could anything human stand against that, Rik thought? He could see how with the aid of wyrms and dragons, the First had overcome his human ancestors.
Soon the enemy fire was silenced. They huddled cowed within the mansion, waiting for the Foragers to come and get them.
“Leave them,” he heard Asea shout. “We must get to the mine before it’s too late.”
Zarahel screamed. Something was wrong; pain filled him along with power. The blisters on his flesh burst. Something was hatching from them.
He ripped at his robe, desperate to see what was happening to him. Small Ultari wriggled forth all wet with blood and slime. They looked at him with their evil eyes. He wanted to run from the pattern now, but he could not. Something held him in place. Something compelled him to keep chanting the words, just as it compelled Bertragh to echo them. The factor had already tried to run away once but the Ultari guardians had forced him back. They moved round the edges of the pattern, as if performing some intricate mating dance.
The small Ultari began to move. Their slime covered his wounds and began to harden. They slithered over him, laying more slime. Some bit at him, sending the euphoric venom through his veins. The moment of doubt and horror passed. They were protecting him, he knew. They were giving him a new skin, hard enough to resist weapons. They were making him immortal. Reassured, he chanted with renewed vigour.
The wavering lines of fire steadied and grew stronger. Tendrils of energy reached out from him flowing down the pattern, outward and away through the walls of the city. He felt connected to every living machine, to every Ultari. More knowledge flooded into him. Something told him not to be afraid. He was needed here, and no harm would befall him. He began to understand why.
The Ultari were a damaged race. Their sentient sorcerer caste was dead, wiped out during the ancient pre-human wars. Those that were left were little better than living machines, mere bundles of appetite and reflex without the will of Uran Ultar to guide them. And the Spider God could only enter this world when summoned. That took a sorcerer, like him or his ancestors, the Priest Kings.
Uran Ultar had known they would be needed again when he had fled through his doorway to escape the wrath of the Terrarchs. He had compelled them to write down their secret rituals, knowing one day someone would come, seeking power, and be drawn into his web. No, that was not right. They would come and summon the god and gain ultimate power and immortality. That was the truth of it.
The armour hardened. The wrigglers moved over him. Part of him wanted to scream. Another image had entered his mind and it was not one of power and immortality. It was of a host body being prepared from within from which the mortal body of Uran Ultar would be hatched. The host body he had in mind was his own. The image remained but a moment until it was burned away by waves of pleasure and power and knowledge as more and more venom found its way into his veins.
More images flickered through his mind coming from dozens of pairs of eyes, from the dancing Ultari, from the human eyes of the sacrifices, and the inhuman eyes of the smaller aliens that swarmed through the city. He had the awareness of a god and soon he would share its consciousness.
The doorway was opening. The Scuttler in Shadows started to come through.
Sardec brought his wyrm alongside Asea’s beast. He did not like this breakneck riding around the lake with an enemy at their back, even if that enemy had been defeated.
“What is going on?” Sardec asked. He studied the sorceress carefully. It was obvious that she was deeply disturbed.
“Something is happening below the mountain. Something dreadful.”
“You wouldn’t care to be more explicit, would you?”
“Someone is waking an old and evil power.”
“How do you know?”
“I am surprised that you do not — although come to think of it, the presence of that blade of yours might insulate you from things.”
“You can feel the spell being cast?”
“Yes, and if we do not stop it, we shall soon have something worse than the Ultari to deal with.”
“Adaana’s Scales, how can we prevent it?”
“It might already be too late but we will do what we can. I have prepared something. We must go below the mountain.”
“Another fine bloody mess, Halfbreed” said the Barbarian. He was not best pleased by the way things were going, Rik could tell. “Leaving a won battle behind when there is plunder on the ground, to go traipsing around a lake. And will anybody tell us what’s going on? I don’t think so.”
“Why don’t you ask your girlfriend?” Rik suggested. The Lady Asea’s beast strode at the head of the column accompanied by Sardec’s, and the ripjack pack. A long line of wyrms bearing Foragers straggled out behind her, weapons at the ready. Most of the soldiers looked no more happy than the Barbarian. From behind them, he could hear the bellows of wounded wyrms and the screams of the dying.
“I think I can guess,” said Weasel.
“So can I,” said Rik.
“I don’t suppose you’d care to enlighten me,” said the Barbarian.
“Look at the path we are following around the lake. I am sure you can remember where that leads.”
“Not the bloody mine! Why are they going there?”
“The Lieutenant’s a tactical genius,” said Weasel. “Nobody expected it. Least of all us.”
“A surprise attack? On a bloody mine?”
“He’s being sarcastic, you stupid northern bastard,” said a voice from the gathering dark.
“I’ll give you bastard,” muttered the Barbarian. “When I get my hands on you.”
Rik did not like this at all. Something felt very wrong. A strange chill filled the night and it was not merely physical. It was like the sensation he had experienced when Severin summoned the Crimson Shadows, only far, far stronger.
Worst of all, the sensation grew stronger the closer they came to the entrance to the old mine. He had a feeling that he knew what was going on. Zarahel had begun his ritual. He felt sure that he could almost track the Prophet simply by heading in the direction that made him feel most uneasy.
He looked at the others, wondering why they did not feel it like he did. Perhaps because they lacked his tainted heritage, perhaps it was because they were of pure human blood. Another thought struck him, and made him uneasier still. Or perhaps it was because they had not tried to read the forbidden books as he had.
Seeing the open mouth of the mine did not make him any easier. It had been cleared once more, and yawned before them like the entrance of hell. He thought of his last visit here, and his trip down below, and his encounter with the demon and the sorcerer. He was not keen to repeat it.
Get a grip, he told himself. When you get to the bottom of this you will find Zarahel and Bertragh and then you will kill them, if you can. Nothing else matters. You must prevent them telling the Terrarchs what they know about you and the books at any cost, or it’s the Inquisition’s chambers for you.
But what good would that do if he was already dead, his soul devoured by demons? And then there was Asea. What did she know? He glanced at the sorceress. Her two servants and the ripjack pack hovered near her. She was of the First. She had lived for millennia. He doubted that she intended to die here. She would have a few more tricks up her sleeve. She would not fall victim to the Ultari. But if she lived, what then? What if she went looking for the soldiers who had sold the forbidden books? What if she already knew?
“Break out your lanterns, men, we are going in,” said Sardec. There was a good deal of grumbling but no one questioned the order. Asea was there and they were all still in awe at what she had done earlier and flushed with victory over the hill-men. No one was going to object to anything while she was present. Her odd armour and her silver mask made her look like an Elder God stepped once more into the world. Perhaps, in a sense, that was what she was.
“Sir, the mine may well be dangerous,” said Sergeant Hef, surprising them all. “We torched it only a short
