Moonbird! Do you hear me? he cried out in his mind.
Yes, came a distant-seeming reply.
Where are you?
Climbing. Still climbing.
I’m in trouble.
What kind of trouble?
I’m being pursued, Mouseglove told him, by those people who worked for Mark.
How many?
Six. Eight. Maybe more.
How unfortunate.
There is nothing that you can do?
Not from here.
What shall I do?
Climb fast.
Mouseglove cursed and looked back. All of his pursuers were nearing the cone’s base—and one heavily muscled man was drawing back his spear for a cast. Mouseglove drew his pistol and fired it at him. He missed, but apparently spoiled the other’s aim. The spear flew wide, clattering against the cone far off to his right.
He fired again, and this time the nearest of his pursuers dropped his club and clutched at his right shoulder.
What was that?
I had to shoot at a couple, Mouseglove replied, remaining low, continuing up the slope.
Did you find what you sought?
Yes. I have explosives. But my pursuers are too scattered to make them an effective weapon.
But you can use them from a distance?
Yes.
When you reach the top throw them down to the place you dug.
How far up are you?
That is not important.
They make quite a blast.
It should be amusing. Not worry.
Mouseglove looked back again. Three of his pursuers had reached the base of the cone and were beginning to climb. Halting, he took careful aim and fired at the foremost. The man fell.
He did not pause to assess the effect of this upon the others, but turned and put his full strength into his ascent. He was nearing the top now. His pursuers were strong and agile, but so was he. He also weighed less and was faster, so he had managed to acquire a good lead.
Finally, he reached the rim and mounted it, passing over its lip immediately, for cover. Only then did he look down. He made a soft noise at the back of his throat.
Moonbird, dragging his ponderous bulk slowly up the steep wall, had only succeeded in climbing about a quarter of the distance to the top.
I can’t throw these things, he told the dragon. You’re too near.
I have flown through thunderstorms, came the reply, when the heavens came apart all around. Yet I lived. Throw them.
I can’t.
We die if you do not. And Pol . . .
Mouseglove thought of his pursuers, primed one of the grenades and hurled it down toward the now darkened area where he had been digging earlier. He covered his ears. He heard the blast and felt the vibration. Afterward, he heard the sounds of falling and shifting rocks.
Moonbird! Are you all right?
Yes. Throw another. Hurry!
Mouseglove complied and braced himself again. After the second explosion, he inquired: Moonbird?
Yes. Another.
The reply seemed slightly weaker, or could it but have been the roaring in his head, submerging it? He threw the third explosive, pressing himself back against the stone until the detonation occurred and the force of the aftershock had abated.
Moonbird?
There was no answer. He peered downward, through the clouds of dust and the shadows. The area where Moonbird had clung was now totally obscured.
Answer me, Moonbird!
Nothing.
As the ringing in his ears subsided, he thought that he heard scraping noises of ascent from the outer surface of the cone, though they could possibly have been the sounds of falling rocks. He dared not cast a grenade back over the lip of the crater because of its possible effects upon himself, there on the inside.
Quickly, he began his descent.
The dust irritated his eyes and nose, though he was able to refrain from sneezing. He tasted it and he felt particles of grit when he clenched his teeth. He spat several times but could not rid himself of it completely. His way darkened perceptibly with every movement of descent.
His eyes turned regularly in the direction of the area Moonbird had occupied, but he could detect no sign of the great dragon in the darkness below.
Mouseglove continued his descent, wishing, as he groped after a new foothold, that there were some manner in which he could manage to move more rapidly. For now the foremost of the small men was lowering himself over the edge above and two others were moving to follow. Just as he was about to look away, he saw a fourth figure come up and join them.
Cursing, he reached for the next lower hold. Before his hand located it, however, the rest of his body detected a faint, general vibration in the rock to which he clung. A rumbling sound followed.
Below him, waxing and waning but brightening in the overall process, an orange glow had begun in the heart of the crater. The growling noise came again, accompanied by a wave of heat.
There was a shout above him. His pursuers—five now—had halted. They began climbing upward as he watched, their movements touched with panic.
My bombs tore something loose, he decided. It’s starting again. Can’t go up. Can’t go down. Wait and die.
Come down. You will not be harmed.
It’s going to erupt!
No. Come down. You will be safe.
What—what is happening?
Can’t talk. You come.
Mouseglove’s hand continued its long-interrupted motion, coming to rest upon a stony knob to which he transferred his weight.
As he descended, the light grew brighter. The vibrations continued, but they were extremely mild, almost an effect of the echoes which bounced about him. Suddenly, with a roar, a bright fragment of something shot upward past him, followed almost immediately by another, tracing glowing trails through the twilight high above.
Are you sure it is safe? he asked, pressed tightly against the rock wall.
But there was no reply.
Continuing downward, he realized that the temperature had not risen excessively, as might be expected this near the point of an eruption. Could Moonbird be playing games with his own flames, to frighten off the enemy?
