The Archons of the Stars

by Alison Baird

  In fact Ailia thought the lesson cruel to the bull, but she said nothing: there was little point in annoying the man. “We must destroy this so-called Dragon King,” he continued. “So that we may be free again. It is not enough merely to kill the priests. The creature they venerate must also be removed. No longer will the citizens be forced to bend the knee as miserable slaves to a cult.”

  Ailia bridled for an instant, recalling the cruelty under Duron’s reign: the rule of the strong over the weak, the abandonment of the ill and poor, the murderers like Radmon who went unpunished. But she recalled also her mother’s words: “We cannot force the mortal creatures to live as we wish them to. However it may hurt us to see them suffer as a consequence, we must let them be.” It hurt terribly to watch, particularly when those suffering were people she knew, like Mag and her daughter. But there was no other course. The Archons still preferred human tyrants, who could be cast down as Khalazar of Zimboura had been, to sorcerers whom mere mortals had little chance of defeating.

  Duron said, “We must kill the dragon-sorcerer first. The conquest of the cult will be an easy matter without its deity to strike fear into people’s hearts.”

  “Then you will need our help to deliver your world. We have sorcerers with us, and you have not.”

  Unexpectedly Duron smiled—a smile without mirth or warmth. “There you are wrong,” he said.

  From the shadows behind him stepped a tall figure, which unhooded itself. Ailia nearly gasped. Here was yet another face that she recognized. It was Erron Komora.

  “This man is an enemy—one of the Loänei!” she cried.

  “I have never denied I am a Loänei,” Erron replied. “I have offered Brannion Duron my aid to rid him of the Dragon King. It is Mandrake’s fault that we Loänei have been discovered by the Loänan again, and are in danger of being driven into exile or destroyed. I do not believe the boasts of Naugra: they will not win this fight, and my people will suffer for it. But if we are freed from Mandrake’s rule, we will live in peace with our Merei neighbors. You have my word.” He bowed, but his black eyes stayed on Ailia’s face.

  “You believe this?” Ailia cried, turning to Duron. “He only wants power for himself. Mandrake said Erron wanted to kill his own father, and rule the Loänei. His plan was thwarted when Mandrake took the throne. He means to use you, and then take this world for his people, enslaving yours. If we help you, Overseer, Erron must go.”

  “I will not proceed without Erron Komora,” Duron said. “He is of the utmost importance to my plan, for he can provide us with knowledge of sorcery and the means to defeat it. In return we will give him our numbers, thousands of willing hands to wield swords. He wants to be free of the dragon-cult that has oppressed his people as much as ours, and those Loänei who are faithful to Komora are too few in number to challenge the hierarchs now in power. After our victory is won we will part company, each going to his own people and lands. But the Loänei sorceries will not again enslave us, never fear. Komora himself has promised that, or I should never have allied with him. We have followed his counsel, and made for ourselves weapons of iron.” He stood, and for a moment looked as unbending as if he himself were cast of iron. At his side, they now saw, a leather scabbard hung. He laid his hand on the sword hilt that jutted out from it. “With these weapons we will defeat our foe. And we can defend ourselves from any sorcererous treachery. We need no aid from you, but if you wish you are welcome to join your ranks to ours.”

  The Tryna Lia and her friend asked for a moment to confer, and drew apart in order to discuss the matter.

  “I think perhaps we should agree, and ally our forces with his,” Damion said to Ailia. “That way the Merei in this world can say they won their own freedom. It would be better than simply delivering them.”

  Ailia said nothing for a moment. “It would be good,” she said, “if they are able to say this. But the Overseer is more likely to portray himself as their savior, if I know him. When he reigned in Loänanmar before, he filled the streets with statues of himself. The same thing will happen this time. Even if he himself never strikes a blow in battle, the people will feel beholden to him, rather than give the victory to themselves. I do not want to see them as slaves, either to him or to the Dragon King.”

  “But if they must choose the less evil of two masters? Would you not say the Merei who commands no sorcery is the better one? Mandrake can send his human minions to seize all iron in the realm by force, and then reign supreme with the aid of his magic. But if the people do not like Duron, they can rise against him as they rose against Khalazar.”

