Dance of Demons (33 page)

"Let us give the head to Tharizdun then, for it will allow him to discover the entity's design." suggested Leda.

"Perhaps it would, but the selfishness of the most malign is so great that the result would likely not be as we would hope, and I — we — would then have no chance of defeating the maggot!"

"Do we have any hope of that now, Gord?"

"Gellor, I believe that we do. I have kept certain information from you, I now admit." When he observed the expressions on his friends' faces, Gord was apologetic. "Do not be hurt or offended — It was because the foe had to be kept ignorant. Besides, I am not sure that we can actually expect active help. I am also unsure of how useful aid will be if it is granted to us."

"I can accept your determination to keep your own counsel," Gellor said. "I have suspected something ever since our sojourn in the depths of demonium. You seemed to have inspiration, fresh direction, as it were, when we were there and you were sunk into introspection."

"That's all very well and good, you two," Leda said impatiently. "Please share the news with me. What allies do we have?"

Gord took her hand, gave her a kiss on her forehead. "Hush, girl. You and Gellor will know soon enough. We need to restore ourselves quickly now and move along. There is much travel to accomplish, and who can say what will lie in wait along the road?"

"What path do we follow, Gord?"

"First we seek the end of Law. If we attain that, we must go to the uttermost extreme of Tolerance."

"Order is anathema to my— "

"I know, Leda. Yet if you would share in this thing, then you must be willing to endure that."

"If I understand you aright, Gord," the troubador remarked, "then I too will not find the passage easy. Perhaps I miss the mark, but the second destination suggests some— "

"I suggest that we all refrain from further discourse, dear friends! Of all places, this is one which must see us no more. Are you both ready to begin again?"

They understood. Gellor said no more about where he thought they had to journey, and Leda asked no more, voiced no objections. It was a simple matter for them to walk out of the strange plane. Just as if the three were going along a material track they strode back down the mountainlike terrain and soon arrived at the verge where the Empyreal Sphere commenced.

"Now we will benefit further from these bands forged by Weal," Gord said confidently. "The rings will enable us to move quickly through the upper planes to reach the Sphere of Order. If we find an ally there, then will be time enough to regain our strength and repair the damage taken from this battle."

From the place of fire and hue they entered clear light, crossed the Celestial Sphere, then the sphere of creative energy. Many paths wended from there, but Gord directed their steps along the one of astral way, then into the aethereal, and finally the three tired wayfarers came to where the Realm of Regularity lay. In successively more trying stages they then trekked further. Beyond the frontiers of Regularity was the rigid place of Law, and that was but the province of Order. The strange and inflexible beings inhabiting those realms attempted to interfere with the three heroes, for not even Gellor was so structured in his ethos that his aura would pass unnoticed. Their inner strength, the force imbued in Gord and Gellor too, and the great dweomers still resting in the rings enabled them to pass unhindered.

"It is as if we suddenly became ethereal and those who seek to hinder remain in gross form," Leda noted admiringly after they bypassed a succession of ever greater and more hostilely inclined creatures.

She was nearly correct. They used the littleknown vestiges of other spheres to slip from such ones seeking to bar their progress. Here it was indeed the Aethereal that served, there Shadowrealm impinged, and too there was the ever-narrowing plane of Chance. At last their surroundings altered.

"We are?" Gellor inquired.

"At the extremity of all Order," Gord announced. "We now tread on the Realm of Uniformity, a wedgeshaped plane, my friends. We cannot fail to reach our goal here!"

Leda was filled with curiosity, but she would give neither of the men the satisfaction of asking. Gord knew, and Gellor seemed to be aware of their destination too. Very well, she would simply bide her time and await the arrival. She marched ahead with firmness of step and aloof air. Progress was made as easy by their rings as if the three wore the famed league-long striders whose every step carried the wearer fully three miles along. Gord set a pace that made them all have to save their strength and breath to sustain it. The confines of the sphere grew narrower, and that too compressed them somehow so it was exhausting work to progress. Ever more narrow grew the vista, and so too the difficulty experienced in forcing themselves to move ever onward. It was as if they traveled but time stood still.

