War of Powers

by Robert E Vardeman;Victor Milan

  'Is that the glacier?' Moriana asked breathlessly. 'I thought it would be dull and white.'

  Erimenes answered her. 'It is indeed a glacier, my dear. Its progress scoops up earth and rock from the ground below, which accounts for the bands of differing shade. Additionally other, lesser glaciers flow into it from the surrounding mountains, causing the most remarkable patterns. Observe.'

  'Enough,' Fost growled. His heart had begun to hammer his ribs in excitement. Then his gorge rose at a horrible thought. He ripped Erimenes's jug from his satchel and shook it violently.

  'Come out of there, you poor excuse for a ghost,' he shrieked. When he unstoppered the bottle, blue mist flowed forth. The fog became a miniature tornado with dancing light-motes like the sparkles out on the ice. But Erimenes was a little bluer than usual, from motion sickness.

  'Wh-what's the matter?' asked Moriana, confused at Fost's behavior.

  'The city - the force of the glacier must have pulverized it to dust. We've come all this way for nothing!' Fost raised his arm to smash the jug.

  'Wait!' cried Erimenes. His spectral arm swept out from his side. 'Behold,' he said.

  One broad band near the center of the bowl glowed pale blue. It was to this the spirit pointed. Fost squinted. He realized the ice was not tinted but lay clear, its blue the blue of the cloudless sky above. Is it my imagination? he wondered, or do I glimpse shapes within, spires and minarets and bulging domes?

  'Behold Athalau,' Erimenes said with pride. 'Behold my home. The magic of Athalau has not diminished. The glacier is hollow inside.'

  The ice-locked shapes showed clearer now. The structures of that fragment of Athalau they could see had an airy, almost fragile look, similar to that within the City in the Sky, but without its subtle and disturbing distortion. Yet it must be monumentally strong to have withstood the pressure of countless tons of ice across the years. His respect for the power of the city's builders grew as he stood looking on a tableau literally frozen for eternity.

  His limbs began to quiver. Adrenaline excitement buzzed in his ears, and his veins sang impatiently.

  'Erimenes! How do we get in?' Weariness fell from him like a dropped cloak.

  'Do be patient,' the sage said, turning an airy smirk in his direction. 'I've gone fourteen hundred years not knowing how I might once again return to my home. You can wait a while longer.'

  'Untrue!' Fost shouted. 'Merely thirteen hundred ninety-nine. And besides, I know I'll have to wait to enter Athalau -we're a good day's travel away. What I'm asking is, how will we get in once we're there?'

  'Now, now.' Erimenes wagged a finger. 'You must trust me.'Trust you?' Fost bellowed. 'I'd sooner trust a starving wolf.' The spirit looked hurt. 'After all I've done for you,' he sighed, 'such ingratitude is wormwood indeed. Well then, if we're going to fall to mistrusting one another, how can I trust you? How do I know that, once I impart my knowledge to you, you won't abandon me here to sit alone throughout eternity with no companion save the howling wind?'

  'He's right,' Moriana said. 'We can wait to learn how he plans to gain entry to the glacier. He would hardly have brought us this far without knowing how. We have to trust him.'

  She didn't add, as we have to trust each other. He eyed her measuringly and saw the same calculation in her eyes. She was hearing the call of the Amulet of Living Flame as keenly as he. The reckoning could not long be forestalled. A shadow crossed the day.

  She leaned forward, rising on her toes to kiss his lips. 'We've almost made it,' she said. 'Against all odds, we're almost there. They'll sing of us, Fost. The bards will commemorate us for generations.'

  The problem of gaining entry to the city in the glacier still worried him, and to his mind no empty strophes sung by weak-wristed poets could match centuries of brawling, lusty life. He couldn't rid himself of the certainty that she intended to have the former rather than the latter. But he shrugged his doubts aside and returned her kiss boldly. Then arm in arm they started down the mountainside.

