They rested in a great-columned chamber where shapeless mounds of fallen masonry warned of danger from the unseen roof above. The current of cold air was greater here, whispering around the jagged blocks to give a semblance of life and movement to a place that seemed not to have known living things for aeons. Shattered effigies of unknown kings lined the walls, and panels of stucco glyphs, blighted and crumbling, climbed into the gloom above them as high as the Heheganu’s light could reach.
“We can speak here, if not too loudly,” the Livyani breathed. He cast a cautious eye over the stones. “There, by that entrance in the far wall.”
The tunnel he chose was the one from which the breeze came, however, and they settled instead for a sloping, rubble-filled space between two of the colossal statues nearest to it. Tlayesha wrung out her skirt and used a piece of the N’luss woman’s tom tunic to sponge and bind her wound. The girl refused to don the garment again but indicated that it should be given to her master. He waved it back to her, however, and sat down crosslegged upon a patch of dry earth. Simanuya the glassblower would have squatted near enough to the Heheganu to whisper privately with him, but Harsan foiled this by placing himself between them. There were enough secrets here already! Itk t’Sa crouched in front of them all, tail wrapped around her feet, her eyes still glazed with shock.
The Livyani nobleman was shivering. Harsan could not repress a glimmer of amusement at the dance the red and black tattooes performed upon his narrow shoulders. The man was not young, and they must soon find warmth if he-no, if they all- were to survive.
Harsan settled himself upon a carven block, the eroded, unreadable symbols upon its sides making comfortable places for his heels. “Your presence here indicates that you do not serve Prince Dhich’une,” he began wryly. “You may as well tell me who you are and which of the mighty, unseen players of this game pushes you about the board.”
The Livyani affected to consider. “I am Taluvaz Arrio, of Tsamra, of the High Temple of Qame’el, and presently in Tsolyanu upon a political mission. Its essence concerns you not at all. A certain circumstance has arisen, however, that made my finding you imperative. Understand that you are only indirectly important to us, the Livyani, but you are a bridge upon which we would cross to other destinations.”
“La,” Tlayesha pushed her damp tresses back from her face. “I have called Harsan many things myself, but never a bridge! Speak more plainly.”
The Livyani ignored her. “At this moment, young man, I serve a power that is friendly to you: one of the servitors of the Lords of Stability and a mighty person in your land.”
“Who?” Harsan snapped. “I tire of invisible and unthinkably puissant masters who prod me hither and thither!”
Taluvaz pondered again. “I see no harm in stating the case as bluntly as the girl demands. It is your Prince Eselne who seeks you through me. I was able to-to cause-the Heheganu to bring you forth where others could not.” Morkudz raised his bald, mottled head to stare expressionlessly. “Your Prince requires the thing you know of, Harsan, priest of Thumis. He must have it to defend against the Yan Koryani who invade your land. Without it, you Tsolyani may win, but it is unlikely. Baron Aid has summoned forth certain forces which only your treasure can combat. As for me, I aid Prince Eselne-and your Empire-in return for favours that concern you not. And, believe me, I am not here in this dungeon with you through any choice of my own!” He spread his hands so that the red and black patterns on his fingers stretched and twisted. “Is that plain enough for you?”
“The soldiers in the shop-” Itk t’Sa put in. Harsan threw her a sympathetic glance. She seemed to be regaining some of her composure.
“Not my doing-nor that of the Heheganu. The assassins, too, were, ah, unexpected.”
“It is so,” Morkudz said. “We took precautions. A guest is, after all, a guest. And I sensed no sorcery. How did they come upon us?”
“Probably by the oldest method known: the Temple of Sarku has spies in every place in, your realm. They must have observed my audience with your Prince; they followed me from Khirgar to Purdimal, right to the shop of the glassblower here. My bodyguard, Mirure,” he gestured to the N’luss woman, who gave him an enigmatic look, “is not inconspicuous, nor, for that matter, am I.”
“As you say. And now? What if I cannot-or do not-choose to deliver my-my treasure-into your hands?” Harsan found that his fists were clenched, from the cold or from anger he was not certain.
“Look you, priest. Do not imagine that you are yourself powerful — enough to resist the demands of such as Prince Eselne and Prince Dhich’une! There are others as well: rulers of empires, great lords and pontiffs who can turn the fates of nations upside down with a word. They will use you, whatever you might wish. Such powers care nothing if a few Dri-ants are crushed beneath their feet!”
“I am sick unto vomiting with these things!” Harsan snarled. “Cha! I desired no more than my quiet studies in the Monastery of the Sapient Eye. Now I have been the cause of the deaths of men, the injuring of a Pe Choi friend who was dear to me, the suffering of those I–I love-” he could not look at Tlayesha, but he felt her eyes upon him. From somewhere inside a vision of poor Eyil also arose, quite unbidden. “-I would see all of your glorious potentates buried head-first in the wormy mud of Sarku’s lowest hell-!”
“ ‘A bird who nests upon a volcano’s skirts cannot blame it for her fate,’ ” Taluvaz responded reasonably. “Now the lava rushes directly at you. Why not give over this thing you possess? Let those more skilled than yourself deal with the destinies of Gods and men. Prince Eselne is no foe to you. Of all of those who seek, he has the power-and the nobility, the generosity, and the highness of purpose-to give you what you seek: peace, riches, a place within the Temple of Thumis, or whatever your heart desires.”
