The Summon Stone

by Ian Irvine

  “It’s Llian taking all the risks.”

  “Esea and Hingis will keep Snoat’s guards away. The sky ship, which he doesn’t know exists, will be hanging in the darkness above, ready to pick everyone up.”

  “Great plan!” sneered Karan. “Four people versus a hundred guards, and the only means of escape an unreliable sky ship. What could possibly go wrong?”

  “I don’t like it either,” said Yggur quietly.

  “Given that your only contribution has been criticism…” Shand broke off. “Time to go.”

  Karan watched the small party pass over the hill and out of sight, now understanding how Llian had felt when she had gone to Cinnabar. But then…

  Mummy, my nose is bleeding. My head feels like it’s splitting down the middle. Mummeeeee…

  The magiz had found Sulien again. There wasn’t a second to waste, nor any point in keeping silent now. Karan threw on her cold-weather gear and made a link.

  It’s all right, Sulien. I’ll fix her – for ever! But before she could trigger Malien’s sending spell—

  A sour chuckle in her inner ear.

  A painful jerk, as though an anchor chain had been wrapped around her middle and thrown overboard attached to a huge weight.

  Ten seconds of utter blackness.

  Then a frigid blast of wind struck her in the face, and she went skidding past the magiz for a good fifty yards on glassy ice, spinning round and round. The magiz had dragged Karan’s physical body back to Cinnabar, to the icy plateau above the ring-fortress, and was bent on revenge.

  “I will drink her life,” the magiz shouted over the shrieking wind. “Then yours. It’s all been futile, Karan. In ten thousand years no one has ever beaten us.”

  87

  HER – OR ME?

  It was a lovely place for the end of everything.

  An octagonal pavilion of cream marble crowned the hill at the centre of the little island in the triangular lake. Three elegant arching bridges connected the island to the shore. A magical setting, Llian thought, for the bloody confrontation that would probably end in his death.

  It was eight in the evening and cool, with an easterly breeze drifting mist and occasional showers up from the sea. With Ussarine on his left and Hingis and Esea to his right, he went down to Snoat’s guards, who stood under bright lanterns at the foot of the western bridge. He could sense the tension between Ussarine, Hingis and Esea. Another worry he could have done without.

  His heart was racing and tingles ran up and down his arms. Given that Snoat was paranoid about his own safety, how could this mission hope to succeed? The thick, spring-fired needle that the Aachim’s cleverest artificer had inserted in the spine of Llian’s manuscript, and the contact poison on the illuminated frontispiece, had been concealed by Hingis’s most profound illusions, though Llian felt sure Snoat’s mancers would find them.

  As soon as the booby trap went off, Llian, who could not fight to save his life, had to make sure Snoat was dead or delay his escape until Ussarine could get there, then snatch the Command device, evade all the guards and get to Malien’s sky ship, which was bound to be under attack by then. If he succeeded in so prodigiously unlikely a task, some future teller would surely make a Great Tale of it, he thought sourly. Assuming the Merdrun left anyone alive.

  “Halt!” said the leading guard.

  Four more guards came forward. One frisked Llian with intimate thoroughness. The others disarmed Ussarine, Hingis and Esea, sneering at Hingis’s deformities and leering at Esea’s chest. A stocky, over-muscled fellow likened Ussarine to a side of beef. Only a slight hardening of her jaw revealed her pain.

  They were escorted across the bridge and up the hill, checked by a second set of guards then, outside the octagonal pavilion, by a mancer and an illusionist. They found nothing and Llian was allowed past. He could not relax; the sternest checks were yet to come.

  The drumming resumed, a whisper in his inner ear. He looked up. Was the sky ship in place, hanging in the darkness a hundred feet above the pavilion? If it was not he would die, and Snoat specialised in unpleasant deaths.

  The outside of the pavilion had been blocked off with panels of marbled paper stretched across bamboo frames set between the slender columns. An aide escorted Llian in. The pavilion was brightly lit by an array of yellow paper lanterns suspended from the roof in interlinked circles. Snoat, wearing a silk mask to conceal his scarred nose and chin, and grey silk gloves over his amputated fingers, sat at a deep-blue lacquered desk in the centre. A stand beside him held a magnificent malachite box with gold hinges. The area behind him was screened off with green paper panels.

