Shards of Time (21 page)

The boy let out a choking gasp and Mika screamed again, in both fear and anger this time. For the first time since he’d become Master Thero’s apprentice, he saw the world go red, the way it had when the bully down the lane tried to beat him up, or when Mistress Swan had unfairly accused him of stealing from her apple cart and slapped him. The world went red and his body felt like it was going to catch fire. But it was the cudgel that burst into flame before the man could bring it down on the helpless boy again. The bully dropped it with a shout of fear, then aimed a kick at Mika’s friend.

“No!” Mika yelled, thrusting his hand out. The man flew through the air and landed on his back several yards away.

The silent boy scrambled up and grabbed Mika’s right hand, urging him again to run the way they’d come. The red was gone, and with it Mika’s strength. The numbness in his arm was giving way to stabbing pain, and his legs and head felt so heavy that if it hadn’t been for the glimpse he had of the man chasing them again, he would have just fallen down and curled up in a ball of misery. It was always like that, after the red.

But his friend wouldn’t let him stop. Instead he got behind Mika and pushed, hard. Mika staggered, caught his toe on something, and fell …

A
CCOMPANIED
by half a dozen soldiers, Klia and the others rode through the ruins of the city to the east gate and climbed into the hills just beyond, following a broad path beside a stream that flowed down toward the river.

They soon came to a rare stand of hoary oaks flanking the stream at the base of a steep cliff face. As they entered the shaded grove, they could smell fragrant smoke. At the far side of the grove lay the entrance to the oracle’s cave.

Although the oracle’s chamber was a natural cave, the area before it was paved with smooth stone and a façade had been carved into the rock face around a low doorway at its center. Two armed guards stood on duty here, and bowed to them as they approached.

A simple stone altar stood before the doorway under a silver-and-blue canopy. Piles of stone lay around the edge of the clearing, together with several large wooden wheelbarrows and a number of pickaxes, pry bars, and spades stacked neatly against a tree.

“As you can see, this site is still being reclaimed,” Zella said, gesturing at the disarray. “We’d only just found the inner chamber when Toneus died. Since then all work has stopped.”

“That’s understandable,” said Klia.

They dismounted and gathered around the altar. Two basins were carved into the top of it. One held clear water; in the other a charcoal fire burned brightly. Behind this, graceful columns topped with Illior’s crescent moon flanked a low
doorway, and the wall behind them was decorated with a huge bas-relief showing processions of people in ancient dress, some carrying baskets of fruit and garlands of flowers, others with censers on chains, or with owls perched on their outstretched arms. A light breeze stirred the bright new leaves of the oaks, casting moving shadows across the figures.

“How lovely!” Klia exclaimed.

“You should have seen it a few months ago,” said Zella, looking around with satisfaction. “It was completely overgrown with brambles and vines, and there was significant damage to the stonework. The altar is new. The original had been smashed to bits, but there were enough large pieces to approximate what it had looked like. As you might imagine, the Plenimarans had little respect for the Lightbearer.”

“Toneus did a marvelous job here and in the city. We are certainly in his debt.”

“I’d like to make an offering, but didn’t think to bring anything,” said Thero.

“I took the liberty, my lord.” Zella opened her saddlebag and brought out pouches of incense and owl feathers. “The honor is yours, Highness.”

“We are all followers of Illior,” Klia replied. “Everyone, take some.”

Together they threw their offerings into the flames. A column of fragrant white smoke underscored with the acrid smell of burnt feathers rose under the branches.

Zella had brought small torches, which they lit at the altar fire. One of their escort went through the low door first, then stepped out and made way for Klia. Seregil followed her and Thero, with Alec and Micum. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust from the brightness of the day to the torchlight, but once they did he let out a startled gasp. The rough stone walls of the small cave were covered in drawings done in everything from charcoal to silver paint. Owls, eyes, clouds, moons seemed to cover every surface, overlapping like a haphazard quilt. The floor was uneven, but worn smooth by centuries of supplicants’ feet. A low, crescent-shaped wooden stool stood at the back of the chamber, next to an empty tripod
brazier. Both looked new. Beside the stool was another tunnel, just tall enough for a man to stand up in.

