“Alright,” said Laylan, “I have another idea.” He took out paper and a quill. “I’ll map as we go. Let’s head straight away from this room. As straight as we can. All the rooms are the same shape, so our path shouldn’t be difficult to plot on a grid.”
They walked for some time with Sevn making increasingly disjointed remarks about the books. He and Fenrah had a mild quarrel over a volume on metallurgy. Laylan went ahead, trying to ignore them, and this wasn’t hard, because he was beginning to hear a ringing in his ears. He looked back once and saw that Hualien had dropped well behind. He was watching them all with a puzzled expression.
And then they were back in the first room.
Laylan stared at his paper. He noticed with dismay that the last lines he’d drawn were shaky, but they still showed the impossible. “We cannot be back here,” he muttered.
“Well, we are, oh Master Trap Solver,” said Sevn. “Looks like you can make them better than break them.”
“Sevn, as your pack leader, I’m ordering you to shut up,” said Fenrah wearily.
“Some pack,” retorted Sevn, “there are just as many wolflings as non-wolflings here.” He laughed—a high mad sound.
Hualien was chittering in the background, but no one was paying any attention.
“Folded,” muttered Laylan. “That’s the only explanation. Look.” He showed Fenrah his map. They had gone straight away from their starting room. They had not made a circle, but somehow they were back.
“The history books say the Unibus could fold space,” said Laylan. “This place is folded. It explains why your dagger wouldn’t go through the door. The dagger is made of unicorn gold. Surely only Unibus could make something it wouldn’t penetrate.”
“So it’s not a maze at all,” whispered Fenrah. “It’s just a trap.”
One of the candles in the room next door went out. Suddenly Hualien shrieked so loudly that Laylan almost dropped his candle to cover his aching ears. Sevn and Fenrah looked at each other. Then Sevn uttered a wolfling curse so old that even Laylan had never heard it before. “Get down!” he shouted, his words a little slurred. “On the ground, fast! And put out the candles! Glacia’s gates, what idiots we are. No wonder the rats haven’t eaten them. Put out the candles!”
* * * *
It was past midnight, with blue moon already set, when Archemais woke Corry. Corry scrambled onto the centaur’s back, and Archemais tied a cloak around him in a bundle. Neither one of them were particularly satisfied with the result.
“I could, perhaps, put a glamour on you,” said Archemais doubtfully.
“What does that mean?” asked Corry, muffled through his cloak. He felt a hand on his forehead and then...something. “Stop it!” he jerked away.
“I thought not,” said Archemais.
Corry rubbed his head. “What were you doing? It felt like...like...a fly in my head.”
“Never mind. I don’t know you well anymore, and you don’t trust me much.”
“What were you trying to do?” repeated Corry.
“Get inside your head,” said his father, “change your shape that way. It can be done.”
“I don’t want it done,” said Corry.
Moments later, they were cantering across the desolate burned land between the forest and the looming outer walls of Selbis. A guard hailed them before they’d got halfway. Archemais answered, “Urgent news! Mercurion’s orders!”
Two confused guards met them at the gate. “The centaurs watching the Triangle Road are dead,” panted Archemais as though he’d just run a league. “I alone escaped.” Corry realized belatedly that his father must have taken the likeness of one of the sentries he’d killed.
“We’ve had reports of a faun army,” began one of the guards.
“Yes,” said Archemais, “at least three thousand.” This was a gross exaggeration. Corry doubted that the wood and cliff fauns had been able to scrape together even six hundred. “There’s more,” continued his father. “I must speak with officer Mercurion at once.”
“What’s that on your back?” asked one of the guards.
“A prisoner, unconscious and tied. Are you going to take me to Mercurion or not?”
* * * *
Laylan lay in blackness with his cheek pressed against cool stone. He felt a little nauseated. Someone was shaking him. “Laylan? Aren’t you awake yet?”
