Polillo's body lay broken across a huge toothed gearwheel, part of a monstrous mechanism.
Suspended below her was Orissa!
It was night and I could see the full moon hanging over the city as she slept. I could see the Hall of Magistrates, and the big public square with all the statues of our heroes. There was the Great Amphitheatre, with its many rows of stone seats cascading down to the floor of the arena. Beyond were the docks and the river flowing quiedy to the sea. Then I saw the whole scene was slowly revolving and I jolted back, realizing I was looking at an immense simulacrum of the city. An image in miniature, revolving, floating over a strange machine that looked like a metal grist-wheel turned flat and driven by those huge, meshing gears.
As I goggled at the strange device it dawned on me that this was the doom machine we'd feared so long. The Archon had finally gained power enough to build it, and when Gamelan had foiled him in the last
battle
, the Lycanthian sorcerer had transported me inside it. Everything from the Orissan ship that had picked us up after the
battle
, to the lifeless parade that had greeted us on our arrival was nothing more than an elaborate spell.
Then I noted all the imperfections in the image he'd made of Orissa. Buildings were missing, streets dead-ended where they shouldn't, and everything outside the city's walls was a blank. Well, not all. I could see the road leading to Amalric's villa, with woods and brush sketched about it. As I looked, I realized the Archon's unfamiliarity with my city had resulted in more than just physical imperfections. He'd made Jinnah a Chief Magistrate because that was the enemy he knew - the commander who fought him, however badly, at Lycanth. He also didn't know Malaren was my friend, which was why the automaton who posed as Malaren behaved so oddly. And, finally, there was the greatest oddity of all - the love of my family. He wouldn't have known how Porcemus and the others truly felt about me. Among the Anteros who live, it is Amalric alone who loves me, and I him. I flushed in shame for the weakness that let those creatures take me in. I'd wanted my family's acceptance so much, I never questioned if their display of affection was false.
Gears suddenly shrieked in protest and the machine jerked to a halt as Polillo's broken body caught in the huge teeth.
I felt a presence and looked up, shielding my eyes against the bright light glaring down from the vaulted iron ceiling. I was standing on a catwalk that circled the edge of the yawning pit that held the Archon's doom machine. On the other side of that pit, an open door beckoned. I moved towards it and my boot bumped against something. I looked at my feet and saw Polillo's axe. I sheathed my sword and picked it up. It was heavy, but as I shifted my grip, my fingers curled into the grooves worn by Polillo's fist. I felt the axe lighten until it was no more a burden to me than it was to my friend.
I whispered to it:
'Avenge us, sister.'
I circled to the door and when I came to it I didn't hesitate, but strode into the room. The Archon was waiting.
He was standing by a window and I could see from the bleak view that we were in the iron
castle
's main turret. His eyes glowed and his lips made a rictus grin through his beard, exposing his long yellow teeth. But this time there was no laughter; there was no curse; there was no obscene mocking of my sex; no pointing with a twisted finger and shouting, 'Begone!' I should've been frightened, I should've cowered before this mighty sorcerer. Instead, I let my eyes sweep past him, feeling bold, strong. The turret room was a black wizard's clutter of skulls, demon talons, bottled human parts, and small stone figurines of creatures in pain. It was hot and smelled of sewage and rotting things. There was sinuous motion beside me, but I didn't leap back with alarm. I knew what it was and I looked calmly down to find the panther crouched next to me. She hissed at the Archon.
I scratched behind her ears and looked up at our enemy. 'It's over,' I said.
Hefting the axe, I stepped forward, the panther moving with me. The Archon made a motion and the air shimmered in front of us; and I came up against an invisible wall. But its surface was yielding and I pushed at it with a spell of my own. It yielded more, then stiffened as the Archon intensified his magic. But I knew it was only a matter of time before it gave.
'Whose demon are you?' he rasped.
I was surprised. 'Demon? I'm no demon.'
