Come Endless Darkness

Chapter 11

Lord Nelbon, Gellor recognized the beautiful woman just as quickly and as happily as Gord did. The troubador was a nobleman of Nyrond, just as was Evaleigh's father. Count Dunstan of Blemu. In his service to the crown, Gellor had traveled often the lands of the Count, seen the pretty little child grow into a lovely girl and even a more beautiful woman. It had been his intervention that had brought Gord, who was then Evaleigh's lover, from the count's dungeons on the pretext that the young thief was actually a secret agent and captain of Nyrond's king.

How would Gord react now? Gellor wondered, then dismissed the question. The real issue was, how had the four of them come to this place? A place somewhere in or near Ratik was a long step indeed from the quasi-dimensional places where they had been hunting the malign demonurgist.

"Our apologies for this unseemly intrusion, Lady Ratik," Gord said with utmost aplomb, giving a courtly bow as he spoke. Then he sprang lightly down from the stone block. "We were brought here by sheer mischance, and no sacrilege is involved."

"Most assuredly, lady, most assuredly!" Greenleaf said as he too hopped off the altar and signed to make pardonable the transgression that he and his associates had committed. The nature priest who was evidently officiating at the ceremony that the appearance of the four had interrupted recognized Greenleaf as a fellow druid and saw the little ritual of asked-for forgiveness that the half-elf had silently performed after vacating the hallowed stone block.

The All-In-All will accept with understanding," the druid said to his fellow. Then something clicked in the tall man's mind; that was evident from the play of emotions across his face as he stared at Curley. "I… I… beg your forgiveness. Great Harmoniousness. To have one of such exalted standing in my humble grove…" He let his words trail off as he wrung his hands and looked hopefully down at the bald, rotund little man, for the fellow had recognized Greenleaf as a very, very high druid indeed.

Just at that same moment. Lady Evaleigh called out, "And you too, Lord Gellor?"

That caused the tall nature priest double anxiety, for Gellor's was likewise a well-known name in these parts. Who might the other two be? The baroness had recognized the small, gray-eyed man first. Could he be of greater station than even the Great Harmony named Greenleaf and the renowned nobleman of Nyrond called Gellor? The druid decided to take no chances, so he addressed the rest of the visitors as a group. "And to you also, gentle lords, I extend my sincere pardon, and that of those faithful here gathered in celebration of the coming of Midsummer this night-"

"Midsummer?" The demand came from the one-eyed bard. "Did you say Midsummer?"

"Well, of course, I…. Yes, your lordship. Tomorrow is Midsummer's Day, none other; and naturally we…" Again the druid lapsed into silence in mid-speech, for Gellor had turned away with shock on his face.

"We have been trapped for the better part of nine months," he said to the three who now faced him. Gellor's face was as pale as ash. "Such time, such time lost. Surely we are undone."

Dire as those words were, Gord could not help but believe that his comrade spoke true. So long a period would certainly have allowed the dark foes to have done their worst, free of serious challenge from the only force capable of opposing them. He, Gord, had tried and ultimately failed. But… no! This place was not In despair, overrun by the forces of evil, groaning under the yoke of slavery and degradation. The young adventurer turned directly to Evaleigh, ignoring the rest of the assemblage. "Good Baroness, Lady Evaleigh, we have been absent from this world for a considerable span of time and have just now returned — as you yourself witnessed. Tell me, pray, what of the great battle between Evil and Good? Has the Ultimate Darkness made headway?"

"Darkness?" Evaleigh's pretty face showed incomprehension. Then her lilac-hued eyes widened, and understanding was plainly written in them. "Oh, you mean the evil deity, the one they name Tharizdun."

"That is exactly the one I mean!"

"There is a great temple under construction in his honor in our capital," Evaleigh said. "This last spring there was great rejoicing amongst those who serve the netherspheres — and a great deal of bloodshed between them, too."

All four of the men gathered closer to her, unbelieving. The baronial husband of Evaleigh was not present at the grove, but various knights, officials, attendants, guards, and servitors were thronged nearby. So, too, other groups of petty nobles and their entourages, and many other folk from the surrounding area, had come to honor the druidical festival. The grove was very large, the glen and rings of stones of moderate size. Perhaps three hundred or more people were there.

