Air gusted from him. “Yes, Lady,” he said. “We will.”
“Master,” the sooty-faced apprentice cried. “Master, look at this.”
A half-smile curving his lips, Prince Rann moved to the boy’s elbow. “What do you see, Inkulri?” he asked. His voice was silken.
The youth shivered. The palace mages could be arbitrary, even cruel, but next to the prince they were mild children. Inkulri was scared to the bone at having to work under Rann’s direct supervision.
Now eagerness overcame apprehension. “Look, Master,” he said again, pointing to the fire-filled crystal dome. “Is that… isn’t that the Princess Moriana?”
Rann’s eyebrows rose. He leaned forward, a small, wiry man dressed in close-fitting clothes of black. His thin, hard face would have been handsome but for the network of tiny white scars that filigreed it from brow to chin.
For a moment, all he saw was the yellow dance of flame. Slowly, his skilled, pale eyes resolved the fires into an image.
“Even so, Inkulri, even so,” he murmured softly. He laid a hand on the apprentice’s shoulder. “You’ve done your city great service. It shall not go unrewarded.”
He took the hand away. Inkulri shivered again, violently, despite the heat of the fire elemental trapped scant inches from his face. Somehow Prince Rann’s promise of reward was more ominous than the direst threats of a master sorceror.
The warm, spicy smell of broth filled Moriana’s nostrils. Gratefully, she sipped the liquid. Its heat suffused her limbs, easing her weariness. She’d had nothing to eat since—had it been just that morning?—sharing the gruel from Fost’s ever-filled bowl.
Her host and hostess sat across the parlor from her. They stared at the princess as though she’d just materialized in a billow of smoke instead of being guided through a labyrinth of alleys to their house by a youthful member of Uriath’s underground. They were simple, solid folk, a master stone mason and his wife, and were utterly overwhelmed by the presence of royalty.
“It’s good of you to shelter me like this, Freeman Onn,” she said, trying to put the man at ease. “I hope you and your wife understand the risk involved.”
Onn nodded gravely. His face was as red as Uriath’s, and his hair as white. But his cheeks were rounder and he had no beard, only snowy sideburns that wisped outward an improbable distance from the sides of his face.
“No one’s safe if Synalon rules,” he said. “We’re glad to help.” His wife Ruda nodded. She was a more or less faithful replica of her husband, though without the sideburns and not balding.
Outside, the sun fell toward the forward edge of the city. The pot of broth bubbled over the hearthfire. The aroma of dove boiled with fennel and spice-lichen lent the air a homelike, comforting aroma.
His jug in its satchel propped against a wall, Erimenes sulked. Moriana had threatened him with dire punishments if he broke silence, first at the gathering of conspirators and now in the mason’s house. She had enough sorcerous power to cow him, at least for the time.
A peremptory rapping on the door made Moriana start. Shaking her head, she realized she’d dozed off. The day had taken a greater toll of her endurance than she’d thought.
The knock came again. “All right, all right,” Onn said peevishly. He padded to the door.
Moriana heard the door open. Onn gave a startled cry that ended in a groan. Cup poised halfway to lips, the woman looked toward the door. The black iron head of a barbed javelin jutted from the center of the mason’s back.
Onn folded, leaking blood. A man in the uniform of a Guardsman stood above him, trying to pull the javelin loose. He’d used a short, heavy dart as a thrusting spear, and the barb had caught on his victim’s ribs.
Ruda said nothing. She rose and went to the hearth, seemingly calm. Moriana stared from the grisly scene in the doorway to her, too stunned to move. Ruda wrapped a cloth about her hand, hoisted the pot off its rack and hurled the boiling contents into the face of her husband’s murderer.
The man shrieked and fell to his knees, clawing at his scalded face. Cursing, a comrade thrust past him. Ruda stood her ground, offering no protest or resistance as he jammed his javelin into her belly, once, twice, three times, forcing her back to stain the wall of her home with blood. He grunted each time his spear point sank in flesh.
Moriana had recovered from her shock. The javelin-butt came back for another jab. A single whistling slash of her sword cut through the back of the man’s neck. He twitched, evacuated his bowels and fell. Ruda dropped atop him. She died without uttering another sound.