“Grurumph.” That didn’t sound very intelligent, so he tried again. “WhereamI?”
“Under Selbis,” came Fenrah’s impatient voice. “In some kind of maze full of poisoned candles. We lit them, remember?”
“Oh.” Laylan tried to sit up.
“Hualien thinks the poison rises in the air,” continued Fenrah. “That’s why you were affected most, because you’re tallest. He’s nearer the floor, and he noticed how strange we were acting. He thinks that when the poison gets too concentrated, it starts to put out the candles.”
“Laylan?” It was Sevn’s voice, a little shaky. “I think I said something insulting to you just now. I apologize. I’m looking at your map, and if you’re right, then this place really must be folded. I can’t see any way out.”
Laylan turned over and saw that Sevn was looking at his paper by the light of one of their own lamps. “Hualien put out the candles for several rooms on either side of us,” said Fenrah, “but he was afraid to go too far.”
“I suppose a lot of those shelts who died took the candles down onto the floor with them,” said Sevn. “It would be the logical thing to do—stuck here with the mysteries of the universe written all around you.”
“I’ve been trying to get our grappling hook to catch somewhere on our entrance up there,” said Fenrah, “but so far no luck. I thought maybe I could get the door to close on it, but the door seems to have swung shut.
Laylan frowned. Something was niggling in the back of his mind, something that he’d said while he was still foggy from the candles. “Unibus made this maze,” he said aloud. “‘They know the way who are of the blood.’”
He sat up straight. “Fenrah, your dagger. Let me see it.”
She looked at him, puzzled, then unsheathed the dagger and slid it across the floor. Laylan caught it and turned it over in his hands. He examined the weapon minutely, tested the weight, and there—he felt it twitch. But not enough. Laylan laid the dagger on the smooth paving. Nothing happened for a moment, then, like a lode stone, the dagger swung towards the door in the right hand wall.
* * * *
Mercurion woke grudgingly to a pounding on his door. He sat up from his deep, soft pallet in his plush room in the great keep and struggled to his feet. This had better be important. He valued his sleep a great deal lately. It seemed to be the only time when he was not worried about something.
“Yes, what is it?” he called to the sentry outside his door.
“Sir, there’s a centaur here to see you—one of the guards from the Triangle Road—says he has important news for your ears only.”
Mercurion opened the door wearily. “All important news goes straight to the king. I suggest you—” He stopped, peering at the centaur who’d come to see him. His face looked a little like Pernon, whom he knew had been sent to watch the road, and yet... Mercurion was well acquainted with all the centaurs of Iron Mountain. “I don’t know you.”
“Perhaps you ought to,” said the new centaur. “May I come in?”
Mercurion hesitated. Was it possible that the fauns had convinced one of the wild tribes of the desert to send a centaur assassin? It seemed incredible, especially in such a short time. And yet, fauns did not permit centaurs to live permanently in their territories. Mercurion racked his brain to think of where a centaur unknown to him could have been found so quickly.
“Your friend and king is rapidly becoming a stranger to you,” said the centaur. “I can tell you why.”
Mercurion’s head snapped back. He looked at the other carefully. I should send him straight to Targon. He may be an assassin, and if he d
oesn’t kill me, then Targon will when he finds out I handled such a situation without him.
Targon will kill you anyway, said a voice in his head. You’ve seen it in his eyes.
Mercurion opened the door wider and stepped back. “Come inside.” He turned to the sentry. “We are not to be disturbed for any reason short of an attack on the gates.”
* * * *
The Raiders followed the dagger from room to room, putting out candles as they went. At last they came to a room with no candles. “We’ve never been here,” breathed Sevn. Where the table usually stood in the third wall, there stood a plain door. Fenrah opened it and held up her lamp. “The river!”
They followed her out onto a wooden wharf. Black water gushed below them, churning around the pilings. By the feel of the air, they were in a huge place. Behind and above, they could see what looked like a city built into the side of the vast tunnel, but no path lead up to it.
