Scepters (95 page)

As
Wendra raised her rifle, he took a moment to reload his own weapon.

“Both
scepters are glowing,” Alucius said.

“I
think they’ve begun to glow a little more with each Table we’ve visited. Do you
think they’re picking up energy from them?”

“That
could be. We’ll have to watch and see.”

“Did
you notice that there are only five really bright Table arrow markers?” asked
Wendra.

“No,”
Alucius admitted. “But the two Tables we visited first… they’re gone.”

“It
could be the scepters. Or it could be that the soarer was right,” Wendra said. “‘The
links are fading. That’s why the guards. They don’t want them used.”

“Or
both,” suggested Alucius. “You think that one of the brighter markers holds the
scepter.”

“It
has to,” Wendra said.

“You
keep picking where we’re headed. Can you do some more?”

“I
have to. We can’t stop now,” she pointed out. “We do, and they’ll have guards
everywhere. Through the Tables, we can move faster than they can.”

“As
long as we can keep it up.”

“We
have to.” Wendra looked at him. “Are you ready?”

Alucius
nodded, lifting his rifle and ignoring the sweat beading on his forehead.

The almost-welcome chill settled over them as they dropped
through the surface of the Table and back into the purple darkness of the ifrit
tube. Alarim could sense the brighter markers that Wendra had mentioned and let
her guide them toward the nearest
—
one of pinkish
silver
.

Behind them, the chartreuse Table arrow collapsed in upon itself,
shriveling away into nothingness. Neither the bright blue arrow nor the gold
and purple one had reappeared. Was their transit disrupting or shutting down
those Tables, or was it because they carried the scepters?

Through the next purple-tinged silvery barrier, Alucius could
see/sense a single ifrit, not even looking toward the Table. As they flashed
through the thin barrier, silver billowed like mist before them, vanishing
almost instantly…

The
single blond ifrit looked at the pair on the Table, his mouth opening ever
wider, as if he could not believe what he saw.

Alucius
fired, almost hating to do so. He was off the Table before the figure sprawled
across the mosaic floor, a flowing design of interlocking geometric forms so
beautiful that, for an instant, Alucius just stared, before he jerked himself
back into action, moving toward the light-torch bracket whose hidden energy
outlined it as
if
by a sign posted below it on the
stone wall, a wall covered with the brilliant murals showing graceful blond
ifrits in peaceful settings.

Alucius
turned the bracket, his rifle ready as the doorway slid open.

An
ifrit bolted upright.

Alucius
fired, and she fell, half her upper body blown away. Relieved that his Talent
showed
no one
else in the hidden chambers, Alucius
swallowed the bile that threatened to erupt into his throat and charged into
the end chamber.

His
search was as fruitless as the first three had been,
and
,
as he hurried back to the Table, he could feel the scepter growing warmer and
exuding more of the purple lifeforce-related energy.

Without
a word, he vaulted onto the Table.

He
and Wendra dropped into the darkness below…

…
and found that more than half the Table markers had
vanished. Why
?

Because the ifrits knew that they were using the Tables? Or
because they had disrupted the links so badly that some twenty Tables no longer
functioned?

Wendra moved through the chill darkness, a golden green beacon
blazing in the dark, moving toward a crimson arrow marker. Alucius had to force
himself to keep pace… even as she shattered the silvery harrier…

Norda, Lustrea

Waleryn
scanned the image appearing in the Table’s mirror. The Table chamber in Salaan
remained empty. He concentrated. The next image was that of the conference room
above, where he watched for a time, but neither of the goblets on the Table
moved.

“There’s
no one there,” offered the ifrit by his shoulder.

“The
Tables won’t show the lamaial or us, unless we’re actually using the Table,”
Waleryn replied, “but they will show the motion of non-Talent-objects once they’re
no longer touched. No one has moved anything.”

Another
image appeared—that of the Table chamber in Blackstear—followed by the audience
chamber of the Lord-Protector, and by others in rapid succession. Waleryn
finally let the Table blank for a time and blotted his forehead. “There’s no
sign of anyone… not anywhere… except Tyren. They’ve vanished.”

