"We don't have much time," I said, clutching my throbbing arm and easing my aching body upward, bracing myself on the fallen slab. "We've got to get him out of this before the wound heals. Whatever she's done to him makes the things in his head come alive. He tried to save me from getting hurt by them, but it wasn't easy and not always successful, and he may not be able to protect us any longer. It's why he's been trying to frighten everyone away. Don't you see?"
Paulo shook his head. I didn't envy him his dilemma.
"Trust me, Paulo. I'm telling you that he's doing exactly what you say he's done before. He's trying to save us. Trying to save everyone by creating that illusion of terror out on the plains to keep them away from here. No matter the cost to himself. These things inside the fortress are walking out of his nightmares alive, and he can't control them."
"I won't leave him here."
Feeling a momentary reprieve, I pressed my advantage and moved in for a closer look. "We've got to break away the shellstone where it holds him in—and undo the straps. That's the trickiest, as that's where D'Sanya's enchantment will be held. And we'll have to time it just right. Once he's free of the enchantment, if the knife wound isn't healed yet, he'll bleed to death, but if it heals before we've got him away, his visions will start coming alive again, and we'll get skewered by some Zhid."
"Shit."
"I couldn't think of any other way to make him stop. He has no control of it."
Paulo closed his eyes and tugged at a clump of his sandy hair, as if to focus his thoughts. "I've got linen bandages in my pack."
"Good. You can bash away the shellstone while I look at the bolts. But first"—I really hated to ask him— "you've got to tie up my arm, or I'm going to pass out and be no help at all."
He did it, and gently enough, considering the circumstances. Fortunately he appeared to be uninjured. From the blood decorating his shirt and breeches, I didn't have to ask about the other fellow.
"What about that?" he said, pointing to the spinning ring. "If I was to stand on the table, I could grab it . . . stop it maybe . . ."
"No! Don't touch it. Don't even look at it. I once saw a slave touch one of the rings back in the Lords' house, and it withered his hand. We don't have power enough to deal with it. We just have to get him away from it."
To my relief, what I'd seen as bolts through Gerick's hands and feet were, in fact, long spikes attached to the metal straps, like those I'd seen in D'Sanya's lectorium. Barbed, I remembered, thus wicked enough. Only the straps were bolted to the rock. If we could get them loose, then the spikes could be eased out of his flesh. With luck, there would be no damage to his bones. With luck, we could stop the bleeding. With luck, removing the straps and the shellstone and getting him away from the oculus would leave him free of enchantment. With luck. I had never considered myself a particularly lucky person.
Warning Paulo to stay back, I touched one of the metal straps with my finger. The gut-wrenching slap of power convinced me instantly that we needed a tool with which to get them loose. D'Sanya's enchantments were far beyond me. Setting Paulo to chipping at the thin layers of shellstone with a fist-sized rock, I cast my hand-light again and explored the adjoining rooms.
Several of the rooms had collapsed walls and were completely filled with rubble. One was littered with piles of old bones. I spoke words of peace sending and apologized for having no incense, then left quickly.
A skull sat in a niche above the doorway of the innermost chamber. The lintel was cracked and the doorway skewed to one side, the heavy wooden door hanging by one hinge, but the room itself was intact. I had never been inside the Vault of the Skull when I lived in Zhev'Na, only heard tales of cruel and restless spirits who inhabited it. But someone more substantial than a ghost had been here . . . and fairly recently, too. A torch in a wall bracket still smelled of oil. I whispered the spell to set it aflame, then let my handlight die. I'd best hoard power for the spikes.
The chamber was a Metalwright's workroom, containing tools and materials similar to those I'd seen in D'Sanya's lectorium. I dared not touch the shaped scraps on the worktable, but in one corner lay neat stacks of metal bars of all lengths and sizes. They looked fairly innocent. I grabbed a long flat bar of black steel and a few of the tools and stuffed them under my arm. Grabbing the torch from the bracket, I then hurried back to the larger chamber.
Paulo had created a mountain of stone chips. His face was coated with chalky dust. In a few places the sweat held enough of the shellstone dust that a thin white glaze had formed, like the skim of ice on a still pond. He wiped his face with his upper arm. "He's bleeding again," he said as I came in, "but the knife wound has started to close. As you said."
"Good. I knew she wouldn't want him to die. As long as he doesn't heal too fast . . ."
I found a bracket for the torch on a nearby column, gave Paulo the steel bar, and warned him again not to touch the metal straps with his hands. "When you get the straps loose from the rock, I'll get the spikes off him." He nodded and set to work, levering the black bar under one wrist strap and prying with all his strength, his shoulders bulging. I took up his rock and carefully chipped away the brittle stone that had molded the young Lord's cheekbones.
After a seemingly interminable time, the bolts holding the strap to the rock finally gave way.
Paulo wiped the sweat from his face and moved to the other side. I took D'Sanya's pincers and sharp little trimming knife and, swearing at the uselessness of left hands, awkwardly removed the barbed spike from Gerick's cold flesh. Foul-smelling black fluid gushed from the wound in his palm, and only when it ran healthy red again did I bind his hand tightly with a strip of linen.
It seemed to take us an eternity to free his wrists, head, and right ankle. The torchlight was wavering. Paulo was straining at the last strap, his body shaking with the effort, and I was trying to stanch the flow of blood from Gerick's right foot, when my vision blurred and a musty scent enveloped us.
"Hurry," I said. A quick check of the knife wound revealed only an angry, seeping scar on Gerick's chest. With a furious growl, Paulo pressed again, and I tied off the ankle wound.
"This way! They've trespassed the fortress!" The shouts filtered down the stair. Boots trampled overhead.
"Ignore whatever you hear and see," I said. "You've got to keep working even if you can't see the strap."
Footsteps on the stair. "I'll sup on their entrails!"
The strap snapped loose. We were out of time. Reality was flickering before my eyes and I didn't know how long Gerick could hold back his lethal visions. Without skill or delicacy I slit the flesh around the spike and ripped the vile implement from his left foot. Paulo tied off the wound without waiting for the poisonous flow to end.
"We've got to get him away from here," I whispered. "Away from that." The ring still spun its evil magic overhead.
"Lead the way," said Paulo. "He won't die in this place at the least."
As Paulo hefted his friend into his arms and then over his shoulder, the torch guttered and died. The faint gleam of the oculus danced on the shellstone rubble, but on nothing else.
Stale, fetid air … a whispering evil that crept around
us, moaning, sighing . . . Entombed with madness . . . danger . . . You are our instrument. . . Destroyer . . .
As panic threatened to choke off the wail rising in my throat, one small part of my mind continued to function. Where is the door ? I felt my way forward, waving my uninjured arm ahead of me . . . holy Vasrin, how did Aimee manage this every day of her life? Ten paces … fifteen . . . how large was this chamber? Think . I crashed into the stone door frame, almost knocking myself senseless.