Threading his way among the cots in the Great Chamber, Ethram-Fal smiled. The wizards of the Black Ring had belittled him for devoting himself to the magics of plants and growing things. Such arrogance!

They had likened him to a Pictish druid, as if he had anything at all in common with those meek and feeble tree-worshippers. Those ignorant savages feared to so much as disturb the delicate balance of nature, much less to seize it and bend it to their will. Surely the pompous fools of the Black Ring would think differently of him now. He, a wizard whom they had mocked and rejected for his youth and unlikely fields of study, had truly come into his own. The specialized researches that they had disdained had finally led him to the lost palace of the mage Cetriss, creator of the mythical Emerald Lotus. Soon enough the Black Ring would learn that the lotus was no mere myth, but an ancient reality that he, Ethram-Fal, had personally resurrected. How they would marvel at his power! How they would beg to sample it! From the dust of three thousand years, he would breed a vengeance such as the world had never known.

Lost in his drugged reverie, Ethram-Fal moved down another hallway into a vast, unlit chamber. The Stygian started when he realized where he was and hastened his stride. To his left towered a sable shadow, a deeper darkness amid the dark. It was a great crouching statue of black stone, a sphinx-like, hulking G.o.d-thing whose name and nature were unknown to Ethram-Fal. When he had first found the palace and wandered through its deserted halls-the only visitor in many lifetimes-he had found something in this room as disturbing as the black and nameless idol itself. On the stone altar that lay between the proffered talons of the G.o.d was a dusty pile of offal. The tiny, desiccated corpses of dozens of rodents, lizards, scorpions and other even smaller vermin lay in a neat mound before the silent and implacable avatar. Now he hurried through the darkened temple and did not look upon the featureless face of the G.o.d of Cetriss where it loomed in the murk, staring blindly into the darkness as it had ever since the distant days of purple-towered Acheron.

Down a final length of hall and around a corner, the sorcerer came upon his captain, Ath, standing guard beside a doorway. A luminous sphere of crystal filled a niche in the wall. It gave off a steady yellow-green glow that painted the soldier's polished armor with warm light.

"My Lord," said Ath, bowing low.

"Light," commanded Ethram-Fal, striding past his tall captain and into the circular chamber. The small room remained as it had ever been, save that light globes had been placed in niches set to either side of the doorway. Ath touched these with his own globe, and they brightened so that the cylindrical room blazed with light.

Above their heads the band of writhing hieroglyphics that encircled the walls was clearly visible. Above that a circular balcony of black metal spanning the room's circ.u.mference could now be seen. Higher still arched the chamber's domed roof. But the two men's eyes rose no higher than the floor.

In the center of the room lay the leathery husk of a human body wrapped in a tangle of dry, th.o.r.n.y growths. The withered corpse of Ethram-Fal's luckless apprentice, still clad in yellow tatters, was embedded in the tight embrace of dozens of crooked and browning branches. There were no flowers to be seen.

"Blood of Mordiggian!" Ethram-Fal cursed as fear swelled in his voice.

"It is dying!" A sick horror swept through his body, weakening his limbs and closing his throat. Had he killed his dreams even as they were being born, and done so with stupid negligence? The thought was too much to bear. The little sorcerer swayed on his feet.

"Ath," he rasped, "fetch a pack pony." The soldier turned to the door.

"Hurry!" cried his master, as Ath ran from the room.

The captain was gone long enough for Ethram-Fal to scourge himself a thousand times over because of the foolish and unnecessary nature of his predicament. When he finally heard the scuff of boots and hooves in the outer hall, he felt the relief that comes with action.

Ath led the party's smallest pack pony into the circular room. The horse was dun-colored and long-maned. Saddleless, it stood blinking in the unnatural yellow-green illumination as the soldier bent and hobbled its legs with lengths of rawhide.

"Here," said Ethram-Fal, "bring it here."

Ath cooed softly to the beast, drawing it forward. Suddenly, the pony seemed to notice the overgrown corpse and shied away, eyes rolling whitely.

"Here, Ath!" insisted the sorcerer. The tall soldier pulled helplessly at the horse's reins.

"He's afraid, My Lord."

Ethram-Fal s.n.a.t.c.hed out his irregularly shaped dagger and moved toward the hobbled pony with the abrupt swiftness of a pouncing spider.

Ath drew back involuntarily at the sight of his master advancing with clenched teeth, wild eyes, and bared steel. The sorcerer seized the pony's forelock and slashed its throat with a single quick, brutal stroke. The beast gave a pathetic whinnying cry as its blood splashed on the stone floor. It reared, then fell forward on its knees as Ethram-Fal staggered back, crimsoned knife in one rigid fist.

There was a sound like the dry crumpling of aged parchment, and the fungus-riddled corpse moved. Barbed growths beneath the body stirred, rasping on rock, and the Emerald Lotus scuttled across the floor like a gargantuan crab. It battened onto the pony, climbing the animal's breast to sink thorned branches into its gaping throat.

"Holy Mitra!" Ath stumbled backward out of the room, his face pale as ash; but Ethram-Fal stood his ground, held by an astonished fascination that was stronger than fear.

