“She’s out of it?” I said.
“For a long time,” he replied.
I looked at Jasra, who was glancing down into the mirror.
“Are you ready?” I inquired.
She regarded me through lowered lashes.
“How do you propose transporting us?” she asked.
“Do you have an especially tricky means of getting us in?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Then I will be calling upon the Ghostwheel to take us there.”
“Are you certain it is safe? I’ve conversed with that . . . device. I am not sure it is trustworthy.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Any spells you want to prime first?”
“Not necessary. My . . . resources should be in good order.”
“Mandor?”
I heard a clicking sound from somewhere within his cloak.
“Ready,” he said.
I withdrew the Ghostwheel Trump and studied it. I began my meditation. Then I reached. Nothing happened. I tried again, recalling, tuning, expanding. I reached again, calling, feeling. . . .
“The door. . . . ” Jasra said.
I glanced at the door to the hallway, but there was nothing unusual about it. Then I looked at her and realized the direction of her gaze.
The doorway to the next room, where Nayda slept, had begun to glow. It shone with a yellow light, and even as I watched, it grew in intensity. A spot of greater brightness then occurred at its center. Abruptly, the spot began a slow up-and-down movement.
Then came music, from where I was not certain, and Ghost’s voice announced, “Follow the bouncing ball.”
“Stop it!” I said. “It’s distracting!”
The music went away. The circle of light grew still.
“Sorry,” Ghost said. “I thought you’d find a little comic relief relaxing.”
“You guessed wrong,” I replied. “I just want you to take us to the citadel at the Keep of the Four Worlds.”
“Do you want the troops, also? I can’t seem to locate Luke.”
“Just the three of us,” I answered.
“What about the one who sleeps next door? I’ve met her before. She doesn’t scan right.”
“I know. She’s not human. Let her sleep.”
“Very well, then. Pass through the door.”
“Come on,” I said to the others, picking up my weapons belt and buckling it on, adding my spare dagger, grabbing my cloak off a chair, and drawing it over my shoulders.
I walked toward the portal and Mandor and Jasra followed. I stepped through, but the room was no longer there. Instead, there came a moment of blurring, and when my senses cleared, I was staring down and outward across a great distance beneath a heavily overcast sky, a cold wind whipping at my garments.
I heard an exclamation from Mandor and, a moment later, another from Jasra—behind me and to the left. The great ice field lay bone-white to my right, and in the opposite direction a slate-gray sea tossed whitecaps like serpents in a bucket of milk. Far below, before me, the dark ground simmered and steamed.
“Ghost!” I cried. “Where are you?”
“Here,” came a soft response, and I looked down to behold a tiny ring of light near the toe of my left boot. Directly ahead and below, the Keep stood stark in the distance. There were no signs of life outside its walls. I realized that I must be in the mountains, standing somewhere near the place where I had held my lengthy colloquy with the old hermit named Dave.
“I wanted you to take us into the citadel within the Keep,” I explained. “Why did you bring us up here?”
“I told you I don’t like that place,” Ghost answered. “I wanted to give you a chance to look it over and decide exactly where you wished to be sent within. That way I can move very fast on the delivery, and not expose myself overlong to forces I find distressing.”
I continued to study the Keep. A pair of twisters were again circling the outer walls. If there had not been a moat, they would probably have done a good job of creating one. They stayed almost exactly 180 degrees apart, and they took turns at illumination. The nearest one grew spark-shot with bolts of lightning, acquiring an eerie incandescence; then, as it began to fade, the other brightened. They passed through this cycle several times as I watched.
Jasra made a small noise, and I turned and asked her, “What’s going on?”
“The ritual,” she responded. “Someone is playing with those forces right now.”
“Can you tell how far along they might be?” I asked.
“Not really. They could just be starting, or they could be finished already. All the poles of fire tell me is that everything is in place.”
“You call it then, Jasra,” I told her. “Where should we put in our appearance?”
“There are two long hallways leading to the chamber of the fountain,” she said. “One is on the same level and the other a floor above it. The chamber itself is several stories high.”
“I recall that,” I acknowledged.
“If they are working directly with the forces and we simply appear within the chamber,” she continued, “the advantage of surprise will only be momentary. I can’t say for certain what they might hit us with. Better to approach along one of the two hallways and give me a chance to assess the situation. Since there is a possibility that they could note our approach along the lower hallway, the upper one would be best for all our purposes.”
“All right,” I agreed. “Ghost, can you put us back a distance in that upper hallway?”
The circle spread, tilted, rose, stood high above us for a moment, then dropped.
“You are . . . already . . . there,” Ghost said, as my vision swam and the circle of light passed over us, head to toe. “Good-bye.”
He was right. We were on target this time. We stood in a long, dim corridor, its walls of dark, hewn stone. Its one end was lost in darkness. Its other led into an area of illumination. The ceiling was of rough timbers, the heavy cross-beams softened by curtains and plumes of spider-webbing. A few blue wizard globes flickered within wall brackets, shedding a pale light that indicated they were near the ends of their spells. Others had already gone dead. Near the brighter end of the hallway some of these had been replaced by lanterns. From overhead came the sounds of small things scurrying within the ceiling. The place smelled damp, musty. But the air had an electric quality to it, as though we were breathing ozone, with an edge of event jitteriness permeating everything.
