“None. They’re lost, Thomas. I’m sorry, but there’s no way they could have survived this long in the desert.”

“I don’t know. I’m still not convinced.”

“Then let me go,” Mikil said.

“Out into the desert?”

“I’ll lead the scouting party. For you, sir.”

He thought about her suggestion, then nodded. “Take ten of our best—and extra water. Head directly toward this smoke. One day out, no more. Let’s see what secrets the desert is hiding from us.”

IT WAS MORE OF A HUNCH THAN SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE, BUT Alucard’s statement that Teeleh’s lair was below and not very far had gnawed at Johnis’s subconscious from the moment he’d heard it. He couldn’t shake the suspicion that there was more to this stadium than met the eye.

He dropped to the ground and ran behind the platform.

Actually, the single greatest tip-off had been Alucard’s sudden appearance with Teeleh’s Book of History. He’d come from the back, Johnis remembered. And he hadn’t seen the beast fly in.

Rough-hewn planks formed a wall around the platform, like a skirt that hid whatever lay below. Johnis ran the perimeter and pulled up hard at the very back.

There, almost exactly as he’d pictured it in his mind’s eye, was a gate made from the same planks. He pulled it open and peered in. Stairs cut from wet, mossy stone descended into the ground. The putrid smell of death that rose around him made him blanch involuntarily.

This was it! He knew to the core of his bones. The Dark One’s lair awaited below.

Johnis returned to the front. “Wait here. Watch the horses. And if you have any trouble, blow the horn.”

“Where are you going?” Silvie demanded. “I’m going with you!”

“No, you’re not. Teeleh’s either down there or he’s out because of the fire. If he’s still in the lair, it’s finished; you have to accept that. Not one of us stands a chance against that beast. No use in all of us risking our necks.”

“I was under the impression that we were already doing that,” Billos said.

They ignored him. Darsal threw Johnis an unlit torch. “Take this with you. One strike and it will burn.”

Johnis looked at it. This was what they must’ve started the fire with. Who’d given it to them was anyone’s guess, but an image of a fuzzy white Roush came to his mind.

The moist, mossy stone steps leading down were best gripped with claws, not boots. They twisted to the left, forming a circular staircase, darker with each step down. He lit the torch and stared downward. Yellow light touched the rock walls, but even this seemed to be absorbed by the blankness below.