Scepters

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Silver splashed away from him…

  His finger tightened on the trigger, but he had to take a half step to steady himself.

  Crack! Crack! Wendra had gotten there first and was already firing.

  Crack! Alucius’s first shot took the ifrit on the left, for he was to the left of his wife, squarely in the chest. The ifrit man staggered.

  The second shot went through the broad forehead.

  The other ifrit dropped.

  Another figure in purple and maroon scrambled down the steps—and dropped as both Alucius and Wendra fired together.

  A fourth ifrit appeared, and a line of blue flame flared toward Alucius.

  Wendra’s shot knocked the ifrit off balance, and Alucius jabbed a Talent-probe toward the weapon. The weapon flared purple, and Wendra’s second shot dropped the ifrit.

  “Reload now!” Alucius said.

  Wendra deftly slipped the cartridges from her belt into the magazine while Alucius covered the steps, probing with his Talent to find how many other ifrits remained. He hadn’t thought that Tarolt had been among those who had rushed them.

  “You now,” Wendra said.

  Alucius reloaded quickly, but the stairwell remained empty, although he could sense five other ifrits somewhere on the upper levels. He edged forward around the left side of the Table while Wendra took the right side.

  “The Table…” murmured Wendra.

  Alucius didn’t have to look. He could sense a well of force rising from the oblong beside him, force linking to an ifrit.

  Pinkish purple filled the stairwell, a shimmering crystalline curtain.

  “Don’t shoot,” Alucius murmured. “Not at the pink. It’ll throw the bullet back at us.”

  “What…?”

  “Darkness. Lifeforce darkness…we need to surround it.”

  The purple-pink shield bulged into the Table chamber. Behind it came an ifrit, a male figure taller and broader than any Alucius had seen, an ifrit almost as large as the oversized statue in the Table chamber in Dulka.

  “Most ingenious…especially for Talent-poor steers. Use your weapons…”

  Alucius flung a web of blackness across the purple shield, blocking the ifrit from view, but that blackness began to fade, and the purpleness began to shine through the blackness, slowly dissolving it.

  “The scepter!” Wendra pointed toward the side of the table. “He’s drawing on it.”

  “Can you use blackness against it?” Alucius asked.

  Wendra’s face tightened. Alendra whimpered.

  A line of purple flame flared toward Wendra.

  Both Alucius and Wendra raised green black shields, stopping the jolt of power, but Alucius ended up taking a step backward, so great was the pressure. He glanced sideways to see that Wendra also had been forced back.

  Before the ifrit could direct another flare of purple at them, Alucius aimed a black Talent javelin at the ifrit’s shield, flinging it with all the force possible. The shield shivered…contracted, and then expanded to fling the blackness away from it, back toward Alucius, thrusting him against the wall.

  Even wearing nightsilk, Alucius could feel the impact of stone against his back.

  “Link to…the ley lines,” suggested Wendra. “Not to the world, but…lifeforce. Draw directly…” The words were forced out, as if against great pressure.

  Another purple spear flared toward them. Alucius managed to parry it, and the energy slammed into the wall beside him. Droplets of molten stone splattered around him. One burned the back of his hand.

  The purple pink shield grew brighter, and hot like a summer sun, then even hotter. Waves of heat surged toward Wendra and Alucius.

  Alucius linked to the blackness beneath them, the blackness of the ley lines, with all his Talent, letting the lifeforce flow through him, and around the scepter beside Wendra. He could feel her linking into the lifeforce—all the lifeforce of Corus.

  Darkness welled out and through them, creating a wall of blackness that blocked the sunlike blaze that had heated the air in the Table chamber so much that each breath burned.

  Alucius found himself coughing while still trying to channel the dark lifeforce of Corus itself from the ley lines and the world into the wall of greenish blackness that he and Wendra had built—a wall of lifeforce that had finally halted the progress of the blazing purple shield. Even so, the air in the Table chamber remained stifling.

  The purple shield pulsed.

  Alucius and Wendra pressed back.

  “We…can’t let him…get to the Table,” Wendra panted.

