Madwand (Illustrated) (27 page)

As he struck with his talons, Talkne’s still body suddenly responded like a broken spring. A coil fell across his back and tightened immediately. Off balanced, one wing pinned, feathers flying, Prodromolu was wrenched to one side and then over, and over again. More of the buildings collapsed, statues toppled, as they turned, rolled, fell. They descended the terraces, the ground shaking beneath them. The singing grew louder as they dropped toward the lowest level.

As the constriction of Talkne’s body increased, Prodromolu tightened his own grip upon it and continued to strike and tear with his beak. Their blood mingled and spread in a series of coin-like pools. Orange-clad bodies lay all about them as the bird continued to hammer at the scaly form which imprisoned him in massive bands. At last there came a slight loosening of the serpent’s coils, and the bird struck with renewed energy, tearing out chunks of flesh and dashing them aside into a small ornamental garden of silver-leafed shrubs.

He felt the serpent go limp. Dragging himself free, he struck once again, then threw back his head and uttered a piercing shriek. Then he spread his wings slowly, painfully, and lifted himself into the air.

The head of the serpent flashed upward and the mouth snapped shut upon his right leg. With a whiplike movement, Talkne cast Prodromolu through the air and into the water, not letting go the leg, slithering immediately after to wind about the dark bird again.

“You will not depart this world,” Talkne repeated, driving them out into deeper water.

“Pol!” said the other, suddenly. “You don’t know what you’re doing . . . ”

There was a long pause, as the serpent dragged him even farther away from the shore. Then, “I know,” came the reply.

Talkne dove, bearing Prodromolu along with him.

The bird tore partway free for an instant and drove his beak down upon the back of the serpent’s head a bare instant before the fangs found the side of his neck and closed there.

As the waters roiled about him and the blow from that great beak fell upon the head of the serpent, Pol felt his consciousness fading and then everything seemed distant. Even as he locked his fangs more tightly upon the other, he felt insulated from the event, as if it really involved two other parties . . . 

Thrashing frantically, he could not free himself from the grip upon his neck. As he was drawn ever more deeply beneath the water, Henry Spier felt the blackness rising and covering him over. He wanted to cry out. He reached to summon his powers, but he was gone before the necessary movement of Art could be completed.

XX.

He was walking. The mists were rolling all about him and the figures came and went. There was one very familiar one, with a message . . . 

It was cold, very cold. He wanted a blanket, but something else was thrust into his hands. A warmth seemed to flow from it, however, and that was good. The moaning sounds ceased. He had barely been aware of them until then. He clutched more tightly at the object he held and something of strength came into him from it.

“Pol! Come on! Wake up! Hurry!”

The message . . . 

He was aware that his face was being slapped. Face?

Yes, he had a face.

“Wake up!”

“No,” he said, his grip continuing to tighten upon the staff.

Staff?

He opened his eyes. The face before him was out of focus, but there was something familiar about it even then. It moved nearer to his own and the blurring vanished from its features.

“Mouseglove . . . ”

“Get up! Hurry!” the small man enjoined him. “The others are stirring!”

“Others? I don’t . . . Oh!”

Pol struggled to sit up and Mouseglove assisted him. As he did so, he saw that it was his father’s scepter which he held clutched in his hands.

“How did you come by this?” he asked.

“Later! Take it and use it!”

Pol looked about the chamber. Larick had rolled onto his side, facing him. His eyes were open, though his expression was not one of comprehension. Across the chamber, near the door, Ryle Merson was moaning and beginning to move. From the corner of his eye, Pol saw that Taisa’s arm was rising. He remembered Spier’s words concerning a lapse of will, and he stared at the man, just as Spier began to sit up.

“Are they all enemies?” Mouseglove asked. “You’d better do something to the ones who are—fast!”

“Get out of here,” Pol said. “Hurry!”

“I’ll not leave you now.”

“You mustl However you came in—”

“Through the window.”

“Back out it then. Go!”

