Dance of Demons (28 page)

Concentrating on the space before them, the young champion called upon Initiator, first of the keys, to manifest itself. The metal shape he held forth as he did so suddenly shimmered and fractured, becoming two distinct parts again. Gord caught Awakener in his left hand even as the other Theorpart suddenly sprang free from his right. It shot like an arrow, straight across the chasm, but it grew longer and broader as it went. Then it was across, and with a resounding bang fused to become an arching bridge of quicksilver.

"Well, if one can trust such mercurial stuff, we can now proceed to the castle," Gord drawled.

"I have no relic to hazard," Leda volunteered. "I shall lead." Before there was time to object, the dainty elf put her feet upon the span. "This stuff feels uncertain underfoot, and the going is heavy, but I find it otherwise unremarkable," Leda called after a dozen steps. "As soon as I near the end, let Gellor follow."

Gord wanted to reprimand her presumption, scold Leda for risking herself in the first place, but he kept his mouth shut. After all, the three of them were committed to this undertaking, and until the end it made no difference which of them served as leader. Then again, it seemed that she was acting with inspired correctness. He was not the only one who had insights. As the sword was formed of dark and light to achieve Balance, it seemed that Leda and he were almost a whole in this venture, with Gellor as the stuff that held them together in crisis. Then he stopped his musings, for Leda had arrived at the gateway into the great fortress, and the bard was beginning his passage over the strange bridge. Gord noticed that it seemed to shift and give a little at his comrade's steady tread, but run it did not. Quicksilver apparently, but not quicksilver.

"Your turn, Gord," Leda called as Gellor reached her side. "Hurry!"

Without answering, he stepped onto the span and walked along its arching incline. The surface yielded slightly to his foot, but it seemed solid otherwise. At the apex of the arch, something caught his eye. There was a silvery glint of another nature there, something small lying atop the mercurial bridge. Gord paused, bent, and studied the thing. It was a silver-hued ring set with a perfect diamond. Hesitating only an instant, Gord picked up the ring and went on to join his friends.

"Shall we explore inside?"

"Not easily, Gord. This passage is filled floor to celling with ice as clear as air — but hard as diamond!" Gellor rapped his Theorpart against the stuff to demonstrate his observation. The ice, if ice it truly was, gave off a crystalline ringing from the blow.

"What have you found?" Leda asked, having noticed him pick something up on the bridge.

"Here," Gord said distractedly, handing the small elven girl the ring. "You care for it. This blockage is another of the tests, I suppose, Gellor. Let us see what the second of the fractions can do, ah? It would be natural for Vitalizer to dismiss this life-stopping ice."

"You mean Awakener?"

"Call it what you will. There is no true appellation for any of these things, save what we have surmised is needed to release the captive. What do you suppose will occur when we reach the cell wherein Tharizdun lies? No need then for these things, I wager!"

"I wasn't contradicting — "

"Let it be," Leda said to the bard. "Our hero will have his own way, else he will lash us with his tongue till we name him nuncle."

"Now you cease, girl," Gellor chided. "We are all as ill-tempered as badgers. What happens, comrade, if you opt for the wrong key, as it were?"

"I don't think any of us would survive to find out."

"Why not Unbinder, then? Aren't these ways ice bound?"

"A worthy reasoning, Gellor." Gord paused. "Hmmm. Now you make me unsure. . . ."

Leda suggested that he hold fast to each to see if there was a clue hidden within the Theorparts. Gord agreed, but neither portion of the relic felt right or wrong. He had her touch them, but there was no better result. "Now, Gellor, you tiy," urged the dark elf.

As if on a whim, the troubador touched both simultaneously. He froze in the act, as immobile as if he himself had become ice. It lasted only for an instant however. Releasing his hands, Gellor spoke in a sweet, clear voice that was unquestionably not his own. "He was right to counsel you to caution, champion. It is the portion you name Unbinder which must free this place of its choking ice."

Gord stared first at Gellor. His expression was blank Then he looked questionlngly at Leda. "Dare we listen? That must be . . can be none other than . ."

"Tharizdun," Gellor supplied, speaking again in his own gruff voice.

"And? Tell us, bard, was the intrusion meant to deceive?"

