by Allan Cole
It was from this dust, Zalia later told me, that the magical material was formed. The material Magon’s ship and weapons were made of - and my wondrous eyepatch.
Slaves moved along the final leg of the conveyor, hauling big portable bellows on rollers that were valved so they reversed the flow of air. Flexible hoses sucked up the gold dust which was drawn into large gray jars that Zalia later said were made of sugar. The jars were fed into another forge, the sugar vanished and the dust became a thin golden sheet that could be stitched like cloth or worked and reshaped like metal. The swords, for example, were formed of many layers, turned back on one another repeatedly until the blades were perfect.
I saw the chamber in dim snatches stretched out over what seemed like the eternity the gods reserve for the condemned. Guided by Zalia I loaded and unloaded bars. Helped pump out the dust and lugged the filled jars - which were amazingly light - to other slaves who carried them away for storage.
The heat and noise drained every speck of energy so you felt like you were swimming in hot porridge. It was an effort just to lift your arms, much less the murderously heavy rods. I was doubly punished because the sorcery pouring out of the magical forge seared my senses, withering them with blast after powerful blast.
Somehow I managed to get through the agony. At the end of the day one slave was not so lucky. It was the fellow who’d cursed me for being in such a hurry. He’d suffered a seizure in the final hour and lay there flopping on the floor until a bored guard lazily motioned for us to haul him away.
He breathed his last as I lifted his arms. It was a long sigh and in my imagination it was filled with the sound of vast relief.
When I heard it I thought, “May the gods be with you, brother. Wherever you’re going it can’t be worse than this.”
They hosed us off with some sort of chemical that stung the nostrils and made the skin look red and chafed as if we’d spent a week under a desert sun.
The man’s sigh still echoed in my thoughts when the day was done and I finally staggered into the cell and collapsed on my stone shelf.
I heard Zalia moan as she sank down on her bunk.
“Now what in the names of all the gods who curse us was that worth?” she groaned, “Except to dig our graves deeper and longer.”
I wrenched myself up, favoring sore muscles I didn’t even know I possessed until I’d entered Hellspoint.
But my spirits were returning so I managed a grin as I said, “Cast your eyes on this, my friend.”
And I extended my mortal hand.
Zalia’s eyes widened when she saw the gold dust packed under my nails.
“Should make a nice little pile when I clean them,” I said.
“I thought you wanted to steal a piece of the finished material,” she said, puzzled.
“I did,” I said. “But I saw right off it wouldn’t work for what I have in mind. Besides, it would take too much in its finished form. Novari or one of her minions would notice its absence.”
“You intend to use the dust itself, rather than the finished metal?” she asked, giving me an unbelieving stare.
“That’s exactly what I plan,” I said. “And it ought not to take more than a dozen trips to get enough.”
Zalia was aghast. “A dozen trips!”
“Maybe more,” I said. “Although I hope not.”
“I pray not,” Zalia breathed. “I pray to all the gods past, present and future - if there is a future worth having.”
I laughed, trying to make light of our ordeal, but it had a hollow sound to it.
Later, when I cleaned the gold dust from under my nails it made a heap that was depressingly small.
As Zalia had feared it took more than a dozen trips to Hellspoint to obtain what I needed. It was easily twice that number and each hour we labored in the forgeroom was a torment I loathe to recall.
I consoled myself by thinking at least I was alive enough to curse the experience. Although why Novari had let me live still puzzled me.
Did she really feel more revenged by condemning me to this miserable existence? And how long would this humiliation satisfy her? Also, if she was using the mines to soften me up so I could be bent to her will, how soon would she come for me? There were many other questions, all variations on the same theme, which was wonderment that I lived at all.
Zalia had still another theory. “Perhaps Novari can’t kill you,” she said. “Not without coming to some harm herself.”
At first I scoffed at this, saying, “I don’t think so, my friend. She was perfectly capable of killing me any moment she chose. Why, she nearly slew me when I attacked her. Several of her own men were killed when she cast that spell. And since I was on the receiving end I can swear on any holy object you choose that it was definitely not only death dealing but meant for me.
“Ah, but you attacked her,” Zalia pointed out. “That only proves she can defend herself against you. But maybe she’s forbidden - if there was some sort of curse, say - to act directly. She can’t command your death. But she can put you in circumstances that would certainly be guaranteed to lead to your death.”
“That’s a possibility,” I admitted. “But only a vague one.”
“It’s as good as any reason you have,” Zalia said. “Perhaps even better. I’ve had much more time to study her. It’s my kingdom that’s threatened directly, after all.”
I cocked my good eye at her. “Your kingdom?” I said.
“I, uh, mean my queen’s,” she stuttered. “Queen Salimar’s.”
