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on like a surf roar. Light of a sickly green fell from a roof away behind the dazzle.
Thank Havil we are all safe save for those poor unfortunates who succumbed. Prince Nedfar
betrayed determination. He issued his orders in a hard voice. We have discovered a passageway and a
long corridor leading upward. This must be the way out. But we go carefully. That, we all knew, was
a remarkably redundant piece of advice and betrayed the state of our nerves no less than those of Prince
Nedfar s.
We go on in the same order. He looked meaningfully at Loriman and Tyfar and the rest of us
latecomers. It has been a long and trying wait down here.
I looked about among the people.
Where is Master Quienyin? I shouted, pushing through the throng.
But Quienyin, Ungovich and Yagno were missing.
I believe they went on ahead, to spy the way, said the lady Ariane. Let us go on!
Her face had lost a great deal of that high color. But what she said made sense, although Nedfar might
have thought differently. We started up the corridor, and all of us, from time to time, cast apprehensive
glances backwards.
By Tryflor! panted Hunch. This place has scared me witless. He shook with fear.
Nodgen tried to bolster his courage with a bellow. You Tryfants are all the same. Only good for
running!
True, moaned Hunch. Too true!
We pressed on and soon we recognized that the sequence of corridors and rooms matched those
through which we had first passed when we entered the Moder. Nedfar shouted that this was a good
sign. The way out mirrors the way in! Courage! Onward!
We trended upward and when we reached a chamber draped in solemn purple we stopped, dismayed.
No doorway broke those somber walls.
Men rushed about pulling the purple curtains aside. All they found was a small secret door beyond which
stood a lever. The lever was fashioned of ivory and bronze, and it looked ominous.
Pull that...? said Loriman. It is a riddle.
We have no time for riddles. Nedfar looked outraged.
Tyfar stood near me, and Ariane leaned on the shoulder of her numim.
The three who went ahead, I said, they must have riddled this riddle aright or where are they? I
looked at Ariane. Her face flushed, bringing her color back to that rosy red. She stamped her foot. I
said, slowly, Did they go ahead, lady?
Yes! she flared. Then: No I do not know. I did not see them. I think they went on down the stairs
of the pit.
The transparency of the lie could not soften my feelings.
I shall go back for Quienyin.
I shall come with you, Notor Jak said Tyfar.
No, prince. Better not you should stay to take care of the lady Ariane.
He looked at me. His spirit was up. The diffidence had gone, at least, for a space.
No, Notor Jak. I think not.
Pull the Havil-forsaken lever! roared Loriman, and have done!
Nedfar snapped out, sharply, Not until we have examined everything thoroughly, three times over!
There is, put in Kov Thrangulf, swallowing, the matter of the ninth part of the Key
Yes, kov, sang out Lobur the Dagger. He stood very close to the Princess Thefi. You are right, by
Krun! Now how could we have overlooked that weighty matter?
I turned away sharply. I went back along the corridors through which we had just toiled. The scene I left
was not to my liking.
Through the corridors I hurried and crossing a nine-sided room with curlicued marble floor inlaid with
the symbol for vaol-paol, The Great Circle of Universal Existence, I stopped stock still. Against three of
the walls stood tall glass cabinets. In each cabinet and plainly visible through the glass glowered a Kildoi
warrior. On each, the four arms and tail hand grasped weapons.
Now I could have sworn those cabinets had not been there when we hurried past this nine-sided room.
Then, with a resounding Makki-Grodno curse, I pushed on. Mysteries, mysteries...
The quick shuffle of footsteps in the corridor a few rooms along heralded Deb-Lu-Quienyin. He looked
different. And, yet, he was the same.
We turned together to hurry back, exchanging news.
The three mages went on down the pit of the Shaft of Flame. I warned Yagno; but he said he was a
Sorcerer of the Cult of Almuensis. Well Quienyin sounded genuinely aggrieved. What I saw down
there, on the ninth level, I will not say, young man. It is not for ordinary mortals.
Did you regain your powers, San?
He gave a half-despairing, half-amused laugh. Yes and no. I found what I sought, as San Orien had
promised. The Moder-lords do not allow Wizards of Loh into their Moders. That is a fact. But I was no
longer a real Wizard of Loh. So I found that which was needful.
Wonderful but, in this place, there is a catch?
There is a catch, Jak. I will only regain my full powers when I am safely outside the Moder.
Then that is all right. They are searching for the last part of the key now. They have found a lever. We
will soon be out. Then, I said, And Yagno? And Ungovich?
Yagno was no, better I do not reveal that. As for Ungovich, he disappeared, and I fear he shares
the same fate as Yagno.
So unhappy though it is, we do not wait for them?
By every Queen of Pain who ever reigned in Loh, he said, and surprised me by that word, no. It is
useless to wait.
We entered the nine-sided chamber with the inlaid motif of vaol-paol in the floor. Quienyin halted. The
three glass cabinets opened. The three Kildoi stepped forth. They glared at us.
No time to think. No time to understand that these three were Kildois, just as Mefto the Kazzur was a
Kildoi, with four arms and a tail equipped with a fist, superb fighting men, tremendous in their strength
and skill. Mefto had bested me at swordplay. No time, no time. No time even, with the flashing memory
of Seg Segutorio heartening me, to bring the great Lohvian longbow into action and shaft the first of them
as he rushed upon me.
Quienyin shouted something, and I caught the tailing words: ...the Kazzur!
The Krozair longsword ripped free.
In my two fists and gripped in that cunning Krozair hold, the brand gleamed in the unwavering beams of
the black candles in their golden holders... The Kildois hurled themselves on.
The first gripped thraxters in his right upper and right lower hands. His lower left hand slanted a round
shield. His upper left hand wielded a spear. And in his tail hand that wicked daggered steel glittered as his
tail swept in high above his head.
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