Seven Swords

Chapter 11

'I seek a ..... gate from Rengarth and could think of nowhere else to try."

'A gate? There is no gate.' Ilvanis sounded certain. There must be, how else would the sorcerer Geronfrey have drawn Kendric to Rengarth unwilling? And I crossed also through a window of Geronfrey's Dark Tower in Edanvant-'

Neva's spectral head was shaking sadly. 'Kendric came not through a true gate, but one opened by Geronfrey's dark magic. Now that he is gone from Rengarth these many years, there is no means-'

'Do not make me regret that we rid the land of him!"

'Why desire this gate?" Sin wondered. 'You are well and happy in Rengarth. Your family is safe, except for the danger of clan-poisoning. Other lands offer worse dangers for less reward."

Irissa studied Sin carefully. 'How do you know that I am happy?'

We... spectral citizens... sense these things. Happy enough, anyway."

'True. We would not stir from Rengarth even if we could now, I think. Save that . . . Kendric fails.'

'At what?' Neva was indignant. 'Kendric is not one to fail, and if he did, he would find some way to turn it to advantage.'

'Not at anything, Neva. In himself, in ways too secret to see. He... ages, as I do not.'

'Ah.' Ilvanis nodded sagely. 'He is not Torloc."

'But I am! And I have come to the Spectral City to dis cover if there is any...force... that can make Kendric Torloc in longevity at least, and where I can find it.''

'Hmm'.

They paced around the well, all four specters, though nothing so solid as feet touched ground and nothing so solid as ground underlay them all. Around they went in solemn procession, vaporous robes flapping soundlessly, the wellwater rippling at their passage.

'Apparently their brains have become as spectral as themselves,' the adolescent cat remarked from Thunder mist's withers, 'if it takes this much ceremony to think.' If you are not Felabba, I shall have Scyvilla cook and serve you. Now, hush!' Irissa ordered angrily.

Like four phantom flames the figures flickered around the spectral well, one merging into another until - for a moment - it seemed that only two, integrated forms paced there. A phantom who was not quite Neva or Aven... and not quite Sin or Ilvanis. . . and not quite wolf or owl ...

'A comely combination, the cat commented again, squinting at the animal Irissa and Kendric had known as the Rynx.

Irissa ignored it as the semblance of the Rynx melted into the swirling vapors. Then motion stopped and the four settled into their separate selves again. In a line beside the well, they spoke in turn. 'You remember, seeress, that the wells of the Spectral City each hold a guardian face,' Neva began.

'Yes! These are people not quite as spectral as yourselves.' They are the faces of those who have died,' Sin put in direly.

'But-'Irissa hesitated to tell her friends that they, too, were quite dead.

Neva smiled, her native warmth shining through her insubstantial form as flame surmounts glass. 'We are specters because Geronfrey transformed us into animal or other semblances. All of us here have been so spelled and hence hang in a quasi-life in this semi-city.'

The dead in the wells,' Aven explained with a toss of albino locks, are those who have been killed, whose spirits are not merely homeless while some beast bears their soul, but who have died in some deeper, realer way.

"They linger for a while, Ilvanis said, and then depart Others always take their places. To us, they are the phantoms, as you and your beasts are also. But they see both sides of death, and one of those is life.'

And where there is at least a view of life, there is an answer to its quandaries,' Neva finished. Her misty golden eyes darted to each of her companions in turn. 'I think that Irissa must consult the Old Woman of the Well.

'I will consult a Gilothian fireworm!' Irissa burst out 'Only let it be soon.'

In a body the specters had surrounded her. Irissa feli herself being wafted along in a cloud. A vaporous hand tugged Thundermist's reins. The beast plodded obediently along. Lengths and widths and breadths of Spectral City streets drifted by.

Encased by her escort's misty forms, Irissa felt almost that the city moved and she stood still, so smoothly did cobble and brick roll by in silent progression.

Then another square was before them - this one round - and another well wall. The four specters evaporated several paces back, and Irissa could see their vague forms more clearly. All were gesturing her to the well.

'She has not been here long,' Neva warned, her clear voice rising like a bell, and will stay even less long. We have felt a miasma of great power dissipating. Perhaps she can tell you of what you seek.'

Irissa moved through the fading architecture, over the ghostly stones. 'How did the faces in the wells die?' she wondered.

