Dragonwitch (25 page)

Stoneye's hand reached out. The starflower illuminated each finger as it closed upon the carved hilt.

There was a rush, a deep-throated groan.

Then a thud as the slave's huge body fell upon the stone.

How cold, how silent was this place beneath the world! In that moment, as Mouse watched death sweep through that fallen body, she felt as though it grabbed her as well, catching her heart, dragging her down. She was abandoned, alone, forsaken in this black universe of nothing.

The voice of the high priestess spoke like darkness itself:

“Stoneye, get up. I command you.”

I
LEFT
E
TANUN
THEN
.
For the first time since coming to that world, I took to the air and soared higher and higher. Perhaps I thought to fly into the hot embrace of Lumé himself and let him burn me away into nothing. But his brilliance was soon too great for me, and I was driven back to earth. I crashed upon a high mountain and lay with broken wings upon the stone. I hoped I was dead. My dreams were shattered, and life held no charm for me.

“Greetings, child,” someone spoke.

I did not have the strength to raise my head. It astonished me to hear someone in so high and remote a place. But the voice spoke into the churning fire in my gut.

“What a beauty you are,” the someone said. I felt his approach, felt him kneel beside me, and when I opened my eyes, I looked upon the face of Death-in-Life.

The face of the Dragon.

She strode across the chamber, the soft, shushing noise of her robes the only sound in that stillness besides the crackling torches and the breathing of the stricken throng.

Stern, the high priestess stood over Stoneye. “Get up,” she said.

Mouse, leaning heavily against the doorway, saw how the white flower shone on her mistress's face like starlight on ice.

“At once. Slave.”

The woman did not seem to breathe. Her eyes were shadow-strewn pools of dark water. She nudged the fallen eunuch with her foot like one might prod a lazy dog. “Up. Up. Up.” Each word was a small gasp.

Then her mouth opened in a black slash across her face. Without a sound, she fell to her knees, clutching at the dead man's head, clawing at his face, pulling at the sleeve of his tunic. Her voice returned in a sudden wail, an animal sound without words. It broke off in another eternal silence. Then she breathed again, and this time Mouse heard her crying, “Get up! Get
up
!”

Her voice was that of a child. She was, Mouse realized, weeping. Tears glistened like drops of fire on her face. Broken, she crumpled over the form of her dead slave.

And Mouse heard her moan, “Why did you do it? Why did you follow me?”

The Silent Lady moved. She picked the starflower up off the stone, casting the shadow of the carved sword across the floor. Mouse saw her face highlighted by the white light. Tears shimmered in her eyes as she knelt and touched the Speaker's arm.

The priestess hissed between clenched teeth. “Get up. . . .”

“I'm so sorry,” the Silent Lady whispered. “I see how you loved him, though you yourself did not realize until now. Let that love guide you, dear woman, and leave the sword to sleep. The time of its return is not now, and your goddess will drive you only to death.”

The high priestess drew a ragged breath and let it out in a sob. Then she gathered herself and rose with her arms wrapped tightly about her robe, the woven strands of her wig falling in her face.

Turning, she pointed to the nearest eunuch. “You,” she said, in a voice as sharp and sure as a spear. “Bring me that sword.”

The eunuch's face became that of a phantom in the torchlight. His eyes, lost in hollows of shadows, widened until the whites gleamed, and Mouse saw a spasm run through his body. Otherwise, he could not move.

The high priestess's hand lashed out and struck him across the face, sending him sprawling backward among his fellows. “Do as I say,” she growled.

The other eunuchs pushed him, and he stumbled into the chamber. “No, stop!” the Silent Lady cried.

“Restrain her,” said the high priestess, and two other slaves leapt forward and grabbed her, one by her hair, the other by the back of her robe, dragging her from the chamber. The luckless eunuch, compelled by his mistress, approached the stone as Stoneye had. Mouse heard him whimper, and she saw the sweat streaming down his face. She wished she could move, could run and spare herself the sight to come. But to run among the Diggings meant certain death, so she remained frozen, unable to tear her gaze away.

The eunuch reached out. With a moan, he gripped the hilt. Then he gasped and fell across Stoneye's prone body.

The sword remained unmoved.

“Enough!” the Silent Lady cried. “Enough of this! Don't you see you're murdering them?”

“You,” said the Speaker, and collared another eunuch. “Bring me that sword. Bring it now!”

He recoiled from her grasp. With a wail, he turned and ran down one of the split passages, dropping his torch with a crash behind him. Its flame sputtered, then extinguished, but the sound of its rolling nearly drowned the sound of his footsteps as he lost himself in the deep black.

“Speaker!” cried one of the priestesses in protest.

But the high priestess whirled upon her. “Yes?” she demanded. “Have you something to say? Do you wish to volunteer, to serve your goddess to the last?”

The priestess shrank back, and the Speaker turned to yet another eunuch. “Bring me that sword!” she said.

The Silent Lady screamed and wrenched against the clutches of those holding her. “Stop this! Stop, I beg you!” she cried. “You'll kill them all, and you'll still not gain that sword! It's senseless; it's cruel!”

“They are my slaves,” said the high priestess, turning upon the small woman. “They'll do as I say.”

“You can drain this whole world dry, and Halisa will remain in its resting place until its time has come,” the prophetess said, her face fierce.

“Why did you come here, then?” The Speaker took the Silent Lady by the front of her robe, hauling her up with surprising strength until she stood upon the tips of her toes. “Did you intend to kill my slaves? Is that it?”

