Eskevar heard the scraping clank of an iron latch lifted and dropped into place again, followed by the squeal of unused hinges. Then he heard the pinging echo of footsteps on the spiraling steps descending to the dungeon. The jailer comes with food, he thought.

Then he saw the flickering light of a torch playing on the rough rock walls of the narrow gallery that led along the row of cells. He listened and waited. From the shuffle he heard in the gallery he guessed there were more than the jailer alone. A torch thrust into sight, blinding his clouded eyes with its unwonted brightness. Sharp pains stabbed into his brain as he forced himself to look at the jailer.

Eskevar struggled to his feet uncertainly, to tower over the jailer and his two scurvy guards.

“You get back there!” screamed the jailer, thrusting the torch through the bars of the iron door. The old rusty door swung open and the two guards with lances at the ready stepped gingerly in. One prodded the King forward with the butt of his lance and the King tottered like an old man into the gallery. The dripping passageway was so narrow and short he had to hunch himself together, bending low to proceed. For good measure, and to remind the prisoner that he was under guard, the spear would jab him in the back periodically as they made their way to the spiral steps.

Eskevar stumbled twice as they climbed the steps, but caught himself and continued the climb slowly and with great deliberation. He was buying himself time to restore some part of his strength and allow his eyes to become accustomed to the pale light which grew brighter as they ascended upward out of the dungeon.

At last the King stepped out into fair light again; it seemed to dazzle his deprived senses. He breathed deeply, filling his lungs with cool, clean air. He found his head cleared from the confusion he had fallen into of late. He straightened with difficulty and squared his shoulders and raised his head high.

The party was ushered into the great hall where Nimrood sat waiting on his high black throne. “So, our prisoner lives still, does he?” hissed the necromancer. “Too bad; our pets will have to wait a little yet for their meat!” he laughed to himself, and Eskevar noticed the huge ugly head of a tremendous snake leering at him from beneath the throne.

“Set me free or kill me,” said the King. “You shall receive no ransom and my brother will never sit upon my throne. The regents will never allow it.”

“Perhaps not your regents, proud King. But several of your regents seem to have come under suspicion of certain foul deeds. Two of them are even now locked away in the bowels of Castle Askelon, awaiting their impending fate.”

“You fiend!” shouted the King, dashing forward. One of the guards sought to block his path with lowered lance, but the King grabbed the lance and wrenched it out of the man’s grasp and shoved him back with the butt of his own weapon. He then swung the lance in a wide arc around himself, keeping the jailer and the other guard at a distance. Eskevar lowered the lance and advanced on Nimrood menacingly. The sorcerer raised his arms above his head and shouted an incantation, “Borgat Invendum cei Spensus witso borgatti!”

“Your powers cannot…” the King started, then something like a leaden net dropped upon his limbs and he felt his strength leave him. He raised his mighty arm to loft the lance, but the weapon suddenly seemed to weigh as much as the dungeon door. The throw went soft and the lance skidded weakly upon the stone floor.

“You shall see what my powers can do!” snapped the angry wizard. “I have been waiting for just this moment. Bind him! And take him to the tower.”

King Eskevar cried out in rage, “Kill me now! If you miss this chance you will regret it for all eternity, black wizard!”

The guards rushed upon the helpless monarch and bound him in chains. They dragged him out of the hall and to the tower where he was locked again in a strange room, not a cell, but a high-domed room painted with grotesque shapes and queer inscriptions. No sooner had he entered the room and the door slammed behind him did King Eskevar feel himself overcome with an unnatural urge to sleep.

The heavy vapors of slumber seemed to drift out of the very floor beneath his feet. His head nodded and lolled on his shoulders, eyelids fluttering. His knees buckled and he crashed to the wooden floor where he attempted to rise again. The King gained his knees and knelt awkwardly, for his chains would permit but limited movement.

“You will find the rest here refreshing, I think,” hissed Nimrood. Eskevar jerked his head up to see the sharp, twisted face of his tormentor at the barred slits of the door.

“I curse your bones, necromancer,” spat the King. But even as he spoke his tongue went slack in his mouth, and his eyelids fell shut. He tried again to rise, but his legs could not support him and he dropped senseless to his side fast asleep.

“Look your last upon the world as a mortal, great King. It is a rare gift I give you. When you awaken you’ll be one of my own Immortals. Sleep well.”

IN THE four days since they had left the camp of the nomadic Jher, Durwin’s party had covered ground at a tremendous rate. They were all amazed at the skill and clear-thinking of their guide, Toli-none so much as Trenn who had severely doubted that they would last an hour more in the forest.

But Toli knew the land like his own skin. He knew instinctively when a trail would veer and when to abandon one path and choose another. The forest seemed to hide no secrets from his alert eyes: in fact, this slim, brown young man read it as easily as Durwin read the scrolls he collected in such profusion. Quentin suspected that generations of following the deer had made the Jher more at home in the forest among the wild things than in the world of men. In this he shared the conventional wisdom, for the wary Jher were widely considered a people sinking back into animal ways rather than arising out of them.

But a better guide they could not have found anywhere. And if there had been six like him, the company could not have been safer from discovery by the Harriers. Toli knew when to halt and when to move forward. He varied the times of their travel, never keeping to a determined pattern, but moving more like a cunning animal might, though still chiefly at night.

Still, none of them doubted that the Harriers were yet behind them. Toli agreed that until they crossed the Wall there would be no safety. He and Durwin were often in consultation shortly before and after each day’s trek. Durwin began to grow visibly more apprehensive as they neared the great structure.

The ancient architectural wonder had protected the realm of Mensandor for a thousand years from marauders and would-be conquerors. Now it stood as a warning of the strength and determination of the people of Mensandor to live free, for no enemy had dared to cross it with an army in anyone’s memory.

Celbercor’s Wall as it was known of old rose to a height of four-score spans from the rocky, uneven ground to the jagged merlons which formed its battlements. The Wall was wide enough at the top for three knights to ride abreast or a column of men to move along with ease. It spanned a gray, barren stretch of land a hundred leagues in length from the inlet of Malmar where it jutted out into the water to the sheer rock curtain of Mount Ostenkell in the northernmost Fiskills.

Celbercor’s Wall was intended to separate Askelon from the entire wilderland region of the Suthlands, but it had never been finished. Only the northern extremity running south from Malmar’s icy finger to the treacherous Fiskills had been erected, and that at dear cost.

But it stood intact. A staggering achievement: seamless, without gap or breach imposed by the years, raised with such stonecutter’s art that no mortar was used-only stone fitted to stone, interlocked and assembled with exacting precision throughout its whole length.