Halls of Law

by V. M. Escalada

  They ended by putting everything, packs and all, on the sledge. When her turn came, Ker found that once the sledge was moving it was easier than she’d expected. The floor of the tunnel was worn so smooth in this section that the sledge runners glided along almost as though they were on snow.

  Still, Ker was glad when Tel announced it was time for them to rest and have something to eat. She’d known he must have a good inner clock; that and a good sense of direction were two things senior officers looked for when promoting juniors. They would have had to stop anyway, however, as they’d come to a place where the tunnel split into three, with one branch going off to the left almost perpendicular to the main tunnel, and another two veering off to the right.

  “What do you think?” Tel said. “Either of these two seem to be heading in the right direction.”

  “Which means nothing,” Ker pointed out. “You can’t tell from here how they branch later on.”

  “No, I can’t, but I think you were suggesting earlier that you can.”

  Ker pressed her tongue against her upper lip. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Now she wasn’t so sure.

  “Let’s eat first,” she said, and was relieved when Tel agreed.

  As they’d thought, it was warmer here in the tunnels than at the entrance to the mine, and they decided to wait until they stopped for the night before lighting a fire.

  “Though I might have felt differently about it if we hadn’t found the sledge,” Tel said.

  About to agree, Ker saw a familiar shape in the shadows beyond him. “Don’t move,” she whispered. As smoothly as she could, she reached for the crossbow she’d laid down to her right when they’d sat on the sledge. With her left hand, she pulled a quarrel out from the pouch hooked to her belt.

  Tel went on chewing, only his raised eyebrows showing that he’d heard anything she’d said. Ignoring the small crank, Ker braced the butt of the crossbow against her sternum and pulled back on the string, setting the quarrel in place.

  She leaned forward slightly, took careful aim, and let fly. There was a squeak, but she’d hit the rat dead center, and dead it was.

  Tel swallowed and then turned his head. “That’s the biggest rat I’ve ever seen.”

  Ker went to retrieve the animal, and the quarrel. “I’ve seen dogs smaller than this,” she agreed.

  “What’s it feeding on?”

  “That’s the thing about rats. If there’s any food at all, they’ll find it.”

  “Maybe we should have followed it instead of killing it.”

  Ker smiled. “We don’t need to follow it to food. It is food.”

  Tel shrugged. “Looks healthy enough.”

  Ker nodded, pulling out her knife. “I’ll clean it here.”

  A gasp, high-pitched and sharp, echoed through the tunnels.

  “That was no rat.” Ker jumped up, knife still in hand.

  “Wait here.” Tel took off down the left-hand tunnel in the direction of the sound, every inch the soldier instructing the civilian.

  “Not likely.” Ker dropped the rat, scooped up the crossbow, and took off after him, cranking in a new quarrel as she went. As if she wanted to wait in the dark.

  Tel slowed as the tunnel veered to the left, advancing cautiously around the curve. He had slipped the glow stone into his mouth to free his hand and had been running with his lips slightly parted. Now he opened them as much as he could, raising his sword.

  Ker caught only a glimpse of light hair, white skin, and wide open dark eyes before there was another gasp, and the person stepped backward.

  Only to disappear completely with a squeal.

  “Blast.” Tel spit out the glow stone, and it dropped at his feet. In the brightness Ker could see that the tunnel floor broke off in a sharp edge not far from where he stood. Tel ran forward and kneeled, reaching down with his good arm outstretched. “Hold still, you stupid girl. Take my hand.”

  Ker flung herself on her knees next to him. The girl—no more than six or maybe seven—clung to a thin uneven ridge a half span from the edge. Off to one side, and too far below the child to be of any help, Ker could just make out the remains of what could have been a ladder, fastened somehow to the rock. This was a shaft then, not a collapsed tunnel.

  Tears were flowing out of the corners of eyes clamped tightly shut. The child’s knuckles showed white with the strain.

