"Now we will benefit further from these bands forged by Weal," Gord said confidently. "The rings will enable us to move quickly through the upper planes to reach the Sphere of Order. If we find an ally there, then will be time enough to regain our strength and repair the damage taken from this battle."
From the place of fire and hue they entered clear light, crossed the Celestial Sphere, then the sphere of creative energy. Many paths wended from there, but Gord directed their steps along the one of astral way, then into the aethereal, and finally the three tired wayfarers came to where the Realm of Regularity lay. In successively more trying stages they then trekked further. Beyond the frontiers of Regularity was the rigid place of Law, and that was but the province of Order. The strange and inflexible beings inhabiting those realms attempted to interfere with the three heroes, for not even Gellor was so structured in his ethos that his aura would pass unnoticed. Their inner strength, the force imbued in Gord and Gellor too, and the great dweomers still resting in the rings enabled them to pass unhindered.
"It is as if we suddenly became ethereal and those who seek to hinder remain in gross form," Leda noted admiringly after they bypassed a succession of ever greater and more hostilely inclined creatures.
She was nearly correct. They used the littleknown vestiges of other spheres to slip from such ones seeking to bar their progress. Here it was indeed the Aethereal that served, there Shadowrealm impinged, and too there was the ever-narrowing plane of Chance. At last their surroundings altered.
"We are?" Gellor inquired.
"At the extremity of all Order," Gord announced. "We now tread on the Realm of Uniformity, a wedgeshaped plane, my friends. We cannot fail to reach our goal here!"
Leda was filled with curiosity, but she would give neither of the men the satisfaction of asking. Gord knew, and Gellor seemed to be aware of their destination too. Very well, she would simply bide her time and await the arrival. She marched ahead with firmness of step and aloof air. Progress was made as easy by their rings as if the three wore the famed league-long striders whose every step carried the wearer fully three miles along. Gord set a pace that made them all have to save their strength and breath to sustain it. The confines of the sphere grew narrower, and that too compressed them somehow so it was exhausting work to progress. Ever more narrow grew the vista, and so too the difficulty experienced in forcing themselves to move ever onward. It was as if they traveled but time stood still.
"How much farther?" asked Gellor, and Gord saw that the bard was pallid and drawn from the strain of the passage. "I am sorry, comrade, but if there is yet a long way to go, I will have to rest — or you two will have to go on alone."
Leda, glad for the slowing of the pace, felt that she was likewise at the end of her endurance, but somehow she managed to say "I will help you along, dear bard, and Gord will lend me his arm. We three are not to be separated now!"
"Quite so, quite so," agreed a dry and ancient voice. A man of venerable appearance stood before them on a little hillock of sand.
"Ah, Chronos! We have found your abode at last!"
"And about time, too," the old fellow cackled. It was a merry and vigorous humor that belied his decrepit appearance.
In fact, Leda noted, much about the ancient man seemed contradictory. There were muscles there beneath the wrinkled and weatherbeaten skin, and Chronos's eyes were those of a young and inquisitive child, while his white hair and beard were as thick as any swain's thatch. "Chronos? You are . . . ?"
"Proctor Chronos, just as you thought when you truly looked at me," the strange fellow responded. "You are Leda, and he is Gellor," the master of the dimension of time said with a smile toward the oneeyed man beside Leda. "That's not news to you, though, is it, worthy troubador? No, of course not. You have more than ample ability to read my plain and homely aura, I'd say." He combed his long beard with his fingers, shaking his head sadly. "I know I am going on as would a dotard, but the assault of Entropy there in the high prison fairly addled me — wont recover from that for an age! No, that's a certainty. Won't lightly pass the offense off, either!"
"You aided me in the past—"
"No such thing!" Proctor Chronos contradicted quarrelsomely. "Past, present, future — all the same, don't you know? Think boy! You've been in Shadowrealm, haven't you? Of course, of course ..." and he paused to gaze at Gellor and the dark elven girl as if seeking their affirmation. "Time is just the same in its form, so to speak. Flows along right back to where it came from in a loop! Don't let anyone fool you. It's as if there were but a single side, a single verge, so no matter where you go in the stream you're in the same place — sort of."
Gord smiled. "Your sagacity is of the ages of time, Proctor. You did lend me aid. . . ."
"Certainly. Helped you and that bard there so you could get the girl and those blamed Theorparts. Still in all, that didn't give the Lord of Entropy cause for the attack!"
Gellor was more than a little confused by that. "I crave your pardon for the seeming offense of this question, Proctor Chronos, but aren't you — that is. Time — and the Lord of Entropy one and the same, or closely related allies?"
"What? Never! Never, do you hear? If the entity ever gains his domain, why, there will be no time at all, none! Chronos and Entropy are at opposite ends. I measure events, put the proper and necessary limits and boundaries to things. In Entropy's kingdom there is nothing, stasis. How can time exist there? Can't, of course!" Then he peered closely at the grizzled troubador. "What savants have you studied under?"
Gellor looked abashed, and Leda had difficulty suppressing a giggle. Gord stepped in to rescue the situation. "When the Lord of Entropy brought his entire force to bear upon the adamantite sheathing of the prison which held the evillest one, then he was violating your precincts?"
"That is just so," Proctor Chronos agreed with a scowl at the thought of Entropy's temerity. "That thing forced a distortion of the stream of the weight of its entlre existence concentrated there. Think of it as a behemoth stepping into the stream and causing the soft bottom to sink. The fluidity of time drained into the depression, swirled and grew deep. It was so collected, in fact, that in other places the cosmos was without its measure for a . . . a . . . um . . ." The fellow paused and scratched his head. "It brought an unaccounted-for interval!"
"Unthinkable!" Leda said.
"Unforgivable," Gellor concurred dryly.
"And so you now agree to assist us further, as I understand," Gord stated, directing the conversation back to where he had been trying to keep it.
"But of course, champion. That's why I sent you the message. You did receive it, didn't you?"
"No."
"That unmeasured jackanapes! Entropy slowing things again, is he? Well, we'll see about that. Come along! We must be moving along now. Time is not to be wasted, and it is high time to bring the culprit to an accounting!"
Proctor Chronos had no scythe as was usually depicted as his instrument. He employed neither a sand glass nor water clock nor even a candle. From inside his togalike garment the Master of Time brought forth a strange thing that was of globular form. First it showed a billion blazing motes, then it shifted to but a few specks that whirled in orbits around the larger mote in the center. As if annoyed at the sphere, Chronos gave it a shake, and it again changed to depict many translucent little orbs inside the greater one of itself, and the multihued balls overlapped and interposed one another in a most confusing manner. "Aaah, that's better," Proctor Chronos muttered, not at all confused by the sight of his device. He studied it for a few minutes, then shook it once more. It changed instantly into a ribbon of sandy stuff that seemed to flow without actually moving at all. The master of time whipped the length of that material around his waist as if it were a sash, gave one end a half-turn, and then placed it over the other. The two merged, and Proctor Chronos smiled, his eyes bright and lively with mirth. "Now we go to the House of Option."