"No," Gellor interrupted. "Better I do — or you, Gord."
The young champion of Balance looked at his friend for a long moment, then nodded. Evaleigh watched the exchange from atop her little dais, that platform that set her apart from the rest as the greatest noble there. "My lady," Gord said, turning to face her directly, "it is because of a solemn charge placed upon me directly, and these three stout comrades indirectly, that we express such concern." He took another step, so that he now stood a full pace away from his friends but still two long steps from the Baroness of Ratik.
"Upon my soul and sword I swore an oath," he said earnestly, placing his hand upon the dead black of his longsword's hilt to emphasize his point. The hand closed upon the hilt, and with a motion so fast that the eye had difficulty following it, Blackheart-seeker was drawn from its scabbard. Even as the blade shot forth Gord was leaping ahead and striking. The sooty length of the blade entered Evaleigh's chest on an upward angle, pierced her heart, and passed through to show itself above her shoulder blade. The thrust was accompanied by a piercing scream from the beautiful mouth of the woman.
Chert was uncertain what was happening, but he swung his great battleaxe up anyway. He would stand by Gord. Then he heard the troubador singing a song of doom to evil, and at that sound the big hillman was reassured. The knights and guards who accompanied the baroness were rushing in to attack, and Chert happily hewed into their ranks with the angrily buzzing axe. Brool began its bloody execution.
Greenleaf held his staff ready, but called first a great summoning word. This took but an instant. Then the staff swept out in a semicircle. Wherever its butt end pointed, the ground gave forth a furious growth of briars, thistles, and thorns. Three quick passes of this sort, and no attacker could approach the four from the rear without first contending with the tangled barrier that was yards high and thick as a castle wall.
Satisfied, Curley turned to confront the swarm of angry attackers that Gord, Chert, and Gellor were engaging with their gore-smeared weapons. Still the druid didn't cause the spear tip to shoot forth from the stout length of ancient wood. Instead, he held it almost as one would wield a wand. "Back to me, comrades!" he shouted. As quickly as possible, his three friends disengaged from the enemy and sprang back to where Greenleaf waited.
It seemed as if the heavens were being torn open from where Gord stood. Chert clapped his hands to his ears, letting Brool swing free on its thick thong. Gellor hunched and half closed his eyes. From the druid's staff had come a terrific noise, a clap as loud as the most fearsome of thunderclaps splitting the sky just overhead. At the same time there issued from the thing a sizzling bolt of dual lightning.
The sound bowled over the onrushing opponents and sent others of them away howling. So, too, the eye-searing discharge of electrical energy played havoc upon the foe. It struck, leaped in great arcs, striking again. It burned, charred and killed indiscriminately with an awful snapping and crackling sound as the lightning discharged itself into flesh. Between them Gord, Chert, and the bard had slain a half-dozen of Evaleigh's retinue of warriors. The single magical attack that Greenleaf unleashed from his staff felled that many more and a score of the rest as well. Even so, the four heard the crowd behind howling and raving as they attacked the thorny barrier.
"That is a marvelous sword, Gord," the one-eyed troubador said with grim admiration.
"In a manner of speaking, yes," Gord agreed. The young adventurer unconsciously sent his gaze to where the shriveled husk of the dead hag who had been pretending to be Evaleigh lay decaying into noisome powder. "It finds the heart most often, and from those of evil it draws forth all force."
"I'm prone to favor old Curley's staff there," Chert said reflectively as he rested both of his massive, calloused palms on the steel butt knob of Brool's thick haft. "Still, considering the number of the foes still quick, and their obvious desire to rend us limb from limb, I think we need to save our breath for the coming fight."
Gellor laughed at the sarcasm, and Gord was nod ding grim concurrence, when the rotund half-elven druid said, "If you enjoyed the effects on those dirty buggers, wait until you see what's coming!"
"Why?" Gellor asked.
"To teach them a lesson," was all the druid said in reply.
"No need," Gord said. "All we need do is to mount the dais the hag stood on."
"Let's get out of this godsdamned shithole, then," Chert rumbled. "I'll have enough of killing the blasters soon enough anyway!"
Without hesitation all four climbed up the one step that would move them from wherever they actually were, take them from this place of evil and illusory familiarity to some new danger. The powdery husk of the destroyed hag from the pits was crushed underfoot as they mounted the dais step.
The sylvan scene vanished, but the green light did not. They were surrounded by a deep, emerald color, the hue of sunlight filtered through fathoms of seawater. Massive sharks swam nearby, and not one of the four could say a word about it.
In fact, the suddenness of their precipitation into the submarine dilemma gave them only seconds to react. Perhaps they could survive for a minute or two, even though they had been given no chance to draw air to fill their lungs prior to coming into the underwater trap. Before the last of their oxygen was gone, the step that led from this new place of death had to be located.
Visibility was limited to twenty or thirty yards. Within sight there were several possible places where the next stair could be located. Ahead was a thick growth of giant kelp, to the right a gradual drop leading to rocks with a cave opening plain to see. Off to the left were a dozen giant clams, while behind them, Just at the limit of sight, was a long coral reef. Tiger sharks swam overhead and around. Big blue sharks circled there, too.
