Scepters (94 page)

The chill blackness of the tube walls contracted, then twisted,
and even though Alucius knew that his body could not move, he felt as though he
were being pummeled by the sides of the tube, as though the very walls had
projections that reached out and struck him, buffeted him, twisted and turned
him. With each timeless instant, the chill that permeated him grew deeper,
crept further inside him, slowed his thoughts. Yet he concentrated on that
distant purpleness, a landmark, much as the Aerial Plateau had once been for a
herder youth.

Time passed in the timelessness of the translation tube,
instants, years, both, neither… time unmeasurable by sluggish thoughts. Alucius
clung to the goal, and to Wendra’s warmth and presence, as he knew she clung to
him and to Alendra.

More time passed, and the intolerable chill of the tube and the
purple blackness that surrounded the herders warmed slightly, and the
purpleness became brighter. In the near distance, Alucius began to sense Table
arrows, not just the handful of those on Corns, but a comparative plethora, as
many as fifty.

They had decided that they would simply try to get as close as
they could to whatever resembled the scepter and showed great power, probably
purple pink power. Except… Alucius couldn’t sense anything like that. For all
of the Table arrows, there were none of great intensity, none even as strong as
the golden green portals of the soarers had been. All the Table arrows were
faint
—
and none were of purple or pink. Yet all were
close, and there seemed to be no way to tell which of them might be close to
the master scepter
.

Feeling the chill again creeping into his bones, Alucius pressed
toward the purple gold arrow, trying to convey that sense to Wendra. As his
thoughts carried him toward that near yet faint arrow, he could sense Wendra’s
presence moving beside him.

A thin shimmering veil of silvered purple rose before them.
Alucius formed a spear of lifeforce, enfolding him
—
and
Wendra and Alendra
.

The thin purple silver barrier shattered…

Norda, Lustrea

Waleryn
frowned, then hurried down the stone steps to the Table. Behind him came two
ifrits in their shimmering green and maroon garments, each a good head taller
than the shadow-engineer.

The
former Lanachronan lord and heir stepped up to the Table, ignoring the ifrits,
his brow furrowed in concentration. The ruby mists replaced the mirrored
surface, revealing the empty Table chamber in Prosp. Waleryn nodded. A second
image replaced the first, and that was the Table chamber in Salaan—also empty.

For
several moments, the shadow-engineer just stood before the Table. Finally, a
long tube appeared, projected into the space above the Table. Each end of the
tube connected to webs of purpled darkness, although the web at one end
consisted of but five branches.

Waleryn
studied the web of purpled darkness projected above the Table, his eyes fixing
on a point on the tubular segment glowing a luminescent shade that appeared
black, gold, and green, in turn, and yet none of those colors precisely.

“Is
something wrong?” asked the young muscular ifrit who stood at the former lord’s
left shoulder.

“Someone’s
making a translation. They’re using energies I haven’t seen.”

“Isn’t
that good?”

“They’re
translating
back
to Efra. It has to be the lamaial.
I warned Trezun and Lasylt. The fieldmaster said everything was under control.”

“Can’t
you stop them? You have to.”

Waleryn
shook his head. “I’d have to depower the entire grid, and we don’t have the
master scepter here. The only way to do that is Table by Table. No one can do
that in time. And if we did…” He looked at the ifrit.

“We’d
all die, is that it?”

Waleryn
nodded. “So would Efra… or all Efrans, because there isn’t enough lifeforce to repower
the long translation tube, and the master scepter hasn’t been moved. The
lamaial or the ancient ones might even be wagering that we would depower the
tube, thinking that we would not know what would happen.”

“They
wouldn’t do that.”

“How
do you know that?” countered Waleryn. “In their day, they were far more
ruthless than we are. They sacrificed most of their people—and thousands of the
Talent-steers—to sever the great translation tubes.”

“You’re
not supposed to know that.”

“About
history? Or about the master scepter and the power requirements? Or as a mere
shadow-Efran, you mean?” Waleryn snorted. “It’s obvious from studying the flows
of lifeforce.”

