War of Powers

by Robert E Vardeman;Victor Milan

  'I am Cedrhus,' he answered. 'We are the Ethereals.' 'I seek a blonde woman and a large man with black hair. Have they been here?'

  The Ethereal considered the matter. 'I have seen many blonde women and black-haired men. All of them were here, for I have been to no other place.'

  Snarling, Rann ripped free his sword and slashed open the man's stomach. 'Insolent pig!' he snapped. 'You think to make me the butt of your puny joke?'

  The Ethereal dropped to his knees. 'I don't understand,' he said, his voice unchanged. 'I feel you are too much of the material. Free yourself from the bonds of ill and . . .' Rann's scimitar split his head, finishing the sentence for him.

  Rann snapped orders. Bird-riders hurried to obey them. Trees grew within the Crater. In a short time the soldiers had assembled a pile of wood, both raw lumber and the crude furniture they found in the slumping huts. Rann paced nervously back and forth, his blood singing in anticipation, as an Ethereal was stripped, bound to a pole and suspended above the pyre. At Rann's command the wood was lit.

  The prince awaited the first groaning cry of agony as the flames commenced their dance. The Ethereal continued to gaze skyward as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. His flesh reddened, blistered and began to slough off and blacken. Rann bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. The smell of roasting flesh tickled his nostrils. For once it failed to beguile him.

  Flames cloaked the bound man. He made no response. 'What's wrong with you?' Rann shouted. 'Cry, scream, plead, do something!' He went to his own knees beside the fire, so close the fur edging of his cloak began to smolder. 'Beg for release from your torment. No, not even that; ask and I shall set you free. But speak!'

  The man's hair burned now, surrounding his face with a ghastly wreath of fire. He turned his head toward Rann, and the prince's heart rose as he saw emotion touch the mild brown eyes.

  'You interrupted my dance,' the Ethereal said. His head slumped as life fled him.

  Almost weeping with frustration, Rann rose and turned away from the charring corpse. 'Bring me another,' he commanded. A woman was tied to a stake driven into the dirt of the square. Drawing a special knife he carried for such occasions, Rann went to work on her with all the consummate artistry of which he was capable. It had no more effect than the roasting of the man. Another captive followed her in a death that would have sent the bravest warrior raging into madness with pain. Another followed, and another. The victims sang or spoke of epistemology and teleology or simply stared, each oblivious to the abuse being wrought upon his or her body.

  At last Rann slumped in a chair and regarded his prisoners. They stood before him, calm and contemplative, virtually ignoring him. His mind wrestled with the challenge of how to eke some response from these folk since physical torture had failed. Among his talents Rann numbered the ability to read infallibly the weaknesses of those with whom he came in contact, which made him an accomplished warrior as well as a sadist. A few moments' worth of hard thought produced a new line of attack.

  'Hear me,' he said in a deceptively mild voice. 'I'm convinced that the woman Moriana and the man Fost have passed this way. Unless you tell me of them, when they arrived, how long they stayed and where they have gone, I shall cut off the feet of every person in this village. Next I shall cut off the hands. Then I will remove the ears, puncture the drums and pluck forth the eyes from their sockets. Finally, if no one has spoken the words I wish to hear, I shall tear your tongues from their roots and leave you here to die, helpless.'

  An uneasy murmur ran through the Ethereals. Rann smiled. He had gauged them right at last. His men, searching the village, had brought him word of the statuary, musical instruments and crystal phials of essence they discovered in abundance. These folk clearly devoted their lives to meditating upon what they held to be various forms of beauty. He thought they wouldn't like to be denied all contact with loveliness, for all their words about scorning the material world.

  A man stepped forward. 'I remember ones such as you describe.' A cry rose from the prisoners. An Ethereal lunged forward, his golden hair in disarray, his ocean-blue eyes wide.

  'You mustn't tell them, Itenyim. We must hold true to our beliefs. We cannot betray - unnh!' The head of a javelin sprouted from the right side of his chest. Scarlet doused the front of his white robe.