“Or
they’re immobilized or dead,” suggested the third ifrit.

“Lasylt?
How could any mere Talent-steer have killed him?”

“Whatever
happened,” snapped Waleryn, “he isn’t making his presence known.” He took a
deep breath, calling up the image of the full translation tube web. No sooner
had the replica image appeared above the Table than a purple section of the
more heavily webbed section at one end of the translation tube faded—and then
vanished.

“Three
are already gone,” said one of the ifrits at his shoulder. “How can he… ?”

“What
is he doing?”

“He’s
shredding the Efran Table grid,” snapped Waleryn.

“Can’t
you message the fieldmasters?”

“I’m
trying, but the lamaial has created so much interference that… I’m not getting
through, or he’s blocking us.”

“Why
is he doing it?”

“He
hasn’t been able to find the master scepter, but somehow the resonances from
the scepters he has to be carrying are weakening the transport links.”

“No
one can carry two scepters,” protested the closer ifrit.

“Tell
that to him.” Waleryn snorted. “I knew he was dangerous. I
told
Trezun. But no, no mere Talent-steer could be that threatening. No simple
herder-mercenary could pose that much of a threat to Efra.”

The
three watched the image above the Table.

Another
section of the grid shriveled and vanished.

The
table onto which Alucius and Wendra emerged was twice as large as any that they
had seen before, its square top a good four yards by four. Nor was there any
billowing of mist or splashed silver. Alucius looked for stone walls and
light-torch brackets. There were neither.

The
Table stood in the center—or the base—of a chamber that was a small
amphitheater, rising up a yard above the surrounding stone floor, in the center
of an oval area a good thirty yards across, enclosed by a yard-high wall of
green eternastone. The arched pink marble ceiling was a hundred yards above
Alucius’s head, and lights of all colors played over it. Somewhere, musicians
played, a melody that was stirring, soothing, and sensual, all at the same time.

Beyond
the first wall rose dais upon dais of green eternastone, and upon each dais
stood the blond ifrits, all in different garb—some bearing weapons and some
empty-handed. Alucius realized, almost instantly, the “ifrits” were incredibly
lifelike statues—except for the four pairs of guards stationed equidistantly
around the lowest dais.

“There!”
said Wendra.

Alucius
turned, still holding his rifle ready, to see halfway up the daises in the
middle of the long side of the oval an enormous scepter, shimmering purple,
with light playing across it.

He
could
sense no power, and no response from the
scepter he carried.

“It’s
false. It’s not a real scepter.”

Alucius
caught sight of movement and whirled.

Two
of the tall blond ifrit guards aimed their light-cutters toward Alucius and
Wendra. An instant before the beams of the light-cutters slashed toward them,
Alucius flung up a shield of greenish black.

When
the light-knife beams splattered away from the shield, Alucius was more
surprised than the openmouthed guards.

“There’s
no scepter here! We’ll try the
next
Table,” Wendra
said.

“Let’s
go.”

Light
flashed around them as they dropped back into the darkness beneath the Table.

The chill was greater, more oppressive, and Alucius could sense
no Table arrow markers at all. None. Had all the Tables been deactivated? How
could the tubes remain? Except they had to be ifrit world ley lines, and the
master scepter had to lie along them… somewhere.

In the chill darkness, Wendra blazed even more brightly, a figure
of green and gold, and Alucius could also sense the purple pink brilliance of
the scepters they carried.

Ahead, or so it seemed, was a pinkish purpleness, not an arrow,
not a marker, but something more like a portal, like the portal created by the
scepter they had sought on Corns. Alucius would have laughed had he been able.
The ifrits, believing that he and Wendra could travel only from Table to Table,
had shut off the Tables, and that had revealed the location of the master
scepter. Yet… would there be guards waiting there? How many? With what kinds of
weapons?

Alucius forced himself to move faster to sweep in beside Wendra.

The darkness was deceptive, for they seemed to move so slowly.

Was the scepter like the portals of the soarers, outside the ley
lines?

