Three nights later, Amrik and Sidoum made their way down into the old palace burial galleries. Kossuth’s acolyte bowed to them and led them to his lord. In one large chamber, Kossuth had removed all sarcophagi and royal decorations and remade the place into his own. Set about were stone tables and benches; tripods of fuming incenses; shelves lined with scrolls, stone containers, and the things of dark sorcery. Designs had been carved into the floors and walls—twisting configurations and curious cartouches. And at one end of the room, in the heavy shadows, was a small pit in the floor, not very deep but boiling up a foul smoke that fogged the chamber and clouded about the incense burners.
Amrik stood in the flickering, unsteady light of torches and oil lamps, and Sidoum behind him.
Kossut
