An earsplitting crack awakened her. Others followed in rapid succession, louder and louder, mounting toward a crescendo of noise that dwarfed even the roar of Omizantrim in full eruption. She stared up the canyon, saw clouds of mist and glittering ice crystals billow forth like smoke.
She saw movement from the corner of her eye. Before she could react, Rann was upon her, wrapping steel-cable arms around her and forcing her back against the cliff. Treachery! she thought, unable to fight her cousin off.
Erimenes's satchel swung from Rann's arm, and she wondered if the genie had entered into intrigue with the prince.
Then twenty tons of stone hurtled down, noiseless against the awful tumult, and buried the rock on which she had been sitting.
In time, hearing returned. In the ringing stillness Rann and Moriana picked themselves up from the tangle in which they'd lain at the foot of the cliff. They picked their way through the rubble strewn along the floor of the pass.
'Great Ultimate,' Moriana whispered as they rounded the bend. Rann's fingers tightened on her arm.
It was as if a great maw had yawned wide in the glacier's face. Thirty feet tall, three times that in width, a passageway had been opened into the glacier's guts. Was it Moriana's imagination or could she truly see, far within, a glimmer of that subtle, lovely radiance given off by Athalau? Erimenes was weeping.
'To think that my city might live again,' he sobbed. 'You won't forget the ice worms, will you?' echoed Guardian's voice from the great, dark archway.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Steppe was carpeted with wildflowers, the white blooms covering the land like early snowfall but rippling like the surface of a lake changing to the whims of the wind. Sitting atop a knoll whose bare skeleton of rock protruded like a lizard's spine, Fost surveyed the straggling line of men and women wading knee-deep through the flowers and tried to sort his feelings.
One hundred thirty-eight Ethereals had followed the crippled Selamyl from their village to take the arduous path to Athalau, leaving behind a handful of the aged and the reluctant. Ten of the travellers had died already. Fost wondered how many more would follow.
There were dark things in the Ramparts, not natural life but one of the grimmer legacies of the first War of Powers. A score of times they had come forth to beset the travellers, occasionally in the daytime and often at night. In the darkness all Fost had been able to make out of the attackers were glowing eyes and gaping maws filled with teeth that glinted wetly in the moonlight. Sometimes the attackers were many and small, but savage. Other times it would be a great, lone beast like the creatures that had come on them during the day. Those had been similar, huge armored things with spiked tails and burning demon eyes. Fost was almost grateful that most of the attacks occurred at night.
Synalon had plied her battle magic, accounting for most of the creatures when they came. She and Fost had complete charge of the caravan's safety. The Ethereals had no concept of self-defense, nor any will to do so. They would stand looking vacant, even wistful, as a swarm of creatures like stinking scaled rats tore them to shreds. It was tribute to Synalon's sorcery more than Fost's bladecraft that so few had fallen.
'Yet they keep on,' he marvelled aloud. He had feared the Ethereals would lose heart and turn back as soon as misfortune fell. But they took the dangers and the deaths the same way they took the trudging hardship of the trek itself, with a stolid lack of concern. Fost began to see, as Rann had before him, that beneath their veneer of fecklessness and fragility these Ethereals had a strength of their own.
'We've made good time,' said Synalon from behind him. 'Three hundred miles in two weeks, afoot. We shall soon be at the Gate of the Mountains.'
Fost nodded, looking back down at the long file of Ethereals. Many straggled to one side or the other of the winding trail foraging for berries and edible roots. It was something the Ethereals were good at, and supplies had not yet become a problem.
Nor did the straggling bother Fost. As long as none drifted out of sight, it mattered little whether the Ethereals marched in line or not. With only two of them to guard so large a flock, it was luck alone that had kept the varied wolves from taking more.
'Why so downcast?' Synalon chided him. She flung out her arms and drew in a deep breath, causing her breasts to lift dramatically in the thin shirt. The nipples stood out in bold relief against the taut fabric, and he saw their ruddy color. 'It's a lovely day. The sun is high and hot and feels good on the skin, and the wind from the Ramparts still bears the chill of the Waste at its back to take the sting from the heat. And the flowers raise their heads all about, and their perfume fills the air. Aren't these pleasing to you, my Fost?' 'I never thought I'd hear such sentiments from you.' The music of her laugh filled the air.
