Istu Awakened

by Robert E Vardeman;Victor Milan

  Turning, Rann gradually forced himself to uncurl and stand upright before his cousin. He felt like he was stretched on the rack. He forced his lips to smile.

  'A normal man, perhaps, but not a half man, eh?' He shook himself as though throwing off the last of the pain the lightning had left. 'What now, cousin?'

  Synalon paused, rubbed her palms together, as if rolling a pill between them.

  'We travel to Bilsinx, or Kara-Est perhaps, and marshal our resources. The bitch Moriana found some way to increase her powers. So will I. And whose damned lizard allies of hers - their magics seemed all of a defensive sort. They were potent, but even more so is my hatred. I will find the way to defeat them in spite of that damned smoking jewel of theirs, and then pull Moriana down to a lingering death in the sight of all the City she thought to wrest from me!'

  Rann might have pointed out that Moriana had indeed wrested the City away from Synalon. He didn't. He was too preoccupied staring past the pale angle of Synalon's shoulder, past the charred fall of her short hair. She frowned at him. The roundness of his eyes, the relevation of his brows and the slight parting of his lips were equivalent to a shout of horror and disbelief from another man. She followed the stare.

  Small objects detached themselves from the rim of the floating City and fell. First a few, then hundreds spilled from all sides of the Sky City like beach sand from a child's palm. The objects rotated as they fell. Synalon's wondering eyes made out the flail of limbs desperately seeking purchase on the air. Screams came to her ears like the cries of distant gulls.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Fost Longstrider sat slumped in the bishop's stool someone had produced for him and wondered whether or not to get drunk.

  All around a crowd cheered itself hoarse. Moriana stood proudly beneath the winged crown of the City in the Sky, her arms outflung as if to embrace her new subjects. For having just fought two desperate battles, one of arms and one of sorcery, and then having come close to flaming death from the stolen magics wielded by High Councillor Uriath, she looked remarkably fresh and radiantly beautiful.

  Fost, on the other hand, was slipping from the frenzy of battle into the fog of after-action depression. He was charred all over from his own near incineration by one of Uriath's fire elementals, and was uncomfortably aware that the stench of burned flesh clinging to his sweat-lank black hair had come from Luranni. She had bought his life with hers. Where he wasn't black, he was bloody; where he wasn't scorched, he was scored by swordcuts. His helmet and shield were gone, his breeches blackened and torn beyond recognition and his hauberk reduced to a few rings of steel mail hung around his powerful torso. He still had his broadsword hanging at his hip in a well-smoked hornbull leather scabbard.

  He looked more like the vanquished than a conquering hero.

  In battle he'd always felt a vivid, singing awareness, had felt alive in a way he didn't at other times. Lately he had started to go into a berserker's fury that grew madder as the battle grew more intense. Afterward, however, he felt depleted, soiled, and not at all proud of his prowess at wreaking destruction on his fellow man.

  His only consolation was that the venerable ghost of Erimenes the Ethical wasn't crowing in his usual fashion over the glorious bloodletting he had witnessed that day.

  Still, Fost thought, his lot wasn't so bad. The woman he loved stood by his side and received the adoration of her City. She had succeeded, as had he. Moriana had regained her precious Sky City; he had been reunited with his lover. An added bonus was that Synalon's madness would never unleash a second War of Powers on the world.

  A fatuous smirk crossed his face when he realized he was a hero. Like in all the fairy tales of his youth, he was a hero and had won the privilege of living happily ever after.

  He drained his goblet of wine and eyed the swell of Moriana's rump inside her tight breeches. Living happily ever after was a marvelous prospect, he decided. He just wished this state business would be finished soon so they could get down to doing the happy living in earnest.

  With harsh shouts and proddings with spears, a mob of prisoners was herded into the circle to stand before their rightful queen. Some cowered on their knees pleading for forgiveness with clasped hands and desperate voices. Others stood aloof, disdaining to beg for their lives. Even they had a certain hunted look to their eyes. Fost guessed that their apparently prideful refusal to prostrate themselves and grovel for mercy sprang from a knowledge that it would do them no good. Moriana was an Etuul, from the same stock as Synalon and Rann.

