Riverwind

Chapter Eleven

The Blue Sky People advanced on Vartoom in a quiet mass, without formation or order. Everywhere they passed, diggers threw down their tools and joined them. A sense that something vitally important was happening possessed the Hestites. The warriors captured with Karn were abandoned. Riverwind was surprised to see many of them fall in with the crowd and walk peacefully beside the same diggers they had tried to slay only hours earlier.

“Why are you surprised, tall man?” Catchflea said. “The cause they fought for now must seem totally lost. And Li El is not loved by any of them.”

Riverwind looked at the chains around his wrists. Mors had insisted the young plainsman be bound, so that if Li El reasserted her power over his mind, he could do little real damage to the digger army. “Her cause is not lost yet. Li El is very powerful on her own.”

The old man put a hand on the young man's back. “She is, yes, but she cannot hope to defeat so many. Mors will drown her in rebellious diggers if she resists.”

“She will resist.”

In the center of the moving mass of Hestites strode Mors and Vvelz. Those ahead broke down walls and fences so the blind elf could go forth unimpeded. He maintained a tight grip on Vvelz's hand. The sorcerer did not complain.

Behind Mors, four diggers carried the unconscious form of Ro Karn. Vvelz had stopped his bleeding and closed his wound with the healing spell, but the shock and damage of the arrow was still there. Riverwind and Catchflea followed behind the elves carrying Karn, and trotting at the tall plainsman's side was Di An.

The crowd stopped only once. A canal was cut in the stone floor of the cavern, watering the wheat fields at the base of the city terraces. There were two broad stone bridges across the canal, and these were blocked by hastily assembled contingents of the Host. The Blue Sky People milled about, uncertain whether to charge the bridges. Mors, Vvelz, the plainsmen, and Di An gradually worked their way to the front of the crowd.

“Who is that?” Mors called.

A soldier with a golden sun riveted to the front of his helmet replied, “Hail, Ro Mors!”

“Quarl? Is that you?”

“It is, Ro Mors.”

“Stand aside, Quarl. You cannot stop us.”

“I have my orders,” the warrior called back.

Mors turned away from the bridge. “Take the bridges,” he said loudly. Armed diggers closed in, swords and spears flashing by the brazen sun's light.

Quarl advanced his thirty warriors to the center of the bridge. Along the banks of the canal, diggers began slipping into the sluggish water and wading across. Smoke obscured the second bridge, but the clatter of arms reached his ears, telling Riverwind the battle there was joined.

The Blue Sky diggers moved cautiously. It was one thing to ambush warriors in open country, hampering them with pepper and flying rocks. But to meet them face to face in the confines of a bridge, sword to sword-they went forward slowly indeed. The warriors behind Quarl grew impatient and shouted taunts.

A blast of hard wind swept over the bridge, swirling smoke in the diggers' eyes. Vvelz snatched his hand from Mors's grasp. “Lie down and cover your heads!” he shouted.

“What are you babbling about?” Mors demanded.

“Li El-!”

The dull boom of thunder rolled down the cavern. Ripple patterns appeared on the canal's surface. The wading diggers cried out as the water surged forward, rising in a wave twice their height. A smoke whirlwind formed over Var-toom. The Blue Sky People screamed and fell to their knees, covering their heads with their hands. Soon, out of a crowd of thousands, only Mors and Riverwind were left standing.

“Rage on, Li El!” Mors roared. “See if you can blow me away!”

Hardly had he spoken when the ground beneath his feet started to shake. On the bridge, warriors and diggers alike forgot their fight and stampeded to safety. The whirlwind engulfed the warriors on the far side of the bridge. They were lifted shrieking into the air. Li El was savaging her own troops.

The diggers on the bridge almost made it to safety. When they were only a few steps from solid ground, the bridge pavement between them and the shore cracked and collapsed into the canal. The diggers wavered on the edge of the drop until the whirlwind rolled up behind them. Panicking, they leaped into the churning water and were carried away.

Riverwind tried to shield his face with his arms, but smoke and flying grit stung his eyes. He fought his way through the cowering Hestites to Vvelz and dragged the sorcerer to his feet. “Do something!” Riverwind shouted. “Stop her, or we'll all be finished!”

“I can't,” Vvelz wailed. “She's too strong!”

