WoP - 02 - Istu Awakened

by Robert E. Vardeman

  When the last straggling child was whipped through the gates, they thumped closed and Fost heard a bar rumbling into place across the outside. New guards replaced the old; a mental signal from Moriana confirmed that the setup was the same as before, two on the gate, two patrolling the perimeter.

  Night settled in to stay. Crickets tuned up off in the scrub, their chirping joined by the warbling of night lizards distending purple throat sacs to sing plaintively. The ofilos closed their lovely, treacherous blooms and some night blooming succulents released sticky sweet perfumes. Though Fost found their odor cloying, he wasn't allergic to them.

  Some of the buildings in the Watchers' main camp had been left standing by the new occupiers, and Moriana reported that most of the soldiers who had escorted the prisoners went into them for the night. There were fewer of the lizard men than she'd expected. From the patrol activity of the day before - and today, as well, when they had dodged skyrafts floating around the mountain - Moriana reckoned there must be several times as many camped around Omizantrim as were bivouacked in the Watchers' village. Probably the rest were posted around the flows to keep out intruders, and concentrated around the mines themselves.

  Fost was glad of that. It'd be no easy task to sneak even a few of the Watcher captives out from under the noses of two hundred sleeping Hissers.

  Knowing something of Zr'gsz military routine, Moriana waited until midway through the new watch, giving the evening cool sufficient time to weigh down the limbs of the patrolling Hissers and render them drowsy. Then she beamed her readiness to Fost.

  He listened until the lizard men's sandalled feet crunched through the dust and gravel of the arroyo running along the western wall of the compound. When they passed, he started counting again. He counted two-twenty-five. The Hissers would be midway along the northern wall unless something had disrupted their routine. He'd heard no disturbance and Moriana informed him that the lizard men needed to relieve themselves less frequently than humans.

  Now! he thought.

  From her bubble cave, Moriana put a compulsion on the two armed guards at the gate. When she'd outlined that part of her plan, Fost expressed his surprise. He thought the mental compulsion worked only on her fellow Sky Citizens, who were steeped in the magics of their City and thus susceptible to them.

  'The magics of the City,' she'd replied, 'are closely allied to those of the Zr'gsz.' The peculiar light in her green eyes had discouraged further questioning, not that he cared. Fost knew as little of magic as he did of hydraulic engineering. Now he hoped fervently she was right.

  He wished she could have compelled the lizard folk on the gate to slay their fellow guards. But she lacked the ability to impose so drastic an act as the murder of a comrade. She could turn them into living statues for as long as it took Fost to eliminate the patrolling pair and get to the gate, but that was all.

  His heart thumped in his throat as the two appeared around the corner, two lumps of black against fainter darkness. He heard the crisp sounds of their steps, fancied he heard their breathing over the animal sounds of the prisoners on the far side of the wall. On the count of one-fifty he eased his sword from its scabbard. He shifted his hand to make certain of his grip on the wire-wound handle. Fear danced in his veins and pounded in his temples. He knew all too well the horrible speed with which the Zr'gsz reacted. He had to pit his merely human reflexes against two of them.

  Part of him expected Erimenes to sing out a challenge at any moment. But the genie stayed silent as the footfalls drew nearer. Gleams of reflected starlight danced by in time to the footsteps. Fost sucked in a huge breath and sprang.

  He landed with feet widespread and sword swinging, held two-handed in a madman's grip. He struck left and right with hysterical speed and power, crazed with fear that the lizard men's preternatural reflexes would cut him down before he could act. But even Zr'gsz reflexes take time to react; these Hissers were slowed by the soporific caresses of the chill night. When the pale creature materialized between them with his star-gleaming blade blazing a deadly trail through the darkness, they had no time to react.

  The sword thunked home in the neck of the second sentry by the time Fost's nerves recorded the impact with the first. The leading Hisser fell, his head lolling from the half-severed neck that spewed dark blood onto the volcanic sand. The second's head simply sprang from its shoulders, launched by a powerful jet of blood.

