WoP - 02 - Istu Awakened

by Robert E. Vardeman

  Moriana stepped forward from the line of troops she'd ordered across the avenue. Istu stood impassively, waiting to see what this golden-haired mortal made of its deadly exhalation. Silence seeped up from the very stones of the Sky City as Moriana raised her hands. A golden radiance sprang from her, resolved itself into a spear of light that leaped forward to pierce the cloud of darkness. The cloud exploded as had its victims. A few tatters of blackness danced on the wind, then vanished.

  An avalanche of sound rumbled deep in Istu's throat.

  'It recognizes Moriana,' suggested Erimenes.

  Fost's throat constricted. For the queen's sake he hoped the Demon didn't realize this wasn't his first encounter with the tall, slim, defiant woman.

  Moriana flung out her arms. Her fingers reached, grasped, drew back toward her breast. The facade of a tall structure on Istu's left toppled forward onto the Demon.

  Istu roared and staggered. His horned head was above the level of the buildings and mere stone couldn't harm him. But the torrent of masonry affected him like a sudden gout of water would affect a human. He was driven back even as the falling stone crushed the Zr'gsz clumped around his feet.

  'She's learned a great deal, that girl,' Erimenes remarked approvingly.

  The black beams lashed from Istu's eyes. Moriana was prepared. Her hand was already in motion, drawing a curtain of shimmering flame across the air in front of her. The black radiance struck the flame shield; both disappeared.

  Breath pumped rapidly in and out of Fost's powerful chest. He felt helpless in the face of such magic. He clutched his sword, wishing for action and knowing this battle far outclassed his abilities.

  'Can she defeat him?' he whispered. 'Has she gained power greater than Felarod's?'

  Somewhere in the fracas, the lid of Erimenes's jug had come loose. In a whirlwind of blue fog and sparkling light motes, the genie appeared at Fost's elbow. As his long narrow head took form, it was shaking, a look of paternal disappointment on his ascetic features.

  'i hardly think so. Nor would you, if you truly thought on it. Consider, my foolish young friend. How alert are you after waking from a long, long sleep? Especially one deepened by wine or drugs. I suspect the after-effects of Felarod's compulsion have a similar effect on the Demon. Yes, they are definitely analogous to those of more mundane soporifics used extensively in the . . .'

  '! get the drift,' said Fost, waving a hand to stem the tide of Erimenes's pedagogy.

  Istu had shouldered through the rubble. He strode purposefully up the street, and Fost wondered if it was only his imagination that perceived a fiercer light in those yellow eyes.

  With a crack like thunder, a vast circular pit yawned before the Demon. Istu dropped instantly from sight in a welter of debris. Buildings to either side, their fronts undermined, slid into the hole. From the rush of air through the Skywell at his back, Fost knew the hole went all the way through the stone slab on which the City rested.

  Almost at once a black hand appeared, three fingered and taloned like a Hisser's. Once more Moriana had cast magic of incredible power at the Demon - and had only succeeded in delaying his progress along the avenue. With icy shock, Frost realized the Demon was playing with his mortal opponent. He could simply have flung himself to the Circle of the Skywell with the speed of rushing wind had he so desired.

  'Perhaps Istu treats this duel as a warming up exercise,' said Erimenes, reading the courier's thoughts.

  A look of alarm gripped Erimenes's features, and he shouted, 'Oh, no, you can't take that upon yourself!' The genie had mind read Fost's intentions.

  Unheeding, Fost looked around, then went to the young loyalist officer Cerestan, who stood with bow and arrow in his hands and glared with impotent fury at the Demon.

  'We need balloons and birds,' Fost shouted as the lieutenant's head whipped around. 'We have to evacuate the City. Now!' he added as the young Sky Guard started to protest

  Still Cerestan objected, 'We cannot abandon our City!'

  'This goes beyond the fate of your damned City! Any human who stays here will be dead within the hour. Don't you see? A new War of Powers is upon us. We need live humans to fight back, not dead fools who threw away their lives in useless heroics.'

  Fost watched as understanding sank into Cerestan's mind. He nodded, lank black hair falling across his forehead. He turned to obey, then halted with a jerk like a dog reaching the end of its tether. He faced Fost.

