Citadels of the Lost (9 page)

“By the signs of their initial tracks, and assuming neither of them was ill at the time they left,” the raider woman replied in cool analysis, “I would say both of them have been gone more than an hour—perhaps longer.”

“An hour . . .”

“Most likely longer . . . which means they could be anywhere by now,” Urulani said, her voice strained and uncomfortable. “I don't know why the Lyric went with her—who knows why that woman does anything—but Mala's run off, Drakis; left us to go back to her slave masters.”

“No,” Drakis said, shaking his head. “She wouldn't . . .”

“Wouldn't what?” Rising anger flooded into Urulani's words. “Wouldn't abandon you? Wouldn't sell us all out to Death itself if it meant running back to her precious elven keepers? She already
did
that, Drakis, but you don't see it because you don't
want
to see . . .”

Urulani stopped speaking, raising her own sword and crouching slightly in anticipation. Her large, dark eyes shone in the faint light from the panel above.

Sounds, jumbled and blurred by their own echoes tumbled from in front of them down the darkened corridor.

Drakis glanced over at Urulani.

There came the distinct sound of splashing steps . . .

The noise of bright laughter.

Drakis charged forward at once, plunging into the darkness. Urulani was momentarily surprised by his sudden action, but followed quickly in chase.

Drakis followed the wall of the gently turning corridor with his left hand extended, his right hand gripping the hilt of the sword. He could hear, farther back, the echoes of Urulani's footsteps in the water mixed with the mumbled “Wrong!” she uttered with every step. The corridor was brightening before him; he could make out the mosscovered walls now and could hear the tumble of water ahead of him. He quickened his pace with his increased ability to see and was at a full run when he emerged from the vine-covered arch and into the circular chamber.

It was actually the bottom of a shaft, he realized as he came into it. Water gushed from high over a broken wall on his left side, cascading down the fallen stones and across the shattered mosaic that once covered the floor. There was another arched opening on the opposite side of the space nearly hidden by the hanging vines, which extended up the hundred-foot length of the shaft overhead. At the top, the shaft opened into gray clouds filtered through the jungle canopy; a dappled, slanting column in the mists which, in the youth of the day, barely entered the space.

Mala sat on a segment of broken wall next to the base of the falling water, her laughter echoing up the shaft in hysterical peels, as the Lyric stood over her.

Drakis walked quickly through the rushing water, nearly losing his footing on the slick tiles beneath his feet. He sheathed his sword in its scabbard and squatted down to look into her face.

“Mala?” he asked.

Mala turned suddenly toward the sound of her name as though she had been slapped. Her eyes were bright as they looked more through Drakis than at him. Her laughter had stopped just as suddenly. She shook visibly now.

“Drakis?” she said. “Did you see it? Did you hear it?”

Drakis took in a breath. “See what, Mala?”

She tried to focus on him but her eyes seemed to be looking beyond him. “I'm going home, Drakis! She's going to take me home! We're all going home, my beloved! You can come, too! I know the way!”

Drakis was shaken. He glanced up questioningly at the Lyric.

The Lyric looked back sadly and shrugged. She raised her hand, pointed to her own head and made circles as she looked down on Mala.

“We've got to leave!” Mala said, her hands grasping the armholes of Drakis' leather chest piece on both sides, dragging his attention back to her. “We have to get out of this place. We have to leave!”

“What do you mean we've got to leave?” Drakis said in frustration. “We just
found
this place!”

“I know it seems wrong,” Mala protested, her speech rushed as her words seemed to outrun her thoughts. “This place seems safe enough and we're sheltered from the weather—I know everything you've done makes sense to you, but we're in danger here and we've got to get out while we can.”

“Of course we're in danger here,” Drakis rolled his eyes. “But at least we've got some chance to defend ourselves in these ruins. Telling us to dash back out into
that
jumble of a wilderness”—he gestured up past the moss-and-vine obscured walls, broken balconies, and dark openings toward the gray rain and mists nearly obscuring the jungle-choked ruins below them—“is
not
going to make us safer! We don't even know what monsters were tracking us in that choked mess, and you want us to dive back into it by giving up the one place we've found where at least we can see trouble coming before it takes our lives?”

“The Pythar are coming and we have to take the Living Road before death finds us!”

“The dwarf said this place was called Pythar,” Urulani frowned. “What is she raving about? The living road?
What
living road?”

Drakis could not remember how long it had been since the recently sullen Mala had shown much of an interest in anything, and her sudden fervor inclined him to believe her. The unexpected existence of a back entrance to the shop rooms they had previously felt were so secure gave both credence to her strange tale and concern for the safety of their cliff-face warren, heightened by the disappearance of both Mala and the Lyric. But now, with the gray light of dawn, and having found both women not only alive but apparently only having wandered off on their own, Drakis' fears were damped down. The rush to action was slowly ebbing into a desire for rest and, he thought, perhaps more lengthy and reflective deliberations.

Drakis stood up, dragging Mala to her feet with him.

“All right, Mala. Let's get back with the others, and we'll talk about what to do.”

“Talk?” Mala was indignant. “There's no time to
talk
! We have to leave—right now! Our lives are . . .”

The bellowing sound of a dwarf and the distant clash of steel came from the curving hallway they had just left.

“Maybe she's right,” Urulani said, shrugging her shoulders as Drakis, Mala's hand gripped firmly in his own, rushed back into the corridor and toward the shop.

