To Green Angel Tower Part 2 Part 61

The terrible sensation of shifting eddied away, and with it the dancing lights that, for a moment, had made Tiamak think the great staircase was burning. He shook his head, trying to clear his rattled thoughts. What could be happening? The air seemed strangely hot, and he felt the hairs on his arm and neck p.r.i.c.kling.

"Something dreadful is happening," Tiamak cried. He staggered in Josua's shadow, wondering if the increasing force of the strange slippages meant that the Norn Queen was defeating the Sithi. The thought fastened on him as though it had claws. Perhaps she had escaped the pool. Would she follow him and the prince up the darkened stairs, silver mask expressionless, white robes fluttering...?

"He's gone!" Josua's voice was full of horror. "But how can that be?"

"What? Gone where?" Tiamak looked up.

The torchlight revealed a place where the stairwell abruptly stopped, capped by a low ceiling of stone. Camaris was nowhere in sight.

"There is no place he could have hidden!" the prince said.

"No, look!" Tiamak pointed toward a fissure in the ceiling wide enough to allow a man to crawl through.

Josua quickly lifted Tiamak up into the hole, then held him steady while the Wrannaman probed for something to grasp. Tiamak found he could almost push his head above the surface on the far side. He pulled himself up and through, fighting against his treacherous, weary muscles, and when he lay quivering on the stone floor he called down through the fissure: "Come! It's a storeroom!"

Josua tossed up the torch. With a helping hand from Tiamak, he struggled upward through the crack. Together they raced across the room, dodging the bits of wreckage strewn about, and climbed a rickety ladder through a hatchway. Beyond this was another storeroom, this one with a small window high in the wall. Threatening black clouds roiled in the box of sky visible there, and cold wind bled through. Another hatchway led to yet one more level.

As Tiamak put his aching leg to the bottommost rung, a crash resounded back through the hatch door, a sudden and violent sound. Josua, who climbed above him, sped up the ladder and disappeared.

When Tiamak made his way to the top, he found himself in a small, shadowy room, staring at the flinders of a door strewn outward into the chamber beyond. He could see torchlight in the chamber, and figures moving. Josua's voice rang out.

"You! May G.o.d send your black soul to h.e.l.l!"

Tiamak hurried to the doorway, then stopped, blinking as he tried to make sense of the wide circular room that opened before him. On his left, the windows above the tall main doors streamed with scarlet-tinted light that vied with the dull glow of torches in the wall sconces. Just a few cubits before the Wrannaman, Camaris stood in the ruins of the smaller door which had blocked his own way out into the chamber; the old knight now stood motionless, as though stunned. Josua was only an arm's length away from Camaris, Naidel unsheathed and dangling in his hand. Two dozen paces beyond them, on the far side of the stone floor, a small door in the wall mirrored the one Camaris had just burst into flinders. On Tiamak's right, beyond a high arch, a great sweep of stairs coiled upward out of sight.

But it was the figures on the bottom steps of this staircase that caught and held Tiamak's eye, as they had Josua's-especially the bald man in the flapping red robe, who stood tall in the midst of a strew of human bodies, like a fisherman in a shallow stream. One armored man he still held by the shoulders, though the way the soldier's gold-helmeted head wagged suggested he had long since stopped fighting.

"d.a.m.n you, Pryrates, let him go!" cried Josua.

The priest laughed. With a shrug, he effortlessly threw aside ... Camaris, who clattered on the stone flags and lay still, black blade clutched in his fist.

Tiamak stared in numb astonishment. The Camaris he and Josua had followed still stood nearby, wavering slightly like a tree in a stiff breeze. How could there be two? Who sprawled there?

"Isorn!" Josua shouted, his voice ragged with grief. Tiamak suddenly remembered, and the terror that clutched him clamped tighter. The deception they had conceived with the Sithi had come to this-this clutter of motionless men? Nearly a dozen soldiers, including powerful young Isorn, and the priest had defeated them with his bare hands? What could possibly stop Pryrates and his immortal ally now? Josua and his companions had but one of the Great Swords, and its wielder, Camaris, seemed lost in a dreaming daze....