  Fost was so astonished that he just stood there staring for several heartbeats, his sword seeming to pulse like a living thing in his hands. Stinking black blood dried quickly on clothes and hair and skin.

  'I'm alive,' he whispered. 'I'm alive!'

  'Shrewdly struck,' observed Erimenes. It was true. Fost had read about mighty warriors, generally great-thewed barbarians from the equatorial forests of the Northern Continent, who decapitated foes with a single swordstroke. Once he'd started learning swordcraft he'd dismissed the tales as mythic. A horizontal headcut was too chancy to be useful - a shoulder or upraised arm was too likely to get in the way. And it was hard to cut through a human neck, even with a well-honed steel blade.

  In his panic, Fost had been unable to do anything but lash out horizontally and hope the sentries kept their arms by their sides. They had, and he'd chopped one of their damned heads off. Maybe he was a hero.

  'Don't get carried away.' Erimenes advised him sourly, picking up the thought from his brain.

  Grinning, Fost jogged down the arroyo. He felt a laugh rising in his throat and pushed it back down sternly. He hadn't honestly expected to survive the ambush. Reaction to finding them dead while he still lived made him giddy.

  He reached the end of the wall where the arroyo wall was only a few feet high, scrambled up and peered around cautiously. The buildings beyond were black and silent like so many crypts; the garrison had finished its meal and gone to bed, wrapped in heavy cloaks against the cold. Two more sentries stood as rigid as statues exactly where Moriana had predicted.

  But the Zr'gsz could stand motionless far longer than a human. Were these under Moriana's compulsion or just standing their usual watch? Fost knew only one way to be certain.

  He dropped from the wall and slowly walked around the corner. Nothing. The sentries might have been carved from basalt. He repressed a lunatic urge to whistle as he glanced around. Far away a pink glow stained the eastern horizon. The lesser moon was poised to fling itself into the nighttime sky. Fost picked up his pace.

  Affecting a boldness he didn't feel, he walked directly between the sentries to the gate. Neither Hisser stirred. He reached for the wooden beam securing the gate.

  'Kill them, idiot,' hissed Erimenes.

  Fost paused to consider. Neither sentry showed any more life than the blocks of lava in the wall, but there wasn't any guarantee Moriana could hold them much longer. Fost had considerable cause to fear and loathe the lizard men, but he didn't like killing helpless beings.

  But he saw no alternative - and time passed. He made two swift jabs with his dagger and turned back to moving the massive wooden bar.

  The creak it made coming free of the brackets could be heard all the way to Port Zorn. But as soon as Fost had freed Moriana of her need to hold the sentries under compulsion, she'd shifted her attention to the buildings where the Hissers slept. She relayed via Ziore and Erimenes that no movement occurred at his slip. With a grunt of satisfaction, Fost heaved the bar away and opened the gate.

  If the Zr'gsz hadn't heard him removing the bar, the captives had. A knot of men and women in ragged smocks clustered about the gate. Their reaction surprised him. A gasp of fear raced through the small group. Then it passed and he saw furtive expressions of hope dawn on their haggard faces.

  Their gauntness appalled him. Obviously, the Zr'gsz fed their slaves only enough to enable them to drag their bodies down to the skystone mines every morning and toil the day away. That their slaves' numbers diminished every sundown made no difference to the reptiles.

  A man pushed his way through
the crowd. Not a tall man, he walked erect despite the air of deprivation, exhaustion and despair that swirled about him like a cloak. He'd once been a stocky man, Fost judged from the folds of loose skin on the scarecrow frame. But his eyes blazed clean, firm.

  'I am Ludo, Chief Warden of the Watchers of Omizantrim. Who are you and what is the meaning of this?'

  I'm Fost. This means you and your folks are escaping. But they have to move.'

  'The Hissers -'

  'Are taken care of. We can have a nice chat later. But get your people moving and do it now unless you love such lush accommodations.' He waved his hand at the rude makeshift huts, little more than slumping piles of rock or tens made from tattered clothing.

  Ludo took a deep breath and came to his decision.

