"Here's an exercise for you," Michael said. "I assume you're as ignorant as I am about which design is the real one."
"Yes," Shiafa said. "I have nothing to conceal now."
"If you were building a fortress that would have to be assaulted in a dozen or a hundred different ways, what design would you choose for the actual structure? Thinking like a Spryggla - or a Sidhe overseeing a Spryggla."
Shiafa stared at the gun-metal castle. "In the Realm, the only purpose fortifications would serve would be to defend against a mage. No Sidhe or Breed - much less a human - would think of acting against Adonna."
"That's-" Michael stopped. "Hm. No mages here but Adonna and possibly Clarkham. Did they fear Clarkham? I don't think so. But they must have feared somebody. Who? Waltiri? The Serpent? Did they think their magic would fade?"
"It has," Shiafa said. "The Realm is failing."
Michael was confused. He brushed the confusion aside. In the time remaining to them, they could not afford to speculate endlessly. "No physical barriers would prevent a mage from entering a fortress. These walls and towers are ridiculous. Any other fortress design is equally ridiculous. I don't believe there's a fortress here at all. I think. it's a place pleasant to the Sidhe of the Maln. It's the opposite of the Irall, the opposite of cold and dank and hard."
He took his hand and spread it against the image of the castle and then smoothly, with substantial mental effort, wiped the image away like so much dust on a sheet of glass. Shiafa stepped closer to him, and he passed on to her what he saw through gentle evisa.
The shining silk bridge now crossed a rushing stream of clear water and green, flowing reeds. Across the bridge lay a meadow of tall blue-green grass and flowers. At the center of the meadow rose a Boschian tower seemingly carved from red coral. The tower was at least as tall as a good-sized skyscraper, ornately embellished in a style Michael could easily recognize. A Spryggla had designed that tower; it seemed obvious that a Spryggla had sketched all the illusory forms of the Sklassa as well.
He crossed the bridge, and she followed. The horse again remained behind, but this time there was some grass on the cliff top for it to crop.
At the sprawling base of the coral tower, covered with vines bearing huge coral-red berries, they found a broad gate carved from transparent crystal and flanked by what looked like ivory posts. Michael pushed gently on the gate, and it opened inward. Between the posts poured a virtual flood of human sign; thousands of humans, and only a few Sidhe.
But among those Sidhe, there was no mistaking the aura of the Ban of Hours. He began to have a glimmer of understanding; the Ban's opposition to the Maln continued, even after the Maln's dissolution. As Shiafa had said, she must be in the Sklassa to protect the humans the Maln had gathered over the centuries, and perhaps the humans of Euterpe and the Breeds of Halftown. But where were the other Sidhe of the Maln? Surely there were more than a handful.
Overhead, the sky changed abruptly to anthracitic blackness, overlaid by an oily smear of spectral red, green and blue. It was more than a precipitous nightfall; it was the end of the Realm's sky.
The meadow and tower were surrounded by penumbra! gloom. All around, the flowers withdrew, and the grass withered. Then, just as the darkness became oppressive, the tower began to gleam from within, a warm and welcoming glow that belied all Michael had heard about the Maln and made him wonder if he had stumbled into yet another illusion.
Even villains would enjoy paradise, he told himself.
"I never knew of this," Shiafa said. They stepped through the crystal gate, between the ivory posts, and stood on a white-tiled floor beneath a broad blue dome mimicking the night-skies of Earth. Each star was a glittering jewel, and thousands of stars were set within the lapis firmament.
Michael looked down from the jeweled sky. A young male Sidhe stood before them, wearing the full black and gray of the Maln, with a red robe beneath. His face was a mask of discipline. For a moment, Michael didn't recognize him.
"You are not expected, man-child," the Sidhe said, smiling faintly. "We thought your work was done here."
"Bid!" Michael said, startled. Biridashwa - with whom he had shared the Crane Women's training, who had attempted to infuse him with poisonous Sidhe philosophy, and who had then contemptuously watched Michael be jerked back to the Earth after the destruction of the pleasure dome. The one-time initiate's red hair had been cut to a skullcap, and his eyes seemed hollow and haunted.
"We have no need for you here," Biri said, advancing on them a step. He held out his right arm, and a wick grew into it, starting as a green branch and ending as a sharp-pointed pike.
Michael looked over the haggard Sidhe with a touch of sadness. "I bring Tarax's daughter-"
"Tarax is no longer of the Maln," Biri said. "He is in the isolation of becoming a mage. His daughter is not our concern."
Michael glanced at the wooden doors set into the circled wall of the chamber. "The Ban of Hours is here. She is protecting some of my people."
"You are a Breed. You have no people but Breeds," Biri said. Michael could almost smell his desperation - and his fear. Stronger than both, however, was the acid hatred that etched the depths behind his blue eyes.
"Nonsense," Michael said almost casually. His assurance was seamless; he was moving over the border into arrogance. Catching himself, he backed away from that danger and smiled politely. "I am here to take my people home."
"Their sentence is absolute," Biri said. "We will not allow you to return them to the Earth."
"Why?"
"You are still a man-child if you do not see."
