Riddle of the Seven Realms

by Lyndon Hardy

  Kestrel began constructing the details of what to do next, but stopped suddenly in midthought. The urgency of the moment was as great as ever, but somehow he still felt slightly puzzled. Despite the explanation about the balloon, something else was bothering him just under the surface of his thoughts.

  Kestrel looked over at Phoebe and saw her smile. He put his arm around her waist to steady their stance as the basket began to rock in the quickening breeze. Phoebe did not protest. Instead she brought her pleasing softness to press against his side.

  The full realization of what had happened thundered into focus. First the demon, and now the wizard. By his own cunning, Astron had managed to secure a means of transport over the border. Phoebe had joined him in the gondola. She alone would have been sufficient to see him the rest of the way to the archimage. There was absolutely no reason for them to pull him into the basket as it ascended. No reason at all—and yet they did.

  Kestrel bargained with the baron whose crops had been damaged by the descent of the balloon and the metal sphere was traded for another horse and wagon. Soon the trio were on the main road leading to Ambrosia, the capital of Procolon.

  While Kestrel guided the steed, Phoebe and Astron held torches aloft on the moonless night. The swarm of imps that tracked their progress would not be deterred by lack of light, and the increased speed was worth the illumination.

  They were on the road but for a fraction of an hour when, as Kestrel had hoped, he caught the reflecting glint from a huge bottle on the shoulder of a cloaked traveller on the crest of the hill ahead.

  As the wagon grew closer to the solitary figure, bent far to the side by the weight of his load, Kestrel smiled with satisfaction. The cloak was turned inside out, but his trained eye could make out the stitching for the ring logos sewn to the other side. The man was a magician on the way back to the Cycloid Guild.

  “Do you care for a ride, stranger?” Kestrel called out as the wagon drew abreast. “Your load looks heavy and you in the need of a rest.”

  The magician looked up with eyes dancing with suspicion. He was short and broad like a plowman, rather than shallow-shouldered like so many practitioners of the arts. “I can manage my own way,” he said. “There is no assistance that I need.”

  “Not even if you carry an imp bottle?” Kestrel said. “I recognize the shape, straight sides of wide diameter and the narrow neck.”

  “What do you want?” the magician growled. He stopped and gently set the bottle on the ground. With his free hand he reached for a small dagger strapped to his belt.

  “Why, to buy, of course.” Kestrel pulled the wagon to a halt. He reached back under the covering and pulled out the wizard’s robe Phoebe had abandoned for the dress of the countess. He pointed at the logos of flame. “We travel simply to avoid notice, just as you do. What is the price that you would set in your guild? We will pay double—double provided that it can be proven to be truly impregnable to the weaving of simple imps.”

  The magician examined Kestrel critically and then Astron at his side. His eyes widened as Kestrel pulled away Astron’s hood and he saw the fine network of scales.

  Kestrel reached into his pocket and pulled out the remaining brandels of the Brythian wizards. With a flourish he flung them at the magician’s feet. “Double the price, and three pieces of gold more for the trouble of the demonstration.” He paused and smiled. “Just think how satisfied the other masters of the guild will be when you report to them that you have sold the bottle, not for the going price, but one and a half times that amount. Twice for you but only one and a half passed on to the coffers of your guild. It would serve them right. You are the one who has had to toil in the blackness while they wined and dined in anticipation of the fruits of your labor.”

  The magician looked down to his feet at the gold coins sparkling in the torchlight and grunted agreement. He stooped to his knees, rapidly retrieved the brandels, and thrust them into a purse next to his knife.

  “That the bottle is a true prison of imps there can be no doubt,” he said. “Magic rituals lead either to perfect results or else to nothing. And I have performed the last step myself—alone in a flat field when the moon was at nadir. I completed the square of numbers precisely in the order prescribed. The cymbals were struck thrice and then buried.

  “And then the glass hummed of its own volition, sucking strength from the cosmic spheres and forming unbreakable crystal. It would not have rung unless my actions were the perfect last steps to a perfect ritual, producing a jar like the imps it will surround, one that will last eternally.”

  Kestrel watched the magician draw the dagger from his side and flip it over in his hand. Pommel first he crashed it down onto the side of the bottle, causing it to ring the seductive harmony of the finest bell. A second time he banged on the glass and then a third but the bottle wall held firm and did not shatter.

  “See,” the magician said. “That is no ordinary container but one that has been transformed by the skills of my craft. You cannot break it or its stopper. More proof than that surely you do not need.”

  “Nevertheless, this purchase is not one of little consequence,” Kestrel said smoothly. “Surely you cannot deny us the assurance of putting imps in the bottle and seeing that they cannot escape.”

  “Well, if I were the buyer, then perhaps I would want to know for sure that—” the magician began.

  “Wait a moment,” Astron said suddenly. “There is the matter of volition. Only the wizards that command the cloud that pursues can will them into what they know to be a trap.”

  “I have thought about that,” Kestrel said. “We will just have to hope that the motives that drive your kind are not so different than those that push upon men.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are not imps noted for their curiosity?” Kestrel asked.

