Shadow Blizzard

5 Through The Slumbering Gloom

My footsteps echoed off the white marble slabs of the floor and multiplied as they bounced about under the ceiling, fluttering like bats startled by the light of the torches.

I felt a desperate urge to walk off the path into the surrounding gloom, where I would be less conspicuous but, darkness take me, the lighted path had been created especially for anyone coming this way to walk along, and Sagot only knew what was in store for me if I left it.

About twenty marble slabs right in front of the Doors were lit up in a rough semicircle, forming a kind of platform about twenty yards across. From that point two corridors ran off to the right and left of the Doors. There were little light blue lamps on the high ceilings of the corridors, flooding the entrances with a pale bluish light and filling the corridors with a bluish haze. I didn’t know where the corridors led to—there was no mention of them in the papers from the old Tower of the Order.

But the Nameless One take the mysterious corridors! I certainly wasn’t going to waste any time exploring them. Just at that moment there was nothing in the world apart from those Doors towering up seventeen yards above my head.

I took my glove off one hand and gingerly pressed my palm against the surface of the Doors. They felt warm, as if there was a gentle flame burning somewhere inside them, and at the same time icy cold, as if they’d been carved out of a single block of dark ice. And they were very smooth. I didn’t even try to guess what material they were made from, but it looked very much like black glass. I would have wagered the income from my next hundred Commissions that an entire regiment of giants or an army of magicians of every possible hue could never even have made this barrier tremble.

The elves had created something magnificent, and only someone who possessed the Key could pass this way. (I imagined how furious the orcs must have been when they discovered that the easiest and quickest route to the tombs of their ancestors had been closed off by the elves.)

I stood at one edge of these magnificent Doors, set one hand on their surface, and walked the ten yards from one edge to the other. Nothing at all. An absolutely smooth surface, entirely unbroken, if you didn’t count the elaborate images worked into it by the dark and light elves’ master sculptors, images that told the story of their people’s battles with the Firstborn.

The pictures were incredibly beautiful and the attention to fine detail was astonishing. Here was an elf armed with a s’kash setting his foot on the body of his prostrate enemy. The figures seemed to be alive and I could see every hair, every ring of chain mail, every wrinkle in the corners of the middle-aged elf’s eyes.

And here was a gigantic oak tree. I could see every single leaf, every crevice in the thick bark. Orcs hung from the tree head-down, their eyes filled with absolute terror. Elves stood below them. Many elves. From what I knew of the race of the Secondborn, I’d say the lads were preparing the appalling Green Leaf torture for the orcs.

Of course, all this was very impressive, but the Doors didn’t have what was most important to me—a keyhole that the Key I had brought could fit into. I almost went blind staring at that surface as I walked from one corner to the other, but I didn’t find even the tiniest opening. As if it wasn’t enough that the surrounding gloom and the blue haze of the two corridors were beginning to set my nerves on edge, there was something not quite right about the Doors, too. But I just couldn’t understand exactly what it was that had been bothering me since the moment I walked up to them.

Calm down, Harold, calm down. I had the Key, and it was created to open the Doors. So it must open them, and all I had to do to find the keyhole was exercise my imagination.

I tried coming at the question from every possible angle, but I got nowhere. Maybe it was some kind of elfin joke—to make Doors that didn’t open? But then, why in the name of darkness had they gone to all the trouble of bringing in the dwarves to make the Key? Not just for the fun of it, surely?

But eventually I found the answer. It was concealed in the figures on the Doors, or rather, in one of them. In the lower left corner there was a figure of a tall elf. He was holding his right hand out, palm upward, and it was hollow. The color of the glass made the hollow almost invisible, in fact it was barely even a hollow, just a slight irregularity that was lost among the dozens of figures embossed into the Doors. But the size of the hollow was exactly right for the Key to be set into it.

I pulled the chain with the Key on it out from under my shirt and set the slim, elegant, icy-crystal artifact in the elf’s hand. The crystal flashed with a purple light and for a moment the elf’s entire figure lit up. The transparent Key turned exactly the same color as the Doors and fused into a single whole with them.

And then a glowing purple line ran from the bottom to the top of the huge Doors, right at their very center, and they started slowly opening toward me without a sound. I had to step back so that they wouldn’t catch me. I felt something snap gently in my chest, and I realized that the bonds with which Miralissa had tied the Key to me had broken. Which was hardly surprising: I’d opened the Doors and the bonds were no longer needed. The artifact had done its job.

“The bonds are strong,” the Key purred. “Run!”

Run? But the Doors had only just opened!

“Run away! The smell of the enemy!” the Key whispered in farewell, and fell silent.

The smell of the enemy? What did that mean?

I sniffed the air and caught a faint scent of strawberries. Lafresa!

“Kill him!” a man’s voice barked in the darkness.

Maybe sometimes I’m not all that bright, maybe I’m as dense as a cork, maybe I don’t know how to use a sword, but there’s one thing that can’t be denied—in a really tight spot I think with the speed of lightning and run even faster.

When Count Balistan Pargaid roared his command, I was already far away from the Doors and flying along the corridor on the left as fast as I could go. In the distance someone yelled that I had to be caught, others shouted for me to stop immediately or it would be worse for me. Naturally, I had no intention of stopping. Fortunately, the group that had been waiting for me to open the Doors hadn’t brought any crossbows along, otherwise I would have been dispatched into the light already. There was only one thing they could do now—try to catch up and put a few holes in me. I had one slight advantage over the Master’s jackals—I started running a lot sooner than they did, and running in chain mail with swords is a lot harder than running without them.

I hurtled along the endless corridor flooded with blue light, praying to Sagot for an intersection so that I could confuse the chase. But it was just my luck, there wasn’t a single branch off the corridor—its walls just moved farther apart, its ceiling rose even higher, and every second blue lamp went out.

That made the place even gloomier—the murk was so thick, it felt like I was running through a phantom world, wallowing in a syrupy bluish haze. The blue light made everything that was happening seem unreal.

