Elements 03 - Monsters of the Earth (37 page)

In the center of the clearing was the idol she’d noticed when she stood beside the Child, looking down on the basin’s visions. She walked over to it, her sword out. She was ready for any excuse to use it.

Killing something wouldn’t help get her home, but at least then she could feel that she’d stopped being a marker on somebody’s board game.
I wish I’d killed that Child when I saw him!

The idol was of naturally black wood. It was about two feet tall, but its tapering base had been forced into a crack on the top of a block of fieldstone. That base allowed the idol to glare back at Alphena eye to eye.

It was even uglier close up than she had thought while looking from above at the vision. Branches springing nearly straight up from the trunk formed its arms. On their ends were crudely carved hands.

The almond-shaped eyes were inlaid with clamshells drilled to indicate the pupils. The nose was as flat as a pig’s muzzle. From the snarling mouth protruded a tongue that had been a knife blade of hammered iron. The blood that had been smeared on the lips and mouth had dried black and was scaling off.

When she looked at the image in the basin, Alphena had seen skulls ranged around the idol—two human and two of large crocodiles. The bones had been carefully cleaned, either by boiling or possibly by being set on an anthill so that the tiny insect jaws could pick off the flesh and sinews.

With the skulls were now the heads of a pair of lizardmen like those in Veturius’ compound. These had not been properly cleaned. They sat in pools of their own liquescent decay, and their pebbled skin was slumping away.

Did the lizardmen slaughter the villagers? But surely they wouldn’t have left their own dead to rot here if—

A man with the head of a horse stepped out of one of the less-damaged huts, tearing off half the roof instead of bending low enough to go through the doorway. He was seven feet tall and naked except for the sash over his right shoulder. From that hung a stone axe and two flint-bladed knives.

His spear was longer than he was tall. Its shaft was a three-inch sapling that still had the bark on.

The Horsehead laughed like sewage bubbling. “The Master was right to leave me in this wet hell!” he said in guttural Greek. Alphena could barely make out the words. “Now I will kill you and rejoin my herd.”

He stalked toward Alphena with the spear raised to thrust like a harpoon. His feet were split into two fleshy toes.

Alphena instinctively stepped to the side to put the idol between her and the Horsehead. She immediately recognized her mistake: the length of the Horsehead’s spear and his great reach meant he could easily drive her back, but it would prevent her from closing with him to use her sword.

At least I know who massacred the villagers.

She grasped the bottom of the idol and pulled it upward. It didn’t come out of the crack into which it was wedged. She jerked harder, lifting the fieldstone base from the ground for an instant before its own weight pulled it from the wood.

Alphena danced away, holding the idol out in her left hand. It was the best choice she could see for a shield.

She wouldn’t have thought she could lift the stone base left-handed. Her huge opponent had brought out the best in her.

The Horsehead laughed again. He shuffled forward with his legs splayed widely apart, so that he could follow instantly if she tried to circle him.

Without signaling his intention, the Horsehead made a mighty overarm thrust. Alphena sidestepped to the right but interposed the idol to the blow in case her opponent tried to hook his weapon into her. The spear struck like a battering ram, rotating Alphena widdershins, but the flint head shattered without scarring the black wood.

Alphena stabbed the Horsehead through the lower chest. Her unintended pirouette added force to the blow. The sword drove so deep that she felt its point crunch into the giant’s spine.

The Horsehead lurched backward. His bawl of pain turned into a wheeze. Alphena came with him because she wasn’t giving up the sword. Her grip was more a spasm than conscious thought; her mind was a blur of light and motion.

She tried desperately, mindlessly to free the blade. It slid out ahead of more blood than she had ever imagined could come from a wound.

The Horsehead’s arms flailed convulsively. Alphena saw the spear shaft coming at her through the corners of her eyes, but she was toppling and couldn’t dodge it.

She felt the blow as a burst of white light. Then she felt nothing.

*   *   *

“
A
LL RIGHT,” SAID
Corylus to the assemblage. “Where was Alphena when she disappeared?”

