Darknesses (47 page)

Tempre,
Lanachrona

T
he
Lord-Protector stood
at the edge of the table desk in the small private
study off the audience hall, looking at his brother. “I have seen more of you
in the past month than in a year.”

“That
is true,” admitted Waleryn. “Should not I care about my brother’s struggles and
troubles?”

“That
is kind of you,” replied the Lord-Protector, brushing back dark hair that was
longer than usual. “It has been a difficult year, if successful in most
aspects.”

“In
most, that is true.” Waleryn nodded. “How fares Alerya?”

“She
is better, but her recovery will take time.”

“Some
have said that she can have no children now,” suggested the younger man.

The
Lord-Protector half turned. “Often what is said has little truth, but reflects
what others may wish. There is no reason she cannot bear a child, once she is
strong again.”

“Brother…it
is unlikely she will be that strong.” Waleryn looked hard at his older brother.
“Do you not think you should consider…another consort?”

“Why?”

“The
future of Lanachrona, perhaps?” Waleryn shrugged. “If you love her too much to
put her aside, you might consider…other arrangements. There are many willing
women—even from good families.”

“Waleryn…I
cannot believe you are suggesting…”

“My
dear Talryn…I am not suggesting anything. Not yet. I do think you should
consider what alternatives are open to you.” Waleryn bowed. “I had merely
stopped to see how you are faring, and it is clear that you are as always,
doing well, and I will not trouble you further.”

“I
thank you for your kindness,” replied the Lord-Protector, not leaving his table
desk as his brother bowed again and departed.

The
Lord-Protector waited until the study door closed, then checked the ancient
time-glass set on the bookshelf. He nodded and opened the doorway to the
circular stairs leading up to his private apartments. When he reached the door
at the top, he took the brass key from his belt and unlocked the first door,
then stepped out into the main foyer, past the guards, and into the private
foyer.

Beyond,
in the sitting room, Alerya was at her writing desk, if in her dressing gown.

“Dearest…I
had not expected you until later.” She smiled warmly at her husband.

“I
have a little time before my next appointment.” He paused. “Are you certain you
should be up?”

“I
write for a time, then I rest. I cannot get stronger by remaining always in
bed.”

“You
must not do too much,” he cautioned.

“I
do not. I am most careful.” Her eyes took in his face. “You look troubled.”

“I
am, dearest. Waleryn came to see me. He suggested…that I should either seek
another consort—or as he put it, make other arrangements. I refused.”

“If
I do not heal fully…you may have little choice.”

“We
are both young,” the Lord-Protector replied. “Such talk is foolish now.”

“It
is not foolish for others. That is not why you are upset.”

“No.
I worry because Waleryn did not mean what he said. He did not try to persuade
me, or handle the matter gently. He was far too direct—as if he wished me to
reject his words.”

“Ah…he
does not wish you to have an heir,” Alerya said.

“That
is my thought. Someone else has put him up to this.”

“Enyll?”

“I
would judge so.” The Lord-Protector frowned. “I do so wish that the overcaptain
had been successful in dealing with him.”

“Enyll
is not difficult with you.”

“No.
He is more polite and solicitous than ever, and I trust him not at all. In
fact, less than ever.”

“Do
you think he killed the overcaptain somehow? Or Waleryn did?”

“Waleryn
could not have done so. He had not returned from Vanyr. As for Enyll…” The
Lord-Protector shrugged. “He certainly would not have hesitated to do so. Yet…I
cannot say. My mind says that he did. My feelings say that he did not. I feel
that he would be acting…differently.”

“Trust
the feelings.”

“In
matters of state, that is sometimes hard.” The Lord-Protector slipped behind
his consort, bending slightly and slipping his arms around her, kissing her
cheek. “Where you are, that is far easier.”

He
held her, silently, for a time, before straightening, and saying, “I fear I
must return for my next audience. And you must rest.”

“After
this letter.” She watched, smiling sadly, as he hurried to the foyer and out of
the private apartments.

A
nother
three days of
parrying and countering ever-stronger Talent-force blows
and eluding and disintegrating the crimson arms went by, each session clearly
exhausting both Alucius and the soarer. In between sessions, Alucius tried to
learn better how to soar, but he was so tired that his efforts were limited.

