Scepters

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  He didn’t like the idea of approaching the Table building, not with the ifrits within, but perhaps he could learn something from the outbuildings and even overhear what the guards and the ostler might be saying. He could wait forever, but if there were ifrits holding Wendra, he dared not wait long. They might try to possess her the way they had Halanat and the Recorder of Deeds in Tempre. He’d tried not to think about that, but he couldn’t avoid it, not after what he had seen in the last few glasses.

  He waited a bit longer, then slipped westward from tree to tree, careful not to step in the patches of snow, until he was directly opposite the stable. From where he now stood, even the apricot tree behind which he had placed himself could not be seen from the stone building, shielded as it was by the stable and another outbuilding.

  He took a deep breath, then concentrated, pressing the darkness of lifeforce into the five cartridges in the magazine of the rifle. He did not try that with the fifteen cartridges in the leather loops of his heavy belt. With his sabre at his side and the heavy rifle in his hand, he hurried across the winter-flattened brown grasses of the meadow toward the stable. The back of the stable had no windows—just a blank timber wall that had been painted within the last year. So long as no one left any of the other buildings, he would be out of view.

  Once close to the stable wall, he listened, but could hear nothing as he made his way westward. When he reached the end of the stable, he turned the corner and darted along the side wall, then across the open ground to the rear of the next building, one that looked almost like a barracks, with high windows. He kept close to the planked wall, moving back eastward until he was underneath a high window, open but a narrow crack.

  When he could hear voices, he paused to listen, trying to sort out the words.

  “…how long, you figure?”

  “…could be a couple of glasses…less once in a while…”

  “What do they do in there?”

  “…can’t say as I know. Mostly talk. Don’t talk like most folk, either…use words no one else does.”

  “Like Madrien or nomad?”

  “Not like that. They’ll be talking just like us, and then they use strange words. Sound normal, but they’re not.”

  “Like what?”

  “How would I know? They’re strange. Take my word for it.”

  There was a round of laughter.

  “…spend most your time with the horses…”

  “They’re better company…that Trezun…something odd about him…now…the mare…like to get her bred to Durwad’s stallion…foal’d be something…said that to Trezun…told me breeding was important in everything…be especially important in years to come…laughed when he said it. Didn’t seem funny to me…”

  “…that girl…Kara…she ever come back?”

  Alucius continued to listen, but the guards and ostler kept talking about horses and women, and finally he edged to the corner of the building, where he chanced a glance at the limestone structure that his Talent-senses told him had to house the Table—or something like it. The building was as much dug into the low hills as built upon them, so much so that the rear wall of the structure rose out of the hill and the roof tiles at the rear were but a yard or so above the hill. From what he’d learned in Tempre, that confirmed his belief that the structure held a Table.

  He watched for a time, with intermittent glances around the corner. Almost half a glass later, as the sun touched the western horizon, the door to the Table building opened, and Tarolt and two other ifrits walked outside. They turned onto a path that angled northwest, in front of the outbuildings, and in the direction of the River Vedra.

  While he wondered where they were going and why in the evening chill, Alucius waited until the three were a good hundred yards from the Table building before he concentrated on making himself seem like only a vagrant breeze before he stepped from behind the outbuilding and walked quickly southward.

  There were no yells or shouts, and none of the ifrits even turned.

  When Alucius opened the door to the Table building and stepped inside, he could sense the presence of a Table, one seemingly more powerful than either of those he had encountered before. Rifle in hand, he glanced around the entry hall. The foyer was hexagonal—and empty—with two double doors leading from it.

  Both doors were wide-open, and Alucius stepped through the archway to the right, which led into a conference room. A tray with a few small wedges of cheese and half an apple remained in the center of the table, and to one side was a crystal decanter half-filled with a red wine. There were three empty crystal goblets on the table, and warmth flowed from the stove against the wall, but Alucius could discern no one nearby. The sense of the Table was far stronger, clearly emanating from beyond the archway on the far side of the room. On the walls were light-torches, and not ancient remnants of the Duarchy, but ones recently fabricated. The sight of them chilled Alucius.

