by Lyndon Hardy
Astron had hoped that, with the additional muscle, their rate of speed would improve, but the warriors were unused to much walking and the pace was hardly more than he and Phoebe had managed alone.
"Kestrel, I still do not understand the point of the rush," Astron heard Phoebe gasp beside him as they approached the node one away from the origin. "As I have said, without Nimbia or the services of some other wizard, it is futile to press as hard as we have done. And even if we get to where you seek, Jankol and the others will-will expect what you have promised."
"We will face the events one at a time." Astron glanced to the side between breaths. "Do not waste your energy with idle words. Concentrate only on our objective."
Astron heard the confidence in his voice as if someone else were speaking. His demon's mind knew the truth of what Phoebe said, but somehow his body would not admit it. Instead it seemed totally caught up in pushing onward toward his goal. His mouth was dry. His muscles ached from the strain. Irritating pains occasionally shot from his shoulder where the leather had begun to dig into the soft, unscaled skin. Even the weight of the rucksack containing the harebell pollen had become a heavy burden. Yet there was no other choice but to continue. To stop would be to surrender to the despair of the stembrain or whatever humans had in its place. To be marooned forever was a very long time for a demon.
"The chronoid with the long hair is correct." Jankol suddenly stopped pushing against his harness. "The next move is about to take place. We can rest here comfortably until it is over and then resume travel when we are refreshed."
"What about the rotators?" Astron said. "Had we not better circle around this oasis and continue?"
"But we are indeed fortunate," Jankol said. "Our own brethren now occupy this one and-perhaps several more as well. There is no reason why we will not be welcome."
Astron started to reply when he heard a deep vibrant gong from the direction of the oasis. He felt a tingling in his feet. The ground started to vibrate at a frequency just below his hearing. His nose wrinkled. A flick of motion from the oasis caught his eye. The trees had begun to oscillate. In slow unison, they swayed from side to side. Then the water from the pond sloshed outward to bathe the roots on one side. A great wave of sand, like a ripple in a blanket, seemed to race toward him with breath-catching speed.
The tremor passed under Astron with a mild shifting of his support. He felt his thoughts turn sluggish and difficult to understand. He heard the reflectives call out to the oasis, but their voices had become twisted, sputtering sounds that he barely recongized.
Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the tremor in the ground stopped. The distant rumbling died away. Astron's head cleared and he was able to think.
"We should not wait until the origin," Jankol said. "My comrades at the oasis say that they prepare for a massive attack. If we are to use your device, it will be here and now. Evidently the rotators press too forcefully; we must employ everything that we can."
Astron's nose wrinkled. He tried to capture the subtle flavor of his disorientation, but with each passing heart beat it faded farther and farther away. He looked back at the oasis and the large clock that was ticking at the water's edge. He saw the warriors there testing the sharpness of their swords, some of them still stretching and arching their backs. Despite the striking clock and trembling ground, they had just barely aroused from their sleep.
Rotarians and reflectives-the two sides were not so very different, he thought. Without prior knowledge, he would be hard put to tell them apart. Images of the ritualistic regimen swept into his mind-plan, eat, sleep, and move; scanning parchment maps of the polytopes, mixing water and pulpy juice, carefully planning non-symmetric sleeping positions around the oasis-
Astron stopped short and looked at the clock striker as it cocked for another stroke. The vision of the swirling juice and water stuck in his thoughts. "Perhaps it is not so wise," he said quickly to Jankol. "All of the interchange with the realm of the chronoids-what happens when you have shifted so much that there is little to tell their universe from yours?"
"We have a bargain." Jankol ignored the question. "Your device is to aid along with all the rest."
Astron started to say more when the gong sounded a second time. Again he saw the treetops start to sway back and forth. The water in the pond spewed from its banks in a foamy spray. A wave of sand much higher than before pulsed away from its creation.
