Riddle of the Seven Realms

by Lyndon Hardy

  “You tempt me, indeed.” Byron’s voice rumbled quietly. “What is it that you would have me do?”

  Astron scowled in annoyance. He recognized the reaction and understood it far better than before. Stepping in front of Nimbia, he threw wide his arms, shielding her as much as he was able.

  “We might have something of great benefit,” he said quickly. “It all depends on what you can offer as a fair payment in exchange.”

  “If it is luck of which you speak, then there is no basis for a barter,” Byron said. “I have none to offer, nor do I seek any for what I must do.”

  Astron stirred uncomfortably. “What exactly is it that, ah, that you must do?” he asked.

  “Why, travel to the grand casino to contest for the crown with all the others,” Byron said. He slapped the long broadsword at his side. “But not in the same manner. If I succeed, it will be because fate wills it, not because of twists of luck.”

  Astron’s interest immediately heightened—the grand casino, exactly where he wanted to go. Only with a firm resolution did he stop himself from looking back at Nimbia with a smile. “We have experienced firsthand what happens without luck,” he said carefully. “Just to survive takes more than a little amount.”

  “Only because some of the aleators have so distorted it,” Byron spat. “They lead the realm to destruction with their tinkering, they work with fluids better left alone. Look,” he said, apparently warming to the subject. “The first tenet says that luck is a gas, a perfect one that flows from high pressure to low. Without interference, it distributes itself evenly throughout the realm, favoring no one over another. The forces of fate are free to operate, to work the destinies that are intended for us all.

  “But what happens when it is compressed, scooped up from everywhere into a small number of concentrations under the control of only a few? There is less left in the ambience. Without participating in the forbidden rituals, everyone else is stripped of what is his due share. To step from a hut becomes a great adventure; to fill one’s stomach is a hunt of great exhaustion. Even the elements are perturbed into extremes. For the fortunate, the air is always clear and balmy. In compensation, gentle rains and waves are compressed into great disasters that prey on those who do not have the protection of the proper talismans.

  “With the great accumulations come great new strains and forces,” Byron went on, “distortions in the very fabric of what must happen to us all. Those who have accumulated luck must dispense some modicums to their followers, constructing all sorts of charms like those useless husks that drape about your necks. They war not with merit, but depend entirely on those who can force chance outcomes to go their way.”

  Byron stopped and set his lips in a grim line. “But I will stop them all,” he said defiantly. “It is my calling, and to it I will be true.”

  “You say you have no great accumulation of luck of your own,” Astron said. “How do you hope to accomplish your goal?”

  “Soon my followers will return and report what they have seen in the bay on the far coast. There Myra has dropped anchor with both her ships. We will attack on the morrow, and one of them will become mine. With it, we will cross the great sea.

  “I will stride into the grand casino and win, although luck I have none. Luck favors the believer, states the fourth tenet; it is fickle and hence runs in streaks, professes the fifth. Great manipulations for enhancement and devices for reversing good to ill are built upon the two of them, but neither shall I use.”

  “But if you have no advantage and they—”

  “I am destiny’s darling,” Byron thundered. “The great sagas of our past have finally been incarnated in me. I am untouched by wind or wave. I am the one to weave together the last threads of the tapestry of our fate into one final design.”

  Byron stopped and looked into the growing darkness. “It is true that how I will triumph is hidden. Even I do not know the means. My journey to the grand casino may be but a testing, a proof that I am worthy of being the instrument of fate. But in the moment of crisis, in the final spin of the wheel, my power will be revealed and I will be victorious, as from the beginning of time it is written that I would.”

  A sudden shout from up the hill cut off Astron’s reply. He looked to the crest to see a line of torches in a staggered line.

  “I am here,” Byron called back. “I am here and the way is safe. There are no concentrations of luck with which you must contend.”

  With excited voices and the sound of crunching underbrush, the group on the crest began to pour down the hillside. Although the way was fairly clear and the torches gave sufficient light, Astron saw the two dozen men, women, and children pick their way carefully, holding on to one another for additional security and giving the fallen snags and large bushes a wide berth.

