Byzantium's Crown (32 page)

"Irene started the fire," he told the men. "But this time I almost had her."

"Storm the palace?" suggested Marcellinus. "With the Varangians under arrest, we can take anything she throws at us."

"Except magic. And for the second time in one night, my home will be turned into a slaughterhouse!" Marric snapped. "I will not have my name be a symbol for bloodbath. Caius, Irene would make living torches of your men. Truly, she exists only to destroy now."

Marric thought rapidly. "But if Irene learned the inner ways, I can too. If . . . yes. A small force might move fast and strike within the palace. To the temple!"

Above the roar of flame and the clamor of excited people in the forum, over the deep-voiced orders of soldiers trying to keep them away and unharmed, came the thunder of drums and a sharp music of horns and sistrums. Out from the Temple of Osiris came its priests. The high priest, wearing full regalia, led them. He extended his hands in a gesture much like the one Marric had used to control the fire.

Above his head appeared light that formed the manifestation of a giant hawk, sigil of Horus and the emperors. It rose and circled the forum three times. Then, after it had captured everyone's attention, it hovered over Marric's head and cast brilliant golden light upon him to reveal him to the crowd: weary, his face streaked with soot, his mantle scorched and smeared with ash and blood.

"Marric! Emperor!" The voices were joined by a rhythmic clatter of swords against shields as soldiers acclaimed him, too. In a minute they would escape from his control and attack the palace, bringing upon themselves the magical holocaust Marric dreaded.

"Let the crowd go to the palace, but restrain them!" he ordered Marcellinus. He heard his orders being relayed. "Then I want you, Nico, you men too—come with me!"

They ran up the stairs to the high priest.

"Irene used the inner ways to slip in and fire the shrine," Marric spoke fast. "She tried to kill me, damned near did, too. The inner ways, open them to us!"

Against the blasphemy of destroying one of the great centers of Isis worship, what was the lesser hubris of donning the mask of a god? The Osiris priest nodded assent. Marric thought he saw tears in the old man's eyes, then blamed it on the smoke from the ruined temple. There was no time for mourning: the old priest kept secrets. Marric needed, and was agreeing to reveal them.

"I shall lead you as far as I can," he said. "Prince, may the gods favor you in this, as in all else."

Marric passed again within the Temple of Osiris. This time the walls themselves opened to receive him.

The high priest led them through the temple and down winding, shallow stairs into the passages. At his urgent command they pressed against the right-hand wall. To their left the way dropped into the echoing darkness of a pit. At another turning, the priest counted the stone blocks, counted them again, and then pressed carefully the beak of a hawk carved in high relief.

As his companions passed, he gestured upward. High overhead, sharp-pointed spears lay ready to fall on any passing by without intimate knowledge of the ways.

These passages reminded Marric of Alexandria, which was to say, of a particularly large and lethal trap.

How many snares were there? Marric did not dare to ask. He had heard old tales of such places, and of traps that men too foolish to know when to keep silent might spring upon themselves.

Many such, said the priest in his mind. Order your people to keep close; blood should not be shed in here by accident.

Marric waved Marcellinus to move in closer. His two—no, three—guards followed. There was something strange about the third man-at-arms, whose mantle almost dragged along the ground. It was Daphne. What was she doing here?

Marric caught Nicephorus' arm and pointed.

You were so intent on following the priest that she escaped your eye. Nicephorus spoke mind to mind. Would you have left her alone in that mob?

Irritation at the girl nettled Marric, she will slow us; one of the men will have to look after her, but he dared not speak. Finally the priest stopped before a carved wall. When he touched various parts of the ideographs that covered it, a block slid aside.

"From here on, you may speak in safety," he whispered. "Through this passage lies the second level of the ways."

"You knew about her!" Marric accused.

"Daphne has a right to be in at the kill," said Nicephorus.

"This is not a hunt!"

"But it is," said the high priest. "You hunt along these tracks to punish the woman who has used unlawful sorcery. She has injured this child too. Let her decide now whether to go on or to turn back."

Marric beckoned to her. "Why, Daphne?" he asked.

