Kitabı oku: «Sky Trillium», sayfa 3

‘That is plausible,’ Jagun conceded. ‘Roragath did say that the Star Man went off in that direction.’

‘If Yondrimel is up to mischief, King Antar and Queen Anigel will put a stop to his games in short order. He cannot afford to be caught blatantly undermining the stability of the Two Thrones. Other civilized nations will ostracize him, and he will have no one to peddle his pearls to except the Feathered Barbarians.’

Jagun had been rummaging in their bag of supplies, searching for a corkscrew. Finding one at last, he opened a flask of halaberry wine and filled two wooden cups.

‘The Lords of the Air grant that this matter be swiftly resolved,’ he said, in a pious toast. Kadiya lifted her own cup and they both drank. When Jagun spoke again, his tone held dire warning. ‘But if the Star Guild has truly revived, then not only our own land of Laboruwenda but also the rest of the world may be at the brink of catastrophe. With your talisman useless and that of Queen Anigel lost, there is no possibility of putting together the Threefold Sceptre of Power. And that is the only certain weapon against the ancient magic of the Star Guild.’

Eyeing him over the cup’s rim, Kadiya smiled. ‘Be of good cheer, old friend. My sisters and I will find out the truth of the situation. Tomorrow, after I have slept in my own bed and refreshed my frazzled brain, we will bespeak Haramis. For now, let us drink our wine and say no more.’

But the next day, when Kadiya had Jagun send the Call to the Archimage of the Land, using the speech without words, there was no reply.

CHAPTER 3

‘Iriane!’ Haramis called softly into her talisman. ‘Iriane, do you hear me? I have very serious tidings to impart to you and I need your advice badly. Please answer.’

But the area within the Three-Winged Circle that she held, looking into it as one would study a hand mirror, remained a formless swirl of pearly luminescence. The plump, cheerful, azure-tinted features of the Archimage of the Sea did not appear.

Haramis frowned in perplexity. ‘Talisman, can you tell me why Iriane fails to respond?’

She is shielded by magic.

‘Is she in her own dwelling?’

No. She is in the Hollow Isles, among the Mere Folk of the far west.

‘Why does she refuse to bespeak me?’ Haramis asked the Circle impatiently.

The question is impertinent.

‘Bother! Now I suppose I shall have to go and find her.’ She took up her harp, which had rested on the carpet beside her, and struck a few slow chords to calm herself and assist fruitful thought. In a large ceramic pot beside the curtained window was a huge plant covered with three-petalled flowers as dark as night, and she gazed upon it and was comforted.

All evening long Haramis, Archimage of the Land, had remained in her study using the Three-Winged Circle to view the conflict between her sister Kadiya and the Skritek. Haramis had been both startled and deeply concerned at the words spoken by the leader of the monsters. No sooner was Kadiya victorious than Haramis cut away from the scene of the ambush hoping to consult with her colleague and mentor, the Blue Lady of the Sea.

Not for a moment did the young Archimage of the Land think of dealing with this present situation all by herself. If another Star Man was at large, bent on carrying out the schemes of his dead master, then the world was once again in terrible danger. As for the idea that the Vanished Ones might return, it was so incredible that Haramis hardly dared to consider it …

‘Oh, Iriane!’ she exclaimed aloud. ‘Of all the inconvenient times for you to go off and hide!’

With some effort, Haramis again stilled her agitation by strumming the harp and contemplating the Flowers. She must not let her unruly imagination run away with her. Before undertaking the task of hunting down the flighty Archimage of the Sea, she should first find out just who had fomented the uprising of the swamp-fiends. The Skritek aborigines were notoriously gullible, and the one who had incited them to hostility might be only some common human rogue.

She put down the harp and lifted her talisman once again. ‘Show me the person who told the Skritek that he was a member of the Star Guild.’

Obediently, the Three-Winged Circle produced a murky scene of deep night in some rocky fastness, lit by the crimson embers of a dying campfire. Someone lay asleep on the ground.

The vision expanded at the Archimage’s command, until it seemed that she stood within it and was able to walk about and examine everything closely, seeing as well as in broad daylight. Lofty mountains reared up on every side, many of them capped by glaciers. There was no snow on the ground in the camp, but a chill wind blew gustily, causing the fire to flare up and then almost expire.

