by Julian May
“Never!” he said. “I know that it would be futile. The healing is itself a horrific process. The simple people of this world and their naive rulers would not know how to survive it. Your gentle persuasion would not move them. They would be insane with terror.”
“I think I have found an answer to that.”
“Then tell me!” He seized her upper arms. But she drew away, shaking her head, and he did not try to restrain her.
“Once,” she reminded him, “you did pledge to let me wield the Sceptre.”
“Only if—” He broke off, unable to say the words.
Haramis said, “In his last moments, Denby Varcour changed his mind about his tyrannical scheme. Dying, he invoked the Black Trillium, speaking of the Flower with both irony and a strange resignation. Then he said to me: ‘Love is permissible, devotion is not.’”
“That damned enigmatic phrase!” Orogastus cried. “You quoted it in your Tower as you repudiated me … What is the difference, then?”
“In the first,” she said, “the lovers remain true to themselves. They unite without loss, without submission. Neither one is diminished but instead, they grow.” She paused, lowering her eyes: those eyes identical in color to his own. “I love you. But the Star demands preeminence over its devotees. The Flower does not.”
He stood before her somber, the long fingers of one hand touching the medallion hanging from his neck. “I must do what I was born to do. Denby does not matter. He did his part when he let me discover the truth about my own role, allowing me to discard the foolish beliefs of my early years and concentrate upon the one and only reason why I came to exist. I will not surrender my destiny to anyone, to anything. Haramis—my dearest Haramis!—you must understand.”
She smiled remotely. “I do. But perhaps true understanding has yet to dawn in you. Denby also said to me, ‘Three Petals to wield and the Sky Archimage to guide’ … if I wished it.”
He was dumbfounded, almost laughing at the audacity of her. “You? If you wish it? What does it mean? Do you believe that the old man was passing to you and your sisters responsibility for the Sceptre of the Vanished Ones?”
“He might have been. Binah and Iriane were convinced we would be able to use it. I have never been certain, and perhaps my hesitancy is the reason why Denby suggested a fourth, who would be our guide.”
“The Archimage of the Sky is dead,” Orogastus declared angrily. “How could he help in the wielding? Denby Varcour was a madman, and even at the end he was raving.”
“There is another authority that says that the Three Petals of the Living Trillium must use the Sceptre together—an ancient chant that Denby recited:
“One, two, three: three in one.
One the Crown of the Misbegotten, wisdom-gift, thought-magnifier.
Two the Sword of the Eyes, dealing justice and mercy.
Three the Wand of the Wings, key and unifier.
Three, two, one: one in three.
Come, Trillium. Come, Almighty.
“He was mocking me as he did so. But I have heard this chant before, among the Uisgu Folk of our Mazy Mire. They say it dates back to the foundation of their race.”
Orogastus shook his head. “It makes no sense. It is mystical twaddle.”
“Since my Three-Winged Circle is the prime element of the Sceptre, the key, I would have to command—not as an archimage, but as one of Three with my sisters. If it were mine to choose, I would wish that the Living Trillium be strengthened and guided by a courageous friend—both in the wielding and during the dire aftermath. But we Three could never be guided by a Star Man.”
“You have been toying with me, Haramis.” This time there was no wrath in his voice but only despair. “Without the Star I am nothing! You and your Flower would diminish me, demanding devotion while refusing to submit yourself.”
She took his hand, drawing it to the Three-Winged Circle on the chain at her breast. He tensed, still fearful and refusing, and she said again, “I do love you. And I would never harm nor think of diminishing a new Archimage of the Firmament.”
“A new—”
“The office is now mine to bestow. I am the last active member of the College. I am certain that Iriane would concur. And so, I think, would the sleeping Vanished Ones. We are of them, you and I.”
“Haramis … could such a thing be?”
“It depends, I think, on you. On your love.”
She pressed his fingers to the Flower. He felt the tiny wings on her talisman open, and within was something that set his nerves afire as he touched it. Momentarily deprived of equilibrium, almost falling, he clung to her. “Of course I love you! Ah, Haramis, I love you more than my own life! More than …” His voice trailed off to a soft groan.