The burned man was keening horribly. An officer barked orders as more soldiers crowded past the injured one. Moriana’s sword flickered restlessly before her, scattering shards of reflected firelight.
Uriath? Had he betrayed her? If so, he’d also betrayed his own secret meeting place and the rest of the underground, as well. Not him, not from what she knew of him. But how? No time to wonder. Five soldiers faced her, poised for the attack.
“Take her alive or you’ll go to Rann in her place,” the officer bawled from the doorway.
The Guards closed in. They were at a disadvantage, and knew it. They’d have to grapple with Moriana to capture her, and the straight sword made that risky.
Moriana moved first. A bird rider sank with a gurgling cry, strangling on his own blood, his throat pierced. A Guard seized the woman. She raked nails across his face and kneed his groin, spun to slice open another’s belly and danced back from their clutching hands.
She panted, trying to catch her wind. The officer shouted into the street. The man with the burned face lay at his feet, head hacked apart. The officer had cut him down to clear the door.
More soldiers poured in. Shouting with hopeless anger, Moriana threw herself among them, cutting wildly. Her sword bit flesh, spattering the once-neat parlor with blood.
A Guardsman ran in with a saddle-cloth taken from his war-bird outside. Moriana lunged at him. Her sword point pierced the cloth and the soldier’s heart. The cloth came down over her head, blinding her.
“Marvelous! What action!” she heard Erimenes applaud. Then the soldiers bore her down.
CHAPTER FIVE
Scarcely breathing, Fost lay on the hilltop. His cheek itched abominably. He was allergic to the oilbush, but he found no other cover on the rise overlooking the lonely balloon dock with its slumped stone walls.
A hundred yards away he’d come upon a large, long-legged dog asleep in the shadow of a cutback along a stream. Nearby lay saddle and tack of exquisite manufacture. The creature rose to its feet, surprise and sadness in its eyes, as Raissa and Wigma ran barking to sniff the riding gear. The leather was obviously ripe with the scent of gruel they’d been tracking since morning. Mount and equipage were Moriana’s.
It had long been clear to Fost that the thief was making for the Sky City. Now, with the city like a stone cloud above, he would proceed afoot, as Moriana had, and see if he couldn’t find a way of following her aloft.
He never doubted that she’d found a way up. When he’d peered over the top of the knoll, his guess was confirmed.
For ten minutes he’d watched the dock. The three soldiers on duty seemed occupied by some debate. He heard snatches of it—“Must have been a dream…” and “A sending of the Dark Ones, I tell you!” and “No, no, some joker laced our rations with dream-powder….”—but paid scant attention. He was too occupied trying to form a plan.
He knew he could slaughter the three. Like most Sky City dwellers, they were short, though one was much rounder than the whip-lean norm. That lulled him little, since he’d had ample grief at the hands of small, wiry bird riders. But, by their slouching and carelessness, he guessed these three were no elite Guards. As caught up in their argument as they were, he felt sure he could sneak to within a sword’s stroke of them unseen.
The problem was the balloon. He knew the principle: the fire elemental heated air, which became lighter and rose, carrying the balloon up with it a
long the guidelines. However, the courier had no idea how the elemental was controlled. If it was by spell, he was in trouble. He didn’t relish the thought of inadvertently setting the salamander loose.
Time pressed. Its motion all but imperceptible, the Sky City passed ponderously overhead. Fost guessed that before long the sentries would have to ascend or be left behind. He had almost decided to overrun the soldiers and try to catch one alive to operate the damned balloon when something came whizzing down from the city to bounce with a clank! against the rusted windlass.
The soldiers jumped at the noise. They clustered around the object, a small cylinder attached to a set of pulley wheels to ride the lines. The one with corporal’s insignia opened it and pulled out a message.
His face showed consternation. “I’m ordered back to the Sky City at once,” he said. “I wonder what this can mean.”
The others exchanged looks that said they doubted it meant well.
