"Any clue?" Gord shouted over the shrieking gale.
That question drew only negative responses — and then another shout blared forth: Gellor had slipped and fallen on the iron-hard ice. Curley thought the bard's cry was one of pain and distress, and in a flash the druid was hastening to the fellow's side by making skating movements with his frozen-stiff boots, using the staff's spearhead to balance and pole In the process. "How badly are you hurt?" he called.
"Hurt? Hurt?" The bard was actually laughing, so hard that tears were forming... and freezing to his cheeks! "It is ironic!" Gellor bellowed over the wind. "Come here! Look!" He pointed to a silver-white sheathed fang of old, black ice that was nearby.
"My fall has saved us, dear friends," the troubador went on — In a lower tone now, for the others were all clustered near. "See that darker ebon In the hummock?" Not one of the three could spot what Gellor was directing their attention to. He laughed again, then said, "No wonder, I suppose. Even though it was within a few feet of our entry point, the combination of ice and dweomercraeft cloaked it from us completely. Only from the edge can I discern the thing, even with my enchanted orb! The stair is imbedded there, hidden in the icy mound before you!"
Chert needed no further encouragement. He swung Brool with vigor unusual even for that hulking barbarian. Shoulder muscles rippling, arms Gorded as he worked. Chert chopped with the battleaxe. The massive blade sent ice flying in chunks, slivers, and a spray of finer stuff was instantly borne away in the wind. There was no room for the others, for the axe described mighty arcs as the brawny hillman sent it biting into the ice-fang time after time in a furious frenzy.
In a handful of minutes the little mountain of frozen water was a waist-high plateau. Chert ceased his titanic hewing then, and Gord and the bard relieved him, doing the finer work of clearing the metallic rectangle with their swords first, then daggers for the inch or two that remained atop the thing's surface.
"Done," the champion said with a last chiseling of the long dagger he plied against the ice. "Six tests have we passed. This might be the stair which brings us to the enemy!"
"Hey," Chert said unbelievingly, "I saw about a hundred steps when we first started on this stupid exercise. What makes you think that there aren't pretty near that many left for us to go!" The query was accusative in tone. Despite the severe cold, the words sent a chill through the other three.
Seeing the effect on his comrades, Gord shook off his own foreboding and managed a grin. "One more or one hundred — will it matter? We will win through the rest, just as we've managed the traps behind. There's no choice, comrades. Either we succeed, or we die... and if we die, so does all hope everywhere." That bolstered them, and even the young adventurer felt heartened by his own words. They reminded Gord that this hunt was for more than personal revenge. Gravestone was the one responsible for the deaths of his father and mother, for the murder of his ship's crew, and the killing of his friends Dohojar and Barrel. Only the archdaemon, Infestix, was more culpable than the vile priest-wizard.
Still, there was far more at stake. Gravestone was a very powerful agent of evil, one of the greatest working for the awakening of Tharizdun. It would be a double blow then, the satisfaction of personal scores settled being secondary to the lessening of the ability of the nethersphere to achieve its malicious ends.
"Come on, Gord! We'll freeze here soon. What's wrong?"
He realized he had been standing, lost in thought. "Sorry, Chert. I was considering strategy, more or less. You're right, though. I can't stop for that sort of thing now. Tarrying is death. Let's climb up and see what's in store for us next." And he again shot his friends his boyish grin.
Although his eyes did not laugh, the three with the young champion understood and smiled as well, each hefting his own weapon as he did so. Come what may, they were four men who together would face and overcome anything that was thrown at them, or else they would lay down their lives in the trying. "On the count of three?" Gellor called out.
"Agreed," Gord replied.
"One!" shouted Curley.
"Two!" the big hillman boomed immediately.
"Three!" Gellor cried as he hopped up to the surface.
They were in a warm, green-lit forest glen. It was, in fact, a druidical grove, and all four of them were standing upon the smooth altarstone in the center of three rings of standing stones. There was a crowd of the faithful there, too, and the circle of faces showed shock and surprise at their sudden materialization atop that holy place.
"Gord, what are you doing here?" The question was from a female voice. Gord recognized it instantly, even before he turned to face its owner. She was Evaleigh, the Baroness of Ratik — the first woman Gord had ever loved. She was here!
Chapter 11
LORD NELBON, GELLOR RECOGNIZED the beautiful woman just as quickly and as happily as Gord did. The troubador was a nobleman of Nyrond, just as was Evaleigh's father. Count Dunstan of Blemu. In his service to the crown, Gellor had traveled often the lands of the Count, seen the pretty little child grow into a lovely girl and even a more beautiful woman. It had been his intervention that had brought Gord, who was then Evaleigh's lover, from the count's dungeons on the pretext that the young thief was actually a secret agent and captain of Nyrond's king.
How would Gord react now? Gellor wondered, then dismissed the question. The real issue was, how had the four of them come to this place? A place somewhere in or near Ratik was a long step indeed from the quasi-dimensional places where they had been hunting the malign demonurgist.
"Our apologies for this unseemly intrusion, Lady Ratik," Gord said with utmost aplomb, giving a courtly bow as he spoke. Then he sprang lightly down from the stone block. "We were brought here by sheer mischance, and no sacrilege is involved."
"Most assuredly, lady, most assuredly!" Greenleaf said as he too hopped off the altar and signed to make pardonable the transgression that he and his associates had committed. The nature priest who was evidently officiating at the ceremony that the appearance of the four had interrupted recognized Greenleaf as a fellow druid and saw the little ritual of asked-for forgiveness that the half-elf had silently performed after vacating the hallowed stone block.
The All-In-All will accept with understanding," the druid said to his fellow. Then something clicked in the tall man's mind; that was evident from the play of emotions across his face as he stared at Curley. "I... I... beg your forgiveness. Great Harmoniousness. To have one of such exalted standing in my humble grove..." He let his words trail off as he wrung his hands and looked hopefully down at the bald, rotund little man, for the fellow had recognized Greenleaf as a very, very high druid indeed.
Just at that same moment. Lady Evaleigh called out, "And you too, Lord Gellor?"
That caused the tall nature priest double anxiety, for Gellor's was likewise a well-known name in these parts. Who might the other two be? The baroness had recognized the small, gray-eyed man first. Could he be of greater station than even the Great Harmony named Greenleaf and the renowned nobleman of Nyrond called Gellor? The druid decided to take no chances, so he addressed the rest of the visitors as a group. "And to you also, gentle lords, I extend my sincere pardon, and that of those faithful here gathered in celebration of the coming of Midsummer this night—"