Heir Of Novron: The Riyria Revelations (50 page)

Wyatt looked at her, puzzled. “You sure don’t speak like a noblewoman. I mean, you do—but you don’t.”

“That’s very coherent, Mr. Deminthal.”

“There, you see? Those are the words of a princess—putting me in my place with eloquence and grace.”

“As well she should,” Hadrian said, appearing beside her. “Do I need to keep an eye on you?” he asked Wyatt.

“I thought you were
his
bodyguard.” He pointed at Gaunt, who remained on the wagon with the dwarf, their lunches resting on the bench between them.

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?”

“What did Royce find?” Arista asked.

“Tracks, but they’re old.”

“What kind of tracks?”

“Ghazel—probably a scouting party. Looks like King Fredrick was right about
the flood
. But we are still a ways from Vilan Hills. I’m surprised they are scouting out this far.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “And Alric has Myron and Royce trying to find the entrance?”

“Yep, they’re looking for a river. Hall’s book tells of a river flowing into a hole.”

“What about the tracks?”

“What about them?”

“Have you followed them?”

“They’re too old to be a threat. Royce guesses they were made more than a week ago.”

“Maybe they aren’t from Vilan Hills. The Patriarch said Ghazel were in Percepliquis. Follow the tracks… They might lead to the entrance. And get Magnus off the wagon. Isn’t he supposed to be an expert at finding underground passages?”

Hadrian stared at her stupidly. “You’re absolutely right.” He started to return to the others.

“Hadrian?” She stopped him.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t tell Alric I said anything. Say it was your idea.”

He looked confused for a second, then said, “Oh—right.” He nodded with sympathy. Hadrian started to climb the hill, then waved at Wyatt. “Com’on, sailor, you can help look too.”

“But I’m still—”

Hadrian gave him a smirk.

“Okay, okay. Excuse me, my lady—ah—Arista.”

The two climbed to the top of the hill and disappeared over the rise. Elden came over and sat beside her. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small bit of wood, holding it out in his huge palm. It was a figurine, deftly carved in the shape of a woman. She took it and, upon closer inspection, realized it was her. The detail was perfect, right down to her messy hair and Esrahaddon’s robe.

“For you,” she heard him whisper.

“It’s beautiful, thank you.”

Elden nodded; then, standing up slowly, he moved off to sit by himself.

Arista held the statuette in her fingers, wondering when he had found time to make it. She tried to determine whether he had whittled in the saddle or carved it the night before while the rest of them were eating dinner.

Myron left the top of the hill and Arista waved him over.

“So what does Mr. Hall have to say about how he got in?”

Myron smiled comically. “Not a lot that is of much help. Although, he did have some nice diagrams that showed the ruins, so we are in the right place. As for getting in, all he said was that he went into a hole. From his accounts, it was really deep. He started climbing down and fell. A nasty fall by the sound of it too. His handwriting afterwards was shaky and he only bothered to write short sentences:
Fell in a hole. No way out. The pile! They eat everything! Cyclone of darkness. River
running. Stars. Millions. Crawling, crawling, crawling. They eat everything.
”

Arista sneered. “Doesn’t sound all that pleasant, does it?”

“It gets worse,” he said. “Down near the underground sea, just before he reached the city, he encountered the Ba Ran Ghazel, but that wasn’t the worst of it. He actually made it to the great library when—”

A whistle sounded.

“Found it!” Alric shouted.

The hole was not on the summit of the hill.

Hadrian had watched as Magnus and Royce had located the passage, each coming at it from a different direction. Royce traced Ghazel tracks and Magnus followed what he called the sound of an underground hollow. They came together down the back side of the slope, where the angle grew steep and dangerous. A patch of trees and thick thorny brambles wreathed what appeared to be a minor depression. The only clue that something more lurked there was the faint echo of falling water.

“Looks slippery,” Mauvin said as they all gathered on the icy ridge above. “Who’s going first?”

Before anyone could answer, Royce appeared carrying a heavy coil of rope, wearing his climbing harness and slipping on his hand-claws—brass wraps with sharpened hooks that jutted out of his palms. Hadrian helped him get situated; then Royce lay on his stomach and inched along, leaving a trough in the soft snow as he eased off the ridge.

As he started down the slope, Royce began to slide. He tried to get a grip, but his hands and claws found only snow. He picked up speed like a sled and Hadrian worked at taking up the slack in the rope. Then Royce crashed through the
thickets and disappeared from view. Mauvin joined Hadrian on the rope, which was now as taut as a bowstring.

“Get the end,” Hadrian ordered. “Tie it to that tree.”

Magnus moved to grab the line.

“No, not you!” Hadrian shouted, and the dwarf scowled. Hadrian looked to the next-closest person. “Wyatt, could you tie the end off?”

The sailor grabbed the end of the rope and dragged it around the base of the little birch.

“How ya doing, Royce?” Hadrian called.

“Dangling,” Royce replied. “Pretty slick up there. Give me some slack.”

They stood in a circle, each keeping a safe distance, all of them standing on their toes, trying to see down. Overhead, the winter clouds made it hard to tell the time. There was no sun, just a vague gray light that filled the sky, leaving everything murky and drained of color. Hadrian guessed they had only four hours of light left.

