Riddle of the Seven Realms

by Lyndon Hardy

  “But the reason for our quest,” Astron said. “It has not yet been completed.”

  Kestrel looked again at the unfamiliar desolation and felt a sense of strangeness and dread far more intense than what he had first experienced in the realm of the fey. “Let us heed Nimbia’s words and begone before we encounter something we cannot handle.”

  “I have no answer to the riddle,” Astron persisted. Struggling against Nimbia’s resistance, he pulled himself to a sitting position. “As far as I can tell, the words of the high king about reality and bubbles have little to do with a flame in the realm of daemon. How can they save my prince from Gaspar’s attacks?”

  “Then tell it to the other, the one you call Palodad,” Kestrel said. He pointed at the rucksack at this side. Phoebe’s arm jerked in response. “Perhaps the one who reckons can analyze some hidden meaning, once you have paid him with the pollen.”

  “Palodad.” Astron shuddered. He stopped speaking as membranes flicked over his eyes. “I had hoped to seek out my prince directly,” he said after a moment, “but your logic is correct. It is to the decrepit one that we must turn for aid and succor. Yes, Palodad first and then, with what he will hopefully add to the answer, search for the hiding place of my prince.”

  He looked across the oasis at Phoebe and Nimbia. “A fire, wizards,” he said. “Break down the barrier between the realms and contact the one that we must.”

  “I do not have the strength.” Nimbia rocked back and forth like a rag doll. “Certainly not the firmness of will that is needed. Let the human female try. She has been most eager to prove her worth.”

  Despite the difficulty in moving, Phoebe managed to smile. Fumbling with the pockets in her cape, she retrieved several matches but they tumbled out of her grasp onto the ground. She bent forward to pick them up but clutched only empty sand several handspans from where they fell.

  For a moment Phoebe bent over awkwardly, deciding what to do next. “There is much resistance,” she growled as she wrenched her head upward. “With what little kindling I have in my cape it is not such a small task as one might believe.”

  “It is the force of the symmetries,” Nimbia said. “If you were broken free you could act alone.”

  Kestrel saw the demon look about the hexagon of trees and his nose wrinkle in thought.

  “Yes, I believe it is the fact that we four are paired at opposite vertices,” Astron said after a moment. “Kestrel, if you can move to another while Phoebe remains where she is, then the symmetry will be broken. All of us should then be free to act independently.”

  Kestrel quickly rose and turned toward the tree on his left but Phoebe’s gasp of breath stopped him short. He looked in her direction and saw her body wrenched to the side, preparing to pace to the next vertex around the periphery just the same as he.

  “No, not so fast,” Astron said. “Relax your muscles and let Phoebe get situated first, perhaps with her arms wrapped about the tree. Nimbia can help her resist and then you can move away.”

  Kestrel breathed out slowly. He did not quite understand what Astron had in mind, but clearly they had to try something other than what first sprang to mind. As he let the tension out of his limbs, he felt insistent tugs that turned him back toward the tree. He let the forces wash over him and, without resisting, stepped up to the coarse bark. His arms rose from his sides and extended about the trunk. With a tight grip, his hands clasped together on the other side. Across the pond, he saw that Phoebe was also hugging her tree in the same relative position as he.

  Then Astron rose and approached the trunk from the opposite direction. The demon’s arms widened into a semicircle. On the other side of the oasis, Kestrel saw Nimbia extend her arms around Phoebe’s tree and grasp her hands together behind the wizard’s back. At the last possible moment, however, Astron brought his hands sharply downward. Rather then intertwining behind Kestrel, the demon’s fingers dug into the bark at his sides.

  “Now,” Astron said. “Gently release your grip and step away. With Nimbia’s help, Phoebe might be able to resist following.”

  Kestrel grunted in understanding and began to uncoil his fingers from one another. He felt the same strong resistance to his efforts and heard Phoebe gasp in exasperation as her hands also became unjoined. Kestrel stepped backward and saw Phoebe arch in response, her feet moving from the base of the tree while Nimbia struggled to hold her firm.

