Grimacing, he tried to rub his elbow, a futile attempt through his layers of armour. He glanced after the dragons, fast disappearing over the nearby mountains for the Ahlleyn interior. Silent and deadly, just like her; there and gone without a hint of warning. Did she know his thoughts? She could see a lie, couldn’t she? But he wasn’t lying.... Who knew what other powers the goddess granted her.
“You can see when someone is lying, right?” He did his best to not look guilty.
“Only through conscious effort. And if you’re thinking I can interrogate everyone in this castle to see if they’re the necromancer, or to find who sabotaged the gate, the answer is no, not without destroying myself.”
He began to shake his head before stilling himself. That thought had never crossed his mind, and thank Chalon she couldn’t see his lie. But damn Ahura she couldn’t find the necromancer that way. What if the Rahmyrrim was in his confidence? What if it was one of those closest to him? The hair lifted at the nape of his neck, and he rolled his shoulders, trying to loosen the knots in his muscles.
“Why would it destroy you?”
“Because that degree of exposure to the goddess would shatter my mind. I did have one thought, though. There’s one place we didn’t look for the necromancer.”
“There is?”
She nodded. “The catacombs.”
He seized on that idea as a welcome alternative to the possibility of a traitor. The tension in his back eased. “It’s a maze down there. You could hide a whole army and never be found. We’ve no chance of flushing him out, even if we can convince the priestesses to let us poke around.”
“I might be able to sense if a Rahmyrrim has passed, if he got careless or lazy somewhere he felt safe.” She turned away, obviously expecting him to fall in.
Sighing, he did. She’d piqued his interest, and he wouldn’t walk away from this conversation for spite.
“I’ve sent Everard for maps.” Her black robes billowed in the light breeze gusting over the battlements.
“You want to do this now?”
“No time like the present. We’ll need the consent of the cloister, though, so I propose we go and speak to them while Galdron musters enough men for a search.”
Lyram waved Galdron over from the battlements. Even though the morning sun was thin and barely warm, sweat ran down the captain’s pale face beneath his helm, and he blinked too rapidly.
“You’re not ill, are you?” Lyram reached out to grasp Galdron’s hand, then snatched his hand back. With the outbreak only put down yesterday, everyone was on edge waiting for any sign of new illness. “We intended to search the catacombs, but if you’re not well, maybe now is not the time.”
“I’m fine.” Galdron’s stance and tone were both stiff.
Ellaeva took two steps and placed the back of her hand against Galdron’s forehead. She sniffed. “He isn’t fevered. And I smell no disease.”
“I’m fine, I said.” Galdron shrugged her off and stepped out of reach, his face blanching then reddening in quick succession. He snapped off a stiff salute. “Sir. I’ll organise some men for the search, sir.”
Lyram stared after him, then Ellaeva moved off again and he followed, glancing back twice before he stepped into the stairwell. Both times Galdron appeared fine, marching down the battlements and stopping to speak to the men.
With no good light source above or below, the stairwell to the catacombs was darker than those from the battlements. Flickering torches lined the curving walls only intermittently, leaving the narrow steps buried in darkness for most of the descent. At the bottom, Ellaeva took a torch from the wall and, bypassing the walled-up meat store, headed deeper into the catacombs.
There was no light here except what they brought themselves. The stair and the stores were kept reasonably well-lit for frequent access, but nothing lit the way between the stores and the cloister. The priestesses discouraged visitors and rarely ventured from the cloister, and the castle residents preferred that arrangement. They were two sets of people, uneasily living together under more or less the same roof.
This far beneath the castle, the air was even cooler than on the walls, and gooseflesh pebbled Lyram’s skin even beneath the layers of armour. He tensed, trying not to shiver. If the falling temperature bothered Ellaeva, she showed no sign of it.
Naturally rough stone formed the walls of the tunnels, unhewn by the hand of men, though in other places they were earthen. He ran his fingers over the nearest wall, exploring the crevices of the crystalline rock. Along the ceiling, tiny green-blue dots glowed, like a constellation inside the tunnel. He stared up at them as he passed. What’s making that light?
