Corean Chronicles 3 - Scepters

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Maybe… just maybe… there was some hope.

  He frowned. Was that why Wendra was missing? Because the ifrits were few in number, few enough that he and Wendra might make a difference? But if that were the case, why hadn't Tarolt or Halanat known about Wendra?

  He looked at the map before him once more, forcing himself to go over each green octagon, checking the colors of each and trying to visualize what he knew. Originally, according to the map, there had been a Table in Elcien and Ludar, but not in Southgate, and one in Alustre. And in the time of the Duarchy, there had not been a Table in Salaan or anywhere in the Iron Valleys—nor anywhere near the Aerial Plateau.

  After studying the map for a time, he carefully folded it and slipped it back inside his undertunic. His next trip would be somewhere that was hopefully closer to home and less dangerous, but someplace where he hoped he could find out more, either about the ifrits or how to discover where Wendra had gone. The more he thought about it, the less it seemed likely that the ifrits had Wendra—unless there happened to be more than one group of ifrits. But… he had to do something…

  At that thought, he frowned, recalling his grandfather's advice about not acting until he knew enough to do so. But that had been in battle—not when the love of his life was threatened.

  He took a long swallow from the water bottle before slipping through the open stone doorway and back into the Table chamber. Turning back, he extended a Talent-probe to the activating lever of the door and pushed it. The door slid back into place, leaving no sign of a second exit from the chamber. Rifle in hand, Alucius stepped down into the depression that had once held a Table, hoping that he could somehow relink to the shadowy web that connected both Tables and portals.

  He stood in the circle that he could sense only with his Talent, and ever so faintly even with that, trying to reach to the darkness beyond and beneath. Nothing happened. He was still standing in the oblong space in the stone floor that had once held a Table.

  Oblong? For some reason that thought bothered him. He blotted his forehead. Then he realized that if he included the depth into the stone, the Table would have been a cube. All the Tables had to be cubes. Why?

  With a deep breath he pushed that thought away, again concentrating, this time not on the idea of purple black conduits running from Table to Table, but a vaguer, more shadowy web on which the conduits seemed to have been imposed.

  The stone beneath his boots dissolved, and he was in blackness, a chill blackness, but one that was green-tinged, not purple-tinged. Instead, he could sense that he was somehow resting beside/below the ifrit conduit, and that the conduit wound around the web, much as an ifrit lifethread wound around the lifethread of a person when the person was ifrit possessed.

  Where did he wish to go? To an amber portal, he had already decided, the one that seemed to match with the location of Hyalt. That way, if he could not travel back, at least he'd be in Lanachrona and could make his way to Tempre, and the Lord-Protector, Travel through the hazy green black darkness seemed to take less effort, and within moments, or so it seemed, although he doubted time was the way he felt it, he hovered underneath an amber portal, one tinged with a faint and distant purple, much as was the portal at Dereka. Did he want to emerge?

  For a moment, he could also feel other portals, in seemingly opposite directions, one that was pink-tinged purple, and another, barely sensed, that was blue and maroon.

  Alucius decided and concentrated on reaching out of the hazy darkness, to bring himself back into the world of light through the amber.

  Silver and amber light shattered away from him.

  Chapter 133

  The Hidden City, Corus

  « ^ »

  Wendra stood in the second tower room, the one adjoining her chamber, looking down at the mirrored square set into the amber floor. In her carrypack, Alendra squirmed. Beside her hovered the soarer.

  You must learn to travel the ley lines of the world. Use your Talent. Study the portal.

  "Is this like a Table? I thought Tables had to be set into the ground. Is it safe to carry Alendra?"

  It is safe for the child now, but only for two seasons or perhaps three. Once she has a firmer sense of who she is, then such travel will not be safe for her.

  "Why does that matter?"

  Travel is by force of will and self The Tables are a framework imposed upon the lifethreads of the world itself. We have woven those lifethreads into the buildings of our cities. We once could grow such threads. The ifrits cannot. They can only suck them dry. You could travel from Table to Table now—the few that the ifrits have constructed or rebuilt. They would soon catch you, because you have not learned enough. That is another reason why we have separated the portals of the Plateau from the ley lines of the world. That way you cannot travel to where you could be taken… not until you are ready.

  "Why do you want—"

  Study the portal My time and yours is short. I will guide you to another portal in the other city.

  "There are two hidden cities?"

  Two are but those left. Use your Talent and study … I will return. The soarer vanished, leaving Wendra looking down at the mirror-portal set in the amberstone.

  Chapter 134

  « ^ »

  Once more, Alucius stood in a chamber that had once held a Table. Now the oblong depression was half filled with sand. Through the dimness, he could barely see the smooth stone walls of the room. He stepped out of the depression, almost falling as his left boot skidded on the loose sand that covered the still-polished stone floor.

  As with the Table chamber in Dereka, there were no brackets for light-torches, no windows, no furnishings, and no sign of the original function of the chamber except the space cut into the stone that had once held a Table. There was also no obvious way out.

  Alucius paused. How could he see if there were no sources of light? From what he could tell, the walls radiated just the faintest hint of light. Or something did. He began to examine the walls, looking for the pattern of holes that might have once held a light-torch bracket. He covered slightly more than half the chamber when he found the telltale pattern.