‘Where is this place?’ she asked the talisman.

In the Ohogan Mountains above Zinora, some nine hundred leagues west of your Tower.

With the darkness abated by the Circle’s magic, Haramis could see a large fronial, well cared for and having its antlers bedizened with silver, hobbled near a brawling stream. It was sluggishly cropping leaves from shrubs growing among the boulders. The saddle and other tack, piled neatly at one side of the fire, were of high quality and styled in the Zinoran manner, with pearl-studded silver accoutrements. On the other side of the fire lay the sleeper, wrapped so tightly in zuch-wool blankets that only his nose was visible. Close by him rested a stout pair of what looked like saddlebags – except that they were fashioned not from leather but from exotic birdskin with the red-and-black feathers still in place. Only Sobranians could have made them, those wealthy but rather uncivilized humans who dwelt on the western frontiers of the known world, beyond the nation of Galanar.

Leaning against the bags was an intricate contrivance made of dark metal, and at the sight of it Haramis felt a pang of unbelieving horror and could not help but cry out. Her Sending was imperceptible to the sleeper, however, and he did not stir as she knelt beside the device and studied it.

It was about half an ell in length, flattened and triangular at one end, almost like the stock of an arbalest. From this protruded three slender cylinders or rods, bound tightly together by rings and terminating in a much-perforated metal sphere. Where the upper stock joined the rods was a kind of flared cuff, and behind it numbers of knobs, studs, and appendages of mysterious function.

This particular device was unfamiliar. But the Archimage had seen others like it – in her own Cavern of Black Ice behind her Tower on Mount Brom, and also four years earlier during the siege of Derorguila by the sorcerer Orogastus. The thing in the possession of the alleged Star Man was an antique weapon, one of those artifacts of the Vanished Ones that used to turn up from time to time in the ruins of their crumbling cities. Both Folk and humankind had long been forbidden to possess these fearsome armaments. But Orogastus had acquired numbers of them by looting the cache of an earlier Archimage of the Land, and his Tuzameni and Raktumian warriors had used the weapons to deadly effect waging war on King Antar and Queen Anigel of Laboruwenda.

When the sorcerer’s force was defeated, Haramis had caused all of the archaic arms used by the enemy to be collected and destroyed. She had also rendered useless the weapons and other dubious apparatus of the Vanished Ones stored at her own Tower, as well as those remaining in the ancient Kimilon cache partially plundered by the sorcerer. Methodically, over many months, she had used her talisman’s magic to visit every ruin and other forgotten spot on the world-continent where operable ancient weapons were hidden away. She had finally destroyed every one of them. The talisman had confirmed it.

Where then, had the specimen at her feet come from?

From beneath the sea, her talisman said, and the Archimage groaned at her own stupidity. Of course! The talisman ever took her words literally, and she had bade it search the land.

The weapon was slightly battered, but quite clean and obviously in working order. Used in some lethal demonstration, it would command respect and fear for its owner among both Folk and humankind in any part of the world, whether or not the wielder was truly a member of the Star Guild. By now, other weapons like it might also have been gathered from submarine hiding places and put to nefarious use.

Haramis arose and stood over the sleeper’s shrouded form. ‘Talisman, let him turn about so that I may see him clearly.’

A muffled grunt came from the blankets. The man rolled over, and in doing so exposed his face and upper body. He was young and well-built, perhaps two-and-twenty, with nut-brown hair and a meagre beard that he had perhaps grown to lend his rather soft features an appearance of greater maturity. His overtunic was heavy grey silk, tattered and soiled but richly lined with fur. Around his neck, hanging from a beautifully wrought platinum chain, was a disk with a many-pointed Star.

Magnifying her view of it, Haramis saw that the medallion was no counterfeit. It was identical to the one Orogastus had worn, but in her Sending, she could not tell whether or not it invested its wearer with a magical aura.

‘Who is this man?’ Haramis asked the Circle. ‘Where does he come from?’

The questions are impertinent.

‘Is he the only one of his kind?’

