Robert Vardeman - Istu awakened

Synalon had plied her battle magic, accounting for most of the creatures when they came. She and Fost had complete charge of the caravan's safety. The Ethereals had no concept of self-defense, nor any will to do so. They would stand looking vacant, even wistful, as a swarm of creatures like stinking scaled rats tore them to shreds. It was tribute to Synalon's sorcery more than Fost's bladecraft that so few had fallen.

'Yet they keep on,' he marvelled aloud. He had feared the Ethereals would lose heart and turn back as soon as misfortune fell. But they took the dangers and the deaths the same way they took the trudging hardship of the trek itself, with a stolid lack of concern. Fost began to see, as Rann had before him, that beneath their veneer of fecklessness and fragility these Ethereals had a strength of their own.

'We've made good time,' said Synalon from behind him. 'Three hundred miles in two weeks, afoot. We shall soon be at the Gate of the Mountains.'

Fost nodded, looking back down at the long file of Ethereals. Many straggled to one side or the other of the winding trail foraging for berries and edible roots. It was something the Ethereals were good at, and supplies had not yet become a problem.

Nor did the straggling bother Fost. As long as none drifted out of sight, it mattered little whether the Ethereals marched in line or not. With only two of them to guard so large a flock, it was luck alone that had kept the varied wolves from taking more.

'Why so downcast?' Synalon chided him. She flung out her arms and drew in a deep breath, causing her breasts to lift dramatically in the thin shirt. The nipples stood out in bold relief against the taut fabric, and he saw their ruddy color. 'It's a lovely day. The sun is high and hot and feels good on the skin, and the wind from the Ramparts still bears the chill of the Waste at its back to take the sting from the heat. And the flowers raise their heads all about, and their perfume fills the air. Aren't these pleasing to you, my Fost?' 'I never thought I'd hear such sentiments from you.' The music of her laugh filled the air.

'You've spent too much time with my dour sister. She's always striving after tomorrow. I am content to live with today, taking the sensations it gives me and enjoying them as best I can.' She looked at Ziore. 'Don't go all sour on me, little nun. I do lay plans against the future – aye, and hopes as well. But there are days when I immerse myself in the moment and revel in the million flavors of life.'

'Then why did you ally yourself with the Dark Ones?' Fost asked before good sense could stop the words. 'They are the foes of life.'

A shadow passed over her finely sculpted face like a cloud crossing the sun. 'I thought they could give me power, and that power would open gates to new sensations. What must it be like to stride among the stars as Istu did? To know at once the chill and heat of the Void, to shout into airlessness and race the light of suns?' She sighed deeply. 'But you shall now hear something I seldom say. I was wrong. The Dark knows no bitterer foe than I now.'

Does it? Fost wondered, remembering the dying firelight and the great black Dwarf beyond. But the perverse imp of defiance that made him blurt his question about Synalon's earlier pact with the Elder Lords had retreated, and he said nothing. Synalon loved him with a fiercely hot passion, physically at least, and he both feared and hoped that love extended to other dimensions. But she remained the mad, mercurial creature who had ruled the Sky City with a whim of steel and flame, and it wasn't safe to presume too far upon her good feelings.

'Your philosophy is similar to what Erimenes now believes,' Ziore commented.

'Ah, but I'm wiser than your Athalar sage, little sister,' Synalon cried, 'for I have long since learned that lesson and did not have to wait until I was dead.' Her hand shot out with a speed that reminded Fost of the Zr'gsz blood in her veins. She caught him by the wrist. She drew his scarred hand to her lips and kissed it gently. 'And now, my dear Fost, you shall learn why my way is wisest, to wring each moment dry of sensation without thought to the next.' 'What?' 'Look to the northern horizon, dear one.'

He did. His heart dropped into the bottom of his belly.

Like a fleet of ships upon the waves, they rode the air in a bobbing black line across the sky. Still too distant to be clearly seen, shimmering slightly in the waves of heat rising from the Steppe, the skyrafts grew even as Fost watched. Form and detail sharpened. His sword slid into his hand with a fluid motion.

Synalon sent her mount stiff-legged down the face of the knoll, sliding and staggering amid a slippage of small, loose stones. Fost followed, hoping his dog wouldn't break a leg. Synalon called for the Ethereals to close up into a group.

'No!' Fost shouted, and quailed as she turned a furious look on him. 'Have them scatter and hide the best they can. The Hissers are missile troops when they ride their rafts. If the Ethereals clump together, Zr'gsz darts will go through them like a sickle through ripe wheat.'

Her dog reached the foot of the ridge and galloped toward where Selamyl still dragged himself inexorably forward with his cane. Fost's beast pounded after.

She let him do the talking. He hurriedly outlined the danger to the Ethereals' leader, and what must be done. Selamyl smiled benignly.

'Holding perfectly still is a thing my folk are good at,' he said. He turned and began speaking, gesturing into the scrub around them.

One by one the Ethereals disappeared. Fost's eyes widened at the completeness with which they vanished. The Ethereals lacked wilderness craft but they could divorce their minds utterly from their bodies and drift among their dreams, immune to physical discomfort. Their bodies bent into unlikely shapes to take advantage of the sparse cover – and then they froze. In a matter of minutes, Fost saw only Selamyl. Then he, too, disappeared.

'Impressive,' said Synalon. 'But remember the Zr'gsz are airborne. They'll hunt the Ethereals from a different perspective.'

'But Oracle told me their eyesight is poor. Their eyes are attuned to movement rather than detail. If the Ethereals stay immobile, we have a chance.'

'I think I can help,' Ziore said urgently. 'This close to Athalau my powers are greater, like Erimenes's. I cannot turn the Hissers away, but I can slow small numbers of them.'

Anything that helped counteract the blindingly swift reflexes of the Vridzish would be of immeasurable aid.

Synalon's eyes glowed beneath half-lowered lids. Her lips moved as she spoke to herself. Ziore shuddered and drew away from the sorceress. Fost felt a thrill as though his nerve ends were tightly brushed by powers beyond his ken.

The rafts drew near, a score, two dozen. Fost's eyes unfocused. He blinked, realizing that there was a blurring of the line of dark stone rafts. A Hisser, highborn from his size and green cuirass, pointed and shouted a sibilant command. The formation split to avoid the disturbance, some going around, others up and over.

The air darkened, swirled, coalesced. A winged shape hung in air, a tiger's head swiveling at the end of a long snake's neck. At least six legs dangled from the bloated body. Fost couldn't be sure because the thing swam in and out of focus.

As the leading raft passed overhead, the thing half rolled, drumming the air with its wings. A claw shot up, up to and through the underside of the raft. The pilot hunched over the globe at the rear suddenly gave a ringing shriek. The claw drew down pulling the Hisser's smoking guts with it through the skystone. 'Great Ultimate,' Fost whispered.

'I think you've seen this magic before. Back in the tower of Kest-i-Mond.'

He recalled the striped ape monster, blinded by a deathbolt that failed to save the enchanter who cast it, and the nightmare chase it had given him through the corridors of the sorceror's keep. Fost's blade had passed harmlessly through it, and it flowed through solid walls and doorways as though they were air. Only by luring it into an open fumarole Kest-i-Mond had built his castle over had Fost avoided death. Synalon's magic now was identical with that he'd faced – and barely triumphed over.