  In the very center of the group, carefully supported on both sides, was one far older than the rest. Wisps of long white hair streamed from around a crown splotched with spatters of red and veins of purple. The eyes were nearly closed and a trickle of spittle ran from the corner of the face that sagged. Bare stick-thin arms flapped idly with the jostle of each step. The feet shuffled after one another, as if actuated by the mechanism of a child’s toy.

  “Centuron.” Byron nodded in response to Astron’s gaze. “His fame among the aleators is almost as great as—well, almost as great as mine. For over one hundred cycles of the sun, he has survived without benefit of the magical arts to shape his luck. He is the living proof that my cause is right and that I will succeed.”

  Astron watched the procession draw closer, noting their gaunt and sallow faces. Except for the excitement of meeting, they showed animation only slightly greater than Centuron’s. With stooped shoulders and panting breath, they converged on Byron’s camp, some looking with hungry eyes at the roast pig.

  One separated herself from the rest. Dirt streaked her face and her hair was in tangles. Suitably cleaned, the woman would be a beauty, Astron thought, but the rigors of the trek had made her barely distinguishable from the men.

  “We must move on quickly,” she said. “The minions of Myra have found two others adrift in the wake of the last wave. We overheard them talk of two more whom they wanted as well. Soon there will be search parties throughout the hills.”

  “Kestrel and Phoebe,” Astron shouted. “Were they injured?”

  “They seemed to walk well enough with no assistance from their guards.” The woman shrugged. “But, of course, such a condition is only temporary if Myra has experiments to run. I would guess she would use them in the games at the grand casino, if not before.”

  “Then we must get to that beach and—” Astron began, but Byron put up his hand to stop.

  “What else, Sylvan, what else do you bring?” he said.

  The woman nodded. Slowly she pulled a pack from her back and dumped its contents at Byron’s feet, a dozen ears of a black-kerneled corn, three large apples, and a scattering of small seeds.

  “We saved as much as we could for your great contest, Byron, but the little ones need more than an equal share.”

  Byron waved at Astron and Nimbia. “It is well that you have procured what you did, Sylvan. There are two more, and I have not yet decided if they should be fed as well.”

  “Wait,” Astron said. “By all means let the little ones eat. I for one have no need.”

  “No, I have spoken,” Byron suddenly thundered. “I am the chosen one and my commands must be obeyed. The sacrifice of all others is of no importance. Their destiny is only to ensure that I succeed.”

  “We do not question.” Sylvan lowered her head and stepped backward. “Even old Centuron has taken less than we might otherwise offer.”

  “Ah, if you do not know exactly what power you will have,” Astron said, “what convinces you that you indeed are this darling of destiny?”

  Byron’s eyes blazed. “You are sent by the fates to tempt me!” he said. “You wish to test how firm is my resolve.” He looked again at Nimbia and dr
ew his lips into a grim line. “Very well. I will show to the overseers of our fate the extent of my mettle. You shall accompany me and yet both remain untouched.” His stare locked on Nimbia and he ran his tongue over his tips. “Yes, untouched,” he said, “until it is properly time.”

  Astron’s stembrain suddenly bubbled with a fiery vexation. “Do not be overly concerned.” He turned and spoke to Nimbia in the language of the fey. “Despite my size, I will serve you still. You merely need—”

  Astron stopped as he noticed Nimbia’s smile. She let the top of her tunic sag in disarray. “It sounds as if he invites us to join him,” she said. “Accept, accept in the name of a queen of the fey.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Mark of the Manipulator

  KESTREL wiped the moisture from his brow and held his breath. He looked at the rope-suspended blade that slowly oscillated back and forth over Phoebe’s outstretched body on the cabin deck. She was bound hand and foot, spread-eagled between four pegs anchored in the polished planking. Only by pressing herself firmly against the horizontal could she just barely avoid the swipe of the sharp edge against her neck.

