Trillium - Sky Trillium Part 28

"Yes. And before I go, I will either see the balance restored, or see an ending! You and your precious sisters served my purposes by finding the lost pieces of the Sceptre. Powerful as I am, I was unable to do that. The talismans had been concealed by the sin-dona, so that no human would ever again use them as tools of aggression. When the Flower's magic led you to them, I was quite surprised. I had intended for Orogastus to use the Cynosure of the Star Guild to hunt the talismans down. Instead, I had to use the Cynosure to save him from you."

"We only defended ourselves against his evil magic-"

"Enough of this nattering! Why should I justify myself to a young upstart? You and your sisters are as cowardly as the original College of Archimagi. Their solution to the first world imbalance was to command the people to flee into the outer firmament! Since you are also afraid to use the Sceptre, you are irrelevant. Only Orogastus matters now."

"My sisters and I did not fully understand the nature of our destiny nor that of the talismans. Given time, we might well have seen that the Sceptre is the world's only hope, and found a way to use it safely."

"Time!" barked the old man contemptuously. "There is no time! Orogastus now has the Burning Eye and the Three-Headed Monster. He must be given the third piece of the Sceptre at once-and he must use it. The earthquakes that herald the end have already begun. Soon the continental crust will fracture in a thousand places. Newborn volcanoes will belch forth their dust, darkening the sun and poisoning the frozen sea for all time. Only the Sempiternal Ice will endure!"

Having made this awful p.r.o.nouncement, he faltered, seeming to be overcome with a profound weariness. He waved one gnarled hand feebly, and two Sentinels of the Mortal Dictum appeared from the viaduct inside the grotto. The living statues with their crown-helms and belts of shining blue and green scales stood side by side, serene and deadly, with golden skulls tucked beneath their left arms.

"Haramis," Denby whispered, "give me the Three-Winged Circle. Command it to rest harmlessly in my hands and I will set you free at once, so that you may rescue your sisters Anige! and Kadiya. Refuse me and they will both meet an atrocious death."

She rose again to her feet, touching the trillium-amber of her talisman, which hung on its chain at her neck. "No. I think you are bluffing."

"Am I? See for yourself."

He stepped up to the world globe and touched it. The geographical features vanished and the globe became a great scry-sphere filled with pearly vapor. The mist congealed into images, and Haramis saw a dismal chamber containing many instruments of torture. Chained to one wall and sitting in a pile of straw was Kadiya, her face blank with hopelessness. She was watching as a squad of laughing guards headed by a Star Man dragged in four unconscious prisoners. One was a redheaded individual unknown to Haramis, another was King Ledavardis of Raktum, the third was Prince Tolivar, and the last was Anigel herself, whose dirty garments were half torn from her body. The villain wearing the Star dropped the Queen roughly upon the straw and began fastening rusty manacles to her wrists.

Haramis cried out in horror, and the vision within the globe was instantly extinguished.

"They are in Sobrania," Denby said without emotion, "captives of the new Empress, Naelore, who seized the throne of that country after personally decapitating her brother Denombo. You should know that tomorrow morning your sisters and their companions will be tortured to death... unless Orogastus has your talisman in hand by sunrise."

"He-he would never do such a thing!" Haramis a.s.serted. "Not even for the Three-Winged Circle."

"Perhaps not," the Archimage of the Firmament conceded. "But I a.s.sure you that the lovely Naelore will do so with enthusiasm, now that a mysterious magical voice has planted the notion in her mind. The Empress is most vexed because Oro-gastus neither attended her coronation nor otherwise a.s.sisted in the consolidation of her power following the coup. Instead, he closeted himself in a room of the imperial palace with the two talismans. His purpose is to refamiliarize himself with their operation... so that he may find you."

"Me?"

"You."

"To-to compel me to surrender my talisman to him?"

"Not even that. The besotted imbecile would merely bespeak you sweetly, to continue his futile attempts to convert you to his point of view through what he thinks of as logic. And love." Denby gave a snort of derision. "Faugh-he is a disappointment! A sentimental fool who must be goaded back onto the correct path of action. The Empress Naelore will see to it-with my help."

"I-I don't understand."

The old man began to laugh uncontrollably, and only when his mirth trailed away into a coughing spasm did he regain control of himself. "Oh, it's such a delicious irony. Naelore has an unrequited pa.s.sion for Orogastus, just as he has for you, my dear! The Empress has already presented her beloved sorcerer with Kadiya's talisman. Poor woman-she was so crestfallen at his aloof response. She thinks now that if she were able to give him your talisman as well, Orogastus would be more grateful. Especially if such grat.i.tude were a condition of her bestowing the gift... as the mysterious voice in her ear suggests."