  The Watchers moved silently and efficiently, even the children. While Fost hovered by the gate watching the barracks nervously for sign of movement, they filed out through the gates and dispersed into the night. Leery of the apparent ease of their rescue, Fost advised them to scatter so that pursuers would have the hardest time possible rounding them up. In a few minutes all but a few lean men and women Fost took for the leaders had slipped out of the gates and blended into the darkness.

  'I can't believe it's gone this easily,' Fost said.

  'It won't be,' came Ludo's calm voice. 'They'll have their hounds on us as soon as they realize something's amiss. I only hope enough of us get free to wage effective war against the evil ones.'

  Moriana hadn't mentioned hounds, but she couldn't know everything about the Zr'gsz.

  'My partner's hiding that way in a bubble cave,' Fost said, pointing toward Moriana's command post. 'We know of it,' said Ludo.

  'I'll meet you there.' The Watchers made for Moriana's cave. Fost admired their skill. They didn't beeline for the cave and risk being spotted on the open ground. Instead they bent over and scuttled to the jumble of rocks and bushes on the far bank of the arroyo and worked their way down from there, all but invisible in the light of the pink moon.

  Before he followed them, Fost had work to do. Hurrying, he shut the gate and dropped the bar back into place. Then he picked up the guards one by one and propped them back in place, their spears serving to support their slack bodies. One he couldn't get into more than a slumping squat, but he thought it would fool anyone casually glancing down from the buildings. A close inspection would give the whole game away. But the deception might buy precious minutes, and time was more precious than gold.

  Grabbing his scabbard so it wouldn't flap against his legs, Fost followed the Watchers into darkness.

  'You!' Ludo's face turned to a mask of blood-dark fury in the light from twin moons. 'You witch! Traitor to all mankind! What are you doing here?'

  Moriana faced his anger squarely, hands on hips and head held high as she replied, 'I'm setting you free.'

  'And who caused our imprisonment?' the Chief Warden hissed. Fost respected the man's self-control. Despite the consuming rage, he kept his voice low. Fost and Moriana and the band of fugitives had travelled a good ways from the prison compound across terrain that gripped at them with knife-edged fingers before stopping and revealing to the Watchers the identity of their second benefactor.

  'You speak only the truth, Ludo,' said Moriana. 'But I didn't know the Hissers would do this to you. Indeed, I had instructed that you only be detained so that you didn't impede the . . . the Vridzish mining operations.

  Ludo spat into the sand between her feet.

  Her lips pulled back in a snarl, then relaxed. She was better able to accept impertinence from this lowborn groundling than any other of her kindred, but it was by no means easy. Still, she had to empathize with the man.

  'I was wrong.' A note of desperation pushed its way into her voice. 'I thought allying myself with the Fallen Ones was the only way to prevent my sister from seizing control of the Realm for the Dark Ones.' Her eyes dropped from his. 'Now it seems I and not my sister was the tool of the Lords of Endless Night. But I did not know!'

  Fost's gaze made a nervous circuit of their surroundings. He saw nothing but the blank black walls of the draw and the hunchbacked shapes of trees along the banks. The pink moon had ridden past the zenith and the blue one just began its mount of the eastern sky. This took too long. And Moriana revealed too much before the hostile Watchers.

  'It doesn't matter.' No scion of the Sky City could have bettered Ludo's haughty disdain. 'You served the interests of mankind's enemies. You are a traitor; your life is forfeit. Were it not for the dilemma posed by the fact that we now owe you our freedom, we'd take your life.'

  Fost cleared his throat and loosened his sword in its scabbard. Moriana laid a hand on his forearm.

  'Yes, kill the witch!' a woman's voice hissed from the darkness, sounding almost like one of the Hissers.

  'Idiots.' Glowing softly, Erimenes hung in the air by Fost's right shoulder. 'The past is gone. You must deal with what pertains now - and the simple fact is that only Moriana's sorcery gives humanity any chance of defeating the Fallen Ones.'

  Ludo looked at the spirit, his face still bleak with anger.

  'The princess knows she did wrong,' continued the genie. 'She said as much, and if you don't know the effort that took, you know little of the Skyborn. Now she's set you free. The Vridzish are militarily naive. The ease with which we released you proves that. Instead of wasting the night with recriminations you should be laying out a guerrilla campaign to deny the Hissers access to their skystone.'

