She found his notes about the Malevoiy, and smiled with his lips to discover a current map of the city in their midst. He’d laid out a grid system, charting the change in aspects over the centuries, to determine the likely position of the Gate when the Malevoiy were active and then relate it to the present day.
The answer made perfect sense.
There were other things she wanted to check as well, which took longer than she expected. From the desk where she preferred to work, she found the worn old storybook the professor had discovered. She had no access to her journal—that hung from her waist within the apparently boundless confines of her traveling pouch—so she had to make do with memory and whatever rough scribbles she’d made at the table. Luc-Jon’s “bestiary,” though, she’d left behind with the professor and she quickly flipped through one book, then the other. The last illustration in the storybook was of a wedding, a bright and joyous affair so well delineated she could easily imagine all the figures coming to life before her. As with the others, a World Gate formed the ornamental frame of the picture. A handsome man and a lovely woman danced with riotous abandon on its threshold.
She pursed the professor’s lips and sighed as she turned to the earlier images. The final sigil was incomplete, but sufficient remained for her to determine a significant difference between it and the ones that preceded it.
Elora felt the tug of Thorn’s awareness on her own. The riders were approaching the funicular terminus.
Page by page, resisting the Nelwyn’s summons, she leafed through the bestiary, until she found what she’d been after. The match for the sigil in the storybook, save that it was complete in every detail, on the page directly following the symbol for the Lord of the Dance, the one that Carig had etched into his own Gate to summon that entity.
Before she left the professor, she walked him over to the couch that was tucked against one wall. It had seen its share of years and the embroidery was a touch threadbare, but the down pillows were still plush and the stuffing intact. To sit on it was to discover an irresistible desire to rest and many’s the drowsy afternoon, with the sun illuminating dust motes in the air and warming the room as toasty as any solarium, when a momentary catnap had turned into a proper sleep. She stretched the old man’s body out full-length, and used his hands to arrange a wool throw as best she could around him. Then she let him rest…
…and returned to the chase.
There was quite a commotion at the station, soldiers everywhere, constabulary as well, every defense fully manned. No one had expected an attack by the elves, and no one wanted to be caught by surprise again. As before, Renny’s badge got them through, with some help as necessary from a judicious presentation of Thorn’s own chain of office. They learned that the Chancellor and his party had been evacuated to the plateau, only that now reports were coming down of trouble there as well.
“We have to get up top,” Renny urgently told one of the officers. “When’s the next car?”
“Regular service has been suspended,” was the reply. “We’re running as needed.”
Under escort, because Thorn was connected with the Chancellor’s office and someone had just attempted a blanket assassination of the government, they made their way across the bustling promenade.
A shout rang out, echoing in the cavernous space, and they found themselves met by Tam and Rico.
“Wha’s all this, then?” Tam inquired, figuring that since they were mostly familiar faces he might actually get some proper news. “We in a war?”
“They won’t let us up top to go to work,” Rico explained.
“We don’t have time to explain, I’m afraid,” said Elora. “We have to get up top ourselves.”
“Mebbe we c’n hitch a ride,” Tam suggested.
“No point,” the sergeant commanding their escort told them. “Trolley service is suspended as well until we get this situation properly sorted out.”
“That could take a while,” Rico noted sardonically.
“It’ll take,” the sergeant said heavily, as sergeants do, “as long as it takes.”
Suddenly Elora spoke up. “How familiar are either of you two with the layout beneath the plaza?”
“Me, not so much,” Rico confessed, “but Tam did a stretch in maintenance and repair, working on the big wheels.”
“They’re with us,” she said, and no one questioned her decision.
“Lookin’ not so bad,” she told Tam as they boarded one of the huge freight elevators. The clutch was engaged, and with a sharp jerk they began their ascent.
“Damn th’ man’s hands, don’t he know nothin’ ’bout his proper work?”
“Leave off, lad. Not everyone’s good as you,” Rico cautioned with a smile.
“I’m not tha’ good, Rico, but he should be better!” He finished with his voice in a moderate shout, pitched so the funicular brakeman could hear, one professional to another. Then, to Elora, in a calmer tone: “Wha’cha need o’ me, then, eh?”
A simple enough request—was there any underground access to what was called the “enchanted isle.”
Rico whistled. “Don’t ask much of a man, do y’, ’lora. Supposedly worth a body’s life to even set foot on that place, much less stage an outright break-in.”
“Does that mean no?”
“Na’ quite,” said Tam, to the amazement of his friend. “There’s a tunnel.”
“You’re sure?” Elora had to know. Otherwise their only way in was over the bridge.
“There’s catacombs, y’see, deep under,” Tam explained. “A proper rat’s nest if y’ don’t know the way.”
“And you do,” Renny asked of him.
Tam shrugged. “I was young. I was curious.”
“What about all the protections that place is supposed to have?”
