The four managed to step in unison onto the next stair. A sea of roaring flame shot up around them. Again it was the druid who solved the dilemma. It took but a brief time for Greenleaf to summon forth a monumentally great fire elemental from the inferno around them. Such a creature as that was quite usual for the druid, although in all of his scores of years Curley had never seen one so large as that which appeared at his conjuration now. The druid and the elemental exchanged pleasantries. Then Curley asked, 'Can you transport us through this fiery place?'
'No!' came the crackling basso of the fire elemental's reply. That would have been the end of it, except for the special rapport that existed between the nature priest and the denizens of the elemental spheres. 'Yet you can pass by yourselves safely enough, druid.'
'How so?' Greenleaf asked, peering at the leaping tongues of fire.
'I will make a cool path,' the elemental responded. 'Where would you go?'
There!' said Gord, gesturing toward a spot where pale smoke streamed upward. It was the only place of its kind to be seen in the inferno. That is the place we must attain!'
Curley nodded and looked at the elemental. The towering creature said and did nothing. 'Oh, yes, of course, I was the one who summoned you, wasn't I?' the druid asked rhetorically. He was truly flustered by the immensity of the being of fire. 'We would pass from here to the smoke yonder, majestic one,' Greenleaf said loudly to the elemental. 'Please assist me!'
'It is done!' the fire elemental boomed. Then it turned and swept away toward the column of smoke. Behind it was a path of cinders, for where it went the creature's raging heat and flame consumed the very fires that surrounded it.
'Not too close, now,' Curley warned as he stepped off the safety of the rectangle they had been upon and followed the elemental. He hunched and hurried, for searing curtains of flame were on either hand and the cinders beneath were very hot. The others followed with alacrity, and although they sweated and felt flushed, they came to no harm. The elemental ahead circled the place where the smoke arose, waved a cherry-red, flame-tongued member, and then sank into nothingness again amid the flames. Behind them the fires were creeping onto the pathway, so the four sprinted to where the column of gray smoke shot upward. There was no fire generating it, so they took their chances and plunged into the stuff.
Their coughing became choking and painful rasping almost at once. Passing from the inferno of flame, the four had entered a place of insubstantial vapors and rolling fogs. Sickly pastel hues of mist and cloud; yellow, green, brownish, hideous blue. 'Gas!' Gellor managed to cough the warning. 'Poison!'
It was again the druid who saved them. With a few quick passes and a litany of chanting, Greenleaf managed to complete a spell despite the lung-wracking, skin-burning vapors that crawled and swirled around the four. In the moment of completion, a curtain of flames shot up. Its hot flames encircled them, burning away the toxic clouds near, creating a growing updraft that cleared the area it inscribed. 'Which direction shall I move it?' Curley asked as the wall of glowing fire did its work and normal speech was again possible.
Gord signaled to Chert and, with a spring, landed atop the great shoulders of the tall hillman. Chert then held his hands so Gord could place the sole of each boot in one of his large palms. Without seeming effort. Chert raised his arms to extend fully above his head. The young thief and gymnast now balanced with his head no less than thirteen feet above the ground Chert stood on. 'I see pure white there,' Gord called, pointing to indicate the direction desired. 'All other places are naught but colored vapors of ghastly hues. I think the white is our egress!'
Gellor marked the direction, then Gord was down and likewise pointing.
The druid began to move, causing the fiery curtain that surrounded them to progress with him. It was slow traveling, for the four had to carefully maintain the line that would take them to the small place where they could escape the terrible poisons of this trap. By staying in line, one as near the rear, two in the middle, and one as far ahead as the heat of the fire allowed, the distance was covered. The sheet of flames washed over another of the big rectangles that were the manifestations of the steps leading to the suspended platform that was the lair of their enemy. Gravestone.
There,' said Gellor, who was then in the lead. 'On to the next welcome!'
'How many more, I wonder?' Greenleaf grumbled as he jumped onto the surface where his companions were standing. The poison gases and the dancing wall of fire vanished at that instant.
