Scepters (92 page)

A
fourth ifrit appeared, and a line of blue flame flared toward Alucius.

Wendra’s
shot knocked the ifrit off balance, and Alucius jabbed a Talent-probe toward
the weapon. The weapon flared purple, and Wendra’s second shot dropped the
ifrit.

“Reload
now!” Alucius said.

Wendra
deftly slipped the cartridges from her belt into the magazine while Alucius
covered the steps, probing with his Talent to find how many other ifrits
remained. He hadn’t thought that Tarolt had been among those who had rushed
them.

“You
now,” Wendra said.

Alucius
reloaded quickly, but the stairwell remained empty, although he could sense
five other ifrits somewhere on the upper levels. He edged forward around the
left side of the Table while Wendra took the right side.

“The
Table…” murmured Wendra.

Alucius
didn’t have to look. He could sense a well of force rising from the oblong
beside him, force linking to an ifrit.

Pinkish
purple filled the stairwell, a shimmering crystalline curtain.

“Don’t
shoot,” Alucius murmured. “Not at the pink. It’ll throw the bullet back at us.”

“What…?”

“Darkness.
Lifeforce darkness… we need to surround it.”

The
purple-pink shield bulged into the Table chamber. Behind it came an ifrit, a
male figure taller and broader than any Alucius had seen, an ifrit almost as
large as the oversized statue in the Table chamber in Dulka.

“Most
ingenious… especially for Talent-poor steers. Use your weapons…”

Alucius
flung a web of blackness across the purple shield, blocking the ifrit from
view, but that blackness began to fade, and the purpleness began to shine
through the blackness, slowly dissolving it.

“The
scepter!” Wendra pointed toward the side of the table. “He’s drawing on it.”

“Can
you use blackness against it?” Alucius asked.

Wendra’s
face tightened. Alendra whimpered.

A
line of purple flame flared toward Wendra.

Both
Alucius and Wendra raised green black shields, stopping the jolt of power, but
Alucius ended up taking a step backward, so great was the pressure. He glanced
sideways to see that Wendra also had been forced back.

Before
the ifrit could direct another flare of purple at them, Alucius aimed a black
Talent javelin at the ifrit’s shield, flinging it with all the force possible.
The shield shivered… contracted, and then expanded to fling the blackness away
from it, back toward Alucius, thrusting him against the wall.

Even
wearing nightsilk, Alucius could feel the impact of stone against his back.

“Link
to… the ley lines,” suggested Wendra. “Not to the world, but… lifeforce. Draw
directly…” The words were forced out, as if against great pressure.

Another
purple spear flared toward them. Alucius managed to parry it, and the energy
slammed into the wall beside him. Droplets of molten stone splattered around
him. One burned the back of his hand.

The
purple pink shield grew brighter, and hot like a summer sun, then even hotter.
Waves of heat surged toward Wendra and Alucius.

Alucius
linked to the blackness beneath them, the blackness of the ley lines, with all
his Talent, letting the lifeforce flow through him, and around the scepter
beside Wendra. He could feel her linking into the lifeforce—all the lifeforce
of Corus.

Darkness
welled out and through them, creating a wall of blackness that blocked the
sunlike blaze that had heated the air in the Table chamber so much that each
breath burned.

Alucius
found himself coughing while still trying to channel the dark lifeforce of
Corns itself from the ley lines and the world into the wall of greenish
blackness that he and Wendra had built—a wall of lifeforce that had finally
halted the progress of the blazing purple shield. Even so, the air in the Table
chamber remained stifling.

The
purple shield pulsed.

Alucius
and Wendra pressed back.

“We…
can’t let him… get to the Table,” Wendra panted.

“He’s
strong.”

Alucius
pressed more darkness against the shield, and around the unshielded scepter,
trying to deny its force to the ifrit. Wendra followed his example.

Sweat
poured from Alucius’s forehead, and he felt as though he had been carrying
chests filled with lead.

Abruptly,
the purpleness shivered.

Alucius
lifted his rifle, waiting, adding more darkness to the cartridge in the chamber
and those in the magazine.

