More Than You Know (42 page)

Macauley nodded. “I read your riddle,” he said. “Memorized it, too.” He didn't mention that he hadn't understood it. Mostly he had concentrated on deciphering the mirror writing.
"Seven sisters, cursed every one. Seven sisters, all alone. Await the day, when reunited they will be placed upon their throne."
He held out his hand. “They're reunited now, aren't they? Give me the crown."

"Of course.” Rand flung the crown at Macauley's head. It hit the doctor squarely on his brow. The precious stones, none of them tightly set, flew in seven different directions. Stuart raised his gun just as Rand tackled him at the knees. He went down heavily, Rand on top of him. The gun fired as it skittered across the floor. Tiare screamed and ran to protect her son. Claire groped for Tipu, found the torch, and took it from his shaking hands.

"Rand?"

His reply was cut off as Macauley struck him hard in the ribs with his elbow.

Claire recalled the fight at Henley between the two men. Bria had at least told her what was happening. Tiare was strangely silent. Claire could hear Tipu whispering to his mother, unintelligible words that had the cadence of comfort. That frightened Claire as much as anything else that was happening. Had Tiare been injured? Had Tipu?

There was more scuffling. Neither man could rise to his feet. They rolled on the cold stone floor, first one on top, then the other. They were every bit as evenly matched as they had been at Henley. Claire knew Rand might not be the victor here.

She tilted her head, listening hard to the give and take of the fight. The blows they landed sounded equally damaging and their grunts were indistinguishable. Someone kicked her and she fell against the chest. The boxes slid around. She heard the sound of metal scraping against the floor and realized one of them was grappling for the gun. The next recognizable sound she heard was Macauley's triumphant cry and Rand's alarmed one.

She knew who had the gun.

Claire dropped both torches in the trunk and slammed the lid. She heard the flames sizzle and pop. The lid was warm but not for long. The fires died quickly in the airless chest, and the chamber was immediately quiet. No one moved because they couldn't see.

Except Claire. She picked up the shovel. Long before Macauley Stuart understood what had hit him, she had.

Bending, Claire found the gun in his limp hand and removed it. “Rand? Take this, please.” She heard him push away from Stuart and sit up himself. She imagined he was rubbing his own head, thinking what a narrow escape he had had. She could have told him it wasn't that close.

"Did you use the shovel?” Rand asked, getting to his feet. The impenetrable darkness was disorienting. He found himself turning around as if that would help him locate Claire. “Or the pick?"

"The shovel.” She tapped it on the floor to help him find her. “Here I am.” She had to go to him when he was still a few feet from her. She found his hand and placed the gun in his palm. “You keep this."

Rand tucked the weapon at the small of his back. “Was Tiare hurt?"

"I don't know.” She started in Tiare's direction and stepped on one of the small treasure boxes. “Be careful, Rand. The treasure's been scattered all over the floor.” She slipped one length of rope off her shoulders. “Use this to tie Macauley."

Rand took the rope and knelt again, groping his way across the floor until he found the doctor. He remembered his men teaching Claire to make knots on board
Cerberus.
He discovered how difficult it was for her when he tried to secure Macauley in the dark. “How is Tiare?” he asked to cover his frustration.

"She's not injured. Neither is Tipu.” Claire finished running her hands over him. She kissed her brother lightly on the cheek. “They're both frightened. This place has a powerful tapu for them. We have to get them out before they can't walk any longer."

Rand sat back on his haunches. He felt something press against the sole of his boot. He lifted his foot and found one of the gems. He dropped it in his pocket. “Out? How do you propose we do that? I don't have anything to light the torches, and there are three passages leading from this room besides the one that brought us in. We can't expect Cutch to come for us, Claire. We don't know what...” He didn't finish that thought, but began a new one instead. “No night has ever been as black as this. I'm completely turned around. I don't know which way is out."

Claire merely smiled. “I do.” She crossed the chamber to his side and handed him more rope. “Tie this around your waist and connect it to Tiare and Tipu. Leave enough length between you so you're not stepping on each other's heels. Is Macauley trussed?"

