Lyall stroked his chin. “Someone has been spying on us.”
“Correct,” she said.
Rael shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Those things would have to have been installed before we got here. How did someone know we were coming?”
Keris looked thoughtful. “We made no effort to keep our destination a secret. They could have overheard our plans in Kieroth and then travelled here ahead of us.”
“But who are they?” Rael demanded. “Who would want to spy on us like this?”
“Now that may be a more interesting question than you realise.” Keris pressed her lips together. “Eaves were introduced as standard issue equipment for Keltar about twelve turns ago, but were withdrawn not long after. There were…problems.”
“How do you mean?” Lyall asked.
“The keep has a complex political structure. There are factions, power struggles, intense rivalries. There were a number of bloody incidents. Soon afterwards, the devices were outlawed.”
“They used them to spy on each other, didn’t they?” Lyall concluded.
“Yes,” Keris said. “But the intriguing question is, who would have access to forbidden devices?”
“If we know what and where they are, why can’t we just smash them all?” Rael suggested.
“I think that would be unwise. Right now we have an advantage in that our friend doesn’t know he has been discovered.” She held up one of the broken pieces between thumb and forefinger and stared at it, as if willing it to give up its secrets. “He may readily believe that one of his devices could have accidentally malfunctioned, but any more than that and he will grow suspicious. Destroying any more of them would tip our hand, and we would lose the advantage.”
“You’re assuming it’s one person.” Rael remarked.
“Missions like this one depend absolutely on concealment. The more people there are involved, the greater the chance of discovery. I would be most surprised if there are more than two operatives. One is much more likely.”
Lyall’s expression had become grave. “Anything said during our stay here would have been overheard.”
“We must assume so, yes.” Keris’ eyes narrowed. “There’s something you haven’t told me, isn’t there?”
“Rael believes he has discovered what it is about the instrument Annata concealed here that is so dangerous. I was intending to tell all of you later–when the trials were complete.”
Her voice was like the edge of her blade, “I would suggest that now might be a good time.”
Rael opened his mouth, but Lyall waved him to silence. “Suffice it to say that if anyone were to gain control of the four components, then no power would be able to stand before them.”
“Then our spy cannot be allowed to escape with that information.” Keris’ eyes became unfocussed. “Right now we have the element of surprise. We also have a window of opportunity. Whatever our friend is planning, he must wait until we have gained possession of the components. Our best option is to act quickly to forestall him.”
Lyall nodded. “A pre-emptive strike.”
“Precisely,” she said.
“But…where can he be?” Rael asked.
Keris turned slowly, taking in the starlit landscape of Akalon. All around were indistinct shapes and tenebrous shadows. How can she possibly make anything out? Suddenly, Keris pointed decisively. “There.” She was pointing directly at the tower that loomed over the brooding plains, occluding the stars behind it.
“Are you certain?” Lyall probed.
“Somewhere reasonably close by, yet offering total concealment. It’s the only possibility,” she declared. “He’s there.”
“The tower has been sealed since before the Goratha,” Rael pointed out. “There’s no way in.”
“Annata showed us how to gain access to the towers,” Keris said. “As for our friend, most likely he piloted one of your avionics to the open platform at the top. If we enter at ground level and go up through the floors, we should catch him unawares.”
Lyall nodded his assent. “Whom do you want to take with you?”
“Stealth and speed, those are the necessary qualities. That means the cloak and staff. Alondo and Patris are not trained in their use. I gather that the girl has given Rael here a couple of lessons, but he has nowhere near the skill and experience required to undertake a mission such as this. You have to undergo the trial shortly, so you cannot come. That leaves the girl and me.”
The corners of Rael’s mouth turned down. “She is still in a bad way after her experience. I don’t think…”
“You don’t think she will agree to come with me,” Keris finished.
“I wasn’t going to say that,” Rael maintained.
Keris raised a placating hand. “It’s all right. I know she has issues with me. I don’t pretend to understand it. I will go on my own if I have to, but the girl is quick and capable. We would stand a better chance working together.”
“I’ll have a word with her,” Lyall said.
Keris turned and led the way to the tents. “I’m going to gather my things. You will be required to undergo your trial soon, so we don’t have long. If all goes well, then we will dispose of the spy, you will become the last component carrier and we will finally be able to leave this dreadful place.”
~
Alondo sat with Rael and Patris on the flat metal surface of the Dais. Mostly full bowls of vegetable and grain stew lay scattered amid discarded utensils. Even hunger had fled from them.
Waiting. It was never something Alondo had been very good at. Whenever circumstances required sitting around and waiting for something to happen or someone to do something, Alondo was accustomed to filling the moments in between with a song or a story or an anecdote or two. Yet for once, his heart was empty.
Overhead, a magnificent procession of stars wheeled. Deep inside the dome of grey mist, Lyall was undergoing the final trial, being made to confront his worst nightmares. Far off at the tower, Keris and Shann were locked in battle with an unknown enemy. None of them could afford to lose.
