The Crystal Sorcerers (21 page)

Ikawa hesitated. So they were still alive.

"Vena!"
Imada hissed.

"Shut up," Kochanski whispered, putting his hand over Imada's mouth.

"It was too easy, Grandfather," Deidre said, jumping off her Tal and coming up to hug the old man.

"They must have suspected," he said curiously. "Either that or they're incredibly dumb."

"They kept wandering about the town, harassing everyone about wanting to see you. One of them was overheard saying they'd come from your old world."

"There, that's it," the druid shouted. "I told you about Caesar. He finally found me, poor old me all the way out here. That bastard never could forget a grudge."

"They really don't seem all that bad," Deidre replied.

"They'll condemn themselves to the wicker death with their own words, you'll see," the druid shouted. "And besides, an old friend is here to help me prove it!"

Ikawa looked curiously at Kochanski, who still had his hand over Imada's mouth.

"Wicker death?"
Ikawa whispered.

"You don't want to know," Kochanski sighed.

The druid turned away from Deidre and started to walk down the path, looking at the prostrate forms which his assistants were already picking up and carrying down the trail. The druid hesitated.

"Three are missing!" he roared.

The forest seemed to explode with activity. Shafts of light swung around like searchlights, and flocks of birds exploded outward. A beam of light snapped through the high canopy and the druid, with staff
raised
, looked straight up.

"Come down here!" he roared.

"Time to leave!"
Ikawa shouted, bursting straight up through the branches. Imada struggled to return, waving his hand down as if to strike the druid.

"You'll hit our own," Kochanski cried, and the boy relented, following Ikawa.

"Come back here!"

Breaking clear of the forest, Ikawa paused for a moment, and, pulling his trouser away from his leg with his left hand, he cut a long length of fabric away with his right. He looped the light blue material around a branch and then continued to fly straight up toward the clouds, Imada and Kochanski following him.

Upward they climbed through the cool afternoon air, the canopy below like an endless sea of green. To his left he could see the high mountains marking the shoreline that they had passed through the day before. But in the other three directions as far as he could see was the high plateau of the forest which appeared to go on to the end of the world.

Gaining the protection of the clouds, he turned to look straight back down. His two comrades swung up beside him.

"We're in our element up here," Ikawa said. "They won't follow."

"And they're in theirs down there," Kochanski said bitterly.

"And they've got Vena," Imada cried.

"Don't forget the rest of our friends," Kochanski said, his voice cold, "and Leti as well."

Embarrassed, Imada lowered his head.

"I don't see anything," Ikawa said, scanning the forest thousands of feet below.

"So what are we going to do now?" Kochanski asked glumly.

"Wait till it settles down and then go back in," Ikawa told him.

"Back there," Kochanski said, "we're likes babes in the woods."

"Any better suggestions?"

Imada and Kochanski could only shake their heads.

"Then we better get comfortable, and stay up here over this one spot."

Wiping the sweat from his brow, Allic collapsed wearily to the ground.

"You look played out," Storm said, her voice edged with exhaustion, as she came to sit by her brother's side.

"Won't this ever end?" Allic's voice was distant and shaky. "We've hit five worlds in six days, each one a jump through into battle. I don't even know where the hell we are any more."

"A good choice of words," Storm said, looking about at the shattered landscape. Each step into Gorgon's territory was like a journey into the heart of desolation.

She leaned back to look at the twin red suns hovering malevolently overhead, their heat blasting the shriveled land. The air was dry and dust swirled about them in dark clouds, hiding the ruins of the fortress they'd just stormed.

Snaps of lightning arced overhead, but as Storm watched the discharges they gave her no pleasure. To her, lightning could be a weapon, but it was also a thing of beauty, snapping out of dark clouds, pregnant with life: giving rain. The lightning above crackled from dust cloud to dust cloud as they swirled and eddied over the planet's cratered surface. The scent of sulphur hung heavy in the air, billowing up out of ugly fissures. Numbly she took the mask away from her face, wiping the buildup of dirt out of the inside, rubbing her eyes, which instantly started to tear as the stinking clouds seemed to assault her.

"Why in the name of all the gods would Gorgon ever want a place like this?" Storm sighed.

"It fits his personality," Allic said dejectedly.

Storm leaned against a mud-caked boulder and looked around. The ground was carpeted with corpses which were already starting to bloat in the heat. In an hour or two there'd be another stench in the air, and she forced the thought away to keep her stomach from rebelling.

Many of them were Gorgon's demons, their blackened faces contorted in the agony of sudden death. Some had been hit on the ground, so brutally swift was the surprise of the attack; others had been caught in the air, their burned bodies breaking on the boulder-strewn land.

