Riddle of the Seven Realms Read online

  “You are among the mightiest of princes,” Astron said. “And the djinns who obey your commands number more than those of any other. What demon could possibly challenge you for possession of—?”

  “Your skill is supposed to be one of making lists,” Elezar interrupted. “Your knowledge of the other realms is the most profound of any in my retinue. Tell me quickly then, what are the seven laws that govern the affairs of men?”

  Astron wrinkled his nose, puzzled. Such knowledge was widespread throughout the realm. Even the prince himself would have at least a casual acquaintance with the seven laws. Why would Elezar choose to exercise him through a memory drill like a broodmother instructing her scion? Astron started to ask the reason for the question but then saw the frown deepen in Elezar’s face.

  “The first two laws are the concern of wizardry,” he said quickly, “the law of ubiquity—flame permeates all, and the law of dichotomy—dominance or submission. It is through fire that the barriers between our realm and the others are broken. And when, through it, we contact a dweller on the other side, one must end up the controller of the other; there is no middle ground.

  “Of all the realms, ours is unique. The fires of the other universes connect them only to us and never to each other. If ever men, the skyskirr, the fey and all those who exist elsewhere interact it is because we have brought them together.

  “And although these others can coexist side by side with no threat from one to another, our own involvements are much more tightly bound. Whenever one of us leaves our realm to sojourn elsewhere, it must be as the master of the one who has summoned or else as his slave.

  “But you know all of this quite well, my prince. None less than you organized the great plan to conquer the entire realm of men and bend it to your will but a tick in time ago. Had it not been for the one that the mortals call the archimage—”

  Elezar’s hands clutched spasmodically and Astron veered back to his original course. The prince did not like to be reminded of his defeat by a mere human. “The next is the rule of three,” Astron rushed. “Or as it is commonly cast—thrice spoken, once fulfilled. The proper chants intoned three times over give men the power of sorcery and illusion to cloud the minds of one another.

  “The maxim of persistence is the fourth. As the magicians in the guilds like to state it—perfection is eternal. If certain precise rituals are enacted flawlessly, then items can be produced that will last as long as the life of any demon.

  “The fifth is the doctrine of signatures—the attributes without mirror the powers within. Based upon closely guarded secret formulas, those that men call alchemists brew strange concoctions that sometimes produce remarkable results. Far more powerful would be the craft if chance did not play a role in every successful brewing.”

  Astron again glanced at Elezar’s hands but saw no change. Somehow the listing of the laws of magic was bound up in whatever was vexing the prince.

  “The last two are the principles of sympathy and contagion,” Astron hurried to finish. “The thaumaturges who use them speak of ‘like producing like’ and ‘once together, always together,’ but sympathy and contagion are what they mean. By taking a small part of a whole and exercising it in a simulation, the rest of the bulk is forced to act correspondingly. It is the craft by which men build their walls and transport heavy burdens.”

  “My prince,” a deep voice suddenly rumbled from one of the rotunda entrances, “the signal lights have been blinking. Gaspar with his retinue is now on his way. There are twenty-two djinns of lightning and lesser devils as well.”

  On the rim of the rotunda, the entrance was darkened by the massive form of a colossal djinn, his folded wing-tips scraping the archway as he entered. Powerful black muscles rippled across his chest as he moved. Slitted eyes of piercing yellow glowed in a face of darkest jet.

  “What is your command, my prince?” the djinn asked. “Though we are fewer, my clutch brothers and I can make his landing one that will cost.”

  Elezar turned to answer, “No, no, Delithan. To meet Gaspar on his own terms is surely a strategy of defeat. Invite him in unchallenged. We will use the time to our advantage.”

  “A djinn lives to fight, my prince,” Delithan rumbled. “He exists only to rip matter asunder and drink deeply of its dying shrieks. If that is denied, there is little that restrains surrender to the great monotony.”

