The Book of Silence 
Book Four of the Lords of Ds 
Copyright 1984 by Lawrence Watt-Evans 


CHAPTER ONE 


The last caravan had departed ten days before, and the next was not expected 
for at least a fortnight. Skelleth's market lay still and almost empty in the 
watery sunlight of early spring. No merchants or farmers disturbed its 
silence, though a few loafers and strolling pedestrians were in sight. On the 
east side of the square, the door of the new Baron's house was closed, 
indicating that its occupants were not to be disturbed. Garth, one of only two 
overmen still in Skelleth, sat in the King's Inn, staring out the window at 
the lifeless market, with nothing to distract him from his own sour mood and 
gloomy thoughts. 


No news had come down from the Northern Waste since the last snows had 
melted. That meant that Garth had received no word of his family, nor a report 
about his latest petition to the City Council of Ordunin, asking that his 
sentence of banishment from the Waste be revoked. He was still an exile from 
his homeland, stranded in Skelleth for lack of anywhere better to go. 


From the overman's point of view, Skelleth was not a particularly 
pleasant place to dwell, but it did have certain advantages. First, it was on 
the border, the closest human habitation to his native city of Ordunin; 
therefore, his family could visit him more easily here than elsewhere, and his 
petitions and letters to the Council could be delivered more quickly. 


Second, he was on good terms with the local rulers. Saram, Baron of 
Skelleth, before being elevated to his present position, had been the closest 
thing Garth had to a human friend. The Baroness Frima was the only other 
person who might possibly be considered for that title; Garth had brought her 
to Skelleth himself, after rescuing her from a sacrificial altar in her native 
city of Dsarra. It was he who had introduced Frima to her husband. 


Furthermore, the Treasurer and Minister of Trade was the former master 
trader, Galt of Ordunin, the only other overman still in Skelleth. Garth had 
brought him down from the Waste to aid in opening trade between Skelleth and 
Ordunin. That trade was flourishing now, despite the fact that Galt, like 
Garth, was under sentence of exile. 


Third, although the local populace did not, in general, like or trust 
Garth, it had learned to accept his presence. The people of other human towns 
might not be so accommodating. Three centuries had passed since the Racial 
Wars between human and overman had dwindled away to nothing, but hatred, Garth 
knew, could linger long after its cause was forgotten. 


Fourth, at least at the moment, Skelleth was at peace-and that was an 
increasingly rare distinction. Although the news from the lands to the south 
and east and west tended to be muddled and sometimes contradictory, Garth knew 
well that most of the world was at war. No one, including the Eramman barons 
themselves, seemed to have a clear idea which side any given baron was on in 
any given war; yet by all accounts, that uncertainty had not impeded the 
fighting one whit. The greater wars provided the excuse for settling old 
border squabbles or for simple raiding and looting. The civil war in Eramma, 
begun almost three years earlier when the Baron of Sland rebelled against the 
High King at Kholis and declared him to be a false king and foul usurper, had 
settled down into an apathetic lack of cooperation after Sland had been 
defeated in a long and messy battle. The war between Eramma and Orun, which 
had been launched by the opportunistic King of Orun in hopes of taking 
advantage of Eramma's seeming dissolution, appeared to have reached a bloody 
stalemate along a front somewhere to the southeast of Skelleth. Despite the 
justification of an ancient border dispute, the war was not popular in Orun 
and had created such discontent that there were now rumors of impending civil 
war in that land as well. 



Vague reports came in of wars in the western realm of Nekutta, though no 
one seemed to know who was fighting whom, and no word at all reached Skelleth 
from Mara, Amag, Tadumuri, Yesh, or the other lands of the far south. 


A possible fifth reason for Garth to stay was a result of the fact that 
Skelleth was peaceful and in a far happier state under Saram than it had ever 
been under his predecessor. With so many of the world's trade routes disrupted 
by war and insurrection, Skelleth's very worthlessness had helped to make it a 
center of commerce. No conqueror in his right mind would bother with so 
desolate a piece of land, so far from all the traditional caravan roads; that 
left Saram and his patchwork government free to pursue untraditional trade 
wholeheartedly and unhindered. The merchants of Skelleth, with their lord's 
active encouragement, dealt impartially with the men of Eramma, the overmen of 
the Northern Waste, and the mixed society of the Yprian Coast. With no assets 
but peace, a willingness to trade, and a manageable location, the town had 
grown prosperous for the first time in mortal memory. 


It had also, in Garth's opinion, grown placid and boring. 


No one else seemed to share his feeling. Galt was too busy buying and 
selling, planning new routes and new methods, or setting prices and taxes and 
tariffs to be bored. He had become far wealthier than any other overman since 
the Racial Wars, yet he appeared interested only in expanding trade, enriching 
the treasury, and acquiring still greater wealth. 


Saram seemed content to enjoy the rewards of his new position as Baron 
while others did the work. He held elaborate feasts to greet every new envoy 
or caravan master, dressing himself in fine furs and embroidery-overman work, 
imported from Ordunin-and growing steadily plumper, thus losing the trim 
fighting form he had had when he served as a lieutenant in the guard under the 
last hereditary Baron of Skelleth. 


Frima didn't appear to mind her husband's added weight. She had arrived 
in Skelleth with nothing; even the clothes on her back had been borrowed from 
Garth. She had been no one of importance, a tinker's daughter who worshipped 
the nightgoddess Tema and was kidnapped by the rival cult of Sai, goddess of 
pain. Garth had rescued her and brought her to Skelleth against her will, 
leaving Dsarra, long the greatest city of Nekutta, devastated by fire and 
plague. He had not wanted the inconvenience of caring for her and had turned 
her over to Saram. That had led to their marriage, and thus to her present 
position as Baroness. She seemed far more grateful to Saram, who had taken her 
in, than to Garth, who had saved her life. Though she still treated Garth as a 
friend, her primary interests in life now were pleasing Saram and enjoying 
their sudden wealth. Despite certain disappointments-her only child so far, a 
son, had been born dead-she was happy. She did not find her new station at all 
tedious or boring. 


The other humans of the village might have been bored, but Garth ignored 
them entirely. They, in turn, avoided him for the most part. They could not 
forget that it was Garth who had murdered the old Baron some thirty months 
earlier, Garth who had led a company of overmen in the sacking and burning of 
the village. Men, women, and children had died. All the Baron's guardsmen had 
perished except the disgraced Saram, who had been removed from the guard for 
refusing to kill Garth in a previous confrontation. It had been this 
elimination of all other candidates, rather than any real qualifications for 
the job, that had made Saram the new Baron of Skelleth. 


Galt had gradually been accepted and forgiven; his part in the battle 
had been small, and his trader's expertise had so benefited the village since 
its reconstruction that he was now something of a hero. Garth, however, 
remained an outcast. 


At first there had been others among the surviving overmen who had 
chosen to stay in Skelleth after its destruction, and even after the 
rebuilding had been completed, but they had gradually drifted away with the 
passing months. Some had returned home to the Northern Waste and been pardoned 
for their part in the attack, though the Council steadfastly refused to pardon 
Galt and Garth, the two supposed leaders. A few had gone to explore the Yprian 



Coast and had not returned. One had been sent a special envoy to the court of 
the High King at Kholis, whom Skelleth's government still recognized as the 
rightful lord of all Eramma. 


At one point there had been talk of using the overmen as the nucleus of 
a new company of guardsmen, but nothing had come of it; Skelleth had no 
military at all at present, save for the handful of warbeasts that the overmen 
had brought. The great animals were now tended by a special contingent of the 
Baron's staff, an entirely human contingent. Garth believed this to be the 
first time in history that warbeasts had been under human care. 


He had considered demanding that he be put in charge of the creatures, 
on the grounds that it was not fitting for warbeasts to be tended by mere men 
and women, but he had never actually done so. He had feared that he would be 
turned down, as he had been turned down for every other duty in Skelleth. To 
be refused a position as a keeper of beasts would be too much for his pride; 
he preferred not to risk it. There had been enough blows to his self-esteem 
already. 


The aversion to his presence that the townspeople displayed did not 
bother him; he was accustomed to it, could understand it, and furthermore 
cared very little for the opinions of most humans. There were, however, other 
matters. 


His three wives, one by one, had come to Skelleth to see him, once the 
City Council had revoked his chief wife Kyrith's house arrest, imposed for her 
part in the sacking of Skelleth. Each had come, but each had refused to give 
up her home in Ordunin to join him in exile. 


His children had visited as well, accompanying trading caravans, but he 
had not even troubled himself to ask them to stay; they were old enough to 
fend for themselves and make their own homes without his meddling. 


Overmen did not have the strong family ties that humans had, but the 
triple rejection by his wives, and the failure of any of his five offspring to 
volunteer to settle in Skelleth, still hurt. 


The City Council had refused petition after petition, so that he could 
not rejoin his wives in Ordunin. The councilors had, in truth, not even taken 
the time to consider his requests; they were too busy trying to deal with the 
worsening depredations of human pirates along their coasts and could spare no 
time from that obsession to discuss clemency for a troublesome renegade 
prince. Garth had tried to argue, by proxy, that he had fought pirates before 
and could be of sufficient value in fighting them again to make his pardon a 
real public benefit, but the Council had continued to ignore him nonetheless. 


Things had started to go wrong when he found the so-called Sword of 
Bheleu in Dsarra. Until then, his word had been good and his actions his 
own-but at his first sight of the weapon, he had begun to lose control. He had 
taken it from the altar of Bheleu, god of destruction, without any conscious 
decision to do so, and thereafter had been seized every so often by fits of 
what appeared to be a form of bloodthirsty madness. He had gradually come to 
realize, though, that some external power was possessing him, using the sword 
as a conduit. Even knowing that, he had been unable to free himself. 


As the power had gained in influence and clarity, it had declared itself 
to him, claiming to be Bheleu himself, come to assert his dominance over the 
dawning Fourteenth Age, the Age of Destruction, through his chosen mortal 
host. 


Garth had declined to serve willingly as host to the god, if god it 
truly was. His refusal had done little good; the god had controlled him 
anyway, and he had been unable to put down the sword. 


While under the sway of the god and his sword, Garth had slain the 
previous Baron of Skelleth and destroyed much of the village. 


In the days that had followed, as he became more aware of the sword's 
nature and seemingly limitless magical power, his companions had grown to 
trust him less and less. That had been the period when Skelleth's new 
government had taken shape, and Garth had been excluded on the basis of the 
madness the weapon had induced. He had not argued with that decision; he had 



been conscious of his own erratic behavior and therefore had been far more 
concerned with freeing himself of Bheleu's control than with village politics. 


The sword was a magnificent weapon, a great two-handed broadsword with 
an immense red gem in its pommel. It was supernaturally indestructible, able 
to cut through stone or metal with ease, and could control the elements, 
summon or disperse storms, even shake the very earth. It gloried in fire and 
could burn in a hundred strange ways without being consumed. Had it not been 
under the evil aegis of Bheleu, dedicated to wanton destruction, Garth would 
have been proud to be the chosen wielder of such a thing. 


As it was, though, he had wanted nothing but to free himself and he had 
at last done so. He no longer had the sword. The sword alone had been 
responsible for his madness, so that with its loss he was himself again; for 
these two years and several months past, he had been as sane and trustworthy 
as ever in his life, yet he was still not allowed to hold any post in 
Skelleth's little bureaucracy for fear he would again turn berserk. He 
resented this exclusion. 


Perhaps the deepest hurt to his pride and self-esteem, however, was a 
personal matter, one closely tied to the malevolent power of the Sword of 
Bheleu and to his freedom from that power. The voice of the professed god of 
destruction had told him that he, Garth, had been born to serve Bheleu; 
indeed, he alone had been able to wield the sword, and on his own he had been 
utterly unable to resist its hold. 


He had not freed himself alone. 


Just to the north of its market square, Skelleth had an ancient tavern 
called the King's Inn, and in this tavern dwelt an old man who called himself 
the Forgotten King. It was the presence of this individual that, more then 
anything else, made Skelleth a center for important events. 


Garth was not entirely sure whether, on balance, the King's presence was 
good or bad. 


He had originally come to Skelleth seeking the King, because an oracle 
had told him that only the Forgotten King could grant him the eternal fame he 
had, at that time, thought he wanted. He had returned to Skelleth a second 
time, after getting over that particular aberration of desire, because the 
King had pointed out the possibility of trade. He had gone to Dsarra at the 
behest of the mysterious old man and had brought back Frima, now the Baroness, 
as well as the Sword of Bheleu and the knowledge of trading prospects on the 
Yprian Coast. His life, and the influence he had upon Skelleth, seemed to have 
been inextricably linked to the old man since Garth first left Ordunin. 


In Dsarra he had learned something of the King's history; the old man 
was apparently the one true high priest of the god of death, the chosen of The 
God Whose Name Is Not Spoken, just as Garth was the chosen of Bheleu. As such, 
the King could not die; he had lived through several ages and now desired 
nothing but the death that was denied him. 


In pursuit of his own destruction, the Forgotten King had sent Garth on 
several errands. He sought to perform some great suicidal magic; from various 
clues, Garth had tentatively decided that the old man hoped to manifest the 
Death-God himself in the mortal world, so that the King might renounce the 
bargain made so long ago. The problem was that the proposed magic, whether 
Garth had correctly determined its nature or not, would involve many deaths, 
by the King's own admission. Garth did not care to contribute to unnecessary 
deaths and had therefore refused to aid the King further. 


Then, though, the Sword of Bheleu had possessed him, and there was no 
power Garth could find that could free him from it, save the power of the 
strange old man. Of all the Lords of Ds, the dark gods, only the god of death 
was more powerful than the god of destruction; thus only the chosen of the 
Final God, in his own right perhaps the most powerful wizard who had ever 
lived, could break the link between Bheleu and his chosen one. 


To free himself, therefore, Garth had sworn to aid the Forgotten King. 
He had promised to fetch for him the final item needed to complete his magic, 
an object of great arcane power that he called the Book of Silence. Garth had 



sworn that oath knowing he had no intention of keeping it, and the suppressed 
knowledge that he was an oathbreaker, a being devoid of honor, in thought if 
not yet in deed, had gnawed upon him ever since. 


As an injured man would probe at an open wound, fascinated by the pain, 
Garth found himself haunting the King's Inn and watching the Forgotten King 
for hours on end. The King had told him, when first he swore his oath, that he 
was free to roam, as long as he checked back every so often. The old man had 
not yet told him where the mysterious Book of Silence might be found; he said 
that he had left it somewhere, centuries ago, and was trying to recall where. 
When he did remember, Garth would be sent to retrieve it. Until the memory 
returned, Garth could do as he pleased. 


There was nothing else, however, that he felt any need to do, and so he 
stayed in Skelleth, alternately wandering aimlessly through the streets and 
sitting silently somewhere, glowering at the village, as he now sat in the 
King's Inn and glowered at the quiet marketplace. 


The Forgotten King was there as well, seated at his usual table. His 
presence there, at almost any time the tavern was open for business, was so 
reliable that he was thought, of by the villagers not so much as a regular 
patron, but as a permanent fixture, like the dark wooden paneling of the walls 
or the heavy oaken tables. Day after day the old man sat alone, unmoving and 
silent, in the back corner beneath the stairs, wrapped in his ragged yellow 
mantle, his face hidden by his tattered cowl. 


As he had a hundred times before, Garth turned away from the window and 
its view of the square and stared instead at the ancient human. 


The King gave no sign that he was aware of the overman's scrutiny, but 
Garth had no doubt that he knew he was being watched. 


Half a dozen more ordinary humans were in the tavern and they had all 
certainly noticed the overman's presence. Most had seen him turn away from the 
window as well. Overmen were unmistakable, and highly distinctive in Skelleth. 
Garth's size, quite aside from any other details, marked him as something 
different from the common run of humanity; he stood almost seven feet in 
height, but was so heavily muscled as to look almost squat. He dwarfed the 
chair he sat upon and seemed out of proportion with the entire taproom, though 
in truth he was of only average size among his own species. His eyes were 
large and red, the oversized irises bright blood-red, though his pupils were 
as round and black as any human's. Unlike human eyes, no white showed, only 
black pupil and red iris. 


His hair was dead straight, dead black, coarse, and thick; it reached 
his shoulders and no farther, though he had never cut it. Sparse black fur 
covered his entire body, save his hands and feet and face. Where no hair or 
fur hid it, his skin was leathery brown hide, like that of no other species 
that ever existed and certainly unlike anything human. 


His face was as beardless as a woman's; overmen grew no facial hair, and 
his body fur stopped well short of his chin. His cheeks were sunken by human 
standards, normal to his own kind. He had no nose, but two close-set slit 
nostrils. To human eyes, a healthy overman bore an unsettling resemblance to a 
human skull; the hollow cheeks, missing nose, great red eyes, high forehead, 
and hairless jaw all contributed. 


Garth's hands, too, were unlike a human's. Rather than having a single 
thumb at one side, his hands had both the first and fifth fingers opposable, 
making possible acts of manipulation that humans had trouble even imagining. 


It was hardly surprising that men and women feared overmen, as they 
feared anything that seemed monstrous and strange. Nor was it startling, 
therefore, that the other patrons of the King's Inn should glance occasionally 
in Garth's direction, wary of what he might do. Garth in particular, of all 
overmen, they feared; the possibility of a new berserk rage such as those 
brought on by the Sword of Bheleu was always at the back of the villagers' 
minds. 


When he turned away from the window, therefore, to look across the 
taproom at the yellow-clad figure at the back table, what little conversation 



there had been faded and died. The townspeople watched, to be sure that the 
overman was not looking at any of them. 


Garth rose, and even the rustling of clothes and the bumping of chairs 
ceased. 


His gaze wandered for a moment from the old man to the great barrels of 
beer and ale along the western wall. His mug was empty; he picked it up, made 
his way through the tables and chairs, and drew himself afresh pint. The 
innkeeper, a plump, middle-aged man, stood nearby and silently accepted a coin 
with a polite nod. 


Garth sipped off the top layer of foam, then let his gaze wander back 
toward the Forgotten King's table, where it settled once more on the silent 
old man. Without quite knowing why, he moved in that direction. 


When he reached the table, he thumped his mug of ale down and seated 
himself across from the King, as he had done so very many times in the past 
three years. 


"Greetings, O King," he said. 


The old man said nothing. 


Garth looked him over, as he also often had done. He noted again that 
the old man's eyes were invisible, lost in the shadows of his ragged yellow 
hood. No one, as far as Garth knew, had ever seen the Forgotten King's eyes. A 
thin wisp of white beard trickled from his bony chin well down his 
yellow-wrapped breast. His hands lay motionless on the tabletop, things of 
bone and wrinkled skin more like those of a mummy than the hands of a living 
man. The scalloped tatters of his robe hid the rest of him from sight, so that 
little else could be said of his appearance with any assurance, save that he 
was thin and seemed tall for so aged a human, though still shorter than any 
grown overman. 


Garth wondered, once again, why the old man wore rags and why they were 
always yellow. Garth had heard him referred to as the King in Yellow, so it 
was scarcely a temporary or recent habit, yet there seemed no reason for it. 
The old man had money, the overman knew, and power, yet he spent his days in 
this ancient inn and wore only tatters. When Garth had first sought eternal 
fame, the Wise Women of Ordunin had described the yellow rags to identify the 
Forgotten King. 


Garth had long ago lost interest in the pursuit of undying glory that 
had originally brought him to the King; the price had been too high and the 
rewards, upon consideration, too intangible. He no longer had a single goal he 
was consciously pursuing. In fact, he did not know any more what he wanted 
from his life, though he was sure of certain elements. He wanted to go home. 
He wanted the respect of his fellows, and to be rid of the stigma he now bore 
of being known as subject to fits of madness. Beyond that, he was unsure. 


He did know, however, that he wanted nothing from the old man, unless it 
was the spontaneous renunciation of his oath. The King's gifts and bargains 
always seemed to have unwanted strings attached; Garth's dealings with him had 
been full of unspoken words and hidden meanings. 


Still, Garth found himself at this back-corner table more and more 
often. 


It was, he told himself, a natural curiosity in the face of the old 
mat's enigma that drew him, that and the lack of anything better to do. He was 
without family or friends and had no job to occupy his time; why should he not 
take an interest in such a mystery? He could speak to the old man without 
making bargains, without being sucked into his plotting and planning. 


If the thought had ever occurred to Garth that he sought out the King 
because the old man, alone in all of Skelleth, had absolutely no fear of Garth 
or the Sword of Bheleu, he had dismissed the idea as absurd and irrelevant. 


He gulped ale, then said, "Greetings, I said." 


The King moved a hand, as if to wave the overman away. 


Garth was not willing to be turned aside that easily. He knew something 
of the King's background and had some idea of his immense power, but he was 
not frightened. Very little could frighten Garth; he would not allow himself 



such weaknesses as unnecessary fears. He shrugged at the old man's gesture and 


drank ale. 


The King sat unmoving, watching with hidden eyes. 


Garth finished the contents of his mug, motioned to the tavernkeeper for 
more, and stared back. 


The King was old, Garth knew, older than anything else that lived in the 
world. He had survived for more than a thousand years at the very least, 
perhaps for several thousand. He had been in Skelleth since its founding three 
centuries earlier. He could not die in the natural way of things. It was 
hardly surprising that his behavior should be strange. 


As Garth had pieced together the story, the King, in the dim and ancient 
past, had made a bargain with The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken, Death himself. 
The King had then been a monarch in more than name, the wizard-king of the 
longlost and forgotten empire of Carcosa. He had sought immortality and agreed 
to serve as the Final God's high priest in exchange for eternal life. In time 
he had come to regret his bargain and had forsaken the god's service, only to 
find that he was unable to die. Blades could not cut him, blows could not harm 
him; the petrifying gaze of a basilisk had left him untouched. He still 
possessed knowledge and magical power far beyond anything known since the fall 
of Carcosa, but he had no call to use it, for it could not get him the one 
thing he wanted. 


One great magic could attain his death, a mighty spell requiring both 
the Sword of Bheleu and the Book of Silence. He had the sword, but lacked the 
book. Garth had sworn to fetch the book in order to be free of the sword, but 
he did not intend to fulfill his vow. 


As far as Garth was concerned, that put an end to the matter, save for 
one detail. He had not been called upon to carry out his promise; he was not 
yet truly forsworn. He was able to maintain a pretense of honor-a pretense he 
knew to be false-as long as the King did not demand that he fetch the book. 


The King had not made that demand yet only because he had not recalled 
where, several centuries earlier, he had left the book. Garth hoped that the 
memory was lost forever; then he might never be forced to break his sworn 
word. 


At the same time, though, he found himself wishing that the affair were 
over with, that the oath were broken and done, rather than still hanging over 
him. 


He leaned back, his chair creaking a protest beneath his inhuman weight, 
and could not resist asking, "Have you remembered yet, O King?" His voice was 
expressionless, for overmen's emotions were displayed differently from 
humans'. The mixture of bitterness over his false oath and anticipation of its 
final ruination that had prompted the question was so well hidden that Garth 
was not really aware of it himself. 


The King said nothing; his head moved very slightly, almost 
imperceptibly, to one side and then back. 


"You must tell me where it is, old man, if you want me to fetch it." 


The King did not reply and moved not at all. Garth felt a surge of anger 
at this silence. 


"Speak, old man," he said. 


No answer came. Garth's annoyance increased. 


"Has your tongue shriveled in your head, then, O throneless King? Are 
you trying to imitate the corpses you resemble, since you cannot rightly join 
them? Have you now forsaken speech, the better to serve your foul black god?" 
He did not shout; his voice was flat and deadly, a dangerous sign among his 
kind. 


The Forgotten King moved slightly, as if emitting a faint sigh, but 
still said nothing. Garth drew breath for another question, but was distracted 
by the arrival of the innkeeper with a fresh mug of ale. The overman snatched 
it from him, swallowed half its contents at a gulp, and then ordered, "Be off, 
man!" 


The taverner risked a glance at Garth's baleful red eyes and inhuman 



face, then hurried away, wondering if it would be safe to cut the overman's 
next serving of ale with water. He knew the signs of Garth's anger; rudeness 
to underlings like himself was one such indication. He did not want to worry 
about dealing with an overman in a drunken fury-but an overman enraged at 
being cheated might be equally bad. He looked at Garth's mail-covered back and 
decided, at least for the moment, that his reputation for honest measure and 
good drink was worth preserving. He could only hope that the old man would 
calm the overman down. 


Garth was in no mood to be calmed down. When the innkeeper had moved 
away, he asked, "Why do you not speak? Is it perhaps that I am unfit to 
address you, O King of an empire long since dust, monarch of a dying memory, 
lord of a realm unknown? Is the Prince of Ordunin, a lord of the overmen of 
the Northern Waste, suited only to serve your whims, but not to speak with 
you? Does the master of ashes and woe, wearing rags and tatters and dwelling 
in a single dim room of an ancient inn, not deign to answer the exiled killer, 
the disgraced berserker? Will the servant of Death not choose to acknowledge 
the pawn of destruction?" His voice was calm, as still as water pooled on 
black ice, and laden with far more threat than any shout as he said, "Answer 
me, old man." 


The old man answered. "Garth," he said in a voice like ice breaking, 
"why do you disturb me? You know I prefer not to waste words in idle chatter." 


The overman was wrenched momentarily from his anger by the sound of the 
old man's voice, a sound unlike any other, dry and brittle and harsh, so 
unpleasant to hear that it could not fully be remembered. He regained his 
composure quickly, however, and replied, "Is everything I say idle chatter? 
Have I not the right to an answer when I ask a polite question?" 


"Hardly polite," the old man demurred. "I will answer, however. No, I 
have not yet recalled where I left the Book of Silence in those ancient days 
when last I held it." 


"So I must linger here, still waiting?" 


"Garth," the old man replied, "you are bored, frustrated by inactivity. 
You are a warrior, given to violent action, not to sitting about a peaceful 
village. I have told you from the first that you are free to leave Skelleth 
and that your oath does not hold you here, as long as you return at intervals 
to learn whether or not I have recalled where the Book of Silence lies. Why, 
then, do you not find yourself some task to occupy your time, rather than 
remain here disturbing my contemplation?" 


So long a speech was unusual for the King, and Garth knew it well. He 
realized that he must have seriously annoyed the old man. His own anger, 
however, had not faded. 


"And what task shall I pursue, then? Where am I to go? I am forbidden 
the Northern Waste and therefore cannot aid my homeland against the human 
pirates who assail it. What other task awaits me? I have little taste for 
roaming aimlessly, particularly when the world is strewn about with wars and 
battles that do not concern me. I have no reason to side with any human 
faction and no desire to kill merely for my own amusement, so I will not join 
in these wars. I am welcome no place outside Skelleth. I have seen Mormoreth 
and left it in the hands of men who comrades I killed in self-defense; will 
they greet me as an old friend? I have visited Dsarra and left it aflame and 
plague-ridden, its every citizen my enemy. The other lands and cities of the 
south are unknown to me, and overmen are unwanted strangers throughout. Where, 
then, shall I go?" 


"What of the Yprian Coast?" 


"And what might I do there, but find another tavern wherein I might sit 
and be bored? I am no trader, I know that now; I have no desire to seek out 
new markets and new routes." 


"Think you that is all that may be found there?" 


"What else might there be? Farms and villages, markets and men and 
overmen. The caravans have told us what may be found there, and it does not 
interest me. Others have gone before me as well; where might I explore that 



they could not have preceded me?" 


"Must you be first, then, as you were first in coming to Skelleth, first 
to think that overmen might trade here?" 


"For all the good that did me, yes. What point is there in doing what 
has been done before?" 


"I think, Garth, that you resent the ingratitude of those who have 
benefited from the trade you began." 


"Perhaps I do, old man; what of it? Does it matter to either of us that 
I am scorned by those I have made wealthy? Or that my old companions allow me 
no responsibilities in the village I gave them? They are no concern of ours. I 
am sworn to aid you in your death-magic, O King; that is what concerns us. I 
am waiting for you to tell me how I may fulfill my oath." 


"I have told you that I have not yet remembered." 


"Then I must wait until you do." 


"And plague me with angry questions?" 


"Should I so choose, yes." 


The King did not reply immediately; during the pause, Garth drank the 
rest of his ale and decided against ordering another. 


"Garth, I would have you leave me in peace," the old man said at last, 
"so that I might be able to think more clearly and recall more easily what I 
wish to recall." 


The overman shrugged. "I care little what you would have, old man. I am 
not sworn to heed your every whim, only to fetch your book and aid you in your 
magics." 


"You are bored. What if I gave you a task that could harm no one, but 
would result in great benefit for many innocent people?" 


Garth stared into the depths of his empty mug, then looked up, gazing 
across the table into the shadows that hid the old man's face. 


"What sort of a task?" 


"Slaying a dragon that has laid waste the valley of Orgul." 


Garth considered. His anger was fading, but his mind was slightly hazed 
with liquor. "A dragon?" 


The old man nodded, once. 


Garth thought it over. He was bored. He was irritable from inaction. It 
would be good to travel again; to see new places, to spend each night 
somewhere different from the night before. It would be good to get out of 
Skelleth, away from so many unpleasant memories. It would be good to 
accomplish something useful, and there could be little doubt that killing a 
dragon was useful. He had never seen a dragon, but he was familiar with the 
stories and legends about them. All agreed that the creatures were huge, 
dangerous, and phenomenally destructive. He himself had been a destroyer far 
too often in the past, he felt; here, then, he might find a chance to make up 
for some of that by destroying a menace worse than he had ever been. 


In a way, it might be a step toward avenging himself on Bheleu. The god 
of destruction had used Garth as a puppet, and the overman resented that. He 
felt that it might be a small sort of retaliation to kill a creature that 
could be considered one of Bheleu's pets. 


He nodded. The more he thought about the proposed adventure, the more it 
appealed to him. "I think I'd like that," he said. 


The Forgotten King's mouth curved into a faint smile. 


Far to the west, in a windowless chamber draped in black and dark red, a 
man stared at the image in his scrying glass and smiled as well. The image had 
been exceptionally clear and detailed, and he had been able to read the 
overman's lips. He had only the tail end of one side of the conversation, but 
it was obvious that Garth was being sent on an errand of some sort. That 
should provide an excellent opportunity for actions long delayed. Nearly three 
years had passed since the overman had defied the cult of Aghad, smashed the 
god's altar, and slain his high priest; much had happened during that period, 
but the cult had not sought vengeance. Haggat, the present high priest of 



Aghad, was a patient man, and had taken his time in gathering power and 
planning his actions. He had wanted to be sure that nothing would interfere 
with the proposed revenge. Now, at last, everything was ready. 


He put down the glass, blew out the single candle that lighted the 
chamber, and went to give the order that would set the prepared machinery in 
motion. 


CHAPTER TWO 


Garth was unsure just where, amid the hills and mountains, he had crossed the 
border between the Eramman Barony of Sland and the independent region of 
Orgul; if there were any signposts or markers, he had missed them in the dark. 
Shortly after dawn arrived, however, he topped the crest of the final 
encircling ridge to see the valley of Orgul spread out before him, its fields 
and forests a thousand shades of green, its rivers gleaming blue and silver in 
the morning sun. He saw no traces of the draconic ravages he had been led to 
expect. 


In fact, he thought as he looked out across the countryside, Orgul 
appeared far richer and more peaceful than the lands he had traversed to reach 
it. 


For the first three days after leaving Skelleth, he had ridden at a 
leisurely pace across flat plains brown with mud, traveling openly by day and 
stopping freely at the very few inns and taverns along the way. He had been 
turned away once, simply because he was an overman, but had met no other 
serious inconvenience or opposition until the third evening, when, amid the 
smoldering ruins of a farm that chanced to lie between disputing baronies, a 
human soldier took a shot at him with a crossbow. The quarrel missed its 
target, and the man fled when Koros, Garth's warbeast, bared its fangs and 
roared; Garth himself did not even have to draw his sword. Still, he knew he 
had been lucky that the bolt had missed; he had not seen the man crouching 
behind a broken wall. 


After that he had traveled by night, sleeping by day in whatever cover 
he could find. The land had grown ever richer as he moved south; though he 
could see no color by night, at sunset and dawn the earth was lush and 
green-where it hadn't been burned black. 


That first burned-out farm had not been unique; as he continued on to 
the south, he found many others, usually in clusters along the invisible lines 
between baronies. Nor were farms the only things destroyed; he passed an inn 
that was reduced to charred timbers, and a gallows nearby held three rotting 
corpses. On one piece of prime land the blackened crops were still smoldering. 
Some fields had been destroyed not by fire, but by marching feet, and one had 
apparently been the site of a recent battle; it had been churned into a muddy 
waste, strewn with broken links of mail and scraps of cloth spattered with 
dark blood. Everything of value, every weapon that might be reforged or melted 
down, had been removed, though Garth suspected that had been the work of 
looters rather than the contending armies. 


He rode by still more farms, some abandoned, some where families cowered 
behind barricaded doors, and others where the doors were wide open in welcome, 
on the assumption that resistance to the whims of soldiers would be fatal. 
Garth avoided villages and towns and castles, giving them all wide berths, and 
dodged any armed men he spotted in time. No unarmed humans were to be found 
abroad after dark. 


Those few patrols and sentries that he could not avoid, for whatever 
reason, invariably let him pass unhindered after the warbeast clearly 
indicated that it was ready to defend its master. Only rarely did Garth feel 
it necessary to draw a blade or speak a serious threat. He considered himself 
fortunate that he had not encountered any company larger than a patrol squad, 
nor any other sniping bowman with a grudge against overmen. 


Eramma, in the throes of internal war, he had seen as a patchwork of the 



land's natural wealth and the barren leavings of battle. 


The last portion of his journey had been the worst. The fighting had 
begun when the Baron of Sland had attacked the High King at Kholis, and 
although the High King had never managed to restore his full authority, 
several barons had helped him make sure that Sland would no longer be a 
threat. The troublesome Baron had been assassinated after his defeat on the 
field of battle, and his successor had made peace with his Eramman 
neighbors-though Garth had heard rumors that the new Baron had designs on the 
lands beyond his western border, outside Eramma's limits. Unfortunately, by 
the time this peace had been established, much of Sland was a burned-out 
desert. The land showed some signs of recovery after a year of peace, but was 
still largely desolate and empty. Garth had been relieved to get up into the 
hills, into the forests where he was not surrounded by mud and ash. 


And now, as he emerged into the valley of Orgul, the warm, green vista 
before him was a staggering contrast. 


It was very odd. He had spoken with people along the way, wherever it 
had seemed safe to do so, and those who had heard of Orgul at all had also 
heard of the dragon; they had described the valley as a scorched wasteland. 
Even in Sland, the survivors, racked by hunger and disease, had considered 
themselves more fortunate than the people of Orgul. They had spoken of burned 
crops, seared fields, empty, ruined villages, and whole populaces devoured or 
destroyed. 


That description did not accord with what Garth now saw. He wondered 
briefly if somehow he could have gotten turned about in the forest's darkness 
and wound up in the wrong valley. The sun was where he had expected it to be, 
and he had noticed no other trails as he had ridden, but he resolved to ask 
the first person he found. 


If he was lost, he had no idea where he might be or how to get to the 
real Orgul. He had little choice but to assume that he had indeed reached his 
destination and that the stories of the dragon's depredations had been 
exaggerated. He wondered whether the Forgotten King had known more of the 
situation than he had said; Garth hoped that he was not once again becoming 
entangled in some labyrinthine scheme the old man had concocted. 


With an almost imperceptible shrug, he urged the warbeast forward. The 
spire of a small temple gleamed golden above the trees before him, not more 
than two or three leagues away at most; he was sure that he would find a 
village there, and someone from whom he could ask directions. If there were no 
one in the temple or village, then it was a safe assumption that he was in 
Orgul and that the dragon was real and terrible. 


The ride down the hillside was pleasant; the highway wound down from the 
promontory through a final patch of forest before opening out into farmland, 
and the morning sun poured through the leaves in a spatter of honeyed light. 
Birds sang on either side. A deer wandered across the narrow road, then turned 
and flied at the sight of the warbeast. Off to the left, Garth heard the 
splashing of a rocky stream, its cheerful burble accompanying him down the 
slope. He glimpsed a hawk overhead, soaring in graceful, wide circles. 


It seemed utterly incredible that this peaceful valley could harbor a 
dragon. Dragons were said to be the most formidable and destructive creatures 
in all the world, and the dragon of Orgul, Garth had been told along the way, 
was the most ferocious dragon ever known. Something here was not as it seemed, 
and his mistrust of the King's motive for proposing the mission steadily 
increased. Having come this far, however, he was not inclined to turn back. 


The road he followed was little more than a narrow trail at this point, 
but it was not seriously overgrown; Garth wondered what traffic it bore that 
kept down the weeds and grasses. He had been told that no outsiders dared 
venture into Orgul and he decided that the Orgulians themselves must be 
responsible. This implied that they still conducted a minimum of trade with 
the outside world, which did not quite accord with the stories Garth had 
heard. The people of Orgul had been described to him as a dwindling handful of 
humans who lived constantly in hiding and in perpetual fear of the monster 



that ruled their land. 


Obviously, if this valley was Orgul, all the stories were greatly 
exaggerated. 


The exact details were immaterial, however. He had come to dispose of 
the dragon once and for all, regardless of the extent of the damage it caused. 
A single unnecessary death was enough to justify his task. 


It struck him as odd that the Forgotten King should allow him to risk 
his life in such an altruistic venture-if altruistic it actually were. He grew 
more certain that the old man had some ulterior motive, some subtle and 
selfish reason for sending Garth off on this journey. 


His thoughts were interrupted by a growl from his beast; he glanced down 
at the creature's flattened ears, then at the road ahead. 


A figure was emerging from one side of the forest and waving desperately 
at him. Whoever this person was, he evidently wanted the overman to stop. 
Garth spoke a word to his mount, and the warbeast came to a smooth halt a pace 
or two away from the man. 


The overman glared down at the human. He was aware that his appearance, 
particularly when mounted upon Koros, was impressive and even intimidating; he 
made good use of that fact at times. 


The man hesitated, gazing up at the huge, dark form of the overman. He 
had heard of overmen, but had never seen one before. Descriptions had not done 
them justice, and he was certain of Garth's species only because he knew of no 
other large humanoid beings. 


Koros he could not place at all; he simply stared. 


Two pairs of inhuman eyes stared back, one set golden and catlike, one 
red as blood and whiteless, but otherwise almost human. 


He himself stood a little over five feet tall and was thin; the overman, 
he judged, was nearly seven feet in height, were he to stand on his own booted 
feet. He was not standing, of course, but was seated atop an immense and 
frightening animal, black as the heart of a cave and resembling an oddly 
proportioned, long-legged panther. 


The man had never seen, nor heard of, a panther eighteen feet long and 
five feet high at the shoulder. The warbeast looked down at him, and he was 
not accustomed to having animals look down at him. Its rider, noseless, 
dark-skinned, blackhaired, and beardless, towered above him as if he were no 
more than a crawling infant. Still, he finally managed to gather himself 
together sufficiently to stammer out his message in the face of these awesome 
intruders. 


"Turn back, my lord! Do not venture further, I beseech you!" 


Garth stared down a moment longer; then, without moving, he demanded, 
"Why not?" 


Momentarily cowed still further by Garth's bass rumble of a voice, the 
man had some difficulty in continuing, but at last got out, "The dragon, my 
lord! The dragon has once more awakened, after a month's sleep, and is very 
hungry! I fear that this time the entire valley is doomed!" 


After a brief pause, intended for dramatic effect, Garth asked, "This is 
Orgul, then?" He wondered about the mention of a month's sleep; could that 
account for the valley's green richness? No, he decided, it could not. He had 
ridden through parts of Eramma that were not yet recovered from mere human 
battles after a year's respite; how, then, could the devastation caused by a 
dragon vanish in a mere month? 


"Yes, my lord," the man said, "this is the accursed valley of Orgul, 
home of the great dragon." 


"I have come to kill this troublesome beast," Garth remarked casually. 


"Oh, my lord, it cannot be done! His hide is like steel, his fangs like 
swords, his talons like scythes! He can outfly a hawk, and his breath is flame 
hotter than any forge!" 


Garth saw that the man was almost trembling, but could not guess at the 
reason. He supposed that it might be fear of the dragon, or fear of Koros, or 
fear of himself, or some other emotion entirely. Even after living among them 



for three years, he still did not fully understand humans and knew that he did 
not. 


"You think to frighten me, little man," he replied. "Know, though, that 
I am Garth, Prince of Ordunin, Lord of the Overmen of the Northern Waste. No 
beast lives that might defeat me." This was not exactly true, he knew; he 
would not care to tackle a hungry warbeast, and a dragon might also prove too 
much for him. Still, a little boasting was expected from a warrior. His 
statement was not quite an outright lie; had he kept the Sword of Bheleu and 
allowed himself to become the pawn of the god of destruction, he could easily 
have butchered any dragon that might exist. 


He did not have the magic sword, but only an ordinary broadsword of good 
steel; even so, he thought he would be able to deal with the monster. 


The man tried again, saying, "Please, my lord, turn back; the dragon is 
no ordinary beast!" 


He was clearly desperate, and Garth hid some small surprise. Why, he 
wondered, was this fellow so concerned? Even if he was completely convinced 
that the dragon would kill both overman and warbeast, why should that upset 
him so? He had given his warning, done what he could to prevent a catastrophe; 
why should he be so distressed at Garth's determination? In Garth's 
experience, humans did not worry much about what befell overmen. 


"Do you fear that I shall enrage the dragon?" he asked. "Is that why you 
seek to turn me aside?" 


"No, no, my lord, I am concerned only for your own safety! Other heroes 
have come, and all have died beneath the dragon's flames and claws." 


Garth shook his head slightly, mentally dismissing the man's actions as 
incomprehensible. "Stand aside, little man," he said, "lest Koros trample 
you." He signaled to the warbeast and rode on, ignoring the continuing 
protests and warnings that the man shouted after him. 


It was not much later, and the sun was still low in the east, when Garth 
rode into the village that clustered about the temple spire he had seen from 
the slope. The shrine itself was an open pavilion, ringed with pillars that 
supported its spiraling cone of a roof; it faced onto a small plaza, from 
which five roads led off in various directions. A handful of small, tidy, 
thatchroofed cottages stood on each of the roads, and a larger structure that 
might have been an inn, with a roof of red tile, occupied one corner. 


The plaza was paved with tessellated stone, and a small fountain played 
in its center. As Garth's warbeast neared the pavement, a breeze tinkled its 
way through miniature bells that hung from the eaves of the temple, joining 
the hiss and splash of the fountain and the soft steps of sandaled feet. 


The villagers stopped and stared at Garth's approach, and the footsteps 
ceased. Then someone turned and ran for the inn, and the streets cleared 
almost instantly. 


Garth found himself alone in the center of the square, looking about at 
the five roads with no idea which one he should take. It was time, he decided, 
to ask for directions. Getting himself and his beast a meal wouldn't be a 
mistake, either, he thought. Koros was already drinking from the fountain, 
which reminded Garth that he, too, was thirsty. 


He dismounted and stepped up to the fountain, where he filled his hands 
with water and drank. 


A sound behind him caught his attention; he let the rest of the water 
drop and whirled, his hand falling automatically to the hilt of his sword. 


The door of the inn had opened again, and several people were emerging. 
A white-haired man stepped forward from the group and addressed him. 


"Greetings, my lord overman!" 


"Greetings, man." This human, Garth thought, unlike the one he had met 
on the road to the village, at least had the grace to speak politely. 


"My I ask, my lord, what brings you to our humble village?" The man's 
manner was almost fawning. 


"I have come to slay your dragon, to save you from its depredations," 
Garth replied, making an effort to sound casual. 



The spokesman hesitated, then said, "My lord, do not think us 
ungrateful, but we ask that you turn back. We do not wish to see another great 
man...ah, I mean, another great warrior such as yourself die fighting the 
monster. Too many have perished already." 


"I have no intention of dying, man." 


"Do you suppose that any of the dragon's victims did? Please, my lord, 
turn back. You can do nothing for us. You would only throw your life away." 


Garth was becoming annoyed by this manifest lack of faith in his 
prowess. "My life is my own, to throw away should it please me to do so," he 
said. "I have come to fight your dragon and I am not to be turned aside so 
readily, frightened by mere words." 


The spokesman bowed in acknowledgment of Garth's words, but said, "We do 
not seek to frighten you, my lord, only to advise you. It would be foolish to 
waste your life in battling the monster." 


Garth's temper, already frayed, gave way. "You are the fools," he 
called, "to refuse a chance of freedom from this menace! I am Garth, Prince of 
Ordunin, Lord of the Overmen of the Northern Waste, who brought the White 
Death to the black city of Dsarra, who stole the sword of a god, who has 
fought the beasts of Death himself! I have come here to slay the dragon and I 
will have no one tell me that I must not!" He realized, as he finished his 
speech, that without consciously intending to, he had drawn his sword and was 
flourishing it about. 


The little group of humans had clustered together and backed away from 
him a step or two, toward the inn. The spokesman looked back at his companions 
for support and, finding little, said nothing further. 


His anger spent, Garth returned his sword to its scabbard and added, 
"But first, I have not eaten recently and would prefer not to face death on an 
empty stomach. Is this building whence you all came an inn, where an overman 
can break his fast?" 


The spokesman reluctantly admitted that it was. 


The inn was called the Sword and Chalice, though its signboard had 
fallen years ago and never been replaced. Garth had a goat sent out to his 
warbeast while he himself consumed a hearty meal of roast beef, carrots, and 
ale. He ate surrounded by a ring of wary villagers, silently watching his 
every move. He steadfastly ignored their presence and made a point of paying 
no attention to their comings and goings. 


He paused in the midst of his meal at the sound of women screaming in 
the plaza, but a quick glance out the door reassured him. The screams were in 
response to the warbeast's eating habits. Koros had killed the goat with a 
single blow of its paw and immediately devoured it, hair, hooves, and all, 
though the warbeast spat out the horns and larger bones. Those villagers who 
happened to be watching had been horrified to see a living animal reduced so 
quickly to a spatter of blood and a few scraps. 


When Garth had eaten his fill, he rose, tossed a gold coin on the table, 
and walked back out into the plaza. The circle of villagers parted before him, 
then coalesced into a single mass and followed him out-all save the innkeeper. 
He had not expected to be paid, and took a moment to hide the coin before 
joining his fellows. 


Half a dozen villagers were watching in fascinated revulsion as Koros 
licked the blood from its paws. They were maintaining a safe distance, Garth 
noted; he was pleased by that. It showed that they respected the beast's 
power. 


"Whose goat was it?" he demanded loudly. 


A woman timidly raised a hand in an affirmative gesture. He tossed her 
another of his gold coins, which she caught deftly and quickly pocketed. 


A boy at her side whispered something and was hushed. Garth noticed men 
and women staring at him, at the warbeast, and at the broadsword on his hip 
and the battle-axe slung on the saddle. He looked around, but the spokesman 
was nowhere in sight. Choosing a man at random, he remarked, "I take it you 
see few warriors around here and fewer overmen." 



The man gaped at him, then gathered enough wit to reply. "Yes, my lord. 
Very few. The dragon keeps them away. No overmen, ever." 


"I would think that many would come to try their skill at 
dragon-slaying." 


His unhappy respondent glanced to either side, but saw no sign that any 
of his townspeople were willing to take over the burden of the conversation. 


"No, my lord," he replied, "not anymore. Long ago there were some, but 
the dragon killed them all, and after a time they stopped coming. There were 
never overmen, though; only the men of the Baron of Sland, or roving 
mercenaries and adventurers." 


"They stopped coming?" Garth said, encouraging him to continue. 


"Yes, my lord. After all, there is no reward offered, no great prize to 
be won." 


"Nothing but a chance for fame and glory, and the risk of death, more 
easily found elsewhere, to be sure." Garth nodded, then swung himself up into 
the saddle. 


"Forgive me, my lord," the man said, gathering his courage, "but 
why...ah, why have you come here? Why do you bother with our accursed and 
wretched valley?" 


"Your valley does not seem wretched to me, man. I have come here out of 
boredom, people of Orgul; I grew weary of a life of quiet and decided, on a 
whim, to come here and aid those the dragon oppressed. I have lived for more 
than a century and adventured in many lands, but never before have those I 
came to aid tried so hard to turn me away." 


"But, my lord," someone protested, "we seek only to prevent the loss of 
another brave-" 


"Enough, human," Garth interrupted. "Tell me, now, which road is most 
likely to lead me to this vile monster?" 


Reluctantly, the man pointed to the western road, and with a word in the 
warbeast's triangular ear, Garth rode on. 


CHAPTER THREE 


The road he took from the plaza appeared to run through the village's 
commercial area; the houses on either side held small shops, displaying fine 
rugs and fabrics in their many-paned windows, or delicate carvings, or 
gleaming pots and kettles, or other goods. A blacksmith's forge trailed smoke 
into the blue of the sky, but the smith was not at work as the overman passed. 


Even though the people he encountered shied away from him, averting 
their eyes and hurrying out of sight, he enjoyed the ride. This village, it 
seemed to him, was more the sort of place he might have liked to live in, if 
he were to live among humans, than the wastelands of the north. Skelleth might 
be flourishing, but it was stop cold and dirty and gray, huddled on a barren 
plain against the long harsh winters; this village was bright and cheerful, 
trailing off without a border into the surrounding green of field and forest, 
rather than being chopped off short by a ruined city wall. The sunlight was 
warm on his back, the breeze fresh with the smells of abundant greenery. 


Garth found it quite impossible to believe that this was the home ground 
of a dragon as terrible as the one he had heard described. He puzzled anew at 
the Orgulians' insistence that he turn back. 


Looking about, he wondered idly whether overmen had ever lived in this 
delightful valley, back in those long-lost legendary days before the Racial 
Wars, before his people were driven into the barren Northern Waste. For 
centuries the overmen of the Waste had believed themselves to be the only ones 
to have survived those bitter wars, but recently Garth himself had discovered 
that others still lived on the Yprian Coast, a region nearly as desolate as 
the Waste itself. Could there be more, scattered about the world? Might some 
still linger in the hills around Orgul? Garth found that an appealing fancy; 
this country was one he would have enjoyed calling his home, and it pleased 



him to imagine that it might not wholly be wasted on humans. 


His musings were interrupted when his eye caught a sudden movement in 
one of the village shops; he turned to see what had drawn his attention. 


The last of the buildings that lined the street was a strange little 
shop on the left, its mismatched windows full of whirling, whirring clockwork 
toys. Fascinated, Garth stopped his mount, swung himself to the ground, and 
went over for a closer look. He was in no real hurry, he told himself; the 
dragon had reportedly gone its way for decades, and another few moments would 
surely make no difference. 


The shop's display held dozens of intricate toys, full of gears and 
springs, which did amazing and delightful tricks. An armored warrior, with 
head and hands of china, swung a miniature sword in long, swooping strokes, 
narrowly missing the bent-over back of a mechanical smith striking sparks from 
a half-formed steel rake with a stone hammer-the head of which, Garth 
realized, must be flint, a clever method of creating the sparks that so 
resembled those of a real blacksmith at work. Nearby, a toy dog wagged its 
tail, its tongue moving as if panting, and a plaster witch stirred a tiny 
copper cauldron. Elsewhere, dancers whirled, acrobats leaped, and animals 
paced, in a glittering festival of copper and brass and silver and ceramics. A 
few devices had no recognizable form, but were unabashed machines, tossing 
arms and gears about in complex and fascinating patterns. 


Garth had never seen so fine a display of machinery; northerners, either 
the humans of Skelleth or the overmen of Ordunin, had little time for such 
inessentials. Clockwork was used for clocks on ships, which needed accurate 
timekeeping for navigation, but was seldom used elsewhere. 


He could not resist a broad grin as he studied the things; he hoped that 
no one noticed it, lest it destroy the image he had been cultivating of the 
implacable inhuman warrior. Anyone who saw it, though, might not recognize it 
for what it was; humans were not always able to identify the expressions of 
overmen, being distracted from the fundamental similarities by the hollow 
cheeks, thin lips, and noseless slit nostrils. The two species reacted 
somewhat differently to various situations and emotions, furthering the 
confusion. To the uninitiated man or woman, Garth's happy smile might appear 
to be a ghastly grimace; his delight in the clever toys and machines to be 
bitter disgust. 


The shop window was not lighted, and Garth's own shadow blocked out a 
measure of the morning sun; he peered in, trying to make out the shapes that 
flopped and fluttered in the dimness at the back of the display. A brass 
rooster crowed, with a flapping of wings, and he marveled anew. 


"Would you like to buy one, my lord?" 


Startled, Garth whirled to face the owner of the pleasant little voice 
that had interrupted his studies. A small, whitehaired man stood in the door 
of the shop, squinting and blinking in the bright light of day; he smiled, 
revealing a jawful of randomly assorted gold and white teeth. 


The overman stared at the man for a moment, then back at the window, 
where the swordsman's blade continued to miss the smith's broad back and 
swinging hammer by the breadth of a few hairs; where the yapping dog bounced 
merrily along and the plaster witch grinned gruesomely. 


"I think I might, yes," Garth said at last. "Are they expensive?" 


"Oh, no," the little man replied. "I don't need much to live on. I have 
a pension of sorts-I suppose you could call it a pension. Enough to make do, 
at any rate. But it does get so dull! So I keep making these toys, to amuse 
myself. The children seem to like them. Have you any children, my lord?" 


"Five; two sons. They're grown, though, old enough for families of their 
own." 


"Grandchildren, then?" 


"Not that I know of; I haven't been home lately." He smiled wryly to 
himself at that. 


"A pity, a pity." The old man shook his head, looking downcast, as if it 
were the greatest tragedy of his life that this fine overman should have no 



grandchildren and should be so long away from home. 


Garth's smile became a little less bitter; the man was amusing. "Did you 
say that you find this village dull? What of the dragon, then? Does it not 
provide enough excitement for you?" 


"Oh, the dragon..." The man shrugged, as if the legendary monster were 
beneath his notice. "I meant that doing nothing for myself was dull, not that 
there had been no excitement in my life. I like to keep my hands busy when the 
dragon is not about, my hands and my mind." He gestured, wiggling his fingers 
to show that they were still agile. 


Garth decided that he liked this fellow. "Have you children yourself?" 
he asked. 


"Oh, all long since grown, like your own, my lord; even my grandchildren 
are married now, some of them." He glanced at the shop window. "Tell me," he 
said, "which do you like the best?" 


Garth turned back and studied the collection; his gaze wandered over 
ships and horses, men and castles, women and machines. The swordsman had run 
down, frozen in midstroke with his sword thrust out before him. 


"I cannot say," Garth replied. "I have not seen them all run. Some are 
not displayed to their best advantage here." 


"Come inside, then, and I will show you more closely any that interest 
you." The toymaker grinned and beckoned, and Garth followed him. 


The building's interior was dim and smelled strongly of metal and oil 
and herbs. A narrow passage led between two great tables that held the two 
window displays; beyond, a fair-sized room contained a fireplace and oven, a 
table, a few chairs, and a workbench. The last was cluttered with gears and 
wheels and snippets of copper, chisels and scissors and knives, powders and 
pastes, jars and vials, a potter's wheel, and a pedal-driven lathe. At the 
rear, another door stood slightly ajar. 


Garth looked over the two tables; dozens of toys were displayed, perhaps 
a hundred or more. The toymaker wound up a spider that danced in circles as 
the cauldron-stirring witch ground to a halt. 


Everything was a maze of arms and legs and wheels, plaster faces staring 
in the waxed-paper windows of wooden castles, and Garth could not imagine 
picking a single favorite from the muddle. He let his eyes roam, and found 
himself staring at a glistening copper shape that gleamed in one corner. 


"What's that?" he asked, pointing. The object stood out because of its 
smooth, curving surface, unbroken by flailing arms or whirling gears. 


The old man followed his pointing finger and fetched the object in 
question out into the light that poured through the window. It was a copper 
sea gull; two eyes of smoky quartz stared unseeingly from its tapered metal 
head, and its wings were polished to mirror brightness. "Ah, my lord," the old 
man said, "you have excellent taste." 


"What does it do?" Garth asked. 


"Why, what else would a bird do but fly?" He pulled a silver key from 
somewhere, inserted it in an opening in the mechanical gull's back, then 
gestured for Garth to follow him back outside. "Let me show you." 


The overman followed and watched as the toymaker turned the key. With a 
small click, the key stopped; the old man pulled it out and, with a proud 
smile, cast the gull away. 


Garth instinctively reached out to catch it, to keep its graceful curves 
from being scarred or broken by its fall, but it did not drop into his waiting 
hands. Instead, its metal wings caught the breeze and flapped once, twice, 
lazily, with the languid grace of a living sea gull, and it swooped away. 
Riding the wind, it glided upward, then looped back and circled slowly 
overhead. Garth gaped in astonishment. 


For several long minutes the gull soared overhead, flapping smoothly now 
and then, gleaming golden in the morning sun; then, gradually, it settled 
lower and lower, until at last, with a rueful smile, the toymaker reached up 
and plucked it out of the sky. 


Garth heard a click and a final soft whirr, and the gull was still. 



Garth stared at the man with deep respect. "It is very beautiful," he 
said. "I was not aware that such things could be built of mere metal." 


The toymaker looked down, obviously embarrassed. "Well, actually," he 
admitted, "they can't. I cheat. It's not just clockwork." 


"It's not?" 


"No. I use magic." 


"Oh," Garth said knowingly. He had seen magic before, more of it than he 
liked. At least, he thought, this magic was harmless. 


"I didn't originally-at least, I don't think I did. I started off using 
just clockwork when I was an apprentice, but I found right from the first that 
I could make machines that no one else could understand, things that worked 
when by all rights they should not have. Even when I built my clocks and toys 
in the usual ways, mine would run far longer and more smoothly than any of the 
others. I got better and better at it, too, until I was doing things that were 
plainly impossible to do with just clockwork. I had no idea how I did what I 
did back then; it simply came to me, as naturally as breathing, without my 
ever thinking about it. When I realized what was happening, I studied sorcery 
briefly; even though my teacher said I had a real talent, I didn't care for 
it. It seemed too dangerous, too uncertain. I went back to clockwork, but now 
I know a bit more about what I'm doing. I even use spells intentionally now, 
though I still make them up, rather than follow the old formulae. As I said, I 
have the knack for it. A fellow who came through here last year, fleeing from 
Sland, a wizard by the name of Karag, told me that it wasn't anything to be 
concerned about. He said that there are a lot of minor magical talents like 
mine scattered about; probably one of my ancestors back in the Twelfth Age, 
when magic was widespread, was a wizard of some sort, and I inherited a bit of 
his lingering power without knowing it." 


"I had no idea it could work that way," Garth said. 


"Neither did I when I was young, but it seems that's just how it does 
work. That gull wouldn't fly if anyone else had made it. I've shown other 
tinkers and craftsmen how to make flying toys, and they've done them just as I 
do, but theirs don't fly at all, they just fall." 


Garth reached out, took the gull from the toymaker's hands, and turned 
it over, studying it. "Magic or not, it's a beautiful thing," he said. 


"Yes, it is," the toymaker agreed. 


"Do you wish to sell it?" 


"Of course; I have no use for it. Besides, I have others and I can 
always make more. Would you like it?" 


"Yes, I think I would; it's a wondrous device, whether clockwork or 
magic. What is your price?" 


The man named a figure; Garth declined politely. After a brief and mild 
bout of bargaining, a price was settled upon as fair to both parties. 


"Will you take it with you now, then?" the toymaker asked. 


"No," Garth answered, handing it back, "I think not. I am seeking after 
the dragon at present; were I to take the gull, I fear that it might be broken 
in the fight. I will stop here and buy it on my way back, at the price agreed 
upon, if that will suit you." After a second's pause, he added, "Assuming, of 
course, that I come back; the stories I have heard of the dragon imply that I 
may not." 


"The dragon?" Surprise and concern were plain in the toymaker's face. 
"You've come to slay the dragon? Oh, dear. That's most unfortunate." 


"Is it?" Garth asked as he moved to mount his warbeast. "It may prove 
unfortunate for the dragon; it has never faced an overman before." 


"Well, that's true," the old man admitted, "but still..." He fell into a 
confused silence and stood watching, the metal bird in his hands, as Garth 
rode on past him and out of the village. 


CHAPTER FOUR 



Garth rode for an hour through peaceful groves and flourishing farmland; on 
all sides, blossoms were giving way to budding fruit and grain, and it was 
obvious that, barring some disaster, there would be an abundant harvest at 
summer's end. He could still see no sign anywhere of a dragon or a dragon's 
depredations. He did see, to his surprise, recent footprints, all human, on 
the road he followed; they were wide-spaced, as if the men who made them had 
been hurrying. They all seemed to run westward, the same direction in which 
Garth was bound. He wondered if the makers of the marks had been fleeing from 
the dragon. The villagers had seemed quite certain that it was awake and 
active and somewhere west of the town; perhaps they had seen it pursuing some 
of their countrymen along this highway. 


There was no trace of the dragon itself, however. Garth scanned the 
horizon. 


To the north and east, he saw nothing but trees. To the south, a few 
clouds hung in the sky above green fields. To the west, the hills reared up 
before him; the valley was narrow at this, its northern end, and he had 
already crossed half its width. 


To the southwest, a thin trail of smoke was curling upward, blue smoke 
almost invisible against the blue of the sky. 


He signaled Koros to stop, to allow him a better view; the warbeast 
obeyed, and Garth stared at the faint wisp. It seemed to be growing thicker as 
he watched. 


Dragons, it was said, breathed fire. Garth had never taken that aspect 
of the monster's description very seriously; legends tended to be distorted in 
the retelling. Still, there was general agreement that much of a dragon's 
destructiveness resulted from fires. Garth had assumed heretofore that the 
creatures might produce some sort of highly combustible substance, a venom or 
vapor, perhaps. 


If they actually did produce flame, however, then the smoke he now saw 
might be coming from the monster. 


Of course, it could also be coming from village cook fires and hearths, 
but he saw no sign of a town in that direction-no temple spires or roofs above 
the treetops. If there were a village, though, perhaps the people would be 
able to direct him to the monster's current location. 


He pointed toward the smoke and called a command to his mount. With a 
growl, the warbeast turned off the road and began running cross-country toward 
the thickening column. 


Koros' normal pace was almost unnaturally smooth and silent, far more 
comfortable for its rider than that of any other mount Garth had ever ridden; 
but when running, even though it was loping along well below its full top 
speed, Koros bounded up and down in such a manner that Garth was forced to 
cling precariously to its harness, rather than risk being thrown. 


The beast's long strides ate up the distance, carrying the. overman over 
farmland and meadow with phenomenal speed. Animal and rider passed through an 
orchard, then a patch of pine forest, then out into a new stretch of meadow. 
Beneath them, the ground began to slope upward, and Garth saw that the smoke 
was rising from just beyond the crest of a grassy hillock. 


If he were to ride on directly over that rise, he realized, he might 
find himself face to face with the dragon without any time to prepare; the 
monster could easily be lurking in ambush. 


He called a command, and Koros came to a sudden stop. Garth gathered 
himself together and looked at what lay before him. 


He was on an open expanse of grassland, unfarmed and apparently wild; 
ahead, the land rose into a sort of mound, and the smoke behind it streamed 
upward in a single thick column. It did not look like the dispersed traces of 
smoke from a village or the thin mark from a farmhouse chimney. Some farmer 
might be burning debris, or a cremation might be under way, but Garth thought 
that caution was called for in any further approach. 


Beyond the rise, the ground sloped downward again, into a riverbank; he 
could not see the stream itself, but the broad cut into the earth that 



extended in either direction beyond the hillock could be nothing else. 


The nearest cover was a patch of forest that he had passed through on 
his approach; it lay a hundred yards behind him. 


He had, he judged, four choices. He could head on directly over the 
mound, he could circle it to the northwest, he could circle to the southeast, 
or he could retreat into the woods. 


He glanced down at the warbeast's harness, making sure it hadn't been 
loosened by the fast ride he had just finished, and considered. Remaining 
where he was did not seem prudent; he was out in the open, an ideal target. If 
he advanced, he did not know what he might be facing. If he retreated, the 
dragon might depart-assuming it was there at all. 


He would have to face the unknown eventually; he decided to advance. If 
he looped to the northwest, his shadow would be away from whatever awaited 
him, but the sun would be in his eyes when he turned south again on the far 
side of the mound. If he went southeast, his shadow might signal his approach. 


He had just resolved to head on directly over the mound, slowly and 
cautiously, when Koros let out a growl that he recognized as indicating 
surprise. He looked up from the harness and found himself staring straight at 
an immense red-gold dragon that was sailing down at him on huge, batlike 
wings. 


It had made no sound, no bellow of challenge, no great flapping; but now 
that he was alerted, he noticed a faint hissing that he had not heard over the 
breeze rustling the grass. 


The creature was at least a hundred feet long, with a slender, graceful 
tail winding out behind it and along, arching neck. Its wingspan was even 
greater than its length, easily fifty yards, perhaps sixty or more. Its hide 
was covered with glittering scales that flashed like golden coins in the sun. 


Its head was a thing of horror; its gaping jaws were black, and long, 
curving teeth lined both top and bottom like rows of knives. The great 
heavy-lidded eyes were faceted ovals, as red as Garth's own but without white 
or pupil. Smoke billowed from its flared nostrils and streamed back behind it. 


Seeing it, Garth realized for the first time that perhaps he might not 
defeat the creature. It was much bigger than he had expected and had the 
advantage of flight and was armored as well. It really did breathe flame, 
apparently. He understood now why the villagers had despaired of ever killing 
such a monster; it moved with sure grace and calm power, a truly awesome sight 
as it swooped down, gleaming in the sun. 


He drew his sword and waited for its attack. 


It swept past him, out of reach overhead, enveloping him in a cloud of 
black smoke; he fought down the need to cough, but blinked frantically to 
clear his eyes. The hissing grew, crescendoed, then faded as the monster drew 
away. The smoke stank; it was greasy and vile, and the smell of it filled his 
nostrils. 


When he could see again, he looked up; the dragon was looping about in 
the eastern sky, coming back for another pass. It had not actually attacked 
him, he realized, but merely spewed forth its smoke as if it meant to blind or 
frighten him. 


He watched it, his face immobile and calm. It would soon learn that 
overmen, or at least Garth of Ordunin, could not be frightened easily. 


He signaled for Koros to turn, so as to face the dragon's next pass, 
then stood in the stirrups and swung his sword as it rushed down at him. 


He did not strike squarely, but the blade dragged along the side of one 
great, curved talon, making a harsh scraping sound. Again the monster did not 
actually attempt to hit him, but merely swooped by, leaving a trail of thick 
smoke behind. 


He whirled when it was past and saw it swinging around toward him again. 
Its mouth gaped wider, and it roared, belching forth an immense cloud of smoke 
and fire. 


Garth watched the monster spout yellow flame and black smoke and 
realized that he might do well to retreat, at least temporarily. The thing had 



been easy on him; it could have fried him on its first pass, yet it had not. 


He wondered why. Perhaps it wasn't hungry, and merely wanted to drive 
him away without a fight. Or perhaps it was hungry and did not want to destroy 
its dinner. It probably preferred its food raw, not roasted. 


Koros roared an answer to the dragon's bellow and turned to face it; the 
warbeast, at least, was still ready to fight. Garth decided against 
retreating; he had come to kill the thing and he would never kill it by 
fleeing. 


The creature finished a long, slow turn in mid-air and came at him 
again, screaming this time like a maddened demon, its cry like nothing the 
overman had ever heard before. It tore past him, inches above his lowered 
head; he thrust his weapon upward, where it glanced ringingly off the 
creature's forelegs without seeming even to scratch them. Garth doubted the 
dragon had felt the blow through its scaly armor. 


The monster wheeled about again, and again it rushed down the sky at 
him, even lower than before; he leaned sideways in the saddle, ducking out of 
its path, and struck upward again. The point of his sword bounced and 
scratched along the creature's belly, then rang metallically from a hind leg 
and was knocked aside. There was still no sign that the dragon had felt a 
thing. 


If it came in any lower on its next pass, Garth knew, he would be unable 
to duck under it where he was. As it looped about with another roar, he 
prodded Koros' flank with his heel and shouted a command. 


