The Hidden City (63 page)

Xanetia shook her head. ‘The soldiers within the palace are all kinsmen, members of the royal clan, and are all known to one another. Subterfuge would be far too perilous.'

‘We've
got
to come up with a way to get into that tower!' Kalten said desperately.

‘I already have,' Mirtai told him calmly. ‘It's dangerous, but I think it's the only way.'

‘Go ahead,' Sparhawk told her.

‘We might be able to sneak up through the palace, but if we're discovered, we'd have to fight, and that'd put Ehlana and Alean in immediate danger.'

Sparhawk nodded bleakly. ‘It's just too dangerous to risk,' he agreed.

‘All right, then. If we can't go
through
the palace, we'll have to go up the outside.'

‘You mean climb the tower?' Kalten asked incredulously.

‘It's not as difficult as it sounds, Kalten. Those walls aren't built of marble, so they aren't smooth. They're rough stone blocks, and there are plenty of hand-holds and places to put your feet. I could climb that back wall like a ladder, if I had to.'

‘I'm not really very graceful, Mirtai,' he said dubiously. ‘I'll do anything at all to rescue Alean, but I won't be much good to her if I make a misstep and fall five hundred feet into the lower city.'

‘We have ropes, Kalten. I'll keep you from falling. Talen can scamper up a wall like a squirrel, and I can climb almost as well. If we had Stragen and Caalador along, they'd be halfway up the side of that tower by now.'

‘Mirtai,' Bevier said in a pained voice, ‘we're wearing mail-shirts. Climbing a sheer wall with seventy pounds of steel hanging from your shoulders might be a little challenging.'

‘Then take the mail-shirt off, Bevier.'

‘I might need it when I get up on top.'

‘No problem,' Talen assured him. ‘We'll bundle them all together and pull them up behind us. I
do
sort of like it, Sparhawk. It's quiet; it's fairly fast; and there probably won't be any guards going hand-over-hand around the outside of the tower looking for intruders. Mirtai's had training from Stragen and Caalador, and I was born for burglary. She and I can do the real climbing. We'll drop ropes down to the rest of you at various stages along the way, and you can haul up the mail-shirts and swords behind you. We can get to the top of that tower in no time at all. We can do it, Sparhawk. It'll be easy.'

‘I can't really think of any alternatives,' Sparhawk conceded dubiously.

‘Let's do it then,' Mirtai said abruptly. ‘Let's get
Ehlana and Alean out of there, and once they're safe, we can start to take this place apart.'

‘After
I get my real face back,' Kalten added adamantly. ‘Alean's entitled to
that
much consideration.'

‘Let's do that right now, Xanetia,' Aphrael said. ‘Kalten will nag us about it all night if we don't.'

‘Nag?' Kalten objected.

‘What color was your hair again, Kalten? Purple, wasn't it?' she asked him with an impish little smile.

There were deep shadows along the western side of the Women's Palace when Elysoun, Liatris and Gahennas emerged through the little-used door and moved quickly through the darkness to take cover in a nearby grove of ornamental evergreens. ‘This is going to be the dangerous part,' Liatris cautioned in a low voice. ‘Chacole knows by now that her assassins weren't able to find Gahennas, and she's certain to have her people out to try to prevent us from reaching Ehlana's castle.'

Elysoun looked out at the moon-drenched lawn. ‘That's impossible,' she said. ‘It's just too bright. There's a path that goes on through this grove. It comes out near the Ministry of the Interior.'

‘That's the wrong direction, Elysoun,' Gahennas protested. ‘The Elene castle's the other way.'

‘Yes, I know, but there's no cover. There's nothing between here and the castle but open lawn. We'd better stick to the shadows. If we go around on the other side of Interior, we'll be able to go through the grounds of the Foreign Ministry. It's only about fifty yards from there to the drawbridge of the castle.'

‘What if the drawbridge has been raised?'

‘We'll worry about that when we get there, Gahennas. But we have to get into the gardens around the Foreign Ministry first.'

