by Lyndon Hardy
Astron saw Myra slump into a heap. She squinted at the spinner, resting clearly in the region that Camonel had predicted, and shook her head. “Nine chances out often,” she muttered. “It was worth the chance.” She glanced at Jelilac’s smile and then turned away. “I will offer no resistance to the removal of my charms,” she said, suddenly sounding far more ancient than she looked. “Remember, I am but an old woman.” She waved her arm back to the central barricade. “Come, my followers, come. Do not resist. It would be ungracious to prolong my harm.”
Astron saw Kestrel and Phoebe join the procession winding its way across the casino floor to Jelilac’s canvas frame. The demon looked quickly at Byron, but the warrior had not yet lifted up his sword. Moving the pollen closer to the fire could only help, but it was not yet time to act.
“No! I cannot let it happen.” Milligan suddenly sprang away from the rest. He drew a short dagger from his belt and waved it over his head. “It is luck that shall triumph in the end; it must be the stronger. It must. It must.”
Jelilac’s frown deepened. He motioned to two of his retainers, and they drew their swords. Cautiously, they began to close in on Milligan from both sides.
A great roar of approval suddenly ripped through the stands as Milligan deftly dogged the attack. He drew his own blade and slashed at one as he passed, streaking the tunic sleeve with red. Ducking his head, he just barely missed a tumbling grenade which exploded harmlessly behind.
Short strokes of the dagger somehow darted through hastily erected guards, and two more of Jelilac’s followers sagged to the ground. Jelilac’s eyes widened. He quickly stepped backward and looked at the massive djinn standing by the motionless spinner.
“Help me!” he cried as he clutched at his chest. “My talismans are many, but now that I have experienced the power of your master’s predictions and been close to the flame, I no longer feel so confident that they—”
Jelilac’s voice trailed off. He looked in disbelief down at his stomach and then clutched his hands over a gaping wound. His face turned ashen white. With eyes staring into nothingness, he slid to the ground.
For a moment, Milligan stood silent, staring at what he had done. Then, as the realization dawned, like the doll of a thaumaturge, he jerked back into life.
“I am the victor, the archon.” He danced back with his bloody blade. “As our creators must have intended—luck favors the believer.”
The roar of the crowd intensified. Some started leaping up and down, shaking the tiers in violent oscillations. Milligan smiled and waved his dagger over his head with one hand while fondling the talismans about his neck with the other.
“No.” Camonel’s impassive expression suddenly distorted into one of malice. His voice was heard even above the chanting spectators. “Luck is not to be the victor. My master does not wish it so.” With a speed surprising for his size, the djinn batted at Jelilac’s framework, tumbling it aside. He reached backward and extracted a burning branch of pinewood from the still smouldering fire.
“I am a weaver of matter,” he growled as he waved it menacingly in front of Milligan’s face. “Here, in a realm other than my own, it is easy.” Deep furrows etched into the djinn’s forehead. He studied the dance of flame for a moment, and then the log seemed to burst asunder. Five globes of what looked like white-hot magma arched from his hand and landed in a pentagon around where Milligan stood.
“My master has calculated, and five will be enough,” the djinn boomed out so that everyone could hear. “The heat is intense, and eventually each and every charm he carries about his neck will crack. The one you call Milligan will succumb to calculation, just as have all the rest.”
Camonel tossed back his head and laughed. “Let the fogs of nothingness come forward,” he yelled. “Let them come forward and dissolve all that there is. Then there will be one less. Where once there was a realm, there will be only the nothingness of the void.” He stepped back suddenly into the flame. The fire roared with a burst of yellow brightness. Then he was gone.
The yells of aleators in the stands stopped just as suddenly as they had begun. The low murmur of unrest and disbelief from before instantly returned. Like a pendulum gathering energy with each swing, their emotions rocked back and forth, each time more violently than before.
