Hold, came a command he was certain that Nora could not hear. It seemed to beat upon him from the sudden vibrations of all the strands, passing down them from the shadowy figure behind the stone.
Why? he sent back immediately, deciding that it was no time to be shy.
He halted, to see what the reaction would be. The figure actually seemed to deliberate for a moment. Then,
You approach a thing I guard, presumably to remove it, it replied. I will not permit it.
You refer to the section of rod on the stone before you?
That is correct.
I confess that I would like to have it. Does your charge permit you to make any sort of deal whatsoever for it?
No.
Pity. It would make life so much simpler for both of us.
I see that you are a young sorcerer, but recently come to the Art. If you were to live, you would probably become a great one. If you depart immediately, you will have that opportunity. I will let you go unmolested.
Pol took another step forward.
That is your answer?
I'm afraid so.
The jackal-headed figure raised its right arm, pointed a finger. The hovering dragon-light went dark. Pol felt a shock in his wrist. His vision seemed unimpaired, however, as if he viewed the chamber in the light of all the strands.
"Pol! What happened?" Nora cried.
"It's all right," he said. "Stay put."
He decided against resummoning the glowing image. That did not seem terribly imaginative, and it would probably just be put out again. It seemed that some measure of variety and originality should govern in these matters.
He sent the power that throbbed in his wrist out along the jade strand, causing the rod-section itself to begin glowing where it lay upon the table of stone. He pictured himself turning a lamp switch for a three-way light bulb, willing more wattage, raising the glow. The chamber brightened on a mundane level.
"Better?" he asked Nora.
"Yes. What is happening?"
"A conflict seems to have begun--with the forces which guard here. Hold on."
Young man, do you think you are the first to come here, to seek the rod?
The figure raised both arms, spreading them. The light Pol had summoned trebled in intensity. Dim forms, which he had taken for rubble--on the floor, in corners, near the statues--were suddenly clearly illuminated. He saw many strewn bones. He counted four skulls.
All those who came remained.
Pol felt his fingers twitch toward a yellow strand, but he suppressed the impulse to seize it. It drifted nearer. He knew that his magical sense was showing him a weapon, and for the first time he overrode it--his reason telling him that its employment had better be a matter of careful timing.
The strand doubled and redoubled, looping back upon itself, hovering near his shoulder.
Uh--is it possible, Pol inquired, edging forward, simply to borrow it and bring it back later? I've an excellent guitar I could leave for security--
This is not a pawnshop! I am a guardian and you are a thief!
That is not true. It belonged to my father.
There came another pulse of light, and the beast to his right and ahead began to move, slowly at first, taking a step toward him. The other blinked and twitched its ears.
Now it belongs here, came the reply.
Pol reached up and seized the bunched yellow strands. With a jerk and a burst of power that ran along his arm, he tore them down and back, then brought them forward like a lash across the face of the advancing beast. It snarled and cried, drawing back, and he struck again. The third time that he hit it, it cringed, lowering its belly to the floor. At that moment, he noticed that the second jackal was about to spring.
Even as he turned and drew back his arm, he realized that he would not be able to strike in time...
Moonbird's view of the west was partly blocked by the pyramid, so that he did not see the bird-things dark against the brilliant sky until their van was near. Several began to dive as he raised his head, but they pulled up sharply and continued on.
Then he saw the falling object, and superimposed upon it came the image out of his dream. He spread his wings immediately to take to the air.
By the time the bombs struck, he was fifteen meters above them and climbing. He felt the heat building within his stomachs. Above him, he counted eight of the fliers. Good, he acknowledged. He had been waiting for an opportunity to meet them when he was unencumbered with passengers.
The bright flames were faded to smoke beneath him. Above, the formation had already begun its turn. Extending his neck and plowing the sky with his wings, he rose to meet them.
...And as he turned to strike at the leaping form, Pol saw Nora's blade fall upon it--a two-handed, overhead blow that landed upon its right shoulder behind the neck. Crying out, the creature twisted, giving Pol the opportunity to sidestep and bring his magical whip lashing soundlessly down upon it.
He moved ahead and to the right as it fell, writhing to the floor. The strands of his yellow weapon cut it again, across the face. Nora had withdrawn her blade and moved back to heft it for another swing....
Continuing his advance into a position very near to the altar, he brought his whip-arm out and around to deliver another, heavier blow....
He was almost pulled from his feet as the figure at the back of the altar extended its arm and seized the falling strands that he wielded. At that moment, it seemed that the ground shook beneath him.
The strands were torn from his grip as his momentum sent him spinning, catching at the edge of the stony table. Realizing where the fall was bearing him as he plunged before that awesome presence, and certain that its next move would be to extinguish his life if he did not act immediately, he reached out with his right hand and seized the section of rod that rested on the cushion nearby. It responded with the immediate surge of energy he had felt might be present, a force his new sensitivity recognized as utilizable.
