Suddenly a pair of gigantic rocks appeared upon the plain, bounced along it for a time, fell still. It took the rumbling noise perhaps half a minute to reach them. Before that occurred, however, a huge red hand came down out of the sky and scooped them up, shaking them like thunder above the watchers' heads.
Dilvish followed the ruddy arm with his eyes up into the misty area, where, after several moments' staring, he was able to discern the outline of a colossal kneeling body, vaguely human in form, stars shining through it, meteors in its hair. It raised the arm an unimaginable distance into the sky, fist shaking. It was only then that the cube-like shape of the rocks registered itself upon Dilvish's understanding.
He looked away. His eyes, now accommodated to the scale of things and the wavelengths involved, had less difficulty in discerning other monolithic beings—like the great black figure, head propped on one hand, two arms folded across its breast, the fingers of a fourth hand stroking the southeastern mountaintops above which it reclined; the shadowy white figure with one eye and one gaping socket, which leaned upon a staff that reached higher than the sun, stars like fireflies caught in its floppy hat; the slow-dancing woman with many breasts; the jackal-headed one; the whirling tower of fire…
Dilvish looked at his companions, saw that they were staring, too, expressions of unutterable awe upon their faces.
The dice were rolled again and the dust rose about them. The celestial figures leaned forward. The black one grinned and moved one of his hands to take up the cubes. The red one straightened and withdrew. Dilvish closed the door.
"The Elder Gods…" Hodgson said. "I never thought I'd be permitted to look upon them…"
"For what," said Derkon, with as much caution as awe, "do you think they might be gaming?"
"Not being privy to the councils of the gods," Dilvish replied, "I can't say for certain. But I've a feeling I had better conclude my business as quickly as possible."
The rumbling sound reached them and the big doors inside rattled again.
"Gentlemen, excuse me," Dilvish said, and he turned and departed the room.
Hodgson and Derkon regarded one another for only a moment, then hurried after.
"You will be accompanying me?" Dilvish asked as they drew up alongside him.
"Despite the dangers you mentioned, I feel that we may all ultimately be safer by staying together," Derkon answered.
"I agree," said Hodgson. "But would you mind telling us where it is that we are headed?"
"I do not know," Dilvish answered, "but I am coming to trust the genius of this place, whatever it may be, and I am willing to surrender myself to its guidance again. Our objectives may be the same."
"What if it is Jelerak, leading you on to some doom?"
Dilvish shook his head.
"Jelerak, I am certain, wouldn't have halted the show to feed me the decent meal I received on the way over here."
They entered the rear passageway Dilvish had taken earlier on his flight from the lower regions. The door still creaked, but the corridor was only about a fourth its former length. There was no right turn at its end, and there were no slave quarters to the left. The room of the blue flame had vanished completely. The walls were all paneled in dark wood and the windows rectangular affairs that slid up and down, set in wooden frames, possessed of peculiar shading devices, draped with white lace curtains. They mounted a wooden stair. There were more paintings on the walls in that peculiar, bright, suggestive style Dilvish had noted earlier.
Outside, they heard again the rumble of the dice, followed this time by something like titanic peals of laughter.
Another turn, and they entered one of the galleries, narrower now and with a long carpet down its center. The windows had grown more rectangular here also, though the walls and floors remained stone.
"Do you feel that this place is growing smaller even as we move about in it?" Hodgson asked.
"Yes," Dilvish replied, looking back. "It seems to be turning itself into something else. And have you noticed that there have been no options, no choices, as to the way we are to go? It is being very definite now."
Ahead, Dilvish heard a series of strange chirping sounds. Abruptly, he halted. Hodgson and Derkon did the same, raising their hands and moving them about. Something was barring the way.
The air began to shimmer before them. It grew opaque, darkened further. Dilvish found himself touching a stone wall.
