Hellwell begins with the great doorway high in the mountains at the northernmost comer of Videgha's kingdom, beyond which there are no other kingdoms of men. It begins there, and it corkscrews down through the heart of the mountain Channa, breaking, like a corkscrew, into vast cavernways uncharted by men, extending far beneath the Ratnagari range, the deepest passageways pushing down toward the roots of the world.
To this door came the traveler.
He was simply dressed, and he traveled alone, and he seemed to know exactly where he was going and what he was doing.
He climbed the trail up Channa, edging his way across its gaunt face.
It took him the better part of the morning to reach his destination, the door.
When he stood before it, he rested a moment, took a drink from his water bottle, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, smiled.
Then he sat down with his back against the door and ate his lunch. When he had finished, he threw the leaf wrappings over the edge and watched them fall, drifting from side to side on the air currents, until they were out of sight. He lit his pipe then and smoked.
After he had rested, he stood and faced the door once again.
His hand fell upon the pressure plate, moved slowly through a series of gestures. There was a musical sound from within the door as his hand left the plate.
Then he seized upon the ring and drew back, his shoulder muscles straining. The door moved, slowly at first, then more rapidly. He stepped aside and it swung outward, passing beyond the ledge.
There was another ring, twin to the first, on the inner surface of the door. He caught at it as it passed him, dragging his heels to keep it from swinging so far as to place it beyond his reach.
A rush of warm air emerged from the opening at his back.
Drawing the door closed again behind him, he paused only to light one of the many torches he bore. Then he advanced along a corridor that widened as he moved ahead.
The floor slanted abruptly, and after a hundred paces the ceiling was so high as to be invisible.
After two hundred paces, he stood upon the lip of the well.
He was now in the midst of a vast blackness shot through with the flames of his torch. The walls had vanished, save for the one behind him and to the right. The floor ended a short distance before him.
Beyond that edge was what appeared to be a bottomless pit. He could not see across it, but he knew it to be roughly circular in shape; and he knew, too, that it widened in circumference as it descended.
He made his way down along the trail that wound about the well wall, and he could feel the rush of warm air rising from out of the depths. This trail was artificial. One could feel this, despite its steepness. It was precarious and it was narrow; it was cracked in many places, and in spots rubble had accumulated upon it. But its steady, winding slant bespoke the fact that there was purpose and pattern to its existence.
He moved along this trail, carefully. To his left was the wall. To his right there was nothing.
After what seemed an age and a half, he sighted a tiny flicker of light far below him, hanging in midair.
The curvature of the wall, however, gradually bent his way so that this light no longer hung in the distance, but lay below and slightly to his right.
Another twisting of the trail set it directly ahead of him.
When he passed the niche in the wall wherein the flame was cached, he heard a voice within his mind cry out:
"Free me, master, and I will lay the world at thy feet!"
But he hurried by, not even glancing at the almost-face within the opening.
Floating upon the ocean of black that lay beneath his feet, there were more lights now visible.
The well continued to widen. It was filled with brightening glimmers, like flame, but not flame; filled with shapes, faces, half-remembered images. From each there rose up a cry as he passed: "Free me! Free me!"
But he did not halt.
He came to the bottom of the well and moved across it, passing among broken stones and over fissures in the rocky floor. At last he reached the opposite wall, wherein a great orange fire danced.
It became cherry-red as he approached, and when he stood before it, it was the blue of a sapphire's heart.
It stood to twice his height, pulsing and twisting. From it, little flamelets licked out toward him, but they drew back as if they fell against an invisible barrier.
During his descent he had passed so many flames that he had lost count of their number. He knew, too, that more lay hidden within the caverns that open into the well bottom.
Each flame he had passed on the way down had addressed him, using its own species of communication, so that the words had sounded drumlike within his head: threatening words, and pleading, promising words. But no message came to him from this great blue blaze, larger than any of the others. No forms turned or twisted, tantalizing, within its bright heart. Flame it was, and flame it remained.
He kindled a fresh torch and wedged it between two rocks.
"So, Hated One, you have returned!"
The words fell upon him like whiplashes. Steadying himself, he faced the blue flame then and replied:
"You are called Taraka?"
"He who bound me here should know what I am called," came the words. "Think not, oh Siddhartha, that because you wear a different body you go now unrecognized. I look upon the flows of energy which are your real being-not the flesh that masks them."
"I see," replied the other.
"Do you come to mock me in my prison?"
"Did I mock you in the days of the Binding?"
"No, you did not."
"I did that which had to be done, to preserve my own species. Men were weak and few in number. Your kind fell upon them and would have destroyed them."
"You stole our world, Siddhartha. You chained us here. What new indignity would you lay upon us?"
"Perhaps there is a way in which some reparation may be made."
"What is it that you want?"
"Allies."
"You want us to take your part in a struggle?"
"That is correct."
"And when it is over, you will seek to bind us again."
"Not if we can work out some sort of agreement beforehand."
"Speak to me your terms," said the flame.
"In the old days your people walked, visible and invisible, in the streets of the Celestial City."
"That is true."
"It is better fortified now."
"In what ways?"
"Vishnu the Preserver and Yama-Dharma, Lord of Death, have covered the whole of Heaven, rather than just the City-as it was in days of old-with what is said to be an impenetrable dome."
"There is no such thing as an impenetrable dome."
"I say only what I have heard."
"There are many ways into a city. Lord Siddhartha."
"You will find them all for me?"
"That is to be the price of my freedom?"
"Of your own freedom-yes."
"What of the others of my kind?"
"If they, too, are to be freed, you must all agree to help me lay siege to that City and take it."
"Free us, and Heaven shall fall!"
"You speak for the others?"
"I am Taraka. I speak for all."
"What assurance do you give, Taraka, that this bargain will be kept?"
"My word? I shall be happy to swear by anything you care to name - "
"A facility with oaths is not the most reassuring quality in a bargainer. And your strength is also your weakness in any bargaining at all. You are so strong as to be unable to grant to another the power to control you. You have no gods to swear by. The only thing you will honor is a gambling debt, and there are no grounds for gaming here."
"You possess the power to control us."
"Individually, perhaps. But not collectively."
"It is a difficult problem," said Taraka. "I should give anything I have to be free-but then, all that I have is power - pure power, in essence uncommittable. A greater force might subdue it, but that is not the answer. I do not really know how to give you satisfactory assurance that my promise will be kept. If I were you, I certainly would not trust me."
"It is something of a dilemma. So I will free you now-you alone-to visit the Pole and scout out the defenses of Heaven. In your absence, I will consider the problem further. Do you likewise, and perhaps upon your return an equitable arrangement can be made."
"Accepted! Release me from this doom!"
"Know then my power, Taraka," he said. "As I bind, so can I loose-thus!"
The flame boiled forward out of the wall.
It rolled into a ball of fire and spun about the well like a comet; it burned like a small sun, lighting up the darkness; it changed colors as it fled about, so that the rocks shone both ghastly and pleasing.
Then it hovered above the head of the one called Siddhartha, sending down its throbbing words upon him:
"You cannot know my pleasure to feel again my strength set free. I've a mind to try your power once more."
The man beneath him shrugged.
The ball of flame coalesced. Shrinking, it grew brighter, and it slowly settled to the floor.
It lay there quivering, like a petal fallen from some titanic bloom; then it drifted slowly across the floor of Hellwell and re-entered the niche.
"Are you satisfied?" asked Siddhartha.
"Yes," came the reply, after a time. "Your power is undimmed. Binder. Free me once more."
"I grow tired of this sport, Taraka. Perhaps I'd best leave you as you are and seek assistance elsewhere."