The Keeper

Chapter Thirteen

As Hero strode forward into the glare from the open door, so Eldin grabbed him by the back of his brown jacket, bringing him to an abrupt halt. "Easy, lad. We don't know what's in there-yet!"

"Knowledge, old friend," Hero answered. "Or treasure, perhaps. All your heart desires. No, we don't know what's in there-but whatever it is, old Thinistor was mighty keen for it."

"Aminza reckons he was only after power the power of the First Ones!"

"Maybe he was, and maybe he wasn't. We'll never know if we stay out here. And look, now that the dazzles's faded a bit, why, there's nothing at all in there to be afraid of!"

"Afraid?" Eldin stiffened. "Did you think I was afraid?" He released his grip on Hero's jacket. "Who, me? Afraid of a few bright lights glaring at us out of this lair of the First Ones? Of all those shiny things I can see in there? Of metal doors that slide up into the ceiling and disappear? Afraid? ... Damned right I am! You go first." And he gave Hero a push in the middle of his back.

The younger dreamer staggered forward, his curved blade whispering from its sheath where he had strapped it behind his back for ease in climbing. Eldin, too, unsheathed his sword, covering the back of his colleague. They crossed the threshold-

-And behind them the door gave a hiss and slid down out of the ceiling!

Sensing the door's descent even as it moved, the two turned and sprang for the opening all in one movement. Both of them bounced off the still shivering metal panel and fell, crouching, to face one another.

"Wonderful!" Eldin snarled, his scarred forehead wrinkling like old leather.

Hero shook himself. He stood up straight and aloof, held out a restraining hand to Eldin, leaned casually against the door, rapped upon it as before and said: "All right, whoever you are, open up at once!"

"NO!" came a booming, throbbing, echoing answer that had both of the dreamers dropping their swords and clapping hands to ears which rang like the clappers of great bells. "WHO DARES COMMAND THE KEEPER?"

Still reeling from the effects of the vast voice's refusal, the two were almost stunned by its question. Stumbling to and fro, they held tightly to ears whose drums felt ruptured, gasping in agonies of sheer, unbearable sound!

"WELL?" the voiced slammed at them yet again. "ARE YOU DUMB?"

"No!" howled Hero, "we're not dumb-but we'll damn soon be deaf if you don't lower your voice!"

"Who speaks?" asked the voice again, in a tone mercifully lowered by many decibels.

"I do," said Hero, retrieving his sword. "I, David Hero, adventurer in dreams, man of the waking world, keep-climber and swordsmaster-I speak!" He whipped his curved blade through the air, making it sing. "To whom do I speak?"

"To the Keeper! Who is the other man?"

"I speak for myself," Eldin rumbled. "I'm Eldin the Wanderer, dreamer, adventurer and swordsmaster, just like my young friend here-and I eat lesser men for breakfast!"

"A pair of wanderers, then," said the great voice, "strays from the waking world-and one a cannibal!"

"He doesn't really eat men," Hero was quick to point out. "That was merely an indication of his great strength and skill at arms."

During their brief conversation with the as yet unseen Keeper, the two intruders had been studying their surroundings. Now that their eyes were accustomed to the brightness and glare of the place, they could see that they stood in a great circular chamber whose walls, like the door, seemed made of some strange silver metal. The floor was padded and springy, with a warmth they could fee) through to the soles of their feet, and the ceiling was high and domed. Set in the inward curving walls were huge mirrors (or so these screens appeared to the pair), some of which did in fact mirror their forms; but the surfaces of a greater number were of opaque, misty-gray.

Metal and glass machines and instruments were everywhere, motionless, bright and glittering, but of course the dreamers did not know what they were or how they functioned, or even if they had any functions at all. Ten padded chairs formed a ring about a tall, central hump of metal studded with smaller screens, levers, dials and buttons; but naturally this huge instrument panel was likewise a thing of complete mystery to David Hero and Eldin the Wanderer. They did wonder, however, at the size and odd design of the chairs, and they stood in awe of the minds which could have conceived of and constructed such a place.

Moving carefully around the huge control-center, the two eventually reached a point where they could see its far side. There the screens were alive with small dancing lights and colors, and when the Keeper spoke again they noticed that the patterns of colored lights seemed to move in rhythm with his voice.

"You, David Hero: stand on the gray disk, beneath the wheel of globes."

Quickly Hero's eyes found the circular plate of gray metal set in the floor. Above it, suspended from the inward-curving ceiling, a wheel-like affair whose spokes terminated in large golden knobs glittered and winked in the changing patterns of light as the echoes of the Keeper's voice died away. Hero was immediately suspicious.