  Nightfall found them within a few miles of the glacier's edge. As a parting gift Jennas had given Fost a pack filled with supplies. From this they took a tent and a bit of firewood, more priceless than jewels in the treeless waste. Fost and Moriana dined on a haunch of meat they found in the pack. When the fire died down, they climbed into a bedroll to share the warmth of their bodies. Their lovemaking was still more fervent than that which, the night before, had marked their reunion. Tomorrow they would enter Athalau - providing Erimenes knew the way in. Tomorrow, or soon after, they would possess the Amulet of Living Flame. And then must be answered the question of who should have it.

  So their bodies writhed together with restless urgency, knotting, spasming, resting limp with repletion and then building eagerness, thrusting and receiving, until their strength was gone and they slept, undreaming, too tired to brood that this time might have been their last.

  Fost had to tilt his head far back to see the top of the blue ice wall. It hadn't occurred to him it would rise so high. The chill seemed to beat from it in waves.

  He turned away to hunker by the fire Moriana had built at the glacier's foot. She toasted the last remnants of their meat on Fost's metal spit. Excited, they had risen with the sun and marched on without breaking fast. Within three hours they had reached the farthest extent of the glacier-swallowing sheet of ice. Now was time for resting, eating and taking counsel.

  Moriana passed him a sizzling scrap. He wolfed it down, relishing the meaty flavor and letting the juices roll down his throat. Nearby swayed the figure of Erimenes, beaming down on the pair like a mother hen. Fost looked at him.

  'Well, old spirit,' he said expansively. 'The time, as the wise are wont to say, has come. Tell us how to get inside the city.'

  'All you need do is ask,' the spirit said.'I am asking.' Fost's face clouded. 'No, no,' Erimenes said. 'Ask the glacier.'

  Fost's head snapped around. He eyed the nebulous visage for signs of levity. 'Ask the . . . glacier?' Erimenes nodded.

  'Treachery!' roared Fost, leaping to his feet. He shook his fist under Erimenes's nose. 'I knew it! I knew this vaporous scoundrel lied when he said he'd get us in!' He swept a burning red brand from the fire and hurled it against the ice.

  'Ouch,' said a voice. Fost turned around. The word rolled past him like a boulder and went booming off across the flats. He eyed his companions. Moriana's face showed surprise and Erimenes's no more than its usual quota of smug superiority.

  'Is this a trick of yours, Erimenes?' 'It's rather late in my life for my voice to deepen so,' the spirit said. 'Likewise, I deem it unlikely the lucious Moriana has been magically transformed into a basso profundo.'

  'If you didn't speak, who did?' 'I did.' The words came louder than before, striking Fost like a sea wave. He turned towards the cliff of ice, seeking their origin. Superstitious fear prickled his neck-hairs. His sword came into his hand.

  'Who is "I"?' he demanded. A heavy sigh swept over him. 'Too long has it been since I discoursed with humans,' the voice said. The words fell slowly, like water dripping from the tip of an icicle. Fost felt an urge to prod the speaker to greater speed, but as yet he had no idea who the speaker was. 'I don't seem to recall them as being so blind that they cannot see something before their very eyes. Are you as the heat-hunters, then, humans?'

  Erimenes tittered. Fost shot "him a poisoned look which hardly stilled the spirit.

  'O great-voiced one,' the courier said, 'forgive my slowness. Only please tell me who and where you are.'

  'Can you really not see me? If you stretch out your hand you'll touch me. At the point where your party lies, my flank is over a hundred feet high, though I'm far thicker in places.'

  Comprehension slowly dawned. 'You mean . . . you're the glacier?' Fost stared.

  'Of course,' the voice said. Fost felt Moriana come up beside him. Her arm encircled his waist. She snuggled against him for warmth, looking up at the glaicer with round eyes.

  'You devoured Athalau,' she said
. A groan came from the depths of the ice. 'Not my doing, not my doing,' the glacier said ponderously. 'I go where the slow pull of the planet drags me, where the pressure of falling snow drives me. Athalau was a fair city; fair were its folk and wise above all others.'

  The glacier sighed again. The sheer ice wall shuddered. A few hundred yards to the wayfarers' right, a chink of ice broke from the clifftop and came crashing down. Fost and Moriana jumped back, gazing anxiously up the glacier's side.