Mauvin and Hadrian let out the rope until it hung from the tree, although Hadrian continued to hold on to it just the same. He could not see Royce and stared instead at the thin rope. It too was mostly lost, buried in the snow, leaving only a telltale mark.

“Can you reach the bottom?”

“How much rope do we have?” Royce’s voice returned like an echo from the bottom of a well.

Hadrian looked at Arista.

“Ten coils of fifty feet each,” she replied. “All told, there should be five hundred feet’s worth,” she shouted, tilting her head up a bit as if throwing her voice into the hole.

“Not half good enough,” Royce replied.

“That’s a deep hole,” Hadrian said.

The rope shifted and twisted at the edge.

“What’re you doing, buddy?”

“Trying something.”

“Something stupid?”

“Maybe.” He sounded winded.

The rope stopped moving and went slack.

“Royce?” Hadrian called.

No answer.

“Royce?”

“Relax,” came his reply. “This might work. I’m on a ledge, big enough for all of us, I think. Icy, but doable. We can tie on here too. Looks like we’ll have to work our way a leg at a time. Might as well start sending down the gear.”

They brought up the wagon and began lowering supplies, each package disappearing through the opening in the brush.

“I’ll go first,” Alric announced when the wagon was empty.

Hadrian and Mauvin tied the safety rope around his waist and legs. Once tethered, the king took hold of the guide rope and, sitting down on the snow, scooted forward. Mauvin and Hadrian were careful this time to let out the rope slowly, and soon Alric reached the thickets and peered through.

“Oh dear Maribor!” Alric exclaimed. “You have me, right?” he shouted back at them.

“You’re not going anywhere until you want to,” Mauvin replied.

“Oh lord,” he repeated several times.

Royce was offering suggestions, but too faintly for Hadrian to hear exactly what they were.

“Okay, okay, here I go,” Alric said. He turned himself over and, lying flat on his stomach, started backing into the hole, clutching tightly to the guide rope. “Slowly now,” he warned as Mauvin and Hadrian let out the tether, and inch by inch he slipped over the edge and out of view.

“Oh sweet Maribor!” they heard him exclaim.

“You okay?” Hadrian called.

“Are you crazy? Of course I’m not! This is insane.”

“Lower him,” Royce shouted.

They let out the line until Hadrian felt a tug that he guessed was Royce pulling Alric to the ledge. The rope went slack, Royce shouted the all clear, and they reeled up the empty harness. Feeling it best to send him early so they still had enough people to man the rope, they sent Elden next. He went over the side quietly, although his eyes told a story similar to Alric’s.

“Degan, you’re next,” Hadrian informed him.

“You are joking,” Gaunt replied. “You don’t expect me to go down there?”

“Kinda why you’re here.”

“That’s insane. What if the rope breaks? What if we can’t reach the bottom? What if we can’t get back up? I’m not doing this. It’s—it’s ridiculous!”

Hadrian just stared at him, holding the harness.

“I won’t.”

“You have to,” Arista told him. “I don’t know why, but I know the Heir of Novron must accompany us for this trip to be successful. Without you there’s no need for any of us to go.”

“Then fine, none of us go!”

“If we don’t, the elves will kill everyone.”

He looked at her and then at the others with a desperate, pleading face. “How do you know this? I mean, how do you know I have to come?”

“Esrahaddon told me.”

“That loon?”

“He was a wizard.”

“He’s dead. If he was so all-knowing, how come he’s dead? Huh?”

“Waiting down here,” Alric shouted up.

“You have to go,” Arista told him.

“And if I refuse?”

“You won’t be emperor.”

“What good is being emperor if I’m dead?”

No one spoke; they all just looked at him.

Degan slumped his shoulders and grimaced. “How do you put this damn thing on?”

“Put your feet through the loops and buckle it around your waist,” Hadrian explained.

After Gaunt and Arista were down, Wyatt took over Hadrian’s position on the rope, freeing him to speak with Renwick. “You have supplies to last a week, perhaps more if you conserve,” he told him and the other boys as they gathered around. “Take care of the horses and stay off the hilltop. Make camp in that hollow. For your own safety, I’d avoid a fire in the daylight. The smoke will be visible at a distance. It would be best not to attract any uninvited guests.”

“We can handle ourselves,” Brand declared.

“I’m sure you can, but still it would be best not to wander, and try to keep unnoticed.”

“I want to go with you,” Renwick said.

“Me too,” Mince added.

Hadrian smiled. “You’re all very brave.”

“Not me,” Elbright said. “A man would have to be a royal fool to go into something like that.”

“So you’re the sensible one,” Hadrian told him. “Still, we need all of you to do your job here. Keep the camp, and take care of the horses for us. If we aren’t back in a week, I suspect we won’t be coming back and it will probably be too late if we do. If you see fire in the north or west, that will likely mean the elves have overrun Aquesta or Ratibor. Your best bet would be to go south. Perhaps try to catch a ship to the Westerlins. Although I have no idea what you’ll find there.”

“You’ll be back,” Renwick said confidently.

Hadrian gave the boy a hug, then turned to look at the monk, who was, as usual, with the horses. “Com’on, Myron, it’s nearly your turn.”

Myron nodded, petting his animal one last time, whispering to it. Hadrian put an arm around him as they walked toward the ridge, where Wyatt and Mauvin were in the process of lowering Magnus.

“What did you say to Royce last night?” Hadrian asked the monk.