CHAPTER 48
The Wail was a few dozen feet wide here. Butu stared down at his reflection in it. He brushed his head, noting the white sheen of salt that had settled on him.
“There’s no way we’re jumping over that,” Blay said.
Phedam tossed a chuck of rock salt into the water. Its ripples bent in a steady current.
“I can swim across with a rope,” Tirud offered.
Blay shook his head. “A chant would be faster.”
Butu looked at the cave mouth resolutely and started chanting softly. “Water and sand, sand and water, it’s the same to cross either. Sand and water, water and sand, crossing both’s like crossing land.”
Lujo and Retus joined him for the second repetition.
Tirud motioned them to silence. “That’s too dangerous. If it fails, you might all drown.”
“A bridge would be better,” Jani said. “That way we can all cross.”
Blay nodded, and the three of them recited stone-shaping chants, instead. It took much longer than usual. When they were done, though, the squad could cross on a narrow crystal footbridge.
“Any enemies on the other side?” Blay asked Butu.
“No,” Butu and Tirud said at the same time.
“I’m sure Butu can sense what’s in the cave, but how do you know?” Phedam demanded.
“There are no signs here — no clothes or weapons. If they’d tried to swim across fully clothed, they would’ve drowned,” Tirud explained, and Phedam subsided with muttered apologies.
Butu could sense much more about what waited for them there. Is this what Pisor achieved at Urgaruna?
“The Urgarun children are waiting for us,” Butu said softly, but if anyone heard him, they gave no sign.
“Let’s go,” Blay said, leading the way. “Watch your step,” he said as he stepped over the remnants of the rusted drawbridge. “There are probably pieces sharp enough to cut.”
The mysterious light was even fainter here than in the rest of the city — about as bright as the light of one of the moons.
“Shanubu!” Tirud hissed when his eyes had adjusted to the gloom.
To all appearances, they were merely statues of children crafted from sandstone. They cowered or ran or stood frozen in terror, horrified by whatever had come through the iron gate. Most looked like old second-cyclers or young third-cyclers, though one first-cycler peeked fearlessly through a doorway on the far side of the large chamber.
Perhaps a hundred in here, with many more in the other rooms. The youngest ones were the best-defended, but they fared no better.
“A thousand years isn’t long enough,” Jani murmured, echoing Butu’s musings.
“They look like they were killed by simam,” Phedam noted.
Tirud nodded grimly. “Even sordellas couldn’t have done this to a first-cycler.”
His meaning was clear. Only a king could do this.
A statue knelt before them, a child caught in the act of getting up. A hand reached out for them, palm up. As if under compulsion, Retus reached out to help him up. As soon as he touched the hand, it crumbled, raining a fine dust on the floor. Retus jerked his arm back.
The squad formed a half-circle around the crumbling statue. A shiver inched up Butu’s spine as he watched the statue’s arm melt toward its body.
Sand poured out of the shoulder as the arm vanished, falling with the measured order of sand in an hourglass. The head and body melted quickly after that, the child’s frozen, fear-contorted face vanishing. In moments, a pile of dust marked the place where a king had killed a child with Pisor’s magic. Butu saw the shock in all their eyes, mirroring his own.
“What are we unleashing?” Phedam muttered.
“Asked like a true third-cycler,” Tirud said, sounding not quite pleased.
“Is this a good idea?” Retus asked plaintively.
“Another worthy question,” Tirud said. He let out a deep breath as if he knew the answer better than he cared to admit.
No. This is a terrible idea, Butu thought. If we find Pisor, we should find a way to get it as far away from here as possible. Mnemon was right. No one should have this kind of power.
Blay cleared his throat. “We have no choice. This war between the clans will continue until a new king is made. The kluntras aren’t just going to leave Pisor behind and return home.”
“Whatever happens, we shouldn’t let Philquek get it,” Lujo said firmly. “That leaves Aesh or Jusep.”
“Our orders are to deliver it to Aesh,” Blay reminded them.
Lujo pointed at the pile of dust and then waved his arm to take in the frozen faces of the Urgarun children around them. “This is beyond any orders. If I’m going to end up in some story, it’s not going to be as one of the sordenu who helped make the next Pepis the Tyrant.”
“He’s right,” Retus said. “Tirud, Jani, you know more about the two kluntras than any of us. Who would harm the fewest people?”
Jani shook her head but said nothing.
“I’m too old to be kingmaker.” Tirud sagged enough to look the part. “I have little say in this.”
But I can be the kingmaker if I want, Butu thought. Most of the squad could, but do any of us want that?
“We can discuss it later, if you’d like,” Blay said. “We haven’t even found Pisor,yet, and it looks like we have a bit of ground to cover. We’ll split into teams. Tirud and Butu, go that way. Phedam and Jani, go that way. Lujo and I will take the third way. Retus, you’ll stand watch here. Let us know if you see anyone coming this way.”
They saluted and obeyed, gingerly stepping around every other statue they neared.
