I caught a brief glimpse of Arquestan, who was armed only with that long, straight pole. The wind duke smashed the weapon onto the head of a massive kakkuu, crushing the monster to the ground, then whirled on the rebound to drive back another kakkuu and a lycosyd that had popped into view behind him. The sleek wolf guarded his master's back, darting and snarling back and forth in a whirlwind of snapping fangs. The kakkuu were larger than the enraged wolf, but the tanar'ri still hesitated and ducked away, reluctant to face those slashing teeth.
More of the spyder-fiends converged along the shore of the once-pristine pool, and I rushed over to protect the wind duke's back, pushing Saysi into the relative shelter between us. Nearby, the two terriers barked frantically, darting and lunging among the kakkuu. Borath and Bayar pounced through the fight, protecting each other as they bit into tanar'ri flanks and legs. The little fox-faced dog lay still and dead, ripped nearly in two by kakkuu jaws.
Even with my golden sword in their path, the monsters tried to duck past me, to rush at the black-skinned wind duke with fanatical, even suicidal, passion. I chopped and hacked and slew, leaving a pile of shattered, leaking bodies scattered around me, but still the beasts tried to reach Arquestan. My awe grew as the tall figure, armed so simply, flailed to all sides with incredibly deadly effect, smashing chitinous backs and legs, crushing wolfish skulls with his hard, straight staff. At the same time, I realized that anyone who could arouse such hatred in the vile tanar'ri was one well worthy of my respect and admiration.
The hounds of law howled and snarled in the midst of the melee. Now Borath and Bayar fought at my side. The big staghound charged like a bull, bashing a kakkuu backward and then sinking long teeth into the tanar'ri's throat.
On the far side of the oasis, I saw two kakkuu turn upon one of their human-armed masters, ignoring us in favor of tearing the lycosyd to pieces. In other places, kakkuu broke from the attack to turn, snapping and howling, attacking members of their own ranks. The tanar'ri in the rear of the attacking ranks seemed to strike out anywhere in a chaotic, leaderless frenzy. If one of us wasn't in range, they often turned against their own kind, as if in desperate need to attack something.
Parnish, his spells depleted, struck a kakkuu with the partial Rod of Seven Parts, sending the monster scuttling for cover. Badswell still hovered protectively over Rathentweed, smashing with his axe in the midst of swarming monsters, while Parnish fell back to limited protection between Arquestan and me.
"Hold!" cried the wizard once, using a—to me—previously unknown power of the artifact to freeze a leering lycosyd in place. The monster struggled and yelped, unable to move any of its eight feet. More tanar'ri pressed close, and I saw sharp teeth cut into Parnish Fegher's leg. Badswell hacked the monster's head off, but as he did, another spyder-fiend chomped into the half-ogre's thigh.
"Over here!" I urged Badswell. Battling against a press of drooling jaws, I couldn't rush to the half-ogre's aid without exposing Saysi to terrible harm. Instead, I cried out to him again, and my big friend, snorting with determination, bashed his way through the ring. Rathentweed, poking right and left with the long dagger, hurried behind him as they joined Arquestan and me. The half-ogre, wind duke, and I formed a triangle of deadly weapons as the priestess and Rathentweed turned their ministrations to Parnish. The wizard was bleeding from several gory bites to his legs and had slumped to the ground with a groan of agony.
Badswell, too, had been wounded. I glanced at him in dire concern as he staggered like a drunk, wielding his axe with great, wild slashes. The toxin of the spyder-fiends, I feared, would soon bring the mighty half-ogre to his knees.
Again I killed a kakkuu, splitting the creature as it crouched for a leap. My blade whipped free of the gory mess, still pristine and clean, as bright as any burnished gold ornament. My movements remained unnaturally quick as I darted to the side and blocked a pair of tanar'ri that crouched for a leap at the wind duke.
A yelp of anguish rose above the din, and I spun back to see Borath go down, his gut ripped open by a lycosyd's sword. Bayar howled in fury, hurling herself against the spyder-fiend. The tanar'ri whipped its blade around, but in that eyeblink of time, I raced over and blocked the blow directed toward the loyal hound. In a flash, my own sword cut down, driving deep into the spyder-fiend's torso.
