As the Dain's words finally sunk in, Melovar looked down at the smooth stone of the Sentinel's pedestal, a single piece of marble so wide and expansive that a thousand men would not have been crowded were they to stand on it.

At the Primate's feet, directly under the statue's centre point, was a circle of runes.

"Well?" Dain Barden said. "Is it what you're looking for?"

Melovar allowed the arm that held the book to drop to his side. "I don't know," he said. "I've only been able to glean fragments of knowledge from the book."

"I gathered as much. Is it a weapon?" Barden asked.

"I don't know."

"Can you open it?"

"I can try," Melovar said. He examined the circle of runes for a moment and then flipped through the book, turning the pages one after the other.

The Primate felt his heart race when he recognised the circle of symbols on the page in front of him.

He called out in a clear voice. "Mulara-latahn. Sunara-latahn. Sumayara-sulamara-latanara."

The runes that had been carved into the stone, still looking as fresh as if they had just been inscribed, lit up with a slow fire of green light that travelled from one symbol to the next.

A seam appeared on the inside of the circle of runes, and Melovar heard Dain Barden draw in his breath. Then there was a grinding sound, as if one stone was moving against another, and the seam flared with a golden light.

The stone disk moved downwards, falling into a rapidly-opening hole. A moment later the grinding ceased and Dain Barden stepped forward to stand with the Primate, so that the two men were staring down into the glowing opening in the ground. As he squinted against the bright light, Melovar saw that there were stairs inside the hole, and he took a step forward.

"Wait," the Dain said, holding Melovar back with his arm. "Let me send in one of them."

Barden motioned, and one of the revenants took clumsy steps down into the opening, before disappearing down the stairway.

With a sound like the roar of forge, the golden light turned to red, and both Melovar and Barden looked away, shielding their eyes. When they looked back at the opening and the stairway revealed within, only a pile of ash stood where the draug had been.

"I don't think we're welcome here," Dain Barden said. "It's warded."

"Send in the other one," Melovar said.

The light had shifted hue back to soft yellow. The second revenant stepped forward, taking the steps down one at a time, walking for the count of twenty steps without coming to harm, and with a shrug Dain Barden followed, the Primate close on his heels.