  “The light,” Ker said. “It’s blinding her.” She snatched up the glow stone from where it had fallen and pushed it into her own mouth, tasting the grit from the floor and, somewhere behind it, Tel’s mouth. She parted her lips, letting out barely enough light for them to see. Tel now lay prone on the ground, turning his head to one side, and reaching down with his left hand. He shifted forward awkwardly to lean deeper into the abyss and Ker immediately set down the crossbow to sit on his legs, using her full weight to help hold him in place.

  Whether it was the dimming of the light, or just plain fear of falling, Tel was finally able to persuade the girl to hold up one little hand. Tel’s was large enough to wrap all the way around her forearm, in a delicate parody of a soldier’s greeting. Taking a firm grip on Tel’s harness, Ker began to inch backward, letting him do the same, as he pulled the girl up.

  Once the girl was secure, Ker was able to roll off Tel’s legs. She was panting, and could feel sweat drying on her forehead. Tel was sitting up now, his left arm around the girl’s shaking shoulders.

  Ker carefully spit the glow stone into her cupped hands. She didn’t know what had frightened the child in the first place, but it had certainly been the light which had startled her into stepping back off the edge.

  Tel reached out for the stone. As soon as he let go of her, the girl bolted back in the direction they’d come and vanished into the darkness.

  “Hey!” Ker got to her feet, but stopped when she realized Tel wasn’t following her.

  “Let her go,” he said. “She’s probably more afraid of us than anything else in here, even if we did end up helping her.”

  Nodding, Ker dusted off her hands and picked up the crossbow from where it had been kicked to one side. “Do you think she’s living in here?”

  “It explains the miraculous longevity of the hemp rope.” Tel wiped the glow stone on his sleeve. “You saw how she reacted to the light.” He looked over at her. “How long did you say this mine’s been abandoned?”

  Ker shook her head, looking around her. The darkness didn’t seem so neutral anymore. “What do you think scared her in the first place?”

  It was Tel’s turn to shake his head. “Let’s hope it wasn’t seeing a couple of strangers killing and skinning her pet rat.” He levered himself to his feet. “Come on, let’s get back.”

  “Did you strain your wound?” Ker examined his sleeve. “It doesn’t look like it’s bleeding again, but I wouldn’t mind a closer look.”

  “When I’m sitting down on the sledge you can look all you want—”

  Ker bumped into Tel’s back when he abruptly stopped moving.

  “Daughter curse that sneaky little brat, she tricked us.”

  The sledge, their packs, and the bundles of firewood were gone.

  So was the body of the rat.

  TEL looked from one tunnel opening to the other. “Which one?”

  “Step aside, Tel. Let me—” Ker stopped short as a man hefting a spear stepped out into the open space.

  “There now, youngsters. Stay so quiet and so steady as hens on eggs, and you’ll maybe walk away on your feet.” A murmur came from the darkness behind him. “That’s right, too. Be so courteous as to pocket that fierce light of yours.”

  For the longest time Tel didn’t move, but finally he lowered the glow stone, pushing it firmly back into his belt pouch. At first, Ker saw nothing except the dark, but gradually she became aware of a soft greenish glow coming fr
om the man’s forehead, and his wrists. Similarly lighted shapes appeared in the tunnel behind the old man, and in the one next to it.

  The little girl they’d been chasing bounced out, deftly avoiding the old man’s snatch at her shoulder. Now, without the brighter light from the glow stone overpowering them, Ker could see the child wore the same luminescent bands on head and wrists.

  “See, I told you she was coming.”

  The old man lowered the spear, but didn’t ground it. “This is her?”

  “That’s the one.” The little girl grinned.

  “Then why were you running away from her, Larin?”

  Larin pursed her lips. Ker decided that the way the child’s shadow seemed to shift in size was due to the unfamiliar lighting. Probably.

  “Never saw him.” The girl pointed at Tel and her face crumpled. “He scared me!”

  “But then I saved your life, you ungrateful brat, don’t forget that part.”

  Larin stuck out her tongue and retreated to the old man’s side. His wide smile showed even white teeth.

  “Put down your knives and belt pouches, so soft and easy, if you please, and back away to that tunnel there.” He indicated the one they’d used getting here. “You’re a matter for the council, if what the little one says is true—”

  “‘If?’ What do you mean ‘if’?” The child stamped her foot.

