by Phil Tucker
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Audsley watched Lady Kyferin disappear through the Portal, which a moment later faded back to stone. He shivered. What power, what awesome ability the ancients had wielded to fashion such relics that could send people across the face of the world. It was hard to believe that at this very moment, Lady Kyferin and the others had appeared somewhere on the island of Agerastos, and were even now exploring their new location and fashioning plans, laying down the tactics and stratagems that would, with a little luck, result in a formidable new alliance.
"Well, then," said Temyl. "That's that. Now what?"
"Nothing, is what," grunted Bogusch. "We've got no duties other than to open this here Portal at each allocated hour. Isn't that right, Magister?"
"Indeed," said Audsley, rubbing his chin. "In one hour's time I shall open it anew, and then, if they do not return, we shall have twenty-four hours to kill before we must open it again. Come – we might as well make the most of our time and search out new Portals in case this one proves unsatisfactory."
The two men glanced at each other, then shrugged and followed Audsley, who for an hour wandered the length and breadth of the great room, peering up at Portal lintels and mouthing the atrocious runes as he sought to find another entrance to Agerastos. There were a dozen pillars in all, each with approximately six Portals around its base, but none of the other ground-level ones seemed to go to their desired city. Raising his torch, Audsley tried to read the second level, but the runes were too distant and the flickering shadows rendered them impossible to make out. He considered mounting the platform and performing a more exacting search, but weariness made him delay that more grueling task.
An hour later he was once again standing before the Portal and mouthing the words. Once more the runes flickered with fire and the inky wash spread across the surface.
Nobody came through.
Audsley thought of poking his head through the Gate himself, but decided not to. A minute passed, the Portal faded away, and he turned to the two guards.
They weren't the most pleasant men with which to pass the time, he thought: Temyl with his bovine simplicity and superstitious fears, Bogusch with his dour and dolorous outlook on life. Ah, well. "Twenty-four hours, gentlemen. We have an expanse of time before us with which to do what we like, though I suggest we remain together for, well, safety's sake."
"Well, Bogs and I've been thinking," said Temyl. "We think it best if we just retire to the quarters, stay safe and out of harm's way and pass the time in that manner."
"Aye," said Bogusch. "What say you, Magister?"
"Sit and pass the time? Well, perhaps. But there are a number of books I'd like to have with me if that's what we wish to do. Perhaps a visit to the library first. I saw a particularly exquisite collection of Aletheian poetry that I'd love to peruse, the complete collection as formed by Imperial Edict during the rule of the Seventh Ascendant." Audsley rubbed his hands in anticipation. "Did you know that to the Aletheians poetry can be a matter of life and death? And that..."
He trailed off as he caught Temyl and Bogusch sharing a look of impatience, and Audsley felt a whisper of suspicion flicker though his mind.
"Sure," said Temyl at last. "We can stop by the library if you like. A quick visit."
"A visit," said Audsley, drawing himself up, "which will last precisely as long as I need it to. Understood?"
He felt a tremble of fear as he waited for their response. What would he do if they defied him? If they told him they'd rather skip the library, and forced him to return to their quarters?
"As you like," said Bogusch at last. "Magister."
"Very good. This way, then." He turned and strode away before the tone of their voices could become any more sour, and stepped up onto the platform. He moved to the front and knelt slowly by the blade. "Are we ready?"
He didn't wait for their assent. Instead, he grasped the hilt and immediately formed a cage made of bars of light within his mind. The dark presence didn't try to test his bindings; it simply acquiesced to Audsley's command with an air of resignation. A trap in the making, Audsley knew. It was seeking to lull him into a false sense of dominance so it could attack again when it deemed the moment right.
The platform lifted, Temyl and Bogusch clambering on board just in time, and then they soared up and into the tunnel, down its hexagonal length and out into the moaning airshaft. There were dozens of other tunnels up its length that Audsley wished to explore, but he knew that now was not the time; he needed as much goodwill from his two guards as he could foster.
