A. Hartley - Will Power

Their horses hesitated at the foot of the stairs, but only for a moment. Then-implausibly-they were coming, lances lowered like a gray thicket of death, and there was nowhere for us to go. I had never seen horses move like that. It was like they weren’t actually horses at all, or had been taken over by some controlling mind. The Stehnites shrank back and even Toth and Orgos lowered their weapons and stood watching as the horses clattered up the steps toward us.

“Any ideas?” Orgos asked me, a lightness in his voice that did not register in his face. “Any pearls of wisdom you picked up in their company that will give us an edge?”

“They’re afraid of cheese,” I suggested.

Through one of the high ecclesiastical windows I could see the city walls, where tall, pale soldiers fired volley after volley of arrows onto the army that boiled around the city. Mithos was out there with the Stehnites, but their only hope of victory was if we could open the breach to them. The walls-ironically, the walls they themselves had made-were too strong. I looked desperately around, but we were badly outnumbered, and fighting was useless. It was only a matter of time now before the Stehnite attack outside the city failed, our little incursion having been utterly contained before we could even threaten the walls from the inside. Now we would be captured or slaughtered, Sorrail would return to the siege, and the ancient mind that lived in the library would vanquish the Stehnites once more.

The mind in the library. The force that was guiding those horses and making the army behave as if it had one conciousness. The heart of the Arak Drül, their purpose, their guardian angel, their guiding, blinding light. .

And suddenly our path was clear to me, though the thought was dreadful and I immediately wished I could put it back and forget it, unsee it in my head somehow. Through the throng of anxious Stehnites huddled together on the great dome-lit landing, I could see the corridor that led down to the brass-paneled doors where I had met and wrestled with the guardian of Phasdreille. I pointed through the crowd and shouted, “That way! Run! Open those doors. Quickly!”

Toth was the first to move and he was down the passage before I had taken a step. But as he stretched out his arm to the door handle, a throbbing pulse of light coursed up and down the brass and, in a brilliant flash, he was thrown heavily backward. One Stehnite ran to him, and another tried the door, with the same effect.

“Degenerate fools,” said a voice.

I turned and found Sorrail, still mounted, only feet from me, and watching us with a scornful leer distorting the features that had once seemed so perfect.

“Do you think we would leave our holiest shrine open to their defiling hands?” he snarled.

No one spoke. The Stehnites shrank back from him and his men, sensing that they were heavily outnumbered. Sorrail continued, still smiling nastily. “No one can enter there unless the soul of our people permits it.”

“I wonder,” I said, aloud.

“I thought I might find you here,” he said, “blending in with the sub-humans. And I see your lies have dragged the fair Lady Renthrette with you. That is unfortunate, but I suppose it was inevitable: Corruption cannot be washed away. Now, throw down your weapons.”

There was a moment of silence, then an irregular clatter as some complied. I knew beyond any doubt that he was lying about the door, but I didn’t want to prove it. I didn’t want to go back in there with whatever it was that looked like a hooded man but wasn’t. I couldn’t bear to let him inside my head again, let him tear out my thoughts like some creature scooping out my brains and entrails.

So stay right here, I thought. Surrender. You’re not a goblin. They may still spare you. It’s not your war. You don’t even belong here. You’re an Outsider.

And then I realized that those weren’t my thoughts at all. They appeared in my head, but they came from inside the chamber.

That rather changed things. I launched myself against the brass doors and threw them open easily. Before I even looked inside, I turned back to the astonished faces, Stehnite and Arak Drül alike, and I shouted, “You lie, Sorrail. Your whole world is a lie. The doors are guarded only against those who belong in your war. I, however, am an Outsider.”

He spurred his horse at me, and a dozen of his cavalry came with him, charging me down. I stood in the doorway of the huge ruined chamber with its wrecked furnishings and devastated manuscripts, and in the same instant Orgos leaped out between me and the horsemen, engaging them with a great swinging flourish of his sword. I permitted myself only the briefest glance at the clash which followed as Sorrail stormed into the fray before turning and stepping through the doors and into the great, ravaged room.

He was there, waiting for me, the ancient hooded figure whose mind I had felt moments before.

His thoughts caught me like a dozen hands and pinned me where I stood. Toth tried to come after me, but the moment he entered the chamber he was caught up, as if seized by a great wind, and flung heavily back against the wall. His weapon splintered at the handle, and he cried out in rage and pain. The cloaked figure in front of me had barely moved, and his eyes were still on me. Dimly I knew that only the Outsiders were a threat to him for the same reasons that only we could pass the great brass doors. We didn’t belong here in their world, their war. But what we could possibly do to him, I didn’t know. How do you harm someone you suspect is really a spirit or, worse still, an abstraction, an idea which holds a culture together? Even if I hadn’t already been paralyzed, my own indecision would have prevented further action.

Then the grip on my mind and body fluttered for a second, and I became aware of another figure entering the room. Actually, there were several. Half a dozen or more of the Arak Drül cavalry burst in, their horses oddly placid, as if sleepwalking, and with them came a disordered rabble of Stehnites. These were lifted and scattered by invisible hands, but one kept coming, cutting at the horsemen as he did so: Orgos. I felt the mind that held me struggling, but it was momentary. Whatever threat my sword-master friend posed to the hooded figure evaporated almost immediately. Immobile though I was, I heard the distinctive snap and rush of a crossbow. Orgos fell to the ground, clutching his midriff. In the second of semi-freedom which followed, my eyes flashed up to where the sound had come from. There, poised on a stone balcony over the central throne, was Aliana, methodically fitting another bolt into her weapon.

Any awareness of what was happening around me was promptly shattered by a voice in my head, ancient but clear and hard as glass, which broke in upon my thoughts like a brilliant light. The words bit like steel into my brain: “Outsider, I am the Soul of my people, a people as strong as they are beauteous, a people immune to the corruptions your kind bring with you. But you and your dogs have dared to challenge your betters, and you must therefore be educated in courtesy. You will not like the lesson.”

I think he was laughing, though the scornful amusement was overshadowed by his terrifying hatred. But then the impression of his voice flickered and I could see and hear the horsemen methodically lining up in front of him. Around the room I glimpsed crumpled figures: Orgos, Toth, other Stehnite warriors. Whether they were paralyzed or dead, I could not say. Among the horsemen was Sorrail, stern and implacable as before, his dark cape of wolf hides making him grotesque, nightmarish. But I was temporarily free, and, turning, I could see why: Lisha and Renthrette were walking purposefully into the library. Whatever had held me had bigger fish to fry.