Istu awakened

CHAPTER SIX

The path into the Mystic Mountains was little more than a haunting memory. When the low, humped foothills had started to grow into jagged mountains the party had hesitated for a moment among the stunted ugly bushes of the ravine where the trail had petered out. Moriana stared up into the heights while the others rested their dogs and sweated.

Finally she said, 'This way,' and rode on. The party that followed her was three less than that which had stopped.

So it had gone. Half the remaining contingent had deserted after the death of latic Stormcloud. Though what had happened was apparent enough to all, and though Darl argued in Moriana's favor with all his old skill and verve, more than twenty knights and footmen had turned their mounts to the northwest and ridden back for the River Marchant and the City States of the Empire that lay beyond. This journey lay under far too many ill omens for even the strong of heart.

Another factor entering into the dwindling of Moriana's force was the cultural background of the men. These were northern men unused to women who could slay warriors as strong as the young mercenary captain with their bare hands. By her own testimony Moriana was a sorceress. Stormcloud's death convinced a number of her followers she was a witch.

Others had lost battles with conscience or courage as they neared the ramparts of the Mystic Mountains, low and uninviting. Now besides herself and Darl, who remained in a state of watchful quiet that was less alarming than his earlier detachment, Moriana's retinue consisted of five dog riders and eight footmen. All left in her band now, for reasons of their own, were not afraid to penetrate the citadel of mankind's ancient enemy.

She questioned none of them as to their motives. The princess wasn't sure she wanted to know why they chose to accompany her. All her attention had to be directed forward – and up, up into the Mystic Mountains.

The path mounted quickly along crooked switchbacks up almost sheer granite faces, straightening out now and again to follow the spine of razor-thin ridge.

'The drop – it must be five hundred feet,' came a fearful voice from behind. Moriana didn't turn to see who spoke.

'No, not five hundred,' came still another voice. 'By the gods, it has to be closer to a thousand.' The second speaker laughed boisterously, an action not shared by the others in the party.

For Moriana, a mere thousand-foot drop was like home. In the Sky City she often peered out from the forward prow down at the terrain as it slowly slid beneath her. No one in the City in the Sky harbored any fear of heights, not when their everyday existence depended on separation of City and ground of at least a thousand feet. Her training aboard the war eagles had accustomed her to much loftier vantage points with even less substantial footing than that enjoyed by the dog she rode.

'Your men fear,' came Ziore's quiet voice from the pouch at Moriana's side. 'Is there nothing you can do to calm them?'

'You are the emphatic one,' pointed out the blonde-haired princess.

'I have tried. It is a wearying job. The fears of several of the men are acute.' 'Those from the forest of Nevrym?' hazarded Moriana.

'Yes. They are more accustomed to the closeness of their forests. The precipitous drops of these mountains work against their courage.'

'With luck, we won't have much longer on the trail.' Her fingers lightly touched the hidden black and white stone of the Amulet around her neck.

'Darl bears up well,' added Ziore, almost as an afterthought. 'He returns to his former self.' 'With a little help from your powers?' asked Moriana.

'With very little help from my powers,' corrected the genie. 'He heals himself. It is for the best.'

Moriana fell silent then, not wanting to speak further, even with Ziore. She no longer knew what was for the best. All she knew was what she had to do. Right, wrong, it made no difference. It was what she had to do.

She fell into the slight rolling motion of the dog between her legs as the creature struggled to climb ever higher into the mountains.

The sharp igneous rock of the mountains cruelly punished the pads of the dogs' feet, causing them to become slippery with blood. On trails often no wider than a strong man's shoulders such poor footing could be fatal. Knowing something of the geology of the Mystic Mountains, Moriana had prepared for this.

'Halt!' cried Moriana after another hour of upward struggle. 'Rest a while in the clearing beyond.' She pointed ahead to what amounted to little more than a widening in the narrow trail. But the area proved a narrow canyon leading back into a sparse stand of trees. A small spring spurted from rocks and provided a much needed diversion from the sight of nothing but hard volcanic rocks.

'My Princess,' said Darl, moving to her side. 'Should we put on the leather boots now? Our dogs are beginning to suffer.'

