Shadow of a Dark Queen (52 page)

Erik sucked a deep lungful of air and willed his tired horse to run. There was no choice. The alien horses were stronger and more powerful and had more endurance. They couldn't outrun them, it was
clear, and at one to one, they couldn't outfight the Saaur in the open.

Erik hoped that the cave tunnel did lead somewhere, as Praji had claimed. For if it was only a cave in a hill, it would be a lonely place to die.

In ragged order, leaving the remounts to follow or wander, Calis's Crimson Eagles, exhausted and sore from the short but furious fight, headed toward the distant hillock.

Nakor was among the first to reach it, and without much grace he half jumped, half fell from his horse. He grabbed a waterskin and a bag of rations, then struck her on the rump, yelling enough to send her running away as he ducked into the cave.

As Erik and the others began to dismount, he shouted, “There's a door! Come quick!”

“Strike a light!” commanded Calis, and de Loungville produced a special oil and motioned for someone to give him a torch. A bundle of them was fetched from the baggage along with a few other items the men would carry, but most of the baggage, food, and all the horses must be sacrificed.

De Loungville sprinkled the oil on a torch, then struck flint and steel to cause a spark. The oil caught and the torch was lit, and he ducked inside the cave.

Erik followed after, and had to duck-walk to pass below the low ceiling. After about ten yards, the ceiling rose and the corridor broadened, as the passage moved down into an underground cavern.

Erik looked for the door and discovered it was a huge round stone. It was nestled in a heavy iron and wooden frame, rigged so it could be rolled from its position to the right of the passage to block it. While a few strong men could use large wooden pegs set in
the face to move it from inside this cave, those following after would have no handhold on the smooth surface, nor any way to gain enough leverage to move the massive rock.

When the last man was inside the cave, Erik, Biggo, and Jadow grabbed the wooden pegs and struggled to move the rock. Others insinuated themselves against the wall so they could push against the edge once it moved enough.

Slowly, protestingly, the rock budged and then with a grinding rumble moved as the sound of horsemen echoed through the entrance of the cave. Angry shouts in an alien language echoed down the hail as the grinding stone moved slowly to block their retreat.

Suddenly Erik felt resistance and knew that the Saaur on the other side had tried to prevent the closing. “Push!” he shouted, and another pair of hands moved below his, and he looked down to see Roo trying to add his strength to the task. The little man had slipped below and crawled on the floor to find a place from which he could help.

Nakor shouted, “Close your eyes!”

Erik was slow and was temporarily blinded by a sudden flash of light as Nakor lit something from de Loungville's torch and tossed it through the narrow space between the wall and the slowly moving rock door.

A scream and several shouts of rage answered, but the pressure on the door was released and it closed suddenly with a deep and final thud. Erik felt the shock in his shoulders as it slammed into the opposite wall.

His knees felt suddenly weak and he sat down on the cold cave floor. He heard Biggo laugh. “That was closer than I like.”

Erik found himself laughing, too, and looked over at Jadow. “Foster and Jerome?”

Jadow shook his head. “They all died like men.”

Calis said, “Bobby, light another torch so we can see where we're going.”

“Do we have another torch?” asked the sergeant.

A voice in the dark said, “In the bundle here, Sergeant.”

Calis said, “Biggo, while we're looking ahead, I want you and von Darkmoor to do an inventory. We've left most of what we had outside, but I want to see what we have here.” He glanced around. “Though if there's not another way out, it really doesn't matter, does it?”

Without waiting for an answer, he moved off into the gloom as de Loungville lit a second torch, handed it to Luis, and moved after the Captain.

Nakor hurried to grab a few loose rocks and lay them between the stone and the floor. “Won't roll back very well if they do get a grip,” he said with a grin.

Biggo turned and said, “All right, me darlings. You heard the Captain. Look around and tell ol' Biggo what you thieving rascals grabbed when you ran for your lives!”

