“It is rest we need!” declared Seg hotly.
“Well, that is your fault for not following me. We have had a splendid time, and we think we know the way out.”
“Bogandur!” cried Exandu, collapsing into a chair. “What have you done to me!”
“We will be happy to go with you, Strom Ornol,” I said. “After we have eaten and taken our rest.”
Fregeff ostentatiously reached for a fresh dish of blood.
Kalu said, “Where is the way out?” He stared at the treasures scattered about. “There is some treasure here. But we have not had a hard time yet, and the end of this is not yet in sight.”
“Not had a hard time!” exclaimed Shanli. “Look at my poor master! Shame on you, master Kalu!”
And the Pachak laughed, and swirled his tail hand, and went off with his people to eat and drink.
“The way out lies the way we entered,” said Ornol.
“Perhaps,” said Kalu, and took up a golden goblet and drank deeply.
Ornol transferred his attention to Milsi, and her story was soon told. Ornol sneered. “Serving a king or queen is a poor man’s game. There is no real reward in that.”
Seg stiffened. “At least, when they kick out ne’er-do-wells, they usually have their reasons.”
There would have been a fight, there and then, if we others had not intervened. Ornol didn’t know how lucky he was.
Sucking at a honeyed wine, Exandu moaned as Shanli wiped his brow. “If only we’d gone with Ornol through the green door, think of the misery and terror we would have been spared!”
“Yes,” I said. “Perhaps I did not choose wisely — save in one thing.”
“Aye,” said Seg, with a snap in his voice. “Had we gone through the green door, we would never have—”
Milsi laid her hand on his arm. He turned, at once, looking at her. She smiled. “I will go with the lady Ilsa and make myself presentable. I have much to thank you and Dray the Bogandur for, Seg the Horkandur, Jikai.”
Seg rolled his shoulders most uncomfortably under that.
“My lady...” was all he could find to say.
“Anyway,” Kalu was saying between mouthfuls to Hop, “where I come from the hellhounds breathe fire. They’ll crisp you up like a vosk rasher.”
“That is sorcery, Kalu, I daresay.”
“Ask Fregeff.”
I walked along and took up a piece of meat and ate, what it was I’ve no idea, and regarded Ornol from the corner of my eye. If the idiot insisted on rushing off at once, I did not think the party with me was in fit state to follow. And, the lady Ilsa provided a pretty problem, too...
Kalu laughed, and so drew my attention. “Very well, Hop the Intemperate. When we all get out of here, I’ll make an assignation with you at The Sign of the Jolly Puddler in Mahendrasmot. Is it a bargain?”
“If we get out—”
“You stick with me and my fine fellows. No fear of that.”
Some of the warriors were singing “My Love is like a Moon Bloom.” A rival party at the other table struck up with “The Two-Tailed Kataki,” which made Seg glance quickly down the chamber to where the ladies were fussing over chests of gorgeous raiment.
“She’s a grown-up girl,” I said to Seg.
He did not flush; but he looked decidedly off key.
“You — like her, Dray?”
“Yes.”
“Since I lost Thelda, I’ve not really bothered to look at another woman. But I’m over Thelda now. She is a part of the past. I shan’t forget her; but—”
“Milsi is a splendid woman, Seg. By Vox! She’s been through a few horrors down here. Yet she’s — well, she’s—”
“Aye!”
“All the same. She has a past, too.”
“I know. I think she is in much the same case as I am.”
I put a hand on Seg’s shoulder. This was an unusual and gratuitous gesture between us; but I was deeply moved. He smiled that smile of his, and his fey blue eyes challenged me. “All right, my old dom. I do not forget you owe me a faceful of dungy straw.”
“Two!” I said. “Two, by Zair!”
And we both recalled that fraught day in The Eye of the World when the Sorzarts raided the farm and we first met.
The merriment thundered on. These people were reacting to moments of horror, snatching a few balancing moments of boisterous pleasure before plunging once more into the terrors of the Coup Blag. We set about filling our bellies and of finding fresh clothing and weaponry.
Needless to say, Seg and I found some scarlet cloth, and so fashioned ourselves breechclouts in the color that — well, that might this time just have proved itself once again.
Among the merrymakers the absence of decomposing corpse-faces was marked. We asked questions, and learned that Skort and his people, with some of the porters, had been bringing up the rear guard when a stone block had fallen across the corridor. The delayed-action trap had squashed only two poor fellows, a Rapa and a Moltingur; but it had isolated Skort from the rest.