  “You mustn’t use the Command device,” said Llian. “The Merdrun—”

  “The only story I want from you is the one in your hand. Put it there.” Snoat indicated the edge of the desk.

  Llian put the manuscript down. Ifoli came out from behind the green panels, checked the manuscript with gloved fingers, opened it to the title page, then the frontispiece, and frowned. She took a cloth from a bag, wiped the frontispiece down, presumably removing the poison, and sniffed the cloth. She folded it over carefully, slipped it into the bag along with her gloves, and tossed the bag into a glass receptacle in the corner.

  She turned the rest of the pages, closed the book and ran her fingers over the top and bottom edges, then down the back of the binding. Llian tensed. She must discover the needle. But Ifoli closed the book. “It is Llian’s Great Tale, Cumulus, and there is no mancery on it.” She went behind the panels.

  Snoat heaved a great sigh, dabbed at his eyes with a triangle of white linen, then glanced lovingly at a display case behind Llian. It contained the first twenty-two Great Tales. The drumming swelled. Llian felt a suicidal urge to leap over the desk and strangle Snoat. He fought the urge and it faded.

  Snoat opened the Tale of the Mirror, laid his gloved hand on the inside of the cover, and a hidden spring fired the thick needle up into his chest. But instead of penetrating his heart or lung, it embedded itself deep in a rib.

  “Ugh!” he cried, trying vainly to pull it out. “You useless fool, Ifoli!”

  “Ussarine, now!” roared Llian, and leaped at Snoat.

  From outside came a series of thuds. Hopefully they indicated that Ussarine had disarmed the guards, armed herself and was on her way. Marble creaked and cracked and the paper panels shook; Esea was to bring the pavilion down in such a way as to block the guards. Hingis’s linked illusions were intended to lead them astray long enough for everyone to get away, though with a hundred guards on the island they could only escape if the sky ship was there.

  A marble column toppled outwards, shaking the pavilion and snapping in two when it hit the ground. Dust thickened the mist; the copper roof lifted and tilted, and a heavy rain shower peppered Llian’s eyes; for a moment he could not see. He wiped his eyes and saw Snoat backing away, the needle still embedded in his chest. He had the manuscript in his left hand and the malachite box under his right arm.

  Llian dived at Snoat, brought him down and went for his throat. Snoat fought back, and for an aesthete he showed remarkable skill at dirty fighting. He kneed Llian in the groin, then drove an elbow at his throat. Llian twisted aside and headbutted Snoat, cracking him on the right cheekbone. The manuscript went flying.

  Snoat rolled away, shouting, “Ifoli, get in here!”

  “Ussarine!” Llian bellowed. Where the hell was she?

  Snoat wrenched up the lid of the malachite box and grabbed the Command device. Its black crystal glowed and the drumming swelled to a series of thunderclaps. Llian felt an almost unbearable temptation to take the device for himself. He fought it, as he had so many times now, and the urge faded.

  Snoat thrust the stubby brass tube at Llian’s face. He ducked as a black blast roared from the crystal, singeing his right ear and setting the paper panel behind him alight. It toppled onto his head and his hair started to shrivel and smoke. He thrust the panel aside and beat his hair out.

&nb
sp; Snoat, who was shaking, groped for the manuscript with his free hand. Llian got it first, swung it round and smashed Snoat in the mouth with the spine. He stumbled back, dropping the device. Three teeth fell from his bloody mouth.

  “Esea, what are you doing?” hissed Hingis from outside.

  Llian froze, listening, and Snoat did too.

  “I’m giving you one last chance to choose.” Esea sounded desperate – no, despairing. “Her – or me?”

  88

  AND ALL WERE DEAD

  Karan looked around desperately. The ring-fortress had been breached in at least eight places and the Merdrun were swarming through the gaps, then up onto the flat top of the mountain. Behind her the surviving defenders had formed a hundred-yard-wide ring around the Crimson Gate, preparing to defend it to the death. And she still did not know why.

