War of Powers

by Robert E Vardeman;Victor Milan

“Moriana,” she said. “My name is Moriana.” She sat up and thrust her arms high above her head and stretched like a waking cat. He watched the play of muscles across her belly and up her arms. The sun’s first rays turned the thatch between her thighs to fine golden wire. She arched her back, conscious of his attention. Her high breasts flattened against her ribs.

  Fost tried to sort out his feelings toward the lovely thief. She’d come within a hair of robbing him of his chance at eternal life—she’d come close to robbing him of life, period. But then it somehow changed, and she had been feigning nothing when she gave herself to him. It was as if each had seen in the other some sign that changed them from adversaries into something he could not yet put a name to.

  “Moriana, then,” he said, yawning widely. “What made you decide to take up thievery?” He fumbled in the satchel containing Erimenes and found the bowl and chalice he’d taken from Kest-i-Mond’s study. He casually tossed aside Erimenes’ jar, hoping to infuriate the spirit. The shade remained uncharacteristically quiet.

  Moriana shrugged. It made her bare breasts bobble enticingly. “I’ve little enough choice,” she said sadly. “I’ve neither money nor birth. If I want to survive out on the road, I must steal, or…” Her words trailed off, but the meaning was clear.

  Fost said nothing. The state of his belly occupied his full attention. He drank from the cup, looked across its rim at Moriana, and handed it to her. She sipped as he uncovered the bowl and began to spoon up gruel. The thin porridge was as unappetizing as ever, but it was preferable to the cavernous emptiness in his stomach.

  “Thank you,” she said, setting down the cup. She tilted her head and smiled. “Whomever you may be.”

  “Fost Longstrider. I’m a courier.” He spooned up the last of the gruel, made a face at the tasteless stuff as the bowl began to fill again. He proffered it. “Do you want some? There’s plenty, the gods know.”

  “It’s most courteous of you to feed someone who tried to rob you.”

  He laughed. “You did rather more than that. Besides, I’m curious. How did you manage to get past my dogs?”

  “A small potion I stole from an enchanter. The dogs sniff it and turn drowsy. It’s harmless.” She paused, lowering her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “You mean you’re sorry I caught you?”

  “No.” Her eyes avoided his. “You’re a generous man. You shouldn’t be plagued by petty thieves like me.”

  He stared at her. She seemed to mean it. She made him strangely uncomfortable. He tried to pass it off with a joke. “Petty? Pretty, I’d say.” He lifted her chin and smiled.

  She reached out, hesitant, and touched his cheek. The slender fingers were supple-skinned and pale. The only trace of marring hardness was the characteristic swordsman’s callus on the side of her right index finger.

  “You’re kind. I knew you were when you didn’t kill me last night. Lesser men would have.”

  “Lesser men would have missed a beautiful experience.”

  “So would I.”

  It was his turn to avoid her gaze. “You still haven’t told me how you come to be out cutting purses and drugging defenseless animals. Eat, and give me the story. I’d think one so beautiful would long since have married into lands and wealth beyond the dreams of a poor man like myself.”

  Her cheeks flushed slightly. Modesty? Or something else? It was hard to reconcile her almost virginal attitude with her bold wantonness of the night before. And she made no effort to cover her nakedness.

  She was a complex creature, this Moriana. He would enjoy unraveling the mysteries surrounding her.

  She hesitated, cast away fastidiousness, and dipped Fost’s spoon into the replenished gruel before speaking.

  “I cannot marry. I’ve no dowry; my family is dead, all but my poor sister.” She wrinkled her nose at the gruel. “Awful stuff.”

  “But all we have. And anyway, it’s free. Go on.”

  “It’s not a pleasant story. My father was an artisan in Brev, in the Great Quincunx. An evil sorceror lusted after my mother. She spurned him; my father challenged the mage to a duel. The mage slew him. When he came for my mother, she killed herself. So he took my sister, my poor lovely sister, and forced her to be his mistress instead. I was gone from the house, at the market. When I returned…” Her voice broke. She dropped the bowl and buried her face against Fost’s shoulder, sobbing bitterly. He cradled her, stroking her long hair and murmuring soothing words to her. He found himself once more acutely aware of what an armful she was. His hand dropped to her behind. He snatched it away. This was no time for such things.

