Scepters (87 page)

Orange, yellow, and silver mixed in slashing swirls of icy chill
a swirl of chill that exploded away from him…

Alucius
stood in the Table depression—alone. He glanced around. There was no one in the
Table chamber besides himself, not even Wendra. He swallowed. Should he try to
go back into the darkness and chill to find her? Or should he wait a moment?

Then,
a swirl of dark mist appeared and Wendra and Alendra stood beside him.

He
reached out and squeezed Wendra’s hand. “I was getting worried.”

“I
had… a little trouble… breaking through.”

“I’m
sorry. You have to imagine yourself as a spear or something sharp.”

A
rueful smile crossed her lips. “I tried being a hammer. A spear would have been
better.”

“Or
an axe.” Alucius studied the chamber more intently. Unlike the walls of the
other Table chambers, those of the chamber in Lysia were cracked. In more than
a few places, the walls appeared to have been splintered and broken by gunfire
or shrapnel. The thinnest rays of light penetrated the chamber through cracks
in the stone ceiling, providing a twilightlike illumination.

“I’ll
get better,” Wendra promised, patting Alendra on the back.

Even
as Alucius stepped out of the depression that had held a Table many years
before, he could sense an aura of purpleness as well. It was the first time he
had sensed an ifrit in a place where there was not a functioning Table. He cast
out his Talent even farther, bringing up his rifle as he did… but there was no
one else in the Table chamber, or in the open passageway that led up the stone
steps to an upper level. “An ifrit’s been here. He’s gone, I think.”

“Is
that the purple feeling?”

Alucius
nodded.

“It
feels cold… worse than a sandsnake or one of those Talent-creatures on the
stead.”

“They’re
very strong, and their clothes are like nightsilk. Don’t think they are, but
they’ve pressed lifeforce into them, and they act the same way when they’re hit
with a sabre or a bullet. They might be even stronger than nightsilk.” Alucius
inspected the first set of holes drilled into the stone walls, where once a
light-torch bracket had been.

“I
think it’s this one,” Wendra said from the other side of the chamber. “There
are four holes here, and there are scuff marks in the dust on the floor.”

Alucius
walked around the oblong Table depression and joined her. His eyes took in the
holes. Again, his Talent revealed nothing. “Do you want to try to open it?”

“Why
don’t you show me? That will take less time.”

He
extended a thin Talent-probe, turning the leading end as sticky as drying
honey, and sand-rough. He fumbled with what he could barely sense on the other
side of the stone wall. His forehead was damp with sweat when there was a
click
and the wall slid aside to reveal the passageway. A
mist of purpleness drifted out of the passage and around the two herders, but
Alucius could tell that the passageway and the chamber beyond were empty.

Wendra
wrinkled her nose. “I know it’s something I sense with Talent, but it
smells
bad. Alendra doesn’t like it, either.”

The
two eased into the passageway, almost ten yards long and lit by the faint glow
of an ancient light-torch. As Alucius had expected, at the end was another
chamber—exactly five yards square. Large footprints stood out in the dust that
had settled onto the polished stone floor. As with the chamber in Dereka, a
table desk stood beside the wall in one corner, with a long-legged chair beside
it. Against the wall to the right was a single-wide chest of drawers.

Stretched
on the floor in the corner beside the desk was a set of clothes, the green
tunic trimmed in brilliant purple, with matching trousers and black boots. All
the garb had a silvery sheen and held embedded lifeforce. On the wall adjoining
the one closest to the table desk was an empty niche. Alucius stepped toward
it.

Unlike
every other bit of stone in the chamber, the stone surface of the niche was
rough and uneven, with deeper gouges at each end. Alucius could also feel heat
emanating from the stone. He looked down at the rock droplets on the ancient
stone floor, then up at Wendra. “The scepter was here. Not very long ago,
either. The ifrits used one of their light-knives to cut it out of the stone.”

“Now
what do we do?”

Alucius
stopped. “I think I know where the other scepter is… where it has to be…” He
couldn’t help frowning as the words left his lips.

