Istu awakened

CHAPTER TEN

Tendrils of fog reached for Fost's face, making him think he rode through cotton. He could scarcely see the alert, upright ears of his dog a few feet in front of his face. The padding of his dog's footfalls came as though from far away. Behind, Synalon's dog existed only as rhythmic sounds even more remote.

Now and again the whiteness parted briefly, eddying around a clump of rock or a sick looking shrub. But for these occasional sights, and the jogging of his mount's steps, Fost would have thought he was standing still, lost in the mist.

For the tenth time in the last five minutes he fought down the urge to ask Ziore if she was sure she knew where they were going. Erimenes had reluctantly led him and Moriana to the Ethereals' village, the only alternative being freezing to death in a blizzard. He had sensed the nearness of humans and steered his companions toward them. Ziore had the same senses and used them. But with Fost's visual world constricted to a sphere the radius of his arm, it was hard for him to believe that Ziore knew her way.

Abruptly the mist parted. Before him rose a random clump of huts rudely made from chunks of slag cast up when a meteorite had struck the Steppe during the contest between Felarod and the World Spirit on one side and Istu on the other. A few pale folk, as wispy as the mists through which he rode, drifted without purpose among the buildings. The smell of drying seaweed and an open latrine assailed his nostrils. 'See,' Ziore said smugly. 'I told you I steered us truly.'

He felt an impact behind his right leg. His dog jumped, doubling back with a snarl. He swatted it briskly on the head before it snapped at Synalon's mount which had blundered into it. He cursed under his breath. This collision was his fault. He'd been so surprised at seeing the Ethereals' village that he hadn't given the agreed upon two tugs on the rope tied between Synalon's saddle and his own. He looked back to see the princess rearranging her garments and got the impression she had drawn her black silk tunic open wide to let the damp mist play across her breasts and belly. He saw color on her cheeks. She smiled; he quickly looked away.

'We're here,' he said unnecessarily, feeling the need to be saying something to cover the awkwardness he felt.

Synalon gestured imperiously to him to lead the way. They wound their way around sad, slumping huts to the large round building in the center of the settlement. Fost recognized this as the temple where the Ethereals gathered to meditate. As the two reined in before the irregular door, a man emerged, stooping to pass beneath the sagging lintel. Fost recognized him as well.

'Greetings, strangers,' the Ethereal said in a high, sweet voice. 'I know not what brings you, but you are welcome to rest. And who knows? You may come to share the wisdom of our ways and give up the distress and discord of the material world, which is the world of illusion.'

'It's plain to see we received the more difficult task,' Synalon remarked sardonically.

'Greetings yourself,' said Fost, swinging off his dog. 'I'm no stranger. The woman with me is. Meet Her Royal Highness, Synalon Etuul, Princess of the City in the Sky, currently in exile. Your Highness, this is Itenyim, of the Ethereals. He's an exile, too. From reality.'

'That's not very diplomatic,' Ziore chided softly. Fost shrugged it off. He hadn't realized how bitter he was toward the Ethereals.

'We employ no titles here,' said the Ethereal, ignoring Fost's jibe. 'But you are welcome.'

Synalon stayed on her dog, regarding the Ethereal. She had taken him for a woman at first, because of the slim, frail form and the effeminate features. But the bone structure of the face and the protuberant Adam's apple were clearly masculine, as was the body clad in a simple, dirty green robe that hung to the knees.

'I see the temple wall's finally caved in,' remarked Fost, gesturing to a gap in the melted rock wall. 'They put me to work there when Moriana and I stayed here before. I wasn't at it long enough to do much good, it appears. Where's Selamyl?' A shadow crossed the flawless features. 'Selamyl met with misfortune after you and the woman departed.'

'A misfortune named Rann?' The Ethereal didn't answer. Not looking at Synalon, Fost said, 'Well, round up your people as best you can. We need to talk to them at once.' 'They are about their dances and duties and meditations.'

'Those dances and duties and meditations are about to be permanently interrupted,' said Fost briskly. 'Tell them that unless they listen to the princess and me they are going to have visitors who make Rann look as saintly as Erimenes himself.'

Itenyim's face, already alabaster, turned a shade lighter. He turned and walked off, almost hurrying. A strap was broken on his sandal, giving him a limp. 'Saintly?' asked Synalon, arching a brow.

'They think he is,' said Fost. 'I told you they were divorced from reality.'

'Return to Athalau?' The Ethereal woman's face was a marble mask of incomprehension. 'That's impossible.'

