A small band of soldiers appeared when Mors and his people reached the Avenue of Weavers. One look at the mob was all they could handle. They fled.
“They’ve no stomach left,” Mors said, when told. “It was not so in the days of the Great Hest. Every warrior would have given up his life to defend the great lord.”
“Li El does not inspire—nor deserve—such devotion,” Riverwind said grimly. “And the sight of a thousand armed diggers would take the fight out of almost anyone.”
The way was uncontested to the very doors of the palace. The massive metal portals stood apart, beckoning them to enter.
“We have to go in, yes,” said Catchflea. He made no move to be the first.
“It’s my place to lead,” Mors said. He gently pried Di An’s fingers loose from his hand. “But not you, Di An.”
“I go where you go,” she whispered.
“Not this time, An Di.” Mors flipped back his black mesh coat and drew a slender, elegantly worked sword from a hidden scabbard. “This will be my staff,” he said.
He went forward, waving the sword back and forth before him. Halfway to the doors, flames erupted in the entry. The diggers shrank back. Di An cried a warning to Mors.
“I feel no heat,” he said, matter-of-factly. He kept walking.
“What do you think, old man?” Riverwind asked.
“I feel heat, yes.”
Mors walked right into the flames. The shocked cries of hundreds of diggers changed to relieved sighs as he stood in the fire without any sign of pain. “There is no fire here,” he said.
“An illusion!” Catchflea exclaimed.
“Undone by the one she blinded,” Riverwind said.
Knowing that the fire was not real, the others walked hesitantly through it. Riverwind felt nothing more than a slight prickling of his skin.
The interior of the palace was a shambles. Stone furniture was smashed, woven wire tapestries were shredded. Soot stained some rooms, and here and there dead warriors were found. In the hearth room, the statues of Hest’s heroes were despoiled. Bronze heads and limbs littered the floor. The blue globes were gone from their stands. None were to be seen anywhere.
The great hearth blazed as it had for centuries. Mors tapped his sword against the circular hearth and swung around it. He could not see the wreckage of the palace. And he could not see what had suddenly caused the others to stop in their tracks.
“Mors,” said Riverwind tightly.
“What is it?” The blind elf paused.
“Unchain my hands, Mors.”
“When I choose.” Mors turned toward the throne room.
“Unchain him, please,” Di An said. Mors paused, hearing something in her strained voice.
“What is it?” he asked.
“We’ve found Vvelz,” Catchflea said.
In the center of the hearth fire the giant statue of Hest had been set. Chained to it was Vvelz. His mouth was open and his eyes stared out at them in an expression of pure horror, but he made no movements, made no sound. The weird, silent flames bathed him. Catchflea described the awful tableau to Mors.
“Li El’s work,” he said simply.
“Can we help him?” Di An whispered.
“He’s dead,” Riverwind said, turning away.
“I misjudged him,” Mors said. He stood, his face turned toward the cold fire. “We would not be here now if Vvelz hadn’t fought off Li El’s magic.”
Diggers filed into the room in awed silence. For generations, the palace had been as unattainable to them as the stars. Since the destruction of their temples and the massacre of their priests, the diggers had looked upon the palace as home to their gods. Now their bare, dirty feet trod the mosaic floor where Hest himself had once walked.
“Come, all of you,” Mors said when he heard their hushed whispers. “We have taken destiny into our hands.”
He found the door to the throne room closed. Mors lifted one metal-shod foot and kicked the double doors open. He strode in, sword in hand, and said, “Come out, Li El. Don’t make me hunt for you.”
High, feminine laughter filtered through the golden curtains surrounding the throne. Mors grimaced and thrust out his sword. It snagged in the curtains. He slashed hard left and right, bringing down a long section of the drapes.
Seated on her golden couch was the queen—erect, hood in place, every fold of her gown arranged just so. Her hands rested, one atop the other, in her lap; the delicate fingernails had been gilded. She looked like a statue of gold and ivory.
“You always were melodramatic,” Li El said. Riverwind and the others came to the gap Mors had cut. Li El’s gaze flicked briefly to them, then returned to Mors. “Not to mention crude and predictable. What do you intend to do now? Kill me?”
