“So did you,” said Rose, “when you raised your hand against the captain appointed by your Emperor. Listen to me, Turach: I alone will decide who is to be disposed of, and when.”
One side of Drellarek’s mouth curled upward, as though Rose’s words amused him, but he said no more. Again Thasha felt her suspicions rise. Whatever Rose was up to, it wasn’t about saving Peytr. She had her doubts that he meant to confront Arunis at all.
But Oggosk means to, that’s for certain
.
Oggosk was already hobbling up the slope, leaning heavily on her stick. The others followed, hugging their soggy coats more tightly about them. Soon they were exposed once more to the wind, which was fierce and cold.
Once Pazel stumbled, and began to roll perilously toward a cliff. Thasha, Hercól and Dastu all leaped after him, but swifter than any of them was Dr. Chadfallow. With a scramble and a tremendous lurch he reached Pazel and caught his arm, stopping him just feet from the cliff. Breathless, Pazel looked the doctor in the eye. Neither he nor Chadfallow said a word.
Minutes later they gained the ridgetop, not far from its crowning temple, and stepped into the full morning sun. A spectacular sight opened before them. Dhola’s Rib was much larger than Thasha had supposed. It was shaped much like its namesake bone. They had landed on the only west-facing beach. The eastern side of the island, however, curved away for nine or ten miles before sharpening to a wave-swept point. The long beaches there were ablaze with sunlight.
And covering those beaches were thousands upon thousands of animals. They were seals, enormous, rust-colored seals. They lolled and flopped and surged in and out of the waves, one huge congregation after another, merging into a solid carpet of bodies in the distance. From every pod came the booming, wailing, rippling song they had heard in the darkness. It rose and fell with the gusting wind, now soft, now suddenly high and drowning out all speech.
“Pipe-organ seals!” grunted Rose with a vigorous nod. “It fits. Yes, it fits.”
“Well, I’ll be a candy-arsed cadet,” said Drellarek. “Pipers? Them beasts that come ashore just once every nine years?”
“And on just nine beaches in Alifros,” said Hercól.
“Eight,” said Chadfallow. “The ninth beach was on Gurishal, where the Shaggat’s worshippers have known generations of hunger. One night a few decades ago they heard the singing, and rushed the beach, and killed thousands for their meat. The seals that escaped never returned to Gurishal.”
He shielded his eyes, marveling at the sight before them. “To the old tribes of the Crownless Lands these animals were sacred, and to hear their song was a mighty omen. What a stroke of luck to arrive today! Look there, the pups are learning to swim!”
For a moment they all watched in silence. Then Drellarek pointed and gave a belly laugh. “And the sharks are helping out with the lesson! D’ye see ’em, boys?”
Thasha saw them: the churning dorsal fins, the pups vanishing one after another beneath the darkening foam. Those ashore kept coming, unaware of the carnage farther out. Thasha repressed a shudder, irritated by her response (Hercól would not flinch, her father would not flinch). But laughter? That was worse, abominable. She saw Pazel looking at Drellarek with unguarded hate. Was he thinking of Ormael—the men gutted and thrown from the fishing pier, while her father, in command of the attacking fleet, sat at anchor offshore?
“Ouch! Pitfire!” cried Drellarek happily, still watching the sharks. “You’re right, Chadfallow, you don’t see
that
kind of show every day! Don’t look, Lady Oggosk—Lady Oggosk?”
The witch had left them behind again. They hurried after her, climbing straight for the temple. Thasha could now see a curious feature of the building: its windows. They were small, irregular ovals, scattered apparently at random across the domed roof, gaping like toothless mouths.
“That is Dhola’s Manse,” said Chadfallow as they climbed. “It is only a ruin now, but centuries before the Rinfaith was born it was a mighty cloister, built over the island’s only spring. I do not know if anyone in Alifros knows the full story of its builders. They vanished, leaving only a name—
Bracek Dhola
, Dhola’s Rib—and a handful of legends among the shore folk of the western isles.”
“So we don’t even know how they died?” asked Thasha.
“It may have been the spring,” said Chadfallow. “At some point in history the water changed, arising from the depths tainted with oils and foul minerals. It is deadly now—and in some chambers, boiling hot. One of those legends holds that outsiders came and seized the temple for a war-base, and killed the priests who lived here. In some stories those outsiders are Arqualis, in others men of the Pentarchy, or Noonfirth, or even some realm south of the Ruling Sea. But all the tales end the same way: with the last priest uttering a curse, and the poisons appearing in the spring.”