He turned away. The air was shimmering about six paces behind him. He moved toward it, along with the others. The phenomenon was repeated. The window provided illumination within their sudden cell, but a quick inspection revealed that there was no way to get from it to one of the other windows along the smooth outer wall.
"You were saying," Derkon observed, "that you trust the genius of this place."
Dilvish snarled.
"There is a reason. There must be a reason!" he snapped.
"Timing," said Hodgson. "I think it's timing. We're too early."
"For what?" Derkon asked.
"We'll find out when that wall goes away."
"You really think it will?"
"Of course. The front wall is sufficient to stop us from going ahead. The rear one is to stop us from going away from here."
"An interesting notion."
"So I would suggest we face the front wall and be ready for anything."
"There, may be something to what you say," Dilvish stated, positioning himself and taking his blade into his hand.
They heard the dice of the gods again, and the laughter. But this time the laughter went on and on, growing louder until it rocked the walls of the place, until it seemed to be coming from directly overhead.
The wall began to shimmer and fade at the same moment that a groaning, cracking sound began somewhere beyond it. A quick glance showed Dilvish that the rear wall was not departing.
As soon as the way was clear they moved ahead. But they halted after only a few paces, frozen by the sight in the chamber before them.
Countless rubbery tentacles upon the rim of the pit supported the thing which had drawn itself partway up. At the northeastern edge of the hole stood the man Dilvish had first known as Weleand, a band of ruddy glass across his eyes. At his rear stood Semirama, perfectly still, as both of them regarded the risen form of Tualua. Overhead, the roof had been split open, and even as Dilvish and his companions watched, a set of gigantic fingers entered, curved, took hold of a section of roof, crumpled it in a single motion and drew it aside. Great timbers fell and the starry sky was suddenly visible. Towering there was the enormous figure of a many-breasted woman, an unnatural light emanating from her form. She reached again, down through the opening she had made, and delicately, almost tenderly, took hold of the grotesque figure crouched upon the pit and raised it, moving it carefully through the jagged opening and upward.
"No!" Jelerak cried, pushing the goggles down to hang about his neck and glaring upward, eyes dancing. "No! Give him back! I need him!"
The sorcerer raced about the pit to where one of the fallen beams reached from the floor up to the overhead opening. He seized hold of it and began to climb.
"Return him, I say!" he cried. "No one steals from Jelerak! Not even a goddess!"
Halting halfway up the beam, he drew the red wand and pointed it.
"I said stop! Bring him back!"
The hand continued its slow withdrawal. Jelerak made a gesture and white fire fled from the tip of the wand, bathing the back of the hand in the sky.
"He is Jelerak!" said Dilvish, galvanized to action, sprinting forward.
The hand had halted and Jelerak was climbing again, nearing the broken roof.
Dilvish reached the edge of the pit, raced about its edge.
"Come back yourself, you bastard!" he cried. "I've got something for you!"
Now a second great hand had come into view above the mounting form, descending.
"I demand that you heed me!" Jelerak shouted, and then he saw the fingers openin
g, reaching.
He raised the wand and the hand was bathed in white light. The wand had no other apparent effect and was shortly knocked from his grasp as he was seized and himself raised, still remonstrating, into the twilit sky.
"He's mine!" Dilvish cried when he reached the foot of the beam. "I've followed too long to relinquish him here! Return him!"
But the hands were already out of sight and the figure had turned away.
Dilvish stretched as if to climb the beam himself, when he felt a hand upon his arm.
"You can't reach him by going his way," Semirama said. "Which did you want, justice or revenge?"
"Both!" Dilvish cried.
"Then at least half your wish is granted. He is in the hands of the Elder Gods."
"It isn't fair!" Dilvish said through clenched teeth.
"Fair?" She laughed. "You talk to me of fairness—I, who have just found the form of my ancient love when Jelerak's death or the breaking of his will is about to end my existence?"
Dilvish turned and looked at her, saw past her. From high above came a great roll of laughter, receding.
