Corean Chronicles 3 - Scepters

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  "It does if it alerts people to your schemes."

  "Who else would even care? Your people are more concerned about food, golds, and how to procure women and other pleasures."

  "Not all of them."

  "Most of them, and there are few enough like you that you can be converted or otherwise taken care of. Or used in other fashions."

  "That doesn't include the disappearances of herders," Alucius pointed out. "Especially in the north."

  The momentary hesitation of Tarolt and the actual fleeting look of puzzlement on the face of the shorter ifrit told Alucius that the two knew nothing about disappearances. If anything, there was a moment of concern.

  "The wild translations will feed and destroy what they find," the second ifrit said. "Surely, you do not think that any but herders will fret about a few missing nightsheep?"

  Alucius suppressed a nod.

  The purplish mists thickened around Tarolt and a pair of Talent-arms appeared, moving through the air toward Alucius.

  He brought up the heavy rifle with a smooth motion. He squeezed the trigger, then recocked and fired again.

  The Tarolt-ifrit staggered backward, but straightened almost immediately. Alucius fired two more shots at the second and smaller ifrit. The colonel sensed the shredding of the purple shield around the smaller creature, and fired his last shot, following with a Talent-probe, aimed at the main lifethread node.

  A flare of purpled energy exploded away from the stricken ifrit—a wave of force that flung Alucius against the stone wall behind him. He barely managed to hang on to his rifle, and it was several moments before he could see through the watering of his eyes. There was no sign of the second ifrit—none at all.

  Alucius could see that even Tarolt had been driven to one side of the Table room, but the ifrit had already regained his footing and turned back toward Alucius. A blast of purplish force flared toward the herder colonel.

  Alucius managed to block-parry it and send forth a Talent-probe. The ifrit slapped it aside, and another wave of force slammed into Alucius's chest, driving him back against the wall once more. He struggled forward, wishing he'd brought a second rifle. The darkness-infused shells had at least driven Tarolt back.

  Breathing hard, he formed a Talent-probe and drove its golden green force toward the ifrit's lifethread node.

  The probe shattered into a spray of greenish gold, and Tarolt took another step toward Alucius.

  He circled around the Table and away from the ifrit.

  "You will serve your masters, Talent-steer—one way or another," stated Tarolt.

  Alucius sensed two pairs of pinkish purple arms—one from the ifrit and the second from the Table—growing and moving to encircle him.

  The herder created his own shield to ward off the arms, even while jabbing another Talent-probe at the arms coming from the Table.

  The arms from the Table shattered into a spray of purple.

  With a satisfied nod, Tarolt moved farther into the room.

  Alucius eased around the Table, hoping to make a dash for either the main door or the passageway through which the second ifrit had appeared.

  At that moment, a third ifrit appeared in the main doorway.

  "You see… you cannot escape."

  Alucius scrambled onto the Table, willing himself beyond the glassy surface.

  "Then you will serve us in another—"

  Tarolt's voice was cut off.

  Purplish blackness swirled around Alucius, bearing him away from a dark green arrow. The blackness was that bone-chilling cold that he had hoped never to brave again. He could neither move his body nor see, except with his Talent. Even worse, unlike his earlier experiences, when he had been able to direct his course with his Talent, he felt as though he were being propelled in one direction, as though in a tight tube, much like an underground and lightless stream might have been. The chill was more intense than winter below the Aerial Plateau.

  He tried again to use his Talent-senses to guide him, to visualize a long thin line of golden green, a guideline of lifeforce to orient him, but he was carried onward through the intense cold that seeped into every part of his body. He tried to reach out for the directions and the arrows that signified Tables, or the golden green triangular arrows that represented the portals of the hidden city. He could sense none of them, only a distant sullen red arrow toward which he was rushing.

  More immediately before him, between him and the red arrow, he could sense a black purple barrier, and he knew he was being hurled at it. He wanted to swallow, to protest, as he understood what Tarolt had meant by his serving the ifrits.