The startled warbeast broke into a run, moving forward under the 
dragon's next howling lunge. This time the monster spat forth a jet of flame 
that seared the grass where the warbeast had stood a moment earlier, and Garth 
congratulated himself on his decision to dodge. 


He watched intently as the creature turned again; it moved smoothly and 
gracefully, but was not actually very fast in maneuvering. It seemed unable to 
bank more than a few degrees; Garth guessed that, perhaps due to its size, it 
was not as stable in flight as a bird. A sufficient tilt might bring it down. 
He wondered if there were any way to use that against it, then forgot about 
aerodynamics as it swept down toward him again. 


He sent Koros sideways this time, turning the warbeast out of its path. 
He misjudged slightly, or perhaps the dragon had allowed for his motion, and 
he felt the heat of its fiery breath at his back. Koros roared in pain; the 
fur of its tail had been singed. 


Garth patted the warbeast, apologizing, as he considered the situation. 
The traditional method of dragon-slaying, according to legend, was to find 
some minute chink in the creature's armor and strike at it. He had seen no 
sign of any flaw in this dragon's defenses-but then, he had been too busy 
dodging to study it very closely. Still, the armor on this monster seemed 
almost unnaturally perfect-countless rows of fine golden scales in flawless, 
gleaming array. 


The dragon was not making another attack, he realized; instead, it was 
circling, far out of reach. It appeared almost to be waiting for something, as 
if to see if the overman still intended to fight. Garth considered retreating, 
then dismissed the idea. When diving, the dragon moved with the speed of a 
falling stone, and it could probably catch him from behind before he could 
reach the forest. It might, he thought, be trying to coax him into just such a 
foolhardy maneuver. 


He watched it wheel about, and an idea struck him. The thing was 
gigantic, and as it made the far part of its turn, he glimpsed its broad, 
smooth back, as wide and solid as the deck of a ship. If he could get atop it, 
he could hack at it at his leisure; with its limited aerodynamic ability, it 
might be unable to dislodge him. He had used a similar technique against a 
monster once before, the great worm that lived beneath Dsarra; though that 
particular creature had not had the benefits of flight, flame, and armor. 


The difficulty lay in getting onto the thing, but even that might not be 
impossible. He looked down at Koros' blackfurred back, shoulder muscles 



rippling under its hide as it shifted its stance. He had seen the warbeast 
leap to and from low rooftops, and bound over crowds of humans. It could 
almost certainly manage the jump he wanted. 


Of course, he was not at all certain that he himself could manage his 
part of the feat he planned, but if he did not, it would probably mean nothing 
worse than a long fall. He could take a fall. He could see little to be lost 
by trying; the dragon could slay him just as easily if he did not make the 
attempt. 


The dragon still circled smoothly in the sky above the mound; he turned 
the warbeast toward it and gave the command to charge. 


Koros roared, so loudly that Garth's ears rang, and began bounding up 
the slope. Seeing this, the dragon turned and came to meet the overman and 
warbeast, bellowing and screaming and smoking like a burning city. As they 
drew nearer to one another, Garth gauged the distance carefully and, when he 
judged the moment to be right, shouted the command to leap. 


Koros leaped, jaws wide and claws out, to attack the dragon; the 
warbeast was roaring with bloodlust. Garth felt the leap as a great surge 
upward; so smooth was the movement that he hardly realized when Koros left the 
ground. As the dragon loomed up before him, a gleaming coppery wall, he leaped 
himself, flinging himself upward from the saddle to grab at the monster's 
neck. 


He struck hard against a shining red-gold flank and clung desperately, 
digging fingernails into the overlapping of the scales and scrambling upward 
with his feet. 


His faithful mount, thrown off course by his own jump, hit the dragon 
full in the chest, then fell away, yowling with pain and anger, as its fangs 
and claws failed to penetrate and grip the gleaming armor. 


Garth watched, concerned, as the warbeast fell. When Koros landed, 
catlike, on all fours and rose, apparently unhurt, Garth turned his attention 
back to his own situation with great relief. 


He had a precarious purchase on the monster's shoulder, the wind 
whipping about him as the dragon sped through the skies. With all his 
superhuman strength, he forced himself upward against the hard scales and, 
with muscles straining, managed to haul himself up atop its back. 


When he felt that he was reasonably secure between the mighty shoulders, 
he looked the beast over. He was surprised to discover that the scales felt 
fully as metallic as they looked. 


The dragon seemed to be searching for something, looping back and forth 
across the mound and the meadow below, and Garth realized that it was unaware 
of his presence on its back. 


It could feel nothing through its armor and thought that he, too, like 
Koros, had fallen. 


He smiled, brushed aside a lock of black hair that had fallen into one 
eye, and drew his dagger. He had lost his sword in his leap, releasing it 
without conscious thought when he had to find a fingerhold, but his axe was 
slung across his back, and the dagger's sheath was secure on his belt. He set 
about prying at the scales on the back of the dragon's neck, wedging the point 
of the knife beneath their overlapped edges and working upward. 


The scales tore loose and fell, tinkling down past the dragon's wings 
into space. To Garth's surprise, the monster did not react. He leaned forward 
to look at the spot of hide thus uncovered, as the wind of a high-speed turn 
lashed at him. 


Beneath the scaly armor was a fine wire mesh, and beneath that, Garth 
could faintly make out a myriad of gears, chains, springs, and sprockets, 
ticking quietly. 


He sat motionless for a moment, absorbing this discovery of the dragon's 
true nature. Quickly, he reached a decision; he could not kill this thing, 
obviously, and now he decided that he did not want to destroy it. He sat back 
and waited. 


It was almost pleasant, crouching atop the broad metal back of the 



dragon as it swooped through the air. Garth had never flown before and found 
what little he could see from where he sat to be intriguing indeed. The wind 
was fresh and exhilarating when the monster was not in one of its sudden turns 
or dives, and the view was amazing. 


He did not have to wait long; after a few more passes across the hillock 
and meadow, the dragon looped back up across the riverbank, then soared 
gracefully down into the gaping mouth of a cave on the eastern shore, at the 
base of the hillock. It braked by cupping its wings forward. 


Inside the opening, it folded its wings and settled neatly to the 
ground, landing with a heavy thud and a mild bump. Then, in a scant second, it 
froze into total immobility, losing completely its incredible semblance of 
life and becoming a mere metal construct. 


Garth glanced up and about and saw that the entire inside of the mound 
was hollow. Nor was it a natural cave; stone arches braced the ceiling, and 
niches were occupied by flaring oil lamps. Three young men stood off to one 
side, well away from the dragon; they had not yet noticed its unwanted 
passenger. 


The smoke that still streamed from the creature's nostrils suddenly 
thickened, and a loud hissing came from somewhere beneath the overman; then 
the smoke stopped entirely, leaving a thinning cloud to obscure the chamber's 
sooty upper reaches. 


Garth leaned over the dragon's shoulder and watched as a door in its 
belly swung open, just barely visible to him beyond the curve of chest and 
foreleg. Three men crawled out, then two more, and finally two more still. 


Garth lifted the axe off his back with his right hand, keeping his drawn 
dagger in his left, and vaulted down to the cave floor. He landed in front of 
the party of seven that had emerged from the dragon, with the other three 
humans to his right. The jump was longer than he had realized in the poor 
light, but he managed to catch himself and keep from sprawling, though it was 
not the dignified and dramatic entrance that he had hoped for. 


The men froze, staring at him in astonishment. He stared back. 


After a moment of stunned silence, Garth demanded, "So it was all a 
fraud?" 


The faces of the men were blackened with some sort of gritty dust, but 
Garth thought he recognized one of them as a person he had seen in the village 
where he had eaten that morning. It was this man who answered. "No, no...I 
mean, not originally. There was a real dragon once, really there was." 


"But he died," another man said. 


"We fed him poisoned sheep," a third added. "It was really very simple. 
My grandfather told me all about it." 


"And you built a new one, so that no one would know it was dead. Why?" 


The men looked at one another; it was plain to Garth that they were 
terrified of him, overawed by this huge inhuman warrior they faced, and none 
wanted to be the first to give an answer he might not like. 


"Why?" Garth demanded again, brandishing his axe. 


There was a sudden babble of response as they all decided simultaneously 
that not answering might be even more dangerous than speaking unpleasant 
truths. "To frighten off outsiders and keep away invaders," one replied. 


Garth lowered his weapons; everything was suddenly clear. Orgul was a 
peaceful valley; any warriors it might once have had to defend it must have 
died fighting the dragon. Yet it was surrounded by avaricious warlords who 
would gladly turn it into a battlefield-the Baron of Sland, for example, would 
undoubtedly be delighted to have an undefended target for conquest that was 
not a part of the Kingdom of Eramma and thus not covered by the terms of his 
predecessor's surrender. While the dreaded dragon had lived, though, no one 
had dared to attack; the tales had kept potential invaders away, assuring them 
that the monster could destroy an army. 


The Orgulians had not meant to harm anyone, but merely to protect their 
homes. They had not slain Garth with their toy even when they had a chance. 
They could have burned him to death three times over, yet had not. He could 



not hold against them their desire to defend themselves and to frighten away a 
menace to their security. 


It was impressive indeed, this device of theirs, and obviously a needed 
precaution; stories alone would not have staved off adventurers forever, but 
the sight of a dragon flying overhead, perhaps snorting fire and smoke, would 
deter all but a dedicated lunatic such as Garth. 


He looked at the great machine and asked, "How does it work?" 


The change in the human faces was dramatic as the tension suddenly 
dissipated. "Oh, it's most complex!" a young man, perhaps only a boy, 
exclaimed. "Come and see! There is a furnace for the smoke and flame, and one 
man works that, and there's one to each wing, while another serves to guide 
them. I control the tail, and Deg, here, controls the claws, and then there's 
a man in the neck. It's all most intricate, and all clockwork, all mechanical, 
machinery like no other. It takes all ten of us all day to wind it." 


Garth nodded in response to the youth's enthusiasm, and a tentative 
smile appeared here and there among the humans. "Who made it?" he asked, 
though he thought he knew the answer. 


"Why, old Petter, the toymaker, did most of it, designing and building 
most of the machinery. The smith built the framework, and the tinker and three 
apprentices made the scales. Gerrith the jeweler made the eyes, and the whole 
village worked on it where we could. Every town in Orgul helps in mining coal 
for the furnace now. 


Another man interrupted, asking desperately, "You won't tell anyone, 
will you? It's all that keeps the Baron of Sland away!" 


Garth's grin faded. "I should tell the old man who sent me here-but no, 
I need not do that; I can tell him, truthfully, that the dragon is dead. I 
will say nothing to any other, and I think that you need not worry about the 
old man; he speaks little and will keep silent about it." 


"That's all right, then," someone said. Relief was evident on several 
coal-darkened faces. 


"Would you like to see inside?" the young man asked. 


Garth nodded. "Yes, I would. But I must not stay too long; my warbeast 
must be found and its injuries tended." 


"I don't think he's hurt much," one of the dragon's crew volunteered. 


A roar from the mouth of the cave confirmed his opinion; Koros had had 
little trouble in tracking down the dragon. It stalked silently into the 
chamber to greet its master. 


Garth made it welcome, then remarked to the man who had last spoken, 
"It, not he; only the neuters ever grow large enough to be ridden." He told 
the warbeast to behave, then followed the youth into the dragon's belly to 
study the workings of the great machine. 


CHAPTER FIVE 


Garth spent the night in a room at the Sword and Chalice, but the inn had no 
stable adequate to house Koros, so the warbeast stayed out on the plaza. There 
was little danger that anyone would try to steal it or any of Garth's 
belongings still on its back; the beast knew well who its master was, and 
would not accompany a stranger without Garth's orders, or permit anyone but 
the overman to disturb the supplies it guarded. No one in his right mind would 
argue with a warbeast. No one mad enough to try would survive the argument. 


The overman arose late, a good hour after sunrise, and took his time in 
preparing for his departure. The afternoon, he knew, would be more than enough 
for him to find his way out of Orgul; once he was in Eramma again, he intended 
to travel by night, as he had done before. 


When he had finished his packing, eaten a hearty breakfast, and made 
sure that Koros had been tended to, he swung himself into the saddle, ready to 
leave. Before Koros had taken more than a single step, however, he changed his 
mind and ordered the warbeast to turn west rather than northeast. He had no 



reason to hurry; no urgent tasks needed to be undertaken, no one eagerly 
awaited his return to Skelleth. It could do no harm if he lingered for a visit 
to the toymaker; after all, he had a purchase to make. 


Koros had no objection; it strode silently down the western street and 
halted obediently at the door of the last shop. 


The door was closed, and the curtains were drawn across the display 
windows; Garth saw no sign of the old man. He dismounted and rapped lightly, 
twice, on the wooden panels. 


A muffled call answered him, and a moment later the toymaker emerged, 
blinking in the bright sunlight. He stared up at the overman. 


"Oh, it's you," he said with an uncertain smile. 


"Greetings," Garth said. "I hope I did not wake you." 


"What? Oh, no; I was just eating my breakfast. Hadn't had time to open 
the shop yet." He blinked again and then said anxiously, "I heard about your 
fight with the dragon. I hope you didn't hurt it too much; I'm not sure 
whether I could fix any serious damage. It's mostly magic, you know, and magic 
is tricky stuff. I'm no wizard; I don't usually know how what I do works. I 
just build things and they work-or sometimes they don't. Did you do it much 
harm?" 


"No," Garth replied. "I pried a few scales from its back and I might 
have scratched the belly a little. I think that hurt my sword more than it 
hurt the dragon-or maybe the blade was dulled when I dropped it." He had 
retrieved the weapon before returning to the village; it had not been bent, 
fortunately, but part of one edge, from the tip halfway to the hilt, had been 
ruined. 


"What about yourself? Were you hurt?" 


"No. My warbeast's tail was singed, I'm afraid, and it seems to have 
been bruised here and there." 


"Oh, I am sorry!" The man stared past the overman at the beast, his face 
radiating sympathy. 


Garth decided that it was time he got to the point. "I came for the 
gull," he said. 


"Oh, of course!" the toymaker exclaimed. "Just a moment!" He vanished 
back into the shop, then emerged a few seconds later holding the metal bird. 
Garth accepted it, paid out the agreed-upon price of half a dozen silver 
coins, and placed it delicately on the saddle. 


"You'll need the key," the old man reminded him. 


Garth turned back and held out his hand; the toymaker dropped the silver 
key onto his palm, and he closed both thumbs over it. "Thank you," he said as 
he dropped it in his purse. 


"Take good care of it," the man said. "It's one of my finer pieces." 


"It is indeed," Garth agreed, gazing at the gleaming clockwork gull. 
"But not your finest," he added, with a nod to the west. 


The toymaker smiled. "No, it's not my finest, but my very best is not 
for sale." He watched as Garth seated himself in the saddle, the copper bird 
perched before him, and gave a command to his mount. 


Koros turned and headed back through the village, its smooth, silent 
progress carrying it and its master quickly northward out of Orgul. 


That steady stride seemed effortless, and the warbeast could keep it up 
for hours on end, perhaps days on end; Garth was continually impressed by the 
creature's incredible power and stamina. 


It took them the remainder of that day and the following night to reach 
the northern edge of the Barony of Sland, moving along the foothills east of 
the mountains that formed Eramma's western border. Garth made camp atop a 
ridge overlooking the desolate site of a moderately recent battle. 


His brief stay in Orgul had put him in a state of mild euphoria. He had 
not fought and slain a monster, but instead had found that his real task, that 
of freeing people from the menace that beset them, had been accomplished long 
before by the threatened people themselves. That was heartening; only rarely 
in his long life had he seen much evidence of human competence. Even among his 



own species, it often seemed that the average mortal had no more ambition or 
wit than a lower animal had. Too many people were willing to suffer under 
various forms of oppression, rather than make the effort necessary to improve 
their lot. 


No one among the overmen of the Northern Waste had attempted to come 
south overland for any purpose during the three centuries of relative peace 
that had followed the Racial Wars; they had been told that the border with 
Eramma was guarded night and day by ferocious human warriors and they had 
believed it until Garth made the journey to Skelleth himself, for reasons of 
his own, and discovered the pitiful state of the human defenses. 


No overman had troubled himself to explore other kingdoms until Garth, 
on an errand for the Forgotten King, ventured into Nekutta and learned that 
there were other overmen still in the world, living on the Yprian Coast. And 
no attempt had been made to establish trade until Garth began it. 


Among humans, the people of Skelleth had tolerated an insane baron 
without serious complaint, ignoring his bizarre behavior and occasional 
arbitrary executions, until Garth murdered him. In the Nekuttan city of 
Dsarra, the populace had made no protest against the domination of the cults 
of the dark gods, nor had it tried to halt the kidnappings and human 
sacrifices of the more vicious cults. 


In Orgul, though, when heroes had failed to kill the dragon, ordinary 
farmers had managed to poison it, and common village craftsmen had built and 
maintained a replacement to ward off other predators, more human but no less 
vicious. 


That fact cheered Garth considerably. 


His own behavior pleased him as well. For the first time, he had 
ventured out into human lands beyond Skelleth, accomplished as much of his 
purpose as he saw fit, and headed homeward without killing a single person. 


He was, he had been told, the chosen avatar of Bheleu, doomed to 
symbolize the Fourteenth Age, the Age of Destruction. Heretofore it had seemed 
that he was destined to bring chaos and disaster wherever he went; he had led 
the sacking of Skelleth, been responsible for bringing the White Death to 
Dsarra, been involved in the death of the wizard who had ruled Mormoreth and 
killed its population, and, he suspected, somehow contributed to the collapse 
of the Kingdom of Eramma. 


On this particular journey, however, he had not destroyed anything, nor 
killed anything more important than goats, and those only for food for his 
mount. 


This raised his spirits so much that even the battlefields and soldiers 
he passed on his way north did not dissipate his good cheer. He moved on past 
Sland and along the mountains until he came within sight of the towers of 
Ur-Dormulk, where he turned east and circled around the city. He had traveled 
this far by night, but from here on, the population was thin and the land 
inhospitable; the war would therefore not be much in evidence. Furthermore, 
beyond Ur-Dormulk, overmen were no longer totally unknown; the Yprian caravans 
had been crossing these lands occasionally for most of the past three years, 
and the people were accustomed to them. Householders would not attack Garth on 
sight simply because of his species. 


He could, if he chose, travel by day and use the highway to Skelleth 
openly. 


Switching his schedule all at once, however, was not particularly 
convenient; instead, he lengthened each leg of it, riding on into the morning 
until he was too weary to want to go farther, then sleeping on past sunset 
until he awoke naturally and fully rested. He did, however, follow the high 
road; the plains were still muddy from melted snow and spring rain. 


He finally came within sight of Skelleth around noon, but he had been 
awake since midnight, so that as far as he was concerned, it was late in the 
day and he was ready to rest. He had bought a goat for Koros the previous 
morning and eaten well himself, at a small farm he had passed, but he had had 
nothing since, save for a handful of dried fruit and salted beef; his 



provisions were beginning to run low. He was tired and hungry and looking 
forward to cold ale and hot food at the King's Inn, followed by a soft bed in 
the house he had rebuilt for himself from the ruins at the edge of town. 


The prospect of a good rest, and his lingering good mood, put a smile on 
his face. He glanced down at the clockwork gull he kept on the saddle before 
him; he had not cared to pack it away where it might be damaged by bumping 
against his other belongings. It gleamed golden in the thin, dreary light that 
seeped through the thick clouds overhead. The weather had been good throughout 
his trip, but he knew that could not last much longer; indeed, the sky looked 
very much as if there would be rain before nightfall. 


When he glanced up from the metal bird, Garth noticed that something or 
someone stood outside the town wall, beside the highway he rode upon. His 
smile faded. The last time he had ridden up this highway, someone had been 
waiting upon it, an overman named Thord; he had been posted there as part of 
an inept siege laid by Garth's chief wife Kyrith, and it had been that siege 
which had led to the sacking of Skelleth. Garth did not much care to be 
reminded of that. 


He wondered whom or what he was seeing; the distance was such that he 
could not yet make the figure out. He hoped that, whatever it was, it was not 
the harbinger of more trouble. 


The thing stood about the height of an overman, Garth judged, or perhaps 
an unusually tall human, but the shape seemed slightly wrong. He rode on. 


When he had drawn somewhat nearer, he saw that it was, indeed, an 
overman, or something very much like one, but slumped forward, and with 
something projecting upward at the back of its neck. 


Another of the warbeast's long strides allowed Garth to determine that 
the overman-if such it truly was was hanging from a post or stake, apparently 
lifeless. 


Garth was confused; he had no idea what this thing could signify, what 
overman could be there, or why. He did not like it. The figure was utterly 
lifeless, and Garth wondered whether perhaps it was an effigy of himself, put 
there by some enemy, a townsman, perhaps, who had never forgiven him his part 
in Skelleth's destruction. 


The other possibility, that it was a real overman's corpse hung up as a 
warning of some kind, was much less appealing. 


He rode closer and began to perceive details. Black hair hung down 
limply, hiding the face; the hands were pulled back, out of sight, presumably 
tied to the pole or to each other. The figure faced directly toward him. A 
blue tunic covered the torso, and brown leather riding breeches the legs, with 
mudspattered boots on its feet. There was a disturbing familiarity to it. 


The possibility that it was just an effigy grew dimmer with each step 
and vanished long before he reached the corpse's side. 


The sensation of familiarity increased, and with it Garth's concern. By 
the time he told Koros to stop, he was seriously worried, convinced that he 
had come upon the body of someone he knew well. 


He dismounted, and as he turned toward the suspended corpse he realized 
for the first time that it was female. Overwomen were not as clearly 
differentiated from overmen as women were from men; there was no difference in 
height, and both sexes were equally flat-chested, though males tended to be 
broader at the shoulder and narrower at the hip. The primary sexual 
distinction was in the odor. 


With the realization of the sex of the corpse, he was suddenly sure of 
its identity; he ran to it, hoping that he was wrong, and lifted the drooping 
head. 


He had not been wrong. It was Kyrith. Her red eyes were open, blank, and 
staring, and her leathery brown skin was cold and clammy; Garth could have no 
doubt that she was dead. 


He was so horrified, so caught by her dead gaze, that he did not at 
first consciously notice the marks on her forehead. Like all their people, she 
had a broad, high forehead, the skin drawn tight across the bone; now her brow 



was caked with dried blood, and blood had congealed in rivulets down either 
side of her face. 


When Garth was able to turn his eyes from hers, he saw the blood and 
followed the dried streams to their source. 


There were cuts in her forehead, many of them, but not mere random 
slashes; Garth did not immediately see the pattern, for the blood had blurred 
it, and shock had dulled his wits. As he continued to stare, however, he made 
out the nature of the marks. On her right side was a horizontal curl, and a 
diagonal, and then a long downstroke-the rune for A. Next was the upward 
curve, hooked downstroke, and downward curve of GH, then another A, and 
finally the short upright and long double curve of a D-except that here the 
curve was broken and awkward, more like a series of short slashes. Runes were 
meant to be drawn with ink on paper, not cut into flesh. 


AGHAD. 


Garth knew that name well. Humans swore by it, sometimes, and used it in 
jesting reference to liars or unfaithful spouses, but Garth knew it to be no 
joke. It was the name of the god of hatred and treachery, and of a cult he had 
defied and defiled when he robbed their temple and slew their high priest in 
Dsarra about three years before. 


The cult had made a habit of casual and gruesome murders, and had sworn 
vengeance upon him, but he had long since dismissed it from his thoughts. He 
had believed the cultists to be limited to their own city, far to the west, 
and had considered their threats merely human boastfulness. 


He had, he saw now, been wrong. 


No trace remained of his earlier euphoria, nor of the boredom and 
purposelessness that had driven him to undertake his errand to Orgul. A cold, 
hard determination burned in his breast; he would destroy the cult of Aghad, 
and if the means could be found, he would kill the filthy god himself. Garth 
was an oathbreaker, forsworn, so he made no spoken vow, but his unvoiced 
commitment was none the less certain for that. 


The initial astonished horror was fading, driven out by rage, and he 
looked over his wife's corpse. 


A cord was wrapped around her throat, then looped back and tied around 
the stake. Wire bound her wrists behind the post so tightly that it had drawn 
blood, gouging deeply into the flesh. A third strand, this one of hideously 
inappropriate gold braid, passed across her chest, under her arms, and up to a 
spike driven into the back of the stake; it was this last that actually 
supported most of her weight and held her upright. 


Garth drew his dagger and cut away the braid with a single short slash, 
then caught the corpse with his left arm as it started to slump. Another cut 
severed the line around the neck, allowing a small pouch he had not previously 
noticed to fall to the ground. 


He ignored the little bag for the moment as, holding his dead wife with 
his left hand and body, he tried to pry apart the wire at her wrists. It 
resisted; although it had the appearance of cheap iron, the wire notched the 
blade of his knife when he worked the point underneath. Nor could he find any 
loose end whereby he might untangle it. 


He lowered the body into a sitting position, the hands resting on the 
ground behind the stake, and considered. The followers of Aghad, he recalled, 
took a perverse delight in doing everything they could to infuriate their 
victims. They were also fond of mutilation. They probably intended to 
frustrate and annoy Garth with some manner of trickery, until he became 
sufficiently maddened that he would sever Kyrith's hand to free her from the 
post. 


The wire, he decided, must be ensorcelled in some way. There was no 
point in struggling with it-yet he had no desire to gratify the Aghadites by 
dismembering his wife. 


The problem could be handled in another way. He fetched his battle-axe 
from the warbeast's saddle and, with three blows, cut through the foot-thick 
stake just above Kyrith's sagging head. Having eliminated the spike that had 



held the braid, Garth was able to lift her easily, so that her hands slid up 
over the broken end and came free. 


That done, he remembered the pouch that had fallen from the neck cord. 
He laid the corpse gently on the ground and looked for it. 


The little bag lay where it had fallen, at the foot of the stake. He 
picked it up, opened it cautiously, and drew out the roll of parchment it 
contained. 


He had heard of spells that worked through runes, of messages that could 
bind an unsuspecting victim to the writer's will, but he did not seriously 
consider it likely that this parchment was anything of that kind. He thought, 
rather, that it would be a threat or a boast, or perhaps both; the Aghadites 
had seemed to him the sort of vicious creatures who would not be satisfied 
with the mere fact of murder, or with the crude attribution carved on the 
corpse's brow. 


He unrolled the parchment and read the following: "Greetings to Garth of 
Skelleth, once Prince of Ordunin. The righteous vengeance of Aghad has begun, 
and you will suffer a thousandfold for the affronts you have committed. For 
the desecration of the god's shrine and the murder of his chosen high priest, 
you will pay with everything you value. All those you care for will die 
horribly. Your sons will die slowly as you watch. That which you have built 
will be cast down and destroyed. That which you have opposed will be exalted. 
That which you own shall be taken from you. As your pain grows, know always 
that Aghad will take joy in it, and his worshippers will laugh at your agony." 


There was no signature. 


Garth crumpled the parchment in his fist and thrust it into a pouch on 
his belt. Before he could withdraw his hand, he felt a sudden warmth, and the 
smell of smoke reached his slit nostrils. Startled, he withdrew his hand and 
dumped the pouch onto a patch of bare earth. 


Nothing remained of the note but smoldering ash. 


He snorted. If the indestructible wire had not been proof enough, this 
little demonstration left no doubt that the cult was using magic against him. 
He looked up, glanced quickly around, but saw nothing. He had fought magic 
before, several times, and knew it to be a real and sometimes deadly force; he 
would need to keep a careful watch. 


Someone, he realized, might be watching him even now, and he could no 
longer resist speaking. "Your god will not save you, filth," he said, his 
voice flat. "Your cult will die, to the last man or woman. My wife's forehead 
bears your death warrant." He picked up the axe he had dropped and, in a 
sudden display of fury, splintered the stump of the stake with a single blow. 


In Dsarra, in his inner chamber, Haggat watched the overman's actions 
and permitted himself a small, silent chuckle. Events were proceeding almost 
exactly as he had envisioned-though the failure of the wired wrists was 
slightly disappointing. It was still much as he had wanted. The stolen magics 
were working perfectly. 


This might, he thought, be worth the long wait. 


CHAPTER SIX 


His anger under control once more, Garth returned the axe to its place on the 
warbeast's saddle. He looked around at the scattered shards of the stake, then 
gathered up everything of possible value. That done, he picked up Kyrith's 
body and ordered Koros to follow him. Carrying his dead wife in his arms, he 
marched into Skelleth. 


The manner of expressing certain emotions differed between human and 
overman. Overmen made no show of grief or anger on their faces, but instead 
displayed at such times an expression that in humans would appear to be one of 
utter disinterest. This was not a result of training in stoicism or any other 
cultural influence, but a difference in genetic makeup. An overman who seemed 



bored might be in a murderous rage. 


A human guard was posted at the southwestern gate-not a professional 
soldier, but a volunteer, put there not so much for defense as to run ahead of 
an arriving caravan to inform Galt and the town's merchants of its approach. 
The man assigned to this job carried a crossbow and a short sword, more or 
less as a formality. 


The individual who was on duty at the time of Garth's return from Orgul 
had not heard the overman's approach, having dozed off in the shelter of a 
ruined wall. He had stirred slightly at the sound of the axe smashing the 
post, but did not come fully awake until Garth's footsteps had drawn quite 
near. 


Startled, he got to his feet, his hand on the hilt of his sword, and 
prepared to call a challenge. 


Garth's face was calm and still, but had the guard spoken, Garth would 
have taken delight in killing him, probably using only his bare hands. He was 
in no mood to deal with strangers, particularly human strangers; the cult of 
Aghad was comprised mostly of humans. Few overmen took an interest in anything 
so ethereal as religion. 


Only the fact that the guard recognized both Garth and Kyrith saved his 
life; he was so shocked at the sight of the corpse that he could not speak at 
first, and when he had recovered something of his composure, a glance at 
Garth's bloodred eyes discouraged any questions he might have had. He stood 
back respectfully and let the burdened overman and riderless warbeast pass 
unhindered. 


When they had moved on up the road, he debated briefly with himself. He 
was supposed to run ahead of new arrivals and give warning of their approach; 
Garth, however, was a resident of Skelleth, however unwelcome his presence 
there might be to some of the villagers. Furthermore, the overman did not look 
as if he would appreciate a welcoming committee. 


The guard decided, with a glance at Garth's armored back, that he would 
prefer facing a charge of dereliction of duty to risking the overman's 
annoyance. He stayed where he was. 


Most of the outer portion of Skelleth was a ring of uninhabited ruins, a 
reminder of the town's long decline; only the central area, around the market, 
was populated. As a result of this, Garth walked some distance on empty 
streets, between fallen stones and broken beams, before he was again seen by 
human eyes. 


Like the guard at the gate, the villagers who saw his approach 
recognized him. Remembering the sacking of Skelleth and seeing the warbeast at 
his heels, they hung well back and let him pass without hindrance or comment. 
The traditional fear of overmen had been largely dissipated by three years of 
trade, but Garth's berserker reputation, the sight of the corpse, and the 
presence of the warbeast were enough to send even the boldest scurrying out of 
his path without concern for their dignity. 


He reached the market unmolested, not having spoken a word since he 
entered the walls. There he lowered Kyrith's body to the ground, turned toward 
the new house on the east side of the square, and bellowed, "Saram!" 


Windows opened instantly, and faces peered out. Saram's was not among 
them, but Garth recognized one that appeared on the upper floor of the Baron's 
house. He pointed at the girl and shouted, "You, there! You get Lord Saram out 
here!" 


The girl, Saram's housekeeper, vanished inside. 


A moment later the front door opened, and one of the Baron's clerks 
thrust her head out. "My lord Saram is occupied at present, my lord Garth," 
she said. "How may I help you?" 


Garth's hand fell to the hilt of his sword. He replied, slowly and 
clearly, without shouting, "You will inform Lord Saram that if he is not out 
here within the count of twenty, he will not live to see the sun set today, 
and this stinking village will not see tomorrow's dawn." 


The clerk's politely noncommittal expression vanished instantly, to be 



replaced with a gape of terrified astonishment. She disappeared back inside, 
leaving the door open. 


Garth did not bother to count; as he had expected, Saram appeared on the 
doorstep within a few seconds, a napkin in his hand. 


The Baron of Skelleth did not trouble to look about, but simply stared 
directly at the overman. "What is it, Garth?" he asked, a trace of annoyance 
in his voice. 


Garth's reply was toneless and deadly. "Come here, human," he said. 


Saram knew better than to argue. He came; halfway to where Garth waited, 
he suddenly noticed Kyrith's body and stopped dead. After a moment's 
hesitation, he continued on and stood a few feet away, staring down at the 
corpse in surprise. 


"What happened?" he asked. 


"You will tell me that, man, or I'll burn this town to the ground. How 
could this happen?" 


"I don't know, Garth, I swear by all the gods! She came into town two 
days ago, looking for you; she said you had sent an urgent message asking her 
to come to Skelleth. We told her it must have been a mistake, that you'd been 
gone for days, and that was the last we saw of her-until now. I thought she'd 
gone back north again, gone home?" 


"She was last seen alive two days ago." 


"About that; 'twas midafternoon of the day before yesterday." 


"She has been dead only a few hours at most, Saram. Where was she in 
between?" 


"I don't know, I swear it." The Baron met the overman's gaze for a 
moment, then turned back to the corpse. 


Garth reached out and grabbed the front of Saram's elaborately 
embroidered tunic. "What do you know about the cult of Aghad?" he demanded. 


Startled, Saram looked up again. "What cult of Aghad?" he asked. "There 
isn't any, is there? I never heard of anyone outside Dsarra who worshipped 
him or any of the other dark gods, and the White Death has destroyed Dsarra'' 


"Look at her forehead, human." Garth released Saram's tunic and grabbed 
his neatly trimmed back hair, pulling his head down close to Kyrith's face. 
Saram looked as Garth added, "There was a note as well, a magical one that 
destroyed itself after I read it. A cult of Aghad still exists, and his 
followers have killed my wife." 


"I don't know anything about them," Saram insisted after Garth allowed 
him to straighten up. "Perhaps 'tis some other enemy of yours, trying to avoid 
the blame." 


"What enemy?" 


"How should I know? Maybe 'tis that bunch of wizards that tried to kill 
you three years ago." 


"No; why should they kill Kyrith? Why would they not attack me directly? 
I am no longer defended by the power of the Sword of Bheleu; the wizards would 
surely know that. If they sought revenge they would simply slay me, attacking 
directly, as they attacked me before. No, Saram, this is cruelty for its own 
sake; this is the work of evil people, to kill an innocent like this just to 
get at me. It must be one of the cults I angered. The followers of Bheleu are 
all dead; the priest of Death is a harmless old man. I did nothing to anger 
the cult of P'hul. That leaves four: Tema, Andhur Regvos, Sai, or Aghad. Only 
Aghad takes pride in treachery; had one of the others slain Kyrith, that cult 
would have proclaimed itself openly. The followers of Aghad might have lied 
and blamed others, but no one would falsely accuse them. It is in truth the 
Aghadites who have done this, I am certain." 


"Then what do you want of me?" Saram asked. "I am no Aghadite." 


"You are the Baron of Skelleth. Whatever happens in this town and the 
territory surrounding it is your responsibility." 


"I accept no blame for this murder, Garth." 


"You have allowed the cult of Aghad to exist, to take action in your 
domain." 



"I have not! I told you, I thought the cult was extinct." 


"The cult is not extinct, Saram, but if you value your life, you will do 
what you can to see that it becomes extinct." 


"Of course I will! Do you think I want more murders? Do you think I do 
not regret this one? Kyrith was my friend, Garth, and you are my friend as 
well. What has hurt you has hurt me. I wish that there were something I could 
do to undo what has happened, but I am as mortal as you; I cannot turn back 
time." 


Garth did not reply; the phrasing of Saram's defense reminded him that 
he had other business to attend to. As Saram had said, he was merely mortal 
and could do nothing to restore Kyrith to life, any more than Garth could-but 
there was one person in Skelleth who was something other than mortal. The 
Forgotten King was the chosen of the god of death; he had lived for centuries, 
perhaps for millennia, and had powers and abilities greater than any ordinary 
priest or wizard. 


He was also a treacherous old schemer. Garth did not say so to Saram, 
but he suspected that if anywhere in the world there was anyone other than the 
cultists of Aghad who was implicated in Kyrith's murder, it was the Forgotten 
King. His part in it, if he was involved, might have been anything from the 
most indirect sort of encouragement to planning and carrying out the whole 
scheme himself and falsely accusing the Aghadites. The old man could, of 
course, be innocent, but Garth would not take that for granted; the King had 
been entangled in Garth's life too often for the overman to dismiss the 
possibility of his complicity. It was the old man who had suggested that Garth 
should go adventuring and who had proposed his destination and thereby ensured 
a certain minimum travel time. 


Perhaps the old man had planned the whole ghastly murder for some 
perverse reason of his own; perhaps it had been calculated to goad Garth into 
some action he would otherwise have avoided. 


It was just as likely, though, that the cult of Aghad had simply seized 
upon the opportunity Garth's absence had presented and that the old man had 
had no part in it. 


Garth had mulled this over while carrying Kyrith's body through the 
village to the market; the possibility of the King's involvement had been 
immediately obvious as soon as Garth had gotten over his initial shock. 


It bore looking into, but he had wanted to acquaint himself with the 
available facts about Kyrith's return from Ordunin and whatever was generally 
known of her death. The Forgotten King, with his reluctance to speak, would 
have been of little help there. Nor had Garth wanted to waste any time in 
alerting Saram to the murder, the probable presence of the cult of Aghad, and 
Garth's anger. 


He had done that; now he could turn his attention to the King. 


Saram's words had also suggested a faint possibility Garth had not 
previously considered. The King, no mere mortal, had an undeniable connection 
with The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken; if there was anyone in all the world 
who might be capable of restoring Kyrith to life, it was he. 


With that in mind, Garth turned, leaving Kyrith's body on the packed 
earth of the marketplace, and marched toward the King's Inn. "See that she is 
not disturbed," he called back over his shoulder to the Baron, "and that the 
cult of Aghad is driven from Skelleth." 


Saram stood in openmouthed astonishment at this sudden change. Garth 
seemed to have abandoned the conversation in midstream and had simply walked 
off after dragging him, Saram, Baron of Skelleth, out of his home. Koros, too, 
was apparently caught by surprise; the warbeast gave a low, questioning growl, 
which the departing overman answered with an order that meant "stand and 
guard." Saram looked at the beast, noticed the gleaming metal bird on its 
back, and grew still more confused. What, he wondered, was that thing? He 
looked again at Garth, then back at Kyrith's body, and decided to stay where 
he was until he could get everything straight in his mind. 


Garth stalked across the wooden weighing platforms that occupied what 



was once the site of the old Baron's mansion, across the narrow strip that 
used to be a back alley cut off from the square by the mansion, and through 
the open door of the King's Inn. 


The tavern looked very much as it always, had; there was no indication 
that anything within was not as it should be. The heavy, worn tables were in 
their accustomed places, the great brass-bound barrels still lined the west 
wall, and the vast stone hearth still took up most of the east. At the rear, 
stairs led to the upper floor, and the Forgotten King's table stood in the 
corner beneath. Everything was clean, with the soft sheen that could only 
result from centuries of use and care. 


The tavernkeeper stood by one of his barrels, a mug and a polishing 
cloth in his hands; two customers were conversing over wine. The Forgotten 
King sat motionless at his table. 


Garth marched across the room. He did not bother to seat himself, but 
stood beside the King's table and demanded, "What did you have to do with it?" 


The old man croaked, "Nothing." 


"Is that all you have to say? Am I to trust you so readily?" 


"I swear by my heart and all the gods, by the true name of The God Whose 
Name Is Not Spoken, that I had no part in your wife's murder." 


Some portion of Garth's mind was aware that the old man was taking this 
seriously indeed, to make so long an answer so quickly, but his anger would 
not permit him to consider that. "And what good is your vow? How can it bind 
you? Death holds no terror for you, old man; you have little to lose in that 
regard. Nor have you shown any thought for your honor; what need have you of 
honor or trust, you who have incomprehensible power and no desire but death? 
You have abandoned the service of your god; can I know that his name still 
holds you?" 


"You cannot be certain. Take my word or not, as you please." The old 
man's ghastly voice was as dead as ever. 


Garth was by no means so calm; with a wordless bellow, he reached out 
and grabbed the King's throat in one huge hand. "Lying scum!" he cried. 
"Deathless monster! Do you dare to mock me at such a time?" In his rage, he 
cared little for accuracy or fairness and ignored the fact that, if any 
mockery had been spoken, it was he who had mocked the King and not the 
reverse. He squeezed. 


His hand went limp and dead, falling with a heavy thud on the table. 


"Your pardon, Garth. I lived for several years with a broken neck once, 
long ago, and I have no desire to repeat the experience." 


Garth stared down at his hand. Sensation returned in a sudden rush of 
pain. He had bruised several knuckles on the oaken tabletop. 


The discomfort quickly faded to insignificance, but served to distract 
him from his anger long enough for his rationality to reassert control. As the 
incident had demonstrated, the King had power. Garth could not harm him, but 
he might be able to use him. After a moment's hesitation, he moved around the 
table and sat down opposite the old man. 


"It is I, rather, who should ask for pardon, O King," he said. "Forgive 
me; I let my grief get the better of me. I came here not to challenge you, but 
to ask a favor. I do not know the limits of your power, O King; perhaps what I 
ask cannot be done. Still, I must make the attempt. Can you restore Kyrith to 
life?" 


The King paused before he moved his head once from side to side. "No, 
Garth. I am sorry." 


"It is not possible?" 


"I cannot do it." 


"Why not? You are the high priest of Death; have you no power over him?" 


"You ask me to undo the god's work. Could you create with the Sword of 
Bheleu, restore what you had destroyed?" 


Garth had to acknowledge that he could not have done such a thing; the 
very essence of the sword's power was destruction. He was not willing to give 
up completely, however. "What of your own spells? You were a mighty wizard in 



your own right, were you not? Knew you no magic to restore the dead?" 


"If ever I did, it is centuries forgotten." 


"Is there no talisman that can serve? Bheleu has his sword, and the 
Death-God his book; has the god of life no totem?" 


"The totems of the Lords of Eir lost their virtue at the center of time, 
in the Eighth Age, when the balance first shifted against them. They have no 
power now, if they still exist at all." 


"Is there no way to shift this balance again?" 


The old man shrugged almost imperceptibly. "There may be; if so, it 
would be in the Book of Silence. That is not the totem of The God Whose Name 
Is Not Spoken; but of Dagha, god of time, the creator of both Eir and Ds." He 
stopped suddenly, as if he had meant to say more and then thought better of 
it. 


Garth, listening intently, noticed the peculiarly abrupt stop, but could 
read no meaning into it. He ignored it and considered instead the words that 
had preceded it. 


He had taken it for granted that the Book of Silence was the totem of 
The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken; after all, the Forgotten King had obviously 
expected, three years ago, that Garth would find it on the Final God's altar 
in Dsarra, as he had found the Sword of Bheleu on Bheleu's altar, and the 
Stone of Tema on Tema's altar, and the Stone of Andhur Regvos on the altar of 
Andhur Regvos. Furthermore, the book was needed for the King's great final 
magic, and Garth was fairly sure that that somehow involved conjuring the 
Death God into the mortal world. That, too, seemed to imply a fink with the 
Final God. Garth knew relatively little of human theology, and most of what he 
did know he had learned on his trip to Dsarra, but he had had the definite 
impression that Dagha had few dealings with mortals. He had never heard of any 
cult of Dagha, nor any temple dedicated to Dagha. Why, then, should so 
powerful a talisman be linked with this obscure deity? 


It did not seem reasonable. He decided that the King was lying, hoping 
to trick Garth into keeping his oath and fetching the Book of Silence on the 
basis of a false hope that it might aid in the resurrection of his dead wife. 


If he could expose this trickery, he might find himself in a better 
position from which to deal with the old man. 


He reached this conclusion in barely three seconds; the pause in the 
conversation was scarcely noticeable before Garth said, "Indeed. Then what is 
the Death-God's totem? Surely you must have it, as his high priest and chosen 
vessel." 


"I left it in Hastur, in my chapel." The King's voice was softer than 
usual, barely audible, a grinding, scratching whisper. He seemed not to be 
looking at Garth, though how Garth knew that, when the old man's eyes were as 
invisible as ever, he could not have said. 


"Hastur?" 


"Hastur, capital of Carcosa." 


"Where was this place? Surely the chapel must be long gone; I have never 
heard of Hastur, and Carcosa has been forgotten for centuries by all save 
yourself." 


"The barbarians took the city and it became Hastur-dar-Mallek, 
Hastur-of-the-Barbarians, but they could not have destroyed it, even had they 
tried. They buried it instead, Hastur below, Hastur-dar-Mallek above." There 
was a strange animation in the old man's tone. 


"I have never heard of Hastur-dar-Mallek, O King." 


"That was long ago, before overmen were first created; the name has been 
shortened to Ur-Dormulk." 


"Ur-Dormulk? That was your capital?" Garth was astonished. He had heard 
the Forgotten King speak of his long-lost kingdom of Carcosa once or twice 
before, but he had not paid very much attention to the stories. He had never 
doubted that the old man had once been a true king, yet he had not seriously 
supposed that this vanished empire had had any connection at all with the 
world as it was in this, the Fourteenth Age. 



Now, suddenly, he was told that Ur-Dormulk, the most ancient and 
independent of Eramma's cities and Skelleth's trading partner, which he had 
seen from afar on his trips to Dsarra and Orgul, was once the King's capital. 
This revelation provided a new and more definite link between his own era and 
the old man's vague past. Somehow Garth had always thought of them as two 
separate worlds, unconnected save by certain magical objects and by the King 
himself; it required a major readjustment of those thoughts for him to realize 
that it was all one, divided only by time. 


There were a few seconds of silence as the overman absorbed this news. 
Then he thrust it aside; it was not relevant. 


"You have not said what it was that you left in your chapel." 


"I left them both there, the Pallid Mask and the Book of Silence, and I 
sealed the chamber with the Yellow Sign. I knew that the invaders could not 
pass that, and that they could not use the book or the mask if they did, but I 
posted a guard as a matter of form. I was still concerned with form then, and 
with my reputation as a great wizard." 


"You remember, then? The Book of Silence is there? How very convenient 
that you should recall that just now!" Garth did not try to keep the scorn out 
of his voice; he was quite sure that it was no coincidence that the King's 
memory had returned just as he had suggested how the Book of Silence might be 
of use to Garth. 


The old man seemed to be almost lost in reverie, quite oblivious of 
Garth's tone; he made no answer. 


"Do you think, then, that I should fetch the book immediately, so that 
Kyrith might be revived?" Garth's tone was still sarcastic, but there was a 
sincere thread of hope in it. 


The Forgotten King shifted suddenly, and the tattered edge of his hood 
flapped. "No," he said. 


"No?" Garth's surprise was genuine. 


"Your wife is dead, Garth," the King said, "and I know of no way she can 
be restored to you. Even were the cosmic balance shifted again, and the totem 
of the god of life found and used by its rightful master-for I promise you, we 
who are bound to destruction and death could not touch it-I doubt that it 
could turn the corpse into anything better than a half-rotted vegetable. Too 
much time has passed already." 


"Is time, then, the crucial point? Could not the god of time be coerced, 
with the Book of Silence, into undoing what has happened?" 


"No. I doubt that the book wastes space on anything so trivial." 


"The reversal of time, the resurrection of the dead, are trivial? Why, 
then, have you recalled where it lies? What good can it do me now?" 


"There was no deception in my sudden memory, Garth; your mention of the 
Death-God's totem, the Pallid Mask, reminded me. I had brought the book from 
Dsarra so that I might have both my great devices in a single safe place." 


"In three years, you did not recall so simple a fact?" 


"In three centuries, three millennia, I did not. Perhaps I was not 
intended to; though I do not currently wield the mask directly, no greater 
power has freed me of my patron as I freed you of Bheleu. The Age of Death is 
not yet come, but Death holds sway in every era." 


This presented Garth with another new concept. It had never occurred to 
him that the Forgotten King might himself be the victim of the machinations of 
the gods beyond the fact of his immortality. Garth had assumed that the old 
man had had no contact with the gods since he left the service of The God 
Whose Name Is Not Spoken, that he dealt with no being more powerful than 
himself. The suggestion that his patron deity was still affecting him, perhaps 
involving him against his will in some divine scheme, was unsettling. 


The entire conversation was becoming unsettling; it was getting out of 
hand, Garth decided. He had come with the intent of asking a few simple 
questions and receiving a few simple answers. He had wanted to know what part 
the King had played in Kyrith's death and whether she might be brought back to 
life somehow. He had not wanted to listen to details of the King's past, or to 



anything about the Book of Silence that might remind him of his own false 
oath. The King was being more loquacious than ever before in the three years 
Garth had known him, but everything he said related to his own concerns, 
rather than to Garth's. In mixed anger and desperation, Garth declared, "I 
care nothing for that. Answer me my questions." 


The King said nothing. 


"Is there any way known to you, no matter how fantastical or difficult, 
in which Kyrith might be restored to life?" 


"No." The old man chopped the single syllable off short, but it was 
unmistakable and definite. 


"Have you any reason, however slight, to believe that there might be 
some way not known to you?" Garth was reluctant to give up until he had 
exhausted every possibility. 


Again, the King said, "No." 


That seemed final; Garth could think of no other approach. The old man 
might be lying, but if he were, Garth had no way of coaxing the truth out of 
him. 


"You had no part in her death?" 


"No. I am no oathbreaker." 


The added phrase hurt, and Garth wondered whether the old man knew of 
his intended infidelity. It was only after a few seconds of silence that he 
realized that the King had had no need to mention his oath, for the King did 
not like to speak unnecessarily. Garth had no choice but to conclude that the 
King knew very well that the overman had sworn falsely when he agreed to fetch 
the Book of Silence and was reminding him of it as delicately as possible. 


He was not at all sure why the old man should do so. Perhaps, Garth 
thought, the King meant to shame him into fulfilling his false oath. The 
overman leaned back, his chair creaking beneath his shifting weight, and 
thought in silence for a moment. 


In Dsarra, watching his scrying glass, Haggat decided that this was an 
ideal opportunity for his next planned event. He gestured to his waiting 
acolyte, who hurried off to tell a priest, especially trained for this coming 
performance, that it was time to begin. 


A moment later, in the King's Inn, something flickered at the edge of 
the overman's vision. He whirled, startled, his hand already on the hilt of 
his dagger, since the table's presence would have made it difficult for him to 
draw his sword. 


The glinting had not been, as he had first thought, the gleam of 
firelight on metal. There was no one behind him. The flash of light had come 
from something he could not identify, a blurry redness hanging in mid-air and 
glowing faintly. 


It hovered at the level of his eyes, perhaps a foot wide and a foot and 
a half in height, a blot of color against the dark background of the taproom. 


This, obviously, was magic at work. He kept his hand on his dagger, 
though he knew ordinary weapons would probably be useless against whatever it 
was. Various possible origins for the thing passed through his mind. It might 
be a manifestation of Bheleu, come to reclaim him with or without the sword. 
It might be a sending of the council of wizards that had sought to destroy 
him, as a menace to the peace of Eramma, three years earlier. It could be 
something the Forgotten King had contrived, for reasons of his own, or it 
might have been sent by the cult of Aghad as part of its revenge upon him. 


He had, he thought, made altogether too many enemies in his life, and 
too many of them possessed of supernatural power. 


The blot was changing as he watched; it swirled and roiled about, not 
like smoke or even liquid, but as if it were made of flowing light. It grew, 
and shadows appeared within it. 


Red was Bheleu's preferred color, but that was the bright red of fire or 
fresh blood; this thing was of a duller, browner shade, like blood that had 



dried. The King was the King in Yellow, but could, of course, use any color he 
chose; the council wizards had employed a wide variety of spells. Still, Garth 
found that he associated the unhealthy hue of the thing with Aghad. 


As he realized that, the thing suddenly resolved itself into an image. 
It was a face, a not-quite-human face, twisted and sneering, with curving 
fangs protruding from its upper lip. Garth stared; he knew he had seen it, or 
one like it, somewhere before. 


He glanced around; the Forgotten King was paying no attention to this 
manifestation, nor to anything else for that matter, but the tavernkeeper was 
staring in horror. The other customers had departed. 


Garth turned back; the apparition was still there, hanging motionless, 
as if waiting. 


"What are you? Why are you here?" Garth demanded. "Speak, O vision, and 
explain yourself!" 


The face grinned and replied, "Greetings, Garth. It is good to see you 
so untroubled that you can share a drink and pass the time with this doddering 
old fraud." The voice was a low rumble, lower than any human voice and not 
easy to understand; it spoke with an accent unlike that of Skelleth, but one 
that Garth had heard before. 


"Who are you?" Garth asked. 


"Do you not recognize me? Have you never seen my likeness?" 


"You are familiar, but I cannot place you." 


"Ah, so, feeble a memory, and in an overman! It is scarce three years 
since you invaded my home and destroyed my altar." 


"Aghad!" Garth remembered now where he had seen that face; it had 
appeared on the small, carved idols sold in the Dsarran market. The accent, 
too, was Dsarran. 


"You do remember! I am flattered!" 


"Filth!" Garth spat. He did not give any serious consideration to the 
possibility that this might be the god himself; he was quite sure that it was 
some sort of trickery contrived by the cultists. He shifted, so that the table 
would not impede him, drew his sword, and rose to his feet. 


"I had feared that you would be displeased by my paltry attempt to 
return the favor you did me, but I suppose you must have tired of your bitch 
years ago. Perhaps you would like to thank me for freeing you of her?" The 
thing grinned again. 


Garth's sword came up and slashed through the image in a single smooth 
motion. It cut a narrow swath through the ethereal substance of the thing, but 
the speaker did not seem perturbed. In fact, it did not seem to notice his 
action at all. Garth had hoped for some sort of magical feedback. 


"I notice that you haven't troubled to bury her; were you planning to 
feed her to your warbeast? You need not fear for its health; we used no 
poison. Nothing that could harm a warbeast, at any rate; we did not want to 
hurry her death. She took quite a long time to die; we found it very 
enjoyable. Would you care to guess whom we plan to kill next?" 


Garth growled low in his throat and slashed at the image again, striking 
vertically this time. The sword passed through without resistance, leaving the 
floating image divided into quarters, but still unconcerned. 


"You're not guessing, overman," the voice rumbled. "Will it be another 
of your wives? One of your children? Your cousins, or your uncle? Your friends 
on Ordunin's City Council? Perhaps the next won't be an overman at all; maybe 
we'll kill one of your friends here in Skelleth. The old man might do for a 
start. Or perhaps we might take the best of both worlds and kill your 
traitorous comrade, Galt the swindler. Will you guess, overman? Will you 
guess, or will you just wait and see?" 


Garth hacked at the thing again, splitting it further and leaving six 
fragments. The face was no longer clearly visible; the edges of each segment 
were blurred, and the whole image seemed to be distorted. 


It grinned and vanished completely, with a sound of fading laughter. 


Garth stared at the empty air, then looked about, seeing no sign of any 



further supernatural manifestation. The sword still in his hand, he announced, 
"Hear me, Aghadite scum! I have had my fill of you. You owe me a life for my 
wife's death, and a hundred more for the manner of it. I swear that I will 
find you and destroy you, wherever you may hide. I will return to Dsarra, 
smash your temple, and grind it into the dust. Your magic will not protect 
you; your god will not save you. I swear this, by everything I hold dear." 


There was no answer but the silence of the almost-empty tavern. 


CHAPTER SEVEN 


After a long, wary moment, Garth finally admitted to himself that he could do 
nothing more immediately. He sheathed his sword, flexed the bruised knuckles 
of his right hand, and sat down again. 


The apparition's words rankled, particularly the remarks about leaving 
Kyrith's corpse untended. One didn't bring a cadaver into a taproom, however, 
and he had hoped that the Forgotten King might resurrect her; that had seemed 
more important than providing the body with an appropriate rest. 


He glanced at the Forgotten King. The old man wasn't going anywhere; 
Garth could come back here later if he decided he had to speak with him 
further. Without any more conversation, he rose and marched out the door. The 
King said nothing and made no move to stop him. 


A crowd had gathered in the market, clustered about Kyrith's body. Garth 
was tall enough to see over their heads and noted that they were maintaining a 
respectful distance. A young boy had clambered up on the base of the statue 
that stood near the center of the market, a statue that had once been a young 
thief who had been petrified by a basilisk by the order of the previous Baron 
of Skelleth. 


The crowd's presence irked Garth; it did not seem fitting that these 
members of an inferior species should cluster around Kyrith's remains like a 
pack of wolves around a dead warbeast. "Get away!" he bellowed. "Go home, all 
of you!" 


Startled, the townspeople's faces turned toward him, but no one moved to 
depart until he picked up two women on the northern fringe, one in each hand, 
grasped by the shoulder, and placed them off to either side. They backed away, 
rubbing where his hands had gripped, and the rest of the villagers backed away 
as well. 


"Go home!" Garth bellowed again; he drew his sword for emphasis, and 
people began vanishing into houses and down streets. A moment later no one 
remained in the square but himself and Saram, both standing over Kyrith's 
body. Koros stood nearby, as it had stood since its arrival in the market, the 
copper gull gleaming dully on its back. 


Saram watched Garth closely, waiting for him to speak. 


The overman spent a few seconds staring down at his dead wife's face. It 
was sinking in that she was really dead, gone forever. She had always been his 
closest companion in Ordunin, much more so than his two remaining wives; he 
regretted, now, that he had spent so much of the last few years away from her. 


Word would have to be sent to Ordunin. She had kin there, not just her 
sister and co-wife Myrith, or her other co-wife Lurith, but two brothers and a 
few nephews and nieces. At last report, her mother was still alive. Kyrith 
alone, of Garth's wives, had no children; Garth had regretted that before, but 
now it seemed almost comforting somehow. Fewer people would grieve over her 
loss. 


The overmen of the Northern Waste were not much given to elaborate 
ceremony and did not bother with funerals after the human fashion; since most 
had no belief in an afterlife of any sort, there was no religious necessity 
for them. The custom was, rather, to combine the disposal of the body with the 
division of property, whether by the reading of a will or by adjudication. The 
body itself was ordinarily sunk in Ordunin's ocean or buried in more inland 
regions, without fanfare, once the. property settlement was announced and no 



doubt remained of the subject's identity and death. 


That would not be appropriate here, Garth decided. Shipping the body 
home would be difficult and unpleasant, and the people of Ordunin would think 
it wasteful and eccentric, at the very least. Holding the reading of the will 
in Skelleth would seem equally bizarre to all concerned, since, save for 
himself, none of her heirs were present or likely to turn up; to the religious 
and sentimental humans, it might well seem callous and disrespectful. 


There was certainly precedent for separating the ceremony from the 
burial; overmen who died at sea were simply tossed overboard, and the ritual 
of legacy was performed later on shore. A death in a foreign land, it seemed 
to Garth, would follow the same pattern. He would see the body interred in 
Skelleth, and Kyrith's other family would hold the ceremony in Ordunin, 
without either Garth or the corpse. 


To keep up the dignity of his species among the humans of Skelleth, 
Garth knew that some sort of ceremony; though perhaps not a real funeral, 
would be in order. He would have to devise something. 


For the present, however, there was no hurry. He knew that humans waited 
as much as two or three days before burning or burying their dead. He wanted 
to use that time to consider how best Kyrith's memory might be honored. He 
recalled what he had heard of human customs and broke the silence by saying, 
"She must lie in state." 


Saram had been waiting for some such indication of Garth's plans. "I 
will have a bier prepared immediately, in my audience chamber," Saram said. 


Garth nodded, and the Baron hurried away. 


Once in his house, Saram summoned the nearest courtiers he could find 
and sent them to locate an appropriate platform and fine cloths to cover it. 


He knew that running errands for the overman would not help his image as 
an authority figure, but he didn't much care. Garth was, after a fashion, a 
friend, and he had just received a terrible blow; one had to forgive him for 
failings of etiquette under the circumstances. Saram did not resent being 
manhandled and ordered about. He knew that he would behave no more politely or 
rationally if his own wife had been murdered. 


The very thought of Frima's death gave him a moment's discomfort; he 
shook it off and began planning what he could do to eliminate the cult of 
Aghad from Skelleth. 


In the square, Garth knelt and studied Kyrith's body. It was not 
immediately obvious what had killed her; the wounds on her forehead and bound 
wrists were quite minor, really. He felt her throat, and although it was 
bruised and lacerated, she did not appear to have been strangled. 


He moved a hand to her chest and felt broken ribs. 


He stopped, withdrew his fingers, and stepped back. He had decided that 
he didn't really want to know the extent of what the Aghadites had done to 
her; it was enough to know that she was dead and that they were responsible. 


The marks on her forehead would have to be covered, he thought, while 
she lay on display in the Baron's house. The blood would need to be cleaned 
off her face. If he was going to subject his wife's remains to human ritual, 
he would do everything he could to ensure that the ceremony remained as 
dignified as possible. 


Koros growled, and a shadow encroached at the edge of Garth's vision. He 
looked up to see a human, covered by a loose, heavy, red robe, face hidden by 
an overhanging hood, standing nearby. The overman could not tell if the figure 
was man or woman. 


The people of Skelleth did not ordinarily wear robes or cloaks; the 
people of Dsarra did, and this robe was the color of dried blood. Garth's 
hand fell to the hilt of his sword. 


"What do you want here, human?" he demanded. 


"Greetings, Garth," the creature said. Its taunting voice was male, 
Garth decided, and the man spoke in the guttural manner of the Dsarrans. "I 
came to bring you a message." 


"What message? From whom?" The overman wrapped his hand around the 



sword's hilt. 


"We heard your oath just now, and your offer to come and visit us in 
Dsarra." 


Garth drew his sword, but did not attack; he was wary of unseen menaces. 


"You will be welcome, of course. We would be delighted to have you stay 
with us; on your last trip you rushed off so quickly! This time you really 
must stay to dinner." 


Garth saw no sign of any hidden threat, yet the Aghadite messenger 
simply stood, speaking calmly, ignoring the overman's bare steel. 


He was probably armored, Garth reflected. He thought that padding and 
metal would protect him. The heavy robe was to conceal the helmet and 
gauntlets that would have been exposed by the sort of tunic normally worn in 
Skelleth. 


"We have a request, though," the Aghadite said as he extended a long, 
bare finger and pointed it at Kyrith's body. "You bring the meat." 


With a wordless bellow, Garth swung the sword. 


The blade struck the man's robe and instantly exploded in a burst of red 
flame and splintered steel, leaving the overman clutching the useless hilt. 
The Aghadite laughed, but even in his state of unreasoning fury, Garth could 
detect the nervousness in that laugh, its forced quality. The man was not as 
sure of himself as he wished to appear. 


Garth tossed the broken sword aside and reached for the Aghadite with 
his bare hands. 


A wisp of red smoke swirled up from empty air between them; Garth 
ignored it as the man backed away hurriedly. The Aghadite was not yet running, 
merely stepping back, away from Garth's outstretched hands. Garth knew that he 
could catch the man; no human could outrun an overman. He grinned and 
advanced; the Aghadite continued to retreat. 


The red smoke thickened and grew, gathering about the human, and Garth 
belatedly remembered seeing a similar mist once before. With a growl, he 
lunged forward, wasting no more time. His fingers closed on the edge of the 
red cloak, then passed through, holding nothing but air. The Aghadite had 
vanished. 


Furious, Garth whirled, looking for other enemies, and with a cry of 
anguish saw Kyrith's body disappear in a red cloud. 


He ran, but in the second or so that it took to reach it the corpse had 
vanished as completely as the Aghadite or the image that had spoken in the 
King's Inn. 


He staggered to a halt in the center of the market, staring about 
wildly. Several of the people of Skelleth stood watching him, clustered in 
small groups in the streets that led out of the square. They muttered among 
themselves. Garth realized that they had seen the entire affair, had seen him 
humiliated, had seen Kyrith's body stolen. They had done nothing; no one had 
moved to aid him. 


But then, he thought, why should they? He was not their kind, and the 
Aghadites were. At least none had joined in taunting him. 


"Leave me!" he bellowed. "Get away from here!" 


A few of the villagers obeyed, retreating out of sight; more did not. 
Garth glared at them, and a few more backed away; others met his gaze without 
flinching. 


Seeing no practical alternative, he resolved to ignore them. He turned 
and stooped to pick up the stump of his sword. As he did, Saram came running 
from the door of his house. The entire altercation had lasted only moments, 
and he had not at first realized-that the noises outside were of any 
real-concern. 


"What happened?" he called. 


"Shut up," Garth replied. 


Frima's head appeared in the doorway, but she said nothing. Saram came 
to a stop, looking about the market, his eyes returning regularly to the spot 
where Kyrith's body had lain. He glanced at Garth, but did not care to venture 



a question. 


Garth stood, glaring at the hilt and the jagged shard that projected 
from it. Somehow the Aghadites had acquired a powerful magic. They had 
apparently possessed some sorcerous devices or methods at the time of his 
previous encounter, in Dsarra, but it had been his clear impression that they 
had relied primarily on trickery and simple machinery. Now, though, they 
seemed to be using real wizardry. The red mist that caused people to vanish 
had been used by the council of wizards he had fought, but never before by the 
priests of Aghad. The protective spell that had shattered his sword was 
nothing he had ever seen them demonstrate before, and the floating image that 
had spoken to him in the tavern was also new. 


He knew that ordinary weapons were not enough against magicians. He had 
defeated the wizards only by wielding the Sword of Bheleu, and it had been the 
sword that he used to slay the high priest of Aghad. 


He had given the Sword of Bheleu to the Forgotten King to free himself 
of its power, but now, he decided, the time had come to take it back. He would 
use it to destroy the cult, and then, he told himself, he would return it to 
the King's keeping. He knew that Bheleu would try to reassert his authority, 
try to take over Garth's body and possess him utterly, but he believed that he 
would be able to resist, to direct Bheleu's destructiveness, long enough to do 
what he had to do. The Aghadites had angered the chosen of the god of 
destruction, and they would be destroyed in consequence. Garth would use any 
means needful to make sure of that. 


He obviously no longer needed to waste time on Kyrith's funeral 
arrangements, with her body stolen; he marched north across the market and 
into the King's Inn. 


Behind him, Saram, Frima, and several other people watched him go. When 
he had vanished through the tavern door most of them went on about their 
business, but Saram and Frima followed him. 


At his table in the rear, the Forgotten King sat exactly as he had sat 
when Garth left the inn. The overman made his way across the deserted taproom 
and seated himself, as if he, too, had never departed the place. Saram and 
Frima found seats at a nearby table, but did not intrude or do anything to 
draw Garth's attention. 


The room was silent for a moment. Garth was aware of the two humans 
behind him, but did not care to acknowledge their presence. The King 
acknowledged nothing, merely stared at the table, as he usually did, his eyes 
fixed on the little spot of mismatched wood near the center. The Baron and 
Baroness watched, making no attempt to hide their concern for Garth; they 
watched, but said nothing. 


Finally, Garth spoke, addressing the yellow-robed old man. 


"Greetings, O King," he said. 


The King said nothing. 


"I have come," Garth continued, "to ask that you free me from my oath, 
given three winters back. Return to me the Sword of Bheleu and release me from 
my commitment to aid you; and all will be as it was." 


The old man gave no sign of replying, but Saram burst out, "Garth, have 
you gone mad?" 


"Silence, human," Garth said without turning. "This is not your affair." 


"Garth, that thing will possess you again and drive you mad! You might 
destroy Skelleth again, and that means it is my affair. I cannot allow you to 
take back the sword!" 


"Silence!" Garth bellowed. "Saram, I need that sword to take my 
vengeance upon Kyrith's murderers; their magic protects them from ordinary 
weapons, and I have no other magic available." 


"I cannot allow it," Saram insisted. "Not in my village, not while I am 
Baron." 


Garth turned to face him and said, "I have no intention of staying in 
Skelleth with the sword. Once I have slain whatever Aghadites I may find here, 
I will go to Dsarra to destroy their temple, as I have sworn to do. I may not 



return. If I do return, I will try my best not to bring the sword back with 
me. If I do bring it, rest assured, I will be doing everything I can to keep 
myself free of its control. I do not like the sword, but I need its power. 
Now, be quiet!" 


