The old mage held out his arms, revolved slowly, and pointed. A dim, pale oval wavered before him in the air. It was of no color or definable substance, and its center was a black maw that yawned open upon unguessable vistas beyond.
Trinesh had heard of Nexus Points.
“We attack—now! On my signal!” he commanded. They could not let the Yan Koryani leave. He was no longer quite sure why, but this was no time for heart-searching! He gave his little inner voice no opportunity to comment.
He ran forward, stumbling and slipping upon the stones and moldering clay. Chosun vacillated; then Trinesh heard him lumbering along behind.
The Gaichun's soldiers had had enough of sorcery for one night. They retreated from Aluja’s sorcerous oval, wailed in their own language, and fled, tossing weapons and torches aside as they ran. Okkuru hurled his beast-mask helmet away and scrambled off after them as well, leaving Dineva alone in the midst of the open space. She glanced about dazedly, then bent and retrieved one of the soldiers’ falchions.
The two Yan Koryani women stood transfixed: for all the Lady Deq Dimani knew, the dim shapes clattering toward her might be the High General’s whole dainty Legion of the
Seekers of Indelible Victory, all two score of them! She sent a furious curse after her escort and thrust the Lady Jai toward the flickering Nexus Point doorway where Aluja crouched with the boy.
The “Eye” was an oily pebble in Trinesh’ fingers. He held it out at arm’s length before him as though it might explode— and what good would an extra pace do him if it did?—and thumbed the little stud once, twice—he did not know how many times.
Nothing seemed to happen. The damned “Eye” had no effect!
The wizard held up the ball-thing he had used on Chekkuru. Trinesh was directly in its path, and he threw himself down headlong into the rubble. The Shon Tinur grew here, and he ploughed into it and sent up a cloud of crackling black threads, like dried grass. A horde of tiny ebon-cased beetles squirmed away in all directions. Incongruously he thought: so that’s what the little horrors look like! Then his outstretched elbow scraped stone, and pain burned along his arm. He somehow kept his grip on the “Eye,” and he knew that he still had Saina’s sword by the hard lump of its massive hilt pressed between his stomach and the ground.
He heard more shouts and raised his head. The wizard hovered beside the oval door into Other-Space, but the blue globe lay dull and lifeless before him on the broken mosaic floor. He slumped, both six-fingered paws over his face.
Paws?
Trinesh stared. No senile oldster stood there now but rather a tall, gaunt, gangling creature, dark-skinned and beast-muzzled! A nonhuman, an alien of some kind! Having heard only the tale-tellers’ weirdly distorted descriptions of the Mihalli, he had no idea what it was.
Had he known, he might have joined the Gaichun's troops in flight, nobility or not!
The Lady Deq Dimani faced Dineva across five paces of littered floor. The soldier-woman still appeared stunned, and she made no move other than to lift her sword in defense. The Lady Deq Dimani seized Jai’s wrist and half led, half dragged her toward the Nexus Point, shouting something to the wizard-beast and the boy at the same time.
Trinesh scrambled up to his feet, wasted precious breath in one last war-whoop, and charged. He hoped Chosun was with him.
The Lady Deq Dimani turned, blade glinting in the bloody shadows cast by the scattered torches. “Only you, Tsolyani?” she jeered. “You and Chosun?”
Something whickered out of the darkness, and Trinesh heard a hard, smacking sound, like a club striking metal plate. The Lady Deq Dimani spun about, glanced down in astonishment, then stumbled back. A stubby crossbow quarrel stood out from her right shoulder pauldron, scarlet feathers against gray steel.
Arjasu had found his mark.
The Lady Deq Dimani let go of the girl to clap her hand to the shaft. She shrieked in Yan Koryani, then dropped her sword to reach for the boy. Another bolt hissed out of the shadows. The boy raised his black staff to knock the missile aside as one might bat a ball. The quarrel did not waver from its course, however, as Horusel's sword had done; it flew straight and true, missing the boy’s forehead by no more than a finger’s breadth, and he recoiled, away from the woman. Arjasu must be cursing himself for missing so easy a target!
