Darkness at Dawn (16 page)
Authors: Elizabeth Jennings
Tags: #Romance, #General, #Suspense, #Contemporary, #Fiction
Small wooden temples dotted the terraces. It was said there were more than ten thousand statues inside the building.
Mike was a modern man and didn’t hold with superstition, but a shiver of superstitious awe ran through him as his eyes traversed the great, magnificent stone expanse.
This had been built in the mists of time. His ancestors were painting themselves blue and worshipping fire, living in straw and daub huts when this magnificent building was going up.
In its own way, it was more awe-inspiring than any Manhattan skyscraper, since four hundred generations of men and women had lived within its walls.
He stared as the helo flared and settled, rotors raising a cloud of dust and fine snow. Twenty soldiers waited just outside the worst of the rotor wash, surrounding a slender female figure dressed in a long silk robe.
The torches lit the soldiers’ faces dramatically, highlighting the sharp, high cheekbones, leaving their eyes in darkness. They looked so foreign, the Palace was so unlike anything he’d ever seen before, that they could have been in a spaceship landing on an alien planet.
Mike felt a gentle touch on his shoulder. Lucy, calling him back to reality. He immediately stopped being fantasy fanboy and morphed right back into the soldier he was.
They weren’t in a spaceship landing on a fascinating alien planet. They were on earth, stepping into a dangerous mission where millions of lives were at stake.
And from now on he had to be sharp and stay focused because Lucy’s life and his depended on it.
LUCY touched Mike’s shoulder to bring him back to earth. The first sight of the Palace did that to everyone. And watching the Palace take shape in the mist from a helicopter almost made her forget her fear. The power and the majesty of the place wiped everything but awe from your head.
How she’d loved exploring it with Paso, all the ancient hallways and forgotten rooms, teeming with history, real and unreal. Paso’s
ama
loved recounting legends of the Palace, full of dragons and spirits and the frisky gods that populated the Himalayas before Buddhism, from the dawn of time itself.
ama
loved recounting legends of the Palace, full of dragons and spirits and the frisky gods that populated the Himalayas before Buddhism, from the dawn of time itself.
She’d had three very happy years there in this quiet Himalayan kingdom, turning from a child to a young girl, taking the same lessons as Paso, studying for her English GCEs, which turned out to be useless when she had to repatriate to the States.
It hadn’t occurred to her that it might be odd studying Shakespeare and Wordsworth, cellular mitosis and the Renaissance in a room with stone Snow Dragons looking down on them from every corner. Where the afternoon snack was
momos
and tea with yak butter, where the air smelled continuously of incense and where guards snapped to attention when lessons were over and they left the schoolroom.
momos
and tea with yak butter, where the air smelled continuously of incense and where guards snapped to attention when lessons were over and they left the schoolroom.
Indeed, the straight, unadorned walls, bare hallways smelling of Lysol, and loud, shrill voices of the girls at her boarding school had made her deeply uneasy her first weeks after coming back to the States an orphan.
How she’d longed for the Palace with its miles of corridors lined with colorful rugs, each door a painted wooden sculptural work of art, an altar seemingly every ten feet. The Nhalans had a naturally soft and lilting speaking voice, which she missed, huddling in her bed at night with her pillow over her head, trying to drown out the brash, loud American voices by reciting prayer mantras.
She’d cried and cried over her dead parents, missing them and Paso and the Palace fiercely. Until, finally, time and distance had made the Palace impossibly far-off and remote, more a dream than a memory.
And now she was back.
The helicopter landed, the big cabin rolling as it settled. Lucy stumbled on the uneven flooring and Mike put his arm around her waist, pulling her to him.
There was no question of falling down while he held her. The earth could crumble beneath her feet, and if he was holding her, she’d stay upright.
She marveled at how incredibly
hard
he was, like warm steel. And grounded. For a second, as she lost her balance, she’d leaned her entire weight against him, totally unexpectedly, at the moment the helicopter was shifting its massive bulk.
hard
he was, like warm steel. And grounded. For a second, as she lost her balance, she’d leaned her entire weight against him, totally unexpectedly, at the moment the helicopter was shifting its massive bulk.
Any other man would have staggered a little at having the weight of an adult woman suddenly press against him on uneven footing. But Mike held her, completely steady, his legs compensating for the uneven footing like an old sailor at sea.
He was holding on to her very . . . tightly.
She was plastered up against him, like being up against a warm wall. One arm was around her waist, the other on her shoulder. He lifted the hand on her shoulder and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, smiling at her warmly.
His body, the smile . . . they heated her up nicely and she smiled back. A perfect little moment out of time, enveloped in warmth and strength. A little human connection that was slightly more than simply from one human to another.
It was very definitely a male-female kind of moment, and she leaned her head against his shoulder, smiling. She felt a kiss against her hair and could almost feel his smile in the invisible gesture.
Nice. Very nice. She closed her eyes and snuggled for just a second, emptying her mind of everything, simply letting go. It had been a long time since she’d been held like this.
And then she remembered—it wasn’t real. He wasn’t her fiancé or boyfriend or even a friend, really. He was a soldier on an undercover mission, and part of the cover was acting like they were lovers. So obviously, a man would hold his fiancé closely after a tumultuous flight in a helicopter, would comfort her and kiss her.
Mike was playing a part and she wasn’t. She’d genuinely bought into the embrace and welcomed it, and though a part of her could congratulate herself on sticking to her cover story, the other part of her, the real part that couldn’t fool itself, knew that she’d reached out because of neediness.
Though the cover had to continue, the neediness had to stop. Right now.
She pulled back, gave Mike a big smile that had him narrowing his eyes, and reached up to kiss his cheek. “Thanks, darling,” she said in a slightly overloud voice.