They hurried up the trail. The wind grew even stronger, as though trying to blow them sideways off the ridge. Soon Pazel’s teeth were chattering. Thasha looked at him and tried to smile.
“Hot water,” she said. “That sounds blary wonderful.”
Pazel grinned at her, and at all once Thasha felt more hopeful than she had in days. Then Pazel glanced up to where Rose and Oggosk waited in the temple doorway. His face darkened with confusion, and he turned from Thasha with a scowl.
The doorway was a square black hole. The party huddled just inside, out of the wind, as Hercól and the soldiers lit torches. The air inside was warm and moist. Thasha sniffed: there was a strange odor, too, a biting smell, like a harsh drug or mineral spirits. Before them ran a rough stone corridor, strewn with the bones of birds and the leavings of other visitors: a broken sandal, a ring of fire-scorched stones, an obscene rhyme scratched in charcoal on the wall.
Rose beckoned Pazel near. He clapped a hand on the tarboy’s shoulder.
“What’s on Dhola’s Rib?” he said, in the manner of someone asking a riddle.
Pazel looked him up and down. “I don’t know, Captain,” he said at last. “Seals?”
“Seals, and a sibyl,” said Rose. “A sibyl, a creature with the second-sight. She could tell you the very hour of your death if she wished. But don’t fear her. You’re with me, and the sibyl is fond of Nilus Rose. You might say she’s an old friend of the family.”
He put two fingers in his mouth and withdrew something about the size of a peach pit. He held it up for all to see. It was a white stone, carved on one side in the form of a woman’s face.
“I’ve kept this in my mouth since Simja. She likes that sort of thing. Likes her presents to have felt the warmth of human flesh.”
Thasha fought the urge to back away from the captain. He was mad; and his eye had a crafty gleam.
“I have a little question for her,” Rose went on. “A private matter between me and my kin. But she’s tricky, this sibyl. When she comes you have to think fast, and talk sweet. And even if you persuade her you’re a friend, she may answer in some language you don’t understand. That’s where you come in, Pathkendle.”
He put the stone back in his mouth and placed his hand on Pazel’s shoulder.
“Arunis wants her to answer
his
questions,” he rumbled. “But he’s never bothered to come here before. I have the sibyl’s favor, and a present, and a wise witch to help me. And you, lad—you’re of great worth to me, this day.”
“Don’t forget the girl, Nilus,” said Oggosk. “She too is here to help you.”
Rose glanced doubtfully at Thasha. “I’ll not forget any aid I receive today. Nor any hindrance.”
He took a torch from one of the soldiers and led them down the corridor. After about twenty yards it ended in two narrow staircases, rising to left and right, and a third, wider, that descended straight ahead. The steps were worn until they seemed half melted, like steps carved from soap. The middle staircase divided into two some thirty feet below.
“The maze begins,” said Rose.
Thasha saw Hercól and Drellarek exchange a look. The Turach’s lips shaped a silent question:
Maze?
Oggosk pointed to the left-hand stair, and up they climbed, single-file, with Rose leading the way and the Turachs bringing up the rear. It was a stumbling, awkward climb: the corroded steps had no truly level surfaces any longer, and their feet tended to slide. They passed a tiny corridor exiting the stairs, and then another identical. At the third such hallway Oggosk pointed with her stick. Rose left the stairs and crept into the hall, crouching low. Embers fell from his torch as it knocked against the ceiling.
Even in this black, cramped corridor they could hear the wind outside, and the endless song of the seals. They passed many other halls, and took several turns, all chosen by the witch. Once they passed through a little chamber with an iron grate set in the floor. Steam issued from it, and a stronger whiff of that drug-like smell Thasha had caught in the doorway.
Then Rose turned a sharp corner, and they were descending again: this time down a spiral staircase, even more corroded and hazardous than the previous steps. The air grew warm and heavy with moisture. Around and around they went, shuffling, choking on torch smoke, until Thasha was certain they had descended much farther than they had climbed.
Finally the staircase ended, and Rose led them down a hallway tighter than any of the others, the Turachs’ armored shoulders scraping the walls with every step. The narcotic smell was all but overpowering here. Thasha tensed, aware that some deep part of her was shouting an alarm:
You could get drunk on that smell
—
drunk, or worse
. Then they turned a corner, and Lady Oggosk cried, “Ah! Here we are.”
