“I have heard that the devices of the ancients are similar in their powers to the magical spells employed by the higher Circles of the Sorcerer Priests within the temples.”
“So it is. The ancients performed their wonders with instruments, but later our savants learned-to produce similar effects with no more than the strength of their minds. It may be for this reason that the arts of making these devices are forgotten. That knowledge was lost before the Time of Darkness, though a few maintained it even into the Latter Times which preceded all of our historical empires. Now those who have the talent use their minds to ‘reach through,’ employing such aids as mnemonic words, gestures, thought attitudes, and even substances. This is what is called ‘magic’ by those who know not the truth.”
“I have seen such spells. On the day of the Visitations of the Wise the senior priests of our monastery create mighty illusions to entertain the populace: ancient sages who stride forth from the high altar chamber bearing books and scrolls and emblems. Some of these phantasms are even made to speak learned words and give moral instruction; 'others scatter fantastic flowers over the crowd, and these turn into bright Kheshchal-birds and fly away-”
The Pe Choi opened his long, toothed beak in a copy of a human smile. “As you say. But all is not illusion. There are ways of ‘reaching through’ and turning energy into substance-or substance into nothingness.” He took up a reed pen from the table. “Observe.”
The skeletal fingers made a twisting gesture, and the Pe Choi hummed a single sonorous syllable deep in his throat. The pen appeared to turn over in his hand. Then it was gone.
Harsan was intrigued. The supercilious Sorcerer Priests of the monastery had performed such tricks, but he had not been considered advanced enough to study these arts. “Can you make it return?”
“Certainly. It is just a sort of ‘reaching around the comer.’ ” The Pe Choi made a second gesture, and the pen was back in his hand again. Harsan put out a finger to touch it-and jerked back in surprise. The pen was now deathly cold.
“One must be cautious; an object thus brought back cannot be held long in soft human fingers! ‘Around the comer,’ as I call it, is not a place for the living. I have heard that certain sages have put their heads there to see what is to be seen, and have been dragged back with eyes burst and blood running from their noses and frozen upon their cheeks. Dead as stones, and all within a trice!”
“Can you teach me to do this thing?”
The lambent green eyes came near, and the yellow-slit pupils looked full into Harsan’s own brown eyes. “I can try, if you are so willed, and if you have the talent. Teach me Llyani, and I shall teach you this.”
“Agreed.” In spite of himself Harsan felt himself warming to this strange travesty of a Pe Choi.
They spent the better part of the afternoon at it. The two priests of the Lords of Change did not return, and none came to disturb them until they heard the evening guard detail clattering down the corridor to relieve their comrades. By this time Harsan had at least touched the terrible cold of “around the comer” twice or thrice, although he had no success at making anything travel to or from that curious, alien space.
Chapter Nine
Four sat together in a room that was not a room, in a place that was not a place, and in a time that was timeless. Sparks of colourless light swam lazily to and fro, fish in a pool that had never known water.
The first was a man attired in the silver-chaised, engraved armour of the city of Dharu, the Forge of Yan Kor. He was in his early middle years, massive as the plinth of a fortress, heavy through the shoulders and upper arms, and almost without a neck, his shaven head seeming to sit directly upon his torso. His breastplate, pauldrons, and gorget of fine steel exaggerated this massiveness. His was an imposing figure of physical power, although if one looked closely, certain softnesses of cheek and jowl revealed concessions made to age. Two creases ran down from his broad-winged nose past shaven lips to a square-cut black beard shot with silver, as ravines run down from a headland to the foam-tipped waves of the sea. Yet his most arresting feature, perhaps, were his eyes: green-glinting black, level, stem beneath the jutting eaves of his brows-and possibly a trifle mad.
The second was also a man, but cast by a different potter upon another wheel. Earth-hued robes hid his body, and he might thus have been slender or stout, old or young. Somehow, even so, he had the air of one who is young but who has never experienced youth. This man sat motionless as an idol of clay, corpse-hued hands folded before him upon his knees, the nails like chips of ochre flint. His features were concealed by a sombre cowl, but the light from above-which had no source and cast no shadow- touched a jaw painted bone-white, the colour of a skull.
The third who sat in that group might have been a man-and might have been something quite other. He was reed-thin, of no age determinable, sallow-saffron of skin, with a cap of dead black hair held by a curiously wrought fillet of silver and obsidian. He wore a slashed tunic of purple and ebon and russet which was cut loose and might thereby hide any number of anomalies of form. No pupils were visible in his eyes, and these glinted now black, now red, like marbles of translucent glass.
The fourth was most definitely not a man. Rich coppery-brown skin and sepia-hued fur rippled in the pallid light. A fanged animal snout, up-tilted ears, and a heavy-ridged brow made the creature a demon out of legends old before man had walked upon Tekumel. Save for a harness of studs and links and bosses, the being was nude. Scarlet eyes, like rich rubies, stared down at a luminous blue-glowing orb cupped between six-fingered paw-like hands.
The first man spoke in a grating, foreign voice. “You sought this council. Why?”
The second replied in a higher, mellower tone, a voice without emphasis or intonation, like the base-note of some sad threnody. “They near the goal. If more is not done, what was concealed will be opened.”
“You are resourceful. Why call upon us?”
“Several players play this game. My pieces can be identified. Should this occur, more than one will be the loser. ’ ’
The first man swore casually in a harsh, crackling tongue. “What would you of us?”
“You have pawns still unplayed, even in Bey Sii. If one or two are dashed from the board, it will be no more and no less than others expect. On the other hand, if even one of my pieces is clearly seen, both our games are speedily done.”
“What difficulty do you apprehend?” The armoured man shifted his weight, leather and metal harness creaking. “So the priest-boy has reached Bey Sii; there is little chance he will come upon the prize!”
The second man paused, then went on. “You know that the ‘Book of Changing into Dust’ is in my possession. It contains the records of the necropolises of the Bednalljan Dynasty from the reign of Queen Nayari up through the age of the Great Decline. Amongst the entries for Urmish there is one for the tomb of a certain Ha’akosun, who was governor of that city, a scholar, and an antiquarian of some skill. The list of contents for his tomb is… quite interesting, if true. There is power-real power-in some of the objects interred there. Perhaps even the power to halt certain mighty forces…”
The third man now spoke for the first time, his voice a sibilant hiss as though made with organs other than a human tongue and lips. “We know of that power. There is little chance that the priest-boy-or others who seek it-will find the key of it.” “True. It may require an historian to know what it is and where it is, a scholar to unlock it, and a sorcerer to use it. But there are those who would aid the priest-boy. What is lacking may be supplied.”