Everything was ready. He and Denser were outside the door to the research room, Denser trying to divine the solution to the trap ward cast over its surface and just a few yards away, the place he'd never thought to see again but now knew he would. The Soul Tank.
'Hurry, Denser,' he said. 'This is unbearable. They are closing. Please, I don't want more to die.'
'It's complex, Unknown,' whispered Denser. ‘Ican't see the solution.'
'Dammit, I don't have the time,' growled The Unknown. He stepped across to the map room and beckoned Auum out. 'Rebraal!' he hissed. The Al-Arynaar elf ran back up the passage. 'Are they closing?'
Rebraal nodded. 'On us any time. Our mage is ready.'
'Good. We're getting nowhere fast here. I need that door opened and the trap triggered. Is he fast enough? Denser says flesh contact will trigger it.'
'I'll see to it.'
The conversation was short. Auum sized up the door, handed his boots to Rebraal and sprinted away about twenty yards.
'Denser, move. Can't be waiting for you.'
The Unknown motioned anyone in the potential target area aside. Denser saw Auum coming, muttered under his breath and stepped smartly aside. The TaiGethen leader came up the corridor at a pace The Unknown could never have matched, his legs a blur. By the research room door, he stepped around side on, snapped into a cartwheel and lashed out a foot as he travelled, connecting solidly with the heavy bound wood.
He was past it as the ward triggered. A rectangle of flame seared out from the door, scorching the wall opposite and billowing heat along the passage.
'Gods burning!' The Unknown put his hands in front of his face for a moment then dragged out his sword and marched to the door. 'Unlocked? Good.'
He twisted the ring handle and kicked the door in, striding through in the same movement and running around the long table that dominated the floor space. Two mages had spun round from the blackboard they'd been sketching on, jaws slack.
'Which one of you bastards is Kestys?' demanded The Unknown bearing down on them.
One pointed to his comrade who, bravely enough, pointed to himself.
'Lucky for you,' spat The Raven man.
He grabbed the other and rammed his sword through his gut, the blade rasping on his backbone, and let the body drop to the floor, blood gushing over his boots. The dripping blade was against Kestys's throat in the next instant.
'Do exactly what I say, exactly when I say it, and Denser might just persuade me to leave you alive.'
'Who-?'
'Just pray you can do what we think you can or they'll be mopping you up too.'
'Unknown!' called Hirad. 'We've got company.'
The Unknown Warrior smiled at Kestys unpleasantly, saw the drops of urine puddling around his shoes and grabbed his collar.
'The sand timer has started so I hope you're really good. Because you've got even less time than we have.'
Chapter 22
The thud of spells pressuring the Al-Arynaar ForceCone protecting the open end of the corridor could be heard, heavy, regular and with an air of inevitability.
‘Ineed another mage here now!' yelled Hirad. 'Rebraal, get one of them, Sian can't hold this on her own.'
A shout in elvish and the sound of feet slapping past but The Unknown could.barely lift an eyebrow to care. Here it was. In a plain room, hung with darkest blue hangings. No pattern lifted the sombre atmosphere, nothing but the gende blue light offered any life at all. The chamber was no more than a cell, fifteen feet on each side with a waist-high stone dais in the centre. And on top of the dais sat a carved stone block only the height of his dagger and twice as long. So physically diminutive but the ancient Xeteskian language and screaming faces carved on its flat surface told the knowledgeable everything about that which it contained.
It was the Soul Tank. It had no lid and the hollow inside was governed by the demons. Their deal with Xetesk meant that they linked each soul to its host Protector body; and in return for the control they exerted in the name of Xetesk, they leached life energy from the souls at their mercy. For The Unknown, it oozed power and evil. It was a prison with no windows and no air. One in which the essence of so many Xeteskian men had been trapped from puberty to death and one from which only he had escaped alive.
Until tonight. The Unknown laid his hands on its surface. He could hear the voices so loud now. In concert while they organised themselves around the tasks their masters had set and unsettled because they knew where The Raven were. And he was sure they could sense a change. The Unknown would see to it that change was effected or he would die in the attempt.
He turned to Kestys. The mage, with a dagger held to his throat by Denser, was quite white. He shivered and looked with wide, terrified eyes at the big warrior.
'You know who I am,' said The Unknown.
Kestys managed a nod. 'You are Sol.'
'So you know what I want.'
Kestys dragged in a tremulous breath and swallowed hard. ‘Ican't do that. Please. Don't ask that.'
Denser slammed the hapless mage back against a wall, ruffling the blue cloth hanging. 'You will, Kestys. This abomination must end and it must end now.'
‘Ican't-'
'You can!' snapped Denser. 'Think I am without sense? I saw what was in that room. I know you can realign the dimensions and I know you have solved the script for undoing the Protector deal with the demons. I've been to Herendeneth, Kestys. I understand the depth of the knowledge they will have passed to you.'
'It's not that easy,' protested Kestys.
The Unknown slapped the top of the Soul Tank. He pushed Denser aside and put a hand round Kestys's throat. ‘Idon't have the time to debate this. I expect Denser can work it out. But I don't want to risk that just in case my friends out there can't hold on against your bastard master for long enough. And let me assure you, if he does break through, you will die before I do.' He ignored the choking sounds the mage was making, instead gripping a little harder, lifting him from the ground. 'I can hear them in my head right now. All of them, don't you understand?' He pointed behind him at the Soul Tank. ‘Ifeel them. I feel their pain and I know their desire to be free. But I can't tell them I know because they can't hear me. But you, Kestys, you will free them. You will allow them to take off those masks and live as men, not slaves.
'Don't miss this chance to do one thing of worth in your pathetic life. Because, believe me, if you don't there will be no other chance to do anything. Your choice. Give my brothers their lives or drown in your own blood.
'Which is it to be?'
*
Auum and Thraun had gone to stand behind the ForceCone, ready in case it should fail, leaving Erienne alone in the map room. She was trying to drag her thoughts together such that she could be of some use in the fight if it came to it. But it was so hard. She felt an axe poised behind her neck. Gods, she could feel its edge, hard and true.
And the One entity fed off her fear. She could feel that too. The mental mass that she tried so hard to repress was working so hard against her and Myriell. Trying to overwhelm her and release itself. She realised that in some fundamental respects, she didn't understand the One entity at all. That it could destroy its host so deliberately and surely wither itself. She had to remind herself again that it was not sentient.
She shook her head but the conflict wouldn't fade. Outside, she could hear Hirad exhorting the elven mages to more effort to keep back the barrage, of the Xeteskian mages. Through the mana spectrum she could sense the weight of the battering they were taking. She and Denser needed to be there to help them but she couldn't summon up a candle flame to save her life right now. And Denser was with The Unknown. She could hear them both shouting. Gods drowning, everything was falling apart.