their fright. 'What does it mean? Gates without doors?'
But questions always came too late. Events had to be pushed passed the point of denial; only then could the pain of asking begin.
They spent their first night in the grand chamber beyond the Wolf Gate. Achamian hung his sorcerous light high in the air, an abstract point of brilliance that illuminated the ceiling and the finned capitals of the pillars ascending about them. The light seemed to creep down, dim enough to be shut out by closed eyes, expansive enough to provide the illusion of security. Alien images glared from on high, their recesses inked in utter black.
True to his word, Kiampas organized shifts and posted sentries along their perimeter of light. Cleric sat alone on the dust and stone, gazing into the passageway they would take upon waking. Lord Kosoter stretched across his mat and seemed to fall instantly asleep, even though Sarl sat cross-legged at his side, muttering inanity after inanity, pausing only to cackle at the turns of his own wit. The rest of the company formed sullen clots across the floor, tossing on their mats or sitting and talking in low tones. Their crowd of mules stood in the nearby shadows, looking absurd against the surrounding grandeur.
The air remained chill enough to fog deep exhalations.
Achamian sat next to Mimara with his back against one of the columns. For the longest time she seemed transfixed by the light, staring endlessly at its silver flare.
'The script,' she said, her voice thick from disuse. 'Can you read it?'
'No.'
An inaudible snort. 'The all-knowing Wizard…'
'No one can read it.'
'Ah… I was worried I had misjudged you.'
He looked at her prepared to scowl, but the mischief in her eyes demanded he chuckle. A great weight seemed to fall through him.
'Remember this, Mimara.'
'Remember what?'
'This place.'
'Why?'
'Because it's old. Older than old.'
'Older than him?' she asked, nodding toward the figure of Cleric sitting in the pillared gloom.
His momentary sense of generosity drained away. 'Far older.'
A moment passed, suffused by the low tingle of repose in perilous circumstances-a dripping sense of doom. Mimara continued her furtive examination of Cleric.
'What's wrong with him?' she eventually whispered.
He did not want to think of the Nonman, Achamian realized, let alone speak of him. Travelling with an Erratic was every bit as perilous as traveling these halls, if not more so. A fact that begged the forbidden question: How much would Achamian risk to see his obsession through? How many souls would he doom?
His mood blackened.
'Hush,' he said, frowning in habitual irritation. What was she doing here? Why did she plague him? Everything! Twenty years of toil! Perhaps even the world! She risked it all for a hunger she could never sate. 'They can hear far better than we can.'
'Tell me in a tongue he can't understand then,' she replied, speaking flawless Ainoni.
A long look, too sour to be surprised. 'Ainon,' he said. 'Is that where they took you?'
The curiosity faded from her eyes. She slouched onto her mat and turned without a word-as he knew she would. Silence spread deep and mountainous through the graven hollows. He sat rigid.
When he glanced up he was certain he saw Cleric's face turn away from them…
Back to the impenetrable black of Cil-Aujas.
The Library of Sauglish burned beneath him in his Dream, its towers squat and monumental within garlands of flame. Dragons banked about mighty plumes of smoke. The glitter of sorcery sparked across the heights-the blinding calligraphy of the Gnosis.
Its wings threshing the air, Skafra bared corroded teeth, shrieked out to the horizon, to the whirlwind roping black across the distant plains. A rumble deeper than a final heartbeat.
And Achamian hung unseen, an insubstantial witness… Alone.
Where? Where was Seswatha?
They found the mummified corpse of a boy no more than a hundred paces down the passageway Cleric had chosen for them. He was curled as though about a kitten, his back to the wall. He had been at most thirteen or fourteen summers old, Xonghis estimated. The Imperial Tracker had no idea how long he had lain there, but he pointed to the propitiatory coins that had been set on his hip and thigh: three full coppers, two grey with dust, one still bright-gifts for the Ur-Mother-not the coins, but the acts of surrendering them. Apparently others had passed this way as well. With the rest of the company clustered about him, Soma fell to one knee and added a fourth, whispering a prayer in his native tongue. His eyes sought out Mimara afterwards, as though seeking confirmation of his gallantry.
'You need to watch that one,' Achamian murmured to her as they continued down the corridor. They had not spoken since waking, and he found himself regretting the way he had cut short their conversation the previous night. It seemed absurd, offering words like coins in the bowels of a mountain, but the small things never went away, no matter how tremendous the circumstance. Not for him, anyway.
'Not really,' she said with a weariness Achamian found vaguely alarming. Their was peril in feminine exhaustion-men understood this instinctively. 'It's usually the quiet ones you need to watch. The ones waiting for the door to clap behind them…'
The sound of other voices welled into her silence. A debate had broken out regarding the fate and provenance of the dead child. Strangely enough, the boy and the mystery of his end had inspired a return to normalcy of sorts.
'Ainon taught me that,' she added with reassuring bitterness. 'You know… where they took me.'
The expedition marched on, a collection of pale faces in the long murk. The conversation, quite inexplicably, turned to which trades were the hardest on the hands. Galian insisted that fishermen had the worst of it, what with all the knots and nets. Xonghis described the cane fields of High Ainon, endless miles of them along the upper Secharib Plains, and how the field slaves always had bleeding fingers. Everyone agreed that if you included feet, fullers were the sorriest lot.
'Imagine marching in piss day in and day out-and without moving a cubit!'
Then they started on beggars, trading tales of this or that wretch. Soma's claim to have seen a beggar without arms or legs was met with general derision. Soma was always claiming things. 'So how did he pick up his coins?' one of the younger wits asked. 'With his pecker?' In the spirit of mockery, Galian went one better, saying he saw a headless beggar when he was in the Imperial Army. 'For the longest time we thought he was a sack of ripe turnips, until he began begging, that is…'
'And what did he beg for?' Oxwora asked. The giant's voice always seemed to boom, no matter how low he pitched it.
'To be turned right side up, what else?'
Laughter crashed through the abandoned halls. Only Soma remained unimpressed.
'How could he speak without a head?'
'You seem to manage well enough!'
A cackling swell. The crew always enjoyed a good joke at Soma's expense.
'In Zeьm-' Pokwas began.
'The beggars give you money,' Galian interrupted. 'We know.'
'Not at all.' The Sword-Dancer laughed. 'They trek into the Wilds to skin skinnies…'
A general cry of outrage and laughter.
'Which explains all the silver you owe me,' Oxwora exclaimed.
And on it went.
