The Quest for Saint Camber

by Katherine Kurtz

  Closer scrutiny brought no reassurance, however. Morgan stood for a long time on the bank, staring at the spot and trying to send his mind into the abyss where that part of the river plunged downward, but he touched nothing.

  “You’re not thinking of trying to follow them, are you?” Duncan murmured, coming to stand at his elbow after a few minutes.

  Morgan shook his head. “Despondent I may be, but I’m not suicidal,” he said. “That river bottom’s like a funnel at this point. The water must come out somewhere, but I can’t get any feel for how far away that might be. For all we know, it could drain into an underground cistern—though one would think that would have to feed something too, or at least fill up eventually.”

  “Suppose it doesn’t go into a cistern, then,” Duncan said. “Suppose the river continues as a river, but underground. It must come out somewhere. This is high country here, but eventually, there are lowlands all around.”

  Morgan nodded. “That’s what I’ve been thinking, too. But no one seems to know where.”

  Ciard, listening to their conversation, cocked his head thoughtfully.

  “Now, there’s a thought, sairs,” he said. “These monks dinnae know anything o’mountains, fer all that they live in ’em—an’ mayhap they’d wrinkle their long noses at what I’m a thinkin’—but we folk o’ th’ borders hae the second sight, sometimes. Hae ye ever heard o’ dowsin’ tae find water?”

  “Dowsing?” Morgan murmured.

  But Duncan nodded enthusiastically, giving Ciard his full attention.

  “I’ve heard of it, Ciard. But, we already know where the water is. Do you think it’s possible to focus on a particular body of water, with all this surface water around?”

  “Weel, I dinnae know that I could focus it that fine—but Deryni like yerselves …”

  “We can’t end up any worse off than we are,” Morgan said impatiently. “I’m willing to try. Ciard, is there any chance they might have missed the funnel and been swept farther downriver?”

  Ciard shook his head. “Th’ lads an’ I hae been a full day’s ride downstream, sair. None o’ th’ bodies we did find got even half that far—an’ most were just here, caught in th’ rocks around th’ edges o’ this pool. Nah, puir Dhugal an’ th’ king must’ve gone under, all right—God rest ’em.”

  The old gillie’s assessment was harsh, but after Morgan and Duncan had exchanged quick, silent queries, they agreed that the suggestion to dowse for the course of the river certainly could do no harm. They watched with honest curiosity as Ciard picked through the piles of driftwood at the edge of the pool until, after inspecting and rejecting nearly a dozen, he found a forked branch that suited him. Quickly he trimmed it to the shape of a short-tailed Y and peeled it, pausing often to pare away a knot or test the proportions of the arms. When he had sheathed his dirk, he held out his work for their inspection.

  “Now, why did you pick this particular bit of wood, Ciard?” Morgan asked.

  “Why, because it spoke t’me, sair. Some o’ them hae th’ yen tae bend tae water, an’ others dinnae. Feel th’ life in this one—not th’ life o’ the tree it came from, exactly, but a—a vitality, if ye will.”

  As the two Deryni ran their fingers along the smooth, pale wood, Duncan nodded, opening his perceptions to Morgan as well.

  “I think I see what you mean,” he said. “Now, how do you use it?”

  A little more tentative now, Ciard took the two arms of the forked branch lightly in his fingers and turned so that the tail of the Y pointed toward the water. After a few seconds, the tail dipped a little between his hands.

  “Are you doing that?” Morgan asked.

  Duncan shook his head at the same time Ciard shook his.

  “No, sair,” the gillie murmured, his seamed face very still, eyes a little unfocused on the end of the stick. “I—cannae exactly explain what I’m doin’, but …”

  As his voice trailed off and the tail of the Y jerked more strongly between his hands, Duncan moved enough closer to touch his forearm gently.

  “Try not to pay any attention to me, Ciard,” Duncan said, pushing a tentative probe toward the gillie’s mind. “You’ve worked with Dhugal, so you know a mind touch won’t hurt. I just want to see if I can figure out how you’re doing that.”

  He closed his eyes then, reading all the nuances of energy flow that went into what Ciard was doing.

