Scepters (76 page)

“Like
what?”

“How
would I know? They’re strange. Take my word for it.”

There
was a round of laughter.

“…
spend most your time with the horses…”

“They’re
better company… that Trezun… something odd about him… now… the mare… like to
get her bred to Durwad’s stallion… foal’d be something… said that to Trezun…
told me breeding was important in everything… be especially important in years
to come… laughed when he said it. Didn’t seem funny to me…”

“…
that girl… Kara… she ever come back?”

Alucius
continued to listen, but the guards and ostler kept talking about horses and
women, and finally he edged to the corner of the building, where he chanced a
glance at the limestone structure that his Talent-senses told him had to house
the Table—or something like it. The building was as much dug into the low hills
as built upon them, so much so that the rear wall of the structure rose out of
the hill and the roof tiles at the rear were but a yard or so above the hill.
From what he’d learned in Tempre, that confirmed his belief that the structure
held a Table.

He
watched for a time, with intermittent glances around the corner. Almost half a
glass later, as the sun touched the western horizon, the door to the Table
building opened, and Tarolt and two other ifrits walked outside. They turned
onto a path that angled northwest, in front of the outbuildings, and in the
direction of the River Vedra.

While
he wondered where they were going and why in the evening chill, Alucius waited
until the three were a good hundred yards from the Table building before he
concentrated on making himself seem like only a vagrant breeze before he
stepped from behind the outbuilding and walked quickly southward.

There
were no yells or shouts, and none of the ifrits even turned.

When
Alucius opened the door to the Table building and stepped inside, he could
sense the presence of a Table, one seemingly more powerful than either of those
he had encountered before. Rifle in hand, he glanced around the entry hall. The
foyer was hexagonal—and empty—with two double doors leading from it.

Both
doors were wide-open, and Alucius stepped through the archway to the right,
which led into a conference room. A tray with a few small wedges of cheese and
half an apple remained in the center of the table, and to one side was a
crystal decanter half-filled with a red wine. There were three empty crystal goblets
on the table, and warmth flowed from the stove against the wall, but Alucius
could discern no one nearby. The sense of the Table was far stronger, clearly
emanating from beyond the archway on the far side of the room. On the walls
were light-torches, and not ancient remnants of the Duarchy, but ones recently
fabricated. The sight of them chilled Alucius.

He
eased around the conference table and toward the archway, totally alert, but he
neither heard nor sensed anyone. As he stepped through the archway, Alucius
found himself in another small foyer, with a staircase headed downward. At the
foot of the staircase, he could see a door, slightly ajar. His Talent sensed a
well of purpleness beyond the door, but nothing resembling an ifrit—or a guard.

After
a momentary hesitation, he started down the stairs, as quietly as possible,
trying not to let his heavy boots resound on the stone steps.

The
Table room was empty.

Alucius
stepped inside, glancing at the Table, a solid structure with its sides covered
in dark wood, running a yard and a third in width and length, and a yard in
height. As he had expected, the entire surface was composed of a shimmering
mirror. The Table looked to be slightly larger than those Alucius had seen
before.

After
a glance over his shoulder, he stepped closer to the Table, studying it with
both eyes and Talent. Up close, the sheer power and
presence
of the Table was far greater than had been the case with the one in Tempre.
Alucius frowned. The Table had to be new—or, at most, constructed within the
past two years.

Alucius
suddenly felt the presence of an ifrit—as if the room around him had filled
with an even deeper shade of purple, although that was merely a sensation
received through his Talent.

He
turned quickly.

The
white-haired Tarolt stood in the doorway, blocking any escape, and the power of
the ifrit filled the doorway, a shimmering cloak of purple radiance. “Your
attempts at illusion are useless.”

