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Chapter Thirty-six


The desire of rising hath swallowed up his fear
  of a fall.

Thomas Adams
Diseases of the Soul


At the center of the Fane, supporting the stupendous bowl of its roof, was a titanic column of granite, dozens of paces in diameter. A small ring of light showed, far up the looming pillar, a spread-eagle figure, hung upside down by the ire of the Five.

Yardiff Bey, shorn of the accumulated powers of centuries, had been set there to wait. When the moment’s emergency had been dealt with, the Masters would exact a slow, precision-pain revenge.

But that must be postponed; the armies of the Crescent Lands were already within the gates of the city. And if the might of the Masters was decreased, if the day had already seen reversals undreamt of, still the brooding Five, defended by their spells and their Fane, had few misgivings. Here, of all places, the Five couldn’t lose.

Yardiff Bey, bones vibrating, sinews close to snapping, stifled his pleas. Almost, the subsequent punishments of the Masters would be anticlimax; they’d done the worst when they’d stripped him of every favor and cast him aside like used goods, discarded by the Lords of Salamá.

The Masters readied themselves, in that cold unanimity Bey had always idolized. Their common will began to coalesce; and weakened as their prepotence was, it still awed the sorcerer. But in the midst of that amazing marshaling there came a sound that even Yardiff Bey had never heard.

The Masters, in one voice, wailed dismay. A single image slipped through their guards and Bey caught what the Five had sensed on the plain outside their city, a sky filled with singing, soaring Birds of Accord.

There were multifold things in the gathered minds of the Five then: confusion, panic, anger. And there was a hatred of the sorcerer, for this, too, was a failing of his; he’d assured them that the last of the Lifetree was burned. The Birds, drawn by instincts of their own, proved the Lifetree was coming again to its accustomed waters.

The Lords of Salamá grasped it no sooner than their apt Hand. Bey achieved a strangled laugh. “Masters of Shardishku-Salamá,” he shouted, “how will you crush the deCourteneys if the Lifetree takes root, and sends all your powers back to thin air? Which of you is willing to go prevent that, leaving the spell-forged safety of this Fane, and your mutual protection? And who will stay, with strength diminished, and face the wizard and the Trustee? Decide! The Crescent Lands are at your doors!”

It was true. The Five had acted in concert throughout the ages, and dared not separate now, with their powers so reduced. And now the deCourteneys spread their arms before the doors of the Fane. Yardiff Bey had seen the only solution even before his Masters.

He was freed from his bondage, eased down lightly to stand in the ring of light at the foot of the granite column. On him the Five must fasten all their hopes. “Go forth, with the forces with which we shall arm you,” they instructed, “and be foremost in our goodwill once more.”

Chafing his arms and legs after their stresses, he sneered. “There is a higher price on your Hand. Make me one among you; promise a station coequal with your own, then I will do as you desire. Oath-take that now. Refuse and you perish, nor cares Yardiff Bey.”

They howled their wrath, but their terror was greater. The Five made hurried, irrevocable vows, concretized by their own infernal sources. Satisfied, he agreed. All the energy of magic, all the power of will that the Five could bring themselves to surrender, flooded into him, expanding his strength beyond anything he’d felt before.

He’d been processing this information about the Birds. The last known wood of the Lifetree had gone north, and only recently it must have come through Ladentree. Bey’s agile mind leapt that gap in a flight of speculation. “Where is the axe called Red Pilgrim?” he asked them.

The Five stretched out their perceptions, ascertaining it, and told him; in the dray, bearing hard for the mound of the Lifetree. Even then he found a moment to admire the subtlety of it all.

So much attention had been diverted to Bey that the deCourteneys had triumphed in the issue of the doors. When the tall, wide doors of the Fane closed after them, the siblings refused to permit the darkness to continue. The insistent blackness fell back before their blue glow. Wrapped in azure light, they made their way to the heart of their enemies’ stronghold.

As they rounded the huge column Bey, guided by the Masters, slipped around the other way, undetectable in the overwhelming presence of the Five. He knew that the Masters must prevail, so long as the Lifetree was eliminated. Until the deCourteneys were fully engaged, he would wait in the shadows. He must not become embroiled in this battle.