“I came at the request of Halisa's former bearer to tell the Flame at Night where the sword might be found. That is all.”

“That can't be all!” the high priestess cried, shaking the Silent Lady and slamming her against the stone doorway. Mouse, standing so near she might reach out and touch them both, shrank into herself, desperate not to be seen.

The Silent Lady, helpless in the priestess's powerful grip, shook her head, and her face was sad but defiant. “Only Etanun or his heir can safely bear the sword from its burial chamber.”

“Where is this heir?” the Speaker demanded.

“I do not know.”

Shrieking like a bird of prey, the high priestess flung the Silent Lady to the ground. She drew a long sacrificial knife from her belt and advanced as though to spill the young woman's blood as she would a goat's upon the altar.

Mouse screamed and jumped forward, flinging herself between the two.

After the fact, she wondered at herself. It was a rash, heat-rushing moment. She did not think; she merely acted. It didn't matter that the lady in question neither knew nor acknowledged the goddess. She was the Silent Lady; Mouse knew it with a completeness more real than rationality. So she stepped between the prophetess and the knife.

And the high priestess stopped.

She stared into the space beyond the acolyte's head, perhaps into the darkness of the chamber beyond. What she saw, no one watching could discern. Was it the sword, standing cold in its black stone? Did something else unseen amid those shadows stay her killing hand?

However it was, the high priestess withdrew, her mouth open and her
eyes wide. Then she shook herself and spoke in a voice as crackled as an old woman's.

“What's this, little Mouse? Will you betray me for a stranger?”

The words cut Mouse to the heart. She bowed her head, ashamed, horrified. But she did not move.

The high priestess turned away. Slowly, unsteady on her feet, she passed through the throng, drawing her blindfold down over her face as she went. Tears dampened the dark fabric, but no one could see them.

The Silent Lady touched Mouse's shoulder. Catching her breath, the girl turned to look into those solemn eyes that were so dreadfully familiar. The stranger gave her a look of gratitude and also some sort of mysterious understanding.

The high priestess's voice came through the shadows. “I must consult the goddess,” she said. “I must bring her word of what has transpired and learn her will. Let a guard be set over this doorway, and see that the prisoner is locked away.”

She put out a hand then, searching for a strong arm on which to lean, a strong form to guide her through the Diggings. But Stoneye was not there.

Another eunuch hastened to her side, offering himself. She refused to acknowledge him. Instead, she removed the blindfold from her face and, open to the darkness around her, made her way up the long passage. Over her shoulder she called, “Bring the bodies of the slain!”

She spared not another backward glance. She was Speaker for the Flame; she would not mourn.

The world was swiftly falling into twilight when the procession emerged through the crack in the stone and climbed back up to the temple itself. The Silent Lady was dragged beyond Mouse's sight, away to the dungeons. Mouse wanted to follow, but her mistress spoke a sharp command, and she dared not disobey. She tailed behind the high priestess up to her chambers and there helped her prepare to stand before the goddess.

“I must tell her what has happened,” the Speaker said, talking to herself, unaware, it seemed, of Mouse's presence. “She will know what to do. And then we can kill that wretch.”

Mouse's blood ran cold. Kill the Silent Lady? She stared at the Speaker's face, and she saw murder there. Murder and vengeance.

The Speaker turned to Mouse suddenly, eyes flashing. “What?” she demanded. “Are you going to defend her again? Will you demonstrate your disloyalty even now?”

Mouse couldn't breathe. But the high priestess said no more. Mouse finished the usual preparations, and the Speaker, gorgeous in her ritual garb, left the room, making for the Spire and the presence of the Flame.

For several long heartbeats, Mouse stood alone in her mistress's chambers.

And the Silent Lady was imprisoned below.

No one noticed Mouse as she hastened down from the Speaker's chambers, along the quiet halls. She was a mouse; she was a shadow. She was as insignificant as a passing fancy. So she made her way down the steps of the tower, down and down farther still until she reached the dungeons themselves. Even here the guards paid her no heed, and she entered that stifling gloom unimpeded. Mouse snatched a torch from its holder and plunged down the passage dug beneath the lower temple grounds. After the darkness of the Diggings, the dungeons held no horrors for her. She ran lightly, her sandaled feet slapping on the cold stone.

“Who's there?” came a voice from a not-too-distant cell. “Who's there with that light?”

“It's . . . it's me.” Mouse hurried toward that voice, then knelt down, looking through a stone grate.

In a tiny crawl space where she could neither stand nor sit upright, huddled the prophetess. She peered up through the grate, and Mouse saw her eyes glitter in the torchlight. One hand reached out and grabbed the stone barrier. “I hoped you would come,” she said.

Now that she was here, Mouse hardly knew what to say or do. It was all too strange and terrible! “You are the Silent Lady,” she whispered. “Please, tell me you are.”

But the prisoner shook her head. “I cannot tell you what I do not know. Who is this Silent Lady?”

“The harbinger of our freedom,” Mouse answered as she had been taught. “The forerunner of the Flame.”

The prisoner's face was earnest but not frightened in the torchlight. “Tell me what she did,” she said. “Why do you revere her so?”

“She killed the Wolf Lord,” said Mouse.

The calm faded from the prisoner's face. She looked as though she had seen a ghost. Her hand dropped away from the stone bar and pressed into the too-close wall. But she said only, “Go on.”

“The Flame at Night sent her to rescue us from the wolf,” said Mouse. “Though she was unable to speak because of his evil curse, she was empowered by the Flame. And when she had killed him, her voice was freed, and she spread the word throughout the Land that we were delivered.”