"You vile manipulator!" Haramis cried out in loathing. "Must you treat everyone like a game-piece?"

"Evidently, yes. It's very tedious." He held out his brown hand. "'The Circle. Give it to me now, or take responsibility for the final conquest of the Ice."

"You arrogant bully!" she cried. "I don't believe that Orogastus is the world's only hope-and I think that you yourself also have doubts. You are so proud and so consumed with guilt that you refuse to give consideration to any solution but your own!"

"Give me the Circle," he repeated, "or I will command the sentinels to take it from you. As you well know, they are able to kill."

"You would violate your Archimage's oath?" she asked him steadily, already knowing the answer.

He said, "Don't be silly. I would do whatever is needful."

Abruptly, Haramis rushed at the old man with arms stiffly outstretched, giving him a sharp push that sent him staggering back into the arms of the sentinels, squeaking with surprise. Before he could act to stop her, she darted into the grotto's interior and said, "Viaduct system, activate!" She stepped through the black circle and disappeared.

"You shall not defy me!" Denby screamed. "Not like she did!" He limped to the viaduct and entered it, calling out to the two sindona to follow.

He had programmed this magical portal to open into his own study in the Dark Man's Moon. When he emerged he saw Haramis striding toward a round door beside the big observation window. It was the same one he had bade her beware of when they first met, six days earlier. He shouted, "Stop!"

"My trillium-amber will open any lock," she said, turning to face him. "Even this one." She lifted the wand, and the golden droplet nestled amidst the wings glowed in response.

"Don't!" he wailed, standing frozen between the two sentinels. "That hatch is a relic of the Days of Vanishing and opens now into the airless void between the Moons. We will both die if you open it, and the talisman will be lost forever!"

"Then so be it," Haramis said. "At least your diabolical game will end. Let our world meet whatever fate that the Triune intends-not one that you dictate."

"Stop her!" Denby shrilled to the sentinels.

Before Haramis could command the door to open, the right arms of the sindona whipped up, their fingers pointing directly at her. She saw two beams of near-invisible light lance out, stop a scant handspan away, and reflect back as her trillium-amber flared. A stunning explosion rocked the room. Blinded and coughing in a sudden cloud of dust, she fell against the closed hatch, clapping her hands to her face in an instinctive gesture of protection. She expected instant death; the sentinels should have blasted her body to ashes, leaving only her seared cranium intact. But instead she heard a great clatter, as though a devastating hailstorm a.s.saulted the room. Finally there was silence, broken only by a faint bubbling moan.

Lowering her hands, she saw through the dust that the study was in ruins, except for a small area immediately surrounding her. The leather chairs had been shredded, the desk and table and sideboard reduced to kindling, the bookshelves toppled and smashed, the ancient scientific instruments battered into shapeless, twisted metal. On the floor were deep piles of sharp ivory-colored fragments, mingled with colored bits of blue and green mosaic. A single undamaged golden skull had rolled to her feet.

He lay half-buried in the rubble, bleeding from a hundred wounds. Haramis went to him and knelt, lifting his head. There were no recognizable features within the mask of dusty gore save for his mouth.

"I will call a consoler," she began, "one of the sindona healers-"

"Too late." The words were barely discernible. "The Black Trillium... I might have known... older than the College, older than the Star... Three Petals to wield and the Sky Archimage to guide, if you wish it, Haramis... love is permissible, devotion is not... I only wanted to save it... the poor world."

"I know." She cradled him in her arms. The droplet of amber was dazzling bright. "Tell me how I may return."

"Nerenyi's... viaduct." The two words were forced out with his last breath. Then Denby Varcour, last hero of the Vanished Ones and Archimage of the Firmament, pa.s.sed safely beyond.

She summoned one of the sindona consolers to effect her own healing from the ordeal of the fasting. It was necessarily incomplete, for what she most needed was restful sleep; but afterward she was able to eat and drink and don her white tunic and trousers and her cloak of office in preparation for departure. When she left her apartment, she was astonished to find a throng of other living statues waiting in the lobby outside. There were seventeen servers, twelve bearers, five messengers, another consoler, and twenty-two sentinels.

"These servants are ready," said the consoler who had attended her, "to obey you without question now that the Archimage of the Firmament is no more."

