Morai's expression faded to grimness. He licked his lips nervously. "Drijen, got it."
"Good, that's it." I reached up to the stone shield above the fireplace and pushed a crescent moon in the design. The stone rasped and slid in. I heard a click and the shield swung out to the left on hidden hinges. It revealed a small alcove barely a foot square or deep.
Morai smiled. "I know about that already, Talion. I paid my sources here very well. I expected to find the Star in there; it was the first place I searched last night."
I smiled. "No surprise you knew of this." I ignored the alcove itself and, from the back of the shield, removed the stone disk that had the crescent on it. As large as my palm, only the top half of it, about two inches in depth, was carved to form the crescent moon. I carried it into my bedroom and over to the washbasin. Morai followed me wordlessly.
I set the stone down and removed the mirror from where it hung. A round wooden plug with a hook in it was sunk into the wall. I worked it loose, then picked the stone up and fitted it into the hole so the crescent did not show. A half inch of the disk still stuck out of the wall. I grasped it and twisted it around three times, then stepped back.
The whole wash area scraped along the floor and twisted open to reveal a passage into the mountain behind Castel Seir.
I turned to Morai. His mouth hung open in shock. "Talion, there's no way this passage exists. My sources were the best"—he pounded his right fist into his left palm—"the best, dammit, and I paid them as if they were. They said the Castel had no secret passages in the Wolf Tower."
I smiled weakly. "Remember, I'm a Talion. I have sources that considerably predate anything you might obtain through bribes. This passage leads down to the old family crypts and fell into disuse soon after the Shattering." I pointed back behind him, "Grab a candle, light it, and follow me."
Dust blanketed the passage and rippled like fog as we walked through it. The passage circled the tower and passed through double thick walls where it left the cliffside. Narrow stairs led to the upper two levels, and another passage ran off into the mountain. We followed it and descended quickly.
Morai rubbed his nose and sneezed. "Well, at least we know no one has been through here in ages."
I nodded and stopped. The flickering light from the candle revealed a cave-in blocking the passage to the crypts. The walls had collapsed and solidly sealed the passage except for a narrow space up by the ceiling.
I took the candle from Morai and held it up there. The flame did not waver. "No draft. The passage must be sealed again further down."
Morai nodded in agreement. "Not only that, but I've seen the entrance to the crypts you're talking about. It's all overgrown with vines and half-covered with dirt. It would take ten men a week to clear it away and unseal the tombs."
"No one is coming through here." I nodded. "Since you seem able to get into the Wolf Tower at will, you can at least use this passage to move unseen within the tower."
"Or the passage can be used to evacuate the tower if there is trouble."
I smiled. "Good thinking."
"You inspire the best in me, Talion." He pried a rock out of the earthen pile and pitched it through the hole. "Any idea when this tunnel was last used?"
I returned the candle to him and toyed with the ring on my finger. "I believe it was when King Roderick dumped Prince Uriah's murdered body in the crypts. In fact, legend has it that King Roderick collapsed this tunnel himself because the breezes running through it sounded like ghostly moaning to him. At least that's one of the scariest tales I heard as a child."
"And you believe it?"
I nodded slowly, then smiled. "At least enough to check and make sure this avenue wasn't open."
We marched back up through the darkness. The shadows swallowed the tunnel below us, and even the sound of our footsteps vanished within the gloom. Morai got a bit excited when he noticed the washstand had closed behind us, but I reached up above the doorway and pressed a block to open the doorway again.
Once safely ensconced in the suite I reset the door and crescent. Morai finished the goblet of wine he poured to cut the dust in his throat and stared at me. "You surprise me, Talion, very much. Perhaps, someday, you'll see how your talents and knowledge are wasted chasing after me, and you will join me."
I smiled and shook my head. "I think that is unlikely, although we are," I said, raising my left hand and showing, him the back of it, "brothers within the wolf caste."
He smiled. "Then you won't mind telling me, brother to brother, how many people know about that passage?"
