THE YELLOW TOWER.

Hadrim has killed the last of those who nailed his wife to a tree and now returns, after absence of twenty years, to his homeland, Surdar. Memory haunts him; the slaying of his mother by a beast from the sea, and the subsequent departure of his father. He is attacked by a birdshape; one of the creatures present when his mother was killed, but returns unharmed to his home, to Edgehouse. Even here he cannot find peace when he discovers he has been displaced as First Guardian by his brother Cuthred, and that his Rimhound guard dogs have been replaced by Cuthred's Rimael; creatures bred from the demonic Abael.

After finding his Rimhounds unharmed and, surprisingly, that his favourite, Aldreas, is still alive, he goes to Edmund, his uncle and First Lord. Edmund is with the Mirror, an artefact of power that had been placed in Edgehouse by its founder, Kensic Arrinias, two thousand years ago. Through the Mirror Edmund shows Hadrim the birdshapes and cites them, and Hadrim's long absence, as the reason for his replacement as First Guardian. He also says that the Mirror is all that keeps them from the house. From the Mirror one of the birdshapes calls Hadrim "Strangler."

Outside the Mirror room Cuthred meets him and accuses him of being "crippled with grief" and therefore incompetent. Narrowly avoiding violence Hadrim goes on to a reunion with his cousin Oswulf and brother Ceola. He tells them of the death of his wife and of his vengeance, how he strangled her killers.

Back in his rooms Hadrim is woken by Aldreas's growling. Two Rimael break in and attack. He and the hound kill them. He goes in search of Cuthred and during this search he rescues Sherol, his sister, from Rimael, and finds Ceola badly wounded by them. At this point Hadrim instructs the Castellan, Sark, to release the Rimhounds into the corridors. The hounds were bred to attack and kill Abael and would do the same with their bastardised kin the Rimael.

Hadrim and Sherol track Cuthred down to the Mirror room. Outside the room Oswulf, Edmund, and his other brother Jerrod, are trying to break in. Using his power Edmund destroys the door and enters. The others follow when they are able. Within they find Cuthred on the floor, a burnt-out but still living husk, and the Mirror smashed. In shard of the Mirror Hadrim sees a vision of a yellow Tower before Edmund, apparently in shock, sends them all away.

Back in the corridors they see a birdshape take possession of a small boy. The boy says, "You soon, Strangler." When it leaves the boy, dead, Hadrim tries to kill it with his sword, but cannot. The shape goes. Back at the Mirror room Edmund will not hear what they have to say about the shape. He tells them instead that Rimael have stolen shards of the Mirror and that these shards must be recovered.

Hadrim, Oswulf, and a troop of house soldiers track the Rimael through Surdar. There they come across Abael who are friendly and want trade for steel. They learn that these Abael have ambushed a party of Rimael and killed some of them. They go to search the corpses.

There are no shards on the dead Rimael so they track the remainder of the party to the Crossroads of Worlds. There they are in turn ambushed. During the fight Hadrim is wounded by a poisonous black-silver arrow. He escapes through a Portal, but in another place is descended on by a birdshape.

Hadrim comes to semi-consciousness on a pathway through limbo. He is possessed and his possessor is using his grief to subjugate him. Before him he sees a man dressed as a friar. This man makes him aware of his possession and why it is possible; poisoning and lifelong grief. Through the gift of a powerful artefact, a lachrymal, he helps Hadrim be free of his possessor. He then urges Hadrim to flee and, when he gets the opportunity, to drink the contents of the lachrymal. Hadrim flees but is pursued by something the friar feared his possessor had come to wake.

Hadrim flees from limbo into a Twilight forest, and there escapes his unseen pursuer by travelling through a Portal in a well. Coming out of this Portal his wound is reopened and he is again possessed by the birdshape. He manages to drink the contents of the lachrymal.

The potion, simply by causing him to cry, releases the hold his possessor has on him. Caught in the backlash of this it is driven from him fully. Now given time to think about all that had happened he realises that Edmund must have been possessed when the Mirror was broken. This would account for his behaviour. He heads back to Edgehouse.

During his journey Hadrim is again pursued by the creature from limbo. He also meets the friar again, who claims to be a friend, and confirms his suspicions about Edmund. He says Edmund is possessed by a birdshape, which he names Agorth; a Weregril. The beast from limbo he names the Jaugre. He also gives Hadrim another gift; a staff to the end of which the lachrymal fits. Shortly after this he is attacked by the Jaugre and face to face sees it is the beast that slew his mother. Using the power of the staff he wounds it and manages to escape.

On his return to Surdar Hadrim discovers Oswulf, Jerrod, and Sherol have been driven from the house by Edmund, and are sheltering with the friendly Abael. The Abael tribe is called the Sa, and they are near to Edgehouse because only there can they find the tin ore to make their bronze weapons. While Hadrim is with them they are attacked by Limoon, another tribe. All but the leader of the Limoon are killed. This one has molten tin poured into his eyes and survives to be driven from the encampment.

At the encampment Jerrod tells Hadrim that there are three of these Weregril; Carsus, Agorth, and Nacromis. By the description of their aspects he realises he was possessed by Nacromis. With this knowledge and with the staff they head back to Edgehouse. There, possessed by Carsus, Ceola guards the only entrance. Behind him the house is being shaken and brought down by Edmund's power, used by the Weregril Agorth.

