Riddle of the Seven Realms m-3

by Lyndon Hardy

  Astron saw a sparkling iridescence suddenly shoot from the fissure and dissipate itself against the interior curve of the bubble. Like the spout of a tiny geyser seeded with reflective glitter, the essence of the talisman rushed out of its confinement and began to fill up the sphere. Sylvan waited a long while more until the exhaust from the charm had slowed to a barely discernible trickle. A slight opaqueness filled the bubble, where before it had been perfectly transparent and clear.

  "Now for the controlled outgassing," Sylvan said, motioning to Centuron, who was already making his way forward with a circle of twine about one hand and a needle in the other.

  "Popping the bubble would serve no better than cracking the talisman unprotected," Sylvan said. "But the strength of the soapbark film is high. It allows us to proceed with much more care." She took the circle of twine from Centuron with her free hand between extended thumb and forefinger. Very gently, she placed the ring against the surface of the bubble and quickly withdrew.

  Astron saw that the band of twine did not penetrate the surface but, instead, floated on its glassy slickness, pulled into a tiny, perfect circle.

  "It is the surface tension in the liquid," Astron said. "The same force that holds the bubble together in a sphere against the gasses inside deforms the string into a ring."

  Sylvan ignored the comment. She carefully turned so that the floating circle was aimed away from the rest of the camp and outward toward the open sea. Reaching from the side, she quickly stabbed the needle into the small ring of film trapped by the twine.

  Astron expected the bubble to pop with an explosive spray of what was contained inside, but it did not. Instead, only the small ring of film within the circle vanished, leaving the bulk of the bubble intact. Wisps of the glittering gas oozed through the opening out into the air in a gentle flow.

  Astron watched, fascinated, as the bubble slowly contracted. Totally unlike a fragile sphere of film and rather like a balloon made of a cow's bladder in the realm of men, the orb grew smaller in a stately manner. As more and more of the glittering gas vented to the outside, the surface tension contracted the bubble into a tinier and tinier volume. Finally the radius became so small that the film touched the ragged edge of the rip in the talisman. With a tiny pop, the bubble flashed into nonexistence.

  "Most interesting," Astron said. "I suspect that such a procedure would work with the soaps in the realms of men and the fey as well."

  "But to no great practical use," Nimbia said. "There the laws are different. It would serve only to amuse the young."

  "Perhaps," Astron said, wrinkling his nose.

  Back near the main campfire, Byron suddenly threw back his head and laughed at something his lieutenant had said. Nimbia quickly looked his way and then flushed as she noticed everyone watching what she had done.

  "It is too bad," Centuron rumbled. He waved at the two fires as Sylvan stirred the small cauldron. "Some luck can be undone." He looked at Nimbia and shook his head. "Yes, the dabblings of men can be unmade but that which is bestowed by fate at birth is a burden forever."

  "What do you mean?" Nimbia asked after Astron translated. She glanced at Sylvan and hesitated. "Are you the one until now the most in his favor? I am sorry, but if nothing yet has been decided, then surely there is no harm-"

  Nimbia's words trailed off. Sylvan looked down at the cauldron and began stirring more vigorously without answering. The queen looked back to Centuron, eyeing the old man carefully. "What is your wish in the matter?" she said. "Is Sylvan here a personal favorite? If not, certainly the words of one so venerated will carry a great weight, if there is to be a decision."

  The old aleator coughed and stood a little straighten He closed one eye and studied Nimbia a long time before answering. "Can you not imagine how heavy the burden of time hangs over my head?" he croaked. "Do you not wonder what it is which drives me to rise on each new morrow, rather than curl up into nonexistence, disturbing as few as I can?"

  "What does that have to do with-"

  Centuron raised his hand and swept trembling fingers in a wide arc. "All of this that we see, all of the realm that lies beyond I have sampled more than once in my prime. And if Byron is cut to ribbons as soon as he enters the floor of the grand casino, there will be no more mysteries of which I long to taste."

