“Kadiya calculates that this unstable situation will enhance her likelihood of victory.”
“Oh, the hotheaded fool!… I suppose I shall have to talk some sense into her. And then see what I can do to aid Anigel and Antar. After that there will be time for me to deal with Orogastus—”
“Archimage, you still do not understand! You can do nothing to vanquish the Star Man without both Kadiya and Anigel standing wholeheartedly at your side.”
“By the Flower, I might have known it!” Haramis clenched her fists and lowered her head so that the hood of her cloak of office hid the anguish of frustration that engulfed her.
They were inescapably Three. They were forever One. Neither her talisman nor her newly obtained Archimagical powers would conquer the Star … but only the Living Black Trillium.
She thrust her emotions aside and again met the Teacher’s patient, inhuman gaze. “Thank you. Now I know what must be done. I will go to Kadiya at once.”
She rose from the stone chair, and as she did, the hexagonal plate called the Cynosure clattered to the marble floor of the belvedere. She had completely forgotten it. Taking it up, Haramis said: “You surely know what this is. Can you tell me if it is possible to destroy it?”
“You could not do so. Neither could the sindona. Only the Star Council can do it, or the entire Archimagical College.”
Balked again! Haramis pursed her lips grimly. “Then tell me how best to dispose of the Cynosure so that Orogastus may not use it again to escape punishment for his crimes.”
For the first time the Teacher hesitated before answering. “If you placed it at the bottom of the sea, or threw it into an active volcano, or dropped it into the midst of a glacial crevasse, then one who was drawn to it by the backlash of magic would die, rather than find himself spared.”
Haramis felt her throat tighten. “I had hoped … you knew of a place where I might put the Cynosure in order to safely imprison Orogastus alive. Perhaps here, in this stronghold of powerful magic, where the sentinels could guard him from possible rescue by his acolytes.”
Again the Teacher hesitated. Then she said: “There is one place only that might serve. Follow me.”
She set off at a rapid pace along one of the paths. Haramis followed, almost at a run, with the Cynosure tight under one arm. The two of them came to a grove of weeping trees with pale green leaves, and beneath them was a large rock garden bedecked with shade-loving exotic plants. Their flowers were bizarre in shape and the colors unwholesomely vivid, almost luminous in the green gloaming.
On the other side of the rockery was a dark hole in the ground, surrounded by a circle of large white stones.
The Teacher pointed into it. “This is the Chasm of Durance. Its only entry is through a subterranean shaft with steep sides as slick as glass, permeated with the most powerful magic of the Place of Knowledge. During the wars between the Star Men and our Vanished rulers, certain captives were confined by the Archimagical College in a cavern at the base of the shaft, until they were judged and vouchsafed either clemency or death at the hands of the Sentinels of the Mortal Dictum.”
“It sounds like the very place!” Haramis breathed. “Would it hold Orogastus?”
“If he were deprived of the potent talismans, yes. He might survive indefinitely in the Chasm of Durance under our guard.”
“I will inspect the place,” Haramis said, “and if it is as suitable as you say, I will place the Cynosure there.”
The Teacher nodded. “Are there any other questions you have for me, Archimage?”
Haramis’s smile was rueful. “Only one, and I have begun to despair of ever getting an answer: Is it true magic or some arcane science that empowers the Black Trillium and the Threefold Sceptre?”
“It is magic.”
“Ah!… And what is magic?”
“That which gives truth and beauty to reality, and binds the physical and mental universes into one.”
“I—I will think upon that,” Haramis said. She lay her hand upon her breast so that it touched the wand of the Three-Winged Circle hanging from the platinum chain about her neck. Among the tiny silvery wings, the amber amulet with the black Flower in its heart glowed brightly. “I have no more questions for you at this time, Teacher. Thank you for helping me.”
The sindona woman bowed formally, then turned and walked away into the trees without another word.
Haramis addressed her talisman: Take me to the bottom of the Chasm of Durance.
