Next a storm blew out of the Cold Wastes beyond the mountains, taking the searchers by surprise and whirling five men to oblivion before the rest found the ground and safety. A man and two birds had frozen to death by the time the bl izzard lifted and the sneering gods of chance sent a warm wind out of the North to scour off the new-fallen snow. The search had continued, as fruitlessly as before.
Then yesterday a rider scouting the patrol's back trail had been blown off course by high winds. His bird had seen something suspicious, which turned out to be disturbed earth above a dugout trench large enough to accommodate two people. It lay midway between the ravine country and the Great Crater Lake.
So now with his full strength Rann made for the lake to try to pick up the trail there. He had already promised himself that should this prove another false lead the rider who had reported the dugout would suffer, manpower shortage or not.
The multiple chevron formation of eagles knifed through the sky. Rann's eyes, scarcely less keen than those of his mount, scanned the land below for sign of the fugitives' passing. The bird he rode was not Terror, but a lighter, faster eagle, grey spotted with brown, that was more suited to reconnaissance work. The flight reached the Crater, hidden under its perpetual mound of steam. They made a slow orbit of the immense declivity, finding nothing. Rann's impatience mounted by the second.
At last Odol, the soldier who had reported finding the dugout, grew uneasy under the sidelong scrutiny of those tawny eyes.
'P - perhaps they were caught by the storm and sought shelter in the Crater's warmth. Their tracks wouldn't have outlived the melting of the snow, milord.'
Rann scowled at the man a moment longer, too distracted even to enjoy the other's obvious mental agony. Then, without a word, he banked his eagle and slipped into a spiral descending toward the cloud.
Shortly after, they broke through the clammy fog. Below them they saw a collection of dilapidated slag huts. Briefly Rann wondered what manner of primitives resided in such wretched dwellings. He steered his bird toward a cleared space roughly in the center of the village.
A crowd gaped in silent wonder as the bird-riders touched down before the large circular temple.
There look to be fewer than a hundred souls living here,' Rann said as he dismounted. 'Captain Tays, take twenty men and round up the lot of them. Kill anyone who offers any resistance whatsoever.' Tays, a swarthy, bandy-legged man even shorter than his prince, grinned, bobbed his head and trotted away, calling together a squad as he went.
Rann drew off his thick gauntlets. Scowling, he looked around. He'd taken the group of villagers standing about in the square to be women initially, but now he saw there were men among them in about equal numbers. The males of the town had a delicate, almost dainty look to them and their features looked little different from the women's. The bodies of both sexes were so willowy as to make it difficult to distinguish between them. Onlookers began turning away with an air of complete indifference.
The prince had known groundlings to react to the arrival of the eagle-riders of the Sky City with various emotions: fear, awe, dismay. He had never known the Guard to be greeted with indifference.
'You there,' he said, striding toward the nearest villager. 'I say, I'm talking to you. Answer.' Neither word nor movement gave any sign that the man had heard. Flushing, Rann nodded to a soldier.
A javelin whistled through the air to smack between the villager's shoulder blades. He pitched forward onto his face and lay still. Not a sound had come from him.
Tays's party returned, herding a group of the tall, wispy folk with the points of spears and scimitars. The captain's blade was bloody, but he wore a puzzled expression.
'These are strange folk, my Prince,' he called. 'They don't fear death.' He scowled at the several dozen captives his men had rounded up. 'I think they just came along to humor us.'
Rann's scowl etched itself deeper in his visage. He had an uncomfortable feeling that the captain had just experienced one of his rare glimmerings of insight.
'Then we'll have to teach them, won't we?' he said. 'Slay ten of them, and we'll see how apt our pupils are.'
He turned a smile toward the assembled villagers. Javelins stabbed, sword blades cleaved flesh. Dark blood stained the gowns of the doomed ten. They fell, yet no sound came from their lips as they died.
'They don't even moan,' a bird-rider exclaimed. Approaching another man, Rann fought the urge to draw his sword and hew him down. What was wrong with these people? Were they mad or imbeciles? With apparent civility he asked, 'Who are you?'
'I am Cedrhus,' he answered. 'We are the Ethereals.' 'I seek a blonde woman and a large man with black hair. Have they been here?'
The Ethereal considered the matter. 'I have seen many blonde women and black-haired men. All of them were here, for I have been to no other place.'
Snarling, Rann ripped free his sword and slashed open the man's stomach. 'Insolent pig!' he snapped. 'You think to make me the butt of your puny joke?'
The Ethereal dropped to his knees. 'I don't understand,' he said, his voice unchanged. 'I feel you are too much of the material. Free yourself from the bonds of ill and . . .' Rann's scimitar split his head, finishing the sentence for him.