She looked at them with disgust. They were not human or demon, to be sure, but they were not animal either. Her flesh crawled with the thought that somehow Gorgon might have found a way to blend the two together, creating horrifying caricatures of mankind. She felt no remorse for the killing she had done here, as she gazed upon bodies with extra limbs, grotesque faces covered in scales, bodies with normal human faces but with four legs and no arms that were obviously used as beasts of burden, torsoes with two heads, and others, male, female, with horrifying exaggerations of sexual organs.

"It's like he's created a nightmare and we're trapped in it," Storm whispered.

"I just wish we could corner the bastard, have it out and then go home."

"So do
I
."

Allic looked up at the column of light that suddenly appeared before him.

"The few prisoners that talked said he pulled out just as we jumped in," Jartan said coldly. "We know which way he went, so we follow."

"Damn it, Father, we're running into a web," Allic replied. "This world has half a dozen jump points to other worlds; so did every other place. There's no logic to it. We can't chase them all down. We seem merely to be following him where he wants us to go."

"Sooner or later we'll hit a nerve, a place he values too much to let go without a fight. When we do, we'll close in for the kill."

"At the time and place he chooses," Allic replied.

"Minar and
Chosen agree with me in this. We will press in for the kill. We're going to finish this war, and when we pull out we'll smash everything behind us. I intend to wipe these places clean of portals, fortresses, everything. Even if he survives it'll take him eons to work his way back to us."

"We've only got a single line back to home," Allic pointed out. "He could always cut in behind us. And cutting that line would slow us up for days if we needed to retreat."

"I've already thought of that," Jartan said, "and that's why you're staying behind here."

"Now wait a minute," Allic protested, wearily coming to his feet.

"You're finished, son. You've lost your edge. I saw you in this fight--you let a demon lord hit you from behind. He might have killed you if your sister hadn't been there to protect your back. I'm leaving you here with a garrison of forty sorcerers, to maintain a strong point to our rear. If he tries to cut us off with a raid, it'll be your job to keep it open."

"Listen to him,
Allic,
you can't keep it up anymore."

"Damn all of you. No." Allic snarled.

"Allic, shoot first!"

As he started to turn, Storm snapped off a weak bolt, knocking him in the side and slamming him to the ground before he could even react and bring his shield up.

Angrily he rolled over, raising his hand.

An impenetrable barrier formed between him and Storm as Jartan came between them.

Allic looked coldly at his sister, who cautiously came forward once Jartan floated back, and knelt by his side.

"Are you all right?"

"Side hurts like hell," Allic said, struggling to breathe.

"When we were children and played that game you could beat me every time," Storm said gently, laying her hand against his chest.

His ragged breath came easier and he forced a smile.

"Except I at least aimed for your backside."

She hugged him affectionately. "Brother, if it had been a demon lord I'd be singing your death song now. To tell you the truth, I've been protecting you for the last three battles. You need a
rest,
you've lost your edge. Sooner or later, and I fear it will be sooner, we're going to get hit hard at a jump and they'll tear you apart."

"I'm not sending you home, at least," Jartan said. "I need all my strength out
here,
this is where the threat is. Now listen to your sister and me and agree to run this garrison for awhile."

Trying to force a smile, Allic shook his head ruefully. He started to cough hoarsely as he pulled his mask aside for a moment to clean it out.

"Don't leave me here for long," he told them. "This place could drive even a sober man to drink."

Storm looked worriedly to her father but said nothing. Then she glanced back at the grotesque corpses around her. All she wanted was to get this over with and go back home to a world that was still sane, a place that Gorgon would never lay his hands upon and destroy as he had this desolate land.

Something cold splashed against his face.

Startled, Mark Phillips opened his eyes. They were riding, weren't they? He must have fallen asleep, and he tried to sit up.

He couldn't move. Yet he already was up, on his feet.

Gradually he started to focus, and noticed the sound of laughter echoing in the air.

Shaking his head, he tried to reach up to wipe his eyes, but he couldn't move his hands.

Damn it, I'm tied.

The focus finally returned and he saw a wizened face peering up at him, green eyes dark with suspicion.

"You're the druid," Mark whispered.

"The speech of Jartan's realm," the druid replied, his lilting accent difficult to understand. "Yes, I'm the druid you sought."

The man stepped back and Mark could see Deidre standing by her grandfather's side, her rough leather riding breeches and tunic replaced now by a flowing linen gown of green, her brown hair swirling about her like a curtain of filmy gauze.

"Well, Mark, I did as you asked and brought you to him," she said with an almost sad smile. "So don't blame me."

"This is one hell of a reception."

"Better than the one you planned for me," the druid cackled as he walked away.

