Hero of Dreams (11 page)

Eldin followed and with each step, as they approached the center of the pit, so they felt weight settling invisibly on their shoulders, their limbs, every part of their bodies. “Uh!” said Eldin, “I feel as if I were carrying three men!”

Hero, ahead by two paces, answered: “Where I am it feels like five! And look-!” Eldin looked in time to see the flames of his friend’s torch dragged downward and snuffed out as they crawled along the stock of the torch toward Hero’s fingers.

“Those flames,” Hero grunted, “might just have had the right idea. In fact-” he got down on hands and knees, “-I think I’d better crawl before something snaps!”

Eldin, too, got down on all fours. His very clothes now felt as if they were made of lead; and the bones of the pit, as he pushed them out of his way, were heavy as boulders. Now the dreamers were panting, sucking at air which seemed compressed and hard as iron. Literally wriggling forward on their bellies, they dragged their chins in the dust and bones, cutting knees and elbows as their weight became that of ten men and more.

“Whatever you do, don’t stop!” Hero gasped. “Or you’ll be here forever.” Then, silent except for their panting, gasping, wriggling and clawing, they gave their all to fighting their way out of this region of monstrous magnetism.

After what seemed like hours, finally they could get back onto all fours, and moments later climb weakly to their feet, until at last they leaned on trembling legs against the sheer wall of rock at the far side of the pit.

“I could sleep for a week,” Eldin sighed while Hero lit a torch.

“Me, too,” the other agreed, “-which is all the more reason to get moving again. We’ll climb this face, take a bite to eat and a quick swig of water, and press on immediately. I’ve a feeling there’s not much farther to go.”

“To what?”

“To whatever it was kept old Thinistor up here in the Great Bleak Mountains all these years,” Hero answered. He handed Eldin the torch, attached a small grappling-hook to a coil of light, strong rope, whirled the hook round his head and let it fly up and over the rim of the looming wall. At their feet, the coil of rope unwound itself with a hiss, and moments later-

They began to hop about and yelp, covering their heads with their arms as the rope fell back in loose loops and the hook came clattering down out of darkness. It missed Eldin by inches and Hero caught it on the bounce.

“If at first you don’t succeed-” Hero muttered in what he hoped was a placating tone; but Eldin simply snatched the hook from him and scowled blackly.

“Here, you hold the torch,” he snarled. “I’m damned if I’ll stand here and be pounded to death by ill-tossed grappling-irons!” With a great heave, he shot die hook into the air. It caught at once and he gave a jerk on the rope, sinking the hook into the floor of the passage eighty feet above. “There!” he said with satisfaction. “Now you can climb.”

“After you,” said Hero promptly. “You’re heavier than I am. You go first and anchor the rope for me.”

“Oh? And what if it slips when I’m halfway up?”

Hero shrugged. “You threw it,” he blandly replied.

With a snort and an oath Eldin gave the rope a second tug, then grunted as he braced his legs against the wall and started to climb. Hero watched him in open admiration, and in less than two minutes was able to follow on when the older man called down to him and announced his safe arrival at the top …

After hauling up the rope the pair sat down on the cold stone floor, ate some dried meat and drank a little water; but while Eldin would have been content to rest a while longer, his younger companion was eager to push on. “Come on,” Hero said, getting stiffly to his feet. “The sooner we’ve done with this the better. We’re low on ropes, irons and torches, and our food and water’s not much to mention. I’d hate to get stuck in here.”

“I suppose so,” the other grudgingly agreed. “But look, what’s that up ahead?” They both stared into the darkness ahead, a darkness partly illuminated by the flickering light of their torch, which seemed reflected now by some vast and polished surface.

As they moved forward so the glow grew brighter, until indeed they could see that the tunnel was sealed by a great plate of shining metal that extended from ceiling to floor and wall to wall. It was inscribed with glyphs utterly alien to (he eyes of the adventurers; and yet it seemed to them that there were elements of all dreamland’s writing and hieroglyphics hidden in these cryptical etchings of the First Ones.

Greatly daring, Eldin stepped forward and banged on the metal door-for that was surely what the great plate was-with a heavy fist. The door shed clouds of dust and gonged hollowly, setting up echoes that reverberated for a long time in the confines of the passage.