Erik chuckled, but knew it was just relief at still being alive. He didn't know who else had noticed, but when he ran into the dark he had looked back over his shoulder and seen at least thirty of the hundred or more men who had left that morning lying dead on the ground. They had survived the first encounter of a long and bitter journey to come, and almost a third of them were already dead.

He put that thought from his mind and began looking to see what resources they had.

Hours passed, and there were faint sounds from the other side of the rock door, so they knew the Saaur were contriving ways to move the boulder and come after them. At one point Roo wondered aloud what they would do if some Saaur magician came along and used magic to open the door, and the anger that greeted the remark caused the wiry man to fall instantly silent. Erik couldn't remember a time when Roo had been shut up so quickly or effectively.

When Calis finally returned, Biggo said, “We've got food for four or five days, Captain. A few extra weapons, but mostly what each of us is carrying. We've got plenty of gold and gems, 'cause the sergeant there grabbed the pay sacks, and we've got a fair supply of bandages and herbs.

“But all our camp gear is gone, and a lot of us are going to be thirsty if we don't find water quickly.”

Calis said, “The tunnel seems to head down gradually, and toward the foothills. I saw signs that someone's used this route not too long ago, maybe a month, but no more than that.”

“Tribesmen?” asked Roo.

“Doesn't matter,” said Praji, standing up. “Unless you're anxious to face that angry pack of lizards waiting out there”— he pointed to the door—“we go that way.” He pointed into the gloom.

Calis said, “Everyone ready?”

No one said no, and Calis turned to de Loungville. “Get them into some sort of order, and let's start seeing where this passage leads.”

De Loungville nodded once, then turned and gave the command. Once the men found their way to the positions they normally took while riding, a sense of
the familiar surrounded Erik, as if following orders made the closeness of the tunnel and the gloom bearable.

Then Calis gave the word and they moved off into the darkness.

A
gong
sounded.

It echoed off vast ceilings of carved and colored stone, ringing through the great hall, and the Warden turned. Miranda saw him regarding her with impassive features. But he made no threatening gesture as she approached.

She had been flying across the mountains since leaving the vast city known as the Necropolis, the City of the Dead Gods. Following the instructions given her by the fortune-teller in the Inn, she had returned to Midkemia and found her way back to Novindus, and from there to the Necropolis. Then she flew upward, guided by her arts, despite her fatigue, and she sought out this mythical place atop the mountains called the Pavilion of the Gods.

At last, when she had to use her powers to preserve air around her, she found what she sought, a splendid place atop a cloud, a vast series of halls and galleries that seemed created out of ice and crystal as well as stone and marble.

The clouds thinned, and she saw that the massive building stood atop the summit of the greatest mountain
in the area, and in the center stood a single immense opening.

She floated through the clouds surrounding the Celestial City, moving through the door effortlessly. She felt a tingle as she passed through the spell that kept the freezing cold out and the air inside.

The man she had spied across the grand hall floated across the vast expanse of floor to meet her. She took a moment to study her surroundings. A vaulted ceiling was suspended nearly seventy flights of steps above his head, supported by twelve mighty columns of stone, each chosen for beauty. She quickly chose her own favorite, one fashioned of malachite, the green veins of polished stone that could capture the eyes for hours. The rose quartz was lovely, too, but something about the green stone spoke to her.

The floor of the hall was partitioned by some faint energy. Miranda used every trick of perception she had, and decided the fields were not barriers or traps but something closer to signatures, as if each area had a specific use or identity, but only noted for those able to sense those energy barriers. And in each area beings moved, humans from their outward appearance, but all wearing some of the strangest fashions she had ever seen.

The great windows were set with crystal panes so clear they seemed air frozen in an instant, and the snow fields outside reflected the afternoon sunlight on the peaks above, bathing the great hall in rose and golden hues. Those people moving across the vast floor threw long shadows, as jeweled, faceted globes threw soft white light across the hall, the source of that light having nothing to do with nature.

The approaching man glided through the air, standing regally as if being carried by a company of invisible bearers upon a heavy platform. He touched foot to the stone floor of the hail as Miranda gently touched down on the marble floor.

