The Sapphire Rose

  ‘They aren’t alive!’ Ulath roared. ‘There’s nothing in the armour but bones and rotting guts!’

  Sickened, gagging with nausea, the knights fought on, hacking their way through their already dead enemies.

  ‘Stop!’ Sephrenia cried sharply.

  ‘But –’ Kalten started to object.

  ‘Take one step backwards – all of you!’

  They grudgingly stepped back a pace, and the outrageously armoured cadavers menacing them returned to immobility. Once again at that unseen and unheard signal they gave vent to that emotionless howl.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Ulath demanded. ‘Why aren’t they attacking?’

  ‘Because they’re dead, Ulath,’ Sephrenia said.

  Ulath pointed at a crumpled form with his axe. ‘Dead or not, this one still tried to stick his spear into me.’

  ‘That’s because you came to within reach of his weapon. Look at them. They’re standing all around us, and they aren’t making any move to assist their companions. Get me a torch, Talen.’

  The boy wrested a torch from between two flagstones and handed it to her. She raised it and peered at the paving beneath their feet. ‘That’s frightening,’ she said with a shudder.

  ‘We will protect you, Lady Sephrenia,’ Bevier assured her. ‘You have nothing to fear.’

  ‘There’s nothing for any of us to fear, dear Bevier. What’s truly frightening is the fact that Otha probably has more power at his command than any living human, but he’s so stupid that he doesn’t even know how to use it. We’ve spent centuries fearing an absolute imbecile.’

  ‘Raising the dead is fairly impressive, Sephrenia,’ Sparhawk suggested.

  ‘Any Styric child can galvanize a corpse, but Otha doesn’t even know what to do with them once he raises them. Each one of his dead guardians is standing on a flagstone, and that flagstone is all it’s protecting.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Test it and see for yourself.’

  Sparhawk raised his shield and advanced on one of the stinking guards. As soon as his foot touched the flagstone, the skull-faced thing swung jerkily at him with a jagged-bladed axe. He easily deflected the stroke and stepped back. The guard returned to its former position and stood motionless as a statue.

  The vast circle of guards ringing the palace and the temple howled their empty howl again.

  Then to Sparhawk’s horror, Sephrenia gathered her white robe about her and quite calmly began to thread her way through the ranks of the stinking dead. She stopped and glanced back at them. ‘Oh do come along now. Let’s get inside before the rain starts. Just don’t step on any of their flagstones, that’s all.’

  It was eerie to step around those savagely threatening figures with their foul reek and their skull-like faces in the ghastly light of the dancing lightning, but no more dangerous in fact than avoiding nettles on a forest trail.

  When they had passed the last of the dead sentries, Talen stopped and squinted along a diagonal rank of those guardians. ‘Revered teacher,’ he said quietly to Berit.

  ‘Yes, Talen?’

  ‘Why don’t you push this one over?’ Talen pointed at the back of one of the armoured figures, ‘– sort of off to the side?’

  ‘Why?’

  Talen grinned a wicked kind of grin. ‘Just give it a shove, Berit. You’ll see.’

  Berit looked a bit puzzled, but he reached out with his axe and gave the rigid corpse a good shove. The armoured figure fell, crashing into another. The second corpse promptly beheaded the first, staggering back as it did so, and it was immediately chopped down by a third.

  The chaos spread rapidly, and a sizeable number of the intimidating dead were dismembered by their fellows in a mindless display of unthinking savagery.

  ‘That’s a very good boy you have there, Kurik,’ Ulath said.

  ‘We have some hopes for him,’ Kurik said modestly.

  They turned towards the portal and then stopped. Hanging in mid-air in the very centre of the dark doorway was a misty face engraved upon the emptiness with sickly green flame. The face was grotesquely misshapen, a thing of towering, implacable evil – and it was familiar. Sparhawk had seen it before.

  ‘Azash!’ Sephrenia hissed. ‘Stay back, all of you!’

  They stared at the ghastly apparition.

  ‘Is that really him?’ Tynian asked in an awed voice.

  ‘An image of him,’ Sephrenia replied. ‘It’s more of Otha’s work.’