“There’s fear in your voice, El Li. I can hear it,” Mors replied sharply.
“Don’t call me that!”
“Why not? There was a time you enjoyed me calling you that.”
“Never,” she snapped. The queen stood, the wrinkles in her robe falling in a crinkle of gold. “You can’t assume any affection from me, Mors.”
Mors gestured, snapping his fingers, and the quartet of diggers hurried forward with Karn. They laid him carefully on the floor at Mors’s feet.
Li El’s haughty expression wavered. “They told me he was dead.”
“Do you care?”
“He is my son!”
Mors shrugged. “Mine as well.”
“Son!” Riverwind exclaimed. Catchflea murmured an affirmative, and the tall plainsman said, “You treated him like a foolish servant. You never had a kind word for Karn.”
Li El flinched and raised her hand. Sparks crackled in the air. “He is a warrior. I had to make him strong. There is no place for kindness between a sovereign and her servant!”
Mors lowered the tip of his sword to Karn’s throat. “Come here, Li El,” he said. She didn’t move. “Come, or I’ll kill him.”
She stared down at her son’s motionless body. “You couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t I? What do you think?”
Li El stepped down from the dais and approached Mors. Her golden hem swished over the mosaic floor. Riverwind had a sudden pang of fear for Mors. If she should touch him, would Mors fall under her spell as he had?
But the blind elf knew what he was doing. He presented the point of his sword to Li El. She deliberately let the sharp steel dig into the gold of her robe.
“Now,” she said very softly. “Kill me, Mors. Run me through. It’s what you want to do, isn’t it?” The throne room rang with tension. Mors stood with his head turned slightly away from the queen, listening for movement. When he did not immediately strike, a tiny smile lifted Li El’s lips.
“You can’t do it,” she whispered. “You can’t hurt me.”
“I cannot,” Mors said, whipping the sword away. A small, involuntary gasp was drawn from Li El as the sword point flicked across her stomach. “Because it is not my place to take personal revenge. It is for them to say what happens to you.” He waved over his shoulder to the mass of awed diggers.
Li El laughed. Sweet aromas wafted through the room and far-off chimes tinkled. “Them?” she said. “How can they possibly judge me?”
“A trial,” Catchflea interjected.
“Yes, a trial,” Riverwind added. “Let the new masters of Hest judge the old.”
The queen’s laughter died. A frown darkened her face, and she raised her hand to point at the Que-Shu men. Riverwind braced himself for a spell, but Mors heard her moving and brought his sword tip up to her neck, just below her right ear.
“If you so much as breathe, I’ll have your head off right now. And you know I will do it.” Li El lowered her hand. Mors smiled, tight-lipped and sardonic. “I like this notion of a trial. We can seat a panel of diggers as judges, and I will act as their advocate.”
“No,” she hissed. “You would let a band of dirty, ignorant diggers decide my fate?”
“Who bett
er?” Riverwind said. “They know your cruelty and indifference better than anyone.”
“Never!”
Mors’s smile evaporated. “It will be done.”
So intent was everyone on the exchange between Mors and his queen, no one noticed as Karn opened his eyes. He took in the scene, heard his mother and father trade hateful words. When Mors resolved to have Li El tried and executed, Karn heaved himself to his feet. The plight of his mother and queen had steeled his weakened body to action. Pale, stooping, his face white with pain and a lifetime of anger, he attacked.
“Mors! Watch out for Karn!” But the blind elf didn’t know where Karn was. He swung his sword in a fast circle to ward off his son. Karn waited until the blade had passed and leaped on his father. Riverwind and Catchflea moved to help Mors. The diggers began to shout, and Li El lifted her hands …
She uttered a single word in an ancient tongue, and a veil of impenetrable darkness fell upon the room. Over all the tumult Mors’s voice roared, “Block all the doors! Use your own bodies if you must—but don’t let them escape!”