Gord, his hair waving above his head as if it were some fine, black sea growth, tugged at Gellor's clothing, pointed, and began to move as rapidly as he could in the direction of the huge mollusks. The others had no real choice. They followed.
The clams varied in size. The smallest ones were less than three feet across, the larger ranged from three to five feet, while one monster was fully eight feet in diameter and nearly as deep. That one was Gord's target, and the young thief darted straight for Its yawning valves. Both failing lungs and closing sharks lent speed to his movement.
Just short of the thing, Gord stopped, picked up a stone from the sandy bottom, and hurled it toward the clam.
The missile traveled in slow motion, but Gord's aim was true. Into the open shell it went, and as it struck the muscle within, the clam closed its shell with such force that there was a current created of sufficient strength to make the young adventurer sway. His three comrades arrived just after that, and the stiff-finned sharks were not far behind, making rushes and coming ever closer.
Chert was in the lead. He saw Gord place his feet upon the closed shell. Then he was gone. The big hill-man immediately imitated his friend's action. Gellor followed next, with Curley bringing up the rear. An attacking blue shark was but a fraction of a second late. Its teeth closed on empty water, and it shot off into the green gloom with dull disappointment registering in its minuscule brain.
They had been transported to a tiny island of sand and rock. Nothing grew there, and around it was nothing save an endless expanse of ocean. The sun was overhead, beating down remorselessly. There was neither shade nor fresh water.
"Marooned with a vengeance," Gord noted. "But at least it should be a simple task to locate the magical portal to escape the place." All but Gellor voiced ready agreement. They set to work immediately, searching the few dozen square yards of the islet for the hidden stairstep. Not even the troubador's enchanted ocular detected the slightest hint of what they sought.
"Now here's a terrible thought," Greenleaf finally said. "What if that filthy scum put a false step into that last trap?"
It was something that none of the four adventurers had considered. Could Gravestone have managed such a dweomer? A second gate to take them into a place with no escape? "It might be done," Gord said, "but the Law of Balance isn't that weak — not yet. We are simply looking in the wrong place, I think."
"Where else can we look?" Chert asked crossly. Gellor pointed outward and swept his arm in a complete circle. The barbarian gulped audibly. "Yeah. I hadn't considered that, comrade," he said, eyeing the rolling waves with obvious distaste.
"No, again I disagree, bard," Gord said firmly. "Each time we have had to actually go up. To search under the water would be folly, I think. There has to be a place above...."
Greenleaf shrugged and commenced going over the little bump of dry land again. The other three followed suit. They passed back and forth across the islet a score of times. Still nothing. There is no step up," Gellor said finally. "You were wrong, Gord."
"Perhaps, but perhaps not. I have another thought on the matter."
"Well, we have time enough to hear it, I think," Curley said, sitting down with a huff of tiredness as he did so. "But let's not be too long about it. The salt water is drying, and my garments are beginning to become itchy and irritating."
The initial step was nearly transparent, all save Gellor were blind, and it was separated by a gulf of ten feet. Now, why shouldn't the location of the next place we must ascend be likewise hard to locate?"
"No reason at all," the one-eyed bard admitted. "But where do we look?"
"Up!" said Gord with firmness.
"Into thin air?" Curley said with a derisive laugh.
"You can turn into a bird, can't you?" Chert said with sudden inspiration. "Why not do that? Take a little wing around this stinking bump and see what's visible from up there!"
Gord slapped the broad back of the barbarian. "I hadn't thought of that, my hulking friend, but you hit the target fairly there. Curley, do just what Chert has suggested."
In a moment the druid wavered before their eyes, his outline shifting, his form condensing, until a big pelican stood before the three. Gord made upward gestures with his hands and stamped his foot impatiently. Curley-pelican gave a squawking protest but broke into a lumbering waddle, beat his wings, and flapped heavily into the air. The bird then commenced to flap its slow way up and around until it attained a height of a hundred feet or so, then tilted, spiraled, and glided down in a corkscrew path to land beside them.
"Well?" Gord demanded irritably.
"Braawk!" the pelican said with equal ill temper.
"All right, all right," the young champion said with resignation. "Please, respected druid, return to your true form and relate what you saw."
Greenleaf seemed to sprout out of a pelican. When his feet were no longer webbed, but the properly booted appendages of a half-elf, the druid beamed a smile at the trio of expectant observers. "It is there, plainly visible, not more than twenty feet overhead. The step is directly above the center of the islet."
"How do we get up to it?" the hillman queried.
"The rope again, I think," Gord murmured as he freed the coil and began to work it into a noose. The rest was easy going, comparatively speaking. The line anchored itself around seemingly nothing, Gord swarmed up it, and hung from the top of the Gord as if levitated.
"It hasn't taken me to some other place yet," he called down, "so I suppose the rope is hanging on the edge of the portal. Chert, help Curley to climb, and I'll pull him up before I change position. Then you come up and haul Gellor on after you. Be sure one of you brings the line, too!" When the druid arrived and forced Gord to move closer to the center of the opening that was invisible save from above, the others saw Gord vanish. Chert then climbed up and took Green-leafs place. The druid, too, disappeared as he moved elsewhere.
"I don't know how to free the rope," Chert said loudly to the climbing bard. "Can you manage it?"