“Yes.” Barmonia stood up and turned to regard the remains of the building. “It collapsed in a recent tremor most likely. Let’s hope it hasn’t blocked anything or we’ll have to get local help in.”
He handed the lead of the arem to a domestic then turned and walked inside.
Light and rubble now filled the large hall that had always been dimly lit. The former revealed the wall paintings in their full glory, as well as the damage that rain had caused. The latter had covered the floor with fragments from the size of pebbles to enormous slabs of stone. He made his way to the altar and paused to look up. The head of the massive stone goddess had broken off. He cast about and glimpsed an eye behind a large piece of the fallen dome.
Another piece rested between the back wall and the hips of the seated figure. He had to climb up into the wedge-shaped gap behind it to reach the doorway to the inner chamber. The magnificent carved doors had been removed centuries ago to become part of a collector’s mansion in Glymma.
Better that than rotting here, he thought. Or more likely the locals would have cut them up for firewood years ago.
The chamber beyond was roofed and dark, so he sent Ray back for torches. Barmonia was amused when Ray returned with only five and handed them out to the Thinkers, leaving the foreign woman without a light.
Perhaps he’s not as enchanted by her as he appears.
The inner chamber was a small room with an empty altar in the center. Barmonia had no idea where the statue had gone and would willingly pay a good sum to find out, but he had seen sketches of it. He was satisfied to see the woman was frowning at the altar.
“The bones said ‘Sorli will direct,’ ” she said. “Sorli is no longer here.”
“Obviously not,” Mikmer replied dryly.
“There’s a picture of her in the library,” Yathyir said gravely. “I remember it.”
Barmonia smiled. This was why he put up with the strange boy. He might be a freak, but his memory was impressively good.
“Describe her to us,” Barmonia ordered.
The youth considered the stone, then walked over to Raynora.
“Help me up,” he said.
Ray hoisted Yathyir up. The boy moved to the center of the altar and paused to think.
“She holds a cup in one hand and is pointing at the ground with the other,” he said, mimicking the pose.
“So the entrance to the secret temple is below this stone?” Ray asked, regarding the huge block dubiously.
“Probably.” Barmonia moved behind the stone and rubbed his shoe on the floor. “There are scratches here. Thinkers have always believed they were made when the stone was first moved here, but perhaps it was shifted more often than that.”
“How?” Yathyir asked, jumping down to examine the scratches.
“With magic,” Barmonia replied. “Skill is always a requirement of priests.”
“How are we going to shift it, then?”
“With our skills.” Barmonia turned to the entrance. “Which is why I brought so much equipment.”
“You didn’t need to,” the woman said quietly.
Barmonia turned to regard her. She no doubt wanted to show off whatever Skill she had, but he had no intention of letting her. “This should be moved gently and carefully or you—”
“Oh, spare me the lecture,” she interrupted. “You obviously don’t know anything about magic if you think it less subtle than levers and ropes.”
He felt anger flare at her arrogant tone, then bit back a curse as she turned her back on him to face the altar.
“Don’t you...” Taking a step forward, he reached out to grab her shoulders but his hands skittered over some invisible barrier. The others were moving backward, their faces betraying curiosity and excitement.
“I’ll lift it first,” she said to Ray. “Take a look underneath and tell me what you see.”
Barmonia felt a chill run down his spine as the altar stone rose slowly upward. His stomach clenched. Magic always had that effect on him. A woman should not be able to lift a huge block of stone. It was unnatural.
Ray dropped to the ground and examined the gap between the stone and the floor. Incredibly, he ran his hands under it, trusting that she wouldn’t drop the stone on him.
“There is a square hole beneath. Looks like you could slide the altar to the back of the room without breaking anything.”
The woman nodded and the stone began to move backward. A staircase descending into darkness was revealed. The stone settled onto the floor without a sound.
The bitch has control, Barmonia conceded. Then another thought occurred to him. If she is this powerful, how are we going to get rid of her?
They’d have to trick her, which shouldn’t be hard. She was a lone woman in a land she didn’t know, where people spoke a language she had admitted she had only recently learned. They might have to slip away from her rather than send her away. Whatever happened, he was not going to let some foreign sorceress take any of the credit for finding this tomb.
I can turn this to our advantage. If we tell people about her moving stones like some magical work beast, that’s all she’ll be remembered for.
He stepped forward. Suddenly respectful, she moved back and allowed him to lead the others down the stairs. At least she knew her place. She was the magical work beast. He was the leader of the expedition.
The walls were carved with religious scenes, but they were too coated in dust to make out. There would be time for that later. He gave up counting the stairs after one hundred. Their descent seemed to go on forever, so when he suddenly found himself at the bottom it was a surprise. He stopped.
A narrow corridor just wider than his shoulders continued into darkness. He started along it, moving slowly. The corridor was free of rubble at first, but soon became cluttered. At one point he stepped over a crack as wide as his hand that had severed the entire passage. Not long after he saw a faint light ahead, then several strides later he had reached the end of the passage.
“Halt!” he called, fearful that the others would blunder into him and push him over the precipice.
