As she got near to where James and Father Portis were waiting for her she noticed something else in James’ face, something that looked like hope.
He smiled at her curious frown and before she could speak he said, “We know where she is. Or at least where they took her. Have you ever heard of catacombs beneath Amthenium?”
“I can’t say I have.”
“It seems your uncle and every reformist priest has,” James said as they urged their mounts forward and broke into a gallop for the palace. James told her what he’d learned at the cathedral, his voice was hurried as they raced through the foggy streets—all of which were far more crowded now than they had been when they’d last ridden this way. All of Amthenium seemed to be awake and on edge.
They entered the palace grounds via the Gate of the Saints and found Bastion and the knight he’d ridden away from the South Gate with, in the company of two dozen yelping hounds and three kennel hands. They were in the process of scenting the dogs with several of Danielle’s gowns. Word of what was happening in the Downs clearly hadn’t reached this far.
“We’re just about ready,” Bastion said.
“No time for that now. Mount up and come with us. We have to talk to the Chancellor.” The undersecretary eyed them for a moment, curious and worried, and gauging their urgency, he quickly did as asked.
“What about the hounds?” the knight asked.
“Stay here. There might be need for them yet.”
As soon as they were riding again, Bastion asked what was going on. James repeated what he’d told Faith in the time it took to reach the towering stone façade of the main entrance to the Amthenium Palace and dismount. Bastion was speechless as they climbed the stairs. Faith couldn’t say she was any less worried by what James had told her and she understood Bastion’s bewilderment. If she had not seen what had happened with her own eyes she was not sure she would have believed it either.
“At least this means she is still alive,” Bastion said.
“Yes, but potentially off the island as well,” Faith replied. It was this that had her moving with such urgency. And of course the want to end the slaughter taking place in the Downs.
They ran up the stairs and through the arched doorway. The crowd milling around the wide colonnade was somewhat smaller and a great deal better dressed than the one they had encountered at Brier’s gate and across the city generally, but the mood was just the same. Fear and confusion reigned.
Faith, James, Father Portis and Bastion quickly walked down the pillared colonnade, pushing through the crowd, and began up the wide marble staircase to the domed vestibule that occupied the space outside the assembly chamber. It was the quickest way to her uncle’s private chambers.
The towering double doors to the assembly chamber were barred and guarded by her uncle’s personal knights—not the usual palace guards, and by far more men than one would have thought necessary.
“Sir Douglas, I need to see my uncle at once,’ Faith said, as she approached through the press of bodies.
“Milady,” the man looked surprised and relieved to see her, yet troubled by her request. “I am sorry, but he has said that none are to be admitted, and any who try are to be arrested.”
“Lady Galloway, do you know what has happened?” Lord Torry called out as Faith broke through the cordon and climbed the stone stairs to where the knights were standing at the council chamber door. Every face was turning in her direction and as one would expect there were whispered words and raised eyebrows at the state of her gown and the fact she was wearing a soldiers long coat over the top with a bloodied sword buckled to her waist. Faith ignored the chorus of questions that began to pelt her from around the vestibule and gestured Sir Douglas close so they would not be heard.
“I’ve just come from the Downs. I know where the Lady de Brie has been taken. I also know what is happening and I must speak with my uncle at once. There is no time to waste.”
She could see that her uncle’s men understood the importance of what she was saying well enough and obviously knew what was afoot—or at least suspected. With little more than a nod the door was unbolted and she, Father Portis, James and Bastion slipped inside. It was closed as quickly behind them, muffling the rising chatter coming from the crowd in the vestibule, which was obviously waiting for word from the Chancellor regarding the events of the night.
Faith led the way down the stairs of the main council chamber to the stage at the base of the amphitheatre of benches. There was a door at the rear that opened into her uncle’s day room and another that gave entrance to the Ambassador’s Council, the smaller and most senior of the bodies of the Grand Assembly. Sir Anderson, his armour donned, was standing guard at her uncles’ door, two of his knightly colleagues beside him. All three knights looked as if they’d been balled out by a less than pleased commanding officer.
Faith quickly asked to see her uncle.
“Milady, your uncle is in company?” Anderson replied.
“So.”
“He has demanded than no-one should disturb him and if it proves otherwise, I and the rest of us will lose our commissions. Whoever is in there, has put him in the foulest of moods.”
“I suspect the events of the night have put him in the foulest of moods. Now, please, tell him that I am here.”
“Who is he with?” James asked.
“I don’t know. They’re wearing odd white robes, look to be of either Surlemian or Lunwraithian origin.”
Faith guessed who her uncle’s visitors were and her hackles immediately rose. She stepped back from the door and yelled out, calling to her uncle, demanding to be let in.
The door burst open and Michael appeared. He smiled with relief and hugged her tightly. “Are you alright?”
“Fine, considering. I have to talk to Leefton. I think we can save Dee. But we have to move quickly.”
Michael grew grim again as he stepped aside and let them in. “I doubt that is possible now.”
“What do you mean?”
He nodded toward those standing by the stone fireplace as she stepped into the room, followed by the others in her company.
