“What good is that?” Alric asked. “This place is stone. There’s nothing to burn.”
“Smoke,” Hadrian replied. “They’ll smoke us out.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Gaunt said.
“Another locked room,” Hadrian said to Royce. “How many is this? I’ve lost track.”
“Too many, really.”
“Ideas?”
“Only one,” the thief said, and then looked directly at Arista.
She watched Hadrian nod.
“No,” she said instantly. She stood up and backed away from them. “I can’t.”
“You have to,” Royce told her.
She was shaking her head so that her hair whipped her face, her breath short and rapid and her stomach tightening, starting to churn. “I can’t,” she insisted.
Hadrian moved toward her slowly, as if he were trying to catch a spooked horse.
Her hands were starting to shake. “You saw-you know what happened last time. I can’t control it.”
“Maybe,” Hadrian told her, “but outside that door are anywhere from, I’m guessing, fifty to a few hundred Ba Ran Ghazel. All the bedtime stories, legends, and fables are true. I know firsthand, and actually, they don’t tell even half the story-no one would dare tell the real stories to children.
“I served as a mercenary for several years in Calis. I fought for warlords in the Gur Em Dal-the jungle on the eastern end of the peninsula that the goblins took back. I’ve never spoken about what happened there, and I won’t now-honestly, I work very hard not to think about it. Those days that I lived under the jungle canopy were a nightmare.
“The Ghazel are stronger than men, faster too, and they can see in the dark. They have sharp teeth and, if they get the chance, will hold you down and rip into the flesh of your throat or stomach. The Ghazel want nothing better than a meal of human meat. Not only are we a delicacy to them, but they also use their victims as part of their religious ceremonies. They will make a ritual out of killing us, take us alive if they can-eat us while we still breathe. They’ll drink their black cups of gurlin bog and smoke tulan leaves while we scream.
“That door is the only way out of here. We can’t sneak out, we can’t create a diversion and hope to catch them off guard, we can’t hope for a rescue. Either you do something or we all die. It’s as simple as that.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking me to do. You don’t know what it’s like. I can’t control it. I–I don’t know what will happen. The power is-it’s-I don’t know how to describe it, but I could kill everyone. It just gets out of control, it just runs away.”
“You can handle it.”
“I can’t. I can’t.”
“You can. It caught you off guard before. You know what to expect now.”
“Hadrian, if I go too far-” She tried to imagine and realized she did not want to. There was an excitement in the thought of the power, a thrill like standing on the edge of a cliff, or playing with a sharp knife; the exhilaration came from the risk, the very real fear that she could step too far. It lured her like the still beauty of a deep lake. Even as she spoke about it, she remembered how it felt, the desire, the hunger. It called to her. “If I reach beyond-if I go too far-I might not come back.” She looked at Hadrian. “I’m scared what would happen. I don’t think I would be human anymore. I’d be lost forever.”
He took her hands. Until he touched her, she had not realized she was shaking. His hands felt warm, strong. “You can do it,” he told her firmly. He stared into her eyes and she could not help looking back. There was peace there, a gentle understanding familiar to her now, comforting, reassuring.
How does he do it?
Her hands stopped shaking.
An arrow whizzed through Mauvin’s window, just missing him. It streaked a thick dark smoke that stank of sulfur. It flew to the far wall and bounced off the stone, continuing to smolder and burn. Two more managed to find their way into the narrow slits while outside it sounded as if it were raining. Then a line of smoke began to leak in through the cracks of the door.
“You have to try,” Hadrian told her.
She nodded. “But I want you with me. Don’t leave me… no matter what happens.”
“I swear I will not leave you.” His voice and the look in his eyes were so sincere, so resolute.
Degan began to cough, and Mauvin and Alric climbed down from the stairs.
“Everyone gather,” she told them in a soft voice, trying to keep her eyes on Hadrian. “I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. Just try and stay as close as you can, and don’t you let go of me, Hadrian.”
CHAPTER 18
The smoke was growing thick and it was becoming hard to breathe as Arista remained standing still, muttering, her eyes closed, her hands twitching.
“Is she going to do something?” Gaunt asked, and followed this with a series of coughs.
“Give her a second,” Hadrian told him.
As if in response, a light breeze moved within the room. Where it came from Hadrian could not tell, but it moved around the chamber, swirling and stealing away the smoke. The wind grew stronger and soon it ruffled the edges of their cloaks, slapping their hoods and spinning the dust into little whirlwinds that twirled, dancing about. All at once, the flames in the lanterns went out and the wind stopped. Everything was deathly still for a heartbeat.
Then the front wall of the guildhall exploded.
Arista’s robe flared brilliantly as from beyond the missing wall, Hadrian heard the cries of goblins, like a million squealing rats. The square cast in darkness for a thousand years lay revealed, illuminated as if the sun had returned to the Grand Mar. They could finally see the beauty that once had been, the city of Novron, the city of Percepliquis, the city of light.
“Gather your things,” Arista shouted, opening her eyes, but Hadrian could tell she was not fully with them. She was breathing deep and slow, her eyes never focusing, as if blind to what was around her. She was not seeing with her eyes anymore.
Mauvin and Alric hoisted Gaunt between them. He grunted but said nothing as he hopped on his good leg.
“Come,” she told them, and began to walk toward the collapsed pile that had once been a palace.
“You’re doing great,” Hadrian told her. She showed no sign of hearing him.
The goblins stayed back. Whether they retreated from the explosion of stone, the harsh light, or some invisible sorcery that Arista was manifesting, all Hadrian could tell was that they refused to approach.
The party walked as a group clustered around Arista.
“This is crazy,” Gaunt said, his voice quavering. “They’ll kill us.”
“Don’t leave the group,” Hadrian told them.
“They’re fitting arrows,” Mauvin announced.
“Stay together.”
Struggling to shield their eyes as they bent their bows, the Ghazel launched a barrage. All of the party flinched except Arista. A hundred dark shafts flew into the air, burst into flame, and vanished into streaks of smoke. More howls arose from the Ghazels’ ranks, but no more arrows flew, and now more than ever, the goblins showed no willingness to advance.
“Find the opening!” she shouted, sounding out of breath, her tone impatient, like someone holding up heavy furniture.
“Magnus, try and find the hollow corridor,” Hadrian barked.
“To the left, up there, a gap. No over farther-there!”
Royce was on it, throwing rocks back. “He’s right-there’s an opening here.”
“Of course I’m right!” Magnus shouted.
“Something…” Arista said dreamily.
“What was that, Arista?” Hadrian asked. She mumbled and he did not catch the last few words. He kept his hands on her shoulders, squeezing slightly, although he was not certain if by doing so he was reassuring her or himself.
“Something… I feel something-something fighting me.”
Hadrian looked up and stared out over the Grand Mar at the colony of goblins, a writhing mass of insidiously twisted bodies, with dripping teeth and brilliant claws clacking along the length of spears and swords. He spotted what he looked for beyond them, moving in a ring around the Ulurium Fountain. The small, slim figure of the oberdaza, dressed in a skirt and headdress of feathers, shaking a tulan staff and dancing his methodic steps. He spotted two more joining the first.