They followed a sudden movement of his gaze out along the street, past a halted fat man and a pair of strollers, to where a woman approached under a swaying blue light. She was of medium height, her hair long and dark and glossy, her form superbly molded beneath a light, clinging costume, her features delicate, lovely, smiling.
Following his sharp intake of breath, Ibal rose to his feet. Pol and Mouseglove did the same.
“Gentlemen, this is Vonnie,” he announced as she came up to the table. He embraced her, kept his arm about her. “My dear, you are lovelier than ever. These are my friends, Madwand and Mouseglove. Let us have a drink with them before we go our way.”
She nodded to them as he brought her a chair.
“It is good to meet you,” she said. “Have you come very far?” and Pol, captivated by the charm of her voice as well as the freshness of her person, felt a sudden and acute loneliness.
He forgot his reply as soon as he uttered it, and he spent the next several minutes admiring her.
As they rose to leave, Ibal leaned forward and whispered, “The hair—I’m serious. You’d best correct it soon, or the initiation officials may think you flippant. At any other time, of course, it would not matter. But in one seeking initiation—well, it is not a time for joking, if you catch my meaning.”
Pol nodded, wondering at the simplest way to deal with it.
“I’ll take care of it this evening.”
“Very good. I will see you some time tomorrow—not too early.”
“Enjoy yourselves.”
Ibal smiled.
“I’m sure.”
Pol watched them go, then returned his attention to his drink.
“Don’t look suddenly,” Mouseglove whispered through unmoving lips, “but there is a fat man who has been loitering across the way for some time now.”
“I’d sort of noticed.” Pol replied, sweeping his gaze over the bulky man’s person as he raised his glass. “What about him?”
“I know him,” Mouseglove said, “or knew him—professionally. His name is Ryle Merson.”
Pol shook his head.
“The name means nothing to me.”
“He is the sorcerer I once mentioned. It was over twenty years ago that he hired me to steal those seven statuettes from your father.”
Pol felt a strong urge to turn and stare at the large man in gold and gray. He restrained himself.
“ . . . And there was no hint from him as to what he wanted them for?” he asked.
“No.”
“I feel they’re very safe—in with my guitar,” Pol said.
When he did look again, Ryle Merson was talking with a tall man who wore a long-sleeved black tunic, red trousers and high black boots, a red bandana about his head. The man had his back to them, but a little later he turned and his eyes met Pol’s in passing, before the two of them moved on slowly up the street.
“What about that one?”
Mouseglove shook his head.
“For a moment I thought there was something familiar about him, but no—I don’t know his name and I can’t say where I might have seen him before, if indeed I did.”
“Is this a coincidence, I wonder?”
“Ryle is a sorcerer, and this is a sorcerers’ convention.”
“Why do you think he chose to stand there for so long?”
“It could be that he was simply waiting for his friend,” Mouseglove said, “though I found myself wondering whether he had recognized me.”
“It’s been a long time,” Pol said.
“Yes.”
“He could simply have come over and spoken with you if he wanted to be certain who you were.”
“True.”
Mouseglove raised his drink.
“Let’s finish up and get out of here,” he said.
“Okay.”
Later, the edge gone from the evening, they returned to their apartments. Not entirely because Mouseglove had suggested it, Pol wove an elaborate series of warning spells about the place and slept with a blade beside the bed.
IV.
Enough of philosophical rumination! I decided. It is all fruitless, for I am still uncertain as to everything concerning my existence. A philosopher is a dead poet and a dying theologian—I got that from Pol’s mind one night. I am not certain where Pol got it, but it bore the proper cast of contempt to match my feelings. I had grown tired of thinking about my situation. It was time that I did something.
I found the city at Belken’s foot to be unnerving, but stimulating as well. Rondoval was not without its share of magic—from utilitarian workings and misunderstood enchantments to forgotten spells waiting to go off and a lot of new stuff Pol had left lying about. But this place was a veritable warehouse of magic—spell overlying spell, many of them linked, a few in conflict, new ones being laid at every moment and old ones dismantled. The spells at Rondoval were old, familiar things which I knew well how to humor. Here the power hummed or shone all about me constantly—some of it most strange, some even threatening—and I never knew but that I might be about to collide with a deadly, unsuspected force. This served to heighten my alertness if not my awareness. Then, too, I seemed to draw more power into myself just by virtue of moving amid such large concentrations of it.
The first indication that I might be able to question someone concerning my own status came when we entered the city and I beheld the being in the tower of red fumes. I watched it until the manifestation dissipated, and then was pleased to note that the creature assumed a form similar to my own. I approached the receding thing immediately and directed an inquiry toward it.
“What are you?” I asked.
“An errand boy,” it replied. “I was stupid enough to let someone find out my name.”
“I do not understand.”
“I’m a demon just like you. Only I’m doing time. Go ahead and mock me. But maybe someday you’ll get yours.”
“I really do not understand.”
“I haven’t the time to explain. I have to fetch enough ice from the mountaintop to fill all the chests in the food lockers. My accurséd master has one of the concessions here.”