Mark tried to move his wrists and instantly realized that all his crystals had been taken. Yet he could still focus his power to a limited degree. As if reading his mind, the druid looked back at him.

"I wouldn't try anything--not a single word of command," the druid laughed. "My friends over there might get upset."

The druid pointed over his shoulder to half a dozen sorcerers, dressed in dark green livery and brown capes, who were sitting around a campfire looking over at their captives.

"The slightest sign of magics and my friends might use theirs on you."

Laughing, the druid continued to where Shigeru was tied up next to Mark, and scooping his hand into the small silver bowl Deidre carried, he splashed Shigeru, who groaned and opened his eyes.

They were in a small clearing, illuminated by the reflected light of a circle of mirror branch trees. In the center of the circle was a vast trunk nearly a hundred feet in diameter and rising straight as an arrow, its great form punching through the canopy of surrounding trees.

Somehow, Mark knew this must be the heart of the forest. In the distance he could hear scatterings of conversations filtering through the woods. Overhead he saw several people leaning over the side of a platform, looking down at the prisoners with open curiosity. If he wasn't in such a wretched situation he felt as if he could actually be captivated by the sylvan tranquility here.

The harmonics of songbirds echoed from the high trees, and multihued butterflies, some as large as his hand, others so tiny they seemed like motes of dust, filtered through the clearing. The patterns of light reflected down from above seemed to counterpoint the bird songs, and Mark realized that in fact the two were linked, the light shifting subtly to the rising and falling tempo of music.

A gentle breeze stirred through the woods, carrying with it the pleasant scent of the ancient woods, mingled with a near cinnamon odor which he finally realized came from some of the butterflies that would wing in close to his face and hover before him, as if curious about the strangers.

"Say, Captain, where the hell are we?"

Mark leaned over to see
Walker tied up farther down the line.

"Ask him," Mark growled. "He's the one holding the cards."

The druid came walking back up the line of captives and stopped again before Mark.

"It seems you're the leader of this group. At least the leader that's awake. For now, we'll keep that daughter of Jartan asleep."

So he had captured Leti as well.

"How is she?"

The druid laughed. "To think I actually captured a demigod," he said shrewdly.
"Always thought it'd be an interesting challenge, them with their high lording ways.
She'll be the joke of everyone
now,
the great daughter of Jartan captured by bent over, old me." There was a hysterical edge to his voice that Mark found disquieting.

"If you know she's a daughter of Jartan, then you know as well how he'll react to this treatment of his own blood and those who serve him," Mark retorted.

"Ah, but the great god isn't even on Haven right now," the druid snapped. "You know he might never come back."

Then: "I have friends, I do, certainly they are true friends, they are," the druid teased, hopping back and forth like an excited child.

Over by the fire, a tall, slender form stood, threw back her hooded cape, and walked to the druid's side.

Mark knew at once that here was someone with a power as potent as Storm's or Leti's, perhaps even more so. Her gaze made him nervous, but he returned it without flinching.

"I'm Patrice," she said quietly, "and it's time we had a little talk."

Ikawa stopped. There--he had heard it again: a voice.

The chase had been a hard one and in the beginning he had despaired of ever finding his friends. After waiting an hour, they had dropped from the cloud and found the blue scrap that marked their escape. Within minutes of their return to the forest, Ikawa had noticed that the sounds had changed, as if the
woods was
again watching, and then the idea had formed.

Focusing all of his strength through the crystal Leti had given
him,
he formed a shield around himself and his companions, but suppressed the flickering glow of it, altering its light, blending it into the twilight colors of the forest floor. It was something he could never have done with an ordinary crystal, but this one came from the demigod of the night and seemed strangely adaptable to this purpose.

They had moved forward, floating through the woods, drifting from shadow to shadow, Ikawa subtly altering the shielding to match the ever varying interplay of shadows. The effort had drained him to exhaustion, but he had to press on to find his friends and get them out. If he should stop even for a moment to rest, to let the shield down, he knew they'd be discovered and
lose
what little hope was left.

Drifting through the shadows, he guided his friends on, feeling Kochanski's hand on his left leg, and Imada's on his right.

He heard the light crunch of a footfall and looked straight down to see two men walking past. One paused, and looked up straight at him. Ikawa felt the sweat beading out on his forehead from the strain of keeping the shielding up and from the knot of fear. He avoided looking straight at them, watching instead from the corner of his eye. The man hesitated briefly,
then
continued on.

"Jesus Christ, that was close," Kochanski whispered.

"Keep your mouth shut," Ikawa hissed.

He heard the voices again, this time closer, one of them a woman's.