“This reeks of trouble,” the corporal said. “If the powers above have dreamed up some imaginary misdeed to take me to task for, as the Dark Ones are my witness I’ll have one of you slugs along to stick with the blame!” He gazed narrowly from one horrified trooper to the other. “You’re elected, Tugbat. Haul your round, red arse into the gondola and make ready to lift. You’ll stay, Risrinc. Give my love to the brigands.”
Horror-struck, Tugbat waddled over and climbed into the wicker basket. The corporal got in next. When Moriana had compelled him to take her to the city, he’d released the windlass, which meant the gasbag had to raise the weight of the guidelines as well as the passengers. Tugbat was more knowledgeable. The gondola was tethered to a runner on the line; the fat man undid the clutch that made the runner grip the guy so that the pulley inside could freewheel up the strand. The windlass was meant to crank the balloon down.
Fost neither knew this nor cared. He saw his chance to reach the city, if he could act fast enough.
Sword out, he was up and running down the hill even as the elemental began to roar and the balloon began to lift. Risrinc stood gazing up at his comrades. The sound of a heavy footfall brought him around. Fost cut him down. He couldn’t have the young soldier seizing his legs as he tried to climb into the gondola.
A leap, a grab, a quick heave of powerful shoulders, and he was in the basket. His antics made it swing wildly. Tugbat pitched against him as the corporal shouted contradictory orders.
Fost grappled with the pudgy soldier. Tugbat was far from his match in strength, but between the soldier’s girth and Fost’s size, the three were packed snugly into the tiny gondola. Fost had no room to maneuver. Air blasted upward through the firebox. In panic, the corporal had thrown the vents wide.
The balloon shot skyward. Accidentally, Fost glanced over the side to see the ground receding at a horrible rate. His stomach did a somersault. Ust and Gormanka had never intended their children to be so far from earth without solid rock of mountain or rampart beneath their feet.
Pain scared his side. He gasped. Tugbat had drawn a dirk and was busily trying to saw him in two at the waist.
“All right, damn you,” Fost bellowed. “If you’re going to do that, get out and walk!” He raised the squirming trooper above his head and cast him over the side. Tugbat howled down the several hundred feet that already separated balloon from ground.
Fost had no time to watch. He turned to face a shining arc of steel. With Tugbat gone, the corporal had found space to draw his blade.
For a moment they stood, gazes locked. The corporal swayed easily to allow for the rocking of the gondola. He might be a fool, but he was more at home in this devilish contraption than was Fost. If Fost tried to draw steel he’d lose an arm. Either staying put or leaping for his foe would get him gutted, and he had no wish to follow Tugbat. That left but one way.
The corporal lunged. Breathing a prayer to his patrons, Fost sprang up and back. His hands caught shrouds, and his feet found purchase on the rim of the basket. The corporal slashed. Fost pulled up his feet. The scimitar whooshed beneath him, severing lines.
Before his opponent could ready another swing, Fost clambered up onto the rope network containing the gasbag itself. For a moment he clung like a suckling child to the giant teat that was the balloon. A jiggling in the lines told him his foe was climbing after him.
He ripped out his sword and waved it in the corporal’s face. With a squeal of anger and fear, the man dropped back into the gondola. Fost shut his eyes as the balloon lurched crazily.
The taut fabric of the bag stung his cheek with heat. Curses assailed him from below. He peered down at his adversary, taking care not to let his gaze slip over the side of the gondola. The basket hung at a slight but discernible angle. The cut shroud lines had let one side drop a few inches.
Gripping the gondola’s rim, the corporal began to throw his weight from side to side in an attempt to dislodge the courier. Fost gulped and clung tighter. He got a grip in the lines by his waist, timed the pitch of the balloon and bent down in a fast swoop.
The corporal dropped to the bottom of the basket as Fost’s sword swung past his head. The stroke wasn’t aimed at him. Stays parted with a whisper, causing the basket to tilt further. Fost reeled himself in and pressed against the flank of the balloon.
As the corporal picked himself up, Fost began to edge around the curve of the bag, his booted toes scrabbling for holds in the netting. // everlasting life is to be filled with adventures of this sort, he thought, perhaps I should settle for the usual span.