No, he decided, looking down into the glow. It covers too large an area and burns too regularly to be dragonfire.
He reached the floor of the crater unharmed. Clots of fire continued to flee upward, but none rose from points near him. Walls and pillars of flame came up in great number here, though what it was they fed upon, he could not discern. There was a clear aisle through their midst, however, heading in the direction he intended to take. He followed it.
The floor of the crater was even more ravaged than he remembered it, as a result of his bombing. He picked his way through heavy rubble toward the heart of a large depression as he headed for the site of his earlier digging. After several more steps, he realized that a vast shadow loomed at its center, below him.
He took another step.
Moonbird . . . ?
It swayed in his direction, and he saw the great head of the dragon nodding toward him, an ornate rod held between the enormous teeth.
The scepter! You’ve found it!
Mouseglove extended his hand.
Get onto my back.
I do not understand.
Talk later. Mount!
Mouseglove advanced and climbed upon Moonbird, scrambling toward his shoulders. Immediately, the dragon began to move, climbing out of the pit, heading toward the northern wall, almost exactly opposite the place he had climbed earlier.
When they reached the crater wall, Mouseglove suddenly caught hold more tightly as Moonbird reared and commenced climbing.
Moonbird! You can’t get to the top from here! It gets almost vertical about halfway up.
I know.
Then why are we climbing?
It is easier here. Till then.
But—
Wait till we reach the ledge.
&
nbsp; Mouseglove recalled the rocky shelf to which he referred. It had looked wide enough to support Moonbird—barely—but it was, in effect, a dead end.
Moonbird was climbing much more rapidly here than he had up the other wall. The way was less steep, more rugged. As they mounted higher, Mouseglove glanced back down. The glow from the fires below seemed to be spreading, intensifying. He felt a wave of heat upon his fece. It was followed almost immediately by another, much warmer.
At last, Moonbird reached the rocky shelf, hauled himself onto it, turned and looked downward. As he did so, the brightness and the heat increased again.
“What is happening?” Mouseglove asked aloud.
The last explosion shook me from the wall, Moonbird replied. After I fell I sensed the rod nearby.
“And the fires started about that time?”
I started the fires. To drive off your pursuers.
“How did you do that?”
I used the bottom segment of the rod. It is for fire magic.
“You can use the rod? I had no idea—”
Only the bottom segment. Dragons understand the secrets of fire.
“Well, we seem to be safe now, but the fires keep getting stronger. You might turn them off now—if you can.”
No.
“Why not?”
I will need a tower of heat. To rise out of here.
“I do not understand.”
I will dive from here toward the fires. It is easier to ride the warm air upward.
Shadows were dancing all about them now. Mouseglove felt a fresh wave of heat.
“It’s not all that far to the bottom . . . ” he said. “Are you sure you can get yourself airborne in that distance?”
Life is uncertain, Moonbird replied. Hold tightly.
He spread his wings and plunged into the blazing crater.
XIV
The depth of my philosophical speculations as to the nature of my own being and that of the universe only increases the more I see of the world. And no real answers seem to occur, either practically or on a more general level. I now find myself wondering whether a state of uncertainty might not be the lot of all sentient beings. Still, it strikes me that there are reasons I do not fully comprehend underlying the actions of others. Their activities seem directed toward creating certain situations, whereas I have no real—objectives. I circulate. I obtain information. But I have no idea what it all means. I do not have an objective, only its mysterious ghost—something which keeps haunting me with the notion that I should have more.
Despite my perplexity in the face of existence, I continued to obey the small imperative which had accompanied me since my departure from Rondoval. I saw Mouseglove off on his errand and watched to see that Ibal did indeed possess the means to deliver him to his destination expeditiously—not to mention the will to do it. I observed Mouseglove’s departure and then returned to the place at the foot of Belken where I had obtained my first lessons in animating a body. I tried it again with the spare, with good results, frightening a group of hikers made up of a number of the younger apprentices.
Then I hovered undecided. Should I follow the still discernable emanation trail of that strange sorcerer back into the city, to discover what he was about? Or should I undertake the pursuit of Pol and Larick toward Avinconet in the north? Almost immediately, that small imperative resolved the matter.
I rose, achieving some altitude, resolved myself into a tighter form, then headed approximately northward. I overtook them in their flight and simply paced them then, drifting, for the rest of the day. Nothing was answered for me by this, but I no longer felt the pressures I had experienced earlier. For this time, I was as content as I had been in the old days, moving aimlessly about the ruins of Rondoval.
Of course it could not last. I realized this as the day wore on and the light was squeezed from it and the great castle, Avinconet, loomed before us in the darkening distance. In that moment, I learned the feeling of fear.
