Ware had discovered an additional entrance to the shard-cave that the guardians did not consider to be as important as the main entrance. It was above the main entrance in the valley, in an area covered with goat-tracks. It led to a place where water had eaten a way down into the main cavern; a place that actually caused the lower caverns to flood on occasion. Granted, it was a very small entrance, and one that the average Mazonite could never squeeze through-but Xylina was small enough that she could get in. For once in her life, her small size was going to prove an advantage!
By the time they reached the cave and its guarded environs, their plan was as solid as any plan could be, considering how many variables were involved.
Xylina, Thesius, and Ware lay hidden just outside the valley of the cave. They were near enough to the entrance so that they could reach it quickly, but just outside the guards' usual perimeter. False dawn was just beginning, and the guards were at their most relaxed. No one truly expected an attempt on the shard in broad daylight, so the guards on the day-watch were not particularly alert. In fact, they often played at games of chance to wile away the hours-and that figured very largely in the plan.
Faro returned just as the sun crept above the horizon, a bundle of fabric under his arm. He passed it silently to Ware, who quickly donned it. It was one of the crystal-guards' uniforms; Xylina did not ask Faro how he had obtained one, and from whom. She was just grateful that there was no blood on it.
Even though Xylina would be entering the cave by a different route, someone would need to distract the guards at the main entrance, in case they heard a noise in the cave and became alarmed. Since Ware could not be harmed by any weapon, he was the logical choice for the role of "distraction." He would pretend to be a new guard, and would introduce the other guards to an entirely new game of chance, a very noisy one, and one that was both exciting and required a great deal of concentration. Faro had learned this game from the Pacha, and he had tutored the demon in it at every possible halt until Ware was as expert as any non-Pacha could be. To give him an initial stake for the game-and to whet the guards' appetite for it-Xylina had taken the risk of conjuring a small pouch of silver and gold nuggets. Ware would soon lose many of those; greed would make the guards want them all.
Ware fastened up the uniform tunic and tied the pouch to his belt. With a wink, he strode boldly up the valley to the entrance. Now it was time to wait again.
Finally, at mid-morning, excited shouts and cheers echoed up the valley toward their hiding-place. Ware had succeeded in his distraction, and it was time to go.
They slipped up the valley, then climbed the cliff above the main entrance to find the secondary way in. The ascent was not difficult-in fact, there was even a path there. The problem was not access, but the three guards that waited at the tiny slit in the cliff-face that led down to the main cave.
She needed a second distraction, but this one was easier to come by. Faro took one handful of gold nuggets-this time, though, they were dirty, loaded with quartz, and in general, looked very much as if they had just broken off of a larger mass. Xylina took a handful, and Thesius took the third handful. They climbed above the trail to the second entrance, and located the three little goat-tracks Faro and Ware had found. They scattered their nuggets all along these paths, until they reached the point where all three trails met. There, Xylina worked a little more conjuration, creating a false front to the cliff-face of quartz ribboned with veins of gold. It would take men with proper tools several days to chip the gold free- and those men below had no such thing. But she had no doubt they would try.
Then they returned down the goat-trails and concealed themselves in three separate places near and above where the guards would pass.
Xylina waited, as the others were waiting, and as the guard passed below her position, dropped the last of her nuggets so that it bounced down the side of the mountain and onto the trail just in front of the man, as if it had been naturally dislodged at just that moment.
The gold caught the light perfectly, and the guard leaned over to see what it was.
She could not see his face from here, but his whole form stiffened. He snatched up the nugget, and looked around furtively, then looked up.
She could easily see him, but he could not see her through the screening of the gorse bushes. She waited, and shortly she heard him ascending the goat-trail, on a furtive, silent hunt for more nuggets. With luck, the other two would be doing the same. If Faro and Thesius got the opportunity, they would knock the guards out, but only Faro had the skill and strength to carry such a move off without one of them calling a warning. Her plan called for Faro to dispose of his own guard; the other two would then presumably meet at the cliff face, and either quarrel over the gold, or reach some kind of conclusion, and each would greedily try and remove more than his fellow. In either case, there would be no further interference from the guards.
She dropped down to the trail and sought out the entrance to the upper cave.
It was less of an entrance than an exaggerated slit in the rock. Only the fact that Ware had been here before and that it was guarded left her inclined to trust that it led to the lower caves. She squeezed herself inside-literally-with no more space between her face and the rock-face than the thickness of a piece of paper, and rock pressing into her back.
Of all the things she had needed to do, this was the worst. It was dark, darker than the blackest, overcast night. She barely had room to take a breath-in fact, in order to make any progress at all, she had to exhale, inch forward, then stop to take another breath. She was very glad that her tunic was of leather, or she would have been leaving skin behind on the rock-face by now.
Several times she had to stop and fight back panic, telling herself that Ware had already been here, and that the passage did get wider eventually. All she had to do was to go a little further-just a little further-
Suddenly, she broke free of the rocky embrace, and tumbled into a larger chamber. She landed on her hands and knees, and quickly sat down to take several lung-filling, free breaths.
Now she took a chance and conjured a glowstone to light her way. The chamber in which she sat was a small one, but quite spacious compared with the passage.
At the end of the chamber opposite the passageway was a large hole in the floor of the cave. This, Ware had told her, led down to the guard-chamber just outside the one holding the crystal shard itself. It resembled a steep rabbit-hole, but it was large enough to take several people her size, slanting downward when she crawled over to it to look. Ware said that it looked to him as if had been made by the passage of a great deal of water down that hole over the course of many centuries, water that had since found another outlet. But there were marks in this upper chamber that indicated more recent flooding, and he had learned that from time to time a sudden storm might send water into that passage even these days. That would flood the lower cavern, and the guards would retreat to the valley, waiting for the full day it took the caverns to drain. She saw nothing down below, not even a light; the slanting passage and the distance it had to cross in order to reach the guard-chamber made certain of that. But if she listened, carefully, she could hear the guards talking.
She would have to risk one more conjuration, and hope that no one detected it. So far, no one had; Ware had thought that the shard itself might mask such magic-workings. She hoped he was right. Because this was going to be something more than a few nuggets of gold or silver.
She conjured water.