01 - The Sundered Realm

by Robert E. Vardeman

She gasped at the rough pressure of his hands. She threw away all restraint and began to drive Fost wild. Time ceased to have meaning. In a vague, detached corner of his mind not blinded with a red fog of lust, Fost thought that Luranni had not lain with a man for some time. But then, he’d coupled passionately with Moriana the night before, and here he was, as ready and randy as if he’d been six weeks on the road with only his dogs for company.

  Not even the thought of Moriana could quell his rampaging desire, such was Luranni’s magic. Sweating, straining, groaning, they built the sweet electric tension until it burst free in loin and brain and fused their souls with ecstasy.

  When the fury was done, Luranni fell forward, laughing her springtime laugh. For a long time they lay still, with murmurings and small caressings, content with the feel of each other close.

  “I see a question building in your eyes,” Luranni said after a while. She raised herself to look at the courier’s face. In the soft glow of the fool, his features looked curiously young and vulnerable. “I haven’t the power of thought-scrying, so you’ll have to speak it with your lips.”

  She broke into giggles as he darted his head up and kissed her on the nose. He patted her upturned rump affectionately, but his face grew serious at once.

  “This Rite of Dark Assumption,” he said. “What did it achieve? The demon cannot be summoned or released, you said. Did the ritual serve just to do away with troublesome rivals to the throne?”

  A shudder passed through her naked body. She rolled off him, clinging to his side for comfort. “No, not that. Or rather, not that alone.” Her golden eyes were grave. “So great was the magic with which Felarod bound Istu that the demon cannot fully be wakened by any magic men know, though the People could perhaps achieve it—if any of them survive and still remember. But Istu’s dreams are filled with power and vengeance. The rulers of the Sky City tapped into them, winning the good will of the slumbering demon with sacrifice.”

  She lay unspeaking for so long that Fost thought she had fallen asleep. Just as he was about to stir, she spoke again. “Even asleep and bound, Istu’s strength is vast. With that power augmenting their own sorcerous knowledge, the rulers of the city challenged the empire during its most powerful epoch.”

  Fost nodded. He knew of the wars between High Medurim, at the peak of her glory, and the Sky City. Eventually High Medurim had triumphed, with the aid of mages he now guessed to have come from Athalau. But victory had proven costly. Driving the human Sky Citizens back into their floating stronghold hadn’t required such cosmos-wrecking magic as had the defeat of the People, but it had sapped the strength of the empire enough so that in a century invading barbarians from the hot Northern Continent had seized the Sapphire Throne and started High Medurim on its own road to decay.

  “So they gave up the Rites?” he asked.

  “Julianna the Wise, who wrested the crown from Malva Kryn and founded the Etuul line, forbade it as an abomination. The rulers of the city would no longer rule through power gained from the anguish of sacrifice.” Absently, she stroked the great muscles of his chest. “Our sorcery is still the strongest in the Realm, but not what it once was.”

  Her voice rang dim and far away in Fost’s ears. Too much exertion and too little sleep had finally wore him down. The thought fluttered through his mind that Synalon, from what he had learned, was formidable enough without the aid of sleeping Istu. The fool’s-glow began to dim. Fost slipped into deep sleep with his hand resting on Luranni’s silken flank.

  “Greetings, cousin.” Moriana looked up from the bottomless well of her misery to see Prince Rann standing in the doorway of the torture chamber.

  Like a malevolent spirit he glided across the floor, feet soundless on stone worn smooth by the feet of generations of torturers and their victims. His limbs were cloaked in a robe of dark gray silk that shimmered in the light of the bracketed torches. With his hair slicked back from his ruined, aristocratic face, he looked like an idle noble come to while away the night at some mild diversion.

  Which is exactly why he comes to this room, she thought. As another might compose sonnets or contemplate ancient statuary, Rann took his rest and pleasure in the contemplation of pain. For all her physical courage, Moriana shuddered at his touch.

  The examination was as thorough and impersonal as any physician’s. Few chirurgeons possessed the eunuch prince’s knowledge of human anatomy. None could have gained it as he had, by testing living bodies to destruction in a thousand hideous ways, without violating the powerful oaths binding them to the cause of healing.

