Odyssey

CHAPTER 15

"The air is no place for a merman," Laquatus muttered as he held tightly to the soldier's waist. The ground was distant, and he was reminded of long swims in tropical seas. The clear water revealed the ocean floor far below. However, the air would not support the ambassador as he drifted down. He felt his jack's fears and knew only his unbending will and orders kept the frog from panic. He wondered how bruised the amphibian's companion would be when they landed again. He had convinced the captain his contacts with the Cabal and other continental powers would help her in discovering the source of the disturbances. Laquatus hoped to get her alone and work his mind-altering magic, but she gave him no chance. The strain of controlling Turg and his own fear sapped his energy throughout the griffin ride. Now the final destination was in sight, and he could hardly wait for the feel of dry land beneath his feet.

Laquatus regretted his diminished power. He had been forced to abandon the mercenaries. Pianna was barely willing to allow the ambassador and his champion to accompany her. The merman hoped the underwater explorers had finally reached the Citadel. The promise of sea warriors and competent minions made the loss of the mercenaries bearable.

The Citadel was a massive conglomeration of stone. The castle itself was on top of a rocky hill, the only visible road to the gates exposed to attack from above for its entire length. Double walls of stone reinforced with dozens of towers enclosed the top of the mesa. The central keep was less martial, the fineness of the stone work contrasting with the crudely worked blocks of the outer walls. But however brilliant the white rock appeared, Laquatus still noticed bars on the windows.

There was a town at the base of the hill, tucked between the living rock and a stream flowing down from the north. The slate roofs of the tall houses nearly hid the cobblestone streets. The avenues looked crowded, and the ambassador could see wagons and tents in the town squares. The griffins had often soared over long caravans of refugees headed for the Citadel. The merman wondered where the additional people could be placed. The courtyard that the griffins aimed for seemed clear of any but Order officials, and Laquatus tried to guess how much longer that would be the case.

The landing was a blur as the ambassador closed his eyes. The skybox had felt rock solid in comparison to a living steed, and he wondered if his sudden fear of heights would be temporary. The griffin landed with a lurch as it stumbled to a halt. Laquatus turned and watched Turg's ride land. The moment the flier's claws touched the ground the frog was off, running his hands over the solidity of the cobbles. It took the merman several moments to dismount, his legs locked with cramps. Finally, he commanded his champion to aid him to the ground. The Order soldiers showed disgusting ease as they hurried to unload their steeds of cargo, saddles, and harnesses.

The stablemen moved slowly, as if listening for news. They looked at the pit frog and the ambassador with wide eyes, and Laquatus wondered what wild rumors would be circulating by the day's end. The officers and their guests stepped to the main keep, the several-story building looming over the merman like a cliff.

They moved into the darker room, Laquatus's eyes adapting easily to the dim light coming through the narrow windows. Food was laid out on trestles. It was an example of the journey's hardship that Turg did not immediately fall upon the buffet but squatted down at the ambassador's side. The hugeness of the hall seemed to siphon the noise of its few inhabitants away. The ambassador carefully enhanced his senses and ached at the sudden cacophony. He carefully reined in his energy, hoping that the casting of his spell was undetected. The journey had taken quite a toll on him as well.

The officers were off at an isolated table, small portions of food set before them, though neither ate. The merman's enhanced vision could see the irritation on both of their faces. The rest of the griffin scouts gave them a wide berth, and the server left a flagon of wine at the table rather than standing ready to pour. The ambassador was assaulted by thunder, and Turg stood with a threatening gesture. A serving man stumbled back with a tray of bread and wine.

"Give it here, and then leave me alone!" Laquatus grated out. The impertinence of the man to disturb him while he was concentrating. Only the importance of eavesdropping prevented him from calling for the servant's supervisor. He made a note of the man's face for punishment at a later date. His attention shifted back to the officers in mid-argument.

"I did not return to stay behind these walls," Kirtar said with obvious exasperation. "The fight is to the west, against the creatures of the forest." The bird warrior looked at the captain as if the stupidity of the original question could not be believed.

