Xet chimed and landed on top of the rocky frame holding the gate. The tiny construct slapped the door with its long tail. A dull gong tolled out across the misty expanse.
Kiril motioned Raidon forward. 'Present your amulet to the doors. Angul would serve, but I prefer to keep him sheathed.'
Raidon blinked, but he pulled forth the forget-me-not his mother-Erunyauv? — had given him. He displayed it before the sealed doorway. Nothing happened. He stepped forward another pace and touched the amulet to the lackluster iron.
Blue light sparked from amulet to gate. Stones danced and skittered down the slope as the entire beach shuddered. With an ear-splitting groan, the iron door swung wide, opening onto a shadowed, dusty stone stair descending into unguessed depths.
They entered Stardeep by a route rarely taken.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Stardeep, Underdungeon
The tunnel split, and split again as the company plunged into the warren of sedimentary rock that underlay Stardeep. The walls were smooth and white, possibly composed of salt and gypsum, but here and there patterns reminiscent of shells, bones, and teeth were picked out in the Knights' lantern light.
'Shall I send exploratory teams into these side passages?' asked the Knight Commander riding at Telarian's side.
'Not necessary,' replied Telarian. 'They are a distraction from the main route. And the openings are too small for a mounted company. We shall continue along this broad way. We need to make good time in order to catch our opponents as far from Stardeep as possible.' More accurately, as far from Delphe's influence as possible, he mentally added. He continued aloud, 'Perhaps we'll make it through to the other end. If we can catch our quarry in Sild?yuir, all the better.'
Thindhul, the Knight Commander, awkward in his new authority and betraying a nervous shiver unseemly for his station, said, 'How far did you say?'
Telarian frowned. The Commander knew better than to repeat such an insipid question. The passages that perforated the ground below Stardeep were a mystery; they were not delved by Stardeep's architects, but were discovered only after foundations of the dungeon created to hold the Traitor were mostly complete. Their existence was a surprise, given that the land into which Stardeep was cut was assumed to be virginal, untouched earth called into existence at the same time as the rest of Sild?yuir. If the land beneath Stardeep was riddled with caverns, might the earth below Sild?yuir be as well? And what primeval race left those caverns behind?
Past exploration showed that at least two routes stretched between Stardeep's underdungeon and Sild?yuir's outermost edge. Every Keeper knew this much. Unfortunately, nothing more than a couple of incomplete maps remained from those original mapping expeditions. Plus a few oddly conflicting stories about the hazardous nature of the creatures who hunted the dim paths.
No one doubted that traveling the ancient tunnels was risky. Every so often, an enterprising Knight, eager to win a wager or make a name for herself among her squad, would venture into the enigmatic white-walled passages. Often enough, the foolish Knight was never seen again-for which reason the tunnels were forbidden. The restriction only heightened the allure among those already drawn to danger and derring-do. Expeditions of the foolish still launched into the tunnels every few years. Those lucky enough to return would tell tales more interesting than endless echoing tubes. These Knights would return bloodied and pale, babbling of haunting whispers echoing through smooth, endless galleries, great pyramids of living stone, and entities long dead when Sild?yuir was not yet conceived.
No one doubted that danger stalked the tunnels separating Sild?yuir from Stardeep. Great gates and a defender statue guarded Stardeep's flanks against intruders from the hoary past.
Against Angul, tunnel threats of the tunnels were likely to be less potent. Kiril might well decide to chance the passage, knowing few dangers could stand against her soul-forged steel.
Likewise, with Nis in hand, Telarian was confident he could win through to confront Kiril. Strictly speaking, he didn't need the entire mounted force of Empyrean Knights riding ahead of him. But that wasn't the only reason he'd commanded the Knights to accompany him.
You brought them in order to prevent Delphe from using them to hold Stardeep against you upon your return, should she learn of your hidden objectives, came Nis's emotionless voice directly into his mind.
True. It wouldn't do for the increasingly suspicious Delphe to sway credulous, virtuous Knights with her misunderstanding of Telarian's goals. This way, even if Delphe decided to thwart him, he commanded the stronger force. She'd have little chance to persuade their loyalties when they were already in the field. For all Cynosure's power, Delphe and the construct couldn't stand against the entire company of Empyrean Knights.
And if he gained Angul and Nis, even that wouldn't matter.
'Keeper!' spoke the Knight Commander, his tone terse.
A messenger afoot pressed along the line until she reached the side of the Knight Commander's horse.
The messenger was a Knight apprentice, a girl of no more than twenty, twenty-five years, he guessed. She said, 'We've come upon a wide space ahead, filled with ruins. A sorcerous wall prevents the vanguard from advancing.'
Telarian and the Knight Commander passed to the front of the column, a short journey in the narrow tunnel.
The Knight vanguard was arrayed before a flickering screen of green and gold, through which a wide cavern was visible. Past the distortion, Telarian glimpsed smooth-cut angles of black stone, broken arches, and the bases of columns whose heights were long crumbled.
From his saddle, he essayed a simple analytical spell. The screen was weak. And old. A wonder it still functioned. A barrier whose usefulness was concluded, except as a warning.
'Just push through,' commanded Telarian. 'It may feel unpleasant, but its ability to harm you is long spent.'
When Telarian's turn came to breach the barrier, shrieking wind assaulted his ears. The lantern light flared, then settled to normal. The diviner stumbled over a ridge in the white floor-an exposed, fossilized spine of some larger-than-elf creature.
Beyond the exposed spine, the tunnel opened into a wide enclosure whose white walls showed compacted seams of eons-preserved bone, layer upon layer.
'Is this a graveyard?' he heard one of the Knights ask in wondering tones.
Near the cavern's center leaned a pile of broken stone. Telarian's eyes scanned the heap and then turned up to the cavern's ceiling. A dark hole, like a mouth agape in pain, punctured the otherwise smooth surface. The wind screamed through the aperture, howling and abrading the room and its contents with a haze of airborne grit.
The only other exit from the chamber was a tall set of double doors sheeted in hammered, coppery metal.
'Best ignore the ceiling breach-we'd never get the horses up there,' yelled Telarian over the wind. He spurred his mount toward the doors. As he pulled up next to the exit, he was relieved to confirm they were sufficiently high and wide enough to permit two Knights to ride abreast. If he could open them. Rusty stains decorated the metallic surface of the doors where latches might have once protruded.
He reached out one hand and gave the left door an experimental push. Unyielding. He dismounted, grasped Nis with his offhand, and tried again.
Nis pulsed in his grip. Blade-sent geometries, dark and subtle, flared behind his eyes. A logic born of emotionless calculation bent his mind and suffused his body. Mere mortality was suppressed, and his musculature pulsed with certainty. He placed his hand again upon the door and stove it from its hinges. The other door fell as quickly.
Beyond was a natural bore through stone. The passage was basalt, but the walls were streaked with the same white stone as the previous tunnels. The same strata of ancient death lay compacted amid those pale