“Give over, Rico,” Tam told him, with a collegial thump. “Them’s what applies only to pure-blood Daikini, not mongrel mixed-bloods like me. Passage got found when they built the plateau terminus. Did it the hard way, too, some poor yob or other stickin’ his head where it weren’t allowed an’ catchin’ the chop for’t. Architects figured pretty quick what had to be overhead, so Raasay volunteered to go walkabout through there, make sure nothin’ nasty weren’t hidden.”
“As opposed to things that decapitate you?” Elora wondered.
“Gargoyles, they do make proper watchdogs.”
“No one’s ever crossed one twice,” Renny agreed.
“So Raasay did the lookin’ an’ made the story part o’ the family hist’ry.”
“You know the story?”
“How else you figure I satisfied my curiosity, eh?”
“The gargoyles weren’t too pleased to see Elora when she crossed the bridge up top,” Rool said as Tam fished a set of keys from his kit bag and threw the bolts on an otherwise nondescript iron-banded doorway.
“Got more than a mite twitchy, they did,” echoed Franjean as the door swung wide.
“There could be trouble!” they chorused in unison.
“There won’t be,” Khory said as she stepped over the threshold, sword in hand.
“Khory, wait,” Thorn called out, hurrying after her, with Elora, Duguay, Renny, and the two others close behind. “No! You can’t slaughter them for doing their duty!”
“I won’t have to, Drumheller,” she said. “Someone’s done it for me.”
The tunnel led them beneath the moat that surrounded the island. It was braced and shored by massive timbers, like any excavation but none of the surfaces had been lined. Walls and floor and ceiling were a mix of rock and earth, which left a perpetual dampness to the air as moisture leached down from the river. At the far end, after making their way a moderate distance, the tunnel opened into a chamber that might once have been a storage cellar of some house or other. The change in atmosphere was marked, the dank environment of
the tunnel giving way instantly to air that was both warm and dry.
The gargoyles, the two Elora had marked on the cenotaphs at the bridge plus others from the gables of the various houses on the island, all lay shattered on the dusty floor, their remains strewn about with a vengeance that suggested this hadn’t been an easy victory.
This was as far as Rico decided to go, as he had no Veil blood in him and less skill with any weapon, and family waiting besides. Renny would have preferred sending Tam with him but he was needed as their guide.
Elora expected to find something upright, in the manner of the Gate that Carig tried to form. Instead they came upon the largest chamber of the lot, whose walls formed a circle twenty feet across. They stood above it on a balcony, midway up the wall, from which a line of steps etched into the wall itself wound around the circle to touch bottom directly beneath them. The floor looked utterly normal, big inset blocks of paving stones coated by the dust of ages.
“No footprints,” Renny said. “No sign that anyone’s been here before us.”
“Got lost, maybe?” Franjean interjected hopefully.
“He’s been and gone,” Thorn said, going to one knee right at the edge of the balcony and gazing over the edge with an intensity that would put the eagles to shame. Tam stretched his torch past him to illuminate the chamber as much as possible for the Nelwyn, unaware that MageSight rendered such solicitude unnecessary.
“ ‘He’?” Elora inquired.
“The Deceiver. I suppose we should be flattered. He thinks so much of this enterprise that he’s come on it himself.”
“How could this be?” Tam wondered. “There isn’t any magic in Sandeni, tha’s fact, sir.”
“There’s some,” Thorn told him. “Sufficient to sustain the gargoyles and make comfortable any of the Veil Folk who choose to visit here, but otherwise you’re right. There’s nowhere near the power required to open so ancient a Gate.”
“Unless you’ve spent three years amassing the energies of half a continent,” Elora said.
“There is that,” Thorn agreed. “And brought the necessary catalysts with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“See those alcoves.” He pointed. “There are twelve in all.”
“With statues standing watch.” She nodded. “They look like they’ve been here as long as the Gate itself, they’re worn away to almost nothing.”
Thorn shook his head. “Dust they may appear, Elora, but an hour ago I’ll wager they were as alive as any of us. A dozen sorcerers to act as proxy for the Realms themselves, with himself as surrogate for you.”
“Has he taken everything from them?” She spoke in barely a whisper, not wanting to comprehend the enormity of what had been done to these twelve souls.
“All they are, all they were, all they ever hoped to be, in every aspect of their being. Only those shells remain, formless, featureless. This is the end result of the Rite of Ultimate Oblivion.”
“How could he do such a thing? How could anyone—?”
“For the right prize,” Renny said softly, closing his hand on her shoulder in comfort, “some men have no limit. To courage, or depravity.”
“We have to follow,” she said.
“Is that possible?” Renny asked.
“We shall have to see,” Thorn said. “But this is as far as you can go, Constable, and you as well, Tam.”
“I’m game f’r more, master, if y’ll have me.”
“Hold that hope, Tam,” Elora told him as she gave him a hearty embrace of parting. “We’re bound to need it somewhile.”
“What about this one?” Renny asked, gesturing to Duguay, who was lounging patiently against the wall.
“He’s with me,” she said.
“We’re together,” was Duguay’s reply, and if his words didn’t make plain what that meant between him and Elora, his glance left them no illusions.
