“Do you feel ready to move on yet, my lord?” Trap asked presently.
Abramm lifted his head. “Move on?”
“I doubt they’ll send anyone after us. It’d be easier to box us in and let us die of thirst. We’re supposed to be dead already, so this way they won’t have to bother with any awkward rumors getting spread around.”
Abramm eyed the walls surrounding them. “Where exactly did you have in mind to move on to?”
“We’re trapped by illusions, my lord.”
“I know that, but…” He touched the wall, hard and cold as ever. “What do you propose?”
“We’ll just walk through it. But we’ll go inward, rather than out. I’ve had enough verens for one day.”
“Walk through it.”
“Sure. Watch.” Trap stood, still holding the water bag, and walked into the wall at the back of the chamber, the orblight left bobbing on the air currents disturbed by his passing. A moment later he reappeared, plunging back through the wall. “See?” he said. “Simple.”
“What’s on the other side?”
“More tunnel. Certainly a way out they won’t expect us to take.”
Tentatively, Abramm stroked the rock’s surface. It was still hard and cold and rough.
“Here,” Trap said, holding out a hand. “Take hold and I’ll pull you through it.”
Abramm glanced between hand and wall, then gave a skeptical nod. “Very well. Let me finish with Shettai first.”
With great care and deliberation he wrapped the cloak about her, hesitating a long moment before he could bring himself to cover her face. Then, dry-eyed and numb, he covered her with a layer of rocks. Seeming to sense his need to do it alone, Trap made no move to help, watching him in patient silence.
At last it was done. Standing, he drew a deep breath and turned away. Trap held out his hand, Abramm took it, and they walked forward into the wall. The stone hit him hard enough to make his eyes water but gave way like soft butter as Meridon drew him on.
Then he stood at the Terstan’s side looking down a dark tunnel. Trap had conjured a second orblight to replace the one that had not followed them through the illusion. Unlike the spell on the outer opening, this one worked both ways, for even though he’d just walked through it, the stone felt as hard and solid as any normal rock.
He frowned at his companion. “How did you know it was there?”
“‘His Light pierces the Shadow and destroys the constructions of evil,’” he quoted. “‘Where Light comes, Darkness must flee.’”
“That’s from the Second Word.”
“Aye.”
Meridon conjured a third orblight, set it carefully against his shoulderwhere it clung-and started off, leaving the other one drifting slowly to the ground behind them. After one last, long glance backward, Abramm followed him.
The tunnel was unremarkable, narrow and barely high enough for Abramm to walk upright. Periodic openings led into narrow, empty chambers whose use was at first a mystery. Then they found one that was not empty and realized they were tombs-possibly dating from pre-Cataclysm times when the Ophiran Empire still reigned. The thick layer of dust on the floor looked to have been undisturbed for centuries.
As the corridor wound on and on, tunneling ever deeper into the rock, Abramm began to worry that the only exit might be the way they had come in. When he expressed his concern to Trap, the latter admitted he, too, had considered that.
“But I don’t think it’s so. The tombs at the beginning were unused, remember, and the chambers few. We’re passing lots more now, all used, which makes me think the front door’s still ahead. I suspect the opening we came through was carved long after the bulk of the tombs were filled-making an easier way to get into the chambers at the rear.”
What he said made sense, but Abramm’s concern continued to nag him. With every turn of the tunnel and still no sign of the end, he grew more and more convinced they should turn back and take their chances on the cart path.
Assuming they could find their way back out.
Again he spoke to Trap, and again his friend insisted they were on the right track, that it wouldn’t be long before they found the front entrance. But still his uneasiness mounted, spinning out a rising reluctance to go on. Fear nipped at him, cold and stomach-turning, as he grew steadily more convinced that disaster lay ahead. A dead end, a trap, an ambush by shadowspawn- perhaps even the veren awaited them at the end of this trek.
It disturbed him, too, that he walked among corpses, and he began to think perhaps he was already dead and just didn’t realize it. A cold sweat broke out upon him, the spore throbbed in his arm, and repeatedly he made himself let go of the talisman around his neck.
