“Stone! The tomb is ceilinged! There is no entrance here.”

  “Calm yourself,” urged Tepshen. “Likely a block was set in place to seal the hole.”

  He began to clear the bottom of the pit. It was slow work, for now the excavation was deeper than their height and they must haul the loose soil clear in makeshift slings fashioned from saddle blankets and rope, but as the sun once more pierced the opalescence of the dawn a slab showed, a square block a pace wide, lined with dark earth where it fitted between its fellows.

  Kedryn was persuaded to rest and eat, and then all three bathed in the stream before commencing the final assault.

  Tepshen’s advice seemed sound, for the jointures of the block with its fellows were wider than those indentations connecting its neighbors, and the dirt that filled the gaps came free easily under the application of knife points and fingers. Noon saw clear space all around the slab—and brought the revelation that it was angled to fit wedgelike into the hole.

  Tepshen probed with his dirk and shook his head. “Stone against stone. Its own weight seals it in place.”

  Rank frustration plunged a swordpoint deep in Kedryn’s soul. He stared wildly at the unyielding stone, then turned hopeless eyes to his comrades.

  “A scaffold? We could use the horses to lift it clear.”

  “No.” Tepshen shook his head sadly. “We cannot gain purchase for the ropes.”

  “The sides!” moaned Kedryn. “We dig to the sides!”

  “There is no time,” said Brannoc, his swarthy features grim. “A tunnel would require propping, and we have no more than a day, two at the most.”

  “No!” Kedryn’s voice rose in a wail. “It cannot be!”

  His face was stark-planed with grief and rage and he fell to his knees, pounding the slab as though he sought to drive through it with his fists, seeking to achieve with flesh and bone what could not be accomplished with metal tools. Tears misted his vision and he moaned. “Wynett! Oh, Wynett, I have failed you.”

  Tepshen placed a helplessly consoling hand upon Kedryn’s shoulder and he fell forward on all fours, weeping. The talisman hung about his throat fell loose, dangling down to touch the stone. “Kyrie,” he implored, "do not forsake me now.”

  And the block groaned and collapsed inward, pitching him down into the darkness of Drul’s tomb.

  Chapter Eleven

  Kedryn landed heavily, so shocked by the sudden removal of that last, apparently insuperable, obstacle that he was at first unaware of the force with which he struck the floor of the tomb. The slab that had given way under him shattered at the impact with the floor and he lay on his back among the shards, winded, coughing as dust and dirt cascaded from the illuminated rectangle directly above. He spat earth from his mouth and blinked dust from his watering eyes, staring up at the hole, his blurred vision gradually clearing to reveal the anxious faces of Tepshen Lahl and Brannoc peering down at him.

  “Kedryn?” He heard alarm in the kyo’s voice. “How fare you?”

  “Well enough,” he answered, rising gingerly to a sitting position, then climbing as carefully to his feet. “Nothing is broken, I think.”

  “Wait,” urged Tepshen as Brannoc’s head disappeared from view, to return moments later with torches.

  The half-breed struck flint to tinder and lit a flambeau while Kedryn assessed his condition and decided that nothing worse than bruises had accrued from his abrupt descent into the tomb. He caught the torch Brannoc dropped and raised it high, turning in a slow circle to examine the confines of the place. It was as he remembered and at the same time different, as though he saw through his eyes what previously he had observed in a dream. He stood upon a floor of gray stone thirty or forty paces across, great blocks arching to form a dome above him, his entry point overhead, a rectangle of brilliance against the shadowy slabs. Beside him, so close he touched it as he turned, was a dais carved from a single massive stone, waist- high and surmounted with a sarcophagus carved with ancient runes thrown into stark relief by the torch’s flickering glare. There was an odor of must, of stale, long-stilled air redolent of antiquity that was thankfully replaced by the fresher draft entering from above. Faded pictograms decorated the walls, and the ancient webs of long-dead spiders. There was no other exit point than the hole overhead. He was about to examine the contents of the cist, remembering how before the occupant had risen to protest his intrusion, when Tepshen called again.

  “Stand clear!”