“Where?”

“It
has to be in Madrien, under the Residence of the Matrial. It can’t be anywhere
else. The soarer said that it was locked in pink and purple, and the entire
residence—everything associated with the Matrial—has an energy that is pink and
purple.”

“But…
you said you destroyed the crystal.” Absently, Wendra patted Alendra, as if to
calm the infant.

“I
did… but what if the crystal was just something created by the use of the
scepter? That’s the only thing that explains it, and it would explain why the
Regent of the Matrial was able to repower those torques.”

“Can
we travel there… by the ley lines?”

“We
should be able to. I kept feeling a pink and purple portal, but I’d wager it
isn’t a portal at all, but that other scepter, and probably the case that held
it in Dereka was designed as much to hide it as for anything else.”

“Then…
hadn’t we better go and see if we can get it, before the ifrits do?” asked
Wendra.

A
rueful smile crossed Alucius’s face as he realized that he had been trying to
avoid returning to Hieron and the Residence of the Matrial. “We should.”

“You
really don’t want to go there, do you?”

“That
doesn’t matter,” he replied. “You’re right. We need to get there before the
ifrits do.” He turned and started back toward the Table chamber. “We can come
back here later, if we have to.”

Wendra
followed, humming under her breath to Alendra.

Once
she was out of the passageway, Alucius used his Talent to close the hidden
doorway. Then he stepped down into the depression where the Table used to be,
all too many years before. Wendra stepped down beside him. He took her hand and
squeezed it.

“Are
you ready?”

She
nodded.

Alucius
concentrated.

The three began to sink into the very rock itself, merging into
the misty blackness of the worldthread that they would travel westward, toward
the pink and purple that marked Hieron
—
and the
second scepter, Alucius hoped
.

Norda, Lustrea

Two
oil lamps set in light-torch brackets illuminated the room whose walls were
primarily of ancient stone. On the northern wall, newer stones showed where
recent and hasty repairs had been made. The stone ceiling displayed years of
soot from torches and lamps.

A
single figure stood before the oblong Table that dominated the middle of the
underground room. The odor of wood oil and that of the energy that powered the
light-torches mixed in the air that hung heavy in the dimly lit chamber.

Waleryn
stepped closer to the Table, his eyes fixing on the purplish glow in the center
of the Table, a glow that expanded until the entire top surface of the Table
glowed purple. Almost immediately, a grid appeared above the surface of the
Table. Close to a third of the sections of the grid were purple; the remainder
were red.

The
shadow-engineer concentrated on the grid, and another grid section changed from
red to purple. A moment later, the entire grid vanished.

The
engineer turned and walked to the side of the room, lifting a wooden box two
yards long but less than a third of that in height and width. Carrying the box,
he stepped onto the Table, then began to sink into it, vanishing into the
Table, leaving the barred Table chamber empty, the oil lamps flickering but
slightly.

After
a time, the Table glowed more brightly, and the engineer reappeared, carrying a
small pack. He was breathing heavily as he eased himself off the Table and
walked to the crude and flat table set against the recently repaired wall.
There he set the pack down.

He
settled onto the stool beside the flat table. Almost a quarter glass passed
before his breathing returned to normal, and he stood and began to remove items
from the pack.

The purple pink portal became
less and
less like a portal and more and more like a brilliant point of crystalline
light, burning evilly through the misty blackness of the ley line that Alucius,
Wendra, and Alendra traveled westward. There was no clearly defined portal,
only two rings of pinkish fire. Alucius tried to signal to Wendra that they
should try to emerge on the lower level. He could only hope she understood.
Silvered purpleness shattered away from him
.

Almost
before he broke out of the misty darkness, Alucius was looking for Wendra, but,
this time, she and Alendra were beside him. The unseen but strongly felt
purpleness infused the very air, filling the entire hexagonal stone chamber.

