Part 54 (1/2)

step forward with the hint of a headshake. ”But I don't understand. Do you mean to say you're going on anyway, even though you know what will happen?”

”What else am I here for?” she asked in turn, trying not to shudder at the ”happening” Zail had referred to, ”I didn't go through all those terrible things just to give up now, especially not when the enemy so obviously expects me to do nothing else. He did this deliberately, to make me sick enough to quit, and that's dirty. I'm going to keep at it even if it kills me.”

We all blinked at the fierce determination coming from the small, pale woman, then set up a cheer that made her turn away with a small laugh and a deep blush. There hadn't been one of us who had expected her to go on, and I was fairly sure she knew it. She could have used our lack of belief in her as an excuse for making no further efforts, but instead she'd turned her anger on the enemy and had defeated his purpose. We all owed Dranna more than an apology for what she'd done, and once we got back I swore to myself that she would get it.

After that I stood near Dranna at the doors, and as soon.

as the slime sprayed out I vanished it, then cleaned what had gotten on her before I could stop it. The routine helped her only a small amount, but it didn't have to go on. for very many doors. In a short while the horrible spraying stopped, and we all began wondering what the next obsta- cle would be.

The answer came when we stepped through the latest doorway into an area much larger than the ones we'd pa.s.sed through, and saw that instead of there being only one set of doors, now there were three. The ploy didn't seem as terrible as it should have been, but when we looked at Su, she shook her head with a frown.

”Don't know how it can be, but the trail goes to all of those doors,” she said, sounding more indignant than upset. ”How could the stone be behind three separate doors?”

”It can't be,” Rik growled, glaring at each door in turn.

”The stone was probably carried through all three door- ways, but was left behind only one. All we have to do is figure out which.”

34*

No one was silly enough to suggest that we check them all, not when we knew that opening the wrong door was guaranteed to bring about something unpleasant. We had one chance and only one, but tossing a coin looked to be the most informative way of making the decision.

”There must be some indication of which door to choose,” InThig fretted in the heavy growl that was be- coming more usual with it, moving only its head to study each door in turn. ”Are you still unable to see through these walls, Laciel?”

”I really don't think I ought to try,” I answered, swiv- eling my head around the way everyone else was doing.

”I've thought of a way to get through the repet.i.tion spell covering the outer walls, but it's a fairly obvious way once you think about it, and that makes me suspicious. If I manage to See through these walls, it might not turn out to be the triumph we're expecting.”

”That makes more sense than 1 like to think about,”

Rik muttered, one hand to his face as he studied the doors- ”Lead us all here, force the use of magic, and then-”

His hands went up in the air in an unspecified gesture, but we all knew what he meant. The only thing capable of keeping the game going was exactly the right move. ”That means we have to think our way eut, but we don't have anything to think about. All we can do is imagine the stone being carried from door to door-”

His words broke off as his eyes narrowed, he stood thinking furiously for a short time, then said, ”InThig!”

When the demon raised its head in a questioning way, the only answer it got was the sight of the blurring which presaged Rik's change into link-shape. Dranna m.u.f.fled a gasp and moved closer to Zail, but all the rest of us were too busy wondering what was going on to pay any atten- tion to her- In almost no time at all there was a great bronze beast standing where Rik had been, and then he and InThig were moving toward the set of doors on the left.

The two four-footed members of our party took a good twenty minutes or more examining me three doorways, but at long last they finished whatever they'd been doing. Rik blurred back into human shape, then looked down at InThig.

342.

”That has to be the one,” he said, running a hand through his dark hair. ”What do you think?”

”The same,” InThig agreed with a nod, the faintest purr audible in its voice. ”That was a very clever idea.”

* 'If it was all that clever, how about letting the rest of us in on it?” I suggested, resisting the temptation to add certain verbal embellishments. That was no place to start an argument, but the provocation was certainly there.

”It's very simple,” Rik said, me pleasure in his bronze eyes showing how much he had appreciated InThig's com- pliment. ”We know that the stone was carried up to two of the doors, but it could only have been left behind one.

That means that the trail left by the person carrying the stone would have to be different leading up to the proper door-there's no other way it can be. It's not only me stone itself that leaves a trail, it also causes whoever's carrying it to leave a-scent -of sorts, the scent InThig followed to find the gate we'd be using coming out of the blind world. The door with the least or greatest or most unbalanced scent has to be the door leading to the stone.”

”I regret to say mat I find myself unable to follow you, my friend,” Kadrim said, voicing everyone's thoughts but Su's. The big woman nodded with understanding, a faint but definite smile on her face, but she was the only one of us not totally lost-