"How much farther?" asked Gellor, and Gord saw that the bard was pallid and drawn from the strain of the passage. "I am sorry, comrade, but if there is yet a long way to go, I will have to rest — or you two will have to go on alone."

Leda, glad for the slowing of the pace, felt that she was likewise at the end of her endurance, but somehow she managed to say "I will help you along, dear bard, and Gord will lend me his arm. We three are not to be separated now!"

"Quite so, quite so," agreed a dry and ancient voice. A man of venerable appearance stood before them on a little hillock of sand.

"Ah, Chronos! We have found your abode at last!"

"And about time, too," the old fellow cackled. It was a merry and vigorous humor that belied his decrepit appearance.

In fact, Leda noted, much about the ancient man seemed contradictory. There were muscles there beneath the wrinkled and weatherbeaten skin, and Chronos's eyes were those of a young and inquisitive child, while his white hair and beard were as thick as any swain's thatch. "Chronos? You are . . . ?"

"Proctor Chronos, just as you thought when you truly looked at me," the strange fellow responded. "You are Leda, and he is Gellor," the master of the dimension of time said with a smile toward the oneeyed man beside Leda. "That's not news to you, though, is it, worthy troubador? No, of course not. You have more than ample ability to read my plain and homely aura, I'd say." He combed his long beard with his fingers, shaking his head sadly. "I know I am going on as would a dotard, but the assault of Entropy there in the high prison fairly addled me — wont recover from that for an age! No, that's a certainty. Won't lightly pass the offense off, either!"

"You aided me in the past—"

"No such thing!" Proctor Chronos contradicted quarrelsomely. "Past, present, future — all the same, don't you know? Think boy! You've been in Shadowrealm, haven't you? Of course, of course ..." and he paused to gaze at Gellor and the dark elven girl as if seeking their affirmation. "Time is just the same in its form, so to speak. Flows along right back to where it came from in a loop! Don't let anyone fool you. It's as if there were but a single side, a single verge, so no matter where you go in the stream you're in the same place — sort of."

Gord smiled. "Your sagacity is of the ages of time, Proctor. You did lend me aid. . . ."

"Certainly. Helped you and that bard there so you could get the girl and those blamed Theorparts. Still in all, that didn't give the Lord of Entropy cause for the attack!"

Gellor was more than a little confused by that. "I crave your pardon for the seeming offense of this question, Proctor Chronos, but aren't you — that is. Time — and the Lord of Entropy one and the same, or closely related allies?"

"What? Never! Never, do you hear? If the entity ever gains his domain, why, there will be no time at all, none! Chronos and Entropy are at opposite ends. I measure events, put the proper and necessary limits and boundaries to things. In Entropy's kingdom there is nothing, stasis. How can time exist there? Can't, of course!" Then he peered closely at the grizzled troubador. "What savants have you studied under?"

Gellor looked abashed, and Leda had difficulty suppressing a giggle. Gord stepped in to rescue the situation. "When the Lord of Entropy brought his entire force to bear upon the adamantite sheathing of the prison which held the evillest one, then he was violating your precincts?"

"That is just so," Proctor Chronos agreed with a scowl at the thought of Entropy's temerity. "That thing forced a distortion of the stream of the weight of its entlre existence concentrated there. Think of it as a behemoth stepping into the stream and causing the soft bottom to sink. The fluidity of time drained into the depression, swirled and grew deep. It was so collected, in fact, that in other places the cosmos was without its measure for a . . . a . . . um . . ." The fellow paused and scratched his head. "It brought an unaccounted-for interval!"

"Unthinkable!" Leda said.

"Unforgivable," Gellor concurred dryly.

"And so you now agree to assist us further, as I understand," Gord stated, directing the conversation back to where he had been trying to keep it.

"But of course, champion. That's why I sent you the message. You did receive it, didn't you?"

"No."

"That unmeasured jackanapes! Entropy slowing things again, is he? Well, we'll see about that. Come along! We must be moving along now. Time is not to be wasted, and it is high time to bring the culprit to an accounting!"

