by Glen Cook
"Have a definite weakness. Hand me the Yu Chan book, please." He busied himself with his tools (with a sudden something definite to do, how much better, how much more real he felt), which included an instrument like a large, two-tined fork. He accepted the required book, asked, "Will you get a crystal from the stone cabinet? The amethyst I think." He checked the book. "Yes, the amethyst. I thought I remembered this from my session with Lord Chin. There. All ready." He sang a long, complex incantation from the book, struck the fork, touched a vibrating tine to the gem, said, "That should take care of their eavesdropping. To their devices Fangdred has become a black hole. Now what?" "Hit back!"
"No. If they're. Prime Circle, they'll have powerful defenses."
"Not able to withstand you, though."
"Perhaps not. But for long enough, what with my grip on the Power being so unreliable. While I was crushing them. Mocker would arrive. He'd do his work and save them. Though they might not realize that yet."
"What do you plan?"
"Let me think, let me think. Oh, yes. First thing, we'll ready our own defenses. Those two are scared. They'll try hitting first and fast in hopes of catching us off guard. Once we have a solid shield, I'll set up the Winterstorm. The uncertainty version. It's still experimental, but I have a hunch I'll soon find a new source of Power useful."
"What do you want me to do?"
The two men, working in concert where the Old Man had the requisite knowledge, rapidly erected powerful shields around Fangdred. Just in time, too. The first attack came only moments after they finished.
The Old Man listened to the howl and groan and wondered just where he, and all this, fit into the Director's current scheme. He had been awake for centuries now, and had only begun to discern the ragged edges, to sense the master's butterfly touch in such probable preliminaries as the El Murid Wars.
Whatever, it would be bloody. They always were.
SEVENTEEN: And Thoughts from Visions of Night
Nepanthe paced her room, brooding about Mocker, Varthlokkur, and the Old Man. A riot of worry galloped through her mind, swept like a tide, crashed against barrier-rocks, chuckled along well-worn channels. She had decided, as she had watched Mocker evade and conquer the hawk that morning, that there was a real chance he would get through. She had begun to suspect it the previous evening, while walking the wall and smelling that strange, familiar smell in the night. Somewhere, somehow, her brothers were stirring. She had recognized the scent of the Werewind.
Where are they? How had they managed an alliance with her husband? What about Ragnarson and bin Yousif? Were they involved too? Was her husband's approach an attention-grabber covering the others as they came from another direction? Hope was a sad thing, she found. When she had had none she had been at peace, though spitting fire around Varthlokkur. But now, with a glimmer of a chance, she was tormented. Like a trapped animal she ran this way and that in search of an unnoticed gap in the bars of her cage. Her heart was a snare drum with a kettledrum's voice, beating fast and loud...
Did Varthlokkur know her brothers had sent weather against him? Frightening thought. They would be defenseless against him. She threw herself onto her featherbed, on her stomach, and, chin on folded hands, stared onto infinity. How could she help her rescuers? If she could distract Varthlokkur till Mocker arrived... Thoughts of seduction whirled through her head, were rejected instantly because her attentions would be too transparent, even if desired.
"Mocker, I wish I knew what to do," she whispered. All the loneliness of her stay in Fangdred gathered like a sneering specter. This fortress and its people were all too like the Dragon's Teeth themselves: stark, harsh, and primitive. She rolled over, stared at the ceiling. A tear trickled from her eye. Bad to be alone. She remembered his arms... warm... secure...
Loneliness. Now she understood Varthlokkur a little better. Four centuries made a big loneliness. She thought about his visits to Ravenkrak. His look of loneliness was one reason she had given him the time she had. She saw the same look each time she passed a mirror. If Mocker hadn't come along, and Varthlokkur hadn't lost patience and gone militant, she might be married to him now. She had considered it, truly. He wasn't a bad man, really, though he was too controlled by his unyielding belief in Destiny.
Thoughts of Varthlokkur stirred a notion for distracting him. She wouldn't pretend to do anything else. Though he would know, his nature would force him into predictable paths. She bounced up, hurried to a closet filled with clothing he had given her. He had given her many things since they had come from Ravenkrak.
