‘I am The Gatekeeper, you will do everything that I say to thebest of your abilities. You will no longer work for anyone butAstaria and me. If you don’t accept this condition you willimmediately be thrown out of Astaria. Do youunderstand?’
‘We cannot accept this demand.’ said one of the rats usingmindspeak. ‘We have a blood oath with another which bindsus.’
‘So you have.’ He replied.
Moments latersix small vials of blood appeared in Aquitain’s hand.
‘Thank you Astaria.’
‘This is the blood that binds you.’ and Aquitain dropped themon the floor and smashed them with his heel.
‘You are no longer bound. Now do we have a deal?’
The rats talkedamong each other for a couple of minutes then one said. ‘There arecertain job conditions we would like to negotiate.’
He listened tothe conditions and finding them reasonable agreed after which therats agreed to continue their job on Astaria under the newgatekeeper’s control.
‘Well Asterix, what is your answer?’
‘It seems that your blood is not here so I can’t remove yourblood oath. But I can’t leave someone here that I can’ttrust.’
‘I knew that you’d cause trouble when you came here but intruth this place needed a shakeup. I will work for you and Astariaif you make this place live again; if you bring in people and giveAstaria a heart. It’s been too long since I heard the laughter ofchildren and saw a pretty woman’s face.’ repliedAsterix.
‘I will agree to that condition but I think it may take us awhile to get there and what about the blood oath.’ saidAquitain.
‘Oh that. I found the blood vial ages ago and destroyed it.’he said with a smile. ‘Bloody nuisance those oaths. You won’t tellyour father will you?’
‘Of course not, Asterix! We’re both Astarians aren’t we?’replied Aquitain with a wink.
‘Yes my Lord, we are.’
‘Good then, don’t ever try to fool me again! Now, can youplease remove all this wizard’s magic items and leave them in thehole in the floor here in case he has something I need. Then leavehim loose here. Can you rats keep him occupied until we want to lethim go?’ asked Aquitain.
‘Yes boss, as long as you like. It’s time we had a bit of fun.Come on boys. Let’s prepare a few surprises.’ Their legs werereleased and off they went chuckling among themselves.
‘How did you work out about the rats.’ asked Asterix stillastounded at what had just happened.
‘It wasn’t that hard.’ smiled Aquitain..
‘This maze isn’t big enough to challenge a smart person fortoo long, so there had to be someone changing it continually sothat even the smartest would be fooled. The rats are small enoughto hide but there are also enough of them to watch several parts ofthe maze at the same time to ensure that if any members of a groupget separated they would still know what all the group members weredoing at any particular moment.’
‘Is Llanlorian really dead?’
‘Yes my Lord, as far as I’m aware. You are now the soleGatekeeper and Lord of Astaria.’
He pondered onthat for a minute or two.
‘Okay, let’s get into action Asterix. I’m going to find outwhat they needed a specialist for. There’s still something wronghere somewhere and it’s got something to do with pathway five. Bythe way when all the items are in the hole just tell it to closewill you.’
‘Er. Alright my Lord.’ said Asterix noting that the Gatekeeperhad seemingly gained absolute control over the whole ofAstaria.
Aquitainreturned to the small room at the end of pathway five and finishedunsealing the small doorway into the pathway then swung it open andflowed through it, pulling it closed behind him. He created a cloudof eyes adjusted them for sensitivity in the dark and moved towardsthe other end of the pathway where there seemed to be a yellowglow.
As they floateddown the tunnel they saw what at first looked like a large fire inthe middle of the tunnel. Moments later it spotted his Zenostructbody and began moving towards it so they stopped, wondering whetherit would be hostile.
‘Hello. It’s about time that you turned up. I’ve been waitinghere for several hours now and I’m really worried that unless we dosomething soon there could be a catastrophe. Wait a minute you’renot who I was expecting!’ it said using mindspeak.
‘Er. No I was asked to come here at the last moment as theother fellow had some problem.’ lied Aquitain.
The fireelemental said something that he couldn’t understand.
‘Could you repeat that in common, I didn’t understand what yousaid.’ asked Aquitain
‘Obviously.’ said the fire elemental. ‘That’s because you’renot a Mentarin.’
‘Let’s see who you are.’ it said.
‘Ah. You’re the new Gatekeeper. Well, well. Isn’t thatinteresting, I can see why you’re here. You want to look after theinterests of both the dragons and Astaria at the same time. Wedon’t want the place blowing up do we?’
‘Er, No.’ said Aquitain.
‘Can you run through the problem with me so that I can see howI can help.’
‘Of course. It’s good to see you appreciate the gravity of thesituation.’ said the fire elemental then it changed shape to thatof a Newman wizard who held out his hand.
‘My name’s Ignatius Cogswell, I’m an engineer of sorts. What’syour name?’
Aquitainchanged to his Newman form and shook the fellow’s hand.
‘I’m Aquitain, Gatekeeper, friend of Astaria, and a problemfixer of sorts.’
‘Ha. Good reply.’ replied Ignatius. ‘I hope that you’reright.’
‘Well this is the problem, as you are aware we pump magicessence through the pathways of Astaria from Mudrun to Moonmist.Now the dragons on Mudrun that do all the collecting and moving themagic essence from the collecting stations on Mudrun have not beendoing their job properly. They were supposed to convert 98% of themagic energy into heat on release at the gate station under thevolcano near Mentar but I have discovered that they have beenconverting only 90% to heat leaving a full 10% to absorb into theatmosphere there for at least the last 20 years.’
‘Why haven’t we detected it earlier, you say. Well it turnsout that adjacent to the volcano is a large shelf of quartz crystalprobably covering about a league squared and ten paces thick. Thishas been soaking
