Winds born of hurricane and confusion now assaulted the ancient trees. Jon-Tom lay on the ground and clung to the arched root of the sage-oak. So did Talea and Mudge, while Pog swayed like a large black leaf above them. Flor nestled close to Jon-Tom, though neither's attention was on the other. Branches and leaves shot past them, fleeing from the glade.
None of the swirling debris struck the chanting wizard. The winds roared down into the double ellipse, then outward, but avoided the sun symbol. Above the center of the glade the billowing storm clouds jigged round and round each other in a majestic whirlpool of energy and moisture.
Lightning leapt earthward to blister the ground. No bolt struck near Clothahump, though two trees were shattered to splinters not far away.
Somehow, above the scream of wind, of too close thunder and the howling vortex that now dominated the center of the glade, they could still hear the steady voice of Clothahump. Trying to shield his eyes from flying dirt and debris, Jon-Tom clung tightly to the tree root and squinted at the turtle.
The wizard was turning easily within his proscribed symbol. He appeared completely unaffected by the violent storm raging all around him. The sun symbol was beginning to glow a deep orange.
Clothahump halted. His hands slowly lowered until they were pointing toward the small heap of powders in the center of the inner ellipse. He recited, slowly and with great care, a dozen words known only to a very few magicians and perhaps one or two physicists.
The ancient oak shuddered. Two smaller trees nearby were torn free of the earth and hurled into the sky. There was a mighty, rumbling crescendo of sound that culminated in a volcanic rumble from the glade, and a brief flash of light that fortunately no one looked at directly.
The shape that appeared out of that flash within the inner ellipse took away what little breath remained to Jon-Tom and his companions. He could not have moved his knuckles to his mouth to chew on them, nor could his vocal cords give form to the feelings surging through him.
Soft, eerie moans came from Flor and a slight, labored whistling from Mudge. All were motionless, paralyzed by the sight of M'nemaxa, whose countenance transfigures continents and whose hoofbeats can alter the orbits of worlds.
Within the inner ellipse was a ferociously burning shape. The form M'nemaxa had chosen to appear in was akin to all the horses that had ever been, and yet was not. He showed himself this time as a stallion with great wings that beat at the air more than sixty feet from tip to body. Even so the spirit shape could not be more than partially solid. It was formed of small solar prominences bound together in the form of a horse. Red-orange flames trailed from tail and mane, galloping hooves and majestic wings, to trail behind the form and flicker out in the night.
Actually the constantly shed shards of sunmeat vanished when they reached the limits imposed by the double ellipse, disappeared harmlessly into a thermonuclear void only Clothahump could understand. Though wings tore at the fabric of space and flaming hooves galloped over the plane of existence, the spirit stallion remained fixed within the boundaries of sorceral art.
There was no hint of fading. For every flaming streamer that fell and curled from the equine inferno, new fire appeared to keep the shape familiar and intact, as M'nemaxa continuously renewed his substance. A pair of fiery tusks descended from the upper jaw of the not quite perfect horse shape, and pointed teeth burned within jaws of flame.
Among all that immense length of horsehell, a living stallion sun whose breath would have incinerated Apollo, there were only two things not composed of the ever regenerating eternal fire-eyes as chillingly cold as the rest was unimaginably hot.
The eyes of the stallion-spirit M'nemaxa were dragonfly eyes, great black curving orbs that almost met atop the skull. They were far too large for a normal horse shape, but that was only natural. Through the still angry cyclone, Jon-Tom thought he could see within those all-seeing spheres of black tiny points of light; purple and red, green, blue, and purest white that stood out even against the perpetual fusion that constituted the body shape.
Though he could not know it, those eyes were fragments of the Final Universe, the greater one which holds within it our own universe as well as thousands of others. Galaxies drifted within the eyes of M'nemaxa.
Now a long snake tongue flicked out, a flare frora the surface of a living horse star. It tasted of dimensions no puny creature of flesh could ever hope to sample. It arched back its massive flaming head and whinnied. It stunned the ears and minds of the tiny organic listeners. The earth itself trembled, and behind the clouds the moon drew another thousand miles away in its orbit. Rarely was so immense an eminence brought within touch of a mere single world.
