The Changing Land Page 3

  "The Society will not take a position one way or another as to who may essay this thing."

  "I know. Yet, one need not go out of one's way to help such a one with good directions and advice, if you catch my meaning."

  "I believe that I do, Weleand."

  "… and his name is Dilvish."

  "I will remember it."

  Weleand smiled and reached out to retrieve an elaborately carved staff which was leaning against a tree. Meliash had not noticed it until that moment.

  "I will be on my way now. Good day to you, warden."

  "Have you no mount, no pack animal?"

  The other shook his head.

  "My needs are few."

  "Then fare thee well, Weleand."

  The other turned and walked off toward the changing land. He did not look back. After a time, Meliash rose and went to watch until the mists enfolded the man.

  Chapter 2

  Hodgson strained against the chains. They cut into his wrists, his ankles, but his weight loss during the month of his imprisonment gave him the slack he desired. With the big toe of his right foot, he continued the line he had been inscribing in the gritty floor, joining it at last with the one his nearest companion had drawn. Then he sagged and hung in his chains, breathing heavily.

  Across the way, near to the entrance, Odil—who was shorter than the others—strove in a similar manner to draw a character into his section of the diagram.

  "Hurry!" called the dark wizard, Derkon, who hung at Hodgson's right. "I believe one of them is on the way."

  Two lesser mages chained to the same bench along the wall to the left nodded.

  "Perhaps we'd best begin concealing it," one of them suggested. "Odil knows where his part goes."

  "Yes," Hodgson answered, hauling himself upright again. "Hide the damned thing from the damned thing!" Extending his foot, he scuffed a clump of straw into the diagram's center. "But gently! Don't mar it!"

  The others joined him in kicking wisps of the floor covering onto their sections. Odil completed another stroke at his character. The room took on an eerie blue glow, and a pale bird which had not been there earlier beat its way from corner to corner until it finally found the doorway and exited.

  The glow subsided, Derkon muttered, Odil managed another mark.

  "I believe I hear something," said the one on the left who was nearer to the door.

  They all grew silent, listening. A faint clicking sound occurred outside the chamber.

  "Odil," Hodgson said softly. "Please…"

  The small man struggled once more. The others moved to conceal their pattern further. A wheezing sound reached them from without. Odil executed a pair of parallel lines, the second longer than the first, then carefully traced one perpendicular to the latter. He fell limp immediately upon its completion, his face glistening with perspiration.

  "Done!" said Derkon. "If it, too, has not been denatured, that is."

  "Do you feel up to it?" Hodgson asked him.

  "It will be my first pleasure since I've come to this place," replied the other, and he began intoning certain preliminary words, softly.

  But it was a long while before anything more occurred. They glanced repeatedly at the empty chains where the man Joab had hung, as the dark-streaked wall behind them. Derkon had completed the first stages of his work and there was a faraway look in his pale eyes, which stared straight ahead, unblinking. Hodgson had leaned toward him, occasionally muttering, as if attempting to transfer his own remaining energies to the man. Several of the others had assumed similar attitudes.

  The creature appeared suddenly in the doorway and immediately sprang toward Hodgson, who was secured directly across the way from it. It was a red-bodied, thick-tailed, sharp-jointed streak, crowned with antlers, red eyes blazing, dark claws extended.

  As it touched the middle of the concealed platform, it gave voice to an ear-piercing cry and pressed forward as against an invisible wall, the ivory pickets of its permanent grin clashing audibly upon its completion.

  Derkon spoke a single word, firmly, without emotion.

  The creature wailed and darkened. Its flesh began to shrivel, as if it were being burned by invisible flames. Grimacing horribly, it beat at itself. Then, suddenly, came a bright flash, and it was gone.

  A collective sigh went up. Moments later, there were smiles.

  "It worked…" someone breathed.

  Derkon turned toward Hodgson and nodded, somehow making it seem a courtly bow.