Using his staff Hadrim drives Carsus from Ceola and destroys it. He and Oswulf then enter Edgehouse in search of Edmund. In the Mirror room they are attacked by Edmund and Cuthred, and captured. While this is happening Hadrim sees that there is nothing left of Edmund: Agorth possesses a corpse.

They are chained and put in a cell, Hadrim in chains of black-silver, which he now finds inimical to him. Sark manages to get to see Hadrim there, though not to release him. Hadrim explains what is going on and instructs him to release the Rimhounds, which had again been locked away. Sark goes to do his bidding. The next visitor to the cell is Nacromis.

Nacromis tries to possess Hadrim and, when it finds it cannot, it takes possession of Oswulf, who, weakened by the attack on him by what had once been his father, is easy prey. Angered to the edge of sanity and fed with power from the staff in the Mirror room Hadrim manages to escape. Back at the Mirror room he fights Cuthred and strangles him with the black-silver chains. He finds the act of strangulation is vampirish for him. He subsumes Cuthred's strength.

After leaving the Mirror room Hadrim finds Edmund has fled, and all the Rimael have been either killed or driven from the house by the Rimhounds. With Sark he returns to his cell. There he drives Nacromis from his cousin but fails to kill it. Leaving Oswulf in Sark's care he returns to the gate house.

At the gate house he finds the friar tending to Ceola. The friar reveals himself as Hadrim's half-brother, Drannen, one who had been gone from Edgehouse long before Hadrim. Drannen tells how he and their father had gone in pursuit of the Jaugre after it had killed Elena, Hadrim's mother. They trailed it to a yellow Tower on the further edge of darkness, across the sunlit worlds of men. There their father was killed and Drannen terribly injured, but taken to safety by Karon, a creature called a Rell, one-time friend of Kensic Arrinias. When Drannen recovered he and Karon went in pursuit of the Jaugre, captured it and put it to sleep, but found they had not the power to destroy it. There, while holding the Jaugre under the spell of slumber, they learnt of Cuthred's treachery, and that Weregril were heading to Surdar from the Yellow Tower. Where they were in Limbo the Weregril could not reach without a mount, and knowing that the mount was likely to be an Arrinias, the only humans capable of travelling the interstices, they prepared the staff. The Weregril they knew would come to wake the Jaugre. This they could do nothing about. They were weak from trying to hold or destroy it. All they could do was help the one who came; give him a weapon potent against Weregril and Jaugre alike. They were sure it would be Hadrim, so they made the staff so it would link to what was most powerful in him; his hate, his anger, and his berserker rage. After telling all this, Drannen sends Hadrim in search of Edmund-Agorth.

Using Aldreas, Hadrim tracks Agorth to the Mad Quarter of Edgehouse; a place where reality was damaged during Kensic's reign. In Kensic's Tower he survives an attack on him by the Weregril and eventually kills it. Before dying it tells him that the Jaugre will come for him.

While awaiting the Jaugre's arrival Hadrim sees Drannen begin to repair the Mirror. He also discovers what changes the staff has wrought in him. He becomes estranged from his family. Even his hounds distrust him. While walking on the battlements away from all the people he comes upon the corpse of a house soldier, he is then attacked by a Limoon, which he kills. Suspecting Nacromis's hand in this he goes to the Mirror room. In the corridor outside the Mirror room are many Limoon, led by the one with tin in its eyes, now possessed by Nacromis. With Ceola's help Hadrim manages to get into the Mirror room just behind Nacromis. Nacromis attempts to break the partially repaired Mirror, but is prevented by Drannen. Abandoning his staff Hadrim attacks Nacromis and strangles him. As it dies the Weregril tries to possess him, and through it, the Jaugre tries to get to him as well. Using the Mirror, and the power of his own staff, Drannen prevents this also.

Almost insane from the surfeit of power he has taken from Nacromis Hadrim uses his power to get from the Mirror the location of the Jaugre. It is on the beach.

Hadrim goes to the beach and at length comes to battle with his childhood nightmare. He is being beaten until he loses any vestige of control and goes into a berserker rage. He brings the Jaugre down, then kills it by ramming the staff down its throat. The staff is warped, reduced in size, and has the glass of the lachrymal fused into its surface. It has no power. Apparently it has served its purpose. Spitting blood Hadrim returns to Edgehouse.

Hadrim sets out for the Yellow Tower. To him the journey is a gesture: He knows he has no hope of reaching his destination as, since losing the power of the staff, he is being poisoned by the black-silver in his body. He travels the lower ways of Twilight; ways he had travelled in the past. In the first land he comes to something wakens from rest at the bottom of a pool and pursues him. He also journeys with brother and sister warriors Adrania and Miraldia, and the priest Tarik and his silent acolyte. At the first sight of him and on hearing his name Tarik names Hadrim demon. The people of this land still remember him. During the journey Hadrim learns that Miraldia and Adrania are heading for the same place as he; the statue of Doric. Miraldia is seeking vengeance. Her husband had been killed by a creature serving the one called Meleche, who dwelt there. She shows Hadrim the pendant it wore. It is the sigil of the Yellow Tower.