Fost ground his teeth as a blade bit into his calf. The corporal had grabbed an intact line and jumped up to slash at him. Steel ripped at Fost’s legs again. He didn’t try to evade the blows. If he dodged them he’d lose his grip. All he could do was hang on and hope the corporal didn’t hamstring him.
Between cuts he swung down and chopped another pair of shrouds. Upright again, he chanced a look up. The Sky City loomed scant yards above the balloon. Its under-surface shone mirror-smooth and bright, and slightly convex. The stone piers of the skydock jutted like mandibles from its leading edge.
Fost leaned down and cut the final shrouds.
Balloon and gondola went separate ways. Fost had a last glimpse of the corporal’s pale, astonished face. Then the basket screamed away down the guys, and the gasbag, freed from most of its load, rocketed up past the rim of the city.
At once Fost was faced with a new difficulty: the ludicrous chance that he’d miss the Sky City altogether. Freed of the gondola, corporal, firebox, and guiding lines, the balloon rose rapidly, a breeze carrying it over the city proper. Fost wondered how long it would take the heated air in the bag to begin to cool enough for descent. He didn’t have long to wait. When it came down to twenty feet above the street, he jumped clear.
Having had some experience leaping out second-story windows a pace or two ahead of sword-swinging husbands, Fost knew how to curl up and roll as he landed. Still, the impact jarred him. He measured his length on the uneven pavement, feeling as if his bones had been jolted loose from their joints.
The balloon soared again, this time freed of all burden. With a squawk and sudden boom of wings, what seemed a thousand ravens boiled from rookeries under the eaves of the high, narrow buildings all around. Cawing raucously, they circled the balloon, tearing at the gaily colored fabric. In seconds the gasbag was shredded, bits of cloth fluttering down like crippled butterflies.
Fost picked himself up, rubbing the back of his head and wondering if the knock on the skull had made him imagine the slashing attack of the ravens. But no, he saw them settling back into their nesting places, croaking in satisfaction as if they’d just repelled a major invasion.
“Ust,” he moaned, “Gormanka, and the Five Holy Ones, as well.”
“Those names have no power here,” a voice said from behind.
He wheeled, clutching for his sword. Too late he realized he’d dropped it as he jumped. It lay on the stone, far out of reach. Then he looked at the speaker and
knew he’d have no need for the weapon.
“You chose a hazardous mode of entering our city,”
she said. “The ravens attack anything that flies above the level of the guard wall, and their talons are poisoned. Who are you, and why do you come here?”
Fost took his time answering. She was young, hardly more than a girl, and slight with a lithe slenderness that gave the illusion of more height Her short-sleeved green tunic and brief trews left her tanned, shapely limbs mostly bare. Her face was oval, the nose fine, cheeks softly contoured with all framed by square-cut brown hair. Dominating the face were the eyes, as huge and golden as coins.
“I’m Fost Longstrider, and I seek a thief.”
Lips and eyes smiled as she said, “There are many here.”
“This one’s name is Moriana.” He bent to recover his blade.
The girl’s eyebrows rose fractionally and her mouth tensed. From somewhere came shouts and the sound of hobnails striking cobblestones.
“Come,” she said. “The Monitors will be here soon to see what provoked the ravens.” She spun and tried to dart into a nearby alley.
Fost caught her waist. “Where are you taking me?”
“None is allowed up from the surface since the death of Queen Derora,” she said. “Yet you rode up by balloon—alone. Did you kill the soldiers on guard below?”
“Two of them—at least.” Fost grinned wolfishly. “I’m not sure how the corporal fared.”
“Then I take you to friends.”
“Go, my children,” Synalon purred. “Go forth and burn the traitors out!” Blinding coruscations of yellow flame capered above the buildings. Indigo smoke, rank with herbs and incense, roiled forth to spiral around the sorceress.
Cluttering sounds came from the three salamanders.
Their sinuous reptilian shapes flickered this way and that. Synalon clapped her hands three times and gestured at the high-arched window standing open to the dusk. Like three small comets, the elementals leaped from the grill and streaked away.
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