"I'm not exactly thrilled about it myself." On the other hand, I should probably have been more concerned than I was. Perhaps I'd reached the point where I was so overloaded by strange and terrible events I could no longer manage the proper reaction.
"Yes, but this is my fault. I brought you into this. I'm so sorry Edric, I had no idea. I thought this was just another of Solomon's plots, not..."
"Not what?"
"I don't know!" Her voice tightened. "I wish I did."
There were still no tears. She was badly frightened, but a long way from despair. I'd wondered how much of the real Arianwyn I'd seen these last few days. Even when things had been going badly for us in Otherworld she'd retained her composure. I'd wondered how much of that had been genuine courage and how much was a mask worn for my benefit. Now I knew. My revelations had stripped her confidence away, but steel lay beneath. I shouldn't have been surprised. Hers was not a bloodline to back down before anything.
"We don't have to do this tonight," I said.
She stared at me blankly, then gave me a long, appraising look. "You're a kind and generous man, Edric Saran, the very thing that we are all taught princes should be. It gives me hope that we might yet live through whatever it is we've stumbled into. Anything else would be a poor reward."
The compliment was rather spoiled by the ominous ending, but I was obscurely pleased nonetheless. I opened my mouth to speak, but subsided as she pointed a warning finger.
"However, you seem to think that just because I'm terrified – and I am, believe me, I am – that I've suddenly stopped thinking." She said the words matter-of-factly, with a touch of humour wielded expertly at my expense. "First of all, nothing you've told me alters the dangers of Solomon getting hold of a complete portalstone. Second, you said 'We don't have to do this tonight'. You've no intention of returning to the tower, have you?"
So much for that plan. "Eventually, yes, but..."
"...but not until you've found a way into the vaults and retrieved the second fragment. If it's still there, of course."
"I had something of that sort in mind."
"Fine. I'll still be coming with you."
"Arianwyn..."
"I told you, I'm terrified, but that doesn't change what we came here to do." She stood up. "If you're staying, so am I."
There was an undeniable tone of challenge in her voice, but also something far harder to define. A quiet dignity perhaps, backed up by a resolve that matched and probably far exceeded my own. In that moment, in the darkness of the palace gardens, she made me believe that there was something more than mortal in her lineage, that perhaps everything the Sidarists believed was true. Then she smiled, and the moment passed.
"Come, dear Edric. Let's be about our business."
Giving up on any attempt at dissuasion, I followed her down a long and twisting path leading back down towards the palace. "You have a plan, I trust?"
"Naturally." She spoke calmly, her apprehension gone without a trace. "I was going to get us inside through Otherworld. There's a crossing point at the base of the monument. However, given everything that you've just told me, I've no desire to enter Death's realm unless there's no other choice."
"You'll have no argument from me. So we're doing this the old fashioned way?"
"Yes. It's a shame Constans isn't here. He's rather better at this than I am. He enjoys it more, too."
We came to a low stone wall and a gravelled expanse, beyond which lay the rear wall of the palace itself. Arianwyn put a finger to her lips as a patrol of praetorians noisily made its way across the gravel. We sank behind the wall.
"We'll wait for them to move out of sight, then head down the left hand side of the building," Arianwyn whispered. "There's a servant's entrance a little way down."
For a wonder, we made it to the servant's door without attracting any attention. Twice more we sighted patrols, but on both occasions we were able to find concealment in time. In truth, the praetorians didn't seem that alert. It was hard to blame them. I don't think I'd heard of anyone trying to break into the palace.
Later, I'd wish I'd considered why that might be.
Thanks to Quintus' skeleton keys, the door itself was no obstacle. Those keys really were handy, and I wondered if the guard captain had learned enough of my escapades to regret having given them to me.
After passing through a series of pleasant but functional rooms, Arianwyn and I stood in a darkened corridor with a high, vaulted ceiling. A draughtboard pattern of black and white tiles made up the floor, with rich-looking carpet runners laid out along the corridor's centre. To either side, the corridor vanished into darkness, though I fancied I saw the right hand passage curving away. Ahead stood large and imposing double doors, their approach guarded by two suits of polished armour.