The biting wind of this next environment nearly knocked them off their feet. The ground was solid ice. Tiny particles of the frozen stuff filled the air as well. The howling wind whipped them laterally across the frozen, limitless expanse of the place. The ice crystals stung where they touched flesh, imbedded themselves in any fold or crevice where the wind drove them. Soon the four adventurers would be encased in the stuff, icemen frozen into cold death. The temperature was so low that it hurt them to open their eyes. Here was a trap most cunning and deadly. They had to move to stay warm, to locate the step that was their only escape from icy death. Yet the sheet ice made movement slow and perilous, the jagged hunks of upthrust ice turning the place into a maze.
Shivering from cold, their teeth chattering, they searched with their aching eyes, looking in ever-expanding circles for some clue to the portal of escape. 'Shall I use more of my power to conjure fire?' Curley Greenleaf chattered. 'We could warm ourselves a bit, then spread out to search for the hidden stairstep.'
Chert instantly assented to the suggestion, and Gellor was uncertain, but Gord vetoed it. 'Only as a last resort should more of your spells be used, Curley. We won't separate in any event! We must stay within sight of one another, and we should be moving now, too.' The words were reasonable, Gord's assessment accurate and requiring no further explanation. His comrades nodded, and the four returned to scanning, peering.
'Any clue?' Gord shouted over the shrieking gale.
That question drew only negative responses — and then another shout blared forth: Gellor had slipped and fallen on the iron-hard ice. Curley thought the bard's cry was one of pain and distress, and in a flash the druid was hastening to the fellow's side by making skating movements with his frozen-stiff boots, using the staff's spearhead to balance and pole In the process. 'How badly are you hurt?' he called.
'Hurt? Hurt?' The bard was actually laughing, so hard that tears were forming… and freezing to his cheeks! 'It is ironic!' Gellor bellowed over the wind. 'Come here! Look!' He pointed to a silver-white sheathed fang of old, black ice that was nearby.
'My fall has saved us, dear friends,' the troubador went on — In a lower tone now, for the others were all clustered near. 'See that darker ebon In the hummock?' Not one of the three could spot what Gellor was directing their attention to. He laughed again, then said, 'No wonder, I suppose. Even though it was within a few feet of our entry point, the combination of ice and dweomercraeft cloaked it from us completely. Only from the edge can I discern the thing, even with my enchanted orb! The stair is imbedded there, hidden in the icy mound before you!'
Chert needed no further encouragement. He swung Brool with vigor unusual even for that hulking barbarian. Shoulder muscles rippling, arms Gorded as he worked. Chert chopped with the battleaxe. The massive blade sent ice flying in chunks, slivers, and a spray of finer stuff was instantly borne away in the wind. There was no room for the others, for the axe described mighty arcs as the brawny hillman sent it biting into the ice-fang time after time in a furious frenzy.
In a handful of minutes the little mountain of frozen water was a waist-high plateau. Chert ceased his titanic hewing then, and Gord and the bard relieved him, doing the finer work of clearing the metallic rectangle with their swords first, then daggers for the inch or two that remained atop the thing's surface.
'Done,' the champion said with a last chiseling of the long dagger he plied against the ice. 'Six tests have we passed. This might be the stair which brings us to the enemy!'
'Hey,' Chert said unbelievingly, 'I saw about a hundred steps when we first started on this stupid exercise. What makes you think that there aren't pretty near that many left for us to go!' The query was accusative in tone. Despite the severe cold, the words sent a chill through the other three.
Seeing the effect on his comrades, Gord shook off his own foreboding and managed a grin. 'One more or one hundred — will it matter? We will win through the rest, just as we've managed the traps behind. There's no choice, comrades. Either we succeed, or we die… and if we die, so does all hope everywhere.' That bolstered them, and even the young adventurer felt heartened by his own words. They reminded Gord that this hunt was for more than personal revenge. Gravestone was the one responsible for the deaths of his father and mother, for the murder of his ship's crew, and the killing of his friends Dohojar and Barrel. Only the archdaemon, Infestix, was more culpable than the vile priest-wizard.
Still, there was far more at stake. Gravestone was a very powerful agent of evil, one of the greatest working