On
the following day, he woke earlier than usual and washed up and dressed,
fingering the short dark gray beard that he had grown over the time of his
lessons and captivity. Did it take captivity and pain for him to learn
something? That thought bothered him as he walked to the window and looked out
at the city below, or what he could see of it, a city largely deserted and
empty. That he could sense, now.

Beyond
the amber stone of the tower and the buildings below, the morning sun cast long
shadows out across the white sand. The shadows fell far short of the dark rock
rampart that marked the edge of the valley in which the hidden city rested. The
crystal oblongs arranged at the top of that rampart glinted green-tinted silver
in the morning sunlight, although most of the sun’s rays were drawn into the
crystals rather than reflected.

The
sky was darker than it was in Tempre or Dekhron, not by much, but by a fraction
of a shade of green.

When
he sensed the soarer nearing, Alucius turned and waited.

The
soarer appeared just inside the door, once more with his breakfast.
You must eat.

Alucius
took the tray and ale from her and settled himself on the bed.

It is time now. You must return and finish the battle.

“I
don’t know exactly how to use my Talent against the ifrits.” That worried
Alucius. Greatly. He could still recall the power of the two creatures.

You must do the same against them as you have against the arms.
The method is the same against all life-forms.

“You
think I have learned enough?”

The
sense of a smile conveyed itself to Alucius.
No one ever
learns enough, for each learning opens one to further learning. Those who do
not keep learning die, inside at first, then all over. You have much yet to
learn, but you cannot learn more here.

“Right
now, you mean?” Alucius finished the last bite of the egg toast and took a long
swallow of the ale.

Ever. You have learned what we can teach. We must all hope it is
enough.

“Thank
you for your confidence,” Alucius said dryly.

You have the skills and knowledge to prevail. That does not mean
you will.

Alucius
scarcely needed that reminder. “What do I do?”

You will use the mirror in the adjoining chamber. Bring your
sabre.

Alucius
set aside the tray and stood, then walked to the wall, where he took down the
sabre and clipped the scabbard to his belt. The soarer had already left the
room, and Alucius followed her out and into the chamber with the mirror.

She
stood beside the mirror.

Alucius
glanced to her.

Stand on the mirror. Seek the depths. Repeat what you did to
reach the hidden city. Think about the engineer, about Prosp, about anything
that will draw you to that portal Table.

“Prosp—because
that Table is the more dangerous?”

Both the Table there and the ifrit who has possessed the engineer
are more dangerous than the Table in Tempre.

Alucius
walked into the middle of the square mirror, sensing its golden green depths
beneath him, and the ties to the earth—and beyond. Then he paused and looked at
the soarer. “Thank you.” After a moment, he asked, “Will I ever see you, any of
you, again?”

You are welcome. If you succeed…then the future will be what it
will be, and that will thank us more than words.

The
soarer’s words both reassured and troubled Alucius, but he could not say why.

You must go, before it is too late.

He
nodded, squared his shoulders, and took a deep breath. Then he concentrated on
the depths beneath, on the ties that led deep into the earth.

He
felt himself falling…

The chill surrounded him, a deep coldness infusing the dark
golden green, but a cold less edged and bitter than the chill of the purple-blackness
of the ifrits’ conduit. He could sense the difference, because this time, he
was within the golden green, and beyond, parallel to the golden green conduit,
was the dark conduit.

Reluctantly, Alucius reached for the ugly purple-blackness, this
time using a narrow Talent pulse of golden green, rather than the purple line
he had used to reach the hidden city.

Abruptly, he was within the black conduit, where he cast forth
his Talent-senses to search for the silver arrow that he recalled. He scarcely
had to seek it, so bright did it appear, beckoning coldly to him.

After steeling himself for the possibility that the engineer
might be waiting, he focused his concentration on the portal Table.

Silver light flared around him.

A
lucius
blinked.
He was standing on the newer Table—in an unlit dimness. Was it
evening in Prosp? Before, when he had traveled the ifrits’ conduit, the time of
day had been the same as in the hidden city, or so he had thought. Then he
smiled. How would he know the time of day? The chamber was underground.

