by David Grace
". . .Thus the Gogols were forced to retreat far to the west and to halt their attacks on the newly established Hartford villages."
Wait a moment! How did the Hartfords force the Gogols into retreat? Grantin flipped back to the preceding page and read the ensuing paragraphs with great interest.
. . . Edgar of Ilium, the first of the great Hartford magicians. By rumor Edgar's grandfather was a learned colonist of the tribe known as geologists. That ancestor passed down special knowledge to his heirs. Edgar himself refused to reveal the nature of the device by which he hurled energy bolts at the attacking Gogols and so saved the Hartfords from domination and slavery. It was commonly believed, however, that Edgar through the use of his grandfather's teachings discovered a rock or crystal which amplified the power of his spells. Edgar would neither deny nor confirm the rumor but always contended that the power he used was too awesome and too frightening for normal men, that the uninitiated would likely be driven mad by contact with his device or the use of his spells.
It is known that Edgar wore a large ring with a crudely cut red stone affixed in its center. Some have speculated that this gem, or powerstone, was the seat of his magic. This hypothesis, however, was never able to be tested. It is rumored that on one occasion Edgar was waylaid by renegades and when they attempted to remove the ring from his hand they were all struck dead by its power. To this story, as to most of the others told about him, Edgar gave a sly smile and a shy wink but no further response other than his oft-repeated dictum that the power he used was more the power of death than of life and that anyone who chanced to possess his secret would probably die of contact with it.
The answer to this riddle will likely never be known, as, a few moments after Edgar's death, the stone clouded, fragmented, and crumbled to powder, pouring from its socket like red sand. In spite of the passing of Edgar, the Hartfords remained safe from the Gogol menace due to the more recent advances in wizardry by Englehardt and Emriss, students of the great magician. Thus the Gogols were forced to retreat far to the west and to halt their attacks on the newly established Hartford villages.
Nothing, there was nothing here! Perhaps elsewhere, other wizards, someone might be able to tell him how to rid himself of the powerstone which must, judging from his tortured dreams, soon drive him mad. Grantin slammed the book closed, stood up, and walked to the far comer of the library. He opened the great window and leaned on the sill, watching Pyra ascend above the horizon.
There before him lay the Eris Forest, and beyond, low rolling hills. In the far distance was the hint of the Guardian Mountains which separated the realm of the Hartfords from that of the Gogols. Was a mere finger worth a flight into such rugged country? Grantin looked down at his hand. He bent back the index finger, hiding it, and examined the result. Certainly men had lived with worse deformities. Perhaps Greyhorn could be put off, delayed, or convinced to consult other wizards more knowledgeable than he.
A scrape sounded on the stone floor behind him. Grantin turned and spied his uncle approaching him stealthily. The wizard's left hand was extended, fingers open as if ready to grasp a moving object. In his right hand he clutched a long, gleaming knife.
"Uncle, please don't. There must be another way. Can't we talk this over?"
Greyhorn made no reply but continued to advance on his nephew. Before Greyhorn's appearance Grantin had all but resigned himself to the loss of his finger. Now, with the blade only a few feet away, his fear of its amputation became overwhelming. In desperation Grantin raised his right and left arms and swung each of them in counter-rotating circles in front of him. From his lips issued a broken stream of chants and incantations remembered from his occasional attempts at scholarship. The spell had unexpected results. Instead of freezing Greyhorn's body into immobility, a great sphere of ball lightning was emitted from one of Grantin's whirling arms. This flickering missile raced to the ceiling, bounced off the beams, and ricocheted from wall to wall, leaving a sizzling path in its wake. Finally the sphere contacted the iron grille of the library door and exploded in a myriad of crackling fragments. The menace now gone, Grantin reappeared from under the heavy table. He spied his uncle also clambering to his feet.
"You idiot! That ring contains a bloodstone! Its magic is that of a hundred wizards. One wrong word and you could kill us both. It's too dangerous for you to have. Don't you know it will drive you mad unless you get rid of it? Your days are numbered."