"ONE WHO KNOWS THE WORDS HAS SUMMONED!" came the thunder. Great red-orange skull and galactic eyes looked down upon the squat shape of an old turtle.
But the wizard did not bend or hide his head. He remained safe within his sun symbol. His shells did not melt and crack, his flesh did not sear, and he looked upon the horse-star without fear. It dug at existence and its hooves burned time, but it moved no nearer.
"I would know the new magic that gives so much confidence to the Plated Folk of the Greendowns as they ready their next war against my peoples!" Clothahump's most sonorous sorceral tone sounded tinny beside the world-shaking whisper of the horse.
"THAT IS OF NO CONSEQUENCE TO ME."
"I know," said Clothahump with unbelievable brashness, "but it is of consequence to me. You have been summoned to answer, not to question."
"WHO DARES...!" Then the anger of the stallion spirit faded slightly. "YOU HAVE SPOKEN THE WORDS, MASTER OF A HUMBLE KNOWLEDGE. YOU HAVE DONE THE CALLING, AND I MUST REPLY." The spirit seemed almost to smile. "BEWARE, LEADER OF AN IGNORANT SLIME, FOR THOUGH THEY KNOW IT NOT THEMSELVES, I FORESEE THEM DESTROYING YOU WITH MIRRORS OF WHAT IS IN YOUR OWN TINY MIND."
"I don't understand," said Clothahump with a frown.
Again the whinny that frightened planets. "AND WHY SHOULD YOU, FOR YOU HAVE NOTHING TO UNDERSTAND WITH. THE DANGER TO YOU IS NOTHING TO ME, AND YOU CANNOT IMAGINE IT."
"When will this take place?"
"THEY ARE UNCERTAIN, AS I MUST BE UNCERTAIN, AS IS EVER THE FUTURE UNCERTAIN. LET ME GO NOW."
Suddenly the flaming hooves were another ten feet above the surface. Yet it was not M'nemaxa who had moved, but the earth, which had pulled away in fear at the spirit's rising fury. "Stay!" Clothahump threw up his hands. "I am not finished."
"THEN BE QUICK, LITTLE CREATURE, OR, WORDS OR NOT, I WILL MAKE OF THIS WORLD WHITE ASHES."
"I still do not understand the Plated Folk's new magic. If you cannot describe it to me any better, at least tell me how to counter it. Then I will let you go."
"I WILL GO ANYWAY, FOR WORDS CAN HOLD ME BUT SO LONG AND NO LONGER. I CAN TELL YOU NO MORE. I CHOSE NOT TO ARBITRATE THE FATE OF THIS WORLD, FOR I HAVE MY OWN JOURNEY TO MAKE AND YOU CANNOT STOP ME." There was a vast, roaring chuckle. "IF YOU WOULD KNOW MORE, ASK YOUR ENEMY YOURSELF!"
A violent concussion shook Jon-Tom loose from the tree root. Bark came away in his bloody fingertips. But he was blown only a few feet downslope when the wind began to fade from hurricane to mere gale force.
The thermonuclear stallion spirit vanished in an expanding ellipse of brilliant light. As the light faded, it left behind a three-dimensional residue. He saw a wavy image of some huge, sinister chamber. It was decorated with red gems, blue metal... and white bone.
Within the bower stood an insect shape ten feet tall. Chains of jewels and cloth and small skulls of horribly familiar design draped the chitin. The nightmare stood next to a throne with a high curving back decorated with larger jewels and skulls. Some of the skulls still had flesh on them.
It was talking to someone out of their view. Then something made it turn, and it saw them. A high, vibrating shriek filled the glade, and made Jon-Tom shiver. No dentist's drill could have made a more excruciating sound.
A far smaller flash, an echo of M'nemaxa's blinding passing, o
bliterated the awful sight.
And then there was no longer anything within the glade save one very tired wizard, wind, and grass.
The gale had become a breeze. As if confused by its presence, the wind-cloud vortex that had hung above the glade simply dispersed. Silver phosphorescence shimmied down trunks and branches to run like water back into the soil.
A light rain began to fall. Hesitantly, the moon peeked through the intermittent clouds, filling the glade with healthy light.