  Kedryn stood back as a rope uncoiled downward, steadying the cord as Tepshen descended, limber as a squirrel. Brannoc dropped more torches and lowered three satchels packed with food, three canteens, then swung down himself.

  The kyo handed Kedryn his sword and the younger man buckled the familiar weight about his waist as Brannoc ignited the flambeaux, finding niches and crevices in the surrounding walls so that the tomb was soon lit well.

  “We are here,” he declared, more than a little nervously. “What next?”

  “Drul rose before,” Kedryn replied. “But then the shamans of the Drott summoned his shade.”

  He stepped toward the sarcophagus, flanked by his companions, each of them holding a torch so that the mortal remains of the first hef-Ulan were shown clear. They lay within the cist, unmoving and ancient, accoutred in the armor Drul had worn when he fell storming the walls of High Fort. The sallet was furnished with sweeping wings that curved protectively before the yellowed bone of the skull, revealing only the empty sockets and the upper jaw, descending to the metaled shoulders of a brigandine, loops and leather fused by the innumerable years, blackened like the helm by time. Vambraces girded the arms and gauntlets of link-sewn leather, cracked and husk- dry, the hands. Beneath the brigandine the legs were warded by grieves latched over boots reinforced with plates of metal. Aged bone showed through where leather had rotted, and the dessicated relics of long-dead beetles lay wasted among the ossifications. The gauntleted hands rested upon the chest, folded about the hilt of a massive glaive. The pommel was a globe cast in the shape of a skull held in a taloned hand, thf hilt wrapped round with wire, the quillons wide, downswept and forward-curving at their outer extremities. The blade was close on a handspan across where it fused with the guards, tapering to a spear point, with a fuller running the length from ricasso almost to the tip. It was a sword of epic proportions, such as had not been seen in long ages.

  “Drul’s blade,” whispered Brannoc, his voice awed. “See how it gleams? It is unaged.”

  “It is what I need, if Gerat is correct,” said Kedryn, staring at the glaive.

  “It is cumbersome,” Tepshen remarked.

  “No matter.” Kedryn transferred his torch to his left hand. “If all goes well it will slay a god.”

  He reached toward the sword, warily, for he knew not what to expect, save that, before, the corpse had risen, aware that then the shamans of the Drott had Seen present to intercede on his behalf. He voiced a silent prayer to the Lady. And gasped as bone and leather creaked, protesting the movement that fastened one skeletal hand about his wrist. The torch he held dropped unnoticed to the floor. Tepshen and Brannoc sprang back, blades sliding from scabbards. Kedryn felt himself held in a grip strong as if sinew and muscle still girdled the dry bones that showed through the rotted gauntlet and heard Tepshen shout, “Stand back! Afford me room to cut!”

  Laughter like a winter wind rattling the stripped limbs of withered trees rustled then, gusting the noxious odor of decay against his offended nostrils, and a voice empty of human resonance said, “Do you think to harm the dead? You are a fool.”

  The grip on Kedryn’s wrist was released and he staggered back as though driven by a blow, caroming against Tepshen so that both he and the kyo were flung to the far side of the chamber.

  The ancient armor creaked as it was lifted by the bones within, rising from the cist to land upon the flags of the tomb. Dried beetle bodies cascaded from the brigandine, metal and leather groaning as the glaive was lifted, battle-ready, the sallet turning slowly from side to side, the empty sockets of the skull beneath staring blankly at each man in turn, fastening finally on Kedryn.

  “You have disturbed my rest before, why do you come again?”

  “I have need of your blade.” Kedryn disentangled himself from Tepshen, stepping in front of the kyo for fear the easterner would attack the corpse, convinced that such would prove useless action.

  Laughter sent a fresh waft of putrescence through the still air.

  “My sword? Why should the living steal from the dead? What do we dead have to give you, save notice of life’s ending?”

  “Not steal,” Kedryn said quickly, extemporizing. “I have a need of your blade, for only that may serve the purpose I pursue. Grant me its use and I shall return it; and leave my own in place the while.”

  The helm cocked slightly to the side, as if Drul’s remains considered the suggestion. Then: “What is this purpose?”

  “My wife is taken into the underworld and I go after her. Your blade has power there.”