  “There will be many more battles in the epochs to come, Delithan,” Elezar said. “Do not deny yourself the opportunity to engage in them by a miscalculation now. Push aside thoughts of the brooding doom. As you have in the past, trust in your prince.”

  “An epoch ago, none could call himself master of my lord,” Delithan said. “But now there is indeed one who can so claim and he is only a man. Perhaps Gaspar too is mightier and the coming struggle is the last.”

  With a sharp crack, a spark of blue light suddenly arched from Elezar’s left thumb to his forefinger. His arm swung out from his body in the direction of Delithan, a mask of anger etching the fine lines of his face. The huge djinn brought an arm up over his eyes. The pale outline of a shield began to materialize in front of his chest.

  For a moment the two demons stood frozen, the crackle of ionization covering any words that they might have spoken. Then, as quickly as it had sprouted, the arc of energy in Elezar’s hand winked out of existence. His face softened. He rotated his palms upward in Delithan’s direction.

  “Gaspar has grown so bold as to attack me in what all the princes acknowledge as my strength,” Elezar said softly, his sudden outburst back under control. “It is a foolish boldness for him to do so and I will not reply in kind. There may yet be the thrill of battle for you against his djinns of lightning, Delithan, but as long as I am your prince, it will be a time of my own choosing. Now take your clutch brethren into the void as I have commanded and escort him here without incident.”

  Delithan’s shield disappeared before it completely formed. He hesitated a moment and then dipped his head in acquiescence. Stooping to clear the archway, he turned back the way he had come. “A djinn lives to fight,” he rumbled as he left.

  “Gaspar,” Astron blurted as Elezar turned back to face him. “Gaspar of the lightning djinns. Though his numbers are large and mighty, he would not dare to challenge you without due cause. None of the other princes would permit it. They would rally to your aid and against all he has no chance.”

  “His attack is not one of djinn against djinn,” Elezar said. “Instead it was something quite unexpected, although, of course, I showed no surprise.” Elezar paused. His eyes flared. “He has posed a riddle, cataloguer, a riddle to test the prince most noted for cunning of all those who rule.

  “The stakes are familiar, the ones I have accepted from demons with far keener minds. If I answer correctly, then Gaspar and all who follow him are mine to do with what I will. If not, then I and my domain are his.”

  “A riddle?” Astron said. “Then surely there is no threat at all. The likes of Gaspar could not formulate a puzzle that would long give pause to one such as you, my prince. And if you were—were too busy to answer yourself, then many in your domain would have sufficient wit to formulate the solution.”

  Elezar ignored Astron’s words. “You were telling me of the laws that govern the realm of men. What of the metalaws which lie behind them?”

  “Of the three of them I know far less,” Astron said. He felt his stembrain again begin to stir. Elezar was moving on to things with which he was far less familiar.

  “Three of them,” Elezar repeated. “So you state that there are ten laws rather than seven?”

  “No, the three metalaws are quite different from the rest,” Astron said. “Each of the other realms, that of men, the skyskirr, the fey, and the others, is governed by seven laws of magic out of infinitely many. The metalaws govern which ones are active and how they are changed.”

  Elezar looked over Astron’s head to the far side of the rotunda. Translucent membranes flicked d
own over his eyes to remove external distractions as he defocused in thought. “The metalaws were known by some of the most ancient princes,” he said. “Even if we could not use them ourselves, we understood their manipulations well. And in the realm of the skyskirr, they are all-important; compared to them, the laws themselves pale into insignificance.”

  Elezar stared back at Astron. “But in the realm of men, for epochs none realized that such things as metalaws existed. For the mortals, there were only the seven laws of magic as you have stated them, constant and unfailing. Humankind spent their brief lives entirely ignorant of the greater powers that slumbered all about them.”

  The prince paused. “So you see, it is indeed possible. Gaspar’s riddle might be a valid question, one with a definite answer. Ah, for the answer.” Elezar looked away. “The answer that would give me victory over yet another who thinks his power greater than mine.”

