eyes of night creatures. Many of the peaked little faces offered empty sockets. All seemed paralyzed, incredulous attention fixed on the crumbling ceiling. His glance traveled the curving wall, to fasten upon the outline of a rounded door. Dodging hairless white obstacles, he made for the exit. As he reached it, a broad section of the ceiling fell away, and Mother descended screeching into the dome.
Through the door and into the ruddy light of morning, dazzling for a moment or two, and then indescribably welcome. Farnol sprinted for the far edge of the clearing. As he ran, he cast a glance behind him, to see a trickle of demoralized faithful staggering out of the dome. Behind them, audible through the open door, arose the sounds of carnage.
He reached the shelter of the trees. The screaming died away behind him, and presently he heard it no more.
Hours of hiking brought him back to the bluffs that he remembered wandering days earlier. His way now led him downhill, and he made good progress despite a sense of scorching, shriveling internal activity, accompanied by growing weakness. He walked all day, and sunset found him back upon the Xence Moraine. He slept in the open, the Chameleon Mask heavy on his face. The night was cool, but he burned. He had not supped, there was nothing to eat, but he suffered little hunger.
Throughout the following day, he plodded the hills and hollows. His steps lagged, and his mind seemed similarly slow. He took little note of his surroundings, but managed to maintain awareness of the sky and its potential peril. Twice he spied a black, high-flying form, and each time hid behind the Chameleon Mask until the danger passed.
As the sun collapsed toward the horizon, he was dully surprised to find himself walking beside a listless stream, among familiar hives. An anomalously lofty structure reared itself before him — the hive of Tcheruke the Vivisectionist. The sight drove the mists from his mind. Recalling the location of the hidden entrance, he hastened to the tuft of rewswolley that concealed the passageway, and there found the way blocked by an immovable stone barrier.
Perhaps Tcheruke had departed. Perhaps Tcheruke was dead. Alarm filled Farnol. Striding to the silent hive, he pounded the wall with his clenched fist, while calling aloud, “Tcheruke, come forth! Farnol of Karzh has returned, bearing the pelgrane’s headstone, obtained at no little cost! Come forth!”
He heard the snap of a lock behind him, a whimper of hinges, and turned to behold the hooded head and skinny grey figure of the magician emerging from the hole.
“Who calls so peremptorily?” Tcheruke’s faceted eyepieces glinted in the low red rays of the sinking sun. “Is it you, Farnol of Karzh? Welcome, welcome! You do not look well.”
“My uncle’s poison advances and my time dwindles, but I have not abandoned hope.”
“
At once Tcheruke the Vivisectionist began to chant the syllables of that formidable spell known as the Excellent Prismatic Spray. Without undue haste or apparent effort, the pelgrane struck the magician to the ground and placed her clawed foot on the back of his neck, pressing his face into the dirt and stifling his utterance.
“You may wait your turn and watch as I kill him,” Mother advised Farnol. “Or you may attempt an entertaining flight. Such are your two choices.”
“There is a third, madam.” Drawing his sword, Farnol lunged.
Almost casually, she deflected the thrust. Catching the blade in her beak, she tore it from his hand and tossed it aside.
“My surviving young conceived a keen appetite for your flesh,” she confided. “They have been clamoring for it. This evening, they will relish their dinner.”
Farnol stared at her, aghast. Flight and resistance were equally hopeless. He might perhaps seek refuge in the hive while she busied herself with Tcheruke — there to wait for Uncle Dhruzen’s poison to finish its work. No alternative possibilities presented themselves.
Pinned beneath the pelgrane’s foot, Tcheruke wriggled uselessly. Deprived of coherent speech, he could express himself only by means of a thin, almost insectile shrilling. The razor notes seemed to carry a note of plea. Mother was little susceptible to emotional appeals, yet the plea did not go unanswered.
The dimming twilight air sang, and a band of ghostly winged visitants glimmered into being. They were small, reminiscent at once of rodent and termite; transparent, weightless, and glowing with eer-light.
