Her attention instantly focused on the bird's dying cough. A sigh from Ziore touched her mind. The spirit sensed it, too. The bird had made it all this way only to fall short by less than a mile, almost near enough to touch the skystone of the City itself.
The wings fluttered, losing strength perceptibly. The City canted and veered away as the bird banked into a descending spiral. War eagles were trained to land when they felt their strength failing them. Moriana felt the bitterness in the creature; it longed with all its fading being to die, if it must, in a last desperate effort to get its claws on the rock of home. But duty lay in protecting its rider. The ancient compact between rider and eagle bound both equally.
The bird straightened its wings. Gliding down, it conserved strength for landing. The irregular ground hurtled upwards at a dizzying rate. An incautious landing would kill Moriana as surely as if the bird's heart had burst a mile up.
Moriana tensed. Thoughts chased one another through her mind with terrifying speed. Her plan had been to fly openly into the City. Citizens didn't question bird riders, and if she rode in purposefully enough, no Guardsman would question her, either. But that scheme lay shattered now because of her bird's fading life-force.
'Say-y-y! Ho there, a rescue!' came the cry from above. Five birds had detached themselves from the unusual number that flocked around the City. Five powerful pairs of wings propelled bodies and riders through the air toward her with purposeful speed.
She had time to appreciate the irony of this rescue. The Sky Guardsmen did not for an instant suspect they were on the verge of apprehending the fugitive Princess Moriana, presumed dead. They saw only a bird rider in distress, and the only bird riders in the Sundered Realm were soldiers of the Sky City. They thought they flew to the rescue of a comrade in trouble.
Moriana knew they'd realize their mistake soon enough. Then the ground came spinning up to meet her.
'I take it for granted, my lord count,' said Rann, toying with the skull he had been using to hold down a corner of the map, 'that you appreciate the need for utmost discretion in this matter.'
'Certainly, Your Highness,' said the count, his manner courteous but clipped, verging on impatience. The edge in his voice would have thrown Synalon into a homicidal fury at his impertinence. It only reassured the prince. The man refused to waste time. Rann needed such a man.
He gingerly put down the skull. He had stripped the flesh from it while its still-living owner thrashed and howled in exquisite agony. The whole experience had been so rewarding that Rann had desired a momento.
He studied his guest carefully. A small man, scarcely three inches tal ler than his diminutive host, but as stockily built as Rann was spare. He stood in his severely cut, blue tunic and loose trousers with black riding boots rolled down to his calves. He wore a sword hung from a black baldric, a rare privilege for an outsider permitted into the presence of Sky City royalty.
It was deliberate. Rann let the man know how utterly he trusted him. The look in the visitor's watery blue eyes showed his understanding of the situation.
Rann picked up a goblet of hot spiced wine and sipped. The drink spread soothing warmth through his body, erasing the effect of the chill wind, and soothing him while he bided his time. His visitor stood waiting, but not patiently. Though not a muscle of body or face moved, he gave the impression of vibrating with ill-suppressed energy. Even the tips of his prematurely white, waxed moustache stood quivering at attention.
The goblet clanked to the tabletop with sudden decision. 'You wi 11 need to arrive in the target city wel I before we do, with, of course, some ostensible business not at all associated with the Sky City.' The count's only reply was a curt nod. 'That's why it is necessary to meet now before our transit of Wirix. Preparations must begin immediately.'
'It shall be done as you command, Highness.' The visitor smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from the front of his tunic.
'Our friends below are nervous. But they are also complacent. Years of peace have turned them soft. They doubt anyone would dare attack them. The Sky City has made no overtly hostile move toward them since the humans conquered it. As a result, for all their apprehension at our recent activity, they cannot bring themselves to believe that we will attack. But. . .' He drained his drink and set the goblet down with a thump of finality. 'But should they receive intelligence - reliable intelligence-of our designs, even the most lethargic bourgeois would be goaded to action. Properly forewarned, they might even successfully fend us off. It is a matter of concern to Her Majesty and myself.'
