Lyndon Hardy - Riddle of the Seven Realms

Then Palodad shuffled to the jars on the stone floor and released another swarm of mites. For many cycles of the lattices, he grabbed them from the air and affixed them to one metal sheet after another, feeding the completed trays through the slot in the wall. When he was done he turned his attention to the glowsprites, watching closely the random blink of colors and form. This time they did not shape coherent images, but Palodad nodded and smiled, mumbling to himself when he seemed to distinguish one particular pattern from another.

For how long he remained waiting, Astron could not tell; but finally, one by one, the sprite lights winked out, leaving only a surface of muted gray.

"There is the matter of the payment," Palodad said at last. He rubbed the metal ball he carried in his hand against his leg and then looked absently at the shiny surface. "Did your prince delegate to you the bargaining as well?"

"Then you do know the answer," Astron exclaimed. "You have calculated it with your strange devices even as we waited."

But Palodad held up his hand before Astron could say more. "As you have said, the riddle is most profound. It is no wonder that even the likes of Elezar could not fathom the direction in which to proceed."

The devil paused and fingered the pouch containing the hourglass at his side. "In fact, even I do not bargain with the solution to the conundrum," he said. "I can only indicate where it is the most-the most profitable for Elezar to look. As for the details of the answer, he will have to find it on his own."

The sudden buoyancy of Astron's hopes drained away. Despite all the tales of the broodmothers, the old devil knew little more than his prince. Elezar already suspected that the answer lay outside of the realm of daemon. Merely being told where to seek would be worth far less than the answer itself.

"You speak of payments," Astron said cautiously. "Surely a mere hint carries little value at all."

"Many others have found my prices reasonable enough." Palodad waved his arm out across his lair. "With each riddle I solved, I obtained a few more spars, stone for another trio of steps, cages for one or two more imps. Each exchange in itself has not amounted to much, but over the eons I have managed to build all that you have seen. And, rather than waste my wealth on trivial amusements for the senses, I have focused it on increasing my ability to compute, to collect and store even more of what happens in the realm, and to predict with greater and greater accuracy what the future will bring."

Palodad smiled and tapped Astron's chest with the ball he clutched in his fist. "Elezar chose his emissary well," he said. "I get no great amusement spending eons maneuvering through complex negotiations for the last dram of mass. Your prince merely has to fetch for me something from the realm to which I will direct him. That will be payment enough."

"If what you desire is more than base iron, then it will not be so easy for any of Elezar's retinue to wrest it back through the flame," Astron said. "The prince will not care for an agreement that carries such a complication."

"I am fully aware that the living residents of the other realms can transport objects through the flame far more easily than can any of our kind," Palodad said. "Elezar will have to enlist help from men, skyskirr, or some other beings, it is true. But I have faith in his ability to figure out a way."

"It is a complication," Astron repeated. "As Gaspar presses for an answer, my master will have less ability to comply."

Palodad scowled. He pressed the heavy orb of metal to his chest. "Tell him that I will validate his answer," he said. "Whatever he discovers, he can bring to me before he risks exposing it to Gaspar. I will weigh the plausibility of correctness with the computations that are at my disposal and no one else's in the realm. In exchange for a modicum of matter, he will know not only where to look but be certain that what he finds is correct.

"Tell him, cataloguer. Tell him what I offer. He will ponder and then finally acquiesce. It is only a question of time."

Astron grimaced, but Palodad took no heed. He slapped his arms about his waist and staggered back into the conveyer belt, howling in apparent glee. "Time, time, time," he gasped. "The focus always returns to time. When will it ever end?"

Astron slumped to the stone slab in frustration. He felt the beginnings of doubt that his journey had accomplished anything at all. Perhaps all the talk of computations and hints were no more than the ravings of madness, a perverted defense against a growing presence of the great monotony.

He shrugged his shoulders. But if there were anything else to try, surely his prince would have so directed him. Palodad represented the last hope, as slim as it was. In resignation, he watched the old devil flail on the hard stone, waiting for the seizure to end.

Eventually Palodad stopped and righted himself, wiping away a mucus-filled tear as he stood. "You should now go," he said, waving to a bucket descending from a level above. "Repeat to your prince the offer I have made. Come again and tell me when he has agreed. Then I will instruct in detail where it is you are to search and what you will bring back for me in exchange."

Astron nodded and rose to meet the descending basket. The outcome of the meeting was far from satisfactory. He doubted that the duty to his prince was yet quite completed.

THE domes of Elezar were just as Astron had left them. He felt the talons release their grip on his shoulders and dropped the last few spans to the decorated plane on which the structures stood.

"Until the prince gives me cause to return to Palodad's lair, I will have no further need," he said to the djinn still hovering above him. "Return to your own den and await command."

The mighty demon gave no acknowledgment. With one beat of his wings he soared rapidly upward. Soon he was but a speck vanishing from sight. Astron watched him go and for a moment more followed the flights of others as they transported objects and smaller devils to and from Elezar's domain.

He was a cataloguer, Astron thought, the best in all the retinue of his prince. He understood the value of knowledge and traded it for power far beyond what one would expect for one of his size and lack of ability to weave.

He was a cataloguer and yet… He flexed his arms trying to imagine for perhaps the millionth time the sensation of darting between the uppermost spires of his prince's towers, of swooping down into the dark abysses, or even of visiting distant lairs without the assistance of a djinn dangling him from great talons and protecting him from danger.

Astron closed his eyes, wiggling his fingers in exaggerated slowness, straining for the feel of the matter about him, trying to caress its form and texture, molding it into the shapes that he commanded, and transforming even its innermost structure and bonding so that it became as he desired.

But as always, the feelings did not come. His weight pressed all too firmly on the soles of his feet. His palms and the tips of his fingers felt no more than the tenuousness of air. He was only Astron, the one who walked. Besides, there was no time for such reverie, he decided angrily. He must report to the prince.

Quickly Astron navigated through the maze of peripheral domes to the main rotunda. The slight give of the thinly stretched web of matter to each stride reminded him of the firmness of Palodad's crude steps of true stone. The outer passageways were empty; the flitter of imps and bustle of messenger devils had stopped. When he burst into the central rotunda, Astron found that every demon in the domain had gathered. In concentric circles, they hovered and squatted; all eyes were focused on the hub in which were conversing no less than two princes of the realm.