by Lyndon Hardy
Acknowledging the magnitude of the feat that brought condensed matter of such quality through the flame had not been in his thoughts at all. Slowly he had leafed through the delicate sheets that were stitched along one side, studying intently the rows and rows of markings and occasional drawings of other objects equally strange. Some he had recognized-coins, belt buckles, forks; a random sampling of things retrieved by other demons on their journeys through the flame. And for some of these he suddenly had understood their use and meaning from the context in which they were drawn.
Astron nodded his head as he watched. He remembered the electric thrill that had arched down his spine. Who among all of demonkind would have guessed that the cylindrical fingercap guarded a human's fingertip against pricks from the tiny sword and trailing thread that bound together two pieces of cloth.
There was more merit than mere mass in an object fetched from beyond the flame, he had realized. There was knowledge as well, knowledge that might be of use to a prince who wished to astound his peers. And with knowledge came stature and regard, even for a djinn without wings or the ability to weave.
"All the artifacts that I possess," he remembered he had said, looking up quickly at the devil at his side. "The web of the spider, the pollen of a flower, everything in exchange for this."
As the trade was made, the image dissolved. When it refocused, Astron recognized a scene of only months ago as measured in the realm of men. He stood in his hood and cloak beside a cottage hearth; only the last embers remained of the evening fire. At a table across the room, a human serving girl stared in Astron's direction, her eyes wide and unblinking, totally under his command.
"What are your instructions, master, while I wait for you to return," she had said.
Astron remembered his hesitation. He knew full well what would happen to her when she was found after his departure. Men professed to feel compassion, but they dealt with demon possession with a zeal that was hard to understand. And she was not a wizard, boldly reaching into the flame to test her will against Astron or his kin. Only by accident had she looked too long into the hypnotic dance of the fire and allowed Astron to pass through the barrier between the realms.
Elezar would be satisfied enough with what has been learned, Astron had decided. The purpose of the little orb attached to the side of the door had been perfectly explained. None of the other princes would guess that it was to be rotated before being pulled.
"Return to the way you were," Astron had said. "I release you from my control. The prince cannot care about one mind more or less. Besides us, who in the two realms would know?"
The scene began to fade. Astron turned away to face Palodad. "How did you find out?" he asked. "I have told no one of what I did. Indeed, why even bother to record my affairs, rather than the lives of the princes that rule?"
"I have the relevant information on them as well," Palodad said. "Do not prejudge your role in the scheme of things. I am, after all, the one who reckons."
The old demon squinted his good eye at Astron, "The more interesting question is not how, but why. Why did you release the human female when you had no need? Even without wings, one would not expect such behavior from the clutch brother of a splendorous djinn."
"I-I do not know," Astron said. The vividness of the memories was unsettling. The impact of all he had seen began to numb his mind. His thoughts started to go off balance. He felt his limbs tighten. Was his the madness that came with the visit to Palodad? Was his lair so overwhelming and knowledge so great that one could not hope to keep his own clear thoughts in the old devil's presence?
Astron flicked down the membranes over his eyes and concentrated on the comforts of his own den. He had not one book by now but three. Some of the strange symbology that accompanied the pictures he was beginning to understand. Of all of Elezar's cataloguers, he was held in the highest regard. He had pledged to his prince and had a mission to perform, regardless of the great powers exhibited by the old demon at his side. And the results were needed quickly, before Gaspar lost his patience and it was all too late.
Astron firmed his resolve. He would not waver. Digging his shortened nails into his palms, he slowly, deliberately retracted his membranes and looked at Palodad.
"Questions concerning Astron, the cataloguer, will be for another time," he said. "I am here now by demand of Elezar, the prince."
Palodad did not immediately answer. He pointed silently at the imaging screen indicating that he could show more, his lips curved in the hint of a mocking smile.
But Astron held his determination. The urgency of his visit locked firmly in place. He willed his thoughts to calmness and waited for the devil to speak.
"Questions concerning the one who walks will be for when?" Palodad asked at last.
"For another time," Astron said.
"Yes, for another time, another time," Palodad echoed. He kicked one of the metal trays aside and again dissolved in a fit of laughter. "There is no getting away from it," he gasped. "It is always a matter of time."
The devil clutched his sides and crumpled into a ball at Astron's feet. Rolling about on the hard stone slab, he flailed his spindly legs and bellowed incoherently, giving no signs of ever stopping.
Astron waited patiently for a moment and then scowled in annoyance. Now with his focus away from his own personal safety, the pressure to obtain results felt all the greater. He looked about for the presence of a broodmother who might give aid to the stricken devil, but saw none. He hesitated a moment more. Then with a shrug copied from the humans he turned and began to walk toward the doorway behind the stacks of trays.
But Palodad stopped laughing before Astron had gone two paces. "You have not yet told me the question of your prince," the devil said calmly.
Astron paused. Now there was no hint of madness in Palodad's tone. It was as if the devil was totally unaware of his actions moments before. Astron shook his head, trying to toss off the behavior as he had all the rest. Slowly he turned back to face the devil and waited until the old one was erect.
