Adham tried to control his fall, but landed in a heap at Adu’lin’s feet. Glaring, the Fauthian jabbed the point of a sword into the hollow of Adham’s neck, freezing him in place. “You try my patience,” Adu’lin snarled.
“Then we are even, on at least that score,” Adham returned.
From the corner of his eye, Adham saw the three Brothers he had cut loose: Ulmek, Sumahn, and Daris. They grouped together against a score of hesitant Fauthians. Outnumbered as they were, they were not outmatched, given the scatter of dead Fauthians sprawled across the floor.
Before Adu’lin could react, Adham cried, “Run!”
Ulmek’s dark eyes swung toward Adham.
“Damn your hides, go!”
With great reluctance, Ulmek ordered the retreat.
Adu’lin ordered his men to hold fast. “Where will they go?” he demanded, as if sensing a trap where there was none.
Willing to play on the man’s fears, Adham bared his teeth in a mocking smile. “Surely you cannot expect me to spoil the surprise?”
Adu’lin’s thin face writhed as he ground his teeth together. “I have no love of surprises,” he said. “But this night, I will make an exception.”
Adham had only a moment to wonder what he meant, before Adu’lin’s sword flashed toward him in an arc of silver-edged death.
Chapter 26
Blue light engulfed Leitos and Belina as they crept beneath the stern face carved into the cliff above them. Leitos had the uncomfortable feeling that its stony eyes regarded him with malice. Then they were moving deeper into the Throat of Balaam. A vaulted corridor, floored with fist-sized opals, stretched interminably into the dazzling light. Were it not the lair of the world’s bane, he would have counted it beautiful.
One cautious step at a time, Belina with an arrow nocked, Leitos with his dagger ready, they delved deeper into the Throat. As Leitos grew accustomed to the glare, he brushed his fingertips over the surface of a wall. Where the stone looked uneven, it was smooth and slick. Below the crystalline surface, tiny gems of every hue and clarity, glittered like faceted grains of sand. The beauty of those thousands of individual stones hit him all at once, and he found himself staring in open-mouthed wonder.
“What are you doing?” Belina hissed. Slowly, understanding shrank her dismay. “Let nothing blind you to the truth of Fauthian evil. Such was the undoing of my people.”
Leitos offered a noncommittal shrug, but Belina was having none of that. “Give me your word that you will not let what you see obscure what I have spoken of. You must see with your head and your heart, not with your eyes. The works of the Fauthians are as honey to mask the bitter taste of poison. Do you understand-do you promise?”
“Very well,” Leitos agreed. There was no point telling her that nothing, especially pretty gems, would change his mind about destroying his enemy.
After a time, Leitos began to wonder how far they had yet to go, and put the question to Belina. “I’m not sure,” she said, refusing to look at him.
“Not sure? I thought you had been here.”
“My father came here after … after my mother’s death. He told me what he saw, and warned us all to stay away.”
“So you do not know what we will find?”
“Of course I do.”
Leitos’s concern sharpened, even as his heart sank a little at the possibility of not finding the Faceless One. This Throat of Balaam might well be used for all the monstrous things Belina said, but only by Fauthians and Alon’mahk’lar. “What if your father lied?”
“He did not.”
“How can you know, if you have never-”
“I have seen this place,” Belina interrupted.
“Your visions,” Leitos said. “Are you sure what you see are not just dreams mingled with things you have heard from others?”
“Do events in your dreams come to pass?”
Leitos mulled that, then considered something else. “You said you recognized me-”
“I did,” Belina interrupted. “I have had visions of you for as long as I can remember. Even from afar, I recognized your face-” she hesitated, then said in a rush “-though it is not entirely the face of my visions.”
“That makes no sense. If you saw me, but it was not me, how can I believe anything you are saying?”
Belina shook her head. “In my visions you are older, harder. A man scarred, a man-” She cut off abruptly. After a moment, she said, “I will say no more on this matter. You can continue to trust me or not, but I will reveal nothing else about who you will become.”
“Why?” Leitos pressed.
“I fear that to tell too much would change what will be to what could be. It is not a risk I am willing to take.”
Gibberish, Leitos almost retorted, but thought better of it. “Well,” he said, as if he no longer cared about her visions, “let’s go see if your father spoke truth or lies.”
She glared, but did not bother defending Damoc. “Come along. We are almost there.”
After walking for what felt like many miles more, Leitos began to question what almost there meant to a Yatoan. Before he could voice his doubts, they came to place where the azure light shone brighter than ever. As they neared the spot, the glow became opaque. Not like light at all, but a curtain of frosted mist.
“What is this?” Leitos asked, just stopping himself from brushing it with his fingertips. The mist filled the height and breadth of the corridor, blocking sight of anything beyond.
Belina favored him with a nervous expression. “I … I don’t know. My father never mentioned this. I think coming here was a mistake. Perhaps the Faceless One knows we are coming, and laid a trap. Come, we will go back and get help-”
Leitos did not wait for her to finish. He caught his breath and stepped into the wall of light. He heard a startled yelp, but then he was passing through turquoise nothingness. It surrounded him, cold and wet. His skin tingled unpleasantly, and he felt a strange pressure building within him, seeking an escape-
— and then he stepped clear. The pressure eased, then vanished, though his skin still prickled. The awareness of those odd sensations flew from his mind, as he looked into a dark chamber so immense that it defied comprehension. A gasp drew his gaze to Belina, who would not step far from the misty radiance.
“Did your father describe this?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “As well, it is as I have seen. But seeing it now….” Her words trailed off.
The chamber, all of velvety gloom, stretched as far as the eye could see, and farther still. It was like looking into the emptiness between the stars. The difference was that he stood within those immeasurable gulfs.
A single source of illumination, a pillar of cold flame, hovered at the very heart of all that darkness. Its presence subdued the expansiveness, somehow dominating all within its sight.
“W-we dare not go closer,” Belina stammered.
“I dare,” Leitos said, eyes locked on that pillar and the vague figure seated atop it. The Faceless One. Belina had claimed no mortal weapon could harm him, but Leitos meant to learn for himself if that were true. If nothing else, he needed to see the face of his oppressor, the face that every tale said no living man had ever looked upon.
Belina tried to catch his arm, but he stepped from the spill of cool light at his back, and into the waiting void. Before his first step fell, he had a moment of doubt, a fear that his foot would drop through emptiness. He did not imagine falling, but ceasing to exist, his being devoured by the void….
His foot landed on an invisible surface as hard as stone. Only that the pillar of light remained ahead told him that he had not tumbled into oblivion. Belina cried out, whether in alarm or anger, he did not know. He thought to calm her, but could not look away from his goal.
He continued one ponderous step at a time, his breath coming in puffs. He realized that he did not walk, so much as drift. Upon recognizing that, he halted, but an unseen current carried him at great speed. Or is the Faceless One drawing me to him? An uncomfortable thought that quickly broke apart and dissipated.