He recovered and the nearly frantic embrace eased. It became reverent, lending strength to both of them.
When at length they drew apart, she whispered, “The coronet!”
Frowning in perplexity, he took it from his head and studied it. The central Monster head, which had been surmounted by a tiny replica of the Star, now had a new escutcheon of three crescent Moons. It was the same with the Three-Lobed Burning Eye.
Its chain broken, the Star lay on the rubble-strewn floor at their feet.
A fresh tremor shook the palace.
Anigel and Kadiya left the others and approached. “Hara,” said the Queen. “You must decide at once what we are to do.”
Together, Haramis and Orogastus told them.
31
Surmounting the palace’s golden dome was a lofty pinnacle of red jasper, and within it a narrow spiral staircase leading to the enormous gilded bird effigy mounted at the top. The three sisters and Orogastus went to the small platform at the pinnacle’s summit and stood looking up at the spread-winged image.
“Why, it’s a voor!” Kadiya said in surprise. “The bird created by the Vanished Ones to be a helper and companion to the Vispi. I thought they were extinct in this part of the world.”
“They are,” Orogastus said. “Which is why they are held sacred.”
“It is appropriate,” Haramis said. Then she asked the sorcerer to lift all four of them to the statue’s back. He drew the broken sword and held it high, giving the command. The three lobes became eyes, and from the open mouths of the monsters on the coronet shone beams of white, green, and golden light.
They wafted through the cloudy air, from which a light rain fell, and landed upon the broad surface of gold-leafed stone.
“Now we must assemble the Sceptre,” Haramis said. She bade her trillium-amber to quit its nest among the wings, attaching it to her neck chain after she removed the wand with its Circle.
For a moment the gigantic statue shuddered beneath their feet. They tensed, but did not lose their footing. The bird swayed very slowly from side to side. Down below, parts of the city still burned, and there were many areas where buildings had collapsed; but most of the devastation in Brandoba was veiled from their sight by smoke and mist and they did not look upon it.
Haramis said to Orogastus, “Tell your talismans that we three Petals of the Living Trillium may touch them freely.”
He did so, his teeth clenched in a grimace. Then he proffered the coronet in his right hand and the sword in his left. Queen Anigel and Kadiya stood on either side of him. At the Archimage’s command, they laid their own hands upon the talismans they had once owned. The amulets at their throats blazed golden, and an answering throb of light came from the amber on the breast of Haramis.
Haramis inserted the wand into a channel on the sword blade, then guided the Three-Headed Monster inside the Circle, so that it and the coronet formed a meridian and equator. Atop the Circle the wings opened and became large, and at their center shone a great Black Trillium embedded in glowing amber the size of a fist. Haramis took the completed Sceptre and lifted it, while the others stood closely around her, laying a single hand upon hers.
“Come, Trillium,” said the Archimage of the Land. “Come, Almighty.”
The Sceptre seemed to ignite with a yellow flame. No longer were the individual parts silver or black; they were shining gold. Kadiya, Anigel, and Orogastus felt a marvelous warmth spread from their fingertips, down their arms, and into their hearts.
“Sceptre!” The voice of Haramis was exultant, and the others knew that she felt the magical heat also. “Carry us safely into the sky, high above this place. And banish all clouds, so that we may see the ground clearly.”
The gilded bird did not come alive. They saw no flapping wings, felt no sense of motion nor even any wind of passage; nevertheless they suddenly found themselves soaring upward beneath an expanse of limpid blue air. Still standing on the statue’s back, they came to a halt. The dawn sun was poised above the Collum Range, which was now ominously smoking. Rivers of mud poured forth from the highlands in multiple courses, snaking through the forest, with the greatest flow of all nearly touching the outskirts of the city at the Dob River Watergate. Far-flung Brandoba itself, lying wounded within its walls, smoldered like a trampled campfire. The great harbor still held many ships, and the waters were turgid gray near the shore and luminous aquamarine in the outer depths of the estuary.