Dark
purpleness exploded away from the stairwell and the entry to the Table chamber,
revealing the looming purple figure who held a light-cutter.

Alucius
fired first, one shot right after the other. Both slammed into the ifrit’s
suddenly revealed forehead, and he toppled forward. Flame filled the stairwell
with such intensity that the stone walls glowed for a moment.

Holding
his rifle ready, and ignoring the other rifle’s impact against his knees,
Alucius charged past the table and over the bodies of the ifrits. The heat from
the stone walls of the staircase was so great that the sweat on Alucius’s
forehead and neck evaporated instantly before he was halfway up the steps.

As
he neared the top of the stairs he saw another figure and fired. Once more, the
ifrit’s garments stopped the bullet, but the impact staggered the woman.
Alucius used the last two shots in the rifle to stop her.

Wendra,
following him up the stairs, fired past his shoulder, and yet another ifrit
dropped.

There
were words in another tongue, coming from the foyer beyond the conference room.
Alucius thought he understood them, not knowing how or why. He edged up beside
the archway into the foyer, less than three yards from the ifrits, but
protected by the internal stone walls of the building.

“The
ancient ones!”

“Do
something!”

“They
can’t stand against the light-cutters…”

Alucius
leaned the empty first rifle against the wall and wrenched the second from its
clip, cocking it as he did, and extending his Talent to the foyer, where three
ifrits had raised weapons—the ones that used light to cut through everything.

Wendra
eased against the wall beside him.

With
a cold smile, Alucius extended a Talent-probe, quickly unlinking the
crystalline linkages within each weapon. “Can you reload?” he whispered.

“Just
a moment.”

Even
before she had slipped the magazine back into place, Alucius had determined
where the three stood.

“We’ll
try unraveling them…”

Two
Talent-probes snaked around the edge of the archway, then arrowed toward the
three remaining ifrits.

Alucius
could feel the jolt as his probe struck the Talent-armor of the ifrit. He just
slipped around that and arrowed toward the ifrit’s main node. Purple light
flared, and the edge of the archway boiled away, rock and glass droplets
clinking like rain on the stone entry foyer flooring.

Wendra
was far more deft than Alucius, and in instants, one of the ifrits shuddered
and toppled forward. Moments later, the second shuddered and fell.

The
third turned, and started to wrench the doorway open.

Alucius
leapt clear of the archway, lifted his rifle and fired. It took three shots
before the last ifrit lay on the floor.

He
continued to study the building with eyes, ears, and Talent.

“There’s
no one left,” Wendra said dully.

“We
need to move the scepters out of sight. There’s a hidden room.”

“Like
the others off the Table chambers?”

“Yes.”
Alucius paused. “Are you all right? Is Alendra…”

“We’re
all right. I think… she’s a little… awed… stunned… something… she senses Talent
already, I think, but she doesn’t know what it is.”

Alucius
waited.

“You’re
used to this. With people, I mean. I’ve killed sandwolves, and sanders…” She
shook her head. “It was all so fast. There were ten ifrits… people… and they’re
dead. I know we had to… but… they are dead, and they thought they were doing
what was right for them.”

“They
probably thought that.” Alucius nodded back toward the staircase back to the
Table chamber. Absently, he blotted his sweating forehead. He hadn’t noticed it
before, but the rooms were hot, almost stifling, and the stove in the
conference room was pouring forth heat.

“It
is hot.”

“The
soarers said that their world was warmer.” Alucius moved past the circular
table, where several crystal mugs remained, half full with a clear liquid. He
started down the steps, avoiding the two bodies, and then reentered the Table
chamber, moving past the other bodies.

As
Wendra had indicated, there were two boxes against the northern side of the
Table. One was metallic black and silver—a match to the empty casket still
embedded in the rock in Dereka—and the second was a simple wooden case, through
which Alucius could sense the purple-pink pulsing power of the scepter that had
been the basis of the powers of the Matrial and the Regent.

“Can
you open that door?” Alucius asked. “The hidden one?”

Wendra
moved to the light-torch bracket and twisted it. Nothing happened. She frowned,
then concentrated.

