The chamber of statues must be the old meditation room, and since there was no sign of a spiral staircase leading upward, it must be hidden. And where else would one store a volume of water sufficient to flood the entire chamber but in an old stairway that went to the surface! Behind the statue spewing water was not a pipe but a stairway! Hope sprang alive in his heart, and he laughed again.
“Douse the lamps!” Jori commanded. The water was already lapping at their feet, and his months spent working in the iron mine near Dombovar had taught him that air turned bad quickly underground.
Holding the glowing Kelten orb over his head, he boldly exclaimed: “I know how to get out of here. We are going to need your metal-cutting sword, Sir Ako, and someone who can swim.”
Chapter Ten
The Duel
As Sandun listened to Lord Vaina’s plan for escape, he immediately realized this was his task: he could swim, he had a glowing orb, and the cold of the water meant little to him.
He was more angry than afraid: angry that he had been fooled by the abbot and had been put off guard by the man’s calm acceptance of Lord Vaina’s demand for the Last Chancellor’s treasure. Abbot Bright Peak had been a master of deception. The only time the abbot had let an emotion show was when he realized his former colleague, River Reed or Moss Pond, had told them the secret. But that reaction had been perfectly understandable, human.
Sandun had been overconfident—they all had. The followers of Eston weren’t supposed to care about gold and silver; their highest beliefs were to harm no one and to never lie. Even Lord Vaina, who had abandoned his belief in Eston, had been certain that a show of force would convince the monks of Flame Iris to give up the treasure without a fight. But no, the leaders of Flame Iris were just like other men: covetous, duplicitous, and quite willing to commit murder to keep hold of a treasure that seemed to be used for nothing much more than collecting dust.
Now, Sandun had to set aside his recriminations. It was up to him to save them all, and thanks to Lord Vaina’s insight, Sandun was determined to succeed.
“I’ll do it,” Sandun told Lord Vaina. “I’ll need to borrow Skathris back, Sir Ako.”
Sir Ako unsheathed Skathris and handed it to him, hilt first.
Sandun took it in both hands. The new, extended handle and cross guard made it seem like a different weapon, but his spirit recognized an old friend, and within moments, the blade began to glow with a warm yellow color. The light illuminated the faces of his companions, and everyone smiled as they saw it.
“The Fire Sword returns!” Lathe exclaimed.
Sandun stripped off most of his remaining clothes and then waded into the water. Soon he had to dive under the surface to continue. Swimming with the long sword in his hand was much more difficult than he’d expected; he was slower, and it took more energy. At least he could see where he was going—it would be nearly impossible without light. Even with the light, he now had to hope that there was an air pocket in the chamber, otherwise…well, he would have to try regardless.
When he reached the end of the corridor, he swam upward and found a large space still above water. He took in several deep breaths while he studied the stone above him. The chamber had a roughly dome-shaped ceiling with a statue of what the prayer master had called the goddess Mafena still partly above the surface. It was, of course, a statue of Ajh, but Sandun had no time to examine it more closely. Instead, he swam over to the dark iron statue that was the source of the water flooding the large room.
Using Skathris, he cut the demonic triatismas statue to pieces. It was hard to apply much force to his downward strokes, and he had to tread water while he used the sword to cut the metal, but Skathris proved more than equal to the task. After five minutes, the statue was fully cut away from the wall, exposing an opening at the base of the floor, about two feet high. It was clear from the stonework behind the statue that a man-sized opening had once existed, but it was mostly filled in with newer stone blocks. Sandun could feel a strong current of water coming from the opening, but it was not like earlier when it had spewed out of the base of the demon with the force of a waterfall. This he could swim against—if he could get through.
Sir Ako surfaced in the chamber, with Lord Vaina’s glowing orb bound to his forehead with a silk cord.
“Are you all right?” Sandun called as he swam over to the big knight. “Is there still air to breathe at the door?”
Sir Ako wiped the water off his face. “Yes. The water is still rising, but not so fast. Lord Vaina wanted to come, but we convinced him to stay next to the door. By Sho’Ash, the air in this room tastes better than back there. There may be too many people in too small a space. What have you found?”
Sandun described the narrow opening behind demon statue. “I don’t think I can carry Skathris through it, but that shouldn’t matter.”
“I’ll help however I can,” Sir Ako told him. “Perhaps I can widen the opening.”
Together they swam down and examined the opening by the light of their glowing orbs. What seemed to be a stone step lay two feet beyond the opening—Lord Vaina’s guess about the hidden architecture looked increasingly likely. Sir Ako pulled ineffectually at the stone blocks around the opening and then swam up to the surface.
Sandun told him, “If I can wriggle my way past the first step, the rest should be easy.”
“Even if it is a stairway, you have no idea how far up the water goes,” Sir Ako said.
“I don’t see that we have a choice, and I’m likely the only person who is small enough to make it through and who can swim.”
“Filpa says he can swim, and he’s smaller than you. And Basil’s about your height.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m doing it,” Sandun said firmly.
“I brought the key from the prayer master. Lord Vaina gave it to me. Where is that treacherous monk?”