  ‘Is it dangerous?’ Kalten asked her.

  ‘To step into the doorway means death, and worse than death.’

  ‘Are there any other ways to get in?’ Kalten asked her, eyeing the glowing apparition fearfully.

  ‘I’m sure there are, but I doubt if we’d ever be able to find them.’

  Sparhawk sighed. He had decided a long time ago that he would do this when the time came. He regretted the argument it was going to cause more than the act itself. He detached Bhelliom’s steel-mesh pouch from his belt. ‘All right,’ he said to his friends, ‘you’d better get started. I can’t give you any guarantees about how much time I’ll be able to give you, but I’ll hold off for as long as I can.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Kalten asked suspiciously.

  ‘This is as close to Azash as we’re going to get, I’m afraid. We all know what has to be done, and it’s only going to take one of us to do it. If any of you ever makes it back to Cimmura, tell Ehlana that I wished that this had turned out differently. Sephrenia, is this close enough? Will Azash be destroyed?’

  Her eyes were full of tears, but she nodded.

  ‘Let’s not get sentimental about this,’ Sparhawk said brusquely. ‘We don’t have the time. I’m honoured to have known you – all of you. Now get out of here. That’s an order.’ He had to get them moving before they began making foolishly noble decisions. ‘Go!’ he roared at them. ‘And watch how you step around those guards!’

  They were moving now. Military men always respond to commands – if the commands are shouted. They were moving, and that was all that was important. The whole gesture was probably futile anyway. If what Sephrenia had said was true, they would need at least a day to get beyond the area that would be totally destroyed when he smashed the Bhelliom, and there was little hope that he could remain undiscovered for that long. He had to at least try to give them that one slim chance, though. Perhaps no one would come out of the palace, and none of the patrols roving the streets would chance to see him. It was nice to think so, anyway.

  He did not want to watch them go. It would be better that way. There were things to be done, things far more important than standing forlornly like a child who has misbehaved and is being left behind while the rest of the family goes off to the fair. He looked first to the right and then to the left. If Sephrenia had been right and if this was the only way into Otha’s palace, it would be better to go off some distance from the gaping portal and its glowing apparition. That way, all he would need to concern himself about would be those patrols. Anyone – or anything – emerging from the palace wouldn’t immediately see him. Left? or right? He shrugged. What difference did it make? Perhaps it might be better to slip around the outer perimeter of the palace and to wait against the wall of the temple itself. He’d be closer to Azash that way, and the Elder God would be closer to the centre of that absolute obliteration. He half-turned and saw them. They were standing beyond the ranks of the threatening dead. Their faces were resolute.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he called to them. ‘I told you to get out of here.’

  ‘We decided to wait for you,’ Kalten called back.

  Sparhawk took a threatening step towards them.

  ‘Don’t be foolish, Sparhawk,’ Kurik said. ‘You can’t afford to risk trying to sidestep your way through those dead men. If you make a single misstep, one of them will brain you from behind – and then Azash will get Bhelliom. Did we really come all this way just for that?’

  Chapter 27

  S
parhawk swore. Why couldn’t they just do as they had been told? Then he sighed. He should have known they wouldn’t obey. There was no help for it now, and no point in berating them about it.

  He pulled off his gauntlet to take his water bottle from his belt, and his ring flashed blood-red in the torchlight. He worked the stopper out of the bottle and drank. The ring flashed in his eyes again. He lowered the bottle, looking thoughtfully at the ring. ‘Sephrenia,’ he said almost absently. ‘I need you.’

  She was at his side in a few moments.

  ‘The Seeker was Azash, wasn’t it?’

  ‘That’s an oversimplification, Sparhawk.’

  ‘You know what I mean. When we were at King Sarak’s grave in Pelosia, Azash spoke to you through the Seeker, but he ran away when I started after him with Aldreas’s spear.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And I used the spear to chase away that thing that came out of the mound in Lamorkand, and I killed Ghwerig with it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But it wasn’t really the spear, was it? It isn’t really all that much of a weapon, after all. It was the rings, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t see where you’re going with this, Sparhawk.’

