blood and gristle. Using it as a club, it smashed its way through the crowd. Random shots from panicked soldiers helped do its work for it.
There was no need for this. None of it was getting it any closer to its prey. It sniffed the air again, and caught the scent. Swiftly, inexorably, it began to follow the trail.
Rik turned the corner and almost halted as two Terrarch officers ran towards him, swords drawn. “What’s going on down there?” the tallest and most arrogant looking asked. He had a Captain’s epaulettes, or what would have been such in Queen Arielle’s army.
“Monster,” said Rik. “It broke in, started slaughtering the servants. Looks like Dark Empire work.”
The Captain stared at him coldly. “Why are you running away?”
“Came to summon help,” said Rik, reaching out and grabbing the Captain, tugging him back towards the balcony. Down below was a scene of terrible chaos as the undead creature did its work. “Look,” he said. “Down there, there it is.”
The Captain nodded and then shot a sideways glance at Rik. “I don’t know you,” he said. Rik’s nerves were keyed up to the ultimate level. The Captain seemed to be moving as slowly as a man trapped in bad dream. Rik’s blow caught him on the side of the head and sent him toppling over the balcony.
The other officer just looked at him as if not quite able to understand what was going on. Rik was grateful. He sprang forward and punched him in the throat. The officer made a horrible rattling noise and went down. Rik caught his sword by the hilt even as it fell from numbed fingers and ran it through the officer’s body.
A strange sense of satisfaction flowed through him. It vanished when he noticed more soldiers led by a Terrarch officer were rushing down the rampway. They had seen what he had done, were looking at him with horror.
“Traitor,” shouted the leader.
There was no way up that way. He turned and ran as bullets smashed off the balcony all around him. He took the first turning on his left and then left again. Ahead of him loomed an entranceway, larger and dimmer than others in the Tower. He cast back his memory to the maps and realised that it was one of those marked as sealed. It quite obviously wasn’t sealed now.
There was something foreboding about it, that made his skin crawl but he did not have any choice. He raced towards it, expecting the door to block his way. To his surprise it gave way before him, and he sprawled forward into the darkest, innermost recesses of the Tower, into the area that had been forbidden even to Ilmarec for so many centuries.
Behind him he heard a Terrarch voice shouting: “ Don’t follow him. Whoever he is, the fool has doomed himself.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was quieter in this part of the Tower. Almost like one of Asea’s wards had slipped into place when he passed through the entrance. The sounds of pursuit fell away. Rik ran on slamming into walls in his panic, until he forced himself to stop and take his bearings and study his surroundings.
The walls glowed with their own soft internal light, dimmer than within the tower chambers. It suggested secrecy and stealth and some abominable purpose. Rik found it easy to imagine painted Serpent Men priests creeping through these tunnels and spying on their fellows, selecting sacrifices from among them and then carrying them off into the gloomy regions below as offerings to their demon gods, never to be seen again, never to be asked after.
He told himself he was imagining things, that he had read too many cheap novels, that the chances were that he could never guess or understand the motives of creatures as alien as the Serpent Men. They were not even as human as the Terrarchs. They had been created by other gods, under the light of other suns if Asea was to be believed. And now he stood within one of their secret places.
The question was: how was he going to get out alive.
The Nerghul raced in pursuit of its prey. Ahead it sensed life. A group of soldiers stood around an entrance while one of their green clad officers harangued them about something. The Nerghul ripped through them, smashing them to one side, forcing them out of its way, as it hurtled through the archway.
A few strides took it round a corner and out of their line of fire. It paused for a moment and inspected itself for damage. The bullets had torn its flesh, weakening it somewhat but it knew that given time it would heal.
The walls around it burned with sorcerous energy and it sensed powerful spells designed to maze and confuse intruders. Even as it realised that, the spells began to warp and twist its sense of direction. It paused for a moment and concentrated on the scent of its prey.
As long as it could hold on to that it would find its victim.
Rik pushed on down the corridor. His eyes adjusted to the gloom and he noticed that sometimes, strange symbols swirled along within the walls. They did not seem to be doing this in response to his presence. He felt as if he was merely the witness to something that was always going on. The corridor carried him towards a split like a serpent’s tongue. One branch went up and the other continued on the same level. He took the path heading up. The lights became dimmer. The air became staler. The oppressive sense of alien presence continued to grow.
At times dizziness swept over him. At first he put it down to the bad air but after a while he realised that it was more than just that. Magical energy was all around. Sometimes he felt as if he were crossing invisible lines of it. He felt a tingling on his skin and pressure in his ears that should not have been there. The path curved and branched, curved and branched. Always he kept to the left hand path, the one that went higher. The deeper within the Tower he went the stronger the sorcerous pressure became.
He felt as if something was opposing him, willing him to retreat, not to proceed any further. There were times when his feet felt like lead, and it took an enormous effort of will to continue to press forward.
He took another step and felt something click beneath his foot. He cursed himself for his carelessness. He had been so busy trying to deal with the sorcery he had neglected to look for the most basic of traps.
He glanced around waiting to see what would happen: wondering if he had triggered something that would seal the corridors or summon a guardian. He had encountered such things in the treasure rooms of merchants back in Sorrow. For a long moment nothing seemed to happen then the floor underneath his feet began to move.
He struggled to maintain his balance as the stone started to flow like a river at a uniform pace, carrying him upwards and inwards swifter than a man could run. He tried to turn but there was nothing he could do. No matter how fast he ran he was carried along: all his efforts were doing was slowing his progress and exhausting himself.
Eventually he sat down on the stonework and marvelled at the Elder World sorcery that could make the glassy stone flow like a solidified form of water. He felt as if he were on a sledge being carried upwards, at forks he was effortlessly and dizzingly moved between switches so that he became lost. He was moving so quickly and so randomly that he doubted he would be able to remember his way back even if he were allowed to depart.
Had he triggered a trap, he wondered, such as ancient kings set for tomb robbers? Or was this a sorcerous defence set by Ilmarec? The thought that the ancient wizard might know he was here filled him with fear. His swift progress had taken on an air of unreality now. The lights blurred by, the stone felt warmer. He wondered if he was being carried out of his world and into another, passing perhaps from the reality of Gaeia into some extra- dimensional hell.
Ilmarec laughed with pure pleasure then began the final stages of the ritual. He was dimly aware that somewhere far away an alarm had been triggered. The moth wings of a warning system beat against his senses. Intruders, he thought, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He needed all his concentration simply to keep control of the Tower’s intelligence.
And there was something else too. Somewhere another entity had seized control of part of the Tower. Had the Old One waited for this most critical moment to try and rebel? He promised himself if that were the case he would make it pay for its insolence and soon.
Right now he had other more important things to worry about. This was the most important stage of the ritual. If he failed here, the magic would run out of control and the consequences would prove incalculable. So much energy saturated the Tower that if he failed to rein it in, even this mighty structure would be destroyed. A power