Greyhorn regained his feet. Grantin saw that he still clasped the butcher knife. Highlights of the morning sun twinkled brightly on the polished surface of its blade. Grantin became almost hypnotized by the flickering gleams. Involuntarily he retreated into the corner of the room up against the sill of the window.
"Stay back! Stay back, uncle! I don't care what you say, I don't want to lose my finger."
"You don't want to lose your finger!" Greyhorn yelled as he crept closer to his nephew. "What do I care what you want? That ring is mine, by God, and I'm going to take it if I have to cut off your whole arm!"
Grantin pushed himself up onto the window ledge and wondered if he could survive a jump. No--too high, too many rocks beneath him. Greyhorn was now only three or four feet away and still advancing. Without conscious plan Grantin shouted a keep-away spell which he had learned as a child, a simple incantation which slightly thickened the air around the person who pronounced it and hence tended to deflect an advancing individual to one side or the other. But Grantin had not reckoned with the forces of the powerstone. Instead of Greyhorn being kept from Grantin, it was Grantin who was removed from Greyhorn.
With a sensation of being grabbed by a giant fist, Grantin felt walls of force enclose his body, yank him through the window, and propel him out across the sky. Tumbling, his body flew through space, gaining height and speed with each passing yard. Greyhorn's castle became a gray wall, a house, a distant toy structure, a spot on the horizon, then was gone. Below Grantin the landscape blurred and ran into a smeared impression of greens and browns. Villages, rivers, lakes, cities, all slid by. In the distance, Grantin saw the rapidly approaching towers of the Guardian Mountains, gigantic structures which seemed to soar even above the great height at which he now flew. Tumbling out of control, in the spell's icy grip, Grantin flew onward straight at the heart of the rearing granite crags.
Chapter Fourteen
The snake-like path wound westward through a sea of mutated brambles. A league distant grew the Gogol fortress of Cicero. Pyra's russet edge had barely cleared the horizon, but already the Ajaj Grays had begun to trickle from their quarters in the tumbles and make their way to the trail head. Day after day, generation upon generation, so had the Ajaj come forth to render services to their Gogol overlords.
Ahead, behind, and to all sides grew the poison-tipped briars and sting-burred brambles cultivated by the Gogols as protection for this, the seat of their empire. Only through a few narrow trails could Cicero be reached, and these lanes were constantly watched by the jealous owners of the city's five gates.
Five walls had Cicero and five gates and five lords. Five trails led to the city, and into five departments were civil functions divided. The entrance at the Eastern point of the pentagon was the Gate of Dread, commanded, guarded, and watched over by Lord Hazar the Dread. Through this gate, down this trail, came the Ajaj laborers, servants, and empathers who staffed the city.
At the northeast point of the pentagon opened the Gate of Lust, commanded by Lord Bolam the Dominator. Over the path which terminated there came the slaves, both male and female, necessary to satisfy the more carnal pleasures of the lords and deacons and subdeacons. These being more or less a luxury item, Bolam's control of the gate made him the weakest and most lightly taken of the five lords.
Next, to the northwest, was the Gate of Mammon, guarded by Lord Zaco the Inquisitor. From the regions served by this road came the gemstones, gold, iron, minerals, powders, and potions sufficient to stock the city. For reasons not understood by the other lords, Zaco had
entered into an alliance with Hazar--an arrangement much resented and feared by the other Gogol princes, for through Zaco's gate, from the lands he controlled, came the powerstones that were so crucial a part of Hazar's plans for empire.
To the southwest stood the Gate of Fear. Through this portal Lord Topor sent forth Ajaj nominally under indenture to Hazar to till the fields and tend the crops which provided Cicero with an abundance of food and drink. Because of his dependence upon Hazar's Grays, it was well known that Topor, in most events, could be counted on to do Hazar's bidding.
Lastly, to the southeast yawned the Gate of Pain, jealously guarded by Nefra the Cruel. Nefra was Hazar's most bitter and most powerful enemy. His kinsmen maintained the aquifers which supplied fresh water from Lake Nefra some ten leagues to the south. Hazar's control of the city's food and now apparent control of the powerstones as well as his domination of Cicero's labor force excited Nefra's paranoia to a fever pitch. Hazar planned to elevate himself from lord to king, of this Nefra was certain. With such an ascension Nefra's fate would be sealed.
