Harsan knew better. Those who had not feared to violate the Temple of Eternal Knowing, breach the Concordat, and slaughter Imperial soldiers would hardly stick at two more lives.
He tried to temporise. “At least you can tell me why you have done this, Hele’a. Why the attempt upon me before, on the road-I was meant to die there, was I not? — and what does all this profit you tonight?”
Thin fingers came up to brush back sparse, greying hair and tug at an earlobe. “Alas, poor Metlunish! Had you used my ‘Unimpeachable Shield’ upon him, your bones would now be decorating some peasant’s field. But you fought well, young priest, and then that accursed merchant spitted him like a haunch of Tsi'il with his crossbow bolt. You see, you should never have reached Bey Sii. I would then have had time to arrange for a different, more compatible scholar to study your Llyani pothooks.” “But anyone could have access to the relics-any temple-?” “One, there are those who must own what they desire! My master is no simpleton to stand gawking and yearning for the fine tunics in the tailor-shop! He is a Zrne who charges straight upon his prey-if you will pardon a poor foreigner his mixed metaphors, which are such a sin in your Tsolyani elocution…” He peered back into the tunnel. “Come, we cannot tarry here. Give me what you have concealed, and you shall have quit of us.-I can even sweeten your loss with a purse of gold heavy enough to buy three doxies as comely as this one here. Then you can return to your monastery and die an old man with a hundred grandchildren singing elegies to your sainted memory.”
“I–I cannot. Slay me if you will.” Harsan realised that he really did not desire this latter event and cast about for some means of staying alive, something the Ghatoni would believe. “I do not know how to bring the relics back from-from ‘around the comer’ where I sent them. They are too big, bigger than anything I ever magicked before.”
The other pursed his lips in disgust. “Cha! Leave it to an untried bowstring to fire the war-arrow! I sense that you speak at least a part of the truth. There is nothing for it, then, but to take you along. My master’ll have sorcerers who’ll make you cough up those relics as easy as a baby pukes up its lunch.” He turned to the warrior. “Give the girl over to me, Tluome, and do you bind him neat and tight!”
The Thunru’u held Harsan while the soldier produced a length of braided leather cord and secured his wrists tightly behind his back.
“The girl, master? Shall I do her off here?”
Hele’a flashed a swift glance at Harsan’s stricken face. “I think not. She must go with us. If you slay her now our poor priest would grieve, and this would distract him from our purpose.” The man took Eyil, wrapped her street-cloak tightly about her, and then wound more of the cord about her upper body so that her arms were pinioned to her sides. She made no protest but only averted her face.
Hele’a turned for a last look into the tunnel. He held up a gold-glinting disc, an amulet. “Oh Nshe,” he called, “One of Water, return to your lair! My master will be grateful.”
Was that the gurgling flow of the Nshe that Harsan heard, or was it the sound of distant digging in the tunnel? He tried again to delay. “At least tell me the why of this, Hele’a,” he pleaded. “Let me understand!”
“So, the pawn must know why the game is played?” The Ghatoni struck off at a rapid pace across the murky, echoing hall, the Thunru’u and the soldier propelling their captives along behind him. “Too high for you, too high! Do you play Den-den? If you do, then know that you are only a white counter who has for the moment been promoted to a blue. Now greens and blacks appear on every side, each thrice as mighty as you!” He made a slashing gesture in the air. “Your player casts his throw-and loses! Cha! You are taken! — Now if you would give up those Llyani relics, you return to being a simple white counter, and the proud greens and blacks pass you by. But no, you are all puffed up with your puny importance! So must you pay the score-or rather your player pays the wager, while you, poor pawn, are dashed from the board.”
“My superiors laid a command upon me, and I cannot go against that.” He knew this would mean nothing to Hele’a. “Now, even if I would, I cannot retrieve the accursed things!” This sounded convincing. Intuitively he realised that as long as the relics were beyond the Ghatoni’s reach, he and Eyil would continue to live.
The little man pursed his lips. “We shall see.”
The great hall ended at last, and they entered a labyrinth of smaller rooms, galleries, passageways, staircases up and then down again, and wandering corridors. Some were embellished with the bas-reliefs and frescoes of the Golden Age, others were unadorned, and still others seemed hacked out of the living rock.
