Riddle of the Seven Realms

by Lyndon Hardy

  Without another word, he motioned his lieutenants to follow and ran with great effort through the loose sand in the direction of the pond.

  For a moment, Astron watched them go. He glanced at what appeared to be a hurling mass of men drawing closer to the oasis and made up his mind. “They will be back shortly,” he said to Phoebe. “And even if they are not, I think we can little afford to wait for another stroke of the chime. You must act now. Perform your craft as never before.”

  “What do you mean?” Phoebe frowned. “I have told you more than once—”

  “Forget what has happened.” Astron reached out and shook her by the shoulders. “It is a characteristic of the realm. No one could have started a fire at the spot where we first arrived, not even the archimage himself. But now we are much closer to the center than we were before, perhaps close enough that the violation of symmetry caused by the flame will be small enough that it can be overcome. The origin itself would be better, but we cannot afford to wait.”

  He paused and then reached out and squeezed Phoebe’s hand. The thrill of the previous move suddenly surged anew, but he managed to push it aside. “You are a wizard,” he said. “A wizard as much as any other—but only if you practice your art.”

  “The words of symmetry have no bearing, Kestrel.” Phoebe shook her head. “I can feel the failure even before I begin.” She slumped her shoulders and began to sag back to the ground. “There is no point to endure the frustration, no matter whatever else might come. I can imagine the laughs of my council as clearly as if they were here.”

  Astron felt a sudden surge of anger and frustration well up within him. He almost choked over the intensity of the emotion. “I do not care about your council,” he yelled. “Put them from your mind.” He gulped air and rushed on. “I have heard tales of the encounters with the great wizards, far more than you might guess. I know the characteristics of the ones who were successful, the ones who controlled the mightiest djinns. They did not care about the opinions of others. The practice of their craft was not for fame or good-standing with those who would be their peers.

  “It was for themselves they struggled, Phoebe. The measure of success was against goals that were known by themselves alone. The reward was increased self-esteem—acceptance of their own true worth, not the fickle opinion of the lesser ones around them whom they did not choose to control. Think! Why do you want to be a wizard? So that you can be regarded as an equal—or know deep within yourself that you are unique and comparable to none?”

  The oasis clock struck a third time. The sky began to shimmer as it had before and the iridescent lines stood out in a much bolder relief. Astron thought he could see faint images of gearworks at the nodes where they intersected and, with them, shadowy figures of men winding huge springs. Another wave of sand rushed at them from the oasis. This time he was more prepared and he pushed Phoebe to the ground before the wrenching jerk ripped away their footing.

  As the wave passed, Astron felt a sudden blur of nausea. The trees of the oasis distorted in a blurring rush, as if one were somehow racing by them at a breakneck speed. The broken frame of the engine creaked and groaned where it had fallen. With lifelike spasms, the cracked beams and snapped leather thongs reached for one another, as if they were trying to mend. Some of the spewed flour arched upward from where it had struck the sands and cascaded back into canisters just before their lids suddenly snapped shut. Astron felt another wave of disorientation. His thoughts slowed and then started off slowly in a direction that he did not understand. They bounced around his head like fragments from a language not quite his own. He could only sit stunned and wait for the feeling to pass.

  Eventually, the firmness of the sands returned. Astron started to say more to Phoebe, but saw that already she was preparing to start a fire. Clutching a match tightly in her fist, with a sweeping stroke she ran it along the length of one of the rough-barked branches at her side.

  The matchhead grated with the contact and then glowed red from the friction of passage but did not light.

  “Better than before.” Astron shouted encouragement before she could speak. “Better than before. You must try again.”

  Phoebe grunted in reply. She grabbed three matches tightly together and with deliberate strength ground them against the wood. The heads sparked dully and then almost unexpectedly burst into a feebly smoky flame.

  For an instant Phoebe’s eyes widened in disbelief. Then she shook her head. “Some kindling—here in the pouch.” She motioned with her free hand. “Make a loose pile of it, Kestrel, before the matches burn out.”