  “Softly, little one, softly. No one doubts you. It’s just we like to check things when we can.”

  “Huh. Sounds like doubt to me.”

  “Ganni.” A woman with a thin scar running white down the left side of her face stepped forward. “Sala says it’ll be the whole council, not just the small. We’re to go to the great meeting hall.”

  “Are we now? So, then. This way, if you please, youngsters.”

  • • •

  Once their eyes were used to the soft illumination from the Miners’ wristlets, they managed a good pace through the tunnels, and it seemed no time at all before they were ushered into a great, round amphitheater. From the echoes it was almost as large as the one in Farama the Capital, where the performances sacred to the Son were staged every Spring Festival. Pots of the same luminescent stuff the Miners wore were set around the clear central area, but most of the vast cavern remained in darkness. Their captors ushered them quickly down uneven steps to the flat, cleared space.

  “Do you think this room is natural?” Tel said out of the corner of his mouth.

  “I hope so. Imagine how long it would have taken to cut it out by hand.” Ker wondered if, like the stage in Farama the Capital, her voice would carry to the unseen roof.

  “Well, we are in a mine,” Tel pointed out. “They’d have the equipment for it.”

  “It’d be a little of both.” The old man, Ganni, rejoined them. “Mostly we cut out the steps, and leveled off this bit. That would have been in my great-grandsire’s time.”

  Ganni directed them to seats on cushions of old worn leather in the center of the level space. Without speaking, they sat back to back. Set around them in a circle were six chairs, each different and each showing signs of use. Larin ran immediately to as fine a carved armchair as Ker had ever seen and hauled herself into it. The others were filled one by one. Ganni sat on a low, four-legged stool. A tall woman with the dark skin and tightly curled hair of a Ma’lakan took a plain wooden chair. Tel elbowed Ker, and she nodded. There was no mistaking that the tall woman moved like a soldier. The remaining three seats were taken by an older woman with dull red hair, and two younger men only a few years older than she and Tel. Behind the chairs rose row upon uneven row of seats cut into the rock face. Ker could see perhaps thirty or forty people, but she had the feeling there were at least twice that many out of sight in the darkness.

  “What is it you have, outsider?” This was the younger man with his blondish hair cut like a stiff brush. He was grim-faced, while the others merely looked interested.

  “You’ve taken all our things.” Ker pressed her back more firmly against Tel.

  “But do you move? Or maybe see?”

  A glimmer of an idea made Ker sit up straighter. Moving? Seeing? Those were Gifts out of the old tales of Feelers. But there weren’t any Feelers. Not anymore.

  “One moment, Norwil.” This was the taller, dark woman. “You are new to the council, but you know that we wait until the assembly is complete before we ask questions.”

  “But she has to have some kind of Gift, some Talent, or she couldn’t have found her way in.”

  Ker coughed, relieved. She must have misunderstood him after all. “I’m not a Full Talent,” she said. “My name is Kerida Nast. I was a Candidate at Questin Hall.”

  A murmuring out of the shadows was quickly cut off by a gesture from the tall dark woman.

  “That explains it, Sala,” called out a voice.

  Sala held up her hand again and this time there was silence. “I am Sala of Dez, Speaker for the Mines and Tunnels. I call this assembly to order,” she said. She turned to Ker. “We six are the delegates of the people. We represent them, and speak for them. Is this clear, Kerida Nast and . . . ?”

  “Tel Cursar, Third Officer, Green Company, Carnelian Cohort, Bear Wing.”

  Once more, voices were raised among the people sitting around them in the darkness. Again, Sala lifted her hand, and the voices were stilled. Ker was suddenly reminded of the dining hall in Questin, and she blinked back tears.

  “Ganni the elder you have met, and Larin. These others are Hitterol—” Sala indicated the older woman. “Norwil—” The brush-cut man. “And Midon.” Sala returned her attention to Kerida.

  “How did you escape from Questin?”

  “You know about the invaders, then?” Ker said, leaning forward.