'Aye, pull them out and see to it, Darl,' she said, pleased that the man had taken the initiative to approach her on the subject.

'And,' spoke up Ziore, 'you might boil some of the olorum root found in the crevices yonder and apply the resulting sediment to the dogs' feet before putting on the boots. It will soothe and heal their torn pads.'

'The olorum root?' asked Moriana. 'One I am unfamiliar with. Thank you, Ziore. It shall be done.' Darl bowed and silently turned to see to it. More and more he seemed his old self. Moriana hoped the change went deeper than his visible actions. It pained her greatly seeing the man suffer so – and all for her.

Several men brewed tea and others tried to ease their nerves with stinging draughts of Grassland brandy. Moriana accepted a cup of steaming tea – a pleasantly bracing Samazant strain, not the resinous amasinj of the steppes – and allowed a grinning Nevrym forester to lace it with colorless liqueur. She sat on a rock and stared back the way they'd come. The mountains fell away in toothlike peaks of gradually diminishing size, becoming foothills, spreading away to the south and west into an open plain. To her right yellow prairie gave way in the distance to the brown and pale green patchwork of cultivation; at the edge of vision the black line of the forests that had sheltered them for the vital first days of their flight swam in heat haze.

Ahead of the princess rose Omizantrim straight and stark from the plain. As always in the last weeks, a plume of smoke grew from its maw, steely gray today. By a fluke of the weather – or something more, a possibility Moriana studiously avoided thinking about – the wind blew from the Throat of the Old Ones straight into the Mystic Mountains. They had been tasting ash on their tongues all morning, and some of the dogs sported reddened, running eyes from it.

To her left, away and southward, the scrubby short-grass plain was abruptly interrupted as the land dropped a thousand feet to the Highgrass Broad below. Far-off smoke spires lifted above the tall grass prairie. The Grasslanders engaged again in their favorite sport, it seemed, which was massacring one another in internecine feuds that kept them honed for mercenary work.

Darl saw that the dogs watered and canteens were refilled from the tiny artesian spring, always making sure that no one got out of sight of the resting place without accompaniment. In more and more ways was Darl returning to his former self.

Moriana was relieved at the precaution. These mountains had a feel about them she disliked, and she knew it went far deeper than mere superstition engendered by cradle fables. The leitmotif of the Mystic Mountains was black: black soil, black-stemmed shrubs, black birds wheeling on spring thermals overhead. The anhak here grew black, more gnarled than in the woods below, and higher up grew black pine, whose very needles were as much black as green.

From the woods upslope came a screeching, a rising-falling unearthly sound. The dogs started and growled. One whined and tucked tail between its legs. The four archers with the party, three Nevrym foresters and an Imperial borderer from Samazant, looked to their bows. Moriana did likewise.

'I don't like this place.' Ziore's subdued voice came from the pouch. Neither she nor Moriana felt her misty presence would do other than aggravate the others' uneasiness over the princess's sorcery. Moriana shrugged, finished her tea and stood. 'Nor do I,' she said simply. 'Let's ride.'

Hissing, the monster lurched from a hidden draw beside the trail. The lead dog reared and leaped back, almost unseating his rider. Moriana drew the nock of her arrow to her ear in a single fluid motion. Her dog growled deep in his chest. The others set up an excited barking as the vast green shape slid across their path.

It was a monstrous lizard, twenty feet long and more. A crest of yard-long spines, yellow and curving, grew down its back, diminishing in size as they approached the tail tip – still out of sight up the gulley. Moriana recognized it as a sprawler, its immense body suspended between its legs rather than supported atop them. It turned a bony triangular head toward them and regarded them dispassionately with a yellow eye the size of a man's head.

Horrific as the creature was, it wasn't the giant lizard that drew muffled exclamations from the travellers. Three iron-hard spines had been removed where the wattled neck flowed into its shoulders. Where they had been sat a rider.

