The sorcerer Lorman—the oldest —had hung silent for a long while, there in his shadowy corner. Now he finally spoke, and his voice was a croaking thing.
"Yes. We must attempt to free ourselves of these chains by physical means. The tides of Tualua make magic too uncertain. Still, we must continue to try the spells, for sometimes he rests and there are brief interludes when things may fall out right. It is our position that is bad in relation to his pit. His force goes forth in this direction before the swirling commences. There are places in this castle which are free of his inter- ference—a long gallery near his pit, for instance."
"How do you know this?" Derkon asked.
"The force that blocks our magic has not interfered with my ability to sense things on other planes," the old man replied. "This much I have seen—and more."
"Then why did you not speak of it sooner?"
"What good would it have done us? I cannot predict when there will be an interruption in the flow, nor how long it will last."
"If you would tell us when an interruption occurs, we could at least try our spells," Hodgson said.
"And what then? I had felt we were doomed, anyway."
"You use the past tense," Derkon observed.
"Yes."
"Then you have seen something that gives you hope?"
"Possibly."
"Your vision is far better than ours, Lorman," Hodgson stated. "You will have to tell us about it."
The old sorcerer raised his head. His eyes were yellow and focused upon nothing present.
"There is a master spell—a great working, from long ago—that somehow seems to hold this place together—"
"Tualua's?" Vane inquired.
Lorman shook his head slowly.
"No. It is not of his doing. Mayhap Jelerak himself wrought it. I cannot say. I do not understand it. I simply feel its existence. It is very old, and it binds this place somehow."
"How can that help us, when you are not even certain of its function?"
"It does not matter whether we understand it. What would you do if your chains fell away this instant?"
"Go home," Vane answered.
"Walk out the gate? Hike back? How many guards, slaves, zombies, and demons inhabit this place? And say you succeed in bypassing them. Would you relish the walk through the changing land?"
"I made it through once," Vane said.
"You're weaker now."
"True. Forgive me. Continue. How can the master spell help us?"
"It cannot. But its absence may."
"Break a spell of which you're not certain—one that is sustaining things?" Derkon asked.
"Exactly."
"Granting that it can be done, it might destroy us all"
"It might not, too. Whereas if we do nothing, we are almost certainly lost."
"How would we go about it?" Hodgson asked. "One generally needs to know a spell's exact nature in order to unmake it."
"A simple but powerful channeling spell. If we got to the gallery and combined our efforts—"
"What exactly would we be channeling against it?" Hodgson asked.
"Why, the only thing in the neighborhood that flows with enormous force—the emanations of Tualua himself."
"Say we succeed," said Derkon, "and say that it does shatter the master spell—have you any notion at all what the result might be?"
"This place is known in ancient lore as the Castle Timeless," Lorman said. "No man knows its origin or its age. My suspicion is that it is a preserving spell. If it be broken, I feel the place could fall apart about us, possibly even fade to dust and gravel."
"And how would this help us?" Galt asked.
"There would no longer be a castle from which we must escape—only rubble and confusion. Tualua would absorb the actual backlash of the working, as it would be his force turned against the master spell. He may well be sufficiently debilitated by it to terminate the emanations. The changing land would be stabilized and our magic would work again. We depart, fit to deal with any normal challenge."
"Supposing," Hodgson asked, "that instead of stunning him, it whips Tualua into a frenzy? Supposing he lashes out at everything?"
Lorman smiled faintly, then shrugged.
"Six fewer sorcerers in the world," he said. "Of course it's a risk. But consider the alternative."
"You employ the singular," Derkon said. "There is more than one alternative."
"If you have a better plan, please instruct me."
"I have nothing better to offer, up to a point," Derkon stated. "If we were to free ourselves, I can see performing the channeling spell of which you spoke, to break the master spell. But say things fall out as you have supposed—we live through it and Tualua is incapacitated—I cannot see fleeing at that point. We would then occupy an enviable position—half a dozen sorcerers, united and in full possession of our powers, with an Elder One helpless at our feet. We would be fools if we did not move to bind him then, as each of us had originally planned to try. Our chances of success, in fact, would seem good."
Lorman chewed his mustache.
"Such a course of action had occurred to me also," he finally said, "and I can offer no rational objection. Yet—I have a feeling—a strong one— that the best thing we can do is get as far away from here as possible as soon as we can. I do not foresee the nature of the danger that will follow if we wait around, but I am certain it will be a grave one."
"But you admit that it is only a feeling, an apprehension—"
"A very strong one."
Derkon looked about at the others.
"How do you feel about it?" he asked them. "If we get that far, do we go for the prize, or do we run?"
Odil licked his lips.
"If we try that and fail," he said, "we're all dead —or worse."
"True," Derkon replied. "But we all faced what was basically the same decision, severally, when we considered coming here in the first place—and we all came. We will actually be in a stronger position my way—united."
"Yet, I had never realized the full magnitude of Tualua's strength until recently," Odil answered.
"Which increases the reward for success."
"True…"
He looked at Vane.
