They reached the city's northern end and rode out on a coastal track for half a league before swinging inland, into the wastes of the Odhan. The oasis they approached an hour later was dead, the spring long since dried up. All that remained of what had once been a lush, natural garden amidst the sands was a stand of withered, gnarled cedars rising from a carpet of tumbled palms.
Many of the trees bore strange projections that drew Duiker's curiosity as they led their horses closer.
'Are those horns in the trees?' Kulp asked.
'Bhederin, I think,' the historian replied. 'Jammed into a fork, then grown past, leaving them embedded deep in the wood. These trees were likely a thousand years old before the water vanished.'
The mage grunted. 'You'd think they'd be cut down by now, this close to Hissar.'
'The horns are warnings,' Bult said. 'Holy ground. Once, long ago. Memories remain.'
'As well they should,' Duiker muttered. 'Sormo should be avoiding hallowed sand, not seeking it out. If this place is aspected, it's likely an inimical one to a Wickan warlock.'
'I've long since learned to trust Sormo E'nath's judgement, Historian. You'd do well to learn the like.'
'It's a poor scholar who trusts anyone's judgement,' Duiker said. 'Even and perhaps especially his own.'
'"You walk shifting sands,"' Bult sighed, then gave him another grin, 'as the locals would say.'
'What would you Wickans say?' Kulp asked.
Bult's eyes glittered with mischief. 'Nothing. Wise words are like arrows flung at your forehead. What do you do? Why, you duck, of course. This truth a Wickan knows from the time he first learns to ride — long before he learns to walk.'
They found the warlock in a clearing. The drifts of sand had been swept aside, revealing a heaved and twisted brick floor — all that remained of a structure of some sort. Chips of obsidian glittered in the joins.
Kulp dismounted, eyeing Sormo who stood in the centre, hands hidden within heavy sleeves. He swatted at a fly. 'What's this, then, some lost, forgotten temple?'
The young Wickan slowly blinked. 'My assistants concluded it had been a stable. They then left without elaborating.'
Kulp scowled at Duiker. 'I despise Wickan humour,' he whispered.
Sormo gestured them closer. 'It is my intention to open myself to the sacred aspect of this kheror, which is the name Wickans give to holy places open to the skies-'
'Are you mad?' Kulp's face had gone white. 'Those spirits will rip your throat out, child. They are of the Seven-'
'They are not,' the warlock retorted. 'The spirits in this kheror were raised in the time before the Seven. They are the land's own and if you must liken them to a known aspect, then it must be Tellann.'
'Hood's mercy,' Duiker groaned. 'If it is indeed Tellann, then you will be dealing with T'lan Imass, Sormo. The undead warriors have turned their backs on the Empress and all that is the Empire, ever since the Emperor's assassination.'
The warlock's eyes were bright. 'And have you not wondered why?'
The historian's mouth snapped shut. He had theories in that regard, but to voice them — to anyone — would be treason.
Kulp's dry question to Sormo broke through Duiker's thoughts. 'And has Empress Laseen tasked you with this? Are you here to seek a sense of future events or is that just a feint?'
Bult had stood a few paces from them saying nothing, but now he spat. 'We need no seer to guess that, Mage.'
The warlock raised his arms out to his sides. 'Stay close,' he said to Kulp, then his eyes slid to the historian. 'And you, see and remember all you will witness here.'
'I am already doing so, Warlock.'
Sormo nodded, closed his eyes.
His power spread like a faint, subtle ripple, sweeping over Duiker and the others to encompass the entire clearing. Daylight faded abruptly, replaced by a soft dusk, the dry air suddenly damp and smelling of marshlands.
Ringing the glade like sentinels were cypresses. Mosses hung from branches in curtains, hiding what lay beyond in impenetrable shadow.
Duiker could feel Sormo E'nath's sorcery like a warm cloak; he had never before felt a power such as this one. Calm and protective, strong yet yielding. He wondered at the Empire's loss in exterminating these warlocks. An error she's clearly corrected, though it might well be too late. How many warlocks were lost in truth?
Sormo loosed an ululating cry that echoed as if they stood within a vast cavern.
The next moment the air was alive with icy winds, arriving in warring gusts. Sormo staggered, his eyes now open and widening with alarm. He drew a breath, then visibly recoiled at the taste and Duiker could not blame him. Bestial stench rode the winds, growing fouler by the moment.
Taut violence filled the glade, a sure promise announced in the sudden thrashing of the moss-laden branches. The historian saw a swarming cloud approach Bult from behind and shouted a warning. The Wickan whirled, long-knives in his hands. He screamed as the first of the wasps stung.
'D'ivers!' Kulp bellowed, one hand grasping Duiker's telaba and pulling the historian back to where Sormo stood as if dazed.
Rats scampered over the soft ground, shrilly screaming as they attacked a writhing bundle of snakes.
The historian felt heat on his legs, looked down. Fire ants swarmed him up to his thighs. The heat rose to agony. He screamed.
Swearing, Kulp unleashed his warren in a pulse of power. Shrivelled ants fell from the historian's legs like dust. The attacking swarm flinched back, the D'ivers retreating.
The rats had overrun the snakes and now closed in on Sormo. The Wickan frowned at them.
Off where Bult crouched slapping futilely at the stinging wasps, liquid fire erupted in a swath, the flames tumbling over the veteran.
Tracking back to the fire's source, Duiker saw that an enormous demon had entered the clearing. Midnight-skinned and twice the height of a man, the creature voiced a roar of fury and launched a savage attack on a white-furred bear — the glade was alive with D'ivers and Soletaken, the air filled with shrieks and snarls. The demon landed on the bear, driving it to the ground with a snap and crunch of bones. Leaving the animal twitching, the black demon leapt to one side and roared a second time, and this time Duiker heard meaning within it.
'It's warning us!' he shouted at Kulp.
Like a lodestone the demon's arrival drew the D'ivers and Soletaken. They fought each other in a frenzied rush to attack the creature.
'We have to get out of here!' Duiker said. 'Pull us out, Kulp — now!'
The mage hissed in rage. 'How? This is Sormo's ritual, you damned book-grub!'
The demon vanished beneath a mob of creatures, yet clearly remained upright, as the D'ivers and Soletaken clambered up what seemed a solid pillar of stone. Black-skinned arms appeared, flinging away dead and dying creatures. But it could not last.
'Hood take you, Kulp! Think of something!'
The mage's face tightened. 'Drag Bult to Sormo. Quickly! Leave the warlock to me.' With that, Kulp bolted to Sormo, shouting in an effort to wake the youth from whatever spell held him. Duiker spun to where Bult lay huddled five paces away. His legs felt impossibly heavy beneath the prickling pain of the ant bites as he staggered to the Wickan.
The veteran had been stung scores of times, his flesh was misshapen with fiery swelling. He was unconscious, possibly dead. Duiker gripped the man's harness and dragged him to where Kulp continued accosting Sormo E'nath.
As the historian arrived, the demon gave one last shriek, then disappeared beneath the mound of attackers. The D'ivers and Soletaken then surged towards the four men.
Sormo E'nath was oblivious, his eyes glazed, unheeding of the mage's efforts to shout him into awareness.