  As hard as he tried, though, he could find nothing to grasp with his Talent, no hidden levers, nothing.

  His face coated in sweat, he stopped trying to use his Talent-probes and took a deep breath, leaning back against the smooth stone wall.

  "Oh…" He stumbled and almost fell as the stone behind him shifted, sliding sideways for half a yard before grinding to a halt. His rifle butt clunked against the hard rock.

  Alucius turned and tried to move the stone door wider. It did not budge. He could not close it either, although his efforts in that direction were not quite so vigorous. There was more of the indirect light in the passage beyond the door, and he squeezed through the opening and into the stone passage beyond, a corridor two yards wide, perhaps two and a half high, walled in redstone. Less than ten yards from where he entered the passage, it ended—or branched into two passages, one heading to the right and one to the left.

  Alucius paused, looking first to the left, then to the right. To the right… he thought he could sense something, but the left seemed empty. He turned left. Only five yards farther, the corridor ended at what looked to be a wooden door. There was no lever, just a handle. Alucius pulled on the handle and the door opened toward him, swinging out on hinges that squeaked and grated.

  His mouth opened, because the other side of the door appeared to be a stone wall, and blocking the opening was a waist-high bench. The room beyond was but three yards in width, and was in fact the prophet's now-empty strong room outside of Hyalt. For a moment, Alucius just stood there, amazed that he had once been so close and not even sensed the tunnel behind. He finally stepped back and closed the door, although he had to lean his weight against the edge, and his feet slipped on the gritty surface of the stone.

  He retraced his steps back to the point where the corridor had branched and followed the other branch. The s
ound of the grit underfoot echoed in the stone-walled corridor, which began to curve after about fifteen yards. The way brightened as he walked the next few yards, and he brought up the rifle, but the source of light was not an exit but a pair of ancient light-torches mounted in antique brackets at head level on both sides of the corridor.

  With his Talent, he could sense an end to the corridor at another doorway, and within five yards, he reached another of the handled doors. Gingerly, his rifle ready, although he sensed no one beyond the door, he tugged. It opened easily onto an empty room, four yards wide and three deep, also lit by a pair of ancient light-torches. Opposite the door was an open archway, and beyond it was a wall. Alucius left the door—also stone-faced on the outside—ajar and stepped into the chamber.

  He eased toward the archway, its edges finished with maroon ceramic tiles. At the archway itself, he stopped, studying what lay beyond—a screen wall, no more than three yards high and three wide. Beyond that, his Talent revealed a soaring cavern or chamber, with a stone dais on the opposite side of the screen wall, a dais raised a good two yards above the floor of the cavern.

  There was no one on the dais, and no one near it in the cavern, but he thought there might be someone at the far end of the chamber. He could not tell for sure, because there was something about the chamber, almost as if it reflected his Talent back at him.

  Rifle in hand, he stepped around the screen wall onto the dais, a stone platform really, five yards on a side. The dimness vanished as a line of light-torches on the screen wall flared into full illumination.

  He blinked at the sudden comparative brightness that threw the cavernous area before him into darkness.

  "Oh…" The moaning sound echoed from more than a score of yards before him, in the darkness well away from the platform.

  "One of the great ones…"

  "Do you bring word of the True Duarchy?"

  "We have waited, and we have been faithful…"

  Alucius immediately called up the illusion of nothingness, of little more than a breeze, and immediately, the cavern amphitheater was filled with the sound of roaring wind. He staggered at the intensity of the sound, before realizing that the roaring was all within his head and that something in the design of the place amplified Talent.

  What could he say? What could he do?

  He concentrated on creating an image… not of an ifrit… but of a man, but an image far larger than life, and one that shimmered in green and gold.

  "Ohh…" The moaning from the worshippers in the back, for that was what they must have been, Alucius concluded, rose, then died away.

  He spoke, as carefully as he could, in such unexpected circumstances. " Man must live in the world as it is… and tend it with care. The Duarches plundered and pillaged. Do not ask for a return to the Duarchy and those who ravaged Corus! Do not ask for slavery and death."

  "The lamaial! It is the lamaial!"

  "Lost… we are lost! All is lost!"

  Alucius sensed the hostility and the lifting of rifles.

  He dropped the image of the green and gold figure, and replaced it with… nothing… an image of nothingness, even as he dashed back through the archway.

  A single rifle shot echoed through the chamber behind him.

  Back in the chamber behind the screen wall, he stepped through the door he had left ajar, closing it behind him. He retreated back down the stone corridor, around the curves, and back to the chamber that had once held a Table.

  He had no idea whether the remaining worshippers knew about the hidden doorway or the passage beyond or whether they would even try to follow, but he could sense that Wendra was nowhere near the portal, and there was little sense in remaining in Hyalt in the ruins of what had been the temple of the prophet—or prophets. He had to wonder why he had not discovered the concealed cavern amphitheater and decided that the Talent-reflective construction might have shielded it. He paused, realizing that also might explain why he had been unable to sense the hidden doors in the Table chambers. Perhaps they had been Talent-shielded.