Leefton was next in line to hug her; his relief at seeing her alive was a shaft of light in what was clearly a very dark night.
His day room was a lot warmer with carpet on the timber floors, books lining the walls and curtains pulled over the windows—that during the day gave a wonderful view of the palace’s west gardens and the rooftops of the city all the way to the lake. But the mood was anything but warm.
Whatever was being discussed had been done so heatedly that was obvious. Michael was fuming; Faith had sensed that immediately on seeing him, and her uncle and Lord Colita, Commander of the City Guard, appeared deeply troubled if somehow resigned to the inevitable. The three visitors in contrast, looked quietly reassured, if somewhat annoyed by the interruption. Two were men, one tall, young and arrogant, and not unlike Lord Cargius in look, the other short with wizen blue eyes and a kind face, and to Faith’s mind at least, he was the senior member of the trio. The woman was tall and slim with red hair and piercing green eyes and possessed of what Faith suspected was a sharp temperament.
“You got my message?” Faith said when her uncle let her go.
“Yes. We know what is afoot.” He turned to face his guests with little enthusiasm. “Before I get to that, however, I should introduce these folk to you.” He nodded to the younger two Druid’s first. “This is Lord Baryon and Lady Vanessa. And this here is the High Master of the Kathiusian Druid Council, Lord Naratha.”
Faith offered a curtsey. “I do not mean to be rude, but if you know what is afoot, why are you here and not out there?” She let her disapproving frown shift from her uncle to the three Druids. Naratha’s mouth quirked in a regretful smile, but his younger colleagues considered her with cool superiority.
“We understand your concern, Milady. We know what is at stake here this night,” Naratha said.
Faith frowned more sever
ely, not sure that he did. Or any of them did for that matter. “The Twenty Three have been released and you …”
“We know, my dear,” her uncle replied kindly.
His calm, placating tone annoyed Faith no end. “Yet you do nothing? Citizens and soldiers are being slaughtered as we speak …”
Before her uncle could reply the Lady Vanessa replied curtly, “Other’s of our kind are watching and waiting for the appropriate time to act.”
“Appropriate time?” Faith retorted. “Will that be before or after Amthenium is destroyed and our friends among them?”
“If the Lady de Brie had listened to Lord Cargius’ counsel and returned to Illandia none of this would have happened,” Lady Vanessa said caustically, despite her master’s call for calm.
Faith was undaunted by the woman’s cold green eyes and approached across the room. “You said you’d protect her if there was reason, yet you clearly have not.” She cast her angry glare over all three Druids.
“Faith, please.” Her uncle took her hand. “Why don’t you take a seat? You look exhausted.”
“You are very quick to attribute blame, milady,” the female Druid said, ignoring Leefton. “Perhaps if you were her half as much the friend you claim to be, you would have urged her to comply with wisdom for a change.”
“How dare you,” Faith retorted.
Michael, James and Bastion protested as hotly also.
“Please, enough,” Leefton demanded. “All of you.”
Lord Naratha was lighting a pipe with a taper by the fire and he raised a hand and said something in another tongue that stopped Lady Vanessa from replying, before saying with more kindness and in Arkaelyon, “You’re right, Lady Galloway, we did fail your friend. And I am profoundly sorry that it has proved so and for the consequences that such ineptitude has cost this city tonight and will cost us all in the coming months. A point I have just made clear to your fiancé. But a way forward has already been settled upon.”
“That being what exactly?”
“They mean to call off the search,” Michael said glumly before anyone else could answer the question.
Faith frowned heavily at him. It was clear a plan of action had been agreed, but she had not expected this.
James stepped forward, just as bewildered by the revelation. “Milord?”
“What are you saying?” Faith said as quickly. She looked to the Druids, and then to her uncle. “You’re going to let them take her? What about her bloodline and what it means for the rest of us? What about your Lord Cargius?”
Naratha took several puffs on his pipe and then said, “You have to understand that their death is now our only chance to put an end to this prophecy and all the horror it entails, a taste of which you have clearly seen this night.”
Faith raised her eyebrows in bewilderment; their deaths are the only way forward? This man had to be insane. Before she could protest, Naratha said, “The Larniusian priestesses don’t know it, but at the beginning when the First Mother gave some of her blood to our council and the five bloodlines of the Children of Light were conjured, she also pronounced a curse on any who might have the opportunity to kill a Child of Light and her guide together. The instant the blood of our two friends is mixed, the fates will tell us exactly where they are without Fren and her kind knowing. When this happens we will act with all haste to end this.”
“End what, milord? Our lady will be dead,” James said.
“I understand your anger. But you need to understand that the death of your friend and our valued colleague, as much as it grieves us all, affords us a rare opportunity to kill one of the two remaining Larniusian priestesses and capture one of the two surviving sets of Seer’s bones that were gifted by the dark one to the five original priestesses of Larnius’ council. With those bones in our possession the Twenty Three who now ravage this city, can be sent back from whence they came, and prevented from ever returning to this plane of existence. As important as that, Lord Kane will be limited on what power he can draw upon, affording us all the time—as restricted as it is—to gather our combined might and destroy him before he grows too powerful.”
