“Merely asking,” Mike said, without apology. “I don't see anything in here but the bare walls.”
“You wouldn't.” Shalira shook her head. “Burial possessions are hidden in secret niches to deter grave robbers should any manage to breach the door spells.”
“I don't see any sign of niches, either.” Frowning, Johnny rested his hands on his hips and kicked at the edge of a flagstone. “Can't anything be simple on this damned planet?” His voice rose.
“Why don't you take a run to the door and assess the situation outside?” Concerned about his cousin’s edginess and knowing Johnny was uncomfortable in enclosed spaces nowadays, Mike thought it might be wise to send him back to the exit.
“Good idea.” The sergeant contemplated the two torches, but didn’t reach for either. “Guess I don't need a light. That passage was the definition of straight and narrow and my enhanced night vision works under these conditions if I just remember to activate the implant.” Chuckling, he headed out the single opening, running one hand along the stone wall as a guide.
With Saium’s help, Shalira doffed her lightweight riding cloak, laying the garment gently on the floor. The guardsman withdrew a small leather pouch from his broad belt and placed it safely in her cupped hands. Unknotting the cords by touch took her a moment of fierce concentration, but then she withdrew an object swathed in rolls of velvety cloth. While Saium hovered, making small hand motions as if he wanted to take the bundle from her and open it himself, Shalira extracted a small glass vial. An emerald-green stopper flashed in the smoky torchlight. Even in the gloom of the “gazebo,” the liquid contents of this unique container shone and glowed golden.
“What do you have there?” Mike stepped to her side.
Shalira tilted her head in the direction of his voice. “My mother's nurse was a wise woman, a healer, an initiate in the goddess Pavmiraia’s secrets. After my brother was killed and I was left blind, she worked tirelessly to gather the ingredients for this potion. Some she had to commission from across the Great Sea, which took several years to acquire. When she had the recipe complete, she secretly left the palace to brew this mix. Whether from the sorcery involved, or whether it was a coincidence, she was near death when she returned, dying within a sevenday.” Shalira shook the vial in her hand. “All for the liquid in this bottle.”
“What’s it supposed to do?” Mike had a sneaking suspicion what Shalira was going to say.
“Restore my sight for the space of an hour. She bade me to keep it safe and use it only if my life depended on my eyes.”
“Then perhaps you should save it. Tell me and Saium what to do,” Mike suggested urgently, not liking the ominous appearance of the bottle, golden glow or not.
“Don’t fear for me.” Shalira regarded him so warmly he forgot what he’d planned to say next. “My life does depend on this. If I fail to get the clan insignia, Bandarlok won’t marry me. Then I’m doomed to return home and enter the Abbey of the Obedient Sisters, which is a virtual death sentence. The empress will have me killed.”
“Shalira—” He stopped, shaking his head. What am I planning to say? Am I going to offer to take her away from all this, go back to my home world with me? Mike swallowed hard, surprised into silence by a flood of unexpected emotion choking him.
Not waiting to hear more of his opinions, she unstoppered the little flask, sucked in a breath and held it, drinking the contents in one quick swallow.
Gagging, Shalira staggered backward, dropping the bottle, hands rising to her throat. The vial shattered on the stone floor, spraying shards and droplets of moisture everywhere. Mike rushed to her side, catching her one-handed as she swooned toward the cold floor. “Bring me the cloak to wrap her in. She’s convulsing.”
Avoiding the broken glass, Mike sat on the freezing stone floor, cradling the unconscious princess while she shook. “Damn it, we never should have let her drink that stuff. What if it’s poison?”
“Her nurse would never have poisoned Shalira,” the older man answered, his face calm, voice low. “Have faith, as Her Highness does, and wait, outworlder.”
Skidding on the stone floor, Johnny came running into the chamber, gun in hand. “We got major troubles.” He stopped short at the sight of the unconscious Shalira. “Lords of Space, now what?”
Holding the princess tight against the tremors racking her body, Mike frowned. “She drank something she believes will restore her vision and the side effects are pretty bad. What's happening in the valley?”
