A thin shimmering veil of silvered purple rose before them. Alucius formed a spear of lifeforce, enfolding him—and Wendra and Alendra.
The thin purple silver barrier shattered…
Chapter 155
Norda, Lustrea
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Waleryn frowned, then hurried down the stone steps to the Table. Behind him came two ifrits in their shimmering green and maroon garments, each a good head taller than the shadow-engineer.
The former Lanachronan lord and heir stepped up to the Table, ignoring the ifrits, his brow furrowed in concentration. The ruby mists replaced the mirrored surface, revealing the empty Table chamber in Prosp. Waleryn nodded. A second image replaced the first, and that was the Table chamber in Salaan—also empty.
For several moments, the shadow-engineer just stood before the Table. Finally, a long tube appeared, projected into the space above the Table. Each end of the tube connected to webs of purpled darkness, although the web at one end consisted of but five branches.
Waleryn studied the web of purpled darkness projected above the Table, his eyes fixing on a point on the tubular segment glowing a luminescent shade that appeared black, gold, and green, in turn, and yet none of those colors precisely.
"Is something wrong?" asked the young muscular ifrit who stood at the former lord's left shoulder.
"Someone's making a translation. They're using energies I haven't seen."
"Isn't that good?"
"They're translating back to Efra. It has to be the lamaial. I warned Trezun and Lasylt. The fieldmaster said everything was under control."
"Can't you stop them? You have to."
Waleryn shook his head. "I'd have to depower the entire grid, and we don't have the master scepter here. The only way to do that is Table by Table. No one can do that in time. And if we did…" He looked at the ifrit.
"We'd all die, is that it?"
Waleryn nodded. "So would Efra… or all Efrans, because there isn't enough lifeforce to repower the long translation tube, and the master scepter hasn't been moved. The lamaial or the ancient ones might even be wagering that we would depower the tube, thinking that we would not know what would happen."
"They wouldn't do that."
"How do you know that?" countered Waleryn. "In their day, they were far more ruthless than we are. They sacrificed most of their people—and thousands of the Talent-steers—to sever the great translation tubes."
"You're not supposed to know that."
"About history? Or about the master scepter and the power requirements? Or as a mere shadow-Efran, you mean?" Waleryn snorted. "It's obvious from studying the flows of lifeforce."
"You have to do something," insisted the other ifrit.
"Tell me what," suggested Waleryn. "Does one of you want to try a reverse translation?"
The two offered no reply.
Waleryn released the projected image and stepped back from the Table. "The fieldmasters on Efra will have to stop him. If they can."
"You doubt that they can?"
"It will not be easy. He must have the scepters. Otherwise, why would he attempt the translation?"
The two ifrits exchanged glances, but did not speak.
Chapter 156
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Purpled silver flowed away from Wendra and Alucius like mist and…
… where they stood, the air was warm and humid. Frost boiled away from both Alucius and Wendra. Around them was a Table room, but one unlike any Alucius had seen. The walls were not just blank expanses of polished stone, but works of art, with carved friezes illuminated from within the stone and illustrated so well that the images seemed caught in midstep, or in midaction. Above the friezes were wall murals, similarly colored, running all the way around the chamber.
Seeing two figures through the mist dissipating from around them, Alucius brought up his rifle. A bored-looking ifrit with silver blond hair turned, and his mouth dropped open. Agonizingly slowly, his hand fumbled for the light-cutter hand weapon holstered at his belt.
Crack! Alucius's single shot struck the ifrit in the chest, exploding through the man.
Alucius turned, but the second ifrit, also blond, who had begun to run toward the archway opening onto a set of steps, went down from a single shot from Wendra.
The two herders looked at each other.
Alucius gaped, for the Wendra who viewed him was not the Wendra with whom he had stepped into the portal. Nor was the child in the carrypack the same Alendra. Wendra was more angular; her brown hair had turned black, and her eyes had gone from gold-flecked green to violet flecked with green. She looked more like the Matrial than she did like his wife. Yet… her lifethread was the same brilliant green.
"You look like an ifrit."
"So do you," she replied. "Your hair is black."
"Yours, too." He paused.
"The soarer," Wendra began, "she said something about a world affecting someone who translated."
"We'll have to worry about that later. I just hope we look normal when we get back." If we get back. Alucius scanned the Table room once more, a chamber that looked more like the Landarch's palace than what he thought of as a Table chamber. His eyes skipped over the friezes and the murals, which depicted ships such as those he'd seen in the murals in Dereka years before, and pteridons, and sandoxes—but the colors and proportions were different—and all the ifrits had blond hair, not black.
He looked sideways, taking in the light-torches on the wall. Then he scrambled off the Table.
"The one in the other corner," Wendra suggested.
Alucius hurried toward the torch she had suggested, using a twist of greenish lifeforce to break the Talent-lock, before he turned the bracket. Absently, he noted that he didn't seem to have to reach up as far. Were the brackets lower?
The stone doorway slid open. Alucius sensed no one inside.
"I'll cover it." Wendra dropped off the Table and moved toward the open doorway, turning so she could cover the room, the archway, and the staircase beyond.