The question is impertinent.

‘What are his plans?’

The question is impertinent.

‘Where did he obtain this weapon? Does he have access to more of them?’

The questions are impertinent.

‘Why have you given me Sight of him, even though he wears the Star?’

Because he is a novice, as yet without the full powers of his Guild.

Haramis uttered a grim laugh. Well, that was useful knowledge indeed! She now knew for certain that the sleeping man was no imposter but a genuine initiate of the dread body of ancient enchanters – too lacking in training to have shielded himself completely from her scrutiny as his late master had done, but adept enough to conceal his identity and intentions. The talisman’s refusals also confirmed the Archimage in her suspicion that the young Star Man had fellows more powerful and dangerous than himself.

Haramis had no desire to take him prisoner, nor would she destroy his weapon. Instead, she intended to oversee his actions with her talisman and hope that he would provide valuable information about the Guild. Dealing with him – and any companions or allies he might have – would have to wait.

‘I have seen enough of this vision,’ she said.

Instantly, she was back in her study, seated in her chair by the cosy fire with the Black Trillium flowers blooming in the shadowed window-niche. She let the Three-Winged Circle swing free at her breast and sat back, thinking.

So the weapons came from under the sea! She had never suspected that the Vanished Ones might have lived there as well as on the land, nor had the Blue Lady ever mentioned the fact. Easygoing and unsuspicious, Iriane ruled her naive aboriginal subjects with a light hand. Most probably she would not even have noticed the Star Guild quietly seeking out forbidden weapons. Unfortunately, the sweet-natured Archimage of the Sea knew little of the perfidy of humankind.

Iriane’s secretive Mere Folk, able to dwell for long periods underwater, would have to assist Haramis in retrieving and destroying those dangerous artifacts that were still hidden beneath the sea. Even more urgent would be Iriane’s cooperation in hunting for the home base of the Star Men. It was more than likely that the villains had made their lair in the remote and uncharted western regions of the world-continent, or even on an island.

A chilling idea struck Haramis at that moment. She lifted her talisman. ‘Show me a voor’s-eye view of the Hollow Isles in the realm of the Blue Lady.’

Again the room vanished. It seemed as though Haramis soared at a great height on the pinions of a mighty lammergeier, those toothed birds of high intelligence who were her friends and helpers. She saw below another peninsula, thrusting seaward from the southwestern margin of the world. Offshore lay a sizeable cluster of islands, some barren and some clothed with unfamiliar vegetation. A few had active volcanoes that steamed gently. In her Sending she flew among the sea-girt specks of land, noting the entrances to many caves. To a human, this was a cheerless and desolate place, pounded by huge waves rolling in from the trackless Western Ocean and blasted by winds that raced for thousands of leagues, unimpeded by land. There were widely scattered settlements of Mere Folk, but she saw no trace of humanity.

‘Does the Star Guild abide here?’ she asked.

No, the Three-Winged Circle said. Well, that was a relief.

She studied the scene more carefully. This was a region she did not know, for no human beings had settled here – nor, so far as she knew, had any even visited the Hollow Isles. Those of her own race who had chosen not to Vanish, who had remained on the World of the Three Moons and defied the Conquering Ice, inhabited more hospitable parts of the land to the south and east. If any brave souls had ever ventured into the alien purlieus ruled by the Archimage of the Sea, they had not returned to civilized lands to tell the tale. Haramis herself had been too busy with the affairs of her own domain to explore that of Iriane.

‘How far are these islands from my Tower?’ Haramis asked the talisman.

Over seven thousand leagues, as the voor flies. By sea, as humans would make the journey, it is nearly eight thousand leagues.

‘Sacred Flower!’ the Archimage murmured. ‘What a blessing it is that I do not have to rely upon a ship or a bird to carry me there.’ She abolished the vision and returned to familiar surroundings.

Her talisman would transport her bodily to the place in a trice, as easily as a Sending. And for this exceedingly useful mode of transport she could thank dear Iriane. By teaching Haramis how to use personal magic expertly, the Blue Lady had enabled her young colleague to command the wider powers of the Three-Winged Circle in ways that Kadiya and Anigel had never been able to achieve with their talismans. Haramis knew that she owed Iriane more than she could ever repay.