“Glow worms,” Ellaeva said, gesturing with the torch. When she raised the brand, the light of the flame swallowed the glow of the worms.
“How did you—?” Could she hear his thoughts?
“Everyone who comes down here wonders. Don’t try to touch them—they die.”
He nodded. She would’ve seen them before, when she came down to visit the abbess early after her arrival. Ahead, a massive iron door, rusted and pitted with age, barred the tunnel. Ellaeva banged on it with the hilt of her sword, the pommel stone catching the light of the torch. The clamorous echoes tolled around the confines for a long time before dying off.
A small window in the door scraped open. If anyone looked out, they were invisible in the darkness.
“Sister.” Ellaeva inclined her head without deference.
“What do you want?” The voice rasped like steel on stone.
“I seek audience with the abbess.”
“And him?”
“He is with me.” Ellaeva’s cool tone brooked no argument. She still held her sword reversed, the dragon basket-hilt prominent.
The silence stretched. Finally the rattle of drawn bolts echoed off the walls, and the door creaked open on rusted hinges.
“How would the necromancer get past this?” Lyram pitched his voice low as he followed Ellaeva through.
“The sisters have no particular affinity for the stink of Rahmyrrim magic. They would be no harder to fool than any other person, something this necromancer has so far proven particularly adept at. Also, as you pointed out, the catacombs are unmapped. Other routes might exist.”
Lyram glanced back as the door swung shut with a groan, revealing the priestess behind it. Lyram suppressed a jerk, and stumbled to a stop. Her hood rested on her shoulders, something he’d never encountered in another priestess of Ahura—except Ellaeva. She was relatively young, around his own age. Most shocking, though, a dragon was tattooed on her face. The image glimmered silver and gold in the light of a lantern at her feet, the dragon’s head snaking up over the bridge of her nose to sit above one eye, the tail ending next to the corner of her mouth, and wings flaring across both cheeks.
Ellaeva strode deeper into the tunnel, and Lyram hurried to catch up. The door priestess made no move to follow or detain them. He glanced over his shoulder once more as they rounded a bend. By the light of her lantern, she watched them go, the dragon still glittering.
“Her face...” His voice came out strangled, and he cleared his throat.
“All priestesses are so marked,” Ellaeva said. “But we consider it a very private thing. You won’t see a priestess with her face exposed outside a temple.”
“But... why?” Despite his best efforts, a note of confused anger twisted through the words. Why disfigure themselves so? Why such a barbaric practice? His anger and revulsion heated his blood, and the caverns no longer seemed so cool. He shrugged sweaty shoulders inside his armour, trying to relieve the stickiness.
She didn’t look at him and her shoulders grew rigid with tension. “A vow to Ahura is not taken lightly. We swear for life, and in our own blood. The tattoo is a physical sign of our commitment. No priestess could break her vows and hide amongst the populace.”
He flushed hotter at her matter-of-fact recital of this piece of cold-bloodedness, and followed her through the dark
, silent but for their footfalls. What more did he expect from an order of women devoted to the worship of death? “You don’t have a tattoo.”
If anything, she stiffened further. A horse that tense would need soothing, but what could he do for Ciotach an Bhais?
She lifted her left arm, shaking back the sleeve almost to her shoulder. A silver-and-gold dragon coiled around the alabaster arm, the tail disappearing somewhere inside her clothes. The head adorned the back of her hand. This must be what he glimpsed the day she arrived.
He swallowed the oath on his tongue and tried instead for calmness. “How... how old were you?”
“They inked the outline on my fifteenth birthday.” She averted her face, but her back and shoulders made a hard line against the torchlight and her voice fell flat in the silence. “Then gradually filled in the body by my initiation at eighteen.”
Her initiation occurred around five years ago, making her twenty-three or thereabouts—nearly ten years his junior. His mind quailed from the thought of the fifteen-year-old girl sitting still through the pain of the tattooing, and his stomach flopped over sickeningly.
