Free The Tower of Fear by Glen Cook Page A

blot of the citadel, wondered if the Witch was getting any sleep tonight. Probably. She thought she was like the citadel itself: above the dirt and turmoil of Qushmarrah.
    She might end up learning the hard way.
    He crested the hill, putting the harbor side behind him. Ahead lay the Hahr, the most prosperous quarter of the Old City. Behind lay the Shu, the poorest and most densely populated quarter, where sons had stacked homes beside and atop those of their fathers till half the quarter was like some enormous mad mud daubers’ nest where anyone who lived off the thoroughfares first had to climb up to the sunlight and cross the rooftops in order to reach a street. The labyrinth underlay it all, sometimes open all the way to the sky, more often built over and now with old doorways sealed lest doom slip up by that route. The maze was so deadly that even the most desperate homeless seldom stole in for shelter. That territory belonged to the boldest of the bad boys.
    Azel had met people in there who made him nervous. Weird people. Crazy people. People you had to deal with harshly to get your message across. And some who just could not learn.
    Azel had grown up in the Shu. At seven he had been orphaned and left homeless. He did not remember much about his parents except that his mother had cried all the time and his father had yelled almost as much and had beaten them all a lot. He had a notion that it might have been he who had set the fire that consumed them—except that he had an equally fuzzy recollection of his brother giving the old man fifteen or twenty good ones to the head with a hammer before the fire.
    He hadn’t seen his brother since.
    There was nothing he wanted to remember from those days, no little heirloom he carried around and treasured.
    At fourteen he had gone to sea and had gotten to know most of the ports around the rim of the sea. He had survived them all and most of them had survived him. At twenty-one he had returned to Qushmarrah.
    It had not been long before he had fallen in with the remnants of the Gorloch cult. Its grim philosophy appealed to him, though he took from it only what suited him and discarded the rest. He was not weak. He had no higher god than himself.
    Soon he caught the eye of the High Priest, Nakar. The sorcerer gave him odd jobs. He handled them swiftly, efficiently, no matter how difficult or cruel. In a moment of humor Nakar had begun calling him Azel after the demon who carried Gorloch’s messages to the living world. Azel the Destroyer.
    Never did he commit himself to the god or to the man. Not entirely. Azel could not give himself wholly to anyone but Azel.
    He had missed Dak-es-Souetta. He hadn’t been trapped in any of the towers at Harak Pass. He hadn’t participated in the rout on the Plain of Chordan nor had he been there for the hopeless defense of Qushmarrah after the pride of her youth and manhood had been slaughtered or scattered, chaff driven by the hot breath of Death.
    His absence did not shame him. It would not have shamed him had he done nothing for the city that had done nothing for him. He knew nothing about shame. But he had in fact been doing something. He had been in Agadar, west along the coast, where the Herodian armies had landed. His few carefully struck blows against Herodian commanders had—unfortunately, as it had developed—delayed the invading armies the month necessary for Fa’tad al-Akla to gather his tribal warriors and race to Dak-es-Souetta.
    Thus do the Fates conspire.
    Azel paused across the street from the house that was his destination. Almost the instant his feet stopped moving the door opened over there. Azel eased back into deeper shadow.
    Could it be?
    Of course not. The Fates neither loved him so well nor hated Sagdet so much. He sank down onto his heels, tucked his hands in, turned his face down, and watched under his brows. The man passed within ten feet without seeing him.
    It was the one called Edgit. Perhaps the old man would