The Lady Deq Dimani yelled again, then seized the alien magician and strove to propel him bodily into the Nexus doorway. He twisted free and held out his oddly jointed arms to the boy. The Lady left him no choice: a better grip upon the leather harness he wore, a violent jerk that must have cost her much pain, and then both she and Aluja tumbled back into the Nexus Point in a tangle of limbs and armor. There was no sound of their striking any ground inside.
Chosun and Dineva reached the two remaining Yan Koryani simultaneously from separate directions. The girl would have followed her mistress through the portal, but the Tirrikamu seized her around the waist and easily cast her aside. Dineva momentarily had her hands full: the boy was brave! He struck at her with his staff, dodged, kicked, and nearly succeeded in making his escape. At last she got him by one arm, wrested the cudgel away, then held him tightly to her armored breast until he stopped struggling.
All of this Trinesh saw from the comer of his eye as he plunged forward after the Lady Deq Dimani. He almost followed her into the Nexus Point, thought better of it, and hurled himself to one side just in time. He fell in a clattering heap almost at Dineva’s feet.
Why was the Aridani woman so tall? He realized that he knelt upon the ground before her. Her? His eyes told him that three thin-faced soldier women stood there! Bemused, he pitched forward upon his face.
Fatigue had joined forces with the Prince’s poison to defeat him at last. ,
He woke to find his head in someone’s lap. Alas, it was Dineva’s bony hip that supported his skull and not the Lady Jai’s more delightful anatomy. He coughed, gasped, and licked his lips. He wanted water, but he doubted if anyone had brought any. Conversation bumbled around and above him like the buzzing of C/?n'-flies.
“—The damned girl.” Chosun sounded as though he shouted through a waterfall. “Hoi! Here, the Hereksa's back!” Arjasu’s smoother, higher voice answered him. “Make no mistake. I’d as soon slay the wench and the brat now and be done. Then we can decide whether to follow the Yan Koryani woman through her magic door or trust ourselves to the tubeway car and Thu’n’s golden plates.”
“The Nexus Point?” Trinesh contended with a throat as dry as the Desert of Sighs itself. “It’s still there?”
“Don’t try to talk yet,” Dineva replied from above him. “The Lady Jai says you somehow sucked all the magic juice out of their accursed wizard. He could neither destroy the portal nor alter it, and there it hangs.” He felt, rather than saw, her arm go up to point off over his head.
“Mejjai’s dead,’’ Chosun said simply. “So’s the translator woman and some of their folk. The rest ran off. The Lady’s gone through the portal with her monster, but we’ve got her maid and the Yan Koryani boy. And here’s Thu’n. He hid in the ruins and now comes to join us. If we can get to the tubeway car, the Prince’s discs will take us back to—uh— where did you say?”
The little Nininyal's piping voice sounded muzzily from behind him. “The nearest I can make out is Tathurel, probably the city you Tsolyani now call Thri’il. Then there’s Somujrasa, which might be Sunraya, and a dozen other unnamed marks between.” Chosun pulled Thu’n out so that Trinesh could see him from where he lay.
Did Tumissa appear on any of the tubeway discs? His teacher in the temple school had said that the Engsvanyali had called it To’om Ssa, and before that, during the First Impe-rium, the city had been To’om Unessu, “the Place of the Crag.” His head ached. It would be so good just to go home. But that would make him a deserter, of course, a shame to his clan and a traitor to the Petal Throne: a felon, a candidate for the “High Ride” on the impaling stake!
No, that would not do. There had to be a
prettier Skein for Trinesh hiKetkolel of the Red Mountain clan!
Trinesh asked, “You, Thu’n. Why did you come back to us?”
He expected hesitation and a devious reply, but the Nininyal only said, “I cannot return by myself. Any method of getting home is better than none. And I’m no soldier; you Tsolyani have no quarrel with me, nor I with you. My race is neutral in your war.”
Trinesh refrained from mentioning the Baron’s two well-paid and very ferocious Pygmy Folk legions, the food and material aid they provided, and their scholars—and spies— who performed tasks for Yan Kor. Still, the Imperium did not wage war upon traders, travelers, and other noncombatants, not even when it was locked in battle with their governments. That would not be noble.
“The greedy little beast wants to sell the discs,” Aijasu snickered. “A fortune! And the temples of Tsolyanu are far wealthier than those of Yan Kor, Saa Allaqi, or any other land you can name! Cha, Hereksa, never accuse the Pygmy Folk of philanthropy—or loyalty!”