"I ordered you back to oversee the deployment of militias. Your fighting has changed nothing except to strew corpses amongst the trees." Pianna drank quickly, trying to gain breathing room, to the ambassador's eyes. "Ever since your entry in the Cabal tournament you have lost interest in the Order. Have you succumbed to the lure of wealth and prizes?"

"Wealth is a tool we can use to build the Order," Kirtar said, hammering down a goblet with a peal that split Laquatus's ears. "As for the prizes, I procured one that was worth any number of villages that fell while I competed."

The lieutenant ignored the captain's indignant gasp and opened his pouch. Pianna looked down into the pouch, her eyes locked on the sphere. The lieutenant's fingers cupped it and raised it before her. The room fell silent as Order mages detected the throb of contained power and looked to the officers. Laquatus felt a surge of envy as the lieutenant pushed the sphere back into his pouch. The ambassador was surprised by the sour expression of the officer's face and could barely hear him mutter, "It's dimmer still."

"Impressive enough," the captain said agreeably. "And I can understand your fascination with it. But what have you done since you received it?" The silence seemed to echo in the merman's ears.

"I see," continued Pianna as several seconds passed without response. "Your prize was not used nor provoked any response other than influencing you to ignore your recall and engage in indiscriminate slaughter." She shook her head sadly.

"You are less than you were when you left," she stated emphatically. "You had plans, but once you held that power in your hands you could only use violence. It corrupted you without doing anything but offering you magic you had not earned." Bitterness and resolution filled her tone. "I have never seen a better example of an artifact curbing and shrinking a soul. You must give it up."

"I will not!" replied the lieutenant hotly. "It is only that I don't know how to use it," he confessed, his pale skin flushing in the dim light. "It was bright with glory once, but every time I look at it, the visions grow fainter. I don't know what to do. I know only that this is valuable, and it represents the salvation of the Order."

"It is a chain that is dragging you down. You speak of what you can do, what you know," she said gently. "You must give it up, even if it must be destroyed."

The bird warrior started but with visible effort stifled his initial response and nodded.

"The Order and the Strictures must come first," he said reluctantly. "Only give me time to examine it a little more. You are right that I have done nothing with it other than let dreams of glory lead me astray. Give me a chance to investigate it a little more before we give it up to those who use the crushers." The captain nodded doubtfully as Laquatus tasted his heart in his mouth. Give the orb to the fanatics who thought the past should be erased? Those who spurned objects of enchantment and condemned wonders to the grinding wheels of their one sanctioned machine? He would see the Citadel ground to dust before he allowed the orb to be damaged.

Kirtar excused himself and left. It took a moment for the ambassador to break his trance and send his jack after him. Perhaps it would take an obvious intervention to take the sphere from these fools. He hoped the underground explorers would find a route soon.

Turg lurked behind a pile of heavy canvas, waiting for the lieutenant to speak. The frog had followed the officer and stayed at a distance. Laquatus soon begged off any further talks with the captain or her representatives, citing his exhaustion from the journey. Now the ambassador rode the frog's spirit, nudging him closer to hear the conspirators.

At least that was merman's belief. The bird warrior left, but instead of retiring directly to his room he spoke to several knights before visiting the armory. Laquatus had a bad moment when he saw the shape of a great crusher filling a building's interior. Several squires pushed a capstan, driving the interior mechanisms. A robotic bird was thrown into the machine's gaping mouth, and a series of smashing collisions sounded, then died down as tiny pieces of the forbidden technology came out the other end. A pile of mechanical limbs and less definable work filled a basket that the presiding officer continued to empty.

Laquatus very nearly sent his champion charging for the orb at that moment. Kirtar had shook himself and left the crusher with a look of fresh determination on his face. Once more he stopped to give a message, and this time Turg was able to hear.

"The dungeon just after midnight."

The frog spent hours waiting in sight of Kirtar's quarters, but the bird warrior did not come out again. Dinner came and went, and the frog's belly grumbled.

