"Arif!"
His son did not answer. He was not here with the others. Zouki was not here.
Fear and horror redoubled. Several children had been hurt in the fighting, despite all efforts to avoid that ... The Herodian sorceress jabbered at himand pointed. She wanted him to move along. He determined to stand his ground.
"Aaron." Yoseh beckoned him. "Come on. The children are not here. The Witch has them."
"How do you know that?"
"I asked these kids. They told me she came and got them and took themsomewhere with her."
The bottom fell out of Aaron's stomach. A little hope died.
Yoseh led the way into the largest room he had ever seen, trying to stay alertenough for himself and the carpenter and veydeen woman, too. He had heard ofthis place. It was as awe-inspiring as the stories said. But there was no timeto gawk. It was a madhouse. Rock apes and more children were screeching andrunning around. Mo'atabar and the others were trying to fight their way up astairwell off to his left. They were up against another invisible wall. It let missiles come down but would not let them go up. Mo'atabar was ready to tearthe place down to get around it.
Then Yoseh glimpsed the child-taker flitting through far shadows. He yelled, sped an arrow, and charged. When he reached the spot he found nothing but asnarling rock ape.
The ferrenghi sorceress shouted a warning that no one but, perhaps, Mo'atabarunderstood.
Brilliant light. A blow like the sudden impact of a hundred fists ...
He did not know how much time had passed. When he came to he found his visionand hearing both impaired. He could barely hear Mo'atabar and the ferrenghisorceress arguing bitterly at the foot of the stairwell. Mo'atabar wanted tocarry the attack upward. The witch wanted to go another direction. Sheinsisted the upward retreat was a diversion. Somehow, she carried herargument-and that left old Mo'atabar looking very frightened.
What now? Yoseh wondered as he staggered to his feet and went to see to thecarpenter.
Bel-Sidek stood near the doorway to Meryel's balcony, listening. Meryel asked,
"What in the world are you doing?" She had arrived home and instantly beenarrested and put in with him by Zenobel's men.
"I'm listening for Dartar trumpets."
"What?"
"Anytime now my self-appointed successor is going to be forced to drink deeplyof a dark and bitter wine called Fa'tad al-Akla."
Azel drifted through dark and silent corridors, cautiously. Had he been anyoneelse his mood might have been called sad. He hadn't done nearly as well withthe camel jockeys as he'd hoped. Of course, if the woman had bothered to taketime to do something besides just throw up a few barriers ...
He had given them the slip. They should be headed upward now. That should holdthem awhile. Maybe long enough for him to bash a hole through the woman'sobsession and get her to fight. She could've cleaned the place out in the timeshe'd had since the bastards broke in. If she'd bothered to take it. But no. A
little paint on the surface, a sop to keep him off her back, maybe, and rightback to Nakar.
Damn Nakar ... Well, might not be long left in that story. Depended onTorgo. The big idiot was primed. Set to go. If he didn't fade at the end.
He reached the temple door.
It was closed. For the first time in memory. "What the hell?" He tried itgently. It did not yield. A slight buzzing sensation tickled the tips of hisfingers.
For a fraction of a second hurt flickered across his face.
Suspicion became conviction when he tried a side entrance and found it sealed, too. The same tingle teased his sense of touch.
Was he the object of her fortification?
That flicker of hurt came and went.
Maybe there had been some foreshadowing. Maybe he had felt it. Maybe that waswhy he had prepared the temple.
Or could it just be that Torgo had, at last, managed to get a knife into hisback? He turned more grim than ever. The eunuch's payoff wasn't far off now.
He was tempted not to wait on Nakar.
There were other ways to enter the temple. Ways of which even the HighPriest's woman was unaware.
Azel the Destroyer had not been the messenger of Nakar the Abomination fornothing.
Three minutes later Azel slipped into the sacristy. He placed his provisionpack in the hidden room, closed that up again, then crept up behind the imageof Gorloch. He settled to watch Torgo and the Witch.
They had the brat whose taking had caused his first encounter with the Dartarstied into a chair. The kid was calm, attentive, almost eager. Azel wastroubled. There was something wrong there. The boy seemed old beyond time.
Torgo and the Witch had the other kid strapped down on the altar, damned nearin touching distance of Nakar. The kid carried on, screaming, fighting them.
The Witch got set to go into her trance. Torgo fluttered around like an oldwoman, doing three things at once while trying to settle the kid down. Dumbass. The kid was scared shitless. He wasn't going to calm down for anything.
Double scared?
Azel eyed the time-locked corpses of Nakar and Ala-eh-din Beyh, the brats, considered events of six years ago as heard secondhand. He consideredknowledge picked up at Nakar's left hand. He hadn't a whit of that talenthimself but he understood theory and mechanics.
Damn! The mad bitch could bring the whole world down around their ears. "Holdit!"
They jumped. The Witch squeaked. Azel cursed the look in her eye, pushed thepain aside. No time for that now. "You can't do this, woman. Not this way."
Torgo looked like he might drizzle down his leg. "How did you get in?"
"I walk through walls. Don't worry about me. Worry about what will happen ifyou jump into this the way you're going."
The Witch turned her back. Only Torgo showed interest. Irked, Azel demanded,
"How did we get into this mess in the first damned place?"
The Witch ignored him. Torgo glanced at her, stared at the floor as hecontinued work.
Azel spat, "You put them in that damned time trance because Nakar would've gotstomped dead if you didn't, woman. Remember? Ain't nothing changed, neither.
You wake them up now they're going to go right on from where they left off."
He eyed the Zouki brat. The kid looked back. Damned if the brat didn't looklike he understood. Was the Ala-eh-din Beyh soul awake?
Somebody tried the main door. Torgo glanced at it, frowned. Azel slipped offhis perch. "They're here."
Torgo watched him warily. "Worry about them, Torgo. Not about me. Want to betthey find a way in?" The damned woman hadn't stopped her preparations. Now shewas lying beside the kid on the altar, working on her trance.
Torgo looked at her, at Azel, a rat caught in the open, dogs closing in. "Whatcan we do?"
"Probably not a damned thing. Unless you can make her hear sense. Know how todo that?"
"I don't think so."
"Shit. Do your job, then. And hope Gorloch smiles." Azel drifted toward thedoor as though considering some rude greeting. But as he passed the Zouki kid, he punched the brat so hard he almost broke the boy's neck. "That'll put himout for a while. Get on with it."
The Witch began to murmur. Near as Azel could tell, her whole plan was towaken Nakar and ask him what to do next. Damned moron. Shit for brains. How did anybody let somebody get so much control they turned into a soul slave, stripped of even the sense to harken to survival instinct?
Something turned over inside Azel. For a moment he had the uncomfortablefeeling that he'd glimpsed his true self. As though some impartial observerhad asked what he was doing trapped like a rat.
The sounds of scraping and pounding came from the wall. Them damned cameljockeys knew they couldn't bust the door down so they were going after thewall.