Darkened Blade: A Fallen Blade Novel (22 page)

“I don’t blame you for not understanding, Triss. I have done everything I can to avoid understanding it myself. I have a choice that I cannot avoid short of death, and whichever way I choose it will shatter me.”

“I could decide for you,” the Lady said, very quietly.

“What?” I whipped my head up to look at her.

“You say that the decision will unmake you no matter which way you choose. Namara was my friend. I supported her goals if not always her methods. I have lived as long as our race, and there are many weights on my soul. One more will not break me, even one so great as this. You were dear to Namara and she would not have seen you destroy yourself if it were possible to avoid it. In service to our old friendship, I offer myself as a proxy for your fallen goddess. If you ask it of me, I will decide the thing for you. You have but to say the word and I will bear the weight in your stead. . . .”

“N
o.”

One word, and a tiny one at that, but when I spoke it then, it carried the weight of ten thousand dead souls.

“No,” I repeated myself. “I cannot accept your offer, however much I am tempted by it.”

“Why not?” The Lady of Leivas leaned forward a few barely perceptible fractions of an inch.

“Because the responsibility is mine. It has
always
been mine. Though I didn’t understand it when I killed Ashvik all those years ago, you cannot transfer the responsibility for your actions to another, no matter how much you might wish to. The goddess sent us here and there, telling us to kill this one and spare that one, but she never refused a Blade who asked to retire, and she never used her power to bend us to her will.”

The Lady nodded. “Go on.”

“I could have refused to kill Ashvik. I could have walked away from the order at any time. Every life that I have ended,
I
have ended. It doesn’t matter that I was raised for the purpose, the core of the credo of the goddess was ever and
always that the great and the powerful must be held to account for their actions. Though I am not great, I am among the powerful, and no one else can answer for what I have done.”

“You have said that the choice will unmake you. . . .” said the Lady.

“It will, but I have been unmade before, when the temple fell. I am a weaker man now than I was before my ruin, but also, I think, a better one. I don’t know what will emerge on the other side of this decision, but it will be
mine
.”

“And if the goddess were resurrected tomorrow and gave you an order one way or the other?”

“I have longed for that with my whole heart, but it’s not possible. Even if it were . . .” I shrugged. “It would change nothing. I would still have to make the choice and own the responsibility. The choice to accept another’s command, even the command of a goddess, does not come with an exemption from my conscience.”

She nodded now. “Very good, child. Very good indeed. You, too, have learned some little of wisdom in the time you have walked under the sun. I think your goddess would have been very proud of that.”

“I . . . thank you.” It hurt my heart to hear that—in a good way, a healing way. “Was this a test?”

“Every choice is a test, child. But you know that. You said it yourself when you said, ‘you cannot transfer the responsibility for your actions to another, no matter how much you might wish to.’ Yes, this was a test. But I am not the judge, you are and always have been.”

I took a deep breath and felt the weight of her words settle around my shoulders. “I needed to hear that.”

“Then I am glad to have said it. Now that you have forced yourself to see that no one else can make the choice for you, do you know what your decision will be?”

I thought about it and, finally, shook my head. “No more than I did when I came here, but at least I finally know what it really means to make it.” I took a last sip of my water. “Is that why you called me here?”

“Perhaps it is, though I didn’t know it beforehand. You are the soul-child of Namara, one of my oldest friends, and you were heartsore. I did not lie when I told you that seeing those we love reflected in those they leave behind is grace enough for me to want to see you. That I could do some small thing that eased your turmoil as she would have wished . . . well, that is a rarer gift. The dead leave the world, but they never leave our hearts. You have given me a chance to do a service to the Namara who lives in mine, and for that I owe you thanks.”

“I . . . there’s really nothing more to say between us, is there? Nothing but good-bye.”

“Only this: go with my blessing.” The dome of the huge pearl lifted behind her and began to close.

“Thank you, Lady. I hope I see you again someday.”

She smiled, but didn’t speak as the pearl finished closing and sank into the depths.

Oh, my Aral, I’m so sorry.