  Centuron coughed again. Astron noticed that an intense gleam came into his eye.

  "But suppose he is not," the old aleator continued. "That is the chance of it that makes it all worthwhile. If somehow, without manipulating the tenets of luck, the pompous one manages to survive to the final struggles, then there is where I want to be-at the very center of the realm, when all those who have cast their lot with the vagaries of chance begin to doubt the foundation of their existence.

  "Yes, I know of the futility; even Byron only guesses at it. Years ago, messengers through the flame revealed to me the workings of a distant master's plan. When the walls become dim and icy fingers of the void start to clutch at each and every heart, when I finally lie down to die, then it will all be worthwhile, knowing that I do not cease to exist alone.

  "So you see, your question does not require an answer, unfortunate maid. With either outcome, your wish will be denied. Either the sands will run with Byron's blood or-"

  "Do not mind his prattle," Sylvan cut in. "I suspect that it depresses him that you are so unlucky and there is nothing that he can do."

  Nimbia frowned. "Without luck, yes, I understand that," she said. "It is what happened when we first arrived-but unlucky? What do you mean?"

  Sylvan looked back down at the cauldron for a moment and then directly at Nimbia. "Why, your beauty, of course. How unfortunate to be saddled with such a burden."

  Nimbia's frown grew deeper. She reached up and straightened a loose strand of hair. "I know that I am fair," she said. "It is what gives me an advantage when it comes to Byron's affections, I do confess, but-"

  "Think, woman," Sylvan said. "Byron cannot be the only one. The souls of how many men have been warped by the closeness of your presence so that their inner worths were hidden? Whom do you know that has acted so that you could judge him as he truly is?" She glanced at Byron. "What you do is tempt him from his destiny; and if you succeed, then whom else will he blame?" Sylvan paused and shook her head. "No, I do not rue the fact that you have him smitten. I pity you instead."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The Grand Casino

  KESTREL steadied himself against the gentle roll of the ship in the quickening breeze. He shielded his eyes from the emerging sun on his starboard and squinted at the smudge directly ahead of the bowsprit. The air was hazy with the remains of a clearing fog, but already he could see what must be the tall thin towers that marked the corners of the casino. Myra might not have deduced that it was her luck that brought them to the proper destination, rather than his guess at the course, but they were there, nevertheless.

  They had been beset by calm for most of the first day at sea. At the dawn of the second, a lookout had spied a mast on the sternward horizon. The crew had buzzed with the speculation that they were being followed by the savages who had decimated the entire company of men-at-arms. Little that Myra had said changed the growing apprehensiveness of their disposition.

  Kestrel had listened closely to the description of the one who had led the charge down to the beach and almost succeeded in boarding before they were safely away. He dared not hope too much, but perhaps there was the slimmest of chances that somehow it was Astron who followed their every move through the swirling fog and occasional gusting winds, though the description did not sound right.

  Phoebe came to Kestrel's side and reached up to massage the tense muscles in his neck. He felt tight and drawn out, like an archer's bowstring before its release. For the two full days at sea he had just barely managed to convince Myra to direct her experiments elsewhere and save him and the wizard for the contest in the casino.

  "It is not your burden," Phoebe said softly. "Myra would hav
e toyed with the others, regardless of what you said. Your words were not responsible. They did no more than shield me from certain harm."

  Kestrel shook his head. Each time that Myra had been dissuaded, she merely turned instead to another of the unfortunate ones who were prisoners below deck. Cries of pain and pleas for a quick death echoed through his mind. A terrible weight bore down on his shoulders.

  "But for what?" Kestrel said. "I have done no more than postpone the inevitable. Myra has made it quite clear that our purpose on the casino floor is to be human shields against the weapons directed at her by the other competing aleators." He grasped Phoebe's hands in his. "I am sorry," he said, "sorry that my wit has not been as strong as it needs to be."

  Kestrel looked back at the cabin in the stern. He released Phoebe's hands and felt his fists clench tight. He remembered Milligan's theft of his luck without even a hint of warning and the small value Jelilac placed on their lives.