  Kestrel took another step and then, more quickly, another. He felt as if he were walking upstream in a swift current. But each step was easier than the one before and finally, midway between the trees, the force vanished altogether; in complete freedom he turned and walked to the next vertex of the hexagon.

  Kestrel saw Phoebe slide to the ground, oozing out of Nimbia’s grip. Tentatively, the wizard waved her arm and then shook her entire body. The smile returned to her face for an instant, and then she sobered into a serious expression. Busily, she retrieved her scattered matches. Reaching into her cape, she brought forth some small twigs and parchment and built them into a small papered cone at her feet. She returned to the tree which Nimbia still clasped and ripped several sheets of loose bark away from the trunk.

  Pulling her robe about her, Phoebe kneeled by her assemblage of materials and struck a match against one of the scraps of wood. The head of the match skittered against the rough surface but did not light. Phoebe cursed softly and tried with a second matchstick, this time bearing down harder and paying strict attention to what she was about.

  Halfway through her swing, however, the match broke in two. Frowning, she gathered five of the sticks together in a tight grouping and tried again. Even from where Kestrel stood, he could see the force of her stroke. The grate of the yellow-tipped heads growled far out into the featureless expanse of the desert.

  But again no sparks resulted from the swipe. Phoebe’s scowl deepened. Moving quickly, she clasped the matches with both hands and ground the cluster a second time against the surface of the bark. Again nothing happened and she began stroking repeatedly, each time more intensely than before, hardly pausing between swipes and ignoring the splinters of matchwood that spewed away from where she worked. In an instant, they were all destroyed, with not even the tiniest glow to show for her effort.

  Phoebe looked over at Kestrel, crestfallen. She kicked at her mound of kindling and sent it flying. “The wizards of my council,” she said sourly. “They were right after all. When it came time to do my part, even make the simplest of flames, I choked like a doxy from the sagas.” She reached for her cape and flung it to the ground. “Even with the mantle of the master, I must turn to another to get the simplest job done.”

  “My apologies but I am still too weak.” Nimbia shook her head. “The struggle at the tree took away whatever remaining reserves that I had.” She looked slowly out into the desert, scanning the horizon. “It is your powers that we must use, wizard. Get us away before it is too late.”

  Kestrel looked up into the tree under which he stood and spied a cluster of pear-shaped fruits. “Perhaps we are proceeding a bit too hastily,” he said. “We have just been through a great deal. Let us eat first. Then one of you can try again.”

  To Kestrel’s surprise, Phoebe shook her head violently and then sagged to the ground. For a long moment, she stared at the splinters in her hand and did not try to speak. “I have failed us all,” she said after the longest while, “failed us all and precisely when it was needed most. Evidently, my words in the chamber of the archimage were no more than bluster. I failed in my cabin with the anvilwood and now a second time here.”

  “It is not so serious, Phoebe, just the strangeness of this realm. With a bit of food—”

  “Do you not understand?” Phoebe’s voice strained with a hollow sharpness. She waved at the refuse strewn about her. “I cannot start a fire here, Kestrel. I know. I can feel it. Perhaps it is within the ability of one truly worthy of the logo, but I cannot, regardless of the kindling.”

  “Then later, after
we have all had a chance to rest.”

  “You are not listening,” Phoebe exploded. Frustration and anger shot from her eyes. She clasped her fists tightly and beat them against her arms. “It is not a matter of demon control,” she said. “I did not even get that far. It is just as pompous Maspanar and the others chided. Experimentation with tiny imps in the confines of one’s own cabin is one thing. The measure of a true wizard is quite another—that which is accomplished when the consequences of failure are more than the loss of a fee.

  “Not a spark. Not even a single spark. It is not merely a matter of new surroundings. It goes far deeper than that. I can feel the inhibition. I am no wizard, not in this place, not anywhere in all of the realms.” She stopped suddenly, then looked across the oasis at Kestrel. “I am sorry, sorry that I made you come.”

