by Hugh Cook
Miphon began. Swiftly, he released all the power associated with the sleeping secrets. That power had to go somewhere, but could not escape from the egg, which hummed with a high-pitch resonance as vibrations built up.
Miphon felt uncomfortable. His ears began to hurt. It grew hot. He sweated. His sweat dried the moment it appeared on his skin. His eyes stung. The air took on a violet tinge. The walls of the egg began to vibrate. They cracked: a million hairline fractures appeared.
The barrier blocking the way out of the egg became
visible as a web of blue-white energies, pulsing like an eye in which the pressure of the heart's blood is rising so high that it threatens rupture. But the barrier held. Miphon gave a small cry: a dry croak. The heat was rapidly killing him.
He had surrendered all the power of the sleeping secrets.
He refused to surrender any more.
He charged the barrier. He hit it - and a shock of pure energy flung him back, knocking him to the floor of the egg. He lay there, at first unable to move. The air pulsed and sang. Intolerable resonating energies throbbed around him. Bursts of white light sang from the walls of the egg. The walls were warm to the touch.
Miphon knew he had little time left. Unless he got out quickly, he would be dead. He composed himself, and swiftly accomplished the second phase of destroying his power. The heat intensified.
He resolved to charge the barrier again.
He wanted to escape with at least some of his powers intact: those to affect the world of Lemarl, the world of stone. He refused to surrender everything. Yet, remembering the pain when he had last touched the barrier, he was afraid.
Miphon seized the sword Hast, remembering Hearst, and the intensity with which the warrior moved on the attack, committing himself absolutely to the needs of the moment. Wild words came to Miphon's aid:
'Ahyak Rovac!'
Screaming that challenge, swinging that sword, he charged. And went right through the barrier. He was free!
But, inside the egg he had escaped from, the energies he had released were becoming more coherent by the moment, converting themselves into a pulse, a resonance, a unified power of destruction. If that barrier was to give way . . . looking at the pulsing barrier, Miphon decided it was a question of when, not if. The
barrier would not hold for long. So what to do then? Run!
He turned and fled down the luminous corridor. He saw a doorway: an empty egg. Another doorway: a dusty storeroom. Another: into dead darkness. Then another: opening into a room in which lay Blackwood, bound hand and foot.
'You!' said Blackwood, the word distorted as his mouth was badly bruised and cut.
'None other,' said Miphon, cutting Blackwood's bonds with the sword Hast. The blade slipped, slicing flesh. 'Sorry.'
'It's nothing,' said Blackwood, stemming the bleeding.
'Where's Hearst?'
'I don't know.'
'Come on then.'
They raced on down the corridor. The luminous white curves drew them on. From up ahead they heard a scream. They ran faster, panting. Then they burst into a chamber, a glance revealing: Hearst, tied hand and foot to a metal frame; a young man holding a bloodstained bodkin; half a dozen onlookers, all armed.
Miphon screamed:
'Ahyak Rovac!'
The battlesword Hast took out the nearest. As the rest drew weapons, Blackwood grabbed the tripod legs of a brazier and hurled its burning coals toward them. The torture chamber evoked all the horrors of Prince Comedo's dungeons. Snatching up an iron rod, Blackwood attacked, striking out furiously. Miphon fought beside him, reckless in his disregard for his own safety. He had lost everything he valued: nothing remained to tempt him to make the calculations of cowardice.
It was all over almost as soon as it had begun. Three of the armed men were dead. The rest: running for their lives.
'Are you hurt?' said Miphon to Hearst.
'Like a virgin unvirgined,' said Hearst. 'No, don't look for the damage, you blue-tailed pox doctor. Cut me loose! Quickly, man, quickly!'
i don't want to cut you.'
'Don't worry about that, let's just get out of here.'
Miphon sliced away the last rope. Hearst, released from the metal frame, stumbled, almost fell. Deep-gouped rope patterns ringed his wrists and ankles. Blackwood supported him as they left the chamber.
'This way,' said Blackwood.
'How do you know?' said Miphon.
'The tunnel slants upwards here, doesn't it?'
'Why, so it does,' said Miphon.
They went as fast as they could, Hearst hobbling, Miphon still carrying Hearst's sword.
'Where's the green bottle?' said Miphon.
'Valarkin had it the last time I saw him,' said Hearst. 'That was shortly before . . . before you rescued me.'
Despite their long association, Hearst was reluctant to name a wizard as his rescuer. It had been bad enough at Selzirk, when Miphon had rescued Hearst from magic - a warrior cannot, after all, hope to fight magic directly. Here it was worse: to be rescued from armed men by a wizard wielding a Rovac sword.
'Where did he go?' said Miphon.
'He was called away,' said Hearst. 'One of Valarkin's cronies heard that the headman of the Secular Arm wanted a fellow called Esteneedes, who happened to be searching the red bottle that Valarkin's got stashed away somewhere. So Valarkin went to get the man out of the bottle. Up here?'
Ahead the corridor branched.
