City of Sorcerers (32 page)

"We knew that was a possibility," Kelene sighed.

"I know, but I kept hoping for some twist of luck, a little nudge from the gods."

He grimaced, the hope nearly gone from his heart. "Perhaps the priests were right.

Maybe the gods have turned their backs on us at last."

A long, thin hand was laid on Kelene's sleeve, and she looked around to see the Korg. For the first time in two hundred years the sorcerer had a day-old stubble of blondish-gray beard on his cheeks, giving him a tired, slightly scruffy appearance. His eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep, and the lines around his mouth and nose seemed deeper. "The gods do not forsake their children," he told them, his voice quavering with emotion. "Never think that."

Morad, who had been listening to the conversation, came over. "What else are we supposed to think? Our prayers go unanswered. We have no hope. No help."

"Maybe they have found an answer at the gathering," the Korg said softly, "with the wraith gone from their midst, perhaps the plague has died down."

Savaron snatched at that hope and turned to his sister urgently. "Kelene, have you looked in the Watcher lately?"

Her fingers went to the stone reluctantly. "Not for a day or two," she said, "but I don't think---"

"Try it anyway," interrupted Morad. "See what is happening."

It was all she could do to unpin the brooch and cup it in her hand. Kelene didn't believe the disease had eased off or that the healers had found a cure. She had seen no sign of it the last time she had looked in the Watcher, and on that day her mother---

and her father as much as she knew---were still healthy. She wasn't certain she wanted to know if their condition had changed.

The Korg sensed her reluctance, for his slender hands covered hers. He gave her a pale smile. "Strength to endure comes from within," he whispered.

Bowing her head, Kelene emptied her mind of everything else and concentrated on the brilliant center of the stone. The images were slow to develop; they came reluctantly through a hazy curtain of light as if slowed by her own unwilling participation. When at last the tiny picture came into focus, Kelene realized part of the problem: her mother was facing the east. The rising sun's golden light filled the Fallen Star on her tunic.

Kelene sighed. At least that meant Gabria was still well enough to be outside and on her feet. Kelene realized her mother was praying to Amara, for she saw a pair of hands held up in supplication. Before she could delve deeper into the stone to hear the words, the scene swung around, and her mother entered a tent.

Kelene felt her mouth go dry. It was their family tent; she recognized the red-and-white hanging on the wall and the folding clothes rack her father had made. What was Gabria doing back in the Khulinin camp? Why wasn't she with the healers at the Council Grove?

The tiny image was difficult to see now because of the tent's dim interior and because her mother was moving around. She appeared to be preparing something with a pot of hot water and a handful of dried flowers. Kelene watched, wondering what she was doing.

Gabria moved again toward the back of the tent where the sleeping curtain hung.

She pulled aside the curtain and knelt down by someone lying on the pallet.

Several hundred leagues away Kelene saw the face of the prostrate figure in the depths of the gem. She gave a strangled cry and dropped the Watcher on the ground.

She raised hollow eyes to Savaron. "It's Father."

Her brother's knees lost their strength, and he sagged back onto his stone seat;

"Dead?" he managed to ask.

The girl felt her body grow numb with despair. "No. I think it just happened. He was tossing with fever, but there were no boils yet." "Not that it matters. He will be dead before we get back." Savaron dropped his head in his hands.

The Korg looked from one to the other, his eyes troubled by their grief. "Your father? This is Lord Athlone?" At Kelene's nod, he bent over, picked up the Watcher, and pressed it back into her cold fingers. "I was awake most of the night, trying to remember Moy Tura as it was," he went on hesitantly in his dry, raspy voice. "Talking to you yesterday stirred things I have not thought about in years, and last night a memory came to me. It's probably just as useless as the hall, but there do not seem to be many choices left."

"What is it?" Rafnir called from the entrance to the shelter. He was leaning against the wall of the opening, his arms crossed and his face wary.

"The tunnels," replied the old sorcerer. When the others gave him unknowing stares, he elaborated: "We built a series of underground tunnels from the Sorcerers'

Hall to four or five of the main city buildings for use by students and magic-wielders.