  “He’s strong.”

  Alucius pressed more darkness against the shield, and around the unshielded scepter, trying to deny its force to the ifrit. Wendra followed his example.

  Sweat poured from Alucius’s forehead, and he felt as though he had been carrying chests filled with lead.

  Abruptly, the purpleness shivered.

  Alucius lifted his rifle, waiting, adding more darkness to the cartridge in the chamber and those in the magazine.

  Dark purpleness exploded away from the stairwell and the entry to the Table chamber, revealing the looming purple figure who held a light-cutter.

  Alucius fired first, one shot right after the other. Both slammed into the ifrit’s suddenly revealed forehead, and he toppled forward. Flame filled the stairwell with such intensity that the stone walls glowed for a moment.

  Holding his rifle ready, and ignoring the other rifle’s impact against his knees, Alucius charged past the table and over the bodies of the ifrits. The heat from the stone walls of the staircase was so great that the sweat on Alucius’s forehead and neck evaporated instantly before he was halfway up the steps.

  As he neared the top of the stairs he saw another figure and fired. Once more, the ifrit’s garments stopped the bullet, but the impact staggered the woman. Alucius used the last two shots in the rifle to stop her.

  Wendra, following him up the stairs, fired past his shoulder, and yet another ifrit dropped.

  There were words in another tongue, coming from the foyer beyond the conference room. Alucius thought he understood them, not knowing how or why. He edged up beside the archway into the foyer, less than three yards from the ifrits, but protected by the internal stone walls of the building.

  “The ancient ones!”

  “Do something!”

  “They can’t stand against the light-cutters…”

  Alucius leaned the empty first rifle against the wall and wrenched the second from its clip, cocking it as he did, and extending his Talent to the foyer, where three ifrits had raised weapons—the ones that used light to cut through everything.

  Wendra eased against the wall beside him.

  With a cold smile, Alucius extended a Talent-probe, quickly unlinking the crystalline linkages within each weapon. “Can you reload?” he whispered.

  “Just a moment.”

  Even before she had slipped the magazine back into place, Alucius had determined where the three stood.

  “We’ll try unraveling them…”

  Two Talent-probes snaked around the edge of the archway, then arrowed toward the three remaining ifrits.

  Alucius could feel the jolt as his probe struck the Talent-armor of the ifrit. He just slipped around that and arrowed toward the ifrit’s main node. Purple light flared, and the edge of the archway boiled away, rock and glass droplets clinking like rain on the stone entry foyer flooring.

  Wendra was far more deft than Alucius, and in instants, one of the ifrits shuddered and toppled forward. Moments later, the second shuddered and fell.

  The third turned, and started to wrench the doorway open.

  Alucius leapt clear of the archway, lifted his rifle and fired. It took three shots before the last ifrit lay on the floor.

  He continued to study the building with eyes, ears, and Talent.

  “There’s no one left,” Wendra said dully.

  “We need to move the scepters out of sight. There’s a hidden ro
om.”

  “Like the others off the Table chambers?”

  “Yes.” Alucius paused. “Are you all right? Is Alendra…”

  “We’re all right. I think…she’s a little…awed…stunned…something…she senses Talent already, I think, but she doesn’t know what it is.”

  Alucius waited.

  “You’re used to this. With people, I mean. I’ve killed sandwolves, and sanders…” She shook her head. “It was all so fast. There were ten ifrits…people…and they’re dead. I know we had to…but…they are dead, and they thought they were doing what was right for them.”

  “They probably thought that.” Alucius nodded back toward the staircase back to the Table chamber. Absently, he blotted his sweating forehead. He hadn’t noticed it before, but the rooms were hot, almost stifling, and the stove in the conference room was pouring forth heat.

  “It is hot.”

  “The soarers said that their world was warmer.” Alucius moved past the circular table, where several crystal mugs remained, half full with a clear liquid. He started down the steps, avoiding the two bodies, and then reentered the Table chamber, moving past the other bodies.