"Brace yourself!" Astron yelled as he was suddenly thrown from his feet. With a wrenching groan, the long beams of the engine snapped their leather bindings and he tumbled to the ground. Gears ripped from their lashings; tins of flour dropped to the sands, exploding their contents in sprays of deep orange. As if he had been struck by lightning from the realm of men, Astron heard a painful clap of thunder that filled the air and reverberated into a distant rumble that left him dazed. The sky seemed to shimmer for a moment with thin lines of iridescence arching from horizon to horizon.
Astron breathed the sweet taste of air deeply and shook his head from side to side. As the sky began to return to its former steady brightness, he saw Jankol and his lieutenants, completely unfettered, trying to lash the engine back to the way it had been.
"No, no more use of devices of the chronoids." Astron's tongue felt heavy in his mouth. "Stop them all. Wait until we understand better what the consequences truly are."
Jankol stopped his mending. He puckered his lips and looked at Astron through squinted eyes. "What you say is most strange. On one hand, you speak of the virtues of a device from another realm; on the other you entreat instead that such engines not be used. It is a behavior somewhat inconsistent for one truly from beyond the flame."
Astron felt a sudden stab of panic. "No, there is no inconsistency," he answered quickly. "You see it is merely a matter of, a matter of-" He tried to look Jankol squarely in the eye but when the words would not come, he turned his face aside. Scowling, he wished for Kestrel's quickness of thought.
Jankol waited a moment more, then drew his sword. He motioned for his lieutenants to fall in line beside him. "I should have trusted my first instincts," he said. "What is the truth, strange one? Tell me why you and the long hair look so different from the rest we have seen."
Astron looked quickly to his side at Phoebe slowly regaining her footing. Awkwardly he drew Kestrel's heavy sword and pointed it at the three who advanced at him with synchronized steps. He felt his chest tighten and the air come in short gulps.
But before Jankol and the others could engage, Astron saw one of the lieutenants falter and then fall out of step. The eyes of the reflective widened and he waved his sword arm in an exaggerated flourish off to the side. Jankol stopped uncertainly and then squinted all the more in Astron's direction. "Your device still seems to disrupt the symmetries," he said. "We cannot engage you as one. It feels so very uncertain which are the correct steps to take." He darted his eyes back to the oasis and then at a large blur moving in quickly over the horizon.
"First the battle." He waved his own sword in Astron's direction. "After the victory, I will return with others, dozens if need be, so that we will overwhelm you despite the tricks that you play."
Without another word, he motioned his lieutenants to follow and ran with great effort through the loose sand in the direction of the pond.
For a moment, Astron watched them go. He glanced at what appeared to be a hurling mass of men drawing closer to the oasis and made up his mind. "They will be back shortly," he said to Phoebe. "And even if they are not, I think we can little afford to wait for another stroke of the chime. You must act now. Perform your craft as never before."
"What do you mean?" Phoebe frowned. "I have told you more than once-"
"Forget what has happened." Astron reached out and shook her by the shoulders. "It is a characteristic of the realm. No one could have started a fire at the spot where we first arrived, not even the archimage himself. But now we are much closer to the center than we were before, perhaps close e
nough that the violation of symmetry caused by the flame will be small enough that it can be overcome. The origin itself would be better, but we cannot afford to wait."
He paused and then reached out and squeezed Phoebe's hand. The thrill of the previous move suddenly surged anew, but he managed to push it aside. "You are a wizard," he said. "A wizard as much as any other-but only if you practice your art."
"The words of symmetry have no bearing, Kestrel." Phoebe shook her head. "I can feel the failure even before I begin." She slumped her shoulders and began to sag back to the ground. "There is no point to endure the frustration, no matter whatever else might come. I can imagine the laughs of my council as clearly as if they were here."
Astron felt a sudden surge of anger and frustration well up within him. He almost choked over the intensity of the emotion. "I do not care about your council," he veiled. "Put them from your mind." He gulped air and rushed on. "I have heard tales of the encounters with the great wizards, far more than you might guess. I know the characteristics of the ones who were successful, the ones who controlled the mightiest djinns. They did not care about the opinions of others. The practice of their craft was not for fame or good-standing with those who would be their peers.
