Part 39 (1/2)

”We have to --” he began again, taking her head in his hands.

”I know,” she muttered. ”Do it now, Maxel!”

Serge and Doyle had sprung to their feet. They didn't know the specifics of what was happening, but they reacted instinctively to Maximilian's obvious fear and urgency by unsheathing their swords.

”Shetzah!” Doyle cried, turning in a tight circle.

They had walked far from that ring of disintegrating bodies around Hairekeep, but now, as Serge and Doyle watched in horror, those dismembered bits of bodies -- in a state of ghastly putrefaction -- began bursting from the earth all about them. The body parts writhed on the surface of the ground for several heartbeats then, to the guardsmen's horror, the bodies began to rea.s.semble themselves.

Already the lower half of a man's torso was staggering toward Maximilian's camp, its arms, shoulders and chest scrabbling furiously after it before they caught up and the arms began hauling the chest and shoulders up their companion legs.

Behind it, thousands of bodies were, in fits and starts, sorting themselves out for an attack on Maximilian.

A black mist rose over the entire field of the rea.s.sembling dead.

The One's power.

Doyle glanced at Ishbel and Maximilian.

They were standing close, holding each other's heads in their hands and apparently unaware of the rising death about them.

Eleanon was sitting on a stool in the middle of the Lealfast camp, shaving his chin, when he felt the influence and power of the One surge into the land.

His hand halted, then dropped the razor as Eleanon rose, looking frantically about.

By the stars, what was happening! Was he under attack from the One?

All he could feel was death rising in a great tidal surge about him.

Eleanon began to panic.

They took a long moment to reorientate and concentrate, to shut out what was happening about them, to forget, as much as they were able, the sense that the One's power roared toward them.

They had to forget, somehow, that they were within moments of death and concentrate only on each other.

”Do you feel?” Maximilian murmured.

”Yes,” Ishbel whispered, and then they slid fingers of power into each other's mind, and gently twisted.

”I don't like these odds,” Serge muttered, standing shoulder to shoulder with Doyle, facing the advancing horde of half-reconst.i.tuted bodies lurching toward them. They were within fifteen or sixteen paces and both men could hear the peculiar squelchy sound of the bodies' movements.

Very few of them had found their heads.

”You don't say,” Doyle said, squaring his legs as he adjusted his balance.

To one side, the rat scrambled over to where Ishbel had left the Book of the Soulenai, and tucked its front paws inside the front cover of the book.

The first of the bodies reached the campsite, and Serge and Doyle stepped forward, fighting with the skills of former a.s.sa.s.sins and current Emerald Guardsmen.

Their swords flashed in the firelight, slicing through bodies on both forward and backward swings.

Bodies, dismembered, fell to the ground and began once more to rea.s.semble themselves, their movements frantic.

More and more of the dead lurched into the camp, and Serge and Doyle began to sweat, then, horrifically, Doyle slipped in a pool of rotten blood and fell over, one shoulder and arm slamming into the fire and sending up a shower of sparks and flames.

Now, Maximilian said, and something simultaneously clicked in both of their minds.

Emptiness, where once had rested the knowledge to walk the paths to the Twisted Tower.

For the first time in thousands of years, there was no Persimius left alive who could remember the pathways to the Twisted Tower.

For the first time in thousands of years, there was no connection left between the Twisted Tower and this world.

All the bodies shambling toward the camp suddenly stopped, then fell apart.

Serge stared for one single heartbeat, then he spun around and helped Doyle roll away from the fire, and to beat back the flames that licked at his jerkin.

No! the One screamed as he realised what had just happened, what they had done. He still stood at the open doorway of the Twisted Tower, staring down the path.

But now, instead of looking at Maximilian and Ishbel's camp, he looked into a featureless void.

No.

Untethered, the Twisted Tower gently spun away into eternity.

Eleanon had just been about to scream for the Lealfast to rise into the air and to escape, escape the One's wrath, when he froze on the spot, his mind trying to grasp what had just happened. First, the One's full power surging into this world from the Twisted Tower, raging at . . . someone.

Then, nothing. It stopped, like a gus.h.i.+ng faucet dammed in an instant.

There was no sense of the One.

Eleanon's mouth opened, then closed, his mind churning. How . . . what . . . had Maximilian somehow cut off the Twisted Tower? It was the only thing that made sense.

Eleanon stood there, all his senses scrying.

The One was gone.

Truly gone. Not relocated, not dismembered, not hiding.

Gone.

Completely.

But . . . and again his senses scried forth . . . Eleanon's ability to touch Infinity had not been affected. It still throbbed through him, nowhere near the same power as that the One had commanded, but still there.

Coming through the Dark Spire.