You have nothing to apologize for, my oldest and dearest friend. The situation is none of your making.
A long mental silence followed as I rose and headed back for the cave.

Just as I stepped off the floating pier, Triss spoke again.
What will we do?

I don’t know, Triss. I really don’t.
I paused then as the beginnings of an idea occurred to me.
There is no decision that will not unmake me, but perhaps, knowing that, I can at least choose which is the best way to be unmade.

Triss didn’t answer.

*   *   *

“Where
have you been?” Faran asked quietly. Alone of those I had left behind she was awake when I returned.

“A visit with the Lady of Leivas.”

“She’s real?”

I nodded.

“What was she like?” asked Faran. “What did she tell you?”

“Nothing that I want to share right now.” Faran looked stung, and I held up a hand. “I’m sorry, it was very personal.
But if I ever do share it with anyone, you will be the first to hear it. Now, I need more rest.” I hung up my swords, pulled myself back into the hammock, and was asleep in moments.

*   *   *

Heaven’s
Reach.

It took us weeks to get there, but they were largely uneventful. Whether that was because the Lady asserted her will over the waters and broke our trail for the risen, or simply the natural effect of wild water on the undead, I couldn’t say. Whatever the reason, we encountered no problems while we traveled by boat down from Leivas to the edge of the waste and thence back up the River Dan to the Almarn Mountains.

The Almarn range is much lower and gentler than the Spine of Hurn and we were able to cross over into Öse without too many problems even so late in the season. From there, we worked our way down through the foothills and entered the valley that held the temple kingdom from the northwest. Patrols were light on that side and we encountered none of the undead, suggesting that the Son of Heaven had concentrated his forces to the south and east as we had hoped that he would.

Right after we crossed the border we waylaid a half-dozen soldiers wearing the livery of Heaven’s Sword so that Kelos could test the efficacy of the measures he had taken to free himself of the chains of geas. He killed two and pronounced himself satisfied, though I thought I detected the faintest hint of worry in his voice when he spoke. Or I may just be fooling myself when I think that I have finally begun to learn to read him.

The bodies we consigned to the everdark, though we salvaged their gear and uniforms. This close to the temple city, I felt little enough in the way of pity for them. Still, we didn’t
have
to kill them, and I know they will ultimately weigh against me when I face the lords of judgment. But then, I have known for a very long time that my next life
will be one of suffering. Perhaps my next several lives—I have much to answer for.

Kelos led us onward to the city then, taking hidden paths that he had scouted out long ago, and bringing us undetected to his carefully concealed fallback. He was Kelos, and his plans had revolved around the Son of Heaven for more years than I had lived, so the location and preparation were perfect.

Rather than co-opt a space in some structure made by man, and have to deal with the potential hazards of unexpected renovation or other chance exposing a hidey-hole he intended to use for decades, he had bored a deep cave in the bluffs above the city. There he had hidden the entrance beneath an overhanging shelf of rock and built a counterweighted stone door. The mechanism allowed it to pivot outward only when two of Namara’s swords were shoved full length into crevices in the stone and levered just so in the same moment that a Shade slipped into the depths and tripped a complex catch.

“I hadn’t planned on having to house so many for any length of time,” he whispered, as he strained to move the block—it was designed so that even with the counterweights, it would take someone as strong as Kelos to move it from the outside. “We’ll run short of supplies if we stay more than a few weeks, though we should have room enough and more.” He sheathed his swords. “Now, move smartly, the door closes by itself after a few seconds.”

Suiting action to words, he extended his arms in front of him and slid face-first into the black gullet of the cave. At my wave, Roric went next, followed by Maryam, and the others, with me playing the part of the last duckling. The door was already slowly closing when I launched myself into the opening. The space beyond was narrow, and low, barely larger than a crawlway. The floor had been polished to a fine degree and it angled steeply downward to make something that was much more of a chute than a tunnel. I quickly found myself picking up speed as I slid along.

