Songs of the Dying Earth

He wore a knee-length jacket of green cusps, and in the center of each there flashed and floated colors never seen in waking life. The cusps also blinked and stared in alarm, and showed other evidence that they were animate objects, stirred at least to a mockery of life. In the middle of his forehead was the eye of an Archveult of Sirius grafted to his brow, a tendril root no doubt sunk deeply into his brain-pan.

In a galaxy around his head swarmed and danced the colored polygons of IOUN stones: spheres, ellipsoids, spindles, each the size of a small plum, and vibrant with inner auroras.

With the merest of hesitations, the sorcerer raised his fingers and the syllables of the Instantaneous Electric Effort gushed forth from his mouth. Tridents and biforks of lighting fell from the balcony, but Manxolio manifested a thick disk of the Nigrescent Zone in midair between them, and the fulgurations were absorbed without effect.

While the dark zone hung overhead, obscuring their motions, Guyal pointed to the iron-bound oaken doors leading into the tower. Manxolio placed the heel of the Wand on the stones, and jammed the head beneath an ornamental boss. He unfolded the Wand, and augmented the motive force with the Magnific Adumbration. The locks shattered and the door sagged open.

The Onyx Tower

Manxolio and Guyal crept into the entrance hall. The wonders of the sorcerer’s walls and ceilings were hidden by Manxolio’s cloud of darkness, but the floor was visible: blocks of hollow glass, each one of which held a different brightly-colored fish. To one side, the first few steps of an insubstantial, spidery, curving stairway were visible.

There was a snap of energy, and the zone vanished.

Guyal said, “Unexpected! Iszmagn has discovered how to abjure the primary nigrescence.”

Manxolio said in a low voice: “I suspect the IOUN stones. Let us retreat, and calculate a more complete stratagem in a leisurely fashion, perhaps over a beaker of Old Golden in the taproom of the Scatterlamp Hotel.”

Guyal said, “Retreat is unlikely, as the tower is now surrounded with blue extract.” Nearby was an arched window carved with grimacing gnomes. The ground below was infected with aquamarine pulsations of singularly uninviting aspect.

Up the stairs, they passed through an alchemical lab, seething with alembics and bubbling retorts, and then a chamber composed of looking glasses, each face of which showed a different landscape, none of which were of Earth.

They came upon Iszmagn in the astrological copula, laying at ease upon a pink couch, a plate of candied figs at his elbow, a hookah in his hand. Huge crystalline windows loomed behind the couch of Iszmagn, showing the sky, the red sun, and the faint full moon with its new crater. The IOUN stones swarmed the glass-domed chamber like bees.

“Leave me in peace, you clumsy creatures of the waking world!” called Iszmagn. “I have no ambitions, save to live out the remainder of human life on earth in comfort, collecting my dream-lenses. They are my companions, they whisper love-songs to me as I sleep!”

Guyal spoke in a voice of doom: “Iszmagn the Sorcerer, for the death of the peoples of Sfere and Vull and gay Undolumei and countless others, and in recompense for the murder of my father and brothers, I call on you to surrender, that your life might be spared. Here stands the Remonstrator of Old Romarth: he will take you into custody, and you will receive the justice of their Magistrates.”

“What? And toil in the Cleft for my daily ort of bread, and firken of unclean water?” called out Iszmagn in a strange, strangled, high-pitched voice. He gave a shrieking giggle of laughter. His two eyes seemed dull and listless; only the third eye, taken from a nonhuman being from Sirius, glittered with intention.

Said Guyal. “Will you capitulate? Human life is rare: in all eternity, each man has but one. Better to toil than to perish.”

“So, I killed your father and all your kin! What of it? I have arranged that you have no memory, so it causes you no real grief: your complaint against me is highly theoretical, if not absurd.”

Manxolio, made courageous, perhaps, by desperation, spoke up: “Behold, I hold in hand the Implacable Dark Iron Wand of Quordaal.”

The lenses in Iszmagn’s coat flickered with emotion: the dream images surged and darkened. The sorcerer rose to his feet, saying, “I have attempted reason, but you are stubborn! Enough!” and then he uttered Lispurge’s Vexatious Thrust.

A gust of the distilled motion darted out toward Manxolio. Guyal leaped in the way: the line of force passed through his chest; Guyal was flung like a rag doll up against a rack of plates of gold, silver, and green iridium; all clattered to the gemmed floorstones.

Manxolio flourished the Wand: a lance of thousand-lightninged brilliance roared out. Manxolio could not diminish the rush of white fire.

When at last silence fell, Manxolio blinked purplish dots from his eyes. The Wand was dull and exhausted.