“Did it... did it hurt?”
Her head swung to survey him, all dark shadows in the light of the torch. Generous lips pinched together in a hard line. “Ahura values privation as a form of worship. In death, we are, and have, nothing.”
He didn’t dare enquire further, and tried to swallow the bitter bile burning at the back of his throat. The most important temple rites were kept private from the eyes of the public, and with good reason it seemed. What did the priests of his own patron engage in? It was already widely known that a woman could go to the Temple of Chalon for the purposes of pure physical love or to make a child.
A few moments later, they came to a second iron door. In silence, Ellaeva banged on this one, too. The portal swung open before the rolling echoes had even died away.
The woman manning this door was older, her hair greying and her face lined beneath the silver-gold dragon. She nodded to Ellaeva, though she offered no other courtesy. “You will find the abbess at the altar, sister.”
Ellaeva nodded in return, and waved Lyram to follow her down the corridor carved straight and square from the surrounding rock. Lyram stepped up alongside Ellaeva, as it was wide enough for four to walk abreast. Candles lined the walls, casting more light than their smoking torch and making the brand appear barbaric.
“The cloister is set out in a grid.” She pointed at a corridor to his left. “This leads to the central room, where the altar stands.”
Doors lined the corridor, probably leading to living quarters and the like. As he examined the surrounds, he caught Ellaeva casting him sidelong glances. “What?”
“We have more worries than the Rahmyrrim.”
He laughed. “I know. Is this you talking? I thought the necromancer was your sole goal.”
Anger ignited in her eyes. “My primary goal. I am not blind to all else.”
No? She certainly seemed single-minded, almost as if the Rahmyrrim had personally affronted her. He shrugged it away. “What particular troubles are you referring to?”
“Food.”
Ah. That one. His stomach growled at the very thought of a juicy steak. Rations were lean, and quite simply they lacked the food to keep the soldiers in fighting condition. “I’ve some ideas, but I’d rather float them with you first.” Except the one I think will work... giving myself up. “I want your expertise before I talk to Galdron and the castellan.”
She turned her head to regard him, one eyebrow lifted. “A private strategy meeting?”
He nodded. “Come for dinner. No one will think we’re talking strategy.”
She pursed her lips, considering, then nodded. “Very well. Food is becoming urgent. The sooner we solve the problem, the better.”
A blaze of light filled the far end of the corridor, and as they drew nearer it resolved into a brilliantly lit room, illuminated with a wasteful expanse of candles. A block of stone lay in the middle, and a woman shrouded in black knelt before it, her head bowed.
Ellaeva’s hand on his chest halted him.
“This is a holy place,” she said in a voice too soft to carry far. “Follow my lead.”
They approached the altar, Lyram trailing one step behind. Their footsteps echoed so loudly the woman must be aware of their approach, but she didn’t stir. Ellaeva dropped to her knees several paces short of the woman in black, genuflecting so deeply her forehead touched the floor. Under the weight of his armour, Lyram knelt more awkwardly and lowered his face to the floor of black marble. What had it cost to use the stone down here?
Ellaeva climbed back to her feet and stood with her head bowed. “Holy abbess.”
Lyram hauled himself back to his feet, leather creaking. Absently, he pulled the ring on his left hand half off, then slid it back on again, repeating the motion as the abbess climbed to her feet with the caution of the extremely aged.
The abbess’s hood turned to regard Lyram, leaving him with the fleeting impression of a crone’s face, withered beneath a faded dragon tattoo and framed by stark white hair.
She turned her back to him, as though ignoring his presence. “You would bring a man into this holy place?”
“He is Ahura’s son as much as I am her daughter.”
“And yet she chooses women to serve her. This displeases me.”
“It is necessary, and I have a mandate to do what is necessary in pursuit of my goal.”
The abbess stiffened and spoke in a voice as cold and brittle as ice. “What necessity brings you here?”
“A Rahmyrrim hides somewhere within the castle. We must search everywhere.”
“Then search, daughter, and begone.”