The ramp at the back lowered with a metallic thud that shuddered through the entire frame. Frozen air swirled into the cabin. If it had been chilly before, it was freezing now.
The soldiers in the helicopter filed down the ramp, lining up outside to form another honor guard for them.
Lucy pulled her coat more closely about her, put her arm through Mike’s. “Let’s go,” she said.
Walking down the ramp, into the gelid winter mountain air, with the south wall of the Winter Palace right in front of her . . . Lucy let out a held breath.
With each step, it was déjà vu, only she wasn’t eleven, the age she’d been when they first landed in Chilongo. She was seeing the scene before her through a woman’s eyes and also through a young girl’s eyes. The dizzying beauty carried the adult away almost as completely as it had the young girl.
The white walls of the Winter Palace rose so high they were lost in the mists settling gently down from the mountains. The curved gilded wooden rooftops were invisible from here. They had to be seen from down on the plain, from the central marketplace, in the sunshine, when the entire rooftop, several acres in size, glowed golden in the sunshine.
Even the Winter Palace’s south terrace was outsized, like everything else. Lucy felt dwarfed as she walked past the honor guard, now standing at attention, hands touching their ceremonial hats with the palms out, like the British. A hundred yards away stood a small group of people under a painted wooden portico, the gleaming temple with the golden Buddha barely visible in the darkness behind them.
Sensations bombarded her, almost overwhelmed her. The pungent scent of sandalwood incense that would be forever associated in her mind with Nhala. The biting, invigorating dry cold. The effects of the altitude, which were often described as a sickness, but actually just felt like being high, in all senses of the word. The faint sounds of the city, barely audible so high up.
Lucy walked slowly forward, Mike keeping pace with her. She moved at a ceremonial pace, quite aware that she was now in a traditional society, meeting a princess and under observation.
The Nhalans had an unusual capacity for joy, but in public and in ceremonial situations, they observed a quiet dignity that Lucy respected.
Any emotions running through her had to be tamped down. She was here for a reason, and it had nothing to do with the joy she felt at seeing Paso again.
There she was!
As they slowly crossed the huge stone expanse, as big as a city square, Lucy could make out individual figures waiting under the portico. Two men in military uniform, several attendants and . . . Paso.
Lucy’s heart took a wild leap in her chest. If this hadn’t been a formal occasion, she would have broken away to run to Paso and hug her tightly.
Thank God she didn’t. Because as she slowly traversed the square, arm in arm with Mike, Paso’s hand lifted slightly, palm up. A universal sign for
go slow
.
go slow
.
Okay. Lucy was close enough now to make out individual expressions and she was not reassured. Paso’s lovely face was blank, completely void of any expression at all, well beyond the serenity a woman of the royal blood should show in public. She could have been a stone statue and not a beautiful, warm-blooded woman.
Keeping her own face blank, walking at a stately pace, Lucy drank in every detail of her friend. She’d been a lovely girl and she was now an extraordinarily beautiful woman. She was Lucy’s height, exactly. They’d often joked about that. Being Lucy’s height meant being taller than average in Nhala, while Lucy was just average in the United States.
The Nhalans were a small and graceful race.
It had shocked her so much, those first weeks in boarding school back in the States, to be surrounded by kids so tall they seemed alien.
There was nothing small and graceful about the man standing next to Paso. He was tall, powerfully built, face a series of granite slabs beneath a peaked khaki cap with a white dragon on the crown. General Changa.
Lucy watched him as she approached Paso, slowing surreptitiously so she could have a chance to study him. Mike slowed, too, naturally matching the pace of his long legs to hers.
Paso stood straight as a rod but slightly facing her right, away from the general, who kept flicking irritated glances her way. His face was cold, eyes colder. Reptilian eyes that didn’t reflect any light. The few accounts of political events in Nhala that had escaped the general lockdown spoke of the general reopening the dungeons hundreds of feet beneath the ground. Dungeons that had been used five hundred years ago for unspeakable cruelty, then sealed off ever since.
Now open again.
Lucy had no trouble at all believing that. The general looked as hard and as dangerous as a cobra. She’d met a number of third world dictators in her childhood. They frightened her then and he frightened her now. They all shared a look of cold inhumanity, as if they were another race.
Lucy stopped ten feet from the Nhalan delegation and Mike stopped, too. He still held her arm, as if wanting to make a point of their engagement. She looked up at him, sketched a small smile and made an imperceptible movement with her arm. He dropped his hand, letting his arms drop naturally to his side. But Lucy noticed his fingers were curled, like a gunfighter’s, ready for the fight if it came to that.
Lucy faced Paso, waiting for her lead.
Paso nodded to her, face blank, and sketched a light curtsy, ceremonial robe kissing the ground briefly as she dipped.
“Lucy Merritt,” she said softly, in the perfect, lightly accented English Lucy remembered so well. “Welcome.”
Hmm. Not welcome
back.
back.
Lucy curtsied. “Princess Paso. It is an honor to be in Nhala.”
There was utter silence on the great terrace, the only sound that of the great torches crackling. The flames cast flickering shadows over Paso’s face and the hard planes of the general’s face.
Lucy stepped back two precise paces and gave the traditional Nhalan greeting, arms out, fist in fist, and bowed deeply.
Other books
Deadly Vision by Kris Norris
Reckless Wager: A Whitechapel Wagers Novel by Carlyle, Christy
Lady of the Rose by Patricia Joseph
Necessary Endings by Cloud, Henry
Guardian of the Abyss by Shannon Phoenix
The Doctor and the War Widow by Russell, Viola
Maggie MacKeever by Strange Bedfellows
Dancing Aztecs by Donald E. Westlake
DoingLogan by Rhian Cahill
Living in Syn by Bobby Draughon