Arquestan raised his voice in a high, ululating command. "My hounds—hounds of law! Come to me, my pack!"
Dancing globes of light materialized above the melee, bobbing and weaving among the spyder-fiends. The tanar'ri, as a pack, seemed driven to a frenzy by the ephemeral spheres. Kakkuu growled and lunged in desperate attempts to strike at the baubles of magic as they floated, just out of reach, to their master's side.
Badswell toppled, but I reached him before he struck the ground. Bearing my sword in one hand, I hoisted the beefy half-ogre over my shoulder, staggering back to rejoin my companions.
Abruptly my vision was obscured by a whirlwind of water, mist, and sand. I heard the roaring of an airy vortex, felt myself lifted from the ground by a force that I hadn't anticipated. Still clutching my immaculate blade, I saw that Badswell, Rathentweed, Parnish, and Saysi were secured with Arquestan and me in the cradle of his whirlwind.
Like a speeding chariot, the cloud twisted away from the battle, soaring across the waters of the pond while the howling, snapping spyder-fiends raced along both shores. I counted dozens of the monsters in one quick glance, and watched as more and more of them popped into sight.
Finally the whirlwind rose from the ground, carrying us away from the fight. In seconds, gray mist surrounded us, a maelstrom of noise raging against our ears, and I knew that the wind duke carried us away from the oasis, from the desert... and from the world.
Only then, as I gaped at a vista of swirling, cloaking gray, was I seized by a fatigue more numbing than any I had ever known. Unable even to force myself to stand, I felt my legs go numb beneath me. Helpless, I gave way to utter, numbing unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 20
PANDEMONIUM
For a long time, I languished in the blackened well of unnatural fatigue. Eventually, when I groggily opened my eyes, I thought I had merely progressed into a nightmare. Everything was chaos. Thunderous sound roared, vibrating my body with pulsating force. Vaporous wisps of cloud whipped in a dizzying spiral overhead, as if we were in the middle of a thunderstorm, yet I felt no wind against my skin. Several glowing bubbles of light drifted just overhead, apparently unaffected by the gale.
Then I felt Saysi's fingers on my brow, turned to see her melting-chocolate eyes regarding me with concern. Those pearly spheres were the hounds of law, I remembered, and with these points of reference, I began to recollect the struggle at the oasis, and our flight in the wind duke's whirlwind chariot.
The cyclone surrounded us with solid walls of air, as secure a compartment as a framework of hewn oak. The area was circular, enclosed by a rim about waist high. Saysi relaxed her touch as I rose, suddenly eager for a look at our surroundings. For a long time, I stood hypnotized at the rail, staring at a formless vista of mist and fog whipping past with shocking speed. Yet within the cyclone, there was not the faintest breath of breeze. Still, this chariot of air was so fast, so unspeakably powerful, that I imagined myself as a bug caught up in the fury of a tornado.
For all that power and violence, Arquestan's funnel of wind was also a thing of sublime control and smooth, rapid movement. The wind duke stood tall and silent in the center of the circular platform, eyes open but focused on some distant place. We all sensed that he concentrated upon the guiding of our magical conveyance, and no one made any move to disturb him. Five baubles of light circled his head, and I felt a pang of grief at the knowledge that two of the courageous hounds had been left behind. The fox-faced little dog and the mighty staghound, Borath, had both been fatally rended by tanar'ri fangs.
I walked the circuit of the curving wall, which rose only as far as my waist, looking outward, trying to understand what I was lookin
g at. Thick mist gathered in swirls and wisps. Gray fog was everywhere, masking visibility beyond the near reaches of the spiraling chariot, and within that short distance, there was nothing to see.
For a time, it was easy to imagine that we swirled through a bank of heavy cloud, an overcast that had suddenly blanketed the desert and perhaps the entire world. Yet I recalled what Arquestan had said: the Oasis of the Planes was not a thing of my world. I had a pretty clear idea that we had traveled very far indeed. For one thing, the sky had been perfectly clear when we rose from the oasis, yet I knew that this fog had embraced us within moments of our departure.
