Istu awakened wop-2

by Robert E. Vardeman

  'Removing the next to last obstacle between you and the throne,' Uriath said without turning away from his victim.

  Past the intolerable glare of the hovering elemental, Fost saw that Luranni stood behind her father, her face a portrait in horror. Her eyes were ringed with dark smudges, and she still wore the same bright smock she had the day before when she'd interrupted Fost and Moriana in their conversation.

  'So it's true, Father. You've intended to betray Moriana from the start.' Her voice was firm, flat, low. It didn't sound like the romantic, vaguely mystical Luranni he had come to know. Uriath laughed.

  'Of course! The Etuul have grown decadent. Haven't they wasted the City's substance, threatening its existence – no, the very order of the world! – fighting among themselves?'

  'And when Fost went to rescue Moriana from the Vicar of Istu, you ordered your people to hold back.' The words spilled from her in a torrent of accusation. 'And Chiresko and the others – you turned them in!' Sweat streamed down Uriath's florid features.

  'Chiresko had outlived his usefulness,' he explained. 'Just like that fool Tromym. Now stand back, child, and stop bothering me. This beast's fearfully tricky to control.' 'I won't let you murder the man I love, Father.' 'Love?' Uriath turned. 'Him?' His laughter rang out mad.

  'I mean it.'

  'Too much is at stake for me to indulge your youthful folly. Salamander…' he began.

  'No!' As her father spoke his words of command Luranni shrieked and drove past him through the dwindling wall of flame. She flung her arms around Fost, kissed him hard. The scent of cinnamon welled around him.

  The world exploded in flame and pain and the smell of burned flesh.

  The battle of powers was over. The vanquished sprawled senseless on the floor and the victor staggered, trying to keep her feet, trying to control the shaking of her hands and change double vision back to clear focus. A tall figure appeared in the doorway.

  'My heart rejoices to see you, Your Majesty,' said Uriath. Though tears had left shiny trails down his cheeks, he smiled hugely. 'This day's horrors have cost me my daughter, who meant more to me than life itself. But all of it is worthwhile if I can only receive the boon of being the first to hail the rightful Queen of the City in the Sky in her moment of triumph.'

  He came forward with a drunkard's step and fell to his knees before the City's monarch by right of mystic combat. Moriana gazed down at him, not quite understanding what he said. Why, she wondered in a daze, did he have a huge, ancient book tucked under his arm? And why was the stone on her breast glowing black?

  Uriath's hand shot out. Silver links snapped as he snatched the Destiny Stone from her neck.

  'I have it!' he crowed, leaping up and away from her with an agility amazing in one of his bulk. 'The Amulet of Living Flame! I've won! I'm immortal!'

  Moriana sank to her knees beside Synalon's prostrate form. Defeat tasted of ashes on her tongue. So much and all for naught.

  She had never even had to use the Amulet. She had overpowered her sister, Synalon the invincible, whose powers of sorcery had always before outmatched her. She had won her birthright. And lost it.

  The book lay open in Uriath's palm. He did a little jig as he began to read. Moriana smelled the magic gathering about the tower. The room grew warm. A strange cackling, wailing sound drew

  Moriana's attention to the window. Salamanders danced outside, whirling round and round the tower so rapidly she only saw them as lines of light, red and green and white, weaving a garland of fire about the spire.

  She tried to dismiss them. A tiny electric blue spark danced from her fingertips. That was all the magic she could Summon. She lacked the strength.

  'Foolish slut!' cried Uriath. 'This is the book of the deepest secrets of Kyrun Etuul! For generations it's mouldered, neglected on the shelves of your Palace library. And now it has passed to my hands – where it belongs!' He stopped his capering and beamed down upon the sisters. Beside Moriana Synalon began to stir.

  'Your time is through, Etuul witches. Perhaps the reign of women is done, too. Yes, I think so. It's an abomination that women should rule men.' 'The people will never accept you.'

  'No?' He hugged the book to his chest and tittered. 'They accepted Synalon, didn't they? And you believed they'd accepted you, too, you who loosed the Fallen Ones upon the world again.'

  She sank back. Synalon rolled onto her side, moaning. Moriana took her hand. It felt cold and lifeless, more like marble than living flesh. 'Enough words,' the High Councillor said. 'Prepare to burn.'

