Advent of Ruin (The Qaehl Cycle Book 1)

by Allene Lowrey

“Thank you for waking me.” He kept his voice both low and light.

  “I attempted to. You did not respond.”

  “Is that so.”

  “It is,” Javed said, and Bahadur had never heard him so serious. “And when she would have tried again I told her not to. The sort of circumstances which might propel a man to cross the desert alone like that are surely extraordinary and exhausting.”

  Bahadur tried not to grit his teeth. “I caught one of the Scholars engaged in… suspicious activity. When he noticed me, he ordered me killed. I thought it best to leave rather than be caught in some… unfortunate accident.” That might be vague enough to keep them out of the worst of it.

  “Humph. Shameful behavior.”

  Bahadur didn’t want to know if Javed was referring to his or Scholar Aseem’s. It may well have been both, and it probably didn’t matter. “Gita. Sanaz says you’re going to be performing soon?”

  “I’m the girl who could talk to animals, and at the end I lead all the wild animals to help defend the village against the villain’s army.”

  “Wow. That’s quite a role for your debut.”

  “I know! You’re going to come see it, right?”

  “I’ll be there.” And if I can’t, I’ll be sure to tell you why. The rest of that evening passed pleasantly enough, at least.

  Two days later, the expedition arrived.

  * * *

  “What in the depths happened out there?” Javed hissed in his ear after dinner.

  “Shall we go for a walk?” Bahadur tried to sound nonchalant, but even he could hear the nervous edge. “Perhaps there’s a nice quiet place somewhere that would be better for this.”

  “Cover your head, if we’re going. It’s a little chilly tonight.”

  Right. And now trouble is catching up to me in earnest. “It is a little colder than usual, I suppose.” Bahadur took one of the head cloths usually reserved for sandstorms or travel and hooded himself as they stepped out the door.

  Javed said little as they walked. Bahadur thought he was seething, and if the trouble from the expedition had caught up with him the man had good reason. Maybe it would still be all right if only Javed knew. Certainly he couldn’t keep it from him now. The walk to the private grove was interminably long tonight, and the urge to look over his shoulder almost unbearable. Instead he kept his eyes glued to the back of Javed’s boots. Finally the other man came to a halt, pivoting on the flagstones to face him.

  “Now. You will tell me exactly what happened out there, or so help me you’ll be out on the streets.”

  “What I told you before was accurate, Javed, just vague. I didn’t want to drag the rest of you any deeper than I had to.”

  “So tell me the rest, then.”

  He did, beginning with the two suspicious figures he’d spotted on watch that night. “Scholar Aseem was undoing the seal, Javed. I’m certain of it. The tchraja are deliberately being released on the world.”

  “You have proof of this?”

  “Enough for Scholar Jaleh. She’s going to quit her patron. There was a tremor as I ran out of the labyrinth, which I connected with a supposed tremor that cracked another seal sign I saw in Kaddu Nagar. That may have convinced the other scholars to pack up early. Aseem wants me silenced.”

  “That may be so, but I don’t think he’s the one who turned you in to the asylum.”

  “How ruthless is Scholar Aseem?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know the man personally.”

  “It occurred to me that he might have been willing to put Feroze to the question. He heard at least part of our conversation, even with us whispering.”

  “Cave acoustics.”

  Bahadur nodded. “Now you know as much as I do. I hope it doesn’t cause you too much trouble.”

  “It’s already caused me trouble. Just… lie low, all right? The brutes are looking for you.”

  “I will… Do you think they’ll come after Scholar Jaleh, as well?”

  “Hard to say, really. Probably.”