'It had better not be impossible,' Fost said, 'or you and I and the princess and every other human being in the Realm are going to be dead before this winter's snow is melted.' 'Life is illusion,' answered the woman.

Fost bared his teeth. He had the urge to grab her and shake loose her complacency. But that wouldn't only be wrong, it'd be futile. If these people had resisted Rann's special brand of persuasiveness as long as they had, mere shaking wouldn't do any good.

'Are the Dark Ones an illusion?' he asked, voice ragged with exasperation. 'They're what we face.'

A ripple passed through the small crowd assembled in the temple. At least, mention of the Dark Ones got some response. 'What have these matters to do with us?' asked another.

Fost glanced at Synalon. at ease beside him on a three-legged stool that gave every indication of collapsing beneath her. Her lips were curled, and it wasn't just at the odor of stale clothing and indifferently washed bodies that permeated the low-roofed building. Even the air current blowing between the door and the hole in the wall failed to freshen the atmosphere. 'Do you know what's happened?' he asked.

It was a foolish question. He didn't need the sheep-like faces turned to his, some already showing unmistakable traces of boredom, to tell him so.

'We do not trouble ourselves with the gross affairs of the world beyond our village,' said Itenyim loftily.

'The world outside your village is about to trouble you, however,' Fost said, 'and what it will do to you is more than a little gross. The Fallen Ones are back in control of the Sky City, my friends, and Istu rides it like a raft.' His listeners shrank away.

'The Demon is loose?' another woman asked. Fost nodded.

The Ethereals turned to one another and spoke in subdued, quavering tones. Their ancestors had turned their backs on their own past, but fear of the Zr'gsz and of the Demon of the Dark Ones lay deep in human bones.

'Istu knows who you are,' Fost said, which was quite possible. 'He hates you for what your forebears helped do to him.'

'But have we not made amends?' Itenyim gasped. 'Our fathers and mothers forsook Athalau and came to this spot in the wilderness out of remorse for what they had wrought. Is this not enough?'

The air exploded from Synalon's lungs in a surprised snort. Fost scarcely believed what he heard. The Ethereals were hoping Istu would forgive them for their ancestors helping to cast him down!

'Nothing you could do would be enough,' said Synalon. 'The Demon of the Dark Ones knows as little of forgiveness as he knows of mercy. What he does know would shrivel your souls if you heard.' The effect her words produced on the Ethereals hardly seemed great. By normal standards they were still impassive.

'What is it you want of us?' asked a more or less male voice from the rear of the temple.

Fost felt like cheering. They'd gotten through to at least one of the Ethereals.

'What we're asking is grave, I won't deny. We need some of you – as many as we can get – to come with us to Athalau. There we must find the Nexus and use it to get in touch with the World Spirit, as Felarod and your ancestors did ten thousand years ago.'

'But it was for shame at what they'd helped Felarod do that our ancestors came here,' someone cried. 'They helped save the world,' Fost shouted back.

'The material world.' Itenyim practically sneered. 'Had the world been destroyed, think of the generations that would have been spared from suffering its illusions.'

Be calm, Fost, Ziore urged him from her jug. Given the Ethereals' historic dislike for Athalar magic, she had agreed it was best she not show herself to them.

'Suffering?' Fost spat the word. 'For all that the world is illusion, Master Itenyim, you acknowledge suffering as real. And I tell you the suffering the Hissers and their ally have inflicted, and will continue to inflict unless stopped, is a thousand times greater than anything humanity has suffered from the illusions of the material world.'

'But the sufferings of the body are nothing,' the first woman intoned, as if reciting a litany. 'Serenity of the spirit is all.'

'Faugh!' Synalon shook her hair back angrily and glared at the several score Ethereals crowded into the temple.

'I've always thought myself selfish, but it seems these dung eaters have some things to teach me. Do you think, you vapid bitch, that the sufferings Istu inflicts are of the flesh alone?' She laughed savagely. 'Perhaps I should give your soul a touch of hellfire, a small taste of what Istu can do. That might teach you a measure of compassion, unless it turns you mad – or kills you outright.' She fixed the Ethereal woman with her eyes. A tiny whimper escaped the woman's throat. She began to writhe as if held in place by invisible bonds. The muscles on her neck stood out in stark relief, but she could not look away from the suns that were Synalon's eyes.

Fost roughly grabbed Synalon's arms. Instantly, she turned the full force of her hell gaze on him. He reeled as agony exploded at the center of his being. It was as if all the loss, despair, and agony of a thousand lifetimes were made into a stake impaling his soul. He spent an eternity shrieking into mocking emptiness.

