Darknesses (42 page)

One
of the guards hurried toward Alucius.

“He
said he felt dizzy. Is there someone…?” Alucius looked around. “Could we take
him to the receiving room. Would you help me?”

Between
the two of them, they carried Suntyl to the receiving room and laid him on one
of the settees.

As
Alucius straightened, the captain-colonel scurried forward through the smaller
door. The guard stepped back, dismissed by a gesture from the senior officer,
and quietly left.

“He
had given me a tour of the palace, and we were standing in the outer hall,”
Alucius explained. “He said he felt dizzy, then he collapsed. I didn’t know
where…”

“Oh…”
Suntyl half moaned.

“It
looks like he’ll be all right.” Alucius looked relieved, as he was, because
touching lifeweb threads was a delicate business. “I can find my way back to
the entry.”

“Are
you—”

“I’m
most certain, and I thank you both greatly.” Alucius bowed, then slipped away,
out through the double doors, walking rapidly down the corridor toward the main
entry hall.

O
nce
away from the Lord-Protector’s receiving room,
Alucius employed his
Talent to create the impression that he was a captain-colonel. It was far
easier to twist the impression of something already existing than to create an
illusion in the eyes of others of something that did not exist, even if that
were an illusion of an empty corridor—and there were more than a few Southern
Guard officers in the palace. He paused for a moment, considering. Did he
really want to seek out the Recorder?

Did
he have any choice? The Lord-Protector would not have set matters up so were
there any other option, and if the Lord-Protector happened to be that cautious,
the Recorder was indeed dangerous. Alucius disliked the intermittent evil feel
that flowed from the man, and he worried how the Recorder would affect the
herders and the Iron Valleys if he were not stopped. Yet…if Alucius did stop
him…how might that affect Alucius? Then too, there was the possibility that the
Recorder was far stronger than he appeared.

For
a time, Alucius just stood in the corridor. Then he turned and made his way
down the steps, past the kitchens, using the walk of an officer in a hurry and
not wishing to be bothered. So far as he could sense, not a single person gave
him even a second glance. Before long, he was walking along the back corridor
toward the archway leading into the chambers of the Recorder. As he walked, he
realized something else. The Recorder’s chambers were well to the north side of
the palace, perhaps even under the rear courtyard of the palace.

No
one was near him as he stopped before the archway. Somewhere beyond the archway
was the distant sense of purpleness. While the stones and structure of the
archway resembled the square arches on the upper level, Alucius could feel that
they were older, far older, than the remainder of the palace, as if the palace
had been built around them. And for a palace to have been built around ancient
chambers argued that those chambers contained something of value—or power—like
a Table that could see events anywhere?

He
took a step toward the doorway, then another. Finally, he eased open the door
and slipped inside, into a narrower stone-walled corridor, one that not only
felt older, but far more damp, and darker, with but a single light-torch on the
wall. Alucius moved forward. He came to a closed door on the left, but he could
sense that no one was in the chamber, nor was there any hint of the purpleness.

He
walked forward toward the door at the end of the short hallway, a door that was
just slightly ajar, then stopped short of it. The sense of evil beyond was
strong—and almost palpable. Alucius eased forward and let his senses examine
the chamber. The chamber was empty except for one person and the Table. The
Table itself appeared rooted into the ground, with a trunk of purple darkness
reaching downward and to the north. The Recorder was facing the Table,
sideways, so that he would not see the door unless he turned.

Alucius
took a slow deep breath and created his illusion of nothingness before he eased
the door slightly wider and stepped into the chamber.

The
light within the chamber was both golden and pinkish purple. The golden light
came from the four light-torches mounted on the wall, set in sconces that had
been old generations before, while the pinkish purple light was that seen only
through Talent, and radiating from both the Table and the Recorder.