  “Except for their vanity, it is the strongest of traits,” Astron said. “They are always chattering that their abilities are the equal of the mightiest of djinns. But their inclinations have nothing to do with control of their will. There is no—”

  “Such is what I have heard from the writings in the sagas,” Kestrel said, “and such I will use. The only other thing I need is a lure. What is it that would attract them the most?”

  “In the realm of men? Why, vinegar, I suppose. At least it is said you can catch more imps with it than with honey.”

  “Then vinegar it is,” Kestrel said. He motioned the magician into the wagon and grabbed the large bottle as it was pushed upward. “We will hasten to the next village and buy a few coppers’ worth.” He looked at Astron’s wrinkled nose and his smile broadened. “Observe carefully, cataloguer,” he said. “We will see if there might be another power that operates among the realm of demonkind, another power than what you call your weaving.”

  Kestrel shifted uncomfortably in the tree and pushed Astron slightly to the side. It would have been better if the demon had not come, but his curiosity could not be thwarted.

  Astron looked down at the bottle directly below them in the nearly empty field and whispered in Kestrel’s ear. “In the first place,” he said, “this is no hiding place at all. Surely they will spot you to be here as if you were on the ground. In the second, even if one were in the bottle, you could not spring downward and insert the stopper quickly enough before he flew to safety.”

  “I know,” Kestrel whispered back. “Those are exactly the things I am counting on. Now be quiet and watch. The sooner we settle down, the quicker they will come.”

  He looked back to the road in the distance where the wagon was parked. The magician leaned against one of the wheels talking to Phoebe and seemed totally distracted. Quickly Kestrel glanced out over the field. In a perimeter perhaps the span of a dozen men, small fires burned at each of the corners of a pentagram under bubbling pots of lilac water that scented the air with a sweet fragrance. Imps hated it, Phoebe had said, and oftentimes wizards used bouquets of flowers to keep them away when they probed for
more powerful demons through the flame.

  Kestrel sighted the distance between the fires for the last time and judged that they were properly placed, enough of a nuisance to make approaching the bottle under the tree a challenge but not so close together that the imps could not do so if they strongly wished.

  For a longer time than Kestrel could judge, nothing happened. Then a single twinkle of light swept in from the distance and hovered for a moment over the open mouth of the bottle. The imp circled the glass jar twice and then darted up to within a few feet of where Kestrel and Astron hid in the branches of the tree.

  The small demon hovered with his wings buzzing. Kestrel could see the tiny eyes staring into the foliage. Then abruptly it abandoned its scrutiny and plunged in a straight line to the ground. With tiny hops, each about the span of a man’s stride, it measured the distance to the bottle.

  The imp looked back up into the tree and then along the path it had traversed on the ground. Kestrel saw it rub a bony hand along a pockmarked jaw and its eyes squint shut, apparently in thought.

  A second imp appeared near the top of the tree, buzzing within inches of Kestrel’s back. With a shrill cry it dropped to the ground and hopped toward the bottle as had the other. The first sprite soared skyward as soon as he heard the shriek, shouting what sounded like insults as the second laboriously jumped along the ground.

  The second imp stuck out his tongue at the first. He turned his attention to the bottle at his side. Cautiously, he paced around the perimeter, extending each foot lightly and testing the firmness of the ground. He reached forward, placed a palm on the smoothness of the glass, and then immediately jumped backward as the first imp dove within a wingspan of his head, laughing raucously.

  The second imp waved some gesture that Kestrel did not recognize and glared at the first until it stopped and hovered at the height of the tree. Apparently satisfied, the second vaulted up to the open mouth of the bottle and peered inside. He hesitated only a moment, extending first a finger, then an arm, and finally his entire head into the smooth walls of the mouth. All he would see, Kestrel knew, was the large cup of vinegar that had been carefully placed inside.

  The sprite lowered himself to the bottom of the bottle and repeated the same slow approach to the small bowl. Squinting in the dim light to make out the detail, Kestrel saw him stick a finger into the cup and then touch it to his lips. A moment passed and then the imp abandoned his caution altogether. He plunged his head into the liquid and began loudly slurping.

  The first imp apparently saw what was happening as well. He dove into the bottle, knocking the other one aside. Like two children fighting over a single toy, they began pushing each other away from the tasty prize. Almost instantly, a half dozen more sprites appeared from the distance. In a rush, they raced into the bottle one by one, bowling those that preceded into the hard glass walls and lunging for the cup of vinegar for themselves.

  “Do you see any more?” Kestrel tensed.

  “None at the moment,” Astron said. “But—”

  Kestrel did not wait to hear more. He dropped from the tree to the ground with the stopper in his hand just as the imps had decided he would. One that had been knocked the farthest from the cup of vinegar spotted his motion and shrieked a warning. In unison the imps stopped their fighting and took to flight. Like bees discharging from a shaking hive they buzzed up the height of the bottle into the neck.

  Kestrel sprinted to the jar as fast as he could, but, as he had guessed, he did not have to hurry. The buzz of the imps died in the grunt of crashing bodies. In a tangled mass they wedged into the neck and could ascend no further. The ones underneath the first cursed and pushed against those above but to no avail. Kestrel dropped in the glass stopper before a single one could escape.

