by Lyndon Hardy
Then, from the periphery of the hillock, a single piper began playing a slow, sad melody. Others caught the tone and added to it. One of the females close to Nimbia choked on a small sob. Tears began to glisten on the faces of a dozen more. In barely an instant, the infectious joy transformed into a chilling sadness.
Nimbia nodded in apparent acceptance of the changing mood. She motioned over the heads of those nearest and Astron felt the ground begin to vibrate as it had when they approached. He saw the narrow band of pale blue sky start to shrink into nothingness. Like a great piston sinking into a cylinder, the surface on which he stood descended into the earth. In an instant, the hilltop again rested firmly on the ground.
The bright lights reflected by the jeweled panels and mirrors shone with undiminished intensity. Even though Nimbia had retreated underground, the area around her throne remained far brighter than the daylight outside. As the descent halted, Astron saw dimly lit passageways radiating in all directions. Great bins lined the hallways, like the walls of Phoebe's cabin. From some spilled the powders and woods that Astron recognized as essential for the summoning of great djinns. Others bulged with strange prickly spheroids, covered with sharp barbs or intricate lattices of thorns. In the distance were rows of doors and dark cross corridors radiating farther into the earth. The extent of the queen's underhill could not easily be judged.
Two of the pages, taller than the rest, pushed each other timidly from the crowd that had gathered about the throne. Each wore a tunic embroidered with the same designs as those on Nimbia's cape. Their copper daggers were sheathed on belts inlaid with gold.
"Might not what you have wrought survive despite Finvarwin's judgment?" the first one asked.
"My creation will live on unaided for a lifetime or more." Nimbia nodded her head. "Such strength am I sure that it possesses. But without the thoughts of others, it will not expand to be more than what it is now. Eventually, it will grow sluggish and decay."
Nimbia paused and looked over the heads of the assembly. She closed her eyes and seemed to absorb the mood of the piping which now swelled to a persistent resonance that could not be ignored. Tears appeared from fluttering eyelids. She slumped into the folds of her cape.
"The penalty is a severe one." She opened her eyes again at last. "Servitude to Prydwin for us all-this underhill to become one of his, rather than our own. We will be toiling to carry his baskets of pollens, blowing on the pipes as long as he commands, plucking the blossoms that he decrees, whether they are part of our harmonies or not."
"You should not have attempted it without a mate," the second page said. "All of us regard your craft to be of the greatest quality, as strong as your own great beauty. But forgive me, my queen, even so, the challenge was far too great."
Nimbia looked for a long time at the second page before speaking.
"You knew of the risk as well as any other," she said softly. "You and every other page underbill. Almost any would have sufficed, provided that he had the strength of heart."
"But it could not be me." The page stepped back suddenly. He waved his arm about those who clustered around the queen. "Perhaps someone else," he muttered, "someone more worthy. Your beauty is too great. One such as I would never have a chance."
"A single page," Nimbia repeated, "and yet not one came forward. Not one chose to accompany his queen, despite what decorum demanded. I do not understand. Can the prize be of so little value?"
"A prize has greater value the less it is shared." A third voice, deeper than the first two, sounded from the rear. Astron saw a male slightly more heavy-set than the rest push his way forward, the lines of a frown etched into his forehead. Dark black ringlets of hair curled above deep-set blue eyes. He appeared slightly older than the other pages, and Astron noticed that several of the females followed him with keen interest.
"This is not the time and place to air old accusations, Lothal." Nimbia stirred slightly on her throne. "They are no less true now than they were when the two of us-"
"The rages have cooled, my sovereign." Lothal bowed deeply with an almost jeering smile on his face. "I do not come forth pressing a suit that you have more than adequately demonstrated I can never win. I speak merely as another loyal and concerned subject for the benefit of us all."
Astron saw Nimbia stiffen, but the queen said nothing. She motioned for Lothal to continue.
