in my grave.” He coughed again and more blood came up. “I have not found life so much to my taste that I look forward to prolonging it.”
“How can you help me?” Kormak asked.
Tarsus glanced over at the jailors. They lay slumped over the table, heads down, exceedingly drowsy. Tarsus walked over to the head jailor and took the keys.
“Why are you doing this?” Kormak asked.
“I am a man no worse and no better than yourself, Sir Kormak. I do not want to see that demon unleashed and I believe that between us, we might stop that from happening.”
“I am still not entirely sure I can trust you.”
The wizard unlocked the cell. “Well, when you make up your mind, perhaps you will follow me to Lord Tomas’s vault. I suspect I will prove slightly less impressive with a blade than you but I’ll do what I can.”
Kormak pushed the door of the cell. It swung open. He stepped through warily. Tarsus had already turned his back and was limping over to the stairs. He did not seem to care that Kormak was in a position to bludgeon him down. Kormak walked over to the jailors. They were still breathing. He helped himself to one of their blades and their heavy leather jerkins. It would do no harm to have a disguise as they moved through the manor house.
“They are not dead,” said Tarsus. “It was just a sleeping powder added to their wine. I used to play chess with Marcus. I rather like him.”
“Any treachery, wizard, and I’ll cut you down.”
“Then how will you find your way to the Sanctum? Ask the guards?”
“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”
“I find one of the few good things about old age is that it’s given me enough experience to cover most situations.”
“There’s no need to sound so smug about it.”
“I take my pleasures where I can find them.”
“Is that another piece of wisdom that occurred to you in your decrepitude?”
“You’ll be old too one day, Guardian, if you are lucky. I hope you encounter another soul as miserable as yourself then.”
“Well, you’ve given me some answers for them, haven’t you?”
“Glad to be of service.”
Tarsus hobbled up the stairs; Kormak followed him out into the huge ancient manor. It was dark and cold and the wind howled.
They moved across the courtyard and for the first time Kormak got a really good look at the outside of the manor. It was massive, an ancient palace that sprawled across the hilltop. Most of it had a half-ruined look to it, was covered in winter ivy and other creepers. There was a fountain in the courtyard with no water in it. The central statue was of a mermaid with dragon-spines running down her back. It was an odd thing to see so far from the sea.
“They are in the crypts below the mansion,” Tarsus said. “Lord Tomas is going to perform the ritual.”
“Why are you not there? Won’t they suspect something?”
“I told them I was too ill to take part. It was not hard to make them believe that.”
Suspicion stabbed at Kormak again. He wondered whether he was being led into some sort of complex trap. He could not see how it would work when it would have been easy enough for Lord Tomas to have him trussed up and brought to the catacombs. That did not mean it was not possible though. He had known of Old Ones who liked to play strange games with the minds of their victims. Perhaps these men were like that.
Tarsus picked an archway in the side of one tumbled down building. There were strange signs carved into the stonework of the lintel. They resembled no Elder Sign that Kormak knew of.
The old man paused for a moment. He was shivering. “At least we are out of the wind,” he said. “It chills me right to the bone these days.”
“That may be the least of your worries soon,” Kormak said. Tarsus nodded and fumbled in an alcove in a wall. He produced a torch which he smeared with some sort of sulphur paste. With a word of power, he lit it. An infernal stench filled the air.
“You can still work sorcery, I see,” Kormak said.
“A mixture of sorcery and alchemy. A trick really. All the high powerful spells are beyond my strength now, otherwise I would not need your help.”
Tarsus held up a hand and cocked his head to one side, listening. Kormak could not hear anything and he