Then it was upon them-the final chamber, dank, dark, with only a single opening-the one in which they stood.
At the realization of what it was and what it meant, panic nearly overwhelmed him. “See?” he croaked. “What did I tell you?”
“What do you mean?” Trap asked, starting into the chamber.
Abramm bit back a shout of warning, since he could already see by the orblight that the chamber was empty. There was no threat, no ambush, no reason to stand here paralyzed with a terror that could only be described as irrational.
Realizing Abramm had not followed him, Meridon turned back halfway across the chamber. “Why aren’t you coming?”
“I don’t need to. I can see the room’s empty from here.” Even his voice shook. His gaze swept the rough rock walls, wondering if one of them was another illusion, behind which the shadowspawn he still sensed waited to leap upon them.
Meridon was staring at him as if he hadn’t the faintest idea why Abramm had said what he’d said.
“What do you expect to find in there, anyway?” Abramm asked. “It’s obviously time to turn around and go back, as I’ve been saying all along.”
This seemed to confuse his friend even further. Then the light dawned. “The entrance is right there in the far wall. I guess you can’t see it.”
“You mean it’s another illusion?”
“Yes. Come on. I’ll help you through it.”
But still Abramm could not move, the sense of threat rolling over him with powerful, mind-numbing force. His head had grown light, his limbs weak and jittery, and all he could think was to run, to flee, to get away. Oddly, it all seemed vaguely familiar.
Trap was frowning at him again. “Well?”
“There’s something in there. Something terrible. I … I can’t go in.” The small part of him that was still rational cringed at the words, railing at him for being a fool and a coward besides, but it did no good.
“I do feel something, now that you mention it,” Trap murmured thoughtfully. “But it’s-oh. It’s the griiswurm.” He gestured upward, and Abramm saw that what he had imagined to be shadow pools between rock teeth were actually dark, tentacled blobs. More of them ranged along the wall ahead, forming a grotesque archway on the rock.
“They’re there to ward the opening,” Trap said. “Here. Put your hand on my shoulder, and I’ll lead you through. Maybe that’ll offset the warding.”
Even so, it took all Abramm’s willpower to forge onward. He clung to Trap’s shoulder with grim determination as they crossed the chamber and finally plunged through the lardlike illusion into the darkness of night. And the tantalizing aroma of frying onions.
Instantly the fear receded to a more manageable level, and Abramm let out a silent breath of relief-cringing with embarrassment to think what a fool he’d been. There was nothing to do but put it aside, however, so he concentrated on getting his bearings instead.
They stood on the crypt’s crumbling porch at the head of a narrow, steepwalled canyon whose pale walls were pocked with other tomb openings. From where they stood at its head, the canyon narrowed rapidly, its walls almost touching where they bent round to the right. There, an unseen campfire’s bronze glow reflected off the sparkling sandstone walls and illumined the misty ceiling. A horse’s sne
eze and stamping carried with low voices on the cold, dry air. The unseen fire crackled energetically, its smoke scent mingling with that of the onions, stirring up hunger pangs that could only be ignored.
Wordlessly the two men picked their way around the ratweed clumps growing on the canyon floor and crept up to the bend. Within ten strides, the narrow passage widened dramatically, emptying into a broad wash where an Esurhite patrol had set up camp. Four of them stood near the fire, at half attention, shivering visibly. A fifth stirred the pan he had set over the small blaze and stared periodically into the darkness beyond the wash. A jumble of supplies lay close at hand-kettle, utensils, food- and waterbags.
The patrol’s horses were tied to a rope strung between two huge thronetrees beyond the wash’s edge. Abramm considered and abandoned the notion of sneaking around the camp’s perimeter to the animals. The men did not look dazed enough, and the fire’s blazing light did not leave sufficient friendly shadows.
He glanced upward, where the walls loomed even closer, maybe only three feet apart.
