The other bowman ran straight through the open door, as the Tesserit turned to take one last shot. Too late. Twenty yards away three Guards raced towards him, swords extended. He leaped through the door, slammed it shut and was immediately blind in the foul-smelling darkness of the old cowshed. He blundered forward helplessly over the slippery floor, until just as the door burst open behind him he saw the square hole in front of him, faintly illumined by torches below.
He jumped recklessly straight down, tumbling out of control down the unseen steps. Behind him Sammar had just an instant to reach out and drop the tilted flagstone back into place before the clash of steel on stone told them how close the strike had come. The rebel leader retreated to the floor below. Two of the archers took their place beside him and a ring of men waited, weapons ready, at the foot of the stairs.
There was a surprisingly long silence. The attackers had learned to respect the arrows which had claimed several of their number, and no one wanted to be the first to open the hole. At last hands scrabbled at the flag-stone, found a purchase and raised it. At six inches it stopped and a face peered through the slit. Sammar signalled to one of the archers and an arrow hissed out of the darkness. There was an agonised cry from above and the flag dropped back into place.
Chapter 29
Honourable Professor Santiggi
We have received your request for an Entry & Excavation Permit to the East Catacombs and regret to inform you that your application has been unsuccessful.
At your service, Department of Public Works, Karkor
Honourable Sirs
I am writing to ask you to reconsider your refusal of an Entry Permit to the East Catacombs. This is the oldest known burial ground in the city and the source of numerous stories and legends connected with Karkor’s history. Much might be revealed through investigation by a properly qualified team and the Imperial University is eager to participate in the project. Surely the dangers cited as your main grounds for refusing are exactly the kind of superstitious hangovers from the city’s primitive past which we would hope to dispel by our activities.
Ever to oblige, Professor Santiggi, Imperial University
Honourable Professor Santiggi
For your information the dangers in the East Catacombs, which you see fit to dismiss as ‘superstitious hangovers’, were the subject of a lengthy investigation by an Imperial Commission some fifty years ago, deep in ‘the city’s primitive past’. The Commission’s findings remain classified to this day, which explains your ignorance of the matter. Suffice it to say that the task of guarding this burial ground and containing ‘the evil and highly dangerous influences’ (from page 1 of the Report) found to reside therein was taken up by the Church of Ajeddak and remains one of their most important, if unpublicised, duties today.
At Your Service, Dept of Public Works, Karkor
Whizzer
Go and arrest Professor Santiggi, Antiquities Dept, Imperial University, and frighten him a bit. The silly bugger is insisting on digging around in the East Catacombs and won’t take no for an answer. Threatening to go public now. From what I hear, that thing the Church found in there would probably eat him alive, but the Archpriest does NOT want any publicity. Says it’s a sensitive time, etc etc. Don’t know why, but if the AP wants it quiet, it’s up to us to shut this idiot up without any fuss. He’s the same pushy little twit who published those historical articles last year and got the AP’s back up then.
Know I can rely on you. Owe you one. Big J.
The Catacombs
The southerners had been glad of their refuge at first and the large pile of torches in a corner had been reassuring; but it also felt unpleasantly like being trapped. Buder was busy studying the map and simply waved a negative at Sammar's impatient inquiry without bothering to look up. They would have to wait. A few minutes later their options narrowed dramatically. The flagstone was suddenly pulled open and thrown right over. The archers shot two men at once who were about to fling themselves down the hole, but the entrance remained open.
After a brief pause came the rush they were expecting and the ensuing fight was short and vicious. The archers shot and fell back. Mederros with swords stood to each side of the steps and hacked the legs from under each attacker, and any who managed to jump clear were instantly despatched by those waiting behind. The attack faltered and stopped. No one had come out of the hole alive and the soldiers above were not eager to try again. A number of arrows began to hiss down into the chamber, but the bowmen were standing well back out of sight and firing blind. Only one rebel was hit before the others learned to keep out of the line of fire.
"We can't wait here," Sammar spoke incisively. "Before long they’ll toss a few bundles of burning straw down here to smoke us out. They don't know we've got a back door." He turned to Buder. "Can’t you take us at least some way into the tunnels?"
"There are so many dead ends," came the frustrated reply, "I just can't trace a way that seems to go right through."
"You mean you haven't looked at the map till now?" Sammar's anger was plain.
"There was no need. The professor said the route was clearly marked. Look for yourself, there's nothing marked at all. I'm going to have to work it out for myself."
"Not here, you won't." Sammar turned to Ledwar. "I'll keep thirty men here. Take the rest about five hundred paces in and stop. Leave a man every twenty paces with a torch: when we come, we'll be in a hurry. Take Buder with you, so he can keep trying, and carry as many spare torches as you can."
The first passage ran large and straight for a hundred paces, then curved smoothly to the left, until it brought them to a junction. So far it seemed to tally with the map. What they were unprepared for was the white arrow painted onto the rock, pointing to the left.
"See, the route is marked, Buder." Ledwar was more pleased than he cared to admit in front of his men. "That's what he meant. Your man was right."