Alucius
released the breeze illusion. “I thought you’d gone…”

“Appearances
can be deceiving. You of all Talent-steers should know that.” The air wavered
around Tarolt, and instead of a white-haired trader, there stood an ifrit of
the type depicted in the ancient wall pictures of Deforya—and in Alucius’s
dreams—a figure a good head taller than Alucius with flawless alabaster skin,
broad shoulders, shining black hair, and deep violet eyes. He wore a tunic and
trousers of brilliant green, both trimmed in a deep purple, and his boots
shimmered as if they were silvered black, so highly polished were they.

“I
had no doubts of what you are,” Alucius replied, trying to calculate how best
to deal with the ifrit. After he learned what he could.

“Then…
even what is may be deceiving,” said the ifrit who was or had been Tarolt.

A
section of stone wall to the right of Tarolt slid open, and a second ifrit
stepped into the Table chamber.

“You
seem to know so much,” offered Alucius. “Tell me why I’m here.”

“Curiosity…
a fatal flaw of your kind,” suggested the Tarolt-ifrit.

“You
don’t know much if that’s what you think,” Alucius snorted. “I already know
about your kind. The great ifrits of the past… the sandoxes and the pteridons,
and none of it was enough to prevent the soarers from thwarting you.”

“
‘Efran’ is a more accurate term, in so far as definitions are ever accurate,”
replied the second ifrit.

“Efran
or ifrit…” Alucius forced a shrug. “Sooner or later someone was going to ask
about all the strange deaths of traders.”

“If
they did? What would they discover?” Tarolt smiled and took a step toward
Alucius.

“That
they shouldn’t have died, not all in the same year.” The colonel stepped back
and to his left, so that the Table was between him and the two ifrits.

“Death
happens to you mortals. Does it matter when?”

“It
does if it alerts people to your schemes.”

“Who
else would even care? Your
people
are more concerned
about food, golds, and how to procure women and other pleasures.”

“Not
all of them.”

“Most
of them, and there are few enough like you that you can be converted or
otherwise taken care of. Or used in other fashions.”

“That
doesn’t include the disappearances of herders,” Alucius pointed out. “Especially
in the north.”

The
momentary hesitation of Tarolt and the actual fleeting look of puzzlement on
the face of the shorter ifrit told Alucius that the two knew nothing about
disappearances. If anything, there was a moment of concern.

“The
wild translations will feed and destroy what they find,” the second ifrit said.
“Surely, you do not think that any but herders will fret about a few missing
nightsheep?”

Alucius
suppressed a nod.

The
purplish mists thickened around Tarolt and a pair of Talent-arms appeared,
moving through the air toward Alucius.

He
brought up the heavy rifle with a smooth motion. He squeezed the trigger, then
recocked and fired again.

The
Tarolt-ifrit staggered backward, but straightened almost immediately. Alucius
fired two more shots at the second and smaller ifrit. The colonel sensed the
shredding of the purple shield around the smaller creature, and fired his last
shot, following with a Talent-probe, aimed at the main lifethread node.

A
flare of purpled energy exploded away from the stricken ifrit—a wave of force
that flung Alucius against the stone wall behind him. He barely managed to hang
on to his rifle, and it was several moments before he could see through the
watering of his eyes. There was no sign of the second ifrit—none at all.

Alucius
could see that even Tarolt had been driven to one side of the Table room, but
the ifrit had already regained his footing and turned back toward Alucius. A
blast of purplish force flared toward the herder colonel.

Alucius
managed to block-parry it and send forth a Talent-probe. The ifrit slapped it
aside, and another wave of force slammed into Alucius’s chest, driving him back
against the wall once more. He struggled forward, wishing he’d brought a second
rifle. The darkness-infused shells had at least driven Tarolt back.

Breathing
hard, he formed a Talent-probe and drove its golden green force toward the
ifrit’s lifethread node.

The
probe shattered into a spray of greenish gold, and Tarolt took another step
toward Alucius.

He
circled around the Table and away from the ifrit.

“You
will
serve your masters, Talent-steer—one way or
another,” stated Tarolt.