  “You are well, I judge, outside of being helpless from the ward spells Synalon cast on this cell,” he said, rising. “A few bruises caused by that lout of a captain. I daresay he’s sorry. At least he seemed so when Terror ripped out his liver. Your hurts are nothing the blessed queen can lay to me.”

  “By what right do you call her queen?” Moriana flared. “I am the younger by seven minutes. By law I am ruler of the city!”

  He smiled. “Cling to your pride, my dear. It’s all you have. Soon enough even that will be torn from you.” His face darkened. He was still bitter at being prevented from torturing his cousin.

  He has been scrupulous in following Synalon’s orders regarding her sister. Moriana’s torn garments had been replaced with a clean but shapeless linen smock, prisoner’s garb; the chains that bound her wrists and ankles were carefully padded with silk to prevent chafing. Synalon’s instructions hadn’t mentioned Moriana’s mental well-being, however, so Rann had conveyed her here to what he liked to refer to as his study, where incense and scrubbings with lye had done little to mask the raw stench of death and pain.

  The sound of voices made Rann turn. Moriana tried to calm her heart as she looked to the doorway. She felt her sister approaching, and knew that she was about to learn her fate. She was not fool enough to imagine for an instant that Synalon had denied her to Rann out of any mercy.

  If Synalon will not allow Rann to torture me, the princess thought, what horror does she have in mind?

  “…but for the really jaded taste, as I perceive Your Majesty’s to be,” a voice was saying as the stately Synalon came into view, “the sensations to be had from sexual congress with the male of the kine kept by the farmers of the city-states, the so-called hornbulls, cannot be matched.”

  Looking neither right nor left at the implements of torture, Synalon entered the chamber. She wore a gown of crimson silk, slit to reveal flashes of creamy thigh as she walked. She held Erimenes’ jug in the crook of her arm. Her eyebrows were arched in a look of feigned shock.

  “Hornbulls? My dear sage, whatever makes you think I’d consider such bestiality?”

  “Recall that a beast may carry a greater load than any man, particularly in his loins.”

  From the corner of her eye, Moriana saw Rann blush.

  “I can’t see why you allow this demon to speak so familiarly to you, my queen,” he said stiffly.

  Erimenes sputtered.

  “He’s not a demon, Rann,” Synalon said, laughing. “He’s but a ghost. And I do not mind his speech. In truth, it makes my loins tingle, and I almost wish his spirit were cloaked in flesh. What might a man learn of love after fourteen hundred years?”

  “Thirteen hundred and ninety-nine,” the spirit said pedantically. “Had I a body, O Queen, I doubt even I could teach you. The way you served those soldiers in the barracks, six at one time! Phenomenal. Still,” he went on unctuously, “I’m sure Prince Rann, wise though he is, cannot fully appreciate such—”

  Rann went the color of Synalon’s gown. “Were your spirit clothed in flesh, demon, I’d teach you more about pain than ever Synalon could of rutting! When my cousin is done with you—”

  “Enough!” Synalon’s voice cracked like a lash. She turned to her sister, who sat listening without interest to the byplay. “Moriana, beloved sibling, rejoice! I have consulted the stars, and they bode well. Glorious destiny shall be yours.”

  “What a
re you talking about?” she asked, fighting the dread that threatened to fill her mind with madness.

  Could she? She wondered wildly. No, it cannot be! Not even Synalon would dare such a thing.

  But as soon as her sister parted lips to speak, she knew it was so.

  “I speak of the Rite of Dark Assumption, sister dear, left unperformed these past five thousand years,” Synalon said.

  “No!” Moriana shrieked. The word rang as though all the agony suffered in this room in thirty millennia had condensed inside her. “No, no, NO!”

  Synalon’s laugh rolled around the chamber. Rann smiled hugely, in admiration and anticipation.

  “Say,” Erimenes said, “will someone have the courtesy to explain the joke?”

  “Synalon!” the captive princess screamed. “You can’t mean it! To disturb the demon after so long—do you think you can control it? Do you?”