The five come to the fortified town of Idrun where they have to speak to prove their humanity before the armoured guard will let them in. Once past the gate Tarik and his acolyte go their way. Miraldia and Adrania go with Hadrim to an inn.

The creature pursuing Hadrim comes to the gate. It lures the guard out, kills him, then fills his armour, digesting his body. It then kills the two gatekeepers and enters Idrun.

Hadrim is woken by the grey man; a spectre he saw in the Mad Quarter of Edgehouse. Then he had thought it just one of the strange aspects of that place. Seeing it now in another land he realises it is something more. It leads him to the gate and shows him what has happened.

On returning to the inn Hadrim is accused of murder. A serving girl has been killed in the same manner as those at the gate, evidently by some mollusc-like creature. He tells them of what has happened at the gate and is soon exonerated.

A scream sends Hadrim, Miraldia, and a member of the town watch into the inn. There Adrania stumbles from Hadrim's room with a calcite spear driven through his torso. In the room is the creature in the guard's armour. Hadrim attacks and drives it out through the window. In the street below it deserts the armour and slinks off into the shadows. While Miraldia grieves, Hadrim leaves the town, sure that the creature is after him and that his absence will draw it away.

In the wasteland beyond Idrun Hadrim is attacked by the creature. During the fight the staff remanifests its power, and the creature flees that power. As Hadrim travels on he is filled with doubts about his journey and purpose now. Perhaps the residual poison will not kill him after all. Miraldia catches up with him and they travel on. Nearly to the statue they are attacked and captured by priests led by Tarik. Bound, Hadrim to his staff, they are taken to Meleche.

The forest around the statue is infested by Darvish; the kind of creatures that killed Miraldia's husband. Inside the statue they are brought to Meleche, who is prostrate in worship before a manufactured Portal. Through the Portal Hadrim sees the one he believes to be his ultimate enemy.

The Portal is closed at the other end and left open only on void. Hadrim, who had only been biding his time, breaks free. There is a fight. Miraldia breaks free. Meleche calls the Darvish. Hadrim's staff ignites, Hadrim also, luminescent with power he kills most of the Darvish. Miraldia goes after Meleche. Attacked by Darvish she falls into the Portal to cling to its edge. Hadrim tries to pull her back, but the power in him chars her hand. She falls into void.

Hadrim, angry and horrified at what he has done, goes after Meleche, who is trying to escape through the other Portal; the one Hadrim came to use. Hadrim catches him, flings him from the head of the statue to his death, and uses the Portal himself. After he has gone the wasteland creature comes and takes up the steel mask and claws, and robe of Meleche. It too uses the Portal.

The land beyond the Portal is a drowned land, there, while filled with guilt and disgust, Hadrim is once again visited by the grey man. He learns nothing from the silent spectre and travels on. While on a crude raft made to cross the flood he meets up on a strange manlike creature with a coracle, stays for a while with this ones tribe, then travels on in a stolen coracle. Rowing to the next Portal he is attacked and seriously injured by the creature. He escapes through the Portal to a Twilight forest and there collapses with fever.

On waking Hadrim finds himself tended by a monk and is aware, that despite this, he is dying. Without volition he grabs the monk and strangles him, drawing out the man's life-force as he had with his brother Cuthred and the Weregril Nacromis. He is healed, but driven almost mad by what he has done. He blames something of Nacromis, which still seems to inhabit him, and the staff. He exits the shelter, burning now from the fire scattered in the struggle. The staff remains in the shelter and he waits until the fire has gone out before reclaiming it. In the ashes the body of the monk lies unburnt. Hadrim sears his hand when he reclaims the staff. Resolved after this he tries to cast it away. He cannot. The monk's body falls to ash.

On one of the ways Hadrim again encounters the creature. It tries only to bar his way. He attacks it and drives it into a chasm. He travels on only to find the way ending against an abyss. There, despondent, his journey seemingly finished, he rests.

Out of the abyss comes a strange craft with someone seated upon it. Hadrim is grabbed by a hand of force and taken onto this craft. Its unhuman occupant he finds to be the Rell, Karon, millennia past companion of Kensic Arrinias, founder of Edgehouse. Karon was also the one who with Drannen, Hadrim's half brother, fashioned the staff. Across the abyss and through storm Karon takes him, with one detour to the place where the staff was made, to a sunlit land and sanctuary, and there leaves him for a while.

The sanctuary is a house owned by Laura, a woman Hadrim soon discovers to older than himself and probably kin. She heals him of most of his hurts but can do nothing about the black-silver. By her tests Hadrim should have been dead. He learns from her that she is the one who healed Drannen, knows about and has travelled the interstices, and is aware of the threat of the Yellow Tower. She also tells him that the creature that attacked him is called a Fage; another creature from the Tower.

At Laura's house the grey man comes again, and shortly after Yeff-hounds from the Tower. There are too few of them to cause much trouble but their numbers increase. Karon returns and inspects Hadrim's staff to see why it made him kill the monk, for this is what Hadrim believes. The Rell tells him there is nothing wrong with the staff, that the fault is in Hadrim.

