The Tower Of Fear

"Who? What are you talking about?"

"Damn you!" he bellowed at Torgo. "You didn't tell her?"

"I told her." Torgo sulked.

"He told me but the message didn't get through. I would appreciate it if you'd calm down and get to the point." Azel said, "We got Dartars pounding on the door, woman. They're going to be inside any minute." He had a smug I-told-you-so look.

Some residual mental fog stalled her momentarily. Then she asked, "How can that be? Nobody has found the Postern of Fate before."

"They got their own witch and she unraveled the way in. Are you going to do something or are you going to sit there and just let things happen?"

The fear hit like a blast of steam. Nakar! If she did not do something shewould lose him-and everything else, just when she had found the right child.

She lunged forward. The women who had been standing around, silent andhelpless and embarrassed, tried to stop her, insisted they dress her. Sheshook them off. There was no time. Her dream was under attack. Her love was in peril. For even entertaining that idea she would see those savages lose theirsouls.

Torgo and Azel and the women swept after her. The men muttered at each otherangrily. She paid them no heed.

As she marched downstairs she asked what steps had been taken. Azel told herand made a few suggestions. Torgo sulked some more, a gigantic infant withfeelings easily bruised.

"You take charge of stalling the attack, Azel. Do whatever you have to, to buytime."

"What I need is a little help from you. You bloody their noses and they'llback off."

She did not bother answering. "Torgo, stay with me. I want two women to lightthe lamps in the temple. The rest go with Azel."

She caught an exchange of looks between the killer and the eunuch. Azel wasdisappointed in her again. He seemed, almost, to despair.

Arif knew something had happened, and that something dreadful was going tohappen, when all the people ran into the big room where the cage was. Theycame straight to the cage. The big man opened the door. They all came inside.

Zouki peeked out of the vegetation. He saw the woman. The beautiful woman. Hewent into a fit of tears. Arif thought he looked puzzled, like he wasterrified and did not know why he should be.

The woman pointed. "That one, too."

Arif wanted to run away. He thought he could get away from them if he got inthere with the rock apes. The apes hated the big man ... But Zouki was thereand something would not let him run. He hesitated a moment too long, anyway.

One of the adults was between him and the vegetation, running after Zouki.

Then the big man caught him up as he started to run the other way.

Thunder shook the citadel.

"Torgo!" the woman snapped. "Hurry!"

The big man said nothing, just snatched Arif up and set out after thebeautiful woman. Behind them, Zouki squealed, caught. The other adults beganrounding up the remaining children. The short, wide man yelled at them tohurry.

Aaron had stomach cramps. He had trouble hearing the Herodian sorceress, whohad gathered everyone around. As soon as she stopped talking about it they were going to do it. The Dartar boy Yoseh stood to his right, shaking. Reyhapressed against him from the left, strangely calm.

Mo'atabar translated from the Herodian, loosely. "She says that right insidethe gateway we should run into a narrow, straight passageway about forty feetlong. That's all she can tell about it from here. She says it should be thehardest part. We get through, the place should be ours. She says get throughfast, don't stop for anything. She has to get in to the anchor for the patternso she can kill its traps. Questions? No? Then let's get lined up."

They would pass through the pattern single file, follow-the-leader, so eachman could repeat exactly the steps taken by the man ahead. Traps could beevaded but not disarmed except from within.

The surviving prisoners drew straws. Three would win immediate release. Fourwould lead the column. The winners cheered and the losers wept. Mo'atabarissued captured Herodian short-swords to the latter.

Aaron eyed the equipment carried by the shock troops. In addition to heavyshields, helmets, armor, javelins, and pikes, many had coils of rope wrappedaround them, rope ladders, bundles of javelins and arrows and bows, or stuffedpacks on their backs.

The line began moving.

His place was toward the end, behind Yoseh. Only Reyha, Mo'atabar, and thesorceress followed him.

He heard the screaming before he caught sight of the breach. He nearly voidedhimself. But the line kept moving and he thought of Arif in there and he keptmoving, too.

Yoseh wanted to yell at the carpenter to stop stepping on his heels. He wasmoving as fast as he could. He had to concentrate on what Mahdah was doing sohe would not misstep.

Sweat poured out of him, mixed with the sweat of the sky. He'd never been sothoroughly scared. Never before had he been given so much time to work himselfinto a panic ...

He heard the screaming as the entrance wavered into existence, alive withflashes of pink and lemon light. As that dreadful maw welcomed him themomentum of the line faltered, but only for a moment. He skipped over two ofthe veydeen prisoners, then three of the warriors Fa'tad had sent to lead theattack.

Halfway along the passage there was a small guardroom the sorceress had notmentioned. Two men and a woman lay dead there. Blood covered everything, looking like shiny black paint in the feeble light of a single lamp. One ofthe men had been disemboweled. Yoseh gagged at the stench.

"Keep moving!" Mo'atabar yelled. "This tunnel is a deathtrap. "

It was. Yoseh stumbled over another five bodies before he reached its end.

Three were his own people, one was a prisoner, and one was a woman with ajavelin protruding from her back.

The passage ended in a large space divided into stall-like compartments bypartitions of rough boards. The pink and yellow lights still played there. Afire burned in a corner. There was a lot of screaming. Dartars chased peoplethrough the maze and got caught as often as they caught someone.

"Stop!" Mo'atabar yelled. "Nogah! Get the bodies out of the passage. Find outif any of them are still alive. See if you can find lamps or lanterns ortorches."

"Enemy bodies, too?"

"All of them."

Nogah assigned Yoseh, Mahdah, Faruk, and two others.

It was not pleasant work, nor was it easy, but it did not take long, either.

Yoseh was pleased when he discovered that two of the Dartars were not dead.

Mo'atabar told the surviving prisoner he was free to leave.

The ferrenghi sorceress set up in the guardroom, began disarming the patterngate.

Mo'atabar tried to convince the carpenter and veydeen woman they should staywith the sorceress. They refused. They wanted to run with the hunters.

Mo'atabar shrugged. "Your lives," he told them. "Your risk."

"Our children," the woman countered. She did not say much.

The look in her eye made Yoseh's flesh crawl. It was the look he imaginedshone in the eyes of cannibals.

The battle of the storeroom ended, a Dartar victory but not cheap. Anotherfive of the shock force had been slain. The losses concerned Mo'atabar thoughhe tried to hide it. "Nogah, you and your bunch collect up the stuff these menwere carrying." Yoseh ended up with a coil of rope, a bow, and arrows. Whatwas he going to do with those?

The fire went out of its own accord. Beyond lay the only apparent exit.

Offered a bow, the carpenter refused. "I'd probably hit myself in the foot.

Give me a javelin if I have to take anything." He accepted a shield, too. Hesaid he had learned to use both in younger days.

The veydeen woman asked for a javelin, too. Handed one, she held it away likeit was a poisonous snake.

Mo'atabar herded everyone together near where the fire had died. He said, "Iasked the witch what next and she says the next area is kitchens and stuff.

Once past those we should be past the worst."

Nogah muttered, "That's what you said about the passage coming in."

Mo'atabar scowled. "Look out for booby traps and ambushes." He added othercautions.

Yoseh did not listen closely. This was not the Dartar way of war, mounted, sweeping across the desert. This was like fighting through the caverns of theunderworld. He stared at the dead defenders. Men and women both, all far tooold to fight. Old as Tamisa's grandmother. He did not like what that implied.

Those ancients had sacrificed themselves. Though their efforts had not beenfanatical or terribly courageous. It seemed a desperate attempt to buy time.

Which had to mean there was something to buy time for.

Nakar the Abomination.

Yoseh's fear deepened.

He glanced at the carpenter and felt sorry for the man.

Mo'atabar read the same story from the same signs. He admonished everyone tohurry. "Ready?" Like a good Dartar chieftain he led the charge.

