Guttrin was not svelte enough to flounce, but she did her best. When she was gone, Lothar said, “Let us return to the High Hall. There is perfectly good food and drink going to waste.”
Lothar, Diana, and Nitya made an unlikely trio. Nitya leaned on Diana, did her best to smile, and was the most cheerful of the three. Diana began to see what Caitlin saw in the girl. How can she have such a sunny temperament when she has been persecuted all her life? she thought.
They sat before the fire and ate and drank in companionable silence.
“I cannot allow you to take the girl without Greghar’s consent,” Lothar said finally, giving both of them the response they had been waiting for.
“If he gives his consent, will you release her to me?” asked Diana immediately. “I can have Greghar back here in a couple of hours.”
“Rush, rush, it is always so with you Zon,” said Lothar with a grim smile. “Yes, let me hear it from Greghar, and I will release her to you. But remember, she cannot resume living with him. Guttrin will be complaining to her father, so it is more important than ever to pander to the Baron of Rocness’s ‘moral values.’”
“I understand,” said Diana, standing. “My airboat awaits. I will be back with Greghar.”
After she left, Lothar looked down on Nitya.
“Why didn’t you come to me when Guttrin started abusing you?” he asked.
“Majesty, I thought you would take the word of your daughter-in-law over that of a poor, foreign, orphan girl, and it would go worse for me.”
“I probably would have at that,” grunted Lothar. “But I don’t see how it could have gotten much worse for you.”
“Are you so ignorant of torture, sire?” Nitya asked. “Hot iron, sharp knives, thumbscrews…there were many ways it could have gotten worse than mere beatings.”
“Surely a young girl like you has no experience of these things?” asked Lothar, horrified.
“As Cornelle Diana once said to Greghar, I am short in years, but long in experience, sire.”
He shook his head as he stood up and looked down on her kindly.
“Come with me to my suite,” he said. “I will give you to the charge of my wife and queen. Her maids will tend to you.”
Nitya half rose but then sat back down, her face twisted with pain. Without a word, Lothar scooped her up in his arms and carried her out of the High Hall.
LOTHAR HAD SENT a message with Diana recalling Greghar to Nordberg for an undetermined period. Greghar used it to excuse himself from the Baron of Rocness’s court and returned with her posthaste. He was furious when he learned of Nitya’s treatment and saw her bruises and lacerations. However, the experience seemed to flow off Nitya like water off a duck’s back, so he buried it deep. But I will not forget, he thought.
With the resilience of youth, Nitya was bouncing around within a week. Her spirit returned while her bruises were still bright, and she was Greghar’s shadow again. Diana stayed at the Nordberg Residency but visited often. The three of them usually met on the High Terrace where she landed her airboat and walked the battlements, stepping carefully around the ongoing reconstruction. Neither Greghar nor Diana was much of a talker, but Nitya made up for them both, chattering nineteen to the dozen in Pranto. Observing that Nitya never strayed far from Greghar’s side, Diana thought, She has known so little kindness in her life that when she finds it, she clings to it.
In her sunny, fearless way, it was Nitya who asked Diana the question that Greghar had been burning to ask since he had been picked up at Rocness.
“Cornelle Diana, how is Princess Caitlin?” she asked, her manner a mixture of interest and concern.
“I hope that she has settled back into her life at the d’Orr palace in Atlantic City,” Greghar added with elaborate carelessness.
“Not exactly,” replied Diana. She saw right through Greghar’s attempt at nonchalance. That his concern and interest were at least as deep as Nitya’s was obvious to her. But how could she put Caitlin’s ordeal into words? Her court martial, her public humiliation, and her treatment at the hands of her sisters had left no physical marks, but her lacerations would take a lot longer to heal than Nitya’s. It will be kinder for both of them to not know, she thought.
“She has recently decided to leave Atlantic City for an extended period.”
“But her injuries—” began Greghar.
“Have healed as well as they could,” finished Diana. “The security cams caught her shortly after her departure from Atlantic City. She did a solo ascent to the summit of Rocky Scarp, a lofty pinnacle at the southern tip of the Great Rocky Escarpment. I think that tells you the shape she was in.”
