Riddle of the Seven Realms

by Lyndon Hardy

  “We have little traffic with the realm of the skyskirr,” Alodar said. “Ever since the metamagician Jemidon restored our laws to their natural state, the path between the two universes has been opened but rarely. It is merely by chance that you have arrived while some manipulants are also here.”

  “I do not think it is to the skyskirr that we must go,” Astron said. “Their realm has little more diverse matter than my own. It would be somewhere else instead.”

  Alodar’s eyes narrowed. “There are others, are there not?” he said slowly. “It was of course obvious after I learned of the existence of the ’hedron, but I dared not seek the definite proof. Contact with one other realm was disruptive enough. It would have been folly to explore too far.”

  “Yet, just as the number of laws number more than seven,” Astron said, “so does the counting of the diverse universes that populate the void, each with its own essence and rituals, distinct from the rest.”

  Kestrel stirred uncomfortably. The conversation was about things he could well avoid. He would have to divert its course into matters of more direct concern.

  “The wizards of Brythia are responsible for the imps of which this—this Prince Elezar speaks,” he said. “Restricting the masters from such reckless action might help with your other problem as well.”

  Alodar nodded absently but kept his attention on Astron. “What else then, demon,” he said. “Of what other wonders should I know besides the multitude of realms?”

  “There is the ultimate precept,” Astron said. “That is what my prince seeks—the ultimate precept, a concept superior to the laws of magic, one transcendent to the metalaws behind them, the answer to the riddle that provides the greatest power of all.”

  “In which realm does one search for this ultimate of precepts?” Alodar asked.

  “Only Palodad knows that,” Astron said. “In exchange for bringing him some exotic matter from whence he directs us, he will tell us where to look.”

  “Palodad, additional realms, ultimate precepts.” Alodar’s frown deepened. “It is all too much to swallow at one sitting. Perhaps Elezar has constructed what we men call a fantasy and expects somehow to convince us that it is real.”

  “It is a chance for redemption,” Phoebe interrupted suddenly. Kestrel saw that she had placed the bucket of water on the stone floor. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement.

  “It came to me while the two of you conversed,” she said. “I cannot continue through the rest of my life always blushing in apology for a single failure in my craft. I must strike out again and somehow prove a woman’s worth. It is by accomplishment that I will yet show the wizards of my council the meaning of respect. By proven deed will I gain comfort, even in the presence of the archimage of all the crafts.” She paused and took a deep breath. “And even though the archimage hesitates, then I will not. Tell me, Astron, is this Palodad strong-willed, like your prince?”

  Kestrel bolted across the room. He put his hand on Phoebe’s arm and looked over his shoulder at Alodar. “She has not quite recovered from the haste of our journey,” he said quickly. “Dismiss her words as merely some nervous prattle.”

  He spun his head back around and looked at Phoebe intently. “This is no game with imps and sprites,” he said. “Did you not hear the words from the flames and see the strange beasts the skyskirr were? Be careful or you will get us into a pit deeper than we presently are.”

  Kestrel stopped and studied Phoebe’s expression. He did not like what he saw.

  “Imps and sprites,” she shot back. “Is that indeed all you think me capable of? If the need arose, despite your words, would you trust me with more?” She looked away for a moment and then disengaged herself from Kestrel’s grip. “I know I stated when we began the journey that the adventure was all that mattered. But how can I be other than the demon’s slave, if deep inside you cannot judge me to be your equal?”

  Kestrel opened his mouth to speak, but he did not know what to say. For Astron to talk of other realms was his own business. No doubt at the root of his desires was the wish to return safely home, regardless of where that really was. And the affairs of demon princes were certainly the concerns of one such as the archimage. But Phoebe was another matter altogether. He glanced quickly at her sudden determination and shook his head. He must have been right when he first explained her words. It was the fatigue of the journey. In a calmer moment she would see the folly of dealing with such immensities just as clearly as he.

