Scepters (77 page)

Span
by span, yard by yard, Alucius made his way along the stone walls of the
chamber, but neither his eyes nor fingers, nor his Talent, could discover any
other exit, although he had looked closely, especially behind the chest. Finally,
he stood on the opposite side of the buckled door from where he had begun.

He
looked back at the Table once more. The purple glow remained, neither greater
nor less than before. With an occasional glance at the Table, he moved back
toward the ornately carved chest set against the stone side wall.

There
was nothing on the smooth wood of the surface, not even that much dust. He
opened the top drawer. Inside was empty. He closed the drawer, and opened the
second drawer. Except for several sheets of parchment or paper, it was also
empty. Alucius reached for the paper, but as his fingers touched it, the paper
fragmented into dust so fine that Alucius’s nose began to itch.

For
a time, he found himself sneezing, his eyes watering.

He
glanced back at the Table, but no one… nothing… appeared.

He
went back to the chest, pulling out every drawer and looking under and behind
each. He found nothing more except fragments that might once have been paper.

Then
he studied the doorway, but the stones had been packed in so tightly against
the ancient and heavy wood, wood that still retained its strength, that he
could not budge either the door or any of the stone protrusions.

As
he had feared, there was no way out of the chamber except through the Table. At
least, there was no way that he could find.

He
turned and looked once more at the ancient Table, a dark cube rising out of
darker stone and suffused with the purpled life-energy stolen from who knew
where. Could he reenter the Table and transport himself elsewhere? His lungs
felt tight, and he had to wonder how long the air in the chamber would last.

Or
were his lungs tight because he feared he was truly trapped?

He
tried not to think about Wendra, or about how easily Tarolt had manipulated
him.

He
looked at the Table.

After
a moment, he began to reload the heavy rifle, thinking that he should have done
so earlier, and infused the cartridges with darkness. After doing that, he felt
even more light-headed as he climbed onto the Table and concentrated. The
surface beneath him dissolved.

Once more, Alucius hurtled downward into the chill purple
blackness, but this time there was no current or force driving him. After a
timeless instant, he could also sense the arrowlike markers or guides that he
recalled
—
except that there was no sign of those of
golden green or silver
—
the guideways to the hidden
city. He could easily sense the dark purple conduits, conduits leading to
something far worse than anything on Corus. That he knew without knowing how he
knew
.

He tried seeking beyond the tube of chill purple blackness, but
could sense nothing. Were the soarers gone? Or were there so few that they
could no longer maintain their own portals?

With his Talent, he studied the markers
—
far more than he recalled. There was one of an ancient-looking
sullen red over blackish purple, but that, he felt, was the one for where he
had already just been. Another was of maroon and dark green, the Table that
Tarolt had used to throw Alucius against the barrier. Alucius had the feeling
he had been a tool to reopen the Table in the underground chamber, but he had
no idea why, since that Table hardly seemed usable
.

He struggled to focus his attention on the remaining arrow
markers. One was silver, a silver he recalled from his encounter with the ifrit
engineer. That wouldn’t do, because his departure had brought the walls down
around that Table chamber as well. If the chamber had been rebuilt, then there
would be more ifrits in it. If it hadn’t, he’d be trapped in another
underground place. Another marker was a shining cold black, a narrow threadlike
arrow that bespoke little use, if any.

With a mind becoming increasingly slow and muddled, he
Talent-groped toward the black disused thread, mind-levering himself toward
whatever portal or Table it represented.

Once more, he hurtled toward a barrier, but one of thin blackness
thai sprayed away as he smashed into and through it.

There
was more darkness… but fresh air, if chill.

That
was all Alucius could recognize before his legs buckled, and he fell into oblivion.

The Hidden City, Corus

In
the amber-walled tower room, he soarer hovered before Wendra—holding the scrat
before the herder.

Wendra
looked quietly at the creature known to be terribly shy and skittish, It rested
motionless in the palm of the soarer’s hand, its head cocked, its eyes on
Wendra, not paying attention to the child in the carrypack.

Use your Talent. Study its lifethread, but do not touch the
thread with your Talent. It is very frail compared to you.

Wendra
took the slightest of breaths, letting her Talent observe the scrat.

Look at the nodes. Those are where the threads twist together.

Wendra
stiffened, looking down at the black stone of the herder’s ring she wore. The
sharp chill that had jabbed through her ringer was gone, as suddenly as it had
come.

She
looked at the soarer. “Something happened to Alucius.”

It is likely that he translated himself somewhere, using a Table
of the ifrits.

“Translated?”

That is how the ifrits travel, both from their base world and
also across Corns. They must have Tables or portals at the beginning and at the
end of their journeys. Even so, world lifeforces change images. You see the
ifrits as the world translates them, and were you on their world you would not
appear as you do now. Enough… you must learn more about life itself not Tables.
The Tables mean little.

“I
thought Alucius had destroyed the Tables.”

He destroyed one that had already been weakened, and buried
another. One of the ifrits has regained access to that Table and is rebuilding another.
They have also repowered other Tables
. The “voice” of the soarer sounded
tired.
Forget the Tables. There is so little time. So
little
…

“So
little time?” asked Wendra.

You
must
learn about the nodes. They
are the key to all that you must do
.

“Alucius
might need me.”

He might indeed, but you can do nothing to help him until you
learn. Observe the scrat.

“How
will this help?”

Unless you understand how to untwine the lifeforce of the ifrits,
and their massive threads, they will brush you aside as the frailest of
butterflies, as the most short-lived of moths. Your Alucius thought his efforts
were sufficient. They were not. He ignored the signs on his stead as well.

