Dragons of War (42 page)

Lessis felt a horrified sort of awe as she comprehended this newborn monster's dimensions. It was easily fifteen feet tall, a gigantic troll, or at least there were similarities, as between a black bear and a giant brown bear. The legs were massive, the head like that of some obscene giant ape, dominated by a hedge of teeth in a huge mouth. The nose was thick, splayed like a bull's. The eyes were small and close set. The thing tapered somewhat from the huge legs, and yet it had to weigh two tons, she estimated. The great jaws opened, and it roared in pain and shock at being alive.

Slaves were already sinking big hooks into the mammoth's hide while the imps with the flensing blades cut up her body into manageable sections that could be dragged away by the slaves and used for troll feed. Blood flowed freely across the flagstoned floor.

Ribela's mouse conferred briefly with the wren.

"I estimate they weigh two tons apiece. Stand fifteen feet high."

"As big as dragons. Can they fight, though?"

"We need to know more. What is
their
strategy?"

"They are close. I can feel them. Such weight upon the psychic plane."

"And their Mesomasters, too. Do you perceive them?"

"Not so well as you."

"They are below us. The Mesomasters search constantly for any intruding presence."

"They will be in the Prime Abyss, where they make the Dooms. Afterward they take nourishment. Nectars, honey, and fruit will be set out for them in a small chamber."

"Do we know where?"

"No, alas, we have never had an informant with such secrets."

"We must find the Prime Abyss. That is where they will be."

They had turned back and were retracing their path through the heavily guarded mammoth pens when they were spotted by keen-eyed imps. Ratting terriers were released, and they fled for their lives. By staying in small places, behind stacked bales of hay or within a gap between two joists, they evaded the terriers, but sooner or later they would find themselves trapped.

When that moment came, they were caught inside a stack of hay bales formed into a rough cube. The dogs were on all sides, and now the imps were taking apart the stack, bale by bale.

Hidden above on a high beam, the wren could only watch helplessly. The imps would soon reach the center of the pile.

Then the wren noticed that one of the glow globes hung from the ceiling almost directly above the scene. She flew to perch on the fixture above it, which was very loose. The wire holding the chain to the ceiling plate was old, but even so the wren was not strong enough to bend such wire. Lessis concentrated and made a supreme effort to summon a spell of destruction. Working from within, the wren was akin to threading a single needle with ten thousand threads. The only way it could work was to use the speed with which the wren's mind operated and compose the spell at a rate many times faster than normal.

Lessis of Valmes bore down hard. Perhaps only one other person alive could have done it as well. It was a wrenching effort, the faultless, high-speed delivery of a thousand lines, but it came off perfectly. The wire decayed to dust, the fixture gave a groan and slipped, and then gave way, and the glowing globe fell free, dropping twenty feet to the floor and exploding with a dull boom.

Both imps and dogs screamed at the sudden shock and gathered around the fallen light globe. It was a magical light globe, manufactured in the faraway city of Monjon. Such globes contained water that had been invigorated by a strange jinni that resided in Monjon. The water from the broken globe still glowed, but its glow was fading as it ran through the cobbles and was lost in the drains.

The mouse and the rats were streaking down the passage, close to the wall, desperately seeking a crack of some kind, a broken drain, anything. Alas, everything was in good repair, no gaps appeared that even a mouse could squeeze through.

The imps were roused by the sudden departure of the terriers, which had seen the rats run and took off with a chorus of joyful barks. The imps followed, carrying rat poles and clubs.

The wren darted down and into the path of the dogs. They ignored her as they bore down on the rats. She flew up again and ahead.

And then the rats found a chink in a gate of immense wooden timbers, and they were through it in a moment. The dogs slid to a halt on the other side, and pawed and whined.

The mouse took stock of the place, a square pen, covered in straw and littered with enormous dung. Then a huge shape detached itself from the darkness in one corner and approached. It stood over them. The rats fled to the walls. The mouse stared directly up, into those big brown eyes.