  But Phoebe ignored his outstretched arm. She grabbed the sack of powder still at Alodar’s feet and threw another handful into the dying flame. Thrusting the pouch into her cape, she took a deep breath as the fire roared back to life. “Palodad,” she said. “Palodad, come forth. I command you to submit to my will.”

  “Who tugs and pulls at the one who reckons?” a deep voice suddenly boomed from the hearth in response. “He is no mighty djinn who can be commanded to burst asunder great rocks or wield bolts of awesome lightning. Begone! Let him be! Wrestle with someone else, someone more worthy of your mettle.”

  “If you are named Palodad, then you are the one I seek,” Phoebe said. “Submit now to your master so that you might answer the questions that I have about realms other than my own.”

  “It is not the one who reckons whose tendrils of thought intertwine with yours. He is my prince. I speak on his behalf for all who come asking at the doors of his domain.”

  Kestrel hesitated, not knowing whether to rush forward and pull Phoebe away or let her be, so her concentration would not be disturbed.

  Astron released one hand from the book he still clutched to his chest and tugged on Alodar’s purple sleeve. “If the one that has been touched serves old Palodad, then it is just as well,” he said. “He can learn from the old one and tell us in turn in which realm we are to seek—tell us what is to be brought back in fulfillment of the bargain to the one who has him duty-bound.”

  Kestrel saw Astron shudder. “In fact, the intimacy of mind is probably all the better with a minion than with the old one himself,” the demon said.

  Alodar’s expression did not change for a moment, but then he nodded. He indicated for Phoebe to continue.

  “Whose mind then do I touch?” Phoebe said. “Speak your name as token of submission to my will. Tell me how it will be that you will convey Palodad’s thoughts. Be swift about it. There are many assembled here and the waste of time is great.”

  The flame flashed hotter. Kestrel felt a blast of warmth on his cheeks.

  “I am Camonel, the one who carries,” the voice rumbled deeply. “Prince Palodad has instructed that indeed I do submit to what you ask. We need not exercise the ritual of struggle. Feel my thoughts. I do not resist. He can speak through me as if my mouth were his own.”

  There was a brief pause while the fire danced wildly and then the demon behind the flames spoke again.

  “Time, did you say time?” The words rolled out from the hearth. Kestrel heard what he thought was laughter and saw Astron take a cautious step backward. “Time—there is no way either to save or waste it.” The flame spat and crackled. “It flows regardless, marching past to be lost forever. Do not speak to me of what even the most powerful of wizards cannot bend to his will.” The laughter boomed again, this time more forceful, echoing from the stone walls and filling the room with sound.

  “The riddle of the ultimate precept.” Alodar forced his voice through the din. “Ask him if it is no more than a cleverly worded ruse on the part of Elezar the prince to seek again control of the realm of men?”

  “Elezar, the one who is golden, is but a few time-ticks away from being but a memory,” the voice answered through the flame. “His domain is gone, dissipated into a fine dust that slowly drifts in the realm. Only one dark node remains his to command and soon it too will be found. I will record in my domain his many exploits; but, except for that, he will soon be forgotten like the rest. His only hope lies in looking elsewhere—elsewhere in a realm for which
I alone have calculated the identity.”

  “Then where is this place?” Alodar persisted.

  “Will you agree to bring back to me the pollen of the giant harebell flower in exchange for what I will tell?”

  “I will make no—” Alodar began.

  “Yes,” Phoebe interrupted. “Yes, tell us and we will go.”

  “No, you have no authority,” Alodar cut back in. “Wait, Palodad. Only I am—”

  This time the words of the archimage were put off by a second blast of radiation from the hearth. A billowing ball of orange flame rolled into the room, pushing Kestrel backward and to the side. A heavy black smoke coursed along the stone floor and an acrid smell stung Kestrel’s nose. He saw a large brown djinn stoop to enter the room from the fireplace, thick scales covering limbs that pulsed with tight muscles. The tips of leathery wings scraped against the slope of the ceiling, the fire behind shining through between a network of blackened veins. A single row of coarse hair sat atop eyes deep-set in rugged and angular bone. Tiny nostrils flared with each breath above a mouth distorted to the side in a permanent sneer.