Instead, he guided the platform up to the library level, and there landed and disembarked. He led the way confidently through the maze to the secret passage that they had left open to the library's heart. As soon as he had stepped inside, he almost felt like letting out a sigh of relief. For purely foolish reasons he felt safe here, as if he had stepped into some kind of sanctuary. As if the darkness that threatened Starkadr could not follow him into this space – though one look at the corpses below, sitting around the central table, told him the depths of that lie.
Not wanting to ask the two guards for help, Audsley took the knotted rope himself and used it to climb laboriously down the telescoping levels, muttering silent apologies as he used the bookshelves as steps. Down he went to the lowest level, puffing and heaving for breath, and by the time he reached the dust-laden, rug-covered floor he was feeling quite exhausted. Still, this was where the most precious books were placed. It was here that he would make his selection.
He turned from the books, though, and examined the six figures that were seated around the hexagonal central table. They had a strange dignity to them, solemn and still as they were, their faces desiccated and drawn, their hair as fine as gossamer thread. Clad in the dark robes of the Sin Casters, they sat in state, heavy necklaces around their necks, holding hands in a ring.
Only one of the bodies lay slumped over, Audsley noted. Moving around the table to its still form, he felt a wave of sadness pass through him. What knowledge had these people lost when they passed on to their next cycle in life? In spite of all their studies, all their power, here they had died, alone and surrounded by enemies.
About to turn away, Audsley paused. The figure that had slumped over was lying on a book. Not a large one, and almost entirely hidden by the corpse, but there it was. Curious, wondering what one might choose to read in his final hours of life, he grimaced and slid the book out from under the body. Parts of the body settled and collapsed as he did so, and Audsley winced and muttered more apologies as the book came free.
It was a journal, he realized. The right-hand page was blank, the left-hand one covered in a minute and careful black script. Leaning down, he frowned at the page. Ancient Noussian, he noted with relief, and took the book up to read it more carefully, starting at the top of the uppermost paragraph.
I know not why I turn at this very last hour to the act of writing, to the transcription of events and information which gave me so many gentle hours of joy over the course of my life. Senathros leads the others in song, weaving words that once held power but which are now but echoes of the might we once wielded. Perhaps he and I are guided by the same futile impulses, clinging to vestiges of that which had meaning in another age, another time, but which now serve only to mock us and remind us of all we have lost, are in the process of losing, and will forever lose.
Audsley lowered the book and blinked at the slumped-over form. Oh, how his - or her - voice echoed across the centuries! He took up the book once more.
We can sense the carnage that is taking place even as we wait for it to be visited upon us. I fear that there is no hope for us, but that has been evident since the closing of the Black Gate. Oh Oleanna, your betrayal was equaled only by your sacrifice. Would it give you pleasure to know how terribly effective your new Order of Purity is proving? Or would you weep, former Alabaster that you were, regretting the monster that you have unleashed upon your former brothers and sisters?
Perhaps Erenthil and his Artificers were correct.
Audsley paused. Erenthil? That was the name of the slender stream that flowed out of Mythgræfen Lake toward Hrething. Could it have been named after this ancient Sin Caster?
He labors even now in his complex, seeking to turn the tide of inevitability. Perhaps we should have listened to him and loosed the demons in sufficient numbers to sweep away this Order of Purity and its bestial kragh in a conflagration of blood and fire, or bound more of the demons into his objects of war. But even releasing the few that we have pains me beyond any ability to describe. Would our survival, bereft of power as we now are, be worth the unleashing of such a plague upon humanity? I think not.
Audsley stared into the middle distance, frowning as he played the words through his mind. The unleashing of demons? What demons? From where?
All coherence is lost at this last. The hierarchies are broken. The Alabasters retain their power, of course, and fight on by our side, but without our ability to weave the currents of the world and walk the path of flame, they cannot hold. Oh, Oleanna, how your betrayal pains me! How could you turn against us in this manner? Kionan was right. It was not the Ascendant, but our own -
That was the last that was written.
