"You know," the sorceress said quietly, looking somewhat ashamed, "the first time you came here, when the place vanished, it wasn"t entirely by your choice."
"I wondered."
"I was told to put the desire into your mind and enforce it. Given a choice, I would have preferred not to, but they were adamant. You can see how well it worked."
"Are you suggesting that I might have been influenced again?"
"By the drake who plays at being your friend?" Xabene shrugged. "I"d say I wouldn"t be surprised, Wellen, although I do think he likes you. That might save your life in the end if it happens to be true."
"Or not. I"ve already considered the things you mentioned now, though, and I think I still would have come here. I owe Shade that, even if it"s only to bring his body back."
She smiled sadly at him. "An idealist!"
"Worse. A dreamer." He did not try to explain the difference.
"Are we there yet?" asked the blue man, who had been trying all the while to find something, anything, that would lend credence to the tapestry"s revelation.
Xabene took a few more steps, then stopped. "This should be good."
"Am I facing it?" Despite the danger of their situation, Wellen also feared the gnome"s opinion of him if he happened to be facing the wrong direction. The wizened spellcaster"s opinion was paramount, else he had not a chance of convincing the creature to hear him out.
"You should be. I"m sorry, but the tapestry was put together in quick fashion. As I said, if I"d had more time, I could have made it more elaborate."
"This will do."
"You are merely going to talk?" an incredulous Prentiss Asaalk spouted. "This is your ma.s.ssster plan? This is to succeed where all other plans have failed?"
Wellen looked at him, trying not to think about how his own face must be turning red at the northerner"s accusatory tone. "You knew that was what I planned."
"Yes, but I expected that . . . " The blue man trailed off. From his outburst, the scholar understood what Asaalk had left unsaid. Considering the distrust surrounding him, Asaalk had expected not to be told everything. That expectation had already been justified.
"Get on with it!" Xabene urged. "The longer we wait here the worse our chances."
Bedlam nodded. He reached down and removed the sword and scabbard he had been given in what he hoped was an obvious enough attempt to show the gnome he came in peace. Xabene stepped near, took the articles from him, and retreated again. Taking a deep breath, he organized his thoughts. "Master of the citadel, I know you by no name save "gnome" but I hope you will hear me out this time. A plain and simple offer is what I bring. An exchange. I need your aid, your knowledge, to save a life and free another. I want nothing else from you. Your precious tome, what the Dragon King Purple and so many others have sought over the centuries, is none of my concern."
To one side, the enchantress wore a bitter mask. She had likely spent much of her service to the Lords of the Dead in pursuit of the very object he was telling the gnome he wanted no part of.
"In exchange, I can offer you only one thing. I come from a land beyond the seas east of here. My former home is one of only many, but I have spent my life, short as it is compared to your own, studying all those realms. You seem one forever searching for knowledge; I am the same. If you can aid me in my quest, a simple one for a spellcaster of your proven skill, then whatever I know I offer to share with you, scholar to scholar."
There was nothing more he could think of to say that would not make him sound like he was babbling. Wellen folded his arms and glanced Xabene"s way again. She nodded her satisfaction. Prentiss Asaalk, a bit farther back, had eyes only for the patch of gra.s.sy ground before the shorter man. Wellen might have been invisible for all the interest the blue man had in him.
The scholar returned his own gaze to the still, innocuous- looking piece of field and waited.
Several minutes later, he was still waiting.
"We"ve failed," Xabene said at last, breaking the uneasy silence. "We"d better leave."
"Not yet."
"He won"t respond, Wellen! We"re all next to nothing to the gnome, even the Dragon Kings!" She stepped closer, intending to take his arm.
A powerful wind erupted in the gra.s.slands Wellen watched. The startled sorceress stepped back.
The patch of gra.s.s shimmered, grew indistinct.
Asaalk muttered something that was lost in the roar of the unnatural wind.
The scant outline of a tall structure briefly formed before Wellen. He blinked, finally marking it down as wishful thinking when it did not rematerialize.
"Wellen, come away!"
"No! He musssst not!" shouted the blue man. The ferocity in his voice so snared Bedlam that he started to turn toward the northerner.
A vaguely recalled tingle coursed through his body. He stumbled back, but not too far. His head barely throbbed and that meant that he was not in any true danger from what was happening . . . at least, not at the moment.
With a crackle of thunder, the five-sided citadel of the gnome once more stood before him.
There was a difference this time.
A hole just large enough to admit the scholar marred the otherwise smooth, featureless side of the sanctum.
"We can enter!" Prentiss Asaalk raced toward the hole, which Wellen realized was an entrance, and tried to go through.
