by Lyndon Hardy
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Foul Air
JEMIDON turned his head away in disgust. Utothaz's body, sprawled on the tablestone, could barely be seen beneath the huddled forms of his manipulants bending over him. The smacking of lips competed with the whistle of the air. He looked in the direction of the wind. In the distance, he could just discern a tiny speck against the reddish background and, around it, the shading to brown that indicated the concentration of toxic fumes. They had soared for another dozen sleeping periods, and the careful observations through the telescope had long since confirmed that there were no deviations in their flight. By whatever chance, none of the iodestones they carried had a repulsive counterpart on the poison-spewing rock. And no other lithons were anywhere in sight. Still, it seemed little enough reason for Utothaz and the others to abandon hope so quickly.
Ponzar appeared at Jemidon's side and tapped him on the shoulder. "It is no more repulsive than the way you tear the flesh from the bone with your teeth," he said. "And if he is not a criminal, we leave the skull-leave it so that the features remain when the body is cast off into the sky."
"The air is not yet so foul that it cannot be endured," Jemidon replied, "Utothaz has not breathed his last." He shook his head in amazement that the captain still spent his entire day in language drill. Even the accent showed hints of fading.
"He may just as well." Ponzar twirled the shovel blade. "The struggle to hold the laws bound was too great. He knows that he will decouple and move to another vertex only a few times more. It is better for him to give the rest the sweetness of his marrow while he is still fresh."
"But the manipulants," Jemidon protested. "They bicker on who is to be fed upon next. What have they done to deserve such a fate?"
"It is our way," Ponzar said. "Without the pilot to guide them, their lives are as lost. The bounds will be broken. There will be no resonances. It is for few others that they can manipulate the stones."
"It seems to me that the last thing you would want to do is rid yourself of the only talent that has any hope of reversing your direction."
"We will hold trials for another pilot. Although, even if we find one in those who remain, it will little matter, Our flight is swift. There are no other lithons nearby."
"How can you be so calm?" Jemidon growled. "Your very life is in peril. This may be your last soar across the sky. Why are you not straining to invent a scheme, some plan that will save us all?"
"It is the way of the great right hand," Ponzar said softiy. "Valdroz wanted us repulsed after he had plundered our harvest. But I do not believe that he would want us to be pushed where the air hangs foul. No, we must have been touched by the great right hand as well. Life is repetition, but Skyskirr do not fly forever. For each comes the time when the tugging lithons are far away and the drift leads without change to the walls. For this small stone, that time is now, and we must accept. Our duty is to give our fellows the pleasure of the feast before it is too late to be enjoyed."
The captain eyed Jemidon speculatively. "And as to your own marrow. We have treated you well. Better than some of the other lithons might. It would be to your honor if you do not wait before offering yourself and the female for the benefit of the rest."
Jemidon instinctively drew his arms back to his chest. "I am not Delia's owner," he said. "Any more than you are of me. She will decide in her own mind how she will face the end, if it is to come."
Ponzar closed his eyes for a moment and then pointed with his shovel at the speck in the distance. "The question is not if, but when," he said. "Make peace with the great right hand in your own 'hedron. We would prefer your gift freely given, but will not wait long for it."
Jemidon scowled and turned his back. The helplessness of their situation tore through him like stinging acid. More time had slipped through his fingers. Now it was possibly too late for his own world. He looked again at the growing cloud of dull brown. And soon it also would no longer matter here. Not only was he to fail once again, but in a strange universe, far from home, unmourned, and his body mutilated by fatalistic ghouls.
He heard Utothaz cry in discomfort and clutched at the brandel around his neck. Ponzar had refused to tell him more of metamagic, even after the treachery of Valdroz's floater. In total isolation from the rest of the Skyskirr, the captain still was taking no chances regarding Melizar and his suspected return.
Jemidon felt the battered coinchanger at his waist and idly fingered a dozen coins into his palm. Looking down at the mixture of metal, he smiled ruefully. Benedict's puzzle of the twenty-five mixed coins was probably the only conundrum he would solve-a meaningless pastime instead of the foundation of the universal laws. He looked back into the sky and shrugged. A child's puzzle or keystone to the universes. In the end, was either more important than the other?