Michael folded his arms. Arrogant gesture, he warned himself. Don't underestimate this Sidhe. He's fooled you before.
"I'm sure the Ban of Hours would want to speak with me," Michael said. "Surely you wouldn't deny her that?"
"She is here by pact. She remains with the humans until we all die."
"Who ordains this?"
"I do. I have replaced Tarax as chief, of the Maln."
"I didn't know the Maln still existed."
Bin's face paled ever so slightly, giving his skin a mother-of-pearl iridescence that was quite beautiful. "It exists in me," he said. "The Councils are dissolved. Their work is done."
"Now that Tarax is going to be mage."
"Now that the succession is assured."
"They opposed Adonna?"
"In the end, Tarax opposed Adonna. The Councils agreed with his judgment that Adonna was failing."
"So whom are you sacrificing yourself for?" he asked.
"For my people," Bin answered.
"By letting all these humans die - and Breeds, and yourself - you think you'll make the Earth safer for Sidhe?"
Biri's jaw was outlined by clenched muscles.
"It's a useless gesture, then," Michael continued. "The Sidhe are overpowered on Earth. Their magic can't win them dominance. They'll have to parley. Killing these humans won't affect that outcome - because my people have already won."
Shiafa stood a step behind Michael, stiff and silent. He could not detect her emotions without lifting his concentration from Biri, which he did not dare do. The wall of discipline behind which Biri stood was strong and only grew stronger under Michael's pressure. He did not want to fight Biri - not yet. But you'll ultimately have to defeat Tarax, defy the Serpent, deal with Clarkham.
"Is this true?" Biri asked Shiafa.
"As far as I know," Shiafa said.
"There are no strongholds on Earth?"
"Science beats magic," Michael said. "Not for subtlety, perhaps, and not at magic's highest levels - but in the long haul, and with my world as it is now. That's why the Sidhe finally withdrew from Earth."
"There is war on Earth?" Biri's dignified demeanor slipped a little. Clearly, he did not relish the thought of dying - especially without good reason.
"I don't know what's happening on Earth now, but yes, very likely Sidhe and humans are dying. I would like to prevent more deaths. I can
't if I'm stuck here."
Biri considered this at some length. "You must leave," he concluded. "The decision is not mine to make."
Biri's defenses, from the moment of his appearance, had been focused on Michael. They were weak in Shiafa's direction. Michael took his own arrogance and frustration and drew from the center of his hyloka as much power as he could spare and remain alive. He held this mix for as long as he dared and then echoed the virulent shadow off Shiafa. Shiafa reeled and barely kept her footing. Biri's eyes widened as the darkness oozed through his defenses and enveloped him. He struggled, but Michael's strength seemed to reverberate through him; the more anger and frustration Michael felt, the more stymied and impatient, the stronger the shadow became. Within seconds, Biri fell to the tiles.
Michael probed the Sidhe, not knowing precisely what to look for, but knowing it was there. A glowing thread. A cord. The link which he id together Biri's discipline.
Someone buried deep within Michael was almost hysterical. Jesus! Stop doing this! Stop it now, before you eat yourself alive! But he did not listen. He cut Biri's cord of discipline. Michael glanced at Shiafa, who had slipped to her knees, and then at Bin, who lay on the tiles as weak as an unstringed puppet.
"My apologies," he said to Shiafa.
She did not bother to use English. "Yassira bettl strifes," she hissed. "You fight unfairly."
"I suppose there's fairness in smudging out thousands of innocent lives?" Michael asked, shaking his head. "The hell with Sidhe honor. I apologize for using you without asking. There wasn't time."
She stood and looked down at Biri with wide eyes. "He was chief of the Maln. He had great power. Hidden ways of discipline are given to the chief."
I am a bomb again, Michael thought. More powerful, more of a wild card, every minute. Someone will have to stop me before this is finished, or I'll -
He shook his head slowly and probed for more Sidhe. There were two others, and one of them was the Ban. He did not think there would be any more opposition. The Sidhe of the Maln had deserted their own fortress, probably to return to Earth - leaving behind only Biri. They had not expected anyone to reach this far into their defenses.
Michael delved into Biri's aura for knowledge of which door to take. The Sidhe rolled over on the tiles and gasped, still in the shadow's grip. Michael 'considered lifting the shadow, then decided against it. Don't press your luck.
He walked across the chamber toward the proper door. Shiafa ran to catch up with him.
"I am afraid of you, Teacher," she said in a harsh whisper. "You do not know all that you do."
"Amen," Michael said. After so many months in the Realm as a helpless pawn, he felt fierce joy at being able to convert his uncertainty and even his fear into weapons. How far could he just glide, stacking victory upon accomplishment? "It's about time the Sidhe face a real challenge on their own territory. I am sick of duty masking cruelty and of hatred and envy disguised as Sidhe honor and purity. The hell with all of you."
He felt a hint of the Serpent's deep rage there and, to negate that, touched the door with unnecessary gentleness, as if caressing Kristine. The wood was rough and unvarnished. As he had half-expected, it spoke to him. "Welcome, Man-child." The voice was familiar to him; that he had not expected. It belonged to the attendant of the Ban whom Michael had met in Inyas Trai while traveling with Nikolai.