Several others nearby turned to observe the confrontation, though they remained silent. Miranda threw back her cloak's hood, shaking her dark hair as she glanced around the hall.

“Who comes to the Celestial City?”

With amusement she answered, “A fine lot of gods you are if you don't know who comes to your own palace to visit. I am called Miranda.”

The Warden said, “None may invade the precinct of the gods without invitation.”

Miranda grinned. “Odd. I'm here, aren't I?”

“None may invade without permission and live to leave,” said the Warden.

“Well, consider me an uninvited guest, not an invader.”

“What cause brings you to the Hall of the Gods?”

Miranda inspected the figure before her. Like the others who inhabited the hall, he wore an odd robe, tight-fitting across the shoulders, but billowing out below the arms, forming a perfect circle at the hem almost six feet in diameter. Miranda guessed there was a thin band of metal or heavy cord sewn into the hem. The sleeves were long, and also flared along the length, while the collar was stiff and high, surrounding the back of the head up to the ears, giving Miranda the impression that she spoke to a six-foot-tall doll fashioned from interlocking cones of paper, with a painted clay head stuck on the top. What a peculiar-looking character, she thought.

His face had olive-shaded skin darkened by years of exposure to bright sun, and his beard was as white as the snow outside. Eyes of pale blue regarded her from under white brows.

She glanced around the hall, wishing she had more time to study the place. Its grandeur was nothing less than breath-taking, yet somehow it was alien and as cold as the wind outside the great door. No mortal lacking great magic would find his way to this abode of the gods, for the clime was impossible. At least a hundred feet below the base of the plateau the air became too thin to breathe long and remain alive, and the temperature was constantly below freezing.

Most of the people were turned her way, and she noticed that each group seemed set off, isolated by the sense of separate areas she had detected upon entering, as if there was a zone on the floor they were confined to. After a moment, she was certain no one was leaving a given area to enter another.

“You limit the gods?” asked Miranda.

“They limit themselves, as they always have,” came the answer. “Again I must ask, what cause brings you here?”

“I come because there are terrible forces gathering, and this world stands in jeopardy. I have visited with the Oracle of Aal, and she is ready to enter her breeding phase. Her vision will be lost to us. Those forces that march are committed to a course of action that will bring about the end of all we know, including this.” She waved her hand, indicating the hall.

The Warden closed his eyes a moment, and Miranda knew something was being communicated; then he said, “Speak more.”

“Of what?”

“Of what you hope to find here.”

“I had hoped for some sense that the gods of Midkemia were ready to answer the threat to their very existence!” Her anger was poorly hidden, and contempt edged her words.

“These are but the aspects of the gods,” answered the Warden, “those men and women who have, for reasons beyond our mortal understanding, been chosen to exist on the gods' behalf. They have come to live out their lives as mortal aspects of the gods, eyes and ears granting the gods mortal perspective on the world in which they abide.”

Miranda nodded. “Then I would speak to one of these godly aspects, if you don't mind.”

“I have nothing to say in the matter,” came the answer. “I am but the Warden of the Celestial City. It is my task to keep those who abide here comfortable.” He closed his eyes. “You may speak to whoever will answer.”

Walking past the Warden, Miranda approached the area nearest the entrance, where a group of men and women stood surrounding one who loomed over them by a full head. All wore white, without a hint of color, and the woman at the center of the group had hair without hue. Her skin was also without pigmentation, but rather than possessing the look of an albino, she appeared to be of some alien race, with skin truly white in color. Those who surrounded her stepped aside, allowing Miranda to approach. At a respectful distance, Miranda bowed her head, then she said, “Sung, I plead for help.”

The living incarnation of the goddess stared down at the young woman. Her eyes held mysteries
Miranda could only begin to guess, but her face presented a kindly visage. Yet no answer was forthcoming. Miranda pressed on. “A great evil arises here, one that, unchecked, will release forces to rival even your own. I must seek aid!”