'Men of the Sky City!' Moriana's voice rang like a trumpet, stilling the murmurings and occasional catcalls cast in the prisoners' direction. 'You stand before me because you have committed a most grievous deed; resisting by arms the return of your legal and rightful queen to claim her throne.'
Instantly, a dozen men fell to their knees, sobbing and pleading and shaking clasped hands in the air.
'We did no wrong! Your Majesty, there has been some terrible mistake!'
A short, slightly built youth in black and purple pushed his way arrogantly through the crowd to stand before Moriana, his black hair thrown back, his blue eyes blazing defiance. The brassard of the Guard surrounded one wiry bicep.
'We fought in defense of our City and our crowned queen, so acclaimed by the Council of Advisors in accordance with ancient law. Your claim to the Throne of Winds may be just but you chose to come as an invading enemy. If resisting you was a crime, then my comrades and I must plead wholeheartedly guilty!'
A wild babble filled the air. The crowd growled like a hungry beast, and a guard shouted, 'On your knees before the queen, scum!' The captive Monitors and sallow men in the robes of Palace bureaucrats and mages swore that this madman did not speak for them. The other Sky Guard captives raised a shout in a different key. 'Well said, Cerestan! We fly and fall with you!'
Moriana raised her hand, commanding silence. The uproar died.
'You are Cerestan, young man?' she asked. Fost watched, judging the man to be a year younger than the new queen – which made him older than the courier. 'I am flight lieutenant of the Guard,' Cerestan said proudly.
'Very well, Lt. Cerestan. You are brave. Since you have thrust yourself forward so bravely, then you shall hear my judgment upon you and upon your comrades, as well.' More piteous outcries broke from the captives. Cerestan paled but set his jaw resolutely.
'You, and those who fought beside you in resisting my entry into the City in the Sky – and your fellows of the Guard particularly – hear now your doom. You are from this moment free men and women, to leave the City or remain in her service, with the thanks of monarch and people, providing only that you are willing to swear fealty to me, your new and rightful queen.'
The crowd uttered a formless, astonished gasp. The prisoners looked stunned. Cerestan blinked rapidly and cocked his head as if uncertain he had heard correctly. Moriana laughed at his confusion.
'Did you think I was insensible to your dilemma? Being the younger sister I was heir to the throne by City law, but the Council named Synalon rightful queen. Which was right? You chose what you thought was the moral course. You fought for your City as best you knew how, and you fought bravely.'
She paused. A few cries of disbelief floated from the spectators, and she noticed that the men in Sky City uniforms who guarded the captives were beginning to acquire an angry look.
'I am most grateful now and forever to those who chose to side with me, and I shall do you all the honor it is in my power to do. But I will not punish loyalty to my beloved City, nor courageous striving on her behalf. So you who fought against me are no longer prisoners – not pardoned, for you have done nothing to be pardoned for.
'As for the rest of you, you Bilsinxt are likewise pardoned, but you are to be exiled at once from the City.' Some of the Bilsinxt cried out in terror. The usual form of exile from the City was to be given a hearty push into the Skywell to fall the thousand feet to the ground. Moriana raised a placating hand. 'I mean nothing drastic. You'll be allowed to collect your belongings and be given transport to the surface by balloon. Your city is still occupied, but I intend to withdraw the Sky City forces. With Synalon dead, no reason remains to maintain such a force.'
Startled comment rippled through the listeners. Though everyone knew that Synalon was dead, it had not been confirmed in words before. Moriana waited until the commotion was over before going on.
'For the rest of you, for the functionaries who officiated over the reign of terror waged by Synalon and Rann against the people of the City, and the Monitors who were the instruments of that oppression, I remand you to prison, to be tried individually according to your acts, by a tribunal over which I personally will preside. Look to your conscience, gentlemen. On my own behalf I am not vindictive, but on behalf of my people I harbor no mercy!' She gestured imperiously, the graceful but definite handsweep of one born to rule. The wailing mages and officials were hauled to their feet and hurried off to prison, Moriana's men forming a cordon to protect them from the fists and feet of the crowd.
