The High King's Tomb (33 page)

F
rom Ullem Bay to the shores of dawn, we are—

Cracking.

Hear us!

Never forget his betrayal.

Help us!

Do not trust him.

Heal us!

Hate him.

Yes, hate…hate…hate…

The voices of the guardians are tinged with uncertainty and conflict with one another, and now the one on whom the Deyer depends moves through the wall as she has many times before. Can they permit this trespass to continue? If she is affiliated with the Deyer, is she not tainted by his evil?
Yes,
some say.
No,
say others. They must sing with one voice, but they have splintered, lost harmony, their rhythm gone astray.

Do not trust! Capture, crush, turn to stone. Hate!

We hear. We hate. We obey.

Merdigen seeps into the wall, filled with alarm, for Dale is caught between, and the guardians are behaving erratically, driven by the hateful commands of the Deyer’s cousin, the Pendric. Merdigen must intervene.
“Release her!”
he cries.

We must stand sentry, capture, crush, turn to stone.

“She has done you no harm.”

Do not listen.

A void of silence surrounds Merdigen, and this is almost more frightening than the disarray of the guardians’ voices.

“She seeks only to help heal you!”

We sacrifice as we were sacrificed. We must stand sentry.

“She cannot be one of you,”
Merdigen insists.
“You cannot make human flesh stone.”

Her blood holds magic.

“It is meager, not worthy, not enough to heal you. Hear me! She seeks only to help you. You must trust her—let her go!”

Do not listen.

Once again silence envelops Merdigen as the guardians consider his words. He is overcome by their fear, their confusion. He wants to help them, but he hasn’t the power. Everything they were, everything they should be, is unraveling and the Pendric has a strong voice that turns them against reason. Merdigen must find a way to convince them to release Dale or she will die.

A
lton paced furiously before Tower of the Heavens. What was taking Dale so long? He could only hope that Merdigen was providing her with mountains of information that would lead to the repair of the wall.

He paused and took a deep breath, trying to remain calm. The day was fine, the fevers hadn’t afflicted him as severely as the night of the storm, and if Dale was taking a long time to gather information, it was all for the good, right?

And then there was the guilt that he’d actually struck Dale to the ground that night. How could he have done such a thing? What had possessed him? The fever had crazed him, had stoked his anger at the wall and his inability to fix it.

Dale’s forgiveness had made him feel all the more guilty. He did not deserve it. Somehow he would make all this up to her. Somehow…

“Lord D’Yer!” one of the guards shouted. He pointed at the tower wall. “Look!”

A distortion rippled in fluid waves along the wall’s facade. He approached cautiously, not daring to avert his gaze, apprehension gnawing at his gut.

A hand punched through the wall. He jumped back in shock. It was not a hand of flesh and blood, but a hand of granite. Apprehension turned to dread that filled his belly with ice.

“Dale?
Dale?
”

A bulge protruded above the hand; a face pressed against the inner surface of the wall, a face of familiar features. Dale’s, molded in stone.

“Dale?” Alton’s voice was scarcely a whisper.

The undulating ripples of the distortion calmed and receded, until they died out altogether and the surface of the wall smoothed to its normal state.

And solidified.

“No!” He grabbed at Dale’s hand, but it was cold, grainy, hard. He pummeled the wall, tears streaming down his face. “No! You can’t have her!”

Soldiers and laborers trotted over to see what the matter was and stopped in horror. “Gods!” one of them gasped. Several of them made the sign of the crescent moon.

Ours, ours, ours…
came the voices into Alton’s mind.

“Let her go!” Blood splattered the wall as Alton pounded, soaked into the pores of granite. “She’s not yours! Let her go!”

All at once the wall around Dale warped and ruptured. It disgorged her and she spilled to the ground, a shell of granite that encased her crumbling from her body, a body of flesh and blood, not a statue. Alton dragged her clear of the wall and Leese pushed through the crowd with her apprentice and fell to her knees beside the lifeless Dale.

Alton watched as they examined her, blood running down his fingers, dripping off fingertips, and soaking into the ground. Was she alive? He couldn’t see her breathing. Leese worked on her for a few moments more and suddenly Dale’s body jerked and she coughed and gagged, fighting for air. When the fit passed and her breathing eased, Dale grabbed Leese’s tunic and pulled her close to whisper to her.