A hacking cough at his side broke Jemidon out of his reverie. He turned to see Delia leaning against the safety rope and clutching her other fist to her chest. Her skin was pale. Her golden hair hung in limp snarls. Deep wrinkles had appeared under her eyes, and her cheekbones cut sharp angles in her face.
"The air affects you more than the rest," Jemidon said softly. "You should remain in one of the caverns. Perhaps we can rig up a seal so that the most foul will not as readily mix."
Delia snapped closed her lips and tried to gain control of her spasms. She settled slowly to the rock surface and motioned Jemidon to follow, "It is so cold," she muttered. "So cold. I wonder which of the perils will get me first."
"Do not talk that way," Jemidon said. "I have not given up, like Ponzar and the rest. Perhaps some other pilot will change the laws in a way that will repulse us from this outgassing lithon. Perhaps we wilt manage to sail on through to greater possibilities beyond."
He pounded his fist into his palm. "If only I had the wit to master wizardry! Even an imp might give us more resource than we have now."
Delia managed a wan smile. "You have saved me twice," she said. "I have no right to expect more. And if it is to proceed to an end, I could have done far worse than to share it with one such as you."
Jemidon looked into Delia's eyes and drew her close. A few times before, they had huddled together for warmth. But this time she melted into his arms in a way that he knew was different. The passion that he had held in check since the rebuff in Farnel's hut flamed anew.
"You are not without virtue yourself," he said thickly. "A gambler in the markets of Pluton. the organizer of Farnel's presentation, a survivor of the confines of Drandor's tent, the seducer of a rockbubbler sprite.
"That is another part of the mystery." Jemidon paused for a moment. "I had put it out of my mind. How could you possibly get the demon to do as you commanded? He was bound to one of Melizar's manipulants. A master he already possessed. Perhaps wizards can wrest for control of demons, just as the metamagicians contend for the unlocking here."
"I did not seek you out to push the beads about a puzzle," Delia said. "There is little enough time. Come, let us go into one of the caverns while the Skyskirr are occupied with their feast."
"I thought it was my analytical bent that had finally worn down your resistance." Jemidon laughed.
Delia did not smile. "As I said, there is little enough time and certainly no other choice. Let us make the best of it that we can."
Jemidon frowned at her serious tone. "But what if I were the one with the heavy cough and you the more ablebodied?" he asked. "Would you still seek me out? If somehow we return, what then of your closeness?"
For a long moment, Delia was silent. "I do not know, Jemidon." She sighed. "You are a puzzling mixture. Flashes of brilliant insights, caring, and sentiment, but also a skittering focus and a disregard for discipline. I do not know, Jemidon, and abstract conjectures no longer matter. We are here, and the time is now."
Jemidon pulled Delia tighter, and she kissed him on the cheek. He ran his hand down the length of her arm and felt his pulse quicken. But what she had said also began to gnaw at the back of
his mind. Like a piece of sand in the corner of his eye, the words detracted from the anticipated pleasure. He thought of Augusta and the way she had looked when he decided to leave. He remembered the contrast of Delia's coldness when he tested her intent in Farnel's hut.
"It is because you have a need, isn't it?" Jemidon stiffened and pushed Delia away. "On the cliffs of Morgana, beneath Drandor's tent, speaking the charms for Farnel-in each case you gave because of a necessity. An even exchange, one favor for another. And when we soared through sweet air, you were sufficient unto yourself. It is only when you desire a windshield against the cold or the cradle of an arm at the last that you come slithering back. Farnel, Gerilac, Burdon, whoever's comforting presence, it would not matter as long as you get what you want."
"Your pleasure will be as great." Delia's tone hardened. "I do not take that for which I cannot provide adequate compensation."