  “From over the water. Horses of the sea. I told you,” Larin said, her voice suddenly serious and firm. But she wasn’t talking to Ker.

  Ganni’s bushy eyebrows lifted. “The longships,” he whispered. Even in this light Ker could see he was no longer looking at her but was focused off somewhere in the middle distance.

  There was a murmur of what sounded like satisfaction from the people around them.

  “So, then,” Ganni said, nodding now. “What Larin says may very well be true. This girl’s the one the Prophecy speaks of.”

  A sudden and echoing silence as the entire cavern fell quiet and still. Then everyone seemed to take a breath simultaneously, and Ker felt every eye on her. Tel’s long-fingered hand wrapped itself around hers, and she took a steadying breath.

  Finally, Sala leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “If you are the one the Prophecy speaks of . . .” She pursed her lips.

  “Oh, thank you very much.” The old woman’s voice, coming from where Larin was sitting, startled Ker. Someone behind the child must have spoken. She noticed Ganni staring at her with narrowed eyes.

  “I saw you,” Larin cut in. “They said I was too young, but I did, I saw you.” The way she smiled was instantly familiar, the smile of any child who’s managed to prove the grown-ups wrong. “I went looking for you.” She glanced at Tel, her smile fading. “Not for him. He’s not in it.”

  Ker looked from one eager face to another. Even Norwil, the brush-cut man, seemed excited now rather than grim. “I don’t know anything about a prophecy,” she said. “I don’t see how I can help you.”

  “That is what we must discover.” Sala nodded across the circle, and Ganni gestured with his left hand. A young boy, his too-short sleeves showing bony wrists, ran forward out of the shadows carrying a small wrapped bundle cradled in his arms. Ganni took it from him with a grin.

  “This was found at the bottom of one of the lower west shafts.” The old man’s face split in a big smile, showing his perfect teeth again. “What is it?”

  These people knew perfectly well what the object was, Ker thought. They were testi
ng her. Tel squeezed her hand and she squeezed back. She let him go, and wiped her palms dry on the thighs of her trousers. “If I can tell you that,” she said, “you’ll let us go?”

  “It is the first step in that direction, yes.” Sala did not take her eyes from Ker’s face.

  Ker nodded. “Pass it over.” She expected Ganni to unwrap it, but instead he gave her the bundle intact. The cloth was a piece of old blanket, so faded there wasn’t any color left, just shades of a brownish gray. That’s not what they’re asking me about. Tel shifted over to watch what she was doing. He smiled, nodding encouragement, but his eyes were worried.

  Ker returned his nod, clenched her jaw, and folded back the edges of the blanket until the object was revealed. It was pale, the length of her hand, and right away it reminded her of an old drinking horn of her father’s, something he’d brought home from an early campaign, before she was born. Instead of being round like the horn, however, the thing was hollowed on the one side like . . . “It’s a claw,” she said.

  “That much anyone can see, girl.” Ganni’s tone was dry. “Do you tell us, what kind of claw.”

  Ker licked her lips, mouth suddenly dry. Bone, the shadow in her thoughts said to her. Danger. Sweat beaded on her upper lip, and Ker swallowed past a lump in her throat. Again she saw the bright sun, the cloudless sky, the darkness under the bank of the stream where she’d found the bones that had triggered the first fierce explosion of her Talent. She’d been younger than Larin then, and honestly, she didn’t feel much older than that now.

  What if it happens again? Her fingers twitched on the edge of the cloth.

  “Ker?” Tel’s voice sounded far away, though she felt his fingers warm on her arm.

  Ker took a deep breath. “It’s all right,” she said. “Just gathering my thoughts.” It’s not a human bone. She took in three deep, steadying breaths. Paraste.

  “It’s not a bird,” she said as she stroked her fingers lightly on the claw. Not Who, think What. “It’s a cat.” Her fingers brushed against the cloth and she blinked, getting an unusually strong Flash of the weaver, though not of the weaving itself. “It’s a cat bird.” Ker saw feathers, but she also saw fur, thick and golden, a slashing tail, the curving beak of a bird of prey, the shiny edge of a delicate golden shell. That was When—