by Lyndon Hardy
"But if luck loses to some other method, then what is the purpose, what is the meaning?" Myra shrieked above all the rest.
The moaning of the crowd increased. Kestrel saw an entire section clasp hands and begin swaying back and forth to the cadence of a chant: "Calculation, calculation and skill."
Kestrel felt a twinge in his stomach. The ground under his feet suddenly felt less firm. He glanced up at one of the large windows in the far wall and saw that apparently the fog had begun to move back onshore. A subtle vibration began tickling the soles of his feet and migrating up his legs into his spine. Obviously, the use of something other than luck in the confrontation of Jelilac and Myra was deeply disturbing to all those who watched. And somehow the mood was contagious, affecting everything about them as well.
"Something is happening." Kestrel drew Phoebe close. Something, something-the thought suddenly hit him- something like two realms of symmetry starting to merge.
"Yes," Phoebe said. "I feel it, too. Only this time, there is no other realm of which the aleators speak." She glanced wildly at the dimming rays of the sun, filtering through the colored glass. She pressed herself into Kestrel's side. "And if not merging, what transformation could it possibly be?"
Kestrel looked helplessly at the distance to the fire behind the tapestries and the mighty djinn standing arms akimbo in front, watching the spinner slowing to rest. He felt the heel of his boot begin to sink into an oozy soup. Except for the burning tapestries, the high corners of the casino seemed to start fading away. Things were converging too fast. He would have to chance getting Phoebe closer to the demon, no matter what the risk.
Kestrel took in a deep breath and prepared to vault over the barrier. Perhaps if he ran ahead, she would see where it was safe to follow. But before he could move, a new voice sounded from a tunnel behind him.
"Stop," it said. "The contest has not yet run its course. There is the entry of one more who destiny decrees will win. Yes, it is I, Byron, who has come as it has been preordained."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Will to Believe
ASTRON looked out over the nearly deserted casino floor. Only two contingents remained of what initially must have been many. He saw the djinn Camonel standing next to a spinner that was gradually slowing to a stop. Behind him, Jelilac was motioning the sluggish beam onward so that it would come to rest just to the left of the vertical.
Astron saw smoke curling above the canvas tapestries from the fire that had brought forth the demon and, not far away, what looked like anvilwood in another of the low barricades. Near the center of the floor, the second group of aleators stood transfixed, all watching the final sweep of the spinner. Astron's membranes flicked down over his eyes. In their midst, there could be no mistake; there was Kestrel with the pollen-filled knapsack still on his back.
Astron looked out at the scatter of small craters and mangled bodies and hesitated. Kestrel would use some clever tactic, he thought, rather than rushing pell-mell into certain danger. His stembrain strained to be free, but, despite the urgency, he had to think and plan.
Byron started out onto the casino floor. Astron tugged at his arm. "Why challenge two groups when, if you wait a moment, you will have to contend only with the victor?" the demon said. "Fate will determine which of them it is to be."
Byron grunted. He relaxed the tension in his sword arm. The blade slowly arched earthward and buried its tip into the soft ground. The aleators in the stands saw that the tall warrior had stopped his challenge and turned their attention back to the slowing spinner.
"Ninety-one," Camonel called out as it barely slid past one peg and then stopped as it touched another. "Ninety-one, just as it has been predicted."
The murmur of the crowd grew in intensity. Only a few shouted accolades pierced the indistinct rumble that coursed from tier to tier.
"Your talismans, Myra." Jelilac beamed in triumph. The aleator paid no attention to the waves of sound mounting behind him. "You were the most likely to offer serious competition. With your defeat, no other can seriously offer a challenge now."
"But you used calculation." Milligan suddenly shook off his restraint. "It is not right. Not by such a means should you become the archon."
"The most trusted advisor is a position coveted by many." Jelilac frowned in Milligan's direction. "Do not protest too much, or I will have to select another." He motioned to the retainers that remained, directing them to fan out and receive the spoils of their victory.