‘Let's go then, ladies,' Liatris said abruptly. ‘We're not accomplishing anything by standing around talking. Let's go find out what we're up against.'

‘Back here,' Talen whispered to them, coming out of a narrow alleyway. ‘The palace wall runs back to the place where it joins the outer fortifications at the end of this alley. The right angle where the two walls meet is perfect for climbing.'

‘Will you need this?' Mirtai asked, holding her grappling hook out to him.

‘No. I can make it to the top without it, and we'd better not risk having some sentry up there hear the hook banging on the stones.' He led them back along the alley to the cul-de-sac where the palace wall butted up against the imposing fortifications separating the compound from the rest of the city.

‘How high would you say it is?' Kalten asked, squinting upward. It was strange to see Kalten's face again after all the weeks it had been disguised. Sparhawk tentatively touched his own face and immediately recognized the familiar contours of his broken nose.

‘Thirty feet or so,' Bevier replied softly to Kalten's question.

Mirtai was examining the angle formed by the joining of the two walls. ‘This won't be very difficult,' she whispered.

‘The whole structure's poorly designed,' Bevier agreed critically.

‘I'll go up first,' Talen said.

‘Don't do anything foolish up there,' Mirtai cautioned.

‘Trust me.' He set his foot up on one of the protruding stones of the outer wall and reached for a hand-hold on the palace wall. He went up quickly.

‘We'll check for sentries when we get up there,' Mirtai quietly told the others. ‘Then we'll drop a rope down to you.' She reached up and began to follow the young thief up the angle between the two walls.

Bevier leaned back and looked upward. “The moon's all the way up now,' he said.

‘Thinkest thou that it might reveal us?' Xanetia asked him.

‘No, Anarae. We'll be climbing the north side of the tower, so we'll be in shadow the whole way to the top.'

They waited tensely, craning their necks to watch the climbers creeping upward.

‘Somebody's coming!' Kalten hissed. ‘Up there – along the battlements!'

The climbers stopped, pulling back into the shadows of the sharp angle between the two walls.

‘He's got a torch,' Kalten whispered. ‘If he holds it out over those battlements –' he left it hanging.

Sparhawk held his breath.

‘It's all right now,' Bevier said. ‘He's going back.'

‘We might want to deal with him when we get up there,' Kalten noted.

‘Not if we can avoid it,' Sparhawk disagreed. ‘We don't want somebody else to come looking for him.'

Talen had reached the battlements. He clung to the rough stones for a moment, listening. Then he slipped over the top and out of sight. After several interminable moments, Mirtai followed him.

Sparhawk and the others waited in the darkness.

Then Mirtai's rope came slithering down the wall.

‘Let's go,' Sparhawk said tensely. ‘One at a time.'

The building-blocks were of rough, square-fractured basalt, and they protruded unevenly from the walls, making climbing much simpler than it appeared. Sparhawk didn't even bother to use the rope. He reached the top and clambered over the battlements. ‘Do the sentries have any kind of set routine up here?' he asked Mirtai.

‘It seems that each one has his own section of wall,' she replied. ‘The one at this end doesn't walk very fast. I'm guessing, but I'd say that it'll be a quarter of an hour before he comes back.'

‘Is there any place where we can take cover before then?'

‘There's a door in that first tower,' Talen said, pointing at the squat structure rising at the end of the parapet. ‘It opens onto a stairwell.'

‘Have you taken a look at the back wall yet?'

Talen nodded. ‘There's no parapet along that side, but there's a ledge a couple of feet wide where the outer wall joins the back of the palace. We'll be able to make our way along that until we get on that central tower. Then we get to start climbing.'

‘Does the sentry look back there when he reaches this end of the parapet?'

‘He didn't last time,' Mirtai said.

‘Let's look at that stairwell, then,' Sparhawk decided. ‘As soon as the others are up, we'll hide in there until the sentry reaches this end and starts back. That should give us a half-hour to crawl along that ledge to the central tower. Even if he looks around the corner next time, we should be out of the range of his torch by then.'