I know there was one to the Healers' Hall. It occurred to me that maybe some of their important works were in storage rooms underneath the main hall."

"Tunnels," Morad repeated, his tone dripping with disbelief. "Beneath the city.

We've never heard of that!"

"Very few people outside of Moy Tura knew they were there. If Lord Gordak knew of them, he would have destroyed them, too. But the doors were enhanced with magic to seal automatically when they were shut. Gordak could have missed them when he razed the city."

"I didn't see any sign of an entrance, sealed or otherwise, to a lower level at the hall," Savaron declared.

The Korg rubbed his hands thoughtfully and said, "I didn't either, or I would have remembered it sooner. It must have been destroyed when the walls were tom down."

Kelene carefully pinned her brooch back into place while she listened to the men.

A tiny seed of hope stirred in her mind, pushing aside a little of the despair that had settled over her when she saw her father lying sick and helpless. If it was just wishful thinking, she didn't care, so long as some small possibility offered another chance. "Is there another building with an entrance close to the Healers' Hall?" she suggested.

The old sorcerer hesitated. Then his face brightened a little. "The closest one was the Temple of Ealgoden. That building is still partially intact." A grimace slid over his face. "The clan warriors didn't dare tear down a holy place."

Savaron, Morad, and Kelene traded glances and without saying a word, agreed to try. Only Rafnir hesitated, torn between staying'with his father or searching the temple.

The stallion, Afer, understood his indecision.
Go,
the Hunnuli reassured him.
I
can tell you if he needs help.

The people were about to leave when the white cat came trotting from the shelter, grumbling irritably.
Afer told me to go with you. He says I can hunt for cracks and
little holes that your human eyes might miss.

The Korg watched in amusement as she set off without waiting for anyone, her tail held high, her whiskers twitching. "For one so small, she has the bearing of a lioness," he commented, smiling. "Where did she learn to communicate like that?"

"My mother," Rafnir said curtly, gesturing for the Korg to take the lead.

Following the old man, the searchers walked south past the square to the southern road. A few minutes later they entered an archway through a high wall into the spacious courtyard of the huge temple they had seen before. The Korg had been right: the temple had suffered little damage from the marauding clan warriors. At least it had not been burned and razed to the ground like the Sorcerers' Hall.

But time, neglect, and weather had inflicted their own grievous damage. The roof had fallen into the interior, most of the walls had collapsed, and the facade of marble columns and frieze-work was cracked and broken. Debris was scattered across the paved courtyard. Grass and weeds grew between the cracked flagstones, and a small wild cedar struggled to live in what had once been a garden. Not even the morning sun could drive away the dingy, forlorn look of the temple and its faded grandeur.

The young clanspeople looked at the huge pile in dismay, wondering where to begin.

The Korg walked slowly across the courtyard and up the broad stone steps that stretched across the face of the temple. He raised his arms to the ruined building.

"It was named the Temple of Ealgoden after the sacred peak in the realm of the immortals. We wished it to be a place where we could venerate all the deities together under one roof." Then he cried loudly, "Mighty Surgart and his Sword of War; the Judge and Executioner Lord Sorh; the capricious, dark Krath; and the Mother of All, Amara! If the Sorcerers' Hall was the brain of Moy Turn, this was the heart! Enter with me to seek the answers to your prayers."

Across the courtyard, Morad blew his nose rudely. "That old man has lost more than a couple pounds of stone," he hissed. "He's a few threads short of a full warp."

Kelene glared at the Geldring. Perhaps the Korg was being a little dramatic, but there was nothing wrong with his mind. And if he could find a runnel that led to the Healers' Hall, she wouldn't care if he began orating from the city walls. She hurried after the sorcerer, not bothering to see if Morad was coming. Rafnir and Savaron followed. Finally Morad, muttering to himself, brought up the rear. They made their way up the worn and pitted steps in time to see the Korg and Tam's cat pick a path through the broken main doors.