Riverwind shook the terrified elf and bellowed, “Try, damn you!”

He set Vvelz on his feet. Silver hair flying in the wind, the sorcerer shakily extended his hands. He cried, “Attend what you hear!” His words echoed in the plainsman's head, even over the thunder of the whirlwind.

Vvelz incanted: “Storms and shakings of the ground, begone! Smoke and vile vapors, depart! All is order, all is calm! Attend what you hear!”

The funnel cloud actually retreated, and the maelstrom in the canal subsided. Riverwind shouted encouragement to the sorcerer. Sweat popped out on Vvelz's face. Tremors racked his body. He clenched his thin fingers into fists.

“Obey the balance of nature! Disperse, you creations of an evil mind! You cannot exist any longer. Begone! Begone! Begone!”

The whirlwind shrank to a narrow, writhing column of dense black smoke. The canal lost its wild fury and lapped slowly around the fallen stones of the bridge-and the bodies of drowned diggers.

Vvelz turned to Riverwind and Mors. His eyes were huge in his face. Astonishment shone from his face. “She is beaten!” he whispered. His face flushed with joy. “I have defeated my sister at last!”

Even as he spoke, the black coil of smoke swooped down like a monstrous tentacle and seized Vvelz. It wrapped around him three times and hoisted him kicking and crying into the air. Instinctively Riverwind leaped at the smoky coil, trying to save the sorcerer. His bound hands passed through it and were stained black with soot. He seized a sword dropped by a digger and chopped awkwardly at the inky tentacle; his cuts had no effect. Vvelz screamed for help, for mercy. His arms and legs were pinned to his sides, rendering him unable to cast a spell.

The coil of smoke withdrew rapidly across the canal. Vvelz's desperate cries grew fainter with distance. Riverwind stood at the break of the old bridge, gasping for air and watching Li El's magic carry her brother away. The black tentacle diminished to a smudge. Then, it was drawn into the palace and disappeared. Silence enveloped the old bridge.

It took some hours to get all the Blue Sky People across the canal. Most simply waded over. On the far side, a ruined wheat field greeted them. The whirlwind had plucked every grain off the stalks, leaving an eerie scene of brown straw and twisted stems. Vartoom was only a mile away. It looked deserted.

Soon they reached the ramps leading up to the city. The crowd-hardly an army-flowed up the angled streets. Curious Vartoom diggers came out and mixed with the Blue Sky folk. Many joyous reunions began in the street, as those who'd run away to join up with Mors met friends and relatives who'd stayed behind.

A small band of soldiers appeared when Mors and his people reached the Avenue of Weavers. One look at the mob was all they could handle. They fled.

“They've no stomach left,” Mors said, when told. “It was not so in the days of the Great Hest. Every warrior would have given up his life to defend the great lord.”

“Li El does not inspire-nor deserve-such devotion,” Riverwind said grimly. “And the sight of a thousand armed diggers would take the fight out of almost anyone.”

The way was uncontested to the very doors of the palace. The massive metal portals stood apart, beckoning them to enter.

“We have to go in, yes,” said Catchflea. He made no move to be the first.

“It's my place to lead,” Mors said. He gently pried Di An's fingers loose from his hand. “But not you, Di An.”

“I go where you go,” she whispered.

“Not this time, An Di.” Mors flipped back his black mesh coat and drew a slender, elegantly worked sword from a hidden scabbard. “This will be my staff,” he said.

He went forward, waving the sword back and forth before him. Halfway to the doors, flames erupted in the entry. The diggers shrank back. Di An cried a warning to Mors.

“I feel no heat,” he said, matter-of-factly. He kept walking.

“What do you think, old man?” Riverwind asked.

“I feel heat, yes.”

Mors walked right into the flames. The shocked cries of hundreds of diggers changed to relieved sighs as he stood in the fire without any sign of pain. “There is no fire here,” he said.

“An illusion!” Catchflea exclaimed.

“Undone by the one she blinded,” Riverwind said.

Knowing that the fire was not real, the others walked hesitantly through it. Riverwind felt nothing more than a slight prickling of his skin.

The interior of the palace was a shambles. Stone furniture was smashed, woven wire tapestries were shredded. Soot stained some rooms, and here and there dead warriors were found. In the hearth room, the statues of Hest's heroes were despoiled. Bronze heads and limbs littered the floor. The blue globes were gone from their stands. None were to be seen anywhere.

