[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
from one of the marble structures to another with businesslike efficiency and
worried looks. Still, Mervyn took time out from whatever was going on to see
them and quickly came to the same conclusion that Suzl had that the Soul Rider
had indeed finally found the loophole in Coydt's trap.
"Suzl is not like Spirit," he assured Kasdi. "The mere act of the
transformation proved that, not to mention her unsettling ability to
materialize lit cigars in her mouth that she developed just this afternoon.
She'd been trying to communicate with me all through this, though, and going
slightly crazy with frustration. I wish I knew just what she was trying to
tell us."
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"Knowing Suzl, the mere fact that she can't shoot off her big mouth is the
problem. The fact that the old Suzl is back at all worries me more."
Mervyn chuckled dryly. "I know your feelings, and understand them, if I do not
agree with them. Take heart in the fact that the host of a Soul Rider is not
the master or mistress of his or her own fate. You of all people should know
that. Spirit was lonely and had a desperate need for close companionship. Suzl
was disaffected and attracted to Spirit. The Soul Rider closed that gap,
filled both needs, and magnified the emotional kernels, having found someone
it could trust to put its plan into action."
"You mean the Soul Rider caused them to fall in love?"
"In a way. The seeds were there, or it would never have worked, but once the
seeds were there, it did the rest which might or might not otherwise have
happened. Spirit was turned on by Suzl's sexual grossness and liked it that
way. It was sincere. But that was necessary to the Soul Rider because at the
time it could do nothing about it. When conditions were right and the Soul
Rider's spells perfected linking the two so that the power could be
transferred, that was no longer necessary. Again, the seeds were there. Suzl
felt weak and powerless and it almost destroyed her.
Now she's neither and is happy except for the language barrier. Spirit sensed
Suzl's unhappiness and reacted badly to my major attempt to compensate. She
realized, I think, just what Suzl really was going through and knew that the
new Suzl, while content, was a lie I constructed. She took the appropriate
actions. In many ways it was an expression of love, since Suzl's other form
suited
Spirit a bit more."
"Yes, but what do we do now?"
"Why, nothing, I would suspect. Suzl has no training and can not receive any,
yet she is able to manage spells that I would be hesitant to try. That means
the Soul Rider is feeding them to her as she needs them. It's one very
powerful wizard in two bodies, both necessary for the magic.
Together, they are no more in danger than you or I. Let them go to their
Fluxland and be happy."
She didn't like it, but had no alternatives at the time, so she changed the
subject. "What's all the comings and goings around here?"
"Come into the map room over there and I'll show you."
Suzl had been standing there, knowing that she was being discussed, unable to
follow it at all.
Still, she had hopes of getting through to one or the other of these two, so
she tagged along. Spirit remained in the meadow, just relaxing. The period and
strain in Anchor had taken a toll on her, and she was feeling neither totally
well nor in any way ambitious.
Spread out on a round table in the center of a comfortably appointed room just
inside the mar-
ble building were all sorts of papers and documents. A centaur and two nymphs
were over to one side, working on some of those documents and correlating
them.
Mervyn picked up a huge bound volume and opened it. On each of its large pages
was pasted a picture or drawing of an individual man or woman, along with a
lot of handwritten information about them.
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"A rogue's gallery of World," he told Kasdi. "These are Fluxlords of great
power, one and all.
Every one of them tinged with some form of madness, as it must be."
Kasdi grinned. "Are you in there?"
He nodded. "Yes, indeed, although the file is rather less than objective, I'm
afraid. And you, too. See?" He turned to a place about three-quarters of the
way back in the volume, and there she saw her picture and vital statistics,
and in between what looked like dozens of scribbled pages.
The last thing Suzl needed was a library, but she watched from the background,
and when
Kasdi's picture showed, she suddenly got very interested. To the dismay of the
other two, who were hardly even aware she'd followed them, Suzl leafed through
the book until she found a number of familiar faces and guessed what it must
be about.
Kasdi moved to pull her away, but Mervyn stopped her. "Wait. We may be on to
something here."
Stringers and duggers knew Fluxlords well. They'd better, for they had to deal
with them regularly. From the series of familiar faces in the book, Suzl knew
what it must contain and searched frantically for one in particular. Finally
Darien's page came up, and she stopped, pointed to it, then made a motion with
her index finger as if she were slitting her own throat.
"Darien!" Kasdi explained. "What can she mean? That Darien's dead?"