“What is it?” Mikmer asked, his voice close to Barmonia’s shoulder.
“A crack,” Barmonia replied. “An enormous crack. It must be two hundred paces to the other side.”
“Does the passage continue on the other side?”
“I don’t know. I can barely see it.”
“Let me come forward and I will make a light,” the woman offered.
Barmonia was tempted to refuse out of spite, but he could think of no other way to know the size of the crevice.
“Come forward, then.”
There was a shuffling behind him as the men made room for her to pass them. A spark of light flared into existence and floated past his shoulder, moving slowly out into the void. The opposite wall brightened. There was no passage in it.
“No,” Barmonia said. “The corridor ends here.”
As the light brightened he looked down. Not far below was a jumble of rocks, filling the crevice. Looking up, he felt his blood turn cold.
A massive slab of the wall beyond had fallen forward and now rested precariously against the opposite surface. A tremor of enough force would one day free it, and it would come crashing down on top of the rubble below.
He drew in a deep breath and let it out again. Looking down, he surveyed the floor of the crack. Some pieces of the rubble were larger than a house.
“Hopeless,” he muttered. “If anything was there it is gone now.”
He turned and pushed past the woman. The others looked at him closely, reading the disappointment from his face. He began to move past them, to lead the way back.
“There are handholds in the rock.”
Barmonia turned to see Yathyir crouching by the edge.
Walking back, he peered over the edge and saw that the boy was right. Grooves had been carved into the wall below the passage. Looking closer, Barmonia realized that the outside edge of the pas
sage had been carved with a decorative border. This was meant to be a precipice.
Leaning out further, he saw that the handholds continued down to the floor of rubble.
“If there is anything down there, it is well buried,” he amended.
“But it can be dug out,” the woman said.
“That will take months.”
“It doesn’t have to.”
Barmonia turned to glare at her.
“Or maybe it does.” She shrugged. “The choice is yours.”
“Let me see,” Kereon said.
The woman and Yathyir moved back into the passage to allow Mikmer and Kereon to look at the crevice. Mikmer turned back, allowing Raynora past.
“I don’t like the look of that bit of wall above us,” Mikmer said. “I think, whatever we do, we should do it quickly.”
Kereon nodded in agreement.
“I most definitely agree,” Raynora said from the end of the passage, still looking upward.
Barmonia managed to stop himself scowling at them. Local workers would have to be paid. And watched, which meant someone had to be in there with them. They could be clumsy. A loud noise might be enough to send the wall tumbling down on them. Then there’d be more rubble and rotting bodies to clear.
He turned to the woman. “Then you had better get started.”
“I will,” she said, holding his gaze. “Tomorrow. This will take concentration and I could do with a night’s sleep.”
He shrugged. “Tomorrow then.” The others looked relieved - happy to leave the work to another. Yet Barmonia did not like the thought of her uncovering anything without someone else around. She might pocket something. Someone must watch her. He considered his fellow Thinkers.
Not Raynora. He’s too weak when it comes to women. Mikmer and Kereon will insist on shifts if I pick them. That leaves Yathyir. Yes, he’ll do.
The boy was a useful freak, but still a freak. If the ceiling fell, it would hardly be a loss to the world.
Turning on his heel, Barmonia led the others back along the passage.
Auraya had settled into a routine in the evenings. First she and Nekaun would enter her rooms. He would draw her attention to a new gift and she would make the appropriate noises of gratitude and admiration. Then he would leave and she would pause a moment to look around and sigh with relief.
The tables and shelves of the room now bore many objects. Large stone statues of dancers, tiny blown glass warriors and carved wooden animals stood next to toy ships floating in pottery bowls. Bolts of fabric patterned with pictures of farmers and aqueducts were neatly draped across a bench. Reed chairs had been delivered the day she had visited the river where the source plant was harvested. After a walk in one of the city’s lush gardens she had returned to find a cage containing two brightly colored birds.
All this was hers to keep, or so Nekaun had said. Which meant nothing, because she couldn’t fly back to Si carrying reed chairs and stone statues and she didn’t intend to return in a Pentadrian ship.
Next she would look for Mischief, who always hid when Nekaun was about. Tonight it took only moments to find him. A familiar pointy nose emerged from behind one of the large pottery water vessels brought every day. She crouched beside it.
“There you are, Mischief.” She smiled as he hauled himself to his feet with obvious effort and let her scratch his head. The heat made the little veez sleepy and subdued. During the day he lay sprawled on the stone floor, rising only to eat or drink. The domestics seemed fascinated by him, brought him fish, and had taught him the Avvenan words for food and water.
Danjin would be amazed to see Mischief now. He’ll be annoyed to hear the veez didn’t give the Pentadrians any trouble.
Reassured that Mischief was alive and well, she sat down in one of the reed chairs for her next nightly task. Closing her eyes, she focused her mind on the ring around her finger.
:Juran.
:Auraya. How are you?
:I’m tired of this game. Heartily sick of the sight of Nekaun, too. But otherwise I’m fine.
:And the Siyee?
:Twenty-one free, twelve still imprisoned. What has Teel reported?
