The Dragonstone (47 page)

With a half moon above, just ere dawn Egil moaned and thrashed in his sleep, visited by a hideous dream.

*   *   *

They broke camp as the slash of sky lightened, and soon were on the trail again, the camels grunted in sullen ire, angered at having had nothing to eat but a meager amount of grain and nothing to drink at all, angered as well at having to bear riders and cargo, or so it seemed.

Once more the dark shadows turned scarlet as the day seeped down into the land of red stone. The trail twisted and wrenched through the labyrinthine maze, passages shattering off in directions without number, leftward, rightward, veering hindward as well. Choice after choice Arin made as the rarely glimpsed sun angled up in the sky, seen only when the chasms skewed easterly.

“Garlon, but I’d swear we’re going in circles,” grumped Alos. “That, or we’re lost altogether.”

“What makes you say that?” asked Ferret.

“This canyon, that rock, I vow we’ve passed it a thousand times.”

“A thousand times?”

Alos growled. “Well, more than once, that’s for certain.”

Ferret shook her head. “I don’t think so, Alos. I believe with all this red rock, everything looks the same.”

Delon grunted in agreement. “Even the red is beginning to look normal to my eyes. —I wonder if it’s possible to become used to Hèl.”

Midday came and went, and still they pressed onward, riding and walking, peril growing with each stride, Aiko now insisting on taking the lead every step of the way, though she paused at the junctions for Arin to make a choice.

Midafternoon came and then eve drew nigh, the crimson shadows mustering again deep in the chasms below.

Alos groaned. “Another night in this blasted maze, with night after night to come. Lost in your Hèl, Delon. Trapped forever. We’ll never find our way back out.”

Before Delon could reply, Aiko rounded a turn and there before her in solid rock stood the opening of an arched tunnel, low and narrow and black.
“Yojin suru!”
she called. “Beware.”

*   *   *

“This is carved, not natural,” said Egil. “See: hammered drill rods and mattocks shaped this way.”

As Aiko looked up at the steep canyon walls, a canyon dead-ended but for the tunnel, Arin said, “The trail goes in.”

Egil glanced from one to the other. “Then so do we.”

“Can the camels squeeze through?” asked Ferret. “I mean, it’s like an eye of a needle.”

Delon looked at the camels and then at the opening before them. “I think so. But we’ll have to lead them.”

“Not yet,” said Egil.

Aiko, her swords in hand, nodded and said, “Egil is right. I would not want to be trapped in there with camels blocking the retreat. I will go afoot and see where this leads.”

“Not alone,” said Egil. “I will go with you.”

“As will I,” said Delon.

“Me, too,” added Ferret.

“I’ll guard the camels,” said Alos, drawing back from the dark entrance. “But not by myself.”

Arin looked from one to the other, and then sighed. “I will stay with thee, Alos.”

Egil turned to the Dylvana and embraced her and said, “Be ready to flee.” Then he kissed her and stepped away and hefted his axe.

Delon lit a small oil lantern, and weapons at the ready, they entered the dim opening.

The tunnel floor was level, and within ten strides the corridor turned sharply to the left. “It reminds me of the way beneath Gudrun’s fortress walls,” whispered Egil.

“Just so,” said Aiko. “Carved to keep siege engines at bay.”

“There are no murder holes,” hissed Delon.

“Not in this stretch, at least,” replied Egil.

Again the corridor turned sharply, this time to the right,
and ahead they could see a portcullis down and a glimmer of the dying day beyond.

“Put out the light,” sissed Aiko. As Delon quenched the lantern, Aiko added, “Go softly. The peril lies just beyond the gate.”

Cautiously they approached the heavy grille, and in the dim light, just as they reached the bars a voice called out,
“Mîn int?”

Startled, they flattened themselves against the walls in the narrow way. And again the voice called out,
“Mîn int?”

It came from above.

Egil looked up, but saw nought. He took a deep breath. “We are friends.”

There was a slight pause, and then: “Friends?” replied the voice, a woman’s, accented as was the ‘
âlim
’s. “Yet you come with weapons in hand?”

Egil glanced at Aiko. “We sensed peril.”

“Ah. Many things are perilous. What do you seek?”

Again Egil looked at Aiko, and then at Ferret and Delon. At a nod from each he replied, “We come in urgency and seek a keeper of faith in the Temple of the Labyrinth.”