I turned and stared distractedly at it. "You mean other than us? No one. All the others who know that secret are dead."
* * *
I summoned Adric and had him escort Morai from the castle. Morai's report worried me. The masquerade would be the perfect place for the nekkeht to strike. The costumes worn to a coronation masquerade, while always beautiful or striking, traditionally represented evil and malignant creatures. At midnight everyone unmasked at the newly crowned person's request in a symbolic banishment of all evil from the kingdom. Certainly more than one Lurker would be among the guests, in addition to demons, jelkoms, and a host of terrifying creatures.
That alone, though, could not be the reason factions braced for tomorrow night. Each group wished to place its puppet in a position to further its aims, but what would change that night to make that happen? Even as I framed the question, the answer dawned on me: Duke Vidor might take that opportunity to propose marriage to the Princess! And if he'd informed all the factions of his plans, each would be ready....
Halsted's arrival interrupted any further analysis of Morai's information. He was not alone and moved out of the doorway so a priest dressed in a robe of forest green could enter. Clean-shaven and bright-eyed, he wore his long brown hair in a braid that dangled over his right shoulder to his waist.
I rose and bowed to him. "Welcome be the Hand of Shudath."
"And to you Her blessings." The priest signed a blessing with his right hand. With only two fingers erect he brought his hand up in a wavy line, symbolic of a new plant shoot growing up to the sun, then opened his hand full up like a blossom. He smiled kindly and folded his arms across his chest. His hands disappeared into the large sleeves of the robe.
I invited him to sit, but knew better than to offer him wine. My family had worshipped Shudath the All-Mother in Sinjaria, as did most of the farm families that made their living off the land. Though I no longer practiced after I left Sinjaria, I'd grown to respect the simple, majestic religion that held both nature and the family sacred. I felt very much at ease with the priest.
Halsted looked at me. "Lord Nolan, Hand Fial will explain your role in this evening's vigil." Halsted bowed and retreated from the room.
Fial smiled easily. "Your part in this holy mystery may seem simple, but it is of the utmost importance. As her Champion you will guard the Princess so nothing can disturb her vigil in the Moon Tower."
I nodded. "I am at your service. Tell me what I must do, and I will do it."
"Good, good." The priest reached out and gently patted me on the forearm. "This evening is the completion of the ritual that began with the Princess's Dreamvigil. In that dream she saw a mountain leopard and now that it has been slain, to directly testify to the veracity of her dream, she will await a visit by the Goddess Shudath."
The priest got to his feet as if in a trance and paced the room silently. "Your part may not be easy to play. The visitation may take different forms. Often a child has emerged from the tower after nothing more unsettling than a night's rest, but occasionally we have unsealed the chamber to find both child and Champion aged unto death."
He spoke with a distracted tone, but that did nothing to soften the impact of his words. Still, he did not invite comment from me, and continued on as if I barely existed. "Your role this night is to protect the Princess if she needs it; otherwise you are to do nothing but observe. The Princess must not be distur
bed in her meditations, and unless she is threatened, you must do nothing. Above all, you may never reveal anything you see or hear, and you may not address the Goddess except in the unlikely event she first speaks to you."
I nodded my head to indicate I understood; then I inserted a question before he could speak again. "Has that ever happened? Has the Goddess ever spoken to the Champion?"
Rial's face regained some life and he shrugged. "Clearly, Lord Nolan, I have no way of knowing. The Goddess comes to the children in the royal line to remind them of their connection to the nation. If they treat the nation kindly and attend to the problems therein, their reign will be smooth and long. If they are tyrannical and cruel, their time on the throne will be very difficult, and though short, will seem like a very long time indeed. If the Goddess has ever chosen to speak with a champion we do not know because they have never spoken of their experience, as I expect you will not either."
I nodded and pressed my hands together palm to palm. "Your requirement of secrecy would seem best served by having no one with the Princess at all."
