passageway bright. There were perhaps a dozen of the white pygmies and twice as many of the yellow-maned, albino apes there, caught unprepared by the sudden assault. Leda gave a shout, and Gord stayed out of the opening as the nomad warriors sent a pair of shafts into the turmoil beyond. As soon as he heard the clatter of their discarded bows, though, he jumped into the doorway, aimed rapidly, and hurled the small spear with all his strength. Jahmut was there beside him, tulwar in hand, and the two rushed into the enemy. The pygmies and apes were still in disarray, milling about as they tried in vain to keep from being hindered by the globe of bright light that floated near the ceiling of the corridor. Their eyes, accustomed to darkness, bulged and ached as they were exposed to more illumination than they could stand.
Gord was quickly separated from Jahmut by the press of enemy bodies, but he didn't mind. He was too busy laying about with sword and dagger to notice anything but his targets. For fully two minutes he fought alone; then Leda was beside him, holding the tulwar that had belonged to Nizamee. 'Beware,
Gord!' she shouted to him, pointing ahead of where they stood. That one there is a spell — caster!'
Her warning came just in time. Gord saw that one of the pygmies was making passes in the air. As the little man called out the last of his incantation and thrust out his hands toward the young adventurer, Gord leaped up and ahead in a vaulting jump. For an instant while he was in the air, he felt as if all the muscles in his body were stiffening. But then the feeling passed as quickly as it had come, and he landed in front of the startled little dweomercraefter and wounded him before the pale midget knew what happened.
Now it was Gord's turn to be surprised. A small fighter nearby stabbed at the young thief, forcing him to dodge and parry instead of quickly finishing off the spell-worker. Simultaneously another, lesser spell-crafter finished a work of his own, and Leda's magical illumination suddenly vanished. In the confusion and darkness, the chief dweomercraefter of the pygmy warband expected to slip away from his attacker, not reckoning with Gord's exceptional visual capacity.
With his long dagger, Gord fended off the curved-bladed pole arm the fighter had thrust at him, knocking the weapon's hooked portion aside so that it struck one of the baboons that was moving to assist in the fight. As the warrior tried to clear his weapon, and the dark suddenly engulfed the combatants, Gord kept his eye on the wounded spellbinder. The little fellow turned away and ran down the corridor and around a corner to be clear of the melee. When he got a fair distance down this escape passage he turned, bent on summoning some new mischief. The pale pygmy's eyes, already huge, nearly started from his head as he saw the supposedly night-blind human figure bounding after him, dodging from side to side as he advanced with sword and dagger at the ready. Behind Gord came a small crowd of apes and pygmies, not chasing him so much as they were escaping from the swords of his companions.
'You cursed oaf!' the gray-clad midget shouted, gesturing and muttering furiously. A fat, crackling streak of violet-blue electricity issued from the little man's hands and came close to striking Gord full in the chest. The young thief threw himself to the side as the sizzling bolt was released, and the full force of it missed him, but the stroke was still close enough and strong enough to burn him and knock him flat. The lightning continued down the corridor and played among the caster's own fellows, dropping several of them in their tracks. Then it hit the wall where the passageway turned, and it came sizzling straight back along the corridor it had just traversed.
From where he lay, dazed and nauseated from the shock of the bolt's passage, Gord saw the bolt blazing back in the direction from which it had come. An instant later he heard a loud sizzling sound, immediately drowned out by a shrill scream, and the pygmy keeled over, dead from his own electrical attack. Gord managed to climb to his feet and stumble back through the passageway, stepping over the dead bodies, getting back to where Leda was swinging away furiously with a sword that was really too large for her to handle. The nomads had been blind since the moment Leda's globe of light was extinguished. She had shouted for them to stay behind her and was singlehandedly keeping off five or six of the pale little fighters and their yellow-maned baboons. When Gord began hewing them from behind, they fell like wheat before a scythe. At this point, the survivors scrambled and got away as fast as they could. The battle was over.