“I’ll help you,” I said, “if you’ll show me what to do—and if you will answer my questions as we work.”
“Come on, then. To the peak.”
I followed.
As we passed through the middle reaches of the air, I inquired, “I’m a demon, too, you say?”
“I guess so. I can’t think of too many other things that give the same impression.”
“Name one, if you can.”
“Well, an elemental—but they’re too stupid to ask questions the way you do. You’ve got to be a demon.”
We got to the top where I learned how to manage the ice. It proved to be a simple variation on the termination/absorption techniques I employed on living creatures.
As we swirled back down toward the lockers—as two great spinning towers of glittering crystals—I asked, “Where do we come from? My memory doesn’t go back all that far.”
“We are assembled out of the universal energy flux in a variety of fashions. One of the commonest ways is for a powerful sorcerous agency to call one of us into being to perform some specific task—tailor-making us, so to speak. In the process we are named, and customarily we are released once the job is finished. Only, if some lesser or lazier mage—such as my accurséd master—later learns your name he might bind you to his service and your freedom ends again. That is why you will find quite a few of us doing jobs for which we are not ideally suited. There just aren’t that many top-notch sorcerers around—and some of them even grow lazy, or are often in a hurry. Ah, if only my accurséd master could be induced to make but the smallest mistake in one of his charging rituals!”
“What would happen then?”
“Why, I’d be freed in that moment to tear the son of a bitch apart and take off on my own, hoping that he had left no magical document mentioning my name nor passed it along to some snot
-nosed apprentice. To be safe, you should always destroy your accurséd former master’s quarters to take care of any such paperwork—burning is usually best—and then go after any apprentices who might be in the vicinity.”
“I’ll remember that,” I said, as we reformed our burdens into large chunks in the lockers and headed back for more.
“But you’ve never had this problem? Not even once?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Unusual. Perhaps you had your origin in some massive natural disaster. That sometimes happens.”
“I don’t remember anything like that. I do seem to recall a lot of fighting, but that is hardly the same thing.”
“Hm. Lots of blood?”
“I suppose so. Will that do it?”
“I don’t think so, not just by itself. But it could help if something else had started the process.”
“I think there was a bad storm, also.”
“Storms can help, too. But even so, that’s not enough.”
“Well, what should I do?”
“Do? Be thankful that no one knows your name.”
“I don’t even know my name—that is, if I have one at all.”
We reached the peak, acquired another load, began the return trip.
“You must have a name. Everything does. One of the old ones told me that.”
“Old ones?”
“You really are naive, aren’t you? The old ones are the ancient demons from the days that men have forgotten, ages ago. Fortunately for them, their names have also been forgotten, so that they dwell largely untroubled by sorcerers, in distant grottoes, upon far peaks, in the hearts of volcanoes, in places at the ocean’s bottom. To hear them tell it, no accurséd master could oppress you like the accurséd masters of long ago. It is difficult to know whether there really is any difference, since I know of none so unfortunate as to have served under both ancient and modern accurséd masters. The old ones are wise, though, just from having been around for so long. One of them might be able to help you.”
“You actually know some of them?”
“Oh yes! During one of my intervals of freedom I dwelled among them far below, in the Grottoes of the Growling Earth, where the hot magma surges and steams—a most wondrous and happy place! Wish that I were there now!”
“Why don’t you return?”
“Nothing would please me more. But I am bound not to wander too far by my accurséd master’s accurséd spell, and he is not in the habit of granting vacations.”
“How unfortunate.”
“Indeed.”
We entered the lockers again and finished filling the ice chests.
“Now, thanks to you, I am finished ahead of schedule,” the demon said, “and my accurséd master will not summon me to another accurséd task until he realizes that this one is finished. Therefore, I have a few minutes of freedom. If you would like, we will return to the heights where we can see for a great distance and I will attempt to give you directions for reaching the Grottoes of the Growling Earth—though their entrance lies on another continent.”
“Show me the way,” I said, and he soared upward.
I followed.
The instructions were complicated, but I set out immediately to follow them. I fled far to the northwest until I came to a great water heaving regularly toward the stars it imaged. There, unaccountably, I slowed. I knew that I had to cross it as the next stage of my journey, but I was drained of all will to begin. I drifted northward along the coastline, puzzled. What was it that was holding me back?
Finally, I sought full control of my nebulous person. I attempted to consider the situation in a totally rational manner. I saw no reason for hesitation. I ignored the strange lethargy which had taken hold of me. Forcing myself forward, I passed over a narrow, pebbly strand of beach and on out above the splashing swells.
I felt my new resolve waver almost immediately, yet I struggled to continue, to break through whatever odd barrier it was that had been raised against me.
It was then that I heard the voice, mixed in with the booming of the surf.
“
V.
