Down a Lost Road (39 page)

“
Go on,” one of them called
down to me. His voice sounded familiar, but also like the seething
voice in the
Perstaun
, a chorus of hellish voices knotted
into one. “Go on, Daughter of the Exiles. You go to the Halls of
Death. What do you seek? Who do you think you will find? Nothing
lives that walks the Halls. Nothing can walk the Halls and live. So
go, and die, and join the ones who have gone before.”

And the laughter resumed, mocking me. I drew
a deep breath, wanting to shout up to him, to defy him to his face.
No words came. I just glared up at him, feeling defeated. If I
headed on, it would look like I was fleeing, but I had no other
choice.

“
You don’t drive me,” I
cried suddenly. The sound of my voice resounding in the crater
startled me. “Where I go, I go by my own choice. No half-dead king
of a failed race will take that from me.”

The laughter stopped abruptly. I saw a
sword, bare and gleaming in his hand.

“
Only the dead enter there.
If you wish to go there, you choose your own death, and the death
of those you love.”

I turned and went on down the slope.

Chapter 28 – End Game

It was even colder near the crater floor,
with the heavy, dank chill you would expect in a tomb. The ground
felt so strange, like it should have been mud but was somehow dry,
and so frigid that I could feel tiny blisters forming on the soles
of my feet. I didn’t turn to see if the Lord of K’hama was
following me. I knew he was. He would overtake me, of course, and
kill me and seize Pyelthan from me. It wasn’t a matter of
if
, only
when
. And I had ceased to care.

But he didn’t catch me. Finally, when I had
trudged for what felt like miles, I turned and found he hadn’t even
gained on me. That made me nervous. It had to be a trick. Any
moment he would appear in front of me with that horrible sword, and
that would be that. I hunched my shoulders and plodded on. Another
interminable distance slipped by under my stumbling feet, but I
couldn’t tell if I had come any closer to the Citadel. I was
beginning to despair of ever reaching it. The thirst wore on me the
most, more than my hunger, more than the dull fatigue. Just a drop
of water… by now I would even have gladly drunk the sludge.

I tripped over nothing and dropped to my
knees in a daze. At that moment I had the strangest thought, as if
I could see straight through the tiny planet. I bent over my hands
and closed my eyes, envisioning, on the other side of the world,
the white-walled city of Alcalon. But I didn’t see it as it must
have been at that moment, besieged by the Ungulion forces. I saw it
in its glory, its towers spiraling up, dazzling under the
shimmering blue expanse of
Mekaema
. With a sigh I lifted my
head to the black monstrosity before me.

The Lord of K’hama had called it the Halls
of Death. Staring at it protruding from the earth like a bony fist,
I believed it. How could I possibly enter there?
All in
vain.
I clutched my head and bowed over my knees, and closed my
eyes.
Let them take me…

“
You wish to go
there?”

I jumped at the sibilant voice, then shrank
down as if I could somehow hide in that vast space of nothingness.
I could see the Ungulion’s robes fluttering near my hand, the
metal-clad boots pressed firmly in the fine dust. But the Ungulion
stood staring toward the Citadel and not at me. As I studied him
the faintest ray of hope woke in my heart.

“
I do,” I said – my voice
cracked, hoarse from thirst.

“
The Lord of K’hama trails
you. He drives you.”

“
I know.”

“
There is only one way into
the Citadel.”

“
What way?”

Death…
I knew he would say death.

“
Only an Ungulion may force
the door open.”

I sighed. I wondered if I would be able to
stand up – limbs, head, and heart all felt like iron weights.

“
Then I’m
forsaken.”

“
Only an Ungulion may force
the door open,” he repeated, “and enter there, but prisoners may be
borne in.”

I slanted a gaze at him, curious. “Am I to
be your prisoner then?”

“
Either mine, or the Lord
of K’hama’s. And a true prisoner you would be if you wait for
him.”

I glanced back at the broad emptiness. This
could be a trick too, after all. I would be foolish to believe
anything else.

“
How do I know I won’t be
your true prisoner?”

“
You gave Prince Elekeo
hope,” he murmured. “I, too, long for hope. I know who you are and
why you have come. And I know what you carry.”

“
The Lord of K’hama said
that only the dead can walk those halls.”

“
What you bear will bear
you through,” he answered. “Do you trust me?”

I stared at the impenetrable Citadel. “I
have no choice.”

“
You will trust me,
though?” he pressed, uncertain. “Trust me because you believe I,
Myno, will bear you in safely, and not simply because you have no
other choice?”

I studied him a moment, then nodded.

“
I will trust you,
Myno.”

He stooped and lifted me, and my senses went
blank. In the obscurity of my thoughts I saw Damian’s face, Yatol’s
face…fire and swords and fallen warriors. Saw the gates of the city
thrown wide, saw death in the streets. Then all went dark, and
cold.

“
You see,” came the
plaintive voice, cutting into my thoughts. “You were not wrong to
trust me. I have brought you within, but I can bear you no
further.”

I forced my eyes open. At first I couldn’t
see anything, then my eyes adjusted, and I found myself standing in
a narrow, dim corridor. The close walls lurched up in crude-carved
black stone, leaning toward one another as if they would topple
over me. The Ungulion stood beside me, steadying me as I regained
my senses. When he saw me awake and aware, he began to
withdraw.

“
But wait!” I cried. “Where
am I? Where do I go?”

“
He is coming. He will
drive you there if you do not find it on your own.”

He turned and fled down the hall before I
could stop him. Somewhere I heard an awful grating sound, low and
long, like rock grinding against rock. The Ungulion drew his sword,
but I didn’t wait to see his fight. I turned around, staring down
the passage seething in crimson light.