While the men of Thuffi regained their rushcandle from within the treasure chamber and sought for stragglers to dispose of, Gord and Leda followed the signs left by the fleeing band of underground dwellers. Only a handful had managed to escape, but they left a trail that was easy to follow, for several bore wounds that still bled. It led the two down the spiral steps to the old well room and disappeared through the hole that led to the pool beyond.
'I feared it,' Leda said to Gord. 'They must use this place, but from some other access point. When we bathed and made love here earlier, we were seen or heard. Those baboons probably have noses keen enough to follow scent.'
'Yes and no, love,' Gord replied. 'You are right about our being detected, I think, but not about the apelings. They don't have noses that good — don't forget I handled a lot of dead ones, and I got a good look at them. They followed us by looking at the signs in the dust. I think those so-called baboons are nothing more than the same species as the pygmy men, degenerated perhaps, or bred to serve as hounds.'
Leda didn't believe him until she too had examined several corpses after they returned to the treasure room. 'Devildirt, Gord! These things are men!' she exclaimed with revulsion in her voice.
'Not men, actually,' Gord said. 'Pygmy spawn, albinoid descendants of once-humans who have probably dwelled underground for a hundred generations. It isn't surprising, though. Slavery is just a step away from deliberate breeding for desired characteristics, degenerate or otherwise. I have seen the losels that the vile Iuz breeds, too — a disgusting thing to do to human, humanoid, or ape!'
At the mention of the cambion's name, Leda's face became a mask of hatred. 'I hate that gross pig!' she said. 'Somewhere, somehow, one named Iuz has harmed me or someone close to me. I would kill him very slowly if I had that lump of dog dung in my hand!'
'Perhaps you would… if you could,' Gord said laconically. 'Still, I am interested to note that his name evokes such a response in you, girl. What other memories now return?'
Leda looked at him blankly. 'None, other than disgust and hatred for that despicable dog. Let us speak of something else.'
'Yes,' interjected Achulka. 'It is time for us to talk of returning to the mountains. My brothers and I have gathered all the wealth we can hope to carry, and when we are rested we will set forth. Come north with us, Farzeel and Leda-Warrior-Woman!'
'We have been over this before, Achulka,' Gord said. 'Leda and I have a… a… vow which must be kept. But if you wish to begin acting like old-'
'Enough, Gord!' Leda interrupted. The dark elf — and she fully looked the part of a drow now as they stood in the subterranean chamber — held Gord's arm and pressed it to gain his full attention. 'These warriors of the steppes have served well in this unnatural desert. They helped us to gain this place. They helped us survive against our foes. We should show them the water we have found, and then Achulka and his brothers are entitled to take their spoils and return.'
Gord gazed incredulously at the girl. 'What are you saying?'
'Excuse us for a moment, friends,' Leda said to the nomads, who were as stupefied as Gord was by her support of their desire to go back. She stepped outside the chamber, bringing Gord along by the arm, and spoke softly to him. 'Gord, I think we can travel the rest of the way to the City Out of Mind underground! I know you see as well as I do in the lightless world, but those warriors are unable to. They are a handicap to us, so let them hazard a return alone. We two will forge on by passage beneath the dust.'
'Have you lost your reason?' he asked caustically. 'There is no means of traveling beneath the Ashen Desert — unless we change to ashworms, moles, or those sharklike things the Thuffi call dustdevils. Why not birds, to wind our way above the ash?'
'This is no time to jape, man!' Leda stared hard at him, impressing her seriousness upon the stubborn human. 'I have not lied to you, nor have I misled you, have I, Gord?' The query was obviously a rhetorical one, for the dark elf went on immediately, 'And I do not do so now. I found a scroll amidst the treasure coffers, a piece of writing concerning tunnels which run under the dust. There it will be cool, safe from wind storms, and easy to find water. Think, Gord — instead of ten miles of plodding on dust-walkers, we can go two or three times that far each day without fear of dust mires, venomous plants or reptiles, or being cooked by the sun.'
This sounds… wrong,' Gord rebutted. 'How do we know which direction we are going — assuming that there are passages that lead outward from this place — and what makes you think that even if there are tunnels, they will go to the City Out of Mind?'
Leda had to admit to herself that the man had a point. 'You might be right, dear one,' she said. 'The little
