by Julian May
The iron-bound door banged open. Four men, bare to the waist and having their heads covered with black leather hoods, marched inside. They were followed by the Empress Naelore, who was dressed in a maroon velvet robe trimmed with silver-blue diksu fur. She wore a simple platinum diadem on her coiled hair, and hanging from her neck was the Star of Nerenyi Daral.
“Good morrow,” she said. When no one responded, she tossed her head, smiling thinly. “You will learn politeness soon enough! Unless a certain Archimage decides that she values your paltry lives above her talisman.” She nodded to the torturers. “Make ready.”
The men went efficiently about their business. One took a poker to the fire, two began cranking away at a winch behind the forge, and the fourth checked the restraints on the grisly stone slab.
The Empress struck a dramatic pose, hands on high, and cried out in a loud voice to the thin air. “Haramis, Archimage of the Land! I know that you are able to hear and see us. I, too, have secret friends in the realm of magic! One of them, speaking covertly in my ear, has told me how to secure the Three-Winged Circle. Come now, Archimage! Abase yourself before me and give up your talisman, and these captives will be spared. Ignore me and they will endure a frightful death.”
The torturers wound away at the winch, hauling something out of the coals. Slowly, a white-hot iron drum emerged, an ell or so long and perhaps two handspans in diameter. Through it ran a horizontal bar, having at its ends rings connecting it to the twin chains. When the cylinder was hoist above the foot of the slab and somewhat cooled, the prisoners were able to see that the thing was a kind of roller. Its incandescent surface was studded with a myriad of sharp spikes.
“Heldo’s Holy Haunches!” breathed the awe-struck Ledavardis. The others, save Gyorgibo, who had known well enough what to expect, were too appalled to utter a word.
“Haramis!” Naelore lifted her Star. “Do not tarry! It is sunrise. The deadline that I posed to you has come.”
Nothing happened.
Kadiya spoke out. “Empress, does the Star Master know and approve of this torture?”
“Be silent, witch!” Naelore commanded.
But Kadiya persevered. “I told you last night that my sister Haramis was visiting the Three Moons. She is unable to respond to a magical hail. I myself was unable to bespeak her, even using the two talismans. This ploy of yours is useless.”
“Sister, why do you do this?” Gyorgibo cried in entreaty. “Kill me, if you must, but these others have done you no harm.”
“She has!” the Empress raged. “The haughty White Lady! And if she lives, she will hear their cries, whether she resides with the Man in the Moon or hides in the lowest of the ten hells.” And again she called out to Haramis, in tones increasingly furious and frenzied.
The Archduke shook his head. “Playing at sorcery has unhinged her reason.”
“No,” Anigel said sadly. “It is another kind of derangement that afflicts her.”
“Be quiet!” Naelore roared. “Or I will have your tongues torn out!”
The captives fell silent. One of the hooded men said, “Imperial Majesty, all is ready.”
Drops of perspiration beaded the high brow of the Empress and her face was flushed. She began pacing back and forth in front of the five chained captives, twisting her Star on its chain with a restless hand. “Which one shall be the first to feel the fiery roller’s caress? The ugly and foolhardy Pirate King? … Nay, I think not. He is insufficiently beloved by the White Lady. Why should she trade her talisman for the life of a one-eyed, hunchbacked sea-bandit? And for that same reason I will neither choose you, my worthless baby brother, even though your agony would give me the greatest pleasure.” She uttered a giddy laugh.
Gyorgibo’s face had become a stony mask. He did not deign to speak.
The Empress paused to confront Anigel. “Shall it be this woebegone and grubby Queen? Poor pathetic creature! Ah—but you sprained your ankle attempting to escape, didn’t you, and fainted away from that insignificant pain as my warlords fetched you here. I fear you would perish with unseemly swiftness under the torture, perhaps before the Archimage even took note of your cries of agony.”
“Try me, Skritek spawn,” hissed Kadiya, straining at her chains.
