Thinistor LJdd and One Other

Chapter Seven

The apartment, or "temple," was huge: fifty feet across and almost as high, with daggerlike stalactites hanging from the ceiling and squat stalagmites rising up through the luxuriant furs that lay three deep upon the floor. The walls were covered with black furs stitched together into drapes, and at intervals these were parted to frame the mouths of inner tunnels that led back into darkness. Two of these entrances were fitted with stout metal gates whose bars were inches thick.

Having satisfied themselves that no immediate danger threatened, none of any mundane nature at least, the pair faced the old man in his wizard's robes of red and black. He sat upon the cushioned stump of a stalagmite, tasselled conical hat upon his shrunken head, slender, knobbed black wand in his monkey's hand, peering at them sullenly through eyes which were yellow slits in his crinkled-parchment face.

Behind this evil-looking ancient, standing half in the shadow of a massive stalagmite, the carven figure of Yibb-Tstll loomed, overlooking all else in the temple. And over all else it was this monstrous effigy, despite being partly obscured, which primarily drew the wide eyes of the dreamers.

Of more or less manlike proportion, the-thing-had a head, a polished black lump atop its sloping shoulders of stone. Two eyes were frozen in oddly unnatural positions on the surface of the head: one was up near the top, the other was low, where the corner of a mouth might have been in a more nearly normal statue. The lower eye was green and shone with an inner luminosity-a massive emerald-but the other was of a reddish, bloody hue, and of the two it looked decidedly more real.

The narrowly sloping shoulders were cloaked, as was the bulky body beneath; but the cloak, carved of the same stalagmite stone as the god, was open in front to reveal many polished black breasts. This was an anomaly in itself since patently the figure was male. Beneath the cloak where it billowed in petrified rigidity, a cluster of stone night-gaunts, their wings folded, clung tightly, almost lovingly, to the unseen body of the god. The idol was a nightmare, made even more nightmarish by its height-which was almost three times that of a tall man!

Staring at the loathsome thing, the dreamers felt mat they had left the sane world of dreams and now inhabited an alien dimension at the very rim of sanity. Their eyes went from the idol to the yellow eyes of the wizard, back to the idol, and finally-

"So!" the wizard-priest's thin, reedy voice-which yet hinted of an awful strength, a sorcerous power-drew their thoughts back to earth. "And you two are the murderers of my pets, are you? The cruel butchers of poor Hritta and Nythlar? Well, welcome, dreamers-welcome to the Temple of Yibb-Tstll. I, Thinistor Udd, need not ask why you have come. For surely, like all the others recently ventured this way, you were sent by the Ossaran, Ebraim Borak, on behalf of my cousin Nyrass of Theelys, to steal my wand. And did you, too, like the others, think that it would be so very easy?"

"Old man, Thinistor Udd," answered Hero, "we've no quarrel with you. We're after the wand, that's true enough, but no need for any violence. And no magic, please, for our knives are surely faster than any of your spells!"

The two had separated as Hero talked, widening the distance between themselves, moving forward now with swords once more sheathed and replaced by long, curving knives.

Suddenly and for no apparent reason, Eldin blundered into a naked stump of stone and fell over it, his knife flying from his hand. At the same time Hero felt a dull ache spreading behind his eyes, clouding his mind. He, too, reeled and only managed to steady himself by leaning against a rocky knob that jutted up waist-high from the floor.

Eldin gropingly retrieved his knife and hauled himself to his feet. "You were warned, wizard," he rumbled. "No magic!" His arm went back, curved blade gripped between thumb and forefinger, and-

"No!" cried Hero. "No, Eldin-don't kill him!"

"Magic?" cackled the evil ancient. "No, no, my friends from the waking world, not magic. Merely ... a drug!"

"The wine!" gasped Eldin and Hero in unison.

"Aye, the wine. You see, I was expecting you. It's been a while since Borak sent me two such as you; indeed, you are long overdue. Ah, but this time he excels himself!"

"Borak!" snarled Eldin. And then-despite or perhaps because of one last attempt to throw his knife-the older dreamer gave a strangled cough, crumpled and sagged to his knees, fell face down among the furs. Hero took two more paces forward while the great cave seemed to revolve around him, then he too toppled, feeling nothing of the impact as his body brought a cloud of dust up from the fur-strewn floor ...