“I know the one,” said Greghar, his tone neutral. “It lies on the Daksin road.” She was heading south, he thought bleakly. Away from me.
Now that they were talking frankly, Diana was keen to broach the subject that had brought her all the way from Atlantic City.
“Nitya,” she said with an uncomfortable sidelong glance at Greghar. “I have been meaning to tell you about a dream I have been having. I have been dreaming of an elderly man with thick white hair and beard, wearing dark brown, flowing robes. He has been telling me to come to you for guidance.”
Diana saw Greghar’s expression change as the color drained from his face.
“He wears a leather belt with a longsword and carries a staff,” he said. “And his voice has a melodious quality, rather like…” Here he hesitated before continuing. “Rather like yours, Lady Death.”
The penny dropped for Diana—she had thought the voice familiar—it reminded her of her own!
“How do you know this?” she asked Greghar, sounding aggressive in her astonishment.
“I had dreams of the same elderly man before I met Princess Caitlin and Nitya,” said Greghar. “He predicted I would meet them and that I should trust my instincts when I did. When I first saw them, my instinct was protective, and I have tried to follow my instincts.”
Nitya, who was normally the most talkative of the three, had said nothing. They both looked at her expectantly.
“He has visited me,” she said. “But he gave me no clear guidance. Only that I was to lead you to him, Cornelle Diana, and that I would know how to find him when I got to Beacon Peak. But I don’t know where that is.”
“I know where it is,” said Diana. “Greghar, what we Zon call Beacon Peak, you barbarians call The Claw.”
“The source of the river Lofgren,” he replied, nodding his head.
DIANA WAS SO impatient to see what all this meant that she decided to fly Nitya and Greghar up to Beacon Peak in the airboat she had flown from Atlantic City. She landed on the High Terrace and found them waiting for her with their packs. Diana suggested that Greghar ride in the copilot’s seat as he had on the ride from Rocness, and he reluctantly agreed.
Nitya looked around with wonder at the complex mass of dials and gauges. She was quite excited about the ride and bounced in one of the two passenger seats in the cockpit until Diana strapped her down in the five-point harness. In deference to Greghar’s fear of heights, she took off gently and flew very straight and level toward the Great Ice Range.
She flew due west until they reached the Upper Lofgren Valley and then turned north following the river. It was still quite smooth flying, so she set the autopilot and turned to Greghar.
“Have you ever been up Beacon Peak, Greghar?”
“I have hunted deer in the forests at the base of The Claw, Lady Death,” he said. “But I have never been up to its summit.”
“I have been to the summit many times. It is always bad weather up there, and the mountain contains large magnetite deposits that make our instruments go haywire. It will be very rough flying, and the airboat will pitch and roll a lot. Kind of like a ship in a gale on the Iceberg Sea.” Here she smiled at Greghar.
“I will not be sick,” said Greghar drily.
“There will be virtually no visibility, so you won’t have any sense of height,” sh
e continued. “When we enter the squally air, just hang on tight to the handrails. I am going to take us up to twenty thousand meters now so we can approach The Claw from above.”
She climbed steadily, amused by the look of rapt excitement she saw on Nitya’s face in the mirror. When they approached Beacon Peak and the weather deteriorated, Greghar was as good as his word. Though his face went white and he was far from comfortable, he remained impassive with a death grip on the handrail. He was perfectly relaxed in the wildest gales at sea, but this ride filled him with anxiety. There was always at least some visibility and perception of the water’s surface even in the roughest seas. However, now the zero visibility induced a complete lack of sensory input, so there was no warning of what the airboat would do next. When she dropped there was no telling where she would bottom out, and when she rose, she was sometimes flung up hundreds of meters.
Nitya also hung onto her handrail, but she had a look of exhilaration on her face. She was clearly enjoying the rough ride, supremely confident of Diana’s skills. Diana gave her no cause for doubt and brought the airboat into a safe, if rather bumpy, landing on Beacon Peak.
As soon as they landed, Nitya tapped Diana on the shoulder.
