“Perhaps you may be right,” said Gajdosik, but with no sign that her warning troubled him. “Tell me your brother’s tale, Your Highness. How did he enter the mountain? What did he find there? Tell me everything.”
So she told him about the door that opened in a wash of heat when Gulien touched it, emphasizing that her brother had had a key and it wouldn’t open for Djerkest so easily. She didn’t mention the kephalos. Neither Djerkest nor Gajdosik seemed to know anything about the kephalos, so why mention it? She implied her brother had spoken only to the Kieba and assured Gajdosik, in her most sincere tone, that the Kieba had been pleased to let Gulien borrow one of her most terrible golems because she favored the Madalin family and Carastind. She described the Hall of Remembrance with all the statues of the dead gods and goddesses, but she didn’t mention the twin goddesses who guarded both the way to the heart of the mountain and the way to the vault of plagues. She couldn’t think of a way to turn that knowledge to her advantage, but it was always, always best not to tell anybody everything you knew.
“Well,” Gajdosik said, when she had finished. He traded a thoughtful glance with his magister. “We shall have to contrive.” Rising to his feet, he gestured Oressa up. “If you would be so kind as to lead the way, Your Highness.”
The Tamaristan soldiers had been up and down the Kieba’s mountain already, Oressa gathered, and though they hadn’t recognized the door when they’d passed it, Magister Djerkest recognized her description at once. Oressa hadn’t expected that. She’d thought they could waste hours searching for it. She ought to have lied and told them that Gulien had found a doorway right at the top of the mountain; then she could have acted all astonished when they found no doorway there now and said, Well, the Kieba plainly doesn’t welcome you; you’d better stop this nonsense before she loses patience. But she hadn’t wanted to lie right at the beginning of her story. It was almost always better to begin with something true in case someone knew more than you hoped. People were much more likely to go on believing you when you began lying if you’d started with the truth.
“This door will open for you as it did for your brother,” Djerkest told Oressa confidently, “Or if it won’t, I’ll open it.”
Oressa hoped he was wrong, although it had occurred to her that since she had Parianasaku’s Capture tucked away in a pocket, the Kieba might very well open the door for her. Or the kephalos might, because it seemed to make a lot of decisions, and for all Oressa knew, the Kieba was still distracted by Elaru or some other plague-stricken city. But she certainly didn’t intend to try to open the door. She would just pretend.
Gajdosik left nearly all of his men at the farm. “We won’t need them with us,” he said. “Or if we do, we won’t have enough men, no matter how many we bring.” He told the officer he left in charge to respect the family and even to have the men help with the work of the farm, so Oressa didn’t have to fear what the Tamaristans might do in their prince’s absence, which was a relief.
But Gajdosik brought Laasat—he didn’t say so, but Laasat’s job was clearly to keep an eye on Oressa. And he brought three soldiers to run errands or carry messages or whatever they might need. And Magister Djerkest, of course. Then he gestured to Oressa to lead the way across the pasture toward the Kieba’s wall.
The Kieba’s wall was no more a barrier for them than it had been for Gulien. Gajdosik simply set a hand on it, vaulted over, and turned to assist Oressa. Oressa lifted her chin, gathered up her skirts, stepped up on a rough stone and then to the top of the wall, and leaped neatly down.
Gajdosik merely lifted an amused eyebrow at this snub. “I am glad to see your shoulder no longer troubles you, Your Highness.”
Oressa fixed him with a scornful look, then turned to gaze up the slopes of the mountain. It all looked the same to her: small, twisted oaks and pines clinging to the scant soil and the gritty red stone. She had no idea which way the door lay.
Djerkest, unfortunately, seemed to have an excellent memory and set off confidently up the slope, bearing a bit to the east. As soon as she saw it, Oressa recognized the cliff that was really the door from Gulien’s description. There were the veins of smoky crystal running jagged and glittering through the red stone; there was the single stunted pine with its roots twisting their way into the mountain. Gajdosik gave Oressa a meaningful look, so she shrugged, stepped forward, clapped her hands, and said, “Kieba! Open your door!”
