Istu awakened

CHAPTER TWO

Fost Longstrider sat slumped in the bishop's stool someone had produced for him and wondered whether or not to get drunk.

All around a crowd cheered itself hoarse. Moriana stood proudly beneath the winged crown of the City in the Sky, her arms outflung as if to embrace her new subjects. For having just fought two desperate battles, one of arms and one of sorcery, and then having come close to flaming death from the stolen magics wielded by High Councillor Uriath, she looked remarkably fresh and radiantly beautiful.

Fost, on the other hand, was slipping from the frenzy of battle into the fog of after-action depression. He was charred all over from his own near incineration by one of Uriath's fire elementals, and was uncomfortably aware that the stench of burned flesh clinging to his sweat-lank black hair had come from Luranni. She had bought his life with hers. Where he wasn't black, he was bloody; where he wasn't scorched, he was scored by swordcuts. His helmet and shield were gone, his breeches blackened and torn beyond recognition and his hauberk reduced to a few rings of steel mail hung around his powerful torso. He still had his broadsword hanging at his hip in a well-smoked hornbull leather scabbard. He looked more like the vanquished than a conquering hero.

In battle he'd always felt a vivid, singing awareness, had felt alive in a way he didn't at other times. Lately he had started to go into a berserker's fury that grew madder as the battle grew more intense. Afterward, however, he felt depleted, soiled, and not at all proud of his prowess at wreaking destruction on his fellow man.

His only consolation was that the venerable ghost of Erimenes the Ethical wasn't crowing in his usual fashion over the glorious bloodletting he had witnessed that day.

Still, Fost thought, his lot wasn't so bad. The woman he loved stood by his side and received the adoration of her City. She had succeeded, as had he. Moriana had regained her precious Sky City; he had been reunited with his lover. An added bonus was that Synalon's madness would never unleash a second War of Powers on the world.

A fatuous smirk crossed his face when he realized he was a hero. Like in all the fairy tales of his youth, he was a hero and had won the privilege of living happily ever after.

He drained his goblet of wine and eyed the swell of Moriana's rump inside her tight breeches. Living happily ever after was a marvelous prospect, he decided. He just wished this state business would be finished soon so they could get down to doing the happy living in earnest.

With harsh shouts and proddings with spears, a mob of prisoners was herded into the circle to stand before their rightful queen. Some cowered on their knees pleading for forgiveness with clasped hands and desperate voices. Others stood aloof, disdaining to beg for their lives. Even they had a certain hunted look to their eyes. Fost guessed that their apparently prideful refusal to prostrate themselves and grovel for mercy sprang from a knowledge that it would do them no good. Moriana was an Etuul, from the same stock as Synalon and Rann.

Most of the troops guarding the prisoners wore the ragged garb and odd bits of armor of the Underground's street fighters, the brown and green of the Nevrym foresters or the bright colors and well-tended armor of Moriana's handful of allies from the City States. A few, though, wore the black and purple of the City's military, and here and there Fost caught a glimpse of the brassards of the elite Sky Guard worn alongside the blue and red ribbons of Moriana's sympathizers. The captives were an equally mixed lot: common bird riders and Sky Guardsmen still haughty and erect despite the numbing shock of their first defeat; Bilsinxt auxiliaries in drab earth tones; gaudy Palace Guards; even a few scattered Monitors bereft of their leather helmets and looking about wildly like beasts being led to the slaughter. So hated were Synalon's Monitors that only those fortunate enough to find outlanders – Nevrym foresters, men from the Empire, even Hissers-to surrender to before the mob caught them had survived this long. Now they faced Moriana's justice. But unlike the other prisoners, to them it made little difference whether she chose to be harsh or lenient. The crowd had seen their faces. Their fates were immutable.

As the crowd backed away as if to set themselves apart from those who had dared oppose the return of the City's rightful queen, Fost wondered again where Moriana's reptilian allies were. He hadn't seen one yet. But he knew Moriana had won their cooperation by promising to give them certain religious relics they had been forced to leave behind when Riomar shai-Gallri and her sorceress adventurers wrested the City from them millennia before.

One of the religious artifacts was in view at this moment, and not as faraway as Fost would have liked. Across the Skywell from where he and Moriana stood, squatted the Vicar of Istu, leering at the proceedings with a grotesque basalt face. The statue's form was manlike and exaggeratedly male. Its head bore horns. This was the most disconcerting feature of the great icon, because all of the world's horned creatures wore them decently on snout or forehead and pointing forward. The Vicar of Istu's sprouted unnaturally from the sides of its round heads and curved upward.

A substantial pedestal had been carved from the foundation stone of the City, but the Vicar didn't occupy it. Fost felt cold all over remembering the sight of the statue coming alive and moving from that pedestal to threaten Moriana so long ago. He hoped that the Vridzish were nearly finished rounding up their precious religious treasures. The sooner they got that ghastly mannikin out of his sight the happier Fost Longstrider would be.

'Men of the Sky City!' Moriana's voice rang like a trumpet, stilling the murmurings and occasional catcalls cast in the prisoners' direction. 'You stand before me because you have committed a most grievous deed; resisting by arms the return of your legal and rightful queen to claim her throne.'

Instantly, a dozen men fell to their knees, sobbing and pleading and shaking clasped hands in the air.

'We did no wrong! Your Majesty, there has been some terrible mistake!'

A short, slightly built youth in black and purple pushed his way arrogantly through the crowd to stand before Moriana, his black hair thrown back, his blue eyes blazing defiance. The brassard of the Guard surrounded one wiry bicep.

'We fought in defense of our City and our crowned queen, so acclaimed by the Council of Advisors in accordance with ancient law. Your claim to the Throne of Winds may be just but you chose to come as an invading enemy. If resisting you was a crime, then my comrades and I must plead wholeheartedly guilty!'

