If they hadn’t been herded south to feed Nzame. No-one said that aloud, but I knew everyone thought it.
The dog ran ahead of us, nosing about the stone. She paused in a dark doorway, peered intently, then continued her run along the street.
We came to the main city square. Stalls were still set up about its edges, stone awnings drooping over stone produce, stone baskets littering the pavement.
“It looks as though the stone swept right through here, taking everything but the people,” Iraldur said. “Look, those baskets have been dropped as they turned to stone –”
“And the people?” Zabrze asked. “Where are they?”
Iraldur stared at him, then jumped from his chariot and began shouting orders to his men, dividing them into search parties and fanning them out through the city.
“Zabrze?” Boaz asked softly. “Were your children at home?”
Zabrze jerked his head in a nod, then swung his horse into a northern avenue.
Boaz followed, Isphet and I, and a dozen soldiers, close behind. A moment later Iraldur seized a horse from one of his men and came after us.
Zabrze led us to a walled house that had once been very beautiful. It had relied on space and elegance to impart graciousness, and there were few outward signs that this was the residence of the heir to the throne.
The gates stood open, the courtyard empty. Gardens stretched behind the house – all stone, lifeless. The dog trotted inside, tail pricked curiously.
Zabrze followed, slowly and heavily. Isphet was at his shoulder, her eyes on her husband rather than the house before her.
Iraldur gestured for the soldiers to encircle the house, then he joined Boaz and myself as we walked inside. It was cool, stone working even more effectively than brick to keep the sun at bay.
Boaz took my hand and we walked slowly into the first of the reception rooms. It was empty, and so we walked into the next room, larger and more impressive than the other, and there encountered horror such as I could never have imagined.
Zabrze was standing in the centre of the room, staring. Isphet had sunk to her knees, her hands to her mouth.
Before them ranged seven statues – except they were not statues at all, but people made stone.
Children made stone.
They stood in a perfect line, arranged as if to receive whoever came a-visiting. One hand of each was raised, as if to clasp that of the visitor. Their faces, even roughened and thickened by the process of entombment, had been forced into smiles of welcome – except such despair radiated out from these frozen smiles that most visitors would have run rather than stayed.
And there was something else. Something different about these stone-children. They had been so carefully, so artfully arranged.
As if Nzame had known Zabrze would eventually come back to find them.
Boaz looked at me, then moved to Zabrze’s side. “Zabrze. There is hope. Let me touch them…and Tirzah. Isphet, you stay here.”
Zabrze did not respond. He could not drag his stare away from his children.
Boaz and I moved to the first of the statues. It was of a small boy, only seven or eight, and Boaz laid a hand on his shoulder. He looked up. “Tirzah…”
I laid a hand on the other shoulder. There was a force, an energy, within this statue, but it was different from what we’d felt in any other stone-man.
My eyes met Boaz’s. “We must try.”
He nodded, although I think he was as scared as I.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and concentrated, feeling for the force within the stone, feeling Boaz beside me.
We searched, but very carefully. We could feel something there, but it was strange. Then, just as we tentatively touched it, whatever it was snapped awake. It snatched at us.
It was going to trap us!
Boaz reacted first. As he had in the Chamber of Dreaming, he grabbed me with his power and hauled me back…back from something so dark and so malevolent it writhed…seethed towards me with the evil of the demon awakened!
My eyes flew open and I tore my hand away, trembling almost uncontrollably. Another heartbeat and it would have caught me. Trapped me into a similar horror to that which had trapped the poor boy.
Boaz and I had escaped – barely – but it was too late for Zabrze’s son. The stone darkened and marbled…with death rather than life. Streaks of decay rippled over the boy’s shoulders and arms, and then muscles and tissue formed and ripened into flesh that looked like it had been ten days dead and left in the sun to rot.
Boaz stepped about the horror and pulled me back five or six paces. Zabrze gave a great cry, and would have moved forward had not Isphet and Iraldur stopped him.
