A raw and desperate longing scribed D’Natheil’s face, even as he turned to the task in hand. “I need to explore the place a bit. A wall of fire shouldn’t be difficult to find.”
“I’ll stand guard, my lord,” said the somber Dulcé, drawing his sword and taking a position near the gaping doorway to the outside. “Do as you need.” With his ferocious glower, he looked quite small and foolish.
The Prince nodded graciously. “Thank you, Dulcé. We shouldn’t need your warding for long,” he said. “If I can’t do what I’ve come for within the hour, I don’t think it will matter.”
Then, like a desert-bred child visiting his first garden, he began to wander. All my own weariness was forgotten as I trailed after him into room after room of marvels: an amphitheater whose dark-painted ceiling was inlaid with bits of faceted quartz, so that the flickering torchlight gave the illusion one stood under star-scattered skies; an immense refectory, its gigantic wooden tables perfectly free of dust, crockery bowls and neatly laid spoons awaiting the next feast; the kitchens, huge stone hearths and chimneys bored into the mountain’s heart. We explored workrooms, granaries, storerooms of all kinds, sewing rooms, map rooms, a library with so many shelves of books and scrolls that wooden-railed walkways spiraled up six men’s height or more in front of us—everything needed to support a population of many hundreds.
Climbing the wide staircase took us to rooms of all sizes, sleeping chambers, I guessed, though all were empty of furnishings. On the uppermost level, the gallery that overlooked the central cavern did not make a full circuit of the walls as did those at the lower levels, but instead opened into a long, narrow passage that delved deep into the back wall of the cavern. The torches were smaller there, and the walls rough-hewn and very much older. Promising. While D’Natheil was still opening doors off the main gallery, I explored the narrow passage. A hundred paces in, the passage ended in a wall of rock.
Disappointed, I started back, only to find D’Natheil just coming into the passage. “Nothing here,” I said.
But he shook his head, and I followed his gaze over my shoulder back toward the aborted way. The light nickered and the rock… shifted… and a pair of massive wooden doors stood in the center of the wall that had appeared to be solid stone only moments before. The doors were smooth and undecorated and dark with age. I could easily believe that no one had touched them since the days of J’Ettanne himself. No handle or latch was visible, but at the Prince’s first touch they swung open, silently and easily as if the hinges had been oiled just the previous day.
The passageway beyond the doors was chilly, and the light emanating from the arched opening at the far end was an odd bluish-gray. Another hundred paces and we entered an immense chamber, its walls, ceiling, and floor colorless and obscured by swirling, icy fog. A constant low-pitched rumble, unlike anything I’d ever heard, caused my hands to clench and my jaw to tighten. And so instantly confused were my senses of perspective and direction, only the stone beneath my feet gave me anchor. I felt as if I had stepped off the edge of the world.
But the moment’s sensory uncertainty vanished when we walked a few steps farther into the chamber and saw the curtain of flame that reached from the colorless floor all the way to the murky heights. Flame was the only name I could put to it, though its color was a bruised blue, darker than the coldest heart of a dying hearthfire.
“The Gate,” I said, raising my voice a little so as to be heard over the deep-pitched rumble.
“Yes.” D’Natheil’s voice was scarcely audible.
“And the Bridge?”
“Just beyond the wall of light.”
“Then we’ve truly reached the end of our journey.”
The Prince gazed upwards, face shadowed by the dark magnificence. “When we first entered the cavern, the image of a city passed through my mind—a glorious city of graceful towers, of gardens and forested parkland, encircled by mountains sculpted of green and gold light. Here will that city, that world, and all that exists in it live or die.”
“So what must you do?”
“I don’t know.” His grief was wrenching. “Were you to offer me the entire wealth of the universe or a thousand lives to fill my empty head, I could not tell you.”
“That’s why it’s time for those who know such things to take charge of this most delicate venture, is it not?”
We whirled about, as five men with drawn swords stepped out of the fog and quickly surrounded us. Three were brawny, well-armed fighters. The fourth, the sneering speaker, was Maceron, the fish-eyed sheriff. But it was the fifth, the one who held an unwavering swordpoint at my belly, that caused my soul to freeze. The fifth was Baglos.
“Dulce?” D’Natheil’s query was quiet.
“I am most abjectly sorry, my lord Prince. There is no other way.”
“Did you never learn to look under your bed for snakes or in your boots for spiders, oh, Prince of Fools?” said the gloating Maceron.
The fish-eyed man might not have existed for all the notice D’Natheil paid him. “What means this, Dulcé?” No anger marred the Prince’s speech, only questioning and sorrow.
“It means the salvation of Avonar, my lord. If you could remember its beauties, you would agree.”
“How do betrayal and treachery become the salvation of beauty?”
“A bargain has been made, my lord. You’ll see. You are to be given exactly what you desire—the chance to save your people with honor and grace.”
“Do you understand who these people are, Baglos?” I asked, dismay swelling to outrage at his choice of conspirators. “This devil has done his best to exterminate the descendants of J’Ettanne. And now he’s serving the Zhid.” Giano, Darzid, Maceron… my certainties were unproven, but certainties nonetheless.
Maceron bowed mockingly to me. “Not at all a polite introduction, my lady, but what can we expect from one who has such a dangerous habit of involving herself with perverse wickedness? I thought you’d learned your lesson ten years ago.”
“You made the mistake of leaving me alive. Were you working for these same soulless villains even then?”
“My master is no devil sorcerer, but a noble warrior who works to rid this world of these perverted creatures who would enslave us and the traitorous scum like you who welcome them. He works with the priests of Annadis. That’s good enough for me.”
His master… dared I say the name I was so sure of? My tongue stubbornly refused to pronounce it, as if the very word were some evil incantation that would precipitate our doom. And the priests… “You’re a fool,” I said.
Baglos frowned, looking from me to Maceron. “How is it you know this woman?”
“It’s many years past and has nothing to do with our present transaction. You’ve done well, ensuring the priests kept on your trail. Now, we must ensure that your prince will not disrupt the smooth completion of our business.”
The three men moved in, and D’Natheil at last paid them a full measure of attention. The Prince grabbed one of the brutes by his sword arm and neck and slammed him into a second man. The two crashed to the floor in a tangle as D’Natheil tried to wrest the weapon from his remaining attacker. He spun the man about and pressed him to his chest, the screaming villain’s arm bent into an unmaintainable angle.
When Maceron raised his sword above the Prince’s head, I yelled and reached for the sheriffs arm. But one of the fallen men stumbled up from the floor and crushed me to the wall. While I fought to get a breath, he shoved Baglos and his sword at me. The Duke’s sword tip pricked the flesh under my breast. I dared not move. His small face was frightened, but his hand was steady. Determined.