Part 3 (1/2)
Iriane's secretive Mere Folk, able to dwell for long periods underwater, would have to a.s.sist 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. Offsh.o.r.e lay a sizable cl.u.s.ter 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 Sea 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 s.h.i.+p 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's 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 dis-tances 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 cas.e.m.e.nts like a chorus of demons from the ten h.e.l.ls. She toyed with her talisman as she brooded over events of the past.
When Orogastus began his last a.s.sault 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 gla.s.sy 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 owners.h.i.+p 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 surpa.s.sing that of Haramis. If this person should ally with a reborn Star Guild, equipped with the marvelous 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! It 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 snowflakcs rushed at her, seeming to be fatally drawn to the light within the room, smas.h.i.+ng themselves into oblivion as they struck the thick leaded-gla.s.s cas.e.m.e.nt.
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 somber 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 nteet 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 colors. 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 fulfill.
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 re-formed. 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 color 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.