The Crystal Sorcerers (31 page)

"You wanted this battle to prove yourself to your lord!" Patrice snarled.

"I am a warrior," Takgutha said matter-of-factly.

"Then prove it!" Patrice raised her hand and slammed a bolt into Takgutha before he could respond, knocking him off his feet. Snarling, his companions started to snap up their shields.

"Don't move!" Takgutha roared, coming to his knees. A torrent of blood poured from his right arm.

Patrice struggled for control. "We'll have a reckoning on this." She swept out of the room, Takgutha following her with a hateful gaze.

Down into the heart of her palace she stormed, cursing inwardly at the wreckage--and cursing herself. The Heart had been tantalizingly within her reach until the offworlders had struck her. Now she channeled her energy to the ugly scorches on her side and the back of her head. The pain eased, though true healing would have to come later.

She was tempted to gather her forces and strike Leti again to finish it off. Too much time had been wasted, though, and again she upbraided herself. So what if her
palace, her crystals, even
her city was destroyed? She could have had the Heart. Yet Gorgon was now so close to coming through. She had to be present. Was Takgutha a portent?
she
wondered darkly. Would Gorgon betray her?

Her mind swirled with the contradictions arising to what she had felt to be such a seamless plan for success. And she felt an inward chill now--for after all, the one thing she could never truly read was what lingered in Gorgon's heart.

She had to be present at the moment he came through, to judge him. Yet he had promised so much, his voice whispering to her across the centuries, promising all when this moment finally arrived.

Takgutha would pay for this; his blood would cement the bond. She wanted to see Gorgon flay the living flesh from his vassal's body, and then she would know. Patrice turned to one of her companions.

"Tell that bastard Takgutha I want him in the portal chamber."

The sorcerer looked at her coldly, and bowing, turned away.

Two sorcerers stepped from a side alcove and bowed low. "The traitor you wanted," and they pointed to where Imada stood.

Patrice stopped and gazed at the boy, who looked at her with innocent eyes.

Her features softened. "Why did you come to me?" she whispered, probing inward, searching his mind.

"My Vena served you," he replied. "I did not know it, but you had bonded me to you as well. When I saw you, I could not harm you."

The boy fell to his knees and abased himself before her.

She did not know whether she felt disgust or something else at the sight of him, so totally vulnerable, totally willing to do anything she might wish. She hesitated. After all, he might be an amusing plaything. Reaching down, she gently grasped his hair, raising his head and gazing into his eyes before letting him go.

"Bring him along," she said softly, and proceeded on. She'd have to think about him when there was time. If she decided not to accept him, at least Gorgon would be amused to have an offworlder to examine.

The doors to the portal room were wide open, the corridor lit with a lurid blood-red glow. Demons lined the corridor and at her approach bowed low. Without slowing she entered the chamber.

For an instant her senses recoiled at the raw power in the room. Two hundred demons stood in a vast circle, arms extended. The crystals to either side of the pentagram glowed with such blinding light that Patrice averted her gaze.

Gorgon hovered in the middle of the pentagram, his form rippling with power, his body taut, as if straining against an unseen barrier that was gradually falling away.

At the sight of Patrice, a smile crossed his features.

"Soon, very soon," Gorgon laughed, his chilling voice booming and echoing.

Patrice gazed at him, probing, unsure.

"I have heard one of my warriors displeases you?" Gorgon
whispered,
his voice now soft, melodious.

Patrice nodded, struggling to remain detached, to judge his inner thoughts.

"I will reward him properly for you when I emerge," and his voice was like the promising sigh of a lover.

"Soon you shall have Haven at your feet, the Heart Crystal in your hand, and I shall defeat Jartan, who has ignored you far too long."

Patrice felt an inner voice catling to her, as if warning her to step back from the edge of the abyss. She looked into Gorgon's eyes and his smiling gaze washed over her.

"It is time now that I come through and join you, my lover," Gorgon called, and the room surged with light.

"There's nothing else to be done," Leti said grimly, looking around at the assembled group.

Ikawa stood by Leti's side, his gaze on the ground. He knew she was right, but the finality of it was still so sudden. Only an hour ago, when he had seen the explosions ripple across Patrice's palace, he had thought for sure that the mission had been a success. Wild cheering had broken out. And then the garbled battle reports had come in--the obvious cries of an army defeated and in retreat.

At that moment he had looked to Leti and had known what she had quietly formed in her heart and had been carrying since the meeting in
Asmara, the true reason why she had insisted on bringing the Heart Crystal. She was going to destroy the Heart, Patrice's city, and herself.

"Do you see any hope of pulling back toward
Asmara?" Pina ventured.

"Hopeless,"
Valdez growled. "Gorgon and his host will explode out of there soon--damn soon. Even I can sense the power surging out of that hellhole. We'll be overrun before we even get started. Leti is right. It's the only chance we have to stop him."