A noise tugged at the fringes of Fost's mind. The mindless oceanic sounds of the crowd blanketed all other sounds, but beneath the roar he felt more than heard a discord, unidentifiable and unsettling. He shook his head to clear it. The aftermath of the battle was getting the better of him. And he knew the precise way to combat it.
He held forth his goblet. A grinning serving youth refilled it with amber wine.
'Here, Chasko, refresh yourself,' he shouted to the bearded man who stood beside him with Erimenes's satchel slung over one shoulder. His friend Prudyn, normally inseparable from him, stood some distance away holding an identical satchel loosely by the strap. The two had moved apart so that Erimenes and Ziore could no longer rant at each other.
Fost took Erimenes's satchel and slung the strap over his shoulder. Chasko accepted a fired clay vessel of liqueur and moved off to rejoin his comrade.
'You've made a sorry spectacle of yourself, old smoke,' Fost told the spirit, knowing Erimenes could read the words from his mind if he didn't hear.
'It's all the fault of that brainless witch who claims to be an Athalar. She couldn't be one, or if she is then my city decayed greatly in the years following my death. Imagine the weak-mindedness and credulity to be so taken in by an obviously spurious doctrine as to waste one's whole life on it!'
'That's your own spurious doctrine you're talking about,' Fost reminded him.
'If I've told you once, I've told you twelve thousand times,' Erimenes said loftily, 'I despise your barbaric imprecisions. Neither I nor that foolish cow Zir or Zor or Zoot or whatever she's called could possibly have made a spectacle of ourselves, since we're not visible. Why do you insist on changing the subject?'
'Majesty! Your Majesty!' Standing near Fost, Moriana looked up from a consultation with a group of officials who for reasons of conscience had allied with her.
A girl in her teens pushed her way through the throng almost to the queen's side. She wore breeches and a tattered tunic and a shortsword so thoroughly nicked as to appear sawtoothed. Her face was deathly pale beneath a coating of soot and grime, and one cheek was laid open to bleed freely and disregarded. Ribbons in Moriana's colors circled one arm.
'What is it?' asked Moriana, brow creasing in annoyance. She restrained the men who moved forward to disarm the girl, though the functionaries clucked with disapproval at her raggedness and impudence.
The girl took a deep breath. She swayed. Moriana caught her arm and supported her.
'The Hissers, Your Majesty,' she got out, and then her knees buckled with the onslaught of a coughing fit. She finally controlled herself long enough to blurt out, 'The Vridzish're attacking, Your Majesty! All over the whole damn City they're falling on top of us, armed and unarmed alike. It's t-treachery!' She fell forward so abruptly that Moriana scarcely prevented her from smashing face down on the pavement. It was only then that the queen saw the broken shaft of a black Zr'gsz arrow protruding from the girl's shoulder.
At the aft edge of the Circle, screams announced the arrival of the Hissers.
The stink of burning warehouses stung Fost's palate as his mind, fogged by drink and post-battle depression, struggled to come to grips with the girl's jagged-voiced warning. A flickering caught his attention, a quarter turn around the Circle of the Skywell. He looked that way in time to see a black flash and a fountain of scarlet. The Hissers swarmed into the Circle from the broad avenue that ran aft along the City's main axis. They freely wielded obsidian-
edged swords.
He turned to Moriana. Her face was the color of a corpse's, and her lips moved without sound.
Then, 'Ziore!' she cried. Without waiting for the genie to answer, Moriana spun away to snap orders at the warriors who stood about staring in horror at this unexpected attack.
Gathering a knot of armed men and women about her, Moriana set off toward where the street mouth disgorged a stream of greenish Zr'gsz into the wide Circle. She and her troops made slow progress, bucking the current of humanity fleeing the wrath of its ancient enemies.
Fost felt a pang of surprise and betrayal that Moriana had called upon her Athalar spirit rather than upon him in her anguish. Then he decided that she was far more used to turning to Ziore in recent months than to him. The leaden lethargy that had gripped his limbs evaporated into a bright humming of adrenaline frenzy. He hitched Erimenes's satchel higher on his shoulder and drew his sword with a jerky motion.