Alucius
sensed two pairs of pinkish purple arms—one from the ifrit and the second from
the Table—growing and moving to encircle him.

The
herder created his own shield to ward off the arms, even while jabbing another
Talent-probe at the arms coming from the Table.

The
arms from the Table shattered into a spray of purple.

With
a satisfied nod, Tarolt moved farther into the room.

Alucius
eased around the Table, hoping to make a dash for either the main door or the
passageway through which the second ifrit had appeared.

At
that moment, a third ifrit appeared in the main doorway.

“You
see… you cannot escape.”

Alucius
scrambled onto the Table, willing himself beyond the glassy surface.

“Then
you will serve us in another—”

Tarolt’s
voice was cut off.

Purplish blackness swirled around Alucius, bearing him away from
a dark green arrow. The blackness was that bone-chilling cold that he had hoped
never to brave again. He could neither move his body nor see, except with his
Talent. Even worse, unlike his earlier experiences, when he had been able to
direct his course with his Talent, he felt as though he were being propelled in
one direction, as though in a tight tube, much like an underground and
lightless stream might have been. The chill was more intense than winter below
the Aerial Plateau.

He tried again to use his Talent-senses to guide him, to
visualize a long thin line of golden green, a guideline of lifeforce to orient
him, but he was carried onward through the intense cold that seeped into every
part of his body. He tried to reach out for the directions and the arrows that
signified Tables, or the golden green triangular arrows that represented the
portals of the hidden city. He could sense none of them, only a distant sullen
red arrow toward which he was rushing.

More immediately before him, between him and the red arrow, he
could sense a black purple barrier, and he knew he was being hurled at it. He
wanted to swallow, to protest, as he understood what Tarolt had meant by his
serving the ifrits.

Alucius tried to gather all his lifeforce into an arrowlike shield
before him, one with a point that would penetrate the barrier he was
approaching and yet protect him.

He slammed into the black barrier, and his entire body convulsed
—
or it felt that way
—
as if he had
fallen from a cliff onto a stone surface
.

Abruptly, silver and light flashed around him.

Alucius
found himself standing on a flat surface, but hunched over. Agony flared
through his entire body, and, convulsively, he jerked upright. His head banged
against something hard—so hard that he almost dropped the heavy rifle. Where he
stood was lit, but so dimly that for a time he could make out nothing.

He
was shivering, and his entire body felt bruised. Yet his forehead was sweating
so heavily that he had to blot his eyes with his sleeve to keep the
perspiration from flowing into his eyes. His arms and shoulders twitched, and
his calves threatened to cramp. Sharp pains ran through his skull, either from
his trip between Tables or from the blow to his head.

His
eyes focused more.

The
faint glow came from a pair of light-torches—set in curved silvery brackets and
flanking a door. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that the door had buckled inward.
After a moment, he eased his way off the Table. Then he turned and studied it
with his Talent-sense, trying to ignore the increased stabbing in his skull
created by that effort.

Even
as he watched, the purpleness that infused the Table grew more pronounced. It
was clearly a working Table… now. That also bothered him, because it meant that
there were probably more Tables throughout Corus—and more ifrits.

After
taking another glance at the Table, Alucius stepped toward the buckled door,
the only apparent exit. Through the distended and splintered oak, and the gaps
in the timbers that had comprised the door, Alucius could see that whatever
room or hall that had lain beyond it was filled with large building stones and
broken stone columns. There might have been space for a scrat to wiggle
through, but certainly not for a man. Whatever structure had held the Table had
collapsed—or been collapsed—over the Table’s room, as if to deny it to anyone
from outside. Had the soarers managed that during the Cataclysm? Or had someone
else done it later? Did it matter?

He
slowly surveyed the room, clearly either underground or buried, or both. There
were no furnishings in the chamber except for the Table and a narrow chest set
against one wall. He could see no other way out except through the blocked
doorway. Still… there might be another passageway like the one in the Matrial’s
Palace or the one in the ifrits’ Table room.