The Tower of Fear (46 page)

But … Vaguely, as though recalling a fading dream, she recaptured tenuous memories from below. Azel hitting the other child. Azel had broken his neck. Ala-eh-din Beyh would not be there now. That vicious soul had traveled on.

It was here for the taking. All she had lived and suffered for. If she kept her wits and conquered her flesh and found the strength to draw forth her beloved’s soul.

She wept a single tear, though. Never again would her man be the man she had known. The body was still down below. That Herodian sorceress, that bitch from the same kennel as Ala-eh-din Beyh, would have wasted no time destroying it.

She looked at the boy and laughed madly, picturing herself mothering the new young Nakar. Then she turned to the things Azel had brought up. What she needed would be there. Azel always did whatever had to be done.

She was slow, so slow, but soon she was ready, soon she was reaching into the darkness, calling her love.

*   *   *

Arif was lost in a nightmare. He could not wake up. He was terrified but not as much now as he had been. This was so unreal he could not believe it completely. He seemed to hear his mother reassuring him, “It’s only a dream, Arif. It’s only a dream.”

Something alien was there in the darkness with him, frightened and wary, too, but big and dangerous and patient, like a giant, poisonous toad waiting in the dark for prey. That thing moved seldom. So far he had fought it off each time it had. He had begun to gain confidence there.

Then the voice came, remote at first, a woman calling. “Mother?” The voice called, compelling and reassuring. He seemed to turn toward it and move that way. The voice grew louder. He moved eagerly—till he recognized it as the voice of the beautiful, evil woman who stole children.

He tried to stop moving toward the light, could not.

The thing in the darkness shifted, turned its invisible eye upon him. He felt its amusement, its iron, wicked intent.

He tried to scream.

That thing swam up toward the light, gaining fast.

*   *   *

Instinct made Yoseh flail out. He was not conscious enough to think. One hand dragged over several rungs. He felt fingernails rip and break. He got a solid hold. His arm wrenched violently. He screamed.

He grabbed with his other hand before the first gave way. He stopped his plunge. He clung there shaking and whimpering with pain, afraid to move.

The child-taker had not been dead. Had not been sleeping. Now the man would take steps.

He had to get word to Nogah and Mo’atabar and the Herodian sorceress
now.
But he could not move. His muscles had locked, refused to let him. His fear of falling would not respond to his will.

He could not yell again, either. His tight, dry throat would let him do nothing but croak.

Tears flowed. A coward. He had feared he was, always. And now, when all depended upon him acting, he could not. He burned, thinking of the shame upon his father.

23

Aaron had himself under control now. Outwardly he portrayed quiet calmness. But could it last? His mind was a hornet’s nest of terrible thoughts and fears.

The hidden room was crowded beyond enduring. They were packed in there belly-to-back, shoulder-to-shoulder, breathing into one another’s faces, smelling one another’s fear. The sorceress had not been able to prevent the Living from breaching the temple wall. She had had to spend too much attention on Zouki. Aaron could hear the Qushmarrahan rebels cursing outside the wardrobe. The wardrobe that would hide nothing if opened because Medjhah had demolished the concealed opening.

There was no sound in the little room. Most of them were holding their breaths. Only the sorceress was doing anything. Something to shield them, to hide them, to baffle the Living, he prayed.

He called upon Aram’s love and mercy repeatedly, silently, in his heart.

In time Kosuth and Medjhah returned from their quests. In whispers they delivered negative reports. The bolt-hole in the floor just led down and down to water. The other ran to a hidden exit inside the guardroom behind the postern—inside the brick wall Fa’tad had installed.

“Even so,” Mo’atabar murmured. “Even so.” He began indicating men. “Crawl in there. Hide. It’s too crowded in here.”

Despite the maddening crowding no one wanted to go into the crawlway. Aaron thought only a second and knew he would fight if they tried to send him. He could not endure the closeness.

How much worse for these men, reared in the wide expanses of the mountains and Takes, beneath sprawling desert skies?

Something landed at the bottom of the third bolt-hole,
plop!
Aaron was right beside that, pressed up against Nogah and Medjhah, more pressured now that the latter had returned. He recognized the object immediately. He retained barely enough caution to confine himself to a whisper. “That’s Arif’s shoe.” It was so wet it had splattered water.