As the adventurers came near, Evaleigh's knightly retainers and guardsmen moved to Interpose themselves, half-drawing swords or aiming crossbows as they did so. "Hold, sirs! Guards!" Evaleigh ordered. "These are noblemen of great standing. They may approach as they will!" There was a little grumbling among the cavaliers, but the matter was settled.

"I fail to understand, lady," Gellor said slowly. "It seems we have been too long out of touch. Although this is not a meet place for such, I beg your Indulgence. Will you favor us with an account in detail?"

"Of course. Lord Gellor," Evaleigh said with a smile so sweet it would win any heart. "Those dark-lings who honored the Abyss and demonkind were taken to task by the rest of those who give service to the netherspheres. With them were strangely garbed clerics, priests of the newly risen deity Tharizdun. After much rioting and fighting amongst themselves, the demon-lovers were either slain or converted. There is now a general amnesty. The old temples dedicated to such as Orcus and his ilk are being torn down or simply abandoned. All the darklings now swear allegiance to Tharizdun."

"I am not hearing right!" The exclamation sprang from Gord's lips before he could prevent it. "Well," he quickly added, "you are in a far better position to know than I. But the great one of All Evil — surely he has brought blood and suffering to our world!"

"Not that I have noticed, Gord — Sir Gord." Evaleigh hastened to add, seeming a little flustered at using such familiarity before the crowd there listening. "We collect and pay out from and to fewer of the nether sects. Tharizdun's priests have demanded and received recognition and a place in our council and those elsewhere, I assume. But blood? Only that of the demon-servers. Suffering? Nay. The ones obedient to Tharizdun seem to have quieted evil doings, stopped much of the activities which those of other persuasions objected to, and brought reason and order — reason which goes beyond those formerly convinced of darkling principles. I have heard that many folk are actually converting to service of the one you call 'All Evil.'"

The four exchanged glances. "This is astounding news, lady," Gord managed finally.

"Perhaps. Why do you all have so much interest in a matter of passing concern only to those who devote themselves to the nether regions?" That seemed a fair question indeed at this juncture.

Greenleaf looked around as Evaleigh spoke. When she mentioned the last, the tall druid who was the priest of the grove gave the half-elf a strange, questioning look. It seemed to ask. Have you become a minion of demons? and Curley was troubled. "I can perhaps explain that-" he began.

"No," Gellor interrupted. "Better I do — or you, Gord."

The young champion of Balance looked at his friend for a long moment, then nodded. Evaleigh watched the exchange from atop her little dais, that platform that set her apart from the rest as the greatest noble there. "My lady," Gord said, turning to face her directly, "it is because of a solemn charge placed upon me directly, and these three stout comrades indirectly, that we express such concern." He took another step, so that he now stood a full pace away from his friends but still two long steps from the Baroness of Ratik.

"Upon my soul and sword I swore an oath," he said earnestly, placing his hand upon the dead black of his longsword's hilt to emphasize his point. The hand closed upon the hilt, and with a motion so fast that the eye had difficulty following it, Blackheart-seeker was drawn from its scabbard. Even as the blade shot forth Gord was leaping ahead and striking. The sooty length of the blade entered Evaleigh's chest on an upward angle, pierced her heart, and passed through to show itself above her shoulder blade. The thrust was accompanied by a piercing scream from the beautiful mouth of the woman.

Chert was uncertain what was happening, but he swung his great battleaxe up anyway. He would stand by Gord. Then he heard the troubador singing a song of doom to evil, and at that sound the big hillman was reassured. The knights and guards who accompanied the baroness were rushing in to attack, and Chert happily hewed into their ranks with the angrily buzzing axe. Brool began its bloody execution.

Greenleaf held his staff ready, but called first a great summoning word. This took but an instant. Then the staff swept out in a semicircle. Wherever its butt end pointed, the ground gave forth a furious growth of briars, thistles, and thorns. Three quick passes of this sort, and no attacker could approach the four from the rear without first contending with the tangled barrier that was yards high and thick as a castle wall.