  "Not bad for a white magician. I didn't think it could really be managed."

  "I wasn't too certain about it myself," Hodgson replied.

  "Good show," said one of the two to his left.

  "We've got us a working demon-trap," said the other.

  "Now that we've insured our survival for a little longer," Hodgson said, "we've got to figure a way out of here and plan what to do once we're free."

  "I'd just like to get out, call everything off and go home," said Vane, the nearer of the two on the bench. "I've tried both spells I know for getting rid of manacles, getting free of bondage, over and over again. Neither of them works here."

  His companion, Galt, who sat to his left, nodded.

  "I've been grinding away at the weakest link in my chain—the same as the rest of you, I guess—for weeks now, because nothing else works," Galt said. "I've made some progress, but it looks as if it will be weeks more before it yields. I take it no one knows a better way?"

  "I don't," Odil answered.

  "We seem to be restricted to physical methods," Derkon said. "We must all keep grinding until something better comes along. But say it does—or say we break free the hard way. What then? Hodgson has a good point. Shall we simply run for it? Or do we attempt to take over here?"

  The sorcerer Lorman—the oldest—had hung silent for a long while, there in his shadowy corner. Now he finally spoke, and his voice was a croaking thing.

  "Yes. We must attempt to free ourselves of these chains by physical means. The tides of Tualua make magic too uncertain. Still, we must continue to try the spells, for sometimes he rests and there are brief interludes when things may fall out right. It is our position that is bad in relation to his pit. His force goes forth in this direction before the swirling commences. There are places in this castle which are free of his interference—a long gallery near his pit, for instance."

  "How do you know this?" Derkon asked.

  "The force that blocks our magic has not interfered with my ability to sense things on other planes," the old man replied. "This much I have seen—and more."

  "Then why did you not speak of it sooner?"

  "What good would it have done us? I cannot predict when there will be an interruption in the flow, nor how long it will last."

  "If you would tell us when an interruption occurs, we could at least try our spells," Hodgson said.

  "And what then? I had felt we were doomed, anyway."

  "You use the past tense," Derkon observed.

  "Yes."

  "Then you have seen something that gives you hope?"

  "Possibly."

  "Your vision is far better than ours, Lorman," Hodgson stated. "You will have to tell us about it."

  The old sorcerer raised his head. His eyes were yellow and focused upon nothing present.

  "There is a master spell—a great working, from long ago—that somehow seems to hold this place together—"

  "Tualua's?" Vane inquired.

  Lorman shook his head slowly.

  "No. It is not of his doing. Mayhap Jelerak himself wrought it. I cannot say. I do not understand it. I simply feel its existence. It is very old, and it binds this place somehow."

  "How can that help us, when you are not even certain of its function?"

  "It does not matter whether we understand it. What would you do if your chains fell away this instant?"

  "Go home," Vane answered.

  "Walk out the gate? Hike back? How many guards, slaves, zombies, and
demons inhabit this place? And say you succeed in bypassing them. Would you relish the walk through the changing land?"

  "I made it through once," Vane said.

  "You're weaker now."

  "True. Forgive me. Continue. How can the master spell help us?"

  "It cannot. But its absence may."

  "Break a spell of which you're not certain—one that is sustaining things?" Derkon asked.

  "Exactly."

  "Granting that it can be done, it might destroy us all"

  "It might not, too. Whereas if we do nothing, we are almost certainly lost."

  "How would we go about it?" Hodgson asked. "One generally needs to know a spell's exact nature in order to unmake it."

  "A simple but powerful channeling spell. If we got to the gallery and combined our efforts—"

  "What exactly would we be channeling against it?" Hodgson asked.

  "Why, the only thing in the neighborhood that flows with enormous force—the emanations of Tualua himself."

  "Say we succeed," said Derkon, "and say that it does shatter the master spell—have you any notion at all what the result might be?"