Tall and manlike, the being stared at them from within an elaborate casque of green metal that shimmered in the sun. His helmet and breastplate revealed few details of head and body, except a pair of flat black eyes as emotionless as the lizard's yellow one. On the being's left arm rested a great spiked target shield, whose rough surface suggested construction from the scaled hide of a beast such as the alien warrior rode. The right hand's three black taloned fingers and thumb gripped a lance. The stranger wore no boots; the feet the startled humans saw sported three toes, also tipped with black claws. The largest was hooked in a ring serving as a stirrup.

With reptilian patience, rider and mount gazed upon the travellers. Behind her Moriana heard a low wail, rising into a shrill frightened yapping as a war dog panicked at the smell and nearness of the monstrous lizard – or perhaps of the being who rode it. Easing her bowstring forward, she clipped the arrow in the bowstaff with her thumb and snapped the fingers of her right hand. 'Enough,' she said, and the dog was still.

Her companions looked from the monsters blocking their path to the princess, sitting tall in her saddle, her golden hair thrown fearlessly back. A mixture of fear and confidence radiated from their gazes. Before Mortana said another word, the lizard rider spoke.

'Men.' The word came out oddly protracted, with an almost tubercular wheeze. 'Expected. Come.' With that abbreviated greeting, the lizard man goaded his mount with one knee. The monster lifted its belly from the dirt, turned its head and began crawling laboriously upslope. Moriana paused for a few seconds, considered and then followed, her dog shouldering past the cringing mount of the knight who had taken the lead. She forced herself not to look back. Not a soul of her party might be following her, but at this of all moments she couldn't show fear.

Only the emotion-sampling Ziore knew the princess's true condition.

She concentrated on studying as much of their peculiar guide as possible from the rear. He wore a breastplate and back of the same unfamiliar metal as his casque, and a skirt set with strips of the same stuff. His arms and legs flashed bare. They were dark green, almost black, like the needles of the pines that grew to either side of the wash they followed up the mountainside. From where she sat, the musculature looked human enough and the skin flexed as supplely as any human's. Now and then sunlight broke on the curve of the high muscle in a metallic glint, and Moriana guessed the being – the man, though unlike any she'd ever seen before – was covered in fine scales. The only jarring overt sign of his alienness, aside from his complexion, was his feet and hands. Somehow, Moriana found those small divergencies more unsettling than more obvious ones would have been.

'What do you think?' she said softly, directing her question to Ziore. She felt the genie's puzzlement before the mental answer came.

'I cannot tell. I sense no emotion that I can read. Or none that makes sense. A dark inchoate churning, shot through with – yes, with longing. And a feeling of fulfillment.' 'Fulfillment? How so?' Ziore paused long before answering.

'I can tell no more, she thought. The thoughts and passions of the creature are so… so other. The dog we ride is far more easily accessible than this Zr'gsz.

Moriana slid a hand inside her tunic and pulled the Amulet up so that only she could see it. Its surface was evenly divided between black and white. She grimaced in both annoyance and relief. She saw only ambiguous omen in the odd stone.

Letting the Amulet drop back cool and hard between her breasts, she marvelled at the craft of the long dead Athalar savants who had created the Amulet. Not only did it return life to the bearer but in some way it monitored the state of her fortunes. It seemed a facility of limited application. After all, someone blessed with good luck or afflicted with bad as a general rule needed no portents to tell her so.

But not always. And so she had come to consult the gem in situations such as the present that might bode good or ill.

And like now her answer was no answer at all. Equilibrium of black and white mocked her.

They neared the top of the round-crowned mountain. The lizard hoisted itself over the top, tail sweeping from side to side in a swirl of black dust. Moriana leaned forward and goaded her balky dog after.

What she saw made it hard to breathe. A horn of black rock rose before her, separated from the round-topped peak by a chasm so deep its bottom was lost to view in mist and shadow. Hung about the peak was a wreath of what she first mistook for cloud. With a quickening of her pulse Moriana finally realized it was in fact gray smoke from Omizantrim.

Far beneath them she saw a thin line spanning the void. A bridge? She scanned the peak with her eyes but saw no sign of keep or tower, nothing raised by hands, human or otherwise.