The bull mammoth cocked his huge ears. If he'd still had his tusks, he would have rubbed them on the ground in amazement. Unfortunately, his captors had cut off his tusks early on and so he had nothing with which to rub the ground or pry apart the walls of this hated place. This tiny mouse, now, this was very interesting. The first interesting thing to happen in a long time. He refrained from crushing the little animal. There was definitely more here than met the eye, for normally mice fled his approach as those rats had.

He was a full-grown bull, with seventeen summers behind him. He was in his prime, young and fit and very, very strong, and he was hearing odd little sounds from this mouse, and parts of his mind thrilled at them, leaving him confused and intrigued.

In curiosity, his trunk curled down. The mouse clambered onto the tip of the trunk, which curled up and bore the mouse close for examination. The mouse never stopped making the interesting sounds.

In the meantime, the poor wren was trapped outside the mammoth's pen. There was no gap wide enough to admit a wren, except that one on the ground level used by the rats but which was now occupied by the dogs.

Then the imps arrived. They opened the great door and let the dogs inside, and the wren took her opportunity.

The rats chose the mammoth over the dogs and ran tight to the wall around the giant pachyderm and behind him. He took no notice of them. His eyes were focused on the tiny mouse on the tip of his trunk.

He was a wise bull of seventeen summers who had fathered many, many calves. He felt good about being himself for once. Normally he felt sad. Now he felt quite bullish. This was good, because it had been a long time since he had felt good, or bullish. He had been confined here for what seemed a lifetime. All that was good here was that he was required to mount females constantly. Everything else was bad. Confinement, monotonous food, nothing but stone and walls around him. He longed to stride the world again, as he had for sixteen long, wonderful years.

The terriers were uneasy about being this close to the bull. He was chained, but only by one leg. He could move about the pen. Still the terriers were obsessed with those two rats. They itched to kill them.

After a few seconds, the urge to kill overwhelmed the more sensible fear of the bull. They darted in at the rats.

The bull noticed and shifted around with remarkable speed. A huge front foot came down on one terrier and extinguished it with hardly more than a stifled squeal. The other one veered away and fled barking in terror.

The imps stood back, alarmed. They cried out for the mammoth master. But the bull made no further movement. It stood stock-still, its trunk holding up something in front of its eyes.

The mature bull of seventeen summers continued to listen to the thoughts that popped into his mind as the mouse on the end of his trunk made odd little sounds.

It was extraordinary. It was wonderful. It was like walking through a highland meadow covered in new lush grass. There was this sense of warm euphoria, something he had not felt since he had lost his world of upland meadows and wide forests.

It transpired that he had friends. This was wonderful news. He had felt friendless since the loss of his freedom and the companionship of other bulls. Now these new friends were going to break the thing that bound his leg. He would stand still, perfectly still. The little animals would do something he could not comprehend; mammoths did not gnaw and knew nothing of the concept. Then later he would "rebel." This concept was new, but he understood it clearly. His anger ran deep and close to the surface.

There was going to be a fight of some kind. Good. The bull was ready. He had been itching to punish them for what they had done to him and would gladly fight. His trunk would hurl them down, and he would trample them, again and again.

The wren fluttered down to alight close beside the mouse. She sensed the intense activity in the mouse. Ribela was working the most tremendous magic, rapid little blurts of mouse sound came every few seconds. Lessis heard and understood. Ribela was the greatest practitioner of the witch's art. Now she was achieving some kind of communication with the mammoth. Lessis wondered what gambit she had chosen. Would it be the Bellan way, with little from the Birrak, a direct shift to post-voluminates, relying on incredibly elaborate credenza to hold everything together? Or would it be the classic way, with some mask effect to replace the lost volumes? There was no way that a mouse could be made to voluminate. Or was it all some unique creation of Ribela's, something beyond the spellbook? If anyone was capable of it, it was the Queen of Mice.