“This is a maze,” declared Fregeff. “Doubtless we will come upon them again.”
“I sincerely hope so,” I said, munching on a hunk of roast vosk leg. “The Clawsangs are bonny fighters.”
The pressure Exandu could bring to bear on Ornol must now be lessened, at least in the young dandy’s eyes, by reason of the treasure here. He could be free of what he owed. All the same, Exandu managed to persuade the strom to wait until we were in better shape to march with him.
At last, fully kitted out and feeling rested, we took up our bundles of loot and started out.
Up ahead along a corridor, and nastily soon after we started, we heard Ornol’s strident voice.
“By the Furnace Fires of Inshurfraz!” he screamed. “Is there no way out of this maze?”
We were back in the room of the feast from which we had started.
“We try another door, pantor,” said Kalu, equably.
So we did. This time we followed on into corridors we had not penetrated before. The little mark of the heart had long since petered out. Whoever had made it had not ventured these halls and passages of dread.
When we came across levers and buttons and tripwires we left them severely alone. We halted, as our way was impeded by a simple tilting flagstone trap. A prod from a pole dipped the near edge down without effort. It swung lazily back into place. The stone was too wide to clear with a jump. To balance two men would be exceptionally tricky.
Standing in a niche cut from the rock stood the armored skeleton of a Chulik. He looked ferocious, pared to the bone. If he was touched, warned Fregeff, who could guess the magic there, he would probably come to life and we’d have an unwanted fight on our hands with a fearsome representative of the Kaotim, the Undead, who are well known on Kregen.
Kalu stepped forward. “I am not so sure,” said the Pachak. “Pantor Dray, would you stand ready to cut his legs away from under him? And, Pantor Seg—?”
We, with others, poised our weapons ready to slash the skeleton to pieces the instant it moved.
Kalu reached out with his sword and, delicately, pushed the skeleton’s skull. The jawbone clicked up into place.
Nothing else happened.
“There!” cried Kalu, and his tail hand pointed at the swinging stone trap. “Try it now!”
We did. The flagstone held firmly for us all to cross.
We crossed that trap in safety, but others caught us and men died. I misliked this greatly, but after another blazing row with Ornol over directions, we all went along a smoothly paved and open passageway and I trailed on after.
Seg said, “Should we cut off on our own?”
“Safety in numbers. Anyway — apart from Milsi — he was right about the large green and small red doors.”
Around about then the passageway opened into a chamber robed in yellow silk, with an ebon throne surrounded by skulls and with tall candles burning. Kalu looked around and yawned.
When a horned and hoofed demon, of the horrific Kregan variety, appeared from nowhere on that ebon throne, Kalu took a little more interest in the proceedings.
Being of Kregen, the demon was hooved of rear feet, clawed of third feet, tentacled of second feet and bore human hands on his forearms. His horns emitted sparks of light. His tongue licked out like a rattlesnake. Everyone screamed and crowded for the door by which we had entered — everyone save Fregeff, the Fristle sorcerer.
He lifted his bronzen flail and shook it and the demon struck with a twinned bolt of fire from his eyes and poor Fregeff went thump head over heels into the corner.
The pandemonium at the door sorted itself out as the crazed mob fled. More than one wretch fell and was trampled.
Fregeff crawled painfully to his feet. His eyes streamed blood. But he lifted the flail, and shook it.
The twin blue bolts of fire hurled him flat again.
Seg loosed a shaft. It caromed off the demon, who took no notice.
I said, “You’d best take the lady Milsi out, Seg.”
“And leave you?”
“Oh, I’ll run with the best of you. But — Fregeff—”
“He has met his match.”
“I am not so sure — look!”
For the Fristle gathered himself together. His arm lifted. He released the bronzen chain attached to the collar about the reptile’s neck. The volschrin on his shoulder spread his wings. Rik Razortooth swooped up in a sudden gusting of membranous wings.
As Fregeff shook his flail for the third time, the demon uttered a screech of pure rage. The twin blue bolts of devil fire slashed from his eyes, burned across the chamber. The sorcerer flopped over, his lozenged robes flapping. He twitched an arm. Again the bolts of fire flew from the demon’s lambent eyes. But this time they struck for the volschrin. Rik swerved in midair, dived and weaved and the hissing blue bolts of lethal fire missed. Fregeff shook his flail weakly.