Eldin was dying. He knew it from the very moment he awoke to the none-too-gentle slapping of tiny hands about his bearded face. There was a searing fire in his lungs, burning as never before, and all his great strength seemed to have evaporated within him, steamed out of his body by the consuming fire. He awoke with a great bloody cough bursting upward-which expired unaltered when scented, delicate fingers clamped firmly over his agonized mouth.

"Shh! Quiet, dreamer!" a girl's tremulous, fear-filled voice whispered. "Hush, now-lest you wake Thinistor Udd!"

At that Eldin remembered where he was and all that had gone before. He opened his eyes and stared straight into those of an apparition. By the flickering flame of a small stone lamp he studied the girl. Slim as a willow twig, she was; blue-eyed and fair-skinned, with delicate features much like the aristocrats of Ilek-Vad; long-limbed for all that she was tiny, with soft golden hair falling about her bosom. In all-and dressed as she was in the flimsiest of gauzes and wraps, and certainly in any place other than this-she was a sight for sore eyes!

Eldin forced back the tearing coughs he felt welling inside to wheezingly ask: "Who are you, girl? And what by all the gods are you doing here? Aye,"-he stared about at the small, featureless cave-"and for that matter, where exactly is 'here,' eh?"

"You are in one of Thinistor's gated cells," she told him. "But hush, hush!"

She turned her attentions to David Hero who lay nearby. Eldin tried to get up, discovered himself to be bound hand and foot, lay back again and watched the girl as she slapped Hero's drawn face until his eyes flickered open.

"Eh?" Hero said-then: "What in the name of-?"

"Shh!" the girl once more admonished. And again she suffered the burning gaze of a dreamer as Hero studied her where she sat upon her haunches. "Do not struggle," she said, as he began to strain against his ropes, "for you'll only tighten Thinistor's bonds."

"But what-" Hero began again, only to be cut off by:

"You are the wizard's captives and he would kill you- most horribly! Only I can save you, and only you can save me. If I have your promise that you'll take me with you, then I'll help you to escape."

"Done!" said Eldin at once. "But only set us free."

"Aye," agreed Hero, "you have our word. But come, loosen these bonds. And while you're about it you can tell us what you know of Thinistor Udd."

The knots were tight and the ropes thin and strong, but nevertheless, the girl worked hard and fast with small deft fingers. She worked on Hero first, and as her fingers flew so she talked:

"My name is Aminza Anz, and I was taken by a gaunt from the balcony of my father's home in Ilek-Vad. That was almost a year ago, since when I've been here. At first I thought that the gaunt would eat me, but I don't know if they do eat."

Hero nodded. "We know," he said. "Gaunts have no faces, and so no mouths'. Neither has Yibb-Tstll a mouth, if we can judge by that idol we saw in Thinistor's temple."

'True, and Yibb-Tstll is the Lord of Gaunts."

"Interesting," Hero mused.

"For goodness sake go on, girl!" grunted Eldin, impatient of interruptions.

"Anyway," Aminza quickly continued, "I wasn't eaten but brought here. It took the gaunt all of three nights to get me here, resting in mountain caves by day and only journeying under the stars. Sometimes he'd fly me halfway up to the moon, and then for hours we'd glide and glide where shoals of hideous, shapeless drifting things groped and pawed and tried to wrest me from the gaunt's awful grasp."

"The larvae of the Other Gods!" said Hero, his voice hushed. "I've heard mention of them before."

"Perhaps," Aminza answered, then grunted with delight as one of the knots came loose behind Hero's back. Without pause she started on another.

By now Eldin was fidgeting as though he had fleas. "Go on, lass," he urged. "Can't you get on? These ropes are cutting me in pieces!"

"Well," she went on, "I was asleep when we got here, and when I woke up-there was Thinistor Udd." She shuddered.

"And he's kept you here ever since, eh?" asked Hero. "But why did he have you brought here in the first place? Has he been ... bothering you?"

"Pardon?"

"Does he take you to bed, lass?" Eldin was more direct.

"No, no," she shuddered again. "But he looks at me a lot and makes me dance. And sometimes he ... touches me."

