The Crystal Sorcerers (19 page)

"Time to be off," Leti announced.
The transport sorcerers, who had sat out the battle at the city and flew out after the fun was over, nodded their good-byes to Tulana and lifted into the air with Vena, who seemed anything but pleased with Imada's condition.
With teetotalers' disdain for their less disciplined companions, the sorcerers quietly grinned at each other.

"All right, I hate these damn good-byes," Tulana growled, casting his eyes over the group.

"Shigeru, anytime you want to come out for a good hunt, you're my honored guest."

"With pleasure, my lord," Shigeru slurred happily as Tulana slapped him on the back. Ignoring propriety, Shigeru slapped the prince in return, so that Tulana staggered and broke out into a delighted grin.

"You're all welcome back, and maybe we'll kill that bastard for sure!" Tulana roared. "Why, by my hairy jewels, it was the best hunt in years!"

"So long, you beautiful wench." Reaching out, he grabbed Leti's backside and squeezed. Playfully, she slapped him across the face and finally he let go. Ikawa, still uncomfortable with the attention Tulana had been showering on his lover, tried unsuccessfully to force a smile.

"He actually took the crystal back all by himself?" Tulana asked, looking at Ikawa.

Leti put her arm around Ikawa and smiled at her lover with an admiring gaze.

"Then maybe I'll be your nephew, too," Tulana shouted with a grin, and gave Ikawa a bear hug.

"Now get the hell out of here. I think I'm going to throw up again and I don't like my guests to see it."

"
There's
some other good-byes to attend to first," Mark said.

Tulana smiled indulgently. "Yeah, they do grow on you. If ever you need their help, just let me know." Turning, Tulana staggered away, bellowing an obscene chanty which was quickly picked up by the crew.

Mark leaped over the side of the ship and his companions followed. The cool water felt good and he found it cleared his head somewhat. He let his shielding down so the water soaked through his garments to rinse out the after effects of the feast, then switched the shield back up again.

"Sul, Sul."

A ladulta darted past him, homing in on Shigeru who, bumbling out a string of endearments, embraced his companion.

"Still drunk like me," Sul's thoughts whispered through Mark's mind.

Turning about, Mark saw his friend hovering in the water before him.

"I came to say good-bye," Mark whispered.

The ladulta drew closer and nuzzled him like an overgrown puppy.

"We good battle team, good friends.
You come again we swim together, I show you my world. You need me, I come, anywhere ocean flow."

Mark reached out and gave him an affectionate embrace.

"You need me, I always come to help," Mark replied.

Sul hiccuped and rolled his eyes.

"Try Cresus meat with me. We make room for you beside body."

"Some other time," Mark groaned. He found it strange to hear laughter echoing through his mind.

Sul spun around him in a tight arc, his tail gently brushing across Mark's chest,
then
the ladulta darted away.

Mark rose from the water and saw his companions forming up, looking at each other sheepishly.

"Well damn it, they're like underwater Tals, like damn puppies," Goldberg sniffled.

"All right, let's get going," Mark growled, trying to hide his emotions.

Cursing and groaning, the group lifted into the air and winged over the Cresus, which was surrounded by ladulta still gorging themselves, while others floated lazily alongside, their bellies distended.

"Lord, what a stink!"
Walker said, wrinkling his nose.

"My ladulta said they really love it when it's aged for a couple of weeks," Goldberg rejoined.

Walker
, leaning over, lost what little breakfast he had vainly struggled to hold, to the delighted hoots of the ladulta circling below.

"Do you really expect me to believe this?" Patrice yelled. The messenger cowered. "Your ladyship, I am only reporting the information sent back from
Asmara. It's already been crosschecked with another source. She is traveling with the group, and by now she's halfway across the ocean, with little or no hope of breaking free."

"Get out of here," Patrice snapped.

The messenger, bowing low, scurried out of the room without looking back.

"Damn them," Patrice snarled, slamming her fist on the table before her.

I've got to get
control,
she kept trying to tell herself. She could feel the spasmodic trembling of her hands, knowing that the terrible stress was finally taking its toll.

