Hero of Dreams (9 page)

And if they were done for, then so was Aminza. She feared the wizard, yes, and also the pair of gaunts that silently clung to the cave’s ceiling; but the wild men of the waking world that she had befriended were her last hope, her one chance for freedom.

Lithe as a cat, in one flowing movement she came to her feet and flew at Thinistor, snatching up the heavy stave from where it lay beside him and whirling it once about her head. She heard the throb of rubbery wings as the shadows of the gaunts fell across her; but then, before the wizard could do more than turn his feral eyes on her, she swung the metal stave against his head.

Thinistor gave a single shriek-high and bubbling-as the ancient bones of his skull caved in where the stave embedded itself in soft brain … and then all was chaos!

The greenly glowing light dimmed and flickered; one gaunt, instantly frozen in stone, crashed down to the floor with a shock that shivered it to fragments; the other smashed blindly into the cave’s wall, its wings snapping like chalk as it too returned to its stony state. Then the green light flickered one last time and, with a crackling of alien energies, snapped out. Thinistor dropped his wand and fell to one side. He lay still, his yellow eyes wide and blind, accusingly staring at Aminza as his brains trickled out of his shattered skull.

The Living Eye

CHAPTER VII

In the same moment that Aminza rose up to hurl herself at Thinistor, up on the snow-ridge Yibb-Tstll had come within reach of the dreamers. Now, as Eldin skewered the last of the gaunts through its neck, sending its lifeless body spinning into die awesome chasm, the demon-god reached out from beneath his billowing cloak three green and black things which might have been arms, each terminating in seven slimy worms which were perhaps fingers.

Hero immediately slashed at one of these loathsome appendages with his curved blade of Kled, but his weapon simply bounced off. The monster’s flesh was completely impervious to weapons of Earth’s dreamland. The seven long “fingers” of that uninjured “hand” wrapped around Hero’s head, forcing him to his knees, while the other two arms reached for Eldin.

Utterly exhausted, the older dreamer miraculously avoided Yibb-Tstll’s slimy grasp and went down on his knees beside his companion. As he did so his fingers touched the kerchief-wrapped gem where it hung from Hero’s belt. He tore at the bundle, crying: “It’s your eye, isn’t it? You’ve come for your damned eye!” And as Hero fought to tear loose the vile fingers which groped to get into his eyes, his mouth, nostrils and ears, so Eldin ripped open the snow-wet bundle and clutched its contents to his heaving chest-for a moment only!

For the gem was a gem no longer, nor was it green and hard. It was wet and soft as jelly, and it was red! It was an eye-a living eye-the twin of me loathsome orb that vacillated even now over Yibb-Tstll’s hideous face!

Instinctively, or as if inspired, Eldin squeezed the thing in his massive hands, and instantly the demon-god snatched back his three writhing pseudopods. For a moment Yibb-Tstll seemed to throb and expand-in rage, perhaps, or pain-but then his cloak flew wide and allowed the stunned dreamers to peer within … at a writhing mass of sucking mouths, lashing pseudopods and heaving black breasts! Right up to the two flowed the horror from the stars, and in another moment his cloak had started to close about them. Then-

“Take your damned eye! ” yelled Eldin, and with his last ounce of strength he hurled the softly plastic thing into the horror’s face. With a sickening squelching sound the eye flew into and filled the empty socket. In that same instant the demon-god shuddered to a halt. All motion went out of the huge figure; the cloak’s eery undulations ceased; the vastly lumbering being turned stony gray and its prodigal eye flashed green once more!

Whatever Yibb-Tstll’s living weight, it in no way compared to his weight as a stone thing. The ridge shuddered as a jagged, zig-zagging crack appeared in the thick crust of snow directly beneath Eldin where he crouched. As the gap widened he lost his balance and tumbled into it, falling face down on solid rock. Then there came the roar of avalanching boulders and snow and Eldin saw the ridge swept clean as the petrified god began to somersault backward down the steep slope, flying into fragments as he went.

In less than a minute all was still except for the wracking coughs that shattered an almost unnatural silence. Eldin, when he had himself under control, turned his face from the scene of devastation down on the plateau of the keep, staring into the disk of the rising sun. “David,” he croaked, scanning the empty ridge. Then he blinked his eyes against the dazzle of sunlight and stared harder, unable to comprehend that indeed the summit was naked, a ridge of scarred and empty rock.