  “I have learned much that our weak mother turned from knowing.” From a mask of inhuman exultation, Synalon’s face became that of a crusader, stern and righteous. “Too long has the Sky City hidden its greatness. To think that for five millennia the most that our magic has accomplished has been the summoning of tame salamanders to light the pleasure palaces of fat bankers in Tolviroth Acerte! Our people cry out for a return to the greatness that was ours when we cast the damned reptiles from our city, and the groundlings shrank in terror from the shadows of our warbirds. Only the dark wisdom of Istu can win us back our power.”

  Moriana stared at her. Her features were as white and stiff as sunbleached bone. “What if you can’t control it? Humans never truly dominated the spawn of the Dark Ones, and the Rite of Dark Assumption has been lost for generations! How do you know that you won’t destroy the city instead of bringing back its greatness?”

  “Perhaps I don’t.” Synalon smiled. “What does it matter to you? You’ll not know it, sister dear. Your soul will be joined with Istu’s in unholy matrimony, after he’s worked his will upon your wretched flesh.”

  “This sounds interesting,” Erimenes said.

  The black-haired princess ignored him. “Two days,” she said. “In two days the stars will be right for Istu to receive his bride. Prepare yourself for your groom, sister mine. The nuptial hour approaches.” With Erimenes’ jug tucked under her arm, she left.

  “My lady.” Rann’s voice stopped her in the doorway. “Two days is a long time. I fear the hours will weigh heavily upon her.”

  Synalon scowled impatiently. “What is it you want, cousin?”

  “I can lighten the waiting for her.” He held up his hand to forestall a furious outburst. “I know ways to, ah, amuse Her Highness without working any harm on her body.” He smiled wickedly. “Trust me.”

  “Trust you?” Synalon sniffed derisively. “Do you take me for a fool?” Rann did not answer. He stood stock still regarding her with his eerie, pale eyes.

  Synalon felt that anticipation would be the most exquisite torture her sister could possibly endure. But Rann was more than an able servant, he was the best military mind in the Sky City. Her future plans required his skill and cooperation. She wouldn’t get them if she thwarted his desires too often.

  “Very well,” she said with a sigh. “Do as you wish. But I warn you, Rann, do not damage her.” She paused, pursing her lips in thought. “You are of royal blood, my cousin,” she purred. “I wonder if Istu would be wroth if you took Moriana’s place?”

  Rann stared at her, and she had the satisfaction of seeing the flicker of an emotion in his eyes that was normally alien to him. It was good to remind him that she could still make him fear.

  “It’s something to think about,” she said. “Come, Erimenes. There are no hornbulls in the city, but perhaps a stud from the kennels will serve as well….”

  In earnest discussion with the dead philosopher, Synalon’s voice faded down the corridor until it was lost in its own diminishing echo. Rann’s face had recovered its serenity. Rubbing his hands together in a washing motion, he turned to his captive.

  High Councillor Uriath was a busy man, and Fost found small cause to complain that he’d been unable to meet with the dignitary the night before—Luranni had produced an astonishing variety of suggestions for activity more diverting. So diverting, in fact, that Fost had no clear memory of the end of the night’s festivities. He recalled a sensation of soaring, caused as much by the giddiness of sheer exhaustion as by ecstasy, then a plummet straight into darkness. He remembered nothing of his dreams, but he woke with a vague unease that stayed with him all day. He suspected he’d never sleep untroubled as long as he remained in a city where magic permeated even everyday activities.

  Luranni woke long before he did. She looked fresh and unruffled. When he dragged himself to a mirror to shave, he shuddered at the sight. He looked as if he should have been squatting by a campfire in the Thails, with a bone through his nose.

  He found water to shave, warm water heated by a captive elemental in the basement of the building. Running water wasn’t uncommon in Medurim or Tolviroth, with heated taps available to those who could pay for imported Sky City magic. Such luxury was in short supply on the steppes, however. Fost felt a touch of shame at how much he enjoyed it. Like most Realm-road couriers, he professed a disdain for civilized comforts.

  “How do you get the water up here?” he asked, rubbing his face with a towel. “It’s heavy to haul up by balloon.”

