The Sacred Hunt Duology
Page 74
Her hair flew, much as it had done when she had displayed the temper of a spoiled young Southerner, but this time there was no fire in the movement. “We don’t have time,” she said. But while the words were curt, the voice was faint. It was a strange combination.
He started to ask her why; they were alone, and no one, so far, had noticed them. But she caught his hand and began to run—to scurry, much like the mice in the merchant authority’s vast halls did—between places that offered shelter from prying eyes. She knew where she was going; it was he who now had to follow.
• • •
To get to the basement under the authority wasn’t very difficult as long as you weren’t stupid enough to try entry through the offices of the authorities’ officials; there was a wooden hatch close to the wagon docks, near the offices that were occupied by inspectors who were usually too busy to stay put. The only risk you ran was that someone had boxes piled over it; it really did look like part of the floor, and at that, a well-constructed part. Jewel said her prayers to Kalliaris as she ran and ducked, peered out from the nearest box, and then ducked and ran. She no longer held on to Devon; she trusted that he, as ATerafin, was at least as competent as she—that he could keep up and stay hidden at the same time. If he couldn’t, they were both dead.
And she was certain it was death she was afraid of; certain that if they were caught—although she didn’t know by whom—they would only appear again as the corpses left over from some suspicious accident. She swallowed as the fear swept over her, momentarily paralyzed by it. Then she took a deep breath and continued to move.
Because if she didn’t move, she would never complete her task, and if the task were not completed, there would be no home for her or her den in Terafin.
Kalliaris, she thought, although she couldn’t make her lips form the name, please, Lady, smile.
• • •
They found the hatch easily enough; it was where Jewel had said it would be, and there was very little blocking their entrance—although they had to wait fifteen minutes for an argument between an overseer and an authority official to move past them before they dared approach it. Devon provided the muscle necessary to move the hatch; there was no lock and latch to it, but rather a simple embedded handle that looked like a short wooden slat until it was pulled up and twisted crossways.
Jewel slid down the hatch, and whispered a warning to Devon; he heeded it and as the hatch came down, jumped into a darkness that was almost complete. The ground here was hard, even rocky; it felt uneven, as if the basement had only been partially dug and then abandoned.
“Come on,” Jewel whispered. She caught his hand after three attempts, and then tied a thin line around both his waist and her own. He waited until she had finished before he reached into his sash and pulled out a small, perfect crystal.
There was light at its heart—a light that was bright, intense, and still quite easily hidden in the palm of a closed hand. Jewel gasped as he lifted it, and then lifted her own hand in response, reaching for it as if the light compelled her and she could not do otherwise. He closed his palm and darkness returned.
“Lead,” he whispered, and he watched her shadowed outline nod. The string at his waist grew taut, and he followed the pace she set, choosing his steps with care as he once again let the light glimmer in the darkness.
It was eerie, to walk like this beneath the authority building. But the walls, uneven and barely carved, became much flatter and smoother as they progressed. The ceilings became higher, and to either side, in brass rings that had not been cleaned for decades, were torches waiting the touch of fire.
“We’re under the main hall,” Jewel said, looking up.
Devon could hear nothing, but he didn’t argue; it wasn’t important. He watched her as her eyes narrowed; she spun to the side and then turned back, and her eyes were wide, dark circles.
“The light!”
At her tone, he wrapped his hands round the crystal; darkness fell like storm, and they stood in it. He listened for a moment, and realized that she wasn’t breathing. Before he could ask her why, he heard footsteps; a set of footsteps. He caught her hands, as she reached for him; together, they retreated, flattening themselves into the corner formed by the wall and the floor.
He knew, then, that she was waiting for something, although he didn’t know what; knew, too, that she was terrified. He could feel her heart as if it were his own—in fact, he could not feel his own so strongly.
He started to speak and her hand found his mouth, pressing his lips together. The footsteps drew closer, and closer still, but there was no accompanying light; whoever it was who approached was familiar enough with this basement to forgo torches.
There was no voice, no spoken word; nothing but the sound of even steps in the darkness. The shadows seemed to pick up the noise, to wrap it in velvet and yet strengthen it. Devon thought of praying, and he was surprised by it; he was not a man to leave his fate to the Gods, and he was not a man to incur a God debt—the Gods had their own games, after all, and not all of them coincided with the good of the Kings or the empire.
But Jewel’s tension was like a disease or a poison; he had been exposed to it, and he could feel it settle into places that he had thought long since outgrown. He cursed her, and himself; and he counted the steps and their growing volume with the same dread as she.
And then, the unexpected; the steps grew no louder. Instead, carried by darkness, they grew quieter. He felt relief weaken his hold on Jewel, but even as it did, he was calculating. They must be at a T-junction, and the people who had passed must have continued on the straight. Very slowly, and very carefully, he began to rise.
With him, came Jewel.
They stood in darkness; Devon clutched a source of light that he dared not release for fear that it might be seen. Time passed, or perhaps it did not; he began to count his breaths, making them as deep—and silent—as possible. At last, he spoke.