The chime sounded. The now-familiar crystalline image existed for a moment, then translated to full reality. She stood in a place like a vast cave, overly warm and humid. Part of the roof was solid rock, dripping with stalactites like translucent stone icicles and pillars; the rest of the area overhead was a black void, at the center of which an infinitesimal star seemed to twinkle feebly. Haramis knew at once that this was the steep shaft leading to the surface, and the pinpoint of light marked the faraway upper opening to the Chasm.
A flickering deep crimson glow lit the place, pouring out of obscure nooks and crannies. Haramis strode to one radiant crevice and peered within. She saw an adjacent cavern, much smaller and deeper, and its floor was a river of incandescent magma. She withdrew, and made a further brief exploration of the Chasm itself, finding dark pools of water and many curious rock formations. There were also crumbling remnants of human occupation: blackened rings of stone that had held cooking fires, broken clay jars, plates, grease-lamps, moldering pallets, and a decaying volume that fell to dust when she ventured to touch it.
And on one wall rather smoother than the rest, inscribed defiantly with a sooty stick, was a many-rayed Star.
No other traces remained of those prisoners of twelve thousand years ago. Had any of them ended their lives here? Haramis let her Sight roam afar. She saw that the prison chamber was huge, with many alcoves bearing evidence that they had been some individual’s private space. But there were no bones and no marked graves. Nevertheless, Haramis found herself offering a prayer for those who had lived and suffered in this terrible penitentiary, for all that they had deserved their fate. And as she contemplated their ancient misery she could not help but recall her own troubles. She stood alone in the lurid Chasm, praying also for herself.
“Dear God, give me the strength and wit I need to overcome Orogastus! I nearly succumbed to that man once before: let me resist him now! I cannot help but love him, and yet I must find a way to thwart his evil ambition. Help me!”
But the prayer seemed a futile thing, and gave her no solace. Deep within her heart, she knew there were only two ways the sorcerer might be thwarted—by death, or by permanent exile from the world. Haramis realized that, as an Archimage, she would not be able to kill him.
Could she then banish him to this awful place, compared with which the Inaccessible Kimilon was a paradise?…
Two scenes from her youth were reborn in memory: the vision of her mother, Queen Kalanthe, pierced by a sword, her life’s blood spilled at the sorcerer’s feet; and the vision of her father, King Kreyn, torn to pieces in his own throne room at the behest of that same sorcerer.
Could I banish Orogastus here?
“Yes,” she said aloud. Stooping, she lay the Cynosure on the floor of the cavern.
She then clasped her talisman, and bade it carry her to Kadiya.
22
The magical Nut-Wars game had reached a frenzied climax. Prince Tolivar’s army of red-painted blok-nuts had suffered heavy casualties in the last battle, but he urged them recklessly to make a final push for the treasure. The defending blue kifer-nut battalions came galloping on their tiny legs, lances out-thrust and little faces grimacing with silent howls. Tolo made his charging red troops form a wedge and aimed the point right at the treasure. A desperate maneuver was called for if the red nuts were not to be defeated once again.
“Forward, my men!” the Prince urged, pounding one fist upon the carpet. He lay flat on his stomach so that his eyes would be almost at skirmish-leve
l.
The blok-nuts hit the line of kifers. Soundless tiny pops of light signaled clashes between the individual soldiers. Red-coated warriors, struck by the lances of the blue foe, fell vanquished. Their legs retracted, their faces disappeared, and their little bodies rolled as helplessly as beads when their magical “lives” ended. Blue kifer soldiers fell, too, but the greatest carnage was among the blok-nuts.
“Don’t stop!” Tolo admonished his dwindling forces. “Don’t turn back! You must seize the treasure now or all is lost!”
The brave remnant of his army tried.
The blunted red wedge re-formed, even though it was now entirely surrounded by massed blue kifer-nuts. It pressed ahead, growing smaller and smaller in numbers as nuts at the outer edges were slain. Slowly, the wedge approached the citadel of the three-legged footstool near the hearth, where the treasure gleamed in the shadows. There were fewer than twenty blok-nuts left alive! Those heading the assault thrust their lances faster and faster at Tolo’s command. Blue nuts fell! A tiny space opened.
“Now!” the Prince shouted.
