size with outlines that suggested a grotesque countenance. Alodar's eyes widened as he grasped what was happening. The imps had somehow made it possible for the three djinns to span the worlds and, powerful in mortal terms though they might be, they were bridging the gap for yet more potent demons to come.
He spun about and sprang for the first handhold above his head. He pulled one leg up to a resting place and then the other. He felt sudden pain in his arms but he shoved it aside. Without waiting, he reached for a new grip and scrambled up the face of the rock. The purchases were few and treacherous, but he did not care. Seconds seemed vital now. He could hope to succeed only if he took every risk.
Up he scrambled, not looking to see how far he had come or to judge the remaining distance. Like the enchanted fighting machine he once had been, he ignored the protests of unhealed muscles and bursting lungs. Hand over hand, in a hypnotic reverie, he drove himself toward the summit. The column narrowed and the rock on which he pressed offered fewer grips, but he did not notice. With a rush, he clambered onto the upshoot which bent to the final pinnacle.
The thickness of rock narrowed to thrice a man's breadth, and Alodar stopped and ran his hands over the stony surface. In an instant he found what he sought, the tarnished bracelet set in the stone. He pulled it. With astounding ease, a great slab parted from the monolith, swung out horizontally, and revealed stairs leading down into the tower. Alodar glanced back down the dizzying distance to the ground and caught one glimpse of a huge demon taking final form. With a last catch of breath, he plunged into the passageway.
The way was dark, and the entrance slab cut off all light from the fire below. With one hand on a wall and the other in front, Alodar spiraled down the stairs as fast as he could without stumbling. Around one circle he went, and then another. His sense of direction became lost, but he continued onwards. Suddenly he hit a level floor and staggered. The stairs had ended, and he was in a room.
Alodar fumbled at his waist for flint and steel and started a small match to glow in the darkness. The tiny flame burned dimly, but he saw what he knew was there. A stone sarcophagus carved from solid granite lay at the far end of a vault. On the wall behind hung an embrace of oil like those in the dungeon of Iron Fist. Alodar moved forward, shielding his match with a cupped hand. He tossed the last sputtering embers of his splinter into the pool, and the room burst into light.
Staring down at the stone coffin, Alodar saw a thick sheet of glass shielding the occupant from the musty air that hung in the chamber. He placed his feet against the wall and began pushing the slab from its resting place. At first, the heavy covering did not move but then, as he strained and knotted the muscles of his back and arms, it slid an inch across the stone with a grating rumble. Alodar breathed deeply and pressed the smooth edge into his palms. The glass slipped further, opening a gap between it and the stone rectangle it covered. A strange, sweet smell rose from the coffin to fill his nostrils, but he ignored it and shoved again. The slab jerked and then gathered momentum. With a final thrust, he propelled it across the opposite side and down onto the stone floor in a loud shatter of broken glass.
'Water,' a voice, soft and dry, whispered up at him. 'On the wall as you came in?a door to a second room.'
Alodar raced around to the other side of the vault and spied a small bracelet, like the one on the outside of the tower. He pulled it open and saw another chamber the same size as the first, but filled with braziers, kindling, piles of dried plants, capped cylinders, liquids, and small, tightly bound chests. Just like Saxton's shop, he thought, as he spotted a flask tightly sealed with a metal cap. He struck off the neck against the wall and hurried back to the wizard, who was sitting up in his stone bed and stretching arms and fingers with a chorus of pops and cracks.
The wizard tilted his head backwards. Alodar poured the water down into the eager mouth, spilling some onto a robe of deepest jet, set with the logo of the flame. Although the musty vault suggested a sleep of centuries, the features were those of middle age. Short ringlets of light brown hair covered his head and cascaded over his ears to merge with a well trimmed goatee. Brown eyes flanked a high thin nose, delicately enscribed with tiny blue veins. The face was gaunt and pale, the hands smooth and uncalloused. The wizard was a man of vault and contemplation rather than sun and physical labor.