“This is an antechamber, isn’t it?” he asked. “The real chamber is through there. Is it still passable?”

“There are two inner chambers as it turns out, only recently discovered. This tunnel here was blocked with rubble by the Plenimarans, probably when they smashed the altar. The innermost was hidden behind a stone tablet and leads down to an amazing cave. Toneus opened them both. Be careful in the third one; part of the wall fell in when the tunnel was opened.”

“We must see them,” said Klia, standing beside Seregil to look into the tunnel.

“There is always the possibility of snakes, though they’re usually very docile if left alone,” warned Zella. “The first one through should take a torch, just in case. There’s a lightstone in the inner chamber.”

“I’ll go first,” said Seregil. “We can’t take any chances with you, Highness.”

“I suppose not. Go ahead.”

Seregil entered the tunnel and held out his torch. No immediate sign of serpents, but the ceiling was very low and the way was not straight, though here, too, the floor was shiny and smooth, worn down by the thousands of people who’d visited to this sacred place before him.

The tunnel swerved this way and that, up and down several times. Seregil guessed he’d gone perhaps thirty feet or so when he saw light ahead and found himself in a chamber half the size of the antechamber, with a ceiling not much higher than his head. At the center of the room stood another small, crescent-shaped stool and brazier, but these, though similar in design to the others, were clearly ancient. The stool was black with age and the seat cracked in several places, but he could still make out the inlay of silver tracery that covered it. The brazier, like the knife in the library museum in Deep Harbor, was eroded by time and green with age. Instead of fire, a lightstone made from a large quartz crystal sat in the pitted basin, illuminating the smoke-streaked, unadorned
walls. To his left, a small tunnel led away into deeper darkness, and there was stonework around this one. The center had been cut out by a skillful mason, but the outer edges remained, showing that it had been a rectangular tablet with rounded corners three feet by two.

The oracle might have fallen silent, but there was still an air of the sacred and deep secrets here. Closing his eyes, Seregil could almost hear whispering voices and ancient chants. He wondered what dreams he would have if he slept here, and felt a sudden yearning to do that. Just then, however, Klia joined him. Thero and Alec followed close behind, and the room suddenly felt crowded.

“Where’s Micum?” asked Seregil.

“Here.” The tall man had to stoop a bit so as not to hit his head.

“It smells odd in here,” said Seregil, sniffing the air. It was a flat, slightly metallic odor.

“It can’t be dangerous or Zella would have warned us,” said Klia.

Seregil sniffed some more. “It’s coming from this other tunnel, from the third chamber.”

Thero pressed a hand to the stone wall. “I feel like I’m falling into time itself,” he whispered, echoing Seregil’s thoughts. “There was great magic here once. Fair and foul. Darkness and light.”

“Foul?” asked Klia.

“From a long, long time ago. I think—I think something bad happened here.”

“Something that silenced the oracle?” Alec suggested.

“Perhaps.”

Seregil inspected the remains of the tablet more closely. The workmanship was of high quality, though there wasn’t enough left of it or any markings to tell how old it was.

“It looks like someone sealed off this tunnel on purpose,” said Micum, joining him. “Maybe to keep out the vapors?”

“Maybe.”

Klia, meanwhile, was inspecting the stool. She ran a hand reverently over the seat, tracing the silver inlay with her fingers.
“Can you imagine?” she murmured. “For centuries the oracles sat here, prophesying for the great ones.”

“Very small seers,” Micum noted. “I’d have my knees up around my ears if I tried to sit on that. That’s sized more for a child.”

“A child?” Klia went suddenly pale. “Shut away in here, year after year? Illior’s—” Clapping a hand over her mouth, she ducked into the tunnel the way they’d come and they could hear her hurrying away.

Thero followed in dismay, leaving the others looking at one another in surprise.

