Chapter Nine The Path of Light #4
Spikes of terror struck the Prince through his chest and gut, and thoughts of the slave auction were obliterated. She couldn’t see him. She couldn’t. He was so close—he wouldn’t be taken back now. He had to get to the Empress—he had to get to the Seeker—
He pushed against the side of the alleyway, hiding in the shadows, as the girl, even more stone-faced than usual, crossed the street. She flitted from shadow to shadow and moved past the door with the compass on her way around the slave auction.
How was she here?
Suddenly he remembered the sound of crashing metal as he’d descended the wall and he knew then that she had followed him and incapacitated the guard.
Somehow, she had caught up and followed him.
In desperation, he told himself again that once he reached the Seeker he would be safe.
That was one place she would never be able to follow him.
She rounded the far edge of the square, looking in all directions, and as soon as her gaze was turned the other way, he ran for the compass and the door beneath it.
His feet and legs moved jerkily, as if unsure what world they were in and whether or not they could still run.
But run they did, and the girl never turned and saw him cross the street.
He was at the door. Another golden compass was etched into the doorknob.
The Prince reached for it, turned it, pushed the door in, and was through.
The whole thing had taken barely seconds, but his heart was pounding as if he’d run a mile, and the image of the girl—both girls—kept flashing through his head.
He was now inside the foyer of a large and opulent townhome.
Before him were lavish engravings and a painting by the master artist Simaltan, dead nearly a century and highly acclaimed.
A man in a blue velvet vest and black pants entered the foyer from a room farther in and saw him standing there.
He took in the Prince’s clothing, the heavy way in which he was breathing, and seemed to make a decision.
“What is it you seek?” he asked slowly, obviously thinking that the only reason anyone would be in his house looking like the Prince—dirty, rank from weeks of travel, and clearly panicked—was if he were on the Path.
“I seek the one who seeks the Light,” the Prince gasped.
The man’s wary look turned to one of relief, and he spoke the rest of ritual with more assurance, pulling his hand out from behind his back. The Prince was fairly certain that there was a dagger back there.
“How do you mean to seek him?”
“By following the Path myself.”
“How do you hope to see the one who Seeks if you do not see the Path?”
“I seek the Path so that my eyes may be opened to the Light.”
The man nodded and motioned for the Prince to follow him. He turned into the main room, and the Prince walked quickly after him. The rest of the house was just as rich as the Prince would have expected from one of the High Blood, though not as opulent as if he were one of the Most High.
They passed through a series of rooms, each grander than the last, until they finally came to a grand ballroom that opened onto a garden. The man motioned to the wide glass doors at the end of the room, and turned away, dismissing him.
The Prince crossed the room and made it through the large glass doors without incident. On the other side of the doors on a dais in the middle of a wide, sloping yard was a golden coin.
Four.
Beyond the dais, the Prince saw another seven-pointed compass, engraved as part of a sundial. This compass had a working arrow on it, one that was currently pointed through a hedge at the end of the garden. The Prince passed quickly through the opening, and then through the wooden door beyond it.
He emerged into a back alley, the place where the servants of the High would most likely walk during the day.
It led both right and left, but the left fork ended abruptly in a large brick wall between two houses farther down.
The Prince, heart still beating wildly in his chest, turned right and began to run.
He crossed the distance to the end of the alley and shot out onto the street.
Or more correctly, the end of a street, for directly in front of him was an enormous gate set into the Inner Walls, beyond which only the Most High could ever pass.
Not even the High could enter there without a specific invitation, and the Elevated as well as the Commons were forbidden, on pain of death.
The Prince, of course, would have been allowed in as one of the Children, but, considering his attire, it was remarkable he hadn’t been stopped already by whatever sort of town guard they had in the city proper.
Wondering how he was supposed to get over the wall, he didn’t notice until a second later all of the eyes staring out of the five main crossbars of the gate.
Five crossbars—five eyes.
His gazed snapped to the gate, and he knew it was the fifth sign. He hadn’t noticed them before, as they were hidden in swirls of mythical action, but five Eyes of the Seeker—gold-rimmed with golden irises—had been strategically placed so that one might find them should he look hard enough.
