Read The Long Hunt: Mageworlds #5 Online
Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald
The Long Hunt: Mageworlds #5 (29 page)
He was coming out of the underground parking area now. Daylight showed ahead and to the left. He smashed his right knee up to put the car into a screaming left turn. It broadsided a parked duo-van before it came straight again.
I think I’m starting to get the knack of this.
The exit from the garage was just ahead. He steered smaller, lining up his departure. It was up a ramp—Jens could see buildings beyond the sunny gap. A right turn, he figured, on the way out.
The hovercar scraped pavement all along its bottom when it hit the foot of the ramp, and went completely airborne at the top. Jens lost sight of the ground—he couldn’t see anything but the onrushing building ahead. He pushed up on the yoke with his left knee, and leaned his right shoulder down against the other of the yoke to press it down farther.
When the car hit the ground again the impact jolted through him—from the seat, from the yoke, from every point of his body that was in contact with a solid part of the car. Then the side vector took effect and he felt the car slew to the right. He was almost thrown out through the missing door by the centrifugal force of his turn.
He braced himself and rode it out, allowing his head to come up at the finish to see where he was and where he was going. He saw a broad boulevard—not much traffic, not many pedestrians.
Everybody must still be over in the plaza,
he thought,
trying to soak the hems of their garments in the spattered Highest.
Everybody must still be over in the plaza,
he thought,
trying to soak the hems of their garments in the spattered Highest.
Then he glanced behind him. Another hovercar was exiting the garage, coming up behind him fast. Capture or worse had been delayed—but not, perhaps, for long.
Chaka was again on duty in the listening room, though it was barely dawn and none of her employers had seen fit to order her attention. On this day, at least, she had reasons of her own for listening.
So far, she had heard nothing of interest. It seemed that no one had been able to, or had thought it necessary to, put a listening device in Jens’s new clothing—when he changed garments in preparation for his Acclamation, the ambient noise became that of a clothes hamper, and his voice was heard no more.
Faral, however, was in one of the front rooms here in the house of Caridal Fere, speaking in Galcenian to the redheaded female. They had quarreled, it seemed, and now were restoring their friendship. Without Jens present a word in Trade-talk would be unlikely.
Chaka let herself relax a little, thinking of Jens and his current situation. He had certainly found fame, though of a kind which was unlikely to let him return to the high ridges and the Big Trees. Or maybe not. Both his mother and his grandmother had renounced a crown, and had gained considerable fame thereby. Jens could do something equally unlikely.
A change in air pressure told Chaka that the door at the end of the hall had opened. A smell of perfume mixed with anxiety floated in. The Selvaur remained seated. Someone was approaching, and that someone was trying to be stealthy. It occurred to her, not for the first time since the start of her employment, that persons who hired an unlicensed translator from a transient ship might well have reason for disposing of that translator afterward.
Faral’s voice came through the speaker of the listening device. “Huzzah! Huzzah!”
At the same time, a woman stepped into the doorway. She wore plain livery—somebody’s servant, then. Chaka observed her without turning, following her reflection in the sheet of glass fronting an ornate arrangement of pressed dried flowers.
The woman in the glass raised a blaster, aiming it at Chaka.
The Selvaur rose, sidestepped, and as part of the same motion picked up her chair and hurled it across the room. The item of furniture struck the woman just as she shot, knocking the blaster aside. She fell, and the bolt went wide.
Chaka leapt across the room and, with one taloned hand, grasped the woman’s right hand, the one that held the blaster, and pulled. The arm came off.
*Find another translator,* Chaka said, straightening as she extracted the blaster from the limp fingers. *Your old one just quit.*
Holding the weapon awkwardly—it had not been designed for a Selvaur’s grasp at all—the young saurian loped down the hallway, dodged through the door, and made her way toward the front windows of the house of Caridal Fere.
Klea and Mael walked the through silent, polished halls of the Adepts’ Guildhouse in Ilsefret. Nothing but echoes responded to their voices, and their feet made the only other sounds within the walls.
“Mistress,” Mael said, “I fear that this place has been long deserted.”
“Never inhabited, you mean,” Klea said. “Come here and look at this.” She was standing in the doorway of a library. “Books, scrolls, readers, and pads. What do you see?”
“Records, I suppose. The secrets of the order?”
“Nothing,” Klea said. “Look!” She pulled one of the books at random from the shelf at her left hand. She opened it and riffled the pages. “Blank. Empty.”
“All of them?”
“Every single one I looked at. From the oldest to the newest. This is a stage set. A sham.”