  A scuffling sounded from the corridor. Uriath looked up sharply from his tome. An apparition stood in the doorway, manlike in form but as black as Istu save for the bared white teeth. A naked steel blade gleamed in a blackened hand.

  'You can't be here. You're dead! Burned up! The salamander took you when it took my poor Luranni.' He began to weep once more.

  'You haven't finished me, friend Uriath,' said Fost Longstrider, advancing on the High Councillor. 'I'm still blood and bone under this char. And I'm about to spit you and serve you piece by piece to your own salamanders, you murdering fat bastard!'

  'No!' It was the squeal of a child in terror. Uriath's chubby fingers flew as they flipped through the pages of the book. He kept glancing frantically from the pages to the courier advancing on him step by merciless step. 'Ah, here, here!' he cried, and screeched an incantation.

  A dome of flame surrounded him. Fost flinched from the killing heat. A moment more and a dancing veil of fire sprang up in the doorway.

  'You've come a long way to die, Longstrider,' said Synalon in a cracked voice. 'Still, there are worse companions with whom to receive the Hell Call.' Fost gazed around the room. Outside raged the firestorm.

  'Isn't there anything you can do?' Wearily Synalon shook her head.

  'Isn't it humorous? My sister and I spent all our energies contesting with each other. And for what? So this treacherous blubbergut can roast us to death and claim the Beryl Throne for himself.' It was getting hotter.

  'Erimenes?' The answer was a formless wail. Fost thought he heard a new note to it, a note of real anguish.

  Moriana pointed at Uriath, dimly visible through the orange and blue shimmer of his fire shield.

  'He's building his control of the salamanders outside. When he has perfected his grip on them, they'll come for us.' She shook her head. The tears flowed freely now. 'Oh Fost, my love, my only love. I'm sorry I brought you to this.' But the courier's attention fixed on Uriath. He coughed.

  'Perhaps it's premature to apologize,' he said in a parched voice. The heat rose around them like a clinging, choking blanket. 'What do you mean?' asked Moriana.

  Her eyes followed his. The Destiny Stone was a black so complete it seemed to burn a hole through the fires surrounding the High Councillor. Synalon looked on, curious about all matters mystical even in the face of death.

  The heating of the air inside and outside the chamber caused a miniature whirlwind. Burning shreds of cloth swirled up around them. Fost cursed and slapped at one that stung his cheek like an insect.

  Uriath's voice rose above the rush of wind and fire, chanting in a long-forgotten tongue. A flake of ash was swept up over his bald domed head. It settled downward bursting into sudden fierce flame as it fell through his fire shield. It landed in the middle of the page from which he read. The page flared. Uriath's eyes bulged.

  'No,' he cried. 'No, no! This can't be. This is the last page. It's almost there, it isn't fair. I…'

  Fire roared. Lines of flame converged from the window on the magical dome, merged with it. Uriath dropped the book and stared at fingers burning like candles. Cackling, freed of human control, the salamanders turned on him with all the capriciousness of their kind. The screaming went on and on.

  And from the midst of the conflagration while the fire sprites played and Uriath danced his insensate dance of death, the Destiny Stone cast a beacon of intense, pure white light that outshone even the werefire of the elem
entals.

  Fost collapsed at Moriana's side. They clung to each other, watching mute as the fires burned down. Uriath melted like tallow. With his passing the salamanders dwindled. When they winked out, only a blackened spot on the floor remained of High Councillor, elementals or the pendant.

  'But he had the Amulet of Living Flame!' exclaimed Moriana, shrill with the nearness of hysteria. 'Why didn't it save him?' Fost drew her closer. 'He never had the Amulet,' he said. 'No more than you.'

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  'The Destiny Stone,' said Erimenes, obviously enjoying Moriana's expression of horror. 'A different item entirely.' The bright flush the heat had brought to the princess's cheeks drained rapidly as the genie told her of the true nature of the stone she'd carried with her for so long. The shiny, treacherous bauble for which she'd murdered her lover. 'He really died?' she cried, clinging to Fost. 'Then why. ..'

  'Why is he alive? Simplicity itself. The other pendant, the plain lump of rock tied on a thong, so rude a thing you both scorned it at once as trash – that was the Amulet of Living Flame. With his dying reflex Fost clutched it as he fell.'

