When the Heavens Fall (11 page)

Romany sniffed. “Such deplorable manners,” she scolded the old man. “And such foolishness, too, to strike at me before I have even stated my cause.”

Mayot's expression showed neither surprise nor remorse. “I think an explanation is called for if you wish to continue this conversation in a more civil fashion. Now, who sent you? Avallon? The Black Tower?”

Romany recalled the names from her discussions with the Spider. “Does my accent sound to you like that of someone from Erin Elal?”

“I'll ask the questions. How did you find me?”

“Why, through that, of course,” the priestess said, gesturing to the book in his lap.

“Explain.”

“You cannot be blind to the magic radiating from that thing, nor the effect it is having on the forest outside. Did you think your meddling would go undetected?”

“Meddling?” Mayot said softly.

“Well, if I may be blunt, your clumsy attempts to unlock the Book's secrets have proved less than successful to date, am I right?”

The mage's left eyelid began to flutter. “Careful, woman.”

Romany had to admire his self-control in the face of her provocation, yet at the same time it made her curious to see how far she could goad him before his composure cracked. “You are finding that the passages are blurred or unintelligible, yes? That the language defies comprehension? That you read some sentences only to discover you have forgotten the words before you reach the end?”

“And you are offering to help, I take it?”

The priestess smiled her most endearing smile, only to see it fall on stony ground. “Precisely. To read the Book of Lost Souls is to traverse a great maze. You might wander for years and still not find what you are seeking. To decipher even the simplest section will take more time than you have.”

“Time?” Mayot said. “I have all the time I need.”

“Would that were so. Alas, I am not the only person to have been alerted by the Book's … reawakening. Your next visitor may not prove as genial as I am.”

“Then he will die at my hands.”

Romany rolled her eyes. The arrogance of men! “And if Shroud himself has taken an interest? Sent his servants against you?”

Mayot took the bait. “Now why would he do that?”

“Perhaps because he felt threatened.”

The mage's eyes glittered. “The Book would give me such power?”

Romany made no response. Instead she put on an exaggerated frown. Let the old man think he had deduced something she would rather have kept secret.

Mayot studied her for a long moment, then continued, “And you expect me to believe that you would just surrender this power to me? Why? What do you stand to gain?”

“Perhaps in promoting your interests, I further my own.”

“Which are?”

“Not your concern, my Lord.”

Mayot considered. “You say it would take centuries to learn the Book's secrets. How is it, then, that you claim to know them?”

A fair point, but Romany was ready for it. “Not
know
them, merely how to
unlock
them.”

“Nevertheless, the question stands. I sense an immortal's hand in this.”

Not a muscle twitched in the priestess's face. “You flatter me.”

“That's not what I meant, as you well know.”

Romany unleashed the voice she reserved for her most troublesome acolytes. “Do not presume to tell me what I do and do not know.” An evasion, of course, but all part of the game. Her caginess would do nothing to allay Mayot's suspicions, but doubtless she'd already done enough to catch this particular fish on her hook. All she had to do now was wait for the old man's ambition to reel him in.

Sure enough, it was the mage who at last broke the silence. “I assume this help of yours involves me handing over the Book to you.”

“Not at all. You need only lower the wards you have placed round the dais. A few moments—”

Mayot's chuckle cut her off. “Ah. Now I understand.”

“No, you do not!” Romany said, stamping her foot. “If I wanted the Book for myself, would I not take it
before
I delivered its power to you?”

“I see no reason to put that to the test.”

“And if I should decide to dismantle your defenses myself?”

The mage clasped the Book to his chest. “If you could, you would have done so already.”

Not true, but battering down the old man's shields would serve only to advertise her presence here as clearly as Mayot had heralded his. “That would hardly be a good way to build trust between us, my Lord. Trust we will need if we are to work together in this.”

The mage snorted. “You expect me to trust you?”

“I don't see that you have any choice. Without my aid you will still be wearing your eyes out on page one of that thing”—she nodded at the Book—“when Shroud taps you on the shoulder.”

“So you say.”

The priestess tutted her frustration.
Spider give me strength!
Could the old man not see the Book was useless to him without her aid? Did his stubbornness eclipse even his avarice?
Too arrogant to know he is outmatched, too proud to accept help when it is offered.
But these were only the opening exchanges in the game, and Romany had countless other moves to confound him with.

The first of which was indifference.

“It would seem,” she said, “that you have yet to grasp the true gravity of your predicament. I will leave you to reflect on my offer. Perhaps by the time I return—”

“You cannot leave, woman. Not now. Not knowing what you do.”

An empty threat, but all the more irritating for that. “I said I was coming back, did I not? In the meantime, I think I will take a bath.” The priestess looked round. “Where are your servants?”

“Servants?” Mayot squinted at her. “I have no servants.”

Romany stared at him.

*   *   *

Holding a hand out to the wall for support, Parolla followed the spiral staircase down into blackness. It had taken her longer than expected to dispel the sorceries that barred the entrance to the crypt. The high priest's defenses demonstrated a level of sophistication that spoke of days of careful crafting, an almost feverish zeal. Parolla's hands had trembled as she undid his work, her excitement building as each layer of wards peeled away. What could the high priest be so anxious to keep hidden from prying eyes? After years of searching, could Parolla dare to hope her quest was nearing its end?

Her breathing sounded harsh in the confines of the stairwell. She had taken one of the wall torches from the temple, but its light was beginning to dwindle, as if the flames were being smothered by the weight of darkness below. The stairs became increasingly cracked and worn, and she was forced to slow her pace. A short time later the steps came to an end, and she drew up.