By the time the panting Jon-Tom and the others had reached the center of the glade the ellipses and suns and arcane symbols and formulae no longer glowed against the ground. Though he sought Clothahump, Jon-Tom's mind still saw the face of the towering praying mantis, heard once more the grating scream that had issued from it just before it vanished.
Pog was hovering nervously above them. The rain was steadily washing the powders and rare essences back into the soil from which they'd been extracted. This corner of the web of the world had held.
They found Clothahump sitting on the grass, his glasses askew on his horned beak.
"Are you all right, sir?" Jon-Tom spoke with a mixture of anxiety and respeet.
"Who, me? Yes, my boy, I believe I am."
"You ought not to have tried it, good wizard." Talea studied the empty ellipse warily. "There are extremes of magic which should not be touched."
He shook a finger at her. "Don't try to tell me my business, young lady. Pog, give me a wing up." The bat dipped lower, helped the wizard to his feet.
"I have learned part of what I wished to know, my friends. Though I must confess I did not expect the spirit M'nemaxa to speak in riddles."
"Actually, I don't see that we've learned that much," said Flor.
"We have something to work with, my dear, even if it is only couched as a riddle or metaphor. That is a great deal more than we had before." He sounded pleased. "And if naught else, we have given a scare to the Empress Skrritch that may make her hesitate or delay her attack, for she it was whom we saw in that final moment.
"We can continue our journey, secure now in the knowledge that this will be a full-scale war led by the Empress of all the Plated Folk herself. That should win over some of muddleheads in Polastrindu!"
"I hope we don't have to go through this many more times," Flor muttered. "Santa Cecilia may not have many more blessings left for me."
"Not to worry, child," he assured her. "I will not attempt it again. Such a conjuration cannot be made more than once in a lifetime, and tonight I have used mine. I employed incantations I will never employ again, spoke words I may not safely speak henceforth.
"From now on, each day on earth will be one twenty-two thousandth of a day shorter than previously, for in order to draw the immortal from the far depths of his journey I had to utilize the soul-strength of the earth itself."
Jon-Tom walked out into the inner ellipse. Every blade of grass within the marked shape had been vaporized. So had the soil. All that remained was a perfect ellipsoidal shape of melted stone. The white granite had been twisted like taffy.
"You spoke of its journey, sir, and so did it. I... I heard it."
"Did you see how furiously it soared, how steadily it galloped, though it did not move beyond my confinement?" Jon-Tom nodded.
"It was at once here with us and holding its place in its journey." He cheeked to make certain his plastron compartments were still tightly closed. "If the legends of wizards and the admonitions of necromants are correct, the spirit M'nemaxa has traveled approximately a thirtieth of its journey. The journey began at the beginning of the first life, life which in making its journey M'nemaxa strews across the worlds behind it.
"It is galloping around the circumference of the Universe. It is said that when it meets itself coming it will annihilate purpose. Then it can finally rest. 'Tis no surprise it was irritated at our interruption. With a journey of several trillion years still to make, even a little pause is unwelcome.
"Yet despite all that, the formulae worked. The ellipse held." He glowed a little bit himself, with pride. "It was contained, and It answered when It was called." He blinked and slowly sat down on the grass again. "I'm a little tired, all of a sudden."
"I think we're all a little tired," said Jon-Tom knowingly.
"Aye, I'll not argue that, mate." The afterimage of the enormous winged flame-horse still lingered on the otter's outraged retinas. "I think we could all do with a bit o' sleep 'ere."
Everyone agreed. After a brief mutual examination to insure that no injuries had been sustained, they began to make camp. Sleep finally came to all, but fiery images alternated with visions of a tall green-black horror to provoke less than benign dreams.
Far above and away a distant pinprick of light flared briefly across the cosmos. The tiny burst faded quickly. It came from the vicinity of NGC 187, where M'nemaxa angrily kicked aside a star or two as he raced back to where he'd left off his eternal race around the infinite bowl of existence....
XIV
There was panic in Cugluch Keep.
Word of the troubles seeped down from servitors to attendants to workers and even to the lowly apprentice workers who toiled in the deepest burrows and worked endlessly to keep the omnipresent ooze from flooding the undertunnels.