“David!” Eldin roared, hearing his mighty shout of horror and despair echoing away and down into unknown inner vaults. For a moment there was utter silence, then-

“Never mind the shouting, old lad!” came his friend’s hoarse cry from beyond the rim of the ridge. “Just get on down to the caves and fetch a rope-and be quick about it!”

Eldin laughed wildly at that and crawled to the lip of the chasm. Fifty feet below, sprawled in the branches of a cleft-grown shrub green with spring’s buds, David Hero looked up with white face and wide eyes. Below him the face of the cliff seemed to go down forever, was lost in cloud at an indeterminate depth.

“Hang on, lad,” Eldin cried. “I’ll be back, never fear. And David-“

“Yes?”

“Don’t go away!”

In fact it was Aminza climbed the ridge to haul Hero to safety. She had met Eldin as he staggered on useless legs toward the cave, had helped him into the warm tunnel, covered him with furs, poured wine down him until he could talk coherently. Then she had found a rope and gone to look for Hero.

Since then a month had gone by and with it the very last traces of snow from the heights. Since then, too, Hero and Aminza had searched diligently among the fragments of stalagmitic rock at the foot of the final rise, discovering nothing of Yibb-Tstll’s emerald eye. Which was probably just as well.

Now the three of them stood together at the foot of the great keep, weighed down with necessaries, fit and rested and ready to move on-even Eldin, ruddy with health, whose painful coughing had not been heard for well over a week.

“I still don’t understand it,” the older dreamer grumbled. “There was I, fit to die-and here I am now, strong as a horse!”

‘Thinistor’s medicine,” Aminza answered with a laugh. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a dozen times. When the great gaunt first brought me here, I, too, was near to death. It was a result of all that flying in the cold night air. Thinistor gave me the same elixir I gave to you-with the same result. We were both made well! So you see, some good came out of that old devil Thinistor after all.”

“Indeed it did,” Eldin growled, giving the girl a hug that near cracked her ribs. He turned to the younger man, strangely silent as he stared up the massive wall of the keep. “What’s on your mind, David?”

“Uh? Oh, I was just wondering …”

“About what? The keep?” Eldin frowned and took the other’s arm. “Now just a minute, lad-“

But Hero shook himself free and turned to his companions with blazing, excited eyes. “Why not?” he demanded. “Thinistor found a way in, didn’t he? Why shouldn’t we? Who’s to say what we’d find in there?”

Eldin looked at the girl and shrugged. “You did say that the wizard had a lot of money hidden away somewhere, Aminza. Well, perhaps he kept it in the keep.”

“So,” she answered fatalistically. “Where do we go from here?”

Her companions looked at each other and grinned.

“We have a way of making decisions at times like this,” said Hero, taking out a golden tond. He handed the coin to Eldin. “Are you with us, girl?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“We’ll do as you wish, Aminza,” Eldin immediately answered. “We owe you that much at least.”

“Yes, but you’d never forgive me,” she returned. “So- let’s do it! Let it all rest on the toss of a coin.”

For a long moment the three stared into each others’ eyes. “We do have a little unfinished business with a certain Ossaran,” Hero murmured.

“Aye,” Eldin agreed, “but it’s not as if we’ll be here forever. Two or three days at most…” They looked up at the looming keep, and as the sun passed behind it so its shadow began to fall upon them.

“Heads we stay,” said Hero, breaking the silence.

“And tails-” Eldin began.

“-Means Theelys,” Aminza finished, “and a ship bound for Ilek-Vad for me.”

Hero took a deep breath and flipped die coin high, and the triangular tond glinted as it flashed out of shadow and into sunlight, before falling to the earth at their feet …

PART 3

In the Keep

CHAPTER I

“Hey!” yelled Hero as he raced in through the entrance of the overhung cave. “Hey, Eldin, Aminza! I’ve found it, the way into the keep! I’ve-” He skidded to a halt, eyes going wide as he took in the scene. There they sat on a pile of soft furs, Eldin the Wanderer swilling wine from a stone bottle, one arm carelessly over Aminza’s shoulder, the hand fondling a breast through thin silk; and the girl snuggling up to the great oaf, nuzzling his leathery cheek, counting the forest of hairs on his massive chest.

Startled, they looked up at him for a moment, then Eldin got to his feet. “Ah, David. It’s as well you’ve discovered our little secret, er, for we’d have to tell you sooner or later. But Aminza and I, we’re going to be wed. You’ll be best man, of course … Won’t you?”

