Sanctuary

Aket-ten, because the huge crystal began moving, very slowly rotating. And the Magus was muttering something, too low for Kiron to hear what it was.

The entire atmosphere of the room changed. Kiron felt his hair starting to stand on end, and not just metaphorically, but physically, the way it did sometimes during midnight kamiseens or when he was flying in the dangerous tempests of the season of rains, when lightning played in the storm.

There was a low hum coming from the Eye, like the droning of bees about to swarm. The Magus moved into his field of vision again, sketching signs in the air with his hands, still muttering under his breath.

The Eye rotated a little faster. It still wasn’t going at any great speed; a desert tortoise was a hundred times faster than it, but the fact that it was moving without anyone touching it was disturbing.

Aket-ten made a noise around her gag. If it had been a scream, or anything that sounded like a cry for help, Kiron would have been out there in an instant. It wasn’t; it sounded like an insult. The Magus ignored it, and Aket- ten. Whatever he wanted her for, she wasn’t a priority right now.

The room began to brighten. At first, for a confused moment, Kiron thought it was because the light was coming from the Eye. Then he realized that the light was coming from the wrong direction—not from the Eye, but roughly from the east.

He’s cleared the sky above the Tower. Now he has light to work with.

The Eye rotated a little faster, the hum deepened and strengthened, and now Kiron felt not only his hair standing on end, but a gut-deep reaction that made his knees feel weak. This was— wrong—wrong in a way he couldn’t put a name to, but could only feel.

No, it was more than that, worse than that. This was something that had once been right and good, and had been twisted out of all recognition; something deep inside him recognized that evil for what it was, and wanted only to run.

Never in all his life had he felt this deep, soul-shaking fear. Khefti-the-Fat had only threatened his body. The Tian soldiers had only taken his father. The Tian Jousters would only have taken his heart, had they taken Avatre. This thing—this thing would eat everything that he was, ever had been, or ever would be and leave behind an empty shell that might live, speak, talk, but would be less than an ashabti-figure of flesh instead of clay—and worst of all, the most horrible of all, he would know what had happened, know what he had lost, and know he would never get it back. All pleasure, all joy, all creativity would be sucked out of him, leaving nothing but an interminable gray and unvarying existence.

No wonder those former Winged Ones had done so little to save themselves. Death was preferable to that death-in-life of emptiness.

Aket-ten screamed, her shriek muffled by her gag, but giving voice to exactly the same terror that he was feeling.

He clutched the frame of the cupboard to keep himself upright, and concentrated all his will on not giving in to the terror.

And then, the Eye began to move faster, the pitch of that steady hum rose a little, and the terrible fear faded. It didn’t disappear, but it faded enough so that it was bearable.

What—was—that?

He shook his head a little to clear it. His stomach was still churning, and he was so drenched with sweat he was surprised the Magus couldn’t smell him. What had caused that overwhelming fear?

Why hadn’t the Magus been affected?

Now he could hear Aket-ten, choking on the gag, weeping hysterically and moaning. The Magus came into his field of vision, tilting his head to the side, and wearing an expression of pleased avidity.

“So sorry to upset you, girl,” he said, sounding gleeful rather than sorry. “But I needed to test you. The more power you have, the more strongly you react to the Eye as it spins up to full speed. By your reaction, I would say that you have quite a lot of power. Far more than we suspected.”

Kiron took a very slow, deep breath, as anger chased out the last remnants of terror. And in the brief moment when terror was gone, but anger had not yet flooded him with unreason, he knew he would have to keep that rage under complete control.

And he also knew that he could.

A slave, a serf, lives with endurance and patience. He learns it because he has no other choice; he must learn to be patient or die. Orest would have attacked the Magus the moment he appeared with Aket-ten in tow. Any of the others would have burst out of hiding in rage or terror by now. Even Ari probably would not have managed to control himself.

So maybe he was the right person to be here. . . . Keep gloating, you bastard, he thought, behind the white-hot rage invoked by the sound of Aket-ten weeping. Keep right on. When the Feather of Truth is weighed against your heart . . . I would not care to be you. And I swear you are going to meet the Judges a great deal sooner than you think.

“Now, I will just bring the Eye fully to life,” the Magus went on blithely. “Would you like to hear what your destined fate is?”

Aket-ten’s sobs choked off. Kiron couldn’t tell if it was because her own fear had turned to anger, or if it was because she was too terrified to weep. He hoped it was the former. He was controlling himself so tightly that every muscle felt as tight as a bowstring.

The Magus laughed. “Oh, do glare at me, girl. Really, you should feel flattered and honored. Your power will be going to serve Alta far more effectively than that trivial ability of yours to speak with animals ever could. Or—well, it goes to serve the Magi, but soon enough our welfare and that of Alta will be one and the same, so it hardly matters. First—” He made a few more passes in the air, and this time Kiron’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head as he saw the fingers leaving trails of glow in the air where they had passed, forming, for just one moment, signs and glyphs. “—first, I will bring the Eye up to full speed. I have already used some of your power, oh, about half of it, to clear the storm out of the skies over the Tower, so that the Eye has some sunlight to work with. I will use the rest of your power to keep the sky over the Tower clear forever, no matter what the season, by making a link between the earth and air energies, using the Eye itself as the physical aspect of that link. Never again will the rains prevent us from using the Eye to punish those who defy and endanger us. Just think! As long as the sun shines, the Eye will always be usable by daylight after this! Then, when I am finished with you—well, by then that pesky Tian army under the command of our renegades will be at the Fourth Ring, and I will proceed to use the Eye to remove them all from our consideration. Do you understand now what your trivial sacrifice is—”

The Magus stopped in midsentence, and stared out the window somewhere behind Aket-ten. “—what in the—”

Kiron strained his ears, and thought he heard faint and far-off crashes, screams.

“Curse them all to Seft!” the Magus exclaimed angrily. “Wretched dragons! I knew we should have exterminated them all while we had the chance!”

They’ve begun! Kiron thought, with a lift of his heart. The others had begun the attack on the forces surrounding the Temple of All Gods, using the jars of Akkadian Fire. They could not have chosen a better moment to mount their distraction.

“Well, we’ll just have to speed this up so I can exterminate them now,” the Magus muttered under his breath. “Burn the vermin out of the sky—about time—should have been done years ago.” He made a few more passes, and this time the glowing lines he left in the air hung there and stayed. And then, as the Eye spun faster and faster, it, too, began to emit light, until a glowing blur hung in its place.

“And now, girl, it’s time for you to fulfill your destiny,” the Magus said, and turned his back on Kiron’s hiding place.

Knowing he would never get a better chance, Kiron grabbed his dagger, and flung open the door. It crashed into the wall as he leaped for the Magus’s back.

Only a last-moment dodge by his opponent saved the Magus from the fate he had meted out to others.

The Magus twisted cleverly out of the way, then whirled and grappled with him, trying to seize control of the dagger he held. At that moment, he realized something else. For someone as portly and out-of-shape as the Magus looked, he was still heavier and stronger than Kiron.

Kiron was angry; the Magus would not hesitate for a moment to kill.

Immobilize him—