A great chamber opened before them. It was round, and composed of many stone rings, one within another, descending like the levels of an amphitheater. The edges of the room were dark: Thasha could just make out a number of stone balconies, some with crumbling rails, and many black corridors leading away.
But the center of the room was lit by fire. It was a breathtaking sight: a polished stone circle twenty paces wide or more, orange like the sun before it sets. The stone was cracked into a dozen pieces; it resembled a dinner plate smashed with a rock. The spaces between these shards were filled with water, to within a few inches of the top of the stone. And the surface of the water was burning: low blue flames that raced and died and puffed to life again, as though fed by some vapor bubbling up through the water itself.
At the center of the cracked orange stone sat Arunis, cross-legged, his tattered white scarf knotted at the neck. His back was to the newcomers, and his
Polylex
lay open before him.
Peytr crouched a few paces away, hugging his knees. When the big tarboy saw the newcomers, he rose with a cry: “Captain Rose! I didn’t want to help him, sir! He said he’d kill me in my sleep if I didn’t!”
The newcomers filed into the room. Rose, Hercól and the Turachs descended the stone rings toward the room’s fiery center. “You’re a coward and a fool,” Drellarek shouted at Peytr.
“Or a liar,” muttered Pazel.
“Get over here, Bourjon,” snapped Rose.
The big tarboy was panic-stricken. He looked from the captain to the sorcerer and back again. Then Arunis turned his head, showing them his profile.
“Go,” he said.
Peytr ran to the captain, hopping over the cracks with their whispering flames. Rose stepped forward and intercepted him, seizing a fistful of hair. “Drellarek here thinks I should have left you to die,” he said.
Peytr’s eyes pleaded for clemency. Thasha looked at him with a kind of disgusted fascination. There was nothing false about his fear.
“The sorcerer can kill no one, Mr. Bourjon,” said Chadfallow. “Have you forgotten that to do so would risk the death of his own king?” But Arunis, still watching them from the corner of his eye, smiled at the doctor’s words.
The captain raised a fist high over his head. Then, gradually, he relaxed his grip on Peytr’s hair. He pointed at the doorway they had come by. “Stand there. Don’t move and don’t speak.” Peytr leaped to obey, shoving between Pazel and Thasha in his haste.
Arunis turned away once more. He placed a hand on the open
Polylex
, on a page with a large circular diagram. Drellarek looked sharply at Rose, drew his fingers across his neck. The mage was as vulnerable now as he would ever be. Hercól raised a cautioning hand, and Oggosk shook her head. Rose hesitated, eyes full of wrath and distance. Then he glanced up at Drellarek and nodded.
Drellarek moved with brutal swiftness. He glided softly down to the orange stone, unsheathing his Turach greatsword as he went. Nearing Arunis, he raised it for a single, killing blow.
“Can your witch detect a lie?” said Arunis, without moving.
Drellarek hesitated, looking back over his shoulder.
“She can,” said Rose, “if her captain requires it.”
“Then ask her the truth of this, you spawn of a toad-faced polygamist: I, Arunis Wytterscorm, have the power to sink your ship whenever I choose, and will do so if you harm me.”
For a moment no one breathed. Oggosk put out her withered hand and took hold of Rose’s coat, made him bend to her ear and whispered urgently. Rose’s face hardened with repressed fury. He pulled irritably away from the old woman, and waved Drellarek off.
Arunis laughed, closing the
Polylex
. He tossed the end of his white scarf over his shoulder and rose slowly to his feet. Thasha saw that he had concealed a weapon beneath his cloak: a black mace, studded with cruel iron spikes. She had never seen it before.
“I told you in the Straits,” said the mage, looking them over, “that I was the sole master of the
Chathrand
. What you did to my king only delayed the last reckoning. You are my instruments. You are small flutes and horns in the symphony of my triumph. What do I care if you manage the occasional squeak?”
“You monster,” said Pazel suddenly. “We’ll see who plays with whom when Ramachni comes back.”
“Ramachni?” said Arunis, as though trying to remember. “Ah yes. The mage who enlists you to a deluded cause, then scurries away to safety like the rodent he is, leaving you to fight alone. The trickster who hides under the skirts of a girl, only to cast her off when it seems her life is forfeit. Would he return if you were writhing in pain again, girl? Not sure, hmm? Never fear, you will be.”