  She pushed herself away and looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Help me forget,” she said. “Help me.”

  He reached around her and carefully packed bowl and chalice back into the satchel. The tip of one breast lay against his chest. He felt the ripeness of the nipple prodding him. With a deft flick of his wrist, he dropped Erimenes’ jug into the satchel and drew the string tight.

  Her hands gripped his biceps, shaking. He lay back, pulling her down on top of him. Their bodies twisted demandingly, reliving the passions of the previous night. Afterwards, he slept.

  When he awoke, he was alone.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Fost rolled over. Pain stabbed through his muscles. He stretched, groaning as joints cracked. Feeling better, he pulled himself to a sitting position and looked around.

  The grass around him was crushed, testimony to the passion of the night before. The satchel containing Erimenes, the chalice, and the bowl was gone. Fost lifted a corner of Moriana’s cloak, on which he’d lain with the pretty thief. It was fine maroon velvet lined with gold silk. Expensive, plainly—but no compensation for the loss of eternal life.

  Fost rose, stood a moment amid the clean, sweet odor of grass, trees and morning, holding the cloak by a corner. He sighed. He leaned down, collected his sword and stuffed it back through his belt, and set off through the woods toward the tree in which he’d begun last night.

  A breeze gently sighed through the trees, and a yellow bird sang from a high limb. Retracing the steps that had led him to the clearing was simple. In his fury and urgency, he’d trampled through the undergrowth like a hornbull in rut.

  The heavy cloak draped over his shoulder, he came to the tree from which his empty scabbard still dangled. His sled wasn’t far away. He saw no signs of his dogs. Putting fingers to lips, he whistled once, twice, three times. In a few minutes, Raissa and Wigma trotted from the brush side by side, followed by the other three surviving animals of his team. The black and silver bitch licked bloody froth from her muzzle. She had been hunting again.

  “Do you know that devious witch almost had me believing her?” he asked his dogs as he knelt to strap them into the harness. “Even after the clumsy way she tried to lie to me.” He shook his head. “Telling me of the simple life of toil she’d led when her fingers were as soft as a maiden’s bottom save for a swordsman’s callus. And that fanciful tale about a magician stealing away her sister—ha! An insult to my intelligence.”

  Finished, he straightened. His dogs looked up, their ears cocked to listen attentively, as though comprehending their master’s words. “Nor was her accent that of Brev-town; and had she been raised in the streets, she’d have known enough of rough-and-tumble fighting to make me unfit for our later bout of wrestling.” He sighed again. “Still, she’s a rare one. It’ll be a pity to wring her devious neck when I’ve run her down.”

  He climbed onto the runners and clucked the dogs into motion. Steering skillfully among the trees, he brought the sled to the clearing where he’d awakened. Halting, he hunkered down by the lead dogs and held the rich cloak to their noses. They sniffed obediently and pulled the sled forward to the patch of flattened grass. Ranar wailed with excitement as he recognized the thief’s odor. Wigma snarled savagely at the youngster, then lifted a hurt, puzzled face to his master. The older, wiser dog had already discovered that the scent they were to follow couldn’t b
e detected outside the circle of the crushed grass.

  Fost laughed. “So she covered her personal scent with a cantrip. As I knew she would; that spell’s hedge-magic, and I suspect she knows enchantments far more esoteric.” He reached into a pocket of his tunic, produced a mottled handkerchief redolent of soured gruel, and held it down for his dogs to smell.

  Raissa yipped, strained a few feet away from the slept-on patch, smelled the ground, and yipped again. Her mate echoed the call. They’d found a trail.

  “On!” Fost shouted, jumping back onto the runners. “Track down that deceitful bitch, and we’ll see why she’s so eager for Erimenes’ company.” Guided by their sensitive noses, the team set off through the forest at a brisk trot.