"It was for themselves they struggled, Phoebe. The measure of success was against goals that were known by themselves alone. The reward was increased self-esteem-acceptance of their own true worth, not the fickle opinion of the lesser ones around them whom they did not choose to control. Think! Why do you want to be a wizard? So that you can be regarded as an equal-or know deep within yourself that you are unique and comparable to none?"
The oasis clock struck a third time. The sky began to shimmer as it had before and the iridescent lines stood out in a much bolder relief. Astron thought he could see faint images of gearworks at the nodes where they intersected and, with them, shadowy figures of men winding huge springs. Another wave of sand rushed at them from the oasis. This time he was more prepared and he pushed Phoebe to the ground before the wrenching jerk ripped away their footing.
As the wave passed, Astron felt a sudden blur of nausea. The trees of the oasis distorted in a blurring rush, as if one were somehow racing by them at a breakneck speed. The broken frame of the engine creaked and groaned where it had fallen. With lifelike spasms, the cracked beams and snapped leather thongs reached for one another, as if they were trying to mend. Some of the spewed flour arched upward from where it had struck the sands and cascaded back into canisters just before their Hds suddenly snapped shut. Astron felt another wave of disorientation. His thoughts slowed and then started off slowly in a direction that he did not understand. They bounced around his head like fragments from a language not quite his own. He could only sit stunned and wait for the feeling to pass.
Eventually, the firmness of the sands returned. Astron started to say more to Phoebe, but saw that already she was preparing to start a fire. Clutching a match tightly in her fist, with a sweeping stroke she ran it along the length of one of the rough-barked branches at her side.
The matchhead grated with the contact and then glowed red from the friction of passage but did not light.
"Better than before." Astron shouted encouragement before she could speak. "Better than before. You must try again."
Phoebe grunted in reply. She grabbed three matches tightly together and with deliberate strength ground them against the wood. The heads sparked dully and then almost unexpectedly burst into a feebly smoky flame.
For an instant Phoebe's eyes widened in disbelief. Then she shook her head. "Some kindling-here in the pouch." She motioned with her free hand. "Make a loose pile of it, Kestrel, before the matches burn out."
Astron grabbed at the small pouch and pulled out dry needles and bits of string. He smoothed a depression in the sand and quickly constructed a fragile dome of small struts and spars. Shielding the delicate flicker of fire with her hand, Phoebe bent the matches to the kindling. She caught her breath waiting for the fire to grow.
Tendrils of smoke enveloped the needles and bits of bark. For a brief instant a small speck of tar began to glow red. But then the weak fire faltered and started to die. Helplessly, she watched each little tongue of flame grow dimmer and, in a final puff of smoke, wink out.
Phoebe fumbled for more matches. "The last three." She held out her hand. "And I see no way that they can be any better than the rest." She sighed and looked at Astron with tears forming in her eyes.
"No, wait," Astron said. "Keep your composure. It is just a matter of the kindling. We need something that more easily absorbs the heat of the matches, something with a large surface area for a given volume." Desperately he looked about trying to seize upon an idea. He heard the sound of clashing swords at the oasis and, somehow above it, the ticking of the clock. The results of each gong had been more violent than the one before. Perhaps they could not withstand the next. They had only moments left before something must be done.
Astron closed his eyes and wrenched at his memories as a cataloguer. Fires, flames, the barrier between the realms-there must be something that he had learned that could be used. What was the purpose of all of his knowledge if not-
Astron stopped with a sudden thought. He lunged at the clutter at Phoebe's feet and pawed through the debris from the engine. "Strike the last three matches," he yelled. "Just as you did before. You are indeed the wizard; without you we cannot succeed."
