“And if it was the Earth Elementals fighting Water, then the Order of Fire was here as well. It was not magic against the Orders, but Elementals against Elementals.”
He did not really need further proof. But there were only two levels left in the Temple. Darag opened up the door, letting out a breath when he saw that the hallway was unchanged. For some reason, it would have been easier to have found some sign that something prowled the Temple at night. It would have been a relief to be able to name the dread that seethed in the cold from the stones and sunk into his soul. There was only ice and pale light. Only his footsteps in the frost on the stone floors.
Darag took the stairs at the end of the hallway. The chambers on the upper floors were large, encompassing several rooms with separate areas for offices, bedrooms, and even simple kitchens. Like every level below, nothing was disturbed. The beds were made, chairs slid under desks. A battle had obviously raged outside, but the Temple had been either partially deserted or prepared in a way Darag did not comprehended. The strangeness of it befuddled his mind so that he could not think clearly.
Or it could have been the cold freezing me slowly. He exhaled a rueful chuckle on a warm breath.
The sight of a massive desk made Darag pause. So far he had scanned rooms, but not really entered as if he were afraid of offending the dead. A night within the cold walls had hardened him to absent spirits. Now he headed over and opened up the wooden drawers. Blank writing paper, quill pens, strickers for the lanterns, all were neatly tucked away, but there was nothing personal: no books, no journals. Darag moved to the next room.
He found a letter in the third room. It had fallen behind the dresser. The folds were well worn as if it had been kept close. Darag opened it and read “I will always be with you, Y.” He refolded it and left it on the bed.
The journal was two rooms later, when he had almost reached the end of the hallway. It had been left sitting in the drawer of the desk. Over half the pages of the small leather bound book had been ripped out. Whoever had left it had removed most of themselves but for the entry on the last page, which was partially torn from the binding. Folded over, the writing was hidden until Darag smoothed it out, his fingers trembling. What was written was short, but held the answer Darag had been afraid to find.
“Why do they seek to destroy us? The four orders have stood in equality since the dawn of time. There is nothing they can gain with control over all. But they don’t believe us. The end has already come.
We heard three weeks ago that the Temple of Stone had fallen. They call it now the Temple of Dust in mockery. Seeka and Byol came back to tell of the fight. They warn that since they helped the Order of Earth, they are coming for us next. Seeka said that any Elemental who did not join this new Church of Four Orders faced death. We face not only the Order of Fire but of Earth now as well. Their gifts have been captured and turned by the loss of the heart in their Temple.
Our only hope is in the letter of help we sent to the Temple of Wind and to Kohdan. If they do not come before the Fire Elementals there will be only one thing left for us to do. We will not submit to the Order of Fire without a fight. But first we need to protect what is important. They cannot have the essence of us.”
Darag’s heart was pounding. He shut the journal and put it back in the desk only distantly aware of what he was doing. The cold of the room was overpowering. He remembered the warped wall and the sealed room. The Orders of both Earth and Fire had stood against Water here. He pushed the thought aside as his heart started to pound. What mattered was Lavinia. She and Niri were walking into a trap in the Temple of Dust.
Darag pivoted on the ball of his foot and ran out the door.
CHAPTER 30
THE TEMPLE OF DUST
Niri pulled the scarf around her face, wrapping the loose fabric to block out the penetrating sun. The day wore on to infinity in her mind. The empty expanse of the desert was an optical illusion of identical dunes. The only way she knew they made progress was that the draw of the ocean was a distant and fading pull behind her.
Lavinia and Ria were wrapped similarly to Niri as they rode their camels side by side. Ty swayed slightly in his saddle. Niri eyed the sun that hung low to the horizon now, promising at long last an end to the day.
There was supposed to be an oasis. An old spring that was the mid-point between Tabook and Karakastad. It had supported a small town once when the Temple of Dust had been the residence of the Order of Earth Elementals. When it had been the Temple of Stone. Now, no one traveled this road and they had been given no assurance the spring and oasis still existed.