She hummed as she searched the closet, a delicious pleasure after so long. Ha! Nothing could go wrong now.
Nearby, as if he knew her mind, the current piper played a tune. It was as old as time. Nepanthe laughed when she heard it. So fitting!
The voice of my beloved!
Behold he comes, Leaping upon the mountain,
Bounding over the hills.
She laughed again, picturing Mocker dancing from mountaintop to mountaintop like the Star Rider in the story about the King of the Under-Mountain. She chose a frock of pale rose, held it to her breast. It looked a perfect fit, though she had seen nothing like it before. So short-just knee-length-and of such fine fabric. She remembered a woman saying that Varthlokkur had conjured the clothing from far empires. She laughed a third time, throatily, and shed the black shapeless thing she had worn since arriving.
She stood before the mirror for a moment, admired her reflected nakedness, then scented herself with lilac- lightly, lightly, so just the slightest hint hung about her. She had never trained in a woman's devices, but she had her intuitions.
"Beware, Varthlokkur," she chuckled, studying the clothing. She had seen nothing like it before, but functions seemed apparent. Soon she stood before her mirror again, adjusting her hem. She marveled at how nice she looked in the lewd apparel. Probably not lewd where Varthlokkur had obtained it, she thought. What a strange country that must be.
The hem hung at her knees. The skirt was full, but the rest clung close, accentuating her curves. Bawdy. She knew the people of Fangdred, though hardly prudish, would be shocked by the bareness of her legs, the obvious outthrust of her breasts. Every woman had a smidgeon of a need to be whorish. Ah! She felt so wonderfully optimistic.
But her optimism died as she left her room. Fangdred suddenly rocked on its foundations. Stone groaned against stone. Wind screamed about the castle like cries from the Pit. No, not wind. No wind, not even the
Werewind, made sounds like those. Those were Hell-creatures shrieking, hurling themselves against the fortress. Sorcery! She forgot about vamping Varthlokkur and, terrified, ran for the Wind Tower. Her raven hair streamed behind her, whipped by tongues of air. Frightened people surged through the halls, not a one noticing her dress. Even panicked, she felt disappointment. A woman needs to be noticed when she's behaving naughtily. But everyone else appeared more terrified than she, helter-skelter running nowhere away from the inescapable screaming anger beating at the fortress.
Except that idiot piper. He and she collided where corridors crossed. She could have avoided him had she been paying attention. The fool was playing the dirge from The Wizards of Ilkazar, loudly, perhaps mocking Varthlokkur, and she should have heard him. But fear blocked all sensitivity. The piper didn't exist till she bowled him over.
But he noticed her. With a leer, from the floor, he played an old tavern song, "Lady in A Red Dress." Nepanthe blushed and hurried on. The piping pursued her through the windy halls.
The shaking of the walls, and the pandemonium beyond them, was dying when she burst into Varth-lokkur's workshop.
The wizard stood at the heart of an elaborate multiple pentagram spangled with scores of swimming magical symbols. In the air, based on the sides of a pentagram on the floor, and each sharing sides with two of the others, outward leaning, were five pentagrams traced in blue fire. Above the wizard was a pentagram of red fire, from the sides of which depended five pentagrams
in green. These had common sides with the blue below, so that Varthlokkur was completely enclosed by a twelve-faceted jewel of pentagrams. And swimming on the planes of the aerial pentagrams were fiery symbols in silver, gold, violet, and orange. The room was dark except for the light given off by this complex thaumaturgical-topological construct. The symbols in motion blazed when Varthlokkur stroked them with the tip of a short black wand, the room surged and swirled to ebbs and flows of weird color.
Nepanthe stopped a step inside the door. Had she asked her question immediately, all might have come tumbling down. Recovering, she eased the door shut and tiptoed to where the Old Man sat watching, enthralled. She, too, was soon engrossed. This was the first of Varthlokkur's magic she had actually seen. For a moment she felt the Power in her blood yearning toward him, felt the pull of its need for completeness.
The wizard made a magnificent picture there in the heart of his construct, with the varicolored lights teasing over his features. Wand in hand, he seemed a god caressing the stars of his universe.