The princess became aware of the black-jasper scrutiny of the lizard man. She peered at the smoky wreath, finally catching some anomaly within. Slowly she made out shapes-but nothing like the battlemented walls she had expected. Instead, clinging to the mountain's shoulder was a clump of dark geometric shapes, blocks and angles jutting in disorder that appeared almost organic. A single emerald green gleam shone through the smoke.

The Zr'gsz did not turn at the sound of the rest of the party scrabbling up onto the mountain top. Still gazing impassively at Moriana, he raised his lance and pointed it unerringly toward the outcrop on the distant peak. Thendrun,' he said.

'You are welcome, humans.' The words were spoken with flawless diction, vowels duly voiced, plosives and labials properly enunciated. 'You may take for granted that many years indeed have passed since those words were uttered here.' Khirshagk, Instrumentality of the People, raised his goblet and smiled.

Before the beaten gold rim of the cup covered his mouth Moriana glimpsed blue-white teeth. Like the rest of him, they were almost human, incisors to the front, flat and shovel-tipped, and blunt grinding molars in the back. But his eyeteeth protruded like sabers, with a hollow behind the upper pair into which the equally formidable lower ones could socket when he locked his jaws. Humans and Khirshagk's ancestors, had shared a diet of both flesh and vegetation – but more of the former.

Otherwise, its owner was what Moriana could only honestly call handsome. His face, narrow and finely boned, sported high cheekbones and a lordly knife blade nose that she found oddly familiar. His skin was bluish green, darker still than the sentry who had guided them across the narrow bridge to the keep. His startling cat-green eyes shone with intelligence in the light of torches flickering in black wrought iron sconces on the walls of the chamber.

To her surprise the reptile man had hair, black and lustrous, combed back from his high, broad forehead. All in all, he had the appearance of a perfectly human male of more than average comeliness. Except for the clawed hands and feet.

Moriana sipped bitter green wine. Behind her she heard a whisper. Her head snapped around. She saw nothing but the curved wall of the Instrumentality's audience chamber. The wall was unadorned, of a dark green crystal. There were no hangings for furtive listeners to hide behind, and her eyes made out no seams revealing secret doorways. Moriana puzzled over the source of the sound. Nor do I know, came Ziore's soft thought mingling with her own. She was conscious of cool eyes on her. 'I am grateful for your hospitality, Lord Khirshagk.' He smiled.

'You pronounce my name quite well, Your Highness,' he said. 'But you need not name me lord. I am Instrumentality of the People; I am a tool in their hands. Not master over them.'

Moriana returned the smile, letting some of her skepticism show. Most human rulers claimed that it was the people who reigned, and that they themselves were merely servants of the popular will. The reality was inevitably the reverse. She doubted whether the Zr'gsz and humans differed much on that score.

Khirshagk had met them at the gate of Thendrun in a green-trimmed robe of what Moriana at first thought to be unadorned black. Now in the flickering light she made out faint hints of patterns and arcane figurations. To her eyes they appeared black on black; she assumed he saw the contrast more clearly.

'Lady Moriana,' he had said, 'and Lord Darl. In the name of the People, I bid you enter Thendrun.' After the inhuman accent of the lizard rider, the cultured perfection of Khirshagk's words was as startling as his knowledge of their names, and of the rest of the party as well, whom he named and greeted one by one as they filed between the great black gates into the keep.

All those who had started the ascent into the Mystic Mountains accompanied her into Thendrun. Perhaps her men felt that in this lair of ancient magic and evil the presence of a sorceress was more asset than liability. She didn't question this small bit of good luck on her part. It was about time things ran smoothly for her.

Lizard men whom Moriana took for servants, lighter of skin than the Instrumentality and the gate guards who stood by with two-handed maces and tall rectangular shields, stepped forward to lead the tired dogs to kennels. The beasts snapped at them so viciously that the riders had to lead their own mounts.

The retinue was led to a great table in an apartment carved out of one of the many jutting blocks of crystal that formed Thendrun. The block tilted at thirty degrees from the perpendicular, though the dining chamber was hewn out parallel to the ground. The princess's men cast dubious glances at the nothingness beyond the windows and surveyed the steaming joints served them on black jade platters with varying degrees of uneasiness; rumors abounded about the manner of meat the Hissers savored most. But it proved to be good, hearty dog, served with piles of boiled greens and potatoes – basic Northland fare. When Khirshagk led forth Moriana and Darl, smiling sardonically at the men's scrupulousness, they had fallen to with a will.