  The prince ran his slender tongue over his lower lip, apparently savoring an imagined victory. He smiled and waved to the hovering imps for another display. But as the complex pattern formed. Elezar shook his head and motioned them to return to stillness. He looked back at Astron. “But I have no ready reply, cataloguer,” he said. The words were forced and came with difficulty. “I stall for more time and Gaspar guesses at my weakness. He even taunts me with clues, so sure is he that I will fail.”

  Astron felt his thoughts suddenly boil and tumble. Elezar, Elezar the one who was golden—of all the princes, he was the one with the keenest mind. The others might wage their games of power by mustering great arrays of djinns into eye-blinding battles, but Elezar time after time bested them all with deft strokes of high strategy or bound up the outcome in riddles for which only he could unravel the answer in the end.

  And if this time Elezar could not provide the solution, then there was great peril for all that he commanded as well. The barely controlled rages of Gaspar were well known throughout the realm. None without an equal appetite for ripping things asunder could hope to survive for long under the rule of a prince of lightning. Astron looked down at his short nails and flexed the wings on his back that were never there.

  But mixed with all of that, the surprise and the fear, there was something else that churned with the rest—a riddle, a riddle that even Elezar himself could not solve, a mystery that led perhaps even to the realm of men. What new and wonderful things might then be learned by one sent to observe or by one tasked to record the labors of those questing to find the answer? What increase in power could come to one who catalogued rather than fought?

  Elezar apparently did not notice Astron’s momentary inattention. The prince stood up and waved his arms in the air. “As you have stated, cataloguer, for every realm that we can contact, fire is the medium that breaks down the barrier between us. And for each of those connections, we are at the mercy of those who dwell on the other realm to build the flame and send their thoughts through it. We must wait for the call, the tugging at our own being, before we can begin the struggle that matches our wills against theirs.

  “How much more powerful we would be if we could initiate the interaction, to go forth into the other realms at our own choosing rather than await events of chance. That is the essence of Gaspar’s riddle, cataloguer. He states that the power of the laws and metalaws pale for the one who has the answer. It is the ultimate precept, he says, the underlying principle upon which all else is built.”

  Elezar brought his arms back to his chest. “The riddle is quite simply stated: In the realm of daemon, how does one build a fire?”

  Astron saw the eyes of the prince again widen. He felt a rush of questions but knew better than to speak.

  “We have great control over the little matter that has been brought back through the barriers to our realm,” Elezar continued. “We can weave and transform it into exotic shapes that please the eye for eons. But somehow, in all the epochs that I can remember, no one in our realm, whether mighty prince or lowly sprite, has ever created a flame. None have been able to form the dance of ions that signify the combination of air with other things. The answer indeed must be the ultimate precept, cataloguer, and Gaspar’s riddle or no, I, among all the princes who rule, will be the first to find out how it is done.”

  “But how will you learn?” Astron asked cautiously. “Is it perhaps in the realm of men that the answer would lie?”

  “None in my personal domain have any hint to the solution, cataloguer,” Elezar said. “I have decided that it is elsewhere I must look.” The prince paused and intensified his stare. “But there is little time for undirected and random search. First, I must ask the one who might have a greater chance of knowing the answer to the riddle than even I.”

  Astron’s interest suddenly vanished. Cataloguing in the relative safety of the realm of men was one thing. Dealing with others of his own kind was quite another. And if it was the one he suspected that the prince had in mind—

  “Not old Palodad,” he said. “The broodmothers say that even mighty djinns cannot return from his domain unscathed.” He looked in Elezar’s eyes and saw the prince nod slightly.

  “Yes, Palodad,” Elezar said, “the one who reckons.”

  Astron felt his stembrain begin to struggle harder to free itself from his rational control. Knowledge was power, it was true, but the risk must be commensurate with the reward. Even with a well-disciplined phalanx of splendorous djinns, Astron would not care to enter the domain of the demon reputed to be maddest of all. Besides, his specialty was in the other realms. It would not make sense to send to the domain of another prince one without the ability to weave or fly. Surely it must have been for something else that Elezar had summoned him before the scheduled time.