  'I am sorry, Selamyl,' said Itenyim. 'I cannot bear the thought of being denied my art.' Selamyl's mouth worked in supplication, his hands reached forth. Blood gushed from his mouth as he fell.

  'Well,' said Rann, feeling at ease for the first time in a fortnight, 'come and sit at my side and make yourself comfortable, good Itenyim. We have much to discuss, we two.'

  'The magic of Athalau,' Erimenes said in his most resonant tones, 'was, at least in later years, not so much magic per se. True sorcery involves the manipulation of powers external to oneself. Our so-called magic came from within our own minds. We schooled ourselves to seek out and cultivate our latent mental powers, using them exclusively to gain the ends of sorcery. Consequently common protective enchantments have little or no effect on Athalar magic'

  The spectral figure folded blue, glowing hands over its middle. 'Nonetheless, the city of Athalau itself possesses talismanic qualities in relation to our magic, largely by virtue of the place it occupied in many of the mental exercises we employed to discipline our minds.'

  'In other words,' said Fost, trying to bite back a yawn, 'the closer you get to Athalau, the stronger your powers become.'

  'Such a bald statement oversimplifies questions of the utmost philosophical complexity,' the spirit said, 'but essentially, yes.'

  Moriana gazed into the low fire. They had ascended far enough into the Ramparts to think it safe to light one at night. It was unlikely the Sky Guardsmen would chance the treacherous downdrafts of these mountains in the dark on their night-blind birds.

  'So you were able to stimulate us when our bodies threatened to give out during the storm by working on our minds,' she said.

  'And able to keep me from revealing your continued existence to the Ethereals,' Fost said, leaning against the sheer rock face along which they'd camped.

  'But you rendered us invisible to the Guardsmen when we were many miles north of here,' Moriana said. 'What can you do this close to your home?'

  'Don't build an exalted conception of my powers,' Erimenes said. 'Recall that I couldn't constantly maintain the illusion of your invisibility. My powers have grown, true, but they are far from infinite. Besides, most of the applications of my abilities, sad to say, lack any practical application in the present instance.'

  'Tell me, Erimenes,' Fost said. The spirit turned toward him, a look of benign but thoroughly superior indulgence on his ascetic features. 'Your powers stirred us to renewed exertion during the bl izzard. Why couldn't they have roused us from the stupor of the Ethereals?'

  Erimenes touched his nose with a fingertip. 'I tried. The grip of those worthless creatures' drugs and spells, and your own desire to slip free of reality, held you too tightly for my mental skills to break you loose. You two had to free yourselves, though I was able to provide a suitable verbal stimulus.'

  Fost paced uneasily between the fire and the rock face. He paused and gazed up the narrow crevice that split the masses of the cliff. A long slope, steep but climbable, rose up to where black rock framed a wedge of stars. The instincts of a street urchin kept him from bedding down without having an escape route handy.

  Worry nibbled at his mind. Erimenes's explanations were glib and plausible enough. Yet Fost had come to know the spirit well, too well to trust him very far. The whole matter of Erimenes's powers - and why he bent them to aid Fost and Moriana - raised far more questions than had been answered.

  'Come, Erimenes, surely someone as wise as yourself has any number of useful skills,' said Moriana. 'What other miracles can you perform?'

  Apparently unaware of the sarcasm in her voice, the scholar raised himself to his full height. He pondered for a moment, and his
eyes opened wide.

  'Just now,' he said pompously, 'I perceive a group of between twenty-five and forty men approaching furtively up the hill. You'd best act quickly. They're almost on top of us.'

  Moriana's jaw dropped. Cursing, Fost kicked out the fire. A shower of embers rained down the slope, illuminating the faces and forms of men. The courier reached down, scooped up Erimenes's jar and slammed the cap back into place.

  'Take them!' a voice cried in the darkness. A spear bounced off stone with a jagged noise, striking sparks as it went. Fost jammed the jug into his satchel and tossed it to Moriana.

