'! get the drift,' said Fost, waving a hand to stem the tide of Erimenes's pedagogy.
Istu had shouldered through the rubble. He strode purposefully up the street, and Fost wondered if it was only his imagination that perceived a fiercer light in those yellow eyes.
With a crack like thunder, a vast circular pit yawned before the Demon. Istu dropped instantly from sight in a welter of debris. Buildings to either side, their fronts undermined, slid into the hole. From the rush of air through the Skywell at his back, Fost knew the hole went all the way through the stone slab on which the City rested.
Almost at once a black hand appeared, three fingered and taloned like a Hisser's. Once more Moriana had cast magic of incredible power at the Demon – and had only succeeded in delaying his progress along the avenue. With icy shock, Frost realized the Demon was playing with his mortal opponent. He could simply have flung himself to the Circle of the Skywell with the speed of rushing wind had he so desired.
'Perhaps Istu treats this duel as a warming up exercise,' said Erimenes, reading the courier's thoughts.
A look of alarm gripped Erimenes's features, and he shouted, 'Oh, no, you can't take that upon yourself!' The genie had mind read Fost's intentions.
Unheeding, Fost looked around, then went to the young loyalist officer Cerestan, who stood with bow and arrow in his hands and glared with impotent fury at the Demon.
'We need balloons and birds,' Fost shouted as the lieutenant's head whipped around. 'We have to evacuate the City. Now!' he added as the young Sky Guard started to protest Still Cerestan objected, 'We cannot abandon our City!'
'This goes beyond the fate of your damned City! Any human who stays here will be dead within the hour. Don't you see? A new War of Powers is upon us. We need live humans to fight back, not dead fools who threw away their lives in useless heroics.'
Fost watched as understanding sank into Cerestan's mind. He nodded, lank black hair falling across his forehead. He turned to obey, then halted with a jerk like a dog reaching the end of its tether. He faced Fost. 'The queen! What of her?'
Fost read the look in those fervent blue eyes and inwardly groaned. He may have battled against Moriana but Cerestan was smitten with her all the same.
'I'll take care of her,' he said, emphasizing the first word more than was necessary.
Cerestan wheeled and raced off, calling to uniformed men and women as he passed. Some wearing Moriana's ribbons hesitated, but only for an instant. What side each had fought on before didn't matter now. They were all the same in the yellow eyes of Istu. And Cerestan was an officer of the Sky Guard, which meant that his orders were worth heeding. Rann promoted no fools to command his elite.
Fost worked his way through the crowd, yelling to warriors and unarmed civilians alike to evacuate. Erimenes floated by his side, pleading with him to stop this folly and see to the security of his own hide. For Erimenes to encourage the courier to flee the scene of imminent violence was tantamount in likelihood to the spirit again adopting his old philosophy of abstinence. Fost realized the situation was grave if Erimenes was willing to forego bloodshed in favor of what he had termed cowardice on many prior occasions.
'Get out, it's hopeless, get out!' was all the genie said. But he repeated it continually, his voice rising to shriller and shriller pitches.
To Fost's astonishment, Cerestan led a tentacle of the frightened crowd aft from the Circle along one of the lesser streets – seemingly into the face of the Hissers. Even though his wits were dulled by fear and fatigue, Fost figured out the ploy. Istu himself was playing cat and mouse games on the main avenue with Moriana and most of the Zr'gsz were with him. The Hissers Cerestan and the rest ran into could be quickly dispatched. Then the Sky citizens would get to work inflating the huge cargo sausages in the aft hangars. Since Istu fought forward through the City, they'd be safer there than those who retreated to the City's prow, at least until Istu and his reptilian allies consolidated their hold on the Sky City. Then no human would be safe.
'- have you impaled for impertinence, if she doesn't feed you to Istu,' babbled Erimenes as Fost broke from the ranks of soldiers and raced for Moriana. 'Great Ultimate, you know how fanatical she is about her City!'