The stone continued to transform. The process was almost complete. A corpse stood before us, its arm extended, what was left of its face twisted into its macabre grin.
Bone poked through in spots, and the flesh had rotted and slid off a portion of its skull, leaving a bare and pathetic patch to glint in the light.
“Orphrat!” Zabrze screamed, and twisted in Isphet’s and Iraldur’s hands.
What had been Orphrat spoke – and although the voice was not his, nor the words, we could all hear the soul of the little boy crying out behind it, screaming for help.
“Zabrze. You came. How nice. I – we – have been waiting. Do you like what I have done with your children, Zabrze? But Zabrze, do not fear. I have left one in reasonable condition…but which one? Which?”
The horror twisted about and stared at Boaz and myself.
“Ah. The Necromancers. Stopped off for a visit on their way into…Infinity.” It cackled with laughter. “Or would they prefer to die? Your choice, beloveds, your choice.”
I turned away, screwing my eyes shut, clamping hands over my ears, but still Nzame continued to speak, continued to use that boy in a way that desecrated his soul.
“Are you willing to try to release the one that is still alive? You felt what was in this boy, and you managed to escape only just in time. I wait in five of the others; ready for you now. Stronger. Only one is free of me. Only one just stone and soul. Choose. But make the wrong choice and I will seize you. Pick the wrong one to release and you will spend eternity with me. Choose. Or walk out of the house alive but knowing that you leave one child alive and despairing.”
It stopped, and then there was the sickening sound of lumps of flesh falling to the ground.
I opened my eyes, unable not to witness this. Orphrat disintegrated until only bones stood there, one skeletal arm still obscenely extended.
And then even the bones crashed to the ground.
Zabrze screamed.
“Get him out of here!” Boaz shouted, but Zabrze hit out at Isphet and Iraldur as they tried to drag him away.
“NO! NO! These are my children! I cannot leave them!”
“Oh, gods,” Boaz said.
“He might have been lying,” Isphet said quietly. “They might all be dead. They might be nothing but a trap.”
“Or they might all be alive!” cried Zabrze.
Silence.
“No,” I said finally. “I think he was telling the truth. I think that only one of those statues still contains a living soul.”
“So why can’t you touch them and find which one it is?” Zabrze asked. “Why?”
“He has infused these statues with such malevolence – with pieces of his own spirit – that Tirzah and I only barely escaped. I think our touch awoke him in the stone. He knows we’re here now. He’s waiting. Five of these statues will trap us. One we can save. But which? Which?”
I flinched at the unconscious repetition of Nzame’s taunt. Which?
“There is no point standing here debating the matter,” Iraldur said. “We do not need to make up our minds at this very instant.”
He tugged at Zabrze’s arm, and this time Zabrze did not object. “Isphet, take Zabrze into another room. I’ll send in some soldiers to remove what is left of Orphrat. Boaz, Tirzah, wait here for
me.”
When Iraldur returned his manner was brusque, but I could see he’d not been unaffected by what had happened in this room. He must have known these children.
“Well?” he said. “If you cannot discover the solution to this deadly puzzle I will order my men to block up the windows and doors into this house and entomb these children right here.”
“No!” Boaz said. “You can’t –”
“I cursed well can,” Iraldur snapped, “if you can’t tell the difference.”
I stared at the row of statues. One was alive. Could he or she hear us? See us as we stood debating?
“You are too important,” I said to Boaz. “You cannot be risked here.”
“And I will not risk you,” he said tightly. “There is nothing we can do, Tirzah. Nothing. Iraldur, you may as well order your men –”
There was a low growl, and we jumped. I whipped about, expecting one of the statues to talk, to taunt us again with Nzame’s voice. But it was only the dog, sniffing about the feet of the nearest statue.
She growled, and bared her teeth at it. She backed away a step, stiff-legged, the hair raised in a stiff ridge down her spine.
