A single name came to him.
“Mala,” he murmured.
He felt panic rise within him again. She had been on the other side of the garden watching him just moments ago.
Drakis leaped over the body of an elf Guardian, trying to circle the garden around to the right, but almost at once he ran into a group of slaves who blocked the way. Several of them lay still in a spreading pool of their own blood, but more than a dozen others-wild eyed and screaming-were tearing at something they had dragged to the ground. Their hands and arms were covered in blood as they pulled away chunks of flesh, tossing it behind them.
He turned at once down one of the garden paths. It took him farther under the ominous rain of wreckage from the shattered structure above, but he dared not stop as he ran past insane tableaus: An old servant he recognized from the House knelt on the ground, his eyes fixed as he gathered up shards of the shattered Aether Well and tried to piece them back together in his badly lacerated hands; Jerakh, his own Octian brother, standing in the midst of several elven overseers, his short sword in his hand as he screamed joyfully and gave chase to a fleeing overseer who had previously escaped his attentions; several slaves pressing their hands against the broken altar, desperate in their own way to forget the nightmare around them.
A tall chimerian leaped into his path, its four arms brandishing a senseless assortment of weapons: a broken branch, a bent brazier stand, and a pair of cooking ladles. The fact that all four were bloodied made less of an impression on Drakis than the look on the creature’s face.
“Thuri!” Drakis said. “Come with us! Join us outside. .”
The chimerian charged at once, shouting as he did. “Freedom! Vengeance and Justice!”
Drakis parried the first two blows in quick succession. “No, Thuri! Stop!”
But the chimerian did not hear or see him. He seemed to be fighting a battle in some other place or time. “I won’t go back,” he cried out. “You can’t make me go back!”
One of the ladles connected solidly with the side of Drakis’ head, driving him to the ground. He rolled quickly, the brazier slamming into the dark ground where moments before his head had been. Then he struck out with the sword, slicing at the back of the chimerian’s foot.
Thuri howled with pain and toppled backward to the ground as Drakis got to his feet. White slabs of polished ceramic tile fell around him, shattering into dust as they smashed against the stones of the garden. He turned again and saw the path clear before him to the far side of the garden. He lunged forward.
“You cannot kill us all!” he heard Thuri’s voice receding behind him. “You cannot kill. .” Then the words were cut short by the sound of a massive foundation stone slamming into the ground.
Drakis did not look back. Impress Warriors were fighting everywhere-some with each other, some with a group of Guardians who had somehow managed to form a circle near the Hall of the Past to defend themselves, while others methodically moved among the slaves and overseers, slaying both indiscriminately. Drakis felt as though his legs were pushing him through water, that time itself was flowing against him and somehow he would not reach his beloved before his world fell completely down upon him.
Then, with a suddenness that shocked him, she was there.
Mala knelt on the ground before him, her eyes fixed forward. Tears streamed down her cheeks, cutting long, dark furrows in the dust-caked skin.
Drakis crouched down in front of her. A great groaning sound was coming from the stones above them. The foundation was giving way. He took her by both shoulders and stared into her eyes.
Training and instinct.
“Mala,” he said firmly.
She did not move at all. Her eyes remained unfocused. A small trickle of blood stained her lips.
“Come with me,” he said as kindly as he could. “I’ll take you somewhere safe.”
She shivered under his touch.