It was a gamble—to die horribly now, or to risk an uglier fate against an almost nonexistent chance of escape.
Compared with this, he thought bitterly as he moved off again toward the looming maw of the Inner Citadel’s gates, the choice Sheera had given him on the ship appeared monumental in its opportunities. But he would not give up when the chance remained to play for time.
The nuuwa’s screams followed them, like derisive jeers.
“You’ll be down there soon enough,” the Dark Eagle remarked at his elbow. “It’s a pity, for no one knows as well as I how fine a soldier you are, my barbarian. But I know that’s what my lord Wizard does with those who go against him. And after that thing gets through gnawing your brains out, you won’t much care about the accommodations.”
Sun Wolf glanced back at him. “What is it?” he asked, “What are those—those flame-things? Does he create them?”
The mercenary captain frowned, as if gauging the reasons for the question and how much he would give away in his answer. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know. There’s a—a darkness in the room at the bottom of the Citadel, a cold. They come out of that darkness; usually one or two, but sometimes in flocks. Other times there’ll be days, weeks, with nothing. He himself won’t go into the room—I think he fears them as much as anyone else does. He can’t command them as he does the nuuwa.”
“Can he command the darkness they come from?”
The Dark Eagle paused in his stride, those swooping black brows drawing together beneath the crested helmet rim. But all he said was, “You have changed, my barbarian, since we rode together in the East.”
The black doors of the Inner Citadel opened. Its shadows swallowed them.
The dread of the place, the eerie terror that permeated the very air, struck Sun Wolf like a blow in the face as he crossed the threshold. Like a dog that would not pass the door of a haunted room, he stopped, his breath catching in his lungs; the men dragged him through by the chain on his wrists, but he could see that their faces, too, were wet with sweat. Fear filled the shadowy maze of tunnels and guardrooms on the lower level of the Citadel, as if a species of gas had been spread upon the air; the men who surrounded him with a hedge of drawn swords looked nervously about them, as if they were not certain in which direction the danger lay. Even the Dark Eagle’s eyes darted from shadow to shadow, the only restlessness in his still face.
But more than the fear, Sun Wolf could feel the power there, cold and almost visible, like an iridescent fog. It seemed to cling to the very walls, as it had pervaded the tunnel of the gate—a strength greater than that of Altiokis, all-pervasive and yet tangible. He felt that, if he only knew how, he could have gathered it together in his hands.
They ascended a stair and passed through a guarded door. It shut behind them, and Sun Wolf looked around him in sudden, utter amazement at the upper levels of the tower, the inner heart of the Citadel of Altiokis, the dwelling place of the greatest wizard on the face of the earth.
Quite factually, Sun Wolf said, “I’ve seen better taste in whorehouses.”
The Dark Eagle laughed, his teeth and eyes bright in his swarthy face. “But not more expensive materials, I daresay,” he commented and flicked with a fingernail the gold that sheathed the inner side of the great doors. “A house, as my lord Wizard is fond of saying, fit for a man to live in.”
Sun Wolf’s eyes traveled slowly from the jeweled garlands that embroidered the ivory panels of the ceiling, down slender columns of pink porphyry and polished green malachite twined with golden serpents, to the tastelessly pornographic statues in ebony, alabaster, and agate that stood between them. Gilding was spread like butter over everything; the air was larded with the scent of patchouli and roses.
“A man, maybe,” he said slowly, realizing it was only a gross exaggeration of the kind of opulence he would have gone in for himself, not too many months ago. Then he understood what had shocked him in his soul about the place and about all the fortress of the Wizard King. “But not the greatest of the wizards; not the only wizard left on the face of the earth, damn it.” He looked back at the Dark Eagle, wondering why the man did not understand. “This is obscene.”
The captain chuckled. “Oh, come now, Wolf.” He gestured at the shamelessly posturing statues. “You’re getting squeamish in your old age. You’ve seen worse than this in the cathouses in Kwest Mralwe—the most expensive ones, that is.”
“I don’t mean that,” the Wolf said. He looked around him again, at the glided archways, the embroidered hangings, and the bronze lamp stands on which burned not flames, but round, glowing bubbles of pure light. In his mind, he was comparing the garish waste with Yirth’s shadowy workroom, with its worn and well-cared-for books, its delicate instruments of brass and crystal, and its dry, muted scent of medicinal herbs. “He is deathless, he is powerful; he has command over magic that I would trade my soul for. He can have anything he wants. And he chooses this trash.”
The Dark Eagle cocked an amused eyebrow up at the Wolf and signaled his men. They jerked on the chain and rattled their swords, leading Sun Wolf on through the wide, softly lighted halls of the upper levels, their feet scuffing over silken rugs or whispering over carved jade tiles. “I remember you almost cut my throat fighting over trash very much like this when we looted the palace at Thardin,” he reminded the Wolf with a grin.
Sun Wolf remembered it. He could not explain that that had been before the pit and the ordeal of the anzid; he could not explain, could not make the Eagle understand, the monstrousness of what Altiokis was. He only said, “How could a mind that trivial achieve this kind of power?”
The Dark Eagle laughed. “Whoa! Teach him a few tricks and he knows all about wizardry and power, does he?”
Sun Wolf was silent. He could not say how he knew what he knew, or why it seemed inconceivable to him that a man with a mind whose greatest ambitions rose no higher than dirty statues and silk rugs could have gained the power to become deathless, could have made himself the last, most powerful wizard on the earth. He understood, then, Yirth’s anger at his frightened rejection of his power; he felt it reflected in his own outrage at a man who would not only so waste his own vast potential but destroy everyone else’s as well.
Doors of white jade and crystal swung open. The room beyond them was black—black marble floor and walls, pillars of black marble supporting a vaulted ceiling of shadow. A ball of pale bluish light hung over the head of the man who overflowed the huge chair of carved ebony between the columns at the far end of the room, and the light picked out the details of the sculpted dragons and gargoyles, of the writhing sea life and shining insects, that covered the chair, the pillars, and the wall. The incense-reeking darkness seemed filled with magic; but with a curious clarity of the senses, Sun Wolf saw how flawed it was, like a prostitute’s makeup seen in the light of day. Whatever Altiokis had been, as the Dark Eagle had said, he was slipping now. Having destroyed everyone else’s power, he was letting his own run to seed as well.
Looking at him as he squatted, obscenely gross, in his ebony chair, for a moment the Wolf felt, not fear, but angry disgust. Not even unlimited evil could give this man dignity. Sun Wolf’s captors pushed him forward until he stood alone before the Wizard King, his shoulders dragged down by the weight of his chains.
Altiokis belched and scratched his jewel-encrusted belly. “So,” he said, in a voice thick with brandy, “you think the palace of Altiokis, the greatest prince this world has known, looks like a whorehouse?”
His wizard’s senses had spread throughout that tawdry palace; he had heard every word that they had said. The Dark Eagle looked frightened, but Sun Wolf knew how it was done, though he himself could not do it. He only looked at the Wizard King, trying to understand what unlimited life, unlimited power, and unlimited boredom had done to this man, this fast and most powerful wizard.