Riddle of the Seven Realms m-3

by Lyndon Hardy

  "It is the spark, the spark that ignites the kindling and sets the events on their way, a special spark that only a most unique demon can provide. That is the final ingredient, cataloguer. That is why I had to bind you to the quest, to manipulate things so carefully that in the end you would be here."

  Astron tried to shake his head in protest, but Palodad ignored him and rambled on. "Yes, the spark cannot come from any demon; my calculations have shown me that just any shape and intensity of the energy will not do. It must originate from one for whose entire existence the stembrain has remained under control, a clutch brother of mighty djinns, but one who has repressed even the slightest hint of undisciplined thought."

  Palodad pressed his face against Astron's own. "Now, cataloguer, to make the final calculation complete. Surrender, surrender at last to what has churned within you for so long."

  Again Astron attempted to shake his head. He was merely a cataloguer, a stunted djinn without wings, one who could not weave. How could he provide the essence of what the mad demon sought? It could not be true, and yet- As the feelings churned within him, Astron could not deny what the prince had said.

  Palodad was correct, the certainty swelled. He had been correct from the first. All the events had been calculated and there was no other outcome possible. The mad one's great machine, his incredible store of matter, and the pollen that would surely ignite-there was no logical way to resist. Not only would everything that existed vanish totally, but he, Astron, the one who walked, was to be the instrument for that destruction.

  Astron tried to cry out, but he felt his final control slipping away. A ripping pain coursed through him, as if his very being were being torn apart. Thoughts exploded in all directions and bounced about his head. Through eyes wet with tears, he saw Nimbia's face contort with concern. He felt a strange tingling and then sharp nips of pain. His stembrain danced as it had never done before. Crackles of energy popped from his ears and raced down his arms. Purple and brilliant red streamers surged to his back and then onto his thighs. Helplessly, he saw Palodad kick the pollen grain between his feet, and the angry pulses of energy spurted and jumped to meet it.

  Astron felt himself slipping away into a maelstrom of confusion. The lust for destruction within him grew. With the last shred of consciousness, he struggled to pull back the crackling power that radiated from him and keep it away from the prickly sphere waiting for its touch. But he could not hold back the flood. Past his knees, the sheets of plasma danced down onto his shins. White-hot sparks exploded out into the air. In a brilliant flash, globs of pulsing energy rained onto the floor.

  "I have let you agonize long enough in anticipation." Gaspar stepped forward into the darkness of the node. "Now you shall experience a hint of what truly is to come." He extended his arm and pointed at Kestrel's chest. A tiny arc of energy shot from the demon's fingertip and struck the woodcutter just below the throat.

  Kestrel staggered to one knee as the stab of pain exploded across his torso and ran down his arms. He gasped, then gritted his teeth, determined not to cry out. For the longest while, Gaspar had stood silently taunting him while the battles behind the two of them still raged. Now only a few cries and bursts of light illuminated the darkness of the demon realm. Elezar's last defenders swarmed about their prince, but not even the most hopeful could now dispute the final result.

  "What, no pleas for mercy?" Gaspar said. "No appeal to some better part of my nature to make the ending swift?" The djinn stepped forward and grabbed Kestrel beneath the arms and lifted him effortlessly to eye level. "You will grovel before I am done, mortal, grovel like all the rest when they feel the wrath of the prince whose power is the greatest."

  Gaspar's hands started to glow with pulses of energy. Kestrel felt the fabric of his tunic shrivel and part. Waves of heat radiated into his chest. His skin began to blister and flake away. He shook his head from side to side, trying to find the words that would turn Gaspar's attention away-some clever stratagem that would misdirect even a prince of demons from his fiendish pleasure. He looked into Gaspar's eyes and saw only the twisted desire that would not be denied. In despair, he realized that there was nothing that he could say that would save him now.

  Gaspar saw the expression on Kestrel's face and threw back his head with a booming laugh. Short stabs of plasma arched from the demon's shoulders and elbows and smashed into Kestrel's arms, adding rips of pain to the boiling heat that already was almost too much to withstand.

