by Andre Norton
“You are not of this world,” Hystaspes interrupted. “Therefore, you are an irritant here. To pit you against another irritant is the only plausible move. And remember this—only he, or it, who brought you here knows the way by which you may return. Also, it is not this world only that is menaced. You pride yourself enough upon your imaginations used to play your game of risk and fortune—use that imagination now. Would Greyhawk—would all the lands known to us—be the same if they were intermingled with your own space-time? And how would your space-time suffer?”
“Distinctly a point,” the bard admitted. “Save that we may not have the self-sacrificing temperament to rush forth to save our world. What I remember of it, which seems to grow less by the second, oddly enough, does not now awake in me great ardor to fight for it.”
“Fight for yourself then,” snapped the wizard. “In the end, with most men, it comes to self-preservation. You are committed anyway to action under the geas.” He arose, his robe swirling about him.
“Just who stands against us, save this mysterious menace?” For the first time Milo dropped his role of onlooker. The instincts that were a part of the man he had now become were awake. Know the strength of your opposition, as well as the referee might allow, that was the rule of the game. It might be that this wizard was the referee. But Milo had a growing suspicion that the opposition more likely played that role. “What of Chaos?”
Hystaspes frowned. “I do not know. Save it is my belief that they may also be aware of what is happening. There are adepts enough on the Dark Road to have picked up as much as if not more than I know now.”
“What of the players?” Yevele wanted to know. “Are there dark players also?”
A very faint shadow showed for an instant on the wizard’s face. Then he spoke, so slowly that the words might have been forceably dragged from his lips one by one.
“I do not know. Nor have I been able to discover any such.”
“Which does not mean,” Wymarc remarked, “that they do not exist. A pleasant prospect. All you can give us is some slight assurance that we may learn to control the roll of these”—he shook his hand a little so that the dice trembled on their gimbals but did not move—“to our advantage.”
“It is wrong!” Naile’s deep voice rang out. “You have laid a geas on us, wizard. Therefore give us what assistance you can—by the rule of Law, which you purport to follow, that is our right to claim!”
For a moment Hystaspes glared back at the berserker as if the other’s defiant speech offered insult. Visibly he mastered a first, temper-born response.
“I cannot tell you much, berserker. But, yes, what I have learned is at your service now.” He arose and went to one of the tables on which were piled helter-skelter the ancient books and scrolls. Among these he made a quick search until he located a strip of parchment perhaps a yard long that he flipped open, to drop upon the floor before their half-circle of stools. It was clearly a sketchy map, as Milo began to recognize by that queer mixture of two memories to which he privately wondered if he would ever become accustomed.
To the north lay the Grand Duchy of Urnst, for Greyhawk was clearly marked nearly at the edge of the sheet to his right. Beyond that swelled the Great Kingdom of Blackmoor. To the left, or west, were mountains scattered in broken chains, dividing smaller kingdoms one from the other. Rivers, fed by tributaries, formed boundaries for many of these. This cluster of nations ended in such unknown territories as the Dry Steppes which only the Nomad Raiders of Lar dared venture out upon (the few watering places therein being hereditary possessions of those clans). Farther south was that awesome Sea of Dust from which it was said no expedition, no matter how well equipped, had ever returned, though there were legends concerning its lost and buried ships and the treasures that still might exist within their petrified cargo holds.
The map brought them all edging forward. Leaning over the parchment, Milo sensed that perhaps some of this company recognized the faded lines, could identify features that to him were but names, but that existed for them in the grafted-on memories of those they had become.
“North, east, south, west!” exploded Naile. “Where does your delving into the Old Knowledge suggest we begin, wizard? Must we wander over half the world, perhaps, to find this menace of yours in whatever fortress it has made for itself?”
The wizard produced a staff of ivory so old that it was a dull yellow and the carving on it worn by much handling to unidentifiable indentations. With its point he indicated the map.
