The Far Side Of Forever Part 52

most often singling him out to attack with rusting swords, but no matter how hard they tried they couldn't get past his swinging, deadly blade to reach him. Possibly there was

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one point of amus.e.m.e.nt in all that, the one point that turned the red-'haired man into the bewildered boy he usually only resembled. When we reached the gate out of there it wasn't a string of dead he left behind him but a string of living, that being the results of striking down a zombie. His sword had left living beings behind, sleeping peacefully, and that was a concept he just couldn't get used to.

After that it became Zail's turn, when we found our- selves in a world of mazes. The trail of me balance stone kept ending against blank, unyielding walls of rock, walls that were too high to climb over. Zail deciphered a pattern and led us through it, Su keeping a tenuous hold on the track of the stone to make sure we didn't reconnect to a false trail, and then we took the next gate out of there-to a world where males and females switched perceptions. I, personally, found the experience upsetting, but it can't be argued that we left that world knowing each other a good deal better.

It went on and on and on, after a while everyone becoming as tired as I usually was. Our party needed almost constant magical protection, especially on the illu- sion worlds where cliff-tops ended about ten feet back from where they appeared to end, or falling trees didn't look to be falling until they smashed into the ground. The worst for me was the world in which we all became wraiths as soon as we stepped from the gate, living but floating mists in a world where simply floating was the best and happiest achievement. I was so tired then, so ready to let everything go including memory, and my magic wasn't able to counter the "world-must" to turn us back into what we had been. Just as Sight had been prohibited in the blind world, so were solid beings prohib- ited there; the others couldn't have stopped me if I'd attenuated myself to the limit and let the gentle breezes take me where they willed. What did stop me I still don't really know, but the others trembled with uncertainty until we were safely through the next gate. At that point Rik forced me to make camp by saying everyone was falling off the feet they'd just regained, but I was the one who

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really needed the rest. I fell asleep as soon as I lay down, but despite my instructions wasn't awakened in two hours.

I'd used mat spell to uselessness, and luckily Rik noticed in time to keep me from falling apart.

After that it went a little easier, which really should have warned us. Three worlds later we reached a world that wasn't a world-we reached the place called Cloud's Heart.

CHAPTER 13.

"I can't believe we're this close," Dranna kept saying, her eyes on the cup she sipped from, the cup she held with both hands to keep it steady. She looked really terrible, pale and drawn and years older, her freshly cleaned and restored green gown enhancing the appearance of her de- cline, but she wasn't the only one. We were all. pretty close to the ends of our ropes, and we all had cups like hers to drink from. The drink I'd created let us all ignore the fact that the only thing keeping us from plunging into eternity was the magical floor I'd made, a floor that held us just as well as it was supposed to, but which refused to be anything but invisible. To look down was to see your- self suspended over miles and miles of beautifully thin cloud layer by nothing at all, cloud layer mat would not hold any of us but InThig for the briefest moment. Without the floor we'd all be gone, and not being able to see it made everyone doubt, deep inside, that it would stay under us as long as we needed it.

"It appears the last of the defenders are now being disposed of," Kadrim said, sipping from his own cup as he watched what just had to be the final battle. "We should now be able to advance to the very walls of the palace itself."

"And then it's Zail's turn again," Rik said, watching what Kadrim was. "There don't seem to be any doors in that place, but there has to be at least one."

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Zail grunted in obvious agreement, but he hadn't been following me conversation with more than half an ear. All of his attention was concentrated on the pure white build- ing we'd been fighting our way toward, the building that didn't seem to have any way in. If we couldn't get in, everything we'd gone through would have been for noth- ing, and none of us could live with a thought like that.

Exactly how long it had been since we'd come through the final gate, none of us really knew. The entire journey felt as though it had taken ages, and maybe, on some plane or other, it had. The only thing we knew right then was that we'd been attacked as soon as we'd stepped through the gate onto me magical floor InThig had warned me we'd need. I'd gone through first with Su and created the floor, and then Su had kept me from being drawn back all me way when 1 returned to activate the gate for the others.

Although she hadn't looked it, the big woman had proba- bly stopped breathing until everyone was through and I left the gate for the last time; if some part of me hadn't been left in the cloud worid with Su, me floor she stood on would have immediately dissolved, sending her plunging down to who-knew-what.

If it had been the beginning *of our journey instead of nearly the end, the first attack -wouM have had us without the least trouble. From the top of the beautiful, white cloud-palace we could all see in the near distance came a flight of what appeared to be lovely winged children, frolicking in the air and laughing as they approached us.

Everyone stopped to stare at the charming sight, none of them even considering touching a weapon, but my temper had been wearing very thin over me previous few worlds, and the outrageousness of the suggestion hit me immedi- ately. We had fought our way through to our enemy's very door, and now we were being greeted with warmth and love? Not b.l.o.o.d.y likely!