Abruptly all doubts were dispelled as we emerged from the clouds to discover a landscape of orange and red, in shades far brighter than the reflection of the setting sun at the oasis. But this was not a place cast in the extremes of sunset. In fact, the colors were those of tree and grassland, an expanse that sweltered under the glare of a hot sun, a sun that now stood near its zenith! On the flat ground, strange beasts galloped away in all directions, fleeing the sudden arrival of the whirlwind. These were creatures like none I had ever seen, or even imagined, the most common a herd animal with six legs, a pair of snaky, prehensile tails, and a blunt skull with three long horns jutting from the forehead. The beasts ran with a horselike gallop, veering to the left and right with bellows of panic, crushing brittle crimson grass with the force of their stampede.
In another instant, we plunged once more into the fog, and who could say how much time passed in gray mist? Then we emerged over a seascape of purple waters pulsing in long, rhythmic breakers. A great scaled head rose from the sea, poised for a moment on a serpentine neck, then darted upward like a striking cobra, reaching a hundred feet or more into the air. I jumped back from the edge of the compartment, instinctively reaching for my mighty sword, but Arquestan simply dipped his head to one side, and our airy chariot veered smoothly away from the threat. Trembling, I watched the creature tumble back to the waves and send cascades of dark, sheeting spray in every direction.
By the time the bizarre liquid had settled, we had once again plunged into that misty barrier of cloud, the vaporous overcast that I knew was far more than the stratus barrier that so had often blanketed the world where I had spent all my years. The mist was very thick, yet strangely dry, and it lacked entirely the damp smell and moist feel of fog, or rain, or dew.
Rathentweed nervously stepped to Badswell's side, looking around in astonishment and barely concealed fear. "This can only be the ether," he whispered in a tremulous voice, continuing when I looked down at him in mute question. "The barrier between the planes—and the stuff of raw chaos. Give me four walls and a good book any day!"
"Stay close, little fella," counseled the half-ogre. "We'll git through here okay."
I didn't argue with the gnome's identification, though neither did I share his fright. If this journey brought us closer to the seventh piece of the rod, if it helped to hold the chaos of Miska the Wolf-Spider in abeyance, then I was more than happy to take part.
Stationing himself at the wind duke's side, Parnish glared about the small compartment. I wondered privately if, like Rathentweed, the precise and orderly wizard was terrified by our traverse and perhaps found it easier to keep his attention directed at the interior of the spiraling cloud in order to avoid confronting the evidence of chaos and confusion that reigned beyond. I realized another thing: If the wind dukes were the ultimate servants of law, then it wasn't a mystery why one who chose to expose himself to such a torrent must be considered an outcast by his less adventurous brethren.
Like me, Badswell stood at the side of the whirlwind's platform, looking at the barrier of ether and the sweep of worlds beyond. More places passed in quick succession: first a snowy wasteland extending to the far horizons, though no chill reached into our magical conveyance. Next we emerged into a blue sky over a pastoral realm of lakes, forests, fields, and castles. For a few heartbeats, we flew over this world, and then once again plunged back into grayness.
When Rathentweed came to join Badswell, the big half-ogre hoisted the gnome to his shoulders, and both of them stared in wonder at the expanse of colors, shapes, and movement. Catching a glimpse of Rathentweed's face, I saw that the little fellow remained pallid and wide-eyed, yet he seemed unable to take his eyes off the panorama of unbridled chaos.
It occurred to me that Saysi might desire a similar vantage, but when I looked around, I saw her huddling against the bulkhead of air. Her hands were clutched before her, and her face was turned down, staring disconsolately at the deck.
"What do you think?" I asked, settling my large frame beside her. "Would you like to get a view of what's going on?"
She turned a misery-filled expression to me. "Aren't you frightened, even a little? Don't you wonder if we'll ever get back home again?"
Truthfully, I hadn't thought about that, and with equal candor, I acknowledged to myself that I wasn't particularly worried if I ever saw our world again. I tried to think of my village, Colbytown, but my mental images had little meaning and no clear definition. It was a storybook place, and it belonged in the realm of myth and legend.