'Come, Lady Moriana, Lord Darl,' said the reptilian Instrumentality. 'Here is food that might be more pleasing to your palates.' 'What my men eat is good enough for me,' said Darl.

Moriana hastily cut in. Strange feelings worked inside her, feelings that had no easily definable name. Going along with Khirshagk seemed more important than sharing the table of her stalwart band.

'What Lord Dari says is true. But if you have prepared special dishes for us, we would be honored.' Moriana cast a look at Darl telling him not to argue. He bowed his head slightly in acquiescence.

'This way, then,' said Khirshagk, a tiny smile dancing on his all-too-human lips. He led them down a long corridor and into another part of the keep, a part obviously different from the spot where they left behind their human comrades.

More refined fare awaited the highborn pair: small birds baked in leaves, served whole and smoking; brittle crusted black bread; mushrooms; and a bowl of savory sauce so spicy that Darl and Moriana clutched their throats and hastily swallowed wine at the first taste.

The Instrumentality's circular chamber was forty feet across and carved in the center of a pyramidlike extrusion of green stone. Moriana judged it to be one of the highest points within the keep. A waist-deep circular well was cut into the center of the room. It was here that Khirshagk had seen his guests served on low tables carved of black onyx, while they reclined gratefully on luxurious furs.

Lounging back, Moriana noticed that Khirshagk was drinking only wine. He hadn't joined them in their meal.

'Aren't you hungry, Instrumentality?' she asked warily. 'Surely, such a feast isn't commonplace in Thendrun?'

'It is specially prepared for you,' admitted Khirshagk with some amusement. 'But I have already supped. As you might know, the dining habits of we Zr'gsz differ from yours.'

By no means ignorant of the rumors concerning the Zr'gsz culinary preferences, Moriana forebore to comment.

She noted that Darl ate with an appetite he hadn't shown for some time. She caught his eye and smiled and was happy to see the corners of his mouth turn briefly upward in reply. She turned back to Khirshagk.

'Since you expected us,' she said, meeting Khirshagk's gaze and the challenge she read there, 'no doubt you already know our errand.' Wine swirled as Khirshagk rotated the goblet in lazy circles.

'Our divinations told us much, and we deduced some, as well. We are not wholly unaware of what goes on in the world beyond the limits of our admittedly limited preserve.' He spoke without apparent bitterness. 'Then you know what we've come to ask.'

'We do.' The Instrumentality smiled. 'What remains to be seen is what you have to offer us.'

She nodded deliberately. Her wine cup was empty. She bent forward to set it on the table, aware that Khirshagk's eyes followed the sway of her breasts inside her tunic. She had loosened the lacing in front to allow herself to breathe; now she wondered if that had been politic.

A Zr'gsz woman, slightly built and pale of skin, came to refill her cup. Moriana wondered how she walked across the stony floor without her nails clicking. By human standards, the lizard woman was attractive. A bit blunt of feature, black-eyed and thin-lipped, her jet hair confined at the temples with a stone circlet carved to imitate plaited strands, she moved with inhuman cadence, limbs swishing softly inside a lead-colored smock.

'1 assume that mere riches mean little to you,' said Moriana, retrieving her goblet.

'More than you might think. Not that we care for gold as such. Living stone means far more to us than rock killed by over-refinement, tainted by fire, sullied by movement from one hand to another. But we do have dealings with your kind, more than you probably expect. The yellow metal comes in quite handy at times.' He sipped. 'But your point is well taken. We wouldn't aid you for any wealth you could offer.'

'I haven't much to offer.' She grinned. 'Have your divinations told you that?' She shook her head; the wine made it feel light. 'No, what I have to offer you will value much more than a few gold klenors, I think.' She leaned forward. This time his eyes held hers.

'When my… my ancestors drove yours from the City in the Sky, your folk were constrained to leave behind certain items of ritual significance.'