  Kestrel looked at Phoebe and saw her self-esteem begin to melt from her expression as he watched. It was her only real reason for the quest, he thought. She had wanted to prove herself the equal of the others above all else. He glanced at the litter of matchwood and shook his head. She alone would know the limits of her prowess. If she could not start a fire, what she said must be true. And now, despite the unknowns they were yet to face, even if he could protect her physically, what could he do to mend the way she suddenly had come to feel about herself?

  Phoebe looked at Kestrel sadly. “There is more than my shame, Kestrel,” she said. She lowered her eyes and sloped her shoulders, sighing deeply. “Without a flame, we cannot get passage to any other realm—to that of men, of the skyskirr, or even back to the fey. Unless Nimbia can be aroused, we are marooned here—marooned forever.”

  Kestrel pressed his hand against his stomach. Enough time had passed that he could be reasonably sure of no ill-effects from the fruit. Climbing the tree and tossing what he had picked across the oasis had been easy enough, although Nimbia ate little and seemed to doze in a deep lethargy when she was done.

  Kestrel grimaced. The fruit had been sweet and tangy, but helped his mood little, if at all. He looked at Phoebe and frowned. Despite his most careful words, she refused to be consoled. In an almost mindless obsession, she had assembled specimens of every different type of material she could find in her proximity, blades of grass, a handful of sand, tree bark and fronds, even the skins of the fruit they had eaten. But using one of the water lenses from Astron’s pack to focus the diffuse light, she had succeeded no better than with her first attempt. There was no hint of flame, not even the tiniest wisp of smoke.

  And now, rather than lifting Phoebe’s spirits, he felt the crushing reality of her words growing with each passing moment. The featureless plane that expanded to the horizon in all directions made the feeling of entrapment all the more intense. Perhaps there were great cities and enchanting delights just out of eyesight, but Kestrel thought it unlikely. The glimpse he had of this realm while still with the fey looked very much the same as what he saw now. Except for the presence of the fighting warriors, he recalled seeing only the same bleached straight-line paths radiating from a central point into the vast desert that was totally lacking in detail.

  Kestrel kicked at the shiny metal protruding from the sand at his feet. He had not noticed at first, but at least three of the trees had some artifacts that appeared to have been hastily buried near their roots. The one where he sat was a filigree of wrought iron that terminated in a menacingly sharp point. No amount of simple tugging would free the ornate shaft from the ground. In front of where Nimbia dozed was what looked like the edge of a brass disk of substantial diameter, at least twice the height of a man. From the vacant node to Kestrel’s left protruded a thin curved strip of steel that slowly oscillated in the gentle breeze.

  But such things were properly only of interest to the demon, Kestrel thought. There were more important things about which to be concerned. He counted the fruit remaining in the branches of the trees and then the clear water of the pool. How long before they had eaten all that was here? he wondered. And if not great cities, would there be other oases like this one just beyond the horizon?

  Kestrel stood to get a better view of a fruit cluster partially hidden by a branch. Suddenly he felt his left foot drag to the side and his entire body twist to follow. Phoebe gasped. He saw her reach suddenly to fling her arms around her tree, her legs sailing out nearly horizontal. In a flurry of sand and snapping capes, both Nimbia and Astron were tossed into heaps. Like tumbleweeds, they began to bounce out into the desert along one of the whitened paths.

  “I surmise it is another symmetry,” Astron shouted backward as he tried to regain his balance. “Something acting on everyone and pulling us away.”

  Kestrel tried to turn and snatch the tree now at his back, but he was too late. The unseen force intensified. He was slammed earthward as if struck by a giant. He scrambled to his knees, but immediately was cast back into the ground a few feet farther from the pond. Kestrel spit out sand and clawed with his fingers, but he could tell that his efforts would be to no avail. He felt his body begin to drag across the coarse surface. The sand grated against his bare skin and then started to sting as his speed increased.

  Faster and faster he flailed over the ground until even the wind whistled with his passage. A cloud of dust boiled up about him, forcing him to shut his eyes to keep out the bouncing grains of sand. The stinging on his forearms intensified from a mild irritation to a blistering pain. Kestrel raised his hands and arched his back to reduce his contact with the abrasive that surely would grind through his skin. With a gut-straining gasp, he managed to pull one leg forward under his chest and then savagely kick downward. He bounded from the desert floor and, in response to the reduction in friction, felt a rapid acceleration.