'You are to
me?
he said. 'You are the bitch ferret who destroyed my kingdom. You killed my brother and you've hunted me, no matter where I fled.'
From his dark view, I suppose he was right. I pushed harder against the wall, felt it shudder. The panther snarled in pleasure. A
little
more time and I'd be through.
The Archon laughed, his confidence returning. 'I'm not done yet, Antero,' he said. 'You know you are weak against my powers. It's only a trick of your blood that gives you Talent. A seed carried forward by your mother, who turned her back on our art. There can be no greatness in such magic'
It was my turn to laugh. 'Then why do you fear me?' I said. 'How was such a poor weak thing able to foil you?'
'The only mistake I made was when I cursed you,' the Archon said. 'You were about to slay me and I thought the curse would be my only revenge. But as I died I saw another way and escaped into this world. But that damned curse has kept you chained to me. Kept me from winning the greatest dream any wizard could have - the power of the gods themselves.'
I sneered at him. 'You think
you
could be a god?'
'I am one
now,
bitch ferret,' the Archon said. 'My battles with you have only made me stronger. I ate your misery. I drank the blood of your dead. And I consumed my slain allies, as well. You would have been wiser to turn back, Antero. You should have heeded the fear I struck in your dreams. You have made me suffer, it is true. But I've made you suffer more. I've killed all your soldiers. I've slain all your friends. I turned the last friend you shall ever have against you. And as she died, I sipped her fear; I nearly grew drunk on her betrayal.'
'She didn't betray me, sorcerer,'
1
said. 'You possessed her. It was you, not Polillo, who tried to kill me.'
The Archon's laughter mocked me. 'A hair's difference,' he said. 'Is it enough to really comfort you?'
Actually, it did. Polillo was no Greycloak, who turned on my brother. She'd been loyal to the end. I grinned at him and he could see the truth in that grin. He frowned. It hurt him, not to be of hurt to me. The panther growled as I probed the Archon's defences, but this time he fought harder, forcing us to retreat a few steps before I managed equilibrium.
The Archon took strength from this. 'I admit you have distressed me, bitch ferret,' he said. 'I've pondered long on what ft is about the Anteros that gives me such trouble. That some force is behind your family - especially you -
1
do not question. That panther, I have no doubt, is his emissary. How else could you have succeeded so long? How else could you have lived? But know this, Rali Antero - whose mother was Emilie. Know that whoever champions you, does it for his purpose, and his purpose alone. He cannot keep you safe much longer.
'Know that I only need to accomplish your death to mount the god's throne I have all but won. When you die, so will Orissa. The machine is set and needs only your blood to oil its works to complete its purpose. With Orissa's fall, the Far Kingdoms will be next. Soon all the known world will be mine. And with that temporal power, the worlds I have entered escaping death will fall before me as well.'
I was only half-listening to his mad babble. As he spoke I remembered Gamelan's musings, built on Greycloak's theorems. 'Magic consumes power, Rali,' Gamelan had said. 'Just as a mill-wheel needs an ox to turn it. And the ox needs grain to feed it. And the grain needs seed, which consumes the power of the sun to grow. And only the gods know what fires the sun. But even its power may not be endless. And the more that is drawn from it, the less may be its heat.'
If this was true, I thought, it'd explain why the Archon stood before me in a weaker, mortal form, instead of an almighty spectre in the sky. All his force was being used to contain the odd reality - if that was what it could be called - we stood in. From this turret room to the iron
castle
itself to the false Orissa that waited to be ground up by the doom machine. And the machine itself must be greedily devouring the most power of all.
I stroked the panther and she purred most fearfully. 'What happens, sorcerer,' I said, 'when my sister and I finally burst through your wall? You know it's going to happen. You know you're weakening, while we're getting stronger.'
The panther snarled and the Archon's eyes flickered. I hoped it was fear.
I raised up the axe. 'Do you dare face me in that form, sorcerer?' I said.
