Sword Play

Chapter 17

The blazing white light slowly spiraled inward, waning, until there stood in the air above the chamber a woman Sunbright had never seen before. Her hair was glossy white, though she was young, her skin pale and smooth, her gown a simple long black robe chased in silver down the front and around the hem and sleeves.

Mostly it was her manner that stunned the barbarian: she was as cool as a glacier, confident in her immense power. There was nothing in this room she couldn't grind under with one step, her calm air suggested. And Sunbright, his mind cloudy with grief and hatred, wondered if she were indeed a rescuer, or a worse threat than these monsters.

"Lady Polaris!" sneered the tusked-faced pit fiend. Beside the glorious white-haired woman, the creature looked like some grub turned from under a rotten log. "You bitch! What do you mean invading my kingdom?"

Even the woman's voice was cool. "I shan't keep you long, Prinquis. I've come only to retrieve some of my possessions. I don't care to lose my most promising apprentices. Not even to their own folly."

Turning in midair, she located the filthy and bedraggled Candlemas and Sysquemalyn. A white-painted nail pointed. "There they are. I'll just fetch them along home."

"Not so!" The pit fiend roared in hatred. "You've overstepped yourself this time! Hordes, destroy her!"

That, thought Sunbright, would be difficult, considering she was suspended in the air. But the hounds of hell, commanded to fight and die and rise again and fight and die again, for all eternity, surged forward, pushed by the wave of hate flooding from the pit fiend. Imps bounded like crabbed grasshoppers, bouncing higher each time to grapple for the white-haired woman. Blind giants blundered forward, crushing lemures between their toes. And the few surviving erinyes, naked and dusty, plucked up their stalactite-daggers and flapped clumsily toward the shining woman.

None got closer than a dozen feet. Without even raising her hands, the archmage hurled a pulse of white light like an errant star. Sunbright grunted and wished he'd had a warning, for the brightness seared his eyeballs and left a purple dot centered in his vision that half blinded him.

When he could see again, he realized the blast had been more than light. Feathers and hide and horns littered the ground for scores of feet around Lady Polaris. But there weren't enough scraps to account for the attackers, and Sunbright had to reconstruct what had occurred from the burnt stench in the air. The first circle of erinyes and imps must have been simply obliterated, evaporated to not even dust. The second wave had been crisped as if by lightning, leaving only feathers and toenails and horns. Farther out, fiends were seared and scarred beyond belief. Some had lost faces, the skin burned down to skulls, yet they feebly clung to life and moaned and gibbered. Others had lost arms, skin, eyes, lips, and these poor wretches crawled backward to live and suffer or to die and find relief. And all the others, mostly unharmed, had learned their lesson, and cowered low and whimpered.

Most amazingly, Sunbright and Sysquemalyn and Candlemas had stood at the same distance as the third rank, and so should have been killed. But the destruction had circumvented them, while even the lemures behind them had been reduced to puddles. The barbarian marveled at this woman's power, so mighty yet so contained. If she represented just one of the archmages of the Netherese Empire, it must surely endure a thousand years or more.

The high mage waited, doing nothing but shaking back her frosty hair. Sunbright wondered that she could stay so cool in a such an inferno. It occurred to him then that she might not be here, that what he saw was some projection of her, like a candle-show mimed behind a sheet. Who could know anything of how these archmages worked? Sunbright could no more understand them than a beetle could comprehend a king.

Prinquis, the pit fiend, surveyed the casual destruction of its kingdom, and its fury mounted beyond reckoning. Rearing on its great splayed feet, pounding its chest with horny hands, it threw back its head and roared a battle challenge that made the walls ring and Sunbright cover both ears with his hands. Then the fiend spread its leather wings and launched itself at Lady Polaris, like a red mountain taking off.

It fared no better than its slaves, though this time the archmage did raise her hands, mildly, as if chiding a child. Sunbright saw her power more clearly now, for only a single cometlike pulse flared from her hands. It struck Prinquis square in the face and almost snapped the creature's neck. Slammed as if by a giant sledgehammer, the fiend was bowled head over heels to slam into the far wall. A wing crunched like kindling; then the beast crashed upon the bluff where it had previously stood, a red, charred heap.

A moment of silence hung breathless over the pit. Imps and lemures and skeletal men hunkered and scuttled like cockroaches exposed to the blinding flare of Lady Polaris and her power.

