Part 61 (2/2)

As she opened the door into the transept of the chapel, the cold reached out and grasped at her; a cloud of her steaming breath hung in the air. She paused for a moment and listened before leading her companions out onto the wide chapel floor. Snow had drifted into the comers and against the walls, and pools of water lay everywhere on the stone. Most of the benches were gone; the few tapestries that remained flapped in ragged, moldy strips. It was hard to believe it had once been a place of comfort and refuge.

The storm and the clamor of the struggle outside were also louder here. When she looked up, she learned the reason.

The great dome overhead had been ruptured, the gla.s.s saints and angels all tumbled and shattered into colored dust. Miriamele trembled, awed even after all she had experienced to see a familiar thing so changed. Snowflakes swirled lazily downward, and the storm-darkened sky, touched with the bloodlight of the flaming star, twisted in the broken frame like an angry face.

As they made their way across the front of the apse, past the altar, Miriamele saw that other forces beside impersonal nature had worked desecration here: crude hands had smashed the faces of the holy martyrs' statues, and had smeared others with blood and worse things.

Despite the dangerous footing, they made their way silently across to the far transept. She led them down a slender pa.s.sageway to a door set deeply into the rock. She stooped and listened at the keyhole, but could hear nothing through the echoing din that leaked from above. A strange, painful, p.r.i.c.kling sensation came over her, as though lightning were in the air-but lightning was in the air, she reminded herself.

”Miriamele....” Cadrach sounded frightened.

She ignored him, trying the latch. ”Locked,” she said quietly, then shrugged against the crawling itch, which was worsening. ”And too heavy for us to knock down.”

”Miriamele!” Cadrach pulled at her sleeve. ”Some kind of barrier is being formed. We will be trapped.”

”What do you mean?”

”Can you not sense it pus.h.i.+ng in on us? Feel your skin creep? A barrier is being formed and drawn inward to surround the tower. Pryrates' work-I feel his heedless power.”

She stared at the monk, but there was no sign of anything but unfeigned concern on his face. ”Binabik?” she asked.

”I am thinking he speaks rightly.” He, too, was beginning to twitch. ”We will be squeezed in a most comfortless way.”

”Cadrach, you opened the dwarrows' door. Open this one.”

”This is a simple lock, Lady, not a door-warding spell.”

”But you have been a thief, too!”

He s.h.i.+vered. Wisps of hair were beginning to stand upright on his head, and Miriamele could feel a stirring on her own arms and scalp. ”I have no lockpicks, no tools-it is useless. Perhaps it is just as well. I wager it will be a quick death.”

Binabik hissed in exasperation. ”I am not wanting any death, of quickness or slowness, if it can be escaped.” He stared at the door for a moment, then threw down his pack and began to rummage in it.

Miriamele watched helplessly. The oppressive feeling was growing by the moment. Praying they could find some other way into the tower, she hurried back up the pa.s.sageway, but within a dozen strides the air seemed to become grossly thicker, harder to breathe. A strange humming was in her ears and her skin burned. Unwilling to give up so easily, she took a few more steps; each was more difficult than the last, as though she waded in deepening mud.

”Come back!” Cadrach cried. ”That will do you no good!”

She turned with difficulty and made her way back to the door. ”You were right, there is no going back. But this thing, this barrier, moves so slowly!”

The monk was scratching frenziedly at his arms. ”Such things take a certain time to appear, and the priest has expended much power summoning it. He obviously intends nothing should go in or come out.”

Binabik had found a small leather sack and was rooting in it. ”How do you know it's Pryrates?” Miriamele asked. ”Perhaps it's ... the other.”

Cadrach shook his head mournfully, but there was a hard core of rage beneath. ”I know the red priest's work. G.o.ds! I shall never forget the feeling of his filthy presence in my head, in my thoughts....”

”Miriamele, Cadrach,” the troll said. ”Lift me up.”

They bent and raised him from the floor, then moved at his direction to the side of the door. The air seemed to be tightening around them: the effort to lift tiny Binabik seemed tremendous. The troll climbed until he stood with his feet on their quivering shoulders.

”It's ... hard to ... breathe,” Miriamele panted. Something was buzzing in her ears. Cadrach's mouth hung open and his chest heaved.

