Footwizard

by Terry Mancour

  “Agreed,” he said, surprised about how affected he was by her reaction to the leviathan. “And, you know, we still have an hour left before we land . . .”

  That earned him a mischievous smile that made her face light up. “I stopped taking the shot last month,” she informed him, as she began unbuttoning her tunic.

  Of course, as soon as the memory got to the good part, Szal pulled me out of it. Each time he did that, it got a little more painful and difficult to bear. Being crammed into the next one wasn’t getting any easier, either. I already had four new people in my mind, trying to control my perspectives and color my thoughts.

  But the next one was the hardest of them all. The host, for lack of a better term, was named Mel Thenreyal, and she wasn’t human.

  It was time to learn about the Alon.

  Chapter Forty-One

  The Sorrow of the Alon

  As humans, I do not think we properly appreciate the tragic nature of the Alka Alon. We see their long lives and sublime elegance as great blessings, but we do not understand the burden of history that places on their shoulders. While some see only pride in the Alka Alon, I have seen their greatest sorrows as they have tried to contend with a universe that is just as hostile to them as it is to us. Long life is no substitute for happiness.

  from the Expedition Book of Anghysbel,

  By Minalan the Spellmonger

  You must understand that, by now, I was getting closer and closer to panic. In the space of seconds, I had new people stuffed into my consciousness, and each one had brought their unique experience to bear on everything I saw . . . and that was causing me problems.

  Perhaps if I’d had a moment to rest and reflect, I could have controlled myself a little more, but Szal was relentless. I could feel his presence behind the veil of my consciousness. It felt like he was taking pleasure in my discomfort, but then I had no real basis for that, save intuition and a fundamental belief in the spiteful nature of the universe.

  From Lieutenant Colonel Andrews, I was pushed into another life, on another world, another head . . . this one with pointed ears.

  I could tell at once that something was different, as I was thrust into the mind of another. It wasn’t the femininity or even the race of my host that was striking.

  It was magic. Sweet magic.

  For the first time in my ordeal, I could feel magic once again. It was different than how I felt it, but the sensation was distinctly there. The perception of invisible forces and arcane connections was woven all around me. It was more subtle magic than I was used to, and less pronounced . . . but it was there. It was as if one of my arms had been tied down for so long, I’d almost forgotten about it, and it was suddenly free. Indeed, it swirled around my hostess as I tried to absorb her memories and adjust to her personality and surroundings. But there was magic all around us.

  Mel Thenreyal looked respectfully at the chalice in her hands as she sang the ancient Rite of the Moon. The satellite was still low, near to the horizon where the mountains met the sky. Thenreyal sang the rite mournfully, tonight, though the words were of peace and the melody was sublime. For beyond the fullness of the moon was a bright speck of light like a slash across the sky. The Dreadstar, though that hadn’t always been its name. Once it had been called Ninasvel, and it had been much dimmer.

  As her songspell enriched the soil and plants of the orchards with the raja energy they needed to prosper, she felt a twinge of despair. If what the Versaroti and Amalekti sages said was true, soon the Dreadstar would vanish . . . and with it the ability to conduct the rites. That was unimportant, compared to the other calamities that would befall their world, but it would be the first sign of the Doom of Alonaral. After that, the entire world would be preparing for its destruction. If the rites failed, there would be no hope against the Dreadstar.

  Only the Alka could raise the power, she knew, and they were entrusted with the care of the other Alon. Or they were supposed to be. There were several kindreds who saw the shorter-lived creatures of Alonaral to be there for their use, amusement, and sport, not their protection and guidance. Even some in her own Avalanti household were inclined to act despotically with the other Alon, treating them as servants or even slaves. It was contrary to the Spiritsong she served. As she lowered the chalice and took a single drink of the pure fluid within, she felt a pang of regret for that. The Avalanti, especially, were supposed to be devoted to the Spiritsong.