  Alucius tried to gather all his lifeforce into an arrowlike shield before him, one with a point that would penetrate the barrier he was approaching and yet protect him.

  He slammed into the black barrier, and his entire body convulsed—or it felt that way—as if he had fallen from a cliff onto a stone surface.

  Abruptly, silver and light flashed around him.

  Alucius found himself standing on a flat surface, but hunched over. Agony flared through his entire body, and, convulsively, he jerked upright. His head banged against something hard—so hard that he almost dropped the heavy rifle. Where he stood was lit, but so dimly that for a time he could make out nothing.

  He was shivering, and his entire body felt bruised. Yet his forehead was sweating so heavily that he had to blot his eyes with his sleeve to keep the perspiration from flowing into his eyes. His arms and shoulders twitched, and his calves threatened to cramp. Sharp pains ran through his skull, either from his trip between Tables or from the blow to his head.

  His eyes focused more.

  The faint glow came from a pair of light-torches—set in curved silvery brackets and flanking a door. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that the door had buckled inward. After a moment, he eased his way off the Table. Then he turned and studied it with his Talent-sense, trying to ignore the increased stabbing in his skull created by that effort.

  Even as he watched, the purpleness that infused the Table grew more pronounced. It was clearly a working Table… now. That also bothered him, because it meant that there were probably more Tables throughout Corus—and more ifrits.

  After taking another glance at the Table, Alucius stepped toward the buckled door, the only apparent exit. Through the distended and splintered oak, and the gaps in the timbers that had comprised the door, Alucius could see that whatever room or hall that had lain beyond it was filled with large building stones and broken stone columns. There might have been space for a scrat to wiggle through, but certainly not for a man. Whatever structure had held the Table had collapsed—or been collapsed—over the Table's room, as if to deny it to anyone from outside. Had the soarers managed that during the Cataclysm? Or had someone else done it later? Did it matter?

  He slowly surveyed the room, clearly either underground or buried, or both. There were no furnishings in the chamber except for the Table and a narrow chest set against one wall. He could see no other way out except through the blocked doorway. Still… there might be another passageway like the one in the Matrial's Palace or the one in the ifrits' Table room.

  Span by span, yard by yard, Alucius made his way along the stone walls of the chamber, but neither his eyes nor fingers, nor his Talent, could discover any other exit, although he had looked closely, especially behind the chest. Finally, he stood on the opposite side of the buckled door from where he had begun.

  He looked back at the Table once more. The purple glow remained, neither greater nor less than before. With an occasional glance at the Table, he moved back toward the ornately carved chest set against the stone side wall.

  There was nothing on the smooth wood of the surface, not even that much dust. He opened the top drawer. Inside was empty. He closed the drawer, and opened the second drawer. Except for several sheets of parchment or paper, it was also empty. Alucius reached for the paper, but as his fingers touched it, the paper fragmented into dust so fine that Alucius's nos
e began to itch.

  For a time, he found himself sneezing, his eyes watering.

  He glanced back at the Table, but no one… nothing… appeared.

  He went back to the chest, pulling out every drawer and looking under and behind each. He found nothing more except fragments that might once have been paper.

  Then he studied the doorway, but the stones had been packed in so tightly against the ancient and heavy wood, wood that still retained its strength, that he could not budge either the door or any of the stone protrusions.

  As he had feared, there was no way out of the chamber except through the Table. At least, there was no way that he could find.

  He turned and looked once more at the ancient Table, a dark cube rising out of darker stone and suffused with the purpled life-energy stolen from who knew where. Could he reenter the Table and transport himself elsewhere? His lungs felt tight, and he had to wonder how long the air in the chamber would last.

  Or were his lungs tight because he feared he was truly trapped?

  He tried not to think about Wendra, or about how easily Tarolt had manipulated him.

  He looked at the Table.

