“I want to live. That is my reward.”
“How can you be so cruel—so hateful? How can you allow this to happen to another human being? How can you be a party to such a thing?’”
“You are the one who created the ghostie gobblies.”
“You’ve betrayed me! I hate you! I hate the air you breathe!”
Rachel nodded. “You made your own choices, Violet. You always chose to embrace hate instead of life. You came down into this cave because you chose to hate. You betrayed yourself with that hate.”
When the ghostie gobblies got closer to Violet, they howled in voices that Rachel could only imagine must sound like the cries of the dead in the underworld. It made her flesh prickle.
She pressed her back against the stone wall of the cave and stood frozen in fright as she saw those teeth that had been meant for her rip into a shrieking Queen Violet.
Rachel knew that only when they were finished and the bones had been picked clean would their summoning born of hate be complete. Only then would they finally vanish for good.
Chapter 42
Verna glanced up when she heard the commotion. It was Nathan, at last, his arms swinging in time with his long legs, his light cape billowing out behind as he marched briskly toward them. General Trimack was close on the prophet’s heels.
Cara, pacing impatiently, finally stopped to watch the approaching prophet and cluster of people following in his wake. As vast as the palace complex was, it had taken a considerable length of time to find Nathan and get him and the others down to the tombs.
Nathan came to an abrupt halt. “I’m going to have to bring a horse into this place to get around faster. First I’m wanted here, then I’m wanted there.” He flourished an arm, indicating the grand scale of the palace. “I spend most of my day rushing from one end of this sprawling monstrosity to another.” He scowled at those watching him. “What’s this about, anyway? No one will tell me anything. Have you found something? Is it Ann and Nicci?”
“Keep your voice down,” Cara said.
“Why? Afraid I’ll wake the dead?” he snapped.
Verna expected Cara to meet his sarcasm with something caustic of her own, but she didn’t. “We don’t know what we’ve found,” she said, her worry clearly evident in her demeanor.
Nathan’s brow only bunched all the more at her cryptic answer. “What do you mean?”
“We need your ability,” Verna explained. “My gift doesn’t work very well in this place. We need the use of the gift to help us in this.”
His suspicion growing, he took in General Trimack standing beside him, and then Berdine and Nyda waiting behind Cara. Finally, he glanced around the rest of the Mord-Sith scattered among soldiers throughout the corridor. The Mord-Sith were all wearing their red leather outfits.
“All right,” he said, considerably more circumspect. “What is the problem and what do you have in mind?”
“The crypt staff—” Cara started.
“The crypt staff?” Nathan interrupted. “Who are they?”
Cara gestured to several people in white robes far off back up the corridor, well behind the armed and ready men of the First File. “They take care of this place. As you know, I think something is wrong down here.”
“So you’ve said, but for all the searching I still don’t see anything wrong down here.”
Cara gestured around. “You don’t know this place very well. I’ve lived here most of my life and even I’m not familiar with the maze of passageways down here. In the past the tombs were usually only visited by the Lord Rahl. The crypt staff, though, spends a great deal of their time down here keeping it always ready for those visits, so they know the place better than anyone.”
Nathan rubbed his chin as he again cast a look over his shoulder, back up the corridor at the white-robed figures huddled in the distance. “That makes sense.” He turned back to Cara. “So, what do they have to say?”
“They’re mute. Darken Rahl selected only illiterate people from the countryside to be members of the crypt staff, so they can’t read or write, either.”
“Selected. You mean he captured people and pressed them into service.”
“Exactly,” Berdine said as she moved up a little to stand beside Cara. “In much the same way he would acquire young women to be trained as Mord-Sith.”
Cara gestured off in the direction of Panis Rahl’s tomb. “Darken Rahl wanted a crypt staff who would not speak ill of his dead father, so he cut out their tongues. Since they can’t read or write, they also can’t secretly write anything offensive about the dead leaders.”
Nathan sighed. “He was a harsh man.”
“He was an evil man,” Cara said.
Nathan nodded. “I’ve never heard anything to dispute it.”
“Then how do you know what the crypt staff thinks about anything that might be wrong down here?” General Trimack asked Cara. “After all, they can’t tell you or even write it down.”
“You use hand signals to direct your men when silence is critical, or when in the heat of battle they can’t hear you. These people do similar things. They use signs they’ve made up over the years to communicate with each other. I’ve questioned them and to a certain extent they’ve been able to make themselves understood. As I’m sure you can well imagine, they are very observant.”
“And wait until you hear what they think,” Verna said.
The whole thing seemed preposterous to her, but the implications were serious enough that she wanted to know for sure. Verna had learned since becoming prelate that, despite how she might be inclined to view a matter, it was always a good idea to keep an open mind. In matters so serious it would be foolish not to at least make sure there was no real problem. Still, she didn’t have to be happy about it.
Nathan’s suspicious look returned. “So, what do they think?”
Cara pointed toward an intersection down the corridor. “Back around there they found a place that isn’t right.”
“Isn’t right?” In exasperation, Nathan put his hands on his hips. “Isn’t right in what way?”
