The Keeper's Tale
Chapter Fourteen
"... And that's the whole story," said Eldin with finality. He had taken up the tale's telling when Hero flagged.
For a long moment there was silence and the two dreamers sat patiently and waited for the Keeper to speak. They had grown to associate his voice with the moving lights on a certain panel, so that to them the panel had become the Keeper. During the telling of their story the lights had not been particularly active, but now they flashed and shifted, their moving colors forming intricate and meaningless patterns.
Finally, in a burst of light, the Keeper said: "Yes, I believe you two will do very nicely. But will you accept the challenge? You worked for Ebraim Borak-"
"And got not a button out of it," groused Eldin.
"-But you will work for me? For the Great Ones?"
"We did get something out of the Ossaran," Hero contradicted Eldin. "We had a good time at his expense in Theelys, and we're not broke yet by a long shot." To the Keeper, he said: "We don't have to work for you, you know."
"True enough, but that would be a very unfortunate matter. Indeed it would."
"A threat, Keeper?" Eldin questioned, frowning.
"You got into the keep," the Keeper answered, "but who is to say you'd get out again?"
"Definitely a threat," Hero sighed. "But what good would it do you to kill us. Keeper?"
"Oh, I would not kill you," replied the Keeper. "You would die by no action of mine. No, for that would be against all the Laws. I would simply fail to help you to stay alive. If, as of this moment, / ignored your presence here, then you would never get out. You could not open the door!"
Hero and Eldin glanced at each other and pulled wry faces.
"As to what good that would do," the Keeper continued, "none at all-for you. For me: I would not have to suffer the veritable tribe of wizards and adventurers which your loose tongues would doubtless send here."
"We'd not say a word!" cried Eldin in a hurt voice. "Not until the next time you were drunk," the Keeper shrewdly answered.
"Huh!" the older dreamer grumbled. "All right, Keeper, you have the advantage," Hero grudgingly admitted. "But we can't very well work for you if we don't know what the work's to be. We've told you our story-now how about you telling us yours?" Colored lights flashed as the Keeper considered. Then: "// would not be my story but the story of the First Ones. But I can see no harm in it, since if you do not accept the quest you will never leave the keep alive! Very well, stay still and listen to the tale .. .
"At the Dawn of Time, many millions of years ago, there was born in the waking world the primal continent of Theem'hdra. No trace of that land and its civilizations has survived the ages, and the greatest savants of Earth do not even admit the possibility of its prehistoric existence. Yet Theem'hdra was. Its cities teemed with mankind's thronging races and its mountains and forests were alive with strange birds and beasts. And it was man's lot-even the lot of those first men-to live two lives; one in the so-called 'waking' world, and the other in the dreamlands. The first gaunts dwelt in Theem'hdra, and so when the first men dreamed, gaunts were borne into dreamland.
"For when all is said and done, dream is only a world lying parallel to the conscious lands of Man, and there are many such parallel worlds. And so intelligent men lived in Theem'hdra and dreamed their first dreams, and life came to the dreamlands; and they were powerful dreamers, some of those early men. The architecture of Theem 'hdra lives on in some of dreamland's cities even now, notably Inquanok, for the Northmen of the primal continent were cold and hard and their cities likewise. And Inquanok will last as long as dreams themselves .. .
"And across all the mighty distances of space there was life, and life was scattered down the timestreams, its diverse forms like many-colored grains of sand strewn throughout the limitless space-time universe of planets and places and parallel worlds.
"The race of the First Ones was old even then, but not the oldest of races by any means. They called themselves the First Ones because they thought they were, and when they discovered even older races-well, still they kept their old name. Perhaps it was vanity, or perhaps that was simply the name by which they had come to be known.
"And the First Ones discovered many marvels. Their savants were masters of science and sorcery, who plumbed the voids betwixt stars and times and the misted mysteries of parallel planes of existence. They made a great study of all intelligent forms of life; and eventually they came to Theem 'hdra, where already Man had risen up from his pre-dawn ancestors. There they established their great keeps in the Mighty Circle Mountains-just as here in dreamland they have set them in the Great Bleak Range- and from the keeps they went out in clever disguises to study the ways of Man.