His tawny eyes moved sidelong to study his visitor's reaction. The man's face betrayed no emotion, but his manner clearly said he was irritated. He grasped the obvious as readily as any other man.
'Well, then,' said Rann, smiling, nodding his head as if to change the subject. 'If my lord will excuse me, I've an appointment in the palace dungeons. My Monitors caught a spy trying to sneak in. The slut rode up in a cargo balloon. I anticipate a most diverting afternoon.' He turned a bland countenance on his guest. 'Unless my lord wishes to come and watch ... '
'Thank you, Highness,' the man said with a courtly half-bow, 'but I fear I must return to the surface at your earliest convenience. There is much to set in motion.' His toneless, staccato voice did not waver. But his florid face had gone pale at the suggestion that he share in Rann's 'diversion'. Rann felt a delicious tingle of amusement. Inflicting emotional upset was, in its own way, as gratifying as dealing out physical pain.
The stone's color shifted to black. Moriana kept it tucked into her tunic while flying, but the eagle's whirling descent steepened as the bird lost control and pitched it free. It seemed incongruous to the princess that the stone's color mirrored her own fortune. Then the tip of the bird's lower wing caught on a tree limb and the eagle spun in.
At the northern edge of the central plains, the occasional trees sometimes banded together into woods. As her mount had started his final descent, Moriana had steered him for the nearest large cluster of trees. It was dangerous landing among trees. But to land in the open was fatal.
A limb laden with snow hit Moriana in the face as her mount cartwheeled down through the trees. A blow to her ribs knocked the breath from her. She saw clear, snowy ground below and threw herself from the saddle.
She hit and rolled expertly, coming to rest against the bole of a tree. The eagle floundered on, smashing through the bare limbs in a flurry of white powder. The snow muted the sound of its passage so that it sounded distant, unreal. The noise of wings cracking branches ceased abruptly. A heartbeat later, Moriana heard a sickening thump. A cloud of snow marked her mount's final resting place.
She raised her head, shaking it to clear snow from her eyes. A lump hung tenaciously to her forehead like a cold, wet hand.
She silently saluted her fallen eagle, then began moving. The ache in her ribs jabbed into pain with every step. Possibly she'd broken a rib, but this wasn't the time to check. She had to find cover before the bird riders descended.
She knew what to expect from those above. Seeking cover, the princess found a spot where interlocked branches had formed a framework roofed over with snow, bent low, and scurried beneath it. For all her care, she brushed the limb. It dumped snow down the back of her cloak.
Ignoring the snow turning to water on her back, she examined herself. Her ribs hurt, but after a few experimental breaths she decided she hadn't cracked any. An ankle throbbed painfully; she'd twisted it and hadn't noticed till now. Her face was scratched, her lips swollen from the limb that had swept across her face. But she was relatively healthy.
She remembered Ziore's jug. Guiltily, she reached around and felt her backpack. The jug seemed intact.
I'm here, she heard the nun's voice say inside her head. Don't fear for me, child. I'm not harmed.
Moriana sighed in relief. Overhead, the bird riders swept by. Instinctively, she hunched down. The eagles flapped by, their wings making the sound of sails flapping in a stiff breeze.
&nb
sp; 'Look,' came a man's voice. 'That's where he went down.' Through gaps in the trees Moriana saw the five birds circling over her fallen mount. She held perfectly still. The slightest motion would betray her. She tried to ignore the discomfort of her cramped position as her mind raced.
Moriana knew she was finished if they landed. She considered shooting at the Sky Guardsmen with the bow she'd taken from the lost scout. She dismissed the idea at once. She could bring one down, but with the trees in the way that would end her life then and there. The only way she could escape was to bring down all five at once.
