WoP - 01 - War of Powers

by Robert E. Vardeman

  'A puzzle,' said Erimenes. Dubiously Moriana started forward. A skull turned beneath her boot and threw her against a wall. She put her hand up only to snatch it back. Gingerly she reached out to touch the wall again.

  'Erimenes, it's warm,' she said. 'The rock is warm.' 'There is much volcanic activity in these mountains,' the philosopher said. 'Doubtless what you feel is the very world's lifeblood running through the veins of the rock.'

  Moriana glanced at the satchel. What he said was possible. It would certainly explain the lack of snow in the pass. Though why it gave the appearance of being swept clean was another matter.

  'Hist!' called the spirit. 'Something comes!' From the shallower slopes of the Valley behind broke the hunting cry of a mountain cat. Moriana spun, back to the wall, curved Sky City sword in her hand. Unlike the sightless birds, a big cat was unlikely to attack a human. Unless the onset of winter had made its food scarce ...

  In an explosion of flying snow a creature raced out of the Valley and passed Moriana. A large rodent with huge, triangular ears pressed to its neck bounded on great hind legs. Hot on its trail and squalling its fury came a tufted-eared cat, its sleek white hide dappled with dark brown to match the incomplete snowy carpet of early winter. Fangs the length of a dirk glinted in its maw, but it paid Moriana no need as it lunged past.

  Onto the bare earth of the pass it pursued the rodent. A rumble resounded in the narrow gap. A ripple passed over the rough, pink surface of the twin protrusions and they seemed to change color before Moriana's startled eyes. Then with a crushing, rending roar they surged together like giant jaws.

  As the rocky juts hurtled inwards, the rodent stopped, frozen with fear. The cat sprayed dirt as it sat on its haunches and tried to reverse its course. For all the feline speed of its reflexes, it acted too late. The pink granite-like masses slammed into one another. The crash of their meeting overwhelmed the cat's last defiant cry.

  'Saints of blood and darkness,' Moriana whispered. 'The rock lives!'

  'So it would seem,' Erimenes said, unperturbed. 'I had heard hints of such things, side effects of the War of Powers, but had never encountered any at such close range. Fascinating.'

  The rock, if rock it truly was, pulsated now, veins of darker colour emanating from the spot where the stone mandibles met. A sudden convulsion of the living stone ejected a scatter of white fragments. Moriana gasped in horror as the crushed bones of the rodent and predator were cast into the snow at her feet.

  'Now we know the origin of the crushed bones,' said Erimenes with a certain satisfaction.

  Moriana stumbled a few steps down the slope and sat in the snow. Her head whirled. A few steps more, she thought, that's all it would have taken. Then it would be my bones that lie there, crushed and sucked clean.

  Snow began to fall. Moriana sat hugging her knees, paying it no mind. At last a peevish complaint from Erimenes roused her. She rose, dusted white powder from her thighs and regarded the stony jaws. They had slid back into place. They now looked like nothing more than rounded outcroppings of rock, save for the fact that snow melted as soon as it touched them.

  Moriana's eyes rose up the rock walls that flanked the pass. The sheer, smooth faces offered no handholds. High up on the right-hand face she saw an irregularity that might have been a ledge, or no more than a trick of the swirling snow. She shook her head. Even if it was a ledge, she had no way of reaching it.

  'We're stymied,' she said at last, gathering her cloak more closely around her to ward off the chill. 'This passage through the mountains is blocked; the only other I know of is the Gate, far to the East.' She clenched her fists in angry disappointment. 'I may as well surrender to Rann now as try to reach the Gate of the Mountains across the open steppe.'

  'Surely you aren't so easily defeated!' Erimenes cried. 'You are a woman of great resource. Can't you conceive of some way to get past the monster?'

  The passion in the spirit's voice took her aback. He seemed as feverish to reach Athalau as she. What motivated him? Was it merely homesickness, a longing to see his birthplace after almost a millennium and a half of separation? Or was it something else?

  Whatever his reasons, they can't be as urgent as my own, she thought. Aloud she asked sarcastically, 'What would you have me do? Do you think I can run faster than the rock-leaper or the tufted cat? Do you think I can scale the walls like a spider or would you simply have me sprout wings and fly over this carnivorous canyon to Athalau? Would you . . .' Her voice dwindled into thoughtful silence.

  'Well?' demanded Erimenes. 'Have you thought of a spell to turn yourself into a bird?'

  'No, you garrulous puff of smog. If such magic was in my power, wouldn't I have used it long ago?' She settled the knapsack more firmly across her shoulders, cinching tightly the strap that held Erimenes's satchel. 'But perhaps I needn't fly to get over this obstacle.'

  With that, she ran straight for one of the massive juts. Her momentum carried her several feet up the side of the thing. Her hands and feet scrabbled for purchase, but the monster's rocky hide was slippery. The top of the protrusion was a dozen feet or more above the ground. She had not gotten more than halfway before she began to slip irrevocably backward. A muscular twitch of the animated rock sent her sprawling.