"Then it was that they discovered mention in the myths and legends of Man of those eternally damned demon gods of the Cthulhu Cycle, which seeped down out of the stars in Earth's earliest days and built their hideous titan cities in the steaming fens of the dawnworld. And such were these legends that they fascinated the First Ones, for according to writings predating Earthly life Cthulhu and certain of his cohorts yet lived on, prisoned in hidden places and sending visions to the minds of men which turned their dreams to nightmares. And so the legends concerning the Cthulhu Cycle had extended into the dreamlands, where revenant nightmares nurtured seeds of an elder horror and the mad dreams of Cthulhu wandered abroad, ever ready to seize upon the dreaming minds of mortal men, "Ah! And when the First Ones sought to ascertain the truth of the olden myths-whether or not Cthulhu and certain of his contemporaries indeed lived on-then they recoiled in horror from that which they discovered: namely that the legends lied not.' Cthulhu lived-he lives!-and he will never cease in his efforts to free himself from magic-forged chains and roam free again in the sane and ordered universe, breeding madness and ruin and horror and chaos!
"Then the First Ones pursued Cthulhu's legends no longer but turned themselves to the task of reinforcing the immemorial prisons of the terrible demon gods. And again they discovered their vanity shaken, for to admit that Cthulhu and his spawn were prisoned was to admit that some even mightier Beings had prisoned them: and thus the First Ones would fathom the secrets of the great Elder Gods, whose home is called Elysia.
"And for the first time the First Ones found themselves denied access to a place or time or parallel world, for such was the might of the great Elder Gods that they had built Elysia and hidden it away where it might never be found or visited or even suspected by anyone or thing which had not the right so to find, visit or suspect it. And so the First Ones gave up their efforts to seek out the Elder Gods, and they wisely withdrew from any further tampering or discovery or even curiosity concerning the natures or manner of being of the immemorially prisoned demon gods of the Cthulhu Cycle.
"Of the terrible demon gods themselves: suffice to say that Yibb-Tstll-of whom you now have some knowledge, since you have met and dealt with one of his many avatars-is one of the lesser demon gods. The others are ... they are much worse!
"But to continue:
"And so the First Ones completed their studies of early civilized man, and of other life-forms in that area of the space-time universe, and moved back into the keeps to prepare them for a move to some new and hitherto unexplored region. Now the keeps had stood in the waking world for thousands of years, so that the men of the primal continent of Theem'hdra no longer remembered anything but the vaguest of legends concerning their coming; and when they left-ah!-that was a marvelous thing: these massive cubes of centuries-weathered stone levering themselves loose from the earth and flying off across the world to disappear into strange times and stranger dimensions.
"Here in the dreamlands, however ..." (and here the two dreamers sensed a sort of wry shrug in the voice of the Keeper, though none was visible except perhaps in a momentary flickering of colored lights) "... here, all was not well. There were three keeps in the dreamlands, and the First Ones who controlled them were to take their leave of men's dreams soon after the exodus of their fellows from Theem'hdra. The time of their leaving the dreamlands was not important, for time is different here; and anyway, these three keeps were not accompanying the greater force but intended to journey to the dreamlands of other worlds. Alas, it was not to be.
"One of the First Ones-wrong-headed and wilful, a renowned lover of mysteries and Explorer of Unknowns without peer-defied the decision of the Council of First Ones and secretly sought out Cthulhu and others of his ilk here in the dreamlands. Aye, and having found what he sought his payment was permanent madness! Deranged, he became a minion of Cthulhu and set out to perform certain tasks for that great demon god.
"Firstly, he stole from one of the keeps-this very keep whose Keeper speaks to you-the three Wands of Power, one of which eventually fell into Thinistor Udd's hands and now lies in his temple-cave. Without that wand and its lost companions, the remaining nine masters of the keep (aye, for the Cthulhu-maddened First One is indeed the missing tenth member of the keep's crew) became marooned here in your dreamland. For the wands control the greater force which powers the keep on its long voyages between the stars.
