Only one lamp in the hallway remained lighted. It beamed out from somewhere ahead, making the surrounding darkness that much darker by contrast. Drawing near, Alfred saw that the light shone on a corpse sitting on a stone slab. The eyes stared straight ahead, its arms dangled listlessly between its knees.
“That’s the prince’s cell!” said Tomas, his voice tight and hard. “The one with the light in it. Your friend is in the cell across from the cadaver.”
Jera, in her eagerness, darted ahead. Jonathan kept dose pace behind his wife. Alfred was forced to concentrate on keeping both his feet headed in the same general direction. He found himself at the rear and he suddenly realized that the preserver, who had been in the lead, had unaccountably dropped back behind him. Tomas, too, was no longer around.
From out of the darkness came the clank and rattle of armor. Alfred saw the danger, saw it clearly in his mind, if not with his eyes. He drew a breath to shout a warning, forgot to watch where he was going. The toe of one foot caught on the heel of his other foot. He pitched forward, came down hard on the rock surface, the force of his impact slamming the breath from his body. His cry became nothing more than a whoosh of air, followed by a twanging sound behind him. An arrow flew over his head, pierced the air where he’d been standing.
Peering ahead, fighting desperately to breathe, Alfred saw Jonathan and Jera, two shapes silhouetted against the light—perfect targets.
“Jonathan!” Jera screamed. The two shapes converged con-fusingly. A flight of arrows sped at them.
Unconsciousness sought to claim Alfred, to draw him into its comfortable oblivion. He battled it back and managed to gasp out the runes, his subconscious bringing words to lips that had no idea what they were speaking.
A heavy weight crashed on top of Alfred, who wondered dazedly if he’d brought the cavern roof down on them. But he realized, from the smell and the feel of chill flesh and cold armor plate against his skin, that he’d succeeded in performing the magic he’d performed once before. He had killed the dead.
“Jera!” Jonathan’s voice, panic-stricken, disbelieving, rose to a shriek. “Jera!”
The soldier’s corpse had fallen across Alfred’s legs. The Sartan pulled himself out from beneath it. A phantasm floated around him, taking on the living form and shape of the body it had left, before it wafted away into the darkness. Alfred was vaguely aware of footsteps—living footsteps—running swiftly back down the hallway and of the preserver kneeling beside the soldier-corpse, speaking to it imperatively, commanding it to rise.
Alfred had no clear idea in his mind of what to do, where to go. He made it to his feet and peered around in terrified confusion. Grief-choked, ragged sobs drew him forward, into the darkness.
Jonathan knelt on the floor. He held Jera in his arms.
The two had almost reached the prince’s cell. The light of the gas lamp above it streamed over them, shone off the shaft of an arrow, buried deep, lodged in Jera’s right breast. Her eyes were fixed on her husband’s face and, just as Alfred reached them, her lips parted in a sigh that took the last breath from her body.
“She jumped in front of me,” Jonathan cried dazedly. “The arrow was meant for me and. .. she jumped in front of me. Jera!” He shook the corpse, as if he were trying to waken a deep sleeper. Her lifeless hand slid to the floor. Her head lolled to one side. The beautiful hair fell over her face, covering it like a shroud.
“Jera!” Jonathan clasped her to his breast.
Alfred could still hear the voice of the preserver, attempting to raise the dead guard.
“But he’ll soon realize that’s futile and summon other guards. Maybe that’s where Tomas, the traitor, went.” Alfred was talking to himself, knew he was talking to himself, but he couldn’t seem to help it. “We have to get away, but where do we go? And where’s Haplo?”
A soft groaning came to him as if in response to the sound of the name, cutting beneath Jonathan’s cries and the preserver’s chants. Alfred looked around hurriedly, saw Haplo lying on the floor near his cell door.