Far out at the end of the wharf, a solitary light glowed—the only sign of life in all that vast place. There seemed to be nowhere else to go, so they started onto the wharf, approaching the light hesitantly. As they drew closer, they saw that it was a little boat with a lantern in its prow. A dark figure stood at the tiller. “What weird magic is this?” muttered Sevn.
The Raiders drew their swords as they approached. When they were within hailing distance, Laylan called, “Who are you? We are seeking the dam to this river. Answer me if you are sheltish.”
The figure raised its head, and they saw in the gleam of the lantern that his eyes were golden, his hair silver white, his skin black as coal. “I am Charon,” he said, “keeper of the three-headed beast and of the ferry. You have something of ours, or you would not be here.”
“Three-headed beast?” repeated Laylan. “Would that be the maze?”
“It might,” said the ferryshelt.
“You are an Unibus?” asked Fenrah.
“I am many things,” he said, “one of them is Unibus. Do you seek the Architects?”
“We seek the river,” said Laylan, “and the dam on the river.”
Charon mused. “You will have to take that up with the Architects. The river does not go to the dam anymore.”
Hualien came up very quietly. He looked the ferryshelt over, then got into the boat. Fenrah hung back. “What will it cost us?”
“The journey in will cost you nothing,” said Charon. “The journey out is another matter. It looks like the ratling is coming. How about the rest of you?”
Chapter 14. The City Out of Time
The Architects are not the subjects of any tale now extant in Panamindorah, but they are at the edges of many tales. They are mysterious figures, sometimes helping and sometimes hindering the heroes of legend. They are usually represented as pragmatists, neither good nor evil, and they never give something for nothing.
—Capricia Sor, A Concise History of Panamindorah
“I don’t believe you.” Mercurion’s voice came very faint. He would not look Archemais in the face.
Corry was sitting against the wall, watching them. Outside, it must be nearly dawn. Any moment the fauns would begin their attack on the southern wall of Selbis. Somewhere deep under the city, Fenrah and her wolflings were hopefully approaching their goal. With surprise as their weapon, their small forces might have a chance, yet here stood his father, calmly spelling out to this enemy centaur exactly what was happening. Corry did not understand.
Mercurion listened without interrupting. Sometimes he paced.
“Which part don’t you believe?” asked Archemais.
The centaur shook his head. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I want you to go with us when we confront Targon.”
“I should take you to him in chains.”
“Do as you wish, although chains will be wasted on me.” Archemais had shifted to his human form to make his point about wizards.
Mercurion shrugged. “If you wanted to be arrested, you could have done that at the gate. I don’t understand what you expect me to do.”
Someone pounded the door. The noise was so loud after hours of only Archemais’s quiet voice that they all jumped. “Yes?” called Mercurion.
The door flew open with a bang. A centaur glittering in armor pranced into the room, his battle whip loose in his hand. “Ah, I thought so.” He sent the whip hissing around Archemais’s waist pinning his arms to his side. Archemais made no attempt to dodge.
Mercurion looked at the newcomer with distaste. “Sandarin, what is the meaning of this?”
The centaur leered at him. “We have fauns attacking our northern gate, sir. One of the guards was under the impression that a runner came to warn the king more than a watch ago, but no such news ever reached him. He would like to see you and your...guests at once.”
Mercurion did not argue. As they stepped from the room, they heard a sound like distant thunder, and all the centaurs pranced and muttered. Corry guessed it was Xerous’s party making their breach in the wall.
* * * *
Fenrah and her party sailed down the broad river with the current, past the ghost of a city, just visible on either side. No one spoke.
They had not been traveling long when Laylan saw something strange in the river up ahead. He half stood, craning his neck for a better look. The water was gone. It didn’t diminish. It just ended, as though someone had sheered it off with a knife. There was no waterfall, nothing. He could see the dry riverbed beyond.