Meanwhile Hero was peering at the walls and muttering ominously at something he found there. “What’s wrong now, lad?” Eldin rumbled. “More of Thinistor’s red paint?”

“Red, yes,” Hero answered. “And white! The contrary old … wizard! How are we to read that?”

“Why, we’re to go on!” cried Eldin, “-but carefully!”

“Which means that there has to be a way in,” the younger dreamer grunted, “if only we can find it.”

“See the crack in the walls, floor and ceiling?” said Eldin. “The door doesn’t just block this corridor-it extends into the very rock!”

“A sliding door?” Hero asked.

“Perhaps. Or maybe one that opens inward,” the other replied. “Well, then, if we can’t push it open-” and they leaned their shoulders mightily against it, “-perhaps we can slide it to one side, uh" and they tried that too. But the door would not budge.

They sat down in the dust and shared a sip of water; and as Eldin munched morosely on a piece of dried meat, so Hero rapped facetiously on the door and cried: “Open up in there! I, David Hero, command it!”

And with a hiss and a rumble the great silver panel instantly slid up into the ceiling, leaving the two comrades to spring to their feet in a blinding blaze of light that spilled like the fires in the heart of the sun out from beyond the raised portal.

“This is it,” Hero cried, crouching down and shielding his eyes from the awesome glare. “We’ve done it. We’ve reached the core of the keep!”

The Keeper

CHAPTER III

As Hero strode forward into the glare from the open door, so Eldin grabbed him by the back of his brown jacket, bringing him to an abrupt halt. “Easy, lad. We don’t know what’s in there-yet!”

“Knowledge, old friend,” Hero answered. “Or treasure, perhaps. All your heart desires. No, we don’t know what’s in there-but whatever it is, old Thinistor was mighty keen for it.”

“Aminza reckons he was only after power the power of the First Ones!”

“Maybe he was, and maybe he wasn’t. We’ll never know if we stay out here. And look, now that the dazzles’s faded a bit, why, there’s nothing at all in there to be afraid of!”

“Afraid?” Eldin stiffened. “Did you think I was afraid?” He released his grip on Hero’s jacket. “Who, me? Afraid of a few bright lights glaring at us out of this lair of the First Ones? Of all those shiny things I can see in there? Of metal doors that slide up into the ceiling and disappear? Afraid? … Damned right I am! You go first.” And he gave Hero a push in the middle of his back.

The younger dreamer staggered forward, his curved blade whispering from its sheath where he had strapped it behind his back for ease in climbing. Eldin, too, unsheathed his sword, covering the back of his colleague. They crossed the threshold-

-And behind them the door gave a hiss and slid down out of the ceiling!

Sensing the door’s descent even as it moved, the two turned and sprang for the opening all in one movement. Both of them bounced off the still shivering metal panel and fell, crouching, to face one another.

“Wonderful!” Eldin snarled, his scarred forehead wrinkling like old leather.

Hero shook himself. He stood up straight and aloof, held out a restraining hand to Eldin, leaned casually against the door, rapped upon it as before and said: “All right, whoever you are, open up at once!”

“NO!” came a booming, throbbing, echoing answer that had both of the dreamers dropping their swords and clapping hands to ears which rang like the clappers of great bells. “WHO DARES COMMAND THE KEEPER?”

Still reeling from the effects of the vast voice’s refusal, the two were almost stunned by its question. Stumbling to and fro, they held tightly to ears whose drums felt ruptured, gasping in agonies of sheer, unbearable sound!

“WELL?” the voiced slammed at them yet again. “ARE YOU DUMB?”

“No!” howled Hero, “we’re not dumb-but we’ll damn soon be deaf if you don’t lower your voice!”

“Who speaks?” asked the voice again, in a tone mercifully lowered by many decibels.

“I do,” said Hero, retrieving his sword. “I, David Hero, adventurer in dreams, man of the waking world, keep-climber and swordsmaster-I speak!” He whipped his curved blade through the air, making it sing. “To whom do I speak?”

“To the Keeper! Who is the other man?”

“I speak for myself,” Eldin rumbled. “I’m Eldin the Wanderer, dreamer, adventurer and swordsmaster, just like my young friend here-and I eat lesser men for breakfast!”

“A pair of wanderers, then,” said the great voice, “strays from the waking world-and one a cannibal!”