  Ailia gave a reluctant nod. “You are right, as always. Let us go tell Duron we will join our army to his.”

  It was done: the people of this land and world were now a step closer to liberty. The cause was just. But what allies they had gathered to it: the treacherous Komora, and the cruel Overseer.

  15

  Wind and Wave

  MANDRAKE, RETURNED TO DRAGON-FORM, stood gazing out the wall of his palace—a wall that was all window, being constructed entirely of adamant. It gave on to watery green depths, where fish swam in gleaming schools only a wing’s length away from him, while groves of kelplike weeds waved languidly in the gentle currents in place of climbing ivy. This was not a drowned castle, for it had never stood in air. The Archons had built their dwellings wherever they pleased, whether on land or on the beds of lakes and oceans. This one was set atop a sea-mount. There were long tunnel-like corridors with clear walls that passed from one part of the edifice to the next, so that one might seem to walk through the deeps amid the rocks and corals of the seabed; and there were tubes filled with seawater that ran up through the air-filled chambers and halls, so that sea creatures might pass through them and amuse the occupants. After the Archons’ time a Dragon King had made his dwelling here, and then in turn his Loänei descendants had taken the place for their own. Many dwelled here now, and they had furnished the halls to their taste, while dragon-lanterns of various glowing hues drifted about the high ceilings, serving for lamps. It was a safe fortress, for it could not be reached from the surface save by sorcery, or by dragons and other creatures capable of diving to these depths. Even the full light of day could not reach here, doubled in strength as it was: morning announced itself only by a feeble lightening of the green gloom beyond the window-walls.

  Yet the security of his retreat did nothing to ease Mandrake’s mind, which was troubled more and more with each passing day. In particular, he was disturbed by the increasing intrusions of mental images, ideas, and insights that were in some way alien to the rest of his thoughts—that had become, in effect, a secondary voice whose counsels were in frequent conflict with his own decisions and desires. The inner voice was not new: he had sensed it ever since childhood, and always assumed it to be a part of his own consciousness. But it seemed to have grown almost independent of late. There was a form of madness, was there not, in which one heard imaginary voices advising one to undertake strange and terrible deeds?

  You are not mad, the voice said, or seemed to say. The dragon looked down at his shadow, cast on the stone floor by the living lantern above him. I am a part of you, it said in his thoughts, far more than that shadow. I am deep within you, and without me you could not be. I am your strength. It is through me that you will be able to resist the sorcery of cold iron. Could you command such power on your own?

  Had it in truth been the “demons” who had manipulated his body in Loänanmar, or had it been some other, sinister agency? The same that promised him this unlooked-for mastery over iron? First his body, and now his will seemed to be influenced by some elusive other, whose power grew with the passing of each weary hour in this place. There was, he knew, another sickness of the mind that caused it to become divided—to become like two separate minds, each struggling for mastery. It was an alarming thought, but he dared not seek help. To appear weak before his allies could well prove fatal. The goblins dared not harm him, but the Loänei were anoth
er matter.

  Erron Komora had fled his court—no surprise in itself: the young Loänei was not a skilled mage, and not one to stand firm in the face of danger. That was why he had delayed so long to destroy his own father. Mandrake could not say why he was troubled at this particular defection. He had disliked and distrusted Komora, and felt no regret at losing him. But the impression of impending disaster was growing on him.

  You must go to Ombar, counseled the inner voice. The Morugei are surer allies than the Loänei. They wish for you to live and lead them; not so the dragon-folk.

  Ombar again! No, he would not go there. He was safe here. The enemy hosts had not penetrated his weather-defenses, nor entered the deeps. He would remain in the dragon palace, and he would keep his current shape. His wounds had begun to heal with the passing hours, and it was curious how easy it was now to assume and to retain draconic form. Indeed, it was the human form that was becoming harder to take—as though his mind had begun to forget how to do it. That, surely, was a positive sign: if his Loänan magic were stronger, he would be able to repel his foes.

  In Ombar it would be stronger still, the soundless voice persisted. Better to go there now, than remain here waiting for your fortress to be taken. I can give to you the power that defies iron. But even that cannot save you, unless you go to Ombar as I command.