"I'll have your heart for this," Prince Josua snarled, leaping toward the stairway. Pryrates lifted his hands and a nimbus of oily yellow light flickered around the alchemist's fingers. As Naidel came flashing toward him in a wide, deadly arc, Pryrates' hand snaked out and caught the blade. The point of contact hissed like a hot stone dropped into water, then the priest grabbed Josua's sword arm and pulled him forward. The prince struggled, flailing at Pryrates with his other, handless arm, but the priest caught that too and drew Josua toward him until their faces were so close it seemed that the alchemist might kiss the prince.

"It is almost too easy," Pryrates said, laughing.

Tiamak, weak with fear, slid back into the shadows of the doorway. I must do something-but who am I? I must do something-but who am I? The Wrannaman could barely stand upright. The Wrannaman could barely stand upright. A little man, a n.o.body! I am no fighter! He would catch me and kill me like a tiny fish. A little man, a n.o.body! I am no fighter! He would catch me and kill me like a tiny fish.

"There is no h.e.l.l deep enough for you," Josua grated. Sweat streamed down his face, and his sword arm trembled, but he seemed as helpless as a child in the priest's prisoning grip.

"And I will visit them all." Pryrates extended his arms again. The yellow light wavered around him. "You are one of the few who have balked me, Lackhand. Now you will see that your interference comes to-nothing." He flung Josua against the nearby arch. The prince struck hard and slid down to lie motionless beside a man dressed in his own gray surcoat and armor-the Nabbanai baron's brother, Brindalles. The man's right arm, like Josua's, ended in a black leather cap, but Brindalles' arm was bent at an angle that made Tiamak's stomach lurch. There was no sign of life on the impostor's pale, blood-flecked face.

Tiamak shrank farther back into the shadows, but Pryrates did not even look at him. Instead, the priest moved up the stairwell, then stopped and turned to Camaris.

"Come, old one," he said, and smiled. Tiamak thought his grin as empty and mirthless as a crocodile's. "I can feel the ward solidifying, which means the time has come. You need carry your burden only a little farther."

Camaris took a step toward him, then stopped, shaking his head slowly. "No," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "No. I will not let it ..." Something of his real self had returned; Tiamak felt a faint swelling of hope.

Pryrates only crossed his arms on his scarlet breast. "It will be interesting to watch you resist. You will fail, of course. The pull of the sword is too strong for any mortal, even a tattered legend like yourself."

"d.a.m.n you," Camaris gasped. His body twitched and he shifted his balance back and forth, as though he fought some invisible thing that sought to tug him toward the stairs. The old knight sucked in a breath with a painful gasp. "What manner of creature are you?"

"Creature?" Pryrates' hairless face was amused. "I am what a man who accepts no limits can become...."

While his last words still hung in the air, there was a sudden booming concussion. Where the door on the opposite side of the chamber had been, a murky cloud billowed. Several shadowy figures stumbled through, indistinguishable in the smoke.

"How exciting." Pryrates' tone was sardonic, but Tiamak saw a certain animation creep into the alchemist's face that had not been there before. The priest took a step downward and peered into the haze. A moment later he reeled back, gurgling, with a black arrow all the way through his neck, its head standing out a handspan beyond the skin. Pryrates stumbled in place for a moment, then fell and rolled down the stairs to lie beside his victims. Blood pooled beneath his head, as though his bright robes melted and ran.

Miriamele stared up and down the narrow hallways, struggling to regain her bearings. The Chancelry had been a daunting maze when she had lived in the castle, but it was even more confusing now. Familiar doors and hallways were not quite where they should be, and all the pa.s.sages seemed the wrong lengths, as though the Chancelry's dimensions had somehow become shiftingly fluid. Miriamele struggled to keep her head. She was certain she could eventually find a way through, but she feared the loss of precious time.