  This quest had become one of mounting obligations, he thought. First, his pledge to Phoebe, then the debt he owed to rescue the rotarians who trusted him as leader, and now, if somehow he could manage it, Jelilac, Milligan, Myra, and the others like them should be made to pay for all they must have done.

  Kestrel turned to look back at the shore. Drawing Phoebe close, he watched the towers of the casino become more crisp and clear. He sucked in a chestful of air slowly, then spilled it back into the salty spray. Brave words, he thought ruefully, not what one might expect from a scheming woodcutter-especially not from one who could calculate quite well the chances of surviving without luck in a casino filled with talisman-wearing aleators. He shook his head as he flexed his fingers about the sword pommel that was not there, trying to fan the flame of his conviction so that it masked the growing fear.

  Kestrel pushed the bizarre thoughts away. Grimly he stood, silently watching and waiting for what would happen next. In a little more than what he judged to be an hour, Myra's ship cast anchor in a crowded harbor. Her followers and prisoners came ashore into a surging mass of aspiring aleators and their own retainers. Everyone in the realm, Myra had said, would be there-if not a possessor of enough wealth to compete, then certainly to watch to see who the next archon would be.

  In the confusion of mingling bodies, one might expect someone to break for freedom, but those without talismans knew better than to try. With faces heavy with resignation, they shuffled into position as their masters directed. Kestrel kept Phoebe close, his eyes darting all about, looking for a sign of Astron or a chance to communicate through the flame.

  Except for the casino itself, the island was bare of structure, low and sandy with no plants taller than bushy shrubs. The building was shaped like a huge hexagon with high walls that Myra had said enclosed a many-tiered stadium. From each vertex of the polygon, the towers soared even farther into the sky. At the apex of each, attendants stood ready near the signal beacons that would flash the results of the competition across the sea to those whose luck prevented them from arriving in time. The walls were thick, covered by many layers of fading paint that had withstood countless years of high surf and spray. Portions of old murals peeked out from behind the peeling layers of those placed on top. Faded scenes of previous victories; cornucopia brimming with talismans and devices of chance blended into the mute drabness that surrounded them.

  Midway in the face of each of the casino walls, high doors thrice the height of a man stood open. Into each slowly snaked the retainers of the aleators, climbing into the high seats to cheer their lords onward.

  "You two shall be in the vanguard of my contingent." Myra pointed in the direction of Kestrel and Phoebe as other aleators jostled past. "For each contender, a full dozen is allowed on the floor, but it is folly to have every minion's neck heavy with capsules of great fortune. A single reversal could spell the end of serious contention. I think it is better for at least four to be luckless as newborn babes. Let the machines of Jelilac and the others do their worst It will not be talismans of true power that feel the flings of their wrath."

  Myra waited until all the aleators at the nearest door had entered. Then, with a majestic swirl of a cape she had donned for the ceremony, she walked slowly into the casino. Immediately inside the outer shell, Kestrel saw the stairways leading up into the stands on either side. Pressed against the high ceiling, globes of bioluminescent fungi bathed everything in an eerie soft light. Directly ahead, a tunnel ran onto the floor of the casino itself. The ground underfoot was bare earth, almost muddy from the humid air.

  Myra motioned her followers, except for the chosen twelve, to take the stairs to the left and ascend to the highest seats, as far removed as possible from the rest of the spectators. When the last had begun to climb, she nodded to Kestrel and Phoebe to begin their entrance.

  Kestrel clutched empty air at his side with a feeling of futility. He felt his pulse begin to race. On Jelilac's sloop, he had managed to escape, but here in the casino there would be too many. He started to speak when a sudden crashing boom exploded outward from the casino floor and echoed down the tunnel walls.

  "Minefields," Myra grunted without losing a stride. "Evidently one of the contestants did not enter sufficiently prepared."