Saram had half-risen as he protested, and would have stood and argued, 
but Frima was pulling at his embroidered sleeve, urging him to sit down again 
and listen. Reluctantly he yielded and sank back into his chair. 


Garth glared at him for a second, to be sure he was done arguing for the 
present, and then turned back to the Forgotten King. 


"Your pardon, O King. I ask again, let us abandon our agreement, and 
return to me the Sword of Bheleu." 


The old man spoke, without looking at the overman. "No. You must being 
me the Book of Silence." 


Garth hesitated. He could no longer agree and simply hope that he would 
not be asked to deliver; the King had remembered, just minutes earlier, where 
he had left the book, where it might be found and recovered. Garth had hoped 
that by taking back the sword, he might avoid the problem and retain his 
pretense of honor; it now appeared that he was not going to be allowed that 
luxury. 


Now that he took the time to think about it, even through the haze of 
his righteous rage, he realized that he had been ridiculously optimistic. The 
King had no reason to free him of his vow. He cared nothing about whether he 
had the Sword of Bheleu or not; he wanted only to have the Book of Silence. 


No, Garth corrected himself, that was not quite right. The old man's 
greater magic required both the book and the sword, if the overman had 
understood him correctly. That made him even less likely to agree to give up 
both. 


"Let us forget my oath for the present, then," Garth said. "I will not 
ask you to renounce it, but rather will ask simply that you return to me, only 
temporarily if you would prefer it so, the Sword of Bheleu." 


"If you do not renounce your oath, then when will you fulfill it? I have 
told you that I know now where the Book of Silence is." 


Garth struggled to keep his anger under control, not to lash out 
uselessly against the old man. His face was so slack and expressionless with 
rage that he appeared almost half-wilted, like a drunkard or one under the 
influence of narcotic potions. He still held the fragment of his sword; to 
dispel some of the tension in his body, he rammed it down against the table. 
The jagged, broken edge bit into the oaken tabletop, scarring it, but did not 
embed itself as a real blade would. Instead, it turned and skidded across the 
surface, gouging up curls of wood. Garth's wrist was twisted painfully, and 
his sore knuckles scraped as well. 


The pain added to his fury, and he lost control, blurting out the truth. 
"I have no intention of fulfilling my oath, foul deceiver. You extorted my 
agreement, knowing I had no choice. I would rather die in disgrace than aid 
you." 


Behind him, he heard Frima gasp, and Saram draw breath. 


The King lifted his head slightly and murmured, "Your word is not good? 
Your sworn vow means nothing?" 


Feeling cornered, his fury subsiding as he realized his mistake, Garth 
replied, "No." 


"The vow you swore in this place not an hour ago is meaningless?" The 
old man's voice was a low grating that tore at Garth's nerves. 


Rage flowered anew, and Garth said, "I did not say that! I will destroy 
the cult of Aghad." 


"Can one oath be binding and another meaningless, sworn by the same 
tongue?" 


Garth, trapped, said nothing, and a moment of tense silence ensued. 
Saram and Frima dared not speak. 


"Garth," the old man said at last, his voice more nearly normal, but 
with a trace of either sorrow or sarcasm in it, "I regret to hear this. If you 



are not bound by your oath, then I must propose a new bargain. You want the 
Sword of Bheleu so that you may destroy the followers of the god of hatred and 
those responsible for the death of your wife. I want the Book of Silence so 
that I may perform a certain magic that will cause many deaths, my own among 
them. I will not give you the Sword of Bheleu at present, but we both may yet 
have what we want. You want the Aghadites dead. I want to complete a spell 
that will kill them." 


He paused, and Garth said, "What?" 


The King lowered his head again and said nothing. 


"Do you mean that your magic will destroy the cult?" 


The old man nodded. 


"Are you sure?" 


The King shrugged. 


Garth tried to think; it was difficult, for his mind was full of anger 
and confusion. 


It had never occurred to him that the King's final magic might be 
guided, that the King might have some control over who died when it was 
performed. Garth had assumed that the spell would involve conjuring The God 
Whose Name Is Not Spoken into the mortal world and that, thus freed, the god 
would kill all those in the immediate area. 


Perhaps this was not the case at all. Perhaps the god would demand a 
certain number of deaths, but this summoner could choose who would be 
sacrificed in order to banish him again. That seemed to be what the King was 
implying. There was no reason to assume that a god would be limited by 
distance or even by time; weren't gods supposed to be everywhere and nowhere 
all at once? 


He did not trust the King, however. 


Furthermore, there seemed to be something unsatisfying about the 
solution the King proposed. Garth wanted to kill the Aghadites himself, to see 
the color of their blood, to watch them die. 


"I..." he began, then stopped. "I am not sure." 


"Another bargain, then. Bring me the Book of Silence, and I will loan 
you the Sword of Bheleu. I must require it back from you eventually, but I am 
sure you will not object to being freed of the god's control." 


Garth turned that proposal over in his mind and, awash in fury as he 
was, could see nothing wrong with it at first. He would have the Sword of 
Bheleu, and with it he could destroy the cult of Aghad. He dismissed without 
thought the fact that he would be giving himself over to the god of 
destruction rather than simply wielding a weapon; it did not occur to him that 
Bheleu might not be satisfied with killing only Aghadites. 


He did, however, realize that he would be delivering the Book of Silence 
to the Forgotten King, and after planning for three years to avoid that, he 
was reluctant to give in so quickly simply because the King now claimed that 
the other victims of his magic would be Aghadites. 


The old man might be telling the truth; it might be that delivering the 
Book of Silence to him would do no Harm to innocents. Although Garth had been 
fooled in the past by partial truths and things left unsaid, the King had 
never, so far as he knew, told an outright lie. 


This was a matter that deserved more than a moment's thought, but there 
was no time to waste, he felt, in his pursuit of his wife's murderers. 


That pursuit would go nowhere, however, without the Sword of Bheleu. 


If he accepted the King's offer, he would be in possession, at least 
temporarily, of either the sword or the book, and it was his belief that both 
were required for the final magic. If he remained unconvinced of the King's 
intentions, he could always withhold whichever totem he had at the time; after 
all, he was already forsworn, in his heart, and had no more honor to lose by 
such treachery. It would, he thought, be a just repayment for the King's own 
deceptions and manipulations. 


"Yes," he said at last, "I agree. Tell me where I may find the Book of 
Silence, and I will bring it to you." 



"I left it in the royal chapel of my palace in Hastur. That palace is 
now a part of the crypts beneath Ur-Dormulk. Signs and portents will be 
sufficient to lead you to it." Something like glee was in the old man's tone. 


"Will you provide me no further guidance?" 


"You need none." 


Garth found himself growing wary. He was beginning to realize that he 
was again trusting himself to the Forgotten King, again agreeing to perform an 
errand for the old man. Always before, such errands had had unwanted and 
unpleasant results. Even his journey to Orgul, just completed that day, had 
ended in Kyrith's death. 


An idea occurred to him, a strange idea. Always before he had set out 
alone, while the King stayed in Skelleth and awaited his return. Garth had 
been a messenger, a servant. What if the King were to accompany him this time? 
The old man's magic could protect them both from whatever difficulties they 
might encounter; they would travel as equals, rather than Garth's assuming the 
inferior's role again. 


"O King," he said, "will you come with me?" 


Behind him, Saram and Frima stared. The King was silent for a moment 
before replying, "No." 


"Why not?" Garth demanded. "Why must I act on your behalf?" 


"I cannot venture far from Skelleth. My power is centered here." 


The old man's tone was final, but Garth was in no mood to be put off. 
"Why?" he persisted. "Because you have lived here for so long? Is it possible 
that you do not wish to discomfit yourself ?" 


"No," the King said, with perhaps a trace of anger in his voice. 


"Then why? Why did you come to Skelleth in the first place? How did you 
become trapped here? Explain yourself!" 


"This place is the center of power in this time, as Hastur was of old; 
the world's energies have shifted with the ages. I had no choice in my 
dwelling place once I had given up the book and the mask, but was compelled to 
live wherever the power's heart might be. Had I the book once more, I could go 
where I pleased." 


"You left the village once, when I gave you the sword." 


"Only a few leagues, and yet that was near my limit." 


"What would happen to you, then, if you were to leave?" 


"Garth, this is not your concern." 


"What would happen?" the overman insisted. 


"I cannot leave." 


"What if I were to carry you?" 


With apparent reluctance, the King admitted, "I would lose my strength, 
both physical and metaphysical. I would have no more power than a corpse, yet 
I would still live." 


"You mean that you would be unable to work magic?" 


"I would be unable to move or speak or see or breathe; I would be in 
appearance as ancient as I am in truth." 


That explained, of course, why so powerful a being dwelt in this 
miserable border town and needed an ordinary overman to run his errands. For 
that reason, if for no other, Garth was willing to accept the King's 
explanation, at least for the present. He still hoped, however, to have some 
sort of further aid. 


"Then can you give me no protection against the cult's magic?" he asked. 


"No." 


"You might loan me the sword now." That, of course, would be ideal; he 
could then simply renege on his agreement. 


The King did not bother to answer. Garth knew that, quite aside from his 
own present trustworthiness, once he was beyond the King's power it might not 
be Garth but Bheleu who occupied Garth's body; no oath or power would be able 
to restrain the god or bring him back to Skelleth against his will, if the 
King's power were in truth limited to the immediate area. 


"They have powerful magic," he said, as a last resort. 



The King shifted slightly, but said nothing. 


"The image of the god, for example. What am I to do if they attack me 
with such things?" 


"That was a simple messenger image; it could not even speak until 
ordered to." 


"What of the spell that shattered my sword?" 


"A warding spell against metal, useless for any other purpose." 


"The red mist that caused the Aghadite and Kyrith's body to vanish, 
then." 


"A teleportation device taken from a dead wizard; they have few more and 
will not waste them." 


"Surely, though, they have other magic and will not hesitate to use it 
against me. Can you do nothing to protect me?" 


"Have you turned coward, then?" The King lifted his head, and though his 
eyes were still hidden in shadow Garth thought he saw a glint of light. The 
springtime warmth seemed to fade from the air of the tavern, replaced with a 
clammy chill. "Regardless of what magic they may possess, did they not say 
that you would see all those you care for die before your own time came to 
perish? They will not harm you directly, then, until they have carried out 
their threat. Now go! Fetch me the Book of Silence, and trouble me no more 
until you have it!" 


Disconcerted by the King's sudden coldness, Garth nodded and rose to 
depart. Saram and Frima rose as well. The Baron began to speak, to make one 
more attempt at dissuading the overman, but Garth ignored him and stalked out 
into the marketplace, where a thin rain had begun to fall. 


CHAPTER EIGHT 


The eastern gate of the ancient walled city of Ur-Dormulk stood between two 
massive stone towers, set in a gap in the ridge that supported the eastern 
ramparts; the great valves themselves were carved from two immense sheets of 
ebony, bound in the brown-black hide of some extinct monster. There was no 
shining metal or bright paint anywhere on the gate or the somber gray walls to 
either side. The tower walls, Garth saw, were carven from roadbed to 
battlement with spidery runes of a tongue that he had never seen before. 


Some of the runes seemed to have an odd familiarity about them that 
Garth could not explain to himself; he wondered idly what language they 
represented, and what they said. Perhaps they gave a history of the city's 
founding, he thought, or were protective incantations of some kind. 


He was quite sure from the very first that they were not Eramman or 
anything like it. As a child, he had come across other, older languages, all 
dead, and this strange script was none of them. 


Of course, he told himself, Ur-Dormulk was very old. It had stood, much 
as it was now, before Eramma became a nation half a millennium ago. There had 
been plenty of time for the builders' native tongue to die out. 


The whole matter was irrelevant, he told himself. He had an errand to 
perform. Despite the protests of the Baron and Baroness, and the arguments 
Galt had made when he had been informed of the situation, Garth intended to 
find the Book of Silence and return to Skelleth with it. 


He was not completely certain as to exactly what he would do then, save 
that he would somehow pursue his vengeance against Aghad's followers. He was 
not sure whether he would give the Forgotten King the book or whether he would 
take the Sword of Bheleu, but he had not cared to say anything that might 
cause anyone to doubt his intention of honoring his agreement with the King. 


Saram had gone so far in his concern for the overman as to offer to 
accompany him on his journey; Frima had protested, and Garth had turned him 
down. Saram had a barony to run, and could not go haring off on adventures 
without warning. Garth had no commitments, save his vows to fetch the Book of 
Silence and to destroy the cult and temple of Aghad. He did not want to 



involve anyone else in either of these. 


As a compromise of sorts, he had accepted a letter of introduction to 
the overlord of Ur-Dormulk, signed by both Saram and Galt. That had been his 
only concession, and it was a practical one. If he was going to search the 
city looking for signs and portents, he would very much prefer not to have to 
worry about explaining himself to guardsmen or homeowners while doing so. 


His only other delays had been to make a few basic preparations. He had 
left the copper gull at his house, borrowed a sword, and bought a few 
supplies, but had been in Skelleth so briefly that this new journey seemed 
almost a continuation of his trip to Orgul. The mood, however, was very 
different; this was a task of real personal consequence, not the casual lark 
his attempt at dragon-slaying had been. 


Since he intended to introduce himself to the overlord or at least to 
his representatives, he had no need for stealth in entering the city. That was 
just as well, as he saw no easy way to pass the fortifications unseen. Unlike 
Skelleth's ruinous outer wall, these were intact and well maintained, 
extending quite some distance along the ridge top and then turning back 
westward out of sight. 


Seeing no other entrance, he had ridden directly up to the huge gate, 
and now sat for a moment looking up at the black portal and rune-covered 
towers. 


This was the sort of fortress the legends of Ordunin had described 
Skelleth to be, until he had ventured down and discovered for himself how 
greatly the stories had exaggerated. He wondered why he had heard no tales 
describing Ur-Dormulk. 


It didn't matter, he told himself. He was stalling, putting off the 
necessity of announcing himself and having to deal with unfamiliar humans. 


"Ho, the gate!" he bellowed, refusing to delay any longer. 


An answering shout came, much more loudly than he had expected. 


"State your business, overman!" 


He looked, but could not see any face above the parapet, and the echo 
from the towers made it impossible to judge just where the sound had 
originated. 


That, he decided, was probably intentional; the builders of this city 
had done their work well. 


"I come from Skelleth on a personal errand; I bear a message, as well, 
from the Baron of Skelleth to the overlord of Ur-Dormulk!" 


"Dismount and approach," the voice called. "Leave your sword and axe on 
the saddle!" 


Garth realized that the voice was not coming from above, or at least not 
from very far above; the speaker was, therefore, not on the battlements at 
all. The only other place that he could be was in one of the towers, and the 
overman looked at the runes with new interest, noticing how deeply some of the 
symbols had been cut. Somewhere in those shadowy tracings were openings into 
the towers, from which a man could peer out, or shout commands, or perhaps aim 
a crossbow. 


It was a very clever device, he thought; it would be almost impossible 
to find the actual holes amid the myriad lines and curlicues. He would want to 
remember this for later, but for the present he had business to attend to. He 
swung down from the warbeast's back, checked the axe that hung on the saddle, 
then took the scabbarded sword from his belt-a sword he had borrowed from 
Galt, since he had not wanted to take time to have a new one forged after 
shattering his on the Aghadite protective spell, and since human-sized weapons 
were not suited to his grip-and hooked it through one of the straps that held 
the saddle in place. 


He looked questioningly up at the nearer tower, his hand on the sheathed 
dagger that remained on his belt; no command or comment came. The knife was 
apparently not considered a serious threat. He shrugged, lowered his hand, and 
strode toward the gate, the dagger still in its place. 


With a series of rattles and thuds, the bars were removed from the gate, 



and one side of the great portal swung slowly ajar. A guard in a peculiarly 
shaped brass helmet and dull green tunic leaned out through the opening. 


"You have a letter?" he said. The voice was not the one that had called 
from the tower. 


Garth said nothing, but proffered the folded parchment. 


The guardsman took it, looked at the seal, and hesitated. "It looks 
genuine," he said, not to Garth, but addressing someone out of sight behind 
the gate. 


A hand appeared, and the guardsman surrendered the letter. 


A moment later a new voice called, "Let him in." 


The guardsman stepped back and motioned for Garth to enter. The overman 
hesitated. "What of my weapons and my mount?" he asked. 


"Your pardon, my lord, but we prefer to be cautious until we have 
established that you are what you say you are. Your weapons will be brought, 
if you like, and returned to you when your identity is confirmed." 


"I would appreciate that,'." Garth said. "What about Koros?" 


"Your beast? I regret, my lord, that no beasts of burden are welcome in 
the city, for reasons of sanitation and public safety. We maintain a stable 
outside the wall to serve visitors such as yourself." 


Garth was not happy about that. The indomitable warbeast had served him 
well in human cities in the past when, on occasion, things had turned nasty. 
He was, however, on a peaceful errand, one that might well stay peaceful. To 
the best of his knowledge, even if the people of Ur-Dormulk knew that he meant 
to take the Book of Silence, they should have no reason to object; he had been 
told that no one but the Forgotten King could use it and that for anyone else 
even to handle it might well prove fatal-though his own undesired connection 
with Bheleu would be sufficient protection to allow him to transport it. 
Logically, nobody should mind if he were to remove so dangerous an object from 
the city. 


He would just have to hope that nothing went wrong and that no one had 
any unreasonable objections. 


"Do you know anything about handling warbeasts?" he asked the guard, 
certain of what the answer would be. 


"No," the man replied. "I never saw one before." 


Garth nodded; he had assumed that to be the case, since the creatures 
had been invented by the overmen of Kirpa, in the Northern Waste, too late to 
have been used in any number in the Racial Wars. Even three centuries after 
the wars ended, they remained rare and valuable and were almost all owned by 
governments, as being too precious and dangerous to be left in private hands. 
Garth had one of his own only because he had accepted it in lieu of all 
further tribute that, under an ancient agreement, the people of Kirpa had owed 
to him as Prince of Ordunin. 


"What sort of animal do you have in the stable ordinarily?" he asked. 


The guardsman shrugged. "Horses, I suppose, and oxen; I'm no stableboy. 
Yackers, too, I think." 


Garth glanced at Koros, standing motionless on the highway, triangular 
ears flattened back slightly, golden eyes half shut, three-inch fangs gleaming 
dully in the midday sun. The warbeast would have no objection to being 
stabled, but it wouldn't mind staying out in the open, either, as long as the 
good weather that had followed the brief rain held. The other occupants of the 
stable might not care for its presence; the smell of warbeast was not 
recognizable to most animals as that of a predator, due to its magical origin, 
but the sight of one tended to make many beasts understandably nervous. 


More importantly, it was possible that Garth might find himself fleeing 
the city, and in that case he would not want to waste time finding the stable. 
Having the warbeast waiting right at the gate would be far more convenient. 


"I think I'll just leave it where it is," he said. 


The guardsman shrugged. "As you please." 


The voice that had first answered his hail called out, "Did you say 
you're leaving that monster where it is?" 



Garth called back that yes, he had said as much. 


"Would it not be better if you were to move it out of the road?" 


Garth realized that Koros might be a serious obstruction to traffic 
where it was. He bellowed a command, and the warbeast turned and padded off 
the highway. Once well out of the way, it stopped. 


"Is that better?" Garth called. 


The voice replied that it was. 


"Good. Now, if one of you would fetch my sword and axe, as you 
suggested, I trust we may proceed. And might I suggest that you feed my beast 
a goat or a sheep or two; my business may keep me for some time, and I cannot 
speak for its behavior if it becomes hungry. Water, too, would be appreciated. 
I will pay the necessary expenses." 


The guardsman at the gate nodded. "I'll have someone see to it." He 
swung the gate open a few feet farther, allowing Garth past him into a small 
courtyard enclosed by gray stone, its nearer side comprised of the great 
portal and its farther side occupied by another, identical barrier. Half a 
dozen men in green uniforms and brass helmets were scattered about the court; 
one had a golden plume that curled upward from one side of his helmet and was 
holding Garth's letter of introduction. The overman took him to be the officer 
in charge of the squad manning the gates. 


As one of the others trotted down to fetch Garth's weapons, Garth called 
a command to the warbeast so that it would not rip the man apart as it would a 
thief; ordinarily it allowed no one but Garth to touch anything it carried. 
When the soldier had retrieved both sword and axe while evoking nothing more 
than a mild growl of displeasure from Koros, he started back, and Garth 
ventured to ask the officer, "Do you treat all your visitors like this?" 


"No, of course not," the officer replied. 


"What makes me worthy of such special attention, then?" 


The human looked at him uncertainly, as if he suspected that the overman 
might be slightly insane, or perhaps attempting some sort of bizarre humor. 


"We get very few armored overmen arriving unannounced, riding monstrous 
giant cats and asking to see the overlord," he said. 


"Ah." Garth had to agree that the man had a point. "It's a warbeast, 
only partly a cat, despite its appearance. See the long legs? And I did not 
ask to see the overlord, but said merely that I carried a letter intended for 
him." 


"Perhaps I misunderstood, then; would you prefer to wait here while I 
deliver the letter?" 


Garth considered very briefly. "No," he said, after only a slight 
hesitation, "I would like to speak with him, if I may." Dealing with the head 
of state directly was bound to be more efficient than working with underlings. 


"I think he may well wish to speak with you, as well. We see very few 
overmen here." The officer ventured a small smile. 


The soldier bearing Garth's sword and axe had returned to the courtyard, 
and the other guardsmen were pushing the gate closed. Garth watched with 
casual interest, noticing from the corner of his eye that the man carrying his 
weapons was making a concerted effort to stay as far away from the weapons' 
owner as the small area between the gates allowed. 


When the portal was closed and a half a dozen bars and locks were back 
in place, the inner gates were opened by men on the other side; to Garth's 
surprise, they opened away from the city, into the court where he waited. That 
was not the usual custom. 


The officer gestured, and Garth found himself neatly surrounded, two 
soldiers before him, one on either side, and two behind, while the officer led 
the way and the weapons-bearer brought up the rear, several paces back. Garth 
had not realized there were as many as eight humans in the group; he wondered 
if more had joined them from the towers or behind the inner gate, or whether 
he simply hadn't been paying close attention. 


At a command from the officer, the little party marched forward; Garth 
cooperated, marching with them. His exact status here was unclear, perhaps 



intentionally; the men marched with hands on their weapons, but swords stayed 
sheathed, and the lances borne by the pair behind him were shouldered. He was 
not chained or hobbled, but he was disarmed. If he was a prisoner, then he was 
being treated with courtesy and a lack of caution; if he was a guest, he was 
being treated with great suspicion. The escort could be considered either an 
honor guard or a party of jailers with equal reason. 


This uncertainty, he decided, accurately reflected the guards' attitude; 
he had committed no crime, and claimed to be a person of some significance, 
but they had seen no proof of his good intentions. They were not eager either 
to trust him or to offend him beyond what prudence demanded. 


He was not particularly troubled by this. The thought did slip into his 
mind that, had he carried the Sword of Bheleu on this trip, he would have 
taken umbrage at such treatment and massacred the lot of them. 


His first sight of the city of Ur-Dormulk distracted him from questions 
of protocol or concern over proper behavior. He had expected the inner gate to 
open onto a street of packed earth or mud, lined with houses of stone, wood, 
and plaster, such as he had seen in other human habitations; or, if not onto a 
street, then perhaps into a market square. Skelleth had been built of 
fieldstone and half-timbered plaster; the buildings of Mormoreth had been 
faced with white marble; Dsarra was a jumble of gleaming black stone and more 
humble structures. 


Ur-Dormulk was built of granite, and rather than on a street, he found 
himself at the top of a long staircase, easily half a hundred steps, whence he 
looked out at an array of towers and turrets. Crags of bare rock thrust up in 
the distance, reminding him that he was in the foothills of the western 
mountains. 


He had noticed from without that the ramparts stood atop a ridge, and 
that the gate was set into the top of that ridge, so he had expected to find 
the city inside sloping downward from the heights; he had not expected to find 
the drop so sharp that steps were necessary, or so long that only the higher 
towers reached above eye level. 


He had known that there were stone towers, and had even glimpsed them 
from a distance; he had known that they were old and weathered and strange, 
but now he could see that they were more bizarre than he had realized. The 
towers were not merely pitted and dull, but worn down to near shapelessness; 
not a single sharp corner remained anywhere in sight. Flat-topped or spired, 
each of the tall buildings seemed more like a rough mound than anything 
structured by man-save that they stood as much as a hundred feet above the 
city streets. Some were almost indistinguishable from the weathered humps of 
rock with which nature had ornamented the city. 


Those outcroppings struck Garth as being slightly eerie, rising up in 
naked splendor throughout Ur-Dormulk, differing from the towers only because 
they were larger, windowless, and slightly more irregular. They seemed to form 
a rough line, beyond which he could see nothing of the city; he wondered if 
they formed part of its western perimeter and if they had been incorporated 
into the defenses as the ridge had been used in the east. 


A cool, damp breeze brushed his face, and he blinked; then the soldiers 
were escorting him down the steps, and he was too concerned with his footing 
to look at the city further. The steps themselves were badly worn, polished by 
the passage of thousands, perhaps millions, of feet; the central portion had 
been smoothed down until it was almost a ramp, so that his guards directed him 
to one side, where the steps, though gleaming smooth and worn far below their 
original level, still had enough of an edge separating one from the next to 
make them more readily negotiable than the sheer slope. 


When he was reasonably sure that he was not going to slip and tumble 
down the remaining length of the stair, he lifted his gaze from his own feet 
to the foot of the steps. They ended in a broad plaza, paved with the same 
gray stone that seemed to make up the entire city and as level as the plains 
of Skelleth. He was certain that that level surface was not natural, so close 
to the steep ridge. 



He had at first been certain, also, that the gray stone was granite, a 
familiar substance in his homeland, but doubts began to creep in. Granite was 
a very hard stone, difficult to work, heavy and brittle-and it did not erode 
easily. He glanced at the steps again. There was an old granite wall in 
Ordunin, not far from his home, that had been erected when he was young, a 
century before; the edge that ran along its top was still sharp enough to cut 
an overman's finger. These steps, assuming that they had originally been level 
all the way across, had worn down a good eight inches in the center. If the 
stone were in truth granite, and had been eroded only by foot traffic, then 
its age must be incomprehensible. 


The stone, he decided, must be something else, some substance that 
mocked granite in appearance, but which was far softer. Or perhaps water 
drained down the steps and had cut them away-though the fact that the wear was 
so broad argued against that, since water ordinarily cut a single channel, not 
a wide, uneven swath. 


It didn't matter, he told himself. 


He reached the bottom and looked around with interest. The plaza at the 
foot, though paved with this seeming granite, was worn down as well, with 
paths sunk inches deep into the stone showing where the merchants set up their 
booths on market day, where the traffic was heaviest, and what were the most 
popular routes across the square. The streets that led off in various 
directions were likewise paved and level, and likewise worn. Narrow parallel 
troughs indicated where carts had passed over the centuries, and broader 
depressions revealed where pedestrians walked. There were no gutters visible 
anywhere, save for these signs of wear, and no bare earth, and Garth realized 
why animal traffic was forbidden. Such streets would need careful cleaning; 
there was no natural drainage, since none of the streets sloped at all, and 
what drainage the paths provided would carry sewage directly to those areas 
that enjoyed the heaviest traffic and, therefore, the deepest wear. It struck 
him as odd that a city in the foothills should be so flat, save for the single 
ridge and the distant outcroppings. It was obviously contrived, and probably 
at great expense. He wondered why the builders had thought it worthwhile. 


He wondered also, for perhaps a second, what pulled the wagons that had 
cut the parallel grooves he had noticed, but that question was answered by the 
sight of a young man pulling a small, two-wheeled cart, balanced on a single 
axle for ease in hauling. 


The buildings that surrounded the plaza were all of the gray stone, 
ancient and worn. Most stood three or four stories in height, but were 
weathered into rounded, moundlike shapes, all corners erased by time. Any 
surface ornamentation that might once have existed had vanished long ago; only 
the size and location of doors and windows served to distinguish one from 
another. 


He noticed that here and there gaps were visible, as if something had 
fallen away; here a door lintel was sunk back from the facade, there a few 
dark holes were arranged above a window. He realized that these must be where 
substances other than the gray rock had weathered away completely, and guessed 
that iron fittings had succumbed to rust-though if so, then it must have been 
a very long time ago, for all trace of rust had washed away. 


The stone walls, he saw, were incredibly thick. They would have to be, 
to weather so badly and still stand strong. 


The entire city gave the impression of something indescribably ancient, 
something that had stood so long that it had been accepted by the earth as 
part of itself, rather than being a mortal creation erected thereon. 


The people of Ur-Dormulk gave no such impression; in contrast to their 
city, they wore gay silks and embroidered velvets in ornate and fantastical 
outfits. Garth saw no ordinary homespun anywhere; even the lowliest 
cart-hauler's garb was brightly dyed and embellished with colored threads. 
Red, green, blue, and purple-the streets were aswirl in color wherever the 
people of Ur-Dormulk went abroad. 


There were no great crowds, but neither were the streets empty; 



strollers dawdled along, while others hurried about their business. Many 
glanced at the overman curiously, but none stopped to stare, and no one 
ventured too near the forbidding cluster of soldiery. 


One figure, wearing a drooping hat and flowing tunic and cape all the 
color of dried blood, seemed to look at him for longer than most, and Garth 
was reminded very strongly of the magically protected Aghadite he had fought 
so futilely in Skelleth. He wondered whether the cult was active in 
Ur-Dormulk, whether it was an open, tolerated religion here or a secret 
society working underground. 


He had not been molested by the sect since the incident in the market 
that had cost him his own sword, and his anger had therefore had a chance to 
cool slightly, but now it flared up again. He resolved that he would see that 
person who stared at him so insolently gutted by the Sword of Bheleu. 


He turned his head to follow the red-garbed human out of sight and found 
himself looking at the profile of the soldier to his left. That reminded him 
where he was, and he fought down his ire. The human might not be an Aghadite, 
he told himself; the color might be coincidence, the gaze simple curiosity. 


Or perhaps, his reasonable self had to admit, it was indeed an Aghadite 
agent, sent to watch him, or to taunt him with his or her presence-he was not 
certain of the creature's sex beneath the loose robe and overhanging hat. If 
it were an agent, then Garth had been meant to see him or her; why else would 
he or she wear the cult's color so ostentatiously? 


This assumed, of course, that the cult had known he was coming to 
Ur-Dormulk, and it was not at all clear how they could have known. It would 
have required either magic or the presence of spies in Skelleth and some way 
of sending messages faster than Koros traveled. 


The cultists did have magic, of course; he knew that well. He knew also 
that they had not given up their plans of vengeance, however quiet they might 
have been during his preparations and journey. The figure in red might indeed 
have been an Aghadite. The overman would need to be very careful, here in a 
strange city. 


His escort was conducting him up the widest and straightest of the 
streets that led westward from the market, and they were almost at the palace 
before Garth noticed that no one wore yellow. Every other color was 
represented, it seemed, but nowhere was there cloth-of-gold or yellow silk, no 
amber or straw, saffron or chrome. White and beige were in evidence, and he 
glimpsed copper or orange occasionally, but no hue that could truly be called 
yellow. 


That struck him as very curious indeed. A tradition, he guessed, dating 
from some ancient respect for the King in Yellow. 


The party of soldiers, with the overman in their midst, arrived at the 
steps of the palace that closed off the end of the avenue and marched without 
hesitation up them. Great doors sheathed in some metal blackened with age 
blocked their way; Garth wondered whether the covering might be silver. Flecks 
of gold clung to the upper portion, forming broken curves, as if a symbol had 
once been traced there but had worn away, until only these scant traces 
remained. 


The doors opened as they approached, and Garth was led into an ornate 
tapestried hall. Two men and a woman, wearing vivid red robes, met the party 
there. As two of the soldiers closed the huge doors, the woman gestured toward 
a row of stone benches. "Make yourselves comfortable," she said. "We will 
announce you, and inform you of the prince's pleasure." 


The officer nodded to his men; the six who had ringed the overman found 
themselves places and sat. After a moment's hesitation, Garth joined them, 
taking a bench to himself, with three soldiers to either side on adjoining 
benches. The weapons-carrier remained standing, moving to the far side of the 
room, where he chatted with one of the red-clad men too quietly for Garth to 
hear. 


The officer and the other red-garbed man walked off through the arch at 
the inner end of the hall, into the interior of the palace. The woman stood 



off to one side. 


After a moment, noticing Garth glancing about impatiently, she remarked, 
"The wait may be quite long, my lord; would you care for food or drink?" 


Garth shook his head and sat there in silence. 


CHAPTER NINE 


Allowing for the slow passage of time when one was bored, Garth estimated that 
he waited half an hour in the antechamber before the officer returned, Garth's 
letter of introduction in his hand and the red-robed man at his heel. 


He gave the overman the letter and announced, "Follow me; three guards. 
Bring the weapons." 


Garth rose; after a few seconds of debate over who would go, so did 
three of the soldiers. They formed a cross, the overman in the center, a 
soldier on each side for the crosspiece, and the third behind, followed by the 
swordbearer, while the officer and the red-clad courtier led the way. 


From the antechamber, which was gray stone hung with faded tapestries, 
they entered a long gallery of black and white marble, the floor made up of 
black and white diamonds of marble, the walls alternating white marble pillars 
with gold-veined, black marble slabs. Their footsteps echoed from the bare 
stone. Garth was impressed with the architecture. 


An open door gleaming golden at the far end led into the overlord's 
audience chamber, a vast hall clouded with incense and decorated in gold and 
red. Lines of soldiery stood to either side, their dull green uniforms and 
brass helmets identical to those of Garth's escort. Two dozen courtiers stood 
casually at the foot of the dais; about half wore the brilliant red of the 
palace staff, while the rest were as variegated in their clothing as the 
people on the streets-more so, in truth, for one tall, red-haired woman wore a 
yellow gown beneath a knee-length, sleeveless vest of red velvet. She appeared 
to be staring at Garth with a strange intensity while she clung to the arm of 
an elderly man in blue; though it was only natural for the overman to be the 
center of attention, her gaze seemed unusually fixed. 


The overlord himself wore black, glossy black velvet, unadorned save for 
a circlet of gold set with glittering gems that shone on his brow. He sat upon 
an immense throne of red plush and gold, raised up on a red-carpeted platform 
three feet high, at the top of a flight of six golden steps. He was a man in 
middle age, heavy but not really fat, with pale skin and dark brown hair that 
flowed down well past his shoulders. He wore a curious ring of carved and 
cracking wood on the fourth finger of his left hand. His face was broad, his 
eyes dark. 


As Garth approached the dais, the officer stepped off to the right, the 
courtier to the left; the overman stopped at the foot of the steps and bowed 
politely. 


There was a murmur and a moment of awkward silence; Garth suspected, too 
late, that some further form of abasement was customary. 


A red-clad courtier stepped forward from somewhere and announced, 
"Behold, O supplicant, Hildarad, seventh of that name, Prince of Alar, Lord 
Dormulk, Master of the City, Conqueror of Hastur, supreme in Aldebaran and the 
Hyades! Speak, then, if you dare!" 


Garth wondered what Aldebaran and the Hyades might be, and where Alar 
was, as he replied, "I am Garth, Prince of Ordunin, Lord of the Overmen of the 
Northern Waste. I come with a letter of introduction from Saram, Baron of 
Skelleth, to ask a favor of you, O Prince." He had almost addressed the 
overlord as "overlord," but caught himself at the last moment; the title of 
prince was more prestigious, and therefore more courteous. He had no idea if 
the overlord actually had a legitimate claim to it, but he did not care to 
risk any insult. 


The overlord shifted slightly on his throne and said, in a 
conversational tone, "I have glanced through this letter you bring. My lord of 



Skelleth asks me to accept you as minister without portfolio in his government 
and to treat you with all respect due himself. If you are in truth Prince of 
Ordunin-and I do not question it-that might seem little favor, to give you the 
courtesy due a baron, yet the relationship between my own domain and the 
Baroney of Skelleth is most exceptionally warm, and I think that is what he 
had in mind. Therefore, I invite you to ask your favor, knowing that I look 
upon you as a good friend and ally." 


"Thank you, O Prince," Garth replied. "I am seeking a book, an arcane 
volume known as the Book of Silence. I am told that it lies in or beneath 
Ur-Dormulk, most probably in what was the royal chapel of an ancient palace." 


He had meant to continue with a few meaningless courtesies and then ask 
for assistance in locating the book, but he was distracted by the expressions 
on the faces of two of the overlord's courtiers. The woman in the yellow gown 
had turned pale, her face as bloodless and white as bleached wool; beside her, 
the blue-clad man's mouth was open, his eyes wide, his broad face flushed. 


The overlord, looking at Garth and not to the side, did not notice. He 
remarked casually, "The Book of Silence? An odd name; is not a book meant to 
speak to its readers? I have never heard of it; my tax collectors will be 
grieved to learn that there is something of value within the walls that they 
had not discovered for me." He smiled at his jest, and Garth smiled in return; 
some of the courtiers chuckled politely. 


The two who obviously had heard of the Book of Silence managed to 
compose themselves while their lord was speaking, Garth noticed, though the 
woman remained pale and unsteady. He wondered who they were. He was slightly 
disappointed that the overlord seemed unable to tell him where to find the 
book, but it looked as if this pair might be of help. 


Serious again, the overlord asked, "Is this book some sort of grimoire 
or book of spells?" 


"I don't know," Garth admitted. "I seek it on behalf of a wizard of my 
acquaintance, who has told me that he requires it to perform certain magics I 
wish him to perform." That was not quite the truth, but it was close enough to 
serve. 


"And was it this wizard who told you the book was in Ur-Dormulk?" 


"Yes," Garth replied. "He told me that it lay in an ancient chapel, or 
perhaps the ruins of one." 


"I know of no such chapel, and this palace is the only one that has 
stood in this city in all its recorded history." 


Garth shrugged. "I have said what I was told." 


"This is all strange to me, and I fear I can be of little assistance. Is 
there any other way in which I might aid you?" 


A trace of color was returning to the woman's face, Garth saw, and the 
man beside her had wholly recovered, pretending that nothing untoward had 
happened. Those two, Garth decided, were definitely worthy of investigation. 
He found himself thinking that there was something familiar about them, but 
dismissed it as overactive imagination. 


That could wait, however. He had another concern he wanted to mention to 
the overlord, and another audience might not be easy to obtain, despite the 
man's expressed goodwill. 


"O Prince," he said, "forgive my ignorance of your city, but is the cult 
of Aghad active in Ur-Dormulk?" 


The overlord appeared momentarily startled. "Aghad? The Ds god of 
hatred? There is a temple to him here, certainly, and it has, I suppose, its 
complement of priests and devotees. We of Ur-Dormulk pride ourselves upon the 
toleration of all faiths-or at least all save the most repulsive. The dark 
gods and their followers may be distasteful, but we permit them to remain and 
worship as they please, so long as they do not disturb the peace. One or two 
have, in truth, been banished for practicing human sacrifice, but to date, the 
Aghadites have behaved themselves. Why do you ask?" 


"I have a personal interest in the cult of Aghad, O Prince. Its 
followers murdered my wife." 



Garth's tone was flat and dull; the humans probably took it for the 
emptiness of grief rather than the seething anger it was. A few of the 
courtiers made vague, sympathetic murmurs. 


The overlord was slow in replying. "I am sorry to hear of this," he said 
at last. "Why do you mention it? What would you have of me?" 


"O Prince, I am sworn to destroy those who slew my wife, yet I do not 
wish to trouble your domain. The Baron of Skelleth, the people of Skelleth, 
and I would esteem it a very great favor if you were to expel the followers of 
Aghad from Ur-Dormulk, so that they might be removed from your protection." 
That seemed the most he could reasonably ask. He would have preferred to 
demand that the overlord send his soldiers immediately to burn the temple and 
kill its priests. 


"I am reluctant," the overlord admitted. "It goes against the traditions 
of the city to banish any faith that has not directly harmed my subjects." He 
paused, then continued. "I will take what you ask for under advisement; I am 
well aware that it is to our benefit to respect Skelleth's wishes, yet this 
request is unprecedented. If you could identify any person who had a direct 
role in your wife's death, I might have him arrested and sent to Skelleth for 
trial-but to exile the entire sect! You ask much, and I must consider well 
before making my decision." 


Garth bowed in polite acknowledgment. He had both feared and hoped that 
the overlord would refuse him. He was already planning a venture of his own 
into the temple. He knew, rationally, that to destroy the temple himself would 
antagonize both the overlord of Ur-Dormulk and the Baron of Skelleth and would 
make his life less pleasant all around. Emotionally, however, the prospect of 
wreaking havoc was very appealing indeed. 


"Is there anything else, overman?" 


"If I may, O Prince, I would like to consult with some of your advisers 
regarding the possible location of the Book of Silence, if there are any who 
might have knowledge of it." 


The overlord raised a hand and gestured. "I have here with me two most 
excellent wizards; if this book is indeed magical, they might be of some 
assistance." He indicated the woman in yellow and the man in blue. "This is 
Chalkara of Kholis, Court Wizard to the High King at Kholis, retired recently 
and come here upon leaving the King's service; and Shandiph the Wanderer, a 
magician of some note and a native of Ur-Dormulk, returned home to join my 
court. There is also," he said as he turned and indicated an old woman in 
somber brown and burgundy velvet, "my court archivist, Silda; she knows more 
about this city than any other living person. They will accompany you to the 
Rose Chamber, where you may speak in comfort. Now, if you will forgive me, 
there is other business I must attend to." 


Garth nodded. He had suspected that the pair might be magicians or seers 
of some sort and had hoped that the overlord would answer as he had. Only one 
more point remained to be mentioned before the end of the audience. 


"O Prince, I thank you for your consideration; if I might trouble you 
Just a moment longer, however, there is a detail..." 


"What is it?" The overlord was becoming impatient and trying 
unsuccessfully to hide it. 


"My sword." Garth pointed at the soldier who carried his weapons. "Will 
it be returned to me?" 


"Yes, of course." The overlord waved a hand in dismissal. "When you 
leave the palace, your weapons will be returned." He gestured at the officer 
who had escorted Garth. "See to it." 


"Thank you, O Prince. May your reign be long and prosperous," Garth 
said. He bowed, retreated a few steps, and looked about. 


A red-clad courtier stood ready to guide him; wary and unsmiling, the 
three advisers stepped from their places at the dais and joined him. 


The party made its way out of the incense-filled audience chamber 
through a side door, then down a long paneled corridor that seemed chill and 
empty by contrast, and finally into a small room that opened off to the right. 



The walls of this room were lined with rose-colored velvet, and the 
floor was an elaborate rosewood inlay; chairs of rosewood and velvet were 
gathered around an ebony table that held a vase of fresh-cut white roses. 


This was obviously the Rose Chamber, and Garth settled cautiously into 
one of the chairs, uncertain at first that it would support his weight. 
Shandiph took the place opposite the overman, while Chalkara seated herself on 
Garth's right and Silda on his left, so that each occupied a different side of 
the table. 


The red-clad guide pulled the two superfluous chairs off to one side, 
out of the way of extended legs or stretching arms, and then vanished 
discreetly. 


For a moment of awkward silence, the four studied one another. Garth 
noticed that Silda seemed, if anything, slightly bored, but the two magicians 
were obviously nervous and ill at ease. Chalkara appeared almost desperate, he 
thought, while Shandiph, fumbling with something small and shiny, was only 
marginally calmer. 


He wondered what had so upset them. 


When the silence had dragged on uncomfortably long, Garth said at last, 
"I saw your faces." He was turned somewhat to the right, leaving the archivist 
out for the moment. "You two have heard of the Book of Silence." 


The two wizards glanced at each other, then back at the overman. 


"We have heard of it," Shandiph admitted. 


"You seem reluctant to speak of it," the overman remarked. 


After a moment's hesitation, Shandiph nodded without answering. 


"Why?" Garth asked. 


Again the two looked at each other before replying. 


"Do you think we should explain?" Chalkara asked. 


Shandiph nodded slowly. "I fear we must." 


Chalkara turned away and studied the velvet walls. "You do it," she 
said. 


Garth glanced at Silda; she looked very confused and was obviously not a 
party to whatever conspiracy was afoot. 


"To begin with," Shandiph said, "we have met before, Garth of Ordunin, 
something over two years ago." 


Garth gazed with new interest at the wizards' faces; that explained why 
he had thought they might be familiar. He had encountered various wizards in 
various ways, but he was fairly sure where he had met these two. They had 
almost certainly been among the group of fifteen or twenty that had attacked 
him, appearing out of thin air in the hills north of Skelleth. The Sword of 
Bheleu had turned back their every assault and retaliated; Garth had seen that 
several had been killed before the Forgotten King had stepped in and ended the 
battle by magically transporting the wizards to their respective homes. That 
was the battle that had driven him to swear his false oath; he was hardly 
likely to forget it, but in the red haze of the sword's power and the flare 
and shadow of spell and counterspell, he had not seen clearly the faces of all 
the wizards. 


"I believe I recall the incident," he said. 


"I thought you might," Shandiph said. "I hope you bear us no ill will 
for our attempts to kill you; it seemed at the time to be the only way in 
which untold destruction might be averted." 


"I have wondered, since then, who you might be, why you chose the time 
you did to attack me, and why you made no further attempts after your initial 
defeat," Garth said in a tone of polite curiosity. 


Shandiph glanced at Chalkara, then replied, "As for who we were, it 
doesn't matter any more; our organization was destroyed. The survivors of our 
conflict with you were scattered, and the wars that followed prevented all 
attempts to regroup from succeeding. We had attacked you in hopes of halting 
the onset of the Age of Destruction, which was heralded by your acquisition of 
the Sword of Bheleu. We made no further attempts after our initial failure 
because there was no reason to, even had our organization remained intact; you 



no longer had the sword, and it was obvious that, whatever your part in it 
might have been, the Age of Destruction had already begun. Eramma was 
destroyed by civil war." 


Garth nodded, though he thought to himself that the destruction hadn't 
been very complete. 


"Chalkara and I fled here, hoping that Ur-Dormulk, which has lasted so 
long with so little change, would remain safe. We had not expected to see you 
again. Your arrival was something of a shock-most particularly when you 
professed to be seeking the Book of Silence." 


"And that," Garth said, "brings us back to the original question. What 
do you know of the Book of Silence?" 


"Little enough. What do you know of it? Why do you seek it?" 


Garth shrugged. "I agreed to fetch it for an acquaintance of mine. I 
assume it's a book of magic of some sort." He saw no reason to give any 
unnecessary details, but he could scarcely claim complete ignorance. 


Chalkara asked, "Who is this acquaintance?" 


"A wizard, of sorts," Garth replied. 


"The wizard who took the Sword of Bheleu from you after the battle?" she 
persisted. 


Reluctantly, Garth admitted, "Yes." 


The yellow-gowned wizard exchanged glances with her companion. 


The archivist broke her long silence and remarked in a slightly 
querulous tone, "I wish I knew what you three were talking about. What battle 
was this? Who is this wizard, and what is the Sword of Bheleu?" 


Shandiph held up a hand. "Patience, Silda. Let us speak a moment longer, 
and I will explain it all to you when I can." He paused, and the woman settled 
back into her silent discontent. 


When he was fairly sure that Silda would not make any further protest, 
Shandiph went on. "Garth, this wizard-the one we saw two and a half years ago. 
Is he the King in Yellow?" 


Silda gasped. "The King in Yellow?" she blurted. 


"Silda," Shandiph said. "Please!" 


The archivist stifled another outburst. When order was restored, 
Shandiph repeated, "Is he the King in Yellow, Garth?" 


The overman shrugged. "He's an old man who lives in Skelleth. He told me 
his name once, but I've forgotten it; it was hard to pronounce." 


A glance around the table made it plain that both women were now 
struggling to keep from shouting at him. Shandiph sighed. "I wish you were 
more cooperative, Garth." 


"My apologies, wizard, but I am not here at your convenience, to be 
interrogated as you see fit. You are here to answer my questions, are you not? 
That was the overlord's instruction." 


"I know that. I'm sorry. This is very important, though, and very 
dangerous." 


"Why?" 


"Because of what the Book of Silence is, damn it!" 


"Perhaps if you were to tell me what you believe it to be, we would both 
gain," Garth replied. This verbal sparring, each side trying to get the most 
information in exchange for its own, was beginning to annoy him, yet he was 
not about to end it by telling all he knew. Were he to do so, the wizards 
would have no reason to reveal their own secrets. 


"It's death," Shandiph told him. "It's the end of everything." 


One expression that was the same in both species was that of skepticism, 
and Garth looked openly skeptical. 


"It's the totem of death," Shandiph insisted. "You know that the gods 
each have their unique devices; you must know it. You were the chosen of 
Bheleu. the one who bore his totem, who was to be his mortal incarnation." 


Garth gave a noncommittal nod. "Go on," he said. 


"I am no theurgist, no expert on dealing with the gods, but an old 
friend of mine was; he died in the hills outside Skelleth. He had no 



protective spells that could defend him against the Sword of Bheleu, though he 
knew what it was. He explained it to me, and I have studied further since 
then. Each of the greater gods has a period of ascendancy, an age in which the 
balance of power is tilted in his favor, and those things that please him are 
prevalent in our own mortal realm. Each of these ages has its particular 
herald, someone who wields the totem of the dominant god or goddess. When an 
age ends, the servants of the waning deity perform a service for the 
representative of the ruler of the new age, as a symbol of the shift in power. 
We are now in the Fourteenth Age, the Age of Bheleu, god of destruction, as 
you know only too well; you are Bheleu's chosen representative, though you 
have, with the aid of a power I do not pretend to understand, refused that 
role. I am not aware of the circumstances, but according to theory, a 
representative of P'hul must have done you a service of some sort, to mark the 
beginning of this era and the end of the Thirteenth Age, ruled by P'hul, 
goddess of decay." 


Garth nodded. The cult of P'hul had, in fact, spread the White Death in 
Dsarra when he had asked, in a fit of madness, for the city's destruction. 


"Now, you see, the King in Yellow is the undying priest of The God Whose 
Name Is Not Spoken. It is a safe assumption that he will be the chosen avatar 
for the Final God when the Age of Death arrives. That means two things: he 
must have the totem of the god of death, and a representative of Bheleu must 
perform a symbolic service for him. Do you not see, then, why we cannot permit 
you-you in particular-to deliver the Book of Silence to the King in Yellow?" 


Garth remained skeptical. "It has been scarcely three years since the 
Thirteenth Age ended; that is hardly an age." 


"No rule is known that limits the length of each god's age, either 
maximum or minimum. Perhaps your refusal to accept your role, welcome though 
it is, has cut short the Age of Bheleu." 


"Why are you so certain that I wish to take the book to the King in 
Yellow?" 


"I saw that old man who took the sword, Garth, and felt something of his 
power. Who else could it be?" 


Chalkara made a suggestion. "You do not trust us, Garth, but Silda, 
here, has heard of the King; let her describe him, and we will let you decide 
whether it is he you serve." 


Garth was quite well aware that the Forgotten King was also known as the 
King in Yellow and that he was exactly what the wizards said he was, but the 
overman found himself wondering what the archivist knew. He would welcome any 
new information that might help in his dealings with the old man. 


"Speak, then, archivist," he said. 


Silda looked at each of the three in turn, then said in a precise voice, 
"The King in Yellow is a legend in the most ancient histories of Ur-Dormulk. I 
know of no connection between him and any deity, nor of any connection with a 
book, or with overmen, or anything else you have spoken of, save only 
destruction and death. He once ruled an empire from this city, long ago, when 
it bore another name; one version called it Hastur, another Carcosa. His 
origins have never been explained; in the very earliest records and even 
earlier myths, his presence is accepted as an ongoing thing since time 
immemorial. The legends are all vague as to who or what he was-many seem to 
assume that any reader will already know-but it is clear that he could not 
die, and that he was an object of terror throughout the world as these 
historians knew it. His visage was said to hold death or madness for all who 
met his gaze. 


"Although he was once a king in fact, and a king whom emperors served, 
he gave up his throne to a successor who founded the ancient Imperial dynasty 
that the founders of the present Ur-Dormulk overthrew centuries later-yet it 
was said that in time the King would return and reclaim his rightful place, 
and when he did, the stars would fall and the earth shatter. He disdained all 
trappings of royalty and went about the world in scalloped tatters that were a 
strange shade of yellow-hence the name, the King in Yellow. His servants wore 



black. This is said to be why the lords of Ur-Dormulk wear black and the 
people of the city shun all shades of yellow." 


Silda paused and shook her head. Chalkara glanced down at her yellow 
dress, and Garth was uncomfortably aware of his custom of wearing black armor. 


Silda continued. "Such a bare recounting of the facts known to me does 
not convey the essence of what I have read and heard concerning him. 
Throughout all the city's recorded history, from times so ancient that we 
cannot interpret the dates and on until the chaos of the Twelfth Age, the 
shadow of the King hangs like smoke. In every account of tragedy he is 
mentioned, and in descriptions of more pleasant times there is always an air 
of foreboding associated with him. In the wars of the Age of Aghad, the city 
was sufficiently disrupted so that the continuity was lost and the myths 
forgotten among the public. But there can be no doubt that, before that age, 
the tales of the King had persisted, at least among the learned, for more than 
ten thousand years. This, despite the fact that no historian or storyteller 
ever dared set down anything but veiled hints as to his true nature. I had 
thought that no one now alive had ever heard of him, save myself; that only in 
the ancient books and scrolls was he mentioned-books and scrolls that no one 
but me has read in three centuries or more. To hear you three speak of him as 
if he were alive today, as if you had seen him..." 


"I have seen him," Shandiph said. 


"He has been lost for more than a thousand years!" 


"You said yourself that he could not die," Chalkara pointed out. 


Garth said nothing. He was mulling over what he had heard. 


He had thought of the Forgotten King's life span in terms of centuries, 
not millennia. He could not conceive of anything existing for eleven thousand 
years. He could not truly conceive of living even one thousand years. That 
would be seven times his own lifetime, roughly; eleven thousand years would be 
his years seventy-sevenfold. His species itself had not existed for much over 
a millennium. 


For the first time he honestly thought he understood why the King wanted 
to die. The weight of so many years was surely more than any mind could bear. 


He had known that the King had a sinister reputation among any who knew 
of him at all; Garth had attributed this to his position as the high priest of 
death, but here there seemed to be something more. Why were the city's 
histories silent on the exact nature of the King's menace? Why was it said 
that the heavens would fall if he returned? 


Would delivering the Book of Silence truly begin an Age of Death? If so, 
what would that mean? 


That, at least, was a question he might ask. "What would an Age of Death 
entail?" he inquired. 


"Widespread death, obviously," Shandiph replied. "Just as the current 
age is one of war and chaos and destruction, and the last was a time of 
stagnation and decay." 


"And after it, what?" 


Shandiph shrugged. "Who knows? Perhaps nothing will survive the Age of 
Death, not even the earth or the gods themselves. Perhaps humanity will be 
destroyed but the rest of the world will go on, and your people will begin a 
new cycle of their own. Perhaps death will be limited, and many, even whole 
nations, will survive, and the lesser gods will have their turns as the rulers 
of the ages. I don't know. I do know that an Age of Death is not something I 
want to see." 


Garth considered these possibilities, particularly the first and most 
horrific. 


What if nothing were to survive the Age of Death? The world itself 
vanished, and the gods dead; would not even time itself cease to be? The end 
of time would be an actual fact, not just a poetical turn of phrase. 


He recalled, with a growing apprehension, that when he had bargained 
with the King for eternal fame, the King had sworn that Garth's name would be 
known "as long as there is life upon this earth." When the King had offered 



him immortality-or so he had understood the offer-the old man had said that 
Garth might live until "the end of time" if he aided the King's magic. The 
King had said that his magic would cause many deaths, including those of the 
entire cult of Aghad. And perhaps most important of all, the priest of The God 
Whose Name Is Not Spoken in Dsarra had told Garth that the Forgotten King was 
bound to live until the end of time. The King sought to perform a feat that 
would allow him to die. 


It appeared very much as if the Forgotten King meant to bring about the 
end of time and the death of everything. He had meant to assure that Garth 
might live and be known until the end of time, not by extending the overman's 
life, but by destroying the world and time itself. 


CHAPTER TEN 


After a moment of silence in which Garth absorbed the basic concept that he 
might be aiding in the utter destruction of the world, he began to consider 
the possible ramifications and permutations of his situation. 


One question came to mind immediately. It seemed reasonable to assume 
that the world could not end, and the King could not die, until the end of the 
Age of Death. Yet the old man had implied that his death would be immediately 
achieved by his conjuring. When Garth had believed that the method involved 
summoning The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken and renouncing his bargain, he had 
seen no contradiction there. He had thought that the King's offer of eternal 
life was based on substituting Garth for himself in the Death-God's power, but 
that no longer seemed reasonable. The offer had not been of eternal life at 
all. 


"How long," he asked, "would the Age of Death last?" 


Shandiph shrugged. "I told you," he said, "I am no theurgist, nor am I 
an astrologer or a seer. I don't know. I have heard philosophers say that the 
length of an age is subjective and cannot always be predicted or measured. 
Perhaps it will last a million years, until the sun grows cold and the seas 
run dry, or perhaps it will be over in an instant, and the world will vanish 
in a puff of smoke." 


That was a very unsatisfactory answer, in Garth's opinion. "Wizard," he 
said, "I was told by Bheleu, in a vision he sent while I held the sword and he 
sought to dominate me, that his reign would last thirty years. Now you speak 
as if it might be over in just three. How can that be? Could the god have been 
wrong? That was not part of my understanding of the nature of a god. Might my 
refusal to serve him have altered that, when the god himself had once said it? 
I had thought that the ages were fixed in the stars, and that only failures of 
interpretation caused the uncertainty and disagreement among astrologers." 


"I don't know," Shandiph admitted. "Perhaps the stars offer a choice; 
perhaps the god lied. My friend Miloshir told me that Bheleu's reign would 
last for either three years or thirty, but could not say which; it may be that 
his knowledge was lacking, or it may be that it had not yet been determined. 
Your refusal might in truth have been the crucial event; perhaps you 
ameliorated the Age of Destruction only to hasten the Age of Death." 


Garth remembered the smoking battlefields and charred wastelands he had 
seen in his journey south through Eramma. If these were the scenes of a mild 
Age of Destruction, what would it have been had he not refused his role? That 
was a depressing line of thought. 


The possibility that by limiting the destruction he had brought the end 
of the world half a generation earlier-or a full generation for humans-was 
even more disheartening. It appeared that he had faced a situation in which he 
would cause disaster, whatever course he might choose. 


"You say that my actions might bring the Age of Death; how could that be 
prevented, if that is to be the next age? Must there be an Age of Death? Need 
it be the Fifteenth Age, and not the Hundredth?" 


"Again, Garth, I cannot say with any certainty. Miloshir spoke as if 



there were to be fifteen ages to complete the current cycle, the first seven 
dedicated to the Lords of Eir and the last to the Lords of Ds, while the 
Eighth Age was an era when light and darkness were in balance. Whether this 
scheme of being is truly fixed and immutable I do not know. If it is 
unalterable, then there will be a Fifteenth Age, a final age, an Age of Death, 
and it will occur immediately after our current Age of Destruction." 


"It seems little to choose, between destruction and death." Shandiph 
shrugged. Chalkara, who had been following the conversation closely, said, "I 
would prefer to live, however terrible the times in which I live, than to 
perish." 


"Do you think that by stopping me from performing my errand you might 
avert this Fifteenth Age?" 


"We feel we must try. It may be that it can be delayed for another 
twenty-seven years, or perhaps it can be weakened, as Bheleu's reign was, so 
that some might survive where they otherwise would not." 


Garth sat back and thought for a moment. He was not happy about this new 
information. The possibility that the wizards were making it all up for 
reasons of their own did not escape him, but that seemed unlikely; it all 
fitted far too well with what he knew. The blue-clad man had suggested the end 
of the world as just one of several possibilities, which did not jibe with a 
lying attempt to frighten anyone; it was Garth's own knowledge of the 
Forgotten King that convinced him that that was exactly what was fated to 
occur. 


The Fourteenth Age had lasted almost three years thus far; before it, 
the Age of P'hul had been three centuries, and the Twelfth Age was old when 
the first overmen were created a millennium ago, as he understood it, so it 
had lasted at least seven hundred years. The ages appeared to be getting 
shorter. The Fifteenth might be three days, or three hours. The end of the 
world, and his own death, might be only a few days in the future. 


This assumed, however, that the Fifteenth Age would really begin when 
the Forgotten King received the Book of Silence. Garth knew of a serious flaw 
in that theory. 


"Would it lessen your concern," he asked, "if I told you that the Book 
of Silence is not the device of The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken?" 


Shandiph considered for a moment, and then said, "Not really. If it is 
not, then what is? And you, Bheleu's chosen, will still be doing the King in 
Yellow a service if you bring him the book, even should it be the totem of 
another god. Miloshir told me that it might be the device of Dagha himself, 
god of time, the father of all the higher gods. But in that case, what is the 
totem of Death? He thought it might be the basilisk that dwelt beneath 
Mormoreth, but that seems unlikely; the creature died, did it not? And 
bringing the King in Yellow Dagha's totem might easily be as devastating as 
bringing him his own, whatever it might be." 


Garth had to admit the logic in this speech; after all, he had taken the 
Sword of Bheleu from Bheleu's altar, and not from the followers of P'hul. 


"Still," he said, "the Age of Death, as I understand it, cannot begin 
until two conditions are met; I must do the King a service, yes, but more 
importantly, he must acquire the totem of his god. Is that not correct?" 


Shandiph nodded. "I would ask, though, how you know that the Book of 
Silence is not that totem, when you profess to know nothing about it." 


"The King told me," the overman replied; almost immediately, he realized 
how feeble that sounded. Still, he believed the old man. He knew that the King 
was a schemer, adept at speaking half-truths and implying falsehoods without 
actually stating them, yet he had never heard him tell a direct and definite 
lie. The old man had said, in effect, that the Book of Silence was the totem 
of Dagha, not of Death. At the time, it had seemed odd that he had wasted so 
many words, rather than letting Garth believe what he chose, but now it 
appeared the King had foreseen a moment such as this, when Garth might be 
reluctant to fetch the book if he believed it to be the device of the Final 
God. 



The Final God-that name suddenly seemed more appropriate, if his age was 
to end the world. 


"You may have reason to accept his word," Shandiph said, "but we do not. 
Furthermore, how do you know that he does not already possess the symbol of 
the Unnamed God, whatsoever it may be?" 


"He did possess it once, but left it here, in this city, with the Book 
of Silence." 


"He told you this?" 


"Yes." Garth remembered that the old man had said also that he was not 
wholly free of the Pallid Mask even when apart from it, but Garth suppressed 
the thought. He wanted to bring the Book of Silence to the King so that he 
might trade it for the Sword of Bheleu and kill Aghadites with the sword. 


The thought of killing Aghadites, of watching them bleed and die, was so 
appealing that he let himself linger over it for a moment, and Chalkara's next 
question did not register at first. 


"I said, what is the totem of Death?" she repeated. 


Garth recalled himself and shrugged. "He called it the Pallid Mask." 


The two wizards glanced at each other, then at the archivist. 


"I never heard of it," Chalkara said. 


"Nor I," Shandiph declared. 


"I am not sure," Silda said. "It might have been mentioned in the tales 
of the fallen moons." 


"That doesn't matter," Garth said. "I have no intention of bringing 
anything to the King but the Book of Silence. You have my word." 


"I would rather have your word that you would give up this quest 
entirely," Shandiph said. 


"I cannot do that. I need magic for my revenge, a magic that the cult of 
Aghad cannot counter." 


There was a moment of silence. It was Chalkara who said at last, "You 
want the Book of Silence for that?" 


"No," Garth replied. "I want the King's aid, which he has promised in 
exchange for the book." It seemed impolitic to mention that he meant to take 
up the Sword of Bheleu again; the wizards would surely oppose that as strongly 
as they opposed the Age of Death. The Fifteenth Age was a theory, but they had 
seen the sword's power and suffered under it. 


"You would risk the lives of every man, woman, and child, every overman 
and overwoman, every bird and beast in the world, to avenge your wife's 
murder?" Shandiph asked. 


Garth answered simply, "Yes." He did not think it worth pointing out 
that the cult of Aghad was a menace to all and had threatened further deaths, 
or that destroying it would be both an act of vengeance and one of prevention. 
Kyrith's death was reason enough. 


Chalkara glanced at each of the others in turn, then whispered to 
Shandiph, "He's mad!" 


She had not allowed for the keen ears of overmen; Garth heard what she 
said, but ignored it. 


"Garth," Shandiph said, "please reconsider. We will aid your vengeance 
in every way we can, if you will not bring the King either the book or this 
mask, or serve him in any manner." 


That was a tempting offer, but Garth reluctantly knew he had to refuse 
it. These wizards had little real power; much of what they had turned against 
him before, they had lost, either destroyed by the Sword of Bheleu or sealed 
away by the Forgotten King. They might be a match for an Aghadite magician in 
a fair contest, one against one, but the cult was clearly widespread and did 
not trouble itself with fairness; rather, it made a point of being unfair, 
treacherous, and hateful, in keeping with the nature of its deity. 
Furthermore, the full party of wizards that had fought him-and surely they had 
summoned their greatest strength for that combat-could not have exceeded two 
dozen, and at least one in four had died, perhaps half or more. That meant 
that far less than a score could have survived, while the cult might well 



number in the hundreds or even the thousands. 


More importantly, he had sworn an oath. For two and a half years, the 
knowledge that he had made a false vow had eaten away at him, and that pain 
had finally been alleviated slightly when he undertook this journey. He did 
not care to let it return. He had regained some trace of honor, tarnished 
though it might be, and preferred to keep it for as long as he could. 


"No," he said. "I am sorry." He rose, before any protest could be made. 
"I came to this chamber hoping that you might aid me in my search for the Book 
of Silence, perhaps tell me more of its nature. You have told me much, but it 
was not what I wished to hear. This conversation has been most enlightening, 
and I thank you for it, but still, I must pursue my original intention. I do 
promise you that I do not want to see the Age of Death begin and that I do not 
intend to aid in bringing it about, if I can avoid it and still meet my sworn 
obligations. It is plain that none of you would willingly help me in my search 
for the Book of Silence, and I will not compel you to do so; you act as you 
see best, as do I. For that reason, I believe there is no point in continuing 
this discussion." He nodded politely to each, then turned and marched out 
through the door they had entered by. 


The paneled corridor was almost empty, but, half-hidden in a neighboring 
doorway, Garth saw a red-clad figure. "Ho, there," he called. "Can you show me 
the way out?" 


In the Rose Chamber, the wizards watched him go and then turned to each 
other. 


"We have to stop him, Shandi," Chalkara said. 


"I know that, but what method would you suggest? I have no magic left 
that can kill from afar, and I see no other way of stopping him. And even if I 
had some, it might not work; true, he no longer carries the sword, but he is 
still the chosen of Bheleu." 


"Is he really?" Silda asked. "You two and the overman seem to know a 
great deal more than I do about all this." 


"Yes, he is. Everything we have said here is true." 


Silda glanced at the door Garth had closed behind himself. "We should 
tell the overlord," she said. 


Chalkara agreed. "She's right, Shandi. Garth hasn't got the Sword of 
Bheleu; ordinary soldiers should be able to kill him if necessary. At the very 
least, the overlord might insist that he leave the city; that would make it 
harder for him to find the Book of Silence, if it really is here." 


Shandiph nodded. "I think you're right. If we act quickly, we might be 
in time to prevent the return of his weapons; even an overman would not be 
likely to put up too much of an argument at sword point when he's armed with 
nothing but a dagger." 


Chalkara asked, "Who will speak to the overlord?" 


"Speed is important, and we must impress upon him how urgent this is. We 
must all go, at once." 


He rose, and Chalkara did the same. Silda got to her feet more 
hesitantly, then followed the wizards out of the room. 


In the corridor, they caught a glimpse of the overman vanishing into a 
side passage. Chalkara hesitated. "Should we pursue him? One of us, perhaps?" 


"No," Shandiph said. "I'm sure that the overlord will have him followed 
as a precaution, and by someone less recognizable than we are. Let him go for 
now." 


"He'll get his sword and axe back," Silda pointed out. 