A wild babble filled the air. The crowd growled like a hungry beast, and a guard shouted, 'On your knees before the queen, scum!' The captive Monitors and sallow men in the robes of Palace bureaucrats and mages swore that this madman did not speak for them. The other Sky Guard captives raised a shout in a different key. 'Well said, Cerestan! We fly and fall with you!'

Moriana raised her hand, commanding silence. The uproar died.

'You are Cerestan, young man?' she asked. Fost watched, judging the man to be a year younger than the new queen – which made him older than the courier. 'I am flight lieutenant of the Guard,' Cerestan said proudly.

'Very well, Lt. Cerestan. You are brave. Since you have thrust yourself forward so bravely, then you shall hear my judgment upon you and upon your comrades, as well.' More piteous outcries broke from the captives. Cerestan paled but set his jaw resolutely.

'You, and those who fought beside you in resisting my entry into the City in the Sky – and your fellows of the Guard particularly – hear now your doom. You are from this moment free men and women, to leave the City or remain in her service, with the thanks of monarch and people, providing only that you are willing to swear fealty to me, your new and rightful queen.'

The crowd uttered a formless, astonished gasp. The prisoners looked stunned. Cerestan blinked rapidly and cocked his head as if uncertain he had heard correctly. Moriana laughed at his confusion.

'Did you think I was insensible to your dilemma? Being the younger sister I was heir to the throne by City law, but the Council named Synalon rightful queen. Which was right? You chose what you thought was the moral course. You fought for your City as best you knew how, and you fought bravely.'

She paused. A few cries of disbelief floated from the spectators, and she noticed that the men in Sky City uniforms who guarded the captives were beginning to acquire an angry look.

'I am most grateful now and forever to those who chose to side with me, and I shall do you all the honor it is in my power to do. But I will not punish loyalty to my beloved City, nor courageous striving on her behalf. So you who fought against me are no longer prisoners – not pardoned, for you have done nothing to be pardoned for.

'As for the rest of you, you Bilsinxt are likewise pardoned, but you are to be exiled at once from the City.' Some of the Bilsinxt cried out in terror. The usual form of exile from the City was to be given a hearty push into the Skywell to fall the thousand feet to the ground. Moriana raised a placating hand. 'I mean nothing drastic. You'll be allowed to collect your belongings and be given transport to the surface by balloon. Your city is still occupied, but I intend to withdraw the Sky City forces. With Synalon dead, no reason remains to maintain such a force.'

Startled comment rippled through the listeners. Though everyone knew that Synalon was dead, it had not been confirmed in words before. Moriana waited until the commotion was over before going on.

'For the rest of you, for the functionaries who officiated over the reign of terror waged by Synalon and Rann against the people of the City, and the Monitors who were the instruments of that oppression, I remand you to prison, to be tried individually according to your acts, by a tribunal over which I personally will preside. Look to your conscience, gentlemen. On my own behalf I am not vindictive, but on behalf of my people I harbor no mercy!' She gestured imperiously, the graceful but definite handsweep of one born to rule. The wailing mages and officials were hauled to their feet and hurried off to prison, Moriana's men forming a cordon to protect them from the fists and feet of the crowd.

A noise tugged at the fringes of Fost's mind. The mindless oceanic sounds of the crowd blanketed all other sounds, but beneath the roar he felt more than heard a discord, unidentifiable and unsettling. He shook his head to clear it. The aftermath of the battle was getting the better of him. And he knew the precise way to combat it.

He held forth his goblet. A grinning serving youth refilled it with amber wine.

'Here, Chasko, refresh yourself,' he shouted to the bearded man who stood beside him with Erimenes's satchel slung over one shoulder. His friend Prudyn, normally inseparable from him, stood some distance away holding an identical satchel loosely by the strap. The two had moved apart so that Erimenes and Ziore could no longer rant at each other.

Fost took Erimenes's satchel and slung the strap over his shoulder. Chasko accepted a fired clay vessel of liqueur and moved off to rejoin his comrade.

'You've made a sorry spectacle of yourself, old smoke,' Fost told the spirit, knowing Erimenes could read the words from his mind if he didn't hear.

'It's all the fault of that brainless witch who claims to be an Athalar. She couldn't be one, or if she is then my city decayed greatly in the years following my death. Imagine the weak-mindedness and credulity to be so taken in by an obviously spurious doctrine as to waste one's whole life on it!'

'That's your own spurious doctrine you're talking about,' Fost reminded him.

'If I've told you once, I've told you twelve thousand times,' Erimenes said loftily, 'I despise your barbaric imprecisions. Neither I nor that foolish cow Zir or Zor or Zoot or whatever she's called could possibly have made a spectacle of ourselves, since we're not visible. Why do you insist on changing the subject?'

'Majesty! Your Majesty!' Standing near Fost, Moriana looked up from a consultation with a group of officials who for reasons of conscience had allied with her.

A girl in her teens pushed her way through the throng almost to the queen's side. She wore breeches and a tattered tunic and a shortsword so thoroughly nicked as to appear sawtoothed. Her face was deathly pale beneath a coating of soot and grime, and one cheek was laid open to bleed freely and disregarded. Ribbons in Moriana's colors circled one arm.

'What is it?' asked Moriana, brow creasing in annoyance. She restrained the men who moved forward to disarm the girl, though the functionaries clucked with disapproval at her raggedness and impudence.

The girl took a deep breath. She swayed. Moriana caught her arm and supported her.