Medjhah said, “It must have come from outside. Up there. In the rain. Yoseh must have … They must be on top of the tower. We must be right under it here.”

Mo’atabar forced his way through the press. Aaron watched his passage spark unreasoning rage in the eyes of the Dartars he brushed. Those men barely controlled themselves.

As Mo’atabar arrived a second object fell down the shaft, hit,
ping!
metallically. Nogah squeaked, “That’s Yoseh’s ring. The one Father gave him.”

Medjhah whispered, “He can’t come down. That has to mean he can’t come down. He wants us to come up.”

Nogah had a counter remark. Mo’atabar scowled. He was suspicious. He wanted to think and talk about it before he did anything.

Aaron could not control himself. His muscles seemed to act of their own accord, compelling him to enter the shaft and start climbing.

Nogah and Medjhah followed immediately. Before Aaron climbed fifty feet he heard Mo’atabar and the sorceress arguing over which should go first.

Soon he ached in every muscle. He was no ape or sailor accustomed to climbing. His body had suffered already. But fear for Arif drove him.

He bumped into someone.
Someone!
A soft whimper came from above. “Yoseh?”

A grunt. An inarticulate sound filled with pain and fear and humiliation.

“It’s Aaron, Yoseh. Are you all right?”

Another whimpering sound. Not a positive sign.

Nogah forced his way up beside Aaron, so that they clung to the unseen rungs side by side, so crowded in the shaft that they might not have fallen had they let go. Nogah whispered to his brother. He could get no sense from the boy. He began making soothing, comforting sounds. Aaron clung to the rungs and wondered how long he could keep that up before his body betrayed him.

After a while Medjhah asked, “What’s the story?”

Nogah replied, “He fell. He caught himself. He got hurt doing it. He’ll be all right. I’m tying him to the rungs till we can lift him out.”

“Going to be a bitch getting past him.”

“Uhm. Where’s Mo’atabar?”

Aaron intuited the import of the question. Mo’atabar was a sizable man. He would not be able to force his way past Yoseh. Whatever waited above, there would be no help from Mo’atabar or anyone below him.

Medjhah said, “Mahdah is behind me, then the sorceress. Then Mo’atabar.”

Mo’atabar growled a question. No one responded to his impatience.

Nogah said, “Yoseh says there’s an iron trapdoor lying flat up there. It’s heavy. It opens on the floor of the parapet. The Witch and the child-taker are up there with Arif. He thought they were out cold or dead but the child-taker surprised him and knocked him back down when he was trying to sneak Arif into the shaft.”

Oh, Aaron thought. Maybe that explained the shoe.

“How about now?”

“Who knows? The child-taker will be waiting, I guess.”

Medjhah grumbled something about Yoseh should have made sure of them up there while he had had the chance. In a strained voice, Nogah said, “There’s no choice now. We have to do it. Let’s go.”

Never in his wildest boyhood fantasies had Aaron pictured himself in anything like this. He never had had the stuff of heroes. Charging up a ladder into the teeth of death, in defiance of doom and the dark old gods … Aram! Send down the flame of love and mercy. He squirmed past Yoseh, who continued to make sounds of pain.

Above, Nogah stopped. “I’m there,” he whispered. “The trap.” Yoseh had not fallen too far, after all. Not more than fifteen feet.

“Now what?”

“Medjhah? You past Yoseh?”

“Almost. As far as I can get.”

“Aaron?” Nogah’s voice broke. The warrior was as frightened as anyone, Aaron realized. He knew just how poor his chances were.

Aaron looked inside himself. He was terrified but he had it under control. Arif was up there, maybe no more than ten feet away. “I can do it.” Despite muscles of water. Despite being unarmed. He could not recall what had become of any of the weapons they had given him during the course of the day.

“Medjhah?”

“Ready.”

“Tell them to get their tails moving down there, as soon as we go. Tell Mo’atabar to carry Yoseh up if he has to.”

Medjhah relayed the message. Nogah said, “Now!” Aaron heard his bones and sinews creak as he pushed up against the iron door.

*   *   *

Azel felt the trapdoor pushing up against him. He couldn’t do a damned thing. Everything he had left, it seemed, he needed just to keep his eyes open.

The Witch was doing it. Somehow, despite the circumstances, she had reached Nakar and was luring him forth. He saw the shadow growing in the brat’s face. Maybe Nakar sensed the passing of Ala-eh-din Beyh. Good thing he’d broken that other brat’s neck.