“Where, then, are the Adepts of Khesat?”
“Hidden. I’m sure that hundreds of witnesses see Adepts entering and leaving this building every day. They don’t stay here. So where do they go?”
“Are you proposing that we tap on the walls, Mistress, to seek the hidden door?”
“Something like that,” Klea said. “It won’t be a path that many can find. But in here, somewhere, is an answer to all our questions.”
“If you can find it.”
“I think that I can.” Klea shut her eyes and relaxed. Such mental wandering had been her gift ever since Owen had found her years ago—untrained, and afraid she was going mad. The past and the future were locked to her. But the present she could see. And this time, when she looked, she found a trail, and the signs that marked out a pathway between the smallest particles of matter that made up the measurable world.
“There are markers,” Klea said. “Like the pebbles beneath the surface of a pool. Like stones that can be grasped. They will lead us through.”
This part of the hall was dead. The passages that continued had none of the vibrancy that went with passing life. Klea turned back down the passage in the direction they had come.
“Under the stones of the rock garden?” Mael asked, hastening to catch up.
“No, no,” Klea said. “That one’s a trap. The right place is somewhere else … .”
She came to the passage leading to the foyer and the street. With the coming day, the sky was growing light beyond the high stained-glass windows above the door. Deep red splashes fell onto the floor of the lobby, making it look more like an abattoir than like the reception room of a powerful and respected Guild.
The gems set in the entry wall twinkled at her.
“Those aren’t stones,” Klea said. “They’re the marks. They tell those trained in power the way to go.”
“Mistress, what are you talking about?”
“Those,” she said, and pointed at the glowing patterns.
Mael shook his head. “That’s the sunlight coming in through the window.”
“Don’t you see? Here!”
Klea pushed her hands forward against the cold strength of the wall, the painted plaster over stone of which the building was made. She stretched more, and her hands sank into the solid material.
“Klea!” Mael shouted. “Mistress Santreny! This way you are going—I cannot go that way!”
“Yes you can,” Klea said. “Just as a Mage can take an Adept into the Void. Take hold of me, and let me take you where you cannot pass.”
“Meaning no disrespect,” Mael said, and stepped behind her, putting his arms gently around her, trying not to touch her more than necessary.
“You’ll have to hold me tighter than that,” Klea said. “You won’t be the first, or the rudest.”
His arms tightened around her waist, and she stepped through.
Jens looked back. His lead would never be greater than it was right now. If he could just find a soft place on the left-hand side near a cross street, he might be able to make a clean getaway. Then find a ship, and get off planet. Faral could help with that, if he could just get to Faral.
I’ve done what I was supposed to do—been presented as the Highest of Khesat. What I do next is my problem.
He nudged the control yoke with his right knee in order to drift left and stay in the street. No good crashing, not unstrapped as he was. Having avoided an official sudden impact already this morning, he had no desire to try an impromptu one against a building.
A little park was coming up on his left. The wind through the opening where the door had been torn off howled and whipped at his hair. Jens spotted a connecting road leading off to the right. Opposite that point, in the park, he didn’t see any trees, just some shrubs and a grassy slope. He counted to himself, checking his speed, trying to figure out where he’d have to turn, and where he was most likely to land.
The gap between where he was and where he wanted to be decreased. He knocked the vehicle a little to the left, so that it was halfway out of the roadway and skimming by the springy bushes.
Here. This is the place.
He smashed up with his left knee and down with his right shoulder, whipping the hovercar over to the right.
It started to go, skidding sideways on its frictionless nullgravs while the side and rear thrusters labored to straighten and start the vehicle on its new path. This time, when centrifugal force hit him, Jens went limp and allowed himself to be thrown clear.
The thin stalks of the bushes caught and slowed him—though they hurt, hitting at this speed. Then he was through them and rolling down the hill, burning off more of his momentum as he went. He slowed, then stopped. His arms and wrists, caught in the binders, pained him exquisitely. He hadn’t had time to think about them until now.
He lurched and scrambled to his feet, and found he was standing before a little group of schoolchildren, together with their teacher, sitting around a cloth spread with delicacies. They all had telescopes and binoculars—it seemed that he’d stumbled into a breakfast picnic to observe the events at the Golden Tower from afar. The children were all gazing at him with large eyes.
Jens smiled at them and bowed.
One little girl began to applaud, then all the others joined in.
“Thank you, thank you,” Jens said. “Performance art is my life. You’re too kind. Now, alas, I must go.”