Alucius
had his rifle up and ready even before he saw the ifrit holding the scepter. In
general shape, the scepter was close to the replica he had seen in the Table
chamber in Dulka, a length of silver and black—two metals exuding light and
intertwined—topped with a massive blue crystal. The crystal glimmered with
energy, a deep and brilliant purple that was almost too bright to look at or
sense directly.

A
broad smile crossed the ifrit’s face as Alucius started to squeeze the trigger.
Alucius released the trigger pressure. The pinkish shield had flowed around the
ifrit, and Alucius remembered what had happened when he had tried to strike the
first pink crystal of the Matrial.

The
ifrit looked familiar.

“You’re
Tarolt.”

“That
is not really my name, but yes, I am. It would have been much easier if you had
just pulled that trigger.”

Alucius
concentrated on creating a web of blackness to cast around both ifrit and
scepter.

“I
don’t think so.” Purplish energy shredded Alucius’s web.

A
black javelin of force flew from Wendra toward Tarolt, slamming into his leg.
He limped backward, lowering the scepter so that it formed a complete shield.
Wendra’s second javelin struck that shield, and Alucius could sense the shield
weakening.

“How
can you believe that turning a world into dead land is good?” Alucius knew
there was little point in asking, but wanted to occupy Tarolt as he formed
another black lifeforce missile, a hard task indeed, because there was so
little lifeforce in the small stone chamber.

“Good
is what enables a people to survive in glory and power and dignity,” replied
the ifrit. “Not surviving, or surviving in squalor and poverty, is bad.”

“I
can’t believe you think that destroying all life on a world—”

“You
can believe whatever you wish to believe. What you believe has no effect on the
universe, only on yourself.” The ifrit smiled coldly. “Beliefs change nothing.
Actions do. They change the arrangement of items in the universe. The universe
remains as it was and will be. Beliefs have value only to the believer. There
is no absolute good in the universe; there is only survival. Those who survive
determine which beliefs rule.”

“So
might makes right?” Alucius hurled another black javelin of darkness, a javelin
that shredded off some of the purple shield.

“Has
it ever been otherwise? The universe does not need to have meaning. It is. You
need the comfort of meaning.”

Alucius
knew that the ifrit was wrong, but now was not the time to unravel that puzzle.
He flung another missile, one that weakened but again did not penetrate the
shield created by the scepter.

“Besides,
all life that is superior is the same. Have you asked the ancient ones what sustains
them?”

“The
ancient ones? The soarers?”

“The
ones you call soarers are but half the species.” The ifrit’s smile grew
broader—and colder. “They were no different from us, save that they are dying,
and we will live. They have but told you what they wish you to know. That, too,
is the way of all life.” He stepped back into a doorway concealed by a
Talent-illusion until the ifrit shredded it. The tall figure quickly backed up
the steps.

Alucius
hurried after Tarolt, with Wendra almost at his side, throwing up a green
golden shield before them and aiming another black missile at the ifrit.
Somewhere he could sense Talent-alarms going off, and bodies moving toward
them.

No
sooner had Alucius reached the top of the narrow staircase and stepped through
the upper archway than he and Wendra were enfolded by blinding purplish pink,
light that was visible not just to Talent-senses, but to eyes as well. Alendra
whimpered and began to cry.

As
if it had never been destroyed, there, floating in the center of the stone-walled
chamber, rotated a massive, multifaceted crystal. The Talent-like roots of
purple energy no longer flowed into the rock, but directly to the scepter held
by Tarolt. Even the once-cracked stone walls of the chamber had been
regenerated or repaired, so that the stone was smooth and flawless.

Alucius
could sense that the ifrit was having trouble trying to translate out of the
chamber while still maintaining control of the scepter. As before, Alucius
could feel the heat building inside his nightsilk undergarments, as well as
Alendra’s and Wendra’s discomfort. He forced himself to cast another
Talent-missile at Tarolt.

Wendra
followed with one of her own, then another.

As
blackness cascaded around Tarolt, the oak door burst open, and more than a
squad of Matrite special guards poured into the small chamber. Their pistols
came up, some aimed at Alucius and Wendra, some at Tarolt.