Long moments passed, but finally, with a clanking and grinding of gears and the clack of a ratchet, the heavy portcullis screeched upward in its tracks. It stopped at the halfway point.

“Enter,” called the voice.

Egil started to stoop under, but Aiko stopped him. He turned to her and said, “If the temple is here, we must take risks.”

She looked at him, her gaze impassive, and then nodded.

Together they ducked under the teeth of the grille, Delon and Ferret following.

They came into a vast opening, a sheer-walled circular basin nearly two full miles across, hemmed in all ’round by vertical red stone reaching up to the evening sky above.

“Stand!” came a command from behind.

They stopped and slowly turned.

Behind a low castellated parapet upon a wall above the portcullis stood perhaps fifty dark-haired women of varying ages, all dressed in red robes matching the stone and armed with bows drawn to the full, nocked arrows aimed at the foursome’s breasts. Among them and in the center, at a notch in the wall where leaned a ladder, stood a tall man dressed in a red robe as well. Looking to be in his early thirties, he was some six feet four and weighed perhaps two hundred twenty lithe pounds. His hair was a sunbleached auburn, his skin desert tanned, and his eyes were ice-blue. His hands rested upon the hilts of a great two-handed sword, its point grounded on the banquette above.

Aiko looked at him, puzzlement in her eyes, and she sheathed her swords and said to Egil, “I do not understand. He is not the peril, yet the peril is within him.”

Y
ou say you come seeking a keeper of faith,” called down one of the women, an elder, standing to the left of the man. She wore no veil, nor did any of the women. “We are all keepers of faith herein.”

Egil slipped his axe into his belt and motioned Delon and Ferret to sheathe their weapons. As they did so, the woman called out in a low voice,
“Wakaf lataht’.”
The women released the tension on their bows and lowered the weapons.

Empty-handed, Egil said, “We have come far and have a tale to tell.”

“Before you begin, do you wish me to send someone to bring in your last two companions along with your camels?” she asked as she signaled to the man to descend. Shouldering his great sword, he started downward, the woman following.

Egil glanced at Aiko. Keeping a wary eye toward the big man descending, the Ryodoan nodded and said, “Unless provoked, there is no peril in these women. But as to the man, I cannot say. Even so, Dara Arin should be safe.”

By this time, the man and woman had reached the base of the ladder, and now many of the other women started down, though some stayed on the banquette.

The woman turned to Egil. “Well?”

“Indeed, Lady, send someone to fetch our companions, for ’tis the Dylvana who should speak of our mission.”

“Dylvana? An Elf?”

At Egil’s nod, the woman turned and commanded,
“Maftûh ilbauwâbi!”
As the portcullis began clanking the rest of the way upward, she motioned to a young woman
and said,
“Kawâm, Jasmine, jâb iljauz khârij.”
The acolyte bowed to the elder and spun on her heel and hastened toward the rising bars and the passageway beyond.
“Kânmâ fiz
‘
ân!”
the older woman called out after her, then she turned to the foursome. “I told her to be not afraid, for she may think the Dylvana a djinn.”

As the elder woman gave her attention to the foursome, Ferret asked, “Are all of you priestesses of Ilsitt?”

At the naming of Ilsitt, on each hand the woman ritualistically touched forefinger to thumb to make small circles, as did all the women within earshot, as well as the sword-bearing man. “Indeed we are. All but Burel, here.” She turned a hand toward the big man. “Though he is a keeper of faith as well.”

Delon stepped forward. “We are forgetting our manners. My Lady, may I present Lady Ferai of Gothon, Lady Aiko of Ryodo, Master Egil of Fjordland, and I am Delon of Gûnar.”

As they were introduced, Aiko and Ferret pulled down the scarves veiling their faces. The priestess inclined her head to each, her eyes showing some surprise at Aiko’s golden hue and tilted eyes.

“I am—” She turned to the man and spoke rapidly in Sarainese.

“Abbess,” he replied.

“I am Abbess Mayam, and this is Burel, who has no title, though his father was known as, um”—again she turned to Burel—
“yâ sîdi? Yâ sîdi Ulry?”

“Sir,” rumbled Burel, leaning on his sword. “He was Sir Ulry, of Gelen.”