"Will you show to me the operation of the viaduct transport system," Haramis asked, "so that I may choose my destination upon entering?"

One of the messenger sindona stepped forward. "I can do that readily, Archimage, provided that you use a viaduct capable of being programmed. Some systems have a fixed routing. It will require some twenty hours of study for you to learn the programming process."

"So long?" Haramis exclaimed in dismay. "But I must rescue my poor sisters and the others before the sun rises in the land of Sobrania!"

"The viaduct within the chamber of Nerenyi Daral is one of those that is fixed," the messenger said. "It will transport you to the place where you wish to go if you simply step into it.

Furthermore, if you take me with you when you travel, I will be able to reprogram other viaducts according to your commands."

"Thanks be to the Flower!" She gave a great sigh of relief and thought hard for a moment. Then she said, "All of you save this one messenger wait here until I order you to attend me." The gently smiling heads nodded in compliance. "You," Haramis said to the chosen sindona, "lead me at once to the viaduct of Nerenyi Daral."

Chapter Twenty-Nine.

THE magical portal opened into a small grove of trees. When Haramis emerged

into the open, followed by the messenger, she found a dirt road paralleling a bluff beside the sea. The Three Moons shone overhead, framed by racing clouds, and a brisk wind blowing in from the water carried a few preliminary drops of rain. There were glimpses of lightning out to sea, and a faint muttering of thunder. The country round about was rocky and desolate, except for a darkened small villa fashioned of white stone situated on a promontory across the road. Below the house on either side were pebble beaches pounded by waves that were oddly luminescent and sluggish.

"Exactly where are we?" Haramis asked her Three-Winged Circle. The sindona messenger had known only that the viaduct opened in Sobrania.

This is the former villa of the Empress Naelore, said the talisman. It lies three and one-quarter leagues south of the capital city of Brandoba.

"Does anyone abide here?"

It has been abandoned for two years, since Naelore and her chief steward Tazor joined the Star Guild.

Haramis nodded in satisfaction and said to the sindona at her side, "Then we will take possession."

Commanding her talisman to shield the house from the oversight of Orogastus or any other enemy, she unlocked the door and went inside. The place was musty and drear, with a few pieces of simple furniture remaining. The sitting room overlooked the sea, and on one side was a vista of Brandoba up the coast. Fires seemed to be burning in several parts of the city, for the clouds over it were tinged with baleful crimson and orange. There was also a peculiar intermittent red glow in the eastern sky that was too irregular to be the light of dawn.

Haramis studied the scene for a few minutes, sore perplexed, then lifted her talisman. "Why is Brandoba burning?"

Fires were started during the riots that accompanied the invasion by Orogastus.

She put more questions to the Circle until she had obtained a full picture of the successful coup and the way in which Kadiya, Anigel, and the others had been captured. It now lacked three hours until sunrise. The capital city was under the control of Naelore's loyalists and the Star Guild. Denombo, his n.o.bles, and most of the imperial guard had been slaughtered, and many thousands of ordinary people had died in the rioting, which had now almost completely subsided. There was no organized opposition to the conquerors. The new Empress had been hastily crowned, and subordinate kings and tribal chieftains of Sobrania who had been in the city for the Festival of the Birds were tripping over one another in their eagerness to acclaim her.

The woeful tidings did not surprise Haramis. She made no attempt to view Orogastus, recalling that when he last possessed two talismans, years ago during the siege of Derorguila, he was somehow able to scry her whereabouts whenever she had Sight of him. The time for their confrontation had not yet come.

When she tried to ascertain the exact place where her sisters were being held, Haramis was frustrated by the Star's magic that still blanketed the imperial palace, as it had when she first tried to warn Denombo of the Star Guild's peril. Unfortunately, there was no convenient viaduct anywhere inside the palace wall or even hard by that she might use, and so it would not be possible for the sindona to a.s.sist her in the rescue. She would have to transport herself bodily inside in order to save her sisters and their companions. Carrying them away was possible, but it would strain her magic to the utmost; and if Orogastus should discover her, he would undoubtedly be able to frustrate the rescue by using his two talismans.

But there seemed to be no alternative.

Almost as an afterthought, Haramis asked the Three-Winged Circle about the mysterious distant glow in the eastern sky. The reply astounded her.

It is the reflection of molten lava issuing forth from certain craters in the Collum Range, over a hundred leagues away. The peaks are of volcanic origin, with deep layers of ash on their slopes that were formerly covered with snow and ice. The heat of the upwelling lava has melted the ice and created great mudflows, which increase in volume with every pa.s.sing hour.