Nothing happened, of course. Oressa turned to Gajdosik with a scornful little shrug: You see? I told you.
The prince wasn’t looking at her, though. He was watching his magister.
Magister Djerkest ran his hands over the red stone. His eyebrows went up. “Hmm.” He stroked his hands across the stone once more, as though he were blind and trying to define something by its shape. He closed his eyes. Then he reached forward with one hand. He reached into the stone. His hand disappeared, and then his arm up to the elbow. He said, “Ah yes.” Then, as Oressa stared, he walked forward and disappeared.
Prince Gajdosik took a step forward and reached out to touch the cliff face. His hand, too, disappeared into the stone. He looked at Oressa. His expression held not smugness, but satisfaction and a little tension. He gestured to her to come forward. After a second she obeyed. She stepped forward into a stinging heat that clung to her skin, and then into a great echoing hall carved out of dark crystal and crowded with all its statues of dead gods, exactly as Gulien had described.
Magister Djerkest was standing perfectly still, peering into the far reaches of the hall. He glanced at Oressa when she joined him, but immediately turned again to examine the gods and goddesses. “Remarkable,” he said absently. “Not merely the statues, though those are remarkable enough. We have always believed this sort of crystal”—he scuffed his boot across the floor—“rare and precious. No Tamaristan tale describes the Keppa’s mountain thus. Were you aware that this place was made of, or carved from, living crystal?”
Oressa didn’t know exactly what the Tamaristan magister meant by “living crystal” and wouldn’t have answered him anyway, but the hall was remarkable, though she thought this was more for the statues than the floor and walls. She spotted the winged god whose statue had once stood on the roof of the palace in Caras, and wished she had ever asked Gulien to tell her his name. She looked for the god Gulien had said guarded the doorway that led right back to Caras, but she couldn’t see him. By looking for moonlight and shadows, she spotted the two goat-headed goddesses with their important doorways and deliberately looked away again, keeping her expression bland.
Gajdosik stepped out into the echoing crystal hall, and then Laasat and the soldiers. The soldiers stood up straight, staring around, pretending to be alert rather than impressed. They couldn’t quite manage it. The prince made no such pretense. He set his hands on his hips, revolved slowly in place to take in the expansive, crowded hall, and whistled quietly, a low sound of amazement.
Magister Djerkest turned to him, looking rather blank. “Hmm. How very . . .” His voice trailed off. Clearing his throat, he took out a chip of stone—no, Oressa saw it was a piece of the same kind of crystal that this whole hall was made from, gray and smooth. Gulien had a crystal falcon like that, though she had forgotten about it until this moment. She wished she’d known about the crystal being important somehow. Gulien should have told her, and then she’d have known to worry for whether Djerkest had a piece, too. She had a sinking feeling that she might have made a mistake, showing the magister the way into the mountain.
Djerkest tilted the bit of crystal to one side and then the other, studying it. It changed, and changed again, and Oressa moved a step closer, fascinated despite herself. The crystal glimmered with formless light at first and then rippled with a brown swirl that looked like mud stirred into clear water, and then a jagged red shape darted from one side of the crystal to the other like a frightened minnow, and then the light came back again. “Hmm,” murmured the magister. He tilted the crystal a different way
again, then tapped it firmly with a fingernail. It rang like a bell.
Magister Djerkest tapped the crystal a second time. It went quite blank, then flashed with light, and finally cleared to show at last the magister’s own face, like a mirror. Djerkest cleared his throat and said, to Oressa’s horror, “Kephalos!”
“Name?” asked the neutral, flat voice of the kephalos. “Affiliation? Aspect? Position?”
Oressa said sharply, “Kephalos! I’m Oressa Madalin! Listen to me, not—” But though Gajdosik caught her shoulder and put a hard hand over her mouth, the prince need not have been concerned. The kephalos did not answer her.
The magister said carefully, as though he were answering examination questions and was not certain of the answers, “Djerkest Manajarist. Ininoreh. Fire. Superior.”
“Your primary identity is recognized,” said the kephalos. “Your key is accepted. Your affiliation is accepted with reservations. Superior position unavailable.”
“Ancillary, then,” Magister Djerkest said quickly.
