerie radiance over everything it touched. Tarod smiled at this evidence of the sheer immensity of the forces that must have been unleashed on this dimension at the moment when Time ceased. Beyond the Castle, beyond the Maze and the stack, the world lived and breathed still; but the Castle of the Star Peninsula was no longer a part of it. Time had shattered and separated them; no one could enter, he couldn't leave -- he was caught in the trap that he himself had created.
He turned and walked along the colonnaded avenue that led to the Castle's main door. The crimson glow had permeated inside, and glimmered beyond the open doors like a distant hellfire. Climbing the steps, Tarod paused before entering. There would have been activity within, despite the grim ceremony taking place. Servants going about their business even in darkness, a crowd in the dining hall, gathered about the empty fireplace to whisper and speculate and ease each other's fears. Somewhere Sashka would have been sleeping, or keeping vigil for Keridil's return....
An echo of his lost humanity made Tarod shiver at the thought of what he might see if he stepped through that doorway. Silent statues, frozen in the midst of life? Ghosts? He quelled the unease, and moved on into the Castle.
There was nothing. Silent corridors, empty rooms. Nothing. The dining hall greeted him, stark and lifeless and inhabited only by shadows that lurked where the dim red radiance couldn't reach. Wherever they were, whatever their fate, the Castle-dwellers had left no trace of their existence when Timelessness consigned them to limbo.
A sigh, so soft that he might have imagined it, whispered through the silent hall. Tarod turned. He thought he glimpsed the flick of a cloak-hem moving by one of the empty tables, and heard the faint echo of a woman's bright laughter from the gallery above the hearth, but they were gone before his senses could fully register them.
Ghosts of his own memories... deep down he felt a sensation that might have been loneliness or sadness, but it was vague, and quickly faded. He could learn to live with memories....
Tarod turned his back on the silent dining hall. His face registered nothing, for there was no feeling within him. Returning to the great doorway, he stood staring across the courtyard to the massive double gates in the Castle's outer wall. Then, almost as a reflex, he raised his left hand and made a careless gesture. Thunder bawled overhead and a bolt of blood-red fire cracked the length of the courtyard, momentarily lighting it with a furious brilliance. The sense of his own power brought him some small comfort. While he wielded that power, hope remained. He had triumphed once -- and despite his seemingly impossible predicament, he believed that he could do so again. There would be a way -- there had to be a way -- to retrieve the soul-stone. And he'd find it.
Tarod stared up at the black walls of the Castle which was now his prison, and almost laughed. Yes; he'd find the way. And he had all the Time in the world....
The Initiate Page 30