'Hold him!' directed Revi. 'Watch his implant!' Warian struggled, but as always, his prosthesis was about half as strong as a real arm. Another two goons grabbed him, three on his crystal arm. 'We got 'im,' one grunted. 'He don't seem so tough.' Warian desperately tried to recall-what had he done to trigger the arm the first time? He'd been in that tavern, and what's-his-name had gotten him around the throat … he had started to black out. Darkness had threaded his vision, and he was reminded of the dark tendrils he'd noticed within his prosthesis. 'Look at me!' yelled Revi. The man's lip was swelling and blood trickled a red streak down his chin. Instead, Warian concentrated on his memory. If he didn't figure it out, the lights might go out for good… Wait-light! What was it about light? As he'd been choked, darkness had pushed in on all sides-he'd mentally tried to push the darkness back, to illuminate it. He'd been pretty muddled as his brain starved for air, and had gotten a little confused on which darkness to illuminate-his tunneling vision or the black hazing in his prosthesis. Revi wound up with the iron bar. Warian concentrated on the threads of darkness in his arm, willing them to shrivel away, to light up, to be revealed in the clarifying light of the sun. The prosthesis flashed into bonfire brilliance, lilac in hue.
Sensation shot from his shoulder to his crystalline fingertips, as if transformed from an inert sculpture to a live arm, or something that felt even more vital than flesh. It was alive again, as it had been at the tavern in Dambrath. His captors' grip on his arm suddenly seemed as light as tissue paper around a name day present. Lavender luminance lit their faces as they stared at him, alarm slowly overtaking what had been naked glee and the anticipation of a beating. They seemed caught and slowed in the syrupy radiance. Warian laughed and gave his artificial arm an experimental shake. He was free. The three on his left arm, his crystal prosthesis, scattered a few paces, yelling warnings with strangely deep, distorted voices. Warian lifted his left arm high, triumphant. He made a fist, thinking to scare those who'd grabbed him with an impressive threat. The iron bar clipped him on the forehead and pain sawed through his brain. All the quickness in the world couldn't protect him from inattention. He'd seen the brutal end of the bar at the last instant and managed to flinch away, just enough so his head hadn't shattered like an egg… he hoped. It sure hurt, though. Dazed, Warian went down on one knee. He cradled his throbbing head with his right hand. His aggressors moved in, thinking to fall on him, Revi in the vanguard, the bloodied metal bar raised high to finish the job. Without standing, Warian reached with his left hand and grabbed Revi's lead leg just below the knee. He could feel Revi's muscles and bones through the crystal. He squeezed. The muscles and bones pulped in his hand like rotten fruit. Revi dropped sluggishly to the floor, screaming and clutching at his ruined leg. The iron bar spun free, then clattered dully to the floor. The downed man's friends failed to grasp Warian's strength and speed-they continued to move forward. Or perhaps they didn't have a chance to react in the brief interval Warian allowed them. He stood up, still rubbing his head with his right hand. The eyes of his attackers had trouble following Warian's movements. Good. Warian strode to the fellow who stood nearest the entry hall, grabbed him, and threw him out the doorway.
Ditto for the man's nearest friend, who had just enough time to scream and try to run, though it did him no good. He sailed, flailing, through the air, and was gone. The other two, seeing their plan going horribly awry, turned to dash back the way they'd come, farther within the tenement. A few quick strides let Warian catch the hindmost. He plucked the man right off his feet. The weight of Warian's quarry was astonishingly little. The man's legs kicked, and he yelled in protest.
As if he held a doll, he bumped the man's head against the ceiling.
The man went limp, and Warian dropped him. Who's next? he wondered.
Fatigue ambushed him. The light in his prosthesis guttered out.
Dullness flooded the crystal, and the world jittered back to its natural timeframe. Warian stumbled and nearly fell flat on his face.
Exhaustion hammered him. He sucked breath like he'd just finished a marathon race. His living arm trembled as he used it to support himself against the wall. Now that he'd returned to normal perception, he understood what the men were yelling. 'He's killing us! Gods, he's killing us!' Warian didn't have the strength to protest. Hurting badly, yes. Killing? No. At least, he hadn't tried to kill anyone. He looked at his left arm again. It looked as it always had, save for the dark tendrils at its core. Were they growing? Hard to tell. But one thing was certain-he'd managed to consciously activate the extraordinary new strength his prosthesis harbored. If he could consciously trigger it once, he was confident he could do it again.