Pol got up onto one knee and raised the scepter before him, staring at Henry Spier across it. Mouseglove moved out of sight, but Pol could not tell whether he had fled or only retreated. From somewhere, the smell of dragons came to his nostrils.

His arm was already throbbing, and he gave a grateful shudder that the power had not again deserted him. The statuette still stood in position upon the diagram, facing the Gate. He rose to his feet and sent his will into the scepter. There was an answering tingle in the palms of his hands. A sensation as of a protracted, subauditory organ note passed through him.

He felt no doubt whatsoever that Spier must die. If he let him live, he decided that he would be guilty of a greater offense than if he killed him, becoming himself responsible for any evil the man would work.

With a sound like a thunderclap, a sheet of almost liquid flame leapt from the scepter’s tip to fall upon Henry Spier. The chamber was brilliantly illuminated and shadows ran relay races about the uneven walls.

Then the flame parted like a forked tongue, to reveal Spier standing beyond the bifurcation, right arm upraised.

“How’d you manage to get your hands on that thing?” he said, above the fire’s roar.

Pol did not reply but bent all of his efforts to closing the fiery gap. Like a bloody pair of scissors in a shaky hand, it commenced swaying toward, then away from the man in its midst. Pol felt the counterpressure growing and then waning, as Spier mustered his forces with occasional lapses.

“Your dragon outside the window, eh?” Spier said. “Must have him well-trained. Can’t stand dragons myself. Smell like stale beer and rotten eggs.”

The flames suddenly flew wide apart, like a letter Y, then a T. They began retreating toward Pol, the arms of the T slowly curving back around in his direction.

Pol gritted his teeth, and the flames’ progress toward him was halted. He was seized with the sickening realization that even with his powers augmented by the scepter, Spier seemed to hold the edge. And Spier’s strength was continuing to grow as he recovered, whereas his own appeared to have reached its limit. The flames began to sway again, but they were edging closer toward him. He knew that it was too late to shift to a different mode of attack, and he knew also that it would not make any difference if he could.

“It is a powerful tool that you hold,” Spier stated slowly, as if reading his mind. “But a tool, of course, is only as good as the man who uses it. You are young, and but recently come into your powers. You are not sufficient to the task you have set yourself.” He took a step forward and the flames roared ominously. “But then, I doubt that any man in this world is.”

“Shut up!” Pol cried, and he tried to banish the flames, but they remained.

Spier took another step and halted as a surge of effort accompanying Pol’s anger flicked them back a span in his direction.

“There can be only one outcome if you persist,” Spier went on,” and I do not want that. Listen to me, boy. If you are good enough to give me as much trouble as you have, you are very good. I would regret very much having to destroy you, especially when there is no reason for it.”

There came a loud report from the direction of the window, and a bullet richocheted about the chamber. Spier glanced in that direction at the same time Pol did.

Mouseglove, standing outside, had rested his elbows upon the wide, stony sill. The pistol, pointed toward Spier, still smoked in his hand. He seemed to stiffen, and he slid away out of sight, the weapon clattering against stone as it fell.

Pol turned back in time to see Spier completing an almost casual gesture.

“Had I a moment or so more, I would have made him turn it against himself,” he said. “But I can do that afterwards. Firearms are such a barbaric intrusion in this idyllic place, don’t you think? I approve of your actions at Anvil Mountain, by the way. The Balance must be tipped toward more magic, where we will be supreme.”

Panting now, Pol fended off the return of the flames, his dragonmark feeling as if it were itself afire. He knew that without the scepter he would be dead in the face of the present onslaught. Spier seemed to be increasing even in stature now, as he recovered, an aura of poise and command growing about him.

“As I said, there is no reason for this,” Spier continued. “I am willing to forgive our archetypal struggle beyond the Gate and what passed between us here before then. I feel that you still do not understand. I am also more convinced than ever of your suitability as an ally.” He took a step backward and the pressure diminished. “A sign of my good faith,” he said. “I have made the first move toward our easing away from this in stages. Let us call a halt and work together to our mutual benefit. I’ll even teach you some unusual things about that staff you hold. I—”

Pol screamed and fell to his knees as his entire left side was seized and twisted by a hideous series of spasms. He thought that he felt his lower ribs give way.