  'And does he have it?' Hope brought life flooding back into her features. 'Perhaps some of those who fell today…' Gently Fost shook his head. 'It used up the last of its energies reviving me.' She buried her face against his breast and wept. 'At the end, Erimenes, why did it glow white?'

  The sprite chuckled.

  'It was bringing the greatest luck of all its existence.' Fost cocked a singed eyebrow at him. 'It was removing itself from the world, dear boy. What more fortunate a thing could it do?' 'I see your point,' said Fost, smiling.

  Motion at the edge of vision caught his eye. Synalon! In the aftermath of the Destiny Stone's passing they had forgotten her.

  She stood on the ledge of the outermost window gazing down, the wind stirring the stubble of black hair remaining on her head. Her naked skin appeared almost translucent in the brightness of the day. 'Synalon?' asked Moriana. The dark-haired sister turned her head and smiled wanly. 'You've not yet started to wonder what to do with me.'

  Moriana licked her lips. For a moment Fost saw hatred burn in her green eyes. Then it faded.

  'There's been destruction enough,' she said. 'You're free to go. But you must leave the City.'

  'Oh, I intend to,' said Synalon, smiling crookedly. 'But not as you imagine.' The two stared at her. She laughed at their blank looks.

  'What a marvellous new generation you'll breed! You look precisely like sheep. Your offspring will go about on all fours and crop the grass.' She raised a hand to cut off their angry retorts. 'Save your breath. The City was my life; when I lost it, I lost all. And I prefer not to live as a groundling.' 'Synalon,' Moriana began. Her sister stepped forward into space.

  Moriana screamed. The tears began again, more than before. She clung to Fost and wept great wracking sobs, wept for all those who had died. Her mother, Kralfi the faithful retainer, Sir Ottovus and his brother the grand old hero Rinalvus, young Brightlaugher of Nevrym, poor dear Darl. And even Synalon.

  When the grief had exhausted her, Fost helped her off the floor and led her downstairs to greet her subjects.

  As the sun passed the zenith and started back down the sky, the crowds began assembling in the Circle of the Skywell. There were plain Sky Citizens, looking timidly about them as if at some alien vista. There were the prisoners, bird riders and Sky Guards and Monitors and Guards from the Palace, watched by vigilant men and women who wore strips of blue and scarlet around their arms to show allegiance to Moriana.

  Resistance had long since ceased. When Rann fell from the sky, the heart went out of the bird riders. In a matter of minutes, some quick-thinking rebels had raised Moriana's claw and flower banner from the Palace flagstaff. While the sorcerous battle for the City had continued to rage, the physical battle for the Sky City had ended with this simple action.

  Moriana stepped out into the sunlight. In a few seconds, the entire City had taken up the cry. She gestured. Fost joined her. His hair was black and his gaze a heroic blue, and only those nearest could see the way his eyes shifted nervously. Having just lived through horrible ordeal, Fost Longstrider found himself suffering from stage fright. Moriana took his hand and led him down the steps to the Skull way.

  'Relax, Fost,' she said in a low voice. 'It's over. There's no need to be nervous now.'

  'I'm not used to this,' he said, looking out over the crowd assembled to cheer and venerate Moriana – and him.

  'They're friends, all of them,' she assured him. And it seemed to be so. He saw Prudyn and Chasko, carrying weatherworn satchels containing Erimenes and Ziore. The muffled sounds of acrimonious dispute rose from within, each making vile and impossible claims about the other's actions. And beyond them Fost sighted Syriana and the red-haired young lady who was sudden death on rooftop snipers, and tanned foresters and bearded Northern men and even a few diffident men in the breastplates of Palace Guards.

  As they neared the Circle of the Skywell, however, Fost's unease returned.

  'Moriana, where are the Fallen Ones? I don't see a single one of your Zr'gsz anywhere.'

  'They're hardly my Zr'gsz/ she answered. 'They're in the catacombs inventorying their religious relics. I suppose they'll want to load them on their skyrafts and be gone as soon as possible. After all, it's been millennia since the Zr'gsz had much commerce with humans. All this must upset them greatly.'

  'It upsets me,' said Fost, with feeling. But the nagging unease returned. What exactly was it that upset him? Perhaps it was nothing more than the presence of the Vicar of Istu in the Skywell. He peered suspiciously at the basalt statue. It remained immobile.

  Then Fost's attentions were diverted to the ceremony. The crowd melted away to give Moriana room. A pimply adolescent knelt with her burden at Moriana's feet. Moriana bade her rise.