“I have those who supply me with information,” he returned. “It is only when there is a silence from some such that I turn to other methods. Here—” The point of the staff aimed a quick, vicious thrust at the southwestern portion of the map, beyond the last trace of civilization (if one might term it that) represented by the Grand Duchy of Geofp, a place the prudent avoided since civil warfare between two rivals for the rule had been going on now for more than a year, and both lords were well known to have formally accepted the rulership of Chaos.
The Duchy lay in the foothills of the mountain chain and from its borders, always providing one could find the proper passes, one might emerge either into the Dry Steppes or the Sea of Dust, depending upon whether one turned either north or south.
“Geofp?” Deav Dyne spat it out as if he found the very name vile, as indeed he must since it was a stronghold of Chaos.
“Chaos rules there, yes. But this is not of Chaos. Or at least such an alliance has not yet come into being. . . .” Hystaspes moved the pointer to the south. “I have some skill, cleric, in my own learning. What I have found is literally—nothing.”
“Nothing?” Ingrge glanced up sharply. “So, you mean a void.” The elf’s nostrils expanded as if, like any animal of those woods his people knew better than Hystaspes might know his spells, he scented something.
“Yes, nothing. My seekings meet with only a befogged nothingness. The enemy has screens and protections that answer with a barrier not even a geas-burdened demon of the Fourth Level can penetrate.”
Deav Dyne spun his chain of prayer beads more swiftly, muttering as he did so. The wizard served Law, but he was certainly admitting now to using demons in his service, which made that claim a little equivocal.
Hystaspes was swift to catch the cleric’s reaction and shrugged as he replied. “In a time of stress one uses the weapon to hand and the best weapon for the battle that one can produce, is that not so? Yes, I have called upon certain ones whose very breath is a pollution in this room—because I feared. Do you understand that?” He thumped the point of his staff on the map. “I feared! That which is native to this world I can understand, this menace I cannot. All non-knowledge brings with it an aura of fear.
“The thing you seek was a little careless at first. The unknown powers it called upon troubled the ways of the Great Knowledge, enough for me to learn what I have already told you. But when I went searching for it, defenses had been erected. I think, though this is supposition only, that it did not expect to find those here who could detect its influences. I have but recently come into possession of certain scrolls, rumored to have once been in the hands of Han-gra-dan—”
There was an exclamation from both the elf and the cleric at that name.
“A thousand years gone!” Deav Dyne spoke as if he doubted such a find.
Hystaspes nodded. “More or less. I know not if these came directly from a cache left by that mightiest of the northern adepts. But they are indeed redolent of power and, taking such precautions as I might, I used one of the formulas. The result”—his rod stabbed again on the map—“being that I learned what I learned. Now this much I can tell you: there is a barrier existing somewhere here, in or about the Sea of Dust.”
For the first time the lizardman croaked out barely understandable words in the common tongue.
“Desert—a desert ready to swallow any venturing into it.” His expression could not change, but there was a certain tone in his croaking which suggested
that he repudiated any plan that would send them into that fatal, trackless wilderness.
Hystaspes frowned at the map. “We cannot be sure. There is only one who might hold the answer, for these mountains are his fortress and his range. Whether he will treat with you—that will depend upon your skill of persuasion. I speak of Lichis, the Golden Dragon.”
Memory, the new memory, supplied Milo with identification. Dragons could be of Chaos. Such ones hunted men as men might hunt a deer or a forest boar. But Lichis, who was known to have supported Law during thousands of years of such struggles (for the dragons were the longest lived of all creatures) must have a command of history that had become only thin legend as far as men were concerned. He was, in fact, the great lord of his kind, though he was seldom seen now and had not for years taken any part in the struggles that swept this world. Perhaps the doings of lesser beings (or so most human kind would seem to him) had come to bore him.