Then, a stir on the bluff. Shaken and battered, Prinquis rose anew.

Its broken wing trailed and dripped gore; its face was red-black and stippled with blood that spattered its tusks. With scabby hands it scrubbed its face, making a coarse rasping noise. Reaching behind it, the fiend straightened the broken wing, snapping it back into place with a shudder. Then, most amazing to Sunbright, the creature grinned around its tusks.

"First round to you, Polaris. But you won't get away from here. You don't have what it takes to best me, not in the long run. Your pulse couldn't kill me, so nothing can."

Strong again, the fiend touched the wall of the cavern behind it. Sunbright knew the barrier was solid rock, yet the creature inserted its hand into the cleft and made the granite crumble like cheese. Looking up at the white-haired mage, Prinquis called, "Shall I ply my strength now? How about I tear down these walls around us? Collapse this cavern so even a snake couldn't wriggle through? Then you and I- near-immortals that we are-can lie crushed in darkness, trapped but alive, feeling yet unable to move, smelling the dead around us rot to nothing. Think of all we could discuss in a thousand years, Polaris. Think what it would be like to miss the sunlight for a millennium. In such time, could you conjure a spell that could truly harm me, here in my own abode?"

Sunbright reeled at the notion of being trapped in blackness for generations. Yet Lady Polaris, on high like a god, never even winked. Her voice continued coolly, "I didn't think I could harm you, Prinquis. That's why I arranged a portal between here and the only place you fear: the Abyss."

A wail rose from the assembled horde, and there began a new scampering to get clear, to escape. The pit fiend roared in rage and horror as Lady Polaris flicked a finger at it, or rather behind it.

On the far wall of the chamber, a glowing line appeared, like the mark of a glowworm. The light was white, the work of the archmage, and thickened and spread. Then, as if it were a blanket being torn, the wall split and peeled back. Rocks were smashed to dust or spit out to bounce on the bluff and off the pit fiend's thick hide. The whole wall was crushed aside, leaving an opening big enough to admit Prinquis, with wings spread.

But what erupted through the rent to the Abyss were fiends larger and even more savage than Prinquis. Towering, bull-headed, bewinged, and horned, the horde of balor rushed into the great chamber in a vast, earth-shaking stampede. In their fearsome claws were morning stars, flails, many-tailed whips, and other instruments of cruelty. Flames wreathed the monsters so they were difficult to see, but clear enough were their cries of savage ecstasy.

Sunbright couldn't begin to guess how long this feud had been raging. He'd heard Sysquemalyn talk of Prinquis's never-ending war with bitter rivals, the tanar'ri of the Abyss. He supposed these creatures could wage feuds just as tribes of men and women did in the tundra and highlands and elsewhere. And he had to admire Lady Polaris, who coolly set one gang of fiends upon another so she could hover above and watch the senseless slaughter she'd engendered.

And as long as he lived, Sunbright would never forget the horror of the display. Balor killed for sheer joy. They grabbed imps by the arms and ripped them apart, even splitting the hollow leather bodies down the legs and torsos. With broad hooves, they stamped and stamped on skeletal fiends until only white dust remained, and they stamped yet on that. With great sweeps of their flails, they spattered lemures to gobbets, then punched down on the squirming mass to ignite it, so the lemures burned even as they reformed. The barbarian was sickened by the sight and wanted to cover his eyes to shut it out. This was ferocity on an unheard-of scale, and he knew it had raged for centuries and would continue for all time. From the glee these balor exhibited, he knew they would kill their rivals, crush them to flinders, burn them to ashes, and then resurrect them to do it all again.

Then he didn't have to see any more, for a cool voice cut through the chaos. "Children, come." Magically he was lifted off his feet, levitated along with Candlemas and Sysquemalyn to hover at the feet of Lady Polaris. With a single finger she'd lifted them, and now raised another digit to take them elsewhere.

The three of them, Sunbright thought. Not four.

Not Greenwillow, who was gone forever.

For a second, he wanted to stay and be killed, to see if he could find her in some afterlife.

Then a blinding white flare from a frosty fingernail engulfed him, and he could see and feel nothing.

"It was wise of you two to cooperate to summon me. Neither of you were strong enough, alone, to reach me from the Hells. You did well."