  He eased around the conference table and toward the archway, totally alert, but he neither heard nor sensed anyone. As he stepped through the archway, Alucius found himself in another small foyer, with a staircase headed downward. At the foot of the staircase, he could see a door, slightly ajar. His Talent sensed a well of purpleness beyond the door, but nothing resembling an ifrit—or a guard.

  After a momentary hesitation, he started down the stairs, as quietly as possible, trying not to let his heavy boots resound on the stone steps.

  The Table room was empty.

  Alucius stepped inside, glancing at the Table, a solid structure with its sides covered in dark wood, running a yard and a third in width and length, and a yard in height. As he had expected, the entire surface was composed of a shimmering mirror. The Table looked to be slightly larger than those Alucius had seen before.

  After a glance over his shoulder, he stepped closer to the Table, studying it with both eyes and Talent. Up close, the sheer power and presence of the Table was far greater than had been the case with the one in Tempre. Alucius frowned. The Table had to be new—or, at most, constructed within the past two years.

  Alucius suddenly felt the presence of an ifrit—as if the room around him had filled with an even deeper shade of purple, although that was merely a sensation received through his Talent.

  He turned quickly.

  The white-haired Tarolt stood in the doorway, blocking any escape, and the power of the ifrit filled the doorway, a shimmering cloak of purple radiance. “Your attempts at illusion are useless.”

  Alucius released the breeze illusion. “I thought you’d gone…”

  “Appearances can be deceiving. You of all Talent-steers should know that.” The air wavered around Tarolt, and instead of a white-haired trader, there stood an ifrit of the type depicted in the ancient wall pictures of Deforya—and in Alucius’s dreams—a figure a good head taller than Alucius with flawless alabaster skin, broad shoulders, shining black hair, and deep violet eyes. He wore a tunic and trousers of brilliant green, both trimmed in a deep purple, and his boots shimmered as if they were silvered black, so highly polished were they.

  “I had no doubts of what you are,” Alucius replied, trying to calculate how best to deal with the ifrit. After he learned what he could.

  “Then…even what is may be deceiving,” said the ifrit who was or had been Tarolt.

  A section of stone wall to the right of Tarolt slid open, and a second ifrit stepped into the Table chamber.

  “You seem to know so much,” offered Alucius. “Tell me why I’m here.”

  “Curiosity…a fatal flaw of your kind,” suggested the Tarolt-ifrit.

  “You don’t know much if that’s what you think,” Alucius snorted. “I already know about your kind. The great ifrits of the past…the sandoxes and the pteridons, and none of it was enough to prevent the soarers from thwarting you.”

  “‘Efran’ is a more accurate term, in so far as definitions are ever accurate,” replied the second ifrit.

  “Efran or ifrit…” Alucius forc
ed a shrug. “Sooner or later someone was going to ask about all the strange deaths of traders.”

  “If they did? What would they discover?” Tarolt smiled and took a step toward Alucius.

  “That they shouldn’t have died, not all in the same year.” The colonel stepped back and to his left, so that the Table was between him and the two ifrits.

  “Death happens to you mortals. Does it matter when?”

  “It does if it alerts people to your schemes.”

  “Who else would even care? Your people are more concerned about food, golds, and how to procure women and other pleasures.”

  “Not all of them.”

  “Most of them, and there are few enough like you that you can be converted or otherwise taken care of. Or used in other fashions.”

  “That doesn’t include the disappearances of herders,” Alucius pointed out. “Especially in the north.”

  The momentary hesitation of Tarolt and the actual fleeting look of puzzlement on the face of the shorter ifrit told Alucius that the two knew nothing about disappearances. If anything, there was a moment of concern.