  The glacier did not notice. 'Fair were the Athalar, and foul were the Hissing Ones, and so they waged war. Long they fought the reptiles, and mightily. For all their wisdom the Athalar could not defeat the power of Istu, Demon of the Dark Ones. Not till the Blessed Felarod with his Hundred summoned up the Earth-Spirit did the light prevail. Great things transpired in that War of Powers. Continents sank, a star fell out of heaven, the very Earth tipped on its axis so the ice crept north to cover Athalau.' Its voice was sad. 'The raw power of the Earth-Spirit infused many things - the rocks, the mountains, the very snow. Thus did I come to life. But not to power over my own destiny. No. All willy-nilly I moved onward. Though it tore at my heart, I overran Athalau. It lies entombed within me.'

  The recitation took fifteen minutes and was filled with many a dolorous pause. Fost sat on a large rock and drew Moriana close. When at last the glacier finished, he asked, 'Can you make a path for us to Athalau? We have journeyed along and faced much to reach the city. But if you cannot control your, uh, body, we may have come this way for nothing.'

  'I can control what my body does within itself, though, I fear, not well,' the glacier answered ponderously. 'But, know you: To atone for the wrong I unwillingly did the Athalar, I made with them a compact. I am to guard Athalau until the end of time, to keep the Fallen People or other agents of the Dark Ones from misusing the mighty secrets locked inside to spread their terror across the globe. You appear harmless enough, and your eyes are poor. But how do I know you are what you claim to be?'

  'Do hurry and get this over with,' called Erimenes. 'It makes me cold just looking at this lump of ice.'

  The glacier rumbled. 'Don't mind my spiritualistic friend,' Fost said hurriedly. 'He tends to babble. But he is himself an Athalar by birth. You may have heard of him. Erimenes the Ethical.'

  'Oromanes,' the glacier mused. 'No, the name is unfamiliar.' 'Erimenes,' the spirit said. 'I was, dare I say it, the last great sage of Athalau. I taught that the material world and all its trappings are but illusion and to be spurned.'

  'Ah, yes,' the glacier said. 'I do recall you, Arrimines. Some of your pupils used to come and try to convert me to their views. I found them foolish. I am real. The snow that feeds me, the earth below my belly, the sun that burns fat from my back in the springtime, all these are real.'

  Erimenes made a mournful sound. 'You are wise,' he said. 'Would that I had been as well. I grew more and more otherworldly as my life wore on. Then, when my body died, I barely noticed, so tenuous had my connections with it become. My spirit lived on. After my phsyical death, when it was far too late, I realized how wrong I'd been. The world of sensation is like a treasure trove and must be cherished. The path of true wisdom is the pursuit of pleasure.'

  'An equally callow view. I have had one hundred centuries to mull, and the middle path seems best to me. I flow between mountains, trying to climb neither one nor the other.'

  'Bah. Moderation should be enjoyed in moderation. Life should be lived to the fullest. Each instant should pulse with hot sensation, each beat of the heart should be quick with passion, each ...'

  'No one cares, Erimenes,'Moriana said. 'Tell me, glacier, have you a name?'

  The glacier pondered a mere ten minutes.' "Guardian" will serve, I think. I guard sacred Athalau and its secrets.'

  'Very well, Guardian. A former inhabitant of Athalau has returned to his home after long years of separation. Will you let us in?'

  'Home.' Shifting sounds came from inside the glacier. 'Often have I wished I could share the comfort you warm ones take from the concept, yet to me it means nothing. No place is my home; I cannot leave where I am. I grow by traveling. Though, did the earth resume its earlier inclination and the sun drive me back south, I would miss the caress of these mountains. Many lesser glaciers have formed within them and flowed to meet me, and so become part of me. Ah, the diversity of feeling I have learned to love! Perhaps you feel so about home.'

  The humans sat as the words emerged with painful slowness. They understood the glacier's deliberation; what need had it to hurry? But its speech dragged on endlessly till they found themselves nodding and blinking despite the cold and their impatience to reach Athalau. When at last the slow word flow stopped, Moriana nudged Fost in the ribs, breaking off a loud snore.