The party stood in bright sunlight that flooded through the windows of Candlemas's workshop in the floating castle of Delia, one of Lady Polaris's many homes. Sunbright stood unsteadily, marveling that they could travel from such a hell-hole to a bright and beautiful and peaceful place in an eye-blink. The sky beyond the windows was blue and clean, and red-tailed hawks with feathers like broad fingers banked on the fair winds. Through one window he could just glimpse a hilltop thick with trees, and knew he hung over the Great Forest.

Suddenly a great yearning to be there, down among the sturdy aromatic pines and dappled glades and cool, clear pools overwhelmed him, and Sunbright almost cried out. But he had to bide his time and keep a low profile, as if stalking game in dangerous territory. He was safe here, for the moment, as safe as he could be in the clutch of wizards. They'd lied to him and used him, and he had to be wary.

But he was almost too exhausted to stand, let alone think. In fact, he took the lead of the two lesser mages and sank to the floor, bracing his back against a sturdy table leg.

Graciously, Lady Polaris excused their weariness and allowed the three to sit in her presence. Gently, she queried Candlemas and Sysquemalyn as to how they'd found themselves in the Nine Hells, and the events that had led up to their being there. Sunbright marveled at Sysquemalyn's version of the story. The barbarian didn't know all of what had happened, but he knew that much of what the mage said was pure fabrication. Still, the archmage listened patiently, as if to a small child reciting an exciting dream. The red-haired mage finished with "… and so we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for our deliverance. We hope in serving you in the future, We can pay back in some small measure your magnificent and lordly rescue."

"You're very welcome," pronounced the lady. But Sunbright, a forgotten observer, thought he detected a hint of ice in her tone. More than anything, he thought, she looked like some great white cat who'd plucked a mouse from a hole and now contemplated what to do with it. "On the other hand, your pranks-both of yours-have caused considerable mischief. No doubt you're unaware that my fellow archmages have been compelled to step in to close the leaks you sprang in the Nine Hells, Sysquemalyn. In the last two days, we've all had to slave to correct your mistakes, and have labored harder than we have in the past hundred years. Many projects and games and plots had to be abandoned while we cleaned up this mess. You've no idea the total losses in revenues and lives. Even here in my own castle, I was required to pluck the body of a dead maid, entirely drained of blood, off my bed. Nor was I happy to be reminded constantly by the other archmages that it was one of my charges who had slipped her leash. Oh, no, I am not pleased."

Down had thumped the white paw onto the mouse, thought Sunbright, and he was glad to be temporarily overlooked. He froze, not even blinking, as someone else was raked over the coals. He prayed he wouldn't get a turn.

"Now, I believe there was something about a wager." Lady Polaris's eyes were bright, and Sunbright realized she enjoyed chastising her underlings.

Sysquemalyn's face was shiny with sweat, her eyes wide with fear, her mouth jerked into a rictus like a skull's. "Oh, the wager. Uh, that's been suspended. Candlemas and I called it off."

"Nonsense," corrected the lady. She took a step back and clasped her hands, as if readying to work. Candlemas, who'd been slumped near Sysquemalyn on the stone flags of his workshop, began to edge away as quietly as possible.

"Not at all," the archmage continued. "You played; you lost; you pay the forfeit. That's the way of the Netherese, and such you are, although of the very lowest, most common sort, barely above the beasts."

Sysquemalyn went pale, and her lower lip trembled. Covered with grime, her once-glorious red hair filthy and lank, she resembled something dumped on a garbage heap, while Lady Polaris, pronouncing sentence, loomed ever larger and more beautiful, like some god.

The archmage's even contralto droned on. "It's been instructive watching the two of you squabble. I expect that of children, for it's one way they learn. But you, dear Sysquemalyn, have expended too much time carrying tales about your lord and mistress. I've heard myself addressed as the Great White Cow, the Dead White Fish, the Whining White Weasel, and so on and so forth. You projected into the future, when you would be archmage and I your underling. You said I would have my nose slit and be the plaything of the palace guards and empty your chamber pots. All fascinating, enlightening stories. Some of it I discarded as the prattle of a child, but I'm afraid that now you've overstepped your bounds."

Caught in her scheming, stunned that her words had come back to haunt her, Sysquemalyn cried out in protest. Tears spilled down her cheeks, leaving streaks in the dirt. Lady Polaris's face was frozen in anger. Sunbright rolled his eyes to scan the windows and the only doorway out. If the archmage loosed her pulse of white light in here, it would be the last thing any of them ever saw.