Satisfied, Curley turned to confront the swarm of angry attackers that Gord, Chert, and Gellor were engaging with their gore-smeared weapons. Still the druid didn't cause the spear tip to shoot forth from the stout length of ancient wood. Instead, he held it almost as one would wield a wand. "Back to me, comrades!" he shouted. As quickly as possible, his three friends disengaged from the enemy and sprang back to where Greenleaf waited.

It seemed as if the heavens were being torn open from where Gord stood. Chert clapped his hands to his ears, letting Brool swing free on its thick thong. Gellor hunched and half closed his eyes. From the druid's staff had come a terrific noise, a clap as loud as the most fearsome of thunderclaps splitting the sky just overhead. At the same time there issued from the thing a sizzling bolt of dual lightning.

The sound bowled over the onrushing opponents and sent others of them away howling. So, too, the eye-searing discharge of electrical energy played havoc upon the foe. It struck, leaped in great arcs, striking again. It burned, charred and killed indiscriminately with an awful snapping and crackling sound as the lightning discharged itself into flesh. Between them Gord, Chert, and the bard had slain a half-dozen of Evaleigh's retinue of warriors. The single magical attack that Greenleaf unleashed from his staff felled that many more and a score of the rest as well. Even so, the four heard the crowd behind howling and raving as they attacked the thorny barrier.

"That is a marvelous sword, Gord," the one-eyed troubador said with grim admiration.

"In a manner of speaking, yes," Gord agreed. The young adventurer unconsciously sent his gaze to where the shriveled husk of the dead hag who had been pretending to be Evaleigh lay decaying into noisome powder. "It finds the heart most often, and from those of evil it draws forth all force."

"I'm prone to favor old Curley's staff there," Chert said reflectively as he rested both of his massive, calloused palms on the steel butt knob of Brool's thick haft. "Still, considering the number of the foes still quick, and their obvious desire to rend us limb from limb, I think we need to save our breath for the coming fight."

Gellor laughed at the sarcasm, and Gord was nod ding grim concurrence, when the rotund half-elven druid said, "If you enjoyed the effects on those dirty buggers, wait until you see what's coming!"

"Why?" Gellor asked.

"To teach them a lesson," was all the druid said in reply.

"No need," Gord said. "All we need do is to mount the dais the hag stood on."

"Let's get out of this godsdamned shithole, then," Chert rumbled. "I'll have enough of killing the blasters soon enough anyway!"

Without hesitation all four climbed up the one step that would move them from wherever they actually were, take them from this place of evil and illusory familiarity to some new danger. The powdery husk of the destroyed hag from the pits was crushed underfoot as they mounted the dais step.

The sylvan scene vanished, but the green light did not. They were surrounded by a deep, emerald color, the hue of sunlight filtered through fathoms of seawater. Massive sharks swam nearby, and not one of the four could say a word about it.

In fact, the suddenness of their precipitation into the submarine dilemma gave them only seconds to react. Perhaps they could survive for a minute or two, even though they had been given no chance to draw air to fill their lungs prior to coming into the underwater trap. Before the last of their oxygen was gone, the step that led from this new place of death had to be located.

Visibility was limited to twenty or thirty yards. Within sight there were several possible places where the next stair could be located. Ahead was a thick growth of giant kelp, to the right a gradual drop leading to rocks with a cave opening plain to see. Off to the left were a dozen giant clams, while behind them, Just at the limit of sight, was a long coral reef. Tiger sharks swam overhead and around. Big blue sharks circled there, too.

Gord, his hair waving above his head as if it were some fine, black sea growth, tugged at Gellor's clothing, pointed, and began to move as rapidly as he could in the direction of the huge mollusks. The others had no real choice. They followed.

The clams varied in size. The smallest ones were less than three feet across, the larger ranged from three to five feet, while one monster was fully eight feet in diameter and nearly as deep. That one was Gord's target, and the young thief darted straight for Its yawning valves. Both failing lungs and closing sharks lent speed to his movement.

Just short of the thing, Gord stopped, picked up a stone from the sandy bottom, and hurled it toward the clam.

The missile traveled in slow motion, but Gord's aim was true. Into the open shell it went, and as it struck the muscle within, the clam closed its shell with such force that there was a current created of sufficient strength to make the young adventurer sway. His three comrades arrived just after that, and the stiff-finned sharks were not far behind, making rushes and coming ever closer.

