Warrior (22 page)

When they entered, Zena picked up a lantern and pulled the door closed behind them with an attached rope. The passage, not quite wide enough for two to walk abreast, led straight ahead for about twenty paces before reaching a steep staircase leading upward.

As they approached the stairs, the lantern’s light flickered on the walls’ rectangular blocks, revealing crumbling mortar and faded paint of indiscernible hue. Dark lanterns sat atop iron rods embedded in the joints, spaced apart by about three steps. A hint of rust colored the lanterns and rods. Apparently moisture had once visited this passage. But where could it have come from? It certainly seemed dry now.

When they reached the stairs, Zena stopped and turned. “Take care. The steps are old and fragile. If you slip, you will likely fall.”

She began climbing the stairs, raising and lowering her long legs slowly and gracefully. Petra followed and Koren trailed. With the lantern now shaded by Zena’s body, the steps were too dark to study, but the evidence was all too clear. This was obviously a human passage, and it was old, very old.

She let her mind drift back to when she first tried to enter the Basilica. A cornerstone gave the date of construction: Starlight—2465. More than five hundred years ago. This passage had likely been here at that time, predating Jason’s story about when humans arrived on Starlight. Had he lied? Was he simply wrong?

After about fifty steps, Zena pushed a door that opened into a square room with a low ceiling and only about four paces’ distance from wall to wall, again too small for dragons. When Koren and Petra entered the new room, Zena pushed the door closed, this time using a knob. “These are my quarters. I do not know yet where Taushin will provide lodging for you, but for now you will wash and dress here. I will arrange for meals a little later.”

Zena reached into a shallow alcove and began searching through a pile of material on a shelf. “While the two of you groom yourselves, I will make a cloak for Petra.”

Koren spied a basin, pitcher, and sponge on a small table in one corner. “Come, Petra. You wash first so you can be fitted for your cloak.”

While Petra stripped off her clothes, Koren turned away. How strange this all seemed. With Taushin able to see through her eyes, she had to be careful about what she looked at. Of course humans were little more than beasts in dragons’ eyes, so the sight of an undressed slave meant nothing to them. Still, it seemed appropriate to secure Petra’s privacy.

A small table stood against one wall, supporting a glass sphere on a wooden base, three stubby candles, a mortar and pestle with crushed brown fragments within, and a porcelain dragon statuette with a long tail and shining blue eyes—probably Zena’s sorcery table.

As Zena knelt, measuring a section of linen material with a long tape, Koren stepped closer. “May I help you? I can sew.”

Zena looked up. A frown slowly transformed into a hint of a smile, making her appearance less ghastly than usual. “Why, yes, you may. I have to cut this sheet according to the pattern and sew the pieces together, so an extra set of hands will shorten the effort.” She returned to her work, her hands feeling for the edge of the material. “And a better set of eyes.”

Koren knelt on the opposite side of the sheet. Zena’s comment seemed melancholy rather than spiteful. In fact, she appeared to be sad, resigned to the fact that her position of service was being usurped.

As Zena pressed her finger on the tape, she leaned over, her nose within inches of the material. Koren touched her shoulder. “I’ll read the measurement for you.”

Zena looked up and smiled again, this time even more pleasantly. “Very well. We will divide the work according to your eyesight and my experience.” Her dark eyes sparkled, a gleam Koren hadn’t seen before. “Perhaps I misjudged you, Starlighter. You are not at all like Cassabrie. I think you will be an excellent servant for the king.”

As Koren bent to read the tape, Zena’s words sank in. They sounded like a gong—lovely in one sense, deep, clear, and penetrating, yet making her heart vibrate painfully. Was Zena mocking her? Or were her kind words a real expression of love? Either way, the statement clawed at Koren’s senses. Did she really want to be an “excellent” servant for the king? Maybe. Maybe not. Koren whispered the measurement, then added, “Perhaps I misjudged you as well.”

A shout erupted behind Elyssa. “I see dragons!”

