War of Powers

by Robert E Vardeman;Victor Milan

  A haunch of meat sizzled over the flames. Having spent much of his life on the treeless steppe, Fost carried in his knapsack an iron spit and forked uprights for roasting game. After weeks of tasteless gruel and the stewed weeds of the Ethereals, the smell of cooking antelope produced a hunger in Moriana and Fost that was almost agony. The beast had broken from between two boulders in front of the travelers, a tiny yellow-and-cream buck with a flat, saw-edged horn growing from its snout. Useless for lack of arrows, Moriana's bow had long since been abandoned. But the antelope had popped up close enough for a well-aimed cast of the long knife Fost had given Moriana.

  The pair had emerged from the Crater the previous afternoon to discover a landscape totally innocent of snow. The same capaciousness of climate that had brought an early blizzard howling through the Ramparts to threaten them a week ago had sent warm winds from the North to sweep away the snow. A chill still edged the air but it was bearable.

  Fost lay full length on the ground, fingers interlaced behind his neck. Half-lidded eyes watched round clouds tumble by idly, but he didn't neglect to scan the horizon now and again for the sweep of great wings.

  'If we didn't have Rann breathing down our necks,' he said, 'I'd find this the sheerest pleasure.'

  'I'm glad your bucolic tastes are so amply gratified,' said Erimenes sourly.

  Moriana looked at the courier with curiosity. 'You like the cold and wind and harshness? Strange. I'd thought you city-bred.'

  'City-bred and -born,' Fost said, laughing. 'I first saw the day in the Teeming of High Medurim. A soot-faced, starving urchin of the streets, never resting, trusting no one, never sleeping twice in the same spot.'

  'You don't make it sound attractive. I'd always heard great things of the Imperial capital.'

  'Oh, Medurim's a city of wonder where every fantasy can be fulfilled - if you've the money. I never did. Born poor, die poor-that's the law the city lives by.' He rolled to one side and prodded the roasting meat with the tip of his dagger to turn it. 'Still, I miss it - in a way. For all its corruption it has a certain decayed grandeur like a noted courtesan grown old. It's still a melting pot for the Sundered Realm, and the port attracts merchantmen from all over the world. Caravels from the Isles of the Sun, barkentines from the Northern Continent, vessels from the Antipodes and the lands beyond the Golden Seas, all come to Medurim. I used to go down and sit by the docks and watch them come in. When I grew older I'd get work unloading them. Sometimes they'd pay me, other times they'd beat me and chase me off.' He laughed. 'Those who treated me shoddily came to regret it. I'd sneak back in the night and steal the choicest item from their cargoes. Ah, Medurim, a lovely, pox-ridden, treacherous bitch of a city. How I longed to be free of her!'

  'You were a slave?' 'Only to my belly.' He poked at the fire. 'I was an apprentice for a time. An apprentice thief. Old Fimster was my master and he treated me well enough, beating me only when I deserved it. He raised me from an orphan pup; my parents were killed in a dole riot.'

  Moriana sat with her legs drawn up, arms clasped about her knees, chewing ruminatively on her lower lip. A flock of large shapes winged across the sky. Fost tensed only briefly. It seemed that forever wings in the sky had been a sign of mortal peril. He was as yet unaccustomed to the notion that sometimes they were signs of safety. No lone eagle would chance upon them while the thulyakhashawin hunted.

  'The life history of a guttersnipe,' the princess said, her words gently scoffing. 'Surely there's more to it than that. You've come by

  education somehow. How'd you do it?' 'I stole it.'

  Moriana stared at him. 'Truly,' Fost said. 'I don't joke about such things. The library of Medurim is as big as a palace. It was once as glorious, but by my time had fallen into disrepair, with soot streaking the marble facades and many arcades collapsed with no attempt at restoration. The place always fascinated me. My friends derided the notion, but I was convinced that some fabulous treasure lay behind that vast columned portal.'

