“There was a stairway over there. We must have gone a mile down into the earth.”
“You carried thirty-five unconscious people down there and got back in time to get away from the evening shadows? Without killing yourself?”
“Catcher did most of it. She has a spell that makes things float through the air. We roped the people together and pulled them along like a string of sausages. She did the pulling, actually. I stayed on the uphill end. More or less. At first. Because the stair has some twists and turns. We had trouble getting them around the corners. But a lot less trouble than if we’d carried them one at a time.”
I nodded. I knew of other instances when Catcher had used the same sorcery. Seemed like a handy one to have. We could use it right here, right now, to hoist my future buddy Shivetya.
Curious. Once upon a time Murgen said that name meant “Deathless,” although more recently I had been given the meaning “Steadfast Guardian.” But I had been provided with whole new sets of creation myths and whatnot, too.
I fought off an urge to charge off and plunge down the stairway right then. I hustled back to talk it over with the others. Most of the crowd were preoccupied with an effort to get Shivetya’s throne turned right side up by the power of talking about it. Suvrin told me, “It’s a way to keep warm.” And a way to work off some tension, no doubt. I heard plenty of traditional-style grumbling questioning the intelligence of any leader who wanted to play around with something like that great ugly thing over there on that throne.
I gathered everyone interested. “Swan knows the way down to the caverns. His memory is getting better all the time.” Goblin and One-Eye preened. I gave them no chance to congratulate themselves publicly. “I’m going down there to scout. I want the rest of you to get camp set up. I want you to work out specifically how we’ll divide up tomorrow so the majority can scoot on across the plain to safety.” We had discussed this time and again how we could break up the party, leaving the minimum number of people with the maximum stores to bring out the Captured while the rest moved on to, it was hoped, a more congenial clime.
Doj’s position, so perfectly rational, was that we should ignore the Captured until we had crossed the plain, had gotten ourselves established in the Land of Unknown Shadows, and were capable of mounting a more thoroughly prepared and supplied expedition. But none of us knew what we would face at that end of this passage, and way too many of us were emotionally incapable of walking away from our brothers again now that we were this close.
I should have gotten more information out of Murgen while we still had some flexibility. Time was winnowing our options rapidly.
Sahra’s response to Uncle’s repeating his suggestion was blistering enough to melt lead. She might be reluctant to have her husband back but she was not going to delay any crisis.
Swan leaned over my shoulder and whispered, “If you hang around here waiting for all these people to agree on something, we’re going to get very old and very hungry before anything happens.”
The man had a point. A definite point.
83
I got my daily constitutional in before we reached the stairway. I began to appreciate just how vast the hall at the heart of that fortress was. My party dwindled into the distance. I observed, “This thing has got to be a mile across.”
“Almost exactly. It’s a few yards under, according to Soulcatcher. I don’t know why. I wish we had a torch. I saw patterns in the flooring last time I was here, when there wasn’t quite so much dust, but she wouldn’t let me waste time looking at them.”
There was a lot of dust. There had been none outside. The plain tolerated nothing alien except the corpses of invaders, evidently. Even here, we had yet to discover any sign of the animals or equipment that had accompanied the Captured south.
“How much farther?”
“Almost there. Watch for a drop-off.”
“A drop-off?”
“A step down. It’s only about eighteen inches but you could break a leg if it surprises you. I turned an ankle last time.”
We found the drop-off. I stopped to look back once I stepped down. All sorts of genius was being invested in the assignments I had given. Closer, Sahra and the Radisha and several others to whom I had not given specific assignments had decided to follow me. I said, “You’re right. It does look like there’re some kind of inlays. If we have time, maybe we can take a closer look.” I considered the edge of the stone. “This curves. And it’s polished.”
“That part of the floor is a circle. And it’s almost exactly one-eightieth of the diameter of the plain. According to Soulcatcher. The raised part where the demon’s throne used to sit is one-eightieth the size of this.”
“That’s probably got to mean something. It have anything to do with the Captured?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Then we’ll worry about it later.”
“The stairs start over here.”
They did indeed, right next to the wall. The crack in the floor had extended clear through that. The wall’s partial collapse had filled the gap there, then the material from the wall had been pushed back up as the fissure healed itself.
The stairs simply started. There was a rectangular hole in the floor. Steps went down, roughly paralleling the outer wall, away from the crack in the floor, which had healed almost completely. There was no handrail.
Twenty steps down we reached a landing eight feet by eight. The descending steps led off from our right. This flight appeared to go downward forever. Faint light crept up it, just strong enough so you could see where to put your feet.
Sahra and the Radisha had caught up close enough that I could hear them talking without being able to pick up specific words. Both women sounded frightened by the immediate future.
I could sympathize. I was nervous about achieving my life’s ambition myself. Just a little.
“You want to go first?” Swan asked. He lacked considerable enthusiasm, I thought.
“Are there booby traps or something?”
“No. She probably wanted to, just in case somebody passed this way someday, just for the sheer mean fun of it, but there wasn’t enough time. She piddled around so much, for so long, I didn’t really believe we’d ever get away. I’m sure we wouldn’t have if she hadn’t been who she was. She spun spells that chased the shadows away. She’d been in there before. And she’d practiced.”
“There it is!”
“What?”
“Nothing. Just remembering something.” Stupid me. All those years I wondered how Swan and Soulcatcher had found time to bury the Captured without getting gobbled up by shadows and I had overlooked the obvious, the fact that Soulcatcher was a major sorceress and already had some experience manipulating shadows. You can be screamingly blind to the obvious if you don’t realize that you have not opened up all the doors of your mind.
Forgive me, O Lord of the Hours. Be Merciful. Be Compassionate. I shall close the borders of my soul as soon as my brothers are free.
At this point Swan had no incentive to steer me into danger. I started downstairs.
The architects, engineers and stonemasons responsible had not been determined to achieve geometric perfection. Though this portion of the stairwell continued downward in a specific general direction, it tended to meander from side to side of a straight line. Nor were the steps of a uniform height. The builders had been thoughtful enough to provide landings every little way, though. I had a feeling those would seem to be miles apart once I started climbing up again.
“If we have to bring One-Eye down here, we’re going to have to carry him back up. He won’t survive the climb otherwise.”
“You might want to organize what you’re going to do before we go down there, then.”
“I can’t decide what has to be done until I see what I’m dealing with.”