Even
as he slipped off the table, he could sense that the Table was more “alive.” He
wondered exactly what the engineer who was an ifrit had done to create that
effect—and what it meant. In the dimness, he quickly surveyed the chamber with
eyes and Talent, but it was indeed empty. He walked quietly toward the door,
where he stopped and listened, using his Talent as well to probe into adjoining
larger chamber.

As
before, there was a guard outside, but Alucius sensed no one else nearby. With
the gentlest of touches, he extended a golden green probe, pressing the guard’s
lifethread firmly, but gently. He could sense—and hear—the guard fall. Only
then did he ease the door open.

The
brightness of the light coming down the stairwell from above into the lower
room confirmed to Alucius that it was morning—or day—in Prosp, and that,
besides the unconscious guard in silver and black, the lower part of the
building was empty.

Had
the engineer gone elsewhere? To set up another Table somewhere? Or was it just
earlier than the engineer arrived?

Alucius
surveyed the outer chamber quickly. He could still hear the sounds of building,
but they were muffled—outside, or on an upper level.

Then,
he heard steps, hurried steps, and he slipped back into an alcove in the outer
chamber a good ten yards from the door, which he had left ajar. As he stood
there, he did his best to mask the brilliance of his lifethread, trying to let
it show as the brown and black of an average workman.

That
effort must have sufficed. The engineer halted at the fallen guard, but only
momentarily, before entering the Table chamber, and he did not even look in
Alucius’s direction.

Alucius
followed, easing along the edge of the wall. Before he even reached the
still-open door to the Table chamber, his first effort was to use his Talent to
focus on the weapon held by the engineer, who stood inside the door, probing
the Table with jabs of purpled Talent-force.

Alucius
eased into the Table chamber behind the engineer, forcing himself to use his
Talent-probe to go further and unravel the linkages inside the weapon.

Vestor
turned and lifted the light-knife, pointing it at Alucius. Nothing happened. He
set it on the writing desk with a smile. “So…you have learned some tricks.”

Alucius
sent out a Talent-probe, the slimmest and strongest he could manage.

The
engineer staggered, then jabbed back with his own burst of intense purple
Talent-force, a force that came as much from the Table as from Vestor himself.

Rather
than trying to block the Talent-thrust, Alucius slipped it past him, as he
might have handled a sabre slash, then thrust again.

While
the engineer did not block the second thrust, and even halted momentarily, he
stepped to the Table, the way the Recorder had, and pressed his hands against
the mirror surface. Immediately, the ruby mists swirled upward, and a greater
swelling of purpleness enfolded the engineer.

Alucius
dropped a darkening mist over the Table, momentarily forcing the mists back. He
was the one to ease to the door and slip the bolt in place. He hoped he was not
being foolish, but he didn’t want to worry about being attacked from behind as
he tried to fight the engineer. And he knew, instinctively, that, if he did not
win, he would not be captured, not in any way he could accept, but that, one
way or another, he would be dead.

“Rather
confident for a poor Corean Talent-steer.” The engineer sneered, marshaling yet
more of the ruby mists, which re-formed into the sinuous arms Alucius recalled
all too well.

Alucius
concentrated on seeking the nodes, before probing, and driving a golden green
line of fire into the larger node of the leftmost arm, the one nearest to him,
at the point closest to where it left the Table.

His
hands still upon the surface of the Table, Vestor grunted, his pale forehead
damp, and another layer of bright pinkish purple reinforced the ruby arms.

After
Alucius slid his probe under the purple shield, he tried to twist and unravel
the smaller threads within the node. As he did, he could feel heat rising all
around him and sweat popping out of his forehead. He felt as though he were
fumbling, and that time all around him had slowed to a creep as the tiny point
of his Talent-probe knifed into the node of the ruby mist-arm, then twisted,
and cut the links of the smaller threads.

Suddenly,
the arm vanished in a spray of tiny purple threads that were sucked back into
the Table itself.

“You
are no Talent-steer,” said the engineer tightly. “You’re one of the dying ones.
You cannot prevail. You cannot stop us. Not this time. Not a mere handful of
ancient dodderers who will die within a handful of years.”

Alucius
couldn’t help the momentary surprise, then had to catch himself and concentrate
on the other ruby arm, now thicker and more armored in a sheen of purple.

Neither
Alucius nor the engineer spoke, as golden green Talent-force battled
pink-purple Talent-force.