“Drowned. I saw his body over by the statue of…the goddess.”
“I wonder if there’s air in the treasure corridor. We may have to send people there while we wait for you to return. Anyway, take some deep breaths before you start—it’s a trick I was taught by my father’s chief engineer.”
Sandun took Sir Ako’s advice and, putting his arms around the neck of the golden statue of Ajh, he took many slow, deep breaths. Seen up close, the face of the statue was a remarkable likeness. How had the artist known? Ajh had told Sandun that she had not walked openly among mortals for more than a thousand years. Perhaps the artist had been one of her champions, like himself. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time that one of the champions of Ajh had founded a religion worshiping a savior goddess, the Red Prophet had done just that.
“I’m ready,” Sandun said. “I’ll see you on the other side.”
“May Sho’Ash guide your path. Good luck, Sandun,” Sir Ako’s deep voice echoed across the watery dome.
Sandun dived down, feeling strangely lightheaded, and he pushed his way into the rectangular hole. At first, his shoulders wouldn’t fit, but he struggled on. Then, he feared he was stuck at an angle, but he twisted and clawed with his hands on the slippery stones. Sir Ako helped by pushing at his feet. Then his dormant Piksie sword became wedged on the lip of the first stair. He tugged and pulled at the sword; already his lungs were burning, and panic was eating at his mind. There was no going back! He had to go up and seek air above or die.
Finally, he freed his sword and shot upward, swimming with desperate speed around the twisting staircase. He drew on the power within him, the akela that he had been gathering again ever since he killed Abbot Bright Peak with lightning. Around and around he went, pulling with his hands, kicking furiously with his feet. There was no pain, he told himself, he was the champion of Ajh, and he would succeed.
Suddenly a sheet of greenish slime obscured his vision and cloud of gunk covered his hands and face. As he pushed onward, his hands banged against a hard
metal bar. There was a grate in the way, above his head, but he heard a splashing sound—he was near the surface! How close? He turned his face up as though to kiss the iron bars…YES, there was air!
His first gasp nearly choked him as he took in a mouthful of slime that hung off the bars, somehow feeding off the iron. Still, there was at least six inches of air above the surface of the water, and he hung there, weakly, breathing in the precious air, his mind numb.
Slowly he began to think, and he cleared away the slime from the bars. Already in the short time he had hung there, the water had dropped several inches. If he had come there sooner, he would have drowned for certain. But even so, he was trapped, at least for the moment. If he had Skathris, he could cut through this grate, but Skathris was back in the chamber with Sir Ako. Could he swim back down, retrace his route, wriggle through the opening and then return, with Skathris in his hands? He groaned aloud at the thought.
If only he could wake the sword he was carrying! If ever he had a need of the sword’s sleeping power, now was the moment. The image of Ajh’s golden face came to his mind. He heard her beautiful, melodious thought-voice speaking to him again, and with a thrill of insight, he understood what to do. He would guide the hidden power from his dragon circle—“Nim’s toy,” as Ajh had called it—into the ancient sword. The one would awaken the other, become the other. He would be the conduit, or the stream between the two.
“Thank you, Ajh,” Sandun whispered into the darkness, and he began to concentrate.
In a minute, it was done. The dragon circle lay against his chest, almost entirely drained of its power, while the Piksie sword in his hand was awake, a faint glow emanating from its cutting edge: alive! He knew its power now: a metal cutter, not a stone cutter. He’d expected as much, for this was a sword, designed for killing other people, and no one ever wore stone armor. The wakened sword needed a name, and that which came to him was Baltung, the sword of Sivrit, a legendary hero of Melnehlan.
Sandun spoke softly: “I name you Baltung, reborn, in a time of desperate need.”
Slowly, methodically, he cut a man-sized hole through the metal grate. The heavy iron splashed into the water and sank past him down to the stairs below. Sandun levered himself up and out and found he had gashes on his chest and thighs from his earlier struggles. He shrugged—it didn’t matter. He mounted the wet, slime-covered stairs, around and around, gaining elevation.
One hundred and nine steps later, the stairway ended. A bucket dangling in the air was attached to a rope that went up to a dimly seen crossbar. The stairs had been hacked away—this portion of the stairway had clearly been used as a well. But whoever had cut away the stairs hadn’t made a clean job of it, and pieces of the stairs still jutted out from the walls. With care, Sandun was able to make his way higher and higher. He doubted the rope would support his full weight, so he avoided holding it except for brief moments when he needed to maintain his balance.
After a minute of struggle, he reached the top of the well and found himself in a basement of a house at the top of the karst.
He had made it. Sandun allowed himself only a brief rest while he collected his thoughts, even though in the back of his mind, he was singing a song of joy. His task now was to get back down and open the door and save his friends. For that, he needed allies.
