Adara’s words, however, showed that her thoughts were far from personal adornment. “You two might have trouble seeing the detail in this weak light, but when you look closely, you’ll see that the reason these sparkle is that they’re made from tiny crystals. They remind me of sweet ice, a candy Bruin would make for Winterfest by soaking a bit of string in a sugar solution. These crystals are much, much smaller and with the candy you could see the string. These seem to have formed around nothing at all.”
“Maybe we should go outside and examine them in sunlight,” Griffin suggested. “I wonder if there are others. I’d like to take a look.”
Adara shrugged. “If you don’t mind getting wet and cold, I don’t mind towing you. We certainly seem to have come up on a dead end here. We’ve found the doors, but we can’t get them open.”
Terrell nodded. “Let’s go out. There’s something I want to check, too … Something I’ve been wondering about ever since Adara found those three clusters of artifacts.”
* * *
Once they were outside, Terrell hardly took time to change out of his damp clothing before making a beeline toward the location where they had found a skeleton but had not found one of the pendants.
“I’ve been bothered all along,” he said, to Adara and Griffin, “by why these bodies were separated from the rest. There’s something too alike about their situation.”
Struggling to button his trousers, Griffin hurried after, his mind swirling through possibilities. “Alike … You mean how all of them were near large clusters of stones?”
“Yes! I know we agreed that those people might have taken shelter there, but why then didn’t we find evidence of more than one person? You said the scraps we found—buttons and things—indicated one person, maybe two, but probably one.”
“Right.”
“We also concluded that the reason the bodies weren’t found and buried, as were those in the temple, was because they were isolated.”
“Right again.”
“What,” Terrell said, coming to a halt by the cluster of boulders, “if those three people went to those places deliberately? What if they had the means to open a way into the cavern?”
Adara frowned. “Then why did the people wait in the temple? I thought we agreed it was built as misdirection, nothing more.”
“Maybe we’ll find there is an opening,” Terrell said. He had begun to methodically search the surfaces of the clustered rocks. Griffin joined in. Without asking, he sensed what Terrell sought. “However, we only have legend to tell us that the people were hiding in the temple when they were slaughtered. Maybe they were waiting for something else and hid when they saw the enemy coming. Maybe those who came to bury the bodies assumed they had been hiding in the temple and had been forced out into the open by the attackers.”
“It would be a reasonable assumption,” Adara agreed, “if they didn’t suspect there was anything else here.”
“I think,” Terrell said, “that these rocks hide some sort of mechanism, one that would enable emergency access. I think it took at least three keys to open it. I think we have two of those keys. If we’re lucky, we’ll find the third and with it…”
His voice trailed off as he slid his hand into a crevice between two of the larger rocks. He pulled, and one of the rocks moved as if it had been set on a pivot.
“There!” he said with satisfaction. “There! What did I tell you?”
Hidden in the space between the two rocks was an incision. Set into that was a glittering elongated oval spiral patterned in indigo-violet crystals. Griffin leaned to get a closer look.
“Fascinating. The pendant stretches out like a spring to fill the space. That explains the spiral shape.”
“Beautiful,” Adara said. “Now I’m torn as to whether I like this one or the topaz one better.” She grinned impishly at them. “Shall we go find what the other rocks hide?”
Terrell pushed the rock back into place. “There’s a grip here, hidden so that it looks like a flaw in the rock. I felt something click when I pulled the rock out. I think the mechanism—whatever it is—won’t work unless the rock is pushed back into place. See? When the rock is pushed in, that little jutting bit will press into the middle of the spiral.”
“Makes sense,” Griffin said, slogging through the tall grass toward the next site. “If they went to all this trouble to hide whatever it is we’ve found, then they wouldn’t want it left open.”
Now that they knew what they were looking for, finding the second and third keyholes proved relatively easy. One took the dark green triangle, the other the orange-red square. However, inserting the keys and locking the mechanisms caused no miracles to happen. They inspected the temple and found it unchanged.
“It’s closing in on evening,” Griffin said, “but, if Adara is willing, I’d like to go back into the cavern and see if anything has changed on the other shore.”
Adara grinned. “Willing? The only question is whether you two come with me or I go on my own. I’ve checked with Sand Shadow and she says the horses and Sam the Mule are doing well. She’s killed a mountain deer and will share part with us. She’s even put our haunch in a bag to chill in the pool near our camp, so the bugs won’t get at it.”
“Then,” Griffin said, his heart pounding with excitement. “What’s keeping us? Let’s go!”
Interlude: Searching
Like swirling water
I trace the edges
Of nothing
5
Lights from the Sky
Adara had never claimed to have as good a sense of smell as Honeychild, not even as good as Sand Shadow, but it was her sense of smell that told her, even before they had slipped behind the rocky shelf that hid the entrance to the cavern, that something had changed. The air now reeked of rotting vegetation, mud, and slime, mingled with a suggestion of dead fish. When they passed through the opening into the cavern, they saw why.
“The water’s gone!” Griffin exclaimed, holding his candle high. “Well, mostly gone … It’s still draining away.”