Alucius
hammered his Talent-probe into the main node of the ruby mist-arm, but the
engineer, veins standing out across his temples, forced layer after layer of
purpleness around that probe, so that Alucius could barely move it.

With
great effort, Alucius twisted the probe, but not enough to break the linkages.

The
engineer threw a line of purple farther back around Alucius’s probe.

Alucius
expanded his probe just slightly, and the purpleness shattered away.

Vestor
fired another gout of purple force at Alucius, and Alucius deflected it, then
twisted the probe, just about ready to break the node, when the arm vanished.

Alucius
felt himself stagger.

A
second arm appeared, larger and more massively defended than the first and
second ones had been, arrowing toward Alucius.

Alucius
jabbed a probe into a smaller node, less defended, but more toward the
attacking end of the tentacle-like arm. The last two yards of the arm vanished
in a spray of purple threads.

Another
bolt of purple flared toward Alucius, one that he barely managed to parry
before throwing a quick blast of golden green at the engineer.

Vestor
grunted, but the ruby mist-arm began to thicken and grow again, undulating
through the air of the Table chamber toward Alucius.

Alucius
could see the purple Talent-armor of the engineer thinning. Hurriedly, he drove
a second probe at Vestor’s main lifethread node, where the two threads—the one
from the Table and the one of the engineer himself—intertwined. After a moment
of resistance, Alucius’s probe was through, and into the node, where he twisted
deftly, but savagely.

The
purpled lifethread exploded into thousands of smaller threads, unraveling and
fraying into ever-smaller pieces.

The
engineer gaped at Alucius, as if he were seeing the overcaptain for the very
first time.

Alucius
did not hesitate, but struck a second time, severing the remaining lifethread.

As
Vestor’s knees buckled, the engineer’s pale face crumpled and darkened. Then he
pitched forward onto the stone floor.

Alucius
swallowed as the Table sucked in the few remaining smaller threads of what had
been the monstrous purple-black lifethread. As the last thread vanished into
the Table, the building shivered. A flash of purple light—visible only with
Alucius’s Talent—flared from the Table through the chamber, and Alucius could
feel that at least part of the Table had died, or had ceased to work, with the
death of the engineer.

For
several moments, despite the shaking of the building, Alucius just stood there,
breathing deeply and trying to catch his breath. He felt as though he had run a
vingt or more at full speed, and yet he had barely moved twenty yards since he
had come through the Table.

The
vibrations continued, and the building began to sway more violently. A large
stone wall tile, weighing as much as Alucius, vibrated out of the inner walls
of the chamber, crashing down onto the floor stones with an impact that shook
Alucius and sent cracks radiating through the stone floor. Before the vibration
from that impact died away, a second stone followed the first, and an ominous
creaking and groaning filled the building.

Alucius
could hear men yelling, their voices muffled by the grinding of stones and
continued shaking of the structure and the earth.

More
stones fell.

Alucius
glanced from the door to the Table. As a wide crack appeared in the wall beside
him, he jumped onto the Table, and concentrated on seeking the purple-black
conduit.

This
time, he dropped through—or into the Table—quickly.

Once more, chill surrounded him, and the shock was greater
because of how hot Alucius had become in battling the engineer. Within the
blackness and chill, he paused for a moment, although he doubted time passed
quickly—or at all—in the dark conduit. Now what? He hadn’t expected to have to
flee from a collapsing building through the Table. Could he return to the
hidden city and regroup?

He began to search for the golden thread lying beyond the black
conduit…but it was impossibly distant—as though it had been moved. He pressed
toward it, and it vanished. He tried keeping it in mind and moving away, but
that had no effect either. Neither did trying to move himself to the golden
thread, which wavered—just out of his Talent-reach.

He could feel the chill seeping into his very being. Why was it
so hard to find the nodes back to the hidden city—or to use them?

Because the soarers didn’t want him returning? Because, now that
he knew how to do it, they had taken steps so that he and others could not?

With near desperation, Alucius began to search for the blue
arrow, the one that would return him to Tempre—and the Recorder of Deeds. As he
did, he could see that the silver arrow had faded—but it had not vanished,
although it continued to fade. He drove himself—or his being—toward the blue
arrow…willing himself beyond it.

At that moment, a brilliant blue light coruscated around him.