Niri tossed her senses ahead as she had so many times during the day. It seemed nothing existed but sand. Then almost too faint to feel and nearly masked by the weight of the sea behind her, she felt the slightest pull. It was along the course they were traveling, just a slight degree south. With the dying day, they may have walked by it separated by a sand dune and never have known.
Niri urged her camel beyond Ria and Lavinia’s to pull up next to Ty’s. Only his dark blue eyes showed through the scarf around his head.
“We are almost there. The spring is just ahead.”
Relief washed across his eyes in a flood of moisture. Side by side, they road the last hour to the spring. As the setting sun’s glow faded in the western sky, a half dozen fragile palm trees came into view. Beyond them, a scattering of timbers rose through the sand. That was all that was left of the desert town.
Niri sat on her camel staring at the oasis spring. The still pool of water below her was mesmerizing. It mirrored the golden streaks across the violet sunset as if she could see through the world to another sky. Ty’s hands grasping her around her waist brought Niri back to herself.
“I can get down.”
It was too late. Ty had already lifted her from the camel’s saddle and gently set her on her feet. Niri blushed.
Lavinia was already pulling bedding down from the pack camels, while Ria smoothed out a place in the sand with palm fronds.
“Are you okay?” Ty asked, his gaze still on her face.
“Yes, of course. I’m just tired. The heat . . . .”
Ty nodded slowly. He paused and then moved off to scavenge timbers for a small fire. The air was cooling quickly. Alone, Niri sighed and dropped to her knees next to the small pool. Its closeness was a balm to her scorched senses. Being so far from her element was not a feeling she had ever endured.
Exhausted by the heat which made the quickly cooling night all the more chilly, Ria and Lavinia fell asleep almost as soon as they had eaten some bread and had their fill of water. They curled into blankets next to the fire. Ty watched his sister a moment, before coming and sitting next to Niri where she had stayed near the ephemeral basin of water. Without saying anything, he scooped a handful of water and splashed it at Niri. She smiled.
“I’m sorry I ever said I’d throw dirt at you. I didn’t know it would bother you so much.”
Niri smirked at him, the sense of dislocation dissolving with the water sliding down her skin.
“If I’d known you could swim so well, I would have rocked the boat and tossed you in,” Niri replied thinking back to the same afternoon when they had worked together to undo the Curse’s damage to the Grey Dawn.
“You should sleep.”
Ty took her hand and pulled Niri to her feet. He held onto her a second, their hands joined between them. “Your eyes still have flecks of lavender,” Ty said looking down at her.
A different sensation rushed to fill where the sense of being out of place had sat in her chest. It wasn’t entirely comfortable either, prickling at her nerves so that she wanted to twitch and pull away. Niri looked to her left towards the small fire dancing in the sand.
“You should sleep too.”
“Do something good for myself? That would be a change.”
A soft laugh burst from Niri’s lips. She glanced back at Ty through her lashes. His eyes were still on her. The charge of energy draine
d out of her, leaving only exhaustion. Niri pulled a hand away and ran her fingers across her eyes.
“What is wrong?” Unconsciously, he pulled her closer.
“I just feel powerless out here. I’m really out of my element,” she said with a wry smile.
Ty put his hands on her shoulders, but they slid up to lightly touch her neck. He cradled her face between his fingers and stared earnestly down at her.
“Don’t you say that. Don’t you ever say that.”
Niri held her breath as a tremble ran through her. Her wide eyes were held in Ty’s. She could not have looked away even without his fingers so gentle against her skin. With a shaky breath in, Niri nodded slightly.
The moment lasted a second longer. A flash of emotion like pain flickered across Ty’s face. His brows pulled together as his gaze shifted away for a moment. He pursed his lips to speak but when he looked back at Niri, the words died. He closed his eyes and let her go.
“You should sleep. We don’t know what we’ll find in Karakastad.”