A hand gripped his biceps. He whirled, swordarm preparing for the thrust. At his side a Sky Guardsman who bore Moriana's colors turned ashen but didn't flinch.
'Sir Longstrider,' he said, not quite knowing how to address this obviously important groundling. 'The captive soldiers – what shall we do with them?'
Fost glanced after Moriana, who was fighting her way through the panicking crowd like a fish swimming upstream, shouting for her men to come to her aid. It was hopeless trying to call to her over the wails of the multitude. Off toward the end of the City he saw thin trails of smoke twisting into the air.
He looked at the captive bird riders and Guardsmen, who stood where they had before, still unable to assimilate that they were free.
'Tread warily, my impetuous friend,' advised Erimenes from his jug. 'If you presume to give orders that Moriana finds objectionable, you may regret it later. The lady has shown a marked propensity to place the dictates of statecraft above those of the heart.'
'Shut up, Erimenes,' snapped Fost. Worry and anger grew. He felt the Guardsman's wondering eyes on him.
'The Hissers are unlikely to distinguish between us and them,' he told the waiting soldier. 'Arm them.'
With Erimenes belaboring him as a fool, Fost dashed off in pursuit of his queen and lover.
Faint and distant, the sounds of conflict seeped through rock and penetrated the awareness of the thirteen who wove mighty magics in front of the ancient door. Khirshagk paused, the harsh incantation rattling to a stop in his throat.
'Our people strike prematurely, Instrumentality,' one of his assistants reported.
He nodded. His long, handsome face was composed, serene. Despite the absolute darkness in the long-sealed and forgotten chamber, his twelve followers discerned every detail of his features, of the feathered ceremonial cloak he'd donned over his scratched green cuirass, and of the immense black diamond held smoking in the clawed hand. A black radiance pulsed from the depths of the stone, its tempo increasing second by second, like the beating of a heart touched with growing arousal.
'It matters little,' he murmured. 'The Children have waited many centuries for this moment. After such patience, the Dark Ones will forgive them their impetuosity. It will not alter the outcome.' And so saying, Khirshagk, Instrumentality of the People, raised his black diamond that was the Heart of the People and resumed the chant to weaken the spells laid long ago by Felarod.
'Come, lads, we've got them on the run!' cried a bearded North-lander, brandishing his broadsword so that the rings of his mailshirt tinkled musically. Up the narrow street a clot of low caste Zr'gsz in loincloths broke and fled under a vicious rain of arrows from Nevrym foresters and grounded bird riders. Knowing something of the Nevrymin and their attitudes toward the Hissers, Fost had been concerned over which side they'd take in this tight. However, the Vridzish had made savagely clear their intention of slaying everything human in the City. The foresters allied with the Sky Citizens by default. Their longbows did much to roll back the advantage of surprise gained by the Zr'gsz.
Seeing Moriana's troops strike the attacking Hissers with spear, sword and a singing cloud of arrows, a group of defenders had veered down a sidestreet to meet a probe by the lizard men. Fost had gone along, and already felt useless. By his own estimation the very worst archer in the world, Fost wished to close and use his sword.
He trotted up the street between the clanking mailed City States man and a rangy Nevrym forester with one eye. They passed the bodies of several of the Zr'gsz quilled like porcupines by the human archers. An obsidian-tipped spear lay by one's outflung talon.
'Ha! What fuss to make over these decadent savages,' Erimenes said scornfully. 'If they craft weapons of stone they cannot be too formidable.'
The one-eyed forester glanced at Fost. Having accompanied Moriana and Ziore in the assault on the City he was accustomed to disembodied voices emerging from satchels.
'You'd soon learn better had you a body, old one,' he told the genie. 'The volcano glass of the Zr'gsz holds -'
A small, light-skinned lizard man popped from the doorway of a shop a few steps ahead and brought his arm whipping forward. An obsidian axe whirled to embed itself with a crunch in the mailed chest of the bearded Northlander. The man coughed astonishment and blood. His legs gave way beneath him. The Nevrymin drew and loosed his arrow as the Hisser dodged back into the doorway.