"He may be delayed, if he chooses to take advantage of the overlord's 
hospitality by accepting a meal or a drink, and we have no authority to 
prevent the return of his weapons without the overlord's word. You know that 
we are all three distrusted here, as wizards always are." 


"I'm no wizard," Silda protested. 


"You're a scholar, which is close enough for most people. You know 
things they don't. If we try to interfere without the prince's support, we'll 



be accused of conspiracy and treason, most likely. Better to risk Garth's 
arming himself while we talk to the overlord." 


"We have no choice now," Chalkara said. "While we've been standing here 
debating, he's undoubtedly gotten that much farther away." 


"True enough," Shandiph replied. "Let us waste no more time, then." He 
turned and led the way down the corridor toward the audience chamber. 


CHAPTER ELEVEN 


The overlord did not pay much attention when the archivist and the two wizards 
re-entered the hall; he assumed that they had finished their discussion with 
the overman and had come back to the audience chamber in case their prince 
might require their services. He was rather startled, therefore, when, instead 
of resuming their accustomed places, they stood before him and made the 
accepted ritual obeisance. 


He had been chatting with his treasurer while the doorkeepers selected 
the next petitioner to be granted a hearing; during the time that the overman 
had been talking in the Rose Chamber, he had settled a property dispute and 
refused to hear the appeal of a convicted thief, turning the man back over to 
the jailer for flogging. The day had been going well, and except for the 
arrival of the overman from Skelleth and his unorthodox requests, it had been 
routine. 


There was nothing routine, however, in having three of the prince's 
advisers appear before him, uninvited, while he was holding court. They knew 
better, he told himself. If they had public business, it could go through the 
regular channels-though, of course, they would have fewer delays than 
outsiders would face-and if it was private, it could be handled informally 
after the day's work was finished. 


He paused for a few seconds, letting the trio perceive his annoyance and 
grow a bit more nervous, then demanded, "Why have you come here? Speak, if you 
have any excuse for your action!" 


With his head politely bowed, as protocol required in a petitioner, the 
male wizard said, "O Prince, we beg your forgiveness, but we have urgent 
business, very urgent indeed, and must speak with you immediately." 


The overlord considered for a moment. The formalities and rituals of his 
life served a definite purpose, in that they made it easier for him to deal 
with the unending demands made upon him. Each piece of business, whatever its 
nature, was categorized and run through the appropriate ceremonies, delays, 
and sortings, so that only a tiny fraction of the whole ever needed to reach 
him at all; when it did, it was stripped down to the essentials, his choices 
laid out for him and awaiting a quick decision. Cutting through the rituals 
was a dangerous precedent; if he permitted the formal structure to weaken, he 
might be deluged in trivia. Only foreigners, who must be assumed to be 
ignorant of the usual procedures, were ever allowed to deviate from the 
pattern, and then only if it seemed a diplomatic necessity-as it had appeared 
with the overman. 


On the other hand, he faced here not a single unknown individual, but 
three of his most learned counselors. He had not yet had time to become truly 
familiar with either of the wizards in the months since their arrival, but 
Chalkara had been the chosen magician of the High King at Kholis, despite her 
youth-if she was as young as she appeared, which was not something one could 
be sure of with wizards. She, in turn, deferred to Shandiph, so that he, too, 
must be considered worthy of respect-unless it was his age that engendered her 
deference. The vanished Deriam, the overlord's previous wizardly adviser, had 
spoken well of Shandiph; these two said that Deriam was dead, and the 
possibility of a magical feud had occurred to the overlord, but that did not 
detract from the pair's apparent worth. The archivist Silda had lived all her 
life as a member of the court, under first his father and then himself, but 
the prince knew less about her than he knew about the wizards; she seemed to 



care little for his company, or for that of any of his friends or informers. 
She was given to long historical discussions full of obscure references 
whenever he consulted her professionally; he suspected that she hoped to 
impress him with her erudition. He was not easily impressed, but he had to 
admit that she knew her job well. 


These three, he thought, must honestly believe that their need was 
urgent, or they would not have interrupted the day's routine. Despite the 
unfortunate precedent it set, he decided to hear them out. 


He would not do so publicly, however, whatever the matter might be. That 
would be too damaging to his aura of imperviousness. 


In fact, as he prepared to speak, a way of settling the affair to his 
benefit occurred to him, a scheme that would make plain to all present that 
the overlord was not to be disturbed without good reason. 


He waved an arm, finger pointing. "Guards! Take these three to the Black 
Hall, and summon the executioner! I will hear their plea, as I must in 
fairness do, but the penalty for usurping my attention thus and delaying the 
work of governance must be no less than death, if the cause is not 
sufficient!" 


That, he thought, should impress any overeager father wanting 
reimbursement for his daughter's lost maidenhood, or a householder demanding 
that his neighbor's hounds be silenced, enough to keep them out of his hair. 
He rose, watching as six guardsmen snatched the advisers up off the floor, a 
soldier at each arm. An officer had gone for the headsman; that was good. The 
prince led the way to the black and gold door, moving in his stately, slow 
walk, aware that the soldiers were bringing the three advisers along a few 
paces behind him. 


A footman opened the door into the back corridor, then ran ahead to the 
black iron door of the execution chamber. The overlord entered the room, 
waited as the wizards and the archivist were brought in, then waved 
imperiously at the guards and servant. "Begone," he said. 


The seven vanished, and he looked about for somewhere to sit. The room 
was empty, save for the black stone platform in the center and the great block 
of ebony that stood upon it. The walls and floor were rough, black stone; the 
ceiling was blackveined red marble, arched and vaulted. It was a thoroughly 
uncomfortable place, he decided as he settled on the edge of the platform. 


The three counselors stood awkwardly, facing him, unsure whether to 
prostrate themselves, to bow, or just to stand there. 


"Now," the overlord said, "what is it that's so urgent?" 


"O Prince," Shandiph replied, "you must prevent Garth from. taking the 
Book of Silence!" 


"Garth? The overman?" The overlord was puzzled. "Why?" 


"O Prince," Chalkara said, "the Book of Silence is perhaps the most 
deadly object ever to exist. It is linked with the higher gods, the gods of 
life and death and even Dagha himself, it seems. Its arcane power is so great 
that ordinary wizards cannot use it, for to speak a single word from its pages 
would be instantly fatal." She paused to catch her breath. 


The overlord remarked, "That would seem to make it one of the most 
useless of objects." 


Shandiph demurred. "I fear not, my lord. As Chalkara has said, no 
ordinary wizard can use it, but Garth of Ordunin serves one who is not an 
ordinary wizard. The book was created to be used by a single individual, the 
immortal high priest of The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken. That is whom Garth 
intends to deliver it to." 


"How do you know this?" 


Shandiph asked, "Which part, O Prince?" 


"How do you know whom the overman plans to give the book to? He 
mentioned a wizard, not a priest." 


"We know him, Chalkara and I, from a previous encounter. We know that he 
is associated with the King in Yellow, as the high priest of Death was known 
of old, and with no other wizards. He admitted as much to us when we spoke 



with him just now." 


"The King in Yellow?" The overlord looked at Silda. "I believe you've 
mentioned an ancient legend about someone with that description." 


"Yes, my prince." 


The overlord saw that the archivist had no intention of elaborating, and 
did not pursue the matter. 


"Well, then, what if the overman does take this book to this priest? How 
will that harm us here in Ur-Dormulk?" 


Shandiph answered, "We believe it will bring about the start of the 
Fifteenth Age, the Age of Death." 


"You fear that? Are not the ages preordained and unchangeable?" 


Shandiph hesitated, and Chalkara answered for him. "We do not know, O 
Prince. It may be that they are not." 


"We are only in the third year of the Fourteenth Age; it seems to me 
that any worry, about the next age is premature." 


"We do not know how long the Fourteenth Age is to be," Chalkara said. 


The overlord nodded; he had heard the court astrologer bewailing that 
uncertainty. "Still," he said, "I cannot believe it will be so brief as that." 


"We think that it may be," Chalkara insisted. 


The overlord leaned back on his hands and looked at the three scholars. 
"I think," he said, "that you have all managed to frighten one another with 
old myths and vague suppositions until you have convinced yourselves that we 
are all in mortal peril, when in truth we are in no more danger from this mad 
overman than from the Emperor of Yesh." He held up a hand to forestall any 
protest. "Furthermore, I think you're missing a few essential facts in your 
worrying." 


He shifted, leaned forward again, and held up a finger. "First, the 
danger you envision may not exist at all. Second, if it does, this overman may 
have nothing to do with it. Third, whatever else he may be, the overman is a 
representative of the Baron of Skelleth. You may not realize just how 
dependent we are upon Skelleth in these unsettled times. You may take 
seriously my magnificent titles and the splendor of this palace, but I know 
better; I may call myself a prince and be known throughout Eramma by the title 
of overlord, but the hard truth is that I'm nothing more than an Eramman 
baron. Those lesser lords in my court who give me the claim to be an overlord 
have no power at all; they are worth no more to me than the officers of my 
guard-probably less, actually. 


"Maybe in ancient times Ur-Dormulk was a real nation unto itself and a 
power to be reckoned with; maybe Alar and Hastur and those other lands I claim 
really existed; I don't know and I don't care. All I rule is a walled city, a 
few miles of lakes and mountains, and a good-sized piece of plain that's 
totally impossible to defend, should one of my neighbors decide to invade. One 
of those neighbors is the Baron of Skelleth, and right now he's the only one 
who isn't at war somewhere and the only one conducting any trade at all. We 
haven't had a caravan in from Therin or Kholis in eighteen months; have you 
noticed what fresh fruit costs in the markets and shops these days? And what 
there is, is all our own, at that; I haven't seen a date or an orange in over 
a year, and if any were available in the city, I'd know it, I promise you. 


"That may not mean much to you, but if we lost the trade with Skelleth, 
you'd know it and you'd feel it. I don't know where the goods are coming from, 
but we've been getting better furs and wool than we had in times of peace, 
pickled fish at half what we used to pay, and ivory and gold and a dozen other 
things-more than a dozen-scores, or hundreds! From Skelleth, which used to 
sell nothing but ice and hay! It was a gift from the gods that the new Baron 
began selling to us just about the time the other routes started to be cut, 
and I don't dare jeopardize that. The Barony of Skelleth covers half our 
borders, to the north and northeast, and if this Saram can bring us caravans 
out of nowhere, he might be able to bring armies with equal ease. Now he's 
sent us a representative, and an overman at that-where in all the world did he 
find an overman? I thought they were extinct, despite the stories we heard 



from the traders out of Skelleth. I was wrong. What's more, the gatekeeper 
tells me that the overman arrived riding a monster twenty feet long with fangs 
the size of a man's fingers. 


"And now you ask me to throw away the goodwill of this overman, and with 
it the goodwill of the Baron of Skelleth, because of a vague legend. You ask 
me to risk losing our only remaining trade route, the richest I've ever seen. 
You ask me to risk an invasion, perhaps led by overmen on monsterback, like 
those in the tales of the Racial Wars. Why? Because you don't want a magical 
book no one can read to be taken to a mysterious wizard. 


"And that brings me to my fourth, and most important, point. What makes 
you think that this overman will find this Book of Death, or whatever it is? 
He says that it's in the royal chapel of some palace. What palace? The only 
palace in Ur-Dormulk is this one, and I promise you all, on my soul and the 
shades of my ancestors, that there is no royal chapel here containing a 
mystical book no one can read! If this book exists at all, it must be in the 
crypts somewhere. Have you ever been in the crypts, any of you?" 


The three advisers nodded in unison, like chastised children. 


"All of you. Then you should know that you can't find anything in the 
crypts unless you know exactly where it is! They go on forever, in a maze, 
like a mass of worms tied in knots. 


"So do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to let this overman 
wander about the city all he likes, and if he wants to get himself lost in the 
crypts, I'll allow that, too. I'll even give him a guide, if he asks, one who 
will lead him in nice, large circles through the more familiar corridors. If 
he persists I'll let him wander all he wants. He can go explore the ruins 
between the lakes. He can kill a few Aghadite priests, if he does it quietly, 
and I won't do a thing about it. If he does find the book, or anything else of 
real value, I'll know it, I promise you. If that happens-if it happens-then 
I'll talk to you again, and maybe have it taken away from him if you can 
convince me it's really that important. That's what I'm going to do about this 
overman, and I hope it satisfies you, because I am not going to offend the 
Baron of Skelleth unless I really have to, for my own safety and for the 
safety of Ur-Dormulk. Is that clear?" 


The three, overwhelmed by this lengthy speech, nodded again. 


"Good. So if you want to make yourselves useful, you might apply your 
magic, you two, to help keep an eye on the overman. All three of you might 
want to see if you can get some idea where this book is, if it exists, so that 
we can get to it before he does-if we have to." The overlord waved a hand in 
dismissal. "So much for that. Now, about the matter of your barging into the 
audience chamber. As you may have guessed, I am not going to have you 
executed." 


Silda was visibly relieved to hear this; Shandiph and Chalkara, who had 
never taken the threat seriously, were startled by its mere mention. 


"However," the prince continued, "I am not at all pleased that you took 
it upon yourselves to interrupt my routine; therefore, you are all confined to 
the north wing of the palace until further notice. I don't want you in the 
hall with me, I don't want you in my apartments, and I don't want you in the 
front rooms. Is that understood?" 


"O Prince," Shandiph began, "I think you underestimate..." 


"Silence!" the overlord bellowed. 


Shandiph subsided. 


"That's better. If you do that again, wizard, you'll be a wanderer once 
more; I won't execute you, as that would be a stupid waste, but I won't 
hesitate to banish you from the city if you become more trouble than you're 
worth to me." 


Shandiph bowed his head in acknowledgment. 


"Good." The overlord got to his feet and brushed off his velvet robes. 
"Now let's get back to work." He gestured, and Silda opened the door. 


The executioner, hooded and robed in black and yellow, stood outside, 
his axe in his hands. Behind him, a ring of nervous guards and footmen waited. 



The prince spread his arms theatrically. "My thanks, my lord, for 
heeding my summons. I have decided, however, to be merciful; your services 
will not be needed." 


The headsman bowed low, backed up a pace as soldiers scurried to clear a 
path, then turned and marched away without speaking. 


The overlord spotted an officer among the clustered guardsmen and 
called, "Captain, if you would escort these three to their quarters, I would 
appreciate it. They are not prisoners and are not to be confined, but I think 
they would like to rest. They have been overexcited. See to them; I must 
return to my own business." 


The officer saluted, setting the crimson plume on his helmet bobbing; he 
pulled two of his men off to one side as the others formed an honor guard 
around the overlord, then waited as servants, soldiery, and prince marched 
back into the audience chamber. When the black and gold door had closed behind 
the last footman, the officer gestured for the first of his two men to 
accompany Silda and for the other to guard Chalkara, while he himself escorted 
Shandiph. Thus arranged, he bowed politely and said, "At your service, my lord 
wizard." 


Shandiph was in no mood for pleasantries. "Lead on," he said. 


Together the party trooped up the corridor, past the golden door of the 
Hall of Promotion, and through the ornate gate at the end of the passage. All 
turned right, but Silda and her guard continued directly down the carpeted 
corridor, while the wizards and their unwanted companions headed up the gilded 
staircase. The archivist's apartments were on a lower level, near the archives 
themselves, which were in an upper part of the crypts. The wizards, in keeping 
with tradition, were housed on the topmost floor of one of the palace towers. 
Shandiph, not as young and spry as he once was, sometimes regretted that. 


During the long walk along the length of the north wing, ascending each 
flight of stairs they encountered, neither Chalkara nor Shandiph spoke. Each 
observed the other, however. Chalkara saw Shandiph's fists clench and 
unclench, saw him biting back words. Shandiph saw Chalkara's eyes shifting, 
her face pale, with the look of a hunted animal in her manner. 


They reached the spiral stair that led into the tower proper, and 
Shandiph broke his silence. "You need go no farther," he told the soldiers. 
"There's no reason to tire yourselves out by climbing all these stairs." 


The captain stopped, glanced about, and nodded. "Very well. The prince 
said you were not under confinement, and at any rate, there is no other exit 
from the tower." 


"Indeed," Shandiph said. "Thank you for your company, captain, and a 
good evening to you." He bowed slightly. 


The officer saluted, but did not depart; instead he stood where he was 
and watched as the two wizards made their way up the staircase. Glancing back, 
Shandiph noticed, with some amusement despite his worry over Garth's actions, 
that the young guardsman who stood at his captain's side was not watching both 
wizards, but only Chalkara. Unaware that he was observed, the soldier stared 
at her hips as she climbed the steps. Shandiph was not surprised; Chalkara was 
worth staring at. He guessed that the youth was wondering whether the tales 
one heard in every barracks were true, that sorceresses are not like other 
women. 


Shandiph turned away, resisting the urge to comment. The stories were 
not true; Chalkara was as human as anyone. 


The curve of the stair took them out of sight before they reached the 
first floor of the tower; their own rooms were in the fifth and highest 
storey. Shandiph paused, out of breath, at the first landing, but then marched 
determinedly onward. 


"Shandi, we..." Chalkara began as they rounded the next curve. 


He waved her to silence and trudged upward. 


At the third landing he stopped and listened; Chalkara came and stood 
beside him. 


"I don't think they can hear us," he said, keeping his voice low. 



"Chala, do you like it here?" 


"What?" 


"Do you like Ur-Dormulk? Do you want to stay here?" 


"I don't know. It's comfortable, even if it isn't home, and where else 
could we go?" 


"Sland, perhaps; I understand that it's at peace now, and Karag fled 
years ago. There might be a place for a wizard or two." 


"Shandi, what are you talking about? Why should we leave Ur-Dormulk? If 
the Fifteenth Age starts, it won't matter where we are." 


"It might, but that's not my point. I want to know if you'll go along 
with me if I disobey the overlord and get us both exiled." 


"Oh, Shandi, of course I will! We have to do something, whatever he 
says! The King in Yellow wouldn't have sent Garth here unless he knew the Book 
of Silence could be found!" 


"We'll have to run for our lives, probably. The prince may decide to put 
us to death if we stay here." 


"I don't mind. Maybe we should leave anyway, Shandi, even if he doesn't 
do anything. I want to see Kholis again; the fighting hasn't reached there 
yet, not all the way to the castle, and I'm sure the King is over his anger by 
now. I may not live long enough to go home if we don't stop the overman." 


"Don't be so pessimistic, Chala; we'll stop him, at least for now. He's 
just one overman." Shandiph did not wholly believe that, even as he said it. 


Chalkara did not believe it either, but she said nothing to contradict 
the older wizard. "What are you planning to do?" she asked. 


"I'm not sure yet, but I have an idea. Can you make a golem?" 


Chalkara considered, then shook her head. "No." 


"What about illusions?" 


"Oh, I can do those, but they aren't always reliable. What are you 
thinking of?" 


"I'm thinking of ways of killing Garth. I don't have any spells that can 
do it anymore; do you?" 


"No. At least, I don't think so." 


"Well, I'm not about to go up and try to kill him in person; he's 
dangerous. That means we'll have to send someone else to do it." 


"Shandi, should we do that? Isn't there any other way to stop him?" 


"I doubt it. He's stubborn. I'm sure we can't destroy the King in Yellow 
or the Book of Silence, but we can probably get Garth killed." 


"Should we consult with the rest of the Council?" 


"Why bother? The Council is broken, Chala, you know that. We're not 
bound by its rules anymore. Besides, his death was authorized three years ago, 
by vote of the quorum." 


"You're right. We'll kill him." 


"We won't; the city guard will. Did you know that Sedrik has always 
hated overmen? One of his ancestors got butchered in the Racial Wars, I 
suppose." 


"How do you know that?" 


"I got him drunk one night; it's always a good idea to learn something 
about the people who run the place you're living in. I was hoping to find out 
who was intriguing against whom-there's always some of that in a palace-but 
instead I got a tirade about murderous inhuman monsters and a lecture about 
the cowardice of the Eramman nobility in not invading the Northern Waste and 
wiping the vermin out." 


"I see; he'd love an excuse to kill an overman, then, and it's probably 
one of his men following Garth." Chalkara nodded. 


"And if he should receive an order from the overlord himself, I don't 
think he'd bother to wonder why the prince changed his mind." 


"From the overlord?" Chalkara looked puzzled for an instant; then 
comprehension dawned. "Oh, of course! A golem would be better, but an illusion 
should work if the light isn't very good." 


"I hope so," Shandiph said. 



"You start packing, Shandi; the overlord won't like this at all if he 
finds out. I'll need some things for the illusion, but you can pack up 
everything else." She hurried up the last two flights; Shandiph, still weary, 
plodded after her. 


Ten minutes later, Sedrik, Commander of the Guard, Marshal of the City, 
was startled by the appearance of his lord and master in the door of the 
wardroom. The overlord's voice seemed odd, higher in pitch and not very clear. 
The corridor was dim and the wardroom's windows did not illuminate the doorway 
this late in the day, so the prince's black robes seemed insubstantial and 
almost blended into shadow. There was no sign of the prince's customary 
entourage. Still, there was no mistaking who it was that spoke to Sedrik, or 
what his orders were. 


Sedrik was absolutely delighted. 


CHAPTER TWELVE 


Garth acknowledged the return of his sword and axe with a deep bow, then 
turned and marched down the steps of the palace. 


When he reached the stone pavement of the avenue, he paused, unsure 
where to go. He had two goals to achieve and no clear idea of how to pursue 
either one. Somewhere in the city was the Book of Silence, and he had sworn to 
find it and bring it back to Skelleth. Somewhere in the city there was also a 
temple dedicated to Aghad, and he was determined to destroy it and kill the 
god's worshippers, regardless of what the overlord might say or do about it. 


Finding the book, he decided as he slung the axe on his back, should 
come first; the overlord had expressed no objection to that, despite the 
misgivings of his counselors. The wizards might try to change his mind, but so 
far, at any rate, Garth had a free hand to do as he pleased with regard to the 
book. The cult of Aghad, on the other hand, was under the overlord's 
consideration. If Garth were to attack the temple now, the overlord might well 
take it amiss and try to have Garth killed or driven from the city. 


Once he had the book, he would have no objection to leaving Ur-Dormulk. 
Therefore, the book came first. 


That settled, and with his sword on his belt once more, he looked about, 
trying to locate the signs and portents the Forgotten King had promised him. 


The sun was halfway down the western sky, and the shadow of the 
overlord's palace stretched over him. To the east, much of the avenue was 
still brightly lit; citizens were bustling about the gray stone buildings in a 
flickering river of vivid colors. Streets branched off to either side; in a 
variety of widths and angles. 


As he turned to the southwest, looking toward one corner of the palace 
facade, a gust of cold, damp wind caught him in the face. 


That seemed as good a sign as any; he strolled south and around the 
corner. 


He did not notice the green-clad figure that followed him, nor the two 
in red-one in the brilliant carmine of the overlord's household staff, the 
other wearing the color of dried blood-that watched him closely but did not 
pursue. 


He wandered along aimlessly, watching for other signs, yet found none 
save the occasional wet breezes. He gradually worked his way westward, 
noticing as he went that the number of people on the streets and the general 
noise of the city diminished steadily with his increasing distance from the 
avenue that connected the eastern gate and the overlord's palace. After some 
time spent thus, he rounded a corner and found himself looking out across a 
rift. The city appeared to end in a broad stretch of pavement running north 
and south along the edge of a valley or chasm; from where he stood he could 
not see what lay in the gap, but he could see the far side, a granite barrier 
topped with buildings. Something was odd about the view, but mists drifting up 
from the valley made it hard for him to decide just what he was seeing. 



He walked onward, out onto the wide pavement, and noticed to his 
surprise that there were no people anywhere on it. This promenade was the 
first completely uninhabited place he had seen since arriving in Ur-Dormulk. 


He made his way cautiously up to the edge, wary lest it crumble beneath 
him-though it looked as solid as any part of the city. When he had gotten as 
near to the precipice as he cared to, he gazed out beyond it again. 


More than fifty yards below lay the smooth, dark surface of a lake, 
black and chill; thin clouds rolled across it in bands, like waves upon the 
ocean, and mist rose in dissipating plumes. 


That, Garth told himself, explained where the cold winds came from. 


He lifted his gaze, looking out across the lake; the mists blurred his 
vision, and he could not decide whether the barrier that reared up on the 
opposite shore was natural or man-made. The buildings atop it, he now saw, 
were ruins. 


It occurred to him immediately that the Book of Silence was quite 
possibly buried somewhere in those ruins; that would explain why nothing was 
known of it. 


The sun was behind the broken towers, which made it impossible for him 
to make out much detail, but he guessed that those towers had once been part 
of a palace or citadel, such as the Forgotten King must have maintained. He 
stared intently, but the shadows and mist prevented any clear view. The sun 
itself seemed distorted by the fine spray, broadened to almost twice its 
natural width. 


He turned his eyes away and blinked, then looked at the gray stone 
pavement for a moment to rest them. As he did, he noticed two things. 


First, the pavement here was not worn nearly so much as the city 
streets. He would have supposed that a lakeside promenade would attract 
strollers in the hot days of summer, or perhaps fishermen-someone, at any 
rate-yet there was no one anywhere in sight save himself, and the stone slabs 
were only lightly marked by the passage of feet. 


The second thing he noticed was a sound, a very faint, deep, distant 
sound; he could not quite make it out. 


Neither item seemed of immediate importance; he looked up once more, 
avoiding the sun for the moment, and scanned quickly around the edges of the 
lake. 


It was long and narrow, with the city on one of its long sides and the 
ruins on the other. At either end of the promenade on which he stood walls of 
natural rock thrust up, raising the lakeside cliff to greater heights and 
cutting off the streets to the east, turning them back from the lake. Garth 
realized he had seen those stone barriers from the steps at the gate. 


Similar outcroppings divided the opposite shore, but beyond and between 
them lay more ruins. The area directly opposite him was the largest, but there 
were four clusters of buildings in all on the western shore, each split off 
from the others by the masses of rock and connected to the rest of the city 
only by the lake. The ends of the lake, at north and south, were sheer cliffs, 
with no signs of human habitation upon them. He could not see if there were 
ruins or other inhabited areas elsewhere on the eastern shore; the 
outcroppings at either end of the promenade blocked his view. 


Once, he guessed, the various enclaves must have kept in touch with one 
another by boat, so that all were part of a single great city. Now, though, 
there were no signs of docks or boats, but only the still black water, laced 
with mist and cloud, far below. He theorized that over the centuries the level 
of the lake had dropped, making such water travel more difficult, and finally 
impossible. The lake might be too shallow to navigate-though it looked 
infinitely deep. 


He turned his gaze back to the ruins opposite his present position and 
noticed for the first time that mists seemed to be rising behind them as well 
as in front. He was unsure whether this indicated the presence of another 
lake, or whether it was merely an optical illusion. 


With a sudden shock, he spied something very strange that could only be 



a trick of the mist; the sun had split in two, and twin crimson orbs, like 
baleful eyes, were sinking behind the towers into the mist of the farther 
lake-if such a lake was really there. 


He blinked, but the illusion persisted, and it was only after a moment 
of staring that he realized how long he must have been wandering about 
Ur-Dormulk if the sun-or suns-was setting. 


He wondered if this strange vision might be one of the signs he was to 
follow. 


The sound he had noticed before impinged again upon his awareness, and 
he found himself trying to making out just what it was. It, too, might be a 
sign, he told himself. 


It seemed to be coming across the lake, or up from the ground, rather 
than from the city behind him. He resolved to follow it if he could. 


He still had no idea what it was; it was so low in pitch, so low and 
drawn-out, that he could barely perceive it at all. Picking a direction at 
random, he turned right and strode north along the promenade, then paused and 
listened. 


The sound had grown very slightly louder; he was going in the right 
direction. He marched on. At the northern end of the lakeside pavement, he 
stopped and listened once more. 


The sound was once again slightly louder; he did not appear to have 
passed its point of origin. It seemed, more than ever, to be coming from the 
ground beneath his feet, still barely audible, as much felt as heard, and felt 
only as slow, crawling uncertainty. A cold wind brought a puff of mist 
swirling around him, chilling him even through his surcoat and armor. 


The sound, or vibration, or whatever it was, was as slow as the turning 
of the universe, slow as no human-generated sound ever was; a vague foreboding 
trickled through the back of Garth's mind as he listened to it. 


From where he now stood, he could not go west, over the cliff into the 
lake, nor north, up the sheer stone face of the outcropping; south would take 
him farther from the sound. That left only east. Two streets led back into the 
city proper from the northern end of the promenade at diverging angles; Garth 
took the left-hand, more northerly route, hoping that it would bring him to 
the source of the mysterious low throbbing. If it did not, he told himself, he 
would have to find a way across the lake. 


The route he had chosen was a narrow, winding street lined with an 
assortment of buildings. Garth recognized some as shrines, though they lacked 
the domes and spires he had come to identify with temples, by the scent of 
incense and the sound of chanting. He wondered if any were dedicated to Aghad; 
the thought triggered a rush of anger and adrenaline, and his hand fell to the 
hilt of his borrowed sword. 


He saw none of the dark red robes he had learned to associate with the 
cult, however, and the name Aghad was not written above any doorways or 
audible in any of the prayers he heard. He gradually relaxed as he walked on. 


Around him, in contrast to the deserted lakeside, large numbers of 
humans went about their business, going to and from the various shrines and 
shops. Their bright garments were lighted in fiery shades or lost in 
lengthening shadows as the sun sank farther in the west and the evening 
torches were set ablaze. No one interfered with Garth's progress, though 
several people stared, and almost everyone who saw him gave him at least a 
second glance. Overmen, he knew, were not seen in Ur-Dormulk. 


The street curved to the north, following the contour of the upthrust 
rock, separated from the bare stone only by the row of buildings that lined 
the left-hand side. Other alleys and byways led off to the right, but to the 
left there was nowhere to go. 


This road, like all he had seen in Ur-Dormulk, was paved with gray 
stone; the marks of wear clearly indicated the parallel tracks of carts and 
the wider pathways of the more common pedestrians. Branches led from this 
central route to each of the temples and shops and houses. Garth realized that 
he could judge the relative popularity of the various establishments by the 



depth of the path that led to each door. 


He paused to listen for the sound; he had lost it among the noises of 
the busy street. As he listened, he noticed that one temple, nestled close up 
against the rock wall to the west, had no visible path at all. That struck him 
as curious. He watched for a moment and saw that not only did no one approach 
the shrine but some people actually veered away to give it a wide berth. The 
trough in the center of the street swayed to the right in consequence. This 
avoidance was obviously not of recent development. 


His curiosity piqued, Garth approached the shunned building. He could 
see nothing about it that might inspire dread; it had a low, simple facade, a 
row of pillars supporting a narrow porch in front of a bare stone wall and a 
single open door. A central portion of the roof was raised up above the 
facade. There were no adornments of any kind; no incense drifted from the open 
portal, and no chanting could be heard. No bells chimed, no draperies rustled; 
the shrine appeared deserted. 


Garth paused for a moment, then heard the dull sound he had been 
following, just barely perceptible over the pattering feet and flapping 
sleeves of the passing traffic. He was about to conclude that the temple was 
completely empty, perhaps a relic of an outlawed death cult, when he realized 
that the sound itself, that low, slow throbbing, seemed to come from the 
abandoned fane. 


His red eyes fixed on the somber stone, he watched the temple for a long 
moment. He saw nothing, no sign of life; it was just a building, a row of 
pillars, a wall, and a roof, jammed in between two other buildings. The sound 
went on unchanged, and with each moment, each slow beat, Garth became more 
convinced that it emanated from the building he studied. 


With a mental shrug, he took the few remaining steps across the street, 
up the single step onto the porch, and to the open door. 


He paused there as he heard gasps behind him. He turned back for a quick 
look and saw that several passersby had frozen in their tracks to stare at 
him. It was obvious that there was something about this temple, about the 
thought of someone entering it-even an overman-that frightened them. 


Superstition, Garth told himself. He turned back to the door and peered 
through it, into the gloom of the chamber beyond. The sound was louder than 
ever. He decided that it might not be wise to rush in. He backed down the step 
and out onto the street. 


The people who had stopped to stare remained where they were, still 
staring. He looked about, picked out a man he judged to be intelligent in 
appearance, and called, "Ho, there! What is this place?" 


The man was reluctant to speak, but those behind him thrust him forward, 
appointing him their spokesman. 


"This is the temple of Dhazh," he replied at last. 


"Dhazh? I have never heard of him," Garth said. 


"His cult was outlawed for feeding people to the god; it is said that he 
takes the form of a great monster and still dwells within, asleep." 


"What is that sound I hear, that seems to come from this place?" 


"What sound?" The man seemed both frightened and genuinely perplexed. "I 
have never heard any sound here." 


"A low, throbbing sound; do you not hear it?" 


"I hear no sound from the temple," the man insisted. 


"Listen, then; all of you, listen!" The overman held up his hand for 
silence. 


The crowd that had gathered around him listened, and the street grew 
quiet, though beyond the immediate vicinity people still went about their 
business, talking and laughing and rattling things. 


After a moment, a woman called, "I don't hear anything." 


"Nor do I," someone else said, and a volley of agreement sounded. 


"None of you? No one hears it?" Garth was surprised; he had heard the 
sound more clearly than before during the moment of listening. 


He was aware that his hearing was somewhat keener than that of mere 



humans; overmen had several advantages, he knew. But the sound had seemed loud 
enough for even human ears. Perhaps magic was at work, and he alone was meant 
to hear the sound, whatever it was. If that was the case, it was almost 
certainly one of the signs the Forgotten King had meant him to find. 


With that in mind, he dismissed the humans from his thoughts and turned 
back to the temple. There was said to be a monster in there, he reminded 
himself; he checked his axe, making certain he could get it free quickly if 
the need arose, then drew his sword and marched back up the step and into the 
abandoned shrine. 


A few moments later, while the little crowd was still largely intact, a 
cluster of jabbering humanity discussing Garth's presence and actions, Sedrik 
and a small company of chosen warriors marched up the street. 


It had taken Sedrik a quarter hour to find his men; he was not so 
foolish as to try taking on an overman single-handed, however much it might 
have suited him to do so. He had been ordered to kill the troublemaker, 
ordered personally by the overlord himself, and he knew that he would be 
derelict in his duty if he were to get himself killed in single combat, 
satisfying as that combat might be. He was responsible for making certain that 
the overman died, and for that a dozen men were wanted, the very best men he 
had. 


Those he had chosen were now arrayed behind him, armed with sword and 
spear, four of them carrying crossbows as well, four with heavy shields, and 
four with maces. Sedrik himself carried an axe in addition to his sword; he 
hoped to be able to strike off the overman's head with it, as befitted a 
criminal. 


Arming had taken more time, and then he had had to wait until the spies 
changed shifts and brought back news of the overman's whereabouts. He had 
marched his men out to the edge of the lake Demhe, only to learn that the 
overman had left. The commander had sent out the scout he had brought with 
him, and followed as soon as the fugitive's path had been reported. Now he saw 
no sign of the overman, but the cluster of people on the street seemed worthy 
of investigation. 


Sedrik gave orders to his men, who formed a quick but effective block 
across the street, preventing the departure of the gathered citizens. That 
done, he marched forward and bellowed, "You, there! What is this?" He pointed 
his sword at the nearest person of responsible appearance. By chance, he had 
chosen the same man Garth had spoken with. 


"My lord," the man said, recognizing the black plume that marked Sedrik 
as marshal, "an overman has come and entered the temple of Dhazh!" 


Startled, Sedrik realized that he was standing before the forbidden 
shrine. He did not like the temple of Dhazh; to a man born and raised in the 
weathered streets of Ur-Dormulk, the unworn condition of its step, and indeed 
of the whole building, sheltered as it was by the great rock barrier, appeared 
alien and sinister. Furthermore, he was an educated man, as the Marshal of the 
City had to be, and knew something of the cult itself, outlawed centuries 
earlier. Dhazh had been a demonic earth-god, and as such did not fit anywhere 
in the accepted Eramman theology. A destructive male earth deity seemed to 
contradict several basic tenets of the popular religion. No one had ever 
visited the shrine but a handful of hereditary priests and their unwilling 
sacrifices, even in its heyday, and Sedrik considered it a wise decision of an 
ancient overlord to have outlawed the cult and put its priests to death. 


There was also the unpleasant myth of the god's heartbeat, a sound said 
to be heard by those the god had chosen as servants or sacrifices. 


Sedrik's thought was echoed by the crowd's spokesman, who added, "He 
said he heard something!" 


Sedrik glanced at the pillared facade. Perhaps there was some connection 
between the overman's presence in the temple and the order to kill him. The 
overlord might be worried that the overman would somehow restore the cult to 
life. 



That was none of Sedrik's business; his duty was to obey orders, not to 
guess why they had been given. He had been told to kill the overman, and the 
overman was in the temple of Dhazh. Therefore, it was his duty to enter the 
temple and seek the criminal out. That such an action might serve to dispel 
some of the lingering respect accorded the demon-god was an added bonus, 
really. The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea of entering 
and defiling the temple. It should have been torn down long ago, he told 
himself. 


The thought of killing the overman was also pleasant; he found himself 
looking forward eagerly to the coming battle. 


"All right, men," he called. "Follow me, arms at ready!" 


With that, he marched up the step and into the temple. 


After a moment's hesitation, the twelve soldiers followed him, with 
varying degrees of reluctance. Each knew that he was one of the city's best, a 
chosen master in the art of killing, but the dark legends that clung to the 
temple lingered in each man's mind. The finest warrior was no match for an 
angry god. 


Had one soldier hung back, others might have joined him, but none dared 
be first to be called coward, and all marched on into the forbidden temple, 
following their commander. 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN 


The only light in the temple came from the open doorway; the few clerestory 
windows were heavily curtained, and the prickets and sconces on walls and 
pillars held only melted wax, almost invisible beneath dust and cobwebs. There 
were no torches, no clouds of incense, no chanting priests; there was no sound 
at all, except for Garth's own footsteps scraping through the dust and the 
low, dull throbbing he followed. The fane was empty, save for a stone altar on 
either side of the single great hall that made up most of the building's 
interior, and dust lay thick everywhere. No carpets covered the stone floors; 
no tapestries hid the stone walls. 


Garth stood still for only a moment as his eyes adjusted to the dimness; 
then he advanced into the room, sword ready. He saw no sign of a monster, and 
nothing that might be making the sound he pursued. 


He found a large door, black with age, at the rear of the chamber; Garth 
pushed at it gently, hoping it was not locked, and it fell to dust beneath his 
hand. 


He stepped through immediately, sword held before him, swinging the 
blade gently from side to side to help him feel his way; though he held his 
breath and blinked, the dust from the door stung his eyes and nostrils. The 
inner chamber was even dimmer than the main hall, due to the dust and the 
greater distance from the main portal, but once Garth had rubbed the grit from 
his eyes with the back of his free hand, he could see that the room was quite 
deserted. 


The sound, however, was definitely louder here; he listened, trying to 
ignore the noise that still reached him from the street. 


The vibration grew, then dropped, then sounded a long beat like a 
distant, rolling thunderclap, then began again, with a steady, ponderous 
rhythm, each cycle taking whole minutes. Hearing it more clearly now, Garth 
realized what it was, or at least what it seemed to be. 


He was listening to a heartbeat, so slow, so deep, that he could only 
think it to be the pulse of the earth itself; no conceivable leviathan would 
be a fit possessor of that drawn-out throbbing. 


As he listened, his eyes took in the details of the inner sanctum. He 
was in a small, bare chamber, with a thin trickle of light seeping around the 
curtain that covered a window high in one comer. There was no furniture, only 
dust, layered on the floor and drifting in the air around him. On either side 
of the room were open doors, the areas beyond them utterly in darkness. 



At first glance, Garth saw nothing to choose between one door and the 
other, but a second's careful listening convinced him that the sound was 
slightly louder to the left. Accordingly, he turned left and stepped through 
the doorway. 


The room beyond was totally black, and Garth found himself groping along 
cautiously; nonetheless, he almost fell when he reached the top step of a 
staircase leading down. He had been alert for walls, doorways, or living 
creatures before him; he had not been paying attention to the floor beneath 
him. 


He caught himself at the brink and paused, hesitant to continue onward 
in the dark. If there was a monster in the temple, it would have the advantage 
of him in its lightless lair; he was unfamiliar with his surroundings, but any 
longtime inhabitant would be at home here. 


A slight movement of the air distracted him. The sound was definitely 
coming up from below, he decided, and that was one attraction beckoning him 
on, but the faint breeze was strange. It took him a moment to realize what was 
odd about it. 


A slight current could be felt coming from almost any cave or cellar at 
times, cool and moist, and he would not have been surprised by such a thing 
here, particularly since the chill water of the lake might seep in 
somewhere-but this breeze was warm. 


That did not seem to make sense. The only places Garth knew of where 
underground chambers or passages were warm were volcanic, and he had thought 
that the mountains around Ur-Dormulk were no more prone to volcanic activity 
than the Yeshitic jungles of the distant south were prone to snow in 
midsummer. Furthermore, the air that he felt ascending the stairway was damp 
and slightly fetid, like the air of a swamp. 


Fascinated, Garth was determined to investigate further, but the 
darkness still daunted him. He had flint and steel and tinder in a pouch on 
his belt, but nothing that would burn well enough to provide a reliable light. 


It occurred to him that some of the melted candles in the main hall 
might still retain enough of their substance to serve him, but he dismissed 
the thought; he had no idea how far he might want to pursue this venture and 
he needed something that would last longer than a burned-out candle stub. 


Surely, he told himself, the priests who had once used this shrine would 
have had some way of lighting the stairs. He reached out and felt along first 
one side of the room, then the other. His hand struck something metallic that 
rattled, and he heard a faint gurgling as well. He sheathed his sword 
carefully, reached up, and felt the object he had discovered. 


It was an oil lamp, still partly full, hanging from a hook. 


Once he had found the lamp, it was a simple matter to light it. The wick 
was still in place, but cut off from the reservoir by an airtight metal lid 
that had to be unscrewed; even after he had worked the lid free and dipped the 
lower end of the wick into the oil, it remained so dry that it ignited almost 
immediately, only to flare up and burn mostly away before any of the fuel 
caught. 


The oil had thickened with age, and after the first bright flame died 
away, the light was low and smoky, scarcely reaching above the remaining stub 
of the wick. Still, it was adequate for his purpose. He marveled that, even 
sealed, the oil had not all dried up long ago, and wondered whether the temple 
might not have been completely abandoned for as long as he had first supposed. 


With his sword again naked in his right hand and the lamp slung in his 
left, he began his careful descent. 


The staircase was much longer than Garth had first thought, and after 
about fifteen feet, the steps changed from the solid and unworn ones that he 
had expected from the condition of the street outside the temple to shorter, 
narrower treads worn to a slippery polish, sufficiently ancient and used that 
the center of each step was an inch or more below the ends. They were almost 
as difficult to negotiate as the steps at the city gate and made for very slow 
going. 



Garth guessed that this change must indicate that he was below the city 
proper and entering the legendary crypts. When he finally reached the foot of 
the staircase, he paused to catch his breath and shine the light around; as he 
did, he thought he heard sounds above him. He dismissed the idea as absurd. He 
had just come through the temple and seen it to be completely empty; if he 
was, indeed, hearing anything from above, it could only be street noise, 
reflected down to him by some freak of acoustics. 


He was in a rectangular room, long and relatively narrow, with side 
walls that sloped inward at the top and curved over to blend smoothly into the 
ceiling; the comers of the chamber were also curved. The floor was a curious 
uneven inlay of several different varieties of stone, and the ceiling was low 
overhead. 


The walls and ceiling were gray, and the floor a maze of dull colors 
half-hidden by dust. The sound of the monstrous heartbeat, if heartbeat it 
actually was, was louder than ever. 


There was a door in the far end; Garth flashed his lamp around, but 
could see no other entrance or exit, save for the staircase and the single 
door. 


He strode the length of the chamber and pushed at the door, halfway 
expecting it to crumble to dust as the one in the upper temple had done. It 
did not; with a high-pitched creak and a flurry of disturbed dust, it swung 
open, revealing another chamber. 


Garth stepped through, lamp held high. This second chamber was identical 
with the first, save that the walls and ceiling were a dull red instead of 
gray. 


He had now descended at least thirty feet below street level and moved 
more or less due west, with only the single jog to the left at the top of the 
stair, since entering the temple. A rough estimate told him that he had come 
at least a hundred feet from the front pillars-which meant that he was now in 
or under the great stone outcroppings, since the temple itself had been no 
more than sixty feet from front to back. 


That was very interesting indeed, he thought. He wondered if he might 
find his way under the lake, to the ruins on the far side. 


He proceeded through the second chamber and into a third, this one 
walled and ceiled in dead black, the floor again a dust-covered polychrome. 
The door at the end of this chamber opened onto another staircase leading 
down; he followed it without hesitation. 


It seemed to run on forever. He had been in crypts before, in the 
Orunian city of Mormoreth, but this stair appeared far longer than any he had 
previously encountered anywhere. 


It was also straight, which might have added to its apparent length; the 
crypt stairs in Mormoreth had wound slightly back and forth, so that he had 
never been able to see their full length at one time. Here, though, he found 
it disconcerting to hold up the lamp and see step after step after step, 
stretching away into the distance both above and below him, both ends lost in 
the darkness beyond the reach of his feeble lamplight. 


Finally, as the lamp swung forward, he glimpsed the lower end; he 
increased his speed as much as he dared, for the steps were as treacherous as 
the lower portion of the first set. 


The stair ended in a short corridor, and that in turn led to another 
stair, this one ascending. Garth wondered whether he would find himself in the 
midst of the ruins beyond the lake. 


He did not; the upward-bound steps ran only a tiny fraction of the 
distance he had just descended. Almost as soon as he reached the first step, 
he glimpsed the upper end. 


A moment later he emerged into another room, away from the confining 
stone walls of the stairway, and paused to catch his breath again. 


Again, he thought he heard noise behind him, but now it was almost 
drowned out by the slow beating ahead of him, a sound that had acquired a 
sinister, menacing note as he drew nearer its source. Something about it made 



him nervous. 


He had not yet given much thought to what the beating might be; he had 
decided that it was a heartbeat without considering what that might mean. Now, 
as he stood in a passage that he judged to be several hundred feet below the 
level of Ur-Dormulk's streets, he wondered what he might find if he went on. 
Could there be a monster with a heart so great? If so, he would stand no more 
chance against it than a beetle. A mere mechanical dragon had been capable of 
killing him; how could he think to face a creature whose heartbeat could be 
heard half a mile away? 


On the other hand, why would such a monster even notice him? He need not 
worry about being devoured; an overman could scarcely begin to feed the 
appetite of such a thing, and he could easily retreat into places where a 
behemoth could not reach him. 


The idea of such a creature went against all his instincts, and he 
decided that it was far more likely that the sound was being artificially 
produced by some lost remnant of the outlawed cult, for reasons of its own. In 
any case, he was not about to turn back at this point. He held up the lamp. 


He was in another long, narrow, low-ceilinged room, longer than the 
three on the upper level and walled in gray stone. Again there was a single 
door at the far end, yet this one was not a simple portal in a post-and-lintel 
frame, but an elaborate carved construction of several different woods, hung 
in a red stone arch embellished with golden tracery. 


Garth approached cautiously; the ornate door, so different from the 
others, seemed almost threatening. He paused when he had reached it and put a 
hand to one of the wooden panels. It vibrated beneath his fingers with the 
slow, slow beating. 


For a third time he thought he heard something behind him, the sound 
only detectable in the interval between beats, and lost thereafter in the 
throbbing he had followed for so far. He turned and looked back at the stairs, 
but saw nothing. 


This new portal did not yield to a simple push, but the latch handle 
still moved freely; he lifted it and shoved the door wide. 


Beyond lay a chamber unlike the others; although the walls curved into 
the ceiling in the same fashion, this room was circular rather than oblong. 
The walls were black, and the floor here was also black, made up of stones 
arranged in a spiral leading in toward the room's center. 


It was what stood in the center, however, that was most different. A 
column of horn or ivory projected upward from the floor, yellowed with age but 
still almost white, tapering from a diameter of eighteen inches or so at the 
base to about a foot where it was cut off, three feet above the floor, to form 
a slanting surface. In the center of this tilted top, a single drop of some 
reddish-black substance was very slowly oozing forth. 


A circular trough surrounded this strange column, and Garth saw that 
there was a trickle of the red-black goo down the side of the column and a 
shallow pool of it in the trough. 


He saw no way in or out of the chamber, save for the single arched door. 
Garth entered cautiously, lamp and sword both held high. 


There was nothing to look at but the column and its curious issue, so he 
studied that. As he watched, a fat black drop rolled sluggishly from the 
center of the column's top to the edge, joining the slow trickle. Its 
separation from the central spot coincided exactly with the end of one of the 
vast heartbeats, Garth noted idly. 


Another drop began to grow as Garth studied the walls, looking for 
concealed openings. He turned back as a beat ended and saw the new drop follow 
its predecessor. 


That the first drop had happened to fall in time with the sound had 
struck him as nothing but coincidence, but the second one made it seem more 
than that. He listened, watched, and soon reached an inescapable conclusion: 
the sound he had followed came from the base of the mysterious shaft. 
Furthermore, it was somehow connected with the oozing fluid. 



It occurred to him that it might be the vibration that caused the drops 
to fall in synchronization with the beating, rather than any more direct 
connection. It did not seem reasonable that so great and ponderous a throbbing 
should do nothing but pump out a stream of blackish goo. He looked for some 
secret opening or lever on the column or in the trough surrounding it, being 
careful to touch nothing, lest he trigger a trap. 


His investigation of the small metal pipe that allowed the excess fluid 
to drain off when the trough was full ceased abruptly, however, when for the 
fourth time he heard sounds other than the beating, coming from somewhere 
outside the arched doorway. 


Once, perhaps twice, he could dismiss this as illusion, or the action of 
overwrought nerves, but now there was no chance at all that noise might be 
reaching him from outside the crypts. No vermin would be audible over the 
great throbbing, yet the sound was there once more. It was closer than before, 
and he did not lose it again after the first hearing. Now that he was no 
longer moving deeper into the catacomb, whatever made the noise was gaining on 
him quickly. After listening carefully for a few seconds, he thought that it 
was the rattle of armor. 


He dropped the lamp where he was; it flickered, but stayed lit, as it 
bounced once and came to rest on the stone floor at a sharp angle, tilted up 
on the curve of its metal oil reservoir and prevented from rolling by the 
thick dust. 


The circular chamber offered few places of concealment, with no corners, 
alcoves, or hangings that might hide him. The looming shadow of the central 
column, stretching up the wall opposite the spot where the lamp had fallen, 
would provide some cover, but Garth decided against it, preferring the more 
obvious place behind the only door. Whoever was approaching would probably not 
realize immediately that he had reached a dead end in the little room. The 
person would wonder why the lamp was there, certainly, but would probably not 
think to check behind the door before entering. Putting out the lamp would 
leave Garth in total darkness, and he did not care for that idea; let his 
pursuer wonder, then. 


Besides, he had no time to think of a better plan. 


The sounds were drawing nearer; in the pauses between beats, he could 
make out footsteps and the rasping breath of human exertion. He pressed up 
against the wall behind the carven door, sword ready in his right hand, axe 
swung around within reach, awaiting whoever might come. 


CHAPTER FOURTEEN 


Sedrik's pursuit of the overman was delayed slightly by the darkness of the 
temple; he had assumed that he would find his quarry on the streets or in some 
well-lighted shop and had not bothered to equip his men with lanterns. When it 
became clear that Garth was not to be found anywhere in the dim precincts of 
the temple proper, and giving due consideration to the fact that the overman 
was a newcomer to Ur-Dormulk who could scarcely have known of secret exits, 
Sedrik had no choice but to conclude that Garth had taken the stair to the 
crypts. Sedrik had his orders, and his own hatred as well, and was eager to 
follow-but no glimmer of light indicated the overman's presence: surely he 
would not have ventured into the depths without a light of some kind! Sedrik 
had to assume that Garth had either built up a considerable lead, or turned 
corners, or passed through doorways. To pursue him in total darkness would be 
reckless to the point of abject stupidity. Therefore, lights were needed, and 
Sedrik had to wait with half his company at the head of the crypt stairs while 
the other half returned to the street to fetch torches or lamps from the 
surrounding shops. 


As he waited, the faint, fetid warmth that drifted up from below made 
his skin crawl. 


Finally all his men were together again, torches in hand. No lamps or 



lanterns had been secured, but a plentiful supply of torches intended for 
lighting temples and storefronts had been available; the rightful owners had 
been willing to give them up without payment beyond a promise of government 
recompense later. The possessors of other means of illumination had not been 
so obliging, and the soldiers had not cared to argue. 


With one man in four carrying a lighted brand, Sedrik and his party 
descended the steps, following in Garth's wake. Sedrik, in his impatience at 
the delay and in his eagerness for battle, tried to hurry the soldiers along, 
but with limited success. The worn steps, the evil reputation of both the 
temple and the crypts, and the unsteady torchlight all served to keep the pace 
down. 


At the foot of the first flight, some of the men sighed audibly with 
relief; Sedrik paid them no mind but moved forward more briskly, now that the 
floor was solid underfoot. 


They passed through the gray room, the red, and into the black; here one 
of the men whispered, "Shh! I think I hear something!" 


Sedrik gave the command to halt and held up a hand for silence. His men 
obeyed, and all listened. 


Uncertain, they looked at one another. 


"Do you hear it, commander?" one murmured. 


Sedrik nodded, reluctantly. 


"What is it?" another asked. 


Sedrik shrugged. 


"'Tis the heartbeat of the god!" someone said. 


"Dhazh?" 


"That's only a myth!" 


Sedrik spoke at last. "This sound is no myth; we all hear it. Perhaps it 
is what first gave rise to the tales of Dhazh's existence. I suspect it to be 
an underground waterfall; after all, we must be near Demhe here, and no one 
knows where its bottom may be, or where its waters come and go." 


"I don't hear anything," a soldier at the back confessed. 


"Then it's your hearing that's at fault, for the sound is there," one of 
his comrades retorted. 


"Whatever it is, men," Sedrik said, "it is no concern of ours, wherever 
it comes from. It may well be beyond the walls of the crypts entirely. I doubt 
that anything could fit into these rooms that we would not be able to handle; 
certainly the monster-god of the old legends could not squeeze beneath this 
roof!" He gestured at the low ceiling; someone chuckled, which pleased Sedrik. 
He saw about an even mix of smiles and worried looks; that was worse than he 
had hoped, but better than he had expected. Even the best fighters could be 
discouraged by empty darkness and narrow passages. 


"We go on," he said. "We have an overman to catch." 


They moved on down the length of the black chamber in formation, six 
ranks of two, with Sedrik to one side of the second rank. At the door at the 
inner end, the first rank balked. The foremost torchbearer, in the second rank 
at Sedrik's elbow, held his light high and forward, its flame spattering on 
the ceiling, its smoke lost against the black stone, its light spilling down 
the second stair. 


"I cannot see the bottom, commander," the torchbearer reported. 


Sedrik stepped forward and peered over the shoulder of one of the first 
pair. "And I cannot see the overman, nor have we seen anywhere he might have 
turned. We go on." He noticed, but did not mention, that the faint roaring-the 
god's heartbeat-seemed to be coming up the stairway from somewhere below. 


"We don't know what's down there!" another soldier protested. 


"The overman is down there!" Sedrik said, repressing the urge to bellow 
as if on a parade ground; there was no knowing how far an echo might carry, 
and he had no desire to alert Garth to his presence. "I see no sign of any 
danger, save that one of you clumsy fools might stumble and crack his skull on 
the steps." Despite his anger, Sedrik immediately regretted those words; they 
would only serve to make his men more nervous, which would in turn make their 



descent still slower and more cautious. "We have orders, from the overlord 
himself, to hunt down and kill this inhuman foreigner. He's somewhere below, 
and I intend to find him. Now, come on!" He pushed past the leaders and 
started down, thinking to himself that he should have taken the lead position 
right from the first. 


Reluctantly, his men followed. 


The length of the stair eventually became daunting even to Sedrik; he 
heard his men muttering unhappily when the rearmost torchbearer had lost all 
sight of the top, but he forced himself onward, determined to show no fear in 
front of his subordinates, and resolved that he could face any dangers that an 
overman could face. The distant rhythmic rumble became more distinct as they 
went on; Sedrik had hoped that they would pass its source and lose it, but so 
far there had been no sign of that happening. 


It was fortunate, he thought, that the stair remained barely wide enough 
to march two abreast; had they been forced into single file, he knew that his 
men would have been even more anxious. 


At last the company reached the short corridor and, with visible relief, 
continued on, up the ascending steps beyond. They emerged into the long gray 
room at the top of the final stair, and the beating sound was clearly audible 
even over the rattle of armor and their heavy footsteps. Sedrik stopped and 
raised his hand for silence; the men stopped, the first rank just inside the 
chamber, the rest still arrayed upon the stairs. 


He was not absolutely certain, but Sedrik thought he had at last 
glimpsed a dim light somewhere in the darkness ahead. He pointed to the torch 
nearest him and made a passing motion; its bearer understood and obeyed, 
passing it back to the men farthest down the steps, who held it and the two 
other torches down low so as to disturb the darkness at the far end of the 
chamber as little as possible. 


Sedrik stared into the gloom, shading his eyes against the glare from 
behind, and made out that there was indeed a light ahead, just beyond a wide 
doorway. 


The light was not moving; whatever the overman had come for, he had 
presumably found it. Sedrik did not think he had merely paused to rest; the 
natural place to do that would have been at the foot of the long stair, or the 
top of the last. 


Unless, the commander thought, yet another stair lay beyond the door, 
and the overman had paused before tackling it. 


Still a third possibility occurred to Sedrik. The overman might have 
brought more than one light and abandoned this one when it burned low. Staring 
at it, Sedrik observed that it was low, far dimmer than any of his own three 
torches, which had burned almost to stubs. 


"Change torches," he whispered, reminded of their state. 


Word was passed down the steps, and three new torches were lighted, 
flaring up brightly; the old were stamped out and cast aside. 


The presence of the doorway was not helpful; Sedrik had no way of 
knowing what lay beyond it. Marching his men in without further investigation 
would be stupid and reckless. He was tempted to go forward himself and scout 
it out, but that was not a commander's job, and he knew it. If he were to 
stick his head through the door and be slain, his men would flee; if another 
were to do the same, Sedrik knew he could fire up the survivors with a lust 
for vengeance and lead them to the attack. 


Reluctantly, he signaled for one man to step forward. 


"Nalba," Sedrik whispered, "I want you to go and see what's beyond the 
door there." He pointed. "Be careful about it; I don't want you killed. If the 
overman's in there and you have a chance, jump him and call for help; we'll 
come. If you don't think you can get him, or if he sees you coming, you come 
back here and tell me. If he's not there, come back and report; don't do 
anything foolish." Sedrik pointed to the mace on the soldier's back. "Use that 
if you can; it's harder to parry than a sword, and overmen are strong. You're 
more likely to keep him busy with that than with your sword, even if you can't 



kill him. Have you got all that?" 


Nalba nodded silently, then crept cautiously past his commander and down 
the length of the room, unslinging the heavy mace as he went, so that it was 
ready in his hand when he reached the arch. 


He peered through, and saw the lamp flickering on the floor. He glimpsed 
the tapering column and thought for an instant that it was the overman, 
crouched to spring. He swung back out of the way; then, when no attack came, 
he inched forward again. 


This time he made out the column's nature more clearly and determined 
that it was not an immediate threat. He advanced, slowly and carefully, into 
the room. 


Behind the door, Garth watched and waited. 


Nalba paused a few paces in, just short of the trough encircling the 
central pediment, and peered around into the darkness. He saw nothing-no 
overman and no way out of the room. 


A chill ran through him, despite the chamber's muggy warmth, as the 
notion arose that the overman they pursued had vanished by means of sorcery. 


His first thought was to run back and tell the marshal that the overman 
had disappeared into thin air. He stopped himself, however, and tried to think 
it through. 


It was undeniable that, as far as he could tell, the room was empty of 
everything but dust, shadows, and the abandoned lamp; but he could not see all 
of the room. Sedrik would be disappointed in him if he were to turn and leave 
now, and if it were later discovered that the overman was hiding behind some 
secret panel lost in the gloom. 


Besides, he saw no actual danger. 


Mace held out before him, Nalba began to make his way around the room, 
poking his weapon at the wall every so often and peering into the shadows. He 
came at last to the deep darkness behind the broad door and paused; any 
concealed opening there would just lead back out into the long chamber, but he 
knew he should check it for the sake of completeness. Something about it made 
him nervous; he thought he saw something glinting, or heard something 
breathing, or perhaps both. He could not be sure of his sight in the unsteady 
light and clinging darkness, or of his hearing while the dull throbbing 
pounded on his ears, or of his thoughts in the foul, moist air of the chamber. 


If the overman were hiding there behind the door, Nalba told himself, he 
would have jumped out and cut my throat long ago. The soldier prodded with his 
mace. 


Steel flashed, and the tip of a sword slipped between his chin and the 
throatpiece of his helmet. 


"One word, human, and I sever your head," Garth warned. 


Nalba froze, fighting a sudden urge to swallow, his teeth clenched to 
hold in a scream. 


"Put the mace down, slowly and quietly," the overman said. 


Nalba tried to obey; he lowered the head, but was unable to handle the 
weight of the weapon. The metal ball struck the stone paving with an audible 
thud, and the terrified soldier discovered that he could not reach down any 
farther to place the handle on the floor. If he dropped it, it would rattle; 
if he bent down, the sword would be forced into his gullet. 


Garth grasped the situation and said, "Drop it." He did not see how it 
could matter; anything listening would have heard the sound of the mace's head 
falling. 


Relieved, Nalba dropped the mace; the handle rolled down and clicked 
against the stone. 


That done, the two stared at each other, Garth seeing a shadowy backlit 
figure wearing the green uniform and bronze helmet of Ur-Dormulk's soldiery, 
while Nalba could see nothing but a great black shape holding a sword at his 
throat. A few inches of the blade caught a stray glimmer from the fallen lamp, 
and the soldier thought he could make out something shiny and red where his 
captor's eyes should have been. 



At the head of the stair, Sedrik had been watching Nalba's actions as 
best he could. He had seen the soldier begin his circuit of the chamber, 
vanishing to one side, returning to visibility for a brief moment as he 
crossed back into Sedrik's line of sight to the rear wall, and then 
disappearing again along the other side. 


Nalba seemed to be taking plenty of time to search the second side, 
Sedrik thought; then he heard the thud, just barely audible over the steady 
beating sound, of the mace hitting the floor. 


Something was wrong, Sedrik was sure. He did not know what, but one 
possibility was obvious: the overman had been hiding there and had caught 
Nalba by surprise and cut his throat so quickly that he had no time to cry 
out. The monster had not managed to catch the mace before it fell, though, and 
that might prove his undoing. 


Sedrik knew there were other explanations available, but he was certain 
that this was what had happened. He ordered his men, "Weapons at ready!" 


Swords slid from scabbards, shields were raised, the thongs of maces 
were looped around wrists, crossbows were cocked and loaded-.all as silently 
as the dozen men could contrive. Sedrik unslung his war axe, hefted it with 
his left hand, and drew his sword with his right. The deep throbbing covered 
much of the noise they made. 


Still, Garth heard something other than the beating. He had intended a 
leisurely questioning of his captive, using long pauses to increase the man's 
nervousness, but he suddenly realized he might not have time for that. 


"Are you alone?" he asked. 


Nalba stared, petrified, unable to nod, not wanting to shake his head in 
a truthful answer, lest it enrage the monster that held the sword. 


In the long hall, Sedrik whispered, "Something's gotten Nalba; it must 
have surprised him somehow. I don't know if it's the overman or not, but it 
probably is. I don't want him to surprise us. If we charge in there at full 
speed, we may startle him out of attacking; then we'll be able to see where he 
is and fight him fairly. Understood?" 


Most of the men nodded; he ignored those who did not. They would follow 
along and do well enough, he was sure. 


"We want to catch him off guard, so no yelling until we're through the 
door; then you can bellow your lungs out if you want. We're going to run in 
there and kill him before he knows what's happening. Right?" 


This time almost all of his men nodded. 


"Good. On the count of three, then. One..." 


Garth pressed the point of his sword forward slightly, forcing Nalba's 
head back. "You're not alone, then. How many of you are there?" 


Nalba moved back a step, but the gleaming blade followed, keeping the 
pressure on his throat. His head was tilted so far back that the base of his 
helmet was digging into his neck. 


"How many?" Garth insisted. "Five? Ten?" 


Nalba managed to shake his head. 


Sedrik advanced a step, allowing the rest of his men to come up off the 
stair and into the room. He half-turned toward the door beyond and raised his 
sword. "Two," he said. 


"Twenty?" Garth demanded, his voice slipping into a growl. 


"Three!" Sedrik breathed. He charged toward the open door. 


Nalba was trying to take another step back, his head forced up by the 
sword so that he could no longer see the floor, when one of the slow beats 
ended, allowing both Nalba and Garth to hear the clinking of metal and the 
pounding of booted feet running toward them. Hoping that the overman-if it was 
indeed an overman that held the blade to his neck-would be distracted, Nalba 
groped for the hilt of his sword and tried to twist aside. 


Garth was not sufficiently distracted to forget his prisoner; he saw the 
hand reaching for the belt, though he could not clearly see what weapon hung 
there. He knew that the man might be of value as a hostage, but he might also 



be dangerous, since Garth had no time to bind him. The overman could not 
afford to divide his attention. Unhappily, he rammed his sword forward, 
through the human's throat; it scraped past the spine and thunked against the 
back of the bronze helmet. 


The soldier died without a sound; Garth pulled the sword out and sank 
back into his shadowy corner, letting the corpse fall to the floor with a 
sodden thump. The helmet bounced off and rolled noisily to one side. 


An instant later a stream of men burst into the chamber, steel blades 
flashing in every direction; the first stumbled over the lamp and sent it 
spinning away toward the far wall. 


Startled by the number of foes, despite what Nalba had indicated, Garth 
did not wait for them all to arrive and surround him; he braced his back 
against the wall behind him and kicked out with all his strength at the carved 
door. 


It squealed in protest, but slammed with satisfying force into two of 
the humans; one went sprawling off to the side, within the circular chamber, 
and the other was knocked back against his advancing companions, gashing 
himself on an upraised sword. 


A second kick closed the door, and Garth braced himself against it, 
knowing as he did so that a solid blow of an axe from the other side might 
injure or even kill him. 


Not counting the bleeding corpse on the floor, six or perhaps seven men 
were in the room with him; the shadows made an exact count very difficult. One 
held a smoldering torch. All carried weapons. One was down for the moment, 
bowled over by the door; he had dropped a crossbow, but still gripped a sword. 


Three held swords and shields, one had a mace and a sword, another bore 
a mace and the torch while a sword hung on his belt, and the last-there were 
seven, Garth realized-was coming at the overman with a raised axe. 


Garth had no time for finesse; he raised his sword and lunged forward, 
meeting the axe-wielder's attack with his own. The blade slid between the 
man's ribs and stood out from his back, gleaming wetly red in the flaring 
torchlight. 


Sedrik had underestimated the overman's reach, and had not been aware of 
his superhuman speed at all until it was too late. He felt the sword go into 
him above the belly, and knew he had misjudged. His mouth gaped open, blood 
from a pierced lung gurgling in his throat, and he made a desperate try with 
his axe, swinging wildly. His right arm fell aside and went limp; his sword 
clattered to the floor. 


The arc of the axe brought it down across Garth's sword arm, grazing it, 
but doing little real damage; then Sedrik sagged and fell. 


Garth pulled his blade free in time to face the charge of a 
mace-wielding soldier on his right and a shielded swordsman on his left. He 
ducked back and to the left, letting the mace slam into the wooden door, 
hoping the spikes would become caught; splinters flew, but the mace scraped 
onward. 


The swordsman was being cautious, his shield limiting his movement, and 
missed an opportunity to strike at the overman as Garth slid back off the door 
and around to the soldier's right. Startled by the overman's speed and fooled 
by the common human idea that large size meant slow reactions, the swordsman 
was still turning to face his opponent when Garth gripped the axe in his left 
hand and brought it around. 


The soldier flinched back and the axe missed his right arm, but his 
sword was knocked from his grasp. The axe continued on and bit into the side 
of the shield with a loud thunk. 