‘He's right on top of these things, isn't he?' Talen said gaily to Mirtai.

‘What
is
this boy's problem?' Sparhawk demanded of the golden giantess.

‘There's a certain kind of excitement involved in this, Dorlin',' Mirtai replied. ‘It sets the blood to pounding.'

‘Dorlin'?'

‘Professional joke, Sparhawk. You probably wouldn't understand.'

Vanion's scouts had returned about sunset to report contact with Kring to the south and Queen Betuana's Atans to the north. The ring of steel around the Forbidden Mountains was drawing inexorably tighter. The moon was rising over the desert when Betuana and
Engessa came running in from Vanion's right flank and Kring and Tikume rode in from the left.

‘Tynian-Knight will be along soon, Vanion-Preceptor,' Engessa reported. ‘He and Ulath-Knight have spoken with Bergsten-Priest on
their
right. Ulath-Knight has remained with the Trolls to try to prevent incidents.'

‘Incidents?' Sephrenia asked.

‘The Trolls are hungry. Ulath-Knight gave them a regiment of the Klæl-beasts to eat, but the flavor did not please the Trolls. Ulath-Knight tried to apologize, but I am not sure if the Trolls understood.'

‘Have you seen Berit and Khalad yet, friend Vanion?' Kring asked.

‘No, but Aphrael said that they're just ahead of us. Her cousin guided them to the spot where that hidden gate's supposed to be.'

‘If they know where the gate is, we could go on in,' Betuana suggested.

‘We'd better wait, dear,' Sephrenia replied. ‘Aphrael will let me know as soon as Sparhawk rescues Ehlana and Alean.'

Tynian came riding across the vast open graveyard. ‘Bergsten's in place,' he reported, swinging down out of his saddle. He looked at Itagne. I have a message for you, your Excellency.'

‘Oh? From whom?'

‘Atana Maris is with Bergsten. She wants to talk with you.'

Itagne's eyes widened. ‘What's
she
doing here?' he exclaimed.

‘She said that your letters must have gone astray. Not a single one of them reached her. You
did
write to her, didn't you, your Excellency?'

‘Well – I was intending to.' Itagne looked slightly embarrassed. ‘Something always seemed to come up, though.'

‘I'm sure she'll understand,' Tynian's face was blandly expressionless. ‘Anyway, after she handed the city of Cynestra over to Bergsten, she decided to come looking for you.'

Itagne's expression was slightly worried. ‘I hadn't counted on that,' he confessed.

‘What's this?' Betuana asked curiously.

‘Ambassador Itagne and Atana Maris became good friends while he was in Cynestra, your Majesty,' Sephrenia explained.
‘Very
good friends, actually.'

‘Ah,' Betuana said. ‘It's a little unusual, but it's not unheard of, and Maris has always been an impulsive girl.' Although the Atan Queen still wore deep mourning, she seemed to have abandoned her ritual silence. ‘A word of advice, Itagne-Ambassador – if you'd care to hear it.'

‘Of course, your Majesty.'

‘It's not at all wise to toy with the affections of an Atan woman. It might not seem so, but we're very emotional. Sometimes we form attachments that aren't really appropriate.' She did not look at Engessa as she said it. ‘Appropriate or not, however, those emotions are extremely powerful, and once the attachment is formed, there's very little we can do about it.'

‘I see,' he said. ‘I'll definitely keep that in mind, your Majesty.'

‘Do you want me to go find Berit and Khalad and bring them back here, friend Vanion?' Kring asked.

Vanion considered it. ‘We'd better stay away from that gate,' he decided. ‘The Cyrgai might be watching. Berit and Khalad are
supposed
to be there, but we aren't. Let's not stir anything up until Sparhawk sends word that his wife's safe. Then we'll
all
go in. There are a number of accounts that are long past due, and I think the time's coming when we'll want to settle up.'