"Remember you the terms of the bargain, dear Syssy?" Polaris went on. "This barbarian hulk here was to be given escalating tests, his only goal to survive. Bear witness: he's still alive. He's withstood every test you could connive, and now he's been to the Nine Hells and back. That's the ultimate test for a human, to my mind. So you, Sysquemalyn, have decidedly lost the contest. And what were the terms at the last?"

Sniffing back tears, Sysquemalyn mewled pitifully. Her dirty hands skittered on the floor as she backed away from her mistress, too terrified to speak. She flinched as Lady Polaris stepped forward and raised a hand, touching her brow.

Sunbright thought the archmage was being gentle, until the lady's hand suddenly jerked. There came a horrendous ripping noise that turned the barbarian's stomach, for he'd heard that sound before when he'd skinned game. He tried not to look, but his damnable curiosity made him.

With one yank, Lady Polaris ripped Sysquemalyn's skin and clothing from her body. The chamberlain's skin tore at the back of her head, along her spine, parted at the back of her arms and legs.

What was left was a quivering, writhing mass of red muscles over bright-white bones. Round, staring green eyes bulged from her head, and her teeth looked huge, exposed in red gums without any lips to mask them. Everything that had looked like Sysquemalyn hung like an empty sack from Lady Polaris's dainty hand.

Distastefully, Lady Polaris flung the skin to one side. It landed on the floor with a squishy plop. Calmly, she spoke to the skinned woman, who writhed at the pain and cold of being flayed alive, yet living magically. For the first time, the archmage spoke loudly, because Sysquemalyn had lost her outer ears with her skin and had only gaping holes above a toothy jaw. "Now, you'll no doubt be pleased to know that I've capitalized on your toy and stabilized this pocket universe of yours. It's still there, waiting."

Stepping back, she lifted a finger, and Sunbright saw a now-familiar white streak glow along one wall. Stone crumbled and bounced, and a slit not much wider than his shoulders gaped open. From within came the light of hellish red fires and a distant shouting and screaming. Did this pocket include the great chamber of the pit fiend Prinquis, and the hordes of fiends and rampaging balor?

As if in confirmation, suddenly from the pit swelled one of the anvil-headed genies. With a fanged mouth sagging in a grin, it swooped into the room like some elongated fish and wrapped two sturdy hands around Sysquemalyn's stripped ankles. She howled in pain at the hot touch on naked muscle.

Lady Polaris walked parallel as the flayed mage was hoicked off her naked buttocks and dragged along the floor, wailing in agony. "And do you know the most delicious part, Syssy? When someone imagines a hell, they conceive what they themselves fear! This will be the perfect place for you, your worst dreams come true, and you'll have a whole year to explore your own creation!"

She caroled the last, for Sysquemalyn, dragged on skinless fingers that left a bloody trail, had been dragged wholly into the slot.

With a pop, the portal snapped shut.

"Candlemas."

The podgy mage jumped as if jabbed with a spear, for all his mistress's quiet tones. Sweat ran off his bald head, trickled out of his beard. Off to one side, Sunbright wished he were somewhere-anywhere-else. At least he'd had a chance when fighting fiends.

"Don't fret, child. I'm not angry at you-much." The lady paced back and forth, from table to window and back, a sign she was already eager to move on to other pursuits. Perhaps the worst was over, the two men hoped. "No, I'm pleased with your performance, overall. You recovered the book from Wrathburn's hoard, and it pleases me."

Reaching into a black sleeve no larger than a sock, she extracted the massive book with the ruby-studded cover, the tome of ancient, magical lore of some lost race. Sunbright recalled he'd collected that book, but he kept the information to himself.

Casually she dropped the book on a window ledge, then continued pacing, the men tracking her movements with the sick fascination of a wounded bird watching a cat. "True, you were foolish enough to abet Sysquemalyn in her inane wager, but gambling is a curse of the Netherese, and we'll chalk you up as having been led into temptation. And you kept her from committing worse sins, I suppose, so we'll excuse your part. And besides, I can't expel both my chamberlain and steward, or there'll be no one to run my estate. So, as a reward, I'll forward you some scrolls and divinations that will let you exploit some higher resources previously denied you."