'At risk of being slaughtered should they have tarried to retrieve them, yes.' His manner was languid, but his eyes glittered with interest beneath half-lowered lids. 'If we win, you'll get them back.'

He drew a deep breath. Setting down his goblet with a clink, he leaned on furs and steepled his fingers before his face.

'Ah, the relics of my people,' he murmured. 'The Jade Mace, the Bell, the Scrolls of Eternity, the Idol of the Blessed Child.' Reverence rang in his words. 'Yes, we value them… much.'

'All are intact, awaiting only you to reclaim them.' She spoke before realizing that the 'Idol of the Blessed Child' referred to what her people called the Vicar of Istu, the ugly stone effigy that squatted in the Well of Winds. The Rite of Dark Assumption, banned since Julanna Etuul had seized the Beryl Throne almost five millennia before, made the idol live for a short period with the spirit of the Demon of the Dark Ones, whom Felarod had imprisoned in sorcerous sleep in the depths of the Sky City. Moriana's sister had revived the rite – with Moriana meant to be the Vicar's sacrifice and bride. Only the timely intervention of Fost Longstrider saved her life. Moriana's thoughts tumbied and swirled thinking of Fost and his valor in saving her from that vile fate.

Ziore's gentle touches on the perimeter of her mind soothed and steadied her.

Moriana licked her lips. Khirshagk watched impassively. How much had his divinations revealed? He had an aura of vast power; she almost tasted it.

'For such inducement we would aid even the get of those who stole the City from us,' said Khirshagk. 'But we can offer little aid if neither of us can reach the City, is it not so?'

'Yes.' She had to fight to say the next words. 'We will help you regain access to the skystone mines, as well.' Darl let out his breath in sharp exhalation, but said nothing. 'You know what that entails.' 'I do.' The words hurt her chest.

'And the Heart?' He curled his fingers down, save for forefingers tipped forward to aim at Moriana like a weapon. 'The Heart of the People, which damned Felarod cast into molten lava in the Throat of the Old Ones, where his monster could keep it ever beyond our grasp? You'll help us retrieve that as well?'

The Heart of the People!

She had thought the tale of the huge night-black diamond, which smoked like a heart plucked beating from a breast and laid on the sacrificial brazier, to be mere legend. Fear seized her. The Heart was reputedly one of the most powerful of all the Dark Ones' gifts to their chosen. Only Istu himself was a greater sign of favor of the Lords of the Elder Dark. She didn't wish to think what bringing the Heart back into the world might imply.

But she had to trust the lizard folk. Closing her eyes and forming a thought, she asked a single question of Ziore. The nun responded.

'I cannot read this being. His motives are hidden behind a veil of blackness.

The princess had to make the decision on her own; even knowing that decision would affect the entire continent – the world! – she had to make it. 'We will,' she whispered.

A soundless shout of exultation rang through Thendrun. Moriana started, looked around. Khirshagk showed no emotion. Darl sat holding his wine goblet negligently in one hand. He had obviously heard nothing. It had been her imagination and nothing more.

'Then let the bargain be sealed.' Khirshagk rose and offered his hand. It bore a ring on the index finger, a dark emerald set in graven obsidian. The gem was worked in likeness of something only barely discernible, a face or a mask. Moriana made herself take his hand with no display of the reluctance she felt.

He lifted her hand, kissed it. His lips were dry but surprisingly soft. He then turned and offered his taloned hand to Darl, who got to his feet and gripped forearms heartily with the Instrumentality. Moriana gulped her wine. The imprint of Khirshagk's kiss burned on the back of her right hand.

They passed the evening in inconsequential talk. Khirshagk spoke with animation and wit, and displayed a surprising knowledge of the affairs of the outside world. Moriana guessed that the Hissers had some intercourse with true men (this made her feel better somehow), though the latter took pains to keep this a secret.

