Arrows clattered down around them. One of them, lacking an arrowhead passed through Kormak’s cloak.
“Stop shooting,” Prince Luther shouted. “You’ll hit us!”
The rain of arrows slackened and ceased.
“Thank you,” Luther shouted, with some irony. He looked over at Kormak. “What now?”
“Walking down this corridor is death,” Kormak said. He looked at the great engine. There were handholds in the side. “We go over.”
He started to climb until he reached the top of the engines. The air was warm and dry and the ozone stink greater. Chain lightning danced overhead and each flicker made him flinch in case it diverted itself downwards and through his body. He looked around. The top of the engines were complex patterns of machinery and crystal. He had vague memories of this being the place where the Ghul had been created, had become bodiless, reached out to become more than mortal and less than they had been.
He raced along the top, heading towards the centre of the plinth. Ahead lay a gap between two great mechanisms. He sprang across it, had a view of the surface far enough below so that a fall would break his back. He ran on, ignoring the fear in his gut, came to another gap, sprang across again and raced to the edge of the giant spell-machine, looking down.
Razhak stood below, in the shadow of a vast spherical crystal within which chained lightning roiled. He was slumped in a metal throne, the spear across his knees, trying to bind his wounds with strips torn from his shirt. It struck Kormak as oddly sad that a life measured in ages and marked with flights of cosmic evil should be reduced to this. If he had brought a bow, he could have finished him from here.
Heavy breathing beside him told him that Prince Luther had caught up. “An exciting little steeplechase,” he said. He glared down at Razhak. “He is still armed.”
Kormak nodded. “We go down the far side of this machine where he cannot see us.”
They moved to the far edge and descended with Kormak in the lead. He was very aware of the Prince clambering down above him. If Luther fell, he would sweep Kormak to the floor as well.
Kormak moved up to the corner of the spell engine and glanced around. Razhak still sat there. He had finished binding his wounds and now glared around him like a beast at bay. He looked unutterably weary. Kormak quashed the brief strange flash of sympathy he felt. Razhak had cut down those soldiers without thought. He deserved nothing better himself.
Kormak edged from the shadows, blade held ready. If only he could reach Razhak before he turned, he could strike of the Ghul’s head without interference. He padded forward and then heard the sound of a sword being drawn behind him. Razhak’s head turned, he raised the lightning-spear.
Kormak desperately threw himself to one side as Razhak raised the weapon. Lightning flashed. There was a sound of screaming from behind Kormak. Prince Luther would be writing no more poems. The twisted remnants of his sword, dripped from his hand. Charred flesh had peeled away to reveal white bone beneath.
Kormak moved around the outside of the mechanism holding the great crystal sphere. He was edgy as a cat. Razhak was expecting him now and any moment he might come face to face with the Ghul and his terrible weapon. He keyed himself up to strike instantly. He knew he would only have a heartbeat in which to act.
“It’s just you and me now, Guardian,” said Razhak. His voice sounded loud and surprisingly close over the hum of the spell-engines. “Soon it will only be me. A pity about the boy. A good body. I could have made use of it, as I have made use of the others you brought me.”
Kormak kept his mouth firmly closed. He did not want to speak, to give away his position. He wondered why Razhak was doing it. Was the Ghul nervous or did it have some other reason?
“Still, there will be other bodies. You have brought me more. Very thoughtful of you.”
Kormak looked at the runes on his blade. They blazed with light but that was no help. There was so much ambient magic that they could get no brighter. There would be no warning of Razhak’s presence there.
“You may have saved me you know. With those bodies I can leave here, find more hosts. Perhaps one of your mages will be able to help me stave off oblivion.”
It was fear, Kormak thought. That was why Razhak was talking. The Ghul was afraid. It was closer to death than it had ever been. It knew, just as he did, that its last few moments of life were coming closer. It knew also that for it there would be no afterlife. Perhaps there would be none for Kormak either despite what the Books of the Holy Sun promised.
“I don’t suppose you would make a bargain with me,” Razhak said. “I could teach you my secrets. I could teach you what Solareon was so desperate to learn. You could become like me.”
I have no wish to become like you, Kormak thought. He moved a pace closer, paused and listened. Part of him was tempted though. Just as part of him was repulsed. He told himself the Ghul just wanted to lure him out, that it would never keep its promise, but something in the memories he shared caused him to doubt even that.
“I know you are considering it,” the Ghul said. “I know your mind better than you know mine. I have had far more experience of assimilating the memories of mortals.”
He took a step closer. He could see the shadow of the Ghul now, cast from where it stood. Looking beyond that down the long aisle between the spell-engines, he could see figures coming closer, Olivia and the soldiers of her bodyguard. He saw the shadow raise its spear into the attack position.
Part of him was relieved. Olivia and the men would distract the Ghul and then he would strike. Part of him shouted, “Razhak!”
The Ghul turned to face him as Kormak sprang. It tried to turn the spear to bear on him but Kormak brought his dwarf-forged blade smashing down on it, splitting the haft. His blade buried itself in Razhak’s head. He thought for a moment he had killed the Ghul but then he saw the shimmering ectoplasmic form floating in the air behind it. Once again Razhak had managed to leave the body he possessed moments before death. Looking at him now, Kormak could see differences though. The ghostly form was rent and torn and appeared to be on the verge of coming apart. It swirled through the air moving towards the soldiers faster than a man could run.
Kormak could see that Olivia was leading the men forward. Her head was slightly turned as she gave a command to her nervous followers. The Ghul was going to reach her and claim one last victim.
Kormak threw his sword towards the ghost. It turned end over end through the air and caught the apparition squarely in the centre, cleaving it apart. A long, low scream only partially physical echoed through the air, as Razhak’s final form disintegrated. It came apart in a shower of light and in the end left not even a shadow. The blade clattered against one of the spell-engines and then fell to the ground.
Olivia turned her head and saw Kormak standing there. She must have read something in his face. She said, “Luther?”
Kormak shook his head, walked over and picked up his sword. He had felt oddly naked without it. Olivia walked over to where her brother lay, a roasting meat smell emerged from the corpse. She looked at it for a while, removed her cloak and covered him with it.
“We can burn the body in the desert,” Kormak said. “This would not be a good place to lie for all eternity.”
He was thinking about Luther’s father’s words when they first met. The old man had been right. This way lay Death.