ant. And which has esca–”
He raised the torch higher, it lit the approaching Thomas. The guard’s eyes opened wide, his mouth opened for a cry. Oleg hurled the stone he had ready. A dry crunch of teeth, and the guard leaned against the wall, his throat swallowing his cry along with his blooded teeth and the stone. The second raised his sword, but not for attack: he was definitely going to strike on the iron door, calling out other guards… or something worse. Thomas, having no time to reach him, threw his two-handed sword like a spear. The guard sobbed, lurched: the sword pierced him through just under his throat. He slid down the wall, his back leaving a red trace, a broad steel point looking out between his shoulder blades.
While Thomas tugged out his sword and wiped it clean, Oleg stripped the bigger of two guards off quickly, pulled his clothes on and became again the same wonderer whom Thomas seemed to have known for lifetime. Though now the wonderer walked with his jaws clenched, the knuckles of his fists white, his eyes narrowed.
“Want your cup back?” Oleg asked suddenly.
“As much as my soul saved!” Thomas blurted.
“It’s beyond this door. I mean the cup.”
“My soul too…”
Oleg backed a step, scowled at the door, dashed ahead, advancing his shoulder. There was a brief flash of fire around the wonderer as he struck, a burst of bolts and bars, and the folds flew open, as if it were a door of doghouse kicked by a giant.
They burst into the room in clouds of dust and blue smoke. Thomas rushed on two big warriors before they could gather their wits, but they gripped their sabers at once, having their heads kept.
Oleg leapt on Isfahan: he had never seen that One before but knew enough of him to use the first opportunity to seize him by throat. They collapsed on a floor, the stone cave gave a shake. It became hot as Arabian desert, with a smell of burnt stone.
Thomas’s sudden attack pressed his foes to the wall. Two violent blows slashed the shield of one and stunned another on his helmet. The first warrior slipped beneath Thomas’s arm. Fiercely, the knight brought his sword on the stunned man and, with no second look at the falling body, swung round to another one, parried a glittering saber, made a wolfish grin and started to press him into the corner.
Oleg and Isfahan were rolling about the cave, grappling and strangling each other. Both emitted heat. Thomas’s armor got hot, he began to gasp for hot air, the sword hilt burnt his fingers. His enemy also bared his teeth with malice. Covered with sweat, he looked like an animal at bay. While fighting, he shot glances at the wonderer and his master rolling in the middle of the room, as though expecting for help. With his last strength, Thomas pressed on him with heavy blows, feinted with his hand, putting it under the glittering saber: the blade rang and bounced off the steel plate, Thomas’s other hand struck with sword at once.
The ball of grappling fighters was rattling and crunching on the floor, pebbles under the rolling bodies burst with ringing sounds, as though in an oven. Suddenly the cave walls shook with a hollow rumble, a grey crack ran across the grey floor. The magicians would get up on their knees, seize each other’s necks again, pound with fists, wheeze madly, choking with hate. The crack was moving apart. From the depth, a puff of heat came out, a cloud of smoke raised, an orange flame darted after it and hid again, then some red sparks flew out like big flies.
Oleg and the master rolled over the crack. While sliding back, both got stuck in the widening gap. Thomas breathed heavily, reeled in the struggle against torrid heat that made sweat pour over his eyes and dry out at once, leaving the salty crust on his face. Hastily, he stepped up to the fighters, stretched his hand for Oleg to seize him and drag away from danger, but a scorching puff came in his face, his brows and eyelashes crackled. He shielded his face with a palm, advanced another hand, groping in the air blindly, stooped over…
His fingers got burnt, he barely kept a scream. There was a thunder, a hit of dry crash on his ears. He took his palm off his eyes for a moment, started back.
The cave was crossed, from end to end, by a blazing crack, wide enough to swallow a rider with his horse. Clouds of thick black smoke came belching from it, smelling of burnt flesh, skin, and bones. The cave vault was blazing with glows of the hellish fire buzzing in the depth. Thomas seemed to hear a long terrible scream, as if someone kept falling down away through the endless flames.
