Adam of Albion (15 page)

With
the King’s mood so pleased, Adam gauged that now was the time to carry out the
rest of his instructions.

“The
Sultan sends his best wishes and his hopes that your health will improve, sir,”
he said, still fighting a tremor in his voice. “And he swears on his honor that
he had nothing to do with that snake, or any of the rest of it yesterday. He
was as surprised as everyone else. He also sends you this.” He stepped forward,
bending one knee in what he hoped was an appropriate gesture of deference, and
handed Richard the scroll.

Abruptly,
the tent flap was thrown open and a Templar came striding in. Adam didn’t have
any trouble recognizing his angry face.

Gerard
de Chavirage.

Adam’s
heart plunged. Things had been going so well!

“Don’t
trust any of it, Richard—it’s a trick,” Chavirage said harshly. Then he swung
toward Adam, with narrowed eyes that looked slightly unhinged. “This boy is
going to tell us the truth—while his feet toast in a fire.”

Electrified
with terror, Adam couldn’t even stammer a denial.

But
Richard’s stare turned hard again, with a dangerous gleam—and this time, it was
Chavirage in the gunsights.

“You
are bold, lord Templar, to burst into my tent and speak to me so,” he said.
“Have you forgotten that I am the King of England?”

“The
Knights of the Temple know no other master than the pope,” Chavirage replied
haughtily.

Richard’s
face turned incredulous with rage.

“By
God, ill though I may be, I’ll carve you up like a Christmas goose!” he fumed,
gripping his battleaxe and lunging out of his chair.

Chavirage
backed up quickly, his boldness vaporizing.

But
Cristof, looking calm as ever, stepped between the two men and placed a
restraining hand on the King’s chest, easing him back toward his chair.

“Your
majesty, please,” Christof said. “My monks are weary of burying corpses—his
will only be another burden.”

Chavirage
shot him a venomous look. “You’ll pay for that remark, Cristof.”

Cristof
smiled again—but this time, it was a very different kind of smile, one that
Adam fervently hoped he’d never see aimed at him. The kindly seeming doctor
obviously had another side to him—one that even the Templars didn’t want to
cross. That sword hanging from his belt was no decoration.

“I’ll
welcome the occasion, Gerard,” Cristof said. “Once the king’s business is
concluded, I’m sure that you and I can find a moment in private—and settle
our
longstanding business.”

By
now Chavirage was redfaced with fury, but obviously not going to do anything
about it. He spun around and strode back to the tent’s entrance, with his gaze
raking Adam as he passed.

Then,
without a hint of warning, he swung the back of his gauntleted hand across
Adam’s face. The smack was so hard it sounded like the crack of a bullwhip, and
it lifted Adam clear off his feet and sent him sprawling. He lay there with his
cheek stinging badly and the shock hurting worse.

As
he struggled to get his feet under him, Cristof stepped over and gripped his
arm, helping him to stand.

“Do
you always make friends so easily, Adam?” Christof said, with his good smile
back again. Richard joined in with his booming laugh.

Adam
looked from one to the other of them, their faces showing the rough sympathy of
men who knew exactly what he was going through, and who had gone through far
worse themselves.

Shakily,
surprised at how good it felt, he managed to laugh, too.

Artemis
crouched down on the stone floor, trying to gather her thoughts and calm her
breathing. She’d never been in darkness so absolute. Even when she’d played
games as a little girl, daring herself to brave the depths of a cellar or hide
in a closet, there was always some tiny bit of light from somewhere that her
eyes would adjust to. But here, she literally couldn’t see her own pale hair.

And
just as Theodora had warned, she was alone like she’d never been—especially
because she wasn’t exactly alone. There were faint skittering sounds,
high-pitched squeaks, and the soft rush of flapping wings. She had to fight off
panic as her mind conjured up images of bats, rats, snakes, and all kinds of
other creepy-crawlies sneaking around her.

She
stood up hastily, feeling for the door she’d come through. Her fingers found a
rough stone wall, but no trace of a seam—it was as if the door had disappeared.

Maybe
it had, she thought queasily. At any rate, it was closed for good, and she
couldn’t go back. She couldn’t just stand there in the dark, either. She was on
a journey, which meant making progress. Her only chance was to find the other
door, if she could.

If
it really even existed.

But
find it how? Which direction should she go?

The
Artemis of only yesterday, the one who’d lived in England, would have simply
charged forward. But this Artemis was wising up fast. That would be stupid at
best, and maybe suicidal. She had to
think
her way through this, and it
was a very different kind of thinking than she was used to—it wasn’t like a
book or an equation she could decipher.

Start
with what you know, like Adam says, she told herself. What she knew was the
verse Theodora had given her.

In
darkness find flint, with fire find glint, the strikes must be fierce, the
false hearts to pierce.