The great hearth blazed as it had for centuries. Mors tapped his sword against the circular hearth and swung around it. He could not see the wreckage of the palace. And he could not see what had suddenly caused the others to stop in their tracks.

“Mors,” said Riverwind tightly.

“What is it?” The blind elf paused.

“Unchain my hands, Mors.”

“When I choose.” Mors turned toward the throne room.

“Unchain him, please,” Di An said. Mors paused, hearing something in her strained voice.

“What is it?” he asked.

“We've found Vvelz,” Catchflea said.

In the center of the hearth fire the giant statue of Hest had been set. Chained to it was Vvelz. His mouth was open and his eyes stared out at them in an expression of pure horror, but he made no movements, made no sound. The weird, silent flames bathed him. Catchflea described the awful tableau to Mors.

“Li El's work,” he said simply.

“Can we help him?” Di An whispered.

“He's dead,” Riverwind said, turning away.

“I misjudged him,” Mors said. He stood, his face turned toward the cold fire. “We would not be here now if Vvelz hadn't fought off Li El's magic.”

Diggers filed into the room in awed silence. For generations, the palace had been as unattainable to them as the stars. Since the destruction of their temples and the massacre of their priests, the diggers had looked upon the palace as home to their gods. Now their bare, dirty feet trod the mosaic floor where Hest himself had once walked.

“Come, all of you,” Mors said when he heard their hushed whispers. “We have taken destiny into our hands.”

He found the door to the throne room closed. Mors lifted one metal-shod foot and kicked the double doors open. He strode in, sword in hand, and said, “Come out, Li El. Don't make me hunt for you.”

High, feminine laughter filtered through the golden curtains surrounding the throne. Mors grimaced and thrust out his sword. It snagged in the curtains. He slashed hard left and right, bringing down a long section of the drapes.

Seated on her golden couch was the queen-erect, hood in place, every fold of her gown arranged just so. Her hands rested, one atop the other, in her lap; the delicate fingernails had been gilded. She looked like a statue of gold and ivory.

“You always were melodramatic,” Li El said. Riverwind and the others came to the gap Mors had cut. Li El's gaze flicked briefly to them, then returned to Mors. “Not to mention crude and predictable. What do you intend to do now? Kill me?”

“There's fear in your voice, El Li. I can hear it,” Mors replied sharply.

“Don't call me that!”

“Why not? There was a time you enjoyed me calling you that.”

“Never,” she snapped. The queen stood, the wrinkles in her robe falling in a crinkle of gold. “You can't assume any affection from me, Mors.”

Mors gestured, snapping his fingers, and the quartet of diggers hurried forward with Karn. They laid him carefully on the floor at Mors's feet.

Li El's haughty expression wavered. “They told me he was dead.”

“Do you care?”

“He is my son!”

Mors shrugged. “Mine as well.”

“Son!” Riverwind exclaimed. Catchflea murmured an affirmative, and the tall plainsman said, “You treated him like a foolish servant. You never had a kind word for Karn.”

Li El flinched and raised her hand. Sparks crackled in the air. “He is a warrior. I had to make him strong. There is no place for kindness between a sovereign and her servant!”

Mors lowered the tip of his sword to Karn's throat. “Come here, Li El,” he said. She didn't move. “Come, or I'll kill him.”

She stared down at her son's motionless body. “You couldn't.”

“Couldn't I? What do you think?”

Li El stepped down from the dais and approached Mors. Her golden hem swished over the mosaic floor. Riverwind had a sudden pang of fear for Mors. If she should touch him, would Mors fall under her spell as he had?

But the blind elf knew what he was doing. He presented the point of his sword to Li El. She deliberately let the sharp steel dig into the gold of her robe.

“Now,” she said very softly. “Kill me, Mors. Run me through. It's what you want to do, isn't it?” The throne room rang with tension. Mors stood with his head turned slightly away from the queen, listening for movement. When he did not immediately strike, a tiny smile lifted Li El's lips.

“You can't do it,” she whispered. “You can't hurt me.”

“I cannot,” Mors said, whipping the sword away. A small, involuntary gasp was drawn from Li El as the sword point flicked across her stomach. “Because it is not my place to take personal revenge. It is for them to say what happens to you.” He waved over his shoulder to the mass of awed diggers.