'The Hissers, Your Majesty,' she got out, and then her knees buckled with the onslaught of a coughing fit. She finally controlled herself long enough to blurt out, 'The Vridzish're attacking, Your Majesty! All over the whole damn City they're falling on top of us, armed and unarmed alike. It's t-treachery!' She fell forward so abruptly that Moriana scarcely prevented her from smashing face down on the pavement. It was only then that the queen saw the broken shaft of a black Zr'gsz arrow protruding from the girl's shoulder.

At the aft edge of the Circle, screams announced the arrival of the Hissers.

The stink of burning warehouses stung Fost's palate as his mind, fogged by drink and post-battle depression, struggled to come to grips with the girl's jagged-voiced warning. A flickering caught his attention, a quarter turn around the Circle of the Skywell. He looked that way in time to see a black flash and a fountain of scarlet. The Hissers swarmed into the Circle from the broad avenue that ran aft along the City's main axis. They freely wielded obsidian-edged swords.

He turned to Moriana. Her face was the color of a corpse's, and her lips moved without sound.

Then, 'Ziore!' she cried. Without waiting for the genie to answer, Moriana spun away to snap orders at the warriors who stood about staring in horror at this unexpected attack.

Gathering a knot of armed men and women about her, Moriana set off toward where the street mouth disgorged a stream of greenish Zr'gsz into the wide Circle. She and her troops made slow progress, bucking the current of humanity fleeing the wrath of its ancient enemies.

Fost felt a pang of surprise and betrayal that Moriana had called upon her Athalar spirit rather than upon him in her anguish. Then he decided that she was far more used to turning to Ziore in recent months than to him. The leaden lethargy that had gripped his limbs evaporated into a bright humming of adrenaline frenzy. He hitched Erimenes's satchel higher on his shoulder and drew his sword with a jerky motion.

A hand gripped his biceps. He whirled, swordarm preparing for the thrust. At his side a Sky Guardsman who bore Moriana's colors turned ashen but didn't flinch.

'Sir Longstrider,' he said, not quite knowing how to address this obviously important groundling. 'The captive soldiers – what shall we do with them?'

Fost glanced after Moriana, who was fighting her way through the panicking crowd like a fish swimming upstream, shouting for her men to come to her aid. It was hopeless trying to call to her over the wails of the multitude. Off toward the end of the City he saw thin trails of smoke twisting into the air.

He looked at the captive bird riders and Guardsmen, who stood where they had before, still unable to assimilate that they were free.

'Tread warily, my impetuous friend,' advised Erimenes from his jug. 'If you presume to give orders that Moriana finds objectionable, you may regret it later. The lady has shown a marked propensity to place the dictates of statecraft above those of the heart.'

'Shut up, Erimenes,' snapped Fost. Worry and anger grew. He felt the Guardsman's wondering eyes on him.

'The Hissers are unlikely to distinguish between us and them,' he told the waiting soldier. 'Arm them.'

With Erimenes belaboring him as a fool, Fost dashed off in pursuit of his queen and lover.

Faint and distant, the sounds of conflict seeped through rock and penetrated the awareness of the thirteen who wove mighty magics in front of the ancient door. Khirshagk paused, the harsh incantation rattling to a stop in his throat.

'Our people strike prematurely, Instrumentality,' one of his assistants reported.

He nodded. His long, handsome face was composed, serene. Despite the absolute darkness in the long-sealed and forgotten chamber, his twelve followers discerned every detail of his features, of the feathered ceremonial cloak he'd donned over his scratched green cuirass, and of the immense black diamond held smoking in the clawed hand. A black radiance pulsed from the depths of the stone, its tempo increasing second by second, like the beating of a heart touched with growing arousal.

'It matters little,' he murmured. 'The Children have waited many centuries for this moment. After such patience, the Dark Ones will forgive them their impetuosity. It will not alter the outcome.' And so saying, Khirshagk, Instrumentality of the People, raised his black diamond that was the Heart of the People and resumed the chant to weaken the spells laid long ago by Felarod.

'Come, lads, we've got them on the run!' cried a bearded North-lander, brandishing his broadsword so that the rings of his mailshirt tinkled musically. Up the narrow street a clot of low caste Zr'gsz in loincloths broke and fled under a vicious rain of arrows from Nevrym foresters and grounded bird riders. Knowing something of the Nevrymin and their attitudes toward the Hissers, Fost had been concerned over which side they'd take in this tight. However, the Vridzish had made savagely clear their intention of slaying everything human in the City. The foresters allied with the Sky Citizens by default. Their longbows did much to roll back the advantage of surprise gained by the Zr'gsz.

Seeing Moriana's troops strike the attacking Hissers with spear, sword and a singing cloud of arrows, a group of defenders had veered down a sidestreet to meet a probe by the lizard men. Fost had gone along, and already felt useless. By his own estimation the very worst archer in the world, Fost wished to close and use his sword.

He trotted up the street between the clanking mailed City States man and a rangy Nevrym forester with one eye. They passed the bodies of several of the Zr'gsz quilled like porcupines by the human archers. An obsidian-tipped spear lay by one's outflung talon.

'Ha! What fuss to make over these decadent savages,' Erimenes said scornfully. 'If they craft weapons of stone they cannot be too formidable.'

The one-eyed forester glanced at Fost. Having accompanied Moriana and Ziore in the assault on the City he was accustomed to disembodied voices emerging from satchels.

'You'd soon learn better had you a body, old one,' he told the genie. 'The volcano glass of the Zr'gsz holds -'

A small, light-skinned lizard man popped from the doorway of a shop a few steps ahead and brought his arm whipping forward. An obsidian axe whirled to embed itself with a crunch in the mailed chest of the bearded Northlander. The man coughed astonishment and blood. His legs gave way beneath him. The Nevrymin drew and loosed his arrow as the Hisser dodged back into the doorway.