  As the agony intensified, visions began to swim in Kestrel's mind. He thought of Phoebe and what would be her fate after he had gone, of Abel and the warriors behind him still faithfully confining the lieutenants as he had commanded them, and of Astron, a demon most unlike all the rest, of-

  Kestrel reached out and grabbed at the thought as it flitted by. He closed his eyes and concentrated on where it was leading him. Astron would not challenge Gaspar with wily words. He would use whatever solid facts he could and from them determine what must be done.

  Kestrel shifted his focus as quickly as he could through the numbing haze of pain. Gaspar-what was all that had been said about the prince in the times that Astron had spoken of him during the quest? He was a most powerful djinn with his weavings of matter, indeed perhaps the most powerful of all. But in Elezar's rotunda he had been chided for his lack of wit and unwillingness to challenge any wizard who sought-

  Gaspar was a powerful weaver, it was true. Kestrel churned the thought in his mind. But what was Gaspar's strength of will? How well could he fare against the ar-chimage, or Phoebe, or even-?

  "Surrender," Kestrel yelled at the top of his lungs as he seized at the last chance. "Surrender to him who will be your master. It is dominance or submission. There can be no in between."

  "You are no wizard-"

  "Nor need I be. It is only a matter of will," Kestrel gasped. The pain in his sides became excruciating. He thought he could smell the burning of his own flesh. But he lashed out with his mind, seeking the essence of the demon that held him, ready to twist and turn with his last dying gasp. There was nothing else to try.

  Kestrel's sight dimmed into hot glowing yellows. Blindly, his thoughts exploded, not knowing exactly what it was that he sought. He felt his awareness expand in all directions, pushing everything before it. All of his essence of being, his pleasures, his hopes, his fears, and everything of consequence boiled and churned, blasting all else aside.

  Then Kestrel felt a resistance, something that slowed the outswell of thought that swirled midst the pain. Impulsively, he crashed against the barrier, at first skittering against the surface, but then striking it again and again. Visualizing mental arms and legs, he tore at the covering, trying to rip it asunder so that he could plunge inside.

  The images whirled in his mind, but somehow even in the delirium of his pain, he stalked like a hunter, testing the seams of Gaspar's essence one by one. He jabbed a finger into a dark crevasse; when he felt something softer than the rest, he thrust in his hand. Whatever was inside attempted to wither away, but Kestrel was quicker and grabbed and twisted as savagely as he could.

  "Your minions might have victory," Kestrel shouted, "but you will not share in it, Gaspar. I have come too far and changed too much to let it be so. I cannot weave, but it does not matter. My will is the greater because I fight for what I believe, not for some idle amusement to forestall an eventual dawn."

  Kestrel felt his fist rip and tear. A shudder coursed throughout all his body. He reached with his other hand and pulled at Gaspar's being, spreading it open so that it was exposed. He felt a sudden wave of pleading protest, and then a smell of self-loathing that shook him to the core. Fear and submission flooded over him, drenching him in doubt and ultimate despair.

  "Desist, master, desist," Kestrel heard Gaspar say. "Stop your smiting. I am yours to command."

  Kestrel paused. He opened his eyes and blinked. He was lying astride Gaspar's chest as the demon sprawled on the inky blackness of the node. Kestrel looke
d at his bloody hands where he had been ripping at the djinn's face; the flesh of one jowl was hanging limp and oozing green ichor.

  Tears sprang into Kestrel's eyes. Mingling with the lingering pain, he felt a deep catharsis wash over him. After all these years, the burden was finally lifted. His first deceptions and every one that followed he could finally put aside.

  He started to speak, but the node beneath him suddenly rumbled. There was a flash of light that lit the sky from the direction of Palodad's lair.

  "Ah, even in my defeat," Gaspar slurred through the wreckage of his face. "Even in my defeat, it sounds as if my master has still achieved his own triumph, whatever it was that caused him to direct me so."

