Madwand (Illustrated) (18 page)

Pol shook his head slowly.

Of course. In your condition, you cannot return it; and we are barred from exercising any direct control over our analogues. Pick it up. We passed a number of rocks and niches on the way in here.
You
will have to hide it.

“What about Taisa?”

Leave her.

“What if someone finds her here?”

Not important. Come.

The flame moved past him. He picked up the statuette and followed it. Back in the tunnel, he found a place to cache it in a cleft in the rocky wall.

They made their way out of the cave and back into the palace proper. After a few turnings, Pol realized that they were moving along a different route than they had taken earlier. Their progress was much more rapid this time, avoiding the misty chamber and the dark tunnels entirely.

In a short while, he found himself back at his cell and he entered there, drawing the door closed behind him.

“The journey over was just for show, wasn’t it?” he said.

Go back to sleep now.

The flame winked out. He heard the bar slide into place. Suddenly overwhelmed with fatigue, his head spinning, he staggered to his bench and collapsed upon it. There was no time to think before the dark waves took him . . . 

XII.

Henry Spier disguised himself anew as he departed the caves of Belken and returned to the enchanted city at its foot. There he spent the day in celebration among his fellow sorcerers, none of whom knew his true identity. He delighted in walking among them bearing a great, dark secret none of them shared. He drank wine spiced with delicate narcotics and he worked wonders and avoided only the greatest among his colleagues. There were none that he feared in a conflict of wills, but he did not wish to come under the scrutiny of any master great enough to pierce his disguise. No, that would be a premature revelation.

He walked, scattering curses and dooms upon those of whom he disapproved, tossing in an occasional boon for one who had won his respect. It pleased him no end to play this secret, god-like role. He had refrained for so long. But now—now he saw the future loosening upon its branch above his outstretched hand. He felt a strange, overwhelming kinship for those who were about to benefit from his labors, all unknowing.

The city expanded in magnificence as the day waned. He had not felt this fine in years. His powers reached an incredible pitch, but he restrained himself from demonstrating more than a fraction of their potency to new comrades gathered round for games and trials.

He hummed and danced as the night descended. He labored over an enormous and elaborate dinner until well past midnight. He brushed sleep away and renewed his vigor with a spell of high order, realized simply and quickly. He drifted upon a silver barge on the town’s circular canal, taking with him a courtesan, a catamite, a succubus, a bowl of smouldering dream-leaf and a jug of his favorite wine, which renewed itself as rapidly as its master. After all these years of obscurity and disguise, there was call for celebration, for the Balance was about to tip.

The night wore on, and the city became a fantasia of light and color, sound and senses-dazzling magic. He continued his revels until the sky paled in the east and a momentary hush fled like a phantom wave across the shapes-shifting jewel of the city to break at the foot of Belken. The night’s activities commenced again immediately thereafter, but a certain spirit had gone out of them.

Shaking the dust of dream and passion from his person, he rose from his scented cushions and put aside the lighter pastimes of the night. Shedding all frivolity and growing in size as well as regality of mien as he walked, he departed the livelier precincts of the city, heading northward. When he reached the fringe of the city’s charmed circle he passed on, climbing a low hill. At its summit, he paused, head lowered, turning.

Finally, he stooped and picked up a dry stick with a number of small twigs still attached. He caressed it and began speaking softly, introducing it to the four corners of the world. Then he stared at it in silence for a long while, still stroking it slowly. The morning grew brighter as he did this, and when he knelt to place the stick upon the ground, it appeared that it had altered its shape, coming now to resemble the form of a small animal. He commenced a low chant.

“Eohippus, Mesohippus, Protohippus, Hipparion . . . ” it began.

Dust and sand rose from the ground to swirl about the small figure in a counterclockwise direction, obscuring it completely. As he continued, the spinning tower rose and widened into a dark vortex far larger than himself. It produced a low moaning sound which rapidly became a roaring. Materials from greater and greater distances were sucked into it—shrubs, gravel, bones, lichen.

He stepped back away from its tugging force, arms raised to shoulder level, hands rising and falling. A long, wavering cry came from its center, and he moved his hands downward.

The roaring ceased with a blurt. The swirling curtain began to fall away, revealing a large, dark, quadrapedal outline, head high and tossing.

He moved forward and placed his hand upon the neck of the creature, unfamiliar to the inhabitants of this world. It whinnied.

A moment later, it grew calm, and his hand slid back to the pommel of the saddle with which it had come equipped. He mounted and took up the reins.

They were at the center of a crater which had not been present when he had begun his spell. He spoke to the sand-colored beast, rubbing its neck and its ears. Then he shook the reins gently.

It climbed slowly out of the depression and he turned its head northward. He smiled as they began moving in that direction. Scarlet fingers reached above them from out of the east as they made their way down to a more level area and located a trail. He squeezed with his knees and rustled the reins again.

“Hi-yo, Dust!” he shouted. “Away!”

His tireless mount shot forward across the dawn, quickly achieving a blinding, unnatural pace.

XIII.