As she waited for her companions, the freezing wind which whistled through the unshuttered windows rolled a few crumpled parchments past her feet.

Binabik trotted around the corner. "I did not mean that you should be waiting for me," he said. "I was stopping only because I saw these. They have come through the window, I am thinking." He handed her three arrows of plainer workmanship than the Norn shafts she had scavenged earlier. "There were others, too, but they had been broken by striking on the stone walls." Miriamele had no quiver to put them in. She slipped them into the open corner of her pack beside Simon's prize and the shafts she had saved from the tunnels. Even with Binabik's additions she still had far fewer arrows than she would have liked, but it was a relief to know that if it came to it, she need not sell her life cheaply.

Look at me, she marveled. me, she marveled. The world is ending The world is ending, the Day of Weighing-Out has come at last ... and I'm playing at soldier. the Day of Weighing-Out has come at last ... and I'm playing at soldier.

Still, it was better than letting the terror push through. She felt it coiling inside her, and knew that if she let go of composure for even a moment she would be overwhelmed.

"I wasn't waiting." She pushed away from the wall. "Just making sure I know the way. This place was always difficult, but now it's almost impossible. And it's not just this...." She gestured at the smashed furniture and the ghostly rags of parchment, the doors splintered off their hinges that lay across the pa.s.sage. "There are other changes too, things I don't understand. But I think I'm right, now. We must go quietly from here, wind or no wind-we're almost to the chapel, and that's right beside the tower."

"Cadrach is coming." The troll said it as though he thought she might care.

Miriamele curled her lip. "I'm not waiting. If he can keep up, then let him." She hesitated for a moment, then pulled one of the arrows from her pack and nocked it, letting it sit loosely on the bowstring. Armed, she set off down the narrow hallway. Binabik looked back, then scurried after her.

"He has been having as much hurt as us, Miriamele," said the troll. "Maybe more. Who can say what things he or she would be doing under Pryrates' torturing?"

"The monk has lied to me more times than I can count." The thought of his betrayals burned so fiercely inside her that for a moment she was not even afraid. "One word of truth about the swords, about Pryrates, might have saved us all."

Binabik's face was unhappy. "We are not losing everything yet."

"Not yet."

Cadrach caught up to them in the chaplain's walking hall. The monk said nothing-perhaps in part because he was fighting for breath-but fell in behind the troll. Miriamele allowed herself one icy stare.

As they reached the door, everything seemed to shift again. For a moment Miriamele thought she saw pale flames running up the walls; she struggled not to cry out as, for a dreadful instant, she felt herself torn apart. When the sensation pa.s.sed, she did not feel as though she had been completely restored.

Long moments pa.s.sed before she felt able to speak.

"The ... chapel is on ... the other side." Despite the incessant keening of the wind beyond the walls, Miramele whispered. The terror inside her was struggling to break free and it took all her strength to keep it in place. Binabik was wide-eyed and unusually pale; Cadrach looked ill, his forehead moist, his gaze fever-bright. "On the far side there is a short hallway that leads directly into the tower. Look to your feet. With all these broken things about, you might trip and hurt yourself-" she pointedly addressed her concern only to Binabik, "-or make enough noise that whoever is inside will hear us coming."

The troll smiled wanly. "Like hare's feet are the steps of the Qanuc," he whispered. "Light on snows or rock."

"Good." Miriamele turned to stare at the monk, trying to divine what further treachery might lurk behind his watery gray eyes, then decided it did not matter. There was little Cadrach could do to worsen their situation: the time for stealth would be over in moments, and what had been their greatest hope seemed now to have been turned against them.

"Follow me, then," she told Binabik.

As she opened the door into the transept of the chapel, the cold reached out and grasped at her; a cloud of her steaming breath hung in the air. She paused for a moment and listened before leading her companions out onto the wide chapel floor. Snow had drifted into the comers and against the walls, and pools of water lay everywhere on the stone. Most of the benches were gone; the few tapestries that remained flapped in ragged, moldy strips. It was hard to believe it had once been a place of comfort and refuge.