The horse collapsed heavily with the nightmarish growth clutching it in a loathsome embrace, whipping suddenly animate branches around its body as it fell. The barbed and hooked limbs extended impossibly, lashing the air like the tentacles of an octopus.

Realizing his danger, Ethram-Fal tried to dodge past the monstrosity and out the door. A spiked branch flailed against his right leg in pa.s.sing, laying open the flesh of his calf and drawing a cry of pain.

The sorcerer reeled, but Ath lunged back into the room, seizing his master's shoulders and dragging him bodily out into the hall. The two fell against the wall opposite the doorway and would have fled had not the Emerald Lotus suddenly ceased to move. The room went silent and the pony's body lay still, half blanketed by the grotesque bulk of the vampiric fungus.

Ethram-Fal bent to nurse the wound in his calf, but Ath could only stare into the circular room with wide eyes.

"That was well done, Ath. There will be an extra leaf for you tonight."

The sorcerer's voice held a satisfaction and pleasure that were lost on his captain, who said nothing.

"I imagined that it might react more swiftly to nourishment since it did not have to revive itself from spores," said Ethram-Fal absently as he tightened a torn strip of his robe around his wounded calf.

"I did not expect it to seek nourishment on its own. I see now why the room was designed as it is. We must feed it from the balcony above or its blood madness, like that of a shark of the Vilayet Sea, may lead it to attack us. You must have the men build some sort of door for the room as well, Ath."

The tall captain wiped his brow and nodded mutely. Then Ethram-Fal caught his breath as the Emerald Lotus and its prey, shuddered briefly and broke into bloom.

Chapter Thirteen.

A horseman rode through Akkharia's market square. A voluminous caftan swathed his rangy body, as though he and his mount had already traversed the desert wastelands far to the east. The rider sat his horse stiffly, looking neither to the right nor left at the teeming activity of the open-air market around him.

Beneath gaudy canopies, merchants hawked their wares to the interested and the disinterested alike, crying out the merits of their products in lilting, sing-song cadence. Stalls packed with richly woven clothing, worked metals, and medicines crowded others heaped high with Shem's bountiful harvest of dates, figs, grapes, pomegranates, and almonds.

All drew customers willing to haggle for what they sought, filling the dusty afternoon air with the clamor of a thousand disputing voices.

A potter, clad in the spattered robes of his profession, lunged from, his spa.r.s.ely attended stall brandishing a slender ceramic flask.

"Ho, warrior!" he shouted to the rider. "I have just the wine vessel a traveler needs! Flat enough to strap to your saddlebag and as st.u.r.dy as stone, it will outlast a wineskin by years! With Bel as my witness, I fired it myself and it is yours for the meager sum of three silvers!"

The man on the horse rode past as though he heard nothing, not even turning his head to look upon the insistent merchant. The potter's continued declamation of the wonders of his work were soon lost in the tumult as the rider moved on.

The city wall loomed ahead, a ma.s.sive fortification of sun-bleached brick that rose to four times the height of a tall man. The imposing caravan gate stood wide open, but was clogged with travelers both entering and leaving Akkharia. The arched opening was decorated with inlaid tiles of vivid blue; two golden ceramic dragons struggled above the gate in a time-worn bas relief.

The rider nudged his skittish horse into the slow stream of humanity before the towering gate. He drew the eyes of the guards, for most men led their beasts into or out of the city, and the mounted man overtopped all heads in the seething throng. But the guards took note of the rider's size and said nothing. After all, there was no law against riding from the city; dismounting was merely a courtesy to the thickly packed crowd.

Another man also noticed the horseman and shouldered into the press toward him. He was a stout Shemite with a florid face, dressed in colorful silks that marked him as a wealthy merchant.

"Your pardon, sir," he cried, as he struggled toward the rider. Ducking around a wooden cart bearing stacked cages full of squawking chickens, the merchant drew up beside the mounted man, who did not slow his pace or otherwise acknowledge the merchant's presence.

"You're not traveling the Caravan Road alone are you? It is most dangerous for a single traveler, even a slayer like yourself." The merchant panted as he dodged along beside the rider, his florid face growing even redder. "Take pa.s.sage with my party and be a guard. I pay as well as any betwixt here and Aghrapur."

The horseman did not respond. The merchant made a wordless sound of exasperation and s.n.a.t.c.hed the horse's reins, drawing the beast up short amid the moving crowd.

"I tell you that the Caravan Road is dangerous for a man alone. Zuagirs roam the plains as well as the hills these days. You should..."

The rider bent rigidly from the waist, leaning over and thrusting his face into the merchant's. Eyes like frosted b.a.l.l.s of black gla.s.s stared out of a sunken, yellowed visage. Bearded lips twitched over clenched teeth, throwing a pale scar into bold relief.

"Death," said the rider in a voice like two stones grating together.

The merchant released the reins and the rider put spurs to his mount, plunging forward into the throng, out through the gate and into the open air beyond.

The crowd dispersed along the wide, dirt road as the rider urged his horse to a full gallop. Around him the golden sun fell upon the sprawling, verdant gra.s.slands of Shem, but the horseman was blind to all but his mission. Caftan flapping about him, Gulbanda looked to the horizon, his glazed eyes full of pain and purpose.

"Death," he said again, and the wind tore the word from his yellow lips.

Chapter Fourteen.