Robert Vardeman - Istu awakened

Here and there blocks of stalactites of ice had fallen and damaged buildings. Fost, Moriana and Rann, who had all been there before, kept hands on sword hilts and a watchful eye for ice worms. These creatures, some big enough to swallow a man whole, infested the glacier to Guardian's annoyance, and had over the years filtered down to lair in the city.

But neither the unconscious vandalism of falling ice nor the invasion of the deadly worms detracted from Athalau's beauty. Yet it was not the beauty that gripped Selamyl or the others as they came up behind him to stand transfixed.

'I… I remember,' Selamyl said in a distant voice. 'This was meant to be.' As the quiet syllables echoed through the vast dome of ice, he set off at a vigorous walk down the road, neglecting now to use his cane.

No one had seen an Ethereal hurry before, let alone a crippled one, but one by one the rest came out of their trance and followed, some trotting to catch up. As if he had walked these boulevards every day of his life, Selamyl led them to a wide plaza at the center of the city, which was dominated by the most striking building in Athalau, a tower carved from a single giant ruby whose top was lost in the ice above. He turned down the street flanking the plaza and walked quickly to a building whose front was mostly blocked by a great chunk of ice fallen from above, crushing the marble portico.

He looked in dismay at the obstruction, and then down at the sinister rusty stains on the pavement under his feet. 'What has happened here? We must get in.'

Rann stepped forward, a curious half-smile on his hips. He scuffed at one stain with the toe of his boot. 'Blood,' he explained. 'Mine.'

Fost and Moriana looked at each other. They knew this place, and what had happened to it. It was the Palace of Esoteric Wisdom, once holding the Amulet of Living Flame and the treacherous Destiny Stone. The ice had not fallen by random chance. Erimenes had called it down to crush Rann and his bird riders, who had tracked Fost and others here to seize the Amulet for Synalon.

But the way into the Palace was not entirely blocked. Fost scrambled up with Rann close behind. Together they helped Selamyl over the rubble. He led them through the nave without a glance at the altar which had held the two talismans. To a stairway, down; deep below, beyond a door Erimenes swore had not been opened since before his time, to where the Nexus lay.

It didn't look like much. It was only a pattern traced on the floor in some dull metal, a square mandala with various nodes, widening in the metallic track in a distribution that said chance but whispered some hidden design. It stretched thirty feet on a side with ten feet of floor surrounding it, a domed ceiling rising twenty feet overhead. Fost looked at Moriana, who shrugged. He could tell by the disappointment in her eyes that she felt nothing of power here.

But Selamyl walked in with eyes aglow to the center of the Nexus and fell to his knees in rapture. And one by one, the Ethereals followed him in, trancelike in their movements, and each moved to a spot on the design and dropped in turn to a kneeling posture, as if by prearrangement. Now Fost sat on the edge of the bed gazing down at the princess.

'Tell me what happened after you left Brev,' she asked, and he did so. She caught her breath when he mentioned waking in the middle of the night to see Synalon in conversation with the black Dwarf, though he admitted it might have been some trick of the light. Moriana said nothing to this, but her expression was eloquently skeptical.

She squeezed his hand during the account of the battle with the skyrafts. When he came to what happened next he broke down and sobbed and, holding him, Moriana cried, too. She had been jealous of Jennas once, but had come to honor and even love the brave, wise woman who had done so much to aid Fost.

'I don't know why Synalon did it,' Fost said over and over, shaking his head. 'It was insane. She had no way of knowing the bear riders wouldn't tear her apart.'

'She is insane,' agreed Moriana. 'Rann has spoken of difficulties he had with her, trying to build a strategy on the shifting sands of her whim.' She sat up, gathering the sheets around her, drew up her knees and rested her chin on them, frowning. 'But perhaps it was no mere freak of her temper that made her act so. Perhaps it was planned, to impede our bringing the Ethereals here.' Fost looked away. A cold lump settled in the pit of his stomach.

'There was more to it than that,' he said reluctantly. And he told her the story of his seduction by Synalon.

When he finished he heard nothing but her measured breathing at his back. He thought he'd hurt her too badly for forgiveness and waited to be ordered from the room.

What came weren't harsh words but a gentle touch on his shoulder.

'Fost, dear Fost.' She raised herself, leaning against him. 'I should have warned you. I saw she admired you.' She took his chin and swung his face to hers. 'I know my sister's ways. She is beautiful and knows how to wield her beauty like a paintbrush or a sword. I think I would not have things otherwise. The man who could resist her attentions once would be more than human.' Her mouth twisted. 'Or less than a man, like Rann.' She kissed him.

A while later he said, 'But what of us? Do you think she'll make trouble because it's you I want?'

'Didn't she say something about sharing you with me? I think she accepts our relationship – for now.' He felt her draw away. 'Do you want that, too? To parcel yourself out to both her and me?' He took her in his arms and let his body answer.

The city came to life again for the first time in almost two hundred years. The caravans Moriana had dispatched from Tolviroth Acerte weeks before arrived bringing sorely needed supplies. The merchant fleet lay at anchor in Dawngold Bay thirty miles east of Athalau, and Guardian obligingly opened a new passageway to permit the supplies to be portaged overland and into the city. He did so eagerly because it was always a source of deep sadness for the glacier that he had watched over the death of the city. Now he could take part in Athalau's rebirth. Sometimes he chuckled to himself, the sounds of his pleasure booming through the tunnels and streets.

No one felt mirth at the word the fleet brought with them. The party Moriana sent out to meet the ships was astonished to find twice as many ships riding anchor in the mouth of the Gulf of Veluz. The extra vessels were refugees fleeing the wrath of Istu, which had descended on Tolviroth Acerte not long after Moriana and the rest departed. The survivors were shocked and scarcely coherent but reported that the city had been captured, not utterly obliterated as Kara-Est had been. It was small comfort.

Under the surprisingly steady guidance of the youthful Cerestan, refugees began to stream into Athalau from Brev. And not only from Brev and Bilsinx but from as far north as the Black March. Word had spread that mankind would make its last stand in the icebound citadel of the south. Perhaps, as Rann speculated, Zak'zar had spread the rumors himself in the hope of straining Athalau's tenuous supply lines to breaking. There were other cities that had yet to suffer the attentions of the Sky City: Port Zorn in the east, Duth and Kolinth and those of the other City States that had not lain in the City's path from the Black March to Medurim, Thailot and Deepwater and the Sjeddland cities west of the Thails. But it was also true that Athalau offered the best hope for humanity's survival – the only hope.

If it was the Vridzish's wish to weaken the defenders of Athalau with hunger, that tactic was in vain. The supplies Moriana had ordered to the lost city were plentiful and great stores of travellers' fare lay in the vaults beneath Athalau. This was magically preserved dried food meant to sustain life over long journeys. It was scarcely palatable, but it did what it was intended to do. Moreover, game teemed in the Ramparts this season; hunting was good, if risky. Eventually the food stocks would run low, but Rann doubted the Fallen Ones would feel they had the leisure to wait. Every day the humans explored Athalau increased their chances of being able to successfully summon the World Spirit. It soon became apparent that the Zr'gsz would not wait. Bird riders reported that the Sky City passed first Bilsinx and then Brev, and Istu smashed each city flat. But they were abandoned by then. He reaped few souls for his collecton.