  'As the youngest of the warriors who took part in the capture of the Palace of Winds,' Moriana declared, 'Ufrt Tonamil has earned the privilege to crown the new ruler of the City in the Sky.' The crowd roared agreement. Moriana knelt as the child fumbled with the wrappings on the package. She soon revealed the winged silver crown of the City's rulers.

  Ufri Tonamil hoisted the crown high, held it a moment, then stepped forward to place it on Moriana's head.

  'All hail Moriana!' she cried. 'Queen of the City in the Sky, Scion of the Skyborn, Mistress of the Clouds!'

  Moriana rose. The crowd went to its knees as one. Fost watched, then decided he should kneel, also. Immediately Moriana seized his arm and yanked him to his feet.

  'No one need kneel before me,' she proclaimed. 'Rise, my people.'

  They did. They swept forward and raised their new queen to their shoulders. Fost laughed at her expression, then cried out as he felt hands raising him, too. Moriana caught his eye. His lips formed the words, 'We won!'

  And they had. They'd won not just the Sky City, they'd thwarted the Dark Ones themselves. The Second War of Powers Jennas had direly predicted would never happen. That was their true victory.

  The boiling crowd turned Fost around. For a brief instant the Vicar of Istu flashed in his sight. His heart missed a beat. Then the crowd was bearing them toward the Palace of Winds, and its jubilation caught him up like the surge of a sea-wave.

  And in the depths of the City, a Demon stirred.

  BOOK TWO

  In the Shadow of Omizantrim

  For Joseph Wm. Reichert

  A prince of a fellow.

  For mi querida. Hoy, manana, siempre.

  CHAPTER ONE

  For a woman plummeting a thousand feet to her death, Synalon Etuul was uncommonly relaxed. The rushing air caressed her naked body like a thousand subtle hands. Her black hair, charred and frizzled from her contest of magics with her sister Moriana, fluttered inches above her seared scalp.

  Overhead floated the City in the Sky, a vast soundless raft of gray skystone. Around the mandiblelike double docks at the prow of the City swarmed hundreds o
f rafts of the same substance, from eight-foot flyers to hundred-foot barges, swarming with warriors both human and inhuman. A few of the eagles of the City's war force circled dispiritedly, herded by small two man flyers. For the first time in their long history, the warbirds of the Sky City knew defeat in the element over which they ruled as haughtily as kings: the sky.

  The dethroned queen paid attention to neither the birds nor the rounded hills cloaked in green that spun around and around beneath her feet. All her concentration was devoted to a single mental summons. Her eyes closed and the thought formed, surged outward, questing, commanding. In a moment, she heard a distant piercing cry and knew that her call was heard.

  Without warning, the arrow shape of a huge war eagle shot by her, wings folded to its glossy black sides, head thrust forward so that its yellow beak sliced the air like the prow of a ship. Synalon smiled and sent the bird encouraging thoughts.

  Once beneath her, it unfolded its full thirty-foot wingspan with a thunderous crack. Synalon fell by it again. Still, no concern touched the sorceress's aristocratic features.

  The wings furled like sails. The black warbird fell until it flanked Synalon, then spread its wings carefully so that they dropped side by side.

  'I'm ready, Nightwind,' she called, no longer requiring the tiring mental communication. The bird let itself drift down until it was directly beneath her. She spread her legs and floated down until she sat astride the bird's back, her legs thrown over its churning shoulders. She let her head slip back and uttered a small cat cry at the pleasure of the bristly feathers brushing between her slender legs. Defeated, exiled, and without so much as a cloak to her name, Synaion still took pleasurable sensation where she found it, and savored it well. The better, perhaps for the novelty of the circumstances.

  Slowly, the eagle increased its wingspan and the tempo of its wings' beating, until the full weight of the tall, lean woman was borne upon it. As it pulled into level flight, it curved and began winging along the City's track. Its mistress had prepared well for this eventuality, though her power in the City had been absolute, and her favor in the eyes of the Dark Ones had seemed to render her invulnerable. Its blood had seethed with the need to be out of the confines of the special aerie in the depths of the City, but Nightwind had waited patiently as instructed, for its mistress's mental call. Having rescued her according to plan, it strained powerful muscles to put as much distance as possible between the former queen and her former domain.