"Secondly, the deranged First One, Klarek-Yam by name, caused those things to happen which destroyed utterly the inhabitants of the other keeps. It was thought that he would try to do the same to his own keep, but something must have happened to him all those many aeons agone to foil his mad design. Then, because my remaining nine masters could no longer leave earth's dreamland, and since they had no desire to live out their lives here, they placed themselves in a deep sleep until the time should come when the wands might be returned. They remain asleep to this day, and still the wands have not been returned.
"The First Ones are not immortal, you see, though they are exceedingly long-lived; and so they must conserve their lives by suspending them in the sleep, during which they do not age. And so they sleep, hidden away within this very keep, dreaming dreams within dreams as they wait for their hoped for but long delayed release ..."
"Much like Cthulhu and his spawn, from what you've been telling us," Eldin rumbled; and Hero thought to himself: "How clever of the old lad!"
Clever or not, the Keeper seemed offended. "Do you dare compare my good and kind masters to the filthy, crawling spawn of Cthulhu?"
"Your good, kind, weak masters," said David Hero, with the emphasis on weak.
"WHAT? 'WEAK,' DID YOU SAY?"
"Calm down, calm down," answered the younger dreamer placatingly. "Surely you can see, Keeper, that's the way it looks? Why did the nine not go out and find the tenth for themselves, recovering the wands and so assuring their safe departure from these regions? Did they think that going to sleep-even a long, long sleep-was going to solve all their problems for them?"
"But Klarek-Yam had the Wands of Power!" the Keeper blusteringly replied. "Against weapons such as the wands, how could my masters hope to prevail?"
"Y'know," rumbled Eldin the Wanderer, "I think Hero's right. Why don't you wake up the nine and let them go find the wands themselves? After all, this Klarek-Yam must be aeons-dead by now."
"When the First Ones wish to be awakened, then shall I awaken them. They have indicated no such desire. No, there is a better way."
"And we're it," said Hero with a sigh. "Right?"
"Correct. Using the first wand, you shall seek out the others and return them to the keep."
"And how might we use the first wand when we can't even touch the damned thing?" Eldin roared. "Haven't we already explained that?"
Now it was the Keeper's turn to be placating. "Calm, calm," he said. "You shall see what you shall see. Now then, gather up all the small pieces of metal which once were your sword, Eldin. And Hero, you help him."
Muttering, the dreamers obeyed, collecting the fused fragments of Eldin's blade and placing them on a large handkerchief laid out on the floor. When they had gathered together all that they could find, the Keeper said: "Now place the sundered, melted bits of sword on the gray metal plate where you stood for your examination. Good! Now stand back, well back."
The dreamers obeyed and once more the wheel of globes began to spin. This time the hazy tube which sprang from ceiling to floor was of a golden hue which turned the room a glowing yellow. In less than a minute the job was done and Eldin's sword, reconstituted, lay on the gray metal plate shinier and newer than ever before the dreamers had beheld it.
Grumbling to himself to cover his amazement, Eldin advanced and retrieved his blade. "It seems to be lighter," he said, swishing the sword through the air.
"You must have missed some of the bits," replied the Keeper, "but I assure you that the sword is stronger than ever it was. Also, it is now filled with the aura of the First Ones. Only touch Thinistor Udd's wand with that sword, and the wand will give you no more trouble." "Oh?" Eldin seemed doubtful. "Indeed. And now you must be about the quest." "We haven't said we'll do it yet," reminded Hero. "But you will." The Keeper's voice seemed to chuckle.
"What's to stop us agreeing to your quest?" Eldin queried, "and then, when we're free of the keep, going our own way?" And he nimbly side-stepped Hero's swift dig at his ribs.
"Very little, it would seem," the Keeper replied; then continued: "Now listen. When you have Thinistor's wand, simply dangle it from a thread, like a northstone, and it will point out the quickest route to the second wand. When you have acquired the second wand, then matters will take their own course."
"And is that all?" asked Hero when it appeared that the Keeper was through speaking.
"It is. Only remember to return the Wands of Power to the keep when all is done. What could be easier?" His voice faded away and the lights began slowly to dim. In another moment the massive silver door hissed up into the ceiling and the exit lay open to the gaze of the two dreamers.
Without more ado, as the lights further dimmed and began to go out, they made their exit.