This was nowhere near good enough as far as Faith was concerned.
“Pardon me, Milord, but there must be another way,” James said bitterly. Faith knew exactly how he felt.
A look of regret found its way onto Naratha’s face. “I am afraid there is not.”
Faith glanced at her uncle. “Have you sanctioned this?”
Leefton seemed resigned to this madness. “We have no choice. This battle is lost and we must now look to fight the war on a new flank. A flank that offers us the best advantage to end this as quickly and cleanly as possible. I am sorry, I know what we lose by taking this action.”
“With all due respect, Lord Naratha,” James said, “a Child of Light, particularly one gifted with the purple aura can stand against the Twenty Three, can she not? And surely Danielle alive would afford us a far better chance of ending this sooner and cleaner than a set of bones?”
“I agree with James,” Faith said. Michael and Bastion agreed most ardently also.
“James, please,” Leefton said, “This has been discussed and there is nothing we can do. Even if we found where they were holding her, Lord Naratha assures me that a rescue attempt would be bloody and futile. You have been to the Downs, so I suspect you know what evil we are up against. They would kill her before we could get near enough to afford a rescue, assuming the Twenty Three don’t butcher us all first, and many more people would die than have already done so this night. Worse still, they would have killed Danielle and Cargius separately, making it impossible for us to find them to secure this set of Seer’s bones. I am sorry but if we are to have a chance now, they must be allowed to think they have got away with this and be allowed to take the lives of our friends so this curse can be allowed to run its course. Our mission must be the capture of the Seer’s bones and seek the death of this witch, Fren’s sister we believe. A woman named, Keira.”
“I can’t believe you have sanctioned this. Danielle is like a daughter to you.”
“You think I don’t know that!” her uncle thundered at her. “This is no longer about what we want or Dee’s life even. It is about the future of the world as we know it!”
James grabbed Faith’s arm, preventing her from arguing further. “What if we can have both?”
Everyone frowned at him.
“There is a way we can fall on them with numbers before they can kill either Danielle or Lord Cargius and without them bringing the Twenty Three against us.”
“How is that possible? We don’t know where they are,” Lord Baryon said.
“True, but we know where they went.”
“The Downs is a large place, and as has already been explained …” Leefton began, an edge creeping into his voice.
“They’re no longer in the Downs,” Faith said, realising what James had in mind.
She knew this was the last throw of the dice and if they failed Danielle was as good as dead. “I don’t know how exactly, but Danielle’s abductors were seen stepping through the wall of a cellar in a house in the Downs a few blocks from the Cathedral of the Destitute. They entered a tunnel.” Faith faltered and Father Portis finished her sentence. “They entered the Catacombs of Letius.”
There was immediate interest in the faces of the men and woman staring at her. It gave Faith hope. “I know you are all aware of these secret tunnels and that they lead off the island to a destination familiar to at least one person in this room.”
Lord Baryon went to say something but Naratha lifted a hand and stopped him. The Druid elder was looking with interest at Leefton. “You know a way through the catacombs, Lord Leefton?”
Faith got the distinct impression that these secret tunnels had created significant antagonism between the Kathiusian Druids and the priests and associates of the Aquarius Brotherhood at sometime, though what the quarrel might have been she had not a clue – neither at t
his point did she care. This was about saving her friend and likely their best hope of saving every realm and kingdom of the continent as a result.
“Yes,” Leefton said. “And we’re willing to entertain a rescue attempt if you will aid us.”
Naratha looked mildly surprised by the offer but pleased nonetheless.
Lord Baryon jumped in saying, “Milord, it’s too risky. And we cannot enter those tunnels without weakening our power or offending the Goddess … you know who dwelt down there and the affect of his taint on Druid blood. We have been down this track before with the Aquarius Brotherhood. We did not entertain such a violation then and we should not do so now. The council agreed; we should seek the Seer’s bones and Keira’s death. It’s the best we can hope for now.”
“I agree with Baryon,” Lady Vanessa said, “We take Keira with magic and seize the bones and vanish before they have a chance to react. The tunnels are out of the question.”
“With all due respect, Lord Baryon and Lady Vanessa, if it hadn’t been for those tunnels and the three brave priests that faced its evil, a Hand of Maig would still be in residence in theses halls, no thanks to you and your kind,” Lord Colita retorted.
The woman looked ready to dispute that, but Leefton got in first saying, “Please, we should let bygones be bygones.”
Faith agreed. Time was of the essence.
The woman ignored them saying to Naratha, who looked to be giving serious consideration to Leefton’s offer. “They will have numbers, my lord, of men and women willing to die to see their masters escape. We do this our way and we will not have to engage them with blades. But if we over-reach ourselves and try and fight this battle in the material realm with the aid of men and women like these then we will fail.”
“This is not a time for caution,” Faith urged hastily. “With Danielle, Lord Cargius and these witch’s bones, will not this war be ended a great deal quicker; thousands, perhaps tens of thousands saved? This is the opportunity we can not miss.”
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