Shikashe slowly drew the shorter of his two swords, and held the diamond-patterned pommel out toward Heggenauer. The priest stared at it before looking questioningly to Amatesu.
“If it is truly not within you to tolerate any who may have done evil, Brother Heggenauer, then you should begin with Uriako-sama and myself. I suggest you start with me, as I will not resist you.”
Heggenauer stared at the shukenja and the white steel blade of the sword, then took a step back, shaking his head. He looked at the Far Westerners and swallowed before speaking in a raspy voice.
“I am deeply sorry for you both.”
Shikashe nodded, and sheathed his sword with a snap.
“Can we go rescue Claudja now?” Tilda asked in a small voice.
Amatesu looked over at Zeb and Nesha-tari, who were standing together by a wall. Zeb was leaning against it, as he had actually forgotten to be afraid of the Dragon Cultist, and whatever else she was, for the last several minutes.
“Does Madame Nesha-tari agree that we may take the Duchess from this place?” Amatesu asked. Zeb asked the question in Zantish, and Nesha-tari frowned.
“What do I care?”
“She says yes,” Zeb said in Codian.
“And the wizard, Phinneas?” Amatesu asked.
Zeb asked that as well, and Nesha-tari thought for a moment before answering.
“The Shugak fear only what harm he could do with the book in Vod‘Adia. I merely wish to see that he does not use it to fulfill Horayachus’s purpose for the Duchess. So long as that is prevented, I do not give a fig for what happens to either of them.”
“Another yes,” Zeb said.
Amatesu nodded, and turned back to Heggenauer.
“Are you satisfied, Brother?”
The acolyte of Jobe looked at Nesha-tari, then around the room at the others who met his gaze.
“I am only trying to do what is right,” he said.
“That is as much as any of us can do,” Amatesu agreed.
There was silence, until John Deskata knocked on the doorjamb and jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
“Second watch, people,” he said. “Who wants it?”
Nesha-tari made no comment, and though she had not stood watch on the previous evening she moved through the door and out into the night.
Zeb made his way toward his pack and bedroll, passing by Tilda who was still squatting on her haunches with her back to the wall. He stopped and held a hand down to her. She took it and wiped her eyes with the back of a sleeve as she stood.
“Are you all right?” Zeb asked. Tilda nodded and did not quite meet his eyes.
“I’m fine. I just…I miss my family.”
Zeb squeezed her hand before he let it go, and Tilda looked at him.
“You?” she asked.
Zeb Warchild gave a short nod, for it was easier than saying he had never had any family for him to miss now.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Crossing the ruined section of collapsed wall had brought Phin, Claudja, and the legionnaires into a district of Vod’Adia very different than those which they had seen thus far.
When they had first entered the city the gnome hawking maps before the front gate had said something about the “noble district,” and Phin thought this must surely be it. Instead of long streets lined with the unbroken facades of row-houses, shops, and other small structures, here the buildings all had the character of grand manor houses, with peaked roofs and cupola towers, long stone porches with columns, and a few scattered outbuildings on individual plots of land. Each was surrounded by their own stone walls at least a story in height. The compounds did not form blocks but were all disconnected, nor did their arrangement seem at all geometric. Instead of defined streets, only irregular cobblestones paths wound among the estates. They occasionally formed squares or plazas around broken statuary and defunct fountains, with sections of bare dirt that had once surely held grass, flowers, or trees, though there was no trace of any plant life remaining.
Without the necessity of keeping to long streets the group should have been able to wind their way due south, but navigating the noble district proved difficult. As evening drew near the sun was often behind the great houses, and though the group managed to keep it on their right-hand side the irregular layout of the walled compounds kept them zigzagging and wandering. They did not seem to have made it very far into the district before the gray daylight began to fail, and the legionnaires started to look for a place to bed down for the night. They found a small, windowless building that had been some sort of smokehouse in one bare-dirt compound. The adjacent manor house was a formidable-looking structure with its doors and shutters intact, meaning that it had likely never been searched nor looted at a previous Opening. The legionnaires were not about to try it. They slept soundly or seemed to, as did the Duchess Claudja, while Phin stayed awake for several long hours bent over the book and a candle throwing cantrip light. He finished reading the tome through once, then lay awake for another hour in the darkness.
There was no repeat of the unearthly roaring that had shaken the whole city on the previous night, and everyone slept through and woke up hungry. They swallowed the last of their poor-quality food cold, and drained all but one water skin. That would hardly be enough to get them to midday, as walking the dry and dusty city was thirsty work. No one said anything about it.
They had wedged the smokehouse door shut with a dagger, and after removing the blade and letting the door swing open the Sarge crouched back and hissed. Over his shoulder Phin could see what seemed to be a strange rippling in the air, shadows washing over the manor house and its walled yard. The group edged outside and stared at the strangest sky any of them had ever seen, for high above the city streets the dome of mist seemed to run and shimmer in waves, covering Vod’Adia in dancing shadows.
“It is raining outside,” Claudja said, and indeed that must have been the case. The party stood as though they were beneath an inverted bowl of opaque glass, with someone trickling a bucket of water out over the top of it. Or else many people were crying their eyes out.
“Gods, I hate this place,” Ty mumbled, loud in the silent yard for there was no sound at all from the rain high above.
The group moved out of the compound through the open gate and continued to head as due south as they could manage. The Sarge and Ty led the way, while Rickard now trailed Phin and Claudja at the end of the line, keeping an eye on both of them. The group went on under the rippling gray sky through the swimming black world for an hour before reaching the open circle of another plaza, though this one was grander than the others they had passed through. There was no central dais nor shattered statuary, but the plaza was surrounded save at what seemed to be the cardinal points by four matching buildings, each of half a semi-circle and two stories tall. The ground floors facing the plaza all built wide open, like stalls for merchants. The surface of the street changed from dark cobbles to square blocks of several paces across, made of gray stone that seemed much lighter in color than it actually was after the days of unremitting blackness. There was no sign of life in the plaza nor in the buildings around it, and no movement apart from the rain shadows sheeting across its surface. The group started across for the southern exit, the three legionnaires with their swords at the ready.
Halfway across Ty called out, “Hey!” and loped forward. For a moment Phin saw a glint of gold, a coin on the ground, but when the legionnaire drew near it one great block beneath his feet fell away with a sharp scrape of stone on stone.
Ty dropped out of sight with a yelp, and before the Sarge could even shout his name the stone snapped back up and crashed into place with a boom and a shudder Phin felt through his feet. Rickard ran past him and joined the Sarge at the edge of the stone block that had pivoted open and shut. The gold coin was still a spot of color in the middle of the block, like it was fastened there.