“Aha!” I chortled. “So that’s her name? By the gods, woman, I finally got something out of you!”
She flushed. “What of it?” she mumbled. “I was getting ready to tell you anyway.”
I gloated - “Riight!”
Zalia clamped her lips and said nothing more that night.
I knew my victory’d been a childish one. But in Koronos it seemed as pleasing as any other I’d had in a long time. And I was childish enough to take satisfaction in recognizing just how infantile Zalia had been as well when she’d whined, “I was getting ready to tell you anyway.”
Well, the laugh’s on you, woman, I thought.
The laugh’s on you.
While I gathered the magical dust I also gathered information about our prison.
One thing I’d noticed was a definite looseness in the mine’s security. Certainly there were guards everywhere. And we were frequently chained together, especially when we exited the mines and were herded for Hellspoint.
Yet it seemed to me the reasons for being chained had little to do with fear that we’d escape. The spell imbedded in the artificial hands would ultimately stop even the most determined slave. Plus there was the sorcerous gruel all the slaves, except Zalia and myself, were addicted to. No, the chains were to protect us from harming the guards or ourselves when freedom was dangled before us and hysteria might overtake us.
Mostly if we kept to our own warren we were left alone during the hours we were allotted each day for eating and sleeping. And it was fairly easy to visit other nearby warrens. All you had to do was walk past a few warren guards who would give you a bored glare, then wave you on. Many times those guards would be momentarily absent or even asleep. No one seemed to care. The metal hand bolted to your wrist would prevent any real mischief.
You especially tended to be ignored if you were an “old timer.” The death toll was so high that those who survived a year were marked by their sheer endurance as being safe. An old timer could talk from the corner of her mouth and be heard or observed by no one but the person she was speaking to. An old timer knew how to absorb a blow or a lash and suffer the least harm. An old timer knew how to steal a few seconds of rest, how to study the guards’ moods and know when a little blatant shirking might be in order.
Old timers knew the system. And the system worked best if you rolled with the punches and watched for small openings to grab a bit more food, a bit more comfort, a bit more life. You could add up the litt
le store of extra life you gathered second by second.
Not unlike the grains of sorcerous gold I was stealing from Novari’s forgeroom.
While I gathered the dust I made a tool. It started as an ordinary rat bone; long, thin and quite straight. I cleaned the marrow out so it was nicely hollow. Then I polished the hollow with a rough thread I’d taken from my smock. Night after night I pulled the thread back and forth through the bone until it was nearly paper thin. For a time Zalia watched me, curious. But I made certain she knew I’d turn away any question she asked and she soon lost interest.
Daciar was right. Secrecy comes as naturally to a wizard as the ethers she commands.
One night I returned from Hellspoint so exhausted I could barely eat. The magical blast from the forge had been particularly intense that day and my mind felt like crushed ore being fed down a rock slurry chute.
I fell asleep before I even cleaned the precious dust from under my nails. I simply sprawled on my stone bed and the tides of darkness carried me away.
I drifted, dreamless, for what seemed like a long time.
Then a soft cry crept into my peaceful slumber. It was faint and echoing and full of pain, like the cries you heard when entering Hellspoint. In my dream I had a sudden desire to investigate, to find that person and comfort them. I reached out with my good hand - the hand with the gold grime under the nails - and I felt a force drawing me like the moon draws the seas and makes the tides.
I let it take me and my spirit self floated free, hovering over my slumbering body.
Again I heard the faint cry. I ghosted toward the sound, slipping through the stone walls,` moving as freely as if I were rising from the bottom of a deep pond.
I burst to the surface, coming out under a full moon. I felt the moon tug at my hand and I lifted it and saw my fingers were all aglow. I marveled at the glittering power of it, feeling energy surge and purpose grow.
I floated down the mountain road invisible to the sleepy guards and continued along the path until I came to Hellspoint. It was black under the bright moonlight, low and menacing like an iceberg broken off from some evil field.
The forgeroom drew at me more powerfully than the moon and I kicked free and went to it, wisping through stone and metal doors until I came to the great machine itself.
The chamber was empty and the conveyor belt was still. But the sorcerous fires continued to roar, drawing me to the shimmering curtain that divided this world from the ethers.
I stopped there, pulling back against the outgoing tide of energy.
Once again I heard the scream. It seemed closer. And then another scream joined the first, and then another and another until there was a whole chorus of tortured souls howling from the Hells.
I closed my good eye and found I could see through the curtain. It was like looking through a telescope into the Otherworlds with an ethereye.
All was wavering fire at first, then the scene came into sharp focus.
There were scores, perhaps hundreds of souls twisting in agony as flames of blue and green and yellow licked at them from every side. They were kept in place by long magical chains which they fought against ceaselessly. Some were twisted in coils of chain, sobbing to get free.