Hadrim senses a Portal freshly opened nearby. Karon, Laura, and a troop of her soldiers take him to it. On the way they are attacked by Yeff-hounds and a number of soldiers are killed. The Portal is located in a primitive village. The villagers are dead and there is no one around. Hadrim steps into the jaws of a potential trap and uses the Portal, as it takes him far on his way to the Tower.

Hadrim arrives in a sunlit land that is strangely familiar. He journeys for a day and comes to an abandoned farm house. Before he can rest, Darvish, shepherded by a Yeff-hound, come for him. He escapes, riding all night and most of the following day, eventually arriving in an inhabited area and finding an inn. Here he hears the innkeeper telling a story to some children; a story about Hadrim. He now knows that the land he has come to is Dreggedon; the land where he had fought for many years and come to be known as the Berserker Captain, and where he had loved and lost a wife.

Talking to two mercenaries, Picudus and Drexor, at the inn Hadrim learns that the situation here is the same as it was at the statue of Doric; the place which contains the next Portal on his route, the Autumn Palace, is occupied by minions of the Tower. He also learns that an army led by one Prince Adric is marching against it. He hires the two and continues on his way.

On the fourth day of travel Hadrim is once again visited by the spectre. He surmises that it comes to warn him of danger, as it has as yet done him no harm. Three days after this they come to the Emperor's ride; a stone road leading to the palace. They cross it but do not use it. That night the Darvish and the Yeff-hound come. They escape, only to spend the night trying to avoid attack. The next day they pass the Ride again and see the Fage travelling along it to the palace. It sees them but does not pursue. Eventually they arrive at the palace themselves and Hadrim sees that it would be impossible for him to gain access alone. They turn away. In the night the Darvish and the hound come again. Hadrim kills the Yeff-hound. Picudus is killed by the Darvish.

Drexor and Hadrim survive the night, and at dawn the Darvish flee, one not far enough though. They see it bury itself and with the sun risen dig it up. Daylight kills it. It is a night creature; a creature from a world of eternal night, beyond even the Yellow Tower.

Fleeing from the lands around the palace Hadrim and Drexor come upon Prince Adric's army; a force of thousands with cannon and siege towers. They join, and Adric is quick to use Hadrim's status to raise the moral of his army.

At the palace, following the dictates of protocol, Adric delivers his royal order for those within to vacate. Hadrim, Drexor, General Sapharon -one who knew Hadrim- Tavrum the Regent, and a troop of soldiers accompany him. As a precaution men have been stationed in hiding all around.

Out of the palace comes an armoured knight, the Fage, two faceless creatures which Hadrim recognises as the Nathed-hul; the men with the hollow faces, and humans who have been altered in some horrible way; pipes sown into their heads. The knight lifts his helm. There is nothing inside. It is a signal for attack. Archers fire from the walls. Adric and crew flee only to find some of the men they had positioned in hiding have been replaced by altered men, and their escape is blocked. The staff ignites. Hadrim attacks. The rest follow.

In berserker rage Hadrim kills many, and with the help of other men stationed nearby all the altered men are killed. The siege of the Autumn Palace commences. Under the cover of cannon-fire the siege towers are moved into position.

While the towers are being moved one is attacked by altered men, that attack halted by cannon fire. Before the cannon can be reloaded a party of Nathed-hul come out a the siege Tower. Adric sends his lancers against them. Hadrim and Drexor join them. During the fight it is soon discovered that only Hadrim's staff can kill the Nathed-hul. All are immobilised, then killed by Hadrim. The lancers pull back.

Many days ride from the battle Karon and Laura arrive at a small village.

With the towers now in position a Jaugre, like the one Hadrim slew at Edgehouse, comes from the palace. He is shocked into inaction. The Jaugre is unstoppable and almost destroys one of the towers before Hadrim acts. He attacks, and during the battle uses the power of the staff in a way he had never used it before. The Jaugre is killed.

Karon and Laura, by means of a second lachrymal, see Hadrim's battle with the Jaugre. They know now that Hadrim is still partially possessed by a fragment of the Weregril Nacromis, this enabled to exist under the aegis of black-silver poison. They now have the cure for this; a potion used in conjunction with the staff's power.

Tired out by his last battle Hadrim enters the palace with the troops. Battle is joined with altered men and Adric's troops soon get control of the walls.

At the inn Hadrim first stayed at a man and a huge hound arrive; Oswulf, and the Rimhound Aldreas.

During the battle for the walls Adric discovers that to try and free the altered men from the tubes and mechanism that controls them is to condemn them to a horrific death in which their spines are crushed by a surgically implanted brace. He orders them all to be quickly killed. As the last of them are cleared from the walls he joins Hadrim and Drexor to enter the palace. Before entering he sends Tavrum, the Regent, for men to follow on.

Deep in the palace Hadrim tells Drexor and Adric to come no further with him. Drexor obeys. Adric does not, so Hadrim knocks him out. Alone Hadrim heads for the Portal he can sense. Part way there he comes to an ossuary and is attacked by powerful Nathed-hul hiding amongst the bones.

Adric recovers consciousness and with Drexor awaits the men he has sent for. He learns that Drexor no longer trusts Hadrim's judgement, and considers him to be insane.

Hadrim defeats the hollow faced ones, but with difficulty. He feels the staff is losing its power, but he goes on.

Tavrum and a few men come to Drexor and Adric. It is betrayal. The men attack them. Drexor is knocked unconscious by the glancing blow of an axe.