The nothing of the opening hurled him back into the men behind him.

"It's blocked!" someone yelled.

"But there isn't anything there!"

Mo'atabar cursed and probed with a javelin snatched from someone's hand.

"Blocked," he admitted. "Some damned witchery. Break through a wall orsomething. I'll drag the ferrenghi witch up here."

Men dropped their packs, began unlimbering tools.

The Witch paused at the doorway to the place of worship. She told the womenwho had accompanied her, "Go help Azel. Tell him I will be watching over you.

Torgo, you stay with me. Keep control of the children."

Thunder shook the citadel. Torgo said, "It's like if they get too closetogether ..."

"Maybe. Zouki, come here."

The frightened women left. The Witch dragged the boy Zouki through thedoorway. "Close it up, Torgo. I'll seal it so it can never be opened. The samewith the other entrances."

"But ... Azel ..."

"He has served his purpose. I have grown tired of him. I am going to let himdie a hero's death defending his lord." She settled the boy Zouki by thealtar, took the other from the eunuch. "Go on, Torgo. Get busy."

Torgo followed his orders but he was uneasy. He was not a genius and not anastute judge of men but he did feel sure that when Azel died he would not doso for the sake of the High Priest. Azel was a complex man who had concealedhimself inside so many masks and lies he did not now know himself but he hadgiven himself away in his conspiratorial whispers. There was one tiny hole inhis emotional armor.

Torgo pursed his lips, feelings mixed. Because of that, and so much else, he wished Azel an evil end-but he feared that Azel might be their only hope forsalvation.

"Here they come!" Azel roared. The stall trick had been good for an hour. Hehoped the damned woman hadn't wasted the time, that she'd laid on a wholetroop of tricks and barriers. He shoved his sack of provisions out of the way, let fly with a throwing spear. It stopped the first Dartar dead. "All right!

Now! Run them in now."

The women whipped the terrified children into the battlefield of the kitchens.

They did not go far, mostly stood around screaming while the adults pelted theDartars with missiles from behind them.

The Dartars looked at that mob of brats, for a moment did not know what to do.

That cost them. Azel laughed.

Their captain pushed them out behind their shields, formed a miniature turtle, advanced toward the brats. Archers began spraying arrows around. The turtlegobbled half a dozen kids, delivered them to cover behind the bakers' ovens.

When the turtle advanced again Azel flung a pair of lanterns toward thebowmen. The lanterns smashed. Flames leaped up. While the archers wereoccupied he grabbed a woman and used her as a shield. He charged into theturtle, laid about him with a meat cleaver, put three of the damned camellovers down before he ducked back, still laughing.

The violence tore one of his wounds enough that it began to bleed again.

He could have held the bastards there and picked them off as they stampededaround trying to save the brats-if the citadel staff had not gone squeamishabout the kids. The women ran off. That left him and two men to hold four exits.

He hurled his cleaver at the Dartar kid who had shown him the Face of Death but the boy moved. Azel grabbed his provisions and fled toward the greatchamber where the cage stood. He wished he had a bow. He could give thoseDartar bastards fits, sniping from the shadows there.

The staff would retreat from there toward the Witch's chambers, leading thechase the wrong way, buying more time.

He laughed again.

He had lied to them. He had told them the Witch had fortified her quarterswith spells that would keep them safe once they closed the doors behind them.

They would flee there thinking they need do nothing but lock up and wait forNakar.

Hell. Maybe he hadn't lied. Who knew? The woman might have come to her senses.

She'd put out a few other barriers, hadn't she?

General Cado sighed. The water chute was packed with soldiers. Nothing elsebut to try it. He gave the order to go.

The first man out was waist-high into the drain when three arrows hit him. He fell back on the men below him.

The Dartar watchers sped a dozen arrows down the drain, began filling it withwhatever they found lying around loose.

A third of the way up the hill from the waterfront, in a second-level home inthe center of the Shu complex, a woman wholly insignificant otherwise noted atrickle of water running down a wall, starting at eye level. She was baffled.

Nothing like that had happened before.

Naszif stopped so violently he slipped on the wet paving stones and fell. Twohundred men surrounded the entrance to the citadel. Qushmarrahans. Armed. Herecognized several, including his former commander, Hadribel.

The Living! Out of the shadows now.

They meant to take the citadel from its conquerors as soon as they felt theDartars had done all the killing for them.

All he could do here was get killed himself. He got his feet under him andtook off. The Living noticed him too late to stop him.

Aaron looked around frantically, yelled for Arif. Beside him, on her knees, Reyha held a terrified little girl to her breast, rocked and crooned softly, gently tried to quiz the child about Zouki. She got no answers. Ahead, theDartar boy Yoseh stood in a doorway looking back, hesitant to leave them.

"Arif!"

His son did not answer. He was not here with the others. Zouki was not here.

Fear and horror redoubled. Several children had been hurt in the fighting, despite all efforts to avoid that ... The Herodian sorceress jabbered at himand pointed. She wanted him to move along. He determined to stand his ground.

"Aaron." Yoseh beckoned him. "Come on. The children are not here. The Witch has them."

"How do you know that?"

"I asked these kids. They told me she came and got them and took themsomewhere with her."

The bottom fell out of Aaron's stomach. A little hope died.

Yoseh led the way into the largest room he had ever seen, trying to stay alertenough for himself and the carpenter and veydeen woman, too. He had heard ofthis place. It was as awe-inspiring as the stories said. But there was no timeto gawk. It was a madhouse. Rock apes and more children were screeching andrunning around. Mo'atabar and the others were trying to fight their way up astairwell off to his left. They were up against another invisible wall. It let missiles come down but would not let them go up. Mo'atabar was ready to tearthe place down to get around it.

Then Yoseh glimpsed the child-taker flitting through far shadows. He yelled, sped an arrow, and charged. When he reached the spot he found nothing but asnarling rock ape.

The ferrenghi sorceress shouted a warning that no one but, perhaps, Mo'atabarunderstood.

Brilliant light. A blow like the sudden impact of a hundred fists ...

He did not know how much time had passed. When he came to he found his visionand hearing both impaired. He could barely hear Mo'atabar and the ferrenghisorceress arguing bitterly at the foot of the stairwell. Mo'atabar wanted tocarry the attack upward. The witch wanted to go another direction. Sheinsisted the upward retreat was a diversion. Somehow, she carried herargument-and that left old Mo'atabar looking very frightened.

What now? Yoseh wondered as he staggered to his feet and went to see to thecarpenter.

Bel-Sidek stood near the doorway to Meryel's balcony, listening. Meryel asked,

"What in the world are you doing?" She had arrived home and instantly beenarrested and put in with him by Zenobel's men.

"I'm listening for Dartar trumpets."

"What?"

"Anytime now my self-appointed successor is going to be forced to drink deeplyof a dark and bitter wine called Fa'tad al-Akla."

Azel drifted through dark and silent corridors, cautiously. Had he been anyoneelse his mood might have been called sad. He hadn't done nearly as well withthe camel jockeys as he'd hoped. Of course, if the woman had bothered to taketime to do something besides just throw up a few barriers ...

He had given them the slip. They should be headed upward now. That should holdthem awhile. Maybe long enough for him to bash a hole through the woman'sobsession and get her to fight. She could've cleaned the place out in the timeshe'd had since the bastards broke in. If she'd bothered to take it. But no. A

little paint on the surface, a sop to keep him off her back, maybe, and rightback to Nakar.

Damn Nakar ... Well, might not be long left in that story. Depended onTorgo. The big idiot was primed. Set to go. If he didn't fade at the end.

He reached the temple door.

It was closed. For the first time in memory. "What the hell?" He tried itgently. It did not yield. A slight buzzing sensation tickled the tips of hisfingers.

For a fraction of a second hurt flickered across his face.

Suspicion became conviction when he tried a side entrance and found it sealed, too. The same tingle teased his sense of touch.