“You
have to do something,” insisted the other ifrit.

“Tell
me what,” suggested Waleryn. “Does one of you want to try a reverse
translation?”

The
two offered no reply.

Waleryn
released the projected image and stepped back from the Table. “The fieldmasters
on Efra will have to stop him. If they can.”

“You
doubt that they can?”

“It
will not be easy. He must have the scepters. Otherwise, why would he attempt
the translation?”

The
two ifrits exchanged glances, but did not speak.

Purpled silver flowed away from
Wendra
and Alucius like mist and
…

…
where they stood, the air was warm and humid. Frost boiled away from both
Alucius and Wendra. Around them was a Table room, but one unlike any Alucius
had seen. The walls were not just blank expanses of polished stone, but works
of art, with carved friezes illuminated from within the stone and illustrated so
well that the images seemed caught in midstep, or in midaction. Above the
friezes were wall murals, similarly colored, running all the way around the
chamber.

Seeing
two figures through the mist dissipating from around them, Alucius brought up
his rifle. A bored-looking ifrit with silver blond hair turned, and his mouth
dropped open. Agonizingly slowly, his hand fumbled for the light-cutter hand
weapon holstered at his belt.

Crack
! Alucius’s single shot struck the ifrit in the
chest, exploding through the man.

Alucius
turned, but the second ifrit, also blond, who had begun to run toward the
archway opening onto a set of steps, went down from a single shot from Wendra.

The
two herders looked at each other.

Alucius
gaped, for the Wendra who viewed him was not the Wendra with whom he had
stepped into the portal. Nor was the child in the carrypack the same Alendra.
Wendra was more angular; her brown hair had turned black, and her eyes had gone
from gold-flecked green to violet flecked with green. She looked more like the
Matrial than she did like his wife. Yet… her lifethread was the same brilliant
green.

“You
look like an ifrit.”

“So
do you,” she replied. “Your hair is black.”

“Yours,
too.” He paused.

“The
soarer,” Wendra began, “she said something about a world affecting someone who
translated.”

“We’ll
have to worry about that later. I just hope we look normal when we get back.”
If we get back
. Alucius scanned the Table room once more,
a chamber that looked more like the Landarch’s palace than what he thought of
as a Table chamber. His eyes skipped over the friezes and the murals, which
depicted ships such as those he’d seen in the murals in Dereka years before,
and pteridons, and sandoxes—but the colors and proportions were different—and
all the ifrits had blond hair, not black.

He
looked sideways, taking in the light-torches on the wall. Then he scrambled off
the Table.

“The
one in the other corner,” Wendra suggested.

Alucius
hurried toward the torch she had suggested, using a twist of greenish lifeforce
to break the Talent-lock, before he turned the bracket. Absently, he noted that
he didn’t seem to have to reach up as far. Were the brackets lower?

The
stone doorway slid open. Alucius sensed no one inside.

“I’ll
cover it.” Wendra dropped off the Table and moved toward the open doorway,
turning so she could cover the room, the archway, and the staircase beyond.

Alucius
hurried into the passageway, so like those on Corus, finding a chamber at the
end of the corridor. He rifled through the chest against one wall, but found
nothing resembling a map or anything else. Nor was there anything in the drawer
of the table desk that resembled a map. The papers he did see were covered with
angular and incomprehensible writing. Alucius left the rack of light-cutting
pistols untouched as he hurried out.

He
had sensed nothing of power, nothing similar to a scepter. “There’s nothing
here. The soarers said that they had to be close to lines of power.”

“Then
let’s try another Table,” Wendra said.

“There
are fifty.”

“If
it takes fifty, it takes fifty,” she snapped, moving back toward the Table. “We’ll
try the one that’s closest and strongest.”

Alucius
had to hurry to catch up with her, bringing his rifle into the ready position
as he took his position beside her on the Table.

Again
they dropped into the purple-chill blackness.