  Serpents. He wished he could feel surprised, but it would be far too simple if they didn’t.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Ravi carried the torch again as they stepped through the hidden entrance and into a hallway even narrower than the one into the outer shrine. Ravi’s shoulders brushed against the walls on either side. The torchlight cast deep shadows on the faces of men carved into shallow alcoves in the walls that stared over sharp noses like stern uncles. She hugged her shoulders in close to herself; the faces didn’t want them there, she thought, even as the hallway abruptly opened into an arcade broad enough that the torch light did not reach the walls. Each pillar was carved on all four sides with a terrible grotesquery of demonic faces with bulbous eyes and distended cheeks, their teeth sharp as a cat’s. Those that did not carry spears and shields were shown in a mockery of dancing forms, waving multiple arms and legs in impossible postures. Below the demons’ feet were carvings of elephants, and everywhere above and below the demonic figures were carved delicate, four-petaled jasmine blooms.

  “Ravi…” She whispered. The atmosphere almost demanded it.

  “Be careful, Chandi. I don’t know what sort of traps might be in here.”

  “Ravi, are you sure this is the right thing to do?”

  He stopped and looked down at her, and the softening of his eyes and mouth made her think of her father. “No more than you are, Chandi. But what other leads do we have? Something has to be done, doesn’t it?” It sounded rote.

  “Mmm. It’s just… something feels wrong about this place.”

  “Not quite what you expected, right? Not at all the sort of place you would expect the young heroine to save the world?”

  She blushed. She knew it was silly. The one time their journey had fit with what she might have expected from a story it was the disaster with the slavers.

  “You’re right, though. This place is creepy. Probably what we’re about to try was just a… last resort.”

  “You’re… probably right.” Chandi took a deep breath. There was something he wasn’t telling her, she thought, but he was a good man at his core. She could trust him that far. “All right. I’ll be careful. I’ll never be able to forgive myself if I don’t at least try.”

  Ravi smiled at her. “Okay. My biggest concerns are hidden pits and falling stones. Anything more complicated than that has probably already decayed.” Ravi began rummaging in the small pack he carried, and finally came up with a piece of white chalk, which he handed to her. “If you spot something, mark it with this and tell me, and I’ll do the same and tell you. That way we should be able to avoid at least most of it.”

  Searching their path this way had at least one major advantage over their creeping progress through the hall; it gave her something to think about that had nothing to do with the carved pillars.

  They had gone perhaps fifteen feet into the room when she stepped forward to mark what looked like a trap only to have Ravi grab her by the neck of her blouse and pull her back. When she looked querulously at him, he simply pointed up. There was a fine halo of stone dust up near the ceiling. She nodded and pointed to the floor tile she had been about to mark; that was a truly nasty design, to place a pit not two feet ahead of a falling block. They marked both, being very careful not to step in either in the process.

  A little further on and the situation was reversed. Ravi bent forward to mark what appeared to be a pressure trigger for another falling block. It was all Chandi could do to keep him from tipping into the pit they had both missed until that moment when the paper-thin slate camouflage began to crumble.

  The mouths of some of the demons looked to have a tiny sliding door in the back, but the mechanism involved must have been too delicate to survive the passage of time. The one Chandi observed, at any rate, would not budge no matter how she pried.

  When the arcade finally came to an end she exhaled to release the knot of tension in her stomach. The hallway narrowed dramatically, to th
e point that even Chandi felt constricted. It was tight enough she couldn’t see past Ravi, so if there were traps here, too, it was up to him to find them. The demon faces still watched them. She had to concentrate to avoid walking right on his heels as the tunnel twisted around on itself. She didn’t stay far enough back of him to avoid walking into Ravi when he stopped abruptly. He put a hand back towards her, either to warn her (belatedly) or catch her (unnecessarily).

  “What is it?”

  “You have good balance, right, Chandi?” He sounded strangely flat, as though something were straining to show itself under a mask of calm.

  “Who do you think you’re asking?”

  “Just answer me.”

  “Good for a dancer. Not so good for an acrobat. What’s going on?”

  “Cover your nose and mouth, and be careful. Be mindful of the light, but don’t assume I’ve picked the best path. Paranoid bastards.”

  She thought she wasn’t meant to hear that last bit. She was still tying her headscarf so that it covered her face when Ravi stepped forward again, and the sight stopped her mid-knot.

