Lord of the Silent Kingdom

murder. So I've heard.'

'Schneidel tried to kill you and your family. Why don't you take him?' Brother Jokai asked.

'Because I don't want the Special Office tempted by the evil that surrounds him. And only the Special Office could manage him. So let the Pramans punish him.'

The Praman Nassim would put an edge on Schneidel and use him against er-Rashal. And right now er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen was the most dangerous man in the world. In Piper Hecht's mind.

'You could be right. Unbelievers they may be. But they tolerate wickedness and truck with the Night less than do our own true believers.'

Hecht knew better but did not say so. He was just a bright boy from the far north who got lucky.

He climbed the mountain. His lifeguards tagged along. Madouc complained all the way. Ahead, Prosek and the falcon crews warily recovered shot expended during the assault. Several dark things flapped through the breach in the wall. Falcons dispatched them in seconds.

Prosek came to meet his Captain-General. 'The loading pots worked perfectly, sir. As did the falcons. Not one blew up. You got to hand it to them Deves. They know what the hell they're doing when it comes to casting brass.'

'That's why they got my contract.'

'I hear there's some bad feelings about that.'

'No doubt. Nobody likes an elitist.'

Prosek frowned, puzzled.

Madouc told Prosek, 'He's determined to go poke around. Get some of them damned thunder busters up there with us. He's got no fucking idea what the hell is still hiding inside that rock pile.'

Hecht paused at Arn Bedu's open gate. He had not thought of that. And there was definitely a tingle round his left wrist.

All his thoughts had been focused on Cloven Februaren. What part had the old man played in Arn Bedu's fall?

There was no way it should have gone so smoothly and quickly. The Ninth Unknown was the only explanation for Rudenes Schneidel turning so meek in the end.

What the hell was that old man?

He said, 'Arn Bedu was never meant to be anything but a refuge. This gate isn't big enough to launch a sortie.'

Prosek said, 'The guys found a lot more store than we expected. The pagans could've held out for ages. Except that their water went bad. The prisoners thought something in the stone used to line the cisterns was leeching out.'

'What?'

'The captives say it was slow poison. Arsenic, or something. Guys sometimes suffered convulsions. Most of them didn't have much strength left. And nobody was thinking clearly. The guy in charge dealt with that by drinking nothing but wine.'

Rudenes Schneidel was a drunk? That might have something to do with his passivity.

Bad water and too much wine might mean that the Ninth Unknown had not been the key.

Hecht was not ready to buy it. Not whole. The Ninth Unknown was huge in everything. He was totally sure.

Hecht did not move again until Drago Prosek brought up all his falcons.

Arn Bedu was a sad, barren shell. Evidence that it had been occupied by real, living human beings was limited. And there had been fewer prisoners taken than expected.

Arn Bedu was no standard castle. The wall did not shield inner courts. It was the outside wall of a building occupied by a rich, deep darkness. The interior was mazelike as well.

Piper Hecht lost his compulsion to prowl and investigate seconds after entering the fortress. The place was haunted by a bleak despair so deep it recalled the creeping fractions of fallen gods reawakened in the End of Connec. By a despair so deep it had become a part of Arn Bedu's stone.

Cloven Februaren's doing?

Was there any chance that old man was that powerful?

Just could not be. Had to be because of what Rudenes Schneidel had been trying to do.

Hecht really did not want that old man to be something that much more than an ordinary man.

The lifeguards gabbled suddenly. Drago Prosek and Kait Rhuk babbled, too. Firepowder exploded an instant later, in the darkness ahead. The flash illuminated a passage pretty much standard for the bowels of a stone-built fortress. But there was something in that passageway. It struck every mortal with a fear of the Night of the sort known so intimately when men huddled round campfires and willingly did whatever was necessary to push the terror away.

'Seska!' Hecht gasped.

The face he saw in that flash was the face of Seska portrayed on the most ancient bas-relief murals within the timeless structures of al-Qarn. That face could not be described nor be immortalized by mortal artisan, yet it could not be mistaken.

Godslayer. Come to your end.

A falcon barked. Light and smoke rolled down the passageway.

Another falcon spoke.

Pain. Stunned, uncomprehending, incredulous pain, accompanied by fear of a sort unknown for ages.

The first falcon reiterated its declaration.

The second barked again.

Prosek and Rhuk had brought weapons capable of rapid speech.

Godslayer. You have won nothing! Fading. Surrender to the Will of the Night!

The falcons spoke again. And again. Shot rattled and whined off the walls of the passage, searching for the mystical flesh of the Old One, Seska. The revenant, the Endless, who must be but a shadow of the original.

The insane, shrieking something surged forward, psychically far more powerful than any of the bogons that had crossed Hecht's path. But Drago Prosek's falcons grumbled their basso profundo aria, proclaiming the passing of an Instrumentality of the Night.

The tide of Night reached Hecht. It tried to devour him. His amulet burned. It froze. He cried out. The pain!

The revenant screamed inside minds, continuously, incoherently, its only discernible thought a driving need to destroy the Godslayer. It struck like a cobra, over and over, its aim never true.

The Bruglioni ring burned colder than the coldest ice. Hecht was sure he would lose the finger.

Hands grabbed him. He fought. Thunder rolled overhead. His cheek stung from the heat of a falcon's breath.

Darkness. Unconsciousness. A sojourn within the realm of the Night, hiding in plain sight amongst hunting Instrumentalities who snuffled through space and time alike in their search for the thing they were convinced could destroy them.

He wakened inside his own shelter. The transition from deep down in the darkness to waking came suddenly. He tried to jump up.

He could not. He had been placed in restraints.

His attempt to shout failed completely.

Reason set in. He noted that he was not alone. A priest from one of the healing orders hunched over a charcoal brazier. Madouc and Titus sat near the entrance, still as battered gargoyles.

'You made it.' Cloven Februaren.

'I did.'

'How deep did you go?' The voice came from behind him, from out of sight.

'I don't know. I don't know what you mean. I was out. I had nightmares. Now I'm awake.'

'It never got its claws into you. Lucky you, you were wearing that ring.'