  “Aye,” the corpse confirmed, “this sword has great power. Forged in Ashar’s fires by the smith, Taziel, was this blade. Entrusted to me, and me alone.”

  The great sword lowered slowly until the tip rested on the floor of the sepulcher and the sightless orbs of the skull swung ponderously to transfix Tepshen with their blank gaze.

  “What is your part in this?”

  “Where Kedryn goes, go I,” answered the kyo.

  “Even into that place I guard? Death waits there.”

  “Even unto death,” said Tepshen.

  “And you?” The sallet moved to Brannoc. “Are you, too, so tired of life?”

  “Of life, no,” came the answer, “but I am sworn to aid my companions.”

  “Why? The woman is not yours.”

  “No,” Brannoc agreed, his voice dry with tension, “but I should be a poor friend were I to refuse my comrades help.”

  “Your loyalty is commendable,” the corpse allowed, “but foolish.”

  “We are sworn,” said Tepshen, “and we are not fools.”

  “Any man who thinks to take my sword is a fool.”

  “Is it foolish to seek that which renders a quest attainable?”

  Kedryn demanded. “I am guided by the holy women of the Kingdoms, whose word is that I need your blade to save my wife.”

  “Your wife is taken to the netherworld,” said Drul. “She is lost.”

  “No!” Kedryn drew the talisman from beneath his shirt, clutching the stone, thrusting it on its chain toward the armor. ‘This tells me she lives.”

  The helm lifted at sight of the jewel, the boots rustling as Drul’s corpse stepped back a pace. “You brought that token here before,” it said, “and I told you then that should you pass me you might not return. Was it that carried you again to the domains of the living?”

  “Aye, it was,” said Kedryn, seeing that the power of the stone swayed the shade. “This talisman and the love of Kyrie.”

  “The Lady’s power wanes beyond these portals,” warned the corpse.

  “But still it is there.” Kedryn took a pace forward, still holding the talisman outthrust. “It brought me back then and it will again.”

  “I think that this time you quest beyond the shore.” The bone-filled armor moved another reluctant step back. “I think that this time you seek more than your sight.”

  “I seek my wife,” Kedryn declared.

  “And you would face Ashar himself to win her back?”

  “Aye,” was the simple answer.

  “So that is why you need my blade. You think to defend yourself against the god.”

  “I think to slay him if he opposes me.”

  A gale of laughter that was obscene in die reek it projected answered his declaration. “A brave boast,” said Drul, “but foolhardy. Ashar’s smith forged his glaive: shall you use the weapon against the god himself?”

  “If the Lady decrees it,” said Kedryn, venturing another step toward the awful thing, aware of the vibration of the talisman against his palm. Finding courage therein.

  “She may shelter you,” the corpse acknowledged, “but these others bear lesser protections. I sense magics about them, but weaker than that you carry.”

  “Yet still we go with him,” said Tepshen. “And we shall not be deterred by a suit of stinking armor.”

  “You are brave,” allowed the corpse. “But I think your comrade less sanguine.”

  “I stand by my friends,” declared Brannoc.

  “So,” hissed the skull, “three fools would quest against Ashar himself.”

  “Shall you allow me the usage of your blade?” Kedryn asked, advancing a pace closer still. “Or must I fight you for it?”

  “Fight me?” The question was the susurration of a serpent sliding over dry leaves, menace and amusement mingling. “Do you believe you can fight me?”

  "Aye,” Kedryn said. “With this I can.”

  He stepped forward, extending the talisman toward the relic, which vied away as might some dark-dwelling subterranean creature confronting a blazing torch. It took three slow steps back until the skirt of the brigandine grated against the stone of the cist, the sword raised defensively.

  “I should rather you granted me the right,” Kedryn announced, “but should you refuse that help you must face the talisman.”

  The blade dropped ponderously, tip clattering on the stones of the floor. A sound like a sigh came from the lipless jaw and Drul said, “It will be returned.”

  “My word on it,” promised Kedryn, assuming a question was asked.

  “Not by you,” declared the corpse. “Ashar will return it to me when he destroys you.”