They had arrived in the afternoon, Mouseglove and Moonbird, circling above the wreckage atop Anvil Mountain. Looking downward, Mouseglove, who had spent so much time there, found it difficult to recognize those features he had known. But he saw the one huge crater, still now, beside the wreckage of a tall building.

“That has to be it,” he stated, “the place where Pol said he cast the rod.”

It is,
Moonbird replied.

“It is said that the eye of a dragon sees more than the eye of a man.”

It is said correctly.

“Any of the machines or the dwarves still active down there?”

I see no movements of either sort.

“Then let us go down.”

To the crater?

“Yes. Land beside the cone. I’ll climb it and have a look.”

It
is quiet within it. And I do not see excessive heat.

“You can see heat?”

I ride on towers of heat when I soar. Yes. I am able to see it.

“Then take us down inside, if you know it is safe.”

Moonbird began a downward spiral toward the flared opening. He tightened his turnings as they drew nearer, then drew in his wings and dropped, spreading them at the last moment to ease the landing slightly. Gritting his teeth, Mouseglove had watched the rough gray walls rush by. He was jolted forward and to the side when they struck the irregular surface. Clutching at Moonbird, he turned a fall into a dismounting movement, then stood upon the slag heap, leaning against the dragon’s swelling rib cage. There was a great silence, and shadows already cloaked the declivity.

Moonbird turned his head from side to side, then looked up, then down.

I might have made a small miscalculation,
the dragon confessed.

“What do you mean?”

The size of this place. I may not have sufficient room to climb into the air.

“Oh. Then what are we to do?”

Climb out when the time comes.

Mouseglove cursed softly.

There is a brighter side to the matter.

“Tell me.”

The scepter is definitely here.
The massive head turned.
Over that way.

“How do you know?”

Dragons can also sense the presence of magic, of magical items. I know that it is below the ground. Over there.

Mouseglove turned and stared.

“Show me.”

Moonbird moved with a slithering sound across the gray roughness, the rubble. Finally, he halted, extended his left forelimb and with an enormous black claw scored an X upon the dark surface.

You
must dig here.

Mouseglove unloaded the digging implements, selected the pickax and attacked the spot indicated. Chips flew in all directions, and he coughed occasionally from the dust he raised. He removed his cloak and finally his shirt, as the perspiration flowed freely. After a time, he assumed a statue-like aspect as a layer of gray dust clung to his body. His shoulders began to ache and his hands grew sore, as he drove the pit to a shin-deep level.

“Does your dragon-sense,” he asked then, “tell you how deeply it is buried?”

It lies somewhere between two and three times your height in depth.

The crater returned ringing echoes as Mouseglove threw down the pickax.

“Why didn’t you tell me that sooner?”

I did not realize it was important.
A pause. Then,
Is it?

“Yes! There is no way I can dig down that far in any reasonable period of time.”

He seated himself on a mass of rubble and wiped his brow with the heel of his hand. His mouth tasted of ashes. Everything smelled of ashes. Moonbird moved nearer and stared into the shallow pit.

Might there not still be strong tools about? Or weapons? From the time when Red Mark ruled here?

Mouseglove raised his eyes slowly until he was staring directly overhead.

“I suppose I could climb out and go looking,” he said. “But supposing I found some explosives—or one of those throwers of light beams which cut through things? It might destroy what I am seeking.”

Moonbird snorted and his spittle flew about. Wherever it struck it began to boil and smoulder. After several seconds, each moist spot burst into flame.

The thing was once hidden because no one knew how to destroy it.

“That is true . . . And I’m certainly not making much progress this way.”

He picked up his cloak and began wiping the dust from himself on its inner surface. When he had finished, he donned his shirt again.

“All right. I think I remember where some of the things were stored. If they are still there. If I can still find my way—in all this mess.”

He moved to what appeared to be the most negotiable face of the crater wall. Moonbird followed him, with rough sliding sounds.

I had better begin climbing out myself.

“It looks pretty steep, for one of your bulk.”

You go now. I will come up in my time. I wish to be away from the disturbance.

“Good idea. I’m on my way.”

Mouseglove found a handhold, a foothold, commenced his climb. Later, when he paused to rest upon the rim and looked back down, he saw that Moonbird had made scant progress in his attempt to scale the wall. He groped slowly and carefully for the perfect hold, then dug in with his powerful talons, improving each niche or shelf with deep gouges before trusting his weight to it.

Mouseglove turned away, surveying the area once again. Yes, he decided. Over there to the southeast . . . One of the places where I hid was beneath that leaning monolith. And . . . 

He glanced at the sinking sun to take the measure of remaining daylight. Then he moved with speed and grace, descending, circling, every step of his route already in mind.

He moved among twisted girders and blocks of stone, craters and smashed war machines, heaps of rubble, shards of glass, the skeletons of dragons and men. The ruined city was very dry. Nothing grew. Nothing moved but shadows. He remembered his days as a fugitive in this place, still reflexively casting an eye skyward for signs of the birdlike mechanical flyers, still sliding about corners and automatically checking for spy devices. For him, the giant figure of Mark Marakson still stalked the broken landscape, his one eye clicking and flashing through all the colors of the rainbow as he moved from darkness to light to shadow and back again into darkness.