Percepliquis

by Michael J. Sullivan

“That was hidden on purpose,” Wyatt said.

  “This doesn’t mean we are in the right passage,” Gaunt argued. “I don’t remember the monk ever saying anything about going in a hole. There’s no way to tell this is the right way.”

  “It is,” Myron replied.

  Gaunt turned on the little monk. “Oh, so you’re keeping information from us, is that it? Or are you merely incompetent and just forgot to tell us about this part of the journal?”

  “No,” he said meekly. “There’s nothing in the journal about this.”

  “Then surely you are more pious than I thought, for Maribor himself must be giving you information he keeps from the rest of us.”

  “Maybe,” Myron replied. “All I know is that’s Edmund Hall’s mark.” He pointed. “See there, carved into the stone.”

  Royce was first to it and, holding his light above the floor, revealed the etched inscription:

  “E.H.,” Gaunt read. “How do we know that stands for Edmund Hall?”

  “You think there’s a parade of people coming through here with those initials, do you?” Royce asked.

  “That’s the exact way he wrote his initials in the journal,” Myron explained.

  “What about these, Myron?” Royce asked as he pushed more rocks away to reveal more etchings. These were much brighter—fresher than the EH.

  Myron glanced at them for only a moment before saying, “I don’t know anything about those.”

  Hadrian stepped up, blew the dirt away. Then he turned to Arista and Alric. “Didn’t the Patriarch say he sent other teams?”

  “Yes, he did,” Alric agreed. “Three of them, I think.”

  “According to the empress, they all failed,” Arista added.

  Hadrian glanced at Royce. “I think we know about the third group he sent, but they didn’t come this way. Still, I’m guessing these are the initials of either the first or the second team.” He looked at Royce again. “If you were going to handpick a group to come down here, and you could choose anyone, who would you pick to lead such a group?”

  “Breckton, maybe,” Royce replied. “Or possibly Gravin Dent of Delgos.”

  “Well, we know they didn’t pick Breckton, and look at the first initials, GD. Now when was the last time anyone saw Gravin? He wasn’t at the Wintertide games this year.”

  “Not last year either,” Alric said.

  “He was at Dahlgren,” Mauvin said.

  “Yes, he was!” Arista confirmed. “I remember Fanen pointing him out and saying what a great adventurer he was and how he worked mainly for the Church of Nyphron. He called him something… a—a—”

  “Quester?” Mauvin asked.

  “Yes, that’s it!”

  “Now let’s think about that,” Hadrian said. “They would need a scholar, a historian. Dent was at Dahlgren. Wasn’t there someone else too? That funny guy with the catapult, what was his name?”

  “Tobis Rentinual?” Mauvin asked. “He was a real nut.”

  “Yeah, but do you remember him saying something about how he named the catapult after Novron’s wife, because of all the research he did into ancient imperial history?”

  “Yes. He said something about having to learn a language or something, didn’t he? He was all boastful about it, remember?”

  “That’s right.” Hadrian was nodding. “Look at that second set of initials, TR.”

  “Tobis Rentinual,” Mauvin said. “It even looks like how he would draw his letters.”

  “What about the others?” Alric asked.

  Hadrian shrugged. “I’m really only guessing at the first two. I have no idea about the others.”

  “I do,” Magnus said. “Well, one of them, at least. HM, that’s Herclor Math.”

  “Who?” Hadrian asked, and looked around, but everyone shrugged.

  “Of course none of you would know him. He’s a mason—a dwarf mason—and a good one. I would recognize his inscription anywhere. The Maths are an old family. A Math even worked on the design team of Drumindor. His clan goes back a long way.”

  “Why did they initial the stone?” Wyatt asked.

  “Maybe to let anyone who might follow know they got this far,” Magnus replied.

  “Why didn’t they mark the bloody three-choice passage?” Mauvin asked.

  “Maybe they planned to,” Arista said. “Maybe—like us—they didn’t know if they picked the right one, but planned to mark it on the way out, only—only they never came out.”

  “Maybe we should carve our initials too,” Mauvin suggested. “So others will know we were here.”