  Life in High Medurim’s slums allowed few fools to survive to manhood. Short of killing the lovely thief on the spot, there’d been no way to keep her from stealing the jug from him out there in the woods. Hard as he was, Fost had been unable to bring himself to murder Moriana in cold blood, especially after making love to her. He had, however, jammed the lid of the ever-filled gruel bowl open a hair’s-breadth with a small pill of pitch, and then made sure the bowl went into the sack with the philosopher’s jug. The gruel would seep out in a slow stream, soak through the satchel, and leave a trail for the dogs to sniff along in pursuit.

  Confident that the spell hiding her own smell would keep Fost’s dogs from tracking her, she was making no other effort to escape detection. He would catch her soon. He wanted to know how she’d learned of Erimenes’ existence—and what she intended to do with the sage. He had a suspicion her motives were different from his straightforward lust for immortality.

  Immortality. The word rang in his brain. He would not forsake it, no matter the cause for which Moriana might desire the Amulet of Living Flame. The conviction was growing in him that he’d have to kill the beautiful adventuress to get her to give up the idea of using the amulet for her own ends. The thought troubled him strangely.

  Whistling to cover his odd discomfort, he rode the sled northward among rapidly thinning trees.

  North of the Southern Steppe, the land began to turn green and undulate into high-grassed prairie. Rivers ran down from the mountains of the Thail, branching into myriad streams and brooks. At the bottom of a shallow depression, one such stream had widened into a clear pool. Moriana sat on her haunches beside it, staring intently into the water.

  Her gold hair hung to her shoulders, stirred now and then by a stray breeze wandering down the course of the stream. She was clad in a brown leather jerkin over a long-sleeved orange blouse of light fabric. Her breeches were tan, as were the high-topped riding boots she wore. Her slender fingers caressed her chin.

  “Why do we tarry here?” demanded Erimenes peevishly from his jug. The satchel that held his jar was slung from the saddle of a tall, supple-limbed riding dog, which stood lapping from the stream. Moriana had hidden the nervous gray beast on the fringe of the woods when she’d gone after the courier the night before. “I find little of interest in this stream—unless you plan to disrobe and bathe your lovely limbs, of course.”

  Moriana ignored him, frowning. For the third time, her lips formed the scrying spell. Once more the waters turned to milk, bubbling, frothing, swirling in meaningless patterns.

  “Istu!” she cursed. The water cleared as she stood. Something was blocking her vision, preventing her from looking into the Sky City. And that something could only be the magic of her sister Synalon.

  The bitch grows more powerful every day, she thought somberly. How long before she makes her bid for power? While our mother lives, she dares little. But Derora is old, and not even we of the Etuul blood are immortal. If only my powers were stronger!

  But Moriana knew that wishing for the Sky City to augment her magical powers was futile. She needed the forces imprisoned in the solid bedrock of the city to perform her more complicated spells. And even then, her powers were not those of her sister. And they never would be, for she refused to make the dark pacts required to attain such magical stature.

  Anxious to feel the power surging through her again, she hurried to the top of a knoll overlooking the pool.

  “Ah, how can one so beautiful be in such a foul mood on this fine morn?” Erimenes called after her. “I’m much in your debt, you know. Your nocturnal sporting filled me with fresh experiences to savor. The glibness of your lies was most illuminating.”

  Fost. She thought of the big man’s touch, gentle with the gentleness of great power held in check. He was no ignorant swineherd, never. It had hurt her in the soft dawnlight to steal from him his hope of immortality, just as it hurt her that she’d never see him again. He was a big man in more ways than one, hurling himself at life with boundless energy. She could even love such a man, perhaps.

  Maybe when the fight is done, and I hold the throne of the Sky City.

  No, best not to think of that. There was no knowing whether she’d survive her confrontation with Synalon. Or whether she’d want to. If she failed, she’d certainly be given over to her cousin, Prince Rann. The thought made her shiver despite the growing heat. Not even the spies she had so carefully insinuated into the ranks of Rann’s most trusted men could save her.

  She brushed her hair back and gazed out over the land. To the north and west rose mountains, blue and indistinct with distance, in which nestled the city of Thailot. East lay many-towered Brev. Between them fell the line of the Quincunx, unmarked save for stone docks for the hot-air balloons that plied between earth and city. Following its age-old random pattern, the Sky City had recently come south from Bilsinx and veered through half of a right angle over Brev, floating ponderously and inexorably toward Thailot. From there it might swerve inwards to Bilsinx again, or head northwest to Wirix near the border of the shrunken Empire. Not even the sorceresses who ruled in the city could predict its course.