'- holds an edge far sharper than the finest steel,' he finished. He paused, only slowing the fluid rhythm of his run, and confirmed with a quick glance at the City Stater's unnatural posture and unwinking, glazed stare that he was beyond assistance. 'Course, obsidian'!! shatter against steel plate, or even good iron. But it can bust right on through mail.'

Fost gulped. In his imagination, his own mail vest already rent by ill-use took on the consistency of wet paper. His grip tightened on his sword as he loped past the doorway from which the axe-wielding Hisser had emerged. The Nevrymin didn't spare a glance. The Vridzish lay huddled inside the pointed archway with his sharp chin slumped to the shaft of the arrow jutting from his sternum.

Fost's peripheral vision noticed the timeworn frieze graven around the shop's arched door. The architecture and ornamental stonework of the City in the Sky had disturbed him before, though he'd never been able to understand the reason. Now he knew the cause of that uneasiness. The City had originally been constructed by the Zr'gsz. The many additions later wrought by humans had imitated the original style. Whiie these additions lacked the eldritch quality of the older structures, they still jarred the unaccustomed eye. But it was the ornamentation that bothered Fost the most. The figures in the bas relief were wrong in nameless ways, subtly distorted, yet apparently human. But they were not human; they were Zr'gsz or the products of Zr'gsz imagination. The City turned alien and cold around him.

The two of them continued their curving course and spilled into an intersection. Fost yelped as a streak of yellow lightning crackled past his elbow and blasted the cornice of a building. Glowing gobs of stone spattered in ail directions, drawing sharp yips of pain when they struck flesh. 'Fost!' cried Moriana. 'I'm sorry. 1 didn't know it was you.'

'Think nothing of it,' he said sarcastically. Her deathbolt hadn't singed him, nor had the molten masonry hit him. But he now had a fused patch in the mail beneath his left arm to match the one a salamander had given him that morning. 'I didn't know you could do that.' She showed her teeth in a grin of wolfish satisfaction.

'Neither did Synalon/ she said. 'I've learned a few things since we parted, my love.'

A shout turned her attention back to the street, where more Zr'gsz had massed. Fost jumped to avoid the javelins and slung stones that glanced off the walls and clattered on the paving.

Several of their followers died from the missiles. The rest dodged back into doorways or around corners to avoid fire. Moriana stood her ground. She held a Highgrass bow in her left hand, but made no effort to pull an arrow from the few remaining in the quiver slung across her back.

She raised her right hand. A short arrow whirred by and dug a furrow in her cheek.

'Damn you, treacherous serpents!' she screamed. 'Die for your faithlessness!' The hand came down. Blinding white exploded from her fingers.

Fost saw bright orange and blue after-images dancing before his eyes, but from the corners he glimpsed Zr'gsz bodies fiung in all directions by the blast.

'A most impressive display, Queen,' remarked Erimenes. 'However, I wonder if your prowess will suffice against the forces I perceive are about to be -'

'Silence, rogue!' squalled Ziore from her jug. 'Moriana is the most powerful mage in all the world.'

Weaving like a reed in a breeze from the energy spent on the deathbolt, Moriana turned a stunned look toward the leather bag carrying Ziore. Her expression showed she was unused to this facet of the genie's personality.

Moriana staggered. Fost caught her arm and supported her. Her fingers gripped his forearm and squeezed down weakly.

'You've grown more powerful,' he said, 'to be able to toss lightning around like that so soon after your duel with Synalon.'

'I have.' She swept hair from her forehead with a quick thumb movement. 'And my anger gives a greater store of power than I'd have otherwise.' 'You should rest and marshal your power.'

'No! If I stop now I'll collapse.' She shook her head tiredly. 'Even without my magics, we're winning. The human warriors of my army and Synalon's are too many for them.'

She gestured up the street. As far as a distant curve, it was strewn with arrow-skewered Zr'gsz corpses. Near at hand several Underground fighters fished a limp green-scaled body from the sunken stone pond of a aeroaquifer. The magic fountain continued to produce water and music alike from thin air. The calm beauty of the sound drove back the warlike clamor from the surrounding streets.

'Now, where's that foul pact-breaking Khirshagk?' demanded Moriana. 'I'll scatter his ashes over the Keep of the Fallen, and the Heart of the People be damned!'

The warriors raised a cheer. Fost started to ask what the Heart of the People was, but a giant hand slammed into his ribs and dumped him on his rump in the street. An instant later, a tidal wave of sound crashed into him and sent him sprawling.

He rolled, recovered, found himself tangled with Moriana. A strange, dead silence descended. Moriana's lips moved but no sound emerged. Fost wondered what had happened to her voice. to the sounds of battle and the soothing song of the aeroaquifer. Then he saw a Sky Guardsman sitting a few yards away. A trickle of blood ran from one ear.

Fost felt his own ears. His fingertips detected no wetness and a quick inspection of Moriana showed her ears weren't bleeding either. The concussion had deafened them but hadn't burst their eardrums.

The Guardsman had gone as rigid as a marble statue. His arm was extended, pointing along the street they'd just cleared of the Hissers. Fost and Moriana exchanged looks and turned their heads that way.

A rolling black cloud rose above the dizzying spires and rooftops of the Sky City, burning a hole in the sky as it climbed. Blackness shone from it like light from the sun. They had to look away, the bright afterimages dancing in their eyes.

Moriana's cry pierced the armor of Fost's numbed ears. He looked back to see the great shape hovering just above the steep roof of the armory directly below the rapidly receding cloud. It was manlike in shape, though many times larger than the largest of men. And the horns that grew from either side of its blunt head were anything but manlike. It was the very image of the Vicar of Istu. No, you idiot, Erimenes's voice rang in his head. It's the original. The Demon of the Dark Ones shot upward and was gone. CHAPTER THREE

The spells were sung, the aspects properly aligned.