"Leda, I am unable to say," he replied, looking from her worried face to Gord's own. "Yet there seemed no malice or cunning. I was aware of another there in my mind — just for the instant it took to relay the advice you heard. Then the presence was gone!"

Gord took the relic from where it rested on the pale marble of the threshold. "I will rely upon my instincts in this matter, then." It was Unbinder's peculiar shape he used, not that of Awakener. "Come, ancient artifact of imprisoning, loose the icy mirror which blockades these halls and rooms!"

"The thing glows red!" Gellor exclaimed. Indeed, the Theorpart in his friend's hand was fiery scarlet at its tip and the heat palpable from a distance. It wasn't burning Gord's hand, but as the bard watched, the wielder thrust that incandescent tip into the ice. There was a chiming when that contact was made, rather than the hiss of heat battling with water. Then the relic sped ahead of its own volition, growing hollow, becoming no more than a cylinder of growing dimension as it went.

"The ice has vanished," Gord said needlessly, for he had already stepped into the castle's entry hall.

"There is no more piercing chill, either," Leda noted.

Just then there was a faint tinkling sound, the noise metal makes when it touches lightly on stone. Gellor's boot had kicked something that rolled with a wobbling motion as it went. He took several quick steps, reached for the thing, and scooped it up. "It is a gold ring set with jacinth," he exclaimed. "Which of us dropped it?"

None had, of course. "It is as with the little band of silver I gave to Leda," Gord observed. "With the appearance of that one, old friend, I surmise the ring comes from the disappearance of the Theorpart."

"But I put the ring you handed to me on my finger," Leda said. "I felt I had to . . . "

He didn't comment, but instead Gord looked at the grizzled veteran. "Is there a desire in you to don that ornament, Gellor?"

"Yes," the troubador said after a moment to consider it. He was holding the golden ring in his closed fist, allowing any power in it to flow into him thus. "There is something which urges I place it securely upon my hand — now!"

"Do so," Gord said after pausing a moment himself to consider, just as Gellor had reflected when asked about the thing.

"Why, Gord? What if"

"Never mind finishing that query. I think I know both question and answer. I'll tell you both later, though, Leda. Now it is needful for us to press ahead with alacrity." He began to suit word to action, moving into the luminous interior of the fortress, looking here and there as he went. The little elven girl and the bard followed readily enough, Gellor a step to the rear because he had taken a moment to slip off his mailed gauntlet and place the gold ring with its tawny orange stone upon his finger.

It was as if the place were a true castle. There was a great hall and antechambers, cellars and a dungeon beneath, galleries and countless rooms above the ground floor. The whole was furnished as would have been a like place on Oerth, save all things were fashioned of white material, or nearly white, or crystal. Ivory and various sorts of pale stone were common, and there was silver and platinum in profusion. Tables, chairs, and rugs too. All as new, none showing the slightest hint of ever having been used.

"No one has dwelled in this stronghold, not ever," Leda commented. "Where is the one we seek then?"

"He is here, right enough. We must keep searching," Gord said. "Split up. This castle has many towers. He must be in one of them."

Eventually the truth was plain. The great middle tower, the highest of the whole structure, with its turreted, gold-roofed tip thrust two hundred feet into the clouds, was the last place that remained unexplored by them. The three proceeded up its spiraling stairs together, feeling small and impossibly weak to accomplish the task that awaited, but determined nevertheless to try.

"What metal is this?" Gellor asked, for they had come to a door made of metallic stuff as blue as a summer's sky.

"None I have ever seen or heard tell of," Leda said, touching the stuff as she spoke.

"It is adamantite, pure and unalloyed with any other metal," Gord informed his companions. "Once, long ago when I practiced my thievish skills in Greyhawk I came upon a half-dozen small ingots of it. Because of their beauty and weight I took them. I exchanged those little bars of adamantite for their weight in gold orbs, my friends," he said ruefully. "Only afterward did I learn that not even platinum was sufficient. Adamantite of such purity is five times more precious than rare orichaicum!"

"A whole massive door of the metal! This is not possible," the bard murmured.

"Anything is possible here. The greatest of the Empyreal Spheres built this prison, didn't they?"

"Right. Leda. One tends to forget because it is so much like a place on our own world."

