Saber and Shadow

by S. M. Stirling

  “Well?” Megan demanded.

  “Well, what,” Shkai’ra asked.

  “Where are we?”

  Shkai’ra shrugged eloquently.

  The Zak snorted. “Up or down?”

  “Up, I think. We may see the dungeons soon enough.”

  Ghost-silent, they slid along the upward-tending corridor to their right. Deep-recessed niches held doors every ten paces or so; for minutes they passed locked doors, skyshafts, silence and bittersweet sandalwood smell and unpeopled immensity.

  “Where are the priests?” the Zak asked.

  Shkai’ra snarled wordlessly. This was worse than being shrunk to hand-height and lost in a prairie-dog warren; cities were bad enough, but this ...

  “Zailo Unseen knows,” she said. “This stone dung-heap has as many rooms as half the City; the priests swarm in it like maggots in a greenrot wound, but they can’t fill it. Most must be at the noon service, anyway; still, only a matter of time until we run into one.”

  Faintly, a hum had made itself felt, working its way into bone and thought; not until the sounds were almost separate words did they consciously notice it. Directionless, it seemed to thrum through the thick, poured stone around them.

  “Perhaps we should find the source of the chant,” Megan said.

  Shkai’ra paused with one hand on the slick stone lining of the hallway. “I wish ... demonshit, I don’t even know which compass point we’re facing, or how high we’ve come! All right, then. But quietly.”

  Megan lifted a silent eyebrow and moved forward, hugging the inner, right-hand wall. There was little sound, save for the soft scuffle of her moccasin-like boots and the harder click of the rigid leather on Shkai’ra’s feet. The upward tilt of the corridor grew stronger, ending in a staircase.

  The Kommanza took the treads two at a time, her feet touching lightly to push her upward; once the polished wooden tip of her saber scabbard went clack against the wall, and she swallowed a curse past bared teeth. The smell of incense grew stronger. At the top was a landing; another flight of stairs above, another corridor on either side of them. Directly before the stairs was a portal of thick green glass with the light of an open space glowing through. Shkai’ra dropped down at the last step and crawled forward at floor level to peer through the pebbly glass, Megan beside her. Before them was the open vastness of the temple interior; a few steps below was a broad balustraded terrace that ran a hundred meters above the floor-level altar, just where the dome rested on the square bulk of its support. Shafts of light stabbed down from the lenses in the dome ceiling, hundreds of meters above, diffusing softly over the vacant altar block. Ordered ranks of priests stood in the stalls, their endless chant rumbling through echoing space, relays of replacements slipping in as others left for food or rest.

  The two women slithered backward, their eyes fixed on the door so far below. Shkai’ra put her lips next to her companion’s ear. “We’ve come around to the north side,” she breathed. “If we can get straight down, there should be an exit and an unsecured passageway for worshippers.”

  They rose, turned, and froze. A priest stood below them on the steps. Shkai’ra’s mind struggled briefly to reject the evidence of her eyes; it meant an untrained city dweller had walked to within a body’s length of her without enough sound to alert her.

  “I fear you will have to postpone your departure,” the priest said, her face and voice calm. “My mentor would speak with you.”

  She stepped forward, beginning a gesture that commenced with the raising of a hand. There was an utter confidence in it; the priests of the Sun were inviolate, and she had other reasons for unconcern. The two outlanders felt a tightening of their skins.

  But Shkai’ra’s reaction had begun even as her mind blurred in bewilderment, guided by reflexes encoded at a level that knew neither doubt nor hesitation. The rough-dimpled bone of her sword hilt clutched against her calluses as the left hand flicked along it, looped thumb and forefinger under the pommel. The blade came free from its sheath of leatherbound wood with a hiss of metal on oak greased with neat’s-foot oil. Her right palm slapped home on the long grip just below the circular guard, and her foot stamped forward as she lunged with a guttural grunt of effort.

  There was a moment’s coldness, and a smell of wet salt. The Kommanza found herself kneeling, shaking her head to clear it of a lingering musical tone. Megan gripped her by the back of her tunic and hauled her backward.