Audsley tapped his chin, deep in thought, then returned the book to the table.
"Gentlemen?" He looked up to Temyl and Bogusch. "A detour, I believe, is in order. It will be brief, but I believe profitable. Come!"
Thirty minutes later they were once again mounted on the platform, Audsley at the helm, gripping the blade, his mind a wire mesh in which he strangled the entity contained within the blade. Aedelbert was a comforting presence, pressed against the side of his face. They floated out of the passage and into the main shaft, into the moaning maelstrom of wind, and descended smoothly till they faced a new tunnel, two floors lower, a black, yawning, hexagonal wound in the otherwise smooth shaft wall.
"Where we going, again?"
Temyl's truculence was barely noticeable while he was aboard the platform. Perhaps, Audsley thought, it was because the man knew he could be tipped out to fall hundreds of yards onto the withered bodies below.
"We are in search of a man long dead and his fellow Artificers, my good Temyl." Audsley nudged the entity in his mind, and the platform glided into the tunnel. "A gentleman known as Erenthil. He was engaged in a manner of experimentation precipitated by the very extremity of the invasion that saw Starkadr destroyed. Let us see what wonders he fashioned in his final hours, shall we?"
Bogusch muttered something behind Audsley's back, which the magister chose to ignore with superior serenity.
The ambient gloom was most useful; they flew silently into the great tunnel, and immediately Audsley saw something of interest on the floor below - a second platform, akin to the one they rode, a sword plunged into its fore. If it was an omen, Audsley didn't know how to interpret it, so he kept silent and instead focused on what lay ahead.
The tunnel soon opened up into a large room. The men and women who had designed the stonecloud's interior had enjoyed thinking on a grand scale, reflected Audsley, and why not? With such power at their fingertips, why shouldn't they carve out spaces on an imperial scope?
This room was hard to comprehend at first glance. It wasn't a room, not in truth, but rather a partition, a great chasm of space with rooms embedded in both walls like the cells of a honeycomb. Audsley couldn't make out the bottom of the chasm, or the ceiling, both being shrouded in the darkness, but the twin walls were separated by perhaps twenty yards of void. Each cell was fronted by a hexagonal glass wall, with a dull green light burning along the base of a few of them, causing the front wall to shimmer and burn with a subdued marshy light. The resulting effect was stunning: a ghostly infinity of rooms fading away into the gloom both up and down and away, an ethereal honeycomb.
"By the White Gate," croaked Temyl.
"This ain't right," whispered Bogusch. "We shouldn't be here."
"Oh, no," said Audsley, nudging the platform forward and out into the chasm that separated the two walls. "This is precisely where we should be. By the Seven Virtues, what magnificence." His heart was thudding joyously. There should be singing, some glorious sound to accompany the beauty of the sight. "These were the people who dreamed of Aletheia amongst the clouds, who raised Nous from the Eternal Ocean. These were the minds that crafted the Solar Gates, which united an empire across impossible distances simply because they could. Ah! What giants they must have been, their ambition untrammeled, their grasp not exceeding their reach!"
Neither guard answered him, but Audsley didn't care. He caused their raft to float ahead slowly, peering now into the few honeycomb cells that were lit. The facade of one in ten burned with a green light, making the glass walls look like the surfaces of iridescent green pools. The cells extended deep into the walls, perhaps a good thirty yards, their interiors lit by the faint light at the front. Audsley saw tables, counters, chairs, strange contraptions, shelving, corpses.
"Look. More dead Sin Casters," said Bogusch, crawling up beside Audsley. "Why d'you reckon they chose to stay and die in those strange rooms?"
"Perhaps they had no choice," said Audsley. "When the Black Gate was closed, perhaps they were trapped, unable to fly out. Or... no. That can't be right. The Gate was closed before Starkadr fell. Perhaps, then, they opted to remain in their studies, working to discover a solution, a means to strike back against the Ascendant and those who wished their death."