Relief accompanied the news back down the line and the party walked on expectantly to the next fork. There it was, the next arrow. Ledwar called a halt and sent word back to Sammar, who came striding up to them fifteen minutes later.
"Good timing; the first bundles of straw had just started to come down. They'll not get through that chamber for hours now, so we can take it steady. Keep our place on the map, Buder, while we follow the arrows."
Ledwar took the front again with Buder at his side. The pace felt encouraging to Caldar further back in the column with Harol and Rasscu, but after a while it became slower and then slower, until at last they came to a complete halt. It had been easy at the start: large passages with well-marked forks. Then they had descended a long flight of steps and were at once plunged into a bewildering series of turns, forks, cross-roads, and more staircases, until they lost all sense of direction or level. More disturbing by far were the arrows which were guiding them. They were fading. At every turn they were harder to see.
And there were bones, countless bones all around them. Every few yards along the passage alcoves opened on each side, where heaped skulls and skeletons gleamed as the torches went by. Every side turning they passed now was the same, lined with alcoves where the white relics of past centuries disappeared off into darkness at the limit of the torchlight. The Mederros had joked about it at first, but even the boldest fell silent as they penetrated deeper and deeper into this unending display of death.
The bones bothered Caldar not at all; but as he waited in the stationary column a vague sense of unease, which had troubled him ever since they descended the first staircase, slowly crystallised into the certainty that danger lay in wait for them not far ahead. Stranger and yet more compelling was the contradictory feeling that that was the way they must go. Were they somehow being drawn into a trap? He couldn’t tell. The two impulses seemed quite different in nature, the second striking such a sonorous but lively note within him.
His thoughts were interrupted when a message came down the line from Sammar: he was wanted at the front and quickly. They had hal
ted at the next fork, and when he came up to them, the reason was plain to see. This time there was no arrow, not even a trace. He looked at Buder who raised his hands helplessly.
"I am lost. I have been telling my kinsman that for some time. We could be under the centre of the city by now for all I know. We just trusted to the arrows and pressed on. It's not…"
"The men reminded me about you," Sammar cut in impatiently, addressing Caldar. "'Nighteyes' they call you after you guided us through the fog this morning. Can you help? Tell us which way to go? If not," he dropped his voice, "then I begin to wonder if we will ever the see the light of day again."
" I might be able to see things you can't, Sammar." Caldar spoke quietly also. "But I don't know what I'm looking for down here, I don't know the way through."
"Then we must go on blindly until we win through or starve. Going back is certain death. Your friend Idressin had the right of it, this was not a good choice. If we're all equally blind, I'll lead us onward: I'll not have Buder blamed."
"Wait." Caldar caught the rebel by the arm as he was about to swing away. "Not all directions are the same."
"What does that mean?" The question was fierce with suppressed hope.
The youth explained quickly what he had been experiencing. "The feelings are quite different, but both seem to be coming from the same place."
"So there is something alive down here among the dead." The rebel glanced keenly at Caldar. "It may, as you say, be a trap: the arrows lead the flies conveniently to the spider's lair."
"And when there are no more arrows, it means the spider is close by." This came from Rasscu who had followed his friend to the fork and was now stringing his bow.
"Which is stronger, the threat or the other? You don't know?" Sammar fell silent, for once unable to bring himself to a decision. "Tell me, what would you do?"
Caldar was taken aback. Asking for advice? This was not the Sammar he was used to.
"I'd follow the force that's drawing me," he answered slowly, not realising how much it was part of his nature to take the risk. "It feels important. If there's danger there as well, ….."
"…we're in danger already. You're right about that. Alright, I agree with you. We can't stay here, so let's go and meet whatever's waiting for us."
A crisp command and the Mederros immediately stirred into readiness. Bows were strung and swords drawn. Relief was plain on the men's faces; at least they were doing something. The column began to move again, led this time by Caldar with Sammar and Rasscu to either side. After a hesitant start the youth grew gradually more certain, the pull more powerful. At every turn waves like the soundless beat of a great bell began to surge stronger and stronger within him, drawing him onward, until he was barely able to hear the voices around him asking him to slow down.
Steps, passages, forks and turns followed each other in a blur, a rising crescendo of inner sound, which cut off abruptly as he entered a vast chamber where the ceiling and walls vanished beyond the reach of the torches. The youth walked slowly out into the open space, sensing danger nearby, yet drawn irresistibly forward by the call which rang inside him. The rebels entered cautiously behind, rolling in like a slow tide, until all two hundred of them were inside the vast underground hall.
"Welcome." The chamber amplified the word to a giant sound and the echoes rippled round the unseen walls; but for Caldar there was no mistaking that hoarse voice. It was Kulkin. "Long have we sought to enter this place, but it was shielded from us. You have done us great service, young one, you opened the shield and led us straight in and for that you have our gratitude. But you were unwise to enter the Kingdom of the Dead."
The Mederros had adopted defensive postures at the first word, but no enemy was visible and they were scared by the disembodied voice.
"Tell this rabble to lay down their arms and I may let them live. We have found what we wanted."
