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.
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.