The Sable City, Book I of the Norothian Cycle

The Sable City, Chapter Thirty-Nine

“That is moderately better,” Balan said, rubbing his neck.

“Speak, Balan,” Nesha-tari growled.

“Fine,” the devil said, and nodded toward Tilda. “She is right. I am stalling.”

The devil disappeared in a wink. Shikashe lunged, his sword flashing, but it passed through where Balan had stood and cut a slice clean through the top of the heavy oak table.

*   *   *

Deskata jerked Phin off his feet and strode down the ring of stairs, dragging the wizard along by a fistful of robes. The collar twisted tightly around Phin’s neck as he tried to get to his feet, but Deskata loped quickly across the flat circle of floor and started up the dais, banging Phin’s knees and then an elbow against the rising steps. Phin gasped for a breath and at the top was thrown on his side in front of the curving platinum posts. The silvery white metal seemed to glow spectrally against the black stone background.

Deskata set his tower shield aside on its rim, slid the satchel off his shoulder to hold it by the book within, and drew his ugly, fat-bladed short sword. He kept the weapon at his side with the blade pointed at the floor, but his eyes stabbed at the wizard.

“You will cast your spell or speak your words, now!” he roared, his voice suddenly thick with some accent that was not of the Empire. “Open this gate, that I may pass through to Miilark.”

Phin stared back at him. “Miilark?”

“You heard me.”

“I’ve never been to Miilark!”

A vein throbbed along Deskata’s jaw, and his fingers tightened on the hilt of his sword.

“I did not ask if you had been there, I told you to open this damned gate!”

Phin was on his side, but he rolled to his back to look up the long tower at the false sun suspended high above him. He laughed bitterly.

“Nine Gods, you people are all morons!” Phin yelled. “Do the Legions bar entry to anyone with enough brains to pour piss out of a boot?”

The ex-Centurion glared, but he made no move as Phin got shakily to his feet, and shook out his robes which had bunched up awkwardly as he’d been dragged to the center of the room. He pointed a finger at the satchel in Deskata’s hand.

“Who told you idiots that thing could open a gate?”

Deskata glared, and from the utter lack of light in the depths of his muddy brown eyes Phin did not doubt that the man would not hesitate to kill him. Phin just found it hard to care about that at the moment.

“A seer,” Deskata said.

“A seer! That’s really brilliant. Some Orstavian local, I expect? Was he wearing animal skins and rocking back and forth in a tent? Smoking herbs and drinking fermented toadstools? Nice choice. That is exactly who I would consult regarding an ancient work of thaumaturgy, written in Tullish!”

Deskata’s nostrils were wide and he took deep breaths through his nose, as his mouth was shut so tight his lips were going white. He had to pry them apart to speak.

“He said this gate, when opened, could lead anywhere in the world.”

“He wasn’t even close!”

Phin spun toward the posts and threw out his hands.

“When this thing worked, it connected to only one or maybe two specific places. And it hasn’t worked in fourteen centuries! All that is in that book in your hand are musings about why that might be so. Did the cataclysm that tore Vod’Adia out of the world sever the links? Did some safety measure shut it off, so that the rest of this world did not disappear along with the city? It is theory, Centurion. Wonderings and ruminations.”