  'Are you sure you know no spells of avianthropy?' Erimenes asked. Ignoring him, Moriana picked herself up and strode purposefully for the outcropping, drawing her sword as she went.

  'You don't plan to do battle with the thing?' Erimenes asked in horror.

  'What's the matter?' Moriana asked. 'Have you lost your taste for gore? No, nebulous one, I don't intend to fight the beast. I do hope to carve us a pathway though.' The scimitar slashed twice, a blur of speed. The thick hide and stony flesh of the monster resisted, but the Sky City blade, its fine blue steel misted by condensation in the cold, cut through both to form a ragged step. The flesh within the wound was yellow and seeped thick red blood.

  Moriana hacked another step a foot above the first, and another above that. The great hump of muscle shook convulsively. Syrupy red blood spattered Moriana's face and cloak.

  She put her boot in the lowest step. A wild spasm rocked the monster. Her gloved fingers clutched a step, dug in, held.

  Clinging with both feet and one hand, hacking with the other, Moriana inched up the flank of the rock monster. When she'd started cutting, the princess had "'eared the jut would swing back to crush her against the cliff. But apparently the creature was unable to move in any way but back and forth. It could still try to shake her off though, which it did with ever-increasing violence.

  Grimly Moriana fought her way upward. She was smeared with the thick blood, and its reek clogged her nostrils. Erimenes shrilled with terror, fearing that at any second she'd be pitched into the monster's maw and be crushed along with his jug. What the destruction of his jar would do to him, Erimenes had no more knowledge than Moriana, and he felt no eagerness to find out.

  Then Moriana's head passed the top of the hump and she saw the far slope receding into white oblivion. The creature shook like a dozen earthquakes until Moriana's joints threatened to give way. She held the sword high, plunged it down into the flesh again and then levered herself forward with a powerful shove of her legs. Like a tumbler she somersaulted over the top of the living hump.

  Behind her the jaws rammed together again and again with a roar like thunder, as though the monster gnashed its teeth in frustration.

  For a few breaths Moriana lay on her back, letting the fat white flakes land on her face and melt, spots of stinging coolness on her flushed cheeks. She finally rose and stumbled down the far side of the hill. At her back the jaws of the Valley opened and shut in an avalanche of noise.

  Clawed feet scrabbling for traction, the bears made their way along the ledge. Fost's heart lurched each time the slip of a paw on icy rock threatened to send him and Grutz over the edge. The trail would have been perilously narrow going for the broad-beamed beasts under the best of conditions. With the roc
k sheathed in ice and clouds of snow blinding them, it seemed impossible that the mounts had come this far without slipping to their doom.

  In front of him the dimly seen shape that was Jennas turned in her saddle. 'Look over the side,' she directed. 'You'll see why I don't think you'll ever see your woman again.'

  At her command Fost's stomach turned over. But he made himself crane his neck so he could peer three hundred feet straight down to the valley below. A freak of wind parted the curtain of snow, and he saw clear to the bottom.

  He blinked, wondering if the cold played tricks on his eyes. It seemed that the very rock of the cliffs was surging out of both sides of the narrow gorge to slam together in the middle and send a deep rumble shivering up the mountains. It reminded him unpleasantly of giant jaws.

  'That's a living creature down there,' Jennas said. 'It senses when something tries to pass between its jaws, and they slam shut, crushing its prey.' She bent dangerously far out of her high-cantled saddle to gaze down. 'I've never heard of the monster being so active. Perhaps the blizzard bothers it.'

  Perhaps it's chewing Moriana's lovely body to a bloody pulp, Fost thought, and instantly regretted it. He cursed his too-vivid imagination.

  Jennas twisted to face him again. 'Now you've seen what your friend would have had to pass. We know she tried it; I showed you the remnants of her camp back in the Valley of Crushed Bones, and no one else would knowingly enter the vale of the heat-hunters.' Her eyes burned like beacons through the snow. 'Shall we go on? I did promise to guide you wherever you wished.'

  Fost's chest expanded within his bearskin cloak as he took a deep, pensive breath. No, he thought. I will not accept that she is dead. Not until I see her corpse.

  The icy air was like razor-sharp knives in his lungs, emotion a dagger in his guts. Was his concern for Moriana alone or for his prospect of recovering the ancient, treacherous shade who alone knew the location of the Amulet of Living Flame? He couldn't answer the question.

  The look in his eyes answered Jennas. She set her face into the wind and rode on, leaving the courier to wonder if it was the icy blast that made her eyes water.

  Then they were descending to the valley on the far side of the pass. The snow began to thin. Jennas nodded silently as Fost shouted and pointed to a thin spire of smoke corkscrewing into the sky.

  They reached the valley floor. Fost booted Grutz to a run, galloping past Jennas's mount and shouting Moriana's name. A slender figure leaped from an overhanging bank and came around the campfire with sword in hand to confront the bear-riders.