  “Why, that is most remarkable.” Astron jumped to the ground after Kestrel. “They are trapped just as surely as if you were a wizard who could command their will.”

  “As I told you earlier,” Kestrel said, brushing his hands in satisfaction, “knowledge of the push and tugs that compel one to action can indeed be a great power. Evidently, beings are the same everywhere, whether they are men or demon.”

  Astron started to say more, but instead suddenly pointed at the jar. Kestrel’s satisfaction evaporated. A single glow of light flittered in from the south, made two circles of the bottle, and then with a burst of speed raced away in the direction from which it had come.

  “A straggler,” Astron said. “One that was distracted and did not fly in formation with the rest. Imps are well known for their lack of discipline. Perhaps that is a fact that you should have utilized as well.”

  “Never mind that,” Kestrel snapped. “He has seen what has happened. You can bet that he will streak back and tell the wizards where we are without fail.”

  Kestrel began running back to the wagon. “Come! At least I know the thinking of my own kind better. I suspect there is very little time before some of your more powerful cousins will be visiting us on this very spot.”

  Kestrel waved to the magician as he passed the master running into the field. “We do not want it after all,” he called out, “but you can keep the imps to demonstrate to the next buyer in exchange for your trouble.”

  Kestrel pushed past the openmouthed magician without bothering to offer any more explanations. He clambered onto the wagon and lent an arm to help up Phoebe. He whipped the back of the horse. In a sudden cloud of dust, the three again were on the road.

  Kestrel pushed the horse recklessly, not bothering to make sure of holes and ruts before he chose his path. The more distance they put between themselves and the field, the longer they would have before rediscovery by demons who would not so easily be fooled.

  “I do not deny it, mortal,” Astron said, after they had bounced along for more than an hour in silence. Kestrel glanced sideways in the torchlight and saw the demon’s nose relaxing into a straight line.

  “You have shown me that there is more to learn in the realm of men than the things that can be described easily in my catalogues.” As he continued, he looked Kestrel in the eye. “But also I wonder,” he said. “I wonder if any amount of your tugging and pulling would have gotten the lead balloon off the ground.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Archimage and Skyskirr

  THE race up the coast was a blur. There was no time for the luxury of sleep or even food for the horse. How long it had taken, Kestrel could not recall. Through half-open eyes, he spotted the simple sign that marked the turnoff from the main road to the ward of the archimage. With aching arms, he steered the wagon onto the narrow gravel lane that wound into the low hills on his left.

  After they had climbed to the pass between the nearest peaks, he could see down into the valley that lay between him and higher buttes farther away. Birch and aspen climbed partway up the hillsides. Tall green grasses filled the valley floor, waving in the breeze like ripples on a stagnant pond. One area was cleared of vegetation near the center. In it stood a dozen wooden cabins arranged in a circle around a two-storey house of stone. Pulsing bellows like those at the foundry spat blasts of cold air near the closest. Curls of wizard’s smoke rose from chimneys of the next two in line. Three spinning energy wheels of the thaumaturges whirled on the far side of the compound. Next to them, magicians slowly added spars to a complex latticework in step to the intricate jingling of hundreds of tiny bells. A few of the cottages were totally dark, sorcerers’ lairs with even the windows painted black to block out the sun. On the grounds between the structures, knots of robed masters argued and gestured as they walked quickly from one experiment to another.

  “I see no high walls or metal gates,” Kestrel said. “Anyone could approach the archimage with no resistance at all.”

  “There is a little hut at the foot of the road.” Phoebe pointed. “I believe one states his reason for calling to a page therein, and he arranges an interview, if it is worthy. As for security, the power and reputation of the archimage is such that
he has no need for walls and gates. If not for honorable means, it would be folly to approach.”

  Kestrel grunted and urged the horse onward. There was as yet no sign of imps or more powerful devils; but, even with having to reestablish the trail, they could not be far behind.

  Phoebe reached out and grabbed Kestrel’s arm as the wagon gathered speed down the last incline. “Before—before we meet the archimage and I am possibly questioned about my craft, Kestrel, I must understand all that has happened at my cabin.” She lowered her eyes. “Perhaps it was something that would embarrass me,” she said. “Yes, that is it. The demon made me do something quite unladylike in front of the other wizards. You are too much the gentleman to tell me about it.”

  Kestrel pulled his lips together in a grim line. He looked at Phoebe’s attractiveness in the fancy dress. Despite the fatigue, he felt a great longing. Without the immediate rush, it would be easy to say the words that would result in another conquest of a master of the arts.

  But the well-spun phrases would not come, not even ones that set the foundation for later. Phoebe’s apparent trust was too overwhelming. How could he deceive her as he had done to all the others when what she wanted had so little value?

  “The past cannot be changed,” Kestrel said, “no matter how much one might wish it. If you were embarrassed, would you really want to know?”

  “No, I would not,” Phoebe said after a moment. “Not if it caused me to lock all that I am behind a barrier through which no one else can see.”

  “What do you mean?” Kestrel asked.