Free Princess of Amathar by Wesley Allison Page B

to keep us company. But sit there we did, in relative silence for what seemed to be a long time. I recollected that this was the first time that I had seen real darkness since coming to this world. While the stormy weather and the overhanging trees had made the world seem dark when we had passed through the forest of the Pell, it was nothing compared to this. As soon as we all felt we had rested enough, we resumed our journey through the darkness. We had traveled only another hundred feet, when we came to a wall. The wall was constructed of the same black material that had lined the end of the corridor through which we had entered and had the same type of acoustical quality. Norar Remontar and I felt comfortable following Malagor and his apparent direction sense, so when he turned right and began to make his way along the wall, we were content to follow.
    The wall was straight and gave the impression in my mind of a square or rectangular room, but when a room is of this tremendous size, who can say what the shape of the other sides might have been. I was reminded of the story of the blind men who encounter an elephant. The first blind man, who feels the elephant's trunk, thinks he has encountered a snake. The second blind man reaches out to touch the legs of the pachyderm and thinks that he has found a tree. The third blind man, who feels the elephant's side, believes he has found a wall. The three of us, alone in the dark, were like three blind men. I thought how strange, interesting, and frightening it would be, if this great expanse of wall were in fact, the side of some great beast.
    Happily, before I had much chance to contemplate this line of reasoning, Malagor located a doorway, and we entered another long tunnel. It might have been the same tunnel through which we had entered for all that I knew. It had the same tapered entrance, the same walls, and the same floor.
    "At least," I thought, "if this is the same way we came in, we are on our way back to the food." Any belief that we might have been retracing our steps was quickly laid to rest though, when after going only a few hundred yards, we began to notice a light in the distance. As we continued on our way, the light grew steadily brighter, until it was obvious that we were approaching a location with some sort of large-scale artificial lighting.
    When we reached the doorway of the room, we entered with our weapons at ready. Norar Remontar and I had our swords drawn, and Malagor carried his light rifle. In fact, we had been carrying our weapons at ready all the way through the darkness, but as we had encountered nothing but black emptiness, we had not been called upon to use them. The chamber we now entered was like nothing I had ever seen before.
    Chapter Ten: Chamber of the Elder Gods
    The room was large, though obviously not as large as the huge chamber we had visited before. The far wall was about one hundred fifty feet away, and the room was equally as wide. We had entered through a doorway in the middle of the wall, and there were no other entryways or exits visible. The room was well lit, though I could not determine the source of the light. Indeed, it seemed that the light came from everywhere, as though light were a thing that could flow around solid objects like the air. The walls, floor, and ceiling were smooth and dull grey, as were the fixtures in the room’s center--four large geometric shapes.
    As the three of us slowly walked into the room, we were drawn toward the four geometric shapes in the center of the floor. They were each about the same size, perhaps twelve feet across. Closest to us was a sphere. The others were a cube, a pyramid, and a dodecahedron.
    "What are these for, do you suppose?" I wondered aloud.
    "Perhaps they are not for anything," growled Malagor.
    "Why are you so grumpy?" I asked. "Still hungry?" He growled again in confirmation.
    "This is unlike anything I have ever seen relating to the Orlons," said Norar Remontar. "The