“You
expected him to stand watch over something he knew nothing about? When you did
nothing? You expected him to guard all Corus? To have no life at all? “

We have done all we could. You would not be, and your world would
be long since drained and dead, had we not acted long years past. We have taken
only what was necessary. We did not destroy a world to build cities that will
endure forever on lifeless lands. We did what was best for both ourselves and
for others. From that forbearance, we have never recovered. Do not speak to me
of how one should live a life. We will not live that much longer, no matter who
triumphs. If those who can stop evil do not act, then it will triumph. That
those with ability are called upon is unfair. The able must always do more. The
universe cares nothing for fairness. Beliefs do not matter. Only what is done
or not done matters. You and your mate can choose to act against the ifrits.
You can choose not to act. Acting without the knowledge you need to change what
otherwise will be is futile. How can you help your mate if you know even less
than he does?

Wendra
could not refute those last words, much as she wanted to, much as she felt
Alucius needed her. Nor could she refute the fact that the soarer would not
help unless she cooperated. She took a long and slow breath and concentrated on
the small creature the soarer held.

Observe the scrat once more.

Once
more, Alucius found himself on a flat surface, except he was sprawled half
across it, and the Table—if it was a Table—was sucking the very heat out of his
body. His chest was numb from the chill. With an effort, he rolled sideways.
That movement split his skull with an internal thunderclap and sent lines of
fire down his arms and legs that left his vision blurring and his entire body
shaking. He took a slow breath, then another.

Even
after remaining still for a time, his vision was still blurred, his eyes
watering, and every part of his body ached.

Was
that because he’d burst through two barriers, one practically after another? Or
just from the strain of traveling through the dark tubes?

After
a moment, he eased himself into a sitting position, although his knees ended up
higher than his thighs because there was dirt or rubble piled around what he
thought was a Table. There was no light where he was, but he felt that he was
in an enclosure of some sort. The room was cold, chill—and dark—but the
darkness didn’t feel like the previous chamber that had held the buried Table,
and there was a definite icy wind filtering in from somewhere.

Alucius
slowly moved his head, trying to make out something in the blackness. He
stopped. There was an oblong almost directly before him that seemed somehow
like a lighter patch in the darkness. He eased himself to his feet, still
holding the heavy rifle, and gingerly stepped toward what he hoped was an
archway or doorway, or even a window. His boots sank into an oozy substance
that felt partly frozen. An acrid odor of decaying vegetation rose in the chill
air. Carefully, the herder took one step after another, crossing close to three
yards of uneven, unsteady footing until he stood just short of the opening in
the dark stone wall.

A
doorway of sorts it was indeed, with stone pillars and a lintel. The bottom of
the doorway was filled with rubble that had been covered with dirt and possibly
moss or something else. He felt the stone, polished into a glassy finish, and
with cracks in only a few places. There did not seem to have been a door, not
from the smooth-finished edges of the stone.

He
studied the corridor beyond the doorway, somewhat lighter, enough that he could
make out an incline leading straight ahead and up. It might have been a gradual
ramp, although the ramp or steps were covered with dirt.

Before
leaving the Table chamber, he glanced back over his shoulder at the Table. Like
the previous one, it had also begun to show a purple glow visible only through
his Talent. With that glow, he could tell that it was half-buried in dirt and
debris.

He
turned back and began to make his way up the ramp. Halfway up, on the left
side, there was a gap in the stonework, chest high and almost as wide, through
which the wind gusted. Alucius peered through the gap. Overhead, through a
break in the roof or ceiling, Alucius could see stars, and they looked
familiar, as they might from Iron Stem.

He
wanted to shake his head. Of course it was dark. With all the hours he had
spent in the one buried Table chamber and the time when he had been
unconscious, wherever he was now, the sun had set a long time back. He couldn’t
help a slight smile at the thought that at least he wasn’t trapped underground.
Alucius kept climbing the ramp until he reached what he thought might be the
ground level of the ruined building. At the top of the ramp, he stood in an
antechamber or foyer. Directly ahead of him was a stone wall, with some sort of
carving or drawing, but the light was far too dim for even his sight to make it
out. To the right and the left were archways. A massive tree trunk had fallen
and blocked the archway to the right. Under the trunk were sections and
fragments of stone.

Alucius
moved slowly though the remaining archway into a long hallway lined with
columns. The roof above the columns appeared relatively solid.

Miniature
lights or stars flashed before his eyes, and for a moment, he felt weak and
dizzy. He stopped and put out a hand to one of the columns to steady himself.
For a time, he just stood there, sore and tired and disoriented, various
thoughts spinning through his mind.

As
little as two years before, he would not have been so shocked at the happenings
of the day. But after returning to the comparatively peaceful life of a herder,
and then the seasons of battle and riding, it was hard to believe that he was
back dealing with ifrits and Tables. Or was that because he wished he were not?

He’d
tried to escape the power of Tarolt and been thrown through a Table barrier and
ended up nearly buried alive. Trying to escape that fate had led him through
another barrier to somewhere else dark and cold, to yet another abandoned
Table. Yet his actions, or the power of the ifrits—or both—had rejuvenated Tables
that had been dead or inactive.

The
ifrits were far more powerful than he’d believed, and he still had no idea who
had taken Wendra or where she might be. From what little he had observed, the
ifrits he’d encountered hadn’t seemed to know. They’d seemed disconcerted or
uninterested in the idea of herder disappearances. Alucius also had gotten the
feeling that there were far more ifrits in Corus than he’d seen. Far more.

Another
flash of dizziness confirmed that he needed to get some rest… or he’d end up
sprawled out somewhere else, with perhaps even more serious injuries.