Conflict (6 page)

“Knight? What do you mean knight,” thundered Hartz. “You said you were only an Initiate, the lowest rank of the order! By the Mother Iram! What else are you hiding?”

“Whatever I may or may not be inside my Brotherhood is no concern of yours. I’ll accept your decisions as long as I’m with you, but my privacy is mine and I won’t answer for it to anyone.”

“That’s enough for me,” said Komir. “Remember your word, woman, because I won’t forget.”

“Don’t you worry, Norriel, I’ll remember it. Let’s hope your decisions are the right ones…”

“If they aren’t I’ll see you on the other side,” replied Komir gravely.

“What about me?” asked Lindaro, coming close to Komir. His eyes were expectant.

“What about you, my friend?” said Komir, not understanding.

“Do you want me to give you my word as well?

“I don’t see the need. You’re not coming with us, it’s too dangerous.”

“Nonsense! If you’re going to find some other secret of the Lost Civilization I’m going to be there! By the Light that guides us all along the straight path of Good!” protested the man of faith.

“But you’ll die, you don’t even know how to use a weapon,” said Komir uneasily.

“If Kayti’s going so that she can keep the future Objects of Power safe in your hands, then I’m coming to keep the remains of a Lost Civilization safe, whether they’re objects of power or not. This is the greatest discovery this kingdom has ever seen, and I’m not going to let a couple of savage Norriel go trampling over valuable documents and treasures like a stampede of wild buffalo, with all respect to you.”

“All right, all right, calm down, Lindaro. If you insist on coming with us of your own free will, I won’t stop you. But I have to ask the same oath I required of Kayti.

“I shan’t disobey your orders. You have my word, as a Priest of the Light.”

“Very well, then. We’re all set,” said Komir.

“So now what?” asked Kayti.

“Now we’ll rest and get our strength back. My head is killing me, and you’re all making it worse with your talking. Tomorrow we’ll go and ask our friend Lotas, as kindly as possible, who it is that wants us dead.”

“That’s the way to talk, mate! Tomorrow we crush some skulls!” thundered Hartz.

“Shut up and finish stitching up my head, for the Sun and the Moon’s sake!”

Iruki and the Assassin went on warily into the dark depths of the cave. This soon began to narrow, as if that gigantic being of granite and black rock were trying to devour them. They found themselves in a tight, sinister corridor molded into granite, eroded with time, which went on and on seemingly swallowing them up in all their daring. Before them was impenetrable darkness, silent and threatening, without any apparent end. Around them their silhouetted shadows, projected by the light of the improvised torch, moved in a ghostly dance on the rocky walls.

With each step, Iruki felt a mixture of fear and remorse for having dared to enter that forbidden place. Her father would be deeply disappointed. She could imagine his stern face looking at her with disapproval, hurt in his pride as a father who loved her more than he loved the prairies themselves. She was breaking the sacred rules of her people, those ancestral beliefs passed down through generations. How was she going to justify her actions to her people, her father…? She was walking on accursed ground.

The Assassin turned and motioned her to stop. Instinctively Iruki put her hand on the handle of the hunting machete she wore at her side, a gift from one of her uncle’s warriors. She listened, holding her breath, but could only hear the crackling of the torch. The Assassin remained still, frozen for a moment, holding the torch aloft and looking intently ahead of him as if he were trying to see through a veil which hung in front of them.

“There’s something strange in this cavern,” he told Iruki. His attention was fixed on the torch he was carrying.

“What do you mean? I don’t feel anything strange.” She looked around nervously. “I just notice that the walls are damp and I can feel the darkness around us. Make sure the torch is safe, please, I don’t even want to imagine how horrible it would be to lose this light,” she begged. There was a knot in her throat.

“There’s something unusual about the air in here, something unnatural,” explained the Assassin. “When the torch burns, the color it gives out is too bluish. Besides, there’s barely any smoke, and I made it with dry timber and cloth. It should burn with a reddish flame and black smoke.”

“Could it be the humidity? I notice a lot of saturation in here, come to think about it. It seems to be getting worse with each step we take along this corridor. The walls seem to be weeping.”

The Assassin touched one of the walls. “It’s true, they seem to be sweating. But that’s not what I sense, it’s something else, not the effect of the climate or the natural formation of the mountain rocks. My instinct is warning me that there’s something arcane at work here… some power I can’t identify. I don’t like it at all, we’d better be even more careful.”

“All right, but the only option we have is to go on. Those stinking Norghanian pigs will soon be in here. Whatever’s lying in wait for us ahead can’t be any worse than those twenty hyenas from the frozen north behind us.”

“Let’s hope you’re right,” replied the Assassin, and smiled. On seeing that wide smile Iruki calmed down at once. She could not have said why, but the stranger had the ability to calm her fears. A single smile from him and for a few moments her troubles would evaporate as if a southern breeze had wafted them away, leaving in their place a feeling of wellbeing and joy.

For several hours they went on down the tight stone passage. They moved as fast as they could, knowing that danger was close behind. At last they came out into an enormous cavern, and immediately felt free from the oppression and darkness of the narrow tunnel. Looking up, they saw with astonishment that the lofty dome let in a whitish light, which bathed the whole space. They stared at it in awe, speechless. The transparent rock surface which formed the dome allowed them to see something impossible, something that broke all the rules of nature: they saw, above their heads, the bottom of a clear lake.

They were looking at the Fountain of Life.

From inside the cave.

The whole dome of the cavern, from wall to wall as far as the end, was completely translucent, it allowed them to see the inside of the great lake above their heads. Schools of small silver fish zigzagged rapidly in the depths of the sky-blue waters of the lake, reflecting the light of the sun. Silver flashes revealed the abundant vegetation which covered parts of the dome, with small groups of fish of varied colors hiding from other, bigger kinds. On the underside of the dome, plants and algae formed patches of intense green, creating a complete natural waterscape. The spectacle before their eyes, suspended above their heads, was so beautiful that they both stared and stared in disbelief.

