famine?'
'You distort the truth with words; old man,' Garth said, resisting an urge to give in, to admit that the Forgotten King was right. He was uncertain whether this impulse came from himself or from Bheleu or from some magic wrought by the King, the book, or the mask. Whatever it was, it was powerful, almost hypnotic; his gaze was fixed on the Pallid Mask, white and gleaming, and he found it hard to think of resistance. 'What of Frima?' he asked, grasping at the first memory he could dredge up. 'She has done nothing to deserve death. Surely there are millions more like her.'
The old man did not answer; instead, he leaned his head forward and began chanting again.
Garth remembered suddenly why he had come to this place and demanded loudly, 'Old man, are there any Aghadites here?' He doubted that there were. The Forgotten King would not care to be disturbed by their presence, and Garth knew that the King was capable of enforcing his whims.
The chanting broke, and the King said, 'We are alone here, Garth, alone with our gods.'
The overman, refusing to trust the old man, tried to figure out some way in which this pronouncement could be interpreted that would allow for the presence of cultists. He could think of none; after a moment's hesitation he nodded and turned to go.
The King was chanting again, but his voice was suddenly drowned out by another sound, distorted by the echoes of the passageway and by the distance, but still, unmistakably, the roar of a warbeast.
Startled, Garth froze, staring into the shadows of the entry passage; then, with the glowing sword held out before him, he broke into a run.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Blood spattered across his face as he emerged from the cave. Garth blinked and raised his free hand to shield his eyes. His ears were filled with human screaming and the roaring of the warbeast.
His first impulse was to strike out with the Sword of Bheleu, blasting whatever stood before him, but he restrained himself. Koros and Frima were around somewhere, and he did not want to harm them. The sword's power was not selective enough to leave them unscathed in a blind attack.
After the first shower of blood across his face, nothing more struck him, although Garth did not yet realize what had actually hit him. He lowered his hand and opened his eyes.
Koros stood before him, fangs bared and dripping blood, several mangled corpses beneath its massive paws, others flung up against either side of the defile, weapons scattered on all sides. Its roar had died to a sullen growling.
Garth wiped at the liquid on his face, looked at the residue on his hand, and then understood that blood had been flung upon him by the warbeast's attack on the last of the Aghadites. It was, he was sure, human blood.
The warbeast was not uninjured, however. Three crossbow quarrels protruded from one shoulder, and a fourth from one of its forepaws. Something had gashed it across the face, narrowly missing one of its great golden eyes.
No further threat remained. There could be no doubt that every human in sight was dead.
With that thought, Garth became aware that Frima was not there. He looked over the bloody bodies, but saw none that might have been his Dыsarran companion.
The sound of screaming was still continuing, he noticed, coming from somewhere beyond the rocks to his right. Koros was looking in that direction, apparently trying to locate the sound's source. It was only then that Garth realized he was hearing, not the wordless yelling of dying men, but a human female calling, 'Koros! Koros!'
It was Frima's voice, but no sooner had Garth recognized it than it fell silent.
'Frima!' the overman bellowed.
There was no answer; his cry echoed from the surrounding rock and was followed only by silence.
'Frima!' Garth called again. Koros growled; there was no other response.
It was obvious that the Aghadites had gotten her, separating her from the warbeast somehow, and then killing her. Garth felt his anger mount. He saw the glow of the sword deepen to red and brighten to a ferocious glare. The Aghadites would pay for this, he promised himself. They would all die, every one of them, no matter where they might hide. They had destroyed an innocent girl and they would regret it-if they lived long enough to know what happened.
He remembered the Forgotten King's words, and his own reply. Frima was gone now, and with her, his concern for the world's inhabitants. The world might be full of innocent victims, he told himself, but if he didn't destroy them, someone else would.
'I'a bheluye!' he cried. 'Aghad, I will destroy you!' He turned and strode back into the temple of Death.
Watching from their concealed vantage point at the mouth of a tunnel in the surrounding stone, the high priestess of Aghad and two of her companions saw the overman's magic sword blaze up a baleful red, and heard him proclaim his anger.
'I think,' the high priestess said, 'that we should wait until he's had some time to calm down. If we try to bargain with him now, he's liable to fry us all before we can speak a dozen words; he's too mad to worry about the girl. When he's had more time to think, we should be able to make a deal.'
Her companions made noises of agreement, peering warily out. Farther down the tunnel, a loud thump sounded, followed by muffled cursing.
'Be careful with her!' the high priestess warned. 'She may be the only thing that keeps us all alive!'
'I beg your forgiveness, mistress,' someone answered. 'But she fights like a mad creature. She chewed through the gag already, and we had to drop her to prepare another.'
The priestess turned away from the tunnel opening and stared down at the struggling form of their captive, barely visible in the light of the single shuttered lantern allowed so near the entrance. 'You can hurt her if you need to,' she said, 'just as long as you don't kill her or cripple her.'
Frima thrashed harder and tried to scream; one of the Aghadites jammed another wadded cloth into her mouth, stifling the sound.
Garth did not hear Frima's struggles, and would not have paid enough attention to recognize them for what they were if he had. He was convinced that she was dead. Whenever someone else had fallen into the hands of the Aghadites, he or she had died. Kyrith had died and Saram had died; Garth saw no reason to think that Frima had fared any better. He expected to be confronted with her mutilated corpse when next he emerged from the temple of Death-if he ever did emerge.
He strode down the passageway with the sword blazing before him, the glow feeding on his anger and stoking it as well. His rage, or the combination of his own despair and rage with the malign influence of Bheleu, had driven all conscious thought from his mind, save the necessity of destroying the cult of Aghad, regardless of the means or the cost. He stormed into the inner chamber of the temple just as the Forgotten King's chanting paused.
'What must I do, old man?' Garth demanded.
'You will know when the time comes,' the Forgotten King replied. He began to chant again.
Garth was in no mood to wait, but he forced himself to stand behind the King, awaiting the instructions he was sure would come. The old man would give him a sign, some way of knowing what was expected of him, and he would act; the spell would be completed, and the world would end.
His enemies would be destroyed-the cult of Aghad would be wiped out to the last stinking, treacherous member. The city of Dыsarra, which had so blighted his life, would vanish. The gods themselves, the foul Aghad and Garth's own unwanted master Bheleu among them, would die. The Forgotten King would perish, and his Unnamed God with him.
Garth himself would die, but what of it? He had little enough left in the world. His people had scorned him, Kyrith and Saram and Frima had been murdered, and his world had sunk into an era of chaos and