Was he the object of her fortification?

That flicker of hurt came and went.

Maybe there had been some foreshadowing. Maybe he had felt it. Maybe that waswhy he had prepared the temple.

Or could it just be that Torgo had, at last, managed to get a knife into hisback? He turned more grim than ever. The eunuch's payoff wasn't far off now.

He was tempted not to wait on Nakar.

There were other ways to enter the temple. Ways of which even the HighPriest's woman was unaware.

Azel the Destroyer had not been the messenger of Nakar the Abomination fornothing.

Three minutes later Azel slipped into the sacristy. He placed his provisionpack in the hidden room, closed that up again, then crept up behind the imageof Gorloch. He settled to watch Torgo and the Witch.

They had the brat whose taking had caused his first encounter with the Dartarstied into a chair. The kid was calm, attentive, almost eager. Azel wastroubled. There was something wrong there. The boy seemed old beyond time.

Torgo and the Witch had the other kid strapped down on the altar, damned nearin touching distance of Nakar. The kid carried on, screaming, fighting them.

The Witch got set to go into her trance. Torgo fluttered around like an oldwoman, doing three things at once while trying to settle the kid down. Dumbass. The kid was scared shitless. He wasn't going to calm down for anything.

Double scared?

Azel eyed the time-locked corpses of Nakar and Ala-eh-din Beyh, the brats, considered events of six years ago as heard secondhand. He consideredknowledge picked up at Nakar's left hand. He hadn't a whit of that talenthimself but he understood theory and mechanics.

Damn! The mad bitch could bring the whole world down around their ears. "Holdit!"

They jumped. The Witch squeaked. Azel cursed the look in her eye, pushed thepain aside. No time for that now. "You can't do this, woman. Not this way."

Torgo looked like he might drizzle down his leg. "How did you get in?"

"I walk through walls. Don't worry about me. Worry about what will happen ifyou jump into this the way you're going."

The Witch turned her back. Only Torgo showed interest. Irked, Azel demanded,

"How did we get into this mess in the first damned place?"

The Witch ignored him. Torgo glanced at her, stared at the floor as hecontinued work.

Azel spat, "You put them in that damned time trance because Nakar would've gotstomped dead if you didn't, woman. Remember? Ain't nothing changed, neither.

You wake them up now they're going to go right on from where they left off."

He eyed the Zouki brat. The kid looked back. Damned if the brat didn't looklike he understood. Was the Ala-eh-din Beyh soul awake?

Somebody tried the main door. Torgo glanced at it, frowned. Azel slipped offhis perch. "They're here."

Torgo watched him warily. "Worry about them, Torgo. Not about me. Want to betthey find a way in?" The damned woman hadn't stopped her preparations. Now shewas lying beside the kid on the altar, working on her trance.

Torgo looked at her, at Azel, a rat caught in the open, dogs closing in. "Whatcan we do?"

"Probably not a damned thing. Unless you can make her hear sense. Know how todo that?"

"I don't think so."

"Shit. Do your job, then. And hope Gorloch smiles." Azel drifted toward thedoor as though considering some rude greeting. But as he passed the Zouki kid, he punched the brat so hard he almost broke the boy's neck. "That'll put himout for a while. Get on with it."

The Witch began to murmur. Near as Azel could tell, her whole plan was towaken Nakar and ask him what to do next. Damned moron. Shit for brains. How did anybody let somebody get so much control they turned into a soul slave, stripped of even the sense to harken to survival instinct?

Something turned over inside Azel. For a moment he had the uncomfortablefeeling that he'd glimpsed his true self. As though some impartial observerhad asked what he was doing trapped like a rat.

The sounds of scraping and pounding came from the wall. Them damned cameljockeys knew they couldn't bust the door down so they were going after thewall.

"How long?" Torgo asked, looking that way.

Azel shrugged. He looked at the Witch. "How long you going to be, woman?" Thekid was whispering back, stammering, resisting. Maybe the Nakar soul didn'twant to come out and risk Ala-eh-din Beyh's final vengeance.

He never understood what that was about. Nakar hadn't talked about his enemies, back when. But a long time ago he'd offended somebody bad and there'dbeen a cabal out to get him ever since. A new assassin-wizard had turned upevery few years, each cleverer than the last. Maybe the gods themselvescontended against Nakar. If there was ever a guy who could get the gods downon him, Nakar had been him.

Azel glanced at the time-locked Nakar, at the Witch. What the hell did sheever see in him? "Torgo. You thought about what we discussed?"

The eunuch paused, glanced at the besieged wall, at Azel, at the woman, lookedashamed. He nodded.

"You in?"

Torgo nodded again.

"Good. Maybe we'll get out of this yet." If the ball-less wonder really couldstick a knife in Nakar's back. "Looks like she's getting through." The kid wasstirring, reluctantly.

A stone fell from yon wall. Dust puffed away. "About out of time, Torgo. Canyou wake her up so she can take care of them?" The Witch hadn't responded tohis earlier question.

"I don't think so." Another stone fell. A hand reached through, felt around.

'Til try."

"You do that." Azel stalked over and drove a knife through the hand.

Torgo tried. Azel gave him that. But the Witch wouldn't wake up. Azelsuspected she didn't want to leave the trance's comfort.

The hole in the wall grew. Azel discouraged the Dartars with a spear till henoticed the Zouki brat stirring.

Thunder shook the citadel when the kid raised his gaze to the Witch.

Azel clouted him in the back of the head. "That's enough, Torgo. We can'tforce her. Pick her up. Follow me."

"What?"

"You want to just sit here and wait for those assholes? Or you want to movesomeplace safe?"

"Where?"

"Trust old Azel. He was Nakar's number one buddy. I know stuff about thisplace even she don't. There's a place he put in before any of us was born.

They'll never find it." He didn't believe that but it wouldn't hurt if Torgodid. "We'll have everything we need to finish up." He grabbed the Witch'sthings.

Torgo looked like a condemned man given an unexpected reprieve.

The pounding on the wall continued. A head poked through, ducked back.

Azel limped to the wardrobe, dropped the stuff he carried, opened the panel, tossed the junk through, helped Torgo ease the Witch into the hidden room.

"Let's get the rest." He rubbed his leg. It ached badly. His hand came awayspotted with blood.

They rounded Gorloch's flank as a slim Dartar slithered through the wall. Azelchuckled. "I'd say their timing is about perfect." Torgo gave him a puzzledlook. Azel chuckled again. He was going to find out real soon now. "You'restronger. You lug Nakar. I'll get the kid." He slashed the straps binding theboy to the altar.

The skinny Dartar stayed where he was, helped make the hole in the walllarger.

The boy opened his eyes. His face had changed, darkening somehow. Nakar wasthere. He had heard the Witch's call but hadn't come into this world quiteyet.

Thunder boomed.

Azel grinned as he hoisted the brat. Some lord of Hell was favoring him today.

He stepped to the other kid, lashed out, meaning to break the brat's neck. Heglanced at the Dartars. Four were through the hole now, getting brave, gettingset to charge. He gave them a grin, a wave, said, "Good-bye, assholes," andtook off.

Torgo was lifting Nakar as Azel passed him. Azel clipped him behind one knee.

He collapsed. Azel chuckled again as he rounded Gorloch's image, listening tothe Dartars roar toward the eunuch. One of them howled, "Arif!"

Fa'tad peeped through a crack in the shutters of a second-storey window of acommandeered house. The Living's soldiers had entered the citadel. Finally.

They had dithered forever. "Excellent. Give the signal."

One blast from a horn, taken up at a distance. Black figures, like soddencrows, raced toward the citadel. A wagon appeared. It carried bricks.

At least four of the Living's top men had been sucked in. And Fa'tad knewwhere to grab their commander. Once the' citadel was sealed up the Livingwould be nothing but a nuisance anymore.