Unconsciously, wanting to share, Nepanthe touched the Old Man's hand, held it lightly as she had her father's long years past, when frightened or awed. "It's magnificent, isn't it?" She nodded dumbly.
"It's a new thing, something he discovered while waiting for you. Never tried it before. A whole new field of magic is opening here. Amazing." "It's beautiful," she replied. "Uhm."
"But why? What's happened?" The Old Man glanced at her with a smirkish smile. "Your husband's cohorts, Ragnarson and bin Yousif, found themselves a couple of wizards crazy enough to attack us. Competent men, Prime Circle, but no match for Varthlokkur. We caught them red-handed after they killed the Devil's Hawk. Now they're trying to get us before we get them. But they haven't hurt us at all, and I doubt that there's any damage they can do."
She nodded while he spoke, too enthralled by light and color to be annoyed by his smugness. Suddenly, Varthlokkur relaxed and sighed. She leaned forward, excited, again feeling that pull. The wizard tucked his wand under his arm, wiped sweat from his brow with his sleeve, and stepped from the heart of his creation. Symbols swirled as his passage disturbed them.
Nepanthe gasped. Varthlokkur heard her. "No need for alarm," he said tiredly. "It's not your usual pentagram. It's not a protection against devils. You might call it a Power matrix. It concentrates the Power so I can project it. The symbols represent the demons outside. When I touch one I sting a soul..." He paused, rubbed his temples. "I'm tired."
The Old Man withdrew his hand from Nepanthe's. "I'll get something to fresh you up. Why don't you sit down for a while?" He left.
Varthlokkur massaged his temples for a full minute, then turned to the thing he had wrought. "I suppose I'd better get rid of that," he mumbled.
"Please don't," said Nepanthe. "Leave it for a while. It's beautiful. Like watching the universe from outside."
Varthlokkur glanced at it, then eased into the Old Man's chair. "Guess it is. Never thought of it as anything but a tool." He looked at her closely, watching the light patterns dancing on her face. He chuckled. "The dress becomes you. But aren't you a bit early? He won't be here till tomorrow."
Silence stretched. She could think of nothing to say. Moreover, she remembered that pull of a moment earlier and was distressed by the temptation.
He rose, said, "Come here," and took her hand, pulled her from her chair. "Go stand in the center of the pentagram."
Uncertainly, she did as she was directed, positioning herself at the heart of a gleaming gold star whose points lay in the angles of the pentagram on the floor. Varthlokkur spoke a few soft words, touched his wand to a silver symbol. It clung. He moved it to her left ear. She started, controlled the impulse, was surprised when she felt nothing. It had looked hot. Varthlokkur spoke again. The symbol attached itself to her.
He repeated the operation, caught her other ear, then filled her hair. And then he brought her out of his construct, to the mirror (which was just a mirror at the moment) and showed her herself with stars in her hair.
She smiled, said softly, "I feel like a goddess. It's fantastic."
"Fitting. You're my goddess. I'll give you the stars of the night."
Her smile became a frown. She shook her head, more to rid herself of the attraction she felt than as a negative. "I've made my choice. That's the end of it."
"Not quite. Let me show you something. The divination I've mentioned so often. That you've always refused to believe." He had finally realized that he had to offer her something more convincing than his word as Varthlokkur, The Empire Destroyer.
Eyes wonder-wide and disturbed, Nepanthe followed him to a table. He selected several items and set them out in an order with meaning known only to himself. He began chanting...
The castle groaned. Screams surrounded it. Dust showered from the shaken ceiling. Varthlokkur slammed a fist into a palm as he looked up. He snapped, "I'd thought them sufficiently warned."
Claws of terror seized Nepanthe's soul. "The magick! You've taken it apart!"
"No, don't worry. We've got other defenses that'll hold till I get it fixed. Come over here, please." Back to the pentagrams they went, Nepanthe cooperating because she knew the attack could be as dangerous for her as for her captors. The Old Man arrived running with ale and sandwiches. He relaxed visibly when he saw the defense already under control.