"Gaspar's riddle is most unusual," Astron said finally after Palodad had finished smoothing his pouches and straps. "It is most unusual that the likes of a lightning djinn would even conceive of one of such difficulty."
"But nevertheless, apparently he did," Palodad said. "How unlikely the conundrums, the agreement is no less binding."
The old devil paused and a faraway look came to his eye. The corners of his mouth rounded in the beginnings of a grin. "So quickly now, state what it is that your prince wishes to know. You already have wasted enough of my precious-"
Palodad's cheeks lifted further. The hint of a giggle started in his throat.
"How does one start a fire?" Astron interrupted quickly. "On the worlds of men, in the 'hedron of the skyskirr, and in all the universes that we know, there is fire and flame."
"It is the means by which the barriers between our realms are overcome and mind is linked with mind," Palodad said. "Elezar does not need the one who reckons to tell him that."
"In every realm there is flame except for one," Astron said. "Except in the realm of daemon itself. We have pulled through the barriers artifacts that are solid and ones of liquid and gas. But never in all the epochs that any can remember has there been fire in the domain of any of the princes."
Astron stopped. He looked at Palodad intently to judge the old devil's response. For a long moment neither moved; the only sound was the background cries echoing in the confines of the sphere.
Then Palodad shuffled to the jars on the stone floor and released another swarm of mites. For many cycles of the lattices, he grabbed them from the air and affixed them to one metal sheet after another, feeding the completed trays through the slot in the wall. When he was done he turned his attention to the glowsprites, watching closely the random blink of colors and form. This time they did not shape coherent images, but Palodad nodded and smiled, mumbling to himself when he seemed to distinguish one particular pattern from another
.
For how long he remained waiting, Astron could not tell; but finally, one by one, the sprite lights winked out, leaving only a surface of muted gray.
"There is the matter of the payment," Palodad said at last. He rubbed the metal ball he carried in his hand against his leg and then looked absently at the shiny surface. "Did your prince delegate to you the bargaining as well?"
"Then you do know the answer," Astron exclaimed. "You have calculated it with your strange devices even as we waited."
But Palodad held up his hand before Astron could say more. "As you have said, the riddle is most profound. It is no wonder that even the likes of Elezar could not fathom the direction in which to proceed."
The devil paused and fingered the pouch containing the hourglass at his side. "In fact, even I do not bargain with the solution to the conundrum," he said. "I can only indicate where it is the most-the most profitable for Elezar to look. As for the details of the answer, he will have to find it on his own."
The sudden buoyancy of Astron's hopes drained away. Despite all the tales of the broodmothers, the old devil knew little more than his prince. Elezar already suspected that the answer lay outside of the realm of daemon. Merely being told where to seek would be worth far less than the answer itself.
"You speak of payments," Astron said cautiously. "Surely a mere hint carries little value at all."
"Many others have found my prices reasonable enough." Palodad waved his arm out across his lair. "With each riddle I solved, I obtained a few more spars, stone for another trio of steps, cages for one or two more imps. Each exchange in itself has not amounted to much, but over the eons I have managed to build all that you have seen. And, rather than waste my wealth on trivial amusements for the senses, I have focused it on increasing my ability to compute, to collect and store even more of what happens in the realm, and to predict with greater and greater accuracy what the future will bring."
Palodad smiled and tapped Astron's chest with the ball he clutched in his fist. "Elezar chose his emissary well," he said. "I get no great amusement spending eons maneuvering through complex negotiations for the last dram of mass. Your prince merely has to fetch for me something from the realm to which I will direct him. That will be payment enough."
"If what you desire is more than base iron, then it will not be so easy for any of Elezar's retinue to wrest it back through the flame," Astron said. "The prince will not care for an agreement that carries such a complication."
"I am fully aware that the living residents of the other realms can transport objects through the flame far more easily than can any of our kind," Palodad said. "Elezar will have to enlist help from men, skyskirr, or some other beings, it is true. But I have faith in his ability to figure out a way."
"It is a complication," Astron repeated. "As Gaspar presses for an answer, my master will have less ability to comply."
Palodad scowled. He pressed the heavy orb of metal to his chest. "Tell him that I will validate his answer," he said. "Whatever he discovers, he can bring to me before he risks exposing it to Gaspar. I will weigh the plausibility of correctness with the computations that are at my disposal and no one else's in the realm. In exchange for a modicum of matter, he will know not only where to look but be certain that what he finds is correct.
"Tell him, cataloguer. Tell him what I offer. He will ponder and then finally acquiesce. It is only a question of time."
Astron grimaced, but Palodad took no heed. He slapped his arms about his waist and staggered back into the conveyer belt, howling in apparent glee. "Time, time, time," he gasped. "The focus always returns to time. When will it ever end?"
Astron slumped to the stone slab in frustration. He felt the beginnings of doubt that his journey had accomplished anything at all. Perhaps all the talk of computations and hints were no more than the ravings of madness, a perverted defense against a growing presence of the great monotony.
