'Why, child?' Moriana started. She constantly forgot that Ziore read her thoughts. The nun was better at it than Erimenes ever had been. 'You've gotten this far on a stolen bird. Can't you steal another, or ride up in one of those unsafe looking contrivances?'
'NO. If Rann died under the ice as I'd thought, it would be worth trying. But if Rann lives, no. He's suspicious of his own shadow. The City's sewn up like a balloon; trust in it.'
'What will you do now?' The words played over and over in her mind, clanking like lumps of rusted iron. What will you do now?
Her choices were few. But she wouldn't give up. There had to be a way someone as resourceful and daring as she could sneak into the City.
Somewhere, a snow clump dropped to the forest floor. Moriana shook herself. When the groundling rescue party failed to turn up a downed flyer, they would report back to the Sky City. Suspicion would be roused. A full-scale hunt would be fielded.
The disappointment of her failure to reach the City was swept away by a swell of emotion. Rage, hatred, determination flared.
'What will I do now?' she asked harshly. 'I'm going to show my sister that two can play the game of conquest.
'I'm going to invade the City in the Sky.'
CHAPTER SIX
Shadows writhed and capered among the vaults of the ceiling. Shadows pursued each other along the walls, ducking into alcoves, flashing up the piers of the pointed arches that supported the roof. Shadows held court in the throne room of the City in the Sky.
Shadows wrapped Synalon like silk. Clad only in their dark substance, the Queen of the City knelt in a chalk circle scribed carefully on the dark stone of the floor.
Within the seven-foot circle was a triangle, its apexes touching the circle. At its three points burned fires-one yellow, one blue, and the last red. A different scent rose from each: sandalwood, cinnamon, gall.
Thus protected by her magics, Synalon addressed herself to the spirits held captive before her.
She rose and shook back midnight hair. Shadows caressed her thighs, her belly, the palely glowing moons of her breasts, the shadows moving like lover's hands. She inhaled sharply as though she felt the touch.
'As Stone worked with Fire becomes Metal,' she intoned, her hair rising of its own accord like a deadly black halo, 'as Stone mixed with Water becomes Mortar, as both are shaped by the hand of Man, I shape you as I have bound you; You must serve my ends, or Wood shall be your pain!'
The creature she addressed stood splay-footed within its crystal prison, its arms crossed over the round jut of its belly. Bat ears flanked a domed, wrinkled skull. Its skin was rough, knobbed, and pitted like pumice. Its obsidian eyes gleamed forth with white-hot fire.
'You have drawn me into being, mistress,' it rasped with ill grace. 'Say what you would have of me and be done with it.' It spoke slowly, with obvious effort, its tone hovering near inaudibility at the lower end of the scale.
'Hear me. This is my pleasure. Convey my submission to the Lords of Darkness. They have but to render me their bidding, and I shall do it. The greatness of the City shal I be as it was, and the glory of the City was ever the glory of the Dark Ones.'
'No.' A stony head lowered to a stony breast.Synalon's head snapped up. Her haircrackled with furious energy. The stone I called on you to animate was gathered from the flows of Omizantrim, manikin. Speak thus, with the Throat of the Dark. Ones. Bear me their bidding.' The last words rushed out in a sensuous whisper. She bent forward at the waist, body sheened with sweat. Her nipples stood erect, casting shadows on her breasts.
'Stone is Stone, from wherever drawn,' the stone spirit said. 'I am touched with darkness, perhaps. But not with madness. I will have naught to do with the Lords of Infinite Night.'
'Then you must suffer.' Synalon hissed the words, face contorted with rage.
'Better your punishment than to draw the notice of the Dark Ones,' the spirit replied.
She pressed palms together before her belly. Slowly, she raised her hands. A green shoot sprouted from the floor of the chamber within the domed cylinder that imprisoned the spirit. It grew, touched one ankle of the lavalike homunculus and began to twine up the leg. The spirit stood immobile.
The queen raised her hands higher. The shoot climbed with them, swelling and hardening, green turning to brown along its length. The leafed tendril at the tip of the shoot touched the juncture of the stone man's thighs. It pressed upward with the inexorable pressure of growing plants.
The bat-winged visage lifted. Its lips stretched in a grin of growing agony, but still the spirit uttered no sound. Synalon's arms pressed before her breasts, her throat, her face. The stone head arched up and back, as though drawn by an invisible cord. Muscles stood out on its arms in stark relief.
Synalon began to spread her fingers. A ripple passed through the spirit's body. A shoot burst through stony skin at the juncture of neck and shoulder, curled coyly, green, and seemingly tender. Other sprouts broke from the creature's chest, its sides and belly, thickening into the branches of the tree that grew within the spirit, impaling it as it stood.
Remorselessly, Synalon's hands rose. The growing green and brown cancer rose up in the stone figure. Synalon raised hands above her head and pulled them apart. Stony fragments fell to the floor as fresh branches broke from the cheeks and ears of the spirit. One obsidian eye was pushed from its socket. It rolled down the floor like a black teardrop and shattered on the floor. At last the spirit opened its mouth to scream. Instead of sound, a shoot emerged, thick and leafy, reaching for the ceiling of the crystal cylinder. A shudder wracked the body. The fire died in its remaining eye.
