Jak glanced once at Calla, but her eyes and thoughts were with the burgeoning flames. He took the knife and slid the first fish into position.
The shrill shriek of Riff’s whistle broke the silence. He and Kleo rejoined them, looking as content with the rewards of their efforts as Kluber with his.
While he worked, Jak glanced around from face to face. The smiles and occasional laughter were contagious, and soon he participated in the ease and merriment without feeling guilty. His fears from before waned, the cloud of doom pushed away in the warmth of the fire and the sumptuous aroma of two meager fish roasting. By the time they all closed their eyes to a second night of subterranean sleep, an aura of sanguinity brought pleasant dreams. And when they woke many hours later, Riff was gone.
“Where could he be?” Calla asked.
Kluber shrugged.
“Maybe he went fishing,” Kleo suggested. “Morn is a good time to catch them, from what I hear.” She looked at Jak. “That’s what Kevik always told me.”
“The boat’s still here,” Calla said. “But I suppose he might have found a spot on the shore.” She raised her hand to her eyes as she stared into the distance, as if that could help her see farther.
“He’s exploring,” Jak said, with a finality that no one argued. “He knew I didn’t like it, so he did it in secret.”
“If he wanted it to be secret, he’d be back by now,” Calla stated.
“He’s still a bit childish,” Kleo said. “He probably found something and lost track of time.”
Kluber frowned, looking as worried as Jak had ever seen him. “He’s smarter than you give him credit for. Something went wrong.”
The concern spread from his face to Kleo’s. “What do we do, Jak?”
Why are you asking me? “He’s Kluber’s thrall. We should—”
“He’s more than my thrall, Jak. He’s my friend.”
Jak looked down, embarrassed. The admission made sense, of course. Reflecting on his own complicated friendship with Kevik, he should have known that Riff and Kluber would have a similar bond, even if it manifested differently.
“He’ll be back,” Calla offered hopefully.
Kluber shook his head. “We need to look for him.”
Reluctant to start an argument, Jak hesitated to point out the obvious. Thankfully, Kleo did so for him. “What if he comes back on his own and no one is here?”
“Maybe two stay while two search,” Jak suggested. The others looked at him, making him uncomfortable. “It’s an option. I don’t think anyone should go anywhere alone from now on.”
Kluber nodded. “You and I can go first.”
“So we just wait here?” Kleo asked in annoyance.
“Nay, you can fish up today’s supper.”
Jak considered, reluctant to contribute further. But he could see discontent on the faces of both girls. “We’re running low on torches. Maybe you can figure out a way to make more from the supply of wood.” They nodded and got to their feet.
Eager to get started, Jak and Kluber searched the buildings nearest the lake first, then began to head back into the city proper. They moved house-to-house, calling quietly into the dark interior of each without penetrating deep within. They carried one torch each, but did not light them, knowing the absence of visibility limited Riff as much as it did them. The young thrall had taken none of their remaining supply for himself, so it stood to reason he would not leave the shadowy fringes of the ubiquitous blue glow.
There was little conversation between the two of them, but strain and worry showed in Kluber’s face and heavy breathing. Jak wished he could say something to comfort his companion—to assure him that the boy would wander back safely with news of another discovery—but the earlier sense of doom repossessed his thoughts, and he searched with little hope of success.
They returned for a silent, dispirited meal before resuming the hunt. Once they left the listening range of the girls, Kluber voiced his thoughts. “Jak, we both know where he went. The rest is just wasting time.”
“All right.”
They knew the lake curved inward at some point, for they had heard its soft rippling in the distance when last deep in the city. But they elected to stick to the streets they knew, taking nearly twenty minutes to reach the area of the library, plaza, and monolith. As before, wisps of mist hung in the air, partially concealing the columned portico of the imposing building across the square. Even before the discovery of the skeleton—and the fresh ashes—Jak had been wary of this location. Now it positively terrified him.