  Most of the troops guarding the prisoners wore the ragged garb and odd bits of armor of the Underground's street fighters, the brown and green of the Nevrym foresters or the bright colors and well-tended armor of Moriana's handful of allies from the City States. A few, though, wore the black and purple of the City's military, and here and there Fost caught a glimpse of the brassards of the elite Sky Guard worn alongside the blue and red ribbons of Moriana's sympathizers. The captives were an equally mixed lot: common bird riders and Sky Guardsmen still haughty and erect despite the numbing shock of their first defeat; Bilsinxt auxiliaries in drab earth tones; gaudy Palace Guards; even a few scattered Monitors bereft of their leather helmets and looking about wildly like beasts being led to the slaughter. So hated were Synalon's Monitors that only those fortunate enough to find outlanders - Nevrym foresters, men from the Empire, even Hissers-to surrender to before the mob caught them had survived this long. Now they faced Moriana's justice. But unlike the other prisoners, to them it made little difference whether she chose to be harsh or lenient. The crowd had seen their faces. Their fates were immutable.

  As the crowd backed away as if to set themselves apart from those who had dared oppose the return of the City's rightful queen, Fost wondered again where Moriana's reptilian allies were. He hadn't seen one yet. But he knew Moriana had won their cooperation by promising to give them certain religious relics they had been forced to leave behind when Riomar shai-Gallri and her sorceress adventurers wrested the City from them millennia before.

  One of the religious artifacts was in view at this moment, and not as faraway as Fost would have liked. Across the Skywell from where he and Moriana stood, squatted the Vicar of Istu, leering at the proceedings with a grotesque basalt face. The statue's form was manlike and exaggeratedly male. Its head bore horns. This was the most disconcerting feature of the great icon, because all of the world's horned creatures wore them decently on snout or forehead and pointing forward. The Vicar of Istu's sprouted unnaturally from the sides of its round heads and curved upward.

  A substantial pedestal had been carved from the foundation stone of the City, but the Vicar didn't occupy it. Fost felt cold all over remembering the sight of the statue coming alive and moving from that pedestal to threaten Moriana so long ago. He hoped that the Vridzish were nearly finished rounding up their precious religious treasures. The sooner they got that ghastly mannikin out of his sight the happier Fost Longstrider would be.

  'Men of the Sky City!' Moriana's voice rang like a trumpet, stilling the murmurings and occasional catcalls cast in the prisoners' direction. 'You stand before me because you have committed a most grievous deed; resisting by arms the return of your legal and rightful queen to claim her throne.'

  Instantly, a dozen men fell to their knees, sobbing and pleading and shaking clasped hands in the air.

  'We did no wrong! Your Majesty, there has been some terrible mistake!'

  A short, slightly built youth in black and purple pushed his way arrogantly through the crowd to stand before Moriana, his black hair thrown back, his blue eyes blazing defiance. The brassard of the Guard surrounded one wiry bicep.

  'We fought in defense of our City and our crowned queen, so acclaimed by the Council of Advisors in accordance with ancient law. Your claim to the Throne of Winds may be just but you chose to come as an invading enemy. If resisting you was a crime, then my comrades and I must plead wholeheartedly guilty!'

  A wild babble filled the air.
The crowd growled like a hungry beast, and a guard shouted, 'On your knees before the queen, scum!' The captive Monitors and sallow men in the robes of Palace bureaucrats and mages swore that this madman did not speak for them. The other Sky Guard captives raised a shout in a different key.

  'Well said, Cerestan! We fly and fall with you!'

  Moriana raised her hand, commanding silence. The uproar died.

  'You are Cerestan, young man?' she asked. Fost watched, judging the man to be a year younger than the new queen - which made him older than the courier.

  'I am flight lieutenant of the Guard,' Cerestan said proudly.

  'Very well, Lt. Cerestan. You are brave. Since you have thrust yourself forward so bravely, then you shall hear my judgment upon you and upon your comrades, as well.' More piteous outcries broke from the captives. Cerestan paled but set his jaw resolutely.