  He stepped down into the depression where once the Table had been. He did not concentrate on the Table, but upon the green-tinged blackness below the faded amber.

  He dropped into that chill greenish darkness, but that darkness, chill as it was, did not seem quite so paralyzing as when he had used the Tables. But it was still cold, and he searched for a direction, for the faded crimson gold. As he felt himself moving away from the amber of Hyalt, once more he sensed the blue and maroon portal, still distant, and the closer pinkish purple, noting its familiarity even as he dismissed it.

  The crimson-gold-silver shattered away from him… … and he stood back in the Table chamber in Dereka.

  Alucius surveyed the chamber, his rifle ready, his Talent probing up the stairwell; but there was no one nearby, and he sat down. He took several deep breaths, letting his feet rest on the bottom of the depression that had once held a Table, millennia before. He set the rifle down carefully on a clear patch of stone. Only then did he take a long drink from the water bottle before recorking it and replacing it in its belt holder.

  Had he been foolish to try to influence the true believers? He laughed softly, almost hoarsely. He'd known better. He just hadn't thought when he'd been confronted so suddenly with the unexpected.

  Also, he'd been almost stunned by the Talent-amplification of the cavern amphitheater. But had it really been amplification? Alucius frowned. As he considered what he had experienced, it had not so much been the amplification of Talent as the total elimination of all other lifeforces, and the comparative feeling of Talent-amplification. Was that so that the ifrits could command greater control—or so that those who were not true ifrits could create the impression of such control?

  He wondered if he would ever know.

  Every time he ventured into using his Talent, he discovered something else he didn't know. He supposed that was true of life, as well, but with Talent, the dangers could be so much greater.

  Just before he had broken through the barrier, and again as he was leaving Hyalt, Alucius had noted the portal of pink-tinged purple, and he had not recalled such a Table octagon on the ifrit map. It was a portal, not a Table. Of that, he had been certain.

  Pink… and purple… was that the Regent of the Matrial?

  He scarcely wanted to go there. Where else could he go? He took out the ifrit map of Corus and scanned it, once, twice. His memory had been correct. There had been no pink purple Table, but there had been a maroon and blue Table—in Dulka. So what had created the pink and green portal if there had been no Table? Something that the Matrial had discovered?

  He shook his head. He still needed to find Wendra, and if he could not find her near the abandoned portals, he would have to try the Tables in places where he had not yet been. And… if he could not find her, he might have to risk the Table in Salaan in order to return to Dekhron.

  For the moment, he pushed that thought away. He had to find Wendra… as soon as he had a few moments of rest.

  Chapter 135

  « ^ »

  As he sat on the stone floor in the former Table chamber in Dereka, Alucius frowned. From what he could tell, he'd been gone three days, and that wasn't good. He had yet to find any sign of Wendra, and he had no quick way to return to Dekhron—except by facing at least two ifrits in Salaan. While they might not always be right at the Table, the only way out was through the area where they seemed to meet and work. Then, too, with the way the one had appeared, he had to consider that they might have a Talent-based warning system. Add to that the fact that he was the commander of the Northern Guard, and he'd effectively deserted, even if he hadn't meant to, and he hadn't solved the ifrit problem. Nor had he found Wendra.

  His note to Feran might buy some time, especially since Feran knew the problems created by the traders, but he had to find some answers or some way back quickly—for more than one reason. If Wendra were in danger, the longer she was held, the more likely the ifrits
might be able to possess her—or kill her if they could not. Yet… he really didn't know whether they even had his wife. Could the soarers have taken her? Only the ifrits or the soarers seemed to be able to travel from point to point without leaving traces. But… even if they could, why would the soarers take Wendra? And Alendra? Everything that they had done in the past had protected Alucius. Were they trying to protect her as well? From what? The efforts of the ifrits?

  He had no idea exactly what the ifrits were doing, beyond the general description provided by the soarers about the ifrits' domination and eventual destruction of Corus. Had more ifrits arrived from their world? If so, what could he do, especially since the soarers seemed to have cut themselves off from the travel tubes of the ifrits and even from the deeper lines of travel that Alucius had discovered?

  He took a deep breath. He was rested, and there were only two portals left that he had not explored—the one in Dulka, and the one that reminded him of the Matrial. What else could he do but explore each, as quickly as possible? If he found nothing… then what?

  Did he try to return to the Table in Salaan, rifle loaded and cartridge belt filled with lifeforce-filled shells?

  He didn't see any alternative. But first… the last two portals. Maybe they would reveal something that he didn't know. Each time he tried, he could also see if he could sense a soarer portal.

  Alucius stepped into the Table depression, rifle again in hand, taking several deep breaths.

  Once more, he sank through the floor and into the deeper and more greenish black misty darkness underlying the purpled blackness of the ifrit transport tubes. The chill, while intense, was not nearly so wearing, and he tried to concentrate on the portal that was blue and maroon, and avoid the purple and pink one until later.

  Alucius focused his mind on lifting himself out of the misty blackness, out of the chill and back into the world of light through the blue and maroon. Once more, there was a barrier, one of blued silver. He formed himself into a spearhead of being…