The mystical forces Felarod had forged to contain Istu had been hammered thin like gold beaten on an anvil. Yet still they held the ancient and mighty Demon caged in his stone prison. It would still take unearthly power to break the barrier.

'And now that which we have awaited so long,' cried Khirshagk, 'shall come to passV For a long minute, he held the blackly blazing Heart high above his head. The others turned up their faces in rapture. His own twin hearts close to bursting, the Instrumentality brought his arm down and flung the diamond aganst Felarod's magic.

The giant gem exploded. The ancient door was volatized by a ball of jet flame, as was the living stone for yards in all directions. Khirshagk and his twelve followers had only a split second to scream out their ecstasy before being engulfed and destroyed. Khirshagk and the others had known what fate awaited them and embraced death with the fanaticism of true martyrs. Not just their own lives but ten thousand years of their People's history had built toward this instant.

Khirshagk fulfilled his role as Instrumentality. His hand released the Demon Istu and began the Second War of Powers.

Free!

The Demon's being crackled with unfamiliar energy. Its first reaction had been the reaction of its id: sheer terror. But its awesome mind awakened to the knowledge that centuries-old chains were no more. Free!

With the fullness of that knowledge, awful and magnificent, Istu soared upward following the path the dark fireball had slashed through the foundation of the Sky City. Nothing dimmed his exaltation. Not even the sunlight, the contact with that hated aberration Light. He shouted defiance at the sun and soared upward to once again touch the Void, the disruption of order that was Dark. Free.'

In a single beat of the massed hearts of the tiny paleskinned ones who infested the City of his children, Istu surged above the atmosphere, filling this being with the essence of the Void and Dark. The sun ball blazed at him, furious and impotent, and the stars looked down with malice. His laugh rang among them, echoing to eternity. In Dark and Void had the Universe begun, and to them it would return. Once again would the Dark Ones rule over placid oblivion, and their child and servant Istu would become One with them, One with Nothingness. Free.'

Great joy surged at being liberated from the walls of stone and magic that had pinioned His mind and body for so long. Greater still would be the joy of revenge. Free! The Demon of the Dark Ones turned his attention downward.

Stunned, Fost, Moriana and the rest scarcely had time to pick themselves up from the flagstones before Istu descended again like a flaming black meteor. With a strange, high keening the Demon flashed over their heads to touch down out of sight among the towers of the portside quarter of the Sky City.

'Moriana?' asked Ziore from her jug. 'What happened? I feel the most peculiar presence…'

'Don't!' screamed the woman. 'Keep your mind away from it. Don't try to read its thoughts or emotions. Don't even tryV

'But… oh.' Ziore read the knowledge of what had just occurred from Moriana's mind. She knew better than to disregard such advice. If Moriana told her to keep her perceptions clear of the Demon, she must obey. The sorceress-queen had more intimate experience of Istu than did any living entity. Ziore read exactly how intimate that knowledge was and sent ripples of mental horror radiating outward.

Fost wiped tears from his light-blinded eyes. First Moriana's fire-bolt, then the eruption from the center of the City and now the

Demon's return had all etched their patterns on his retinas.

'It's real, isn't it?' he asked, appalled at the power of the thing he'd witnessed. 'A demon. A real demon.'

'The most powerful of all,' announced Erimenes, managing to sound melodramatic despite the enormity of the moment.

Fost didn't feel his knees give way. He was simply standing one second and sitting the next.

'Itsu. He's real.' He had seen the Demon manifest itself before, had seen the Vicar touched with unholy life, seen the hellglare of the Demon's soul burning yellow through the slits of the statue's eyes. But the Demon, the Demon, Istu, child and servant of the Lords of Infinite Night, had never been real to him. The Vicar had been evil and horrifying, but no more than a golem to be outsmarted with a simple cunning twist from an agile mind. Fost had defeated it and rescued Moriana. A mortal had vanquished an animated statue.

But that force animating the Vicar had been the tiniest splinter of an immensely potent and incomprehensibly ancient mind. Before, Fost had faced only Istu's id, childlike and primal, a mass of drives and desires. He had witnessed awesome power – and this was only the smallest fraction of the true fore*3 of the Demon. And this!

Above the highest spires of the portside district Istu reared up from the street, appearing to be a man-shaped hole cut into the overcast sky. His eyes blazed like windows to the surface of the sun. From them darted beams of impenetrable blackness. The tower of the Palace of Winds exploded. Moriana cried out as if her nerves were twined with the tower as it was dashed into a million fragments.

Gazing numbly into the sky, Fost watched a block the size of a hornbull turn end over end and crash through the starboard wing of the Lyceum. Head-sized fragments rained into the intersection about them, knocking smaller chunks from the edifices. One boulderlike fragment struck the magic-powered aeroaquifer, forever stilling its voice and stemming its waters. The Demon laughed.

His laugh pierced souls, rimed hopes and aspirations with quick-frost like that which Fost saw glazing the shards blasted from the Palace. Warriors whose bravery had gone without questioning a dozen times that day fell to their knees sobbing in dread.

'He's real,' Fost repeated over and over to himself. No one else listened to his dazed litany. 'It's all real. Gods, Dark Ones, the War of Powers and all.'

'Yes, you bemused jack-fool!' Erimenes snapped acerbically. 'Don't you understand? This day has truly seen the opening of a Second War of Powers!'

Fost's response was to drop his face into his hands and moan. It did add up. One didn't need to be a bespectacled clerk in a Tolvirot counting house to arrive at the sum.

He felt someone tugging at his shoulder. He shook his head with a peevish motion. All he wanted now was to crawl into his mother's lap – what did she look like? What was her name? – and cry himself to sleep. And maybe if he were very lucky, he'd awaken and find this all a nightmare sent by Majyra Dream Mistress to bedevil him.

