by Lyndon Hardy
"My prince," a deep voice suddenly rumbled from one of the rotunda entrances, "the signal lights have been blinking. Gaspar with his retinue is now on his way. There are twenty-two djinns of lightning and lesser devils as well."
On the rim of the rotunda, the entrance was darkened by the massive form of a colossal djinn, his folded wing-tips scraping the archway as he entered. Powerful black muscles rippled across his chest as he moved. Slitted eyes of piercing yellow glowed in a face of darkest jet.
"What is your command, my prince?" the djinn asked. "Though we are fewer, my clutch brothers and I can make his landing one that will cost."
Elezar turned to answer, "No, no, Delithan. To meet Gaspar on his own terms is surely a strategy of defeat. Invite him in unchallenged. We will use the time to our advantage."
"A djinn lives to fight, my prince," Delithan rumbled. "He exists only to rip matter asunder and drink deeply of its dying shrieks. If that is denied, there is little that restrains surrender to the great monotony."
"There will be many more battles in the epochs to come, Delithan," Elezar said. "Do not deny yourself the opportunity to engage in them by a miscalculation now. Push aside thoughts of the brooding doom. As you have in the past, trust in your prince."
"An epoch ago, none could call himself master of my lord," Delithan said. "But now there is indeed one who can so claim and he is only a man. Perhaps Gaspar too is mightier and the coming struggle is the last."
With a sharp crack, a spark of blue light suddenly arched from Elezar's left thumb to his forefinger. His arm swung out from his body in the direction of Delithan, a mask of anger etching the fine lines of his face. The huge djinn brought an arm up over his eyes. The pale outline of a shield began to materialize in front of his chest.
For a moment the two demons stood frozen, the crackle of ionization covering any words that they might have spoken. Then, as quickly as it had sprouted, the arc of energy in Elezar's hand winked out of existence. His face softened. He rotated his palms upward in Delithan's direction.
"Gaspar has grown so bold as to attack me in what all the princes acknowledge as my strength," Elezar said softly, his sudden outburst back under control. "It is a foolish boldness for him to do so and I will not reply in kind. There may yet be the thrill of battle for you against his djinns of lightning, Delithan, but as long as I am your prince, it will be a time of my own choosing. Now take your clutch brethren into the void as I have commanded and escort him here without incident."
Delithan's shield disappeared before it completely formed. He hesitated a moment and then dipped his head in acquiescence. Stooping to clear the archway, he turned back the way he had come. "A djinn lives to fight," he rumbled as he left.
"Gaspar," Astron blurted as Elezar turned back to face him. "Gaspar of the lightning djinns. Though his numbers are large and mighty, he would not dare to challenge you without due cause. None of the other princes would permit it. They would rally to your aid and against all he has no chance."
"His attack is not one of djinn against djinn," Elezar said. "Instead it was something quite unexpected, although, of course, I showed no surprise." Elezar paused. His eyes flared. "He has posed a riddle, cataloguer, a riddle to test the prince most noted for cunning of all those who rule.
"The stakes are familiar, the ones I have accepted from demons with far keener minds. If I answer correctly, then Gaspar and all who follow him are mine to do with what I will. If not, then I and my domain are his."
"A riddle?" Astron said. "Then surely there is no threat at all. The likes of Gaspar could not formulate a puzzle that would long give pause to one such as you, my prince. And if you were-were too busy to answer yourself, then many in your domain would have sufficient wit to formulate the solution."
Elezar ignored Astron's words. "You were telling me of the laws that govern the realm of men. What of the metalaws which lie behind them?"
"Of the three of them I know far less," Astron said. He felt his stembrain again begin to stir. Elezar was moving on to things with which he was far less familiar.
"Three of them," Elezar repeated. "So you state that there are ten laws rather than seven?"
"No, the three metalaws are quite different from the rest," Astron said. "Each of the other realms, that of men, the skyskirr, the fey, and the others, is governed by seven laws of magic out of infinitely many. The metalaws govern which ones are active and how they are changed."