Daphne pushed back her tangled hair. For the first time in Marric's acquaintance with her, she dared to meet his eyes. "Prince, you come because you must. These loyal men come with you. Nicephorus comes because he is wise and will never leave you. I am not wise, not very brave—but, oh, master, I loved her too!"

Marric nodded, acknowledging Daphne's claim. When he closed in final challenge with Irene, there should be one witness who was motivated by love, and by love alone.

Caius Marcellinus hissed in impatience. "This is a ridiculous strike force!"

"As the priest says," Marric answered, "we are not a strike force. We are a hunt."

"I will keep up," Daphne promised.

The high priest beckoned them on.

Here the stonework shone with the same light that Marric had seen in the chamber that held the sarcophagus of his aborted attempt at initiation. The light unmarred by shadow daunted him.

"We are nowhere near," the priest reassured him in an undertone.

"Does Irene know these ways?"

"I would be surprised if she did. Many of our walls can be changed. How she learned the inner ways leading to the Temple of Isis I know not; the dark goddess must have revealed them to her. We have all become too slack. Who would ever have thought that the temples must defend themselves against the palace?"

Marric thought of the Greeks who ruled long before the empire was ever formed. Draco had made no laws against the slaying of parents because he thought it a crime too hideous for humans to perform. Like the priests he had been overly trusting.

"This place is warded," Nicephorus whispered. "Feel the power!"

They descended flight after flight of stairs and passed through chambers lined with stones. These levels might be places of study and access to the palace. They were also an efficient line of defense. Marcellinus nodded appreciatively.

"This is a labyrinth," he noted. "I think we have walked a distance much greater than that from the temple to the palace." He waved at his men and at Daphne. "Stay together. Fall behind, and you may wander forever." Fear roughened his voice. Marric could well understand it. What would Caius do against the watcher? Probably no better than he. Marric would be very glad, he decided, to exchange these light-filled passages for honest stone.

By now the regiments and the crowd would have followed the hawk sigil to the palace. Marric could visualize the scene: night paling toward dawn, the golden hawk swooping over the walls, and far below, subjects held barely in check by soldiers loyal to him.

Fierce gladness filled him as he thought of Irene's execution. Both Nicephorus and the priest winced; Daphne looked up in sudden alarm. Some quality in the air or the light down here must intensify thoughts and emotions for those sensitive to them, Marric decided. His emotions burned hotter here the violence of his feelings caused the adepts pain. Then Daphne must have marginal sensitivities, too! He could not consider that.

Power, Marric concluded, created its own backlash. An important lesson for him to learn. He himself would be the backlash for Irene.

They had reached the end of the light-filled corridors and come up against a wall of roughly hewn gray stone.

"Here our defenses end," said the priest. "You will find torches on the other side of this slab. Keep to the right, always to the right, and walk carefully. When faced with a turning, take every third right upward. Nicephorus, do not summon light. Instead, use a torch."

The soldiers, followed by Nicephorus and Daphne, knelt for the priest's blessing. Before he realized, Marric was kneeling, too. Thin hands clasped his temples in a gesture more fierce than the conventional laying-on of hands in benediction. Knowledge of the path ahead entered Marric's mind. He could guide his people into the palace, assuming nothing blocked their way.

The high priest activated the wall mechanism. The stone ground aside slowly, as if long unused. The narrow opening revealed only blackness.

"Daphne, do you come with us?"

Daphne stepped forward into the darkness before the others. She lifted a torch down from the rack she found, and lit it with the flint lying nearby.

When six torches bobbed in the corridor, the priest raised his hand to bless them again. His face, serene against the white light, was the last thing they saw before the stone slab moved back into place. Then they turned toward the palace.

"What a spot for a fight!" Marcellinus commented. "Ten men at the head of this stair could hold off a regimental wing for hours."