Castor rounded another bend, whereupon the trail disgorged its travelers in a cleared semicircle some three hundred yards in diameter. Directly ahead of him the first of the three slabs which composed the Gate of Dread gaped wide. Shouts and curses greeted the Grays as they emerged from the wall of briars.
Sleep-dulled curses urged them forward across the barrens and into the space between the first and second panels of the gate. Castor, as much as possible, kept to the center of the group of workers, hoping to remain inconspicuous among his fellows.
Guards patrolling the face of the wall repeatedly snapped their whips over the heads of the Grays, causing them to press closer together. At last almost a hundred Ajaj filled the space between the first and second panel. Reluctantly, the guards in the watchtowers began to crank their great wheels. On rollers of seasoned oilwood the huge front panel crept forward, foot by foot, closing off Cicero's Gate of Dread from the outside world.
When at last the panel was fully closed the second portion began to move backward, sliding into the wall. Again the Ajaj crowded forward, stepping over the foot-wide channel which guided the iron-bound wooden barrier. After the Grays had cleared the middle door, it closed and the third panel opened into the streets of Cicero. A clerk checked off the names and duties of the Grays as they passed the wicket.
"Name, number, and classification?"
"Castor, 972, senior empather."
"Castor, 972, but senior empather no more. Now by the grace and wisdom of Lord Hazar you are allowed to enter into a new profession: scullery apprentice, fourth class, in the lord's own household. To your right along the outer ring past the entrance with the red and black flag, down the stairs, knock on the door. Tell them you've been sent to clean the kitchens. Next!"
Numbly Castor stumbled forward, surprised, in spite of himself, that he had been allowed to live. A few yards past the clerk's desk he halted and turned back toward the gate. His pleasure at being alive vanished as he contemplated the scene before his eyes: burly copper-skinned soldiers patrolled the stone battlements above the gate. Gogols of various castes filled the walkways which paralleled the outer wall, beings who hated, distrusted, and loathed even each other. The depths of their insensitivity to the Ajaj could never be plumbed. The loss of a walking stick, the stain of a garment, upset them more than seeing a Gray gutted for its pelt. With an anger more terrible than any he had ever felt before Castor shambled forward toward Hazar's scullery. In the center of his rage Castor felt another emotion: fear, a fear that chilled him to the core--the fear of his realization that the only way that he would find peace was in Hazar's death or in his own.
Chapter Fifteen
Tears leaked from the comers of Grantin's eyes and his head bucked uncontrollably in the wind. Though the forces which propelled him protected Grantin from the full force of his passage, eddies and drafts and blasts of air penetrated the unstable shield. And the cold. Now that he was several thousand feet above the surface of Fane, Pyra's warmth had leaked away until the sun exuded only a thin, buttery light.
Grantin wrapped his arms around his torso and tried to orient himself so that he could view the approaching landscape from a more stable position. Loosening his left hand, he used it to shield his eyes. Through the cracks between his fingers he peered at the approaching Guardian Mountains. The band of the bloodstone ring pressed against his forehead. Images sporadically flashed into his brain. With each flicker a sensation like a high-voltage shock shuddered through his frame. Again and again these images displayed the scene of the imprisoned Fanist and the mad wizard who tormented him. Grantin recognized none of the pictures, although it seemed to him that in addition to that of the Fanist other visions repeated themselves. Two or three times he spied an Ajaj Gray clasping a green, square-cut gemstone.
At last, unable to bear the continuous shocks, Grantin wrenched his hand from his forehead and removed the ring from contact with his skull. Half a league ahead of him and to his right lay the first pass between the Guardian Mountains.
Somehow Grantin had to turn his course. At first he flailed his arms and contorted his body, as if he could jerk and skitter his way at an angle across the sky, but to no avail. If his course did not change, in less than a minute he would shred himself against the granite outcropping which protruded from the side of the first peak.