Milligan tried to dance between two of the glowing globes of fire on the ground, but backed up and hesitated when the outermost of his talismans began to blister. Astron saw beads of sweat pop out on his forehead above eyes starting to fill with helpless panic. He bent forward and blew tentatively on the fiercely glowing globes of light, then shook his head when he saw that they were perturbed not at all. He raised his hands expectantly, as if calling for the intervention of unseen gods. For a long moment, he did not move. Then, in an almost perfect imitation of Myra, he slumped into the center of the pentagon that surrounded him. One by one he began removing his talismans and tossing them at the flames.
“Then the newcomer,” Astron heard someone in the stands nearby shout. “The one on the sidelines yet to be heard. He is the chance, the final chance that luck will triumph after all.”
Somehow the spectators all heard and understood. Again they stopped their keening. As one, they held their breaths.
“Luck has nothing to do with my presence here,” Byron called back. “It is the decree of preordained fate. I carry no talismans, and I do not need their aid in my fight.”
Shrieks of despair exploded from the crowd. Their emotions swung back to despair far deeper than before. Whole blocks of spectators suddenly rose from where they sat. With eyes suddenly brimming with tears, they began to embrace those next to them with heart-wracking sobs. Astron felt the ground tremble as it had done in the realm of the reticulates and felt the caress of a chilling wind across his cheek. It was as if a dam had finally broken. There was no hope left that would stem the outrushing tide.
“It is just as I was foretold such a long time ago,” Centuron called out behind Astron in flushed excitement. “And by the fates, Byron is not even needed. The self-doubt has started even before he appeared. I have survived long enough, long enough to see it happen. Even if he does not triumph, the end will be the same.”
The keening of the crowd rose to an ear-piercing crescendo. Moans of anguish became more frequent, and loud sobbing mingled with the rest. Astron wrinkled his nose. The ground under his feet definitely felt less firm than when he had first entered. The pillars and arches that held aloft the roof of the casino were somehow less distinct than before. Only a deep black painted the high window where the sun had been.
A growing uneasiness coursed up Astron’s legs and into his chest. The phenomena were interesting, but he could not force himself to consider dispassionately exactly what was taking place. He felt his stembrain writhe within the confines of his control with far greater power, straining to be free. He looked about the casino floor. All of the aleators there had fallen to their knees. With eyes focusing on nothing, they rocked back and forth and keened with the rest. Only Kestrel and Phoebe were still alert, looking apprehensively all about. Astron had waited long enough. Now was the time.
Astron looked at the beckoning anvilwood and then turned back to Centuron. “The mines of which you spoke as we entered,” he said. “What is their danger? Quickly, I must know.”
Centuron squinted at Astron and then threw back his head. The laughter tumbled from his lips in gasping wheezes. For several moments, he shook in spasms, unable to regain control. Astron clenched his fist in frustration, eyeing again the distance to the anvilwood, Camonel’s smouldering fire, and Kestrel and the pollen, unable to decide which was to be the first objective.
“Byron and the others.” Centuron ignored the question when he finally could speak. “They are all one and the same, driving down the one path to mutual destruction. Each in his own way has surrendered his free will to the ether and has given up any stake in determining events by his own volition. And with each such submission, on a level far
below their conscious thought, the self-doubt has increased and the reason for existence has become less firm. We indeed are the mere puppets of some other creator, a bubble of life breathed into being by gods that have walked away.”
“Demon,” Nimbia said suddenly. “I do not like what I see. The fey can create realms out of their thoughts, but that is not what sustains them, once they are born. Only so long as the occupants believe in their own existence does what they inhabit continue to resist the pressures that push against them from the outside. All the aleators here—look at them. They slump and—”
Centuron interrupted Nimbia’s words with another peal of laughter. “We are all gathered here, almost all of the occupants of our realm. We now face what we have hidden in our hearts and refused to believe. There is no purpose to existence. The triumph of predestination over luck proves it. It is the end of the universe and everyone that it contains.”
“There are thousands here.” Astron shook his head. “One spin of the wheel and a few words cannot affect everyone so.”
“Despite your great misfortune, you are not one of us,” Centuron said. “You cannot know the importance of what has transpired.”