  “The image is gone. I don’t know how or where, but I do know we d better go as well.”

  The copper-haired woman looked down dumbly at the sword. The curve of the cutting edge glittered cold and clean in the lamplight. A swelling clamor broke out below as she sheathed it and Megan pulled her toward the upward stair.

  The tumult rose to a dull, muffled throbbing, like the sound of the sea through thick forest, then faded as they trotted down the corridors. They took the left-hand turnings, trying to work their way back toward the outer shell of the temple, but found themselves forced to climb, ramps and staircases turning up and inward. The concrete of the building’s substance was sheathed everywhere with stone, polished granite and marble kept immaculately clean but faintly greasy to the touch like all rock in a humid climate. The air was as cool as a cellar; the Sun Temple was large enough that most of its bulk kept to the ambient temperature of the foundations, and smelled of incense and damp and the faint indefinable odor of age.

  The corridors began to narrow and curve more sharply. “We must be inside the dome itself now,” Megan said, between long deep breaths. She was making two steps to her long-limbed comrade’s one, only the trickling sweat marking exertion as they wolf-paced up the steepening slopes, trotting a hundred paces, then walking the same.

  “Ahi-a,” Shkai’ra said. “Best ... we ... stop ... and rest, soon. We may need our wind.”

  They reached the end of the ascending passage, passing through a hole-like exit in the floor of a horizontal corridor that stretched off to either side, curving gently inward to the right and left. Shkai’ra stood blinking for a moment; the lanterns were more closely placed here. She paused to examine one.

  “Getting on for empty,” she said. “They can’t keep all this up without much coming and going. We’ve been too lucky for it to last.” She made the averting sign with her sword-hand.

  Megan tried a door to their right. It swung open easily; she ghosted it wide with a finger and stood back, before venturing within. A four-meter alcove stood revealed; a knee-high jade balustrade was all that separated it from the huge lambent yellow cavern of the inner dome. They edged through and swung the door home behind them; from this vantage three-quarters of the way to the top, they could see that the alcove was one or a ring that circled the dome, disguised in the ornate inner carvings. From below there would be only a pattern of light and shadow.

  A tube-like machine was bolted to the balustrade, pointed at the floor hundreds of meters below. Megan touched it gingerly and bent a look at Shkai’ra.

  “A toy for keeping watch on the faithful,” she said. “A farlooker.” The Kommanza put an eye to the upper end and adjusted the focusing screw. “Hmmmm, and a strong one: you could almost read someone’s lips.” She paused. “Why, the sheep-raping crow eaters,” she said with reluctant admiration. “So that’s why they tell folk to make their confessions with their faces to the Sun!”

  Megan stepped casually up to the balustrade and looked down past her boot tips to the tiny figures below. The hunt seemed scattered, disorganized, groups of yellow robes and knots of bewildered worshippers on the acre-broad pavement. She leaned over to the telescope and appropriated the eyepiece. “But this is blurred” she said. “Is there a magic to it?”

  The Kommanza grinned. “No, try turning that, there.”

  “So.” She fiddled a moment with the knob and scanned the mob below. A second later, she stiffened and started cursing in a number of languages. “Lady of Winter! I’ve never seen that before, but I don’t want a closer acqu
aintance. Look and tell me. I want to know what I’m fighting.”

  Shkai’ra squinted downward. “Oh, Glitch of the Inspired Perverse! They’ve brought out a Mind-Sniffer. It can follow us anywhere—and turn our brains into worked-over oxturds inside our skulls if it gets close enough.” She spat on the marble floor. “I think it’s time we left; they don’t take those out of the temple, not in daylight, and there aren’t many, or so I’ve heard. Thank Zailo Protector.”

  Megan had backed up from the edge and was running her fingers over her knives. Fishguts! she thought. Magic is what I—we need... and don’t have. Nothing I know would fight something like that. She opened her mouth to call Shkai’ra on. No sense in waiting for it to find them.