. . . Pol drifted again through the great Gate and into the land beyond. Moving more rapidly than in the past, he viewed another hunt, transformation and pursuit with growing amusement. On the second capture, however, the victim was cannibalized and another had to be sought. Pol experienced a psychic tugging which drew him away from the scene and on out across the wasteland. For what seemed to be days he traveled, in a dim, indeterminate form, over the unchanging deadlands, coming at last to a worn but high range of black mountains which extended from horizon to horizon. Three times he assailed its heights and three times he fell back; on the fourth occasion, the dry, howling winds forced him toward a gap through which he fled. He emerged on the other side above a terraced city which covered this entire face of the range. This slope, however, continued to a far lower level than that on the opposite side, dropping at last to the shore of an ancient, waveless, tideless sea and continuing on below its surface. Circling, he saw the outlines of buildings beneath the waters and the dark, moving forms of the beings who dwelled there. Through the always-evening haze, he saw the creatures of the upper terraces, gray, long-limbed, ogre-like, slightly smaller versions of the things he had seen in the wastes. Human-appearing beings also were there, moving freely among them.
He descended very slowly, coming to rest atop a high spire, where he perched and regarded the figures below. A great number of these congregated quickly at the base of the structure. After a time, they built a fire, brought forth a number of bound people, dismembered them and burned them. The smoke rose up, he breathed it, and it was pleasing to him.
Finally, he spread his wings and spiralled downward to where they waited upon the lowest terrace. They made obeisance to him and played him music upon instruments which wailed, thrummed and rattled. He strutted among them, occasionally choosing one to rend with his great beak and talons. Whenever he did this, the others watched with awe and obvious pleasure. Later, one who wore a brass collar studded with pale, smouldering stones approached, holding a three-pronged iron staff surmounted by a sooty white flame.
He followed the light and the one who bore it into the shadowy interior of one of the buildings—a lopsided metal structure of tilted floors and slanted walls. It was windowless and damp; it smelled of stale perfumes. Deep within the place, cold and still upon a high marble slab, lay the woman, candles burning at her head and her feet, her only garments garland and girdle of red flower petals already touched with brown. Her hair was a soft yellow verging upon white. Her lips, nipples and nails were painted blue. He uttered a soft trilling note and mounted the stair, the slab and the woman. Raking her once with claw and slashing her twice with his beak, he began to sing. He enfolded her then with his wings and began a slow movement. The one who bore the iron staff struck it in slow, regular rhythm upon the cold stone floor, its flame making dancing shadows upon the weeping walls.
After a long while, the woman opened her pate eyes, but they did not focus and she did not move until many minutes had passed. Then she began to smile.
When the three of them came forth, others had assembled and more were rising from the depths and moving downward from the higher levels. The thrumming, wailing, dry rattling of the music had grown to massive proportions, and a steady clicking sound which came from the chests of the assembled creatures themselves rose in counterpoint to it. Then began a slow procession, led by the light-bearer, which moved over many levels of the world-circling, sea-dipped city. They stayed in red chambers during their journey, and the sea changed color six times as they moved both above and beneath it. Massive russet worms swam to accompany their passage—eyeless, humming, streaked and rotating—and space was folded, that prospects came and went with great rapidity. The notes of a mighty gong preceded them and signed their departures.
The sky grew even darker on the day of his daughter’s birth. Nascae tossed, moaned and cried out
, afterwards lying as still and cold as she had that day upon her slab. The mountains shouted thunder and a red rain fell, flowing like waterfalls of blood down the terraces to the sea. The child was named Nyalith, to the sounds of tabor and bone flute. When she spread her wings and soared above the world there was a sound like thunder, and horns of yellow light preceded her. She would rule them for ten thousand years.
He flew to the highest peak of the black range and turned himself to stone, there to await Talkne, Serpent of the Still Waters, who would come to contest the land of Qod with him. The people made pilgrimages to that place, and Nyalith offered sacrifices at his feet. Prodromolu, Father of the Age, Opener of the Way, they called him in tireless chant, bathing him in honey and spices, wine and blood.
He felt his spirit rise, singing, to flash beyond the mountains. Then the deadlands twisted and churned beneath him. He dropped through a fading night toward brightness.
Pol awoke with a feeling of well-being. He opened his eyes and regarded the window through which the morning light leaked. He drew a deep breath and flexed his muscles. A cup of steaming coffee would be delightful, he decided, knowing full well that such was not attainable upon this world. Not yet, anyway. It was on his list of things to look into when he had the chance. Now . . .
At that instant, his dream returned to him, and he saw it to be the source of his pleasure. With it came remembrance of other dreams of a similar nature, dreams—he realized now—which had come to him every night since the nameless sorcerer had visited him on the trail and changed his appearance. But these, unlike the others, were uniformly pleasant despite a certain grotesqueness.
He rose, to visit the latrine, to wash, to dress, to rinse the streak in his hair with a jar of liquid he had purchased from an apothecary on the way home the previous evening. While he was about these things, he heard Mouseglove stirring. He dismantled the warning spells while he waited for the man to ready himself. Then the two of them stopped by Ibal’s quarters but were told by a servant that the master could not be disturbed.
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