PROLOGUE (104 page)

when the Cursed Ones had kidnapped her, but she had never seen one as close and as clearly as she did now.

The grotesque figure came to a halt before them. Bent and gnarled, it did not have skin as humans had skin, nor was it scaled like the lizards and snakes that crawl along the ground. Its skin glittered the way granite did when caught in sunlight; leprous growths more like crystalline rocks or salt cones than a scabrous disease encrusted that skin. The pale bulges that seemed to be its eyes clouded and cleared as if mist boiled within. Bent and gnarled, it wore an assortment of chimes and charms which rang softly as the spherical lamp swayed back and forth at the end of its chain.

She found her voice.” We have come from my sister, known to me as Horn." She extended her arm to display the armband. Without any acknowledgment, the creature turned and walked with a rolling gait back into the tunnel.

"So much unknown to me lives here in this country," murmured Alain. As the light receded, they followed down this smoothly surfaced tunnel road. Adica had never seen a path so straight and so easy. The creature leading them did not look back. They walked for a long time until without warning the tunnel ended on a ledge bordered by a railing that brought them up short.

Nothing in her life or experience, not even that one sight she had had years before of the great city built by the Cursed Ones, had prepared her for the vista that opened before her now. The skrolin lived not in dank and dark caves in the ground but in a city so vast and complicated that it made the great temples and palaces and gardens built by the Cursed Ones look like crude models fashioned by children. Just as mice might gnaw a maze of tunnels through a round of hard cheese, opening up the very heart of the cheese as they nibbled outward, so the skrolin had fashioned their city into and out of the rock itself, that made up the heart of the Earth.

Their guide fingered a series of bumps and grooves carved into the railing; a gate swung open to reveal a stairway carved into the cliff. Down these steps they descended into a labyrinth of pillars and archways clothed in jewels. Caverns spun one off the next as though an ancient hand had woven thread into stone. No surface was unpolished, and so many patterns and markings had been in cised into every sloping wall that she thought it must be a language read by fingers. Indeed, their guide kept a hand in contact with these surfaces, its fingers rubbing and tapping in a complicated code.

They did not walk far before their guide steered them to a vessel that looked like a giant shell scoured clean and fitted out with pearlescent benches. It took all three of them to hoist up the dogs, and they clambered in uneasily after. Their guide hopped over the high side with unexpected grace to take its place at the stem of the vessel.

The vessel lifted right up off the ground. Laoina yelped in surprise. Alain gasped out loud as he steadied himself on the backs of the dogs. Adica bit her lip rather than make a sound; she didn't want their guide to think that she, a holy woman, was awed by their magic.

But she was: stunned and even terrified as they floated through the cavernous city. It seemed to stretch on forever, winding corridors, lengths of dark tunnel that opened at intervals into caverns born out of a thousand prickling lights or streaked with veins of gold and copper. This was mystery and power displayed on a scale so vast she could not comprehend it.

How had she ever thought the Cursed Ones powerful? They were as children, compared to this.

The guide's eyes—if they were eyes—remained turned away from them. Even their awe did not interest it. Yet Adica did not feel unwatched. The many adornments, bits of metal, rods of silver, square plates of gold that flashed and winked when any light diffused over them, seemed alert. Adica sensed magic hoarded within them, a mute life, aware but unspeaking. A few of the skrolin they passed halted to regard them as one might a curiosity, but most hurried on their way uncaring. She saw none performing any manner of work she recognized: no one scraped hides, gutted fish, wove baskets, built pots, or chipped obsidian into tools. She saw nothing resembling the magic of the smiths, who worked with fire blazing as they wrought sorcery into copper and tin. She saw no fields, nor flocks, but when they came at last to a vast river whose banks were chiseled out of the rock itself, she saw a thing she could finally recognize, built on such a vast scale that it took her breath away.

"Truly," Laoina muttered, clenching her hand until her knuckles whitened, "there is more to this world than I ever dreamed."

Adica knew a market fair when she saw one. The wood henge was the market for all the Deer tribes, where they gathered at the great festivals, three times a year. Peddlers and merchants might linger for days or even weeks at the Festival of the Sun as people gained time free from their fields and flocks to trade. One time, when Adica had been a child, the Horse people had come to the midsummer fair. Their tents and wagons had made of the henge a vast fair unlike ariy other she had seen, exotic and colorful, and folk had lingered there long past the usual seven days of meeting, but soon afterward the first of the raids made by the Cursed Ones had come, and the Horse people had never traveled so far west again. Adica had also seen the lively market of Shu-Sha's city before it was burned by the Cursed Ones, and she had seen, from a distance, the great slave market where the Cursed Ones sold and bought human slaves.

Was it possible that all those other markets were but shadows of this one? Here, along this river, lay a market built out of stone, a long avenue fronted on one side by a cunningly paved road and, on the other, by the river. For the river was also a road for those who traveled its ways as easily as a human walked a path.

The skrolin were trading with the merfolk. Could it be that skrolin and merfolk alike lived lives completely oblivious to what took place beyond sea and cave?

What merchandise passed from hand to hand she could not see; the vessel did not slacken its pace except to accommodate the flow of crowds who at intervals crossed the thoroughfare where other vessels such as this one skimmed past. A long wharf, decorated with shells and mosaics on the riverside and soaring into archways and pillars carved like elongated dragons on the land side, marked the border where the two folk came together. In troughs cut into the wharf, merfolk lounged at their ease, eellike hair writhing languidly around their heads. The skrolin, who looked quite dry and encrusted next to the sleek, moist forms of the merfolk, crouched comfortably on their squat legs next to low tables and basins in which, it appeared, merchandise was displayed. The only light illuminating this scene emanated from the stone itself, so diffuse and cool that it felt murky, like looking through water.

