They are all in league with the Queen of Darkness!' he shouted. 'Retreat, for the sake of your souls!'
The knights picked up their swords. Massing around their leader, they fell back until they had reached the massive wooden doors, which opened wide to let them in. Once inside, the doors slammed and the portcullis rang down.
The High Clerist's Tower stood dark and silent, as if it were empty.
Part VII
Nikol and Michael spent the night in a cave they found in the mountains. Huddled together for warmth, they slept only fitfully. Again they had the feeling they were being watched. Both were up with the dawn, made haste to return to Palanthas, though what they would do when they arrived was open to question.
'If we can only find the holy disks, then all will be put right,' Michael said more than once.
'We can warn Astinus about the library's danger,' said Nikol. 'And we can take the Disks of Mishakal to safety'
Take them to Lord Soth, don't you mean?' Michael asked her quietly.
'He saved us at the tower. We are in his debt. If I can end his torment, I will. HE is a true knight,' she added, casting a sad and wistful look back up into the mountains. 'I know it in my heart.'
Michael said nothing. Soth had saved them, but for their drsake or his own? Had he been cursed unjustly or had his dread fate been forged by his own evil passions? Michael could only repeat what had become a litany: the blessed disks would make everything dear, everything right again.
Neither wayfarer was overly concerned at the thought of reentering the city. Having seen the confusion at the main gate, they doubted if the guards would even remember they were supposed to be searching for a beardless knight and blue-robed cleric. They timed their arrival for midday, when the traffic should be at its peak.
But, when they reached Palanthas, they found the road before the city empty, its gates standing wide open.
Alarmed at the sudden and inexplicable change, they ducked into the same grove of stunted trees, waited, and watched.
'Something's definitely wrong,' said Nikol, eyeing the city walls. 'I haven't seen one guard go past on his rounds. Come on.' She buckled on her sword, wrapped her cloak around her. 'We're going inside.'
No beggars accosted them. No guard hailed them. No one challenged them or demanded to know their business within the city. The walls were deserted, the streets empty. The only living being they saw was a mongrel dog, trotting past with a dead hen in its mouth, having taking advantage of the situation to raid an unguarded chicken coop.
They hurried through the merchandising district of New City, the streets of which should have been filled with people at this time of day. Stalls were closed. Shop windows were barred and shuttered.
'It looks like a city preparing for a holiday,' said Michael.
'Or a war,' Nikol said grimly. She walked with her hand on the hilt of her sword. 'Look. Look at that.'
One of the shops was not closed. It had been destroyed, its windows smashed. The shop's goods — gaily colored silks from the elven lands of Qualinesti — lay strewn about the streets. Ugly epitaphs had been scrawled across the walls, written in blood. Lying in front of the shop was the body of an elven woman. Her throat had been cut. A dead child lay beside her.
'May the gods forgive them,' murmured Michael.
'I trust your disks can explain this,' Nikol said bitterly.
They continued on, passing other sites of senseless destruction, other wanton acts of violence. Palanthas itself may have escaped the ravages of the Cataclysm, but the souls of its people had been cracked and shattered.
It was at the Old City wall that they first heard the sound of the mob, the sound of a thousand people gone mad, a thousand people finding anonymity in their numbers, driven to commit crimes one alone would have been ashamed to consider. The noise was frightful, inhuman. It prickled the hair on Michael's neck, sent a shiver down his spine.
Smoke boiled up from beyond the walls of Old City. Under its cover, Michael and Nikol slipped through the gates without attracting anyone's attention. Reaching the other side, they came to a halt, stared in disbelief. Nothing, not the sight of the destruction, not the tumult that raged around them, prepared them for what they saw.
Several large and beautiful houses had been set ablaze and were burning furiously. Large crowds danced drunkenly in front of the fires, cheering and waving bottles and other, more gruesome, trophies. But the largest concentration of the mob was farther on, gathered around the great library.
Here the crowd was more or less hushed, heads craning to see and hear. A voice rose, exhorting them to further acts of terror. Nikol climbed a drainpipe that ran up the side of a house, and stood on the roof to gain a better view.
'The Revered Son is on the library stairs,' she reported on her return. 'His men are there with him. They're armed with clubs and axes and carrying torches. He's — ' Her words were drowned out by a roar that set the windows rattling.
'We must get inside the library!' Michael was forced to shout to be heard over the clamor. He was starting to feel panicked. The idea that the holy disks might fall victim to this unholy chaos appalled him.
'I have an idea!' Nikol shouted in return, then motioned him to follow her. They slipped past on the fringes of the crowd, ducked down an alleyway, ran its length. Reaching the end, they stopped, peered out cautiously. They stood directly opposite one of the library's semidetached wings. The mob, intent upon hearing the speaker, blocked the front, but not the sides, of the building.
'We can climb in through the windows,' said Nikol.
They headed for the ornamental grove of trees, the same grove that had provided them shelter the last time they were here. Keeping to the shadows, they trampled on dead, unkempt flower beds and shoved through hedges, once clipped, now left to grow wild. A narrow strip of open lawn stood between them and the library. Breaking free of their cover, they ran across the wellkept grass, came to a window on the ground level. They flattened themselves against the building, trying to keep out of sight of the mob.
'The window's probably guarded,' said Michael.
Nikol risked peeping over the ledge. 'I don't see anyone, not even the Book Readers,' she added, using a common slang term that referred to the Order of Aesthetics, followers of the god Gilean who devoted their lives to the gathering and preserving of knowledge.
Nevertheless, she drew her sword from its sheath. 'Quickly!' whispered Nikol.
A blow from Michael's staff broke the window, knocked down fragments of glass. Nikol clambered through, kept her sword raised. She stared about intently. Seeing no one, she reached back to help Michael.
He climbed inside, came to a halt. He had heard all his life about the great library, but he'd never seen it, and this was beyond anything he could have imagined. A vast room held row after row of bookshelves, each shelf filled with neatly arranged, lovingly dusted, leather-bound volumes. His heart yearned, suddenly, for the wisdom stored within these walls, ached to think that all this irreplaceable knowledge was in such dire danger.
'Michael!' Nikol called a warning.
A robed monk, wielding a sword, had crept out from the shadows of one of the bookcases, stood blocking their path.
'Hold… hold right th-there,' stammered the Aesthetic. 'Don't… don't m-m-move.'
The monk was thinner than the heavy, antique, twohanded broadsword he was trying his best to hold. His face was chalk-colored, sweat ran down his bald head, and he shook so that his teeth clicked together. But, though obviously frightened out of his wits, he was grimly standing his ground. Nikol had been about to laugh. She remembered the brutal mob, their hands already stained with blood, and her laughter changed to a sigh.
'Here,' she said, stepping forward, accosting the terrified monk, who stared at her, wide-eyed. 'You're holding that sword all wrong.' Wrenching the poor man's hands loose from the weapon, she repositioned them. 'This hand here, and this hand here. There. Now you have a chance of hurting someone besides yourself.'