Once again he pondered what function this place served. In his experience, the ritual of burning the dead was associated with the followers of Tempus, the god of fire. The shrine in Everdawn had cremated everyone who died in Shady Glen as a sacrificial offering to Tempus. To protect their souls, as Jak had learned from Disciple Lukas just before the end.
The skeleton indicated that a similar ritual existed down here, as well. Did that mean the building before them was a massive shrine of Tempus? A temple? That all the dead were burned here, just as they were above?
His mind made a simple correction. The shrine had not burned everyone who died in the Glen. He and Kevik had hidden a body to conceal a murder. Gallo’s soul lacked protection, and the demons had come shortly thereafter. Jak had assumed those creatures had followed Rufus and the sword he took from the mountains, but now he realized there was another connection. The destruction of his home may not have been entirely the Third’s fault. It may have been mine.
“Are you all right?”
Jak shook his head to clear the disturbing thoughts. An important objective required his focus. “Do you see an entrance?”
Kluber shook his head. “Come on, let’s look for one.”
He led the way to the near side, where smooth-cut stones formed a long exterior wall decorated with a carved frieze along the top, the monstrosities depicted there blessedly shrouded in the dim light.
A few minutes of inspection yielded the outlines of a square portal in the center. Like the mysteriously sealed door in the library, this one showed no practical manner of opening.
“Does it have holes like the other, Kluber?”
“Aye, three. But in this light, I can’t make out what they are.”
They spent the better part of an hour searching the building’s perimeter for another method of entry, to no avail. Ultimately, they found themselves back in the plaza, staring at the menacing structure with a mix of emotions.
“We’re not getting in,” Kluber admitted at last, the defeat in his voice palpable.
Seeking to be reassuring, Jak voiced the silver lining. “If we can’t get in, neither could Riff. He must be somewhere else, after all.” That point made, Jak became anxious to leave at once.
His companion, however, continued to scan the area, reluctant to give up just yet.
“Jak,” he asked curiously a minute later. “Does that monolith look straight to you?”
Sure enough, from this angle the unbalanced spire no longer appeared askew.
Except that the change was not only from this angle, as a quick triangulation proved. Jak’s blood suddenly ran cold. “Kluber, let’s get back.”
“Aye. Let’s.”
The two of them hurried from the plaza at a pace nearer an ignominious run than a composed walk. They returned to the camp for a final eve meal and another false night of sleep. The physical exertions of the day paled in comparison to the mental, and Jak found the latter more demanding, sliding deep into oblivion the moment after closing his eyes.
Riff did not return by the next morn, and a second day’s hunting yielded no better results than the first. Nor was Jak able to engage Calla in a discussion that felt more essential—more imperative—with each passing hour. Some dynamic in their relations had changed, but exactly how he was unable to say. There were plenty of opportunities for conversation, of course, but at every attempt she threw up a wall of polite resistance that left him wondering
whether she held him responsible for all she had lost. If so, he could not blame her, but he desperately hoped to make amends.
Not until the third morn since Riff’s disappearance did Jak find her willing to accept company. She sat apart from the others, arms wrapped around her knees, staring out at the watery blackness. He approached her tentatively, worried that she might decide now was a good time to take a lakeside walk—or worse, shoo him away. But she remained in place as he sat beside her, and they silently contemplated the soft rippling together for several long minutes.
“I think the color is changing,” she said at last.
“The color?”
“Of the rockfire. It was pure blue when we first saw it. It has a hint of green now. I wonder why.” The sentence trailed away like her thoughts, which clearly were not entirely on the fungus. Jak said nothing, hoping she would speak whatever was really on her mind. There were so many possibilities—a wedding halted most cruelly, a father dead, a betrothed lost. Any one of them would have undone most people.
When she finally spoke again, it was not at all what he expected. “I never thought I would hate this dress so much,” she said. Jak had become so inured to seeing her in the dirty, tattered peach gown that he no longer noticed. This reminder made him realize how horribly uncomfortable she must have been these last harrowing days.