  Karan had no hope that they could succeed; the Merdrun were too many and too tough. She ached all over from the magiz’s brutal summoning and from Malien’s spells before that. She staggered away towards the ring of defenders, the icy air burning her nose and throat with every breath, trying to work out a plan. The magiz, clearly, had recovered from Sulien’s attack, but did not follow.

  Karan was here in physical form this time and even in her down-filled garments and fur-lined boots it was unbearably cold, far worse than it had been down below. How could the defenders live up here? How could they fight?

  The earnest, black-haired boy she had met last time stood with his father. The lad looked terrified yet determined. All the defenders were resolute, prepared to fight and die as they had sworn to do all those centuries ago.

  “Is the gate a sacred place to you?” Karan asked the woman with the ink-stained fingers. There was blood all down her front, her skin was saggy and her eyes showed bleak despair. The defenders knew they were going to die.

  Her face twisted. “It’s profane! Evil!”

  Karan looked up at the great gate. Even with her unblocked gift for mancery she knew there was nothing she could do to harm it.

  “Then why defend it at such cost?”

  “To prevent it ever being used.”

  The Merdrun were a quarter of a mile away, forming their lines. It would not be long now, and when they charged they would cross the distance in little over a minute. Minutes after that it would be over for everyone, including the wide-eyed boy who was surely no older than Sulien. The thought was unbearable.

  Karan was picking frozen tears out of her eyes when something a defender had mentioned previously struck her. “What’s the story of the Fallen Gate?”

  “It’s said there was another gate,” said the boy’s father. “The same as this one, only blue, standing beside it. But the blue gate was toppled by the people who gave us this world nine thousand years ago – toppled and buried.”

  “What did they call themselves?”

  “It’s not recorded, though they were a big dark people.”

  “Not the Merdrun?”

  “They didn’t have the tattoo, but their eyes were similar.”

  “Charon!” said Karan.

  The man shrugged. “They were good people, faithful in their dealings with us and true to their word.”

  “Then why bury the Azure Gate?” Karan said to herself. “There’s something wrong here… Why are you here anyway? This isn’t your fight.”

  “We swore to defend the gate,” he said coldly, “and defend it we will.” His voice cracked; he gathered his son to him, hugged him desperately and turned away to face the enemy.

  “Is this the end, Daddy?” the boy said.

  “I fear it is, Heydy. But we’ll face it together as bravely as we can.”

  Was it better for father and son to die together? If it were her and Sulien… No, it was unimaginable. Karan made her way through the lines of the defenders towards the red trilithon. No one hindered her. It was as if they were already beyond the material world. Or they thought she was still a spirit.

  If the people who had toppled and buried the Azure Gate nine thousand years ago had been Charon, what had they been doing? Why topple the good gate?

  She reached the great gate. All was still; the defenders were silent and so were the more numerous Merdrun. There was no sound save for the wind whistling through the fringe of icicles hanging from the capstone of the Crimson Gate. Again Karan caught that faint smell of onion soup, the defenders’ last meal.

  High above, the three moons – little yellow and black Cromo, red Wolfrim and huge green Stibnid – formed a line pointing directly at the gate. Syzygy. The time was now.

  She touched the nearest upright but felt nothing. Where was the Azure Gate? Since they had stood side by side, and it had been buried where it fell, it must be close.

  Karan scanned the ice-covered ground. It was uneven, though she saw no outlines that would indicate a buried object. But if the Azure Gate, a structure of vast and ancient power, was here she should be able to detect it with her sensitive’s gift. She walked around the gate, swinging her right arm back and forth, and sensed something below her. She was standing on the toppled gate; it was just inches below the ground.

  Could she do anything with it? No – mancery was an art long in the learning and difficult to master. Though Malien had unblocked her gift, Karan still had to painstakingly learn all but the simplest of spells, ones a gifted child might use instinctively. Could she wake the gate and hope that Stermin’s Gates of Good and Evil might interfere with each other?