  Astron grabbed at the small pouch and pulled out dry needles and bits of string. He smoothed a depression in the sand and quickly constructed a fragile dome of small struts and spars. Shielding the delicate flicker of fire with her hand, Phoebe bent the matches to the kindling. She caught her breath waiting for the fire to grow.

  Tendrils of smoke enveloped the needles and bits of bark. For a brief instant a small speck of tar began to glow red. But then the weak fire faltered and started to die. Helplessly, she watched each little tongue of flame grow dimmer and, in a final puff of smoke, wink out.

  Phoebe fumbled for more matches. “The last three.” She held out her hand. “And I see no way that they can be any better than the rest.” She sighed and looked at Astron with tears forming in her eyes.

  “No, wait,” Astron said. “Keep your composure. It is just a matter of the kindling. We need something that more easily absorbs the heat of the matches, something with a large surface area for a given volume.” Desperately he looked about trying to seize upon an idea. He heard the sound of clashing swords at the oasis and, somehow above it, the ticking of the clock. The results of each gong had been more violent than the one before. Perhaps they could not withstand the next. They had only moments left before something must be done.

  Astron closed his eyes and wrenched at his memories as a cataloguer. Fires, flames, the barrier between the realms—there must be something that he had learned that could be used. What was the purpose of all of his knowledge if not—

  Astron stopped with a sudden thought. He lunged at the clutter at Phoebe’s feet and pawed through the debris from the engine. “Strike the last three matches,” he yelled. “Just as you did before. You are indeed the wizard; without you we cannot succeed.”

  Phoebe hesitated but then turned back to the twisted branch. She struck the matches a first time. When they did not light, she tried again. Astron turned his eyes away, not having time to watch as she struggled. Groping in the sand he found a flour tin with weak walls and with a quick thrust jabbed a hole in the side near the bottom with the tip of his sword. He felt a sudden slice of pain in his soft hands where he had gripped the blade for control. The sudden wetness was sticky but he pushed the discomfort out of his mind. With a wrench he flung off the top of the tin, sending it sailing away.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Astron saw Phoebe returning with the barely flaming matches as before. He twisted his head to the ground and placed his mouth around the indentation he had made in the tin. His shoulder felt the rumble of the ground and he had to use both hands to steady the small container in front of his face.

  “Here,” he shouted, “as soon as you see the spray.”

  Astron filled his lungs and blew into the small hole. At first the packed flour on the inside resisted the pressure. Most of his breath spilled back out onto his face; only a small portion blasted into the tin and bubbled toward the upper rim. A fine mist of flour danced from the surface into the air.

  “Now,” Astron gasped. “Apply the fire when I blow again.”

  Astron expanded his chest and exhaled even harder, sending a visible white spray skyward in a tiny geyser. Phoebe pushed forward the matches and then dropped them in the tin in surprise. An orange-red flame with tongues the length of a forearm suddenly sprang into life.

  “Bring over the branches and some of the wreckage of the engine,” Astron gasped between breaths.
“Spark, kindling, and fuel—they are all essential for any blaze. Unless we supply the third, the fire will go out as soon as I stop.” He resumed blowing into the tin, each puff sending the flames higher into the air.

  Phoebe nodded and quickly twisted one of the jutting branches of the frame over the spot where Astron lay. The bright tendrils from the burning flour powder bathed the lower contour of the log and then arched around it to flicker higher in the sky. Almost instantly the peeling bark caught fire and a scant moment later began burning on its own.

  Astron ceased blowing and tried to stop the rapid breathing so that he could speak again. The human body had disadvantages that appeared at the most awkward of times.

  “Be careful, even in your haste,” he gasped. “The first mind that you contact might be too pow—”

  “Camonel.” Phoebe’s voice boomed out with a sudden vibrancy. From her cape she sprinkled into the fire some powder that looked the same as what Alodar had used in his keep. “I demand the presence and service of Camonel, the one who carries.” She darted a quick glance at Astron and smiled. “Oh, Kestrel,” she said. “You had faith in me when even my own will faltered. Perhaps I am in some way unique, as each true wizard must be, not the equal of any other but—”

  “Careful!” Astron repeated. “You do not know—”

  There was a sudden rush of sulphur-tinted air. The great brown djinn that had carried Astron and the others to the realm of the fey stepped from the fire. “The one who reckons instructs that I do not resist,” the massive demon said. “Tell me what you wish and I will obey.”

