Cross Keys: Unity

by Ally Shields

  “Tadeous. Let me explain.”

  Kam swallowed a screech of anger and ducked under Seth’s arm. “He’s not coming in here,” she said in a harsh whisper. “How could you bring him?”

  “He wants to help us. We’ve talked, Kam. I believe him.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  “I’ll be responsible for him, but we have a right to be in on this.”

  “We can’t stand in the doorway arguing,” Seth said. “In or out. The guard could return any minute. And this is the guard carrying the big rifle.”

  “Then it’s out,” Kam said shoving Trystan outside and following him.

  Seth gave a noticeable sigh and joined her, allowing the door to close behind him. “If we’re going to fight about it, let’s move away from the building so we can decloak and see each other.”

  He led the way, and they ran across the street and into an alley. Once there, they all deactivated their rings.

  Kam ignored Tad and stepped in front of Trystan with her hands on her hips, glaring at him. “You had no right. This is pushing the bounds of our friendship.”

  “Kam, I—”

  “Tryst, let me talk for myself.” Tad wedged himself between them, but Kam turned and walked away. “If you and Seth insist, I’ll wait out here with your spotter, but—”

  She spun around. “So you can warn them before they get inside? And what would you do to my spotter? Kill him?”

  Seth slipped his arm around her waist. “We won’t get far by interrupting one another. If Trystan thinks his brother should be here, let’s at least hear what they have to say.”

  Kam fumed. Seth was being reasonable, and she almost resented it. They’d already skated close enough to death a couple of times in the past week without inviting a traitor into their ranks. “Fine. Talk.” She flipped her hand in a dismissive gesture.

  “I know I’ve been a pain…and an idiot.” Tad’s anxious look moved back and forth between Kam and Seth. “I can’t take any of it back, but helping you stop Dreysel and Jermon is important to me.”

  “I’m not interested in jeopardizing this mission to make you feel better.” Kam knew how cold she sounded, but what did they expect? Elvenrude wouldn’t be in this fix if Tad hadn’t helped Jermon escape. “We don’t need you. You’re nothing but a liability.”

  Tad looked at Seth. “Is that how you feel too?”

  “I haven’t heard anything that would change my mind.”

  “Then do it for me,” Trystan said. “Cyrilia can’t have its royal house divided. Tad and I have spent days and nights talking. I made mistakes with him, indulging his whims yet excluding his input on things that mattered.”

  “Are you justifying his plot to kill you?” Kam demanded incredulously.

  Trystan shook his head, a rueful expression on his face. “Just admitting he had little reason to believe in me. It gave Dreysel an opening. Tadeous knows he was wrong, and he’s grown up a lot in the last four months. I’ve set the past behind me…because he’s my brother, and I need his help with whatever Cyrilia’s future turns out to be.”

  Seth squeezed her arm, and she looked up at him. “You think we should accept this, don’t you?” she asked.

  Seth shrugged. “It’s Tryst’s decision.”

  Trystan’s face showed obvious relief. “If he betrays us again, I’ll be the first to put a dagger in his heart.”

  “No, I will.” Kam stepped forward and looked Tad in the eye. “That’s a promise.”

  He held her gaze without flinching. “I get it.”

  Kam and Seth waited by the roof vent for Trystan and Tad to scale the walls of the building, then led the way through the airshaft. They remained in the duct system several extra minutes while the guards completed their hourly rounds. Once the balcony was clear, they jumped to the floor, and Kam put the wall vent back in place.

  With Trystan to help—Kam ignored Tad’s presence—they split into two teams and conducted a more thorough search of the two upper floors, checking every display case for the black statue. They saw thousands of interesting artifacts, but not the one they wanted.

  The basement was much the same. The exhibit from Tutankhamun’s tomb contained priceless gold jewelry, small funerary statuettes, bowls, jars, even furniture. Some small pieces were fashioned from obsidian or decorated with the volcanic stone—the eyes of King Tut’s mask were black obsidian—but nothing matched the size or magical energy of Elvenrude’s Heart of Ishka.