Hadrim comes to a cave below the palace through which the Sfax, the river, runs. There, by one of the Tower's manufactured Portals, he finds the Fage, an old man in a loin-cloth, and the armoured knight. The knight claims to be the Warden of the Tower and the one who killed Hadrim's father.

Drexor awakes injured to find Adric dead beside him. He splints his broken arm with Adric's dagger, then sets out to look for Hadrim through the ruined part of the palace where the Jaugre made its exit. He comes at length to the edge of the Sfax and witnesses what occurs in the cave.

Hadrim fights the armoured one and destroys it, but he is left exhausted and powerless. The old man approaches, takes control of the staff, reveals himself to be the true Warden of the Yellow Tower, and drives a black-silver spike into Hadrim's sternum. Hadrim's body is thrown into the river. The Fage follows it. The Warden leaves with the staff.

Karon sees what has happened and tells Laura that the Warden has the staff, not that Hadrim is dead.

Drexor returns to Edronin with the wounded, and the body of Adric. There he is seen by Tavrum's men, kills one, and escapes into the city.

The Fage continues its mindless pursuit of Hadrim's body.

Oswulf, deserted now by the Rimhound, rides into Edronin.

Karon and Laura arrive at the Autumn Palace. From the men demolishing the walls there they learn much of what has happened then head for Edronin.

Drexor is captured by General Sapharon's men rather than Tavrum's. Because he possesses Adric's dagger he is imprisoned. Arriving shortly after Karon and Laura learn of this imprisonment.

Hired killers come for Drexor in his cell. Before they can carry out their commission Karon arrives and kills them. On horseback Laura, Karon, and Drexor escape the prison area only to be halted by another on horseback training a crossbow on them. It is Oswulf, he recognises Karon and joins them. As they escape Edronin Oswulf asks Drexor where Hadrim is. Drexor tells him Hadrim is dead. Karon says that death is a luxury denied to such as Hadrim.

At last the Fage finds Hadrim's body. It drags it from the river and tries to remove the spike. Red fire prevents it, but it tries again.

Book 3: The Yellow Tower.

Near the coast where the Sfax runs into the sea, cattle and people are being killed by the Fage. Two hunters, Jon and Randal, track it to its lair in a willow grove. There they see the body of Hadrim and assume it to be the Fage's next meal. Shortly after this the Fage attacks them from hiding. They try to kill it but cannot. Jon is killed and Randal flees.

After evading the Regent's men Drexor announces to Laura, Karon and Oswulf, his intention to return to Edronin and reveal Tavrum's treachery to Sapharon. The three, who need him to help trace Hadrim, decide not to coerce him and agree to return with him. At night they return to the city and go to Sapharon's town house. They arrive in time to prevent an assassination attempt on the General.

Hadrim is tormented by what remains of the Weregril Nacromis. He is in a very personal hell, but there is a limit to the torment the Weregril can inflict, that limit being Hadrim's own strength. The Weregril fades, leaves him, or becomes one with him.

At last Drexor is able to tell Sapharon of the Regent's treachery. Sapharon says he knew of this but had been reluctant to do anything because of the bloodshed that would follow. Then, because Adric has a younger brother and Sapharon's loyalty is to that line, he decides it is time to act. He gives Drexor a list to take to the commander of his troops, in this way delegating some of the responsibility. With Oswulf's help Drexor does this. The killing begins. The four are escorted from Edronin during the purge, as they leave they discover that Tavrum and his bodyguard have escaped.

Randal returns to the willow-grove with a larger party of hunters and finds only his brother's remains. The Fage and the body of Hadrim have gone. The hunters continue on the trail of the Fage for the rest of that day without success. That night one of their number is taken by the Fage.

Drexor and company come to the Autumn Palace. He leads them to where Hadrim was apparently killed. There Karon is persuaded by Laura to use the lachrymal once again, but without accomplishing much. The grey man then appears and points to the South, the direction the Sfax takes to the sea. They soon surmise that this is where Hadrim is. They set out to follow the river.

After the loss of one of their number about half of the hunting party desert. As a precaution Randal and the remaining hunters daub their weapons with a potent toxin before continuing.

During a discussion between Oswulf and Karon the Rell reveals that Hadrim cannot die while the staff is still intact, and that the black-silver spike is only paralysing him. Its removal will free him, but he who removes it will be in the gravest danger from Hadrim's vampirish urge to survival.

The hunters finally track the Fage to a grove of sea-willows before the mud flats. There, another of their number is killed by the Fage, but it drops its prey and hides in a heaped mass of dead reeds when hit by one of the poisoned arrows. They torch the reeds. The Fage flees, carrying the body of Hadrim. They hit it with a number of arrows and it flings itself into a tidal channel. They follow the muddy swirl of its progress out into the saltings. Eventually the Fage drags itself out onto an islet. Darkness and the turning of the tide hold the hunters where they are.

In his hell Hadrim calls for Nacromis and receives no reply. He falls into darkness, then wakes. On the islet the Fage has pulled the black-silver spike from his body. Hadrim grips the Fage, strangles it, takes from it the life-force to heal himself.