Naelore pretended to consider the suggestion. “The brave witch who would have thwarted our invasion and deprived me of my throne! But you wept when I gave your talisman to the Star Master. You bawled like a whipped snithe pup! I think I would like to see you weep again, and beg my clemency”—she stepped forward and seized Prince Tolivar by his hair—“as this treacherous brat finally pays the penalty for sinning so grievously against you.”
“He is forgiven by us all!” Kadiya shouted.
But Naelore beckoned peremptorily, and two of the torturers came to unfasten the Prince from the wall fetters and drag him unprotesting to the long granite slab. The hooded men fussed about, having trouble adjusting the gyves to accommodate Tolivar’s slight body; but finally the boy was immobilized at the low end of the tilted slab.
The Empress came and brushed aside a lock of damp fair hair that had fallen into the Prince’s eyes. “You must be able to see, brave lad,” she cooed. Then she shouted to the ceiling, “And the Archimage Haramis must also see! Watch his face, White Lady, as the fiery roller burns and crushes him from toe to head.”
She snapped her fingers. Two of the torturers bent again to the winch, this time unwinding it. The other pair hauled away at a thick rope that swung the traveling block and tackle forward, so that the heavy, red-glowing drum came down precisely onto the slab’s upper end, less than an ell and a half away from the Prince’s feet. The spiked cylinder touched the inclined stone surface and, of itself, began to move with excruciating slowness toward the boy, shrieking hideously on its axle-bar. The men at the winch left off their labors and stood back expectantly, while the others on the rope controlled the roller’s progress, lest it do its job too quickly.
“Haramis!” Naelore cried. She stood at the slab’s opposite end, just behind Tolivar’s head. “Are you watching?”
The flagstone floor of the torture chamber trembled.
“Earthquake!” Ledavardis shouted, but no one heeded him—least of all the Empress. Her eyes were locked upon the advancing roller and her hands gripped the edge of the stone torture-bed.
The fiery cylinder on its chains was pulled sideways as the room swayed, but Naelore only braced herself, waiting. Spikes grated on the rough stone, flinging sparks in all directions, as all four torturers hauled at the rope and got the smoking roller back on course. It continued toward Prince Tolivar.
There was another tremor more violent than the first.
The torturers howled curses, staggering against one another and dancing about, trying to hang on to the rope while avoiding hot coals that spilled from the ruptured forge in an incandescent welter. A great crack rent the wall opposite the chained prisoners, and instruments of torment that had hung there fell clanging to the floor. From beneath the chamber came a profound rumbling, shot through with creaks and an uncanny moaning sound.
The spiked cylinder accelerated along the slab. The four men abandoned the rope and ran from the room in spite of the angry cries of the Empress. Tolivar felt the heat scorch the soles of his boots, and a wail like that of a terrified infant was torn from his lips.
Above him, a dazzling white figure sprang into existence. He saw the Archimage Haramis pointing her talisman. His shackles sprang open and his helpless form levitated, flying sideways as the fiery drum, no longer restrained, sped over the place where he had lain.
At the slab’s end it swung out on its chains like a glowing pendulum. The Empress Naelore tried to back away from it, too panic-stricken to call upon the magic of her Star. It struck her full in the face. Tolivar, now shrieking for his mother, felt himself lowered to the floor. Beneath the oscillating red-hot cylinder was a thing that writhed and convulsed and would not be still.
The boy’s gorge rose
as a vile odor of burnt cloth and seared meat reached his nostrils. He fell to his knees, vomiting, then tried to pull himself together as he heard the Archimage call his name. She had freed the other prisoners and was herding them toward the door.
“Tolo! Hasten!”
When he faltered, compelled irresistibly to look back at the horror he might have suffered himself, Haramis soared to him and seized his hand. Far overhead, something cracked with a thunderous report and the vaulted ceiling of the torture chamber began to collapse. The Prince flew over the flagstones, through the doorway, and into the corridor, dragged along behind the shining white cloak.
When he touched down again the floor was solid beneath his feet. The temblors seemed to have ended and the masonry of the corridor held firm. Nearly all of the wall-cressets had fallen from their brackets, but they still flickered in the dust-laden air. Queen Anigel snatched Tolivar up in a joyful hug. The others stood about coughing and exclaiming with relief.