I tried to match my surroundings to my brief ambassadorial visit six months ago, but to no avail. It had been too long ago, and I'd been too busy trying not to expire on the spot from embarrassment. I guessed the room ahead was a ballroom of some kind, but even if it was, I knew there were at least three such chambers in the palace. I gave up my attempts at orientation. As I didn't have the slightest idea where the vaults were in relation to the rest of the building, there wasn't much point anyway. But it would have been nice not to be reliant on someone else's directions for a change.
"This way."
Arianwyn tapped me on the shoulder and headed around to the right. We passed through a series of increasingly opulent rooms. The wealth on display was fantastic. The walls were lined with hand-painted wallpaper, or else hidden behind vast tapestries of gold and silver. Priceless Thrakkian vases and Ithna'jîm crystal sculptures stood upon plinths and intricate side tables.
"Why are there so few guards?" I enquired. "To have only one door and a handful of patrols between this collection and the outside world is a thief's dream."
"Everything's protected by some form of invisible tripwire at night," she whispered. "I don't know how it works – I assume it's magical – but it's definitely there." She smiled slightly. "There are at least two self-proclaimed master thieves in the Pit who decided that the talk of alarms was just a way of keeping opportunists away."
She stepped carefully around a bronze statue of a rampant lion someone had seen fit to display in the middle of the passageway.
"There's a story doing the rounds about one of them," she continued. "Apparently, he'd been commissioned to liberate a particularly fine pre-Sidaran bust. He got in through an upper window, found the piece he was looking for, and then became the focus of every guard in the palace after a muffled booming shook the building."
"He can't have been happy."
"He wasn't." She peered cautiously around a corner. "Rumour also says he was 'one of the lucky ones', whatever that means."
"Is it too much to hope that the rumour alludes to something harmless and straightforward, like the fact that the thief was captured, rather than killed?"
"I've no idea. It's probably best that you don't touch anything."
"I'd tend to agree." I'd had no intention of doing so anyway. I just wanted to be out of the place as quickly as possible.
We came to a halt where our alcoved corridor passed through an arch. The sound of footsteps and a dull glow came from beyond. Arianwyn pressed herself into the corner between the arch and the wall, and I did the same on the opposite side.
It would have been nice if the patroller hadn't come through the arch, but had instead continued along the other passage. Failing that, I'd have settled for him being sufficiently bored and unobservant that he failed to catch sight of us when he walked past. Sadly, neither proved to be the case. He came around the corner and found himself staring straight at Arianwyn.
"Don't move!" The praetorian raised his lantern and drew his sword.
Arianwyn shrank in on herself, the very picture of an intruder unexpectedly caught and fearful of the consequences. I also stood stock still, but for very different reasons. So far, the praetorian's f
ull attention was on her, and I didn't want any sound to give away that small advantage. I held my breath and hoped Arianwyn wouldn't do anything that drew attention to me.
"Please, please don't hurt me," she sobbed. "I didn't want to come, but they made me. They said if I didn't show them where the vaults were, they'd kill me. I got away, but they're looking for me." She looked up at the praetorian, her eyes imploring. "I think they're this way. I can take you to them..." She took a quick step back the way we'd come.
The guard, who may or may not have believed the story, moved to block her escape. As he did so, his back turned fully towards me. Thanking Ashana for the fact that he wasn't wearing a helmet, I hit him as hard as I could. For once, my best was good enough. With a quiet sigh, the praetorian pitched face first onto the carpet.
I was slowly battering my way up the hierarchy. First a constable, now a praetorian; at my current rate, I'd thump a councillor in less than a day, and a god before the week was out. I realised I shouldn't make jokes like that, even in the privacy of my own mind – certainly not with the way my life was going.