They were killed, I thought you knew,' Ilvanis said. His voice grew fainter with each step Irissa took, but she dared not look back.

'Killed?' she asked.

'Some Geronfrey transformed and banished. Others he killed by whatever means came readily - mostly magic.

'What?' Irissa could hardly hear the last words and risked a backward glance.

There was no one there. Of course, there never really had been, but... She looked to the street and gasped. The cobbles were winking out, here and there, like stars. Green blades of grass grew through their gaps. The Spectral City was decamping, already!

She rushed to the well lip, unconcerned with how ghastly this victim of Geronfrey's might look. Already the constant sheet of running water that poured from its mouth was thinning into separate falls.

The well's surface water rippled - Irissa sought in vain. for a face among the blurred rings of motion. Something white bounded to the well rim. Irissa took it for a depart ing phantom, but its solid side pushed against her arm. I know somewhat of wells,' the cat said, crouching with its forepaws curled into the nonexistent edge, its green eyes scanning the water. 'Don't fall in again!" Irissa warned it. 'I might not be able to save you."

'I have never "fallen" into a well in my lives,' the cat returned a bit indignantly. Be silent and learn. And look for the Eye of Edanvant.'

'The Eye-? Irissa, dumbfounded, unintentionally complied with the cat's call for silence. 'Use your eyes!' it returned, as intent upon the water as if a fish cruised just below the surface.

Irissa envisioned the Eye of Edanvant- a great mala chite iris inlaid in the center of the Damen Circle. She had seen that ancient eye swallowed by its own pupil. She had seen the Damen Circle abandoned by the women who used to gather there to share the Torloc powers. She had seen the Eye perverted by Torloc men greedy for an untoward share of the women's magic.

She had never thought to evoke a thing from her own and her kind's past again.

Yet it came to her magical call, rising in a green glow to the surface. Then it faded and a face floated in its stead - a wizened, whitened face not one whit spectral. A face Irissa had last seen written on a cloud above Citydell in Edanvant.

"Finorian! First Felabba, and now you? Does this mean I have aid upon my quest?'

It means you dream backward, child, always a bad sign. You look back because you have glimpsed a future whose face you cannot regard. It must be a dire farseeing for you to come to the dead for soothing.'

'Are you . . . dead?'

The Eldress's moon-white eyes rolled in merriment, what passed for it with Finorian. 'If I am not, I make a fine semblance of the dead. So once again I come to you over water, though I prefer the borgia of my earlier incantation. Much finer effect, to come floating into a green goblet and turn the Wrathman white with surprise. Where is he, your partner in quests?'

'Home. Here in Rengarth."

'Rengarth. Ah... so I have found myself where none can go voluntarily. Or leave. Is that what troubles you? the Eldress asked with sudden insight.

'Yes. A gate. I must have a gate from here to-'

'Where?'

'Anywhere, for a start. But ultimately - to Rule.'

Finorian's sightless eyes narrowed. 'You do go back, child, when you seek your birthworld. Rule is... ruined. Magic has left it bereft of any light and mystery. What seek you there?"

'Some . . . clue.'

'And you must go in person?'

'Yes, for only I will know what I seek when I see it.'

'Which is-?'

'Hurry, Finorian, there is not much time-!' Even as she spoke Irissa watched the Eldress's face distort, its features pulling apart as if caught by the well's rippling rhythm. 'For you or for me? Finorian's harsh voice demanded.

'For both of us, and the Spectral City, as well."

'You must tell me your quest."

'Kendric ...!

'Ah! I knew it. You push yourself to the extremes your magic for only one cause. I told you he was yours my girl, for better and more often for worse. What mis chief has he fallen into now?' of

Irissa was ready to wring her hands or Finorian's neck, were it physical. "There's so little time now, for us - and forever, for Kendric. He ages, Finorian, hair by hair and joint by joint.'

Always the way of mortal man. The expanding mouth expanded farther as a mocking cackle drifted to Irissa's ears. 'Did I not tell you? Good riddance, I say. But what of your child?"

'Children.'

'Ah. A seeress - or two?'

'None. Our daughter, Javelle, is . . unempowered.'

'And the other?"

'A... boy.' Irissa said no more.

Finorian kept silent for a moment. 'Bitter, bitter the answer to all my expectations. So now you are a loyal wife and mother, seeking to assuage mortal anxieties. What will you do when your half-born children age before you, seeress?'

'Find another answer."