His decimated troops swarmed forward, their legs twinkling. They scattered the foe, slaying those who dared hinder. The poor red-coats in the rear lost their lives, but still the diminishing little arrow of fighters thrust courageously onward. Now there were only five valiant blok-nuts left out of the original force of one hundred. The treasure lay less than a double handspan away.
“You’ve almost got it!” cried Tolo. “Go! Go!”
Two more reds fell. The surviving trio plied their lances madly and Tolo was dazzled by the death-flashes of the enemy. Then—oh, no! First one blok fell, then a second. The last hero pressed on …
… and its lance touched the treasure.
Instantly all of the blue-coated kifer-nuts gave up their lives in a mad fusillade of sparks, rolling impotently legless about the carpet. The winning blok warrior momentarily glowed like a hot coal as it nestled against the ovoid rusa-nut treasure. The big golden rusa was almost instantly roasted, its tough shell cracked, and the sweet meats fell out ready for Tolo to eat. The tiny face on the last living blok-nut grinned at its human commander. Then it, too, expired.
“We won!” Tolo caroled, scooping up the edible treasure. “We finally won!” He stuffed the rusa meats into his mouth and chewed them with gusto. “What do you think of that, Yellow? And you said I’d never get the hang of it!”
The Yellow Voice did not answer. He was mending one of Orogastus’s heavy white boots, and also reluctantly baby-sitting the Prince. The Master had ordered that Tolivar was never to be left alone, in case the insidious Raktumians took it into their heads to make away with the lad and use him in some ploy. The three Voices had also been warned to see to their own safety, going armed and testing all food for poison while yet they stayed in Frangine Palace. Treachery was only a remote possibility; but none of them, not even the Master himself, would be entirely safe until the Tuzameni army and the supply of magical weapons arrived and the war against Laboruwenda began.
Young King Ledavardis had proved less pliable than the Master had hoped. He was by no means the tongue-tied nincompoop he had seemed while under the malign influence of his late grandmother. Instead, he had grown increasingly troublesome, most lately, insisting upon full control of the pirate forces in the upcoming conflict, rather than placing them under the command of the Tuzameni General Zokumonus as the Master had urged. Some fresh stratagem would have to be worked out in order to keep Ledavardis in his place.
What a relief it would be when they were all quit of this decadent hive of jumped-up cutpurses—
“It was a good game, wasn’t it, Yellow?” Prince Tolivar demanded.
“Had it been a real war, rather than one among silly nuts,” the Voice said, his lip curling, “the outcome would have been a total disaster. All of your men save the single winner died.”
The Prince gathered up the magical red and blue nuts into their pouch, then tossed the nut shells into the fire. “Pooh! What do you know about it? The Master made the Nut-Wars game for me. Winning battles is a job for a prince, not a—” Tolo fell prudently silent, glowering at the stocky, shaven-headed acolyte in the wrinkled saffron robe.
“If you can call that sorry performance winning,” the Voice said snidely, pulling a great needle threaded with sinew through the vamp of the boot.
Tolo eyed the acolyte with a sly little smile on his face. “You’re jealous. That’s why you and the others always make fun of me.”
“Don’t be silly.” The Yellow Voice clamped his lips shut and studied his handiwork with a scowl.
“You are! All three of you are jealous! You can’t bear that the Master wants me to be his heir and not one of you!” The boy climbed to his feet, dusted the knees of his trews, and straightened his tunic. “Take me to Portolanus right now.”
“He’s busy in the library. The last thing he needs is a spoiled child whining about.”
Tolo spoke very quietly: “Take me.”
Uttering a martyred sigh, the Yellow Voice set his work aside. He took the little Prince by the hand and led him out of the spacious chamber they two shared. The library was at the other end of sprawling Frangine Palace, and the acolyte and the boy had to walk for what seemed like half a league through corridor after ornate corridor, hall after echoing hall. At every turn they encountered haughty pirates and their strident women in flamboyant court dress—some loafing about, some trading gossip, some nervously awaiting an audience with some royal official, a few conducting actual business. Supercilious lackeys dusted the gilt furnishings and picture frames, swept gorgeous carpets looted from the Isles of Engi, stoked the fires, refilled the silver wall-sconces with scented oil against the coming of evening, and scuttled hither and yon on various errands. Stalwart guards kept an eye on the other palace inmates, frowning and gripping their halberds more tightly as the Yellow Voice and Tolo went by.