"Nor do you give without expecting payment in return," Jemidon snapped. "You are a woman with many skills, Delia. I am attracted to you in a way I cannot explain. But my thoughts were not of grateful favors when we raced down the cliffside in Morgana or struggled into the cages above the Arcadian plain." He placed his finger under her chin, raising her eyes to his. "You might try an unfettered gift once. There is more than one way to interact with another."
"That is easy enough for you to say." Delia pushed his hand aside, her eyes suddenly flashing. "You did not have your innocence ripped away by dirty-handed traders only too eager to offer so-called advice in the token exchanges. You were not the slave of foul-breathed ruffians who delighted in making you a gaudy display. I have done my share of giving and learned full well what is the result."
"And have I been like the others?" Jemidon asked. "When we huddled for warmth, were my dirty hands misplaced?"
Delia turned away from his stare. She caught her breath and roughly twisted the iron bracelet around her wrist. Jemidon waited, breathing rapidly despite the tainted air.
"No, they were not," she whispered after a long moment. "From the first you have acted as a hero from the sagas, just as I visualized in the dreams I have long since thrust aside."
She glanced into his eyes and then darted her sight away. "You state that I deliberately stayed apart. Indeed I did, Jemidon, indeed I did. But not because of what you think. It has been so long, yet I am still afraid. You are soft and tender; I felt the walls I had so carefully erected melt away. But I cannot be so foolish. Even at the end. What if you turned out to be no better than the rest?"
Jemidon's anger melted. Beneath the exterior barrier, there was feeling for him after all. He reached out tentatively, but halted before he touched her arm. "I thought that no one's burden was greater than my own," he said softly. "I have spent my life reaching for an elusive goal. But perhaps it is worse to be running away from a past that can never be changed."
Delia took his outstretched hand and pressed it to her cheek. "Your insight pierces more than the interior of lifeless puzzles," she said with a small smile. "You are right, Jemidon. I have used you as I have many others; and even now I came to use you still."
Delia placed her finger across Jemidon's lips. "No, say no more. There is too little time left to be so ill met. I wish to try again. But first I must think of a gift, a gift freely given without any obligations attached."
After a moment, Delia dropped her hand. The passion ebbed away. Jemidon took a deep breath and then joined her in a chorus of coughs. The air had a distinctively metallic taste, with hints of sulfur, like the breath of the djinn which had transported them here between the universes. He tried to think of something more to say, but the words would not come. In silence, they stood facing each other, with the foul wind whistling between them and tugging at their clothes.
After a few moments more, Jemidon felt a tap on his shoulder. He whirled to see Ponzar and two others standing in a row.
"Yes," Jemidon snapped. "What do you want? If it is our bones, you have come too soon. We are not ready yet to give ourselves up."
"It is the matter of Utothaz's final peace." Ponzar ignored the tone. "It seems that the removal of the ribs gives him some pain. And at the convergence, you had mentioned a Foam of Wellbeing."
"The law is not operative here," Jemidon said. "I would produce only a minor explosion as before."
"But if there were an unlocking," Ponzar said, "and you attempted the formula within the confines of Utothaz's palms."
Jemidon frowned for a moment and then nodded in understanding. "With the laws uncoupled, it might be a least contradiction. We are far away from any other lithon, so the effects of the others will be quite small. It might work at that." He glanced at Delia, then looked down at his coinchanger and tugged the brandel around his neck. "And I might just as well while away the time with one puzzle as with the next. Yes, lead on. I will run through the formula once again."
Ponzar and the others turned and headed back toward the pit with the tablestone. Jemidon started to follow, then hesitated and looked back at Delia, She held her head downward, avoiding his glance. "Get out of the wind," he said thickly. "I will work on a seal when I am done with the alchemy."
Jemidon looked down at the pilot lying on the table-stone and tried to hide his revulsion. Both of the Skyskirr's legs dangled over the edge of the rock like limp rags. The hands were folded across the stomach in a tangle of pliant fingers. The chest spread over the stone far wider than natural proportions would allow. Beneath the skin, Jemidon could see the weak throb of the heart. Crowded behind the pilot was the entire population of Ponzar's lithon. Manipulants, weavers, smiths, and scribes all waited respectfully to see Utothaz's last.