  'Run,' he told her. 'Climb up the crack while I stand them off.' 'I can't leave you,' she said. Her sword hissed into her hand.

  Dark forms reared all around. Fost parried a sword-cut purely by instinct and riposted, eliciting a cry of agony. Moriana crossed blades with a dimly seen antagonist and sent him rolling down the mountain, spewing blood from a punctured lung.

  'Go, I tell you,' Fost roared. 'I can stand them off here awhile. Wait for me - use your judgment how long.'

  He turned to her. Their gazes briefly locked. Moriana nodded convulsively, spun and was gone, scrambling up the slope, leaving a wake of tumbling pebbles.

  Fost heard the voice of Erimenes complaining aggrievedly at having to miss what promised to be an epic fight. Then the Sky Guardsmen charged.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Moriana stumbled and almost turned back as the sound of battle broke loose behind her. Grinding her jaw against the ache within, she made herself keep clambering up the shifting floor of the rock chute. Her lungs worked like bellows by the time she gained the top, and pain knifed through her ribs at every breath. But she was alive and safe - for the moment.

  At the top she rested, panting. From below rose hoarse shouts, the clang of steel, cries of pain as weapons found their mark. Hope glowed briefly in the princess. The fact that the din continued proved that her lover still held his own. Even as slightly built as they were, no more than two bird-riders could charge him at anytime as long as he stayed within the mouth of the fissure. His greater strength and size would have a telling effect in such conditions.

  Then a new thought staggered her. 'Erimenes!' she hissed, shaking the satchel and climbing unsteadily to her feet. 'We must go back. You can make Fost invisible and we can get away!'

  'Restrain your emotions, my dear.' His patronizing intonation enraged her, and she started to dash his jug against a jutting of rock. 'Wait! It would do no good, as Fost realized, and as you would too, if you paused to consider.'

  Moriana slumped back to the loose rock. She saw what the spirit meant. Even if Erimenes could befuddle so many bird-riders at once, the fugitives would gain nothing by it. The wily Rann had cordoned them against the cliff before moving in. Even invisible, Fost and Moriana would have had no chance to slip past the attackers. If both had gone at once, with no one to secure the bottom of the crevice, the Sky Guardsmen could have stood below and volleyed arrows up the chute. With such a narrow arc of fire to cover, they couldn't have missed, whether or not their targets could be seen.

  All this Fost had known at once and acted accordingly. Moriana reproached herself. She should have seen it too. Her fears for the Sky City were obsessing her, wearing down her mind. She could do nothing to help her people if through worrying she grew careless and was killed.

  The ringing of swords no longer drifted up the chimney. Moriana's heart lurched. Had Fost fallen? She heard a rattling, scraping sound like metallic hail, and a voice raised in a bold shout of derision. There was no mistaking Fost's defiant cry. Rann had obviously ordered missile troops to the fore, and Fost had just as obviously weathered their first storm of projectiles.

  She jumped up, knowing she shouldn't dawdle. Though to flee smacked of betrayal, she couldn't help the courier. He gave his life to buy time, Fost had said when grief for her fallen war bird had threatened to drag her down. Let's not waste it. If Fost somehow escaped Rann, she was confident he would catch up to her in time. If he fell . . . well, he wouldn't want his own death wasted either.

  Settling the satchel's sling more comfortably over her shoulder, she set off. The twin moons had long since set, an event for which Rann had doubtless waited before ordering his assault. The rock underfoot tended to break beneath her weight and slip away. She fell constantly until her arms and knees were a mass of bruises.

  'By the Great Ultimate,' Erimenes complained when they had ascended a torturous five hundred feet, 'must you keep bumping me about so? You're as clumsy as that lead-footed Fost.'

  Moriana dropped to a flat rock. A narrow trail stretched behind, curving out of sight around the flank of the mountain. Beyond the path the land dropped away sharply. It was a miracle that one of her many stumblings hadn't carried her over the rim.

  She wiped sweat from her forehead, felt a stickiness and held her hand close to her eyes to examine it. Her lacerated palm bled freely. She'd just smeared blood across her face.