In a way, the cloudy light made the vista seem more dream than real, like that city seen beneath the sea, too strange to comprehend.

Adica could not have run the length of the marketplace without becoming winded, but it did come to an end at last. Alain had not uttered one word, only stared, while Laoina muttered imprecations and prayers under her breath. The only noise their skrolin guide made came from the tinkling of the adornments hanging from its body.

At last, they turned away from the river to quieter venues, stopped deep in shadow. Their guide disembarked before a simple stone structure, longer than it was wide. A second skrolin emerged from the building. The two communicated by tapping each other so rapidly that in the dim light Adica could not make out the individual movements of their fingers. Then their guide shooed them out of the vessel, rather like pesky rats being swept out of a clean house, before it climbed back into the shell and vanished into the darkness.

"You are the animals who live in the Blinding." The skrolin's voice grated like rocks. Words came awkwardly to it, and although it spoke in the language of Horn's people, Laoina had a hard time understanding its pronunciation. But no Walking One succeeded without a good ear. Whatever fear and awe Laoina felt, she did what was expected of her.

"We are not animals but human, people like yourself." Adica displayed the armband before touching the other jewelry she wore to show that her people, too, had the skill of making.

"So is our bargain, that we must help you because of the child who was lost." With a delicate claw it brushed the armband she wore.” What wish you of us? In haste, we give you what you need so you may leave."

"Passage to the land of the tribe of Shu-Sha, which borders the lands of the Cursed Ones."

Without warning, the skrolin turned and shuffled into the stone house. The door shut in Adica's face as she tried to follow; it bore no latch she could see, nothing to pry open. Smooth as wood, its

surface had the grain of rock but she suspected it was neither substance.

"With such allies, surely we could defeat the Cursed Ones," she said.

"I knew nothing of this," repeated Laoina, as in a daze.” I thought I knew so much! How powerful their gods must be, to watch over such a place!"

"There is only one God, Female and Male in Unity," said Alain.” They who created all creatures and all places. Even these."

Laoina snorted. It was an old argument, one the two had had before.” I have not seen this god. Where do you keep it? In your pocket? Or your sleeve?"

"God are everywhere. As God are part of each one of us and of the world, so we in the world are part of God."

Before Laoina could reply, the door whisked open and the skrolin beckoned.” Come."

With its shuffling gait, it led them into the house and down a flight of stairs. It soon became so dark that they had to feel their way along the steps; Alain, helping the dogs, fell behind. The skrolin did not seem inclined to slow its pace to accommodate their clumsiness, but just when Adica could no longer hear its chuffing and wheezing, it halted so they could catch up.

She had lost count of the steps and knew only that her thighs and knees were aching when the stairs bottomed out. They stood in a vast chamber, echoing with loud booms. A hot blast of air struck her in the face. She was completely blind. A clawed hand scraped her arms, then shoved her forward unexpectedly. She collided with a slick wall, banged her knees on a bench, and sat down hard. Laoina crashed into her, swore; then the dogs were barking.

"Alain!" Booms and clanks drowned out his reply. The walls hummed. A jolt slammed her against the wall. One of the dogs was trying to climb up on her, paw digging into her thigh. With an effort, she got the dog off of her, groped, caught Laoina in the armpit, tried to rise, suddenly panicked, and then Alain found her and sank down on the bench beside her, holding her tightly.

"The armband is gone," she whispered.” They took it."

"I have mine still, but it casts no light here."

After a long while, waiting in silence, they realized that nothing had changed. The floor rocked slightly and steadily, as a boat would, but no waves slapped their hull. It was too dark to see anything.

"Are we at sea?" Laoina asked finally in a whisper.

"I think not." Adica searched out their surroundings by touch. They might as well have been sealed inside a huge acorn; she found no trace of door or shutter, beam ceiling or dirt floor, only unknown patterns and textures covering the walls.” We are trapped."

"Nay, do not say so," objected Alain.” Let us wait, sleep, and restore our strength. Maybe what seems dark now will seem more clear after."

"Good advice," agreed Laoina.” Even from a man whose god fits in his sleeve."

Alain laughed. His laughter made the darkness lighten, although there was in fact no actual change. They shared out water and a portion of the remaining provisions between the five of them. Afterward, Adica listened as Laoina settled down, making herself a nest, such as she could, for sleep. The Akka woman's breathing slowed and deepened. The dogs panted, and then began to snore.

Secrets lie buried in the dark, where they fester and rot. Wasn't it better to be truthful, no matter how harsh truth was?

"I'm going to die," she murmured, finding Alain's body and pulling him close.

"No, you're not! The Holy One sent me to protect you. I'll see you safely through this. I'll see you safely to the great weaving you've spoken of. Don't you believe I can do that?"

She rested her cheek where his shoulder curved into the soft vulnerability of his throat. Tears slid from her eyes to course down his skin.” Of course, my love. Of course you will."

She could not go on. Grief choked her.

He found by touch the knots that closed her bodice. The darkness, and the silence, lent an intensity to their touching, just as rage and sorrow did: rage at fate for tearing from her the life she could never have, with him; sorrow at the loss that would come. Death did not mean as much to her, at that moment, as losing him. She had learned to live in solitude, even when she was married to Beor, but she had never understood how lonely her life had been until Alain had come to her.