Three men strode into camp from the darkness, apparently having inspected the perimeter, and at the sight of one of them, Abramm nearly hissed with disbelief.
No rank-and-file soldier, the man was short and broad, his shaven head gleaming over a distinctive hawklike nose, his ears shimmering with gold honor rings. It was the Supreme Commander, Beltha’adi ul Manus himself.
As he approached, the soldiers who had been waiting snapped to full attention and saluted. Ignoring them, he spoke sharply to the flat-faced man following him, who barked an affirmative and also saluted. Beltha’adi stared hard at him for a moment, then glanced toward the cleft where Abramm and Trap hid in the shadows. Abramm froze, horrified at having been discovered so easily, then relaxing when, instead of coming after them, the Esurhite commander pivoted, stepped briskly to a shiny spot on the sand beside the fireand vanished in a column of red sparkles.
Abramm blinked and resisted the urge to rub his eyes.
Trap tugged at his arm, beckoning back up the canyon. They retreated into the tomb they had just exited, moving to a point across the final chamber where Abramm could be free of the griiswurm’s aura.
“What do you think?” the Terstan asked as an orblight flared to life.
“I’m not sure,” Abramm replied. “That must’ve been one of his ether world corridors. If we’re not careful, we’ll have a whole lot more than one patrol on our heels.”
“I don’t think they can come through that fast,” Trap said. “Generating the power to operate them is supposed to be quite draining. They’d need a number of priests at the other end or would have to send some through to this end, which would take time. And energy. Then they’d have to send the men …” He shook his head. “If we do this right, we should be well out of reach before then.”
“You have an idea?”
Trap sighed. “Not really.”
“Well, I do.”
Half an hour later Abramm hung fifteen feet off the ground, back and feet braced against opposing rock walls, cracked ribs protesting the position with a vengeance. His left hand was full of pebbles. Trap hung a little way below him, holding more of the same. The pebbles had been the hardest part of the plan-everything was either solid rock or soft sand. By the time they’d found enough to serve their purpose, dawn suffused the misty sky.
The camp lay below him, four of the soldiers now asleep, with the captain stretched out under the thronetree; two played at Bones by the fire, and the eighth stood a sleepy watch just below Abramm’s perch, his dark lashes drooping over gleaming eyes, jerking open, only to droop again.
I hope he’s not too wool-headed to take his cue, Abramm fretted. Glancing over his shoulder, he could see one of the orblights Trap had planted at the base of a rugged crevice cutting up the canyon wall, where stairstepping rock formations promised an escape route. It was an empty promise, ending farther up in ten feet of unscalable rock. The guards had undoubtedly seen that when they arrived, which explained why they had posted no one at the tunnel opening-that and the force of the griiswurm, which Trap said likely affected the guards as powerfully as it did Abramm.
Still, they might be tricked into forgetting what they knew. The kelistars had been Trap’s idea.
Abramm looked down at his friend and nodded. Trap glanced back up the narrow ravine, and the first orblight floated up from behind its concealing bush. He tossed a few pebbles near the cavern opening.
The sentry gave no sign he had heard. Abramm waved for more pebbles, heard the answering rattle. The Esurhite jerked upright-
But it was only to keep himself from dozing off. Abramm frowned. And they call us slug-headed!
He motioned to Trap again and this time heard a distinct hiss that seemed, impossibly, to originate from the mouth of the cavern. “Go? Go?”
This was followed by a sizable rattle of pebbles-Trap must have thrown his entire handful.
The guard whirled, eyes wide. He gurgled a cry and hurried into the crack, drawing his sword as he passed beneath Abramm. His fellows leapt to their feet, the Bones cast aside, hands on their own blades. They looked inordinately frightened.
And then Abramm realized who they thought they were facing-not two weary, wounded, and weaponless northerners but the White Pretender and his Infidel, whose reputations surely surpassed actual skill.
The first man passed beneath Trap now as the others kicked their companions awake and followed. Another rush of pebbles, this time to put out the raft of kelistars Trap had earlier sent rising into the first guard’s view. Hopefully the darkness and tension would make them think someone was moving into the cut.