Rann snapped orders. Bird-riders hurried to obey them. Trees grew within the Crater. In a short time the soldiers had assembled a pile of wood, both raw lumber and the crude furniture they found in the slumping huts. Rann paced nervously back and forth, his blood singing in anticipation, as an Ethereal was stripped, bound to a pole and suspended above the pyre. At Rann's command the wood was lit.
The prince awaited the first groaning cry of agony as the flames commenced their dance. The Ethereal continued to gaze skyward as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. His flesh reddened, blistered and began to slough off and blacken. Rann bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. The smell of roasting flesh tickled his nostrils. For once it failed to beguile him.
Flames cloaked the bound man. He made no response. 'What's wrong with you?' Rann shouted. 'Cry, scream, plead, do something!' He went to his own knees beside the fire, so close the fur edging of his cloak began to smolder. 'Beg for release from your torment. No, not even that; ask and I shall set you free. But speak!'
The man's hair burned now, surrounding his face with a ghastly wreath of fire. He turned his head toward Rann, and the prince's heart rose as he saw emotion touch the mild brown eyes.
'You interrupted my dance,' the Ethereal said. His head slumped as life fled him.
Almost weeping with frustration, Rann rose and turned away from the charring corpse. 'Bring me another,' he commanded. A woman was tied to a stake driven into the dirt of the square. Drawing a special knife he carried for such occasions, Rann went to work on her with all the consummate artistry of which he was capable. It had no more effect than the roasting of the man. Another captive followed her in a death that would have sent the bravest warrior raging into madness with pain. Another followed, and another. The victims sang or spoke of epistemology and teleology or simply stared, each oblivious to the abuse being wrought upon his or her body.
At last Rann slumped in a chair and regarded his prisoners. They stood before him, calm and contemplative, virtually ignoring him. His mind wrestled with the challenge of how to eke some response from these folk since physical torture had failed. Among his talents Rann numbered the ability to read infallibly the weaknesses of those with whom he came in contact, which made him an accomplished warrior as well as a sadist. A few moments' worth of hard thought produced a new line of attack.
'Hear me,' he said in a deceptively mild voice. 'I'm convinced that the woman Moriana and the man Fost have passed this way. Unless you tell me of them, when they arrived, how long they stayed and where they have gone, I shall cut off the feet of every person in this village. Next I shall cut off the hands. Then I will remove the ears, puncture the drums and pluck forth the eyes from their sockets. Finally, if no one has spoken the words I wish to h
ear, I shall tear your tongues from their roots and leave you here to die, helpless.'
An uneasy murmur ran through the Ethereals. Rann smiled. He had gauged them right at last. His men, searching the village, had brought him word of the statuary, musical instruments and crystal phials of essence they discovered in abundance. These folk clearly devoted their lives to meditating upon what they held to be various forms of beauty. He thought they wouldn't like to be denied all contact with loveliness, for all their words about scorning the material world.
A man stepped forward. 'I remember ones such as you describe.' A cry rose from the prisoners. An Ethereal lunged forward, his golden hair in disarray, his ocean-blue eyes wide.
'You mustn't tell them, Itenyim. We must hold true to our beliefs. We cannot betray - unnh!' The head of a javelin sprouted from the right side of his chest. Scarlet doused the front of his white robe.
'I am sorry, Selamyl,' said Itenyim. 'I cannot bear the thought of being denied my art.' Selamyl's mouth worked in supplication, his hands reached forth. Blood gushed from his mouth as he fell.
'Well,' said Rann, feeling at ease for the first time in a fortnight, 'come and sit at my side and make yourself comfortable, good Itenyim. We have much to discuss, we two.'
'The magic of Athalau,' Erimenes said in his most resonant tones, 'was, at least in later years, not so much magic per se. True sorcery involves the manipulation of powers external to oneself. Our so-called magic came from within our own minds. We schooled ourselves to seek out and cultivate our latent mental powers, using them exclusively to gain the ends of sorcery. Consequently common protective enchantments have little or no effect on Athalar magic'
The spectral figure folded blue, glowing hands over its middle. 'Nonetheless, the city of Athalau itself possesses talismanic qualities in relation to our magic, largely by virtue of the place it occupied in many of the mental exercises we employed to discipline our minds.'
'In other words,' said Fost, trying to bite back a yawn, 'the closer you get to Athalau, the stronger your powers become.'
'Such a bald statement oversimplifies questions of the utmost philosophical complexity,' the spirit said, 'but essentially, yes.'
Moriana gazed into the low fire. They had ascended far enough into the Ramparts to think it safe to light one at night. It was unlikely the Sky Guardsmen would chance the treacherous downdrafts of these mountains in the dark on their night-blind birds.
'So you were able to stimulate us when our bodies threatened to give out during the storm by working on our minds,' she said.
'And able to keep me from revealing your continued existence to the Ethereals,' Fost said, leaning against the sheer rock face along which they'd camped.