Elezar looked over Astron's head to the far side of the rotunda. Translucent membranes flicked down over his eyes to remove external distractions as he defocused in thought. "The metalaws were known by some of the most ancient princes," he said. "Even if we could not use them ourselves, we understood their manipulations well. And in the realm of the skyskirr, they are all-important; compared to them, the laws themselves pale into insignificance."
Elezar stared back at Astron. "But in the realm of men, for epochs none realized that such things as metalaws existed. For the mortals, there were only the seven laws of magic as you have stated them, constant and unfailing. Humankind spent their brief lives entirely ignorant of the greater powers that slumbered all about them."
The prince paused. "So you see, it is indeed possible. Gaspar's riddle might be a valid question, one with a definite answer. Ah, for the answer." Elezar looked away. "The answer that would give me victory over yet another who thinks his power greater than mine."
The prince ran his slender tongue over his lower lip, apparently savoring an imagined victory. He smiled and waved to the hovering imps for another display. But as the complex pattern formed. Elezar shook his head and motioned them to return to stillness. He looked back at Astron. "But I have no ready reply, cataloguer," he said. The words were forced and came with difficulty. "I stall for more time and Gaspar guesses at my weakness. He even taunts me with clues, so sure is he that I will fail."
Astron felt his thoughts suddenly boil and tumble. Elezar, Elezar the one who was golden-of all the princes, he was the one with the keenest mind. The others might wage their games of power by mustering great arrays of djinns into eye-blinding battles, but Elezar time after time bested them all with deft strokes of high strategy or bound up the outcome in riddles for which only he could unravel the answer in the end.
And if this time Elezar could not provide the solution, then there was great peril for all that he commanded as well. The barely controlled rages of Gaspar were well known throughout the realm. None without an equal appetite for ripping things asunder could hope to survive for long under the rule of a prince of lightning. Astron looked down at his short nails and flexed the wings on his back that were never there.
But mixed with all of that, the surprise and the fear, there was something else that churned with the rest-a riddle, a riddle that even Elezar himself could not solve, a mystery that led perhaps even to the realm of men. What new and wonderful things might then be learned by one sent to observe or by one tasked to record the labors of those questing to find the answer? What increase in power could come to one who catalogued rather than fought?
Elezar apparently did not notice Astron's momentary inattention. The prince stood up and waved his arms in the air. "As you have stated, cataloguer, for every realm that we can contact, fire is the medium that breaks down the barrier between us. And for each of those connections, we are at the mercy of those who dwell on the other realm to build the flame and send their thoughts through it. We must wait for the call, the tugging at our own being, before we can begin the struggle that matches our wills against theirs.
"How much more powerful we would be if we could initiate the interaction, to go forth into the other realms at our own choosing rather than await events of chance. That is the essence of Gaspar's riddle, cataloguer. He states that the power of the laws and metalaws pale for the one who has the answer. It is the ultimate precept, he says, the underlying principle upon which all else is built."
Elezar brought his arms back to his chest. "The riddle is quite simply stated: In th
e realm of daemon, how does one build a fire?"
Astron saw the eyes of the prince again widen. He felt a rush of questions but knew better than to speak.
"We have great control over the little matter that has been brought back through the barriers to our realm," Elezar continued. "We can weave and transform it into exotic shapes that please the eye for eons. But somehow, in all the epochs that I can remember, no one in our realm, whether mighty prince or lowly sprite, has ever created a flame. None have been able to form the dance of ions that signify the combination of air with other things. The answer indeed must be the ultimate precept, cataloguer, and Gaspar's riddle or no, I, among all the princes who rule, will be the first to find out how it is done."
"But how will you learn?" Astron asked cautiously. "Is it perhaps in the realm of men that the answer would lie?"
"None in my personal domain have any hint to the solution, cataloguer," Elezar said. "I have decided that it is elsewhere I must look." The prince paused and intensified his stare. "But there is little time for undirected and random search. First, I must ask the one who might have a greater chance of knowing the answer to the riddle than even I."
