He died horribly, because of me. She swallowed bile. Will it ever end?
The temple was a labyrinth of rooms, hallways, stairwells and antechambers, and if it weren’t for Minard, Kara would have been lost within minutes of leaving her room. From the outside, the temple hadn’t seemed nearly as large.
Aemon’s grip on her arm was firm, his mace held ready. He peered down every corridor and into every empty hall as they passed, his face a mask of focus. She drew comfort from his strength. He would stand by her, no matter what.
They entered an antechamber with cables and square, glass windows affixed to its walls. Words moved across the windows. Wait. The glass wasn’t windows. It was computer monitors.
She’d only ever seen one at the templeshine of Ibilirith in the capital. Here there were dozens, each with writing scrolling across so quickly Kara doubted the acolytes standing before them could read it before it disappeared.
At the center of the room stood patriarch Lucien, with six hard-faced monks and two scroll-carrying acolytes. He gripped the cog around his neck like he meant to crush it with his bare hands. The light over his head shone like the Sun from her visiondreams, making it hard to look upon him. Minard fell to his knees and bowed his head at the patriarch's feet.
Lucien removed his hat and the light adorning it, and passed it to an acolyte. Then his icy blue eyes studied Kara, sweat beading on his forehead.
Kara’s courtesan intuition tingled. Lucien meant her harm. His escort of warrior monks were busy watching for danger and none seemed to be paying her any mind.
But that didn’t mean they weren’t a threat. They could turn on her in an instant.
She lowered her gaze to Minard. Had Lucien ordered him to lead her into a trap? Surely not. He’d had ample opportunity to kill her and she’d never picked up a hostile vibe from him. If Lucien meant to betray her, Minard wasn't part of the plan. The patriarch mightn’t care about Minard either, and might see him as expendable.
Minard was a Divergent after all.
A thought struck her like a falling stone and she flinched. What if Lucien was the one who’d let Kahan in? Would he sink so low as to work with his mortal enemy? Lucien still studied her, icy daggers in his eyes.
But also fear.
The attack wasn't his doing, then. He would find some other way to betray her. Perhaps it wouldn’t come until her return to Stelemia, where she’d find an army of Inquisitors waiting for her. Or perhaps when she turned to leave, he’d plunge a knife into her back. Either way, she needed to be ready.
After a long moment, Lucien let go of the cog and took a deep breath. “I shall pray you do not fulfill the prophecy and that you will return to us as our savior—not our destroyer.” He blew out air through his teeth. “I should hand you over to the Inquisitors, but our enemy, those who assault our holy temple, want you dead. That, and my desire to end the rift in my order, is all that stays my hand.”
Though still ill at ease about the patriarch’s intentions, Kara gave him a deferential nod. When Minard stood, Lucien reached out to grab him. “Remember your promise to me, monk. I place great trust in you to see it done.”
Promise? Was he talking about the one where Minard would return and help him mend the rift in the Order, or was it the monk’s promise to kill Kara if she ended up being a threat?
Minard stared into the distance and nodded once. Lucien let go and Minard motioned for Kara and Aemon to follow him as he led them from the room. As she walked away, Kara felt Lucien’s gaze burning into her back. Even when they’d left the room, it felt as though his eyes were still on her. Eyes of blue flame.
They reached the end of another hallway and Minard slid aside a tapestry hanging on the wall to enter a hidden passage concealed behind it. With one last glance behind them, Kara and Aemon followed him in. After thirty feet, the passage ended at a blank stone wall. The monk struck a hidden button with his staff and the wall soundlessly slid open. Beyond it lay the brightly lit Machine Chapel where Kara had woken a few weeks earlier.
A battle raged somewhere nearby, and above the clamor came a man’s wail of terrible agony. Minard glanced about. “There's no one out there but the fighting is close. We should hurry while it's still safe.”
“Then go,” Aemon said. “I'll guard our rear.”