Suzl realized from the expressions that the message was incomplete, and so
again pointed to
Darien, then made the same slit motion this time across Kasdi's neck.
"I think she's accusing Darien of a plot against you," the wizard suggested.
Kasdi's look of shock and surprise told Suzl she'd scored one. She leafed back
through the book, stopping every once in a while at a face she'd seen in that
mob at the Hellgate and going through the same motions.
Mervyn frowned. "A wizard's revolt. This sounds ill. But where could she have
learned this in so short a time?" He rustled through a pile of papers and came
up with a map of the cluster.
"Their route from here would be mostly like . . . so." He began to trace with
his finger, and when it came close to the Hellgate Suzl reached out, grabbed
his wrist, and put it directly on top.
"At the Hellgate!" Kasdi exclaimed. "So they were going to their wedding gift
by a route that took them by the Hellgate, and there they saw all these
wizards gathered." She stopped. "Why at the Hellgate? And how? None of those
Fluxlords could even stand to be in the same land at the same time, let alone
gather and cooperate on something. It explains how those two wound up in the
temple, though. I thought we'd sealed those internal entries. I wonder now if
they can be sealed?"
Again Suzl was leafing through the picture book, but did not find who she was
looking for. She looked up, shook her head from side to side, then pointed at
the shelves around.
Mervyn frowned. "More Fluxlord pictures? Or . . . not a Fluxlord, perhaps?
Page 96
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Ah!" He walked over to a shelf, took down another book, brought it over to
Suzl and opened it. There were,
perhaps, a hundred more faces covered, but she didn't have to go far. The face
of a handsome, bearded man smiling back at the observer was enough.
"Coydt van Haaz. I should have known," Kasdi sighed.
But Suzl continued to flip through and found a few more pictures as well.
"These are the prime enemy," Mervyn told the Sister. "The Seven and all those
of a strong power that we know of who work with them. She has picked out a
number of strong-arm wizards who work this side of World, and also Varishnikar
Stomsk and Zelligman Ivan, two more of the
Seven. Put them all together with the Fluxlords she picked out and you have a
concentration of power that could level a Fluxland. Put that together with
what we have learned and it spells disaster."
Kasdi looked up at the old man. "What have you learned, then?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl chiara76.opx.pl
from one of the marble structures to another with businesslike efficiency and
worried looks. Still, Mervyn took time out from whatever was going on to see
them and quickly came to the same conclusion that Suzl had that the Soul Rider
had indeed finally found the loophole in Coydt's trap.
"Suzl is not like Spirit," he assured Kasdi. "The mere act of the
transformation proved that, not to mention her unsettling ability to
materialize lit cigars in her mouth that she developed just this afternoon.
She'd been trying to communicate with me all through this, though, and going
slightly crazy with frustration. I wish I knew just what she was trying to
tell us."
Page 94
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"Knowing Suzl, the mere fact that she can't shoot off her big mouth is the
problem. The fact that the old Suzl is back at all worries me more."
Mervyn chuckled dryly. "I know your feelings, and understand them, if I do not
agree with them. Take heart in the fact that the host of a Soul Rider is not
the master or mistress of his or her own fate. You of all people should know
that. Spirit was lonely and had a desperate need for close companionship. Suzl
was disaffected and attracted to Spirit. The Soul Rider closed that gap,
filled both needs, and magnified the emotional kernels, having found someone
it could trust to put its plan into action."
"You mean the Soul Rider caused them to fall in love?"
"In a way. The seeds were there, or it would never have worked, but once the
seeds were there, it did the rest which might or might not otherwise have
happened. Spirit was turned on by Suzl's sexual grossness and liked it that
way. It was sincere. But that was necessary to the Soul Rider because at the
time it could do nothing about it. When conditions were right and the Soul
Rider's spells perfected linking the two so that the power could be
transferred, that was no longer necessary. Again, the seeds were there. Suzl
felt weak and powerless and it almost destroyed her.
Now she's neither and is happy except for the language barrier. Spirit sensed
Suzl's unhappiness and reacted badly to my major attempt to compensate. She
realized, I think, just what Suzl really was going through and knew that the
new Suzl, while content, was a lie I constructed. She took the appropriate
actions. In many ways it was an expression of love, since Suzl's other form
suited
Spirit a bit more."
"Yes, but what do we do now?"
"Why, nothing, I would suspect. Suzl has no training and can not receive any,
yet she is able to manage spells that I would be hesitant to try. That means
the Soul Rider is feeding them to her as she needs them. It's one very
powerful wizard in two bodies, both necessary for the magic.