"Collect Colonel bel-Sidek," he ordered. He remained rooted, staring out, troubled. Mo'atabar should have reached the top of that tower by now. Butthere had been no signal.

Where was he?

Would Nakar have to be paid, after all?

Dartars scrambled through the hole like rats in flight. Aaron scrambled withthem, clambering atop men, feeling elbows and fists and knees dig into hisflesh as others climbed on him. He tumbled to the floor, glimpsed Arifbouncing on the shoulder of a fleeing man. He yelled, "Arif!"

The Dartars charged a man who was floundering around trying to disengagehimself from a stiff corpse. Aaron froze. That was Nakar! Terror held himrooted.

The man shook loose and rose. He was huge. He hurled Nakar at the Dartars.

Several went down. The rest hit him. He grabbed a javelin from one and a swordfrom another and struck out like a lioness beset by hounds. For a moment itseemed he might overcome them all.

Bellowing, Mo'atabar got his men to back off. The big man began to retreat.

Arrows and javelins hit him. He made no sound. He just looked puzzled, like hecould not believe it.

Reyha brushed past Aaron, keening. "Zouki!" The boy's head hung at an oddangle. She dropped to her knees by the chair where Zouki was tied.

Yoseh grabbed Aaron's arm. "Come on!" He hardly glanced at the idol as he flewpast, into the darkness beyond.

Aaron stumbled after him, averting his eyes from Reyha's pain, from thescarlet ruin of the big man and those he had slain, from the ugliness of themonster god who still had the power to torment Qushmarrah. He went numbly, without hope, unable to restrain a moan when Reyha started wailing.

The Herodian witch yammered at Mo'atabar. Mo'atabar yelled at his men. Somepaid attention. Nogah's bunch wolfed after Yoseh and Aaron. One had enoughsense to bring a lamp.

Ten minutes whirled away, time flown on the wings of vultures. They found nosign of Arif. Hopeless, Aaron trudged back when Yoseh and Nogah went toconsult Mo'atabar.

The sergeant and sorceress were shouting at one another. Mo'atabar stoppedlong enough to order the hole through the wall plugged.

"What's going on?" Aaron asked.

Nogah said, "It seems that if everything has gone Fa'tad's way we have severalhundred of the Living in here with us now. Nice of Mo'atabar to tell us theplan. We were supposed to go up instead of down. They say a fortress'sdefenders always retreat upward. We were supposed to go to the top of the hightower, then climb down outside. That's why all the ropes and stuff." Nogahcursed in dialect. "That's the Eagle. We'd have the Living's captains and bestmen trapped like we have the Herodi-ans caught in the maze." "Why?" Aaronasked.

"Fa'tad knows." Nogah shrugged. "Ask him when you see him. In Hell. It didn'twork. We came down. We prevented Nakar's restoration but got caught in our owntrap."

"I don't want to make you cry, boy," Mo'atabar said. "But we haven't preventedanything." He kicked Nakar's corpse. "The sorceress says they can managewithout this. If they can waken Nakar inside the boy."

Aaron groaned, began to weep, his calm proving more fragile than he hadthought. He went to stand beside Reyha, as though somehow two miseries mightcancel one another, a little.

The Herodian sorceress edged him aside, knelt before Zouki, studied him for along time. Finally, she grunted. "What?" Aaron and Reyha asked together.

The Dartar racket had faded. Azel levered himself up from where he'd beensitting. He cursed softly. Damn, his leg hurt. It was stiffening up, too. Andstill seeping a little. He drew his knife.

He kicked the Witch a good one. She did not respond. "I hope you didn't killus, you crazy bitch." Damn her. He couldn't stay mad at her. Easier to staymad at himself for having been weak enough to get sucked in.

The kid wasn't unconscious but neither was he alert. He seemed caught on a cusp between today and yesterday, Nakar there but shy. Maybe unwilling to comeforward while there was a chance that might mean final victory for Ala-eh-dinBeyh. Fine. Let him float. He needed time to work out how to use Nakar withouthim getting loose completely.

He slipped out of hiding, knife poised. There weren't many of those Dartarbastards. He knew the secret ways. He could pick them off, make them wishthey'd never heard of Qushmarrah. Get shut of them and he could concentrate onthe Witch and the brat and doing what had to be done.

Pity Torgo couldn't be here to do the dirty deed and pay the final price. Nowworking it so he came out looking good was going to be tricky.

He slid into the shadows of Gorloch's image, eavesdropped on the Dartars. Somewere muttering because their sorceress said Nakar could be restored outsidehis body. She was doing something with the other brat. Some were plugging thehole they'd busted through the wall. A few were breaking up stuff for thewood. What the hell?

Ah! Now wasn't that amusing? The Living had come in behind them. And that pileof wood was so they could roast Nakar and Ala-eh-din Beyh.

Azel grinned wickedly. Hell and damnation! Yes! If the Witch's only choice wasto bring Nakar back in the kid, instead of shoving him back into his own body... All kinds of possibilities there. No way Nakar could manage a child's bodylike it was a grown one. And it should be a whole lot easier for the woman toget over a kid.

Hell with hunting Dartars. Wasn't any point with the Living in the citadel.

Let those bastards wear each other down. He'd work on the survivors.

He retreated to the hidden room.

The Dartars would look for the brat again. That sorceress. Didn't look likeshit but she was the same stripe as Ala-eh-din Beyh. She knew. She'd whip theminto looking. If she put her mind to it she'd find the room despite Nakar'sspells of concealment. She'd been good enough to get through the Postern ofFate.

He checked his leg. Not good. Still oozing. Had he left a trail? He checked.

No sign. His clothes were absorbing it. He needed to get off the leg and stayoff. But he couldn't. Not yet. He made a rude bandage and bound it tightly.

That would have to do.

The room was a deathtrap. Better move to the top of the tower. Their sorceresscouldn't do them much good if he got the Witch and the kid forted up there.

All he'd have to do would be sit on the trapdoor. They couldn't get theleverage to push him off.

He rifled his pack, found analgesic powder, washed it down with water from asmall canteen. Bitterness remained in his mouth. He relaxed five minutes, hoping it would start to work fast. He almost drifted off.

He jerked awake. None of that! They wouldn't get him by default.

He checked the boy's pulse, afraid he might have whacked the brat too hard.

The kid hadn't stirred. He was all right.

Better get on with it. He could nap afterward.

He took the boy up first. The ladder seemed a mile high. His leg was killinghim when he got back down, the pain powder doing nothing at all. He recalledhis impulse toward the sinkhole country. Why hadn't he had the plain damnedsense? He had no more brains than that idiot Torgo.

That one cut was leaking again. It wanted rest badly. There was no time. Headjusted his bandages.

He took the Witch up next, limp as a fish. Why the hell couldn't she help outa little? Dumb bitch wasn't worth all this.

One more trip to go, his supplies and the stuff she'd need to finish up. Herubbed his leg and again told himself he could lie down afterward.

He did not think he would complete that final climb. He suffered leg cramps.

His shoulder muscles tightened into rocky knots. The bleeding worsened. Hetore others of his wounds open. He suffered vertigo. He was sure he had donehimself permanent damage. But he couldn't quit. He was what he was, ridden anddriven.

The force within triumphed. As always. He completed his climb, dropped hisload, closed the trapdoor, for a moment faced into the rain. It hadn't wakenedthe woman or boy. He covered the Witch the best he could, though that was onlya gesture. Thunder cracked as he settled on the trap. He'd rest and let theanalgesic work before he tried to waken the woman.

He glanced up. Hard to tell through the rain but it seemed the clouds were lowand moving fast, swirling around the tower.

He lowered his head and closed his eyes. Ten minutes ought to be enough rest.

Zenobel stared at the cage in the great hall. He recalled the place as it hadbeen before Dak-es-Souetta. It had gone to seed. Become shabby. That was sad.