  'If you don't like traveling with me, I can drop you down a crevice somewhere, so you can enjoy peace and solitude for another fourteen hundred years,' she told the spirit.

  'Thirteen hundred and ninety-nine,' Erimenes corrected mechanically. 'You will do no such thing. You need the amulet too badly, if ever you're to have hope of defeating your sister. And you need me to find the amulet.'

  Moriana nodded wearily. She couldn't deny the truth of what he said. Freeing the City from Synalon's oppression was worth any sacrifice, even enduring Erimenes's endless prattle.

  What troubled her was what the spirit needed her for. She had seen ample evidence of the late sage's capacity for treachery. The shade was utterly without loyalty. Yet he had interceded time and again in the last few weeks to save her and Fost from recapture by Rann. Why? she asked herself. Back in the City he seemed to find Synalon and Rann more to his taste than us.

  I know why I need him. But why does he need me? She sighed and pushed herself erect. She would learn the answer eventually, though she had a premonition she wouldn't care for it very much. Right now the only thing to do was climb.

  False dawn had begun lightening the sky when she reached the meadow. The warm north winds had melted the snow. Grass grew green and lush and soft. A streambed, drying now that the runoff was gone, provided Moriana an upward route. The bed rose in a brief cliff, its rock worn smooth by running water. Climbing the dead waterfall took the last of Moriana's strength. At the top she threw herself down on the grass, drinking in icy air in gasps, the grass-smell rich in her nostrils with the lying promise of spring.

  'You mustn't tarry like this,' Erimenes chided her.'Just let me rest a minute.''If I do, you might not escape the bird I sense approaching.' 'Bird?' She rolled onto her back, her sword hissing into her hand. Has Rann sent men on birds after me, despite the darkness? She scanned the sky intently. No vast cruciform shapes occluded the southern constellations. 'I see nothing,' she said. 'Erimenes, if you're . . .'

  A shadow loomed above her. Instinctively she rolled and felt something graze her shoulder. She continued her roll, coming to her feet in a crouch, the scimitar tasting the air in front of her.

  A bird stood before her in the darkness but a bird unlike any she'd ever seen before. At least as tall as a Sky City eagle, it lacked a war bird's grace of form and movement. Ungainly, it waddled toward her, swaying on thick legs, powerful clawed toes gripping the ground. It stirred its wings restlessly, a sign only of agitation. The foot-long stumps were plainly vestigial and incapable of raising its considerable weight.

  The knobby head slowly swiveled. It lacked eyes. Instead a single strip stretched across its head above the blunt, massive beak, dark but gleaming in the starlight like an insect's carapace. The head turned toward her, then stopped. The bird advanced.

  'But it's got no eyes,' she gasped, retreating slowly. 'How can it see me?'

  'It doesn't see you, obviously,' Erimenes said. 'It does, however, perceive the heat of your delectable body with some kee
nness, particularly in this chill.' He made a speculative sound. 'We knew them in my day, of course, but they didn't grow this large then. I wonder if they've changed in other ways.'

  Glancing over her shoulder, Moriana backed away. She had to be certain she didn't trip over a rock, if she fell, she had no doubt the monster would be on her in an instant, striking with its heavy beak. This time the beak would do more than simply glance off her shoulder.

  The bird made no move to attack as Moriana slowly gave ground. 'It's curious,' Erimenes explained. 'It's never encountered anything like you before and wonders what manner of creature it's about to make a meal of.'

  She licked her lips. The legs were long, at least half its height. If she bolted, it would overtake her within five yards. The stony wall of the valley lay twice that distance behind her.

  If it just stays curious a few breaths longer. . .As she turned her head to check the path, the monster charged. The rustle of talons on grass gave her a heartbeat's warning. She threw herself back and to the side, lashing out blindly with her sword. The blade clattered against hardness, slipped and then bit briefly. At the same instant, agony raked across her ribs. She scrambled away on all fours, panting with the pain in her side.