"How can he lay on his hands," Jemidon asked, "let alone work the pyramid to perform the decoupling?"
"A manipulant will assist," Ponzar said. "Signal when you are ready."
Jemidon checked off the materials at his feet. Ponzar had produced a larger flask of vinegar than before. Following Jemidon's instructions, he had even rummaged and found a purer sack of soda. Jemidon fingered the sharp piece of charcoal for writing the formula and brushed his knuckles over a finely tanned hide on which to make the symbols. Mentally, he ran through the symbology just to make sure that it was all still fresh in his mind.
"Ready." He nodded to Ponzar. "When he has performed the decoupling, I will add the ingredients together."
Ponzar nodded to Utothaz, and the metamagician chittered instructions to the manipulant at his side. The fleshy fingers were pressed against the pyramid, and the vertices slowly turned. Jemidon felt an increase in tension, like a rope stretched by a great weight, and then a snapping release. He was adrift as before, feeling the wandering of the universe among the lattice of the laws. All eyes turned to him, expecting the flourish of the formula.
For a moment he hesitated, exploring in his mind the feeling that was no longer strange. He clutched the brandel about his neck, running his thumb and forefinger over the smooth surface. He visualized the mysterious box that spilled out secrets tipping on its side, the top flopping open, and all the contents pouring out to diffuse through the rest of his thoughts. He reached for the snaky tendrils as they floated past, fraying their strands into finer and finer threads, searching for the answer to the last of the puzzles. He grabbed at one knot of significance as it drifted past, some fact, some observation that was more important than the rest. But it squirmed from his grasp, hovering just out of reach with what he most wanted to know.
"The alchemy," Ponzar said softly in his ear. "You must hurry. Utothaz must also unlock for the succession testing, and there is very little time."
Jemidon coughed in response and wrinkled his nose. The smell was tangibly worse. He heard one or two of the others wheeze as well. He shook himself alert and carefully set aside the charcoal and leather. Cupping his hand, he dug into the sack of soda, snagging a nail on the burlap side. Again he dug, but stumped his fingertips against a solidified clump. When he retracted his arm, he lost half the load against the fla
p that fell in the way.
Jemidon reached for the flask with his other hand and frowned in annoyance. The stopper was stuck fast, even though he had tested it moments before. For an instant he fumbled; then one of the manipulants boldly reached from where he crouched and pulled the cork with a deft motion. Jemidon tipped his hand containing the soda toward the opening and watched most of the powder blow away, pushed by the wind. But before he could react, the manipulant plunged his arms into the sack and dumped two heaving portions into the flask. With a flourish, the Skyskirr pushed shut the seal.
Jemidon frowned, then shrugged as he saw the others paying no attention to his bumbling, but waiting instead for the scripting of the formula. He retrieved the small piece of charcoal between Fingers suddenly numb and cold. Touching it to the hide, he started to draw the first swirl. Or was it a swirl? The second had a serif that curled into the third. The fourth was a simple triangle, or perhaps one with a dot where the altitudes crossed. Jemidon knitted his brow. This was nonsense. He had known it all just moments before. And success or failure did not matter. Utothaz would soon pass, conscious of pain or not. This was no examination for the master's robe. He gritted his teeth and tried to remember the formula. But with each passing second, it faded farther and farther away.
Jemidon closed his eyes and felt sweat form on his forehead. The icy wind cooled the droplets to become freezing pain. A chorus of chittering forced his attention back to the flask. He blinked at what he saw. At the last possible moment, he hurled it away to explode harmlessly downwind.
"It might not have succeeded anyhow," he said quickly before Ponzar could speak. "Perhaps some other contradiction forced it away."
The captain closed his eyes and did not respond. After a moment, he stood to full height in the wind and pounded the handle of his shovel for attention. He pointed at Utothaz, still managing to labor on the table, and motioned all the Skyskirr who were not manipulants to form into a line.