  'Will you let us in?' she asked again. 'I have agreed to let no non-residents into the city,' the glacier said, 'but nothing was said about those who accompanied an Athalar.'

  'Erimenes is confined to his jug,' Moriana said, 'and cannot reach Athalau without us to carry him. And know that in my veins flows the blood of Athalau.' She avoided mentioning that she traced her lineage through the City in the Sky. The two cities had often warred between the downfall of the Fallen Ones and the onset of the ice.

  'Ahhhh,' the glacier said. It fell silent in thought. Fost sat, chin sunk in hand. Moriana paced. Erimenes allowed a gentle breeze to push his vaporous substance into a spiral.

  'I'm freezing,' Moriana said finally. 'How long will it take the glacier to decide?'

  'Not long, I shouldn't think,' Erimenes said lightly.'Not long? What's long to a glacier?''Perhaps there's another way in,' said Fost. 'Don't even think such thoughts,' Erimenes said, gesticulating nervously. 'The glacier will never admit us if we anger him, as trying to break into Athalau would surely do. Besides, an army could dig for a generation without reaching the city. And once inside, it could be crushed by a mere shrug!' The misty shape hugged itself and shivered. 'To be immured In ice forever, barred from all sensation but undying cold - brrr!'

  'You can't feel the cold, Erimenes,' Moriana pointed out. 'Besides, your lot would still be no worse than that of anyone else who's dead.'

  'I don't care about them’ the spirit said waspishly. 'Though I've no body, to be surrounded for millennia with walls of ice would make me think I was cold. It's only psychology.'

  'Great Ultimate protect us from it, if it can make the dead suffer,' Fost said. 'Is that how the demons of hell torment their victims, by using this psychology? Ust knows you're the only dead man I've ever known to whom it made a bit of difference what anyone did to him. I've found the dead an apathetic lot, by and large.'

  Erimenes threw up his hands at Fost's lack of perception. The courier huddled deeper into his bearskin and grumbled, 'You might be able to feel the cold at that. The damned wind stabs through me like a spear. I wish we had enough wood to make a real fire.'

  'We'd have to move away if we did,' said Moriana. 'We don't want to make Guardian uncomfortable.'

  'I know,' piped up Erimenes. 'I have a wonderful way you two can keep warm. Cast away your bulky garments and fornicate. The heat of passion and exercise will warm you better than any cloak!'

  Moriana didn't deign to answer. She sat down beside Fost and leaned against him. His arm went naturally around her shoulders.

  They were sound asleep when two hours later the glacier's answer rumbled forth. 'I do not like to make snap decisions,' Guardian said, 'but I understand the impetuousness of your kind. You seem goodly folk to me, and the arguments in favor of allowing Uromines .. .'

  'Erimenes!' the spirit corrected sharply. ' . . . into the city are most persuasive. That Erimanus is a ghost is not to be held against him; Athalau is now a ghost city as well.' The voice stopped, waiting expectantly. 'Ah, well. A joke, but no matter. As I was saying, it seems unjust to deny an Athalar entrance to his native city, and since he requires the aid of his companions to reach the city, I must admit them too. Admittedly the young lady's lineage, deriv
ing as it does from Athalau, was a factor in my deciding. However. . .'

  Fost found himself leaning perilously far forward, straining for the glacier's next word. He wanted to beat his fists against the ice to force words from it. Guardian had decided to let them into Athalau, but what were its conditions? The promise of eternal life filled him with wild energy.

  Just when he thought he'd go mad if he must wait a second more, the glacier spoke again. 'However, in return for admitting you, I ask a boon.'

  'Anything!' Fost shouted. Moriana echoed him. 'I am infested with worms. The pesky things burrow about within me, wiggling and twitching and causing me endless misery.'

  Fost frowned. Anything that could cause serious discomfort to something as immense as the glacier was something he would think twice about blithely promising to put an end to.

  'It will be dark in a matter of hours,' Erimenes pointed out. 'Do the crusty old ice cube a favor and go after the ice-worms for him so we don't have to spend the night in this abominable wind.'