“What… what is this place where the laws of Mother Nature aren’t respected? H…how is it possible that we can see the sacred lake through the rock ceiling of the cavern?” muttered Iruki. She was completely overwhelmed, her eyes staring wide.

The Assassin leaned the torch against a projection in the rock and looked from one end of the place to the other with deep attention. His dark, slanted eyes went carefully over the whole unlikely scene, looking for some possible rational explanation for what they were witnessing.

Very softly he said, “Truly intriguing… I can’t tell whether it’s a natural phenomenon, an anomaly in the composition of the rock itself, or if there’s some other hidden factor involved.”

Iruki dragged her eyes away from the ceiling with an effort and looked at the rest of the cavern. A natural spring issued from a pile of red rocks, forming a stream which meandered past her feet, running from one end of the hall to the other. Small ochre-yellow plants and strangely-shaped green water lilies sprouted on both sides of the narrow, winding stream. In the center of the great cavern was a pool of quiet water which shone peacefully in the filtered light from the dome. More water lilies in soft shades of pink, together with other plants of unknown origin, spread around and over the water, floating on the gentle, scarcely-perceptible current.

On the west side of the cavern, at the far end, two waterfalls separated by a rocky outcrop fed a steady influx of white spray. Both waterfalls came together in the center of the hall, forming a stream which disappeared amid golden rocks. Splashing the ground with color, a range of plants in many shades grew in small clumps all over the cavern, competing in intensity with one another: reds, oranges and strong greens caught the observer’s attention.

“Do you think there’s some hidden power behind this mysterious place?” said Iruki, unable to find any explanation for the wonderful spectacle before her. “I’m sure this is not natural.”

“There probably is…”

The Assassin pointed to his right, to the spring, and walked towards it. Iruki followed, intrigued by the dreamlike beauty around them. As she came closer, she saw what he was trying to show her: a long line of strange golden markings etched on the wall, hidden by the spring.

“Do these symbols have any meaning for you?” she asked the Assassin.

He looked at them thoughtfully for a long moment, and finally shook his head.

“No, it’s a language I’ve never seen before. Anyway, what I know of these lands is very limited. Are they familiar to you? Any resemblance to Masig language?”

“Not the slightest. I’ve never seen anything like this. They don’t look like any of the symbols our culture uses.” Iruki searched for meaning, but without success. Those markings were completely incomprehensible and alien.

The Assassin passed his hand over the markings, tracing them from left to right. He concentrated and summoned his Gift. A red flash ran along his arms, and Iruki guessed he was trying to feel the essence of those signs.

“These symbols have been carved into the rock, but not by the hands of men. Interesting… look there towards the bottom…there’s another engraving on the opposite side, between the two waterfalls. I have no idea of their meaning, or the intention behind them, but I’m sure they’re not ordinary inscriptions. They’ve been made with some kind of ancient power. My instinct warns me of danger… stalking dormant, waiting…” Seeing the look on her face, he explained: “It’s part of my own power and training. I can perceive danger where others don’t. This place, in spite of its amazing beauty, conceals danger, and it’s lethal … We must keep alert and move very, very carefully.”

Iruki tensed. She nodded, looking around nervously, suspicious now of the beauty that surrounded them.

The Assassin looked towards the entrance to the cavern, and Iruki’s heart raced at the thought of their pursuers. The entrance was empty, but the northern warriors would not be too far behind. They were wasting too much time in that cavern, they had to go on. Their hope lay in finding a way out to the surface, or somewhere they could hide from those dogs of war. The Assassin led her to the next cavern, and darkness closed in on them once more. This cave had five openings, like fingers on a giant granite hand. The Assassin stepped into each of them as if he were trying to measure, or sense, something from inside. Finally he selected the one furthest to the right.

“This way,” he said gravely. “Follow me, quickly and in silence,”

They went deeper still into the innards of the mountain, toward the heart of the rocky giant itself. They passed other caves and followed a sequence of sinuous passages, always turning right. Iruki was sure they would be impossible to find in that labyrinth of tunnels and caves. She herself felt totally lost and disoriented, with her sense of direction gone. Luckily the Assassin seemed to know which way they had to follow. Every once in a while he turned back to erase the trail of footsteps behind them and create new false ones, so as to mislead their pursuers.

After endless turns and narrow passages they reached a large cavern, and the Assassin grabbed her arm to stop her. Before Iruki could ask why, a sensation of freezing struck her body with such intensity that for a moment she thought she had fallen into a frozen river. The temperature in that cave was so low that it seemed as though this was where Winter itself was born. She looked closer at the walls and ceiling and realized that like the ground, they were covered in a layer of shining white ice. Frost had taken possession of every boulder and rock from floor to ceiling, nothing escaped the piercing cold.

“What’s wrong with this place?” said Iruki, her teeth chattering from cold and fear. “How is it possible for this cavern to be completely frozen? It’s hard to believe, it defies every law of Mother Nature. I don’t like it one little bit, my people’s legends are true after all. This is an accursed place.”

The Assassin pointed at new golden symbols above the entrance they had just crossed.

“I don’t think it’s accursed,” he said, “although it’s true that something against Nature is going on here. See? There are more strange markings here and at the bottom of the cave, down there by the way out.”

“So what are we going to do? Go back? We won’t be able to stay here for long in cold like this.”

“That’s just what the Norghanian tracker and his men will think if they follow our trail here.” The Assassin began to cross the slippery ice floor. “Follow me, Iruki Wind of the Steppes. Don’t be afraid, we’ll survive, I promise!”