“The stone down here all has veining in it.” Cara turned and pointed out various patterns on the wall behind her. “See? All the people on the crypt staff recognize the veining. They keep track of where they are down here by those unique patterns.”
Nathan peered closely at the veining.
“It’s a language of symbols,” Cara added.
Nathan looked away from the veining and back at Cara. “That makes sense. Go on.”
“In that corridor there, down a ways, is a slab of marble wall that belongs somewhere else.”
Nathan’s suspicion returned as he viewed her askance, as if playing along but not liking it one bit. “So, where does it belong, then?”
“That’s just it,” Cara said. “They can’t find the hall where it belongs. Near as I can understand, what they’re trying to tell me is that there is a corridor missing.”
“Missing?” Nathan heaved a deep sigh. He scratched his head as he glanced around. “Where could a corridor be hiding?”
Cara leaned toward him just a little. “Behind that piece of marble.”
He stared at her silently as he looked to be thinking it through.
“So we want you to use your gift and see if you can sense anyone behind that wall,” Verna said.
Concern etched Nathan’s Rahl features as he glanced around at all the faces watching him. “Someone hiding behind the wall?”
Cara nodded. “That’s right. Someone hiding behind the wall.”
Nathan ran his hand over the back of his neck as he looked down the corridor toward the intersection. “Well, as crazy as that theory sounds at least it’s simple enough to test.” He flicked a hand, indicating General Trimack standing beside him. “And you think the First File might be necessary?”
Cara shrugged. “Depends on if there is anything unpleasant on the other side of the wall.”
The general was looking not just c
oncerned, but alarmed. He was responsible for guarding the palace and everyone in it—especially the Lord Rahl. He was dead serious about his job.
The general waggled a hand in the direction of the suspected trouble “And you think there is?”
Cara didn’t shy from the general’s formidable stare. “Nicci and Ann disappeared somewhere down here.”
The scar running down the side of the man’s face stood out white. He hooked his thumbs behind his weapon belt as he turned to the side. One of his men rushed forward to take his orders.
“I want all of you to stay close, but be very quiet.”
The officer nodded and then trotted silently back to the other men to relay the orders.
“Just who do you think it is that could be hiding behind the wall?” the general asked as he looked between all the women.
“Don’t look at me,” Verna said. “I’m concerned, but I can’t imagine who or what could be there, if anyone. I don’t know that I believe any of this, but at the Palace of the Prophets I knew people on the staff who would pick up on the strangest things, things that no one else had been aware of. I have no idea what this is about, but I don’t dismiss the worries of people who know this place better than I.”
“That makes sense,” the general said.
Nathan started out. “Let’s go have a look, then.”
As she followed behind, Verna was relieved that she’d been able to convince Nathan of the seriousness of the matter. She didn’t necessarily believe it herself, but she wanted to support Cara. Cara was the sort of person who deserved to be given the benefit of the doubt. The Mord-Sith had been frantic with worry for Nicci. She hadn’t slept much recently. As far as Cara was concerned, Nicci was not just a friend, but a link to finding Richard.
They all moved as silently as possible. Cara led the way, with Nathan following. Verna stayed back a little with Berdine and Nyda. General Trimack, with his large force of men, brought up the rear.
Around the corner and down the suspect corridor, a few torches farther down hissed and sputtered. One of them appeared to be about spent. The staff, though, had been kept away. The general signaled his men. Half a dozen of them collected torches from back up the hall and brought them along.
Cara snapped her fingers to get the general’s attention. She motioned for half the men to go past and guard the corridor from the other side. She apparently wanted the place sealed off. Cara sent some of the other Mord-Sith with the soldiers.
At the marble wall Cara traced a finger along the lines of the face in the stone. By now, even Verna recognized that particular face.
“They say that this face doesn’t belong here,” Cara whispered when Nathan leaned close to her.
Nathan nodded and then stood up straight. He waved a hand, urging Cara to stay back out of his way.
Cara frowned and gave Verna a puzzled look. She didn’t know quite what the old wizard was doing. Verna knew. He was using his ability to sense beyond the stone. He was using his gift to search for life. Verna could do a similar thing, although not with the same level of success as a wizard, but she couldn’t do it at all in the palace. In the People’s Palace any gift but a Rahl’s was suppressed. Verna had tried to sense beyond the wall when they had first been told of the place by the crypt staff, but she hadn’t been at all successful.
Cara returned to stand beside Verna. She leaned close, speaking in little more than a whisper.
“What do you think?”
“I think Nathan will tell us when he knows anything.”
General Trimack leaned in. “How long?”
“Not long,” Verna told him.
As Verna watched, Nathan’s face suddenly went white. He staggered back a step.
Seeing his reaction brought Cara’s Agiel up into her fist. Berdine and Nyda spun their weapons up to hand as well.
Nathan staggered back another step. His hand went to his face in shock. He turned to them, his mouth agape.
In a rush of movement, being as quiet as possible, he raced back to them.
“Dear spirits.” He ran his fingers back through his hair as he looked back at the face on the wall.