With Arianwyn's help, I hauled the guard into an alcove. Hopefully, he'd remain out of sight long enough for us to complete our business in the palace.
"Hold his head upright," said Arianwyn.
All signs of the damsel in distress were gone now they were no longer needed. Slightly perplexed, I obeyed. She crouched beside the unconscious praetorian and pressed her palm to his forehead. She sat that way for a moment, eyes closed and lips mouthing silent words.
She stood up and dusted herself down. "You can let him go. There are another two praetorians patrolling this part of the palace. Neither will be back this way for a while. With a bit of luck, we'll get in without any more unfortunate events."
"You managed to get all of that from the mind of a sleeping man?" I asked, impressed and a little unsettled.
"He's a guard." Arianwyn brushed at her skirts. "Most of his surface thoughts were of that duty." Her nose wrinkled in distaste. "It was like wading through mud." She noticed what her hands were doing, froze, and then slowly relaxed. "Sorry, the experience sometimes provokes more of a reaction than I'd like."
"I don't suppose you found out where the vaults are?"
"I already know." She looked at me with amusement. "Did you think we'd been walking around in circles all this time?"
With one last look at the guard, she led me through the archway into the lantern-lit space beyond, where our way was blocked by a large, metal door.
"See?" she asked sweetly.
"At no point did I say you'd led us astray." I protested, but my heart wasn't in it. I was fairly sure she didn't believe me.
My eyes flicked over the door's baroque mouldings, taking in the intricate bas-reliefs of godlike figures. Representations of Jack and Malgyne were there, the former stood before a majestic tree, the latter hunched over a branch in such a manner that his raven-head made him appear like nothing so much as a giant bird of prey. Ashana was there, her arms spread in benefaction, as was Astor, Artisan of Creation, and a whole host of lesser deities and powers, many of whom I didn't recognise.
"Stefan would have loved this."
"What do you mean?" asked Arianwyn.
"It's a reminder of beliefs long lost and stories of old. He spent his life looking for such things. You have to admit it's not exactly typical Tressian work."
"It isn't. The vaults far predate the rest of the building by thousands of years, and it's been at least three centuries since anyone in the republic cared enough about the great powers to replicate them in art."
"Sidara excepted, of course."
"Of course. If we lower ourselves to the level of the masses, and pretend she was the great power the Sidarists like to believe."
A follow-up jibe died on my lips; she was clearly not in a receptive frame of mind. "How do we open it?" There was no handle, lock or even any hinges I could see.
"Magic, of course," Arianwyn said, with a wicked smile.
I frowned. "So the Tressian vaults, resting place of the republic's greatest treasures, can only be opened by outlaws?"
"Oh Edric. Surely you've come to understand the deep and abiding hypocrisy of the Republic by now? The abjuration decrees aren't intended to ban mages from Tressia; they're to make sure that they live in a suitably fearful and biddable state." Her lip curled in disgust. "Magic's just another weapon to the council, and they don't want it wielded by anyone other than themselves."
It was obvious, when put that way. "And you gained all of this knowledge first hand?"
"Father did. He spent years working at the council's behest. There was plenty he wouldn't tell me about – I think he was ashamed – but he did pass on all kinds of interesting information."
I tapped the door impatiently. "Like how to open this?"
"Naturally," Arianwyn said, more amused than annoyed by my impatience. She muttered something and touched her hands to three seemingly-unremarkable locations on the door. There was a grinding sound of metal upon metal and the door slid slowly back.
There were stairs beyond, rough-hewn chunks of stone that spiralled away into the darkness. The walls behind the door were bare rock – a stark contrast to the finery of the palace. They were damp to the touch, given colour here and there by patches of lichen. Arianwyn unhooked the lantern from the wall and started down the stairs. With one last look behind us, my ears straining to catch any indication that we'd been discovered, I followed.
There were scores of steps and the lower ones were slippery with water, leaking in from somewhere high above. Fortunately, some thoughtful soul had bolted a length of tarred rope around the outside of the spiral. One hand latched firmly around this made the journey far less fraught.