“Get that cur away from my children!” Zabrze, back in the doorway, Isphet anxious beside him.
“Zabrze,” she said gently. “Come away. There’s nothing we can –”
The dog sniffed the next statue and snarled and snapped at it.
“Get that cur away from –”
“No!” I shouted as Iraldur stepped towards the dog. “No, let her be. Zabrze, I want to see her reaction. Please…please.”
He stared at me, but kept silent, and we looked back to the dog.
She reached the third statue, sniffing tentatively about its feet. She sniffed again, more confidently, gave a brief wag of her tail, then trotted on to the next in line. This she growled at almost immediately, as she did at the remaining two.
We all stared at the third statue. My heart was hammering in my chest.
“Are we going to trust a dog?” Boaz asked quietly.
“Or is it yet another trap?” Iraldur said. “Why did that dog survive in the stone land when no other did? I say we entomb the children as they stand. Zabrze, it is the only sensible thing to do. Isphet has a womb to replace what you’ve lost.”
That was entirely the wrong thing to say.
“Then you can entomb me with them!” Zabrze screamed. “For it was I who left them here to die!”
“I will –” Boaz began.
“No,” I broke in. “Isphet and I will. Isphet? Will you do this with me?”
She nodded, spoke quietly to Zabrze who looked as horrified at risking Isphet as he did at leaving his children, then joined me.
I called the dog over and led her gently to the third statue.
Again she sniffed it, her tail wagging slightly, curiously, then stared at me as if asking what the fuss was about. I let her go and she trotted away.
“Isphet?” I said, and was horrified to hear my voice tremble.
Boaz was staring at us, stiff, frightened. We knew that if the statue was a trap then neither Isphet nor I would have the strength to pull back.
Isphet took my hand, and squeezed it gently. “If I’d known you were going to prove so much trouble I’d have slammed that door in Ta’uz’s face the night he led you to me.”
“If I’d known you were going to prove so bad-tempered I’d have braved the guards’ spears to run from you.”
We both tried to smile, but neither of us managed it.
Then we placed our hands side by side on the statue’s shoulder.
I think everyone in the room shifted forward slightly as if they were going to pull us back.
We increased the pressure of our hands, feeling the other’s presence, taking strength and courage from it, seeking out the energy within the statue.
We found it instantly, and both of us flinched and recoiled.
Behind us, Boaz cried out and made as if to move forward. Iraldur, sensible to the last, grabbed him and held him back.
All this I saw as if through a curtain of pain. The pain and misery of the girl trapped within the stone.
Help me! Help me! Help me!
Isphet was crying, sobbing, and I think I was too. We reached out with all the strength we had, and pulled that girl through the monstrous veil of sorcery that had trapped her.
The transformation was instantaneous. Suddenly there was flesh, not stone beneath our hands – and it was good flesh, firm and cool. She collapsed into our arms with a pitiful wail, and I –
Screamed as the remaining statues exploded about us. The girl, Isphet and I were thrown to the floor, bleeding from dozens of tiny cuts from the shards of stone that flew through the air.
I lost consciousness for a moment, then felt hands drag me to my feet. Coughing and spluttering, I choked on the thick dust that had filled the room.
The dog was howling, and I could hear others coughing and retching. They dragged me through the room, through the choking cloud of dust, then eventually out of the house into the blessedly hot, clear sunlight.
I was still coughing, although not so badly, and someone threw water into my face.
It shocked me enough that I opened my eyes. Boaz had his arms about me, his own face grey with dust, his eyes wide and reddened.
Beside us Zabrze had his arms about the girl and Isphet.
Everyone, I realised, was crying.
Her name was Layla, and she was eighteen, the eldest daughter of Zabrze and Neuf.
The story she told would keep many of us awake through a multitude of nights.
