Lyndon Hardy - Riddle of the Seven Realms

"Astron," he called across the sand. "Somehow we have been transposed like the others. Do not fight the lieutenant. Turn clockwise with him and swing totally about."

But he need not have bothered. With the final gong of the clock, Kestrel saw his body vault up into the air and then streak away like the ones before. Grimly he forced his attention back to how he was going to ward off the two reflectives with a sword that was frozen in position in his alien left hand.

ASTRON cautiously felt the sand under the strange fingertips. First there had been the blurring and transformation so unlike ajourney between the realms. And then the flight away from the fighting to this deserted node. He must still his stembrain before he could think further.

Astron tried to flip down his membranes and then frowned in annoyance when they would not come. He shut his eyes and tried to ignore the unsatisfying blackness. Mentally, he reached for the panic that should be upwelling and concentrated on making it still.

His eyes blinked open. He looked about, surprised. There was no panic, no rumble of the base of his skull. He felt an internal discomfort from the flight and jarring landing, and his heart seemed to throb for no apparent reason, but otherwise he was in complete control of his thoughts.

Astron looked about puzzled. He saw Phoebe stagger to standing at the subnode to the left but noticed no other occupants of the oasis. Dimly, he remembered a reflective passing him halfway in his flight, going the other way. He released the sword he still held in his left hand and absently watched it fall at his side. His nose wrinkled as he saw small curly hairs on the back of his hand and arm, providing a wiry cover to a pale, smooth skin.

Kestrel, he thought. What had the human shouted about the transpositions that the reflectives were effecting with the huge clock of the chronoids? He held both arms up and then touched the smoothness of his forehead. He ran a finger over the more or less even row of teeth in his mouth and, reaching to his back, felt no knobs where the degenerate wing stubs should have been.

He breathed deeply and marveled at the feeling of the air coursing in and out of his lungs. A growl sounded in his stomach and a pleasant longing teased at his mind. Unbidden images of meat sizzling on a spit and the smell of fresh bread flitted, real and compelling.

"Oh, Kestrel, thank the random factors that you are here," Phoebe shouted as she ran to his subnode. "The blood and fighting with all that overpowering restraint was far worse than the alchemist's foundry. We are lucky to have survived."

He was not Kestrel, Astron thought. Words of denial started to form in his throat but his tongue felt strange and he only managed a cough instead.

"What is it?" Phoebe asked as she held wide her arms and stepped forward, beckoning.

Astron motioned for her to stop and took a cautious step backward.

"What is it?" Phoebe repeated. "Tell me everything is all right. I can stand no more chaos and surprise."

Astron looked at the tension etched deeply in Phoebe's face. The events had been unsettling, perhaps more so to a human than to one of his own kind. Whatever was decided upon to do next, he would certainly need her aid. And he knew from struggles through the flame in eons past how fragile was the will to survive. It was perhaps best to explain all that had happened at a better time. He wrinkled his nose and then slowly began to speak. The tenor of the first words startled him, but he held all the tiny muscles that were alive in his face rigidly taut.

"Do not be concerned." He measured his words carefully. "For the moment, we are safe. Take a minute to bring your stembr-your feelings under control and then we can proceed."

"But we are separated from the others. What are we to do?"

"To the origin," Astron said quickly. His thoughts seemed to rush forward without the benefit of deliberation. "There is no change in our intent. There you will summon a demon to get us home."

Phoebe pulled a folded map from a pocket in her gown and began to open it, but then shrugged. "It is kind that you still show faith in my ability, Kestrel," she said softly with eyes lowered, "but in truth, the reality of my abilities has become clearer with each passing moment. Reaching the origin may be all well and good; but without Nimbia fully recovered, there is little point for such a journey." She looked out over the sands back in the direction from which they had come. "And how can we proceed the way we want when these forces of symmetry flip us from node to node? Without Astron, how do we stand a chance? He seemed to have a knack for figuring out these mathematical things."

"Yes, the devil," Astron said grimly. He shook his head to keep his thoughts straight. "Once a djinn is under your command, you can task him to soar over this desert until he finds the others. But if the demon were here, the first thing he would do is-" Astron stopped and for the first time looked critically about the oasis.

It was very much like all the rest, a quiet circular pool of water surrounded by six trees at the vertices of a hexagon. Strewn all about, however, was the debris left by the reflectives who had occupied it before the battle and the transformations. At the adjacent subnode on the left stood a pile of branches hacked from the treetops to make soft beds. Denuded branches and an axe were tossed in a heap nearby. At the next subnode around the periphery was one of the devices of the chronoids in obvious disrepair. Stacks of gears, springs, and ticking escapements were scattered about a nearly empty framework. Directly across the pond, three or four thick leather vests stood in a heap next to a pile of eyelets, buckles, and sewing thongs. Two nicked and rusting swords rested against the tree behind. A ring of stones outlined the cooking pit at the subnode adjacent to the armory and the remains of parchment maps gently stirred at the fifth. Just like the rotators, the reflectives carefully organized their camps so as to maximize their freedom from the compelling forces of symmetry.

"From the looks of things this node served as a camp for perhaps a dozen," Phoebe said.

"And yet when the battle began, evidently it was occupied only by two," Astron replied. "Otherwise now you and I would not be the only occupants." He waved his arm out over the bleached sands. "The rest must have dispersed to yet other nodes and then converged back to where the rotators attacked. Perhaps it had something to do with the working of the devices of the chronoids."

He looked over the disarray a second time. "One thing is for sure. There is more than enough here to break up the symmetries between the subnodes for the two of us. We can move about with comparative ease."

Astron's voice trailed off. The glimmer of an idea popped into his mind. Slowly he paced off the two longest and straightest tree branches and dragged them around the periphery to the dismantled device of the chronoids. There he rummaged through the stacks of debris until he found six gear wheels of approximately the same size.

"What are you doing?" Phoebe called out.

Astron ignored the question. "Go across to the armory and start cutting the vests into leather strips. We will concern ourselves about your abilities later. For now, let us get this thing built before some part of my mind is able to convince me otherwise."

Astron unbuckled the harness from his chest with a deep sigh. His muscles ached. What had been the pleasant longing in his stomach had turned into an insistent discomfort. He looked over his shoulder in the dimming daylight and saw Phoebe unfastening the half-dozen belts that held her to the long wooden frame. She had not complained during the entire trek, and surely the strains on her body must have been the same as his.