Chert was in the lead. He saw Gord place his feet upon the closed shell. Then he was gone. The big hill-man immediately imitated his friend's action. Gellor followed next, with Curley bringing up the rear. An attacking blue shark was but a fraction of a second late. Its teeth closed on empty water, and it shot off into the green gloom with dull disappointment registering in its minuscule brain.

They had been transported to a tiny island of sand and rock. Nothing grew there, and around it was nothing save an endless expanse of ocean. The sun was overhead, beating down remorselessly. There was neither shade nor fresh water.

"Marooned with a vengeance," Gord noted. "But at least it should be a simple task to locate the magical portal to escape the place." All but Gellor voiced ready agreement. They set to work immediately, searching the few dozen square yards of the islet for the hidden stairstep. Not even the troubador's enchanted ocular detected the slightest hint of what they sought.

"Now here's a terrible thought," Greenleaf finally said. "What if that filthy scum put a false step into that last trap?"

It was something that none of the four adventurers had considered. Could Gravestone have managed such a dweomer? A second gate to take them into a place with no escape? "It might be done," Gord said, "but the Law of Balance isn't that weak — not yet. We are simply looking in the wrong place, I think."

"Where else can we look?" Chert asked crossly. Gellor pointed outward and swept his arm in a complete circle. The barbarian gulped audibly. "Yeah. I hadn't considered that, comrade," he said, eyeing the rolling waves with obvious distaste.

"No, again I disagree, bard," Gord said firmly. "Each time we have had to actually go up. To search under the water would be folly, I think. There has to be a place above…."

Greenleaf shrugged and commenced going over the little bump of dry land again. The other three followed suit. They passed back and forth across the islet a score of times. Still nothing. There is no step up," Gellor said finally. "You were wrong, Gord."

"Perhaps, but perhaps not. I have another thought on the matter."

"Well, we have time enough to hear it, I think," Curley said, sitting down with a huff of tiredness as he did so. "But let's not be too long about it. The salt water is drying, and my garments are beginning to become itchy and irritating."

The initial step was nearly transparent, all save Gellor were blind, and it was separated by a gulf of ten feet. Now, why shouldn't the location of the next place we must ascend be likewise hard to locate?"

"No reason at all," the one-eyed bard admitted. "But where do we look?"

"Up!" said Gord with firmness.

"Into thin air?" Curley said with a derisive laugh.

"You can turn into a bird, can't you?" Chert said with sudden inspiration. "Why not do that? Take a little wing around this stinking bump and see what's visible from up there!"

Gord slapped the broad back of the barbarian. "I hadn't thought of that, my hulking friend, but you hit the target fairly there. Curley, do just what Chert has suggested."

In a moment the druid wavered before their eyes, his outline shifting, his form condensing, until a big pelican stood before the three. Gord made upward gestures with his hands and stamped his foot impatiently. Curley-pelican gave a squawking protest but broke into a lumbering waddle, beat his wings, and flapped heavily into the air. The bird then commenced to flap its slow way up and around until it attained a height of a hundred feet or so, then tilted, spiraled, and glided down in a corkscrew path to land beside them.

"Well?" Gord demanded irritably.

"Braawk!" the pelican said with equal ill temper.

"All right, all right," the young champion said with resignation. "Please, respected druid, return to your true form and relate what you saw."

Greenleaf seemed to sprout out of a pelican. When his feet were no longer webbed, but the properly booted appendages of a half-elf, the druid beamed a smile at the trio of expectant observers. "It is there, plainly visible, not more than twenty feet overhead. The step is directly above the center of the islet."

"How do we get up to it?" the hillman queried.

"The rope again, I think," Gord murmured as he freed the coil and began to work it into a noose. The rest was easy going, comparatively speaking. The line anchored itself around seemingly nothing, Gord swarmed up it, and hung from the top of the Gord as if levitated.