  'You, and those who fought beside you in resisting my entry into the City in the Sky - and your fellows of the Guard particularly - hear now your doom. You are from this moment free men and women, to leave the City or remain in her service, with the thanks of monarch and people, providing only that you are willing to swear fealty to me, your new and rightful queen.'

  The crowd uttered a formless, astonished gasp. The prisoners looked stunned. Cerestan blinked rapidly and cocked his head as if uncertain he had heard correctly.

  Moriana laughed at his confusion.

  'Did you think I was insensible to your dilemma? Being the younger sister I was heir to the throne by City law, but the Council named Synalon rightful queen. Which was right? You chose what you thought was the moral course. You fought for your City as best you knew how, and you fought bravely.'

  She paused. A few cries of disbelief floated from the spectators, and she noticed that the men in Sky City uniforms who guarded the captives were beginning to acquire an angry look.

  'I am most grateful now and forever to those who chose to side with me, and I shall do you all the honor it is in my power to do. But I will not punish loyalty to my beloved City, nor courageous striving on her behalf. So you who fought against me are no longer prisoners - not pardoned, for you have done nothing to be pardoned for.

  'As for the rest of you, you Bilsinxt are likewise pardoned, but you are to be exiled at once from the City.' Some of the Bilsinxt cried out in terror. The usual form of exile from the City was to be given a hearty push into the Skywell to fall the thousand feet to the ground. Moriana raised a placating hand. 'I mean nothing drastic. You'll be allowed to collect your belongings and be given transport to the surface by balloon. Your city is still occupied, but I intend to withdraw the Sky City forces. With Synalon dead, no reason remains to maintain such a force.'

  Startled comment rippled through the listeners. Though everyone knew that Synalon was dead, it had not been confirmed in words before. Moriana waited until the commotion was over before going on.

  'For the rest of you, for the functionaries who officiated over the reign of terror waged by Synalon and Rann against the people of the City, and the Monitors who were the instruments of that oppression, I remand you to prison, to be tried individually according to your acts, by a tribunal over which I personally will preside. Look to your conscience, gentlemen. On my own behalf I am not vindictive, but on behalf of my people I harbor no mercy!' She gestured imperiously, the graceful but definite handsweep of one born to rule. The wailing mages and officials were hauled to their feet and hurried off to prison, Moriana's men forming a cordon to protect them from the fists and feet of the crowd.

  A noise tugged at the fringes of Fost's mind. The mindless oceanic sounds of the crowd blanketed all other sounds, but beneath the roar he felt more than heard a discord, unidentifiable and unsettling. He shook his head to clear it. The aftermath of the battle was getting the better of him. And he knew the precise way to combat it.

  He held forth his goblet. A grinning serving youth refilled it with amber wine.

  'Here, Chasko, refresh yourself,' he shouted to the bearded man who stood beside him with Erimenes's satchel slung over one shoulder. His friend Prudyn, normally inseparable from him, stood some distance away holding an identical satchel loosely by the strap. The two had moved apart so that Erimenes and Ziore could no longer rant at each other.

  Fost took Erimenes's satchel and slung the strap over his shoulder. Chasko accepted a fired clay vessel of liqueur and moved off to rejoin his comrade.

  'You've made a sorry spectacle of yourself, old smoke,' Fost told the spirit, knowing Erimenes could read the words from his mind if he didn't hear.

  'It's all the fault of that brainless witch who claims to be an Athalar. She couldn't be one, or if she is then my city decayed greatly in the years following my death. Imagine the weak-mindedness and credulity to be so taken in by an obviously spurious doctrine as to waste one's whole life on it!'

  'That's your own spurious doctrine you're talking about,' Fost reminded him.

  'If I've told you once, I've told you twelve thousand times,' Erimenes said loftily, 'I despise your barbaric imprecisions. Neither I nor that foolish cow Zir or Zor or Zoot or whatever she's called could possibly have made a spectacle of ourselves, since we're not visible. Why do you insist on changing the subject?'

  'Majesty! Your Majesty!' Standing near Fost, Moriana looked up from a consultation with a group of officials who for reasons of conscience had allied with her.

  A girl in her teens pushed her way through the throng almost to the queen's side. She wore breeches and a tattered tunic and a shortsword so thoroughly nicked as to appear sawtoothed. Her face was deathly pale beneath a coating of soot and grime, and one cheek was laid open to bleed freely and disregarded. Ribbons in Moriana's colors circled one arm.