In the west, the Three Moons hung low, ready to set. The smoke in the air had turned them a drab orange color.
“Now,” said Haramis to the Sceptre, “we call upon the fullness of your magic. Tap the spirit-rich wellsprings of this world, its plants and animals, and all its people. Turn away the mudflow that threatens Brandoba, calm the unquiet earth beneath it, and if the Triune wills, restore the city’s broken parts to wholeness. Let this be done without the loss of a single aboriginal or human life.”
The Sceptre’s glow intensified until it became a near-twin to the solar orb in the east. The four people who wielded it flinched from the radiant power that streamed forth, averting and closing their eyes. A terrible noise smote their ears, grinding and wrenching and roaring, but their touch upon the hilt stayed firm, as did their foothold upon the golden bird so miraculously hanging in midair. When the noise diminished somewhat, all but Haramis removed their hands from the Sceptre. They dared to look down.
Around the city’s landside perimeter, where the enclosing wall had been, a high rampart was rising. Thrust up from underground, soil and rock were creating a dike that diverted the advancing mud northward, where it would reach another river valley and there flow harmlessly into the sea. Other land movements, looking like the subterranean burrowings of some colossal creature, transformed hills into valleys and altered the course of minor streams. The terrain heaved and rolled like a shaken rug, accompanied by a mighty rumbling. And then it was still. Directly below them, the city seemed to shimmer. The smoke shrouding it faded away.
“Show us now a closer vision of Brandoba,” Haramis commanded. They seemed to swoop down, still secure, until they hovered above the pleasance and the palace. The imperial edifice itself and all of the surrounding buildings gleamed whole in the sunlight. Streets and boulevards were no longer blocked with rubble.
But the bodies of those killed and injured in the riots and tremors remained.
“Sceptre,” Haramis whispered. “Can you not restore the broken people?”
Not the dead. Only those who live may be brought back to health, when touched individually by my parts.
“There is no time for that,” said Orogastus. “If we fail to mend the greater imbalance, those who have perished will be the lucky ones.”
“He’s right,” Kadiya said, with grudging respect.
“We shall help the wounded later,” said Anigel. “If we can.”
“Very well.” Haramis addressed the Sceptre: “Let our golden bird take us higher.” And then: “Higher! … Higher still, and keep us safe!”
They rose to such an altitude that the sky became deepest indigo blue. Stars were visible together with the sun and the Moons. Neither chill nor lack of breath afflicted them. The world-continent with its shining white Sempiternal Icecap, beautiful and deadly, lay curved upon an azure sea streaked with clouds. Mysteriously, there were no clouds above the land.
“If the Sceptre tries to right the imbalance and fails,” Orogastus said to Haramis, “we may die up here as our golden steed tumbles from the sky. But withal, you have chosen a right proper place to attempt the magic—where we will know at once whether the world is healed and the ice defeated.”
He was standing before her, Anigel and Kadiya being on either side, and she smiled at him. “Whether we succeed or not,” Haramis said, “I am glad that at the end the Flower blessed our love.”
“I would marry you,” he said. “I would live and work with you forever, if this were possible.”
“I desire it with all my heart and soul, my dearest, but we dare not think of such things now.”
“Still, I wanted you to know.”
Haramis nodded. Behind Orogastus, the Three Moons hovered at the western horizon in a tight group. She bade the others lay their hands upon her own once again, lifted the Sceptre, and spoke to it.
“Now do the deed for which you were made! Fulfill the hopes of those long dead, of those departed into the outer firmament, of those who sleep in limbo, of those who caused us to be born. Fulfill our own hopes as well, now that we come finally to wield thee, and heal our wounded world in God’s good time. Defeat the imbalance that would condemn us to the Conquering Ice. Summon all that is magical, beautiful, and true from our hearts and from the land beneath us. Do it now! … Come, Trillium! Come, Almighty!”