Alucius hurried into the passageway, so like those on Corus, finding a chamber at the end of the corridor. He rifled through the chest against one wall, but found nothing resembling a map or anything else. Nor was there anything in the drawer of the table desk that resembled a map. The papers he did see were covered with angular and incomprehensible writing. Alucius left the rack of light-cutting pistols untouched as he hurried out.
He had sensed nothing of power, nothing similar to a scepter. "There's nothing here. The soarers said that they had to be close to lines of power."
"Then let's try another Table," Wendra said.
"There are fifty."
"If it takes fifty, it takes fifty," she snapped, moving back toward the Table. "We'll try the one that's closest and strongest."
Alucius had to hurry to catch up with her, bringing his rifle into the ready position as he took his position beside her on the Table.
Again they dropped into the purple-chill blackness.
The chill was colder than that mistiness of the Corean ley lines, but warmer than the purple chill of the long translation tube. Wendra moved toward a bright blue Table arrow, bright, yet somehow faded. Behind them the purple gold Table arrow flickered… and vanished. Alucius would have frowned if he could have.
Ahead in the darkness was the bright blue arrow, with yet another purpled silver barrier that dissolved away from them as they burst through.
The mist that swirled away from the two herders was much fainter at the second ifrit Table, and Alucius had to take a half step to hold his balance.
The single ifrit guard was faster than the first, but still only had the light-cutting pistol halfway up when the heavy cartridge tore through him, exploding a quarter of his upper torso and shoulder away from his body.
A second ifrit jerked out of the normally hidden but now open doorway. Before she could move, Wendra's rifle barked once—with results as devastating as those from Alucius's shot.
A
lucius could sense no one else in the chamber, although there were ifrits in the rooms up and beyond the staircase. He pointed as he scrambled off the Table. Wendra nodded, but remained standing on the ancient Table—set amid more murals and carvings of graceful and exquisite beauty, beauty that Alucius had no time to take in and even less to admire.
Rifle ready, he scrambled into the chamber at the end of the passageway. The layout was reversed from the first chamber, but with the same furnishings and weapons racks as in the previous chamber. He'd finished a furiously quick search of the chest and was just flicking through the few papers in the table desk drawer when he heard the report of Wendra's rifle. He forced himself to finish the search—which revealed no maps and no Talent-signs of a scepter or anything like it. Then he was hurrying back to the Table.
Another ifrit's body filled the stairwell, downed by Wendra.
"Did you find anything?" asked Wendra.
"No."
"Hurry. There are more of them coming down the stairs."
Alucius vaulted back onto the Table. He brought the rifle into a near firing position, even as he began to concentrate on entering the ifrit tubes once more.
Chill washed around them, a chill that was welcome after the steamy heat of two Table rooms and the hot frustration of having found nothing. Wendra guided them toward a chartreuse Table arrow. Behind them, Alucius could sense the bright blue arrow fading, seemingly shriveling away. The gold and purple arrow had not reappeared, either.
Again, they reached a purple-tinged silvery barrier, seemingly more transparent than those they had encountered previously. Beyond the silver, Alucius could see a pair of ifrits, each beside the archway that presumably led to a staircase. Then… the silver streamed away from the two herders seeking a scepter…
The ifrit who had been looking toward the Table grabbed for her light-cutter.
Crack! Wendra was faster than either Alucius or the ifrit, and the single bullet exploded through the guard's torso.
The second guard's hand didn't quite reach his weapon before Alucius's single shot took him down.
Alucius vaulted off the Table and hurried toward the light-torch bracket to his left. Behind him, he heard a faint wailing from Alendra. Either his feelings were correct, or he was lucky, because he could sense the Talent-lock even before he started to turn the bracket. The lock dissolved, and the hidden door slid smoothly open. As before, there was no one inside.
Also as before, there was no sign of a scepter, nor were there any papers or maps that might have led them to the master scepter emphasized by the soarer just before she died. Alucius hurried back to the Table and scrambled back up beside Wendra, who remained with her rifle trained on the archway.
"Reload while I catch my breath," Alucius suggested. "We need a better approach." Sensing even greater warmth from his right side, he glanced down. The heavy scepter strapped to his empty scabbard was glowing a faint pinkish purple and radiating heat. Yet he could sense nothing like a scepter. He looked toward Wendra. Her scepter was doing the same.
"We're safe just so long as we keep ahead of them," Wendra pointed out as she slipped cartridges from her belt into the magazine.
"We can't go through all fifty Tables," Alucius protested. "Not without resting somewhere along the way. And we don't have enough ammunition for that. We don't have enough Talent-strength to fight that way, either."
As Wendra raised her rifle, he took a moment to reload his own weapon.
"Both scepters are glowing," Alucius said.
"I think they've begun to glow a little more with each Table we've visited. Do you think they're picking up energy from them?"
"That could be. We'll have to watch and see."
"Did you notice that there are only five really bright Table arrow markers?" asked Wendra.
"No," Alucius admitted. "But the two Tables we visited first… they're gone."
"It could be the scepters. Or it could be that the soarer was right," Wendra said. "'The links are fading. That's why the guards. They don't want them used."
