“Now supposing we wanted to get somebody through those gates,” said Weasel.
“Can’t be done. The Guardians spot everybody.”
“What about cart drivers?”
“They are counted in and counted out. All of them are regulars too, known to the guards. You are surely not serious about this.”
“Lady Asea said I should give you this,” said Rik suddenly. He took the gold piece from his pocket. Tomar smiled at the glint of gold but a strange look came over his face when he looked closer at the coin. Rik noticed him running his thumb over the edge where the indentations were. A glance told him that Weasel and the Barbarian had noticed all of this too.
“So the time has come, has it?” said Tomar.
“Yes,” said Rik, although he was not sure what the big man meant.
“This coin pays for all,” he said. “Then all the old debts are settled. Tell her Ladyship that.”
“I will. Now, assuming the Guardians of the Gate can be bypassed, is there any way into the Castle.”
“There’s always a way when you want something smuggled into or out of a place,” said Tomar. “Even the Tower.”
“Glad to hear it,” said Rik.
“There’s a catch,” said Tomar.
“What’s that?”
“Stuff can be smuggled in. Providing it’s not alive.”
“Great,” said Rik sardonically. “Tell me more.”
“Before I do, there is something else I should tell you about Lord Jaderac.”
“What about his high and mightiness?” Weasel asked.
“His servants talk- well they always do, don’t they? I reckon he is planning something against your lot soon. The servants are in fear of their lives and there’s tales of all manner of spooky stuff going on in that mansion.”
“Tell us more…”
“They say he has coffins in there — the eastern type- sarcophaguses they call them. They say he sleeps in one but I reckon that’s just talk, although you can never tell with some of the easterners.”
“What has that to do with the Lady Asea?” Rik asked.
“One of the girls overheard them talking, Jaderac and his bint, and he was saying he had something special in one of his coffins that would deal even with the great Lady Asea. The girl was scared near to death by the way they were talking. She refuses to go back to the house.”
“Just tittle-tattle,” said Weasel.
“Might be,” said Tomar. “I am just telling you what I heard, but Kara is a hill-girl and she does not frighten easily.”
“If you say so,” said Weasel. He looked at Rik. There was a question in his glance. He seemed to be looking to Rik for a cue.
“So shall we talk about how to get into the Tower?” Tomar asked. “I can get you drivers and we have a special cart that’s sometimes used to take stuff in. Impossible to get men in though. The demon always spots them.”
“There may be a way to deal with that.”
“Care to tell me how?”
Rik shook his head. “Tomorrow. We’d best be getting back. I suppose we’ll need to warn her Ladyship about this sorcerer.”
“It might be nothing,” said Tomar.
“It might be everything,” said Rik. “We’d better go.”
Already he felt uneasy, as if something might be waiting for them, outside in the dark.
Chapter Seventeen
“What is it?” Lady Asea asked, seeing his grim expression as Rik entered the chamber. He told her what the gang boss had said about Jaderac’s sorcery. She listened intently and said; “I suppose it’s only to be expected.”
“What do you intend to do about it?”
“There is not a great deal more I can do,” she said. “There are already wards and sentries in place. I have prepared my weapons and armour.” She gestured towards her travelling chests.
He noticed how tired she looked, and also a little hopeless, truth be told. He wondered what was wrong with her. He had never seen her like this before. He asked.
“It is the Tower, Rik,” she said. “It is possessed of a dark magic that oppresses me.”
“You could leave here.”
“And go back to the army?”
“Yes.”
“That would leave Jaderac in possession of the field and in a position to do what he wants unopposed. Besides, I am not without sorcerous resources myself.”
“All this talk of murderous magic unsettles me,” Rik said.
“That is understandable. However there is something else I want you to think about.”
“What would that be?”
She produced a set of maps from within one of her travelling chests. “These are maps of the interior of the Serpent Tower. Can you memorise them?”
Rik had memorised the plans of many mansions when he had been a burglar back in Sorrow. These were more complex than any he had committed to memory back then, but he knew that, if he was to have any chance of survival, he was going to need to learn them.
“I can try,” he said.
She gestured with her hand. “You can begin now.”
He looked at the maps. There were certain areas that indicated doorways, but there was nothing marked on the map beyond them.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“They were sealed ways. Ancient runes marked with Serpent Man Elder Signs blocked the way. It was thought that they could not be opened…”
“Thought?”
“I suspect Ilmarec found the key. It may have something to do with his new found power.”
“But you have no idea what was within?”
“We always suspected something was buried there.”
Rik thought of Uran Ultar and his people lodged deep in the darkness beneath Achenar.
“It’s a strange coincidence that Ilmarec should find the key to that even as the Spider God woke,” said Rik.
“It may be no coincidence.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think we are entering a new age of the world, Rik. I think old powers are stirring.”
“Why now?”
“I would give a lot to know the answer to that myself.”
Tonight was the night, Jaderac thought. The signal had come from his agent in the House of Three Swans. The half-breed youth had returned from the taverns and was in Asea’s chambers. There could be no mistake about that. His agent knew too well the price of failure. Tonight, once and for all, he would rid the Empire of one of its most dangerous enemies, and he would do it with her own weapon: with sorcery. Tonight Lady Asea of the First would die.
It would not be easy. Jaderac knew better than to delude himself about that. The Witch of the West was an even more formidable sorcerer than old Ilmarec and that was saying something. Most of the younger generation thought the First were merely second-rate wizards with first-rate reputations. Jaderac was not one to make that mistake. He knew exactly how competent Asea was. Fortunately she had not realised how far his own studies had come on since their last meeting. He was her equal now, perhaps even her superior- as tonight would prove.
He glanced around the laboratory. Tamara watched him like a cat, lazily but with a concealed, dangerous attention.
“I would not go out tonight if I were you. The streets will be dangerous.”
“You are ready to perform your ritual then.”
“The signal has been given. Tonight Lady Asea will die.”
“You seem very certain of that.”
“I have reason to be.” He gestured at the intricate mass of pipes and necro-mechanical arcanery, part flesh, part glass, part metal. Red blood pumped through the tubing connecting the flaccid still-living bodies to the great sarcophagus. Inside the coffin his creation stirred. He could feel it.
Tamara smiled at him. “You’ve really done it?”
He nodded. “It is ready to emerge from its chrysophagus.”
He untightened the screws that held the metal lid in place and slid it off to reveal the creature within. It looked like a very large man, hairless, grey-skinned. Its face was noseless like a skull. Instead of fingernails, it had talons. When its eyes opened they were a startling bloody red. The thing threw itself forward but the spells and the metal restraints held it — just. It opened its mouth and let out a hiss. Long fangs showed in its mouth. The blood from the kidnapped men continued to pump into its flesh. It seemed to grow larger and stronger as it did so, like a wineskin slowly being filled with fluid.