Humming and chittering in tiny voices, the winged beings dove and darted about Mother’s head. Affronted, she snapped her great beak, which passed harmlessly through luminous insubstantiality. Loosing an irritable hoot, she advanced a pace or two, crested head turning this way and that, fangs clashing. Relieved of her weight, Tcheruke sat up, rubbing the back of his neck. He caught sight of the ghostly troupe, and his face lit with a wondering rapture.
“The spell!” Farnol urged.
Tcheruke seemed not to hear. His ecstatic faceted gaze anchored upon the flitting ghosts. One hand rose, reaching out to them.
Despite their apparent ethereality, the visitants possessed a measure of force. Such revealed itself as the band clustered about the pelgrane, pressing so thick and close that she seemed clothed from head to foot in a lambent garment. For a moment, they hovered there, light pulsing, then the glow intensified to a blast of brilliance too great to endure.
Farnol threw an arm across his eyes. When he lowered it, the light had faded, and the pelgrane was nowhere to be seen. He blinked, and surveyed his surroundings swiftly. Mother was gone.
For a few seconds longer, the small ghosts hovered, humming, their cool eer-light playing upon the rapt face of Tcheruke the Vivisectionist. Then the transparent winged forms retreated, lost themselves among the hives, and so passed from view.
“Ah — the Xence Xord have recognized my existence!” Tcheruke rose to his feet, glowing with an internal light of his own. “I have beheld them in their perfection, and the hope of a lifetime is fulfilled!”
“Perhaps they will come back to you, and reveal the location of the void between worlds.”
“I will entreat them incessantly. Their condescension upon this occasion renews my resolve. They have not heard the last of me! But come, young Farnol, come inside. The sun sets, and the worms will soon be crawling!”
Tcheruke vanished into his hole, and Farnol followed. Once within, he handed the pelgrane’s headstone over to his host, who immediately commenced grinding, measuring, and mixing. While the magician labored, Farnol gulped beaker after beaker of cool bitterrush tea, in a vain effort to quench the inner fires that now roared. He consumed nothing solid. The mere thought of food now revolted him. Time passed. At length, Tcheruke handed him a cup containing a concoction of evil appearance and vile odor, its surface dented with small whirlpools. He drank without hesitation, felt his nerves twist and his veins scream, and then lost consciousness.
In the morning, he woke sick and languid, but clear-headed. He drank cool tea, and refused food.
“And now, young Farnol, it is time to exert your mind,” Tcheruke the Vivisectionist advised.
“Has your elixir transformed me? Have I now the power to assimilate?”
“We shall see. My folio lies upon the table, open to the Swift Mutual Revulsion. Apply yourself.”
Farnol obeyed. Inner miseries impeded study, but he persevered, and presently encompassed the syllables, which settled into his brain with a conclusive mental click.
“And now, the knot?” he inquired, ready to test the efficacy of the magician’s nauseous remedy.
“No. Forgive what may appear as a poor-spirited dearth of optimism, but I must observe that your present wretched condition admits of no delay. In short, you cannot afford time to experiment. You must proceed to Karzh with all alacrity, there to claim the antidote, which may or may not prove effective. To this end, I am prepared to transfer you, in token of my appreciation of the role you have played in securing my encounter with the Xence Xord. So, then!” Tcheruke clapped his hands briskly. “Stand here upon the clay square. Hold out your hands. Draw a deep breath, and hold it. Young man, I bid you farewell, and wish you fair fortune.”
Tcheruke drew back and sang out a spell. Farnol was jerked up in a rush of whirling ether. An instant later, his feet touched the ground. He staggered, but retained his balance. Before him rose Manse Karzh, its ancient walls of pale stone draped in lush blue-green climber, its gables and turrets peak-roofed in tile weathered to a soft umber hue. For a moment, he stood staring as if amazed; then rubbed a recently-acquired reddish rheum from his stinging
