Ironhelm - Douglas Niles [7]
Naltecona did not turn in scorn from this cleric, though he shook his head in silent thought before looking to yet another priest. This one met the speaker's eyes with his own gaze of patient, silent thought.
"Andyou. Colon!" Naltecona spoke softly, his voice assuming a youthful wistfulness. "Would that you could speak, that I may hear you. What wisdom do you conceal behind that shield of silence?"
Colon, resplendent in a plain gown of purest cotlon, nodded respectfully but, of course, said nothing. Naltecona whirled again, agitation forcing him into a restless pace. Finally he paused before his throne. In the far wall of his chamber, high above his head, was a long window. Even now he could see the winking insolence of the omen, gleaming brighter than the most brilliant of stars, though the hour was barely past noon.
"Could you be the sign of the Return? Do you warn us that Qotal comes again to the True World?" He spoke thoughtfully, then lapsed into silence.
After a moment, he turned to a courtier, his voice now firm with decision. "Prepare a dozen slaves for the ceremonies of Tezca this evening. Inform my generals to prepare an expedition against Kultaka. Their mission is the claiming of prisoners for the flowery altar of Zaltec!"
Many thousands of miles away, a tower slanted crazily into the sky. The narrow structure, with a conical, tiled roof, rose from a wasteland of red sand, but instead of standing proud and tall like a spire in the sky, it careened at an angle half between upright and horizontal. Defying the law of gravity, it proclaimed by its very existence the might of a greater power: magic.
Inside the tower, all seemed normal. The walls appeared to rise and fall straight up and down. A stairway curved around the inside of the tower, leading from a room at the bottom to another room at the top. The rest of the tower was a hollow cylinder. The hollow center of the place was empty, at rest, except for one careful, deliberate figure.
Kreeshah… barool… hottaisk. Over and over, the phrase rang through Halloran's head. He studied the words, the verbal component of the magic missile spell, until his brains felt like mush. But still his master made him concentrate.
Halloran climbed the stairs carefully, holding the foaming beaker before him with both hands. Two more circuits to the top of the tower, to the wizard's laboratory, to…
To what? The lad did not want to find out.
The wizard Arquiuius's current casting, a potent summoning spell, frightened Halloran as had none of his mentor's previous incantations. The creature within the mage's pattern had been taking shape for three days and nights now, and each hour it seemed to add another oozing pustule, bloated tentacle, or drooping moist orb. Presumably these were eyes, Hal guessed, though they numbered several dozen on the bloblike form that now occupied the entire center of the laboratory.
Kreeshah •… baroo!… hottaisk. He repeated the words again, but his mind threatened to wander. The hour was early, before the sunrise, and he had had scant hours of sleep during the course of his master's current incantation. Still, I should be more disciplined, Halloran reminded himself, thinking of all that he owed to the wizard. Arquiuius had found him as an orphan, a seasoned street urchin who had lost his family to war, and had brought him here. For the last years of his childhood, Halloran had worked at odd tasks for the wizard. Now, as he progressed through adolescence, he was beginning to learn the secrets of arcanery from Aquiuius. Perhaps, one day, Halloran would be a wizard as mighty as his master!
Placing each footstep carefully on the smooth, worn stone of the stairway, the young magic-user made another circuit. One more to go…
"What am I doing here?" He mouthed the question in genuine curiosity. Of course, he knew he possessed the aptitude that Arquiuius had recognized years ago. Now the youth could send an arrow of magic exploding from his finger, or cause an unsuspecting peasant to