Hero of Dreams (7 page)

“But what-” Hero began again, only to be cut off by:

“You are the wizard’s captives and he would kill you- most horribly! Only I can save you, and only you can save me. If I have your promise that you’ll take me with you, then I’ll help you to escape.”

“Done!” said Eldin at once. “But only set us free.”

“Aye,” agreed Hero, “you have our word. But come, loosen these bonds. And while you’re about it you can tell us what you know of Thinistor Udd.”

The knots were tight and the ropes thin and strong, but nevertheless, the girl worked hard and fast with small deft fingers. She worked on Hero first, and as her fingers flew so she talked:

“My name is Aminza Anz, and I was taken by a gaunt from the balcony of my father’s home in Ilek-Vad. That was almost a year ago, since when I’ve been here. At first I thought that the gaunt would eat me, but I don’t know if they do eat.”

Hero nodded. “We know,” he said. “Gaunts have no faces, and so no mouths’. Neither has Yibb-Tstll a mouth, if we can judge by that idol we saw in Thinistor’s temple.”

‘True, and Yibb-Tstll is the Lord of Gaunts.”

“Interesting,” Hero mused.

“For goodness sake go on, girl!” grunted Eldin, impatient of interruptions.

“Anyway,” Aminza quickly continued, “I wasn’t eaten but brought here. It took the gaunt all of three nights to get me here, resting in mountain caves by day and only journeying under the stars. Sometimes he’d fly me halfway up to the moon, and then for hours we’d glide and glide where shoals of hideous, shapeless drifting things groped and pawed and tried to wrest me from the gaunt’s awful grasp.”

“The larvae of the Other Gods!” said Hero, his voice hushed. “I’ve heard mention of them before.”

“Perhaps,” Aminza answered, then grunted with delight as one of the knots came loose behind Hero’s back. Without pause she started on another.

By now Eldin was fidgeting as though he had fleas. “Go on, lass,” he urged. ”Can’t you get on? These ropes are cutting me in pieces!”

“Well,” she went on, “I was asleep when we got here, and when I woke up-there was Thinistor Udd.” She shuddered.

“And he’s kept you here ever since, eh?” asked Hero. “But why did he have you brought here in the first place? Has he been … bothering you?”

“Pardon?”

“Does he take you to bed, lass?” Eldin was more direct.

“No, no,” she shuddered again. “But he looks at me a lot and makes me dance. And sometimes he … touches me.”

“Huh!” the gnarled dreamer grunted. “He’s past it, then.”

“Only his body is old,” she answered as yet another knot came loose in her hands. “His mind is sharp as a razor.”

“It’s a razor I’ll be taking to his scrawny throat as soon as you’ve got us loose,” Eldin replied. “The razor edge of my knife-if I can find it!”

Hero sniffed disgustedly. “You didn’t really think he’d leave us our weapons, did you?”

“Don’t go snapping at me, lad,” Eldin rumbled, “or by-“

“Shh!” Hero fiercely hissed. “Hell’s teeth, Eldin- you’ll have the roof down on us with your bellowing!”

Then, to the girl, he said: “And did he lock you up with us, Aminza? Surely he was taking a chance?”

“No,” she answered. “Indeed, he forbade me to come near. But you are my one chance for freedom. Soon he would do with me as he does with the others. I was small enough to squeeze in through the bars-but you two will have to break down the gate.” She gave a little grunt of triumph, said “There!”-and at last Hero’s hands were free.

“Work on Eldin,” the young dreamer told her. “I’ll free my own feet … as soon as there’s an ounce of blood flowing in these numb hands of mine!” He began to rub at his hands, working life back into them. “Gods, girl, but I could kiss you-aye, and more than that-if things were a little different.”

Aminza said nothing but her blush could be seen even in the flickering lamplight. As she started work on the ropes that bound Eldin, the older man asked:

“What others were you talking about? And what was it Thinistor did to them?”

For a moment she paused in her task to peer at him, and again she shuddered. “Other prisoners,” she finally answered. “Other men that the gaunts bring him, or who come here from Theelys, sent by-“

“By a treacherous Ossaran dog!” Eldin cut in.

Aminza nodded. ‘Thinistor, he … he sucks at them like a vampire with his wand. He changes them to little bags of bones, which he then feeds to his snow leopards. You see, he’s determined to regain his youth. That’s why he came here in the first place, why he discovered a way into the Keep of the First Ones. He brought things out of there with him, secrets the First Ones knew.”

