by Ryk E. Spoor
I had barely managed to force us to turn again when we hit, and so instead of mashing my rescuer under me I took the brunt of the hit and forced the earth apart before me. Even so, I was stunned, barely able to force myself upwards. Dammit! I have to get to that stupid gun before –
“ERIK MEDON, HEAR ME!”
The voice thundered across the plains, so deep and powerful that it rumbled in my chest and vibrated through my boots. The entire battle paused.
“Look back upon your Armies, Mortal.”
I looked.
Even at that distance, I could see that Polychrome stood in the center of a ring of Dark Elementals, holding her as still as death with blades of fire and lightning at her throat. My gaze tracked farther, saw Ruggedo on the ground with two Temblors standing ready to break him in half, and Zenga and Nimbus surrounded.
“Throw down your weapons, Mortal, and surrender, or I, Ugu the Unbowed, shall most surely order the execution of your friends.”
Now I could see a single figure high above on the battlements. I looked up into deep-set dark eyes in a lined face, with white-streaked black hair.
And so we win by losing…maybe. I felt terror trying to rise up in me, for now my death was so very, very close — even if we won, probably.
But at the same time, I felt immense relief. The battle and the slaughter was over, and now the only one who would have to pay the price would be me.
I raised my arms and dropped the crystal-metal sword to the ground. “I surrender.”
Chapter 48.
The next few minutes were a blur. The armies stopped fighting — though some detachments wanted to continue, and would have if both Nimbus and Ruggedo hadn’t basically shouted them down. Soldiers came forward and stripped me of my glittering armor and sword, leaving me in the mundane clothes I’d chosen to wear on this, my final day of life, the clothes I’d worn the day Polychrome found me and brought me into wonder.
The hardest part of it was the shouts and cries from our own army, calling me coward and traitor. Many of them understood the costs of the war — being in the front lines, better than I did — and to them such a hostage situation was intolerable. Even their commanders would have expected them to continue. True, the Rainbow’s Daughter was unique…but still, many of them felt betrayed.
And they had been, in truth. Just not in the way they thought. Fortunately I had much practice in ignoring name-calling from my youth, and I had much more important and pressing worries now.
Finally they dragged me forth, through the dark corridors of the Grey Castle and into an immense courtyard, within which stood the petrified remains of Ozma’s Palace. We’d come through the walls and the grey, dead streets of the Emerald City, buried now beneath the stupendous ash-colored pile of masonry which was the Grey Castle, and I had not been able to restrain my horror at the hundreds of people caught frozen in the last instants of their lives.
Before the dead grey of the Palace, a huge open space had been made, cleared from the stony skeleton of the City, and I wondered how many of those people, now statues, had been callously shattered to dust in the work. Around that space there were stands, as for some great gladiatorial arena; on one side, sitting just above the entrance to Ozma’s Palace, was the Royal Box, a roofed-over observational platform with two thrones to the front, and other shadowed places within. There sat Amanita Verdant and Ugu the Unbowed, the Usurpers, rulers of Oz.
Ugu rose as I was brought in. Unlike Neill’s portraits of him, the real Ugu was a man of presence and striking appearance. His voice and face and demeanor reminded me strongly of Christopher Lee’s Saruman as he would have been when younger: the same deep, resonant, commanding tones, the intensity of the gaze, the arrogant patrician look, black hair streaked with white.
Amanita rose a moment later, lazily, as though she found this a play on the stage and not a real event at all. She was as beautiful as rumor had implied, silky waves of leafy green cascading over creamy shoulders, framing a heart-shaped face of perfect symmetry with brilliant emerald eyes, and a body of exquisite perfection. But the smile and glitter of the eyes told me this was a woman at the edge of insanity, or possibly well over it but with great control.
“Welcome to Oz, Mortal. Welcome to our domain.” Ugu’s voice rolled about the colosseum. “Your deeds have already become a wonder, and perhaps one day will be a legend. A cautionary tale, true, but legend nonetheless.”
