Temple of the Traveler: Book 02 - Dreams of the Fallen (39 page)

“What kind of gemstones are these?” Sajika asked.

The jeweler, a friend of Legato’s father and the final advisor said, “Storm crystals—they’re rare and brittle. Drop one on a paving stone and you’ve got sand. People pay big money for them because they fluoresce by the light of a storm or the Compass Star.”

Legato nodded. “You can tell the paths the miners wore through this area from the narrow trails of sand on the floor.”

“That one looks like a cactus,” said the poet who’d been picked as the prince’s fourth advisor. The men made fun of him because he wore a floppy, velvet hat, but he won them over by making up ribald rhymes to entertain the group. Pinetto refused to learn the names of the remaining men.

“It’s a bloody money tree,” said Kasha.

Beyond the ring of crystals was a narrow lake. Past that was a shore with even bigger treasures. A row of stalactites had grown together with the stalagmites to form crystal columns up to twenty feet tall. “They’re teeth,” said the poet.

“Broken ones,” said Kasha, pointing to several that had shattered and fallen. One column lay about three-quarters of the way across the water.

“Probably from the earthquake,” Legato guessed.

“To me, they look like bars to a jail cell,” Sajika noted. She had a torch in her left hand and a bolo in her right.

Men began picking up loose fragments and stuffing their pouches with the wealth that littered the room. The pieces weren’t sharp like glass; rather, the shapes were hard and clumped, like large sticks of the sugar candy.

Legato tried in vain to get his men to focus on the mission.

Pinetto walked to the shore nearest the fallen pillar. The remaining gap was less than three strides. He could make out an evenly spaced series of humps on the lake bottom between him and his goal. The astronomer began kicking the nearest crystal cluster and tossing the chunks onto the nearest hump.

The jeweler yelled, “Are you insane? You’re destroying a fortune.” The jeweler strode forward to recover a large hexagonal treasure. As he bent over, the smith snagged him by the waist and yanked back.

“That’s probably acid, remember?” asked the large man, politely. “I worked with some recently. Do you have any baking soda?” Nobody did. “Okay. Take a strip of colored cloth, dip it into the lake, and then hold it next to the torch.”

The jeweler did so. There was no smoking or bubbling, but the color bleached out talactihe fabric. Within heartbeats, in the increased heat, the fabric looked like moths had been chewing on it for years. “Many thanks,” said the jeweler, wiggling a finger through the biggest hole.

The astronomer ignored the drama and kept working. When the mound stuck out of the acid far enough, Pinetto laid his plank across the gap. He retrieved his torch, sprinted to the board, and jumped to the log-like crystal column. Balancing precariously, he padded quickly into the mouth of the crystalline jail cell on the far side.

This cave was only two men high, but its maze stretched through a dense forest of crystals in three directions. Falling pillars had created a small void in the forest where they could stand.

“He never left,” said the smith on the pillar behind her.

“But the weird behavior, the cheese?” she reminded him, getting out of the entryway.

“Spirits of the air have a very acute sense of smell and can be repelled by strong odors. The cheese wasn’t there to eat; it was a defense,” the astronomer explained in a whisper.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” she asked.

“Because Eutheron targets people who know too much. It’s safe to talk here. These crystals inhibit spirit powers. I think the other gods were trying to starve her to death in this cell. It made her rabid.”

Kasha stepped through the teeth next. The clearing was getting crowded. Pinetto pulled a crafted obsidian arc from a niche and rotated it like a blade in the torchlight. “Behold frozen fire, the foundation for a kingdom to rest upon.” He admired it for a moment, memorizing the reflective qualities. Thrusting the polished stone at the knifeman, he snapped, “Start a bucket brigade to get these throne pieces out.”

The prince’s face changed from an irritated sneer to the pale gape of a man who’d just deduced his house was burning. He pushed out of the cave past Kasha. “You do the running; I’ll do the shouting. All right, maggots, build on the humps as fast as you can. Use whatever we have, crystals, more signs, blankets and bedrolls if you have to. Move!”

Each of the three searchers located a piece and returned it to the prince, who ordered, “You, hand this across to the other side. Don’t drop it.”

It was like a scavenger hunt under a castle wall, where boiling oil could be dumped on them at any time. They found two pieces of the throne lodged behind a skeleton in a crevice. “What stuffed him in here?” wondered the smith.

“He was probably hiding from the monster,” guessed Sajika. She found two more obsidian shapes under a fallen stalactite. “It doesn’t look like any of the Imperials who brought the throne here escaped.”

“There are thirteen people out there. Other than my keystone and the seat, there are twenty-seven pieces. Giving three pieces to each man makes nine bearers. Send a torch with each group of three runners. When you get a complete group,
run
to the elevator,” the prince shouted to his team.

“That leaves nine of us for the last piece,” said Pinetto.

“What else aren’t you telling us?” asked the smith.

Pinetto looked at his friend. “You know how this works. I tell you what I can when I can. Just be ready to follow my lead in about three more feedings.”

“Brothers,” said the smith, punching him in the shoulder as a gesture of solidarity. The astronomer nearly fumbled the L-shaped throne part he was carrying.

The next time she passed Pinetto, Sajika slugged him in the other arm. “Ouch, what’d you do that for?”