“Dear spirits, what?” Cara growled.
Nathan, his face nearly as white as his hair, turned his azure eyes on the Mord-Sith.
“There are hundreds of people on the other side of that wall.”
Cara was speechless for only an instant. “Hundreds? Are you sure?”
He nodded vigorously. “Maybe thousands.”
Verna finally recovered her own voice. “What people? Who are they?”
“Don’t know,” Nathan said, his head swiveling back and forth between their faces and the face in the marble wall. “I can’t begin to imagine. But I can tell you that they have a lot of steel with them.”
General Trimack leaned in. “Steel?”
“Weapons,” Verna said.
Nathan’s expression was grave. “That’s right. Down here there isn’t much steel, so it stands out when I use the gift to sense what is beyond the wall. There are a lot of people and they have a lot of steel with them.”
“They can only be armed men,” the general said as he quietly drew his sword. He signaled to his men. They all did the same. In a heartbeat they all had weapons to hand.
“Any idea who they could be?” Berdine asked in a whisper.
Nathan, looking as worried as Verna had ever seen him, shook his head. “None. I can’t tell who they are, only that they are back there.”
Cara started across the corridor. “I say we find out.”
The general gave quick hand signals to all his men. They quietly started moving in from both sides.
“Just how do you think you can find out?” Verna asked, following on Cara’s heels.
Cara paused and looked back at her a moment. She turned to Nathan.
“Can you use your gift to, to, I don’t know—knock the wall down, or something.”
“Of course.”
“Then I think we—”
Cara fell silent when Nathan held up his hand. He cocked his head, listening.
“They’re talking. Something about light.”
“Light?” Verna asked. “What do you mean?”
Nathan’s brow lowered as he concentrated as if trying to hear. She knew that he was listening with his gift, not his ears. It was frustrating in the extreme that she couldn’t do the same.
“The light went out for them,” he said in a low voice. “Their lamps all of a sudden went dark.”
Everyone turned to the wall when muffled voices came from beyond. There was no gift needed to hear them. Men were complaining about not being able to see, wanting to know what was happening.
Then they heard a scream. It lasted only an instant before abruptly going silent. Muffled shouts rose in dismay and growing panic.
“Break it down!” Cara called to Nathan.
Suddenly shrieks erupted from the other side of the wall—men crying out now not only in terror but in shock and pain.
Nathan lifted his arms to cast a web that would bring down the wall.
Before he could act, the white marble exploded out toward them. Fragments of stone blew apart with a deafening noise. A big man, bloody sword in hand, came crashing shoulder-first through the wall at a dead run from the other side. He fell sliding across the floor.
Pieces of white stone of every size and shape sailed through the corridor. Large sections of marble broke free and came crashing down. Beyond the chaos of flying stone shards and boiling dust Verna saw snatches of darkly armored men with weapons in hand. They looked to be in a state of bewildered battle, fighting an unseen enemy. Their roar of voices rose in anger, confusion, and terror.
Through the cloud of dust and debris Verna could see that there was a dark corridor beyond filled with a massive jumble of Imperial Order soldiers.
Through the thundering noise and turmoil, people fell through the breach in the wall. Big tattooed men wearing dark leather armor, straps, studs,
and chain mail, several with missing arms, others with their faces cleaved open, crashed heavily to the ground. A head, greasy ropes of hair flailing, tumbled through the chalky stone dust. Men missing a leg toppled out. Others, their middles ripped asunder, stumbled through the mess.
Great gouts of crimson blood splashed across the white marble floor.
In the middle of all the flying stone, billowing dust, disembodied heads tumbling across shattered marble, men falling, screaming, dying, and the confusion of blood and bodies spilling out into the corridor Richard, with mortally wounded men toppling away to either side, sweeping his sword with one hand, holding an unconscious-looking Nicci up with his other arm around her waist, plunged through the breach in the dark wall of soldiers.
Chapter 43
Cara planted a foot on the back of a fallen Imperial Order soldier and leaped into the air toward Richard as he used his momentum to help carry him through the confusion of dust and stone smashed apart by Bruce when he’d charged through the marble veneer as if he were hitting a line of blockers. As Richard slid under the flying blades and blood, he laid Nicci on the floor, letting her limp form, atop a layer of slick stone dust covering the polished stone, slide the rest of the way across the hall and out of harm’s way.
Richard immediately spun around, bringing his sword to bear on the wall of men descending on him as they spilled out of the dark corridor and into the torchlit halls. He sliced mercilessly into every opening. They fought fiercely to get at him and bring him down. Blade slashed muscle and hit bone. The noise was deafening as men growled, some yelled battle cries, and others screamed in mortal pain.
Richard evaded their fierce attacks, and at every opportunity thrust his blade through the onslaught. Every one of his swift strikes found its mark. For every man he killed, though, it seemed three more replaced him.
Cara crashed into a big man with a shaved head as he went for Richard. Using both hands, she slammed her Agiel across his throat. For an instant Richard saw the shock of pain in the man’s eyes before he went down. Richard used the opening to turn and thrust his sword into another soldier to the side.
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