The courtier bowed a second time and then stood facing Nimbia with his hands on his hips. "Your wit is a sharp one. Despite everything else, I will always have admiration for that. Perhaps, from what you see happening again and again, you can finally deduce a basic truth for your conduct." He paused and turned to face the others, extending his arms slowly in great arcs.
"The queen can have anyone here she chooses." He looked at several of the females who wore bands about their waists with the same markings as those of a nearby male. "Even ones already bound can hardly resist the great persuasion of her beauty-we all know that in our hearts."
Lothal whirled abruptly and again faced Nimbia. "Any one she chooses, that is, so long as her choice is for one only." His cheeks flushed suddenly. Veins stood out in his neck. "I did not submit to share with another; and by all that lives of its own volition, neither will any other here. Amend your ways, Nimbia. Change the greed for more than one; that is all you deserve, despite the loveliness you possess. Amend your ways, and then a champion will come forward to share the tasks of creation with his lady."
"I was faithful to you from the first day to the last," Nimbia said softly. "It was your jealousies and no more, Lothal, that churned in your heart. You saw evil where there was none. Nothing I could have done would have convinced you otherwise." Nimbia threw up her hands. "And we could not create, so long as your own inner being was so troubled."
"If you were not queen, I would not let such assertions go unchallenged," Lothal shot back. "You try to use the power of your station to gain what even your beauty cannot grasp."
"Challenge whatever you will." Nimbia shook her head and pulled the edges of her cape in tightened fists, with knuckles showing white. "I give you leave as I have given you leave each time before. Try to find any proof that I was ever other than loving. You cannot, because none was ever there. Come, Lothal, I would forget the pain and accept you even now, if it would spark the creation that would save our underbill."
Nimbia looked at Lothal expectantly but his jaw was firmly set. He would speak no more.
Nimbia sighed. "We waste the time of all those that have assembled here," she said finally. "And there is little time that is left." She waved her arm at the banquet rooms beyond. "Feast, my people. Make merry while you can. Prydwin's pipers will come for us all soon enough."
The mournful melody of the pipers abruptly stopped. There was a moment's pause and then they began again, this time with the lively air that Astron had first heard when he arrived. Tentatively, two of the younger females began to dance. With a sudden enthusiasm, three of the pages mimicked their steps. Nimbia began clapping her hands. A smile reappeared on her face. In what seemed like an instant, the mood transformed into the gaiety it had been before.
"I do not understand." Phoebe raised her voice above the music. "What has happened to her? The moods of the woman on the throne change faster than the purest quicksilver."
"My previous sojourns were brief," Astron said. "I witnessed the ring of djinns for the first time just as you did."
"The mysteries of the realm can wait for later," Kestrel said. "More important is the reason why we came. If this Nimbia thinks we are her savior, then ask her for a boon before she forgets. What does she know of the things we seek?"
Astron hesitated. Nimbia had saved him from the sentrymen of Prydwin-far more so than he had her. And the passions shown by the fey evidently were quite similar to those of men. He would like to have listened quietly for much longer.
"Excuse me, Queen Nimbia," he said, "but I have a request-knowledge in exchange for the small service we have performed
in your behalf. If perhaps you know the location of harebell pollen or how to gain audience with a sage among you who knows the riddle of the ultimate precept…"
Nimbia stopped in mid-clap. She turned and regarded Astron for a moment with an amused smile. Then she broke into a gale of laughter, clasping her sides and poking her elbows at whomever was the closest.
"Yes, harebell pollen," she said. "That is all it would take. Who needs the logical precision of the male to temper the leaps of intuition if harebell pollen could be tossed through the ring? Even Prydwin's greatest triumphs-the realm of the chronoids, the realm of the reticulates-both could be challenged in a single judging. Yes, harebell pollen indeed."
Nimbia tried to say more but she clasped her sides again, unable to speak. Astron looked from side to side for explanation, but saw only other mirthful faces. His nose wrinkled. He turned back to face Kestrel with a shrug.