He was working at keeping emotion out of his face, hoping that he didn’t look too grim. All those milling around—Alphena’s entourage, workers from the estate, and most particularly Collinus Ceutus himself—gabbled and twitched like a henyard immediately after a hawk has snatched its dinner.

“Lady Alphena entered that cave,” said Pandareus. He not only pointed his right arm but also took a step in the direction of the hillside that had been eaten back by the recent excavation. “The tunnel, I suppose it is. Paris went in and she followed. The rest of us were behind her.”

Except for the old scholar, those present were behaving like surviving villagers in the wake of a German raid: terrified, unsure of what just happened; mourning their losses and nervously certain that the disaster would be repeated as soon as they turned their backs.

Corylus gazed around the crowd. He knew that what these people were most afraid of was him: Gaius Cispius Corylus, the young representative of the wealthy senator whose daughter had disappeared while in their company.

In his heart of hearts, Corylus was glad they were afraid. They
had
let something happen to Alphena. His anger was irrational, so he would never let it show—but it pleased him that they were feeling the lash of the blame he was too reasonable to voice.

“Sir, I was right behind her,” said Drago, who with his cousin led the escort. “The old guy—”

He nodded to Pandareus.

“—tried to get in ahead of me, but I dragged him back. He didn’t have a sword, and he didn’t look like he’d be much use with his bare hands, so I got him outta the way. Then I went in after her.”

“Correct on all points,” said Pandareus. “Frankly, I wasn’t thinking of the possibility of danger.”

“All right,” Corylus said. “How close to her were you, Drago?”

“Dum near run up her ass, I was that close,” the Illyrian said, shaking his head. “I didn’t know how big the cave was inside and I was afraid I’d lose her in it. I went barreling in and there she was. She was following the priest close enough I could hear him mumbling something. Though I couldn’t see him at first.”

“This was nothing to do with me,” said Ceutus, wringing his hands. He sounded desperate rather than defiant. “I didn’t even know that the tomb was there till Pandareus told me about it.
I
didn’t go in.”

Corylus looked at him and said, “If you know nothing, then be silent until I ask you to speak.”

The landowner cringed away. Corylus had sounded—even to himself—as though he were about to pronounce sentence of death.
Ceutus isn’t at fault, but if he insists on calling attention to himself …

Drago waited through the interruption with his mouth open. Corylus turned toward him again and said, “Did you have a light? Did anybody in the tunnel have a light or did it all come through the opening there?”

“That’s a funny thing,” said Drago, frowning in concentration. “There wasn’t a light at first—that’s how I near run into Her Ladyship—but then the
ceiling
started to get light. Like there was a hole in it, but there wasn’t.”

“That’s how it appeared to me as well, Master Corylus,” Pandareus said formally. His present attitude was that of a student to his teacher rather than the reverse, as it would have been during class. “I saw Lady Alphena and even Paris in silhouette—when I could see past Master Drago, that is. I was following him.”

Pandareus pursed his lips as his eyes turned briefly toward his memories. Then he said, “It did seem to be coming from the tunnel roof. I couldn’t see the rock above Paris, just a glow. It was very faint at first.”

“All right,” Corylus said as he digested the information. “We’ll go into the cave, then.”

He glared around him. “Just the three of us, Drago and Pandareus with me. The rest of you keep away from the entrance. And—”

To one of the estate servants.

“—give me that lantern.”

Corylus took a deep breath, then drew his dagger instead of the long sword. With that in his right hand and the lantern in his left, he said, “Drago, you first. I’ll follow you. You’ll follow me if you please, Master Pandareus.”

Corylus had been afraid that the whole tunnel would be so low that he had to crawl, but he could stand upright once he was beyond the entrance. The ground level outside had risen with erosion from the slope above, but the stone door had kept all but seepage from entering the tunnel.

The walls were coarsely finished, showing adze marks and a few drill holes, but there was no doubt that the tunnel was artificial or at least largely artificial. It was cut through living rock; an opening, even if blocked off again, would have been obvious from the shadows the lantern threw when Corylus held it close to first one wall, then the other.

