“Because there’s not enough of it?”
He nodded again. “They work by context. The greater the number of words, the greater the likelihood that they’ll be able to tell you what the passage means. The language is ours, or was, at some point. Come,” he added softly. “There is more to see.”
She nodded, and rose again.
He led her into the cavern. It was, in his estimation, the easternmost point of this underground city, this vast mausoleum in which all history lay fallow. The cavern’s rise was rough and uneven; great points of stone jutted from it, visible only as the magelight brightened, and leached of color by shadow. Bats lived there; he’d seen them take flight once or twice in his early treks through the streets. They were silent now. Sleeping. As if, even without the sight of sun’s light, they lived by rhythm of day and night.
“You . . . found those tablets here.”
“Not here, but close.”
She looked up, and up again; he thought he’d have to catch her when she overbalanced. Nor was he wrong. He’d fallen himself that way, once or twice, losing his bearings, his sense of the earth beneath his feet, to the glory, grim and dark, of the heights that passed for sky.
“If necessary,” he told her quietly, “you can escape into these tunnels and find refuge here. You can cross the thirty-fifth holding, and most of the rest, without being seen. The hardest part is finding a way in; you can’t, in the newer parts of the city. It’s only in the holdings proper that the entrances can be found.”
In the distance, he could hear the movement of water; it sounded cold. “Come,” he added.
She nodded again as she stepped out of the passage and into the open street. And it was a street; this much could be seen because the exterior walls of other buildings now faced them. They were broken, like the wall was: cleanly, the cracks slender, their edges still sharp. Some of these buildings had once had doors, but the doors—wood all—were gone; their frames remained, arches of carved stone, some bearing words, some only a mark at the height of the keystone, and some the likenesses of odd faces. Pale faces, things that had no rendered expression.
Jewel stopped before one of these, and reached up; she was about three feet too short to actually touch anything. But the face itself was framed with hair that seemed—to Rath’s admittedly jaded eye—to move or grow; it flowed around high cheekbones, and then fell to either side, following the downward march of the door frame.
“It used to have eyes,” she said.
He frowned. “It has eyes.”
“That’s just stone. But it—it used to have eyes.”
“Interesting. What color?”
“Blue,” she told him, her voice barely a whisper. “Blue and orange.”
“Can you see who lived here?”
The wonder collapsed and she looked at him as if he were an idiot. He failed to make it worse, and after a moment, she passed beneath the arch, leading, where a moment before she had been content to follow.
He had explored many of the buildings in the labyrinth, but by no means all of them; he did not remember this one, and moved more cautiously because of it. “Be wary of the floor,” he told her softly.
She nodded, this time without any resentment for his gently offered warning. She held the magestone aloft, walking slowly; she was so light, he thought she might pass over the softer ground without falling. It was something that he could not be certain of doing himself.
The building was not small. Jewel walked from room to room, looking; the rooms themselves were empty. In one, and only one, a stone table lay, as if it had been disgorged from the floor; in another, empty, a basin that might once have been either a fountain or a large bath. No water remained. Rath gestured to Jewel, and she obliged his wordless request; she knelt, and light spread in an even blanket to either side of her legs.
The floor was marbled stone, and where dust was swept aside, it still gleamed as if new. Bath, he thought, and rose. Jewel rose with him, bright shadow, and only when they were both standing did she continue her odd search. It wasn’t methodical, as Rath’s searches were; she had come unprepared to the tunnels, and although she was aware that he had taken some items from it, she did not seek those items for her own use.
Instead, she hoarded knowledge, as he had done the first time, the first ten times, he had made his way down to this city under the City. Rooms passed, some smaller, some larger, and by dint of curiosity, she made her way at last to what looked like a small vestibule. There were stairs.
“Don’t,” he told her shortly.
“The stairs aren’t good?”
“The stairs, in the undercity, are the most structurally delicate parts of any building.”
She nodded, but he saw her eyes upon those steps, and after a moment, cursing impulse, he examined the flat steps; they were stone. Marble, he thought. Like the marble in the bathing room. “Yes.” It was a curt word.
She was on it—and the stairs—like a carrion creature. But he didn’t have to tell her to move slowly, and he didn’t have to tell her to pause at the height of the flat the steps reached for, for he saw what had drawn her. Wondered if she had seen it herself, in shadow. Or in vision.
A statue stood, arms out to either side, palms exposed. It was carved in loose-fitting robes, the drape of which fell from shoulder to ground with austerity. No belt bisected or impeded its fall; no rope, nothing. The gentle swell of breasts implied that the figure was a woman’s, but the woman after whom this statue had been carved had been slender—too slender for Rath’s taste—and young. Adult, but not yet hardened by experience or the necessity that made, of life, a constant battle.
The robe’s hood was drawn back, and the woman’s hair fell from her forehead, parting in a peak. It was of a color with the rest of the statue, gray with dust. Jewel’s height, he thought she must have been, maybe a few inches taller. She watched them approach with sightless eyes, her gaze unchanging.
