by Garon Whited
“I see. Well, I can include a tunnel from the city to the other side, I suppose. Maybe a trail—I don’t want to encourage mass migrations of armies, only small-scale travel. Oh, you’ll make sure people going to and from the arena have safe passage, yes? We’ll want paying customers to feel safe in order to encourage business.”
“I will see it done, Dread Lord,” he said, and covered his face.
The question of population pressure and control made me think of reproduction and evolution and of elves. Are elves sneaky, devious, conniving, and treacherous because they’re made that way? Or is it because they’ve learned to be? If their creator made them that way, is it a reflection of their creator’s limitations, or of the way he wanted them to act? If they learned to be unpleasant, what experiences did they undergo to force them into being so untrustworthy?
More simply, was it a case a heredity or environment? Or a combination of both?
“Bob. Relax. Bear in mind I’m not going to eat you. You’re useful, even helpful, and I appreciate it. If we can get away with a mutually beneficial relationship, I am not against it.”
“Dread Lord?”
“Look, Bob. You have good ideas and suggestions about how to get what I want. I value you. You won’t be casually dismissed out of hand. While terror and awe are fine for the lower orders, you don’t need to be terrified and awed. Be aware you are valuable to me and I know it. I don’t know if we could ever be friends—I don’t like you and I doubt you harbor any kind feelings toward me—but I’m pretty sure we can work together on a basis of mutual respect.”
“I suppose you are correct, Dread Lord.” I wished it was nighttime. His face was inscrutable. Then again, elf spirits are much more difficult to read than human souls. I have no idea what he thought of the idea.
“With this thought in mind, is there anything you would like from me?”
“The Eastrange is running smoothly, Dread Lord.”
“That’s nice. I was asking, however, about anything you want, personally. Not the Duke of Vathula.”
Bob looked startled. He actually met my eyes for a moment, searching my face to see if I was serious.
“Dread Lord… it is said you walk between worlds as other men walk from room to room.”
“That’s a gross exaggeration. It’s much harder than you think.”
“Indeed, Dread Lord, for I was there when the magicians of Zirafel first erected their great arch.”
“Ah. I keep forgetting how old you are.”
“I was created on the sixth moon, Dread Lord, before the great game of the Heru began. I lived upon the seventh moon, the one still shining in the nighttime sky, before coming to this world on dragon wings. I have seen the wars of men, orku, shimsa, tyga, ooloné, giants, dwarves, prevnyt, and dakthars. Races lived and died while I was yet regarded as young.”
“I will remember,” I promised. It wouldn’t be hard, not after that. I wanted to ask what the hell the various races were like, but it didn’t seem a priority.
“The chief desire,” Bob continued, “of any elf is to have Rendu, our creator, one of the true gods of this world, free again.”
“Free? Free as in ‘turned loose’?”
“The gods who formed this world do not deign to discuss their plans with their servants, but a clever servant may divine the will of his master. The Heru, our gods, chose to play a great game with all the world as their playing field. They favored, in their own way, the races they created and loosed upon it. It is thought they hid themselves away, all together, each keeping all the others from interfering—cheating—on behalf of their creations.”
I had a nasty flashback to being thrown off the Edge of the World. It’s not a nice memory. I try not to dwell on it. It gives me a sense of immediate mortality and the shakes.
But something—or Something—grabbed me before I could wind up subdivided among a horde of demon gullets. It didn’t have much to say to me, but it spoke to the Devourer.
“The purpose of games is to play.”
Is the Father of Darkness one of these proto-gods? Is the Church of Light worshiping one of them, too? How do they relate to the energy-state beings I know and love? —that’s sarcasm, by the way.
If the Father of Darkness is one of these things, was it cheating? Or was it refereeing?
The ways of the so-called gods are mysterious, strange, incomprehensible, and damned annoying.
“All right. Your gods are in their playroom, watching. Does this relate to something you want?”