“Please leave your Zon weapons in the airboat, Cornelle Diana,” she said. Diana twisted around to look at her and saw that her eyes had turned brighter and looked very feline. They changed her appearance in a subtle way, giving her a predatory look. Diana silently drew her laser pistol and left it on the airboat’s dashboard.
There was only one season at the summit of Beacon Peak, and that was deep winter. When Diana hit the hatch release, it immediately let in whirling flakes of snow and howling winds. Both Greghar and Nitya huddled in their heavy coats and cloaks as they followed Diana down the ramp. They continued in her wake as her temperature shield melted a pathway through the waist-deep snow.
Diana led the way to the Beacon cave and tapped her wrist bracer. She inwardly heaved a sigh of relief as she found that the code had not been changed, and the door slid open. She entered and tapped the door shut after the other two entered behind her. Nitya slipped by her now and led the way unerringly into the inner cave, where Diana had had her encounter all those years ago. As she stepped into the darkness, she began to radiate a faint bluish halo that was bright enough to cast a dim light in the inner cave.
She turned and at looked at Diana and Greghar. Her green-hazel cat’s eyes seemed to exude their own luminescence. She looked so different from the Nitya they were used to that it raised the hairs on the napes of their necks. Diana’s hand closed around the hilt of Light. Greghar came closer to Nitya and made as if to speak, but she put her finger on her lips and hissed, “Shh! He speaks to me. Follow me.”
She turned and led the way, guiding them downward through a series of caves and passages. Some of them seemed natural with rough floors and walls, while others had rock surfaces that were so smooth that it seemed that they must be the work of intelligent beings. They passed walls of blue ice and huge spear-like icicles. As they went deeper into the heart of the mountain, it grew warmer, and instead of ice they encountered pools of water and underground streams and springs.
Finally it grew so warm that Nitya turned to Greghar and said, “We will return this way, so we can leave our coats and cloaks here.”
They continued. They turned a corner, and both Diana and Greghar stopped short. About twenty meters down the passageway there was a dark shape blocking it. Nitya had continued, but then she too stopped and looked back at them over her shoulder. The shape was about three meters high, and as they waited in plain sight, it did not move. Eventually Greghar began to approach it, and Diana and Nitya followed. They were almost on it when they realized it was a stone gargoyle with a battle-ax in its claws. Greghar stood aside as Diana ran her hand over the smooth rock and the exquisitely carved details. Then she saw the opening to the cavern the gargoyle was guarding.
Nitya led the way into the cavern. The ceiling was so high, that they could barely see it. It was lit with a surreal bluish light, and they now saw that the glow of Nitya’s aura matched it. Diana and Greghar traced the light to an opening in the ceiling far above. Shafts of light streamed in and reflected off a shimmering pool of the palest blue that dominated the very center of the cavern. A stream of water gushed from the cavern wall, feeding the pool. Steam rose from it, indicating that the water was warm, perhaps hot.
Huge stalagmites and stalactites formed pillars of white on both sides of the cavern, all lit with the bluish hue reflected off the pool. The central nave of the cavern was open and enormous. Nitya led the way around the right side of the pool. As they passed the water’s edge, Diana noted that the pool appeared to be very deep—the water was clear so she could see a long way into it, but she could still not make out a bottom.
On the far side of the pool there was an immense throne carved out of rock. It was polished to a high gloss so that it shone black in the bluish light. Three steps led up to it, and at the end of each arm was an intricately carved gargoyle, identical to the one at the entrance to the cavern. However, in their claws they held scepters rather than battle-axes. Between the throne and the pool was a stalagmite that formed a pillar, almost two meters high. Every few seconds, a drop fell from far above and landed on the tip, splattering droplets in all directions that sparkled in the light like crystals. The drops had created a small indentation in the very tip.
“The precise time of the autumnal equinox will fall within the hour,” Nitya intoned, pointing to the small stalagmite. Her voice seemed deeper than usual. “At that moment, the shaft of light from the opening above will strike the tip of the growing stalagmite. You must place a sapphire on its tip so that light, water, and stone will be one by your hand. That will create the widest possible portal through which he can appear.”