  The dragon began to pace about his glassy prison again.

  THE TRYNA LIA AND HER friends returned to their own encampment—along with Twidjik, who had chosen to remain with Ailia, though Mag insisted on staying behind—and shared with the others what they had learned of the rebels. “It appears the people of this world are not helpless after all,” Damion told the Nemerei. “But they mean to use weapons of iron, and that will hamper our own sorceries. Still, it would be a great triumph if they could win freedom for themselves.”

  “If freedom is what they will have,” said Ailia. She was standing apart, gazing out of the tent’s opening. Jomar looked at her.

  “You don’t sound very hopeful,” he observed. “What is he like, this Overseer?”

  “He is a tyrant,” she replied. “He neglected his people when he was not being cruel to them. His rule was brutal. His servants were brigands.”

  “Well, maybe the people will depose him too in time,” suggested Lorelyn. “Look at what happened to Khalazar.”

  “Not if we make a great hero of him,” said Ailia. “They will never be rid of him, then.”

  “Still, it is better than being ruled by Loänei,” Damion reminded her in his gentle voice. “They can rebel against a mere man; they have little chance against the sorcery of the dragon-people.”

  “Yes—of course, you are right,” Ailia acknowledged again.

  The other dragons and cherubim were returning from their aerial battle, flying into the twilit ruins like great gliding shadows. They were no closer to breaching the cloudy barriers of the sea-castle, though they had slain many of its defenders. But some of those had been Loänan, and the dragons were filled with grief and bitter self-reproach over the deaths of their kin.

  “Torok was among the slain, I hear,” Auron told Ailia. “He was a traitor to our kind, but I am sorry he is dead, and I am glad it was not I who killed him. And some of the earth-dragons who answered his call to serve the enemy were very young.”

  Some of the dragon-folk, they had learned, were still guarding the hill-palace in Loänanmar, having given up on the defense of the whole city. The few humans there were now in a panic, trying to arm themselves with pitchforks and scythes.

  “I suppose we should take the city back,” said Ailia. “People can’t go on living in the jungles like this. They need to go back to their houses.”

  “Later, perhaps, we can meet with Duron’s rebel army and march together,” said Jomar. “Any Loänei left in the city will feel our iron, and flee. But Mandrake should really come first.”

  Suddenly Twidjik, who had retreated underneath the draped table in the corner of the tent, gave a cry and sprang out again. “’Ware danger!” he shrieked.

  They all leaped to their feet, and Jomar with an oath turned the table over. A small creature, little over a foot in length, had somehow crept into the tent and underneath the table: a lizardlike creature, with beak-shaped jaws and four pairs of claw-footed legs. It scuttled on these, like a huge and horrible insect, nearly to Ailia’s feet.

  Ailia stumbled backward. “A basilisk!” she cried.

  The reptile’s beak gaped, preparing to release its deadly venomed breath. But in the next instant Jomar struck it with his sword, with such force that he cut it in two. Both halves wriggled sickeningly for a few moments, and then they were still, though the jaws of the creature continued to snap open and shut.

  Ailia was very pale as she looked about her. “Are there any more? Those creatures are deadly!”

  They hunted about the tent, but saw nothing. “It was alone, then,” said Taleera.

  “It might have killed us all. I didn’t even see it come in,” Ailia said, still shaken. “The poison could have killed everyone in the tent. Twidjik has saved us.”

  “Was it only chance that brought it in here, though?” Damion queried. “Or design?”

  “The jungle is full of dangerous creatures . . .” Ailia began, and then her voice faltered. She looked down into the staring eye of the basilisk, and it seemed to her that it returned her gaze. Almost she was mesmerized by it. For an instant, as it lay there, she believed she saw in its expanded pupil the same dark intent that had shown briefly in Mandrake’s. Could the same power that had mastered the sorcerer also wield dumb brutes like this? A power that was like her mother’s in Arainia, but ruled the living creatures instead of merely influencing them? The world-soul of Nemorah was as malevolent as Arainia’s was benign. Elarainia’s daughter was a trespasser in another ruler’s domain. Here it was Mandrake who could draw on a planet’s power to augment his own.