  But that wouldn’t matter, soon, she also knew as she ended the song. How her relations treated their Tal and Bunri wouldn’t matter. If the kindreds did not tear themselves apart first, the Dreadstar would end their suffering.

  “That was lovely,” her mother called from just outside of the ritual circle – the banath, I suddenly knew. Only the Mel of the shrine could step within the banath. “When you have composed yourself, your sister has arrived and would like to see you.”

  “Merethel?” Thenreyal asked, surprised. Indeed, she nearly dropped the chalice, before returning it to its place on the altar. “She hasn’t come back here in a decade.”

  “She’s been occupied with her studies,” her mother said, diplomatically. What they both knew was how her younger sister had done more than entered into her instruction. She had been involved with one of the radical elements at the great city of Lonair. The Versaroti youth who made up most of the academy’s students had been agitating, the last few years. Merethel had naively indulged in the extremism some of the groups proposed.

  It was all just nonsense, Thenreyal knew, the excitement and inexperience of youth coloring their perspective in the face of approaching doom. And it was all completely predictable. The young did not want to seek their potential when calamity was a certainty. Of course, they would seek some solace in radical ideologies. Their planet was dying.

  “What truly brings her back here, Mother?” she sighed.

  “You will have to ask her,” her mother said, stiffly. “She would not speak with me about where she has been or who she has been with. Only her sister the priestess.”

  “Because as a Spiritsinger I am sworn to discretion and may not divulge her confidences,” nodded Thenreyal. “That does not bode well.”

  “I take your point,” conceded her mother. “I’ll have her wait for you in your chambers.”

  Merethel was already seated on the prime cushion Thenreyal usually reclined on in the afternoons, after her rites. She looked healthy, a little mischievous, as always, but there was something else about her, something new. A newfound seriousness, Thenreyal guessed, as she gave her sister a bow.

  “I’m sorry I missed the moon rite,” she began, as Thenreyal directed the squat Bunri servant to fetch them refreshments. “I haven’t seen it in ages.”

  “A decade, at least,” sighed the older sister, as she settled into the second, lesser cushion in the circle. “Mother says you have been busy with your studies.”

  “You know very well I haven’t been,” her sister disagreed. “I’ve been looking for a way to save our people.”

  Thenreyal had to laugh at that and did. Merethel was flighty and flirtatious, hardly the kind of Alkan to turn toward the kind of scholarship being employed to contend with the Dreadstar. All manner of experts had been doing that for centuries, to no avail.

  “This world is doomed,” Thenreyal said, shaking her head, sadly. “When the Dreadstar implodes, you know what happens: in a mere two centuries, the Withering Light will shine forth on us. In a mere thousand years, the gravitational forces of its mass will begin to draw our very sun toward it. In five thousand years, – five generations, Merethel – the Dreadstar will consume us, sun, sacred moon, and all of Alonaral We are doomed,” she repeated.

  “The planet is doomed,” Merethel conceded. “I said I was trying to save my people. While everyone has given up hope of contending with the Dreadstar, some of us have been looking toward . . . escape,” she said, in a near-whisper.

  “Who?” demanded Thenreyal sharply.

  �
��The Draolani,” her younger sister said, narrowing her eyes as Thenreyal gasped. “Yes, yes, the ruthless Draolani – out of power, out of favor, and discredited. But they have the power to save some of us if we act quickly and decisively.”

  “Save some of us? How?” she asked, perplexed.

  “The Avalani Molopor,” Merethel said, with a note of satisfaction. “The same way we came to this world, if legend is to be believed. My . . . friends think that it can be used to open a portal to safety.”

  “How?” Thenreyal demanded. “And to where?”

  “Someplace with raja energies,” she said, confidently. “In fact, my friend Icaranal has already discovered one. He’s a Starseeker. He’s made contact with another world, a world with great raja potential. He and his colleagues are hoping they can strike a bargain with the indigenous race for us to go there by portal. But . . . not all of us,” she said, warningly.

  “What? What do you mean?” Thenreyal asked, her head swimming.

