PART 3

In the Keep

Chapter Eleven

"Hey!" yelled Hero as he raced in through the entrance of the overhung cave. "Hey, Eldin, Aminza! I've found it, the way into the keep! I've-" He skidded to a halt, eyes going wide as he took in the scene. There they sat on a pile of soft furs, Eldin the Wanderer swilling wine from a stone bottle, one arm carelessly over Aminza's shoulder, the hand fondling a breast through thin silk; and the girl snuggling up to the great oaf, nuzzling his leathery cheek, counting the forest of hairs on his massive chest.

Startled, they looked up at him for a moment, then Eldin got to his feet. "Ah, David. It's as well you've discovered our little secret, er, for we'd have to tell you sooner or later. But Aminza and I, we're going to be wed. You'll be best man, of course ... Won't you?"

"Eh?" Hero shook himself, blew dust off his brown jacket. "Oh, certainly, but-"

"You look puzzled, lad," the older man rumbled, placing what he meant to be a fatherly hand on Hero's shoulder. Hero, who stood somewhat taller than Eldin and wasn't all that much younger, hated it when his friend took on that tone of voice, pretending a paternal interest.

"Is it so strange that the little baggage should want to bed me down?"

"You asked me," Aminza sweetly interrupted. "Remember?"

Hero pointed vaguely behind him out of the mouth of the cave at the great Keep of the First Ones where it loomed massively across the high plateau. "Look, it doesn't matter who asked who, whom or which-I just-"

"Of course we'll have to fight for her," the scarfaced Eldin scowled. "It's the custom in certain villages where I've lodged."

"What?" Hero howled, hopping impatiently now from one foot to the other. "Look, it's you who wants her, not I. If your engagement calls for blood-letting, you'll just have to bang your thick head on the wall of the cave once or twice. That should do the trick. Meanwhile-"

"You disappoint me, David," Eldin cut him off. "Haven't you learned any of dreamland's customs? The best man to be always-"

'To hell with the best man to be!" Hero roared. "You sex-besotted clown-I'll-" And he swung a rock-hard fist at the other's head.

"That's better," Eldin grunted, grinning as he sidestepped the angry blow to deliver a lightning ham with a satisfying thok on Hero's jaw. The younger dreamer was lifted an inch off his feet and thrown across the cave mouth, banging his head on a stone where he landed on his back.

Hero shot to his feet, eyes turning bloodshot now, curved Kledan blade growing almost magically from his hand. The other backed off a step, made placating motions with his hands, said: "Easy, lad, easy. Enough is enough. That's all the ceremony calls for: die challenge and the answer. Nothing extravagant." He turned from Hero and hugged Aminza to him. "The first marrying priest we find-" he started-and stopped short. His great head snapped round and his black eyebrows peaked in the middle as he stared at his friend from the waking world. "Did you say-?"

Hero cast his eyes to the ceiling of the cave and his sword with a clang to its dusty floor. "What's the use?" he asked of no one in particular, disgustedly dabbing at a trickle of blood from where he'd bit a lip when Eldin struck him.

"You found the way in?" the big man whispered, then roared, "Where? Where?" He unhanded Aminza and bounded across the cave, peering out and away at the hugely looming keep, yellow now with sharp sunlight.

"There," said Hero, slitting his eyes and pointing at the distantly featureless face of stone. "Between the stars."

"I see no-" said Eldin, craning his bull neck.

Then, fists clenched into a club, Hero hit him on the back of his head. Down went Eldin like a felled oak, face down in the dust. "Now do you see them?" Hero grinned. But the other merely groaned and spat out dirt.

"Boys will be buffoons," said Aminza, moving lithely across the cave mouth to offer Eldin her hand. "Did you really find the entrance, David?"

"I did," he grinned again. "While you two were eyeing and sighing back here, I rediscovered old Thinistor's secret. I found the way into the great keep. The old wizard had marked his route and I stumbled across it. We were wasting our time seeking a door in the base of the keep; the entrance is halfway up its face!"

