“Cellester,” came a soft hiss from the shadows in the doorway.
“Who calls?” replied the cleric.
“The guards are disposed of. Put away your weapons.” His voice was little more than a rasp, the breath of a corpse, but it was rich in power, almost hypnotic in quality.
Vaddi saw a great, bat-like shadow ease into the doorway, the light gleaming on his long blade. His face was wreathed in darkness, cowled, but the eyes were vivid yellow, like those of a predator. Undead! Vaddi knew at once. Was this yet another of Caerzaal’s monsters?
“Aarnamor!” Cellester gasped.
“We have little time.” The undead indicated that they follow him. “You must leave this cell with all haste.”
Vaddi and Nyam exchanged stunned glances. Vaddi’s mind raced. He could make no sense of this. Cellester knew this creature? All Vaddi’s nagging doubts about the cleric returned, but there was no time for deliberation. Cellester urged them forward, clearly seeing an ally in the black-shrouded stranger.
Aarnamor led them down the passage, past the sprawled undead whose bodies still twitched and spasmed. The men paused only to avail themselves of the fallen swords. Beyond the passage was another door, which Aarnamor opened. A passage lay beyond and they traversed it, up more stairs. At the top of these stairs, a thick door barred the way, but Aarnamor unbolted it. Cool air swept down. Beyond was the uppermost circle of the tower.
“Go outside,” Aarnamor said. “Hide there until dawn. Only then will it be safe to quit Voorkesh.”
“What of you?” said Cellester.
“Already I sense pursuit. Caerzaal’s fury rises like a furnace blast. He will know that two of his filthy minions have been cut down, and he will scent me. I will lead him and his rabble through this city and buy you time until dawn. Go! I will bolt the door and set spells to secure it. Later I will come to you.”
Vaddi would have demanded more but had no opportunity to speak. They went out into the cold night and Aarnamor was swallowed by the darkness of the stair. The door shut, its bolts slid from within. There was a faint pulse of light beyond and it shuddered, melding into the stonework.
Vaddi turned to his companions who were looking out over the curved parapet to the city. In the skies overhead, the thin veil of cloud shifted, revealing several moons and the jewelled majesty of the Rings of Siberys. Drawn to this, Vaddi watched as one of the moons freed itself of cloud, a strange light bathing it.
“The Shadow moon,” whispered Nyam beside him. “There is some vile significance to this, as Caerzaal threatened. He would tap these conjunctions and their powers. Do you feel the horn responding?”
Vaddi felt only dread.
“Do not touch it while this moon lasts,” said Nyam. “It will lead Caerzaal to you—and worse, far worse.”
Cellester drew his cloak more tightly about him. The others followed suit. Far below, in the canyons of the city, they heard eerie calls, the slithering movement of large creatures. They did their best to blend with the shadows of the parapet, willing themselves to become invisible.
The hours wore on slowly. Although nothing came to test the door that Aarnamor had closed with his sorcery, the city below was feverish with activity. Shrieks and cries rose up from below, mingling with the roars of creatures prowling the deepest avenues, as if they fought one another. There was a terrible frustration in those dreadful sounds. Overhead, the Shadow moon waxed, spreading its terrible light across the stone tower where the three fugitives squatted, pressed to the stone, their cloaks covering them. They felt exposed, certain to be discovered, and although they heard the constant flapping of wings in the skies and ghoulish cries no more than a few feet above them, they were not touched.
Vaddi yearned to question Cellester. The being called Aarnamor had saved them—there was no question of that—but he was undead. No servant of Caerzaal or the Claw, yet it made Vaddi doubly uneasy.
He gave a sudden jerk and realized that he had been on the edge of sleep. Nyam was gently shaking him.
“Dawn,” whispered the peddler.
Vaddi felt a flood of relief, knowing that daylight would be fatal to the vampire and his nest of servants.
Cellester rose, watching as the sunrise began to pick out the towers and roofs of the city, inching across it like a pale tide. The threatening darkness withdrew, a malignant force draining deeper into the depths of Voorkesh—at least for a time.
“Are we to go back through the temple?” Nyam asked.
“Too dangerous,” said Cellester, studying the outer walls of the tower.
“Then how do you propose we quit this tower?”
“We will climb down,” said Cellester calmly.
“We have no rope and—”
“There is a span crossing to another roof. We will keep to the roofs for as long as we can, until we come to the edge of the city. Then we will go into the mountains and eventually back to the Talenta Plains.”
Nyam’s eyes bulged. “Are you mad?”
“Would you rather wait for another night and risk Caerzaal’s fury when he finds you? Stay here if you wish, but Vaddi and I will climb down.”
Nyam gaped at Vaddi, who could not help but grin. “Lesser of two evils by far,” he said.
Cellester pointed below. “The tower is old and badly weathered. See. There are enough hand and footholds to get us down to that span. We’ll be in open daylight the whole time.”
Nyam grimaced.
“I’ll lead,” said the cleric. “You follow, peddler. Vaddi, bring up the rear.”
Vaddi nodded. The descent held no terrors for him. The sheer walls of the coastal cliffs that he had grown up climbing had been far more dangerous than this. He was more concerned for Nyam, whose terror was evident.
Like three spiders, they went over the parapet and down the tower’s side. Cellester had been right, for the stones were pocked and loose, affording many footholds, though here and there they tore free or crumbled to dust. Nyam slipped at one point, but Cellester held him, swinging him back to the wall, where he clung like a limpet before finding the courage to move down.
For an hour, with the sunlight mercifully strengthening, they picked their way over the roofs, along crumbling stairs and across walls, some of which toppled loudly into the streets below after their passing. They said little to each other, forced to concentrate on the perilous crossing of Voorkesh. All the while they could feel the city’s malice, like the hunger of something animate, as though somewhere in that maze its claws would draw them in.
They could see the city’s boundary. Shadows fell across the last square to a collapsing wall—the way to freedom. They climbed down a final set of stone steps and paused at the edge of the shadows.
“Can you feel anything?” Nyam asked the cleric, who seemed to be the most attuned to the pulse of the city.
“Something is watching us. Draw your blades. Make for that gap in the wall. Fast.”
As one they made a dash across the square, their feet drumming on the stones, the sound echoing around the buildings, like a summons. Behind them they could hear deep croaking noises and something soft and wet slapping the ground in labored pursuit, but then they were through the gap in the wall and out into the rocky terrain beyond without looking back.
They were in a field of massive boulders and jagged scree, fallen from the steeply rising foothills ahead. Over them towered the mountains, the snows of their uppermost crags gleaming in the sunlight. Tired though they were, the three men ran into the rocks almost to the point of exhaustion, pausing at last to gather breath. They looked back in silence, but the terrain was motionless, bleached and dusty. Beyond the edge of mountain rubble, Voorkesh looked no more than a continuation of the desolation.
“We must … keep moving,” Cellester said through ragged breaths. “By nightfall … we have to be … far away from here.”