  Kestrel could hope for random outcomes no longer; the next click of the levers must pull the rope upward rather than let out any more slack. Desperately, he looked at the tinted windows sternward through which filtered the last rays of the setting sun and then at the sloping cabin walls, searching for some other way out of danger than the one of chance he was offered. The clutter of spinpins, glassy spheres, and instruments of small tortures he recognized from Jelilac’s sloop, but nothing that would be of aid could he see.

  The aleator named Myra sat in the corner behind a small table and tracked his darting eyes with a cold stare. Grabbing her chin between thumb and forefingers, she slowly brought her fingertips together, gathering up the loose flesh. Kestrel heard a raspy scrape from the contact, like that of a man testing a half-day growth of beard. A loose-fitting tunic did little to hide the angular bones underneath, and patches of splotched skin shone through beneath thin white hair pulled straight back and tied in a knot.

  Myra’s two ships lay at anchor side by side, far closer than the mooring one would expect in the realm of men. But with each wave that shifted them about, the two craft always avoided colliding at the last instant. The massive vessels seemed to be ably manned by very small crews, although the hold of the other ship, Kestrel had noticed when he was hustled aboard, was full of hammocks, men-at-arms, and others fettered with heavy chains.

  “Just one more toss of the ball into the hoops,” Myra said. “Just one more, and I will be satisfied that your words carry no true meaning. Your talk of powerful wards that shield your wealth is too implausible, too—” Myra stopped and shuddered. “No, I will not doubt,” she said. “I will prepare for the games at the grand casino with the rest. Luck is the true basis of our existence. Without that, what is the purpose?”

  Kestrel squeezed the rubber ball in his hand. The array of small circular openings in the slanted panel across the cabin seemed to blur in the dimming light. The gentle rocking motion of the barge did not help matters much; but even without the added complication, he knew he could not ensure that the sphere fell into one of the hoops that he wished.

  Kestrel glanced at Phoebe, trying to smile encouragement, although he felt little inside. They had been apprehended after the passing of the tidal wave almost as easily as they had by Jelilac on their arrival in the realm. This time, however, since they had no real luck to be siphoned away, the glassine spheres did not become charged with the oily, amber smoke.

  Kestrel reached back and touched the lumpiness of his rucksack and felt the presence of the pollen. There was no telling if the grains still had any value after the soaking, but without Astron, he had decided it probably was best to maneuver things so that Phoebe could summon Camonel. Somehow, he had to convince Myra that she could not get at his vast store of hidden luck and her only recourse was to destroy it with fire.

  He glanced into her rheumy eyes and scowled. The aleator had proven to be quite stubborn. Just like Jelilac, she had insisted on subjecting them to a test that quantified the extent of their fortune.

  “One more mishap will not prove what you wish.” He waved at the complicated apparatus at his side. “I have done as you instructed more than half a dozen times and my skill with the tossing ball has not changed in any noticeable way. My wealth is shielded. Not even the slightest efflux leaks from the wards.”

  “No one with true wealth keeps it all hidden.” Myra shook her head. “At least some is contained in simple talismans to ward off the trivial misfortunes of the ambience. Why, the tosses of anyone with even a minimum of luck would find the hoops connected to the lever that raises the blade. By now it should be swinging just beneath the beams. The fact that, instead, you have sent it up and down in an almost random fashion indicates that the power of your wards is only a fantasy. You are paupers and nothing more.”

  She hesitated a moment and then motioned to the guards at her side. “Just in case there is an element of truth in what he says, subject him one more time to the linkage of reversal. Then have him make the final pitch.”

  Kestrel felt his chest tighten. One more trip of the wrong lever would prove fatal to Phoebe. Grimly, he searched through his mind for something that would give him an opening, some hidden crevice in Myra’s character that he could exploit. Kestrel’s thoughts tumbled while he watched the complicated mechanical linkages at his side shuffle together a thick deck of cards. He felt mild shocks from copper wires wrapped around his ankles while he watched, but by now they were no more than an annoying irritant. When the mixing stopped, he reached forward without prompting and selected one from the deck, just as he had done many times before.