“The aristocrats he serves, the ancient clans, the clique of army generals-are they any better than the hierophants of Lord Thumis? The servants of Baron Aid of Yan Kor? Or even the minions of the Skull Prince?”
“The Omnipotent Azure Legion?” Tlayesha added from where she sat with the N’luss girl.
“The purposes of Prince Dhich’une you may know better than I. No one can fathorn his objectives in this,” the Livyani insisted imperturbably. “What you possess appears-to me, at least-to have importance mainly to military matters. As you have seen, the Yan Koryani might once have taken you to Baron Aid and made you give over your treasures, perhaps to aid their armies. Now it is clear that they mean to slay you instead-for what reason I am not certain.
“The Temple of Thumis? Your grey-robes lack the nerve to use your device to save your land. They are no soldiers, no clever diplomats or shrewd politicians. The Yan Koryani would seize your northlands, ruin your cities, rape and pillage your people, and give your nation over to the Baron’s vengeful gods. That is what follows from that Skein! How many would perish because of you then?”
He eyed Tlayesha. “The Omnipotent Azure Legion serves your Emperor in Avanthar, to be sure, woman, but its masters are only human; they dance for gold and for power and for the favours of princes just as smartly as any grubby merchant in the marketplace.” He leaned toward her. “And who is there in Avanthar who operates the puppets of the Imperium? Who appoints, the chiefs of your Omnipotent Azure Legion? Who is as nice at the intricacies of your bureaucracies as a Zrne is at its hunting-and just as rapacious? Prince Mridobu, of course: an ally if not himself a servant of the Temple of Lord Ksarul, the Doomed Prince of the Blue Room! For your priest here to give over the Man of Gold to him would empower the cleverest and most selfish of all of the Temples of the Lords of Change to win the Petal Throne when your Emperor dies, to seize and hold the reins of the Imperium possibly for centuries to come!”
“What, then, if I were to keep the secret? Disappear? Find an exit from this awful place and vanish into the swamps? Travel to some distant city where none would know?” This was the path Tlayesha urged, he knew, and he felt her love reach out to him.
“Possible, possible. Assuming that you could avoid those who followed-and those who might learn of your unique possession later.”
‘ ‘Or I could take the way the Heheganu offered me: a gentle death. I could even cast myself into the waters of the Crystal River-some bottomless hole here in this labyrinth-a place where none could retrieve my body and call back my soul from the Paradises of Teretane to speak for them!”
“Also a chance, priest. And not an action that is noble, nor one that fits with your Skein of Destiny as I see it in your face.” Taluvaz mused and then continued, not unkindly. “No, I see only one course that offers you peace-and life-and some of the good rewards of this world. Prince Eselne can take this thing from you; he serves objectives that are not too far from your own; he can return you to the cloisters of your monastery; he alone can provide the threads for the Weaver to fashion a Skein of Destiny that will be pleasing to you, and to your clan, and to your quiet, scholarly, grey-robed God.”
“My clan-?” Harsan began.
Taluvaz caught the question, saw the expression that crossed Harsan’s face. “Yes, of course. And should your clan be not- grandiose enough to suit you, he alone, an Imperial Prince, can speak for you in Avanthar. He alone can cause your acceptance into another clan for whatever manner and station you desire. La, did not his sister, Princess Ma’in, recently compel the haughty and ancient Clan of the Golden Sunburst to accept two foreigners into its ranks? Two common soldiers, not even the dust of her sandals, were exalted thus because of an afternoon’s whim! Now they are officers of a good Legion, men of station and power.”
He stopped, sensing that his point was made.
Harsan rose, stretched, rubbed his icy hands together, wrung out the folds of his still-damp kilt one more time.
It was well that he did so. There was a glint of movement amongst the columns on the other side of the hall, there by the door through which they had entered.
The N’luss woman, Mirure, saw him stiffen and was on her feet beside him. The others stood as well.
“Who are they?” the girl whispered in her thick, purring accent.
Their pursuers had no torches, no lanterns. Harsan peered, then Tlayesha, sharper eyed than himself, exclaimed, “They are skull-faced-the soldiers of Sarku!”
Stones and pebbles clattered, and a head rose over one of the mounds of fallen masonry no more than twenty paces away. Skull-faced, indeed! The eyes beneath the dull-gleaming coppery' helmet glinted with Other-Planar fires. The mouth showed teeth but no lips.
“The Undead!” Morkudz the Heheganu cried despairingly. “ Mrur — or Jajgi, those who retain all of the intelligence they possessed in life!”
Harsan seized Itk t’Sa’s slender arm, pushed Simanuya ahead of him, pointed into the mouth of the tunnel from whence the breeze blew. Tlayesha brushed past him, then the warrior girl and the rest.
He paused only for a moment there in the soughing wind. It was time to repay the servitors of Sarku for Chtik p’Qwe, for the guards in the Temple of Eternal Knowing, for the pain and shame he and Eyil had suffered, for the poverty Tlayesha had endured here in Purdimal because of him.
He threw back his head and shouted.
Dust fell. Then a block of stone, then another and another. Something groaned and cracked in the darkness above them. Masonry rained down.
The roof collapsed in a thundering, blinding torrent. He waited no more but dived headlong into the open mouth of the wind tunnel.