"It does seem worth trying," that one stated.
Galt nodded as he said it.
"Hodgson?"
Hodgson regarded each of them in turn, quickly, as if just becoming aware how important his choice would be. Derkon was an avowed disciple of the darkest phases of the Art. Lorman had been, but in his old age seemed occasionally to waver. The others were of the gray, uncommitted sort which made up the majority of practitioners. Only Hodgson had declared himself a follower of the white way.
"There is merit to your plan," he said to Derkon. "But say we succeed. Our ends will be different. We will all have different uses in mind, desire different employments of the power. The next struggle will be among ourselves."
Derkon smiled.
"Conflicts among any of us might occur in the normal courses of our affairs," he said. "In this, at least, we will have a chance to talk things over before doing anything rash."
"And we are bound to disagree on something sooner or later."
"Such is life," said Derkon, shrugging. "We can settle our differences as they arise."
"Which means that should we gain control, only one of us will be around long enough really to enjoy it."
"It need not necessarily follow…"
"But it will. You know it will."
"Well…What is to be done?"
"There are several very binding oaths which might protect us from one another," Hodgson said.
He saw Odil's face brighten as he spoke—also Vane's and Lorman's. Derkon bit back a beginning gibe as he noted these reactions.
"It would seem that it may be the only way to insure full cooperation," he said after a moment. "It will make life a little less interesting. But, on the other hand, it may well lengthen it." He laughed. "Very well.
I'll go along with it, if the others will."
He saw Galt nodding.
"Let's get on with it, then," he said.
Semirama entered the Chamber of the Pit. The brown heaps were greatly diminished. The shovels were leaned against the nearest wall. The slaves had departed. Baran was in Jelerak's study, attempting to recover lost spells from moldering tomes.
Slowly, she moved to the edge of the pit. Below, the watery surface was still. Once more she looked around the room. Then she leaned forward and uttered a sharp, trilling note.
A tentative tentacle broke the murky surface. A moment later, her exotic speech was answered in the same fashion.
She laughed lightly and seated herself upon the edge of the pit, legs hanging over its side. She began a series of the chirping sounds, pausing occasionally to listen to more of the same. After a time, a long tentacle reared itself to rest lightly upon her leg, caressing, rising.
Arlata of Marinta guided her mount at a slow gait. Shortly after she had passed between the orange pinnacles, the wind had risen in intensity, periodically puffing gusts of extra force sufficient to whip her cloak into awkward positions about her face and restrict the movements of her arms. Finally, she tucked it partway behind her belt. She drew the cowl low, to shield her eyes, and tied it in place. The mists were swirled away about her, but the visibility worsened rather than improved, as large amounts of dust and sand became airborne. A brownish cast came over the land, and she took shelter in the lee of a low ridge of orange stone.
She brushed sand from her garments. Her mount snorted and pawed the ground. There came a series of delicate, tinkling sounds.
Looking down, she beheld a small shininess along the base of the stone. Puzzled, she dismounted and reached toward that portion of it that lay nearest her mount's hoof. She raised a broken flower of yellow glass and stared at it.
At that moment, a sound like laughter came out of the moaning of the wind. Lifting her eyes, Arlata beheld an enormous face formed out of a vortex of sand which had risen before her shelter. Its huge, hollow mouth was swirled in the form of a grin. Behind its eyeholes was a dark emptiness. Getting to her feet, she saw that from what might be called its chin to the place where its forehead merged with blowing dust, it was taller than she. The glass flower fell from her fingertips, shattering at her feet.
"What are you?" she asked.
As if in reply, the howling of the wind increased in volume, the eyes narrowed, and the mouth became a circle. The sounds now seemed to be funneled through it.
She wanted to cover her ears, but she restrained herself. The face began to drift toward her, and she saw through it. Something glistening lay uncovered in its wake. She invoked her protective spell and began one of banishment.
The face blew apart and there was only the wind.
Arlata mounted, then took a drink from the silver flask which hung at the right of the delicate green saddle. Moments later, she rode forward, passing the rib cage, right arm and head of a crystallized human skeleton which had been exposed by the eddying winds.
She rode on past the river of fire and halted again beside the iron wall.
"Dish it up," Meliash said. "I'm hungry." He seated himself at the table and began recording the morning's occurrences in the journal he maintained. The sun was higher now, the day warmer. A pair of small brown birds was building a nest in the tree over his head. When the food arrived, he pushed the journal aside and began to eat.
He was into his second bowl when he felt the vibrations. Since these were not uncommon within the changing land, he did not even pause as he dipped the coarse bread into the gravy. It was not until the birds departed in nervous flight and the vibrations resolved into a series of regular sounds that he looked up, wiped his mustache, and sought their direction. The east… Too heavy for the hoofs of a horse, yet…
They were hoofbeats. He rose to his feet. The others had come silently upon his camp, but there was no stealth here. Whatever—whoever—it was, was crashing through the undergrowth now, moving like a juggernaut. No subtlety, no finesse…
He saw the dark form among the trees, only slowing now that it was almost upon his camp. Big. Very large for a horse…
He touched the stone upon his breast and took a step forward.
