Madwand (Illustrated) (13 page)

Avinconet, Avinconet . . . He had repeated the name to himself for hours, in time with the rhythms of the flight. He had answered truthfully in telling Larick he had known nothing of it, yet—

It seemed now as if there might be some small familiarity attached. It seemed possible that there had been references in some of his father’s earlier journals, though he could not recall anything specific.

Avinconet. Avinconet and Rondoval . . . Had there been some sort of tie?

The sun dipped lower and the moon grew brighter—and then, splashed with daysblood, he saw it, spread across the face of one of the more prominent peaks of a distant range. And he knew that he knew it.

Avinconet was the castle of his dreams, through which he had passed on his way to the Gate. Somehow, he had known all along that it was a real place. But seeing it . . . Seeing it gave rise to a train of disturbing sensations. He found himself anxious to enter the place, to locate the Gate. There was something that he had to do there, wanted to do, despite a reflex squeamishness at the very thought of the Gate. Yet, precisely what that action was, he could not say.

He watched the grim architecture grow before him, paling to yellow, silver, gray-white—a huge, central keep, stepped like a terrace, bristling with towers at many levels, flanked by long ranks of attached side-buildings—surrounded by high, wide ramparts, battlemented, possessed of numerous angles, a squat tower atop each turning. Windows were lighted at several levels toward the right side of the main structure. He shifted to the second seeing and immediately noted a tremendous massing of strands high in the air above the rear of the keep. He also noted a small, pale light drifting along the forward wall from left to right, pausing occasionally, wavering.

When they reached a position above the place, Larick swung his mount into a huge circle and Pol’s followed, buffeted by strong winds. They commenced a slow, downward spiral.

As they descended toward the larger of a number of courtyards toward the rear, Pol continued to study the small light, visible only with the second seeing. It appeared human in form from this nearer distance, and there was a long, pale strand attached to it. Something about its aspect at this level touched him with a vague feeling of mournfulness.

As they dropped lower, Pol saw that the rear wall of the enclosed area was rough rock—a part of the mountainside itself—pierced by a number of irregular dark openings, several of them barred. It was at about this point that the light upon the ramparts disappeared from sight.

They touched down roughly and Larick alit at once. Moments later, Pol felt his strings jerked and he followed him. Larick unharnessed the beasts, shouted an order and watched them shuffle off into one of the cave-like openings. He followed them and drew upon something in the shadows. A metal grillwork dropped into place with a clang which echoed through the court.

Larick returned to Pol.

“We made excellent time because of the tailwinds,” he commented. “I didn’t think we’d be getting in till after midnight. He might be able to see you now. I don’t know. Ill have to check.”

“Who is ‘he’?” Pol asked.

“Ryle Merson, the master of Avinconet.”

“What does he want with me, wizard?”

“That is really for him to tell you. Come this way.”

Pol felt a tugging upon the strands Larick had affixed to his person. He made no resistance but followed their lead toward an open archway to what he judged the northeast. They passed through into a flagstoned corridor where Larick led him about a series of turns.

Left, right, left, left, Pol memorized.

And then they halted before a low doorway. Its heavy wooden door stood ajar and Larick pushed it the rest of the way open. Pol noted that it could be secured from the outside by means of a heavy wooden bar.

“Inside,” Larick said, and power pulsed in the strands.

Pol moved forward, stooped and entered. A bench ran along the righthand wall of the small, low-ceilinged room. There were no windows, only a few air-slits at the upper corners. A ragged blanket and a heap of sacking lay upon the bench. There was a chamber pot upon the floor nearby. An empty candle-bracket was affixed to the wall above the bench.

Pol turned back after he had passed over the threshold and the compulsion ceased.

“What’s for dinner?” he asked.

“If he can’t see you now, I’ll have something sent over,” Larick replied.

“I’ll study the wine list while I wait.”

Larick stared at him, shook his head.

“You could use a few more restraints. I don’t want you tearing this place apart,” he said. “Go sit down on the bench.”

“All right, wizard. Not much to tear, though.”

Pol crossed the room and seated himself. He could feel the working of the strands about him almost immediately.

“You do that very well,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“ . . . But I don’t believe it will save you in the end.”

Larick chuckled.

“ . . . So long as the end is a great way off.”

“Don’t buy any long-playing records,” Pol said.

“What does that mean?”

“Even if you find out, it will be too late.”

“Have it your way, Chainson.”

“I may.”

The door closed. The room became very dark. Pol heard the bar slide into place. He shook off the restraining strands.

He had toyed with the idea of trying to get a strand onto Larick while Larick was restraining him, a thing which would permit him to follow the other’s progress about the place, seeing some of the things which he regarded. He had dismissed the notion as too risky, but now he wondered . . . 

When he switched to the second seeing, the room was bathed in a pearly glow. A pale golden strand hovered near the door. He raised his right hand and exerted his will. Beneath multiple layers of illusion his dragonmark throbbed. The filament drifted toward him.

When it made contact with his fingertips he felt a tiny, near-electrical tingling. When he blanked his mind and drew upon it for impressions, the sensation spread and he realized quickly that he was indeed reaching the other. Larick might be accused of carelessness, he mused, save that he had no way of knowing that Pol could still function in any magical capacity.

He followed Larick’s progress through several turnings and up a long flight of stairs. There was a wide window at one turning, and he saw stars beyond it. Larick made his way through progressively more sumptuous areas of the keep, coming at last to a long gallery leading to a pair of ornate double doors. A liveried servant sat upon a bench to the right of the entrance. He rose as Larick approached, his face bearing a smile of recognition.