When Dale released the mender, Alton demanded, “What? What did she say?”

Leese looked over her shoulder at him, her expression unreadable. “She said something about knowing what it’s like to be a fossil.”

Alton paused outside Dale’s tent with his bandaged hand raised to knock. It was a measure of his anxiety that he forgot there wasn’t really anything solid to knock on. A stiff, cold breeze ruffled his hair and bowed the tent walls inward. Fallen leaves rushed around his ankles. He cleared his throat to announce himself.

“I know you’re out there,” Dale said before he could speak. “Come in.”

He parted the tent flaps and stepped inside. Through the gloom he could see Dale seated on her cot, rubbing oil into a boot that lay across her knees.

“Have a seat,” she said.

He dragged a stool over next to her cot, watching her while she worked. Her one arm was still bound to her side from the old injury, but he could discern no new hurts from her alarming passage through the tower wall. He would not forget her hand of stone reaching out, reaching toward him. Even in his dreams he could not forget and just thinking of it made him shudder. According to Leese, Dale had come to little harm, but he needed to make sure of that for himself.

He also wanted to find out what she learned from Merdigen. That and…He hated himself for having to come to her after all she endured, for having to ask her to risk her life all over again and return through the tower wall. One guilt layered upon another. If only the wall would let
him
through.

Dale paused her oiling and looked up at him, her mouth a narrow line. “You may stop feeling guilty. I’m fine. Whatever happened in there rattled my bones and frankly scared me to all five hells, but I am alive.”

Alton opened his mouth and shut it.

“I can see it in your face. Your guilt.”

He nodded and stared at his feet.

“You want me to go back in, don’t you.” Dale’s voice was flat.

“How…? Have you become a mind reader?”

“Like I said, I can see it in your face. For a noble, you’re utterly transparent. You might want to work on that.”

“Uh…”

“Of course you want to hear about what Merdigen and I chatted about all that time first,” Dale said, “but you also need me to find out what went wrong when I tried to come back, which means I have to go back and talk to Merdigen, because I sure as five hells don’t know.”

“Yes.”

Dale did not respond, but she scrutinized him from head to foot, eyes narrowed. He squirmed in discomfort. “Your boots look terrible. What would Captain Mapstone say?”

“What? I—” He glanced down at his boots. They were caked with dry mud, scuffed, and dull. Clearly they were unacceptable, but there had been more urgent matters demanding his attention. Clean boots just hadn’t seemed all that important in comparison.

“The water’s still warm.” Dale tapped her toe against a bucket on the floor beside her. “And I’ve a cake of saddle soap.” She tossed it to him and it spurted out of his grasp, and when he reached after it, his stool tipped over sending him sprawling across the tent floor. He lay there feeling undignified, the amber soap at rest next to his face. Dale looked as though she was desperately trying to suppress laughter.

“Here,” she said, reaching to give him a hand up.

Alton settled himself back onto his stool, and before he knew it, he was unwinding the bandages from his hands and pulling off his boots. He scrubbed at the grit accumulated in the creases of the leather, foamy lather dripping to the tent floor as he worked. The soap and water stung his abrasions, but the effort of cleaning worked the stiffness out of his hands and fingers. It was somehow peaceful, this task, a diversion from the worries that so often plagued his every waking thought. This was something he could accomplish, something in which he could achieve results. It was a simple act, this cleaning of boots, but satisfying to see them transformed.

Really, he thought, he should take better care of his gear, but life seemed too complicated to worry about its condition. When it came time to oil the boots, the leather drank it up as if parched. He frowned. If he had let it go any longer, he’d have cracks, and that was no good with winter coming on.

While he oiled and shined the leather, Dale recounted her conversation with Merdigen. It was disappointing. Merdigen had provided no new insights on how to fix the wall, and Dale had risked her life for nothing. And now he wanted her to do it again.

When he finished with his boots, he looked them over, well pleased with his efforts. They were black again, their shine restored. Even Captain Mapstone would have nothing to complain about. Except the boots now made the rest of him look a mess. Then he noticed Dale watching him.

“Yes,” she said.

“Yes? Yes what?” Dale was, he decided, in a very perplexing mood.

“I’ll go back into the tower to ask Merdigen what happened.”

“I don’t know. It’s not safe.” The guilt returned full measure. As desperate as he was to acquire information from Merdigen about the status of the wall, he would not forgive himself if something happened to his friend again.