In camouflage, he raided the remnants of the evening meal, then headed for the dungeon. Rather than the vast cavern that Laquatus expected, just several empty cells in a tower's base served as the Order's prison. Only the distinc-tive smell allowed the frog to find it without asking for directions. Laquatus was heartened that even the Order's ideals could not negate the need for small rooms reeking of despair and filth. The frog breathed the odor in deeply before hiding behind stores in the main room.

Kirtar arrived first, inspecting the chamber carefully. Laquatus fed a minute portion of power to Turg, and the spell, combined with the champion's natural camouflage, prevented his discovery. Other knights arrived until five moved to a table. Laquatus noticed with little surprise that all were aven bird warriors. Kirtar spoke, and the others listened silently. The door was not whisperwood, so the lieutenant talked softly.

"I and my fathers have served the Order loyally. You have all been warriors in the Order without any blemish on your service. None may say otherwise."

Turg could hear the rustling of nods and crept out a bit beyond the bags to see the conspiracy.

"But to be loyal to the Order means that sometimes the Strictures must be disobeyed, ill- conceived commands must be ignored."

There were fewer signs of agreement, but there was an affirmative air about the group,

"I won a great prize while competing in the tourney," Kirtar continued. "While defending the helpless, even in that evil city, I defeated a dragon."

Another nod of assent and a bit of pride showed among the warriors at one of their own overcoming such a beast.

"These are difficult times for the Order," the lieutenant said quietly. "The forest has risen and assaulted our lands as never before."

"Aye," said a grizzled voice as one of the others interrupted. "So many refugees have arrived that they are filling up the town. The captain says that soon we will have to start bringing families within the Citadel walls."

"Exactly," said the lieutenant, showing irritation at being interrupted. "The captain has a good heart and believes in the Strictures, but that is not enough in these difficult days. It will take boldness, and while Pianna is no coward, she is not bold. The best way to protect the refugees is to stop them from being displaced." A murmur of agreement filled the room. "We must take the fight to the forest."

The dead silence through Turg's ears told Laquatus that this extreme step was not popular. The lieutenant seemed to know that and quickly continued.

"The prize that the rumors speak of I have with me," he said, opening his pouch. The thrill of power shook everyone in the room. Turg's camouflage flickered, but such was the group's fascination that no one saw. "The captain saw its strength but in blind obedience to the Strictures wants it destroyed. She would not consider using it and never held it. Touch it now," Kirtar said and laid it on the center of the table.

Each bird warrior stroked it, and one and all were lost in some interior vision. Turg tensed as Laquatus wondered about attacking the gathering while they were stunned. But they shook off their bemusement, all except the lieutenant, with reluctance. Kirtar looked dissatisfied.

"Once it filled the heart with peals of glory, but now it is only a ghost of what it was." Disbelief showed on the other faces. "I know what the problem is. I have let my own reluctance to use this power destroy the potential that originally resided in this prize. I can afford to wait no longer. The magic must be used, and we must take the Order in a new direction." The officer looked each warrior in the eyes in turn.

"Tomorrow I will take the captain's place, and you must all act to support me when I do."

Turg retreated as the members of the coup left.

"Treachery, always a popular choice with subordinates," Laquatus mused as he directed his jack away from the plotters. This betrayal might be just what he needed.

"There is no reason for these attacks, your Excellency," the captain said to Laquatus. The ambassador had begged an audience with Pianna, hoping to find some other angle to grasp advantage. Besides the excellent news of a power struggle within the Order, Laquatus had felt a whisper from the tresias stone during the night. An explorer had finally proved a path to the Citadel through the underground rivers. Further reinforcements followed to give Laquatus enough power to take action against the Order.

The ambassador sent Turg below with the stone, telling

Satas all that occurred and that he must bring soldiers as quickly as possible. It might be possible to pluck the prize right from the Order's fingers without any of the knights being the wiser. While he waited for the frog's return, he sat in the captain's office offering his services to the Order.

"The lieutenant's incursion into the forest seemed to provoke even more of a response," she said as she showed the merman her intelligence maps.