Whoo-osh … Whoo-oosh … Whoo-oosh …

The lights on the ceiling were blurred spots rushing past above my head. The floor was laid with slabs of white marble with gold veins, just like in the Hall of the Doors, but fortunately it didn’t glow. On the other hand, I could hear the tramping feet and menacing roars of my pursuers very clearly. The idiots still hadn’t realized that yelling your head off in places like Hrad Spein can be bad for your health. I had a good lead, so I could afford to look round to see what my chances of surviving today’s race looked like.

The thick blue haze filled the corridor, so I could only see about a hundred paces. But I’d opened up a much bigger lead than that, so there was nothing in my field of vision yet. There was no time to think things over—Balistan Pargaid’s dogs would be there at any moment, and then only a miracle would save me.

There were broad decorative friezes running along the walls of the corridor, with stone gargoyles, each twice the height of a man, grinning down at me. The sculptor had created a set of brutes who were absolutely identical—they all had heads in the form of human skulls and unnaturally long hands with three fingers. The gargoyles were leaning over the corridor, looking for all the world as if one of them would come to life and jump down. I suddenly had an idea that just might work.

I leapt up onto the frieze, flung one leg over a gargoyle’s thigh, heaved myself up, grabbed the statue’s neck, and hid between its back and the wall of the corridor.

A magnificent spot. In the first place, the men chasing me were not likely to look up. In the second place, they couldn’t see me, and, in the third place, I had a fine view of everything.

For a second I thought the gargoyle’s stone back trembled slightly. It was absolute nonsense, of course—in that blue murk you could imagine seeing anything. I took the crossbow out from behind my back and waited for my guests.

After about ten long, but far from tedious seconds my pursuers appeared. Count Balistan Pargaid had sent four soldiers after me and these lads didn’t look any different from the other two who had got lost in the maze of the second level. Just as I expected, the lads didn’t even bother to look round. They were putting all their energy into yelling and waving their swords about. The four of them ran past my hiding place, howling triumphantly, and disappeared into the blue haze. Well, I thought I’d sit there for a while and wait until they got tired of running and then clear off.

How brilliantly Lafresa had fooled me! But it was my own fault for underestimating a dangerous enemy. After all, I knew how important she was to the Master’s intrigues, and you’d be hard put to find another sorceress to match her anywhere. No wonder the woman had managed to find the way to the Doors and avoid the traps and also prepare a pleasant welcome for me. I couldn’t imagine how she’d guessed I would reach the Doors, too, but the Master’s servant had certainly made the right decision.

Without the Key, Lafresa wasn’t able to open the Doors, so the only thing she could do was wait until the blockhead who was bound to the artifact opened them for her. I’d done exactly what she expected, and then Balistan Pargaid’s men had swung into action, thirsting for my blood. Yes, there was a faint scent of strawberries in the air near the Doors, that was what had been bothering me, but I hadn’t taken any notice, and if not for the magical Key …

A long, appalling howl of pain and terror rang down the corridor and I hiccupped in surprise. A hesitant moment of silence, and then another choking scream. And another. The hair on my head stirred and stood up on end. I pressed myself against the gargoyle’s back as hard as I could and tried to dissolve into thin air.

“Save me, Sagra! Save me, Sagra! A-a-agh! Save me, Sagra!”

A man came dashing out of the haze, screaming—one out of the four who had just been chasing me.

The man tossed his sword away and went dashing back toward the Hall of the Doors, calling on Sagra to help him. As usually happens, the goddess of war didn’t heed his call. But someone else did. A gargoyle on the wall opposite me turned its head toward the soldier’s howls.

At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me in the strange light, but then the fingers on the long hands moved, the shoulders twitched, and, just as the man was running past the gargoyle, the stone monster leapt down nimbly off the frieze, landing on the man with all its weight.

Crunch!

The lad never even knew what hit him. The monster picked the body up by the legs with its long hands, swung hard, and smacked the dead man’s head against the frieze. There was a sound like a nut cracking and a dark spot appeared on the stone. The gargoyle went back to its usual place and froze in the same position as before, suddenly transformed into lifeless stone again. As if the terrible scene I had just witnessed had never even happened.

I tried to calm my wildly pounding heart, but that was more than I could manage. May Sagot save me, I couldn’t take my eyes off the monster that had just killed a man! But the beast was absolutely still now; it gave no signs of life at all.

Ah, but you won’t fool me like that anymore!

The back of the gargoyle I was hiding behind trembled slightly again. But no, I imagined it.… Or did I? I stopped breathing. The head on the stone neck slowly started moving.…

I jumped down and ran as hard as I could for the Hall of the Doors, and somewhere behind me there was a gargoyle awakening from a long sleep. Of course, I hadn’t bothered to wait for the unpleasant moment when the stone monster would be fully awake. I just ran for it before it could grab me.

Whoo-oosh … Whoo-oosh … Whoo-oosh …

The little blue lamps turned into long blurred streaks. I was running in the opposite direction now. Darkness take Lafresa and Balistan Pargaid and his men! I’d break through one way or another! In the Hall of the Doors at least I had some kind of chance, with just a little bit of luck and the factor of surprise, but if I ran the other way, I was a dead certainty for the light. And another foolish idea came to mind, too—if I could just get to the Doors, the gargoyle could easily turn his precious attention to one of Pargaid’s men and forget about me.

The rasping of stone talons rang along the corridor. There was something big and very unfriendly chasing me. I stepped up the pace to avoid ending up in its stony embrace.

A gargoyle standing ahead of me stretched and clambered down off the frieze, but I had already gone flying past before this latest animated spawn of darkness could gather its wits. The end of the corridor was close now, but my way was blocked by a third stone monster, standing straight ahead of me, with blazing blue coals for eyes. To stop now would have been quite unforgivably stupid, so I dropped to the floor like a stone and slid across the marble slabs on my stomach, skidding between the ugly beast’s legs. I don’t think it even realized what was happening.

I jumped up and ran for it, and heard a terrible crash behind me as the monster who was chasing me smashed straight into his friend—the one I had slid under so smartly.