“I don’t believe this mumbo-jumbo,” said Diana.
“You Zon believe only in technology,” Nitya said in a voice that sounded like a chant. “But there are things beyond even your understanding.”
“And where are we to get a sapphire?” asked Diana, her tone low but scornful.
“There are many in the bottom of the pool,” said Nitya. “But it is a long dive.”
“I will go,” said Greghar without hesitation. In the warmth of the cavern, he stripped down to his drawers and walked over to the pool’s edge. He picked up a rock the size of a pumpkin and holding it in his hands, dived in. Diana looked after him and tapped her wrist bracer to pull up a timer just as he cleaved the surface.
Diana and Nitya stood by the water’s edge and watched his form growing smaller in the clear water, dragged down rapidly by the rock. Eventually they could no longer make him out. Diana looked at her timer and saw that it had been over a minute.
“I hope he realizes he needs to retain enough air to make the trip back to the surface,” she muttered. She glanced over at Nitya and was disturbed by her faraway, disinterested look. This is the girl that was clinging to Greghar just yesterday, she thought.
Diana saw her timer approach ninety seconds and began to grow concerned.
“I thought Greghar was too sensible to get himself drowned,” she said. Nitya did not respond. Five more seconds, and Diana was about to give up when her keen eyes saw a small, dark dot in the depths. It rapidly grew larger, and there could be no doubt—it was Greghar. To Diana’s impatient eyes, he seemed to take an inordinately long time to break the surface. When he did, she tapped her wrist bracer, stopping the timer, and let out a low whistle—it read well over three minutes.
He swam slowly to the pool’s edge and hung with his powerful forearms on its ledge, sucking in huge gulps of air. Diana gave him a hand and helped him out of the pool. He lay on the floor of the cavern, unable to speak for several minutes. Both Diana and Nitya saw that his right hand was clenched in a fist.
Finally, he sat up and mutely opened his fist. In it was a sapphire the size of a robin’s egg. It was a rough stone, uncut and unpoli
shed, but it was bigger than any gem Diana had ever seen.
“There are thousands down there,” said Greghar, still breathing heavily. “Maybe tens of thousands. They are what gives the pool its bluish hue.”
“Come,” said Nitya briskly. “Cornelle Diana, take the stone and place it as I directed.” She stood facing the throne with the stalagmite in front of her.
Diana looked self-conscious and said, “This is ridiculous.” But she complied. She took the stone from Greghar’s open palm and walked over to the stalagmite and placed it in the indentation at its tip. A couple of seconds later, a drop fell on the stone and scattered myriad droplets in all directions, all lit up with a bluish light from the sapphire. The effect was so magical that it rocked Diana’s skepticism. Greghar appeared at her shoulder.
“Impressive, isn’t it, Lady Death?” he asked, having recovered his breath and dressed.
“Simple optics,” she replied.
“Cornelle Diana!” said Nitya. “Come stand by my side and repeat what I say.”
Diana obeyed unenthusiastically. Nitya began a chant in a language that Diana did not understand. Diana was fluent in Pranto, Brigish, and Utrish and had a fair command of Artha-Pranto. But the language of Nitya’s chant was so foreign that she could not pick out a single word. However, she enunciated very slowly and clearly, so Diana was able to repeat after her quite easily. As an accomplished singer, once she got into the rhythm of it, she found the way the words rolled off her tongue very pleasing. She began to enjoy the experience in spite of herself and almost forgot why she was doing it. Then she heard the faint hum that was seared into her subconscious from her traumatic experience all those years ago, and she stopped abruptly. Nitya continued for a short while, but then she trailed off as well.
Diana and Greghar stared at the throne with amazement. It was no longer empty. The elderly man from Diana’s dreams sat on it as though it was the most natural thing in the world. As they watched, Nitya approached him. Her bluish aura was now much brighter. Standing on the lowest step of the throne, she put up her right hand, and suddenly a bluish flame appeared in her palm.
The Empire of the Zon Page 74