"Like a Christmas goose."

"You'll have to carry him."

Rand sighed. “I was afraid you'd say that. He would have left us here, you know."

"I know."

"But we're not going to do that to him."

"No,” Claire said. “We're not. We're not like him, Rand. We're not going to kill someone over this treasure. It's not worth it."

She started to turn away but Rand found her. He gripped her elbows and brought her flush to his chest. “Sometimes you make me a better man than I am,” he said softly.

Rand had no trouble finding her mouth with his own. He only pulled away when he felt Macauley stir at his feet. “Give me the shovel,” he told her, setting Claire away from him. She found it. “Not too hard, please."

It took Rand a few moments to find the proper position. He brought the shovel down on Macauley's shoulders with a satisfying thwack. There was a groan, then silence. Rand let the shovel fall and began uncoiling the rope Claire had given him. “This won't take long,” he said.

Claire was waiting for him at the passage entrance when he finished. “Tie the last length around my waist,” she said. She turned, her arms folded across her chest and out of the way.

"Done.” Rand looked a shade longingly over his shoulder at the treasure he couldn't see. He thought of the gem in his pocket. It would be worth a fortune by itself. He could be satisfied with one of the sisters, even the aquamarine. He very much doubted Claire would let him return for the rest of the sibling rainbow. “Lead on,” he told her.

Claire waited for Tipu and Tiare to fall in line behind her. When she heard Rand lift the doctor to his shoulders, Claire started forward. The rope tightened slightly when Tipu faltered.

Tiare's hands pressed her son's shoulders lightly. “It's all right,” she encouraged him. “Claire is not blind here. There is no tapu."

"No tapu,” Claire said softly. “There never was."

She led them through the passage without hesitating once. It was only when Claire reached the threshold of the antechamber that her steps grew less certain. The roar of the waterfall was in her ears. Behind her there was another roar, a deafening rumble this time. The ground shook. The tremor went right through her.

"It's going to collapse!” Rand yelled. No one could hear him. They had come far enough through the corridor that he could see the entrance on the other side of the antechamber. The stone was still open and diffuse light from beyond the waterfall streamed through.

Rand pushed Tiare and Tipu ahead when he saw Claire falter, then stop. The ropes that connected them were going to tangle her in their rush to get out. She was holding them back. He tore at his own leash and let it fly. He dropped Macauley and released Claire. He yelled at Tiare and Tipu to run.

"Claire!” He shook her. She didn't respond. Her arms were crossed rigidly in front of her. She was stiff and unyielding. It was as if she was deaf to him as well as blind. Rand picked her up and carried her out of the chamber. Tiare and Tipu had Cutch on his feet and were helping him get past the waterfall. There was blood on his shoulder and more at the side of his head. He lumbered along, holding onto Tiare for support.

Fine black dust was beginning to pour from the entrance of the vault like smoke from a burning building. Rand followed Tipu. The first chance he had to put Claire down safely, he did.

Then he went back inside for Macauley Stuart.

The dust was thick and it blinded Rand. He knelt, groping on the floor for the doctor's body. He found an arm and began to drag Stuart toward the entrance. He felt himself being plucked off his feet. Rand knew there was only one man with the strength to do that, and in spite of his wounds, Cutch was that man. Cutch had come back for both of them.

Rand stumbled past the falls, this time with Cutch and Macauley behind him. The explosion that collapsed the entrance almost knocked them to the ground. Rand turned, half expecting to see that the hillside had collapsed as well. It hadn't. Nothing on the outside seemed to be altered in any way. He and Cutch watched the waterfall pound the small avalanche of rock and dust into the inlet. The water churned, covering the evidence that the vault had ever existed.

Shaking his head, Cutch tossed the doctor's bound body unceremoniously on the beach and followed Rand to where the others were sitting.

"Couldn't have lived with myself if I'd let you go in there alone,” Cutch said, dropping to his knees beside Tiare. “She wouldn't have let me."