“Secrets?” Hero repeated, finally freeing his feet. “What sort of secrets?”

“Things that drove him mad!” she answered.

“His wand?” Hero pressed.

“No, He found that hidden in these caves. From the keep he brought knowledge of strange magicks. He knows how to call up Yibb-Tstll-or so he says.”

The dreamers looked at each other, then back to the girl. “How do you know all this, Aminza?” asked Hero.

“He told me so himself. Often he rambles on, especially when the moon is round and mil in the night sky. For years he has worked to discover the secrets of the First Ones, and now he finally draws close to understanding mem. His search for youth is only the first step. After that … the magick of the First Ones will make him the greatest sorcerer in all the dreamlands-and the crudest!”

“What makes you think he’s close, girl?” asked Eld in.

“I’ve seen him when he’s drained someone,” she answered with a grimace. “For a little while he’s young again. Then-swiftly he grows old! With you two he plans to stay young forever. After that, strong and daring, he’ll go back into the Keep of the First Ones. Who can say what he’ll bring out next?”

“Who, indeed?” echoed Hero thoughtfully.

“Using us he’ll stay young forever?” Eldin suspiciously repeated her words. “You mean he plans to-?”

“Little bags of bones,” Hero grimly cut in. “Aye, well, I’m not quite ready for mat yet. Come on, toss your feet over here, old friend. It’s time we were loose and on our way.” To Aminza he said: “Where’s Thinistor now, girl? And where does he keep his gaunts?”

“He sleeps. Such are his thaumaturgies that he needs a great deal of sleep. When he wakes he will draw strength from Yibb-Tstll’s idol-which is an avatar of the true demon-god-and then …” she paused uncertainly.

“Then it’s our turn, eh?” they asked as one.

For answer she nodded. “So I believe. As for the gaunts: why, you’ve seen them for yourselves!”

“Eh?” Hero frowned. “You mean those stone horrors hanging from the idol’s teats?”

“Indeed. When they are needed, Thinistor … wakes them!”

The dreamers stared at each other.

“David, I fear we’re deep in nightmares now,” said Eldin, “and much as I know you’re against murder, this time it seems-“

“-We’ll have to kill him,” Hero finished it for him.

The other gravely nodded. “Right. There are too damned many wizards in dreamland anyway. And the sane ones are bad enough!”

The Taking of the Eye

CHAPTER V

“Damn it, girl, you said he was asleep!” Eldin accused in a loud whisper. “He’s the liveliest sleepwalker I’ve ever seen!”

“He must have been eager to start,” Aminza answered in his ear, her voice a mere breath. “Certainly he was asleep when I left my bed. Something may have woken him up.”

“Perhaps he sensed your game,” said Hero, “and discovered your absence.”

“No, no,” she replied. “For I made up my bed to appear as I were in it. Besides, he would have come for me and called me out.”

The three of them were crouched in the shadows at the gate of the tunnel that led back to their prison cavelet. In the main cave, through the bars of the gate and by the light of flambeaux, Thinistor Udd could be seen to be engaged in magic. His back was turned to them where he stood half-hidden by a stalagmite before Yibb-Tstll’s idol. His arms were stretched high and wide over his head and in one hand he held his knobbed wand.

His voice crackled like subdued lightning in the confines of the cave, and as he chanted his alien discords so. occasionally, he would strike the stony gaunts where they clung beneath the folds of Yibb-Tstll’s cloak. Whenever he did this bursts of brilliant white fire would go slanting off, dying before they could strike either ceiling or walls.

“What’s he doing?” asked Eldin.

“He draws strength from the idol,” Aminza answered. “See how he swells up when his wand strikes fire? Also, he is waking the gaunts. He always wakes them before- before …” She stared at the dreamers, eyes wide in a death-white face.

“Before he drains someone?” asked Hero.

She nodded. “The gaunts go out to guard the plateau and the mouth of the cave, making sure there are no intruders and that Thinistor will not be disturbed.”

Even as she spoke a fantastic thing began to happen. The god’s stone cloak grew blurred in appearance, as if viewed through smoke, and its central parting seemed for all the world to widen, wholly revealing the gaunts where they now writhed fitfully as they clung to the god’s monstrous body. Then, one by one-stone things no longer but rubbery creatures from the mind of a madman-they fell from the idol like strangely ripened fruit, opening their wings and speeding in a flock round and about the cave’s walls and ceiling. A moment more of this wild circling until, as at a signal, they made for the exit tunnel and disappeared into it in a great flapping of leathery wings.

