‘Then send me. I’ll find her.’
‘You would have no chance. We are talking of a . . .a realm of dark magic and demons. You would be defenceless against them, Druss; they would overwhelm you.’
‘But you could send me there?’
‘There is no point. It would be madness.’
Druss turned to Shalitar. ‘What will happen to her if we do nothing?’
‘She has maybe a day . . . perhaps two. Already she is fading.’
‘Then there are no choices, priest,’ said Druss, rising and moving to stand before the man. ‘Tell me how I reach this Valley.’
‘You must die,’ the priest whispered.
*
A grey mist swirled, though there was no discernible breeze, and strange sounds echoed eerily from all around him.
The priest was gone now, and Druss was alone.
Alone?
Around him shapes moved in the mist, some huge, some low and slithering. ‘Keep to the path,’ the priest had said. ‘Follow the road through the mist. Under no circumstances allow yourself to be led from the road.’
Druss glanced down. The road was seamless and grey, as if it had been created from molten stone. It was smooth and flat and the mist held to it, floating and swaying in cold tendrils that swirled around his legs and lower body.
A woman’s voice called to him from the side of the road. He paused and glanced to his right. A dark-haired woman, scarce more than a girl, was sitting on a rock with legs apart, her right hand stroking her thigh. She licked her lips and tossed her head. ‘Come here,’ she called. ‘Come here!’
Druss shook his head. 7 have other business.’
She laughed at him. ‘Here? You have other business here?’ Her laughter rang out and she moved closer to him, but he saw that she did not set foot upon the road. Her eyes were large and golden but there were no pupils, merely black slits in the gold. When her mouth opened a forked tongue darted between her lips, which Druss now saw were grey-blue. Her teeth were small and sharp.
Ignoring her he walked on. An old man was sitting in the centre of the road with shoulders hunched. Druss paused. ‘Which way, brother?’ asked the old man. ‘Which way do I go? There are so many paths.’
‘There is only one,’ said Druss.
‘So many paths,’ repeated the other man. Again Druss moved on, and behind him he heard the woman’s voice speaking to the old man. ‘Come here! Come here!’ Druss didn’t look back, but only moments later he heard a terrible scream.
The road moved ever on through the mist, level and straight as a spear. There were others on the road, some walking tall, others shuffling. No one spoke. Druss moved through them silently, scanning their faces, seeking Rowena.
A young woman stumbled from the path, falling to her knees. Instantly a scaled hand caught at her cloak, dragging her back. Druss was too far back to help, and he cursed and moved on.
Many pathways merged with the road and Druss found himself travelling with a multitude of silent people, young and old. Their faces were blank, their expressions preoccupied. Many left the path and wandered through the mist.
It seemed to the axeman that he had walked for many days. There was no sense of time here, nor any fatigue, nor hunger. Gazing ahead, he could see vast numbers of souls wending their way through the mist-enveloped road.
Despair touched him. How would he find her among so many? Ruthlessly he pushed the fear from his mind, concentrating only on scanning the faces as he moved ever on. Nothing would ever have been achieved, he thought, if men had allowed themselves to be diverted by the scale of the problems faced.
After a while Druss noted that the road was rising. He could see further ahead, and the mist was thinning. There were no more merging pathways now; the road itself was more than a hundred feet wide.
On and on he moved, forcing his way through the silent throng. Then he saw that the road was beginning to diverge once more, into scores of pathways leading to arched tunnels, dark and forbidding.