Ziore? she thought. Can you help me? She felt the spirit's negative response. She thought fleetingly of her own sorceries, but these were Sky Guardsmen, warded against anything she could do on such short notice. Her hand slipped to the reassuring firmness of her sword hilt. Her heart hammered in her ears. She waited. It was all she could do.
'I don't see the rider,' called one of the orbiting Guardsmen. 'He may have been thrown free.'
'Ho!' another shouted. 'Ho, down there! Can you hear me? If you can't answer, make some sign. We can't see you!'
The minutes moved as ponderousfy as the glacier guarding Athalau.
'He's in no shape to respond,' a third voice declared. 'Let's go down and look for him.' 'No!' a fourth voice rapped.
'But flight corporal,' the second said. 'We can't just leave him.' 'We're under orders not to land.' A bird shrilled irritably. The mounts disliked the wing-cramping circle they flew.
'Corporal, he's one of ours!' the second complained. Hardness pressed into the palm of Moriana's left hand. She realized she clutched furiously at the Amulet of Living Flame. She stared at it.
Its surface was glowing mostly white. Irrationally, her heart beat faster. She had no reason to think this meant her luck had changed, but. . .
'I'm sure Prince Rann will be impressed with your spirit of comradeship,' the corporal said ironically, 'when we're strapped to the torture frames in his playroom. He commanded that no one land under any circumstances. Rescues are to be left to the dog humpers. Our place is aloft, flyer, and aloft is where we're going to stay.'
No grumbling greeted the corporal's words. The prince's name acted like a potent spell. One of the Sky Guardsmen shouted down, 'Sorry, but we can't land. We'll have the dog boys out with stretchers as soon as we can.'
Then the sound of wingbeals diminished. 'Ziore, did you have anything to do with that?' Moriana trembled with the nervous release of tension.
'No’ the spirit said aloud, sounding puzzled. 'As soon as the corporal spoke, I probed his mind to harden him to the idea of flying off if he started to weaken. But he didn't. In fact, I don't think I could have made him land.'
Moriana emerged from the shelter, stood up, and stretched. Hours in the saddle coaxing her eagle along had left her muscles wound into knots.
'These bird riders are afraid of this Rann,' said Ziore. 'I thought you said he was dead.'
'I thought he was.' Moriana shook her head. This was a bad turn. She looked to the northwest. A balloon grew like a tumor from the forward edge of the City, distended, broke away, and then began to descend as the flyers vented air from the bag. A feeling of despair washed up like bile from her belly. The City was near-and infinitely far away.
'Why, child?' Moriana started. She constantly forgot that Ziore read her thoughts. The nun was better at it than Erimenes ever had been. 'You've gotten this far on a stolen bird. Can't you steal another, or ride up in one of those unsafe looking contrivances?'
'NO. If Rann died under the ice as I'd thought, it would be worth trying. But if Rann lives, no. He's suspicious of his own shadow. The City's sewn up like a balloon; trust in it.'
'What will you do now?' The words played over and over in her mind, clanking like lumps of rusted iron. What will you do now?
Her choices were few. But she wouldn't give up. There had to be a way someone as resourceful and daring as she could sneak into the City.
Somewhere, a snow clump dropped to the forest floor. Moriana shook herself. When the groundling rescue party failed to turn up a downed flyer, they would report back to the Sky City. Suspicion would be roused. A full-scale hunt would be fielded.
The disappointment of her failure to reach the City was swept away by a swell of emotion. Rage, hatred, determination flared.
'What will I do now?' she asked harshly. 'I'm going to show my sister that two can play the game of conquest.
'I'm going to invade the City in the Sky.'
CHAPTER SIX
Shadows writhed and capered among the vaults of the ceiling. Shadows pursued each other along the walls, ducking into alcoves, flashing up the piers of the pointed arches that supported the roof. Shadows held court in the throne room of the City in the Sky.
Shadows wrapped Synalon like silk. Clad only in their dark substance, the Queen of the City knelt in a chalk circle scribed carefully on the dark stone of the floor.