Wymarc hummed and Milo caught a fragment of the tune. “The Harrowing of Ironnose,” a saga or legend of men, once might have been true history of a world crumbled now into dust and complete forgetfulness. Ironnose was the Great Demon, called into being by early adepts of Chaos, laboring for half a lifetime together. He was intended to break the Law forever. It was Lichis who roused and did battle. The battle had raged from Blackmoor, out over Great Bay, down to the Wild Coast, ending in a steaming, boiling sea from which only Lichis had emerged.
The Golden Dragon had not come unwounded from that encounter. For a long time he had disappeared from the sight of men, though before that disappearance, he had visited the adepts who had given Ironnose being. Of them and their castle was left thereafter only a few fire-scorched stones and an evil aura that had kept even the most hardy of adventurers out of that particular part of the land to this very day.
“So we seek out Lichis,” Ingrge remarked. “What if he will have no word with us?”
“You”—Hystaspes swung to Naile—“that creature of yours.” Now he pointed the staff at the pseudo-dragon curled against the berserker’s thick neck just above the edging of his mail, as if it had turned into a torque, no longer a living thing. Its eyes were mere slits showing between scaled lids. And its jaws were now firmly closed upon that spear-pointed tongue. “In that creature you may have a key to Lichis. They are of one blood, though near as far apart in line as a snake and Lichis himself. However—” Now he shrugged and tossed the ivory rod behind him, not watching, as it landed neatly on a tabletop. “I have told you all I can.”
“We shall need provisions, mounts.” Yevele’s thumb again caressed her lower lip.
Hystaspes’s lips twisted. Perhaps the resulting grimace served the wizard for a smile of superiority.
The elf nodded, briskly. “We can take nothing from you, save that which you have laid upon us—the geas.” With that part of Power Lore born into his kind, he appeared to perceive more than the rest of their company.
“All I might give would bear the scent of wizardry.” Hystaspes agreed.
“So be it.” Milo held out his hand and looked down at the bracelet. “It would seem that it is now time for us to test the worth of these and see how well they can serve us.” He did not try to turn any of the dice manually. Instead he stared at them, seeking to channel all his thought into one command. Once, in that other time and world, he had thrown just such dice for a similar purpose.
The sparks which marked their value began to glow. He did not try to command any set sum from such dealing, only sent a wordless order to produce the largest amount the dice might yield.
Dice spun—glowed. As they became again immobile, a drawstring money bag lay at the swordsman’s feet. For a moment or two the strangeness, the fact that he had been able to command the dice by thought alone, possessed him. Then he went down on one knee, jerked loose a knotting of strings, to turn out on the floor what luck had provided. Here was a mixture of coins, much the same as any fighter might possess by normal means. There were five gold pieces from the Great Kingdom, bearing the high-nosed, haughty faces of two recent kings; some cross-shaped trading tokens from the Land of the Holy Lords struck out in copper but still well able to pass freely in Greyhawk where so many kinds of men, dwarves, elves, and others traveled. In addition he saw a dozen of those silver, half-moon circles coined in Faraaz, and two of the mother-of-pearl disks incised with the fierce head of a sea-serpent which came from the island Duchy of Maritiz.
Yevele, having witnessed his luck, was the next to concentrate on her own bracelet, producing another such purse. The coins varied, but Milo thought that approximately in value they added up to the same amount as his own effort had procured. Now the others became busy. It was Deav Dyne, who through his training as a clerk was best able to judge the rightful value of unusual pieces (Gulth had two hexagons of gold bearing a flaming torch in high relief—these Milo could not identify at all) and tallied their combined wealth.
“I would say,” he said slowly, after he had separated the pieces into piles, counted and examined those that were more uncommon, “we have enough, if we bargain skillfully. Mounts can be gotten at the market in the foreign quarter. Our provisions—perhaps best value is found at the Sign of the Pea Stalk. We should separate and buy discreetly. Milo and—shall we say you, Ingrge, and Naile—to the horse dealers, for with you lies more knowledge of what we need. Gulth must have his own supplies—” He looked to the lizardman. “Have you an idea where to go?”