Black and Arlata had just entered the chamber. Dilvish took hold of Semirama's hand and sank slowly to his knees. He heard a clatter of hoofs.
"Dilvish, what is it?" came Black's voice. "Our entrance to this chamber was barred until but a moment ago."
Dilvish looked at him, released Semirama's hand, gestured toward the roof.
"He's gone. Weleand was Jelerak—but the Elder Gods have taken him."
Black snorted.
"I knew who he was. I almost had him here earlier, in my human form."
"Your what?"
"The spell I've been working on since the Garden of Blood—I used it to free myself from the statue form. I was still conscious after Jelerak had frozen me to stone to free Arlata." He nodded toward the girl who was just now approaching, then went on. "I recognized him as Jelerak the moment that he did it. When I was free, I continued this way. I found her and her horse and freed them. I had to lay a spell upon her to get her out of the way. I left her in a cave down the hillside with certain protections upon it. Then—"
"Dilvish, who is this underdeveloped child?" Semirama asked.
Dilvish rose to his feet as Arlata hastily repaired her rent tunic.
"Queen Semirama of Jandar," he began, "this is the Lady Arlata of Marinta, whom I encountered on my journey to this place. She bears a striking resemblance to one I once knew well, long ago…"
"The irony is hardly lost on me," Semirama said, smiling and extending her hand, palm downward. "My child, I—"
Her smile vanished and she jerked her hand back, covering it with the other.
"No…" She turned away. "No!"
She raised her hands to cover her face and began running toward the eastern corridor.
"What did I do?" asked Arlata. "I do not understand…"
"Nothing," Dilvish told her. "Nothing. Wait here!"
He began running toward the corridor along which he had earlier pushed Arlata in the barrow. When he reached it, he discovered that it had become a bare alcove with white plastered walls, a wooden stair leading down to the right. He descended quickly.
The others saw a shadow pass overhead, a great black arm descending. Derkon rushed into the north gallery to peer out of the nearest window. Hodgson followed him, as did Arlata moments later. Black lowered his head, studying the fallen roofing material.
Staring out the window, they saw the massive black hand moving slowly, very slowly, toward one of the farther walls. It seemed almost to halt before it made contact, yet they felt the vibration all around them and the entire castle chimed—a single note—like a huge crystal bell.
The heavens began to dance and the ground shifted slightly. Looking up, they saw the smiling face of the dark one, fading, fading, gone.
The sun plunged into the west.
"Gods!" Derkon cried. "It's starting again!"
Nearby, to their right, the air began to shimmer and condense.
Dilvish tore down the steps and, turning, rubbed his eyes, disoriented. A small archway at the foot of the stair led into the rear of the main hall, at the place where the creaking door of the back corridor had been. He passed through quickly and saw the collapsed form of Semirama near the center of the room.
As he rushed toward her, her form seemed to alter, shrinking, becoming more angular. Her hair had turned pure white. Her revealing garments now showed parchmentlike skin and the outlines of bones.
But even as he drew near, a certain lightening of the air above her caused him to slow. For a moment he felt the awful presence of the thing he had seen hovering above the pit before the hand out of the heavens had snatched it away. There even seemed a vague outline of the Old One, tentacles extended, reaching toward her. Yet there was nothing of menace to the gesture. Entirely the contrary. It was as if the creature were reaching out to soothe, to grant some unnatural grace. A moment only the vision persisted, barely beyond the point that might mark it as an aberration of the lighting, an affliction of the retina. Then it was gone, and the tiny form upon the floor turned to dust before him.
When he reached the spot, there was very little to see. Even the garments had decomposed in wispy outline near his feet. Only—
A movement to his left caught his attention.