“We’ve been double-crossed. Vreely showed his colors all right. Heard shots when I was walking to the door, so I double-timed it out to the steps and found Rojar in a helluva fight with three guards. Next thing I know, they're all shooting at me, so I returned fire and ducked inside.”
Not good, not surprising. I should have taken more precautions. Mike shifted to create a more comfortable position for Shalira, whose tremors were decreasing. “What happened to Rojar?”
“Don't know. Last I saw, he was surrounded by guards, yelling for us to get out of the tomb before it was too late.” Johnny was keyed up, eyes wide, movements jerky.
“Any other way in or out of here, Saium?” Mike asked.
The guardsman shook his head.
Mike gathered Shalira in his arms and carefully stood. “Here, take the princess. Johnny and I are going to the door to check things out. You stay put, understand?”
Accepting the princess’s limp form while she began to murmur indistinguishable words, perhaps beginning to revive, Saium said, “As soon as she wakes, we’ll search for the insignia.”
“Good plan.” Activating his own enhanced night vision with a mental command to the implant, Mike drew his gun. Left a guy with a hell of a headache if he used the vision for very long, but sure came in handy.
The two men worked their way up the corridor cautiously, in case any of Vreely's men had ventured inside, but the tomb remained empty. Evidently, their enemy was willing to let time do its work and seal them in with no further effort required from him or his men. Experimentally, Mike threw a rock across the opening and out the tomb door. He was rewarded with a fusillade of the local bullets. Ricocheting inside the vestibule alarmingly, the gunfire forced the two Sectors Special Forces operators to duck into the protective cover of the tunnel.
“Bastard must have all his guns trained on this entrance,” Mike said.
“Yeah. Be suicide to try to rush them. How much time left?” Johnny was breathing hard.
Mike glanced at the readout of his chrono. “Two hours. We've got no reason to think the spell won't work, either. So far, all of Shalira's other predictions about this place have been right on the mark.” He pounded his fist against the wall. “I thought Vreely might try something after the temple, but when he didn’t, I figured we were home safe.”
“You’ve been kinda distracted by Her Highness.” Johnny’s remark wasn’t accusatory, just factual. He was making a quick search of the small vestibule. “Nothing we can use in here.”
“And no cover anywhere close to the mouth of the tomb, either.” Mike considered their options, which took a depressingly short amount of time. “You stay here in case Vreely gets tired of waiting and decides to rush us. I'm going to the crypt to let Saium know the situation, see if there's anything in the burial chamber we can use.”
“Maybe the princess could whip us up some magic,” Johnny said without much humor, settling into a defensive stance with a view out the tomb door.
“I'll be sure to ask her.” Mike clapped Johnny on the shoulder and ducked into the long tunnel.
“Yeah, you do that,” his cousin called after him.
Mike traced his steps back to the burial chamber as fast as he dared, given the sloping, slippery tunnel. Wouldn't do anyone any good for me to break a leg. Nothing presented itself as a feasible course of action. No use wishing for all the modern gear stashed in our saddle bags. Might as well hope for the battleship Andromeda to come and hover with all guns blazing.
As Mike slid into the chamber, Shalira was getting to her feet, leaning heavily on Saium's arm. They both regarded him with hopeful expressions but he had to shake his head.
“Vreely's got us nailed down. If we take one step outside, we're going to be blown away.”
Releasing her grip on the guardsman’s arm, Shalira took a deep breath and walked directly to Mike. Speechless with surprise, he realized she could now see with those great, luminous brown eyes. How is this possible?
“I refuse to believe this trip has all been for nothing. You'll think of something, I know it.” She focused on his face for a long, aching minute, as if memorizing each detail. Reaching out, she touched his cheek gently. Before he could react, she kissed him lightly on the lips, then walked across the “gazebo.”
Stopping at the foot of her mother's sarcophagus, Shalira stared into the carved face, so like her own, and yet so different.
“I don't know if I can do this,” she said on an in-drawn sob, rubbing her eyes. “My eyes burn.”