Li El laughed. Sweet aromas wafted through the room and far-off chimes tinkled. “Them?” she said. “How can they possibly judge me?”

“A trial,” Catchflea interjected.

“Yes, a trial,” Riverwind added. “Let the new masters of Hest judge the old.”

The queen's laughter died. A frown darkened her face, and she raised her hand to point at the Que-Shu men. Riverwind braced himself for a spell, but Mors heard her moving and brought his sword tip up to her neck, just below her right ear.

“If you so much as breathe, I'll have your head off right now. And you know I will do it.” Li El lowered her hand. Mors smiled, tight-lipped and sardonic. “I like this notion of a trial. We can seat a panel of diggers as judges, and I will act as their advocate.”

“No,” she hissed. “You would let a band of dirty, ignorant diggers decide my fate?”

“Who better?” Riverwind said. “They know your cruelty and indifference better than anyone.”

“Never!”

Mors's smile evaporated. “It will be done.”

So intent was everyone on the exchange between Mors and his queen, no one noticed as Karn opened his eyes. He took in the scene, heard his mother and father trade hateful words. When Mors resolved to have Li El tried and executed, Karn heaved himself to his feet. The plight of his mother and queen had steeled his weakened body to action. Pale, stooping, his face white with pain and a lifetime of anger, he attacked.

“Mors! Watch out for Karn!” But the blind elf didn't know where Karn was. He swung his sword in a fast circle to ward off his son. Karn waited until the blade had passed and leaped on his father. Riverwind and Catchflea moved to help Mors. The diggers began to shout, and Li El lifted her hands…

She uttered a single word in an ancient tongue, and a veil of impenetrable darkness fell upon the room. Over all the tumult Mors's voice roared, “Block all the doors! Use your own bodies if you must-but don't let them escape!”

Riverwind felt several small bodies bounce off him and go reeling away in the darkness. A door clanged against stone, and a shaft of reddish light intruded on the queen's spell. A door to the hearth room had swung open as diggers pressed to get out. The eternal flame, cold and unchanging, still burned on the hearth, though its light was muted. And even more weirdly, the statue of Great Hest and the body of Vvelz glowed like beacons. Black shadows flitted to and fro between Riverwind and the light of the hearth.

A scream. Riverwind knew a death cry when he heard it. “Catchflea! Are you all right?!” he shouted.

“I'm alive, tall man.”

With equal suddenness, the darkness ended. He spied Catchflea across the room, bent over, examining something on the floor. Riverwind pushed through the crowd and found the old soothsayer standing over the bleeding body of Karn.

“He grappled with Mors and lost,” Catchflea said sadly.

Riverwind asked, “Is there anything you can do?”

“Not for a wound like that. If Vvelz were here…” Catchflea covered his face with his hands. “It's all too much, tall man. Just too much.”

“I know.” He laid a hand on Catchflea's shoulder. “Where are Mors and Li El?”

Catchflea raised his head. “I don't know. I didn't see them.”

The diggers tore down the wall of golden curtains and discovered a secret door. It was ajar. Riverwind appropriated a sword from a Blue Sky fighter and kicked the door fully open. He found himself at the bottom of a stairway leading up. He charged up the steps, the old plainsman and a hundred diggers on his heels. The stairs bent right and continued up. They ended on a long, straight corridor. Riverwind charged into the corridor.

And was rudely shoved back. There seemed to be nothing in his way, so he tried again. Once more an invisible barrier threw him back.

“Li El has blocked this way!” he said.

Di An wormed her way to the front of the crowd. “We can try the promenade,” she panted. “Out there!”

The front facade of the palace featured a long balcony, which ran along its second story. The whole group reversed direction and ran downstairs. Di An led the Que-Shu men to a concealed set of steps on the outside of the building that reached the promenade.

“How did you know this was here?” asked Catchflea.

“Master Vvelz took me this way before,” the girl replied.

The diggers were inflamed now, outraged that Li El might have escaped and might have hurt their leader Mors, too. They tore the ornamental metal shutters off the windows and climbed in. Some returned to unlatch the heavy doors off the promenade so the Que-Shu men could enter. The mob ransacked luxurious sleeping rooms and found great stores of food, which the hungriest fell upon ravenously. The whole affair was degenerating into a riot of plunder when the cry went up that Mors had been found.

