Lyndon Hardy - Riddle of the Seven Realms

Nimbia stopped in mid-clap. She turned and regarded Astron for a moment with an amused smile. Then she broke into a gale of laughter, clasping her sides and poking her elbows at whomever was the closest.

"Yes, harebell pollen," she said. "That is all it would take. Who needs the logical precision of the male to temper the leaps of intuition if harebell pollen could be tossed through the ring? Even Prydwin's greatest triumphs-the realm of the chronoids, the realm of the reticulates-both could be challenged in a single judging. Yes, harebell pollen indeed."

Nimbia tried to say more but she clasped her sides again, unable to speak. Astron looked from side to side for explanation, but saw only other mirthful faces. His nose wrinkled. He turned back to face Kestrel with a shrug.

Nimbia suddenly stopped laughing. She tapped Astron on the shoulder. He saw that her face was completely sober.

"It is the way of the fey," she explained. "We cannot sip life in only half measures, but must drink deeply from the cup of emotions. It is no less than the first dictum-reality must mirror passion. How else can we create with a vividness that will live of its own volition?"

Astron started to reply but Nimbia shook her head. "For now, no more words," she said. "Do not disturb the joyousness of the feast. I owe my people no less." She reached out and gently touched his arm. "Even though you are no more than a demon, I wish that you would abide with me for a while. Abide with me, since your saving of a queen might not yet be complete."

ASTRON blew out all the candles except for the one on the far end of the oaken table. The remaining light was feeble, but he had had more than enough time to get familiar with the placing of even the tiniest obstacles in the small circular room. Fifteen marks Kestrel had gouged into the doorframe, one for each arising from his sleep. For the entire duration, Astron had been confined to the one room.

Despite the urgency, he had achieved no new progress toward his goal. The growing frustration made his stem-brain continuously active. A feeling of constant uneasiness ached just below his consciousness. He could not still the rumbling, no matter how hard he tried. With each passing tick of time, the chances of the survival of his prince and hence his own shrunk all the more. Something had to be done soon, no matter how interesting the other distractions.

They were not prisoners exactly, but Nimbia's sentrymen made clear with the force of their thoughts that wandering around underhill was highly discouraged. After the queen had dismissed them, they had not seen her again. Apparently Astron and his companions were left to their own devices until she saw fit to call them back to her presence.

Astron directed his concentration at what he had constructed. The idle time had not been a total waste, since there was much he had learned. The oaken table with the candle was straight on three sides, while the fourth was curved to meet the contour of the stone wall to which it was pressed. Square cells would have been much more efficient, Astron knew. Using stone instead of wood certainly must stress the mechanism that raised and lowered the hilltop, but he gathered that such practicalities were not the concern of the fey.

Next to the candle, hung from a cantilevered scaffolding made of twigs and branches, was a watersack from one of the large vines that grew aboveground. Astron had carefully pierced and drained the bladder and then refilled it with lamp oil obtained from another resinous herb. With bits of copper wire hooked into the surrounding leaves, the spherical globe was elongated and flattened, distorting it into a thin vertical disk.

At the other end of the table, the book of thaumaturgy that Astron had obtained from the archimage stood upright in a scaffolding similar to the first. The candle flame flickered through the orb of oil and cast a diffuse glow of light on the upright parchment, illustrating an image quite similar to the one Astron had constructed on the bench.

Astron studied the illustration for a moment more and then the arcane symbols written beneath it. The abstractions had been difficult to grasp at first, but the examples had helped a great deal. He turned to the bag of oil and moved it to a mark he had calculated before, roughly midway between the candle and book.

The diffuse halo of light on the parchment coalesced into a much sharper dot. Astron grunted in satisfaction. He cupped his hand in front of his lens so that only its very center received the candleglow and watched the focus on the book decrease to a single point of whiteness.

Astron moved the position of the book toward the candle and then adjusted the lens to regain the proper focus. He measured the distances from page to oilbag and oilbag to candle and checked the results with the predictions of the formula. After a half-dozen trials, he blew out the remaining light and sat in the darkness, contemplating what he had learned.

The ones who call themselves masters in the realm of men treated knowledge in strange ways, he thought. The basic principles of bending rays of light had no intrinsic connection to thaumaturgy or any other of the crafts known to mortals. But because these laws were used by practitioners of the magical arts, they were shrouded in secret like the rest. One went to a thaumaturge for telescopes or heating lenses, even though a glassblower could construct what was needed just as well without any recourse to the art, if he knew a few simple formulas. Unlike Prince Elezar's riddles, which extracted a price but once, knowledge in the realm of men was hoarded and reused again and again, demanding a fee each and every time.

Astron's reverie was broken by a pounding on the door. "The hillsovereign commands your presence," a voice on the other side said.

Astron scrambled out of his repose, opened the door, and burst into the hall. Perhaps at last he could continue the search for the answer to Gaspar's riddle.

He was joined shortly in the narrow curving hallway by Kestrel and Phoebe. While Astron had pondered the mysteries of thaumaturgy, they had spent much time together learning the fundamentals of the language of the fey. And the demon could not help noticing how much stronger the attraction between the two of them had become.

He had no chance to comment on the fact, however. In a short moment they were ushered into the presence of Nimbia in the central throne room. Nimbia wore a gown of iridescent pink that billowed and filled the high chair on which she sat. On either side, two pages stood at solemn attention, their copper spear points perfectly straight and aimed at the sculptured ceiling overhead. The openness that was present when Astron had first arrived had been replaced by substantial-looking panels that blocked everything behind from view. Footfalls echoed from the unadorned walls. Somewhere in the background, pipers still trilled melancholy airs.

"I apologize for my lack of attention," Nimbia said as they entered, "but the emotion had to run its course. Nothing has changed, of course, but at least now I can be a more proper hostess."

"How do you seek?" Astron ignored the courtesy. He quickly reviewed the questions that he had decided to ask at the first opportunity. "I deduce from what I have seen that you command the ring of djinns to bridge between realms that you have never seen before. How do you know they are there? Would not the action be one of discovery, rather than creation?"

A weak smile appeared on Nimbia's face. "I see our control of your kind is not something you ponder lightly," she said.

"I appreciate the extent of your power," Astron answered. "The youngest hatchlings are taught to avoid the lure of the fey." He wrinkled his nose. "But even the mightiest djinn cannot respond to an order poorly formed. He cannot pass through the barrier to another realm unless you explicitly direct him there. If he knows it not and neither do you, there is no way an opening can be formed."