Only one way to go.

The hall lacerated the black stone, a
straight cut through the heart of the rock. I followed it,
half-running, half-stumbling. Steps echoed behind me, but I didn’t
turn to look. Was there any terror I hadn’t felt yet? This one only
– that I was living what I had seen in a dream.

The laceration ended in a sprawling
chamber.

Two slivers high in the walls emitted a red
glow, two slats of light piercing the hall below. One fell on a
high stone slab, the other, on a monstrous throne of roughhewn
black. I glanced at it once, to see if it was empty, then stood and
stared at the table. Three stone steps led up to it, shallow but
wide. I didn’t feel any fear, or grief, or uncertainty, just
emptiness, but as I climbed a dragging sense of doom sank over me.
I rested my hands on the edge of the slab, and gazed down at the
figure lying there.

Every shred of strength failed me at that
moment. I burst into tears and tried to embrace him, clinging
desperately to his still form.

“
Daddy,” I wept, burying my
face into his shoulder. “I’m here now. I followed. Please wake
up…”

My hand touched his brow, not death-grey and
cold, but pale and barely warm. I clung to his dusty hands and
shook his shoulders, but he lay unmoving like a living statue. My
head dropped onto his chest in anguish. I couldn’t reach him. He
was beyond me, and I couldn’t follow.

I heard a soft, muffled thud, twice, three
times. Clapping. And behind me came a voice, leering and cold,
“Death, you come to death. Perfectly done.”

I straightened up, stared down at the throne
below where the Lord of K’hama had taken his seat.

“
Dr. Balson,” I said
simply. I felt no surprise in that moment when I recognized him,
gaunt and grey on the red-hued throne. “You lied. I’m not dead, and
I have walked these halls.”

“
Not yet. We shall see.” He
gestured to the table with one bony finger. “Your father has been
watching over my hall, you see, while I have been watching his
home.”

“
And he isn’t dead either,”
I gritted angrily.

“
I keep him alive. It suits
my purpose.”

He got to his feet, stalking toward me. His
gait was taut with an old grace, like an aged cat.

“
But one word from me and
no more,” he said, studying me with hateful scorn. “I won’t kill
him. Maybe you would like that. No, I will make him my
second-in-command. Yes, the brave Davhur, a fine captain of the
Ungulion force.”

I met his gaze with blank steadiness. “What
is it you want? You wouldn’t threaten unless you had something you
hoped to gain.”

“
Foolish girl,” he spat.
“Feign boldness if you will, but you cannot fool me. You know very
well what I want. Give me Pyelthan! Give it to me now, and his life
is spared.”

I shifted, disturbed. “What could you
possibly want with this thing?”

“
It is the key…it holds the
gift…give it to me!” His hands worked, fingers stretching and
curling, and his eyes bored into me. “One word, child, one word…
Give me Pyelthan!”

“
You really think this
thing will make you immortal?”

“
It will, it does, it
will!”

I hesitated. I glanced at my father, stone
still and ghostly, his handsome features fixed in calm certainty.
He was all I had come for. And if I didn’t do what the Lord of
K’hama commanded, what then? My father would be lost, and all in
vain. I reached out and touched his face, brushing the dusty hair
from his brow. How long had he lain here, waiting for me? What
twisted power had kept him in that state for so many years, a lure
to draw me in? He had so much faith in me – was I to betray it now
by condemning him to the service of the Ungulion?

I gazed at him, tears scorching my cheeks. I
could feel the Lord of K’hama’s eyes riveted on me, delighting in
my anguish. I could hear Enhyla’s voice in my mind,

The Circle of Judgment in the Judgment
Seat
.

I thought of my despair, riding across the
Laoth. Maybe Dr. Balson had been driving me toward the Citadel. But
somehow I knew that that was only half of the story. My father had
wanted, hoped, expected me to bring him Pyelthan. To bring it to
him
here
. But why?

Dad
, I called in my thoughts.
What
am I to do?

But he lay still, and did not stir. Then, as
if in answer to my question, I recalled the words of the Ungulion
who had brought me within the Citadel, that what I carried
permitted me to walk, living, within those walls.

“
How do I know,” I said,
slowly, “that if I give you Pyelthan, you will let him
live?”

“
What choice do you
have?”

My throat closed, and I reached into my
pouch. What choice, indeed. I pulled Pyelthan out, clenched it
burning in my fingers. Then I leaned over my father and kissed his
pale brow.

“
I’m sorry, Dad…please
understand…” I whispered through choking tears.

And I pressed Pyelthan into the palm of his
clammy hand.

“
That choice,” I said to
the Lord of K’hama.

The only pleasure I felt at that moment was
seeing the rage and disbelief that shook his face. A vague clinging
sickness crept over me, but I held my place. I watched as my
father’s eyelids fluttered, waited until I saw his chest rise and
fall deeply. He gazed at me through unfocused eyes, then
recognition flashed in them and he reached a warming hand to touch
my chin. A great sadness filled his gaze. Two tears slipped from my
eyes and dripped onto his fingers.

I sank onto the topmost step at the foot of
the table, staring at the undead king. He recoiled from the table,
eyes roving over the hall in a wild panic. I heard a soft rustle
behind me, then the sharp tap of sandaled feet touching stone. Out
of the corner of my eye I saw my father standing on the step beside
me. He had always been tall, but he seemed to tower over me now. He
rested a gentle hand on my head but said no word to me. Slowly he
descended the steps, coming face to face with the Lord of
K’hama.