Sparhawk wrenched his eyes from that face. To look too long at it was to lose one’s soul.

The body was not fully formed. It was as if the sculptor had been so overwhelmed by that face and all that it implied that he no more than sketched in the remainder of the figure. There was a spidery-like profusion of arms that extended in clusters of tentacles from vast shoulders. The body leaned back somewhat with its hips thrust forward obscenely, but what would have been the focus of that suggestive pose was not there. Instead there was a smooth, unwrinkled surface, shiny and looking very much like a burn scar. Sparhawk remembered the words Sephrenia had cast into the God’s teeth during her confrontation with the Seeker at the north end of Lake Venne. Impotent, she had called Him, and emasculate. He preferred not to speculate on the means the Younger Gods may have used to mutilate their older relative. There was a pale greenish nimbus emanating from the idol, a glow much like that which had come from the face of the Seeker.

There was a ceremony of some sort taking place on the circular black floor far below in the sickly green glow coming from the altar. Sparhawk’s mind recoiled from the notion of calling that ceremony a religious rite. The celebrants cavorted naked before the idol. Sparhawk was not some unworldly, cloistered monk. He was acquainted with the world, but the levels of perversion being demonstrated in that rite turned his stomach. The orgy which had so engrossed the primitive Elene Zemochs back in the mountains had been child-like, almost pure, by comparison. These celebrants appeared to be attempting to duplicate the perversions of non-humans, and their fixed stares and galvanic movements clearly showed that they would continue the ceremony until they died from sheer excess. The lower tiers of that huge, stair-stepped basin were packed with green-robed figures who raised a groaning discordant chant, an empty sound devoid of any thought or emotion.

Then a slight movement caught Sparhawk’s eye, and he looked quickly towards his right. A group of people were gathered on the top terrace a hundred yards or more away beneath the leprous white statue of something that must have been dredged from the depths of madness. One of the figures had white hair.

Sparhawk twisted around and signalled to Ulath to pull him back up again.

‘Well?’ Kalten asked him.

‘It’s all one big room,’ Sparhawk murmured. ‘The idol is over on the far side, and there are wide terraces leading down to a floor in the middle.’

‘What’s that noise?’ Tynian asked.

‘They’re holding some sort of rite. I think that chant’s a part of it.’

‘I’m not concerned about their religion,’ Ulath rumbled. ‘Are there any soldiers?’

Sparhawk shook his head.

‘That’s helpful. Anything else?’

‘Yes. I need some magic, Sephrenia. Martel and the others are gathered on the top terrace. They’re about a hundred paces off to the right. We need to know what they’re saying. Are we close enough for your spell to work?’

She nodded. ‘Let’s move back away from the stairs,’ she suggested. ‘The spell makes a certain amount of light, and we don’t want anyone to know that we’re here just yet.’

They retreated back along the dusty pathway, and Sephrenia took Sir Bevier’s polished shield from Berit. ‘This should do it,’ she said. She quickly cast the spell and released it. The knights gathered around the suddenly glowing shield, peering at the hazy figures appearing on its mirror-like surface. The voices coming from the image were tinny-sounding, but they were intelligible.

‘Thine assurances to me that my gold would buy thee that throne from which thou couldst further our purposes were hollow, Annias,’ Otha was saying in that gurgling rumble.

‘It was Sparhawk again, Your Majesty,’ Annias tried to excuse himself in an almost grovelling tone. ‘He disrupted things – as we had feared he would.’

‘Sparhawk!’ Otha spat out a foul oath and slammed his fist down on the arm of his throne-like litter. ‘The man’s existence doth canker my soul. His very name doth cause me pain. Thou wert to keep him away from Chyrellos, Martel. Why didst thou fail me and my God?’

‘I didn’t really fail, Your Majesty,’ Martel replied calmly, ‘and neither did Annias for that matter. Putting His Grace on the Archprelate’s throne was only a means to an end, and we’ve achieved that end. Bhelliom is under this very roof. The scheme to elevate Annias so that he could force the Elenes to surrender the jewel to us was filled with uncertainties. This has been much faster and much more direct. Results are what Azash wants, Your Majesty, not the success or failure of any of the interim steps.’

Otha grunted. ‘Perhaps,’ he conceded, ‘but Bhelliom hath not been passively delivered into the possession of our God. It doth still lie in the hands of this Sparhawk. Ye have put armies in his path and he doth easily o’erwhelm them. Our Master hath sent servants more horrible than death itself to slay him, and he lives yet.’

‘Sparhawk’s only a man, after all,’ Lycheas said in his whining voice. ‘His luck can’t last forever.’

Otha threw a look at Lycheas that quite plainly spoke of death. Arissa put her arm protectively around her son’s shoulders and looked as if she were about to come to his defence, but Annias shook his head warningly.

‘Thou hast defiled thyself by acknowledging this bastard of thine, Annias,’ Otha declared in a tone of towering contempt. He paused, looking at them. ‘Can none of ye understand?’ he suddenly roared. ‘This Sparhawk is Anakha, the unknown. The destinies of all men are clearly visible – all men save Anakha. Anakha moves outside destiny. Even the Gods fear him. He and Bhelliom are linked in some way beyond the comprehension of the men or the Gods of this world, and the Goddess Aphrael serves them. We do not know their purpose. All that doth save us from them lies in the fact that Bhelliom’s submission to Sparhawk is reluctant. Should it ever yield to him willingly, he will be a God.’

‘But he’s not a God yet, Your Majesty,’ Martel smiled. ‘He’s trapped in that maze, and he’ll never leave his companions behind to assault us alone. Sparhawk’s predictable. That’s why Azash accepted Annias and me. We know Sparhawk, and we know what he’ll do.’

‘And didst thou know that he would succeed as he hath?’ Otha sneered. ‘Didst thou know that his coming here would threaten our very existence – and the existence of our God?’