“Your principal aspect is: undefined. Your subsidiary aspect is: undefined. Ancillary position accepted,” said the kephalos.
Magister Djerkest let out his breath, straightened his shoulders, and said, this time as though he knew exactly what he expected, “Kephalos.”
“Yes, Djerkest,” answered the kephalos, perfectly readily.
The magister darted a swift look at Prince Gajdosik and asked, “Where is the Keppa?”
“The Keppa is unavailable. Do you wish to request the Keppa’s attention when she becomes available?”
The magister began, “No—”
Oressa jerked herself away from Gajdosik and shouted, “Yes! Kephalos!” Then Gajdosik got his hand over her mouth again, though she tried to bite him. But he needn’t have bothered, because although they all waited a breathless moment, the kephalos did not answer Oressa. She had no key, and the Madalin name alone was obviously not enough to get the kephalos’s attention. Gajdosik gave her a little warning shake but took his hand away from her mouth. Furious, she tried to shake off his grip, but his grip did not loosen. He was not even looking at her, but at his magister.
“How long will the Keppa be unavailable?” Magister Djerkest asked the kephalos.
“Unknown,” said the kephalos.
“I need to see . . .” The magister looked around. “Everything,” he concluded.
“We don’t have a year,” Gajdosik reminded the magister, who looked like he was ready to begin exploring at the bottom of the mountain and work his way to the top. “A few days at most. Can you make the kephalos recognize me? Obey me?” He might have sounded greedy or vain: a prince seeing a swift path to power. He might have sounded like that, but he didn’t. He only sounded intense.
Djerkest opened and closed his hands. “I don’t . . .” He looked around, this time seeming rather lost and uncertain.
“Can you make it give me autajma, of the kind the Keppa gave the Carastindin prince?” Gajdosik pressed. “A dozen or so? Can you make it tell them to obey me?”
“I . . .” Djerkest stared around. “Kephalos! I need war autajma—”
“Following the recent unauthorized use of war golems, the Keppa has restricted the use of golems to those of superior position,” stated the kephalos.
Oressa let her breath out and straightened her shoulders. “You see! You thought you could come here and take the Kieba’s golems and she might not notice, but it’s not so easy, is it? When the Kieba comes back, she’ll find out what you’ve tried, and what then? You can’t hide what you’ve done from her.” She tried to sound more certain about all that than she actually felt.
But Magister Djerkest only said, “Hiding what I do is not my aim. I need to find the Keppa. If she can be removed, the superior position will surely become available to me.” The magister looked around as though he might find the Kieba hiding in the shadows behind one of the gods’ pedestals. Then he looked back at Oressa. “Do you know where she goes when she is ‘unavailable’?”
“No!” Oressa said, and looked warily at Gajdosik.
But the prince did not seem inclined this time toward threats. He only said to Magister Djerkest, “We have days, not years.”
“Yes, true.” The magister looked around again. “I think we will find that each dead god guards a door. Many lead outward, but some should take us farther inward, toward the center of the Kieba’s power.”
Oressa said nothing, but she could see that Djerkest knew a lot more than she had hoped. She was struggling with the realization that the magister really did think he could defeat the Kieba, kill her, and take her power for his own. He was wrong. He had to be wrong. But what if he was right?
“There should be . . . There is a place here,” Djerkest muttered. “The heart of the mountain. Let me just see . . .” He glanced around at the crowding gods and goddesses as though one of them would tell him which way to go.
“You’ll find the Kieba and she’ll destroy you all! What you need,” Oressa declared, seized by sudden inspiration, “is a thing of power that you can really control. Something potent but small enough that the Kieba won’t miss it. Then you won’t need the superior position after all, isn’t that right?” She turned urgently to Prince Gajdosik. “You don’t need to challenge the Kieba or conquer Carastind! All you need is an artifact powerful enough that you can go back across the Narrow Sea and take your father’s throne! You actually have a right to the throne of Tamarist. Wouldn’t it be better to fight for something you have a right to hold instead of making trouble everywhere else?”
Gajdosik gave her his full attention. “Do you know where a thing like that might be, Your Highness?”