At length the four stop at an inn by the Sfax. Drexor is feeling more and more estranged from the strange trio he is accompanying. At the inn they come across two of Tavrum's men. From these they learn that the rest of Tavrums men have left him because he has other allies. They surmise by the description of these allies that Tavrum is in league with minions of the Tower.

Hadrim does not take all of the Fage's life. He releases it and it returns to the water. Now healed he decides to rest upon the islet until morning. From the shore the hunters have seen a strange light. They decide that in the morning they will get a boat and go out to investigate. Morning comes and Hadrim watches the men approach. When they arrive the men are suspicious and more than a little scared, but because it appears that Hadrim has killed the Fage, (he shows them the mask and gauntlets it wore) and also because of their fear, they agree to take him ashore.

Back at Randal's farmstead Hadrim wonders about his own mortality and what he must do now. He knows he must leave this area for the people fear him to greatly. This is soon confirmed by Randal, who gives him supplies and a sword bought with the proceeds of the sale of the black-silver spike. Hadrim heads on his way.

The four come to a mill house and find its occupants have been killed, there they are attacked by one of the Nathed-hul, and a yeff-hound leading a pack of darvish.

Beyond Randal's farmstead Hadrim is met by the Rimhound Aldreas, whom all this time had been following his trail. He is disappointed and surprised to find no-one with the hound, but glad of its company.

Fighting a desperate battle Oswulf, Laura, and Drexor retreat to the mill house. Karon takes on the hul, and during their fight they fall down the well. As the three retreat Drexor recognises a rider beyond the battle; it is Tavrum. Into the midst of the battle leaps a white hound; Aldreas. Then comes Hadrim, and the battle son comes to an end. Tavrum tries to escape, but Hadrim sends the Rimhound after him and he is retrieved, alive.

The presence of Hadrim who he had seen killed only increases Drexor's feeling of estrangement, even so, he tells Hadrim of Tavrum's treachery. At this point Karon demands to be helped from the well. It would seem total dismemberment kills the Nathed-hul just as well as Hadrim's staff. Stories are exchanged and Hadrim is brought up to date. Drexor also learns that Hadrim is still set on his quest for vengeance. This he learns while they wait for Tavrum to regain consciousness. When the Regent is conscious they question him, only for him to be killed by one of the spine-braces with which the altered men had been fitted. Drexor surmises that perhaps he had no choice in his treachery, and it is this that brings him to a decision. He retrieves Tavrum's horse and leaves, saying as he goes that vengeance no longer interests him but responsibility does. Wiser, he heads back for Edronin. In a way Hadrim is glad to see him leave; one of the few of his friends to survive his companionship.

From the Autumn Palace Hadrim, Oswulf, Laura, and Karon use the Portal Hadrim had originally been seeking, and go beyond Dreggedon, where Hadrim has never before been. The Portal leads eventually to the shore of a sea called the Greying. There is a bridge there that they cannot use for it is guarded by the minions of the Tower. Hadrim learns that this bridge is built by those of the Tower, and compares himself unfavourably with them, considering himself only capable of destruction, and not even that now he no longer has the staff.

Karon enters the sea and in some strange manner summons their means of crossing the Greying, this turns out to be a huge turtle who Karon names Greenshell. Laura tells Hadrim that Greenshell is capable of crossing the interstices.

Karon remains in silent communion with Greenshell as they cross the bewitching sea. It is a long journey and they are relieved to discover the sea is of fresh water. For food they eat flying fish, first snapped from the air by Aldreas. Then, with no land in sight, Karon tells them to prepare. They pass from the Greying to a foul black sea that stinks of carrion. The colour of the sky is of a days old corpse. It is the sky of the land where stands the Yellow Tower. They head for a distant land mass.

In the sea they see all manner of horrors, then one like a huge ragworm comes out to attack them. They fight it and drive it back into the sea. The stench gets worse as they near land.

They reach the end of the sea long before the shore. The waves are stilled by a mass of putrefying creatures bound together with weed like human hair. Greenshell can go no further and they depart the turtles back to make their crossing. While about this they come upon a dead whale-like creature that has been tampered with in the same manner as the altered men. At this point Karon tells them that an area the size of Dreggedon has been poisoned by the effluvium of the Tower and is inhabited by those of its creatures that have survived the poison. They also learn that Karon has been watching the Tower for some time and has provided caches of supplies for a journey there. Soon they reach the dead shore and set out on their journey.

They arrive at Karon's first cache, in a cave, exhausted, for Karon has placed the caches a Rell-day march apart. Hadrim asks how many caches there are and is told there are twenty seven. He asks how long Karon has considered the Tower a threat and is told, "eight centuries" and that the Tower has been there for fifteen. Karon then goes on to tell them that the Tower is full of Portals, leading he knows not where. The discussion then leads to their reasons for coming after Hadrim. He tells Hadrim that the staff is required to free him of the poison of black-silver and the partial possession of what remains of Nacromis. Hadrim believes that Nacromis is now part of him, but is convinced when they ask him how he healed himself. Karon gives him the potion in the second lachrymal. He drinks it and the potion lays quiescent in him. They sleep.

After a long rest they set out across the dead landscape and at length come to a huge pipe, this they follow after Karon tells them it is an outflow from the Tower. They travel on for a long time then rest in the lee of the pipe. Aldreas's snarling alerts them to attack. A creature comes over the pipe, they fight it and cannot kill it, but eventually, too damaged to continue, it retreats.