“Yes, Dread Lord. Short of calling forth Rendu from the stronghold of the Heru, I, like any of the First Elves, would return home to await our creator’s return.”
“I thought—no, you’re from one of the missing moons, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Dread Lord. The second sky-orb was the place Rendu first created elves.”
“So, why are you here? Part of the game?”
“No, for Rendu disdained the game. He left us upon the sky-orbs to tend them as he wished. We only came here when the chaos swallowed up the first and eldest of the sky-orbs.”
“I see. Well, no, I don’t. What did you do on these sky-orbs?”
“We walked the gardens and maintained them,” Bob replied. His eyes looked at something either far away or deep inside, seeing something distant in space and in time. “We saw to his lesser creations and provided diversions for him. We swept, we sang, we danced, we tended all things, from palaces of crystal to songbirds of gold. All that Rendu wished of us, we did, for we are the finest of his living creations, eternal and immortal, drawn from the eternal void by his power, given shape and form and purpose by his will.”
“And when he went into this stronghold with the rest of his sort? The void-chaos-whatever ate a moon?”
“The first and eldest of the sky-orbs, like all the others, was warded from the effects of the great void, the swirling chaos beyond the firmament of this world. Rendu came to this plane so he might fulfill the request of his fellows in crafting a place where they could observe without interfering in their game. Yet, as time wore on, without Rendu’s power to hold it at bay, the chaos of the void wore away the defenses. The first sky-orb vanished, crumbling into nothingness. The second followed mere centuries later. In a thousand years, the third vanished, as well.”
“I see. You came here because the moons were disintegrating and taking everything with them.”
“Exactly, Dread Lord.”
“And you want to go back?”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you worried about the last of them—the only one left, as far as I can see—going the same way?”
“Yes.”
“I’m confused,” I admitted.
“The last and greatest of the sky-orbs has lasted ten thousand years beyond any of the others, and may last for eternity, even against the constant buffeting of the void. Yet, the true dragons of Rendu are not ours to command. We cannot persuade them to bear us back across the sky-sea, for they will not abandon their master. Therefore, we cannot go back and look for ourselves, see with our own eyes, how the last of our homes fares.”
“True dragons?”
“Rendu created the first dragons, Dread Lord, much as he created us, the elves. They were created immortal and perfect. Other Heru created dragons of their own, copies of the perfect design, as many copied elves to greater or lesser degree for their races.”
I think I’m offended, Firebrand told me.
I think you’re right, I agreed. He’s just made a comparison between some mythological “true dragon” and the dragon you were, and himself—elven “perfection” apparently is the source of flawed copies that are all the other races.
Egotistical of him, wouldn’t you say? Let’s see if he’s mathematically perfect by slicing him into fractions.
No, I’m interested.
Maybe later?
There is always the possibility.
“Okay. So, let me see if I get this. You want to go to the moon
and evaluate it for stability in the face of the chaos-void beyond the world-shield?”
“You have the essence of it, Dread Lord.”
I folded my arms and drummed fingers on opposite shoulders, looking up at the ceiling and thinking.
“Hmm. Interesting. Someday, I’m going to want you to explain the whole creation of the world in more detail—at least, as much of it as you know or can guess.”
“It will be my honor, Dread Lord,” Bob replied, bowing again.
“All right. As for the sky-orb of Rendu… is there some reason I can’t simply open a gate to it?”
“I do not know,” Bob admitted. “The Great Arches of Zirafel and Tamaril were made by mortal magicians. It is a different magic from that of elves. We can create such things, but by our arts we can build only sets of two, not gates which may open to wherever the user might wish.”
“So, you can build a matched pair of arches, but you’d still need to put one on the moon before you could go there.”
“Yes, Dread Lord. Our proper home lies beyond the firmament and beyond our reach.”
“I see the problem. Okay. Come with me and we’ll see if I can hit the moon from here.” I tucked the box with the crown under one arm and led the way.