The chill was colder than that mistiness of the Corean ley lines,
but warmer than the purple chill of the long translation tube. Wendra moved
toward a bright blue Table arrow, bright, yet somehow faded. Behind them the
purple gold Table arrow flickered… and vanished. Alucius would have frowned if
he could have.

Ahead in the darkness was the bright blue arrow, with yet another
purpled silver barrier that dissolved away from them as they burst through.

The
mist that swirled away from the two herders was much fainter at the second
ifrit Table, and Alucius had to take a half step to hold his balance.

The
single ifrit guard was faster than the first, but still only had the
light-cutting pistol halfway up when the heavy cartridge tore through him,
exploding a quarter of his upper torso and shoulder away from his body.

A
second ifrit jerked out of the normally hidden but now open doorway. Before she
could move, Wendra’s rifle barked once—with results as devastating as those
from Alucius’s shot.

Alucius
could sense no one else in the chamber, although there were ifrits in the rooms
up and beyond the staircase. He pointed as he scrambled off the Table. Wendra
nodded, but remained standing on the ancient Table—set amid more murals and
carvings of graceful and exquisite beauty, beauty that Alucius had no time to
take in and even less to admire.

Rifle
ready, he scrambled into the chamber at the end of the passageway. The layout
was reversed from the first chamber, but with the same furnishings and weapons
racks as in the previous chamber. He’d finished a furiously quick search of the
chest and was just flicking through the few papers in the table desk drawer
when he heard the report of Wendra’s rifle. He forced himself to finish the
search—which revealed no maps and no Talent-signs of a scepter or anything like
it. Then he was hurrying back to the Table.

Another
ifrit’s body filled the stairwell, downed by Wendra.

“Did
you find anything?” asked Wendra.

“No.”

“Hurry.
There are more of them coming down the stairs.”

Alucius
vaulted back onto the Table. He brought the rifle into a near firing position,
even as he began to concentrate on entering the ifrit tubes once more.

Chill washed around them, a chill that was welcome after the steamy
heat of two Table rooms and the hot frustration of having found nothing. Wendra
guided them toward a chartreuse Table arrow. Behind them, Alucius could sense
the bright blue arrow fading, seemingly shriveling away. The gold and purple
arrow had not reappeared, either.

Again, they reached a purple-tinged silvery barrier, seemingly
more transparent than those they had encountered previously. Beyond the silver,
Alucius could see a pair of ifrits, each beside the archway that presumably led
to a staircase. Then… the silver streamed away from the two herders seeking a
scepter…

The
ifrit who had been looking toward the Table grabbed for her light-cutter.

Crack
! Wendra was faster than either Alucius or the ifrit,
and the single bullet exploded through the guard’s torso.

The
second guard’s hand didn’t quite reach his weapon before Alucius’s single shot
took him down.

Alucius
vaulted off the Table and hurried toward the light-torch bracket to his left.
Behind him, he heard a faint wailing from Alendra. Either his feelings were
correct, or he was lucky, because he could sense the Talent-lock even before he
started to turn the bracket. The lock dissolved, and the hidden door slid
smoothly open. As before, there was no one inside.

Also
as before, there was no sign of a scepter, nor were there any papers or maps
that might have led them to the master scepter emphasized by the soarer just
before she died. Alucius hurried back to the Table and scrambled back up beside
Wendra, who remained with her rifle trained on the archway.

“Reload
while I catch my breath,” Alucius suggested. “We need a better approach.”
Sensing even greater warmth from his right side, he glanced down. The heavy
scepter strapped to his empty scabbard was glowing a faint pinkish purple and
radiating heat. Yet he could sense nothing like a scepter. He looked toward
Wendra. Her scepter was doing the same.

“We’re
safe just so long as we keep ahead of them,” Wendra pointed out as she slipped
cartridges from her belt into the magazine.

“We
can’t go through all fifty Tables,” Alucius protested. “Not without resting
somewhere along the way. And we don’t have enough ammunition for that. We don’t
have enough Talent-strength to fight that way, either.”