This time there was no storm of light and noise, only a whisper like a sighing of stars that sounded and then faded to silence. The feeling of magical tension that had pervaded the Sceptre drained away. Its luminescence was extinguished as the three wings closed about the great piece of amber and shrank to their usual small size. The Sceptre became a depleted thing. The three eyes in the pommel closed and the carven monstrous faces were lusterless and inanimate.
At the same time another sort of illumination sprang into being in the deep blue western sky.
Haramis’s eyes widened in astonishment, and the other three, seeing her staring, let their hands fall away from the drained Sceptre and turned about to discover what had happened.
The Three Moons in their close conjunction had changed color from wan ocher to a pure, effulgent silver. Sketched about the orbs were three enormous petals of vibrant rainbow radiance. The central one extended almost to the zenith, while the other two seemed to embrace the horizon.
“Dear God,” whispered Anigel. “What is it?”
“A Sky Trillium,” Kadiya said.
Orogastus blurted out, “But is that all?”
“We asked,” Haramis said, “that the healing take place in God’s good time … Look down at the ice cap.”
They did, and saw countless tiny puffs of cloud rising everywhere from the gleaming surface. These expanded as they watched, forming a vast cloak of cloud that hid the continental interior from view. The mass elongated, caught by the prevailing winds, and began a slow progress eastward.
“What is happening?” Anigel asked.
“I’m not quite sure,” Haramis replied. “But … I think it is beginning to melt.”
She spoke to the Sceptre. “Are you able to return us safely to the imperial palace in Brandoba?”
Yes. We will fly somewhat more slowly.
They began to descend. The bird-image’s back was almost as wide as the floor of a cottage. In their curiosity Orogastus, Anigel, and Kadiya peered down at the world below while Haramis, emotionally spent, sat quietly at the center.
“Perhaps,” Orogastus said, when they came lower and had a better view of the ice’s margins, “the fires within the world, which would have burst out volcanically under the imbalance, have now focused in a more moderate way beneath the continental glacier. Those plumes of vapor—they will become rain-clouds. Even though they dump most of their moisture in the sea, there will still be mighty storms and floods in the eastern lands—esp
ecially in my old home, Tuzamen, and in Raktum.”
“Poor old Ledo,” Kadiya said. “Still, his nation has a plethora of ships. And here in the western part of the world there is much empty land for the pirates to colonize. As for Tuzamen, it is sparsely populated and a marginal place to live at best. I doubt that its people will be too miserable leaving it.”
“Then perhaps the aftermath will not be so bad after all,” Anigel said.
“The sea will rise,” Orogastus said, shaking his head. “It will slowly encroach upon coastal cities in every nation of the world, as well as drowning the low-lying islands. Vast numbers of humans and Folk will be forced from their homes. The rivers will change their courses, inundating the old farmlands. Enormous lakes will be born again, where they existed before the Conquering Ice. Your Mazy Mire, Queen Anigel, was once such a lake.”
“Oh!” she said. “Oh …”
“New mountains will rise as the interior land is relieved of its glacial burden,” he continued. “This will alter the pattern of the seasons. It will be a frightening time for the people, perhaps even a Dark Age, even though we explain to them what is happening, and that it is for the good. A universal despotism might have kept the people under control and supervised the rebuilding. Without one … who can say?”
“I am sure,” Queen Anigel said stoutly, “that you, Hara, and Iriane will do your best.”
“We may find our talents thinly spread,” he said, with a sigh.
“Other helpers will aid us,” Haramis said suddenly.
They turned to her in surprise. The golden bird was plummeting down above Brandoba; but as before, those who rode it had no sensation of rushing through the air.
Kadiya said, “What helpers? Do you mean the sindona? But there are not very many of them left.”
“In one of the Three Moons,” said Haramis, “nearly a million persons lie in an enchanted sleep. They are the ones who were unable to Vanish—our ancestors—members of a civilization much more advanced than ours. Denby Varcour could never bring himself to release them. Their numbers and their superior abilities would have disrupted our simple way of living irreparably. He knew it would be both unjust and cruel to revive them in a world such as ours. After all, their war had caused the original imbalance.