:That they are in good spirits, though staying fit enough to fly is increasingly hard in the close confines of their prison.
:Have any of them reached Si yet?
:I don’t know. None have reached the Open yet. He paused. I don’t suppose the Voices have given away any useful information about themselves?
:Nothing new.
:When is Mirar due to arrive?
Auraya felt her heart skip a beat.
:Any day now.
:We have discussed this at length. At first we felt it best that you ignore him. But if the Voices intend to recruit him, then you ought to do whatever you can to stop them. Or persuade him not to join them.
:How do you suggest I do that? Auraya could not help sounding a little resentful.
Juran was silent a moment.
:I am not suggesting you seduce him.
:No, but last time we met I was sent to kill him. He’s hardly going to trust me now.
:He might. After all, you didn’t kill him.
Neither of them said what was obvious: that Mirar would not have been a problem now if she had killed him.
:I won’t know what is possible until he gets here, she told Juran. In the meantime, my main priority is freeing the Siyee.
:Yes. Of course. I will speak to you again tomorrow night.
Standing up, Auraya moved into the bedroom and lay down. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, but her mind kept moving from the Siyee’s predicament to Mirar’s impending arrival. Soon she was staring at the ceiling.
She had communicated with the priests in the Open, asking them to pass on to Speaker Sirri the bad news, then later to tell them of her bargain with Nekaun and suggest that Siyee fly food and water out into the Sennon desert for the freed Siyee. A few times she had skimmed minds looking for the Siyee returning home. She had only found a few, and they had been tired, thirsty and distressed. She could do nothing to help them.
The last thing she wanted to be worrying about was meeting Mirar. But they would be watching her and Mirar closely. They would expect her to treat Mirar as an enemy, or at least someone she considered dangerous and untrust-worthy. They would expect him to treat her the same in return. The trouble was, their relationship wasn’t that simple. She had no idea how she would react to him.
I’m going to have to pretend to hate him, she thought. And he’ll have to do the same to me. That will be an even greater challenge for him, if he still thinks he loves me.
If the Voices thought she or Mirar had any fond feelings for each other, they would take advantage of it. Nekaun had already shown himself willing to use blackmail.
I’m already expecting him to offer to kill Mirar in exchange for some favor. More likely he’ll offer to kill me in order to seal a bargain with Mirar.
I hope Mirar realizes how badly timed his little visit is.
I hope he has seen the danger he’ll be putting us both in.
I hope he knows he must behave as if he hates me.
I hope he isn’t intending to take Nekaun up on his offer to kill me.
I hope... bah! I should just dream-link with him and ask.
Closing her eyes, she forced herself to breathe slowly. Though she tried to let her mind drift, it refused to settle into more than an anxious semi-conscious state.
A small, soft thump and vibration brought her back to full consciousness. Lifting her head she smiled wryly as she saw that Mischief had jumped onto the bed and was curling up nearby. Though it was cooler for him to sleep by the water vessels, he still preferred to be close by when she slept.
Somehow his presence made it easier to relax. She lost track of time. Her thoughts fragmented, then drew together again so that she was conscious, but also aware that she was not completely awake. Time to call Mirar.
His response was immediate.
; :Auraya!
The feeling of surprise and pleasure that came with his response told her that she didn’t need to worry that he planned to let Nekaun kill her. She only had to worry that his infatuation with her would get them both into trouble.
Still, it was nice that someone was glad to hear from her.
:Mirar. I’ve heard you’re coming to Glymma.
:Yes. I’m afraid I have no choice in the matter. Fourth Voice Genza made it clear her invitation was more of an order than a suggestion.
:How did they find out who you are and where you were?
:Did you expect me to hide my identity here? he asked in reply.
She considered his question. Pentadrians tolerated Dreamweavers. Why would he hide? The only reason she could think of was so that he could avoid the Voices. Perhaps he didn’t want to. Perhaps it had been his intention all along to ally himself with them.
I’ve been thinking that it was bad timing for him to be visiting Glymma now, but in truth there is nothing unexpected in him coming here. It’s just bad timing that I happen to be here.
:I suppose not, she replied. But us both being here at the same time is going to be awkward. The Voices will expect us to behave like sworn enemies.
:And we aren’t?
:I have no intention of killing you.
:Even if the gods order it?
:They know the limits to my obedience. Mind you, I’d reconsider if you gave me a reason to.
:Then I had better reassure you that I have no intention of killing you, or agreeing to any offer by the Voices to do it for me, he said.
:That is a relief. How good are your acting skills?
:I think I can convince them that I despise you. That is what you have in mind, isn’t it?
:We could hardly pretend to be the best of friends. Nekaun has already blackmailed me. I don’t think he’d hesitate to do so again. If he proposes to either or both of us that the other be killed, we can at least buy time while making up our minds. If he decides one of us might be manipulated by threatening the other, he will do so without hesitation.
:And by pretending to hate each other, we buy the Siyee more time.
:Yes. Auraya felt an unexpected gratitude and affection. Thank you for doing this. It won’t endanger you or the southern Dreamweavers, will it?
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