He turned the end of the rod upward the moment he caught hold of it, channeling the power from its manifold connections into a white, flame-like burst of power that shot against the animal-headed figure's inclined breast.
No!
He saw it driven backward even as he slipped to the floor. From his hand, the glow of the rod still illuminated the entire chamber.
Rolling to the side, he saw that both jackals lay still nearby. He felt Nora's hand take hold of his left arm, helping him to his feet.
"You're all right?"
"Yes. Yourself?"
"Yes."
He looked back. The strands still billowed about the stone, but were now in total disarray, their patterns undone. The shadowy figure was far dimmer but seemed in the process of reassembling by attraction several portions of itself which had dispersed. He held his new weapon before him and backed away, Nora at his side.
When they reached the doorway to the next chamber, they turned and fled through it. Rounding the altar, they continued on. The air seemed much dustier here than it had been earlier. When they had mounted the stair and were traversing the forward passageway, a crashing sound came to them from outside.
Racing toward the light, they emerged to view a crumpled flier beyond the first column to their left. There were two large craters ahead and to the right. One statue was upset and broken and a column had fallen across the way. Farther along, there were two more wrecked fliers.
Pol heard a sound from overhead and looked upward. There was nothing in view in the sky. Turning, he then saw that two more of the birds were shattered against the side of the pyramid. As he stared, another circled into and out of view above that mountain of stone. Since Moonbird was no longer where he had left him, he was not surprised, moments later, to see his great green and bronze form wheel into view over the top of the monument. Two of the fliers then came into sight, circling, diving at the dragon. As their positions continued to shift, Pol saw that there was a third. He thought, too, that he detected an occasional puff
and the echo of a small report from the machines. If they did have guns, they at least did not appear to be rapid-fire automatic weapons. Their main tactic seemed to consist of darting attempts to slash at their larger, slower opponent with their spear-like beaks and the fore-edges of their wings. They were closing with him again even as Pol watched.
Not knowing what he might be able to do at this distance, he sought strands. They seemed to be everywhere, just awaiting the proper act of discernment and manipulation... Indeed! They became visible to him--an orange trail leading upward. He reached for them and they drifted toward him, along with an enormous feeling of separation and the formula for electrical resistance, which he had learned one summer while working for his stepfather. He took this as an indication that he was not going to be able to do much to help Moonbird. Then the rod-segment jerked in his hand and he wondered. He studied it for the first time in full light.
It was of a light, heavily tarnished metal--possibly an alloy of some sort; and if so, far too technologically sophisticated for anything he had seen here, save for Mark's creations--and this seemed old, felt old, as his special sense measured things. It was about eight inches long and opened at one end, presumably to accommodate the succeeding section; its other end was a simple hemisphere, possibly of a different metal. About the shaft itself was chased a pattern of stylized flames within which a rich variety of demons danced and engaged in peculiar acts.
He raised it--it seemed that it might be some sort of magical battery, or transformer--and, with a rapid twisting motion, he twined an orange strand about it. Nora, who had been about to speak, realized from his gesture and his intent expression that he was conjuring and she remained silent, eyes fixed upon the shaft.
Suddenly, the distance seemed telescoped, and he found himself working with the far end of the strand, weaving, looping, turning it into a wide net before a diving flier. To affect something of that mass and velocity, at that distance, he realized that an enormous amount of power would have to flow upward. He felt it go out of him as he willed it, and the rod jerked within his grip.
The flier sped into the trap he had attempted to lay, and it did not seem impeded by it. It rushed on toward Moonbird's flank, as Pol felt weak from willing energy into his snare.
Then, all at once, it veered crazily--one wing held high, the other low. It seemed frozen in that position, spinning ahead, slowing in a dropping, drooping trajectory that bore it beneath the dragon, turning until it was headed downward. It rotated all the way to the ground, where it stopped. Even before it struck, another followed it, blazing, target of Moonbird's fiery regurgitations.
Pol turned his attention to the final flier, which suddenly seemed bent upon a suicide attack on the lazily turning skybeast. He knew that no time remained for the slow knottings of another spell, and he doubted that from this distance he could release an effective blast such as that which had felled the guardian in the pyramid. And even as he raised the rod for the attempt, he saw the small white puff and moments later heard the report.
Moonbird showed no sign of having been hit, however, and as the bird-thing plunged toward him, he moved to meet it, twisting in a serpentine fashion, acquiring more speed than the moment seemed to offer. As they met, he clasped the flier to him and began his descent.
Nora and Pol watched him spiral downward in a leisurely fashion, coming to rest near the rim of a nearby crater, turning so as to land directly atop the captive flier with a series of crunching noises which ceased only when he moved away from the broken device, which a final nudge sent toppling and sliding into the hole.
Well-fought, great one, he said. You were injured... ?
Hardly at all. And dragons heal quickly. You have the thing you sought?
Yes. This is it.
He displayed the piece.
I have seen it before, joined with the others. Gather your things, come mount me and let us be on our way to wherever you would go now.