But should he? The way nausea struggled against his exhaustion, twice as bad as the first time… If he called on the arm's strength a third time, would the aftermath multiply again? The wall was no longer enough to support him. He slid down to a squat, still leaning on the wall, and studied his feet. They seemed strangely far away. A man appeared from down the inner passage-not one of the toughs who'd failed to overcome Warian. The newcomer wore the tailored black and gray robe of a businessman. His assertive posture, wiry frame, and dark but thinning hair were all too familiar to Warian. It was Uncle Zel. Zeltaebar Datharathi, who sat with his uncles on the family council, was a schemer, a dealmaker, a master of disguise, and a self-proclaimed scoundrel. Warian and Zel never had much to do with each other. 'Nephew, is that you?' asked Zel, squinting in disbelief.
'What in the name of the Ten Dark Gods are you doing back in town? And why are you killing my men?'
CHAPTER EIGHT
The destrier flitted across moonlit hills, its stone feet pounding out a tempo that mimicked the world's heartbeat. Kiril roused from her dozing trance when Thormud called a halt. Blinking, she gazed around at the monotonous plain, at low hills and rocky ridges silhouetted in the silvery distance. Nothing seemed amiss. 'Why are we stopping?' 'I am uneasy,' Thormud responded. 'Another prognostication is in order.'
'Really? In the middle of the night? I thought we traveled by night to avoid the heat of the day and unfortunate observation.' 'The same principle holds for conducting arduous prognostications, Kiril. I prefer to undertake such exertions during night's cool and shrouding darkness.' Kiril looked around again. The destrier had stopped atop a low, smooth bluff. 'I'll tell you where to put your 'shrouding darkness,' ' she murmured as she slipped off the stone destrier's back. The wait while Thormud performed his ritual promised to be excruciatingly boring. Thormud let the elemental mount bend low before he dismounted. As soon as the dwarf's feet touched down, he moved to the center of the bluff and began scrawling in the earth with his rod.
Kiril recognized the preliminary chicken scratches as standard geomancer preparations for 'magical surveillance and interrogation of the mineral bones of the world,' as the dwarf had once described it.
Bah. Kiril sighed and paced out a perimeter. She always hated waking from trance-her thoughts were too clear and connected. At those times, the temptation to draw Angul was worst-she wanted to drown her questions and uncertainties in the blade's overwhelming certitude. It was nearly a compulsion. Nothing the verdigris god couldn't fix. She gulped down a burning shot and gasped. As the fire settled into her stomach, Angul's lure faded into low background noise, as always. The trick was to desensitize her mind. His call couldn't penetrate her alcohol haze. She finished her circuit around the periphery of the bluff. A gauzy film of cloud partially obscured the moon, but her eyes were sharp in the dark. She spied nothing to threaten the dwarf's impromptu magical rite. Kiril found a likely rock and sat, gazing at Thormud. The geomancer pulled a chest from the destrier's back. From it he produced various vials filled with mineral salts and viscous oils. These ingredients, along with his selenite rod, were familiar implements of high geomancy. Kiril barely paid attention-if a branch of magic existed that was slower and less exciting than geomancy, she hadn't seen it or heard of its disrepute. Thormud created a circle on the bluff top by pouring out measured quantities of multicolored dusts. He quartered the circle with his moon-white rod. When he finished, an invisible spark of connection passed up from the ground and into the dwarf, jolting him as if it were an electrical charge.
The dwarf stumbled and managed a controlled fall into the circle's center. He closed his eyes, not to see darkness, but a vision bequeathed him by the soil. The world was composed of the four primary elements: air, earth, fire, and water. But earth held Thormud's attraction, and earth responded to his fervent attention. And more often than not, earth gave up its secrets to the dwarf. Earth accepted all and tolerated all; earth observed all that occurred on or within its embrace. To those who knew the language of stone, earth poured out its knowledge in a slow, steady stream. Because so few had the patience to bother learning the deliberate arts of geomancy, Thormud often found his solicitations were answered energetically, almost eagerly, as if stone relished its rare opportunity to communicate. The geomancer saw lines of connection running below the ground, lines of attraction and correlation, currents that passed telluric energy to all points of the world-sphere. He followed the lines south and east, and was