Hele’a raised his torch to consult a scrap of parchment. They clambered down a steep circular stair into a new series of vaults. Here the walls were incised with the dagger-sharp symbols of the Bednalljan monumental script, floor to ceiling, in endless horizontal bands. This part of the labyrinth was half a score millennia older than that above!
The little Ghatoni noted Harsan’s involuntary interest and said sardonically, “If it be ancient things you would have, young scholar, you must join the Lords of Change. Only such as we have access here.”
“I have read of such places.”
“Then you will have read of Ditlana, the ritual of the ‘Renewal of the Land Before the Faces of the Gods.’ Every five hundred years or so, the ancients razed their cities, tore them down to the foundations, filled in the lower rooms, and built anew upon the old. There are layers and layers beneath the older cities of the Five Empires. Some parts are open; others are lost and sealed. Did your grey-robes never tell you why so many cities sit upon such high mounds?”
“I know of Ditlana — the last Seal Emperor to order it done in Bey Sii was Hejjeka IV, ‘The Restorer of Dignities,’ about eight hundred years ago. But I never guessed-”
The little man warmed to his topic. Harsan tried to push the horrors of the previous hour into some comer of his brain and lock them there. Any means of keeping Hele’a occupied would allow them to live a while longer.
“Some of the most sacred shrines of the Inner Circles of the temples are down here,” the Ghatoni continued. “Age adds to sanctity. Many areas are filled with stones and rubble, of course; otherwise the new cities above would come tumbling down. And if you can find your way down to the lowest regions, you’ll see whole sections that are tilted, tom asunder by earth-shakings, filled with ooze or black water, or are brimful of hardened flowing-stone, sent up by Vimuhla, Lord of Fire, from his incandescent hells beneath the world.”
They turned a comer, and a muddy, wet smell assailed them. The torch guttered in a current of moist air. Hele’a sent the Thunru’u lumbering ahead, and metal squealed. The captives were prodded forward again, and the party emerged through a barred grating of bronze onto a rickety quay, beyond which the velvet waters-of the Missuma River glimmered before them in Kashi’s reddish light. The place was deserted.
The Thunru’u took charge of Harsan and Eyil, cuffing him lightly when he would have spoken to her. The other two dragged a small skiff out of the shadows and slid it over into the water.
Harsan again contemplated escape. His legs were free, even though his hands were bound behind him. If he could attract the attention of the River Watch, he could come back for Eyil… The monstrous Thunru’u seemed to divine his intentions and took that very moment to encircle his neck with its clammy fingers.
Someone returned from the boat. A black, fish-smelling cloak was thrown over Harsan’s head, and a smart push sent him stumbling forward to tumble down into the little craft. Eyil sprawled on top of him with a muffled cry. A foot found the small of his back and stayed there, pinning him flat. He heard the rattle of oars being run out. Thole-pins thumped home. Water gurgled and lapped up through the oily planking, and the boat heaved as a second person came aboard. There was a further exchange of muttered words, apparently Hele’a ordering the Thunru’u back to its lair in the labyrinth.
For a time there was only the rhythmic thump-swash of the oars, mingled with a litany of muttered grunts and curses. The soldier was no boatman.
At last the hull grated against stone. Hele’a called out, and hands lifted Eyil away. Others plucked Harsan up and carried him like a bale of cloth over echoing cobblestones. More conversation, and then a hollow metallic boom as a heavy gate-bar shot back into its socket. Harsan was set roughly on his feet and half dragged, half pushed onward through what he sensed were hallways, down a stair, along another passage, into a room. He ended banging his shins upon a sharp-edged something.
The hands turned him about, raised him, and threw him down upon a hard, seamed surface. Wood? The cloak was jerked away, and his wrists were twisted painfully up to be affixed to a clanking metal link.
He lay on his side in semi-darkness. All he could see were the bla ck silhouettes of men above him and chinks of red light from a lamp or a torch dancing upon armour. Booted feet shuffled away, and the shado ws merged with the deeper blackness. “Eyil,” he called, “Eyil!”
But he was all alone.