Say whatever about Nakar, he had made the citadel Qushmarrah's glorious crown.

King Dabdahd hustled up. He had the citadel staff besieged in the Witch'squarters. He said, "They won't surrender. They won't even talk."

"Is she up there?"

"I don't know. We tried breaking through the wall to get around the spells onthe door. I lost two men. They didn't see her. That doesn't mean anything."

Zenobel grunted. "What about those damned Dartars? Any sign of them?"

"None but their dead."

Zenobel considered the children he had had rounded up. Were they settled downenough to talk sense? He rose from his seat.

Carza trotted up. "We found the Dartars. They're barricaded in the temple.

They broke through a wall to get inside. Should I finish them?"

"You want Fa'tad to kill us?"

"Huh?"

He did not know. Neither did King. They had been busy when the news had come.

"He sealed the gateway behind us. Bricked it up. Only way we can get out isthrough the windows. If the drop doesn't kill us his archers will."

King went pale. Carza looked bewildered.

"You don't get it? Al-Akla has done it again, this time to Herod and us both.

Bel-Sidek wouldn't laugh at fools but he's sure won the right. He warned us."

Carza just frowned. It surpassed him. "We have a mission, Zenobel. A holymission. If you won't carry it out I will."

"Go ahead. Waste all the lives you want. I don't care anymore. Nothing we dowill change anything now."

Bel-Sidek did not look around when the Dartar arrived. The nomad was polite.

"Fa'tad would like to see you, sir." The steel wore a velvet mask.

Bel-Sidek took Meryel's hand. "If I'm to be executed let it be done here whereI've known my only happiness."

"Fa'tad has no wish to slay anyone, sir. He said only that he wishes to speakwith you."

Meryel squeezed bel-Sidek's hand gently. "Go, Sisu. Maybe you can do somethingyet."

Bel-Sidek nodded, though he doubted it. Wearily, he followed the Dartar outinto the rain. Maybe Fa'tad did just want to talk. He had sent only the oneman.

The day was nearly gone. Very little light remained. The clouds hung low abovethe citadel, turning and churning. He could not get interested. It had been aday as long as forever piled on a week a hundred times as long as that. Theend was in sight now. At last.

Qushmarrah was passing into a new age-not that which he and the General hadenvisioned. "Warrior. Have they finished Nakar yet?"

His companion drew in upon himself. "I can't say, sir. There's been no wordfrom our men inside the citadel." Later, he added, "Nor any from yours."

"Oh." That did not sound good. Bel-Sidek eyed those busy clouds for as long ashe could take the rain in his face. Nakar's last hour had come during aferocious rain, with clouds whirling around the citadel. He had been aprisoner elsewhere then, but ... Hadn't it been something like this? Wasthis precursive of the resurrection of the Abomination?

Bel-Sidek and the Dartar passed through and walked parallel to a file ofbedraggled Herodians being escorted from the Shu. Fa'tad was accepting thesurrender of those he had entombed in the labyrinth. Maybe the Eagle was notinterested in a total blood baptism.

Bel-Sidek spied General Cado among the captives. Ha. Now the man would know how it had felt for the vanquished after Dak-es-Souetta.

Cado met his eye, recognized him, smiled wanly, winked as though they were fellow conspirators. Bel-Sidek snorted. Co-conspirators in defeat. Pawns who had let themselves be manipulated by the old genius of the Khadatqa Mountains.

The gulled and downcast.

Whatever else, he thought, you had to admire the Eagle's daring.

Yoseh was scared again. They had looked everywhere, over and over, and had found no sign of the Witch or child-taker or Arif, no hint of a hidden exit. Every minute fled meant a greater danger.

Nogah observed, "The sorceress probably could find it but she's too busy making like udders on a bull." She could not be diverted from the corpses she was cooking. The stench was enough to gag a vulture. Yoseh said, "Maybe she knows what she's doing." "Like hell. She's riding with her eyes shut same as the rest of us. What's keeping the damned veydeen?" The Qushmarrahans had not yet tried to get in.

Mo'atabar made periodic sallies toward the bonfire, to remind the sorceress that she had said the Witch could recall Nakar without his body. She showed no real interest. Yoseh hoped she knew what she was doing.

"They're here," said the man posted where they had broken in. Mo'atabar hustled over, listened, said, "They're not in any hurry."

Once they got the carpenter calmed down Nogah decided to stop waiting on the woman. "Aaron. What would you do if you were going to put in a secret exit?" "Eh?" "You're a carpenter. Think like a carpenter. A carpenter probably did the building. Wouldn't you think?"

The man thought. "I'd use a cabinetmaker. I'd put it where it wasn't obvious and I'd demand the finest possible joins so nothing would show."

Yoseh said, "Tamisa told me that's the kind of stuff you do."

The carpenter nodded.

Impatient, Nogah snapped, "So prowl around. Think like a cabinetmaker. Show us where some other carpenter might have put a hidden door. The fix we're in it won't matter if we tear things up."

It took only minutes. "Got to be this wardrobe," the carpenter said. "Best place for it." Medjhah ripped the wardrobe apart. Nogah went after Mo'atabar. Mo'atabar cameand crawled through the wreckage. "There's a room back here, all right. Butthere isn't anybody in it."

"There would be a way out," the carpenter said. "The room is just to buy time."

The sorceress appeared. She exchanged words with Mo'atabar. Mo'atabar said,

"She tells me there are three ways out. One is in the floor, here." Hestomped. "One is in the wall, here." Thump went a fist. "The other one is inthis wall, here. Open them up."

Medjhah tried brute force again, without luck this time.

"Let me," the carpenter said. He had pulled himself together. Other thanthunder nothing had happened for so long he was starting to hope again. Maybethe sorceress's lack of haste encouraged him.

It took him just a minute to open the secret doors.

"Good." Mo'atabar studied the openings. "Kosuth, down you go. Medjhah, youtake this one. Yoseh, you take that one. Be careful but don't waste time. TheLiving have started in on that wall."

The sorceress said something, went away. Yoseh hoped she was going to delaythe veydeen. He could not worry about them, though. He stared at that littledoorway, scared stiff. It barely seemed big enough ... Mo'atabar kepttalking, did such a good job making it sound routine that he felt shamed byhis reluctance. He swallowed, crawled into the hole.

It became an upward shaft immediately, that had to go all the way to the sky, up and up and up, into silence, into darkness like Nakar's own heart.

It got scarier. After he climbed so far he lost count of rungs, thunder shookthe citadel. He felt the vibrations. For a moment he was afraid the placewould fall down around him.

He climbed more slowly, conserving his strength. The ringing cleared from hisears-and what at first seemed imagination proved to be a genuine whisper thatfrightened him more till he realized it had to be rain falling on a surfaceoverhead.

He paused, rested, marshaled his courage, resumed his climb. Three rungshigher his hand closed on slick moisture. It remained sticky when he pulled itaway.

The crown of his head bumped something hard and cold. He felt around. Rustyiron? The rain drummed away. It would be thick and heavy.

This was the final test. He could retreat and report and suffer no questionsbut he would always wonder, was he a Dartar warrior or some cringing veydeenmouse?

He pushed with his head, increased the pressure till the metal gave. Nothinghappened. He pushed again, slowly, steadily, till his eyes rose above theedge-and he was face-to-face with someone just a foot away.

He nearly let go. He did squeak. That was the child-taker, lying dead orsleeping in the rain. Nobody could sleep in the rain, could they?

He pushed till his shoulders reached roof level. He saw Arif and the Witch, sprawled in the rain, dead or sleeping, too.

What now?

He reached for his knife, to make sure of the child-taker, then changed hismind and reached for Arifs ankle. If he could drag the boy over and carry himdown ...

Something hit him so fast he never saw it coming. He slammed back against theside of the shaft, then fell.