'You've spent too much time with my dour sister. She's always striving after tomorrow. I am content to live with today, taking the sensations it gives me and enjoying them as best I can.' She looked at Ziore. 'Don't go all sour on me, little nun. I do lay plans against the future – aye, and hopes as well. But there are days when I immerse myself in the moment and revel in the million flavors of life.'
'Then why did you ally yourself with the Dark Ones?' Fost asked before good sense could stop the words. 'They are the foes of life.'
A shadow passed over her finely sculpted face like a cloud crossing the sun. 'I thought they could give me power, and that power would open gates to new sensations. What must it be like to stride among the stars as Istu did? To know at once the chill and heat of the Void, to shout into airlessness and race the light of suns?' She sighed deeply. 'But you shall now hear something I seldom say. I was wrong. The Dark knows no bitterer foe than I now.'
Does it? Fost wondered, remembering the dying firelight and the great black Dwarf beyond. But the perverse imp of defiance that made him blurt his question about Synalon's earlier pact with the Elder Lords had retreated, and he said nothing. Synalon loved him with a fiercely hot passion, physically at least, and he both feared and hoped that love extended to other dimensions. But she remained the mad, mercurial creature who had ruled the Sky City with a whim of steel and flame, and it wasn't safe to presume too far upon her good feelings.
'Your philosophy is similar to what Erimenes now believes,' Ziore commented.
'Ah, but I'm wiser than your Athalar sage, little sister,' Synalon cried, 'for I have long since learned that lesson and did not have to wait until I was dead.' Her hand shot out with a speed that reminded Fost of the Zr'gsz blood in her veins. She caught him by the wrist. She drew his scarred hand to her lips and kissed it gently. 'And now, my dear Fost, you shall learn why my way is wisest, to wring each moment dry of sensation without thought to the next.' 'What?' 'Look to the northern horizon, dear one.'
He did. His heart dropped into the bottom of his belly.
Like a fleet of ships upon the waves, they rode the air in a bobbing black line across the sky. Still too distant to be clearly seen, shimmering slightly in the waves of heat rising from the Steppe, the skyrafts grew even as Fost watched. Form and detail sharpened. His sword slid into his hand with a fluid motion.
Synalon sent her mount stiff-legged down the face of the knoll, sliding and staggering amid a slippage of small, loose stones. Fost followed, hoping his dog wouldn't break a leg. Synalon called for the Ethereals to close up into a group.
'No!' Fost shouted, and quailed as she turned a furious look on him. 'Have them scatter and hide the best they can. The Hissers are missile troops when they ride their rafts. If the Ethereals clump together, Zr'gsz darts will go through them like a sickle through ripe wheat.'
Her dog reached the foot of the ridge and galloped toward where Selamyl still dragged himself inexorably forward with his cane. Fost's beast pounded after.
She let him do the talking. He hurriedly outlined the danger to the Ethereals' leader, and what must be done. Selamyl smiled benignly.
'Holding perfectly still is a thing my folk are good at,' he said. He turned and began speaking, g
esturing into the scrub around them.
One by one the Ethereals disappeared. Fost's eyes widened at the completeness with which they vanished. The Ethereals lacked wilderness craft but they could divorce their minds utterly from their bodies and drift among their dreams, immune to physical discomfort. Their bodies bent into unlikely shapes to take advantage of the sparse cover – and then they froze. In a matter of minutes, Fost saw only Selamyl. Then he, too, disappeared.
'Impressive,' said Synalon. 'But remember the Zr'gsz are airborne. They'll hunt the Ethereals from a different perspective.'
'But Oracle told me their eyesight is poor. Their eyes are attuned to movement rather than detail. If the Ethereals stay immobile, we have a chance.'
'I think I can help,' Ziore said urgently. 'This close to Athalau my powers are greater, like Erimenes's. I cannot turn the Hissers away, but I can slow small numbers of them.'
Anything that helped counteract the blindingly swift reflexes of the Vridzish would be of immeasurable aid.