The glowing floor in front of the Doors. The dark depths of the hall. And nobody there. Just as I thought: Balistan Pargaid hadn’t bothered to wait for his men to finish me off. He’d gone on to the third level, since a certain idiot had kindly opened the Doors for him.

I heard a stifled wail of frustration from the corridor and turned round.

Several statues that had come to life were standing on the threshold between the corridor and the Hall of Doors. They stared at me in helpless fury for a second, then turned and tramped away.

I grunted in relief and tried to catch my breath. No wonder the dead guardsman’s book had said that blue light brought death.

Kli-Kli had warned me; in fact, he had often made fun of me, saying that if I survived the Palaces of Bone, my best memories would be of running. First from one beast. Then from another. And another.

I missed the moment when the Doors started to close. It happened without a sound, and when I did look at the magical gates, they had already moved a quarter of the way together.

I certainly couldn’t hang around any longer. I went dashing toward the barrier, feverishly trying to spot the figure of the elf in whose hand I had left the Key. The Doors carried on implacably closing.

Darkness! I needed the Key! Egrassa would tear my head off if I came back without the elfin relic!

Darkness! Darkness! Darkness! Darkness! May a demon of the abyss eat my brains!

The elf’s hand was absolutely empty! That infernal Lafresa had taken the artifact!

But this was no time to hurl curses at the heavens—there was only a narrow gap left between the Doors, and I had to make a dash for it. Otherwise I’d have to gnaw a hole through the Doors with my teeth.

I made it.

The danger of being crushed by the closing Doors sharpened my wits and I slipped through and out the other side like a cork out of a bottle of sparkling wine.

The gates came together soundlessly behind me, putting an end to any chance of going back. Now I would have to take the Key from Lafresa (which was unlikely) or make my way through the abyss of horror and find another way out (which was even less likely). There was only one way I could go now—forward. And I had to keep on going in the hope that some kind soul would deal with the witch and take the Key off her body.

I leaned back against the smooth black surface and gazed into darkness. Right in front of the Doors there was still a faint glimmer of light, but beyond that …

Thirty paces away I couldn’t see a thing. Just dense, velvety darkness. I was standing on a faintly lit granite platform that was slightly wider than the Doors and about fifteen paces across.

The entire platform was littered with bones. On the left and the right the floor merged into the walls of a cave that receded into impenetrable gloom. I couldn’t see any ceiling, it was too high, monstrously high, and completely invisible without any bright light. The platform broke off at jagged edges with an empty void beyond. It looked as if the Doors had released me into some unbelievably huge natural cave that the builders of Hrad Spein had discovered many thousands of years before.

The third level was a lot lower than the spot where I was standing, and the way to it ran across a stone bridge that began at the magical doors and ended somewhere out there. I had to walk through the cave across the bridge.

Not a very encouraging prospect, especially bearing in mind that the bridge was only four paces wide and it didn’t have railings. And if I was careless enough to fall off, I could keep on falling until I died of hunger.

An untimely fit of curiosity made me pick up something that used to be someone’s arm bone and toss it into the abyss. I immediately regretted this fleeting impulse—who knew what creatures I might disturb? But even though I regretted it, I didn’t forget to count; at least I could find out how deep this bottomless cave really was. I gave up at ninety-three, realizing that I wouldn’t hear anything anyway, even if the bone landed. It was already too far away for the sound to reach my ears.

It was more than fifteen minutes since the Doors had closed. I had to get moving and for the time being abandon all thoughts about how I would get back out.

All I was doing right now was just spinning things out, trying to put off setting foot on that bridge. I would have bet a gold piece that it was longer than an ogre’s life, but I couldn’t see any supports underneath it. What was holding all that weight up? What magic had transformed the stone into a path?

And then again, the servants of the Master could still be quite close, and running into them on a platform only four paces wide could be fatal. Lafresa, Balistan Pargaid, Paleface, and a dozen men into the bargain. I thought how delighted they would be to see me. But then, if I let them get away, lost sight of them in the maze of palaces and halls, I could forget all about the Key. And any chance of ever getting out of here and back up into the sunshine. No thinking was needed! I had to act! How did that verse riddle go on?

And then, carry on! The twin doors stand open

To the peace of the halls of the Slumbering Whisper.

Where the brains of man and elf and orc alike

Dissolve in unreason.… And so shall yours.

An encouraging prospect, especially bearing in mind that the Doors were anything but open, and to reach the Halls of the Slumbering Whisper I still had to travel for days across a thin thread of stone stretched between the darkness and the abyss.

I cast hesitation aside, lit one of my lights, stepped onto the bridge, and walked on.

Trying to walk along the center and not look down, I held the little magical lamp at arm’s length and hoped that the light in the darkness would not attract unwelcome attention from unfriendly individuals who might happen to inhabit this place.

The road was as straight as a bowstring and easy to walk along; I just had to forget about where I was and keep away from the edge.

Silence and darkness. Darkness and silence. How could you ever describe the Palaces of Bone, if the words “darkness” and “silence” and “half-light” were thrown out of the language?

You couldn’t. Because Hrad Spein is the darkness of subterranean catacombs, the silence of ancient tombs, and the half-light in the gloomy halls that are sometimes lit in mysterious ways.

My little light struggled to keep the gloom at bay, illuminating the bridge for seven paces ahead and seven paces behind. But there wasn’t enough light, and I felt like a little bug stuck in a demon’s pocket. The bridge had a very slight incline, and I gradually moved lower and lower.

Far, far ahead of me a series of dense white flashes flared up in rapid succession. From where I was they looked like the blinking of a white-hot grain of sand. But that was quite enough to make me stop and put both hands round the magical light to make quite sure that it wouldn’t be seen.

Another sequence of whitish sparks—they were more than a thousand yards away. I gazed into the gloom for three long, weary minutes, but no more flashes came. Whatever Lafresa had been up to over there (I was certain this was one of her tricks), it was all over now.

