Robert Asprin: Uneasy Alliances

"He knows the words, and you know the Symbol," muttered Gilla. "Surely there must be some way-" Lalo sighed. He was glad to know that Gilla really believed him. But even if he had been able to see, he and young Darios were still on opposite sides of the door.

"A doorway-it is only a doorway-" she murmured. "But you can go through such things, Lalo. Remember how you took me with you through the image on the card? Can't you do the same thing for the boy with words?"

Frowning, Lalo reached out and felt her clasp his hand. "I suppose . . -" he said slowly. "Wedemir, my son-do you understand why I must try?"

"Yes, Papa," Wedemir said harshly. Better to have it over with now, whatever the outcome might be. If he had not won the girl when Darios's fate was still in doubt, he would never get her while her first love was slowly starving to death beyond this stone! "Darios, can you hear me?" he said more loudly. "Listen-I know you've been trained to this-listen, and see what I say-"

"I don't understand ..."

"Just listen!" From habit, Lalo closed his eyes. He had had the S'danzo card in front of him before, but he remembered each brushstroke vividly. "Calm down, steady your breathing-you know how... . Imagine you are looking at an archway-the arch of a gate big enough to drive a chariot through. Look at the stones. They are pale granite with dark flecks that glint in the sun ... six great stones on each side, and a larger cap, three on each side of the arch, and a trapezoidal keystone. Do you see it, boy?" Lalo saw it clearly in his mind's eye, not a thing of paint and pasteboard now, but a real gateway, solid stone. There was a faint murmur of assent from within.

"Look through the archway now-you see a garden... ." Lalo began to describe the sweep of green grass, the roses, the trees. And as he spoke, he himself saw them. He moved forward. "Go through the gateway, Darios-go into the garden . . - into the garden, , . ."

Lalo hardly felt Gilla's arms go around him as he left his body behind him and his own words carried him through. It was no shock to find that he could see, for this was only a continuation of his inner vision. He turned, and saw someone coming toward him. It was a tall young man, well formed, though his skin had the pallor of one who spends his days indoors. His curling black hair and beard were as glossy as the coat of one of the Prince's pampered horses, and his dark eyes glowed.

A handsome man, thought Lalo. No wonder Rhian loved him. A mental adjustment to his own dress clothed him in a clean shirt and one of his better coats- He lifted his hand in greeting.

The young man's eyes widened. "Who are you?"

"Lalo the Limner." It seemed such an inadequate answer to offer this young man who stood in the rich robes of his Order, watching him in wonder.

"I've heard of you. But you're not a mage!"

"I'm not sure what I am anymore . . ," Lalo looked around him. If only he could stay here, where it was so beautiful-where he could see. But at least he knew the way here now.

"But unless we do something, you, my son, are going to be dead very soon'"

A moment's concentration brought a tablet and stick of charcoal into his hands. The Sigil still blazed in Lalo's memory. He could not have described it, but his arm moved easily in the contorted swirls of the figure, and he felt a swift rush of delight in the sureness with which he drew, recognizing only now how the frustration of being unable to do so had galled him. Here, he could paint again, even if there was no one to see.

"Can you remember it?" He held the tablet out to the other man. Darios gazed at it, his eyes going glassy as ingrained disciplines committed the curves and angles to memory.

"I will remember," said Darios grimly. "I never saw it properly. The Sigil was not in the book I found-only the spell. And if I fail," his lips twisted a little. "At least you have shown me the way to an easy passage. My thanks to you, Master Limner, for that." For a moment the two men clasped hands.

They both looked toward the archway that led back to the world's darkness. Lalo straightened, realizing that he was almost as unwilling to return to the prison of his body as Darios was to go back to his tomb. But he could feel the need of those he had left behind him tugging at his awareness.

Together they moved forward.

Then Lalo was shaken in a tumult of darkness through which he heard a great voice crying "Be opened'", and the Sigil blossomed upon his vision in lines of white fire. There was a moment of disorientation. Lalo felt strong arms supporting him. He gazed as the Sigil coruscated through all the colors of the spectrum in a blaze of opalescence, and then both Sigil and stone misted away, and a gaunt figure staggered forward and collapsed into his arms.

"Darios!" shrieked Rhian.

But Lalo had not needed that to identify him. Something in his spirit had recognized the essence of the man he held, that wavered like a guttering candle flame. He stared down at matted tangles of black hair, a patch of blue robe whose cloth was of rather poorer quality than the fabric Darios had worn in the Otherworld, and beyond, to a patch of dusty stone. The bent back heaved; bony fingers clutched at Lalo's arms.

"My son, my son, don't weep!" He stroked the dusty locks as if Darios had been his own child indeed. "It worked, lad-you are free-you are free!"

And then Lalo's hand stilled. When he closed his eyes, he saw the glossy hair and tall strength of the man he had met in the Otherworld. But when he opened them, he knew he held a youth who would be no more than his own height even when full-fed. Instead of a verdant garden, he saw the sordid, soiled reality to which he had been born ... he saw every stinking turd and blessed battered stone ... he saw!

Vanda and Rhian were on either side of Darios now.

"Darios-my poor darling! You look like one of your own spirits!" Rhian drew his arm across her shoulder.

"Starved-" whispered the mageling, "but even before that ... wasn't handsome. A spell, Rhian ... to make you think so. Forgive me!"

"You silly boy!" Rhian shook her head. "Do you think it mattered?"

"We'll take you home and let my mother's cooking put some flesh on your bones!" said Vanda, taking his other arm.

Lalo let go, and the two girls supported him as he stumbled toward the stairs. Gilla set Lalo's hand on her shoulder.

"No-" his voice cracked, and he laid his own hand over hers. "I can see my own way now." She started, and her gaze came back from Darios to meet his own.

"Oh! Oh Lalo!" Her arms closed around him, and he felt her tears wet on his neck. He blinked, and looked past her bent head to the stairs.

Darios and the girls had nearly reached the top now. Wedemir was waiting for them, stiff as a statue, with all his agony blazing in his eyes.

"And what of me?" he asked as they passed him, as tragically as any character in one of Feltheryn's plays. "Rhian, what about me?"

Rhian turned to face him. "I am taking this man to shelter. Wedemir, not marrying him," she said tartly. "At this moment, I don't know if I want to marry anyone-not him, or you!" She and Vanda helped Darios on, leaving Wedemir staring.

Lalo began to laugh, because of the swift toss of Rhian's bright head, and the look on Wedemir's face-and for sheer simple joy because he had been healed.

"I still love you, lambkin-" Lalo put his arm around Latilla, who sniffed and turned her face away.

"You love Mama better ..." she mumbled.

Lalo sighed, aware that there was a part of his daughter that wished he were still blind. But it would do no good to tell her so.

"I love Mama differently-but not more than I love you. That's the way it's supposed to be. Someday you'll find a young man who loves you that way, and you'll have a daughter of your own. You'll see, ..." He sighed, remembering how he had rejected this kind of reasoning when he was her age.