Malevolence dripped from the word ‘daughter’. Some subtle insult beyond his appreciation?
Ellaeva’s face tightened, but she betrayed no other sign of ire, nor any clue to the nature of the insult. “We don’t wish to search the cloister but the catacombs beyond. Many men will be required, and I have no means of access except through the cloister.”
“How many men?”
“A score, maybe two.”
The abbess gasped. “Two score men tramping through the holy place? I forbid it. If you must search, then take your man and search, but I will allow no others.”
That insult he caught.
Ellaeva’s face didn’t change in response to the suggestion she was breaking her vows of chastity, but a flash of anger showed in her eyes, and her voice betrayed the strain of keeping an even temper. “We are talking about a Rahmyrrim, holy abbess. Some things must be more important, and this is one.”
“I said I forbid it!” The abbess’s voice climbed an octave, cracking and almost becoming a screech. “Do not test me, daughter.”
Ellaeva’s face froze over, a sure sign her patience had run out. “As you wish, old mother.”
With one hand on her sword hilt, she strode towards a hallway on the opposite side of the room.
Lyram glanced at the abbess. “She can give as good as she gets, and I wouldn’t start something with her I didn’t know I could finish.”
The abbess’s faded eyes cut to him. A sneer twisted her lips, and she waved one shrunken claw at him in dismissal, promptly turning her back.
He shrugged and hurried to catch up to Ellaeva. “What was that about? She almost hates you, and while I didn’t understand them all, I recognise an insult when I hear it. She definitely suggested we... uh...”
Did he really want to voice to her face the notion they were lovers? He studied the high-ceilinged hallway, cut straight and square through the native limestone. The walls were lined with candles, the clean-swept floor bore no rugs, and the walls remained undecorated. A cold home for anyone with a soul. Somewhere nearby, incense burned, and the scent of patchouli and other exotic oils from the south-east cloyed his nose.
“Ahura’s priestesses generally don’t like a Battle Priestess.” Ellaeva kept her eyes lo
cked ahead.
“Because you’ve more freedom?”
She laughed, hard and bitter, and strode so fiercely her boot heels echoed against the floor almost as loud as her sword hilt against the iron door. “I have less, truth be told, but yes—and no. Ahura takes into service only those who are dedicated to her in their hearts. The ritual of acceptance for novices tests this, and any found wanting are turned away. So the priestesses are almost zealots, wearing their acceptance like an exclusive badge of honour. And yet, a Battle Priestess is always chosen from outside their ranks.”
He immediately saw the incongruity. “But why? Surely a Battle Priestess should be chosen from among the ranks of those most dedicated?”
“Who knows why.” She fidgeted with the tongue of her baldric and trailed to a stop about twenty yards short of the iron door at the end of the corridor.
The candles ended behind them, back at the last door from the hall, as if warning that this portal must not be passed, and Ellaeva jammed her torch into a wall sconce. Another doorkeeper stood here, considering them from inside the depths of her cowl, as if to emphasise the point. She said nothing and made no move to approach. The door behind her was splotched red with the rust, and the hinges were misshapen lumps. Would it even open anymore?
“Maybe because a Battle Priestess needs to be more balanced than zeal allows,” Ellaeva said finally, watching the doorkeeper. “She needs to be versatile and adaptable, and often the Order is not. But the other priestesses resent not only that I was chosen from outside their ranks, but that they have no authority over me.” Her lips twisted in a wry smile. “That’s why the abbess addressed me as ‘daughter’. A slight, she thought, since technically I outrank her; and because I stand outside the temple hierarchy, I cannot properly reprimand her.”
“And you called her ‘old mother’ because...?”
“Age is of no import within the temple, and to mention it is ill-mannered and insulting.” She stared into the shadows with dark eyes, a pensive frown tugging down the corners of her mouth. “I lost my temper.”
“The edges of it, perhaps,” he murmured. A fit of pique, at most. “And the priestesses who raised you?”
In the Company of the Dead (The Sundered Oath Book 1) Page 14