Rath had never tried to take statues from the buildings. They were too large, for one—and perhaps that was chief among the reasons. But he saw the other in Jewel’s expression: she was staring up at this pillar’s face, and her own lips were slightly open, as if she were searching for words.
“The maker-born made this, didn’t they?” she asked him quietly at last.
It was not, as it often would not be, the question he expected. But he nodded, as if he could be certain of the truth of agreement.
“Did she live here, do you think?”
“I . . . don’t know. It is almost certain that she died here,” he added.
“Why?”
“Because most of the people who lived here did.”
“How do you know that, Rath?”
“There are bodies,” he said at last, and reluctantly. “Skeletal bodies. There are one or two that appear to have mummified.” When her brow creased, he shrugged. “They’re dried out,” he offered. “Like raisins are dried-out grapes.”
“Here?”
“I don’t think I’ve been in this building. But in others, and in the caverns, yes.”
“Were they wearing anything?”
Astute question. “Armor,” he said quietly.
“You took it.”
“Yes.”
“And sold it?”
“Yes.” He shrugged. “They’re dead, Jewel. They want for nothing.”
“Not even peace?”
“Ask Mandaros,” was his curt reply. “There are other dead, but properly buried. No,” he added, “I didn’t dig them out of their cenotaphs.”
When her brows furrowed again, he gave up. “Coffins,” he reminded her. “Big stone coffins.”
She nodded, and then continued to walk.
When she was within an inch of the statue, and before Rath could think to react, she reached out and touched one of its exposed hands, placing her own pale palm against its stone one.
He couldn’t see her expression, but he didn’t have to; he was just behind her when she shuddered, her
hand jerking away. She collapsed slowly, and he caught her, four steps down. Her eyes, open, were white.
He shook her; she lolled. For a moment he thought she was dead—but the moment passed; she was breathing, and if the breath was labored, it was there.
The statue was there as well. And all thoughts, all regret at the idea it could not be moved, were gone when he looked at it closely; it was no longer a pale alabaster, covered in dust and the webs of time; it was a pale, flesh color, and its open eyes were blue.
“Do not disturb the Sleepers.” Its lips seemed to move, its hands seemed to fold, fingers curling into fists. “Do not disturb the city. What sleeps, sleeps, until the End of Days.”
Maker-born? He whistled, shaking slightly. No simple maker had crafted this statue, this slender image. An Artisan had labored here.
“Let her go,” he told the statue grimly.
As if it could respond. But blue eyes met his, and he acknowledged the fact that he had almost never seen the work of an Artisan in his life; among the maker-born, they were rare, and guarded; their power was legend, and rightly feared, for their works were imbued with a magic that not even the mage-born could understand, let alone duplicate. If rumor was true, the Kings held such artifacts as part of their office; Rath put little faith in rumor.
But here . . .
“Long we worked, and hard. Long we toiled in secret. Long we lived, and in pain, we died, in the coliseum, for the amusement of our enemies. But the time has come, has been coming: the gift of Myrddion has been called forth, and it has come from the earth, in time.
“She is not yours,” the statue continued, in its flat, but undeniably feminine voice. “And her time is not yet come. She will wake. You will teach her many things, Ararath Handernesse. You will teach her things that neither you nor she will understand for many years. She will find what she seeks, and you would reject it could you, but you are a fool; you cannot protect her. You know this, and she knows it as well, although she will not wake to its truth until your time is long past.
I will give you the gift that it is in me to give. Two women will define your life long after your life is forgotten. And in your turn, Ararath, you will define, unknowing, the fate of the greatest of The Ten Houses upon the Isle in your new Empire.
Take Jewel Markess from this place, but tell her: Do not wake the Sleepers.”
“Will she understand this?”
“No more than you do. The time for understanding has not yet come. I tell you this for the sake of peace, both yours—and mine. I have been waiting. Tell her,” the statue said, and its voice fell silent, color ebbing until it stood, at last, as it had stood when Jewel had approached it.
She stirred against his chest, for he held her, cradled in his arms. Her eyes slowly rolled down, brown replacing thin-veined white. “Rath?” she whispered.
He nodded grimly. He wanted to lecture her, but held his tongue; she had touched a statue. He had done worse, in his time, but never with this effect.
He set her on her feet, and she stood, swaying, the statue now above her. Her hand shook as she lifted it. “The girl—”
“There was no girl,” he said gently.
“There was. She—”
But he shook his head more firmly. He did not speak of what the statue had said. He had spent the whole of a life learning to ignore an order, or several if it came to that, and he was not about to obey someone who was, by any sane measure, long dead.
“Come, Jay.” He forced himself to use her chosen name; his came naturally to her lips. “It will be dark, soon, and we must be out of the maze by nightfall.”
“Why?”
“Because getting out requires a bit of light and some luck. Neither of which we’ll have if it’s moon-shy.”
She nodded then, but her eyes were anchored to the statue’s face, and he had to lead her down the stairs, watching as she took them slowly, walking backward.