He shrugged his shoulders. But if there were anything else to try, surely his prince would have so directed him. Palodad represented the last hope, as slim as it was. In resignation, he watched the old devil flail on the hard stone, waiting for the seizure to end.
Eventually Palodad stopped and righted himself, wiping away a mucus-filled tear as he stood. "You should now go," he said, waving to a bucket descending from a level above. "Repeat to your prince the offer I have made. Come again and tell me when he has agreed. Then I will instruct in detail where it is you are to search and what you will bring back for me in exchange."
Astron nodded and rose to meet the descending basket. The outcome of the meeting was far from satisfactory. He doubted that the duty to his prince was yet quite completed.
CHAPTER FOUR
Princes of Power
THE domes of Elezar were just as Astron had left them. He felt the talons release their grip on his shoulders and dropped the last few spans to the decorated plane on which the structures stood.
"Until the prince gives me cause to return to Palodad's lair, I will have no further need," he said to the djinn still hovering above him. "Return to your own den and await command."
The mighty demon gave no acknowledgment. With one beat of his wings he soared rapidly upward. Soon he was but a speck vanishing from sight. Astron watched him go and for a moment more followed the flights of others as they transported objects and smaller devils to and from Elezar's domain.
He was a cataloguer, Astron thought, the best in all the retinue of his prince. He understood the value of knowledge and traded it for power far beyond what one would expect for one of his size and lack of ability to weave.
He was a cataloguer and yet… He flexed his arms trying to imagine for perhaps the millionth time the sensation of darting between the uppermost spires of his prince's towers, of swooping down into the dark abysses, or even of visiting distant lairs without the assistance of a djinn dangling him from great talons and protecting him from danger.
Astron closed his eyes, wiggling his fingers in exaggerated slowness, straining for the feel of the matter about him, trying to caress its form and texture, molding it into the shapes that he commanded, and transforming even its innermost structure and bonding so that it became as he desired.
But as always, the feelings did not come. His weight pressed all too firmly on the soles of his feet. His palms and the tips of his fingers felt no more than the tenuousness of air. He was only Astron, the one who walked. Besides, there was no time for such reverie, he decided angrily. He must report to the prince.
Quickly Astron navigated through the maze of peripheral domes to the main rotunda. The slight give of the thinly stretched web of matter to each stride reminded him of the firmness of Palodad's crude steps of true stone. The outer passageways were empty; the flitter of imps and bustle of messenger devils had stopped. When he burst into the central rotunda, Astron found that every demon in the domain had gathered. In concentric circles, they hovered and squatted; all eyes were focused on the hub in which were conversing no less than two princes of the realm.
Astron felt his limbs stiffen. He might already be too late. Gaspar and his minions had arrived. Astron saw Elezar sitting on the same pillow of silk and down. Ignoring the other cushions, Gaspar stood with arms folded across his chest, his massive torso rippling with muscle that seemed just barely under control. Deep-set and cruel eyes brooded under an overhanging brow, shadowing a face that never smiled. With a wave of irritation, he brushed aside the mites that swarmed about his chin. Small bursts of unwoven energy crackled from his fingertips, arching spontaneously from joint to joint. In the dreams of men, it was demons such as Gaspar that they feared the most.
Astron hesitated. One part of his mind willed his legs forward to tell the prince what little he had learned. Another bade him to remain still; it would not be prudent for Gaspar to hear the extent of Elezar's ignorance. In nervous anticipation, Astron waited for some indication of what he should do.
"I have come to settle our wager," the lightning d
jinn's voice rumbled throughout the dome. "Either you know the answer to my riddle or you do not. There is nothing to be determined by delay. Submit to your doom as you have agreed."
The guard of colossal djinns behind Elezar, six in all and each identical to the tiniest scale to his brethren, tensed and bared their fangs, but the prince motioned them to remain calm.
"Your haste hints of weakness," Elezar replied. "How bored has your following become?"
"There is no trace of the great monotony in a single one." Gaspar waved at the brace of lieutenants he had brought with him, now standing off to the side. He glanced about the dome and eyed the web of vaults and spars that held the expanse of the great roof aloft. "Every one of them looks forward with anticipation to when they can reduce all of this to base iron."
"And even if your challenge should prevail," Elezar said, "after the few brief moments of destructive fury, what then? What new amusements will you promise? How can you hope to keep alive their will and allegiance for even an epoch more? In the end, you will lose, Gaspar. The eons and eras stretch before you farther than you dare imagine."
Elezar paused and lowered his voice to a whisper, although all present could still hear. "Are you not already weary, Gaspar? Does not the futility of it all begin to gnaw? Will one more orgy of destruction be that much different from the last? Submit, submit to me, and at least the ending will be amusing for all."
"No," Gaspar thundered. He unfurled his wings and rose a span above the floor cushions. The air around his shoulders began to crackle and hiss. Sparkles of color pulsed into existence above his head.
The guard djinns quickly interposed themselves between Elezar and the other prince. Gaspar's lieutenants vaulted over the smaller demons between and formed a rank alongside their leader, their synchronized wing strokes creating a wind that whistled through the rotunda archways.