  “We’ll have to make our own dowsing sticks,” he said, when he looked up at last and let his hand fall away. “Each one has to be chosen by and for the user. But I think I’ve got the general idea.”

  An hour later, forked sticks in hands, both of them were focusing on the pool where the river went underground, gradually beginning to pick up impressions of where the river went next.

  “It’s going to be slow going,” Duncan said, “and God knows whether it will lead us anywhere useful, but at least it’s better than doing nothing. We need to get to the other side of the river, though. Ciard, is that possible, without going all the way down to the valley of Saint Bearand’s?”

  “Aye, but it’ll be tricky with th’ horses. There’s a ford o’ sorts a few miles farther up, above where the bank gave way.”

  “Let’s go, then,” Duncan said. “Unless you think we’re wasting our time, Alaric,” he added.

  Morgan, who was not yet as adept with his dowsing stick as Duncan, could only shake his head and follow Duncan and Ciard back to the campsite so preparations could be made.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  If I wait, the grave is my house.

  —Job 17:13

  Dhugal chipped loose another shard of mortar—hopefully the last he would have to remove to loosen the brick it held—then smacked the brick with the heel of his hand. It gave, tumbling into the chamber beyond before he could catch it, and hit the floor with a muffled clatter. The sound roused Kelson, who had been dozing on their heaped-up cloaks, close beside the pile of bricks that had grown from their exertions.

  Dhugal had been at it for what must be nearly twenty-four hours now, with only short breaks to catch his breath and snatch a few fitful minutes’ nap. The last of their water was gone. Kelson had tried to help with the digging, but he could not work for long before he must lie down and rest or else swoon. He rose now, however, wobbling closer to peer over Dhugal’s shoulder as the latter conjured a second, smaller sphere of handfire and sent it through the opening.

  “Is that one going to make the difference?” the king asked, as Dhugal stuck his head and one arm through and began inching his shoulders past the uneven edges.

  “I certainly hope so,” came Dhugal’s somewhat muffled reply. “We should have made the opening lower, though. Give me a boost, can you?”

  Though it made his head reel a little, Kelson bent to set his interlaced fingers under Dhugal’s knee, as if giving him a leg up onto a horse. Dhugal’s contortions as he wormed his way through the opening nearly knocked Kelson off balance, but he braced his shoulder against the wall and somehow managed to keep the other’s legs steady until Dhugal had gotten both hands safely on the floor beyond and could drag his torso and legs the rest of the way through.

  They already knew that no immediate escape lay on the other side. Hoping to break through into the open, they instead had found themselves working to enter a burial chamber, dank and decaying, very likely but the first in a long series of similar tombs set beadlike on the string that was the long cavern they had been following. The tomb’s occupant apparently lay in a coffin hewn from a tree trunk, set lengthwise across the room on a raised bier of piled stones. A pall or banner shrouded most of it, though too mildewed and moisture-rotted to be read any longer, at least from their limited vantage point, and the floor around it was littered with the long-decayed remains of floral tributes, mostly gone to mulch.

  But the acrid, musty odor of ancient death was not Dhugal’s primary concern, as he picked himself up and dusted debris from his hands and knees. It was the distinct possibility that
his and Kelson’s deaths might follow all too soon. For hardly half a dozen paces beyond the coffin lay another wall very like the one he had just breached, though plastered and painted with a fresco now cracked and peeling from the damp. And though a substantial-looking wooden door pierced the wall at its center, it was tightly closed and ominously latchless. Nor would it yield when Dhugal came and set his shoulder against it, first tentatively and then with a lunge whose impact reverberated in the close confines of the chamber.

  “Is it latched from the other side?” came Kelson’s fearful query, from where he bent to peer through the hole in the first wall.

  “Seems to be,” Dhugal replied, returning. “But we’ll worry about that after we’ve gotten you through. I wonder whose tomb this is. It looks really old.”

  Kelson, who had been stuffing their cloaks through the hole, passed Dhugal the empty flask and saddlebags, then bent to stick his right arm and head through the hole.