"Then we'll need ropes," Eldin grunted, squinting his eyes and tenderly fingering the back of his head. "What did you find inside? Thinistor's gold? Treasure? Marvels and wonders?"

Hero shook his head. "I found a maze," he answered. "And I spent an hour trying to get back out!"

"A maze?" Eldin frowned. "What in hell good is that? Are we to spend days without number exploring a maze?"

"The legends tell of a Black Princess, Yath-Lhi of Tyrhhia, who built a mighty underground maze beneath a great desert," Aminza thoughtfully said. "At its center she kept all the treasures of her silver-spired city, and only she knew the way in. When she went in to admire her hoard, or to add to it, she would have her bearers slain as soon as she led them back out through the maze. When she died, her nation died with her-penniless! No one could ever find the maze's center."

"I've heard that story," Hero nodded.

"Do you think," Eldin grabbed his shoulders, "that the First Ones did the same thing?"

"It's possible that the Black Princess copied their idea, yes," Hero answered. "But that's no guarantee that there's a treasure."

"But there might be?"

Hero shrugged.

"Right, let's go!" said Eldin, rubbing his hands together, eager now to be up and at it.

"Ropes first," reminded Aminza, "and food in case you have trouble finding your way out. Oh, and plenty of chalk ..."

"Chalk?" Eldin looked puzzled.

'To mark a trail," Hero sighed. "Has love robbed you of all your wits, 'old man'? "

"Now see here-"

But Hero ignored him. He rubbed his hands in anticipation, turned to Aminza and said: "Well, then? Come on, let's get busy, busy! The day wears on and we can't stay here forever. And Eldin-"

"Uh?"

"Wear some warm clothes. It's damned cold in there!"

Down below on the vast, boulder-strewn plateau, Aminza stood out from the shadow of the keep and looked up at the men where they toiled upward. They had used the ropes for a quick, safe climb, rather than spend exhausting hours on the job, which had been Hero's lot that very morning. Now it was mid-afternoon, and high on the face of the keep the men looked like spiders to Aminza Anz and their ropes like strands of web.

To them she, too, looked insectlike, and catching sight of her where she stood far below, David Hero glanced speculatively at his burly companion. They had just hauled themselves up onto a narrow ledge and now sat dangling their legs in thin air.

"How old are you, anyway?" queried the younger dreamer, brushing dust and fine debris from his brown trousers.

"Eh? I'm forty-seven. Why do you ask?"

"You still climb very well," Hero answered, after a moment of thought. "Especially for one who couldn't draw breath without choking only a handful of weeks ago."

"I always was good on a face," Eldin preened. "Perhaps I was a mountaineer in the waking world." Then he looked shrewdly at his friend. "But you can't fool me, lad. That's not really why you asked my age, is it? Still, I'll play your game. And how old are you; thirty-two, aren't you?"

Hero nodded. "Aye, fifteen years your junior. But I was only twenty-six when first we met."

"And you're wondering how an old lad like Eldin the Wanderer managed to catch a pretty little butterfly like Aminza, eh? And right under your nose, at that!"

Hero shook his head. "No, not at all; though I'll grant you she's a pretty enough creature for any man. But we've been together now for six years, and-"

"Ah! Now I understand," cried Eldin. "You think that this will split us up, right?"

"Oh, it'll do that eventually, no doubt about it-but," he shrugged. "All for the best, really, I suppose ..." And Hero picked at his square nails and gazed off into space.

"What?" Eldin scowled. "What? Are you trying to tell me something? How do you mean, 'all for the best?' "

"Well, they have a saying in some of the villages where I've lodged," Hero answered. "More a poem, really." He paused. "But I don't suppose it applies to such as us. I mean, after all, we're from the waking world. You know- foreigners."

"Foreigners? We're damned dreamers, that's all. And if one of us is a foreigner, why, it's you! You haven't even earned yourself a dream-name yet!"