Riverwind ran, covering long stretches of polished metal tile with his long legs. Di An puffed along in his wake. He skidded to a stop when he saw the floor ahead had fallen in. Mors stood on a narrow fragment of stone, surrounded on all sides by a deep drop. He and the stone he stood on floated in midair.

“What holds up your feet?” Catchflea said.

“Li El's joke,” Mors replied from his perch. He was calm, but deeply angry. “The floor collapsed around me, as you see. I cannot move. If I even lift one foot, the spell supporting this stone will instantly end.”

“We need a rope,” Riverwind said.

Di An arrived and saw his predicament. “Mors!” she cried.

“Be still, Di An. I'm not dead yet.”

Di An grabbed the digger nearest her and yelled in his face, “We'll do a mine pick-up! Understand?” The digger agreed enthusiastically.

Riverwind moved out of the way as fifteen diggers threw themselves face-down on the floor. Twelve sat on top of their fellows, linking their arms around the legs of the digger behind. Ten more climbed over them, leaning farther and farther out over the hole. Eight more piled on top of this, then six on top of that, making a lopsided pyramid of living bodies. The two diggers who clambered far out to the end were just an arm's length from Mors.

Di An scaled the living mound as the last link. She crept forward on all fours, deftly finding holds in the sea of bent backs and entwined limbs. She reached Mors and wrapped her thin arms around his neck.

“An Di, what are you doing?” he asked in shock.

“Saving you,” she replied. “Climb on.”

The digger pyramid swayed and groaned under the added strain of Mors's weight, but it held. He climbed to safety, then Di An returned. All the others, from the farthest back, climbed home. As she held Mors's hand tightly, Di An explained to an astonished Riverwind that the technique was one the diggers used to rescue comrades in mine disasters.

“Never mind that now. Li El must be found!” cried Mors.

It didn't take long. The diggers were ranging all over the palace, and a group that was looting the upper floors found Li El hiding in an alcove. She sent them shrieking down the corridor.

Mors and Catchflea entered the end of the hall just as Riverwind and a swarm of armed diggers filled the opposite end. Li El ran toward them, meaning to scatter them like chaff, until they presented a hedge of unwavering sword points. She turned back toward Mors.

Her golden hood was down, and her dark hair was in disarray. She lifted her arms as if to cast some dread spell, but her arms shook so violently that she dropped them quickly to her sides. Desperation gleamed on her sweat-sheened face.

Mors approached her slowly, waving his bloody sword.

“You never understood, you stiff-necked, stone-brained fool of a warrior. I had to be hard! The people of Hest have no place in the Empty World. Up there we would be just another small city-state. Here, in the caverns, we are citizens of an empire.”

“An empire of darkness and silence,” Riverwind said. “Let the Hestites find the sunlight again!”

“Your world is dying, yes,” Catchflea put in. “Your air is full of smoke and your crops will not grow on magic much longer. If the Hestites stay in these caves, they'll all eventually die. Your race will disappear.”

“Lies!” Li El stamped her foot and a dull boom echoed through the palace. She was weak with fatigue. “Humans only want to exploit we of the elder race. If you lead the diggers to the surface, Mors, they will end up as the barbarians' slaves.”

Her crazed eyes roamed the crowd and saw only angry, bitter diggers, the slaves she'd mistreated for decades. She stared at the bloody sword as Mors drew closer and closer. Suddenly her back straightened and one shaking hand lifted the golden hood back over her hair. Li El turned toward one of the windows in the corridor.

“No!” cried Catchflea. “Stop her, Mors!” Li El opened the chiseled iron shutters. They were four floors above the Avenue of the Heroes. Without another word or a single backward glance, Li El stepped through the window.

Riverwind threw himself at her, too late. He saw a brief flutter of gold, then the queen of Hest disappeared from his view.

He turned to Mors. The Blue Sky People's leader rested his hands on the pommel of his sword. His face bore an expression of complete satisfaction.

“Why didn't you stop her?” Riverwind asked.

“A last favor to a beaten foe.” Mors's mouth hardened to a thin line. “And to a lost love.” When the plainsman didn't say anything, he went on. “Don't you realize? This is the same window from which the Jast son of Hest leaped, so many years ago.”