The triple-sized bronze bell was now only a few yards away, and Chert was visible standing under it. Gord was seeing double, his head ached, and his knees were weak. He wanted to stop and scream over and over, keeping time with the iron tolling of the maddening things that sounded overhead. But he fought off the urge, gritted his teeth, and pulled Curley Greenleaf along faster.
Suddenly they were in an island of silence, of bliss. Chert's mouth was moving, but no sounds were coming out. Gord opened his own mouth to tell the big hillman so; then he realized that he could barely hear himself speak, even though the booming clangor of the monstrous bells wasn't penetrating this space under the bronze one.
Directly under the center of the green-hued cylinder was a platform suspended in air — apparently another of the steps that they had to ascend. Gellor moved toward it, but Gord pulled the troubador back. "Wait," he signaled, and did the same twice more to show both Chert and the druid that it applied to them as well. Then the young adventurer pointed to his ears, allowed his tongue to droop out of his mouth in a symbol of fatigue, and visibly relaxed, slump-shouldered. With that, he sat down beneath the bronze bell, took out his skin of wine, and grabbed meat, cheese and biscuits from his pouch. Nodding and looking relieved, the other three seated themselves as well. They ate and then stretched out and rested briefly.
Gord came out of a doze. His eyes fell upon the cloud of bells beyond. They were motionless. The ringing has stopped," he said absently aloud.
"So it has," Curley said in reply. Then he stretched and tried to make himself a little more comfortable on the iron floor.
"I heard you speak!" The exclamation was from Chert.
The deafness was only temporary, then, as I thought," the one-eyed bard observed softly. Time to press on again, Gord?"
"Yes. Who can tell how long we've been here? Not long, I think, but..."
The four managed to step in unison onto the next stair. A sea of roaring flame shot up around them. Again it was the druid who solved the dilemma. It took but a brief time for Greenleaf to summon forth a monumentally great fire elemental from the inferno around them. Such a creature as that was quite usual for the druid, although in all of his scores of years Curley had never seen one so large as that which appeared at his conjuration now. The druid and the elemental exchanged pleasantries. Then Curley asked, "Can you transport us through this fiery place?"
"No!" came the crackling basso of the fire elemental's reply. That would have been the end of it, except for the special rapport that existed between the nature priest and the denizens of the elemental spheres. "Yet you can pass by yourselves safely enough, druid."
"How so?" Greenleaf asked, peering at the leaping tongues of fire.
"I will make a cool path," the elemental responded. "Where would you go?"
There!" said Gord, gesturing toward a spot where pale smoke streamed upward. It was the only place of its kind to be seen in the inferno. That is the place we must attain!"
Curley nodded and looked at the elemental. The towering creature said and did nothing. "Oh, yes, of course, I was the one who summoned you, wasn't I?" the druid asked rhetorically. He was truly flustered by the immensity of the being of fire. "We would pass from here to the smoke yonder, majestic one," Greenleaf said loudly to the elemental. "Please assist me!"
"It is done!" the fire elemental boomed. Then it turned and swept away toward the column of smoke. Behind it was a path of cinders, for where it went the creature's raging heat and flame consumed the very fires that surrounded it.
"Not too close, now," Curley warned as he stepped off the safety of the rectangle they had been upon and followed the elemental. He hunched and hurried, for searing curtains of flame were on either hand and the cinders beneath were very hot. The others followed with alacrity, and although they sweated and felt flushed, they came to no harm. The elemental ahead circled the place where the smoke arose, waved a cherry-red, flame-tongued member, and then sank into nothingness again amid the flames. Behind them the fires were creeping onto the pathway, so the four sprinted to where the column of gray smoke shot upward. There was no fire generating it, so they took their chances and plunged into the stuff.
Their coughing became choking and painful rasping almost at once. Passing from the inferno of flame, the four had entered a place of insubstantial vapors and rolling fogs. Sickly pastel hues of mist and cloud; yellow, green, brownish, hideous blue. "Gas!" Gellor managed to cough the warning. "Poison!"
It was again the druid who saved them. With a few quick passes and a litany of chanting, Greenleaf managed to complete a spell despite the lung-wracking, skin-burning vapors that crawled and swirled around the four. In the moment of completion, a curtain of flames shot up. Its hot flames encircled them, burning away the toxic clouds near, creating a growing updraft that cleared the area it inscribed. "Which direction shall I move it?" Curley asked as the wall of glowing fire did its work and normal speech was again possible.
Gord signaled to Chert and, with a spring, landed atop the great shoulders of the tall hillman. Chert then held his hands so Gord could place the sole of each boot in one of his large palms. Without seeming effort. Chert raised his arms to extend fully above his head. The young thief and gymnast now balanced with his head no less than thirteen feet above the ground Chert stood on. "I see pure white there," Gord called, pointing to indicate the direction desired. "All other places are naught but colored vapors of ghastly hues. I think the white is our egress!"
Gellor marked the direction, then Gord was down and likewise pointing.
The druid began to move, causing the fiery curtain that surrounded them to progress with him. It was slow traveling, for the four had to carefully maintain the line that would take them to the small place where they could escape the terrible poisons of this trap. By staying in line, one as near the rear, two in the middle, and one as far ahead as the heat of the fire allowed, the distance was covered. The sheet of flames washed over another of the big rectangles that were the manifestations of the steps leading to the suspended platform that was the lair of their enemy. Gravestone.
There," said Gellor, who was then in the lead. "On to the next welcome!"
"How many more, I wonder?" Greenleaf grumbled as he jumped onto the surface where his companions were standing. The poison gases and the dancing wall of fire vanished at that instant.
The biting wind of this next environment nearly knocked them off their feet. The ground was solid ice. Tiny particles of the frozen stuff filled the air as well. The howling wind whipped them laterally across the frozen, limitless expanse of the place. The ice crystals stung where they touched flesh, imbedded themselves in any fold or crevice where the wind drove them. Soon the four adventurers would be encased in the stuff, icemen frozen into cold death. The temperature was so low that it hurt them to open their eyes. Here was a trap most cunning and deadly. They had to move to stay warm, to locate the step that was their only escape from icy death. Yet the sheet ice made movement slow and perilous, the jagged hunks of upthrust ice turning the place into a maze.
Shivering from cold, their teeth chattering, they searched with their aching eyes, looking in ever-expanding circles for some clue to the portal of escape. "Shall I use more of my power to conjure fire?" Curley Greenleaf chattered. "We could warm ourselves a bit, then spread out to search for the hidden stairstep."
Chert instantly assented to the suggestion, and Gellor was uncertain, but Gord vetoed it. "Only as a last resort should more of your spells be used, Curley. We won't separate in any event! We must stay within sight of one another, and we should be moving now, too." The words were reasonable, Gord's assessment accurate and requiring no further explanation. His comrades nodded, and the four returned to scanning, peering.