7
Garric stood on a fang of rock above the sea, facing the monstrously tall figure of the Hooded One. The wizard's head brushed the lightning-shot clouds, but it wasn't quite clear where his feet rested.
Garric looked over his shoulder. A thousand feet below foamed the maelstrom of his nightmare, covering the sea almost to the horizon. Among the flotsam caught in its coils were creatures so huge they were clearly visible even at Garric's distance above them. The spirals of water were as slow and inexorable as the tide itself, and there was no escape from them.
"Tenoctris?" Garric called.
Nothing answered but the howling wind and the roar of the whirlpool below. He and the Hooded One were alone. Though Garric knew the figure's giant size was an illusion, when he raised his head to look at his opponent he felt an emotional effect that his intellect couldn't fully override.
"Would you like to be King of the Isles, Garric or-Reise?" the Hooded One said. His voice was a roar, part of the thunder but louder than that thunder. "Hail, King Garric! Do you like the sound of that? I'll make you a greater king than any of your ancestors, boy. Greater than Carus, for I will support you!"
Armored soldiers paraded through the center of a city that dwarfed ancient Carcosa. Huge crowds lined the route of vast temples and colonnades, cheering at the top of their lungs: "Great is Garric, King of the Isles! Great is Garric!"
All the structures were built of black stone, and the sky was the color of soot.
Garric took a deep breath and stepped forward. "I'll take my friends with me back to where we belong," he said. A gust of wind buffeted him spitefully but he walked on. "You'll leave us alone. That's all I want, and I'll have it or I'll kill you."
"Do you want the woman Ilna?" the Hooded One shouted angrily. "You can have her! You can have anyall women, boy! Lead me to the Throne of Malkar and I'll give you all the world else!"
Ilna stood before him, wearing a long scarf that wrapped her from shoulders to ankles. She held one end of the diaphanous fabric high and pirouetted beneath it, stripping herself layer by layer.
Behind Ilna were a score of other women: all of them young, all beautiful; all of them offering themselves in varied forms of coquettishness. Liane was among them.
Garric grimaced and stepped forward. The air resisted him. It had a gelid thickness, as if he were walking through cold broth. He was nearer to the Hooded One, though he knew distances were deceiving in this place.
"I'm your queen, you fool!" the wizard said. "Bow down to your queen, Garric or-Reise!"
Garric hadn't seen the change, but a coldly beautiful woman dressed in lace and ribbons of precious metal stood in the place of the hooded wizard. In her right hand she held a sceptre, its head a gleaming purple sapphire.
Garric paused. He'd never seen the queen or even her image, but this woman looked as the queen should look.
"You're a loyal subject, Garric," the woman said. "Because of your courage and loyalty, I'll make you my consort. Prince Garric, King of the Isles in all but name—and you'll have me!"
"No," Garric said as he took another step. "You're not the queen, and it wouldn't matter anyway."
She scowled and dipped her sceptre. There was a violet flash.
Soft golden light flooded over Garric. The ground was a meadow of ankle-high grass thick with pastel flowers. A dome of warm air formed a vault across the sky, though Garric could see lightning continuing to rip between the clouds in the high heavens. The breeze was gentle and breathed sweet spices.
The Lady in Her robe of bleached wool stood before Garric. "Garric, my child," She said in a voice as kindly as a mother nightingale's. "I've tested you to see that you were worthy. Bow to me, Garric. When you rise, I will make you my Shepherd—a god to rule the cosmos beside me. Bow to me, Garric!"
She was beautiful and pure. She was all Good in a single form.
Garric didn't know what the truth was. He and most of his neighbors in the borough had been perfunctory in their worship of the great gods. They gave grudging support of the Tithe Procession, and the better off sacrificed a lamb on their birthday. He couldn't doubt the reality of this shining figure before him, though.
He didn't know the truth. If he was wrong, he'd bear his punishment knowing that it was just.
"Duzi, forgive me if I stray," Garric whispered. He stepped forward. He would take the Lady's throat in his—
Lightning pulsed down in a triple shock, filling the world with its blue-white glare. All was rock and storm and the roaring sea again.
The Hooded One stood before Garric, the size of a normal man. The figure threw back its cowl. The face beneath was hard, smooth, and sexless. His cold eyes were the color of the jewel on his wand. Ten feet separated him from Garric.
"Stop!" he ordered, pointing the wand. The rock between them bubbled in a gush of violet light.
Spatters fell on Garric's shins, blistering the skin. He halted.
"I've kept you alive," the wizard said, "because I want you to find the Throne of Malkar. If you force me, though, I'll blast you utterly to ob- livion."
If Garric stepped forward, the Hooded One would dissolve him in a bath of violet fire. Garric knew he couldn't reach the wizard before the wand stuck him down.
People in the borough said Garric was a smart lad, just as they said Cashel was slow. Cashel wasn't as simple as most of his neighbors thought him, and maybe Garric wasn't quite so bright either, but he'd always felt he was as likely to find the answer to a problem as anybody else he knew.
There wasn't an answer this time. He could submit to evil, or he could die.
Garric laughed, because he understood now what Cashel had meant when he said, "Don't trust that sword. Trust yourself." There really wasn't a choice after all.
"I won't serve evil," Garric said as he stepped forward.
"Die then for a fool!" the wizard said, and tried to point his wand.
A net of light as fine as cobwebs bound the wizard's hand and arm. Red threads crossed blue, gossamer but unyielding. The Hooded One's wand spewed violet force, gouging the rock without diminishing the web's strength.
"I am Malkar!" the wizard screamed.
"You're a puppet!" said Garric. "And I see your strings!"
He leaped the glowing rock and gripped the wand in both hands. It was metal and so cold it burned. He took it from the wizard's hand and twisted it with the strength of youth and desperate need.
The wand shattered in a spray of powder and rainbow light. The fang of rock dissolved like sand as the tide rolls in. Garric heard the Hooded One scream again.
Garric wasn't falling. He stood—he still stood—before the empty throne in the room whose walls dripped seawater.
The throne was shivering to powder the way a pile of grain settles. Ilna lay beside it, gasping with effort. A web of threads she'd teased from the fringe of her shawl bound her fingers together.
Tenoctris touched Ilna's shoulder supportively. "She has such exceptional power," Tenoctris murmured to Garric. "Even for a woman whose mother was a sprite. But now that we've succeeded, we need to get out of here very quickly before we drown."
Garric stepped to Ilna and gathered her up in his arms. Green water bubbled through the porous walls, and the stone was beginning to crack. A single corridor led out of the chamber, slanting upward.
Garric could see and hear normally, but part of his mind remained in another place. The Hooded One's limbs flailed as he fell toward the maelstrom.
His scream went on and on.