I shifted to Logrus Sight, and immediately there was a considerable brightening. Lines of force like glowing yellow cables ran everywhere. They provided the additional illumination I now perceived. And every time my movements intersected one, it heightened the overall tingling effect I experienced. I could see now that Jasra was standing at the intersection of several of these and seemed to be drawing energy from them into her body. She was acquiring a glowing quality I was not certain my normal vision would have detected. When I glanced at Mandor I saw the Sign of the Logrus hovering before him also, which meant that he was aware of everything I was seeing.
Jasra began moving slowly along the corridor toward the lighted end. I fell in behind her and slightly to her left. Mandor followed me, moving so silently I had to glance back occasionally to assure myself he was still with us. As we advanced I became aware of a certain throbbing sensation, as of the beating of a vast pulse. Whether this was being transmitted through the floor or along those vibrating lines we continually encountered, I could not say.
I wondered whether our disturbing this net of forces was betraying our presence, and even our position, to the adept working with the stuff down at the Fount. Or was his concentration on the task at hand sufficiently distracting to permit us to approach undetected?
“It has started?” I whispered to Jasra.
“Yes,” she replied.
“How far along?”
“The major phase could be completed.”
A few paces more, and then she asked me, “What is your plan?�
��
“If you’re right, we attack immediately. Perhaps we should try to take out Jurt first—all of us, I mean—if he’s become that high-powered, that dangerous.”
She licked her lips.
“I’m probably best equipped to deal with him, because of my connection with the Fount,” she said then. “Better you don’t get in my way. I’d rather see you dealing with Mask while I’m about it. It might be better to keep Mandor in reserve, to lend his aid to whichever of us might need it.”
“I’ll go along with your judgment,” I said. “Mandor, did you hear all that?”
“Yes,” he replied softly. “I’ll do as she says.”
Then, “What happens if I destroy the Fount itself?” he asked Jasra.
“I don’t believe it can be done,” she answered.
He snorted, and I could see the dangerous lines along which his thoughts were running.
“Humor me and suppose,” he said.
She was silent for a time, then, “If you were able to shut it down, even for a little while,” she offered, “the citadel would probably fall. I’ve been using its emanations to help hold this place up. It’s old, and I never got around to buttressing it where it needs it. The amount of energy required to attack the Fount successfully, though, would be much better invested elsewhere.”
“Thanks,” he said.
She halted, extending a hand into one of the lines of force and closing her eyes as if she were taking a pulse. “Very strong,” she said a little later. “Someone is tapping it at deep levels now.”
She began moving again. The light at the end of the hallway grew brighter, then dimmer, brighter, dimmer. The shadows retreated and flowed back repeatedly as this occurred. I became aware of a sound something like the humming of high wires. There was also an intermittent crackling noise coming from that direction. I increased my pace as Jasra began to hurry. At about that time there came a sound of laughter from up ahead. Frakir tightened upon my wrist. Flakes of fire flashed past the corridor’s mouth.
“Damn, damn, damn,” I heard Jasra saying.
She raised her hand as we came into sight of the landing where Mask had stood at the time of our encounter. I halted as she moved very slowly, approaching the railing. There were stairs both to the right and the left, leading downward to opposite sides of the chamber.
She looked down for only an instant; then she threw herself back and to the right, rolling when she hit the floor. Taking out a piece of railing, a ball of orange flame fled upward like a slow comet, passing through the area she had just quitted. I rushed to her side, slipped an arm beneath her shoulders, began to raise her.
I felt her stiffen, as her head jerked slightly to the left. Somehow, I already knew what I would see when I turned that way.
Jurt stood there, stark naked save for his eye patch, glowing, smiling, a pulse away from substantiality.
“Good of you to drop by, brother,” he said. “Sorry you can’t stay.”
Sparks danced at his fingertips as he swung his arm in my direction. I doubted that shaking hands was foremost in his mind.
The only response I could think of was, “Your shoelace is untied,” which of course didn’t stop him, but it actually had him looking puzzled for a second or two.
Chapter 12
Jurt had never played football. I do not believe he expected me to come up fast and rush him, and when it happened, I don’t think he anticipated my coming in as low as I did.
And as for clipping him just above the knees and knocking him back through the opening in the railing, I’m sure he was surprised. At least he looked surprised as he went over backward and plummeted, sparks still dancing at his fingertips.
I heard Jasra chuckle, even as he faded in mid-fall and vanished before the floor got to spread him around a bit. Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw her rise.
“I’ll deal with him now,” she said, and, “No problem. He’s clumsy,” even as he appeared at the head of the stair to her right. “You take care of Mask!”
Mask was on the opposite side of the black stone fountain, staring up at me through an orange and red geyser of flames. Below, in the basin, the fires rippled yellow and white. When he scooped up a handful and worked them together as a child might shape a snowball, they became an incandescent blue. Then he threw it at me.
