robert Charrette - Arthur 02 - A King Beneath the Mountain (40 page)

There were minor lights dotting that landscape, dimmer by far than the diffuse regional glows of the
lucernae.
Such lights showed where objects of power reposed. It was one of those objects, a
telesmon,
that he sought in this excursion.

The easiest objects for him to perceive were the resonators. To him, they were the brightest by far of their kind, more visible due to his connection to them. He could not see all of the resonators—even astral vision had its limitations—but all those within his range of sight remained where he had ordered them set. When linked, they would form a glowing web of a theurgic geometry that would be pleasing to the stars.

The gateway.

And
he
had achieved its placement!

Understanding the form was an old achievement for him; he had understood the form for centuries before he'd taken the deep dreaming sleep. Creating the resonators had been a comparatively minor accomplishment. Arranging for their placement had been trivial; the followers of the Path had been prepared by the secret canon and they had been ready to set the devices in place.

But the gateway was worthless without the Key, and
that
remained elusive.

The prophecies claimed that the nature of the Key would be revealed in the time of the Opening. They also said that the Seeker would find without knowing, but in finding would know. Knowing, the Seeker would open the gateway to the Glittering Path.

By all the signs, the time was now.

He would be the Seeker.

The Key was waiting to be found. He sought it, not knowing its form or nature, but holding its purpose in his mind. He must not doubt that he would recognize his prize when he found it.

It, or a clue to its hidden location.

Over and over his attention was drawn to a particular
lucerna
among the scattered places of power. Power gathered to power. He turned his attention to it. The region glowed softly with solid coils of thaumaturgic energy; flashes of activity flickered-fitfully across its breadth. Only when he devoted his full attention to the
lucerna
did he perceive that one of its interior sparkles did not fade and did not move. It was not a magician, or a spirit, but a
something
hedged by power.

Could it be what he sought?

He felt compelled to peer beyond the energies enwrapping the
thing.
Cautiously, he examined the compulsion and found that it was not laid upon him in any way he understood.

The starshine warmed him, filling him with preternatural wisdom. Soft, sibilant voices whispered in his head, promising the fulfillment of all his dreams and urging him to act. He understood what he was seeing, knowing it with a clarity usually reserved for things seen under the full light of the sun he could no longer face.

This
lucerna
held a key to the Key.

His unique place in the scheme of things was clear. He was the greatest mage. His was to be the glory.

He
was
the Seeker of the prophecy!

His essence drifted higher toward the loving embrace of the stars.

It Would all be his!

Yet there was another nearby who might use the key. Her strength was less than his, but sufficient nonetheless.

The mage who flew.

Below him shimmered the spark that was she.

Did she know how close they were to the time of the Opening? Was she aware of him and his intentions? He did not sense the aura of the opposition about her, but she need not be one of them to oppose him. Unaligned forces had ruined his plans before. And obtaining the key to the Key might expose him. He could not afford to act without knowing her side in the great struggle, because she was close enough to present a danger were she to operate against him.

On the other hand, if she was truly unaligned, she might be convinced to join him. Her power would be useful. Not necessary, of course, but useful.

And if she offered a threat, he would dispose of her. He was stronger now, more awake. He was confident that she would fall before him if they dueled.

He returned to his fleshly shell, eager to take the next steps on destiny's road.

Spae was tired, having spent a long day studying the readouts from the machines monitoring the Settawego Building and trying to match the data with her own impressions. There were still half a dozen output files to get through, but she decided that she had probably done enough for the day. She picked at the remains of her room service meal, deciding that she had definitely had enough of it. She sat back and looked around her.

The room Mr. Ryder had arranged for her in the Hartford Nikko was much fancier than the one where she and David had spent their first night together. It was actually a suite, with four bedrooms and a common area, that occupied one whole floor of the hotel's northwest tower. Two of the bedrooms were unoccupied. Three, actually, with David off at some editorial meeting; not that he slept there anyway. The suite was more spacious than her cottage in Chardonneville. She was sure the rental fee was outrageous and was glad that the suite was part of the "expenses" in her arrangement with LRP and Associates.

But while well-appointed, spacious, and comfortable, it lacked something, as all hotel rooms seemed to. She felt an emptiness about it. And not just because David was out. Hotels always gave her the feeling that she was on display.

It was vaguely like the feeling she'd gotten in her last weeks at Chardonneville.

Which made her feel even less like getting back to work.

She went to her room and took a long, hot shower. Feeling better, she pulled on her new nightshirt—one of David's T-shirts—and wandered back into the common room, intending to wait up for him. She considered calling up some entertainment on the room's perscomp and decided against it. Quiet had its virtues. She stretched out on the couch, thinking she'd give some thought to her future, but couldn't manage to keep her thoughts on any one track. She must be more tired than she thought. To hell with it; there was always tomorrow to worry. She needed rest. She let herself go and was soon drowsily drifting into sleep. She really did need some rest.

She really did need ...

She really ...

She...

She opened her eyes to find a man standing before her. He was tall, with coal-dark skin and snowy hair. Although his skin was unlined and shone with youth, his eyes were old with wisdom. Those eyes told her he was a wizard.