"I always believed that he might be exceeding his authority," Laquatus said in a sweet tone. He waited for a response to his overtures, but Pianna was looking at the map. Then she grabbed a set of reports and began rifling through them, checking something.

"Yes, yes, yes," she cried out, relief plain on her face. "I couldn't see it before because we never put down the dates of the attacks." She grabbed up a pen and put a series of broad arrows on the map. She ignored the rattle of pins falling to the floor. "We never saw a focus to the attacks because the center pulling the attacks shifted over time. Kirtar was what the forest reacted to."

"The lieutenant?" Laquatus said nonplussed. "He can be irritating but surely not to an entire forest. Do not give him credit for being more than he is."

"Not the lieutenant," Pianna said. "It's that damn prize of his. He was awarded it where we saw the strongest attack, and the rest of them seem to be moving in his direction when he rode to the southern plains. We need to destroy that orb immediately."

"I knew that would be your thinking," Kirtar said as he moved into the room. Laquatus could see the bird warriors lining up in the room beyond. "Anything that violates the Strictures must be destroyed."

"It has nothing to do with the Strictures, Lieutenant," Pianna replied, drawing herself upright as she heard his insolent tone. "I believe your prize is what provokes the forest. There will be additional attacks in this direction even as we speak. We must destroy it or dispose of it immediately."

"Get rid of it?" laughed Kirtar. "Even if I believed you, why would I want to throw it away?" He put his hand in his pouch and drew the orb forth. Its power once more struck the ambassador.

"Anything that can rouse the entire forest can be used to tame it," Kirtar stated. "That is what the Order is dedicated to, is it not? Curing the world of its wildness and chaos?"

The captain moved around the table, her face calm. "But what about the villages destroyed and the refugees made homeless as you search for a way to use the orb?" Pianna walked slowly toward the door and Kirtar. "As a knight, you took an oath to protect them." She raised her hand as if to pluck the orb from his oversized fist. Energy flared and coated her, locking her in place. Laquatus could see her expression slowly starting to change from determination to astonishment only to stop halfway through the shift.

"Unlike you, I know it is sometimes necessary to make a sacrifice," Kirtar said as he retrieved Pianna's sword, her symbol of Order authority.

Power poured from the orb. A growing mass of purest crystal shimmered into being as Laquatus stood, feeling for his soldiers below. The throb of ocean magic reassured him as the lieutenant turned his attention toward him. The orb's magic seemed to light up the bird warrior's features, and the ambassador bowed slightly as if to acknowledge the aven's superiority.

"I trust there will be no problems, Laquatus."

The merman nodded, thinking how he could take advantage. The power continued to grow, and the ambassador wondered if the lieutenant was preparing to destroy him. But Kirtar's look of victory changed to one of confusion and then fear. The crystal around the captain pulsed and began to grow, inching across the floor as the bird warrior gripped the orb tightly, concentration freezing his face.

He seemed to collapse inward, panting. Cries sounded beyond the room. "Mutiny" and "Save the captain" could be heard as the lieutenant once more tried to force his spell to stop. He fell, and his supporters rushed into the room.

"I can't control it!" he gushed, stricken with fear. The bird warriors looked at Laquatus, threats in their eyes, and one started toward him, murder plain in his face.

"There is no time," another soldier exclaimed. The crystal grew faster, and the ambassador unconsciously retreated.

"Let the spell take him!" With that they plucked the lieutenant up and retreated through the door.

Laquatus tried to follow, but the crystal was already too close to the wall. The stone began to sparkle, and then it too was engulfed in crystal. The merman was trapped with no way out, the spell expanding in irregular spurts. He tripped over a chair, holding the seat out as if to halt the effect. The wooden legs froze in place well above the floor.

"Turg," he called to below, "Captain Satas! Open a portal! Immediately!" He backed up against the wall. Could he cut his way through the stone? He was trying to raise power when he felt the tickle of the portal forming at his back. He fell through the wall screaming, "Close it! Close it now!"