  “Which of your phalanx have you selected to dispatch?” Astron managed to say through jaws drawing suddenly tight. “How have you balanced between the need for strength in a far domain as well as here to impress Gaspar when he arrives?”

  “You are the emissary, Astron, you alone, the one I have selected above all others in my domain.”

  “But I am a mere cataloguer.” The protest rushed from Astron’s lips. “Far more do I know of the workings of men than the traps in our own realm. I serve better helping to unravel what information another might bring back from such a trek than braving the perils myself.

  “Look at my fangs,” Astron said as he spun quickly around. “See again the stubs on my back. My role is to observe and record. It is the calling of the devils and djinns who can weave to perform actions for their prince.”

  Elezar shook his head slowly. “The broodmothers are most likely correct; Palodad’s lair will be dissimilar to any other in the realm. But it is because you cannot fight that I have chosen you, cataloguer. The unfamiliar will not provoke you to rage. You above all else will keep your stembrain under control, because you must.”

  Astron looked beyond the prince to the cool serene walls of the rotunda, familiar sights that he had viewed many times before. He thought of the comforts of his own lair with the artifacts whose purposes were yet to be discovered. Even the realm of men with the strange customs and exotic structures was to be preferred to the dangers that lurked for the unwary in his own realm. He felt the tug and pull of his stembrain straining to be free, to run amok and control his limbs in a frenzy of chaos and self-destruction.

  “There is more at stake than the rule of my domain,” Elezar said. “Gaspar will treat my own djinns with dignity, grant them a final battle that would satisfy even their lusts for destruction.” He paused and bored his sight into Astron. “But as for you, my wingless one, a nimble wit and knowledge of arcane lists will have little value for him. At best, your torture would serve as a moment’s distraction. You might hope that the process would not be a lingering one.”

  Astron looked into Elezar’s eyes, searching for even a hint of indecision, but saw only the resolve of a prince. His shoulders slumped. The last thoughts of his den faded away. For a moment, he did not speak, but finally he willed
his tongue to move. “Arrange for the djinn who will transport me,” he said softly. “I will perform my duty as the prince commands.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The One Who Reckons

  AS the dimly flickering light grew brighter, the overwhelming emptiness of the realm began to fade. Astron craned his head upward at the djinn who carried him, each shoulder tight in an unflinching grip. The demon showed no change in expression as they closed on their destination, the boredom of flight just another indication of the encroachment of the great monotony into its mind.

  Looking over his shoulder, Astron could no longer distinguish the shine of Elezar’s domain. It was lost in the sparse scatter of glowing dots that gave a feeble hint of pattern in an otherwise featureless expanse. Despite countless eons of slowly wresting matter through the flame from the other universes, the great vastness was still the true character of the realm. Only in the small confines of one’s own lair or in the everchanging patterns of the domain of a prince could one temporarily forget the meagerness that enshrouded imp and djinn alike.

  Endowed with the power to cover great distances almost without effort and the ability to transform whatever one saw into unlimited other shapes, the cruel jest of it all was that there was so very little on which those powers could be exercised. It did not take long before the farthest corners of the realm had been explored, all the interesting weavings formed and destroyed, and the bizarre mysteries of men and those of the other realms sampled and discarded. Ultimately all that was left was to sit and wait, contemplating the curse of an immortal lifetime—sit and wait until the great monotony drove one to surrender to the stembrain and self-destruction in a new and interesting way.

  Astron shook his head free of the brooding thoughts as the features of Palodad’s lair became more clear in the darkness. Just as the other domains, the domain of the one who reckoned hung in space. Unlike Elezar’s, however, it cast forth no shafts of brilliant light. Only the glow of a single imp marked the entrance to a long, sloping tunnel that led to Astron knew not what.