“They are going where we wish to go.”
He felt her nod.
“Then we must follow.” He began to walk, and she caught his arm.
“We can’t.”
“We can. Or I can.”
“Devon—”
“That’s not a request,” he added. “But if you fear to go, I will go alone.”
“We can’t see what they’re doing. They travel in darkness. They work in darkness. If we bring light, they’ll know who we are, and they’ll destroy us.”
But he was Devon ATerafin. He intended caution, and he moved in silence, but there were answers to be found; he was certain of it. He was not willing to lose the opportunity.
• • •
They waited fifteen minutes and then turned the corner. Devon needed the light to see by, although Jewel would have preferred to scrape the wall or the ground in a slow crawl. The basement was on a level; there was, beneath it, a subbasement—one flat and low enough that not even Jewel could stand at full height. This crawl space was not easily found, but it extended well beneath the merchant authority in a small web, and if you followed it south—at least she thought it was south—it came to the collapsed ruin of a door’s arch, another hole—and an entrance into the maze itself.
It was obvious. In fact, it seemed to Jewel that the basement had been built above the subbasement, and the floor had collapsed over the years, slowly sinking into the maze the way glass, over centuries, pooled toward the bottom of the Churches’ lead frames. At that, it had only sunk in the one spot, and it was not a large one; big enough for a person, or maybe two. If it were in an area that was used at all, it might have been pursued; instead, it was tucked away in a moldy corner like a forgotten secret. There were boards above the hole, but they had been eaten away by time and moisture—it was these slats, hoisted out of place by Carver’s slender shoulders, that had signaled the exit from the crawl space into a larger building.
Lefty and Fisher died for this.
Lander died because it wasn’t serious enough.
Duster died because she was the only real killer in the den, Carver notwithstanding, and against what Rath had become—or rather, what had become Rath—only a killer could stand.
And now Jewel was on the threshold. She grabbed the thin strand that bound her to Devon and pinched it tightly between two fingers; in her palm it felt insubstantial, and she wanted a sense of another person’s physical presence, even if he wasn’t the ally she would have chosen. The hole loomed closer, and closer still.
• • •
Devon periodically lifted a finger from the crystal’s surface, listening first for the confirmation of safety that silence brought before releasing a thin beam of light. That light caught the wall and the floor, illuminating them so briefly they seemed a still painting over which a protective cloth flickered in a heavy wind. It was a risk, but it was one that he felt necessary; neither he nor Jewel had sight for the darkness, nor the training to move well within it. That was not the case for all of the Astari—but Devon had not been born to the compact.
Each time the light came, Jewel tensed; her breath cut across her teeth as if at a sudden, sharp pain. The ray itself she both used and avoided—he had seen such behavior before, but only in very shy animals. He had no desire to offer her comfort; this was, in some ways, the testing ground, and on it she would prove her worth to Terafin—or to no one.
Still, he watched her when he could see her; he listened for her, when he could not. She moved with caution, even with fear—but she moved. Fifteen minutes passed, or perhaps more; it was hard to tell, deprived of the sun’s light and the shadows by which time made itself most obviously seen. Time ceased to matter as the floor began to slant toward old, worn slats of soft wood.
Fingers tightened around crystal; sharp edges bit into his palm and the undersides of his knuckles. Now, he felt the danger that Jewel was paralyzed by. For the slats were pulled back, and there was no branching tunnel down which the unknown others could travel. They were here; they were in the crawl space.
Jewel lay across the ground, inching the side of her face over the hole in the stone. She paused there a moment, and then drew her knees up slowly, gaining her feet. Only when she tugged on the rope to signal the beginning of her descent did Devon step in.
He did not speak, but instead pushed her firmly and gently to the side. She had a dagger or two, but she hadn’t much experience using one; she had no magics, and no skills to speak of that would serve her in a tight fight in an enclosed space. He did not expect her to give her life foolishly in Terafin’s service; his test was a test of courage and resolve.
You pass, he thought, knowing she couldn’t see his smile. In the darkness, the rare smile was what it was, not less; in the shadows, Devon was hidden enough to feel comfortable revealing what he wanted no one to see. It was odd, this juxtaposition; but he had long since discovered that people needed to express what they felt and what they believed they knew, even if they wanted no one to have possession of so dangerous a knowledge. He was no better a man than most, but he had no fear of the darkness.
Jewel spoke softly and with great strain. “Devon—I must go first. I know the tunnels.”
Of course. He nodded, and the nod was grim. But he held her arm as she lowered herself down into the crawl space, and he followed immediately, staying as close as possible.
He lowered himself into the crawl space, wishing for Jewel’s height and Jewel’s build. As it was, he was uncomfortably close to wall and ceiling, where they were distinct enough to be distinguished; the ground beneath the basement was an odd patchwork of worked bits of stone strewn among rough or jagged surfaces. He crawled, following her closely. Because the space was so limited, and Jewel was in front, wending her way in a darkness that the tunnels—and their unknown visitors—demanded, he had no need to call upon light; indeed, he knew it for a danger here. He slid the crystal into the darkness of heavy cloth and skin and let it go.