  After a moment, he began to reload the heavy rifle, thinking that he should have done so earlier, and infused the cartridges with darkness. After doing that, he felt even more light-headed as he climbed onto the Table and concentrated. The surface beneath him dissolved.

  Once more, Alucius hurtled downward into the chill purple blackness, but this time there was no current or force driving him. After a timeless instant, he could also sense the arrowlike markers or guides that he recalled—except that there was no sign of those of golden green or silver—the guideways to the hidden city. He could easily sense the dark purple conduits, conduits leading to something far worse than anything on Corus. That he knew without knowing how he knew.

  He tried seeking beyond the tube of chill purple blackness, but could sense nothing. Were the soarers gone? Or were there so few that they could no longer maintain their own portals?

  With his Talent, he studied the markers—far more than he recalled. There was one of an ancient-looking sullen red over blackish purple, but that, he felt, was the one for where he had already just been. Another was of maroon and dark green, the Table that Tarolt had used to throw Alucius against the barrier. Alucius had the feeling he had been a tool to reopen the Table in the underground chamber, but he had no idea why, since that Table hardly seemed usable.

  He struggled to focus his attention on the remaining arrow markers. One was silver, a silver he recalled from his encounter with the ifrit engineer. That wouldn't do, because his departure had brought the walls down around that Table chamber as well. If the chamber had been rebuilt, then there would be more ifrits in it. If it hadn't, he'd be trapped in another underground place. Another marker was a shining cold black, a narrow threadlike arrow that bespoke little use, if any.

  With a mind becoming increasingly slow and muddled, he Talent-groped toward the black disused thread, mind-levering himself toward whatever portal or Table it represented.

  Once more, he hurtled toward a barrier, but one of thin blackness thai sprayed away as he smashed into and through it.

  There was more darkness… but fresh air, if chill.

  That was all Alucius could recognize before his legs buckled, and he fell into oblivion.

  Chapter 126

  The Hidden City, Corus

  « ^ »

  In the amber-walled tower room, he soarer hovered before Wendra—holding the scrat before the herder.

  Wendra looked quietly at the creature known to be terribly shy and skittish, It rested motionless in the palm of the soarer's hand, its head cocked, its eyes on Wendra, not paying attention to the child in the carrypack.

  Use your Talent. Study its lifethread, but do not touch the thread with your Talent. It is very frail compared to you.

  Wendra took the slightest of breaths, letting her Talent observe the scrat.

  Look at the nodes. Those are where the threads twist together.

  Wendra stiffened, looking down at the black stone of the herder's ring she wore. The sharp chill that had jabbed through her ringer was gone, as suddenly as it had come.

  She looked at the soarer. "Something happened to Alucius."

  It is likely that he translated himself somewhere, using a Table of the ifrits.

  "Translated?"

  That is how the ifrits travel, both from their base world and also across Corns. They must have Tables or portals at the beginning and at the end of their journeys. Even so, world lifeforces change images. You see the ifrits as the world translates them, and were you on their world you would not appear as you do now. Enough… you must learn more about life itself not Tables. The Tables mean little.

  "I thought Alucius had destroyed the Tables."

  He destroyed one that had already been weakened, and buried another. One of the ifrits has regained access to that Table and is rebuilding another. They have also repowered other Tables. The "voice" of the soarer sounded tired. Forget the Tables. There is so little time. So little…

  "So little time?" asked Wendra.

  You must learn about the nodes. They are the key to all that you must do.

  "Alucius might need me."

  He might indeed, but you can do nothing to help him until you learn. Observe the scrat.

  "How will this help?"

  Unless you understand how to untwine the lifeforce of the ifrits, and their massive threads, they will brush you aside as the frailest of butterflies, as the most short-lived of moths. Your Alucius thought his efforts were sufficient. They were not. He ignored the signs on his stead as well.

