A Gathering Of Stones

3

Maksim kept working.

He was so close to breaking the ties. So close. The ship jerked erratically at its mooring cables.

The minutes stretched and stretched.

He was close. So close.

The crate fell apart around him.

He screamed with rage.

The iron locked his tongue down, no sound came out of him. The demons hovered about him, spherical glows like Yaril and Jaril but considerably larger.

They began to move, flowing round and round him, faster and faster until they were a ring of light.

He threw off the clinging remnants of his bonds.

With a shiver of triumph, he bounded to his feet and flung himself at the rail.

He passed through the shimmering ring, screamed aloud, finally finally aloud, vaulted the rail and plunged toward the water.

And landed on his feet in an immense cavern, a great shimmering gem of a cavern like the inside of a monstrous geode.

The demons hovered about him, seven nodes of golden light, adding a rich amber cast to the glitter of the crystals embedded in the stone arching over him, dipping under him.

He screamed again, a basso bellow that echoed and reechoed, reinforcing and canceling the original sound.

The figure on the massive throne raised a hand and compelled a sudden silence.

Maksim lifted his hands to fight, opened his mouth to pour forth the syllables he’d stored against this moment. Nothing happened.

Nothing came to him.

He was mute.

He was erased.

His hands shook.

His arms went limp, falling to his sides.

“Maks, Maksi, Maksim, is that the way to greet your Master?”

He stared, swallowed. He didn’t believe what he saw. Musteba Xa. Line for line, gesture for gesture, it was Musteba Xa.

It couldn’t be.

“You’re dead,” he said, was momentarily pleased to hear his own voice, then was afraid and angry.

“I killed you,” he said. “I flung you into a place where nothing was.”

Did they get him from my mind? he thought.

No, he thought.

I would know.

I would know if they plundered me like that.

Trembling with an ancient rage, an even older fear, he glared at the ancient evil old man.

“I will not believe it,” he said.

“You are dead, you are ash and nothing,” he said.

He gazed into the eyes of what had to be a simulacrum and saw himself.

Whoever or whatever sat there, it knew him to the marrow of his bones.

“You always were a stubborn git, li’l Maks.” Musteba Xa (no, it wasn’t him, no, it couldn’t be him) lifted a crudely polished gemstone, a star sapphire the size of a man’s fist.

Maksim tried to snap elsewhere, but the stone anchored him and he could not move.

He fought to break free, but could not.

The stone was one of the Great Talismans, Massulit the Sink, Massulit the Harvester, Massulit awkward and impossible, taking more skill to wield than any of the other talismans. Massulit in the hands of Musteba Xa. No. In the hands of that THING who chose to take his Master’s form.

The Thing on the Throne began to chant, drawing threads of soulstuff from Maksim’s helpless body, gathering the threads in the heart of the Stone,

He tried to fight.

He slammed into a wall.

For an instant he lost control and beat helplessly, futilely at that wall.

Then he gathered himself and waited for what would happen next.

They want something.

They need me to get it.

They need me alive.

Their mistake.

He managed a slight smile.

I hope.

The Thing watched the souls spin into the Stone, watched the stone glow brighter until its clear blue light filled the cavern.

The Thing laughed, a tottery wheezy giggle that should have made him sound senile and silly. It didn’t.

Maksim knew that sound, it was like remembered pain. He watched his souls spin out of him into the hands that seemed to belong to Musteba Xa and it was as if none of the intervening years had happened.

“You should thank the geniod for our reunion, Maks.” Having settled Massulit into the crack between his withered thighs so his hands would be free to gesture, he waved at the seven glowspheres ranged in an arc behind Maksim, then at the hundreds of smaller lights that oozed from the walls of the cavern and floated free. “They have a little quest for you, dear boy. I told them you’d be stubborn, but you weren’t stupid. So here we area No questions? You haven’t changed, have you, Sweetness.” Another shrill giggle, then he straightened his bony shoulders and fixed his eyes on Maksim’s face. “The Magus of Tok Kinsa has a talisman at the heart of his Keep. One of the Great Ones. Shaddalakh.” He clicked his horny yellow nails on the curve of Massulit. “The geniod want it. Matched set, eh? You are going to get it for them. Do it and you get your souls back. Still no questions?”

“Swear on Massulit for your souls’ sake that I will get mine back if I bring Shaddalakh out and hand it over.”

“You don’t want to qualify that, dear boy?”

Maksim shrugged. “Tell me what more I could get if the lie pleases you.”

“For old time’s sake? For the love that was once between us? Ask, my sweet boy, and you shall receive.”

Maksim shuddered, but refused to let his sickness show. “Swear on Massulit for your souls’ sake that I will get mine back if I bring Shaddalakh out and hand it over.”

The bones in Musteba Xa’s face were suddenly more visible; there was spite in him and anger, but he did as Maksim asked. He swore and Maksim was satisfied the oath was complete.

“Let him who is first among the geniod swear the same,” he said. “I have lived long enough to know how to die if I must. Let him swear.”

The glowspheres grew agitated, went darting about in complex orbits, maintaining a set distance between them no matter how recklessly they careered about. After some minutes of this confusion, the largest of the geniod came rushing toward the throne; it hovered before Musteba Xa, changed form, was a beautiful woman, naked and powerful in her nakedness. She reached out, took Massulit from Musteba Xa’s trembling hands. Her contralto filling the cavern with echoes, she declaimed the oath that Xa had sworn, then she dropped the talisman into Xa’s lap and stalked over to Maksim.

She caught hold of his arm. Her fingers were strong, but they felt like flesh. He could feel no strangeness in her, see no sign she-was other than woman. She stared at him a moment, measuring him, then she snapped them both from the cavern.