"I wasn't contradicting — "
"Let it be," Leda said to the bard. "Our hero will have his own way, else he will lash us with his tongue till we name him nuncle."
"Now you cease, girl," Gellor chided. "We are all as ill-tempered as badgers. What happens, comrade, if you opt for the wrong key, as it were?"
"I don't think any of us would survive to find out."
"Why not Unbinder, then? Aren't these ways ice bound?"
"A worthy reasoning, Gellor." Gord paused. "Hmmm. Now you make me unsure. . . ."
Leda suggested that he hold fast to each to see if there was a clue hidden within the Theorparts. Gord agreed, but neither portion of the relic felt right or wrong. He had her touch them, but there was no better result. "Now, Gellor, you tiy," urged the dark elf.
As if on a whim, the troubador touched both simultaneously. He froze in the act, as immobile as if he himself had become ice. It lasted only for an instant however. Releasing his hands, Gellor spoke in a sweet, clear voice that was unquestionably not his own. "He was right to counsel you to caution, champion. It is the portion you name Unbinder which must free this place of its choking ice."
Gord stared first at Gellor. His expression was blank Then he looked questionlngly at Leda. "Dare we listen? That must be . . can be none other than . ."
"Tharizdun," Gellor supplied, speaking again in his own gruff voice.
"And? Tell us, bard, was the intrusion meant to deceive?"
"Leda, I am unable to say," he replied, looking from her worried face to Gord's own. "Yet there seemed no malice or cunning. I was aware of another there in my mind — just for the instant it took to relay the advice you heard. Then the presence was gone!"
Gord took the relic from where it rested on the pale marble of the threshold. "I will rely upon my instincts in this matter, then." It was Unbinder's peculiar shape he used, not that of Awakener. "Come, ancient artifact of imprisoning, loose the icy mirror which blockades these halls and rooms!"
"The thing glows red!" Gellor exclaimed. Indeed, the Theorpart in his friend's hand was fiery scarlet at its tip and the heat palpable from a distance. It wasn't burning Gord's hand, but as the bard watched, the wielder thrust that incandescent tip into the ice. There was a chiming when that contact was made, rather than the hiss of heat battling with water. Then the relic sped ahead of its own volition, growing hollow, becoming no more than a cylinder of growing dimension as it went.
"The ice has vanished," Gord said needlessly, for he had already stepped into the castle's entry hall.
"There is no more piercing chill, either," Leda noted.
Just then there was a faint tinkling sound, the noise metal makes when it touches lightly on stone. Gellor's boot had kicked something that rolled with a wobbling motion as it went. He took several quick steps, reached for the thing, and scooped it up. "It is a gold ring set with jacinth," he exclaimed. "Which of us dropped it?"
None had, of course. "It is as with the little band of silver I gave to Leda," Gord observed. "With the appearance of that one, old friend, I surmise the ring comes from the disappearance of the Theorpart."
"But I put the ring you handed to me on my finger," Leda said. "I felt I had to . . . "
He didn't comment, but instead Gord looked at the grizzled veteran. "Is there a desire in you to don that ornament, Gellor?"
"Yes," the troubador said after a moment to consider it. He was holding the golden ring in his closed fist, allowing any power in it to flow into him thus. "There is something which urges I place it securely upon my hand — now!"
"Do so," Gord said after pausing a moment himself to consider, just as Gellor had reflected when asked about the thing.
"Why, Gord? What if"
"Never mind finishing that query. I think I know both question and answer. I'll tell you both later, though, Leda. Now it is needful for us to press ahead with alacrity." He began to suit word to action, moving into the luminous interior of the fortress, looking here and there as he went. The little elven girl and the bard followed readily enough, Gellor a step to the rear because he had taken a moment to slip off his mailed gauntlet and place the gold ring with its tawny orange stone upon his finger.
It was as if the place were a true castle. There was a great hall and antechambers, cellars and a dungeon beneath, galleries and countless rooms above the ground floor. The whole was furnished as would have been a like place on Oerth, save all things were fashioned of white material, or nearly white, or crystal. Ivory and various sorts of pale stone were common, and there was silver and platinum in profusion. Tables, chairs, and rugs too. All as new, none showing the slightest hint of ever having been used.
"No one has dwelled in this stronghold, not ever," Leda commented. "Where is the one we seek then?"
"He is here, right enough. We must keep searching," Gord said. "Split up. This castle has many towers. He must be in one of them."
Eventually the truth was plain. The great middle tower, the highest of the whole structure, with its turreted, gold-roofed tip thrust two hundred feet into the clouds, was the last place that remained unexplored by them. The three proceeded up its spiraling stairs together, feeling small and impossibly weak to accomplish the task that awaited, but determined nevertheless to try.
"What metal is this?" Gellor asked, for they had come to a door made of metallic stuff as blue as a summer's sky.
"None I have ever seen or heard tell of," Leda said, touching the stuff as she spoke.
"It is adamantite, pure and unalloyed with any other metal," Gord informed his companions. "Once, long ago when I practiced my thievish skills in Greyhawk I came upon a half-dozen small ingots of it. Because of their beauty and weight I took them. I exchanged those little bars of adamantite for their weight in gold orbs, my friends," he said ruefully. "Only afterward did I learn that not even platinum was sufficient. Adamantite of such purity is five times more precious than rare orichaicum!"
"A whole massive door of the metal! This is not possible," the bard murmured.
"Anything is possible here. The greatest of the Empyreal Spheres built this prison, didn't they?"
"Right. Leda. One tends to forget because it is so much like a place on our own world."
"We see it thus," Gord reminded. "Phantasm or not, this adamantite is real enough. This is where the last of the Theorparts needs be employed. Come now, you useless piece of junk" he said as he readied Awakener. "We wish to see if you can handle the hardest and most magical of metals."
As if guided by sure knowledge, Gord pressed the blunt end of the strange piece of metal to the adamantite slab that sealed the way before them. The Theorpart ran, appearing as if it were molten and alive. Part formed a handle, and from the plate of it ran bands that merged where hinge bolts would be. The whole transition took but a minute. As the last of the relic transformed into the means of opening the adamantite portal, there was now the familiar tinkling of metal upon stone. "Another ring," Gellor said, pointing.
Leda picked it up, a circle of the azure that was pure adamantite. "Look, Gord. Somehow the stuff has been wrought to allow the setting of a great sapphire!"
"Each now has a ring — you must don that one, Gord."
"Gellor is right, love," Leda urged as the young man seemed to hesitate. "These bands offer us some protection, I think"
"Very well," Gord agreed, and took a moment to put the ring on his left forefinger. It fitted perfectly there. "Now I must don my sword again too," he said to Leda. "Slip the poniard from the belt and keep it for a weapon, for I have no need of it, and you are weaponless — at least as far as such arms are concerned."