  Although small amounts of magic could be felt in nearly every room, Kam wondered again about the lack of an obvious center of magical power. Humans wouldn’t know enough to store the artifact in iron, a substance that inhibited many elven magics, and self-shielding would still leave a detectable trace.

  But more than a picture on the Internet had drawn her here. Some primitive sense. If the statue wasn’t the original Ishka stone, it was something just as dangerous in the wrong hands, an ancient piece whose latent power had yet to be released. Perfect for Jermon’s purposes, but difficult to identify in its present state without holding it in your hands.

  By the time it was morning in Cairo, they’d searched and eliminated every exhibit room and were working on the storage areas and the packed crates. The museum opened in an hour, and tourists would flood the aisles. Even invisible elves would find it impossible to avoid bumping into someone.

  “Does anyone believe Jermon would make a daylight attempt?” Kam asked, as they gathered in the storage room downstairs.

  “Too risky.” Seth waved a hand at the disorganized end of the room. “I assume someone will soon arrive to work in here. People will be everywhere until the museum closes. Only a fool would try to search under those conditions.”

  “And Jermon’s no fool.” She looked at Trystan. “Let’s suspend our efforts until tonight.”

  He looked resigned and discouraged. After spending the last forty-five minutes running his hands over the crates as Kam and Seth had already done several hours ago, he’d given up. “I don’t like waiting, but we’re not going to find the statue unless we open the crates. We can’t do that during the day.”

  She pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped in a number. “I’ll bring in another spotter to play tourist and wander around the exhibits, watching for anything suspicious. That way we can all take a break. Jermon and Dreysel are probably coming in by commercial or chartered flight, but they’re sure to be here by evening. We need to be rested and waiting.”

  She refocused on the phone and asked Tomas to cover the museum, then disconnected. “All done. He’ll be here before nine.” She cocked her head. “You know, if we work around the museum’s hours of nine to seven, we can follow tourists in and out without having to mess with the airshaft or the alarms. Now, where do we spend the day?”

  Seth held up his phone. “I got that covered. Two suites already reserved at the nearest hotel. We’d have to rest sometime.”

  Kam glanced at the time on her phone screen—another half hour. Too tired to figure out where to look next, they sat down to wait. Tad moved to the far side of the room and sat on the floor leaning his head against the wall. He’d wisely stayed out of Kam’s way, and she hadn’t seen anything suspicious…yet. But she still didn’t trust him. An unpredictable quantity.

  At nine, they made their way out through the lines of tourists and found their hotel. Kam thought about calling home, but it was 2:00 a.m. in New Orleans. She fell across the bed and went to sleep.

  When she woke it was midafternoon in Cairo. Seth was out somewhere. Since it was morning in New Orleans, she sat cross-legged on the bed and called Guild Master Barrott for an update on Elvenrude. He reported Captain Brunic had raided a farm overnight where Kurzi’s rebels had held Murielle for several hours, but they’d already fled with their captive. The family who’d harbored them had been taken into custody.

  “Rhyden and Merik Trevain are searching with the Guard again today. I’m worried what those criminals might do to an old woman if she
isn’t found soon.” He cleared his throat. “The guild’s been quiet. No sign of the Mexicans, and I’ve hardly noticed the security team. The CIA guy’s black van was outside about an hour a go, then left. He didn’t come in. Not real social, are they?”

  Kam chuckled, satisfied Crain was on the job, and hung up. She showered and dressed in casual clothes—jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt in deference to the Egyptian preference for covered arms. All she needed was a water bottle and a camera to be the typical tourist.

  The door rattled, and Seth walked in carrying a tray with coffee and containers of food.

  “What did you bring? I’m starving.”

  While they ate a variety of food choices—western and Egyptian—from the hotel’s restaurant, Kam told him the news from home, and they talked about their plans for the day, probably their last day in Egypt. With Murielle already in the hands of the rebels, Jermon was either coming tonight, or—gods forbid—he wasn’t coming there at all.