An openfisted blow slammed into the side of his head and sent him sprawling. Hispanic had been stripped from him like a wrapper, to uncover sudden fury.

Moriana stood over him. Her expression was one of stark contempt. She thought him a cowardly groundling seeking the comfort of despair. He snarled and started up.

When he gained his feet he saw the hauteur was gone from her face. Her eyes met his and he understood. 'Let's go,' she said simply.

They raced back toward the center of the City and the broad promenade of the Circle. The Sky Citizens who had not been there to acclaim the new monarch now gravitated there naturally after escaping the Hissers and their demon ally. Moriana rapped orders, briskand businesslike in the face of calamity, marshalling her armed forces for resistance.

A warning cry sounded. A platoon of Zr'gsz broke from a nearby avenue. An arrow storm cut them down. A triumphant shout rose from the crowd.

'They don't know what they've got to contend with yet,' said Erimenes. 'But they will soon. All too soon,' muttered the spirit. Fost didn't bother listening. He stood frozen, his gaze riveted to the spectacle unfolding in the Sky City.

Far down the avenue the Demon appeared, striding on two legs like a man. Edifices of grown or graven stone slumped into ruin as his swinging arms casually brushed them. The Vridzish were massed about him, insignificant insects beside the stories-tall entity.

Arrows winnowed the ranks of the People. Dauntlessly, they came on, trotting to match the bandy-legged strut of Istu. Unbidden, the Sky Citizens rushed to the attack, black and purple-clad troopers and Underground fighters together, brandishing swords and spears.

Istu stopped. The horned, misshapen head bent down to inspect these presumptuous pale worms. The burning eyes narrowed, reminding Fost of shutters closing on a magical vessel containing a fire elemental. But the glare of a salamander was mere heat and mindless malice. Istu's eyes burned without heat, but the hatred of old, soul-destroying evil that shone forth made Fost shrivel inside.

Istu blew forth a black breath. The miasma billowed downward, impenetrably dark. Some of the advancing Sky Citizens quailed and fled. Others stood their ground. The same fate took all. Like a living fogbank, the black breath rolled over them. As it did, each of the soldiers exploded into a pink cloud of bodily fluids and shards of skin, leaving the skeletons to clatter hollowly to the street. The bones, still joined by sinew, gleamed pale and white.

The black breath cloud enveloped all those who had been so bold as to rush upon the Demon of the Dark Ones. The noise of the explosions reminded Fost of unpierced fruit popping in the oven, a sharp sound with wet undertones. His stomach gave a queasy heave. Onward came the clouJ. The crowd realized it would soon overtake them. In terror some of them turned and flung themselves into the Skywell rather than have the Demon's breath on them.

Moriana stepped forward from the line of troops she'd ordered across the avenue. Istu stood impassively, waiting to see what this golden-haired mortal made of its deadly exhalation. Silence seeped up from the very stones of the Sky City as Moriana raised her hands. A golden radiance sprang from her, resolved itself into a spear of light that leaped forward to pierce the cloud of darkness. The cloud exploded as had its victims. A few tatters of blackness danced on the wind, then vanished.

An avalanche of sound rumbled deep in Istu's throat. 'It recognizes Moriana,' suggested Erimenes.

Fost's throat constricted. For the queen's sake he hoped the Demon didn't realize this wasn't his first encounter with the tall, slim, defiant woman.

Moriana flung out her arms. Her fingers reached, grasped, drew back toward her breast. The facade of a tall structure on Istu's left toppled forward onto the Demon.

Istu roared and staggered. His horned head was above the level of the buildings and mere stone couldn't harm him. But the torrent of masonry affected him like a sudden gout of water would affect a human. He was driven back even as the falling stone crushed the Zr'gsz clumped around his feet.

'She's learned a great deal, that girl,' Erimenes remarked approvingly.

The black beams lashed from Istu's eyes. Moriana was prepared. Her hand was already in motion, drawing a curtain of shimmering flame across the air in front of her. The black radiance struck the flame shield; both disappeared.

Breath pumped rapidly in and out of Fost's powerful chest. He felt helpless in the face of such magic. He clutched his sword, wishing for action and knowing this battle far outclassed his abilities.

'Can she defeat him?' he whispered. 'Has she gained power greater than Felarod's?'

Somewhere in the fracas, the lid of Erimenes's jug had come loose. In a whirlwind of blue fog and sparkling light motes, the genie appeared at Fost's elbow. As his long narrow head took form, it was shaking, a look of paternal disappointment on his ascetic features.

'i hardly think so. Nor would you, if you truly thought on it. Consider, my foolish young friend. How alert are you after waking from a long, long sleep? Especially one deepened by wine or drugs. I suspect the after-effects of Felarod's compulsion have a similar effect on the Demon. Yes, they are definitely analogous to those of more mundane soporifics used extensively in the…'

'! get the drift,' said Fost, waving a hand to stem the tide of Erimenes's pedagogy.

Istu had shouldered through the rubble. He strode purposefully up the street, and Fost wondered if it was only his imagination that perceived a fiercer light in those yellow eyes.

With a crack like thunder, a vast circular pit yawned before the Demon. Istu dropped instantly from sight in a welter of debris. Buildings to either side, their fronts undermined, slid into the hole. From the rush of air through the Skywell at his back, Fost knew the hole went all the way through the stone slab on which the City rested.

Almost at once a black hand appeared, three fingered and taloned like a Hisser's. Once more Moriana had cast magic of incredible power at the Demon – and had only succeeded in delaying his progress along the avenue. With icy shock, Frost realized the Demon was playing with his mortal opponent. He could simply have flung himself to the Circle of the Skywell with the speed of rushing wind had he so desired.

