Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Vondish Ambassador

Most of her audience simply watched at first, too surprised or nervous to move, but the other magicians followed her down into the opening in the earth, sinking slowly out of sight as if walking down a flight of stairs.

Then one of the gargoyles spoke, in a voice like stone grinding on stone – and, Emmis asked himself, what else would it sound like? "Go," it said.

That seemed to break the tension and everyone began moving forward, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Tithi and Annis seemed especially reluctant; the Lumethans, oddly, appeared more resigned than frightened. Emmis found himself somewhere in the middle of the line marching into the rift, with a soldier ahead of him and Lar behind him.

When he reached the opening he was not particularly surprised to see that there really were stairs leading down into the earth, carved from the soil of the garden. Something was wrong with the perspective, though – the stairs seemed to go on forever without ever reaching the far end of the rift. He could see and hear Ithinia far ahead and below, still playing her flute, and then the other wizards, and the theurgist and the demonologist behind them, then Lord Ildirin, and a few guards, spaced along what seemed to be a hundred yards of earthen steps that somehow fit into a twenty-foot trench.

Then he put his foot down on the first step himself, and it felt as if the World twisted beneath his feet; the midday sky was somehow behind him, more than above him. He tried to ignore the disorienting effects of the magic as he marched on down into the earth.

"Oh, gods!" Lar said behind him, as he, too, took that first step. He muttered something more, but it was in a language other than Ethsharitic that Emmis did not understand.

The warning against turning back had been a good idea, Emmis thought as he walked, because there was a wrongness to these stairs that made him want to turn and flee. He wondered whether there was really any danger, or whether Ithinia had said that to ensure that all her desired guests arrived at their destination.

He wasn't about to test it; there wasn't really room to squeeze past Lar and the others to get back out, and it was entirely possible that the Guildmaster had spoken the simple truth when she said it was dangerous.

Then a shadow blocked out the sunlight and Emmis glanced back to see that the gargoyles were entering the fissure – the entire party was now on the stairs.

Those stairs were changing. It was not that the one he stood on was any different from those above and below it, but that from where he stood they all appeared to be altered now. Instead of packed earth, the steps were stone now, and the slope was much shallower, and they weren't level – he felt as if he were walking forward on the edges of the steps, rather than walking down on their tops.

The walls on either side were stone as well, rather than earth, though he had been unaware of any change, and when he looked back they appeared to be stone all the way, there was no transition.

And then everything shifted again, and he was walking up a flight of steps, and the daylight behind him was gone entirely but he could see daylight ahead, where Ithinia was emerging from the stone tunnel into the midday sun.

If he could have picked up his pace Emmis would have done so, but the guardsman in front of him was trudging on at the same steady march he had maintained all along.

Finally, though, Emmis found himself climbing up a set of stairs in the middle of a broad paved plaza, where a crowd formed a large circle around the new arrivals, giving them a wide berth. Ithinia stood on the stones a few feet from the rift, playing her flute.

This was no plaza that Emmis had ever seen before, he was sure of that. One side was completely dominated by a tall and forbidding fortress of gray stone; the other five – yes, five; the plaza was hexagonal, like Hempfield Market, but larger and more regular – were lined with shops and tall, narrow houses.

On the side opposite the fortress the gaps between buildings, and the mouths of the streets, gave a view of empty air – there was obviously a slope on that side dropping away rapidly from the plaza. To either side of the fortress, streets climbed up a gentle slope. This plaza, whatever it was, was partway up the side of a large hill.

The architecture surrounding the plaza was subtly unfamiliar; the clothes worn by the observers weren't quite right, either, though Emmis had seen such garb before, on visitors from the Small Kingdoms. This was not in Ethshar of the Spices, he was sure. It was presumably somewhere in Lumeth of the Towers.

He stepped out onto the stone pavement – made, he saw, of the same stone as the tunnel walls – and moved to one side, to allow those behind him to emerge.

No one spoke as the guards and their prisoners climbed up out of the fissure in the pavement. When the gargoyles emerged, though, Emmis thought he heard gasps from the surrounding crowd.

Then Ithinia ended her tune with a final flourish, and slipped the flute into her sleeve; the instant the music stopped a loud rumble sounded, and the opening in the pavement closed itself up. As the two sides met the stones merged, leaving not the faintest crack; there was no indication that there had ever been a fissure.

Both the newly-arrived travelers and the watching natives murmured at this sight. Emmis wondered how they were to return to Ethshar; had Ithinia brought the materials to perform the spell again?

The wizard paid no attention to the closing fissure, though. Instead she raised her arms above her head and faced the fortress, looking up at a small enclosed balcony where a handful of men were standing.

"Lords of Lumeth of the Towers!" she shouted, her voice ringing out clearly. "Listen to the judgment of the Wizards' Guild!"

Emmis blinked. Judgment?

The people on the balcony seemed equally confused. "Who are you?" one of them shouted back. Another appeared to be translating for a third.

The Guildmaster lowered her arms. "I am Ithinia of the Isle, and I speak for the Wizards' Guild – let my companions attest to my authority!"

The other three wizards stepped toward her, facing the balcony. The oldest-looking of them announced, "I am Serem the Wise, from Ethshar of the Sands, and I say that Ithinia speaks for the Guild."

The youngest in appearance – though it occurred to Emmis that appearances could be very deceptive in the case of wizards – then called, "I am Kaligir of the New Quarter in Ethshar of the Rocks, and Ithinia speaks for me and the wizards of my city, as well."

The third said, "I'm Zikel Thurin's son of Sardiron of the Waters. Listen to her."

"Shei Lumethis!" someone shouted; Emmis assumed it meant "Speak Lumethan!" The wizards ignored it.

"Satisfied?" Ithinia called.

"Couldn't you speak Lumethan?" another voice from the crowd asked, speaking Ethsharitic with a thick accent. "Not everyone speaks Ethsharitic!"

Ithinia kept her attention on the balcony.

"We will hear you," one of the others on the balcony called back. "Shall we retire to the audience chamber?"

"No. We will speak here and now, before all these people," Ithinia replied.

The men on the balcony stirred uneasily at that, but did not argue. "What is this judgment, then?" one of them asked.

"You have abused our gifts," Ithinia said. "You have used magic we entrusted to you, magic intended for the Guild's purposes, to send spies to Ethshar." She gestured toward the three bound Lumethans. "Your representatives have hired assassins, such as this one." She pointed to Tithi. "You have antagonized the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars – this man accompanies me as spokesman for his nephew Azrad VII, Overlord of Ethshar of the Spices, Triumvir of the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, Commander of the Holy Navies and Defender of the Gods." She turned her hand toward Lord Ildirin.