Part 35 (1/2)
Everything here had been a trap set by the One.
By Josia.
Avaldamon could not think. He tried so hard to order his thoughts, but such was his state of shock -- at what was happening before his very eyes and at the realisation of who Josia now was -- that his thoughts felt as though they'd been buried in deep thick sludge -- A movement to his right caught his eyes.
Serge and Doyle, drawing their swords.
”No!” Avaldamon managed. ”No.”
Thank the G.o.ds, his mouth and thoughts finally seemed to be working again.
”We have to --” Doyle began.
”No,” Avaldamon said yet again. ”Touch that tower and you both die. Leave it to me. I am a Persimius and I was trained in the Twisted Tower. I know what to do. The thing is .”
He turned to look directly at Serge and Doyle. ”The thing is, it will kill me, but at least in the doing I can stop this nightmare and hopefully free Ishbel and Maximilian.”
He stopped, expecting to have to field protests from both men.
Neither of them spoke. They just looked at him expectantly.
Avaldamon repressed a sigh. They were former a.s.sa.s.sins, after all. What was the value of human life to them?
”I will die,” Avaldamon said, ”but I hope that Ishbel or Maxel, pray to the G.o.ds both of them, will live. Serge, Doyle, if they don't, then you need to do something very, very important for me.”
”Name it,” Serge said.
”Get to Elcho Falling as fast as you can and tell whoever commands that citadel that Josia is now the One. The One has inhabited Josia. Do you understand?”
”It is a simple enough concept to grasp, Avaldamon,” Serge snapped. ”Josia -- the One -- set this trap?”
Avaldamon nodded.
”Then go aid Ishbel and Maximilian,” said Serge, ”and Doyle and I shall say prayers each day hereafter for the peace of your soul.”
Avaldamon grinned slightly. ”I have died before, my friends. This won't be as bad as the giant river lizard. And I have been to the Otherworld before, and I know who waits for me there. My royal Princess, my wife. I have little to lose in this action, my friends, and much to gain.”
He gave a nod at the two men, then Avaldamon turned and ran for Hairekeep.
”Maxel, what can we do?” Ishbel managed between gasps as Maximilian hauled her up one more flight of stairs. They could no longer afford to stop and rest -- the bones were cascading upward as fast as they could run.
Soon, Maximilian feared, they'd not be able to outrun them any more.
”I don't know,” he said, and pulled her onward.
Avaldamon ran to within ninety paces of the parody of the Twisted Tower, then stopped. He steadied his breathing, took another ten or fifteen paces toward the tower. Stopped again.
He rubbed sweaty palms down his clothes. He was nervous, not at the thought of death, but because he did not want to get this wrong.
Avaldamon would get one chance only.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and turned his mind, just slightly, enough to put himself into that peculiar mentality that all Persimians cultivated for their dealings with the Twisted Tower.
Then he began to walk toward the tower, very deliberately, with slightly longer than normal strides.
As he walked, Avaldamon counted out each step.
”Now look to the pathway” Maximilian had said to Ishbel when first he took her to the Twisted Tower. ”There are eighty-six steps to reach the door. You always need to take eighty-six steps, and you must learn to count them as you approach. Soon the eighty-six will become second nature”
”Why eighty-six?” Ishbel had said.
”The tower is a thing of order. It is also a thing of immense memory . . . ordered memory. If you approach it in a disordered manner, then that disorder will reverberate throughout the entire tower.”
Avaldamon was now taking increasingly long strides. He was very close to the tower, and as he neared it he shouted out the numbers of the final three steps. ”Seventy-seven! Seventy-eight! Seventy-nine!”
Then he grasped the door handle, turned it, and wrenched the door open.
Something screamed. Avaldamon was not sure if it was himself or if it was something within the tower, but the instant he'd opened the door he had felt the entire fabric of his body starting to wrench apart.
The tower was a thing of order, and he had approached it in a most disordered manner.
About him the entire tower vibrated, at first gently, then so violently that Avaldamon felt his body flail about.
He decided it was himself who was screaming.
He stopped screaming at that very instant his body disintegrated completely.
Maximilian and Ishbel tumbled to the floor of the eighty-first level, losing their footing as the tower began to reverberate.
”What is happening?” Ishbel screamed.
”Disorder,” Maximilian whispered, and his blue eyes suddenly turned emerald as he wrapped his arms about his wife.
Avaldamon sighed, stretched slightly (more than glad to feel his limbs all in good order), then blinked in amazement.
He had come directly into the Otherworld.
He had thought the journey might take him a while, as it had the first time he had died. Then he saw the reason he had come so directly.
Josia was hurrying toward him. Avaldamon felt a moment of fear, then realised this was the real Josia.
”What has happened?” Josia said.
”Well, surely you know what has happened to you,” Avaldamon said wryly.
”Yes, yes, the One ambushed me,” Josia said. ”But Maxel? Ishbel?”