Synalon dropped her hands to her sides. The ineluctable, unnatural growing ceased. It was now a stunted tree and nothing more.
The sorceress stood panting, a sense of frustration suffusing her. She had been so near the consummation she sought. And she had been denied. Her body trembled with rage and thwarted yearning.
Stone had been the likeliest choice as intermediary with the Dark Ones. Darkness was the great Sixth Principle. The other five acted upon each other, Fire consuming Wood, Water stilling Fire, Air dispersing Water, Stone negating Air, and finally Wood sundering Stone. Darkness was aloof, inviolate, the First Principle from which the rest derived. Light, that waste product of Fire, produced the illusion of dispelling Dark; but Dark remained, ever-present, hiding just beyond sight, biding in shadow until the Light vanished.
Dark alone was eternal. She turned to the captive sylph. The water sprite oozed within its crystal pen.
'You,' Synalon said, her hair waving as if it were caught in a breeze, 'you shall serve me. Great will be your reward, O child of the oceans. Bear my message to the Dark Ones. This I ask and no more.'
The sylph's voice was pleasing, fluid, and as elusive as quicksilver. But it, too, refused the sorceress's command. Quivering with fury, Synalon waved her hands before her in a whirlwind gesture. The sylph's body became agitated and was drawn up in a whirlpool around the insides of its prison. The spirit squealed, an aching, candescent sound. Synalon gestured. Vents at the bottom of the cylinder opened. The dying sylph puffed outward, mist. It filled the chamber for a moment and then was gone.
Synalon rounded the third cylinder. It contained the dryad, a lovely naked maiden whose toes were root and whose fingers were supple branches, her hair a green rustling of leaves. She sang with a voice like wind in spring-sweet branches, but her answer was the same. She dared not contact the Dark Ones.
She screamed lingeringly in her very human voice as a fire consumed her loveliness. It left behind only ashes.
Sparks flickered in Synalon's hair, popping and snapping electrically. Ozone was rank in her nostrils. And fear began to seep in around the edges of her determination. Her voice was edged as she addressed the shimmer that was the spirit of the upper air.
It defied her in the tones of chimes. Dark crystals appeared on the inside of the vessel. They rapidly obscured Synalon's view of the sprite as they grew
together and inward. The spirit taunted Synalon with its tinkling laughter even as the hardness crushed out its life.
Blue radiance bathed her body. Lightning traveled her limbs in a violet corona discharge. Her hair floated in a glowing spark-shot nimbus around her head. There remained only one captive elemental: Fire.
Fire, the elemental best understood and controlled by the mages of the City; Fire, the elemental most inimical to Darkness. It had been the humans who brought salamander lore to the City. The builders had venerated Dark alone.
Fire was the best choice and the worst. And if Fire defied her, too? The thought threatened to melt her resolve. She needed the power granted by the Dark Ones, she needed it, if her world-girdling ambitions were ever to be realized. And after Fire there remained no elementals to try to bend to her will. There were no lesser spirits of Darkness. The closest thing to a Darkness elemental was Istu, sleeping in chains of power in the depths of the City. Synalon knew too well what would befall her if she dared stir the Sleeper. The last time she had roused a fragment of his sleeping mind and animated the Vicar of Istu for the Rite of Dark Assumption, the demon had been given pain such as he'd never known before. He would not forget the sorceress who summoned him to anguish.
'Salamander,' she said, fighting to keep the quaver from her words. 'Strength of my City, ally of my folk. I command you and beseech you to bear my message to the Dark Ones.' She stood straight, flames spilling from her outstretched, supplicant hands.
The salamander's vessel exploded. Flying shards of glass scored Synalon's stomach, thighs and breasts. One glittering fragment laid open her right cheek. She flinched but held her ground. The salamander was loose. The fire sprites were fickle, vicious beasts and never predictable - and never entirely controlled. Something had gone horribly wrong. The enchanted vessel should have held any power less strong than Istu himself.
The flame creature danced in the middle of the throne room. The stone floor ran and puddled like water beneath it. Synalon threw up her hands to shield her eyes from the yellow incandescence.
In a few trip-hammer beats of her heart, she sensed that the blinding radiance had dimmed. Carefully, she lowered her hands. And gasped.
The thing was no normal salamander. They were usually shifting, indistinct beasts. Their only form appeared vaguely reptilian and sinuous. The horror confronting her was like a goat, an ape, a grossly misshapen human. It had a bulky body with ever-changing outlines, and yet its lineaments didn't change with the quicksilver speed and smoothness of an elemental. The thing had hooves on its four feet-two? more? - clawed hands, and bizarre paired horns sprouting from both sides of its head. With a start, Synalon recognized what she had conjured.
'Aye, little one, you guess the truth,' the apparition said. The words came not in a salamander's familiar sibilance but in a dry sound that made her think of dead leaves and blighted lands. 'The Lords of Darkness have taken note of your petition. They have sent me to bear their tidings to you.'