By the time they reach Karon's next cache another pipeline is in view. At this cache, yet another cave, there are weapons. Hadrim, who lost his sword in the battle with the creature, arms himself with three spears, a short-sword, and a slingshot. Oswulf and Laura arm themselves similarly. They sleep in the cave then eat. For some reason Hadrim still feels hungry. When he assists Laura out of the cave he feels that vampirish urge to feed, feeling it also she snatches her hand away. The potion is not enough, they must soon recover his staff. They continue their trek, Hadrim keeping his distance from the rest and keeping himself under control by will alone. The land becomes hilly here and Karon tells Hadrim that there will be creatures in the mountains on which he can feed.

In time they come to cairn, and Karon tells them that this is where he buried Sennath, Hadrim's father, killed by the Warden of the Tower. The grey man appears there for a moment then departs, then the creature they fought earlier attacks.

Oswulf is flung through the air and knocked out but is saved from the creature by Aldreas's attack. Hadrim attacks also, then, he flings away his weapons and takes the creature as he took the Fage, the monk, Nacromis, and Cuthred, his brother.

Returned to full cognisance of his surroundings Hadrim sees Laura tending to Oswulf. Oswulf's ribs and his arm are broken. They carry him to the next cache where Laura tends to him. After resting Hadrim and Karon continue on. Hadrim leaves Aldreas to guard Laura and Oswulf. Their journey is ended.

From the cave Hadrim and Karon go up into the mountains. From the slopes they look back and see darvish in the area where Hadrim killed the creature. Karon assures Hadrim that Laura and Oswulf are safe in the cave.

They reach the top of the mountains and look down to where the stone was quarried for the Yellow Tower. Eventually they come to a place where they can see the convergence of all the pipes, there they see the immense edifice that is the Yellow Tower. Hadrim is shocked at its size. Karon tells him that it is near four miles high and a mile wide. He asks who built it. "Kensic" is the Rell's reply. Hadrim demands to be told more.

Karon tells Hadrim that Kensic came to this land after the experiments that left the Mad Quarter in Edgehouse and he mad also, then, the land was inhabited and the people got all they needed from the forests or out fishing from the backs of great green turtles... Kensic took control of the people, altered them, and over the long years others came into his service. Karon could not gain entry so went away to be true to his oath of service to Kensic's kin. After three centuries he returned to find the Tower as it now is. He was met by the Warden and told that Kensic had fled into the Dark, sane at last and horrified by what he had done. Then, eight centuries ago, the darvish appeared; creatures of the Dark. Karon assumed that Kensic had returned and began to watch the Tower again.

After Karon's story they speculate as to what could have motivated Kensic's attack on Edgehouse, wondering also if Kensic has truly returned. Karon says that the reason may be the machines in the Mad Quarter, for through them Kensic had sought to attain corporeal immortality. Perhaps he sought death. Much of what had occurred recently was not congruent with this though. They continue on to the Tower, there to find answers.

Trying to find a way down from a cliff on the other side of the mountains they find themselves hunted by darvish. Where the cliff is low they descend by rope and evade them, not before Karon is forced to hurl a few to their deaths. In time they come to another of Karon's hides. This one is messy, containing the remains of used medical supplies along with other, stranger, objects. Karon tells Hadrim that this is where he had treated Drannen after his and Sennath's battle against the Warden.

The next leg of their journey brings them to the hillocks of refuse and lakes of putrid water around the base of the Tower. Here they are caught in a sleet of gobbets of flesh; more waste from the Tower. After this they come to the remains of a poisoned forest and a derelict cottage. In the cottage they find hiding a failed altered man. Out of mercy Hadrim kills the altered man. Here his purpose is reaffirmed. He now leads Karon into the Tower.

They spent days wandering in the tunnels in the base of the Tower without finding a way up, then the grey man comes and shows them the way. They climb a huge pipe going up into the Tower. Creatures from the same sea as the Fage attack them on the pipe but they prevail. At the top of the pipe they manage to exit the wall of the Tower, only then does Hadrim realise they have climbed only a tenth of the distance. From there he feels for the staff and senses it high above him. Now they climb the outside of the Tower, then back to the inside and up by tunnels and stairs. During the climb they encounter all kinds of horrors from the Nathed-hul feeding furnaces with still moving but dismembered bodies, to decorations formed of men drowned in large glass bottles. Many times they kill; to escape, and in Hadrim's case, often to feed, as only in this way can he kill the Nathed-hul. His power increases. As they go on they pass huge glass tanks where creatures are being grown, rooms where altered men in cages have been forced to view the killing of numbers of their comrades by the spine brace, and finally a room where a Jaugre is being made by another species of the Nathed-hul. Here again they have to fight and to run. From here the grey man leads them into hiding and a secret way up the Tower. They come at last to a chamber that is one complete slice out of the Tower, above which is only a ceiling then outer walls extending half-constructed into the sky. In this chamber they come upon an ancient man with hideously burnt hands, bound to a throne. The grey man merges with this man and he speaks. "I am Kensic" he says.

