Scepters (88 page)

“Shoot
them!”

The
ifrit raised the scepter, its aura blinding and stopping the Matrites. Then he
vanished.

“Link
to the earth!” Alucius ordered. “Now!” Even before he spoke, he had begun the
linking process, extending thin threads.

Beside
them, the massive crystal began to slow, no longer spinning above the stone
floor, but beginning to wobble.

Alucius
forced himself to concentrate on strengthening and intensifying his links to
everything around him, weaving some of those threads around Alendra as well. At
the same time, as he began to feel that the links to earth were stronger, he
pressed lifeforce darkness around the faltering purple crystal.

He
extended that blackness against the resistance, a resistance that suddenly
shredded into purplish threads that exploded away from the crystal. Wrapped in
its covering of darkness, a darkness added to by Wendra, the crystal
contracted, pulsed, and contracted again.

“Shoot
them! Now!” commanded someone.

Alucius
ignored the commands, Talent-pressing darkness around the failing crystal. A
high, whining sound knifed through Alucius’s ears, but he crammed more darkness
around the crystal. A heavy, leaden, splintering sound echoed through the
chamber.

Instantly,
huge cracks and rents appeared in the chamber’s stone walls. Feeling like an
immobile and massive miniature mountain, tied in place, as well as protected by
his threads that felt as though they went everywhere, Alucius forced yet more
darkness around the crystal.

With
a dreamlike slowness, the crystal stopped rotating and tumbled down toward the
stone below. Faint purplish light swirled as if it were smoke, providing a
trail. All the glass and crystal in the world shattered—that was the sound when
the pink purple crystal struck the stone.

A
single piercing shriek followed, so high in frequency that while Alucius could
not hear it, his very flesh felt as though it were being flayed apart from within.
Silver green blackness flared across the underground chamber… a blinding wave
of color and power… drowning Alucius and Wendra—and Alendra.

Salaan, Lananchrona

A
spray of pink and purple Talent-mist appeared in the center of the Table, concealing
for a moment the appearance of Tarolt. The older ifrit staggered off the Table,
pitching forward and landing in a large crumpled heap on the stone floor of the
Table chamber. The scepter he had carried flew through the air, striking the
stone wall to Tarolt’s left, then slamming to the floor. A hairline crack
appeared in the stone.

Trezun
moved forward and quickly scooped up the scepter. It was untouched, seemingly
without a mark or a smudge upon it. Transferring it from hand to hand, as if
the metal were too hot to hold firmly, he glanced toward the other two ifrits
who had appeared in the doorway of the staircase that led back up to the
conference room.

“So
that’s what it looks like,” offered the recently arrived ifrit, a woman even
taller and more muscular than Trezun. “It doesn’t seem that special.”

“It
is more… special… than you know,” replied Lasylt, stepping forward and taking
the scepter from Trezun. “Barylt… you and Trezun carry Fieldmaster Tarolt up to
one of the beds, where he may recuperate.”

“His
force levels are low,” observed Trezun as he lifted Tarolt’s shoulders. “He
must have had some difficulty. He could have encountered the young colonel.”

“Even
if he did, he was successful in retrieving the scepter, and that was what
mattered.” Lasylt nodded. “Take him up and return immediately.”

The
senior fieldmaster watched the Table intently, but the Table remained inactive,
without a flicker in the unseen purple glow that surrounded its surface. Nor
did any other figures emerge from the Table.

Before
long, the other two returned.

“Bring
out the other scepter, but leave it in its casket,” Lasylt ordered Trezun.

Barylt
remained standing silently beside the Table, one hand resting on the butt of
the light-cutter holstered at her belt.

Wordlessly,
the Recorder opened the hidden door to the strong room and disappeared down the
short corridor, returning shortly with the silver and black metallic case.

“Put
the case beside the Table,” Lasylt said.

As
Trezun did so, the senior fieldmaster took the uncased scepter and set it on
top of the metal case.

“You
don’t want them in the strong room?” asked Trezun.

