Days of High Adventure (5 page)

The woman threw her shovel to the guard and then started walking toward the collapsed mine shaft.
Numbly, Eric walked after her. His gaze was fixed on the shapely, powerful legs and hips of his savior.

Wo
rk at the bottom of the tunnel continued at a feverish pitch despite the fight up on the surface. Most of the obstructing rubble from the cave-in had been cleared away. As Eric heard the overseers say in the morning, the diggers in this shaft broke through to walls of stone blocks, all of them adorned with carvings and etchings of snakes. They had begun clearing away the rocks and dirt that obscured the walls when the ceiling caved in on them.

The camp
, Eric learned, wasn’t digging for minerals. It was an excavation. All the shafts were dug in search of whatever building included this wall. Rather than digging down to the thing from the surface, though, the robed men wanted the earth around it cleared away so that the structure would remain underground.

“Most of this fell away on its own,” Tronus said, waving to the space between the stonework wall and the natural walls of the cave. “We lost eleven miners in this.”

“Set demands sacrifice for these discoveries,” one robed man said.

“Up there,” another robed man in the tunnel said, waving to the top of the underground wall. “We need more of that cleared out up there. We may find an entrance up above. Get some of your people up there.”

“We’ll need ladders,” Tronus said.

“Then get them!”

“We’re working on it,” Tronus answered. “They have to be put together down here. We can’t get tall ladders down the tunnels. In the meantime we finish clearing away rubble.”

“In the meantime you
waste
time,” scowled the robed man. “You there! You! You! Get up there! Get up there and clear away the roof! Climb! Climb!”

The miners grimaced at one another, but set to climbing the wall before Tronus
got his whip out. The dozen or so present tried to climb the wall, doing their best to find purchase among the carvings of runes and serpents. All found the wall much too steep. All except two.

Eric hardly even thought of the difficulty at first. He merely hoped to avoid Tronus
’s wrath. Yet he found himself one foot up off the ground, and then another. The footwear he’d just fought so hard to defend offered some advantage, but the climb was still a challenge. He managed to work his way into tiny, minor grooves and bumps in the wall as he pushed and pulled himself further up.

“About time you were good for something, whelp!” Tronus shouted from below.

Eric didn’t stop to look. It wasn’t as if praise from Tronus made his work any more pleasant. Yet he thrilled to his achievement. He had never climbed anything more than a tree or a chain link fence, and not even that since middle school.

A hand gripped his wrist at the top of the wall. He took advantage of the offered aid, pushing himself up over to come to a rest at the top of the wall. He found, as he expected, that the stone blocks making up the wall were several feet thick. It
provided enough space to crouch down and catch his breath.

“Thanks,” he grunted.

“You climb almost as well as one of my people,” said the woman crouched down beside him.

Eric blinked as he raised his head.
He found the smiling face of the woman who’d just come to his rescue. She’d beaten him to the top.

“Thanks for that, too, I guess,” Eric huffed. “I didn’t know I
could do it.”

“Maybe you’ve got some
blood of the North in you, then.” She clapped him on the shoulder with a strong hand. “Though you have the look of the people of the jungles to the east.”

Eric’s eyes flared for an instant.
No
, he reminded himself,
that’s not a slam. She isn’t stereotyping. She doesn’t even know. None of them know.

“
I had thought you a weakling when you first turned up,” she continued, “but you seem to be getting along fine now.”

“Why did you help me? Up there, in the fight?”

“You didn’t back down before those men, even if they were more than you could handle on your own. Not many here stand up for themselves.” The woman shrugged. “You could stand to learn to handle yourself better, but at least you have some guts. I’d hate to be the only one around here who isn’t a coward.”

“Hey!” Tronus shouted. “I don’t hear any work up there! Just because you’re out of reach of my whip now doesn’t mean you’ll escape it later!”

“You sent us up here without any tools!” the woman called back. “Shall we throw rocks down to you?” At that, the woman hefted a rough stone the size of her head up in one hand and tossed it over the edge. She laughed as Tronus barked at her to stop, dropping two more over the side before she obeyed. “There isn’t enough room to swing a pick yet,” she said. “Toss us some chisels and hammers.”

Eric looked down as Tronus and the robed men barked orders at the other miners, trying to scrounge up the tools
while they got the other slaves back to work. “This should be good for a laugh,” muttered the woman.

“Who are you?” Eric asked.

“Fallon. You?”

“My name’s Eric.
Where are you from?” Her thick accent and the wild look in her eyes had him intrigued.

“
From the far north,” she said, grinning with a bit of pride. “Don’t let the collar fool you. I can slip out of here whenever I please. These fools can’t hold a daughter of the hills if she wishes to leave.” She watched a chisel fly up toward them, but didn’t bother to reach for it as it fell short.

“Then why are you here?”

“I’m watching for someone,” Fallon shrugged. “One of my tribe. I expect he may land here himself soon enough.”

Remembering the tall, dying man from Bel-Danab’s summoning room, Eric swallowed hard.
The wizard had said something about replacing a northern barbarian. “Is he, um… is he tall? Like me?”

“
Yes, I suppose.” Fallon caught a chisel that finally came up within reach. “Most of my people are.”

Eric frowned. He wondered if he had bad news to deliver.

“I don’t know your accent,” Fallon said. She handed him the chisel, along with the hammer that followed. “Where are you from?”

“A place called Seattle.”

“Never heard of that, either,” Fallon grunted. Once she had tools of her own, she turned away, keeping her head low as she crawled over to a crevasse between the cave and the wall. It gave Eric a rear view of her shapely hips and well-muscled legs, with her dirty tunic covering enough to leave him dying to see more. “Best get to work. That overseer knows better than to try to whip me. If he suspects we’re dallying, he’ll surely take it out on you.”