"Will-will the flow reach Brandoba?" Haramis whispered.

It follows the beds of local rivers. The River Dob, which bisects the city, is a princ.i.p.al conduit. Mud will eventually fill the basin where Brandoba lies to a depth of over fifty ells.

"How long-?"

Less than four hours.

"Good G.o.d! Does Orogastus know what is happening?"

No.

"Show me the flow of mud that menaces the city."

She closed her eyes, and saw a forested valley illumined by moonlight. Many of the trees were tottering and falling into a viscous gray tide swirling about their trunks. One particular tree caught her attention, an enormous thing with lower branches two ells thick. Although its trunk was engulfed, it stood fast while lesser trees on either side of it subsided into the flow.

There were people clinging to its upper parts.

"Holy Flower," murmured the Archimage, wondering who the flood victims might be. She concentrated her Sight upon them and immediately recognized Princess Raviya and Prince Widd of Engi, Queen Jiri of Galanar, President Hakit Botal of Okamis, and the Imlit Duumviri Prigo and Ga-Bondies. Even as she watched, the great tree that gave them refuge shuddered and tilted. Its roots were being undermined by the mudflow.

Haramis let the talisman fall from her hand and sat staring out the window of the villa. If she used her magic to carry away the imperiled rulers, she might not have enough strength remaining to rescue her sisters. But the tree would fall at any moment, while Ani and Kadi were safe at least until sunrise...

Taking a deep breath of resolution, she vanished like the blowing out of a candleflame.

The crystalline vision that signified magical transport darkened and turned into gale-lashed leafy branches. Haramis found herself hovering in midair beside the tree. She lifted her arms and her archimagical cloak became like sunlit snow, lucent white with brilliant blue shadings. The trillium-amber in her talisman was a miniature golden star, held on high like a beacon.

"My friends!" The Archimage's voice rang like a great bell. "I have come to rescue you."

The heads of state cried out in relief, and all except Ga-Bondies, who began to blubber incoherently, hurled questions at Haramis.

"There is no time to explain," she said. "I must take you out of danger, then return to Brandoba and do what I can to avert this impending catastrophe."

"G.o.d help you," Queen Jiri called out from her perch. "The mud is heading straight for the city. We tried to veer away from it to the left while we still rode our fronials, but another great channel full of sludge cut us off."

Old Princess Raviya piped up, "Will you carry us away through magic, dear?"

"Yes," said Haramis. "Two at a time. You and Widd first. Come and stand together so that I may cover you with my cloak."

The elderly couple scrambled upright on one of the larger branches, a task made doubly perilous as the wind blew keenly and the tree continued to sway and sag closer to the mudflow. Haramis drifted close, embraced the Prince and Princess, and all three disappeared. A few minutes pa.s.sed, after which the Archimage alone reappeared. Her occult aura had faded and her face was tense with the great effort.

"Now Jiri and Ga-Bondies," she commanded.

"Where are you taking us?" the stout Duumvir demanded fretfully.

"To a certain villa by the sea, south of Brandoba. It is the best I can do for the time being. Transporting other persons strains my magical powers to the utmost." She put her arms about the two ample figures and vanished once again.

Her return took much longer this time, and when she reappeared she floated with her head bowed, praying for strength, while the strong wind billowed her cloak and the tree continued to subside. The two remaining men, fearing to move, were side by side on a branch less than an ell above the roiling flood.

Prigo called out, "Are you sure you can do this, Archimage?"

"No," she admitted. "And if I falter in midroute, there is a chance we will all three perish in some unknown realm of darkness."

The tree gave a violent lurch as its roots were finally torn loose. It began to revolve and float away, and the gray flux covered the men's feet.

"Take us," screamed Hakit Botal. "Any death is preferable to drowning in mud!"

Haramis s.n.a.t.c.hed them up like a voor stooping for its prey. "Talisman! Transport us to the villa by the sea."

The chime signaling the start of the magical journey sounded, but it was discordant and off-pitch. Her mind attempted to construct the crystal image of their destination, but the magical depiction shivered, a.s.sumed a sinister fluidity, and melted away to formlessness. For many heartbeats Haramis and her pa.s.sengers hung suspended in a pool of prismatic brilliance. Their lungs could draw no breath and the wild chiming sound intensified to the point of agony. Prigo and Hakit felt the arms of the Archimage weaken. The uncanny vision dimmed. They began slipping away from her, smothering, into an abyss filled with mind-crushing clamor.