'- holds an edge far sharper than the finest steel,' he finished. He paused, only slowing the fluid rhythm of his run, and confirmed with a quick glance at the City Stater's unnatural posture and unwinking, glazed stare that he was beyond assistance. 'Course, obsidian'!! shatter against steel plate, or even good iron. But it can bust right on through mail.'
Fost gulped. In his imagination, his own mail vest already rent by ill-use took on the consistency of wet paper. His grip tightened on his sword as he loped past the doorway from which the axe-wielding Hisser had emerged. The Nevrymin didn't spare a glance. The Vridzish lay huddled inside the pointed archway with his sharp chin slumped to the shaft of the arrow jutting from his sternum.
Fost's peripheral vision noticed the timeworn frieze graven around the shop's arched door. The architecture and ornamental stonework of the City in the Sky had disturbed him before, though he'd never been able to understand the reason. Now he knew the cause of that uneasiness. The City had originally been constructed by the Zr'gsz. The many additions later wrought by humans had imitated the original style. Whiie these additions lacked the eldritch quality of the older structures, they still jarred the unaccustomed eye. But it was the ornamentation that bothered Fost the most. The figures in the bas relief were wrong in nameless ways, subtly distorted, yet apparently human. But they were not human; they were Zr'gsz or the products of Zr'gsz imagination. The City turned alien and cold around him.
The two of them continued their curving course and spilled into an intersection. Fost yelped as a streak of yellow lightning crackled past his elbow and blasted the cornice of a building. Glowing gobs of stone spattered in ail directions, drawing sharp yips of pain when they struck flesh. 'Fost!' cried Moriana. 'I'm sorry. 1 didn't know it was you.'
'Think nothing of it,' he said sarcastically. Her deathbolt hadn't singed him, nor had the molten masonry hit him. But he now had a fused patch in the mail beneath his left arm to match the one a salamander had given him that morning. 'I didn't know you could do that.' She showed her teeth in a grin of wolfish satisfaction.
'Neither did Synalon/ she said. 'I've learned a few things since we parted, my love.'
A shout turned her attention back to the street, where more Zr'gsz had massed. Fost jumped to avoid the javelins and slung stones that glanced off the walls and clattered on the paving.
Several of their followers died from the missiles. The rest dodged back into doorways or around corners to avoid fire. Moriana stood her ground. She held a Highgrass bow in her left hand, but made no effort to pull an arrow from the few remaining in the quiver slung across her back.
She raised her right hand. A short arrow whirred by a
nd dug a furrow in her cheek.
'Damn you, treacherous serpents!' she screamed. 'Die for your faithlessness!' The hand came down. Blinding white exploded from her fingers.
Fost saw bright orange and blue after-images dancing before his eyes, but from the corners he glimpsed Zr'gsz bodies fiung in all directions by the blast.
'A most impressive display, Queen,' remarked Erimenes. 'However, I wonder if your prowess will suffice against the forces I perceive are about to be -'
'Silence, rogue!' squalled Ziore from her jug. 'Moriana is the most powerful mage in all the world.'
Weaving like a reed in a breeze from the energy spent on the deathbolt, Moriana turned a stunned look toward the leather bag carrying Ziore. Her expression showed she was unused to this facet of the genie's personality.
Moriana staggered. Fost caught her arm and supported her. Her fingers gripped his forearm and squeezed down weakly.
'You've grown more powerful,' he said, 'to be able to toss lightning around like that so soon after your duel with Synalon.'
'I have.' She swept hair from her forehead with a quick thumb movement. 'And my anger gives a greater store of power than I'd have otherwise.' 'You should rest and marshal your power.'
'No! If I stop now I'll collapse.' She shook her head tiredly. 'Even without my magics, we're winning. The human warriors of my army and Synalon's are too many for them.'
She gestured up the street. As far as a distant curve, it was strewn with arrow-skewered Zr'gsz corpses. Near at hand several Underground fighters fished a limp green-scaled body from the sunken stone pond of a aeroaquifer. The magic fountain continued to produce water and music alike from thin air. The calm beauty of the sound drove back the warlike clamor from the surrounding streets.
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