“Yet you found you could not pass through it,” Gregory guessed.
“Nay, for it was tiny, scarcely big enough to admit an imp; it was sheer blind chance that the rock had flown through it! But I brought my magical slaves, shackling their powers to mine, and made that portal expand marvelously!”
“He speaks of espers he has enslaved,” Allouette said, her face hard. Her companions turned very grim, too—Zonploka had chained their own kind.
“But,” said Gregory, “even when the gate was wide open, you found you could not pass.”
“No, not until I heard the plowman mutter a wish for another rock whose sounds would lighten his labors, let him forget his toil—and lo! Another stone flew through! Thereby I knew that I would have to manipulate your folk into inviting me, and they proved most easy to mold to the task!” He laughed.
“Terrorize, you mean.” Alain fought to keep his face neutral. “You found that thought could pass through the gate, so you crafted monsters out of witch-moss in our land and sent them to destroy anything they found, naming you as their author, so that folk would fear you and seek to appease you.”
“Aye, and creating so much chaos that your folk would long for order, any order at any price! Oh, they were quite easy to turn!”
“Poor folk, simple folk who knew no better,” Alain interpreted. “So you sent them dreams of the Taghairm, and when some among them do manage to complete the ritual, you shall send an army of monsters into our land, to lay it waste and raise terror in the hearts of our people, terror and despair?”
“Aye, and thus shall they learn that they can never prevail against my forces! Foolish lad, not to know the natural order of things! Nay, if your like seeks to defend these fools, I am bound to conquer all!”
“What, with monsters who can do naught but destroy?”
“Nay, with my army of human warriors, who can rule as well as plunder, force folk to work as well as come to the slaughter,” Zonploka retorted.
Allouette shuddered at the thought of the deeds those soldiers might wreak, to make people hop to do their bidding. “We have heard enough, Highness!”
“Aye,” said Gregory, “enough to know that the gateway is not something this sorcerer made, but a natural phenomenon.”
Zonploka frowned. “What nonsense do you speak?”
“Only words you have not heard before,” Alain assured him. “Still, Gregory, it would seem the portal is susceptible to manipulation by your sort of magic, or his chained magicians could not have made it widen.”
“Agreed,” Gregory said. “We have learned enough.” He turned and went back into the helical tunnel.
“Halt, impudent insect!” Zonploka snapped. “I have not given you leave to go!”
“Then we had best go leave.” Alain turned to follow Gregory. “Ladies, Sir Knight, let us march.”
They fell into place behind him as Zonploka ranted, “I bid you stop! I bid you halt! I bid you return and bow!” He stood and stabbed a finger at the prince.
Alain’s belly clenched as though he had been struck with a mace; he doubled over but kept staggering toward the tunnel. Cordelia cried out in outrage and spun to glare at Zonploka. The sorcerer slammed back against his throne, eyes wide in shock, and Alain straightened up and strode swiftly toward the tunnel. “Quickly, my friends. He has resources other than himself!”
Sure enough, as they stepped within the tunnel they felt as though they had suddenly stepped into a morass of molasses. They had to struggle to move their legs, barely managing to shuffle slowly forward—but Gregory linked hands with Allouette and the morass disappeared as suddenly as it had come. The companions staggered with relief, then steadied to a quick walk.
“Go swiftly!’ Geoffrey called. He squirmed past Gregory and Allouette as Zonploka’s cry of outrage echoed behind them—outrage that turned to burning rage, shouting, “Down upon them, or die in agony!”
“That is my summons.” Quicksilver twisted between Allouette and Gregory, drawing her sword as the clatter of hobnailed boots sounded in the passage ahead. She swung her blade up just in time to meet the warriors who rounded the curve of the rocky spiral and stabbed serrated blades at them. She recovered as Geoffrey parried a thrust from Zonploka’s human guards.
Human, but they scarcely looked it. Their bodies were half again as wide as Geoffrey’s, one soldier filling the whole width of the tunnel but others visible behind him. Their skin was pallid, their faces swollen, their eyes staring with gleeful anticipation of the pain they could cause as they attacked with gloating smiles. They wore black tunics with blood-red trim and stabbed with swords that gave off the gleam of bronze.
Cordelia held her glowing ball high and those smiles vanished; the soldiers had planned to do their work in the dark. But the narrow tunnel scarcely allowed room for one of them at a time—one sword against the two that Geoffrey and Quicksilver wielded, side by side, and the roof was low, so there was no room to slash; they could only thrust, and they faced expert swords that could parry and riposte far more quickly than they. Nonetheless, the first managed to recover and thrust a second time.
Quicksilver caught his sword in a bind and Geoffrey struck down at it with all his might; the bronze blade broke under the impact of the steel, and Allouette thrust deep into the man’s vitals. “Back!” she cried, and they all retreated a pace, enough for the soldier to fall—but the next charged them.
Charged, tripped on the body of its mate, and fell. Geoffrey’s blade rose and plunged; the soldier screamed, then was silent.
“Withdraw!” Geoffrey cried, sending his thoughts so that whatever language they spoke, the soldiers would understand him. “Withdraw, for you cannot win! We can stand here all day and slay you one by one—and when one of us tires, another can come to the fore in his stead!”
The soldiers backed away, muttering; then one called back a stream of words that were unintelligible, but they could read his thoughts; he was saying, “True enough, but you cannot go forward either, for we block the tunnel. What do you mean to do—walk on our dead bodies?”
“Why not?” Geoffrey retorted. “You would! And be assured, we shall keep our footing quite well.”
The soldiers were quiet in consternation. Then sudden belly cramps doubled the companions in agony; the soldiers howled and charged.
Allouette managed to counter Zonploka’s telekinesis with her own, and the cramps went away just in time for Geoffrey and Quicksilver to chop down the next two soldiers, leap back to let them fall, then stride over their bodies even as they had said; the footing was unfirm but the tunnel walls stabilized them when they stumbled. Still, Allouette stole a leaf from her enemy’s book and sent her thoughts ahead, to make belly muscles spasm; grunts of pain answered her as the soldiers doubled up. Then Gregory reached into their hindbrains, activating a primitive panic that made the soldiers cry out with horror and turn to run, shoving against one another in their agony to be gone.
“Quickly!” Geoffrey shouted, and ran after them.
Up the tunnel and out into the cavemouth they ran, with Gregory, Allouette, and Cordelia countering Zonploka’s thought-traps at every turn—first another round of cramps, then numbness in the legs, then sudden pain around their hearts. Finally Gregory struck back with a wave of dizziness that made the sorcerer reel in his underground cavern, long enough for the companions to sprint down across the rocky beach, between lines of huge soldiers bent over retching from the last round of belly cramps, and into the portal before the rising sun had quite managed to evaporate it.