Sarazin flinched, though he knew lightning comes first and thunder after. He heard the thunder so he was safe. For the moment. Then, close at hand – too close! – a tree shattered. Forked apart by lightning. He slipped, fell, thinking himself struck. A rock swung heavyweight into his head as thunder fisted the air apart. -Who? What? -Night? Or am I blind?
That much he (gasping) asked, or thought he did. Heard incoherence reply, perhaps because the light was dazed, the sky still herding elephants, the river rain… '… all right?' -Of course I am.
Yet there was a drunken discourse of stones beneath his feet, then and for some time after. The rains sluicing from grey to black. The strength of friends lugging, shoving, pushing and hauling, helping him onward, panting.
Sick, bruised, stunned and stumbling, Sarazin mouthed surrender. But if anyone heard, they paid him no heed. Desperation ruled their will. He was driven onward like a slave being flogged to a place of execution. Several nightmares later, they halted. -To rest? No. To stare. Gawp. Gape.
At a sheer-rising cliff topped by a bone-white pinnacle half a league high. Around that pinnacle coiled a dragon, its sheens and shines of jade and jacinth glittering as lightning writhed around it. Against such a monster, what sword could prevail? For the moment, it was looking north. But if it turned their way…
Then Sarazin, with some sense left to him despite the blow to the head which had almost demolished his consciousness, realised the dragon was at least a hundred times too large to be alive. The brute was the work of hands. Statue? Sculpture? No word fitted.
'I heard a man speak of this once,' said Heth. 'But he was drunk at the time. I thought the drink to be talking.'
'Blood!' said Jarl. You never told me about this. What is it?'
'Dragon, pillar, and many workings delved deep in the cliff are all part of Castle X-n'dix,' said Epelthin Elkin. 'It was built by the Dissidents, of whom you may have heard.'
None denied knowledge of the Dissidents, for none wished to provoke a lecture.
'Let's be finding this gate,' said Jarl. 'The sooner we get out of the rain the better.'
Shortly they were at the foot of the heights, which rose above them in terrors of precipice and overhang, bare cliff and frowning tor. The rock was near awash with rain, for the sturm und drang of the day's advent had given way to a sullen, unrelenting downpour.
And there was the gate, a squarebuilt door five times man height. Raindrops shunned its surface, which was a dark, dark blue stained with streaks of opaline iri- descence. Sarazin ventured his fingertips forward. Found the surface smooth, warm, dry, and alive with tentative vibrations. 'Is this the door to the dragon castle?' said he.
'This is but the Eastern Passage Gate, giving access to a way beneath the castle,' said Elkin. 'Explanations later,' said Jarl. 'Open it!'
'Stand Heth some distance hence,' said Elkin. 'It would not do for him to learn the Word.'
Glambrax menaced Heth with his crossbow, and the bandit withdrew while Elkin muttered. But whatever the Word was of which he spoke, Sarazin heard it not.
Nevertheless, the door… vanished. One moment it was there: the next it was gone.
Sarazin stared down the passageway within, which was lit by a flickering blood-red light. To his horror, he saw the heads of dragons in legion staring at him. 'Onward!' said Jarl.
As the Rovac warrior strode past the nearest dragon head, Sarazin saw it was but a lamp of bizarre make jutting from the wall at manheadheight.
Soon all five – Jarl, Sarazin, Elkin, Glambrax and Heth – were in the passage. Then Elkin muttered another Word, and the door manifested itself, sealing out the windclap rain and leaving them in a sudden silence. Silence? Dripping clothes… Epelthin Elkin still breathing harshly…
'Well,' said Sarazin, lamely. 'So we're safe.' Then, with a degree of apprehension: 'But where does the tunnel lead?'
'Onward,' said Jarl. The sooner we get going, the sooner we'll find out.' 'I don't know about you,' said Heth, 'but I'm poked.'
