into him. He felt like screaming but within moments it was over, and he slumped forward, all contact broken with the Serpent Man.
He knew what he must do. At that moment, the whole Tower began to shake.
Sardec’s eyes were drawn to the Tower as if by some magnetic force. It seemed like a trapped sun burned there, and Sardec half-expected the green death to come raining down on Morven.
The mansion quivered beneath his feet, like the pre-shock of an earthquake. It was like being trapped in the belly of some great beast as it writhed in its death agonies. A smell of ozone filled the air. In the distance he heard things crashing down. Sardec offered up a prayer to the god of his childhood for his own safety and the safety of the others.
Above him the cliffs split. Great boulders tumbled down into the ruins, and then great chunks of the rock face sheared away and began to fall, taking those smooth glassy walls with it.
Wind rushed against his face, and the smell of ozone intensified. Bolts of magical energy crackled from the tower. Then slowly the Tower of the Serpent rose from the middle of the fortress, tons of earth shedding from its base. The whole bottom of the Tower glowed greenly as it flew upward, gathering speed as it went, the great green light of the Serpent’s Fang blinking oddly.
The Tower had taken flight, faster than any dragon. Awe clutched Sardec’s heart at the sight of the ancient enigmatic structure vanishing into night and storm. He knew now how Ilmarec intended to destroy Azaar’s army. He doubted any power in the world could stop it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The moving walkway carried Rik though the heart of the Serpent Tower. He had an hour at most before the god’s heart at the core of the Tower erupted and destroyed him, the Tower and everything within leagues.
He groaned with desperation. He felt as if he were already dead. He needed to kill Ilmarec and reclaim the Serpent Man’s amulet, return it to the ancient being and hope that somehow it could save him. He did not think the chances of him managing it were good. He let out a long breath, and tried to calm his racing heart.
It was too late to worry now. In his mind’s eye, he pictured the path spiralling upward through the core of the Tower, through the secret levels that no human had ever penetrated before. In his heart the certainty was growing that no human would ever do so again.
The doorway slid outwards as the moving walkway stopped, revealing another corridor without a moving floor. Rik pushed on. This, at least, was something he was used to, being deep within forbidden ground all alone. It echoed his career as a burglar. Only then there had been no powerful demon-summoning sorcerers ahead of him. No lost princesses either.
He clutched his blade in his hand. He had his pistol in the other. He moved carefully, pausing to listen when he came to any entrances, making sure he heard nothing before proceeding passed them. He strode quietly along the corridors. He had been a thief in Sorrow, and often in places where absolute silence was his only protection. Somewhere out there were guardians, Terrarch soldiers, magical defences, and, worst of all, the Nerghul. He needed to hurry but he wanted to take no chances and the two imperatives warred within his soul.
The Tower was eerily quiet. His feet made no noise on the odd stonework, but he felt a strange thrumming vibration beneath them. Almost directly opposite was a window. Looking through it Rik could see the lights of the town, and the smouldering embers of the burned buildings. He seemed very high up now, almost touching the sky. The town spread out below, a glowing pattern of lights, like some Elder sign touched by sorcerous energy. Something about it reminded him of the way the runes had glowed on Sardec’s blade in the tunnels below Deep Achenar.
An awful thought struck him. Morven appeared to be receding below him. He knew now for certain that the Serpent Man has not lied about one thing; the Tower was airborne. Even as he watched, the clouds slid shut below them and obscured the lights of the town. He could see them roiling greenly, hellishly lit by the contrail of the massive structure as it ploughed ever upwards.
His stomach lurched as the tower seemed to tilt sideways. The tug of gravity remained the same, even though his own senses told him he should be tumbling through the air, or at least sliding sideways on the smooth floor. Whatever magic drove the tower through the sky kept gravity on the same plane within it.
Why not, he thought wonderstruck. The sorcery that could manage the one would surely have no difficulty with the other.
A sense of his own smallness in the great scheme of things filled him. He was trapped here in the belly of a thing both wonderful and terrifying, in an ancient vessel capable of leaping the immeasurable distances between the stars. When he thought of the forces at work here, he felt tiny. Who was he to pit his will against the Terrarch that could control such a thing?
Someone with no option but to try was the answer. Nonetheless, he paused for a moment before the massive crystal panes of the window and let the wonder of it flood his brain. Even if he died here, he would have seen something few others ever had or ever would again, and it seemed worthy of contemplation even if only for a few quick heartbeats before he moved on.
The way led upward and into an open chamber, low and circular, the ceiling dimpled like a dome. In the centre of the chamber was a raised dais. On the dais loomed what Rik at first took to be an incredibly life-like statue of a snake. Only after a few moments of holding his breath did he begin to believe what his instincts were telling him, that the thing was alive, and unsleeping, with a cold intelligence in its eyes and a hunger that was not entirely for flesh.
Even as he watched the massive serpent uncoiled lazily, its head arcing upwards to almost the height of the dome. Massive muscles rippled below its scaly skin. Green venom dripped from its long fangs.
He recognised the thing from the storybooks he had read as a youth and the knowledge the Serpent Man had placed in his head. It was a Na Gha, a guardian created by ancient sorcery. If those fangs pierced his skin he would surely die.
Ilmarec sensed something wrong. The powers within the heart of the Tower were unbalanced. No matter how hard he tried to control them, he failed. It was like trying to prevent water flooding through the sides of damaged boat. As soon as he dammed the energy in one area, it broke through in another. He controlled the Tower only with the greatest of difficulty. It constantly threatened to leap skyward out into the cold gulf of space or plummet earthward and bury itself into the ground. Despite the Old One’s warnings, he had never imagined that it could be so hard.
Worse, the power of the heart of the vessel raged unchained. For once the problem was not gathering enough energy to keep the magic working, the perennial trouble of all mages on this accursed globe, but to bend the titanic forces he had unleashed to his will. He feared that he had made a miscalculation. Desperately he forced his mind through the symbolic sorcery of the control ritual. He prayed that it would be enough.
The Na Gha slithered toward Rik, fast as a galloping horse. Its triangular head snapped down like a thunderbolt, so fast that the eye could barely follow it. Somehow Rik managed to twist aside and lashed out with his knife. The blade sliced the golden patterned scales. He slid to one side and stabbed again.
The Na Gha hissed like a boiling kettle and lashed out frenziedly. Rik saw he had destroyed one eye. Insane killing rage entered the thing’s good eye, as it swept forward once more.
He backed away, drawing his own pistol and aimed for the other eye. When the muzzle of his pistol was so close to the Na Gha’s eye he could almost touch it, he pulled the trigger, praying that the gun would not misfire.
The hammer thudded home. The charge sparked. The pistol boomed. The bullet was driven right through the jelly of the thing’s eye. It hissed and lashed the air once more. He threw himself clear and waited for another attack. It did not come but the huge snake took a long time to die.
He slumped wearily against the wall convinced that his shot must have attracted the attention of the whole tower. After a second he forced himself to move on.
The Nerghul emerged from the maze at the Tower’s heart. Its feet were on solid ground, at last, and not a moving walkway. It knew that whatever controlled the walkway had tried to frustrate its designs but in the end the Nerghul had proved victorious. From up ahead came the scent of its prey. Not far now, it realised, and it would