“I’ve never seen her react to anything that way,” said Seregil.

“Could be the bad air,” Micum suggested.

Alec started toward the outer tunnel. “We’d better go see if they need help.”

But Micum put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him. “If you were Klia, would you want your friends watching you puke?”

“No, I guess not.”

Seregil stuck the end of the torch through a space in the metalwork of the brazier, pulled his tool roll from his coat, and took out the lightstone set on a knurled wooden handle. “Less likely to burn off our eyebrows with this,” he said, tucking the roll away.

“True.” Alec retrieved his.

Micum hunkered down to look into the tunnel and shook his head. “Damnation, I can’t fit through there. Guess I’ll wait up here. Holler if you need me to find someone skinny to send down to save you.”

The tunnel was much narrower and shorter, making it necessary to proceed on hands and knees. After a few feet it pitched down quite steeply. Coming back would be a bit of a scramble, but obviously people had managed it.

Seregil slid the last few feet and ended up lying on his belly in a shallow puddle of very cold water. “Less chance of snakes, at least,” he muttered, climbing to his feet just in time to get out of the way as Alec slid out of the tunnel.

“Damn!” Alec sputtered in surprise.

Seregil chuckled and offered a hand. “You looked like a calf being born.”

“Thanks for that,” Alec grumbled, taking his hand and pulling himself up. They were both soaked and dripping, and the cave was cold. “The smell is definitely stronger here.”

“There must be a natural vent letting in vapors of some sort. If you start to feel dizzy or odd, let me know, and I’ll do the same. They can be unhealthy.”

“I will. Let’s have a look around.”

They both held up their lights and gasped.

“Illior’s Light!” Alec exclaimed softly. His hushed voice echoed in sibilant whispers around the chamber, underscored by the
plink plink
of dripping water.

The chamber was much larger than the other two, so much so that their lights didn’t reach the far wall. What they could see, however, took their breath away. Zella’s brief description had not prepared them for this.

The walls were alive with drawings, done in charcoal, chalk, and ocher.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Alec, walking farther in, light held aloft.

“Neither have I.” Seregil approached the nearest wall to examine the drawing of an elk. Beside it was a pair of lynxes with tufted ears and spots on their backs. They were walking side by side along the wall, one visible behind the other. The artist—or artists—had had a good eye and a deft hand, rendering the images with a minimum of strong, flowing lines and clever shading that made each animal look almost real. Seregil moved along the wall, wet boots forgotten, finding more and more beautifully drawn animals: deer, owls, otters, snakes, more cats, turtles, fish, eagles, hummingbirds, and gulls, even an octopus. Here and there were partial handprints, where the artist had perhaps rested a hand as he or she paused in the work. Farther on was a whole span of ocher handprints, thirty or forty at least, and all the same size. Each showed a missing ring finger; they’d all been made by the same person with his left hand. Seregil held his own hand over one of them. The print was larger and the uppermost ones were above Seregil’s reach. A tall man, this artist.

“Seregil, look at this.”

He turned to find Alec surrounded by the pale nimbus of his lightstone, fifty or so feet away, standing before a veritable forest of dripstone formations. Here was the source of the dripping water. Crenulated columns of wet, glistening limestone formations twice as tall as Alec reached up toward the long tapering fingers that hung from the ceiling. Color was hard to make out in the light, but they were striped light and dark with various minerals.

Seregil splashed across the cave to join him and their combined lights revealed more fantastical shapes—a lump on an outcropping of stone that looked like a dragon’s head; a wide, striped ribbon of stone hanging above them like a giant slice of bacon; others that looked like drapery; and tiny pale pipes like hollow wheat stalks. Many formations on the floor of the cave and up the walls had been recently broken, carried off no doubt by the workman who’d first found this place. The whole back wall of the cave was obscured by the formations, and a thin glaze of whitish stone had dripped like thin icing over the paintings on the wall there. There was also evidence of a small cave-in. Rubble still lay in a heap at the foot of the wall, though it appeared that a good amount had been removed.