He surfaced. Haddo wisely made no mention of his increasingly bedraggled appearance, or the festooning strands of weed and slime; these were in any case inconsequential details. Instead, Haddo cut to the meat: “Passage deep how you said is this?”
“I did not say,” Wroclaw reminded him. “Either your friend Favored-of-the-Gods intends for any swimming intruders to asphyxiate before reaching the outlet, or he doesn’t. There is one principal way to find out.”
“Urr,” said Haddo pithily. “Breathing spells any know you?”
Wroclaw thought he recalled some sort of apparatus for breathing assistance Maximillian had used back in Roosing Oolvaya. He had no idea if the appliance had arrived with them in Peridol, though, and even if it had been in the city it had probably perished with the rest of their equipment in the laboratory fire. “Either we give up,” said Wroclaw, “or oxygenate well and forge ahead. Or I suppose there’s no need for both of us to perish. One of us can go ahead and drag a line or some such.”
“Eh,” Haddo said. “Bother why? Behind you am I. For it, go we must.”
“Are you sure he’s in there?” asked Jurtan Mont.
“Yes,” rasped Dortonn. “How many times do I need to repeat it? He is there.”
“Then are you sure we should go in? You weren’t there, but the last time Pod Dall tried to materialize back in Roosing Oolvaya he devastated -”
“I have heard that story,” Dortonn snarled, “more times than is at all justified based on its undistinguished facts. Ask someone about the year of the Businiu Ice Age if you care to hear a genuine tale of godlash. Still,” he went on, more reflectively, “it might not be a bad idea to announce our presence in advance.”
“Do you think he already knows we’re here? I mean, after what happened to us on the way in -”
“Nothing happened to us on the way in,” said Svin.
“Well, yes, I mean that’s my point. This is the headquarters of a god, right? Wouldn’t you think he’d have more defenses than just a hidden entrance and the lock on the summoner for this - what did you call it, Dortonn? - this elevator-thing, that you had to pick apart?” Once into the passageway from the secret inlet in the marsh they had remained alert for trouble, but (rather to Svin’s disappointment, Jurtan thought) such trouble had not been forthcoming. True, the tunnel had been dark, but they had had a lantern; the walls and ceiling where the walkway passed beneath the moat had been clammy, but Svin’s recovery from his case of consumption was apparently complete; Jurtan had three times detected potential booby traps of an unknown character, but they had successfully skirted whatever might or might not have been lying in wait none the worse for the experience; and even the elevator, the only exit from the tunnel they had been able to find, which held the promise of plunging them to a concealed pit, dousing them with astringent gas, or holding them in place for suffocation or apprehension by guards who might after all have only been on their dinner break, had proved to be nothing but a convenient mode of transportation to the upper levels of the tower, in lieu of obvious stairs. Svin had clearly been disgruntled at not having to scale the outside of the tower, pound demonic guardians, wrestle some ferocious beast, or ease a critical key from the very belt of its custodians in their well-lit and well-nigh impregnable chamber, but had still found it in him to be philosophical about this state of affairs. Jurtan’s own philosophizing had taken a different tack. Even if he survived whatever he was walking into here, there would still be his father to contend with.
To get back to the here-and-now, though, there was still the open matter of what awaited them on the other side of the closed-door exit to the vestibule onto which the elevator had discharged them. “An interesting point,” Dortonn allowed, casting another glance at the door. “Perhaps I should attempt to contact my master directly.”
“Wait a minute,” said Jurtan. “I thought you were in contact with him. Isn’t that why we’re here?”
“Do not question my methods, boy,” Dortonn barked. The effect fell short of what he had obviously intended; due to his debilitated condition the bark emerged as more of a yip with aspirations.
“Then I will question your methods,” intoned Svin. “I would also like to know the answer.”
Watching Dortonn think over his response, Jurtan (not for the first time) considered how highly evolved Svin’s personal style was becoming. He might have started as a barbarian, but he now had real class. Svin clearly understood the effect he could get from a bald unembellished declaration. There had not been the slightest of hint of “call me boy, will you?” in his statements just now, nor had he bothered to so much as frown at Dortonn. No theatrical tricks, beyond making sure his voice sounded sufficiently cavernous and resonant to support a major intonation, no gratuitous swipes with his sword, no “speak or your life is forfeit” melodrama. Just -
“I do not have to speak with my master to know the state of his health,” Dortonn said reluctantly. “Or his approximate location. This is a power he awarded me when I became his acolyte. I -”
“It didn’t work too well when he was trapped in the ring, did it?” said Jurtan. “How do you know it’s any more accurate now?”
Dortonn went back to glaring. “It did work. How would I have succeeded in tracking the ring without it? And it works still. Pod Dall is incarnate. He is in this tower. He is -”
“He is looking forward to seeing us,” Svin said, “I hope. Would you be good enough to verify this?”
“He, ah,” said Dortonn, “he may not be awake. If he is not awake, that may be in, ah, a somewhat safer condition overall than if he were awake, and this is definitely better than waking him up. Definitely. Ah, Pod Dall is normally a reasonable fellow, for a god, given to compromise and negotiation at no little sacrifice to himself. However, as you know he has been through quite a lot of difficulty lately. In the best of times he is not sanguine about those who have done him harm. Knowing him of old, I am certain he has a list, a list of, well, ah - a list. While I would surely not be found on this roster it would be important to make certain he remembers this. I would not want my master to have cause for regret.”
Svin scrutinized him calmly. “Plainly you are the expert in these matters. Please lead us to your master, then. Now.”
“I, ah - yes. Boy - traps? Danger?”
Jurtan said, “I don’t hear any.”
As Dortonn reluctantly reached out for the door, Jurtan noted Svin flattening himself against the adjacent wall, out of the door’s line of sight. Jurtan, not wanting to challenge his example, edged up to the wall on the other side. Dortonn ran his palm over the surface of the door, his eyes closed, and then waggled his fingers slightly. The door, emitting a low hiss, slid to the right and vanished into the wall.
Light spilled through the doorway and washed across the dim vestibule, light from glowing panels in the ceiling and from powerful discs set into small cylinders suspended at cunning angles from the walls. The floor was set with wide white tiles, the walls lined with mysterious machines, except for one section of wall that appeared to have recently melted and was still giving off both a glow of heat and possibly toxic vapors. A coffin - that in fact looked more like a transparent bathtub on stilts - was visible to the right. Dortonn leaned through the doorway and glanced around, then squared his shoulders and shuffled boldly into the sanctum. Svin raised an eyebrow at Jurtan, who shrugged, indicating no change in the ambient music, so Svin hefted his sword and crept through the doorway himself.