  'The queen! What of her?'

  Fost read the look in those fervent blue eyes and inwardly groaned. He may have battled against Moriana but Cerestan was smitten with her all the same.

  'I'll take care of her,' he said, emphasizing the first word more than was necessary.

  Cerestan wheeled and raced off, calling to uniformed men and women as he passed. Some wearing Moriana's ribbons hesitated, but only for an instant. What side each had fought on before didn't matter now. They were all the same in the yellow eyes of Istu. And Cerestan was an officer of the Sky Guard, which meant that his orders were worth heeding. Rann promoted no fools to command his elite.

  Fost worked his way through the crowd, yelling to warriors and unarmed civilians alike to evacuate. Erimenes floated by his side, pleading with him to stop this folly and see to the security of his own hide. For Erimenes to encourage the courier to flee the scene of imminent violence was tantamount in likelihood to the spirit again adopting his old philosophy of abstinence. Fost realized the situation was grave if Erimenes was willing to forego bloodshed in favor of what he had termed cowardice on many prior occasions.

  'Get out, it's hopeless, get out!' was all the genie said. But he repeated it continually, his voice rising to shriller and shriller pitches.

  To Fost's astonishment, Cerestan led a tentacle of the frightened crowd aft from the Circle along one of the lesser streets - seemingly into the face of the Hissers. Even though his wits were dulled by fear and fatigue, Fost figured out the ploy. Istu himself was playing cat and mouse games on the main avenue with Moriana and most of the Zr'gsz were with him. The Hissers Cerestan and the rest ran into could be quickly dispatched. Then the Sky citizens would get to work inflating the huge cargo sausages in the aft hangars. Since Istu fought forward through the City, they'd be safer there than those who retreated to the City's prow, at least until Istu and his reptilian allies consolidated their hold on the Sky City.

  Then no human would be safe.

  '- have you impaled for impertinence, if she doesn't feed you to Istu,' babbled Erimenes as Fost broke from the ranks of soldiers and raced for Moriana. 'Great Ultimate, you know how fanatical she is about her City!'

  Moriana had blocked the avenue with a shimmering, rippling curtain of light burning scarlet and blue and gold and white. Buzz-ings and fat black sparks burst forth as Istu touched it. The Demon fell back with a bellow of pain. Fost saw all this as he sprinted after Moriana.

  With a sound like water sizzing on heated iron, a black hand reached through the shimmering curtain. With another anguished, angry roar, Istu hurled himself through the auroral wall. It caused pain but no damage. Pain was enough to infuriate him; he reached a clawed hand for Moriana.

  'Duck!' screeched Erimenes. The courier had only a split second to evaluate the situation. Moriana stood poised, her face strangely calm, a blue nimbus of energy scintillant around her form. Herarms slowly rose, as if imploring the gods for aid. Fost dived headlong, not wanting to be caught in whatever defensive magic Moriana was about to unleash.

  He felt a tingling close about his middle like a noose. He hung suspended in midair, the pressure around his waist threatening to crush him. Fost gasped, then reached out and gripped a protruding cobblestone with his fingertips. Straining every muscle in his body, he pulled. Like a seed squeezed between thumb and forefinger, he squirted out of the magical grip holding him. He tucked his shoulder and rolled on the hard street.

  'What're you doing here?' Moriana's voice sounded odd, flat. Fost sat up and saw that they were encapsula
ted by a dome of dull silver. 'The force shield will keep him out for a few minutes.' She shook her head tiredly. 'I learned this magic years ago but have never been strong enough to use it before.'

  Fost thought about frail mothers who lifted impossibly heavy blocks to free their trapped infants. In those moments of adrenaline fury, they became more than human. The urgency of battle against this cosmic being had elevated Moriana's powers in the same fashion.

  'The City is being evacuated,' he told her. 'I came for you.' 'Evacuated!' she screamed. Her face twisted in rage. 'On whose craven order?'

  'I told you, friend Fost, nothing good would conic from that rash action of yours, but you didn't -'

  'My order,' Fost said, cutting off Erimenes.