The stall vanished. Elyssa spun toward Wallace, who had closed the book and was now pointing at the sky. “It’s a dragon patrol, and it’s coming this way!”

“Can’t we hide in the trees?” she asked.

“This part of the forest isn’t dense enough.” He scooped up the book and waved. “Come on!”

As he jogged along a path that led deeper into the forest, Elyssa followed, dizzy from the sphere’s influence. It seemed that two boys led the way, each one carrying the old book, and they both staggered, apparently also affected.

She closed her hand over the sphere and tried to focus, to join the two Wallaces into one. She would have to stop soon or else stumble and be caught out in the open.

After a few more seconds, Wallace turned left and ducked into a thicket, disappearing in the midst of leafy branches and brambles. Elyssa stopped and looked up through the gaps in the canopy. From the direction they had come, two dragons flew toward her, each one carrying something snakelike and sparkling in its claws.

Strong fingers grabbed her arm and jerked her away from the path. She stumbled into the bushes, landing on her hands and knees. Her fist held tight to the sphere, though the radiance continued to leak out. Wallace pushed fallen leaves over her hand, dousing the glow, and let out a long, quiet, “Shhh …”

A sizzling noise, punctuated by pops and snaps, shot in from the path. Wallace flattened himself on the ground and hissed, “Stay down and don’t move a muscle! Don’t even breathe!”

Elyssa turned toward the sizzle and dropped to her belly. A serpentine line of shimmering orange light slithered toward her. About three feet long and two inches thick, it avoided various roots and branches as if alive and aware, though it possessed no scales, darting tongue, or any other reptilian feature.

Holding her breath, Elyssa steeled her body but kept her head up, still watching. The snake slid over her concealed hand and paused, as if sniffing her skin. She glanced at Wallace, who was lying on his back. A second serpent crawled over his face, covering his eye and nose as it continued a slow squirm down his chin and toward his chest.

Elyssa’s serpent glided up her arm toward her shoulder. Its touch burned for a moment, then itched. When it reached her neck, it pushed under her collar and inched its way down her back. Every skin cell it touched set off an alarm. She needed to scratch … now!

She bit her lip hard.
Just concentrate. Focus on the creature, not the itch.

Closing her eyes, she probed for the serpent’s mind. Did it even have one? Just as it began to slide out at her hip, she detected a weak signal—a simple, single-tracked purpose, like a call to anyone who looked upon it.
Fear me. Hate me. Kill me.

So that was it. These serpents didn’t detect movement, as Wallace had thought. They were sent to be killed. She reached back, grasped the snake by its neck, and held it aloft in front of her, looking straight at its blinking head. Still unable to locate any eyes, she continued to probe its mind, what little of it she could find. Its signal did nothing more than indicate its presence, but a dragon might be able to detect it.

After lowering it gently to the ground, she uncovered her fist, rose to her feet, and looked at the sky while scratching the unrelenting itches. Barely visible through the gaps above, a single dragon flew away from the area, apparently unaware of their presence.

“We’re safe,” she said.

Wallace threw the snake to the side and jumped to his feet. “The itch was driving me crazy!” He raised a foot to stomp the snake, but Elyssa pulled him back.

“No. That’s what they want.” Elyssa nudged one of the serpents with her shoe until it slithered into the bushes. Its sizzle had died away, and its skin had paled, allowing its features to clarify. Now it appeared to be a typical snake. “If you kill it,” she said, “the dragons will come back.”

“Is that a good guess or another Diviner’s trick?”

“Not a trick or a guess. It’s a deduction.” She eyed the snake’s trail. A few particles of sand glowed in the shallow rut it had left behind. “What were those snakes coated with?”

“The only thing I can think of would be mazerum.”

“Wait a minute.” Elyssa wagged her head. The dizziness had returned, and the look in Wallace’s eye proved that he was losing his grip on reality. She gestured for him to follow, walked to a thick bush, and sat down, nestling close to the foliage. When Wallace settled next to her, she held her open hand over her fist. “Okay. What’s mazerum?”

