"We met. He was interested in Balhadorha. He could help. That's all."
A man tormented by guilt; it would account for his courting danger. A complex means of committing suicide, a psychological quirk-if Sufan was telling the truth. If he was, then Marek was more dangerous than a short-fused bomb.
Dumarest joined the man as he reached the opening. Beyond lay another chamber, long and narrow, an elongated bubble which ran to either side, each end marked with an opening. On the floor the tracery of thin black lines ended in a single complex pattern running evenly along the major axis.
"A dead end," said Marek. He looked at the blank wall facing them. "The end of the line."
"The treasure?"
"Lies beyond that wall, Earl. On a lower level, perhaps, but still beyond."
Dumarest looked upward. Lacking the other's talent, he could only guess, but he estimated that they must be either at the edge of the central spire or very close. The tracery of lines also offered a clue. The ending could be a line of demarcation.
"We must try one of the openings," he said. "Which? Left or right?"
For answer Marek dropped his hand to the gun slung over his shoulder, lifted it, cradled it, and clamped his finger on the trigger. Sound roared through the chamber as the muzzled vented a hail of bullets, slugs which struck to ricochet in whining, invisible death.
At the entrance Pacula cried out, threw herself before Embira, and hurled the girl to the ground. Sufan Noyoka, snarling, threw himself flat, his own gun lifting. Usan Labria slumped, a streak of red marring the line beneath her hair.
"Marek!" Dumarest lunged at the man, his hand gripping the barrel, lifting it as his stiffened palm chopped at the wrist. "Stop firing, you fool!"
"The wall-" Marek blinked at it as he rubbed his bruised arm. "I thought it would yield!"
A lie. The man hadn't thought, the action had stemmed from frustration and anger. A child kicking at an obstacle or a man seeking his own destruction. Dumarest tore the magazine from the weapon, threw both it and the gun aside, then ran to where Usan lay, eyes closed, blood staining the floor beneath her head.
"He killed her." Sufan Noyoka rose to his feet, his eyes blazing. "Earl-"
"She isn't dead." Dumarest lifted his canteen and poured water over the lax features. Carefully he examined the wound, the skin had been torn but the bone was unbroken. Beneath the impact of chemical vapors she stirred, opening her eyes, sitting upright with the help of his arm, wincing.
"Earl, what happened?"
"Marek tried to kill us all," snapped Sufan. "The fool must have known the bullets would ricochet. Pacula?"
"I'm all right." Gently she helped the girl to her feet. "Embira."
"What happened? There was noise and then something threw me down. Earl?"
"Marek lost his head. It won't happen again."
Sufan said, "He tried to kill us. Had he turned and lifted his gun I would have shot him. He knew that, so tried a more subtle way."
"I made a mistake," said Marek. "If I had wanted to kill you, Sufan Noyoka, you would be dead now. But if you demand satisfaction? On Teralde the duel is common, I understand."
"There'll be no dueling," said Dumarest coldly. "And there will be no more stupidity." He glanced at the wall, the surface was unscarred. "You should have warned us, Marek, given us time to take cover."
"As I said, Earl, a mistake."
"Make another and it could be your last." Dumarest lifted the old woman to her feet. "Take care of Usan and guide us. Which way should we go? Left or right?"
Marek looked at the floor. The little pool of blood shed from Usan's wound lay at his feet like a crimson teardrop.
"The floor isn't level," he said. "Or the blood would not have run. We must follow the descent. To the right, Earl. The right."
Three hours later they looked at the treasure of Balhadorha.
* * *
The chambers had followed the path of a spiral, each slightly curved, all following a subtle gradient, the last ending in a room pierced with rounded openings. Beyond them lay a vast colonnade. Dumarest led the way across the smooth floor and halted at the far edge.
Beside him Sufan Noyoka sucked in his breath. Usan said uncertainly, "Is this, it, Earl? The treasure?"
"The treasure." Marek was positive. "There it is, my friends, the thing you have risked your lives to gain. The fabulous treasure of a fabled world." His laughter was thin, cynically bitter, devoid of genuine mirth. "So much for legend."
"But there's nothing," said Pacula. "Nothing!"
Nothing but an area wreathed with mist which stretched before them and to either side. A circular space ringed by the vast colonnade, the curved arms diminished by distance, arches and pillars taking on the appearance of a delicate filigree. Overhead light glowed from the surface of an inverted cone; the interior of the central spire. Dumarest stared up at it, his eyes blurred by the coils of rising mist, a thin vapor which turned in on itself, to fall, to rise again, to seeth in restless motion.
"Nothing," said Usan Labria. She sagged, leaning against a pillar, dwarfed by its immensity. "Nothing but dirt and mist Earl, there has to be a mistake. There has to be!"
"We've been misled." Sufan Noyoka's voice betrayed his anger. "There should be-Marek, is this your idea of a jest?"
"I tried to warn you," said Marek. "But you refused to understand. What is treasure? It is and has to be something which men hold to be valuable. But even men have different concepts of value. The bone of a martyr to one could be a thing beyond price, to another nothing more than a scrap of useless tissue. A set of coordinates, to Earl, would be worth all he has and could hope to possess. Usan wants to be young. Pacula wants to find her child. And you, Sufan, what did you hope to find? Cash? The realization of a dream? A new discovery?"
Dumarest said, "And you, Marek? Peace?"
"Peace." For a moment he looked haggard, his face bearing his true age. "A word, Earl, but can you realize what it means? Can anyone? To be at rest, to be free of regret, never to be tormented with doubt, to be sure and never to wonder if only- Peace, Earl. Peace."
Dumarest said quietly, "The past is dead, Marek."
"Gone, but never dead, Earl. And I think you know it. Always it is with us in our memories. A glimpse of a face, the touch of a breeze, the scent of a flower, the echo of a song, and suddenly the past is with us. A thousand things, tiny triggers impossible to wholly avoid, and those gone rise to live again. To live. To accuse!"
"Marek!" Pacula moved forward to lay her hand on his arm. "Marek. Please!"
He stood a man transfigured, one grown suddenly old, his shoulders stooped, his face ravaged, stripped of the cynical mask. His hands were before him, slightly raised, the fingers clenched, the knuckles white with strain. A man exposed, vulnerable, and a little pathetic. More than a little easy to understand.
To die by his own hand would be too easy and never could he be sure that, even in death, he would find the peace he sought. It was better to tempt danger, to risk the destruction dealt by others and so, always, he invited punishment.
Watching him Pacula realized it and, realizing, understood how much they had in common. She, too, lived with guilt Had she been a little more attentive, a little less easily persuaded, Culpea would be alive now. Alive and grown and at her side. A girl of twelve, one at puberty, blossoming from child into woman and needing a mother's love. If only-
"Marek," she said again. "Please don't hurt yourself."
He stiffened a little, shoulders squaring, the mask falling over his face and eyes. Deliberately he unclenched his hands and looked at the fingers as he flexed them. A moment and he had become a stranger, but she had seen and recognized the real man and her hand did not fall from his arm.
Usan said, "Earl, my head. It aches like hell and I'm tired. To have come so far for so little. Nothing but dirt and mist." Her laughter was strained, artificial. "An old fool," she said. "That's what they called me. Well, maybe they were right after all. I'm old, certainly, and there is the evidence that I'm a fool." Her hand lifted to gesture at the open expanse, the mist. "We are all fools."
"No." Sufan Noyoka was insistent. "There has to be a mistake. The rumors must have some foundation. We must keep looking. Somewhere in the city we shall find it. The real treasure of Balhadorha. It has to be here."