“I suppose it no longer matters.” Alondo and Patris both looked up from their inner deliberations. Rael seemed taken aback by his own outburst. “Ah…what I mean is, I suppose it no longer matters if we discuss our experiences in there. We can no longer influence any of the results.” The other two men went back to staring at the floor. “Can I ask,” he pressed on, “did either of you encounter…another member of our expedition?”
Patris was tracing a pattern on the metal surface. “I’d rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.”
“I did,” Alondo heard himself say.
“Whom did you see?” Rael asked.
Alondo felt as if he were allowing himself to be dragged over a precipice. “I saw Shann. And…I saw Oliah as well.”
“That must have been difficult,” Rael sympathised.
“Yes…yes it was. How about you?”
Rael swallowed. “I saw Shann too. But she was…different.”
“Different how?” Alondo queried.
Rael’s eyes fell and his face grew pale. “I don’t know. She was more…affectionate.”
Alondo raised an eyebrow. “Really. Was that how you got roughed up?”
“No, of course not.” The boy’s panicked expression melted as he caught the twinkle in Alondo’s eye. “Look, it was nothing like that. I saw her twice. The first time she was…well, friendly. The next…”
“The next, what?” Alondo pressed.
“The next she was…killed.”
Alondo’s throat constricted. “I’m sorry.”
The following days were clearly going to be painful for each of them. It was as if a dark hand had reached down and touched their soul to the very core. The emotional wounds were plain to see: in their speech, the way they walked, the way they sat, the way they avoided eye contact, the way they snatched glances when they thought the other was not looking. Lyall is right. We have to support each ot
her, help each other to heal. It will take time, but–
There was a shout from beyond the tents where the drach were keeping watch. Alondo jumped to his feet, followed by the other two. Together they hurried over the Dais towards the sound. “Look. The tower,” one of them was saying. As they gazed out across the shadowy plain to the Tower of Akalon, they could see sparks cutting through the night air. A great silver globe was rising from the top of the tower. Blue lightning crackled all around it, lighting up the parapet.
Rael’s eyes were wide. His arms moved in agitated fashion. “The tower. It’s been activated.”
“What does that mean?” Patris demanded.
“It means,” Alondo said, “that either someone is arriving or someone is leaving.”
Patris turned to him. “But that wasn’t part of the plan.”
“No. No, it wasn’t.” Alondo felt a gathering sense of unease as he watched the fulgurant display. What is going on over there?
<><><><><>
Chapter 38
Shann flew across the darkling plain in great leaps, keeping pace with the tall dark shadow that was Keris, making straight for the Tower of Akalon. Cold anger sat in the pit of her stomach like a coiled serpent.
When Lyall had first entered her tent earlier that evening, she had felt like telling him to get out. She wanted to rail at him, to pour forth her bitterness over Keris. Instead, she turned her face away and nursed her pain in silence. You will uncover a truth you would prefer not to have known.
Lyall sat watching her back. It was as if he was communing with her in the silence. A silence that said, ‘I feel your pain. I am here’. At length, she turned back to face him. His soft blue eyes were reminders of the trust they had built between them. She felt a calm come over her.
“We need your help, if you are well enough,” he began.
She sat up and rubbed her puffy eyes. “What do you need me to do?”
For once, his eyes could not meet hers. He looked more nervous than she had ever seen him. There was a problem that had to be taken care of–a problem that could threaten them all. Keris had agreed to handle it. She had asked for Shann to go along with her.
“You do not have to do this, Shann. If you refuse, no-one will think any less of you.”
As she listened to his appeal, Shann had a curious sensation. It was as if she was looking at herself from outside. A pathetic, crying wreck–that’s what she has reduced me to. What are you going to do, Shann? Are you going to give up–to just lie here and die? Are you going to acknowledge that you are powerless and that she has won? Are you just going to let her get away with destroying your parents and now you? Or are you going to get up and fight back?
Shann rubbed her face again, got up and hastily rearranged her clothing. “I will go.”
As the tower grew in her vision, it mirrored her growing sense of foreboding. At its top sat a creature that had been listening to their deliberations and now knew the terrible secret of Annata’s instrument. After the drach had set them on the ground below the Dais and promised to wait for their return, Keris had explained fully to Shann the reasons for Lyall’s request and the dire threat that now faced them. The spy, whoever he was, could not be allowed to escape with that information. Shann nodded gravely, accepting the weight of the responsibility now on her shoulders. In spite of her desire for justice, she was not about to let the others down. Her personal agenda and the other woman’s moment of reckoning would have to wait until their enemy had been dealt with and Keris had fulfilled her role as controller of one of the four components. Only then…
Several hundred yards from the structure, Keris touched down on a small rise and raised her hand. Shann landed just behind her. Stars shone steadily down on them like a thousand staring eyes. Watching. Judging.
Keris scanned the tower and the undulating ground in between. “We continue on foot. Keep low,” she commanded. The tall woman set off at a gliding run, as if she were one with the landscape. Shann followed, stretching to match her stride. They traversed the distance together in silence. The tower loomed above them as they hunkered down beside the ancient stone. Keris raised herself up and began feeling along the wall, looking for the door and the triangular recess that would allow them entry.