There
was plenty of darkness on hand, but that was no help. She clenched her eyes
shut, which was a momentary improvement because at least she saw faint
flickering patterns. But that wasn’t going to show her anything beyond her own
eyelids.

Maybe
just charging ahead wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

She
took a deep breath, got another grip on herself, and went back to the verse.
The next thing mentioned was flint—and that brought a little click in her mind.
She’d never been a Girl Guide type—it was all very worthy, but their wardrobe
was impossible, with no black clothes or makeup, and she couldn’t dream of
anything more foreign to her nature than joining a troop of serious-minded,
obedient girls led by tweedy matrons.

Still,
she knew that flint was used to start fires. It was like a rock, right? Which
you struck against something and it caused a spark.

Fine.
Great. All she had to do now was find some flint, and then find something to
light with it, all in total darkness.

She
let out a little scream, cutting it short and listening for an echo that might
give her some idea of how big this place was. But no echo returned.

Okay—it
was big.

She
put her hand back on the wall where the door had been. She might as well start
moving along it—at least it would give her something to touch as a guide,
instead of just blundering out into space. That narrowed it down to two
directions, with one seeming as good, or bad, as the other. She mentally
flipped a coin, and it came up tails. That, she decided, must mean the
left-hand path—the way that was traditionally followed by seekers of arcane
knowledge.

Slowly,
cautiously, she started taking steps, feeling with her feet and groping with
her outstretched free hand. Neither the stone wall nor the floor seemed to
change except for unevenness in their rough surfaces.

The
creepy sounds didn’t change, either. If anything, they seemed to be getting
closer, like an invisible cloud gathering around her. She started walking
faster.

Then
she stepped on something that wasn’t hard stone. It was soft, rubbery—and
through the thin sole of her sandal, she felt it squirm under her foot, and
something scaly brushed against her bare ankle.

She
let out another shriek, this time at top volume, and lost her cool so
completely that she broke into a run.

That
lasted exactly three steps. When her foot came down for the fourth, there was
no floor under it.

For
the next surreal instants, she seemed to be outside herself—watching her body
keep running like a cartoon character, legs churning in midair. It felt like
she’d never stop falling. But her martial arts training took over—she
instinctively tucked up her knees to her chest, with her feet under her and her
hands outspread, concentrating on her center. At the instant she touched ground
again, landing on another stone floor, she flipped off to the side in a
springing roll. It still knocked every whisper of breath out of her, she banged
her head hard enough to multiply the stars in front of her eyes, and she knew
she was going to be one big scraped up bruise. But she could tell that she was
basically okay. If she hadn’t been so poised, she’d have broken her legs and
very possibly her neck.

Although
she was far from comfortable, lying there was still better than getting
up—except those damned eerie sounds were still coming. In fact, there was a
quiet slithering very close to her head. She jerked upright, which made her
dizzy, and without thinking, she thrust a hand down on the floor to brace
herself. It landed on something cold and clammy—and definitely alive. She
leaped to her feet and screamed again, which was silly—it wasn’t going to scare
the things away—but she couldn’t help herself.

But
this time, as the scream died, she heard an echo. She did it again a couple of
more times, listening intently. The echo seemed to start fast, within a second
or so. That should mean there was a wall not too far away.

She
started walking, this time testing each step before she put her weight down,
and gritting her teeth against the more things that squished under her
feet—whatever they were, this must be their favorite hangout. Maybe they liked
water—the floor was damp here, and she thought she could hear a faint, slow
dripping in the distance, which might or might not be good.

After
a few endless minutes, her groping hand banged against stone. She hissed with
pain—the fall had already scraped that hand up good—but at least she’d come to
a wall. She kept her hand on it as she moved, afraid it would disappear if she
let it go, and began to chant the words—
In darkness find flint, flint, flint
—as
if that could help. Even if she could see, she didn’t really know what flint
looked like.

But
there had to be some of it around, didn’t there? Unless this “test” was
completely bogus, and it was really just a death trap.

Her
feet kept kicking chunks of rock, and also crunching on flakes of it—the floor
must be covered with them. Then another click came in her mind—
duh,
she
chided herself fiercely. Flint had been used by ancient people for arrow and
spear points, axes, and knives. They’d shaped it by chipping off flakes until
they got sharp edges.

Were
the flakes chunks of flint? It was worth a try.

She
crouched, feeling around for a likely candidate. Her hand closed over a chunk
heavy enough to give a good whack with—now for something to whack it against.
Somehow, she didn’t think flint against flint would work—it had to be a harder
kind of stone, or maybe metal.