No one seemed to notice when I muttered one of the spells Graythor had taught me, the spells which provided magical protection against magic, and luckily that included the approaching children. They swooped and b.u.mped and laughed and waved until they were really close-and then the waves began emanating from them. Faint thoughts of

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riotous laughter reached us, along with the conviction that we really should be out there gamboling and flying with the children, and then the invisible sphere I'd created thickened to keep out even those faint suggestions. My companions suddenly realized how close we'd all come to leaping out into thin air in an attempt to fly, and all thoughts of indulgent good humor went by the boards-

Kadrim was our expert in battle procedure, and I was me one who supplied the troops he needed. His first order had been to direct the creation of a flying force to over- come and destroy those "children," and if he'd told me beforehand what he intended doing with the vicious birds I produced, I might not have made them. It soon became clear that he was right, of course, that we couldn't advance to our objective leaving an untouched segment of our enemy's army behind us, but watching our enemy's "force"

being destroyed hadn't been easy. When it was all over we'd thought we were finished with having to be sick to our stomachs, but it had only been beginning.

"That's it," Rik said, watching as the slavering beast tore apart the last delicate, pastel-colored unicorn. The unicorns seemed to be the final wave, the last of the most beautiful, graceful and lovely creatures any of us had ever seen. Killing something about to attack you isn't usually all that hard-unless the something happens to be an an- gel, or a b.u.t.terfly, or a translucent, brightly colored fish, or a happily trilling songbird. In a place where we had expected dragons we got unicorns instead, and Dranna hadn't been able to watch right from the first. Su stayed beside her, speaking to her quietly every now and then, and when I hadn't been creating things to Kadrim's speci- fications, I'd spent a good deal of time with them both.

Kadrim had pretended to be too busy moving his "troops"

around countering attacks and launching his own thrusts to notice what he was fighting, but at battle's end he no longer had the smooth, unlined face of a boy.

"Laciel, bring us closer to that part of the palace wall,"

Zail directed in a distracted voice, pointing to me right of where we then were. "All those arches and colonnades are supposed to be decorative and are probably also supposed to be misleading, but functional always has a certain bal-

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ance that decorative lacks, no matter how well done it is.

That's the point we'll try first, and if it doesn't work we'll go to the other extreme."

I doubt if any of us had the least idea of what he meant by "the other extreme," but we weren't the ones who had to know. InThig's tail jerked in short, sharp arcs as I moved our floor toward the point Zail had asked for, the tension in all of us transmitting itself even to the demon.

The beautiful, spotless palace rose to the heights above the clouds, and I was the only one who could See that it was really there. To everyone else it looked like a dream, and dreams have a bad habit of melting away just when you place all your weight on them.

Zail spent an interminable time inspecting and reinspect- ing the area he had decided was an entry into the palace, peering high and low, pacing back and forth on the floor, moving close to almost-touch, then backing away again.

As the minutes pa.s.sed his frustration mounted higher and higher, and at last he turned to us with a muttered curse.

"It's there!" he snarled, his handsome face now more than a little haggard- "I know it's there, but I just can't find the mechanism for opening if Laciel, can't you try some kind of magic?" **

"Whatever this palace is made'of, I can't See into it," I told him, running a hand through my limp, greasy hair.

"It doesn't resist Seeing it invites it, then sends my per- ceptions through endless repet.i.tions of surface viewing. I can See it's solid and real, but I can't See beyond that."

"You know, something just occurred to me," Rik mused, staring at the wall Zail had been inspecting, his arms folded across his chest. "It might just be that we're all seeing the same thing, even Laciel. Tell me why you didn't touch that wall even once, Zail."

' 'Why-touching an entry panel wrong has been known to seal the panel rather than open it," Zail answered, looking as confused as I felt. "If any part of the mecha- nism had been visible I would have known what could and couldn't be touched, but as it is-"

"But as it is, you didn't want to take any chances," Rik finished when Zail paused, me summation accompanied by

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a slow nod. "Well, I think the time has come to take a few chances. Touch the wall, Zail, anywhere you like."

We all stared at Rik in silence for a moment, wonder- ing if the strain had gotten to be too much for him, but at lhat point we scarcely had anything to lose. Zail shrugged in a what-the-h.e.l.l way and turned back to the wall, stepped closer and raised his hand, then touched it flat without any further hesitation. Or, at least he tried to touch it flat. His hand went right up to the wall-then disappeared into it!

"Hey, mere's nothing here!" Zail exclaimed while all the rest of us but Rik made sounds of shocked surprise.

"How the h.e.l.l did you know?"

"It seemed to be the logical a.s.sumption," our now- grinning leader said modestly, turning his head slightly to send a wink to me alone. "The best ways to hide some- thing are out in plain sight or disguised as something else, and the way in wasn't out in plain sight. I suspect we were supposed to try breaking in somewhere else, once our entrance expert forced himself to admit defeat. Our enemy knows you, Zail, but not as well as he thinks he does. He knew you'd keep from touching the wall you were investi- gating, but he didn't know you'd tell us that you couldn't find the mechanism even though you were sure me entry was here. He also didn't know we'd believe you. Would you have been able to break in, Laciel? If we-hadn't found any other way?''

"Yes," I answered shortly, my mind concerned with other things than explanations. If most of Cloud's Heart was real, but the outer walls, at the very least, had been spelled, then that meant . . .