Mike holstered his gun and joined her, taking her in his arms. “Irritated by the smoke from the torches,” he said. “You don't have to go on with this search for the insignia if you don't want to. There—there could be other options—”
“No.” She laid a finger gently on his lips for a second. “I must carry out my father’s instructions. It’s his dying wish for me to marry Bandarlok, to ally our people more closely again. He's depending on me. I know you’ll think of a way to get us past Vreely, so I’ve no choice but to do my part.”
Resolute, she dried her eyes and pushed herself free of his embrace. Walking to the foot of the effigy, she took a deep breath and sang the first measures of a chant, a low-pitched, wordless melody. Standing motionless, she extended her hands, palms up in appeal.
This time there was no shrieking wind to answer her. Only a brilliant spark of fierce red light, dancing above Lindia’s carved fingers. The shadowy illumination from the torches made it appear that the hands of the effigy lifted slightly, casting the red spark toward the wall. A deep feminine sigh, like the sound of a name, echoed in the chamber, but Mike was sure the sound didn’t come from Shalira's lips. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end when the deep whisper repeated again and he retreated an instinctive step.
Shalira's attention was riveted on the spark, which danced fleetingly above her head before shooting in a direct line across the chamber, striking the wall in an explosion of soundless miniature stars, all of which winked out before touching the floor.
Eyes burning, Mike blinked. The afterimage danced in front of his closed eyelids. When he risked opening his eyes again, Shalira was standing in front of the spot where the red spark had self-destructed.
Mike scrutinized the statue. Nothing but cold stone. Rolling his shoulders to break the spell, he walked over to the princess.
Searching the walls for something, running her fingers lightly over the painted surface, she didn’t even acknowledge his presence. “Saium, bring the torch.”
As the guardsman brought the light closer for her, Mike could see a tiny glint of red fire in one bird’s jeweled eyes. Shalira pointed excitedly, shaking her finger at the spot. “The key to the niche must be here.”
Leaving them to their task, Mike crossed to the mouth of the corridor, listening for the sound of shots, which would mean Vreely had abandoned caution and was coming in.
“All right,” he heard Shalira say with great determination. He swung back to see her standing with her hands on her hips, directly in front of the jeweled bird, which Mike now realized was an actual stuffed creature, with rubies inserted in place of the eyes, not merely one of the skillful wall paintings.
Shalira lifted the tiny bird off its concealed perch, twisting the small branch clockwise with her free hand. A small door to the left shot open with a snap, revealing a square cavity at chest height. She nodded to Saium, who reached inside gingerly and brought a long, gnarled wooden staff into the light. It was topped with a magnificent, lifesized, painted carving of a bird of prey. “Our clan insignia,” Saium said in a hushed whisper. Carefully placing this against the painted wall, he then reached into the safe once more, lifting out a necklace gleaming golden in the torchlight, set with a large number of pale, milky gemstones and black pearls as large as grapes. In the torchlight, enhanced by his vision implant, Mike could see an inscription running across the edges of the center panel, stamped into the gold.
Eyes wide, face set in reverent lines, Shalira took the ornamental collar and picked up the staff. Saium rushed to get the leather saddlebag he’d carried into the tomb. The Mahjundans wrapped the clan treasures in a soft cloth brought along for the purpose, collapsing the cleverly-designed staff upon itself and stowed them away before turning to Mike.
“Yes, now what?” he said, in answer to their unspoken but clear question. “Johnny was hoping you could work more magic.”
Taking his request more seriously than he’d intended, she frowned. “I'm sorry, I only know a few chants my nurse taught me, nothing to help us in this situation.” She rubbed her eyes with the back of one hand, blinking repeatedly. “My vision is fading in and out. The potion must be wearing off. I feel so strange.” Brow furrowed, eyes no longer glowing so brightly in the flickering lights, she stared hungrily at Mike.
“The torches are burning lower too, so we've probably used up most of the good air, which doesn’t help how you’re feeling.” He tried to be reassuring since she seemed to be worried about the diminishing effects of the medicine. “The last resort is a suicide rush out the door before it closes, hoping they can't get all of us. Vreely has us outnumbered so the odds aren’t good.”