“I wish to continue living,” Nimbia said fiercely as she placed her hands around Byron’s arm. “Surely others do as well.”
Centuron waved at the casino walls a final time. “Observe the dissolution of the fabric of existence,” he said. “You and your companion are too few to keep alive an entire universe when it no longer has the will to live.”
Byron looked down at Nimbia and then glanced at the fuzzy haze seeming to blur the spectators on the wall farthest away. He licked his lips and patted Nimbia’s hand on his arm. “Perhaps Centuron is right,” he said in a husky voice. “Perhaps afterward there will not be enough time.”
Byron released the grip on his blade. He wiped the back of his hand against his lips and looked with glowing eyes at Nimbia. “There is nothing more I can do about the others.” He waved back toward the center of the casino floor. “But now, at least I can succumb to the joys of my temptation.” He spread his hands wide and, with a slow deliberate motion, reached to draw Nimbia to him.
“Wait, wait a moment, Byron.” Nimbia hesitated and then smiled. “I know you do not fully understand my words, but this is not what I had in mind.” She waved her arm around the casino. “First we must do something about the will of the people. If you truly are a leader, then rally their beliefs to save us all.” Her smile brightened. “Do your duty. Then you will deserve the reward.”
Astron’s stembrain boiled. He gritted his teeth, pulling it back under control. He looked at Nimbia’s smile and then back at Byron, baring the fangs that were no longer there.
“No,” Astron said. “The hillsovereign is not yours to do with what you will. As she states, her favor is to be for the most deserving—and not because of what emotions she excites, but the qualities she has inside. She is not yours, Byron; she is—she is mine!”
Not fully realizing what he was doing, Astron fumbled for the sword at his side. He glanced around the casino and saw the closing fog obscuring the farthest stands. The sound of the keening faded into softness and then vanished altogether. The ground underneath his feet felt like a thin sheet of linen loosely stretched over a tub of water. The wetness of the swirling fog began to glisten on his cheeks, as if he were exposed to a gentle rain.
“Do not be overly alarmed, demon,” Nimbia said quickly. “I am sure that Byron has sufficient nobility to be different from the—”
She stopped as she saw the gleam in Byron’s eye intensify. He spread his arms in a wide circle. Nimbia took a step backward and then halted as her foot touched the edge of the stadium wall. She looked back helplessly, her eyes growing wide with fear.
“It is your fate to be so unlucky,” Byron said. “Such beauty was meant to be consumed.”
“Underneath it all, I am a person like anyone else,” Nimbia said, pain and disappointment putting a bitter edge to her voice. “Judge me for that and nothing else. That is all I ask.”
“The allure is too great.” Byron shook his head. “There is no one who can resist, no one who can look past the exterior with dispassion to see if there is any other value inside.”
“Somewhere there must be at least one.” Nimbia put out her hands to ward off his approach. She looked about frantically and then stopped when she saw Astron rushing to her.
“Dem—Astron!” she shouted. “Astron, help me. He is like all the rest. Only you are different. Please, quickly do something. There is so little time.”
“The mines! What are they?” Astron yelled at Centuron as he stepped in Byron’s way. “Tell me so that I may act.”
“We do not know where any are buried.” Centuron waved his arm. “But it does not matter. They will dissolve with the rest. Far better that—”
“Buried,” Astron interrupted. “Did you say buried?”
“Why, yes—”
“That explains the blotchy appearance of the casino floor,” Astron said. “With my membranes down I see far into the red, even into what is called heat in the realm of men. And turned earth is colder than that which has been in contact with the air.”
He broke off and reached behind to grab Nimbia’s outstretched hand. Ducking to the right, he avoided the swat of Byron’s arm and started running out onto the casino floor, pulling her behind. He jogged to the right of a seemingly different-textured plot of ground and then sharply veered back to the left. Behind him, he heard Nimbia stumbling after and Byron’s heavy tread in pursuit.
