Dragon Ultimate (39 page)

Eventually, after more than a week of intense effort, with all Lessis's considerable energies poured into the task, it was done. They performed their parts flawlessly five times in a row with Lessis and the young witches as a highly critical audience. At the finish the young women applauded with great sincerity. All were quite amazed at the dragon's performance.

Bazil was amazed, too. He stood there tasting the air, working his big jaws slowly open and shut, savoring the thing. Relkin was beaming. Lessis was obviously very pleased, looking like the cat that had got the cream.

The training was over, there was no time to waste. The moment of truth had come. That evening, in a clearing in the woods near the fort, they came together.

Seven witches were gathered by the fire to cast the spell. Lessis worked with these witches, leading them in certain chants and cries until they formed what were called "volumes," strange sounds somewhere between wails and screams, that would "break" out of the air independent of any human voice and raise the hair on the back of men's necks in the process.

It was a mighty spell, and one that required the full range of the techniques of the Witch Magic. Forging it took time and a great amount of work. The young women were sweating openly before it was done.

Bazil and Relkin said their parts perfectly on cue. Lessis worked the highest parts of the spell, and, with a harsh ripping sound, a Black Mirror opened in the air before them.

Relkin felt his pulse thudding in his chest as he stared at the evil sheen of the mirror, an eye into the random diffuseness of the chaotic ether.

Lessis spoke quickly to settle them and reviewed one last time what they must do.

"We simply step through the mirror and enter as a group. Remember to keep making walking motions and stay close to me. We don't have to physically touch, but you need to be within my reach.

"And remember to keep calm no matter what you think you see. Just look at me if you become afraid. Remember, we cannot speak to one another once we are inside the mirror."

One by one they stepped through: Lessis went first, then Relkin, Bazil, and finally Mirk.

There was a terrible cold that burned the skin. Relkin felt his hair stand up all over his body. There was a sour stench and a constant, roaring buzz in the ears, occasionally cut with sharp cracks and pops, usually in tune with red flashes that blazed far off in the distance. Hashmarks, chevrons, and starblazes of black and white broke around them like tiny fireworks.

Lessis shepherded them in the correct direction. She had an unerring sense of direction in the subworld, which made her one of the greatest Black Mirror voyagers of her order. It was a long distance this time, a vaulting across the Great Sphereboard itself. Her mind was filled with calculations and concerns.

The others were filled with vague terrors. The cold had become less biting, and they moved as if in a strange and terrible dream, walking but not making contact with any solid surface. Around them roared the sour sea of chaos, and just ahead was Lessis, leading them to solid ground somewhere unknown in the Mother's Hand.

Bazil hated the strange motionless walking, the incessant buzz and flash, the cold; it was all alien to his being.

Lessis led them on.

At one point a small predator swam in toward them, a thing like a jellyfish, many-tentacled, filled with gossamer flares of energy. It was the size of a house and ravenous. Sensing their life force, it moved hungrily forward until Lessis struck it with a spell that stopped it cold. Its tentacles shot out sideways, and it almost eviscerated itself in coming to a halt. She struck it again and set it fluttering away in panic, convinced that death was close behind.

Throughout the journey Lessis watched anxiously for more dangerous foes, but was relieved when she detected no signs of a Thingweight along the route. Their only hope was to vault the heavens without stirring such a predator's interest. Every second they covered a vast distance, both spatial and temporal. Every second they came closer to their faraway goal. Each second was vital if they were to survive the attentions of the true monsters of these deeps.

Lessis had been chased by Thingweights before and had once come very close to being snatched, right at the mirror's face. She scanned the murk ahead for the first signs, the crackling far-off lightning that would always announce a great Thingweight's approach.

On they went, the cold of chaos on their skins, the twirling gray nothingness on all sides, Lessis peering ahead.

There! A faint greenish crackle on the far, far right, away in the distant emptiness. Something approached. It was too far as yet to determine if it was closing on them or just moving across their path with no idea of their existence.

Anxious moments passed; Lessis stared fixedly at the distant flickers of lightning. Was it coming straight at them, or veering off ever so slightly to pass behind them?

Gradually the lightning grew brighter. The monster became visible as a dark smudge stretching out behind the area where energies were in play. Lessis could tell at once that this was one of the big ones, a giant even among its enormous kind. As it approached, her heart began to sink. It was vast, far greater than any Thingweight she had ever seen before.

The behemoth was coming directly toward them, its front measured by sheets of lightning, bolts and blasts coming one on the other so quickly that the flashing light was virtually continuous. It was as massive as a mountain. A rippling range of hillocks rose into the central massif—huge, dark, and ominous—behind the endless lightning of the forecurtain.

Lessis estimated how far they had yet to go. It would be close, very close, but there was a chance. Her group had gained tremendous momentum in their long vault across the vastnesses of chaos. Perhaps it would be enough.

Closer and closer drew the enormity, behind its curtain of lightning. They were almost microscopic prey for the thing, but it was their life energy that it sought, not their flesh, and in that precious resource they were well endowed, and it could sense this. Ahead of the great mass the tentacles were darting and curling, seeking the tiny, precious prey item.

A far-ranging tentacle looped past them, tracing a line of green fire. Lessis looked back; the lightning curtain was terribly close now. Any moment and it would have them.

More tentacles flickered in their direction. The great mass of the monster loomed above them like a mountain, dark and implacable. Lessis felt panic rising in her heart. Tentacles flashed past overhead, no more than a hundred feet away. Too close, the next would be among them. Prayers sometimes fell on stony ground, so Lessis had discovered.