  ‘Neither do I exactly.’ He pulled off his other gauntlet and held his hands out, looking at the rings. ‘They have a certain amount of power themselves, don’t they? I think maybe I’ve been getting a little overwhelmed by the fact that they’re the keys to Bhelliom. Bhelliom’s got so much power that I’ve been overlooking things that can be done with just the rings alone. Aldreas’s spear didn’t really have anything to do with it – which is a good thing, actually, since it’s standing in a corner in Ehlana’s apartment back in Cimmura. Any weapon would have served just as well, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘As long as the rings were touching it, yes. Please, Sparhawk, just get to the point. Your Elene logic is tedious.’

  ‘It helps me to think. I could clear that image out of the doorway with Bhelliom, but that would turn the Troll-Gods loose, and they’d be trying to stab me in the back every time I turned around. But the Troll-Gods have no connection with the rings. I can use the rings without waking Ghnomb and his friends. What would happen if I took my sword in both hands and touched it to that face hanging in the doorway?’

  She stared at him.

  ‘We aren’t really talking about Azash here. We’re dealing with Otha. I may not be the greatest magician in the world, but I really don’t have to be as long as I have the rings. I think they may just be more than a match for Otha, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I can’t tell you, Sparhawk.’ Her tone was subdued. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Why don’t we try it and find out?’ He turned and looked back across the ranks of the reeking dead. ‘All right,’ he called to his friends, ‘come back here. We’ve got something to do.’

  They slipped warily past the armoured cadavers and gathered around Sparhawk and his tutor. ‘I’m going to try something that might not work,’ he told them, ‘and if it doesn’t, you’re going to have to deal with Bhelliom.’ He took the steel-mesh pouch from his belt. ‘If what I try fails, spill Bhelliom out on the flagstones and smash it with a sword or an axe.’ He gave the pouch to Kurik, handed Kalten his shield and drew his sword. He gripped its hilt in both hands and strode back to the vast doorway with the glowing apparition hanging in its centre. He lifted his sword. ‘Wish me luck,’ he said. Anything else would have smacked of bombast.

  He straightened his arms, levelling his sword at the image etched in green fire before him. He steeled himself and deliberately stepped forward to bring his sword-point into contact with the burning enchantment.

  The results were satisfyingly spectacular. The touch of the sword-point exploded the burning image, showering Sparhawk with a waterfall of multi-coloured sparks, and the detonation probably shattered every window for miles in any direction. Sparhawk and all of his friends were hurled to the ground, and the armoured corpses standing guard before the palace were felled like new-mown wheat. Sparhawk shook his head to clear away the ringing in his ears and struggled to get back on his feet again as he stared at the portal. One of the vast doors had been split down the middle, and the other hung precariously from a single hinge. The apparition was gone, and in its place hung a few tatters of wispy smoke. From deep inside the palace there came a prolonged, bat-like screech of agony.

  ‘Is everybody all right?’ Sparhawk shouted, looking at his friends.

  They were struggling to their feet, their eyes slightly unfocused.

  ‘Noisy,’ was all Ulath said.

  ‘Who’s making all that noise inside?’ Kalten asked.

  ‘Otha, I’d imagine,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘Having one of your spells shattered gives you quite a turn.’ He retrieved his gauntlets and the steel-mesh pouch.

  ‘Talen!’ Kurik shouted. ‘No!’

  But the boy had already walked directly into the open doorway. ‘There doesn’t seem to be anything here, father,’ he reported, walking further inside and then back out again. ‘Since I didn’t vanish in a puff of smoke, I think we can say that it’s safe.’

  Kurik started to move towards the boy, his hands outstretched hungrily. Then he thought better of it and stopped, muttering curses.

  ‘Let’s go inside,’ Sephrenia said. ‘I’m sure every patrol in the city heard that blast. We can hope that they thought it was only thunder, but some of them are bound to come to investigate.’

  Sparhawk picked up the pouch and tucked it back under his belt. ‘We’ll want to get out of sight once we’re inside. Which way should we go?’

  ‘Bear to the left once we’re through the doorway. The passages on that side lead to the kitchens and the storerooms.’

  ‘All right then. Let’s go.’