But this was impossible. Nearly twenty men guarded the gate, all in the black and gold of Banelyn, all with the air of those ready and eager to shoot a trespasser full of arrows without asking questions.
The Raven Talisman grew hot on his back, and he spun around.
The Exile girl was there, like a phantom in the night, coming toward him.
Fear and disbelief clashed in the Prince’s head, and then his body and instincts took over while his mind reeled; he turned and ran for the gates. Just as he’d predicted, the first three guards who saw him raised crossbows and pointed them at him, calling to their comrades to do the same.
“I seek the one who seeks the light!”
The words were out of his mouth and ringing in the cool night air before he could think about what he was doing.
Several more of the guards shouldered their crossbows and put fingers to triggers, though, and it appeared that his gamble had failed.
He pulled up short, and thought that it all might end right there, that all that had happened might come down to a dozen crossbow bolts shot straight through him as he ran from the Exiles.
“HOLD!”
The guards blinked and faltered. A new guard strode forward, a golden knot of rank on his shoulder that served to fasten a long green cloak, so dark it was almost black, to his shoulders.
This captain, or perhaps sergeant, spoke a word to the guards and surprise crossed their faces, before they turned to stare at the Prince, in his Commons clothing, dirty and travel-stained, with disbelief.
“How do you mean to seek him?” the officer asked.
One of the guards who flanked the officer shot a sudden look over the Prince’s shoulder as if he’d seen something, and the Prince whirled, expecting to see the Exile girl, or perhaps Tomaz himself wielding his greatsword, eyes burning with fury and betrayal.
But there was no one, only an empty street filled with dark, twisting shadows.
But couldn’t the girl hide in any of those shadows? he asked himself. Couldn’t she be there, waiting, perhaps readying a dagger to throw?
“If you run,” said the voice of the officer behind him, breaking into his thoughts, “or if you do not speak, I will cut you down, Commoner, where you stand. Turn and face me.”
The Prince, jaw clenched and hands balled into fists to stop the sudden terror he’d felt at the girl’s arrival from taking him over completely, turned and saw that the officer had unsheathed a broadsword, while both of the guards flanking him had raised their crossbows again, level with his chest. The guards behind them all had their hands on their weapons, too.
“By following the Path myself,” he said.
As he said the words, some of the tension left the officer’s shoulders, but this time he didn’t motion for the guards to lower their weapons, and he kept his sword unsheathed.
“How do you hope to see the one who seeks if you do not see the Path?”
“I seek the Path so that my eyes may be opened to the Light.”
For a long moment nothing happened, and suddenly the Prince wondered if he had gotten some part of the ritual wrong, but no, it was all right, there was nothing else to say. But maybe this officer had rules never to let a Commoner in, no matter what series of passwords or phrases he knew, maybe—?
“Let him through.”
The guards who flanked the officer started in surprise, but obediently lowered their crossbows, while the officer sheathed his sword and turned to walk to the gatehouse.
The Prince could suddenly breathe again, and he quickly walked forward on shaky legs, following the man.
As he neared the gatehouse, though, the feeling of a presence came to him again, and he once more cast a glance over his shoulder, peering into the dancing shadows cast by the flickering oil lamps.
But there was nothing, and no one.
He followed the officer to the gatehouse, passing the guards, who looked as though, ritual or no ritual, they still wanted to turn him into a human pincushion.
Most of them seemed to radiate hatred and disgust, and the Prince couldn’t understand why.
True, he was dressed as one of the Commons, but he was a Prince.
Couldn’t they see that? Couldn’t they tell the difference?
He passed into the gatehouse and saw the officer standing across the room at another wooden door.
A huge bar had been placed across it, and as the Prince watched, the officer pulled out a set of keys and inserted them into the lock, twisting quickly.
There was the sound of many metallic, clockwork bolts sliding home, and then the bar simply disappeared into the wall, and the door swung open.
As it did, the officer stepped aside and watched the Prince expectantly.
