I dug frantically in my other pocket; brought out the Toy Rhys had given me. At sight of it Narayan's haggard face relaxed a little. He caught it from me with quick hands. "Free of Adric—" he breathed with that swift erasure of tension I had seen before. He drew a long, moaning sigh. He closed his eyes for a moment.
Somewhere above us a scream rang out; a cry bestial in its mad appeal. It broke the static immobility that held us, and Narayan, sliding the Toy inside his shirt, turned and began to run around the Tower, Gamine and I panting at his heels.
We came around the corner beneath an arching outcrop of stone-work. No one needed to give orders; as one, we scrambled up on the ledge, crowding close together.
I gripped my hand on the knife in my belt. It had a comforting feel. I needed that.
A framed archway let us look down into the inside of the Keep. Below us a voice cried out despairingly—unbelievingly. "Adric—" we heard Cynara cry out, "Adric, no—oh, no—" Under our combined weight the glass shattered; we hurled inward. We found ourselves standing on a great shelf, about ten feet above the interior floor of the Keep, looking down at a scene framed in stark horror. Golden Karamy, dwarfed Idris, Evarin—stood in a close circle about a ring of coffins which gleamed crystal—glowed with scintillant radiance. In the hand of each of them was a tiny, jewelled, faceted Toy, and in the coffins—
Gamine screamed.
"The Dreamers—"
Not till then did we see Adric and what he was doing. In the center of the ring of coffins a dais rose upright, horribly altar-like, and a line of the mindless slaves, nude, vacant-eyed, defiled before the altar. As each slave stepped forward there was a shuddering moan from the others, the tiny swords rose and fell and in a brilliant flame of blue light, the slave—was not! And Adric—Cynara struggling between his hands—was thrusting her forward, into the space between the coffins, toward the nexus of the blue light—toward the Sacrifice-stone of the Dreamers!
The sight put us beyond caution. We threw ourselves from the ledge—and went down into a writhing, sprawling mass of living flesh. A barked command from Idris, and the slaves swarmed on us, drowning us in smothering bodies. I kicked and sprawled and thrashed and scratched and bit my way to the top of the heap and somehow for a second, I rolled free. That instant was enough. I was on my feet, the knife in my hand. Dragging bodies clung at my heels; I kicked out savagely, felt my boot strike naked flesh, felt and heard the pulpy sound of a skull crushing under the impact of my heel. The sound rocked my stomach, but I was not in a position to be fastidious. My eyes were swimming in trickling blood. Gamine clawed and thrust free and together we elbowed out of the press.
Evarin sprang at me. I thrust blindly with the knife in my hand, ripped into his shoulder, missing the throat by inches. I caught the Toy from his hand as it fell free. A moment of the clinging, tearing melee—then we three—Gamine and Narayan and I were standing back to back in the centre of the ring of coffins. There was a long howl of pain and terror from Evarin and the four Narabedlans flung themselves backward in a panic terror. For within the coffins the Dreamers were waking!