  “No,” Arista said. “If we don’t come back out, there will be no others to follow us.”

  Each of them looked toward the hole with apprehension.

  “At any rate,” Royce said, “this looks like the place. Who’s carrying the rope?”

  They tied three lengths of rope together, and with Hadrian on the line, Royce climbed in. They fed out two-thirds of it before Hadrian felt the line stop and Royce’s weight come off.

  He waited.

  They all waited. Some sat down on whatever flat spots they could find. Elden remained standing. He had an unpleasant look on his face as he eyed the hole. Despite Arista’s comments, the dwarf busied himself carving each of their initials into the stone.

  “You want to call down to him?” Alric asked. “He’s been in there a while.”

  “It’s better to be patient,” he replied. “Royce will either call up or yank on the line when he wants us to come down.”

  “What if he fell?” Mauvin asked.

  “He didn’t. On the other hand, what is more likely is that there’s a patrol of Ghazel and he’s waiting for them to pass. If you get nervous and start yelling down, you’ll get him killed, or angry. Either way it’s not a good idea.”

  Mauvin and Alric both nodded gravely. Hadrian had learned his lesson the hard way on that first trip the two made to Ervanon. Learning to trust Royce when it was dark, you were alone, and the world was so quiet you could hear your own breathing was not something you did overnight.

  Hadrian remembered the wind whipping them as they climbed the Crown Tower. That was a big tower. He must have climbed a hundred of them with Royce since, but aside from Drumindor, that was the tallest—and the first. He had marveled at how the little thief could scale the sheer wall like a fly with nothing but those hand-claws. He gave Hadrian a pair and sat smirking as he tried to use them.

  “Hopeless,” was all he said, taking the claws back. “Can you at least climb a rope?”

  Hadrian had just returned from his days in the arenas of Calis, where he had been respected and cheered by roaring crowds as the Tiger of Mandalin. He was less than pleased with this little twig of a man treating him as if he were the village idiot. So infuriated had he been by Royce’s smug tone that Hadrian had wanted to beat him unconscious, only Arcadius had warned him to be patient. “He’s like the pup of a renowned hunting dog who’s been beaten badly by every master he’s had,” the old wizard had told him. “He’s a gem worthy of a little work, but he’ll test you—he’ll test you a lot. Royce doesn’t make friends easily and he doesn’t make it easy to be his friend. Don’t get angry. That’s what he’s looking for. That’s what he expects. He’ll try to drive you away, but you’ll fool him. Listen to him. Trust him. That’s what he won’t expect. It won’t be easy. You’ll have to be very patient. But if you do, you’ll make a friend for life, the kind that will walk unarmed into the jaws of a dragon if you ask him to.”

  Hadrian felt a light tug on the rope.

  “Everything okay, pal?” he called down softly.

  “Found it,” Royce replied. “Come on down.”

  It was like a mine shaft, tight and deep. Hadrian had descended only a short distance when his eyes detected a faint light below. The pale blue-green light appeared to leak into the base of the shaft, which, he could now estimate, was no more than a hundred feet deep. As he reached the bottom, he felt a strong breeze and heard a soun
d. A very out-of-place sound—the crash of waves.

  He stood in an enormous cavern so vast he could not see the far wall. At his feet were shells and black sand, and before him lay a great body of water with waves that rolled in white and frothy. Along the beach, he spotted clumps of seaweed and algae that glowed bright green and the ocean gave off an emerald light, which the ceiling reflected in such a way as to make it seem like they were not underground at all. He felt like he was standing on the beach at night under a cloudy, albeit green, sky. His nose filled with the pungent scent of salt, fish, and seaweed. To the right lay nothing but endless water, but straight out, just visible at the horizon, were structures—the outlines of buildings, pillars, towers, and walls.

  Across the sea lay the city of Percepliquis.

  Royce stood on the shore, staring across the water, and glanced over his shoulder when Hadrian touched down. “Not something you see every day, is it?”

  “Wow,” he replied.

  It did not take long before all of them stood on the black sand, gazing out at the sea and the city beyond. Myron looked as if he were in shock. Hadrian realized the monk had never seen an ocean, much less one that glowed bright green.