Squeak. Azel remained motionless only because of the watery state of hisflesh. Weak as a newborn, he couldn't betray himself when he wakened.

He cracked an eyelid, saw the Dartar kid from the Shu. That little bastard waseverywhere. Haunting him. How the hell had he gotten up here? Azel realized hehad rolled off the trapdoor after he'd fallen asleep.

Gorloch or luck gave him the moment he needed and the energy to capitalize.

The Dartar turned, reached for the Arif brat, got him by the foot. Azel puteverything he had into his punch. The Dartar flew backward, fell, the brat'sshoe flipping after him. "Hope you land on your head, asshole."

He didn't have energy enough to stand. The rainwater where he'd lain was red.

Clots of blood floated there. Damn! He was bleeding to death. Wouldn't that beironic? He rolled into a sitting position atop the trapdoor. Thank Gorloch ithad fallen shut. He would not have had the strength to close it had it fallenthe other way.

He fiddled with his bandages till he got the bleeding stopped. One more smalleffort, then he would put down roots.

He eased over to the Witch. "Wake up, woman." No response. Whap! He crackedher cheek with his palm, rocked her head halfway around. "Come on, damn it!

This is it. You get on the stick and call up Nakar or kiss your ass good-bye.

They know where we're at and we got nowhere else to hide." He popped heragain. This time he glimpsed a flash of eyeball.

That was it. That was all he had, except an ounce of iron will that let himguide himself as he collapsed, so his torso sprawled across a corner of thetrapdoor.

The first blow reached her but the drug held her. The second sent alarums ofpain coursing through her. She opened one eye far enough to see her tormentor.

Azel? But how ... ? She was soaked. She lay in a pool of water. Rain fellupon her still. Thunder stalked overhead. The chill followed the pain insideher, opening channels through which thought and sense began to flow. Shegained control as Azel fell as if he had melted.

She shoved her upper body up to the length of her arms, turned her headslowly. Her thoughts did not run crisply but she could reason. And she couldremember some of what had been happening around her while the drug ruled her.

She understood where she was and why and how she had come to be there and forone moment she actually appreciated Azel and his stubbornness.

She had yielded to weakness, perhaps to defeatism, and had permitted herselftoo much of the drug. Fool. Maybe she was as crazy as Azel claimed. Maybe she didn't deserve Nakar back. Maybe she was too weak.

Her body would not support itself. She collapsed. But she resisted the allureof sleep, of escape. The hour had come. Time had run out. Azel had said theyknew where she was ... Her gaze fell on the boy.

He was asleep. More than asleep. Unconscious. She felt Nakar in there, quiescent, in a twilight of near-awareness, reluctant to come nearer thelight.

Ala-eh-din Beyh.

Of course! That was it, as Azel had insisted. Nakar dared not come forward. Todo so meant facing the consequences of total defeat. He had lost that struggle... Her fault. Her fault completely.

But ... Vaguely, as though recalling a fading dream, she recapturedtenuous memories from below. Azel hitting the other child. Azel had broken hisneck. Ala-eh-din Beyh would not be there now. That vicious soul had traveledon.

It was here for the taking. All she had lived and suffered for. If she kepther wits and conquered her flesh and found the strength to draw forth herbeloved's soul.

She wept a single tear, though. Never again would her man be the man she hadknown. The body was still down below. That Herodian sorceress, that bitch fromthe same kennel as Ala-eh-din Beyh, would have wasted no time destroying it.

She looked at the boy and laughed madly, picturing herself mothering the newyoung Nakar. Then she turned to the things Azel had brought up. What sheneeded would be there. Azel always did whatever had to be done.

She was slow, so slow, but soon she was ready, soon she was reaching into thedarkness, calling her love.

Arif was lost in a nightmare. He could not wake up. He was terrified but notas much now as he had been. This was so unreal he could not believe it completely. He seemed to hear his mother reassuring him, "It's only a dream, Arif. It's only a dream."

Something alien was there in the darkness with him, frightened and wary, too, but big and dangerous and patient, like a giant, poisonous toad waiting in thedark for prey. That thing moved seldom. So far he had fought it off each timeit had. He had begun to gain confidence there.

Then the voice came, remote at first, a woman calling. "Mother?" The voicecalled, compelling and reassuring. He seemed to turn toward it and move thatway. The voice grew louder. He moved eagerly-till he recognized it as thevoice of the beautiful, evil woman who stole children.

He tried to stop moving toward the light, could not.

The thing in the darkness shifted, turned its invisible eye upon him. He feltits amusement, its iron, wicked intent.

He tried to scream.

That thing swam up toward the light, gaining fast.

Instinct made Yoseh flail out. He was not conscious enough to think. One handdragged over several rungs. He felt fingernails rip and break. He got a solidhold. His arm wrenched violently. He screamed.

He grabbed with his other hand before the first gave way. He stopped hisplunge. He clung there shaking and whimpering with pain, afraid to move.

The child-taker had not been dead. Had not been sleeping. Now the man wouldtake steps.

He had to get word to Nogah and Mo'atabar and the Herodian sorceress now. Buthe could not move. His muscles had locked, refused to let him. His fear offalling would not respond to his will.

He could not yell again, either. His tight, dry throat would let him donothing but croak.

Tears flowed. A coward. He had feared he was, always. And now, when alldepended upon him acting, he could not. He burned, thinking of the shame uponhis father.

Aaron had himself under control now. Outwardly he portrayed quiet calmness.

But could it last? His mind was a hornet's nest of terrible thoughts andfears.

The hidden room was crowded beyond enduring. They were packed in there bellyto- back, shoulder-to-shoulder, breathing into one another's faces, smellingone another's fear. The sorceress had not been able to prevent the Living frombreaching the temple wall. She had had to spend too much attention on Zouki.

Aaron could hear the Qushmarrahan rebels cursing outside the wardrobe. Thewardrobe that would hide nothing if opened because Medjhah had demolished theconcealed opening.

There was no sound in the little room. Most of them were holding theirbreaths. Only the sorceress was doing anything. Something to shield them, tohide them, to baffle the Living, he prayed.

He called upon Aram's love and mercy repeatedly, silently, in his heart.

In time Kosuth and Medjhah returned from their quests. In whispers theydelivered negative reports. The bolt-hole in the floor just led down and downto water. The other ran to a hidden exit inside the guardroom behind thepostern-inside the brick wall Fa'tad had installed.

"Even so," Mo'atabar murmured. "Even so." He began indicating men. "Crawl inthere. Hide. It's too crowded in here."

Despite the maddening crowding no one wanted to go into the crawlway. Aaronthought only a second and knew he would fight if they tried to send him. Hecould not endure the closeness.

How much worse for these men, reared in the wide expanses of the mountains andTakes, beneath sprawling desert skies?

Something landed at the bottom of the third bolt-hole, plop! Aaron was rightbeside that, pressed up against Nogah and Medjhah, more pressured now that thelatter had returned. He recognized the object immediately. He retained barelyenough caution to confine himself to a whisper. "That's Arifs shoe." It was sowet it had splattered water.

Medjhah said, "It must have come from outside. Up there. In the rain. Yosehmust have ... They must be on top of the tower. We must be right under ithere."

Mo'atabar forced his way through the press. Aaron watched his passage sparkunreasoning rage in the eyes of the Dartars he brushed. Those men barelycontrolled themselves.

As Mo'atabar arrived a second object fell down the shaft, hit, ping!

metallically. Nogah squeaked, "That's Yoseh's ring. The one Father gave him."

Medjhah whispered, "He can't come down. That has to mean he can't come down.

He wants us to come up."

Nogah had a counter remark. Mo'atabar scowled. He was suspicious. He wanted tothink and talk about it before he did anything.

Aaron could not control himself. His muscles seemed to act of their own accord, compelling him to enter the shaft and start climbing.

