"Think you so?" inquired Taraka, raising both arms before him.
As he did, there was a rumbling and the black wood spread in an instant across the floor, engulfing the one who stood there, its dark branches writhing about him. The rumbling continued, and the floor moved several inches beneath their feet. From overhead, there came a creaking and the sound of snapping stone. Dust and gravel began to fall.
Then there was a blinding flash of light and the trees were gone, leaving short stumps and blackened smudges upon the floor.
With a groan and a mighty crash, the ceiling fell.
As they stepped back through the door that lay behind the throne, they saw the figure, which still stood in the center of the hall, raise his wand directly above his head and move it in a tiny circle.
A cone of brilliance shot upward, dissolving everything it touched. A smile still lay upon Agni's lips as the great stones rained down, none falling anywhere near him.
The rumbling continued, and the floor cracked and the walls began to sway.
They slammed the door and Sam felt a rushing giddiness as the window, which a moment before had lain at the far end of the corridor, flashed past him.
They coursed upward and outward through the heavens, and a tingling, bubbling feeling filled his body, as though he were a being of liquid through whom an electrical current was passing.
Looking back, with the sight of the demon who saw in all directions, he beheld Palamaidsu, already so distant that it could have been framed and hung upon the wall as a painting. On the high hill at the center of the town, the palace of Videgha was falling in upon itself, and great streaks of brilliance, like reversed lightning bolts, were leaping from the ruin into the heavens.
"That is your answer, Taraka," he said. "Shall we go back and try his power again?"
"I had to find out," said the demon.
"Now let me warn you further. I did not jest when I said that he can see to the farthest horizon. If he should free himself soon and turn his glance in this direction, he will detect us. I do not think you can move faster than light, so I suggest you fly lower and utilize the terrain for cover."
"I have rendered us invisible, Sam."
"The eyes of Agni can see deeper into the red and farther into the violet ranges than can those of a man."
They lost altitude then, rapidly. Before Palamaidsu, however, Sam saw that the only evidence which remained of the palace of Videgha was a cloud of dust upon a gray hillside.
Moving like a whirlwind, they sped far into the north, until at last the Ratnagaris lay beneath them. When they came to the mountain called Channa, they drifted down past its peak and came to a landing upon the ledge before the opened entrance to Hellwell.
They stepped within and closed the door.
"Pursuit will follow," said Sam, "and even Hellwell will not stand against it."
"How confident they are of their power," said Taraka, "to send only one!"
"Do you feel that confidence to be unwarranted?"
"No," said Taraka. "But what of the One in Red of whom you spoke, who drinks life with his eyes? Did you not think they would send Lord Yama, rather than Agni?"
"Yes," said Sam, as they moved back toward the well, "I was sure that he would follow, and I still feel that he will. When last I saw him, I caused him some distress. I feel he would hunt me anywhere. Who knows, he may even now be lying in ambush at the bottom of Hellwell itself."
They came to the lip of the well and entered upon the trail.
"He does not wait within," Taraka announced. "I would even now be contacted by those who wait, bound, if any but the Rakasha had passed this way."
"He will come," said Sam, "and when the Red One comes to Hellwell, he will not be stayed in his course."
"But many will try," said Taraka. "There is the first."
The first flame came into view, in its niche beside the trail.
As they passed by, Sam freed it, and it sprang into the air like a bright bird and spiraled down the well.
Step by step they descended, and from each niche fire spilled forth and flowed outward. At Taraka's bidding, some rose and vanished over the edge of the well, departing through the mighty door which bore the words of the gods upon its outer face.
When they reached the bottom of the well, Taraka said, "Let us free those who lie locked in the caverns, also."
So they made their way through the passages and deep caverns, freeing the demons locked therein.
Then, after a time-how much time, he could never tell-they had all been freed.
The Rakasha assembled then about the cavern, standing in great phalanxes of flame, and their cries all came together into one steady, ringing note which rolled and rolled and beat within his head, until he realized, startled at the thought, that they were singing.