'This way,' said Blackwood, choosing at random. Then: 'I've been out hunting with Esteneedes. He's a noted tracker. The headman must be wanting to recruit him for a search party to look for us.'
'Valarkin miscalculated,' said Miphon. 'He thought nobody would try and look for us.'
'Yes,' said Blackwood. 'But obviously they're thinking of searching the countryside - not Veda itself.'
They came to some stairs. Hearst, now able to walk without support, led the way up. There was the distant boom of an explosion, followed by a protracted roar. The walls shook. Cracks opened. Pieces of luminous white fell from the ceiling.
'What was that?' said Hearst.
The stairs were vibrating under their feet. Miphon knew that never before had a wizard stripped himself of his powers, releasing uncontrolled energies into the world. He had no idea what the consequences might be: but he was learning fast. Quite possibly, the energies he had released might tear Veda apart.
'Come on,' he said.
'But what in hell's name is it?'
'Out!' cried Miphon. 'Out, or we're dead!'
They bounded up the stairs two at a time. More stairs led to more corridors; more corridors led to more stairs. Ever upwards they went. The journey started to become nightmarish. Sweat poured off them. Their legs began to lock with fatigue. Heart and lung strained to their limits. The vibrations got worse and worse. Huge chunks fell from the ceilings. Tunnels buckled and twisted.
They began to pass other people, most of whom were running in the same direction. Some, however, had been trapped or disabled by falling masonry. They could not stop to help these casualities.
There was another explosion, louder than the others. The surface underfoot swayed.
'We're never going to get out of here,' said Hearst.
But even as he spoke, they saw daylight. The sun shone through dust: the way to escape was in sight.
* * *
From a low hillock a thousand paces from Veda, 465
Miphon, Hearst and Blackwood watched the final stages of the disintegration of the stronghold of the sages. Occasionally rubble was flung high into the air with a shattering roar as blue-white energies burst out from underground.
'What did you do?' said Hearst, watching the dust settling after one of these explosions.
'What do you mean, what did I do?' said Miphon.
'Hearst's not the only one to think you're responsible,' said Blackwood. 'Nobody else has such power.'
i've got no power now,' said Miphon sadly, i used it all in blasti
ng my way out of the cell where Valarkin was holding me.'
'You did what you had to,' said Hearst, i only hope Valarkin and the death-stone are buried under that rubble.'
'This is a disaster,' said Miphon. 'The Confederation of Wizards will never believe it!'
iil be there to help you make your explanations,' said Hearst.
'And me,' said Blackwood. 'As a friendly witness in the Court of the Highest Law.'
'Now let's get ourselves out of here,' said Hearst. 'Before the survivors organise themselves into a lynch mob.'
The travellers got to their feet. They had the clothes they stood up in, but no weapons except for Hearst's sword Hast. And no tents, pack animals, food, blankets. Not even a change of socks. And no money. It was going to be a hard journey, unless they could improve their position. Hearst looked around.
'We have to go back,' said Hearst. 'Despite the danger. We have to go back to Veda and loot the ruins. That's what I think.'
iil trust your judgment,' said Miphon.
'Then I say we go,' said Hearst. 'Blackwood?'
The woodsman stooped and picked up a small, smooth rock. It fitted nicely into his hand.
'When I'm holding a weapon like this, who's going to oppose us?' 'That rock?' said Hearst.
'I'm going to say it's the death-stone,' said Blackwood. 'And if that's what I say, who's going to wait around to find out otherwise?'
'Of course,' said Hearst.
It was a good idea: he should have been the one to think of it.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Posing as Galish merchants, they slipped through the Rice Empire, avoiding major centres of population. Miphon did no healing; he could have improvised some basic equipment, but decided healing-work might link them to the tales, rumours and legends that were circulating about Morgan Hearst and his companions.
When the Salt Road was busy, they travelled by night, stealing horses, riding them hard, then abandoning them or trading them for fresh mounts. They knew stories of the fall of Veda would move swiftly along the Salt Road; they wanted to be first to bring the news to the Castle of Controlling Power, so the Confederation of Wizards would hear the truth rather than some garbled distortion.
It was four hundred leagues from Veda to Narba; their sixteenth day on the road ended with Narba in sight. They slept in a corn field, breakfasted on stolen cobs of corn, then pushed on toward the city.
At Narba, much building was in progress. During years of peace, the city had sprawled outwards, so now many houses, taverns, inns, offices, warehouses, shops, temples, tanneries, breweries, bakeries, shipyards, schools, courtyards, mansions and marketplaces lay beyond the protection of the original fortifications. Efforts were now underway to remedy that deficiency by extending the city walls.
Where the Salt Road entered the city, two huge bastions were being constructed to guard what would be a major gateway through the new walls. One bastion, a square structure with walls easily a hundred paces long, rose more than five times man-height. Work on a
second was just beginning; men were working waist-deep in a water-filled hole, driving stakes into the ground so the top of each was level with the surface of the water.
'Blackwood,' said Hearst. 'Why are you making your mouth a flytrap?'
'Because,' said Blackwood, shutting his mouth and shaking his head, 'this is incredible. Unbelievable.'