The
wall did feel different than the rocks on the floor. She dried the chunk on her
robe and started striking with it, hitting so it scraped in a quick sharp arc.
After several tries, she had the motion down pretty well—but there was no hint
of a spark. Either the wall or the flint was wrong. She moved along a few feet
and tried again. Nothing came but the scratching sounds of her useless efforts.

She
almost started screaming again, this time in sheer frustration. What was she
supposed to do, pick up every bloody rock in this bloody cavern and pound it
against every square inch of the bloody wall, and if she lived long enough
maybe one of them would finally throw off a spark?

You
have everything you need to survive the trial,
Theodora had said. Like, what else besides rocks?
Brains, which she was using full blast. Her weird hair, which she was quite
proud of, but she couldn’t see how that would get her out of this pit. And
stubbornness. Every adult she’d ever known had told her that, sometimes with
great annoyance. She kept feeling her way along, pausing every several steps to
try again.

Then
her hand landed on one of the clammy things. As she brushed it away with a
“Yuk!” of disgust, her fingers told her that this patch of wall had a
distinctly different feel—it was studded with small nodules that were smoother
and denser.

Like
metal.

She
got a good grip on the chunk and tried. No spark—but it seemed to have a
slightly different sound, rougher, like striking a match. Either that, or by
now she wanted light so badly she was hallucinating. She whacked again and
again, taking out her rage and fear and frustration until she was slamming the
chunk so hard that slivers were shattering off.

Stop,
she commanded herself. It’s not going to work, okay, we know that—but at least
be smart about failing. She rested a few seconds, getting her breath back. Then
she felt the wall until she located a spot where the nodules were clustered
densely together. This time she struck carefully, a quick sharp downward
scrape.

Something
seemed to flicker, just for the briefest of instants.

She
closed her eyes, pointless though that was, and assured herself that it was
only her desperate imagination.

It
took her four more tries, but there it was again—and this time, no doubt about
it.

A
spark.

Now
she wanted to scream for joy.

Artemis
kept on fiercely, trying different places on the wall and different ways of
striking. Quickly, she was able to create not just a single spark but a little
stream of them. Some even stayed lit for a second as they drifted to the floor.

She
paused to regroup again, breathless with excitement. Major breakthrough! But
sparks were useless without fuel to make a fire. The only thing she had was
cloth—she was still wearing her T-shirt and jeans, with the cuffs rolled up to
her knees, under the robe. The tee would be the easiest to light, she decided,
and since it was already expensively ripped, tearing off a strip wasn’t hard.
She wadded that into a loose ball, streamed sparks on it, and blew gently until
they started to smolder.

Then,
at last, came a tiny flicker of flame.

“Yessss!”
she yelled, dropping the flint and cupping the cloth in both hands, nurturing
the little fire carefully as it spread. It didn’t give off any more light than
a few matches held together, but after the inky blackness, it seemed like a
floodlight.

It
wouldn’t last much longer than matches, either. She held it up in front of her
at arm’s length, straining her vision to get a glimpse of her surroundings. She
could just tell that the cavern’s ceiling was about twelve feet high. Beyond
the weak little ring of flame, everything else—except for a wave of small dark
shapes slipping away across the floor, fleeing the violent intrusion of light
into their murky world—disappeared into blackness.

But
there! Something that didn’t fit was jutting out from the wall up near the
ceiling. She could just make out that it looked like a crude, short broom, with
a wooden handle and a bundle of twigs at the top. She gasped in delighted
surprise. It looked like a torch!

There
was just one problem—it was at least twice as high as she could reach.

A
sharp hot nip at her fingers reminded her that she was holding a ball of fire
burning down to its end. She hastily set it on a dry spot on the floor—she
couldn’t afford to let it go out, she might not be so lucky trying to strike up
another flame. With trembling hands, she hiked up the robe again and ripped
another, bigger strip off the T-shirt bottom, which left her midriff bare—not a
bad look, she noticed distractedly, she’d have to try it again if she ever got
out of here. The flames sprang up higher when she added it to the first scrap,
but she had to move fast—eventually she’d run out of clothes to burn. Her gaze
flicked around, searching for anything that might help her get the torch. Tear
the robe into strips and make a lasso? But that fabric was too heavy to shred
easily, and the fire would be gone long before she could finish.

That
left rocks, the one thing she had plenty of.

All
right, then—rocks it is, she thought. The torch was wedged into a niche, but it
looked like a good whack might knock it loose.

Throwing
was not something she was particularly good at, but she gave it her all,
lobbing stone after stone that went clunking and skittering off into
invisibility. She got close enough a couple of times so the twigs quivered like
fingers waggling to taunt her, but the torch stayed firmly in place. Her
shoulder started aching and her throws got feebler. Her frustration started
boiling up again, and with it came fury at the Sisters of Isis and this
fiendish game they’d concocted to torment silly young girls.