David Grace - The Accidental Magician

Lastly, to the southeast yawned the Gate of Pain, jealously guarded by Nefra the Cruel. Nefra was Hazar's most bitter and most powerful enemy. His kinsmen maintained the aquifers which supplied fresh water from Lake Nefra some ten leagues to the south. Hazar's control of the city's food and now apparent control of the powerstones as well as his domination of Cicero's labor force excited Nefra's paranoia to a fever pitch. Hazar planned to elevate himself from lord to king, of this Nefra was certain. With such an ascension Nefra's fate would be sealed.

Castor rounded another bend, whereupon the trail disgorged its travelers in a cleared semicircle some three hundred yards in diameter. Directly ahead of him the first of the three slabs which composed the Gate of Dread gaped wide. Shouts and curses greeted the Grays as they emerged from the wall of briars.

Sleep-dulled curses urged them forward across the barrens and into the space between the first and second panels of the gate. Castor, as much as possible, kept to the center of the group of workers, hoping to remain inconspicuous among his fellows.

Guards patrolling the face of the wall repeatedly snapped their whips over the heads of the Grays, causing them to press closer together. At last almost a hundred Ajaj filled the space between the first and second panel. Reluctantly, the guards in the watchtowers began to crank their great wheels. On rollers of seasoned oilwood the huge front panel crept forward, foot by foot, closing off Cicero's Gate of Dread from the outside world.

When at last the panel was fully closed the second portion began to move backward, sliding into the wall. Again the Ajaj crowded forward, stepping over the foot-wide channel which guided the iron-bound wooden barrier. After the Grays had cleared the middle door, it closed and the third panel opened into the streets of Cicero. A clerk checked off the names and duties of the Grays as they passed the wicket.

"Name, number, and classification?"

"Castor, 972, senior empather."

"Castor, 972, but senior empather no more. Now by the grace and wisdom of Lord Hazar you are allowed to enter into a new profession: scullery apprentice, fourth class, in the lord's own household. To your right along the outer ring past the entrance with the red and black flag, down the stairs, knock on the door. Tell them you've been sent to clean the kitchens. Next!"

Numbly Castor stumbled forward, surprised, in spite of himself, that he had been allowed to live. A few yards past the clerk's desk he halted and turned back toward the gate. His pleasure at being alive vanished as he contemplated the scene before his eyes: burly copper-skinned soldiers patrolled the stone battlements above the gate. Gogols of various castes filled the walkways which paralleled the outer wall, beings who hated, distrusted, and loathed even each other. The depths of their insensitivity to the Ajaj could never be plumbed. The loss of a walking stick, the stain of a garment, upset them more than seeing a Gray gutted for its pelt. With an anger more terrible than any he had ever felt before Castor shambled forward toward Hazar's scullery. In the center of his rage Castor felt another emotion: fear, a fear that chilled him to the core-the fear of his realization that the only way that he would find peace was in Hazar's death or in his own.

Tears leaked from the comers of Grantin's eyes and his head bucked uncontrollably in the wind. Though the forces which propelled him protected Grantin from the full force of his passage, eddies and drafts and blasts of air penetrated the unstable shield. And the cold. Now that he was several thousand feet above the surface of Fane, Pyra's warmth had leaked away until the sun exuded only a thin, buttery light.

Grantin wrapped his arms around his torso and tried to orient himself so that he could view the approaching landscape from a more stable position. Loosening his left hand, he used it to shield his eyes. Through the cracks between his fingers he peered at the approaching Guardian Mountains. The band of the bloodstone ring pressed against his forehead. Images sporadically flashed into his brain. With each flicker a sensation like a high-voltage shock shuddered through his frame. Again and again these images displayed the scene of the imprisoned Fanist and the mad wizard who tormented him. Grantin recognized none of the pictures, although it seemed to him that in addition to that of the Fanist other visions repeated themselves. Two or three times he spied an Ajaj Gray clasping a green, square-cut gemstone.

At last, unable to bear the continuous shocks, Grantin wrenched his hand from his forehead and removed the ring from contact with his skull. Half a league ahead of him and to his right lay the first pass between the Guardian Mountains.

Somehow Grantin had to turn his course. At first he flailed his arms and contorted his body, as if he could jerk and skitter his way at an angle across the sky, but to no avail. If his course did not change, in less than a minute he would shred himself against the granite outcropping which protruded from the side of the first peak.

Grantin's body twisted in a slow clockwise movement. He unclasped his hands and extended both arms straight out from the shoulder, but instead of slowing the maneuver increased the rate of his spin. Willing now to try anything, Grantin swung his arms back, and the spin decreased. He put both arms directly in front of him, and the spin halted. His course slowly veered to the right. The ring itself seemed to be the medium of control.

Grantin began a hasty experiment. He pointed the powerstone directly at the approaching jagged wall, and his movement away from the peak accelerated. Somehow the stone sensed movement around it and compensated by adjusting the field in which Grantin was carried. Grantin found that if he shook his fist up and down his whole body likewise oscillated. As if to prove his theory, the shattered palisade slid by a hundred yards to the left. Grantin freely rode the air through the pass.

Now he struggled to orient himself. Standing upright, he set his legs wide apart, right hand on his hip, left hand extended as if holding a searchlight which could guide his way through the tangled peaks.

Each time he detected a bulge of rock or escarpment impinging on his line of flight, Grantin solemnly pointed the powerstone at the obstruction. Like the north pole of one very weak magnet approaching the north pole of another, Grantin's line of travel shifted and he was repelled from those obstacles toward which he oriented the bloodstone.

After a few minutes Grantin gained a certain sense of control, power, and even majesty. Like a minor god he bestrode the stone fortresses of Fane itself. One by one the battlements of the Guardian Mountains slid past. His twisting course at last opened to him a vista of the rich lands beyond.

Here were the outer borders of the Gogol realm, the boundary lands inhabited no doubt by bandits, outcasts, and fugitives from Gogol justice. And beyond? Ahead lay the fabled settlements of Hartford mythology-the Gogol encampments of Mephisto, Styx, and their capital city of Cicero, all places which Grantin had no desire to investigate. But that brought up another problem: how to end his wild ride and still keep his bones in one piece and his organs in their normal resting places? Perhaps if he forced himself lower his speed would decrease.

Grantin extended his left arm toward Pyra. Could he obtain a repulsion from such a distant body? He sighted along his extended member to keep it fixed at the sun. After a minute or two he glanced below him to see what effect, if any, his experiment had produced.

His breath caught in his throat and his heart squeezed into a small icy lump. His scheme had worked better than he dared to hope. Now he sped at terrific speed only thirty or forty yards above the ground. Trees roared forward, their branches grabbing at him, at the last second to pass only a scant ten or fifteen feet below his dangling legs.