I sat down with my legs crossed and waited for another ten minutes just to be on the safe side. A perfectly reasonable precaution—I didn’t want the Master’s servants to suspect anything; let them think I was still stuck on the other side of the Doors.

After that I wasn’t at all afraid the men would see the light—the distance between me and Balistan Pargaid’s brigade was too great, and my little light and Lafresa’s magical flashes, were like a glowing ember and a forest fire.

After walking for about twenty minutes, I started hearing a low, regular drone. The kind of sound that alarmed bees make in their hive, or water makes when it falls from a great height. The straight bridge, which held up so mysteriously under the pressure of time, sloped down almost imperceptibly, so that now I was about three hundred yards lower than the Doors. And the longer I walked, the louder the obscure drone became.

The droning gradually became a rumble, the rumbling became a bellow, and the bellowing became a roar. The air was filled with a feeling of freshness and fine droplets of water that I could hardly see. Now I knew what was there up ahead.

A waterfall. Just then I didn’t have the time or the desire to figure out how it could have got there. It started getting noticeably brighter. Walls appeared out of the phantasmagorical darkness, glowing faintly with a dead, pale green light. They came together somewhere way up high where the uneven ceiling sparkled.

The roaring became indescribable and the walls moved in, until they were only forty yards away from the bridge. The moisture hanging in the air settled on my clothes like dew and chilled my skin. I thought the rumbling of the falling water would split my head in half. The bridge became wet, and the stone glittered in the light of my little magical lamp. Thank Sagot it wasn’t slippery, or I would have gone tumbling into the abyss at the first careless step.

Another two hundred yards, and there they were—a waterfall on the right and a waterfall on the left. Huge heads, thirty yards high, appeared on the walls. They were grotesque, half bird and half bear, their beak-mouths were wide open, and the torrents of water were roaring out of them. The black water, barely visible in the pale green light of the cave, roared and raged and it went hurtling downward.

Sagot! As I walked past the waterfalls roaring like a hundred thousand demons of the abyss, I was afraid I would go deaf forever (I forgot all about the earplugs I’d brought along) or that the torrent of water would sweep me away. I felt as if I could reach out my hand and touch one of them. And those familiar half bird, half bear heads looked as if they could strike a stranger down, or at least give him such a scare that he wet his pants. But my pants were already wet anyway, like all the rest of my clothes.

The waterfalls of the underground river were behind me now, their roar was fading away. The walls parted again and their pale green light died, inviting the gloom back in.

Darkness take me, but I was monstrously tired, and I settled down right there on the bridge for a bite to eat. I had to take my soaking clothes off and wring them out, too—I was shivering and shuddering after my involuntary bath in the spray of the waterfalls. After I’d got my outfit into more or less decent condition, I turned to the needs of my stomach and took out a soaking biscuit. My light blinked one last time and went out. I swore and lit up a new one. How long had I been staggering across this bridge? By my calculations, almost three days had passed since I first entered Hrad Spein, and I was still only somewhere between the second and third levels.

After a short rest I had to start moving again. By this stage the bridge was no longer straight; it had twisted into a spiral, increasing the speed of my descent. After what seemed like an eternity the walls moved in again, the bridge took a final turn, and there before me was the way out, or rather, the way in to the third level.

A hall.

I can’t even find the words to describe what the light showed me. I only had to give the right command, and the circle of light expanded to forty paces (then I could see everything really well, but the life of the magical lantern was shortened by several hours). Nothing I’d seen in Hrad Spein so far could compare with the first hall of the third level.

I was entering the level of the elves and the orcs, which had been created without any involvement by men. Cracked stones, basalt and granite, all the crude statues and coffins of roughly dressed stone had been left behind above me, and here … Here the scene before me was one of absolutely astounding, incomparable beauty.

The color scheme of the hall was black and bright scarlet. A very beautiful combination if you looked closely. Black walls with red veins and flecks, elegant black semi-arches with red ornamentation that looked like orcic letters, a ceiling where the red lines and strokes merged to form the image of a huge cobweb. A floor laid with matte black slabs, with the same red veins as on the ceiling, with a fine seam of red between each slab. The light of my little lamp set the hall sparkling and gave the place a truly magical, fairy-tale appearance.

Now I really was in the Palaces—once they were famous throughout all Siala, and even gnomes and dwarves came to Hrad Spein to gaze at the beauty of the burial halls. But those times are long gone now, together with the Age of Achievements.

Hrad Spein became unsafe, the road to it was abandoned, and those who decided to come here were few and far between. But elves and orcs, dwarves and gnomes, men and goblins—they all remember what lies hidden beneath the green crowns of the Forests of Zagraba, they all tell their grandsons legends, fables, and myths about the former magnificence of the underground palaces. After the evil of the bones of the ogres and others unknown awoke on the lower levels, the place was left deserted and dead.

For some reason the third level was pitch dark. There was none of the magic of glowing walls that I’d become used to, and if not for my lights I would have had to grope my way along. My steps could hardly be heard, but I made myself walk carefully and reduced the power of the light to its normal level. No point in shining like the sun—Balistan Pargaid’s lads could be somewhere nearby.

The black-and-red hall was followed by another just like it, from which three openings led into another three exactly like the first. And from each of those there were openings to another three. And so on to infinity. The maze was as complex as anything on the upper levels. In every space one or another small part of this frozen black-and-scarlet beauty was picked out by the light of my little lamp and then disappeared again, shrouding itself in the night. A frozen column here, an elegant arch there.

How many halls had I seen in all these hours? If I hadn’t had the papers from the abandoned Tower of the Order, I would have lost my way long ago in the cunningly contorted labyrinths. Probably that was what had happened to the servants of the Master, who were now an hour and a half ahead of me. If not for Lafresa, I would have written all the lads off as candidates for the darkness. But the blue-eyed woman had some kind of inner instinct, and even without a map she was able to find the right way through the labyrinth of the Palaces of Bone.

Every hall on the third level was an immense tomb. The latest burial sites of the elves and the orcs were on this level. Tombs first appeared here in the final years of the Dead Truce, which both races had observed for many thousands of years—but everything comes to an end. Blood was spilled, and the truce collapsed. The elves erected the Doors, shutting the orcs (and themselves) out from the easy route to the graves of their ancestors.