“My people—” Thu’n began.
“Oh, la! Chlen-shit!” Arjasu swam around into Trinesh’s vision, crossbow cradled under one arm, his fancy Engsvanyali armor streaked and smudged with clay and bits of Short Tinur. He had probably applied that camouflage deliberately, though to do so was ignoble for a soldier engaged in honorable battle.
Trinesh sat up and leaned dizzily against Dineva’s mail-clad flank. He looked about. Three paces distant Chekkuru hiVriddi snored peacefully upon the faded mosaic.
Chosun followed the direction of his gaze. “Can’t wake him,” he said scornfully. “Thu’n, here, says he’ll come to by himself. Not that I care.”
Trinesh picked himself up, his knees creaking audibly as he did so. Any more of this life and he’d be ready for a funeral pyre and a memory-niche in the mausoleum of his clan!
A little way off, Lady Jai Chasa Vedlan sat together with the unknown Yan Koryani boy upon an eroded ceiling cornice. Arjasu stalked back to watch them, but neither showed any signs of flight. Trinesh shuffled over to the girl. She hugged Dineva’s mantle to herself and turned her head away.
“And your story?” he rasped. “Quickly.”
She made no reply, and he wanted to shout obscenities into her sweetly placid face. Her indifference would try the patience of a god! He caught his breath and strove for control. “Scorch the world! You will speak! Else I let Arjasu and
Chosun have their way with you—and then Dineva, who knows just where and how a woman can be hurt!”
He had no intention of allowing any such ugly Skein, and she was probably aware of it. Yet he had to say the words, if only to impress his followers.
She surprised him by answering. “I—I escaped from the Prince and returned to join my Lady. The rest you know.” She added, “Do not hurt the child. He is no threat to you.”
“Damn the child! —Who is he?”
“His name is Ridek. 1 think that he understands only a little Tsolyani. He is a—the son of—a noble clansman of our people.”
Later he would explore that. Now she interested him more.
“Your cloak.” He waved a trembling hand at the garment. “It conceals you much less than the one you were wearing. Why did you change it?” He found it advisable to keep his eyes averted from the vision of long, golden calves and thighs she so casually displayed.
She made a little face.
“Here, Hereksa." Chosun held out the mantle the Lady Jai had discarded in exchange for Dineva’s.
Trinesh examined it: rich, heavy, dark brown fabric, all embroidered with golden thread and sewn with glittering discs in delicate floral whorls. He sniffed. The cloak smelled of fire, and its lower borders were burned and scorched, the lining there blackened and crackling. He hurled it at her.
“Explain.”
She gave him a slight smile. “It is damaged. I tipped over the lamp while the Prince was—was busy with me.”
“You what?"
“The oil lamp—one of those massive bronze things with many little bowls and wicks. I drew it over upon him. Then I came here.”
“By the Fortieth Aspect—!” Chosun guffawed. “You roasted the filthy Chlen -turd? Slew him?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. The chamber was on fire when I left.”
Dineva jerked her head up sharply. “Lanterns, HereksaV'
They all swung around to look.
“Ohe!” someone called from beyond the hillocks of masonry and rubble. “Ohe, Tsolyani?”
“Chunatl Dikkuna,” Chosun whispered. Aijasu stooped to cock his crossbow, and the others snatched up their weapons. After a moment’s consideration, Trinesh indicated one of the escorts’ swords to Thu’n, who went to pick it up.
“Ohe! Well done!” Lamplight made a yellow halo around the Salarvyan’s shaven pate. “The Yan Koryani women are taken? I have a warrant here from the High General—the Priestkings did provide their legions with special powers when the security of the state was in jeopardy ...” He edged forward, a shade too cautiously, Trinesh thought. Armor and weapons glinted behind him.
“Is Tse’q—the old man—with you?” Trinesh called.
“Ai, here he is.” Chunatl beckoned, and the soldiers opened ranks to let the elderly renegade through. Tse’e’s steel sword dangled loosely in his hand, and he seemed confused. Chunatl took his arm to aid him.
“Beware, Tsolyani!” the Lady Jai murmured. Trinesh swung back to stare at her. “This Chunatl Dikkuna must have an ‘Excellent Ruby Eye’! That was what we used to defeat Tse’e. We left him a frozen statue, out of phase with this Plane. A second charge is required to release a victim from its power!”