Riverwind felt several small bodies bounce off him and go reeling away in the darkness. A door clanged against stone, and a shaft of reddish light intruded on the queen’s spell. A door to the hearth room had swung open as diggers pressed to get out. The eternal flame, cold and unchanging, still burned on the hearth, though its light was muted. And even more weirdly, the statue of Great Hest and the body of Vvelz glowed like beacons. Black shadows flitted to and fro between Riverwind and the light of the hearth.
A scream. Riverwind knew a death cry when he heard it. “Catchflea! Are you all right?!” he shouted.
“I’m alive, tall man.”
With equal suddenness, the darkness ended. He spied Catchflea across the room, bent over, examining something on the floor. Riverwind pushed through the crowd and found the old soothsayer standing over the bleeding body of Karn.
“He grappled with Mors and lost,” Catchflea said sadly.
Riverwind asked, “Is there anything you can do?”
“Not for a wound like that. If Vvelz were here …” Catchflea covered his face with his hands. “It’s all too much, tall man. Just too much.”
“I know.” He laid a hand on Catchflea’s shoulder. “Where are Mors and Li El?”
Catchflea raised his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t see them.”
The diggers tore down the wall of golden curtains and discovered a secret door. It was ajar. Riverwind appropriated a sword from a Blue Sky fighter and kicked the door fully open. He found himself at the bottom of a stairway leading up. He charged up the steps, the old plainsman and a hundred diggers on his heels. The stairs bent right and continued up. They ended on a long, straight corridor. Riverwind charged into the corridor.
And was rudely shoved back. There seemed to be nothing in his way, so he tried again. Once more an invisible barrier threw him back.
“Li El has blocked this way!” he said.
Di An wormed her way to the front of the crowd. “We can try the promenade,” she panted. “Out there!”
The front facade of the palace featured a long balcony, which ran along its second story. The whole group reversed direction and ran downstairs. Di An led the Que-Shu men to a concealed set of steps on the outside of the building that reached the promenade.
“How did you know this was here?” asked Catchflea.
“Master Vvelz took me this way before,” the girl replied.
The diggers were inflamed now, outraged that Li El might have escaped and might have hurt their leader Mors, too. They tore the ornamental metal shutters off the windows and climbed in. Some returned to unlatch the heavy doors off the promenade so the Que-Shu men could enter. The mob ransacked luxurious sleeping rooms and found great stores of food, which the hungriest fell upon ravenously. The whole affair was degenerating into a riot of plunder when the cry went up that Mors had been found.
Riverwind ran, covering long stretches of polished metal tile with his long legs. Di An puffed along in his wake. He skidded to a stop when he saw the floor ahead had fallen in. Mors stood on a narrow fragment of stone, surrounded on all sides by a deep drop. He and the stone he stood on floated in midair.
“What holds up your feet?” Catchflea said.
“Li El’s joke,” Mors replied from his perch. He was calm, but deeply angry. “The floor collapsed around me, as you see. I cannot move. If I even lift one foot, the spell supporting this stone will instantly end.”
“We need a rope,” Riverwind said.
Di An arrived and saw his predicament. “Mors!” she cried.
“Be still, Di An. I’m not dead yet.”
Di An grabbed the digger nearest her and yelled in his face, “We’ll do a mine pick-up! Understand?” The digger agreed enthusiastically.
Riverwind moved out of the way as fifteen diggers threw themselves face-down on the floor. Twelve sat on top of their fellows, linking their arms around the legs of the digger behind. Ten more climbed over them leaning farther and farther out over the hole. Eight more piled on top of this, then six on top of that, making a lopsided pyramid of living bodies. The two diggers who clambered far out to the end were just an arm’s length from Mors.
Di An scaled the living mound as the last link. She crept forward on all fours, deftly finding holds in the sea of bent backs and entwined limbs. She reached Mors and wrapped her thin arms around his neck.
“An Di, what are you doing?” he asked in shock.
“Saving you,” she replied. “Climb on.”
The digger pyramid swayed and groaned under the added strain of Mors’s weight, but it held. He climbed to safety, then Di An returned. All the others, from the farthest back, climbed home. As she held Mors’s hand tightly, Di An explained to an astonished Riverwind that the technique was one the diggers used to rescue comrades in mine disasters.