"Ah, well," Hero shrugged. "Forget it." He pointed at a deep shaded crack in the rock face. "That's it," he said. "The entrance."

Before Eldin could comment, the younger man stood up on the precarious ledge, found easy hand- and footholds overhead and pulled himself leisurely up and into the fault. They were roped together. Eldin watched Hero disappear, felt the rope tighten about his waist and followed. A moment later they stood together in the cool shade, peering into gloom where the fissure's flat floor receded into the heart of the keep.

"Go on, then," said Eldin. "Say it."

"Eh? Say what?" asked Hero innocently, peering at the stone floor beneath his feet. "See here," he pointed. "These tracks in the dust here. They're mine. But these others, they can only be Thinistor's. Come on, let's not hang about." And as their eyes became more accustomed to the dim interior of the keep, so they moved forward.

"Hold!" commanded Eldin before they'd gone more

than a dozen paces. Hero looked at him and could see that he was rapidly losing his temper. "Say your damned saying, or your 'poem,' or whatever. Say it now, or damn your eyes I'll go no farther!"

Hero sighed. "You won't like it," he warned. "You'll only want to fight."

"What, me? Fight? Over a silly poem? No, no," the other vigorously shook his great head. "Not over a fool's rhyme!"

"Well, anyway, I won't say it," said Hero, his voice echoing hollowly in the gloomy rock passage. "We've no time now for fighting."

"Say it!" roared the other, and they both winced at the echoes that came thundering back.

"Are you trying to bring the whole keep down on our heads?" Hero whispered. "All right, all rightl I'll say it:

'A man's a man till forty, But past that, as a rule, He's old and rude and naughty, And any female's-' "

"Hold!" Eldin snarled. "Don't you dare say it! You just this minute made the damn thing up anyway. Here, let me lead the way."

"Careful as you go!" cried Hero as the other brushed brusquely by him. "Easy, I say. Just around that comer there's a-" And he threw himself flat on the dusty floor, wedging his body tight with arms, elbows, head and feet in the narrow corridor.

"-Pitfall! " came the cry of the other as his weight fell on the rope, nearly jerking Hero loose. It took Eldin only a moment or two to haul himself back to safety, and when Hero felt the rope slacken he crept round the corner of rock to He flat beside his friend and peer down into the black depths.

Without a word the younger dreamer took a prepared brand from the pack on his back. He struck flint and flames instantly burst from the torch. The two stared down into die black reaches of an apparently bottomless pit. Hero looked sideways at the older man. The sight of his companion's throat undulating so rapidly as he nervously gulped and swallowed was something one might only witness once or twice in a lifetime. To emphasize a point, Hero plucked a piece of burning rag from die torch and let it fall. For well over a minute the flaring speck of light could be seen receding into unguessed depths before it was swallowed up in darkness.

"A good thing we were tied together," said Hero.

"Aye," Eldin readily agreed. "David-"

"I accept your apology," the other preempted him.

"Good! And no more needling?"

"And no more bull-headed arguing?"

"And an end to bloody 'poetry?' "

"And no dream name-calling!"

They grinned at each other in me flickering torchlight.

"Which way do we go?" Eldin finally asked.

"See there, the ledge along the wall? It's narrow but safe enough." Hero held his torch high and the shadows were pushed back. The chasm was about twenty-five feet wide and indeed a narrow rim of rock crossed it along one wall.

"I was along there once already, remember? Keep your face to the wall and you'll find handholds galore. Follow me, but quietly. And listen, old Thinistor did us a favor. From here on in he left warnings-probably reminders for himself-smudges of dye in hazardous places. White is safe, red means danger!"

"Fine, but-don't you think that now would be a good time to get rid of this rope? It just saved my life, granted, but next time it might mean the end of both of us."

"Agreed," said Hero. "Only be careful. Remember, I know the way-or at least some of it-and it's a pretty tricky way, you may believe me!"