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. The noise was frightful, inhuman.
It prickled the hair on Michael's neck, sent a shiver
down his spine.
Smoke boiled up from beyond the walls of Old City.
Under its cover, Michael and Nikol slipped through the
gates without attracting anyone's attention. Reaching
the other side, they came to a halt, stared in disbelief.
Nothing, not the sight of the destruction, not the tumult
that raged around them, prepared them for what they
saw.
Several large and beautiful houses had been set
ablaze and were burning furiously. Large crowds
danced drunkenly in front of the fires, cheering and
waving bottles and other, more gruesome, trophies. But
the largest concentration of the mob was farther on,
gathered around the great library.
Here the crowd was more or less hushed, heads
craning to see and hear. A voice rose, exhorting them to
further acts of terror. Nikol climbed a drainpipe that
ran up the side of a house, and stood on the roof to gain
a better view.
"The Revered Son is on the library stairs," she
reported on her return. "His men are there with him.
They're armed with clubs and axes and carrying
torches. He's - " Her words were drowned out by a roar
that set the windows rattling.
"We must get inside the library!" Michael was
forced to shout to be heard over the clamor. He was
starting to feel panicked. The idea that the holy disks
might fall victim to this unholy chaos appalled him.
"I have an idea!" Nikol shouted in return, then
motioned him to follow her. They slipped past on the
fringes of the crowd, ducked down an alleyway, ran its
length
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