Seizing the opportunity, Garth used the axe to force the shield down and 
ran his sword into the man's face. 


The mace was coming down for another blow as Garth yanked his sword from 
the shield-bearer's eye; the overman met the descending weapon with his blade. 


The parry was successful, but Garth could see that the sword was badly 
notched-Galt's sword, he remembered, not his own-and he could feel the metal 



straining as he forced the mace back. He pulled at his axe, using his left 
knee to knock the shield away. The other two shieldmen were advancing on his 
left, he saw; he turned, and a crossbow quarrel whirred past his face, then 
went spinning from the wall beyond. The fallen bowman had recovered his 
weapon. 


Garth did not worry about that; the man would have to reload before he 
could fire again, and reloading a crossbow was slow work, particularly when 
lying on the floor. The weapon was designed to be held between the knees and 
braced against the ground, with the feet holding down the crosspiece. 


Someone was banging and calling on the other side of the door; Garth 
ignored that as well. Three men were down, dead or nearly so, but five were 
still trying to kill him. 


A small part of his mind, unconcerned with the battle, wondered who 
these men were and why they had come after him and tried to kill him. All wore 
the uniform of the city guard; that worried him. Temple guards or warrior 
priests he might have expected, but this party looked official. He hoped that 
the overlord had not sent them. He had no desire to antagonize Ur-Dormulk's 
ruler. Perhaps, he thought, it was all a misunderstanding. 


The two surviving shieldmen were advancing confident of their safety 
behind their heavy protection, and Garth decided that they needed a 
demonstration of his strength, something that would damage their confidence 
and thereby diminish the threat they presented. He moved left, away from the 
mace and its wielder. The shieldmen turned and kept their swords weaving, 
looking for an opening; the man with the mace stumbled when a swing met no 
resistance and stepped back to recollect himself. 


With him out of the way for a few seconds, Garth held one shieldman back 
with his sword and brought his axe down on the other in a long overhand smash, 
like the swing of a sledgehammer, with as much of his strength behind it as he 
could muster. He had to angle the blow to avoid hitting the low ceiling. 


The axe split the man's sword in two, the tip spinning away to the side, 
the hilt dropping from impact-numbed fingers, and drove on downward, hacking 
into the riveted steel shield as if it were rotten wood. Had the soldier not 
had it securely strapped to his arm, he would have dropped that, as well. 


Disarmed and terrified, the man fell back, wrenching his shield off the 
axe and saving Garth the trouble of having to free his embedded weapon. That 
left the other shieldman's right flank unguarded. Garth sent the axe chopping 
sideways, behind the shield. It scraped across mail, but did not cut. 


Still, the shieldman was disconcerted now. He turned his arm to fend off 
the axe, and Garth's sword slid into his left armpit, making good use of the 
overman's superior reach and speed. 


Behind Garth, the door started to open again, and he slammed it shut 
with his foot, throwing himself off balance for a moment, unable to pursue the 
momentary advantage he had gained. The mace-wielder came at him again; Garth 
turned, parried the mace with his axe, met sword with sword, and drove both 
back by sheer strength. When he had forced the soldier's arms up so that the 
man had to retreat or fall backward, Garth pulled the axe down the shaft of 
the mace and twisted, yanking the mace from the human's weakened grip. 


While he did this, however, his left side presented an open invitation 
to the two shieldmen; the one who still held his sword gathered enough courage 
to accept and lunged forward. 


Garth dodged, so that the blade scraped across his back, gouging him 
slightly but not penetrating deeply. He brought his left arm swinging back and 
caught his attacker on the right shoulder. The man withdrew, wary of losing 
sword, sword arm, or both. 


That permitted the overman to force his way past the guard of his 
now-maceless opponent and drive his sword into the man's shoulder. The soldier 
gasped as Garth's blade withdrew and blood spurted; he fell back, dropping his 
own remaining weapon. 


Garth was working himself up into a state of unreasoning fury; in 
consequence, when he saw the unarmed maceman fall back, he gave no thought to 



subtlety, but swung around to face the shieldmen-and the other mace-wielder, 
now advancing to join the'attack-head on. "Fools!" he shouted, breaking his 
silence. 


"Inhuman monster!" someone replied. 


The crossbowman was still on the floor, apparently just watching; the 
injured maceman was upright but unarmed and also seemed content to play 
spectator. The axeman, the first shield-carrier, and the original advance 
scout were all down for good. That left Garth facing three opponents, one of 
them twice wounded, with no reinforcements ready to jump to their aid. 


That meant he no longer needed to be cautious; no one was going to sneak 
up on him unexpectedly. He roared wordlessly and brought his axe arcing 
overhead, barely missing the low ceiling, to smash through a human skull. The 
man tried to parry the blow with the sundered shield he bore, and his arm met 
Garth's in mid-air. The soldier's forearm broke under the impact; Garth 
received a bruise, but the axe continued on and splattered blood and brains 
across the next man over. 


The shieldman dropped, and Garth faced two terrified opponents. The 
fight had gone out of them; they were retreating, staying out of his reach. To 
one side, the unarmed soldier was struggling to open the door and escape. The 
crossbowman had finally gotten to his feet, but showed no interest in anything 
but flight. 


Garth took a step forward, pursuing the enemy. They stepped back; one 
stumbled over the trough around the central column and dropped the torch. The 
flame flickered and went out as the burning tip landed, hissing, in the dark 
fluid. The only remaining light was the faint glow of the oil lamp, still 
burning where it lay against the far wall. 


Garth tried to lift his foot to take another step forward, but something 
prevented him; something was gripping his ankle. He looked down. 


Sedrik was not dead; he supported himself on one elbow, his axe clutched 
in that hand, while his other clutched at Garth's leg. Blood was seeping from 
his closed mouth. He was trying to lift himself up and raise the axe to 
strike, his movements uncoordinated and feeble. 


Garth stared at him in surprise for a second, then decided that, 
mortally wounded as he was, the man was of no consequence. He thrust his foot 
forward despite the encumbrance upon it. 


Sedrik's grip did not loosen; instead he was dragged forward, and Garth 
turned again to look at him. 


The maceman who had dropped the torch saw his opportunity; he danced in 
and made a desperate, wild, sideways swing. The heavy spiked ball caught 
Garth's sword where it had been notched, snapping the blade off. 


Garth whirled back and roared in anger. That was not his sword! Galt 
would be annoyed, he knew. He swung his axe and saw it bite deep into the 
soldier's chest, grating against bone. 


It did not come free when he tried to pull it back. He attempted to step 
forward, the better to brace himself, and found that Sedrik was still clamped 
onto his ankle. Enraged beyond all thought, he released his axe, letting the 
dying soldier fall to the ground with the weapon still in him, then flung 
aside the broken hilt of Galt's sword, reached down with both hands, and 
yanked Sedrik free. 


The man's mouth opened and blood spilled out. "Monster," he tried to 
say; the word emerged as a croaking gurgle. He struggled to lift and swing his 
axe. 


Garth saw that the man was obviously dying, too weak to be anything but 
a minor annoyance; infuriated, he flung Sedrik away in the general direction 
of the surviving soldiers. 


At that instant the door burst open and light poured in from the 
remaining torches, allowing Garth to see clearly what next took place. 


Sedrik's body slammed against the central column, his arm flopping and 
the blade of the axe bit into the yellowed substance of the thing the cut 
penetrating the tubule whence the black fluid oozed. Three great drops 



spattered forth across the steel head of the weapon, and the beating stopped. 


For a moment nothing more happened; the combatants, human and overman, 
in the inner chamber or the long hall, all froze in astonishment. 


"Gods," someone said. 


A low rumble sounded, far different from the earlier sound, and the 
beating returned-but not as the tortuously slow thing it had been before. The 
new sound was higher in pitch, but still bone-shakingly deep; it was much 
louder, and faster as well, a single beat now taking no more than a few 
seconds. 


One of the soldiers in the outer room turned and ran; Garth heard others 
moving uncertainly. 


A new sound added itself to the racket, a loud rumble; Garth felt the 
floor vibrate beneath him. Somewhere, something broke with a sharp cracking. 
The wounded maceman Garth had disarmed screamed and ran, and others followed 
him. 


More rumblings sounded, and the throbbing grew still louder and faster, 
as if whatever creature possessed the mighty heartbeat were awakening from 
sleep. The floor shifted, then seemed to drop a few inches beneath Garth's 
feet; he saw that the column was sinking downward out of sight. 


Then it paused, with only the uppermost foot still showing, and the 
rumblings subsided for a moment; the heartbeat continued unabated. Garth had a 
sensation of knowing that something was about to occur without knowing what it 
would be. 


The remaining soldiers who were still capable of fleeing did so during 
this brief interval, but Garth resolved to stay where he was. He had come to 
this place seeking a magical device of great power, and it was possible that 
the shaking of the earth and the mighty rumblings and beating were somehow 
connected with it. 


At his feet lay three corpses; just ahead lay Sedrik, still twitching 
slightly, his eyes open and staring at the overman. The various movements of 
the room had left him lying on the floor free of the strange column, his axe 
still clutched in his hand. 


Then the rumbling began again. With an immense crashing, the column. 
thrust upward, splitting the floor of the chamber into scattered shards and 
sending Garth back against the wall. The wall itself turned and gave, and he 
fell back into dark emptiness; all around him, he could hear the grinding of 
stone on stone and the sound of breaking rock. Hot, fetid air rushed past him. 
He had a final glimpse as he fell of a vast monstrosity rising up before him, 
its hideous visage twenty feet across. Flat, golden eyes gleamed from sunken 
black sockets on either side of a great curving nose-horn, its tip broken and 
oozing dark fluid. Garth recognized that horn; its upper end had been the 
mysterious column. Here, then, was the beast whose heartbeat he had followed, 
awakened and unleashed. 


A piece of rubble smashed against the back of his head, and he saw 
nothing more. 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN 


Garth awoke with sunlight warm on his face, and with no idea of where he was. 
He lay sprawled across a small heap of rubble, a sharp stone digging into the 
back of one thigh, his head hanging down off the edge of something, his whole 
body tipped at an uncomfortable angle. 


He lifted his head with effort, closing his eyes against the glare of 
light, and shifted his leg off the point that gouged it. With a little 
struggling, he managed to get himself sitting upright, then opened his eyes 
and looked about. 


He was perched on a slab of broken pavement-or perhaps a broken 
wall-that lay atop a mound of debris, three or four feet high. This pile was 
one of many, in varying sizes, scattered across a broad stone floor. Most of 



the wreckage was also stone, but Garth saw metal scraps, shards of tile, bits 
of wood, fragments of furniture, the remains of various tapestries, drapes, 
carpets, and hangings, and at least one human body, that of one of the 
soldiers he had fought, half-buried in a pile near his own. He and the heaps 
of rubble were all scattered about an immense chamber, but most of the walls 
were lost in shadow, and he could not guess what the chamber might be, or 
where. Only one section of the far wall was in full sunlight, a small area 
centered on an arched doorway. A yellow symbol gleamed brightly on the black 
door; it seemed familiar, but Garth did not recognize it. 


The uneven light and drifting dust made it difficult to judge the size 
of the place, but Garth estimated that it was a good fifty feet to the far 
wall. 


He turned around to see what lay behind him and discovered that he was 
only a few feet from the wall. He saw no door, no windows, and wondered where 
the sunlight was coming from. He looked up. 


The room extended upward incredibly far, easily a hundred feet; graceful 
columns soared out from the walls into elaborate vaulting, the details lost in 
distance and shadow. Much of that vaulting was in disarray; a large section of 
the roof was missing and, Garth realized, a large part of the wall directly 
behind him was gone as well. He had not noticed it sooner because the wall was 
intact to a height of twelve or fifteen feet, but from that point up, most of 
it was gone. 


That explained where most of the rubble had come from. 


The sunlight was spilling in through the break, and the steep angle 
indicated the middle part of the day-though Garth could not be certain which 
day it was. Dust was drifting everywhere, sparkling and blurring in the beams 
of light; surely, Garth told himself, it would have settled if more than one 
day, or at most two, had passed since the wall was shattered. 


The overman considered his situation. He had no clear idea where he was; 
he could not even be certain he was still in Ur-Dormulk, but the presence of 
the dead soldier implied that Garth was still wherever he had fallen when the 
immense homed monster had burst up from beneath. It seemed reasonable to 
assume that the break in the wall and roof had been made by the creature. Of 
the beast itself, however, there was no trace, save a faint, lingering, 
unpleasant odor; the sound of its heartbeat was gone. The silence, in fact, 
was nearly total; Garth felt as if he could hear his own breathing, his own 
heartbeat, and perhaps even the faint hiss of the dust sifting down onto the 
stones. The air, too, was almost still; no wind could be heard blowing around 
the broken columns overhead. 


That did not necessarily mean that he was safe from the monster; it 
night be lurking just beyond the walls. 


Almost anything might be out there, Garth thought. He had no way of 
knowing that there had been only one monster. Even leaving monsters aside, he 
could reasonably assume that any humans he might find would be hostile. After 
all, he had been attacked for no reason he knew of, and now any survivors 
might consider him responsible for awakening the creature-though Garth was 
sure it had been the blow of the human's axe on the thing's horn that had done 
that. 


He could not in good faith deny all responsibility. He had been 
investigating where he was not welcome, and perhaps he had interfered in 
things best left alone. He had not, he had to admit, known what he was doing. 
He had apparently been the indirect cause of more destruction; it seemed that 
ever since he had first touched the Sword of Bheleu, he brought destruction 
wherever he went. 


That was not of immediate concern, however. He had no desire to sit 
where he was all day. The sun was reassuringly warm. He was stiff and sore, 
with several minor wounds, but he was well rested and thirsty. It was time to 
be up and about. 


Garth stretched, hoping that the movement would not reopen any of the 
cuts he had received in the fighting and his fall, and climbed down off the 



slab. 


He looked himself over carefully; he still wore his mail, which was 
dented and twisted here and there, with several broken links. The black metal 
was stained brown in several places, but Garth did not think any of the blood 
was his own. 


His breeches, too, were bloodied but intact, though no one would ever 
again take them for new. One leg had come untucked from his boot top; he 
stuffed it back in. 


The boots themselves seemed sound, but something had gashed one of them 
across the instep; Garth doubted it was still watertight. 


His sword, axe, and helmet were gone, but his belt was still in place 
and his dagger still in its sheath; he was not completely unarmed. He recalled 
that the sword-Galt's sword-had been broken. That was unfortunate. 


Nothing remained of his surcoat but tatters; he removed them. His cloak 
was missing. 


He glanced around, seeing nothing but broken stone, scattered debris, 
drifting dust, and sunlight. There was no sign of life, nothing that could be 
considered threatening. He decided to take a complete inventory. Slowly, he 
removed his coat of mail. 


The gambeson beneath was filthy, soaked through with sweat and blood, 
and pierced in several places, though Garth could not remember feeling 
anything stab through it. He untied it and began to peel it off. 


Blood had clotted inside it, and yanked painfully at his fur and flesh 
as he tore the garment away, but at last he managed to get it off. 


He looked himself over, tugging here and there at matted patches of his 
sparse black fur. He found half a dozen scratches, none of which he could 
remember receiving. All were healing adequately, though he had reopened at 
least one when he removed the gambeson. Bruises were more numerous; one arm in 
particular ached. 


He had nothing to clean his wounds with, save his own saliva; he 
moistened one of the scraps from his surcoat in his mouth and then dabbed at 
the cuts with it. He had kept medicinal salves in a pouch on his belt, but 
that was missing; he was not sure what had happened to it. Only his dagger 
remained on his belt; the pouch and his purse were gone. A wild slash might 
have cut the pursestrings and the strap that held the pouch, he thought; he 
had been fortunate that such a blow had not done far worse, if that was what 
had occurred. 


Though the sun had seemed almost hot on his face when he first awoke, he 
found himself growing chilly with only his fur protecting his chest and back; 
reluctantly, he donned the stiff, stained gambeson again and pulled the 
battered mail back on. 


That done, he considered his next step. 


He had several things he wanted to do. He wanted to find the Book of 
Silence, do whatever he could to damage the cult of Aghad, and see what had 
become of the monster, whether it had gone on a rampage or just settled down 
quietly somewhere. He felt responsible for it and hoped that it had not done 
too much damage. He had caused more than enough death and destruction already, 
without the aid of any monsters. He might also want to investigate the attack 
on him, to find out whether the overlord had sent those soldiers. If he had, 
retaliation might be called for. Garth had come to Ur-Dormulk on a peaceful 
errand-relatively peaceful, at any rate, vengeful though it was-and the 
trouble had begun only when he was attacked without warning or cause. 


If the monster was on a rampage, he might want to do something about 
that, too-but he was not about to try to defeat anything that large without a 
great deal of help, preferably magical. 


All of that could wait, however, because his first priority, as always, 
was survival. He did not know where he was; he was stranded here without food 
or water or decent weapons. 


Water seemed like the most important concern. He had the dagger and no 
visible foes, so weapons were not urgent, and if he grew sufficiently 



desperate for food, there was the corpse of the soldier. He hoped that it 
would not come to that. He had never eaten human flesh, nor wanted to; no 
overman had, so far as he knew, despite what some of the nastier human legends 
suggested. The idea of eating what had once been a fellow sentient being was 
slightly revolting. Still, if it came to a choice of that or starvation, he 
did not intend to starve. 


Water, then, was what he had to find. 


If he was still where he thought he was, in Ur-Dormulk, then water 
should be available one way or another. He had not forgotten that lake. 


He saw no sign of water in the vast chamber about him, however. He would 
have to find a way out. 


He looked up at the broken wall and the missing section of roof. He 
could, if he had to, leap high enough to pull himself up to the bottom of the 
opening-but he was not at all sure that he wanted to. He could not be certain 
that he would be able to go much farther from there. Furthermore, if there 
were enemies or monsters anywhere about, they would, he thought, probably be 
in that direction. 


The door on the far side of the room looked more promising. He had no 
idea where it led, but at the very least, it promised a more complete shelter 
than the great, broken chamber. It was a sign of civilization, and 
civilization could not exist without water. 


It occurred to him that he was far below the level of the city 
streets-assuming that he had awoken where he had fallen. He had been deep in 
the crypts beneath and behind the temple and had, he was sure, fallen still 
farther. This door, then, whatever it was, was also part of the crypts rather 
than part of the city. 


He wondered whether he was below the level of the lake; he had descended 
a goodly distance, but the lake itself had been sunk down far beneath the 
city. If he was below the water line, then it would be wiser to turn and head 
upward; the monster might have damaged the walls enough for water to find its 
way through the ruins at any time, and he might be trapped and drowned. 


Even as he thought of this possibility Garth dismissed it, without 
knowing exactly why. He intended to investigate the door. He felt himself 
drawn to it by something more than simple curiosity. 


Besides, he told himself, if the chamber did flood, he would be able to 
swim out through the break in the wall and at least he would not die of 
thirst. 


He began picking his way cautiously across the pavement, dodging the 
scattered heaps of rubble and watching for any place that looked as if it 
might crack beneath his weight; the thought that the monster might have 
damaged the structure of the crypt made him suddenly very suspicious of its 
stability. He looked up at the vaulting overhead, and around at the walls, 
trying to learn as much as he could about this place where he found himself. 


The hall was square, or nearly so, and about sixty feet on a side, he 
judged. The walls began curving inward about a hundred feet up, and the peak 
of the central vault was another twenty or thirty feet above that. The broken 
side appeared to have been smashed outward all at once-undoubtedly by the 
horned monster. Garth regretted that; it was one more act of destruction that 
could be laid to his account. 


The architecture was rather odd, in that there was no ornamentation 
above eye level save the vaulting-if that could be considered ornamentation. 
It was not needlessly elaborate. There were no galleries, no sign that there 
had ever been hangings or any other display. The room was bare and coldly 
functional, which seemed very peculiar in so vast a space. A chamber this size 
was surely built to be ostentatious, Garth thought, yet it showed no sign of 
ostentation beyond its size. 


As he passed the center of the chamber he noticed that the floor seemed 
slightly warmer there, and the air fouler, with a vague fetidness about it. 
That was, he guessed, because the leviathan had stood in this spot while it 
slept, presumably throughout the city's recorded history. 



With that, it seemed plain that this immense hall had existed solely to 
house the creature; it had been the cage wherein the creature was pent. That 
would explain its dimensions and architecture; nothing else Garth could think 
of would do so as well. 


Realizing this, Garth grew slightly uneasy. What if, after so long a 
residence here, the monster considered this its home? How would it deal with 
any piddling little pest, such as an overman, that it found here upon its 
return? Most likely, Garth thought, it would stamp him flat, if it had feet in 
proportion to its head. He felt instinctively for his weapons. 


Sword and axe were gone, as he already knew; he had only the dagger on 
his belt. 


It didn't matter, he told himself. The monster would barely notice his 
best blow with either axe or broadsword. Human enemies he could handle with 
the dagger or whatever weapons he might find, if there were not too many of 
them at any one time, and the monster he couldn't handle at all with any 
ordinary weapon. He glanced back at the breached wall, wondering what the 
creature had done to Ur-Dormulk and what had become of the city's people. 


Whatever had happened, there was nothing he could do about it. He 
stepped forward and studied the door he had come to investigate. 


It was not large; he would have to duck to pass through it. It was made 
of some dull black substance, not ebony, though it appeared to be wood. The 
yellow symbol, only a single character, was etched upon it in bright metal-not 
pure gold, Garth was sure, as the hue was more vivid than gold. It was no 
metal he recognized, and the symbol was also strange-yet somehow familiar. He 
had an uneasy feeling that he had seen it before and that it had not boded 
well. He realized he was staring at it and turned his gaze away. 


His hand was on the latch, though he did not remember putting it there. 
It was a very curious latch, made of a metal that gleamed like silver, yet had 
no trace of tarnish, though surely it had been centuries since any mortal hand 
had touched it. There was no simple lever to lift, no bolt to draw, but a 
handle that Garth gripped and squeezed, without having consciously figured out 
the mechanism. 


He felt the latch release and pushed on the door, only belatedly 
thinking that he was being incautious. 


The door gave with a hiss of air, then swung silently back. It did not 
squeal or creak, but moved as smoothly as if the hinges had just been oiled. 


Finally growing wary, Garth hesitated on the doorstep. Something had 
drawn him here, something beyond his own curiosity. He did not like being 
compelled; he tried to resist the impulse to step into the room he glimpsed 
through the open portal. 


Perhaps, a part of his mind whispered, this compulsion was one of the 
signs the King had spoken of; perhaps the power of the Book of Silence, eager 
to be released, was drawing him to its hiding place. That was what he had come 
for, and he should follow the urging and seek out its source. 


The logic of this swayed him, and he took a step forward into the dim 
interior. He found himself in a small chamber, about twelve feet wide and 
twenty feet long; thick, dark carpets, coated with dust and moldering with 
age, covered the floor, while the tapestries that had draped the walls had 
fallen to pieces beneath their own weight, leaving only faded tatters on their 
supports. At the far end, a black stone oval hung on the wall, with the same 
sign etched in gold upon it as ornamented the door. Below it stood a small 
altar of finely wrought gold; to either side of the altar stood tall 
candelabra, holding nothing but low stubs of wax lost in dust and cobwebs. 
There were no windows, and the only light was what poured in through the door. 
Garth's shadow lay across much of the floor, and the altar was buried in 
gloom, but the overman could see something gleaming palely upon the altar's 
upper surface. 


Trying to retain some semblance of caution, yet strongly drawn, Garth 
made his way slowly toward the altar, pausing after each step, weighing his 
own wishes and his own will against the force that pulled at him, and allowing 



himself to yield. 


The thing upon the altar, he saw when he had crossed half the length of 
the room, was a mask, of a size to fit a human face. He tried to see what it 
was meant to represent, but with each step its aspect changed. At first he had 
thought it was simply a human face with a peculiarly hostile expression; next 
it seemed to bear a strange and bitter smile; seconds later, it was not the 
visage of a living man but the white, drawn features of a corpse. At his next 
step it showed the marks of advanced decay, swollen and bloated, with remnants 
of flesh drawn back from teeth and eyes; then it became the face of a mummy, 
its dry and wrinkled skin drawn tight over the bone beneath. 


Finally, as he stood over the altar and looked down full upon the mask 
in the shadows of the chamber, it was plainly a representation of a naked 
skull, distorted so that it might be worn by a human over a living face. 


Whatever the thing was, Garth did not like it, yet he found his hand 
reaching out for it. He drew back, and for an instant the object seemed not a 
mask at all, but the face of the Forgotten King, its eyes lost in shadow, the 
wisp of beard trailing from its chin, its skin shriveled but still alive. 


Then it was a skull once more. 


A vagueness seemed to be invading Garth's thoughts, not totally unlike 
the sensations he had sometimes felt when holding the Sword of Bheleu, and he 
guessed that this must be a similar object of power-presumably the Pallid 
Mask, totem of the god of death. 


The aversion that should have accompanied that realization did not come, 
and it took a ferocious effort of will to draw back his hand and keep from 
stepping forward and picking up the ghastly thing. 


He was not the chosen of The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken; he knew that 
and asked himself why he should be drawn to the mask. He wondered if he could 
handle it at all; ordinary people were unable to wield the Sword of Bheleu, 
and he had seen Galt seriously burn his hands just trying to touch its hilt. 


Perhaps, Garth told himself, the Death-God knew that he would be 
returning to Skelleth in time and seeing the Forgotten King. Perhaps, as the 
chosen of Bheleu, he could handle the mask without harm, as the King said he 
could touch the Book of Silence. 


Or perhaps the Death-God was hungry and wanted him to pick up the mask 
and die. The overman was quite sure that its mere touch could be fatal if the 
god so chose. 


A sudden wave of revulsion swept over him; he kicked out at the altar, 
hoping to smash it and lose the hideous mask in the dust. 


The golden framework tilted back, wobbled, rocked forward, and then fell 
back on its side. The mask slid off into the dust, as Garth had wanted, but he 
hardly noticed. He was staring at the space where the altar had stood. 


The floor beneath the altar was bare stone, made of cut blocks arranged 
in neat rows, and one block, directly beneath the center of the altar, was 
missing. In the gap it left lay a book. 


The compulsion that had drawn Garth before was as nothing to the force 
that seized him now; he lunged forward and pulled the thing from its place of 
concealment totally without thought or volition of his own. As soon as his 
fingers touched it, he felt an electric tingle run up his arm, and the room 
seemed alive with eerie colored light. The mask no longer concerned him; he 
all but forgot its existence as he lifted the Book of Silence. 


It was miraculously light, weighing no more in his hands than a single 
straw. The binding was of some hide that at first glance appeared black, but 
had a subtle sheen to it in which other colors could be seen as it was moved; 
it had a faint oiliness to it. Garth stared at the book, running his hands 
over its surface, and only realized that he had turned and found his way out 
of the chapel when bright sunlight washed over the cover, sending a wave of 
iridescence across it. 


He forced himself to pause. He had been seeking water, not the Book of 
Silence, and had found this thing almost against his will. It would seem that 
the chamber, the mask, and the book were in all probability the royal chapel, 



the Pallid Mask, and the Book of Silence-but could he be sure that everything 
was what it seemed? He had been led here by mystical force, yet had no 
assurance that this was what the Forgotten King had meant by his signs and 
portents. This was obviously a book of great power, Garth told himself, but 
could he be so certain that it was the Book of Silence? He took it in one hand 
and reached out with the other to open it. 


A sudden foreboding swept over him, and his hand drew back. He paused 
again. 


The thing was playing with him, manipulating his emotions, making him do 
whatever it pleased, rather than what he wanted to do. A surge of anger 
seethed up within him; he reached out and opened the book. 


As he lifted the cover, the characters seemed to writhe on the page 
beneath, and he felt a cold breeze, as if it issued from the book. 


The symbols were as stationary as any ordinary writing when he looked 
directly at them, each lying sedately on the page and forming neat blocks that 
were words and rows that were sentences. The runes, however, were totally 
alien, like nothing he had ever seen before, and he could not read a single 
word or recognize a single letter. The shapes hinted at meanings somehow, 
sinister and cold meanings, and Garth repressed a shudder. 


He was unsure how long he stood staring at the incomprehensible runes, 
with their subtle suggestions of dark power and evil truths; finally, though, 
he tore his eyes away. 


His gaze came free of the book only after considerable effort; he felt 
as if there were some physical connection between his eyes and the page, some 
powerful force keeping his head turned toward the text. When at last he 
managed to pull away, he suddenly realized that he was walking, not standing 
still as he had thought. He had moved away from the chapel door, across the 
chamber toward one of the far corners; furthermore, he saw with a shock that 
the sun now hung well to the west of where he had last seen it. The patch of 
sunlight no longer brightened the black door; it had swung over to what he 
judged to be the northeast corner of the hall, where it illuminated a 
low-relief carving so worn with age that its subject could not be determined 
with any certainty. 


Garth had apparently walked so as to keep pace with the sun; he still 
stood in its full light. Frightened, he closed the book without daring to look 
at it again. 


When it was safely-shut but still held securely in both hands, he 
glanced about. Nothing in the great chamber had changed except the light. The 
scattered piles of debris were undisturbed, and the broach in the wall was 
just as he remembered it. The door to the chapel was closed again, though he 
had no recollection of shutting it. He no longer doubted that the room behind 
him was the Forgotten King's royal chapel and that he held the Book of 
Silence. The circumstances fitted too well for anything to be otherwise. He 
remembered the King's mention of posting a guard-for the sake of form-and knew 
that that guard had been the monster he and his attackers had awakened. This 
vast chamber had been built around it to hold it. 


He wondered for a moment that the leviathan had left as it had, but then 
realized that its job was done; the old man had sent him to fetch the book and 
had freed the creature of its charge. The Forgotten King had planned the 
course of events somehow, Garth was sure. Signs and portents, indeed! 


The carved panel in the northeast corner caught his eye; when he had 
entered the chapel, it had been lost in shadow and effectively invisible. He 
had thought the walls blank, as most of them were. 


He studied the surface, but could not make out what the scene was 
intended to represent; there were two figures in it, one tall and straight, 
the other short and stooped, standing against what had once been a detailed 
background but was now just a maze of broken lines. So blurred were the edges 
that Garth could not say whether the figures were even meant for humans, let 
alone their age, sex, or station. He supposed that the carving was much older 
than most of the chamber, to be so badly worn. 



At one edge, however, one detail remained sharp and clear; a circle was 
incised deeply into the stone, and the hand of one figure was stretched out 
toward it. 


Curious, Garth reached out and felt the knob of stone isolated within 
the circle; it gave beneath his fingers. 


Startled, he drew his hand back, but a moment's thought convinced him 
that this must be an ancient, secret door and that the knob was the trigger 
whereby it might be opened. He had no idea why such a door should be here, but 
it seemed very promising; after all, he had no idea why most of what he had 
encountered in Ur-Dormulk should be what it was. He did not particularly want 
to go clambering about the wreckage beyond the broken wall, and he had seen no 
back door in the chapel; this appeared to be the only other way out of the 
creature's chamber. 


He wondered if the Book of Silence, or the power controlling it, or 
perhaps the Forgotten King, had led him here intentionally. He guessed that 
the chamber had been designed in such a way that when the monster broke out, 
the afternoon sunlight would fall upon this door; he could only imagine what 
the ancient builders had been capable of in the way of prophecy, planning, and 
engineering. They might well have foreseen everything that had befallen him 
since the behemoth awoke. 


At any rate, he determined to take advantage of his discovery; he 
reached out and pressed the stone knob. 


Something clicked, and the whole panel swung back beneath the pressure 
of his hand. He peered through at the tunnel beyond. 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN 


The need for light, far more than simple caution, was responsible for Garth's 
decision to gather what supplies he could from the debris in the huge chamber. 
The passage he had found, unlike the stair down from the abandoned temple, was 
not conveniently equipped with lamp or torch; he was forced to rummage about 
in the wreckage for something that would serve. He had an idea that he might 
recover the battered oil lamp he had had with him in the round chamber, and 
therefore began his searching in the general vicinity of the dead soldier, on 
the assumption that the man had not been very far from the lamp when the floor 
erupted, and that the two might not have become far separated. Only after 
several minutes of unsuccessful exploration did it occur to Garth to 
investigate the corpse itself. 


The soldier's belt held flint and steel and a small flask of something 
oily. Garth was not quite sure what the stuff was, but after a broken length 
of wood was soaked in it and then wrapped in strips of cloth from the 
overman's surcoat, similarly soaked, it made a thoroughly adequate torch. 


Before venturing into the tunnel he also took the opportunity to 
appropriate the soldier's only remaining weapon, a sword that was ludicrously 
short for Garth's use, but still better than his dagger. He also gathered up 
pieces of cloth, scraps of wood, and other items that he thought might prove 
useful and wrapped them all in a torn tapesty, which he knotted and slung over 
his shoulder. The Book of Silence he tucked under one arm. 


Thus prepared, he marched on into the passageway, his makeshift torch 
held high. 


The tunnel was not straight; it wound sinuously back and forth, but 
seemed to run generally in one direction, which Garth judged to be east or 
slightly south of east. Doors lined either side, and side passages 
occasionally headed off at various angles, but Garth ignored those. He was not 
eager to get lost in the crypts, and the simplest way to avoid getting lost 
was to keep his route simple. Furthermore, he theorized that the exit from the 
monster's chamber had been set up intentionally for the use of someone such as 
himself, someone who could not be expected to know his way around the crypts. 
Such an individual would not be expected to make the correct decisions at 



every crossing or doorway unless those decisions were so obvious as to be 
unavoidable-and that meant, in Garth's opinion, continuing straight ahead. 


Whether his theories were correct, or whether by chance, he eventually 
came to a set of steps leading upward, just as his improvised torch, which he 
had moistened and rewrapped until both oil and scraps of fabric had run out, 
began to burn low. He gazed at the staircase with relief; he had been planning 
to start tearing strips from his fragment of tapestry, and he was not sure 
that those would burn well without oil, quite aside from leaving him without 
his bundle. He started up the steps eagerly. 


He had forgotten how far he had descended; his torch flickered and died 
while he was still out of sight of the top. He made his way on in the 
darkness, moving entirely by feel. Fortunately, this flight of steps was not 
worn as badly as the others he had encountered in Ur-Dormulk, and his footing 
remained secure. 


Finally, his outthrust hand struck an obstruction; he stopped and felt 
it carefully. His hand came across a latch; he lifted the lever and pushed. 


It did not yield. 


He had a brief moment of uncertainty before it occurred to him that 
doors could open either way. He pulled at the latch. 


The portal swung inward with a dull grinding, and disappointment seeped 
into Garth's breast as he saw darkness beyond. It was not the total, absolute 
blackness of the tunnel and stair he had just traversed, but it was obviously 
not the daylight he had hoped for, either. 


Nonetheless, he saw little choice. He stepped forward through the door. 


To his surprise, he felt a cold, damp breeze on his cheek and realized 
that he was, indeed, out of the crypts and on one of the stone-paved streets 
of the city. The darkness was the darkness of night; he had taken longer than 
he had thought to find his way through the underground passages. Low-hanging 
clouds obscured the moon and stars, but enough diffuse illumination reached 
him from the surrounding city to let him make out the immediate area. 


He did not recognize the street he was on; there were no lighted torches 
or bright windows to help him in making out details. The area was quiet and 
seemed utterly deserted. Since he was unsure of the hour, he could not be sure 
whether this atmosphere was natural and ordinary. 


It occurred to him that he might have come up into one of the ruinous 
districts, but what little he could make out of the buildings around him 
displayed no signs of decay or abandonment. Doors were all secure on their 
hinges and tightly closed, save for the one he had just emerged from, which 
was located near the corner of a large, old house. Looking back at it, Garth 
guessed that, when closed, the door would blend in with the ornate stonework 
and appear to be just part of the wall. He stepped out onto the street, away 
from the shelter of the wall, and looked about. 


An orange glow lit the sky in several places above the surrounding 
rooftops; Garth could not decide whether it was the normal torchlight of the 
city going about its business, or something brighter and more sinister. It was 
the only sign of life he could see; the street he was on was dark and empty 
for as far as he could see-not that that was very far, since, like most human 
streets, it curved out of sight in a block or two in either direction. 


Sounds reached him, sounds he could not readily identify; he heard a 
distant crashing, and what might have been voices shouting somewhere, and 
beneath it all a dull, low-pitched rumbling. 


He turned, listening, and decided that the rumbling and crashing came 
primarily from what he judged to be the northwest, while the voices were on 
several sides. Furthermore, the rumbling seemed to be approaching; at any 
rate, it was growing louder. 


He wondered what was going on. Did this eerie situation of deserted 
streets and strange sounds relate to the freeing of the monster? Might it have 
something to do with the Book of Silence? It seemed ominous; although he saw 
no obvious damage to the buildings around him, he suspected that, once again, 
he had triggered widespread destruction. He hoped that there were Aghadites 



among the victims. 


Now that he was aboveground again, and fairly certain that he could find 
food and water, he was curious. He suppressed his thirst, tucked the book more 
tightly under his arm, then turned and headed north, toward the rumbling. 


As he did, he realized that he was actually very thirsty indeed, and 
hungry as well, but he did not turn aside. He might obtain food and water by 
breaking into one of the buildings, but he was not yet desperate and preferred 
to obtain them legally. Where there was sound, there was life, as a general 
rule, so he hoped that he would be able to find someone who could feed him if 
he headed toward the rumbling. 


With that in mind, he quickened his pace, so that it took him a moment 
to stop when he turned a corner and found himself facing a scene out of a 
nightmare. 


The city was ablaze ahead of him, or as much of it as could burn in a 
community built primarily of raw granite. Towering over the burning buildings 
stood the monster from the crypts, upright on two legs, with a wagonload of 
screaming hogs clutched in its claws, the traces whereby the wagon had been 
drawn dangling from one side. As Garth watched, the behemoth jammed the 
animals into its gaping mouth and bit down; the remaining fragments of the 
wagon fell out of sight with a distant crashing. 


The horn on the creature's nose gleamed a sickly reddish yellow in the 
firelight, a thin line of black trailing down one side where its ichor ran. 
Its eyes blazed golden and seemed to Garth to be alight with madness. Its hide 
was wrinkled and black, its body shaped like nothing the overman had ever seen 
before. It was vaguely humanoid, in that it stood upright and used its forward 
limbs to grasp, but it had a hunched, ugly shape, its body proportions closer 
to those of a bull than to those of a man-though no bull had ever stood upon 
such hind legs, each as thick around as a castle tower, and no bull had such 
talons, long, agile fingers ending in vicious, curving claws. 


The thing stood easily a hundred feet high; in fact, Garth estimated 
that it must have had to crouch down, badly cramped, to fit into the chamber 
that had held it for so long. The rumbling sound that had drawn him issued 
from the creature, though whether from its heart or its belly Garth was 
unsure. 


With the hind legs of a pig still trailing from its jaws, the monster 
turned and reached down toward something Garth could not see over the 
intervening buildings. It seemed to struggle, like a man pulling at a stubborn 
root; then, with a tearing, crumbling roar, it lifted up the complete upper 
floor of a house. 


The stones held together for a brief moment, then crumbled and fell 
through the creature's claws like sand through the fingers of a child, leaving 
it holding a pitiful assortment of roofing tiles, bedroom hangings, and broken 
furniture. It flung them aside and reached down again. 


Garth had seen enough. He could do nothing at all against this monster 
by himself; it would take magic to destroy it. 


He was determined, however, that it had to be destroyed. He had not seen 
it kill anyone since it first burst up through the floor, but it was doing 
incredible amounts of damage, and he could scarcely doubt that it had killed 
any number of people, perhaps without even meaning to, in making its way 
through the city. The creature was his responsibility, the overman told 
himself; he had ventured where he should not have gone, and it had been 
awakened as a result. He had brought destruction again, as he always did when 
he agreed to aid the Forgotten King. 


He knew what could destroy it, he was sure; nothing could stand against 
the Sword of Bheleu. That would befitting, using the tool of the god of 
destruction to kill such a destroyer. That would not atone for freeing the 
thing in the first place, but it would put the Sword of Bheleu to constructive 
use. If for any reason the sword should fail, the Forgotten King might well be 
able to use the Book of Silence against the monster. 


He, Garth, could not use the book; he could not read it. He did not have 



the sword. The sword and the one who could read the book were both in 
Skelleth. Any doubts he had about swapping the book for the sword had 
vanished. He was still concerned about the possibility of the King's bringing 
on the Fifteenth Age, but that was mere theory, while this rampaging beast was 
a fact. Furthermore, he was certain that the King required more than the Book 
of Silence for his final magic. 


He had to get to Skelleth without delay. His campaign against the cult 
of Aghad could wait; this monster was a far more immediate threat to the 
safety of innocents. The time he had spent in making his way through the 
crypts, or in his leisurely exploration of the creature's prison, or in the 
King's little chapel, now seemed to have been horribly wasted; the monster had 
probably killed dozens or even hundreds of people during that period. Even the 
time he had lain unconscious now seemed unforgivable. 


He wondered how he could have been so thoughtless as to have not given 
the monster's whereabouts and behavior his immediate attention. Even as he 
spun and headed eastward on a side street, he berated himself for allowing 
such destruction. 


He did not know the city, nor where in it he had found himself, but he 
knew that the gate where he had left Koros was near the easternmost extremity; 
for that reason, he kept heading east whenever possible. Almost immediately, 
he passed through an area where the creature had obviously already been; many 
of the buildings were stamped flat, the rubble ground into powder against the 
granite streets. In places, the streets were indistinguishable from the 
buildings. Garth marveled that none had collapsed into the crypts which, he 
knew, honeycombed the entire area beneath the city. 


He passed several fires, varying from a few smoldering curtains thrown 
in an alley to conflagrations consuming entire blocks. Only very rarely did he 
see any humans, and then it was merely a fleeting glimpse of someone vanishing 
behind a closing shutter or fleeing around the corner of a building. Nowhere 
were the streets lighted by the usual torches or lanterns, and the shops and 
houses were dark. 


This both reassured and disturbed him; most of the population had 
obviously fled from the city, which was probably a very good thing, but why, 
he wondered, were the few stragglers avoiding him? Did they assume him to have 
some connection with the monster, or to be a threat in his own right by virtue 
of his species? 


Finally he reached the steep slope that led up to the eastern wall of 
the city, but he had not managed to arrive at the gate. After some study of 
the surrounding buildings, the firelit rooflines and the parapet of the city 
wall in particular, Garth decided he was north of his intended destination and 
turned right. 


A walk of four blocks south, complicated by dodging around in the 
tangled web of streets, brought him to the central avenue and the remembered 
steps. There, however, he stopped, hanging back out of sight around a corner. 


The steps were not deserted, as the streets had been. Instead, what 
looked like the entire city guard was ranged on them, illuminated by hundreds 
of torches. Perhaps half were just standing and looking watchful, while the 
other half were coming and going and bustling about. Garth could not decide 
what they were doing; part of it seemed to be gathering in stragglers and 
escorting them up to the gate, but that did not account for all the movement. 


Crowds of civilians were still in the area; the overman noticed them 
streaming in and out of one large building, under the gaze of a row of 
torch-bearing soldiers. 


Whatever was happening, there seemed to be a fair measure of order and 
organization to it; Garth saw no signs of screaming panic and no bodies lying 
in the streets. That was promising. 


It was important that there should be order, because this was the only 
way he knew that would get him out of the city; he would have to pass through 
that array of soldiery and do it peacefully. Had it been a desperate mob, that 
would have been virtually impossible. They might well have panicked at the 



sight of him. 


Having assessed the situation, he saw no reason for further delay. He 
stepped from concealment and marched purposefully toward the gate. 


As he had half expected, several people noticed him immediately, and a 
cry went up. "An overman! There's an overman here!" 


To Garth's dismay, he could also make out shouts of "Kill the overman! 
It's another monster!" Other voices muttered and babbled, and he was sure 
that, despite the outward semblance of calm, this crowd could easily 
degenerate into a raging mob. 


Several of the soldiers had noticed him as well, and one, an officer, 
was approaching. 


"Ho, there!" Garth called. "How goes it?" 


"Who in hell are you?" the soldier replied. 


"I am Garth of Ordunin; I was a guest of your overlord, but became lost 
and have only now found my way here." 


The man looked uncertain. "What do you want?" he asked. 


"To pass through the gate." 


The soldier nodded, as if that were what he should have expected. 
"You'll have to wait your turn," he said. 


That was disconcerting. "I think," Garth said carefully, "that it would 
be wise to let me through immediately." He did not want to seem arrogant, or 
to take any action that might start trouble, but he also did not want to wait 
in line; every minute he was delayed from returning to Skelleth meant another 
minute of the monster's rampage. 


"You can wait like anybody else, damn you," the soldier replied. 


Garth started to protest, but a call from the dark at the top of the 
stair interrupted him. 


"Have you got an overman down there?" someone yelled. 


Startled, the soldier who had stopped Garth turned and looked. The call 
was repeated. 


"We've got an overman here, yes," the officer called back. 


"Is it the one who owns this damned animal out here?" 


The soldier started to turn back to Garth, who said, "That is my 
warbeast, yes. I left it there because it was not allowed in the city." 


"He says it's his," the soldier bellowed. 


"Then get him up here and tell him to get the thing out of the way! It 
won't move, and it's slowing up the whole evacuation!" 


The officer turned back toward Garth with a sour expression. The overman 
tried to smile ingratiatingly and avoided saying anything that might annoy the 
soldier. 


"Go on up," the man said, waving him on. 


Garth obeyed with alacrity, bounding up the worn steps as fast as he 
dared. At the top he was waved through, and another officer pointed out the 
warbeast, standing quietly in exactly the spot where Garth had left it. 


The problem was that the entire eastern side of the ridge, from the wall 
down to the plain, was ablaze with torchlight and jammed with people-except 
for a wide circle, perhaps thirty feet across, around Koros. That circle 
happened to take in the only easy path around the south tower, and its north 
edge skimmed the main highway. 


"Can you get it out of here?" someone asked. 


Garth nodded. 


"Then do it, please." 


Garth nodded again, then paused. He was rather overwhelmed by the vast 
crowd of people; he had never seen so many individuals of any major species 
gathered together before. He had known, in an intellectual way, that 
Ur-Dormulk held tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of people, but that had 
not prepared him emotionally for seeing most of the population packed together 
on a hillside at night without shelter or much of anything else but a few 
personal belongings. 


"What are you going to do with them all?" he asked the officer. 



"How should I know?" the man replied. "I just follow orders. With any 
luck we'll be able to start letting them back into the city by daybreak." 


"You will?" Garth was startled. "How can that be? What of the monster?" 


"The court wizards are trying to drive it into one of the lakes, I 
understand-probably Demhe, but Hali if they have to. I doubt anything that big 
can swim." 


"How can they do that?" 


"How would I know? I'm no sorcerer. They've kept it from chasing the 
crowds so far; they should be able to handle it." 


Garth was far less optimistic, but did not say so. Instead, he asked, 
"These wizards-do you speak of Chalkara of Kholis and a person called 
Shandiph?" He had forgotten the cognomen attached to the latter name, if he 
had ever in fact heard it. 


"Those names sound right," the soldier replied. "The two from the 
prince's court, whoever they are. They were about to flee the city themselves, 
I hear, when they got ordered to deal with the thing." He was obviously not 
interested in such details. "Now, could you move your animal?" 


"Yes, of course," Garth said. He considered telling the man that he 
would be returning shortly with the means of dispatching the monster, but 
decided against it. This fellow did not appear to have much authority, and 
even if he had some, what good would such a message do? Besides, the 
possibility of something going wrong was always present; Garth might be 
delayed or might have difficulties with the Sword of Bheleu, or with the cult 
of Aghad, that would prevent his return. There was no point in raising hopes 
that might go unfulfilled. 


He said nothing, but marched down to the side of the waiting warbeast. 
The crowd parted reluctantly before him, pressing back upon itself. 


He stowed his possessions, including the Book of Silence, and made 
certain they were secure. A moment later he was in the saddle again; he 
shouted a warning to the people gathered before him, then gave Koros the 
command to advance. 


Those immediately in the beast's path moved back as quickly as they 
could, eager to stay out of its way, but the resistance of the mass behind 
them ensured that Garth's progress remained slow until the crowd thinned out, 
a hundred yards farther down the slope. At that point Koros began picking up 
speed, and when rider and mount passed the line of soldiers that marked the 
outer perimeter of the clustered refugees, Garth gave the warbeast the order 
to run. 


Koros obeyed magnificently, hurtling forward so fast that the overman's 
eyes stung and watered with the wind of their passage. He was able to do 
little but cling desperately to the harness, casting an occasional glance back 
to be sure that the pack behind the saddle that held the Book of Silence 
remained secure. 


He rode on thus for hours, pausing only at a roadside tavern for a 
long-overdue drink and a hearty meal. 


It was this scene, of Garth bent over his warbeast's neck, charging 
onward at top speed, that Haggat conjured up in his scrying glass when he 
found time to check again on the overman's whereabouts. He was startled; he 
wondered what urgency drove Garth to maintain such a pace. He had not bothered 
to follow events in Ur-Dormulk personally, relying instead on reports from the 
cult's many agents there; half a dozen had been equipped with the 
communication spells acquired from murdered wizards, which provided almost 
instant news-a great improvement on the old system of relays and carrier 
pigeons that they had relied upon before the breaking of the Council of the 
Most High. 


No reports had reached him from Ur-Dormulk, which could mean many 
things; he told himself that he would have to look into that later. 


For the present, Garth was obviously returning to Skelleth with all 
possible haste, and if the cult were to maintain its image and its hold upon 



him, then a greeting of some sort would have to be arranged. The overman's 
homecoming-Haggat thought of Skelleth as Garth's home, even though Garth did 
not-could not be allowed to go unheralded. 


The high priest had already considered this matter in his planning and 
had devised two possible unpleasant surprises. The better one, unfortunately, 
was the more difficult and time-consuming, and at the rate Garth was moving, 
it might not be ready in time; therefore, the other would have to do. 


Haggat paused before giving the signal, however, and studied the image 
in the globe thoughtfully. The warbeast had to be taken into consideration. He 
was determined that his people would maintain an appearance of total 
invulnerability, and the warding spells that he had provided his last group of 
tormentors would not serve against so powerful a creature as a warbeast. 


Well, he told himself, he had a device that would. It was one of his 
most prized possessions, acquired by careful planning and considerable craft 
from the wizard who had pocketed it in that mysterious vault beneath 
Ur-Dormulk, whence so much of the cult's pilfered magic was derived. It was 
truly a shame that the chamber was lost and that all attempts to locate it had 
failed; if a score of magicians had brought out so much worthwhile magic just 
by retaining what they had casually picked up in a few hours' stay, what other 
treasures might still lie there, undiscovered? 


One of Haggat's dreams was to find and reopen that vault; another was to 
obtain and use the Sword of Bheleu. Accomplishing either feat would give him, 
he was sure, mastery of the entire civilized world. He did not wholly 
understand why he had made no progress toward either goal. Divinations that 
were usually infallible came to nothing; spies vanished mysteriously and were 
never heard from again; healthy agents died of sudden heart failure while 
climbing the stairs of the King's Inn. It was obvious that some other power 
was blocking him. He was determined not to be thwarted; once Garth had been 
dealt with, he would track down and destroy whoever was responsible for the 
interference. 


First, though, he had to deal with Garth, and for that, he wanted to 
provide the appointed agents with an infallible protection. He had only one, 
apparently unique in all the world, a simple metal rod that could, if properly 
used, temporarily render up to half a dozen people immune to all harm. After 
taking it from Haladar of Mara, he had intended to keep it solely for his own 
personal use, but this situation was special, and called for special measures. 
He would, he decided, loan it to the chosen cultists. 


That, he was certain, when combined with the other magic at his 
disposal, would ensure that Garth received the greeting the followers of Aghad 
thought he deserved. 


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 


After further hours of traveling at high speed, with its rider clinging to its 
neck, Koros slowed as it approached the crumbling walls of Skelleth. Garth 
rose from his crouch into a more comfortable and dignified posture; thus he 
was able to see clearly, in the gray light of morning, what awaited him at the 
gate. He had time, also, to hide his shock and dismay. 


Three red-robed figures were slouched comfortably on the broken 
battlements, gathered around a pole that stood ten or twelve feet high, 
leaning at a jaunty angle and topped with Kyrith's severed head. 


Lying crumpled against the wall below was the dead body of the man 
assigned to guard the southwestern gate; a long, crooked streak of blood ran 
from his slit throat down his arm to the ground. 


Garth was as much appalled by the pointless murder of the sentry as by 
the defiling of his wife's corpse. After all, Kyrith had already been dead, 
insensible to further indignity. Even though she was his own species and his 
own family, the awful waste of killing the man simply because he was in the 
way-and Garth was quite sure that was the only reason the Aghadites had slain 



him, to remove him from the chosen site for their little display-was 
sickening. 


As Garth fought to keep his anger leashed until he knew what he faced, 
one of the loungers called, "Back again?" 


"We've been waiting for you," another said; his accent was Dsarran. "We 
didn't want to kill anyone else important while you were off adventuring; that 
wouldn't be fair. So we've just been playing games." He waved casually at the 
gory trophy. 


Garth growled involuntarily, as much at the calm dismissal of the 
guard's death as unimportant as at the taunts, and drew the undersized sword 
he had picked up in Ur-Dormulk. 


The Aghadites laughed. 


Enraged as he was, Garth remembered what had happened before when he 
struck at one of his red-clad tormentors. He saw no point in breaking another 
sword, even so poor a one as he now carried-but he was not sure that the 
protective spell worked against other weapons. The Forgotten King had called 
it a warding spell against metal. The overman leaned forward and whispered a 
word in the warbeast's ear. 


Koros roared in reply and plunged forward, fangs bared and claws out. 
With a bound, it landed atop the three-and slid off, scrabbling for a hold it 
could not find. It was as if the Aghadites were sheathed in indestructible 
glass. They obviously had more protection than a ward against metal. 


Garth lost his balance and slid from the saddle as the warbeast writhed 
about, trying to get at its indicated targets; he landed with a heavy thump on 
a patch of bare dirt, the wind knocked out of him, but not otherwise injured. 


When he had regained his breath, he clambered to his feet to find 
himself facing a truly bizarre tableau. The three humans were sitting where 
they had been, trying desperately to look unconcerned, while Koros, standing 
awkwardly upon its hind legs, wrapped its immense forepaws around one man and 
tried to bite his head off. Garth could hear the grinding of teeth against 
something impervious. 


The warbeast twisted its head for a better grip, but had no more 
success. The other two Aghadites wore ghastly, contrived smiles; the beast's 
intended victim was frozen with fear, despite his magical defenses, and his 
expression was one of sick terror as three-inch fangs skidded across his 
throat like fingernails on marble. 


Garth took a great deal of pleasure in seeing the Aghadites 
discomforted, even though he realized that he could do them no real harm. He 
did nothing to interfere; something else had occurred to him. He stepped 
forward, sword in hand, climbed atop a pile of rubble, and, leaning over the 
head of one of the trio, swung the blade against the wooden pole. 


As he had hoped, the protective spell had not been extended that far. 
The wood splintered gratifyingly, and the upper portion toppled over. Before 
any of the Aghadites could recover, he had stepped over and scooped up his 
wife's head. 


The two not involved with the warbeast called out in protest; Garth 
ignored them. He watched for another few seconds as Koros continued trying to 
gnaw off the other's head and wished that it were possible for the beast to 
succeed. It would have been an appropriate retaliation for the desecration of 
Kyrith's corpse and the murder of the guard. He regretted leaving the man's 
corpse where it was, but did not want to burden himself with it and perhaps 
give rise to unpleasant speculation in Skelleth as to how the guard had died. 
He doubted that the Aghadites would bother to desecrate the corpse; they were, 
he suspected, sufficiently ignorant of overman psychology not to realize that 
Garth would care about the man at all. 


Reluctantly, he at last called the warbeast away, afraid that, in its 
mounting frustration, it might damage, its teeth. 


The two unmolested Aghadites had gone into a huddle, conferring with 
each other; they made no move to interfere with Garth as he led Koros onward 
into the town. The intended victim had fainted; when Koros released him, he 



tumbled to the ground in a heap. 


After the overman had moved on out of sight of the Aghadites, he paused 
for a moment to wrap the head in his tapestry bundle, dumping unceremoniously 
the assorted litter that he had gathered and transferring the few items he 
still thought might be useful to the pack behind the warbeast's saddle. He 
checked to be sure that the Book of Silence was still secure, then continued 
on his way. 


He ignored the townspeople he encountered on the streets and marched 
across the marketplace without glancing to either side. At this point he was 
not concerned with anyone in Skelleth, save for the Forgotten King and the 
Aghadites. He intended to spare a few minutes, once he had the Sword of 
Bheleu, to kill his three tormentors before returning to Ur-Dormulk to deal 
with the monster. This latest meeting with the cult, he thought, had come out 
a draw; he intended to be victorious in the next one. 


He wondered if Chalkara and Shandiph actually had any chance of getting 
the awakened creature into one of the lakes and whether that would be enough 
to kill it. Drowning such a thing would require a very deep lake indeed; he 
doubted that the one he had seen in Ur-Dormulk would do the job. 


The monster might, however, be unable to climb out, given the long drop 
that surrounded the lake on all sides. If that happened, Garth was sure that 
the people of Ur-Dormulk would be glad to have it destroyed, rather than have 
it remain as a perpetual nuisance. 


And, of course, if the wizards failed, Garth would have to kill it to 
prevent wholesale slaughter. Ordinary soldiery, however successful it might be 
in defending the city against human foes, could do nothing against such a 
creature. 


The thought of soldiery reminded him that the men guarding the eastern 
gate of the city and serving to control the crowd of refugees had not tried to 
kill him, nor had hindered him in any way; he wondered again why the party 
that had pursued him into the crypts had done so. Had they been given orders 
to slay him, orders that were never spread to the other troops? Or had their 
commander taken it upon himself to kill the intruding overman? 


It was all rather confusing, and Garth decided that none of it really 
mattered. All that mattered was getting and using the Sword of Bheleu to 
avenge the wrongs done him by the cult of Aghad and to destroy the monster he 
had unleashed. 


That thought was uppermost in his mind when he reached the door of the 
King's Inn, but he paused for a moment before entering. He carried the bundle 
containing Kyrith's head in one hand, intending to keep it with him so that 
the Aghadites could not recover it once more to taunt him anew. The Book of 
Silence, however, was in a pack on the warbeast's back. He debated leaving it 
there; the Forgotten King would not be able to take it from him as readily if 
he left it outside while he spoke with the old man. On the other hand, thieves 
might happen along. Koros could easily dispose of most threats and guard 
anything it carried from them, but if the Aghadites with their protective 
magic should chance upon it, could the warbeast prevent them from taking the 
book? 


In the interests of at least knowing what became of it, should anything 
go wrong, he removed the book and tucked it under his arm. Then he ordered 
Koros to wait by the door and strode into the King's Inn, marching directly 
for the table in the back corner. 


He was halfway across the room before he noticed that though the old man 
sat in his accustomed place, something new had been added. The Sword of Bheleu 
lay across the table, the hilt pointing straight at Garth. The immense gem set 
in its pommel was not the dead black it had been when last he saw it; instead, 
it was murky and dark, its dull reddish hue seeming to shift as the overman 
approached, as if something were seething and swirling within it. 


The sight of the sword gave him pause; his stride faltered, and his 
thoughts grew muddy and unclear. He slowed and stopped, still several feet 
away from the weapon's waiting hilt. 



The great jewel seemed to flicker; Garth, staring at it, was now quite 
sure that something was moving within it. He had an unpleasant feeling that he 
was being watched by the power that lurked in the sword, and fancied that he 
could make out the image of a baleful red eye in the strange stone. 


The idea of handling the thing was suddenly far less appealing, as he 
remembered the sick joy and dull thoughtlessness that he felt while wielding 
it. He started to take a step back, then stopped, angered by his own 
cowardice. Irritated, he tried to stare back at the stone, to confront 
directly the hostile power that dwelt therein. 


After a second or two of motionless glaring, he realized he must look 
like a fool, watching an inanimate stone as he would a deadly foe. His 
annoyance grew. 


He knew, vaguely, that he should not let himself be angered so easily, 
and that only enraged him still further. Confused and furious, he was tempted 
to step forward and snatch up the sword; that would settle the whole affair. 
His free hand reached out. 


The Forgotten King's hand moved as well, a subtle shifting of the 
fleshless fingers, and the gem went black. Garth's anger vanished, and his 
mind was clear again. 


The anger and confusion, he knew, had been caused by the sword. He 
raised his gaze from the now-dormant gem to the withered face of the old man. 


The King had intentionally let the sword affect him, that was obvious. 
He seemed to be able to damp its power effortlessly whenever he chose and for 
as long as he saw fit, yet he had let it affect Garth. 


Even then, though, he had kept it weak, kept the stone dim; he had not 
wanted it to seize full control of the overman. 


Realizing this, Garth felt a surge of his own authentic, self-generated 
anger. "Why did you do that?" he demanded, striding up to the table. 


"A reminder," the old man replied in his hideous, dry voice. 


Garth hesitated. The sound of the Forgotten King's voice was always 
disconcerting; no matter how often Garth reminded himself that it was horribly 
unpleasant, it always came as a surprise. Memory and imagination could not 
live up to the reality. 


"A reminder of what?" he said at last, his tone less belligerent. 


He did not really need to hear the old man's answer. The King had ways 
of knowing of events without seeing them; Garth was certain that the human had 
known he was coming to the King's Inn with the intention of taking the Sword 
of Bheleu and had staged the brief incident to remind Garth what the sword did 
to his mind and emotions. 


As it happened, the old man did not bother to answer at all; he merely 
shrugged once, almost imperceptibly. 


But why, Garth asked himself, would the King want to remind him of the 
sword's dangers? 


Obviously, the old man did not want Garth to take the sword; that was 
the only explanation that seemed reasonable. 


And why would he want to keep the sword? 


Garth thought he knew the answer to that. He recalled that when he had 
first brought his booty from Dsarra, the Forgotten King had dismissed most of 
it as junk, but had been pleased to see the Sword of Bheleu. Later, he had 
agreed only to loan it to Garth in exchange for the Book of Silence, but not 
to trade it outright. The wizards in Ur-Dormulk, in their theory that the King 
sought to bring about the Fifteenth Age, the Age of Death, had said that he 
required a service from the servants of Bheleu. Garth was, as far as he knew, 
the only servant Bheleu had alive; had events followed their predicted 
pattern, he would have the Sword of Bheleu. 


He believed, therefore, that the old man's final death-magic, the spell 
that Garth thought would destroy the world, required the sword as well as the 
Book of Silence-and presumably the Pallid Mask as well. It would do the King 
little good to acquire one of the tools he needed if he were to give up 
another in exchange. He was therefore, Garth guessed, trying to coax Garth 



into giving him the Book of Silence without taking the sword. 


Or perhaps it was something subtler than that. Perhaps the old man did 
not mind giving Garth the sword, but feared that after the overman took it, he 
would renege on his side of the bargain and keep the book. After all, Garth 
had admitted that his word was not good. In that case, the King presumably 
sought to frighten Garth out of taking the sword, so that the only way in 
which the magically protected Aghadites, or the monster in Ur-Dormulk, could 
be slain would be by the old man's use of the book. 


It might even be that he sought to anger the overman into thoughtless 
defiance, and then Garth would snatch up the sword immediately. That didn't 
make very much sense, however, as surely the King could achieve the same 
result simply by letting Bheleu's power go free, so that it would suck Garth 
in. 


If that last possibility was the truth, Garth decided, the old man might 
yet have his wish, because Garth was now more determined than ever to take the 
Sword of Bheleu and use it against the Aghadites and the leviathan. If the 
Forgotten King wanted to keep the sword, it was almost certainly in the best 
interests of all mortals for Garth to take it away from him. 


As he arrived at that conclusion, Garth reached down toward the hilt of 
the sword. 


The old man's hand shot out with unbelievable speed and grabbed the 
overman's descending wrist. To Garth's astonishment, he found himself unable 
to pull free or move the hand either nearer to or farther from the sword. It 
was as if the bony fingers were solid steel-and a very good grade of steel at 
that, to resist an overman's full strength without yielding the slightest 
fraction of an inch. The wrinkled skin even felt cool and dry, like metal. 


"Why do you stop me?" Garth was now sure that the old man did not want 
him to take the sword, but thought it unwise to admit his belief. 


"Give me the Book of Silence." Again, even after so brief an interval, 
the King's voice was shockingly ugly. 


Garth struggled to free his wrist; the old man gave no sign he was even 
aware of the overman's efforts. Finally, after several seconds of useless 
strain, Garth conceded defeat. "Take the book, then, if you want it," he said. 


The Forgotten King rose, the tatters of his yellow mantle rustling. He 
reached out his free hand, plucked the volume from beneath Garth's arm, and 
held it before him, but did not loosen his grip on the overman's wrist. 


"Release me," Garth said, mustering as much dignity as he could in so 
awkward and embarrassing a pose. To be held so easily by a mere human, even 
one as unique and powerful as the Forgotten King, shamed him. 


"My reminder, Garth," the King warned. "Bheleu is insidious and powerful 
and can dominate you with ease, perhaps without letting you know he is doing 
so. Remember, though, that I can free you of his influence as easily as you 
can blink an eye. You must serve one of us. The choice of masters is yours. 
Now, take the sword, if you want it, but remember, I lend it, I do not give 
it." The bony grip was gone, and Garth watched as the old man, the great black 
book clutched in both hands, turned away and moved across the room and up the 
stairs. 


When the Forgotten King had vanished into the gloom at the top of the 
stairs, Garth looked down at the sword. 


It lay, untouched, on the table; the gem remained black and lifeless. 


Had that, then, been the purpose of the King's actions-to remind Garth 
that he would never again be free while both the Sword of Bheleu and the King 
in Yellow existed? 


But then, with the Book of Silence in the King's possession, how much 
longer would he exist? He sought his own destruction and needed the book to 
accomplish it. Perhaps Garth was wrong about the other elements required, and 
the old man was even now weaving his final spell, a spell that would destroy 
the cult of Aghad and perhaps all the world as well. 


No, that could not be. The old man had not said it, but he had 
definitely implied that he would live for some while yet, long enough to 



require Garth's services. Furthermore, the overman was certain that either the 
Sword of Bheleu, the Pallid Mask, or both were needed. Other things might also 
be required; he recalled that the Forgotten King had made him swear, almost 
three years ago, that not only would he fetch the book but he would also aid 
in the final magic. 


Garth shook his head, dismissing all such considerations as not 
immediately relevant. He had more important concerns than maybes. He had his 
wife's murder to avenge, Aghadites to kill, and a monster to dispose of. 


He reached down and grasped the sword's hilt; as his fingers closed on 
the black grip, the gem blazed up a fiery blood-red, washing the overman in 
crimson light. Savage joy and a blinding fury burst into being within him, and 
somewhere mocking laughter sounded. 


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 


At first the surge of emotion was too powerful to allow any conscious thought 
or awareness of the external world at all. For three long years Bheleu had 
been suppressed, held down, his control of his chosen mortal form cut off; now 
that he was free once more, he reveled in it. The sword crackled with eldritch 
energy, and the air around the overman's body glowed redly. 


Garth's own consciousness was lost for a long moment. He felt himself 
cut off, drifting in a formless nowhere of red and black, and he struggled 
desperately to regain his body. He fought to contain the all-consuming 
bloodlust that possessed him. The initial wave of ecstasy, the emotional 
overflow from Bheleu's relief, passed away. Anger remained, but as he pushed 
his way to the surface, he managed to redirect it, to channel it against the 
usurping presence in his body and mind. 


"Bheleu!" he tried to call. "Listen to me!" 


He knew, even in his confused state, that the words had not been spoken, 
that his lips and tongue had not obeyed him; nevertheless, he heard his own 
voice, made terrible by the god's power, answer him. 


"Why do you call me, Garth? You have taken up the sword again, of your 
own choice, and freed me from all restraint. Now you will serve me in 
destruction, as you were meant to serve me. What need is there of words?" 


"I want to make a bargain," Garth managed to say-or at least to 
communicate, though he knew he had still not spoken aloud. 


The god did not reply in words; instead, Garth felt a wave of contempt 
sweep over him, felt his consciousness slipping into darkness, and he 
struggled to retain what feeble control he had. 