Pain narrowed the priest's eyes. "That was once how it was, but disturbed vigils caused instability and the nation suffered for it."
I thought for a second, then looked down at the fire. "The Rodericks."
The priest smiled warmly. "I see you understand."
I nodded gravely. "Nothing will disturb this night for the Princess."
* * *
Another Hand of Shudath knocked and entered my suite. He communicated with Fial through hand signals, was rewarded with a hearty nod, then presented me with a package. I untied the twine and unwrapped the leather covering. Within I discovered a robe cut along the same lines as those worn by the priests, but mine was blood red.
Fial pointed to the robe. "It is the color of the blood you are willing to shed in her defense. You must put it on, and then bring your sword to me."
I stepped into the wardrobe room and changed quickly. I brought the priest my tsincaat and he slipped it from the sheath. "You take very good care of your blade, Lord Nolan."
I smiled. "And it does the same of me, Hand Fial."
The priest passed his hands above and below the blade, then wiped it once with a red silk cloth. He passed the tsincaat back to me and indicated I should follow him. I did and, with the second priest following behind, I climbed the stairs to the Princess's suite.
Only the lurid red light coruscating from the boar's-head hearth in her antechamber illuminated the room. Another priest, armed with a censer, stood behind the Princess. Smoke curled up from the censer and filled the room with a fragrant haze.
The Princess wore a white silk gown—sleeveless, and really little more than a sheet of soft fabric. A simple silver pin securely fastened it at her right shoulder. The gown hung to the floor and a white cord belted it at the waist.
Her hair hung loose, without even a coronet or comb in it, but was brushed so it cascaded over her bare left shoulder. Her brown eyes were almost entirely pupil, more so than called for by the subdued light in the room, and she stared unwavering at something I could not see. She already seemed to be communicating with the Goddess.
Hand Fial gently guided me to my spot beside the Princess; then the priest with the censer walked around us three times. He chanted in a voice so low that the sound of the censer ringing off the impact with the chain on which it swung stole half his words. He paused once to let smoke enfold my tsincaat, then Hand Fial led us from the chamber and on through darkened corridors to the Moon Tower.
The priests opened the Moon Tower and preceded us in. The leading priest bore the censer, and thick smoke hung in the air to mark the way for us. Then one priest with a candle headed up the stairs before the Princess, and Hand Fial followed me as I walked behind her.
We climbed up and around the tower until we reached the uppermost chamber. Smaller than I might have expected, the room had four arrow slits to serve as windows, and had unadorned walls and floor of stone and wood respectively. The mountain-leopard skin lay already spread out in the center of the room, but, aside from us and it, the room stood utterly empty.
I took up my station to the left of the door at the place indicated by Hand Fial; the candlebearer and the censerward flanked me. The Princess knelt on the leopard skin. Hand Fial took the censer and walked around her three times. The censer belched out great gouts of smoke, but they dissipated in the light crossbreeze coming through the windows.
Hand Fial stopped behind the Princess and bowed to something in front of her. "Oh Wise and Wonderful, Giver of All That Is Life, Mother of the World, I present to you your Daughter, Zaria ra Hamis. She is of the Age, and Openly Accepts Your Divine Mission for Her."
He bowed again and turned toward the door. He took the candle from the other priest and placed it on the floor at the Princess's right side. The other two priests left the room before him. He did not acknowledge me with more than a flick of the censer in my direction. I moved away from the wall and shut the door.
I had no bar to drop into place, nor a key with which to lock the door, which made me somewhat uneasy. Aside from that, though, the room was secure, so I envisioned little difficulty keeping people from disturbing the ritual. I set my back to the door and I faced the Princess. I trusted my hearing to warn me of any intruders, and the uncomfortable position in which I stood to keep me awake enough to react to them.