'Enough, enough,' Alodar heard him sputter at last. 'You have awakened none less than Handar, the great wizard. That I stretch and stir again is of itself a tale for the sagas.'
Handar paused and stared at Alodar. 'Stand closer to the light so that I can look at you better,' he commanded. 'But a lad, I see. Who of the others would have thought it?'
'Demons,' Alodar cut him off. 'Many of them below. I came for help. How you can aid I do not know, but it seemed what I must do.'
'They would be the thickest here, of course,' Handar said. 'But the shield will keep the imps away, no matter how many.'
'Not only sprites,' Alodar persisted, 'but djinns of power as well. And they work to bring forth even greater ones of their own volition. It was only by the smallest of margins that they did not prevent me from reaching you safely.'
Handar studied Alodar intently for a moment and then shook his head. 'In numbers already,' he said. 'Then we have cut the margin exceedingly fine.' He swung one leg over the coffin wall. 'Quickly, the brazier of gold and the skin of oil beside it. There is wizard's work to be done.'
Alodar hastened back to the storeroom and dragged forth the requested equipment. He set a tripod midway in the room and filled the brazier that swung beneath its apex with oil from a skin hard and brittle with age.
'And now the chalk and the woods,' Handar said. 'Then we can begin.'
Alodar fetched the gear from the storeroom. When he returned, a small fire was flickering from the now- steady pan. The wizard was standing ready with no signs of stiffness or sleep. He reached into the chalk box and rapidly sorted through the pieces; a small cloud of colored dust rose from his haste. At last he withdrew one piece and turned his attention to the bundle of wood.
Handar deftly untied the knot, sending the small sticks swirling across the floor. 'Let me see,' he muttered, holding up the rods one by one and occasionally rubbing or smelling their smooth surfaces. 'Ah, ironwood and myrtle. The very ones for him I seek.'
Handar turned quickly and cast the ingredients into the blaze. 'Come forth, Balthazar, I command you. Awake from your idle reverie and sloth. Your master decrees after these many years a new task for his bonded servant and slave.'
Alodar looked from the flame that arched between them and then into the eyes of the man he had awakened. He saw the brow wrinkled in concentration and eyes fixed unswerving on the fire. Bony arms extended forward, beckoning to the flame.
'What is happening?' Alodar asked.
'Silence,' Handar ordered. 'We have no time to trifle with idle curiosity. I must stretch to my limits and call up the most powerful that I dare. Do not distract me to our peril.'
As Alodar returned to silence, he saw the beginnings of an outline in the center of the blaze. An orange head, eyes and ears blended with the flames, rose above a massive trunk of huge scales and thighs the girth of barrels. Up into the room it towered, cloven hooves and tail dancing in the small fire from which it sprang. Alodar looked up at the head, which now touched the top of the chamber, and shuddered. The ears were large, covering the sides of the elongated head and ending in sharp points that soared above a bald crown. The eyes were small glistening beads of black, deep sunk beneath a jutting forehead that formed a permanent frown. With each breath, tiny nostrils flared from a small bump of a nose. A mouth shaped like an inverted U cut deeply into the chin.
'So Handar, you again choose to settle your fate in rash manner after all of these mortal years. It is well that you have not practiced your art in so long a time. It will make the submission all the quicker.'
'Silence, Balthazar, silence,' the wizard shot back, 'I have had the will of two of your kind since I toddled from my father's knee. The passage of time does not weaken my steadfastness but gives me all the more experience and confidence to handle your feeble puffs of will. If you do not believe it, look into me and see what you find there.'
The demon sneered from bristly jowl to jowl. His luminescent eyes bore down on the wizard. For several minutes there was silence. Neither moved. Alodar saw beads of sweat break out on Handar's forehead. He saw the demon's tail begin to twitch slowly, first to the left, then to the right. Finally a spasm ran up the entire length to the large plates which covered his back.
'And so, Balthazar,' Handar said, 'say again who is master and who is the slave.'