  Moriana raised a slender hand. Fost stood firm, though he knew magics capable of fending off Istu for the barest fragment of a second would blast him into a scorched cinder.

  'You.' By what authority?'

  'As your acknowledged consort. But mostly common sense.' He cast a quick glimpse upward at the pewter-colored wall of force. It held. The Demon seemed unsure how to deal with it, but Fost didn't doubt that Istu would eventually penetrate the curtain.

  'The City's lost. All that remains is for her people to save themselves. And you, too. You most of all.'

  'I'm holding Istu!'

  'You hold him - barely. He hasn't fully recovered from his enforced ten-thousand-year nap.'

  'But I grow stronger with every instant. I feel it!' Her eyes burned like balefires. She had won her City at horrendous cost. The thought of losing it almost in the same instant of seizing it drove forth her sanity like a beast.

  'Are you Felarod?' he shouted at her. The dome began to bulge inward like a tent roof filling with rainwater. Istu had decided to push his way through using brute strength. 'Do you control the power of the World Spirit? Can you overcome a demon born among the stars?'

  'He's right, Moriana.' The calm voice seemed to come from nowhere. Fost finally realized it emerged from the satchel so much like his own that Moriana carried over her shoulder.

  The queen's shoulders slumped. The sight squeezed tears into Fost's eyes. He knew again how much he loved her, and her loss was a shared wound.

  'Come,' she said, almost imperceptibly. Serpentlike her hand darted out to catch Fost's wrist. She dragged him toward the wall of the dome. He hung back, recalling what it had felt like going through the barrier as it formed.

  The silvery hemisphere burst like a soap bubble. Istu's iron-black claw plunged deep into the pavement where they'd stood only seconds before.

  The Circle was almost deserted when they reached it. At the fringes of the great plaza Zr'gsz began filtering in from the side streets. Moriana stopped to gather a full quiver of arrows and kept running, pausing now and then to cast some enchantment at the Demon following them. Fost didn't even look back to see what spells she hurled at Istu. It was too painfully apparent they were little more than annoying inconveniences to Istu.

  Forward of the Circle, they ran into a crowd. Off to their left an elongated cargo balloon surged into the sky. Screaming people dangled from its gondola as the sausage rose from the streets to be dragged clear of the City by a laboring eagle. Bird riders helped refugees mount eagles. Each could carry only a single passenger, and Fost saw more than one scimitar fall and come up red as hysterical men and women tried to fling themselves onto already overburdened warbirds.

  Moriana's step faltered.

  'My poor people!' she cried. 'Only a handful will escape!'

  Fost knew beyond doubt she was about to decide that she had to remain until all the Sky Citizens possible had been saved. He prodded her with his broadsword.

  'Go on, damn you! We need your magic if we're to have a prayer of winning this!'

  Her eyes were green daggers, but she picked up the pace again.

  Something whined past Fost's cheek. He slapped at it, thinking it an insect. His palm came away red.

  He glanced back. The Vridzish had taken the Circle and were slaughtering refugees intent on fleeing forward to the prow decks. The lizard warriors moved with inhuman swiftness, their weapons all but invisible as they struck yielding flesh. Behind them, Istu stood in the Circle of the Skywell, horned head thrown back, raping the sky with his basso profundo laughter.

  A pressure on Fost's arm brought him up short. They were at the waist-high wall ringing the City.

  'Now what?' he asked.

  Moriana's answer was to sling her bow over her shoulder, jerk out her longsword and parry the blow of a mace with one smooth motion. This snarling lizard man riposted with increasing speed. Moriana scarcely weaved out of the arc of the flanged mace before Fost lopped off the gray-green arm and plunged his blade through the Hisser's chest.

  Other lizard men ran toward them.

  'Can you hold them?' shouted Moriana.

  'No!'

  Ignoring his response, Moriana turned and leaped as lithely as a cat to the top of the rimwall. She stepped forward into space. Fost cried out in loss. Her despair had driven her to suicide!

  'It's you who's about to suicide, dolt! Turn around. Fight!' At Erimenes's urging, Fost moved to slap away a spear jabbing for his midsection. The spear pulled back only to shoot forward again and take him in the belly. He doubled over, gagging. The Hisser's throat swelled in triumph.