Unlike men, the older races didn’t put up memorial gravestones, they simply built the dead (or their ashes) into the walls, and the structures of the graves were not visible, so anyone who didn’t know would never have guessed that the bones of orcs and elves who had died hundreds or even thousands of years ago lay behind a skillful piece of molding or a picture or a column.

The third level, and then the fourth.

And all of this in absolute pitch blackness. I had been in Hrad Spein for six days. I ate, slept, and went on my way. Walking through halls, corridors, and galleries. Ever onward and downward, deeper and deeper.… Not a single sign of the presence of man or any other creature.

But on the fourth level I came across something different from everything I had seen for the last two days. The undisturbed peace was missing here; this place had a distinct smell of death. The walls of the hall were covered with a material like the bark of oak trees, the ceiling was a tangle of stone branches, and the floor was grass frozen in marble. A freakish combination of smells—roses, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, dog-roses, and decomposition.

The dead.

Many of them, more than thirty. Skeletons covered with yellow parchment skin, wearing steel armor shimmering with the blue of the heavens and with crooked swords—s’kashes.

Elves. The bodies were especially numerous in the center of the hall. My little light picked out a coffin of black Zagraban oak with its bottom turned toward me.

I walked closer, trying not to disturb the bones of the dead elves. Probably, when the elves were attacked and taken by surprise, the ones carrying the coffin had dropped it and when it hit the floor it split open.

The elves had fought to defend their dead, but lost their own lives. Most men would say that dying for someone who is dead already is stupid, but Egrassa’s relatives took a very different view. The word “house” and the word “kin” meant more than their own lives to these creatures with fangs.

The lid of the coffin had been thrown a yard away, and the dead elf had tumbled halfway out of his final refuge. I wondered if his spirit had seen how the elves who brought him here died?

The elf in the coffin was wearing a crown. A circle of platinum with black diamonds, alternating with expertly crafted roses of tarnished silver. I was looking at the ruler of one of the dark elfin houses.

Sagot only knows what came over me, but I did something that was very stupid (even by my standards). I went over to the king’s remains, put them back in the coffin, and with a great strain turned the surprisingly heavy box back upright.

During these maneuvers the crown that had stayed on the dead king’s head for more than forty years fell off and hit the floor with a repulsive clang. I picked it up and in the light of my magical lamp the black diamonds suddenly came to life, sparkling more brightly than ever.

I couldn’t help exclaiming out loud in delight and admiration. Sagot! That subtle, shimmering play of light was so beautiful. I imagined what would happen if the stones were shown to the sunlight. The crown on the second level that had been melted by the pink ray from the ceiling simply couldn’t compare with the crown of the head of the House of the Black Rose. Well, how could horse dung possibly compare with the nectar of the gods?

I froze for a few seconds, struggling with myself. A part of me wanted to take this priceless thing; after all, the dead elf had no more use for it, and it would bring me an immense fortune. But another part of me appealed shrilly to my wisdom and prudence, pointing out that no one had ever managed to rob an elf from a ruling house, regardless of whether he was alive or dead.

This time the greed heaved a sigh of disappointment and gave way. Darkness take the diamonds, in the name of Sagot! Elves are vengeful even after they’re dead. Without the slightest regret, I cautiously set the black crown back on the dead elf’s head. Rest in peace, king, and forget that I unintentionally disturbed you.

My glance fell on a s’kash with a jade handle that was lying at my feet. I bent down and picked up the weapon, and the rippled pattern of the metal glowed dully in the light of my magical lamp. A blade worthy of the ruler of a house. As I laid the curved sword on the elf’s chest, my nose caught a faint scent of dog-roses. I folded the bony hands over the hilt.

First the left hand, then the right. The dead king’s right wrist suddenly flexed, setting his hand on top of mine, and I felt a sudden chilly sensation on my skin. The elf’s hand fell back onto the sword before I even thought of pulling my hand away.

Frightened, I held the hand against myself, unable to believe that I’d got away so lightly. The dead elf had only held me for a fraction of a second, but I could still feel that sudden searing chill on my palm. I staggered fearfully back from the coffin, realizing in some corner of my mind that I had instinctively closed my hand into a fist because the elf had somehow managed to put something in it. I opened my fingers fearfully, as if there was a vicious scorpion with a fiery sting hiding in them.

The fleeting flash of a falling star.

I just had time to see that it was black. The star fell to the floor with a faint tinkling sound. I bent down and picked up the beautiful thing—it was warm now, not cold. I couldn’t stop myself exclaiming out loud again.

Lying there on my palm was a ring every bit as beautiful as the crown of the lord of the House of the Black Rose. The body of the ring was made of interwoven threads of black silver and platinum, and its heart was a black diamond. It wouldn’t be surprising if the ring had magical properties, too—by the light of my lamp its facets shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow. Of course, the ring wasn’t as valuable as the crown, but even this black diamond was enough for eight years of the good life in my own little palace.

I walked up to the coffin and looked hard at the dead elf. The play of light and shade made his face look almost alive, almost animated, but very old. A faint odor of roses tickled my nostrils. With a final glance at the king, I walked away, clutching the ring tightly in my fist, realizing that it was a gift. An unexpected gesture from the race of elves, but it was true. I took the glove off my right hand, put the ring on my finger, and gazed at the facets of the stone.

A gold spark was suddenly born in the depths of the diamond. It flared up and went out, and then flared up again. Flash. Darkness. Flash. The spark pulsed slowly, languidly, regularly, as if there was a real heart hidden inside the diamond.

Enlightenment always comes unexpectedly. My heart was beating with exactly the same rhythm as the stone. Or rather, the stone was glimmering in time to the beating of my heart. I didn’t know what kind of ring I had on my hand and what the consequences of wearing it would be, but I did understand, or rather, I felt, that I was bound to it in exactly the same way as I had been bound to the Key. I could feel myself in the stone and the stone in me.