Professing a love for human music, the Instrumentality prevailed on Darl to sing, which the Count-Duke then did in a lovely mellow baritone. It was the lay of a rootless wanderer who beholds a wondrous lady and consecrates his life to her. He cannot possess her, for she is pledged to another. In the end he gives his life for her and dies with a smile on his lips. It was a common enough theme, but phrased with a bittersweet poignancy that brought tears to her eyes. Her reaction was odd in its way; the princess had no ear for music and cared little for it as a rule.

'Your own composition, I believe,' said Khirshagk when the song was done. Blushing slightly, Darl nodded.

Moriana bit her lip. At once she understood. He had written the song for her. Darl confirmed it by avoiding her eyes.

'Well,' Darl said, rising and stifling a yawn with the back of his fist. 'I'm worn down with travelling, I don't mind admitting. I think I'll retire. Your Highness?'

'I'll wait a while,' said Moriana before she could stop herself. She wondered why she'd said that. It wasn't just pique at him for performing such a song in front of the lizard man. Her motives went deeper – and Moriana didn't wish to examine them too closely.

He looked at her for a long moment. Then with a wan smile, he nodded.

'I wish you a good rest, my Lady. Your, uh, Instrumentality, I thank you for your gracious hosting.'

'You've more than repaid me with your song, Lord Darl.' He hissed flat syllables to a Zr'gsz female, who wordlessly lifted a torch from its bracket. 'Rissuu will show you to your quarters.' The tall man bowed and departed.

Moriana lay back. Her lips were dry, but she had no desire for the wine. Nervously the princess ran her hand along the black and silver fur beneath her.

'It's the hide of the greater weasel of Nevrym,' said Khirshagk. 'A cunning, deadly beast. We trade for them with the foresters.'

Moriana nodded. The men of the Great Nevrym were known to be reckless, enamored of danger. Of all the folk of the Realm it was easiest for her to imagine the Nevrym foresters trading with the shunned and dreaded Hissers, not through any love of them or for the Dark, but because of the essential lawlessness of their natures. It occurred to her that most of the footmen who remained with her were Nevrym men. She had thought it because of the toughness of the breed. Perhaps it was also because the keep of the Fallen Ones was not such a mystery to them.

Khirshagk walked to the wall as gracefully as a hunting beast. He reached a hand to the single torch burning beside the curtained doorway and snuffed it as a human might snuff a candle flame between thumb and forefinger. Moriana winced in sympathy, but he displayed no sign of pain.

'What you are about to see,' he said quietly, 'has been seen before by only one of your kind. And she was of your kind indeed.'

Hsst! went another torch. The room descended another step toward utter darkness.

'She?' asked Moriana. The word came out huskier than she intended. She watched him move. In motion, Khirshagk had the stop-and-go rhythm of a lizard, she noted. It was exotic and not at all repellent to her. Deliberately, he doused the remaining torches in the same way. She gave a little gasp as the jaws of blackness closed. 'Wait,' he bade her. She waited. Gradually, she became aware that the chamber did not lie in total night. As her pupils expanded she began to discern the details of the room's spare furnishings once more, this time illuminated by a suffused green glow that seemed to come from all around.

'Thirty thousand years ago my folk came to this continent. Of all the vastness of this land you call the Sundered Realm, this was the place they chose as their first home. And they grew themselves a keep, nurturing crystals by arcane means until they formed the vast blocks and protrusions that are the Thendrun you see all about you. Crystals of emerald, Princess, such as the giant single crystal that is your Beryl Throne.' She saw the white gleam of his smile. 'You can see why we don't value what the Pale Ones call riches.' A suspicion formed in her mind. 'And the City in the Sky…?'

'You are perceptive. It is no more than to be expected.' Before she questioned the cryptic remark, he went on. 'Yes, we grew the Sky City in much the same way from a bed of skystone. It's of a different substance, of course. It grew vertically in spire and towers instead of the angular shapes of our keep. And you're aware that it's not made of emerald. Nor does it glow with its own light, as do the walls of our dwellings.'

'It's beautiful,' she said. It was the literal truth, but it was a soul-disturbing beauty, a beauty redolent of the Dark Ones.

He came toward her. She stood, arms limp at her sides. Moriana forced her mind into the calm necessary to form the thought to the nun: Ziore, what does he intend? You need me to tell you that?