“Never mind that now. Li El must be found!” cried Mors.
It didn’t take long. The diggers were ranging all over the palace, and a group that was looting the upper floors found Li El hiding in an alcove. She sent them shrieking down the corridor.
Mors and Catchflea entered the end of the hall just as Riverwind and a swarm of armed diggers filled the opposite end. Li El ran toward them, meaning to scatter them like chaff, until they presented a hedge of unwavering sword points. She turned back toward Mors.
Her golden hood was down, and her dark hair was in disarray. She lifted her arms as if to cast some dread spell, but her arms shook so violently that she dropped them quickly to her sides. Desperation gleamed on her sweat-sheened face.
Mors approached her slowly, waving his bloody sword.
“You never understood, you stiff-necked, stone-brained fool of a warrior. I had to be hard! The people of Hest have no place in the Empty World. Up there we would be just another small city-state. Here, in the caverns, we are citizens of an empire.”
“An empire of darkness and silence,” Riverwind said. “Let the Hestites find the sunlight again!”
“Your world is dying, yes,” Catchflea put in. “Your air is full of smoke and your crops will not grow on magic much longer. If the Hestites stay in these caves, they’ll all eventually die. Your race will disappear.”
“Lies!” Li El stamped her foot and a dull boom echoed through the palace. She was weak with fatigue. “Humans only want to exploit we of the elder race. If you lead the diggers to the surface, Mors, they will end up as the barbarians’ slaves.”
Her crazed eyes roamed the crowd and saw only angry, bitter diggers, the slaves she’d mistreated for decades. She stared at the bloody sword as Mors drew closer and closer. Suddenly her back straightened and one shaking hand lifted the golden hood back over her hair. Li El turned toward one of the windows in the corridor.
“No!” cried Catchflea. “Stop her, Mors!” Li El opened the chiseled iron shutters. They were four floors above the Avenue of the Heroes. Without another word or a single backward glance, Li El st
epped through the window.
Riverwind threw himself at her, too late. He saw a brief flutter of gold, then the queen of Hest disappeared from his view.
He turned to Mors. The Blue Sky People’s leader rested his hands on the pommel of his sword. His face bore an expression of complete satisfaction.
“Why didn’t you stop her?” Riverwind asked.
“A last favor to a beaten foe.” Mors’s mouth hardened to a thin line. “And to a lost love.” When the plainsman didn’t say anything, he went on. “Don’t you realize? This is the same window from which the last son of Hest leaped, so many years ago.”
Chapter 12
Embassy to the Sky
A numb silence settled over Vartoom after the death of Li El. Slowly, gradually, the people of Hest began to realize what had happened. Acting on advice from Catchflea, Mors ordered all the mines and foundries to be closed for two days. Spontaneous celebrations broke out in the streets, and the Blue Sky People circulated freely, spreading their message of hope.
Mors did not occupy the palace. Instead, he set up a plain iron chair in the Hall of Arms and governed from there. The warriors of Hest came to him and pledged their fealty. Most he gruffly dismissed.
“Your loyalty is like a bar of pig iron,” he told them. “Heavy to bear and mostly useless!”
The old soothsayer urged him to moderate his tone. “It’s strange for you to despise them for failing to protect Li El, yes. Why not make them your brothers again? Give them reason to want to protect you?” he said.
Mors fidgeted a while and replied, “There is something in what you say.” He turned his unseeing eyes to Catchflea and added, “You are wise for an overgrown barbarian.”
“Is size a measure of wisdom?” Riverwind asked.
“Not in your case,” the elf leader snapped.
Later, when the Que-Shu men were alone, Riverwind complained about his position, now that the queen was overthrown. “Mors still thinks of me as a threat,” he said. “And I’m not! All I want is to leave Vartoom and resume my quest.” Each day he remained in the underground world seemed like an eternity to the tall plainsman. His thoughts were filled with Goldmoon. How long it had been since he’d last seen her!
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