When they had all caught their breaths, Haramis said, “Sisters, I have something for you, which I liberated from your captors.” In each hand she held a glowing droplet of trillium-amber, strung on simple thongs. Anigel and Kadiya took their amulets, kissed them, and hung them about their necks.
There were no sounds at all from the demolished torture chamber, but faint cries came from the other direction.
Ledavardis, who remembered too well the earthquake that had attended the siege of Derorguila, spoke urgently. “We must get to open ground quickly. If another tremor strikes, it may bring the palace down around our ears.”
Kadiya addressed the Archimage. “Can you carry us off by magic?”
“I’m sorry. That would require great strength, and mine was depleted earlier when I rescued the other kidnapped rulers from—”
“They are safe?” Anigel exclaimed. “Oh, Hara! Thank God!”
“Then we have no choice but to run for it,” Kadiya decided.
“That way.” Gyorgibo pointed. “Up the stairs. We can go through the barracks of the Imperial Guard into the north transept of the great rotunda, and thence escape into one of the garden courtyards.”
Haramis said, “I can still defend us well enough. It is only the magical transport that is temporarily beyond me.”
“Ani, can you walk?” Kadiya asked the Queen.
“The Holy Flower has healed my petty wound. I am hale again—and so filled with bliss that I can scarce help bursting into tears!”
“Restrain yourself,” muttered the Lady of the Eyes, “at least until we are safely out of here, when you may weep to your heart’s content. I may even join you …”
They ran up the narrow stairwell into a barracks anteroom, which showed considerable damage. Several roof beams had fallen and part of a long wall had tumbled down. They picked their way carefully through the rubble. The place was completely deserted save for a lone member of the Imperial Guard, a grizzled fellow in half armor who sat amidst a heap of building stones, covered in dust and clutching his lower leg.
“They’ve all run off,” he croaked, as Haramis and Gyorgibo discovered him. “Yonder wall fell on me. My mates must have thought I was a goner. The torturers who went galloping through a few minutes ago didn’t give a damn. So here I sit with my leg broke.”
The Archimage stooped and touched the limb with her talisman. The guard uttered a surprised oath and began poking and prodding at the place where the wound had been. “Blessed Matuta! You’ve fixed it, sorceress!” He jumped up, then regarded her with sudden confusion. “But if you’re one of them—where’s your Star?”
“She needs none,” said a quiet male voice.
Haramis rose and turned slowly about. Orogastus stood in the far doorway of the ruined anteroom. He wore the silver-and-black vestments of his guild and its Star medallion, but lacked the forbidding starburst mask. His visage was furrowed with stress, his long white hair hung free, and on his brow was the Three-Headed Monster. A scabbard at the sorcerer’s side held the Burning Eye, and his right hand rested upon its triple pommel.
“Leave us!” he commanded the cringing guardsman, who fled.
Haramis said, “So you have found us, Orogastus. I thought you would.”
“I knew of your presence as soon as you materialized in the torture chamber. I had been seeking you for hours.”
“Then you know that Naelore is dead.”
His well-formed lips tightened in anger. “The fool! Believe me—I did not know what she planned. I suppose she hoped to coerce you into giving up your talisman.”
“She intended to present it to you,” Haramis told him, “and thereby win your love.”
He made a gesture of exasperation. “Love? Love her? What arrant nonsense! All I thought of, from the time I bonded the two talismans to myself, was finding you.”
“So you could work upon me your own form of coercion? Still … I am relieved that you did not approve the torture.”
“The man who would have done such a thing is no more, Haramis. Why can’t you believe it?” The sorcerer came toward her, arms outstretched. “Why can’t you understand—”
“I understand you quite well, just as I understood that prideful wretch, Denby Varcour, who created you! You are both manipulators of human emotions and deeds, consumed with arrogance and vainglory.”
His arms dropped again to his sides and his tender expression turned to one of desolation. “My love for you is honest and I am not afraid to proclaim it. You love me, too—yet all you can do is revile me, giving me no chance to explain myself.”
