Rodler extended his own hand, and the two men settled their differences without another word.
They climbed staircases and crossed hallways, Gilmour mouthing incantations at every new junction to get through the restricted access, until they reached a short spiral of five or six stairs that ended at a heavy wooden door. Whispering a command, he pressed it open.
Steven felt a cold rush of wintry air swirl across the darkened landing: the door led to an exposed causeway of sorts, only a few paces wide, that ran from the top floor of the keep to the middle of the north tower.
‘It’s not far now, my friends,’ Gilmour said as he stepped out into the late-day sun. ‘The spell chamber is up there.’ He pointed towards the upper room. ‘That was where Nerak did the greatest damage.’
‘Let’s just get up there and grab that scroll,’ Mark said. ‘We’ll haul the table out and hide it in one of those university buildings, or maybe at the bottom of the gorge, down in the village.’
They crossed the bridge and stepped inside the tower, taking a moment to allow their vision to readjust to torchlight, then pressed on towards the scroll library, quickly and silently.
No one appeared to have noticed the storm blowing in from the west.
On the uppermost landing, Gilmour knelt beside a body he identified as Harren Bonn. He had ordered him to guard the spell chamber door, knowing it was a death sentence; Harren had realised it also. While Pikan’s remains had been recognisable as human, Harren was a jumble of cracked and shattered bits of bone in an untidy pile on the floor. Gilmour didn’t care to let himself imagine what the dark prince had done to the novice Senator.
Joining him on the landing, Rodler asked, ‘Is this someone else you knew?’ He had casually accepted Gilmour as – somehow – a Larion Senator, one who had survived the past five generations and was returning to Sandcliff Palace for the first time.
Two thousand Twinmoons of accumulated wisdom and experience couldn’t compete with feelings of guilt, sadness and regret. ‘This should have been me as well.’
‘Like the woman in your room?’
‘Yes, like her.’ Gilmour drew a sleeve across his face. They had all come too far for him to collapse, blubbering, beside what was left of a farmer’s son he had sent to his death. He couldn’t allow his guilt to debilitate him now, not this close to the end. If he died in the spell chamber, battling Nerak for control of the Fold, then so be it. Harren, Pikan and scores of his friends and colleagues had died doing their duty to Eldarn; he would do the same.
Gilmour rested one hand gently on the largest identifiable piece of Harren’s skull. ‘We’re done, my boy. It’s been a long time, but we’re done.’ He stood, ushered Rodler gently out of the way, and kicked what was left of the spell chamber door, which fell from its final hinge with a dusty, resounding crash.
As he stepped across the threshold, Gilmour felt a renewed sense of purpose, and confident determination – despite his recent failings – that he would see this through to its end. He stood for a moment in the spell chamber, taking in the small room, before his knees gave way and he collapsed unconscious to the floor.
The Larion spell table was gone.
‘Holy shit!’ Steven cried, ‘Gilmour!’ He knelt by the old man’s side.
‘What happened?’ Garec asked, joining them on the floor.
‘Look,’ Steven said, gesturing into the empty room.
‘I don’t understand,’ Garec said.
‘This is it. This is the spell chamber, and there’s no spell table.’ Steven slapped Gilmour gently, trying to startle him awake, but he remained unconscious.
‘Oh rutters, no, this is one of your hideous jokes. Isn’t it-?’ Garec stood in the centre of the small room and turned a full circle, somehow expecting to see the stone table tucked away in a corner, or maybe artfully camouflaged with some clever cloaking spell. ‘Gods, please tell me we did not come all this way for nothing.’
‘I’m afraid we did,’ Steven said, glancing up at Mark, who simply shook his head.
The laughter began as a hollow rhythmic vibration, barely audible above their voices. It was joined by a clattering sound, like marbles dropped down a stairwell.
‘Hahahaha!’ The amused chuckle was insidious, terrible. ‘What a creative spell that was, Steven. I am impressed. I assume it was you; I would have known if Fantus had been cloaking your little party all this time.’ It was Nerak, though Steven couldn’t see him. His voice felt as though it was coming from everywhere at once. Then the clatter came again, louder this time, and Steven turned towards the door.
The hundreds of shattered bits of Harren’s broken body, enshrouded in a tattered robe, began to pull themselves back together. Scraping and clattering against the cold stone of the north tower stairwell, the long-dead Larion Senator rose awkwardly to his feet, his ribs misplaced, one shoulder dislocated, and his skull askew above his spine.
Shuffling into the spell chamber, the pieced-together skeleton focused its vacant gaze on Steven. ‘Did you really think I would just have left it here? You are fools for following him. Look at him, Steven. He’s finished, beaten, and he knows it. Give me the key now, and I’ll let you go home. Give me the key now, and I’ll let Hannah go home as well.’
Steven stood, the hickory staff alive in his hands. ‘How did you enjoy Traver’s Notch, Nerak?’ he said quietly. Not expecting that one, were you? Did it hurt?’
The dark prince ignored him. ‘Right now, she and her friends are moving north towards Welstar Palace, my palace. Can you believe that? She hopes to find you and go home. Would you like that? Give me the key, and you can go.’ Harren extended a bony hand.
Steven’s stomach turned at the thought of giving in. Not today, Nerak,’ he said as he nudged Gilmour with the toe of his boot. ‘Gilmour, wake up. Wake up now.’ When the old man still didn’t stir, Steven tapped him in the ribs with the hickory staff, sending a bolt of lighting juddering through his body and shocking him back to consciousness.
‘Rutting whores!’ the old man shouted. ‘What was that?’
‘Get up, Gilmour,’ Steven hissed, ‘on your feet, now!’
Harren’s empty eye sockets glowed amber for a moment, then faded to black. ‘Hello Fantus, so good to see you again,’ Nerak said through his skeletal mouthpiece. ‘I am so very glad you came all this way for nothing. Was it a hard journey?’ Harren’s jawbone hung open as the dark prince laughed. ‘It’s been gone for a long, long time, Fantus, and you’ll never find it. Eldarn itself wards the spell table for me, Eldarn and Eldarn’s most ruthless gatekeepers. Forget the spell table, Fantus. It’s mine. It has always been mine.’
Gilmour’s gaze fell to the floor; he couldn’t summon the courage to look at Harren’s ruined body, now Nerak’s prisoner.
Nerak was enjoying the moment immensely. He turned on Mark Jenkins. ‘And you, my prince, you have everything figured out yet? If you believe you do, you’re wrong. Keep at it, though, because our day is coming.’
Grimacing, Mark stepped towards the skeleton, his battle-axe drawn and raised to strike. ‘Stop calling me that.’
‘My prince? Oh, that? Enjoy it while you can. I have a special place for you in the Fold. It’s dark in there, Mark. I hope you’re not afraid of the dark.’
With a cry, Mark attacked the skeleton, hacking away one arm. Nerak grabbed him by the throat with Harren’s remaining hand; its grip was impossibly strong, and Mark tugged hard at one bony finger until it snapped.
His friends were still frozen in shock, but finally Rodler moved, swinging his fist like a cudgel to break through the bones of Harren’ forearm. As they snapped, Nerak’s vice-like grip was released and the remaining fingers fell away. They disintegrated to dust when Mark, in disgust, cast them against the chamber wall.
Armless, Harren turned back to Steven. ‘Give me the key, and you can go home, you and Hannah. I regret that I can’t let Mark Jenkins go with you, for he and I have other plans, don’t we, Mark?’