Cautiously he drifted around the side of a trunk and saw, directly ahead, a shimmering of light. Several trunks away, a platform hung out from the side of a tree nearly on a level with
himself
. Several children stood on the platform, their backs turned to him, leaning over the side as if watching something.

Well, we're here, Ikawa said to himself. Now what the hell am I going to do about it?

"So you came from the same world as I did?" the druid roared.

Mark felt as if he was shadowboxing with a madman. No matter what reassurances he gave, the old man would lapse into a near-maniacal fear.

"Can I say something?" Sergeant Saito cried, and Mark
laid
back against the post.

The druid turned to face him.

"You can see we are different races, can you not?" Saito asked, and the druid nodded in agreement.

"Deidre, would you agree that though we are of two different races we behaved as friends?"

"It's true," Deidre said sympathetically, and Mark sensed that this girl was not entirely on her grandfather's side. And she kept looking at Patrice with outright suspicion.

"Back on Earth we were hated enemies, Mark's country which was
America, and mine. And
America was allied with
Britain in this war against us. But now we are friends. I want you to know that at least the Americans are from your blood."

Mark realized the jeopardy Saito had put
himself
in, but saw his line of reasoning as well, shifting the argument away from shouted accusations and denials. Thank God someone was thinking clearly, Mark thought, cursing himself for trying to argue the facts on the surface.

The druid hesitated, looking over at Saito.

"Where is this
America?"

"Across the great ocean, thirty days' sail to the west," Mark said quickly. "Your descendants found the land and settled it.
Britain is where my people come from. I have the same blood as you."

"You were fighting against
Britain," the druid said.

Saito nodded.

"Who else was
Britain fighting against?" the druid said quietly.

"It doesn't matter," Mark snapped quickly, realizing the trap Saito might be walking into.

The druid looked back at him coldly.

"Caesar is dead," Mark told him. "He was stabbed by the Roman Senate."

"Thirty years back," Mark announced loudly, trying to improvise so that all would get this new history straight, "Italia had a new leader called Mussolini. All of us, including Saito's people, fought him and destroyed his power and turned
Rome back into dust."

The men around him nodded vigorously in agreement.

The druid seemed to hesitate.

"Remember, Grandfather, they're Jartan's sorcerers," Deidre said, her voice showing the slightest touch of concern. "If they really intended to hurt you they would have come in far greater strength."

"Then why are you here?" the druid asked.

Mark sighed with relief. Perhaps they were finally getting through.

"Because we think you might know how to open a portal back to our own world so some of us might be able to return home."

Patrice looked over at Mark with evident surprise.

"You're neutral in all of this," Mark said to the demigod. "You know how we came here and what we've done since. Can't you explain that to him?"

Patrice smiled--and in that instant he knew without doubt that she was an enemy.

"I've followed the story of these outlanders closely," she said, resting her hand lightly on the druid's shoulder.

The old man looked up at her with a gap-toothed grin.

"Has anyone else of the gods or demigods ever even bothered to visit you here?" Patrice said with a husky whisper.

"Only my lady here," the druid shouted.
"No one else."

"That's why I rushed here to warn you," Patrice went on. "These people only want to see your temple, to smash it down, and then to kill you."

Mark looked at Patrice with a cold fury.

"Castrating bitch,"
Walker snarled.

"Perhaps we can arrange that treatment for you," Patrice retorted.

"Shut up!" the druid roared, and raising his staff he snapped out a bolt, knocking
Walker unconscious.

"They kidnapped one of my friends, and then were coming here to kill you," Patrice continued.

"Kidnapped who?" Mark asked in surprise.

"See how innocent he sounds. Why, poor Vena." Patrice broke away from the druid's side to go kneel over the unconscious girl lying next to Leti.

"That's a lie!" Mark shouted. "Vena was with us, she's the companion of one of our men."

"She seemed perfectly content traveling with us," Deidre said inquiringly, looking at Patrice with a growing suspicion.

Mark shook his head.

"Which man was she with?" the druid yelled.

Mark remained silent.

"One of the three that escaped," Deidre said quietly.
"The young one."

"Wake her up," Patrice asked, her voice pleading. "She'll tell you."

The druid turned away from Mark and, going over to Vena's side, he scooped a handful of the liquid out of the bowl that Deidre brought over and splashed it into the girl's face.

With a groan, Vena stirred and Patrice helped her to sit up.

"Vena, dear," Pafcice whispered, her voice breaking with emotion. "Vena, I've come to rescue you. You're safe with me now."

"Let her talk for herself," Deidre snapped.

Patrice looked up angrily. "The girl's frightened. These animals kidnapped and bewitched
her
for heaven knows what purpose. I've been frantic trying to reach her."

Vena opened her eyes and looked about.