The Queen's eyes slipped from him to his companion and back again. She weighed his words and then spread her hands. The tip of her pipe glowed with a red ember as it swished through the air. "Your kinship with the dragon is great. It is the form of your curse. Just as hers is the great falcon of the northern mountains."
"What curse?"
The Queen swept past them to the center of the throne room and raised her hands to the ceiling. The edges of the room went dark and that darkness moved with fluid grace. She said,
"Your curse is the curse of conquest. Enacted centuries ago when two warriors sought power beyond their kin in service of a prideful wish. Leviana and Vadian. Surely you could have told him this story."
"I could have but I have no memory of Vadian's time without me."
"My knowledge is of the histories. Written in the time of his reign."
"You mean the Black King?" Warden asked. "How does this have anything to do with me?"
"The Black King resides within you." The Queen turned to him and offered her hands. Warden hesitated but then placed his hands in hers. They were biting cold. "In your body are two spirits. Your own and his. You will succumb to him in time. Just as once Leviana was a young girl named Jalcina of Sartol. He awakes in your dreams and comes to the surface in your strife."
He did not let go though the numbness worked its way up his arms to his elbows. When she closed her hands over his, he tried to pull away but the Queen held him fast.
"What do you want from me?" Warden asked.
"I want nothing. I have no stake in this any longer." Abruptly she let go and Warden bounced back a step. "Leviana, Queen of the Burning Island, tell me of your times."
"There is little to say."
"You came here with only him, I would say you have much to say," the Queen said. "What has happened?"
"The Empire is no longer mine. Assassins seek my life. I come before you with nothing."
"And what will you do now?"
"I seek the beginning in hopes it will draw me to the end."
The Queen arranged her dress with slow hands before drawing her pipe back to her face. Another plume of smoke perfumed the air.
"Have you no memory of how to reach the ancient temple?"
"I have not."
"Then what will you give to me in return for my assistance?"
"What is it that you wish?" Leviana's counter offer was quiet. Warden looked between the two women with lidded eyes. Somehow, something was going to go wrong. He felt it in his bones. There would be consequences he did not wish to deal with.
"Assassins seek your life. You have nothing but your life. You will bring me something from your travel. I desire a bracelet from the ancient temple, a piece taken from Backaran when it was young."
"Backaran had a youth?"
"It is lost in history, but yes, once." The Queen went around them and returned to the steps up to the throne. "The vizier will give you a map leading to your destination and you will return to me a bracelet of scarlet metal."
"Scarlet metal?"
"Yes," the Queen ascended from the floor. "It awaits you and I will await your return. When you return, we will talk further."
The Queen of Backaran sat down on her throne and settled back. Her pipe smoked, but her stillness was so total Warden remembered seeing her as statue and wondered if she were indeed alive. She spoke of things that no mortal could hope to know and a lifespan none dared enjoy. Leviana looked at the other woman with a curious expression. Warden touched her arm. She started.
"We should go," he said.
"Yes, we have a distance to go."
"How do you know?"
"If it were within Backaran reach, she would possess it already. Therefore, it must be some journey."
"What are we going to do about provisions?"
"I don't know if money is good here, but we will have to try."
Leaving the throne room, the vizier awaited them. In his hand, he held a rolled up yellow and brown parchment. "She says you will go about her business. Therefore I am to give you this."
Leviana held out her hand for the parchment and unrolled it once she had it. Her eyes darted across the brown lines looking for landmarks. "How do we reach this?" She pointed to an entrance on the map.
"Through the city itself. You will go down into the caves below here."
"All the roads lead to the cathedral," Leviana said. "How do we find it?"
"The road behind the cathedral leads into the rocks. Follow it until you must crawl. It will lead you where you wish to go. Now take your noise and be gone."
He led them out of the cathedral and Leviana mounted her horse at the door with Warden beside her.
"Crawl," the assassin said.
"Yes. The horses will only go so far. I remember some parts of this, but not much."
"I hope you remember more before it becomes important," he said.
"Yes, I hope."
They rode around the cathedral and followed the boulevard behind it into the city. They reached a solid seeming wall only minutes later. Nothing moved. Their horses made all the noise. Leviana dismounted first and took out the map.
"Once we are beyond this wall, we will have to crawl for a distance."
She wrapped the map around her leg and stuffed it down into her boot. After that, she took her sword and slung it over her back. Beside her, Warden fixed his blades to his wrists and slid others into his boots.
Before them, a round hole waited. Leviana led the way in. For ten feet, the ceiling hung high, then it began to slope down. The width did not change, but the height dropped steadily. Soon they were on their hands and knees. It settled lower until they crawled like snakes on their bellies. The rock pressed on them like the lid of a coffin. The dark sealed them in but they kept going forward.
They crawled out into a cavern with a hole in the roof. Sunlight streamed down through the hole. It lit much of the room. Leviana brushed off her shirt and pulled out the map.