"It hasn't taken me to some other place yet," he called down, "so I suppose the rope is hanging on the edge of the portal. Chert, help Curley to climb, and I'll pull him up before I change position. Then you come up and haul Gellor on after you. Be sure one of you brings the line, too!" When the druid arrived and forced Gord to move closer to the center of the opening that was invisible save from above, the others saw Gord vanish. Chert then climbed up and took Green-leafs place. The druid, too, disappeared as he moved elsewhere.

"I don't know how to free the rope," Chert said loudly to the climbing bard. "Can you manage it?"

"No, blast it!" Gellor was thinking furiously as he replied. He could almost recall Gord's magical words of command that controlled the enchanted horsehair line, but what if he made a mistake? Just then he attained the platform, and the matter was taken out of his hands. As Chert moved to make a place for the bard to clamber onto, he tripped over his own foot and fell. Clutching out desperately, one of his huge hands grabbed onto Gellor's studded leather jack and held fast. Both men were thus precipitated into an unceremonious heap within the next of the intradimensional pockets devised by Gravestone.

There was nothing in the new place. Some grayish illumination seemed to fill the air, but there was no sun, stars, moon, or even sky. All of them were within a bubble — a bubble of stone. "Out of the great worm's hole…" Chert said slowly as he looked around.

"And into the maw of the waiting dragon," Gord supplied. "It is worse than before!"

"This time I might have to agree." Gellor said. "I see no step anywhere, and there can be no invisible one in this place."

"Which of you has the rope?" the young thief asked without taking his eyes off the dome of the ceiling overhead.

"Ah, well… err…" Chert managed.

"It is behind. Lost, Gord, by no fault of ours," the bard told him. How exactly he didn't relate to Gord, naturally. "Did you think it would be useful in this cyst?"

"Perhaps…" the young acrobat-thief replied distractedly, seeming to dismiss the magical Gord as unimportant. "See there at the apex of the ceiling? That appears to be a hooked stone projecting there."

"I see it. So what?" Chert demanded.

"It seems evident that we escape this trap by going there," Gord related patiently, still studying the dome of granite. "As feet are placed on the ceiling, the counterpart of this floor, it is my guess the individual will be sent on to the next stair."

The dilemma was finally solved by Gord. He rummaged around in another of the magically expansive pockets hidden in the thick girdle banding his waist. There were several enchanted rings therein, and one possessed power over air. "It is sufficiently strong to carry two upward. You, Gellor, will wear it, and bear Curley upward with you. As your boots touch the ceiling, you must drop the ring from your finger. Be swift, for if it is transported through the portal with you, then Chert and I will be stranded here forever."

The troubador managed the trick — barely! Gord then jammed the rune-worked circlet of ancient metal upon a finger and floated up, he and Chert clutching each other like long-lost relatives reunited after a generation of separation. A push against the curving wall, a mid-air somersault, and the two were with their comrades.

The place all four were in now was a totally alien one, its landscape of such distorted shapes, sky of jarring coloration, atmosphere so noxious that all of the adventurers were shaken to the core. Whatever it was that pervaded this far world, its effect was to erode the mind, tear away sanity, insinuate madness.

Somehow Gellor managed to begin a heroic ballad, draw forth his little kanteel of ivory with silver strings and gold inlays, and turn back the insanity that would have overwhelmed them otherwise. The stair was the most revolting feature in view, but they found the mental strength to mount it nonetheless.

Next was a Jungle, but not of vegetation. The wild growth around them consisted of various tentacles. Some were one color, some another, with suckers, poison, claws, barbs, and so forth. Each set of the waving members sought to seize and slay and devour. Two, three, four, five, even as many as a dozen tentacles surrounded each of the sphincterlike mouths into which a victim would be thrust. The solution was simply to hack and slash the attacking tentacles, to strike them with magic and weapons. It was the thickest and largest cluster of the things that hid a step in the midst of the viciously hook-fringed and venomous tentacles.

That step took the four into a reeking moor whose fetid, miasmal air was filled with swarms of biting insects and whose mud and water swarmed with leeches and similar forms of hungry parasites. The place where the next step was located was evident; an expanse of high ground far in the distance. It lay but five or six leagues distant as the crow flies. Translated to the real terms of the place, that meant five or six days of hard going on foot through the low-lying, infested swampland.