The closeness of the stairwell was replaced by yawning emptiness, and Parolla stood at the brink of it. The light from her torch penetrated no more than a dozen paces beyond a narrow precipice. To her right, a forest of pillars rose from the gloom below and disappeared into blackness above. The nearest pillar, less than a score of armspans away, was covered in carved images. Parolla held out her torch and peered at them, only for the flames to gutter and die.

Shadows rushed in from all sides.

Muttering an oath, Parolla tossed the torch over the precipice and started counting. She reached five before it hit something—the floor of the crypt, no doubt—with a muted clatter. Drawing her cloak about her, she waited for her eyes to grow accustomed to the dark. A faint glow came from far below and to her right, its source obscured by the pillars. Parolla paused, considering. There were no obvious ways down to whatever lay beneath, but the high priest would not have gone to the effort of sealing this place off if it was inaccessible. And since she hadn't seen any passages leading off the stairwell during her descent …

Lowering herself to her hands and knees, she groped blindly along the vertical rock face below her until she discovered a gash hacked into it. Twisting around, she swung her legs out over the ledge. Her left boot scuffed stone until she found the first precarious foothold. The second was farther down than she would have liked, and little more than a scratch in the rock.

Whispering a silent prayer to the ether, she began to descend.

By the time her feet touched solid ground again, both her fingers and her nerves were scraped raw. She turned and put her back to the wall. The glow she had noticed earlier was now in front of her: a rectangular doorway of pale light, fifty paces away. To either side, rows of pillars, each as wide as Parolla was tall, faded into darkness. A sound came from her right, and she looked across, but saw nothing. She tilted her head and listened. All was quiet, save for the pounding of blood in her ears …

No, there it was again—a noise like the flap of leathery wings.
Bats?
Parolla let out a breath, silently berating herself for her skittishness.

She edged forward, fragments of stone and shattered floor tiles cracking underfoot. There was a dusty dryness to the air that soon coated the inside of her mouth, and she raised a hand to her lips to deaden the sound of a cough. Shapes took form in the shadows ahead—two huge statues flanking an altar of similar scale. From the altar pulsed echoes of death-magic. Its stone sides were covered with carvings. She walked round to the other side where the light was brightest, then moved closer to inspect them. An orgy of bloodlust was being acted out by a throng of animal-headed figures wearing enraptured expressions. The light playing across the carvings gave the impression of movement, as if the souls of the figures were trapped within the stone.

This is no crypt,
Parolla realized. She was standing on sanctified ground. It had to be another temple, but to which god? And why had Shroud built his own shrine over it? She turned to examine the statues that flanked the altar. Both were unmistakably male. Standing on a mound of skulls, the figure on the left was so tall that its shoulders and head were lost in the darkness above. Its right hand clutched air where a spear must once have been. Nothing remained of the second statue save for the figure's lower torso and legs, around which were curled tongues of stone flame. Its upper body had been hewn away from left shoulder to right hip. What hand could have inflicted such a blow? More importantly, who would dare deface a god's image in his own temple?

Parolla turned to the rectangular doorway from which the light came.

There was an explosion of noise from the darkness round her. Something brushed her face.

She threw herself to the left, rolled, then rose on one knee and flung out her right hand toward the source of the sound. Death-magic erupted from her fingers. The sorcery split the air between the two statues before rumbling on into the heart of the temple.

To be swallowed by darkness.

Ahead of Parolla, nothing, no one.

She let her sorcery die out. Moments later there was a crack of stone, followed by a thunderous boom as one of the pillars came crashing down, then a series of smaller concussions. Parolla's eyes darted as she searched the darkness overhead, fearing the roof of the temple would cave in. A cloud of dust rolled over her, and she turned her head to one side, narrowing her eyes to slits. She breathed in a mouthful of powdered stone, and she coughed until her eyes streamed. Silence descended again.

Then, faintly from above, Parolla heard the flutter of tiny wings.

Shaking her head, she rose to her feet.
Coolly done.

There was little point now in trying to move stealthily—if anything lay in wait ahead, her theatrics were sure to have alerted it to her presence. Releasing her power, Parolla raised her left hand. A glow enveloped it, driving the darkness back.

Approaching the doorway again, she paused to scan the chamber beyond. No more than a score of paces across, it was empty save for the remains of a pulpit in its center. Blocks of smashed stone and shards of pottery covered the floor. Along each of the room's other three walls was a doorway. From the one to Parolla's right, rubble spilled into the chamber; from the one to her left came a drip, drip of water. The light she had been following emanated from the doorway ahead.

She crossed to it before stopping at the threshold and looking inside. The room was of a similar size to the one she had just passed through. Dominating the wall opposite was an oval-shaped portal enclosed by a frame of metal. The surface of the portal shimmered like oil on water. Her pulse quickening, Parolla took a step forward. Then halted. There was a ripple in the air in front of her, a smell of dank fur.

She was not alone.

“Show yourself,” she said.

The echoes of her voice had almost died away when light began to coalesce to form a tall, spectral figure. Clad in blood-spattered hides, he held a spear in his right hand. His long black hair, braided with fetishes, hung in a tangle to his shoulders. Filed teeth protruded from a prominent lower jaw to overlap his top lip. When he spoke his voice was rusty from lack of use. “You go no farther.”

Parolla's brows knitted. The language used by the newcomer was a variation on an ancient Mirillian dialect—a dialect she had never heard spoken before. A knowledge of archaic languages was, though, just one of the … gifts … carried in her blood. “What is this place,
sirrah
?” she asked, matching his tongue.

“Turn back now,” the stranger said. “On sanctified ground.”

“Sanctified to which god?”

“Name mean nothing to you.”

“Because he is dead?” Parolla took the man's silence for confirmation. “When was he killed?”

“In Second Age.”

Her eyes widened. “The Time of the Ancients? That was two score thousand years ago. You have been here all that time?”
Alone?

The spearman shrugged. “Commanded to guard portal.”