How am I going to break this to Gorgon?
The thought made her stomach turn into knots. Already he was roaring about the damage done to his realms, the ever increasing pressure of Jartan, and the fact that so far he had borne all the burden of the struggle.

That had always been her intent on this campaign: to let him take all the risks while she reaped the greater share of rewards. There had been the slightest of hints from him that if there was treachery
involved,
that if she was in fact secretly allied to Jartan, he would have his vengence. Would he assume that now, even though she was innocent in this delay?

"What am I going to do?" She reached over to a side table and refilled her goblet yet again, watching as the trembling of her hands eased ever so slightly.

If the girl was trapped in close proximity to Leti, the strain of keeping up her false identity must be crushing. And the slightest mistake or dropping of her guard would be fatal to all these long years of planning.

Would Vena have the strength and resourcefulness to somehow slip away? Even if she did, Patrice thought dejectedly, there was no possibility of her ever being able to outrace Leti.

"I'll have to get her out," Patrice muttered.

Sitting back, she extended her hands, and the tile-covered surface shimmered with a pale light, the small crystals at the four corners glowing brightly. A milky filament appeared, and the surface of the table became wrapped in a fine mist that quickly formed into a map of the ocean.

Patrice stood up, hands still extended, and the map moved, the projection and scale changing to revea!
the
northern chain of floating islands ruled by Tulana. She shifted the perspective around, scanning the distance between each. The measure of flying time appeared between each island, the figures adding up and appearing in one corner.

Suddenly the images moved yet again, growing smaller. A map of the entire ocean again filled the table as she studied the chains of floating islands farther south, marking off distances and tracing out routes, calculating move and counter move.

She guided the image back to Tulana's chain, this time focusing the map in so that a relief of each island filled the entire table. Yet more figures appeared beside each of the images, showing the strength of the islands' fortifications and garrison, information updated regularly by her so-called merchants.

Gradually the plan started to form.

With a wave of her hands, the image on the mapping table disappeared. She touched her communications crystal.

"Inform my guards and first battle team to prepare for an immediate departure," she commanded sharply. "They are to report to me in one turning."

Without waiting for a reply, she snapped the crystal off.

First, though, she'd have to tell Gorgon about the delay. As she contemplated the promises and lies necessary, she had another long drink, but the trembling would not go away.

Mark looked around suspiciously, feeling a tingle of discomfort running down the back of his neck. Back in Landra, he had become accustomed to the open friendliness of the people; after all, the "offworlders," as they were still called, were acknowledged heroes of the realm. He realized now he had become spoiled by the treatment.

While serving with the occupation force in Sarnak's old realm, he had also known a wariness and sullenness that was to be expected from a conquered people, and had gone out of his way to show the common people there a certain understanding. Perhaps it was being an American, he thought. Even when they'd beat a people, they'd wanted to be liked by them. But it was different here.

It seemed as if these folks, at best, simply didn't give a damn
who
they were. They just wanted to fleece them of their money and make life as difficult as possible.

The only positive thing about this was that the city of
Portus, an independent city-state bordering the druid's forest realm, was unsurpassed in beauty.

They had flown in the evening before and the first sight of land from over a hundred miles away had been the high snow-capped mountains catching the golden-red hues of the early evening sun. The city flanked both sides of a narrow fjord, and the mountains beyond the town were covered with a forest which had left him awestruck.

The trees would have dwarfed the towering redwoods he had once seen north of
San Francisco. Some rose over half a thousand feet into the air, their trunks nearly fifty feet across. The town itself was actually part of the forest, living trees supporting a spindly latticework of buildings that arched from trunk to trunk.

The tavern they had stayed in had actually been carved into a trunk with rooms suspended around the outside like barnacles on a rock.

"I hope this one pays off," Ikawa growled, his bad temper starting to show.

"We've got to be patient with these people," Leti replied, trying to smile.

Mark looked over at Ikawa, who was still bristling from their last rejection, the fifth of the day. The last merchant they had talked to in hope of obtaining equipment and a guide into the druid's realm had laughed them out of his office, calling Leti a spoiled brat of Jartan's who had no business in the area to start with. It had taken all of Ikawa's self-control, along with a restraining hand from Saito, to keep him from decking the man.