  As Wendra had indicated, there were two boxes against the northern side of the Table. One was metallic black and silver—a match to the empty casket still embedded in the rock in Dereka—and the second was a simple wooden case, through which Alucius could sense the purple-pink pulsing power of the scepter that had been the basis of the powers of the Matrial and the Regent.

  “Can you open that door?” Alucius asked. “The hidden one?”

  Wendra moved to the light-torch bracket and twisted it. Nothing happened. She frowned, then concentrated.

  “There’s some sort of Talent-lock on this,” she finally said. “They’ve wrapped Talent around it.”

  “Can you undo it? Dissolve it with darkness?”

  “I think so…I’ve got it.” The section of stone wall silently slid open.

  “Wait a moment.” Alucius used his Talent to check the passageway and the chamber beyond, but he detected no one.

  The two eased into the two-yard-wide corridor and followed it to the single chamber at the end. A weapons rack, holding a single light-cutter and brackets for twelve more, was the only thing affixed to the walls. A sturdy long table, holding five chests, was set against the wall to the left.

  Wendra opened one of the chests, then stepped back. “It’s filled…with golds.”

  “I thought there might be something like this.” Alucius set his rifle against the wall. “I’ll carry the chests out, and the scepters in, then we’ll close this up.” He looked at Wendra. “Once I do, could you put Talent around it, in the way that the ifrits or the soarers did? A Talent-lock of sorts?”

  “I can try.”

  Alucius lifted the first chest, carrying it out, then returning with the black and silver scepter casket, far heavier than it looked. He was sweating profusely by the time he had finished moving chests and scepters. After that, he reclaimed one of his rifles and watched with his Talent as Wendra closed the secret stone door and Talent-locked it, so that merely turning the light-torch bracket would not open the hidden door.

  “Now…we’ll have to tell the others.”

  Wendra started for the steps.

  “No. We’ll have to go back the way we came.”

  “That’s right.” Wendra offered a wan smile. “You left orders to shoot anyone who left the building.” She took a deep breath.

  Alucius started to link with the ley blackness before realizing that he was still linked.

  He and Wendra dropped into the chill, almost welcome after the heat of the Table building. With each use of the ley lines, the world lifeforce lines, Alucius was becoming more aware of what lay outside and above—and of where Wendra was. They eased themselves to a point that looked—through the wavering silver barrier—to be behind a stand of scrub brush less than forty yards uphill from the waiting lancers. The silver flashed away from them.

  They stood in the slanting light of the first glass past dawn, dew still on the shadowed sparse grass and the leaves of the scrub oak. Just a glass. Alucius was always amazed at how quickly some things happened and how slowly others did.

  “Ahhhh…” The first syllable was Alendra’s.

  “She’s hungry,” Wendra said wryly. “She’s had her adventure, and it’s time to eat.”

  “Let’s let them know we’re back.”

  They turned downhill and stepped out from behind the brush.

  “Dhaget! Fewal!” Alucius called.

  “Sir. We heard shots. Are you all right?”

  “This time.”

  “That’s because you didn’t do it alone,” murmured Wendra.

  Alucius could hear the smile in her words. “You don’t have to remind me.”

  “Oh, yes, I do. We still have to deliver some scepters.”

  Alucius felt a chill run down his spine at her words. “As soon as we get some respite. And you feed our little friend.”

  Wendra nodded.

  Wendra’s words had reminded Alucius of how little time they had. Days before, there had only been four ifrits. They had found ten, and he had no idea how many were elsewhere, in Prosp or Norda.

  Dhaget and Fewal rode uphill and met the two herders halfway.

  Dhaget looked at Alucius for a long moment, then at Wendra. So did the other three lancers. Alucius glanced at his wife. He didn’t see any great difference…except…he thought that she seemed somehow…more alive…a little larger than life.

  There wasn’t much Alucius could do about that. He took Wendra’s rifle, checked it, and slipped it into her saddle case while she mounted.

  “You’re missing a rifle, sir,” observed Fewal.