I swung the axe with all my strength. There was a sound like a potter's furnace exploding. The shimmer of the wall glowed white hot, then vanished. I stepped forward, the panther at my side.
'To kill me,' I said, 'you must destroy all else.'
I knew by the fire dying in his eyes what I'd said was true. Hate unfroze him and he reared up and the air crackled with magic. I threw the axe. It hit him square in the chest - biting through and carrying him back. He slammed against the wall. He should have been dead then. Or, I should say, dead again - for I slew him once before. But he struggled up, the axe hanging from the wound. I drew my sword to finish him off, but before I could, red smoke poured from his body. It boiled up until it filled the room to the high ceiling. And out of that smoke reared the transformed Archon.
The two-headed lion roared at me; twin jaws gnashing teeth as long as spears. But the roar was answered in kind by the panther. She leaped for the beast and sunk her teeth into its forepaw. The lion heads shrieked pain and anger. The beast hurled the panther from it, but as she cat-twisted in the air, she grew in size and by the time she landed and came up again, her head was as high as mine. With a final enraged howl, the beast that was the Archon burst through the walls of the turret, spread wings and flew away.
The
castle
shuddered. Molten iron began to run down the walls. Then the entire edifice -
castle
, machine, simulacrum, and all -began to crumble around and under me. The panther screamed, jolting me out of my shock. Somehow I knew what I had to do. As the floor collapsed, I jumped for her, grabbing great fistfuls of fur. I felt her leap and we were soaring through the gaping hole the Archon had made.
Instead of falling, she soared up and up. I twisted until I was on her back, riding her through the night skies. I looked beneath me and saw the iron
castle
explode in flame and fury. Then I looked ahead and far away I saw the red wings of the fleeing Archon.
The panther moved faster, then faster still, until all was a blur of wind stinging my eyes. I clutched her tighter, felt myself blend with those great, rolling muscles. Then those sleek muscles were mine, and the sharp heavy claws as well. The panther's heart was my heart, and my nerves were afire with quick cat hate, and my mind hungered for the stalk and the kill. I was that panther now, and I howled in joy at all the strength and hate inside me as I pursued the Archon. I leaped from cloud to cloud, disdainful of all winged things, which must be my meat if I commanded it.
I caught him first on a mountain top. Fire and lightning flared from the mouths of the beast. But my panther reflexes let me slip easily past those threats and as I closed he fled again. I was just on his heels now; but a great black hole yawned in the sky and the beast shot through it. I followed - knowing I was leaving this world for another, but my panther's heart didn't fear, my panther's brain didn't care - and I found my panther self charging across a great field of ice.
It was translucent blue and shot with thick pink veins. My claws scythed out, gripping the ice and I scrambled across it, screaming my panther war cry at the lion beast just ahead. I didn't have to think that neither of us could take to the air in this place, I just knew it; accepted it as the law that governed creatures such as ourselves.
Then the world shifted again and I was in another place. A place of fire and thick smoke. I charged blindly ahead, my paws skittering and scorching on the hot path, my lungs searing in the heat. It must have been just as hellish for the Archon, because the fiery world suddenly dissolved around me
...
and I found myself in a narrow ravine.
Poisonous snakes littered the path by the hundred and they struck at me - a dozen at a time - but I bounded over them; leaping from boulder to great boulder. The ravine, whose walls soared high on either side, twisted like those snakes towards a huge rock face. Far above, sitting on that clifftop, was an emerald-domed palace with columns of gold, which gleamed in the moonlight.
The twin-headed lion was trying to scramble up the rock face to the palace; somehow I knew if he reached it, all would be lost. But the rock was rotten shale; crumbling under his powerful claws.
I screamed and my hunter's cry froze him. The beast turned to confront me. He grew larger and larger and then he transformed into the shape of the Archon again. But this Archon was twenty feet high or more and he had immense lion claws and huge yellow teeth. He howled a challenge that echoed all along the ravine. I leaped up at him; felt those claws close on me and pierce my flesh.