  Another explosion ripped down the passageway. Then a third came, this one mingled with cries of pain and a roar from the crowd. Kestrel moved forward as slowly as he could with the tip of a sword planted squarely in the small of his back. He stepped in front of Phoebe just as he reached the tunnel entrance and looked out into the bright light of the contesting field, squinting to see what was happening.

  From the other entrances were emerging more contingents, each with a dozen retainers surrounding a richly dressed aleator shouting commands. Nearer the center of the casino floor, still other groups surrounded their leaders, but in most cases their number had been reduced from the original dozen. Only six still protected a corpulent, well-dressed lord in their midst, and one of those limped, with his left arm hanging useless at his side. Their goal evidently was the same as the rest of the contenders, to reach one of the shallow pits dug into the ground and surrounded by chalky white boulders and low barriers of tumbled logs.

  The group proceeded cautiously and then, with no apparent reason, veered sharply to the left. With a flash of angry yellow, another boom ricocheted through the stadium. Kestrel saw the retainer on the far right suddenly hurled up in the air, his body bent like a handful of broken twigs.

  "Come," Myra said as she arrived at the entrance. "We will show them that my luck is sufficient to find a path to a fortress without fear or hesitation." She prodded one of her talisman-protected men-at-arms forward, and he began pacing rapidly out onto the casino floor. "Follow his footsteps, follow them exactly," Myra commanded. "Match him step for step, if you wish to survive until you are needed later."

  Kestrel hesitated while he watched the man-at-arms suddenly veer sharply to the left and then just as quickly resume his course toward the protective barricades. He felt the sharp prodding in his back and sucked in his breath. Stepping out into the warrior's footprints, he reached behind to pull Phoebe's hand. He took two tentative steps and then half a dozen more, matching the zigzag path of his predecessor as best he could. Moving with increasing haste so that he would not lose the trail, he pulled Phoebe after him, only dimly aware of Myra and her other followers snaking behind.

  A sudden crack sharper than the boom of the mines suddenly pierced through the din on Kestrel's right. He felt a sudden rip of pain in his hand and looked down to see a streak of blood, as if he had been neatly nicked by a blade. He looked up to see the nearest boulder of the barricade just ahead. Instinctively he snapped Phoebe forward and tumbled her over the rock, just as a second pop sounded behind him. As he jumped for cover, what sounded like a shower of pebbles skittered against the thick granite behind.

  "A grenade," Myra muttered behind him as she was helped over the rock by two of her retainers. She stopped and coughed, trying to blow the dust from her lungs,
"Shrapnel will find the unlucky. About that there can be no doubt."

  Elsewhere in the casino, the other contesting groups were also seeking what shelter they could. Those who arrived the latest were beginning to erect makeshift barriers of shields and protruding lances on open ground as far removed from the other contingents as possible. More grenades began to soar through the air, lofted from one group to the one closest. The dull boom of the mines was replaced by the staccato pop of many tiny projectiles.

  One of the less protected groups sallied from their cover and raced with swords drawn at the adversaries on their left. Kestrel expected to see a protracted and grim struggle like the carefully choreographed dances of the reticulates, but instead, in a brief mкlйe, the encounter was over. Half of the attackers stumbled and fell when they engaged their opponents; the rest were dispatched by the first lucky swings of carelessly aimed swords. Kestrel shifted his focus and saw another brief flurry erupt on the opposite side of the casino floor and, far to the right, yet two more.

  "The ones whose wishes exceed their stores of wealth," Myra said at Kestrel's side. "They mimic the contest of old when strength of arm and cleverness of siegecraft determined the victor. Soon they will all be gone, and those of true potential will struggle as it should be done."

  Fulfilling her prophecy instantly, a strong voice suddenly rang through the din. "A challenge, a challenge of true virtue to masqueraders on our left."

  Immediately the crowd fell silent and all the hostilities ceased on the casino floor. Kestrel craned around to see Milligan standing on the top of a small boulder near one of the tunnels with a megaphone to his mouth. Evidently Jelilac's had been one of the last contingents to arrive.