"Why must-" he began, but no sooner had he opened his mouth than a beam of green fire, stabbing from nowhere, singed the hairs on his naked forearms in the nearness of its passing.

"Do NOT question the Keeper!" the great voice warned. "Merely do as I say. No harm will come to you if you obey."

With a low-muttered oath and the short hairs of his neck stiffly abristle, the young man stepped gingerly forward and onto the gray disk.

"Do not be afraid of the lights or the movement of the wheel. I merely wish to look at you," came the Keeper's voice, preceding a rapid rotation of the wheel of globes and a silvery haze that sprang downward from its circumference to the gray metal plate, completely enclosing Hero in a tube of light through which his form glowed like a pale pearl.

To Eldin it seemed mat his companion was frozen in the tube of light, motionless, and in another moment that he stood in dire peril of his very life! For now Hero's outer form had grown insubstantial as air, while all of his bones and inner organs became clearly visible to Eldin's unbelieving eyes. Obviously, Eldin thought, the silvery haze was the Keeper himself-and damn him, he was devouring Hero alive!

In a blur of motion the older man whirled his sword once, twice about his head-and released it straight at the spinning wheel of globes overhead. The sword stuck-and disappeared in a blinding flash of light! Tiny pellets of hot metal filled the air, stinging like wasps where they struck and stuck to flesh, and Eldin danced for a moment or two until he had shaken these revenants of his sadly defunct sword from his person.

"FOOL!" cried the Keeper. "/ said he would not be harmed!" The wheel of golden globes stopped spinning; the silvery haze retracted upward from the gray metal plate; and there stood Hero, unharmed, frowning puzzledly as he noted the dumbfounded expression on his burly friend's face. Before Hero could speak, however, the Keeper said: "Now your turn, Eldin the Wanderer-and please, no more heroics.'"

Feeling naked without his sword, Eldin stepped awkwardly forward and took Hero's place on the gray plate. Now the younger dreamer watched a repeat performance of what had gone before, and he was similarly alarmed at the sight of Eldin's innards displayed as if his flesh was become water. Since he himself had survived the examination, however, he merely waited until the thing was done and Eldin stepped with a glad sigh of relief from the metal disk back onto the springy, now familiar surface of the floor.

"So, you are what you say you are," said the Keeper. "Men of the waking world, and remarkably robust specimens at that. Your race has changed little in a million years. A certain enlargement of the cranium, perhaps, to accommodate larger brains. The discovery of certain scientific techniques, such as the forging of metals. These and one or two other achievements-and what of writing? Do you know how to use runes or glyphs?"

"There's nothing wrong with our brains!" cried Eldin. "And we've been forging swords for hundreds of years. As for writing: of course we know its use. Why, in the waking world I was something of a scholar ... I think. Yes, and we know the runes of dreamland, too."

"And you, David Hero? Are you so clever?"

"More so," Hero answered at once. "I've learned all of dream's runes-almost."

"He sings, too," offered Eldin a little peevishly. "And he makes up poetry. Indeed, with all that learning cramming his cranium, it's a wonder he can think at all!"

"You interest me," said the still unseen Keeper. "Yes, I am greatly interested. Sit down in two of the chairs there and be at ease. We shall talk for a while. But a warning: do not touch the instruments on the panels before you. To do so might mean placing your very lives in jeopardy!"

The two sat, as bidden, if a trifle timidly, but in no time at all they felt soothed by the shifting lights of the panels and eased as die padding of the chairs molded in their forms. "The First Ones lived in style, eh, Eldin?" said Hero.

"They did that, lad," came the rumbling reply. "Maybe that's why they died out: too much soft living."

"They did not die out," said the Keeper. "They merely went away-most of them."

"But not all of them," Hero mused. "Are you a First One, Keeper?"

"Not I. I merely worked for them."

"Then they were your masters. And are your masters still here?"

"They are. Nine of them."

"Nine First Ones for ten chairs?" Hero thoughtfully replied.

"There were ten-once," the Keeper answered. "But enough of this, now I wish to know about you two. Start at that point which first set your feet on the trail that brought you here to the Keep of the First Ones. Leave nothing out, I would know it alt. Then, depending on how I judge your tale, I may have work for you."

"Work?" growled Eldin. "We don't sell our swords cheaply, Keeper."

"You for one, Eldin the Wanderer, at present have no sword to sell.'" came the immediate response. "But be sure you would be well repaid for any services rendered."

"How repaid?" Hero asked.

" With riches beyond your wildest dreams," came the answer. "With powers which would make you great in all the dreamlands. With whatever your hearts desire!"

The two adventurers stared at each other for a moment with shining eyes. Then: "Shall you begin, or shall I?" asked Eldin of Hero.

Hero cleared his throat. "We had come down into Theelys ..." he started.