Within the seven-foot circle was a triangle, its apexes touching the circle. At its three points burned fires-one yellow, one blue, and the last red. A different scent rose from each: sandalwood, cinnamon, gall.
Thus protected by her magics, Synalon addressed herself to the spirits held captive before her.
She rose and shook back midnight hair. Shadows caressed her thighs, her belly, the palely glowing moons of her breasts, the shadows moving like lover's hands. She inhaled sharply as though she felt the touch.
'As Stone worked with Fire becomes Metal,' she intoned, her hair rising of its own accord like a deadly black halo, 'as Stone mixed with Water becomes Mortar, as both are shaped by the hand of Man, I shape you as I have bound you; You must serve my ends, or Wood shall be your pain!'
The creature she addressed stood splay-footed within its crystal prison, its arms crossed over the round jut of its belly. Bat ears flanked a domed, wrinkled skull. Its skin was rough, knobbed, and pitted like pumice. Its obsidian eyes gleamed forth with white-hot fire.
'You have drawn me into being, mistress,' it rasped with ill grace. 'Say what you would have of me and be done with it.' It spoke slowly, with obvious effort, its tone hovering near inaudibility at the lower end of the scale.
'Hear me. This is my pleasure. Convey my submission to the Lords of Darkness. They have but to render me their bidding, and I shall do it. The greatness of the City shal I be as it was, and the glory of the City was ever the glory of the Dark Ones.'
'No.' A stony head lowered to a stony breast.Synalon's head snapped up. Her haircrackled with furious energy. The stone I called on you to animate was gathered from the flows of Omizantrim, manikin. Speak thus, with the Throat of the Dark. Ones. Bear me their bidding.' The last words rushed out in a sensuous whisper. She bent forward at the waist, body sheened with sweat. Her nipples stood erect, casting shadows on her breasts.
'Stone is Stone, from wherever drawn,' the stone spirit said. 'I am touched with darkness, perhaps. But not with madness. I will have naught to do with the Lords of Infinite Night.'
'Then you must suffer.' Synalon hissed the words, face contorted with rage.
'Better your punishment than to draw the notice of the Dark Ones,' the spirit replied.
She pressed palms together before her belly. Slowly, she raised her hands. A green shoot sprouted from the floor of the chamber within the domed cylinder that imprisoned the spirit. It grew, touched one ankle of the lavalike homunculus and began to twine up the leg. The spirit stood immobile.
The queen raised her hands higher. The shoot climbed with them, swelling and hardening, green turning to brown along its length. The leafed tendril at the tip of the shoot touched the juncture of the stone man's thighs. It pressed upward with the inexorable pressure of growing plants.
The bat-winged visage lifted. Its lips stretched in a grin of growing agony, but still the spirit uttered no sound. Synalon's arms pressed before her breasts, her throat, her face. The stone head arched up and back, as though drawn by an invisible cord. Muscles stood out on
its arms in stark relief.
Synalon began to spread her fingers. A ripple passed through the spirit's body. A shoot burst through stony skin at the juncture of neck and shoulder, curled coyly, green, and seemingly tender. Other sprouts broke from the creature's chest, its sides and belly, thickening into the branches of the tree that grew within the spirit, impaling it as it stood.
Remorselessly, Synalon's hands rose. The growing green and brown cancer rose up in the stone figure. Synalon raised hands above her head and pulled them apart. Stony fragments fell to the floor as fresh branches broke from the cheeks and ears of the spirit. One obsidian eye was pushed from its socket. It rolled down the floor like a black teardrop and shattered on the floor. At last the spirit opened its mouth to scream. Instead of sound, a shoot emerged, thick and leafy, reaching for the ceiling of the crystal cylinder. A shudder wracked the body. The fire died in its remaining eye.
Synalon dropped her hands to her sides. The ineluctable, unnatural growing ceased. It was now a stunted tree and nothing more.
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