The souls were of men and women and creatures whose form I couldn’t make out and they were all screaming and moaning in horrible pain.
Full knowledge came to me that they were the souls of wizards and other beings with sorcerous powers. And the chains were spells created by Novari to hold them captive.
Those wizardly souls were all slaves laboring in Novari’s special hell.
Just as I labored in her mines.
But by the gods it was worse. Worse than I have powers to describe.
One of the spirits saw me and cried louder. I looked closer with my ethereye and saw with a shock the familiar face of Searbe.
My missing Evocator was missing no more.
He struggled toward me, crying my name. I wanted to help him but I couldn’t let myself be drawn into Novari’s private hell. He stretched the chain, struggling to come closer.
Then he screamed in greater agony and powered himself forward until the magical chain was taut and he was hanging just beyond the shimmering curtain. He was so close that if it were the real world I could’ve reached out and touched him.
“Save me, Lady Antero!” he cried. “Save me!”
“I will if I can, my friend,” I said, calmly as I could. “But I won’t torture you by promising. I don’t know that I can even save myself.”
Despite his pain he had a sudden crafty look on his ghostly face. “I can be of much value to you, Lady Antero,” he said. “I know Novari’s plan.”
I’d forgotten how transparent Searbe could be. And I wondered mightily at my own judgment for ever trusting him.
“Then tell it to me,” I said. “The knowledge may help me free you.”
“Oh, you can’t trick me that easily,” Searbe said.
“Why would I do that?” I said. “You’re one of my own.”
“Because I betrayed you,” he said, with only a tinge of shame. “And I betrayed Orissa.”
“You were forced,” I said. “I won’t hold anything you revealed to Novari against you.”
Searbe hung his head. “I was weak,” he said. “I was afraid. And then she promised... she promised...”
“You don’t have to tell me what sort of promises a succubus makes, Searbe,” I said. “I wish you hadn’t succumbed so easily. But all of us are not as strong as others. I, for one, won’t judge how much forcing another can take.”
“I’m no coward!” Searbe protested. “Don’t think that of me!”
“It doesn’t matter if you are or you aren’t,” I said. “Tell me her plan and all your sins will be washed clean. In my mind at least.”
He hesitated, weaving back and forth behind the glowing curtain. Then the flames shot higher, the screams became more shrill and there was a hard yank on his chain. Searbe pulled back against it, fighting to stay in place.
“I’ll tell you!” he shrieked. “But you have to free me... after.”
“Quickly,” I said. “Before it’s too late.”
“This machine is the source of all her power,” he babbled. “All of it comes from these hells. She’s feeding every wizard and witch she can capture into this machine. She can draw on it at will from any place and at any moment she wants. And every day more souls join us to become her fuel, making her stronger than ever.”
I didn’t have to guess what she wanted to do with that power. Those who seek such a thing are all mad and single-visioned. As the old Orissan poet wrote: “The more power they acquire, the more they desire.”
Combine that with the eternal succubus itch to consume all emotion for the creature’s own pleasure and you had that most original of all dominatrixes - Novari, the Lyre Bird.
“She didn’t know about... Orissa until I... told her,” Searbe said. He seemed shamed and spoke hesitantly as if it were a difficult confession. “Not anything important... But she became... interested... when she heard about all the... the... discoveries we’ve been making.
“Orissa is far away,” I said. “She has many other kingdoms to threaten before our people have to face her.”
“No, no, no,” Searbe wailed. “That’s not so! There’s another way. To get to Orissa. A portal or something. I’m not sure. But it goes through one world and comes out at Orissa.”
“Why doesn’t she just do it, then?” I said.
“She can’t,” Searbe said. “There’s another... kingdom or something... in the way. A powerful queen. She’s got Novari blocked. She thought she’d beaten her for awhile but the queen escaped. Novari doesn’t know where she is. She’s afraid to attack until she finds her.
“Or gathers enough souls so she can just blast through and strike Orissa.”
Then he said, “I was just... uh... put here a little while ago. A week, maybe. Gods, it feels like a thousand years.!”
<
br /> “Really?” I said, sympathy fading. “Only a week or so, is it? And what did you do, my friend, to earn her wrath?”
“She just didn’t... she said she didn’t... I mean I was of no further use to her. So she threw me in. Pointed her finger and blasted me here.
“But I think she’s getting desperate, Lady Antero. The king’s got kidnap parties combing near and far trying to come up with enough wizards to feed this infernal machine. That’s why she threw me in. She needed my powers. More than she needed me alive.”
“Tell me this, my friend,” I said. “Why aren’t I in there with you?”