With another bow, he set out across the springy turf, the applause of his little audience following him.
“I’d hate to have to do that every day, twice a day, and three times on matinee days,” Jens muttered as soon as he was out of earshot.
“No,” said a voice to his right. “But the time comes when I need your help.”
Jens looked toward the voice. His new companion was the man in black with whom he’d been conversing all his life, and who had manifested himself so thoroughly on Sapne … and who had left without farewell when Miza named him.
“Guislen,” Jens said. “Or do I call you Master Ransome?”
“Either, I suppose,” Guislen said. “But I prefer the former. There is another who bears the name of Ransome—I must meet him today and carry out my last commission.”
“And what is that?”
Guislen looked sorrowful. “To put to right the evil that I have done. Most of that I have accomplished, but part still remains unfinished. And that requires … but I have no right to ask.”
“You have that right,” Jens said. “You’ve earned it, as far as I’m concerned. Where shall we go?”
“To the Khesatan Guildhouse,” Guislen said. “For I am already there, and I fear that I am up to no good.”
Y
ou!” FARAL said to Gerre Hafelsan. “You arranged all this.”
ou!” FARAL said to Gerre Hafelsan. “You arranged all this.”
Before Hafelsan could reply, the door of the room sprang open, kicked wide by a green-scaled, shoeless foot.
Faral stared. *Chaka! What are you doing on Khesat?*
*Saving your life, I think,* Chaka said. *These people are all double-crossers, every one of them.*
“What did the absurd creature say?” asked Caridal Fere.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Hafelsan. “When the next Highest is proclaimed, I will be here to rejoice in his elevation—and you will not. Caridal Fere, I challenge you for this house and all that it contains.”
Faral expected the Master of Nalensey to laugh aloud at the unexpected and tasteless witticism—but he did not. He held up his hands, and something appeared between them that had not been visible a moment before.
An Adept’s staff.
“This is the Guildhouse of the Adepts of Khesat, as it has been since time immemorial,” Fere said. “And I am their Master.”
“No,” Hafelsan said. A glowing rod of light appeared in his hand as the sky outside the window darkened. “You were.”
Mael experienced a feeling of motion without moving, then the sound and sensation of rain striking against the hard plastic of his mask.
He opened his eyes and looked around. He stood with Mistress Klea Santreny on a wide plain, the ground made of jumbled rock, tossed and broken. It was night, and pale moonlight glowed past the edges of hurrying clouds. A wind, sharp and chill, swept past, whipping his robes about him.
“What is this place?” he asked.
“The other side of the wall,” Klea said. “Where that is, I don’t know.”
“Is it a vision?”
“Oh, no,” Klea said. “The ways of Adepts are not yours. What you see is real.”
“Perhaps,” Mael said, “some of my reality is here, too.” He looked about him with his inner sight, trying to find the cords of life.
No wonder Adepts speak of riding the winds and currents of power, he thought. Is this how they see everything, as nothing but chaos?
No wonder Adepts speak of riding the winds and currents of power, he thought. Is this how they see everything, as nothing but chaos?
The cords of life were there, dim in the darkness. More than the night obscured them—they were all tarnished and black.
“I think we’re close to the source of the evil,” he said.
“The source, or the cause?” Klea asked. “It’s cold here. Let’s get walking, and see where we come to.”
“If we come to anywhere.”
“We must,” Klea said. “The universe won’t allow it to happen otherwise.”
“I’d like to summon a light,” Mael said, “but I’m worried about what might notice us.”
“Don’t concern yourself about that,” Klea said. “I see a city’s glow up ahead. If the Adepts of Khesat are here at all, that’s where we’ll find them.”
“I don’t like the looks of this place,” Mael said. “The lines of life and luck are the worst I’ve ever seen. There is no pattern … .”
As he spoke, a mighty rumbling sounded from under the ground, and a tremblor moved the rock beneath their feet.
Klea cried out and fell against Mael as the ground shifted. She tried to straighten, using her staff for balance, but the ground shifted again and she went down, striking her head against the jagged rock as she fell.
Mael bent over her. Dark against her pale face, blood trickled across her forehead, and she did not move.
The earth shifted again, and there, at last, Mael saw the pattern he had sought: the cable of
eiran
rising out of the earth, a few strands still showing bright amid the tarnish.
eiran
rising out of the earth, a few strands still showing bright amid the tarnish.
Klea moaned and tried to move.
“Lie still” Mael said. “I think we have found what we came to find.”