  “The Draolani only want to bring a few of the kindreds through, if they can strike a bargain,” she explained. “And only a few of the servitor races. The ones that matter,” she said.

  Her callous response angered Thenreyal, but she suppressed the urge to take her to task over it. As one of the last of the Spiritsingers, she saw all sapient life as sacred and worthy of respect, no matter how ephemeral the other races were. But that was a minority opinion even among her open-minded kindred. They accepted their role as rulers over the other Alon with grace, compared to some of the other kindreds, but they ruled, nonetheless.

  “Which ones matter, to the Draolani?” she asked, instead. That sect had very austere opinions on the other Alon, she knew. Over many things, actually. They were ruthless traditionalists from several kindreds who had been thrown from power several generations ago, but who lingered on the margins of Alkan society as an irritant to the current royal councils that ruled Alonaral.

  “The Avalanti, the Versaroti, the Nofani, the Rulathi, the Farastamari, the Molcanari, and a few clans of the Imlaradi – the ones who keep to the old traditions. Maybe a few of the Kalitremi because they supported the Draolani during their reign. But none of the Taramasi, the Erenarmi, or the Valamari. And probably not the others.”

  “Those are the three largest kindreds!” Thenreyal declared, astonished. “Why not bring them?”

  “Because they eschewed the old ways and overthrew the Draolani,” Merethel observed, “and the Draolani hold a grudge.”

  “One that would condemn them to death on a doomed world?” Thenreyal demanded.

  “Yes,” her sister stated, simply. “They can find their own new world. They will have time. But the plan is to seize the Avalani Molopor long enough to transfer the kindreds – and a few breeding pairs of servants – and escape while we still can. Once the Dreadstar implodes, the Withering Light will make such feats . . . difficult.”

  Thenreyal hung her head, shame and confusion overcoming her. She thought about the thousands of servants her House was responsible for and wondered which among them the Draolani would permit to pass. She thought of the hundreds of thousands of Alkans who would be stranded here, if the Draolani’s plan came to fruition.

  But there was little answer for it, save death. The Draolani were survivors by design, and if any sect could find a way to save themselves, it would be the authoritarian Draolani. Their society had attracted some of the most talented and technically adept among the kindreds, particularly the Versaroti, who tended to be meticulous experts in their crafts. They found a welcome home with the Draolani. They feared death more than anything, save chaos.

  “So when does this seizure happen?” she asked, despairing.

  “That depends on my ability to recruit my sister to the cause,” Merethel explained. “My sister, one of the last trained Spiritsingers left. One of the few on this world who can open the dimensional portal that can allow us to escape.”

  “But only if I accept the Draolani’s dictates about who may pass through,” she pointed out.

  “Which gives you a tremendous amount of leverage in negotiations,” Merethel observed. “The Draolani are dedicated to saving our people. They need you to do it. If you have . . . requests, they will be considered, if you cooperate. Without the Draolani’s organization and resources, as well as their connection to this new world, it will be impossible to construct an exodus from this doomed world. You need each other.”

  “I will . . . I will consider it,” Thenreyal sighed, lacing her fingers together. “You put me in a poor position, little sister. Betray the Spiritsong and condemn millions to save myself and our clan or die here with everyone else and let the Spiritsong itself die with our people.”

  “Cataclysmic events have a habit of simplifying things, don’t they?” Merethel challenged. “The entire planet will die, Thenreyal. Everyone. The Spiritsong will be extinguished. Our race will be extinct. Without raja, half of the plant life on this world will be wiped out in the first century. You have a choice between survival or extinction.”

  “A choice that demands a fundamental moral compromise,” Thenreyal said. “I cannot believe that we must treat with the Draolani, of all sects, to do this. Is there no other way?”

  “Do you not think it would have been tried in the two millennia we have known the Dreadstar is going to collapse? With every sage spellsinger and scientist bending their minds to the problem? Alonaral is doomed, Thenreyal. With your assistance, the Alon will not be.”