Gabrielle’s voice broke the ponderous silence. “Why do you Five love the night so well? We do not fear to behold you.” She broadcast the light of her enchantments. The Masters bore down hard; their art kept hers from illuminating the farthest limits of the temple, where they waited. But their bloated outlines could be seen, moving clumsily. No longer human, distorted by their own deeds and traffickings, and made horrible to see, they hid from view.

“Nor do we hesitate to name you!” she proclaimed. Andre added his imperative to hers; the walls of the Fane trembled. “First, Skaranx, whose high charge and honor was to guard the Lifetree, and who chose instead to destroy it.”

To one side, a long, serpentine shape writhed, hearing its name and crime.

“Temopon, seer for the Unity, who vowed sound counsel but rendered lies. So did your will become Amon’s.” Next to Skaranx, the barely seen form of Temopon stirred uncomfortably, like a slug near a flame.

“Vorwoda, who was her husband’s buttress and confidante. Poisoning his mind, you made him ripe for tragedy, earning demon’s gifts.” The reigning beauty of the world in ages past, Vorwoda gave a scream from the shadows, thrashing grotesque, insectile limbs in her mossy bed.

“Kaytaynor, the Supreme Lord’s most valued friend, who slew him from envy and lust for Vorwoda. Your love is long since turned to abhorrence. Did you think to steal what you did not merit?” Kaytaynor, his swollen body twisted and bent, tried to reject what he heard, radiating his resentment.

“Lastly, Dorodeen. And where are there words to denounce you? Not brave enough or wise enough for the loftiest seat in the Unity, yet clever enough to breed treason, and so bring it down. Worst of all are you, for you loved the Unity, but cast it low because you could not rule it.” Dorodeen, the Flawed Hero, who had ended an entire civilization to salve his own inquietude, moved not at all. He repressed the only thing he feared, his memories, and waited, impassive as a crag of ice.

The Masters were assailed by a second excruciating, lucid understanding of what they’d become. Then they hid from it, and struck at the deCourteneys with all their weight of evil.

But their strength was less than it had been. Andre and Gabrielle pooled their powers, and withstood it. Furnace heat and arctic cold skirmished, and the Fane rumbled. But the interlopers deflected every onslaught with anti-spells of their own. Then deCourteney magic erupted. Riding the crest of their emotions, the two counterattacked.

The energies warred, unseen by the eye but palpable enough to set Gabrielle’s fiery hair floating, riding their currents.

This was Bey’s moment. He extended his arms, while militant winds cracked his black robes around him. First, he’d need a means of travel. With puissance he’d never known before, he ripped aside the curtains of the half-world, and summoned it to him. In an instant his desire was filled, rearing above him, taking the shape of a horse of smoke, of night-black substances of dread borrowed from dreams. It was even taller at the shoulder than a dray horse of Matloo, its breath hot and sulfurous. Its eyes beamed yellow malevolence, and its restless hooves of polished jet left the rock beneath them glowing from their touch. The nightmare horse shrilled, then bowed knee to Yardiff Bey. He scrambled up to its back, sinking his fingers into the coarse tangles of its long mane.

He swept out across the Fane. The Masters redoubled their assault on the deCourteneys, so that the sorcerer would go unhindered. Outside, the northerners ran for safety as the mountainous doors crashed open. Bey blurred past with such speed it seemed a black wind had blown by. The soldiers heard his demoniac laugh echoing back along the boulevard.

The detonations of the doors, slamming open, rolled across the Fane in a shock wave. Gabrielle spun, thinking it an attack from the rear. Sensing that, the Five spent a major effort. But the offensive burst like a comber off Andre’s stubborn wards; he’d let his concentration fail once, on the Isle of Keys, and had vowed it would never happen again. Alone, he held, sweat streaming down his face, nails digging into his palms until blood seeped. He was driven backward bodily, pressed to his limits.

All that was in the moment Gabrielle turned. Now she was back, supporting Andre with her arm, shaping a shield against which the Five could do nothing. She dispatched enchantments that rocked the foundations of the Fane, far down in the roots of the earth, and lit the entire room. Shrinking from the light of her sorcery, the Masters sped their total fury at her.

Gabrielle deCourteney, reaching her zenith, bolstered by emotions not unlike the Berserkergang, converted the Fane of the Masters into a crucible of magic.



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