The wall sealed up just as he was about to put his hand into the opening.
The tall warrior pulled back his arm with a snarl. He pounded a fist against the blank wall and shouted, "This is the last trick! Open! Open or I shall tear this place down around you!"
"I doubt that threat means much to him," a more practical Xabene interjected. She had quickly grasped the situation. "Wellen, I think it"s only meant for you."
"What?" Watching the fruitless pounding by Asaalk had made him think of something, but the notion faded like dew in the sunlight the moment the enchantress spoke. Perhaps later, he decided. "What did you say?"
"I think . . . " She put a hand against the wall. Her success was no better than that of the northerner. "I think you might be the only one allowed to go inside."
"It must be all of us!" Asaalk argued.
"We do not have a say in the matter. Only the gnome, and he"s chosen Wellen alone."
"Me . . . but I cannot leave you two out here!"
"I don"t like it either, but you can"t pa.s.s this up! It"s you alone or no one."
She was probably right, but he did not like the thought of the two of them alone. Not merely because of the danger around them, but the certainty that the longer Xabene and Asaalk were alone together, the more likely they would come to blows about something.
Xabene confronted the taller man. "You. Move."
Seething, Prentiss Asaalk nonetheless obeyed. His eyes, more narrow than Wellen recalled them, darted back and forth between the scholar and the treacherous wall.
The hole sprouted into existence, this time more directly aligned with where an anxious Wellen stood.
"See what I mean?"
He nodded. "I do, but it"s all of us or none of us. I cannot leave you behind." He faced the inviting hole. "All of us . . . that"s not too much to ask for! I will vouch for them!"
There was no reason for the eternal to do anything but laugh at his daring. Nonetheless, he was determined that his companions join him. Even if Prentiss Asaalk was a spy for the Purple Dragon, certainly the gnome knew that already. With trepidation, Bedlam approached the gaping hole. It seemed to widen the nearer he came, as if seeking to accommodate him as well as possible. The way the stone, if that was what it was, shifted and flowed made him think of a gigantic maw opening to accept a meal. He wondered if the citadel was somehow alive, then tried quickly to drop the horrific thought as he ran out of distance between the structure and his body and discovered that his next step would take him inside.
One foot through. The hole remained still. It had not attempted to relieve him of his leg as part of him had secretly feared. Wellen leaned forward, planted his boot on the smooth, marble floor, and peered inside.
A blank corridor, impossibly long. He could not make out what was at the other end, although he a.s.sumed it was a doorway. The scholar recalled circling the pentagon and was certain that it had not been this lengthy. A trick of the eye? The citadel"s master was a spellcaster of seemingly limitless ability. It could be real. Almost as an afterthought, he noticed a corridor on each side of him as well. For some reason, however, he did not give them the consideration that he gave the one in front.
He turned back to the others. "Inside. Quick."
The ancient mage might choose to crush his body in the very wall, but Wellen was willing to risk it. That the gnome had expressed interest in him at all meant that the mage might hesitate. The other two were of no consequence to the master of the citadel and he hoped they were hardly reason enough to send a certain presumptuous scholar to his gory death.
Asaalk removed his own weapons but held back, allowing Xabene to be the first. The enchantress, unarmed, walked up to the portal, but then hesitated at the threshold. Her fear was no mystery; she wondered if the hole would close as soon as she dared put a hand or foot through. This close to the goal her masters had set for her, the ivory-skinned sorceress was frozen.
Prentiss Asaalk solved the problem by pushing her through.
There was a collective gasp from Bedlam, the stumbling enchantress, and even an anxious Asaalk.
Nothing happened. Xabene continued across and then spun around, her eyes aflame and her hands twitching as if she sought to utilize what little strength remained to see that the blue man regretted his maneuver.
"Xabene!" the scholar hissed. "Remember where you are! For all our sakes!"
She did, and the knowledge drained her of the desire if not the anger. The seething woman relaxed as best she could and muttered, "I won"t forget that, blue man!"
"I had faith," the northerner replied in cool tones. He dismissed her as if she had ceased to exist. Asaalk stepped calmly through the hole, gazed down the corridor, then turned to wait for Wellen.
The apprehensive explorer, moving with a speed enhanced by a well-honed sense of mistrust, finished crossing the unnerving portal, then stood transfixed in the corridor by the sheer thought of being inside what so many had fought fruitlessly to enter. Here was the domain of the enigmatic, immortal gnome.
"Wellen!"