  “What are you doing here? I have done nothing wrong to be replaced. This is my post.” Megan swung around. Did they all creep around silently? The old man’s eyes were unblurred but vague. “You are ... not of the Sun. I really should do something. Yes, maybe I should call someone. Yes, yes.” He mumbled on and turned as if to do just that.

  She lunged, caught a wrist, and pulled sharply, twisting as she did so. He staggered off balance, his free arm flailing as his knees struck the balustrade. She pulled back, trying to keep him from going over, but had to let go; his weight would have dragged her over, too. She doubted he was conscious when he hit; he had only screamed once on the way down. The floor below was suddenly bright red. “I didn’t mean to do that. Now I’ve really announced our presence.” She looked over her shoulder and thought of the warren behind the door. She stepped up and stood on the railing the priest had just fallen over. “We can’t risk getting caught in that maze again. This railing is unbroken by the walls.”

  Shkai’ra looked down at the confusion so far below. “And you’re a thief,” she muttered to Megan. “Who did you steal from, the blind?”

  Megan snorted and tapped a foot against the slick oily smoothness of the balustrade as her companion struggled to remove her tight riding boots. Grumbling, the Kommanza slung her footgear around her neck and stepped up, her toes curling to grip the jade. She looked to her right.

  “A long way down,” she said quietly. “All the gods curse these people; mountains are bad enough, but they have to build them. Earth should be flat.”

  Megan shrugged. “It wouldn’t kill you any deader than falling thirty feet.”

  “But you’d have longer to think about it.... Lead on.”

  Swiftly, almost running, they trotted around the inner surface of the dome, passing chamber after chamber opening into the dark corridors. The top of the balustrade was less than half a meter thick; thinner, where it passed the partition walls between chambers.

  “Hai, about here,” Shkai’ra called when they had reached a point across from their starting place. “The main downshaft should be around here.”

  They skipped down to the floor, Megan waiting for Shkai’ra to replace her footgear. A risk, but being lamed was a worse one; and they might have to move without care for their feet.

  Shkai’ra unclenched her teeth and looked resentfully over her shoulder; it was unfair, that cities should be where the best loot was. Especially when you couldn’t just bum and sack the accursed places; too bad Eh’mex, the hammer of Baiwun, hadn’t come down on this rat’s nest long ago.

  They moved out into the corridor; this was broader, and it ran directly away from the inner chamber of the dome. Shkai’ra put out her hand. “Wait,” she said thoughtfully.

  Megan raised a brow. “Priest killers should wait to be discovered?”

  “No ... I’ve heard of this. This corridor must lead directly to the main buttress, then down to the underlevels.”

  “Good!” Megan answered. It would take a while for search parties to climb up to them, but much less time to block off the possible escape routes.

  Shkai’ra looked at her. “This is the fast way down.”

  They ran forward. The temple was too big to be disturbed by one small altercation, the chant of the choirs continuing as they would until the building fell. The sound of their breath and footfalls gradually became the loudest thing in a world of stone-rimmed narrowness.

  At last they came to an alcove more brightly lit than most of the warren. Stacked along one wall were wood and wicker containers, much like openwork coffins, with a greased oak runner down each long edge, and on the other wall a dark, narrow square hole left the corridor; they could see that it ran just under the surface of the dome, in a huge curve to their left around the surface and down.

  “Don’t tell me this is your fast way down!”

  Shkai’ra laughed silently. “I’ve only heard of this; it’s not well known.” She examined one of the coffin-sleds. “Some mystic thing, supposed to symbolize the descent of the Sunless Soul—the priests use it in their rituals. Yes, it slides down ... An, this must be the brake: See how you can press it with your foot.” She paused. “There may be someone waiting at the other end, or death along the way.” She lifted one of the vehicles to the flat stone launching stage and climbed in; Megan waited behind her. “It’s been ... a good time, knowing you.”

  She winked, latched the cover of the sled, and jerked her body forward. The sled moved, slowly, then beginning to gather speed even as it carried her into the blackness of the hole, feet first.

  Megan stood stunned for a moment, shocked by the strength of her own emotion. There had been so many years of solitude. So many years since her parents died, and everything she cared for had died; the risk, the risk ...