  “The wild translations will feed and destroy what they find,” the second ifrit said. “Surely, you do not think that any but herders will fret about a few missing nightsheep?”

  Alucius suppressed a nod.

  The purplish mists thickened around Tarolt and a pair of Talent-arms appeared, moving through the air toward Alucius.

  He brought up the heavy rifle with a smooth motion. He squeezed the trigger, then recocked and fired again.

  The Tarolt-ifrit staggered backward, but straightened almost immediately. Alucius fired two more shots at the second and smaller ifrit. The colonel sensed the shredding of the purple shield around the smaller creature, and fired his last shot, following with a Talent-probe, aimed at the main lifethread node.

  A flare of purpled energy exploded away from the stricken ifrit—a wave of force that flung Alucius against the stone wall behind him. He barely managed to hang on to his rifle, and it was several moments before he could see through the watering of his eyes. There was no sign of the second ifrit—none at all.

  Alucius could see that even Tarolt had been driven to one side of the Table room, but the ifrit had already regained his footing and turned back toward Alucius. A blast of purplish force flared toward the herder colonel.

  Alucius managed to block-parry it and send forth a Talent-probe. The ifrit slapped it aside, and another wave of force slammed into Alucius’s chest, driving him back against the wall once more. He struggled forward, wishing he’d brought a second rifle. The darkness-infused shells had at least driven Tarolt back.

  Breathing hard, he formed a Talent-probe and drove its golden green force toward the ifrit’s lifethread node.

  The probe shattered into a spray of greenish gold, and Tarolt took another step toward Alucius.

  He circled around the Table and away from the ifrit.

  “You will serve your masters, Talent-steer—one way or another,” stated Tarolt.

  Alucius sensed two pairs of pinkish purple arms—one from the ifrit and the second from the Table—growing and moving to encircle him.

  The herder created his own shield to ward off the arms, even while jabbing another Talent-probe at the arms coming from the Table.

  The arms from the Table shattered into a spray of purple.

  With a satisfied nod, Tarolt moved farther into the room.

  Alucius eased around the Table, hoping to make a dash for either the main door or the passageway through which the second ifrit had appeared.

  At that moment, a third ifrit appeared in the main doorway.

  “You see…you cannot escape.”

  Alucius scrambled onto the Table, willing himself beyond the glassy surface.

  “Then you will serve us in another—”

  Tarolt’s voice was cut off.

  Purplish blackness swirled around Alucius, bearing him away from a dark green arrow. The blackness was that bone-chilling cold that he had hoped never to brave again. He could neither move his body nor see, except with his Talent. Even worse, unlike his earlier experiences, when he had been able to direct his course with his Talent, he felt as though he were being propelled in one direction, as though in a tight tube, much like an underground and lightless stream might have been. The chill was more intense than winter below the Aerlal Plateau.

  He tried again to use his Talent-senses to guide him, to visualize a long thin line of golden green, a guideline of lifeforce to orient him, but he was carried onward through the intense cold that seeped into every part of his body. He tried to reach out for the directions and the arrows that signified Tables, or the golden green triangular arrows that represented the portals of the hidden city. He could sense none of them, only a distant sullen red arrow toward which he was rushing.

  More immediately before him, between him and the red arrow, he could sense a black purple barrier, and he knew he was being hurled at it. He wanted to swallow, to protest, as he understood what Tarolt had meant by his serving the ifrits.

  Alucius tried to gather all his lifeforce into an arrowlike shield before him, one with a point that would penetrate the barrier he was approaching and yet protect him.

  He slammed into the black barrier, and his entire body convulsed—or it felt that way—as if he had fallen from a cliff onto a stone surface.

  Abruptly, silver and light flashed around him.

  Alucius found himself standing on a flat surface, but hunched over. Agony flared through his entire body, and, convulsively, he jerked upright. His head banged against something hard—so hard that he almost dropped the heavy rifle. Where he stood was lit, but so dimly that for a time he could make out nothing.