  'Fost!' Moriana sheathed her sword, and she was running forward too, arms wide. Fost dropped from Grutz's broad back and lunged to meet her. Laughing and shouting with wordless joy, they clung to each other. Moriana babbled the story of her escape from the Valley, running on until Fost stopped her with an embrace.

  After an appropriately long kiss, he broke away and turned to Jennas. To his surprise the hetwoman smiled.

  'Any woman who can pass through the Valley of Crushed Bones alive is worthy even of a Champion of Ust,' she said. 'I leave you now. The tents of the Ust-alayakits are open to you always.' So saying, she turned her bear and loped back toward the trail through the mountains.

  Grutz shuffled forward, rumbling deep in his throat. Moriana raised her sword. The great, shaggy head shoved against Fost's chest and nuzzled him. He ruffled the coarse fur of the bear's neck. Then Grutz wheeled and followed the hetwoman of the People of Ust.

  Only a few flakes dropped from the leaden sky. Moriana and Fost stood with joined hands, watching as Jennas mounted the trail and ascended with remarkable speed. As she reached the place where the trail disappeared around the mountain, she paused to wave. Fost and Moriana waved back, and the warrior-woman was gone, Grutz lumbering after her.

  Fost turned again to Moriana. He saw the peculiar light in her green eyes and thought with sinking heart of her scrying spell. 'Moriana . . .' he began.

  She shook her head, placing a finger to his lips. 'Don't worry,' she said. She glanced at the trail. 'I wish she'd said her name. She's quite a woman, isn't she?'

  'Her name is Jennas,' the courier said. 'And yes, she is quite a woman indeed.'

  And so are you, he thought. They trudged on during morning and afternoon. At first they walked strongly. Moriana, pausing to wait for Fost, had enjoyed several days of relative inactivity in which to recuperate from the endless trek south. Fost had gone through a more strenuous time but at least, as he told himself, he hadn't had to walk during most of it.

  In a matter of only minutes, though, they were exhausted. The very clothes on their bodies weighted them down like the threat of impending death. Their feet were as hard to lift as if they had taken root. Step after dreary, dragging step all too slowly melted away the miles.

  The day passed in leaden silence. After exhaustion stilled the happy conversation that had followed Moriana and Fost's reunion, even Erimenes soon lapsed into silence. He could not endure the empty, lonely way his voice rattled up and down the valleys walled with grey stone and mortared with ice.

  The autumn polar day was short, and the sun no sooner gained the pinnacle of the sky than it tumbled to a bloody death on the jagged peaks. The onslaught of darkness brought with it redoubled chill. Fost and Moriana moved almost energetically as they erected Moriana's tent for the night. It was a counterfeit energy, born from their efforts to fight the weariness that urged them to lie on the bare, cold earth and sleep for all eternity.

  Fingers half frozen, they found it hard even to wield spoons to spill a few mouthfuls of gruel down their throats. Bland as it was, the magical grey mess stung throats gone raw from breathing saw-edged antarctic air. At last they put away the ebony bowl and unrolled their bedrolls for sleep.

  Fost wondered if it could have taken any more effort to climb the loftiest mountain in the Ramparts than it did to work his way down into the cocoon of his bed. Yet once he lay inside it, almost warm for the first time that day, he found sleep eluded him as nimbly as a handful of wind.

  He lay a long time, becoming gradually more aware of the aches that assailed his body and of the breathing of the woman beside him. His mind was numb with fatigue, but he could not slip off the mantle of awareness. He realized Moriana's breathing did not come in the steady rhythm of sleep. He wondered what made her wakeful. She had to be as tired as he.

  'Fost.' He rolled onto his back. He inhaled deliberately, thinking that his body would have stunk had not the cold leached odor from the air, or perhaps it was the sense of smell from his nostrils?

  'Yes?''What happens once we get there?' He breathed out. Vapor ghosted white above him. 'Let's leave it,' he said. His voice sounded ancient, a once-smooth baritone fractured by senescence. 'We don't even know if we will get there.'

  'It's time we spoke of it,' she insisted. He shifted to his side. Her face was a pale blur in the darkness of the tent. His imagination filled in details: satin skin dried like leather by wind and sun, stretched taut over the frame of aristocratic cheekbones; full lips pressed tight, almost pinched, by the endless hours of forcing her body to go on, always on; her naturally bright eyes gone hard and sharp as emeralds; her golden hair turned to straw. Still, she was beautiful, as beautiful as only one can be whose spirit is strong, enduring and indomitable.

  Fost freed his arm and reached out to stroke Moriana's cheek with the backs of his fingers. She turned her face away.

  'You're evading the question,' she accused. 'I won't have it.' 'What do you mean you won't have it?' he snapped, irritated by the tone of her voice.

  She looked at him. He thought he could see the Crystalline hardness in her eyes.

  'There is a question that must be answered soon,' Moriana said, the words sounding as if they'd been punched out with a cold chisel. 'Who is to have the Amulet of Living Flame? We both desire it. Who gets it?'

  Resentment geysered up inside Fost. He choked it back. Yet he knew it was this question, not the ache in his limbs, that
kept sleep at a distance.