‘I only hope I can find her quickly.’ She stared into the now empty Circle.

Haramis’ talisman was not a large thing. The silvery wand had a ring at one end for the chain that suspended it about her neck, and at the other end a hoop slightly more than a handspan wide, topped by a trio of tiny wings. These enfolded a drop of glowing amber with a fossil Black Trillium in its heart, identical to the amber amulets of her two sisters. At their birth, the triplet Princesses of Ruwenda had been gifted with the magical amulets by the late Archimage Binah, who had named them Petals of the Living Trillium and prophesied for them a fearsome destiny and terrible tasks.

Living that destiny, Haramis, Kadiya, and Anigel had faced and overcome many of their own personal weaknesses. All three sisters had taken on responsibilities both awful and magnificent. Were the events now taking place leading them to a challenge greater than any they had yet faced? Like the Holy Flower, they were Three and also one. The futures of Archimage, Lady of the Eyes, and Queen were entwined inexorably whether they willed it or not …

Countering the Star Guild threat must then involve Kadiya and Anigel as well as herself – of that Haramis was more than certain. She decided that she would transport herself to Kadi’s home immediately after speaking to the Blue Lady. The Three-Winged Circle would then carry her and her sister to Queen Anigel, who was in residence at Ruwenda Citadel. The Queen was four months pregnant, but that would not stop her from working with her husband Antar and the heads of other nations to counter the Star Guild’s armed threat to the already faltering balance of the world. Kadiya would have to rally the Folk. With their ability to speak without words to each other across great distances and their intimate knowledge of the land and sea, the aborigines would be invaluable in any quest against the Star Guild.

I will also insist, Haramis decided, that Kadi now give up her impotent talisman to me for safekeeping, as she should have done long ago. Unbonded, it could be stolen by any sneakthief – or even by the Star Men!

It was bad enough that Queen Anigel’s talisman, the coronet called the Three-Headed Monster, should have gone missing during the late war with Orogastus. Losing a second piece of the Sceptre of Power would be insupportable.

Orogastus … She had hardly dared speak his name since his death four years ago. What was the connection between the Star Master she had loved so helplessly and this resurgence of the Guild?

Haramis rose from her seat and began to pace before the window. It was a wild night in the high mountains where her Tower stood. Snow fell thickly and a bitter wind from the icecap to the northwest howled round the casements like a chorus of demons from the ten hells. She toyed with her talisman as she brooded over events of the past.

When Orogastus began his last assault on Derorguila, the northern capital of the Two Thrones, he had in his possession not only the Three-Headed Monster and the Three-Lobed Burning Eye, but also a certain glassy container with the Star Guild emblem on its lid that could bind or unbind the talismans. He had used this crucially important star-box to transfer ownership of the Monster and the Eye from Anigel and Kadiya to himself.

The box, like the Queen’s magical coronet, had disappeared in the tumult of battle.

For some time, Haramis had been certain that an unknown person had found both of these missing magical items and was now the true-bonded owner of the Three-Headed Monster. Her own empowered talisman, which would readily pinpoint the location of Kadiya’s dead Eye (and which had led her without demur to the young Star Man), had steadfastly refused to reveal anything whatsoever about the missing coronet or the box that controlled its bonding.

Iriane had agreed with Haramis that this could only mean that the Three-Headed Monster’s magic was fully potentiated. It had cleaved to a new owner.

And yet no great upstart sorcerer had appeared in the World of the Three Moons. The coronet’s master was keeping it hidden and unused. Haramis could not imagine why – unless this person was waiting until he could also get his hands upon Kadiya’s talisman and bond to it also with the star-box. Owning two parts of the Sceptre of Power, the unknown sorcerer would command magic almost surpassing that of Haramis. If this person should ally with a reborn Star Guild, equipped with the marvellous devices of the Vanished Ones, the world would certainly be lost.

‘Lords of the Air,’ Haramis prayed, ‘we have had peace for these four years, and yet it is clear that the world never truly regained the balance that Orogastus upset. Is this my own fault? Is it my love for that dead sorcerer – which I confess has endured undiminished – that has left us vulnerable?’