  He drew himself into a sitting position, eyes fixed on the leaping, sallow flames. 'I slipped in one afternoon, intending to find that treasure and steal it. But I didn't find any treasure. Just books, shelves and shelves of books, so high a man needed a tall ladder to reach the topmost.' He shook his head. 'I stayed. I still don't know why. I wandered through the dusty shelves, pulling out books at random, opening them and scanning pages without comprehension. It frustrated me not understanding what those volumes contained. It seemed unfair. I tried by dint of effort to pry meaning from the pages. It didn't work.

  'The hours passed. I fell asleep unnoticed in some dim recess of the library. In the morning I was shaken awake by a rheumy-eyed oldster wearing the indigo gown of a pedant. It scared me at first. He could have turned me in, you know, and I'd have been enslaved for vagrancy. He asked what I was doing there. Rather foolishly I told him. "I thought there was treasure inside this great building, sire," I said. "I came to steal it." '

  Erimenes was making ostentatious sounds of yawning. Fost, knowing full well that the spirit had no need to yawn and only did so to make plain his boredom with the tale, continued without interruption.

  'He laughed at this, the old man did. "Well, treasure lies herein," he said, "but not anyone may partake of it." And he took me on as his pupil, taught me to read and reckon and think thoughts beyond the gutter and my next meal.'

  'But how did you steal your education?' asked Moriana. 'Ceratith made his living as a tutor, though a meagre living it was, for interest in learning had declined among the monied classes of Medurim. I couldn't pay, of course. Ceratith forever joked that I was robbing him.' Fost's expression darkened. 'It wasn't true. I always

  meant to pay him, if ever I could get together the money.' 'Why didn't you?'

  'I never had the chance. One night, as he wended his way home from the library, a pair of alley-bashers knocked in his skull. All he had on him was a devalued Old Empire klenor and three sipans.' Fost rubbed his jaw. 'A poor bargain for the thieves because I found them and killed them. Not long after that, Fimster died of an ague. I signed on with a collier bearing coal to North Keep to feed the hunchbacks' forges. I was fourteen at the time. That palled eventually, and when I turned seventeen I was working as a courier out of Tolviroth Acerte, the City of Bankers.' He turned and slapped the satchel. 'And that concludes the story of my life, friend Erimenes, so you can cease your show of tedium.'

  'No show,' Erimenes said. 'My ennui is perfectly genuine. But why stop now, just as you reach the most interesting parts: the fleshpots of Tolviroth.'

  'What do you know of fleshpots, Erimenes?' the courier asked. 'Not as much as I'd like to,' admitted Erimenes. 'That bothersome slug Gabric had no sense of adventure. He stuck me on a shelf and left me to rot until you arrived to take me to Kest-i-Mond.'

  'Gabric is a slug,' Fost said. He chuckled. 'He'll flay me alive for failing to report back, if ever I return to Tolviroth Acerte. I doubt I shall. The less time I spend in cities, the happier I am.'

  'Faugh’ Erimenes said. 'You're little better than Gabric. To show what a dolt your friend Fost's employer is, Moriana, my morsel, on one occasion a wench lissome and most comely pleaded with him not to foreclose on her. She had breasts like suva melons, but that obese capon ignored the obvious and repossessed her house. I ask you! He had no use for one more insect-ridden hovel and infinite use for a nice, rollicking tumble. But no, he allowed his greed to overwhelm his lust. The pinhead. He probably doesn't even like boys.'

  'We couriers have it that he frottages himself with his moneybags,' Fost said. He cocked his head at his companion. 'Why the troubled look, Moriana?'

  'This talk of cities,' she said. 'It makes me wonder how my own fares.' She rose and knelt by Fost's pack. 'Do you mind if I borrow the water cask?'

  'You didn't ask the first time you took it.' He raised his head as she colored. 'No, I'm sorry. Go ahead, do with it what you will.'

  She took the ebony chalice from the satchel and removed its lid. Inst
antly the vessel filled with water. She set it on the ground, hunkered down and closed her eyes.

  Her lips fluttered. An eerie wail came from her that made hairs rise at the nape of Fost's neck.

  'Interesting, isn't it, knowing a sorceress?' Erimenes said conversationally. 'She could turn you into a newt any time she wished.'