“No!”
snapped Lasylt. “There is no shield for the one, and it acts as a portal. If
you put them in the strong room, the Talent-steer will be able to translate
directly in and out of the strong room. We cannot guard both places at once,
not effectively, not with but four Efrans, and we must watch continuously until
more of the others arrive.” Lasylt frowned.

“Are
the translations not going well?” asked Trezun.

“Several
have already perished in the long tubes from Efra. There is less lifeforce
remaining in Efra than we had calculated.”

“We
may not have to worry about the lifeforce mass here, then,” suggested Trezun.

“We
may not, and you should consider yourself fortunate to be here,” replied
Lasylt. “Most fortunate.”

Baryk
glanced at the Table, then at the bare stone walls and the unadorned stone
floors. The slightest shudder traversed her frame.

Time
passed. How much, Alucius was not certain, but he began to unlink from the
chamber around him. He glanced at the cracked stone walls, walls that were
beginning to sag inward and would not long last against the pressure of the
soil around and the structure above.
Cracking
noises
flowed around him, and the stones underfoot felt unsteady. He could not sense
much of anything with his Talent, and only faint light filled the chamber,
light coming from the doorway that led to the stairs up into the Residence of
the Matrial—or the Regent, Alucius supposed. Only the barest trace of skeletons
lay on the stones inside the entry to the underground chamber, and the oak door
had disintegrated into dust, while even the iron hinges had vanished into rusty
dust that lay heaped at the base of the stone doorframe.

Had
years passed? Alucius swallowed. Had they been frozen in time when he had
linked to the world itself?

“Everything’s…
dead.” Wendra’s voice was small.

That
was why he sensed little. There was little enough to
sense. Between the ifrit’s actions, the failure of the crystal, and their
defenses, they had sucked all the lifeforce out of everything around them—for
yards at least.

“We
didn’t get the scepter,” he said dully.

Wendra
said nothing.

Should
they have come to Hieron first? Had they failed because Alucius hadn’t wanted
to return to Madrien, and the place where he’d almost died once before? “I’m
sorry. We should have…”

“I
agreed with you,” Wendra said. “We can’t do any more here, can we?”

“No.
The scepter was the only thing. Well… except for the torques, but with the
crystal gone, they can’t power the torques, and without the scepter, they can’t
re-create the crystal.”

“We
need to get something to eat. I do anyway. We’re too tired to do anything more
without eating,” Wendra said.

“There’s
some travel food in my jacket and belt pouch,” Alucius suggested.

“There
was. We ate it. The soarer was getting forgetful or tired about meals.”

“We
could go back to Dereka…”

“Do
we have to go there?” asked Wendra. “The soarer said that we could travel
anywhere along the ley lines.”

“I’m
sure we can.” Alucius’s lips quirked into a crooked smile. “But I don’t know
how to determine where I am… or whether we’d end up under several yards of soil
and stones? Do you?”

“Oh…”

“The
Red House in Dereka isn’t too far away from the Table chamber… and we can check
that case that I thought might have held the other scepter at the same time.”

“Can
we go?”

He
nodded, reaching out and taking Wendra’s hand. “There’s a portal in Dereka,
where there once was a Table. It’s crimson gold.”

They
walked down to the lower level, where the stone walls seemed slightly more
sturdy. Even so, it seemed to take forever before they could find the misty
blackness beneath the stone and drop into the world life-force lines.

Deep in the blackness, Alucius wanted to shiver, but he
concentrated on the crimson gold and on projecting that image to Wendra. He
could sense the growing power of the ifrits Tables, especially the maroon and
dark green of Salaan, the blue of Prosp, and another Table, one of a bright
brown, as well as the other older Tables in Soupat and Blackstear. Then, too,
he could feel the purple and pink of the scepter, almost on top of the maroon
and dark green. Slowly, too slowly, it seemed, they moved closer to the faded
crimson gold of Dereka… until they burst out of the blackness and through the
silver…

Almost
before he broke out of the misty darkness, Alucius was looking for Wendra, but,
once more, she and their daughter were close beside him. Although he had the
rifle up and ready, the ancient Table chamber was empty. He could sense someone
in one of the chambers up the steps and farther toward the north end of the
building.