Then the horror was gone, leaving his mind staggering and weak. He felt Synalon's feverishly hot hand grip his. 'I couldn't stop the spell in time to spare you.'

Dazed as he was, Fost still knew that this woman, who could slay with a single glance of her cobalt eyes, was apologizing to him. He nodded weakly, unable to speak. Dimly, he heard the sobbing of the Ethereal woman.

None of the Ethereals moved to help her. All eyes were on Synalon, who stared back at them with fierce contempt.

What do we do now? Fost asked Ziore. It looks like the diplomatic approach isn't working.

I don't know, she responded despairingly. I'm trying to sway them. But I can't change even one's emotion!

'I'm sorry for what my companion did,' Fost said, expecting a deathbolt at every syllable. 'But the world is under a death sentence. It will be carried out unless you help us.'

'We've spent ten millennia trying to expiate the guilt of our forebears,' said an Ethereal in the front row. 'Now you're asking that we shoulder that burden anew.' Fost sagged. He could find no words to answer.

'Guilt, Cuivris?' a voice asked from the open doorway. 'I will show you guilt.'

Every head turned. Fost blinked and stared as Selamyl, the Ethereal who had tried by guile and argument to restrain him and Moriana from leaving before, made his way painfully into the hall. 'I thought you said he was dead,' Fost said to Itenyim. 'I said nothing of the sort.'

Nor had he, Fost recalled. It had only been said that Selamyl was one of Rann's victims.

He had obviously been a victim. Once he had stood even taller than Fost. Now he was hunched in on himself and shrunken so that the bones of his cheeks poked out through parchment skin. His grace had been almost painful to watch for one less fluid; now he hobbled in a broken walk, supporting himself with a cane fashioned from the haft of some tool. 'I live, friend Fost. And you truly are my friend. I owe you much.' 'It was his fault you were injured!' Itenyim said heatedly.

'If fault lies anywhere, it lies with he who struck the blow. You would like to believe the fault was mine, though, wouldn't you, Itenyim? That I brought this on myself when I tried to stop you from telling Rann where our guests had gone?' Itenyim dropped his eyes. 'No, I was not slain. But I came close enough to death to make me think. Since then I have spent much time away from the others, contemplating what you and the golden-haired princess told me. It is we who live an illusion.' Itenyim looked at Fost, his eyes swimming with tears.

'He's mad. His wound deranged him. Don't believe what he says.'

Selamyl laughed. The others drew back, leaving him in a circle of loneliness.

'The outsider knows truth when he hears it,' he said. 'And speaking of truth, didn't I hear you say something of guilt when I came to the door, Cuivris? Well, here's a truth. Whether we like it or not, we are wardens of the Nexus and its secrets. If we do not act, those secrets and the Powers they command, will fall into the hands of the servants of the Dark. Is this why we came here ten thousand years ago? So that we could help undo all the sacrifice and devastation the War of Powers brought to pass?

'Istu is freed. A new War of Powers is at hand. If we do not act, it is lost. And the responsibility is ours. Ours!'

The Ethereals looked from Itenyim to Selamyl, who loomed above them like the idol of a pagan god. Slowly and subtly, they edged from Itenyim and drew closer to the crippled man.

'Do we murder the world?' Selamyl asked. For the first time in ten thousand years, the voice of an Ethereal rang as harsh as the blow of a hammer onto an anvil. 'Do we let our dread of working evil cause a greater evil still? Or do we turn our faces from illusion, leave behind our toys and scents and contemplation of the emptiness behind our eyes to do this thing which must be done, that only we in all the world can accomplish?'

One by one the Ethereals rose to their feet and came to stand by Selamyl. Soon, only Itenyim remained seated.

A small sound woke Fost. Habit brought him up with blade in hand, even though the strange, deadly creatures of the Ramparts – the legacy of the first War of Powers – never ventured into the Ethereals' village.

Synalon stood in the doorway holding a small lamp. She wore a nightdress of pale flannel that covered her from neck to ankles and hid the curvings of her body. Fost wondered how she'd managed to pack the bulky garment. He swallowed. Somehow, the effect made him hunger for her more than nakedness would have.

'May I come in?' she asked. Taking his silence for assent, she glided in and put the lamp on a jut of black slag in the wall. She pressed her palms together on the flat of his sword. 'You were so masterful today.'