“There’s
some sort of Talent-lock on this,” she finally said. “They’ve wrapped Talent
around it.”

“Can
you undo it? Dissolve it with darkness?”

“I
think so… I’ve got it.” The section of stone wall silently slid open.

“Wait
a moment.” Alucius used his Talent to check the passageway and the chamber
beyond, but he detected no one.

The
two eased into the two-yard-wide corridor and followed it to the single chamber
at the end. A weapons rack, holding a single light-cutter and brackets for
twelve more, was the only thing affixed to the walls. A sturdy long table,
holding five chests, was set against the wall to the left.

Wendra
opened one of the chests, then stepped back. “It’s filled… with golds.”

“I
thought there might be something like this.” Alucius set his rifle against the
wall. “I’ll carry the chests out, and the scepters in, then we’ll close this
up.” He looked at Wendra. “Once I do, could you put Talent around it, in the
way that the ifrits or the soarers did? A Talent-lock of sorts?”

“I
can try.”

Alucius
lifted the first chest, carrying it out, then returning with the black and
silver scepter casket, far heavier than it looked. He was sweating profusely by
the time he had finished moving chests and scepters. After that, he reclaimed
one of his rifles and watched with his Talent as Wendra closed the secret stone
door and Talent-locked it, so that merely turning the light-torch bracket would
not open the hidden door.

“Now…
we’ll have to tell the others.”

Wendra
started for the steps.

“No.
We’ll have to go back the way we came.”

“That’s
right.” Wendra offered a wan smile. “You left orders to shoot anyone who left
the building.” She took a deep breath.

Alucius
started to link with the ley blackness before realizing that he was still
linked.

He and Wendra dropped into the chill, almost welcome after the
heat of the Table building. With each use of the ley lines, the world lifeforce
lines, Alucius was becoming more aware of what lay outside and above
—
and of where Wendra was. They eased themselves to a point that looked
—
through the wavering silver barrier
—
to
be behind a stand of scrub brush less than forty yards uphill from the waiting
lancers. The silver flashed away from them
.

They
stood in the slanting light of the first glass past dawn, dew still on the
shadowed sparse grass and the leaves of the scrub oak. Just a glass. Alucius
was always amazed at how quickly some things happened and how slowly others
did.

“Ahhhh…”
The first syllable was Alendra’s.

“She’s
hungry,” Wendra said wryly. “She’s had her adventure, and it’s time to eat.”

“Let’s
let them know we’re back.”

They
turned downhill and stepped out from behind the brush.

“Dhaget!
Fewal!” Alucius called.

“Sir.
We heard shots. Are you all right?”

“This
time.”

“That’s
because you didn’t do it alone,” murmured Wendra.

Alucius
could hear the smile in her words. “You don’t have to remind me.”

“Oh,
yes, I do. We still have to deliver some scepters.”

Alucius
felt a chill run down his spine at her words. “As soon as we get some respite.
And you feed our little friend.”

Wendra
nodded.

Wendra’s
words had reminded Alucius of how little time they had. Days before, there had
only been four ifrits. They had found ten, and he had no idea how many were
elsewhere, in Prosp or Norda.

Dhaget
and Fewal rode uphill and met the two herders halfway.

Dhaget
looked at Alucius for a long moment, then at Wendra. So did the other three
lancers. Alucius glanced at his wife. He didn’t see any great difference…
except… he thought that she seemed somehow… more alive… a little larger than
life.

There
wasn’t much Alucius could do about that. He took Wendra’s rifle, checked it,
and slipped it into her saddle case while she mounted.

“You’re
missing a rifle, sir,” observed Fewal.

“I
left it inside the stronghold. I’ll get it when we go back.” Alucius mounted
the chestnut. He turned to Roncar. “I’d like you to ride back to headquarters
and have Majer Feran join us. We’ll also need a heavy wagon to move some gear
back to the post.”

“Yes,
sir.” Although a puzzled expression crossed the lancer’s face, he nodded
acknowledgment and turned his mount back toward Salaan.

Alucius
and Wendra rode slowly back across the meadow, then turned west on the lane
through the apricot orchard, followed by the remaining three lancers.