The Spiral Labyrinth

The Spiral Labyrinth

Author:Matthew Hughes
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: mystery, detective, magic, SF, fantasy
Publisher: Matthew Hughes
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00


Chapter Eight

Bol adjusted the apparatus and the sphere shrank and dimmed further, but did not disappear. He stroked his chins in what I now understood to be a characteristic gesture accompanying concentrated thought. "'Apthorn,'" he said, in a musing tone. "What is an 'Apthorn?'"

I contrived to look politely interested. "Some sort of tree?" I said. "Perhaps a kind of fruit?"

Bol's eyes focused on me. "I wish to have a talk with you," he said.

I assured him that I would be delighted, but he moved his hand in a way that gave me to understand that I had interrupted him. And though the smile remained broad, I understood that being interrupted was not an experience he welcomed. I made a gesture of apology and waited.

"I wish to have a talk with you," he said again, "but conditions require that I exert myself in other directions."

I waited again. It was quite possible that we were now playing some game of his devising, the rules known only to him, and me already a point down. I did not speak until he let me know, by a slight turn of his head, that it was my turn. I again assured him of my great pleasure at the prospect of conversing with him and that I would make myself available at his convenience.

"Pars Lavelan will find you quarters," he said. "Have you any special requirements? Dietary taboos? Pernicious allergies?"

"None," I said.

He waved vaguely in Lavelan's direction to indicate that I was now his servant's responsibility. I executed a formal gesture of leave-taking and, as I would have done if I were departing the presence of an Old Earth aristocrat, I backed up three paces before turning away. The tall narrow doors seemed distorted in the peculiar green light of the room, but they grew straight as we neared them, and I was glad to pass through them, retrieve my sword, and see the portals swing silently closed behind us.

"Where to?" I asked Lavelan.

He said that he would take me to quarters close to his own. We set off again through the manse's bewildering zigs and jinks, everywhere rendered in green and copper. A question occurred to me. "Everything in this place is rendered in the same two colors. Is there a purpose to it?"

Again I received that look that wondered if I was truly the worst-informed person on the planet, but when my guide saw that I was seriously desirous of receiving an answer he explained. "Colors," he said, "are expressive of numinous qualities. Call them the different strains of magic. High-ranking practitioners command two such, in contrast with each other, drawing some of their power from their ability to contain the conflict and channel its energies to their purposes."

"Your patron commands green and copper. What do they signify?"

"As is usual, one is dominant and the other recessive. In Bol's case, he wields green as his major idiom, with copper as its minor accompaniment. By judiciously balancing the relationship, an art that takes years to



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