The
lifethread of the Recorder was monstrous. Alucius froze for a moment, in spite
of himself. The thread was not the normal brown or tan or yellow, black or
black shot with green, or even black shot with purple or pink, or the dual pink
and black threads he had seen with the torques of the Matrial. Instead, there
was the thinnest of amber threads, and braided around that thin amber thread
was a pulsing purple rope, and the purpled rope rose from the Table in the
middle of the chamber. The Table itself was a dark lorken wood cube with a
shimmering upper surface that resembled a mirror.

The
Recorder turned, looking straight at Alucius. His smile was chill “Your
illusions mean nothing here, lamaial. You were warned.”

“Warned?”
Alucius dropped the illusion, and studied the figure beside the Table, who
appeared to present two separate images—an older white-haired man and a taller
alabaster-skinned and black-haired figure so much like those in the mural—or
his dreams.

“Warned,”
the Recorder reiterated. “You were told that to act against me would set you as
the lamaial, and that all lamaials fail.”

“I
have done nothing, except explore.”

“You
came here to confront me. Do not deny it. You may not know it, but you were
sent. Those who sent you failed before, and they will fail now.” The Recorder
laughed, a deep and melodic sound that was more chilling than if he had
cackled. “In many ways, that will make my task easier, for you are one of the
three.”

One
of the three? That made little sense to Alucius, but then, in dealing with
Talent-matters, very little had until after the fact. He couldn’t deny that the
spirit-woman had warned him, as well, but she certainly hadn’t sent him. “No
one sent me.”

“Then
you are doubly a fool, here without allies.”

Rather
than wait, Alucius reached out with his Talent-sense to strike the lifeweb
thread of the Recorder—only to find that the purple-black thread felt armored.

The
Recorder laughed. “I am not one of your weakling Coreans, a town sheep to be
slaughtered.”

Corean?
Alucius had never even heard the word.

He
could sense a purple mist rising from both the Table and the Recorder himself,
shedding a darkness over the chamber, even though golden light flooded from the
light-torches.

“I
think it best you become someone else…and the poor Lord-Protector can say
little. You will walk out of the palace…and will return to your stead, and no
one will be the wiser.” The Recorder remained with both his hands on the
surface of the Table.

While
the Recorder’s words continued to make little sense, the danger behind them was
more than clear. A wave of purpleness swept toward Alucius, and instinctively,
his sabre was in his hand, coated with the darkness of life. He cut through the
clinging purpleness and stepped toward the Recorder, although each step was
like climbing a yard-high step—slow and deliberate.

“You
do have a little Talent, and we can put that to good use, in the right time and
place,” observed the Recorder.

Ruby
mists—unseen except through Alucius’s Talent—began to rise out of the Table,
swirling around the Recorder and beginning to extend like sinuous arms toward
Alucius.

Alucius
focused more darkness into the sabre, darkness that flowed outward. The
purpleness fell back before the darkness, but the ruby mist-arms did not,
boring through the darkness with a sinister glow, twisting toward Alucius.

Alucius
stepped sideways, sabre still before him, moving to the side of the Table
opposite the Recorder, whose hands remained fixed upon the Table. The man who
was older and yet who was not kept his eyes on Alucius, and the ruby mist-arms
turned yet again, but undulated through the air around the Table, rather than
over it.

Alucius
felt coated in sweat, yet he had only been in the Table chamber for the
smallest fraction of a glass. Breathing heavily, he willed darkness—pure
darkness—toward those dangerous ruby appendages.

For
a moment, the arms fell back, and Alucius tried to move around the Table, to
reach the Recorder with his sabre. But the red mist-arms swept wider, as if to
encircle Alucius. While the darkness-coated sabre stopped the purpleness, the
undulating and approaching arms simply twisted away from the blade.

From
somewhere came an idea, faint, but clear.
The Table…enter
the Table.

Enter
the Table? How? It was solid. And why?

Enter the Table.

Alucius
struggled to raise more darkness, but both the purpleness and the ruby mists
circled around the Table, moving ever closer to Alucius.

How
could the Recorder—or the creature that he was—be so strong?

And
what could Alucius do? Enter the Table? Just how was he supposed to do that?