Laylan started to speak, but stopped as he saw something else. A door—or the shape of a door—freestanding just above the water at the spot where the river ended. Light was coming through. It looked like daylight.
He glanced at Fenrah. She looked tense and uncertain in the strange glow. “Ferryshelt,” she said as they skimmed towards the door, “where are you taking us?”
“Why, lady, don’t you know?” And at that moment they shot through the door.
The sunlight was so dazzling at first that Laylan could not see properly. An icy wind hit him in the face, and he forced his eyes to open. They were sailing the smooth waters of the river through a huge domed building that appeared to be made of crystal. Sunlight bounced off the transparent roof above, dappling the room in rainbows and cords of light. A thousand random paths wound their way through the room, past strange fountains and benches and stone tables. The water of the river, which had been black, was now shot through with sunlight, and strange creatures could be seen dancing in the depths, moving too fast for the eye to follow. At the far end of the great room, they came to a cluster of smaller buildings, and here Charon docked the boat. “My masters will see you shortly. Follow that path.”
They walked as though in a daze, down a little winding path, full of pleasant crystal statues. “Ice,” said Fenrah suddenly. “It’s all made of ice.”
She was right. What Laylan had taken for crystal was ice, spun and carved in the most fantastic patterns. It also explained the extreme chill of the place. They were all shivering. The path led them shortly to one of the buildings, where they entered a room not made of ice. Here they found leather upholstered chairs and a pleasant fire. They all gathered round it and were still rubbing their hands over it when another door opened and three persons came into the room.
Laylan was never sure afterwards what kind of shelts they were or whether they were shelts at all. They wore boots and thick coats and gloves. The first was a laughing giant—the tallest person Laylan had ever seen, with fiery orange hair and broad shoulders. The second was a grey-haired ancient, his face lined with a thousand stories. The third was a freckled boy, perhaps ten, certainly no older than twelve, and the color of his hair and eyes seemed, by some trick of the light, to be ever shifting.
“Welcome to Glacia,” boomed the giant.
“Welcome to the City Out of Time,” wheezed the old one.
“Welcome to the Building,” piped the boy. “May you find what you seek.”
Fenrah sank to one knee. “Si
rs—” she began, but the giant interrupted her.
“No need for that, lady. We are not the Firebird or even his prophets. We are elements with a function to perform. Are you here because you wish to change the past or the future?”
“The future,” said Fenrah in some surprise.
“Ah, the future is always easier,” said the old one. “But there will be a price.”
“I am Melchior,” said the giant, “and the toothless one is Gaspar. You can call the boy Bal. Come walk with us in the Old City. That is where we usually do business.”
“Though we’ve not done business with shelts in many a year,” growled the old one.
They followed the strange trio out of the dome to a high balcony, where the river plunged down in a waterfall. “Over there,” pointed Melchior, “is the New City, the place where the Unibus live and work.”
“There,” gestured Gaspar, “is the Old City, from which the building has moved on, and nothing changes.”
“And there,” said Bal, “is the cleared space and raw cut ice for the City-Yet-To-Be.”
“I don’t understand,” said Sevn. “How can all of this be under Selbis?”
Gaspar cackled. “Silly wolfling, of course we’re not under Selbis.”
“We are deep in the Snow Mountains,” said Melchior, “folded into a space that not even the little reindeer shelts could find.”
“The river,” said Laylan weakly.
“We bought the river,” chirped Bal. “Long ago, from the wizard Gabalon. We paid a fair price for it.”
“Bought the river,” whispered Sevn.
“Well you didn’t think we’d just take it, did you?” asked the boy indignantly. “We do have rules!”
“We folded the river into our city,” said Melchior. “I understand from Charon that you want it back?”
“Yes,” said Fenrah.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” said the giant. “As Bal says, we paid a fair price, and we use the river as raw, shapeable water for our Building.”
The Prophet of Panamindorah - Complete Trilogy Page 45