"No, wait! Bheleu, you are not free yet! There are terms to be set!" 


"I am free," Bheleu replied. 


"No!" Garth insisted. "You must meet my terms, or the Forgotten King 
will stop you again as he did before!" 


There was a pause that seemed to stretch for hours, a timeless waiting 
while Garth's awareness drifted in nothingness and Bheleu considered. 


"What are your terms?" Bheleu said at last. 


Garth did not allow himself to feel relief yet, though he was sure that 
the god's willingness to listen at all proved that the point had been won, at 
least for the moment. "I took the sword back for a reason," he said. "I have 
enemies and I wish to destroy them." He felt a surge of hunger, of desire, as 
he said that. "They have the means of defying my own strength, so I need the 
sword and the power that goes with it." 


"I am that power, " Bheleu said, fury and bloodlust seething. 


"I know," Garth answered, struggling against the overwhelming force of 
the god's driving emotions. "And I'll allow you freedom to destroy my enemies, 
but no others." 


"You would use me, the destroyer god, as a tool for your own vengeance?" 


Garth was almost swept down into nonexistence by the god's wrath, but 
managed to answer, "I would use anything I found necessary. Were you not 



planning to use me for your own ends against my will?" 


"I am a god, Garth; you are nothing." 


"I am a nothing who knows how you can be stayed; I am the chosen of a 
god. Is not the freedom to destroy my foes better than no freedom at all?" 


"What do you propose?" 


"I propose that you leave me in control of my own body and my own mind; 
in exchange, I will allow you free rein to work your will upon my enemies. If 
you refuse, you will surely be restrained again." 


There followed another timeless pause; then, abruptly, Garth found 
himself fully conscious once again, albeit dazed and awash in unreasoning 
anger. He stood in the King's Inn, the sword clutched in one hand, its blade 
dripping red fire. The floorboards were scorched beneath his feet, in a circle 
a yard across, and a line had been burned across the top of the King's table 
where the sword had rested, obscuring with char the line he had gouged with 
his broken sword before leaving for Ur-Dormulk. 


He could detect no sign of Bheleu's presence save for the heat of the 
sword, burning without harming him, and the eerie flame that flickered from 
it. His thoughts seemed slow, but unnaturally clear; a fierce joy suffused him 
at the realization that he had won his argument, and righteous wrath filled 
him at the thought of Aghadites lurking somewhere in Skelleth waiting for him 
to come and kill them. 


No one else was in the tavern; the innkeeper and the handful of other 
patrons had vanished while he debated with Bheleu. He did not concern himself 
with their whereabouts; they had, he told himself, undoubtedly fled before his 
manifest power. 


He strode out the door, the sword's fiery aura gradually fading, and 
mounted his warbeast. With a word, he directed it back the way they had come, 
out toward the southwestern gate, hoping to find the three Aghadites. The 
Forgotten King had told him that the red-mist transporting spells were rare 
and precious; surely, then, the trio would not have wasted one, but would be 
moving on foot. 


By the time Koros reached the south side of the marketplace, the sword 
appeared to be ordinary steel, though the black grip was hot in Garth's hand. 


He found the three robed humans perhaps halfway to the gate, walking 
toward the center of town. They saw him at almost the same instant that he 
spotted them; one turned to flee, another hesitated, while the third fumbled 
with something beneath his ruddy robe. 


Garth bellowed, urging Koros into a charge. 


The fumbler stopped his actions and stood up straight, defying the 
warbeast and overman. "Ho, Garth!" he began. 


Then the Sword of Bheleu struck his neck; with a roar and a sheet of 
flame, the blade passed through the protective aura and into the Aghadite's 
throat. Blood spurted, and the man's severed head rolled forward, tottered 
grotesquely, and fell to the ground as his body began to crumple. White sparks 
spattered from the dripping blade, and something hissed fiercely. 


The man who had hesitated had no time to react before the sword swung 
around in a gleaming arc and beheaded him as well, spraying blood and fire 
across the packed dirt of the street. 


Before the second corpse could fall, Garth twisted the sword back and 
impaled the dead man, holding it upright, the blade thrust through the 
chest-though the head had fallen to one side, where the overman ignored it. He 
was not willing to let both these foes escape with so quick and clean a death 
as simple decapitation. 


The third Aghadite was still fleeing; Garth urged the warbeast after 
him, dragging the headless corpse alongside with the sword. 


He gained on the human rapidly, despite the encumbrance of the dead 
body, but not rapidly enough; he saw wisps of red vapor gathering about the 
man's head, staying with him as he ran. With a growl, Garth tore the sword 
from the corpse's chest, letting the body fall aside, and urged Koros to 
greater speed. 



It did no good; the Aghadite vanished before Garth could reach him. 
The overman bellowed in rage and frustration. The man had escaped him! 


Haggat was standing by the pentagram when the cult's surviving agent 
reappeared in a cloud of mystic vapor; he had given up trying to follow events 
in Skelleth. The Sword of Bheleu had the capability of resisting any attempt 
at scrying spells, should it choose to do so; Aghad's high priest had learned 
that fact almost three years earlier, at the cost of a good glass. On this 
occasion he had not bothered to try to observe the overman at all, after the 
image distorted and vanished at the instant that Garth's hand touched the 
sword's hilt. Instead he had followed the actions of his three cultists, 
keeping one of his wizard-acolytes ready with one of his handful of 
transporting crystals. Even that image had been lost, however, when the 
overman attacked the threesome, and Haggat's brief resulting confusion had 
given Garth time to kill the two who had chosen to rely on the protective 
spell. 


It was of interest, Haggat thought, that the spell, which he had 
believed quite potent, had been unable to resist the Sword of Bheleu for as 
much as a second. The sword was obviously a weapon well worth having, and a 
very serious threat in Garth's hands. 


He had not thought that the overman would take the sword back from the 
strange old man in rags. That, it seemed, had been a miscalculation, one that 
had cost the cult two good men already and that might prove disastrous. 


Garth had sworn to return to Dsarra and wipe out the whole sect; now 
that he had the sword in his possession once more, there was a chance that he 
might actually manage it. Haggat considered it essential to distract the 
overman, to harry him, to do whatever could be done to keep him busy until 
defenses could be prepared. 


With that in mind, Haggat signaled for his advisers and assassins to 
attend him. Obediently, a dozen red-robed figures clustered around him. 


While the Aghadites were gathering about their master, Garth sat astride 
his warbeast, roaring with anger and swinging the Sword of Bheleu in circles 
over his head. Streaks of shimmering white fire hung like smoke, emitting 
waves of intense heat. Thunder rumbled in the distance, drawn by the sword's 
power. 


The human had to be somewhere, Garth told himself. The red mist was 
merely a transporting spell, nothing more. It did not create people out of 
thin air, nor snatch them into nothingness. The Aghadite was still alive 
somewhere, perhaps nearby, perhaps laughing at his escape. 


Wherever he was, Garth would find him; he would find him and cut him 
apart, watch his blood pour out, watch him suffer and die. He promised himself 
that, ignoring the tiny inner voice that protested this open bloodlust. 


Koros had slowed and stopped when its prey vanished; now, at the urging 
of its rider, it turned back toward the inhabited portion of Skelleth. As it 
passed by each of the headless corpses, Garth thrust the sword out casually 
and set both afire with the weapon's supernatural flame. 


That done, he rode on, considering his next move. 


His first thought was to return to the marketplace and begin searching 
for the escaped Aghadite there, but that, he decided, would be a mistake. The 
man was almost certainly hiding somewhere in the ruins, where no stray 
villagers would wonder at mysterious colored smoke or strange noises. Garth 
had lived in Skelleth for almost three years and had not seen anyone wearing 
the distinctive red robes between the time of his giving up the Sword of 
Bheleu and his finding of Kyrith's body-yet now these three had turned up 
suddenly. None of the faces was familiar; he could not recollect having seen 
any of them in other garb. Therefore, he guessed that they had only recently 
arrived in Skelleth-and since newcomers, other than caravans, were rare enough 
to excite a great deal of comment, Garth thought he would have heard of them 
if they were living openly in the inhabited part of the town. 



Therefore, he concluded, they had been living in concealment somewhere 
in the ruins, and it was in the ruins that he must search for the survivor, 
and any others who might have taken part in Kyrith's murder. 


Somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered the behemoth destroying 
Ur-Donmulk, but somehow it seemed far less important than dealing immediately 
with the cult of Aghad. 


Besides, he told himself, surely he couldn't object to destroying ruins, 
and that would keep the sword busy and Bheleu happy. 


That thought troubled him somehow; something seemed wrong with it, and 
perhaps with his other decisions as well. Something appeared to be clouding 
his thoughts. 


The idea refused to come clear, so he dismissed it. He had an enemy to 
hunt down and destroy; that was what mattered. He turned Koros off the road 
leading into the market and set out instead into the ring of ruins that 
encircled Skelleth's inhabited core. 


The town had been built as a border fortress, and its houses were 
constructed mostly of stone as a result, so that they would not burn readily. 
After three hundred years of neglect, many houses and buildings had lost roofs 
and floors, and some walls had fallen, but many still stood, making the 
streets a maze, with some routes blocked by rubble, others still open, and all 
divided by crumbling buildings. 


Garth, armed with the Sword of Bheleu, did not bother to find his way 
through this labyrinth; instead, he dismounted and marched in a straight line, 
Koros trailing behind. Whenever he found his way blocked by a standing wall or 
a pile of debris, he blasted it apart with the Sword of Bheleu-only open pits 
were sufficient to turn him aside. When he came across those, he would pause 
and send a wave of flame down into them, to incinerate any Aghadites who might 
be lurking therein. 


The use of the sword's power, he found, came very easily, almost without 
any thought or effort at all; the god's long restraint had not affected the 
increase in power that accompanied the establishment of the Fourteenth Age. 
Garth discovered quickly that all that vast resource was at his command, ready 
and eager to be applied. 


When he had held the sword before, the Age of Bheleu had been just 
beginning. The god's power had been erratic, sometimes manifesting itself 
unbidden, other times appearing only after great mental effort. That was no 
longer the case. Now, Garth had almost infinite energy literally at his 
fingertips. 


He had been cutting a swath through the ruins for an hour or so, 
enjoying the exhilaration of battering down the empty houses until he had 
almost forgotten what he was looking for, when a red-clad figure appeared, 
perched precariously atop a wall off to his right. 


Garth did not notice the human's presence at first; he was basking in 
the delight of shattering a foot-thick stone pillar with a single blow of his 
sword and therefore did not see whether the man had arrived magically or had 
simply climbed up the other side of the wall. 


"Ho, Garth!" the human called. 


Startled, Garth lowered the Sword of Bheleu and turned toward the source 
of the voice. 


"You'll never find us that way!" the Aghadite said. 


With a growl, Garth swung the sword about, pointing it toward the human. 
After an hour of practicing with the sword's power, he had no intention of 
wasting time in unnecessary pursuit. He had learned better. 


"We've got a surprise for you in town," the man began; then the sword 
spat flame toward him, blazing across the intervening distance in an instant. 
Immediately, red mist gathered about him, but Garth listened with satisfaction 
to the Aghadite's screams as the sword's fire reached him first. The spell 
would deliver a burned corpse. 


It did exactly that; Haggat stared in dismay at the smoldering remains. 



He had been using up transporting crystals far faster than he liked, and to 
little effect. He had lost another good agent. He had not expected the overman 
to react so quickly. 


At least, however, Garth was still searching Skelleth and was not on his 
way to Dsarra. The cult would have time to devise an effective strategy. 


That assumed, of course, that any strategy could be effective against 
the Sword of Bheleu. Haggat was not sure that was the case. He began to wonder 
whether the cult might have done better to have forgotten permanently about 
its vengeance against Garth. 


It was too late now, though. 


Perhaps the overman would think that he had succeeded in killing all his 
wife's assassins, as in fact he had, and would abandon his retaliation, 


Somehow, though, Haggat doubted that, in light of both Garth's oath to 
destroy the cult's temple and what awaited him in Skelleth's marketplace. The 
high priest wondered if committing another atrocity might have been a mistake. 


He looked down at the blackened, crumbling heap in the pentagram and 
hoped very much that Garth would be satisfied by the three cultists he had 
killed. 


Garth was satisfied, but only for a very brief moment, as he thought of 
the transporting spell dumping a flaming ruin before Aghadites expecting a 
living man. 


That very thought, however, gave him pause. If he had killed the man, 
who had completed the spell? Somebody had, apparently, because the red smoke 
had gathered, thickened, and then vanished, taking the burning Aghadite with 
it. By the time he disappeared, the man was almost certainly already dead. 


Had the human set up the spell in advance so that he would not need to 
complete it, but only to set it in motion? Garth wished he knew more of the 
exact mechanism involved. 


And whether the man had worked the spell himself or not, could Garth be 
sure that there were not still more Aghadites lurking in Skelleth? He had, as 
far as he knew, encountered only the three he had slain, but that did not mean 
that there were no others. 


That corpse had gone somewhere, he was certain of that. 


Had he killed all those directly involved in his wife's death, the 
desecration of her corpse, and the murder of the guard at the gate? Others 
might still be hidden. For that matter, he could not be sure that these three 
had actually killed Kyrith at all. 


He had every intention of returning to Ur-Dormulk and killing the 
monster, then proceeding from there to Dsarra to fulfill his vow to destroy 
the headquarters of Aghad's cult, but he wanted to be certain first that he 
had dealt with the sect's outpost in Skelleth and with those who had actually 
taken part in Kyrith's murder. 


He tried to think, to marshal what information he had, in hopes of 
finding some clue that would tell him what he wanted to know. His thoughts 
seemed vague and elusive. He wondered if he had been hasty in killing the last 
of the trio so quickly, rather than taking him alive and interrogating him. 


The man's last words had been about a surprise of some kind-"in town," 
he had said. 


That, Garth was sure, meant in the inhabited portion of Skelleth; most 
likely, he thought, he would find whatever it was right in the marketplace. 
Perhaps that would provide the clue he needed to lead him to more Aghadites. 


He was vaguely aware that the surprise might be unpleasant, but that 
seemed unimportant. With only the prospect of more enemies to kill in his 
mind, he turned and headed toward the square. He told-himself that he had no 
time to pick his way through the winding streets and marched straight ahead, 
continuing to cut through every obstacle with the Sword of Bheleu. 


It took a severe conscious effort to restrain himself when he reached 
the first of the occupied houses, but he managed it; from that point on, he 
found his way through the streets, forcing down the bloodlust, forcing himself 



to be calm. Koros followed him placidly, undisturbed by the sword's fiery 
displays of power and seemingly indifferent to the route it followed. 


Garth was still a few short blocks from the market, his anger faded to 
insignificance under the steady pressure of his will, when he heard the 
wailing begin. 


It was an eerie sound, a wavering, high-pitched note that went on and on 
interminably. It sounded like a human voice, but not quite natural, somehow; 
it grated on his nerves and made him feel uneasy, despite the aura of 
invincibility the sword bestowed upon him. 


If it was a human voice, Garth told himself, then whoever was wailing 
had to be in a state of indescribable emotional upset. He had heard men scream 
and bellow and whimper, but he had never heard a wailing like this. It was not 
a scream or an ordinary cry; it had no words, no rhythm, no break in the 
constant stream of sound. 


Unsettled, he hurried forward, Koros following at his heels. 


He entered the marketplace from the northwest, waving for Koros to stay 
back out of the way, and found himself at the rear of a silent crowd. The 
wailing came from somewhere on the far side, near the door of Saram's house. 


He glanced back, to be sure that Koros was staying behind; it was 
standing in the mouth of the street and glancing about as if the sound made it 
uneasy, too. Reassured that the warbeast would cause no trouble, Garth peered 
over the heads of the gathered humans. 


Something dark was hanging in the open doorway of the Baron's house; 
shadows and distance hid the details, but Garth felt a sick certainty that 
this was the Aghadite surprise. The crowd faced toward the thing in the 
doorway, but had left an empty semicircle around it, and the wailing seemed to 
emanate, not from the house, but from somewhere in that semicircle. 


Determined to find out what was happening, Garth marched forward and 
began shoving his way through the crowd; people parted readily when they saw 
him and almost seemed to be hurrying him onward. He crossed the square as 
quickly as if it were empty and emerged at last into the little cleared area. 


He found there that the wailing was coming from Frima, who knelt facing 
the door of her home, her head thrown back, her arms limp at her sides, her 
eyes shut and her mouth open, pouring forth her grief. 


Garth would not have guessed that such a sound could come from a lone 
woman, particularly one as small as Frima; he stared at her in helpless 
astonishment for several seconds before thinking to look up at the cause of 
her despair. 


The ghastly thing that hung suspended in the doorway by its outstretched 
arms was all that remained of Saram, Baron of Skelleth. His wrists had been 
nailed to the doorframe with heavy metal spikes. His eyes were gone, leaving 
bloody sockets, and more blood spilled from his open, tongueless mouth. The 
front of his embroidered robe had been cut away and strips had been peeled 
from his chest, forming four red runes that spelled out AGHAD. 


Grief and rage mingled with a feeling of helplessness before such 
savagery; Garth felt a need to do something, anything, to react to this new 
abomination, to help the woman who knelt, keening, before him. Fighting down a 
boiling wave of anger, he suppressed the urge to send forth white-hot flame to 
destroy everything before him. That would do no good, he told himself; it 
would only leave Frima still more bereft. 


"You," he called, pointing at the nearest man who looked strong enough 
to be of use, "get him down from there!" 


The man hesitated; Garth growled and lifted the Sword of Bheleu. "Help 
him," Garth ordered, pointing to two more villagers. "You women, prepare a 
place for him to lie." He spotted Sarim's housekeeper in the crowd and called 
to her, "Find something to dress him in!" 


The villagers did not move quickly enough to please him; he struggled 
against the urge to blast them all. Frima's keening bit through him, adding to 
his irritation, until he could not tolerate it further. He reached down, 
grabbed her shoulder roughly, and dragged her to her feet. 



She refused to stand on her own; he supported her with one hang as he 
barked at her, "Listen to me, woman!" 


Her wailing died away as the overman shook her; her head fell forward 
and her eyes opened, but then fixed on her husband's mutilated corpse. She did 
not speak and would not meet Garth's gaze. 


"Listen to me!" Garth insisted. "Your husband is dead; there is nothing 
that anyone can do about that. It does no good to bewail his death like this. 
You do yourself only harm by kneeling here and screaming." 


Frima hung limply in his grasp, and a sympathetic murmur ran through the 
crowd. The villagers were all watching intently every second of the drama 
taking place in their midst. 


"Stand on your feet, woman! Do not let the scum who did this see how 
much they have hurt you!" 


Frima met Garth's eyes for an instant, then turned her gaze back to the 
doorway. The man Garth had chosen was trying to pry out a spike, using a knife 
someone had handed him. He was making a mess of the wooden frame, but 
carefully avoiding any contact between the blade and Saram's dead flesh. 


The Dsarran swallowed and twisted her dangling feet about so that she 
could stand. Garth loosened his grip, and she did not collapse. 


"The cult of Aghad has killed your husband and vilely abused his body; 
stand strong now so that they will not have harmed his dignity as well," Garth 
muttered in Frima's ear. 


She nodded. 


"You are the Baroness of Skelleth," Garth reminded her quietly. "You 
must behave accordingly." 


Frima nodded again, then demanded hoarsely, "Where are they?" 


Startled, Garth asked, "What?" 


"Where are the filth who murdered him?" 


"I don't know," Garth admitted. "I killed one of them just a few moments 
ago, when he came to boast to me of this latest crime, but there must have 
been others. I have sworn to destroy them all when I find them, and the 
temples and shrines of their foul god with them." 


"I'm coming with you," Frima said. 


"There is no need," Garth told her. "Saram's death will be avenged. I 
swore to destroy the cult for what it did to Kyrith, and this new butchery 
strengthens my resolve beyond what I can express in words. I will make them 
all pay for this." 


"I am coming with you," Frima insisted. "They killed my man." 


Garth thought it best to shift the grounds for argument. "You still 
live, my lady, and are still the Baroness of Skelleth. You have other 
concerns." 


"They don't matter. Are there any Aghadites in Skelleth, or will you be 
going to Dsarra?" 


The first spike came free, and the men struggling with it hurried to 
catch Saram's body as it fell. While two held the corpse, a third began 
working on the other spike. 


"I don't know where they are," Garth replied, "but I will find them." 


"We will find them." 


Garth could not think of any good way to deal with this. He turned from 
the intense, fixed stare that Frima was giving him and watched as the workers 
freed Saram's other wrist. 


They stood for a moment holding their lord's body, uncertain what to do 
next. 


"Take him inside," Garth said. "The housekeeper will find a place for 
him." 


Two of the men earned the corpse out of sight while the third closed the 
doors. 


Reluctant to meet Frima's gaze again, Garth looked about and realized 
that the market was still crowded with onlookers. A surge of irrational anger 
at their gawking boiled up within him. 



"Go home, you people!" he called. "There is nothing more to see!" 


He was answered with muffled voices and shuffling feet, but the 
villagers seemed reluctant to depart. 


"Go away, I said!" he bellowed, raising the Sword of Bheleu in one hand. 
The blade glowed white, crackling with chained energy, and the crowd melted 
away rapidly before the implied threat. In a moment the square was empty of 
all save the overman, the new widow, and the warbeast that waited at the 
northwest corner. 


Garth glanced about again, trying to decide what to do with Frima; he 
did not think it would be wise to send her home, into the house where her 
husband's mangled corpse waited. He was unsure how humans dealt with the 
deaths of those they loved. 


"Are there any rites you must perform?" he asked. 


"No," she replied. "We don't bother with fancy funerals in Dsarra. When 
the other cults kill someone, the body usually isn't found; we grieve, but 
hold no ceremonies. The people of Skelleth can attend to the ceremonies. We 
have to go avenge him." She looked about the square and noticed Koros, waiting 
patiently, at ease now that the keening had stopped. Without hesitation, she 
slipped from under Garth's hand and began walking unsteadily across the 
marketplace toward the warbeast. 


Garth followed. He could easily have stopped her, but was not sure how 
she would react. 


Halfway across the square, she stumbled; he lunged forward and caught 
her before she fell. They stood for a moment while she regained her balance. 


"Garth," someone called, in a hideous dry croak. 


The voice was instantly recognizable. Garth turned, astonished, and saw 
the Forgotten King standing in the doorway of the King's Inn, the Book of 
Silence tucked under one arm. 


"There are no worshippers of Aghad in Skelleth," the old man said. 
"Their transporting spells are not affected by distance; they have been 
striking directly from their temple in Dsarra." 


Garth stood dumbfounded by this unexpected speech. He knew that the 
Forgotten King never volunteered information without a reason. 


"Then we have to go to Dsarra," Frima said calmly. 


The Forgotten King nodded, moving his head very slightly beneath the 
concealing hood of his robe. 


"Why are you telling us this?" Garth asked. 


"So that you will not waste time." 


"Will you swear it to be true, by The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken, at 
the cost of all oaths I have made to you if you lie?" Garth could think of 
nothing more binding; he knew that the old man would not be eager to give up 
the vows Garth had sworn. He was startled by his own cleverness in coming up 
with such a promise so readily; his thoughts had not been very clear of late. 


"I swear it," the King replied. 


Garth looked at the shadows that hid the old man's eyes, and at the firm 
line of his mouth, set in dry, wrinkled skin above the thin white beard that 
trailed from his chin. He glanced at Frima, who was obviously waiting for him 
to accompany her in pursuit of revenge, and at Koros, still standing 
patiently, and finally at the Sword of Bheleu, which dangled from his right 
hand, its tip almost dragging in the dust of the market, the red gem in its 
pommel flickering faintly. He still did not know why the Forgotten King should 
volunteer such information. Perhaps, he thought, the old man was eager to get 
the sword back, lest it gain too strong a hold upon Garth; he would want the 
overman to go about his errand as quickly as possible, so that the sword's 
return would not be delayed. That would be in Garth's own interest as well. 


"Very well," he said at last. "Then I will go to Dsarra and I will 
destroy the cult of Aghad there. I swore I would and I will honor that oath. 
But I go alone." 


"No!" Frima cried. "I'm coming with you!" 


"I do not want to endanger you, Frima, and the journey will be very 



dangerous. You must stay in Skelleth." His major concern was that the Sword of 
Bheleu might usurp control of him and cause him to kill any traveling 
companions, but he did not care to explain that. It would be too much like 
admitting weakness to say that he feared he would be unable to control his own 
body. 


"I have to avenge Saram! There's nothing I want in Skelleth. Besides, 
you'll need a guide; you don't know your way around Dsarra as I do. I grew up 
there." 


"No," Garth began, but before he could continue, Frima interrupted. 


"Besides, do you think I'm safe here? You heard what the old man said; 
the Aghadites can strike anywhere, and they've just heard you say that you 
don't want me hurt. I'm a target now. If you don't take me with you, I'll 
follow you on my own." 


The overman looked at the human's face and decided that she meant what 
she said. She had a good point about being in danger in Skelleth, and also 
about her utility as a guide. She would certainly be safer guarded by Koros 
and himself than trying to traverse Nekutta on her own. 


"Very well," he said. "We will go by way of Ur-Dormulk, however; I have 
something I must do there." The monster had waited too long already. Garth 
found himself wondering how he could have delayed so long. 


"All right," Frima agreed. 


"We'll need supplies," Garth said, his practical instincts coming to the 
fore. 


"We can forage on the way," Frima replied. "I don't want to wait." 


"I will provide for your needs," the Forgotten King said. 


Startled, Garth turned to look at him. "You will? From here?" 


The old man moved his head to one side, then the other, in so brief and 
smooth a movement that it could hardly be described as shaking his head. 


"I will come with you," he said. 


CHAPTER NINETEEN 


As the little party made its way toward Ur-Dormulk, Garth found himself 
feeling that he had been rushed into action against his will. He had not 
intended to dash so precipitously out of Skelleth. Within half an hour of 
discovering Saram's death, he had ridden out the southwestern gate, Frima 
perched behind him, the Forgotten King walking alongside. 


He told himself that every minute saved meant that much less destruction 
the monster in Ur-Dormulk could cause, and that he had already wasted far too 
much time destroying empty ruins. Still, he felt unprepared and harried. 


Thinking back, he wondered at his own willingness to delay in order to 
knock down buildings, compared with the insistent hurry of both his 
companions. He suspected that the sword had had something to do with his 
dawdling, and also with his eagerness to come to grips with the Aghadite 
assassins. Whatever the cause, he had behaved stupidly. 


If he had not delayed, the cultists might not have bothered to kill 
Saram. He was sure that Saram had been alive when he slew the first two 
assassins. Had he left Skelleth immediately, the Aghadites might not have 
returned and the Baron might still be alive and well, his wife secure and 
happy at home, rather than perched on a warbeast seeking revenge. Instead of 
leaving, though, Garth had gone smashing about the ruins, wasting time and 
giving the worshippers of Aghad the chance to carry out another of their 
ghastly murders. 


Could it be, he asked himself, that Bheleu had diverted him 
intentionally, to further the cause of his brother deity? Might Aghad himself 
have affected him somehow? Or had it just been the workings of chance? 


Had the Forgotten King been involved? He had certainly appeared in the 
doorway at an opportune moment, with exactly the information that would send 
Garth and Frima on their way without hesitation. 



The overman glanced to the left, where the yellow-clad figure strode 
along as smoothly and silently as the warbeast itself. The Book of Silence was 
still held under the old man's right arm, and Garth reminded himself that the 
totem was what enabled the King to travel freely. He would no longer need an 
overman to run his errands for him. 


What benefit could the old man have gained from Saram's death? For that 
matter, what could Aghad or Bheleu gain from it? Garth would have gone to 
Dsarra soon enough without this added impetus, and the King could have 
accompanied him or followed him. Saram's murder had increased his hatred of 
the cultists, if that was possible, and had impelled Frima to accompany him, 
but that was little enough. What good would it do anyone to have Saram's widow 
come along? How much difference could the increase in his fury make? 


Garth could see no purpose in it and concluded, reluctantly, that it had 
been chance, rather than manipulation, that had led to the Baron's murder. 
That meant that his own weakness in yielding to the whim to search the ruins 
had been the indirect cause; he was at fault. Once again he had brought 
destruction, this time to an innocent friend. 


The cult of Aghad would pay for that, he promised himself, and if he 
could ever contrive to accomplish it, the gods themselves, both Aghad and 
Bheleu, would suffer as well for what they had done to him. 


He rode on, silently mulling this over. 


Haggat watched the little group as best he could, trying desperately to 
think of some way of diverting them. He could not focus the scrying glass on 
Garth while the overman held the Sword of Bheleu, nor on the old man in yellow 
at all; he had to satisfy himself by following the warbeast's pawprints, or by 
close scrutiny, just barely possible despite the sword's influence, of the 
girl's face and the reflections in her eyes of the surrounding countryside. 


The high priest had thought that Garth would be searching Skelleth for 
days, time which the cult could have used to lay false trails and arrange 
diversions; instead, he had set out immediately, and there could be little 
doubt that he was bound for Dsarra. 


Haggat did not understand what had happened. Something was interfering 
with his plans. He suspected that it was the mysterious old man. The overman 
had apparently spoken with him in the market and decided then and there to 
leave Skelleth without further delay. 


Who, Haggat wondered, was the man? He could be glimpsed only briefly, 
and even then not clearly, in the glass; most of what Haggat knew of him came 
from the reports of spies or from his occasional reflection in windows and in 
the eyes of others. Once before he had become involved in the cult's affairs, 
when he had, put an end to the carefully contrived battle between Garth and 
the Council of the Most High, saving the lives of several councilors and 
taking the Sword of Bheleu away from the overman. That had apparently worked 
to the cult's benefit in the long run, though its followers had been slow to 
take advantage of it, by rendering Garth vulnerable and by allowing them to 
track down, rob, and murder several of the surviving wizards. 


Now, though, the old man had given the overman back the sword and seemed 
to be leading him in his attack on the sect. 


That was not to be borne. 


All three of the party would have to be killed. The cult could neither 
afford further delays nor waste time on any more such pleasant preliminaries 
as the murders of Garth's wife and the Baron of Skelleth. 


Only four of each variety of transporting crystal remained in the cult's 
cache of magic; they were not to be squandered. Furthermore, the Sword of 
Bheleu was a formidable protection against any assault, magical or mundane. 


Haggat could not afford another failure. He glanced at the scarred face 
of his personal acolyte; he was well aware that she would be glad to replace 
him as high priest, should he allow the cult's prestige to suffer. 


He needed to think out exactly what to do. He recalled all too well 
that, three years earlier, the full power of the Council of the Most High had 



been unable to do anything against the might of the overman and his damned 
sword. 


Some time did remain, however; the journey from Skelleth to Dsarra was 
at least a ten-day ride. Perhaps his best course would be to use every moment 
of that time to prepare an ambush. 


At any rate, although he would want to keep a careful eye on the 
progress of the approaching party, Haggai decided that he would not waste any 
of the cult's hoard of magic in tormenting them along the way, nor in abortive 
attacks that the Sword of Bheleu could easily counter. At least, he would not 
do so until he had devised something more subtle and effective than a direct 
assault. 


Perhaps the three would lower their guard if left alone, he thought, or 
would decide that Garth had killed all the cultists involved in the murders 
after all and turn back. 


Haggat wondered again who the old man was and why he had given the sword 
back to the overman. 


As he first came within sight of the walls of Ur-Dormulk, Garth was 
surprised to see motion along the battlements. The distance was such that he 
knew he could not be observing any ordinary patrolling sentries, nor even 
major troop movements. 


When the party drew nearer, he realized that he was seeing the head of 
the monstrous creature, projecting above the ramparts; the movement was its 
impatient marching back and forth. The wizards had obviously not succeeded in 
driving it into the lake. 


The slope below the walls was still thick with people, though they had 
spread out considerably from their earlier close-packed arrangement. Tents had 
been erected, made from robes or overcloaks draped across walking sticks or 
scraps of wood. The perimeter was still patrolled by brass-helmeted guardsmen; 
more soldiers were posted along the base of the wall and clustered around the 
gate, their metal headgear gleaming in the midday sun. The sparse grass of the 
hillside had vanished into the dirt beneath the tread of so many feet. 


The great beast prowled behind the battlements, but the people seemed to 
pay it little heed; they had already grown accustomed to their situation. 
Garth wondered at that. 


He also wondered why the monster stayed behind the wall when it was 
obviously eager to leave the city. Surely, he thought, it was capable of 
breaking through the stone barrier, as it had broken out of its own chamber 
and had broken apart the buildings of the city. 


Then he remembered the long slope on the other side of the wall. The 
creature might be unable to climb it; the natural barrier could confine it, 
where the man-made one could not. 


There were also the two wizards. Garth saw no sign of them; they had 
plainly been unable to drive the leviathan into either of the lakes, let alone 
destroy it, but perhaps they were able to keep it from breaking out of the 
city. 


That assumed that they hadn't been squashed in their attempts to defeat 
the thing. 


The soldiers posted around the ramshackle encampment saw the party 
approaching while it was still some distance away. That was hardly surprising; 
the mounted overman, towering far above the tallest of the crops that lined 
the roadsides, was visible for a thousand yards or more across the flat plain. 
Had the guards not seen him, they would have been derelict in their duties. 


Garth knew he had been seen, but was unconcerned. He had no need for 
stealth; he had come to perform a vital service this time. He watched as 
soldiers ran hither and yon, obviously carrying news of his coming up to the 
gate, and orders back down in response. A party began to form on the road, 
presumably to greet him and his companions, and to stop them if necessary. 


In keeping with his idea of the dignity appropriate to his position, 
Garth pretended not to notice them, but rode directly forward, head held-high, 



until he came within a dozen yards. 


At that point he deigned to react visibly to the presence of an 
obstruction in his path and spoke a command to the warbeast. Koros could, he 
knew, have gone straight through the little cluster of men without even 
slowing down, whether they resisted or not, but that would scarcely have been 
diplomatic. Instead, at his order, the warbeast stopped dead, and Garth stared 
balefully at the party before him. 


He felt a twinge of familiar bloodlust, an urge to order Koros forward 
and strike out with the Sword of Bheleu, but he fought it down. 


"Greetings," he said. 


An officer with a golden plume on his helmet replied, "Greetings, 
overman." 


"May I pass?" 


"That depends. As you can see, the situation in Ur-Dormulk is very 
unsettled at present." The man gestured, taking in the crowded hillside. "A 
monster," he said with a wave toward the ramparts, "has driven us from our 
homes. What business brings you here?" 


"I have come to rid you of this troublesome creature." 


The officer stared up at Garth for a moment, then looked down, turned to 
one of his men, and muttered, "He's mad." 


The soldier nodded agreement. Garth wondered just how poor human hearing 
was; he had made out the remark without straining. 


There was a pause in the conversation; the officer was obviously 
considering how best to handle an insane overman. He glanced at Garth again, 
then said, "Forgive me for the delay, overman, but I must confer with my 
superiors." 


"Soldier," said a croaking, hideous voice. Startled, the officer seemed 
to notice the presence of the Forgotten King, standing beside the warbeast, 
for the first time. 


"Let us pass," the old man said. "What harm can it do if the overman 
wishes to destroy himself?" 


The officer stared for a second, then turned away, uncomfortable with 
looking at the King. He shrugged. "As you say, old man. Go on, then." 


Garth was at least as startled by the old man's intervention as the 
soldier had been. The Forgotten King was becoming positively chatty, it 
appeared. He wondered if this was a result of traveling, of leaving his 
familiar surroundings, or was perhaps some side effect of possessing the Book 
of Silence. Perhaps the seeming nearness of his long-sought, goal had cheered 
him out of his usual gloomy taciturnity. 


If so, he would be disappointed, because Garth had no intention of 
aiding the old man any further. 


The party of soldiers divided in half, allowing the warbeast and its two 
riders to pass between, and the Forgotten King to follow in the animal's wake. 
Garth urged Koros forward. Behind him, he could feel Frima shifting 
uncomfortably. 


The officer signaled, and the two groups of soldiers marched alongside, 
escorting the overman and his party to the city gates. 


Once there, they were passed over into the care of another officer and 
his own command of a dozen green-garbed men, who guided the travelers through 
the double gates and to the top of the staircase that led down into 
Ur-Dormulk. 


Garth stopped his mount at that point. The soldiers hurriedly departed 
and closed the gate behind them, leaving the overman and his companions inside 
the city, face to face with the monster. 


The creature was watching the new arrivals with dull interest showing on 
its immense and ugly face. It stood a hundred yards or so to the north, at the 
far side of a block of buildings it had trampled flat, and at the foot of the 
slope below the wall. 


Garth looked out over the city and was appalled by what he saw. The 
monster had torn up or smashed down a significant portion of the buildings, 



leaving a crisscrossing maze of rubble. Once or twice, Garth saw, it had 
broken through the streets and cellars into the crypts, leaving great pits 
partially filled with the remains of the structures that had stood above them. 
A dozen fires flickered in the daylight, combining with others less visible to 
draw thirty or forty lines of smoke across the sky. 


He was relieved to see no corpses in the streets and no circling carrion 
birds; the people of Ur-Dormulk had apparently had sufficient time to escape. 
Nonetheless, the destruction was startling and saddening; less than a week 
before, he had stood in the same spot and seen an intact and vigorous city 
where he now saw ruins. 


What made it worse was that his own actions had caused this. He had been 
responsible for freeing the monster. 


He turned back to face his foe. It was still standing and studying him; 
it had not moved. 


He paused, unsure just how he was going to deal with the creature. He 
was quite certain that the sword had the raw power necessary to kill the 
thing, but he had not decided how best that power might be applied. 


Probably, he thought, it would be wise to approach the monster on foot. 
He turned away and dismounted, a bit awkwardly due to Frima's presence on the 
back of the saddle. 


Reminded of the Dsarran's existence, he considered what to do with her 
and decided to leave her where she was, astride Koros. The warbeast was the 
best protection she could possibly have, short of Garth himself. 


He glanced up at her; she sat motionlessly and stared back, her lips 
drawn tight. The hurried, high-speed trip from Skelleth had told on her, Garth 
was sure; she was obviously tired, but still determined. She said nothing. 


Garth shrugged and looked about; he realized for the first time that the 
Forgotten King was not close at hand. Startled, he spotted the old man at the 
foot of the steps, walking calmly down the avenue and into the shattered heart 
of the city. 


The overman stared after him for a moment, then turned away. The old man 
could take care of himself; it was not Garth's concern if he went off on his 
own. Garth reached up and pulled the Sword of Bheleu from where it had been 
strapped onto the warbeast's harness, along Koros' flank. 


Immediately the blade flared up into a bright white glow, and the red 
gem in the hilt dripped crimson fire; Garth felt a surge of joyous strength, 
of riotous enthusiasm and vigor. He had not been wholly free of the sword 
during the journey, but now its power washed over him unhindered. He threw his 
head back and roared with laughter. The King, Saram's widow, and the warbeast 
were all forgotten; nothing mattered but the sword, its power, and his 
intended target. 


Frima watched the blazing sword with apprehension; she was exhausted 
from the ride, still dazed with the shock of her husband's death, and slightly 
nauseated, but alert enough to recognize the danger the weapon represented. 
She slid to the front of the saddle and leaned forward, ready to command Koros 
to carry her to safety, should Garth appear to be running amok. 


On the city's ramparts, struggling to maintain the warding spells that 
kept the monster from climbing up the slope and smashing the wall, Chalkara 
and Shandiph were suddenly startled by a vivid flash of white light somewhere 
off to their left. As they glanced at each other in surprise, the sound of 
inhuman laughter reached them. 


"What's that?" Chalkara asked. 


"I don't have any idea," Shandiph replied. "I think we had better 
investigate." 


Hesitantly, Chalkara nodded in agreement. The two abandoned the 
pentangle they had etched in glowing blue on the stone of the battlements and 
leaned out between the nearest merlons. 


Garth, or whatever was using Garth's body, saw them but paid no 
attention; he was interested only in the monster. 


Frima glimpsed a lock of Chalkara's hair as it blew out from the wall 



for a moment, but mistook it for a military banner accidentally left flying. 


The creature itself stood motionless, as if hypnotized, watching the 
overman with the glowing sword march diagonally down the steps toward it. It 
seemed unaware of the two wizards who had done so much to thwart it. 


When Garth judged that he was close enough, standing on level ground not 
far from the bottom step and perhaps a dozen yards from the monster's gigantic 
feet, he raised the sword, gathered his will and the sword's energy, and sent 
flame ravening forth. 


The glare blinded the wizards temporarily; they moved cautiously back, 
feeling their way, blinking and trying to restore their vision. 


Frima, too, blinked and turned her head aside, but could not retreat out 
of sight so easily. She was farther away and had not been looking directly at 
the sword; when the initial flare had faded somewhat, she looked back, peering 
between two close-set fingers, and watched. 


The first burst of fire caught the monster full in the chest and 
splashed upward around its chin; any sound it might have made was lost in the 
roar of the flames. 


Frima, squinting, could see little detail, but it seemed to her that the 
flame was not so much burning anything as it was washing away the monster's 
flesh, like a spray of water washing away mud. Swirls of fire spattered in 
every direction, setting the air shimmering with heat and creating howling, 
fiery whirlwinds that seemed to pull and tear at the monster's limbs. 


The creature clutched at its chest, and the flame swept across its 
claws, scorching away the talons, melting away their substance and leaving 
bare bone. 


The monster staggered, leaned forward, but did not fall; it was as if 
the torrent of pale fire pouring from the sword were supporting the leviathan 
even as it destroyed it. 


Its eyes had lost their glowing appearance at the first flash of the 
sword's power, paling in comparison to the weapon's glare, and now, as Frima 
watched, the yellow orbs glazed over. The monster was obviously dying, but 
could not fall. 


The flames subsided for an instant, and Frima saw that the creature's 
lower jaw had been stripped clean of its flesh, leaving gleaming bone that 
shone white in the sword's bleached, colorless light. No blood or ichor 
flowed; the heat had cauterized wherever the fire touched. 


The girl shuddered at the thought of the pain the thing must be feeling, 
if it were mortal enough to feel pain at all; her stomach twisted in empathy. 
Then, as she watched, the behemoth finally fell, not so much forward as into 
itself, the neck collapsing, the skull sliding down into the cavity where its 
chest had once been. 


She turned away, sickened, while Garth continued to spew forth the 
sword's destructive fury, stripping meat from bone, wiping the monster out of 
existence. 


Frima closed her eyes against the light and refused to look back. Worn 
out by the long ride and the ghastly events that had befallen her, she dozed 
fitfully, leaning forward on the warbeast's neck, her gaze averted and her 
eyes closed. 


On the city ramparts, it was several minutes after the initial flash 
before the two wizards could see again, and even then they dared not return to 
their earlier vantage point, for the white glow brightened and dimmed 
erratically as Garth wielded the sword. 


When at last the light died away completely, Chalkara advanced 
cautiously to the break, motioning for Shandiph to stay where he was. 


Although the light was gone, she was almost blinded anew by flying dust; 
a fine gray powder was being whipped about by a small but powerful whirlwind, 
forcing her to turn away and wipe her eyes clear with a corner of her sleeve. 


She looked at the residue that clung to the fabric; it was white ash. 


Wary this time, she again approached the opening and leaned out, 
squinting to protect her eyes. 



She saw no sign of the monster. The whirlwind was dying down, and the 
swirling cloud of ash that it carried was slowly subsiding. Blinking, her eyes 
watering painfully, Chalkara looked down to see what remained of the overman 
and where the monster's trail led. 


Garth was still where she had last seen him, but rather than standing 
with the glowing sword raised, he was kneeling, leaning heavily on the hilt of 
a sword that Chalkara did not recognize at first as being the same weapon. 
This sword was black, from the obsidianlike stone in its pommel to the 
midpoint of its tarnished blade; the remainder of the blade, from midpoint to 
tip, was buried in a mound of debris that held the weapon upright. The 
overman's arms were draped across the quillons, his eyes half-closed, his 
mouth half-open; a perfect portrait of exhaustion. 


Where the monster had stood was only the seething ash; Chalkara stared 
at it, puzzled. As the cloud sank, something white protruded from its heart, 
and the wizard realized with a shock that it was the end of an immense 
thighbone. 


Fascinated and repulsed, Chalkara watched as the dust cloud sank down to 
nothing, revealing a pile of dry, white bones, half-buried in ash, that were 
obviously all that remained of the leviathan that had terrorized the city. The 
upper portion of the skull stared with empty sockets at the afternoon sky from 
atop the heap, a few of the longer bones leaning up against it; with the great 
teeth buried in ash, and the broken-tipped horn lost in a tangle of ribs, it 
seemed almost pitiable. 


"Shandi," she called. 


The older wizard joined her and stared down, as fascinated as she. 


"I think we should leave," she said. 


He didn't answer. 


"I think we should get out of Ur-Dormulk and not let anything stop us 
this time. We should get out of here and keep away from anywhere else Garth is 
likely to be." 


Shandiph nodded, blinking away an errant flake of ash. 


"We can visit Kholis, but I think we should keep going-head south, 
perhaps. Maybe to Yesh. They worship different gods in Yesh. Maybe Bheleu has 
no power there." 


"The gods are the gods, Chala; only their names change." 


"How do you know that? It's worth trying, isn't it?" 


"Yes, it's worth trying. You're right. It's certainly better than 
staying here; I've been in one place too long. It's time I wandered again." 


"It's time we both wandered. I don't think I care to be Chalkara of 
Kholis anymore; I don't think it's safe. Chalkara the Wanderer sounds better." 


Shandiph nodded again. He did not believe that anywhere was safe, but 
thought better of saying so. 


CHAPTER TWENTY 


Garth was not aware of having lost consciousness, but he realized from the 
altered light that he must have. It had been shortly after noon when he had 
attacked the monster, with the sun bright overhead, and now the sun was in the 
west, the shadows as long as the things that cast them. He had been standing, 
and now he knelt, leaning upon something. The sword had been hot in his hands, 
and now his hands hung empty, the palms stinging with mild burns. The pain 
reminded him of the various injuries he had received during his first visit to 
Ur-Dormulk, and he realized they were gone; he had forgotten until now that 
the Sword of Bheleu had healing properties as well as destructive ones. 


He blinked and leaned back, off whatever had been supporting him. He 
felt drained, but managed to rise to his feet only through a concerted effort. 
Once he was upright he looked about, trying to assess his situation. 


He had been draped across the hilt of the Sword of Bheleu, which was 
burned black and thrust two feet or so into a pile of dirt and ash. He stood 



now in a wide circle that had been blasted flat and carpeted with fine gray 
ash, extending from the bottommost step of the climb to the wall out across 
most of a city block. Its even surface was broken by three things: himself, 
the mound that held the sword, and a great heap of ash and bone that sprawled 
across the farther side, directly in front of him. 


The bones were unbelievably large; had he never seen the monster whence 
they came, he would have been certain that they were fakes made of stone or 
plaster. A thighbone that leaned up against the half-buried skull was taller 
than he, and as thick through as he was in full padded armor. 


Whatever else they might be, the bones were clear proof that he had 
succeeded in the task he had set himself. The monster was destroyed. 


Furthermore, he was free of the Sword of Bheleu, and this without the 
Forgotten King's intervention. Destroying the leviathan had at last burned out 
the sword's power-though only temporarily, he was sure. Even now he thought he 
could see a faint stirring in the black gem, a distant flickering of dull red. 


He was not sure whether he wanted to keep the sword or not; he stepped 
back out of easy reach to consider the matter. 


He still intended to take his vengeance upon the cult of Aghad, and it 
was undeniable that the sword would be useful against the god's followers-but 
it was also true that the weapon had a continuing influence on his thoughts 
and behavior, despite Bheleu's acceptance of his terms. He did not know 
whether the god was attempting to deceive him or was unable to prevent the 
effects, but he was quite certain that it had been the god of destruction, and 
not Garth himself, who had wanted to go walking off through the ruins in 
Skelleth, blasting everything in sight, while the monster trampled Ur-Dormulk. 
He was convinced that the god had influenced his thinking and his actions, and 
he did not like that idea. 


He stood a few steps away, at the edge of the flattened circle, staring 
at the sooty sword and trying to decide what he should do. A faint rustling 
attracted his attention. 


Startled, he turned to see the Forgotten King standing three paces away 
on the worn stone pavement of the nearest street. The old man's tattered 
yellow mantle flapped in the damp breeze that blew from the lakes, his cowl 
pulled well forward about his face, a bundle wrapped in black silk beneath his 
right arm. 


The bundle caught the overman's, attention immediately. The Book of 
Silence had not been wrapped up, and this thing was irregularly shaped and 
larger than the neat rectangle the book alone would form. 


"What's that?" he asked. 


The Forgotten King ignored his question and stood watching. 


Garth glanced back at the Sword of Bheleu and then at the bundle again. 


"What have you got under your arm?" he asked. He had a suspicion that he 
knew what it was, and a cold knot of dismay formed within him. 


"Are you done with my sword?" the old man asked. His awful voice seemed 
to blend with the wind that stirred in the rubble, but that made it no less 
horrible. 


Without meaning to, Garth replied, "No!" He paused; the King gazed 
calmly, expectantly, at him out of his shaded and invisible eyes. 


Garth looked away, at the heap of bones, at the sword itself, at the 
devastated cityscape and the high slope that led to the city wall. He saw no 
cheer anywhere, only destruction or failed protections. The monster's release 
and its death had both been his responsibility, and he felt sickened by the 
resulting chaos. He did not want to allow more of the same, but he was unsure 
how best he might prevent it. 


The dangers of taking up the sword again were obvious; he had lived with 
that before. He had forgotten in his years of freedom what the hold and the 
power of the sword were like; he knew now that he would never be able to 
restrain completely Bheleu's personality while he drew upon the god's power, 
and that he could not carry the sword without wielding it. 


On the other hand, he did not want the King to have the sword. He was 



certain it was necessary to the magic the old man planned, magic that, Garth 
was sure, would bring on the Fifteenth Age and spread death throughout the 
world, even if it did not actually bring time to an end. Garth tended to think 
that the spell would destroy the world itself. Therefore, as long as Garth 
kept the sword away from the King, he was preventing such a disaster-but would 
instead find himself compelled into destructive acts of his own on a lesser 
scale. 


He remembered that he had previously excused himself for bringing the 
old man the Book of Silence on the grounds that the King would not have the 
sword or the Pallid Mask and would therefore be unable to bring about the Age 
of Death-yet now that bundle was tucked under the King's arm, and Garth was 
sure of what it held. 


That, he was certain, was the Pallid Mask. The chosen of the god of 
death had reclaimed his master's totem. 


To give that person the Sword of Bheleu as well would be to give him all 
the power and every tool he might need. That was obviously unconscionable. 
Arriving at that conclusion, Garth started to reach for the sword. 


He paused with his arm outstretched. Could he be sure he was doing the 
right thing? He was acting on a series of assumptions and deductions. He had 
no objective proof that the Forgotten King intended to destroy the world and 
needed only these three items to accomplish that goal. 


He quickly reviewed what he knew. The King had admitted that his magic 
would cause many deaths. Further, the old man had expressed interest in the 
Sword of Bheleu. Garth did not know that the sword was actually a necessary 
component of the King's great magic, but it seemed almost certain. He knew 
that the King was the chosen of The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken, of Death 
incarnate. He knew that the wizards said that the next age, the Fifteenth Age, 
was to be dominated by the Final God. He knew that it was said that the 
Forgotten King could die only at the end of time, and that the old man said he 
wanted to die. 


It all added up. Garth still could not know that he was right, but he 
made his decision. A period of such destruction as the Sword of Bheleu might 
cause, even as much as thirty years of it, could not possibly be worse than 
the end of time itself and the accompanying extinction of all life. He grasped 
the hilt of the sword. 


The gem flared up redly, and the blade seemed to move of its own 
volition as it slid from the heap of debris. White light flashed, and the soot 
that had coated it vanished, leaving the blade gleaming silver, the jewel 
glowing the color of fresh blood. A wave of heat swept over the overman. 


The Forgotten King watched silently, and the initial burst of warmth and 
bloodlust passed away quickly beneath his cold stare. Garth stared back, the 
sword in his hands. He knew that Bheleu had again tried to assert himself, but 
had backed down before the threat of the King's power. Garth realized that he 
could control the sword only as long as he remained near the King, keeping 
that threat viable. Were he to become separated from the old man, Bheleu would 
be able to dominate him easily. 


He was, he saw, trapped, worse than he had ever been before. He needed 
to keep the sword to prevent the King from obtaining it, yet he also needed to 
remain near the King to prevent the sword from controlling him completely. He 
could not be sure that he would be able to prevent the King from taking the 
sword away from him, should the old man ever choose to exert his own 
considerable power, now augmented by both the Book of Silence and the Pallid 
Mask. 


What was perhaps as disheartening as the situation itself was the 
knowledge that Garth had brought it on himself. He had chosen to go to Dsarra 
and bring back the Sword of Bheleu. He had chosen to go to Ur-Dormulk and 
fetch the Book of Silence. He had willingly given the King the book, which had 
made it possible for the old man to move freely and get the Pallid Mask for 
himself. 


Now Garth found himself in a precarious balance between the power of 



Bheleu and the power of the King, each determined to wreak havoc, with only 
Garth's refusal to cooperate preventing the unleashing of those powers. 


Furthermore, he did not know if he could maintain that balance forever. 
In fact, he realized that he definitely could not, unless Bheleu, like The God 
Whose Name Is Not Spoken, bestowed immortality upon his chosen agent. 


That was a possibility, as the god did seem to make Garth invincible and 
invulnerable, but it was not really an appealing prospect. Surely, the longer 
he held the sword, the greater Bheleu's control would become. The god was 
insidious. 


Garth stared at the blade before him and understood that he was doomed. 
He could see no way out of his predicament, and if the theology of the humans 
was correct, insofar as he understood it, then there was no way out, no 
possible solution. His end, and the end of the world, were foreordained and 
could be no more than delayed-and then only for as long as he was willing to 
wield the Sword of Bheleu. Even a miracle would not change the terrible 
circumstances, for miracles were sent by the gods, and the most powerful of 
the gods were those who had trapped him. Ever since he had first consulted the 
Wise Women of Ordunin in his quest for eternal fame, he had been guided toward 
this hopeless situation; and furthermore, he realized, the Wise Women had 
known it. He recalled the reluctance Ao had displayed so long ago, when first 
she told him of the Forgotten King. Surely that had been because she had known 
what would, in the end, result. 


He had not thought this through before, had not considered the long-term 
consequences of the events that surrounded and involved him. Now that he did, 
anger flared up within him. 


He made a brief, desultory attempt to suppress it, knowing that it was 
as much Bheleu's doing as his own, but without success. He found himself 
furious, eager to lash out at something. The gods had brought him to 
this-Bheleu, Aghad, the Final God, and the other Lords of Ds-but there was no 
way he could strike directly at any of them. The Forgotten King, too, had 
worked to enmesh him in the workings of destiny, to drive him and the world to 
destruction. He lifted the sword high and strode toward the old man, his anger 
mounting. 


The King stood his ground as the overman approached, and even through 
the cloud of rage, Garth remembered his previous attempt to kill the old man 
with the Sword of Bheleu. He had been totally unable to harm him. 


Still, as his fury grew, he found it impossible to believe that a weapon 
that could reduce so vast a monster to ash, and bone could not kill a scrawny 
human. He slashed out viciously, aiming for the old man's throat. 


The blade left a trail of sparks. Despite Garth's efforts to keep it on 
course, it sheered wildly upward, skimming over the Forgotten King's head. 


Frustrated, Garth spun it back and struck again, this time slanting 
downward. Again the sword refused to cooperate, curving down and to the side, 
veering away from the old man without touching him. 


Garth growled. 


"Stop it, Garth," the old man said. "I am not so easily destroyed as 
Dhazh. You cannot do it like that." 


The overman fell silent and lowered the sword, his red eyes flat and 
dead with rage. He could not kill the King any more than he could strike at 
the gods. 


Perhaps he could strike at one god, though; not directly, of course, but 
through his followers. He struggled to think, but his mind seemed hazy and 
slow. He had already slaughtered the cult of Bheleu, when first he took the 
sword, and The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken had no servants except the King 
and one or two decrepit priests. But the cult of Aghad still flourished, and 
more than any other had driven him into his current predicament. He had sworn 
vengeance upon that god's worshippers, sworn to destroy them. Somewhere in 
Ur-Dormulk was a temple dedicated to Aghad, he remembered; he looked out 
across the battered city. 


"Where is it?" he muttered, half to himself. 



"What?" The Forgotten King's question was calm and indifferent. 


"Where is the temple of Aghad?" 


"The center of the cult is in Dsarra." 


"They have a temple here, in Ur-Dormulk. Where is it?" 


"It is unimportant." 


"Where is it?" Garth's tone was flat and dangerous. The King scarcely 
needed to beware of the overman's anger, but he chose not to argue further. 


"I will show you," he replied. He turned and walked down the street. 


Garth followed him through the ruins, through sections where buildings 
stood relatively undamaged, past smoking pits that had once been cellars or 
crypts, until the pair arrived in front of a low stone structure tucked up 
against one of the great outcroppings of rock that studded the city. 


The King stopped and gestured at the nondescript building. 


"This is it?" Garth asked. The temple was nothing like the one he had 
robbed in Dsarra. There was no metal gate, no courtyard with poisoned 
fountain, no names etched in the stone walls, but a simple single story of 
weathered granite, with a few narrow windows that peered out, black and empty, 
upon the deserted streets. The windows flanked a heavy wooden door. 


The King said nothing, but nodded once. 


Reassured, his anger driving away any lingering doubts, Garth marched up 
to the entrance and swung the sword against it. 


The heavy wooden door burst outward in a shower of splinters and dust, 
with a sound like sudden thunder. 


Garth stepped through into a small, bare anteroom and looked about in 
the unlit gloom. Three other doors led further into the depths of the 
building; he chose one at random and smashed it down with the sword, sending 
shards rattling against the walls on all sides. 


Beyond lay a small room hung in dark red and richly carpeted in soft 
gray; near the far wall stood a metal altar, and upon the altar lay a woman's 
corpse, partially disemboweled. Garth stepped closer. 


A curtain plummeted down before him; with a growl, Garth hacked it apart 
in time to see the altar sink into the floor, taking the corpse with it. 


This sort of mechanical trickery was similar, indeed almost identical, 
to what he had encountered in Dsarra. Any further doubts he might have had 
were dispelled by his final glimpse of the dead body. 


Runes had been carved into the woman's chest, four runes, spelling out 
AGHAD. 


Satisfied that he had found the right place, Garth lashed out with the 
sword and blasted apart the sliding stone that moved into place to hide the 
sunken altar and its grisly burden. Without bothering to consider that the 
victim might deserve better, he then sent a burst of white flame that utterly 
consumed the corpse, leaving a thin layer of ash. That done, he set about 
serious destruction, shattering the ceiling and the roof beyond and working 
his way down the walls. 


When at last he was satisfied that the job was done, he stood at the 
bottom of a great pit, amid a heap of rubble, where no stone larger than a 
man's body remained and no stone stood intact upon another. He had found and 
destroyed hundreds of concealed machines and mechanisms, a dozen or so hidden 
bodies, a handful of dangerous beasts, and a vast armory equipped with 
everything from siege engines to endless shelves of varied poisons. The single 
floor aboveground had stood atop three levels of cellars and dungeons that 
extended out beneath the buildings on both sides and across the street into 
the house opposite. 


Half a dozen doors led from the cellars into the crypts, but he did not 
bother to investigate those after blowing the doors themselves apart. He knew, 
even in his rage, that there was no point in destroying the entire system of 
crypts, and that to do so would mean destroying the entire city he had slain 
Dhazh to save. He drew the line at the point where the architecture and the 
texture of the stone changed, revealing the difference between the ancient 
buried tunnels and the far newer temple built to take advantage of them. 



Nowhere in the entire structure were there any living humans. 


In Dsarra, Haggat watched, worried, as the temple in Ur-Dormulk 
crumbled. He was unable to focus his scrying glass on the overman or the sword 
and could not watch the destruction directly as a result, but he was able to 
see the remains. It distressed him to see so powerful an outpost of the cult, 
second only to its heart in Dsarra, reduced so quickly to worthless rubble, 
but he knew he could do nothing to stop the demolition. 


He could, however, save the cultists who had used the shrine. The 
overman's next step, obviously, would be to pick the Aghadites out of the 
crowd that waited outside the city gates and kill them; Haggat did not want 
that to happen. He abandoned the scrying glass for the moment, to order his 
disciples to send a message of warning. 


When Garth climbed out of the hole he had made, he found the Forgotten 
King waiting, motionless, in the street. 


"Are there any Aghadites in the city?" the overman demanded. 


"No," the old man replied. 


Garth was glad of that; he had not relished the thought of hunting them 
down in their hiding places, one by one. Far easier and more satisfying to 
blast the lot of them at once! He would divide them out from the crowd as the 
citizens were readmitted to the city, standing at the gate and stopping them 
as they passed. He did not consider how he would recognize them; he was sure 
he would manage it. The old man was apparently in a cooperative mood, having 
led him to the temple and now having answered his question directly; perhaps 
he would be willing to point them out. 


There would be time for that later. His next step was to return to the 
gate and arrange with the authorities for permission to dispose of the 
Aghadites. It seemed a very minor demand to make in exchange for slaying the 
monster that had done so much damage to their city. 


The sun was down, and Garth lighted the way back to the gate with the 
glow from the Sword of Bheleu. Fires still flickered in the distance, but in a 
city so largely built of stone, most were rapidly dying out. 


Frima and Koros still waited atop the stairs at the gate, just as Garth 
had left them, save that Koros was now asleep and Frima awake. As a result of 
her rest, awkward as it had been to sleep in the saddle, she was alert and 
eager to pursue her vengeance against the worshippers of Aghad. 


She had awakened feeling ill shortly before; after she had vomited, she 
had felt somewhat better and had noticed that Garth was missing. She had not 
been seriously concerned by his absence; she knew he would return for Koros, 
if for nothing else, and she had correctly concluded that he had gone in 
search of their common foe. 


"Are there Aghadites in this city?" she asked as Garth and the Forgotten 
King climbed the last few steps. 


"No," the overman replied. "But there are many, I am sure, in the crowd 
outside the gates. I have just destroyed their temple here; now we must search 
them out from the other humans." 


"No," the old man said unexpectedly. "They have fled." 


"What?" Garth demanded. Frima stared silently. 


"They are gone." 


"They can't be," Garth insisted. "I have to kill them." 


"They were warned magically and have fled." 


"Are you sure?" Frima asked. 


The King nodded. 


"They're really gone? You swear it?" she persisted. 


The King nodded again. 


"Where did they go?" Garth asked. 


The old man shrugged. 


"To Dsarra, perhaps?" Garth guessed. 


The old man shrugged again. 



"To Dsarra, then," Garth said. Frima nodded agreement. 


The conversation had awakened the warbeast; now, at the overman's 
urging, it turned and followed its master out the city gate and into the 
torchlit night beyond, where the people of Ur-Dormulk waited to reclaim their 
city. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 


Garth and his companions stayed the night on the hillside by the gate, 
ignoring a thin drizzle that began around midnight. They kept a careful watch 
on the line of men, women, and children moving slowly back into the city, 
while guards stood nearby. A few reports came in of people who had vanished 
around sunset, wandering off in one direction or another, confirming the 
Forgotten King's claim that the Aghadites had been warned of their danger. The 
soldiers had generally not tried to prevent these people from crossing the 
perimeter; that was not what they had been posted for. Their orders were to 
keep dangers out, not to keep their own people in, and if a score or perhaps 
two dozen had chosen to depart for destinations unknown, it was no part of a 
soldier's duty to stop them. Garth, angry as he was at the escape of the 
Aghadites, had to admit that that was reasonable. 


He and Frima, as well as large numbers of guardsmen, observed the whole 
re-entry operation, and nowhere did Garth see the dark red robes of the 
worshippers of Aghad. He knew, of course, that the cultists might well be 
disguised and that he had no reliable means of spotting them in the horde of 
muddy, bedraggled citizens who wound their way up the hill and through the 
gates. Still, he was sure that most, if not all, of those people reported 
missing had been the god's followers in Ur-Dormulk. 


Around dawn, it was noticed that the two wizards could not be found. 
Garth wondered briefly if they might have been Aghadites, or whether they 
might have been devoured by the monster the Forgotten King called Dhazh, or 
whether they were simply lost somewhere. Eventually he decided that the matter 
did not concern him. 


The overlord and his court had gathered in one particular area of the 
hillside and established themselves in charge of the return to the city, 
giving orders to the military and generally taking credit for the organization 
soldiers had imposed. This kept them busy running about, looking very out of 
place wearing their gaudy robes in the rain and mud. It seemed to Garth that 
such bright attire would look out of place anywhere other than in a 
palace-which might well have been exactly what was intended. 


Despite the disappearance of the wizards, there were enough witnesses, 
and enough evidence, to establish to the satisfaction of all concerned that 
Garth had, indeed, been responsible for the monster's destruction. The 
overlord's courtiers made at least a pretense of gratitude, confused and wet 
as they were, and their orders enabled the overman's little party to make a 
good breakfast from stocks of food brought out of the city by the more 
foresighted refugees. A fat sheep was found to feed the warbeast, and a few 
supplies were laid in for their coming journey, all at the city's expense. 
Someone even managed to dig up a sheath large enough to hold the Sword of 
Bheleu from an obscure armory in the city wall, and Garth strapped the weapon 
on his back rather than continuing to carry it naked in his hand. 


Finally, at midmorning when Garth was convinced that it would do no good 
to watch the remaining population return to the ruined city, he and his party 
gathered themselves together and departed for Dsarra. 


By then the hillside was almost free of humanity, but had been left a 
littered expanse of churned mud, where makeshift tents flapped forlornly in 
the warm breeze. 


Garth found himself alternately slipping and sinking in the muck, and 
rather than struggle on, he climbed astride Koros. The warbeast did not seem 
to notice the mud at all, and the Forgotten King walked on as smoothly and 



tirelessly as the beast. Frima had been in the saddle to begin with and stayed 
there, perched behind the overman. 


Garth wondered idly for a moment how soon and how well the people of 
Ur-Dormulk would rebuild their homes. He doubted that any of them had ever had 
any experience in building he had seen no structure in all the city that could 
have been less than several centuries old. 


It occurred to him that it might not matter for long whether they 
rebuilt or not. If the world were to end, it would make little difference if 
the citizens of Ur-Dormulk died in the streets or beneath new roofs. 


With that thought, his attention returned to his own situation, to the 
task that lay before him, and the presence and nature of the Forgotten King. 
He glared at the old man, without effect, and wished that he had never met 
him. 


From Ur-Dormulk their route led southwest along the foothills, then west 
across a pass in the mountains into the land of Nekutta, across a broad 
valley, Around the southern end of another mountain range, and across another 
plain to the foothills of a third mountain range, this last one volcanic. 
There, perched on the side of a volcano, stood the black-walled city of 
Dasarra, where the cult of Aghad was centered. 


Dsarra's name meant "gathering place of the dark gods," which was a 
fair description; each of the seven Lords of Ds, despised elsewhere for the 
most part, had a major shrine there, serving as the center of his or her cult. 
In other lands the Ds were considered to be wholly evil, and their worship an 
aberration, at best-though the more decadent and tolerant permitted that 
worship to continue, as it had in Ur-Dormulk. 


In Dsarra the dark gods were dominant; no other deities were 
worshipped, as far as Garth had been able to learn during his stay there or in 
discussions with Frima in the subsequent months, save for a few minor 
affiliated gods, such as Bheleu's son Koros, god of war, or Tema's servant 
Mei, goddess of the moon. 


Elsewhere, people would have said that since the Lords of Ds were evil, 
a society dedicated to them must also be evil and must therefore quickly 
destroy itself, by the very nature of evil. Yet Dsarra had survived for 
centuries, perhaps millennia. Garth was not sure how the Dsarrans had managed 
it. 


Garth's previous visit had brought fire and plague upon them, and at 
last report, the city was in a state of chaos; yet the cult of Aghad remained 
active. Garth was not sure how to explain that, either-but he intended to put 
a stop to it. 


From Ur-Dormulk, however, the journey to Dsarra would require at least 
ten days. 