And so it did. The first guard rushed forward. “They’re getting away? They’re climbing the wall!”
His companions in the wash raced to his aid, yelling for the others to circle around to the top and cut off their quarry’s escape.
Sounds of frantic scrambling echoed off the stone walls, and as the officer himself hurried under Abramm, Abramm jumped into the wash. He landed on his feet and rolled with the momentum as Trap came swooping after him. As the Terstan rolled likewise and came upright, he conjured a huge orblight and set it before the ravine’s narrow opening. Abramm hurled his own handful of pebbles onto the dark rim above them, just beyond where the others climbed in frantic haste. He received a volley of urgent cries in response.
Trap kicked wet sand over the fire as Abramm felt through the food bags beside it. A furious bellow erupted from the cut. Those within had discovered the wall of light. When they did not immediately burst through it, Abramm glanced at Trap, smiling. The light was harmless, stopping no one, but apparently they did not know that.
His hand closed on a sack that squished and gurgled. He snatched it up and found it tied to another of its kind. Hefting the pair over one shoulder, he found another full of hardtack and ran for the horses, where Trap had parted the rope with his Terstan light. Already he sat astride a tall bay and held a black by its halterlead.
Abramm stuffed the neck of the bread sack into his belt and leapt for the black’s side, gripping ebony mane to pull himself astride. Trap threw the lead at him, and he wrestled the horse around. Orblights flashed into being all around them, popping and vanishing as stirred air carried them against the thronetrees, and so spooking the remaining horses that they ran off into the dawn.
The men who had climbed the bluff came sliding and stumbling back, a chaos of dark figures, gleaming steel, and curses. Abramm and Trap laid heels to their horse’s flanks and thundered away into the shadow-steeped dawn, Esurhite shouts of outrage and frustration fading behind them.
They kept the horses at a steady pace but gave them their heads, and around midmorning they reached a paved road. When the animals stepped onto it as if it were familiar territory and trotted easily northward, the men pulled them to a stop.
“They’re probably running for home,” Abramm said.
`And home’s got to be Xorofin,” Trap agreed. “
So we don’t want to go this way.”
“Unless we make for Ybal.”
Trap squinted up the road. “Aye.”
Abramm’s horse tossed its head, pulling the rope lead through his hands. He let it slide, then took up the slack as he scanned the barren hills beyond the road to the east. Out there somewhere lay the SaHal. “We have no guide now,” he said, the exhilaration raised by their escape falling suddenly flat. “No one to show us the secret way in or guarantee us acceptance among the Dorsaddi.”
“No.”
And Beltha’adi expects us to go there.”
“Aye.”
Ybal was the sensible choice. He could find a boat and leave this land behind. But then the White Pretender would be dead. At Beltha’adi’s hand. And all he’d done, all he’d risked, all he’d given up-would be for nothing. She would have died for nothing.
“We are wearing Dorsaddi robes,” Trap said, seeming, as he often did, to read Abramm’s mind. And she said they’d be waiting for us, so they might not kill us outright.”
“We’re not Dorsaddi, though, and I think most of them believe we are. Remember how surprised those Undergrounders were when they saw us?”
Trap grimaced.
`And what happens when we can’t reawaken that Heart Shettai was talking about? What happens when the great revival they are counting on us to start doesn’t come to pass?”
Meridon shrugged. “Maybe it will.”
Abramm glanced at him as the horse sidestepped and tossed its head again. A wave of prickles cascaded down his spine. “You want to go there, don’t you?”
The Terstan stared thoughtfully at the low hills tumbling away beneath the mist. “I think it’s where we’re meant to go.” He glanced aside at Abramm. `And I think Eidon will make us a way.”
Abramm drew up the slack on the halterlead again, suddenly and profoundly uneasy. That strange sense of destiny had hold of him once more, that sense that he was being moved around by forces greater than himself, a pawn on the board of life. A pawn who could do nothing to stop being a pawn.