The storm and the clamor of the struggle outside were also louder here. When she looked up, she learned the reason.

The great dome overhead had been ruptured, the gla.s.s saints and angels all tumbled and shattered into colored dust. Miriamele trembled, awed even after all she had experienced to see a familiar thing so changed. Snowflakes swirled lazily downward, and the storm-darkened sky, touched with the bloodlight of the flaming star, twisted in the broken frame like an angry face.

As they made their way across the front of the apse, past the altar, Miriamele saw that other forces beside impersonal nature had worked desecration here: crude hands had smashed the faces of the holy martyrs' statues, and had smeared others with blood and worse things.

Despite the dangerous footing, they made their way silently across to the far transept. She led them down a slender pa.s.sageway to a door set deeply into the rock. She stooped and listened at the keyhole, but could hear nothing through the echoing din that leaked from above. A strange, painful, p.r.i.c.kling sensation came over her, as though lightning were in the air-but lightning was in the air, she reminded herself.

"Miriamele...." Cadrach sounded frightened.

She ignored him, trying the latch. "Locked," she said quietly, then shrugged against the crawling itch, which was worsening. "And too heavy for us to knock down."

"Miriamele!" Cadrach pulled at her sleeve. "Some kind of barrier is being formed. We will be trapped."

"What do you mean?"

"Can you not sense it pushing in on us? Feel your skin creep? A barrier is being formed and drawn inward to surround the tower. Pryrates' work-I feel his heedless power."

She stared at the monk, but there was no sign of anything but unfeigned concern on his face. "Binabik?" she asked.

"I am thinking he speaks rightly." He, too, was beginning to twitch. "We will be squeezed in a most comfortless way."

"Cadrach, you opened the dwarrows' door. Open this one."

"This is a simple lock, Lady, not a door-warding spell."

"But you have been a thief, too!"

He shivered. Wisps of hair were beginning to stand upright on his head, and Miriamele could feel a stirring on her own arms and scalp. "I have no lockpicks, no tools-it is useless. Perhaps it is just as well. I wager it will be a quick death."

Binabik hissed in exasperation. "I am not wanting any death, of quickness or slowness, if it can be escaped." He stared at the door for a moment, then threw down his pack and began to rummage in it.

Miriamele watched helplessly. The oppressive feeling was growing by the moment. Praying they could find some other way into the tower, she hurried back up the pa.s.sageway, but within a dozen strides the air seemed to become grossly thicker, harder to breathe. A strange humming was in her ears and her skin burned. Unwilling to give up so easily, she took a few more steps; each was more difficult than the last, as though she waded in deepening mud.

"Come back!" Cadrach cried. "That will do you no good!"

She turned with difficulty and made her way back to the door. "You were right, there is no going back. But this thing, this barrier, moves so slowly!"

The monk was scratching frenziedly at his arms. "Such things take a certain time to appear, and the priest has expended much power summoning it. He obviously intends nothing should go in or come out."

Binabik had found a small leather sack and was rooting in it. "How do you know it's Pryrates?" Miriamele asked. "Perhaps it's ... the other."

Cadrach shook his head mournfully, but there was a hard core of rage beneath. "I know the red priest's work. G.o.ds! I shall never forget the feeling of his filthy presence in my head, in my thoughts...."

"Miriamele, Cadrach," the troll said. "Lift me up."

They bent and raised him from the floor, then moved at his direction to the side of the door. The air seemed to be tightening around them: the effort to lift tiny Binabik seemed tremendous. The troll climbed until he stood with his feet on their quivering shoulders.

"It's ... hard to ... breathe," Miriamele panted. Something was buzzing in her ears. Cadrach's mouth hung open and his chest heaved.

"No speaking." Binabik reached up and poured a handful of something into the door's upper hinge.

Miriamele's ears were hammering now; she felt squeezed, as though held in a huge, crushing fist. A constellation of sparks spun in the shadows before her.