They came out of the maze just beneath an old building in the thirty-second holding. The sun was settling past the horizon; the night sky was deepening its blue, unfettered by clouds or mist. They stood on the boundary between two worlds, and it was the one they had left behind that still anchored them.
She turned to him quietly. “Rath?”
He nodded.
“Our place.” The word had slipped from her without conscious thought; he didn’t correct it.
“What of it?”
“Is it—does it lead here?”
He smiled. “You’re wasted here,” he told her, taking her hand. “I don’t have an answer yet. But it’s in the right place, and my suspicion is that it does.”
“Good. I want—I want to spend more time below ground.”
“You might have to,” he replied. “Money isn’t a problem at the moment, but it usually is. And I have furniture to buy. You might even want a bed.”
“Can you teach me?”
“To do what?”
“To read Old Weston?”
“I can teach you to read what I can read,” he answered. He pushed her into an alley as the familiar sound of a guard patrol approached. They waited in breathless silence as the steps grew louder, waited a little longer as they retreated.
“But I want you to promise me one thing before I do.”
“What?”
“Nothing that comes from the maze—from what I call the maze—goes to anyone but me. I will sell it. I will find a buyer.”
“But I—”
“That’s not a request. It’s not a point of negotiation. You will agree, or I will never take you down to the maze again, and if you find your way there, you’ll likely starve.”
She was keen-eyed, this Jewel, this urchin. “It’s because of the man who followed you, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he replied curtly. “Because of that man, or men like him. I know how to lose men like that in the streets. You don’t. Your word, Jay.”
“I promise,” she told him.
He wondered how long it would be until she regretted it. Could not imagine, staring at her wide eyes, her intense expression, the earnestness of her, that it was he who would, in time.
Buying furniture proved an exercise in frustration for Rath; to Jewel, it was a curiosity. She could ask a hundred questions without opening her mouth, and she bobbed from foot to foot, as if compelled to expend her enthusiasm by motion.
She had not lied, however; she knew how to read and write Weston. She could also speak a respectable amount of Torra, the language of the Southern refugees, and as Rath’s Torra was far less smooth, this was welcome.
It came as no surprise to him that she went, when she had the money, to the same farmer in the Common that she had visited when she had next to none; no surprise that she would insist on doing so, time and again. The farmer, thick, garrulous and older, was always happy to see her, and if he spoke gruffly in Rath’s presence, he seldom spoke to Jewel without affection.
As the weeks passed—and they passed, a bed eventually appeared in the underground rooms they called home, chairs joining them, and at last, a large desk—Rath gave her an allowance. He didn’t choose to tell her how to spend it; instead, he told her how much of the rent she had to pay, and how much of the food costs. He watched to see if she would be in the unenviable position of being forced to borrow money—from Rath, of course—in order to cover her shortfall in the first month.
She wasn’t. Her mother—or her father—had taught her numbers in perhaps the only way that counted, in the hundred holdings: she knew how to budget. Knew that plenty was followed by privation. Her iron box, one of the few items that she had retained from her old home, was seldom empty.
But he felt a twinge in the Common, a month after she’d become part of his life, when she made her way to the farmer, coins in hand, and stood silent while he finished transacting his business. It was late in the day; too late to buy produce, besides which, she had already come this way in the early hours of morning.
“Jay?” the farmer said,
looking as surprised as Rath chose not to.
She handed him the coins. Silver lay nestled among the copper; it was not a small amount. The farmer’s brows rose and fell in one sweeping motion, adjusting the tenor of his expression. Before he could speak, however, she lifted a slender hand.
“It’s not for me,” she told him quietly.
Whatever he had thought to say was lost as her words penetrated his thick skull. He was certainly capable of suspicion—Rath had experienced this firsthand on the day that he’d met Jewel—but he seldom offered that suspicion to Jewel. It hovered on the edge of his face, seeking purchase and finding none.
When he did not speak, Jewel pushed her hair out of her eyes. “It’s for the others,” she said quietly.
“What others?”
“The other children like me.”
His smile was genuine, and if it held a trace of bitterness, the bitterness did not work its way into his voice. “There are no other children like you,” he told her fondly.
She had the grace to redden. But not to retreat. In Rath’s growing experience, retreat was not a word that Jewel understood. Not in any emotional sense.
“You help,” she told him quietly. “It’s not just me.”
The farmer was silent.
“I want to help, too. I have a job now. I have money.”
“You should save it,” the farmer began.
She cut him off. “I want you to keep this. Use it, when you see children like I was.”
He hesitated, and Rath could see instantly that she knew she’d won. She put the coins in his hand—a hand that dwarfed hers in every possible way.
“Aye,” the farmer told her. He didn’t count the coin.
“One day,” Jewel told him firmly, “I’m going to live on the Isle. One day.”
The older man smiled. “I hope I live to see it, lass.”
“You will,” she said firmly. Child’s voice, teetering on the edge of a determination that wasn’t passive; that didn’t wait.
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