Together, they are no more in danger than you or I. Let them go to their
Fluxland and be happy."
She didn't like it, but had no alternatives at the time, so she changed the
subject. "What's all the comings and goings around here?"
"Come into the map room over there and I'll show you."
Suzl had been standing there, knowing that she was being discussed, unable to
follow it at all.
Still, she had hopes of getting through to one or the other of these two, so
she tagged along. Spirit remained in the meadow, just relaxing. The period and
strain in Anchor had taken a toll on her, and she was feeling neither totally
well nor in any way ambitious.
Spread out on a round table in the center of a comfortably appointed room just
inside the mar-
ble building were all sorts of papers and documents. A centaur and two nymphs
were over to one side, working on some of those documents and correlating
them.
Mervyn picked up a huge bound volume and opened it. On each of its large pages
was pasted a picture or drawing of an individual man or woman, along with a
lot of handwritten information about them.
Page 95
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"A rogue's gallery of World," he told Kasdi. "These are Fluxlords of great
power, one and all.
Every one of them tinged with some form of madness, as it must be."
Kasdi grinned. "Are you in there?"
He nodded. "Yes, indeed, although the file is rather less than objective, I'm
afraid. And you, too. See?" He turned to a place about three-quarters of the
way back in the volume, and there she saw her picture and vital statistics,
and in between what looked like dozens of scribbled pages.
The last thing Suzl needed was a library, but she watched from the background,
and when
Kasdi's picture showed, she suddenly got very interested. To the dismay of the
other two, who were hardly even aware she'd followed them, Suzl leafed through
the book until she found a number of familiar faces and guessed what it must
be about.
Kasdi moved to pull her away, but Mervyn stopped her. "Wait. We may be on to
something here."
Stringers and duggers knew Fluxlords well. They'd better, for they had to deal
with them regularly. From the series of familiar faces in the book, Suzl knew
what it must contain and searched frantically for one in particular. Finally
Darien's page came up, and she stopped, pointed to it, then made a motion with
her index finger as if she were slitting her own throat.
"Darien!" Kasdi explained. "What can she mean? That Darien's dead?"
Suzl realized from the expressions that the message was incomplete, and so
again pointed to
Darien, then made the same slit motion this time across Kasdi's neck.
"I think she's accusing Darien of a plot against you," the wizard suggested.
Kasdi's look of shock and surprise told Suzl she'd scored one. She leafed back
through the book, stopping every once in a while at a face she'd seen in that
mob at the Hellgate and going through the same motions.
Mervyn frowned. "A wizard's revolt. This sounds ill. But where could she have
learned this in so short a time?" He rustled through a pile of papers and came
up with a map of the cluster.
"Their route from here would be mostly like . . . so." He began to trace with
his finger, and when it came close to the Hellgate Suzl reached out, grabbed
his wrist, and put it directly on top.
"At the Hellgate!" Kasdi exclaimed. "So they were going to their wedding gift
by a route that took them by the Hellgate, and there they saw all these
wizards gathered." She stopped. "Why at the Hellgate? And how? None of those
Fluxlords could even stand to be in the same land at the same time, let alone
gather and cooperate on something. It explains how those two wound up in the
temple, though. I thought we'd sealed those internal entries. I wonder now if
they can be sealed?"
Again Suzl was leafing through the picture book, but did not find who she was
looking for. She looked up, shook her head from side to side, then pointed at
the shelves around.
Mervyn frowned. "More Fluxlord pictures? Or . . . not a Fluxlord, perhaps?
Page 96
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Ah!" He walked over to a shelf, took down another book, brought it over to
Suzl and opened it. There were,
perhaps, a hundred more faces covered, but she didn't have to go far. The face
of a handsome, bearded man smiling back at the observer was enough.
"Coydt van Haaz. I should have known," Kasdi sighed.
But Suzl continued to flip through and found a few more pictures as well.
"These are the prime enemy," Mervyn told the Sister. "The Seven and all those
of a strong power that we know of who work with them. She has picked out a
number of strong-arm wizards who work this side of World, and also Varishnikar
Stomsk and Zelligman Ivan, two more of the
Seven. Put them all together with the Fluxlords she picked out and you have a
concentration of power that could level a Fluxland. Put that together with
what we have learned and it spells disaster."
Kasdi looked up at the old man. "What have you learned, then?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]