Coughing and rattling with dry throat, Thomas crept to the far wall, pressed his back on it. The smoke was eating his eyes, the stiffened bodies of dead Hazars lay at hand: the blood covering them had dried out in the heat, turned a brown crust, already cracked, like a bark of old trees. On the other side of the crack, through fire and smoke, Thomas saw a small marble table dimly. The cup, polished by the bag during the journey, was gleaming on it.
Thomas made a superhuman attempt to rise, but his heat-stricken body could not move. He felt dizzy, delirious visions flashed in his mind. Suddenly he realized he was dying, of the hellish fire and overdried air, but felt no fear, only grief that he failed to deliver the cup…
The walls gave a dull crash, he felt a heavy jerk beneath, then a ringing clatter of pebbles on his helmet and shoulders. Dust and smoke hid the cup for a moment, then there seemed to be a blow of coolness. Thomas shook his head to clear his sight: the edges of crack had come together, into a black broken line. They were rising in turns, Thomas heard the stone blocks grinding and crackling.
He pushed himself off the wall, fell to his fours and crawled across the cave. The floor stopped trembling but kept burning his fingers, as well as his armor burnt his body. In the smoky room, the cup shone with a pure unearthly light, strangely familiar. Thomas sobbed: a flash of the same pure light came from Oleg, his true friend, when he dashed on the door of that asylum of dark magician!
As his head hit against the leg of the table, he clung at the burning hot marble, raised his disobedient body. Once his face was on a level with the cup, it shone brighter, as though it recognized him. Thomas took it carefully with trembling fingers, sobbed with exhaustion. The cup was strangely cool, as if it had stood in a shady garden, on a bank of a cold stream. Clutching the cup against his steel breast, Thomas staggered back into the corner where he’d left his sword near the slain Hazars. Leaning on it as on a staff, he hobbled out of the room, struggled to step over the broken door knocked out by the wonderer: it was melted and burnt over.
He had already passed the door when a thunder came from behind. The stone floor in the middle of the cave rose with dry crackle and crash, rocks flew sideways like dry leaves. The wonderer came out and up like a stone pillar: breathing heavily, exhausted, staggering with tiredness. Thomas screamed, almost dropped the cup, rushed to his friend. The wonderer leaned on his shoulder, drops of man’s sweat hissed on the steel plate, evaporating at once. The wonderer’s breast was rising fast and high. “You got the cup? Good, It’s very important.”
“Oleg…” Thomas said happily. “Dear sworn brother… I could not guess you are a demon as well… All right, we’ll be in Hell together!”
Oleg took in a deep breath, said hoarsely, “Let’s hurry up.”
“You know the way out?”
“No ideas at all.”
“But how…”
“There’s one more enemy. The Head of Secret Seven!”
Thomas felt creepy all over, despite the hot air. “Isn’t it enough fighting?” he asked in a husky voice.
“We need to know: why all that fuss about an old copper cup?”
He went out of the cave briskly. There was a rumble behind, the ceiling collapsed. Through the doorway, Thomas could see huge falling stones. He hurried after the wonderer, felt a push of hot air on his back. He glanced over again: the ceiling was down, walls coming closer.
“We have no need of the cave,” Oleg blurted impatiently.
“None we have,” Thomas agreed, then asked cautiously, “And that… magician? Couldn’t he survive as you did?”
“No,” Oleg replied without looking back.
The ceiling in two steps behind Thomas subsided, a stream of dirty water gushed out. He mended his pace, ran after the wonderer on the dry. “You killed him?”
“I failed to do it. Too much killing! I granted his life to him.”
“How is he?”
“Enclosed in stone. About a verst deep in. Or deeper… I don’t remember.”
Thomas hurried, his dumbfounded eyes fixed on the hunched back that once was so broad. His sword was
