Lyndon Hardy - Riddle of the Seven Realms

Astron looked back at Nimbia and saw her collapse into a heap. "I call this the realm of the conways," she panted in almost total exhaustion. "It is a universe based upon-"

"I apologize for the wasting of your time with meaningless competition," Prydwin interrupted. "This is no better, Nimbia, than your offering the last time you were called forth."

"It is worse." Finvarwin squinted into the ring of djinns. "I see nothing but the dull repetition of red and blue. A well-defined realm, it is true, but one that bores after the briefest of inspections."

"But it is indeed my best!" Nimbia tried to regain her feet, but could not find the strength. "Look at what is there, Finvarwin. How can you so lightly dismiss what I have done?"

"Nimbia." Prydwin smiled. "Surely, even with the cloak, you must have known I would suspect-an unknown hillsovereign who mumbles to the high king only the minimum necessary to be granted a turn to present, an unknown hillsovereign indeed!"

Prydwin turned to Finvarwin. "You have already granted me the boon of Nimbia's underhill, venerated one," he said. "What additional might I expect now that I have won the wager doubled?" He turned and called back up the hill. "Sentrymen, seize them. This time she will not escape."

Astron looked at Finvarwin but saw that the old one was unmoved. He swayed slightly on unsteady limbs but otherwise did nothing to explain his decision.

"No!" Nimbia cried out. "A second punishment will only add injustice to the first. It is not the fault of those who have dwelt in my underbill that these creations have failed to find your favor, Finvarwin." Slowly she extended her arms trembling from exhaustion, offering her wrists for bondage. "If any payment is to be made, it is the duty of their queen and no other."

"What, this is Nimbia?" Finvarwin said. "The hooded queen and she are one and the same?"

Astron watched Finvarwin's squint deepen as Nimbia struggled to stand. The hunched figure reminded him somewhat of Palodad, physically infirm yet continuing as he had for perhaps eons before. Age should have brought increased wisdom and the ability to judge better what his senses presented to-

Astron stopped in midthought. The explanation burst upon him. "He cannot see!" he shouted to Nimbia. "He can no longer discern detail-only large movements and general shapes. Finvarwin has judged your creations inferior because he never noticed the structures of what was really there."

Astron's thoughts raced. Just as in his experiments, sharpness of vision in a living being was a matter of lenses and bending light. He remembered the book of thaumaturgy and the many interesting diagrams it contained. Dropping to the ground, he began pawing rapidly through the contents of his pack, looking for what might give Nimbia one last chance.

With a surprising nimbleness, he fashioned some bits of copper wire into two small circles, connected them with an arc of metal and then attached longer straight segments on either side. He grabbed at one of the large flat leaves near the stream bank and tore it into two disks that fit over the rings of copper, hoping the oozing sap would hold them firm. With a last segment of wire he punched a tiny hole in the center of each of the green disks.

"Here, try these." He raced up to Nimbia's side, extending his construction forward for Finvarwin. "Place them astride your nose and over your ears. The scene will be dim but a pinhole works as well as the finest correcting lens. I have tested the effect in Nimbia's underhill and seen how sharp the focus can be."

Astron's hood flew backward as he ran, but he was too excited to care. Finvarwin must see Nimbia's creation as it was meant to be viewed.

"The demon," Prydwin shouted suddenly in recognition. "The one who kept Nimbia from me, as was my due at the last competition. Challenge him, pipers, make him submit to our collective will."

Astron grimaced. The memory of his last ordeal sprang frightfully into his mind. And within their circle, there would be no way he successfully could resist.

"Like this." Astron demonstrated with the glasses and then thrust them into Finvarwin's hand. He started to say more, but felt a sudden compelling jolt. Staggering under crushing pressure, he sagged to his knees.

Through glazed eyes, he watched Finvarwin, with agonizing slowness, bring the strange object to his face. Astron pushed forward a resistance against the mental onslaught; but deep in his stembrain, he knew he would fail. His thoughts became sluggish, compressing in ways that were distasteful and bizarre. He saw the sentrymen racing closer, and among them Kestrel pounded down the hill with the rest.

"This is most amazing!" Finvarwin exclaimed. "There is more to your creation, Nimbia, than I first suspected. Yes, look at it-most clever, far more elegant that what Prydwin has offered to be compared."

"What is the ultimate precept?" Astron skrieked. "What law is supreme over all the rest? How does one start a fire in the realm of daemon? The prize for winning-the answers I must know."

"No, I am the winner." Prydwin swiped at Finvarwin's glasses, knocking them to the ground. "Do not be misled. It is some sort of demon trickery." He looked quickly about the glen. "Yes, there are four altogether. Get them all, the one still hooded and the other sprinting down the hill. Get them all while I reestablish contact with my realm of reticulates. Look again as you have before, my high king, and you will see."

Astron struggled to think what he should do, but he felt his being compressed into nothingness, all the sharp corners of his essence being smoothed away. With a dull thud, his head sagged to the wet earth. In a strange detachment, he noticed Kestrel being shoved to earth near his rucksack and Phoebe thrown beside it.

"Be careful, Prydwin," Astron dimly heard Finvarwin say. "Even a hillsovereign must abide by the decisions of the high king."

"I will accept no punishment for the likes of this," Prydwin growled.

"First, a competition that has been fairly won deserves its just reward," Finvarwin continued, "and then we will see what additional judgments are appropriate besides."

The high king paused briefly and cleared his throat. "Realities are no more than bubbles," he said. "That is the most profound truth that I know. If there is an ultimate precept, then somehow that knowledge must be a component part."

Astron tried to pull meaning from Finvarwin's statement but he could not. All he could do was focus on Prydwin's strident voice.

"There shall be no reversals of opinion, I say. If I cannot have Nimbia, then neither shall she have me. Quickly, sentrymen, I command you-all of them through the flame."

Phoebe's scream blotted out what Finvarwin said next. The last thing that Astron remembered was a sensation of being lifted and then being hurled through the air.

KESTREL shook his head, trying to force his thoughts to order. The disorientation was not as great as the first time he had travelled between realms, but it was there, nonetheless. He felt Astron's pack slide from his grip and crunch into a sea of sand that surrounded him as far as he could see. Vaguely, he remembered grabbing at the pollen sack as he was hoisted from the ground by Prydwin's sentrymen and bodily tossed at the ring of djinns. When he hit the plane of the vertical circle, he had felt a tremendous deceleration, like a ball of cotton hurled into a vat of thick molasses. The pack was almost wrenched from his grasp, but somehow he had held on and burst through to the scene that lay beyond.

He sat at what looked like the edge of a desert oasis. Astron lay crumpled at his side apparently unconscious. By Kestrel's feet was a placid circle of clear water with a diameter about twice the height of a man. He felt the rough bark of a tree at his back and saw five more arranged around the periphery at the vertices of a perfect hexagon. Phoebe wallowed to alertness in front of the tree directly opposite his own, trying to get her bearings. Next to the wizard, Nimbia slumped in a disarray of tunic, leggings, and cape.