  What she could see of the room ahead of her was like a giant, pearlescent mirror with iron filigree worked on its surface. Ravi began stepping from filigree to filigree, and she realized it was the same stone as the rest of the cave. Balance. Right. She took a deep breath and began to step from stone to stone across the yawning quicksilver gulfs. The liquid mirror below them magnified the light with a silver sheen, casting strange shadows back on itself that moved as they wobbled across the delicate formations of stone. Many of the formations were no more than an inch thick. The liquid metal felt warm under the soles of her sandals even with the air in the middle; she hoped it wouldn’t eat away at them. She was able to follow Ravi most of the way with very little trouble, and finally she saw him step onto a wide patch of solid ground. It looked like there was another hallway on the other side of him. Finally! Her face fell, though, when she reached the spot he had stepped from. Or, more likely, jumped from. It was easily a five-foot gap. She looked around, trying to find another way from where she stood, but it looked like this was the only path forward on this side of the room, and not even a place to put her foot to lead into the jump.

  “Ravi!” She saw him look over at where she stood and wince. “I have to jump.”

  “I’ll catch you.”

  She nodded, and swung her leg back to get what momentum she could from it before leaping forward.

  Even as her foot left the ground she knew she wasn’t going to make it. She tried to will herself further forward even as she saw her foot headed for the metallic pool just inches from the ledge on which Ravi stood, and felt her throat clench as her sandal touched the pearlescent surface… and did not sink. Momentum carried her forward along the surface, and where the quicksilver lapped over the edge of her sandal it hardened. Ravi scooped her up by the shoulders before she skidded into the ledge itself, before she could injure her foot, and set her on solid ground.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I think so.” It felt like her hands were trembling and she was relearning how to breathe.

  “Good. Let’s get out of here before we breathe any more of this.”

  She nodded, still feeling breathless.

  The hallway out of the quicksilver chamber was just as cramped as the one leading into it had been. Every other step she took sounded a dull clink against the stone floors of the tunnel. Chandi was giddy enough after nearly falling into the molten lake she hardly noticed the feeling that the walls were bearing down on her shoulders. This hallway also twisted about on itself, and by the time they stepped out into the next open space she had lost all track of which direction they were traveling.

  The room they stepped into was short and broad, and immediately ahead of them was a wall carved all over with some form of script she did not recognize. Ravi examined the space around the base of the wall carefully before motioning her forward.

  “Here. Sit down and take off your scarf. We can rest a moment; I want to have a look at you.”

  “All right.” She unwound the scarf from about her head even as she moved forward, but before she could tie it about herself another way he snatched it from her hand and threw it outside the torchlight. She knit her brows, her mouth in a twist of confusion even as she sat against the wall.

  “Some glassmakers work with that stuff – mostly for silvering mirrors. It changes a person, if they work with it too long. Something about the air, and the metal itself can burn away your skin. Let me see your foot.”

  No need to ask which foot he meant; she thrust out the sandal which now had a thin coat of quicksilver on its sole. He was very careful not to touch any of the silvered portions of the shoe as he picked up her foot by the ankle.

  “I don’t think any of it got on you. You should be all right.”

  She nodded. “Ravi? We’re going to have to go back out this same way, aren’t we? Wouldn’t it be better to keep the head scarf, at least until we’re on the way out?”

  He looked at her like she’d grown wings. “…You’re right. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. I’ll go get it in a moment. Hold out your hands.”

  They weren’t shaking anymore – it was just reaction to thinking she was about to drown in liquid metal.

  “Good. It doesn’t look like it’s gotten to either of us yet. We should be okay to keep going.”

  Now it was Chandi’s turn to nod. “So what’s going on with the wall, Ravi?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It looks like writing, but it’s not Trade. Can you read it?”

  He looked up, holding the torch aloft. His face looked impassive from where she still sat. “I’m afraid not. It’s no writing I’ve seen before, either. All the texts I acquired had long since been put into the standard alphabet.” He looked like he was still trying nonetheless.

