The Shattered Land_ The Dreaming Dark - Keith Baker [149]
“You expect us to stand here and wait for you for an entire day?”
“The alternative is death,” Holuar said, and Gerrion smiled at that.
“When you put it that way … Safe travels.”
The firebinders disarmed Daine and bound his hands. They bound Pierce and Lakashtai as well; only Lei was left free. Soon Daine found himself pressed against one of the stone tables, cold bronze against his throat, as the Sulatar troop filed into the crystal sphere.
“Farewell, Daine,” Gerrion called from the ramp. “You may have won back your precious honor, but when I return … I think I’ll put your tales of torture to the test.”
“Go choke on lava,” Daine muttered. The knife tightened against his throat, but the soldier didn’t speak the Common tongue.
“I’m activating the portal now.”
Lei was speaking in Elvish for the benefit of the guards. The panel she was standing at was a mosaic of crystal rods embedded in stone sockets. She drew out a few of the rods, replacing them in different hollows. With each adjustment, a vast pulse of mystical power radiated out from the central column. Daine could feel the air rippling and crawling against his skin. The sphere slowly rose up into the air, and as it moved it gave off a sharp, piercing hum. This grew louder as it drew toward the other floating spheres, and each sphere began to emit a tone of its own. Arcs of energy were flashing around the central column, flowing from ring to ring. Then came a terrible flash of light, a roar like thunder, and the room fell into silence and utter darkness.
Slowly the light returned, as the mystical inscriptions on the walls and the central columns began to glow anew. A moment later and the room was just as it had been before—with one exception: the crystal sphere containing the drow had vanished.
“Lei?” Daine said.
“As far as I can tell, everything was successful, though if the legends are true, Fernia hardly sounds like anyone’s promised land.”
“Now that you’ve gotten your gateway to paradise, could you let us get on about our work?” Daine said to the drow holding the knife to his throat. “Some of us still have our own problems to deal with.”
The firebinder said nothing, and the knife was as steady as ever.
“Perhaps you can find what we seek, Lei.” If Lakashtai was concerned about the elf with a sword at her throat, she gave no sign of it. “The chamber we seek must be elsewhere in this facility. If you can find a way to disable the field that blocks my … talents … I may be able to sense its presence.”
“How would I do that, exactly?” Lei said.
“How is it that you were able to restore function to the network of gates?”
“I … I don’t know,” Lei said. “I just studied the controls, and it came to me. It all seemed to make sense.”
“Continue your work. Examine each panel in turn and see what you can find. Perhaps the answers will come to you.”
Lei looked over at them, and Daine could see her fear and confusion. “Don’t worry about us,” he said, the knife brushing his throat as he spoke. “You did everything you needed to do. Just … do some research. Explain it to me. It’s been far too long since I’ve heard you lecture.”
She smiled slightly at that. “Very well.” She looked up at the central column for a moment. “Each of the crystal spheres represents one of the thirteen planes of existence that are said to exist in concert with our universe …”
To Daine, it seemed as if hours passed while Lei explored the chamber and discussed mystical minutiae. He had hoped that the lecture might lull the drow to sleep, until he remembered that elves didn’t sleep—and however dull the conversation, the soldier watching him seemed as keen and alert as ever.
As Daine himself was struggling to keep his eyes open, the glowing inscriptions on the central column burst into brilliant