As we neared the top, heavy pieces of earth and stone flew against the walls of Kakatanawa, chipping at surfaces, slashing into foliage. A large rock narrowly missed me, and Sepiriz shook twice as he was hit. Part of an outer wall fell. Through the gap I saw the tiny figures of the Vikings on the ice moving in closer, but we were momentarily safe from any immediate confrontation with them. We had no way to resist the invader even if we could engage him. Lord Sepiriz carried no sword. Save for Ayanawatta's bow and Prince Lobkowitz's cutlass, we had no weapons.
We had reached a broad-based tower with dark red walls and a deep blue ceiling and floor; a central spiral staircase led like a cord of silver up to a platform and what was clearly an experimental laboratory. An alchemical study, perhaps? Certainly Prince Lobkowitz had expected to find it there. He began at once to climb the stairs.
"Let's have a better look at our enemies," he murmured. We followed him up. Here was an assortment of large, chunky machinery, mostly constructed of stone, like an old mill with huge granite cogwheels and smaller ones of beaten gold and platinum. Apparently this people, too, had no notion of smelting iron. The strange, bulky cogs and levers worked a series of lenses and mirrors. There was something familiar about all this.
Of course. My father had experimented with a smaller version
at Bek before the first war. I realized we were looking at a rare form of camera obscura, which, by means of mirrors, could show scenes of the surface around the city. It was not entirely mechanical in nature. There were other forces involved in its construction, more common to Melnibone than Munich. Indeed, when Lord Sepiriz joined the stocky prince, he easily made parts move by a murmured command and a gesture. Gradually the two men brought the scene outside the gates into view.
I had been right. Gaynor the Damned led them. Near him was his turncoat lieutenant Klosterheim. The third man also wore a helmet, which obscured most of his face, but his eyes were shockingly familiar. He had an edgy, wolfish air, as did all the Vikings, but his was of a different quality. There was something fundamentally self-contained about the figure, and I feared him more than the others.
The Vikings did not look as if they had slept or eaten well for some time. Their journey here had clearly not been an easy one. I had rarely seen a hungrier bunch of cutthroats. They watched the Wind Demon with considerable wariness and did not look happy to be of Gaynor's party now. They were almost as nervous of the huge whirlwind as we were! Only the stranger in the black helmet seemed to be in a different mood. His eyes in shadow, his pale lips half-hidden by the upwardly thrusting chin-guard, the man was smiling. Like his eyes, his smile was one I recognized and feared.
Still larger rocks smashed into the walls, leaving deep gashes. Sepiriz was furious, muttering about the age of the place and what it had meant for so many millennia.
I think he had believed us safe, at least temporarily, in the remote fortress city, but these events were proving far more dangerous and whimsical than he had expected. He realized he may have underestimated the danger. The developing situation appeared to have defeated his imagination.
A gritty wind howled into the tall camera and whistled around the complicated confection of copper wires and polished mirrors, the worn granite cogwheels and brass pivots, the pools of
mercury. There was a busy humming, a rattling and buzzing as the wind touched the delicate, half-supernatural instruments. Polished glass flashed and blinded me. Thin tubes rattled and hissed and scraped together.
Lord Shoashooan's voice whispered through the tall rooms, finding strange, ugly echoes. "Mortals and immortals both, you face your end without dignity or grace. Accept the fact that the Balance is finished. Its central staff has been lost, its scales discarded. Soon the tree itself will die. The regulator of the multi-
verse has failed you. Law triumphs. The steady calm of complete stability awaits you. Time is abolished, and you can anticipate, as do I, a new order."
"The order you promise is the stasis of death," Lord Sepiriz replied contemptuously. "You it is, Lord Shoashooan, who dishonors your own name. You it is who lacks both dignity and grace. You are a busy noise surrounding a vacuum. To destroy is your only effect. Otherwise you are less than a bird's dying breath."
A groan of anger. The walls rattled and cracked as the whirlwind's strength increased still more. Outside another great crash as masonry loosened and tumbled.
Lord Sepiriz's hands played over the strange instruments. His shoulders were hunched with the urgency of his actions. His eyes flashed from one point to another as if he sought a weakness somewhere.
He was reading signals within the mirrors, frowning over swirling glasses and tubes.
The chamber shook. It was like a heavy earthquake. My companions looked at one another. Clearly they had never anticipated such a force. Though outwardly artificial, this city had once been a wild mountain. Within she was still a living mountain. And Lord Shoashooan had the power to challenge this mountain, to threaten its destruction!
Outside, the entire landscape was filled with the wildly whirling debris. Below, at the apex, stood Gaynor and his men, looking up at the once invulnerable gates of the city as the wind remorselessly battered them to destruction. I could already see the gates beginning to bulge and split. Their iron bands and hinges, which hitherto could withstand any attack, now warped and twisted under the pressure.
We were deafened by the roaring sound, and our hair and clothing lashed violently in every direction. Lord Sepiriz shouted at me. He signaled. I could not understand what he wanted.
The mercury pool that was a mirror swirled again, and I saw a man's face in astonishing detail. It was the stranger who had come with Gaynor and Klosterheim. He stared upwards, presumably at his supernatural ally. His eyes, like mine, were crimson. They contained profound and complex experience. I wondered how any human soul could bear the burden of knowledge revealed in those eyes. Only Elric of Melnibone was sorcerer and warrior powerful enough to consider taking that burden. I doubted if there had ever been a human character equally strong.
The pool's surface flickered to show, full-length, a black-armored, black-helmed warrior. He had a huge round warboard on his arm, canvas covering its blazon. With some surprise I saw that he carried a black sword identical to my own. Then, for the first time, the truth began to dawn on me. It was so enormous it had eluded me. Three of us? Three swords? Three shields? But who carried the shields?
Sepiriz pulled me away from the mirror pool. "It is drawing you in. You'll drown in that if you're not careful. Many others have."
"Drown?" I laughed. "Drown in a reflection of myself?"
Ayanawatta came to join me. "So you understand." He radiated a certain calmness. He represented common sense in all this insanity. "You would not be the first to do that." His smile was quiet, comradely. "Some might say that was your friend Gunnar's fate!"
The more I knew this tall red man, the more I liked and respected him. He was a natural leader. He was unassuming, egalitarian, but acted decisively and with due caution. All the great leaders, like Alexander, could sit at backgammon with common soldiers and still have them believe him a living god.
I wanted to ask Ayanawatta where the rest of his people were. His tribal style was familiar to me, but I was not sufficiently knowledgeable to identify it. This was no time to satisfy such curiosity. Events were moving too swiftly. We had all been thrown together by our different circumstances. I had no idea how Gaynor and company had reached Kakatanawa or why they were here.