Or might the unthinkable have happened, as it had once before?

No, thanks be to the Triune! That was impossible.

Haramis would remember forever the day she and her valiant sisters had turned back upon the sorcerer the destruction he would have wreaked upon them. The Flower had overcome the Star. There had been unexpected victory for the Living Trillium – and annihilation for Orogastus, even though Haramis had hoped to spare him.

The moment she had inquired of her lover’s fate, and the talisman’s pitiless reply, were still branded upon her heart. Standing at the embrasured window beside the Black Trillium plant she began to weep. There was a small clear area in the frosted pane. Windborne snowflakes rushed at her, seeming to be fatally drawn to the light within the room, smashing themselves into oblivion as they struck the thick leaded glass casement.

He had also been fatally drawn.

Haramis had wanted to spare Orogastus the ultimate punishment. Before their final encounter, she had placed the black hexagon called the Cynosure of the Star Guild within an ancient prison of the Vanished Ones. This place, a chasm hewn from living rock and lying deep underground, would have held the sorcerer securely no matter what magic he called upon. The Cynosure was to have drawn Orogastus to it like a magnet at the moment he exerted his ultimate powers on behalf of evil. Once in captivity, perhaps reformed by gentle persuasion and their mutual love, she hoped he might undergo a change of heart that would eventually allow her to free him.

But a tremendous earthquake had shaken that part of the world, collapsing the chasm where the Cynosure lay. The device still performed its intended magic, however, drawing Orogastus into airless, rocky chaos at the instant of his defeat.

She had asked her talisman what had become of him, and it had said: He has gone the way of the Vanished Ones. He is no longer in this world.

‘Dead.’ Haramis drew back from the window and wiped a cold hand across her streaming eyes. ‘You are dead, my poor flawed sweetheart. And I am left with nothing but my sombre duty, which obliged me to destroy the only man I ever loved.’

And now the duties of that office must no longer be postponed. It was time for her to go in search of Iriane, then meet with her sisters. But first …

She lifted her talisman and looked into it. ‘Three-Winged Circle, show me that which I have been afraid to conjure heretofore: a true vision of my dead love’s face. I am sorely in need of comfort, and the refreshment of my memory of him is the only boon that will suffice.’

The talisman came alive, its Circle filled with pale-glowing colours. It said: The request is impertinent.

‘What?’ she cried in shock. ‘You deny me this simple thing, you cruel, capricious talisman?’

The request is impertinent.

‘Will you drive me mad as well as break my heart? Show him to me!’

No, the talisman replied, calmly. I cannot show you the dead face of Orogastus because it does not exist.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked sharply. ‘I know he is ashes, scattered amongst red-hot subterranean rocks. I ask only to renew my memory of his features. If the world is indeed out of balance, then I must embark upon new and parlous adventures. I – I would fashion for myself a portrait of him as a consolation. And perhaps as a warning to myself as well. Surely there can be no harm in that. I command that you depict for me his face as it was during his last days in this world.’

Now your request is one I can fulfil.

The restless eddies of pearly light brightened, became solid. For a moment she saw a head encased within a dramatic silvery headdress, haloed by pointed rays, with two fearsome white stars for eyes.

‘No! That is not the way I wish to remember him. Reproduce the face of the one I loved.’

The vision faded, then reformed. The countenance of a white-haired man, haggard and lined and yet strangely beautiful, seemed to gaze directly at her from within the Circle. His jaw was strong, his mouth wryly smiling. His eyes were the colour of her own – the lightest possible shade of blue, with great black pupils holding secret glints of gold.

As she drank in his image, Haramis called upon her personal powers. In her right hand she held the talisman. In her left, something ghostly and crystalline suddenly appeared, flat and slightly smaller than the Circle, glittering like an insubstantial gem.

‘A portrait,’ she commanded.

The lens of crystal fog darkened and became a likeness identical to that produced by the talisman, delicately painted on horik-ivory and framed in gold. The vision within the Three-Winged Circle vanished, but the sorcerer’s picture was real. Haramis put it into one of the pockets of her gown, then left the study to make preparations for her magical journeying.