Entering the chapel, its walls crisscrossed with innumerable lights and wires, Kara and Aemon followed the monk between the pews, Aemon walking backwards to keep an eye on the entrance. They approached the metallic altar, which shone with a thousand, tiny, multi-colored bulbs. Some winked on and off, while others went from bright to dim and back again. A thick, golden wrench leaned against the altar, its shining surface sparkling in the light of the glowing room.
Kara watched Aemon, still struck by how far he'd come. His eyes seemed to take everything in, but not with their normal sheen of wonder. They searched for danger.
Her heart ached for him. He’d lost something since reaching the temple. She’d come to like his incessant lectures on the history of things she took for granted. The last few days, he’d become aloof and hadn’t seemed to want to be as close to her as he once had. Hopefully, the changes in him were only temporary, for he could remain his old self and still learn to be a warrior. She’d known men who could wield quills as well as they could swords.
They stopped at the wall where Kara had woken. While Aemon stood guard, Minard pulled a lever and part of the wall began to slide open.
“This leads to the entrance of the Tomb of Ibilirith,” Minard said. “Near it, there’s a ladder we’ll climb down. At the bottom, an acolyte will be waiting for us with our equipment.”
Kara peered into the darkness beyond the opening in the wall. She could make out a passage leading into the distance. Could the tomb be why the dream had brought her here? Kara hadn't even known the tomb was there, but had the dream?
Footsteps carried from across the chapel. The three of them spun around to see a black-clad Knife of Dwaycar sneak into the room. The knife stopped when it caught sight of them.
After spending a moment to take them in, the knife hurriedly retreated from the room. Outside, she started up an elated cry. “To me, sisters, to me. I have found the Scion.”
“We have to stop her,” Kara said. “She’ll tell—”
Minard shoved Kara and Aemon into the hidden doorway. “I’ll deal with her. You two follow the tunnel until you reach a grotto. Wait for me there, and don’t touch anything!” The monk raced through the chapel and out the door, after the elated knife.
Aemon took her arm and led her down the hidden passage. A minute later, they emerged into a torchlit grotto with a ladder leading down into darkness. Hundreds of hieroglyphs adorned the chiseled stone walls and a row of sacred lights glowed overhead.
A faint murmur at the edge of Kara’s mind beckoned her to get a closer look at the pictures on the wall. Letting go of Aemon, she walked over to study them. The hieroglyphs were clearly the work of a master artist. The intricacy of each was a thing to behold.
Some depicted people at work baking mushroom bread or herding sheep, while others showed people dressed in brown robes prostrating themselves before inscrutable machines. A large one, painted high up the wall, showed a beautiful, tall woman with a golden halo around her head. She towered over a group of men, women and children and pointed upward at something.
Kara followed the direction of her finger and saw a round disk. It looked yellow, like the Sun in her visiondreams, but the ancient paint was far too faded for her to be certain.
At the back of the grotto loomed the entrance to the Tomb of Ibilirith. Kara approached it reverently. It wasn’t everyday one got to stand before the resting place of a Divine. Emblazoned on the formidable metal door was the image of a fearsome-looking bird. She’d seen the feathered animals at the zoo in the Priest King’s gardens, but none had looked as intimidating as the one here. Its body was made of gold and its ruby eyes flickered like flames.
Upon the five st
eps leading up to the door were countless offerings of metal shards, cogs, nuts and screws. A strange head rested on the bottom step, facing Kara. The head looked like the metal man from her visiondream, though painted darker and with a missing eye.
What was it doing here? Where was the rest of its body?
A strange sense of recognition made Kara stiffen. It felt like she’d known this metal man once, like they'd spoken, or... The feeling passed as swiftly as it had come, the metal head once again as alien to her as the Metal Man in her visiondream.
Kara drew her cloak around herself and shivered. Until now, she’d not noticed how cold, silent and still the grotto was. As she was about to turn back to Aemon, something began calling to her from inside the tomb. It urged her forward, not by words but by force of will.
Was it Ibilirith?
Offerings crunched under Kara’s boots as she made her way up the stairs. When she arrived at the entrance, her attention became drawn to a metallic slot on the wall beside it, large enough to fit the passkey. Perhaps if she inserted it into the slot, the door would open.