It was a kind of tickling sensation that only lasted for about three seconds, then the glimmering of the stone faded and it became an ordinary diamond again. I put my glove back on, concealing the precious thing, cast a final glance round the tree hall, pulled the hood of my black jacket up over my head, and went on my way, leaving the elf still unburied in the dense gloom.

Dead silence, broken only by the sound of my steps. I don’t have the words to describe all the beauty of the underground Palaces. Black and red, orange and gold, blue and aquamarine, intense purple and dull ochre, the cold of blue marble and the heat of fiery granite.

Walls sparkled with mica and magnificent columns of pure amber, reaching up to immense heights. Entrancingly beautiful statues of orcs and elves, pools with their bottoms covered in fanciful patterns of turquoise and flowing water. Ethereal stairways with slim banisters that seemed to have been carved by some master craftsman out of a single block of green mountain crystal, and balconies woven out of fine threads of some unfamiliar metal, running round the upper stories of the halls.

Shimmering walls and ceilings of black silver, the beauty of the faded autumn in the gestures and poses of every statue. A faint, barely audible hmmmm—the song of halls that guard the peace of the dead. Not even the faintest breath of wind, no drafts, and no sounds apart from the song of the halls, not a single whisper, not a single ray of light. Whatever magic once lit up these places, it died when the elves and the orcs left Hrad Spein.

I kept on going, deeper and deeper under the ground. I didn’t even want to think about how many leagues of stone there were above my head. Who could have created all this frozen beauty at depths so incomprehensible to the mind of man? What miraculous means could they have used? And this was only the fourth level, there were forty-eight of them, plus those that had no names, where even the ogres never ventured when their race was at the height of its power. Whoever created Hrad Spein at the dawn of time must have been equal to the gods, or superior to them.

The gloom slumbered, the dead slept their eternal sleep in the niches of the ancient tombs, and I was the only one who knew no rest. No longer paying attention to the beauty of the underground Palaces, I tramped on and on, and every second, every step brought me closer to my goal, my Commission—the Rainbow Horn.

It was the second day of my journey across the fourth level and my seventh day in Hrad Spein. A week had gone by, and I was amazed that I hadn’t been driven crazy by the oppressive sense of loneliness.

A week. A whole week, spent Sagot only knew where. But I was halfway through the journey, with only four levels left.

Ha! Only! I still hadn’t got to the places mentioned in the verse guide. A week had flashed past like a confused nightmare that I could hardly even remember. There wasn’t much chance that I would get back on time now, and it would be just like Milord Alistan to come down here himself.

I had about half of my original supply of biscuits and lights left, and I was beginning to feel a bit concerned that soon I’d have to ration myself more strictly, tighten my belt and learn to walk in total darkness. And what’s more, there was no water in this part of the level and I had to be brutally economical with the small amount still splashing about in the bottom of my flask. My face was itching desperately, too—the effect of a week’s worth of unshaven stubble.

I should have reached the stairway to the fifth level a long time ago, but there was no sign of it. I was starting to worry that I must have turned into the wrong hall by mistake and got lost.

The map was almost no help to me. I could tell where the way out was, but there was no way I could tell exactly where I was myself. All the halls in this sector were the same—indigo and ochre walls, mother-of-pearl columns, and turquoise floors (a diabolical combination for the eyes).

I was looking for just one hall. One with an entrance to a long, absolutely straight gallery that ought to lead me to the stairway I needed. But I had been searching for more than three hours, and still had not found it.

Then I had a sudden stroke of luck (if you can really call it luck).

This place wasn’t like all the ones before it. A small room with a closed iron door in the far wall and a narrow little manhole in the floor, covered with a steel grille. I walked up to the door, wondering feverishly why anyone would have wanted to put up a barrier here, especially since I hadn’t exactly seen a lot of doors in Hrad Spein. Realizing that I must have missed a turn somewhere, I turned to walk out of the room, but halfway across it I got a very big surprise. The wall closed up, as if it were alive, blocking off the way out and locking me in.

“I don’t get it,” I told the darkness rather stupidly.

The answer was a rumble from the ceiling. I hastily told the light to shine at full brightness and uttered a phrase that was rather offensive to the ears of the gods.

The ceiling was moving toward me, threatening to skewer Harold on two-yard-long spikes that would have been the envy of every hedgehog in Siala.

When I recovered from my stupor, I ran to the iron door and hastily inspected it again. A keyhole.… There it is! My hands were shaking a little as the ceiling slowly and implacably moved lower.

The lock pick slid into the keyhole and broke off with an apologetic ping. I gaped stupidly at the stub left in my hand. Would you believe it! I flung it aside in a fury, struck the door hard with my shoulder, and hissed in pain. There was no way it was ever going to shift!

My eye fell on the manhole in the floor. I grabbed the grille with both hands and pulled with all my might, straining so hard I almost snapped in half. But, as I ought to have expected, the grille didn’t budge an inch.

I had to do something, and quick! The unknown builders who had built this manhole for some strange reason had given me a chance to avoid being killed, and I didn’t intend to waste it.

I scooped a handful of vials out of my bag, chose one that had a skull in flames drawn on it, and put the others back. I flung the magical vial at the grille and the glass clinked as it broke. I darted off to a safe distance—as far as I could get.

A bright flash of flame!

I crawled to the manhole on all fours, praying to Sagot that everything had worked properly. The spikes on the ceiling were almost scraping my back. The grille covering the manhole in the floor had disappeared. I dived into the hole, without even thinking about the consequences. I fell for a second, hit a stone floor, and hissed at the pain.

A grating sound from somewhere up above told me that the ceiling spikes had made contact with the floor. The light flared up to its previous brightness in a gesture of farewell, and died.

Magnificent! The space I’d fallen into was so narrow, I had to perform miracles of agility just to reach the bag at my waist. I hooked a new magical lamp out of one of the pockets with two fingers, squeezed my eyes shut, lit it, waited for a few seconds, and then started inspecting my new refuge.

A small square room with a narrow stone tunnel leading out of it.