I watched the Rabbit Moon travel from the southern arrow port to the western one and knew two hours had passed—so far in complete and utter silence. My heels and shoulders began to protest but I ignored them because the Princess stayed on her knees, barely moving, for all that time and never shifted to make herself more comfortable. I watched her shoulders rise and fall with her breathing. The motion was even and regular enough for her to be asleep, but I knew she was awake. She stared straight ahead and watched the spot Hand Fial had bowed at earlier.
Then I saw it. It started as a spark, then flared into a blossom of fire. I raised my left hand to shield my eyes because of the brightness and saw the wolf symbol burn with purple flames on its back. The light died quickly and in its wake stood a woman, or so it appeared. One look at her eyes, though, and I knew she was more than human.
She was naked, after a fashion, because although she wore no clothing, she covered her body with the soft fur of a mountain leopard just like the pelt upon which the Princess knelt. Animal flesh made her no less beautiful or seductive, but there was something about her stance and demeanor that set her beyond all sexual considerations.
She smiled lovingly at the Princess and reached out to stroke Zaria's cheek with a lissome, furred finger. "I welcome you, Daughter, and I have for you a prophecy." Her words
echoed upon themselves a thousand times over, but were not loud. The sound sent an eerie chill down my spine because I could hear my mother and grandmother in her voice. "Your reign will be long. You will wed the Duke of Sinjaria and bear him children. Through you a wrong will be righted, and by your hand many wrongs will be made right. You will please me."
The Goddess stroked Zaria's silky black hair, then closed the Princess's eyes. The Princess gently slumped to the ground unconscious and slept peacefully.
The Goddess looked up at me and her voice hissed like the cat whose skin she wore. "And now for you, Talion, Nolan ra Sinjaria." She snarled and called me by another name.
Remorsefully I shook my head and dropped to my knees. "I am no longer known as that."
She laughed and ridiculed me in a million voices. "I know you in all that you are. Do not imagine that because you have abandoned your true self others have."
Old feelings bubbled up inside me, but I strangled the child's cry they invoked. "There is no one else who knows, and I have not forsaken my true self. I have changed and grown beyond what I was before, not shed that identity like a snake would a skin."
The Goddess watched me and weighed my words. "No prophecy for you, Talion, only warnings. Remember them, heed them. Death stalk
s Seir, and you are one he waits to claim."
In speaking, she began to change. Her body bloated and twisted to mock her previous beauty. Open sores ruptured her flesh and coated it with a thick, translucent green liquid streaked with scarlet. Scarab beetles crawled from the gaping holes in her skin to chew it and strip her to the bones. Her stomach burst open and I saw maggots writhing there to burrow deeper and consume even more of her. A bony finger pointed at me, and her voice rasped in a funereal parody of her message to the Princess. "Listen to me, Talion."
Her scalp split and the flesh dropped to either shoulder, but instead of the ivory bone I expected to see, something else rested atop her neck. Her skull was pure crystal, like the skull in Talianna, and the light it projected dissolved away everything below it. I stared into the empty sockets but all I saw was a distorted reflection of the room.
Disembodied, the Goddess's voice filled the tower. "Mighty though you are, Talion, able to crush the living," it said, the crystal jaw moving and ringing with each word, "you cannot defeat the dead!"
Chapter Eighteen
Talion: Justice
I stood nervously just inside the doorway to Lord Hansur's chambers. The Justice Lord sat at his desk, and seated across from him was the Wizard who had been overseeing my recovery. Although I'd regained consciousness three days before, the spell numbing my shoulder was still in force and my left arm hung in a sling.
"Come in, Nolan, and please be seated." Lord Hansur pointed to the chair next to the Wizard. "Wizard Adamik and I have been talking about your recovery. Because of some things he has said I have reached a difficult decision and I wanted him here to answer any of your questions."
I nodded. My stomach tightened. The one thing I'd feared since I'd awakened was about to happen.
Lord Hansur steepled his fingers and frowned. "I am afraid you will not be able to test with the other Seventeens, nor undergo the ritual of the Skull with them."
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