  “I left it inside the stronghold. I’ll get it when we go back.” Alucius mounted the chestnut. He turned to Roncar. “I’d like you to ride back to headquarters and have Majer Feran join us. We’ll also need a heavy wagon to move some gear back to the post.”

  “Yes, sir.” Although a puzzled expression crossed the lancer’s face, he nodded acknowledgment and turned his mount back toward Salaan.

  Alucius and Wendra rode slowly back across the meadow, then turned west on the lane through the apricot orchard, followed by the remaining three lancers.

  Faisyn met them near the end of the orchard—almost at the spot where Alucius had tied the chestnut when he’d first investigated the Table building.

  Like Dhaget, Faisyn studied Alucius for a moment before speaking. Then he gave the minutest of headshakes. “Sir? We heard shots a while back…but no one came out. I had second squad order the ostler and the folks in the other building to stay inside.”

  “Thank you. I should have thought about that,” Alucius admitted.

  “If I might ask…sir.”

  “Oh…they’re dead. All of the Talent-twisted ones.”

  “Talent-twisted?”

  “You’ll see. Talent can be used for good or evil, just like most abilities. Those who use it for evil…it does something to them.” As he spoke, Alucius realized that, for some reason, he seemed to be sitting higher or straighter in the saddle. He didn’t recall looking down at Faisyn quite so much. He glanced sideways at Wendra, realizing that she was larger…all over, not by that much, but enough so that she probably stood a half a handspan taller, yet her garments did not seem tighter. Alucius concealed a frown. How could that have happened? “Oh…sent Roncar to get Majer Feran and a supply wagon. There’s equipment in there, and some other things that belong to the Guard.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Alucius looked at Wendra, who was patting Alendra, and gently bouncing her, clearly trying to mollify a hungry child who was unlikely to be pacified much longer. “Where do you want to feed her?”

  “Out here. For now.”

  Alucius understood. He turned back to Faisyn. “Why don’t you come inside? You can see what happened.” He turned in the saddle. “Dhaget, if you and the others would s
tay with my wife?”

  “Yes, sir.” Dhaget’s expression conveyed a definite impression that he doubted Wendra needed much protection.

  Alucius wondered at the reaction, because Dhaget hadn’t seen Wendra even using weapons, not that the lancer’s impression was totally wrong, but Wendra would be slower to react while breast-feeding.

  Faisyn and Alucius rode toward the Table building, trailed by a half squad of lancers. They reined up just short of the stone walkway to the door. The senior squad leader dismounted, following Alucius. Alucius carried his rifle toward the entry, although his Talent sensed no one in the building. Still, so long as the Table was operational, other ifrits could appear.

  As he neared the half-open doorway, Faisyn’s mouth opened as he saw the dead ifrit.

  “That’s what the Talent-twisted look like when they don’t hide behind a Talent-illusion,” Alucius explained. “There are more inside. They’re dead.” He opened the door and stepped over and around the dead ifrit.

  Faisyn looked at the two fallen ifrits in the foyer before his eyes drifted to the ravaged side of the archway, and the once-molten and since-hardened drops of stone and ceramic on the floor.

  The two walked into the conference room, where the heat continued to well out from the iron stove against the wall. Alucius blotted his forehead again. “They like it warm.”

  “It is hot.” Faisyn looked to the side wall behind the archway, where Alucius’s other rifle rested. “That’s yours, isn’t it?”

  “I left it here. I didn’t see any sense in lugging it back.”

  The squad leader’s eyes dropped to the two bodies on the far side of the conference room.

  “There are five more on the stairs and in the lower room,” Alucius said.

  Faisyn stopped. “Looks like you scarcely needed us, sir.”

  “You saw the one by the doorway. If there had been more…” Alucius left the rest of what he might have said hanging. “We were lucky.”

  Faisyn shook his head. “Sir…Colonel…I’d not be arguing with you, but…if you’d been counting on luck, you’d have been buried long ago.” He straightened up, surveying the room, then walked to the staircase and looked down. “Pretty big fellows…even the woman there.” He paused. “Your wife shot some, too, didn’t she?”