  'You always look on the bright side of things, don't you?' Fost looked on with a combination of apprehension and interest as Moriana extended her fingers over the chalice. The water turned opaque white. It began to swirl round and round, as though stirred by a spoon.

  She opened her eyes. The liquid cleared. But it was plain water no longer. Instead it was like a window overlooking a scene two hundred miles distant.

  'Look upon the City in the Sky,' she said. Crowds thronged the Circle of the Skywell. But this was no mere mob of citizens as had gathered to watch Moriana's sacrifice; these stood in orderly ranks, armored in leather enameled with bright designs, bearing shield, spear and short, curved sword. Others marched before them, clad in plate and chain. Fost recognized the sallets of the Monitors. Squadrons of war eagles wheeled across the sky.

  Muttering to herself, Moriana gestured. The picture changed. It showed lines of captives being herded to dungeons and heavily armed Monitors moving from house to house, smashing in doors and dragging unfortunates out to join the miserable procession. Next the docks came into view. Balloons, gigantic bloated sausages many times the size of the round gasbag Fost had ridden to the City, rubbed their flanks against the ramparts like amorous whales as files of slaves unloaded their gondolas.

  Moriana shook her head sadly. The image disappeared, leaving behind only a tiny ripple.

  'Insurrection?' Fost asked, though the pictures hadn't much looked like it.

  'No. Synalon arms the City for war, training fresh troops, crushing all opposition, storing up provisions.' She smoothed her hair back from her face. Sweat stood on her forehead despite the cool air. 'She's confident, damn her. She no longer bothers to block my scrying spell.'

  'Who could threaten the City in the Sky?' Erimenes asked. 'None. Only the Fallen People might dare but they are few and lack the material.' Fost raised his eyebrows at this, and made a note to ask her more about the descendants of the City's builders. Luranni's tales had piqued his curiosity. 'No, my sister prepares for a war of conquest.' She clenched her hands into knots of anger. 'She will destroy all the Etuul have built. I must return. I must stop her!'

  Fost did not answer. After a moment Moriana glanced at him and looked away. She'd trodden forbidden ground. The issue of who should have the Amulet of Living Flame and what should be done with it once they reached Athalau lay between them like a curtain of ice. By common consent they had avoided it until now.

  Mercifully Erimenes broke the silence. 'I'm forced to observe that this is an extravagant waste of a lovely afternoon. And pleasure, once wasted, can never be regained, and who knows better than I? Why don't you engage in a little copulation before the cold returns?'

  Fost laughed too loudly. 'Not a bad idea, if there were more time. I've another idea.' He grasped the ceramic handle of the skewer and raised the antelope leg. It was done to perfection. 'Why don't we eat and restore our strength? We start into the mountains tomorrow.'

  'If you're wrong, rider, you know what to expect.' Though softly spoken, the words carried clearly across the rush of wind and the rhythmic thunder of wings. The soldier so addressed urged his mount to greater speed.

  Prince Rann was in a foul mood. His scouts had caught the fleeing princess and her accomplice within hours of their escape, only to have the fugitives best them in combat and vanish into the tangle of ravines north and west of Brev. The survivors admitted being afraid to press pursuit; they claimed their quarry had enchanted them. Nonsense, of course. Synalon's ward-spells protected them from adverse magics. But the damage was done, and the worst of all was that those responsible couldn't be punished for their cowardice and ineptitude. He had too few men to spend them in that fashion.

  From the outset Rann assumed the fugitives would head southeast by the straightest route for the Gate of the Mountains. He'd acknowledged to himself the possibility they could have gone due south instead, to attempt passage through the Valley of Crushed Bones he'd seen marked on the map Synalon had found in the satchel with the spirit jar. Yet he'd had men sufficient only to scout one route and had opted for the one he thought more likely to be right. As a result he and his bird-riders spent two and a half weeks combing empty grassland without result. When they drew near the Ramparts, they ran the risk of encountering the winged foxes. Rann had lost four men to the beasts.