  Grabbing the haft of the spear, Fost stabbed out with his sword. The Hisser gave a croak of surprise as the blade pierced his throat sac.

  Fost rose, ripping his sword free and wrestling the spear from the lizard man's death grip. The Vridzish hadn't struck with enough force to drive the obsidian-pointed spearthrough Fost's mail, though links had parted under the force of the blow.

  Luck had been with him this time.

  A high caste Zr'gsz stood before him, breastplate gleaming green. The finely scaled skin of face and hands were so dark as to be almost black. The Vridzish flicked a two-handed mace at Fost. Instinct made Fost turn and block with the spear, which was almost knocked from his grasp. He cut at the Hisser's head. The mace knocked his sword aside, iashed out again. It struck chips from the wall as Fost dodged to one side.

  Recovering his balance, he launched a whining multiple attack, one-two-three cuts in rapid succession. The mace met and countered each. He only saved himself from the crushing head by falling forward. The wooden shaft that had saved his life once now slammed into his left shoulder. He gasped in pain as his clavicle snapped.

  He hacked at the Vridzish noble's side. His blade met the metal breastplate and was robbed of its force. He heaved, bringing his sword up along the inhuman's armored side to slice into the unprotected armpit. The Hisser dropped the mace between his body and Fost's and shoved the courier back.

  Wary of the head with its five ugly flanges, Fost was caught off-guard when the Vridzish shifted his grip and whipped the butt of the weapon into Fost's face. Fost heard the crunch of his nose breaking. Lightning ricocheted inside his skull and nausea turned his flesh to water. He reeled, blinking to clear his eyes, saw the gleaming metal head rise up, up, up, poising to smash in his brains . . .

  Shot from pointblank range, the broadheaded arrow stuck the Hisser in the neck with such force tt nearly severed the neck. Fost saw the lizard man's look of final surprise as the head lolled to one side. Then the Zr'gsz fell flopping and kicking while black blood fountained from its neck to spray the lower caste Hissers behind.

  They shrieked mad sibilants and lunged forward with weapons raised.

  'Jump, you fool! It's your only chance!' Impossibly, the voice was Moriana's.

  His skull pounding, his sight blurred, his left arm swinging at his side like so much dead meat, Fost couldn't hold back the reptilian Hissers for even a heartbeat. Knowing he was going to his death and loath to fall to these villains from a child's fable, he spun and dived over the rimwall into open air.

  The ground loomed up at him from a thousand feet below.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Fost Long
strider fell only four feet.

  He had both arms crossed in front of his face. They took most of the force of his landing on the slate gray stone platform. His broken nose smacked hard against his forearm, sending a white-hot lance of pain into his brain. The wire-wound grip of his broadsword twisted in his hand, giving him a nasty cut on his left forearm. Even worse than the other abuses to his body, the force of his fall caused the stone platform to sink beneath his weight, leaving his stomach inches above his spine.

  He felt the platform stir, rise. Fost lay dazed, watching the fireworks in his head and wondered whether or not he was glad he hadn't plunged the other 996 feet to the ground. The stone slab rocked gently like a boat bobbing at a dock. The nausea he felt from his broken nose was made all the worse by the motion. He guessed what had happened and where he was, but he kept his eyes clamped tightly shut. At this stage he didn't want to know.

  'Is he all right?' he heard a worried feminine voice ask. Since it wasn't Moriana, it had to be Ziore. Her voice came out sounding elderly but strong and resonant and distinctly different from the screeching sounds she'd made at Erimenes.

  A thump and a scrabble of claws came only a foot away from his head. The raft rocked under the impact of the added body. He heard the swish of a weapon cleaving air, the thunk of Moriana's longsword intercepting the axe-cut aimed at the back of his head.

  The reek of Zr'gsz stung acridly in his nostrils. Anger filled and drove back nausea and pain. If the reptilian bastards weren't going to let him lie in peace, he'd make them sorry for it.

  He seized the lizard man's ankles. The skin rippled smooth and dry, its texture differing only slightly from human skin. Before the reptilian Hisser reacted, Fost yanked hard on the ankles and flipped the creature into space between the blunt nose of the slab and the City wall.