  “Edmund Hall mentioned an underground sea,” Myron said at length. “But Mr. Hall is not terribly good at descriptions. This—this is truly amazing. I’ve never thought of myself as big in any sense, but standing here, I feel as small as a pebble.”

  “Anyone lose an ocean? ’Cause I think we just found it,” Mauvin announced.

  “It’s beautiful,” Arista said.

  “Whoa,” Wyatt muttered.

  “How are we going to get across it?” Gaunt asked.

  They all looked to Myron. “Oh, right—sorry. Edmund Hall made a raft from stuff he found washed up on the beach. He said there was a lot of it. He lashed planking with a rope he had with him and formed a rudder out of one side of an old crate. His sail was a patchwork of sewn bags, his mast a tall log of driftwood.”

  “How long did it take him?” Gaunt asked.

  “Three weeks.”

  “By Mar!” he exclaimed.

  Alric scowled at him. “There’s ten of us and we have an expert sailor and better gear. Let’s get looking for our raw material.”

  They all spread out like a group of beachcombers looking for shells and starfish on a lovely summer’s day.

  There was a good deal of debris on the shore. Old bottles and broken crates, poles and nets, all amazingly well preserved after having been down there for a thousand years. Hadrian picked up a jug with writing on one side. He carefully turned it over, realizing he was holding an artifact that by its mere age was profoundly valuable. He did not expect to be able to read it. Everything from the ancient time of Percepliquis would be in Old Speech. He looked at the markings and was stunned to find he could understand them: BRIG’S RUM DISTILLERY. DAGASTAN, CALIS.

  He blinked.

  “Where’s Myron?” It was not so much the question as the voice that pulled Hadrian’s attention away from the jug.

  Elden had spoken. The big man stood like a wave break on the sand, his head twisting around, searching. “I don’t see him.”

  Hadrian glanced up and down the beach. Elden was right—the monk was gone.

  “I’ll find him,” Royce said, annoyed, and trotted off.

  “Elden?” Wyatt called. “Can you give me a hand here?” he said, trying to pull up a large weathered plank mostly buried in the sand. “We can use this as the keel, I think.”

  Alric and Mauvin were dragging over what looked like the side of a wooden crate. “There’s another side to this back there among those rocks,” the king informed Wyatt.

  “That’s great, but right now can the two of you help us dig this beam out?”

  Gaunt wandered the beach halfheartedly, kicking over rocks, as if he might find a mast hiding under one. Magnus noticeably avoided the water, sticking to the high beach area and glancing over his shoulder at the waves as if they were barking dogs he needed to constantly assure himself were chained.

  Arista came running down to where the four dug the beam out of the sand. “I found a huge piece of canvas!” she said, and did a little dance.

  Hadrian noticed her feet were bare. She held her shoes in her hands, swinging them by the heels, her robe swaying. As he looked at her just then, she could have been any number of girls he had known from taverns or small towns—not a princess at all.

  “Don’t you like my celebratory dance?” she asked him.

  “Is that what that is?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Com’on and help me get the canvas. It will make the perfect sail.”

  She ran back down the beach and Hadrian followed. She stopped and, bending down, pulled on the corner of a buried piece of canvas. “We’ll have to dig it out, but I bet it is big. I think—” She stopped when she spotted Royce and Myron walking toward them.

  “There you are,” Hadrian said in a reprimanding tone. “You had Elden worried, young man.”

  “I saw a crab,” Myron said, embarrassed. “They have these huge claws and run sideways—they scurry very fast—like big spiders. I chased him down the beach, but he disappeared into a hole before I could get a good look. Have you ever seen a crab?”

  “Yes, Myron. I’ve seen crabs before.”

  “Oh, so you know how fascinating they are! I was literally carried away—well, not literally. I mean, I wasn’t actually carried by the crab; lured is more accurate.”

  “Royce, look at the canvas I found!” Arista said, repeating her little dance for him.

  “Very nice,” the thief replied.

  “You don’t seem suitably impressed. It’s going to be our sail,” she told him proudly. “Maybe we should have a contest for the person who finds the best part of the raft.” She followed this with a greedy grin.