"I do not think Irene has the regiment or ten men to throw at us," Marric said. He started up the first of the many stairways ahead. Three landings, then a turn to the right. Three more flights upward, then right again. It was like climbing through a shell, Marric thought. He halted abruptly. Here the air seemed thicker and fouler. The torch he carried flared, then guttered close to extinction. Now it gave off a graveside glow that drew an answering light from moss on the rotten wood that shored up the walls. Like that dungeon, Marric thought.

"Careful of the air here," said Marric.

"I have patrolled the mines, lord," one of the men spoke up. "This is not—" He screamed, a sound that exploded into a gurgle as he clutched his throat and staggered around the curve of the stairs. Then he fell. His torch dropped like a pale meteor beside him into the pit beside the stairs.

"What made him fall?"

Nicephorus paused beside Marric and extended his own torch. It burnt on unchanged. So did Daphne's. The light, extending out to several feet, showed only one side of the passageway was walled. They walked a winding shelf along a high cliff, it seemed. Daphne dropped her too long cloak and kilted up her skirts.

Keeping close to Nicephorus, Marric ventured up the last few stairs to stand on a narrow walk. A frail bridge arched across an unfathomable gap.

"Quickly." If they stopped to think what might have turned the air foul, what had killed the arms man, they might fall themselves. Marcellinus coughed rackingly. The air was getting worse.

Marric crossed first, followed by Nicephorus. Marric turned and held out a hand to Daphne. He found himself aiding a soldier. He was followed by the second man, then by Marcellinus.

Had Daphne panicked again?

She shook her head. Neither the foul air or vertigo affected her as they had the men. Her torch still burned bravely. Stepping onto the narrow walkway, she balanced as easily as a bazaar urchin walking an orchard wall that separates him from the fruit he wants to steal.

Good girl! Having lit the men's ways, she waited to cross until she was sure of their safety.

Then Marric heard a cracking, as of stone giving way.

"Daphne, quick!" His hand dug into her arm just as the bridge collapsed in on itself. The light from Daphne's torch cast long shadows as it fell.

"Cloaks over your heads," gasped Marcellinus.

Marric gagged at the smell of something dead and long decaying. He steadied Daphne and considered. She was motivated only by love, and did not suffer from the foul air. Nicephorus too appeared untroubled. Whatever it was, it attacked selectively. It was not real in the same way that the soldier it killed had been real: it was a lethal and highly effective sorcery.

Around Marric the air grew fouler and fouler until he collapsed, gasping, on his knees. He grew angry, and his mind whitened almost to unconsciousness. He could not breathe, he was falling, falling into a pit like the man they had lost on the stairs . . .

Nicephorus caught him and held him hard.

"Don't fight it, Mor. Think!"

Think of what? A stinking hold where slaves lay tangled together and a prince had been thrown in among them, had struggled then, too, until Nicephorus had befriended him. A comforting thing to think of. Nico was no warrior; yet he had survived initiation, whereas one bout with the watcher left Marric sick. Strength. Nico had strength enough to adapt and to accept. Stephana too had possessed that sort of strength.

He too—had he not vowed over her body to cease challenging the powers?

Marric drew a deep, shuddering breath. For one moment—sheer indulgence before the real fighting started—he let his head rest against Nicephorus' shoulder. He could hear Daphne's breathy, tremulous voice urging Marcellinus and his men "easy . . . steady now . . . " The priest had been right to refer to the chase through the secret ways as a hunt: as with most hunts, the most patient, not the strongest, were frequently the most successful.

Marric rose gingerly to his feet. To his surprise he still held a torch, had apparently tightened his grip on it as he fell in the same way any man falling from a height will claw loose pebbles and stalks of weeds. He raised the torch over his head and it woke into rich, golden flame.

"Come on," he urged.

The stair turned several more times before walls rose. At the end of a long, straight flight of stairs loomed a door. Nicephorus reached it first and pushed. The door opened only enough to admit a narrow beam of light. Marric saw his companions' faces: Nicephorus, as keen as if he hunted his quarry over a sunlit field; Daphne, the timidity in her expression gone forever; Marcellinus and his surviving man, haggard with the strain that he too felt.

"Stand back, Nico, Daphne. If we put our shoulders to that door, we should be able to move it."