They tried that mode of travel only for an hour. It was soon evident that they would be infected with a half-dozen diseases, anemic, and worm-ridden at the very best after much more of the same. Then they heard the monstrous bellowings and croakings and splashings of the native fauna of this stinking swamp world, and that decided the matter promptly. Curley Greenleaf, as a last resort, used some of his remaining magical capability to create a fiery vehicle that would carry them to the ridgelike step. It took the four of them quite a while to build a fire of sufficient size to effect the magic, but it was accomplished, and the aerial Journey was simplicity itself. The chariot set firmly down upon the monstrous-sized next step.

The next stratum was worse, for the stair-portal shot them into the space between galaxies, and the heatless, airless void would have slain them in an instant except for the presence of the champion of Balance. The power vested in him was such that all of them were sent to the next entrapped step in the instant after the malign dweomer left by Gravestone precipitated them into the freezing, suffocating void where they were meant to die.

Time to rest." Gord said with tiredness and strain filling his voice.

"This is a far less lethal area than any we have encountered so far," Gellor said as he surveyed the surroundings. "At least on the face of it…." What they saw was simply a strange landscape, a plain of infinite dimensions. It was covered with flights of stairs.

"We all need some strong, prayerful treatment to rid our bodies of the pestilences of that miasmal fen," the druid said firmly. "Some of us bear wounds and other hurts which would do with some treatment and healing. As we take our ease here a time, I'll see to that," Curley told them.

Gord was given preferential care because he alone was the Balance's hope. Then Greenleaf cared for himself, just in case some unperceived disease was affecting him. Chert had fallen asleep immediately, as was his wont whenever the opportunity permitted. The troubador had spent some time scrutinizing the surroundings, but soon he too was dozing. "Seeing those sluggards makes me sleepy, too," Gord yawned in Curley's general direction. "After you've done your best for Gellor and Chert, wake me up."

"I'll wake him myself," Gellor mumbled. "I'm not really asleep. I watch with one eye open."

Gord chuckled at the joke, and Curley laughed, too. "That's fine, dear woods-running minstrel," he commented. "After curing myself, I will need at least a catnap and some time to meditate. Rouse yon hulk, or Gord, if you need fresh eyes to watch, but disturb me not." Gellor nodded affirmation, and Gord was already asleep, so the druid stretched out on the soft, semi-yielding terrain and was soon mimicking Chert's snores.

When the druid regained consciousness, there was no way to tell how long he had slept. He saw that all of the others were still asleep when he awoke, but seemingly nothing untoward had occurred during their unguarded period, so Curley simply shrugged the incident off and began his period of prayer and concentration. It would be no real trick for him to maintain watch with a corner of his mind as he managed the rest of what he had to do, especially when he felt so sure and comfortable.

"How goes it?" The comment startled the druid, for he hadn't noticed the young thief awaken and move to stand beside him. Gord saw the surprise and smiled. "You were deep in your meditations, comrade, so I moved softly. I'm myself surprised to find the only one alert is you, though. Usually, grizzled-beard there would be prodding us all before this."

"Hmmm… You have something there, Gord. I am nearly ready for renewed effort." Greenleaf shook his head, then corrected himself. "I haven't managed to restore my greater powers. Perhaps It hasn't been so long a napping as we supposed."

"No…. My instinct tells me we have slept very long," Gord countered. "Hey! Useless sentry and would-be guard! Wake up!" As he spoke, the young adventurer moved over to where Gellor slept and toed him gently and cautiously. There was no telling what reaction he would have upon awakening. Gellor stirred and sat up slowly. He looked tired still, and his movements were sluggish.

"Sorry," he said. "I'm a bit muzzy with sleep yet." With a lot of stretching and eye-blinking, the bard finally stood and joined Gord.

Waking the barbarian hillman was a more difficult task, but finally Gord and Gellor managed it in tandem. "Let me rest just a bit longer," Chert said. He was only half-conscious. "These damned traps have worn me out! Besides, there's no hurry. The stair we need is the smallest we can see from here, and time has no meaning here. We can snooze as long as we wish and then get away easily."

"Rubbish," Gellor shot back. "What makes you say all that?"