She moved to the fire, unrolling her bedding. As she lay down, the stars the brilliancy of lit gems laid across a velvet cloth above her, Niri wondered what thought had gone through Ty. She shifted her head to see him over the flames, sitting alone with his bedding still rolled tightly beside him.
They were up before dawn, hoping to beat the rising temperatures. But it found them soon enough. This deep in the desert, it simmered with warmth and light. Wind blew sand from the tops of dunes so that the air sparkled. The barest breeze stung exposed skin. Even the camels groaned.
Ty checked their direction frequently, sighting on the blazing sun. Niri’s sense of the ocean was a faint memory, even though it was only a day’s ride behind. As the sun finally touched the horizon, it became apparent that they would not make Karakastad that day.
Wearily, Niri felt for water. There was nothing. The sky was glowing with the last of the days light when a few sparse ruins appeared as they made their way over a low dune. Ty pulled up his camel.
“It will do. We have stored water.”
Only essentials were unpacked with little conversation. Everyone was spent from a second day of heat and fell asleep as if already in a dream.
Ty climbed the closest dune as the sun began to creep above the rim of the sky. Niri, Lavinia and Ria were a few moments behind him. At first, the only thing Niri saw was the desert stretching endlessly in all directions.
“There is nothing,” Ria’s voice was plaintive with exhaustion.
“No, we are in the city.”
Ty pointed to the base of the next dune over. Finally Niri’s eyes picked out the lines of timbers bleached the color of the desert by the sun and wind. A fragment of stone was exposed in the shallow between dunes, remnants of the old road. Niri let out a slow breath.
“We’re there?” Confusion was apparent on Ria’s face in her wrinkled brow.
Niri shook her head. “Karakastad is the town that grew around the outskirts of the Temple. We have to go through it.”
“I don’t see any large structures, no Temple. Could it be buried in this desert?” Lavinia’s distaste for the shifting sands was evident in her voice. A smile tugged at Niri’s lips. They cracked from sunburn and lack of water.
“It is a temple for Earth Elementals, so it is built . . . .”
“In the earth,” Ty said as he breathed in. “At least we will get out of the sun.”
They led the camels through the remains of Karakastad. Beyond the first dunes, more of the city was exposed, timbers and partial buildings half buried in the desert sand. The wind echoed and twisted through the abandoned town. Morning sun cast odd shadows through the collapsed adobe buildings. All four were on edge before they were half-way through the ruins.
Finally, they could see that the partial buildings with their empty windows and bleached timbers dwindled ahead. Niri walked slowly forward and finally saw the Temple of Dust. The ground fell away one hundred yards beyond the last building. A vast sinkhole, over eight hundred yards across and almost perfectly circular, plummeted into the shadows in the heart of the city. Niri’s heart was hammering so that as she looked down for a moment she felt faint. She backed up a step.
On the wall opposite, Niri could see windows carved into the rock. Stairs occasionally jumped between levels from one yawning dark opening to another. In the recess below an overhang, several multi-story houses clung impossibly to a rock ledge.
“How do we get down?” Ria asked in hushed amazement.
“There has to be stairs.” Lavinia spoke in a whisper.
“We’ll walk around the edge. Check the nearby buildings.”
Ty turned as he finished speaking, leading his camel back to the closest structure. They spread out, but it still took nearly an hour to find an entrance to the underground Temple. Ty finally found a partially collapsed building with stairs leading down into the darkness. Timbers nearly blocked the way. The old adobe wall canted over the steps, arching up into the blue sky.
They hid the camels in the shade of a nearby building and then gathered around the opening to the stairs. Cool air seeped up, at once inviting and eerily out of place in the mid-morning desert sun. It wrapped around Niri’s ankles as if to pull her down to whatever lay in the desolate Temple. Niri glanced over at Ria. She was pale, green eyes wide and vivid in the golds and browns of the desert. She looked to Niri entirely too young.
