Chapter Ten #2
“Lahshar bar Calis never liked me, and it was mutual,” Kai told him. They had never become friends but they had fought on the same side too long to think seriously about killing each another.
“It seems Bashat has a reason to be upset with you,” Ramad said, in a new tone.
“But you hardly abandoned him to die on a hilltop. He was surrounded by family. He would be justified in refusing to speak to you, but…” He seemed conflicted, and Kai wondered if Ramad still believed Bashat had never intended to kill Kai and Ziede.
Even after talking to Bashat, Kai wasn’t sure what he believed either.
Ramad continued, “It’s not as if you’re his father—” Then he stopped, as if struck by a thought, and looked at Kai sidelong. “Are you? Or … his mother?”
“No.” Unfortunately, Kai thought. If he had been either, he would have stayed.
Or taken Bashat with him. A Prince-heir had to grow up in the city to be selected by the various councils and guilds to rule.
It would have meant Bashat would never be eligible, but there had been plenty of qualified and well-meaning contenders.
It wouldn’t have affected Benais-arik’s fate much, and Kai thought Bashat would have been happier.
Then Tahren said, “We need to go,” and that ended the conversation.
They rode through the long twilight and short night, and arrived at the tor’s valley in the early morning.
The lowering clouds threatened rain, but so far it was only a light sprinkle, barely felt.
Making their way along the hills, they halted when they had a view of the swath of flattened brush and vegetation that stretched out from the collapsed entrance.
Kai was a little surprised he had survived it at all.
They rode down most of the way through the brush, since there was little point in concealment now.
Kai had a faint hope that a Hierarch or expositor would appear to challenge them, but they had no such luck.
For one thing, whoever was still alive in there was probably trapped inside.
Tahren remarked, “We’ll have to dig the creature out of there like a pit out of an olive. ”
They left the animals to graze under a last copse of trees, and pushed through the brush to the weathered gray stone slabs. They were directly opposite the entrance, which might mean something if the Hierarchs had been interested in symmetry.
Tenes immediately began to check each crack and crevice, sliding her hands into them as far as she could, then moving to the next.
Kai walked along ahead of her, just to see if there was anything obvious to the eye.
The scholars who were experts at this hadn’t reported noticing any other entrances, according to Highsun, but then they hadn’t had much time to examine the place from the outside.
Ramad set Eleni to keep watch, and she took up a position near the trees. Arnsterath appeared to have appointed herself to that duty too. She stood some distance back from the tor, staring at it. At least Kai didn’t have to deal with her and that was enough for him.
Highsun paced the tor in the opposite direction from Kai, poking along the cracks and crevices, while Tahren followed him.
A wind-devil swept Ziede up the side to the top of the structure, then carried her back down.
“It’s closed and sealed up there,” she reported, dusting her hands, “as we thought.” Then through her pearl she said, Tenes found something.
Kai turned swiftly and Ramad hastily stepped out of his way.
Tenes had moved in Highsun’s direction, maybe twenty or so steps along the tor’s base.
She leaned against a slab, her hand pressed to the dirt- and grass-filled gap between it and the next.
She turned and signed, There were at least three passages along this side, all filled in with dirt and rock.
But this one is still here, only partially filled.
“Can you open it?” Kai asked.
I have to get through this first. She patted the smooth slab of rock beside her. Kai couldn’t see any difference between it and the others. It was about twice the height of a tall person and just as wide, and perhaps had been square before weathering had softened the edges.
Kai registered Arnsterath’s silent approach just before she said, “Surely the one who broke the Summer Halls can crack this stone.”
Tenes regarded her with a cold stare. She turned back to Kai to sign, It will take time to encourage the slab to break.
Ziede shaded her eyes to look up the slope of the tor. “It’s braced on the inside, so the whole thing won’t come down?”
Tenes signed an assent and added, These passages must have been entrances, or perhaps airshafts. It’s a very strange structure.
Highsun returned with Tahren, saying, “That slab needs to be opened? I may have something which will help.”
Tenes gestured for him to go ahead, and he stepped forward, pulling his pack around.
He took out a Blessed device, like the handle of a metal winch but with cups attached to it, and a couple of sharp projections.