'Perhaps Istu treats this duel as a warming up exercise,' said Erimenes, reading the courier's thoughts.

A look of alarm gripped Erimenes's features, and he shouted, 'Oh, no, you can't take that upon yourself!' The genie had mind read Fost's intentions.

Unheeding, Fost looked around, then went to the young loyalist officer Cerestan, who stood with bow and arrow in his hands and glared with impotent fury at the Demon.

'We need balloons and birds,' Fost shouted as the lieutenant's head whipped around. 'We have to evacuate the City. Now!' he added as the young Sky Guard started to protest Still Cerestan objected, 'We cannot abandon our City!'

'This goes beyond the fate of your damned City! Any human who stays here will be dead within the hour. Don't you see? A new War of Powers is upon us. We need live humans to fight back, not dead fools who threw away their lives in useless heroics.'

Fost watched as understanding sank into Cerestan's mind. He nodded, lank black hair falling across his forehead. He turned to obey, then halted with a jerk like a dog reaching the end of its tether. He faced Fost. 'The queen! What of her?'

Fost read the look in those fervent blue eyes and inwardly groaned. He may have battled against Moriana but Cerestan was smitten with her all the same.

'I'll take care of her,' he said, emphasizing the first word more than was necessary.

Cerestan wheeled and raced off, calling to uniformed men and women as he passed. Some wearing Moriana's ribbons hesitated, but only for an instant. What side each had fought on before didn't matter now. They were all the same in the yellow eyes of Istu. And Cerestan was an officer of the Sky Guard, which meant that his orders were worth heeding. Rann promoted no fools to command his elite.

Fost worked his way through the crowd, yelling to warriors and unarmed civilians alike to evacuate. Erimenes floated by his side, pleading with him to stop this folly and see to the security of his own hide. For Erimenes to encourage the courier to flee the scene of imminent violence was tantamount in likelihood to the spirit again adopting his old philosophy of abstinence. Fost realized the situation was grave if Erimenes was willing to forego bloodshed in favor of what he had termed cowardice on many prior occasions.

'Get out, it's hopeless, get out!' was all the genie said. But he repeated it continually, his voice rising to shriller and shriller pitches.

To Fost's astonishment, Cerestan led a tentacle of the frightened crowd aft from the Circle along one of the lesser streets – seemingly into the face of the Hissers. Even though his wits were dulled by fear and fatigue, Fost figured out the ploy. Istu himself was playing cat and mouse games on the main avenue with Moriana and most of the Zr'gsz were with him. The Hissers Cerestan and the rest ran into could be quickly dispatched. Then the Sky citizens would get to work inflating the huge cargo sausages in the aft hangars. Since Istu fought forward through the City, they'd be safer there than those who retreated to the City's prow, at least until Istu and his reptilian allies consolidated their hold on the Sky City. Then no human would be safe.

'- have you impaled for impertinence, if she doesn't feed you to Istu,' babbled Erimenes as Fost broke from the ranks of soldiers and raced for Moriana. 'Great Ultimate, you know how fanatical she is about her City!'

Moriana had blocked the avenue with a shimmering, rippling curtain of light burning scarlet and blue and gold and white. Buzz-ings and fat black sparks burst forth as Istu touched it. The Demon fell back with a bellow of pain. Fost saw all this as he sprinted after Moriana.

With a sound like water sizzing on heated iron, a black hand reached through the shimmering curtain. With another anguished, angry roar, Istu hurled himself through the auroral wall. It caused pain but no damage. Pain was enough to infuriate him; he reached a clawed hand for Moriana.

'Duck!' screeched Erimenes. The courier had only a split second to evaluate the situation. Moriana stood poised, her face strangely calm, a blue nimbus of energy scintillant around her form. Herarms slowly rose, as if imploring the gods for aid. Fost dived headlong, not wanting to be caught in whatever defensive magic Moriana was about to unleash.

He felt a tingling close about his middle like a noose. He hung suspended in midair, the pressure around his waist threatening to crush him. Fost gasped, then reached out and gripped a protruding cobblestone with his fingertips. Straining every muscle in his body, he pulled. Like a seed squeezed between thumb and forefinger, he squirted out of the magical grip holding him. He tucked his shoulder and rolled on the hard street.

'What're you doing here?' Moriana's voice sounded odd, flat. Fost sat up and saw that they were encapsulated by a dome of dull silver. 'The force shield will keep him out for a few minutes.' She shook her head tiredly. 'I learned this magic years ago but have never been strong enough to use it before.'

Fost thought about frail mothers who lifted impossibly heavy blocks to free their trapped infants. In those moments of adrenaline fury, they became more than human. The urgency of battle against this cosmic being had elevated Moriana's powers in the same fashion.

'The City is being evacuated,' he told her. 'I came for you.' 'Evacuated!' she screamed. Her face twisted in rage. 'On whose craven order?'

'I told you, friend Fost, nothing good would conic from that rash action of yours, but you didn't -' 'My order,' Fost said, cutting off Erimenes.

Moriana raised a slender hand. Fost stood firm, though he knew magics capable of fending off Istu for the barest fragment of a second would blast him into a scorched cinder. 'You.' By what authority?'

'As your acknowledged consort. But mostly common sense.' He cast a quick glimpse upward at the pewter-colored wall of force. It held. The Demon seemed unsure how to deal with it, but Fost didn't doubt that Istu would eventually penetrate the curtain.

'The City's lost. All that remains is for her people to save themselves. And you, too. You most of all.' 'I'm holding Istu!'

'You hold him – barely. He hasn't fully recovered from his enforced ten-thousand-year nap.'

'But I grow stronger with every instant. I feel it!' Her eyes burned like balefires. She had won her City at horrendous cost. The thought of losing it almost in the same instant of seizing it drove forth her sanity like a beast.