The fortifications were, of course, trivial compared to any wizard castle, and insignificant if compared to Stronghold Handfast. However, the antiquity and inhuman scale of such monstrosities made them seem, to an extent, like natural features of the landscape. The works at Narba, on the other hand, were undeniably the product of the labour of human nerve and sinew; people swarmed over the fortifications like ants over a sugarloaf.
The air was hazy with dust thrown up by the diggings. The bastion nearby, rising high into the air, was topped by arrangements of windlasses and treadmills; teams of men were labouring in unison on this creaking apparatus to drag up block after block of stone.
Standing watching, Blackwood sneezed as dust got up his nose. He touched a finger to his teeth. Bit it.
- This is not a dream.
He scraped a battered boot over the stones of the road, heavily clagged with dirt from the diggings.
- You are here.
- And not elsewhere.
He felt an acute sense of being located in that particular spot at that particular moment. He felt as if he had awakened from a life of dreams, from an insect-habit life of doing things by rote.
- Is this magic?
Miphon and Hearst began to argue about whether they should enter the city or outflank it, and the spell, if it was a spell, was broken. Blackwood joined the argument; they decided to enter the city, not least
because they wanted to find out what rumour of war had provoked this outbreak of fortification-building.
* * *
From Veda, the travellers had carried away some glowing fragments of the luminous white interior of the ruined city; they sold these scraps to a jeweller in the centre of Narba, getting a good price; later, no doubt, as trade brought more of the material along the Salt Road, the price would fall.
What they learnt in Narba was confused, ambiguous and ominous. There was trouble amongst the wizards of the castles guarding the flame trench Drangsturm. There had been fighting at the Castle of Ultimate Peace, at the eastern end of Drangsturm. A few wizards, all of the weakest of the eight orders, the order of Seth, had come north to Narba and had taken passage on ships going to the Cold West or the Ravlish Lands. Rumours said other wizards had taken passage on Malud ships sailing the Ocean of Cambria, dispersing to Asral, Ashmolea, the Ferego Islands, the Driftwood Archipelego and the Parengarenga Mass.
The wizards were served by the Landguard, just as the sages of Veda had been served by the Secular Arm. Some of the Landguard, disconcerted by the troubles, had deserted. Meeting some of these deserters, the travellers heard rumours of expeditions to the Dry Pit, of attempts to capture the Skull of the Deep South, of wizards building strongholds in the Ashun Mountains while others, helped by Southsearchers, set up places of refuge deep inside the lands controlled by the Swarms.
At this distance, the truth was impossible to determine.
'But we know this for certain,' said Hearst. 'Narba fears war between the orders of wizards. That's why the city's so busy with these extra fortifications.'
'Small help they'd be,' said Blackwood.
'A war between wizards might lead to other evils,' said Hearst. 'For instance, the Landguard troopers might run wild.'
The men of the Landguard were tough, resolute and dangerous, trained to hunt down and kill any creatures of the Swarms which got round the shoreside edges of Drangsturm or overflew the flame trench. If they went to war on their own account, they would be a serious menace to a place like Narba.
'We'll take your word for it,' said Blackwood. 'You're the warrior.'
'What we have to decide,' said Miphon, 'is what we do now. My duty lies south. The Confederation of Wizards has to be warned that Valarkin may be on the loose with a death-stone. However. . . friend Hearst, the south would hardly be healthy for a Rovac warrior at the best of times. Now . . .'
iil see this thing through to the end,' said Hearst. 'A war between wizards could mean . . . perhaps the end of the world as we know it. I won't try to disown my part in history.'
If he no longer wished to be worshipped as a hero, he still wished to be significant; he was still of the opinion that quiet, sheltered lives were for woodlice, not for men.
'You know the risks,' said Miphon, knowing that, actually, if the wizards really did go to war, nowhere in Argan would be safe. 'And you, Blackwood?'
'Once I've bought a bow, a knife and a new pair of boots, I'll be ready to travel.'
'You don't have to come with us,' said Hearst.
i have to go south to discover my destiny,' said Blackwood.
'Your destiny?'
'
Yes,' said Blackwood. 'Why would all these things have happened to me if not for a purpose? Why did I survive when so many others died, if it were not that some destiny is intended for me?'
Hearst smiled, amused at this provincial certainty, which was not far removed from the belief traditional in Estar, namely that a peasant was destined to remain always a peasant.
'Chance attends even to falling dice,' said Hearst. 'Much more so to us.'
'That's as may be,' said Blackwood, choosing not to argue. 'But in any case, I've no idea what I'd do if I didn't continue this journey.'
'That's a poor excuse for getting yourself killed,' said Hearst.
'In your company, I doubt any of us will be losing our lives,' said Blackwood.
'I wish I shared your confidence,' said Hearst.
They stayed three days in Narba, spending most of the money they had made from the sale of bits of the substance of Veda - as well to spend the money now, since death might be waiting a short distance down the road - and then they set off south.
Here in the south, the weather was warm; even when winter came, the south would never see a frost. Nevertheless, there was no doubting that it was autumn.