So saying, the bandit from Stokos sat himself down beneath one of the dragon lamps. Glambrax, war-roaring, bounded up and down before another such lamp, making faces at it. 'Glambrax!' said Sarazin. 'Enough of that! Sit down!' 'No time for sitting,' insisted Jarl. 'Onward!'
But the vote was against him, so, with the others, he sat. Glambrax then began to scratch himself. In a frenzy, his hands clawed through his hair, as if legions of lice had infested his locks. Then his hands delved beneath his clothing, groped in his armpits, fumbled his crotch. All the while his heels drummed on the floor. Sarazin could not be bothered to shout at him.
You were speaking earlier,' said Jarl, 'of the people who built this place.' 'Ah yes, the Dissidents,' said Elkin. The Dissidents, you see, were those wizards who refused to join the Alliance of wizards and heroes formed back in the days of the Long War when the Skull of the Deep South threatened all of Argan with the menace of the Swarms.' That had been many years ago indeed.
'Well,' said Heth, 'go on. What happened to them? They're not here now, that's for sure. Did the Alliance go to war with them, perhaps?'
'It is written in the Chalobshadala Chronicles,' said Epelthin Elkin, 'that the Dissidents kept themselves to themselves all through the Long War, which lasted over two hundred years. When the war was over, the Dissidents were nowhere to be seen.' 'So where did they go?' said Heth.
Tour guess is as good as mine,' said Elkin. 'Some claim the Dissidents fled to another plane of reality, while others hold that they removed themselves to Veda, and live hidden among the Sages even to this day.'
Tell me,' said Heth, 'these Chala-whatsit Chronicles. Are they wizard writings?'
The Chalobshadala Chronicles are indeed wizard writings,' said Elkin, 'I came to know them well in the years of my youth, when I worked as a scribe in Narba.' 'So you're a scribe!' said Heth.
'What did you take me for?' said Elkin. 'A bootblack? I trained in Narba as an all-round scholar. Both scribe and translator, and accountant as well.'
Sarazin, knowing Elkin to be a wizard, thought the lie so obvious as to be unbelievable. Surely Jarl must realise by now that Elkin was a wizard., But Jarl showed no signs of doubt. Neither did Heth, who said:
'So you were trained in Narba. What brought you to Hok with an army?'
'Scholarship is difficult for my aging eyes,' said Elkin, 'so I thought war might give me an easier living.'
It was not much of a joke, but Heth, who had a ready sense of humour, fell about laughing.
It's not that funny,' said Jarl, who in fact found it not funny at all. 'I know, I know,' said Heth. 'But, still…'
In truth, he was exhausted beyond endurance, and if he had not succumbed to laughter then in all likelihood he would have given way to tears.
'Those fit enough to laugh are fit enough to march,' said Jarl.
And eventually persuaded the refugees to dare on down the passage.
After every hundred dragon lamps, they passed yellow doors to left and to right.
'These doors lead to the Underkeep,' said Elkin. 'Great are its wonders, but they are known by hearsay only, for but a single man ever managed to open those doors. He explored the Underkeep for days – but died shortly after exiting its labyrinth.'
After five hundred dragon lamps – a long and weary march indeed – they found a pair of white doors standing opposite a matching pair of black doors.
'These are also mentioned in the ancient writings,' said Elkin. 'If the writings can be trusted, the black doors give access to a room which flies from here to the heights of the Greater Tower of X-n'dix. The white doors give access to the Lesser Tower likewise. But the secret of opening both black doors and white has been lost.'
'So you say,' said Jarl, 'but it seems you know little of wizards. On Rovac we know full well that the archives of the Confederation of Wizards run unbroken back to the days of the Long War. Indeed – to certain events which preceded that war.'
'There are such things as moths,' said Elkin mildly. 'Moths, fires, floods and so forth. In any case, remember it was the Dissidents who built this complex, not the wizards of the Confederation.'
'Do the surviving records tell us,' said Heth, 'how much further we must march to reach this tunnel's end?' 'Why, we are half way along this passage,' said Elkin,
'for the white and black doors mark its midpoint. At the end we'll find a door which exits to daylight.'