  Kam checked in with their spotter inside the museum—hordes of tourists, no sign of trouble. She and Seth decided to walk around Tahrir Square, and they secured their weapons: mini crossbows in their hooded jackets tied around their waists, pistols in inside waist holsters, and knives in their boots. Kam shoved her guard bag under the bed. She looked up as Seth answered a sharp rap on the door and admitted Trystan. The Cyrilian was scowling.

  “What’s up?” Seth looked behind the other man. “Where’s Tad?”

  “I don’t know. He took off while I was taking a shower.”

  “He what?” Kam leaped to her feet. “Let’s find him before he does something stupid. Like contact Dreysel.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.” Tad stood in the open doorway, his eyes serious. “None of you trust me, even Tryst. I get it. But I just went to the lobby for a map.” He handed the colorful laminated sheet to his brother. “You said you wanted this.”

  Kam narrowed her eyes. “How do we know that’s all you did?”

  “I guess you don’t.” Tad shoved his hands in his pockets. “How do I convince you?”

  “You can’t.” Kam was more resigned than angry. His story was plausible. And he’d returned quickly on his own. “If you take off like that again, you’re going home.”

  Tad looked up, surprised. “You mean, I can stay?”

  “That’s up to your brother.” She edged past him and into the hall. “I’m going to look around town. We have several hours before the museum closes. See if you can stay out of trouble that long.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Rhyden and Merik arrived at the palace pre-dawn at five o’clock and heard the news of Brunic’s overnight raid on the farm. The captain met them with dark circles under his eyes and admitted, despite his best intentions, the raid and the questioning of the farm family had kept him up all night. He’d gained two valuable pieces of information: Murielle was alive and unharmed, and Kurzi Everins was on the run with ten hardcore followers.

  Rhyden gave Merik a quiet thumbs-up. The number of rebels meant Merik’s efforts had been successful in raising doubts and breaking off part of a group that had been more than two dozen a week ago.

  Encouraged by the news, they formed larger parties of five to seven to combat Everins’s band of eleven and set out to bring in the rebels. Rhyden and Merik rode with Captain Brunic and two of his senior archers.

  As they left town around five-thirty, the snow that had threatened for the last two days began to fall, creating a slippery surface for the horses in the rockier areas. The five riders headed for a search grid south of the farm where the raid occurred. They came to a fork and turned right.

  “This is the direction they fled last night,” Brunic said. “We tracked them into the hills before the trail faded, and I’m hoping they stayed on this general path.”

  It was a bluff area, replete with conifer trees, small ravines, large boulders, and divided by two streams, partially frozen along the edges. It held plenty of places to hide, but the deteriorating weather actually narrowed their search. The temperature was dropping, the snow was steady now, and Kurzi’s band was fleeing with an old woman, one they needed to keep alive. They needed a warm, dry shelter.

  When Brunic’s search team reached the top of a particularly steep hill, Rhyden shielded his eyes from the wet flakes with one hand and peered ahead. Like the others, he was looking for any kind of structure or a campfire. What he saw was puzzling…a dense wall of falling snow less than ten feet ahead of them. The horses in the lead stopped on their own, sidestepping, reluctant to walk into near blindness.

  “Easy, boy.” Rhyden patted his stallion’s neck.

  “What in Hades is this?” Brunic asked, struggling to control his horse. “Something feels off, unnatural.” He twisted to look back at Rhyden. “Can Murielle do this kind of magic? Could they be forcing her to stop us?”

  “I’m not sure. She uses earth magic, plants and minerals mostly, not water and ice. Besides, won’t this slow them more than us?”

  “She communes with fairies,” Merik said suddenly. “I’ve visited with her. A colony lives in her garden. They’re territorial, protect their own.”

  “What would garden fairies have to do with snow?” Brunic asked. “I’m sorry I even brought it up. It’s just a snow squall line.”

  “Fairies is fairies,” one of the archers muttered. “If Everins offended the garden fairies, the snow fairies might make mischief.”