I grinned up at him, feeling at this point there was nothing much for me to lose. “The day is not over yet.”
“Indeed. But its ending is near, as is yours.” He gestured.
In the center of the arena, I saw a small pyramid, perhaps six to eight feet high, seeming to be made of polished crystal; the sides pulsed with colors that chased themselves around its perimeter, red, yellow, green, blue, violet, and back to red again. Within I thought I could see a small, motionless figure.
Ozma.
The pyramid stood at the center of a set of elaborately carven circles, with a curving four-pointed design reaching to the outer perimeter. At each of these points was another circle, and within that circle stood something monstrous. One a giant of flame and cinder, another a cadaverous, insubstantial monstrosity echoing an eagle from some forgotten age, the third a serpent of oozing liquid corruption, and the last a great misshapen dragon of solid stone.
The pyramid itself lay within a perfect circle that just touched each point…and before one face was another circle that just touched the edge of that face.
A circle just large enough for me to stand in.
“Yet you do have one decision to make, Erik Medon,” Ugu went on. “The final ritual which requires a True Mortal also requires that the Mortal cooperate — that while he may be bound, he must have consented to the binding in the ritual.” His arm swept around to the stands.
While most of the stands were filled with citizens of Oz, soldiers of the armies, and many of the Dark Elemental Faeries, on one side nearest the Royal Box was another wide platform, taking up many spaces and levels of the stands, with guards ringing the platform.
There I could see Polychrome, chained and under guard, blades hovering at her throat. Zenga and Ruggedo, chained together in such a way that if Zenga were to try to use her strength to break free, she’d have to pull Ruggedo apart — assuming the alert Temblor and Tempest guarding them didn’t kill them upon the instant. Nimbus, alone and proud, chained and unable to move.
“You will cooperate with the ritual,” Amanita said, her voice light and yet penetrating, “Or your lovely little friends will be killed. One at a time. In front of you.”
Careful. I have to make this convincing. “And what possible assurance do I have that you won’t kill them as soon as you’ve finished your ritual?”
Ugu nodded. “A fair question. In truth, you have no assurance, Mortal. All that can be offered for the future are promises, and promises can be broken. Yet there are those whose promises have value, and those who do not, and I, Ugu the Unbowed, would give you my word that this will not happen.”
“Not good enough.” The guards tightened their grip on Polychrome and I raised my hand. “Wait. Just letting them live is not enough. That could mean as slaves or prisoners of your domain for all time. If I participate in this…ritual, which your words indicate will kill me, then I want more.”
Amanita glared at me, but Ugu nodded. “Speak, then. What more do you ask?”
“That they go free. You send them home, all of them — all the remaining armies, our allies, and my friends up there. Without me they couldn’t penetrate the Great Barrier, you know that, so they’re no threat to Oz once you’ve sent them away. Yes, that means they’ll not be entirely defenseless against you. So now you make a choice, Ugu. How valuable is this ritual to you and the Queen? Do you gain enough from it that this will be worth it? For that is the price for my cooperation.” I looked at my friends, and finally at Polychrome. “Enough people have died for this. I would be the last.”
&nbs
p; For a long moment Ugu gazed down at me, gauging my resolve. Then he nodded. “So be it. You have my word.”
“No!”
To my surprise, it was both Amanita and Polychrome, speaking almost in unison. Polychrome’s I’d expected. There was a short, heated exchange of whispers between the two rulers.
“Erik, our lives are not worth this! You cannot let them do this!” There was an earnestness, an intensity in her voice that brought a stinging lump to my throat. This was not just an act to convince them. She doesn’t want me to die. “We all knew the price!”
As she said that, Ugu gestured sharply, finishing the conversation — though from Amanita’s expression, I doubted very much whether she was done, or would abide by his decision for long. “Enough, my Queen. For our purposes this will serve very well. The Mortal is correct; if this we accomplish, all their victories here are naught but hollow boasts, empty of any meaning save the cold comfort their contemplation might bring in the darkest hours of the night. While by this bargain, we seal his obedience as well; for know well, Erik Medon, that True Mortal though you are, here, in this place, at the center of all Faerie, if this bargain you make, to it you are held by Fate and Law.”
