Hugh Cook - The wizards and the warriors

Miphon studied the smooth, glowing white surface of the egg. Would it yield to the sword? A few blows proved the wall unyielding. Would spells command it? Miphon tried three Spells of Opening, with no success; the architecture of sages refused the commands of wizards. There was no way through the walls.

That left the doorway, blocked only by an invisible spiderweb. Material things such as swords could pass through it. And, as Miphon had seen, it did not impede men. Only wizards. Miphon pressed against it and shouted the Ultimate Injunction.

'Segenarith!'

The barrier still restrained him. Why? It had no eyes to recognise him as a wizard – Miphon, in any case, looked just like an ordinary man. He had to think quickly, before Valarkin returned to torture him for the secret of the death-stone. Miphon knew the High Speech: pain would force him to decipher the writing graved on the death-stone's flank. Even his suicide could not safeguard the secret against betrayal by Blackwood or Hearst; even if all three died, Valarkin could go out into the wider world to find someone who could read that writing.

The barrier.

It was made by sages. It restrained wizards. The 459 Grand Master said the sages exploited the natural lines of force supporting the universe. What is the universe? The universe is… a pattern imposed on chaos. A pattern created by the great god Ameeshoth: the world of Amarl, in which wizards are an anomaly. Any intensification of that natural pattern would be inimical to wizards, who in any case had to rely on the Meditations of Balance to counter the natural tendency of the world to destroy any anomaly. The barrier must be a subtle form of such an intensification.

Miphon thought his problem through.

And found a possible solution.

By discarding his powers – at least those relating to the world of Amarl, the world of day-to-day living – he might be able to pass through the barrier.

Perhaps.

But even to think of the experiment was almost intolerable. Destroying his own powers would nullify years of work, deprivation, effort, agony. Miphon remembered the Shackle Mountains… trials in the darkness… the seven tests that may not be named… the agony and the loneliness of the long wait.

Above all else, he did not want to lose the power of the sleeping secrets, which allowed him to heal any injury or overcome any evil. That power was incalculable, despite the fact that he had been helpless when kidnapped by Valarkin and those members of the Secular Arm that Valarkin had suborned for his own purposes.

No wizard could ever be invulnerable, for an arrow in the back could kill even the most powerful. With the sleeping secrets, the limiting factor on his power was time. The ten days he had spent in Veda had been busy, busy, busy, as he had treated a succession of patients; lie had lacked the time, and indeed the inclination, to search through many of the minds, often unclean or repulsive, that dwelt within the effective range of his powers.

He believed he had the maturity and the spiritual grace to use those powers for good. Yet he had to surrender them. Spells and physical force had both failed to release him from the egg. As a wizard he was trapped, so he must cease to be a wizard, a Force incarnate in the flesh, a Power in the World of Events, a Light in the Unseen Realm, a Graduate of the Trials of Strength, a Motivator of History, a master of lore versed in the logic of the Cause and the nature of the Beginning.

He would miss that.

And there were so many other things he would miss. The exultation in the mind of the hawk as it stooped… the night thoughts of the badger… the aura of strength in the forest in spring… his satisfaction as a fat fish, lured from the depths of a cold pond, flapped in his hands…

Accepting the death of his hopes and ambitions, Miphon adopted the pose he used for the Meditations. He would destroy his power in three stages. First, his power to use the sleeping secrets, to read and change minds and heal and change bodies by the application of thought at a distance. Then, his power to read and communicate with the minds of animals. And last, if necessary, even such minor powers as he possessed to read and command the minds of animated rocks, the creatures of the world of the Horn, Lemarl.

Miphon began. Swiftly, he released all the power associated with the sleeping secrets. That power had to go somewhere, but could not escape from the egg, which hummed with a high-pitch resonance as vibrations built up.

Miphon felt uncomfortable. His ears began to hurt. It grew hot. He sweated. His sweat dried the moment it appeared on his skin. His eyes stung. The air took on a violet tinge. The walls of the egg began to vibrate. They cracked: a million hairline fractures appeared.

The barrier blocking the way out of the egg became visible as a web of blue-white energies, pulsing like an eye in which the pressure of the heart's blood is rising so high that it threatens rupture. But the barrier held. Miphon gave a small cry: a dry croak. The heat was rapidly killing him.

He had surrendered all the power of the sleeping secrets.

He refused to surrender any more.

He charged the barrier. He hit it – and a shock of pure energy flung him back, knocking him to the floor of the egg. He lay there, at first unable to move. The air pulsed and sang. Intolerable resonating energies throbbed around him. Bursts of white light sang from the walls of the egg. The walls were warm to the touch.

Miphon knew he had little time left. Unless he got out quickly, he would be dead. He composed himself, and swiftly accomplished the second phase of destroying his power. The heat intensified.

He resolved to charge the barrier again.

He wanted to escape with at least some of his powers intact: those to affect the world of Lemarl, the world of stone. He refused to surrender everything. Yet, remembering the pain when he had last touched the barrier, he was afraid.

Miphon seized the sword Hast, remembering Hearst, and the intensity with which the warrior moved on the attack, committing himself absolutely to the needs of the moment. Wild words came to Miphon's aid: 'Ahyak Rovac!'

Screaming that challenge, swinging that sword, he charged. And went right through the barrier. He was free!

But, inside the egg he had escaped from, the energies he had released were becoming more coherent by the moment, converting themselves into a pulse, a resonance, a unified power of destruction. If that barrier was to give way… looking at the pulsing barrier, Miphon decided it was a question of when, not if. The barrier would not hold for long. So what to do then? Run!

He turned and fled down the luminous corridor. He saw a doorway: an empty egg. Another doorway: a dusty storeroom. Another: into dead darkness. Then another: opening into a room in which lay Blackwood, bound hand and foot.

'You!' said Blackwood, the word distorted as his mouth was badly bruised and cut.

'None other,' said Miphon, cutting Blackwood's bonds with the sword Hast. The blade slipped, slicing flesh. 'Sorry.'

'It's nothing,' said Blackwood, stemming the bleeding.

'Where's Hearst?'

'I don't know.'

'Come on then.'

They raced on down the corridor. The luminous white curves drew them on. From up ahead they heard a scream. They ran faster, panting. Then they burst into a chamber, a glance revealing: Hearst, tied hand and foot to a metal frame; a young man holding a bloodstained bodkin; half a dozen onlookers, all armed.

Miphon screamed: 'Ahyak Rovac!'

The battlesword Hast took out the nearest. As the rest drew weapons, Blackwood grabbed the tripod legs of a brazier and hurled its burning coals toward them. The torture chamber evoked all the horrors of Prince Comedo's dungeons. Snatching up an iron rod, Blackwood attacked, striking out furiously. Miphon fought beside him, reckless in his disregard for his own safety. He had lost everything he valued: nothing remained to tempt him to make the calculations of cowardice.