Khirshagk put out his hand till his forefinger touched the untied lacings of her tunic. Her breath came shallow and rapid as the finger pulled down, drawing forth the leather thong. His claws touched the place where the garment came together below her breasts, and continued downward. The leather parted as if he used a knife.

'You are not the first Moriana to visit Thendrun,' he said in a rich, low voice. 'Nor the first Etuul.' She blinked.

'A Moriana Etuul aided shai-Gallri, it's true,' she said. Her voice was almost as breathy as a Zr'gsz's now. 'I am descended from her. I'm the first of my clan to bear the name Moriana since…'

Her words trailed away as he lifted his finger to her breast. The finger stroked. Moriana stiffened, remembering the black talon had sliced her tunic. But the touch on her nipple was gentle. She shuddered with surprised pleasure as the nipple grew erect.

'Since that Moriana came to Thendrun to gain the secret of true magic,' he said. He took his hand from her breast, dropped it. Her swordbelt fell to the furs with a muffled clatter. A moment later her breeches joined it, pared from her like the peel from a fruit. The razor claw didn't so much as touch the skin beneath.

She started to reach for Khirshagk. She had early guessed how the evening would end and had been steeling herself for it. Now there was no need for her fortitude. She had not lain with Darl since before Chanobit. Desire was a keen edge in her loins. Khirshagk stepped back.

'In those days the Pale Ones had little magic besides that of Athalau, which is no real magic at all, merely the exercise of mental powers.'

'And what is true magic?' She felt the coldness of the Amulet between her breasts but did not look down. A cool breeze fondled her nakedness. His hands went to his robe.

'Power. The ability to manipulate the beings of this world and the Dark beyond. That gift was given to the People alone. The earlier Moriana came to purchase that gift, and so she did.' 'And how did she pay for it?' Moriana almost whispered. He laughed. 'She found the paying no ordeal,' he said, and parted his robe.

Moriana stared. Not one but two great penises jutted from his groin, one above the other, each one swollen-headed and wrapped with veins like a vine-wrapped column.

'We are similar, your kindred and mine,' said Khirshagk. 'But my folk are the greater breed.'

She sank to the furs and lay back. Her eyes were wide with expectation. His double erection was impressive, but she was not altogether certain what he intended to do with it.

He knelt between her thighs, took a member in either hand and pushed forward with his hips. Moriana lifted her hips to meet him. 'That way,' she groaned. 'But I've never done that before…'

In a moment, pain and pleasure mingled and overlaid one another. He lowered himself until he loomed over her like an idol supporting himself on muscular arms. Even in the wan emerald light his eyes shone like windows into blackness. He began to move to and fro, slowly. The skin of his members had the slightest roughness. The friction thrilled her almost beyond toleration.

Light began dancing before her eyes. Breath came short. Hot and cold chased tails through her body, touched her with fire, with ice, and the pleasure moved within her, possessing her utterly.

When the icy explosion came within her, she screamed with the fury of her own release.

She drifted from consciousness, floating timeless in darkness and satiety. At length her eyes focused again. Khirshagk still hung over her, and she felt the twinned rhythm of his heart yet within her. She didn't know how long she lay in her daze. She sensed he could have kept that position for hours, days – and more.

He slipped from her. Even the withdrawal gave intense delight. She gritted her teeth as climax seized her lithe body again. Winded, she lay back looking up as he put on his robe. For some reason the black against black figures were clearer to her now. They seemed to move with a life of their own. Or was that only a trick of the emerald witchlight?

'That first Moriana,' she asked. 'How long did it take her to gain the true magic?' He looked down at her, his expression totally unreadable.

'She never gained it at all,' he said, leaving the chamber with noiseless tread.

Moriana stared up at the ceiling. It was concave and faceted like a gem. It focused her mental energies and flooded her with both vitality and unease. She blinked several times and looked away from the disquieting ceiling. 'Ziore?' she asked softly. 'What do you make of it?'

'I know not what.' The voice came from somewhere amid the furs strewn in the pit.

Moriana put her hand to the Amulet, clenching it hard. She couldn't make herself look to see whether the stone shone white – or black.