He located a narrow flight of wooden stairs leading up to a kitchen, judging by the smell of damp coal being burned and the faint whiff of crushed vegetables. In the room, he found the abbot’s two cooks, one stirring a pot, the other rolling balls of rice flour. “Why ask me?” the rice-ball maker was saying. “No one seems to know where the abbot went. It’s late, maybe he will just retire and not take his usual midnight soup.” Then the man rolling the balls caught sight of Sandun coming up the stairs with his sword drawn. He pointed a flour-covered finger at Sandun and shrieked, “Ahh! A demon from the well!” The man turned and ran out of the kitchen while his fellow cook spun around, knocking the soup pot off the stove, where it splashed on the floor, scalding his feet and legs. Hooting with dismay, he also ran away, waving his wooden spoon in the air.
Sandun was grimly amused by the reaction of the two men. He saw a stained apron hanging from a peg near the door and considered putting it on but decided not to. If his wild appearance, and bloody torso frightened people away, all the better. As he examined the kitchen, he knew this was the abbot’s house, built above the old stairway that had once led down to the meditation chamber far below. All the time the abbot was entertaining them, he had a plan to get them into the chamber so he could kill them all—the bastard!
Sandun’s rage boiled over, and he brought his sword down on the table they had sat around just two hours earlier, smashing the abbot’s exquisite yellow bowl into a hundred pieces. But he had no time for mindless destruction; he had to hurry and make his way to the prayer hall.
Outside, he soon encountered a group of heavily armed monks advancing up the path toward him. The idea that he would be able to make his way unopposed was immediately curtailed by the monks’ threats and their commander’s orders to kill the invader.
Sandun was in no mood for negotiation, but he was not blinded by rage either. He quickly unleashed a forked bolt of lightning, which struck down every single one of the monks coming toward him. They all died as the sound of thunder resounded across the karst. Sandun had a great deal of power, for the air here at the top of the mountain was alive with akela. He could do the same thing again several more times. Up here, no one could stand in his way and live. He laid low another group of monks who came out of a building to his left; they were armed with long fighting sticks, and he could have scared them off perhaps, but he chose not to. They were all complicit in the abbot’s murderous plan—they all deserved to die.
“Lord Sandun!” A voice called out to him from a dark alley on his right. He knew the voice at once: Number Eight. Sandun ran up to Lord Vaina’s spymaster; exactly the man he was hoping to find. “Lord Sandun, the rumors of your power fell far short of the truth. You are like a god!”
“I’m not a god. I nearly drowned just a few minutes ago.” Sandun gripped Number Eight’s shoulders. “Lord Vaina and the knights are all in serious danger. I need twenty or more men to follow me and push a door open against a great weight of water.”
“Water? Where?” Number Eight spoke with incredulity in his voice, and then he put his hands up to his face and said, “Below, of course. So they didn’t move the treasure after River-Reed escaped from here. I wrongly guessed they would have relocated it to the Great Temple.”
Sandun tried to control his fierce anger. “Where are your men? Lord Vaina said you had thirty agents concealed among the pilgrims. And what about the soldiers coming up the stairs?”
“Many Flame Iris monks are holding the stairs against the soldiers of Kunhalvar and Frostel’s todoskar from Rulon Mors. My men are scattered around, looking for Lord Vaina. You were seen entering the main Prayer Hall, but none saw you leave, and we couldn’t figure out where you had gone. None of the monks we questioned knew anything either.”
“There is a hidden door that leads to a large cavern below,” Sandun told him. “If your men can’t be immediately collected, then I need to get the Kunhalvar soldiers to the Prayer Hall.”
“I would say none can stand in your way, Lord Sandun.”
“I don’t have unlimited power—far from it. Two or three more strikes is all I can manage.”
Just then, a small man came out of the shadows and saluted Number Eight. The spymaster nodded and said, “Black Dog, what news?”
“The soldiers are on the last flight of steps. Still no sign of Iron Foot or his bodyguards. Oh! Lord Sandun!”
“Iron Foot has been found,” Number Eight told his agent. “Now, go swiftly and gather as many of the others as you can find. Meet at the entrance to the Prayer Hall. Tarry not! Time is now against us.”
Black Dog tu
rned and ran off.
“When did the monks of Flame Iris start fighting?” Sandun asked as he continued down the path, heading toward the growing sounds of battle.
“As soon as Iron…I mean Lord Vaina entered the Prayer Hall. At a signal of three bells, the monks pulled out swords and maces and marched down the stairs. They were wearing armor under their robes. Reinforcements came out of the dormitories armed with spears and bows.”
Sandun thought to himself, And you had no clue? Some spymaster you are! But he held his tongue and remembered that they had all been fooled by the monks of Flame Iris Temple. As they neared the saddle of the karst, Sandun thought about how he could break up the monks’ defenses. He couldn’t kill all of the monks defending the stairway—there were too many of them. Sandun tried to think like Sir Ako. What would he do in this situation?
By the light of the torches held by the monks, Sandun could see they were grouped around the stairway, but it occurred to him that only a few of the monks could fight on the stairs—most seemed to be milling around ineffectually. If the other monks went off chasing threats, he might be able to kill the ones directly in front of the stairs, hopefully allowing the Kunhalvar soldiers to break through.
The Flame Iris Temple Page 26