  'What is it?' asked Moriana, brow creasing in annoyance. She restrained the men who moved forward to disarm the girl, though the functionaries clucked with disapproval at her raggedness and impudence.

  The girl took a deep breath. She swayed. Moriana caught her arm and supported her.

  'The Hissers, Your Majesty,' she got out, and then her knees buckled with the onslaught of a coughing fit. She finally controlled herself long enough to blurt out, 'The Vridzish're attacking, Your Majesty! All over the whole damn City they're falling on top of us, armed and unarmed alike. It's t-treachery!' She fell forward so abruptly that Moriana scarcely prevented her from smashing face down on the pavement. It was only then that the queen saw the broken shaft of a black Zr'gsz arrow protruding from the girl's shoulder.

  At the aft edge of the Circle, screams announced the arrival of the Hissers.

  The stink of burning warehouses stung Fost's palate as his mind, fogged by drink and post-battle depression, struggled to come to grips with the girl's jagged-voiced warning. A flickering caught his attention, a quarter turn around the Circle of the Skywell. He looked that way in time to see a black flash and a fountain of scarlet. The Hissers swarmed into the Circle from the broad avenue that ran aft along the City's main axis. They freely wielded obsidian-edged swords.

  He turned to Moriana. Her face was the color of a corpse's, and her lips moved without sound.

  Then, 'Ziore!' she cried. Without waiting for the genie to answer, Moriana spun away to snap orders at the warriors who stood about staring in horror at this unexpected attack.

  Gathering a knot of armed men and women about her, Moriana set off toward where the street mouth disgorged a stream of greenish Zr'gsz into the wide Circle. She and her troops made slow progress, bucking the current of humanity fleeing the wrath of its ancient enemies.

  Fost felt a pang of surprise and betrayal that Moriana had called upon her Athalar spirit rather than upon him in her anguish. Then he decided that she was far more used to turning to Ziore in recent months than to him. The leaden lethargy that had gripped his limbs evaporated into a bright humming of adrenaline frenzy. He hitched Erimenes's satchel higher on his shoulder and drew his sword with a jerky motion.

  A hand gripped his biceps. He whirled,
swordarm preparing for the thrust. At his side a Sky Guardsman who bore Moriana's colors turned ashen but didn't flinch.

  'Sir Longstrider,' he said, not quite knowing how to address this obviously important groundling. 'The captive soldiers - what shall we do with them?'

  Fost glanced after Moriana, who was fighting her way through the panicking crowd like a fish swimming upstream, shouting for her men to come to her aid. It was hopeless trying to call to her over the wails of the multitude. Off toward the end of the City he saw thin trails of smoke twisting into the air.

  He looked at the captive bird riders and Guardsmen, who stood where they had before, still unable to assimilate that they were free.

  'Tread warily, my impetuous friend,' advised Erimenes from his jug. 'If you presume to give orders that Moriana finds objectionable, you may regret it later. The lady has shown a marked propensity to place the dictates of statecraft above those of the heart.'

  'Shut up, Erimenes,' snapped Fost. Worry and anger grew. He felt the Guardsman's wondering eyes on him.

  'The Hissers are unlikely to distinguish between us and them,' he told the waiting soldier. 'Arm them.'

  With Erimenes belaboring him as a fool, Fost dashed off in pursuit of his queen and lover.

  Faint and distant, the sounds of conflict seeped through rock and penetrated the awareness of the thirteen who wove mighty magics in front of the ancient door. Khirshagk paused, the harsh incantation rattling to a stop in his throat.

  'Our people strike prematurely, Instrumentality,' one of his assistants reported.

  He nodded. His long, handsome face was composed, serene. Despite the absolute darkness in the long-sealed and forgotten chamber, his twelve followers discerned every detail of his features, of the feathered ceremonial cloak he'd donned over his scratched green cuirass, and of the immense black diamond held smoking in the clawed hand. A black radiance pulsed from the depths of the stone, its tempo increasing second by second, like the beating of a heart touched with growing arousal.