The doors were double-hung, bronze goliaths that perched precariously on the remains of the front wall and doorframe. The clanspeople edged past, being very careful not to jar the doors' fragile balance. Once inside, it was almost impossible to discern the layout of the building. Whatever had been within had been crushed and buried under the massive weight of the roof. Overhead, the blue firmament of the sky was the only ceiling the temple would ever have.

"Where was the entrance to the tunnels?" Rafnir inquired dubiously, poking around a heap of broken stone.

The Korg pointed. "To the left. The door came out in an anteroom just off the far aisle." He led the way toward a tumbled mass of masonry, roofing material, and windblown trash that covered several partially collapsed walls.

"In there?" Rafnir groaned when he saw the mess. "It will take all day to get through that." He wasn't totally correct. The task only took them half a day. Under the Korg's direction, they used magic to lift the stones aside and very carefully dig out the remains of what had once been several priests' chambers and anterooms. The work was delicate because they did not want to weaken the remaining walls or bring down any more debris.

When they were finished, it was past noon, and they were all tired from the exacting spells they had had to control. The rooms were still filthy with heaps of debris and trash, but now there was space to move within the walls.

"This is the place," the Korg told his companions. He pointed to a small chamber.

Tam's cat was the first one into the ruined room. Behind her, the clanspeople crowded into the entrance to look around.

Rafnir crossed his arms and leaned against the doorjamb of the room the Korg had indicated. He was hot, sweating, had a lousy headache, and he didn't see anything that looked like another door or entrance out of that room. It was barely ten paces across, windowless, and unadorned. Any furniture or decoration within had rotted long ago. There was nothing but dirty stone and the heavy smell of rot and mold.

He watched the white cat delicately pad around the room, looking here and there, prodding with a paw, or sniffing fastidiously at the stones. Her ears were pricked and her nose was busy, but she did not seem particularly excited about anything. After a few minutes, she sat down near the back wall and began to wash her paws.

Rafnir gave a snarl of disgust, made harsher by his growing frustration and fear for Sayyed. "Another dead end. So where is your entrance, old man?"

The Korg did not take offense. He was very familiar with feelings of fear and disappointment. He eased past Rafnir's larger, more powerful bulk and went to squat beside the cat. "I believe she's sitting on it," he replied mildly. "I told you the doors were sealed."

The cat meowed.
I cannot see door. I can only smell what is beneath the floor.

She stepped aside, and the Korg picked up a scrap of wood and scraped away a layer of grime on the floor. An octagonal stone no wider than a man's hand was uncovered beneath the dire. The stone, a polished tile of black marble, had a small depression in its center. The Korg set his thumb into the depression, spoke a strange word, and pushed.

The four young people looked on in amazement when the stone gave way beneath his hand. An entire section of the floor and part of the wall came loose and slid haltingly out of sight. The Korg winced at the rough grinding noise it emitted in its efforts to overcome so many years of disuse and layered grime. Underneath was revealed a narrow scone stairway leading down into a black pit. A strong smell of dank rock filled the air, and a heavy chill leeched from the blackness. There was no sound, no sign of life; there was nothing but the first three steps and the unknown darkness.

Silence gathered around the clanspeople. Faces grim, they stared down into the black well. No one wanted to take the first step down, not even the Korg.

Kelene felt her stomach grow queasy from the sight of that stair. It was like looking into a bottomless chasm. She remembered the story of Valorian and wondered if he had felt this scared when he stood on the lightless threshold of Gormoth. "Well, at least there are no gorthlings down there," she said in a hearty voice she had to force.

The men were startled by her words. Then Rafnir began to grin, and Savaron chuckled. Morad unbent enough to shrug and take the first step down the stairs.

"How about some light?" the Geldring suggested.

The magic-wielders quickly obliged by shaping magic into small, floating spheres of light to take below. In single file the men and Kelene followed Morad down the steps into the blackness.

Last to go, Rafnir glanced at the white cat, who was watching them with her unwinking solemn eyes. "Coming?" he invited. Her tail went up, and regal as a priestess, she padded down the stairs ahead of him.