Bob and I strolled through the corridors. Bob seemed mildly pleased at all the saluting and bowing whenever I walked by people. Being close on my heels, it was as though people were doing it for him. Well, he could enjoy it if he liked. It didn’t hurt anything, and he was a nobleman. Noble-elf. A duke.
We started for the upper gate room, but there were a number of black-armored people in the corridor outside. I was surprised to see a line of noncombatants sitting in the hallway like a bunch of martial arts gurus, eyes closed, holding hands in a chain, all humming the same note. Against the other wall of the hallway were the guys kitted out for battle; they were doing the same thing, only in armor. It was kind of freaky. It freaked me out, at least. I don’t deal well with weirdness. But the power they generated was considerable, and I had a hunch where it was all going.
I suspected we wouldn’t have much privacy, so we diverted to my laboratory-workroom. I put the box down and focused on the scrying mirror.
It’s possible to look outside the firmament with a scrying spell. I’ve seen it done by accident when a lady wizard goofed with an eyeball-based spell; I’ve also done it myself with a more regular mirror. The limitation, it seems, is you can’t have a scrying sensor pass through the firmament. I’m not sure how the firmament works, exactly, but it’s a barrier. It keeps things in and out, mostly out. So an established magical manifestation—or a demon—doesn’t go through it. Presumably, since demons can be summoned and magical manifestations—such as scrying sensors—can appear on opposite sides of the firmament, magical radiations aren’t stopped.
Yep, there’s my scrying sensor view, parked out beyond the firmament. Looking down, I saw the world was a glossy egg, like one of those glass balls with a tiny ecosystem inside. And, yes, it was much longer than I thought, with a range of mountains down the middle and a whole other half of a world beyond. It’s hard to make out details, though. From the outside, the firmament has a blurring effect, like frosted glass. At least, during the daytime. Would I see it better at night? Or does the firmament have different properties depending on the time?
Mental note. The mountains appear to be the divider between the north half of the world and the southern half. And I may be the only person on the plate who knows it. Aside from a bunch of First Elves, at least.
I swung the view around and slid sideways, following the curve of the firmament, zipping my scrying sensor around the world, chasing the moon. It passed over the Edge and swooped down below the world.
It was dark down there, but the moon was glowing, as usual. I headed for it.
Something—some Thing—smacked into the scrying sensor, or the sensor smacked into It. It snarled, apparently pressed up against the other side of the mirror, as though on a window. It was a bat-winged centipede with little pincers on the end of all its feet. The mouth end opened in five sections, peeling back to reveal a circular mouth with rings of teeth. The whole thing was about the length of my forearm.
It clawed at the other side of the mirror. Scratches appeared. The tail flexed, driving a stinger the size of my finger against the surface. It dented badly. I dismissed the spell immediately.
The mirror, a sheet of polished silver, still had the gouges and small tears where the Thing clawed at it—damaged as though from the other side.
I think I’ve figured out why people don’t send scrying sensors outside the firmament.
Suddenly, I was very glad I was using a sheet of polished silver, rather than silver-backed glass. Important safety tip for magical operations. Don’t use anything fragile for viewing the void beyond the world. Maybe Kavel can make me some sheets of polished steel instead of silver.
“It’s going to be difficult to get a target lock on the sky-orb,” I told Bob.
“So I see,” he agreed. I wondered if we each looked about as shaken as the other. It’s not the monster, really. It’s the sudden appearance of it. Startlement, that’s the word I want.
“I’ll try this again at night, sometime,” I promised, “when I can see what I’m aiming at.”
“Very good, Dread Lord. And if the sky-orb is defended against such travel?”
“Hmm. I’ve never actually had my own space program before. I’ll see what I can do.”
I handed Bob off to someone with instructions to see to his care and feeding. I took the crown to my lab. My first order of business was to let the mountain know it could un-ruin the southern road through the mountains. It could be amusing to watch an army trudge back and forth between Vathula and the coast, trying to get through.