It occurred to him that the Aghadites, with their teleporting magic, 
could cover the distance almost instantly and that the Forgotten King had 
pronounced their spells to be trivial. Did that mean, then, that the Sword of 
Bheleu, or the Book of Silence, or the Pallid Mask, or perhaps the King's own 
personal magic might serve the same purpose? 


"King," he demanded without preamble, "can you transport us more 
quickly?" 


The old man did not trouble himself to look up, but merely shook his 
head negatively. 


Garth was not satisfied by that reply. It did not seem reasonable that 
this party should have such great magical power at their disposal, yet be 
unable to perform a feat the Aghadites managed with far feebler resources. 


He recalled that the King had been confined to Skelleth for centuries 
and wondered if perhaps the old man wanted to see something of the world 
before attempting to destroy it and himself. The King was not making any 
visible effort to study the scenery, marching on steadily without turning his 
head, but it was a possibility. 


Perhaps the powers they carried were too specialized, too strongly 
dedicated to death and destruction. 



Whatever the reason, Garth regretted the delay; it meant that much more 
time for the cultists to strike against his family and surviving friends. 
Galt, back in Skelleth, was almost certainly in danger, as well as Myrith and 
Lurith and Garth's children. 


He could think of no way to compel the Forgotten King or anyone else to 
speed them magically on their way, however, and could merely plot, plan, and 
worry as Koros strode onward into the mountains. 


Behind him, Frima was slowly recovering from the shock of Saram's death. 
Her initial reaction had been wordless grief, which Garth had transformed into 
a cold, bitter hatred and a driving need for revenge with the words he had 
spoken to her in the market. Hatred and anger, however, had to be sustained by 
something outside oneself in order to dominate one's thoughts over an extended 
period of time. Had she stayed in Skelleth, Frima would have been reminded 
repeatedly of Saram's murder by the simple fact of his absence, by the empty 
side of her bed, by the unused or perhaps usurped baronial seat in the hall, 
where someone else might be giving orders, or merely by the old familiar 
places where she had seen him so often and the ordinary objects he had handled 
so frequently. 


Here, though, as she clung to Garth with her arms and to Koros with her 
legs, riding for days on end through strange country and suffering from a 
vague illness that came and went, those reminders were lacking. 


The sight of Saram's murderers, or any sign of their presence, would 
have served to sustain her craving for vengeance, but the mountains they 
crossed, and the plain beyond, were unmarked by any trace of Aghad or his 
followers. They passed small farms, stone cottages, and other human 
habitations, but nothing that could stir her dwindling fury. Instead, she 
found herself distracted by new sights and experiences. 


This had begun with the burning of Dhazh. Seeing that had provided a 
countershock to Saram's death; it had been the first thing she thought about 
other than death and revenge since she had seen her husband's mutilated 
corpse. 


Now, as she rode behind the overman across the rolling countryside of 
eastern Nekutta, she was able to, think clearly again, her thoughts no longer 
smothered beneath an unbearable load of grief and rage. For the first time, 
she began to consider her situation now that Saram was dead. 


Was she still the Baroness of Skelleth? She had no idea. She had held 
the title only by virtue of being Saram's consort, but since both he and his 
predecessor had died with no other heirs known, that claim might be sufficient 
to entitle her to rule in her own name. Had the stillborn son she bore almost 
two years earlier lived, he would have been the new Baron, and she the dowager 
and probable regent-but he had not lived. Nothing of Saram lived on; he had 
had no brothers, no sisters, no living family at all. Even his friends had 
mostly perished in the sacking of Skelleth three years ago. 


That thought upset her anew, that there should be nothing left of the 
man she had loved, and she reaffirmed her vow of vengeance. 


It was not fitting, she thought, that so fine a man should die so young 
and with no offspring-though it occurred to her that she had not known just 
how old he was. Older than she, certainly. Nor could Frima be certain that he 
had not sired children; she had not been his first woman, she knew, though she 
was his only wife. 


Still, he had no legitimate heir-and she had no child to ease her 
loneliness. 


She remembered her recurring illness and wondered if she might be wrong 
about that, but she suppressed the thought as mere wishful thinking. She did 
not want to fill herself with false hopes, and her bouts of nausea were far 
more likely to be caused by grief, or the rigors of travel, than by pregnancy. 


Perhaps she should have stayed in Skelleth and tried to learn whether 
Saram had children whom she might claim and raise as her own. She would never 
have asked so improper a question while Saram lived, of course, but it 
occurred to her that Garth, who had known Saram before she met him, might know 



something. She inquired timidly, "Garth?" 


The overman did not answer, but glanced back. 


"Did Saram have a lover before I met him?" 


Garth shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "I never saw any evidence of 
one." He turned his attention forward again, to the trail ahead, wondering 
what quirk had brought Frima to be questioning her dead husband's past at this 
late date. It was an almost-welcome distraction from his own gloomy, 
repetitious thoughts, which ran over and over again along the same deadend 
paths, considering ways out of his predicament that he already knew would not 
work. 


Frima reminded herself that she was not totally alone; she had friends, 
or at least acquaintances, back in Skelleth, and she was sure that they would 
not desert her if she returned there. She had Garth, who had agreed to help 
her in her revenge and who still seemed to feel some obligation toward her 
from earlier events. She had her father and siblings, perhaps, though she 
could not be sure that any of them had survived. She had not thought much 
about them in almost three years, not even long enough to send them a message 
reporting her own survival and her improved estate as the Baroness of 
Skelleth, but surely, if they lived, they would welcome her back. 


She felt suddenly guilty that she had never told them that she was still 
alive. They must, she realized, believe that she had died on Sai's altar long 
ago-unless her father or brother had been in the mob in the marketplace when 
Garth slew the high priest of Aghad. They would have seen her there and known 
she still lived, but would have no idea what had become of her after she fled 
the city. 


Of course, if they had been present, they might well have been among the 
first to contract the White Death, which was invariably fatal. And if the 
plague had not killed them, the fires she herself had set, and the chaos that 
ensued, might well have caught them. 


Her younger sisters would have been safe at home, she was sure-but the 
fires and plague and rioting might have found them even there. And if their 
father and brother had died, how would they have survived? Most probably they, 
like herself, would have wound up on a sacrificial altar somewhere-but without 
a strange overman to rescue them. 


She was suddenly impatient to see Dsarra again, to discover how much 
the stories of its destruction had exaggerated. She wanted to know whether her 
father, her brother, and her two sisters still lived. What remained of her 
father's shop? Were any of her old friends still there? Was the cult of Tema 
still active? She remembered the priestess Shirrayth, who had tried to teach 
Frima some of the mysteries of the goddess in hopes of recruiting her as an 
acolyte, and wondered what had become of her. She remembered the magnificent 
stone idol in the temple's domed chamber, which had awed and comforted her as 
a child, and longed to see it again. She was certain that it must still be 
intact; the goddess would protect her own image, Frima was sure of that. 


She remembered how she had been consoled by a priest-she had never known 
his name-after her mother's death and how she had prayed to Tema and sensed 
her presence in the night sky in response. The knowledge that the goddess 
watched over her followers had eased Frima's mind many times when she was 
young, yet during her stay in Skelleth she had neglected her religion 
completely. 


She tried to excuse herself on the grounds that Tema was a Dsarran 
deity, not to be found in strange eastern lands, but she knew that for the lie 
it was. Tema was the goddess of night, and the night came everywhere, not just 
to Dsarra. 


She had not kept up her childhood faith; she had lived mostly by day, 
for convenience, since the people of Skelleth, unlike her own, were wholly 
diurnal. She had relinquished her ties to the night. 


That was not right. 


Had she remained steadfast, Frima thought, perhaps Tema might have 
warned her, or protected Saram somehow, or turned away Aghad's followers-or at 



the very least, eased the pain and grief. 


Perhaps the goddess had watched over her family and she would find her 
father and siblings waiting for her in the tinker's shop, untouched by the 
catastrophes that had struck the city. They, surely, had remained faithful. 


No, she told herself, that was going too far, believing that anyone who 
worshipped Tema would be preserved against the wrath of the other gods-for it 
was P'hul and Bheleu who had caused Dsarrans suffering, at Garth's behest. 
Tema was the least of the seven Lords of Ds, unable to stand against any of 
her six siblings. If P'hul's plague, or Bheleu's flames, or the machinations 
of Aghad had been directed against Frima's family, then they surely would have 
died. She could only hope that they had been fortunate. 


It would do no good to pray to Tema that they had been spared, for not 
even the gods could alter the past, except perhaps for the being called Dagha, 
who had created the gods themselves. If her family still lived, she would find 
them when she reached Dsarra; until then, it would do no good to worry about 
them. 


Nonetheless, she worried. 


She wanted them to be alive, for there to be someone she could go to, 
now that Saram was dead. She wanted to return to the comforts of her 
childhood, to the relative security she had known before her kidnapping. 


With that in mind, as the party was coming within sight of Nekutta's 
central mountain range, she leaned forward and asked Garth, "Don't you think 
we should travel by night?" 


The overman glanced back at her and asked, "Why?" 


"Wouldn't it be safer?" 


The overman looked out across the peaceful landscape of green pastures, 
grazing cattle, and occasional houses or plowed fields scattered along the 
roadside. Nothing within sight seemed in the least threatening. 


Still, he remembered that reports had reached Skelleth describing wars 
and other disturbances in Nekutta. He had seen no evidence to support the 
stories-but caution would do no harm. 


So far, the party had been spending long days on the road, traveling on 
well into the evening every day, and rising again before dawn to get an early 
start. Garth had no intention of slowing the pace, but he saw no reason not to 
move the sleeping period from nighttime to day. It might, he thought, provide 
a small decrease in the chance of danger. 


"Old man? Do you have any preference?" 


The Forgotten King shook his head and walked on, tirelessly, without 
looking at the overman. He had no trouble in keeping up with the warbeast. An 
ordinary man would have been left far behind in a single day, or else would 
have collapsed from exhaustion, but the King marched stolidly and silently 
onward, his pace always steady and matching the warbeast's own. It was one 
more little demonstration of his strangeness, but one that pleased Garth 
because it meant faster travel. 


"Very well, then," Garth said. "Tonight we ride until dawn." 


Frima smiled; she was returning to the night, where she belonged. 


The habits of years were not so easily broken, however, and she dozed 
off shortly after midnight, only to be awakened half an hour later by the 
cessation of movement. 


Startled, she opened her eyes and saw that Koros had stopped and was 
standing motionless in the middle of the road. No inn was in sight, and the 
eastern sky was still black and strewn with stars. 


"What's happening?" she asked. 


"Silence!" Garth warned in a low voice. 
"Why?" she whispered. "What's happening?" 


"I see campfires ahead, where none should be," Garth replied. 


Frima lifted herself up on her hands and stared over the overman's 
shoulder. As he had said, several lights were visible on the hillside ahead of 
them. 


"Couldn't it just be a caravan?" she whispered. 



"It could be," Garth admitted, "but I think it is not. Look how many 
fires there are." 


Frima peered into the darkness and tried to count the flickering lights; 
her hand slipped before she had finished, and she bumped down onto the saddle, 
losing her place. 


She didn't need to finish her count, however; Garth's point was obvious. 


"I estimate thirty fires," the overman whispered. "At the least. And 
assuming ten humans to each, that means three hundred people are camped there. 
I have never heard of so large a caravan. Raiding parties, however, are often 
such a size." 


"Maybe the caravan set extra fires to scare away bandits," Frima 
suggested. 


Garth did not bother to reply to that. 


"What are you going to do about it?" Frima asked. 


"I have not decided," he replied. 


His first impulse had been to make a detour around the encampment, but 
the thought of going out of his way, even so briefly, annoyed him. He was 
tempted to ride straight through, as if nothing were out of the ordinary-and 
if anyone in the camp tried to stop him, well, the Sword of Bheleu could deal 
with such interference. 


In fact, he thought it might be fun to destroy the camp, whether he was 
bothered directly or not; after all, the fools had settled themselves on the 
highway, obstructing traffic, and deserved whatever response travelers might 
be able to make. 


He found himself considering with anticipation just how he would go 
about it. He might burn down the tents first-assuming there were tents-and 
then hunt down anyone who got out in time. He would pursue them individually, 
he decided, and skewer each one on the sword, so that he could watch the blood 
run up the blade and spatter across the ground. 


"Garth?" Frima's voice was worried. 


He ignored the girl; nothing she could say would be of interest. 


"Garth, the jewel is glowing," she said. 


He glanced up and realized that she was correct. The red light that had 
tinged the edge of his vision had been neither his imagination nor the 
approach of dawn, but the glow of the gem. 


An instant's worry vanished. What did it matter, he asked himself, if 
the stone were to glow? He had made his bargain with Bheleu, and the god would 
not dare to interfere with his thoughts. The urge to destroy the camp was 
entirely his own, he told himself. 


All the glow did was remind him of the sword's readiness and waiting 
power. It occurred to him that he might be able to use it to keep his prey 
from fleeing. A good thunderstorm would douse the fires and drive the people 
under shelter, making it more difficult for them to escape his anger. He 
reached up for the hilt projecting above his shoulder. 


"Garth!" Frima said, her voice loud and unsteady. 


"Silence, woman!" Garth growled in reply. His hand closed on the sword's 
grip, and he felt a surge of strength. 


"Old man!" Frima called. "Stop him!" 


Garth bellowed and tried to draw the sword; Frima pressed up against his 
back, holding the scabbard down so that he could not pull the blade free. 


Enraged, Garth tried to twist away while simultaneously reaching up with 
both hands to lift the blade out of its sheath hand over hand. 


"King! Help!" Frima called. 


The glow of the gem suddenly died, and the stone turned black, darker 
than the night sky above. 


Garth stopped instantly; his hands fell, and the sword slid back into 
place. His irrational anger had vanished, and with it all thought of 
assaulting whoever blocked their way. He felt as if a haze had cleared from 
his thoughts, a haze that had been present in varying measure ever since he 
had picked the Sword of Bheleu up off the table in the back of the King's Inn. 



Even when the sword had been black with soot and unable to hold him directly, 
he realized, his thoughts had been tainted and muddied by it. Perhaps the most 
frightening of the sword's effects was that he was not even aware of its 
influence until it was broken; it made him believe Bheleu's reactions and 
emotions to be his own. 


Now, though, he was free again, at least for the moment. 


"Thank you," he said. 


"Bheleu is not to be trusted," the old man's hideous voice rasped from 
the darkness. "He would have delayed us here for no good reason, and I do not 
wish to be thus delayed. Further, I prefer your company, poor as it is, to 
his." 


"I won't give you the sword," Garth insisted. He was wary, and his 
thoughts had not had time to reorder themselves fully, so he stated his 
position directly to avoid confusion, on either the King's part or his own. 
The old man had made a longer speech than usual, which was, in Garth's 
experience, often a sign of trouble. The extra words might be part of a subtle 
scheme, or a result of the old man's excitement-and anything that excited the 
Forgotten King was likely to be unpleasant for mere mortals. 


"As you please," the King replied. 


Garth relaxed very slightly. It could be, he told himself, that the old 
man had spoken the exact truth and that his motives were just as he said-but 
why had he bothered to explain them? 


Frima did not worry herself about that. "Are you all right?" she asked. 


"Yes," Garth answered, though he was not yet completely certain himself. 


The party had continued onward as these events had taken place; when 
Garth had reached for the sword, he had urged Koros forward, and the warbeast 
had obeyed, undisturbed by the actions of its riders. The Forgotten King had 
marched alongside. Now, Garth realized, they were drawing near to the most 
easterly of the campfires; furthermore, they had been shouting at one another. 


"Wait," he called softly as he signaled the warbeast to stop. 


Koros stopped. Garth looked off to the side and saw no sign of the 
King's yellow mantle. He looked back, in surprise, wondering where the old man 
had gone. 


Something rustled; he whirled to face forward once again, and found 
himself looking down the shaft of a spear. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 


"An overman!" exclaimed an unfamiliar voice very near at hand-the voice, Garth 
was sure, of an overman, deeper and more resonant than any human's. 


"Who are you?" Garth demanded. He looked up from the spear poised at his 
throat and saw that it was clutched in double-thumbed hands below a noseless, 
red-eyed face. Two other figures stood nearby, one of overman size, the other 
smaller; both held their weapons ready. 


"Who do you think we are, idiot?" the smaller figure asked in 
unmistakably human tones. 


"More importantly, stranger, who are you?" the overman with the spear 
inquired. 


Garth considered his situation and decided that he did not care to admit 
his identity yet. "I'm just a traveler heading west. Why does it concern you?" 


"You travel at night?" 


Garth shrugged. "Why not? It's cooler. I mean you no harm, whoever you 
are. If you prefer, I will go around your camp, rather than through it. It 
matters little to me." 


"It may be that you won't be going anywhere for some time," the overman 
who had not previously spoken remarked. 


"Why not? Who are you?" 


"Who do you think we are?" 


"I don't know," Garth said. "I didn't think there were any overmen in 



Nekutta. Either I was wrong or you have come here from somewhere else-but I 
have no idea where or why." This was not exactly true, of course; it did not 
take much intelligence to guess that the camp was a raiding party from Yprian 
Coast and that these three had been sent out to investigate the noise on the 
road. 


"We didn't think there were overmen native to Nekutta, either, which is 
why you still live," the second overman said. "You may be a spy, perhaps a 
loner hired by some village to direct us away from it-but we have not 
previously encountered such a thing. Why would humans hire an overman, when 
surely they know we have both species among us? And I might suspect you to be 
a scout for one of our rivals, save that we had thought ourselves the most 
easterly party; why, then, would you be approaching from the east? Did you 
circle around unseen, and then become careless on the way back? It seems 
unlikely. Therefore, stranger, we are puzzled, and want to hear your 
explanation of yourself before we do you any permanent harm." 


"And I want to know," the human interjected, "what that thing is you're 
riding, and who that is behind you." 


"The animal is a warbeast," Garth replied, unsure how much of the truth 
it would be wise to admit. "The girl is Dsarran and has hired me to escort 
her home." That story seemed as good as any and certainly more acceptable than 
the truth. He could not know what attitude this group had toward the cult of 
Aghad. 


"Ah," the second overman said. "And who is this Dsarran? Who are you, 
that she should trust you enough to hire you?" 


"Her name is Frima, Baroness of Skelleth," Garth answered. He hoped that 
the title would impress his questioners. He did not care to reveal his own 
name yet; they might have heard it one way or another. "As for why she should 
trust me, that is her own concern-but I have been known to her for some time, 
and my word is good." He felt an uncomfortable twinge at that last statement, 
knowing it to be less than the truth. 


"Skelleth?" the spearbearer and the human exclaimed in unison. 


"I think we've got a real prize here," the overman added. 


"Think what a hostage she'll be, if she's really the Baroness!" the 
human said. 


Garth had not considered that. He had assumed that these Yprians would 
not want to interfere with the friendly relationship between Skelleth and 
their own land. 


"That would not be good for trade," he said. 


"That, fool, is the whole point!" the human declared. 


The second overman held out a hand, gesturing the human to silence. "I 
think I understand," he said. "You aren't Yprian, are you?" 


"You mean he really is Nekuttan?" the human asked, surprised. 


"No! Silence!" The overman's hand struck the human's helmet with a dull 
clunk. Turning back to Garth, he asked, "You're from Eramma?" 


"No," Garth replied. "I come from Ordunin, in the Northern Waste." 


"Ah, yes. That explains everything." 


Annoyed, Garth said, "Perhaps it explains everything to you, but it does 
not to me." 


"No, of course not. Come, then, and I'll explain." He sheathed his sword 
and held out a hand in friendship. 


Hesitantly, the human returned his own sword to its scabbard, while the 
first overman lowered his spear. 


At the second overman's urging, Garth dismounted and led Koros, with 
Frima still astride, into the camp. There was still no sign of the Forgotten 
King. 


Once inside the circle of light from the nearest fire, Garth was able to 
get a good look at his captors. As he had thought, they were obviously Yprian, 
wearing the brightly enameled, flaring helmets and gaudy, enameled armor 
customary on the Coast. 


They were not, however, exactly like the Yprians who had traded in 



Skelleth. The designs and colors on the armor were different, the accents, he 
realized, subtly altered. 


When they had drawn near the fire, Frima was lifted off the warbeast, 
and both she and it were placed under polite but thorough guard-though Garth 
was sure that the Yprians were underestimating the warbeast's strength and 
that Koros could easily leave anytime it chose. 


Garth himself was treated solicitously, led to a comfortable folding 
stool by the fire, and offered a cup of mulled wine. Wary of drugs, he refused 
the beverage, but seated himself and waited politely while the other overman 
made himself comfortable. 


When both were settled, the other began his explanation. Garth, upon 
seeing the differences between this group and those who had come to Skelleth, 
had already guessed part of it. 


The Yprian Coast, it seemed, was not a single united region living at 
peace with itself, but rather a patchwork of squabbling tribes, some human, 
some overman, most mixed. 


For the last century or two, the situation had been relatively stable; 
each tribe had its area staked out, and borders were only rarely violated. 
Raids were not unheard of, by any means, but full-scale wars were a thing of 
the past. The tribes traded with one another and formed elaborate networks of 
allies and trading partners, the better to get what they needed. Goods not 
obtainable on the Coast were bought from the most southwesterly tribe, the 
Dyn-Hugris, who traded with Dsarra, and who were consequently the most 
powerful of the various groups. The Dyn-Hugris, however, were kept in check by 
an alliance of half a dozen other fairly large and wealthy tribes in the 
central part of the region. All in all, there had been a stable balance of 
power and an acceptable division of the available wealth. 


Then, almost simultaneously, two things had occurred to disrupt this 
situation. 


Dsarra had been stricken by plague, its marketplace and warehouses 
burned and much of the city evacuated. Trade had collapsed. The Dyn-Hugris 
lost their power base overnight; their control of the trade routes to Dsarra 
was suddenly worthless. 


In the east, a party of traders had come through the badlands from 
Eramma and offered to trade with anyone who was interested. The first tribe 
they encountered had been little more than a small company of bandits, but the 
second had been the Chuleras, a large and ambitious group previously limited 
by their poor location and meager resources. 


Now, abruptly, the Chuleras had gold, large amounts of it, and were able 
to hire mercenaries, bribe allies, and generally assert themselves. They had 
done so with none of the tact the Dyn-Hugris had developed over the centuries 
and were in the process of driving the six Alliance tribes out of their 
central homelands. 


Even without the resources of Dsarra, the Dyn-Hugris were a formidable 
enemy, so instead of retreating westward, the six tribes had come south, 
making the hard trek over the mountains, looking for new homes, new lands, and 
new wealth. 


The Dyn-Hugris, not to be outdone, had sent armies south along their 
now-useless trade routes. 


The old alliances had collapsed under the new strains; now the six 
tribes, and the Dyn-Hugris as well, were all rivals, gobbling up as much of 
Nekutta as they could. It had been a pleasant surprise to find it all so 
poorly defended. Usually a company of Yprians could take over as much land as 
they pleased by simply moving in and declaring themselves the owners. The 
local inhabitants, mostly farmers, rarely dared protest. 


Conquest was so easy, in fact, that the Yprians became nervous, certain 
that there had to be a catch somewhere, some dire threat that would arise to 
thwart them. So far, no such thing had appeared-but Garth's arrival had been 
very suspicious. The camp was the foremost outpost of the army of the Khofros, 
most easterly of the six tribes, and just recently come around the central 



mountains hoping to claim the entire eastern region of Nekutta. The presence 
of an overman to the east of them was an unwelcome surprise. 


Garth listened to this explanation silently. He realized that he, 
virtually single-handed, had managed to disrupt completely the society of the 
Yprian Coast and had thereby caused the invasion of Nekutta by these 
semibarbaric tribespeople. Both the destruction of Dsarra and the rise of the 
Chuleras had been his doing. 


Once again, actions he had thought beneficial had led to mass 
destruction. He wondered if it was possible for him to do anything significant 
at all that Bheleu and fate would not twist and pervert. 


The Yprian, done with his story, asked, "Is that girl really the 
Baroness of Skelleth?" 


Garth had been waiting for this question. "I wanted to impress you," he 
replied. "I thought the whole Yprian Coast traded with Skelleth, not just one 
tribe." 


"Is she the Baroness?" the other persisted. 


Garth realized that he was not going to be allowed to dodge the 
question. "Not anymore," he said. "She was the Baroness; her husband was 
recently murdered by his enemies. I doubt that anyone would care much about 
the widow of a deposed baron. There were no children to claim the title; she 
was left alone and decided to return to her home in Dsarra rather than risk 
her life by staying in Skelleth." 


He hoped that the implication that Frima had been exiled by a rival 
faction would be accepted. If the situation on the Coast had in fact been as 
the Yprian had described it, such things would probably have been common and 
familiar. 


"Ah," the Yprian said. "A pity, if true." 


"It is true." Garth spoke as if offended, his voice flat. As it 
happened, most of what he said was indeed accurate. It was the way it was said 
that gave a wrong impression, by implying that the enemies who had murdered 
Saram had been usurpers in Skelleth, rather than outside foes. 


"A shame; she would have been such a good hostage in dealing with the 
Chuleras." 


Garth shrugged. "I am sorry she is of no value to you. She has some 
worth for me; I am to be paid by her family upon her safe delivery to 
Dsarra'' 


"That seems very odd, you know. Dsarra is largely deserted now. And how 
did a Dsarran ever come to be married to the Baron of Skelleth?" 


"I do not know the details; she turned up in Skelleth almost three years 
ago. The dead Baron was something of an adventurer, you know; he took the 
title for himself, rather than inheriting it. His predecessor was murdered, as 
well." 


"You still haven't told me your name." 


"Thord," Garth said. "Thord of Ordunin, son of Dold and Sherid." 


"I am Chorn of the Khofros." 


"What do you plan to do with me?" 


"I have not decided." 


"I would like to point out that I will put up serious resistance if you 
do not release me very soon. Besides myself, the warbeast is a formidable 
threat. I do not think it worth your while to keep me here or to kill me. Far 
better to let me go in peace." 


"You have a good point there. I will keep it in mind while I discuss 
this with our elders." The Yprian rose and signaled with one hand. 


Three guards, all overmen, stepped forward and kept Garth under close 
watch while Chorn strode off and vanished into a large tent. They made no 
attempt to disarm Garth; he guessed that they judged the great two-handed 
broadsword too awkward a weapon to be much of a threat in such a situation. 
Were he to reach for it, he could be killed long before he could get it free 
of its scabbard-or at any rate, he could have been killed if it were an 
ordinary weapon rather than the Sword of Bheleu. 



Garth was pleased that no one touched the sword; he was unsure how it 
might react, even when its power was damped by the Forgotten King. He sat 
waiting patiently for several minutes. 


When Chorn finally emerged again he was smiling. Garth did not know how 
to interpret that until he saw the Yprian gesture for the guards to depart. 


They obeyed, vanishing into the darkness beyond the fire's light. 


Garth rose as Chorn dismissed the watch on Frima and Koros. 


"Our apologies, Thord, for detaining you," he said. "You understand our 
situation, I'm sure." 


Garth nodded. 


"You are free to go, and we hope that you will speak well of the Khofros 
in the future. We bear no malice toward any people in Eramma or the Northern 
Waste, nor even in Dsarra, and would welcome peaceful contacts with them. I 
am sorry that we were not more hospitable, but in war the amenities are 
neglected." 


"Thank you," Garth said, still slightly suspicious. 


No one interfered as he mounted the warbeast and helped Frima up behind 
him; no one attempted to stop them as they rode on westward through the camp 
and out the far side, past the sentries. 


The stay among the Yprians had delayed them for something over an hour, 
but Garth was not excessively annoyed. He knew that it could have been much 
worse. He was relieved that the Khofros had apparently decided that they did 
not need anymore enemies. 


He was not sure, however, whether he was pleased or dismayed at the 
Forgotten King's disappearance; he was still debating the point as he rode out 
past the final sentry, whereupon it became moot. The old man was walking 
alongside again as soon as they were out of sight in the darkness, as if he 
had been there all along-and Garth was not entirely sure he had not been. 
Invisibility could well be one of his wizardly talents. The overman decided 
not to mention it, and the old man did not volunteer any information. 


Frima, however, was not so reticent. When she noticed the King's 
reappearance, she demanded, "Where were you?" 


The Forgotten King did not reply. 


After she had repeated the question three times, each louder than the 
last, and had finally been hushed by Garth, while the King remained obdurately 
silent, she gave up. Instead, she asked Garth, "Why didn't they kill us?" 


"Why should they?" 


"We might have been spies." 


"We weren't." 


"But we might have been." 


Garth shrugged. 


"I think they should have killed us." 


"You would prefer to be dead?" Garth inquired politely. 


"I didn't mean it that way-though I don't know, really. Maybe when I die 
I'll see Saram again." 


Garth did not like the trend of that thought. "They did not kill us 
because it was not worth their trouble. Koros and I would have put up a good 
fight, and they would have lost several warriors before they could kill us-if 
they could kill Koros at all," he said, hoping to direct Frima away from 
thoughts of an afterlife. Even though he had come to believe in the existence 
of gods, or at any rate of supernatural powers, he had not accepted the human 
superstition of life after death. He did not want to risk saying anything that 
might tempt Frima to commit suicide or to permit herself to be killed at what 
might be an inopportune moment. 


"I suppose that's true," Frima agreed. There was a brief silence before 
she asked, "Who were those people?" 


"Yprians," Garth replied. 


"What were they doing there?" 


Garth explained the situation, repeating points every so often, 
clarifying what Frima did not immediately comprehend, and admitting ignorance 



when she asked questions he could not answer. 


When at last she was satisfied with his explanation and convinced that 
the whole camp had not been put there by the cult of Aghad, she fell silent. 


Garth glanced back and noticed that the sky was beginning to lighten in 
the east. They would be resting soon. 


That, he was sure, would do them all good. 


He had been thinking over recent events while answering Frima's 
questions; one subject was Frima herself. She was talking again, as much as 
she ever had. Garth took that as a sign that she was getting over the shock of 
Saram's death and wondered whether she still grieved. 


She was certainly more entertaining, if sometimes exasperating, as her 
normal talkative self than she had been during her long spell of silence. 
Traveling by night could be boring, with the scenery obscured by darkness, if 
one's companions refused to speak. 


He began looking for somewhere they could take shelter for the day. It 
would not do to be caught unawares by another party of Khofros, or by any 
other Yprian tribe. 


They found an abandoned, partially burned farmhouse shortly after 
sunrise, its former owner's skull on a stake by the door. A message was 
scratched on the wall with charcoal: "This is the fate of our enemies. This 
land belongs to the Khofros." 


Frima was reluctant to enter the ruin, but Garth was insistent, despite 
the ash and odor. It was shelter, burned or not. 


They spent the day sleeping peacefully; no one found them. Garth awoke 
in midafternoon and found the King sitting, fully awake, on the one intact 
chair at the unscathed kitchen table. The overman smiled at the familiar pose 
in the incongruous setting. He said nothing, but roused Frima, and the party 
set out anew. 


Having learned from their first encounter, Garth carefully avoided all 
contact with humans or overmen thereafter, circling wide around the camps and 
outposts they encountered, sleeping in ruins, caves, or other places of 
concealment, and stealing supplies rather than buying them. They passed 
several Yprian encampments of varying sizes, and Garth tried to distinguish 
the various tribes by the differences in their armor and accouterments; he was 
fairly certain of some identifications, less confident of others. Since they 
were avoiding contact, they never learned the names of the five tribes between 
the Khofros and the Dyn-Hugris, but Garth was reasonably sure he saw 
representatives of at least three of them. 


The sword's gem remained black throughout, to Garth's relief. He had no 
desire to defend Nekutta by destroying the invaders; after all, many of the 
Yprians were his own species, which the Nekuttans were not. 


As well as the invading armies, they came across camps of ragged humans, 
mostly unarmed, whom Garth guessed to be refugees. Many of the inhabitants of 
these camps wore the traditional hooded robes of Dsarra; others wore the 
homespun tunics of farmers. 


Checkpoints had been set up at several places along the road; circling 
around them became enough of a nuisance that, Garth gave serious consideration 
to Frima's suggestion of abandoning the road altogether, before finally 
rejecting it. He had traveled this route once before, but he was by no means 
sure that he would be able to find Dsarra if he left the highway. 


They were, by Garth's estimate, about a day's travel-or rather, a 
night's-from Dsarra, with the mountains visible on the western horizon, when 
their rest was interrupted early one afternoon. 


They had taken shelter in an orchard, hidden from view by the thick 
foliage of the apple trees. Garth did not expect anyone to trouble them unless 
the owner of the grove should turn up, and a farmer or two was a threat the 
overman knew he could handle easily. 


It was not a farmer, however, who coughed politely to awaken him. He 
rolled over, reaching automatically for the Sword of Bheleu, and found himself 
looking up at a man of indeterminate age, muscular in build, and clad in a 



gray robe and hood. 


There was something familiar about him, Garth realized as his hand 
closed on the hilt of the sword. 


"Greetings, Garth of Ordunin," the man said. "I come in peace; you will 
not need the sword." 


The fact that the man recognized him somehow did not surprise Garth; he 
was certain that they had met before, though he could not recall when or 
where. 


"Greetings, man," he said. 


"You don't recognize me?" 


"No." 


"I am the Seer of Weideth; we met three years ago, on two occasions." 


"I recall only one," Garth replied. He had run afoul of illusions sent 
by the Seer and the village elders of Weideth when first he traveled to 
Dsarra. He remembered the incident well and saw that this man was indeed the 
one who had called himself Seer on that occasion. On the way back to Skelleth 
he had passed through Weideth without incident, and without meeting the Seer 
again. 


"I was one of the Council that fought you in the hills north of 
Skelleth," the gray-robed man explained. 


"Oh, yes." Garth had not realized that the Seer had been included in 
that group, along with Shandiph, Chalkara, and a score or so of others whose 
names he did not know. There had been so many in robes, the traditional garb 
for a wizard, that he had not noticed the Seer among them. "Why are you here?" 


"I have not come to interfere; it's far too late for that. You need not 
worry. I just wanted to see you and look at the sword that has caused so much 
destruction and meet the King in Yellow while we both still live." 


There was a sadness in the Seer's tone, and something else Garth did not 
recognize; overmen were not prone to wistfulness, so Garth was not familiar 
with it. He saw no harm in the man. 


"Here I am," he said, "and here is the sword. The King is the old man in 
rags over there." 


"I know." The Seer looked down at the sword Garth held and remarked, 
"It's hard to believe that that thing can hold so much power." 


The overman shrugged. 


"And you have the book and the mask, as well. Do you know how long the 
spell will take?" 


"I know nothing about it," Garth replied. 


"O King, do you know?" 


The old man had been sitting quietly, ignoring their visitor, but he 
answered, "Three days." 


"And you have a day's travel remaining-four days in all. Why, then, can 
I not foresee my death? Is my gift that weak?" 


The Forgotten King said nothing. 


"You seem certain that the old man will be allowed to work his magic," 
Garth said, irked. "I am not so eager to see him succeed." 


The Seer looked sideways at him. "What can you do?" 


"I hold the Sword of Bheleu-and I intend to hold it." 


The King stirred, and the gem in the sword's pommel suddenly flared up, 
vividly red. A wave of unreasoning fury swept over the overman; he propelled 
himself to his feet, the sword ready, its blade glowing white. 


Then the glow died, the stone blackened, and the King muttered, "Do you, 
Garth?" 


"If it is the only way to prevent you from bringing on the Age of Death, 
yes, no matter what it may cost me." The rage had vanished as quickly as it 
had come, leaving his head feeling light; his right hand was warm, almost hot, 
where the sword's grip pressed against it. 


"You swore to aid me in my magic." 


Garth did not know how to reply to that at first, but finally said, "I 
did not know then what was involved." 



"Do you now?" the Seer asked, openly curious. 


"Do you?" Garth countered. 


"In part. I have spent much time in study since last we met, learning 
more of what was to come. My own gift of prophecy is feeble, but it was 
sufficient to make clear the writings of others." 


"Then tell me, Seer, what I am involved in. What is this magic the King 
pursues? What will it do? What is the Fifteenth Age to be?" 


"The Fifteenth Age is the Age of Death; it will last no more than three 
hours-perhaps less-bringing time to an end. The gods themselves will die, and 
the Forgotten King with them. It will be brought about when a ritual from the 
Book of Silence is performed in the place of Death, a ritual requiring the 
totems of death and destruction as well as the book itself." 


"And the world will be destroyed, as a result?" 


"I would think so," the Seer replied. "How can anything exist when the 
gods are dead and time has ended?" 


"The spell requires the Sword of Bheleu?" 


"Yes." 


Garth turned to the Forgotten King and smiled. "I think that I may stave 
it off for some time yet," he said. "Can even the King in Yellow, high priest 
of Death, take the sword from its chosen bearer against his will?" 


"You have seen, Garth, how easily I restrain its power," the old man 
said. 


"True, O King, but you have not restrained me. I am still an overman, 
while you are only human." 


"Do you think my powers so strained by confining Bheleu that I cannot 
use them upon you?" 


"If that were not the case, O King, then why have you relied upon more 
mundane methods of bending me to your will these past three years? Why did you 
not simply compel me to do what you wished me to do? Why did you allow me to 
return to Ordunin after slaying the basilisk? Why did you not send me directly 
to Dsarra? I think that, mighty as you are, you cannot directly force me to 
act against my own judgment. I don't know why this should be so, but I believe 
it is. If I am wrong, then I have lost, and the world is doomed, and you have 
but to command me to give you the sword to prove it." 


The King did not answer immediately. At last, he shrugged slightly and 
said, "I have waited for seven ages; I can endure further." 


Elated by what he took as an admission of defeat, Garth grinned. He was 
still trapped between Bheleu and the King, but he saw now that his position 
was, perhaps, not absolutely hopeless. He might find some solution if he could 
hold the King off long enough and remain sufficiently free of Bheleu's 
influence to think rationally about it. 


It did not occur to him to wonder why the King should continue to 
suppress the god of destruction when Garth had openly announced his intention 
not to cooperate. 


The overman turned back to the Seer and said, "There, you see? Your doom 
has been delayed." 


The Seer nodded, but asked, "For how long?" 


Annoyed at this ingratitude, Garth replied, "For as long as I can 
prevent it." 


"And how long will that be? Will you live forever? I cannot foresee your 
death, any more than I can my own, but my power of foresight is weak, 
particularly when far from home." 


"I expect to live for many years yet, human, and perhaps in that time I 
will find some other way of forestalling the end." 


"I can only wish you well, overman." 


Somewhat mollified, Garth relaxed slightly. He stood silently for a 
moment as the Seer gazed dolefully at him, then at the sword he still held. 


Feeling that the silence was becoming uncomfortable, Garth asked, "How 
is it that you are here, rather than in Weideth? If you came to see us, would 
you not have done just as well to wait at home? Our route passes through your 



village." 


"Weideth is gone," the Seer replied. "It was taken by a Dsarran army 
over a year ago and destroyed a month later by advancing Yprians. Many of us 
fled, in small groups. I am the only survivor of my company and I have lost 
contact with the other parties. I've been living alone, a few leagues south of 
here." 


Reminded anew of the chaotic conditions in Nekutta, Garth was uneasy. "I 
am sorry to hear it," he said. 


The Seer said nothing. 


"If you wish to join us, you would be safer than while traveling alone." 


"Thank you, but no. I couldn't stand it. Sooner or later I would take up 
the sword, or look at the mask, or touch the book, and I would die, even 
before the world ends. I prefer to live out whatever time remains to me 
without facing such dangers." 


"As you wish, then," the overman said. He watched as the Seer departed, 
walking away slowly until he was lost to sight among the close-packed trees. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 


Haggat had planned it all carefully. The cult's best assassins and most 
powerful magicians would be employed systematically, one after another or in 
small complementary groups, until one or another managed to get through. The 
overman was to be their primary target; the old man came next, and then the 
warbeast. The girl was of no importance; she might wind up on a sacrificial 
altar, as she had once before, but with no rescuer this time. 


He was aware of the Sword of Bheleu's power, but he could not believe 
that it was omnipotent and impregnable. He had gathered all the most potent 
death-spells the cult could devise or steal, all the most deadly killers, and 
had laced every water supply between Dsarra and the plains with the most 
lethal poisons at his disposal. He had devised stratagems and diversions, 
methods for separating the overman from his sword, methods of disposing of 
both simultaneously. He had thought of little else for almost a fortnight. For 
three days he had not even taken the time to use his scrying glass, save for a 
quick daily check on the overman's progress each morning. He had forgone the 
nightly sacrifices and neglected the cult's other business. He had eaten 
hurriedly, if at all, and had not touched his acolyte-though she remained 
always close at hand, translating his commands from sign language or writing 
to spoken words, carrying messages, running errands, and generally attending 
to his needs. He had not given her presence much thought; he had been too busy 
to bother himself about her. 


Now, though, all was ready. The killers were in place. The overman and 
his party were in the foothills, advancing along the highway, and Haggat 
watched his glass avidly. Unable to observe the overman or the old man 
directly, he had focused upon the road before them. 


He was so involved that he neglected one of his customary precautions 
and allowed his acolyte to remain in the black draped chamber with him. She 
stretched up on tiptoe to peer over his shoulder at the glass. Together they 
watched as the warbeast's forepaws rose and fell, always at one side of the 
image, moving along the highway toward the crossroads. 


Garth remembered the narrow defile that led straight into Weideth; it 
was a welcome change from the winding of the road through the outer foothills. 
He judged that they would reach the gates of Dsarra shortly after dawn; the 
eastern sky was just beginning to turn pink behind them. 


When he had first ridden this road, Weideth had vanished before his eyes 
almost immediately after he turned the last corner; that had been the doing of 
the Seer and the village elders, using illusions in hopes of diverting Garth 
from his path. On this second journey there was no such magical trickery. 
Nothing disguised the devastation that had befallen the little town. 



Where once an inn and a dozen houses had clustered around the 
crossroads, there were only heaps of ash and jutting, blackened timbers. 
Stones lay scattered about, strewn across the roads and hillsides. Garth 
remembered a small stand of trees that had adorned one slope; nothing remained 
but scorched stumps. Weeds grew thick in what had been tidy little gardens, 
and here and there white bones showed in pale contrast to the smoky darkness 
left by the destroying fires, catching the pale predawn light. 


It was a depressing sight, and the overman wished that it would vanish, 
leaving his memories of the village untarnished. 


The Forgotten King's voice interrupted his thoughts. 


"Garth," the old man said, "be ready." 


Puzzled, Garth glanced at the King, but saw no sign that would tell him 
what he should be ready for. The old man was walking along as calmly as ever. 


A red glint caught his eye, and he realized that the gem in the pommel 
of the sword was glowing. With the realization came an uneasiness. He twisted 
around to look at the jewel, then looked back at the King. 


The old man nodded and kept walking. 


Confused, but trusting for the moment in the Forgotten King's 
supernatural knowledge, Garth reached up, leaning forward so the blade would 
not smack Frima, tipped the scabbard up over his shoulder, and unsheathed the 
sword. 


The hilt felt warm and comforting in his hands. 


"What's happening?" Frima asked. "Why are you doing that?" 


Garth did not answer; he was too busy enjoying the mounting rush of 
strength and bloodlust that swept through him as he held the sword. The grip 
was hot in his hands, the gem glowing brightly, the blade shining faintly in 
the dim morning light. The sooty ruins of Weideth no longer saddened him; 
instead, the vista seemed almost inviting, the evidence of destruction somehow 
satisfying, even though it had been caused by hands other than his own. 


There were enemies here, he knew, many of them, hidden away among the 
heaps of rubble, some concealed by magic, others by natural means. 


This, he thought, would be fun. 


Something twanged; he whirled the sword about to meet the crossbow bolt 
that flew toward his head. Sparks trailed from the blade, bright in the 
half-light, and the quarrel shattered spectacularly against the gleaming 
metal, sending a shower of splinters to rattle against the rocks beside the 
roadway. Frima yelped as a stray sliver pierced her arm. 


Garth's buoyant energy turned suddenly to rage as he saw the blood 
trailing down the girl's sleeve; the sword blazed up in a burst of white fire 
that snatched the pale colors from the landscape around them, stretching 
sharp-edged bands of light and long black shadows out in all directions. 


"I'a bheluye!" the overman screamed as he brought the sword sweeping 
back before him. Flame erupted wherever it pointed, in great rushing waves, 
and the screams of dying men mingled with the roar of the fires as crouching 
Aghadite assassins were caught in the blaze. 


Something flashed crimson, and Garth laughed horribly as he felt the 
sword fend off a death-spell. Slung stones whistled past his head or exploded 
into dust against the sword's edge; arrows of every sort were diverted or 
destroyed by the blade's coruscating energy. Colored smoke arose from a dozen 
attempted spells, only to be dispersed and driven away by the force of the 
supernatural flames. The overman did not bother to locate his attackers, but 
simply blasted everything in sight, destroying anything that might conceal a 
foe. The piles of ash were swept away in whirlwinds, the burned timbers 
powdered by fiery bursts; the ground shook, sending rocks tumbling and 
bouncing like the spatter of rain on flat stone. The light of dawn was first 
lost in the more vivid light of the sword and then buried in clouds as Garth 
gathered a storm about himself. The fire of the sword was joined by flashes of 
lightning. 


Long after the attacks upon him had ceased, Garth drew on the sword's 
power to keep the earth dancing and to send bolt after bolt of electrical fire 



onto every available target. 


When at last he allowed the fury to subside and the clouds to part, the 
sun was bright gold above the eastern horizon, but lighted only blackened 
earth and drifting ash. No trace remained of Weideth or the assassins who had 
lurked there, save for scattered fragments of bone, shards of scorched metal, 
and a thin layer of cinders. The surrounding hills themselves had been gouged 
deeply and reshaped into stark, angular new forms. 


Amid this devastation, Garth and Frima sat astride Koros; the Forgotten 
King stood alongside, untouched by the havoc the sword had wrought. Frima had 
closed her eyes and kept her head down throughout the conflagration; now she 
stared about in stunned disbelief, ignoring the blood that trickled from her 
single wound. Koros growled uneasily and shied away from the heaps of ash that 
still smoked. Even Garth, who had caused it, seemed impressed by the result of 
his actions. 


The Forgotten King alone remained unperturbed and calm. 


In Dsarra, Haggat stared in disbelief at the final image that filled 
his glass in shades of gray. He realized, with a sick certainty, that he had 
done everything he could to destroy the overman and had failed utterly. 


That was the last thing he thought; the acolyte who stood at his 
shoulder throughout had seen the truth as well and knew that Haggat's power 
was broken. She chose her spot carefully, making certain her thrust slid 
cleanly between his ribs and into his heart, forgoing the pleasures of a slow 
death to be sure that the high priest would not live long enough to retaliate. 


She smiled as she drove the knife into his back. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 


The gates of Dsarra were closed and barred; that came as something of a 
surprise to Garth. It was not, however, much of an obstacle. The gem in the 
sword's pommel still glowed red, and a single blow sent the splintered 
remnants of the massive city gate slamming back against the neighboring walls 
while showering the marketplace that lay just beyond with chips, sawdust, and 
ash. 


Garth had dismounted to wield the sword and remained on foot as he 
marched into the city. Koros padded along close behind, Frima on its back, and 
the Forgotten King brought up the rear, the Book of Silence and the Pallid 
Mask in a bundle beneath one arm. 


The overman stopped in the middle of the square, and the others drew up 
behind him and joined him in looking about. 


The market was not as Garth and Frima remembered it. When Garth had 
first arrived in Dsarra the square had been lined with merchants' stalls, 
shaded with canvas and lighted with torches; it had been swarming with people 
in robes of gray and red and blue, buying and selling and going about the 
business of the city. Now the sides of the square were bare stone walls, the 
black stone stained with smoke. Several of the buildings had obviously been 
gutted by fire; the charred ends of timbers projected, the windows were empty, 
blackened holes, and the doorways yawned empty. In some cases daylight was 
visible through the openings, showing plainly that in those buildings the 
roofs were gone. 


The market was totally deserted, and the entire city seemed abandoned; 
Garth could see nothing alive and could hear nothing stirring, save for his 
own little group. 


"Now what do we do?" Frima asked. 


Garth considered that. His ultimate goal, of course, was the temple of 
Aghad, on the Street of the Temples in the northeastern part of the city. They 
had, however, been traveling for quite some time, having set out late the 
previous afternoon and it being now midmorning. For his own part, he was not 
particularly tired; his use of the Sword of Bheleu had left him feeling more 



invigorated than drained on this particular occasion. He did not understand 
why that should be so, yet it was. His companions, however, might not feel up 
to further activity. 


Given that they were to rest, he was unsure where to go. From the 
appearance of the marketplace, he doubted very much that the Inn of the Seven 
Stars, where he had stayed before, would be open for business. 


"What do you suggest?" he said at last. 


Frima gazed about at the desolate market that she herself had set afire 
so long ago and said, "I want to go home." She was weary and distressed and, 
at least for the moment, more concerned with her own security than with 
avenging her murdered husband. 


Garth mistook her meaning. "We have come to destroy the cult of Aghad 
and we are not returning to Skelleth until that has been done. Would you have 
this whole journey go to waste?" 


"I don't mean Skelleth, I mean my home, Garth!" 


"Oh," the overman said, realizing that he had misunderstood. "Where is 
it?" 


"We lived above my father's shop, on the Street of the Fallen Stars," 
Frima replied, pointing off to the northwest. 


Garth nodded. That seemed as good a course as any; the girl's home would 
provide lodging and a base from which to work. He would be able to plan his 
course of action, rather than simply charging in blindly. 


Of course, this delay would allow the cultists time to plan as well, and 
to lay traps-but they had had ten days and nights already since he left 
Ur-Dormulk, and the result of all their planning had been the ambush he had 
destroyed in Weideth. He doubted that they could contrive anything more 
effective in one day. If they did attempt another, similar surprise, it would 
most probably give him a chance to kill more of their number. 


If they chose to hide, another day could make little difference, since 
surely they would already have spent considerable time upon their 
preparations. 


Better, he decided, to allow them that time, while he, Frima, and Koros 
rested and prepared, than to march up to the temple now, in broad daylight, 
and begin blasting away. 


"Lead the way," he said. 


Frima leaned forward and spoke a word in the warbeast's ear; she had, by 
listening, learned most of the commands it was trained to obey. 


The beast growled and looked at Garth, who nodded and waved it along. 


With a muffled snort, it strode forward, letting the girl direct it by 
twisting at the guide handle attached to its harness. The overman walked 
alongside. 


The Forgotten King did not; instead, when the warbeast headed for the 
northwestern corner of the market, he began walking toward the northeast. 
Garth, glancing back, noticed this divergence. 


"Where are you going?" he called. 


The King did not answer. 


Annoyed, Garth lifted the Sword of Bheleu, which he had not sheathed 
after breaking in the gate, and set the ground in front of the old man afire. 


Without even pausing, the King made a subtle gesture with his free hand. 
The flames vanished with a rush of air, and the gem in the sword's pommel went 
black. 


Something whistled past the overman's ear. 


Startled, he whirled in time to glimpse a human head ducking down below 
a burned-out window. 


"Wait," he ordered Koros. Sword in hand, he ran toward the window. Again 
something whizzed past his ear; this time he saw it was a dart and realized 
that it came from a totally different direction. He spun about, but did not 
see the source. 


He was unsure just what was happening, but he found it very inconvenient 
to have the sword's power repressed at this particular moment. He had come to 



rely on the weapon. 


"I regret, O King," he called, while he kept moving to remain a 
difficult target, "that I so rashly annoyed you. I beg your forgiveness and 
ask that you release the sword from your restraint." It had been stupid, he 
knew, to have tried using the sword against the old man in the first place. 
His power was able to stifle the sword's greatest fury with ease and had 
protected the entire King's Inn from destruction during the sacking of 
Skelleth. It had been foolish for Garth to think that the old man would be 
hampered by a simple supernatural flame. Furthermore, causing him any offense 
at this point was probably a mistake. Garth's regret was completely genuine. 
Most of all, he regretted that he tended to behave stupidly when the sword's 
gem glowed. 


Still walking northeasterly, completely unperturbed, the King waved a 
hand in dismissal, and the jewel flared red once more. 


Awash in power and his mind hazy with rage, Garth promptly turned back 
and blasted to powder the wall that had concealed his first attacker, 
revealing nothing but the burned-out shell of a small shop. The assassin had 
escaped. 


Garth could find no trace of whoever had thrown the second dart; he, 
too, had fled. 


Annoyed, but struggling to force his anger down and to maintain careful 
control of himself, the overman again ordered Koros to wait and then ran after 
the Forgotten King. 


He caught up to the old man half a block away, in a street leading out 
of the market, and slowed to a walk alongside the King. When he had composed 
himself somewhat, he said, "Your pardon, O King, for my lack of manners. 
However, I find it disturbing that you should choose to part ways at this 
point. I respectfully ask to know where you're going and why you do not 
accompany us." 


"I go to the temple of Death," the old man replied, "to restore the Book 
of Silence to its proper place, in preparation for my final magic. That was my 
purpose in coming here. You have your own purposes to pursue. Go pursue them, 
and leave me to mine." 


Garth was unsure how to reply to this; he began to phrase another 
question, then broke off as he realized that he had stopped walking and that 
the Forgotten King was moving on ahead of him. He tried to walk, but found 
that his feet would not obey him. He stood and watched as the old man marched 
on up the street, around a corner, and out of sight. 


A red fury seethed through him, but he knew that there was nothing he 
could do. He struggled to tight down his irrational anger. 


The King could do nothing, either, he told himself. He did not have the 
Sword of Bheleu, and Garth had not done him the service he had sworn, to aid 
in the final magic. The Fifteenth Age could not begin while those conditions 
remained unmet-or perhaps it could begin, since the King had the Pallid Mask 
and Earth had done him the service of bringing him the Book of Silence, but it 
could not end, the world could not be destroyed. Let the old man go and make 
his spells, speak his incantations; they would be nothing without the sword! 


That, at any rate, was what Garth told himself, yet even when his anger 
had subsided, when he had fought down his rage sufficiently to dim the vivid 
glare of the sword's jewel, he worried. Why should the old fool be so 
confident, if his magic was useless without the sword? Did he perhaps know 
something that Earth did not, something that would deliver the sword into his 
hands? 


If that were the case, Garth asked himself, what could he, Garth, do 
about it? The King's powers had stopped him in his tracks here and could 
surely do so again. He could only go on, ignoring the old man and dealing with 
new threats as they arose, relying on the deduced fact that, for some reason, 
the King seemed unable to take the sword from him without his consent. 


With that decision, he sheathed the sword and turned back toward the 
market. His feet moved normally once more; he had no trouble in retracing his 



steps and rejoining Frima and Koros. 


With Frima pointing the way, they made their way onward into the streets 
of the city, away from the shattered gate. They were less than a hundred yards 
from the market when they passed the first skeleton. It lay on one side of the 
street, partially buried in the dirt; it had obviously been there for some 
time and had sunk into the mud after a rainstorm. No flesh remained; the skull 
gazed up from empty sockets. 


Frima shuddered and looked away. Koros ignored it completely. Garth gave 
it a look, then dismissed it as unimportant. It had undoubtedly been a victim 
of the White Death. 


Of course, the presence of an unburied skeleton was a sign that the city 
was nowhere near recovery. Dsarra was not wholly dead, since the cult of 
Aghad still remained alive and active, but any town where the dead were 
allowed to lie in the streets indefinitely was far from healthy. 


They saw more skeletons as they proceeded into the city, but fewer 
burned buildings; the fire had not spread more than a few blocks to the 
northwest of the market. Most of the houses and shops were intact, but looked 
deserted. Some doors stood open; a few had been broken in. Fallen roofing 
tiles lay in the street here and there, and scraps of rotting cloth could be 
found in places, as well as scattered bones. There were no people to be seen 
anywhere; the resulting silence in the center of the city was eerie and 
unsettling. 


Eventually they reached what Frima proclaimed to be the Street of the 
Fallen Stars and found her father's little shop. The door was closed and the 
windows intact, but Garth was not very optimistic about finding anyone alive 
within. The stone doorstep was dusty; no one had gone in or out recently, he 
was sure. Besides, they had seen no one alive since leaving the marketplace, 
and Garth thought it very unlikely that, in this dying, abandoned city, they 
would find the handful of people they sought still living in their old home as 
if nothing had happened. 


Frima did not bother to think logically about such things. She hurried 
to dismount and ran eagerly up to the door, ignoring the dust on the stoop and 
windows. She knocked loudly; no one answered. She tried the latch. It clicked, 
and the door swung open. She stepped in, Garth right behind her. 


The shop's interior was dim, and dust lay everywhere; human and overman 
both left clear footprints. To either side stood wooden display racks, from 
which hung pots, kettles, ladles, and tin vessels of every description. On 
shelves behind them were arrayed plates and tankards of pewter, copper bowls, 
and other implements. The tin and pewter were gray and dusty; the copper was 
dull and beginning to show flecks of green corrosion. 


At the back of the shop stood the tinker's worktable, four feet across 
and ten feet long, a few tools laid out in a row near one corner, other tools 
hanging on the wall behind. Scraps of metal lay scattered about. 


Sprawled across the center of the table were the bones of a man's arms, 
his skull grinning between them, his other bones in a heap on the floor behind 
the table. 


Frima was horrified; she froze, stared, and stifled a scream. 


Garth waited, ready to lend any help he could, but his assistance was 
not needed. The girl closed her eyes and fought down her trembling, forcing 
herself under control. 


The overman decided not to ask if she could be sure it was her father. 
He was sure that it was; who but the tinker would be found at the tinker's 
bench? He saw no point in raising false hopes. Instead, he said, "We should 
look upstairs." 


Frima nodded, took a few steps toward the curtain that closed off the 
back of the building from the public part of the shop, and then stopped. "You 
took," she said. "I can't." 


Garth nodded. He had lived long enough among humans to understand how 
strongly they became attached to their homes, and to realize that Frima could 
not bear the thought of finding more dead in what should have been her 



sanctuary. He had no idea how large a family she came from; perhaps she was 
afraid of finding the remains of her mother or stepmother or siblings. 


He moved cautiously through the curtain into the back room, and from 
there up the narrow staircase to the upper floor. Everywhere lay a thick 
carpet of dust. Cobwebs adorned the corners of each of the three small beds he 
found upstairs. A metal bowl on a small bedside table, now dry as the dust, 
had obviously been left full long ago; the bottom had corroded and sprung a 
leak, and the table had rotted where the, water had dripped. 


There were no more bones, no corpses, no sign of any other inhabitants. 


When he had satisfied himself that no unpleasant surprises lurked in 
wardrobes or under the beds, he returned to the shop to find Frima standing 
over the table, studying her father's skull. 


"Are there any others?" she asked. 


"No," Garth replied. 


"Good." 


"Did you have any other family?" 


"Two sisters and a brother." 


"Perhaps they escaped, then, and are still alive somewhere." 


"Do you really think so?" 


Garth hesitated, then lied. "Yes, of course." 


Frima stared at the skull. "Are you sure this is my father's?" 


"No," Garth said. "How could I be sure? I never met him, after all." 


"I know, but can't you tell? I've been looking at it, and I can't be 
sure. It doesn't look like him. There's no hair, no eyes; it could be 
anybody's." 


"I know no more than you," Garth answered. "But who else could it be? 
Who else would be sitting here at your father's table?" 


Frima shuddered and turned away. "Get it out of here," she said. 


Garth obeyed, gathering up the skull and several bones and carrying them 
out into the street. 


He returned to find Frima huddled in a comer, weeping. Quietly, he 
gathered up and removed the remaining bones, placing them in a corner out of 
the wind, where they were unlikely to be disturbed, between the shop and the 
house beside it. 


When he had finished he went upstairs, cleared away the dust and cobwebs 
from one of the beds, tested it, and found it marginally usable. Then he 
returned to the shop, led the girl upstairs, and put her in the bed. 


She went willingly and quickly fell asleep. 


Garth watched over her briefly, then went downstairs again, found a 
water pump in the back, and filled one of the larger vessels with water for 
Koros. That taken care of, he settled himself on the floor of the shop and 
slept. 


Outside, Koros stood guard, dozing occasionally, but always alert enough 
to warn away with a growl any Dsarrans who ventured near. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 


Garth was awakened by the roar of a warbeast. Startled, he sprang to his feet 
and hurried to the door of the shop. There he paused, waiting, the Sword of 
Bheleu in his hand. 


The roar was not repeated; instead, he heard an unfamiliar voice calling 
his name. 


"Garth! Garth of Ordunin! We would speak with you!" 


Puzzled, and without opening the door, he bellowed back, "Who are you?" 


"I am Uyrim, a priest of Aghad; I have been sent to seek a truce!" 


Garth considered that. His immediate suspicion was that it was some kind 
of trick, an attempt to lure him into a trap, but after further thought he 
decided that the offer might be genuine. After all, although he had suffered 
at the hands of the cultists, losing his chief wife and his best human friend, 



they had suffered worse in return. Perhaps they had had their fill of sending 
assassins to be fried by the sword; perhaps they did not want to see their 
temple reduced to ash, as the remnants of Weideth had been. 


He lifted the latch and swung the door an inch or so inward, so that 
conversation would be more convenient, but he did not emerge, nor present any 
part of his body as a, target. "I am listening," he called. 


"Haggat, who set assassins upon you, who had your wife killed, who had 
the Baron of Skelleth slain, who sent the Council of the Most High against 
you, is dead, and his killer is the new high priestess of our sect. We wish to 
start anew. We are willing to forgo our rightful vengeance for the killing of 
Haggat's predecessor if you, in turn, will consider your own vengeance 
accomplished in the deaths you have already brought upon us. You have slain 
eighteen trained assassins and our fourteen magicians and cost us almost all 
our magical arsenal. You have destroyed our temple in Ur-Dormulk and 
eliminated our influence in Skelleth. Leave those of us who yet survive in 
peace, and we will, in turn, leave you and yours in peace. Swear that you will 
accept this offer, and we will swear in return, and you may leave Dsarra 
unmolested. Refuse us, and we will strike against you in whatever way we can. 
We know now that we cannot kill you while you bear the Sword of Bheleu, but we 
can kill those you care for. For every member of our sect you slay from this 
moment on, a member of your family in Ordunin will die. Those, O Garth, are 
our terms." 


"They're lying," Frima said close behind him. Garth started; he had been 
so attentive to the Aghadite's words that he had not heard her approach. The 
warbeast's roar of warning had awakened her as it had the overman, and she had 
made her way carefully down the stairs in time to hear most of what the priest 
had said. 


"How can you know that?" Garth asked. 


"They always lie," she said. 


"They lie when it serves their purposes and tell the truth when that 
would serve better. Perhaps this is such a time," Garth said. 


"They aren't going to give up their revenge. Aghad is the god of hatred, 
remember? And besides," she added, her expression turning hard and fierce and 
a hand going to the crudely bandaged wound on her arm, "I'm not going to give 
up my revenge." 


Garth considered that and quickly agreed that the Aghadites could not be 
trusted. Still, the offer of peace might be genuine; he had, he knew, cost the 
cult heavily. 


That did not necessarily mean that he should accept the offer. After 
all, if the cult could thus change direction once, it could do so again, when 
next its leaders felt they had the upper hand. The fact that they were 
offering a truce now implied that Garth currently had the advantage-and the 
essence of tactics was to pursue every advantage. If he were to attack now, he 
suspected that he could destroy the entire sect; if he accepted their truce 
and thereby allowed them time to rebuild, they might find some way of 
attacking him successfully while he was off guard. Quite aside from his desire 
for revenge, the cult, by its nature, was a menace not just to himself, but to 
anyone else who encountered it, for so long as it existed. 


By the priest's own admission, Garth had destroyed the cult's influence 
in Skelleth, and he could not believe that they had ever been strong in the 
Northern Waste-after all, he had seen no Aghadite overmen, save the high 
priest he had killed in Dsarra's market three years before, who had almost 
certainly been Yprian; and had they not had to lure Kyrith south before they 
could kill her? Therefore, if he were to wipe them out now, they would be 
unable to carry out their threat to destroy his family and friends; whereas if 
he were to wait, they might well manage some retaliation. 


There was no question in his mind as to whether or not they deserved to 
die; these people were, by their own boast, dedicated to hatred and treachery. 
They had butchered Kyrith and Saram. They had insulted and reviled him, 
attacking him repeatedly. They deserved to perish, and he deserved the 



pleasure of dispatching them. 


The thought of spilling Aghadite blood was warm and comforting; a 
pleasant reddish glow seemed to suffuse his thoughts. He did not notice the 
literal, physical existence of that glow, emanating from the gem in the 
sword's pommel. 


Frima noticed it but, knowing it to be directed against the followers of 
Aghad, chose not to point it out. 


"Who are you, to offer me terms?" Garth called through the crack in the 
door. "You are a priest of Aghad, you say, and you speak of a high priestess, 
and of someone named Haggat. I know nothing of any of you. You say that it was 
the dead Haggat who sought to harm me; why should I believe that? Your cult 
has acted against me, not as individuals, but on behalf of your god. I do not 
defy you, or your high priestess, or your dead Haggat, whoever he may have 
been if he truly existed at all. I defy your god himself. I spit upon your 
deity. I denounce Aghad as the filth he is. He has defied his brother and 
superior, Bheleu, god of destruction, and must pay for that affront." An 
inspiration came to him, and he called to Koros the command that meant, 
"Attack!" 


The warbeast roared in response. An instant later Garth heard the sound 
of something being crunched, followed by human screams. He swung the door wide 
and stepped out, the Sword of Bheleu ready in his hand, glowing white and 
dripping hissing white flame. 


The screaming stopped, and he saw Koros standing in the alley across the 
street, gnawing on the bloody remains of a red-garbed dead man, while another 
broken corpse lay sprawled nearby. A sling was draped across one limp hand, 
and half a dozen darts were scattered in the black dust of the street. 


Something moved, and Garth swung the sword, spraying flame, only to find 
that he had roasted a plump rat, drawn by the scent of blood. 


It seemed unlikely that the party sent to negotiate a truce had been 
only two men; Garth looked warily about for more, but saw none. If there had 
been others, they had slipped away unseen. 


Frima emerged from the shop to stand behind the overman; her father's 
sword, taken from its place behind the curtain, was naked in her hand. Here, 
in her home city, however changed it might be, she was no longer content 
merely to watch Garth kill her foes for her. She was determined to kill a few 
herself, and her father's sword seemed an appropriate weapon. She wished she 
had thought to bring Saram's blade; that would have been still more fitting. 


She knew, however, that she was no swordswoman, and the sling in the 
corpse's hand caught her eye. She picked it up, gathered up the darts, and 
tucked them into the pouch she wore on her belt in imitation of Garth and 
defiance of Dsarran custom. 


That done, she looked about and saw no enemies to attack, only the 
warbeast devouring its prey and the overman standing warily nearby. 


"Now what do we do?" she asked. 


"We attack," Garth replied without thinking. 


"Attack the temple?" 


Garth glanced at her, his red eyes ablaze in the afternoon sun. "Yes," 
he said. 


"Good," Frima said. "Let's go." 


Garth turned, looked about, then reluctantly turned back to the girl and 
asked, "Which way?" He was almost totally unfamiliar with this part of 
Dsarra. 


Frima suppressed a giggle at the helplessness of the god-overman who 
needed to ask directions of a tinker's daughter. "This way," she said, 
pointing. 


Garth nodded, signaled Koros to accompany him, and followed as Frima led 
the way through the maze of the city toward the Street of the Temples and the 
temple of Aghad. 


In a red-draped room beneath the temple, the new high priestess was 



arguing with some of her congregation-who considered her sudden 
self-proclaimed elevation and subsequent policy to be faulty. The discussion 
had been going nowhere; Haggat's former acolyte had an irrefutable claim to 
her new position by virtue of being the only surviving person who knew all the 
cult's secrets, and she was utterly unyielding in her determination to abandon 
any attempt to kill the troublesome overman. 


The objectors were equally adamant in their insistence upon following 
more traditional rules of succession and in pursuing the cult's ancient policy 
of unrelenting vengeance. There was nothing unorthodox in moving up through 
assassination, and they agreed that Haggat had deserved removal for his 
bungling, but the post of high priest was not to be taken by a mere acolyte 
with no grounding in theology. They argued that the high priestess should 
immediately begin training a proper priest in the inner mysteries of the 
cult's workings and return to her own rightful position as first among 
acolytes-though they were willing to guarantee her accession to the priesthood 
shortly after that return. 