'Are you Felarod?' he shouted at her. The dome began to bulge inward like a tent roof filling with rainwater. Istu had decided to push his way through using brute strength. 'Do you control the power of the World Spirit? Can you overcome a demon born among the stars?'

'He's right, Moriana.' The calm voice seemed to come from nowhere. Fost finally realized it emerged from the satchel so much like his own that Moriana carried over her shoulder.

The queen's shoulders slumped. The sight squeezed tears into Fost's eyes. He knew again how much he loved her, and her loss was a shared wound.

'Come,' she said, almost imperceptibly. Serpentlike her hand darted out to catch Fost's wrist. She dragged him toward the wall of the dome. He hung back, recalling what it had felt like going through the barrier as it formed.

The silvery hemisphere burst like a soap bubble. Istu's iron-black claw plunged deep into the pavement where they'd stood only seconds before.

The Circle was almost deserted when they reached it. At the fringes of the great plaza Zr'gsz began filtering in from the side streets. Moriana stopped to gather a full quiver of arrows and kept running, pausing now and then to cast some enchantment at the Demon following them. Fost didn't even look back to see what spells she hurled at Istu. It was too painfully apparent they were little more than annoying inconveniences to Istu.

Forward of the Circle, they ran into a crowd. Off to their left an elongated cargo balloon surged into the sky. Screaming people dangled from its gondola as the sausage rose from the streets to be dragged clear of the City by a laboring eagle. Bird riders helped refugees mount eagles. Each could carry only a single passenger, and Fost saw more than one scimitar fall and come up red as hysterical men and women tried to fling themselves onto already overburdened warbirds. Moriana's step faltered. 'My poor people!' she cried. 'Only a handful will escape!'

Fost knew beyond doubt she was about to decide that she had to remain until all the Sky Citizens possible had been saved. He prodded her with his broadsword.

'Go on, damn you! We need your magic if we're to have a prayer of winning this!' Her eyes were green daggers, but she picked up the pace again.

Something whined past Fost's cheek. He slapped at it, thinking it an insect. His palm came away red.

He glanced back. The Vridzish had taken the Circle and were slaughtering refugees intent on fleeing forward to the prow decks. The lizard warriors moved with inhuman swiftness, their weapons all but invisible as they struck yielding flesh. Behind them, Istu stood in the Circle of the Skywell, horned head thrown back, raping the sky with his basso profundo laughter.

A pressure on Fost's arm brought him up short. They were at the waist-high wall ringing the City. 'Now what?' he asked.

Moriana's answer was to sling her bow over her shoulder, jerk out her longsword and parry the blow of a mace with one smooth motion. This snarling lizard man riposted with increasing speed. Moriana scarcely weaved out of the arc of the flanged mace before Fost lopped off the gray-green arm and plunged his blade through the Hisser's chest. Other lizard men ran toward them. 'Can you hold them?' shouted Moriana. 'No!'

Ignoring his response, Moriana turned and leaped as lithely as a cat to the top of the rimwall. She stepped forward into space. Fost cried out in loss. Her despair had driven her to suicide!

'It's you who's about to suicide, dolt! Turn around. Fight!' At Erimenes's urging, Fost moved to slap away a spear jabbing for his midsection. The spear pulled back only to shoot forward again and take him in the belly. He doubled over, gagging. The Hisser's throat swelled in triumph.

Grabbing the haft of the spear, Fost stabbed out with his sword. The Hisser gave a croak of surprise as the blade pierced his throat sac.

Fost rose, ripping his sword free and wrestling the spear from the lizard man's death grip. The Vridzish hadn't struck with enough force to drive the obsidian-pointed spearthrough Fost's mail, though links had parted under the force of the blow. Luck had been with him this time.

A high caste Zr'gsz stood before him, breastplate gleaming green. The finely scaled skin of face and hands were so dark as to be almost black. The Vridzish flicked a two-handed mace at Fost. Instinct made Fost turn and block with the spear, which was almost knocked from his grasp. He cut at the Hisser's head. The mace knocked his sword aside, iashed out again. It struck chips from the wall as Fost dodged to one side.

Recovering his balance, he launched a whining multiple attack, one-two-three cuts in rapid succession. The mace met and countered each. He only saved himself from the crushing head by falling forward. The wooden shaft that had saved his life once now slammed into his left shoulder. He gasped in pain as his clavicle snapped.

He hacked at the Vridzish noble's side. His blade met the metal breastplate and was robbed of its force. He heaved, bringing his sword up along the inhuman's armored side to slice into the unprotected armpit. The Hisser dropped the mace between his body and Fost's and shoved the courier back.

Wary of the head with its five ugly flanges, Fost was caught off-guard when the Vridzish shifted his grip and whipped the butt of the weapon into Fost's face. Fost heard the crunch of his nose breaking. Lightning ricocheted inside his skull and nausea turned his flesh to water. He reeled, blinking to clear his eyes, saw the gleaming metal head rise up, up, up, poising to smash in his brains. ..

Shot from pointblank range, the broadheaded arrow stuck the Hisser in the neck with such force tt nearly severed the neck. Fost saw the lizard man's look of final surprise as the head lolled to one side. Then the Zr'gsz fell flopping and kicking while black blood fountained from its neck to spray the lower caste Hissers behind.

They shrieked mad sibilants and lunged forward with weapons raised.

'Jump, you fool! It's your only chance!' Impossibly, the voice was Moriana's.

His skull pounding, his sight blurred, his left arm swinging at his side like so much dead meat, Fost couldn't hold back the reptilian Hissers for even a heartbeat. Knowing he was going to his death and loath to fall to these villains from a child's fable, he spun and dived over the rimwall into open air.

The ground loomed up at him from a thousand feet below. CHAPTER