Synalon's eyes glowed beneath half-lowered lids. Her lips moved as she spoke to herself. Ziore shuddered and drew away from the sorceress. Fost felt a thrill as though his nerve ends were tightly brushed by powers beyond his ken.
The rafts drew near, a score, two dozen. Fost's eyes unfocused. He blinked, realizing that there was a blurring of the line of dark stone rafts. A Hisser, highborn from his size and green cuirass, pointed and shouted a sibilant command. The formation split to avoid the disturbance, some going around, others up and over.
The air darkened, swirled, coalesced. A winged shape hung in air, a tiger's head swiveling at the end of a long snake's neck. At least six legs dangled from the bloated body. Fost couldn't be sure because the thing swam in and out of focus.
As the leading raft passed overhead, the thing half rolled, drumming the air with its wings. A claw shot up, up to and through the underside of the raft. The pilot hunched over the globe at the rear suddenly gave a ringing shriek. The claw drew down pulling the Hisser's smoking guts with it through the skystone. 'Great Ultimate,' Fost whispered.
'I think you've seen this magic before. Back in the tower of Kest-i-Mond.'
He recalled the striped ape monster, blinded by a deathbolt that failed to save the enchanter who cast it, and the nightmare chase it had given him through the corridors of the sorceror's keep. Fost's blade had passed harmlessly through it, and it flowed through solid walls and doorways as though they were air. Only by luring it into an open fumarole Kest-i-Mond had built his castle over had Fost avoided death. Synalon's magic now was identical with that he'd faced – and barely triumphed over.
Slung stones and javelins sleeted down at the winged creature. They passed through it like smoke. Clawed limbs lashed out again and again. The monster delighted in eviscerating Zr'gsz and tearing out hearts to fling them in the faces of its foes.
'They'll never get past that horror,' said Fost. Relief almost overwhelmed his dread of the monster.
Synalon frowned. A spot of darkness appeared in the air beside the winged beast, grew. The tiger-headed thing saw it, struck at it with a claw. The beast's arm disappeared. The black hole caught the arm and drew the monster in. It uttered a wail that raked down Fost's spine. Then it was gone. The hole winked out of existence. Synalon's hair crackled with sparks. 'Damn! They've a mage with them who draws on Istu's power.'
As she spoke, a beam of black light lanced down at her. She gestured contemptuously. It bent abruptly to dig a smoking rent in the ground.
'Even with the Demon's help he has no touch for offensive magic,' Synalon sneered. 'But I fear he can negate any spells I attack with.' 'Is Istu near?' asked Fost, peering all around.
'No, but his power can augment that of any he favors. I myself sought to tap the power of his sleeping mind – as you may recall.'
He had a fleeting urge to strike her. He remembered too well. She had planned to sacrifice Moriana to the sleeping Demon as a bribe for his assistance. Fost had barely rescued the golden-haired princess.
Synalon's hands moved, weaving a new spell. A crack opened in the earth below the skyfleet. A billion black hornets billowed forth to surround the rafts. Stoic as they were, the Hissers began to scream and fling themselves over the edges of their vessels to escape the maddening stings.
Fost couldn't see the enemy sorceror. But he must have acted because the swarm became a cloud of tiny sparks burning unbearably bright, falling to the Steppe in an incandescent rain.
The rafts were almost overhead. Arrows began to pelt the landscape, javelins and stones striking with thumps like hail. Synalon's lips drew back taut. 'They know what we're doing. They're trying to slay the Ethereals.'
'They're shooting blind,' Fost said. Evidently the Vridzish had spotted the Ethereals at a distance and knew they were near, but couldn't pinpoint them. With their eerie self-control, many of the Ethereals died without a sound, without stirring.
The rafts came close enough to speed missiles at the mounted pair. Fost steeled himself. He had no shield and his mail vest would provide little protection against hard-driven arrows.
Synalon waved her hand. The barrage of missiles dropped, arrows and javelins aflame, the stones molten lumps.
'Had they enough archers they could swamp me,' she said. 'But they don't.'
The skyrafts veered off, milling aimlessly in the sky. Fost awaited a new spell from Synalon. None came. 'I do what their mage does,' she explained. 'I conserve strength.'