  “I am Camonel.” The demon’s deep voice rumbled much louder than it had on the other side of the flame. “Palodad instructs me to transport whomever you have selected into the realm of the fey.”

  “The fey,” Alodar said. “What manner of place is that?”

  Camonel’s deep laugh again filled the room with sound. “You men know of it in your fantasies. Underhill kingdoms, trilling pipes with melancholy airs, creatures you think no larger than the smallest imps.”

  “Not the realm of the fey,” Astron interrupted. “They are all wizards, every one. It is no place for a cataloguer who is merely striving to serve his prince. Why can it not be someplace gentle, as is the realm of men?”

  “I am ready,” Phoebe said. With her chin thrust high, she stepped forward to where the djinn stood in front of the hearth.

  “Wait,” Kestrel heard himself shout. “Wait, Phoebe, this is madness. Think of what you are doing. You cannot follow that monster, aided by no more than the likes of Astron.”

  “Why, I did not intend to.” Phoebe looked back. “It is to be the three of us, just as from the beginning.”

  Kestrel lunged to a halt and stared. This indeed was madness. The affairs of archimage and demon prince might be of great importance to some, but they were no concern of his. Let some other so-called hero step forth for the honor and the glory. In the end, the rewards would turn to bitter ashes. The one who jumped through the hoops would find that he had been manipulated merely for the benefit of others who would not take the risks themselves. This was no role for Kestrel the woodcutter. There was nothing whatever in the bargain for him.

  Kestrel looked at Phoebe as she slowly drew closer to the waiting djinn, her nose clamped shut to hold out the pungent odor. His thoughts tumbled in confusion. He was here only to clear his name and perhaps win a few pieces of gold from the archimage so he could boast of it in the tavern.

  But there was Phoebe as well. Her life probably was forfeit as soon as the leathery wings closed around her willing frame. He thought of his rescue from the foundry of the alchemist, the pleasure when she had pressed against his side, and her insistence in seeing good in him when there was none to be found.

  While Kestrel hesitated, there was a sudden commotion at the door. Four wizards in sweat-dampened robes burst into the room. “There they are,” the first one shouted. “The very ones who conspired to cheat the august council of Brythia. Come forward, Maspanar and the rest. We have caught them at last.”

  Alodar looked sharply at the intrusion, but before he could speak, the high windows along the wall above the doorway shattered in a spray of tiny shards. Two demons almost as large as the one in the hearth plunged into the room, circling overhead with crackles of blue flame pulsing from their fingertips.

  One of the wizards who rushed in added his voice to the commotion. “Please forgive the interruption, master archimage. Forgive the interruption, but we come to rectify a great wrong to our craft.”

  “Yes, and since I have had time to ponder it,” another one said, “I recognize the one bearing the rucksack from before—some five years ago in Laudia to the south.” He pointed at Kestrel, his face beet-red with anger. “A swindle then of my hard-won gold, just as it was at her cabin. Do not be deceived, archimage. Their words are smooth, but carry not a word of truth, not even the ones of the demons that they command.”

  One of the wizards raced up to Phoebe and tugged at her robe from behind. Kestrel slapped his arm away. He looked into her eyes and saw her bold composure begin to falter in the confusion. Stepping to the side, he barely missed a searing bolt of blue that crackled from above and sputtered the hard stone at his feet into a bubbly slag.

  He saw Alodar move toward Phoebe as well and made up his mind. “It is because of her and no one else,” he yelled above the noise of the others. “For her alone, do you understand. Not for the sake of great princes or the well-being of mankind. Only for Phoebe am I doing this. The rest of you matter no more than you did before.”

  He grabbed Phoebe firmly about the waist. Desperately, he put the thoughts of what might be even worse than smacking lips and soaring lithons out of his mind. Closing his eyes, he pushed her forward toward Camonel’s chest. He felt a smothering heaviness on his back as the wings closed around them and Astron’s elbow pressed painfully into his side. Almost absently, he grasped the book the demon thrust at him and shoved it over his shoulder into his rucksack. He reeled from the dizziness. Reality seemed to spin. The last thing he remembered was the words of the archimage:

  “If they escape, I want the word broadcast even across the sea. Apprehend them at all costs and bring them back. There is to be no place in the realm of men where safety will be theirs.”