Moriana had blocked the avenue with a shimmering, rippling curtain of light burning scarlet and blue and gold and white. Buzz-ings and fat black sparks burst forth as Istu touched it. The Demon fell back with a bellow of pain. Fost saw all this as he sprinted after Moriana.
With a sound like water sizzing on heated iron, a black hand reached through the shimmering curtain. With another anguished, angry roar, Istu hurled himself through the auroral wall. It caused pain but no damage. Pain was enough to infuriate him; he reached a clawed hand for Moriana.
'Duck!' screeched Erimenes. The courier had only a split second to evaluate the situation. Moriana stood poised, her face strangely calm, a blue nimbus of energy scintillant around her form. Herarms slowly rose, as if imploring the gods for aid. Fost dived headlong, not wanting to be caught in whatever defensive magic Moriana was about to unleash.
He felt a tingling close about his middle like a noose. He hung suspended in midair, the pressure around his waist threatening to crush him. Fost gasped, then reached out and gripped a protruding cobblestone with his fingertips. Straining every muscle in his body, he pulled. Like a seed squeezed between thumb and forefinger, he squirted out of the magical grip holding him. He tucked his shoulder and rolled on the hard street.
'What're you doing here?' Moriana's voice sounded odd, flat. Fost sat up and saw that they were encapsulated by a dome of dull silver. 'The force shield will keep him out for a few minutes.' She shook her head tiredly. 'I learned this magic years ago but have never been strong enough to use it before.'
Fost thought about frail mothers who lifted impossibly heavy blocks to free their trapped infants. In those moments of adrenaline fury, they became more than human. The urgency of battle against this cosmic being had elevated Moriana's powers in the same fashion.
'The City is being evacuated,' he told her. 'I came for you.' 'Evacuated!' she screamed. Her face twisted in rage. 'On whose craven order?'
'I told you, friend Fost, nothing good would conic from that rash action of yours, but you didn't -' 'My order,' Fost said, cutting off Erimenes.
Moriana raised a slender hand. Fost stood firm, though he knew magics capable of fending off Istu for the barest fragment of a second would blast him into a scorched cinder. 'You.' By what authority?'
'As your acknowledged consort. But mostly common sense.' He cast a quick glimpse upward at the pewter- colored wall of force. It held. The Demon seemed unsure how to deal with it, but Fost didn't doubt that Istu would eventually penetrate the curtain.
'The City's lost. All that remains is for her people to save themselves. And you, too. You most of all.' 'I'm holding Istu!'
'You hold him – barely. He hasn't fully recovered from his enforced ten-thousand-year nap.'
'But I grow stronger with every instant. I feel it!' Her eyes burned like balefires. She had won her City at horrendous cost. The thought of losing it almost in the same instant of seizing it drove forth her sanity like a beast.
'Are you Felarod?' he shouted at her. The dome began to bulge inward like a tent roof filling with rainwater. Istu had decided to push his way through using brute strength. 'Do you control the power of the World Spirit? Can you overcome a demon born among the stars?'
'He's right, Moriana.' The calm voice seemed to come from nowhere. Fost finally realized it emerged from the satchel so much like his own that Moriana carried over her shoulder.
The queen's shoulders slumped. The sight squeezed tears into Fost's eyes. He knew again how much he loved her, and her loss was a shared wound.
'Come,' she said, almost imperceptibly. Serpentlike her hand darted out to catch Fost's wrist. She dragged him toward the wall of the dome. He hung back, recalling what it had felt like going through the barrier as it formed.
The silvery hemisphere burst like a soap bubble. Istu's iron-black claw plunged deep into the pavement where they'd stood only seconds before.
The Circle was almost deserted when they reached it. At the fringes of the great plaza Zr'gsz began filtering in from the side streets. Moriana stopped to gather a full quiver of arrows and kept running, pausing now and then to cast some enchantment at the Demon following them. Fost didn't even look back to see what spells she hurled at Istu. It was too painfully apparent they were little more than annoying inconveniences to Istu.
Forward of the Circle, they ran into a crowd. Off to their left an elongated cargo balloon surged into the sky.
