The two dark gaps in the skull-mask seemed to be fixed on me, as if they were telling me that the time was not far off when my sorted bones would also be lying in the halls of the eighth level. I can’t say that I really felt afraid. Death never frightens those she comes for. Why would she? Ultimately we will all be her prize, in any case. No matter how long we live, the end is the same for all of us—she comes. With narcissi or a scythe—that’s not so very important. Even the immortals, even the gods, will be hers in the end, it’s only a matter of time, and Death knows how to wait.
Oh, those eye sockets! I didn’t know who had dared to create this statue, who had managed to make her look so alive, but it must have been one of the very greatest Masters of Siala. The black gaps in the skull really were all-seeing. Whichever way I moved, I could feel them watching me. Not in menace, but with a certain restrained curiosity.
I heard the ringing footsteps approaching again and, with a farewell glance at Death, I dashed away, hoping very much that my path and the path of the Mistress of Lives would not cross soon, that we would meet at the final crossroads.
The Mistress of Lives? The final crossroads? Where did I know those phrases from? Was this Valder’s memory playing tricks, or was it the knowledge of a Dancer in the Shadows?
I plodded on until I came to a wall of skulls, found an archway, ducked through it, and I was back in the usual underground burial halls.
The dream is flooded as full of nightmares as an Isilian loaf is stuffed with raisins. I am dreaming. In the dream Death stands over me, with the wind of Chaos fluttering her white hair and her linen dress, as if it wants to tear it off. In the dream she leans down, preparing to lay a bouquet of pale narcissi at my feet, as if to say that I belong only to her. In the dream a blizzard wind—a fiery vortex of blazing crimson snowflakes—grabs the flowers out of the hands of Death and bears them away, then tears the skull half-mask off her face. But she covers her face with her hands and turns away before I can glimpse her face.
“It’s not time yet,” the wind of Chaos whispers, fluttering her incomparably beautiful flowing hair.
“It’s not time yet,” murmur the fiery snowflakes, swirling around Death in a sparkling dance.
“Go, our world needs him,” the scarlet flame that has appeared out of nowhere tells the intransigent Queen.
“Everything has its price. Do you agree?” Her voice is extraordinarily young and clear.
“He is ours,” the three shadows reply in chorus. “We will pay.”
She nods and steps aside to let the shadows pass, then disappears. Death is patient. She knows how to wait.
I woke up and stared into the darkness for a long time, looking toward my feet, afraid of seeing a bunch of pale narcissi flattened by a stormy wind. Afraid of hearing the roar of the crimson flame and the wind of the world of Chaos. Terrified of meeting the shadows.
A dream. It was only a dream, a sequence of meaningless nightmare images. But, by Sagot, how real it was! I got up, stuffing one of the fruits from the Cave of the Ants into my mouth. I took two steps and then froze, with icy shivers dancing a jolly jig up and down my spine.
Lying there on the floor, glittering forlornly in the light of the mushroom lamp, was a tiny little golden skull. A bell from a Chimer’s cap. While I was asleep, the creature had stood only two paces away from me, but he hadn’t killed me. Why would he have left this elegant little trinket on the floor? A hint? A warning that Death had not forgotten me? That the dream was not just a dream, and everything I had seen in my latest nightmare was nothing but the simple truth?
A h’san’kor only knows! I couldn’t even imagine why the skull had been left for me, but I certainly wasn’t going to pick it up. I skirted round the trinket lying on the floor and walked on into the tangled halls of the eighth level.
I traveled for three and a half hours, still following the Messenger’s advice and walking straight on along the central vestibule of the level, without turning left or right. Soon torches appeared in the halls again and there was no need for the mushroom lamp, so I put it away in my bag.
The architecture of the halls on the eighth level changed fundamentally once again. The crude, careless granite gave way to the amazing elegance and precision of silver and the gloomy tranquillity of black marble. Every hall was a treasure house, there was enough silver here to make five castles.
Beautiful silver inserts in the black marble of the columns, incredibly elegant brackets for the torches, balconies built from thin slabs of marble entwined with silver threads, doors from one hall to the next standing open, made of the finest timber in Siala—Zagraban oak and golden-leaf—with massive hinges of precious metal and elegant handles in the forms of animals that I didn’t recognize. Pictures in silver paint on every door, for the most part depicting trees and also—rather strangely for the culture of the orcs and the elves—the gods. But these gods looked very much like people and didn’t inspire the reverential awe that some philistines feel when they visit the shrines or the Cathedral in Avendoom.
The Silver Halls were probably every bit as beautiful as the scarlet-and-black Palaces of the fourth level.
The central vestibule took a right-angled turn to the left. That wasn’t really so very alarming, except that the Messenger had told me to keep going straight on without turning left or right.
Following simple logic, I ought to go on along the corridor and not get any other silly ideas into my head, but if I did as I had done so far, then … then I ought to go through that little silver door over there, hidden between those two projecting blocks of marble.
I couldn’t see any keyholes or other similar human nonsense. If the door had a secret lock and it had been made by elves and orcs, I’d be struggling with it for a long time—without much hope of ever actually opening it.
I examined it from a safe distance. Never fiddle with anything that makes you feel vaguely anxious—that’s one of the most important rules of a master thief. Study the situation thoroughly before you go jumping feet-first into the gnome’s fiery furnace.
I spotted a gap no thicker than a hair between the marble wall and the door. In short, I only had to push the door with my finger and it promptly opened.
Immediately behind it was a narrow corridor with a low ceiling. The flames in the small lamps standing in equally small niches in the wall fluttered like wounded moths. I had to walk along hunched over, with the ceiling just above my head. And I had the impression that this passage must have been made for short dwarves, gnomes, and goblins, not for men, orcs, and elves.
Fortunately for me, the corridor wasn’t too long, and after walking a few dozen paces I came to another silver door. This one wasn’t locked, either. I opened it, forgetting all about caution, walked through, and froze.
What was it the verse guide said?
In serried ranks, embracing the shadows,
The long-deceased knights stand in silence.
And only one man will not die ’neath their swords,
He who is the shadows’ own twin brother.
Well, those four lines were a pretty good description of what I saw in the hall. The orcs and elves stood facing each other in broken ranks, pressing back against the walls in the shadows cast by the square columns. But Kli-Kli claimed that the lines had been changed and in the famous
Tormented by thirst and cursed by darkness,
The undead sinners bear their punishment
And only one will not die in their fangs,
He who dances with the shadows like a brother.
I didn’t know which of the gentlemen verse-mongers was right and whose verse was more accurate. In any case, the first and the second versions both warned quite openly that if you forgot to be cautious here, you could say good-bye to your ears.
The orcs and the elves stood along the walls and glared at each other. I ventured into the hall and started studying the figures from a safe distance. They turned out to be sculptures of warriors. Life-size figures, all in armor
