'Me,' called the voice again in meek tones. 'Just turn the handle.'
'You mean, the door's not locked?' Palin asked in amazement.
'Nobody's perfect,' said the voice defensively.
Gingerly, Palin reached out his hand and, after removing several connecting arms and undoing a rope or two of the gnome timelock that was not locked, he turned the door handle. There was a click, and the door swung open on creaking hinges.
Entering the chamber with some difficulty, his robes having caught on a gear, Palin looked around in awe.
He was in a room shaped like a cone — round at the bottom, it came to a point at the ceiling. The chamber was lit by oil lamps, placed at intervals around the circular floor, their flickering flames illuminating the room brightly as day. Tanin was about to step through the door past Palin, when his brother stopped him.
'Wait!' Palin cautioned, catching hold of Tanin's arm. 'Look! On the floor!'
'Well, what is it?' Tanin asked. 'Some sort of design — »
'It's a pentagram, a magic symbol,' Palin said softly. 'Don't step within the circle of the lamps!'
'What's it there for?' Sturm peered over Tanin's broad shoulders, while Dougan jumped up and down in back, trying to see.
'I think… Yes!' Palin stared up into the very top of the ceiling. 'It's holding the Graygem! Look!' He pointed.
Everyone tilted back their heads, staring upward, except the dwarf, who was cursing loudly about not being able to see. Dropping down to his hands and knees, Dougan finally managed to thrust his head in between Tanin's and Sturm's legs and peered up, his beard trailing on the polished stone floor.
'Aye, laddie,' he said with a longing sigh. 'That's it! The Graygem of Gargath!'
Hovering in the air, below the very point of the cone, was a gray-colored jewel. Its shape was impossible to distinguish, as was it size, for it changed as they stared at it
first it was round and as big as a man's fist; then it was a
prism as large as a man himself; then it was a cube, no bigger than a lady's bauble;
then round again… The jewel had been dark when they entered the room, not even reflecting the light from the lamps below. But now a soft gray light of its own began to beam from it.
Palm felt the magic tingle through him. Words to spells of unbelievable power flooded his mind. His uncle had been a weakling compared to him! He would rule the world, the heavens, the Abyss -
'Steady, Little Brother,' came a distant voice.
'Hold onto me, Tanin!' Palin gasped, reaching out his hand to his brother. 'Help me fight it!'
'It's no use,' came the voice they had heard through the door, this time sounding sad and resigned. 'You can't fight it. It will consume you in the end, as it did me.'
Wrenching his gaze from the gray light that was fast dazzling him with its brilliance, Palin stared around theconical room. Across from where he stood was a tall, high backed chair placed against a tapestry-adorned wall. The chair's back was carved with various runes and magical inscriptions, designed — apparently — to protect the mage who sat there from whatever beings he summoned forth to do his bidding. The voice seemed to be coming from the direction of the chair, but Palin could not see anyone sitting there.
Then, 'Paladine have mercy!' the young man cried in horror.
'Too late, too late,' squeaked the voice. 'Yes, I am Lord Gargath. The wretched Lord Gargath! Welcome to my home.'
Seated upon the chair's soft cushion, making a graceful — if despairing — gesture with its paw, was a hedgehog.
'You may come closer,' said Lord Gargath, smoothing his whiskers with a trembling paw. 'Just don't step in the circle, as you said, young mage.'
Keeping carefully outside the boundaries of the flickering oil lamps, the brothers and Dougan edged their way along the wall. Above them, the Graygem gleamed softly, its light growing ever brighter.
'Lord Gargath,' Palin began hesitantly, approaching the hedgehog's chair. Suddenly, he cried out in alarm and stumbled backward, bumping into Tanin.
'Sturm, to my side!' Tanin shouted, pushing Palin behind him and raising the spear.
The chair had vanished completely beneath the bulk of a gigantic black dragon! The creature stared at them with red, fiery eyes, its great wings spanning the length of the wall, its tail lashing the floor with a tremendous thud. When the dragon spoke, though, its voice held the same sorrow as had the hedgehog's.
'You're frightened,' said the dragon sadly. 'Thank you for the compliment, but you needn't be. By the time I could attack you, I'd probably be a mouse or a cockroach.'
'Ah, there! You see how it is,' continued Lord Gargath in the form of a lovely young maiden, who put her head in her hands and wept dismally. 'I'm constantly changing, constantly shifting. I never know from one moment to the next,' snarled a ferocious minotaur, snorting in anger, 'what I'm going to be.'
'The Graygem has done this to you?'
'Yessssss,' hissed a snake, coiling around upon itself on the cushion in agony. 'Once I wasssss a wizzzzard like you, young one. Once I wassss… powerful and wealthy. This island and its people were mine,' continued a dapper young man, setting in the chair, a cold drink in his hand. 'Care for some? Tropical fruit punch. Not bad, I assure you. Where was I?'
'The Graygem,' Palin ventured. His brothers could only stare in silence.
'Ah, yes,' burbled a toad unhappily. 'My great-great-great
well, you get the picture — grandfather followed the damn
thing, centuries ago, in hopes of retrieving it. He did, for a time. But his power failed as he grew old, and the Graygem escaped. I don't know where it went, spreading chaos throughout the world. But I always knew that… someday
.. it would come within my grasp. And I'd be ready for it!'
A rabbit, sitting up on its hind feet, clenched its paw with a stem look of resolve.
'Long years I study,' said a gully dwarf, holding up a grubby hand. 'Two years. I think two years.' The gully dwarf frowned. 'I make pretty design on floor. I wait. Two years. Not more than two. Big rock come! I catch…
'And I'd trapped the Graygem!' shrieked an old, wizened man with a wild cackle. 'It couldn't escape me! At last, all the magic in the world would be mine, at my fingertips! And so it was, so it was,' squeaked a red-eyed rat, chewing nervously on its tail. 'I could have anything I wanted. I demanded ten maidens — Well, I was lonely,' said a spider, curling its legs defensively. 'You don't get a chance to meet nice girls when you're an evil mage, you know.'
'And the Graygem took control of the women!' said Palin, growing dizzy again, watching the transformations of the wizard. 'And used them against you.'
'Yes,' whinnied a horse, pacing back and forth restlessly in front of the chair. 'It educated them and gave them this palace. My palace! It gives them everything! They never have to work. Food appears when they're hungry. Wine, whatever they want… All they do is lounge around all day, reading elven poetry and arguingphilosophy. God, I HATE elven poetry!' groaned a middle aged bald man. 'I tried to talk to them, told them to make something of their lives! And what did they do? They shut me in here, with that!' He gestured helplessly at the stone.
'But the women are getting restless,' Palin said, his thoughts suddenly falling into order.
'One can only take so much elven poetry,' remarked a walrus, gloomily waving its flippers. 'They want diversion '
'Men… and NOT their husbands. No, that wouldn't suit the Graygem at all. It needs the warriors to guard the gem from the outside while the women guard it from inside. So, to keep the women happy, it brought — »
'Us!' said Tanin, rounding upon the dwarf in fury.
'Now, don't be hasty,' Dougan said with a cunning grin. He glanced at Palin out of the corner of his eye. 'You're very clever, laddie. You take after your uncle, yes, you do. Who was the gem guarding itself from, if you're so smart? What would it have to fear?'
'The one person who'd been searching for it for thousands and thousands of years,' said Palin softly. Everything was suddenly very, very clear. 'The one who made it and gambled it away. It has hidden from you, all these centuries, staying in one place until you got too close, then disappearing again. But now it is trapped by the