Summoning all of his remaining energy, he drove it toward Spier in a gigantic psychic wedge, powered by fear, hate, a sense of betrayal, shame at his own gullibility . . . 

“It wasn’t me!” Spier cried—half in anger, half in surprise—as he was driven, tripping, back against the wall.

“Larick! Stop it . . . ” came a weak voice from off to the right, as Ryle Merson struggled to his feet.

Instantly, the seizure halted, though its aftereffects left Pol kneeling, aching, shaking.

“Help him! Damn you!” Ryle cried, advancing. “That’s Spier he’s got against the wall!”

The fat man suddenly moved quickly and placed his hand upon the scepter below Pol’s own. Immediately, Pol felt a partial easing of the tension which had held him for so long.

Spier’s eyes, which had been wide, suddenly narrowed. Larick came up beside Pol on the left, his hand, also, coming to rest upon the scepter.

“You say I would use you,” Spier said, “and this is true. But they are also guilty—of the same thing.”

Pol bore down with his will, augmented by the others’. The flame leaped forward again—and halted, as if it had met an invisible wall.

He strove to increase his efforts and felt the others doing likewise, yet the situation remained unchanged. In fact, Spier was smiling—a small, almost sad smile.

“What’s happening?” Pol said in a hoarse whisper.

“He’s holding us,” Ryle replied.

“All three of us?” Pol asked. “I almost had him myself before!”

“My little serpent,” Spier said from across the chamber. “Although you surprised me several times, I was but testing your strength and letting things run long enough to give me the opportunity to speak with you. I see now that I have failed, and I must conclude things, though it really does my heart sore to see you put to waste. Good-bye—until some more agreeable life, perhaps.”

He began to walk toward them. Immediately, the scepter became burning hot in Pol’s grip. He clung to it despite this, however, and directed all of their energies toward halting the man, who now seemed the embodiment of strength and assurance. He felt some resistance, but Spier did not stop, and the smell of burning flesh came to his nostrils. His head swam, and for an instant the mists seemed to roil about him and the figure to his right was no longer Ryle Merson. What was he saying?

Spier doubled forward as if experiencing a sudden stomach cramp. He waved both his hands in small circles, frantically, the right before him, the left far out to the side.

After a moment, he straightened, the hand movements continuing but becoming more regular now, the circles growing. He looked ahead and then to the left.

“They’re coming out of the woodwork now,” he said ruefully.

Pol, who could no longer tell whether the scepter was hot, cold or lukewarm, turned his head toward the chamber’s entrance.

Ibal and Vonnie stood there. He bore a white wand. She held what appeared to be a brass hand mirror, crosswise and close to her breast.

“You’ve roused the bloody geriatrics ward,” Spier added, glaring now and appearing fully recovered. “We’ll just have to retire them again.”

His left hand changed its pattern, altered its rhythm. The metal mirror flashed as Vonnie swayed. Ibal laid a hand upon her shoulder and displayed his wand like an orchestra conductor at the opening of Brahms’ Second Symphony.

“There
was
a time when you were good, old man,” Spier said. “But you should have stayed retired . . . ”

He flicked his right hand suddenly and Ryle Merson cried out and fell.

“A little misdirection never hurts,” he said. “And then there were four . . . ”

But his face showed signs of strain, and the mirror flashed again.

“Damned witch!” he muttered, retreating a step.

A needle-fine line of white light fled from the tip of Ibal’s wand and pierced Spier’s right shoulder. Spier bellowed as the arm fell to his side and a wave of fire and force from the scepter swept over him.

Clothing smouldering, he gestured wildly and the scepter was torn from Pol’s and Larick’s grip, spinning across the room and striking Ibal about the chest and shoulders as it turned. The white wand dropped to the floor as the sorcerer fell, his face already twenty years older.

The mirror flashed again and Spier seemed to catch its light with his left hand, from whence it was reflected upon Pol and Larick.