"We go straight through here and take the fork branching to the left. Hopefully that is all the crawling we have to do."
"Are you sure?"
"I can read a map."
He put his hands up in a gesture of peace then started across the floor. Water pooled here and there as if once this had been a lake or rained in enough to create the puddles. Warden skirted one of the pools and looked down.
"How many people would you say have been here?"
"I don't know. Perhaps a hundred."
"And survived to leave again?"
"Fewer than that."
"There are bones in the pool."
"That doesn't surprise me."
Warden said nothing else, but moved on with a quickness. The cavern took them an hour to cross and they spent much of it beneath the sun overhead. At the far wall, they were given two choices. One veered off to the right. The other to the left. Leviana stepped up to the one branching left and Warden stopped here.
"What's in the one leading right?"
"The map says to go left?"
"There could be something of worth in the right hand tunnel as well."
"Warden, we don't want to spend forever down here."
"It can't take us long. Let us go down this way for an hour and see what we can find. The Queen did not give us a time limit."
Leviana stared at him for a moment before saying,
"I suppose we can. Let us make it quick then."
They went into the right tunnel. The walls were covered in a green lichen that glimmered faintly before their eyes. The tunnel floor was even as if hewn. Their footsteps rang out on the stone. Warden led the way. They reached another branch and Warden chose right again. He nicked the stone at the head of the tunnel and scratched out an arrow pointing back the way they had come. Leviana tapped her foot.
"We've only been walking a few minutes," he said.
"We are moving away from our goal."
"Few people come here, who knows what we could find."
Leviana shrugged and let him lead her further in.
They came to a cliff at the end of that tunnel. It led down into blackness and another cavern but they couldn't hope to reach it from where they were.
"Let's go back," Leviana said.
"We have to, but there is still that other tunnel to explore."
They returned to the fork and took the left tunnel this time. The floor here was uneven and rocky. Though their eyes adjusted to the dark, it was still nearly impassable without a torch.
Warden suddenly put his hand out to stop Leviana. He held his breath. She cocked her head to listen. Something breathed.
"We should go back," Warden said. "Something is here." His voice echoed off the walls and the breathing sped up. Ahead of them, rock scraped. Leviana eased backward a foot at a time before turning around and walking faster. Warden was just behind her. The breathing drew closer. They moved faster. It followed.
They ran. It kept pace as it scrapped rock and turned over stone.
Bursting out into the sunshine of the first cavern, they immediately turned and went into the left hand tunnel. There they stopped hoping to catch a glimpse of their pursuit. What came charging out of the tunnel looked like a great leopard if it were made of chalk white stone. It leapt forward and they ran away. It charged into the tunnel behind them.
"We can't outrun it," Leviana said. She came to a stop and pulled her sword which threw sparks as it scraped across the ceiling. The beast came close and held its ground. Wicked claws curled against the floor. Hazel eyes the size of fists stared into hers.
It leapt.
She dashed in under its claws, throwing herself nearly to the floor before thrusting upward. Her sword snapped under its weight. Its back claws raked her as it passed over her. Then it was between her and Warden. With a growl, it clawed at Warden who danced out of reach. With the hilt and part of her blade, Leviana drew herself back to her feet.
"Warden, go for its eyes."
"Of course, that's simple," he said. He avoided the thing's claws again and popped the blades at his wrists. When it clawed at him again, he met it with a blade and slashed a ribbon out of its paw. It snarled and limped. That did not stop it from clawing at him with the other paw. He was too slow to catch it that time. Behind it, Leviana crept closer and grabbed a hold of its tail.
It turned with surprising agility in the space of the tunnel. Balancing on three paws, it snarled and coughed. Leviana kept her broken sword up between them and waited for it to make its move. When it did, she danced back and whirled bringing her sword around to defend her back.
Spitting, it withdrew.
Grabbing its tail, Warden hacked it off. As it bled, it turned on him. Braving its teeth, he struck froward and managed to take out an eye. Now the creature whined piteously and backed up, but Leviana was behind it. She gave it no quarter, slashing at its flanks. It turned to face her and bowled her over as it sprang past. Leviana let it go. Its spilled blood darkened the stone where it lay.
Leviana left the broken blade of her sword where it lay. It did her no good.
"Have we explored enough?"
Warden didn't color under the question, but turned the creature's tail over in his hand. It felt like a rope made of silk. Perhaps he would keep it as a trophy to remember everything by.
"When the Queen said that your lover lives in me," Warden said. "She meant it literally."
"Yes. Once upon a time, my name was Jalcina and I lived in the kingdom of Sartol before it fell to the empire. However, that was a long time ago. When I took over her body, I took back my own name," Leviana said.
"Took over her body?"
"Only one spirit can rule. The body cannot serve two masters."
"And you want him to return to life in me?"
"I have missed him for three hundred years. He was torn from me on our wedding night by a woman who could not stand for him to love someone other than her."
"The Betrayer Wife, Curcula."
"Indeed."