  Kestrel fell back down earthward in a flat trajectory and then, like a stone hurled across a pond, skipped back into the air. This time his path straightened out parallel to the surface and he skimmed along in a straight line. As if he were a bead on an invisible wire, he hurled across the vast nothingness.

  Kestrel cautiously opened one eye. When he saw that the cloud of dust had fallen away, he looked about. Phoebe and the others were also airborne on courses parallel to his own, all streaking across the plane above one of the white paths that had radiated from their oasis. He called out to Phoebe, but the whistle of the wind carried away his voice. He waved once and felt relieved when she shook her hand in reply.

  Kestrel strained to look over his shoulder and saw that the oasis was already a mere speck in the distance. As he watched, it disappeared into a haze. He turned back to squint in the direction they were travelling and detected a similar blur of detail on the horizon up ahead.

  Kestrel watched the features sharpen as he approached. He recognized the tall trees and the white lines of other paths converging from different directions. He scanned their lengths as far as he could see, expecting the same emptiness on them all. But on the one that ran out across the plane to the right he noticed a hint of motion. Others were also coming to this oasis—warriors like the ones he had seen fighting within the ring of djinns.

  As the two groups merged, Kestrel saw the shine of armor. He heard the clink of hard metal, even over the whistling wind. He fingered the pommel of the copper dagger from the realm of the fey, but took little comfort from it. The odds would be greater than five to one, even if Astron and the two women brandished arms as well.

  Far more rapidly than Kestrel could think of what to do, he arrived at the new oasis. As abruptly as the forces had torn him from the other, they died away. He tumbled in a heap and offered only token resistance to the waning push that rolled him into the trunk of the nearest tree.

  The warriors came to an abrupt halt at approximately the same time. With the precision of dismounting horse riders, they steadied themselves and remained erect. Kestrel grabbed his dagger, fearing the worst; but the warriors, after a brief inspection, paid him and the others little attention. With a few bellowed grunts that Kestrel thought he could almost understand, they quic
kly dispersed to each of the six trees that ringed the small pond in their center.

  In an instant Kestrel was surrounded by a half-dozen tall and lean men with chalky complexions, only a few shades different from the paths that seemed to run from oasis to oasis. The first two began immediately to set up a small table from spars and hinged planks they carried on their backs, while a third uncoiled thick parchments crisscrossed with brilliant red and blue inks.

  One of the men spoke and Astron immediately answered. Again Kestrel could make out most of what was being said.

  “Since all of this is Prydwin’s creation it is no wonder that we can converse,” Astron explained. “It is merely a small change from the normal speech in the realm of the fey.” The demon shrugged. “It is perhaps a detail on which Prydwin did not spend much effort.”

  “Your presence contributes to our freedom of movement,” one of the warriors repeated, “and for that you have value. Though your appearance is different from either rotator or reflective, I do not suspect you of being chronoids, since your hands are empty of the foul artifacts they transport into our realm against the protocols.”

  “Share in our celebration of victory,” another said. “The reflectives never suspected the richness of our symmetry until it was thrust upon them—no less than fourteen, and now they have been expulsed from every one. They did not have a chance for an exchange of bodies, not a one.”

  “From which did you come?” a third asked. “One of the lesser triangles of the central pentagram, or perhaps an octagonal node from the hypersphere of the great triad?”

  Kestrel opened his mouth to speak but Astron was quicker. “What is the map?” the demon asked. “The lines in red and the nodes in blue with the crossed-out annotations—what do they mean?”

  “It is the rendering of the great polytope, all that there is,” answered the first. “See, already we make the changes that mark the victory.” The warrior stopped and jabbed rapidly at the parchment. “It is all in accordance with the second protocol—all moves are simultaneous. We have occupied nodes here and here and then those over on the other side. They form the vertices of a figure with more than thirty edges. The reflectives were too concerned about this minor symmetry of three adjacent nodes here to notice what we had done.