Nogah and Medjhah followed immediately. Before Aaron climbed fifty feet heheard Mo'atabar and the sorceress arguing over which should go first.

Soon he ached in every muscle. He was no ape or sailor accustomed to climbing.

His body had suffered already. But fear for Arif drove him.

He bumped into someone. Someone! A soft whimper came from above. "Yoseh?"

A grunt. An inarticulate sound filled with pain and fear and humiliation.

"It's Aaron, Yoseh. Are you all right?"

Another whimpering sound. Not a positive sign.

Nogah forced his way up beside Aaron, so that they clung to the unseen rungsside by side, so crowded in the shaft that they might not have fallen had theylet go. Nogah whispered to his brother. He could get no sense from the boy. Hebegan making soothing, comforting sounds. Aaron clung to the rungs andwondered how long he could keep that up before his body betrayed him.

After a while Medjhah asked, "What's the story?"

Nogah replied, "He fell. He caught himself. He got hurt doing it. He'll be all right. I'm tying him to the rungs till we can lift him out."

"Going to be a bitch getting past him."

"Uhm. Where's Mo'atabar?"

Aaron intuited the import of the question. Mo'atabar was a sizable man. He would not be able to force his way past Yoseh. Whatever waited above, there would be no help from Mo'atabar or anyone below him.

Medjhah said, "Mahdah is behind me, then the sorceress. Then Mo'atabar." Mo'atabar growled a question. No one responded to his impatience.

Nogah said, "Yoseh says there's an iron trapdoor lying flat up there. It'sheavy. It opens on the floor of the parapet. The Witch and the child-taker areup there with Arif. He thought they were out cold or dead but the child-takersurprised him and knocked him back down when he was trying to sneak Arif intothe shaft."

Oh, Aaron thought. Maybe that explained the shoe.

"How about now?"

"Who knows? The child-taker will be waiting, I guess."

Medjhah grumbled something about Yoseh should have made sure of them up there while he had had the chance. In a strained voice, Nogah said, "There's no choice now. We have to do it. Let's go."

Never in his wildest boyhood fantasies had Aaron pictured himself in anything like this. He never had had the stuff of heroes. Charging up a ladder into the teeth of death, in defiance of doom and the dark old gods ... Aram! Send down the flame of love and mercy. He squirmed past Yoseh, who continued to make sounds of pain. Above, Nogah stopped. "I'm there," he whispered. "The trap." Yoseh had not fallen too far, after all. Not more than fifteen feet.

"Now what?"

"Medjhah? You past Yoseh?" "Almost. As far as I can get."

"Aaron?" Nogah's voice broke. The warrior was as frightened as anyone, Aaron realized. He knew just how poor his chances were. Aaron looked inside himself. He was terrified but he had it under control.

Arif was up there, maybe no more than ten feet away. "I can do it." Despitemuscles of water. Despite being unarmed. He could not recall what had becomeof any of the weapons they had given him during the course of the day.

"Medjhah?"

"Ready."

"Tell them to get their tails moving down there, as soon as we go. TellMo'atabar to carry Yoseh up if he has to."

Medjhah relayed the message. Nogah said, "Now!" Aaron heard his bones andsinews creak as he pushed up against the iron door.

Azel felt the trapdoor pushing up against him. He couldn't do a damned thing.

Everything he had left, it seemed, he needed just to keep his eyes open.

The Witch was doing it. Somehow, despite the circumstances, she had reachedNakar and was luring him forth. He saw the shadow growing in the brat's face.

Maybe Nakar sensed the passing of Ala-eh-din Beyh. Good thing he'd broken thatother brat's neck.

He managed a warning grunt. The Witch was alert enough to catch it. "A momentlonger, Azel. Only a moment more. Don't let them come."

Don't let them come. How the hell was he supposed to stop them? All he was nowwas dead weight. If they managed enough upward force they would tumble him offand all he could do was lie there and watch them climb out.

The shadow in the kid's face darkened quickly. The clouds overhead grew moreexcited. Thunder hammered.

And Azel wondered not about Nakar's advent but about the exit he needed to make after he had outlived his usefulness. He was in no condition to end the story of the Abomination.

"He's coming," the Witch breathed. "He's almost here. We're going to do it, Azel. We're going to do it."

Aaron slithered up next to Nogah. Chest-to-chest, scarcely able to breathe, they took what room they could and heaved together.

The trap remained stubborn ... then gave.

As it began moving Nogah grunted, "First!" and sprang with it, as though theclimb and all before it had taken nothing out of his body.

Nogah's feet were not yet clear when Aaron followed. Nogah threw himself atthe child-taker, who had toppled off the trap. And the child-taker took himout.

What kind of man was he, Aaron wondered as the stubby man, on his back, movedjerkily in lightning flashes and sent Nogah plunging headlong into thebattlement surrounding the parapet. Nogah went limp.

Aaron nearly gagged doing it, was astounded that he could, but found what ittook to kick the child-taker in the head. He whirled on the Witch and his son as Medjhah clambered into sight.

Arif's eyes were open and watching but that was not Arif looking out. That wassomething hideous, dark, and evil.

He could not move, looking at that.

Medjhah staggered forward, knife falling toward the Witch. She made a feeble gesture, barely in time. The knife turned to flame in the Dartar's hand, sizzled through the rain. He screamed, flung it from him, fell forward intothe woman, bowling her over. A knife appeared in her hand. She stabbed himonce, weakly, before Aaron recovered and kicked again, striking her wrist moreby luck than design. Mahdah came up, circled to the side, to put the womanbetween himself and Aaron.

Aaron looked at Arif again. The darkness within him was growing still but hadan unfocused quality, as though the thing surfacing was confused and far frombeing in control. For an instant, even, it seemed that Arif himself looked outof those eyes, begging help defeating his devil.

The Herodian sorceress rose from the chute.

Fa'tad stepped onto the portico of the Residence. His most senior prisonersaccompanied him. Witchfires pranced atop the citadel tower. He recognized theveydeen carpenter. "Finally."

General Cado observed, "You have done it."

Fa'tad chuckled. "So it would seem. Fatig, get the carpenter's family. Howeverit went they should be there for him when he comes down."

A messenger left immediately.

"Don't count your chickens."

Fa'tad turned to Colonel bel-Sidek. "Sir?"

"That's a witch's game. Two against one and no one alive can match either ofthe two."

Thunder and lightning hammered the night like the crackling bacon of the gods.

Clouds spun madly overhead. Rain fell in ever greater torrents.

Fa'tad al-Akla lost his smile.

The Witch had regained her feet. She held the boy before her. His facedarkened ever more as the thunder bellowed ever more fiercely. "Too late!" shecrowed at the Herodian sorceress. "You're too late, meddler. You can't stop itnow. I can withstand you all till he comes." She threw back her head, shriekedinto the teeth of the lightning. "He comes!" Let Qushmarrah know. Let all theworld know. Nakar was coming. The hour of vengeance was at hand.

In response the Herodian witch knelt beside the ladder well, reached down.

Then she rose, helping a child climb onto the parapet.

The other one ... But Azel had broken his neck. Hadn't he?

The Witch almost collapsed in her terror.

Azel cracked an eyelid, considered his surroundings through vision gone fuzzy, listened with hearing gone as feeble as an old man's. He shut out his pain andfear, examined the situation. As that Herodian bitch brought the other bratonto the parapet.

He was not deceived. Not for an instant. The sorceress had saved the brat by her art but Ala-eh-din Beyh wasn't in him now. Had he been there the stormwould have ripped the tower apart. But the Witch believed, if only for amoment. Believed and surrendered to the doom she saw as her punishment forhaving failed her husband.

Damned fool woman.

Damn fool man, he. Lying there with both legs and one arm past death's doorand for what? For her? What damnable fool hid down deep inside him, gullinghim all along, so that he'd thought he had some chance of making her his own?