  Astron's eye membranes snapped into place, but they did not help. The harebell pollen glowed with a white-hot intensity that was greater than any normal flame. Through a series of mirrors, the blinding glare ricocheted out of Palodad's lair and across the darkness of the realm in the direction of Astron's den, evidently a signal that the deed was done. Like a boiling sun, the sphere roared in incandescence, churning the air that surrounded it into waves of convective force. The metal platform on which it rested began to pool into a slaggy liquid. Nearby spars blistered and twisted. The wings of close-flying imps burst into flame.

  But worst of all was the roaring hiss. Even though the air closest to the burning pollen had greatly expanded, it did not bubble away. Instead, scraps of parchment and small loose objects tumbled toward the flame, accelerating as they grew near. Then in a final rush, they vanished into the whiteness. The surface of the realm of daemon had been ruptured. Now its very essence was leaking away to the void of nothingness on the outside.

  Palodad knelt down on his haunches and watched the sucking pressure increase its power. Oblivious to everything else and cackling at the top of his lungs, he snatched imps out of the air and cast them into the flame.

  "The rupture is but a beginning," Palodad cried. He waved about the expanse of his lair. "As more fuel is consumed, the opening will grow. Stronger will become the force pushing every object into its ultimate dissolution. No matter where they hide, no one will be able to resist it. Eventually, all must tumble past Palodad, the one who reckons."

  Astron felt the wind pushing against his back and rushing into the orb of destruction. His entire body was alive with dancing sparks, but he no longer cared. Despite his last futile efforts, he had been unable to stop the mindless rush of his stembrain and to restrain the power that gave rise to the all-important spark. Now all he felt was the compulsive desire to flee, somehow to shake off the rigidity that gripped him, and to hide from the growing suction as long as he was able.

  He looked at Nimbia desperately, a small part of his mind dimly aware of how in the end he had not saved her from Palodad's fate. He saw Phoebe standing next to her, dumbfounded, her mouth open and watching the all-consuming energy of the fire.

  Phoebe, Phoebe and Kestrel, Astron thought. If only the woodcutter had been along for the final confrontation. He would not have let his stembrain get out of control. Somehow he would have used its power instead, exploiting its irrationality rather than becoming its slave. But for himself, a demon, a cataloguer, Palodad's logic had been inescapable. There was no way that-

  Astron gasped despite himself. Indeed, Kestrel would not fight the vagaries of the stembrain. He would not try to keep it under restraint. He would let it roam wherever it led him, seeking out solutions rooted in emotion that mere logic could never find. Astron looked a second time at Nimbia. With a shudder, he surrendered the last vestige of control. Totally unconstrained, he let his stembrain take over his body and do with it what it would.

  Astron felt the sparks that raced over his body intensify. Like Gaspar, tendrils of blue and green flame filled the spans between his fingers. Glowing plasma danced over his lips and across his cheeks. The rigidity that held him melted away. Surrendering completely, he was able to sag to the ground with his legs trembling in mighty spasms and his head jerking from side to side. His tongue poked randomly out between his teeth. A meaningless cry escaped from his lips.

  And inside Astron's mind the images swirled. The safety of his den, Elezar's beautiful spires, the mysteries of the realm of men, the constructions of the fey, the lust of the human body, the merging of two realms into one, the collapse of the universe of the aleators-they all danced and swayed. Colors fused and melted, the touch of smooth surfaces transformed into pungent odors and smells. He sensed his feelings for Nimbia grow into a passion that encompassed all of him and tasted heartbreak because none of her intimate mysteries would he ever experience. She would disappear like all the rest, a pleasure never sampled, a sweetness-

  For an instant the tumble of Astron's thoughts jerked to a halt. He felt himself frown and pulled at the inconsistency that suddenly hovered just outside the reach of his consciousness.

  Palodad had said he had come in service of his prince just as it had been calculated. That was certainly true, but the reason had been replaced by one far more powerful. In the end, it was his feeling for Nimbia, his concern for her safety above all else, his sense of-of possessiveness that had stirred in him so, and that was the motivator of his actions, far more than anything else.

