The shadow ran its hands over the stonework, plugging the arch. Its fingers occasionally seemed to snag on the blocks and mortared cracks, stretch, and then snap back to a more normal length when they pulled free.
Dai Shan knew that the entity was seeking some tiny hole or fissure that extended all the way through. Writhing through a gap would make the barrier easier to penetrate.
It didn t find one, but fortunately for an agent that lacked physicality in the truest sense, an opening was merely a convenience, not a necessity. The shadow drew back a pace, then lunged at the obstruction.
Dai Shan felt a stunning jolt, as if he d thrown himself headlong at a solid barrier. The shadow vanished. Apparently some long-dead hathran had cast a ward on the wall to prevent such entities from passing through.
Dai Shan examined his face by touch. Despite the throbbing, his nose was not broken, nor did he find any scrapes or cuts. The impact had only occurred in his mind. He d suspected as much, but it made sense to be sure.
Dai Shan could only think of one other way to get through the barrier, and it required a certain amount of risk. Was his particular ploy truly that important? Couldn t he simply tell Falconer that he d been unable to access the proper part of the cellars? By the Black Moon, it would even be the truth.
And perhaps everything would work out thereafter. But once Dai Shan set his mind to a task, he preferred to accomplish it, in part because of a conviction that success bred further success, and failure, only failure. And the thought of failing in Rashemen and returning home without the griffons, of his father s gibes and sneers, of being consigned to trivial matters while his brothers swaggered like princes and steered the destiny of the House, was insupportable.
When the affair is over, he thought, I ll keep the blue-eyed griffon for myself. That will be my reward for daring what I m about to do.
He took another look at the hidden arch. It was fairly wide. He estimated that four smallish men like himself could stand shoulder to shoulder in front of it.
He turned to the shadow he was again casting. Wake, he said.
The pain in his chest lasted longer, as if some tormentor were taking his time sliding in a knife. But he endured it, and the shadow leaped up.
As soon as it did, another lay in its place, as was the way of shadows. Dai Shan animated that one, too, and had to grit his teeth to hold in a cry. Regrettably, he couldn t do anything to restrain the tears that ran down his cheeks.
Blinking, he regarded the two living shadows awaiting his command. A voice inside his head whispered that surely two were enough.
But that was the voice of fear, and a Shou gentleman couldn t heed it. Dai Shan had decided that three minions would maximize his chances of success, and three it would be. Wake, he said.
He d expected the final act of creation to be the most agonizing of all, and probably it was. But when he woke sprawled on the floor, he couldn t truly remember it, or passing out, either, although he felt like a gong shivering its way to silence a moment after the beater s stroke.
He tried to lift his hand and found that he could. The crystal s glow made the extremity s gray, flat counterpart slide up the wall.
I m still alive, Dai Shan thought, and still myself. A wild laugh tried to bubble up from the center of him, and he smothered it as dignity required.
He resolved that however urgent the need, he wouldn t bring any more shadows to life for a tenday. Happily, that ability was only one of his strengths. He possessed many others, including the physical vitality that returned to him quickly.
He stood up and said, Change.
The shadows did, instantly, and suddenly it was like peering into three mirrors, except that each of the reflections stood in a different attitude, none of them precisely matching their creator s stance. Their thoughts and perceptions stabbed into his own, overlaying his awareness with jumble and cacophony, and he exerted his will to block them out. He didn t want to live through any of them as he d lived through the agent that first made contact with Falconer. Rather, he wanted to multiply his innate abilities by four.
When the intrusions had faded, and his mind had cleared, he stepped up to the barrier and put his hands on it. His counterparts did the same. Then they all began to shove.
The wall stood as solid as a mountainside.
With his jaw clenched and sweat sliding down his face, Dai Shan shoved harder. He focused on the action until he became it. Until he no longer remembered why he d undertaken it, nor cared about its success or failure. All that mattered was its perfect articulation.
The surface under his palms shivered, then shifted. With a scraping, banging clatter, a tier of stones fell inward.
With their purpose accomplished, Dai Shan s shadows withered from existence in quick succession. Their creator listened for any indication that the sound of the breach had attracted attention. Except for the thump of his own heartbeat in his ears, the cellars were silent.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Plucking a silk handkerchief from his sleeve, he used it to dab first the sweat from his face and neck and then the drops of blood from the scrapes on his palms. Then he picked up the crystal and climbed through the hole.
On the other side, a staircase descended deeper into the earth. As he stalked downward, he watched for carved sigils, listened for the rustle of leathery wings or the click of claws on stone, and sniffed for the scents of brimstone or putrefaction. It seemed likely that if the ancient Nars had left any demon watchdogs behind, their Rashemi successors had cleared them out. But then again, since the witches and their followers had seen fit to seal off the lower vaults, they must not have considered them entirely wholesome.
At the bottom of the stairs, Dai Shan suddenly felt the inner jolt that came with sensing he was being watched. He dropped into a fighting crouch and peered about.
The vault before him had five walls with a doorway in the center of each, and a five-pointed mosaic star in the middle of the floor. Smaller geometric figures and words in an unfamiliar language filled the spaces between the radiating arms.
A later hand, working just as meticulously, had painted another layer of glyphs and symbols over the original pentangle. Thanks in part to his sojourn in Rashemen, Dai Shan was able to interpret some of the newer signs. The spiral horns represented Mielikki; the crescents, Sel ne; the roses and scythes, Chauntea; and the triangles, all three goddesses together.
After a few moments, Dai Shan stepped through the arch that connected the stairs to the pentagonal chamber. Even when he set his foot on the edge of the mosaic, nothing leaped forth from the empty air to menace him, and he permitted himself a slight smile when he concluded that nothing would.
The Nars had indeed left demons behind, and the hathrans hadn t cleared them out. Instead, they d taken the same approach here as with the Raumathari spirit traps in the High Country. They d wrapped additional bindings around the originals to make certain the tanar ri would rot in their cages for all time.
Increasingly confident that he was in no danger, but nonetheless proceeding cautiously, Dai Shan prowled onward into a labyrinth of oblique angles and pentagonal forms. At one point, he felt that something else was watching him with the same profound but impotent malevolence as whatever was chained in the star mosaic. At another, he suddenly imagined himself an eight-legged creature crawling down a colossal spider web toward the beautiful winged woman stuck in the strands below. When the fancy passed, he suspected he d just shared the dream of a demon that had gone to sleep in its prison.