“Eh?” Hero shook himself, blew dust off his brown jacket. “Oh, certainly, but-“

“You look puzzled, lad,” the older man rumbled, placing what he meant to be a fatherly hand on Hero’s shoulder. Hero, who stood somewhat taller than Eldin and wasn’t all that much younger, hated it when his friend took on that tone of voice, pretending a paternal interest.

“Is it so strange that the little baggage should want to bed me down?”

“You asked me,” Aminza sweetly interrupted. “Remember?”

Hero pointed vaguely behind him out of the mouth of the cave at the great Keep of the First Ones where it loomed massively across the high plateau. “Look, it doesn’t matter who asked who, whom or which-I just-“

“Of course we’ll have to fight for her,” the scarfaced Eldin scowled. “It’s the custom in certain villages where I’ve lodged.”

“What?” Hero howled, hopping impatiently now from one foot to the other. “Look, it’s you who wants her, not I. If your engagement calls for blood-letting, you’ll just have to bang your thick head on the wall of the cave once or twice. That should do the trick. Meanwhile-“

“You disappoint me, David,” Eldin cut him off. “Haven’t you learned any of dreamland’s customs? The best man to be always-“

‘To hell with the best man to be!” Hero roared. “You sex-besotted clown-I’ll-” And he swung a rock-hard fist at the other’s head.

“That’s better,” Eldin grunted, grinning as he sidestepped the angry blow to deliver a lightning ham with a satisfying thok on Hero’s jaw. The younger dreamer was lifted an inch off his feet and thrown across the cave mouth, banging his head on a stone where he landed on his back.

Hero shot to his feet, eyes turning bloodshot now, curved Kledan blade growing almost magically from his hand. The other backed off a step, made placating motions with his hands, said: “Easy, lad, easy. Enough is enough. That’s all the ceremony calls for: die challenge and the answer. Nothing extravagant.” He turned from Hero and hugged Aminza to him. “The first marrying priest we find-” he started-and stopped short. His great head snapped round and his black eyebrows peaked in the middle as he stared at his friend from the waking world. “Did you say-?”

Hero cast his eyes to the ceiling of the cave and his sword with a clang to its dusty floor. “What’s the use?” he asked of no one in particular, disgustedly dabbing at a trickle of blood from where he’d bit a lip when Eldin struck him.

“You found the way in?” the big man whispered, then roared, “Where? Where?” He unhanded Aminza and bounded across the cave, peering out and away at the hugely looming keep, yellow now with sharp sunlight.

“There,” said Hero, slitting his eyes and pointing at the distantly featureless face of stone. “Between the stars.”

“I see no-” said Eldin, craning his bull neck.

Then, fists clenched into a club, Hero hit him on the back of his head. Down went Eldin like a felled oak, face down in the dust. “Now do you see them?” Hero grinned. But the other merely groaned and spat out dirt.

“Boys will be buffoons,” said Aminza, moving lithely across the cave mouth to offer Eldin her hand. “Did you really find the entrance, David?”

“I did,” he grinned again. “While you two were eyeing and sighing back here, I rediscovered old Thinistor’s secret. I found the way into the great keep. The old wizard had marked his route and I stumbled across it. We were wasting our time seeking a door in the base of the keep; the entrance is halfway up its face!”

“Then we’ll need ropes,” Eldin grunted, squinting his eyes and tenderly fingering the back of his head. “What did you find inside? Thinistor’s gold? Treasure? Marvels and wonders?”

Hero shook his head. “I found a maze,” he answered. “And I spent an hour trying to get back out!”

“A maze?” Eldin frowned. “What in hell good is that? Are we to spend days without number exploring a maze?”

“The legends tell of a Black Princess, Yath-Lhi of Tyrhhia, who built a mighty underground maze beneath a great desert,” Aminza thoughtfully said. “At its center she kept all the treasures of her silver-spired city, and only she knew the way in. When she went in to admire her hoard, or to add to it, she would have her bearers slain as soon as she led them back out through the maze. When she died, her nation died with her-penniless! No one could ever find the maze’s center.”

“I’ve heard that story,” Hero nodded.

“Do you think,” Eldin grabbed his shoulders, “that the First Ones did the same thing?”

“It’s possible that the Black Princess copied their idea, yes,” Hero answered. “But that’s no guarantee that there’s a treasure.”