Two thirds of the way round, she stopped. Reaching into her pouch, she found the access module and located an identically shaped niche in the tower wall, lined the device up and carefully pushed it home. The module lit up, casting a gentle amber illumination on their faces. There was a low, purring vibration and a smooth metal door slid open, revealing a pitch dark interior.
Keris drew her staff and cautiously moved past the threshold, peering into the gloom. This place has been deserted, sealed for more than three thousand turns. Who is she expecting to find?
Shann silently followed the older woman’s lead. Dim starlight barely penetrated the umbral shadows within. The air was musty like a tomb. As she stepped inside she recalled the panel in the wall of the identical tower on the Eastern Plains that had activated the lights in the ceiling. Her hand moved, then she thought better of it. They could not risk alerting the enemy to their presence.
Keris satisfied herself that the entrance room was indeed deserted, then turned to face Shann. The dim light picked out her lean features. Her voice was a harsh whisper. “From hereon in, verbal communication should be kept to a minimum. We climb the stairway to the top of the tower. At the top, you will wait while I locate the avionic and disable it.”
“Avionic?”
“It’s the only way they could have gained access to the top of the tower,” Keris maintained.
“How do you know that someone didn’t just drop them there?”
“And leave them stranded with no means of escape? Unlikely. After I destroy the flying machine, you and I will determine the position of the scout and engage them.”
“Aren’t we going to give them an opportunity to surrender?” Shann asked.
“No,” Keris replied. “No, we aren’t. Let’s go.”
“Wait,” Shann hissed.
Keris turned back. “What is it?”
Shann felt a cold feeling of wrath–a desire for retribution well up within her. She nursed it, then tucked it carefully away for the moment. “As Keltar, you selected people to serve as tributes.”
“You want to talk about this now?” Keris rasped.
“Did you pick out those who were to be taken away?” Shann ploughed on.
“Not usually. But sometimes, when we had to meet a certain quota. What has that got to do with anything?”
“Did you take tributes from Corte nine turns ago?” Shann pressed.
“Maybe. Look, can we deal with this later?”
Shann felt her voice crack. “You took them, didn’t you. My parents. You took them away as tributes.”
Keris paused. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Your trial. You saw your parents being taken.”
“I saw you take my parents,” Shann corrected. “Is it true? Did you take my parents away to die in the ore camps?”
Keris’ sigh held a note of frustration within it. “What kind of an answer do you want?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Shann demanded.
“‘The truth lies at the bottom of a pit of serpents’. Have you heard that saying? A lie, even a small one, can provide a morsel of comfort. The truth, on the other hand, can be painful. And whatever you may think of me, Shann, I do not want to cause you any more pain. So which is it to be? The soothing balm of a lie? Or the truth?”
Shann felt the bile rise in her throat. “I want to know the truth.”
Another pause. “Very well. The truth is that I don’t know. Nine turns was a long time ago. It would have been about the time I started service as Keltar. I did visit the towns close to Chalimar, including Corte. At that time, there was not the same casual brutality among the Prophet’s servants that there is now, but a great number of people were taken against their will, nevertheless. I was
naïve and idealistic. So yes, it is possible that I impressed your parents into service as tribute. You said before that you don’t recall clearly what they looked like. In any case, I would be unlikely to remember one couple among so many. I…tended to avoid looking at their faces, even back then.”
Shann scowled. “You don’t remember?”
“I’m sorry if it is not the answer you wanted. I told you, the truth can be painful. If what you say is true and they were sent to the ore camps, then nothing can bring them back. Now, what do you wish to do? Kill me?”
“No,” Shann lied.
“Then we have a task to perform. One for which the others are relying on us. I suggest that we execute that task. Then you may exact revenge. If that is what you want.”
You cannot save them. The words struck Shann again like a slap in the face. Whatever she did–whatever price she made this woman pay–it would never bring them back.
Keris turned away, locating the stairway largely by touch, then began her ascent. After a moment, Shann followed. Silence fell between them once more. Shann shoved her turbulent thoughts to the back of her mind and channelled every ounce of concentration into the effort of climbing through the darkness. The tall woman’s back was a shadowy outline ahead of her. Vague. Ill defined. She could almost forget that it belonged to the woman who had sent her parents to their deaths. Almost.
The spiral staircase wound around and around, as if it went on forever. The air was cold and dank, with that same long-dead smell. Although she could not see the floor clearly, she fancied that she trudged through dust that had lain undisturbed for millennia. Then, abruptly, the climb ended. Keris crouched down in front of the door that barred their path, feeling for any indentations or irregularities with her slender fingers. She found a latch and pulled it. There was a small clunk, but the door stayed fast shut.
Shann cursed her own lack of foresight. If she had been thinking clearly and not been so wrapped up in her own problems, then she might have foreseen this. Both the tower on the Eastern Plains and the one she had discovered in the Cathgorn Mountains had been left open. However, Rael had told her that the tower here on the Plain of Akalon had remained sealed. She should have anticipated that the exit to the roof would also be closed off.
The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) Page 69