Twisting myself into an impossible position, I looked up. There was the square manhole I had come through, and the ceiling, grinning at me with its spikes. I twisted myself even farther out of shape, almost lying down, and shone the light into the stone tunnel. I could only see five yards; after that it was pitch black.

Of course, I could have just died there, like a rat in a trap, but somehow I didn’t really want to depart for the light so soon. So I would have to crawl through the narrow passage and just hope it didn’t narrow all the way down to the eye of a needle. Sagra be praised, it didn’t, and eventually I could see the end of the tunnel.

The hole leading out into the hall was no more than two yards above the floor. First all the things I had been pushing along went flying down, and then I followed. I had to twist pretty sharply to land on my feet instead of my head, but I managed this little task successfully and found myself standing in a brightly lit space.

There was no time for looking around, and I quickly gathered up my things that were lying on the floor. I put one bag over my shoulder, the other on my belt, set the knife on my thigh and pulled the straps tight, slung the crossbow behind my shoulder. That seemed to be everything. Now I could take a look at the place, since this was the first time on this level that I’d come across a hall that was brightly lit.

The architecture was rather inelegant for elves or orcs—too coarse, simple, and plain. There was a large stone head of one of those half bird, half bears on each wall. As usual, the faces in these sculptures were hostile and the eyes blazed brightly in the light of the magical lamps—lamps that were like my own little lights, but much larger.

The blazing eyes caught my attention. Caught it and held it. In the first head they were green; in the second, fiery red; in the third, intense yellow; and in the fourth, the deep color of the sky just before a thunderstorm. The palms of my hands immediately started sweating, because those eyes were actually precious stones, and each one was just a little bit smaller than my fist.

If I could collect all those stones, I’d never have to work again. They’d make me rich for a hundred years, and the price of the Commission—the fifty thousand that Stalkon had promised me if I dragged back the Rainbow Horn for him—would seem laughable. Why, the dwarves would sell me half their mountains for a single stone like that!

This time I didn’t hesitate. I took out my knife and went over to the nearest face, the one with green eyes. I stuck the knife between the gem and the ordinary stone and started using it like a lever, working the gigantic emerald loose.

The green jewel yielded with surprising ease and I caught it in my hand. Then a torrent of green cascaded out of the empty eye socket onto the floor. I even forgot to open my mouth. In ten seconds an entire fortune in small emeralds (small, that is, after the emerald eye) spilled out.

They scattered across the smooth floor like grains of millet, sparkling bright green in the light of the lamps. I stuck the large eye-emerald in my bag and started gathering up its smaller brothers with trembling hands, obsessed with the feverish thought that once I emptied all the treasure out of the eye sockets, I’d be far richer than any king.

There was a stairway that started beside the head with the yellow eyes and led straight up to the ceiling, where there was a hatch. That was my way out.

I was distracted from gathering up the emeralds by a shadow that appeared from behind my back. From my hands and knees I flung myself sideways in a most inelegant manner, and a yataghan came down hard on the spot where I had just been, clanging loudly against the marble floor.

When I swung round and saw the creature that had almost killed me, I was stupefied. Standing there just three yards away from me was a skeleton. Not a human skeleton—the bones were too broad and heavy. Most likely it was an orc’s; at least the fangs were the right size.

A yataghan in its right hand, a small round shield in its left, and eye sockets filled with myriads of crimson sparks—the sign of reawakened magic. Darkness only knows how its bones held together, but the creature threw itself at me.

I’d never have thought that skeletons were so nimble. This lad was just as fast as I was, and his yataghan turned into a blur of steel. He almost drove me into a corner but, fortunately for me, the stairway was close by and I started scrambling up it as fast as I could. I forgot all about the precious stones—now I had to save my own skin. When I’d covered a quarter of the eleven yards that separated the ceiling from the floor, I felt the stairs shudder.

After a quick glance down, I started moving my arms and legs twice as fast. The skeleton wasn’t planning on stopping halfway. Throwing the shield away and grasping the yataghan in its teeth (what a sight that was!), the dead orc came scrambling nimbly up after me. I must say, he climbed a lot better than I did, and he caught up with me at a height of about nine yards.

There was nothing else for it; I had to take desperate measures. I grabbed hold of the banister rail with both hands, waited until there was almost no distance at all between my enemy and me, then slammed both boots into the yellow skull with all my might.

My enemy went crashing down onto the floor and was smashed to smithereens.

I didn’t really feel like going back down again. What if there was another surprise waiting for me? For always used to tell me to be content with a little and never make money more important than my own life. As usual, the old thief and priest of Sagot was right. I’d better follow his advice and be happy with what I already had in my bag.

A minute later I was back in the familiar purple and silver halls of the fourth level and I had to use another light. I looked round to see where I was, and chuckled. Whatever happens is always for the best. The gallery leading to the stairway down to the fifth level started from the hall that I was in.

I certainly hadn’t been hoping that somehow, completely out of the blue, I would end up in the Halls of the Slumbering Whisper, which turned out not to be halls at all, but the gallery that led to the fifth level. Naturally, no one had warned me where I was, and there were no indications at all on the maps.

The gallery was lined completely with black marble with white flecks. Marble floor, marble walls, marble columns on the right of the balcony. I walked up to the edge and looked down. There was only just enough light for me to see the floor of the hall down below.

I thought I heard something.…

Sh-sh-sh-sh …

I stopped and listened. Yes, my ears hadn’t deceived me, there was definitely a hissing sound. I looked around, but couldn’t see the source of the sound anywhere nearby. It seemed to be coming from inside my own head. I marked the unexpected sound down to an overactive imagination, stopped thinking about it, and carried on.

About a hundred paces farther on I thought I could hear vague, indistinguishable words starting to take shape through the hissing, but no matter how hard I strained my ears, I couldn’t make out what they meant.

I found the dead man about twenty paces later. All that was left of him was a heap of bones. Ah, but wait, men don’t have fangs growing out of their lower jaws. Like the skeleton that had almost chopped me into stewing steak, this was either an elf or an orc, but I could thank my lucky stars that this skeleton wasn’t going to attack me.