I sent it past with a simple parry. This was not Art, it was basic energy work. But it served as a reminder, even as I saw Jasra perform the preliminary gestures to a dangerous spell purely as a feint, bringing her near enough to Jurt to trip him, pushing him backward down the stair.
Not Art. Whoever enjoyed the luxury of living near and utilizing a power source such as this would doubtless get very sloppy as time went on, only using the basic frames of spells as guides, running rivers of power through them. One untutored, or extremely lazy, might possibly even dispense with that much after a time and play directly with the raw forces, a kind of shamanism, as opposed to the Higher Magic’s purity—like that of a balanced equation—producing a maximum effect from a minimum of effort.
Jasra knew this. I could tell she’d received formal training somewhere along the line. That much was to the good anyway, I decided as I parried another ball of fire and moved to my left.
I began descending the stair—sideways—never taking my gaze off Mask. I was ready to defend or to strike in an instant.
The railing began to glow before me, then it burst into flame. I retreated a pace and continued my descent. Hardly worth wasting a spell to douse it. It was obviously meant for show rather than damage . . .
Well. . . .
There was another possibility, I realized then, as I saw that Mask was simply watching me, was making no move to throw anything else in my direction.
It could also be a test. Mask might simply be attempting to discover whether I was limited to whatever spells I had brought with me—or whether I had learned to tap the power source here directly and would shortly be slugging things out with him as Jurt and Jasra were now obviously preparing to do. Good. Let him wonder. A finite number of spells against a near-limitless source of energy?
Jurt suddenly appeared upon a windowsill, high and to my left. He had time only for a brief frown before a curtain of fire was rung down upon him. Both he and the curtain were gone a moment later, and I heard Jasra’s laughter and his curse, followed by a crashing noise off to the other side of the chamber.
As I moved to descend another step, the stairway faded from view. Suspecting illusion, I continued the slow downward movement of my foot. I encountered nothing, though, and finally extended my stride to pass over the gap and on down to the next stair. It also vanished, however, as I shifted my weight. There came a chuckle from Mask as I turned my movement into a leap to avoid the area. Once I was committed to jumping, the stairs winked out one by one as I passed over them.
I was certain Mask’s thinking must be that if I had a handle on the local power, reflex would cause me to betray that connection here. And if I didn’t it might still cause me to waste an escape spell.
But I judged the distance to the now-visible floor. If no more stairs vanished I might be able to catch a handhold on the next one, hang a moment, then drop. That would be perfectly safe. And if I missed, or if another stair vanished . . . I still felt I would land reasonably intact. Better to use an entirely different sort of spell on the way down.
I caught the rearward edge of the farthest stair, dangled and dropped, turning my body and speaking the words of a spell I call the Falling Wall.
The fountain shuddered. The fires sloshed and splashed, overflowing the basin on the side nearest Mask. And then Mask himself was thrown backward to the floor as my spell continued its course of descent.
Mask’s arms rose before him as his body seemed to sop up the swirling glow, his hands to expel it. There was a bright arc between his hands, then a shield-like dome. He held it above him, warding off the final collapsive force of my spell. I was already moving quickly in his direct
ion. Even as I did so, Jurt appeared before me, standing on the far lip of the fountain just above Mask, glaring at me. Before I could draw my blade, throw Frakir, or utter another spell, however, the fountain welled up, a great wave toppling Jurt from its side, sending him sprawling upon the floor, washing him past Mask and across the chamber toward the foot of the other stair, down which I now saw that Jasra was slowly descending.
“It means nothing to be able to transport yourself anywhere,” I heard her say, “if you are a fool in all places.”
Jurt snarled and sprang to his feet. Then he looked upward, past Jasra. . . .
“You, too, brother?” he said.
“I am here to preserve your life, if at all possible,” I heard Mandor reply. “I would suggest you return with me now—”
Jurt cried out—no recognizable words, just an animal-like bleat. Then, “I do not need your patronage!” he screamed. “And you are the fool, to trust Merlin! You stand between him and a kingdom!”
A series of glowing circles drifted like glowing smoke rings from between Jasra’s hands, dropping as if to settle about his body. Jurt immediately vanished, though moments later I heard him shouting to Mandor from a different direction.
I continued to advance upon Mask, who had guarded successfully against my Falling Wall and was now beginning to rise. I spoke the words of the Icy Path, and his feet went out from beneath him. Yes, I was going to throw a finite number of spells against his power source. I call it confidence. Mask had power. I had a plan, and the means to execute it.
A flagstone tore itself loose from the floor, turned into a cloud of gravel amid a grating, crunching noise, then flew toward me like a charge of shot. I spoke the words of the Net and gestured.
All of the fragments were collected before they could reach me. Then I dumped them upon Mask, who was still struggling to rise.
“Do you realize that I still don’t know why we’re fighting?” I said. “This was your idea. I can still—”
For the moment, Mask had given up on trying to rise. He had placed his left hand in a simmering puddle of light and had extended his right, palm toward me. The puddle vanished, and a shower of fire emerged from the right hand and sped at me, like drops from a lawn sprinkler. I was ready for this, though. If the Fount could contain the fire, then it had to be insulated against it.
The Chronicles of Amber Page 146