“Is he awake?” Larick inquired.

The man shook his head.

“I doubt it,” he replied. “It’s been awhile—and he said he did not want to be disturbed.”

“Oh. Well, if he should wake up, Mak, tell him that I’ve brought him the man he wanted.”

“If he does, I will. But I don’t think he’ll be about again tonight.”

“Then I’m going to see about getting the fellow fed now. Do you want anything sent up?”

“A bit of beef and bread would be nice, and maybe some beer.”

“Ryle’s turned in a little early . . . ”

“The trip back tired him. He came rather fast.”

“Don’t tell me about it. All right. I’m for the kitchen. Good night.”

“ ’Night.”

Pol followed him away from the place, step slower now, and down a back stair. He overheard him order the meals from a tired-looking fat woman of more than middle age, whom he had interrupted at a meal of her own, and then watched him prepare a light, cold dinner for himself and eat it quickly. Pol maintained the contact, his own hunger growing. On the fringes of things, he could see the woman preparing the trays.

Larick lingered over a second glass of wine, then sighed and rose slowly to his feet. He bade the woman good night, visited the latrine and made his way on, and downward, for a long distance into what must have been the northeastern wing of the place.

Pol continued his efforts to commit the route to memory, thinking that it must lead to Larick’s own quarters. But it dropped lower and lower and seemed to lead farther and farther back toward the mountainside. All traces of splendor were gone here, and the area through which he passed bore the dustiness of disuse and seemed in places to have become a repository of damaged furniture.

Beyond this was a zone of dark emptiness where Larick created a light upon the tip of his blade and bore it overhead like a torch, coming at length to a bare and sweating rock wall over which he ran his hand. He followed this for a time, then turned into an opening in the rock, descending a steep slope into which rough steps had been hacked.

The way narrowed, grew level, turned. Larick began to slow. Twice again, it turned, and by then his steps were faltering. He was approaching a high, massy prominence with something possibly large and somewhat reflective atop it.

His hand wavered and the blade was lowered as he began to climb. Pol became aware that his breathing had deepened. Just as he reached the top he dropped to his knees and remained still. Pol could not make out what it was that lay before him, for something had suddenly gone wrong with the man’s eyes.

He waited for a time, but nothing more happened, and then his food arrived and he released the contact.

When he finished eating, Pol pushed the tray away and sought the golden strand again. But it had either drifted off or dissipated. He realized then that he should have affixed it to something, pending his later attention. Yet, he was tired, and he knew that he would not be disturbed again till morning. He assembled a bed of the sacking on the bench and stretched out, covering himself with the blanket. He dozed almost immediately, myriads of images from the past several days flashing behind his eyes.

These faded quickly, and that other consciousness came over him again. There was a moment of intense cold, and then he stood before the great Gate. He felt other presences at his back, but he was unable to turn and look at them—nor did he desire to do so. The right half of the Gate swung outward a sufficient distance for him to angle through, tiny wisps of smoke or fog emerging from it. This vision had occurred with a sharpness and a rapidity which surpassed all earlier versions, and this time there was no ambivalence, no hesitation on his part. He moved forward immediately and entered the land which lay beyond.

The first thing that he saw, facing him, a short distance across the blasted landscape was the head. Impaled upon a sharpened pole, eyes still open, the head of one of the demon creatures leered in his direction. He felt that there was almost something personal in this display, a very specific caution which he could only at this time find amusing.

As he felt the transformation come over him, he winked at the grisly visage and rose, wraith-like into the wan air. Wind-stirred sands shifted snake-like among the rocks below him. He drifted southward, gaining momentum rapidly. As he did, a sense of jubilation grew within him until he wanted to proclaim it in a voice like a thousand trumpets across the land. He spread his dark wings, vast as the sails of some mighty vessel, and beat his way over the deadland, rising to such an altitude that his mountains finally became visible.

He, Prodromolu, was filled with the dream-memory of his other life, and he forgot the head and the Gate and the small human thing named Pol Detson, of whom he might once have dreamed. He needed none of these.

When he reached that range, he hurled himself upon it, fighting the hurricane-force winds that would dash him against it. Six times he assailed those heights and was beaten back.

On the seventh he prevailed, and his statue—dripping of honey and spices, of wine and of blood—was shattered at the Note that he uttered. Wherever his shadow passed, buildings toppled and his worshippers faded and died. Nyalith rose like a tower of dark fires before him. They met over the waters of the stilled ocean and commenced the dance that would take them around the world. Stars fell like burning souls about them, as the roaring winds bore them along the jewelled girdle of the planet. Their movements grew more savage with the deaths of kings and the fall of temples. He spoke again at the Mountains of Ice, and the Spell of the Gateway was wrought as Talkne, Serpent of the Still Waters, completed her journey of ten thousand years and rose from the depths to seek him—

Pol, for a moment, knew of the Keys and the dark god’s promise as he was jerked suddenly alert there in his cell. The dream still vivid within him, he sat bolt upright and regarded the ghostly image of the woman who stood beside him, gesturing, lips moving, colorless eyes focussed upon his own. He half-rose, putting forth his hand.

She retreated, a look of sudden alarm upon her pale countenance. He withdrew, composing his face and making reassuring gestures. She halted. She appeared to study him. Slowly, she raised her arm and pointed at him. Then she turned and pointed toward the rear of the cell, turned back toward him and shook her head in the negative. He furrowed his brow and she repeated the motions. Suddenly then, she raised all five digits of her left hand and two upon her right. She shook her head, then went through the first series again. He shrugged and turned his palms upward.