He looked down, fixing me with his dark gaze, and in those eyes I saw more than the mere tyrant I had expected. “So choose, and choose wisely. Will you swear to cooperate with this ritual, to struggle not against us, and allow it to be completed, if I, in turn, swear to you that I shall not merely spare your friends’ lives, but to return them without further harm to their homes — so long, I will add, as they offer me and mine no further resistance?”
I looked up, and saw Zenga shaking her head, so furious or upset that she could say nothing, Ruggedo’s face as expressionless as stone, Nimbus’ eyes closed, body tensed, and Polychrome, storm-violet eyes wide and filled with tears that could not be mere acting. “My friends… Polychrome… I’m sorry. I’ve talked about how a hostage situation is intolerable, about how you can never yield to it or you give those who use those methods permission to use it again… but now, faced with it, I know it doesn’t matter what I think. I can’t do it. I can’t let those I care about die in front of me when a word from me will save them.”
I kept my eyes focused on the one face that mattered to me more than anything in the world…or beyond it. “Yes, I make this bargain, King Ugu,” I said, using for the only time his title, “because even my death is a very small price to pay, if only she is safe.”
I said it. Maybe not as directly as I would have liked…but this is no time or place for that.
Her eyes went even wider and her hand went to her mouth as Ugu said, “So be it. They shall be witnesses, and then sent to their homes, all of them, their armies and servitors alike. It is done.”
I felt a shock of something in that pronouncement, and knew the bargain was sealed, even as Ugu turned to Amanita and bowed. “My Queen… The Ritual of Transcendence awaits your pleasure.”
Chapter 49.
What’s wrong with me? Polychrome thought, feeling the tears streaming down her face. This was the plan, this was what we knew we came here to do!
And then he said those last words, and something in her seemed to break.
Because she suddenly heard other words, as clearly as though he had spoken them aloud: “I love you.”
She stood frozen, unable to move, as a terrible abyss seemed to gape wide beneath her.
“Even my death is a very small price to pay, if only she is safe.”
She closed her eyes and stilled her trembling. It is too late now. Too late for so many things. He has made the bargain. He is consecrated to the ritual.
They led Erik out to the center of the great ritual circle, and stood him there, in the smallest circle before the shimmering pyramid. “Shall we bind him, lord?” asked a great Temblor, one of his escorts.
“That shall I do myself,” Ugu said. Erik’s clothing was suddenly torn from him, leaving him barely enough for dignity, and reshaped. Bonds of strong cloth wrapped themselves around his arms and legs. “Mortal material, not Faerie, so that even if you try to pit your will against that of destiny, you will not find it so easy to break these bonds. And…”
A thick, blue strip of denim forced itself suddenly into Erik’s mouth, tying itself in back. “…There shall be no names spoken here this day save by ourselves.”
Oh, no. Father and the Above, no!
Erik, hampered only slightly by the bonds, whirled, gazing up at Ugu in mute disbelief, as Amanita walked to the edge of the circle.
“Oh, yes, my friend, we know of your little Prophecy,” Amanita said with a laugh at his stunned expression. “We have known it for quite some time now. After all,” and she extended her arm towards the Royal Box, “we had such a wonderful source to rely upon.”
Slowly, reluctantly, another figure emerged from the shadows, and light glinted brilliantly from his snowy hair. Polychrome felt almost as though she would faint from this final horror, even as she heard Nimbus roar in shock and betrayal, “CIRRUS!”
Cirrus Dawnglory’s expression held none of the triumph one might have expected. He would not meet her gaze, and looked down instead.
Polychrome did as well, and realized that everything was lost. The ritual had begun.