  "This place is known in ancient lore as the Castle Timeless," Lorman said. "No man knows its origin or its age. My suspicion is that it is a preserving spell. If it be broken, I feel the place could fall apart about us, possibly even fade to dust and gravel."

  "And how would this help us?" Galt asked.

  "There would no longer be a castle from which we must escape—only rubble and confusion. Tualua would absorb the actual backlash of the working, as it would be his force turned against the master spell. He may well be sufficiently debilitated by it to terminate the emanations. The changing land would be stabilized and our magic would work again. We depart, fit to deal with any normal challenge."

  "Supposing," Hodgson asked, "that instead of stunning him, it whips Tualua into a frenzy? Supposing he lashes out at everything?"

  Lorman smiled faintly, then shrugged.

  "Six fewer sorcerers in the world," he said. "Of course it's a risk. But consider the alternative."

  "You employ the singular," Derkon said. "There is more than one alternative."

  "If you have a better plan, please instruct me."

  "I have nothing better to offer, up to a point," Derkon stated. "If we were to free ourselves, I can see performing the channeling spell of which you spoke, to break the master spell. But say things fall out as you have supposed—we live through it and Tualua is incapacitated—I cannot see fleeing at that point. We would then occupy an enviable position—half a dozen sorcerers, united and in full possession of our powers, with an Elder One helpless at our feet. We would be fools if we did not move to bind him then, as each of us had originally planned to try. Our chances of success, in fact, would seem good."

  Lorman chewed his mustache.

  "Such a course of action had occurred to me also," he finally said, "and I can offer no rational objection. Yet—I have a feeling—a strong one— that the best thing we can do is get as far away from here as possible as soon as we can. I do not foresee the nature of the danger that will follow if we wait around, but I am certain it will be a grave one."

  "But you admit that it is only a feeling, an apprehension—"

  "A very strong one."

  Derkon looked about at the others.

  "How do you feel about it?" he asked them. "If we get that far, do we go for the prize, or do we run?"

  Odil licked his lips.

  "If we try that and fail," he said, "we're all dead —or worse."

  "True," Derkon replied. "But we all faced what was basically the same decision, severally, when we considered coming here in the first place—and we all came. We will actually be in a stronger position my way—united."

  "Yet, I had never realized the full magnitude of Tualua's strength until recently," Odil answered.

  "Which increases the reward for success."

  "True…"

  He looked at Vane.

  "It does seem worth trying," that one stated.

  Galt nodded as he said it.

  "Hodgson?"

  Hodgson regarded each of them in turn, quickly, as if just becoming aware how important his choice would be. Derkon was an avowed disciple of the darkest phases of the Art. Lorman had been, but in his old age seemed occasionally to waver. The others were of the gray, uncommitted sort which made up the majority of practitioners. Only Hodgson had declared himself a follower of the white way.

  "There is merit to your plan," he said to Derkon. "But say we succeed. Our ends will be different. We will all have different uses in mind, desire different employments of the power. The next struggle will be among ourselves."

  Derkon smiled.

  "Conflicts among any of us might occur in the normal courses of our affairs," he said. "In this, at least, we will have a chance to talk things over before doing anything rash."

  "And we are bound to disagree on something sooner or later."

  "Such is life," said Derkon, shrugging. "We can settle our differences as they arise."

  "Which means that should we gain control, only one of us will be around long enough really to enjoy it."

  "It need not necessarily follow…"

  "But it will. You know it will."

  "Well…What is to be done?"

  "There are several very binding oaths which might protect us from one another," Hodgson said.

  He saw Odil's face brighten as he spoke—also Vane's and Lorman's. Derkon bit back a beginning gibe as he noted these reactions.

  "It would seem that it may be the only way to insure full cooperation," he said after a moment. "It will make life a little less interesting. But, on the other hand, it may well lengthen it." He laughed. "Very well. I'll go along with it, if the others will."

  He saw Galt nodding.

  "Let's get on with it, then," he said.