By this point the hissing had changed to a totally incomprehensible muttering, as if the speaker had stuffed his mouth full of hot porridge. Twenty yards farther on there was another corpse waiting for me, and in the next five minutes I counted twenty-six skeletons. But there was no way of telling what they had died of or how they had gotten there.

The muttering was hammering away insistently at the door of my mind now, as if some bastard had stuffed an entire hive of angry bees who could talk into my head. I could only pick out occasional words from the ragged droning—“blood,” “die,” “brain,” and the like.

Well, let’s just say the words I heard weren’t exactly the kind that would cheer my heart. I could feel the muttering in my head, and the corpses that kept turning up with increasing regularity set my nerves on edge, so I started singing a simple little tune to crowd out the voices, but it didn’t really do much good.

The next corpse was a great surprise. This was no heap of old bones, but a perfectly fresh body. I would have wagered my soul that only a few hours earlier this lad was still alive and well, and not planning to die.

I’d seen him at Mole Castle with Balistan Pargaid—from which I could draw the conclusion that Lafresa and her companions had already walked through the gallery and gained a few hours on me. What a cunning bitch!

But at least things were a bit clearer with this corpse. Even a thick-witted Doralissian could tell what the lad had died of. He’d stuck a yard of iron into his own chest a few times—in other words, he’d committed suicide. His hand was still clutching the handle of the dagger sticking out of his chest.

The muttering was pulsing in my head like a dull ache now. I frowned and ground my teeth, but I couldn’t understand just what foul plague could have affected me like this.

Five steps farther on the whisper suddenly broke into a howling chorus of triumph in my head, making me drop to my knees and squeeze my head in my hands. I was swamped by a wave of universal revulsion and horror.

I didn’t just hear words. There was everything here—visions of unbelievable horror, the smell of decomposing corpses, the taste of death-worms on my tongue, the sensation of rummaging through a corpse’s belly. The voices were insistent, calling me to them, chanting a song that set me howling in horror and excruciating pain. My senses were completely confused, but absolutely everything was clamoring for and craving my death, urging me to take out my knife and thrust it into my throat.

The song rumbled on, massaging my mind insistently with its soft, slippery fingers. Every word, every chord of the voices brought new horrors that crept into my ears, blinded my eyes, smothered my tongue.…

That was when I realized that I’d found my way into the Halls of the Slumbering Whisper, but there was nothing I could do about it now. The voices were stronger than me, and I was slowly, inexorably going out of my mind. I wanted to take a few steps and throw myself off the edge of the balcony, or beat my brains out against the wall, or turn my knife on myself.

I had to do something, anything, to stop THIS! Against the will of my faintly glimmering mind, my hand reached out to the handle of my knife. As Sagot is my witness, I tried to fight it, but the struggle was like trying to smash a massive boulder with a twig. The voices INSISTED that I had to die, and it was impossible not to submit.

Just as he did in Hargan’s Wasteland, Valder spoke in a barely audible whisper:

“I’ll help!”

The voices howled in unison with the irresistible torrent of the song and retreated to the very boundaries of hearing. My hand obeyed my will once again.

“Quick, Harold, I can only give you a minute! At this moment that’s as much as I can do!” said the dead archmagician.

I jumped to my feet and dashed back toward the place where the voices still had no power over me. My hands were shaking, but I managed to fish the cotton earplugs out of my bag and stick them into my ears. The muttering came closer again, so that I could almost make out the words. It took me another ten precious seconds to take out the vial with the liquid that neutralized any hostile magic for a couple of minutes. I tore the seal open with my teeth and poured the contents into my mouth. The bitter taste flooded over my tongue and my stomach protested and shuddered, almost turning me inside out. I had to make an effort to hold the foul muck down.

“That’s it, I can’t do any more!” Valder declared, and the dam he had created burst and collapsed.

The voices came back, but now they were just voices, mouthing abominations without any visions to support them. The bitter liquid was working—but for how long? Casting aside all doubt and hesitation, I rushed forward, hoping to get through the gallery before the defensive magic weakened enough for the whispering voices to take control again.

“Kill yourself! Go to the darkness! Die! Die! Die! Blood! Kill!” the voices whispered in powerless fury. “Stop! Wait! Die, it’s so easy!”

I ignored the whispers, gritted my teeth, and kept dashing on as fast as I could, constantly leaping over the bones that lay in my way.

I came across another two of Balistan Pargaid’s men, but where were the others? Had Lafresa managed to fight off the whispers?

The voices sensed a moment of weakness and moved in, whispering and threatening every possible kind of nightmare and all the pain in the world. It was really hard for me not to stop, and to keep on running. The bitter taste on my tongue was gradually fading, and the whispering was coming back.

I covered the last five yards of the gallery in three huge bounds, without any magical protection. The voices howled in triumph, thrusting their talons into my brain, but I was already covering the final yard and it was too late for the whispering to bind my reason with the nets of insanity.

I flew out of the gallery and the hall, and suddenly everything went quiet. Kli-Kli’s medallion scalded my skin with a cold flame and, before I could even understand what had happened to me, I went crashing headlong into Count Balistan Pargaid.

I had to lie there for a little while, gasping for breath and waiting for the sparks in front of my eyes to fade away. The collision had completely winded me and knocked me to the ground. Damn Balistan Pargaid, for getting under my feet at just the wrong moment.

His Grace and one of his soldiers were standing there, transformed into frozen statues. They looked as if they had been carved out of cloudy ice and then sprinkled generously with hoarfrost.

I walked up to them and carefully touched a hand. The cold fingers scalded my palm. It really was ice. Some kind-hearted soul had turned the servants of the Master into statues of ice just for the fun of it. A ludicrous, but entirely appropriate end for one of the most powerful lords of Valiostr and servants of the Master.

Following the encounter with Balistan, it took me a few moments to spot the spiral stairway leading down through the floor toward the fifth level. Well, then, that was one more landmark passed.