The sun was a thin, inverted crescent now against the leaden purple sky. Beneath it, the long tail of the comet hung like an evil, slitted eye. Shadows blurred and faded in the uncertain light, lending a strange flatness to the landscape. Birds that had been singing noisily since dawn gradually faltered to silence except for the occasional puzzled hooting of doves and the rasping croak of a lone raven.
Water surged up the fissures and spilled into the rock basin. Mardus signaled to the guards standing over the prisoners. Ten frightened men were dragged forward, stripped, and tied to the posts. With Irtuk Beshar chanting tonelessly behind him, Mardus drew his dagger and slit their throats in quick succession. They died quickly, these first ones, their blood flowing down to stain the swirling waters of the salt pool.
As the last sliver of sun narrowed to an edge, a raucous clatter suddenly came from all sides.
An immense flock of ravens appeared out of the surrounding gloom, croaking and sawing in a cloud of black wings as they settled on tree and ledge and post top. At the same moment, crabs of every size and color came boiling up out of the water. Sidling up the rocks, they swarmed over the piles of dead animals and the corpses, feeding greedily.
Cries of terror burst out among the remaining prisoners. Tildus barked orders and the torchbearers lit their brands at the brazier. The whole ghastly scene leapt into sharper relief.
No one, not even the dyrmagnos, noticed when the three guards stationed on the northern promontory were jerked back out of sight. Any sound they may have made was lost in the general outcry below.
Carrion eaters. Eaters of the dead, thought Seregil as he, Alec, and Micum shoved the men they'd just killed into the undergrowth behind them. The black stripes across their faces gave them all a deadly, feral look as they belly-crawled back to the edge of the overlook where Nysander was keeping watch.
The moon overtook the last curve of the sun and a hazy corona burst out around it. The black disk hung framed in light, like a baleful, glaring eye.
The burning arc of the plague star, visible now in the darkened sky, glowed just below it.
With every surge of the surf, water foamed into the stone hollow at Irtuk Beshar's feet.
The dead men were cut from the posts and thrown onto the offal pile. Ten women took their places and Mardus' knife flashed again, severing their cries.
Seregil winced. It was agonizing to watch and not act. Beside him, Alec clenched his hands around his bow, eyes wide with horror.
"How can we just lay here and watch them die?" he hissed.
Nysander was on Alec's other side and Seregil saw him close a hand over Alec's. "Think of how many will die if we fail," the wizard reminded him. "Be strong, my boy. Let nothing distract you."
Raising her hands toward the sky, Irtuk Beshar began to chant again, her cracked, dry voice loud above the rush of the sea. More victims were dragged forward to the edge of the pool and beheaded by swordsmen, who then held the bodies so that the blood still pumping from the severed necks fell into the water.
Mardus opened the chest and lifted out the crystal crown. Taking it from him, Beshar held it up to the sky a moment, then cast it into the surging waters of the pool. Next came a plain iron hoop, then the crude clay bowl.
"It is almost time," whispered Nysander.
Seregil gripped Alec's arm. "Shoot true, tali."
Alec pressed a white-fletched arrow to his lips. "I will, tali," he whispered back, blue eyes glinting fiercely under the black paint.
Holding that image in his heart, Seregil hurried away after the others.
Alec gripped the arrow in his fist, feeling the power in it. The sound of the sea now was the sound from his nightmares, but this time the arrow had a head.
Looking down, he saw the dyrmagnos scatter the handful of wooden disks into the water. As the last one sank from sight the face of the pool went still and glassy. The tide still surged and thundered to its edge, but the power of the dyrmagnos kept any more water from flowing into the pool, which was now full. Like a dark mirror, it reflected the black eye of the sun.
The dyrmagnos raised her hands above it and began a new chant. A man was brought forward and thrown down on his back at her feet. Soldiers held him by the hands and feet and Harid Yordun came forward with the black ax.
Alec wanted desperately not to watch as he hacked the man's chest open, but he knew he must not look away for an instant.
Harid cut out the heart and threw it into the water.
Quick, skirling ripples appeared and faded on its glassy surface as if a flock of swallows had darted past. Another heart was thrown in, and the ripples reappeared, more numerous this time.
Alec felt a silent tremor roll through the stone he was lying on. It came again as the ax rose and fell, growing to a steady rhythm like the pounding of a labored heart.
The pool went black; and dull as tar. Tendrils of mist rose from it, and with them came disembodied moans that echoed softly on all sides.
Seregil recognized those ghostly voices, remembered standing over the crown as his blood fell into ice and crystal while they whispered around him.
Crouched with the others now behind a fallen tree near the waterline, he saw shifting, half-formed shapes gathering out of the gloom beyond the torches, mingling restlessly with the vaporous exhalations of the pool. The black water began to swirl as if stirred with a dyer's paddle. The spirit voices grew louder, sighing and shrieking. Wraiths buffeted them, plucking at their clothing and weapons, twitching strands of hair. The air thickened perceptibly, muting what little light remained. Nysander sketched a quick sigil on the air and the wraiths retreated.
Working their way into the woods without being seen by the sentries, they followed the road to the head of the cove.
"Be ready," the wizard whispered. "It is nearly time."
Something slipped coldly across Alec's back beneath his tunic. The weird disturbances in the air were worse now, tenuous but too insistent to be denied.
Spectral forms, half-seen from the corner of the eye, brushed light as cobweb against his face, only to flit out of sight when he tried to look at them directly.
The soldiers' torches flared green and spit off fragments of flame that skittered like rats around the edge of the pool before being sucked up into the column of ghostly mist that was forming over the roiling pool. Up and up it rose, thrusting a twisting grey pillar flecked with tongues of fire into the burnt sky. It stood over the pool for a long moment, spirit forms darting around and through it, then a single blue-white bolt of lightning forked down through its center with an apocalyptic roar, blasting the pool into an explosion, of steam and rock fragments.
Soldiers fell to their knees, covering their faces in terror. The ravens rose in a screaming cloud, adding their raw voices to the din. From the direction of the road came the frenzied screams of the horses tethered there, and the clatter of carts being dragged off as the panicked beasts bolted. The mist slowly rolled back, revealing a shattered, steaming hole where the pool had been.
With a shout of triumph, Irtuk Beshar climbed down into it and retrieved something from the water and rubble.
Straightening again, she raised a helmet in both hands with a screech of sheer triumph.
The bulging, peaked top and nasal of the helm were fashioned of dull iron but it was circled at the brow with a wide circlet of ruddy gold. This band was set around with eight dull blue stones and surmounted by a bristling crown formed from eight twisted black horns. A curtain of black mail hung down from the back of the Helm and skeletal, long-taloned hands served as the cheek guards.
Climbing out, she held it up before Mardus and launched into an invocation of some kind. Although Alec did not understand her language, he recognized two words: «Seriamaius» and "Vatharna."