was but a speck vanishing from sight. Astron watched him go and for a moment more followed the flights of others as they transported objects and smaller devils to and from Elezar's domain.
He was a cataloguer, Astron thought, the best in all the retinue of his prince. He understood the value of knowledge and traded it for power far beyond what one would expect for one of his size and lack of ability to weave.
He was a cataloguer and yet… He flexed his arms trying to imagine for perhaps the millionth time the sensation of darting between the uppermost spires of his prince's towers, of swooping down into the dark abysses, or even of visiting distant lairs without the assistance of a djinn dangling him from great talons and protecting him from danger.
Astron closed his eyes, wiggling his fingers in exaggerated slowness, straining for the feel of the matter about him, trying to caress its form and texture, molding it into the shapes that he commanded, and transforming even its innermost structure and bonding so that it became as he desired.
But as always, the feelings did not come. His weight pressed all too firmly on the soles of his feet. His palms and the tips of his fingers felt no more than the tenuousness of air. He was only Astron, the one who walked. Besides, there was no time for such reverie, he decided angrily. He must report to the prince.
Quickly Astron navigated through the maze of peripheral domes to the main rotunda. The slight give of the thinly stretched web of matter to each stride reminded him of the firmness of Palodad's crude steps of true stone. The outer passageways were empty; the flitter of imps and bustle of messenger devils had stopped. When he burst into the central rotunda, Astron found that every demon in the domain had gathered. In concentric circles, they hovered and squatted; all eyes were focused on the hub in which were conversing no less than two princes of the realm.
Astron felt his limbs stiffen. He might already be too late. Gaspar and his minions had arrived. Astron saw Elezar sitting on the same pillow of silk and down. Ignoring the other cushions, Gaspar stood with arms folded across his chest, his massive torso rippling with muscle that seemed just barely under control. Deep-set and cruel eyes brooded under an overhanging brow, shadowing a face that never smiled. With a wave of irritation, he brushed aside the mites that swarmed about his chin. Small bursts of unwoven energy crackled from his fingertips, arching spontaneously from joint to joint. In the dreams of men, it was demons such as Gaspar that they feared the most.
Astron hesitated. One part of his mind willed his legs forward to tell the prince what little he had learned. Another bade him to remain still; it would not be prudent for Gaspar to hear the extent of Elezar's ignorance. In nervous anticipation, Astron waited for some indication of what he should do.
'I have come to settle our wager,' the lightning djinn's voice rumbled throughout the dome. 'Either you know the answer to my riddle or you do not. There is nothing to be determined by delay. Submit to your doom as you have agreed.'
The guard of colossal djinns behind Elezar, six in all and each identical to the tiniest scale to his brethren, tensed and bared their fangs, but the prince motioned them to remain calm.
'Your haste hints of weakness,' Elezar replied. 'How bored has your following become?'
'There is no trace of the great monotony in a single one.' Gaspar waved at the brace of lieutenants he had brought with him, now standing off to the side. He glanced about the dome and eyed the web of vaults and spars that held the expanse of the great roof aloft. 'Every one of them looks forward with anticipation to when they can reduce all of this to base iron.'
'And even if your challenge should prevail,' Elezar said, 'after the few brief moments of destructive fury, what then? What new amusements will you promise? How can you hope to keep alive their will and allegiance for even an epoch more? In the end, you will lose, Gaspar. The eons and eras stretch before you farther than you dare imagine.'
Elezar paused and lowered his voice to a whisper, although all present could still hear. 'Are you not already weary, Gaspar? Does not the futility of it all begin to gnaw? Will one more orgy of destruction be that much different from the last? Submit, submit to me, and at least the ending will be amusing for all.'
'No,' Gaspar thundered. He unfurled his wings and rose a span above the floor cushions. The air around his shoulders began to crackle and hiss. Sparkles of color pulsed into existence above his head.
The guard djinns quickly interposed themselves between Elezar and the other prince. Gaspar's lieutenants vaulted over the smaller demons between and formed a rank alongside their leader, their synchronized wing strokes creating a wind that whistled through the rotunda archways.
'Are these the actions of a prince secure in his command?' Elezar continued his questioning as the djinns maneuvered. 'Why do the images I propose prick at your stembrain so?'
'I will have your existence to do with what I will,' Gaspar roared back. 'It has been promised. Agree to the conditions of the chailenge and surrender. If you do not, it will not only be the lightning djinns that you must face. All of daemon will aid my just cause.'
'And if you hurl one bolt at what is mine before that surrender is made, what then of the agreement?' Elezar said. 'If a single atom of my domain is disturbed before I accede you the right, on whose side will the realm render succor and aid?'
Pops of thunder exploded from Gaspar's hands. For a moment, the intensity of the arching between his fingers increased. Then the demon curled one hand into a fist and smashed it into the other, smothering the pulsating energy. He roared an incoherent bellow of frustration and waved his lieutenants back to their positions. Sullenly he drifted to the rotunda floor, again folding his arms across his chest.
Elezar's guard djinns resumed their positions behind the prince. For a long moment there was silence throughout the vast dome.
'I will illustrate my point in a less destabilizing manner,' Elezar said at last. He motioned to an archway and four devils responded by carrying in a sculpture on a stand of marble.
Astron saw that it was molded in heavy bronze, a cluster of bubbles popping from a viscous broth, a copy of an artform prevalent in the realm of the fey. As the devils positioned it between Elezar and Gaspar, six more demons waddled forward, each one squat and broad, with eyes that squinted from between deep folds of flesh. They positioned themselves directly behind Elezar and gazed at the sculpture from expressionless faces.
'Now pick one of your lieutenants,' Elezar said. 'I give him leave. He may do with this matter as he wishes.'
Almost in unison, Gaspar's djinns expanded their chests. Crackles of energy began to dance from their fingertips and eyes. Their alertness for possible battle moments before was a mere shadow of the excitement that gripped them now. Gaspar grunted irritably and motioned one near the middle forward. The selected lieutenant quickly arched across the intervening distance and landed with a heavy thud near the sculpture. His eyes widened. He wiggled his fingers, letting short arcs of piercing blue jump from one hand to the other.
'Wait a moment until the shield demons are ready and then you may begin,' Elezar said. 'I wish to minimize the effect of your craft upon the dome and the others who watch.'
Gaspar's lieutenants nodded. Astron heard the shield demons begin to hum in a six-voice harmony. Simultaneously he saw the lightning djinn start to fade. On the top, bottom, and each side of the demon, a plane of haziness began to form, six sheets of growing opaqueness that intersected and confined him and the adjacent sculpture into a box.
As if they were filling with fog, the surfaces grew less and less transparent, finally hiding the djinn totally from view. The glow of imp light around the rotunda walls reflected diffusely from what looked like a solid cube. The shield demons had constructed a confining barrier, Astron knew. Little energy could penetrate it from either side.
But then the interior of the cube pulsed with light. In a heart beat, Astron saw a searing bolt of yellow rip from the djinn's hand and strike the sculpture with a devastating force. The power released was so immense that even the small fraction that trickled through the barrier was sufficient for all to see what was happening.
The sculpture ripped asunder where the bolt struck it at mid-height. Globules of molten metal sputtered from the point of contact. Two jagged halves ricocheted from the walls of the confining box. Before the image faded, the djinn struck a second time with two quick bolts that hit each of the tumbling pieces. Again the metal shrieked and tore; four fragments bounced about the cube.
With increasing rapidity the djinn aimed strike after strike at the fragments, ripping them into finer shards and filling the confining volume with light. Astron flicked his membranes over his eyes. The outwelling residue of the