“It’s a glowing dye,” he said. “Once in a while, the miners find it while they’re drilling, and we use it for working in the dark until it stops glowing.” He cocked his head. “I saw you holding that snake. It looked like you were talking to it.”

“Not really. It was more like reading its simple little mind. I think it was signaling the dragons. If you had killed one, the dragons would have known.”

“Got it. Makes sense.” He set the book on his lap and rubbed a finger across the cover. “I think our next step should be to go to the cattle camp.”

“My mind feels drained. Do you have a plan?”

“Maybe. You see, there’s a rumor going around that someone made a refuge in the wilderness for escaped cattle children. If that’s true, it means the dragons have a hole in their security. I already knew it was possible to escape from the cattle camp. Not over the wall, though. Most of the children can’t climb the thorny vines that cover them. There’s another way, and Koren and I used it lots of times, but we always had to go back, because we didn’t have a choice.”

“Why not?”

Wallace shrugged. “There just wasn’t anywhere else to go. If we stayed out, we would have gotten caught and killed.”

“If escapees made it to the wilderness, would the dragons search for them there?”

Wallace shook his head. “The dragons use the camp to cull the herd, so they don’t mind slaughtering the few who try to escape. If one or two get lost in the wilderness, the dragons probably think they’ll just starve or be eaten by beasts.”

“The sphere’s glow hypnotizes dragons,” Elyssa said, nodding at her fist, “so we have a great weapon. Since we have no idea where Jason is, and we have some idea where the refuge is, we should aim for the better target. If we go to the camp, we can get as many children out as possible, and then search for a place to hide them.”

“It’s not as easy as it sounds. We can’t strut into the camp and point a glowing marble at a dragon like it’s a spear. We might outwit a drone, but the guardian dragons will burn us to a crisp before we get close.”

“Okay, you’re throwing a blanket over your own idea. Did you have something else in mind?”

“Not really. I was just pointing out the dangers. I’m willing to try it, no matter what.”

Smiling, Elyssa gave him a light punch on the arm. “The hero’s heart. I love it.”

His brow lifted. “Then you’re willing to risk it?”

“Just lead the way, warrior.” She tapped a finger on the book. “Do you think you can find a place to store this before we go?”

“Probably. I wish we could see more of what it has to say, though.”

“It takes too long, and we have no idea if it’s going to show us anything useful.” With Wallace’s help, she climbed to her feet, still a bit wobbly. “Let’s see what we can do at the cattle camp, and then … the wilderness.”

K
oren stood near the front of the Zodiac’s portico, facing the street — Zena on one side and Petra on the other. As she looked at Zena in her usual black, form-fitting dress, herself in her dark blue Starlighter’s cloak with the hood pulled up, and Petra in a similar cloak, yet without the embroidered eyes, Koren felt a stab of dread. Their appearance probably incited many silent judgments from the lines of slaves filing into the outer courtyard, especially considering Koren’s new garments.

She glanced at the sleeve of the dress Zena had provided, similar in cut and form to the old one, but black instead of white. It was also shorter, falling to her knees, just long enough to cover her short trousers underneath. With her lower legs exposed in front, her new black boots, lifted by a platform heel and laced in the back, rose to mid calf for all to see.

Closing her eyes, she imagined how she looked, a specter of a girl with green eyes shining from the darkness of a hood-shadowed face. Her silhouette drew the portrait of a traitor, the personification of evil wearing a dress and cape.

She reopened her eyes, unable to keep from cringing. The boots pinched more than just her skin; they pinched her heart. Her costume felt like a suffocating cage.

Holding the bag that once housed the black egg, Zena whispered in Koren’s ear. “You have been without chains for a while, but that was in the Basilica. Now that you are outside, our trust in you will be tested. Remember my instructions. When the prince comes, you must guide him with your eyes so that he can land at your side. If he falters, his image will be tarnished. Do not allow that to happen.”