The group was silent again.

"I agree with Leti." Boreas, his features grey and drawn, limped into the circle of sorcerers surrounding the Heart. Ikawa could see that every step for the demigod must be an agony.

"I sensed this was Leti's final plan, but I did not speak since I believed we could break through from the sea. It worked at Baltaman during the Great War; I believed it would work again here."

"And Patrice fought at Baltaman, and helped lead the attack by sea,"
Valdez said quietly, the slightest edge of reproach in his voice.

Boreas looked at the sorcerer and nodded.

"There is no time now for recriminations," Leti said quietly.

"When I go forward, I'll not look back. I am not ordering anyone to do this, though I'll need all of you if there is to be any hope of getting close enough. If you should decide to turn away, I will not see it, and there will be no shame. We've got to get close, right up to the wall at the very least. If there's time, I'll give the word to run, but if not, if it seems they're about to overwhelm us, I'll do what has to be done without warning."

"What will happen when she hits the Heart with that red crystal?" Shigeru whispered to Ikawa.

"Boom,"
Walker said evenly, coming up to stand next to the wrestler. "You saw what a wall crystal can do when it goes. When that big baby lets go, it'll flatten everything for miles. It'll blow that city apart, and take the portal with it."

"Those poor people in that city," Goldberg sighed. "They had nothing to do with this."

Leti nodded at Goldberg.

"I'm truly sorry about that, it is not in our creed to harm innocent people in war. But if we do not do this, millions will die, for Haven will become a battleground when Jartan returns. And if he should not stop Gorgon, this world will become a nightmare."

"What about those too injured to move?" one of the healers asked, motioning to more than thirty sorcerers who lay under the shade of a nearby tree. Mark was among them, as was Smithie and Kochanski, who had suffered a severe concussion and collapsed after the group had made it back to land.

"If we succeed and smash the portal, then look after them," Leti whispered. "If not," and she paused, "then I think you know what you'll have to do for them."

The healer seemed to struggle with her inner feelings, and then wordlessly she stepped back to the wounded.

"Are there any comments? Though I ask you make them brief--even now the portal is bending outward, almost ready to burst. We must move quickly."

No one spoke.

"Then I give you five minutes to prepare as you see fit."

The group broke up, most of the sorcerers going off to be by themselves.

The offworlders came to circle around Ikawa.

"Let's go see Mark," he said quietly.

"He just came to," one of the healers said quietly, rising from Mark's side.

Ikawa knelt beside his friends. The healer had closed the wound, but was unable to expend more energy to knit the bone since so many required her attention. The arm was padded and bound tightly in a splint.

"I heard what she said," Mark whispered.

"So you know."

Mark nodded.

"You gave me a scare," Ikawa said, trying to smile. "We were flying out to give you cover and some of your folks thought we were the enemy."

"That's the last I remember."

"
Walker saw you fall. You took a little water before we got you out."

Mark smiled feebly. "Kind of hard to believe we lost."

"But we haven't," Ikawa replied.

"Sure as hell seems like it," Kraut
said,
his voice sad and distant. "We're all gonna die in about another ten minutes."

Ikawa looked up at Kraut and the others.

"Yet it's worth it in the end. We all should have died back in
China, when we were enemies. Instead we came here, and found our power, our loves,
our
adventures--and far more, we learned that we are brothers. Shigeru and Walker, who once hated each other, would now lay down their lives for the other."

Shigeru and Walker looked at each other nervously.

"Ah hell, Captain, the big lug needs someone to look out for him, that's all."

The men laughed.

"So we have found that. We are all fated to die some day. Yet as a samurai, as a warrior of Allic, I find this a fine moment to choose that death.
For we will die saving a world that is precious to us."

He paused, and saw Leti coming to the edge of the group.

"And we die together as friends."

"It's time, my love." Her thought whispered through his mind.

"I cannot tell you how much I love you," Ikawa thought in reply. "You are my joy beyond words, beyond thoughts."

"On the other side of the sea we will meet again. I will wait for you there."

The two looked at each other in silence.

"It's time," she whispered, this time out loud.

The warriors looked shyly at each other, exchanging handclasps.

Ikawa looked down at Mark again. "Good-bye, my brother. If we should succeed, just remember..." He found he could no longer say the words.

"But I'm going with you." Mark forced a smile.

"Captain, that's kind of crazy,"
Walker announced. "You're busted to hell."

"I'm going with you," Mark insisted. Weakly, he tried to struggle to his feet,
then
looked imploringly at Ikawa, who gazed at him with a sad smile of understanding.

"Shigeru, give him a hand."

The wrestler strode forward and gently lifted Mark onto his feet. Mark looked back at Kochanski and Smithie, who were still unconscious.

"Let's get going." Mark's voice was cold and even.