Rik dodged the last outpouring of malevolent energy and then — and then! The reptile simply flew straight at the demon’s face. Sharp fangs slashed. First one eye and then the other shredded. They did not bleed. They exploded into blue flame and Rik somersaulted away, wing over wing, to gain his balance in the air and so volplane easily to Fregeff’s shoulder.
The Fristle reached up his left hand and caressed the little winged reptile.
The demon stood up. Now blood, blue, smoking blood, poured down his cheeks from his ruined eyes. He shrieked. He tried to fly away with jagged wings and crashed into the throne and darts of glittering steel sliced from the sides of the throne and impaled him. The defense of the throne slew its occupant.
The demon collapsed like a slashed wine sack.
The seven hoops of steel, razor-sharp, met through his gross body.
Fregeff stood up.
Seg, Milsi, and I ran to him.
“San! San — you are unharmed?”
“As well as can be expected.” And the Fristle laughed.
The laugh bordered on hysteria; but Rik flapped his wings and Fregeff was instantly himself. His face with its fierce whiskers looked drawn. His hands shook.
“The little volschrin,” said Seg, “he is a marvel.”
Because wizards, even good wizards, are not all sweetness and light, it was perfectly natural for Fregeff to say, “Yes. Beware lest he take your eyes.”
We heard the hiss of indrawn breath at our backs, and, instantly, Seg and I whirled, swords snouting. Kalu stood there, his own weapons raised. His Pachak face, hard, dedicated, revealed more emotion than any we had so far seen him express.
“Demons!” he said. Had the thought not been incongruous, I would have thought he spoke with joy. “Now that is more like an adventure!”
His own people had remained with him; now they began to retire through the doorway. Fregeff shook himself, refastened the bronze linked chain to Rik’s collar, and, with the reptile flappingly settling back onto his shoulder, nodded to us and went out. Seg took Milsi’s arm.
“Time to go—”
“Yes. A moment, Seg. Those guards, those malkos, down in the cells. They were — different — from the rest of this infernal maze.” I faced the lady Milsi. “Were they the bandits, do you know, my lady?”
“I — I do not know. My party was set on and my people were killed, or ran. I was taken up, prisoner, and conducted to that awful place.”
“So you cannot know anything of the maze. No, I see that. Still, I wonder why they imprisoned you—”
“I serve the queen—”
“No good will come of this now, Dray! Come on, my old dom. Let’s get out of this place and see about looking for the way out. There has to be one, somewhere.”
“You are right. Lead on.”
I turned toward the doorway and followed Seg and Milsi as they left. A movement caught at the corner of my left eye, and I looked that way, ready for a sudden treacherous onslaught.
One of the tall yellow silk drapes hanging against the wall rippled its sinuous length. I waited for a moment, watchfully. A small brown and red scorpion waddled out from under the drape. He stopped, looked about, waving his tail over his head. Then, as my indrawn breath hissed, he turned around and strutted delicately back, the stinger like a mocking finger upraised. He vanished under the yellow silk.
I felt the blood go thump around my body. A sliding, grating screech of stone on stone sounded in the chamber. I faced the door again. A slab of stone slid down between the door jambs. It hit the floor with a solid thud.
My sword rang uselessly against the stone.
I was alone in the chamber, trapped behind solid rock.
A sound whispered at my back. I whirled. The seven hoops of razor-sharp steel slid back into the ebon throne. They sucked themselves from the demon’s body with a bright glitter, unstained by blood, blue or red. The streaks of blood upon the demon’s cheeks, smoking, ran upward. They drew themselves up and entered the ruined sockets of his eyes. And when all the blood had been returned, the eyes grew back again, blazing devilish eyes of fearful hate.
The demon hissed. He came to life and roared, and those evil eyes flamed with sorcerous power from another world.
Alone, trapped, I stared with fearful fascination upon the ghastly form of the demon as he prepared to blast me where I stood.
Pitched into the Depths
I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, felt all the blood in my body congeal. My heart thudded with pain. I trembled. The eyes of the demon mesmerized me. Sparks flew from those orbs, gigantic orbs, swelling and bloating with power. In the next heartbeat — if my heart could ever beat again — supernal bolts of fire would lash from those eyes and burn me to a crisp.