It reminded me unpleasantly of a trip the Durkoth had sent me on just a few short months before, during the matter of the Smoldering Flame. Then, too, I had been sliding through stone and darkness on a trip to someplace unknown, though this one turned out much shorter—perhaps seventy feet in all—and the darkness didn’t last. Right before its end, the angle of the chute shallowed and then reversed itself, so that I came to a stop a few feet short of the opening. From there it was a short scramble up into the main cave.

Someone had opened a bright magelantern by that time, and I used the light to examine the structure of the chute. Hand and footholds were carved into deep channels along the sides, making a ladder to climb back up without ruining the slide effect coming in. I hadn’t noticed them on my way down because of a raised lip similar to what you would find on a children’s slide between the sliding surface and the handholds.

The hideaway was enormous, a barrel-vaulted space perhaps fifteen feet across by fifty long, with the floor entrance near the middle of one side. With only the one magelight to provide illumination at the moment, the ends of the vault were in deep shadow. It reminded me of the sort of cellar you might find under the palace at Dan Eyre, or one of the main channels in the sewers of Tien, not a one-man fallback. Even stranger, I couldn’t see the mark of a single tool. Every surface looked as smooth and polished as the flat of a finely wrought sword. Where there
were
edges, like around the lip of the slide by which we had entered, they were carefully rounded and almost organic looking.

“This is Durkoth work,” I said. “The stone was persuaded rather than mined.” I ran a hand along the wall and couldn’t feel the slightest irregularity. “It wasn’t done by one of their lesser craftspeople, either. I’ve never seen stone shaped so neatly. And this place is huge!”

Kelos nodded. “I once salvaged the honor of an Uthudor. The details aren’t important, but the result is that he owed me a very serious debt. This was how he repaid me.”

Note that he speaks of the Durkoth in the past tense,
sent
Triss.
Somehow I don’t think that Uthudor lived on to betray the secret of this place to anyone after he finished making it.

I wish that I could disagree.
I didn’t particularly like any of the Durkoth I’d ever met, but the idea reminded me too much of all those rulers who’d built themselves vast tombs and then killed the workers they’d employed to prevent them from revealing the location to potential grave robbers.

Kelos pointed to our right. “There’s a privy through a thick stone door down at that end of the vault. Opening it creates a pretty stiff breeze, since it has its own airshaft to draw out the stink. Another shaft voids the contents into a fast moving underground river.” Next, he pointed left. “There’s a small sleeping cubicle up at that end. Also, a bathing chamber that draws its water from the same river, though well upstream, of course. It takes a while to fill, and longer to heat, but we’ll have baths as we need them. That’s where the rabbit run is, under a stone grate.”

“Where does it go?” asked Triss.

“Into the river,” replied Kelos. “It’s a rough, cold ride, but about a mile after you hit the water there’s a ledge on the left bank and a shaft that leads up to a one-way hatch onto the surface.”

“Nice setup,” said Siri. “Though it seems a bit sparsely furnished for the size.” There were a couple of chairs, a small table, and what looked like it might be another magelight lamp by the door to the sleeping cubicle, but not much else.

“I knew I’d be spending weeks at a time here over the course of years, and I wanted plenty of space to train and stay in shape. Speaking of which, all you need do is say the word . . .” He pointed upward and spoke a simple spell of opening, sending a rope of silver light to touch the center of the ceiling where it split in two and slithered away along the stone surface in the manner of bubbles flowing through a poisoner’s still. In the wake of the twinned lines, a row of tiny bronze shutters that ran the entire length of the vault overhead opened, revealing strong magelights and flooding the room with a pure golden light. “. . . and instant dojo.”

“It’ll be good to have a chance to train properly again,” said Faran, “though I imagine the stone floor is going to produce some spectacular bruises. Where are all your supplies?”

“There’s a trapdoor in the floor near the latrine with various tools of the trade stored below—targets, pells, magical gear, etc. It’s designed to double as a bottle dungeon, should we need one. There’s another just like it up by the sleeping cubicle. There’s food in that one in big earthen jars, and plenty of blankets and the like. Speaking of which, there’s only the one actual bed, but we can rig up a couple of hammocks easily enough for those who prefer not to sleep on rugs or mats. That’s what I intend to do, since the sleeping cubicle goes to our First Blade.”