  The Watchers murmured among themselves. Finally a man whose chin was fringed with a silvery beard spoke.

  This is true, Ludo. Killing the princess won't bring back the Ullapag or pen the damned lizards in Thendrun once more. If she'll help us we can't say no. Or so it seems to me.'

  Scowling with fierce brows that were still as black as the surrounding lava, Ludo turned on his followers.

  'The witch has brought ruin on us all, on all of humanity,' he exclaimed. 'Justice must be done!'

  'We failed in our charge,' a woman's voice cried. 'That's what's rankling you, isn't it, Warden? Moriana helped the Hissers overcome us - but we were charged to guard the mines and we failed. Don't we share the guilt?'

  Ludo's broad shoulders slumped. He turned back to Fost and Moriana, as if his limbs had transmuted to lead. Fost almost hated to hear the acquiescence of this proud, strong man.

  'Charuu is right,' he said slowly. 'So be it. On behalf of the Watchers of Omizantrim I hereby . . .'

  He broke off to stare past Fost's shoulder. Fost felt a soft breeze tug at his sleeve, heard a quick, soft moan. Ludo jerked. He raised his hands to his chest, spread them against the dark stain spreading across his smock from the arrow embedded in his chest.

  Fost spun, sword ready. Brilliant light blinded him.

  'Don't do anything foolish, my friend,' came the command. A soft chuckle accentuated the order.

  And it was a voice as human as his own.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  'And what of my sister?' Synalon leaned forward, her eyes narrowing into slits. 'What became of my sister?'

  She hissed the words like an angry serpent. The young Sky Guard lieutenant flinched but held his ground.

  'Your Majesty, I did not see -'

  'I am not my Majesty until I know whether or not my sister lives!' she snapped. The young officer's gaze slid around nervously, looking for something other than the blazing pits of his queen's eyes. The walls of the makeshift tent around them were made of the collapsed skin of a silk hot air balloon. Giant ruby red, blind, legless spiders who ate the Sky City's organic refuse produced the light, virtually unbreakable threads. Saplings cut from a nearby stand of tai had been lashed together to provide a dome framework. The covering silk was rolled some feet off the ground to provide shade without cutting off the sultry breeze.

  Prince Rann, despite the rents and stains disfiguring his black and purple uniform, managed to look as neat and collected as if he'd just turned out for a morning inspec
tion. He appeared to be uninterested in the byplay between officer and queen; this made Lt. Cerestan even more uneasy. He forced himself to look directly at Synalon. She leaned forward even farther, waiting for his answer with the predatory intensity of a falcon watching its prey.

  'You must have seen it!' persisted Synalon. Her words snapped like a banner in a brisk wind.

  He flushed. Cerestan felt even more uncomfortable for what he had to report.

  'Y-Your Highness, I was commanded to organize the evacuation of the City.'

  Synalon's eyebrows shot up. Her right breast popped out of the robe she wore loosely wrapped about her lush body.

  'What? My sister ordered the City in the Sky abandoned?' Sparks popped and ozone edged the air. 'That weak-kneed, cowardly slut! How could she!' She brought her hands up to angrily tear her garment. It resisted her wiry strength. Fat blue sparks travelled the length of her frizzled strands of hair and exploded in the air.

  Cerestan made himself watch the princess's head shed sparks as a duck's wing sheds water. It kept his eyes off the naked breast which bobbed about in tempo with her efforts to rip her robe. The skin was the translucent white of snow the upper crust of which has melted in sunlight and then frozen again to a fine glossing. The nipple was a dainty blossom pink . . .

  'She thought it necessary to save as many of our people as possible.' He forced himself to hold his head high. But it put a severe strain on his nerve to face Synalon this way, a fact that only peripherally had to do with her spiritual and temporal power. 'She herself battled the Demon Istu and bought time for as many to escape as possible.'

  Rann had been watching the officer sidelong, his tawny eyes distant. Now they fastened on Cerestan.