It looked dubious compared to Dahin’s tools, like it had possibly been put together from pieces of other things.
Tahren frowned in concern and Kai had a moment of doubt.
Maybe he had been stupid to make Dahin stay behind.
No, it was worth having to trust a strange Immortal Blessed, not to worry about Dahin throwing himself into the Well the instant their backs were turned. At least they knew Highsun by reputation.
As Highsun set the device to the wall, Tahren drew Ziede away and Kai hastily motioned for Tenes to back up. She hurried over to stand beside him and Ramad. Even Arnsterath, an ironic twist to her mouth, retreated to a safe distance.
The device made a neat etched outline in the center of the slab, a square shape easily large enough for someone as big as Highsun to step through.
As he fiddled with the device again, something cracked sharply, so loud they all flinched back.
When Kai looked again, the pieces inside the square had split into shards.
That wasn’t subtle, Ziede commented silently to Kai.
If there’s a Hierarch or expositor anywhere in this valley, they heard that, Kai agreed. Ramad was waving off Eleni, who had started to run to them from her watch post. But then they probably knew we were here already.
True, Ziede conceded. I don’t have a good feeling about this, Kai. Neither does Tahren.
He glanced at Tahren, who gave him a head tilt of acknowledgment, and admitted to himself that he didn’t either. The settled feeling of a straightforward task had left him sometime after they had entered the valley. I’m glad we made Dahin and Sanja stay at the camp.
I wish I’d put them both on the first raft to go back with Sura, Ziede said.
Kai wished she had too, but there was no point in saying it. And at the time he would have made the same decision to let them stay.
“What’s wrong?” Ramad asked, his voice quiet. Tenes watched Kai worriedly.
Because he didn’t want to say I feel like I’m working toward an endgame that isn’t mine, Kai said, “I don’t know.”
Tenes reached over and squeezed Kai’s wrist. Ramad’s brow furrowed. He said, “That’s … worrisome. To put it mildly.”
Highsun returned the device to his pack and started to clear the shards away. Tahren moved to help, and the gray daylight began to illuminate a stone-walled passage, the floor piled with dirt and rubble. But like Tenes had said, it was still high and wide enough for them to make a way through.
Arnsterath stepped nearer and said in Saredi, “Are you talking about me?”
Tenes shifted away from her. Kai said in Old Imperial, “No, I don’t talk about you. I try not to think about you.” Before she could respond, he added, “If you want to help, stay out here with Eleni and make sure nothing escapes.”
Arnsterath actually betrayed real irritation. It was somehow more painful than her facade of cool indifference because it reminded him of Arn-Nefa. She said, “The other door collapsed. I recall that, because I was almost in it when it happened. So were you.”
Kai pointed at the passage. “Make sure the constructs don’t come out this door.”
Her mouth thinned. “You want the credit for killing the Hierarch yourself. Still trying to court Bashat?”
Ramad snapped, “Arnsterath, that’s enough.”
Kai bared his teeth in a gesture she would understand. “If you wanted to kill Hierarchs, you had your chance sixty years ago in the Summer Halls.” He strode toward the passage, calling imps to light the way.
Kai went first, with Tenes beside him, followed by Tahren and Ziede and Ramad, with Highsun last. The light from the imps helped, but the air was bad and close and Kai found he didn’t like the feeling of being buried underground.
It was something the Hierarchs had liked, obviously, or they wouldn’t have built earthworks around their own dwelling places, or tried to smother mortal cities with them.
The passage led straight in and they encountered no sign of doorways, blocked or open. And Tenes said the other passages and chambers she could feel nearby had been filled in with rubble. “This place is so strange,” Ramad whispered. “What were they doing here, before they sealed it up?”
“I think they were trying to make a new Summer Halls,” Highsun answered quietly. “Or the Summer Halls was a larger copy of this place.”
“That would make it much older than the scholars believed,” Ziede said.
“Yes,” Highsun agreed. “If the expedition had had time to truly study this place, I think we would have come to many astonishing revelations. It’s a shame to destroy it, but it must be done.”
Kai didn’t want astonishing revelations, he wanted to get this over with.