You should rest after such a struggle.
A dragon rests on the wing. Let us leave this place if we are finished here.
Pol turned to Nora.
"He is able to go on now. How about you?"
"I'd like to get out of here myself."
He looked at her for the first time in a long while. Dishevelled and moist with perspiration, she still clutched the blade in her right hand. But he saw no signs of injury.
Noting his regard, she relaxed her grip on the weapon and sheathed it. She smiled.
"All right?"
"All right. Yourself?"
He nodded.
"Then let's get our stuff together and move on. Have you any idea how he knew we'd be here?"
"No," she said. "You say that the things he does are not really magic--but they do seem that way to me. It's just that he has a different style."
"I hope you like my style better."
"So far," she said.
As Moonbird lifted them above the desert and bent his course northward, the skies were clear and the sun had already begun its western plunge.
Land where you would to forage, Pol told him. Once we hit the northern sea, we'll be island-hopping--and the maps are not all that good on distances.
I have been this way before, Moonbird told him. I will feed in time. Now, will you make some music to warm my cold reptilian heart?
Pol unearthed his guitar, tuned it and struck a chord. The wind whistled accompaniment as the land unrolled like a dry and mottled parchment beneath them.
XVII
That night, as they lay listening to the sound of waves and breathing the smell of the sea on a small island far from the mainland, Moonbird sought sustenance for afield and Nora studied the rod from the pyramid.
"It does have a magical look, a magical feel to it," she said, turning it in the moonlight.
"It is that," Pol replied, stroking her shoulder, "and the other two pieces should do more than just add to its potency. Each should multiply the power of those which precede, several times."
She put it aside and reached out to touch his wrist.
"Your birthmark," she said. "They weren't really wrong--the villagers. You are of that tribe with your feet in hell and your head in heaven."
"No reason to throw rocks," he said. "I wasn't doing anything to them."
"They'd feared your father--once he got involved in blood sacrifices and the treating with unnatural beings who had to be paid in human lives."
Pol shrugged.
"...And they took his life to balance accounts. Also, my mother's. And they wrecked the place. Didn't that pretty much square things?"
"At the time, yes--as I understand it. But you stirred up fears as well as leftover hatred. Supposing you'd come home to avenge their deaths? You did have that in mind, too, didn't you? That's what that Mouseglove person said."
"Not at the time, though. I hadn't even realized who I was when they attacked me. But it made it easier for me to hate them when I did learn."
"So, in a way they were right."
Pol took the rod into his hands and stared at it.
"I can't deny it," he said, finally. "But I didn't follow through on it. I've harmed none of them."
"Yet," she said.
He turned onto his side and glared at her, the covers slipping from his shoulder.
"What do you mean 'yet'? If I'd been that serious about it, it would have been my first order of business."
"But you still dislike them."
"Wouldn't you, in my position? So for as I'm concerned, they're not very likable people. And if they'd handled Mark a little differently, they probably wouldn't have him on their backs."
"They are quick to react to the unknown. Theirs is a settled way of life--traditional, slow to change. They saw both of you as threats to it and acted immediately to preserve it."
"Okay. I can see that. But I can understand something without liking it. I've called off the feud I almost declared on them. That should be enough."
"Only because you've got
a bigger one on your hands. You know that if you don't destroy Mark he's going to destroy you."
"I have to operate under that assumption. He's given me every indication. The time is past for trying to talk with him."
She was silent for a long while.
"So why aren't you like the others?" he asked. "You were a friend of his and now you're hanging around with a dark sorcerer--helping me, in fact."
She remained silent. Then he realized that she was crying softly.
"What is it?" he said.
"I'm a pawn," she answered in a low voice. "I'm the reason you got involved--you were trying to help me."
"Well--yes. But sooner or later Mark and I would have met, and the results would probably have been the same."
"I'm not so sure," she said. "He might have been more inclined to listen to you if it hadn't been for me. But he was jealous. You might have become friends--you have much in common. If you had--think what an alliance that might have been--a sorcerer and a master of the old science arts--both out for revenge on my homeland. Now that cannot be, and the wheels are turning to bring you into a struggle to the death. Supposing I really hated you both? It wouldn't make a bit of difference--now."
"Do you?" he asked.
"...And I'd be damned if I'd tell you."
"You wouldn't have to sleep with me. Once those wheels are in motion a roll in the hay wouldn't alter them."
"It might make the winner more disposed to leave us alone, out of a certain fondness."
"And telling him about it might have just the opposite effect."
"It's a good thing I'm talking principles and not cases," she replied, touching his shoulder again. "As I said, I do feel like a pawn, though, and you wanted to know why. As for your last question, I was answering it as things could be, not informing you. It was the wrong question, anyhow."
"You're too tough to be a pawn," he said, "and you know who the only woman on the board is. And we can sleep with a sword between us if you want."
"It is not cold steel that I want," she said, moving nearer.
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