“We must act now!” Aminza hissed. “A moment more and he will be too strong for you. Look-ah!-too late!”

For Thinistor had turned from the idol’s uncertainly wavering figure, had seen the three where they crouched at the barred gate, and his yellow eyes were tinged red with fires of hell. He pointed his wand …

“Now!” cried Eldin and Hero together, stepping back a pace before slamming their massive frames against the metal bars of the gate. The bars bent from their combined weight-chains snapped and hinges sheared-and the gate went down in a cloud of dust and stony debris. The dreamers fell with the gate as Thinistor’s bolt passed harmlessly over their heads. It missed Aminza by the breadth of a hot kiss and exploded in white fury in the depths of the prison.

“If a bolt strikes you,” the girl screamed, “it will not kill you outright but suck you dry, carrying your strength back to Thinistor!”

Hearing her, Hero rolled to one side as a second bolt seared the air scant inches away, spending itself in a blazing ball of white sparks against me draped wall of the cave. Eldin was springing forward, last dregs of strength powering him, carrying a long metal stave snatched up from the debris of the gate. Aminza, too, played her part, sprinting for the shelter of a knobby stalagmite, distracting the enraged wizard.

And indeed Thinistor, no longer shrunken but swelled out with sorcerous power, was enraged-and confused. His passion saved the three, for in its throes his bolts flew wide and scored no hits. Then, too late, the wizard saw the iron stave where it flew at him from the hand of the older dreamer. He saw it, shrank back, hurled one last, useless bolt, and screamed one shrill scream as the spiked head of the stave impaled him and threw him down. He fell, clutching the iron where it entered the center of his body, and his wand of power went bouncing harmlessly across the covered floor. By the time the three had converged warily upon the wizard’s once more shrunken form, his eyes had closed and he lay still.

‘There’s no blood,” observed Eldin, panting from his exertions and clutching painfully at his chest.

“Wizards don’t bleed,” said Hero.

“You must be quick now,” Aminza grasped their arms.

“Soon the gaunts will return, which they must before the idol can once more turn to true stone.”

“But surely the idol is stone?” Hero frowned.

“No, it’s half and half. See-” and she pointed. Sure enough, the outline of the hideous effigy still wavered, and it seemed to the dreamers that its red eye gazed evilly down upon them. The emerald eye, on the other hand, still beckoned enticingly; and now there was nothing to stop diem from taking it.

“Our weapons!” cried Eldin, spotting their knives and swords where they lay wrapped in a skin on the floor.

“Good!” said Hero, his voice much harder than its norm. “Give me my knife. Mountains and snow leopards-gaunts and mad wizards-demon gods and what all: damn them to the nineteen hells! We came for the wand and now we have it. Aye, and that great jewel’s coming with us, too, when we leave!” He pointed at Yibb-Tstll’s emerald eye.

“Well spoken, lad,” wheezed Eldin, sitting down heavily on Thinistor’s stony throne. “But that’s a climb you’ll need to make on your own. This old fellow’s winded. Girl,” he grasped Aminza’s wrist. “Is there nothing for a man to drink in this place?”

While Aminza found an unbroken bottle of wine for Eldin, Hero climbed the carved folds of Yibb-Tstll’s cloak. He was aware of the unpleasant, vibrating feel of the warm and slimy stone under his hands, aware, too, of the half life with which this monstrous lump of rock seemed imbued-which made its surface appear fuzzy to his eyes and full of trapped motion, like a frozen whirlpool-but at last he perched with one foot in a high fold of cloak and one arm thrown about the horror’s neck. Then he took his knife in his free hand and started to prise the jewel loose. He dug around the edges of the socket, where the stone seemed strangely soft, until finally he could stab the knife in deep and lever the great emerald free.

As he did so, suddenly it seemed to him that the idol convulsed in a kind of spasm-of agony, perhaps?-and at that he gave an involuntary shudder and jumped free to land catlike on the furs at the foot of the carven effigy. The jewel had fallen, too, directly into Aminza’s hands where she stood waiting. Grimacing, Hero wiped his hands on his brown jacket and took back the huge jewel. He took out a coarse handkerchief, formed it into a little sack around the emerald and tied it to his belt.

By then, despite the fact that Eldin was a half bottle of red wine heavier, the older dreamer was back on his feet and raring to go. To the girl he said: “Aminza, does Thinistor have any other goodies of value lying around? A treasure chest or two, perhaps?”