"Come," said Yerleroo, "things are about to commence. You will see us at our best, and must join us."
All the villagers had assembled in the amphitheatre, surrounding the platform in the centre. Most of them were light-skinned and light-haired, gay and smiling, excited-but a few were evidently of a different race, dark, black-haired, and these were sullen.
Sensing something ominous in what he saw, Rackhir asked the question directly: "Where is the next Gate?"
Yerleroo hesitated, his mouth worked and then he smiled. "Where the winds meet," he said.
Rackhir declared angrily: "That's no answer."
"Yes it is," said Lamsar softly behind him. "A fair answer."
"Now we shall dance," Yerleroo said. "First you shall watch our dance and then you shall join in."
"Dance?" said Rackhir, wishing he had brought a sword, or at least a dagger.
"Yes-you will like it. Everyone likes it. You will find it will do you good."
"What if we do not wish to dance?"
"You must-it is for your own good, be assured."
"And he--" Rackhir pointed at one of the sullen men. "Does he enjoy it?"
"It is for his own good."
Yerleroo clapped his hands and at once the fair-haired people leapt into a frenetic, senseless dance. Some of them sang. The sullen people did not sing. After a little hesitation, they began to prance dully about, their frowning features contrasting with their jerking bodies. Soon the whole village was dancing, whirling, singing a monotonous song.
Yerleroo flashed by, whirling. "Come, join in now."
"We had better leave," Lamsar said with a faint smile. They backed away.
Yerleroo saw them. "No-you must not leave-you must dance."
They turned and ran as fast as the old man could go. The dancing villagers changed the direction of their dance and began to whirl menacingly towards them in a horrible semblance of gaiety.
"There's nothing for it," Lamsar said and stood his ground, observing them through ironic eyes. "The mountain gods must be invoked. A pity, for sorcery wearies me. Let us hope their magic extends to this plane. Gordar! "
Words in an unusually harsh language issued from Lamsar's old mouth. The whirling villagers came on.
Lamsar pointed at them.
The villagers became suddenly petrified and slowly, disturbingly, their bodies caught in a hundred positions, turned to smooth, black basalt.
"It was for their own good," Lamsar smiled grimly. "Come, to the place where the winds meet," and he took Rackhir there quite swiftly.
At the place where the winds met they found the second gateway, a column of amber-coloured flame, shot through with streaks of green. They entered it and, instantly, were in a world of dark, seething colour. Above them was a sky of murky red in which other colours shifted, agitated, changing. Ahead of them lay a forest, dark, blue, black, heavy, mottled green, the tops of its trees moving like a wild tide. It was a howling land of unnatural phenomena.
Lamsar pursed his lips. "On this plane Chaos rules, we must get to the next gate swiftly for obviously the Lords of Chaos will seek to stop us."
"Is it always like this?" Rackhir gasped.
"It is always boiling midnight-but the rest, it changes with the moods of the Lords. There are no rules at all."
They pressed on through the bounding, blossoming scenery as it erupted and changed around them. Once they saw a huge winged figure in the sky, smoky yellow, and roughly man-shaped.
"Vezhan," Lamsar said, "let's hope he did not see us."
"Vezhan! " Rackhir whispered the name-for it was to Vezhan that he had once been loyal.
They crept on, uncertain of their direction or even of their speed in that disturbing land.
At length, they came to the shores of a peculiar ocean.
It was a grey, heaving, timeless sea, a mysterious sea which stretched into infinity. There could be no other shores beyond this rolling plain of water. No other lands or rivers or dark, cool woods, no other men or women or ships. It was a sea which led to nowhere. It was complete to itself-a sea.
Over this timeless ocean hovered a brooding ochre sun which cast moody shadows of black and green across the water, giving the whole scene something of the look of being enclosed in a vast cavern, for the sky above was gnarled and black with ancient clouds. And all the while the doom-carried crash of breakers, the lonely, fated monotony of the ever-rearing white-topped waves; the sound which portended neither death nor life nor war nor peace-simply existence and shifting inharmony. They could go no further.
"This has the air of our death about it," Rackhir said shivering.
The sea roared and tumbled, the sound of it increasing to a fury, daring them to go on towards it, welcoming them with wild temptation-offering them nothing but achievement-the achievement of death.
Lamsar said: "It is not my fate wholly to perish." But then they were running back towards the forest, feeling that the strange sea was pouring up the beach towards them. They looked back and saw that it had gone no further, that the breakers were less wild, the sea more calm. Lamsar was little way behind Rackhir.
The Red Archer gripped his hand and hauled him towards him as if he had rescued the old man from a whirlpool. They remained there, mesmerised, for a long time, while the sea called to them and the wind was a cold caress on their flesh.
In the bleak brightness of the alien shore, under a sun which gave no heat, their bodies shone like stars in the night and they turned towards the forest, quietly.
"Are we trapped, then, in this Realm of Chaos?" Rackhir said at length. "If we meet someone, they will offer us harm-how can we ask our question?"
Then there emerged from the huge forest a great figure, naked and gnarled like the trunk of a tree, green as lime, but the face was jovial.
"Greetings, unhappy renegades," it said.
"Where is the next gate?" said Lamsar quickly.
"You almost entered it, but turned away," laughed the giant. "That sea does not exist-it is there to stop travellers from passing through the gate."
"It exists here, in the Realm of Chaos," Rackhir said thickly.
"You could say so-but what exists in Chaos save the disorders of the minds of gods gone mad?"
Rackhir had strung his bone bow and fitted an arrow to the string, but he did it in the knowledge of his own hopelessness.
"Do not shoot the arrow," said Lamsar softly. "Not yet." And he stared at the arrow and muttered.
The giant advanced carelessly towards them, unhurried.
"It will please me to exact the price of your crimes from you," it said, "for I am Hionhurn the Executioner. You will find your death pleasant-but your fate unbearable." And he came closer, his clawed hands outstretched.
"Shoot! " croaked Lamsar and Rackhir brought the bow-string to his cheek, pulled it back with might and released the arrow at the giant's heart. "Run! " cried Lamsar, and in spite of their forebodings they ran back down the shore towards the frightful sea. They heard the giant groan behind them as they reached the edge of the sea and, instead of running into water, found themselves in a range of stark mountains.
"No mortal arrow could have delayed him," Rackhir said. "How did you stop him?"
"I used an old charm-the Charm of Justice, which, when applied to any weapon, makes it strike at the unjust."
"But why did it hurt Hionhurn, an immortal?" Rackhir asked.
"There is no justice in the world of Chaos-something constant and inflexible, whatever its nature, must harm any servant of the Lords of Chaos."