He managed a warning grunt. The Witch was alert enough to catch it. “A moment longer, Azel. Only a moment more. Don’t let them come.”

Don’t let them come. How the hell was he supposed to stop them? All he was now was dead weight. If they managed enough upward force they would tumble him off and all he could do was lie there and watch them climb out.

The shadow in the kid’s face darkened quickly. The clouds overhead grew more excited. Thunder hammered.

And Azel wondered not about Nakar’s advent but about the exit he needed to make after he had outlived his usefulness. He was in no condition to end the story of the Abomination.

“He’s coming,” the Witch breathed. “He’s almost here. We’re going to do it, Azel. We’re going to do it.”

*   *   *

Aaron slithered up next to Nogah. Chest-to-chest, scarcely able to breathe, they took what room they could and heaved together.

The trap remained stubborn … then gave.

As it began moving Nogah grunted, “First!” and sprang with it, as though the climb and all before it had taken nothing out of his body.

Nogah’s feet were not yet clear when Aaron followed. Nogah threw himself at the child-taker, who had toppled off the trap. And the child-taker took him out.

What kind of man was he, Aaron wondered as the stubby man, on his back, moved jerkily in lightning flashes and sent Nogah plunging headlong into the battlement surrounding the parapet. Nogah went limp.

Aaron nearly gagged doing it, was astounded that he could, but found what it took to kick the child-taker in the head. He whirled on the Witch and his son as Medjhah clambered into sight.

Arif’s eyes were open and watching but that was not Arif looking out. That was something hideous, dark, and evil.

He could not move, looking at that.

Medjhah staggered forward, knife falling toward the Witch. She made a feeble gesture, barely in time. The knife turned to flame in the Dartar’s hand, sizzled through the rain. He screamed, flung it from him, fell forward into the woman, bowling her over. A knife appeared in her hand. She stabbed him once, weakly, before Aaron recovered and kicked again, striking her wrist more by luck than design. Mahdah came up, circled to the side, to put the woman between himself and Aaron.

Aaron looked at Arif again. The darkness within him was growing still but had an unfocused quality, as though the thing surfacing was confused and far from being in control. For an instant, even, it seemed that Arif himself looked out of those eyes, begging help defeating his devil.

The Herodian sorceress rose from the chute.

*   *   *

Fa’tad stepped onto the portico of the Residence. His most senior prisoners accompanied him. Witchfires pranced atop the citadel tower. He recognized the veydeen carpenter. “Finally.”

General Cado observed, “You have done it.”

Fa’tad chuckled. “So it would seem. Fatig, get the carpenter’s family. However it went they should be there for him when he comes down.”

A messenger left immediately.

“Don’t count your chickens.”

Fa’tad turned to Colonel bel-Sidek. “Sir?”

“That’s a witch’s game. Two against one and no one alive can match either of the two.”

Thunder and lightning hammered the night like the crackling bacon of the gods. Clouds spun madly overhead. Rain fell in ever greater torrents.

Fa’tad al-Akla lost his smile.

*   *   *

The Witch had regained her feet. She held the boy before her. His face darkened ever more as the thunder bellowed ever more fiercely. “Too late!” she crowed at the Herodian sorceress. “You’re too late, meddler. You can’t stop it now. I can withstand you all till he comes.” She threw back her head, shrieked into the teeth of the lightning. “He comes!” Let Qushmarrah know. Let all the world know. Nakar was coming. The hour of vengeance was at hand.

In response the Herodian witch knelt beside the ladder well, reached down. Then she rose, helping a child climb onto the parapet.

The other one … But Azel had broken his neck. Hadn’t he?

The Witch almost collapsed in her terror.

*   *   *

Azel cracked an eyelid, considered his surroundings through vision gone fuzzy, listened with hearing gone as feeble as an old man’s. He shut out his pain and fear, examined the situation. As that Herodian bitch brought the other brat onto the parapet.

He was not deceived. Not for an instant. The sorceress had saved the brat by her art but Ala-eh-din Beyh wasn’t in him now. Had he been there the storm would have ripped the tower apart. But the Witch believed, if only for a moment. Believed and surrendered to the doom she saw as her punishment for having failed her husband.