Iahn turned and conferred with the wizard, who was pointing ahead.
Feeling the pressure of Zel's hands on his shoulders encouraging him to proceed, Warian walked ahead.
'… some sort of broad interface with the Celestial Nadir and the world,' Ususi was saying. The wizard had her keystone out and was studying the wavering facade of the tower through it.
'Yes,' she continued. 'It's a magical mechanism the Imaskari put in place in case the Purple Palace ever returned to the world. This path maintains a connection with some chamber inside the palace. If we walk the path to its end, through the interface, we should be injected back into our world, safely inside the tower.'
'And not far from the weapons cache?' asked the vengeance taker.
'Only a floor or two below, from what I remember of the floor plans.'
Iahn nodded and increased his pace. He threw over his back, 'Time is precious.'
Ususi turned to Warian and Zel. 'Once we get into the palace, we could go up against Pandorym, plus whatever else Pandorym has released from the weapons cache to defend it. Be ready for anything.' She looked dubiously at Zel, then turned and moved quickly to catch up with Iahn.
'Do you think that look implied something?' wondered Zel.
'She wants you to be careful, Uncle.'
'And you?
'I've got my arm. You've got… a pickaxe.'
Zel chuckled and slung the haft of the pickaxe over his shoulder.
Stepping through the wavering interface was like walking beneath a waterfall-icy, and just as shocking.
Warian stiffened, but the cold faded. He wasn't actually wet. And the gulfs of the Celestial Nadir were gone. Instead, the glimmer of Ususi's head-orbiting light revealed the confines of a cylindrical stone corridor. Inscribed glyphs spiraled endlessly around the passageway. He jumped when the glyphs pulsed, sending a whirl of white light corkscrewing down the passage a hundred paces or more. Zel suddenly blinked into the space next to Warian.
The wizard said, 'We stand at the endpoint of a more sophisticated version of the stone circles, which are the usual means to access the Celestial Nadir. This is probably one of the twenty gates.'
'Twenty… are you saying there are twenty gates into the Celestial Nadir?' asked Warian.
'Yes. Prior to this journey, it was my goal to find and catalogue all of them. I suspected the Purple Palace contained at least one gate, but figured it would be years before I learned whether I was right or wrong. Funny. Until recently, this gate wasn't even accessible from our world.'
'You're sure we're back in the world?' asked Zel. He cast a suspicious gaze down the narrow, circular corridor.
'If not the world, then at least the Purple Palace,' said the wizard. 'Soon, we'll encounter Pandorym.'
'And defeat it,' added Iahn. The vengeance taker muttered a few words in a language unknown to Warian and trudged ahead.
Ususi nodded, apparently agreeing with Iahn's statement, and followed.
Warian and Zel brought up the rear.
The long, spiraling corridor opened into a wider space. Iahn and Ususi entered, and Warian moved just inside the new chamber. The wizard's light flickered around, revealing a wide, empty room with a single exit opposite the corridor. It was shuttered by a rusted slab of iron.
'If I recall correctly…' Ususi began, then a shudder rumbled below Warian's feet. He tried to retreat the way he'd come, but he bumped against his uncle.
'Get back!' Warian cried.
The floor dropped away. He fell, as did Zel and Ususi. The vengeance taker performed a desperate and impressive leap toward the far door, where an iron handle glinted invitingly, but he came up several feet short and plunged like the rest of them. He tumbled through a series of braking maneuvers against the wall.
Warian smashed hard onto stone. Thuds, cries, and gasps peppered the darkness around him, and he knew he wasn't alone. Ususi's light flicked back on.
The stone pit that enclosed them was perhaps fifteen paces across.
Putrid, slimy water pooled in the corners. Disintegrating bones lay scattered across the room. The walls rose on all sides about twenty or thirty paces, to a ceiling of rusted iron.
'It closed?' groaned Zel, who lay next to Warian. 'It closed us in!'
Iahn, who'd somehow managed to land on his feet, helped Ususi to stand.
Breathing hard, the wizard said, 'An automatic trap, meant to apprehend intruders. How stupid of me not to foresee such a possibility. I know better.'
'Then you should have warned us,' accused Zel. A thin line of blood trickled from the older man's brow.
'Cease!' snapped Iahn. 'Is anyone hurt badly?'
'I think my leg's broke,' grimaced Zel. 'I can't move it, and it hurts like a devil's got his teeth in me.'
Ususi said, 'I'll be fine when I get my breath back. Tend them, please, Iahn?' The wizard rooted around in her satchel and withdrew a vial she pressed into the vengeance taker's hand.
Iahn inspected Warian first and helped him to his feet. Other than having his breath knocked out of him, Warian was healthier than he expected after falling such a distance. He'd sport some terrific bruises later, though.
Next, Iahn knelt at Zel's side and probed Zel's left leg, which was splayed too far to one side just below the knee.
'Fractured,' Iahn concluded. The vengeance taker unstopped the vial Ususi had given him and administered a portion of it to Zel.
Zel attempted to drink down all the fizzing fluid, but Iahn drew back. 'Not all at once. We must conserve. Your leg should be mending already.'
As Warian watched, his uncle's leg slowly straightened to true, and the lines of pain in his face eased. 'I do feel better,' Zel said.
'You'll walk with a limp for a while,' said Iahn as he rose and turned to Ususi.
The wizard approached one of the walls, which wasn't as bare as Warian had first assumed. Subtle characters were reflected in Ususi's light, forming a script unfamiliar to him. A moment later, each strange letter began to glow with a cool blue radiance.
Warian joined the wizard and vengeance taker at the wall. 'What is it?'
'Instructions for getting clear of the containment,' said Ususi.
'Any Imaskari who resided in the palace would know the answer to this riddle, so if accidentally caught in the automated trap after coming through from the Celestial Nadir, he could regain freedom in short order.'
'It's a riddle? And you know the answer?'
'Yes. Yes, it's a riddle, but I don't know the answer. For certain. But perhaps we can think of the answer together,' said Ususi.
As Warian studied the lighted inscriptions, those in the center swam and changed before his eyes, forming words he could easily read.
Symbols on the periphery remained incomprehensible, but they didn't seem important.
Warian asked, 'Couldn't someone not authorized to know the answer, like us, work it out, too? That would negate the entire point of the trap, right?'
'You would be correct, of course-however, if any but an Imaskari attempts to answer the riddle, the walls of this room will close down upon us and squeeze us dead. Or so promise these glyphs.' The wizard pointed to the upper right corner of the wall at an inscription that remained meaningless to Warian.
'Oh. A trap within a trap.'
'How efficient,' said the vengeance taker.
Warian nodded and said, 'Maybe I'd better not even read it. Zel, you look away, too.'
Zel shrugged and turned away, as did Warian. Ususi read.
'The Thirty-Eighth Law of Veracity holds that a magical elixir can never be entirely drunk. A residue always remains behind. A miser mage who collects empty elixir vials can make a new elixir to drink from the residue of every five empty vials found. When he has collected twenty-five elixir vials, how many new elixirs will he be able to drink?'
Warian's uncle guffawed. 'Ridiculously easy! Twenty-five vials can be arranged into five groups-so the elixir- grubbing mage could drink five more potions.'