  Abruptly, she unfroze; cursing herself mechanically, she followed. The hinged wicker framework of the capsule swung shut over her face; it was more solid than she had imagined, a hot musty smell of reeds catching at nose and throat. She felt the runners catch, then begin to slide as the wicker bullet moved forward under the impetus of her weight. The first sensation was speed, pushing head and shoulders back against the padded rest. Then she was floating, hair bristling over her back at the strange weightless sensation.

  Suddenly she had a wild urge to shriek in exultation; suppressing it in the shuddering, bucking darkness, she grinned at the black pressing down on her eyes. There was a wild lurch as the sled turned a corner, frame groaning under the strain, runners screaming protest at occasional greaseless spots. Acceleration threw her against the side of the sled, back again, and around until up and down were lost in plunging chaos.

  Suddenly a scene that could not be was....

  Something turned from the straight trail and lunged at the wall, straining against its leash and drooling a curious hunger. The hot claws of its attack lifted the top of Megan’s head and scraped behind her eyes.

  She threw the image of a wall at it; a kreml, a fastness, keeping her mind safe while it mewed outside the gate. It became an oozing thing that worked in, and around, and under, and through Tier defenses, smelling of battlefields and rivers thick with decaying fish and flies. Desperately, she thought of clean water, sea and ocean, as her muscles locked into an unconscious spasm, rigid and clawing into the wickerwork. It plucked at nerve centers, scrambling for access. Pain. Her hands began to move without her volition, her defenses beginning to crumble, as it began to force her mind to its mold. Then she was again aware of the sled, wickerwork splintered under her claws, and her blood pounding in her ears.

  Shkai’ra plunged through darkness, the speed picking up until the sled bucked and vibrated with the slight irregularities of the stone. The smells of hot oil and scorching wood flew up at her; she touched her foot to the brake on the curves, just enough to keep control. And still the speed increased.

  Faster than a good horse, she thought. Faster than the Great River in spate. Then with a sudden realization: this is wonderful! She threw back her head and screamed, the high, exultant, falsetto screech of the Kommanz warcry.

  Then the rattling banks turned into a prolonged hissing as the curve flattened out and the sled barreled into a long flat stretch an inch deep in water. The sled braked to a stop, and an attendant sc
urried forward to guide it to the landing and throw open the cover.

  He paused for a moment, paralyzed, at the exceedingly unpriestly occupant. Still laughing with the thrill of the ride, she shot up one hand to grip him by the throat. The other, fisted, flashed up to land under his nose. She tossed the corpse to one side and rose in a crouch, eyes darting around the cavernous underground chamber.

  An instant later, the second sled rocketed around the corner and slowed to a stop. As the rush of the disturbed water died, there was no motion for a lone moment. Finally, the cover swung open slowly and Megan stepped out, pale as snow, Ticking a trickle of blood from a bitten lip.

  Shkai’ra caught her by the shoulders, hugged her soundly, and deposited her on the dry surface of the landing stage.

  “That was fun,” she said, “kh’eeredo. Let’s get out of here before they bring on their tame spook.” She jerked a thumb at the exit, a barred wooden door set in plain oozing concrete; they were far below the level of marble sheathing. “There’ll be an exit to the sewers—risky, but better than breaking for the surface.” She sobered, the exhilaration of the ride fading. “It’s that damned monster of theirs that bothers me.”

  Megan’s answer was harsh laughter. “It bothers you!” She pulled the memory of the hug close around her, against the thought of the Sniffer. They hurried down a corridor chosen at random. Megan felt along under her jawbone to the spot behind the ear where the carotid pulsed and wondered if she would be quick enough once the Sniffer got close again. I will not become a beast of theirs, she thought, and concentrated on running.

  When they paused for breath, Shkai’ra pressed her shoulders back against the weeping concrete, feeling the slow drops soaking through the linen of her runic and mingling with the clammy sweat on her flanks. The priests were close now, no more than two corridors away ... it was so difficult to estimate distance in this stone warren! She bared her teeth. There must be weirdwork on the tracking; hounds would have given themselves away with their noise by now.