The Pleasure of Memory (63 page)

“No?” Jhom asked.

“Hell, no. I’m going with you.”

Jhom studied his friend. He wasn’t sure whether to run him off or hug him.

“Things are looking bad,” he said because he ought to, “If anything that sentry said was true, this could be the beginning of serious times. I mean, a hell of a lot more serious than war with Parhron. You understand that?”

“I do,” Wenzil said, “I do, indeed. Matter of fact, that’s exactly why I’m going with you. We need Chance back here.” He was absently fingering a tiny blue stone hanging on a gold chain at his neck.

Jhom recognized the pendant as his sliver of Water Caeyl. Wenzil’s great grandfather had been a fledgling mage when he died during the Fifty Year War. Though no mage himself, Wenzil had a kind of insight of his own, a prescience of sorts. He always knew when trouble was afoot. It was a natural talent that had saved Jhom’s butt more than once in the Nolands, and the caeyl sliver Wenzil wore at his neck dramatically enhanced it.

“All right,” Jhom said, glancing around for ears, “You can come with me. But you’re riding, not running.”

“Agreed.”

“And I mean you’re riding a horse, not one of those loveless lizards.”

“You’re the Ghant’r, sir. I’m at your disposal.”

“Stop calling me that,” Jhom said quickly.

“Your words to my ears, sir.”

“Is Hector going with you?” Jhom asked.

“Damned right. I speak for both of us.”

“That’s good. Hec’s the best damned archer in these parts.”

“Yea, he’s no slouch in the saddle, neither.”

Jhom again surveyed his surroundings. They couldn’t afford to be overheard. Confident they were alone, he leaned closer to Wenzil. “Here’s what I want you to do,” he whispered, “Ride over to the western rim of Sken te’Fau—”

Wenzil suddenly threw his hands up. “Now, just you stop right there, Jhom.”

“What now?” Jhom asked, though he already knew the answer.

Wenzil was visibly paler than just an instant earlier. “Not a chance of that,” he said, “I’m not going in the damned swamp. I’ll follow you into the darkest pits of the Nines, but I’m not going there.”

“Relax. I only want you to scout the perimeter. I’ll be the one going into the swamp if need be, not you, though I don’t believe the trip will even be necessary.”

Wenzil nodded, visibly relieved. “That’s fine. I don’t mean to be—”

“You don’t have to explain. I know how the swamp affects you. I only want you to scout the perimeter for signs Chance may have come out after he deployed the sentry. If he did, he’ll either head his way due north to Boardtown or swing northwest to Barcuun proper. Depends on where the least resistance offers itself. Truth be told, I suspect I know where he’ll be coming up for air. I’m only sending you that way as a precaution.”

“Sorry, Jhom. Don’t mean to seem weak-kneed or nothing.”

“Forget it, Wen. Just scout the perimeter and then swing southeast. Meet me at the hatch in the northern Criohn Plains, the one east of Belfry Hill. Keep your eyes peeled for signs of Vaemysh incursions. You see anything of significance, anything supporting Chance’s claim, send Hector back to Barcuun with it, and tell him to make wings about it. Got no time to waste.”

“And me?”

“You keep coming and meet me at the northern hatch. If I’m not there, I’ll leave a signal.”

Wenzil’s braids danced as he nodded enthusiastically. “Yea, Hec and I’ll head out right away. Be gone before late afternoon settles over us.”

Jhom glanced back toward the military compounds behind them. “No, I reckon you’d best attend that war council meeting with me. I don’t trust Bender not to backtrack on his word. I’ve got something I have to do, so I need your ears there. If there’s any truth at all to the sentry’s message …”

“I know,” Wenzil said seriously, “Chance ain’t much favored around these parts of late. The first time he says something the king doesn’t like, he’s labeled undependable.”

“Undependable, my ass,” Jhom said.

“When do we leave, then?”

“Meet me at the third compound gate an hour past dusk, we’re heading out tonight. I don’t like the smell of the air around here. We need to get out of Barcuun before it’s too late.”

“Understood,” Wenzil said.

