The Steward and the Sorcerer by James Peart (small books to read .TXT) 📗

The one seated at the table end wore a crown of some description, made from what appeared to be gold, with small engravings along the band.  They were indecipherable, he noted, and different from the markings on the columns of light in the world between worlds.  He bent close to what remained of the face beneath the crown: in the structure, in the angle of bone, he detected the same hauteur he had seen in the plasterwork carvings, only magnified, the long cheekbones and the delicate, threadlike nose hinting at elevated sovereignty.  The frames of the two to the ‘King’s’ right and left held a more subdued arrogance.  Daaynan suspected they had once been heads of state, or perhaps royal advisors.

Standing back from this scene, he first noticed the plinth and the marble column resting square in its centre to one side of the room.  He stared at it.  There were three markings carved into the marble that were exactly like those he’d encountered in the temple before entering this world.  Rune markings, like in the temple, their patterns irregular in the same way.  He studied them now, eager to discover their importance.  The first was a rudimentary symbol depicting a planet.  This one?  Yet all the light columns in the temple carried the same symbol, and each column presumably led to different worlds, different planets.  A generic symbol then.  The central one was a more intricate marking denoting a figure engaged in an activity of some kind, the depiction too small for him to decipher what.  To the right of this was a marking that showed the figure of the central marking surrounded in a halo of light, its background deliberately blurred.

He looked at them and looked and finally he understood.

They were buttons, to be pressed in a sequence from right to left.  The first symbol selected the world in which he now stood, the second chose an individual from this world, while the final button expedited his or her- in this case his- entry into the temple.

This was, after all, what he had come here to do: choose a person, perhaps more than one, from another place or time and bring them back to the Northern Earth.  It was clear what he should do: touch each button in the right order and set in motion a chain of events that would allow him to confront Karsin Longfellow of Brinemore and expel tyranny from the Northern Earth.  Still he hesitated.  What manner of creature would he summon from this or any other world?  How many of them would he gather?  The answer to the second question came easily.  He was not looking for an army.  Stealth and manoeuvrability were the key to the plan he had hatched to infiltrate Brinemore.  Strength to stand up against those they would encounter in the citadel would have to come from two men, three at the most.  They would need to be strong, yet he had planned for this too.  He smiled.  There were benefits to being Druid of Fein Mor that lay far beyond the grasp of ordinary men.  The only thing that bothered him was the type of individual he would get.  It seemed he had little control over that detail.  If he were correct about the buttons and what they did, there was also the question of consent.  Would any of the people he recruited choose to come of their own free will?  Did the temple factor this element in its selection of those he could take?  How, in point of fact, did it determine its selection?  Was it merely random or was there purpose to it?  If the latter, was that purpose in line with his own aims?

He would have to see, he decided finally.  In coming to a decision, he may have been swayed by the notion that he did not want to stay in this dying world any longer than necessary.  Whatever the case, it was now time to act.

Stepping onto the plinth, he reached across and with the index finger of his right hand pressed the first button.

He felt the markings stir against the ball of his finger, as if alive with some unknown force.  Above him, in the fading sky, there was an unearthly crack and as he looked up through the crumbled roof he witnessed a jagged fissure of lightning, enormous in length and scope, fracture the heavens with an almighty clap.  The ground beneath him rocked momentarily and as he struggled to remain upright he saw that the building had started to collapse around him.  Shards of plaster and stone, torn from their stay in the walls of the palace, rained down on the floor, sheeting it in clouds of rubble and dust.  Everywhere there was ruin.  Pictures were torn from the walls, the images they contained from another age ripped inside their shattered glass casings.  A giant split appeared in the floor beneath one of the tables like the breach of something monstrous, spilling rock and clay onto the flagstones from the ground underneath.  Daaynan watched, fascinated, not sure of where to step, not sure that he could move, until the building grew still.

When the downfall subsided, the room, the building itself, was almost totally exposed to the sky and the giant sun that dominated it.  Without stopping to ponder his altered surroundings, certain that the chain of events he had put into motion were the correct ones, he pressed the second button.

There was a thunderclap in the overhead sky, and another lightning fissure, far smaller than the first, split from the heavens to mark the building.  The palace wasn’t its intended target, however, he noted, stepping down from the plinth and away from the table, but the crown that sat on the skull of the deceased King.  It struck the golden coronet with terrific force, its stark red light flaring blindingly upon contact with the metal, rending it in two, its beam continuing down the length of the King’s frame.  It