Astron's interest suddenly vanished. Cataloguing in the relative safety of the realm of men was one thing. Dealing with others of his own kind was quite another. And if it was the one he suspected that the prince had in mind-
"Not old Palodad," he said. "The broodmothers say that even mighty djinns cannot return from his domain unscathed." He looked in Elezar's eyes and saw the prince nod slightly.
"Yes, Palodad," Elezar said, "the one who reckons."
Astron felt his stembrain begin to struggle harder to free itself from his rational control. Knowledge was power, it was true, but the risk must be commensurate with the reward. Even with a well-disciplined phalanx of splendorous djinns, Astron would not care to enter the domain of the demon reputed to be maddest of all. Besides, his specialty was in the other realms. It would not make sense to send to the domain of another prince one without the ability to weave or fly. Surely it must have been for something else that Elezar had summoned him before the scheduled time.
"Which of your phalanx have you selected to dispatch?" Astron managed to say through jaws drawing suddenly tight. "How have you balanced between the need for strength in a far domain as well as here to impress Gaspar when he arrives?"
"You are the emissary, Astron, you alone, the one I have selected above all others in my domain."
"But I am a mere cataloguer." The protest rushed from Astron's lips. "Far more do I know of the workings of men than the traps in our own realm. I serve better helping to unravel what information another might bring back from such a trek than braving the perils myself.
"Look at my fangs," Astron said as he spun quickly around. "See again the stubs on my back. My role is to observe and record. It is the calling of the devils and djinns who can weave to perform actions for their prince."
Elezar shook his head slowly. "The broodmothers are most likely correct; Palodad's lair will be dissimilar to any other in the realm. But it is because you cannot fight that I have chosen you, cataloguer. The unfamiliar will not provoke you to rage. You above all else will keep your stembrain under control, because you must."
Astron looked beyond the prince to the cool serene walls of the rotunda, familiar sights that he had viewed many times before. He thought of the comforts of his own lair with the artifacts whose purposes were yet to be discovered. Even the realm of men with the strange customs and exotic structures was to be preferred to the dangers that lurked for the unwary in his own realm. He felt the tug and pull of his stembrain straining to be free, to run amok and control his limbs in a frenzy of chaos and self-destruction.
"There is more at stake than the rule of my domain," Elezar said. "Gaspar will treat my own djinns with dignity, grant them a final battle that would satisfy even their lusts for destruction." He paused and bored his sight into Astron. "But as for you, my wingless one, a nimble wit and knowledge of arcane lists will have little value for him. At best, your torture would serve as a moment's distraction. You might hope that the process would not be a lingering one."
Astron looked into Elezar's eyes, searching for even a hint of indecision, but saw only the resolve of a prince. His shoulders slumped. The last thoughts of his den faded away. For a moment, he did not speak, but finally he willed his tongue to move. "Arrange for the djinn who will transport me," he said softly. "I will perform my duty as the prince commands."
CHAPTER TWO
The One Who Reckons
As the dimly flickering light grew brighter, the overwhelming emptiness of the realm began to fade. Astron craned his head upward at the djinn who carried him, each shoulder tight in a unflinching grip. The demon showed no change in expression as they closed on their destination, the boredom of flight just another indication of the encroachment of the great monotony into its mind.
Looking over his shoulder, Astron could no longer distinguish the shine of Elezar's domain. It was lost in the sparse scatter of glowing dots that gave a feeble hint of pattern in an otherwise featureless expanse. Despite countless eons of slowly wresting matter through the flame from the other universes, the great vastness was still the true character of the realm. Only in the small confines of one's own lair or in the everchanging patterns of the domain of a prince could one temporarily forget the meagerness that enshrouded imp and djinn alike.