An hour later, Varthlokkur said, "They were more determined this time." From the heart of his creation he touched symbol after symbol. Each wriggled away from the contact. He told Nepanthe, "This causes a great deal of pain for the demons. It breaks their will to attack. But they can't leave us while Visigodred and Zindahjira bind them. We're balanced just now. I break wills about as fast as they recover. I hope the fact that I'm not bothering to turn the demons around on their masters will scare hell out of those two. I hope they'll get to wondering what I'm cooking up instead."
Still another hour later it had become evident that the attack might not break down at all. Said the Old Man, "They may just try to keep it up till Mocker's at the gate."
"Might be what they're thinking. Let me see. Ah, yes. Get me a pair of tongs, please. Big ones. Thank you. Now, something silver and sharp. A needle-ah! The arrow... What?" He grew even more pallid.
All three stared at the arrow dangling beneath Varthlokkur's mobile of bells. Nepanthe saw nothing unusual. It just hung there, swinging slowly back and forth. The Old Man, wearing a puzzled frown, took it down and handed it to Varthlokkur. They didn't discuss whatever it was that had caused their consternation.
Nepanthe moved closer when the wizard seized a symbol with the tongs. The thing squirmed as if it were alive. It tried to escape. Nepanthe touched her ear fearfully.
Varthlokkur noticed. "No, they're like this only inside the pentagrams, when demons are near." With the care of a master tailor, he pushed the point and shaft of the arrow through the struggling thing in the tongs. It stopped wriggling. Its color quickly faded, and in a moment the tongs grasped nothing but naked air. "Good. This shouldn't take too long." And, within half an hour, he had done the same with all the symbols. "Better leave this up," he said when he finished. "They may try again." He made certain a dully glowing symbol was in place in every plane of his structure. "Now, about that divination." Though he was near collapse, he led Nepanthe to the table where his necromantic materials lay ready. Chants flowed across his tongue with the heavy fluidity of quicksilver. His wand danced over the objects. Time passed. A mist formed over the table. Soon things stirred in the mist, and a soft, fluting voice spoke therefrom. Nepanthe, despite herself, found that she couldn't tear her attention away.
Hours may have passed before it was over. And, when it was, Varthlokkur seemed to be as amazed as she. And the Old Man couldn't close his mouth, so stunned was he. Whole new vistas of perfidy and holocaust had opened to his more ancient, less ignorant mind. Varthlokkur had hardly recognized the tip of the iceberg of what must be going on.
After a long silence, Nepa
nthe asked, "That wasn't what you expected, was it?" Her throat was almost too tight for speech. She was terribly frightened again.
Varthlokkur shook his head slowly. "No, it wasn't. That I didn't expect at all. And yet you see the choices, yours and mine, and how soon they'll be forced upon us." And Nepanthe, who had lived all her life with magic, could no longer disbelieve. There was simply no defying such absolute revelations.
"And I have a choice of my own," said the Old Man. "But mine's already made." His role in the Director's drama remained fluid, and within his own control. "I'll stand by you, Varthlokkur. You'll do the same, Nepanthe, if you've got any sense at all. Destruction is the only alternative." He turned to Varthlokkur, his expression unreadable.
The wizard inclined his head slightly. "Thank you. It's unnecessary, you know. You can still get out."
"There was a slip. We've seen that your divinations were manipulated. That gives us a chance. You're still Varthlokkur, the wizard. / won't run just because jow've found the board broader and of a shape different than you thought. You've already decided to fight. I can sense it. Even though you think it's useless. Because you think you owe it to those whom the puppet masters had you destroy. I can do no less. This is my world too." Pretty speech, he thought. Yet following its tenets would allow him to both pursue his private inclinations and what he saw as his greater purpose.
It hung in the balance now, and Nepanthe didn't like it. Futures rested on her shoulders. She had to decide where to fight: beside her husband, or beside Varthlokkur. And, as the wizard had promised, even love dared not influence her judgment. So many futures could fall with the end of the coming battle, a battle she could help win-if she chose Varthlokkur.
She had just realized that Varthlokkur's need wasn't just the love-sexual thing she had recently come to believe-though that was much of it, of course-but also the Power-need she had suspected in the beginning.