A strange foreboding came over me—a dark premonition, if you like—accompanied by the seeming sourceless knowledge that I could die, that my existence could be terminated and that this thing could occur within that place. It was something which had never occurred to me before, and it came as an awful revelation—for even as I considered it along with what I knew of myself, I saw that it could well be true. It would seem that a life as aimless as mine, more filled with questions than anything else, might not be worth much. I realized in that same moment that this was not the case. More than anything else, I felt, I wanted to continue it, as purposeless and puzzling as it seemed.
I drew nearer to Pol. I wrapped myself about the warmth of his being. Why the thought of flight did not even occur to me at that time, I had no idea. I clung to him as a child to a parent as we rushed nearer that dark citadel.
I remained with him after we landed, accompanying him to the cell in which he was confined. I remained there with him for some time—until his food arrived and I realized that it was unlikely he would be disturbed for the rest of the night. While my earlier fears had not been abated, they had receded sufficiently by this time to permit more rational considerations to come to the fore. Now, while all was still and nothing seemed afoot, would actually be the best time for me to survey the place, to locate whatever menaces might be lurking and consider the best means to nullify them.
Accordingly, I drifted away, leaving Pol in his safe and uninteresting quarters. I moved about various chambers, terminating rats and mice, observing sleepers, seeking signs of dark magics or dangerous forces.
I moved very slowly, not wishing to be surprised. The night wore on, and I came gradually to feel that I had suffered a false augury. Nothing threatened, nothing loomed. It seemed just another pile of rocks made suitable for human habitation by the application of a few simple construction principles and the installation of simple plumbing, some rude pieces of furniture and garish hangings of a nonfunctional nature. The only traces of magical doings seemed painfully innocuous.
Yet, feeling what I had felt, I was not to be so simply discouraged. The middle of the night drew on and passed. I explored each high tower. I—
An indescribable pang passed through my being. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before, unless it be the unremembered shock of my own birth. Something had suddenly changed, something affecting me to the depths of my personality. But even as it occurred, I grew doubtful that it was the fearful thing I’d sought. No tone of dark magic accompanied it. Its ultimate result was a sense of something having been settled in my own case. If I could but discover what it was, I felt that a part of my personal mystery might be solved. I drifted for a long while, meditating, but no illumination ensued and I could not determine the source of whatever it was that had come over me. It was almost as if, somewhere, my name had been spoken, just out of my hearing.
I settled, descending from floor to floor. I had investigated most of what lay above the ground and I decided to regard the areas below the castle, within the mountainside. There were a number of openings, both natural and artificial, and one by one I invaded them and explored.
It was in one of these recesses that I came upon the sleeping woman. She lay unmoving within a container, her spirit wandering, a very pale light of life still visible about her. I moved nearer, to inspect her further, and a trap was sprung. It was a subtle spell, designed to ensnare any less than material being such as myself who might venture too near the lady—presumably to protect her against possession.
So I was caught, several body-lengths from her, in what might best be described as a gigantic, invisible spiderweb. I struggled briefly and saw that it was to no avail. I relaxed against my bonds and tried altering my shape. This did not work either, nor did my attempts to shift away to another plane. The web of forces held me tightly.
I hung, spread out there, trying to analyze it. It had a certain aura of venerability about it, of the sort humans ascribe to vintage wines. I was familiar with this effect from my exp
erience with certain old spells which remained about Rondoval. The good ones, such as this, unfortunately grow better with age, because of the counter-current entropy on the plane where magic operates. This spell, as nearly as I could judge, went back fifteen or twenty years. I tried sending charges of energy through it, a small segment at a time, hoping to locate a weakness at which I might work, from which I might unravel the thing like a stocking. All to no avail. It was of a piece, and it had me.
I remained there for a long while, recalling everything I knew that might be applied against it. When I tried them all and nothing worked, I decided that it might be time to cultivate philosophy to a greater extent. I began musing upon existence and non-existence, I reexamined my premonition, I reconsidered my pang . . .
I heard footsteps.
It is generally easy to remain inconspicuous when you are invisible and soundless, but I made extra efforts to achieve stillness on all levels, including the mental, when I saw Pol approaching led by a peculiar palm of light as immaterial as myself.
There was something familiar about the flame-like thing, something I did not like at all. I felt, without knowing why, that it had the power to harm me.
I sensed some exchange going on between Pol and the brightness. I heard only Pol’s half of it, not willing to try attuning myself to listen in fully, fearing that this might somehow make my presence known to the fiery one.
Finally, Pol unfastened the lid of the container, removed it and set it aside. There was another long pause, and then he removed the woman, crossed a ledge and entered a tunnel, following the flame.
Suddenly, I was free. The spell must have been centered upon the woman, not the locale, not the container.
I hung back. I wanted to see where they were going but I did not wish to get too near, lest I be trapped again. I drifted slowly behind them, leaving myself ample leeway, well aware now of the effective range of the spell.
I recognized the big chamber as soon as I entered it. The last time I had passed this way, I had been moving at metaphysical speeds and following a magical trail, so there had been no need for noting landmarks. Consequently, I’d had no idea that this was where the Gate was located.
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