Rumors abounded. Workers whispered of a flaming rain that had fallen from the sky and destroyed hundreds of brood platforms. Or they told of tons of carefully hoarded foodstuffs invaded and ruined by spore rot. Or that the sun had appeared for three consecutive days, or that several of the Royal Court had been discovered feeding on the corpse of a mere worker and had been summarily dismissed.
The truth was far worse than the rumors. Those who knew hid in fear and went about their daily business always looking over their shoulders (those who could look over their shoulders, for some had no necks... and some no shoulders).
Hunter packs took every opportunity to get away from the capital city, on the pretext of adding still further to the enormous stocks of supplies. Official auditors bent low over their tallies. All were affected by the panic, a panic that reached beyond sense, beyond normal fears of mortality, to affect even quivering grubs within their incubation cocoons.
The Empress Skrritch was on a rampage. Blood and bits of loose flesh trailed in her wake as she stormed through the rooms and chambers of the labyrinthine central palace.
Safe from her wrath, endless legions of mandibled, facet-eyed troops drilled mechanically on the mossy plains outside the city. As if fearful of reaching the ground, the rays of the sun penetrated the dun-colored sky only feebly.
Guards and servants, scurrying messengers and bureaucrats alike felt the Empress' temper. Eventually the rage spent itself and she settled herself down in one of the lesser audience chambers.
Her thoughts were on her own fear. Idly she nibbled the headless corpse of a still twitching blue beetle chamberlain who'd been too slow to get out of her way. Chitin crunched beneath immensely powerful jaws.
It was some time before Kesylict the Minister dared to stick fluttery antennae around the arched doorway into the chamber. Sensing only simmering anger and the absence of blind fury he poked first his head and then the rest of his antlike body into the room.
A glance revealed a ruby the size of a man's head and redder than his blood. In the top facet Kesylict saw the reflection of the Empress. She was squatting on four legs. The body of the unfortunate chamberlain dangled loosely from one hand while the beautifully symmetrical porcelain-inlaid face of the Empress stared out without seeming to see him.
Though not as lavishly decorated as the main audience chamber or the sinister den of death designated as the royal bedroom, this chamber was still lush with gems and precious metals. The Greendowns were rich in such natural wealth, as though the earth had compensated the land for its noisome, malodorous surface and eternal cloud cover.
They were much appreciated by the hard-shelled denizens of those lands. In the absence of the sun, their sparkle and col
or provided much beauty. All the varieties of corundum were mined in great quantities: beryl, sapphire, ruby. Rarer diamond framed the windows in the chamber, and thousands of lesser gems, from topaz to chryso-beryl, studded furniture and sculpture and the ceiling itself.
But Kesylict had not kept his head by mooning like a bemused grub at commonplace baubles. He waited and was ready when the triangular emerald green skull jerked around and huge multifaceted eyes dotted with false black pupils glared down at him.
Kesylict debated whether it might not be prudent to retire and wait a while longer before attending his Empress. However, cowardice could cause him to go the way of the chamberlain. That former servitor was now only an empty husk that had been neatly scraped clean by the voracious Empress.
"Why do you cower in the doorway, Kesylict? Yes, I recognize you." Her voice was thick and raspy, like sandpapered oil. Useless wings twitched beneath a long flowing cape of pure silk inlaid with ten thousand amethysts and morions shaped by the empire's finest gem-cutters and polishers, and attached to the cape by a dozen royal seamstresses.
"Pardon, Your Majesty," said the hopeful Kesylict, "but I do not cower. I only hesitate because while I have hoped to talk with you for the past several hours, your mood recently has not been conducive to conversation." He gestured at the corpse-shell of the chamberlain. "Mutual conversation is difficult when one of the participants is forced to function minus his head."
That glowering, fixed skeleton shape could not twist her mouth parts into a smile, and such an expression would have been foreign to her anyway. Nonetheless, Kesylict felt some of the tension depart the room.
"A sense of humor when one's own possible demise is at stake is a finer recommendation of courage than the most dry and somber brilliance, my Kesylict." She tossed the empty shell of the chamberlain into a far corner, where it shattered like an old dish. A couple of legs fell away and rolled up against a far door. The corner was rounded, as were all in the room. The inhabitants of the Greendowns disliked sharp angles.