Grantin's body twisted in a slow clockwise movement. He unclasped his hands and extended both arms straight out from the shoulder, but instead of slowing the maneuver increased the rate of his spin. Willing now to try anything, Grantin swung his arms back, and the spin decreased. He put both arms directly in front of him, and the spin halted. His course slowly veered to the right. The ring itself seemed to be the medium of control.
Grantin began a hasty experiment. He pointed the powerstone directly at the approaching jagged wall, and his movement away from the peak accelerated. Somehow the stone sensed movement around it and compensated by adjusting the field in which Grantin was carried. Grantin found that if he shook his fist up and down his whole body likewise oscillated. As if to prove his theory, the shattered palisade slid by a hundred yards to the left. Grantin freely rode the air through the pass.
Now he struggled to orient himself. Standing upright, he set his legs wide apart, right hand on his hip, left hand extended as if holding a searchlight which could guide his way through the tangled peaks.
Each time he detected a bulge of rock or escarpment impinging on his line of flight, Grantin solemnly pointed the powerstone at the obstruction. Like the north pole of one very weak magnet approaching the north pole of another, Grantin's line of travel shifted and he was repelled from those obstacles toward which he oriented the bloodstone.
After a few minutes Grantin gained a certain sense of control, power, and even majesty. Like a minor god he bestrode the stone fortresses of Fane itself. One by one the battlements of the Guardian Mountains slid past. His twisting course at last opened to him a vista of the rich lands beyond.
Here were the outer borders of the Gogol realm, the boundary lands inhabited no doubt by bandits, outcasts, and fugitives from Gogol justice. And beyond? Ahead lay the fabled settlements of Hartford mythology--the Gogol encampments of Mephisto, Styx, and their capital city of Cicero, all places which Grantin had no desire to investigate. But that brought up another problem: how to end his wild ride and still keep his bones in one piece and his organs in their normal resting places? Perhaps if he forced himself lower his speed would decrease.
Grantin extended his left arm toward Pyra. Could he obtain a repulsion from such a distant body? He sighted along his extended member to keep it fixed at the sun. After a minute or two he glanced below him to see what effect, if any, his experiment had produced.
His breath caught in his throat and his heart squeezed into a small icy lump. His scheme had worked better than he dared to hope. Now he sped at terrific speed only thirty or forty yards above the ground. Trees ro
ared forward, their branches grabbing at him, at the last second to pass only a scant ten or fifteen feet below his dangling legs.
Now pale with fear, his heart racing in an adrenaline overdose, Grantin whipped out his arm and pointed it forward at an angle slightly below that of the horizon. After a few seconds he seemed to detect a decrease in his speed but suffered a corresponding increase in his altitude. Unless he was careful, in a few more minutes he'd be back in the freezing upper reaches of the atmosphere.
The ground was now composed of flatlands interspersed with a few rounded hills and humpbacked swales. Ahead these hummocks ended and a great forested plain stretched off toward the horizon. Summoning the last fragments of whatever courage he had left, Grantin adjusted his course so that his body now plunged directly toward one of the approaching hills. Grantin then pointed his arms skyward and lowered his level of flight until the top of the slope stood higher than Grantin himself. Finally he pointed his finger at the center of the hillside and waited. His velocity did seem to slacken, but not enough. Now the hill was only a few hundred yards distant. Grantin saw that the knoll was covered by a copse of feather trees, their distended fronds resembling the terrestrial weeping willow.
Fifty feet, forty, thirty . . . Grantin's speed was too high and his altitude too low. In utter panic he pointed his arm straight ahead.
With a noise like a stone singing through a field of tall grass, Grantin smashed through the leafy tops of the feather trees. His arms and legs flailing, he whipped through tendrils and boughs. Leaves, stems, branches, bark, and bits of vegetation, together with a family of blue-crested squawk birds, exploded around him. He found himself tumbling downward. Instinctively his arms grasped at the limbs through which he fell. Grantin's grasp slipped from its last handhold. With a dull thud he bounced off the twisted trunk and collapsed in a bed of moss.