The mirror…
The mirror no longer reflected the main hall as it lay about him. Instead of the other mirror upon the opposite wall, it now showed a wide, curved, white stone staircase up which the figures were slowly moving. The woman was undoubtedly Semirama, as he had known her before death's recent interruption. And the man…
Although there was something familiar about the man, it was not until he turned his head and their eyes met that Dilvish saw that they could have been brothers. The other was somewhat larger than himself and possibly a bit older, but their features were almost identical. A slight smile came to the other's lips.
"Selar…" Dilvish whispered.
And then a sound like the chiming of a great crystal bell filled the air. Cracks ran like black lightning across the mirror, and pieces of it began to fall away as the entire castle shuddered and jerked.
Dilvish's last view of the pair on the stairway was of their unconcerned ascent and passage among dark blue curtains hung at the rear wall above, and disappearing behind them, before that section of glass also slipped away. Semirama, holding to the other's right arm, never looked back.
Dilvish dropped to one knee, to reach amid the dust before him. He raised a chain from which a small locket depended. He slipped it into his pocket.
Chapter 11
"This way!" Black called. "Hurry! We are moving faster than before!"
Hodgson, Derkon, and Arlata came back into the chamber.
"What is it, Dark One?" Derkon asked.
"You come here," Black answered. "I've something for you."
Derkon obeyed.
"There." Black pointed with a cloven hoof at a streak of red among the rubble. "Pick it up."
Derkon stopped and retrieved it.
"Jelerak's wand?" he asked.
"The Red Wand of Falkyntyne. Bring it along. Hurry!"
Black turned away and moved toward the alcove through which Dilvish had departed. The others followed him.
"Dark One," said Derkon, "I follow. But what is happening? Why are we running?"
"This room still exists only because we are in it. We are helping the house to get rid of an extra wing by departing…"
"House?"
"It has decided upon a smaller scale this time around. But the main reason is that the Great Flash will soon occur, for we left at a very fast pace, as the house requested—"
"Excuse me, Dark One," Hodgson shouted as they passed through the alcove and started down upon the stair, "but this Great Flash—are you referring to… ?"
"The creation of the universe," Black finished. "Yes. We are going all the way around. At any rate, after the flash we wi
ll be passing through a dangerous belt inhabited by beings which would do us the worst sort of harm. The house may be able to keep many of them out, but a few—"
Black reached the bottom of the stair and the flash occurred.
All color fled, and the world was black and white, light and darkness. Hodgson saw through the flesh of the girl before him—dark skeleton within a bright integument—and of Derkon before her, to a sort of flickering soul-light, beautiful among the dark geometry through which they passed, to Black—who was a pure and glorious sheet of flame—sweeping across the floor to where another burned within a mortal prison—
"The angles!" he heard Black say. "They will most likely come in at the corners of the hall! Use not the points of your weapons, for these will be powerless! Strike with the curve of your blade, and use a curving cut—save for you, Derkon! You must use the wand!"
"Against what? How?" Derkon cried as something of color and normal form returned to the hall about them and he sighted Dilvish standing at its center, ahead, blade drawn.
"The Hounds of Thandolos! The Red Wand has its greatest power in the hands of a black adept. There is nothing subtle about it. It is one of the most efficient magical blasting instruments ever created. Its operation is purely a function of the will, and it draws upon its wielder's life forces. Yours should be high and blazing now, having just passed through the Creation Flame! Let us stay together at the hall's center—in a circle!"
The lighting had returned to what passed as normal in this place before they reached Dilvish, the chandelier still blazing as high as before. The broken body of the demon had vanished. The hall seemed smaller with the mirrors all in shards, the walls blank and gray. From its place near the front, the tall clock hummed, its dial a shimmering blur.
Hodgson began muttering as something shadowy stirred in the corner nearest the clock.
"The gods you invoke have not yet been born," Black stated.
The figure which emerged was as sharp and angular and unrecallable as a burst of static electricity. It was dark and it stood upright, and there was a vaguely lupine air about it as it sprang forward—also something cold and partaking of a primal hunger which nothing in the new universe might fully satisfy.
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