Kadiya interrupted firmly. “This tender reunion—and its mutual recriminations—must wait. You, too, must realize that there could be another great quake at any moment. The city itself might be devastated! You must do something.”
The pale eyes of Orogastus darted sidelong. “I cannot control the movements of the earth with my talismans. I tried earlier, when the tremors were milder, and had no success.”
“That is because the earthquakes are only a symptom of the world’s great imbalance,” Haramis said, “as is the colossal mudflow hurtling down from the mountains.”
“What mudflow?” The sorcerer, Kadiya, Ledavardis, and Gyorgibo spoke all at once. Anigel and Tolivar only stood openmouthed.
Haramis lifted her talisman. “Brandoba lies directly in its path. Behold!”
Half of the ruined room seemed to dissolve away, and it seemed that they stood on some towering precipice above the Forest of Lirda. The dawn sky was invisible in low-hanging storm clouds, which obscured the heights of the wooded foothills like a curtain partially lowered. Surging out from under that curtain, filling the Dob River valley as though it were some green trough, was a churning mass that looked from a distance like gray porridge.
“Dark Powers forfend!” whispered Orogastus. “I had no idea … Talismans! How far away from Brandoba is the front of the flow?”
Six leagues.
“It will be here in less than half an hour,” Haramis stated. “When it comes, it will bury the city.” She brandished her talisman again and the vision disappeared.
Gyorgibo groaned. “My poor people. My poor country.”
King Ledavardis shot him a glance of comprehension. “Yes … you are the emperor now.”
“Emperor of oblivion!” He stood with hands on hips, glowering at both Orogastus and Haramis. “What happens now? Will you waft your Guildsmen away from danger, Star Master? Will the Archimage likewise rescue those she loves, leaving Sobrania and its contemptible barbarians to the onslaught of the mud?”
Orogastus said to Haramis, “Will we?”
The Archimage’s gaze swept over her sisters and the others, who waited in silent apprehension. Should they be told the entire truth of the situation? They would have to know soon, but perhaps not yet. Not if there was any inkling of hope, no matter how small.
She said to them, “Orogastus and I must speak privily of this. Please excuse us.” Then she motioned for the sorcerer to accompany her, and moved
out of their earshot—although not out of sight.
“Shall we part forever, then?” he asked her. “This Sobranian adventure of mine is over. I will have to begin again elsewhere, if such a thing is even possible. You will have your talisman and I will have mine. Separated, they are not invincible—merely extraordinary—especially since I am so inexpert in utilizing mine. I presume that you now have access to the viaducts also?”
She nodded in assent.
“So we may travel through them as we will, so long as their outlets are not blockaded. You need only collect your friends, after which there will be nothing to keep you in this doomed country. My Guildsmen and I can go to my old home in Tuzamen. If you promise not to attack me there, I will tell you how to free the Archimage Iriane from her prison of blue ice. Then we two can await the world’s final descent into frozen silence—you in your sanctum and I in mine—with our dependents none the wiser. Until the end. Is this what you want to do, Haramis? Run away?”
“There is nowhere we can flee, even if we would,” she replied.
“What are you talking about?”
“The Archimage of the Sky, the greatest practitioner of magic who ever lived, told me that the great imbalance culminates and commences now. This Sobranian catastrophe, dire as it is, only marks the beginning of a myriad of such events that will immediately beset all nations of the world. There is no refuge for us anywhere, Orogastus, no escape. From here on, there is only a swift downhill slide until our world is entombed in the Sempiternal Ice.”
“So! I was not certain—”
“Denby Varcour believed that only a single despot, wielding the Threefold Sceptre of Power, could stave off this planetary doom. He demanded that I give him my talisman, so that it might be turned over to you. I refused.”
“And you still do,” the sorcerer stated.
“Yes.”
“You would see the world destroyed, rather than saved and subjugated by me?”
“I would see it saved … otherwise.” She took a deep breath. “Will you give me the two talismans, so that I may assemble the Sceptre and attempt the healing without the enslaving?”