And then with the astonishing abruptness that marked this terrible form of travel, they reached the destination coordinates and were ejected across the threshold and out of the chaotic realm though a Black Mirror that had been created by a doppelganger spellsay effect. They emerged from the subworld about three feet off the ground and dropped onto a smooth slope covered in short grass. Bazil stumbled and fell, rolling down the slope about fifty feet.

Behind them the Black Mirror vanished with a harsh zap of static.

The grass was unusually dark in color, almost black, and it seemed to grow in tight spirals on the ground. They got to their feet, a little unsteadily, and gazed on a new world. The skies were pale purple, and prairie stretched away in all directions. Tall grasses and patches of yellow flowers covered much of it, and along the watercourses small flat-topped trees grew in dense clumps.

A wind gusted up from somewhere warm, bringing a mixture of scents. There was water nearby, and the musk of the yellow flowers was strong and sweet. The sun was orange and large in the sky.

Lygarth!

Lessis steadied herself. She had done it! The level of difficulty was off the scale, but once the dragon had memorized his parts, the rest was something she could attempt. Not even Ribela could have done better.

Bazil was still in a state of something close to shock. He stared around himself at the alien landscape. Slowly his breath came back; the terrible cold was gone; the terrifying thing that had pursued them had missed. He was still among the living dragons. It took him a few seconds to recover and begin to move his limbs. He hissed loudly, in sudden anger, pure dragon response.

Mirk stood by silently, inscrutable.

Relkin noted the dark hue of the vegetation. The sun was a huge orange disk, much greater in extent across the sky than the sun of Ryetelth. The vegetation was green, but green fading to black.

Lessis spoke. "This is the world Lygarth, the hidden world where lies the Temple of Gold, the gateway to the Higher Realms. The gateway lies inside the temple and access is controlled by the Order of the Pure and Holy.

"You will be tested before you can enter the gateway. You must pass the test before you can pass through. Only thus can you reach the world of the High Ones."

"Lady, will you come with us?"

"Alas, Relkin, I cannot. It would not be permitted me, nor would I seek it. Only you and Bazil are equipped with the resources to make the translation to the higher planes. For us it would mean instant death."

"I do not understand these things," said Relkin after a while. He stared off toward the southern horizon, "but I think we will find water in the south. Where there's water there's usually game."

That was as much as he could handle for the moment. The world had suddenly become a lot bigger and stranger by far than anything he had ever imagined.

They headed south in single file, with Mirk at their head and the dragon in the middle, the sword swaying over his shoulder as he prowled forward like the great predator he was. The dragon was just glad to be out of the strange place they had crossed. This world was solid ground, and there was water nearby. He would survive.

Under the blue lightning the pyramids crouched deep in the huge canyon of Eras. Eras split the great plateau at its northern apex. Above them the walls were carved in tremendous bas-reliefs, each covering many miles in extent. This was the heroic, glorious work of Eras, the Carver of the Worlds.

But the Sinni in their protective pyramids could not linger to contemplate the works of Eras. They moved on, albeit slowly, for it was very difficult to move their enormous masses. The pyramids moved solely by the use of magical power, never having been meant to move more than a few feet a day, to track the blue sun as the world slowly turned beneath it.

For aeons the Sinni, the children of Los, had dwelled thus, bathing in the abundant energy provided by the blue sun. Other than the crystal trees, which were not really alive, nothing could live in the seething temperatures obtaining at the surface without elaborate protection.

Waakzaam's dreadful Intruder, an enormous golemoid, half a mile high, was approaching from the south. He brought a hammer to smash their precious shells, to let the lethal environment into their protected catafalques. Not even the children of Los could survive here unprotected.

And so, even as they inched along with every ounce of power they could muster, they worked feverishly to try and hinder their enemy.

The Intruder was now marching up the silvery plain of Charmeesh, which covered the southern half of the great plateau.

This put it on the far side of the Chasm of Huth, which bisected the plateau. The only way across the chasm was the bridge of Huth, a light, airy span whose delicacy belied its massive strength. It had been grown from crystals worked with great magic by Elute. Of all Elute's bridges, the one at Huth was the masterpiece.

By concentrating their energies, the Sinni were able to dislocate the internal structures of the crystal and turn it to dust. The great bridge glowed for a long moment, then plunged as a cinder into the depths of the chasm.

That would halt the Intruder south of the chasm. Perhaps that would give them enough time to get off the plateau and hide in the scarlet sand sea to the north. Even there they could only prolong the inevitable. Unless their champions arrived soon, they would be destroyed.

Some hours later the Intruder marched up the plain, climbed the glittering hills of fused silicates, and strode to the edge of the chasm. The bridge was gone, leaving only the pits that had once secured its members.

The vast golemoid turned and headed back the way it had come, halting beside the Pinnacles of Eslaut. Tall, sinewy works, these statues in metalline crystals rose many miles into the hot air, filling it with grace and strange, almost startling beauty.

It swung its hammer and began to smash the base of the tallest of the Pinnacles of Eslaut, the one called Havilden the Fair. Aghast, the fugitive Sinni observed his actions through optical agents they worked from afar.

The hammer was filled with deadly energies, and it soon buckled the ankles of Havilden and brought the great piece down, crashing upon the plain of Charmeesh.

No sooner was Havilden down, face buried in the silver mud, than the Intruder turned to the tall, perfectly round pinnacle of Shorj. The Intruder swung its hammer and broke the pinnacle loose and cut it into three sections of almost equal seize. Then it heaved the fallen Havilden up section by section upon the three rollers it had made. While its limbs glowed with the green fire, the golemoid pushed the huge statue forward, removing a roller from the rear as it came to the ruined ankles, then hurrying forward to place it at the front. Then it pushed the pinnacle forward once more. In time this slow and tedious work brought the mass of Havilden to the brink of the chasm.