Astron saw Myra slump into a heap. She squinted at the spinner, resting clearly in the region that Camonel had predicted, and shook her head. "Nine chances out often," she muttered. "It was worth the chance." She glanced at Jelilac's smile and then turned away. "I will offer no resistance to the removal of my charms," she said, suddenly sounding far more ancient than she looked. "Remember, I am but an old woman." She waved her arm back to the central barricade. "Come, my followers, come. Do not resist. It would be ungracious to prolong my harm."
Astron saw Kestrel and Phoebe join the procession winding its way across the casino floor to Jelilac's canvas frame. The demon looked quickly at Byron, but the warrior had not yet lifted up his sword. Moving the pollen closer to the fire could only help, but it was not yet time to act.
"No! I cannot let it happen." Milligan suddenly sprang away from the rest. He drew a short dagger from his belt and waved it over his head. "It is luck that shall triumph in the end; it must be the stronger. It must. It must."
Jelilac's frown deepened. He motioned to two of his retainers, and they drew their swords. Cautiously, they began to close in on Milligan from both sides.
A great roar of approval suddenly ripped through the stands as Milligan deftly dogged the attack. He drew his own blade and slashed at one as he passed, streaking the tunic sleeve with red. Ducking his head, he just barely missed a tumbling grenade which exploded harmlessly behind.
Short strokes of the dagger somehow darted through hastily erected guards, and two more of Jelilac's followers sagged to the ground. Jelilac's eyes widened. He quickly stepped backward and looked at the massive djinn standing by the motionless spinner.
"Help me!" he cried as he clutched at his chest. "My talismans are many, but now that I have experienced the power of your master's predictions and been close to the flame, I no longer feel so confident that they-"
Jelilac's voice trailed off. He looked in disbelief down at his stomach and then clutched his hands over a gaping wound. His face turned ashen white. With eyes staring into nothingness, he slid to the ground.
For a moment, Milligan stood silent, staring at what he had done. Then, as the realization dawned, like the doll of a thaumaturge, he jerked back into life.
"I am the victor, the archon." He danced back with his bloody blade. "As our creators must have intended-luck favors the believer."
The roar of the crowd intensified. Some started leaping up and down, shaking the tiers in violent oscillations. Milligan smiled and waved his dagger over his head with one hand while fondling the talismans about his neck with the other.
"No." Camonel's impassive expression suddenly distorted into one of malice. His voice was heard even above the chanting spectators. "Luck is not to be the victor. My master does not wish it so." With a speed surprising for his size, the djinn batted at Jelilac's framework, tumbling it aside. He reached backward and extracted a burning branch of pinewood from the still smouldering fire.
"I am a weaver of matter," he growled as he waved it menacingly in front of Milligan's face. "Here, in a realm other than my own, it is easy." Deep furrows etched into the djinn's forehead. He studied the dance of flame for a moment, and then the log seemed to burst asunder. Five globes of what looked like white-hot magma arched from his hand and landed in a pentagon around where Milligan stood.
"My master has calculated, and five will be enough," the djinn boomed out so that everyone could hear. "The heat is intense, and eventually each and every charm he carries about his neck wi
ll crack. The one you call Milligan will succumb to calculation, just as have all the rest."
Camonel tossed back his head and laughed. "Let the fogs of nothingness come forward," he yelled. "Let them come forward and dissolve all that there is. Then there will be one less. Where once there was a realm, there will be only the nothingness of the void." He stepped back suddenly into the flame. The fire roared with a burst of yellow brightness. Then he was gone.
The yells of aleators in the stands stopped just as suddenly as they had begun. The low murmur of unrest and disbelief from before instantly returned. Like a pendulum gathering energy with each swing, their emotions rocked back and forth, each time more violently than before.
