Kern made the sign of the hammer over his face and chest with his left hand. The rumbling was louder, resounded now like thunder within the chamber. 'Could it be an earthquake?' he called to Miltiades. 'Tyr save us, what's going on?' He stopped backing away and hefted his hammer uncertainly, as if readying to cast it at the wall.
'Lower your weapons!' Garkim shouted at Kern, uncrossing his arms. Desperation filled his words. 'You will kill everyone if you attack! The wall is all that separates us from the emperor! Lower your weapons! You cannot attack him without killing us all!'
The lights dimmed further, and the surface of the wall appeared to grow more transparent. Something moved within it. A thick, snakelike shape with yellow scales as large as plates rolled into view, pressed briefly against the opposite side of the wall, then pulled back into the darkness. It was as wide across as a man is tall.
Everyone but Garkim fell back several paces.
'It's a water tank!' shouted Trandon. Shock and horror radiated from his features. 'The wall is glass! Don't break it, or well drown here!'
'Tyr guide me and give me strength,' whispered Miltiades through bloodless lips. He swallowed as his eyes drank in the ghastly sight.
Another snakelike tentacle, coiling in the black water beyond, appeared and pressed itself to the wall. This time the tentacle remained, its scaly skin covered with cancerous wounds. Peeling, rotting skin trailed in the water around it. Noph felt a terrible urge to flee as another tentacle appeared to the right and pressed against the glasslike wall.
A hand with fingers as big around as tree limbs appeared out of the darkness. The fingertips brushed the glass with a rough thump, then retreated and vanished. Another great stirring of water rumbled through the walls and floor.
A vast, faint object, oval in shape, appeared beyond the wall. It drifted forward until everyone in the room could see it clearly.
Jacob nearly dropped his great sword. He staggered back, his eyes the size of moons. Kern and Miltiades froze open-mouthed, warhammers raised and arm muscles tight. Trandon shielded his eyes and crouched down, his quarterstaff rolling away on the floor.
Noph choked on his terror. He could not look away from the beautiful, inhuman face that almost touched the far side of the wall.
'We are here,' said the voice in the room. 'We are the emperor of Doegan.'
Chapter Seven
'You are a monster,' said Miltiades, breaking the awful silence.
'We are the emperor,' said the voice in the air. The thin lips of the yellow-gray monstrosity on the other side of the wall did not move. Enormous round eyes, black as shiny onyx and as large as windows, stared out at the group. The nose was broad, the nostrils each an arm span across. A pattern of scales ran over the face but did not mar its strange, ghastly beauty.
The reptilian coils at the bottom of the black wall twisted slowly around, ever in motion.
'Lord Garkim informed you that the blood-forges made certain alterations in those who used them,' said the voice. 'It is said that all kings of Doegan are fond of the sea. Our spiritual kinship with the sea, beginning even before the building of the Right Armada, has gradually taken on physical form. We can speak with the use of magic from our bloodforge, but such time is limited by the nature of the device. We will not be able to communicate with you much longer this day. We must take pains to be concise.'
'We will not deal with evil!' shouted Noph, swiftly gathering heart. 'We sense your true nature, and we reject you!'
'Noph!' roared Miltiades in warning.
'You know nothing of my true nature,' said the voice. 'I am not evil, as you know it.'
Noph glanced at Miltiades, who looked back but did not confirm or deny the emperor's last statement. 'He's lying, isn't he?' Noph shouted, pointing. 'You said he was a monster! Look what the bloodforge did to him! How do we know he isn't going to kill or eat us?'
Miltiades swallowed but managed a grim smile before looking back at the awful, beautiful face. 'We do not,' he said. 'Please forgive the young man. He is foolish and inexperienced.' Noph slumped angrily and half-turned away.
'Let's talk about the Lady Eidola!' called Kern. 'Tell us where she is right now, or I'll plant this hammer in your forehead and find her myself!'
'The water in our dwelling is poisonous, Kern of Phlan. It is excreted by our skin, and it is hostile to all living things. Should the wall between us be broken, you would swim in liquid death. It would eat the flesh from your bones while you screamed and choked. Your own wife would not recognize your remains.'
Silence fell again for a few moments.
'Tell me where Lady Eidola is,' Miltiades repeated, only slightly subdued.
'She has been captured by the forces of Ysdar of the Fallen Temple,' said the voice. 'We believe she is being held somewhere here in our own city, but is so warded that not even we can detect her location. You are right in your belief that the power that prevents outsiders from spying upon us with magic is generated by our bloodforge. It is an invisible shield woven by ourself. We will not take it down. Fiends and bloodforge armies would fight over the rubble of our empire within a decade were we to lower our defenses. There are more crucial issues for our city and our land than your quest for a petty noble's fiancee. You will hear us out on this matter, then make your choice.'
Kern, Jacob, Trandon, and Noph looked at Miltiades for his reaction.
'Speak,' the warrior growled, forcing the word out. 'We will hear you out, but we promise you no more than that.'
'The bloodforge generates an enormous degree of magical potential, which can be harvested by its user and converted into actual magical ability. We were not born a wizard, Miltiades of Phlan. We were born a normal man, destined to rule like our father, who was also a normal man, though the bloodforge had already altered him so that he was forced to spend the better part of each day bathing in a tub to keep his skin moist. We were changed more than he, because we learned early in life how to unlock the full potential of the bloodforge, and so took on more of its alterations than our ancestors.'
'You took on its curse,' corrected Miltiades.
'Our body is not our bloodforge's true curse, Miltiades of Phlan. Our bloodforge gathers its magical potential from the land around it. This ancient land is soaked in magical power. Our bloodforge drains the magic in the earth, buried under the soil, rock, and water, and offers it for our use. But as the magic drains from the land, it drains too from a great barrier-ward that was placed upon this region ages ago, by the ancestors of the Mar. The barrier-ward has weakened from long use of the bloodforges by all the reigning lords and kings, and it barely separates our world from that which it was meant to seal off. The curse of the bloodforges, Miltiades of Phlan, is that they have left us vulnerable to outworld horrors who would feed upon us as hungry magpies feed on worms. Their use has nearly bred our ruin.'
Kern blinked. The reflections of himself and his allies in the polished black wall had for a moment seemed to blend with the great tentacles of the monster-emperor visible on the wall's other side. He thought he had seen himself and his party caught in those slowly twisting coils.
'I cannot imagine any outworld horror worse than yourself,' Kern muttered darkly.
'Then you have a very poor imagination, Kern of Phlan. Lord Garkim will show you documents and bring you sages that confirm the truth of our words. Two months ago, we took pains to ward our city against attacks by tanar'ri from the Abyss, which were given knowledge of our bloodforge by Ysdar's agents. As we now speak, our city is slowly becoming besieged by fiends and monsters that lurk in the savanna and jungle around us, looking for a way past our walls to wrap their clawed fingers around our bloodforge and carry it away. The human debris that
