Robert Vardeman - Istu awakened

'Kill her! Kill the bitch!' somebody cried as the bear riders rushed to their chieftain's aid.

'No!' Jennas's voice was strong but ragged with pain. 'It – ah! – it was a fair fight. She challenged and I accepted.' 'She struck when you stayed your hand,' growled a bear rider.

'The fight was fair.' Jennas's body shook. She clamped her jaw against the pain. Blood welled around her teeth. 'You must not harm her. She must yet play her part or all… oh… all is lost.' She looked around wildly.

'Vancha! Promise me. You will aid the outlanders as we promised. Do it for our people, or they shall… pass.'

The redhead thrust herself forward, shouldering aside the warriors as if they were children. 'I will,' she said through the tears streaming down her cheeks.

Jennas's back arched. When the spasm passed, she said weakly, 'Fost.'

'I'm here.' He knelt by her side and took her head, cradling it in his lap. His own face shone with tears.

'I know,' she said in an almost normal voice. 'Do not blame yourself. This was all… foretold.' She seized his arm in an iron grip. 'Keep well, Longstrider. For the sake of your people and mine. .. and your golden-haired princess. And, ah… remember Jennas, who loved you.' Her head rolled back on lifeless muscles.

The Ust-alayakits surged toward Synalon, raising blades and torches. A huge figure stepped between them and her. An axe head glittered against the stars, came howling down to split a stone in a shower of sparks.

'No!' roared Vancha Broad-Ax. 'You'll obey our hetwoman's command or I swear I'll butcher the lot of you!' Her face dissolved in tears, her huge body shaking. But the fat-ringed hands that gripped the black haft were as steady as rock. All knew that what Vancha Broad-Ax promised, she performed. The Ust-alayakits drew back.

Heedless, Fost let Jennas fall and lunged for Synalon, ripping his sword from his scabbard.

'You murdering bitch!' he shouted, cocking his arm to run her through.

'Will it be you to break the oath, then?' she asked, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. 'What do you mean?'

'The oath we swore in Tolviroth Acerte. Was it just words to you?' 'But you've broken it, you murderous… thing. You killed Jennas.'

'Oh? Perhaps my memory fails me,' she said, tilting her head as if listening to a distant voice. 'When we swore that oath together, I do not recall Jennas being there.'

The strength went out of Fost. His sword tip drooped to the ground. His knees gave way beneath him. He sensed a nearness, looked up to see Vancha against the stars.

'What Jennas commanded shall be done, outlander,' she said. 'We shall aid you in reaching the Gate of the Mountains, and you and your witch-woman will come to no harm. But I beg you, stay out of my sight from this moment on. I would not betray my hetwoman's last wish!'

With a sob, she turned and fled. One by one, the Ust-alayakits turned and walked away until he was alone with Synalon and Ziore and a grief as boundless as the uncaring skies above.

Fost stared in amazement. When the bird rider patrol had spotted them at the head of the pass and winged low enough to shout down that the way into Athalau lay open, Fost assumed that Guardian had opened a narrow passage as he had done previously. Or Moriana had found an ice worm tunnel and convinced the glacier to let the humans use it. Instead, a great arched tunnel yawned ahead. Synalon's dog trotted around the bend and stopped beside the bear Fost rode. 'My sister's done well.'

Fost only grunted. He could still scarcely bear to speak to Synalon. Though last night, only a night after Jennas's murder, when she had come to him – that had required no talking.

Wings cracking like sails in a stiff wind, a flight of bird riders passed low overhead and disappeared through the entrance. Fost heard the scraping of a cane, and Selamyl came into view. He stopped. His face lit with awe and wonder, and then he dragged himself on.

Vancha Broad-Ax appeared at the head of the file of Ethereals. Seeing the entry opened in the living ice, she stopped and stared for a long moment. She turned then to Fost, looked through him, wheeled her huge mount and went back the way she had come. Shouts echoing down the canyon told Fost the bear riders were going home. Jennas's last command had been fulfilled.

Another shout brought Fost's head around. His heart jumped in spite of grief and bone-deep weariness, and he kicked the bear into a lumbering run toward the tunnel and the woman and the blue figure stepping from it.

In all his fevered adolescent fantasies, Fost had never even remotely imagined that he might pass a night in fabled Athalau, lying abed on silken sheets with a beautiful princess. Of course, if he had dreamed of the horrors and travails that went along with the fulfillment of the never-entertained fantasy, he probably would have slit his wrists.

The six of them had exchanged terse greetings over dinner in a dormitory in the center of Athalau, next to the Palace of Esoteric Wisdom. On convincing Guardian to open the pathway, Rann had sent back a message via Moriana for a squadron of bird riders to come ahead and provide defensive strength. Their meat that evening was an antelope the flyers had shot in the foothills, quartered and flown in.

After dinner, Fost and Moriana bid good night to Synalon and Rann. Fost had dreaded this moment but Synalon did not explode with temper, did nothing but smile and nod in a specially meaningful way before going off with her eunuch cousin. Moriana watched them go. 'They're up to something,' she said quietly. 'I mistrust them.'

They ensconced Ziore and Erimenes in a room on the bottom floor of the dormitory where the sounds of their reunion wouldn't keep the others awake all night. Then Fost and Moriana climbed the stairs to their chamber on the second floor for a more intimate welcoming of their own.

Half-drowsing afterward, Fost lay on his side, running his fingers through Moriana's hair. It was fine and soft – like Synalon's. He shook himself. He didn't want to take that pathway. 'What's the matter?' Moriana asked sleepily.

'I was just wondering about this room. The bed smells fresh and these sheets certainly don't seem two hundred years old.'

'We had Rann's bird riders fly in the bedding this afternoon,' she said. 'As for the sheets, they're of Athalar make and meant to last.' 'It's just as well,' he said, glancing down at the rumpled bedding. She smiled lazily. 'Let's test them again,' she said, reaching for him.

Finishing, they drowsed for a time, woke, made love again. Privately Fost marvelled at his own response. Synalon had been wringing him dry every night since the first time in the Ethereals' village. But he wanted to lose himself in the taste and scent and feel of Moriana, the textures and tempos of her body, and it was as if he hadn't been with a woman in weeks.

When they were done, he rose and poured them both wine from a crystal decanter.

'It's hard to believe this hasn't gone to vinegar,' he said, carrying the cups to the bed.

'The Athalar magics were versatile.' She sipped the wine. 'I hope their knowledge can be recovered.'

They had made a good start that day, and a vital one. As they had walked the long road leading from the Gate of the Mountains down into the softly glowing city, Fost had remarked that he hoped they would be able to find the Nexus in time. It'd be brutal irony to make it all the way here and then not find that which they sought.

'I don't know where it lies,' Erimenes said. 'But I think it will be no problem. The Ethereals have Athalau in their blood. Being present in the city works on me, makes my powers grow. They will know where they are to go, mark my words.'

And it was true. Selamyl had no sooner set foot on the rim of the depression in which the city lay than he stopped and went as rigid as a hunting dog catching a scent. Fost thought it simple wonder at first. There was reason enough for that. One didn't have to be of Athalar descent to marvel at the beauty of the place, its soaring spires and well-ordered colonnades, a symphony of form and shape and color. A smooth, seamless substance paved the road that sloped gently before them into the heart of the city. Over all shone the sourceless, shifting, polychromatic and restful light of Athalau.