  ‘Then what objection can you have?” Kedryn demanded, left hand reaching out to clasp the hilt.

  This time there was no resistance. The gauntlets opened to allow him purchase and he took the blade, drawing it toward him. He let go the talisman, unsheathing his own sword that he might present it to Drul. The shade took it, the sallet lowering to study the blade, sighing again, the sibilance echoing with resignation.

  “Take it then, for all the good it will do you. It will come back to me in time, by one means or another.”

  “You have my word on it,” Kedryn nodded. “Now may we pass?”

  “Aye,” Drul allowed. “Go to that place from which you shall not return.”

  Kedryn clutched the great sword tight as the confines of the tomb grew indistinct, the light from the sun above and the flambeaux alike becoming dim, as though swirling mist filled the sepulcher. Tepshen and Brannoc stepped closer, moving slowly, as if through water, flanking him as a red light glowed beyond the cist, expanding like a torch approaching through fog, burning fiercer, the air growing warm, then hot, as if the mouth of a furnace opened. A charnel stench wafted through the chamber, thick and cloying, more offensive even than the reek that emanated from Drul’s remains.

  “If you dare,” said the corpse, right hand raised to point toward the rubescent glare, “that is your way.”

  The three men stepped around the dais, past the remains of the hef-Ulan. The glow grew brighter, a circle of flame burning in the rocky wall of the tomb, tongues licking upward as though in anticipation of living flesh to roast, the stench worsening. Kedryn set a hand upon the talisman, the other holding Drul’s sword, and took a deep breath as he steeled himself to enter that hellish portal.

  “Come,” said Tepshen.

  “Aye,” said Brannoc, “before my courage deserts me utterly.”

  “May the Lady ward us, Kedryn murmured, stepping into the circle of flame.

  For an instant there was a heat so intense he thought his hair must take fire, his flesh scorch on the bone. Then it was gone, the portal with it, and he stood in a low-roofed tunnel, the torches held by Tepshen and Brannoc affording poor illumination against the shadows that appeared to emanate from the rock itself, oozing like oil, swirling within the narrow confines as though animate. Tendrils extended toward the three comrades, writhing where they reached the coronas cast by the flambeaux, exuding the noisome odor of degenerated flesh and ordure. Kedryn held out the talisman and it began to glow, spreading a blue radiance that encompassed all three, driving back the oleaginous penumbra, and advanced along the dismal corridor.

  Around them the surfaces of the tunnel had the appearance of decayed bone, a foul yellow-white pocked with a myriad holes from which came the shadows, like worms emerging. Tepshen and Brannoc trod close behind, anxious to remain within the nimbus of the talisman, all three aware of the sounds coming from the darkness ahead and to their backs, slow, slithery sounds, and scuttlings, chitterings, all horribly menacing so that hair prickled on necks and hands clutched sword hilts in preparation for attack.

  None came, however, and they reached the egress of the shaft to look down into the enormous cavern Kedryn remembered from his previous descent into this ghastly limbo.

  The talisman’s glow faded here, for the hypogeum was lit with its own radiance, a strange gray illumination of no discernible source. The way ahead sloped down over slimy rocks, the walls vaulting into misty heights, the roof lost in the opalescence that seemed to rise like fetid vapor from the gray-surfaced mere filling the center of the cave. Gray predominated, walls and floor and water merging in viscid union to defeat perspective, the descent to the shore appearing both gradual and defiantly steep. The atmosphere was humid and from the lake came a wailing as if the depths held a myriad lost souls that bemoaned their misfortune, while above fluttered creatures with ragged gray wings emitting piercing shrieks that stabbed painftilly at eardrums. These aerial beings clustered close as the trio began to descend, proximity revealing human faces set between the tattered wings, tiny hands, and eyes that were filled with tears. “Go back,” they fluted. “Go back before you are lost.”

  There was a mournful command on their piping voices that was hard to ignore, for their warnings held an imperative that struck deep, threatening to leech hope, leaving despair in its place, but the talisman afforded Kedryn the strength to resist their blandishments and the gramaryes laid by Gerat, combined with the power of Kyrie’s stone, protected his companions: discarding their torches they made their way down the slippery descent.