Recognizing that, she saw that he was dressed as the Hierophant. Long robes swathed his body, draping elegantly from his raised right arm, which he held as if preparing to give her a benediction. In his other hand he held a crosier glittering with gems and shining with power. A multitiered crown sat on his head, but unlike the crown in her tarot deck, made of gold and gems, his was of iridescent feathers that sprouted in three tiers from a band of jade, tourmaline, and turquoise.

In the distance behind him, a flickering image caught her attention. Faintly she could see a pale outline running toward her. "David," she called—but it wasn't David; David was not so pale. The Hierophant stood between her and the pale man; she tried to see past him, tried to see who the pale man was since he wasn't David. For a moment, the Hierophant Vanished and the pale man stood before her. With a courtly bow, he offered her a cup. She reached out to take it, but when she closed her hand upon the stem, there was nothing there. The pale man frowned and turned upside down. Although he appeared to be running in her direction, he got farther away rather than closer.

The Hierophant returned to stand before her, flat as his pasteboard representation. No. It couldn't be. She could feel the power cloaking the man; he was real. With that, the Hierophant's robes and accoutrements dissolved away, paper eaten by a sudden fire. Behind the facade was a more believable image, a gaunt, white-haired Black man in an elegant Italian silk suit. Despite his appearance of African ancestry, there was something in his face that made her think of Central America.

The Black wizard floated serenely in the air outside the window of the common room.

Floating outside the window?

"lace,"
he commanded.

She shouldn't have been able to hear him through the window, but she did. She shouldn't have been able to see him either; she had closed the curtains before lying down on the couch. It had to be a dream. To prove it, she opened her eyes—just as the curtains finished parting.

The man
was
floating in the air outside her window.

Not a dream.

If it wasn't a dream, she should be able to leap up as she wanted to; but she couldn't move. The wizard's command to lie still had force to hold her.

With an audible snap, a pock appeared in the surface of the window. Spidery cracks radiated out from it, tracing a mad grid of jittery lines across the pane. Pieces of window began to fall, but not just down. Some moved to the sides, some straight up along the plane of the window. The shards moved in slow motion, but not far, until the opening was big enough for him to pass through. Chill air and the sounds of the outside world intruded on the suite.

The man floated to the sill and settled there. With finicky grace, he stepped down into the room. Behind him, the shattered fragments of the window crawled back together, fusing into a whole again.

He walked across the room and stood looking down at her. Spae wanted to writhe under his intense stare. Feeling like the proverbial bird under the stare of the serpent, she found that she couldn't even look away. Her mind seemed as paralyzed as her body. Time crawled by. At last, he spoke.

"Do you know the Glittering Path?"

Glittering Path? The name was vaguely familiar. Hadn't there been an American insurgency movement called that? This man—this wizard—was not the insurgent type. He must be referring to something else, most likely something arcane. I ler brain raced, skidding to a halt when she remembered an incomplete grimoire known as
Callis Luxorum Dubiaria.

"Dice
," he commanded.

She heard herself say,
"Callis Luxorum Dubiaria?"

he gave the sort of nod a person does upon having suspicions confirmed. "So you know Luciferius."

"I've read the
Callis
," she admitted. Of the author, clearly pseudonymous, she had no knowledge.

"And do you believe the words of Luciferius?"

"There are a lot of symbols I don't understand." Actually, the writing was just plain confused. "It's not all there." Luciferius had promised that all would be revealed in his third volume. "The third book is missing."

"Luciferius never wrote the third book," the man said matter-of-factly. "Tell me, do you see that the time he wrote of, the time of the man-blight, is upon the world?"

True, the world wasn't in the best of shapes. True, a lot of it was mankind's fault, what with urban sprawl, deforestation, and continued pollution. But Luciferius's apocalyptic man-blight? Well... maybe.

The mage smiled. "Yes, I see that you do. Is that why you study the Great Art?"

She hadn't thought about
why
for years. The Art was everything to her; that was just the way she was. She couldn't
not
study it.

"Do you hate the blight?" he asked. "Do you wish to heal the world?"

Hate the blight? Who wouldn't? But heal it? She hadn't thought about things in that light. Sure, the world was in awful shape, but what was one person supposed to do about it?

"I hadn't thought about it that way," she said.

"And if you saw a way to stop the blight? What would you do?
Cogita et dice."

There was a lot to be considered, but there really wasn't much of a decision. If there was something she could do to materially improve the state of the world, or to stop or even to slow its deterioration, she'd do it. Who wouldn't?

"So," the man said, frowning at her. "We are to be enemies."

Suddenly she felt icy claws ripping at her brain. She screamed. Breaking the paralysis that had held her, she scrunched into a fetal ball. Screaming.

The claws dug for her, shredding Spae the consultant, ripping through Spae the thaumaturgic doctor, tearing toward Spae the magician, trying to reach her innermost self.

"No!" she pleaded.

The Hierophant bent over her. His claws tore jagged rents in the robes of the Queen of Pentacles. The Queen was knocked from her throne, and the throne shattered, causing the creatures of the woodland around her to flee for their lives. Her crown rolled away in the mud.

The Hierophant's crosier metamorphosed into a pair of black iron manacles connected by a length of gleaming chain. He opened the fetters.

"No!" she screamed, understanding at last what he was doing to her. "NO!"

Knowledge became her power.

A golden disk emblazoned with the pentacle appeared between her and the Hierophant. He balked. She struck out in a frenzy, slapping the manacles away.