Milligan tried to dance between two of the glowing globes of fire on the ground, but backed up and hesitated when the outermost of his talismans began to blister. Astron saw beads of sweat pop out on his forehead above eyes starting to fill with helpless panic. He bent forward and blew tentatively on the fiercely glowing globes of light, then shook his head when he saw that they were perturbed not at all. He raised his hands expectantly, as if calling for the intervention of unseen gods. For a long moment, he did not move. Then, in an almost perfect imitation of Myra, he slumped into the center of the pentagon that surrounded him. One by one he began removing his talismans and tossing them at the flames.
"Then the newcomer," Astron heard someone in the stands nearby shout. "The one on the sidelines yet to be heard. He is the chance, the final chance that luck will triumph after all."
Somehow the spectators all heard and understood. Again they stopped their keening. As one, they held their breaths.
"Luck has nothing to do with my presence here," Byron called back. "It is the decree of preordained fate. I carry no talismans, and I do not need their aid in my fight."
Shrieks of despair exploded from the crowd. Their emotions swung back to despair far deeper than before. Whole blocks of spectators suddenly rose from where they sat. With eyes suddenly brimming with tears, they began to embrace those next to them with heart-wracking sobs. Astron felt the ground tremble as it had done in the realm of the reticulates and felt the caress of a chilling wind across his cheek. It was as if a dam had finally broken. There was no hope left that would stem the outrushing tide.
"It is just as I was foretold such a long time ago," Centuron called out behind Astron in flushed excitement. "And by the fates, Byron is not even needed. The self-doubt has started even before he appeared. I have survived long enough, long enough to see it happen. Even if he does not triumph, the end will be the same."
The keening of the crowd rose to an ear-piercing crescendo. Moans of anguish became more frequent, and loud sobbing mingled with the rest. Astron wrinkled his nose. The ground under his feet definitely felt less firm than when he had first entered. The pillars and arches that held aloft the roof of the casino were somehow less distinct than before. Only a deep black painted the high window where the sun had been.
A growing uneasiness coursed up Astron's legs and into his chest. The phenomena were intereseting, but he could not force himself to consider dispassionately exactly what was taking place. He felt his stembrain writhe within the confines of his control with far greater power, straining to be free. He looked about the casino floor. All of the aleators there had fallen to their knees. With eyes focusing on nothing, they rocked back and forth and keened with the rest. Only Kestrel and Phoebe were still alert, looking apprehensively all about. Astron had waited long enough. Now was the time.
Astron looked at the beckoning anvilwood and then turned back to Centuron. "The mines of which you spoke as we entered," he said. "What is their danger? Quickly, I must know."
Centuron squinted at Astron and then threw back his head. The laughter tumbled from his lips in gasping wheezes. For several moments, he shook in spasms, unable to regain control. Astron clenched his fist in frustration, eyeing again the distance to the anvilwood, Camonel's smouldering fire, and Kestrel and the pollen, unable to decide which was to be the first objective.
"Byron and the others." Centuron ignored the question when he finally could speak. "They are all one and the same, driving down the one path to mutual destruction. Each in his own way has surrendered his free will to the ether and has given up any stake in determining events by his own volition. And with each such submission, on a level far below their conscious thought, the self-doubt has increased and the reason for existence has become less firm. We indeed are the mere puppets of some other creator, a bubble of life breathed into being by gods that have walked away."
"Demon," Nimbia said suddenly. "I do not like what I see. The fey can create realms out of their thoughts, but that is not what sustains them, once they are born. Only so long as the occupants believe in their own existence does what they inhabit continue to resist the pressures that push against them from the outside. All the aleators here-look at them. They slump and-"
Centuron interrupted Nimbia's words with another peal of laughter. "We are all gathered here, almost all of the occupants of our realm. We now face what we have hidden in our hearts and refused to believe. There is no purpose to existence. The triumph of predestination over luck proves it. It is the end of the universe and everyone that it contains."
"There are thousands here." Astron shook his head. "One spin of the wheel and a few words cannot affect everyone so."