Astron cut to the side and felt his heel rip into the softening earth. Like a folded blanket, the ground wrinkled under the thrust. His foot dug deep into the earth and then, with a sudden lack of resistance, seemed to poke through into a chilling nothingness underneath. Frantically, he reached down and jerked his leg free, watching an inky blackness curl upward out of the hole.
From the corner of his eye, he saw that Byron had retrieved his sword and was waving it wildly over his head. “I am too swift for you,” the demon called out suddenly as a glimmer of an idea darted into his mind. “And until you catch and overcome me, you will not have the hillsovereign.”
Byron ran up to where Astron pulled at his leg. He moved one step in Nimbia’s direction and then hesitated. “Guard your backside,” Astron said, waving his own blade as convincingly as he could.
Byron turned and looked down at Astron. The look of lust on his face distorted into one of battle rage. He gripped his sword with both hands and raised it high in the air. With an ear-piercing yell, he brought it down in a vertical swipe directly over Astron’s head. The demon waited until the last possible moment and then jerked aside, just missing the slash.
Byron’s sword dug deeply into the softening ground, burying itself almost to the hilt. Immediately, the warrior tightened his grip on the pommel and strained to extract his weapon. As Astron had hoped, the blade trembled, but did not bulge. He scrambled to his feet and again took Nimbia’s hand. “I have decided,” he said. “To Kestrel and Phoebe. It will be a moment before Byron is a menace again.”
Together they zigzagged their way to the remains of Jelilac’s contingent. The swirling fog had penetrated almost to the first few rows of seats. Astron could no longer be sure that any of the aleators in the stands were still there.
“The pollen,” he shouted, pointing at Kestrel’s rucksack as he dashed up upon them.
“The anvilwood,” Kestrel answered as he motioned to the abandoned fortification to the right of where Camonel had stood.
“And the flame.” Phoebe pointed at the remains of Camonel’s fire. She looked at the crumpled tapestries lying nearby. “There is wizard’s work to be done.”
“Wait a moment,” Kestrel said to Astron as the demon dropped Nimbia’s hand and started to head for the anvilwood. “I have learned some things that might be important in the quest. Whoever merged the realms of symmetry planted the seeds of calculation in this univ
erse as well. Look, there is the evidence of the navigator’s almanac.”
Astron skidded to a halt. “A book, did you say? That is most interesting and might indeed provide a clue.”
“Not now,” Phoebe shouted.
“I have tried to analyze the facts just as you would and extract the most important,” Kestrel yelled at Astron’s back when the demon resumed running to the other fortification. “Of all of the features of the almanac, it seems to be most strange that it lasts for centuries, and yet, every few days, the format is completely different.”
Astron started to wrinkle his nose, but he realized he did not have the time. Reaching the anvilwood barrier, he began hewing with the sword as if it were an axe, sending splinters flying. He managed to dislodge two large logs. Abandoning his blade, he lifted them in the circle of his arms. Staggering with the load, he weaved his way back to the fire which Phoebe had fanned into a respectable blaze, despite the growing wetness of the air.
The tiers of the casino had become completely hidden in the dense black fog, and only hints of the massive support pillars were outlined where the high ceiling should be. The illuminating spheres of fungi had been reduced to dull glows. Only the fire pushed back the darkness of the encroaching gloom. It looked as if they were on an island in a fogbound sea.
Astron tossed the logs onto the fire and prepared to step into it himself, but then hesitated. “There is insufficient time.” He shook his head. “You all will be gone before I can return.”
“Then transport us to another realm,” Phoebe said. “Like a mighty djinn, you must somehow carry us through.”
“There certainly is no time for that, even if I were able,” Astron said. “Piercing through one barrier to the realm of daemon is hard enough, let alone two.”
“You must think of something, Astron.” Nimbia touched his arm. “Look! At the very edge of the mists, I see Byron wrenching free his blade.”
Astron looked at the inviting lick of the flame. The color and smell beckoned him with an almost irresistible allure. He could easily step into the warm, enfolding embrace and vanish from the peril. He watched the shrinking horizon of visibility and felt his stembrain stir in panic.