Nimbia suddenly stopped laughing. She tapped Astron on the shoulder. He saw that her face was completely sober.
"It is the way of the fey," she explained. "We cannot sip life in only half measures, but must drink deeply from the cup of emotions. It is no less than the first dictum-reality must mirror passion. How else can we create with a vividness that will live of its own volition?"
Astron started to reply but Nimbia shook her head. "For now, no more words," she said. "Do not disturb the joyousness of the feast. I owe my people no less." She reached out and gently touched his arm. "Even though you are no more than a demon, I wish that you would abide with me for a while. Abide with me, since your saving of a queen might not yet be complete."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Bubbles of Reality
ASTRON blew out all the candles except for the one on the far end of the oaken table. The remaining light was feeble, but he had had more than enough time to get familiar with the placing of even the tiniest obstacles in the small circular room. Fifteen marks Kestrel had gouged into the doorframe, one for each arising from his sleep. For the entire duration, Astron had been confined to the one room.
Despite the urgency, he had achieved no new progress toward his goal. The growing frustration made his stem-brain continuously active. A feeling of constant uneasiness ached just below his consciousness. He could not still the rumbling, no matter how hard he tried. With each passing tick of time, the chances of the survival of his prince and hence his own shrunk all the more. Something had to be done soon, no matter how interesting the other distractions.
They were not prisoners exactly, but Nimbia's sentrymen made clear with the force of their thoughts that wandering around underhill was highly discouraged. After the queen had dismissed them, they had not seen her again. Apparently Astron and his companions were left to their own devices until she saw fit to call them back to her presence.
Astron directed his concentration at what he had constructed. The idle time had not been a total waste, since there was much he had learned. The oaken table with the candle was straight on three sides, while the fourth was curved to meet the contour of the stone wall to which it was pressed. Square cells would have been much more efficient, Astron knew. Using stone instead of wood certainly must stress the mechanism that raised and lowered the hilltop, but he gathered that such practicalities were not the concern of the fey.
Next to the candle, hung from a cantilevered scaffolding made of twigs and branches, was a watersack from one of the large vines that grew aboveground. Astron had carefully pierced and drained the bladder and then refilled it with lamp oil obtained from another resinous herb. With bits of copper wire hooked into the surrounding leaves, the spherical globe was elongated and flattened, distorting it into a thin vertical disk.
At the other end of the table, the book of thaumaturgy that Astron had obtained from the archimage stood upright in a scaffolding similar to the first. The candle flame flickered through the orb of oil and cast a diffuse glow of light on the upright parchment, illustrating an image quite similar to the one Astron had constructed on the bench.
Astron studied the illustration for a moment more and then the arcane symbols written beneath it. The abstractions had been difficult to grasp at first, but the examples had helped a great deal. He turned to the bag of oil and moved it to a mark he had calculated before, roughly midway between the candle and book.
The diffuse halo of light on the parchment coalesced into a much sharper dot. Astron grunted in satisfaction. He cupped his hand in front of his lens so that only its very center received the candleglow and watched the focus on the book decrease to a single point of whiteness.
Astron moved the position of the book toward the candle and then adjusted the lens to regain the proper focus. He measured the distances from page to oilbag and oilbag to candle and checked the results with the predictions of the formula. After a half-dozen trials, he blew out the remaining light and sat in the darkness, contemplating what he had learned.
The ones who call themselves masters in the realm of men treated knowledge in strange ways, he thought. The basic principles of bending rays of light had no intrinsic connection to thaumaturgy or any other of the crafts known to mortals. But because these laws were used by practitioners of the magical arts, they were shrouded in secret like the rest. One went to a thaumaturge for telescopes or heating lenses, even though a glassblower could construct what was needed just as well without any recourse to the art, if he knew a few simple formulas. Unlike Prince Elezar's riddles, which extracted a price but once, knowledge in the realm of men was hoarded and reused again and again, demanding a fee each and every time.