“The prince told me I could,” said the ambassador. “That’s for worrying me sick. I’ll give you the reward for protecting me and finding the throne later.”

****

Twenty-three bits later, Legato shouted back into the cave where the runners hunted, “My ass is hanging out in the breeze here.” Only the five in the cave, the poet, the jeweler, and two nervous spearmen remained. Everyone else had fled. The four relay men outside the cell crowded the shore. The poet had Pinetto’s torch so there would be some light in the larger cave.

The smith took the fire-opal ring out of his pouch. It was too small to fit on any finger but his pinky. When he shoved it over his knuckle and turned the stone out, the room lit with an orange glow. “We could’ve used this earlier.”

Sweat dripping into his eyes, Pinetto said, “That’d never happen. If she wanted the seat, she would’ve taken it back at . . .” Then, he leaped to the entrance and hopped down the crystal bridge, intent on following an idea. The jeweler stood on the final mound in the lake, blocking the path. “Excuse me, could you—” There was a popping overhead and a plink as a pebble struck the lake. “Jump!”

There was a horrible wail from the ceiling, followed by the crack of stone shattering. Pinetto dove for the shore, not quite making it. His right boot filled with acid. Stalactites rained down on the jeweler and he fell backward into the lake.

Hands trembling, Pinetto pulled his boot off and tossed it across the chamber.

The prince peered out to see a crystal spike piercing the jeweler’s midsection. The mist given off by his dissolving body formed a four-armed humanoid creature, nine feet tall.

“I thought you said the acid wasn’t that fast-acting,” squawked the prince.

“That’s Eutheron sucking the life-force out of him. She’s getting more solid with every feeding, using the energy to project . . .”

For the first time, everyone heard the spectral voices. The voices blended into a chorus. “
We shall eat you last, child of Osos. Your fear makes every meal sweeter.
”

The mist began to coalesce into a pale face, with large, black eyes on the front. This told Pinetto that Eutheron’s form was designed to be a predator. The multiple arms said she could take on several opponents at once. The scars lacing her skin said that the hideous creature had survived scores of battles. Fortunately, the back-sloping forehead meant she probably wasn’t too bright. The eyes closed in bliss as the mouth puckered over the forehead of the dead man. She was temporarily oblivious to the searchers. The smith drew the Defender of the Realm, but had no clue if it would affect the swirling mist.

“Kill it!” the poet bleated in terror.

“Not yet. We must leave before she finishes her feeding!” Pinetto shouted to the others. “The seat isn’t in here.”

Sajika was first to sprint across, passing within two feet of the horror. Keeping an eye on the monster, the ambassador helped her lover get his smoking sock off.

The knifeman was next, not turning his back on the beast.

“Let me rinse your foot,” the ambassador said as Pinetto stood up.

“Later!” said the astronomer, clomping along at an increasing pace toward the exit. He thought,
Until then, urine down my leg will have to suffice.
The sand from the path stuck to his damp foot.

The smith accompanied Legato, trying to stand between the heir and the monster at all times.

Without warning, as they squeezed past the feeding monster, the prince stretched at full extension to pluck the jeweler’s sesterina-coated dagger from the dead man’s hip. At the critical moment, the poet shouted, “The head’s disappearing!” He grabbed the biggest available crystal and fled the cave.

The prince tottered at the distraction and would’ve fallen if the smith hadn’t caught him. The prince didn’t complain about being manhandled as Baran set his feet back on safe, dry land.

“Your
brain
is disappearing,” muttered Legato. Handing the anti-spirit dagger to Kasha, he ordered, “I’ve already got one of these. You take rearguard until we find out where our wizard’s heading. Everyone, follow those torches!”

“Do you think he’s lost his nerve?” asked Kasha, falling in behind the others.

“Out of all of us, I think he’ll be the one to find it, the last piece,” said the prince. “We just have to keep him alive till he does.”

****

They ran through the trapped tunnel, around the lake of man-eating fish, and stopped at the sandy-floored chamber where the rune stones foretelling death had been cast. Eight other people stood around watching Pinetto pant. The prince bellowed, “Can you share with the rest of the class?”

“The seat is the biggest piece that takes the full concentration of three men to move. If you had a choice, would you have carried the seat into that nightmare we just went through?” asked Pinetto.

Kasha answered, “Hell, no. We couldn’t squeeze past the traps with three carriers, and the ledge of the fish room is too narrow. That beast could grab one ankle and we’d all get dragged in.”

Pinetto laid a finger beside his nose. “Then the people who brought it in wouldn’t have done it either. Think like a tired bearer who’s being chased by a killer, skull-eating giant. Where’s the one place you could hide something that big since we left the main chamber with the rail cars?”

“You’re a bloody genius,” Legato said, looking down at the sand. “Men with spears, use your weapons to sound for the seat. Your tip won’t go as deep and it’ll have a different sound than the cave limestone or onyx. Use arrows and daggers, too.”

The smith extinguished his ring, sheathed the Defender, and helped the others probe the cave floor. Sajika held her torch high, watching the men on their knees. After ten bits of comical and disappointed thrusting, she muttered, “There’s a metaphor in here somewhere.”

Pinetto was the only one to smile.