  He was shivering, and his entire body felt bruised. Yet his forehead was sweating so heavily that he had to blot his eyes with his sleeve to keep the perspiration from flowing into his eyes. His arms and shoulders twitched, and his calves threatened to cramp. Sharp pains ran through his skull, either from his trip between Tables or from the blow to his head.

  His eyes focused more.

  The faint glow came from a pair of light-torches—set in curved silvery brackets and flanking a door. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that the door had buckled inward. After a moment, he eased his way off the Table. Then he turned and studied it with his Talent-sense, trying to ignore the increased stabbing in his skull created by that effort.

  Even as he watched, the purpleness that infused the Table grew more pronounced. It was clearly a working Table…now. That also bothered him, because it meant that there were probably more Tables throughout Corus—and more ifrits.

  After taking another glance at the Table, Alucius stepped toward the buckled door, the only apparent exit. Through the distended and splintered oak, and the gaps in the timbers that had comprised the door, Alucius could see that whatever room or hall that had lain beyond it was filled with large building stones and broken stone columns. There might have been space for a scrat to wiggle through, but certainly not for a man. Whatever structure had held the Table had collapsed—or been collapsed—over the Table’s room, as if to deny it to anyone from outside. Had the soarers managed that during the Cataclysm? Or had someone else done it later? Did it matter?

  He slowly surveyed the room, clearly either underground or buried, or both. There were no furnishings in the chamber except for the Table and a narrow chest set against one wall. He could see no other way out except through the blocked doorway. Still…there might be another passageway like the one in the Matrial’s Palace or the one in the ifrits’ Table room.

  Span by span, yard by yard, Alucius made his way along the stone walls of the chamber, but neither his eyes nor fingers, nor his Talent, could discover any other exit, although he had looked closely, especially behind the chest. Finally, he stood on the opposite side of the buckled door from where he had begun.

  He looked back at the Table once more. The purple glow remained, neither greater
nor less than before. With an occasional glance at the Table, he moved back toward the ornately carved chest set against the stone side wall.

  There was nothing on the smooth wood of the surface, not even that much dust. He opened the top drawer. Inside was empty. He closed the drawer, and opened the second drawer. Except for several sheets of parchment or paper, it was also empty. Alucius reached for the paper, but as his fingers touched it, the paper fragmented into dust so fine that Alucius’s nose began to itch.

  For a time, he found himself sneezing, his eyes watering.

  He glanced back at the Table, but no one…nothing…appeared.

  He went back to the chest, pulling out every drawer and looking under and behind each. He found nothing more except fragments that might once have been paper.

  Then he studied the doorway, but the stones had been packed in so tightly against the ancient and heavy wood, wood that still retained its strength, that he could not budge either the door or any of the stone protrusions.

  As he had feared, there was no way out of the chamber except through the Table. At least, there was no way that he could find.

  He turned and looked once more at the ancient Table, a dark cube rising out of darker stone and suffused with the purpled life-energy stolen from who knew where. Could he reenter the Table and transport himself elsewhere? His lungs felt tight, and he had to wonder how long the air in the chamber would last.

  Or were his lungs tight because he feared he was truly trapped?

  He tried not to think about Wendra, or about how easily Tarolt had manipulated him.

  He looked at the Table.

  After a moment, he began to reload the heavy rifle, thinking that he should have done so earlier, and infused the cartridges with darkness. After doing that, he felt even more light-headed as he climbed onto the Table and concentrated. The surface beneath him dissolved.

  Once more, Alucius hurtled downward into the chill purple blackness, but this time there was no current or force driving him. After a timeless instant, he could also sense the arrowlike markers or guides that he recalled—except that there was no sign of those of golden green or silver—the guideways to the hidden city. He could easily sense the dark purple conduits, conduits leading to something far worse than anything on Corus. That he knew without knowing how he knew.