"Why should we lay down our arms?" Sammar forced himself to speak boldly. "We see no one and hear only one voice."
In reply a faint glow appeared some fifty paces away towards the centre of the chamber and illuminated by it were two figures, Kulkin and Behenna, standing behind a raised table of white stone.
"Two men?" Sammar was daunted by the eerie scene, but managed to inject a proper degree of scorn into his voice. "And where is your army?"
The huge voice boomed out again, "You are afraid, Sammar Geth Shul. That is wise, even though it comes too late. My army surrounds you. They await my word in their thousands, in their hundreds of thousands. The dead envy the living and will not permit you to leave their domain. Only I can release you, if you obey my will. Lay down your arms."
By some trick the voice spoke to all its listeners in their own language. The rebels looked round fearfully at the surrounding darkness and some even began to lay their swords on the floor. Sammar was made of sterner stuff.
"Ferem, shoot," the Mederro leader rapped out sternly. An archer stepped clear of the group on the left, drew and loosed his shaft on the instant. It flew straight and true at Behenna, but it did not strike. The erstwhile monk made a brief gesture with his hand and the arrow burst into flames and fell harmlessly to the ground. In the ensuing awestruck silence he pointed at the luckless archer and spoke one word in an unknown tongue. Without warning skeletal forms appeared from the darkness and seized him in their bony grip.
Eyes wide with fear, Ferem backed away, tried to tear himself loose, tried to get back amongst his comrades. To no avail. More and more fleshless fingers plucked at his clothing and gripped his limbs, until he was lifted up and borne away shouting and struggling. At that the nearest Mederros seemed to come out of a trance and sprang after him with swords drawn. They had taken no more than ten paces when they halted abruptly. A line of motionless skeletons awaited them, while more closed silently in from the shadows to left and right. Step by step they backed away, ashamed as their comrade's cries grew fainter, but sweating with a horror they could not control.
"Now," the fearsome voice thundered. "Obey me. Lay down your arms."
Imperial Enclave, Special Forces HQ
"What do you mean, they've disappeared?"
"I mean I can't trace them any more. They were still somewhere in the north-east part of the city, then suddenly they vanished, the youth vanished anyway, just a few minutes ago."
Theyn paced to and fro. The pursuit had been going well. Chachi had made good on his boasts and Dettekar had been able to send units of the Guard straight down the line of flight. By all the reports the fugitives had been driven into the north-east quarter and would soon be hemmed in against the heavily manned city walls.
"D'you think he's been killed then?"
"No, I would know it."
"Keep trying."
He could afford no more time on the chase. Already his mind was awhirl with all the events of the night and their possible consequences.
The princess had insisted that Dettekar make the announcement of Habbakal's death immediately, on the threat of making it herself if he refused. There had been disbelief, followed by absolute pandemonium in the ballroom. It was Shkosta herself who had restored some sense to the gathering, insisting on silence and then reminding them that they were the leaders among the people and responsibility for maintaining law and order would rest largely in their hands. The flattery had gone a long way towards calming the guests. For her own part, she announced, she was going to dedicate herself to two immediate aims. She would use every means at her disposal to bring the murderers to justice and she would personally see to it that a quiet and peaceful situation was maintained in Karkor while the proper authorities considered the matters of the Emperor's funeral and the future succession.
It would have been impossible to take exception to anything she said, and yet she managed to convey forcefully to the listeners that any attempts to stir trouble in the capital or to make personal advantage out of the situation would be ruthlessly countered. Dettekar had clearly been impressed, looking at the
princess as if he had never seen her before.
Yet none of this had rocked Theyn as much as Shkosta's reactions to the night's news. She might fool the others around her, but he prided himself on knowing her better than any of them. Word of the escape had been assimilated almost with satisfaction - had she nearly laughed or was that just his imagination? - and her grandfather's death had provoked neither surprise nor grief that he could detect. Was it possible she had set it all up? The more he considered it, the more likely it seemed. That she was capable of organising such intricate manoeuvres, he had no doubt. That she might have done it without his help or his knowledge gave him a chill of fear.
"They may have entered the catacombs, sir."
He stared blankly at the young aide. "What's that?"
"The catacombs, sir. They run under that part of the city, and I thought if the Prentex has lost the scent of them so to speak, then…"
"Good idea, Wheerd. What d'you think?" This to Chachi.
"Yes, it’s possible."
It was more than possible. Chachi had forgotten about the catacombs. He did not know exactly what was living down there, but he had lost a couple of agents trying to find out several years ago. It was powerful, malevolent, and utterly outside his experience: so he had decided to ignore it. He did not expect the Watchmen to be able to penetrate that underground kingdom, nor did he expect the fugitives to emerge. Was this to be the end of all his hopes and plans? The climax to hundreds of years of work wiped out by pure mischance? At least he would play out the game to the end: maybe the Guardian would survive.
"Where do the catacombs come out?" Theyn asked Wheerd.
"I believe there used to be several entrances inside and outside the city, sir."
"Don't waffle. Show me on the maps, or find someone who can."
The Catacombs
The Tears of Sisme Page 75