“I’ll go first, draw their fire, and then you and the sergeant can attempt to reach cover with the princess,” Saium volunteered.
“A good plan for the last resort,” Mike agreed. “But we'd draw straws for the point position.” He stared at their surroundings for a moment. “I can't believe there isn't another way out of here. No offense, but with all the intrigue and deception I’ve seen on this planet, I'd think secret passages would be just your thing. Isn't Kajastahn's tomb the next one over?”
“Yes, why?” Shalira asked. “I’m not following your logic.”
Mike grinned. “Try to tell me he wouldn't have some kind of passage between his tomb and the one his beautiful Favorite Wife occupies for eternity? How did they get back and forth to this gazebo in real life, anyway? Did he walk through the gardens each time?”
Saium stared at Mike, eyes wide in amazement. “How did you know? The emperor had a secret tunnel running from his private wing of the palace to Lindia's gazebo. He was like a child when he got it all prepared; couldn't wait to show her. She deemed his concerns great foolishness at first, but after we got used to the city ways, she appreciated his ability to come to her without anyone knowing.”
“Without Empress Maralika knowing, you mean?” Mike said. “All right then, let's assume he's done the same thing with this gazebo for afterlife trysts.”
Peering as closely as the torchlight would allow, they searched the walls for any hidden doors or levers of any kind. Mike made three circuits of the place before he admitted defeat. He joined Saium, who was bent over, clutching at his chest and straining to breathe. Leaning on the wall beside her guardsman, Shalira held her hand over her eyes.
“How did the secret entry to the gazebo work?” Mike asked.
“I was never privy to details,” Saium gasped out between harsh inhalations. “She’d have me wait outside the private part of the garden before he arrived.”
Mike turned to the princess. “Shalira?”
She shook her head. “I didn't even know there was such a passage, let alone the secret of its use. I will have to ask her.”
The lack of oxygen must be affecting her. “What do you mean, ask her? Ask who?”
“My mother, as I did when I sought the location of the tribal insignia,” Shalira said, frowning. “Channeling the powers and asking her is the only way to find out for sure.”
“Too dangerous, my princess,” Saium protested, putting his hand on her arm. “Calling the dead twice brings disaster. She could take us into the eternal night with her!”
“We’re going to die for sure if I don’t petition her spirit.” Pushing her hair out of her face, Shalira shook her head emphatically. “My mother wouldn’t commit evil against us. If there’s a way out, she’ll tell us, but you and Michael will have to do the watching.”
When she raised her head, Mike could see the difference in her eyes immediately—pupils no longer glowing with inner light, more like painted glass than the expressive eyes of a living woman. She sighed. “Lead me to the foot of the effigy, and I’ll chant once more.”
“Wait, let me get Johnny first. If there is a door and if we can get it open, I don't want him to miss his chance to go with us,” Mike said. “An escape hatch might not take us to Kajastahn's tomb the way we’re hoping, you know.”
Running up the narrow corridor, he found it took more effort than before, as the available oxygen was about gone. Johnny was sitting patiently right inside the lip of the tunnel, safely out of sight of those waiting for them to die. The sergeant eyed him as Mike came into the dimly lit vestibule.
“Situation?” Mike asked, taking cover next to Johnny. Breathing fresh air was a relief.
“Vreely hasn’t tried anything. Every now and then, his soldiers shoot off a few rounds, to let us know they're still waiting. I heard Shalira's poor servant girl screaming for a while.”
Mike shook his head, momentary anger flickering in his heart for those who preyed on the helpless. “There wasn't anything you could do. Now listen up, we're going to try a long shot in the crypt. We're thinking Kajastahn may have ordered a secret passage constructed between his tomb and this one. Trouble is, we already searched for a door with no luck. Shalira is going to ask her mother—” He raised his hand to forestall the question Johnny was plainly going to ask. “I know the whole idea sounds crazy, but then everything on this damned planet is slightly nuts, right? We’ve got forty-five minutes or so left before our only option is the grand suicide rush out the front door funnel of death here.”
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