for a longer time, and it held a special place in his dark heart. It was able to wreak horrible damage, even when thrown, and the best part was that whenever Obmi released it, the hammer would hit its target and then circle around to return to the dwarfs grasp — as it did now.
With his left hand Obmi caught the bloodied weapon that came whirling back to him, and in the same instant buried the long pick of his martel in the side of a nearby pygmy. The force of this impact drove the tiny man sideways into his fellow defenders. At the same time, the dwarf jerked the pick sideways, freeing its bill and arcing the weapon to his left, where it struck another of the pale soldiers with its toothed hammer head, destroying the albino's face.
The dwarf felt wonderful. Here was a proper perspective at last! He was fighting men over whom he towered by a foot. And the magical boots bestowed upon him especially for this mission made him quicker than any ordinary human anyway, regardless of size. The dwarf flashed through the ranks of the desperate little albinos, a whirlwind of destruction that left a trail of blood and death behind. The poisoned quarrels from the repeating arbalests that the pygmy soldiers relied upon were next to useless against Obmi and his lieutenant. Bolt the wizard was protected from ordinary missiles by an enchantment, and the dwarf was by nature virtually immune to venom. Obmi smiled as he recalled plucking a little projectile from where it had stuck in his arm and using it on the fool who had shot him with it at point-blank range. The expression on the white runt's face as he had driven the still-envenomed quarrel into the very eye that had aimed it was hilarious.
The wizard was quite useful. Bolt had cleared away much of the opposition with a forked bolt of lightning — a stroke much bigger and more deadly than the defenders had supposed was possible. It had crisped a pair of the pygmy folk's own magic-workers before they knew what had hit them. Then Bolt had used his power to fry many of the remaining pale little men with a fireball, so the avenue up which Obmi marched was clear of opposition of serious sort, and he was able to amuse himself by crushing several of the pygmies with his own weapons. After a few minutes of this close fighting, half of the ten barbarian warriors accompanying the dwarf had been lost, but one had to expect as much. It didn't matter at any rate. One guide had been kept behind in a safe place outside the city, and that was all Obmi needed to get back to real civilization once the prize was his.
As Obmi came to an intersection of two avenues and turned the corner, he first peered ahead and caught sight of a commotion taking place in the distance. 'Blast!' he roared. 'Could it be that the filthy drow yet survives?' Bolt, as mystified as his master was angry, wisely let the question pass. Obmi stood still, taking a few seconds to discern the path along which the distant activity was moving, then let his gaze continue to track along the same route. Suddenly he set eyes upon an imposing building a few hundred yards away. 'There!' he bellowed to the remainder of his assault group. 'Look, you dogs! The temple lies ahead, and we must get there first. Run over any who stand in your way, now, and move for that place!'
Gord and Leda had come into the pygmy shrine from a secondary way, one reserved for the clerics who were housed nearby. Of course, the two had no idea that this was the case, for they couldn't see the grand entrances on the other faces of the great block that was the temple building. A large vestibule with three passageways was the first thing they saw upon entering. To either hand the reddish light common in the undercity was apparent, for the temple was filled with the strange globes. Ahead, though, the corridor glowed with a golden illumination that was unique to the place.
'Straight on, Leda,' Gord hissed to the dark elf. That light must come from their most precious place of veneration.' The pair rah on down the passage, a ten-foot width of polished alabaster with precious gold inlaid in the mosaic tiles of its walls.
The light is mysterious to them, I think. They must make this place so bright to awe the commoners — a reminder of the time when their ancestors dwelled upon the surface,' Leda panted as they hurried forward. 'It gives us a great advantage, for the pygmies will be nearly blind in such conditions.'
'And a drow?'
'Most will be, but not I,' Leda replied. 'Eclavdra was supplied with dweomered cusps that protect the eyes from radiation of most sorts — and I, as her physical duplicate, also wear a pair of them.'