”No speaking.” Binabik reached up and poured a handful of something into the door's upper hinge.

Miriamele's ears were hammering now; she felt squeezed, as though held in a huge, crus.h.i.+ng fist. A constellation of sparks spun in the shadows before her.

”Turn away your faces,” Binabik gasped, then took something from his hand and smacked it sharply against the hinge.

A sheet of light filled Miriamele's eyes. The throttling fist became a giant open hand that slapped her away from the door. Despite the force, she fell backward only a little way and retained her feet, buoyed by the unseen but encroaching barrier. Binabik toppled from her shoulders and fell onto the ground between her and Cadrach.

When she could see again, the door lay a-tilt in its frame, half-obscured by drifting smoke.

”Through!” she said, and tugged the troll's arm. He s.n.a.t.c.hed up his pack, then they pushed into the dark s.p.a.ce, stumbling on the tipped door. For a moment Miriamele stuck in the doorway, her pack wedged, her bow snagged on the broken hinge, but she fought free at last. When they had pa.s.sed over into Green Angel Tower's broad antechamber, the pressure was suddenly gone.

”Lucky we are the hinges were outside,” Binabik gasped, fanning the air.

Miriamele stopped and stared. Through the murk she could see a flash of bright red on the tower's staircase. A moment later the smoke had cleared enough that she could clearly see Pryrates' gleaming pink skull. Bodies lay scattered at his feet, and Camaris stood before him in the room's center. The old man was staring at the priest with such hopeless misery that Miriamele felt her heart tear in her breast.

Grinning, Pryrates turned from the old knight and took a step down, swiveling his bottomless black eyes toward the doorway where she stood. The door's destruction seemed to have startled him no more than the fall of a tumbling leaf. Without thinking, Miriamele lifted her bow, straightened the arrow, drew, and fired. She aimed for the widest part of the priest's body, but the shaft flew high. It seemed a miracle when she saw Pryrates stumble backward. When she saw that the arrow stood from his throat, she was too dumbfounded at her own shot even to feel joy. The priest fell and rolled bonelessly down the few remaining steps to the antechamber floor.

”Chukku's Stones!” the troll gasped. ”You have ended him.”

”Uncle Josua!” she shouted. ”Where are you? Camaris! It's a trick! They wanted wanted us to bring the swords!” us to bring the swords!”

I've killed him! The thought was a quiet bloom of exultation deep inside her. The thought was a quiet bloom of exultation deep inside her. I've killed the monster! I've killed the monster!

”The sword must not be going any farther,” cried Binabik.

The old knight took a few lurching steps toward them, but even with Pryrates facedown on the floor, dead or dying, Camaris still seemed in the grip of some terrible power. Of Josua there was no sign; but for the old man, all in the chamber lay motionless.

Before anyone could speak again a bell rang in the tower high above, monstrously loud, lower and deeper than any bell Miriamele had ever heard. The very stones of the wide room shuddered, and she felt its tolling strike into her bones. For an instant the antechamber seemed to melt away, the waterstained tapestries replaced by walls of gleaming white. Lights glittered everywhere, like fireflies. As the cry of the bell faded, the illusion flickered and disappeared.

As Miriamele struggled to regain her wits, a figure rose slowly near the foot of the stairs, grasping at the stone arch for support. It was Josua, his cloak hanging raggedly, his thin s.h.i.+rt torn at the neck.

”Uncle Josua!” Miriamele hastened toward him.

He stared at her, eyes wide and, for a brief moment, uncomprehending. ”You live,” he said at last. ”Thank G.o.d.”

”It's a trick,” she said even as she threw her arms around him. The small return of hope, when the greatest perils still remained, was painful as a knife-wound. ”The false messenger-that was the rhyme about the swords! It was a trick. They wanted wanted the swords here, wanted us to bring them!” the swords here, wanted us to bring them!”

He gently disengaged himself. A trickle of blood showed along his high hairline. ”Who wanted the swords? I do not understand.”

”We were fooled, Prince Josua.” Binabik came forward. ”It has been the planning of Pryrates and the Storm King all along that the swords should be brought here. I am thinking the blades will be used in some great magic.”

”We didn't find Bright-Nail,” Miriamele said urgently. ”Do you have it?”

The prince shook his head. ”The barrow was empty.”

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