Gingerly, he freed the blade from her grip and slid the weapon back into its sheath. 'I?' he said. 'Being masterful with these people is futile.'

'You swayed Selamyl.' She sat with her hip touching him. Her flesh burned like a brand through thick flannel and thin blanket. 'No, my lord. You give yourself too little credit.'

She reached out to stroke his cheek. He turned away. 'I can't take credit for what another's done. And I'm no lord.'

'Ah, I forgot. The Emperor's ennobling you wasn't sufficient for your pride.' She leaned close. 'I will make you a noble. Then none can question your right to a title – not even yourself.' 'I guess I can't gracefully refuse, can I?'

'No. You cannot.' Her mouth descended to his. Her lips were cool, the contact light. Her tongue swept lightly in a circuit of his mouth. He shivered. His hands wanted to grab her, but he held them rigid at his sides. He couldn't bring himself to cooperate.

'You are reluctant?' she asked, raising her head and smiling down at him. 'Do I displease you?' 'No,' he croaked. 'Never.'

The smile widened. Her nails traced tingling lines down his cheek, his jaw, throat, chest. Her eyes did not leave his. He felt his muscles tightening, felt his groin tingle in pleasurable anticipation. Moriana! he thought.

Synalon was not without sensitivity. She caught his thought, his emotion. 'Do nothing for now, milord. Nothing.'

The blanket passed his hips. She worked her magic caress down until his organ stood stiff and bucking and his buttocks left the pallet in a spasm of pleasure.

'You don't find me displeasing at all.' Her eyes released his. Her hair fell in a black cascade over his belly, cool and fragrant, dancing with highlights of golden flame. Her lips closed like a noose of fire and ice. He gasped at the first suction, gripped her shoulders with increasing desire. Shudders wracked his body, increased in intensity. He tried to speak but his tongue turned thick and his jaw trembled.

The wet friction was excruciating as she moved up and down. Fost's every sense heightened, expanded. He felt the flannel, the firmness of her flesh, the heavy breasts swinging rhythmically so that finger-hard nipples brushed his thighs through the fabric. He grew drunk on the smell of her hair and the oil lamp and the moss used to seal the walls, on the scent of the night and the musk of her excitement. Up and down she moved, her tongue never resting. Then came the explosion from within.

His fingers clamped on her shoulders with bruising force. Her mouth was avid and hungry and infinitely delightful.

She raised her head. She licked her lips and brushed back her hair. 'Now the edge is off, milord. The ceremony can truly begin.'

She sat up straddling him and pulled the gown off over her head. Her pale, blue-veined, carnelian-tipped breasts rode up with it, then dropped to swing free. She pulled her hair from the garment's folds, shook it back, looked down on Fost as if from a great height.

Though he was spent, the sight of her beauty electrified him. He felt himself stiffening again, an obelisk lifted in honor of the triangle of black fur below her smooth stomach.

She raised herself on her knees and shuffled upward along him. He grunted as pleasure stabbed into him when she brushed the tip of his manhood. Then she was poised above his face, mysterious and gilded in lamplight. She lowered herself. He had a last thought of Ziore in her satchel beside the bed before his lips touched coarse, dewy hair. His tongue emerged and swept through the tangle to slick, succulent flesh. Synalon shivered delicately, cupped her breasts with her hands, then thrust her pelvis forward so that his tongue probed deep inside her.

Small, insistent animal sounds rolled from her throat. His tongue swirled within her, savoring both taste and texture. She was maddening and beautiful and he was drunk on her. His tongue withdrew, sought, found; it pressed in.

Her cries filled up the small chamber. Her fingers knotted painfully in his hair but he was lost in his pleasurable task. His tongue flirted, teased, bored in. She screamed.

Walls of pliant flesh clamped on his head. All he heard was the hollow drumbeat of her pulse, racing, outpacing his. He felt her perfect body tremble, felt her leaving, raised his hands and seized her. At last she tore herself away, her body shining with sweat.

'It is as I thought,' she said, her voice husky. 'You are truly fit for a Queen of the Sky City.'

His mind slipped out of gear and coursed back to the night before and the Dwarflike shape by the campfire. What was it? What had it offered? Some connection between that and Synalon's current passion was almost made, then slipped away from him.

She flowed down like water, her breasts falling heavy upon his firmly muscled chest, her mouth seeking his. Fost's fingers trembled on her buttocks as she lowered her hips and took him in. And then the ancient, insistent motion possessed them both. He forgot all but the heat and pressure and pleasure.