Nyam grimaced at it. “Even a spider would blanch at the thought of climbing up this.”
Vaddi grinned. “Would you rather we beat upon the door and woke all Zuharrin’s guardians?”
“No, no, I’ll climb. But you’d better be close behind me. If I should slip, it’ll be up to you to hang on to me.”
“You won’t slip.”
Fallarond led the way, with several of his warriors, then Nyam, Vaddi, and Zemella. The remaining Deathguard were behind them, the last of them pulling in the makeshift ladder as he climbed. High up over the hidden terrain they climbed, the night breeze buffeting them, its coldness suggestive of dark magic. They focused on the climb, shutting out the hostile air and the occasional sounds from the skies where unseen shapes flitted and swooped.
Dwarfed by the scale of the fortress, ant-like, they reached a high window in the vast wall. It would have been a tall but narrow slit in the rock to a giant, with a cramped balcony, but to the company it loomed over them like a high cave. The night air swirled about them as they clambered over the crumbling balustrade, the sound of the wind dolorous and mournful overhead, but they ignored it and slipped into the mass of the edifice. Their blades’ soft glow lit the interior, casting blurred shadows among the vaults of a long, winding passageway that seemed more weathered than constructed. Their footfalls echoed softly in its huge dimensions.
There were signs of habitation, for on the high walls, inscriptions had been carved, though in a language unknown to even the Aereni. The floor was as smooth as polished glass, with no hint of dust, as if kept pristine. Deeper within, there was no hint of sound, light, or movement, but the company eased along the sweeping corridor, which fed them downward in a gradual spiral toward the guts of the mountain citadel, countless hundreds of feet below them. Carved faces the size of houses leered at them from the stone walls—the glaring visages of giants, demons, and other grotesque beings, mocking and intimidating in their silence, as though a single word would spring them into life.
At the very core of Azzahareb, in the heart of the mountain range from which it had been carved, was an immense chamber, hollowed out of the bedrock by the giants in ages past. Its curved walls were riddled with veins of minerals that gleamed with inner fires, standing out tike vibrant arteries, as if this chamber were a living entity, throbbing with its own supernatural life, the heart of a titanic demigod. Curved walls soared upward, lost in stone buttresses and vaults where the light could not reach. Statues hundreds of feet high lined the walls in a semi-circle, and on one side of them a circle of stone, itself even higher than the statues, dominated the entire scene. Blocks the size of small buildings framed this perfect circle, a masterpiece of masonry, their surfaces riddled with embossed sigils and carvings, a flowing tapestry of divinities and spirits from the history of this most ancient of places.
The circle contained within the frame of stone blockwork was a solid wall, its surface perfectly flat and unblemished, as if cut by a god. It had been in shadow for timeless centuries, but the huge braziers now lit in the chamber threw it into strong relief. Those who gazed upon the wall saw hints and intimations of movement within it that deceived the eye and threatened to jar the brain. A dreadful power was locked up there, stirring, edging to the light.
Opposite the huge circle, between two of the tallest statues, a balcony overlooked the chamber, its former balustrade swept away, revealing its floor to the host. Upon this, a dozen armor-clad warriors stood on either side of a great doorway, huge broadswords clutched in their mailed fists. Some distance below, spread in an arc along the curved wall under the balcony, was a long dais, its steps running down into the chamber. On this dais were assembled the warlords that Zuharrin had summoned from across the world. They gazed at the bizarre splendor about them, drinking in the mysteries of the ages, aware of the potential power locked within this place.
Above them, appearing on the balcony like a wraith, the figure of Zuharrin appeared. Although dwarfed by his surroundings, unquestionable power flowed from him, and when he spoke, his voice carried effortlessly down to the warlords and to the massed ranks of his own warriors, now visible at the feet of the array of statues across the chamber.
“Behold, the Chamber of the Demon Gate!” he called, directing a golden staff at the huge circle of stone on the towering wall opposite. “Created millennia ago by the powers who chained the demon forces, locking them deep down in the uttermost regions of the world. Soon the greatest of them, T’saagash Mat, awakens!”
The warlords watched him, stirred by his words. Even Kazzerand, most powerful of them, was impressed by the magnitude of this chamber, its suggestion of power. He heard a slight sound behind him and twisted round. At the center of the chamber, rising from its paved floor, a small column of stone was rising up from below to stand at waist height. Vivid green light cloaked the top of it, a force that crackled and flickered with the ancient powers of this forbidding place. As the green haze cleared a little, the watchers could see a single object resting on the surface of the column. It was the Crimson Talisman, Erethindel.
“Here is the key!” called Zuharrin, his voice sharp and clear. “It will unlock the Demon Gate. The dragon blood from the talisman will open the way for T’saagash Mal and the new dawn.”
The Orien boy, mused Kazzerand. Where is he? Has he been taken? All this comes to nothing without him.
Vaddi was worming his way with his companions down into the bowels of the citadel. Fallarond urged them forward with great caution.
“This silence disturbs me,” Nyam whispered.
“There are many beings below us,” said Fallarond, his senses attuned to the elements of this place. “I feel them, gathered in great numbers. There seems no other life elsewhere in the city. Attention is focused below. If there is an opportune moment to breach the heart of the city, it has come.”
“There are many, you say?” said Vaddi.
“Many hundreds.”
“And the talisman?” said Zemella.
Vaddi answered softly. “It is there. I can feel it from here.”
“How easily can you locate it?” said Fallarond.
“Easily enough.”
“They want you to be joined with it,” warned Zemella. “It is the whole purpose of this. This Zuharrin must believe he can match your power, even when you take up the horn.”
“Can he?” Vaddi asked her.
“There is a terrible energy in this place,” she said. “Something stirs here that has been asleep for untold centuries. Zuharrin will use it, but we have something he has underestimated.”
“Which is?” said Nyam.
Zemella grinned. “Me, peddler. Vaddi and me and Erethindel.”
“As we draw closer, shield your minds,” warned Fallarond.
“Win our way to Erethindel,” said Vaddi. “Whatever powers it has will be unleashed to bring this place down. Whatever the cost.”
He looked into Zemella’s eyes as he said it, recalling her words of earlier. She nodded.
“Whatever the cost,” agreed Fallarond. Beside him Nyam scowled, but he, too, nodded.
They moved onward and downward and still there was no guard, no hidden spell to challenge them. The darkness closed in, the walls of the mountains enfolding them as if they had wandered into the shadows of another world, a domain of perpetual night. It was difficult to suppress the feeling that the rock around them was alive, tuned in to their movements, listening to them. Time seemed to stretch out endlessly. Ahead the passage widened even further, becoming a stairway, curving ever downward in a spiral to the core of the city.