  She sat a long time in quiet thought, while her sister regarded her. The doom of the Dreadstar had been known since before she was born. During the five hundred years she’d spent studying the complex intricacies of Spiritsinging, the question of how to protect the world from the Withering Light had been foremost in her purpose – without result. Nothing could prevent the Dreadstar from collapsing under its own mass into a singularity. Nothing could shield Alonaral from the Withering Light it would produce. The world was doomed. But the people, as Merethel had observed, need not be.

  “I’ll do it,” she sighed, finally. “May the Songspirit forgive me, but I will do it. I just hate that I have to bargain with the Draolani to do it,” she said, looking at her hands in despair. They were betrayer’s hands, now.

  It was about then that I realized that Draolani was Alka Alon for enshadowed. And it was about then that Szal the Yith ripped me out of poor Thenreyal’s memories and pushed me into Prince Maralathus.

  I was back on Callidore, once again. And I was in the mind of Maralathus, prince of the Second House of the Imlaradi kindred of Alka Alon, heir to High King Amasarel’s rule over the glorious First City of Tyranalon. His hand grasped the haft of a spear, and the slender point was at the throat of his cousin, Parasemus.

  “I yield, Cousin!” Parasemus insisted, raising his hand in defeat. Maralathus lowered the spear, which was blunt and unlikely to wound – a practice weapon. “Once again you have bested me,” his cousin admitted, as he strove to catch his breath after such an energetic bout.

  “I thank you for the practice,” Maralathus said, with a bow. “In truth, you are the only worthy opponent in the realm.”

  “I’m still a better archer than you,” Parasemus added, as he replaced the spear in the rack.

  “That is open to question,” smiled Maralathus, indulgently. The two had been friendly rivals since childhood. “But you are superior in raja, I will admit.”

  “Only because my grandmother was a Spiritsinger,” Parasemus sighed. “You’re the one who discovered the process to create irionite from the Versaroti. But no one is your master at verse. I come back from distant lands to find your Saga of the Moonriders being spoken of everywhere in Tyranalon. Everyone loves their prince’s masterpiece.”

  “I credit my friends in the Vamari grove,” chuckled Maralathus. “It is their story, not mine. The Met Sakinsa take a long time to tell any story, but Sournut and Fastroot know my house well enough to know what to summarize. I cut out the boring parts, put the
exciting parts into verse, and try to keep the pacing and suspense interesting.”

  “It’s a masterpiece,” Parasemus sighed. “While I hate to concede yet another accomplishment to my august cousin, I heard it performed a month ago. I cannot stop thinking of it, since.”

  “Thank you, Cousin, you are very gracious,” he said with a bow, as they walked back toward the palace through the garden.

  “I know brilliance when I hear it. But that begs the question on everyone’s mind, Maralathus: what is your next masterpiece? And when will it be ready?”

  “I’ve actually been working on a kind of sequel, of sorts,” the prince said, cautiously. He rarely discussed his poetry until it was ready to be performed, but Parasemus was a special case. He could be trusted to hear about it without discussing it with others. “Something that my friends in the grove have been telling me about. The ‘Theft of the Queen,’ it’s called. It concerns the Vundel. Another saga about this world before we came here.”

  “That does sound intriguing,” agreed Parasemus. “Especially after the March of the Metalonin against the Formless, in your last work. That was good verse,” he said, simply. That was high praise from stoic Parasemus, Maralathus knew.

  “It concerns the last seed of the Celestial Mothers,” the prince began, as they passed by a murati tree, one of the static Met Sakinsa varieties that the Alka Alon had adopted for its beauty and its powers. He began to explain the story, adopting an intent vision and his storyteller’s voice to do so.

  “The precious egg was the hope of their species. The last Celestial Mother had been grievously wounded, and had produced only one seed – egg,” he corrected. The Met Sakinsa saw everything in terms of seeds, not eggs. “It was heavily guarded in their deep breeding lairs, but though the promise of a new future was precious, it was not invulnerable.