‘What are you talking about?’ Kalten asked suspiciously.

‘This is as close to Azash as we’re going to get, I’m afraid. We all know what has to be done, and it’s only going to take one of us to do it. If any of you ever makes it back to Cimmura, tell Ehlana that I wished that this had turned out differently. Sephrenia, is this close enough? Will Azash be destroyed?’

Her eyes were full of tears, but she nodded.

‘Let’s not get sentimental about this,’ Sparhawk said brusquely. ‘We don’t have the time. I’m honoured to have known you – all of you. Now get out of here. That’s an order.’ He had to get them moving before they began making foolishly noble decisions. ‘Go!’ he roared at them. ‘And watch how you step around those guards!’

They were moving now. Military men always respond to commands – if the commands are shouted. They were moving, and that was all that was important. The whole gesture was probably futile anyway. If what Sephrenia had said was true, they would need at least a day to get beyond the area that would be totally destroyed when he smashed the Bhelliom, and there was little hope that he could remain undiscovered for that long. He had to at least try to give them that one slim chance, though. Perhaps no one would come out of the palace, and none of the patrols roving the streets would chance to see him. It was nice to think so, anyway.

He did not want to watch them go. It would be better that way. There were things to be done, things far more important than standing forlornly like a child who has misbehaved and is being left behind while the rest of the family goes off to the fair. He looked first to the right and then to the left. If Sephrenia had been right and if this was the only way into Otha’s palace, it would be better to go off some distance from the gaping portal and its glowing apparition. That way, all he would need to concern himself about would be those patrols. Anyone – or anything – emerging from the palace wouldn’t immediately see him. Left? or right? He shrugged. What difference did it make? Perhaps it might be better to slip around the outer perimeter of the palace and to wait against the wall of the temple itself. He’d be closer to Azash that way, and the Elder God would be closer to the centre of that absolute obliteration. He half-turned and saw them. They were standing beyond the ranks of the threatening dead. Their faces were resolute.

‘What are you doing?’ he called to them. ‘I told you to get out of here.’

‘We decided to wait for you,’ Kalten called back.

Sparhawk took a threatening step towards them.

‘Don’t be foolish, Sparhawk,’ Kurik said. ‘You can’t afford to risk trying to sidestep your way through those dead men. If you make a single misstep, one of them will brain you from behind – and then Azash will get Bhelliom. Did we really come all this way just for that?’

Chapter 27

Sparhawk swore. Why couldn’t they just do as they had been told? Then he sighed. He should have known they wouldn’t obey. There was no help for it now, and no point in berating them about it.

He pulled off his gauntlet to take his water bottle from his belt, and his ring flashed blood-red in the torchlight. He worked the stopper out of the bottle and drank. The ring flashed in his eyes again. He lowered the bottle, looking thoughtfully at the ring. ‘Sephrenia,’ he said almost absently. ‘I need you.’

She was at his side in a few moments.

‘The Seeker was Azash, wasn’t it?’

‘That’s an oversimplification, Sparhawk.’

‘You know what I mean. When we were at King Sarak’s grave in Pelosia, Azash spoke to you through the Seeker, but he ran away when I started after him with Aldreas’s spear.’

‘Yes.’

‘And I used the spear to chase away that thing that came out of the mound in Lamorkand, and I killed Ghwerig with it.’

‘Yes.’

‘But it wasn’t really the spear, was it? It isn’t really all that much of a weapon, after all. It was the rings, wasn’t it?’

‘I don’t see where you’re going with this, Sparhawk.’

‘Neither do I exactly.’ He pulled off his other gauntlet and held his hands out, looking at the rings. ‘They have a certain amount of power themselves, don’t they? I think maybe I’ve been getting a little overwhelmed by the fact that they’re the keys to Bhelliom. Bhelliom’s got so much power that I’ve been overlooking things that can be done with just the rings alone. Aldreas’s spear didn’t really have anything to do with it – which is a good thing, actually, since it’s standing in a corner in Ehlana’s apartment back in Cimmura. Any weapon would have served just as well, wouldn’t it?’

‘As long as the rings were touching it, yes. Please, Sparhawk, just get to the point. Your Elene logic is tedious.’

‘It helps me to think. I could clear that image out of the doorway with Bhelliom, but that would turn the Troll-Gods loose, and they’d be trying to stab me in the back every time I turned around. But the Troll-Gods have no connection with the rings. I can use the rings without waking Ghnomb and his friends. What would happen if I took my sword in both hands and touched it to that face hanging in the doorway?’

She stared at him.

‘We aren’t really talking about Azash here. We’re dealing with Otha. I may not be the greatest magician in the world, but I really don’t have to be as long as I have the rings. I think they may just be more than a match for Otha, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I can’t tell you, Sparhawk.’ Her tone was subdued. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Why don’t we try it and find out?’ He turned and looked back across the ranks of the reeking dead. ‘All right,’ he called to his friends, ‘come back here. We’ve got something to do.’

They slipped warily past the armoured cadavers and gathered around Sparhawk and his tutor. ‘I’m going to try something that might not work,’ he told them, ‘and if it doesn’t, you’re going to have to deal with Bhelliom.’ He took the steel-mesh pouch from his belt. ‘If what I try fails, spill Bhelliom out on the flagstones and smash it with a sword or an axe.’ He gave the pouch to Kurik, handed Kalten his shield and drew his sword. He gripped its hilt in both hands and strode back to the vast doorway with the glowing apparition hanging in its centre. He lifted his sword. ‘Wish me luck,’ he said. Anything else would have smacked of bombast.