Eric glanced around and looked for a decent place to
work. He started to grin. He was happy to find someone friendly to talk to; most everyone else around here was either a brow-beaten slave or a callous guard. Fallon’s confidence was certainly infectious, too. From the moment he’d woken up in Bel-Danab’s dungeon, Eric had resolved to find a way out of this mess. As he worked beside Fallon, though, he found the difference between resolve and hope.

***

Warm summer rains swept through the city that night, falling so thick that little could be seen beyond the tower walls. Over the weeks since Amanda arrived, she had developed the impression that very little rain fell in this land. Yet here it was, pounding the tower so hard that it could be heard even through the stone walls.

Amanda climbed the long spiral staircase that led to the top of the tower as she had been instructed. She spent the
last couple hours since sunset shelving books—at least as far as Yaol needed to know. In truth, “shelving” involved an awful lot of reading. But then came the guard, conveying orders to go to the roof.

By the time she reached the trap door at the top of the stairs, the rain stopped. She knocked twice, then thrice, all as she had been instructed. She knew full well that this was the trigger to unlock the magical seal on the door. Yaol hadn’t
told her that, but his books and personal notes explained everything.

As she emerged from the trap door onto the roof, she found Yaol, Randast and their master gathered around a wide bowl. It was at least ten feet across and as deep as a bathtub at its center, judging from its external shape. To look within the water, though, one would think
it reached far deeper.

Amanda glanced around the roof, trying to take it all in. A short parapet, perhaps a yard tall, surrounded the rooftop, with glowing orbs embedded here and there to provide dim light. Bel-Danab and Randast stood on opposite sides of the bowl,
their robes and hair perfectly dry despite the fact that everything around them was soaked. The gem in Bel-Danab’s staff glowed with a bright red light. Yaol was there, too; unlike his master, he dripped with water...and blood.

Chained to posts next to Yaol was a naked man
—Amanda recognized him as one of the cooks—with his throat slashed from ear to ear. Her horrified gasp announced her presence to the three wizards. Yaol held a bloody, curved knife. He raised one finger of his other hand, also covered in blood, to his lips as he looked at Amanda. The wild look in his eyes conveyed his love for his work.

“Is there any other
appropriate time to enact the ritual?” asked Bel-Danab.

“No,”
rumbled an unseen voice. Amanda saw ripples spread out from the center of the pool that overwhelmed the smaller ripples caused by the falling rain. “You must wait until the last days of summer. Only then will the stars be right.”

“Is the sacrifice appropriate?” he asked, gesturing to Amanda without even looking at her.

“Your sacrifice is appropriate now, yes,” answered the voice. Amanda’s heart began to pound with fear. “A less pure sacrifice will be unacceptable.”

Amanda swallowed. She didn’t like the sound of that at all.

“What opposition remains?”

“Powers in
Korystos and Manand know of your intent,” answered the waters. “Wizards in other city-states suspect, but those two are closest.”

“Do they plot against me?”

“Yes.”

Bel-Danab nodded. His gaze lifted from the bowl, leveling now on Randast. “We shall have to settle that soon.”

“Of course, master,” Randast nodded.

Bel-Danab raised his staff over the waters with a flourish.
His voice took on a smug note as he said, “I release you, ancient one.” With that, Bel-Danab gestured to his favored apprentice to follow as he walked to the trap door. Both of them passed by Amanda without a word.

Shaken, Amanda looked to Yaol with genuinely fearful eyes. He wip
ed off his dagger on the soaking wet hair of the dead man chained up beside him. “Clean this up,” Yaol said casually. He then put the dagger back in its sheath on his belt and walked across the rooftop.

“You mean him?” Amanda blinked. Her voice wavered.

“It’s just a body,” Yaol said, waving a dismissive hand. “Oh. Here. The keys to his manacles,” he said, placing a key ring in her hands. Then he grinned at her wickedly. “You may want to drain out the rest of his blood before you try to move him. Makes a body a little lighter. Anything else falls out of him as you haul him down, you’ll have to clean it up. Lean him over the side there; it will all fall down into the gardens below. It keeps the roses red.”

Laughing at his own joke, Yaol gave Amanda a hard slap across the shoulder before he left.

Trembling, Amanda stepped closer to the body. This man had been indifferent to her, but at least he hadn’t been cruel. Part of her wished she knew his name. Part of her was glad she didn’t. Even without being familiar with him, though, this was a grisly, awful task. In principle, she knew how to deal with the body through minor magic. In practice, her attempts at spellcasting were as likely to make a bigger mess as they were to clean one up. She had chanced it a few times, but she could only learn so much from books without anyone to coach her and with so few, brief opportunities to experiment. Every tiny attempt came with a huge risk.

“Amanda,” said a voice
.

She gasped and stepped back. It was the water.

“Come closer, Amanda,” said the voice, deep and ethereal. “You will not be harmed.”

“I thought...I thought you were released,” she stammered, gingerly moving closer.

“Released from the summons, yes. Yet I have reason to linger. I will go when I wish to go.”

“Wish I could say the same,” Amanda grimaced.

“Indeed. You belong here even less than I.” That was all Amanda needed to know about the voice; anything more of its identity was best left unanswered.

“I
would go home if I could. I want to find my friend and go home.”

“I can show you your friend,” the waters said. “Look into me.”

Amanda paused. She had already read much whenever Yaol wasn’t looking. She knew such things never came without a price. “What do you want from me in return?”

“You are wise to ask,” the waters said, sounding almost approving, “but for this, all I require of you is your silence. Speak not of me. Look. Look into the waters. Eric is here.”