Jhom slapped the runner on the shoulder and stepped past him, heading for the stables. “I mean it, Wen,” he said, still marching, but with a stern finger leveled back at Wenzil, “No goddamned running. You be ready to ride, you hear me?”

“The hell with you, I was born ready!”

XXXII

THE LONG MARCH

EAM FOLLOWED UP THE REAR SO AS TO KEEP A BETTER EYE ON THE SAVAGE.

The last thing he wanted was her at his back. They’d started early, moving out soon after Chance returned from his foraging, and they’d been marching all day. Or night. His sense of time had pretty much shriveled up and died in the perpetual gloom.

He studied Chance walking farther up ahead of them. The image was an odd one. There was enough distance between them that the light from the man’s torch was fully separated from his own. Chance was a solitary figure walking along in a lonely bubble of light.

As he watched his friend, Beam felt a strange thought materialize in his mind. It was the face of a boy with shoulder-length blonde hair and a toothy grin. The boy was in the forest with the man’s old cabin behind him. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen years. He wore a bright blue tunic and was playing with a pebble, tossing it back and forth between his hands, or maybe up in the air, it wasn’t clear. He was walking down a stone path that led away from Chance’s now destroyed house. The image was so crisp, so tangible, it was more like a memory than a random thought. There was something about a chimney in the image, too, though he couldn’t quite isolate that piece of it.

Beam stopped.

He realized he knew who this boy was. This was the mage’s boy…Luren, wasn’t that his name? But that was impossible. How could he ever know what the boy looked like? He threw a palm to his brow and willed the image away. It was impossible, he told himself, just a random thought generated by a mind stressed through too many days of darkness. It had to be.

He shook his head, and then started walking again. This world of perpetual night was killing him. It was fouling his mind, driving him to bizarre thoughts. He had to get the hell out of here. He thought back to his months in the scrubs scouring through those dank crypts and communing with the dead. In comparison to this, that trip had been a holiday. Back then, he’d at least known daylight was always only a few hours away, or at least just beyond that next door. Not like here, not like this dungeon where—

He looked up just in time to avoid colliding with the savage, who’d stopped unexpectedly before him. Irritated, he gave her a rough shove, and said, “What the hell are you doing? Maybe a little warning next time?”

She landed against the irregular tunnel wall, but quickly recovered herself. Standing taller, she faced him squarely and returned his stare unflinchingly. Though her eye was well swollen and her face a medley of cuts and bruises, it did nothing to lessen the intensity of her eyes. This one could lay down a murderous look with the best of them.

Beam glanced down the tunnel at Chance, and immediately realized why she’d stopped. Chance stood before a wall that completely sealed off the tunnel. But this wall was different. This wall wasn’t roughly carved from the surrounding matrix, but was built of large, cleanly squared blocks. The revelation did little to remedy the sour flavor his stomach had taken on. It was a bloody roadblock.

He jogged up to Chance, placed his hands against the bricked wall, and gave it a good slap. When the wall didn’t retreat, he turned and looked up at Chance. “Are you bloody kidding me?”

“Don’t panic. There’s a door.”

“There damned well better be.”

Chance moved around him. He ran his fingers along the mortar lines separating the massive blocks defining the wall. Before Beam could offer the curse dancing at his tongue, something clicked.

“Found it,” Chance said over his shoulder, “Give me a hand with this.”

There didn’t appear to be anything to give a hand with. The wall didn’t look any different than it had a moment ago. Beam stepped up beside him and ran the flat of his hand across the stone. Definitely no different. “What exactly are we doing, Brother?” he said as he explored the cool surface.

Chance tapped the butt of his torch against the middle of one block. A hollow rap echoed off into the darkness.

“What?” Beam asked, “Am I supposed to hit my head there or what?”

“Yes, Beam, please do that. Do it hard and with repetition. When you’re finished, look at the wall more closely.”

Beam held up his own torch. There was a fine seam running through the mortar line. It rose up along the line between blocks for a good ten feet and then spread sideways for four feet before dropping again. It was the outline of a door, and if it had been open, it would have been wide enough for them both to pass through shoulder to shoulder. It was a door built for a Baeldon.

“Help me push it open,” Chance said.

