Энн Маккефри - The Ship Who Won

The items of power that descended from the Ancient Ones to the Old Ones and thence to the mages varied in design, but all had the same property, the ability to draw power from the Core of Ozran, the mystic source. There seemed to be no particular pattern the Ancient Ones followed in creating objects that channeled power: amulets, rings, wands, maces, staves, and objects of mysterious shape that had to be mounted in belts or bracelets to be carried. Plennafrey had even heard of a gauntlet the shape of an animals head. Nokias' bore upon his wrist the Great Ring of Ozran and also possessed amulets of varying and strange shapes. His followers had fewer, but all these artifacts had one feature in common: the five depressions into which one fit ones fingertips when issuing the mental or verbal Words of Command.

«Enough bickering,» Nokias said wearily. «Are we agreed then? To take what we can of Klemay's power? What we find shall be shared between us according to seniority.» Nokias settled back, the look in his eyes indicating he did not expect a challenge. «And strength.»

«Agreed,» the voice issued forth from Potria's spy-eye.

«Yes,» boomed Howet.

«All right,» Asedow agreed sourly.

«Yes.» Plenna added her soft murmur, which was almost unheard among the other equally low voices around the great room.

Iranika alone remained silent, having had her say.

«Then the eyes have it,» Nokias said, jovially, slapping his huge hands together.

Plennafrey joined in the chorus of groans that echoed through the chamber. That joke was old when the Ancient Ones walked Ozran.

«How shall we do this thing, High Mage?» Potria asked. «Open attack or stealth?»

«Stealth implies we have something to hide,» Asedow said at once. «Ancient treasures belong to anyone who can claim and hold them. I say we go in force and challenge Ferngal openly.»

«Ah!» Potria cried suddenly. «Ferngal and the Easterlings are on the move at this very moment! I sense a disruption in the lines of power in the debated lands! Unusual emanations of power.»

«Ferngal would not dare!» Asedow declared.

«Wait,» Nokias said, his brows drawn over thoughtful eyes. His gaze grew unfocused. «I sense what you do, Potria. Dyrene"—he raised a hand to one of his minions hovering just behind her masters chair. «You have a spy-eye in the vicinity. Investigate.»

«I obey, High Mage,» Dyrene's voice said. The young woman was monitoring several eyes at once for Nokias, to keep the High Mage from having to occupy his attention with simple reconnaissance. «Hmm—hmmm! It is not Ferngal, magical ones. There is a silver cylinder in the crop fields among the workers. It is huge, High Mage, as large as a tower. I do not know how it got mere! There is a man nearby and . . . I do not know this person.»

Iranika cackled to herself. The other spy-eyes spun on hers, pupils dilated to show the fury of their operators.

«You knew about it all the time, old woman,» Potria said, accusingly.

«I detected it many hours ago,» Iranika said, maddeningly coy. «I told you there had been strange movement in the ley lines, but did you listen? Did you think to check for yourselves? I have been watching. The great silver cylinder fell through the sky with fire at its base. A veritable flying fortress. It is a power object of incredible force. The man who came from within has been consorting with Klemay's peasants.»

«He is not tied to the Core of Ozran,» Nokias declared after a moments concentration, «and so he is not a mage. That will make him easy to capture. We will find out who he is and whence he comes. Lend me your eyes, Dyrene. Open to me.»

«I obey, lord,» the tinny voice said.

Concentrating on his target, the Mage of the South laid his left hand across his right wrist to activate the Great Ring, and raised both hands toward the window. A bolt of crackling, scarlet fire lanced from his fingertips into the sly.

«He falls, High Mage,» Dyrene reported.

«I must see this stranger for myself,» Iranika said. Without asking for leave, her spy-eye rose toward the great window.

«Wait, high ones!» Dyrene called. «A peasant moves the strangers body. He carries it toward the silver tower.» After a moment, when all the spy-eyes hovered around Dyrene's sphere, «It is sealed inside.»

Iranika groaned.

«I want this silver cylinder,» Asedow said in great excitement. «What forces it would command! High Mage, I claim it!»

«I challenge you, Asedow,» Potria shrilled at once. «I claim both the tower and the being.»

Other voices raised in the argument: some supporting Potria, some Asedow, while there were even a few clamoring for their right to take possession of the new artifacts. Nokias ignored these. Potria and Asedow would be permitted to make the initial attempt. Subsequent challengers would take on the winner, if Nokias himself did not claim liege right to the prizes.

«The challenge is heard and witnessed,» Nokias declared, shouting over the din. He raised the hand holding the Great Ring. With a squawk, Plenna sent her spy-eye to take refuge underneath Nokias's floating chair and warded the windows of her mountain home. Humming, scarlet power beams lanced in through Nokias's open window, one from each of the two mages in their mountain strongholds. They struck together in a crashing explosion sealed by the Great Ring. «And the contest begins.»

All the eyes flew out of the arching stone casement behind the challengers to have a look at the objects of contention.

«It is bigger than huge,» Plennafrey observed, spiraling her eye around and around the silver tower. «How beautiful it is!»

«There are runes inscribed here,» Iranika's old voice said. Plennafrey felt the faint pull of the old woman trying to attract attention, and followed the impulse to the red spy-eye floating near the broad base. «Come here and see. I have not seen anything in all my archives which resemble these.»

«I spy, with my little eye, an enigma of huge and significant proportions,» Nokias said, his golden sphere hovering behind them as they tried to puzzle out the runes.

«It is a marvelous illusion,» Howet said, streaking back a distance to take in the whole object. «How do I know this isn't a great trick by Ferngal? Metal and fire—that's no miracle, High Mage. I can build something like this myself.»

«It is most original in design,» Noldas said.

«Ferngal hasn't the imagination,» Potria protested.

«Its lovely,» Plenna said, admiring the smooth lines.

Iranika sputtered. «Lovely but useless!»

«How do you know?» Potria snapped.

While her servos were taking care of Keff, Carialle kept vigil on the mountain range to the south. No rain was falling, so where had that lightning, if it was lightning, come from? An electrical discharge of that much force had to have a source. She didn't read anything appropriate in that direction, not even a concentration of conductive ore in the mountains that could act as a natural capacitor. The fact that the bolt had fallen so neatly at Keff's feet suggested deliberate action.

The air around her felt ionized, empty, almost brittle. After the bolt had struck, the atmosphere slowly began to return to normal, as if the elements were flowing like water filling in where a stone had hit the surface of a pond.

Her sensors picked up faint rumbling, and the air around her drained again. This time she felt a wind blowing hard toward the mountain range. Suddenly the scarlet bolts struck again, two jagged spears converging on one distant peak. Then, like smithereens scattering from under a blacksmiths hammer, minute particles flew outward from the point of impact toward her.

She focused quickly on the incoming missiles. They were too regular in shape to be shards of rock, and also appeared to be flying under their own power, even increasing in speed. The analysis arrived only seconds before the artifacts did, showing perfect spheres, smooth and vividly colored, with one sector sliced off the front of each to show a lenslike aperture. Strangely, she scanned no mechanisms inside. They appeared to be hollow.