"It was my dream — as clear as glass from Hardby, too. I'll wager my life it was a true sending."

"That you will, should you attempt to stay here longer." Gord said with a sarcasm-laden voice. "Nothing which Gravestone prepares is true in any sense save evil and death!" He dragged on the hillman to get him into a sitting position, and with the help of Gellor eventually managed it. Then he shouted, "Come here, druid, and use your hands and words to heal these two deserving heroes. As soon as that is done, we must find out how to escape this slumber-filled nothing. It is a most perilous place which will lull us all into death's bed."

Gord was correct, of course. Lethargy, weakness, and a growing need to sleep, sleep, sleep forever were imbued into the substance of the quasi-real space that the fourteenth stair had brought them to.

As they went toward the flights of steps that sprang like strange growths from the slightly yielding surface of the ground, each found it harder and harder to place one foot in front of the other.

The environment would possibly have proved fatal, except that Gord correctly gambled that one portion of Chert's dream was true. They had to choose one stairway and head for it, wasting no time, so Gord thought and hoped that the stairway Chert referred to was the actual one. He was right, and they barely made it to the new plateau before succumbing to deathly lethargy.

Draughts from an enchanted flask that the bard supplied gave the four sufficient strength and refreshment of vigor to deal with a place that was like a giant plane of fly paper, populated by flying horrors ready to saw off choice bits of any creature stuck down and unable to defend itself. Chillingly, they had to step up on just such an unfortunate creature in order to be magically moved to the next test.

The residual strength from the elixir that Gellor had shared round, plus his own signing too, gave the four the ability to resist the terrible pain that pervaded the next area — agony borne by the sights, sounds, smells, and very touch of the place. Where the torment was worst, there too the stair for escaping it.

"Upon my life, Gord." Chert spat, "never was a sheer ice cliff before and an angry cave bear behind half so fun as the entertainments you have always managed for us!" He said that as they came floundering down a slime-coated slope toward a precipice.

"If you and Gellor hadn't botched up and lost-" he began to retort, then stopped wasting his breath to do something about their dire situation. Tumbling and somersaulting to the lead of the group, the young adventurer plied his enchanted dagger to dig in and make a firm place to hold to. Greenleaf, immediately behind, slid past, while Chert caught onto Gord's belt and Gellor grabbed Chert's leg. In desperation the druid used one of his least powerful spells and succeeded. The dweomer caused the slime to stiffen and grow, and the stuff caught Curley and held him fast just as he was on the brink of destruction.

Eventually they found the way to free themselves from the slime world, but wound up in a place where gigantic gears with grinding teeth of spiked surfaces threatened to pulp them all. This is a nightmare of some mad technologist," was all Gord could manage. Chert pointed out the way, and then he set the example by grabbing fast to one of the free-rolling spiked wheels and rode it upward to where a small ledge was visible. It was the wrong one, and getting down was trickier than getting up, but after managing it they found the correct ledgestep and were gone from the clockwork plane.

There followed an acid world, a place of animated metal shapes of geometric form and malign purpose, a desert of alkaline sort, a quasi-plane where they had to hop from tooth to tooth of a giant mouth as it clashed open and shut trying to swallow the four. From there to a globe of prehistoric sort that teemed with dinosaurian monsters they went, and thereafter to a brazen city filled with fiery denizens. Of course, Curley Greenleaf handled the City of Brass and the efreet well enough. In fact, the sultan of those elemental beings actually directed the party to a place where there was a portal that bypassed many of the stair-traps that Gravestone had devised. The four adventurers used it to ascend the helix to a point twice as far along as that of their previous progress.

But on that fiftieth plane the druid suddenly found himself face to face with the avatar of Infestix known as Nerull. Chert saw the devil-duke Amon. The troubador confronted the netherlord, Hafdoligor Kaathbaen, master of the undead realm. And Gord stood before none other than Tharizdun himself!

Here at last, it seemed, was the final challenge for each of them. How would they react? How would they fare? They all reacted the same, but not in their usual way. Instead of leaping to the attack or poising themselves for defense, each of the four simply stood, motionless and uncaring. They were filled not with courage and spirit, but with the heaviest, most oppressive despair that any of them had ever known.