On they sailed, the silence complete but for their breathing, and even that created a soft echo in the vast spaces that extended above and below them. "And then, when the invasion hit, nobody was able to rescue them from their studies. They were left behind, trapped, to die slowly."
"Or jump," said Bogusch grimly. "I bet the floor below is a charnel pit of bodies."
"Perhaps," said Audsley softly. He felt his heart going out to those forlorn shapes that were lying on the floor, bent over the tables, or seated against the walls. They had sacrificed everything for knowledge, had wagered that they could devise a solution – and failed.
"Look," said Temyl. "Up ahead. The end of this place, maybe."
It was, indeed. The chasm ended in a single column of the honeycomb cells, these larger than their lateral cousins. The green marsh light burned in the glass walls that fronted each cell, and Audsley immediately gained a sense of their greater importance. He guided the platform up close and landed it on the ledge in front of the cell that was on the same level they'd been flying on. It touched down with a metallic crunch, propped up at the front by the sword's tip where it projected below.
"What are we doing here?" Temyl's voice shook. "Come on, Magister. Let's head back now, before we stir up any real trouble."
Audsley ignored him. It was easy to do. He stepped off the platform onto the black stone ledge. The dark space beneath it was mesmerizing; it seemed to pull at him, make his sense of balance a precarious thing, so he stepped away and walked up to the glass wall.
"What sort of craftsmanship is this?" he murmured to himself, not expecting an answer.
The glass was flawless, pellucid like a pristine pool, an inch thick and without scratch or defect. It was a hexagonal wall, perfectly slotted into the front of the cell, with a smaller hexagonal doorway carved in its center, one edge along the floor. The green fire that burned along the bottom edge flickered softly, so that the whole glowed with a light akin to the aurora infernalis that was said to light the Bythian sky.
Audsley stepped through the hexagonal doorway into the room beyond. Aedelbert let out a chirp and flew up to the top of a bookcase. Everything was lit a faint, mysterious green from the front. Inside he saw tables, work stations, benches. Shelving along the walls lined with books. Huge sheets of paper on which diagrams were inked, the corresponding items sometimes lying beside them.
"Why are we here, Magister?" Temyl had followed him into the room, but not far beyond the door. "Honestly now. What by
the Black Gate itself are you hoping to achieve?"
"I don't rightly know," said Audsley. He picked up a large metal gauntlet. The wrist guard was massively exaggerated, reaching down to the elbow and swollen out like a pony keg. It was surprisingly light. He set it down next to some goggles. "I read that it was here that the Sin Casters' last line of defense lay. It was in these rooms, these laboratories, that they sought to wrest some final advantage from their fallen arcana and defeat their foes."
"Well, it looks like they failed," said Temyl, kicking at the leg of a bench.
"Indeed. But who knows what they may have discovered at the very end? Who knows what wonders? Remember, they labored without the aid of magic. The Black Gate was already closed. Thus, what they may have discovered..."
He trailed off significantly and looked at Temyl. Beyond him, Audsley could make out Bogusch standing on the ledge, sword drawn, staring out into the chasm.
"May benefit us?" Temyl guessed.
"Precisely." Audsley picked up a length of serrated metal. "Though I'm not quite sure how, just yet."
"What's that there in the back?" Temyl pointed past Audsley, his expression reluctant, curiosity getting the better of him.
"Hmm?"
Audsley turned to look. A large metal block stood alone against the end wall, the front burst out as if it had been struck by lightning or some other explosive agent. Audsley stepped toward it and saw four corpses arrayed in a circle in front of the block. Their eyes were torn out and their lower jaws missing, tongues lolling grotesquely over their throats.
"Urgh," said Temyl, backing away. "What the hell is that?"
"I, um, I don't quite know," said Audsley, feeling his gorge rise.
The disconnect between the violence done to their faces and the manner in which they were ceremonially laid out made the diorama even more disconcerting. Shivering, he looked past them at the block. It was about six feet tall, four deep, and looked to be made of lead. Massively heavy, yet the deep gouge marks on the floor in front of it made it seem as if it had been dragged into place.
