The Far Side Of Forever Part 55

"It was a logical expectation, but it looks like I was wrong," 1 answered with a shrug, silently cursing him for figuring it out. If he got in the way-! "What 1 didn't

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expect was to have the stone simply handed over to us. It doesn't make any sense."

"What doesn't make sense is the fact mat people let you run around loose without a nursemaid," he growled, pull- ing me about by one arm to face his growing anger.

"There are seven people in our group, and you were going to face the enemy alone? Have you gone completely in- sane? Are you trying to get yourself killed? Do you think you can just . . ."

"Stop yelling at me!" I snapped, trying to pull my arm out of his grip. "The enemy is a magic user and so am 1;

how many of the rest of you are? What do you think you can do against someone who's sorcerer or wizard level?

Tire him out by making him snuff you? Don't you see how absurd you're being?"

"All 1 can see is how thick-headed you're being," he retorted, his fingers still tight around my arm, his bronze eyes blazing. "No matter how good you think you are, you can't face the enemy alone! The rest of us aren't as helpless as you believe, but even so your wizard would be an even better ally. We're going to stop looking for trouble and take the stone back, and then we can ..."

"I ask your pardon for interrupting, yet there is a matter you may wish to see to," Kadrim's voice came, more worried in general man worried over interrupting. We turned our heads to see Su standing with him, her own expression somewhat sober, and Rik's band finally left my arm.

"What's wrong?" he asked, immediately sharing the bigger man's worry. "Have you found signs of-?"

"No, no, we have found naught of the enemy," Kadrim answered quickly, apparently having overheard some part of our recent exchange. "The difficulty lies with Zail and Dranna, and the needs which suddenly took them as they approached the container of the stone. Dranna looked upon the container, saw a lock more complex than any before it, and immediately voiced a need to try her skill against it.

Su and I felt such a course of action might perhaps be unwise, yet Zail spoke words of encouragement, for he was gripped by the need to see the beauty contained within. Perhaps they should not . . ."

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"They're trying to open it?" 1 choked out, suddenly ill with the realization that there had been one more trap.

"Quick! We've got to stop them, we can't let it happen-!"

I broke off and began pushing my way frantically be- tween the big man and woman, desperate to get to Zail and Dranna before they fell into me trap all the way, but it was already too late. Even as 1 took the first step toward them, Dranna voiced an "Ahhh!" of delight and Zail extended his arm with a grin, and men the top of the blue and silver box was thrown back and away.

No one has ever been able to decide whether it's sight of the stone which captures you first, or hearing its song that does it. The stone was no larger than a palm-sized rock, but beside it the diamond pedestal it rested on grew dull, and awkward, and uninteresting. Light flared in colors like a joyous greeting, colors so heartbreakingly beautiful that death would have been preferable to looking away. It glowed with the shine of a raindrop on gra.s.s, light, grace- ful, achingly lovely, and even as our eyes feasted, our bodies thrilled to its song. Each note was a liquid rendition of the sight we gloried in, spreading all through us with the love of the universe, all pain washed away forever, none to ever come again. We stood transfixed, endlessly grateful to be held so, willing to continue on like that till all life everywhere faded and died. My eyes closed but I lost nothing of sight and sound, nothing of ecstasy beyond description, and then-

And then the world ended with screams and shouts of heartrending protest, mine among them, and my eyes flew open to see the black form with blazing red eyes flowing down and away from the reclosed box. I shuddered even as 1 screamed again, but in the far distance I heard another scream, one of rage and frustration, one so filled with hate that to hear it was to be given pain. The candles in the black room blazed like fountains of fire, thunder-claps sounded with the fury of destruction, and then all of me palace exploded around us, collapsing and dying and fall- ing away until it abruptly disappeared. Cloud's Heart be- came one with the clouds it was able to rest upon no

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longer, and the ensuing silence was more deafening than the previous bedlam.

"It's all right now, I think it's over," a voice said from very close beside me, and it suddenly came to me that I stood trembling in Rik's arms, my face buried against his chest. With the sound of that scream still ringing in my mind, the last thing 1 wanted to do was raise my head and look around, but of course that was the first thing mat had to be done- 1 had to make sure that everyone was all right, and when 1 finally managed to look around it seemed that they were. Kadrim and Su stood together, apparently lean- ing on each other, and Zail and Dranna were doing the same. InThig was floating in vapor shape, looking us all over with concern, and aside from we seven and the box containing the balance stone, nothing was left. We all floated above cloud-swirled emptiness, seven sparks of life left all alone.

"What in me name of the Blue Firefall happened?" Zail demanded weakly, looking around in bewilderment as Dranna clung to him. "What was it?"