Alucius
stepped out of the oblong pit, and dust swirled around him as he reached down
and offered a hand to his wife.

This
time, Wendra was the one to sneeze, but far less noisily than Alucius usually
did. With his free hand, he rubbed his nose, trying to stop a sneeze before it
started. What light there was in the chamber filtered through the doorway framing
the bottom of the staircase.

They
moved quietly up the steps and came out into the smaller chamber. As he moved
to the larger chamber, with the empty windows overlooking the main north-south
boulevard of Dereka, Alucius realized that it was late afternoon. How long had
he been locked into timelessness? He shivered as he considered that they could
have been locked there for far longer. The soarer had not mentioned that
problem. Then, there were more than a few items that she had overlooked—and the
ifrit had suggested even others. He wondered what else they would discover
along those lines.

Wendra
walked toward the low, wide window, looking out to the west, where the sun cast
a glow over the city. “It looks old, and it feels old.”

“It
is old,” Alucius pointed out. “We need to get out of here. The stairway down to
the lower level and the north doors to the street are this way.” He turned to
the right.

Wendra
slipped alongside Alucius as they followed the bare-walled golden eternastone
corridors generally northward until they reached the wide stone staircase
leading down. A single beggar, hearing their steps, scuttled back to the
southern side of the structure so quickly that Alucius never saw the man.
Before long, they walked through the square arch on the north side of the
building. They turned west toward the main boulevard.

Despite
the warmth of the afternoon, Alucius left his jacket on to conceal his uniform.
Even so, several of the vendors and peddlers took second looks at the two
herders, but the looks faded into disinterest as they took in Alendra.

When
they reached the main boulevard, Alucius pointed southward. “You can see the
main gates of the palace there… and the tower.”

“It
looks just like the one in Iron Stem,” Wendra said. “You’d told me that, but it’s
hard to believe.”

“All
the green towers look like that. So do the ones in Tempre.” Alucius motioned to
the left, northward. “It’s several blocks that way. And we have to stay out of
the middle of the road. That’s only for riders and wagons.”

The
streets remained less crowded than he had recalled from his first trip to
Dereka, but, perhaps because he was walking with Wendra, more people looked
directly at them. Alendra was beginning to fuss by the time they had walked the
half vingt that took them to the three-story Red House.

“It
is
red,” said Wendra with a laugh. “Very red.
Shutters, doors, trim…” She grinned. “We could do that to the stead.”

Alucius
made a face, then laughed. “The food’s not bad.”

He
knew they had to eat, and that they needed rest, but he still worried that they
were losing ground with every moment not spent seeking the scepters.

Alendra
woke up, whimpering with hunger, as the faintest touch of gray seeped through
the shuttered second-floor windows of the room in the Red House. While Alucius
struggled to find some alertness, Wendra eased their daughter to her breast.

“I
must have been tired,” Alucius finally said.

“You
were. You were snoring. You don’t snore unless you’re tired.”

Alucius
managed a smile, easing himself into a sitting position, his bare feet on the
plank floor. A solid meal and sleep—even on a most lumpy mattress—left him
feeling better than he had in days. He stood and walked to washstand, where he
washed quickly, then refreshed the water for Wendra.

“I’ve
been thinking…” he began.

“About
what the ifrit said about the soarers? I wondered about that, too.” Wendra
shifted her weight and repositioned the nursing infant. “What do you think that
he meant?”

“I
think I know. It makes sense. I just hadn’t thought of it that way. You know
leschec? It has the soarer queen and the sander king, and the soarer mentioned
that they had skill but not strength, and that you had been brought by the
strength of others…”

“You
think… the soarers are the women and the sanders the men? They’re so different.”

“There’s
another thing. The sanders kill nightsheep. Why? They don’t eat them, or not
their flesh. The sandwolves do, but not the sanders.”