"Huh!" the gnarled dreamer grunted. "He's past it, then."

"Only his body is old," she answered as yet another knot came loose in her hands. "His mind is sharp as a razor."

"It's a razor I'll be taking to his scrawny throat as soon as you've got us loose," Eldin replied. "The razor edge of my knife-if I can find it!"

Hero sniffed disgustedly. "You didn't really think he'd leave us our weapons, did you?"

"Don't go snapping at me, lad," Eldin rumbled, "or by-"

"Shh!" Hero fiercely hissed. "Hell's teeth, Eldin- you'll have the roof down on us with your bellowing!"

Then, to the girl, he said: "And did he lock you up with us, Aminza? Surely he was taking a chance?"

"No," she answered. "Indeed, he forbade me to come near. But you are my one chance for freedom. Soon he would do with me as he does with the others. I was small enough to squeeze in through the bars-but you two will have to break down the gate." She gave a little grunt of triumph, said "There!"-and at last Hero's hands were free.

"Work on Eldin," the young dreamer told her. "I'll free my own feet ... as soon as there's an ounce of blood flowing in these numb hands of mine!" He began to rub at his hands, working life back into them. "Gods, girl, but I could kiss you-aye, and more than that-if things were a little different."

Aminza said nothing but her blush could be seen even in the flickering lamplight. As she started work on the ropes that bound Eldin, the older man asked:

"What others were you talking about? And what was it Thinistor did to them?"

For a moment she paused in her task to peer at him, and again she shuddered. "Other prisoners," she finally answered. "Other men that the gaunts bring him, or who come here from Theelys, sent by-"

"By a treacherous Ossaran dog!" Eldin cut in.

Aminza nodded. 'Thinistor, he ... he sucks at them like a vampire with his wand. He changes them to little bags of bones, which he then feeds to his snow leopards. You see, he's determined to regain his youth. That's why he came here in the first place, why he discovered a way into the Keep of the First Ones. He brought things out of there with him, secrets the First Ones knew."

"Secrets?" Hero repeated, finally freeing his feet. "What sort of secrets?"

"Things that drove him mad!" she answered.

"His wand?" Hero pressed.

"No, He found that hidden in these caves. From the keep he brought knowledge of strange magicks. He knows how to call up Yibb-Tstll-or so he says."

The dreamers looked at each other, then back to the girl. "How do you know all this, Aminza?" asked Hero.

"He told me so himself. Often he rambles on, especially when the moon is round and mil in the night sky. For years he has worked to discover the secrets of the First Ones, and now he finally draws close to understanding mem. His search for youth is only the first step. After that ... the magick of the First Ones will make him the greatest sorcerer in all the dreamlands-and the crudest!"

"What makes you think he's close, girl?" asked Eld in.

"I've seen him when he's drained someone," she answered with a grimace. "For a little while he's young again. Then-swiftly he grows old! With you two he plans to stay young forever. After that, strong and daring, he'll go back into the Keep of the First Ones. Who can say what he'll bring out next?"

"Who, indeed?" echoed Hero thoughtfully.

"Using us he'll stay young forever?" Eldin suspiciously repeated her words. "You mean he plans to-?"

"Little bags of bones," Hero grimly cut in. "Aye, well, I'm not quite ready for mat yet. Come on, toss your feet over here, old friend. It's time we were loose and on our way." To Aminza he said: "Where's Thinistor now, girl? And where does he keep his gaunts?"

"He sleeps. Such are his thaumaturgies that he needs a great deal of sleep. When he wakes he will draw strength from Yibb-Tstll's idol-which is an avatar of the true demon-god-and then ..." she paused uncertainly.

"Then it's our turn, eh?" they asked as one.

For answer she nodded. "So I believe. As for the gaunts: why, you've seen them for yourselves!"

"Eh?" Hero frowned. "You mean those stone horrors hanging from the idol's teats?"

"Indeed. When they are needed, Thinistor ... wakes them!"

The dreamers stared at each other.

"David, I fear we're deep in nightmares now," said Eldin, "and much as I know you're against murder, this time it seems-"

"-We'll have to kill him," Hero finished it for him.

The other gravely nodded. "Right. There are too damned many wizards in dreamland anyway. And the sane ones are bad enough!"