Perhaps
he could get on it. The mists and the purpleness were avoiding it. And
then…with the sabre, he could strike directly at the Recorder.

Alucius
leapt onto the Table, hoping it would hold him. Landing on the Table with his
boots was like landing on stone from several yards, but Alucius still managed
to strike at the Recorder with his sabre.

The
Recorder jumped back, and a wide smile crossed the mancreature’s face. “Even
better!”

The
solid surface of the Table disappeared, and Alucius felt himself dropping into
purplish blackness.

Purplish blackness swirled around Alucius, as if in a stream, an
underground and lightless stream, and one in which he was trapped—but there was
no current, and the chill was worse than winter at Soulend in a blizzard. He
could not see, not with his eyes, and he could not move his body, much as he
tried.

His Talent senses revealed the blackness, and through it, he
could feel threads, or arrows. One was darkish purple, overlaid with blue, and
it was the brightest. Another was the same darkish purple and nearby, but
overlaid with silver. A third was golden green, thin, and almost not there, as
if hidden, or walled away behind a purplish barrier, or even outside the
blackness. Then, there was a long and deep purple-black arrow, so deep, so evil
that even considering nearing it with his Talent-senses raised nausea within
Alucius.

What could he do?

He concentrated on the blue overlaid arrow, but as he did, he could
almost sense the Recorder and the ruby arms searching.

His attention went to the silver arrow, still purple, but without
the greedy sense of searching and seeking. Alucius tried to use his Talent to
carry him toward the silver arrow—bring the arrow toward him, before the
darkness of the Table chilled him so much that he could not even think or use
his Talent.

Nothing happened—not that he could sense.

What could he do? Somewhere in the darkness “behind” him, he
could sense the ruby mist-arms reaching toward him, and he knew, if they
touched him, that he would become…either something horrible like the
Recorder…or cease to exist at all.

He tried to visualize a long thin line of purple, a lifeline of
energy, linking him to the silver arrow, pulsing, guiding him toward that
silveriness.

Abruptly, silver and light flashed around him.

Tempre,
Lanachrona

T
he
Recorder of Deeds
stood at the doorway to the chamber of the Table,
holding it wide for the younger man, similar in appearance to the
Lord-Protector, with dark hair, but shorter and with a broader frame.

“Lord
Waleryn…have you ever seen the Table?” asked the Recorder.

“Only
one or twice, with my sire, as you may well recall,” replied Waleryn, his voice
smooth and polished. “Since then, my invitations have been few. Nonexistent in
point of fact.”

“I
thought perhaps you should see it,” suggested Enyll. “I found some
references…and have improved it.”

“I’m
not the Lord-Protector, Recorder. There is little I can do.”

“That
may be for now, but the Lord-Protector has no heirs but you, and you should
know what the Table can do. The Lord-Protector has not so informed you, has
he?”

“He
has been somewhat…occupied of late with his consort. Alerya has been less than
well…”

“I
do understand. He is most deeply concerned about her.” The sympathy in the
Recorder’s voice was less than deep.

“What
exactly do you have in mind, Enyll? You did not invite me here to discuss
either the Table or my elder brother’s domestic difficulties.”

“Domestic?
If there is no heir, the difficulties go far beyond domestic. But…that is not
our matter at present. I did in fact invite you here to show you the Table. And
there is the matter of heirs, in a differing fashion.”

“A
differing fashion? That is a decidedly odd phrase.”

“Not
at all. I am not so young as I once was,” the Recorder said flatly. “I have
seen none with Talent who can use the Table. What is not known is that someone
with an agile mind can use some of the Table’s functions. Not all, but enough,
and I would propose that you, having the interest of your family at heart,
would be someone to whom I could entrust such knowledge.”

The
faintest smile crossed Waleryn’s lips, then vanished.

“There
must be someone,” the Recorder added. “You would not wish that such knowledge
be lost to your family, would you?”

“No,
indeed. That I would not.”

Both
men smiled.