  A skilled mancer might have done so but Karan had no idea how. She pointed her right hand at the place where she sensed the capstone of the gate to be and said, “Wake!”

  The ice above the buried gate took on a faint glow, but it faded almost to nothing.

  There came a colossal roar from behind her, then the ground quivered as the Merdrun army charged. From the defenders there was silence apart from a single boyish cry soaring above the thunder and the rumbling. It was quickly stifled.

  Karan turned, her heart thumping slowly as she counted the seconds down. On sixty-three the attackers struck the defenders in an irresistible mass, armour clanging off armour, sword ringing on sword, roars and shouts, screams and sickening crunching sounds. The wind carried the smell of cold blood to where she stood, revolted by the brutality, the savagery and the waste of a good and decent people who had not asked for any of this.

  She would be next.

  A squad of Merdrun burst through, led by Gergrig and the big man, one of their generals, with the flattened nose and the metal plate in his head. Gergrig had a long sword in his right hand and a war hammer in the left. Behind them loped the round-faced young woman whose yellow hair was plaited into a loop above her head. What was her name? Uzzey. Her face was radiant as she approached the Crimson Gate.

  “At last!” she cried, then stumbled and fell, a spear embedded in her neck. None of the attackers looked at her; to the Merdrun death was failure.

  Karan looked away from Uzzey’s death throes. She’d had a conscience; she’d been one of the better ones. What had her life been for?

  “Take Karan!” roared Gergrig. “Unharmed.”

  Two soldiers split from the pack and, before she could move, grabbed her and bound her arms behind her back.

  “Where’s the magiz?” Gergrig bellowed. “Hurry!” He pointed to the line of moons.

  The defenders were still fighting furiously, though they were failing; the gap in their lines was getting wider by the second. Four soldiers hurried up escorting the magiz, who was limping on her artificial leg and surrounded by a dozen acolytes in grey fur cloaks. She was lit from within, so charged with power from all the lives she had drunk that an oily green light was radiating out of her.

  She cast a shiny-eyed glance at Karan but continued to the Crimson Gate and gave low-voiced orders. The acolytes began to set out small devices on the ground, in three concentric circles centred on the gate. Karan could not tell what they were – charged crystals perhaps.

  Again Gergrig p
ointed to the three moons. Karan hoped to see some change in them, a sign that syzygy would soon be over, but they remained in a straight line.

  The magiz was chanting, and so were her acolytes, who, Karan saw, were all female. Their voices soared, high and beautiful. The magiz swung her arm down, the chant cut off, and from every one of the devices on the ground a raw beam of red light sizzled out and lit up the Crimson Gate. The ground shivered and the gate began to glow a deep and penetrating red.

  In her inner ear Karan heard a scream that seemed to come from the other side of the gate, then the space between the uprights turned misty. The gate was opening. What was happening in Carcharon? Had it just fed on Wilm or Aviel?

  The magiz fell, gasping, and she was not glowing now. Opening the gate had drained her to the dregs. Her acolytes were scattered like grey leaves across the ice-sheathed ground.

  Gergrig sank to his knees, his cruel face alight with joy, and all the other soldiers emulated him. But he sprang up again. “Soon, my people, we will have our own beautiful world – all to ourselves!”

  My world, thought Karan. Santhenar, reduced to an empty shell for the most brutal human species ever to have existed.

  “To the gate!” Gergrig raised his sword and ran between the uprights into the mist, along with twenty of his fellows.

  Instantly they began to scream; they were rolling their eyes, clutching their heads with their hands and foaming at the mouth. Then they turned on one another, soldiers who had fought side by side all across the void for years, and hacked at each other in an orgy of bloody ruin.

  “Hold!” roared Gergrig, who alone was unaffected. “Put down your blades! What’s the matter with you?”

  The soldiers inside the gate could not stop; utter madness was on them. Someone struck the general in the head, sending his skull plate flying to clang off one side of the gate. Gergrig, slipping on blood, dived back out onto the ice, gasping. Behind him his soldiers cut each other down until the gate was piled with bodies and all were dead.