  PART THREE

  The Realm of the Fey

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Rings of Power

  ASTRON watched the djinn vanish back into the flame. He glanced at Kestrel and Phoebe and saw what he more or less expected. Both stood transfixed in wide-eyed wonder. He remembered how his own stembrain had seized control on his first visit and how he had barely hid in time.

  The trio stood next to one of three small fires, beside a stream that flowed between the gently rising slope of a rustic glade. The hillsides were covered with a carpet of thick grass, each blade the size of Astron’s legs. Scattered here and there were huge flowers of red and gold, towering into the sky on giant stems from clumps of thick foliage. The proportions were all wrong, but in the realm of men they would be called foxglove, whitethorne, primrose, and thyme. A ring of mushrooms, each as big as a small hut, circled the hillsides in a single precise line halfway up the slopes. On the crests, the flowering bushes merged into a thick forest of glistening leaves.

  No one else appeared to be present, but behind them on the bank stood a large granite-gray boulder with what looked like a wooden door in the side. The trilling of distant pipes blended with the sigh of a gentle breeze.

  Astron pointed to the hillcrest. Gently, he guided the other two upward and into the shadowy cover. They moved perhaps fifty steps and then ducked beneath a lowlying leaf that was easily the size of the largest djinn. The soft sky glow that was everywhere the same winked out into inky blackness. The click of large insects in the distance blended with the crunch of lichen underfoot. Astron sniffed the fungal pungency of his surroundings and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  The canopy of leaves was not complete. After a moment, Astron could see the diffuse light from the pale blue sky trickle between jagged edges and paint the thin spots between the huge, webby veins with an iridescent glow. Behind him perhaps some ten paces, Astron knew, was a coarse and woody trunk that soared as high into the sky as the tallest structure in the realm of men. Thick emerald branches cantilevered out into a shower of leaves that hung nearly to the ground. Between the stem and the circling umbrella of foliage was the shelter
in which they hid. One had to proceed cautiously in the realm of the fey, much more so than in the worlds of men.

  “Where are we?” Kestrel finally found his voice. “And look at the size of this—this ragwort! What kind of giants are we among?”

  “We were lucky we arrived when we did,” Astron said as he retrieved the book of thaumaturgy from Kestrel’s rucksack. “From the looks of things, the ring has not yet begun to form.”

  He wrinkled his nose, wondering what to do next. Somewhere in this realm, according to Palodad, was the answer to the riddle. But beyond that, there was no clue. And from the tone of his prince’s voice, what little time had been left was almost totally gone.

  Astron felt the tug of his stembrain, but wrestled it into submission. All of the imps that had pursued him in the realm of men did not help matters. And in the ward of the archimage, two colossal djinns had appeared as well. With all the traffic between the realms, Gaspar could not help but be close behind. It would be a race to see if he or Elezar would be the first to fall.

  And what of the humans? At least one would be needed to wrest the harebell pollen through the barrier when the time came, but what would happen after that? Their own realm had grown increasingly inhospitable, and his was no place for any other kind.

  He saw Phoebe draw near Kestrel, and the woodcutter put his arm about her waist. The crease in Astron’s nose deepened. He had been with these two far longer than with any other mortals and he had learned many things. But if he were asked to explain their behavior to his prince, he would not be able to do so.

  The one called Kestrel could speak of things that had no existence whatsoever in the reality of any of the realms. After the flight from the cabin of the wizard, he had seemed reluctant to continue the journey to the archimage. Then, after the terms of their agreement had been satisfied, he had continued the quest through the flame, not in response to the command of any prince, but apparently of his own volition. Despite these contradictions, Kestrel had the skill to manipulate a half-dozen imps as if he were a practiced wizard. There was much more to be learned from this mortal and new experiences to be felt and tasted before their journey together was over.