Astron's reverie was broken by a pounding on the door. "The hillsovereign commands your presence," a voice on the other side said.
Astron scrambled out of his repose, opened the door, and burst into the hall. Perhaps at last he could continue the search for the answer to Gaspar's riddle.
He was joined shortly in the narrow curving hallway by Kestrel and Phoebe. While Astron had pondered the mysteries of thaumaturgy, they had spent much time together learning the fundamentals of the language of the fey. And the demon could not help noticing how much stronger the attraction between the two of them had become.
He had no chance to comment on the fact, however. In a short moment they were ushered into the presence of Nimbia in the central throne room. Nimbia wore a gown of iridescent pink that billowed and filled the high chair on which she sat. On either side, two pages stood at solemn attention, their copper spear points perfectly straight and aimed at the sculptured ceiling overhead. The openness that was present when Astron had first arrived had been replaced by substantial-looking panels that blocked everything behind from view. Footfalls echoed from the unadorned walls. Somewhere in the background, pipers still trilled melancholy airs.
"I apologize for my lack of attention," Nimbia said as they entered, "but the emotion had to run its course. Nothing has changed, of course, but at least now I can be a more proper hostess."
"How do you seek?" Astron ignored the courtesy. He quickly reviewed the questions that he had decided to ask at the first opportunity. "I deduce from what I have seen that you command the ring of djinns to bridge between realms that you have never seen before. How do you know they are there? Would not the action be one of discovery, rather than creation?"
A weak smile appeared on Nimbia's face. "I see our control of your kind is not something you ponder lightly," she said.
"I appreciate the extent of your power," Astron answered. "The youngest hatchlings are taught to avoid the lure of the fey." He wrinkled his nose. "But even the mightiest djinn cannot respond to an order poorly formed. He cannot pass through the barrier to another realm unless you explicitly direct him there. If he knows it not and neither do you, there is no way an opening can be formed."
"But we do know the realms where the ring is commanded," Nimbia said. "We know them because they are formed by our thought. We do not discover other realms, demon; they are created by the fey exactly as you have heard us say."
Astron opened his mouth to speak again, then slammed it shut as the significance of what Nimbia had said began to sink into his stembrain. She spoke casually, as if what she said was of no great matter, but the words brought forth images as staggering as those in Palodad's lair.
"You create realms," he said slowly, trying to fight off the stunned numbness that began to tingle through his limbs. "You are the ones responsible for the realm of daemon, the realm of men, and all the others."
"No, no, not the demons," Nimbia said. "As you well know, your realm spans the space between all the others. It must have existed far before the oldest memories of our own. Somehow it is different from the rest.
"And as for the realm of men, none of my brethren would admit to such an act-conceiving something so misformed. Perhaps ages ago, before our art reached its present level of perfection, it was accomplished-or maybe it was the other way around, we are all the product of the fancies of men. Otherwise still, both could be the discarded first attempts to achieve perfection by yet some other beings. If that is so, it explains why so many of the realms are similar."
"What do you mean?" Astron persisted. "What realms-"
"Of the ones you saw on the slopes of the glen," Nimbia said, "I was the author of the last. I conceived the waves of black and the forces that gave them motive power. It was my thoughts that strained against the compressive forces that push against all the realms, trying to crush them to nothingness."
"I am sorry," Astron said. "You speak too quickly. I do not understand."
Nimbia's smile broadened slightly beneath her sad eyes. She gestured to one of the sentrymen standing in a doorway at the rear of the hall. "Pipes and cooling gels," she commanded. "I must explain what to the fey is common knowledge and second nature."
Astron watched as three pages shortly appeared, each one carrying a bowl of a steaming and viscous liquid. Behind them came three more, these bearing tripods and long metal pipes under their arms. The bowls were set erect in the stands and each of the trio handed a horn.