  Next a storm blew out of the Cold Wastes beyond the mountains, taking the searchers by surprise and whirling five men to oblivion before the rest found the ground and safety. A man and two birds had frozen to death by the time the bl izzard lifted and the sneering gods of chance sent a warm wind out of the North to scour off the new-fallen snow. The search had continued, as fruitlessly as before.

  Then yesterday a rider scouting the patrol's back trail had been blown off course by high winds. His bird had seen something suspicious, which turned out to be disturbed earth above a dugout trench large enough to accommodate two people. It lay midway between the ravine country and the Great Crater Lake.

  So now with his full strength Rann made for the lake to try to pick up the trail there. He had already promised himself that should this prove another false lead the rider who had reported the dugout would suffer, manpower shortage or not.

  The multiple chevron formation of eagles knifed through the sky. Rann's eyes, scarcely less keen than those of his mount, scanned the land below for sign of the fugitives' passing. The bird he rode was not Terror, but a lighter, faster eagle, grey spotted with brown, that was more suited to reconnaissance work. The flight reached the Crater, hidden under its perpetual mound of steam. They made a slow orbit of the immense declivity, finding nothing. Rann's impatience mounted by the second.

  At last Odol, the soldier who had reported finding the dugout, grew uneasy under the sidelong scrutiny of those tawny eyes.

  'P - perhaps they were caught by the storm and sought shelter in the Crater's warmth. Their tracks wouldn't have outlived the melting of the snow, milord.'

  Rann scowled at the man a moment longer, too distracted even to enjoy the other's obvious mental agony. Then, without a word, he banked his eagle and slipped into a spiral descending toward the cloud.

  Shortly after, they broke through the clammy fog. Below them they saw a collection of dilapidated slag huts. Briefly Rann wondered what manner of primitives resided in such wretched dwellings. He steered his bird toward a cleared space roughly in the center of the village.

  A crowd gaped in silent wonder as the bird-riders touched down before the large circular temple.

  There look to be fewer than a hundred souls living here,' Rann said as he dismounted. 'Captain Tays, take twenty men and round up the lot of them. Kill anyone who offers any resistance whatsoever.' Tays, a swarthy, bandy-legged man even shorter than his prince, grinned, bobbed his head and trotted away, calling together a squad as he went.

  Rann drew off his thick gauntlets. Scowling, he looked around. He'd taken the group of villagers standing about in the square to be women initially, but now he saw there were men among them in about equal numbers. The males of the town had a delicate, almost dainty look to them and their features looked little different from the women's. The bodies of both sexes were so willowy as to make it difficult to distinguish between them. Onlookers began turning away with an air of complete indifference.

  The prince had known groundlings to react to the arrival of the eagle-riders of the Sky City with various emotions: fear, awe, dismay. He had never known the Guard to be greeted with indifference.

  'You there,' he said, striding toward the nearest villager. 'I say, I'm talking to you. Answer.' Neither word nor movement gave any sign that the man had heard. Flushing, Rann nodded to a soldie
r.

  A javelin whistled through the air to smack between the villager's shoulder blades. He pitched forward onto his face and lay still. Not a sound had come from him.

  Tays's party returned, herding a group of the tall, wispy folk with the points of spears and scimitars. The captain's blade was bloody, but he wore a puzzled expression.

  'These are strange folk, my Prince,' he called. 'They don't fear death.' He scowled at the several dozen captives his men had rounded up. 'I think they just came along to humor us.'

  Rann's scowl etched itself deeper in his visage. He had an uncomfortable feeling that the captain had just experienced one of his rare glimmerings of insight.

  'Then we'll have to teach them, won't we?' he said. 'Slay ten of them, and we'll see how apt our pupils are.'

  He turned a smile toward the assembled villagers. Javelins stabbed, sword blades cleaved flesh. Dark blood stained the gowns of the doomed ten. They fell, yet no sound came from their lips as they died.

  'They don't even moan,' a bird-rider exclaimed. Approaching another man, Rann fought the urge to draw his sword and hew him down. What was wrong with these people? Were they mad or imbeciles? With apparent civility he asked, 'Who are you?'