Abruptly, his eyes lost their glazed look and focused on the strangers around his table. He noted the rigid and unsmiling faces, the almost untouched plates.
“Why do you not eat?” he snapped. “Do you mean to insult me?”
Lief looked through the wall nearest the table. Half hidden by mist, a mass of longing, haggard faces pressed against the glass.
“Do not mind them,” smiled the Guardian, waving a casual hand at the crowd. “My subjects do not eat or drink. They are beyond such ordinary concerns of the flesh. It is your warm life they long for.”
Jasmine, Barda, and Neridah stiffened even further. Lief wet his lips, shuddering inwardly as he remembered the dry, grey fingers stroking him. “Do you mean — they are the spirits of the dead?” he choked.
The Guardian seemed to bristle with indignation, and behind him the monsters stirred and growled. “Spirits of the dead?” he snorted. “Would I rule a kingdom of the dead? My subjects are very much alive, oh yes, and will be till the end of time. They waste away, they fade, but they do not age or die. They will live here, in my domain, forever. That is their reward.”
“Their reward?” Neridah burst out. Her hands were trembling as she pushed away her plate.
The Guardian nodded, smoothing his beard thoughtfully. “A rich reward indeed, is it not?” he murmured. “Though I fear they are ungrateful. They do not appreciate their good fortune.”
Lief forced himself to speak. “How did they earn their reward?” he asked.
“Ah …” The Guardian stretched with satisfaction. Plainly, this was the question he had been waiting for.
“The first of my subjects, the largest number, came to me in a great wind, the pride that had caused their fall still fresh within them,” he murmured. “Others, like you, filled with envy and greed, have come since. To seek to win from me my most precious treasure. The symbol of my power. The great diamond, from the Belt of Deltora.”
Lief did not dare look at his friends, or at Neridah. He gripped the arms of his chair till his knuckles grew white, in the effort not to show what he was feeling.
But clearly the Guardian was not deceived. He smiled around the table, his red eyes greedily drinking in the expressions on the faces of his guests. Then he took the last few scraps from his plate and carelessly tossed them to the floor. The four monsters scrambled after the food, each fighting savagely for a share. He watched with a smile.
“Envy once nearly killed the greedy one at a dinner such as this,” he commented idly, as the tumult at last died down. “Ah well.”
Slowly, he pushed back his chair and stood up, the misshapen creatures shuffling and drooling behind him. “And now it is time for the game,” he said. “The time I love the best. Come with me.”
He had no need to ask them. Their feet followed him, whether they wished it or not, as he swept through one gleaming space after another, the monsters following him closely.
At last they reached a room that was plainly where he spent most of his time. Deep red curtains covered the walls, screening out the mist and the other rooms. Fine drawings and paintings, and a huge mirror in a carved frame, hung from the fabric.
On the floor was a rug rich in flowers, fruits, and birds, with a picture of a humble hermit repeated at each end. One of the Guardian’s little jokes, thought Lief. Nowhere else in this valley would simple, beautiful living things be found. Upon the rug, in front of a couch heaped with cushions, stood a low table scattered with books. Hundreds more books packed shelves towering around the walls.
The Guardian did not pause, but walked straight across the room and pulled aside the curtain to reveal a glass door set into one wall. He did not open the door, but stepped aside and, with a wave of his arm, invited the companions to look through to the space beyond.
It was a small room that contained only a glass table set exactly in its center. On the table was a golden casket.
“The gem you seek is in that casket,” said the Guardian. His voice trembled. Plainly, he could hardly contain his gleeful excitement. “Whoever matches wits with me and wins can enter the room and take the prize.”
Lief pressed himself against the glass of the door. The Belt of Deltora warmed faintly against his skin, proof that the Guardian spoke the truth. The great diamond was in that room. The Belt could feel it.
Barda pushed at the door with his shoulder, but it did not move.
Again the Guardian cackled. “No force can unlock this door. It is sealed by magic, and so it will remain, until you have won the right to open it. So — will you play?”
“Do we have a choice?” Jasmine muttered.
The Guardian raised his eyebrows. “Why, of course!” he exclaimed. “If you so wish, you can leave here now, empty-handed. Turn your backs on the gem you came to find. Go back where you came from! I will not stop you.”
Lief, Barda, and Jasmine glanced at one another.
“If we win the game and enter the room, the diamond is ours to keep?” Lief wanted to make absolutely sure. “You will allow us to leave the valley, taking our prize with us? You swear this?”
“Certainly!” said the Guardian. “That is the rule. Your prize will be yours to keep.”
“And if we fail?” Barda asked abruptly. “What then?”
The Guardian spread his hands. The fleshy leads swung free from his wrists and the monsters stirred behind him. “Then — why, then, you are mine to keep. Then you will remain here, like all the others who have chosen to match wits with me. You will become part of the Valley of the Lost. Forever.”
The companions stood motionless beside the door. Outside the small room where the casket lay, despairing grey hands brushed the glass through billowing mist.
“Will you accept the challenge?” murmured the Guardian. His eyes burned like hot coals as he waited for their answer.
“We need to know more before we decide,” said Barda evenly.
But Neridah was shaking her head. “I do not need to know more!” she exclaimed. “I have already decided. These three can do what they wish, but I will play no game!”
The Guardian bowed, though the corner of his mouth twitched with scorn. “Then you may go, lady,” he said, carelessly waving his arm.
Neridah staggered as the spell that had bound her was broken. She backed away, then turned and ran from the room without looking back.
The Guardian sighed. “A pity,” he muttered. “I thought she, of all of you, would find the diamond’s lure impossible to resist. Perhaps, even now, she will change her mind and return. The smell of greed and envy is strong on her.”
He turned to the creatures at his heels and petted them, one by one. “You sensed it keenly, did you not, my sweets?” he crooned. The monsters grunted and snuffled agreement, rubbing their bloated faces adoringly against his hands.
Without bothering to turn around, he flicked a finger in the companions’ direction. With relief they felt their invisible bonds relax. Suddenly they could move freely.
The Guardian strolled to the mirror and began looking at himself with appreciation, smoothing his beard and smiling. Lief’s fingers itched to reach for his sword, to attack. But he knew, as Barda and Jasmine did, that it would be no use. Hate, Greed, Pride, and Envy were facing them, jagged teeth bared. At a single warning sound the Guardian would turn and cast another spell — a spell even more powerful, perhaps, than the last.