“Maybe,” Niri began.
“You aren’t going alone.” Ty interrupted. He stared her down, his gaze more steely than she had imagined was in him. Niri glanced away first.
“Are you ready to use that thing again?” Ty glanced to his sister’s sword at her hip.
Lavinia stood straighter, her brows snapping together. The terse answer on her lips faded as she realized what her brother meant. The blue in her eyes vibrated as the thin bravado faded. Lavinia swallowed thickly, but did not look away. She took a breath and held it.
“If I need to, yes. I’m ready.”
Ria hissed out a breath, looking more nervous. “Do you think the Curse is selective?” She asked as Ty helped Niri over a fallen timber. “If we run into trouble, I could always summon it and see what happens.”
Lavinia snickered nervously, but flashed Ria a grin. The steps curved into darkness before passing the first window. Stairs and open doors led off into the dimness as they continued down, but Niri kept straight with the main staircase.
“How do you know where to go?” Lavinia whispered. Even so, her voice echoed through the passageway. Everyone winced.
“I don’t. I just thought if I were an Earth Elemental, I’d keep the records and books at the bottom of this thing.”
Ty shrugged. “It is as good a place as any. We can always search from the bottom up.”
Ahead, the stairs bridged a crevice in the rock walls. The dizzying height gave a glimpse to the bottom of the sinkhole, still over two hundred yards below them. A few buildings stood along the sinkhole’s floor. Each was constructed from and chiseled into the rock walls. The largest building had four columns of differently colored stone: deep red, violet blue, creamy yellow, and blue gray. They rose to hold a massive stone lintel that shone with veins of silver and gold even in the dim sunlight that bathed the bottom of the sinkhole. Ty glanced up. Niri followed his movement. The sun was almost directly overhead.
“That looks like the place to start,” Lavinia’s voice was hushed, her eyes still on the buildings lining the bottom.
“No, too obvious. It is probably a cafe.” Lavinia rolled her eyes at her brother’s comment.
“Do you think the bottom was mostly water?” Ria asked pointing out what Niri had not noticed.
The buildings along the floor were built on cut stone ledges similar to those that lined Rah Hahsessah. A few raised pathways traversed across the heart of the sinkhole and from building to building. The rest of the bottom was varying depths and unkempt. Niri could imagine it once filled with water, reflecting the sun
in rippling waves up the stone walls. Now the empty pools only held fine sand blown from the desert above.
Their staircase ended catty-corner to the colonnaded building. From the floor of the sinkhole, they could see how large it was. What had seemed small from halfway down was an imposing structure over six stories tall. It rose from the smooth floor like a leviathan’s stone head. The back of it merged perfectly with the rock face of the sinkhole. A wave of weariness washed over Niri as she wondered how deep into the ground the building went.
Dark openings like the one they exited from were scattered along the edge around the base.
“There are so many places to look.” Ria sounded overwhelmed.
“We’ll try the large building first. From what you’ve said, Niri, it isn’t like the library was hidden.”
Niri nodded at Ty’s statement. “No, it was well known before the war. Scholars came to the Temple to study.”
Together, they walked across the flat pathway towards what was the largest and most apparent structure along the floor. The very bulk of it drew the eye. The faint hiss of sand pattering against the rock resonated an empty sound across the wide sinkhole. Their footfalls were lost to the massive surroundings.
The path they walked along sliced through the shadow of the western rim wall. Ty glanced up for the second time, a frown on his face. The sun was no longer overhead, but still high. It had taken over an hour to walk down. Niri followed his gaze with a sigh. Her leg muscles ached with the constant strain of stepping. Walking up was not going to be much better.
“All of our food and extra water is up there,” Lavinia said following Ty’s gaze as well.
Ria shivered. “I don’t want to sleep down here.”
“No, neither do I,” Niri said softly. The place might have been inspiring once, but now the silent awe it invoked was of vast emptiness and the unknown.
Born of Water Page 24