That evening we sat in Setkoth’s main square, a small fire flickering before us, the dog cuddled in Layla’s lap, Layla herself cuddled in her father’s arms. Zabrze could not let her go; Isphet and I had tried to take her aside to wash the dust from her face and limbs, but Zabrze had been so insistent that streaks of dust still ran down her cheeks and matted her hair.
The house Zabrze had ordered destroyed. Now it was rubble lying over the rubble of his children’s bodies.
“We’d heard of the problems at Threshold,” Layla said softly. “We’d heard that Consecration Day had run amok. And we’d feared. But we did not know what to do. We waited for Father and Mother to come home…”
Zabrze winced and closed his eyes.
“…but the servants said that we had nothing to worry about. That we were the sons and daughters of Prince Zabrze and that no-one would dare touch us. They told us it was better to stay home, stay inside; better that than fleeing north with the thousands who’d taken to the river transports.”
She paused, her eyes lowered, her hand stroking the dog. She was very pretty underneath all that dust and the horror of the memory.
“So we did. One day the stone came. It…it crackled through the city. I was on the roof balcony with Orphrat and Joelen, and we could see it spread in a gigantic arc from the south. It rippled towards us, a sea of stone, and we were terrified, but we could not move.
“And then everything turned to stone about us. We were left with flesh and breath, but the balustrade beneath our hands and the tiles beneath our feet turned to stone. The birds in the sky dropped and shattered. Even the air seemed heavier.
“But the worst thing was the silence. Setkoth had been alive with noise, then there was nothing. The silence of death.”
She paused, and I saw Zabrze’s arms tighten. All the love he’d harboured for the other six was now focused on Layla. I hoped he would eventually be able to let her go.
“We fled inside. No-one knew what to do. Many of the servants – most people still in Setkoth, I think – had been left alive, but they were panicked. Who can blame them? They fled –”
“I will flay the skin from their –”
“Zabrze,” Isphet said gently. “There is no guilt or blame here, only fear and the spreading stone. Hush, now.”
He glared at her, but he quietened down.
“Imran an
d I…”
Imran had been Zabrze’s eldest son.
“…took the others into the reception room where…”
Her voice faltered, but she took a deep breath and continued. “Where you found us. We waited. We didn’t know what to do. Oh, Father! We should have fled with the others! We should –”
“Hush,” Zabrze said, and stroked Layla’s hair and kissed her cheek. “Isphet is right. There is no blame in this nightmare. None at all.”
She trembled, then gathered her courage again. “We sat for hours, not knowing what to do. No-one was left. We thought you’d –”
She broke off, but we all knew what she’d been going to say. We thought you’d come. There they had sat. Seven frightened, beautiful children, waiting for their mother and father.
“There were steps outside. We did not know whether to run and hide, or to stay where we were. But we were the children of Zabrze and Neuf,” and she straightened her back, “and so we chose to stay and receive whatever came.”
Zabrze hid his face in her hair; I had tears running down my cheeks.
“It was…men of stone. Oh, Father! They moaned, and waved their arms, and we all screamed and tried to run, but it was too late, too late. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.”
She stopped, swallowed, and collected herself. “Then Chad-Nezzar came in. At first I was relieved. Help was here! But it was not really Chad-Nezzar at all. He was blackened and twisted, and he said many blackened and twisted things. He said that we were to die and yet not die. He said we were to serve Nzame, and he would be all the father and mother and lover we would ever need.”
She was stumbling, rushing her words now.
“He ran towards us, his arms cartwheeling about, screaming, and we screamed, and then pain such as I could never imagine overwhelmed me. I felt as if I was on fire, and – strangely – I could feel the pain of my brothers and sisters as well and it was all too much, but I could not let go. I wanted to die but I could not. And then I felt this…this thing, this demon tear into the souls of my brothers and sisters and warp them and rip them and change them until they lived only for death, lived only to deal death and, oh gods! I could not escape them, I was trapped with them, and every minute seemed a lifetime, and a thousand, thousand lifetimes I passed with the twisted dead souls of my brothers and sisters until you…you…”