"Yes," said Taraka, "it is the first time in ages that they have done so."
Sam listened to the vibrations within his skull, catching something of the meaning behind the hiss and the blaze, the feelings that accompanied it falling into words and stresses that were more familiar to his own mind:
We are the legions of Hellwell, damned,
The banished ones of fallen flame.
We are the race undone by man.
So man we curse. Forget his name!
This world was ours before the gods,
In days before the race of men.
And when the men and gods have gone,
This world will then be ours again.
The mountains fall, the seas dry out,
The moons shall vanish from the sky.
The Bridge of Gold will one day fall,
And all that breathes must one day die.
But we of Hellwell shall prevail,
When fail the gods, when fail the men.
The legions of the damned die not.
We wait, we wait, to rise again!
Sam shuddered as they sang on and on, recounting their vanished glories, confident of their ability to outlast any circumstance, to meet any force with the cosmic judo of a push and a tug and a long wait, watching anything of which they disapproved turn its strength upon itself and pass. Almost, in that moment, he believed that what they sang was truth, and that one day there would be none but the Rakasha, flitting above the peeked landscape of a dead world.
Then he turned his mind to other matters and forced the mood from him. But in the days that followed, and even, on occasion, years afterward, it returned to plague his efforts and mock his joys, to make him wonder, know guilt, feel sadness and so be humbled.
After a time, one of the Rakasha who had left earlier re-entered and descended the well. He hovered in the air and reported what he had seen. As he spoke, his fires flowed into the shape of a tau cross.
"This is the form of that chariot," he said, "which blazed through the sky and then fell, coming to rest in the valley beyond Southpeak."
"Binder, do you know this vessel?" asked Taraka.
"I have heard it described before," said Sam. "It is the thunder chariot of Lord Shiva.
"Describe its occupant," he said to the demon.
"There were four. Lord."
"Four?"
"Yes. There is the one you have described as Agni, Lord of the Fires. With him is one who wears the horns of a bull set upon a burnished helm-his armor shows like aged bronze, but it is not bronze; it is worked about with the forms of many serpents, and it does not seem to burden him as he moves. In his one hand he holds a gleaming trident, and he bears no shield before his body."
"This one is Shiva," said Sam.
"And walking with these two there comes one all in red, whose gaze is dark. This one does not speak, but occasionally his glances fall upon the woman who walks by his side, to his left. She is fair of hair and complexion, and her armor matches his red. Her eyes are like the sea, and she smiles often with lips the color of the blood of men. About her throat she wears a necklace of skulls. She bears a bow, and upon her belt is a short sword. She holds in her hands a strange instrument, like a black scepter ending in a silver skull that is also a wheel."
"These two be Yama and Kali," said Sam. "Now hear me, Taraka, mightiest of the Rakasha, while I tell you what moves against us. The power of Agni you know full well, and of the One in Red have I already spoken. Now, she who walks at the left hand of Death bears also the gaze that drinks the life it beholds. Her scepter-wheel screams like the trumpets that signalize the ending of the Yuga, and all who come before its wailing are cast down and confused. She is as much to be feared as her Lord, who is ruthless and invincible. But the one with the trident is the Lord of Destruction himself. It is true that Yama is King of the Dead and Agni Lord of the Flames, but the power of Shiva is the power of chaos. His is the force which separates atom from atom, breaking down the forms of all things upon which he turns it. Against these four, the freed might of Hellwell itself cannot stand. Therefore, let us depart this place immediately, for they are most assuredly coming here."
"Did I not promise you, Binder," said Taraka, "that I would help you to fight the gods?"
"Yes, but that of which I spoke was to be a surprise attack. These have taken upon themselves their Aspects now, and have raised up their Attributes. Had they chosen, without even landing the thunder chariot, Channa would no longer exist, but in the place of this mountain there would be a deep crater, here in the midst of the Ratnagaris. We must flee, to fight them another day."