visible.
There was a snap of energy, and the zone vanished.
Guyal said, “Unexpected! Iszmagn has discovered how to abjure the primary nigrescence.”
Manxolio said in a low voice: “I suspect the IOUN stones. Let us retreat, and calculate a more complete stratagem in a leisurely fashion, perhaps over a beaker of Old Golden in the taproom of the Scatterlamp Hotel.”
Guyal said, “Retreat is unlikely, as the tower is now surrounded with blue extract.” Nearby was an arched window carved with grimacing gnomes. The ground below was infected with aquamarine pulsations of singularly uninviting aspect.
Up the stairs, they passed through an alchemical lab, seething with alembics and bubbling retorts, and then a chamber composed of looking glasses, each face of which showed a different landscape, none of which were of Earth.
They came upon Iszmagn in the astrological copula, laying at ease upon a pink couch, a plate of candied figs at his elbow, a hookah in his hand. Huge crystalline windows loomed behind the couch of Iszmagn, showing the sky, the red sun, and the faint full moon with its new crater. The IOUN stones swarmed the glass-domed chamber like bees.
“Leave me in peace, you clumsy creatures of the waking world!” called Iszmagn. “I have no ambitions, save to live out the remainder of human life on earth in comfort, collecting my dream-lenses. They are my companions, they whisper love-songs to me as I sleep!”
Guyal spoke in a voice of doom: “Iszmagn the Sorcerer, for the death of the peoples of Sfere and Vull and gay Undolumei and countless others, and in recompense for the murder of my father and brothers, I call on you to surrender, that your life might be spared. Here stands the Remonstrator of Old Romarth: he will take you into custody, and you will receive the justice of their Magistrates.”
“What? And toil in the Cleft for my daily ort of bread, and firken of unclean water?” called out Iszmagn in a strange, strangled, high-pitched voice. He gave a shrieking giggle of laughter. His two eyes seemed dull and listless; only the third eye, taken from a nonhuman being from Sirius, glittered with intention.
Said Guyal. “Will you capitulate? Human life is rare: in all eternity, each man has but one. Better to toil than to perish.”
“So, I killed your father and all your kin! What of it? I have arranged that you have no memory, so it causes you no real grief: your complaint against me is highly theoretical, if not absurd.”
Manxolio, made courageous, perhaps, by desperation, spoke up: “Behold, I hold in hand the Implacable Dark Iron Wand of Quordaal.”
The lenses in Iszmagn’s coat flickered with emotion: the dream images surged and darkened. The sorcerer rose to his feet, saying, “I have attempted reason, but you are stubborn! Enough!” and then he uttered Lispurge’s Vexatious Thrust.
A gust of the distilled motion darted out toward Manxolio. Guyal leaped in the way: the line of force passed through his chest; Guyal was flung like a rag doll up against a rack of plates of gold, silver, and green iridium; all clattered to the gemmed floorstones.
Manxolio flourished the Wand: a lance of thousand-lightninged brilliance roared out. Manxolio could not diminish the rush of white fire.
When at last silence fell, Manxolio blinked purplish dots from his eyes. The Wand was dull and exhausted.
Iszmagn was unhurt, his chamber undamaged, and the tumbling shapes circling his head were brighter. He emitted a cackle, and the lenses in his coat looked merry. “My IOUN stones drink magical vibrations! I am proof from all attack! Your zone of darkness, I have already deduced how to negate. Your Implacable Iron Wand has no further powers against me!”
Guyal rose to his feet. There was a hole in his coat, but the flesh beneath was untouched. “You do not know my powers,” he intoned.
At that moment, there came a momentary lull in the radiation of the sun — it flared like lightning, and then the world was plunged into a jet-black gloom, with the iron-red face of the moon flickering into darkness a half- second later.
The mage clutched his three eyes and screamed in terror. “The Sun! The death of all life is come!”
From the window came a noise: beneath the black sky, a lamentation passed across all the lands and seas, as every living man, and other creatures, talking beasts and semihumans, all who knew the meaning of this gloom, let out a cry. The noise was very faint indeed, for the tower was far from any dwelling of man, but it came from all quarters.
And yet, as good fortune would have it, this was merely a solar spasm of unusual opaqueness: the sun trembled with new effort. Ember-red light seeped forth from scabs on the sun’s surface, and flares clawed their way into visibility like volcanic eruptions. In a few moment, more than half the sun was re-ignited from its buried fires, the world was as well-lit as before, or very nearly.
When vision returned to the cupola of the tower, the spike of the Implacable Iron Rod could now be seen, having penetrated the skull of the Sorcerer Iszmagn. A river-delta of blood and brain matter, as well as other fluids the sorcerer had introduced into his nervous system, dripped along his neck and down his coat. The lenses were dark, their vitality exhausted: all the carefully collected dreams of the sorcerer were dead.
Manxolio, who held the haft in both hands, and stared in awe at the corpse, only slowly straightened and regained his composure. When he clicked shut the spike, the body slid heavily from the end, and splashed to the floor, already beginning to dissolve. It was clear that the IOUN stones did not protect physical flesh from merely physical assault.
He turned to Guyal, who seemed whole and unblooded. Manxolio said, “Difficult as this is for an Effectuator to admit, I confess I cannot fathom how you survived a cantrip that normally pierces quenched steel.”
Guyal smiled and held up his fist. Light shined between the cracks of his fingers. Opening his hand, he let loose a small IOUN stone, which darted like a fish, and took up orbit around the young man’s head. “These stones are mine, or so we deduced. I snatched one from the air as I jumped to take the blow.”
One by one, the other stones departed from their position near the corpse, and, following the first, took up positions in concentric circles around Guyal. The IOUN stones changed hue and grew duller, as first the oblongs, and then the spindles and spheres, gave up their essence. Guyal of Sferendelume stood taller, and majesty seemed to shine from his face.
His voice was now stronger, as if vibrant with unearthly wisdom. “I now recall my destiny and fate. Iszmagn was more foolish than I guessed, for the potentium of the Museum of Man upon Sferendelume in Pleiades, a trifling 440 lightyears from Earth, reaches me here still, and, like your Wand, it is directed by thought-pressure alone. Had I known, merely my wish could have set free powers of the first magnitude. Observe!”
Guyal made no gesture and spoke no spell, but Manxolio felt the floor cant like the deck of a ship. There was a sensation of rushing motion. When it ceased, outside the many windows of the cupola, Manxolio saw that the onyx tower now rested in the midst of the ruins of Sfere.
An invisible force was lifting the stones of the dam, one by one, and threads of silver water were beginning to return to the dry streambed of the lower Scaum.
“With the IOUN stones once more in my command, I can seek in the limitless void, discover and recall the Analept to Earth, and anchor it. It is done! Let there be the first anchor point here, in Sfere.
“The river Scaum shall live again, and bear the traffic of boats and rafts of pilgrims. The Indigo Path of Instantaneous Motion will loft all those who seek to depart the Dying Earth away, beyond the sky, to fair Sferendelume!”
Manxolio felt the Implacable Wand begin to vibrate in his hand, and it grew heavy as lead.
“As promised, the wand is restored.” The ringing voice of Guyal of Sferendelume continued, “Manxolio, I charge you to return to Old Romarth and tell them of this hope I bring. The end of Earth need not be the end of
