The thing in the darkness shifted, turned its invisible eye upon him. He feltits amusement, its iron, wicked intent.
He tried to scream.
That thing swam up toward the light, gaining fast.
Instinct made Yoseh flail out. He was not conscious enough to think. One handdragged over several rungs. He felt fingernails rip and break. He got a solidhold. His arm wrenched violently. He screamed.
He grabbed with his other hand before the first gave way. He stopped hisplunge. He clung there shaking and whimpering with pain, afraid to move.
The child-taker had not been dead. Had not been sleeping. Now the man wouldtake steps.
He had to get word to Nogah and Mo'atabar and the Herodian sorceress now. Buthe could not move. His muscles had locked, refused to let him. His fear offalling would not respond to his will.
He could not yell again, either. His tight, dry throat would let him donothing but croak.
Tears flowed. A coward. He had feared he was, always. And now, when alldepended upon him acting, he could not. He burned, thinking of the shame uponhis father.
Aaron had himself under control now. Outwardly he portrayed quiet calmness.
But could it last? His mind was a hornet's nest of terrible thoughts andfears.
The hidden room was crowded beyond enduring. They were packed in there bellyto- back, shoulder-to-shoulder, breathing into one another's faces, smellingone another's fear. The sorceress had not been able to prevent the Living frombreaching the temple wall. She had had to spend too much attention on Zouki.
Aaron could hear the Qushmarrahan rebels cursing outside the wardrobe. Thewardrobe that would hide nothing if opened because Medjhah had demolished theconcealed opening.
There was no sound in the little room. Most of them were holding theirbreaths. Only the sorceress was doing anything. Something to shield them, tohide them, to baffle the Living, he prayed.
He called upon Aram's love and mercy repeatedly, silently, in his heart.
In time Kosuth and Medjhah returned from their quests. In whispers theydelivered negative reports. The bolt-hole in the floor just led down and downto water. The other ran to a hidden exit inside the guardroom behind thepostern-inside the brick wall Fa'tad had installed.
"Even so," Mo'atabar murmured. "Even so." He began indicating men. "Crawl inthere. Hide. It's too crowded in here."
Despite the maddening crowding no one wanted to go into the crawlway. Aaronthought only a second and knew he would fight if they tried to send him. Hecould not endure the closeness.
How much worse for these men, reared in the wide expanses of the mountains andTakes, beneath sprawling desert skies?
Something landed at the bottom of the third bolt-hole, plop! Aaron was rightbeside that, pressed up against Nogah and Medjhah, more pressured now that thelatter had returned. He recognized the object immediately. He retained barelyenough caution to confine himself to a whisper. "That's Arifs shoe." It was sowet it had splattered water.
Medjhah said, "It must have come from outside. Up there. In the rain. Yosehmust have ... They must be on top of the tower. We must be right under ithere."
Mo'atabar forced his way through the press. Aaron watched his passage sparkunreasoning rage in the eyes of the Dartars he brushed. Those men barelycontrolled themselves.
As Mo'atabar arrived a second object fell down the shaft, hit, ping!
metallically. Nogah squeaked, "That's Yoseh's ring. The one Father gave him."
Medjhah whispered, "He can't come down. That has to mean he can't come down.
He wants us to come up."
Nogah had a counter remark. Mo'atabar scowled. He was suspicious. He wanted tothink and talk about it before he did anything.
Aaron could not control himself. His muscles seemed to act of their own accord, compelling him to enter the shaft and start climbing.
Nogah and Medjhah followed immediately. Before Aaron climbed fifty feet heheard Mo'atabar and the sorceress arguing over which should go first.
Soon he ached in every muscle. He was no ape or sailor accustomed to climbing.
His body had suffered already. But fear for Arif drove him.
He bumped into someone. Someone! A soft whimper came from above. "Yoseh?"
A grunt. An inarticulate sound filled with pain and fear and humiliation.
"It's Aaron, Yoseh. Are you all right?"
Another whimpering sound. Not a positive sign.
Nogah forced his way up beside Aaron, so that they clung to the unseen rungsside by side, so crowded in the shaft that they might not have fallen had theylet go. Nogah whispered to his brother. He could get no sense from the boy. Hebegan making soothing, comforting sounds. Aaron clung to the rungs andwondered how long he could keep that up before his body betrayed him.
After a while Medjhah asked, "What's the story?"
Nogah replied, "He fell. He caught himself. He got hurt doing it. He'll be all right. I'm tying him to the rungs till we can lift him out."
"Going to be a bitch getting past him."
"Uhm. Where's Mo'atabar?"
Aaron intuited the import of the question. Mo'atabar was a sizable man. He would not be able to force his way past Yoseh. Whatever waited above, there would be no help from Mo'atabar or anyone below him.
Medjhah said, "Mahdah is behind me, then the sorceress. Then Mo'atabar." Mo'atabar growled a question. No one responded to his impatience.
Nogah said, "Yoseh says there's an iron trapdoor lying flat up there. It'sheavy. It opens on the floor of the parapet. The Witch and the child-taker areup there with Arif. He thought they were out cold or dead but the child-takersurprised him and knocked him back down when he was trying to sneak Arif intothe shaft."
Oh, Aaron thought. Maybe that explained the shoe.
"How about now?"
"Who knows? The child-taker will be waiting, I guess."
Medjhah grumbled something about Yoseh should have made sure of them up there while he had had the chance. In a strained voice, Nogah said, "There's no choice now. We have to do it. Let's go."
Never in his wildest boyhood fantasies had Aaron pictured himself in anything like this. He never had had the stuff of heroes. Charging up a ladder into the teeth of death, in defiance of doom and the dark old gods ... Aram! Send down the flame of love and mercy. He squirmed past Yoseh, who continued to make sounds of pain. Above, Nogah stopped. "I'm there," he whispered. "The trap." Yoseh had not fallen too far, after all. Not more than fifteen feet.
"Now what?"
"Medjhah? You past Yoseh?" "Almost. As far as I can get."
"Aaron?" Nogah's voice broke. The warrior was as frightened as anyone, Aaron realized. He knew just how poor his chances were. Aaron looked inside himself. He was terrified but he had it under control.
Arif was up there, maybe no more than ten feet away. "I can do it." Despitemuscles of water. Despite being unarmed. He could not recall what had becomeof any of the weapons they had given him during the course of the day.
"Medjhah?"
"Ready."
"Tell them to get their tails moving down there, as soon as we go. TellMo'atabar to carry Yoseh up if he has to."
Medjhah relayed the message. Nogah said, "Now!" Aaron heard his bones andsinews creak as he pushed up against the iron door.
Azel felt the trapdoor pushing up against him. He couldn't do a damned thing.
Everything he had left, it seemed, he needed just to keep his eyes open.
The Witch was doing it. Somehow, despite the circumstances, she had reachedNakar and was luring him forth. He saw the shadow growing in the brat's face.
Maybe Nakar sensed the passing of Ala-eh-din Beyh. Good thing he'd broken thatother brat's neck.
He managed a warning grunt. The Witch was alert enough to catch it. "A momentlonger, Azel. Only a moment more. Don't let them come."
Don't let them come. How the hell was he supposed to stop them? All he was nowwas dead weight. If they managed enough upward force they would tumble him offand all he could do was lie there and watch them climb out.