  A hasty search of all the surrounding tents unearthed no more basilisks or other venomous reptiles. That confirmed the suspicions of Damion.

  “How likely can it be,” he said, “that the basilisk would choose Ailia’s tent to enter, and that it merely happened to approach her first? It was an attempt on her life.”

  “No one was seen anywhere near the camp,” Jomar said. “The sentries would have caught a human intruder.”

  “Then it may well have been sent by sorcery. A Dragon King can command lowly creatures like these to do his bidding, simply by imposing his will upon them.”

  “Then,” vowed Jomar, “tomorrow we move against the Dragon King, and put an end to this once and for all.”

  AT MID-MORNING THE FOLLOWING day Ailia and her Nemerei stood with the Overseer and his counselors on the white shore, looking out to sea. Great waves with tumbling foamy crests were rolling in, like the ranks of an attacking host, and the sky was filled with gray clouds rising leagues into the air: the outer wall of the great typhoon that protected Mandrake’s retreat. It was a battlement that advanced like an army. The storm was shifting closer to the shore as it grew in size and strength, but still its eye protected the submarine stronghold of the Dragon King.

  Since the enemy’s fortress lay underneath the waves, their soldiers could not march upon it: they massed in the jungle instead, awaiting their orders to advance on the city of Loänanmar. The Nemerei, not being able to use their sorcery in the presence of so many iron weapons, had come instead with Ailia to assist in the assault upon the Dragon King. Erron Komora had provided them with a vessel, unlike any seagoing ship they had ever seen before: a crystal ship of the Loänei, built in olden times when they still had the craft of making and shaping adamant. These were the “glass ships” of legend that Ailia had read about in books, vessels that needed neither sail nor oar, but could be driven by the power of thought—so long as the captain was a Nemerei. And like the little glass-bottomed boats that the Arainians made to reveal the beauty of the coral reefs, so these crystal barques with their transparent hulls
gave their passengers views of what lay beneath the waves. The Loänei of latter days could no longer take draconic form to dive in the deeps, and so had come to rely on these ships to show them the watery realms that once had been theirs. With such toys as these the descendants of the Loänan had at once amused themselves and at the same time reminded their human thralls of their masters’ superiority. Also, the adamantine keels and hulls were indestructible. Such ships could not be stove in and sunk, not even if they were cast up on sharp rocks. Only a Loänei ship could face such a sea as this.

  “Your weapons of iron must be left behind,” the Loänei lord had told the Overseer. “Else we cannot sail the ship with our magic.”

  “How then can I fight the enemy’s magic?” demanded the Overseer.

  “No matter,” Erron replied. “You could not descend to the deeps in any case. Our Loänan will join with those of the Tryna Lia, and drive Mandrake forth from his refuge. From the ship you will observe as this takes place, and you can employ any other weapons you may have. Spears and arrows tipped with flint or bronze, and swords of steel may be used. The ship will serve mainly to give the Loänan a platform on which to rest between dives—else they would have to return to land, wasting time. If you do not wish to come aboard, you need not. But I think you will prefer to tell your children and grandchildren that you were there in the battle.”

  Slowly they all waded into the sea and boarded the ship by the ladders that were let down for them. Once all were on board the Loänei captain sent his craft skimming forth upon the waves. It had no sails to be caught in the wild gusts and torn, and though it tossed about wildly enough, it could not be overcome by the strength of the waves that sought to push it back to shore. The glassy hull rode up each frothing green slope, and plunged into the watery valleys beyond, without any of the unnerving creaks or groans of stressed timber, and no water leaked into the chambers belowdecks. Ailia looked through its clear side, trying to keep her feet as it heeled and rolled. One moment she was standing above the waterline, and the next she was plunged into the midst of the surf so that she could see into the depths of the sea. An eerie, pale glow came from far below, as of some phosphorescent life dwelling there. But as the ship forged further and further into the storm, she saw that the glow came from the clustered lights of an undersea castle. Then as the ship drew nearer, all the lights vanished.