That might, he realized, have been his last chance to get rid of it; still, he resisted the urge to run back and try to bargain with Bheleu. If he released the sword, the Forgotten King would get it, he was certain. He could not allow that, now or ever. He marched up the street, sword held up before him to light the way.
The city seemed deserted; nothing moved on the Street of the Temples save himself and his two companions. He wondered if anything still lived in Dыsarra other than the Aghadites, the huddled people in the temple of Tema, and his own little group.
At the end of the avenue, the glow of the sword revealed black volcanic rock forming a narrow defile that led into a cave; the sword's light did not penetrate the shadows of the cave's entrance, visible as a deeper blackness amid the surrounding stones.
A human corpse lay sprawled half in, half out of the shadows. That was hardly surprising in this city of death, where Garth had found himself almost tripping over bare bones at every turn. This body, however, was still fresh; it had not yet begun to rot. Garth could detect only the faintest scent of incipient corruption and judged that it had been dead no more than three days at the most.
The remains were those of a very old man; Garth paused to study them, and recognized who the man had been.
He was clad in a robe of so pure a black that the sword's light, or almost any other light, was not reflected at all, making the corpse seem almost a heap of tangible shadow. It was small and frail, with one leg twisted and shrunken, one hand missing, half the face hidden beneath a purplish growth, one eye long gone and the other buried beneath white cataracts.
This pitiful thing had been the caretaker of the temple of Death.
The overman glanced around warily, but saw no sign of anything that might have killed the ancient priest. It was entirely possible that age had caught up with him at last. Even the priests of Death died eventually-with one exception.
It was very near this spot that the overman high priest of Aghad, whom Garth had later slain, had once taunted him from concealment. One of the tunnels leading from the temple of Aghad might, Garth guessed, come up in this vicinity. He peered at the surrounding rock, but could see no sign of human presence.
"What happened to him?" Frima asked, staring at the corpse.
"He died," Garth said. After a pause, he added, "Probably of old age."
"Oh," Frima replied, suppressing a shudder. She found so fresh a corpse, dead so mysteriously, to be far more unsettling than the less recognizable remains of the plague's many victims.
Garth was no longer interested in the body and felt reasonably certain that no assassins lurked in the immediate area. "Come on," he said.
"That's the temple of Death," Frima said, not moving.
"Yes," Garth agreed, "it is."
"I don't want to go in there," she said.
"Why not? You suggested before that Aghadites might hide here; are you frightened of them? Have you decided to abandon your vengeance?"
"No, that's not it!" she cried. "I'm frightened of Death!"
"I am here to protect you," Garth replied. "I have been here before and emerged alive. I have the power of Bheleu to defend us. However, if you prefer, you may wait here while I investigate the temple."
Frima hesitated, but finally said, "All right. I'll stay here if you leave Koros with me."
Garth had no objection to that; he had not intended to take the warbeast into the temple in any case. He was not sure the huge creature would fit through the entry passage.
He ordered the beast to guard the girl and then strode onward into the cave.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The floor sloped gently downward; there was no gate or door, but the corridor narrowed slightly at one point. Thereafter it gradually widened, opening at last into a large chamber, the heart of the temple. Although the passageway was entirely natural, this main room had been artificially enlarged, the floor smoothed and leveled, the walls carved into elaborate friezes separated by columns, and the ceiling around the sides ribbed with carved vaulting. The central portion of the ceiling remained rough, natural stone, and beneath this stood the altar, cut from a large stalagmite and carved in the form of a lectern, with a strange horned skull riveted to its upper edge.
The glare of the sword was not the only light here; a sullen red glow came from the tunnel that led down and away from the far side of the chamber. The carvings and the altar cast strange double shadows in this eerie illumination.
Garth paid no attention to any of this. He had expected the temple to be deserted; he had completely forgotten, in the press of other concerns, that the Forgotten King had announced his intention of coming here and beginning his magic. The overman had dismissed that, convincing himself that the King could do nothing without the Sword of Bheleu, and had somehow assumed that the old man was lurking somewhere in the city, waiting for Garth to relinquish the sword to him.
He had been wrong. The Forgotten King stood before the altar, his back to Garth, chanting something unintelligible. The Book of Silence lay upon the altar, open, and it was evident that the old man was reading from it.
The sound seemed to reverberate from the stone walls, turning the Forgotten King's already-hideous voice into an unspeakable cacophony. Garth could not recognize the language of the spell, save that it bore no resemblance to his own tongue. The words were harsh and sibilant, with unpleasant combinations of vowels, and consonants that seemed to be all either hissing or guttural. Words and phrases ended in the wrong places, and the rhythm was broken and hard to follow, but the King appeared not to notice; he chanted on, the words spilling forth in a constant stream.
Garth watched for a long moment, unsure what to do. He knew that he did not want the King to complete his spell, but he did not know whether it would be safe to interrupt it.
The chant ended abruptly with a high-pitched grating sound, and without hesitation or pause the King said, "Greetings, Garth." He did not turn.
"Greetings, O King."
There was a moment of growing silence as the last echoes rebounded, faded, and died.
"What are you doing?" Garth asked at last.
"I prepare the final magic," the King replied.
The overman stepped forward, circling wide to the left so that the old man would not be able to reach out and snatch the sword away from him. "How can you do that," he asked, "without the Sword of Bheleu?"
"The sword is required only in the final stage, at the end of the three days, a point that will arrive shortly. I can prepare the magic, but I cannot complete it without both the sword and your assistance."
This answer troubled Garth, not so much because of what was said as because it was given so freely and seemed so cooperative a response-totally out of character for the old man. Something about him had changed; Garth guessed that having begun his spell, after so long a wait, had affected him.
The overman took another few steps and looked at the old man's face.
For a moment he did not realize what he was seeing, but only that something was wrong. The King's face seemed to shimmer and alter as the overman watched, distorting itself, and after several seconds Garth realized that the old man was wearing the Pallid Mask. The mask had fitted itself to the contours of the King's face, but remained smooth and pale and metallic, retaining its unsettling ability to shift its appearance inexplicably. The old man's long wisp of beard was caught up inside the mask's chin, out of sight, and the eye sockets were less sunken than his own-though his eyes remained invisible, hidden now, not by the shadows of his cowl, but by the mask.