'And.. ?' Gellor prompted.
'Each day now closes upon the same span elsewhere, Leda. Soon it will be day for day.'
Gellor wasn't completely satisfied. 'He means that the two weeks of subjective time we have thus far experienced now total three actual days elsewhere — on Oerth, for instance, or in the nether realms.'
'Do something about it, Gord,' Leda urged, a worried expression plain. 'You made this place — change its clock so as not to go so fast!'
'Wait! I am neither deity nor adept theurge, love of mine! This island sanctuary was made for us — you, Gellor, me — by. . allies. What our comrade says is all too true. Soon now we must gird ourselves again and face the final enemy.'
'I'm not ready!' Leda said, stamping her small foot.
'You never did say — ' Gellor started at the same time, then ceased speaking to allow Leda to finish. She blushed and turned away, not wanting to display more of her emotion, for it was both selfish and totally out of the question. She knew their responsibilities as well as the others did.
Gord simply looked at them. The bard resumed his query, allowing Leda to compose herself. 'Who did spin this paradise, anyway?'
'A presence always at our elbow,' Gord answered enigmatically with a measured voice. 'I mean no slight, but I am pledged not to say more. Perhaps it is the shade of Basiliv the Demiurge who wrought this haven for us as his final act. …'
'Riddles now?'
'Enough!' Gord made it clear the questioning was at an end. 'Come, let's dine. Today was an active one, and I am famished!'
'Now that you say that,' the pretty elven girl said with a sweet smile in Gellor's direction, 'so am I. Will you serve? Or should I?'
Gellor scowled and stumped over to a chair where he sat heavily with crossed arms and stared at his two friends.
'He prepared this fine supper, so I believe we two should serve him,' Gord said to Leda, trying to keep a straight face.
Leda giggled as she started to assemble the meal, and then Gord's laughter burst forth in peals. 'Stop that now, dear Gord,' Leda managed to command between suppressed chuckles and melodic little trills of laughter. 'We mustn't be insensitive to Gellor's plight. Help me now, and after supper the three of us will discuss our leave- taking.'
That night Leda, her curiosity unsatisfied, tried again to cajole Gord into telling her Just who or what had provided the sanctuary that gave them their current respite. When the three had used a magic portal to leave the desolation of the Abyss, she had supposed they would be on their way to some similarly hellish place to confront the slumbering evil of Tharizdun. Instead, they flashed from plane to plane, going through the sphere of the aether, then into astrality, up into the radiance of creative energy — and then, suddenly, onto the firm and beautiful reality of this place. 'Where are we?' she had asked in wonder on seeing it. 'Why came we by so circuitous a route?' the troubador had queried simultaneously.
'This haven is ours for a while, Leda my own,' he had replied. 'We came thus, old comrade, in order to make sure that Lord Entropy was not dogging our steps.'
'How did you know about such a place?'
'I asked for it.' Gord had so answered her question.
'Is it proof against intrusion? Will the entity be able to find us?'
Gord had been very certain then. 'None will be able to disturb us, for the time we will spend here — not even the dreaded weight of Entropy is sufficient to break through into this realm.'
So the three had welcomed the glorious garden place and tarried for long days and nights. Gellor had been asked by his young friend if there was one he would share the idyll with, but the bard had shaken his head. 'I have no true love now, and no one I would care for, would become close to and want to share with. Not at this time, not with what looms before us all too soon.'
Leda had quickly changed the subject, hating the reminder of duty and impending doom. Yet Gellor had pressed. 'There is but a scant period available for such holiday as this. How long may this place serve?'
'Don't chivvy, Gellor,' Gord had said with rebuke. 'I am the one upon whom the greatest portion of the burden rests, and I am bound by duty and oath as firmly as you. There is sufficient space for us to mend mind and body both, for here the sand of the hourglass runs more slowly than old honey on a winter's night.'
In truth the place had seemed timeless. Leda had used her own powers to heal herself and her two companions, for all of them had been much battered and cut in the course of their conflicts in demonium. That process was finished quickly. Their recovery of inner strength and wholeness of spirit had taken longer, and perhaps some of that damage would never be properly repaired. The matter of Vuron was immediately in Leda's mind.
It had been the albino who had created her from the deeply evil form of Eclavdra. Being twin and child both, Leda had needed nurturing, and it was Vuron who had done that. Demon or not, he had allowed Leda to become something other than a pliable imitation of Eclavdra. He had insisted she adhere to certain tenets, but at the same time allowed her freedom to form and hold other values, mores and ethical concepts, some as foreign to demonkind and evil as were love, kindness, and compassion.
But despite her memories of Vuron's superficially kind treatment of her, she ultimately agreed with Gord. He had grasped the truth, that the albino's seeming care and uncharacteristic generosity were in reality of most malign root. Vuron wished only to advance his lord and master's cause, to push Graz'zt ever upward in greatness and follow close on the ebon demonking's heels as he went. Eclavdra was destructive in her association, always seeking her own ends, ready to betray any other to further herself. Leda, as influenced by exposure to the world and in particular her intimacy with Gord, was a far better instrument for Vuron's purposes. Leda would not be selfish and traitorous, and Vuron would always be there to remind the clone how she became a true person.
'Yet he did often speak truth,' Leda had said. 'He protected me!'
That could be explained easily, and Gord did so, pointing out that truth often served better than lies, that even demons could use it. Protection was likewise a matter of ensuring his own position, favor, and power too.
In all, though, the nightmare of having to kill the one who had fostered her would always be somewhere deep inside. Even if it ceased haunting her soon enough, it remained buried still.
Gord didn't speak of his own inner wounds. The dark power of the artifact ate away at him, and Courflamme was only a partial restorative in that regard, for the sword too bore malign as well as good energies within its bicolored length.
There was the attraction that had flowed between him and the demon princess Elazalag. Why? He tried to rationalize this by her similarity to Leda in color and form, albeit she was far taller. Six fingers? Who could notice that? Completely evil? Of course, but the influence of the Theorparts urged continually the total adoption of that anyway. In any case, he had never seriously considered a liaison, let alone corulershlp of an Abyssal empire. Yet the fact that the ideas had even played briefly across his mind was sufficient burden to his spirit.
The joys that filled him when the power flowed from the great relic, the exultation at slaying those enemies who dared oppose him, the leaping fires of triumph as foes fled and heads bowed. To command such force, receive homage and absolute obedience, to rule as lord over. . what? And under whom? Under?? It was an insidious whispering always there at the back of his mind. 'The great darkness has need of one who has proven able beyond all others, devil, daemon, mortal, and more. You need but accept one overlord, one master, and then as many as you wish will serve you. How many masters command you now? How many serve?'
Always the probing continued. Sometimes it was less complicated, simple and direct. 'You grow weary, tired. Use the power of us to place yourself beyond all care and caring,' the whisper seemed to say. 'Let go your burdens, find peace and rest, join those gone before and reunite with your mother, father. Is there purpose to life? Any life at all? Soon it will end anyway. Is there need to endure the interim? What few joys will be sacrificed, how many pains and troubles never known? Give up. Let it pass into nothingness. There is no need to deal with it all, and the unknown beyond might hold promise undreamed of. No one alone should carry so great a burden. . '
'It is what makes me what I am!'
Leda was startled at the sudden outburst. 'What? I didn't hear what you said, my sweet,' she stammered, for she too had been lost in a reverie.
'Nothing. … I said nothing which is of import, dearest little dreamer,' he responded, seeing the faraway look