"We see it thus," Gord reminded. "Phantasm or not, this adamantite is real enough. This is where the last of the Theorparts needs be employed. Come now, you useless piece of junk" he said as he readied Awakener. "We wish to see if you can handle the hardest and most magical of metals."

As if guided by sure knowledge, Gord pressed the blunt end of the strange piece of metal to the adamantite slab that sealed the way before them. The Theorpart ran, appearing as if it were molten and alive. Part formed a handle, and from the plate of it ran bands that merged where hinge bolts would be. The whole transition took but a minute. As the last of the relic transformed into the means of opening the adamantite portal, there was now the familiar tinkling of metal upon stone. "Another ring," Gellor said, pointing.

Leda picked it up, a circle of the azure that was pure adamantite. "Look, Gord. Somehow the stuff has been wrought to allow the setting of a great sapphire!"

"Each now has a ring — you must don that one, Gord."

"Gellor is right, love," Leda urged as the young man seemed to hesitate. "These bands offer us some protection, I think"

"Very well," Gord agreed, and took a moment to put the ring on his left forefinger. It fitted perfectly there. "Now I must don my sword again too," he said to Leda. "Slip the poniard from the belt and keep it for a weapon, for I have no need of it, and you are weaponless — at least as far as such arms are concerned."

"This is the dag which severs metals," Leda said with reservation in her voice. "You give me too precious a thing."

"Nothing is too valuable where you are concerned, Leda; you are more to me than any possession, even Courflamme. I must wield the sword, for it is the prescribed weapon of the champion who stands for Balance. Whether my sword, Gellor's, or the dagger I give to you here will avail us aught is moot. Better to have something, though, than to lose for want of so little a thing as that."

"Very well," the girl said, glancing lovingly at him as she attached the dagger to her girdle. It was almost as long as a shortsword, though not quite so broad-bladed or heavy. "I know how to use this," Leda added, giving it a pat.

"And my sword is ready to stand beside Courflamme," Gellor avowed. "Shall I open yon door?"

"No. It is for me alone to do. I enter first, and you two follow." Gord turned to the door and raised his voice. "By this act I hereby free Tharizdun from his eons-long imprisonment!"

The two watched as their comrade stepped up, laid his hand upon the metal of the Theorpart that now formed the great door's latch, and pushed down and inward. The slab of adamantite swung silently inward.

Chapter 16

"BRAVE RESCUERS, NOBLE WARRIORS! Thank you! Welcome!" The cry was filled with joy, and it sprang from the smiling lips of a young boy. The boy was fair-haired, with a pale complexion matching the hue of the marble, only now his cheeks were flushed apple-bright with happiness, and his blue eyes sparkled with joy. "Have I been locked in this tower long? It seems forever — a month at least."

Gord actually recoiled from the boy's appearance. "Stand fast!" he ordered abruptly as the lad started to come toward the three where they stood just inside the big, circular chamber. The golden-haired youth stopped still, looking less frightened at the threatening swordpoint than puzzled at such treatment.

"Have you come to slay me, then? I thought you saviors. . . ."

"Who are you, boy?"

"Boy? I am no boy!" the youngster said with surprising dignity and weight of authority in his voice. "I am Tharizdun, the Emperor of All — at least," he went on less forcefully, "I am meant to be someday when I become grown,".

"Gellor?" Gord said meaningfully.

"I see only the lad," the troubador said, but he sounded uncertain.

"I find neither lies nor deep evil here," Leda volunteered. She too was using her own powers to determine if they were being deluded by magic.

Gord looked carefully at the prisoner and the place he had been held fast. The tower room was about forty feet across and furnished as would be a lord's solar or office, perhaps. There was a couch, table and chairs, a small shelf of bound books, a few decorative things, and both candle prickets and dweomered lamps for illumination. The blue of adamantite lined the walls, he noted, unseamed and smooth. The metal barred the three windows that pierced the wall, and some bluish crystalline stuff closed the spaces between the thick adamantite bars. The upholstery, rugs, and tapestries were all finely made and costly, though not so exceptional as some examples Gord had seen. Even the boys apparel was thus, rich but not unique. "Who are your parents, then?" Gord asked sharply.