"Which time?" Rik asked in turn, trying to sound light- hearted and amused, but not quite making it. lt! think we now know what would have happened if we'd made any mistakes coming in, but as far as the rest of it goes-'*

He shook his head, admitting himself out of his depth, and that brought everyone's eyes to me. They were all unnaturally still, making no effort to move even an inch from where they stood-or floated-and that was com- pletely understandable.

"Before I answer your questions, let me a.s.sure you that you can all relax," I said, pushing away from Rik to demonstrate that normal walking was possible. "When we first entered the palace 1 had the feeling that something like this might be done, so I took a precaution. I gave each of you your own invisible floor to stand on, complete with warding, and simply meshed the invisible floors in with the palace floors. You wouldn't have known they were there if you hadn't needed them, but unfortunately it didn't work out that way."

"Worked out pretty fortunately as far as I can see," Su commented. Joining Kadrim in looking down. "Heights

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never bother me-as long as I don't have to fall through them. What happened with Zail and Dranna?"

"They walked into a very faint, very simple spell," I answered, really feeling disgusted with myself. "Their warding wouldn't have allowed anything harmful to reach them, but the spell didn't contain anything harmful. All it did was intensify one certain aspect of their natures, the same aspect that made each of them perfect for this quest- and me same aspects that almost destroyed us all- Dranna just had to accept the challenge of the lock keeping the box closed, and Zail just had to look at the perfection inside. If I'd had any brains I would have antic.i.p.ated something like that, and not left the saving of our necks to chance."

"I would hardly call my deliberate, well-thought-out actions no more than chance," InThig put in in injured tones, a black cloud of offended indignation. "I believe we discussed the matter of antic.i.p.ating the unantic.i.p.ated, and concluded that an effort to do so would have been a complete waste of time. We need only be thankful that life forms such as I am are not as susceptible to the Tears of the Mist as your own, and for that reason I was able to close the box again. I must admit it took some effort, but 1 was not about to spend eternity in thrall to the work of the EverNameless."

"I guess mat told you," Rik murmured only loud enough for me to hear, forcing me to swallow a smile, and then he cleared his throat and went on in a more normal voice.

"But there's still something I don't understand. I'm as- suming it was the enemy who blasted the palace apart around us, but then everything disappeared. Why should something like that have happened, and how did you Tmow the enemy was somewhere around here?"

"It was obvious from the very first that the enemy had to be here," I told him. rubbing at my forehead with one hand. "The palace had been created here, and something that's created has to be maintained. An underling might have been left to do the maintaining, but that wouldn't have allowed the enemy a first-hand look at the end of this game. It was always possible for us to win, but me enemy didn't think we would; he was counting on destroying us

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just when we thought we'd succeeded. That's why he got so wild and blew up the palace around us, hoping to catch us that way, and gated out fast when it didn't work- As soon as he was gone, even the blasted remnants of the palace disappeared."

"Do you mean mat the person who was willing to kill a world to get even with one man, is the same person who created all that beauty?" Dranna asked, still shivering against Zail. "How can that possibly be true? How can such ugliness and loveliness exist in the same mind?"

"That's something we'll find out as soon as we get the stone back to Graythor," I said, using the chaining spell I'd put on the box to draw it over to me- "There are a number of questions he hasn't yet answered, but I intend seeing that changed. If nothing else, we've earned that much."

There was an air of uncertainty in the silence around me, an att.i.tude that said you didn't demand answers from a wizard; under most circ.u.mstances that was true enough, but I no longer had patience for most circ.u.mstances. First we would get the stone back, and men we would leam why we'd had to go through all that.

CHAPTER 14.

Getting back to the gate was a bit nerve-racking for my companions, but once we were on solid ground they felt a good deal better. We retraced our steps through the third quiet world to the second, and then InThig mentioned that it knew a shortcut back to the world where we'd left the horses. I stopped to get some sleep before we tried its version of a shortcut, but the new route turned out to be much better than the original. On one of the four worlds we came under magical attack from living sand, but InThig had warned me beforehand and I was prepared. The rest of the four were no trouble at all, and we stepped out of the gate near our horses* pasture in less than half the time it had taken going the other way. We all greeted our mounts, who looked sa.s.sy and ready after their rest, and then we went into our newly created camp to get some rest of our own.

It had just about gotten to be full dark on that world, and the night sky above was showing a sprinkling of stars in just one small area, with all the rest of it an uninter- rupted black. It looked to be a very lonely sky with so few stars, and I hurried into my pavilion before tile chill of it could touch me. Inside it was bright and cozy with a good meal just waiting to be eaten, and even better than that there was a tub full of hot water. I used the wash water, put on my robe, ate my meal, then sat down on the settle with a gla.s.s of wine in my hand and InThig reflectively

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quiet at my feet. We had been discussing the fact that soon we would be back at our starting point, and then the others would be able to return to their own worlds. All the others. . .