Proctor Chronos had no scythe as was usually depicted as his instrument. He employed neither a sand glass nor water clock nor even a candle. From inside his togalike garment the Master of Time brought forth a strange thing that was of globular form. First it showed a billion blazing motes, then it shifted to but a few specks that whirled in orbits around the larger mote in the center. As if annoyed at the sphere, Chronos gave it a shake, and it again changed to depict many translucent little orbs inside the greater one of itself, and the multihued balls overlapped and interposed one another in a most confusing manner. "Aaah, that's better," Proctor Chronos muttered, not at all confused by the sight of his device. He studied it for a few minutes, then shook it once more. It changed instantly into a ribbon of sandy stuff that seemed to flow without actually moving at all. The master of time whipped the length of that material around his waist as if it were a sash, gave one end a half-turn, and then placed it over the other. The two merged, and Proctor Chronos smiled, his eyes bright and lively with mirth. "Now we go to the House of Option."

"We do not move backward to change what Entropy did?" Gellor inquired with some concern.

"How often must I reiterate it? There is no forward nor back," Chronos said with some irritability evident. "Besides, I would be in violation of my own standards if I tried to change occurrences such as that which are of timely sort. It occurred, and that is that. Now come along!"

The ancient proctor stepped off with a lively step. The three heroes followed. Although it seemed as if they walked on a treadmill, for the sandy soil beneath their feet seemed unchanging, the scene around them changed and flowed swiftly. Every so many paces the appearance of the Master of Time altered as well. At first he grew younger, seeming to become a man of but seventy or so years, then but sixty. What caused the mutation was impossible to judge, for things all around sped past so swiftly that the three saw only a blur of color, heard a babble of sound occasionally, as well as smelled fleeting hints of varied odors, and that confused their senses greatly. Then Proctor Chronos began to grow. He thickened, shot up inches, then became quite fat, and finally the Master of Time was a giant who still stumped along heavily before Gord, Leda, and Gellor.

"He grows vaster still," Leda whispered in Gord's ear as they went on.

"It is because the region of the multiverse we now travel has a very intense concentration of time."

The bard couldn't help overhearing the exchange. He was somewhat uncertain of exactly what his young friend referred to. "A concentration? That is contrary to the concept of time, Gord. Time is a measure of equal or unequal intervals which record data, the lives of creatures, and so forth."

"That is so, but that does not contradict what I told Leda. Time is intense here because it is measured at fine and precise intervals as well as at irregular but important ones. It is concentrated too, meaning that there are many streams present," the young champion added with a touch of smugness.

"Stop that, Gord," Leda scolded. "You can behave as a sage might because you know our destination. If you had informed Gellor and me, then you wouldn't have the advantage. I believe you keep us in the dark to make just such points."

She was only jesting, but Gord cringed in mock suffering from the admonition. "Please, no more. I am contrite. Do take note, though, that on past occasions the wise and learned troubador has used similar opportunities to make me appear a — "

"Never mind, dear lady," Gellor said haughtily. "This former pupil — and he was a slow and thick one, let me tell you — merely shows off to demonstrate ability beyond his instructor's ken. His example is sufficient to allow the discerning mind a true and stark depiction of the relative merits of our widely diverse mental—"

"Gellor!" This time Leda was shaking her finger. "Now you are being the pedant, and insufferably so, too. What has gotten into you two?"

"I merely sought to lighten the mood," Gellor said sheepishly.

Gord was solemn again, after grinning at his friend's ranting. "We act so, my love, because the burden of what is before is too heavy to bear continuously."

"Oh ... of course. I had almost forgotten about Tharizdun just now."

"Excellent," boomed the voice of Proctor Chronos. "I plan to see that time takes no note of that . . . 'maggot,' as Champion Gord has named him .. . soon now."

The Master of Time was standing before them, a veritable colossus of middling years and muscles that would have shamed the strongest of the titans. "Although Lady Tolerance and I do not always see eye to eye, as you human folk put it, she is a charming and wonderful hostess."

"We are not seeking entertainments," Gord snapped without thinking.