"Turn away your faces," Binabik gasped, then took something from his hand and smacked it sharply against the hinge.

A sheet of light filled Miriamele's eyes. The throttling fist became a giant open hand that slapped her away from the door. Despite the force, she fell backward only a little way and retained her feet, buoyed by the unseen but encroaching barrier. Binabik toppled from her shoulders and fell onto the ground between her and Cadrach.

When she could see again, the door lay a-tilt in its frame, half-obscured by drifting smoke.

"Through!" she said, and tugged the troll's arm. He s.n.a.t.c.hed up his pack, then they pushed into the dark s.p.a.ce, stumbling on the tipped door. For a moment Miriamele stuck in the doorway, her pack wedged, her bow snagged on the broken hinge, but she fought free at last. When they had pa.s.sed over into Green Angel Tower's broad antechamber, the pressure was suddenly gone.

"Lucky we are the hinges were outside," Binabik gasped, fanning the air.

Miriamele stopped and stared. Through the murk she could see a flash of bright red on the tower's staircase. A moment later the smoke had cleared enough that she could clearly see Pryrates' gleaming pink skull. Bodies lay scattered at his feet, and Camaris stood before him in the room's center. The old man was staring at the priest with such hopeless misery that Miriamele felt her heart tear in her breast.

Grinning, Pryrates turned from the old knight and took a step down, swiveling his bottomless black eyes toward the doorway where she stood. The door's destruction seemed to have startled him no more than the fall of a tumbling leaf. Without thinking, Miriamele lifted her bow, straightened the arrow, drew, and fired. She aimed for the widest part of the priest's body, but the shaft flew high. It seemed a miracle when she saw Pryrates stumble backward. When she saw that the arrow stood from his throat, she was too dumbfounded at her own shot even to feel joy. The priest fell and rolled bonelessly down the few remaining steps to the antechamber floor.

"Chukku's Stones!" the troll gasped. "You have ended him."

"Uncle Josua!" she shouted. "Where are you? Camaris! It's a trick! They wanted wanted us to bring the swords!" us to bring the swords!"

I've killed him! The thought was a quiet bloom of exultation deep inside her. The thought was a quiet bloom of exultation deep inside her. I've killed the monster! I've killed the monster!

"The sword must not be going any farther," cried Binabik.

The old knight took a few lurching steps toward them, but even with Pryrates facedown on the floor, dead or dying, Camaris still seemed in the grip of some terrible power. Of Josua there was no sign; but for the old man, all in the chamber lay motionless.

Before anyone could speak again a bell rang in the tower high above, monstrously loud, lower and deeper than any bell Miriamele had ever heard. The very stones of the wide room shuddered, and she felt its tolling strike into her bones. For an instant the antechamber seemed to melt away, the waterstained tapestries replaced by walls of gleaming white. Lights glittered everywhere, like fireflies. As the cry of the bell faded, the illusion flickered and disappeared.

As Miriamele struggled to regain her wits, a figure rose slowly near the foot of the stairs, grasping at the stone arch for support. It was Josua, his cloak hanging raggedly, his thin shirt torn at the neck.

"Uncle Josua!" Miriamele hastened toward him.

He stared at her, eyes wide and, for a brief moment, uncomprehending. "You live," he said at last. "Thank G.o.d."

"It's a trick," she said even as she threw her arms around him. The small return of hope, when the greatest perils still remained, was painful as a knife-wound. "The false messenger-that was the rhyme about the swords! It was a trick. They wanted wanted the swords here, wanted us to bring them!" the swords here, wanted us to bring them!"

He gently disengaged himself. A trickle of blood showed along his high hairline. "Who wanted the swords? I do not understand."

"We were fooled, Prince Josua." Binabik came forward. "It has been the planning of Pryrates and the Storm King all along that the swords should be brought here. I am thinking the blades will be used in some great magic."

"We didn't find Bright-Nail," Miriamele said urgently. "Do you have it?"

The prince shook his head. "The barrow was empty."