Something grabbed her. “Kara, what are you doing? Get away from there before Minard sees you.”
Aemon.
How dare he disturb me! I was about to open the door.
With a strength born of rage, Kara slapped him across the face. Head spinning, he reeled backward into the door and slid to the ground clutching his right cheek.
Mouth open, he stared up at her. “What... what did you do that for?”
She took a step toward him, her hand reaching for her sword. He started crawling away from her. Kara lunged after him, sword half drawn, teeth bared. “Come here.”
“No, stay back. Why are you doing this?”
Kara’s body started to shake and her eyes lost focus. She clutched the sides of her head as a tingling sensation in her brain overwhelmed her senses. The sensation lasted for several seconds, then eased until it became no more than an annoying irritant.
The all-consuming rage fizzled away, but the compulsion to enter the tomb remained. Kara slowly retreated from the door. What is happening? Someone help me.
Backing to the top step, she tripped on an offering and fell. She landed on her back and slid head first to the bottom of the stairs, coming to rest beside the metal head, the wind knocked out of her.
The metal head’s strange eye seemed to bore into hers. Shuddering, she rolled away, small offerings digging into her flesh.
“Kara,” came a small voice from above her.
She lay there for a good minute, just breathing—in and out, in and out. The passkey burned her skin and a wave of headspins made her vision sway.
“Kara,” the voice said again.
Aemon! It was Aemon. What have I done?
She pushed herself off the floor and saw Aemon standing on the top step. He stared down at her feet, as if afraid to make eye contact. A bright, purple-red handprint marred his cheek. Her handprint.
“I’m sorry.” Kara reached for him, hoping he would come down and take her hand. “I don’t know what happened. It feels like something in there wants me to enter and when you disturbed me, I—it lashed out.”
Aemon said nothing, nor did he move to take her hand. He’d seen Kara like this once before, back at Jalarfed. But this time she’d hurt someone. Him.
The tingling feeling made it hard to focus her thoughts. Grimacing, she cried, “Aemon, please... I’m sorry. Whatever was happening to me has stopped. I feel fine now. I’m sorry I hit you. I was not myself.”
Still staring at her feet, he nodded slowly. Whimpering, Kara crawled toward him but he backed away again. Tears streaked down her cheeks and dripped onto the offerings scattered on the floor. She stopped, got to her knees and wiped the tears away. “Please, Aemon, come down and let me hold you.” Her heart ached so much she wanted to rip it out. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
His eyes suddenly widened and he pointed at her chest. “Is the passkey on fire? I can see it through your robes.”
Sniffing, she peered down. Aemon was right. The passkey shone brighter than it ever had. No wonder it was so hot.
She lifted it and marveled at how bright the small bulb had become. The light silhouetted the bones of her hand and was bright enough to illuminate the entire grotto. It gave off almost as much heat as a candle.
Aemon made his way down to the bottom step and finally met her eye. She shoved the passkey back into her robes, gritting her teeth as it burned her, and stepped forward to embrace him.
Though he stiffened, Aemon let her hold him close. Her emotions felt like they were being sloshed around like a drunk’s flagon of ale. “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. “Please say you forgive me.”
Wrapping his arms around her, he kissed her hair. “I hope we can rid you of that vile thing.” He squeezed her a moment. “The look on your face when you struck me... It was not you. It was someone else.”
The ghostly woman’s voice whispered in her mind, You are Imogen, Mother of Steel Children. You wear her beacon around your neck.
Suddenly, Aemon shoved Kara behind him and raised his mace. “Someone is coming.”
After a moment’s hesitation, she drew her sword and listened to the sound of approaching feet. Seconds later, Minard appeared and behind him came Wrynric.
“You made it,” she exclaimed to the old warrior. He gave her a grim nod and dabbed at a splash of blood on his armor. Kara stepped toward him. “Did you see Kahan?”
“No, but I had to cut my way though several other knives to get here.” He raised his eyebrows when he saw Aemon’s reddened cheek but said nothing of it. “I don’t think I was followed, but I can’t be sure. Once Kahan works out the half-blood is no longer in the temple, he might start searching the catacombs for her.”