Xabene"s warning shout shook him from his stupor. He whirled about and watched in dismay as the circular portal shriveled. Smaller and smaller it grew, a gaping wound magically healing itself before their very eyes. Wellen reached toward it, then pulled his hand back when he realized that all he might succeed in doing was trapping his arm in the side of the citadel.
With a slight hiss, the hole ceased to be.
After some careful consideration, Wellen ran his fingertips across the region where the entrance had been. There was not even the slightest trace of its existence. For all practical purposes, it might never have been.
"What issss this?" Asaalk snarled. "Where is the gnome? Why is he not here?"
Turning, Wellen stared at the endless corridor. "I suspect that we"re to go to him."
"Down the corridor?"
"Do you see anywhere else to go?" he asked. Sure enough, when Xabene and the blue man looked around, they too, saw that the corridor was the only path open to them. Wellen wondered if the same thought was going through their minds that had gone through his . . . had there not been other corridors running along each side? Now, there were only blank walls. The notion that they were being herded was not an attractive thought.
"Let us be done with this!" Prentiss Asaalk began stalking down the corridor, his lengthy strides taking him several yards from his comrades before either could even react. Wellen hurried after the northerner, not wanting Asaalk to run off too far on his own, for both his sake and theirs. Especially theirs. Xabene kept pace with him.
"Perhaps we should let him keep a distance ahead of us," she whispered. "Maybe there"s a trap or two and he"ll spring them."
"We stay together, regardless of you two."
"A pity."
The blue man, despite their best efforts, continued to lead the way. Wellen soon settled for merely keeping pace a few feet behind the warrior. He was not too concerned with Prentiss Asaalk"s attempt to seize control of the situation. Let Asaalk lead the way; it was still Wellen who the mysterious gnome wished to see. The blue man could be no more than a minor irritant to someone as omnipotent as the lord of this magical place.
Several minutes pa.s.sed without incident, but everyone sensed that something was awry. Still walking, Wellen glanced over his shoulder to observe the path they had already trodden, then faced forward again. While he was still mulling over his discovery, he heard a muttered curse from the figure before him.
"What ails our friend now?" Xabene asked quietly. "He"s likely discovered the same thing I did."
"What"s that?"
"That we are no closer to the end of the hall than we were just after we started."
She blinked, scanned the entire corridor, and finally frowned. "I"d wondered . . . it didn"t seem right, but . . ."
"I know. It"s hard to sense it; part of the spell, I imagine." Is he laughing at us? Wellen asked himself. Have we been admitted only to amuse him?
Asaalk paused. When the others had caught up to him, he turned and snarled, "The faster I go, the less distance I seem to cover. What do you suggest we do, Master Bedlam?"
There was only one thing to do, but he dreaded telling it to the frustrated blue man. "We keep walking."
"That is all?"
"We could turn back."
"Never!"
The northerner"s outburst was much too intense. Wellen regretted having him with them now, but it was too late. Perhaps Prentiss Asaalk merely fretted over the collar, which was reasonable enough, but his interest was more of a coveting nature. He wanted the dragon tome as much as the Lords of the Dead or the Purple Dragon did.
"Then we continue on." Wellen, taking Xabene"s arm, stepped around the seething blue man and resumed his trek. As she pa.s.sed, the enchantress could not help displaying to Asaalk a brief, mocking smile.
They walked for a time more and then it became obvious that while their progress was slow, it was definitely progress. Wellen squinted and thought he made out doors both at the end of the corridor and on the side walls farther ahead. He asked Xabene if she saw them.
"I do. What do you think lies behind them?"
"That"s not the question that runs through my mind," he returned, eyeing the distant portals. Considering where the trio was, such doorways were tempting, indeed. "I was wondering whether we"re allowed to open them or not."
The doors had also captured the blue man"s curiosity. Prentiss Asaalk broke past his two companions and increased his pace further.
"Asaalk!"
The hulking figure ignored them. Now the distance melted away with a swiftness. In only a few minutes, the rows of doorways became apparent; Wellen estimated that there had to be over a hundred on each wall. They were simple in design and blended with the white walls. A handle was the only thing that decorated each, a plain, metal handle that like so much else, seemed austere in design for something conjured by one with the power to do almost anything he desired.
The more evident it became that they were nearing the doors, the faster Asaalk traveled. He moved as if the Dragon King himself was on his heels. The last few steps he fairly leaped. When at last he reached the doorways, the blue man did not hesitate. Asaalk seized the handle of the closest one and pulled.
It would not open.
He pulled harder. Despite his strength, the door did not even so much as shake. Cursing, the blue man released the handle and tried pulling the one next to it. That portal, too, rebuked his efforts.