"Claire?"

"No, Tiare."

Rand couldn't make his slight smile reach his eyes. He looked Tiare and Tipu over, then left them to Cutch's care. Or perhaps it was the other way around. They were all going to be fine.

He hunkered down beside Claire. “Are you all right?” he asked, searching her fine features. He could see for himself that her shocked state had passed. Her arms were no longer tightly crossed in front of her. All the booty she had been clutching to her chest was now lying on either side of her. What she hadn't carried out, she was wearing.

Rand simply shook his head, marveling. His heart swelled. He had no words for what he felt in that moment. He just stared at her and hoped she would understand his silence.

Claire removed one of the diamond pendants from her ears and placed it on the sand. “I decided they were right for this occasion after all.” She then removed the other. She shook out her hair after taking out the ivory combs. The emerald chips along their edges glittered as she set them aside. From behind her back she removed the jewel-encrusted crucifix, then took off the rope of pearls. The rings came next. Two of the largest were stacked on her thumb. She pulled them off without a second thought.

She raised her left leg and tugged at the hammered gold band that circled her thigh like a garter. Claire held it out until Rand took it; then she reached in her pocket and brought out a fistful of stones. “They're all here, save one,” she said. “I couldn't find it."

Rand couldn't think what she meant for a moment. He blinked and looked down at her open palm. Red. Orange. Green. Blue. Indigo. Violet. Only the yellow sapphire was missing.
"Blazing sun, blinding some."
There was a bittersweet quality to his smile as Rand reached into his own pocket and held up the one stone he had been able to rescue. “I can see that."

Claire looked into his eyes for the first time. “So can I."

His face was a revelation to her. She watched one of his dark brows come up slowly as confusion warred with hope. His beautiful mouth parted, but he had no words. He held her riveted so that she could not look away even if it had been her desire, and this time she offered something in return: she stared back.

Sunshine glanced off his coppery hair. Strands of it touched his collar and fluttered in the warming breeze. His perfectly cast features were covered by a film of dust. The thin scar that disappeared into his temple stood out in dark relief. Claire remembered Mrs. Webster once telling her it was the scar that kept him from being beautiful. Now Claire saw for herself that her teacher was wrong. Mrs. Webster had never looked into Rand's eyes the way she was doing now, had never seen the beauty of a soul captured in the warm color of polished chestnuts or in the perfect clarity of the tears that rimmed those eyes. As diamonds could etch glass, Rand's tears etched his face, their tracks clearing the dust. He did not raise his hands to wipe them away.

Claire knew a moment of panic as her own vision blurred. She was not prepared for the return of darkness after so brief a journey into light. She looked around quickly, her eyes darting to absorb the complete palette of the landscape. It seemed that her memory of colors had failed her. The feathery palm fronds that waved overhead had never been quite this shade of deep, rich emerald. Her fingers sifted through grains of sand that surely glittered with the intensity of stars. The inlet mirrored sunlight and the perfect azure sky above them. Magenta and crimson hibiscus exploded with pyrotechnic ferocity from the greenery and black lava rock. The raucous cry of a gull turned Claire's head and she was left with the fleeting impression of bright white wings and a scarlet tail that fluttered behind like a pennant.

She blinked. Form blurred but none of the vibrancy was lost. Her vision held the broad, sweeping strokes of watercolors. There, where Tiare knelt beside Cutch, the distinction between the two figures, one like honey, one as dark as coffee, was lost at the edges. The tenderness of the scene, of Tiare's delicate ministering to her wounded warrior, had its own golden aura. Tipu, with the eagerness and impatience of youth, danced around the couple trying to be helpful and with no notion of how that might be accomplished. His cheeky grin flashed whitely as he turned and twisted in the sand.

The crashing water drew Claire's attention next. The colors of one god's promise were so close it seemed she could touch them. They shimmered and floated, translucent, yet somehow with substance. The color of light. A waterfall of light.