  “Another of your kind and an inhabitant of the realm of the fey,” Phoebe said. “Quickly take us to them wherever they may be.”

  The djinn bowed. With one powerful swoop of its long arms he coiled Astron and Phoebe to his chest. A single beat of his wings soared them into the air. But before Astron had time to think, the oasis clock struck a fourth time. Straining to look over his shoulder, he saw the sky shimmer into a painful brightness. The network of iridescence intensified and did not fade. Massive clockworks propelled from the glowing nodes and raced earthward. Halfway to the ground, the machineries passed startled rotators and reflectives hurling skyward in return.

  Astron felt another wave of disorientation stronger than before. Although he could not be sure, it seemed that even Camonel faltered, loosening his grip and fluttering to the ground.

  “It all runs together in confusion,” he heard the djinn mutter as he struck with a slight jolt. “Many nodes fused into one. I need not search them out for all that you seek are now here.”

  Astron felt the wings pull back. With dizzy steps he staggered from the larger demon’s embrace. He saw that he was at the edge of a single expansive oasis surrounded by dozens of trees, rather than just six. At most of the subnodes, hundreds of warriors flailed away at each other in a massive mêlée, every one of them locked in step.

  Astron quickly scanned the nearer subnodes and jerked to a halt. Three over from the nearest, he recognized his own body backed against a trunk with a bloody sword waving threateningly at a cluster of reflectives who attacked from the water’s edge. Beside him were Abel and a score of rotators, each one trying to mimic their leader’s stance. More than a dozen bodies were strewn from the gently sloshing surface of the central pond to the feet of those who defended against the overwhelming odds.

  “Forget about their squabbles,” Phoebe called from the protective cover of Camonel’s wings. “Astron, Nimbia. I succeeded after all. After two failures I have succeeded when it was needed. Finally I have been able to summon a djinn and command him to carry us home.”

  Astron saw his own body jerk in recognition of the voice. The sword dipped in apparent salute but then returned to parry the thrust aimed at his side.

  “Not now,” Astron heard his own voice say. “It is too soon. They have trusted me without question. A dozen nodes we have won. Until the last, I cannot let them down.”

  “But something more has happened,” another voice yelled. “Look about you, demon. The chances are too slim.”

  Astron turned to his right. There, at a virtually deserted subnode, he saw Nimbia holding a swordpoint to the throat of a reflective on the ground and waving with her free hand across the pond to Kestrel. Her tunic was in tatters, one sleeve torn free and the frontpiece ripped deeply across her chest.

  Astron started to call out, but the words choked in his throat. Through Kestrel’s eyes, she looked exactly as he had remembered her, but somehow it was not quite the same. Her body possessed a new sensuousness, a compelling beacon of desire that blotted out the urgency of the moment. It was just the same as with Phoebe, he thought in sudden confusion—the same as with the human, except that the exposure and the danger made the feeling much more intense.

  Astron looked to either side of Nimbia’s subnode to see if any reflectives were attempting to attack it. With leaping bounds, he began racing to where Nimbia stood, waving Kestrel’s sword above his head.

  “Kestrel, what are you doing?” Phoebe shouted behind him. “Help cut a path for Astron. He is the one that needs your help.”

  Astron shook his head and looked back as he ran to the subnode occupied by Abel and the others. Kestrel, laboring in his slight demon’s body, would need aid soon indeed. He returned his attention to Nimbia as he approached and saw her eyes widen in confusion. Only at the last moment was he able to force himself to stop. He sucked in his breath and struggled to regain control. Worse than a stembrain, he thought grimly. It is this human body with its strange desires.