Minard pressed a button and closed the hidden passage. “I killed the knife who saw us in the chapel before she reached her brethren, though I’m uncertain if any of them heard her cries before I cut them short.”
“How many more knives are out there?” Kara asked. She almost felt like gnawing on her nails like Aemon.
“I don’t know,” Wrynric replied. “But on the way here, I saw the corpses of more than a dozen knives and at least a dozen more in a pitched battle near the infirmary. Perhaps Kahan has brought reinforcements from their home in the Nether to help him assault the temple. If he has—there could be more than a hundred of them.”
“More than a hundred...” Minard muttered a quick prayer to Ibilirith. “I wish I could stay and fight, but I know I must leave my brothers and sisters to battle on without me.” He rammed his staff on the ground. “What I’d love to know is how they discovered our catacombs and how they knew the Scion survived their poison.”
“They followed me through the Nether for over a month,” Wrynric said. “I know how to conceal my passage, yet still they found me and tracked me to the half-blood’s tavern in the capital.”
“They also tracked me to Deep Cave and followed me here,” Kara added.
Wrynric stared into the distance. “It’s almost as if...”
“As if what?” Kara asked.
He gave her a distracted look. “I don’t know. It’s like someone or something is helping them.”
“Dwaycar?”
Minard winced. “Scion, don’t speak that name here.”
“I’m sorry.” Kara hunched her shoulders. “Kahan always seems to be one step behind me.”
“It’s alright.” Minard glanced at the tomb door. “My order and his have been at war for hundreds of years. His kind betrayed Holy Ibilirith when they assaulted the Serdtse Power Station and almost plunged Stelemia into darkness. I still can’t believe they’ve returned, and that they’ve dared attack our temple.”
“They are as much fanatics as your kind is,” Wrynric said. “Every one of them would throw their lives away in their mad pursuit to kill the half-blood.”
Kara bit her lip as she stared at the blood on the old man’s armor. All th
is death, all the suffering and horror, because of her. “I want this to end. I want them to stop.” The tingling in her head made her want to scream at the top of her lungs for it all to go away. She dropped her voice to little more than a whisper. “I must reach Annbar.”
Minard got to one knee. “Then fear not, Scion. Until the day you prove yourself a threat, I will guide and protect you. You’re in Holy Ibilirith’s presence, and she’ll strike me down if my staff breaks or my will falters.”
Kara brushed back her bangs. Had he just pledged his life to her?
Wrynric bowed now. “I make this solemn oath to the light of the Lost Sun. I will protect you from the dark and guide you until your task is done.” He straightened and patted her shoulder. “Return us to our Sun.”
Aemon watched the other men take their vows, then knelt and lowered his head. “I make the same oath as them, but I make it to the Shield of Heaven.” When he looked up, his eyes were filled with love. Even after she'd hit him, he still loved her. It warmed her heart.
He swallowed. “In Lydan’s name, I vow I will protect you with my life because I...”
Turning away, he said no more. She could no longer see his face but she could tell he had wanted to say more. Then he looked back at her, his face a mask of control.
“Aemon...”
“Kara, I will protect you with my life. I will see you to the library in Annbar and help you search it for answers.”
She backed into the wall, clutching the passkey through her robes. It was odd to inspire such devotion. She was no lord, lady or Priest King.
In truth, she no longer knew what she was.
Chapter 16
AEMON
As Aemon climbed down the ladder, the heat of the temple began to be replaced by the chill of a crypt. The descent was long, and it gave him time to think through his dark thoughts.
What had overcome Kara back at the Tomb of Ibilirith? What would Minard do if something like that overcame her again? After all, the monk promised he would kill her if she became a threat.
Kara descended the ladder three rungs above his head, the glow of the passkey through her robes turning the wall in front of her blood red. Would she keep it together long enough for them to reach the Dead City?
Heir to a Lost Sun: A Caverns of Stelemia Novel Page 24