The snouted head moved assent as the long clawed hand picked up coins Deav Dyne swept in his direction, putting them back into the pouch that had appeared before him. Unlike those of the others it was not leather, but fashioned of a fish that had been dried, its head removed, and a dull metal cap put in its place.
Milo hesitated. He was armed well enough—a sword, his shield, a belt knife with a long and dangerous blade. But he thought of a crossbow. And how about spells? Surely they had a right to throw also for those?
When he made his suggestion Deav Dyne nodded. “For myself, I am permitted nothing more than the knife of my calling. But for the rest of you—”
Again Milo was the first to try. He concentrated on the bracelet, striving to bring to the fore of his mind a picture of the crossbow, together with a quota of bolts. However, the dice did not fire with life and spin. And, one after another, saving only Wymarc and Deav Dyne—the bard apparently already satisfied with what he had—they tried, to gain nothing.
The wizard once more favored them with grimace of a smile. “Perhaps you had already equipped yourselves by chance before that summoned you,” he remarked. “I would not waste more time. By daylight it would be well for you to be out of Greyhawk. We do not know what watch Chaos may have kept on this tower tonight, nor the relation of the Dark Ones to our enemy.”
“Our enemy—” snorted Naile, swinging around to turn his back on the wizard with a certain measure of scorn. “Men under a geas have one enemy already, wizard. You have made us your weapons. I would take care, weapons have been known to turn against those who use them.” He strode toward the door without looking back. His mighty shoulders, with the boar helm riding above, expressed more than his words. Naile Fangtooth was plainly beset by such a temper as made his kind deadly enemies.
4
Out of Greyhawk
PARTS OF GREYHAWK NEVER SLEPT. THE GREAT MARKET OF THE merchants, edging both the Thieves’ Quarter and the foreign section of the free city, was bright with the flares of torches and oil lanterns. People moved about the stalls, a steady din of voices arose. You could bargain here for a bundle of noisome rags, or for a jewel that once topped some forgotten king’s crown of state. To Greyhawk came the adventurers of the world. The successful brought things that they showed only behind the dropped curtains of certain booths. The prospective buyers could be human, elvish, dwarf—even orc or other followers of Chaos as well as of Law. In a free city the balance stood straight-lined between Dark and Light.
There were guards who threaded among
the narrow lanes of the stalls. But quarrels were settled steel to steel. In those they did not meddle, save to make sure riot did not spring full born from some scuffle. A wayfarer here depended upon his own weapons and wits, not upon any aid from those guardians of the city.
Naile muttered to himself in such a low whisper that the words did not reach Milo through the subdued night roar of the market. Perhaps the swordsman would not have understood them even if he had heard, for to a berserker the tongues of beasts were as open as the communication of humankind. They had gone but a short way into the garish, well-lighted lines of booths, when Fangtooth stopped, waiting for the other two, swordsman and elf, to come up with him.
The pseudo-dragon still lay, perhaps sleeping, curled about the massive lift of his throat. Under his ornately crowned helmet his own face was flushed, and Milo could sense the heat of anger still building in the other. As yet that emotion was under iron control. Should it burst the dam, Naile might well embroil them all in quick battle, picking some quarrel with a stranger to vent his rage against the wizard.
“Do you smell it?” The berserker’s voice sounded thick, as if his words must fight hard to win through that strangling anger. Under the rim of his helmet, his eyes swept back and forth, not to touch upon either of his companions, but rather as if in that crowd he sought to pick out some one his axe could bring down.
There were smells in plenty here, mainly strong, and more than half-bordering on the foul. Ingrge’s head was up, his nostrils expanded. The elf did not look about him. Rather he tested the steamy air as if he might separate one odor from all the rest, identify it, lay it aside, and try again.
To Milo the slight warning came last. Perhaps because he had been too caught up in the constant flow of the scene about them. His sense for such was, of course, far less acute than that of either of his companions. But now he felt the same uneasiness that had ridden him in the inn, as well as along the way the wizard’s guide had taken them. Somewhere in this crowd there existed interest in—them!