  Luranni only smiled. She had grown accustomed to his outlandish ignorance. From a small kitchen on the other side of a beaded curtain came the sounds and smells of cooking, as a servant prepared breakfast. Fost’s belly growled like a hungry sled dog.

  “We haul some up from the surface,” the girl said. “But we are careful about conserving it, and we use our salamanders to distill waste water for use again. Also, we have drains and cisterns to trap rainwater. And, of course, there are the aeroaquifers.”

  “Ara-what?”

  “Aeroaquifers. There are places in the city where water can be brought from the air, as though from an aquifer on land. There are fountains in many streets—I’ll show you some today. We don’t know how it’s done. Magic of the Fallen Ones, you see. My father says we’d work it out fast enough, though, if our rulers paid more mind to practical matters and less to intrigue.”

  “I thought your father was one of the city’s rulers.” Fost seated himself on cushions across from Luranni. She wore a shift blazing with color, scarlet, orange, vivid blue. Somehow, the combination did not affront his taste.

  “He is an important man, chief of the Council of Advisors. The Council must be consulted on important decisions and is charged with managing the accession of a new monarch when the old one dies—like now. But they cannot make policy.”

  The curtain parted with a sound like wind through dry branches. The servant entered with that peculiar walk servants accomplish without seeming to move their feet The servant was a small, wizened person of indeterminate sex, dressed in a shapeless robe. Luranni and her guest were given bowls of steaming, clove-scented tea.

  “I don’t imagine that sets well with your father,” said Fost.

  “My father is an ambitious man.” Luranni started to sip her tea, halted with the bowl poised beneath her lips. “But his true concern is the welfare of the city, of course.”

  Fost masked his smile behind his own vessel. Luranni’s qualification had come a beat too slow. He wondered what Uriath really had in mind. Yet the underground members he’d met so far had seemed devoted to Moriana. He shrugged and tasted his tea. The hot brew scorched his tongue and tickled it at the same time. He found the effect refreshing.

  “When do I meet your father?” Fost asked, feeling impatience begin to prod him again.

  “This afternoon, surely,” said Luranni.

  Fost choked on his tea. “Great Ultimate!” he gagged. The servant reappeared, leathery androgyne face wreathed in steam from plates heaped with food. “What in the name of Ust’s claws am I going to do till then?�
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  Accepting her plate, Luranni said to him, “I’m sure well think of something.”

  Luranni proved no less inventive by daylight than by the soft, steady glow of her lightfool. It was a weak-kneed and somewhat befuddled Fost who set out with her several hours after breakfast for the promised tour of the City in the Sky.

  Before they left her apartment, she insisted on disguising him. If the corporal in the orphaned gondola had survived his return to the ground via the guidelines, the Monitors might have a description of the man who had gained entry to the city in such an unorthodox fashion. Fost groaned at the inconvenience. He didn’t doubt that the authorities might be looking for him, but he had little confidence in Luranni’s concept of what constituted a disguise. He didn’t fancy wandering through strange and hostile streets wearing a plaster nose and a bright orange wig.

  His fears were unfounded. Luranni produced a black eyepatch.

  “Only this?” he asked, skeptical.

  “Any seeing you will remember only the eyepatch. None will be able to describe what you really look like.” He nodded, remembering his days in Medurim spent as an apprentice cutpurse. His master had insisted that the most effective disguise was also the simplest.

  When Fost peered at himself in a mirror, with the patch in place and his cheeks given a gaunt appearance by a shadow drawn below either cheekbone in plain charcoal, he had to admit that no one would mistake the hungry, one-eyed wolf reflected back for Fost Longstrider.

  “Raffish,” he muttered, not displeased with his new appearance.

  “Handsome,” said Luranni, smiling. She took his arm, and they left the apartment.

  As they wended their way through the tangle of the city’s streets, Fost’s impressions of the night before were confirmed. The lines of architecture took the eye upward along tapering buildings with peaks hundreds of feet above street-level. It took periodic nudges from Luranni’s elbow to keep him from gawking like a hayseed. Nothing would attract unwanted attention faster than acting like an obvious newcomer to the city.