Free Indomitus Oriens (The Fovean Chronicles) by Robert Brady

and frayed and nowhere near as good as before. With Chaheff helping her, first to dress, then holding her elbow, Glynn returned to the throne room.
                  She made no effort to glide this time—she couldn’t have done it, had she tried. She felt relieved merely that her knees didn’t buckle.
    ***
     
    A multi-colored whorl sat at the base of the throne now.
    “Angron first tried to dispel it,” Avek informed her, wringing his hands. “Then he tried to move it so he could depart his throne. Finally we tried to rally the Casters in a joint effort to terminate the thing.”
                  “Nothing worked,” D’gattis interrupted him. His contempt was clear. “Now Angron seeks your counsel.”
                  Glynn stepped into the throne room and almost tiptoed down the long, red carpet. She felt no rush of air from the vortex, no roar of great energies, no sound at all, in fact. The room had become velvety quiet, the other Casters standing like white crows at the vortex’s edge, all in contemplation of whatever this could be.
                  “I am amazed,” Glynn admitted.
                  “Yes,” Chaheff agreed, “we all are. This is an anomaly and we cannot dislodge it. There are spells which, once cast, cannot be undone except by the caster, and we are in hope now that this is one.”
                  “It is not,” Angron said. They all looked up at him, still pristine and white and ancient upon his throne.
                  “It is an opening, and we do not know to where,” he continued. “We dropped an orb into it, and it rolled across the surface. We wait in contemplation of this thing, for what comes out.”
                  “What comes out?” Glynn asked.
                  D’gattis clicked his tongue. “Surely, girl, you must understand that, if nothing can go in, then something must need to come out.”
                  “Then what use have you for me?” she asked. She felt weary on her feet, even from the short walk.
                  “In fact, our need for you has grown,” Aniquen said.
                  “It is my opinion that you are ill-advising our monarch,” D’gattis said.
                  “I believe I am not,” Aniquen said.
                  “And I am swayed by him,” Avek said. “As is Angron.”
                  “In what?” Glynn asked, thinking she must already know the answer.
                  And they confirmed it. “That you should sing, of course,” Aniquen said. “You have sung something halfway here, clearly you must sing it the rest of the way.”
                  “My song is sung,” Glynn said. It was true—she no longer felt the need, although the words now were burned upon her memory.
                  “I have tried to sing a portion of your song,” Avek said, “and I cannot. Nor can any other, and that is strange, because you are not the greatest among us, Glynn Escaroth. Some here, Aniquen for example, could not hear your song, which speaks for its power. We believe that this is your destiny, and you must continue in it with your own voice.”
                  Chaheff nudged her elbow where he held it. “Do not sing your song at first,” he said. “Sing something sweet, as you might use to coax a horse from a barn.”
                  Glynn nodded. She thought this made sense. If something was trying to come through, it might be lost because it sought her voice.
                  She opened her mouth, and she inhaled.
                  This would be disaster; or her greatest moment yet.
    * * *
                  Bill, in his day, had been a power drinker. He could pound it with any client like he had a hollow leg. It was a matter of pacing, even if you were pounding; little sips