  "You expected him to stand watch over something he knew nothing about? When you did nothing? You expected him to guard all Corus? To have no life at all? "

  We have done all we could. You would not be, and your world would be long since drained and dead, had we not acted long years past. We have taken only what was necessary. We did not destroy a world to build cities that will endure forever on lifeless lands. We did what was best for both ourselves and for others. From that forbearance, we have never recovered. Do not speak to me of how one should live a life. We will not live that much longer, no matter who triumphs. If those who can stop evil do not act, then it will triumph. That those with ability are called upon is unfair. The able must always do more. The universe cares nothing for fairness. Beliefs do not matter. Only what is done or not done matters. You and your mate can choose to act against the ifrits. You can choose not to act. Acting without the knowledge you need to change what otherwise will be is futile. How can you help your mate if you know even less than he does?

  Wendra could not refute those last words, much as she wanted to, much as she felt Alucius needed her. Nor could she refute the fact that the soarer would not help unless she cooperated. She took a long and slow breath and concentrated on the small creature the soarer held.

  Observe the scrat once more.

  Chapter 127

  « ^ »

  Once more, Alucius found himself on a flat surface, except he was sprawled half across it, and the Table—if it was a Table—was sucking the very heat out of his body. His chest was numb from the chill. With an effort, he rolled sideways. That movement split his skull with an internal thunderclap and sent lines of fire down his arms and legs that left his vision blurring and his entire body shaking. He took a slow breath, then another.

  Even after remaining still for a time, his vision was still blurred, his eyes watering, and every part of his body ached.

  Was that because he'd burst through two barriers, one practically after another? Or just from the strain of traveling through the dark tubes?

  After a moment, he eased himself into a sitting position, although his knees ended up higher than his thighs because there was dirt or rubble piled around what he thought was a Table. There was no light where he was, but he felt that he was in an enclosure of some sort. The room wa
s cold, chill—and dark—but the darkness didn't feel like the previous chamber that had held the buried Table, and there was a definite icy wind filtering in from somewhere.

  Alucius slowly moved his head, trying to make out something in the blackness. He stopped. There was an oblong almost directly before him that seemed somehow like a lighter patch in the darkness. He eased himself to his feet, still holding the heavy rifle, and gingerly stepped toward what he hoped was an archway or doorway, or even a window. His boots sank into an oozy substance that felt partly frozen. An acrid odor of decaying vegetation rose in the chill air. Carefully, the herder took one step after another, crossing close to three yards of uneven, unsteady footing until he stood just short of the opening in the dark stone wall.

  A doorway of sorts it was indeed, with stone pillars and a lintel. The bottom of the doorway was filled with rubble that had been covered with dirt and possibly moss or something else. He felt the stone, polished into a glassy finish, and with cracks in only a few places. There did not seem to have been a door, not from the smooth-finished edges of the stone.

  He studied the corridor beyond the doorway, somewhat lighter, enough that he could make out an incline leading straight ahead and up. It might have been a gradual ramp, although the ramp or steps were covered with dirt.

  Before leaving the Table chamber, he glanced back over his shoulder at the Table. Like the previous one, it had also begun to show a purple glow visible only through his Talent. With that glow, he could tell that it was half-buried in dirt and debris.

  He turned back and began to make his way up the ramp. Halfway up, on the left side, there was a gap in the stonework, chest high and almost as wide, through which the wind gusted. Alucius peered through the gap. Overhead, through a break in the roof or ceiling, Alucius could see stars, and they looked familiar, as they might from Iron Stem.

  He wanted to shake his head. Of course it was dark. With all the hours he had spent in the one buried Table chamber and the time when he had been unconscious, wherever he was now, the sun had set a long time back. He couldn't help a slight smile at the thought that at least he wasn't trapped underground. Alucius kept climbing the ramp until he reached what he thought might be the ground level of the ruined building. At the top of the ramp, he stood in an antechamber or foyer. Directly ahead of him was a stone wall, with some sort of carving or drawing, but the light was far too dim for even his sight to make it out. To the right and the left were archways. A massive tree trunk had fallen and blocked the archway to the right. Under the trunk were sections and fragments of stone.