The rafts spread out, formed a circle around the two and touched down. The craft each held six to eight Vridzish. Six to eight too many for Fost's liking.
The Hissers rushed forth, the nobles splendid in their cloaks and armor, the paler scaled lowborn warriors clad in loincloths and carrying obsidian spears and axes. Some of the latter carried short-swords of plain steel looted from a human armory. Oracle had predicted this would happen. Obsidian held a keener edge than steel but it was brittle. As Vridzish weapons were broken or lost, they had to be replaced. Picking up fallen human weapons proved easier than chipping new ones from glass.
It was small comfort. Two of the shortsword-armed Hissers stopped and hauled an Ethereal woman to her feet. Her face never lost its dreamy look as they plunged their swords repeatedly into her body.
Synalon pointed three times with her finger. Three lines of blue lightning stabbed forth. The two slayers and an officer nearby charred and fell. Synalon laughed delightedly at her handiwork. 'The whoreson can't guard against that!'
The Vridzish commander shouted and waved his sword. The Hissers advanced on Fost and Synalon at a trot. Both dismounted, preparing for battle.
Lightning flared in such rapid succession that Fost was momentarily deafened and blinded. But if the Zr'gsz mage couldn't fend off her deadly short range lightning, neither had Synalon speed or strength to cinder all their enemies before they reached the embattled pair.
Instinct made him lash out even before his vision cleared. Fost felt his blade slash through something brittle; then came the unmistakable sensation of steel cleaving flesh. A Hisser gasped and fell, the broken halves of a mace dropping to the Steppe.
A score of the reptiles surrounded the pair. Fost's dog snarled and leaped, taking a deep gash down one side but bearing two of them to the ground. A trio of lowborn Hissers closed on Fost. His eyes searched rapidly and found a small stone lying near his foot. He kicked it between two of the Vridzish.
They were stupid. Their eyes followed the rock and then not even their inhuman speed saved them from Fost's whining blade. He swung left, right, left again and black blood gushed over him.
A noble loomed up ahead swinging an obsidian-edged sword. Fost hurled himself backward. The black stone blade moaned past. Fost felt nothing but as he backpedalled he saw that his tunic was parted in a line running across his chest and blood welled through a sleeve.
Synalon glided forward, her rapier twitching before her like a giant insect's antenna. She attacked the officer, and he retreated
a step. Steel rang on stone, and then the tip of the slender sword whipped around a parry to score a heavily muscled forearm.
The Zr'gsz whistled in rage and struck, battling Synalon's blade out of the way. She danced back. He smiled then, teeth bright in his dark face, and advanced.
As quickly as he had advanced, he stopped. His eyes rolled up in his head showing greenish white balls. He stiffened. Every muscle swelled into relief on his powerful body, and he began vibrating in the grip of an awful spasm. A keening sounded only to be drowned in a froth of blood. He fell, kicking grooves in the soil. He finally lay still.
'My sword skill's too paltry to put all my faith in it,' Synalon said from behind Fost. 'Come on then, bastards. My venom's good for many more!'
And they did come on, barely giving Fost time to clamber to his feet. He and Synalon fought back to back as the Vridzish rushed. It seemed that each new attack must be the last; Fost didn't know how he parried the blinding strokes of mace and axe and sword. The Zr'gsz crowded in on all sides, jostling each other, making it difficult to attack. Fost buried his sword over and over until he was black with their blood. Synalon's poisonous sting littered the ground with convulsing victims. But there were too many Hissers, and beyond the circle of hard, dark faces Fost saw several score others still hunting down the Ethereals.
His face and arms stung from myriad shallow cuts. He dared not even glance over his shoulder at Synalon, but from her constant low-voiced cursing he guessed she was in no better shape.
He refused to have it end like this. The thought of dying filled him with rage.
'O, Ust!' he bellowed. 'Give me the strength to slay these sons of darkness!' Madness came on him, and he waded in among the Vridzish.
He scattered a dozen of the lower caste warriors. Another officer faced him. His speed outmatched Fost's berserker fury. Each stroke of his mace drove Fost's blade perilously near the man's own flesh. Sweat blinded Fost.
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