  “That’s a shame.” She shrugged; they knew what they’d come here to do, after all. “I think I’m ready to keep going if you are.”

  * * *

  Ravi had to try both directions before he found the other exit from the room, hidden with a mechanism like the one concealing the entrance from the outer shrine. The contaminated scarf she tied about her waist as they continued on. The passageways were wider now, and almost comfortable despite the return of the sharp-nosed men, now bathed in jasmine motifs much as the figure of Khubhranta in the outer shrine had been bathed in lotus and rose blossoms. They only passed through a few, Ravi marking their turns in chalk at each intersection. Eventually, she saw him pause and square his shoulders. Peering around him, she saw a wider room. He fit the torch he carried into a sconce on one side of the door and lit a second from it. It was then fit into the sconce on the other side of the door, and Ravi stepped aside.

  The ceiling of the wide room was carved into vaulting, and in the back of the apse a jali screen had been carved with openings in the four-petaled jasmine motif they had seen throughout. The light from the jali illuminated the ornate pillars carved into the walls along either side and backlit the stupa dominating the room. The stupa itself was carved with symbols of Khubhranta, Dhamar, and Atrakhanti – the trident Ustij, a sunburst, and a crescent moon surrounded by four-pointed stars were most prominent. Between where Chandi stood at the entrance and the stupa was a small stone table with a smaller replica of the stupa in the center – she thought it was an incense votary, like the one in the outer shrine had been – and a large swath of open space.

  “We can begin whenever you’re ready.” Ravi’s voice was low and full, like she had heard it back in Sararaq at lunch the day she had danced.

  She nodded. She was suddenly nervous again. Stone carvings and a man who treated her like a daughter – what a strange audience to get stage fright for! Auntie Kiran’s cure worked as it always did, though, and as she gathered her focus she busied herself sweeping the floor of debris. Remarkably little had gathered in the room, considering the skylight. She removed he
r sandals. Ravi was creating a makeshift seat for himself just outside the entrance.

  “I’ll be on guard. I don’t think anything will come for us now that we’re here, but I can’t let you be interrupted.”

  “Thank you.”

  “…Will you need accompaniment?”

  “No. I’ve set it to Jahaiya Resh To’N, but I had to change the tempo a bit… I thought it fitting.”

  “…It is.”

  Why is his voice so husky? Probably the same feeling of import that had settled over her own shoulders.

  He settled his crossbow across one knee, but didn’t load it. “I’m set.”

  “I begin.” She began to hum the string line sometimes played as an introduction to the song, down-tempo, and mentally tracked the beats until the moment she felt the music and the dance click.

  And then, she danced.

  The dance she had learned was gentle, quiet. She picked figs, drew harp strings, plucked flowers; she sowed seeds in a circle and rocked hips like she would in the tryst from the Ristasya Karitana. There was no violence to the movement, simply quiet joy welling up from the ground like an oasis spring. At the end, she knelt in front of the low stone table and wished she had some incense to burn; it felt like the right thing to do. As a poor substitute, she pressed her palms together and raised them to her forehead. She stayed like that for a time, the only way she could think of to bow to her audience, and when she stood her face still felt flushed from the wellspring of energy she felt when she danced. A grin parted her lips as she twirled around to face the door.

  “So how -” The question died on her lips, as did the smile. Ravi was gone, as was one of the torches. “Ravi?” The only answer was a faint echo from back the way they had come.

  “Ravi?” She felt more than heard a rumble from deep beneath her feet.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “Lying low” was easier said than done. Three times in one day while he hid downstairs Sanaz had to turn away people looking for him. Once it was Kamboja, trying to find out what was happening, wondering why he hadn’t been by. After the third he took to wandering the streets, keeping to crowded areas as much as he could. He was able to dress like a local, at least, as Javed loaned him some of the loose linen robes typical of the city. He grew out his beard, or started to, but left the braids in his hair. Those were so tight, and had been in for so long, there would be no removing them without shaving himself bald. Instead, he tied them up in a turban. It wasn’t much of a disguise, but it was passable.