"Despite your great misfortune, you are not one of us," Centuron said. "You cannot know the importance of what has transpired."
"I wish to continue living," Nimbia said fiercely as she placed her hands around Byron's arm. "Surely others do as well."
Centuron waved at the casino walls a final time. "Observe the dissolution of the fabric of existence," he said. "You and your companion are too few to keep alive an entire universe when it no longer has the will to live."
Byron looked down at Nimbia and then glanced at the fuzzy haze seeming to blur the spectators on the wall farthest away. He licked his lips and patted Nimbia's hand on his arm. "Perhaps Centuron is right," he said in a husky voice. "Perhaps afterward there will not be enough time."
Byron released the grip on his blade. He wiped the back of his hand against his lips and looked with glowing eyes at Nimbia. "There is nothing more I can do about the others." He waved back toward the center of the casino floor. "But now, at least I can succumb to the joys of my temptation." He spread his hands wide and, with a slow deliberate motion, reached to draw Nimbia to him.
"Wait, wait a moment, Byron." Nimbia hesitated and then smiled. "I know you do not fully understand my words, but this is not what I had in mind." She waved her arm around the casino. "First we must do something about the will of the people. If you truly are a leader, then rally their beliefs to save us all." Her smile brightened. "Do your duty. Then you will deserve the reward."
Astron's stembrain boiled. He gritted his teeth, pulling it back under control. He looked at Nimbia's smile and then back at Byron, baring the fangs that were no longer there.
"No," Astron said. "The hillsovereign is not yours to do with what you will. As she states, her favor is to be for the most deserving-and not because of what emotions she excites, but the qualities she has inside. She is not yours, Byron; she is-she is mine!"
Not fully realizing what he was doing, Astron fumbled for the sword at his side. He glanced around the casino and saw the closing fog obscuring the farthest stands. The sound of the keening faded into softness and then vanished altogether. The ground underneath his feet felt like a thin sheet of linen loosely stretched over a tub of water. The wetness of the swirling fog began to glisten on his cheeks, as if he were exposed to a gentle rain.
"Do not be overly alarmed, demon," Nimbia said quickly. "I am sure that Byron has sufficient nobility to be different from the-"
She stopped as she saw the gleam in Byron's eye intensify. He spread his arms in a wide circle. Nimbia took a step backward and then halted as her foot touched the edge of the stadium wall. She looked back helplessl
y, her eyes growing wide with fear.
"It is your fate to be so unlucky," Byron said. "Such beauty was meant to be consumed."
"Underneath it all, I am a person like anyone else," Nimbia said, pain and disappointment putting a bitter edge to her voice. "Judge me for that and nothing else. That is all I ask."
"The allure is too great." Byron shook his head. "There is no one who can resist, no one who can look past the exterior with dispassion to see if there is any other value inside."
"Somewhere there must be at least one." Nimbia put out her hands to ward off his approach. She looked about frantically and then stopped when she saw Astron rushing to her.
"Dem-Astron!" she shouted. "Astron, help me. He is like all the rest. Only you are different. Please, quickly do something. There is so little time."
"The mines! What are they?" Astron yelled at Centuron as he stepped in Byron's way. "Tell me so that I may act."
"We do not know where any are buried." Centuron waved his arm. "But it does not matter. They will dissolve with the rest. Far better that-"
"Buried," Astron interrupted. "Did you say buried?"
"Why, yes-"
"That explains the blotchy appearance of the casino floor," Astron said. "With my membranes down I see far into the red, even into what is called heat in the realm of men. And turned earth is colder than that which has been in contact with the air."
He broke off and reached behind to grab Nimbia's outstretched hand. Ducking to the right, he avoided the swat of Byron's arm and started running out onto the casino floor, pulling her behind. He jogged to the right of a seemingly different-textured plot of ground and then sharply veered back to the left. Behind him, he heard Nimbia stumbling after and Byron's heavy tread in pursuit.