“I thought it was so beautiful that day,” she continued. “Everyone was smiling, saying how nice it looked, how happy they were for me, how radiant I was. Now look at me.”
“You’re still radiant to me.”
The smile of appreciation she flashed was the first sign in days of the old, easy-spirited Calla. Seeing it was a powerful reminder of how much he had missed such simple gestures. However insignificant, that smile was a welcome respite from an otherwise dismal existence, and he loved her for it. Jak felt the instinctive compulsion to tell her so. He barely opened his mouth when the screeching began.
The two of them rushed back to the morn’s small cooking fire, where Kluber knelt beside Kleo, holding her shoulder as she writhed in distress. “It burns!” she sobbed between piteous shrill shrieks. “It burns, it burns, it buuurns…”
“I know, I know,” Kluber repeated calmly. His hand rubbed her shoulder, her neck, her back. Then it stopped suddenly and withdrew, as if directly feeling the burning she described.
Kleo noticed the gesture. “What’s wrong?” she pleaded.
“Nothing.” But he would not return her gaze, looking instead at Jak and Calla. The young men’s eyes met, a reluctant question forming in one pair, a hesitant nod coming in response.
Calla knelt beside Kleo, stroking her hair, soothing her agitation. “Shh. Hold still. We’re just going to take a look.”
Jak moved closer as Kluber untied the dress at the back and opened it from the neck downward. Sweat and grime made the garment stick to her skin, so he patiently peeled the fabric back as collectedly as her twisting movements allowed. The delicate smooth curve of her spine appeared, running down the elegant back, soft pale skin faintly reflecting the strange composite glow of firelight and fungus. Except where it did not.
Her lower back was covered in scales. Indistinct in color but dark and flaky, and definitely not skin. Kleo was as pretty as young women came, yet Jak fought not to recoil in disgust. He forced himself to maintain the poise of his two companions, who looked from affliction to face with sympathy and compassion.
“What is it?” Kleo asked.
“It’s nothing,” Kluber said. “A tender spot where it’s raw.”
Calla gently ran the backs of her fingers over Kleo’s moist temple. “It’s just a rash. Nothing to worry about.”
“Well, it hurts like the devil.”
Jak watched as Kluber covered the corrupted area back up and retied the dress. Then the two of them left the poor girl in Calla’s capable hands and wandered a distance away to talk. Yet there was little to say. The search for Riff needed to continue, but now they admitted to an even greater incentive to escape these diabolic caverns and get Kleo back to the real world, to a city if possible, and into proper care.
The boat gave them another option to consider. The far side of the gigantic cavern was far too shrouded in shadow to discern from this distance, but someone in the dinghy could investigate the opposite shoreline up close. The effort would take all day, but such a search might reveal an exit from this dismal place after all—if Riff were found, or if they decided to leave him behind.
As they discussed options, Jak became aware of a confusion of authority. Ever since the decision had been made to search rather than avoid the less damaged regions of the city, Jak believed the responsibility was no longer his. Only now did he realize his assumption that Kluber had taken over was just that—an assumption, implied but unspoken. And, apparently, unshared.
“I think Kleo needs help soon. But I don’t want to abandon Riff, wherever he’s got to.” Kluber trailed off questioningly, awaiting a response that Jak was uneager to proffer. He wondered why the more educated, more intelligent, more capable older boy so much as cared for his opinion. Had one punch really drained all the conceit and pomposity from the magistrate’s son? However necessary it had been at the time, Jak now regretted that act.
“I don’t know. I really don’t. Honestly, if you wanted to take charge for a time, I wouldn’t protest.”
Kluber stiffened. “I couldn’t do that, Jak. If we lost one or the other because of a decision I make…well, I don’t think I could live with that. My conscience, I mean.”
“And you think I can?”
The narrow shoulders shrugged. “I think I’d be dead if you hadn’t taken charge up there. You got us this far. That’s good enough for me.”