Kolpag kept the speeding hovercar in view ahead of him. He’d have to be careful of this one. The young man had proved to be far more capable than Kolpag had given him credit for.
Now that his first flash of anger was over, Kolpag felt only a grim determination. He drove, pushing the hovercar as fast as he considered safe, while at the same time thumbing his blaster down from kill to stun. The boy was coming along to Ophel whether he wanted to or not, and Kolpag would worry about Ruhn later. The silly bastard hadn’t been worth much anyway.
The hovercar up ahead was steering erratically, and starting to veer off the road. That wasn’t surprising; given that the boy had his hands locked in binders behind his back, it was a wonder he’d been driving at all. Kolpag dropped back a bit to stay clear of the inevitable crash. Then the car ahead swung rapidly to the right, and flashed up out of sight between a pair of buildings.
Side street
, thought Kolpag. He’d been swinging wide left so he could make a high-speed turn to the right.
Damn. Well, I know a few tricks too
.
, thought Kolpag. He’d been swinging wide left so he could make a high-speed turn to the right.
Damn. Well, I know a few tricks too
.
He pushed the yoke in for speed, then twisted it hard right, and at the same time pulled back on the yoke for braking. The vehicle slewed around until it was sliding with its left side forward. When the nose of the hovercar was pointed straight up the side street, Kolpag shoved the yoke all the way in, and scooted forward. It was as close to a square turn at speed as anyone could do and maintain even tenuous control.
He’d gained on the boy, too. The lead hovercar was up ahead, going down the street but tending to the right. Kolpag saw it drift over until it hit a tree growing from a cutout in the sidewalk. Then it spun to its left and skidded all the way across the street to smash into a building.
The careering hovercar spun again and went forward the way it had been going, but even more erratically. Finally it came to rest half on, half off the pedestrian walkway as its nullgravs cut out in response to the impacts. The thrusters were still going, making the vehicle tremble and try to inch along the pavement.
Kolpag got from his car and walked over to the wreck. He looked in. No one was inside.
“The bastard,” he said. “The bastard!” He pounded both fists on the front of the hovercar, still holding his blaster in one hand.
Then he straightened. Where could the boy have gone?
Kolpag turned and walked back down the street. At the moment the boy’s car had made the turn he’d still been aboard, controlling. By the time the car came to rest, he was gone. So somewhere between the one point and the other, he had to be located.
Kolpag came to a thicket of bushes. The bruised leaves from where the car had sideswiped showed white from their exposed undersides. And there—a broken gap. Big enough for a body to have gone past. Kolpag pushed his way through the broken foliage. A steep hill on the other side, covered with wiry grass, led to a valley. The package wasn’t there.
This snatch was botched. Kolpag returned to his hovercar, pushing through the crowd of onlookers at the scene of the wreck, got into his vehicle, and drove away.
Mael Taleion made Klea as comfortable as he could, wrapping his outer robe about her and settling her staff into her hands.
“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll be back.”
Then he stood, the black mask on his face, the silver-bound staff in his hand, and opened himself to the universe.
The
eiran
came to him, glowing silver against the dark sky. Wind whipped his hair, but Mael did not notice. Skyglow from the city lit the bottoms of the clouds. The rain fell harder.
eiran
came to him, glowing silver against the dark sky. Wind whipped his hair, but Mael did not notice. Skyglow from the city lit the bottoms of the clouds. The rain fell harder.
Mael grasped the lines and pulled them, trying to reach the center of the great cable. A cord there would be corroded, decayed to nothingness, its shape defined only by the other cords which lay so tight about it. A negative space, the lack of something rather than its presence, like the hollow where a clinging vine had choked the tree it climbed. He pulled harder.
The light grew along the horizon, splitting the sky from the ground. Mael knew that he had to find the rotted cord. It tarnished everything that touched it, and it passed the corruption on. Already the tarnish had spread farther than he had imagined it could, out to the limits of his sight.
“I’ve found you! I know you’re somewhere close!” Mael cried aloud as he dragged on first one cord then another. But instead of loosening the knot his actions only drew it tighter.
The frustration was grinding on his soul. He searched back and forth along the great looping cable of lines, trying to find a more open place. Everywhere the tarnished silver cords opposed him. Still he pulled and prodded, seeking a weak place among the cords that guarded the decayed center.
Then he became aware of another figure approaching him through the dark and the rain.
“Klea?” he called.
“No,” came back a mocking voice. “The wench was mine, and I have made her mine.”
“No!”
“Then see!” The newcomer held aloft a staff such as Klea had carried. “Do you recognize this?”
