The shadow in the kid's face darkened quickly. The clouds overhead grew moreexcited. Thunder hammered.
And Azel wondered not about Nakar's advent but about the exit he needed to make after he had outlived his usefulness. He was in no condition to end the story of the Abomination.
"He's coming," the Witch breathed. "He's almost here. We're going to do it, Azel. We're going to do it."
Aaron slithered up next to Nogah. Chest-to-chest, scarcely able to breathe, they took what room they could and heaved together.
The trap remained stubborn ... then gave.
As it began moving Nogah grunted, "First!" and sprang with it, as though theclimb and all before it had taken nothing out of his body.
Nogah's feet were not yet clear when Aaron followed. Nogah threw himself atthe child-taker, who had toppled off the trap. And the child-taker took himout.
What kind of man was he, Aaron wondered as the stubby man, on his back, movedjerkily in lightning flashes and sent Nogah plunging headlong into thebattlement surrounding the parapet. Nogah went limp.
Aaron nearly gagged doing it, was astounded that he could, but found what ittook to kick the child-taker in the head. He whirled on the Witch and his son as Medjhah clambered into sight.
Arif's eyes were open and watching but that was not Arif looking out. That wassomething hideous, dark, and evil.
He could not move, looking at that.
Medjhah staggered forward, knife falling toward the Witch. She made a feeble gesture, barely in time. The knife turned to flame in the Dartar's hand, sizzled through the rain. He screamed, flung it from him, fell forward intothe woman, bowling her over. A knife appeared in her hand. She stabbed himonce, weakly, before Aaron recovered and kicked again, striking her wrist moreby luck than design. Mahdah came up, circled to the side, to put the womanbetween himself and Aaron.
Aaron looked at Arif again. The darkness within him was growing still but hadan unfocused quality, as though the thing surfacing was confused and far frombeing in control. For an instant, even, it seemed that Arif himself looked outof those eyes, begging help defeating his devil.
The Herodian sorceress rose from the chute.
Fa'tad stepped onto the portico of the Residence. His most senior prisonersaccompanied him. Witchfires pranced atop the citadel tower. He recognized theveydeen carpenter. "Finally."
General Cado observed, "You have done it."
Fa'tad chuckled. "So it would seem. Fatig, get the carpenter's family. Howeverit went they should be there for him when he comes down."
A messenger left immediately.
"Don't count your chickens."
Fa'tad turned to Colonel bel-Sidek. "Sir?"
"That's a witch's game. Two against one and no one alive can match either ofthe two."
Thunder and lightning hammered the night like the crackling bacon of the gods.
Clouds spun madly overhead. Rain fell in ever greater torrents.
Fa'tad al-Akla lost his smile.
The Witch had regained her feet. She held the boy before her. His facedarkened ever more as the thunder bellowed ever more fiercely. "Too late!" shecrowed at the Herodian sorceress. "You're too late, meddler. You can't stop itnow. I can withstand you all till he comes." She threw back her head, shriekedinto the teeth of the lightning. "He comes!" Let Qushmarrah know. Let all theworld know. Nakar was coming. The hour of vengeance was at hand.
In response the Herodian witch knelt beside the ladder well, reached down.
Then she rose, helping a child climb onto the parapet.
The other one ... But Azel had broken his neck. Hadn't he?
The Witch almost collapsed in her terror.
Azel cracked an eyelid, considered his surroundings through vision gone fuzzy, listened with hearing gone as feeble as an old man's. He shut out his pain andfear, examined the situation. As that Herodian bitch brought the other bratonto the parapet.
He was not deceived. Not for an instant. The sorceress had saved the brat by her art but Ala-eh-din Beyh wasn't in him now. Had he been there the stormwould have ripped the tower apart. But the Witch believed, if only for amoment. Believed and surrendered to the doom she saw as her punishment forhaving failed her husband.
Damned fool woman.
Damn fool man, he. Lying there with both legs and one arm past death's doorand for what? For her? What damnable fool hid down deep inside him, gullinghim all along, so that he'd thought he had some chance of making her his own?
He was an idiot. As big a fool as anybody he'd gulled during his idiot'squest.
He eyed them all, women, boys, father, Dartars. He had no regrets, felt noremorse. But he was alive still. Alive, he had to make decisions.
The carpenter shouted, "Easy," at the Witch. He had to shout to be heard abovethe storm. "Take it easy. Don't ..."
A fool to the last, that woman. Not thinking with her brain. Deceived by arustic sorceress from beyond the sea.
Instead of fighting on, going down swinging, making them pay for whatever theywon, she chose the easy way out again.
She shook the carpenter off, stumbled backward, looked out over the city shehated, then leaped from the parapet.
Live a fool, die one, Azel thought. She'd defeated herself. She'd lost toherself.
No one was watching him. It was an effort of herculean proportion but hemanaged to move one hand from his waist to his mouth. He began to chew.
He could've stopped her, he thought as the shadows closed in. He could'veshouted. They would've killed him but he could've warned her before she tookthat step. He could've given her Nakar ... The last thing in his sight wasthe boy. Nakar was looking out of those young eyes, looking at him, and Nakarknew. By holding his tongue he had destroyed them both, Witch and wizardalike.
Azel used his last ounce of strength to force a mocking smile and a farewellwink.
Aaron tried to grab the Witch as she backed off the parapet. In the lastinstant she changed her mind, reached for his outstretched hand. But thedistance separating them was too great. Down she plunged, vanishing in thedarkness, trailing a scream in which he heard Nakar's name and a curse uponQushmarrah.
Chance? Curse? Whim of the gods? At the moment the Witch struck stone theearth shook. The tremor was barely discernible but it was enough.
A lightning crack appeared in the leaky wall in the home of that otherwiseinsignificant woman in the Shu. Plaster chipped away. A hair of water squirtedthrough. The stream expanded swiftly.
The wall came apart.
The surge destroyed the next wall it encountered.
In minutes the hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of water trapped in themaze were in motion.
It would have been an awesome sight from the harbor had anyone been out thereto watch the avalanche of water and rubble and bodies roar down and hit the bay.
They got Yoseh up out of the shaft. Mo'atabar and the others followed. Soonthey had ropes over the side. Fa'tad had men waiting below.
They lowered the Herodian sorceress first, so she would be down there whenArif and the injured arrived. Already she had done something to put Arifasleep. Already Aaron understood that when Arif awakened he would not recallthe threat that had come so close to devouring him. He would not forget hisimprisonment completely but the worst horrors would be cleansed from his mind.
He would remember that his father had, indeed, come to his rescue.
They lowered Aaron right after Yoseh. When he reached the cobblestones hefound Laella and Mish and Stafa and even old Raheb waiting. Only Mish hadglances to spare for anyone but him and Arif. She had a few for Yoseh, whoseemed more embarrassed than pained now that the sorceress had seen to him.
His brothers had proclaimed him a hero.
Laella clung to Aaron and Arif and wept as she had not done since the day hehad come home from the Herodian captivity, releasing all her fears andtensions in the form of tears.
Aaron said, "It's all right now. It's all right. It's all over now." Heglanced at the sky. Once frenzied clouds had gone drowsy already.