Alucius reached beyond the webs of darkness, somehow off to the
side, and the portal blazed brighter. Wendra… had she tried to pulse an
inquiry? Alucius reached once more, and he could sense Wendra reaching with
him.

With that effort, Alucius and Wendra surged toward the purple
pink portal, so quickly that they were through whatever barrier that might have
existed even before they were aware of any such membranes separating the world
lifeforce lines and the world above.

Waves
of pulsing purple light flashed over them, light so bright that Alucius could
see nothing.

Alendra
shrieked, a thin cry lost in the silent light that was, impossibly, louder than
thunder, a light that seemed to paralyze all thought, blind all vision.

Alucius
cast out a dark Talent-probe, sending it forth almost as a shade against the
source of the light. That Talent-shade dimmed the intensity enough that he
could see, through eyes streaming tears, and only perceiving blurry objects at
first, that they were in an empty chamber—empty except for a silver scepter
three times the size of those they carried, set in a framework of silver bars
that descended through the solid stone floor into the depths of the earth
below. Above the scepter was a massive spinning purplish crystal, easily a
dozen times the size of the one that had powered the Matrial’s torques.

Alendras
cries continued, but Wendra and Alucius exchanged a quick glance.

“Someone’s
coming,” she said. “How… what… do we do?”

“What
did the soarer say? Reunite the scepters… wasn’t that it?” As he spoke, Alucius
set down his rifle, reached down with both hands, and began to undo the clips
that held the scepter to the scabbard.

When
he had loosened the first clip, the silver scepter snapped the second clip and
surged toward the master scepter. All of Alucius’s strength was barely
sufficient to hold it. “Wendra. Drop your rifle and get rid of the scepter.
Quick!”

Wendra
did not even look at Alucius as she bent and released the first clip. The
second snapped.

A
roaring filled the chamber, and the intensity of the light began to multiply
once more.

Alucius
glanced at his wife, his vision blurring under the searing brilliance. The
metal of the scepter was
bending
, yet she was
holding it. He glanced down. He was also holding a scepter that was bending,
the metal elongating as the crystal surged and struggled toward the master
crystal.

“On
three,” Alucius yelled. “Release it, and grab hands, and drop… all the way back
to Coras. One! Two! Three!”

He
released his scepter, and his fingers closed around Wendra’s wrist, even as he
tried simultaneously to cast up a green black shield and struggled to reach the
darkness of the ley lines beneath the chamber.

A
splintering impact rocked the chamber, and Alucius and Wendra were flung
backward against the wall. Splinters of stone, of crystal, flew past and around
them. Alucius could feel his shield crumpling as he/she/ they forced their way
into the blackness beneath the stone, a blackness beneath the stone chamber.

The blackness was neither totally dark nor chill. Lines of purple
pink flared past them and around them, with waves of heat that alternated with
a deeper chill. Alucius felt blistered and frozen by those waves, buffeted one
way, then another.

Wendra turned, seeking the long translation tube.

Alucius followed, as much tracking the cold and sensing the tube
as knowing where he and Wendra were headed. Behind them rippled waves of pink
and purple. The scepter portal flared brighter, then fragmented into pink
sections that disintegrated into smaller sections, and ifrit ley line after ley
line began to shrivel.

As if sensing the urgency, Wendra began to press, her thoughts
pulling her, Alendra, and Alucius toward a darker, stronger, greener blackness
at the end of the purple tube that they traveled, a tube that seemed to be
cracking, letting in even deeper cold, and disintegrating behind and around
them. The foreboding he had felt on the out-translation was stronger, the chill
ever deeper, and Alucius focused on reaching the Corean end of the deep and
long purpleness that stretched eternally beyond the reach of his Talent, a
star-great distance that he knew they could cross, that they must cross. As in
the outward journey, he sensed the warmth of Wendra and Alendra
—
joining in that combined strength against the star-deep chill as
the tube walls, even as they began to separate
—
began
to split
—
contracted, twisted, pulled, and pushed at
the three of them
.