They dwelt in cellars and sewers, in stormdrains and rat- squeeze underpassages, in crypts and boltholes, in shadow and darkness. The cold rains washed the sewers clean. The Velvet River itself ran cleaner than ever before in living memory.
– What were we then? A pollution on the face of the earth?
– I know not. But know our destiny now. To be rats to our lords, the Swarms.
That was what Sarazin told himself. But he believed it not. Surely some hero would come, some force, some power, to liberate Selzirk from the Swarms. Sometimes, he toyed with his magic green candle, the last piece of magic left to him. Did that perchance have the power to save Selzirk?
The trouble was, he had not the slightest idea what the candle could do. The druid who had given it to him had not known. It might prove dangerous rather than helpful.
– I'd best not use this until I know what it does. Or until my life's so deep in danger that there's no other way out. Thus thought Sarazin.
In those dismal days, it was some consolation to him that at least his mother's palace still stood fast against the monsters. He approached, sometimes, at night. Flame wrathed up from the moat, no longer quiescent but ferociously alive. Sometimes he saw figures on the battle- ments. Long after midnight, strange lights sometimes writhed around one of the eight towers which had long been sealed against humankind. – The wizards have reclaimed their own. Thus thought Sarazin, and knew it for truth.
He could see, now, what had happened. When the Swarms had invaded Argan North, the wizards by Drangsturm had fled by any means available. Some had come to Selzirk and reclaimed the ancient wizard fortress which had been the foundation of Farfalla's palace.
– Perhaps those who guard the walls are the same wizards who came through that Door in Chenameg.
That would explain much: Drangsturm fell; the wizards fled through a Door north of Drangsturm; the Swarms pursued them through that Door.
– Should I myself try that Door? Is there any hope of safety through such?
Sarazin played with the question, but made no serious attempt to answer it, for he still hoped for Selzirk to be saved, liberated, rescued.
Since the Swarms were more active by day than by night, Sarazin and Glambrax slept through most of the day, waking each evening to begin their activities. On one such evening, they were up in a belfry spying on the Swarms as those monsters settled to take their rest, and planning a raid on a warehouse where they hoped to find something decent to eat.
That was the evening that they saw a mountain moving in the distance, crossing the Harvest Plains like something out of nightmare. Then Sarazin truly knew his hopes for rescue were futile. The world had gone mad. When moun- tains take to walking, what next? Will the sky take to falling? 'Tonight,' he said to Glambrax, 'we leave the city.' 'To go where?' said Glambrax.
'To Chenameg,' said Sarazin. To the Door.'