At last, after the two passed through an untenanted salon full of Varonian sculpture and pearl-studded tapestries from Zinora, they entered a passage of simple dressed stone that dead-ended at a pair of tall gonda-wood doors banded with iron. Standing without was a Raktumian man-at-arms. Beside him upon a folding stool, perusing a decaying volume, sat the runty Black Voice.
Black lifted an inquiring eyebrow.
The Yellow Voice said formally: “Prince Tolivar would speak with the Master.”
“Lord Osorkon is due to meet him here very shortly,” Black said. “The boy will have to be quick about it.”
Tolo looked the man straight in the eye. “My business will not take long.” He turned to the Yellow Voice. “You may wait out here.”
Yellow genuflected with mock servility and pulled open the heavy doors so that the Prince could slip inside.
The library was a cold, spooky, vaulted chamber with grimy leaded skylights high in the ceiling. Rickety open stairways festooned with dusty lingit-webs gave access to three galleries encircling it. Crowded bookshelves filled these upper levels, and more freestanding shelves occupied the central area of the main floor. Round about the perimeter stood stout tables and benches, all except one gray with the dust of years. The single clean table bore one of the sorcerer’s magical lamps that shone with its full strength, for the library was dim except where a few wan, mote-laden beams of afternoon sunlight came through narrow windows on the west side. The great snowstorm had finally ended.
Orogastus was carrying three big tomes bound in crumbling leather back to their shelf. He smiled as Tolo appeared and slipped the books into their places.
“Well, lad! Have you come to help me glean this vart’s-nest of its few nuggets of useful magical lore? One can tell from the filth and neglect that the pirates care little for scholarship. Still, they might possibly have stolen something useful when they still bothered to carry off books, so I felt obliged to examine the palace library while we were here in Frangine. Thus far I have discovered only seven volumes worth taking back to Castle Tenebrose, an
d none of them are especially valuable. Would you like to see how I search? I use the Three-Lobed Burning Eye as a dowsing rod. Do you know what dowsing is?”
“The finding of water or rare minerals through magic,” Tolo replied politely.
“Correct—as far as it goes.” The sorcerer’s once-white robe was blackened by grime and his platinum hair had strands of lingit-web and mold-crumbs in it. He beckoned to the boy to follow him to the next standing shelf, then took the talisman from its scabbard and pointed it at the row of decrepit books. “I have instructed the Burning Eye to point out to me any book containing magical writings … thus!”
He swept the dark pointless sword along the shelf. A very small book covered with ruined scarlet leather and a huge one bound about with tarnished brass bands promptly glowed green in the dusk.
“Hah! You see?” He resheathed the talisman and took the monstrous tome in his arms. “You carry that red one to the table and I’ll carry this, and we’ll see what the Dark Powers vouchsafe.”
Dutifully, Tolo followed Orogastus bearing the little red book. The sorcerer wiped both volumes with a grubby rag, then took out the talisman once more. He opened the great book, lay the dull-edged sword-blade upon the opening page, and closed his eyes. “O talisman, reveal to me in a terse summary the contents of this tome.”
Tolo could not help but give a start of astonishment as a strange voice intoned:
Herein are contained the incantations of the Sobranian witch Acha Tulume, taken in booty from a vessel of that nation eighty-seven years agone. The book’s contents, set down in the Sobranian tongue, are largely shamanistic trivia. The most important spells are useful in controlling zach infestations in feather cloaks, curing armpit itch, bringing about successful bird-hunts, and dissuading jilted lovers and cast-off spouses from doing mischief to their former partners.
Orogastus snorted and slammed the cover shut. “Worthless—unless one intends to set up shop in the Land of the Feathered Barbarians! Now let us try your book, Tolo. Perhaps it will be a prize, for all its slenderness … Do you know the saying ‘The smallest package oft hides the most precious gift’?”