  He flipped the bit of stiff parchment faceup on the table and reached for the second, not even bothering to notice the ornately decorated woman with cold dark eyes staring back. “The whole deck is probably nothing other than the black queen,” he grumbled. “The fact that I draw ten or so of them in a row proves little.”

  “Of course they are all the same,” Myra said. “How else can one’s luck be convinced that it is of the wrong sign? It is fickle as the fifth tenet states, and once it is flipped, it will bring nothing but misfortune. If, by some chance, you do possess some wealth and I cannot have it contributing in a positive fashion to my own, then it will serve instead as a weapon against the others when we game in the grand casino.”

  Kestrel took a deep breath. He had to gamble on what little knowledge he had. “The book with figures,” he said slowly, “the one that Milligan says you possess. It sounds to me to be no more than a navigator’s almanac. Is it why he calls you Myra the doubting?”

  Kestrel noticed a sudden flicker in Myra’s cheeks. Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, but then returned to their piercing stare. He waited expectantly. The signs were not much, but perhaps indeed he had chanced upon something he could twist to advantage.

  “Could you be so bold,” Myra said after a moment, “actually to follow the instructions as they are written, without knowing the consequences?” She waved her arms about the cabin. “None of my minions would dare attempt it, despite the apparent advantage.”

  Myra stroked her chin and then shrugged. “Jelilac has a great store of luck for use in the games, perhaps the greatest of all. I would rather husband each dram of mine and not waste any on getting from here to the casino, wherever that might be.”

  “You do not know?” Kestrel said. “A navigation almanac would be most basic on such a sea as this.”

  “Perhaps in dimmest memory, there were such things,” Myra said. “But to use them would be counter to the basic tenets of any aleator. We sail where the winds take us, and, if we truly believe, it will be where we desire. Our luck provides. To use a calculation, no matter how reliable it might be, is a statement of distrust.”

  Myra leaned forward until her face was a hand span from Kestrel’s own. “Luck favors t
he believer,” she said, “just as the fourth tenet states. If you sincerely trust in it, you will weather your trials unscathed; if you doubt, then it gives the fifth tenet a chance to wreak its havoc.

  “The book and the device labeled as a sextant which accompanies it,” Myra continued in a hushed voice, “they must come from someone beyond the farthest extent of our realm—from someone whose wish is to do us harm, to make us doubt in our very foundations and in our reasons for existing at all.”

  Myra drew back and squinted at Kestrel. “No, it would do great ill for me or one of my minions to perform the calculations that would point us where we wish to go. I have often wondered if it were good luck or ill in the first place that led me to find it in the smoking ashes of a lightning-struck fire.”

  She reached out and tapped a long slender finger against Kestrel’s chest. “But one so foolhardy as to spout of invincible wards, to him there surely could be no harm. He would not fear the misfortune that might result from following the ritual or from the weight upon his thoughts about what he has done.”

  Kestrel looked back into Myra’s eyes, unblinking. He weighed the risks and decided that the chance was worth it. It might not be more than simple sightings, and he would be done. With just the right words, it would free Phoebe and give her a chance at Camonel as well.

  “Of course, as I understand the third tenet—luck begets luck—” he said, “the ritual might not be one of misfortune, but would enhance whatever one possesses at the outset instead.” He shrugged and smiled. “And since both of ours are still intact, the increase might be most significant—significant enough that even the chances of Myra the doubter will become slim in the grand casino. Yes, by all means release the woman and we will do it. I believe, I believe deeply in our triumphant success.”

  Myra frowned and rubbed at her chin. “Your speech is glib,” she said. “Most glib for one so close to disaster. Perhaps there is some truth in what you speak after all.”

  Her eyes lost their focus, and for a long moment she I looked past Kestrel out onto the sea. “Jelilac,” she muttered. “It is he that I fear the most. Against him, I must marshal every resource. It would be folly not to take advantage of what my luck has offered.”