This was such a ride, the surroundings so fantastically impressive, that I knew I would be content to explore and travel as Arquestan's escort for as long as it might be necessary
As long as Saysi was there, too, that is. That fact struck me like a thunderbolt, and all my concerns about her dwindling sanity, her growing uneasiness, returned with a relentless chill.
"Home, for me, is where you are, Saysi. But I want you to be happy. I want us to be happy together." For a moment, I forgot the difference in our sizes, my mind drawn by habit to a consideration of her as a partner in more than just travel and adventure.
"How can you say that?" she said, practically wailing.
"What?"
"You're so big! I never told you this, but there was a time I thought about that, too, about the two of us, together! I liked the way you tried to take care of me. It made me feel warm, safe...."
"I can still do that—better than before!" I asserted, flexing my brawny arms. At the same time my mind wondered why this was different from the way my life had always been. I had always felt protective of the little priestess. My great size and strength had seen to that. Wasn't that the reason? Surely it must have been!
"Will I ever get you back?" she asked plaintively.
"I'm here!"
"Kip, don't you see? It's not enough for you to stand around like a big hero, always ready to save me! Remember, I used to help you, too. To make you see things that didn't always seem obvious to you right away. And you were learning...."
"But—" I was starting to get that headache again, and it was hard to think of sensible, logical arguments.
"You're too big for me now! Whatever made you like this—it has to be some kind of chaos, a chaos so deep and terrifying that you, Parnish, Badswell, and Rathentweed didn't even see it happening right in front of your face! And then Arquestan came, and suddenly you're a champion of law! Do you realize that your sword is bigger than the Kip Kayle I first met?
"You know," she went on between sniffles, "I wish now that I hadn't been so stubborn when you tried to seduce me all those times. I wish, at least once, that I'd given in to you when we had the chance."
"No!" I was shocked, appalled. "You're too good for that, Saysi—too pure! It's you who's given me the strength to see the lightness of law. You kept me on the right track, guided me away from the course I was on... a path that could only have led to chaos and destruction!"
"Would it have been so wrong?" Saysi stared at me intently, a trace of her old humor questioning me from those chocolate-pool eyes.
"Of course!" This whole conversation was making me squeamish. Once again I felt like some kind of pervert, wondered what kind of lustful chaos and evil seethed, barely checked, within the darkness of my soul.
She chuckled quietly, sadly. "It's funny how I would have longed to hear you say those
words, to feel this way, just a few short weeks ago. And now I want to slap your face, to wring that thick neck of yours, for feeling like I used to want you to feel!"
"But it's right," I pressed, more than a little stung by her words.
"Sometimes right and wrong get hard to distinguish," she replied quietly. She stood then and looked into the space beyond our chariot, and I felt the distance between us grow much broader than the single arm's span between our bodies.
"We are on the approaches to Pandemonium. Behold the heart of chaos itself."
For the first time, Arquestan spoke, his strong voice carrying easily, gently, over the storms of the whirlwind. "These are the tunnels of doom. In the distance rises the Fortress of Law, the prison of Miska the Wolf-Spider."
I didn't know how many places, how many different environments and worlds, we'd passed through while Saysi and I conversed, but when I stared over the edge of the whirlwind, I knew that we must have traveled an incomprehensible distance by any scale I had ever known. This time I hoisted the little priestess in my arms so she could have a clear look, and numbly we observed surroundings that seemed to defy any attempts at understanding.
A great flat plain extended on one side of—not below—the whirlwind. Although our chariot felt firm and solid underfoot, the picture of this flatland was disorienting in the extreme. Ground extended straight up and down, as if it were a cliff wall of impossibly huge proportions. Yet the plain seemed to be flat, for I could see creatures walking around on it, mere specks at this range, but visible nonetheless.
The landscape was broken in several places by irregular openings, like sheer-sided pits that plunged into the black, limitless depths below. I counted at least three of these gaping holes, and as we flew past one, I saw pale, bluish light emerging from a great distance within. The illumination allowed me to see that the shaft was not in fact a tunnel plunging straight down, but rather a winding passageway of immense proportions. Many miles away, it curved far enough to block the farthest reaches from our line of sight; it was from around this bend that the azure light originated.
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