The group turned away and followed Leti back to where a team of sorcerers had formed around the Heart.

From out of the crowd, Giorgini pushed his way through and came to stand before Mark.

"Mind if I fight alongside you?"

Mark looked over at Boreas, who nodded.

"Of course," Mark said, and a broad grin crept across Giorgini's features.

"At least Imada will be saved his life of humiliation," Shigeru said darkly. The wrestler had been stunned to hear of his friend's betrayal and openly wept at the news. His mood was now grim.

"Yeah, I can't believe it,"
Walker sighed. A quizzical look crossed his face, and he reached into his tunic and pulled out a slip of paper.

"Funny--just before we lifted to attack I saw him scribbling something, and then he gave this to me. Looks like Japanese or something."

Walker
held out the paper. Saito took it and unfolded it.

"She destroyed my life, though I am still living," Saito read. "Now I shall finish it all for both of us. Good-bye, my friends."

"What is he up to?" Kraut asked, looking at Ikawa.

"He was a boy with honor," Ikawa said evenly. "Perhaps he thought he could still do something. I think our friend was not a traitor, but just someone who could no longer see the world clearly," and then he could say no more.

"Say, anybody got a cigarette?"
Walker ventured, breaking the silence.

"Yeah, I remember that," Kraut laughed. "Here we're getting our butts blasted off during the siege of Landra and you're pulling out cigarettes. Shit, I could go for one."

The group chuckled, trying to control their nervousness.

Leti smiled at the offworlders.

"I'll be with the Heart," she said evenly. "Boreas, can you fly?"

The demigod nodded, but all could see that his strength was gone. The blow he had suffered would have killed any normal human, or even a sorcerer.

"We'll stay low," Leti told her command. "They must have a picket screen out ahead. We punch through, and move as fast as we can. I want to try and get this straight over the palace, but if that is impossible, at least to the base of the city wall. As I said before, if there's time I'll give a minute's warning. Then you are free to escape, but if I fear we are being overwhelmed I will strike this," and reaching into a pouch by her waist she pulled out a red crystal, "against the Heart without warning."

"Do you all understand?"

No one replied.

"Then let's move!"

The sorcerers surrounding the Heart lifted into the air, holding on to the rope netting which encased their burden. Ikawa swung in by Leti's side as she rose a scant dozen feet into the air and then started forward.

Leti looked over at him.

"Do you remember our first night together?" her thoughts whispered through his mind.

He smiled.

"Then let us think of those things once again."

The group pressed in toward the city.

From a wooded grove half a mile forward, six sorcerers rose and started back toward the city.

"They're on to us," Ikawa shouted. "Keep our formation close!"

As they streaked low over a village, a quick flurry of bolts shot up from sorcerers on the ground. Ignoring the strikes, the attack force pushed in.

"Those lousy bastards,"
Walker shouted.

Looking over his shoulder, Ikawa saw that a sizeable fraction of the group had turned away to flee in the opposite direction.

"Ignore them!" Ikawa shouted. "Their lives will be far worse than whatever we shall face."

Skimming iow against light opposition, Ikawa dodged down between a
row
of trees, sending a flock of golden birds in every direction with his passage. It was a glorious
moment, that
now filled his entire world. He had felt this before, this certainty that he was about to die, and with the coming of that moment, never had he felt so alive, so completely bonded to his world and the magnificent splendor of it.

The picket line of sorcerers kept falling back, trading long-range shots with the advancing group. The city was now less than two miles ahead. Just another couple of minutes
was
all that they would need. Ikawa felt
his
heart soaring. Perhaps they could break all the way through, and his comrades could still escape while he and Leti finished what had to be done.

"Here they come!" Shigeru snarled.

Looking forward, Ikawa was stunned. A cloud of demons and sorcerers rose above the wall to greet them.

Staggered by the intensity of the power now revealed, Patrice felt as if she had torn open the entire world to his presence. Surging and coiling, Gorgon pushed against the last flimsy barrier.

It exploded into a wall of fire.

The temple floor swayed beneath her feet, the arched buttresses overhead cracking.

Gorgon stepped through into the world of Haven.

He was the essence of fire, the creator of torment, his flaming limbs dripping with oily smoke, his fangs oozing a green, sulphurous glow, his eyes like flaming diamonds.

He leaned back and
laughed,
the booming of his voice counter-pointed by the shrieking calls of his minions, who groveled before him in a terrible ecstasy of lust.

And in that instant she knew.

He lowered his head and looked at her with sardonic bemusement. "Does my form still please you?" he whispered.

She said nothing, standing proud, alone, her mind screaming to her that all the dreams, all the desires had, after all, been only an illusion.

"Come to me," he snarled. "I wish to take you here, now. My servants can watch, for I have promised them this sport."

His mouth curled in a dark leer, flames running down its sides. A fiery hand reached out to grab her.