  “Right now, I don’t care how old it looks,” he said, as he began the contortion process to get his upper body through. “The question is, am I going to be able to get through here?”

  “You should,” Dhugal replied, taking Kelson’s right arm. “You’re a bit broader through the shoulders than I am, so it’s going to be a little tight—and unfortunately, there’s no way to give you a boost from behind, but—that’s it. Good. Can you push yourself off now, and I’ll pull?”

  “‘Push yourself off,’ he says,” Kelson muttered, as he tried to suit action to words. With his legs now dangling free, he took his full weight across his middle and one trapped arm and bit back a gasp. “God, I’m about to amputate my arm!”

  “No you’re not.”

  “It isn’t your arm that’s being amputated!”

  “That’s true.”

  Shifting his grip beneath Kelson’s arm that was through, Dhugal began twisting and pulling.

  “Arch your back a little, if you can. Shift more to your right. We don’t want to have to spend another few hours making the hole bigger.”

  “We’re going to have to,” Kelson gasped. “I’m stuck.”

  “You’re not stuck.”

  “Dhugal, I’m leaving skin behind!”

  “That’s all right. You’re nearly through. Easy now—I’ve nearly got your other arm free. Try to squirm a little to your left, if you can, and—there we go!”

  Kelson cried out as Dhugal drew him the rest of the way through, almost sobbing as both of them fell in a tangle of flailing limbs, fortunately cushioned by the heap of their cloaks. Dhugal rolled to a sitting position at once and scrambled to help Kelson, but the king only shook his head and curled into a ball, clutching at his groin and sucking in breath between clenched teeth.

  “Are you all right?” Dhugal demanded.

  “I will be, in a minute,” Kelson grunted, white-faced, as Dhugal helped him to sit, “though I don’t know if I can say the same about future Haldane heirs.”

  Dhugal did his best not to chuckle.

  “Sorry, but it was a little late to push you back through and start over. You aren’t really hurt, are you?”

  “Only my pride.” Shakily, Kelson eased to his knees and then to his feet with Dhugal’s help. “Let’s have a closer look at what we’ve stumbled into.”

  In addition to the fresco on the wall with the door, there was one where they had just broken through, though unknown years of moisture had rendered the subject matter unrecognizable.

  Of more immediate interest, however, was the body. The fabric covering it fell away in shreds at Dhugal’s tentative touch, and he leaned closer to peer inside as its disintegration revealed that the coffin had no lid.

  “Well, would you look at this?” he murmured, as Kelson staggered closer.

  The remains were skeletal, though the leather and metal of the brigandine in which the man had been buried were still intact. The wool of his arming coat and breeches crumbled almost at a breath to show yellowed bone beneath. The skull was encased in a crested helm whose like had not been seen in Gwynedd in several centuries.

  But what had arrested Dhugal’s attention was not the armor, Kelson saw as he laid his hands on the coffin edge to inspect its contents more closely, but a regular pattern of scarlet threads laid over the entire body like a net, the openings perhaps a hand’s breadth wide. And each intersection of the threads was knotted with what appeared to be a small, greyish stone, drilled through the center to take the thread.

  “What is it?” Kelson whispered, glancing up at Dhugal in question.

  Dhugal shook his head and held a hand close over one of the stones.

  “I dunno. Something magical, I should think. A protective charm of some sort? It’s all dissipated now, so far as I can tell, but there’s a residue of some sort of energy.”

  “Deryni?”

  “You’re asking me?”

  “Well, it’s a cinch I can’t tell, right now,” Kelson replied. “What do you think it’s made of?”

  Dhugal fingered one of the threads cautiously. “Silk? And some of the stones have traces of shiral, unless I miss my guess. It’s all awfully old, though. I’ve never seen anything like it. I wish Father and Duke Alaric were here.”

  Kelson sighed, glancing around the rest of the room. Now that they had satisfied their immediate curiosity about its occupant, the priorities of escape and survival began to resume their former places of prominence in his mind. The door to which Dhugal was returning remained the immediate barrier to the former, but Kelson was startled to realize that the chamber’s two end walls, defined by the natural stone of the cavern, were stacked knee-high with the vague hulk of funerary offerings—pottery jars, rotted baskets, moldering wooden caskets—and food and Wine were among the items traditionally included in such offerings. Even as he turned to say something to Dhugal, the other was circling back in that direction, picking up what was left of his dagger as he passed the heap of their cloaks.

