stood next to a throne with a high curving back decorated with larger jewels and
skulls. Some of the skulls still had flesh on them.
It was talking to someone out of their view. Then something made it turn, and it
saw them. A high, vibrating shriek filled the glade, and made Jon-Tom shiver. No
dentist's drill could have made a more excruciating sound.
A far smaller flash, an echo of M'nemaxa's blinding passing, obliterated the
awful sight.
And then there was no longer anything within the glade save one very tired
wizard, wind, and grass.
The gale had become a breeze. As if confused by its presence, the wind-cloud
vortex that had hung above the glade simply dispersed. Silver phosphorescence
shimmied down trunks and branches to run like water back into the soil.
A light rain began to fall. Hesitantly, the moon peeked through the intermittent
clouds, filling the glade with healthy light.
By the time the panting Jon-Tom and the others had reached the center of the
glade the ellipses and suns and arcane symbols and formulae no longer glowed
against the ground. Though he sought Clothahump, Jon-Tom's mind still saw the
face of the towering praying mantis, heard once more the grating scream that had
issued from it just before it vanished.
Pog was hovering nervously above them. The rain was steadily washing the powders
and rare essences back into the soil from which they'd been extracted. This
corner of the web of the world had held.
They found Clothahump sitting on the grass, his glasses askew on his horned
beak.
"Are you all right, sir?" Jon-Tom spoke with a mixture of anxiety and respeet.
"Who, me? Yes, my boy, I believe I am."
"You ought not to have tried it, good wizard." Talea studied the empty ellipse
warily. "There are extremes of magic which should not be touched."
He shook a finger at her. "Don't try to tell me my business, young lady. Pog,
give me a wing up." The bat dipped lower, helped the wizard to his feet.
"I have learned part of what I wished to know, my friends. Though I must confess
I did not expect the spirit M'nemaxa to speak in riddles."
"Actually, I don't see that we've learned that much," said Flor.
"We have something to work with, my dear, even if it is only couched as a riddle
or metaphor. That is a great deal more than we had before." He sounded pleased.
"And if naught else, we have given a scare to the Empress Skrritch that may make
her hesitate or delay her attack, for she it was whom we saw in that final
moment.
"We can continue our journey, secure now in the knowledge that this will be a
full-scale war led by the Empress of all the Plated Folk herself. That should
win over some of muddleheads in Polastrindu!"
"I hope we don't have to go through this many more times," Flor muttered. "Santa
Cecilia may not have many more blessings left for me."
"Not to worry, child," he assured her. "I will not attempt it again. Such a
conjuration cannot be made more than once in a lifetime, and tonight I have used
mine. I employed incantations I will never employ again, spoke words I may not
safely speak henceforth.
"From now on, each day on earth will be one twenty-two thousandth of a day
shorter than previously, for in order to draw the immortal from the far depths
of his journey I had to utilize the soul-strength of the earth itself."
Jon-Tom walked out into the inner ellipse. Every blade of grass within the
marked shape had been vaporized. So had the soil. All that remained was a
perfect ellipsoidal shape of melted stone. The white granite had been twisted
like taffy.
"You spoke of its journey, sir, and so did it. I... I heard it."
"Did you see how furiously it soared, how steadily it galloped, though it did
not move beyond my confinement?" Jon-Tom nodded.
"It was at once here with us and holding its place in its journey." He cheeked
to make certain his plastron compartments were still tightly closed. "If the
legends of wizards and the admonitions of necromants are correct, the spirit
M'nemaxa has traveled approximately a thirtieth of its journey. The journey
began at the beginning of the first life, life which in making its journey
M'nemaxa strews across the worlds behind it.
"It is galloping around the circumference of the Universe. It is said that when
it meets itself coming it will annihilate purpose. Then it can finally rest.
'Tis no surprise it was irritated at our interruption. With a journey of several
trillion years still to make, even a little pause is unwelcome.
"Yet despite all that, the formulae worked. The ellipse held." He glowed a
little bit himself, with pride. "It was contained, and It answered when It was
called." He blinked and slowly sat down on the grass again. "I'm a little tired,
all of a sudden."
"I think we're all a little tired," said Jon-Tom knowingly.
"Aye, I'll not argue that, mate." The afterimage of the enormous winged
flame-horse still lingered on the otter's outraged retinas. "I think we could
all do with a bit o' sleep 'ere."
Everyone agreed. After a brief mutual examination to insure that no injuries had
been sustained, they began to make camp. Sleep finally came to all, but fiery
images alternated with visions of a tall green-black horror to provoke less than
benign dreams.
Far above and away a distant pinprick of light flared briefly across the cosmos.
The tiny burst faded quickly. It came from the vicinity of NGC 187, where
M'nemaxa angrily kicked aside a star or two as he raced back to where he'd left
off his eternal race around the infinite bowl of existence....
XIV
There was panic in Cugluch Keep.
Word of the troubles seeped down from servitors to attendants to workers and
even to the lowly apprentice workers who toiled in the deepest burrows and
worked endlessly to keep the omnipresent ooze from flooding the undertunnels.
Rumors abounded. Workers whispered of a flaming rain that had fallen from the
sky and destroyed hundreds of brood platforms. Or they told of tons of carefully
hoarded foodstuffs invaded and ruined by spore rot. Or that the sun had appeared
for three consecutive days, or that several of the Royal Court had been
discovered feeding on the corpse of a mere worker and had been summarily
dismissed.
The truth was far worse than the rumors. Those who knew hid in fear and went
about their daily business always looking over their shoulders (those who could
look over their shoulders, for some had no necks... and some no shoulders).
Hunter packs took every opportunity to get away from the capital city, on the
pretext of adding still further to the enormous stocks of supplies. Official
auditors bent low over their tallies. All were affected by the panic, a panic
that reached beyond sense, beyond normal fears of mortality, to affect even
quivering grubs within their incubation cocoons.
The Empress Skrritch was on a rampage. Blood and bits of loose flesh trailed in
her wake as she stormed through the rooms and chambers of the labyrinthine
central palace.
Safe from her wrath, endless legions of mandibled, facet-eyed troops drilled
mechanically on the mossy plains outside the city. As if fearful of reaching the
ground, the rays of the sun penetrated the dun-colored sky only feebly.
Guards and servants, scurrying messengers and bureaucrats alike felt the
Empress' temper. Eventually the rage spent itself and she settled herself down
in one of the lesser audience chambers.
Her thoughts were on her own fear. Idly she nibbled the headless corpse of a
still twitching blue beetle chamberlain who'd been too slow to get out of her