  “Yeah, OK, believe what you want. If you’re right, maybe these pissed off fairies have helped us by forcing the rebels to stop and take shelter. This could be our chance to catch them.” Brunic persistently nudged and reined his horse toward the wall of snow until it finally stepped forward, and they were enveloped by whiteness. “I can barely see the path,” Brunic called back. “But I think we can make it. It’s a little better once you’re in here.”

  Rhyden was right behind him, and Merik was on Rhyden’s left. The jingle of bridles indicated the two archers were close on their horses’ tails. The snow seemed less menacing now, and Rhyden didn’t feel as claustrophobic as expected. But the path was slippery, and he allowed his horse to pick its way. Rhyden brushed the ice and snow from the stallion’s forelock and ears. One of them needed to see.

  “Drop off on the right,” Brunic said suddenly.

  Rhyden kneed his mount to the left and relayed the warning to those in the rear. He looked over the edge as they made the narrow pass. It looked like a dead horse lay halfway down. He grimaced to think about the fate of the rider. The rebels must have discovered the drop-off the hard way.

  They rode in near blindness another few yards, until the snow around them lightened enough that he could see a clear path ahead. With a second look, he realized snow walls a few feet away on either side of them were as dense as before, as if Rhyden and his companions moved through a tunnel. This definitely wasn’t normal.

  He squinted at tiny movements on his right, directly over the drop-off. Snowflakes were displaced by tiny gusts of wind…like fluttering wings? Snow fairies, as the archer suggested? Were they showing the way? Or was it nothing but a snow mirage and his imagination?

  When no one else said anything, Rhyden brushed the snow off his face and kept his eyes on the narrow trail.

  Over the next rise, the path dipped, then began a steady climb. He heard splashing water. They’d found the second stream that came out of the mountains, and they followed the edge of the cliff. It finally cut downward through a slit in the rock. The path was icy, and they saw another carcass—this time with a dead rider trapped underneath—where a horse had lost its footing and plunged off the edge. Without this strange area of lightened snow, Brunic’s band might have suffered the same fate. Their downward progress ended in an area of rock overhangs and shallow recesses in the mountainside.

  The snow path faded, the storm returned to a moderate snowfall, and Brunic halted. He pointed a gloved hand at a dim glow ahead. “Isn’t that a light?”

  “Could be, C
aptain,” one of the archers said.

  “Let’s check it out.”

  Brunic slid off his horse, and the others dismounted, clapping their goatskin gloves to remove excess snow and get numb fingers working again. Rhyden’s nose felt like an icicle. They led the horses back up the path until they found a hemlock tree to break the wind and tethered them.

  Brunic directed the archers to take the ridge above. “See if you can get on the other side of that light and determine what’s ahead of us. Stay together so no one gets lost, then report back. Rhyden and I will get a better look from this level. Trevain, you’ll stay with the horses.” When Merik protested, the captain gave him an impatient look. “We’d be in a damned mess if the horses took off.”

  Merik turned away without another word.

  Rhyden shot a reproving look at Brunic. Yeah, the horses were important, but it was more likely they’d hunker under the trees than run off into the fury of such bad weather. The captain ignored him and stepped closer to the cliff face. Rhyden finally followed, and they picked their way carefully for three or four minutes before stopping to peer around a large boulder.

  The light of a campfire flickered under a flat ledge of rock that projected out fifteen feet or so, providing a crude roof for several men huddled around the fire. A heavily bundled figure lay under a makeshift tent of sticks and blankets between the fire and the back wall. Murielle.

  Having confirmed their suspicions, Brunic and Rhyden retreated to confer with the others. When the archers appeared, they added their observations.

  “We couldn’t see much of the camp from above,” the older archer said. “But it looks like we could climb down and get on the far side of them.”

  “We’ll catch them in a crossfire,” Brunic said, quickly making up his mind. “Considering the two casualties we saw, Everins’s band is down to nine. That’s not even two apiece.”

  “Hardly seems worth the effort,” the young archer quipped.