“Look, it was about here,” said Drago, squeezing against the side of the tunnel so that the lantern illuminated one wall and the floor ahead of him. He squiggled his broad, sickle-shaped sword toward the ceiling. “I know it wasn’t much farther in—”

He was standing about ten feet from the entrance.

“—and anyway, how much farther is there?”

He waggled the sword again, this time toward the solid rock that ended the tunnel. It was closer to him than the entrance was.

“You, old guy?” Drago said, bending to peer back past Corylus. “Don’t it seem about this far to you?”

“Yes, it does, Master Drago,” said Pandareus. Only someone who knew the scholar as well as Corylus did could have heard the smile in his voice. “The light in the ceiling seemed brighter and there were tree roots growing out of the right sidewall.”

He leaned forward and rubbed his fingertips over the stone.

“Which is not the case now,” Pandareus said, straightening. “Master Corylus, I clearly saw Paris climb upward, using the roots as the rungs of a ladder. Lady Alphena followed him very closely—so closely one of her hands was on the same root as one of his feet, it seemed to me. They both faded as they went upward, but I thought they must be lost in the light.”

“Sir, I
tried
to follow her,” Drago said. His face was beaded with sweat, the result of emotion, despite the tunnel’s relative coolness. “Zeus bugger me if I didn’t, I was afraid, but I
tried.
Only my hand couldn’t feel the roots and then the roots wasn’t there. And the light went out and Her Ladyship was gone and I
tried
!”

Corylus lifted the lantern and ran his dagger lightly over the ceiling, hoping that the point would find a crack that his eyes had not. Like the walls, it was nothing more than roughly carved rock.

“All right,” he said. “Master Pandareus, we’ll go back outside now.”

Everyone was acting as though Corylus was here as the agent of Senator Saxa. Corylus hoped that Saxa would approve of what he was doing, but that was secondary to the need to act immediately. Corylus was the best person present to take charge; and on the frontiers, you learned not to wait for an order before doing what was necessary.

The scholar turned and started back. Over his shoulder, Corylus said, “Drago, you and your fellows won’t be punished. I’ll assure Lord Saxa that there was nothing you could have done. The same thing would have happened if I had been there in your place.”

Except that I would’ve been leading,
he added silently. Though—as strong-willed as Alphena was, that might not have been possible even for him unless he’d been willing to grab her around the waist and carry her out of the tunnel.

Corylus smiled wanly at that thought. He was fairly sure that Alphena’s escort would have killed him immediately even if they agreed with his decision. Saxa was a kindly man, but he would have had his servants crucified if he learned they had permitted a commoner to manhandle his daughter.

The sunlight outdoors was a pleasant change, though Corylus had been sunk too deeply into the problem to think about the tunnel and its darkness as anything but factors to be considered. He handed the lantern back to the servant from whom he’d taken it, still lighted.

For a moment, he stood in grim silence while everyone stared at him.
If they’re expecting wisdom, they may have a long wait.

He grinned in sudden realization and glanced up the slope. There
was
another witness: the ancient yew tree.

“All right,” said Corylus. “Master Ceutus, get your men back to the house proper. At any rate, I don’t want you or any of your people any closer than that.”

It didn’t matter to him whether the estate workers stood around watching, but it might matter to the dryad.

“Rago and Drago, take Lady Alphena’s escort back to the carriages,” he continued. “Be ready to come if I call for you.”

There was absolutely nothing useful that a gang of toughs could do in the present situation. Saying that to men like the cousins would invite the reply that they didn’t work for Corylus.

“Pulto and Lycos, I want you fifty feet from the entrance to the tunnel,” Corylus said. “Don’t let anyone come past you, all right?”

“You’re going into the tunnel again?” Pulto said, his hand on his sword hilt. There was a growl of challenge in the question.

“No, I’m not going into the bloody tunnel!” Corylus said, feigning irritation that he didn’t feel. Pulto and Lycos would do what they thought his father would wish. They would be pretty sure that allowing Corylus to walk unaccompanied into danger would
not
be what the Old Man expected of them. “I’m going to go up that hill—”