'Valarkin miscalculated,' said Miphon. 'He thought nobody would try and look for us.'
'Yes,' said Blackwood. 'But obviously they're thinking of searching the countryside – not Veda itself.'
They came to some stairs. Hearst, now able to walk without support, led the way up. There was the distant boom of an explosion, followed by a protracted roar. The walls shook. Cracks opened. Pieces of luminous white fell from the ceiling.
'What was that?' said Hearst.
The stairs were vibrating under their feet. Miphon knew that never before had a wizard stripped himself of his powers, releasing uncontrolled energies into the world. He had no idea what the consequences might be: but he was learning fast. Quite possibly, the energies he had released might tear Veda apart.
'Come on,' he said.
'But what in hell's name is it?'
'Out!' cried Miphon. 'Out, or we're dead!'
They bounded up the stairs two at a time. More stairs led to more corridors; more corridors led to more stairs. Ever upwards they went. The journey started to become nightmarish. Sweat poured off them. Their legs began to lock with fatigue. Heart and lung strained to their limits. The vibrations got worse and worse. Huge chunks fell from the ceilings. Tunnels buckled and twisted.
They began to pass other people, most of whom were running in the same direction. Some, however, had been trapped or disabled by falling masonry. They could not stop to help these casualities.
There was another explosion, louder than the others. The surface underfoot swayed.
'We're never going to get out of here,' said Hearst.
But even as he spoke, they saw daylight. The sun shone through dust: the way to escape was in sight.
From a low hillock a thousand paces from Veda, 465 Miphon, Hearst and Blackwood watched the final stages of the disintegration of the stronghold of the sages. Occasionally rubble was flung high into the air with a shattering roar as blue-white energies burst out from underground.
'What did you do?' said Hearst, watching the dust settling after one of these explosions.
'What do you mean, what did I do?' said Miphon.
'Hearst's not the only one to think you're responsible,' said Blackwood. 'Nobody else has such power.' i've got no power now,' said Miphon sadly, i used it all in blasting my way out of the cell where Valarkin was holding me.'
'You did what you had to,' said Hearst, i only hope Valarkin and the death-stone are buried under that rubble.'
'This is a disaster,' said Miphon. 'The Confederation of Wizards will never believe it!' iil be there to help you make your explanations,' said Hearst.
'And me,' said Blackwood. 'As a friendly witness in the Court of the Highest Law.'
'Now let's get ourselves out of here,' said Hearst. 'Before the survivors organise themselves into a lynch mob.'
The travellers got to their feet. They had the clothes they stood up in, but no weapons except for Hearst's sword Hast. And no tents, pack animals, food, blankets. Not even a change of socks. And no money. It was going to be a hard journey, unless they could improve their position. Hearst looked around.
'We have to go back,' said Hearst. 'Despite the danger. We have to go back to Veda and loot the ruins. That's what I think.' iil trust your judgment,' said Miphon.
'Then I say we go,' said Hearst. 'Blackwood?'
The woodsman stooped and picked up a small, smooth rock. It fitted nicely into his hand.
'When I'm holding a weapon like this, who's going to oppose us?' 'That rock?' said Hearst.
'I'm going to say it's the death-stone,' said Blackwood. 'And if that's what I say, who's going to wait around to find out otherwise?'
'Of course,' said Hearst.
It was a good idea: he should have been the one to think of it.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Posing as Galish merchants, they slipped through the Rice Empire, avoiding major centres of population. Miphon did no healing; he could have improvised some basic equipment, but decided healing-work might link them to the tales, rumours and legends that were circulating about Morgan Hearst and his companions.
When the Salt Road was busy, they travelled by night, stealing horses, riding them hard, then abandoning them or trading them for fresh mounts. They knew stories of the fall of Veda would move swiftly along the Salt Road; they wanted to be first to bring the news to the Castle of Controlling Power, so the Confederation of Wizards would hear the truth rather than some garbled distortion.
It was four hundred leagues from Veda to Narba; their sixteenth day on the road ended with Narba in sight. They slept in a corn field, breakfasted on stolen cobs of corn, then pushed on toward the city.
At Narba, much building was in progress. During years of peace, the city had sprawled outwards, so now many houses, taverns, inns, offices, warehouses, shops, temples, tanneries, breweries, bakeries, shipyards, schools, courtyards, mansions and marketplaces lay beyond the protection of the original fortifications. Efforts were now underway to remedy that deficiency by extending the city walls.
Where the Salt Road entered the city, two huge bastions were being constructed to guard what would be a major gateway through the new walls. One bastion, a square structure with walls easily a hundred paces long, rose more than five times man-height. Work on a second was just beginning; men were working waist-deep in a water-filled hole, driving stakes into the ground so the top of each was level with the surface of the water.
'Blackwood,' said Hearst. 'Why are you making your mouth a flytrap?'
'Because,' said Blackwood, shutting his mouth and shaking his head, 'this is incredible. Unbelievable.'
The fortifications were, of course, trivial compared to any wizard castle, and insignificant if compared to Stronghold Handfast. However, the antiquity and inhuman scale of such monstrosities made them seem, to an extent, like natural features of the landscape. The works at Narba, on the other hand, were undeniably the product of the labour of human nerve and sinew; people swarmed over the fortifications like ants over a sugarloaf.
The air was hazy with dust thrown up by the diggings. The bastion nearby, rising high into the air, was topped by arrangements of windlasses and treadmills; teams of men were labouring in unison on this creaking apparatus to drag up block after block of stone.
Standing watching, Blackwood sneezed as dust got up his nose. He touched a finger to his teeth. Bit it.
– This is not a dream.
He scraped a battered boot over the stones of the road, heavily clagged with dirt from the diggings.
– You are here.
– And not elsewhere.
He felt an acute sense of being located in that particular spot at that particular moment. He felt as if he had awakened from a life of dreams, from an insect-habit life of doing things by rote.
– Is this magic?
Miphon and Hearst began to argue about whether they should enter the city or outflank it, and the spell, if it was a spell, was broken. Blackwood joined the argument; they decided to enter the city, not least because they wanted to find out what rumour of war had provoked this outbreak of fortification-building.
From Veda, the travellers had carried away some glowing fragments of the luminous white interior of the ruined city; they sold these scraps to a jeweller in the centre of Narba, getting a good price; later, no doubt, as trade brought more of the material along the Salt Road, the price would fall.
What they learnt in Narba was confused, ambiguous and ominous. There was trouble amongst the wizards of the castles guarding the flame trench Drangsturm. There had been fighting at the Castle of Ultimate Peace, at the eastern end of Drangsturm. A few wizards, all of the weakest of the eight orders, the order of Seth, had come north to Narba and had taken passage on ships going to the Cold West or the Ravlish Lands. Rumours said other wizards had taken passage on Malud ships sailing the Ocean of Cambria, dispersing to Asral, Ashmolea, the Ferego Islands, the Driftwood Archipelego and the Parengarenga Mass.