  He stared at Nimbia intently and slowly let out his breath. The questioning look remained on her face but she did not retreat. No, there was something more than just the impulsive lust. Astron tried to sort through his thoughts. Something was greater than the mere animal passions of the realm of men. What was it that compelled him? In his own body how then would he feel?

  The ground shook with an audible rumble. Astron looked at the edge of the pond and saw dozens of clocks all ticking in synchrony and preparing to strike. He jerked his attention back to what had been their original plan. “Phoebe, the djinn,” he yelled. “Instruct him to contact Palodad as he did before.”

  “I am already with you.” Camonel’s deep voice boomed out behind Astron. “I speak with the voice of Palodad, the one who reckons, the one who is awaiting what has been promised him.”

  Astron turned. “We did not find the answer to the riddle,” he called out. “High king Finvarwin said words that do not seem to relate.”

  “Did you secure the harebell pollen? Have you obtained what I have asked?”

  “Yes, more than a half-dozen grains.” Astron felt the rucksack still on the back of Kestrel’s body. “But—”

  “Describe them to me.”

  Astron looked at the clocks’ strikers reach back to their maximum extent. “There is no time,” he said. “Something must—”

  “What, time did you say, there is no time?” Camonel flung back his head and his laughter boomed out over the oasis. “Here there will be time eternal. Do you not see what is happening? Before there were two separate realms. Soon there will be but one. The laws have mixed so that there is nothing to distinguish one universe from another. Like two bubbles pressed together, the surface between them has dissolved away. They distort and strain, but inevitably merge into one. The single realm that results will obey the symmetries of both space and time. With the next stroke of the gongs, these beings that call themselves rotators and reflectives will have their game continue forever, circling about a single oasis in pursuit of one another and playing the same move over and over and over. Yes, a beautiful symmetry that—”

  “Tiny barbs and upon them smaller filaments still,” Astron interrupted. “The surface of the pollen has a structure finer than that possible from the most skilled weaver. I have had no chance to study them further. But then, how can it matter? Although you might be satisfied, it does not help to answer—”

&n
bsp; “Oh, but indeed it does.” Camonel clasped his sides to control his laughter. His eyes defocused and took on a faraway look. “Barbs and filaments, you say. Yes, exactly what my calculations predicted. It is but a small reason why I am known as the one who reckons. That is why I sent you. Even without the answer, I had hoped that the pollen would still provide a piece to the puzzle.”

  “Then Prince Elezar,” Astron said. “How does he fare?”

  “Gaspar has found his dark node and driven him from it. The spark of life shines no longer in most of his followers. He is adrift, virtually alone, somewhere in the darkness of the realm, awaiting his end. I must have the pollen and the cataloguer quickly. It is the last hope that Gaspar will not be victorious in the end.

  “But enough. Now, human, before the strike of the last gong that locks this realm into an eternity of repetition, clasp the pollen tightly and enfold yourself in the arms of my agent.”

  “There are four of us altogether,” Astron said.

  “No, just you and the cataloguer,” the voice rumbling from Camonel said. “Of the others there is no need.”

  Camonel stepped forward, stretching his wings out to full span. Astron looked at Nimbia and then at Kestrel still slashing with a sword a half-dozen subnodes away. “Come.” The djinn’s voice boomed with authority. “Come, bring the pollen to Palodad’s domain, and then we will speak of riddles and the precepts that lie beyond all others. The pollen and the cataloguer—both are essential. For no less will I continue to aid in your cause.”

  “No!” Phoebe’s voice sounded above the demon’s own. “You have stated that you have submitted. It is my commands that you must obey.”

  Camonel hesitated. Slowly he turned back to the wizard. “But there was no true struggle,” he said slowly. “It was only because Palodad had instructed—”

  “I command you to take us away,” Phoebe said. “Away from here to safety for the four of us who do not belong.”

  “Not even a mighty djinn can find his way when the reality about him changes as he flies,” Camonel said. “If we hesitate too long, I cannot be sure of even finding the lair of the one who reckons.”