An air of tension rose up about the bull like the gathering oppressiveness before a thundershower on a hot and humid day. It grew and grew, and suddenly it dissipated, without sound or fury and was gone.

It was done. The mouse turned away, their tiny eyes met, and Lessis flinched from the explosive burst of fierce intelligence that glared in victory from those of the mouse. Instantly one was aware that this was not just a mouse. That burst of psychic power flashed away like a lightbulb going off in an empty universe.

Not for the first time, Lessis felt a little fear of the Queen of Mice. Ribela had reached levels that were similar to those of the Masters themselves.

The Mesomasters below would feel that pulse of free energy, she realized. Their alarms would have gone off. But it had been a single flash, leaking from concealment. The Mesomasters would be left with simply a single star burst on the esoteric energy levels. They would not have been able to pinpoint the source.

Still, it was to be regretted, for now at least the enemy had warning that someone had worked great magic, alien magic, within the perimeter of Padmasa. Inquiries would be made, sensitivities would increase.

The bull was standing stock-still, bemused. The two rats, drawn by a compulsion that overmastered their terror, came forward through the dung-strewn straw and applied themselves to gnawing at the heavy leather cuff that secured the bull's hind leg.

The imps and the dogs were outside. The dogs were afraid, and with good reason. The mammoth hated dogs. As much as he hated imps, he hated dogs even more.

The imps edged in, spears in their hands. It seemed they were determined to kill those rats.

But at that very moment, there came a blast on a horn and a thunder of drums. Then came more blasts of the horn, summoning their attention. Drums boomed.

The imps milled uncertainly. Hard-eyed men, who managed the breeding program came out of a door farther down the passage. Something was happening, something very important.

The wren fluttered out the gate to investigate and hid herself on a high beam. A presence was coming, an enormous presence, a Master.

She was aghast at this misfortune. Ribela's powerful spell had been sourced by one of the Masters themselves!

As it came, she felt the power increasing until at last she realized it could only be the one, the greatest of the five, the first and Prime Master of the Vanus void, Heruta Skash Gzug.

Lessis had damped down her own thought projection to almost nothing. The animantic spell was subtle in its use of energy, it would not be detectable above the background clutter on the psychic planes from so many minds in this huge place. Still, she tried not to think.

Ribela, too, was taking precautions, slipping away to hide in the straw. The bull was left to eat quietly in the corner. The rats hid as well.

But now both Lessis and Ribela began to notice hopeful signs. The tone of the presence they felt did not seem imbued with the passions they would have expected if it was coming to apprehend them.

A few moments later Lessis felt a strong mental image. Heruta's thoughts leaked out every now and then. He was so used to simply projecting the power that he could not turn it off. The most casual thought was expressed with the weight of a pyramid. Images from his thoughts would flash into the minds of those around him. It was difficult for mere men to survive these mental blasts. Often men would keel over or go down on their knees, minds blanked by the aftershock.

He was come, he himself, the greatest of the Five, Master of the Vanus void, come to inspect the mammoth pens and to question the Mammoth Master. There were important questions. The plan developed by Heruta himself was not being adhered to. Why was ogre production still falling below the quota? The Mammoth Master had been chosen by Heruta himself. He still had faith in his choice. But there had to be more ogres. The imps in the gate to the bull mammoth's pen prostrated themselves as the Master was borne past them in his chair by eight powerful slaves who sweated beneath their burden. The Master was encased in shining-steel armor chased with gold. The imps did not rise for half a minute after his chair had passed.

Skipping along the high beams the wren followed the presence as it was borne away.

The chair halted outside an office door as a young man with a powerful physique and long black hair emerged. Immediately he knelt in submission to the Great One.

The chair was lowered smoothly halfway to the ground. The armored figure stepped off the seat and floated slowly down to the floor. Once on the floor it resumed walking, bound to the ground like any ordinary mortal. Try as they might, the Masters remained on the human plane of life energy. They had yet to transcend it despite their terrible strength.