The Prince walked quickly through the open door.
He found himself directly on the other side of the large gate, and then heard a clinking sound as the officer behind him tossed something gold onto the cobblestones at his feet. He bent and picked up the golden coin.
Five.
The door to the gatehouse closed with a bang, and the Prince pocketed the coin. He turned and looked at the innermost sanctum of Banelyn, the Inner City, where lived the Most High Blood, the city’s ruling aristocracy.
Palaces rose up around him on every side, grand and decorated with more wealth than the Prince supposed the Commons would ever see. There were sculptures, well-manicured lawns, and beautifully crafted fountains. But what caught the Prince’s eye was the Cathedral.
The Cathedral of the Empress was known throughout Lucia, and the Prince had heard stories of its grandeur all his life. But being here, standing in its shadow and seeing it for himself, was the first time he truly appreciated it.
The light of the moon and stars was just bright enough to highlight the curving, majestic lines of the stone, the way its towers speared the sky and the central dome seemed to cap the world.
It was a visible incarnation of the power of the Empress—for she had built it, if the legends were true, simply by standing at its center and willing it into existence.
The Prince shook himself out of his reverie. The building was grand, but he needed to continue on his path. He needed to find the sixth sign, the…
The six penitents, who knelt on humble knees, staring at him from the face of the Cathedral, each golden statue in its own alcove.
His heart soared. The Path led inside the Cathedral. Of course!
He reached the huge wooden doors quickly. They were still open for late-night worshipers, and he passed through them. Inside the Cathedral, he was vaguely conscious of the beauty all around him, but the only thing that concerned him was the seventh sign. He needed to find it, he was so close….
A glint of gold to his right, in a large basin of water.
He crossed to it and saw the sixth golden coin, and a mixed wave of relief and anger coursed through him.
He reached into the fountain, doing so quickly and as surreptitiously as possible, as there were members of the Most High nearby in their long, elegant robes, praying to the Empress even at this time of night, and various servants cleaning.
He grasped the coin, pulled it out and thrust it into his pocket, silently chiding himself for almost missing it.
If he didn’t have all seven coins when he came to the Seeker, he would be turned away.
“Who are you, and what are you doing in this Cathedral?”
The voice behind him was deep and threatening, and the Prince spun to face its owner.
The man was tall, bald, and very menacing.
He wore the long brown robes and golden rope of a Lesser Seeker.
The Prince opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, the man’s eyes looked behind him and saw the empty basin, then took in the Prince’s clothing and his bulging pocket of coins, and spoke first.
“What is it you seek?”
Relief flooded through the Prince, and he spoke the rest of the ritual.
Once he had finished, the man became rather kindly and took him by the arm.
He pointed him up the center aisle of the Cathedral and wished him luck.
The Prince thanked the man and nearly ran toward where he had pointed, only stopping himself from doing so because he knew it would raise an alarm, and possibly keep him from his goal, which was now within reach.
His eyes ran across the front of the Cathedral, looking for the seventh sign, the seven-pointed star, the Star of Light. Panic grew in him when he couldn’t find it. He neared the large pulpit, and the wooden pews on either side of him began to dwindle, but still he couldn’t find it.
He scanned the area again. Nothing. The ceiling—nothing. The floor—nothing.
Where was the sign?
He turned, ready to go back and ask the man again for help, and as he did, he saw it. A small, unobtrusive wooden door, far to the side of the Cathedral, hidden in the shadows, with the golden star inlaid in the wood.
Sharp movement out of the corner of his eye—he turned to the front of the Cathedral, and there, standing in the shadows just inside the open doors, was the Exile girl, her green eyes locked on him with ferocious intent, blazing like the eyes of an avenging spirit.
Fear—blind, senseless fear—grabbed the Prince. It was impossible that she could have followed him, and yet there she was. He turned and ran for the door with the seven-pointed star, hearing shouts behind him as servants and Most High saw him and raised an alarm.
He grabbed the metal ring of the door and pulled. The door swung open on oiled hinges; he crossed the threshold and slammed the door shut behind him, locking himself in darkness.