Adara pointed. “And look … There’s a path. I never even imagined it was there because the stalactites were so close to the surface of the water that I couldn’t canoe through that area.”
“Whatever the surface is made from,” Terrell said, going to where the path began and kneeling to touch the surface, “may look like rock, but it isn’t. There isn’t a trace of slime or weed or even mud on the surface. The surface is already almost dry.”
“Do we trust ourselves to it?” Griffin asked.
Adara shrugged. “There’s not enough water left for my canoe and certainly not for the raft. The ledge around the rim is even less inviting, since now you’d fall into that sludge, rather than into cold water. So it’s either use the path or climb down and slog.”
“I vote ‘path,’” Terrell said. “I’d been wondering how the seegnur hoped to get to safety if the only way to the other shore was using small boats—and we saw no evidence that any were kept here.”
Griffin nodded, but he seemed uneasy. Adara didn’t blame him. The engineering involved in what they had activated had her thinking of the seegnur as she had when she was a small child—godlike creators, makers of worlds—rather than the relatively understandable mortals whose quarters they had examined back at the Sanctum.
“I’ll take point,” she said, “and warn you if anything seems unstable. I’ve let Sand Shadow know what we’re doing. She’s bringing her dinner closer so she’ll be within contact range if anything goes wrong.”
The men followed without comment, first Griffin, then Terrell. With the indirect lighting from the candles carried by the men, Adara could see easily. Periodically, she looked down to assure herself that nothing remained other than fish that hadn’t swum fast enough to get away when the water drained.
Once or twice, the huntress thought she saw human figures outlined in the mud and wondered. The lore contained tales of the armor the attackers had worn. That would
survive even after the corpses within had rotted away. She decided not to mention what she had seen until she was sure. Time enough to come back and take a better look later. Griffin was easily distracted and certainly old suits of armor—presumably broken or they would not be down in the muck—offered neither threat nor help.
The path ended where the gravel beach curved up from beneath, showing the artificial barrier that had assured the shore staying in place all these centuries.
“It’s like a big swimming pool,” Griffin said, “complete with drains. I wonder where all the water went?”
“There’s probably a holding basin,” Terrell said. “I’m guessing that overflow ultimately ends up in Maiden’s Tear, but the seegnur would not have wanted the water to dump directly in there without some sort of intermediate stop. Otherwise the lake waters would become turbulent and muddy without reason. That would be as good as announcing that there was a hidden source of water that had just emptied out.”
“Good point,” Griffin said. “I never realized just how thorough a factotum’s education must be.”
“We are educated to think of contingencies,” Terrell replied. “All the better to be of service. Now, seegnur, shall we see if that door is open?”
It wasn’t but, with Adara’s ability to see in the dark, it did not take them long to locate a panel that, when moved aside, revealed a keyhole shaped to hold the topaz key.
“I’m positive this panel wasn’t here before,” Griffin said as he inserted the glittering pendant into its place. “I looked right at this spot.”
“You did,” Adara assured him. “We all did. However, until the other three keys were readied, this was meant to remain invisible. This is different from the other escape hatches we have seen. Those were clearly meant to supply a backup in case the technology failed. This seems to have been meant to keep people out unless they knew exactly what to do.”
“This complex,” Griffin agreed, “seems different. The technology is of an entirely different order. I’ve seen nothing like these crystalline keys, nor were the surfaces coated to resist water—not even on Mender’s Isle where that would have been useful.”
Terrell frowned. “So if this setup wasn’t meant to provide an escape route, what was it for?”
Adara pressed her finger into the middle of the sparkling spiral. “There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”
The doors slid apart with hardly a sound. A line of pale blue light glowed to life, illuminating the outline of a corridor otherwise in shadow.
It was one thing to hear about such miracles, but another thing entirely to see them happening. Adara stepped back inadvertently, then worried that the men would think her a coward. However, Terrell looked as startled as she felt and Griffin not much better.
“I guess this light confirms that something is undoing the damage done by the nanobots,” Griffin said. “We’ve suspected it, what with the metal spider and Artemis’s speaking to you but, when nothing in the Sanctum or on Mender’s Isle worked…”
Terrell nodded. “Different location, maybe? As the crow flies, Maiden’s Tear is actually closer to where you crashed.”
“Possibly … Perhaps this area didn’t take as much damage.”
Adara waved them to silence. The blue light wasn’t very strong, but it penetrated more deeply than candlelight. Within it, shapes were taking form …
“Griffin, Terrell,” she said. “On the floor ahead … Looks as if there are bodies. Stay behind me.”
She strode forward, acting more confident than she felt. Around her, as if reacting to her motion, the quality of the light changed, the blue hue shifting to a warmer, brighter yellow that better illuminated their surroundings. From the outside, other than the damage to the trail around the cavern’s rim and some burn marks, the facility had seemed untouched. Light showed otherwise.
Black streaks along the walls, ceiling, and floor showed where the seegnur’s weapons had burned, buckling even those seemingly indestructible building materials. The corridor was wide enough that a horse-drawn cart could have driven along it with room for flanking outriders. Nonetheless, the heap of bodies nearly blocked it.