The second thing, while I was talking to the stone anyway, was to tell it to find a valley up near the Averill, on the western edge of the range, and start work on citifying the place in a manner sort of the inverse of Karvalen. Karvalen is a solid, point-up cone, hollowed out. The stadium-city would be an empty funnel, with tunnels and pueblo-like housing all around it. The colosseum-like area for bloodsports would be in the center, filled with seating.
I recall a spot near the waterfall—that is, the headwaters of the Averill river. It’s a low spot between three mountains and would make a good start for a stadium-like setup. We could shut off the waterfall and have the lake drain through the city on its way to the Averill, providing running water.
All this took some explaining, but I put it in a spell and fed the information to the stone. If I tried to explain while merged with the rock, I might still be doing it. Besides, the mountain seems to have a good idea of how to build a city. It built Karvalen, with a little help and some ongoing evolution. It’s also kind of taken over all the stonework in several others, so it has examples to draw on. We’ll see how it turns out and tweak the results as necessary.
With that done, I got to work on the Crown of Karvalen—or what would be.
I centered the crown on a stone worktable and examined it more thoroughly. If the Imperial Magicians could hide enchantments, surely elves could do the same. Then again, elves do magic in a different way; they build objects that are magical, rather than cast spells. Could they hide the magic in an innately magical object?
I tackled it from the standpoint of magical energy. In order to channel magical power, you have to have something to run it through. I put pulses of power through the physical structure of the crown, blasted it with disruption waves, and scanned it actively and passively for any hint of magical resonance or output. Every test I could think of told me it was nothing more than a really pretty piece of jewelry.
After sunset, I did much the same thing, only harder and deeper. If the thing was hiding any secrets, it was beyond my ability to detect. The really pretty piece of jewelry might just be a really pretty piece of jewelry, rather than a terrible object of unspeakable and subtle power. While this didn�
��t completely rule out the second possibility, it shifted the odds so far you’d need an atomic vector plotter and a really hot cup of tea to find them.
With the crown locked away for later enchantment, I checked on Diogenes. According to Firebrand, he was still trying to interface with the quantum computer crystal. I added a bit more vitality to the system, made sure both of them were functioning, and realized I might be missing a bet. If Diogenes was learning how to speak the new computer language, could I give him a translation spell? Admittedly, “he” was just a collection of adaptive programs, but could he use the spell as an interface? It might be more like studying a new language in a classroom rather than learning it on the fly. He wouldn’t resort to trial and error combined with a lot of handwaving and pantomime. He could write his own phrasebook. So when the spell wore off, he would have written a new driver for his operating system.
Assuming a translation spell would work on a pair of inanimate objects. Well, unliving objects. Well, artificially vitalized inanimate unliving objects. Well… whatever.
I ran the structure of a transliteration spell through the computer core. The most literal translation spell I have substitutes words rather than trying to communicate ideas. I thought being as literal as possible would be more likely to work with a pair of data-processing devices. It couldn’t hurt. Even if it did, I had more computer cores. If necessary, I could go get more.
Then, feeling moderately accomplished, I went over to the gate room to get the troops deployed to Mochara. The people doing the daisy-chain of power focusing were still doing it.
I was pleased to note nobody stopped to bow, salute, or even acknowledge me. They were busy doing something important, so they kept at it. It pleased me more than it should have, maybe, but I liked the fact there was at least one exception to the general rule about salutes.
In the gate room itself, Beltar was in robes instead of armor. They set up a portable altar and a medium-sized idol—a sword-wielding guy on a rearing horse, about quarter-scale, all done in bronze and iron—along with a few candles for making shadows, a chalice of blood, and a quartet of musicians. The woodwinds guided everybody in humming. A pair of drummers thumped out a slow double beat. It was probably meant to symbolize a heartbeat. It sounded a lot like one. Occasionally, during Beltar’s chanting, someone would hold a sword up and tap it, ringing it like a bell. Two backup priests gave ritual responses. It was all quite embarrassing.