“What? No magic?”

“Don’t be an ass.”

Beam laughed. “Too late.”

He looked back at the Vaemyd. The warrior was standing a few feet back in the darkness with her arms still bound behind her around the lizard bone. Her beefy face shimmered eerily in the shadows.

“Care to give a hand?” he asked her sarcastically. Then he looked at her arms bound so dramatically behind her, and said, “Or should I say, a shoulder?”

“I do not,” she said back.

Beam almost laughed at that. She’d refused the offer as matter-of-factly as someone declining an invitation to sit for tea. “If we don’t get this thing open,” he said plainly, “We’ll all be stuck here. And just so I’m perfectly clear, ‘we’ includes you.”

For a moment, she only stared at him. Then she walked forward and braced her shoulder against the wall between him and Chance. Together, the three of them leaned into the door.

The stone growled as the section began sliding back into the wall. When they’d pushed it inward nearly two feet and still hadn’t found an end, Beam began to worry. Then the door’s resistance fell away. Chance put a hand on his shoulder and urged him back.

The door was now moving on its own. As they watched it sink into the wall, a worried wind grew up behind them. The torches danced wildly. Sand whipped past, rushing violently into the new opening. Beam covered his face and wondered if this was a trap set by the Baeldons, but quickly realized it was just the pressure adjusting between the two chambers. He’d experienced similar occurrences back in his tomb raiding days.

The wind soon lost its vim, and the air fell still again, though the remnant dust effectively smothered the air. When Beam pulled his face from his arm, the door had recessed fully into the next room, which was glowing warmly beyond it.

“Come on,” Chance said, nudging him, “I think you’ll find this most appealing.”

Beam waited until Chance and the savage passed through, then gave the nearly black tunnel behind them one final inspection before following them. When he emerged on the other side, he was pleased to find the mage had understated the fact. This change was far more than just appealing.

This tunnel was nothing like those they’d traveled thus far. There was no dirty gravel floor, no craggy rock surfaces with doubtful looking wooden braces. This new tunnel was twice the size of the original passage, both in height and breadth, and was as clean and polished as a monarch’s personal cathedral.

The floor was tiled in icy blue granite marbled in complex yellow and magenta swirls. Exotic geometric designs of brass inlay danced along the edges of the tiles composing the floor. The arches and braces here were massive beams of brilliant blue steel rather than rotting old wood. Complicated imagery and arcane runes were etched into the steel so that the metal looked more ornamental than structural. Metallic torches flamed from elegant silver sconces mounted on alternating braces running along either side of the corridor.

However, the walls of this new corridor were what he found most intriguing. Life-sized images of Baeldonian soldiers sculpted in full three dimensions from heavy slabs of silvery marble lined the walls along both sides of this grand hall. They stood shoulder to shoulder in sets of three between each of the wall braces. The sculptures were mounted so they appeared to stand upon a scrolled red-stone ridge a yard above the regal floor. They were dressed in royal regalia with their weapons in place and one arm folded peacefully over their armored chests.

A soft, lustrous material gilded the faces and hands of the carved soldiers, giving them an eerily flesh-like appearance. The eyes were inlaid in white stone with dark, brown onyx irises that twinkled down at them as they passed. He could almost hear them whispering to him, murmuring their names in his head, telling him their stories and demanding fealty for their grief. These were sarcophagi.

“Beam?”

Beam nearly jumped out of his britches. He sent Chance a well-aimed scowl.

“A hand?” Chance’s pose suggested he’d been trying to push the block door back into place. “If you can pull yourself away from the artwork.”

“Artwork,” Beam said with a snort, “Nothing artistic about the dead.”

“Help me with the door,” Chance said, “It’ll hopefully block whatever that is chasing us.”

Pushing the door back proved more challenging than opening it. This time the door made no effort to assist them. Whatever hinges or secret mechanisms had allowed the door to open so easily were missing in action on the closing. The dirt that had blown in with the pressure change acted like a wedge beneath the stone. Even with three of them pushing, they managed to wedge it only partially closed. There was still a gap, though it was only seven or eight inches wide and too small for any of them to crawl through without crushing a rib.