Leti paused for a moment, looking around as if lost. There were no streets in the traditional sense in this town, since the town was actually part of the forest, each trunk a building unto itself.

A burly man walked by, a heavy pack on his shoulders, and Leti hopefully stepped up to him.

"Excuse
me,
I'm looking for the traveling merchant Deidre."

"How come?" the man replied, as if annoyed at the
interruption.

"We have business with her."

"What kind of business?"

"Private," Leti said quietly.

"Then she should have made better arrangements for you to find her," the man said, stepping past Leti.

"We'll pay you to take us there," Mark said, stepping in front of the man and holding out a silver coin.

He paused and looked up at Mark. "You're the folks interested in going inland, aren't you?"

Mark nodded.

The man laughed. "The only ones who go in there and come back are the ones the old man of the forest invites. Do yourselves a favor and go home."

"How do we get invited?"

"Listen, sonny," the man said evenly, "we make our living by trading with the old man. We're the only ones allowed in and back. No one's going to give away our secrets, and you can be damn certain no one's interested in getting the old man angry at them. And when it comes to Deidre, your best bet is to skip it. So just buy what you want here, and go home."

Without even asking, the burly man took the coin out of Mark's hand.

"Payment for some excellent advice," he said almost cheerfully and made as if to continue on.

"Damn it, I've had it with this shit,"
Walker snapped, coming up to block the man's path.

"
Walker, don't," Mark commanded.

"Ah, so the mighty sorcerers are going to gang up and threaten me, is that it?" the burly man said, raising his voice.
"An excellent display of Jartan's so-called sense of fair play."

"All we want to do is find Deidre,"
Walker snapped.

"Find her yourself." The man shouldered his way past, not bothering to look back.

"If you're looking for Deidre, I'm over here," a high, clear, and very amused voice called.

Mark looked up and saw a thin, almost childlike woman leaning over a balcony that arched between two trees. Her waist-length brown hair floated in the cool forest breeze, and her freckled face and green eyes were alight with laughter at the scene beneath her.

"I've been waiting for you," she said, and beckoned to the group.

"Is there something wrong?" Imada asked nervously, reaching out to touch Vena.

She flinched, drawing away as if his hands were poisonous. His heart breaking, he pulled away from her. She had been like this since they had left on what he had thought would be an exciting trip, one which for a girl who had grown up on a border outpost would be filled with wonder.

"Why won't you talk to me?" Imada sighed.

"There's nothing to say," Vena whispered, and she smiled, though somehow it looked brittle and cold, as if she was hiding something.

"I think I'll go for a walk," she went on. "Sitting in this room is bothering me too much."

She paused, looking into the mirror. He watched her closely. Funny, he never remembered her doing that when they had been in Landra and first come to
Asmara. All her attention had always been focused on him. But now, he noticed, she could not pass a mirror without pausing, staring at her reflected image, sometimes drawing close to it as if she was gazing at an interesting stranger. She noticed him looking at her and
turned,
the smile in place.

"Why are you watching me like that?" she whispered almost accusingly.

"Because I love you."

She smiled and drew closer, but in his heart he sensed that it was an action that was being forced. She kissed him lightly on the forehead.

"I'd like to go out for a walk," she said.

"You remember Leti's orders, we're to stay here, and I know she means that even more for you."

"I can take care of myself," Vena snapped.

"Maybe back along the border," Imada said, drawing closer and tentatively putting his hands on her hips, "but this town seems dangerous."

She pulled away from him and started to the door.

"Vena, you know the rest of the men will stop you from going out."

"And what's wrong with you?" she snapped. "Aren't you man enough to tell them different?"

Stunned, he looked at her, unable to speak.

She seemed to hesitate and then turned back to him.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and he felt as if somehow his old lover was now back. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Imada, it's just that I don't like this place. I wanted to be alone just with you for a while, and then they made you come with them. I guess I'm just angry."

"It's all right," he sighed, coming up and hugging her. "You haven't played your harp since we left," he continued, brushing her cheek with the back of his hand. "Why don't you sing me a song?"

"The harp?
I don't feel like it." He felt as if her response was just a little too sharp.

He looked over at the battered case, resting by her side of the bed.

Suddenly her lips brushed against his ear.