  Semirama entered the Chamber of the Pit. The brown heaps were greatly diminished. The shovels were leaned against the nearest wall. The slaves had departed. Baran was in Jelerak's study, attempting to recover lost spells from moldering tomes.

  Slowly, she moved to the edge of the pit. Below, the watery surface was still. Once more she looked around the room. Then she leaned forward and uttered a sharp, trilling note.

  A tentative tentacle broke the murky surface. A moment later, her exotic speech was answered in the same fashion.

  She laughed lightly and seated herself upon the edge of the pit, legs hanging over its side. She began a series of the chirping sounds, pausing occasionally to listen to more of the same. After a time, a long tentacle reared itself to rest lightly upon her leg, caressing, rising.

  Arlata of Marinta guided her mount at a slow gait. Shortly after she had passed between the orange pinnacles, the wind had risen in intensity, periodically puffing gusts of extra force sufficient to whip her cloak into awkward positions about her face and restrict the movements of her arms. Finally, she tucked it partway behind her belt. She drew the cowl low, to shield her eyes, and tied it in place. The mists were swirled away about her, but the visibility worsened rather than improved, as large amounts of dust and sand became airborne. A brownish cast came over the land, and she took shelter in the lee of a low ridge of orange stone.

  She brushed sand from her garments. Her mount snorted and pawed the ground. There came a series of delicate, tinkling sounds.

  Looking down, she beheld a small shininess along the base of the stone. Puzzled, she dismounted and reached toward that portion of it that lay nearest her mount's hoof. She raised a broken flower of yellow glass and stared at it.

  At that moment, a sound like laughter came out of the moaning of the wind. Lifting her eyes, Arlata beheld an enormous face formed out of a vortex of sand which had risen before her shelter. Its huge, hollow mouth was swirled in the form of a grin. Behind its eyeholes was a dark emptiness. Getting to her feet, she saw that from what might be called its chin to the place where its forehead mer
ged with blowing dust, it was taller than she. The glass flower fell from her fingertips, shattering at her feet.

  "What are you?" she asked.

  As if in reply, the howling of the wind increased in volume, the eyes narrowed, and the mouth became a circle. The sounds now seemed to be funneled through it.

  She wanted to cover her ears, but she restrained herself. The face began to drift toward her, and she saw through it. Something glistening lay uncovered in its wake. She invoked her protective spell and began one of banishment.

  The face blew apart and there was only the wind.

  Arlata mounted, then took a drink from the silver flask which hung at the right of the delicate green saddle. Moments later, she rode forward, passing the rib cage, right arm and head of a crystallized human skeleton which had been exposed by the eddying winds.

  She rode on past the river of fire and halted again beside the iron wall.

  "Dish it up," Meliash said. "I'm hungry." He seated himself at the table and began recording the morning's occurrences in the journal he maintained. The sun was higher now, the day warmer. A pair of small brown birds was building a nest in the tree over his head. When the food arrived, he pushed the journal aside and began to eat.

  He was into his second bowl when he felt the vibrations. Since these were not uncommon within the changing land, he did not even pause as he dipped the coarse bread into the gravy. It was not until the birds departed in nervous flight and the vibrations resolved into a series of regular sounds that he looked up, wiped his mustache, and sought their direction. The east… Too heavy for the hoofs of a horse, yet…

  They were hoofbeats. He rose to his feet. The others had come silently upon his camp, but there was no stealth here. Whatever—whoever—it was, was crashing through the undergrowth now, moving like a juggernaut. No subtlety, no finesse…

  He saw the dark form among the trees, only slowing now that it was almost upon his camp. Big. Very large for a horse…

  He touched the stone upon his breast and took a step forward.

  Abruptly, the dark form halted, still partly screened by the trees. Meliash began moving toward it through the sudden silence as he saw a single rider dismount a shadowy steed. Now the man was striding toward his camp, making no sound whatsoever…