Joy exploded in Synalon's heart, a joy magnified by the frantic fear clutching her. Would they favor her or cast her to shrieking damnation?
She dropped to her knees, throwing her arms wide. 'O harbinger of Darkness, accept my subservience. Take me, Lords! Make me the instrument of your revenge for the wrong done you by accursed Felarod!'
'The Dark Lords hear your voice, little one. They bid me tell you this: their time is almost come. But. . . ' A wave of a tentaclelike member cut off her glad cry. 'But they are as yet undecided as to whether you are the proper tool by which they shall accomplish their vengeance - and their return.'
'Tell me,' she cried, wringing her hands. 'I beseech thee, tell me how I may prove myself!'
The creature's smile was unmistakable in spite of its slowly changing features.
'Your chance arrives soon.' And it vanished. But not entirely. The torches in their brackets on the walls blazed to life. Blinking back the spots swimming in her eyes, she saw only darkness beyond.
Dazed, she rose and walked from the circle and triangle. She noted that the three ward fires had been extinguished. She didn't doubt that the emissary of the Dark Ones had put them out to show how ineffective her spells were against their minions. She slumped into the Beryl Throne.
The stone chilled her buttocks and thighs, reviving her. She brushed sweat-lank hair from her eyes and tried to think.
Synalon tried to tell herself she had nothing to fear. The Dark Ones had been banished formillennia, and few outside the City dared even think of them. They needed an ally on this plane, a powerful one with the skills and ruthlessness to carry out their designs. She was unquestioned ruler of the City in the Sky, the City of Sorcerers. Her winged legions would soon spread out to cover the Sundered Realm. Who would they find better suited to their ends?
Yet she couldn't shake the feeling that the Dark Ones only toyed with her, that she'd been found wanting and they had chosen their earthly instrument - and she was not their choice.
Synalon reached for the golden bell by the throne and rang. She needed wine and restoratives and, after that, the attentions of one of her many lovers. Or perhaps more than one. Perhaps even the trained hornbull.
She did not want to sleep and dream this night. Tolviroth Acerte had no army. Contrary to popular belief, war is not good business. And the Tolviroth were consummate businessmen.
The City of Bankers was not without its defenses. Twenty-five miles of sea separated it from the nearest mainland. The seamen and marines of the Tolviroth Maritime Guaranty Corporation, largest insurance firm on the island, were famed well beyond the Realm for their fighting and naval skills. But that was merely good business. Pirates, with or without letters of marque, interrupted trade. That was intolerable. The merchants of Tolviroth paid and paid well to see that their vessels were safeguarded. And the Maritime Guaranty, with a half-dozen competitors only too ready to claim its market share, made certain its customers got their money's worth. Not even the Imperial Navy in its heyday centuries before would have undertaken to protect the wallowing bottoms of an invasion fleet against the lethal black ships of the TMG.
Moriana had spent eight hours in the forest near the City in the Sky as patrols of dog cavalry scoured the woods for the missing bird rider. Her senses, turned animal-sharp, had gotten her through the cordon. One of the searchers had strayed too far from his comrades, and Moriana was soon bound southeast for Kara-Est, a stolen black-and-white war dog bunching and straining between her legs.
Weeks passed as she made her way to Kara-Est and from there by sea to Tolviroth Acerte, paying for her passage with the klenors gained by selling her stolen dog. And after reaching Tolviroth Acerte, she headed directly for the House of Omsgib-Bir, the bank that held the accounts for the Sky City.
They'd given her no satisfaction. She'd established her identity without difficulty. She'd been to Tolviroth Acerte twice before and knew the passwords and countersigns that proved she had legitimate access to the accounts. Or at least the records of the accounts. Tulmen Omsgib, chancellor of the bank, had politely but relentlessly refused her request to release the money to her.
'Your bona fides are not questioned, Highness,' the syndic had said unctuously, stroking his beard. 'Yet we can only disburse funds to the government of the City in the Sky, or its rightful representative.'
'But I'm the rightful heir to the throne!' 'I can appreciate that,' he said with spurious compassion in his sad, round eyes. 'By the laws of ultimogeniture followed in your City, you are the rightful successor to Derora, may the Great Ultimate bring her soul repose.' He sat back and pressed his palms together as if in prayer. 'But you are not in the City. You are here before me in my office, an honored guest, to be sure, but a guest without official standing.'
He held off her protest with upraised hand. 'No, I am most sorry, Highness. But it is not the custom in Tolviroth Acerte, or in the House of Omsgib-Bir, to deal with what might be, or even what ought to be.' He reached down and took a jellied sweet from a salver
at his elbow and popped it right down his throat. 'Your title is clear by right, but it is your sister who rules the City. It is she, therefore, whom we must recognize and deal with as the lawful government.'
He tilted his head back and regarded her down his crooked nose. The look in his eye was unmistakable. Moriana's garb was rough and functional and not precisely what one expected of the rightful queen of the City of Sorcerers. It did nothing to hide the curves of her body. Omsgib's oily tongue slipped from the cavern of his mouth and slowly circled his lips.
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