“He doesn’t really eat men,” Hero was quick to point out. “That was merely an indication of his great strength and skill at arms.”

During their brief conversation with the as yet unseen Keeper, the two intruders had been studying their surroundings. Now that their eyes were accustomed to the brightness and glare of the place, they could see that they stood in a great circular chamber whose walls, like the door, seemed made of some strange silver metal. The floor was padded and springy, with a warmth they could fee) through to the soles of their feet, and the ceiling was high and domed. Set in the inward curving walls were huge mirrors (or so these screens appeared to the pair), some of which did in fact mirror their forms; but the surfaces of a greater number were of opaque, misty-gray.

Metal and glass machines and instruments were everywhere, motionless, bright and glittering, but of course the dreamers did not know what they were or how they functioned, or even if they had any functions at all. Ten padded chairs formed a ring about a tall, central hump of metal studded with smaller screens, levers, dials and buttons; but naturally this huge instrument panel was likewise a thing of complete mystery to David Hero and Eldin the Wanderer. They did wonder, however, at the size and odd design of the chairs, and they stood in awe of the minds which could have conceived of and constructed such a place.

Moving carefully around the huge control-center, the two eventually reached a point where they could see its far side. There the screens were alive with small dancing lights and colors, and when the Keeper spoke again they noticed that the patterns of colored lights seemed to move in rhythm with his voice.

“You, David Hero: stand on the gray disk, beneath the wheel of globes.”

Quickly Hero’s eyes found the circular plate of gray metal set in the floor. Above it, suspended from the inward-curving ceiling, a wheel-like affair whose spokes terminated in large golden knobs glittered and winked in the changing patterns of light as the echoes of the Keeper’s voice died away. Hero was immediately suspicious.

“Why must-” he began, but no sooner had he opened his mouth than a beam of green fire, stabbing from nowhere, singed the hairs on his naked forearms in the nearness of its passing.

“Do NOT question the Keeper!” the great voice warned. “Merely do as I say. No harm will come to you if you obey.”

With a low-muttered oath and the short hairs of his neck stiffly abristle, the young man stepped gingerly forward and onto the gray disk.

“Do not be afraid of the lights or the movement of the wheel. I merely wish to look at you,” came the Keeper’s voice, preceding a rapid rotation of the wheel of globes and a silvery haze that sprang downward from its circumference to the gray metal plate, completely enclosing Hero in a tube of light through which his form glowed like a pale pearl.

To Eldin it seemed mat his companion was frozen in the tube of light, motionless, and in another moment that he stood in dire peril of his very life! For now Hero’s outer form had grown insubstantial as air, while all of his bones and inner organs became clearly visible to Eldin’s unbelieving eyes. Obviously, Eldin thought, the silvery haze was the Keeper himself-and damn him, he was devouring Hero alive!

In a blur of motion the older man whirled his sword once, twice about his head-and released it straight at the spinning wheel of globes overhead. The sword stuck-and disappeared in a blinding flash of light! Tiny pellets of hot metal filled the air, stinging like wasps where they struck and stuck to flesh, and Eldin danced for a moment or two until he had shaken these revenants of his sadly defunct sword from his person.

“FOOL!” cried the Keeper. “/ said he would not be harmed!” The wheel of golden globes stopped spinning; the silvery haze retracted upward from the gray metal plate; and there stood Hero, unharmed, frowning puzzledly as he noted the dumbfounded expression on his burly friend’s face. Before Hero could speak, however, the Keeper said: “Now your turn, Eldin the Wanderer-and please, no more heroics.’”

Feeling naked without his sword, Eldin stepped awkwardly forward and took Hero’s place on the gray plate. Now the younger dreamer watched a repeat performance of what had gone before, and he was similarly alarmed at the sight of Eldin’s innards displayed as if his flesh was become water. Since he himself had survived the examination, however, he merely waited until the thing was done and Eldin stepped with a glad sigh of relief from the metal disk back onto the springy, now familiar surface of the floor.

“So, you are what you say you are,” said the Keeper. “Men of the waking world, and remarkably robust specimens at that. Your race has changed little in a million years. A certain enlargement of the cranium, perhaps, to accommodate larger brains. The discovery of certain scientific techniques, such as the forging of metals. These and one or two other achievements-and what of writing? Do you know how to use runes or glyphs?”