Without realizing, Adara had been holding her breath, expecting the stench of corruption. Now she realized this was foolishness. These people had died five hundred years ago. All that gave them the semblance of men and women was the armor they had worn, armor marked across the back of the necks with a narrow sooty line. A second black mark, this one rounded, punched through the pack that rested between the shoulders of each suit of armor.
“Stars above!” Griffin’s voice was tight. “They were shot from behind. Probably they were lined up, expecting attack to come through from the door into the cavern. An enemy snuck up behind them. My brother Falkner always says that no matter how carefully you construct any sort of armor, joints are always the most vulnerable point. First shot was to the neck joint, then a finishing shot to the back—that would take out the power supply, weapons.”
Terrell knelt down next to the body nearest to him. With infinite gentleness, he turned the helmet as if hoping to see a face within, but what met his gaze was a skull, remnants of mummified skin stretched tight across the bones.
“I don’t disagree,” he said, “not quite. But I don’t think it was the joints that made them vulnerable. I think they were shot by someone they trusted. I can’t believe the seegnur wouldn’t have had the means to provide protection from their own weapons. What use armor otherwise? No … I think these people were murdered.”
Griffin nodded. “I see what you’re saying but…”
He never had a chance to finish. From nowhere and everywhere at once a voice, clear and childish, spoke in strange accents:
“Who are you? Speak rightly or be prepared to die.”
* * *
That evening, when Julyan came down from his day’s spying, he discovered a strange horse tied outside the cottage. Despite lines that spoke of quality and speed, the gelding clearly had been ridden hard. As Julyan mounted the steps, a young woman wearing the badge of a post rider came out of the house, gave him a terse nod, then, without another word, mounted up.
He hurried inside to find the Old One so immersed in a letter that he didn’t even acknowledge Julyan’s return. It was odd seeing him acting this way. He still wore the colorful fripperies of Maxy, the catamite, but every line of his body was that of the Old One of Spirit Bay, arrogant and in complete control.
Ignoring his employer in turn, Julyan went into the kitchen and worked the pump handle until cold water gushed forth. He’d drunk his fill and splashed the worst of the day’s sweat and grit from his face when the Old One came in.
“We’re leaving. Tonight. Going back to Spirit Bay. How quickly can you be ready?”
Julyan answered with a question of his own. “Are you sure you want to leave? My report might change your mind.”
“I sincerely doubt it, but you will not get moving until you have told me what you think is so important. Speak.”
“They’ve found something significant.” Julyan went on to describe what he’d observed that day: how the dull grubbing about in the dirt had changed to more purposeful action, how Adara had vanished for much of the morning. How she had returned for the men. How they had all vanished, returned, vanished again.
Julyan had expected the Old One to be pleased and impressed. Indeed, he had amused himself with imagining what would happen next. His favorite scenario was being told to go down and capture the lot. He’d imagined how Griffin would be shocked, the factotum frightened, and Adara … Oh, he’d enjoyed imagining what she’d do once Julyan had her men in his keeping. How far he could make her go to preserve them …
Even now the thought made him lick his lips and his trousers uncomfortably tight.
But when Julyan finished his report, the Old One looked only mildly interested. “We knew they’d find something eventually. What you learned is helpful in one way. We know where they are. If they’
ve found something, they won’t be leaving quickly. Griffin is extremely methodical and Terrell tends to follow his lead. That means we can depart without worrying they’ll become bored and we’ll lose their trail.”
“You still wish to depart?”
“Didn’t I tell you so?” The Old One tucked his letter into an inside pocket of his tunic. “Allies of mine at the college of loremasters in Spirit Bay have asked me to return and look into an interesting matter. A few days ago, something large splashed into Spirit Bay—something large enough to cause waves to crash in the harbor and small boats to be wrecked. Since then, lights have been seen on Mender’s Isle.”
“Oh…” Julyan tried hard not to seem impressed, but knew he had failed. “And how did they find you?”
“I left partial notes with three of the loremasters I felt I could trust but who I knew did not completely trust each other. I knew they would never collaborate unless they felt the matter was urgent.”
“Then you anticipated this thing that splashed from the heavens?”
“Not precisely that.” The Old One steepled his fingers. “Griffin confided in me several things that I did not make public, nor will I now. However, they led me to believe it was not impossible that eventually something remarkable might happen. When the situation made it prudent for me to relocate, I took steps so that if such events occurred, I would know.”
“And we leave tonight?”
“Yes. We will take only what can be carried on one pack horse. I will send for the rest later, if it appears we will remain in Spirit Bay.”
“Perhaps,” Julyan suggested, “I should stay here and keep an eye on Griffin and the rest. It’s possible something remarkable will happen here, too.”
The Old One shook his head. “That is always a matter for consideration, but I want you with me. You have skills I do not care to do without, nor do I wish to leave Seamus unsupervised.”
Julyan wondered what would happen if he refused, but decided that he did not wish to find out.
“I’ll go check on the horses. At least they’ve had a good rest.”
Artemis Invaded Page 8