"Let's do something else," she whispered, and though at the mere suggestion he felt his passion taking hold, still he could sense a strange distance within her, as if her body and mind were two separate beings.

"So that's the arrangement," Deidre said, motioning for a servant to pour another round of drinks.

Mark took the goblet appreciatively. The wine seemed to have been made from a fermented honey, yet it was light, even slightly dry instead of cloyingly sweet, with a curious flowery aftertaste.

"I'd still prefer to fly it,"
Walker said.

"Go ahead and try," Deidre replied. "Above that forest canopy you could crisscross the old man's realm until you were damn near as old as he is and not see anything. Fly under the canopy and you'll be lost inside the first hour."

"Riding is the easiest way. Each of us who has permission has our own private trail and markers. So you go my way or not at all." She smiled sweetly at Walker, who shook his head and said nothing.

"One thing," Leti said evenly.

"Go on."

"No one else wanted to take us in, they said the old man would be angry with them. So why are you doing it?"

"I'm his granddaughter," Deidre replied. "If he doesn't like me bringing you in, I'll just get yelled at. Whether he kills you or gives you a feast will be your problem, not mine."

"But I'm the daughter of a goddess," Leti replied, "with some of the best sorcerers in all of Haven with me."

"If you're telling me that as a threat," Deidre replied, "rest assured, Grandfather can take care of himself even against you. Your father rules an ocean away, not here. These are free city-states, under no god or goddess, so your name and lineage count for little."

"I still don't understand why you're bothering with us," Mark interjected. "No one else would give us the right time of day."

Deidre laughed.
"Because I'm good-natured."

Walker
looked at her suspiciously.

"And besides, I'm a merchant. Your price is a good one, believe me. Finally--let's just say I'm a bit bored."

"Bored?"
Walker asked.

"I'm curious as to what the old man will do when and if he finally agrees to see you."

"I don't like this one bit,"
Walker snapped.

"If we want to see him," Leti replied, shaking her head, "this is the only way."

She paused and looked at Ikawa. "That is, if you really want to do this." Mark could sense the hopefulness in her voice. He knew if Storm were here the two of them would not do anything to get in the way of this venture, yet at the same time both would hope that in the end nothing would come of it and that there was no way to ever return to Earth. He found he was half hoping for the same result. The thought of having to make a choice was becoming a nightmare.

"I'm sorry," Ikawa replied. "We have to find out."

Leti forced a smile and looked at Deidre. "When do we leave?"

"This afternoon.
There's no time like the present to get started."

At the sight of the coastline, Patrice felt as if energy had coursed into her. The land was as beautiful as she had remembered it, the vast trees cloaking the mountainside, the sparkling snow-capped mountains,
the
deep crystalline blue of the ocean. It was so different from the rolling hills and pastoral splendor of
her own
land.

She looked over her shoulder, scanning the world. It was as if the sky were hers
alone,
and she the only person soaring above the world.

Her guards and battle team were far behind her now, resting on one of the floating islands, concealed under the garb of guild sorcerers going east to work for a prince half a world away. They would continue on slowly, awaiting her word for the right time to strike.

They must be in Portus, she realized. The trick would be to sneak in without being detected. If the party was still there, getting Vena and the stolen crystals out might be difficult, since no matter what her guise Leti would recognize her on sight. She would need an ally in this; and she smiled at the memory of an encounter she'd had when had been younger.

"There are times I think we're just riding in circles," Ikawa said, looking to Leti as if for confirmation.

She smiled, shaking her head.

"I'm every bit as confused as you are. I've never been in a realm like this before."

If he had not felt there was an ever-increasing danger to what they were doing, he would have been enjoying this trip like no other he had ever been on before.

In the four days since leaving Portus, he had sat astride his Tal, dumbfounded by the wonders of the forest. Deidre had explained to them that the great woods they were traveling through were not made up of individual trees as all had at first assumed but a single vast living entity--each "tree," as it were, a single stem of an organism which she believed had
an intelligence
as well. The forest, which covered tens of thousands of square miles, had six separate trees growing in district groves. The border regions between them were areas of tangled conflict as roots and stems struggled for dominance and to push their neighbor back.