Phoebe hesitated but then turned back to the twisted branch. She struck the matches a first time. When they did not light, she tried again. Astron turned his eyes away, not having time to watch as she struggled. Groping in the sand he found a flour tin with weak walls and with a quick thrust jabbed a hole in the side near the bottom with the tip of his sword. He felt a sudden slice of pain in his soft hands where he had gripped the blade for control. The sudden wetness was sticky but he pushed the discomfort out of his mind. With a wrench he flung off the top of the tin, sending it sailing away.
Out of the corner of his eye, Astron saw Phoebe returning with the barely flaming matches as before. He twisted his head to the ground and placed his mouth around the indentation he had made in the tin. His shoulder felt the rumble of the ground and he had to use both hands to steady the small container in front of his face.
"Here," he shouted, "as soon as you see the spray."
Astron filled his lungs and blew into the small hole. At first the packed flour on the inside resisted the pressure. Most of his breath spilled back out onto his face; only a small portion blasted into the tin and bubbled toward the upper rim. A fine mist of flour danced from the surface into the air.
"Now," Astron gasped. "Apply the fire when I blow again."
Astron expanded his chest and exhaled even harder, sending a visible white spray skyward in a tiny geyser. Phoebe pushed forward the matches and then dropped them in the tin in surprise. An orangered flame with tongues the length of a forearm suddenly sprang into life.
"Bring over the branches and some of the wreckage of the engine," Astron gasped between breaths. "Spark, kindling, and fuel-they are all essential for any blaze. Unless we supply the third, the fire will go out as soon as I stop." He resumed blowing into the tin, each puff sending the flames higher into the air.
Phoebe nodded and quickly twisted one of the jutting branches of the frame over the spot where Astron lay. The bright tendrils from the burning flour powder bathed the lower contour of the log and then arched around it to flicker higher in the sky. Almost instantly the peeling bark caught fire and a scant moment later began burning on its own.
Astron ceased blowing and tried to stop the rapid breathing so that he could speak again. The human body had disadvantages that appeared at the most awkward of times.
"Be careful, even in your haste," he gasped. "The first mind that you contact might be too pow-"
"Camonel." Phoebe's voice boomed out with a sudden vibrancy. From her cape she sprinkled into the fire some powder that looked the same as what Alodar had used i
n his keep. "I demand the presence and service of Camonel, the one who carries." She darted a quick glance at Astron and smiled. "Oh, Kestrel," she said. "You had faith in me when even my own will faltered. Perhaps I am in some way unique, as each true wizard must be, not the equal of any other but-"
"Careful!" Astron repeated. "You do not know-"
There was a sudden rush of sulphur-tinted air. The great brown djinn that had carried Astron and the others to the realm of the fey stepped from the fire. "The one who reckons instructs that I do not resist," the massive demon said. "Tell me what you wish and I will obey."
"Another of your kind and an inhabitant of the realm of the fey," Phoebe said. "Quickly take us to them wherever they may be."
The djinn bowed. With one powerful swoop of its long arms he coiled Astron and Phoebe to his chest. A single beat of his wings soared them into the air. But before Astron had time to think, the oasis clock struck a fourth time. Straining to look over his shoulder, he saw the sky shimmer into a painful brightness. The network of iridescence intensified and did not fade. Massive clockworks propelled from the glowing nodes and raced earthward. Halfway to the ground, the machineries passed startled rotators and reflectives hurling skyward in return.
Astron felt another wave of disorientation stronger than before. Although he could not be sure, it seemed that even Camonel faltered, loosening his grip and fluttering to the ground.
"It all runs together in confusion," he heard the djinn mutter as he struck with a slight jolt. "Many nodes fused into one. I need not search them out for all that you seek are now here."
Astron felt the wings pull back. With dizzy steps he staggered from the larger demon's embrace. He saw that he was at the edge of a single expansive oasis surrounded by dozens of trees, rather than just six. At most of the subnodes, hundreds of warriors flailed away at each other in a massive melee, every one of them locked in step.