“My prince—” Laasat raised a warning hand. “If this were true, why would Her Highness tell us?”
“Because she has begun to fear Djerkest,” Gajdosik said impatiently. “Because she has begun to wonder if she knew less than she thought, and Djerkest more, and so she has begun to fear for the Keppa, whose presence in Carastind is the source of her country’s security.”
Oressa dropped her gaze. It was not at all difficult to look angry and frightened. She said, “There’s a vault. My brother told me. A treasure vault, but not for gold. For powerful artifacts left over from the age of the gods, that the Kieba might find a use for one day. The Kieba didn’t let Gulien see it, but she told him about it.” She looked up, met Gajdosik’s eyes. “It’s at the bottom of the mountain. It’s buried in shadows. Ysiddro’s statue guards it.” She paused. “I’ll show you where it is if you swear to leave the Kieba alone. To make Magister Djerkest leave her alone. Take whatever you find back to Tamarist. Do whatever you want on the other side of the Narrow Sea. I don’t care. But leave the Kieba alone and leave Carastind alone. Promise me, and I’ll show you.”
“You think you can trust my promise?” Gajdosik asked her.
“What choice is there now?” Oressa asked him. It took no effort to sound bitter.
“She probably means to seize one of the Keppa’s artifacts for herself,” said Djerkest.
“Very likely, but not a great concern.” Gajdosik turned to her and said firmly, “Done! Show us this treasure vault and you will find you may trust my promise, Your Highness. I will do my utmost to leave the Keppa be and Carastind in peace.”
Strangely, though Gajdosik was an enemy, his careful qualification made Oressa feel like she could trust what he said. And it made her feel worse about her own lies, even though she knew she had no reason to feel guilty.
Light glimmered from the statue of goat-headed Ysiddre. The lightless statue of her twin sister Ysiddro, veiled in shadows, was not so easy to see.
“Ysiddro,” Djerkest murmured. He laid a hand on the statue’s foot, tilting his head back to gaze up at her slender neck and goat’s head. “Goddess of shadows and hidden things. Unseen treasures and kept secrets and forgotten powers.” He didn’t look at Oressa. He did not, as far as she could tell, suspect anything. He traced the door in Ysid
dro’s pedestal with the tip of one finger. Gulien hadn’t been able to open that door, but Oressa watched anxiously as light followed the line the magister traced. And when he laid his palm flat against the door, it opened before him. She thought the kephalos might speak in warning, but it did not.
The goddess’s black door opened to show an equally black stairway that led upward, wider than it should have been, curving smoothly around as it climbed.
“Well, that’s unusual,” Oressa commented, trying to sound confident. She set one hand on the edge of the doorway, putting her head in to gaze upward. “Gulien told me about this, but it does look very strange, doesn’t it? How far up does it go?”
“We’ll find out,” Gajdosik said, and invited the magister to proceed with a gesture.
Oressa wished she could suggest that she might be left behind, but unfortunately she couldn’t think of a way to do it that wouldn’t immediately make Gajdosik realize that she had set a trap for him and his people. Djerkest went first, and then Oressa, and then Prince Gajdosik, and then his handful of soldiers and Laasat at the rear, so she didn’t see any way to get clear of whatever trap they sprang, unfortunately. On the other hand, she was almost certain that a trap was going to snap closed, and they had no idea. She would just have to be quick when it happened. She would get away. She could get out of anything. She told herself so firmly, and tried to believe it.
It occurred to her only when they were all partway up the black stairway that it was also possible that Magister Djerkest would be able to open the vault of plagues.
Surely not. Surely no one whose position was merely ancillary would be able to open the vault that the kephalos had told Gulien was so closely guarded.
The stairway was made of polished black stone shot through with veins of some green mineral. It seemed to go on for a long time, turning and turning in a widening spiral until it seemed they should have climbed right out of the mountain. The stone was slippery, and the treads not quite even, and despite the sourceless white light, shadows lay thickly across the stairs. It would have been easy to fall. Before many minutes had passed, Oressa longed to get to the end of the stairway, no matter what they might find there.
The Mountain of Kept Memory Page 17