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.