Endowed with the power to cover great distances almost without effort and the ability to transform whatever one saw into unlimited other shapes, the cruel jest of it all was that there was so very little on which those powers could be exercised. It did not take long before the farthest corners of the realm had been explored, all the interesting weavings formed and destroyed, and the bizarre mysteries of men and those of the other realms sampled and discarded. Ultimately all that was left was to sit and wait, contemplating the curse of an immortal lifetime-sit and wait until the great monotony drove one to surrender to the stembrain and self-destruction in a new and interesting way.
Astron shook his head free of the brooding thoughts as the features of Palodad's lair became more clear in the darkness. Just as the other domains, the domain of the one who reckoned hung in space. Unlike Elezar's, however, it cast forth no shafts of brilliant light. Only the glow of a single imp marked the entrance to a long, sloping tunnel that led to Astron knew not what.
After he was deposited at the entrance, Astron bade the djinn to wait and cautiously entered. He felt the smooth surface of time-worn stone beneath his feet- true stone of condensed matter, rather than a web of fleeting energy that merely hinted at substance. Around his head and shoulders, the gnarled tunnel walls squeezed downward in the total darkness. The solidness of the steps was a surprise and the darkness too much a reminder of the cold and depressing emptiness of the realm. But there was no other choice. Astron clasped his fingers into fists and began descending as rapidly as he could, each step less than a heart beat.
Images of what could come to pass if indeed he did not succeed flitted through Astron's mind-Gaspar's rasping laugh, the small mites that crawled in the greasy stubbie on the prince's chin, his minions ripping asunder the delicate columns and domes that Elezar had taken eons to weave, demigorgons crushing the skulls of the imps in their massive hands and degutting the larger devils with searing bolts of flame.
Astron tightened the coils of his fists. He for one was not ready for such a fate. His hatching had been less than an era ago. The great monotony did not yet dampen his will to live as it did for some of the others, who had sampled a dozen times over all that Elezar had to offer, others who would have to be goaded out of a jaded lethargy even to die. No, if and when they came for him, surrounding his slight body with stares and gloats, it would be far too soon.
Astron grimaced. If and when they came, he hoped that for once he would have the strength of his clutch brothers, strength to deny to Gaspar any satisfaction, strength to be able to look
back with unblinking eyes and stand silent, even though they pulled away his fingers and toes one by one.
It was all because of arrogance, Astron thought. His prince had been too proud not to accept Gaspar's challenge on the terms with which it was given. Elezar should have denied the fairness of the riddle. But he was too concerned about what the other princes would think if he refused a test in which, after all, he was supposed to be the strongest of all.
The tunnel turned sharply to the left without warning, and Astron banged his head against a jutting overhang. His thoughts jangled back to his immediate concern. "More than a million steps in total darkness," he muttered. "This Palodad constructs an approach of more than a million when a few hundred easily would do. Even a sublime devil guards his lair with only fifty. Fifty steps, though he might weave the essence of a rose."
Astron rubbed the throb in his temple with one hand while he cautiously extended his other forward. "There must be some truth to the accounts," he said to himself. "What sane demon would dare to be so wasteful? To squander his wealth on stride after stride of featureless rock when he could occupy himself for epochs building intricate sculptures instead."
His question echoed unanswered down the dark tunnel and Astron paused a moment more, trying to will himself into placid composure. To approach in a state of visible apprehension would place him at an immediate disadvantage. He was, after all, the emissary of a prince. He squeezed his fists all the tighter and set a grim mask on his face. In silence, he trod the last ten thousand steps, not even bothering to count.
Finally he reached the entrance barrier and pulled it aside. The tunnel suddenly blazed with light. Translucent membranes flicked over his eyes as he stared into the brilliance. The drone of tiny wings mixed with the slur of countless curses, creating a din that assaulted even the most insensitive ears.
He saw the walls expand outward from where he stood to form a giant sphere, dotted with smaller globes of incandescence that banished all shadows from its interior. He stood on a ledge that circumnavigated this globe, a small pathway that gently curved and finally disappeared out of sight on both sides behind the massive constructions that filled the enclosed volume.