Amanita began to dance. It was a simple dance, one-two-three, triple step; she sang words in a language Poly didn’t know as she continued, then triple step, one, two, three, and began again. With every step, the air seemed to dim, so that by the time she completed the circuit of the entire array, the amphitheatre was in twilight.
Then, as she continued, each of the monstrosities began its own self-contained dance, and deep, atonal, discordant voices began to be heard, the Music of the Spheres echoing the hatred and destruction inherent in that ritual. Polychrome knew something of Faerie magic, but she could make out little of the symbolism or language…and what little she could understand sent shudders down her spine.
Amanita’s dance curled inward, spiraling slowly towards the center, and in her hand was a knife, straight, black, carved with runes, made of pure dark glass. Black shapes like shadows followed her, a hellish sort of parade dancing in lockstep with its mistress.
Oh, Father! Oh, Erik! We’ve failed you! One of our own has betrayed us, and Erik, poor Erik, is going to die for nothing!
Behind Amanita, echoing the steps of the dark spirits that followed her call and repeated the ritual, black flames ignited from candles set at intervals along the entire array, lighting in darkness as Amanita Verdant passed.
She heard the names of the four Abominations and understood all too well the madness and hubris they implied, and her heart shrank even further within her. Surtur, Niddhogg, Jormungandr, Hræsvelgr… She is mad with power, and yet I sense the power that builds might even shake the foundations of the world, enough to make hubris into truth.
She stared down, seeing Erik standing rigid, trying to hold on at least to dignity and pride if not to hope, and keeping his eyes away from hers. He spoke a farewell to me…
“I love you.”
And suddenly she saw it all. Everything she had denied within herself, everything her father had left unsaid, all that had happened from the very beginning, it was all clear. It had all been meant to come to this very moment, and for the first time in her life she cursed her father, cursed his name.
Then curse yourself, for you are very much his daughter, and you will do what has to be done.
And you know what that is, and why.
Amanita was closing in now, a single short circuit of the last and smallest circle around the Pyramid, and the black blade was rising, sufficient in magic to slay a Faerie, sufficient in sharpness and substance to kill a mortal outright.
I must not fail. He cannot act — by the oath he has given — and so I must. The movement, the timing, must all be precise… or all truly is lost.
The procession halted, a final deep note droning, rising, rising in a crescendo as the blade arced bac
kwards.
Now!
Polychrome moved. She drew upon all the power of her Faerie heritage, that had kept her beyond the reach of others that tried to capture her, on the silver-burning power she had touched when Yoop had nearly killed them all, and on sheer desperation. She tore free of her startled captors, moving faster than even Tempest eyes could follow, streaking on rainbow light and destiny towards the center of the ritual.
And she was just in time.
Chapter 50.
I tried to keep myself under control as Amanita approached, the beautiful emerald eyes glittering with greed and insanity; but to stand still while someone put a knife — a really long, sharp obsidian knife — into me wasn’t something I had quite been able to prepare myself for. At the last moment, as the four monsters sounded a thundering drone that rose like a trumpet of doom and Queen Amanita brought up the knife… I closed my eyes.
There was an impact that drove me backwards and for an instant I wondered that I felt no pain; but even as I opened my eyes I knew with rising horror what I was going to see, because in the instant before I smelled a wash of summer rain and spring flowers eternal.
She had been driven against me and was beginning to fall, fall, and I got my bound hands under her, sagging to the ground not with her weight but with the realization that the great knife had struck her fully. Somehow I broke the cloth on my wrists, stronger far than I’d been when I left Earth, and yanked the gag down.
“POLYCHROME!” I screamed, and cradled her in my arms. “No, no, no, no…”
The stain was spreading, all across, and the glorious eyes looked stunned and afraid.
“Well, that ruins the ritual completely. We’ll have to start over from the beginning,” Amanita said. I felt a fury burn within me, but distantly, for all my attention was riveted on Poly, trying to staunch the bleeding. It didn’t hit her heart, not quite, she came in from the side, it’s not instantly fatal, maybe, maybe…