It was the longest speech she had ever made to him. Trinesh dared not stop to wonder why she chose to warn them. “Who has the ‘Eye’ I fired at the wizard?” He kept his voice low. “Give Chunatl Dikkuna a shot of it—now!”
Chosun fumbled at his belt pouch. i
“Here, my friends!” the Salarvyani cried. “We want no violence!” He glided forward again, left arm around Tse’e’s stooped shoulders, and right hand out and open. “Peace,
Tsolyani! You have done well indeed! The Yan Koryani women and their little pup are retaken, eh?” He blinked owlishly. “Where is the Matriarch of Vridu? I see only the girl and the youth.”
“She’s gone,” Trinesh retorted. “Back to Ganga.” Let him chew on that!
“No matter. Come and claim your reward! The Gaichun'% palace bums; we hear that Prince Tenggutla Dayyar is naught but a cinder within it; and the High General takes command! You shall be honored, given the yellow Klai Ga, and your mouths shall be stuffed with rubies! The defeat of the wicked pretender, Captain Harchar, is assured!”
So now the pirate was a “wicked pretender”; woe to those who hoped for constancy in politics! The High General’s agents were apparently still unaware of the invader’s abrupt change of plan!
“And the Gaichun himself?” Trinesh feared Chosun would drop the little “Eye.” He had never been dexterous.
“Soon superfluous to smooth government.”
“As we shall be,” Dineva warned.
Chosun’s huge fingers tightened, and he glanced over at Chunatl. The Salarvyani seemed to notice nothing; he gave Tse’e a fatherly push toward his comrades, and his left hand appeared over the old man’s shoulder. Something gleamed there, a dull, glassy red.
He squeezed the device and beamed expectantly at them. Then he jabbed his thumb at it again and again.
Nothing occurred.
“Out of power!” Chunatl squalled. “Charge! Kill them!” He forgot that he spoke Tsolyani and had to jabber the order again in Tka Mihalli.
Arjasu’s crossbow bolt took him squarely in the breast. Chunatl dropped without a word.
“Still we are outnumbered!” Thu’n moaned.
It was true. This time the High General had sent a force large enough to accomplish the task, with or without Chunatl
Dikkuna’s magic—or his treachery. There must be t
wo dozen high-crested helmets out there!
“Into the Nexus doorway!” Trinesh commanded.
“No—! What if it opens upon Ke’er?” Dineva cried.
“I doubt that it does.” The Lady Jai surprised them once more. “Aluja first intended to return the Lady Deq Dimani to Milumanaya, then back to Yan Kor with Ridek—the boy.”
“The Baron’s own bedroom would be better than dying here in this hole,” Trinesh grumbled. “The midst of a Yan Koryani encampment! —The Flame Lord’s freezing hells! Anywhere! —Through the portal!”
Two soldiers had halted to attend to Chunatl Dikkuna. The others began to spread out. Trinesh glimpsed the tall plumes of an officer behind them in the darkness. The High General himself? “Shoot the damned ‘Eye’-thing again,” he ordered. “Over there!”
They did not wait for results but backed toward the glimmering oval in the air. Was it fainter now? Trinesh stopped to pull the Lady Jai to her feet. Her fingers were as cold as poor Saina’s had been.
“So this is how you persuade us to go to your Lady!” he husked.
She turned and smiled at him, as gentle as his own clan-sister, Shyal.
“The priest—?” Arjasu interrupted. “Chekkuru? What to do with him?”
“Heave the Flame-burned bastard through! I’ll not give them the joy of slaying any of us!”
In the midst of the turmoil Trinesh had forgotten Tse’e. The old man had turned, raised his fine steel sword, and begun to chant his death-song. To disturb him now was the ultimate discourtesy.
To hell with him too! Everything!
Trinesh collared him and pushed him, protesting volubly, blade waving, after Dineva and the boy into the strange, colorless doorway. Chosun took the Lady Jai’s arm and hustled her through as well.
The others were gone. He sucked in the dank, moldsmelling air for the last time, and made the unmistakable three-fingered sign of the Flame Lord in the probable direction of the High General. Then he staggered over the threshold of the portal himself.
And was borne away into nothingness.
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