“I'll have that back, you black-hearted scoundrel, if I have to cut it out of your rubber hide!” Jugar roared. The dwarf was leaning heavily on his good leg but still standing, his short-handled battle ax held in both hands as he spun unevenly around on his good leg. “Give it back now or I'll cleave you in twain!”

Drakis rushed through the previously hidden doorway, his sword at the ready but then stopped short.

The hobbling dwarf appeared to be chasing Ethis about the small room with his war ax.

Urulani slid to a stop behind Drakis. “Chimerian! What's the meaning of this?”

“Theft and thievery, that's the meaning!” the red-faced dwarf howled. “Piracy, by Thorgrin's beard, coldly calculated and expertly performed!”

“I regret to inform you that the dwarf appears to have gone insane,” Ethis replied, dodging a strong slash across the center of his body.

“What happened,” Drakis said wearily.

“I was on the concourse—on watch,” Ethis replied. The dwarf was taking another lunge at him, but the chimerian managed to extend his arm, grasping the dwarf's head and holding him far enough away to avoid the blade. “I must admit that the architecture interested me considerably and may have distracted me—but not for long.”

The dwarf howled, and Ethis quickly withdrew his arm before Jugar could cut it off.

“Now he claims I stole his precious rock from him,” Ethis concluded, jumping deftly out of the way as the dwarf charged forward, stumbled, and fell flat against the stone floor.

“It was absorbing the Aer through the stones,” the dwarf wailed. “Drawing it out of the ground in ways you cannot possibly understand!”

“You have no magic at all without the stone?” Drakis asked.

“Aye . . . all living things are imbued with Aer,” Jugar said, rolling painfully to sit up, “but it's like comparing a trickle with a river. I would have had my leg healed in days with that stone. Now it will take me weeks!”

“He's convinced I took it,” Ethis said. “However, before he became belligerent, he insisted on searching everyone's packs.”

“Everyone's packs?” Mala was indignant.

They had been so intent on the battle between Ethis and Jugar that none of them had noticed the contents of their packs spilled across the floor.

Jugar painfully tried to pull himself into a better position.

Urulani pushed her way past Mala and the Lyric who were crowding in the doorway at the back of the shop, raising her elegant head slightly as she stepped around Drakis. “Jugar is not just being unreasonable. It appears we've all got something missing.”

The chimerian frowned then fell forward, catching the ground with all four of his hands spread out before him at once. His body contracted slightly and he looked more like a spider as he lowered himself close to the ground. Even the heavy-breathing dwarf stopped his rage at the sight. Ethis moved quickly along the ground and then rose upright, extending his torso into the more familiar form to which they were all accustomed.

Ethis placed two of his fists firmly on where his hips would have been. “It
was
a human . . .”

“See!” Jugar shouted. “I told you . . .”

“But it wasn't one of us,” Ethis concluded.

“What do you mean?” Drakis asked, returning his blade to its scabbard.

“The markings are not obvious, but they are there,” Ethis continued speaking with a distracted air as much to himself as to those around him. “There are footprints all through here. Most of them are obscured by the unfortunate ravings of the dwarf, but there are enough remaining for me to be sure. It was a human . . . barefooted, too . . . a male of your kind of approximately fourteen years or female of fifteen. It's difficult to tell from what remains.”

“Could it be one of the monstrous predators that dragged Kwarae off?” Drakis asked.

“No, there's no heel spur like the ones we saw before, and the toes are not long enough,” Ethis shook his head, looking out the front door of the ancient room into the gray mists beyond. He came in and left through that front opening, too. An amazing feat considering I was standing not thirty feet from the opening.”

“Then we've got to be finding him at once!” Jugar demanded. “He's got my Heart!”

“One cannot steal what was never there,” Ethis sniffed.

“You'll answer for that one day, bendy,” Jugar snarled. “Although I would be willing to forgo the matter entirely, if you'll just move your rubbery cheeks and track down this thief and recover my property no matter what his age!”

Drakis moved to his own field pack and quickly undid the toggles securing the top flap. “Well, I've a dagger missing. Do you suppose everyone else has something gone as well?”

“Certainly,” Ethis agreed, “although it seems the thief didn't discriminate in what he or she took. Value didn't seem to be the motive behind the theft.”

“Well he took something of inestimable value from me,” the dwarf shouted as he struggled to stand on his good leg. “We've got to get it back!”

“The dwarf is right,” Drakis said. “It's the source of the dwarf's magic and it may be our best chance at getting out of this nightmare. Can you track this person?”

“Yes,” Ethis answered. “Now that I know what to look for, I can track him, but we'll have to hurry.”

“Why?”

“Because we need to find this thief for a better reason than the dwarf's magic stone,” Ethis said, gazing out from the front opening beyond the concourse to the gray mists beyond. “We have limited food in a land where we do not know what is edible for foraging. If there is a human surviving here, then we need to find him and learn from him how to survive here as he does. And there is another compelling reason for us to leave whether we find the thief or not.”

Drakis finished securing his field pack. “And that would be?”

“Because I've also found other tracks all over the concourse,” Ethis said. “Whatever hunted us yesterday has been in here before and, I suspect when the rain stops, they'll be coming for us.”

Drakis thrust out his lower lip in thought. “Mala said we had to leave . . .”

“It would seem she is right,” Ethis nodded.

“And you can track this person?” Drakis asked again.