From Kensic they discover that Karon was right only in a few of his speculations:

Originally Kensic was not immortal. He had only managed to confer immortality to his progeny, though not his first son. His experiments in the Mad Quarter were to give corporeal immortality to himself and his son. His son sabotaged the work, but only in so far as Kensic was horribly burned, and those burns made as eternal as he. Driven insane Kensic fled Edgehouse to this land, here to build the Yellow Tower and labour to heal himself. His son joined him, ostensibly to help. In the end Kensic decided he could do nothing but turn off the machines and allow himself to die. His son, who is kept alive by the same machines, did not allow this. Kensic was forced to flee the Tower into the Dark, where he made bargains and gained allies, then returned to lay siege to the Tower. In the end his allies, the Weregril, betrayed him and he was captured by his son, the Warden, and confined to the throne ever since.

Hadrim questions Kensic and is told how the Warden had made it a game over the years to track down and bring his ageless kin to despair and death. It turns out that the Warden was responsible for the killing of Alana, Hadrim's wife. The first attack of the Jaugre and the Weregril was part of the Warden's game. The later attacks were because the Warden had learnt of Kensic's abilities to become discorporate, and wanted to take control of Edgehouse, fearing what Kensic might do there. Kensic then tells them there is a way the Warden, and himself, can be killed; the machines must be turned off. And there is a Portal directly to them from that chamber. Karon, because of and ancient loyalty, agrees to do this. Hadrim decides he must continue to seek after the staff. At this point Kensic warns them to hide.

Riding on a huge flying reptile the Warden arrives. Father and son speak to each other, their hate mutually strong. The Warden says he has been hunting Arrinias's and gestures to a net bag hung from the reptile. One of the struggling figures in the bag drops something. After this the Warden leaves.

Hadrim finds that the dropped object is Oswulf's dagger. He asks Kensic where they will be taken. Kensic directs his attention upward to a blister of stone the size of a citadel on the inside of the Tower's wall. Hadrim persuades Karon to come with him to free them. Reluctantly Kensic agrees to guide them.

As the grey man Kensic guides them to the Warden's blister and the prison where Laura and Oswulf are held. Here in the Warden's home the horror is tenfold what it was below. The Nathed-hul come against them, but Hadrim's power is now so great that they are ineffectual. They free Oswulf and Laura, and in one of the other cells Hadrim finds Miraldia, whom he frees as well. At this point Karon and Hadrim separate; Karon to go with the others to the Portal below and to Edgehouse, Hadrim to go on up to seek the staff.

Before reaching his staff Hadrim comes to a trophy room, where still-living heads are preserved under bell jars. It is the ultimate horror; all the heroes who went against the Warden came to this. Hadrim communicates with one of the heads, this one begs for death for them all. Hadrim tries to break the bell jars but cannot. He kills one of the heads with his unhand, but the extra power he takes nearly sets him afire. He leaves the room and finds the staff. The reaction between staff and potion commences.

Halfway down to the Portal those with Karon hear a terrible scream, and feel the building of power as before a lightning strike. They run for the Portal. Above them hundreds of yards of the Tower are blown away. They escape through the Portal as destruction rains down all around.

Burnt through by the power of the staff Hadrim is freed of the Weregril fragment and the poison of black-silver. He returns to the trophy room and takes the life from all of the heads. He is like incandescent emerald. His clothing is burnt away and he takes up the cuirass and skirt of leaf mail that belonged to the head he spoke with. Charged now with dreadful power he begins to demolish the Warden's blister.

Back at Edgehouse Drannen and Karon travel into the Mad Quarter and to Kensic's machines. They embark on a weird journey through distorted reality to go after them.

Dissatisfied with minor destruction Hadrim finds the titanic beams that tie the blister to the wall of the Tower. He breaks the beams and drops the citadel-sized blister down inside the Tower. In the massive destruction that follows he senses all the portals going out. He has destroyed whatever machines controlled them. As he watches the Warden arrives upon his flying reptile and Hadrim is grabbed from the wall of the Tower.

While airborne Hadrim smashes the breastbone of the reptile. They fall to the lower roof of the Tower, then through it. In the chamber where Kensic is held the Warden reveals that their power comes from the same source, only the Warden understands his power and is corporeally immortal. Hadrim uses his instinctively, at close quarters, and is destructible. The Warden then blasts Hadrim out the side of the Tower. As Hadrim falls he realises he cannot win, because his power, though vast now, is limited, whereas it would appear the Warden's is not. On the ground they fight again, Hadrim continually fending off blasts of power. Then the grey man appears and brings with him the vision of Drannen and Karon destroying the machines in the Mad Quarter. As the vision fades Hadrim tries to attack. The Warden slaps him back with his power, then screams as that power burns his now mortal body. Hadrim kills the Warden, and it is an act of mercy. Later, he laughs with joy and relief to see the Yellow Tower burning. When the Rimhound Aldreas limps out of the wilderness to meet him he cries with relief. Then he turns for the further edge of Twilight.

ENDS.

[ Home ] [ unpublished ] [ bfpo ] [ readinglist ] [ contacts ] [ novellas ] [ books ] [ collections ] [ signed ] [ tvscripts ] [ magazines ] [ interviews ] [ anthologies ] [ articles ] [ stories ] [ biog ] [ gallery ]