  That alien smell Sparhawk had noticed when they had first entered the city was stronger here in the dark corridors of the palace. The knights moved cautiously, listening to the echoes of the shouts of the elite guards. The palace was in turmoil, and even in a place as vast as this there were bound to be encounters. In most cases, Sparhawk and his friends evaded these by simply stepping into the dark chambers which lined the corridors. Sometimes, however, that was not possible, but the Knights of the Church were far more skilled at close combat than the Zemochs, and what noise the encounters produced was lost in the shouting that echoed through the corridors. They pressed on, their weapons at the ready.

  It was nearly an hour later when they entered a large pastry kitchen where the banked fires provided a certain amount of light. They stopped there and closed and barred the doors.

  ‘I’m all turned around,’ Kalten confessed, stealing a small cake. ‘Which way do we go?’

  ‘Through that door, I think,’ Sephrenia replied. ‘The kitchens all open into a corridor that leads to the throne-room.’

  ‘Otha eats in his throne-room?’ Bevier asked in some surprise.

  ‘Otha doesn’t move around very much,’ she answered. ‘He can’t walk any more.’

  ‘What happened to him to cripple him?’

  ‘His appetite. Otha eats almost constantly, and he’s never been fond of exercise. His legs are too weak to carry him any more.’

  ‘How many doors into the throne-room?’ Ulath asked her.

  She thought a moment, remembering. ‘Four, I think. The one from the kitchens here; another coming in from the main palace; and the one leading to Otha’s private quarters.’

  ‘And the last?’

  ‘The last entrance doesn’t have a door. It’s the opening that leads into the maze.’

  ‘Our first move should be to block those then. We’ll want some privacy when we talk with Otha.’

  ‘And anybody else who happens to be there,’ Kalten added. ‘I wonder if Martel’s managed to get here yet.’ He took another cake.

  ‘There’s one way to find out,’ Tynian said.

  ‘In a moment,’ Sparhawk said. ‘What’s this maze you mentioned, Sephrenia?’

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p; ‘It’s the route to the temple. There was a time when people were fascinated by labyrinths. It’s very complicated and very dangerous.’

  ‘Is that the only way to get to the temple?’

  She nodded.

  ‘The worshippers walk through the throne-room to get to the temple?’

  ‘Ordinary worshippers don’t go into the temple, Sparhawk – only priests and sacrifices.’

  ‘We should probably rush the throne-room then. We’ll bar the doors, deal with whatever guards may be in there and then take Otha prisoner. If we put a knife to his throat, I don’t think any of his soldiers will interfere with us.’

  ‘Otha’s a magician, Sparhawk,’ Tynian reminded him. ‘Taking him prisoner might not be as easy as it sounds.’

  ‘Otha’s no particular danger at the moment,’ Sephrenia disagreed. ‘We’ve all had spells come apart on us before. It takes a while to recover from that.’

  ‘Are we ready then?’ Sparhawk asked tensely.

  They nodded, and he led them through the doorway.

  The corridor leading from the kitchens to Otha’s throne-room was narrow and not very long. Its far end was illuminated by ruddy torchlight. As they neared that light, Talen slipped on ahead, his soft-shod feet making no sound on the flagstone floor. He returned in a few moments. ‘They’re all there,’ he whispered in a voice tight with excitement. ‘– Annias, Martel and the rest. It looks as if they just got here. They’re still wearing travellers’ cloaks.’

  ‘How many guards in the room?’ Kurik asked him.

  ‘Not too many. Twenty or so at the most.’

  ‘The rest of them are probably out in the halls looking for us.’

  ‘Can you describe the room?’ Tynian asked. ‘And the places where the guards are standing?’

  Talen nodded. ‘This corridor opens out not far from the throne itself. You’ll be able to pick Otha out of the rest almost immediately. He looks a lot like a garden slug. Martel and the others are gathered around him. There are two guards at each of the doors – except for the archway right behind the throne. Nobody’s guarding that one. The rest of the guards are scattered along the walls. They’re wearing mail and swords, and each one of them is holding a long spear. There are a dozen or so burly fellows in loincloths squatting near the throne. They don’t have any weapons.’