He hurled his cleaver at the Dartar kid who had shown him the Face of Death but the boy moved. Azel grabbed his provisions and fled toward the greatchamber where the cage stood. He wished he had a bow. He could give thoseDartar bastards fits, sniping from the shadows there.

The staff would retreat from there toward the Witch's chambers, leading thechase the wrong way, buying more time.

He laughed again.

He had lied to them. He had told them the Witch had fortified her quarterswith spells that would keep them safe once they closed the doors behind them.

They would flee there thinking they need do nothing but lock up and wait forNakar.

Hell. Maybe he hadn't lied. Who knew? The woman might have come to her senses.

She'd put out a few other barriers, hadn't she?

General Cado sighed. The water chute was packed with soldiers. Nothing elsebut to try it. He gave the order to go.

The first man out was waist-high into the drain when three arrows hit him. He fell back on the men below him.

The Dartar watchers sped a dozen arrows down the drain, began filling it withwhatever they found lying around loose.

A third of the way up the hill from the waterfront, in a second-level home inthe center of the Shu complex, a woman wholly insignificant otherwise noted atrickle of water running down a wall, starting at eye level. She was baffled.

Nothing like that had happened before.

Naszif stopped so violently he slipped on the wet paving stones and fell. Twohundred men surrounded the entrance to the citadel. Qushmarrahans. Armed. Herecognized several, including his former commander, Hadribel.

The Living! Out of the shadows now.

They meant to take the citadel from its conquerors as soon as they felt theDartars had done all the killing for them.

All he could do here was get killed himself. He got his feet under him andtook off. The Living noticed him too late to stop him.

Aaron looked around frantically, yelled for Arif. Beside him, on her knees, Reyha held a terrified little girl to her breast, rocked and crooned softly, gently tried to quiz the child about Zouki. She got no answers. Ahead, theDartar boy Yoseh stood in a doorway looking back, hesitant to leave them.

"Arif!"

His son did not answer. He was not here with the others. Zouki was not here.

Fear and horror redoubled. Several children had been hurt in the fighting, despite all efforts to avoid that ... The Herodian sorceress jabbered at himand pointed. She wanted him to move along. He determined to stand his ground.

"Aaron." Yoseh beckoned him. "Come on. The children are not here. The Witch has them."

"How do you know that?"

"I asked these kids. They told me she came and got them and took themsomewhere with her."

The bottom fell out of Aaron's stomach. A little hope died.

Yoseh led the way into the largest room he had ever seen, trying to stay alertenough for himself and the carpenter and veydeen woman, too. He had heard ofthis place. It was as awe-inspiring as the stories said. But there was no timeto gawk. It was a madhouse. Rock apes and more children were screeching andrunning around. Mo'atabar and the others were trying to fight their way up astairwell off to his left. They were up against another invisible wall. It let missiles come down but would not let them go up. Mo'atabar was ready to tearthe place down to get around it.

Then Yoseh glimpsed the child-taker flitting through far shadows. He yelled, sped an arrow, and charged. When he reached the spot he found nothing but asnarling rock ape.

The ferrenghi sorceress shouted a warning that no one but, perhaps, Mo'atabarunderstood.

Brilliant light. A blow like the sudden impact of a hundred fists ...

He did not know how much time had passed. When he came to he found his visionand hearing both impaired. He could barely hear Mo'atabar and the ferrenghisorceress arguing bitterly at the foot of the stairwell. Mo'atabar wanted tocarry the attack upward. The witch wanted to go another direction. Sheinsisted the upward retreat was a diversion. Somehow, she carried herargument-and that left old Mo'atabar looking very frightened.

What now? Yoseh wondered as he staggered to his feet and went to see to thecarpenter.

Bel-Sidek stood near the doorway to Meryel's balcony, listening. Meryel asked,

"What in the world are you doing?" She had arrived home and instantly beenarrested and put in with him by Zenobel's men.

"I'm listening for Dartar trumpets."

"What?"

"Anytime now my self-appointed successor is going to be forced to drink deeplyof a dark and bitter wine called Fa'tad al-Akla."

Azel drifted through dark and silent corridors, cautiously. Had he been anyoneelse his mood might have been called sad. He hadn't done nearly as well withthe camel jockeys as he'd hoped. Of course, if the woman had bothered to taketime to do something besides just throw up a few barriers ...

He had given them the slip. They should be headed upward now. That should holdthem awhile. Maybe long enough for him to bash a hole through the woman'sobsession and get her to fight. She could've cleaned the place out in the timeshe'd had since the bastards broke in. If she'd bothered to take it. But no. A

little paint on the surface, a sop to keep him off her back, maybe, and rightback to Nakar.

Damn Nakar ... Well, might not be long left in that story. Depended onTorgo. The big idiot was primed. Set to go. If he didn't fade at the end.

He reached the temple door.

It was closed. For the first time in memory. "What the hell?" He tried itgently. It did not yield. A slight buzzing sensation tickled the tips of hisfingers.

For a fraction of a second hurt flickered across his face.

Suspicion became conviction when he tried a side entrance and found it sealed, too. The same tingle teased his sense of touch.

Was he the object of her fortification?

That flicker of hurt came and went.

Maybe there had been some foreshadowing. Maybe he had felt it. Maybe that waswhy he had prepared the temple.

Or could it just be that Torgo had, at last, managed to get a knife into hisback? He turned more grim than ever. The eunuch's payoff wasn't far off now.

He was tempted not to wait on Nakar.

There were other ways to enter the temple. Ways of which even the HighPriest's woman was unaware.

Azel the Destroyer had not been the messenger of Nakar the Abomination fornothing.

Three minutes later Azel slipped into the sacristy. He placed his provisionpack in the hidden room, closed that up again, then crept up behind the imageof Gorloch. He settled to watch Torgo and the Witch.

They had the brat whose taking had caused his first encounter with the Dartarstied into a chair. The kid was calm, attentive, almost eager. Azel wastroubled. There was something wrong there. The boy seemed old beyond time.

Torgo and the Witch had the other kid strapped down on the altar, damned nearin touching distance of Nakar. The kid carried on, screaming, fighting them.

The Witch got set to go into her trance. Torgo fluttered around like an oldwoman, doing three things at once while trying to settle the kid down. Dumbass. The kid was scared shitless. He wasn't going to calm down for anything.

Double scared?

Azel eyed the time-locked corpses of Nakar and Ala-eh-din Beyh, the brats, considered events of six years ago as heard secondhand. He consideredknowledge picked up at Nakar's left hand. He hadn't a whit of that talenthimself but he understood theory and mechanics.

Damn! The mad bitch could bring the whole world down around their ears. "Holdit!"

They jumped. The Witch squeaked. Azel cursed the look in her eye, pushed thepain aside. No time for that now. "You can't do this, woman. Not this way."

Torgo looked like he might drizzle down his leg. "How did you get in?"