She knew just what such promises from priests of Aghad were worth. After 
coming into her post as Haggat's acolyte, she had maneuvered for three years 
to obtain power and was not about to relinquish it now to please a bunch of 
doddering traditionalists. She was saying as much, thickly laced with 
invective, when a messenger arrived, gasping from his long run. 


"Your pardon, O priestess, chosen of Aghad, blessed of the darkness, 
mistress of treachery, but I bear urgent news," he said. 


"Speak, then," she commanded. 


"Garth refused the offer of truce and sent his warbeast against us. 
Uyrim and Hezren were slain; the rest of us escaped." 


"Aghad devour you!" the priestess shouted. "Why? What went wrong?" 


"I don't know, O mistress. Uyrim spoke well, I thought, yet the overman 
refused to parley. He said that his quarrel was not with Haggat, but with 
Aghad himself." 


"That's idiocy! It was not Aghad who slew his wife, it was men, men 
acting on Haggat's orders. Haggat was a fool, attacking the overman openly; 
the essence of Aghad's power is deceit and coercion, not magic or brute 
force." 


"Yes, mistress," the messenger agreed; the gathered priests remained 
silent, but many wore expressions approving the priestess' words. 


"Did Uyrim warn him of reprisals?" 


"Yes, mistress." 


"He must know how weak we are in the east, that he does not fear such a 
threat. We'll have to show him that we are not so weak as he believes. He has 
two more wives; I want them brought here as quickly as possible, alive and 
intact." She turned to the closest thing the cult still had to a wizard, an 
apprentice who had been given charge of the few remaining magical devices. "Do 
we have any means of teleporting them?" 


"No, mistress," the girl replied. "The last were used in Weideth." 


"Oh, gods, may Haggat's soul be Sai's plaything forever! Do we know 
where more such magic may be found?" 


"No, mistress-at least, I do not." 


"Then we must do it the hard way and hope that we can hold out until the 
overwomen are brought here. That could be a month." The high priestess had a 
tendency to think out loud, now that she was free of her master. Haggat had 
been unable to speak, having had his tongue cut out in punishment for killing 
his own master long ago, before he had joined the cult, and in consequence had 
been resentful of those who spoke freely around him. His acolyte, who had 
always been near him, had learned quickly to keep her mouth shut. Since 
killing him, she had taken much pleasure in being able to speak as often as 
she wanted and for as long as she chose. 


She turned back to the messenger. "Does the overman still have the 
Baroness of Skelleth with him?" 


"Yes, mistress." 



"He treats her well?" 


"Uh...I am not certain, mistress." 


"He seems to care for her, doesn't he? And she's not protected by the 
magic sword. And the strange old man is no longer with them to protect her. 
We'll have to make use of what we have. She won't be as good a hostage as 
Garth's wives would be, but she may serve, at least for a time." She paused 
and was about to speak again when another messenger entered the room and 
prostrated himself before her. 


"Your pardon, O priestess, chosen of Aghad..." he began. 


"Speak, messenger," she ordered impatiently. 


"The overman is on his way to the temple, with his sword blazing and the 
warbeast beside him." 


"You're certain?" 


"Oh, yes, mistress." 


"P'hul!" the high priestess spat. "Tell everyone. We can't face him 
yet." 


"What?" one of the older priests protested. "You can't mean to abandon 
the temple?" 


"You are free to stay here and die if you choose, Sherrend, but I, and 
anyone else with any wits, will be hiding in the tunnels. Nothing can stand 
against that sword of his. I saw in the scrying glass what it did, and our 
surviving scouts have told all of you. You heard what it did to our temple in 
Ur-Dormulk. Only a fool would stay here to face it." She ignored the priest's 
sputtering objections as she climbed down from her cathedra and announced, 
"Gather everything of value and make sure everyone is armed; we leave 
immediately. And I still want people sent after those overwomen, and after 
that woman he has with him." 


The messengers and the wizard's apprentice bowed obediently; the priests 
squabbled among themselves, some bowing and hastening to obey, others staying 
to voice protests that the priestess ignored. 


Even the stodgiest, however, had souse sense of self-preservation, and 
within minutes the room was empty as the Aghadites prepared to evacuate their 
stronghold. 


Garth was completely unaware of this activity. He reached the Street of 
the Temples as the sun was sinking behind the western mountains, washing the 
shrines in shadow. The topmost edge of the silvery gate of Aghad's fane caught 
a stray beam and glinted brightly as the overman drew near. 


Garth smiled, and the Sword of Bheleu blazed up whitely, chasing away 
the shadows and drenching the metal gate in its own sickly glow. 


The valves of the gate were worked into ten-foot-high runes, two to each 
panel, spelling out AGHAD; the top of the GH rune was still dented where Garth 
had struck at it three years before. The walls of the temple were built of 
blocks of stone, each block carved into those same four runes, a myriad 
reminders of his enemy's name. 


When last he had been here, he reminded himself, he had been unable to 
deal with the trickery of the Aghadites. His sword had broken against these 
gates. Now, though, he carried the Sword of Bheleu. He swung the blade up and 
brought it crashing down against the top of the gleaming metal valves. 


The blade sheared through the metal as if it were paper; it could just 
as easily, Garth knew, have exploded the gates into shards. That was not what 
he wanted; he wanted to destroy this place slowly, at his leisure, and enjoy 
each step of the process. 


He slashed again, cutting away a triangular slice of the second A rune. 
Another blow removed the top of the GH, and another cut apart the D. 


Half a dozen blows reduced the gleaming gates to scrap, and Garth 
stepped through into the courtyard beyond, leaving Koros and Frima waiting in 
the street. 


The colonnade that ran around three sides of the court was dark, the 
torches mounted on its columns unlit; the fading sunlight did not penetrate 



its gloom. The fountain in the courtyard's center gurgled, but Garth could not 
see the spray; it was hidden behind a barrier of rotting severed heads, 
stacked up like bricks around the fountain's rim, five deep. None were of 
recent origin, that was obvious; the bottommost tier was comprised mostly of 
almost-bare skulls, and those in the top rows were sufficiently decayed for 
the worst of the stink to have passed. 


Although the majority were human, of both sexes, the skull that faced 
him most directly on the lowest level was that of an overman. 


Revolted, Garth swung the sword up and sent a bolt of crimson flame at 
the grisly pile. The heads scorched, blackened, and crumbled to ash, revealing 
the bubbling spout of the fountain. 


When Garth had first visited this place the fountain had pumped clear, 
clean water, liberally laced with poison; now, the fluid that pumped forth was 
thick and red. He did not care to investigate further, but simply reinforced 
the sword's power and reduced the stone and metal of the fountain to powder, 
boiling away whatever liquid it had held. 


He paused and considered his next step. It occurred to him that no one 
had, as yet, opposed him; no voice had addressed him from the shadows. In 
fact, there was no sign that anyone was in the temple at all. That worried 
him; was it possible that the Aghadites had seen him coming and had fled, 
giving up their sanctuary? 


Wasting no more time, he began blasting away at the temple itself, 
slicing the columns that supported its porches, breaking down the walls 
beyond. Masonry fell roaring, and the temple crumbled about him. He marched 
forward into the rubble, continuing to blast at the walls that still stood. 


In the street that fronted the shrine, Koros and Frima waited, alert for 
an attack. Frima was eager to spot and kill any Aghadite who might flee from 
the destruction; Koros, as always, was not concerned with the reasons for its 
master's orders, but was ready to obey them and slaughter anyone who came 
near. 


No one came. Walls tottered and fell, sections of roof caved in 
spectacularly, stones shattered, but no one emerged from the temple of Aghad. 


Garth's rage grew steadily as he broke into chamber after chamber 
without finding a living foe. Clouds gathered in the sky above him, lightning 
flashed, and the earth shook beneath his feet, breaking open the extensive 
temple basements. 


He continued to wreak destruction, working his way down beneath street 
level into the catacombs under the shrine. He found corpses, some of them 
fresh, some ancient, but none wearing the dark red robes of the cult, none 
that were still warm. He found animals-bats, serpents, great cats, and 
others-and slew them, but he found no humans. He saw machinery and smashed it, 
but saw no one operating it. 


At last, as he had done in Ur-Dormulk, he found himself standing in a 
great pit where the temple had been, a pit that was as empty and lifeless as 
the one in Ur-Dormulk. His foes had escaped him. He had destroyed their 
stronghold, but they had escaped. 


He bellowed with rage, the sword swinging in circles above his head; 
thunder rumbled, and lightning flickered through the clouds, as if reflecting 
the streak of fire the blade left hanging in the air. 


He lashed out in frustration, blackening the smoking rubble and cutting 
a groove in the stone that surrounded him. The ground trembled below him. 


A pile of debris tumbled aside, revealing an opening into the black, 
volcanic bedrock; the flame from the sword sliced through a stone slab, 
uncovering another. Alerted, Garth hacked away at the walls of the pit and 
found several such openings, thirteen in all, ranging from broad passageways 
skillfully concealed behind camouflaged stone doors to narrow crawlways, too 
small for an overman to enter, that had been hidden by the heaped rubble. 


Here, then, were the means by which his enemies had fled. He could 
pursue them, overtake them, destroy them; he needed only to learn which of the 
passages they had taken. 



He growled in frustration; there was no way he could know which routes 
they had chosen. He pointed the sword at the nearest and sent a gout of flame 
into it, illuminating the dark stone with an orange glare, but he could see no 
sign that would tell him whether the tunnel had been used or not. No dust lay 
on its floor; no footprints showed. 


Enraged, he sent the flame winding on into the depths, out of his own 
sight, a writhing serpent of living fire. 


A moment later he heard an immense explosion, and shards of stone and 
wood spattered across the rubble from somewhere well beyond the edge of the 
pit, hidden from his view. Gobbets of flame flickered across the night sky, 
and he, knew that his fiery messenger had reached the end of the tunnel. 


He also knew that it had not found any Aghadites. 


"Garth?" Frima's voice called from the edge of the pit, at the spot 
where the silvery gates had once stood. 


He growled a wordless response. 


"What happened? A house up the street burst apart; did you do that?" 


"Yes," he said. He struggled to think, to plan; the raging fury in his 
head made it difficult to do so. "Did you see anyone leave that house?" he 
called. 


"I don't know; I might have," Frima answered. "There were some people on 
the street just after we got here." 


Garth growled. "Those were Aghadites," he said. "I'm sure of it. They 
had a dozen escape routes here. They could be anywhere in the city by now." He 
realized, as he spoke, that they might even have left the city. A party might 
well be on its way to Ordunin, to carry out the god's vengeance against 
Garth's family. Quite aside from his desire for. revenge, the cultists were an 
ongoing threat to innocent people everywhere, and Garth was more determined 
than ever to destroy them all. 


"Oh," Frima said. 


"We will hunt them down, wherever they hide," the overman said as he 
turned the sword's flame against one side of the pit to carve himself a way 
out. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 


The logical place for someone to hide, Garth and Frima agreed, would be in one 
of the temples. Each one had its secret entrances and hidden chambers, or so 
the legends said, and each was suitable for fortification. 


They resolved to explore the nearest first; that was the temple of Sai, 
goddess of pain, Aghad's twin sister. 


Garth blasted open the spike-steel gate with the Sword of Bheleu and, 
remembering what had happened to his boots when last he had entered this 
shrine, he melted smooth the jagged, broken obsidian courtyard. That done, he 
marched on into the temple, Frima at his heels, Koros waiting outside. 


They found no one in the sanctuary. Garth was ready to give up and go, 
but Frima, recalling her own uncompleted sacrifice, pointed out the secret 
doorway through which she had been brought up from the vaults below. 


Garth agreed that the vaults were worth exploring-a decision he found 
himself regretting a few hours later, when an extensive search had turned up 
no Aghadites, but an impressive array of dungeons and torture devices, as well 
as a handful of half-starved, desperate worshippers of Sai who had taken 
shelter there when the plague began, three years earlier. Despite a surge of 
bloodlust, Garth did not kill these people, but instead drove them out into 
the streets. They promptly headed toward the market, obviously intent on 
leaving the city. 


By the time he and Frima had investigated all the corridors and rooms 
beneath the temple of Sai and radiating out from it under the surrounding 
buildings, it was almost dawn, and Garth was tired. He had used up a great 
deal of the sword's energy in blasting the temple of Aghad, and the 



expenditure was telling upon him. 


Neither Garth nor Frima saw any point in returning to Frima's old home; 
instead, they broke in the door of a convenient house and made themselves 
comfortable there. Frima found a store of preserves in the kitchen, and dried 
salt beef that had not yet spoiled; the wine cupboard included several bottles 
that had not yet turned to vinegar, though Garth was not impressed with any 
that he sampled. 


At last, when they had both eaten their fill, the girl and the overman 
found beds and went to sleep. 


Garth did not sleep very well; the bed was far too small for him. Around 
noon he gave up and moved to the floor, which served him better. 


He awoke again well after dark to find Frima hacking off strips of beef 
for their breakfast. 


They debated what should be done next. Garth suggested the temple of 
P'hul as their next target; Frima objected that no Aghadite would venture into 
that disease-ridden pesthole. That, after all, was where the White Death had 
come from in the first place. 


Garth had to concede the truth of her argument. 


He then considered the temple of Bheleu, but dismissed that immediately; 
it was a ruin, with no roof and an earthen floor. Where could anyone hide in 
there? 


The last temple on the Street of the Temples was the temple of Death. 
That, Frima insisted, would be the very surest place. Any Dsarran would 
consider himself safe from pursuit there, as no one would dare to enter it 
looking for him. 


Garth doubted this hypothesis. Would not the Aghadites, he asked, be at 
least as frightened by The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken as by their pursuers? 
After all, the cultists knew that Garth had entered the temple once before and 
emerged alive, the first person not a devotee of the Final God to do so. 


Frima agreed with this reasoning finally. That left the two temples 
located in other parts of the city-those dedicated to Tema and to Andhur 
Regvos. Accordingly, the little party headed for the temple of Andhur Regvos, 
god of darkness. 


Here Garth did not waste time in exploring every nook and cranny; 
instead, he simply used the Sword of Bheleu to blast the domed pyramid into 
rubble, as he had done to the temple of Aghad. 


As with the temple of Aghad, however, he found no trace of any Aghadites 
in the wreckage. The sanctuary held the desiccated remains of a dozen people, 
all dead for quite some time; Garth guessed them to be the blind priests of 
the god, slain by the plague three years before. Nowhere else in the maze of 
chambers and tunnels did he find anything that might have been alive recently. 


That left the temple of Tema. Garth proposed to treat it much as he had 
the shrines of Aghad and Andhur Regvos, but Frima protested violently. After 
some argument, the overman gave in. The followers of Tema had not done him any 
real harm, unlike the Aghadites. 


He did not like the delay, which would allow the surviving Aghadites 
that much more time to devise new schemes and for their emissaries to travel 
toward Ordunin, but he decided that he could live with it. 


It was well after midnight when he and Koros, with Frima on the 
warbeast's back, reached the steps leading to the temple's entrance. He helped 
the girl off the beast and then led the way to the door, up between the 
serpent-carved balustrades. 


To his surprise, the door swung open as he approached. 


He entered the antechamber and stopped. Frima proceeded on past him 
toward the concealed inner door, but before she reached it, a voice said, 
"Please wait, girl." 


Startled, Frima stopped. 


A blue-robed, white-haired priest emerged from the darkness into the 
sword's light, blinking in the vivid glare. "Your pardon, but we have grown 
cautious in these unhappy days. We cannot admit you to the sanctuary until you 



give an account of yourselves, and swear that you do not carry the White 
Death." 


"We do not carry the plague," Garth said, "and I will swear that however 
you like. We have come seeking the Aghadites who fled the destruction of their 
temple." 


"There are no Aghadites here," the priest said patiently. "This is the 
temple of Tema, goddess of night." 


"You will forgive me if I insist upon investigating for myself," Garth 
replied. 


The priest hesitated, and the overman held up the glowing sword; it 
dripped streamers of white flame. "You will, I think, see that I have the 
means of enforcing my wishes. I intend to search this temple without delay, 
and if you or anyone else should oppose me, I am afraid that I will feel it 
necessary not only to kill you, but also to destroy this entire building, lest 
my enemies escape me." 


The priest stepped back and said reluctantly, "As you wish." The inner 
door swung open, and Garth stepped through it into the great domed sanctuary. 


This chamber was the first place he had seen since returning to Dsarra 
that could be called crowded; fifty or sixty ragged people had made themselves 
at home here, sleeping or sitting on beds made of bunched rags, each with a 
few meager possessions clustered about. Many of them glanced up at the new 
arrivals, then stared at the strange, fiery sword the overman carried. 


Garth looked at the motley collection of humans and demanded, "How long 
have these people been here? Did any arrive within the last two days?" 


The priest at Garth's elbow shook his head. "Oh, no," he said. "You are 
the first newcomers in half a year." 


The overman swung the sword around and held it at the man's throat. 
"Will you swear to that, by your goddess and all the other gods?" 


"Oh, yes, my lord," the man said, not nodding for fear of cutting or 
burning his throat on the sword's point if he moved his head. "I swear it, by 
Tema and by all the gods! These people have been here for months." 


Garth decided that he could trust the human. He lowered the sword, 
ignoring Frima's loud protests regarding his treatment of a holy man. 


Again he looked over the great hall, noticing that in the sword's light 
the stone idol was rather less impressive than he recalled. It stood against 
the far side of the chamber, the goddess' cloak stretching up to cover most of 
the dome. It was still a fine piece of sculpture, beautiful and comforting, 
but he could see the marks of the carvers upon it, which he had not seen in 
the dark; its ethereal quality was gone. 


He spotted dark stains on the wall near the door, but did not inquire 
after their origin. He was afraid that they might be from his own previous 
visit, when he had killed a priest very near to the spot where he now stood. 


Escorted by the priest, with Frima trailing along behind, Garth made his 
way around the room, investigating every place that looked as if it might 
conceal a doorway or niche. From the sanctuary he moved on into the vestry, 
and from there to the refectory and the dormitory, and finally into the crypts 
below. 


Nowhere did he find anyone in a red robe, or anyone out of place. All 
those who wore the blue robes of the priests of Tema also had the red eyes and 
white hair required of her servants, and he could imagine no way in which the 
Aghadites could have disguised themselves to pass as such, unless they 
possessed some magic of a sort he was totally unfamiliar with. 


He passed the remainder of the night searching the temple, and on into 
the morning, until at last, around midmorning, he was satisfied that no 
Aghadites lurked anywhere in the great edifice. 


He apologized, more or less, to several of the priests and took his 
leave, Frima still trailing after him. 


Koros was waiting at the foot of the steps, and together they found 
themselves a new resting place where they might spend the day. Tired as they 
were, they did not bother about searching for food. 



Garth awoke around sunset, ravenously hungry, and discovered that the 
house they had chosen to sleep in had nothing edible left in it. He began 
smashing in back doors and investigating the neighboring homes, and eventually 
came across a wheel of cheese that was still good, and a keg of ale that had 
almost gone flat but was still more or less potable. He brought these finds 
back, and found Frima awake and hungry. 


When both had eaten, he asked whether the girl had any suggestions, 
since none of the temples they had explored had yielded anything. 


Frima suggested returning to the Street of the Temples and looking into 
the remains of the temple of Aghad again, in hopes of finding a clue that 
might lead them to the vanished cultists. 


Having no better suggestion to offer, Garth agreed, and by the time the 
last trace of twilight had faded in the west the two were standing at the rim 
of the pit, Koros close behind. 


They found nothing of any conceivable use. Garth had been thorough in 
destroying the shrine, and no papers or documents of any sort remained, 
nothing that might provide any information except for the tunnels themselves. 
Garth explored a few of those, but all came to the surface relatively near at 
hand, and none showed any sign of continued habitation. 


The overman stood, at last, at the edge of the hole, looking up the 
Street of the Temples toward the shadowy blankness at its northern end that 
hid the entrance to the temple of Death. He found himself doubting his own 
logic in dismissing the underground temple as a possible hiding place. The 
Aghadites were the disciples of hate, and the high priest he had slain had 
said that self-hatred was the most basic of all the things that an Aghadite 
must possess. Such people might well be willing to hide in a place where no 
sane Dsarran would go. Furthermore, they might follow his own earlier line of 
reasoning through to its conclusion and decide that, because they would be 
expected to be more frightened of it than Garth would be, the temple of Death 
would be the one place where the overman would never bother to look. 


This convoluted thinking seemed exactly the sort of thing he had come to 
expect from the followers of Aghad, and the temple entrance was only a short 
stroll away. It was certainly worthy of investigation, he decided; he led a 
rather startled Frima northward, up the Street of the Temples. 


Along the way, however, he found himself distracted by the ruins of the 
temple of Bheleu. The skeleton of the ancient dome was gone, but the jagged 
fragments of the wall that had supported it still remained. A wide gap 
indicated where the door had once been, and a heap of ash in the center was 
the last trace of the burning altar whence Garth had drawn the sword. 


It occurred to Garth that there was something unnatural about that pile 
of ash. Surely, after three years, it should have been buried or scattered by 
the wind. 


He had taken the sword from that spot; he had come full circle in the 
three years since that moment. 


It had been three years almost exactly, he realized. He tried to 
calculate the interval, but could not do so; his memory was not sufficiently 
precise. He was not even absolutely certain of the present date, let alone 
when he had taken the sword. Still, within a margin of three days or so, it 
had been exactly three years since he first touched the Sword of Bheleu. 


He wondered whether he might be able to leave the sword here, replacing 
it whence it came. It seemed worth attempting. Furthermore, an Aghadite or two 
might have decided to take shelter here-what shelter there was. He stopped at 
the entrance, startling Frima anew. 


"What is it?" she asked. "What are you doing?" 


"I want to look in here," Garth said. 


Frima peered into the darkness within the stone circle. "Why?" she 
asked. 


"It is a temple, is it not? You thought that the Aghadites might take 
shelter in the temples." 


"Not this one!" she protested, obviously having forgotten her earlier 



suggestion. 


The overman did not bother to argue further, but simply marched into the 
temple, the sword lighting his way. Frima and Koros followed, Frima 
reluctantly, Koros with its usual calm. 


Garth strode unhesitatingly across the earthen floor, directly to the 
little gray mound in the center, where he stopped. He looked down at the heap, 
then reached out with the sword to stir the ash. 


A sudden warmth surged up through the hilt, through his arm, and into 
his mind, and he was no longer in the eerie gloom of the broken temple, but 
floating in a crimson void flooded with ruddy light. 


He froze, waiting for whatever would happen next. 


"Garth," said the voice so like his own, the voice he recognized as the 
thing that called itself Bheleu. "Why have you come here?" 


Garth could not answer that; he was unsure of his own reasons. He had 
entered the temple on a sudden impulse, thinking two contradictory 
thoughts-that he might find Aghadites here and slay them with the sword, or 
that he might be able to free himself of the sword here without the Forgotten 
King's intervention. He was not sure which was his true desire. He had been 
carrying out his revenge against the cult of Aghad, but it was, so far, 
unsatisfying. There was no pleasure, no recompense, in the sight of a dead 
cultist or a blasted temple. The only pleasure came in the instant of 
destruction, and that was a fleeting and unhealthy passion that he did not 
believe was truly his own. He still felt driven to destroy the cult, but he no 
longer found any real value in that destruction, nor any easing of his own 
mind. 


He wanted to be free of the sword, he knew. Despite his bargain with the 
god, he knew that his thoughts were tainted, that he had become an unclean, 
irrational thing, and that he would remain such as long as he wielded the 
sword. Yet he wanted the sword's power, the ability to strike down whatever 
affronted him, and he feared what might happen if the weapon should fall into 
the hands of the only other earthly being who had demonstrated the capacity to 
handle it safely: the Forgotten King. 


He did not know how to answer the god's question. 


"Garth, my time is drawing to an end, and you have denied me my freedom 
throughout what should have been my reign over the mortal realm. You have cut 
my age to a tenth of its anticipated length. There is nothing left to me but 
the last destruction, the end of myself and my fellow gods. If you wish, I 
will free you of the sword and relinquish all claim to you; you need but 
thrust the blade into the ash and leave it there, and there will be no more 
little destructions by your hand, but only the final cataclysm, when the time 
for it has come. Decide now; I will not allow you another chance. Take the 
sword and go on as my emissary, or leave it and be free." 


Garth struggled to think, to weigh his decision logically. He wanted to 
leave the sword, to leave behind all his involvement in supernatural events; 
if he still planned further acts to avenge Kyrith and Saram, he could carry 
them out with his own abilities. He had done well enough for over a century 
without any divine assistance. He released his hold on the weapon, and it 
seemed to float motionlessly in the void before him. 


On the other hand, Bheleu's mention of a final cataclysm frightened him. 
He tried to convince himself that a god would see time differently and that 
this last destruction might still be millennia away, but he could not bring 
himself to believe it. He knew that somewhere in the city the Forgotten King 
was preparing magic that was meant to destroy the world, and he was absolutely 
sure that if he were to leave the sword in the temple of Bheleu, it would find 
its way to the old man and the final spell would be completed. 


He could not allow that to happen. "I will keep the sword," he said. His 
hand closed on the hilt. 


He had expected the god's mocking laughter, but there was only silence; 
the red light faded, and he was in the ruined temple again. 


Frima had watched with concern as her overman companion had walked up to 



the pile of ash, poked the sword into it, and then frozen. "What is it? What's 
happening?" she called, but Garth did not answer; he stood staring off into 
space. She came nearer, waved her hand before his face, but got no response. 
Worried, she fished the sling she had appropriated from the dead Aghadite out 
of her pouch. 


Garth released the Sword of Bheleu suddenly; it wobbled, but remained 
upright, held by the mound of ash. Its glow died away, from a vivid white 
light to a pale yellow flickering, but Garth did not move or speak. He still 
stared ahead blindly. 


Something appeared off to one side; Frima whirled, a dart in the sling, 
and let fly. 


Not one dart but two rattled off stone; her own had struck the broken 
wall near where she had glimpsed the movement, and another had whizzed past 
Garth's head and hit the far side of the chamber. "Koros!" Frima called. "Kill 
them!" 


The warbeast looked at her, as if debating with itself whether or not to 
obey someone other than its master. Another dart flew, ricocheting from 
Garth's armor with a sharp ringing, and Koros decided; with a roar, it leaped 
toward the hidden attacker. 


Garth remained unmoving. Frima had another dart in her sling and was 
crouched, ready and waiting, glancing warily about. 


Someone screamed, the cry mingling with the warbeast's growl and ending 
in an unpleasant bubbling. Frima could not see what was taking' place in the 
darkness, but it was obvious that Koros had found its prey. 


Again something moved, and she turned to see a dark shape approaching 
with sword held high. She flung the dart in her sling, and the figure 
staggered and dropped. 


Light flared up; Garth held the Sword of Bheleu once more, the blade 
burning brightly with its unnatural white flame. The overman was moving as 
well, turning away from the ashen remains of the altar. He and Frima gazed 
with almost equal surprise at the red-robed man who lay, his fallen sword 
nearby, midway between the Dsarran girl and the temple's entrance. 


The man was not dead, but only stunned. Garth picked him up with one 
hand, the sword blazing in the other, and demanded, "Where are the rest of 
you?" 


Koros emerged from the shadows, its jaw smeared with blood. The Aghadite 
stared in terror, first at the warbeast, then at the flaming sword, and 
finally at the grim overman. 


"I don't know!" he cried. 


"Yours is the god of treachery, filth; betray your comrades!" Garth 
demanded. 


"I can't," the man insisted. "I would, I swear to you by Aghad, but I 
can't!" 


"You swear it, by all the gods?" 


"Yes!" The man was nodding and weeping. "Yes, yes, I swear it!" 


Disgusted and enraged, Garth flung the human aside; his head hit the 
stone wall with a sharp cracking sound, and he slumped in a heap at the base. 


Garth had not intended to kill the man, but he did not doubt that he had 
done so and he did not regret it. "There may be more," he said. 


"Koros got one," Frima told him. "I haven't seen any others." 


"We'll search," the overman said. 


They did search, going over the entire temple area carefully. Frima 
stopped and became ill when she saw what Koros had left of the sling-wielder. 
They found no more Aghadites, though, nor any evidence that others had been 
there. 


When Garth was satisfied, he led the way back out onto the street and 
onward toward the temple of death. Frima followed reluctantly, Koros beside 
her. Garth did not look back, but he did find himself wondering whether he had 
done the right thing in keeping the sword. 


That might, he realized, have been his last chance to get rid of it; 



still, he resisted the urge to run back and try to bargain with Bheleu. If he 
released the sword, the Forgotten King would get it, he was certain. He could 
not allow that, now or ever. He marched up the street, sword held up before 
him to light the way. 


The city seemed deserted; nothing moved on the Street of the Temples 
save himself and his two companions. He wondered if anything still lived in 
Dsarra other than the Aghadites, the huddled people in the temple of Tema, 
and his own little group. 


At the end of the avenue, the glow of the sword revealed black volcanic 
rock forming a narrow defile that led into a cave; the sword's light did not 
penetrate the shadows of the cave's entrance, visible as a deeper blackness 
amid the surrounding stones. 


A human corpse lay sprawled half in, half out of the shadows. That was 
hardly surprising in this city of death, where Garth had found himself almost 
tripping over bare bones at every turn. This body, however, was still fresh; 
it had not yet begun to rot. Garth could detect only the faintest scent of 
incipient corruption and judged that it had been dead no more than three days 
at the most. 


The remains were those of a very old man; Garth paused to study them, 
and recognized who the man had been. 


He was clad in a robe of so pure a black that the sword's light, or 
almost any other light, was not reflected at all, making the corpse seem 
almost a heap of tangible shadow. It was small and frail, with one leg twisted 
and shrunken, one hand missing, half the face hidden beneath a purplish 
growth, one eye long gone and the other buried beneath white cataracts. 


This pitiful thing had been the caretaker of the temple of Death. 


The overman glanced around warily, but saw no sign of anything that 
might have killed the ancient priest. It was entirely possible that age had 
caught up with him at last. Even the priests of Death died eventually-with one 
exception. 


It was very near this spot that the overman high priest of Aghad, whom 
Garth had later slain, had once taunted him from concealment. One of the 
tunnels leading from the temple of Aghad might, Garth guessed, come up in this 
vicinity. He peered at the surrounding rock, but could see no sign of human 
presence. 


"What happened to him?" Frima asked, staring at the corpse. 


"He died," Garth said. After a pause, he added, "Probably of old age." 


"Oh," Frima replied, suppressing a shudder. She found so fresh a corpse, 
dead so mysteriously, to be far more unsettling than the less recognizable 
remains of the plague's many victims. 


Garth was no longer interested in the body and felt reasonably certain 
that no assassins lurked in the immediate area. "Come on," he said. 


"That's the temple of Death," Frima said, not moving. 


"Yes," Garth agreed, "it is." 


"I don't want to go in there," she said. 


"Why not? You suggested before that Aghadites might hide here; are you 
frightened of them? Have you decided to abandon your vengeance?" 


"No, that's not it!" she cried. "I'm frightened of Death!" 


"I am here to protect you," Garth replied. "I have been here before and 
emerged alive. I have the power of Bheleu to defend us. However, if you 
prefer, you may wait here while I investigate the temple." 


Frima hesitated, but finally said, "All right. I'll stay here if you 
leave Koros with me." 


Garth had no objection to that; he had not intended to take the warbeast 
into the temple in any case. He was not sure the huge creature would fit 
through the entry passage. 


He ordered the beast to guard the girl and then strode onward into the 
cave. 



CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN 


The floor sloped gently downward; there was no gate or door, but the corridor 
narrowed slightly at one point. Thereafter it gradually widened, opening at 
last into a large chamber, the heart of the temple. Although the passageway 
was entirely natural, this main room had been artificially enlarged, the floor 
smoothed and leveled, the walls carved into elaborate friezes separated by 
columns, and the ceiling around the sides ribbed with carved vaulting. The 
central portion of the ceiling remained rough, natural stone, and beneath this 
stood the altar, cut from a large stalagmite and carved in the form of a 
lectern, with a strange horned skull riveted to its upper edge. 


The glare of the sword was not the only light here; a sullen red glow 
came from the tunnel that led down and away from the far side of the chamber. 
The carvings and the altar cast strange double shadows in this eerie 
illumination. 


Garth paid no attention to any of this. He had expected the temple to be 
deserted; he had completely forgotten, in the press of other concerns, that 
the Forgotten King had announced his intention of coming here and beginning 
his magic. The overman had dismissed that, convincing himself that the King 
could do nothing without the Sword of Bheleu, and had somehow assumed that the 
old man was lurking somewhere in the city, waiting for Garth to relinquish the 
sword to him. 


He had been wrong. The Forgotten King stood before the altar, his back 
to Garth, chanting something unintelligible. The Book of Silence lay upon the 
altar, open, and it was evident that the old man was reading from it. 


The sound seemed to reverberate from the stone walls, turning the 
Forgotten King's already-hideous voice into an unspeakable cacophony. Garth 
could not recognize the language of the spell, save that it bore no 
resemblance to his own tongue. The words were harsh and sibilant, with 
unpleasant combinations of vowels, and consonants that seemed to be all either 
hissing or guttural. Words and phrases ended in the wrong places, and the 
rhythm was broken and hard to follow, but the King appeared not to notice; he 
chanted on, the words spilling forth in a constant stream. 


Garth watched for a long moment, unsure what to do. He knew that he did 
not want the King to complete his spell, but he did not know whether it would 
be safe to interrupt it. 


The chant ended abruptly with a high-pitched grating sound, and without 
hesitation or pause the King said, "Greetings, Garth." He did not turn. 


"Greetings, O King." 


There was a moment of growing silence as the last echoes rebounded, 
faded, and died. 


"What are you doing?" Garth asked at last. 


"I prepare the final magic," the King replied. 


The overman stepped forward, circling wide to the left so that the old 
man would not be able to reach out and snatch the sword away from him. "How 
can you do that," he asked, "without the Sword of Bheleu?" 


"The sword is required only in the final stage, at the end of the three 
days, a point that will arrive shortly. I can prepare the magic, but I cannot 
complete it without both the sword and your assistance." 


This answer troubled Garth, not so much because of what was said as 
because it was given so freely and seemed so cooperative a response-totally 
out of character for the old man. Something about him had changed; Garth 
guessed that having begun his spell, after so long a wait, had affected him. 


The overman took another few steps and looked at the old man's face. 


For a moment he did not realize what he was seeing, but only that 
something was wrong. The King's face seemed to shimmer and alter as the 
overman watched, distorting itself, and after several seconds Garth realized 
that the old man was wearing the Pallid Mask. The mask had fitted itself to 
the contours of the King's face, but remained smooth and pale and metallic, 
retaining its unsettling ability to shift its appearance inexplicably. The old 



man's long wisp of beard was caught up inside the mask's chin, out of sight, 
and the eye sockets were less sunken than his own-though his eyes remained 
invisible, hidden now, not by the shadows of his cowl, but by the mask. 


"You will not receive my aid." Garth said. "It may be that you will 
somehow get the sword from me, but I swear I will never help you to destroy 
all the world just so that you may die." 


"No, perhaps you will not-but might you not destroy all the world so 
that your enemies, the followers of Aghad, will perish with it?" 


"No." 


"Do not speak so quickly, Garth. Think first. You seek to slay them all; 
you have sworn to destroy them. How else can you do this? With the Sword of 
Bheleu you can destroy the entire city of Dsarra, it is true-but to do so 
will take time, and in that time many will be able to escape, to flee 
elsewhere. Some may already have done so. Will you hunt them down throughout 
the world, one by one? Do you expect to live forever, then? Are you ready to 
devote centuries to this pursuit? It will take centuries to find and kill them 
all, Garth. You cannot destroy each of them that way. Nor can you use the 
Sword of Bheleu to destroy every place that they might hide; the sword's power 
is not great enough to destroy all the world. Together, though, we might send 
them all to their deaths with a single simple spell, this same spell that I 
have almost fully prepared." 


"And in so doing, consign the rest of the world, as well, to 
destruction, myself along with it." 


"Would that really be so unbearable? A moment, and it would all be over. 
Is your life so pleasant, then, that you must cling to it so tenaciously? 
Would it not be a comfort simply to let go, to let yourself fall into the 
nothingness of death? I have sought for that peace for long centuries now; can 
you find it so repulsive?" 


"My life is my own, old man, and none of your concern. I do not want to 
die, nor to be responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people." 


"Innocent? Who, Garth, is innocent? The overmen of Ordunin, who exiled 
you for aiding them and refused even to consider your pardon? Your family, who 
refused to leave a frozen wasteland to join you? The Yprians, perhaps, who 
squabble among themselves and have invaded, without cause, the lands of their 
neighbors? The Erammans, who have turned the richest empire in this decadent 
world into a chaos of civil war, who drove your people into the wilderness to 
die? The Orunians, who tried to take advantage of their neighbors' internal 
strife? The people of Skelleth, who despise you even after three years, 
despite all you have done for them? The people of Ur-Dormulk, what few remain, 
who sent soldiers to kill you? Who among these is worthy of your 
consideration? Where are the people who deserve to live so much that you would 
give up your just vengeance and go on living a life that has become a burden 
to you, merely so that they might survive a few years longer amid war, plague, 
and famine?" 


"You distort the truth with words; old man," Garth said, resisting an 
urge to give in, to admit that the Forgotten King was right. He was uncertain 
whether this impulse came from himself or from Bheleu or from some magic 
wrought by the King, the book, or the mask. Whatever it was, it was powerful, 
almost hypnotic; his gaze was fixed on the Pallid Mask, white and gleaming, 
and he found it hard to think of resistance. "What of Frima?" he asked, 
grasping at the first memory he could dredge up. "She has done nothing to 
deserve death. Surely there are millions more like her." 


The old man did not answer; instead, he leaned his head forward and 
began chanting again. 


Garth remembered suddenly why he had come to this place and demanded 
loudly, "Old man, are there any Aghadites here?" He doubted that there were. 
The Forgotten King would not care to be disturbed by their presence, and Garth 
knew that the King was capable of enforcing his whims. 


The chanting broke, and the King said, "We are alone here, Garth, alone 
with our gods." 



The overman, refusing to trust the old man, tried to figure out some way 
in which this pronouncement could be interpreted that would allow for the 
presence of cultists. He could think of none; after a moment's hesitation he 
nodded and turned to go. 


The King was chanting again, but his voice was suddenly drowned out by 
another sound, distorted by the echoes of the passageway and by the distance, 
but still, unmistakably, the roar of a warbeast. 


Startled, Garth froze, staring into the shadows of the entry passage; 
then, with the glowing sword held out before him, he broke into a run. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT 


Blood spattered across his face as he emerged from the cave. Garth blinked and 
raised his free hand to shield his eyes. His ears were filled with human 
screaming and the roaring of the warbeast. 


His first impulse was to strike out with the Sword of Bheleu, blasting 
whatever stood before him, but he restrained himself. Koros and Frima were 
around somewhere, and he did not want to harm them. The sword's power was not 
selective enough to leave them unscathed in a blind attack. 


After the first shower of blood across his face, nothing more struck 
him, although Garth did not yet realize what had actually hit him. He lowered 
his hand and opened his eyes. 


Koros stood before him, fangs bared and dripping blood, several mangled 
corpses beneath its massive paws, others flung up against either side of the 
defile, weapons scattered on all sides. Its roar had died to a sullen 
growling. 


Garth wiped at the liquid on his face, looked at the residue on his 
hand, and then understood that blood had been flung upon him by the warbeast's 
attack on the last of the Aghadites. It was, he was sure, human blood. 


The warbeast was not uninjured, however. Three crossbow quarrels 
protruded from one shoulder, and a fourth from one of its forepaws. Something 
had gashed it across the face, narrowly missing one of its great golden eyes. 


No further threat remained. There could be no doubt that every human in 
sight was dead. 


With that thought, Garth became aware that Frima was not there. He 
looked over the bloody bodies, but saw none that might have been his Dsarran 
companion. 


The sound of screaming was still continuing, he noticed, coming from 
somewhere beyond the rocks to his right. Koros was looking in that direction, 
apparently trying to locate the sound's source. It was only then that Garth 
realized he was hearing, not the wordless yelling of dying men, but a human 
female calling, "Koros! Koros!" 


It was Frima's voice, but no sooner had Garth recognized it than it fell 
silent. 


"Frima!" the overman bellowed. 


There was no answer; his cry echoed from the surrounding rock and was 
followed only by silence. 


"Frima!" Garth called again. Koros growled; there was no other response. 


It was obvious that the Aghadites had gotten her, separating her from 
the warbeast somehow, and then killing her. Garth felt his anger mount. He saw 
the glow of the sword deepen to red and brighten to a ferocious glare. The 
Aghadites would pay for this, he promised himself. They would all die, every 
one of them, no matter where they might hide. They had destroyed an innocent 
girl and they would regret it-if they lived long enough to know what happened. 


He remembered the Forgotten King's words, and his own reply. Frima was 
gone now, and with her, his concern for the world's inhabitants. The world 
might be full of innocent victims, he told himself, but if he didn't destroy 
them, someone else would. 


"I'a bheluye!" he cried. "Aghad, I will destroy you!" He turned and 



strode back into the temple of Death. 


Watching from their concealed vantage point at the mouth of a tunnel in 
the surrounding stone, the high priestess of Aghad and two of her companions 
saw the overman's magic sword blaze up a baleful red, and heard him proclaim 
his anger. 


"I think," the high priestess said, "that we should wait until he's had 
some time to calm down. If we try to bargain with him now, he's liable to fry 
us all before we can speak a dozen words; he's too mad to worry about the 
girl. When he's had more time to think, we should be able to make a deal." 


Her companions made noises of agreement, peering warily out. Farther 
down the tunnel, a loud thump sounded, followed by muffled cursing. 


"Be careful with her!" the high priestess warned. "She may be the only 
thing that keeps us all alive!" 


"I beg your forgiveness, mistress," someone answered. "But she fights 
like a mad creature. She chewed through the gag already, and we had to drop 
her to prepare another." 


The priestess turned away from the tunnel opening and stared down at the 
struggling form of their captive, barely visible in the light of the single 
shuttered lantern allowed so near the entrance. "You can hurt her if you need 
to," she said, "just as long as you don't kill her or cripple her." 


Frima thrashed harder and tried to scream; one of the Aghadites jammed 
another wadded cloth into her mouth, stifling the sound. 


Garth did not hear Frima's struggles, and would not have paid enough 
attention to recognize them for what they were if he had. He was convinced 
that she was dead. Whenever someone else had fallen into the hands of the 
Aghadites, he or she had died. Kyrith had died and Saram had died; Garth saw 
no reason to think that Frima had fared any better. He expected to be 
confronted with her mutilated corpse when next he emerged from the temple of 
Death-if he ever did emerge. 


He strode down the passageway with the sword blazing before him, the 
glow feeding on his anger and stoking it as well. His rage, or the combination 
of his own despair and rage with the malign influence of Bheleu, had driven 
all conscious thought from his mind, save the necessity of destroying the cult 
of Aghad, regardless of the means or the cost. He stormed into the inner 
chamber of the temple just as the Forgotten King's chanting paused. 


"What must I do, old man?" Garth demanded. 


"You will know when the time comes," the Forgotten King replied. He 
began to chant again. 


Garth was in no mood to wait, but he forced himself to stand behind the 
King, awaiting the instructions he was sure would come. The old man would give 
him a sign, some way of knowing what was expected of him, and he would act; 
the spell would be completed, and the world would end. 


His enemies would be destroyed-the cult of Aghad would be wiped out to 
the last stinking, treacherous member. The city of Dsarra, which had so 
blighted his life, would vanish. The gods themselves, the foul Aghad and 
Garth's own unwanted master Bheleu among them, would die. The Forgotten King 
would perish, and his Unnamed God with him. 


Garth himself would die, but what of it? He had little enough left in 
the world. His people had scorned him, Kyrith and Saram and Frima had been 
murdered, and his world had sunk into an era of chaos and destruction. 


The old man would have his wish; his life, which had lasted so 
impossibly long, would be over. 


Everything would end. 


Everything. 


Koros would die-both the warbeast and the god it was named for. It was 
hard to imagine the animal dying. The sun would go out, or so he assumed; 
there would be nothing left for it to shine upon. The green fields of summer 
would never be again; sun above and earth below Would both be gone. The 



farmers in the fields would be gone, human and overman alike. 


There would be an end to war and hatred and death, Garth told himself. 


Yes, and an end to love and life as well. The destruction would swallow 
up the good with the bad, and there would be no more world, no more time, no 
chance to make anything right. He would never again feel the wind in his face 
or the sun on his. back, not only because he would be dead and beyond all 
feeling, but because there would be no more wind, no more sun, ever again. 
Fish would no longer swim in the sea, for the sea would be no more, and birds 
would not fly. No new year would ever follow this one, no autumn would 
supplant this final summer-all because he, Garth of Ordunin, had defied the 
gods and lost. He had been defeated by Aghad, Bheleu, and Death; he had lost 
himself in the anger and despair that the dark gods sent. He was allowing the 
gods to manipulate him. 


This must not be. 


The Forgotten King's harsh voice cut through to him, raised suddenly to 
a new pitch and volume, wrapped around the massed consonants of the chant, and 
Garth felt magical power seething around him. 


He wanted to stop, to retreat, to reverse his decision. He did not want 
the world to end, did not want to aid in its destruction, but he could not 
move. He felt a fierce compulsion to give in, to do what the old man wanted, 
to serve the gods who had shaped the world in this one final act, and he 
fought desperately against it. 


The chanting stopped, and the old man turned to face him, the mask 
gleaming dully in the red light of the sword, as if washed in blood. 


In desperation, struggling to destroy the compulsion that he felt 
overtaking him, Garth lashed out with the Sword of Bheleu, striking at the old 
man, hoping to disrupt the spell before his part in it was needed. He thrust 
the glowing blade against the King's chest, expecting it to be turned aside 
and to receive a backlash of magical force, a resistance that would break the 
web of power that held him. 


The blade sank easily through the old man's frail body with a sound like 
a soft sigh, emerging a foot or more from his back and scraping against the 
stone of the altar. Thick, dark blood oozed slowly forth onto the shining 
metal. 


The Forgotten King smiled, the Pallid Mask twisting to fit his face, and 
Garth realized, even before the first rumbling began, what his part in the 
final ritual had been. He had been destined, all along, to plunge the Sword of 
Bheleu into the heart of the King in Yellow. 


He stared in horror at the mask. Something was happening to the King; 
his blood was evaporating from the sword, and his body was fading, thinning 
away to nothing. The mask was melting into the flesh of his face, blending 
with it, reshaping itself; it sank back against the bone of the old man's 
skull, pulling itself tight. 


The King's yellow mantle fell open, and Garth tried to scream at the 
sight of what lay beneath, but something had happened to the flow of time; he 
was unable to move normally. An eternity wound itself past him and through him 
as his mouth came open. 


The King in Yellow turned insubstantial and seemed simultaneously to 
grow and shrink, departing from Garth's presence in some impossible direction. 
He was no longer more than a vague caricature of a human being. His head was a 
fleshless, grinning skull, the mask indissolubly joined; his fingers were 
gleaming bone, his whole being somehow smoky and indistinct. 


Then he was gone, and Garth remained frozen in an instant of distorted 
time, waiting for his own death. 


The Sword of Bheleu was still held out before him, impaling the space 
where the King had been; and now, as Garth watched, his mouth still opening in 
his need to scream, the blade puffed away in glittering, luminous powder, and 
the gem in the pommel burst into a shower of crystal, light, and blood. The 
grip crumbled away, and his hands were empty. 


He became aware of a deep rumbling all around him. 



He felt himself standing in the temple, suddenly conscious of every 
instant, of every action of his body. He felt his heart pumping blood, an age 
passing between each beat, felt his muscles contracting, and waited for it all 
to stop, waited to die. 


It did not stop. Time dragged on, horribly elongated. He felt eldritch 
energy whirling about him, filling the air. 


Then, abruptly, it was over-but he was not dead. 


He stood in the cave that had been the temple of Death, his mouth open 
as if to scream, but the need to cry out had passed. His mind was clear and 
calm. The air was still, and the forces that had filled it with tension were 
gone. The sword of the thing that had called itself the god of destruction was 
gone. The old man who had called himself the Forgotten King was gone. The 
strange pale mask was gone, and the old book on the altar as well. Nothing 
remained but a hollowed-out cave, its walls carved into ugly friezes. A dull 
rumbling still persisted. 


Behind him, a voice said, "So it's finally over." 


CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE 


Garth whirled, reaching automatically for the dagger on his belt. 


An old woman stood in the entryway; she wore heavy robes, their color 
indistinguishable in the dim red glow that lit the cave-aglow that seemed 
brighter than Garth remembered it. He attributed that to the distorting 
effects of whatever he had just gone through. 


The woman smiled cheerfully at him, looking utterly harmless despite the 
eerie light, but Garth was not comforted by her expression. He noticed, 
rather, that he was unable to focus clearly upon her face. Her features 
appeared to shift-subtly as he watched. 


"Who are you?" he demanded. 


"I am Weida, goddess of wisdom and learning," the old woman replied, 
crossing her arms over her chest-or perhaps they had already been crossed, 
Garth could not be certain. He wondered if something was wrong with his 
vision, or if the weird events of the last few moments had addled his brain. 
Nothing else was affected; the walls were as solid as ever. It was only the 
old woman whose appearance was uncertain. 


Even so, he relaxed somewhat. She might be a wizard of some sort, but 
she was obviously mad, and probably harmless. He guessed that she was a 
survivor of the plague who had wandered into the temple by accident. The 
absurdity of her presence was such a relief after the terrifying experience he 
had just undergone that he smiled broadly. 


"I really am Weida," the woman insisted. "Observe." 


She vanished. 


Garth's smile vanished as well. 


She reappeared again, seeming to coalesce from motes of dust. "I know," 
she said. "It's a trick any good magician could probably have managed a few 
days ago, but honestly, I really am Weida, and I am one of the Arkhein, what 
you would consider a minor goddess." 


"If you are a goddess," Garth asked slowly, though he was still not 
ready to accept the idea, "then why are you still alive? Did not Bheleu and 
all the others perish? What else could it mean, when the Sword of Bheleu 
crumbled and the Book of Silence vanished?" 


Before the woman could speak, he added, "For that matter, why am I still 
alive?" 


"Why shouldn't we be alive?" She smiled, her face shimmering as she did, 
and for an instant Garth thought he saw the image of Ao, one of the Wise Women 
of Ordunin. Before the overman could protest, she went on. "No, never mind. I 
know what you're thinking-that's my province, after all. You thought that all 
the world would end, all the gods would die, when the King in Yellow completed 
the ritual. The King thought so, too. It may be that he convinced himself that 



would be the case, back when he first realized he would prefer death to 
unending life; he couldn't stand the thought of anything living on after him." 


That sounded plausible, but Garth objected. "What about all the 
prophecies? Everyone agreed that the Forgotten King would live until the end 
of time! That was the bargain he made with the gods!" 


"It was the bargain that deceived the oracles and prophets. The bargain 
was fulfilled, in a way, and the Forgotten King did live until the end of 
time. The problem lies in the exact meaning of that phrase. You must 
understand it, not in mortal terms, but in the way the gods meant it. It is 
not `the end of time,' where `time' is a common noun, but `the end of Time,' 
where `Time' is a proper noun, the name of a god. The King could not die so 
long as the gods that had given him immortality still lived-all three of those 
gods. He was not given eternal life by the Death-God alone, nor even by Death 
and Life in partnership, but by Death, Life, and Time-the god you knew as 
Dagha. It was Dagha-Time that created the Lords of Eir and Ds, who in turn 
created the world and everything in it-myself included, and much less 
directly, you as well. And it was Dagha that ended when the King completed his 
spell." 


Garth grappled with this explanation for a moment, then asked, "But how 
can the world exist if time is no more? How can I move? How can we speak?" 


"Time still exists; it is Dagha who is no more. Dagha created time, but 
does that mean that the two must perish together? When a house-carpenter dies, 
do all his houses fall in? We are more than the dreams of the gods; though 
they created the world, it has an existence of its own. Dagha, itself, 
misunderstood this; it was incapable of conceiving of our world continuing 
after the fourteen gods who had created it ceased to be." 


"The fourteen gods are truly gone, then?" 


"Oh, yes; they had no real independent existence of their own. They were 
not so much Dagha's dreams, perhaps, as parts of itself-concepts that Dagha 
split off from itself. They couldn't exist beyond Dagha; each merged with his 
or her opposite and returned to the nothingness that brought them forth." 


Garth considered this. "But then why," he asked, "do you still exist, if 
you're a goddess?" He was beginning to believe the woman's claim to divinity; 
her knowledge of the King's passing, and the calm rationality of her 
explanations, did not accord with his theory of a mad wizard. 


"Dagha didn't create me from nothingness, Garth; Leuk and Pria did. 
Dagha, self-obsessed and self-contained, could not create anything directly 
that could have an independent life of its own, but the fragments it broke off 
and gave names to were not so restricted, being already incomplete and out of 
balance themselves. Dagha didn't create the world, either, nor living beings 
such as yourself; it was the fourteen beings Dagha had created who, in their 
turn, did that. We were all started by the Lords of Eir, and Dagha thought 
that, in balance, we'd all be finished off by the Lords of Ds-but Dagha got 
that one wrong. Its playing at creation threw the balance out. I wasn't sure, 
though, to be truthful, how much of our little world would come through 
intact." 


A sudden cold uncertainty soaked into Garth's thoughts. 


"How much did come through?" He had visions of finding nothing but space 
outside the temple cave; perhaps nothing remained alive anywhere save for 
himself and this peculiar self-proclaimed goddess. 


"Oh, almost everything; you need not worry, Garth. A few stars may be 
missing, a few things may be changed in how the world works, but in general, 
Garth, everything remains as you knew it." 


"You're sure?" 


"Oh, yes. I'm a goddess, Garth, and the goddess of knowledge, at that. I 
know a very great deal. We are not alone. The world remains much as it was; 
most people are probably unaware of any change, save a brief spell of 
dizziness." 


"And you knew that the world would survive?" 


"Well, as I said, even I was not certain until right at the end." 



"How could you know what the other, greater gods did not?" 


"Because I am what I am, Garth, the goddess of wisdom. I saw through the 
deceits and partial truths that Dagha used to fool itself and its constituent 
deities. I knew from the start that it had done more than it knew in creating 
our world, creating something so removed from itself." She smiled wryly, and 
for a moment her face seemed solid and normal. "I must confess, however, that 
I had my doubts. I saw the pattern of time that Dagha had set up, and saw how 
neatly the world followed along its set path, and feared that it might all end 
as Dagha had planned. It was not until you refused the service of Bheleu, 
three years ago, and thereby cut short the Age of Destruction, that I could be 
certain the pattern was broken. That act, more than any other in all the 
fifteen ages, threw the world aside from its predestined course and assured it 
of continued existence when its creators had gone. You disrupted the whole 
cosmic balance, Garth, by favoring life over death." 


Garth was falling behind in following the explanations. 


"But why are you different from the other gods? Did all the lesser gods 
survive, whatever they're called?" 


"We are called the Arkhein, Garth, and I am not yet certain whether we 
have all survived. Some of us were closely tied to our creators; others, like 
myself, were more independent. I am not bound up in the time that Dagha 
controlled. The Eir and the Ds were all predestined, with no say in their own 
existence; each took his turn for an age, tied to the scheme that Dagha had 
set up. The order of the ages was established from the beginning and the 
nature of each predetermined. Each had its rules, symbols, totems, and 
intended duration, all part of the pretty pattern that Dagha had designed for 
its little creations to dance through. When the pattern was finished, so were 
they. The Arkhein, however, were not part of that grand pattern. We were free 
to do as we pleased, pretty much-or at least most of us were. Dagha hadn't 
made us, didn't control us, and had no place for us in its designs. It hadn't 
made the world and it didn't control that; surely you knew enough theology to 
know that nobody bothered praying to Dagha, since it never did any good." 


"Yes, I knew that," Garth admitted. 


"Garth, if it confuses you so, don't worry about reasons and 
explanations. Just accept the situation as it is. The fifteen higher gods are 
gone, but the world continues. We're all free now, coasting on, as it were. 
There are no more predetermined ages-you survived the Fifteenth Age in the 
three minutes it took the higher gods to die. Nothing is set anymore; there is 
no more predestination. You are no longer the chosen of Bheleu, but merely an 
overman. There is no more Bheleu." 


Garth thought that over, watching Weida's shifting features. The 
rumbling grew louder, and the floor trembled beneath his feet. The red glow 
appeared to brighten. 


"What is that sound?" he asked. "It seemed to start during the King's 
spell." 


"That's the volcano. Dsarra was built on an active volcano, you know, 
and the priests of the seven dark gods worked a great spell to restrain it. 
Now that the gods are dead, the magic they powered won't work anymore. Major 
theurgy is a dead art-and nobody ever called on us Arkhein very much. Most 
magic drew on the higher gods, either Eir or Ds; and when they died, all 
their magic went with them. Their totems all burned out during the Fifteenth 
Age; the dying gasp of the fifteen gods, I suppose you might call it. You saw 
three of them go yourself. And because the magic is gone, the volcano is free; 
it's been pent up since the city was founded back in the Eighth Age, so I 
suppose it will erupt any minute now. This cave is one of its old exhaust 
vents; it will probably fill up with lava quite quickly." 


Garth turned around and stared apprehensively at the brightening red 
glow. "Wouldn't that kill us both?" he asked. 


"Oh, I suppose it will kill you, but it will take more than a volcano to 
harm a goddess." 


The overman turned back, enraged-and relieved to realize that it was 



wholly his own anger, untainted by Bheleu's malign influence. It was a clean 
and simple feeling, very unlike the seething, perverse fury the god's power 
had engendered so often. "Why didn't you warn me sooner?" he demanded. 


"Why should I? What does it matter to me if an overman dies?" 


"If you don't care what happens to me, why are you here? Why have you 
manifested yourself and spoken with me?" 


"Ah, you've seen through me. I do care, Garth, at least somewhat. I 
wanted to watch the fireworks, to see the end of our old order. I wanted to 
speak with the mortal involved, and to congratulate you on the part you've 
played in everything. Most of all, I was curious; it goes with wisdom. Only 
the curious ever learn much. That's why I alone am here, of all the Arkhein. 
But that's all done now, and it's not the place of a goddess to become too 
attached to a mortal. You must die eventually, after all-and have I not now 
warned you?" 


Garth heard the rumbling grow louder, and the stone floor shook from a 
sudden shock far below. He glanced back at the red glow, which now seemed 
dimmer. 


"You have a few minutes yet, Garth," the goddess said. 


"A moment," Garth said. "If the god of death is gone, can I still die?" 
He wondered if the goddess, if she was in fact what she claimed to be, might 
be amusing herself at his expense. Could it be that he had inadvertently 
obtained immortality, not just for himself, but for all the world? 


"The old god of death is gone, The God Whose Name Was Not Spoken, who 
was a Lord of Ds and a part of Dagha, but there is still death. There must 
always be death. We have a new god of death now, one that you helped to 
create." 


"What?" 


"Certainly. You didn't see the King in Yellow die, did you? You were 
watching; he changed, and moved out of your realm of perception, but he did 
not die. He merged with the Pallid Mask, assuming the power it signified, and 
became Death himself. You saw it happen." 


Garth remembered what he had seen beneath the King in Yellow's mantle 
and knew that Weida-if it was Weida-spoke the truth. A perverse amusement 
twitched his mouth into a smile. "Then after all that, he didn't die? His 
great spell was for nothing?" 


"Hardly for nothing, Garth. The human part of him perished utterly, and 
Yhtill of Hastur is no more. The King in Yellow no longer has any material 
existence, but he still goes on, the embodiment of the power and concept of 
Death." 


Half a dozen other questions came to mind while Garth puzzled this over, 
but the rumbling changed again, with a deep, slow, grinding sound, and the 
overman decided that any further inquiries were inessential. He ran toward the 
entrance. 


Weida might or might not have stepped aside to let him pass; he was not 
sure whether she did, or whether he passed through her, or some impossible 
combination of both. Disconcerted, he stumbled against the wall of the passage 
and glanced back. 


The woman was gone-or the image, or goddess, or whatever it had been. 


The voice, however, lingered, calling, "I think you had better hurry, 
overman." 


Garth righted himself and hurried on. While moving, he asked aloud, "How 
is it that you materialized here before me in this cave? None of the other 
gods I was involved with ever did that, not Aghad, nor Bheleu, nor any of 
them. Bheleu could only speak to me in visions." 


"They were Ds, Garth, and not tied to this world as we Arkhein are," 
the voice said quietly, speaking from the air near his right ear. 


"All right, then, if the Arkhein can manifest themselves where the Eir 
and Ds could not, why have I never heard of it happening before?" 


"The rules are different now," the voice replied. "We were restrained by 
Dagha's rules, confined by the power of the higher gods even while we drew 



much of our own power from them. Now, things have changed. Everything has 
changed. Even I don't know all the differences yet; I have never been so free 
before and have not yet had time to learn what this freedom means." 


A brutal shaking distracted Garth from the conversation; he staggered up 
the dark passageway, grateful that there were no branches where he might make 
a wrong turning. Ahead, he glimpsed a pale gray glimmering; he moved onward 
and saw that it was the first faint light of dawn. 


CHAPTER THIRTY 


Frima had been blindfolded as well as bound and gagged, and did not see what 
happened to her captors. She heard a rumbling, then a crashing, and then the 
deafening roar of an angry warbeast, mixed with human screams. The hands that 
had held her fell away, and she tumbled heavily to the floor, bruising her 
elbows on the stone. She tried to call out, but the gag stopped her voice. She 
struggled with her bonds in an attempt to work the loops of rope and fabric 
down over her hands. 


She heard thrashing sounds and the scraping of stone on stone in those 
brief instants between the warbeast's growls and roars; the screaming of its 
victims was almost constant. At least once she heard a crunching she knew to 
be the splintering of bones. Something warm and wet sprayed across her legs 
where they protruded from her disarrayed robe. 


Finally, when the roaring seemed to be almost upon her, the screaming 
faded and died. 


The roaring, too, died in its turn, and she heard a harsh, inhuman 
breathing. Something viscous and unpleasant dripped onto her face. 


She managed to work one hand free, thanking Tema and the other gods for 
giving her such small, delicate hands. Saram had complimented her on them more 
than once. She reached up and pulled away the blindfold, both hopeful and 
afraid. 


Koros looked back at her, its golden eyes gleaming strangely in the 
faint dawning light that filtered into the Aghadite tunnel. She saw, behind 
the beast, that a large part of one wall of the tunnel had been broken away; 
Koros had obviously managed to track her down and come to her rescue, letting 
nothing bar its way. 


That moment of realization seemed to stretch on forever; time distorted 
and slowed, and she felt herself drawn out across an eternity, staring into 
the warbeast's eyes for endless eons. 


This was more frightening than anything the Aghadites could have done to 
her; the three-minute piece of warped and broken time was utterly beyond her 
experience or conjecture, and she was certain, while it was occurring, that 
the universe had come to an end for her, that she was dead or dying. She could 
think of nothing but death that might be so unlike life as she had known it. 


Then, abruptly, time returned to normal. She wrenched the gag from her 
mouth and called, "Koros!" 


The warbeast growled a greeting in reply, and she noticed for the first 
time that it was standing astride a disemboweled corpse, and that the 
substance dripping upon her face was blood from the creature's jaw. 


"Get me out of here!" she cried, still unsure what was happening, but 
eager to be away from the dead and mangled Aghadite, away from the place where 
she had felt reality coming apart around her. 


Koros seemed to understand; it backed up into the opening it had smashed 
through the stone wall of the hiding place, ignoring the ruined corpses it 
trod underfoot as it moved. 


Frima reached down and struggled with the ropes that bound her ankles, 
getting them free after a few moments of tugging. She staggered to her feet, 
pulling at the bindings that still remained, and tottered after the warbeast, 
out onto the Street of the Temples and into the light of dawn. 


She realized for the first time that the rumbling she had heard was 



still continuing, even growing. She had thought it to be caused by some 
Aghadite machine, but now discovered that it was coming from the earth beneath 
her feet, and that the ground was beginning to shake. She didn't like it. 


She was unsure what to do; she did not know where Garth had gone, 
whether he was still in the temple of Death, whether it would be safe to enter 
the temple. She stood for a long moment, glancing about indecisively, trying 
to decide upon a course of action. 


Finally, as she was about to try to coax Koros into hunting down its 
master for her, Garth emerged from the shadows of the temple cave, running 
unsteadily. She let out a glad cry at the sight of him, happy to see him still 
alive, and then noticed that the Sword of Bheleu was gone. She started to say 
something about it, concerned lest it fall into the wrong hands. 


Garth ignored that; he stopped, stared in surprise at the sight of Frima 
alive, saw Koros, and called, "Mount up! Quickly!" 


Confused, Frima obeyed; she had learned not to argue with Garth when he 
gave her direct orders so urgently. She clambered awkwardly onto the 
warbeast's back. 


An instant later the overman leaped up behind her and called a word to 
the beast. Koros growled in response, then bounded forward and set out at full 
speed for the city gate. It seemed unhindered by its recent injuries, or by 
the two crossbow quarrels that still protruded from its shoulder. One had come 
free from the shoulder, and Koros had worked out the one in its paw, leaving 
an oozing wound. 


For a long moment Frima had no time to do anything but hang on, as Koros 
moved at incredible speed through the city's deserted streets. 


The rumbling sound grew and deepened, and she could feel the ground 
shaking whenever the warbeast's paws touched it for more than an instant. The 
air had turned very hot and dry and was full of sound and vibration; black 
dust was rising from the ground and vibrating off the buildings on either 
side. Something terrible was obviously happening, or perhaps was about to 
happen, but she did not know what it was. 


The street in front of them cracked open, and a stone house at one side 
fell inward with a roar; undaunted, the warbeast leaped the crack and bounded 
onward. It seemed untroubled by the trembling of the earth. When it reached 
the open ground of the market, it charged across at a speed that forced Frima 
to close her eyes and gasp for air. 


Then they were out of the city, past the broken gate, and still Koros 
ran, headlong down the slope of ancient black lava. 


Finally, when they had left the stone surface behind and reached the 
end-or the beginning-of the highway that led eastward through the site of 
Weideth, Garth leaned down and signaled to the beast with a blow on its flank. 
It slowed to a limping walk, its head low. Even its huge supply of energy was 
not inexhaustible. Frima struggled up into a sitting position, releasing her 
armhold around its neck, and peered back under Garth's arm. 


A column of thick black smoke was pouring up from Dsarra, from every 
part of the city, as if the black walls were the rim of a vast chimney; an 
orange glow lighted the sky. More smoke and more of the orange light streamed 
from the crater above the city. As Frima watched, she saw one of the temple 
towers sway and then collapse. The rumbling was now a steady roar, but 
comfortingly distant. 


Nobody emerged from the gate. She watched, expecting a fleeing 
multitude, but no one appeared; instead, the walls on either side of the 
ruined gate abruptly tottered and fell inward. Something red and glowing 
poured forth where they had stood, and she realized at last that the volcano 
had awakened and was consuming Dsarra. 


Garth glanced back at the crumbling black city and the lava that was 
devouring it. "So much, then, for the cult of Aghad," he said. 


"Do you think they're all in there?" Frima asked. 


Garth shrugged. "Enough of them are. Their god is dead and their temples 
destroyed; I won't trouble myself about any who may have survived." Without 



the Sword of Bheleu driving him on, he was no longer obsessed with the cult's 
destruction to the last man. He had his revenge. 


Frima looked up at the overman's leathery, noseless face, then back at 
her vanishing birthplace. She did not understand what Garth meant about the 
god; gods did not die, she told herself. 


Still, she, too, felt that she had had her fill of vengeance. She was 
ready to begin finding herself a new life. She suspected, as well, that she 
might be carrying more than her own life; she was beginning to notice other 
indications, in addition to her bouts of nausea, that she might be pregnant. 
The prospect delighted her. She turned away from Dsarra and looked eastward 
toward the rising sun. 



