Robert Asprin - Uneasy Alliances

"Is that the way it seemed to you?" she whispered finally. "I didn't intend it. But you may be right. I was afraid-all I could think about was protecting the children. Oh Lalo, what can I do?"

Lalo was glad that the darkness hid his involuntary grin. Her question had sounded too much like a verse from a bawdy song that he doubted Gilla knew.

"Let me inside your defenses, love," he whispered, touching her cheek with fingers that had grown more sensitive, moving his hand gently downward until it curved around her breast, teasing her nipple until he felt it harden, and she gasped. For this, he did not need to see.

"Please, Gilla, let me come in... ."

The air had freshened and the hush of early dawn lay on the town by the time they were quiet again.

"After so long, you would think there could be no surprises," Gilla murmured drowsily, rolling away from him. "But each time we make the world anew... ."

Lalo emerged from the deep well of pure sensation reluctantly. He could view the images of his nightmare with some detachment now, but they retained their clarity.

"Gilla ... there's been so much strangeness in my life. Do we dare assume there was no truth in what I saw in my dream? Listen-" he went on as she mumbled sleepily. "We never met that girl, Rhian, until after I was blinded, but I can describe her-someone might have told me the color of her hair and eyes, but would they have said that Rhian wears a blue gauze veil with golden scallop shells embroidered on the hem, or that she has a dark brown mole on the back of her right hand?"

"That's true," said Gilla, fully awake at last. "You have described the girt." Her voice sharpened. "But if what you saw was a true vision, then Wedemir is going to die!"

"It may be a possibility only!" Lalo answered more confidently than he felt, holding her until he felt her tension begin to ease. "You must take me to the Mageguild, Gilla, as soon as it's light. We can save our son if I stop Wedemir from breaking down that door!"

Once. when he was first apprenticed, Darios had broken a flagon in his master's workshop, and screamed and ran as its contents exploded in fire.

A prompt spell from the senior mage had sent the flames running back upon themselves until all the stuff was consumed, but the master had afflicted Darios for several days with a demon who tormented him with little pricking flames. Now he dreams that the fire is spreading, licking up the heavy draperies, even consuming the stone. The Mageguild is an inferno; the heat blisters his skin. the light blinds him. He writhes and shrieks and wakes to the cold silence of his tomb.

Shuddering, Darios composes himself to trance again. And again the dreams torment him. This time it is a book which he has been forbidden to read. But if he once opens it, he can escape the tyranny of his masters, for their knowledge will be his own. He makes his way into the chamber and sets his hand to the cover. Light spills from within as he lifts it, brilliance explodes as it flies open. Darios strives to force the cover down again, but he does not know the spell. He screams as the world whirls away.

To wake twice from such a nightmare is an evil portent. Darios would try to stay awake, but awake he is aware that he is cold, and hungry, and alone. Guarding himself with all the spells he knows, he seeks stillness once more. But yet again he dreams, though he struggles against it. This time he is with companions, fellow-students, perhaps, who are on the track of some treasure. They begin to pull down a pile of rocks, laughing and tossing away the stones. He tries to stop them, but soon they come to a slab set into the ground. Something is written there-Darios tries to see it, but the others are in the way. He sees them pulling at it, and then light explodes from the earth, flinging him away. In despair he cries out Rhian's name and wakens, hearing the regular clank of metal striking stone. - . .

Lalo and Gilla reached the Mageguild as the sun was topping the newly gilded dome of the Temple of Us. Wedemir and his friends were already working. Over protest Latilla had been left behind to watch Alfi, but Vanda and Rhian were here, as Lalo had known they would be. From his tone, Wedemir seemed mildly annoyed to see his parents, and more than annoyed when Lalo asked him to stop. Lalo sighed. It had been hard enough to get Gilla to believe him, why should his son listen to a blind old man?

"For Shipri's sweet sake, hear me out!" he exploded finally. "Wedemir, do you remember the Black Unicorn?" There was an uncomfortable silence. Behind him, Lalo could hear two of the soldiers whispering. He supposed that by now even new recruits must have heard the tale of the creature that Lalo had unwittingly created and unleashed upon the town.

"What does that have-" Wedemir began, but Gilla interrupted him.

"You're a grown man now, and so you think you have nothing left to leam?" she said scornfully. "Especially from your parents? You were not so proud when your father destroyed that black beast-don't you yet understand that he is not like other men?"

"Father-" Wedemir sounded subdued when he finally replied. "You know why I am doing this. I must have some reason beyond a dream to give up now ..."

"Rhian is here, isn't she-" said Lalo.

"You might have heard her voice; you might have guessed she would be here."

"You don't believe me? Keep on digging then. When you have cleared away the rubble, you will find a staircase leading down to a stone slab. There is a symbol carved on it, Wedemir. You must believe me then, for if you touch that doorway, you will die!"

"I'll admit there's no normal way you can know what's under there," said his son. "If we find the door we'll stop. Does that content you, Papa? We will stop, but you will have to choose what we do then!" Emotion trembled in his voice.

That girl, thought Lalo. He won't give her up any more than I would have given up Gilla at his age.

They sat with Rhian and Vanda as they waited. Lalo could hear the sound of the digging, and memory supplied a picture of the scene. He knew it when they reached ground level and uncovered the beginning of the staircase. He knew when they finished digging it out, and found the stone slab.

The men were very quiet as Rhian led him to the doorway. Delicate fingering confirmed that the sigil was the one that he had seen. Lalo's fingertips tingled as he touched it, and he knew that the magic that warded it was still alive.

And in the silence after he took his hand away there was a sound-too faint to be heard above the noise of pick and shovel, or even over normal conversational tone-a distant voice that called, "Stop! For your life's sake, you must not touch the stone!"

"He's alive!" whispered Rhian. From Wedemir came something like a muffled groan. Lalo winced, recognizing that at this moment his son might well have preferred to have been crushed by falling stone. But he had no choice. He bent until his lips were nearly touching the rock and took a deep breath.

"What must we do to free you?"

"You cannot," came the faint reply. "The vault can only be opened by drawing the sigil, with the proper words, from inside ..."

"Do you know the words?" Gilla's voice sounded very loud in Lalo's ear,

"I know the spell, but not the Sign," came the answer. 'Tray for the spirit of Darios, son of Wint, and may the gods bless you for attempting to help me."

Rhian had begun to sob. Lalo bit his lip, thinking. The contours of the sigil were still vivid in his memory. He could have drawn it, but he could not describe it. The peculiar curves and angles of which it was composed followed no normal human logic, could not be explained in human words. Could the puzzle have been unlocked by the Rankan wizard, Randal, or even by Enas Yorl? Lalo wondered. The foundations of the Mageguild had been here before either. They felt old-Ilsigi magic, or perhaps something that had been here even before... .