As it had the last time, the tunnel led them straight to a blank wall made of solid black rock. Two sets of runes marked it. The first set were simple locking sigla, undoubtedly inscribed by Samah himself. The other sigla had been added by those early Sartan living on Abarrach. While attempting to contact their brethren on other worlds, they had accidentally stumbled across the Seventh Gate. Inside, they found peace, self-knowledge, fulfillment—granted to them by a higher power, a power beyond their comprehension and understanding. And so they had marked this chamber sacred, holy.
In this chamber, they had died.
In this chamber, Kleitus had died.
Alfred, recalling that terrible experience, shuddered. His hand had been touching the runes on the wall. Now it dropped, trembling, to his side. He could see with horrible clarity the skeletons lying on the floor. Mass murder. Mass suicide.
Any who bring violence into this chamber will find it visited upon themselves.
So it was written on the walls. Alfred had wondered at the time how and why. Now he thought he understood. Fear—it came down always to fear. Who knew for certain what Samah had feared or why,[7] but he had been afraid, even in this chamber which the Council had endowed with its most powerful magic. It had been meant to destroy the Council’s enemies. It had ended up destroying its creators.
A chill hand touched Alfred’s. He jumped, startled, and found Jonathon standing at his side.
“Do not be afraid of what is within.”
“. . . within . . .” came the sad echo.
“The dead are now, at long last, at rest. No trace remains of their tragic end. I have seen to that myself.”
“. . . myself . . .”
“You have entered here?” Alfred asked, amazed.
“Many times.” And it seemed the lazar smiled, the phantasm lighting the dead, dark eyes. “I enter, I leave. This chamber has been—as much as any place can be—my home. Here I can find ease from the torment of my existence. Here I am given patience to endure, to wait, until the end.”
“The end?” Alfred didn’t quite like the sound of that.
The lazar said nothing; the phantasm slid out of the corpse, fluttered restlessly near the body.
Alfred drew in a shivering breath; what confidence he’d felt was rapidly oozing out of him.
“What happens if we fail?”
Repeating Haplo’s words, Alfred placed his hands on the walls, began to chant the runes. The rock dissolved beneath his fingers. The sigla, glowing blue, framed a doorway that led, not into darkness, as it had the last time they had entered the Chamber, but into light.
The Seventh Gate was a room with seven marble walls, covered by a domed ceiling. A globe suspended from the ceiling cast a soft, white glow. As Jonathon had promised, the dead whose bodies had littered the floor were gone. But the words of warning remained inscribed on the walls: Any who bring violence into this chamber will find it visited upon themselves.
Alfred stepped over the threshold. He felt again that same enveloping, loving warmth he’d experienced the first time he’d walked into this chamber. The feeling of comfort and calm spread like a balm over his troubled soul. He drew near the oblong table, carved of pure white wood—wood that had come from the ancient, sundered world—and regarded it with reverence and sadness.
Jonathon moved over to stand beside the table. If Alfred had been paying attention, he would have noticed a change come over the lazar when it entered this room. The phantasm remained outside the body, no longer writhing, struggling to escape. Its vague, shapeless form coalesced into a shimmering image of the duke as he had been when Alfred first knew him: young, vibrant, joyful. The corpse was, it seemed, the soul’s shadow.
Alfred didn’t notice, however. He stared at the runes carved on the table, stared at them as if hypnotized, unable to look away. He drew nearer, nearer.
Hugh the Hand stood in the doorway, gazing into the chamber with awe, perhaps reluctant—now that the moment was at hand—to cross the threshold.
The dog nudged Hugh, urged him forward, reassuringly wagging its tail.
Hugh’s grim face relaxed. He smiled. “Well, if you say so,” he said to the animal and walked inside. Glancing around, taking in everything, he walked over to the white table and, placing his hands on it, began idly to trace the runes with his fingers.
The dog pattered inside the room . . . and vanished.
The door to the Seventh Gate slid shut.
Alfred didn’t notice Hugh. Alfred didn’t see the dog disappear. He didn’t hear the door close. He was standing at the table. Stretching out his hands, he placed his fingers gently, reverently on the white wood . . .
“We are come today, Brethren,” said Samah from his place at the head of the table, “to sunder the world.”
25
The chamber known as the Seventh Gate was crowded with Sartan. The Council of Seven sat around the table; all others stood. Alfred was shoved against a wall near the back, near one of the seven doors. The doors themselves and a series of seven squares on the floor in front of each were left clear.
The faces so near his were strained, pale, haggard. It was, Alfred thought, like seeing himself in a mirror. He must look exactly the same, for he felt exactly the same. Only Samah—seen occasionally when there was a shift in the numbers of people who surrounded him—appeared master of himself and the situation. Stern and implacable, he was the dire force holding them all together.
If his will falters, the rest of us will crumble like moldy cheese.
Alfred shifted from one foot to the other, trying to ease the discomfort of standing for such an interminably long period. He was not normally claustrophobic, but the tension, the fear, the crowded conditions were creating the impression that the walls were about to close in on him. It was hard to breathe. The room suddenly seemed a vacuum.
He pressed back against the wall, wishing it would give way behind him. He had wonderful, wild visions of the marble blocks collapsing, the fresh air flowing inside, the vast expanse of blue sky opening above him. He would flee this place, flee Samah and the Council guards, escape back into the world, instead of away from it.
“Brethren.” Samah rose to his feet. The entire Council was now standing. “It is time. Prepare yourselves to cast the magic.”
Alfred could see Orlah now. She was pale, but composed. He knew her reluctance, knew how vehemently she had fought this decision. She could. She was Samah’s wife. He would never cast her into the prison along with their enemies, not as he had done some of the others.
The Sartan stood with heads bowed, hands folded, eyes closed. They had begun sinking into the relaxed, meditative state required to summon such vast magical power as Samah and the Council were demanding.
Alfred endeavored to do the same, but his thoughts refused to focus, went dashing about desperately, running hither and yon with no escape, like mice trapped in a box with a cat.
“You seem unable to concentrate, Brother,” said a low, calm voice, very near Alfred.
Startled, Alfred looked for the voice’s source, saw a man leaning on the wall beside him. The man was young, but beyond that it was difficult to tell much about him. His head was covered by the cowl of his robe and his hands were swathed in bandages.
Bandages. Alfred stared at the white linen wrappings covering the man’s hands, wrists, and forearms, and was filled with a vague sense of dread.
The young man turned to him and smiled—a quiet smile.
“The Sartan will come to regret this day, Brother.” His voice changed, grew bitter. “Not that their regret will ease the suffering of the innocent victims. But at least, before the end, the Sartan will come to understand the enormity of what they have done. If that is of any comfort to you.”