"Or both," suggested Alucius. "You think that one of the brighter markers holds the scepter."
"It has to," Wendra said.
"You keep picking where we're headed. Can you do some more?"
"I have to. We can't stop now," she pointed out. "We do, and they'll have guards everywhere. Through the Tables, we can move faster than they can."
"As long as we can keep it up."
"We have to." Wendra looked at him. "Are you ready?"
Alucius nodded, lifting his rifle and ignoring the sweat beading on his forehead.
The almost-welcome chill settled over them as they dropped through the surface of the Table and back into the purple darkness of the ifrit tube. Alarim could sense the brighter markers that Wendra had mentioned and let her guide them toward the nearest—one of pinkish silver.
Behind them, the chartreuse Table arrow collapsed in upon itself, shriveling away into nothingness. Neither the bright blue arrow nor the gold and purple one had reappeared. Was their transit disrupting or shutting down those Tables, or was it because they carried the scepters?
Through the next purple-tinged silvery barrier, Alucius could see/sense a single ifrit, not even looking toward the Table. As they flashed through the thin barrier, silver billowed like mist before them, vanishing almost instantly…
The single blond ifrit looked at the pair on the Table, his mouth opening ever wider, as if he could not believe what he saw.
Alucius fired, almost hating to do so. He was off the Table before the figure sprawled across the mosaic floor, a flowing design of interlocking geometric forms so beautiful that, for an instant, Alucius just stared, before he jerked himself back into action, moving toward the light-torch bracket whose hidden energy outlined it as if by a sign posted below it on the stone wall, a wall covered with the brilliant murals showing graceful blond ifrits in peaceful settings.
Alucius turned the bracket, his rifle ready as the doorway slid open.
An ifrit bolted upright.
Alucius fired, and she fell, half her upper body blown away. Relieved that his Talent showed no one else in the hidden chambers, Alucius swallowed the bile that threatened to erupt into his throat and charged into the end chamber.
His search was as fruitless as the first three had been, and, as he hurried back to the Table, he could feel the scepter growing warmer and exuding more of the purple lifeforce-related energy.
Without a word, he vaulted onto the Table.
He and Wendra dropped into the darkness below…
… and found that more than half the Table markers had vanished. Why?
Because the ifrits knew that they were using the Tables? Or because they had disrupted the links so badly that some twenty Tables no longer functioned?
Wendra moved through the chill darkness, a golden green beacon blazing in the dark, moving toward a crimson arrow marker. Alucius had to force himself to keep pace… even as she shattered the silvery harrier…
Chapter 157
Norda, Lustrea
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Waleryn scanned the image appearing in the Table's mirror. The Table chamber in Salaan remained empty. He concentrated. The next image was that of the conference room above, where he watched for a time, but neither of the goblets on the Table moved.
"There's no one there," offered the ifrit by his shoulder.
"The Tables won't show the lamaial or us, unless we're actually using the Table," Waleryn replied, "but they will show the motion of non-Talent-objects once they're no longer touched. No one has moved anything."
Another image appeared—that of the Table chamber in Blackstear—followed by the audience chamber of the Lord-Protector, and by others in rapid succession. Waleryn finally let the Table blank for a time and blotted his forehead. "There's no sign of anyone… not anywhere… except Tyren. They've vanished."
"Or they're immobilized or dead," suggested the third ifrit.
"Lasylt? How co
uld any mere Talent-steer have killed him?"
"Whatever happened," snapped Waleryn, "he isn't making his presence known." He took a deep breath, calling up the image of the full translation tube web. No sooner had the replica image appeared above the Table than a purple section of the more heavily webbed section at one end of the translation tube faded—and then vanished.
"Three are already gone," said one of the ifrits at his shoulder. "How can he… ?"
"What is he doing?"
"He's shredding the Efran Table grid," snapped Waleryn.
"Can't you message the fieldmasters?"
"I'm trying, but the lamaial has created so much interference that… I'm not getting through, or he's blocking us."
"Why is he doing it?"
"He hasn't been able to find the master scepter, but somehow the resonances from the scepters he has to be carrying are weakening the transport links."
"No one can carry two scepters," protested the closer ifrit.
"Tell that to him." Waleryn snorted. "I knew he was dangerous. I told Trezun. But no, no mere Talent-steer could be that threatening. No simple herder-mercenary could pose that much of a threat to Efra."
The three watched the image above the Table.
Another section of the grid shriveled and vanished.
Chapter 158
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The table onto which Alucius and Wendra emerged was twice as large as any that they had seen before, its square top a good four yards by four. Nor was there any billowing of mist or splashed silver. Alucius looked for stone walls and light-torch brackets. There were neither.
The Table stood in the center—or the base—of a chamber that was a small amphitheater, rising up a yard above the surrounding stone floor, in the center of an oval area a good thirty yards across, enclosed by a yard-high wall of green eternastone. The arched pink marble ceiling was a hundred yards above Alucius's head, and lights of all colors played over it. Somewhere, musicians played, a melody that was stirring, soothing, and sensual, all at the same time.
Corean Chronicles 3 - Scepters Page 70