  “Do you think any of these are still good?” Kelson asked, as Dhugal began prising at the stopper in the nearest one.

  “We’ll soon see,” Dhugal replied. “I certainly hope so.”

  The stopper popped out, and Dhugal peered inside. After a few seconds’ scrutiny, he dipped into the jar, bringing up a handful of musty looking grain.

  “Well, we’re on the right track—though I don’t think I’m quite hungry enough to try munching on moldy grain just yet. I was hoping for some wine. The temperature’s probably pretty constant down here, so wine could have aged rather well, if it was properly sealed. We might end up working a little tipsy, but it’s nourishing—and our water’s gone.”

  They did find a jar of wine, after a few more tries. It was sour but drinkable. After a few swallows, Dhugal went back to the blank door and knelt down to lay his hands flat against the wood where a latch ought to be. Kelson watched as his foster brother’s eyes closed and his breathing slowed, wishing he were not so helpless. But even thinking seriously about trying to use his own powers made his head hurt.

  “It’s just a sliding bar across the other side,” Dhugal said, after a minute or two, not opening his eyes. “I think I can move it, but it’s awfully heavy. I’m going to need your help.”

  “I don’t know how much help I can be,” Kelson said, coming to stand beside Dhugal, “but I’ll do what I can.”

  “Sit down against the door and try to open your mind for a link, so I can draw energy,” Dhugal murmured, slipping his right hand around the back of Kelson’s neck as the king complied. “I’ll try not to push you too hard.”

  Kelson closed his eyes and did his best to relax, but there was little reservoir from which to draw, and the very drawing caused him a great deal of discomfort. Nonetheless, the sound of wood against wood came from the other side of the door after a seemingly endless time of that discomfort; and then the door moved behind him. He snapped out of his trance with a groan and a nearly blinding headache, barely able to make his eyes focus as he turned on hands and knees to l
ook when Dhugal swung the door outward.

  Beyond lay another chamber very like the one they were in, with another door in the opposite wall and another tree-trunk coffin set across the floor, the rotting funeral pall festooning it in shreds. Dhugal got slowly to his feet and circled haltingly to the next door, but it, too, was barred from the other side. He made a fist and started to slam it against the wood, then pulled the blow at the last moment and merely set his fist against the door, briefly bowing his forehead against it. He tried to smile as he turned at last to look at Kelson, but the hollow dullness of despair was in his eyes.

  “Well, it’s clear this place wasn’t designed with us in mind,” he said softly. “Who would have thought anyone would be trying to get out, once these doors were closed?”

  “Do you think this one’s the same as the other?” Kelson asked, as he hauled himself groggily to his feet by the first door’s latch.

  “Probably,” Dhugal replied. “And there’s simply no way to get a physical purchase from the locked side, except the way I just did it. Nor is there any way of knowing how many more of these burial chambers there might be. If these two are as old as they seem, and the caverns have continued in use, there could be dozens—even scores.”

  Kelson closed his eyes briefly, swaying on his feet even with the support of the door, then swallowed hard and started toward Dhugal.

  “We’d better get busy, then. I’d like to sleep in a bed in the next day or two. I’m all right,” he added, as Dhugal caught him under an arm and helped him sit against the second door. “Pull the energy you need to get the job done. I’ll keep up with you if I have to crawl to do it.”

  Dhugal went back to get their cloaks and the flask, filling the latter from the wine jar they had opened, then returned to kneel beside Kelson again and set his hands against the new door. The latch moved a little more easily this time, since he knew what he was doing, but it still took a lot out of Kelson—and Dhugal still could not do it on his own.

  Another burial chamber lay beyond the second door, with another closed door opposite. The two of them half stumbled and half crawled to reach it and rested for nearly an hour before tackling its opening—to yet another doored burial chamber.