  Moriana looked west. Over the horizon hung a thunderhead, ominous and dark. But no mere water vapor comprised that cloud. It was stone, black stone, the ground-spurning stone of the City in the Sky.

  Desperately, Moriana longed to make straight south for the Rampart Mountains and glacier-swallowed Athalau. But she dared not stay away from the city that long. She had to return and shore up her position against the wiles of her sister. She was a few breaths younger than her dark twin, and therefore heir to the throne by law. Yet legalities would matter little if Synalon could seize power and completely crush her sister’s backers. If Moriana let that happen by making the long detour to the south, not even the amulet would be of much help. With the full powers of the city to draw on, both sorcerous and military, Synalon would be virtually invulnerable.

  Moriana shook her head to clear it. She had to have the Amulet of Living Flame. Her spies had reported to her immediately when Rann had learned of its existence. Some had died rather than warn Rann and Synalon that they had spoken. She couldn’t betray their memory. And with the amulet, she could conjure and not heed agonizing death spells hurled against her. Moriana smiled grimly. She knew spells not even Synalon could ward against. But time! How those spells took time to cast! The amulet would free her from worry while she cast them.

  Immortality, yes, but protection against Synalon’s most deadly spells and Rann’s elite bird riders rested foremost in Moriana’s mind. Synalon’s invulnerability would crumble, and the city would be rid of a potential tyrant.

  “What?” Erimenes said as she went to her mount. “You’re not going to bathe your magnificent body? Do not your garments cling and chafe with sweat? Come, come, girl, think of your health. A little cool water, a little warm sunlight on your naked, luscious breasts…”

  “Be silent or I’ll stuff your pot with mud.”

  “That would do nothing to me,” the spirit grumbled. But he was silent for a long time thereafter.

  “Ouch!” shouted the black-and-purple garbed soldier, flapping his hand in the air. “Istu piss on you, imp. You’ve bit me!”

  From the iron box tha
t held the fire elemental came a popping sound. “You laugh at me,” the soldier snarled, clutching the wrist of his singed hand. He grabbed a dripping waterskin and brandished it. “I’ll teach you, hell-wight. I’ll drench the filthy life from you, Dark Ones eat me if I don’t!”

  “Rann will eat you if you do,” said one of his comrades. The words fought their way through laughter. “Fire sprites are expensive. If the dockmaster must send down another balloon to retrieve us, and the palace mages have to conjure a fresh elemental into the bargain, you’ll not gain favor in the sky.”

  The third soldier tamed his mirth with great effort. “We’d be lucky if we weren’t left for the brigands to slay,” he said, and his eyes grew serious, darting this way and that in his fat, bearded face. “I hear that all new elementals brought into being are requisitioned by the Monitors. Orders of the prince himself.”

  “Spreading rumors, are you,” said the second man, scowling fiercely. “You know the penalty for that, don’t you, Flyer Tugbat?”

  The fat man snapped to attention, quivering so enthusiastically that his jowls shook like bladders.

  “Y-yes, corporal.”

  Lying among bushes on a low hilltop overlooking the dock, Erimenes chirped with glee.

  “A disciplinary infraction! Mayhap the corporal will feed the fat one to the salamander, inch by inch.”

  “Be quiet, you,” Moriana hissed, savagely swatting at the jug. “If you give me away, I’ll conjure a fire sprite into your jug.”

  A gurgling emerged from the clay pot. Moriana doubted that being closeted with a salamander would do the ghost any permanent harm, but the prospect clearly didn’t cheer him. She filed the threat away for future use and thought hard about her problem.

  These comic worms were common troopers, not bird riders. No bird-riding Guardsman would have been so foolish as to try to feed green wood to the fire elemental. The sprites were capricious enough without being antagonized in such a manner. The soldier had been too lazy to search out fuel that was properly dried, and the elemental had burned him.