Renny didn’t think much of that notion, nor did Tam, but there was nothing either could say on the matter, especially considering the circumstances.
“You’ve been quiet,” Khory mentioned to the troubadour.
“You’re quiet all the time.”
“That’s my nature, master jongleur.”
“I have what I want. I’m where I want to be. What more is there to say?”
“Didn’t see you make much of an effort at Cascani House,” called one of the brownies, the first time either had addressed him directly.
“I sing and I dance, little friend,” and he executed a modest but lovely step-turn, step-turn that closed with an arm outstretched to Elora. She swept her offside leg around in a shallow arc that billowed out her skirt, as lovely a move herself, but made no attempt to take his hand. In fact, her move seemed more along the lines of a parry and disengagement. As the energy of his gesture crested toward her like a wave, she simply slipped to the side and watched it pass her by.
“I’m ready,” Thorn announced. “Elora, stand by me, please.”
“In a moment,” she told him, and turned to Renny Garedo. “Rool, Franjean, you’re to stay with the constable.”
“The devil you say,” snapped one.
“The devil we will,” echoed the other.
“This isn’t a request,” she said, with a quiet steel to her voice that would have impressed Anakerie. “You’re both hurt, and where we go…”
“Our place, Elora Danan…” Rool began.
“Is on your shoulder,” Franjean finished.
“Not this time.”
“We stay…”
“…but that one.” A dagger look toward Duguay.
“Yes,” she said simply, and with that word brought all discussion to an end.
Rool kept his eyes locked on Elora’s, searching her gaze with his own as if to determine whether she was speaking her own mind, or some thought planted there by Duguay. At the same time Franjean rounded on Khory and bared his teeth at her in an expression that was dauntingly fierce for one so small.
“You!” he snapped at the demon child. “Keep her safe, I charge you.”
“Her and him both,” she replied, indicating Thorn as well. “You see me again, warriors, you’ll see them.”
Elora clasped her hand about the constable’s forearm, in a warrior’s salutation. With heads as high and backs as straight as their wounds would allow, the brownies made their way across to Renny, one staying tucked in the crook of his elbow while the other clambered all the way to his shoulder.
She took up her position by Thorn’s right hand, Duguay stepping immediately to Thorn’s left, with Khory a full stride behind Thorn, sufficient clearance to draw her sword while she remained close enough to actually do some good with it.
Thorn held together the fore- and middle finger of his right hand and began a tracing in the air, the symbol Elora had showed him from her research, that of the Malevoiy. In their wake a trail of autumnal fire, energies of scarlet and gold, traced the air as though he was leaving a path of burning oil on a field. The strokes were sure and clean, executed with an uncanny precision, and from the start a shape was discernible. With each additional stroke of the foundation sigil, the room began to vibrate as power was awakened and coalesced within the sleeping stones.
Even as Thorn hurried to complete the pattern that initial burst of fire began to fade.
“I was afraid of this,” he muttered, “I can’t sustain the manifestation.”
Unbidden, Elora slid right behind him and set her hand on his with her own fingers extended as his had been. With an ease of long familiarity, InSight merged them into one, allowing his skill access to her strength, and she felt her blood burn as he began again. His hand was larger than hers, though he was a bit more than half her height, his fingers longer and more delicate, though they possessed the strength to heft boulders. Not so long ago, her skin was far smoother, u
nmarked by any toil. Now she wore nicks and tiny scars, calluses and scored nails, all testifying to the strength she possessed and the work she’d done to earn it.
Together they repeated the pattern, with an occasional flash of teeth from Elora as the requisite power was drawn swiftly and suddenly from her in tidal surges that announced their presence with painful cramps. This time the sigil lasted until Thorn was finished, and blazed brightly afterward.
“Well,” he said, surveying his handiwork with not a little pride. “That’s done.”
“Nothing’s happening,” Elora noted.
“A key’s no good unless you fit it to its lock,” Thorn said.
He grasped the sigil by its outer edge and Elora raised her eyebrows to see that it remained solid to the touch as he plucked it from the air and held it in one hand. The fire didn’t have the power to burn him, which seemed strange to her because she could feel its intense heat on her bare face and shoulders and belly.
Thorn took the sigil and tossed it lightly like a plate, to the precise center of the room below.
“Shall we go?” he invited them all, and led the way to the circular steps.
Elora watched the sigil as they descended. Initially it rested on the ground without having the slightest effect on the dust and stone beneath it, making not even the slightest indentation, which made her wonder if a thing could exist yet have no physical substance.
Then things began to happen on both sides of her. At specific intervals along the stairway, Thorn would describe a new set of sigils on the wall. He needed no assistance from Elora for this, the manifestation of the key sigil apparently generated sufficient power to sustain the secondary symbols by itself. At the same time the texture of the floor gradually began to alter as well. A darkness spread outward from where the key sigil lay, the way ink might through water from a startled squid. The floor turned black, and then shifted beyond that color to something altogether more intense, which reminded her of the obsidian pillars that flanked the bridge to this Faery isle.
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