"Ulath?"
"I am honored you remember. The Ban awaits you. She is in her chamber."
"Are you dead?" In his experience, only dying Sidhe had their thoughts pressed into wood.
The voice laughed. "No! This door carries only a shadow. There are so few of us here and so much to be vigilant against. Enter, man-child."
Chapter Twenty-Six
The door swung inward, and Michael passed through. Shiafa did not. "She stays outside," Ulath explained.
"Why?" Michael asked, though he was relieved not to have her tagging along.
"Please, no questions. You must move quickly."
The floor-plan of the dark, quiet rooms beyond the domed chamber was like a cross section through a lump of pumice. Ulath's voice guided him from one round bubble-room to another, and it took him some effort to remember the path and keep track of where he had been. The floors were covered by resilient carpets in tessellated patterns, brilliant in sun yellow and coral red. Throughout the rooms, translucent silken curtains dyed in leaf, floral and geometric patterns were suspended from bars reaching wall to wall.
This was not at all what Michael had imagined the fortress of the Maln to look like. There was a feminine sensibility and elegance to the place that completely contrasted with the Maln's age-long activities.
"Stop," Ulath's voice gently commanded when he stood at the center of another large, domed chamber, very much like the first. Overhead, however, was a sophisticated mimicry of day, with soft cloud-patterns weaving back and forth and a gold-leaf stylized sun at zenith, its rays spreading out like branches from an incandescent tree.
Through a door on the opposite side, a Sidhe female in a cream-colored robe with red trim entered. Michael recognized the warm brown skin and black hair, the full lips and eyebrows wryly askew: Mora, who had once been Clarkham's consort. She smiled warmly, but with an edge of guilty tension, and approached Michael slowly, her gown trailing.
"You surprise us all," she said. "The Sidhe thought they were done with you. Even the Ban."
Michael nodded. "I had to. fight Bid to get in here. Subdue him."
She did not seem distressed. "Then you've grown remarkably strong. Biri is not easily overcome." She sensed Michael's unease at her lack of sympathy. Biri, he had learned during his last few minutes in Clarkhan's Xanadu, had been her lover, and she had served Clarkham only in the interests of the Sidhe. "I have been sequestered here, away from Biri, that I might not endanger his accession." Her eyes searched him for any further response, but he kept his reactions under tight control. "Why have you returned?"
"I'm here to bring the Realm's humans back to Earth."
"If you can do that, you will have our cooperation. The stepping stone gates to Earth have been closed; we are not sure by whom."
"Perhaps Tarax," Michael suggested.
"Perhaps. At any rate, Ulath tells me we should arrange a meeting with the Ban, and with Mahler, with whom you are, I believe, familiar."
"I've heard some of his music," Michael said. "Waltiri met him.knew him, once. They corresponded." His eyebrows lifted. "He's here? Alive?"
"Yes. We also have a human named Mozart. He and Mahler have quarreled some in the past. Debated is perhaps a better word. Mozart was astonished when the Ban allowed Mahler to confer with a human on Earth."
"When was this?" Michael asked.
"Recently. Days or weeks or months past on Earth. The conspiracies have not even begun to spin themselves out, Michael. Plays of power and flights of intrigue. Mahler can convey your plans to the others kept here."
"How many are there?" Michael asked.
"Five thousand and twenty-one. Artists, writers of poetry and fiction, storytellers, composers, potters, dancers, dreamers."
"All. recent?" Days, months. centuries?
"Heavens, no," Mora said, laughing lightly. "The Maln has been collecting them for ten thousand years, ever since the end of the Paradiso. The Ban was appointed by Adonna to watch over them."
"Then. Emma Livry was not the only one brought here."
"No. Not at all. She was a special case, because of her suffering. The Maln allowed the Ban to bring her to the Realm, even though she was no longer a danger to them - and of no use to their archrival, Clarkham. Other humans whom the Maln ignored until they proved to be a threat were the most unfortunate. Mahler and Mozart among them."
Michael shook his head in wonder. "And the prisoners from Euterpe?"
"They are here."
"Nikolai?"
"After his brief venture on Earth. His journey alerted Biri, who may or may not have acted under Tarax's orders in shutting
down the stepping stone in Inyas Trai reserved for humans."
"Then the Ban was going to return them to Earth."
"Of course. They cannot stay here."
"So you are all prisoners. and Biri is your guard?"
"There are other guards," Mora said, with a delicate shudder. "The Realm has become much more. creative, let us say, since Adonna's passage. The Maln has taken advantage of this. Leaving will be much more difficult than getting in."
/ should have thought as much. "I'd like to see the Ban now," Michael said.
Mora nodded once and withdrew. Michael took a deep breath and prepared himself; at their last meeting, the Ban had been in complete control - time had seemed to stop, and his memories of her had emerged only after hours of contemplation, emerged in just the right order to convey what the Ban had wished him to know: that he was a pawn.
Greg Bear - Songs of Earth 2 - Serpent Mage Page 27