  Everything was not as Palodad had calculated, Astron realized in a rush. The irrationality of feeling, the concern of one being for another, the desire for sharing-the ancient prince had not counted on such things at all,

  Astron glanced down at the pollen grain raging in front of his feet, tasting all the more strongly the natural impulse of any demon to flee. He looked a final time at Nimbia, while his stembrain churned and recalled the powers possessed by the fey. He felt his thoughts explode in one last desperate inspiration. Without trying to weigh its merits, he jerked to his feet suddenly and decided to act.

  Palodad frowned at the sudden motion, but did not move.

  "It will do no good to resist the tug of the void," he said. "Eventually you will be swept away with the rest."

  "You wanted the essence of our realm and all others vented to the outside." Astron stumbled toward him. "It is only fitting that you should experience firsthand what it is like. It is totally irrational, but I will make the sacrifice. Come, together we will make one more journey through the flame-this time to what is truly nowhere."

  Astron heard Nimbia scream behind him, but he paid her no heed. He reached out with both hands and grabbed Palodad in a viselike grip. The prince leaned forcefully to the side, pulling Astron toward the raging flame, and the cataloguer did not resist. Instead, he added his own momentum to Palodad's thrust. Together they tumbled off balance. Holding the surprised prince tightly, Astron plunged headfirst into the center of the pollen grain just as if he were vanishing into a common fire.

  The scene around Astron twisted and shimmered. He felt an immediate numbing cold and a total blackness, deeper than any he had ever seen before. Instinctively, he clamped shut his mouth to preserve what little breath he had in his lungs.

  Astron felt Palodad twist free but he did not care. The feeling of numbing coldness began to grow. He felt his chest start to expand painfully and a sudden bubbling in his ears. His eyes bulged and he could not quite bring them into focus.

  Astron whirled about and saw the feeble glow of the pollen grain sticking through from the realm of daemon into the void. The outrush of air batted against him, forcing him backward. He felt himself begin to drift away.

  With a frantic swipe Astron reached out and grasped at the burning pollen, feeling a numbing pain that roared up his arms and into his chest. He was not sure that what he was going to try would work, but there was no other choice.

  Palodad saw what Astron was attempting and banged the bail in his clawlike hand down on the cataloguer's elbow, trying to force him to release his grip. But Astron's senses were overloaded. The burning flesh in his hands, the numbing cold of the void, and the pressures within trying to dissipate him into the nothingness left no room foranything else. He wrenc
hed at the pollen grain and felt it tremble slightly, like a giant root that would not quite pull free.

  Tightening his grip and ignoring Palodad's rain of blows, Astron pulled himself to the surface that confined the realm. He planted his feet on its strange, spongy surface and arched his back. With a grunt that emptied his chest of any remaining air, he ripped the burning grain free and pulled it out into the void.

  For an instant nothing happened. The light from Palodad's domain outwelled into the blackness. Astron could see the hem of Nimbia's tunic and behind her the rest of the prince's machine. He began to get dizzy from all of the churning impulses in his brain. He felt his thoughts begin to slow. His grip on the pollen grain loosened as Palodad scrambled to rip it free.

  But as consciousness finally faded, Astron noted that the size of the hole into the realm of daemon began to shrink. He watched it close to the diameter of Palodad's metal ball, then to a coin in the realm of men. With a satisfying final rush, the rip vanished altogether and the realm was whole.

  Almost absently Astron turned his attention to Palodad, frantically clawing away at what he possessed. For a second, the two demons wrestled with the sphere that no longer burned. Then with a final burst of energy Astron steadied himself against the outer surface of the realm and heaved the pollen grain as hard as he could I deeper into the fathomless depths of the void.

  Unable to surrender his most precious treasure, Palodad held his grip on the orb as it sailed away. He opened his mouth to scream a protest and no sounds came forth. In a spew of blood and foam, the prince arched into the nothingness and out of sight.

  For a second Astron watched him go. Then he collapsed into a ball as he also began to drift away. He was ready to surrender to his fate; his job was finally done.

  He had done it! Nimbia, the realm of daemon, all of existence, everything had been saved!

  Only dimly was he aware of the transformation taking place around him, the formation of what looked like solid rock, shelves, a small pile of bones, pen and ink, a lock of hair, and three books and other artifacts from the realm of men.