'But you rendered us invisible to the Guardsmen when we were many miles north of here,' Moriana said. 'What can you do this close to your home?'
'Don't build an exalted conception of my powers,' Erimenes said. 'Recall that I couldn't constantly maintain the illusion of your invisibility. My powers have grown, true, but they are far from infinite. Besides, most of the applications of my abilities, sad to say, lack any practical application in the present instance.'
'Tell me, Erimenes,' Fost said. The spirit turned toward him, a look of benign but thoroughly superior indulgence on his ascetic features. 'Your powers stirred us to renewed exertion during the bl izzard. Why couldn't they have roused us from the stupor of the Ethereals?'
Erimenes touched his nose with a fingertip. 'I tried. The grip of those worthless creatures' drugs and spells, and your own desire to slip free of reality, held you too tightly for my mental skills to break you loose. You two had to free yourselves, though I was able to provide a suitable verbal stimulus.'
Fost paced uneasily between the fire and the rock face. He paused and gazed up the narrow crevice that split the masses of the cliff. A long slope, steep but climbable, rose up to where black rock framed a wedge of stars. The instincts of a street urchin kept him from bedding down without having an escape route handy.
Worry nibbled at his mind. Erimenes's explanations were glib and plausible enough. Yet Fost had come to know the spirit well, too well to trust him very far. The whole matter of Erimenes's powers - and why he bent them to aid Fost and Moriana - raised far more questions than had been answered.
'Come, Erimenes, surely someone as wise as yourself has any number of useful skills,' said Moriana. 'What other miracles can you perform?'
Apparently unaware of the sarcasm in her voice, the scholar raised himself to his full height. He pondered for a moment, and his eyes opened wide.
'Just now,' he said pompously, 'I perceive a group of between twenty-five and forty men approaching furtively up the hill. You'd best act quickly. They're almost on top of us.'
Moriana's jaw dropped. Cursing, Fost kicked out the fire. A shower of embers rained down the slope, illuminating the faces and forms of men. The courier reached down, scooped up Erimenes's jar and slammed the cap back into place.
'Take them!' a voice cried in the darkness. A spear bounced off stone with a jagged noise, striking sparks as it went. Fost jammed the jug into his satchel and tossed it to Moriana.
'Run,' he told her. 'Climb up the crack while I stand them off.' 'I can't leave you,' she said. Her sword hissed into her hand.
Dark forms reared all around. Fost parried a sword-cut purely by instinct and riposted, eliciting a cry of agony. Moriana crossed blades with a dimly seen antagonist and sent him rolling down the mountain, spewing blood from a punctured lung.
'Go, I tell you,' Fost roared. 'I can stand them off here awhile. Wait for me - use your judgment how long.'
He turned to her. Their gazes briefly locked. Moriana nodded convulsively, spun and was gone, scrambling up the slope, leaving a wake of tumbling pebbles.
Fost heard the voice of Erimenes complaining aggrievedly at having to miss what promised to be an epic fight. Then the Sky Guardsmen charged.
CHAPTER THREE
Moriana stumbled and almost turned back as the sound of battle broke loose behind her. Grinding her jaw against the ache within, she made herself keep clambering up the shifting floor of the rock chute. Her lungs worked like bellows by the time she gained the top, and pain knifed through her ribs at every breath. But she was alive and safe - for the moment.
At the top she rested, panting. From below rose hoarse shouts, the clang of steel, cries of pain as weapons found their mark. Hope glowed briefly in the princess. The fact that the din continued proved that her lover still held his own. Even as slightly built as they were, no more than two bird-riders could charge him at anytime as long as he stayed within the mouth of the fissure. His greater strength and size would have a telling effect in such conditions.
Then a new thought staggered her. 'Erimenes!' she hissed, shaking the satchel and climbing unsteadily to her feet. 'We must go back. You can make Fost invisible and we can get away!'
'Restrain your emotions, my dear.' His patronizing intonation enraged her, and she started to dash his jug against a jutting of rock. 'Wait! It would do no good, as Fost realized, and as you would too, if you paused to consider.'
Moriana slumped back to the loose rock. She saw what the spirit meant. Even if Erimenes could befuddle so many bird-riders at once, the fugitives would gain nothing by it. The wily Rann had cordoned them against the cliff before moving in. Even invisible, Fost and Moriana would have had no chance to slip past the attackers. If both had gone at once, with no one to secure the bottom of the crevice, the Sky Guardsmen could have stood below and volleyed arrows up the chute. With such a narrow arc of fire to cover, they couldn't have missed, whether or not their targets could be seen.
All this Fost had known at once and acted accordingly. Moriana reproached herself. She should have seen it too. Her fears for the Sky City were obsessing her, wearing down her mind. She could do nothing to help her people if through worrying she grew careless and was killed.
WoP - 01 - War of Powers Page 23