He was an idiot. As big a fool as anybody he'd gulled during his idiot'squest.

He eyed them all, women, boys, father, Dartars. He had no regrets, felt noremorse. But he was alive still. Alive, he had to make decisions.

The carpenter shouted, "Easy," at the Witch. He had to shout to be heard abovethe storm. "Take it easy. Don't ..."

A fool to the last, that woman. Not thinking with her brain. Deceived by arustic sorceress from beyond the sea.

Instead of fighting on, going down swinging, making them pay for whatever theywon, she chose the easy way out again.

She shook the carpenter off, stumbled backward, looked out over the city shehated, then leaped from the parapet.

Live a fool, die one, Azel thought. She'd defeated herself. She'd lost toherself.

No one was watching him. It was an effort of herculean proportion but hemanaged to move one hand from his waist to his mouth. He began to chew.

He could've stopped her, he thought as the shadows closed in. He could'veshouted. They would've killed him but he could've warned her before she tookthat step. He could've given her Nakar ... The last thing in his sight wasthe boy. Nakar was looking out of those young eyes, looking at him, and Nakarknew. By holding his tongue he had destroyed them both, Witch and wizardalike.

Azel used his last ounce of strength to force a mocking smile and a farewellwink.

Aaron tried to grab the Witch as she backed off the parapet. In the lastinstant she changed her mind, reached for his outstretched hand. But thedistance separating them was too great. Down she plunged, vanishing in thedarkness, trailing a scream in which he heard Nakar's name and a curse uponQushmarrah.

Chance? Curse? Whim of the gods? At the moment the Witch struck stone theearth shook. The tremor was barely discernible but it was enough.

A lightning crack appeared in the leaky wall in the home of that otherwiseinsignificant woman in the Shu. Plaster chipped away. A hair of water squirtedthrough. The stream expanded swiftly.

The wall came apart.

The surge destroyed the next wall it encountered.

In minutes the hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of water trapped in themaze were in motion.

It would have been an awesome sight from the harbor had anyone been out thereto watch the avalanche of water and rubble and bodies roar down and hit the bay.

They got Yoseh up out of the shaft. Mo'atabar and the others followed. Soonthey had ropes over the side. Fa'tad had men waiting below.

They lowered the Herodian sorceress first, so she would be down there whenArif and the injured arrived. Already she had done something to put Arifasleep. Already Aaron understood that when Arif awakened he would not recallthe threat that had come so close to devouring him. He would not forget hisimprisonment completely but the worst horrors would be cleansed from his mind.

He would remember that his father had, indeed, come to his rescue.

They lowered Aaron right after Yoseh. When he reached the cobblestones hefound Laella and Mish and Stafa and even old Raheb waiting. Only Mish hadglances to spare for anyone but him and Arif. She had a few for Yoseh, whoseemed more embarrassed than pained now that the sorceress had seen to him.

His brothers had proclaimed him a hero.

Laella clung to Aaron and Arif and wept as she had not done since the day hehad come home from the Herodian captivity, releasing all her fears andtensions in the form of tears.

Aaron said, "It's all right now. It's all right. It's all over now." Heglanced at the sky. Once frenzied clouds had gone drowsy already.

"What about this one?" Medjhah asked Mo'atabar, kicking the child-taker.

"What about him? He's dead, isn't he?"

"Bled to death, looks like."

"Leave him lie. Fa'tad will send a cleanup gang in tomorrow. Let them worryabout it. I'm too damned tired. All I want to do is get down and lie down."

Medjhah shrugged. He nudged the dead man with his toe. "He was a toughbastard. For a veydeen."

"Wonderful epitaph, Medjhah. A real Dartar eulogy. It's your turn on the rope.

Mind the slick."

Those who were sent into the citadel to take prisoners and loot and dispose ofthe dead failed to find a corpse atop the tower. The disappearance was a greatpuzzle but no one worried it long.

Aaron had said it was over. That was not quite true. History is the wholeloaf, not just a slice. History is a river flowing, events its tributaries.

The end of Aaron Habid's tale was but an event in other stories.

Epilog One: Immediate Events Six days after the fall of the citadel Cretius Marco met the Turok raiders inbattle. He slew or captured all but a handful. The same day, a hundred mileseast, Diro Lucillo received word of events in Qushmarrah. He turned on hisDartar auxiliaries. Joab extricated his men, fled eastward, seized control ofthe fortified bridges behind the expeditionary force. Four days later, in alightning strike, his men captured the Seven Towers. Qushmarrah could not beapproached from the west.

Earlier, the Herodian fleet had made harbor in Qushmarrah and been capturedintact.

Eight days after the fall, after intense discussions with Colonel Sisu bel- Sidek, Fa'tad al-Akla proclaimed the Dartar kingdom of Qushmarrah. Bel-Sidekserved as his grand vizier the rest of his days.

Several senior officers of the Living did not survive to see the founding ofthe new estate.

Fa'tad sent to the Khadatqa Mountains for the rest of his people. Thus did heovercome the relentless drought.

Eighteen days after the fall, encouraged by the Herodian disaster to the west, Chorhkni of Aquira marched. He and his allies scored several early successes, but one too many when they captured the commanding Herodian general. Therefugee general Lentello Cado replaced him. He ruined Aquiran ambitions atAlgedo, where, when the allies withdrew, Chorhkni and all his sons remaineddead upon the field.

Epilog Two: A Longer View The Dartar Kings of Qushmarrah were five: Fa'tad, who ruled eighteen years; Joab, who reigned six months; Moamar, who lived three years; Faruk, whosurvived nine; and Juba. Juba ruled for twenty-nine years and was at war everyminute of the final twenty-eight.

Aaron Habid remained a shipbuilder all his days. From his yard came the swiftgalleys that held Herod's fleets at bay. His son Arif followed in hisfootsteps. But his son Stafa became a famous privateer, one of those fearlessshipmasters whose predations so incensed Herod that the Imperial Senatedeclared the Third Qushmarrahan War. His sister-in-law, Tamisa, dedicatedherself to Aram and so died childless.

Naszif bar bel-Abek pursued a distinguished career in Hero-dian service, attaining the proconsular rank and governing three different eastern provincesbefore his retirement to a villa in Carenia. His son, Zouki (Succo), became afamous jurist and philosopher. A grandson, Probio, elevated the family tosenatorial rank.

Lentello Cado died an old and bitter man, still in exile on the nether shore.

None of his magnificent efforts to illustrate the Herodian name earned theforgiveness of his enemies in Herod.

The brothers Nogah, Medjhah, and Yoseh inherited the wild mantle of Fa'tad al- Akla. On land and sea they harried the Herodian lion wherever it appeared.

In the fourth year of the Third Qushmarrahan War, Yoseh led a fleet into theharbor of Utium, the port of Herod. He burned the city and the unpreparedHerodian fleet, then ravaged the suburbs of Herod itself but failed topenetrate the city wall.

In the eleventh year of the war the brothers landed an army in Edria, north ofHerod, and sustained it there fourteen years, devouring everything Herod sentagainst them, twice besieging Herod itself. They fought boldly and valiantlybut in the end the superior stubbornness and vaster resources of Herodprevailed.

The Third Qushmarrahan War lasted twenty-eight years. Qushmarrah won everymajor battle but the last, before the city wall.

Herod's legions razed Qushmarrah to the last stone. Two centuries later theemperor Petia Magna ordered a new city built upon the site. It took the nameQushmarrah but was Herodian to the bone.

Qushmarrah fell in Yoseh's seventy-fourth year. He survived thirteen more, anactive pirate till the day he succumbed to a stray arrow sped by a Herodianmarine.

An old hermit in the sinkhole country lived nearly as long, hunting andfishing and occasionally visiting one of the nearer villages to amuse himselfwith news of the latest foibles of the world. He never looked back, never had any regrets.