“Since when,” Dale asked, “has our job been safe?”

It was true Green Riders did not have long life expectancies. Even Alton had come close to death. All Riders were aware of the dangers and accepted them. Yet what right had he to ask her to risk herself again?

Dale hopped to her feet. “All right. I’m ready.”

“Right now?”

She nodded, her expression set.

Alton followed her out of the tent. “Are you sure about this?”

“Yes, as I’ve told you already.” She gave him a sidelong gaze as they walked between tents and toward the tower. “Do me a favor?”

“Anything. You know that.” Alton couldn’t read the look that appeared in her eyes, and suddenly he was suspicious. What had he just agreed to?

“Plover needs exercise,” she said. “I’ve not been able to ride her since—since—” She indicated her bound arm. “While I’m with Merdigen, could you exercise her? You could ride Hawk and lead her.”

“I—” He came to an ungainly halt before the tower, surprised by the simple request. He had been expecting something more devious. She and Tegan were the terrors of Rider barracks, playing practical jokes at every chance. This was different, and he could only imagine how frustrated she was at being unable to care for her own horse. Keeping a messenger horse in top condition was of utmost importance. “Of course I will, but—”

Before he could finish the sentence, she stepped up to the tower wall and passed into it. He clenched and unclenched his hands, staring at the blank wall, reluctant to leave his post. What if something went wrong again? Couldn’t the exercise wait? But he’d promised. Then with a shake of his head he realized that Dale did not want to worry about him worrying about her. She was keeping him busy.

He resigned himself to honoring her request. It was the least he could do. He assigned a pair of guards to keep watch on the spot and to find him immediately at the first sign of trouble. With that, he turned his back on the tower and headed toward the pickets, realizing how long it had been since he last exercised Night Hawk. Captain Mapstone would not be happy with him. Not at all.

W
hen Dale passed into the tower without incident, she sank to the floor in relief so profound she nearly cried. She was not as brave as she had sounded when she told Alton she’d return. Her nightmares of black wings had been replaced by the sensation of her bones being crushed and pulverized and her soul forever imprisoned in stone. The only way for her to restore her courage was to face what she most feared, like climbing back into the saddle after a fall from her horse. It was the only way.

Fortunately this passage had been as easy as her very first—no resistance, no solidifying of the wall around her. No crackling in her ears, not even any voices at all. Perfectly normal, as though nothing had ever gone wrong.

Inside the tower chamber, she fought to control her breathing and she trembled from all the fear that had been bound up in her. When finally she opened her eyes, she found Merdigen looking down at her.

“You came back,” he said in a soft voice. “I did not think you would after—”

“I didn’t think I would either. Do you know what happened? Why the wall trapped me?”

Merdigen fingered his beard. “The guardians have grown more unstable. I argued on your behalf to make them release you. Fortunately they weren’t entirely unreasonable when I convinced them you represented no harm. I should think they’ll give you safe passage…for the time being. I wouldn’t trust them entirely.”

Well, that’s reassuring,
Dale thought.

Merdigen stood in silence for a while, gazing at nothing. When he sprang back to life, he startled Dale. “I must arrange for the care of my cat!”

“What?”

“I am going on a journey. It could be perilous, it could be fruitless, but I think it’s necessary and I can’t put it off any longer.”

“You’re
what?
”

Merdigen strode across the chamber and between a pair of columns into the center of the tower. Dale rose to her feet and followed. She’d never get over the transition from stone chamber to open grasslands. Above, heavy clouds that reminded her of winter scudded across the sky.

Merdigen rubbed his hands together. “It is time the tower guardians all woke up. We will need a council. We need solutions! I shall first contact the towers eastward.”

Dale watched in amazement as he withdrew a dove from his sleeve and whispered to it. He tossed it into the air, and with a fluttering of white wings, it circled them once, twice, and then darted through the east archway, flying madly till it became nothing but a speck in the sky and was at last beyond her sight. He repeated this five more times.

“One of them should be willing to watch the cat,” Merdigen said.

“Cat?” was all Dale could say.

But now Merdigen was pulling other items out of the air. First a warm cloak he threw over his shoulders, then a pack that bulged with provisions…illusionary provisions? What could he possibly need? The last object he snaked out of his sleeve was impossibly long—a walking staff.