All this time, it seemed, Candlemas hadn't breathed. He sucked air now as if unable to believe his good fortune. Not only had he not been crushed like an insect, or worse, but he'd been rewarded with access to superior knowledge. Perhaps, if he absorbed it correctly, he could step up a level and become an archmage himself. It was more than he could have hoped for, and it made him dizzy… and wary of his dangerous, unpredictable mistress.

So his head jerked as she finished, "And please remember, dear 'Mas. A wise master-or mistress-treats his servitors well."

Candlemas had to swallow to get out the words, "Yes, mistress. I'll remember."

"Good." The archmage propped her hands on the windowsill and raised herself on tiptoes, like a little girl, to see around a tower of the castle. "Now get back to work, for there's much cleanup left. I believe there are at least a dozen dead bats littering the wine cellar and poisoning the well. And we've lost our chamberlain to her little dollhouse, so you'll have twice the work to keep you out of trouble. Go now, and attend your chores."

"Yes, mistress!" Scrambling off his fat backside, churning his chunky legs, the mage left dust spinning in the air as he ran for the doorway and down the corridor.

Lady Polaris sniffed, rubbed the end of her nose, then turned and gathered up the ancient tome. Hefting it as if for an evening's read, she started for the door, striding as elegantly as a deer.

Greatly daring, Sunbright cleared his throat.

Was it with a flash of irritation that Lady Polaris paused and regarded him? Certainly her voice was cool. "Oh, yes. What are we to do with you?"

Sunbright wasn't even sure the question was addressed to him, or if she were simply thinking aloud. But he spoke out boldly. "If you please, send me back to the surface. I've been too long below and above it."

A white eyebrow arched. "You wish no other reward?"

The barbarian almost sighed with exhaustion, both physical and mental. But he bit his tongue, careful to show nothing that could be conveyed as disrespect. Like an animal hunted to its lair, he could only beware and hope. "No, milady."

A shrug. "Done." The eyebrow arched in his direction.

The world spun for a second, a stone ceiling replaced by blue sky replaced by a mountaintop replaced by pine branches. Sunbright had thrown his hands to the side to grab hold and now clutched pine needles. Blinking, he sat up, making sure Harvester was safe at home in its sheath. If he had his sword, he had all he needed.

Except, upon finally finding himself alone and safe once more, he remembered the ache in his breast, as if his heart had been removed.

He was alone, because…

"Wait!" Suddenly his brain was clear and throbbing, and he shouted a name at the sky. "What about Greenwillow? Milady! Please, if you can, bring back Greenwillow! Please!"

Only echoes returned.

After a while, his voice cracking in grief, the barbarian collapsed and knew no more.

Far below human trouble, deep in the crust of Abeir-Toril in a cavern that had never known sunshine, a clutch of upright cones poised on stinger tails that were as hard as diamonds. The creatures were agitated and often whirled in place, as if eager to be away, somewhere, anywhere. That they could not go where they wished was their reason for gathering.

Lost. Two more of us, gone.

Dead forever.

And not even our magic can re-form them.

Magic is too much for humans to handle. They do not understand it and never will.

We must wipe them out before they spread too far.

I suggested that centuries ago, but no one listened.

We're listening now.

Too late.

Too late for us, then.

Returning to my suggestion…

That again?

Gentle beings, we've just witnessed the worst magic-storm in our history. It occurred far below the surface, farther than humans and other spined ilk have ventured before, and killed two of our tribe. Magic seeps downward, and the humans expend it like rainfall. Soon there will be no room for the phaerimm. We can perch here and bewail our fate, but words accomplish nothing. Nor has anyone offered a good suggestion.

Our lifedrain has weakened the humans' hold on the earth and generated instability. The lowest masses, the workers, will rise against their masters on the day the last loaf is eaten. Even the high Neth begin to grasp that. As pressures build from below, like a volcano, and resources grow shorter, the strain will tell in the upper levels of their society. Let us contribute to that pressure rather than seek to avoid it, as we cannot. To undermine the Neth, to stir up their magics as tornadoes stir the atmosphere, will force them to expend more. Let them burn bright and hot, and extinguish that much quicker. Let us heap fuel on their fires!

Fight fire with fire, as humans say?

Yes, until the inferno overtakes them.

And we take what is left, which will be next to nothing?

We take what remains, true. But now even the earth is not our own.

I am in agreement.

I, too.

And I.

So say we all, then. Heap magic on their heads until it burns them.

Where do we start?