They walked through the tunnel with it slowly getting darker, but it lightened again as they came into cavern. This one was covered in more of the green lichen throwing a strong emerald cast over everything. Their footsteps rang out from the stone announcing them for quite a distance.
"Do you think there are more of that thing in here?"
"Something is killing those who come. I don't remember encountering it before," Leviana said. She still hefted the broken sword in her hand. There was barely enough to fit back in the scabbard. "Perhaps because we did not explore enough the last time we were here."
"I don't think it will be bothering anyone for much longer. Without something to heal its wounds, it will bleed to death."
"Perhaps."
At the far end of this cavern, they were met with more tunnels, each of them a different color: Green, blue, red, and yellow. Leviana consulted the map.
"We need to go down the yellow tunnel," she said before rolling it up again. This time, Warden said nothing and followed her into the light. Down the yellow tunnel, they were met with a rock slide. Once upon a time, someone might have been able to go through there, but now it was closed off.
"What do we do now?"
"We go down one of the other tunnels and hope they reach the same place at some point and we can continue on," Leviana said.
"Which one?" Warden asked as they came back to the head of the tunnels.
"The green one," Leviana said. "It is as good as any of the others."
"If you say so," Warden agreed. He led the way down this tunnel. Before too long, they reached a place where the tunnel branched in two directions. "Which way?"
"Let us try to follow the direction the yellow tunnel would have taken." So they veered to the right. Down the right tunnel, they found a branch leading into the yellow tunnel which put them on the far side of the rock slide.
"See, we made it."
"Am I supposed to take it that you're a better navigator than I am?" Warden asked.
"If you wish to see it that way, I won't disagree with you." They entered the yellow tunnel and walked into a spiderweb. The threads of it were thick as fingers and one could only guess at the size of the spider that spun it. Warden cut their way through it and they continued forward. The lichen was thinner here leaving them with only suggestions of where the walls were. Then they reached another place to stop.
"Let's eat something, I'm famished."
The fight against the beast had slowed them down and Leviana still felt the shallow cuts of the creature's claws along her back and shoulders. She might need to see to that before they got much worse. They had brought little food because this was not supposed to take long, but given the distance they had already traveled it would be well into nightfall by the time they reached the tunnel entrance again. They shared some bread and then surveyed where they were.
This cavern was in different colors like a rainbow trapped underground, but it was coming from the water pooling in several places through out the room as if it were truly made out of crystal. The gray and black rock walls reflected the colors into the air around them. At the far end, a temple stood merged with the wall. Leviana looked at it with wide eyes.
"This I remember," she said.
"And I hope that means you will know how to find what we're looking for."
"We didn't come here looking for treasure. We came here seeking power, Vadian and I. And I had misgivings the entire time. We were great warriors. We should have been able to reach our goals through the strength of our own arms, but we wanted to rule the world. And perhaps I did."
"The Queen wants a bracelet of scarlet metal and she thinks it is here, so we have to find it."
"If she thinks it is here, then it is here. We have only to find it."
Leviana jogged across the cavern floor toward the temple and then up the temple steps. Warden stayed close behind. There were no doors on the temple as if they had been long since ripped away from their hinges, but they didn't even hang
nearby where one could put them back on. They entered the hall and a torch ring was the first thing they saw. Warden pulled the torch as Leviana used her broken sword to draw sparks from the stone. With the torch lit, they explored further.
"I think I know which way we're supposed to go," Leviana said.
"To find the bracelet or to find your history?"
"To find my history."
"Let us find the bracelet first. Then we can find the power you sought. Otherwise, we may forget one upon obtaining the other."
Leviana shook her head and blinked.
"This place seems so familiar to me," she said. "As if I have trod this ground a thousand times before."
"Maybe you have. One can only guess how long the power you have has existed." He held the torch back from his face as he examined the wall. "Can you read any of this?"
She looked at the glyphs on the wall and shook her head. "Maybe once I could, but I can't anymore."
"Maybe it will come back to you," he said. Then they moved on. The first floor was low and they found stairs leading up and down. "Which way?"
Her soul pulled downward.
"Let's go up."
He mounted the staircase with the torch held high overhead. Leviana kept in close step, though her weapon was broken. The stairs were black and slick with a rivulet of water running down one side.
"What do you think is at the top?"
"If the water is any indication, some kind of waterfall."
They continued upward. The stairs turned on themselves without a landing and soon they were going a different direction. Reaching the next floor, they stopped. The water ran down the hallway toward them.
"I want to see where that water is coming from," Warden said starting down the hall. With a shake of her head, Leviana followed. At the end of the hall was an ornate door carved with symbols of longevity and peace. He placed his hand on it and pushed. It didn't budge. He pushed again putting his weight against it. It moved a fraction.
"I think there's something blocking it," he said. Behind him, Leviana rolled her eyes.
"The stairs keep going up, I think we should check the top before we let ourselves get mired down in one mystery."
Blades of Fate Page 10