Time passed; he scraped his head across low-hanging stone and likewise bruised his knees. In one or two places, the ceiling rose. Jewel did not, and Devon chose to follow her lead. He did not, after all, have much choice.
But at last, when he’d lost any true sense of direction, Jewel stopped. She had started and stopped several times during their navigation of the tunnels, but there was a quality to her lack of motion, a stiffness, that told Devon more than simple words would have done.
Fear had a scent of its own, and it affected different people in different ways. Some found it exciting, some arousing, some disturbing, and some disgusting. Devon did not judge it; he acknowledged it as an element of the landscape through which he might have to fight. But her calf was stiff beneath his hand as he used her body to guide himself into a position where he might be the first to react should reaction be necessary.
He was almost surprised when she reached out and gabbed his shoulder; her grip was hard and surprisingly sure as it sought to hold him in place.
Before he could react—and his reactions were swift—he heard speech; the tunnels carried and distorted it slightly, but the words were clear.
“I said all life.”
“It is done, Lord.”
“You are certain?”
“As certain,” the second voice replied, “as I can be.”
“Good. Your existence depends on it. Now, stand out of my way.”
“Lord.” The word was layered with a variety of emotions; Devon wished to see the face of the speaker. He looked into the darkness; there was no light for his vision to adjust to.
And he wanted the light, suddenly; he had an irrational urge to pull it from its safety and let it burn away at the darkness that surrounded him. It was unexpected, the impulse, and strong; he forced it back, and then brought his shoulders in line with Jewel’s. She’d told him, as much as she could, to wait. He waited.
As he did, he began to realize that he was wrong. There was light here, but it was slow to grow, slow to find its way to his vision. Jewel, beside him, stopped breathing; he reached out slowly, touching first her shoulder and then the side of her neck, before he brought his fingers up to her face.
Her mouth was wide, her jaw slack.
He knew then that she saw something in the darkness that he could not see. He was not even very surprised. Damn The Terafin anyway, for sending him out—as always—with only half the available facts. He waited, as the light flickered; it was just enough to frustrate, not enough to illuminate.
Jewel leaned into his hands, and then back; her body began to tremble with the tension that held it in place. He did not know how long they sat while she watched in darkness. But he knew when it was over; she shook her head and suddenly started, as if waking; she scrambled back on her knees in panic.
Time to leave.
He caught her, took the risk of whispering one word, and that, her name. Then he pushed her forward, and took the rear. It was hard, of course; he expected this. The possibility that they were being followed, and by enemies who could see in the dark, was high.
Don’t let fear make you slow or clumsy; don’t let it make you careless. But of course he couldn’t give her this warning; he had to trust her. Devon ATerafin, raised within the patriciate’s lower ranks and sponsored into the Astari, had made a career out of trusting no one.
He grimaced, thinking of her fear and of his own, one so visceral and one so . . . intellectual. All of his senses had sharpened; were there light, he would see by it more clearly than either Jewel or their purs
uers; he would notice the variation in shadows, the subtlety of motion, the shifting of expression that warned of imminent attack.
If he had the time to turn and let the light shine.
He followed Jewel’s breath, the sound of her knees shuffling against rock, even the sound of a staccato gasp when she hit something that hurt. He was aware of the passage of time, but not aware of whether or not enough of it had gone by. He followed and listened.
Are they demons, Jewel? Are they mages? What did you see?
But at his back, nothing; no sound, no shuffling, no spoken words. He wanted to ask Jewel what she had seen and why she had chosen her moment to leave, but it would wait.
And then she stopped; he could hear her struggle to stand in the enclosed space. Her fingers brushed rock and then something else—the planks. In the silence, their creak sounded like the movement of an old mast on a ship no longer seaworthy.
For the first time, he heard a sound that neither of them made; it was at his back, but how far away or how close, he could not say. He cursed, but wordlessly. Sliding to the side, hands outstretched and flattened, he caught Jewel’s knee and then took the weight of her feet. She was surprisingly light.
He followed as quickly as he could—which was very quickly, and then reached into his clothing. His hand closed round the crystal as if it burned; he pulled it out, hand shaking, and lifted a slender finger for only a second.
The pale light washed all color out of Jewel’s face; her eyes were wide and seemed completely dark. She stood as if frozen, as if waiting; he caught her hand in his own, locked their fingers together, and then began to run. There was no choice left her but to follow, and that was just as well; there were times when choice was prized too highly.
He let the light flicker as he ran, retracing the steps that they had so quietly and painstakingly taken. Darkness grew behind them; he had seen enough of it to spare no backward glance.
Jewel’s cry told him that she had not chosen to do likewise. He did not catch all of what she said, because half of it was wordless, midway between gasp and whimper. Instead of trying to catch a glimpse of what she saw, he ran faster, taking the corner of the junction that would rob any pursuer of immediate line of sight.