Before they could converse further, the two came into a huge, pillared hall. They looked out upon a curved end wall, columned side aisles, and a wide central way. Down the middle of the four broad main aisles stretched lines of displays, as if the place was a museum. Perhaps it once had been such. The displays were encased in clear material — glass, crystal, or whatever, Gord could not tell. Along the way they came, the exhibits were of priestly nature, it seemed. They dashed past ancient books and even older-looking scrolls, carved chairs, displayed vestments, ornate reliquaries and sacred offery and altar pieces, and clerical paraphernalia of gold and silver.
The central portion of the mighty chamber was domed in gold, and the floor beneath this dome was a disc of dark, polished onyx. Set around this circle was a rail of wood, inlaid with gold, and broken at only one spot, on the side from which they approached. Outside the rail were curved benches of a size suitable for the pygmy folk. Perhaps a hundred or so could be seated there. Naturally, the benches faced inward so that the greatest of the albinos' treasures could be venerated. From the apex of the dome, fully forty feet above the onyx floor, hung a massive chain of dull, greenish metal. About two-thirds of the way down from the roof on this upper chain was fastened a massive ring. Four slightly smaller chains radiated out beneath this ring, enclosing a globe of crystalline transparency. Each of these four lengths of greenish links was caught fast again below the sphere by another great ring, and this, in turn, was fastened to another stretch of thicker chain that extended down to the onyx floor, held fast by a massive staple of the same metal as itself.
'If I stretched, I think I could just about touch the lower ring,' Leda said to the young thief.
'I have never seen anything quite so black,' Gord said in wonderment as he stared at the transparent globe. He referred to the small object set inside the crystal, a vaguely cone-shaped thing with three protruding parts that vaguely resembled horns.
Leda tugged at his arm to break his trancelike state. 'Don't stare at it — don't look directly at it at all! That thing gives onto a part of the multiverse which is the opposite of what we know. It seems so black because it devours light. Don't touch it, for it will drain your life as it withers your flesh.'
'How in the hopping hells do you expect me to touch it, girl? No one can get at it!'
'We must, Gord — and stop calling me girl. I am far older than you are!'
Gord slapped the dark elf on her round posterior, chuckling as he did so to break the tension of the situation. 'No, you aren't. You said yourself that you are only months old — I should call you child, not girl.'
'Ass! My memories stretch back over centuries, so I am no girl. Stop this foolish behavior and get moving. We have to loose that globe, crack it somehow, and gain the Final Key while the pygmies are busy elsewhere.'
What the dark elf said made sense. There should have been dozens of guards and priests in the place, yet the temple was seemingly deserted — for now, anyway, and there was no telling when the battles going on outside would carry over to within this chamber.
Gord glanced around to see if there was anything nearby that might help him in what he meant to do. His eye fell upon a nearby display case. It held a statue, a lifelike work that depicted a warrior of the ancient empire, arrayed for battle and holding an oval-shaped shield and a surprisingly modern-looking sword. The weapon fairly radiated excellence of craftsmanship to the young adventurer. It was as long as the blade he held now, and shaped very much like it, yet there were differences that struck Gord as indicating that some great artisan had fashioned the weapon in the case. The blade was not as heavy and thick as the one he held, and the guard and quillons were far better. When he took a step and looked closer, Gord saw that the sword had a dish-shaped cutting edge and a ridged spine along its length. All in all, an excellent tool.
There is my new weapon!' he said with quiet determination.
Leda's face contorted in anger. 'Have you gone daft?' she scolded. 'Use that vaunted dagger of yours to sever those chains. We must have the Final Key now!'
Ignoring the dark elf entirely, Gord strode up to the tall case of wood-framed glass and peered at the incredibly realistic statue of the Suel knight therein. 'Sorry, paragon of lost dreams of conquest, I have greater need for that blade than you do,' he said, and with that he smote the case with the sword he was carrying. Strips of wood snapped, and thick panes of glass shivered into fragments that chimed and tinkled as they split into slivers upon contact with the stone floor. At the same moment, a puff of smoke erupted within the sundered display. Gord jumped back to escape the foul-smelling emission, coughing and wiping away the tears that the stuff caused to stream from his eyes.
'What have you- Look out, Gord!'