"How deep does this go?" I asked.
"I've no idea, father never said."
I stopped as a faint grinding noise drifted down the stairs. "Does that mean what I think it means?"
Arianwyn nodded. "The door's closed behind us. Don't worry. I'm fairly certain I can open it from this side."
I didn't find that very reassuring.
We reached the bottom of the stairway and emerged into the largest cavern I'd ever seen. In size and form, it reminded me of nothing so much as the city's opera house – where I'd a week ago endured a needlessly triumphal rendition of The Death of Antar. The ceiling was lost to darkness many dozens of feet above our heads. Here and there I made out a majestic stalactite peering down at us from the gloom. The walls were as rough as those of the stairway we'd descended, but were threaded through with galleries of dressed stone.
The floor was as uneven, as might be expected of a natural cave, but here and there the ground had been levelled. Some of these areas formed pathways, leading to the ladders and stairways that served the galleries. Most were laden with chests, crates and caskets of all shapes and sizes. They stretched as far as the eye could see. A few had toppled over, spilling coins, silks and documents across the cavern floor. It was every corsair treasure cave from every legend rolled into one massive hoard.
"How did they get all of this in here?" I couldn't take my eyes off the spectacle. Some of the crates were entirely too large to have been carried down the confines of the spiral stair.
"There's an underground river at the far end," Arianwyn explained, staring around in wonder. "At high tide they bring barges up through the sea gates. We could have tried getting in there, but it's always guarded, and I'm not much of a swimmer."
Now she mentioned it, there was a brackish tang to the air. If this place was on a level with the dockside, we'd come much deeper than I'd thought. With some effort, I tore my attention back to why we were there.
"How are we going to find a single shard of rock in all of this?"
"We don't have to search," Arianwyn said patiently. "Dalrand's notes said that it was in a recently-impounded urn. Most of this clutter has been here for years, if not centuries."
That was true enough. Many of the c
rates were warped and discoloured with extreme old age, and almost all of the statues were corroded and pitted, or else covered in green lichen. Only a pair of bronze lions, similar to the one I'd seen upstairs, had endured in reasonably good condition. Verdigrised though they were, the lichen had left them entirely alone.
Arianwyn's gaze rested on the lions, then continued on, taking in a steel chest held together almost entirely by rust, a headless statue, and a spill of gold coins. "The newer arrivals should be..." She looked around impatiently, her eyes finally settling on a group of crates. "...there we are." She pointed at one particular crate with a livid red stamp on its flank. "Do you think you could open that?"
"Why that one?"
"Customs' mark," she said. "Any item of Hadari antiquity coming into the city would be assumed a bribe of some kind, and the councillors take a dim view of bribes made to parties other than themselves. It's probably only down there to be forgotten. Chances are, whatever's inside will grace the mansion of some prominent citizen before the year's out."
I drew my sword, slid the blade into a chink under the crate's lid and slowly levered it open. Once it had raised a little, I sheathed the sword and tried to lift the lid the rest of the way. It was most reluctant to yield. Only when Arianwyn added her efforts to mine did the wooden cover finally come clear with the defiant squeak of iron nails on timber.
"There we go," Arianwyn said with satisfaction. "First time lucky."
The crate held only one object: a large clay urn, wrapped in oilcloth, close-packed with straw and sealed with what appeared to be very old wax. The urn itself was intricately decorated with swirling patterns whose brilliant colours had faded little with age. All in all, it looked to be a funerary urn from one of the earlier dynasties, but I had no idea which.
Arianwyn propped the lantern on a nearby chest, then reached into the crate to grab the urn. Or tried to; for once, I'd remembered one of her earlier warnings and grabbed her arm. "What about the invisible tripwire?"
She shook me off. "That'll all have been upstairs. It'd take a true paranoid to think a thief could get all the way down here."
Shadow of the Raven (The Reckoning Book 1) Page 20