I hope you remember those words the next time something goes wrong. “All right. Calla can look after Kleo for now. You and I will keep looking for Riff the rest of today. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll wander back on his own. One way or another, we can reassess in the eve.”
Those plans changed as soon as they returned to the girls, however. For whatever reason, Kleo rediscovered her former bossiness and desired Jak to stay with her. Understanding as always, Calla simply smiled unperturbedly and made him promise to take good care of the acerbic patient. The reason for the request never became clear, for his mistress soon fell into a disturbed sleep while he tended the meager fire.
They were running low on firewood and would soon need to collect more from the supply Riff had found. Jak wondered whether the disappearance was at all related to that discovery. Might he have tried taking something else, and the owners caught him stealing? Who were the owners, anyway? And where were they?
Near the city center, most likely. The large edifice there, the plaza, and the monolith still discomfited Jak. That location was the epicenter of the fears plaguing his troubled mind. Just because he and Kluber were unable to get in did not mean it was necessarily unoccupied. Perhaps its residents simply fashioned a method to keep intruders out.
The same could be said for the library, or at least its inner sanctum. The sealed portal there certainly appeared similar in design to the grand building’s mystifying entrance. Figure one of them out, and gain access to both…
“You’re always so lost in thought, Jak. What about?”
Kleo was wide awake, sitting up, showing nary a trace of her earlier ordeal. Either sleep and time had inured her to the soreness, or her back had finished whatever transformation was happening. In either case, he welcomed a change of subject.
“Any idea what a circle, a crescent, and a six-pointed star have in common?” He chuckled at the way he had formed that sentence, much like a bad joke his friend Kurtis had told at the last festival. What do the farm girls and cowshit have in common? The older they get, the easier they are to pick up. Like much of the bawdy talk he heard, Jak had not really understood the humor. But Kevik had laughed so hard, he nearly spit mead from his mouth.
Jak’s heart constricted painfully. How he mis
sed his friend and wished he were here. Kevik the Courageous would never have hesitated to lead, the way Kluber had, and Jak would not be suffering this hopeless, irrepressible burden.
The sudden, intense sadness distracted him from Kleo’s altered expression. Now he took notice, and recognized that emotion from long, repeated exposure. For most of his life, it had been her most prominent attribute. Irritation.
“I know you don’t approve, but I don’t see the harm.”
The comment was as out-of-place as her countenance. Despite all that had happened, Jak was suddenly the housethrall again, desperate to please an unhappy mistress. “W-what?”
Her eyes narrowed as she glared. Then she turned to rummage through a small pocket on her dress, so discreetly woven that he had never known of its existence. She withdrew a thin circular band of indiscernible metal, the diameter of a large man’s fist, with three small carven stones spaced evenly around like charms. Too small to make out from even a few feet away, but he did not need to see them to know what they were.
“Kleo…where?”
“The jewelry. I thought it was a bracelet, but it’s too big for me. Most of the other pieces were too far deteriorated, but this one stood out.” She stared at him, the annoyance fading, their roles reversing. “May I keep it, Jak?”
He gaped, first at the item, then at the girl holding it. Rarely had his thoughts raced so chaotically as they did now. He had to find out if the object was the key, and he had to find out now.
A brief pause to collect his wits. “Are you fit to walk?” he asked at last.
She nodded, but her face held a question. “Aye, but—”
“Come on. I’ll explain on the way.”
He dragged her by the hand until she finally matched his hurried pace. His explanation was as rushed as their feet.
“Jak, shouldn’t we wait for the others at the camp?”
“We’re just going to try this and come right back. We’ll be there when they return.”
The urge for haste exceeded that for caution, and they covered the distance to the inner district much faster than he and Kluber had a few days prior. Jak lit a torch and led the way into the library, through the spartan, ruined chambers to the doorway in question, then paused in a moment of indecision. What if he was wrong? Could he take another disappointment?
Hearts of Fire Page 8