Abruptly, the dark form halted, still partly screened by the trees. Meliash began moving toward it through the sudden silence as he saw a single rider dismount a shadowy steed. Now the man was striding toward his camp, making no sound whatsoever…
Meliash halted and awaited his approach as the man emerged from the wood. He was taller than most, slim, light-haired; his boots and cloak were green. As he drew near, the man responded to the recognition sign with a version of the counter-gesture which had once been valid but was now several centuries out of date. Meliash recognized it for what it was only because history had long been one of his passions.
"I am Meliash," he said.
"And I am Dilvish. You are the Brotherhood's warden in this area?"
Meliash cocked an eyebrow and smiled.
"I know not from what place you might have come," he said, "but we have not been known by that name for some fifty or sixty years."
"Really?" said the other. "What are we now?"
"The Society."
"The Society?"
"Yes. The Circle of Sorceresses, Enchantresses, and Wizardresses raised a fuss, and finally got it changed to that. It's no longer considered good form to use the old designation."
"I'll remember that."
"Would you care to join me for something to eat?"
"Delighted," Dilvish said. "It's been a long journey."
"From where?" Meliash asked as they moved toward the camp and its table.
"Many places. Most recently, far in the North."
They seated themselves and were served shortly thereafter. Meliash fell to, as if he had not just eaten two bowls of the stew. Dilvish also applied himself with vigor to the fare.
"Your account, your garb, your appearance," said Meliash when he finally paused, "all speak of an Elvish origin. Yet there are none of your people in the North—that I know of."
"I have been doing a lot of traveling."
"… and you decided to travel this way and try for the power."
"What power?"
Meliash set down his spoon and studied the other's face.
"You're not joking," he said a moment later.
"No."
Meliash furrowed his brow, scratched his temple.
"I'm afraid I do not entirely understand," he said. "Did you come here for purposes of journeying to the castle in the middle of the—" he gestured, "wasteland?"
"That's right," Dilvish said, breaking off another piece of bread.
Meliash leaned back.
"Do you know why I am here?"
"To help contain the spell that has produced the phenomenon, I'd guess," Dilvish answered. "To keep it from spreading."
"What makes you think it is a spell that has done that?"
Now the other looked puzzled. Finally, he shrugged.
"What else could it be?" he asked. "Jelerak was hurt earlier—in the North. He's come here to lick his wounds. He set that up to protect himself while he recovers. It may well be a self-perpetuating spell. The Brotherhood— pardon me, the Society wants to prevent its running wild, should he expire within. And that's why you are here. That is my guess."
"It makes sense," Meliash replied. "But you are wrong. This place has indeed been one of his strongholds. Somewhere inside is one of the Old Ones—the ancient, tentacled kin of the Elder Gods—Tualua, by name. Long had Jelerak controlled this one, tapping its power for his own ends. We do not know whether Jelerak himself is in the place right now. What we do know is that Tualua as apparently gone mad—a condition not uncommon among his kind, if tradition speaks true—and that all of that—" He glanced toward the changing land, "—is his doing."
"How can you be so certain?"
"The Society was able
to determine by specialized arcane means that the phenomenon you behold results from the emanations of a being magical in itself, rather than any particular spell. It is a rare thing to observe these days, which is why we have set up these stations."
"You are not here to keep it under control, should it reach out and become a danger beyond this region?"
"And that, too, of course."
"You are not here to use it as some sort of trap for Jelerak?"
Meliash reddened.
"The Society's position toward Jelerak has always been one of neutrality," he stated.
"Yet you barred his return to the Tower of Ice to keep Ridley in reserve against him."
Meliash frowned and studied Dilvish. Suddenly, then, his right hand dipped into a slit in his garment, emerging to cast a handful of golden dust toward Dilvish. Recognizing the material, Dilvish stood unmoving, smiling.
"You're that nervous, eh?" he remarked. "You see that I retain my form. I am what I appear to be—not Jelerak in disguise."
"Then how do you know of the doings at the Tower of Ice?"
"As I said, I was in the North recently."
"Those actions in the North," Meliash said, "were not Society- sanctioned. They were the work of a number of individual members acting on their own initiative. We are neutral on that matter also."
Dilvish laughed.
"Saving your commitments for the big ones?" he inquired.
"It is extremely difficult to get a group of temperamental individualists to take a position on anything. You talk as if you were not yourself a member. Speaking of which, you gave me an out-of-date countersign—very out-of- date."
"I've been away for a long while. But I was once a member of the Brotherhood in good standing, albeit a lesser one."
"You continue to puzzle me. You want to ride through a dangerous area toward a dangerous place. Everyone else who has gone that way has done it because he believes there may be a chance of binding Tualua to his own ends—now that he is not in full control of himself, now that Jelerak is either absent or too weak to defend his own. Control of that magical being would indeed bestow a great power. Yet that is not what you are after?"
The Complete Dilvish, The Damned Page 24