  “We could do that.” Royce nodded. “But I don’t think you’ll win.”

  “No? Did you find something better?”

  “Myron did.”

  “Better than the crab?” Hadrian asked.

  “You could say that.” Royce motioned for them to follow.

  They walked around an arm of the cliff wall that jutted into the sea, causing them all to wade up to their ankles for a short bit. On the far side, resting on the sand about a half mile down the beach, was a small single-mast boat that listed off the keel. Its pair of black sails dangled from the yards, feebly flapping in the sea breeze.

  “By Mar!” Hadrian and Arista said together.

  A loose board on the boat’s deck creaked under Hadrian’s weight and Royce glared at him. Twelve years they had worked together, and still Royce did not seem capable of understanding that Hadrian could not float. The problem was that Royce apparently could. He made it look so easy. Hadrian walked like the caricature of a thief—on his toes, his arms out for balance, wavering up and down as if he were on a tightrope. Royce walked as casually as if he were sauntering down a city street. They communicated as they always did on the job, with facial expressions and hand gestures. Royce had learned sign language as part of his guild training but had never bothered teaching Hadrian more than a few signals. Royce was always able to communicate what he needed by pointing, counting with his fingers, or making simple obvious signs like scissoring his fingers across his level palm, imitating legs walking on a floor. He expressed most of his silent dialogue the way he was now: through rolled eyes, glares, and the pitiable shaking of his head. Given how irritated he so often looked, it was a mystery why he put up with Hadrian. After the first trip to the Crown Tower, both were convinced Arcadius was insane in paring them. Royce hated him and the feeling was mutual. Just as Royce recently confirmed, the only reason they had gone back together was out of spite—their shared dislike compelled them. Royce wanted to see Hadrian give up, or die, and Hadrian refused to give him the satisfaction of either. Of course, what ended up happening was something neither of them expected—they were caught.

  Royce held a hand out
palm up, and Hadrian stopped moving, freezing in place as if he were playing a kid’s game. He could see Royce tilting his head like a dog trying to listen. He shook his head and motioned for him to follow again.

  The two had left the rest of the party on the beach, safely back near where Arista had found the canvas, as they scouted the ship. It looked abandoned, but Royce refused to take chances. What they found on deck only further suggested it was deserted. The wood was rough and weathering badly, paint was peeling, and crabs scurried about as if they had lived there for some time. The bow plaque indicated the name: Harbinger. Still, one last mystery needed investigation. The little ship was tiny compared to the Emerald Storm, just large enough to support a below-deck cabin, and they needed to see what was inside.

  The door lay closed and Royce inched up on it as if it were a viper ready to strike. When he reached the cabin, he glanced back at Hadrian, who drew his swords. Royce carefully twisted the latch. The corroded metal stuck and he struggled to free it. Then the door fell inward with a creek and banged against the inner wall. Hadrian rushed forward just in case. He fully expected the cabin to be empty, but to his surprise, the faint light falling through the doorway revealed a man.

  He lay on a small bed within the small cabin. He was dead, his face rotted, the eyes and lips gone and most of the flesh eaten, perhaps by the crabs. Hadrian guessed the man had died not too long ago, less than a year certainly, perhaps only six months. He wore sailors’ clothes and around his neck was a white kerchief.

  Hadrian whispered, “My god, is that…”

  Royce nodded. “It’s Bernie.”

  Hadrian remembered Bernie as the wiry topman from the Emerald Storm. He along with Staul—whom Royce had killed—Dr. Levy, and the historian Antun Bulard had worked for Sentinel Thranic. They were the third and final team the Patriarch had sent in to obtain the horn. The last Hadrian had seen of them was in the dungeons beneath the Palace of the Four Winds.

  “This looks like blood on the bed and floor,” Royce said.

  “I’ll take your word for it—I just see a shadow—but what’s that around his belly?”

  “Linen—bloodstained. Looks like he died from a stab wound to the stomach, but it was slow.” Royce climbed out of the cabin and looked around the ship, bending down to study the decking and the lines.