Behind them they could hear camels complaining at being coerced through the tunnel. Shortly Jasmine appeared, hauling a string of four of the recalcitrant beasts behind, followed by Arin tugging four more, and then came Alos after, four grumbling camels in his wake, the old man complaining as well. As the last camel emerged, the portcullis was lowered in its track to bottom out in socket holes in the stone.

Arin and Alos were introduced to Mayam and Burel, the abbess clearly dazzled by the diminutive Dylvana, though she tried to conceal her fascination.

“You must be hungry,” said Mayam. “Come let us go to a place where, after vespers, we can sup and talk, and you can tell me why you have journeyed here.”

At a nod from Arin, the abbess turned to the waiting women and spoke in Sarainese, and acolytes came forward to take the camels away. Then the abbess and Burel led Arin and her companions angling across the great, sheer-walled basin as twilight began to fall. And nearly all the women followed.

Ahead, they could see a great portico, with columns carved into the vertical face of the looming wall. Soon it was clear that this was their destination. As they drew closer it also became clear that this was not a full portico, but instead was sculpted in high relief. Two acolytes bearing tiny oil lamps emerged from the central opening, a doorway into the stone, and they set the lights upon free-standing pedestals, then went back inside.

Toward this light Mayam led them, until Arin and her companions were close enough to see carved in the red stone lintel above the doorway the words:

“Ah, luv!” cried Delon, grabbing Ferret about the waist. “You were right!”

And he took her up and spun ’round and ’round and kissed her soundly on the lips.

Of a sudden he stopped turning and set her down, puzzlement in his eyes. And then he kissed her again, this time gently and long. Surprised, at first she stood rigid, then less so, then melted into his embrace and clasped him tightly. Finally, lingeringly, he released her, and held her at arm’s length and looked at her in wonderment, just as she looked stunned at him.

And in that moment there came a horrid, prolonged howl, as if some hideous creature were loose within the bounds of the great basin.

*   *   *

Alos screamed and bolted for the doorway, and Aiko’s swords flashed into her hands. Egil drew his axe from his
belt and turned this way and that, seeking the direction of the yowl but failing as echoes slapped and reverberated among the high rock faces. Delon gripped his rapier, and a dagger was in each of Ferret’s hands. Arin held her long-knife, her eyes searching for foe.

“Oh, my,” declared Mayam, as the drawn-out juddering cry diminished, the echoes dying as well, “I should have warned you.”

“Warned us?” hissed Aiko, yet searching for foe.

“Put away your weapons. There is nothing to fear. It is just our demon.”

Arin looked at the abbess, the Dylvana’s eyes wide. “Your demon?”

“Indeed. Though its roots are true, the demon itself is entirely false. Its terrible roar nothing but a many-chambered horn blown by great bellows driven by a rather large weight raised by a windlass and dropped. Twice a day we sound it: at eventide and in the mid of night.” The abbess glanced at Arin and winked. “It keeps the zealots of Rakka out of the maze altogether…as well as others.”

Arin sighed and sheathed her weapon, as did the rest. Then the Dylvana said, “Would that we had known the peril was false.”

Aiko shook her head and tapped her chest. “The peril is not false, Dara.”

The abbess looked at the Ryodoan and said, “Indeed, I do agree. Yet it cannot enter here.”

*   *   *

They followed Mayam through the doorway and into the temple, Burel coming last. They passed through an entrance hall—a narthex—and stepped into a large oval nave, a high-vaulted ceiling above the chamber of worship, a polished floor below, the place aglow with the soft yellow light of sconced candles ringing ’round. Benches sat against the smooth curve of wall, arcing to left and right. At the far end they could see a high altar, a circle of life carved upon its outward face—the symbol of Ilsitt, of Elwydd in her many names. In the center of the floor another circle of life was inset into the stone. Mayam paused at the entrance and bowed in obeisance, her forefingers
touching her thumbs to make small circles. Beyond the altar, two acolytes knelt at each side, their voices low, pleading. Mayam started across the space, stepping wide of the circle of life embedded in the polished stone, as did those who followed her. As they approached the altar, they could hear someone hissing and babbling: it was Alos, huddled down against the floor behind, gibbering of demons and monsters and Trolls, while the acolytes speaking in Sarainese tried in vain to soothe him.