The staff glowed at once in blue-green, Klea’s color. The light washed down from the staff across the face of the newcomer. In its lurid glare, Mael saw that this was his
ekkannikh
, not robed and hooded as before, but in plain shirt and trousers like an ordinary man. Ordinary—but the face was a sink of corruption, ruined cartilage and quivering jellies of rotten flesh hanging in tatters from the skull.
ekkannikh
, not robed and hooded as before, but in plain shirt and trousers like an ordinary man. Ordinary—but the face was a sink of corruption, ruined cartilage and quivering jellies of rotten flesh hanging in tatters from the skull.
“When does an Adept part with her staff?” the
ekkannikh
asked. “When she is dead!”
ekkannikh
asked. “When she is dead!”
And with that word he broke the staff between his hands. The fire of the universe glowed brighter in its center, then flowed away in rags and tatters, while some of it ran down the
ekkannikh
’s arms to pool around its feet.
ekkannikh
’s arms to pool around its feet.
“Who speaks of death? The dead?” Mael raised his staff and let light pour into it. “Speak to me of death, you who are already gone?”
The solidified mass of tarnished cords beside Mael began to sway, as if the wind had taken them and made them vibrate.
“I died unbroken, my will prevailing,” the
ekkannikh
said. “Such a fate will escape you; you will break before you die.”
ekkannikh
said. “Such a fate will escape you; you will break before you die.”
Beside the
ekkannikh
a rod sprang from the ground. When the rod had grown as high as a man’s head, the creature seized it, and it became a staff, blazing up white and dazzling. Mael had to turn his face aside to protect his eyes from the glare. The tarnished silver of the
eiran
glowed in reflected light as if they were once more pure.
ekkannikh
a rod sprang from the ground. When the rod had grown as high as a man’s head, the creature seized it, and it became a staff, blazing up white and dazzling. Mael had to turn his face aside to protect his eyes from the glare. The tarnished silver of the
eiran
glowed in reflected light as if they were once more pure.
At that moment the
ekkannikh
attacked.
ekkannikh
attacked.
Mael sensed the blow aimed for him more than he saw it. He punched the side of his staff up and to the left, diverting the lashing blow and making it slide harmlessly past him. The staves shivered under the impact—this was no insubstantial illusion that he faced, nor a mere phantom of ill-will. This was a physical presence bent on his destruction.
“I have gained strength in my travels,” the
ekkannikh
said. “And allies.”
ekkannikh
said. “And allies.”
From out of the dark came a large man, dressed as a Khesatan noble. He walked up to the
ekkannikh
and grasped hold of it. The two bodies merged, flowing into one another, the form of one and the substance of the other, until they became a man of middle years, a slight, dark-haired man dressed in dusty black. The decay was gone from his face.
ekkannikh
and grasped hold of it. The two bodies merged, flowing into one another, the form of one and the substance of the other, until they became a man of middle years, a slight, dark-haired man dressed in dusty black. The decay was gone from his face.
“I grow, I am one,” the spirit said. “I am the greater.”
“You fight like an Adept,” Mael said. “Come with me to the Void.”
He turned the peculiar corner which always before had brought him to the land of no-space and no-time, where he might be able to take the
ekkannikh
to the time and place of its first death. If he could kill it properly there …
ekkannikh
to the time and place of its first death. If he could kill it properly there …
“That way is blocked to you,” the
ekkannikh
said, and Mael found that he was unable to move, that the road was truly closed.
ekkannikh
said, and Mael found that he was unable to move, that the road was truly closed.
The staff of the
ekkannikh
crashed onto his back across his shoulder blades, lacing him with a burning agony. He stumbled and fell forward against the tarnished silver lines.
ekkannikh
crashed onto his back across his shoulder blades, lacing him with a burning agony. He stumbled and fell forward against the tarnished silver lines.
Jens and Guislen had almost reached the edge of the park. Up a rise, across the roofs of some buildings, they could see the Golden Tower sparkling in the sun.
“I hadn’t thought to meet you again,” Jens said. “I thought that once named, you were gone forever.”
“Not yet,” Guislen said. “There is still work for me to do. Shall I take those binders off of you?”
“I’d been under the impression that you couldn’t do … well … physical things.”
“Nor can I,” said Guislen with a smile. “But you can. Are you aware of the binders?”
Jens grimaced. Now that he was free to think about the restraints that clipped his wrists tightly behind him, he seemed to feel every molecule as a separate source of pain. “Only too aware.”
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