It’s another of Blay’s delaying tricks, but the Akdren won’t even pretend to be interested in our opinions. They’ll just kill us.
Tirud and Butu were barely out of earshot of the others before they saw the first of the warnings.
“Look.” Butu pointed at grooves in the floor near an arch into another chamber, similarly filled with statues.
Tirud read the words softly, “If you would be kingmaker, remember this.”
“This was made with magic, not a tool,” Butu observed, tracing the smooth lines of the words with his finger.
“Come on,” Tirud said, a twinge of awe in his voice that Butu shared.
We’re raiding a tomb. It’s no wonder the Akdren didn’t come back here to look. He passed statues of younger children, clinging to each other with mouths wide open in frozen cries. No one survived. He licked his lips, tasting the strong salt in the air. And we’re going to make another king, who could do something like this.
There were warnings carved next to every entrance. “If you would be kingmaker, remember this” and variations on it were the most common, but they also saw “If you would be king, remember this place,” “Pisor was a curse, not a gift,” “Power is the bane of humility” and many more.
“Did Mnemon carve these?” Butu asked, but Tirud did not answer.
There were just as many statues in the other halls and chambers, and the children seemed to get even younger. Aside from the statues and a few pieces of stone furniture, most rooms were empty. Cloth had long since rotted away, and metal objects had corroded to scraps.
The carvings turned into taunts. “You’ll never find it.” “It isn’t here.” “It’s gone to Nekomis.” “I found a way to destroy Pisor.”
At last, they neared a room with no exits. Fragments of large, humanoid statues made of basalt and marble lay scattered around the entrance. Butu sensed the stone cribs before they reached the room, each with its own small statue sleeping peacefully inside.
“Golems,” Tirud said when he saw the first blocky head.
Butu thought of the sentinel that had once guarded Jasper. Did the king who buried it do something like this to the Ahjea children?
“A nursery,” Tirud added.
A shallow pile of black, brown and red marbles highlighted the center of the room. On the far wall, another carving chanted, “They sleep,
you weep, you made the king who made them sleep. You weep, they sleep, Pisor in his hands, and so you weep.” Butu knelt and examined the marbles. Each was carved into the shape of a sleeping infant’s head. He tossed one to Tirud.
“So now we know how Mnemon spent the decades after he disappeared. But where’s his body?”
“Maybe it rotted away like everything else,” Butu said, sitting down on the stone floor.
Tirud shook his head. “Even after a thousand years, his bones would still be here. Mnemon obviously spent a lot of time in Urgaruna, but he didn’t die here. Maybe he took Pisor with him, or maybe there’s some secret to destroying it and he found that.”
Butu considered this, rolling a handful of marble heads between his hands. After a long moment, he shook his head. “No. If Mnemon had destroyed the Sword of Kings, he would have made sure everyone knew about it. He didn’t want the clans to go to war over Pisor.” Another pause. “I think I know why he let Pepis the Tyrant rule instead of unmaking him.”
“To make sure the Turu remembered the tyranny of kings?”
Butu let a double handful of the marbles fall through his fingers as he spoke. “Maybe a little, but imagine this: You’re a kingmaker who wants to do more than just unmake the king. You want to put an end to kings forever, or at least for as long as possible.” He held up one marble, then dropped it into the pile and mixed it up. “The hard part is getting far enough away from the king that he can’t just track you down and bring you back.”
“So he came to the cursed rock.”
Butu shrugged. “Wherever he went, the king isn’t going to want anyone to know his kingmaker is out there somewhere beyond his protection, especially if he knows the kingmaker has Pisor. He’s going to kill everyone who knows the truth.” Butu paused in his playing with the marbles and held up a blank one with a grin. “The longer Mnemon let Pepis rule, the fewer people knew what happened to the kingmaker and Pisor. By the time the king died, Mnemon’s trail was so old no one could’ve followed it.”
“How did he get Pisor away from Pepis long enough to escape with it?”
Butu picked up a double handful of marbles and held them out for Tirud to see. “From everything we’ve seen, he had the power to shape rock, and maybe he could do the same with metal. He made a false Pisor and switched it with the real thing. He probably had help, too — sordellas or others young enough to use magic but old enough to think for themselves.”
“Like our squad.”
“Yes,” Butu said, digging idly in the pile of marbles. They were cool to the touch, and very few of them were granite or sandstone.
They’re probably worth a fortune, except for their shape.
“But where’s the sword?” Tirud muttered.
“I don’t know, and after what I’ve seen here, I’m not sure we want to know.”
Tirud snorted a laugh. “It sounds like Mnemon’s plan is still working.”
“Of course it is. It’s the only part of it that doesn’t rely on magic.” Butu stood up.
“Unless you count the treaty we broke to be here,” Tirud said. “We should report back.”
Butu took one last look at the frozen, sleeping forms of the youngest Urgarun children as they wordlessly left.
If Mnemon was foolish enough to leave Pisor in Urgaruna, it would be in a place like this nursery. He’d want anyone who found it to know what he knew about kings.