More scenes danced through Rik’s imagination, all of them views of the inside of the Tower, all of them from strange angles, as if the structure itself had eyes within it and he was looking through them. He saw Ilmarec performing experiments, finally learning how to partially heal the Tower, and communicate with its chained intelligence.
Rik saw recent events start to unfold.
He saw Jaderac come. He saw the Foragers and Asea and Sardec on their recent visit. He saw Kathea trapped in her chambers.
He saw himself as he appeared to the Serpent Man now, as he stood in the tomb. He knew he was seeing himself as the creature saw him. He sensed something else. To the Serpent Man he had a mind that could be barely touched or grappled with. He wondered if the truth was not that he was having difficulty understanding the Serpent Man because he was alien, but that the Serpent Man could barely touch his mind to communicate.
A wave of understanding passed between him and his captor then. It was trying to communicate with him. It needed him. He tried to listen, to receive, to empty his mind although he was not sure exactly what he was doing.
A sense of imminent danger grew within him. As it did so, he saw Ilmarec standing in the central chamber of the Tower performing some ritual. Awareness that the Tower itself was a quasi-living thing with its own senses, capable of perceiving things at hundreds of leagues away, flowed into him.
More images flickered into Rik’s mind along with more strange knowledge. He saw that Ilmarec had awakened something deep in the Tower’s heart, the trapped heart of a god, a thing that generated enough energy to hurtle the Tower into the sky and back through the cold gulf between stars.
He saw too what the Serpent Man knew and Ilmarec did not, or could not. The God’s heart was damaged. If Ilmarec continued to draw on its power, to use it to provide ever higher levels of magical energy, then the heart would break. It would explode and the unleashed energy of a million barrels of gunpowder would scorch the earth beneath it, destroying everything for hundreds of leagues around. Everyone and everything that fell beneath the shadow of the vast rising mushroom cloud would die.
Rik knew now what the Serpent Priest wanted. He wanted Ilmarec stopped and the Talisman of control returned to him. He was willing to offer alliance to Rik and his people, to aid them in getting rid of Ilmarec, and free the Princess.
Rik did not trust this creature. He was not sure he wanted it in charge of the Tower any more than he wanted Ilmarec to be.
More feelings flowed from it, of deep sadness mixed with calculation. The Serpent Man would not interfere in this war. The Tower was crippled. It wanted to repair it and depart to find its brethren among the stars.
Rik was adrift here. He was not Asea or Jaderac. He was in no position to bargain with the Serpent Priest as an equal. It was far older and possessed of far greater knowledge than he. He had only one advantage. If it allowed him to, he could move where it could not. It could do things he could not. He did not even know what it could offer him, other than his life, as its side of the bargain. As if responding to his confusion, it withdrew for a moment considering.
More images flickered into his mind. He saw the location of the Princess Kathea, and the way to get there. He saw the chambers in which Ilmarec waited. He saw all the sorcerous engines and defences and traps that lay between them. He saw how to overcome the old fail-safes. More and more knowledge, and alien thoughts flowed into him. He felt like screaming but within moments it was over, and he slumped forward, all contact broken with the Serpent Man.
He knew what he must do. At that moment, the whole Tower began to shake.
Sardec’s eyes were drawn to the Tower as if by some magnetic force. It seemed like a trapped sun burned there, and Sardec half-expected the green death to come raining down on Morven.
The mansion quivered beneath his feet, like the pre-shock of an earthquake. It was like being trapped in the belly of some great beast as it writhed in its death agonies. A smell of ozone filled the air. In the distance he heard things crashing down. Sardec offered up a prayer to the god of his childhood for his own safety and the safety of the others.
Above him the cliffs split. Great boulders tumbled down into the ruins, and then great chunks of the rock face sheared away and began to fall, taking those smooth glassy walls with it.
Wind rushed against his face, and the smell of ozone intensified. Bolts of magical energy crackled from the tower. Then slowly the Tower of the Serpent rose from the middle of the fortress, tons of earth shedding from its base. The whole bottom of the Tower glowed greenly as it flew upward, gathering speed as it went, the great green light of the Serpent’s Fang blinking oddly.
The Tower had taken flight, faster than any dragon. Awe clutched Sardec’s heart at the sight of the ancient enigmatic structure vanishing into night and storm. He knew now how Ilmarec intended to destroy Azaar’s army. He doubted any power in the world could stop it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The moving walkway carried Rik though the heart of the Serpent Tower. He had an hour at most before the god’s heart at the core of the Tower erupted and destroyed him, the Tower and everything within leagues.
He groaned with desperation. He felt as if he were already dead. He needed to kill Ilmarec and reclaim the Serpent Man’s amulet, return it to the ancient being and hope that somehow it could save him. He did not think the chances of him managing it were good. He let out a long breath, and tried to calm his racing heart.
It was too late to worry now. In his mind’s eye, he pictured the path spiralling upward through the core of the Tower, through the secret levels that no human had ever penetrated before. In his heart the certainty was growing that no human would ever do so again.
The doorway slid outwards as the moving walkway stopped, revealing another corridor without a moving floor. Rik pushed on. This, at least, was something he was used to, being deep within forbidden ground all alone. It echoed his career as a burglar. Only then there had been no powerful demon-summoning sorcerers ahead of him. No lost princesses either.
He clutched his blade in his hand. He had his pistol in the other. He moved carefully, pausing to listen when he came to any entrances, making sure he heard nothing before proceeding passed them. He strode quietly along the corridors. He had been a thief in Sorrow, and often in places where absolute silence was his only protection. Somewhere out there were guardians, Terrarch soldiers, magical defences, and, worst of all, the Nerghul. He needed to hurry but he wanted to take no chances and the two imperatives warred within his soul.
The Tower was eerily quiet. His feet made no noise on the odd stonework, but he felt a strange thrumming vibration beneath them. Almost directly opposite was a window. Looking through it Rik could see the lights of the town, and the smouldering embers of the burned buildings. He seemed very high up now, almost touching the sky. The town spread out below, a glowing pattern of lights, like some Elder sign touched by sorcerous energy. Something about it reminded him of the way the runes had glowed on Sardec’s blade in the tunnels below Deep Achenar.
An awful thought struck him. Morven appeared to be receding below him. He knew now for certain that the Serpent Man has not lied about one thing; the Tower was airborne. Even as he watched, the clouds slid shut below them and obscured the lights of the town. He could see them roiling greenly, hellishly lit by the contrail of the massive structure as it ploughed ever upwards.
His stomach lurched as the tower seemed to tilt sideways. The tug of gravity remained the same, even though his own senses told him he should be tumbling through the air, or at least sliding sideways on the smooth floor. Whatever magic drove the tower through the sky kept gravity on the same plane within it.