Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King, Book 1) (42 page)

“They’re true,” Shettai said grimly. “But we have learned to compensate.
And once we reach the SaHal-“

“The SaHal?” Abramm broke in, alarmed. “We’re not going to Ybal?” As
the northern and easternmost of Esurh’s archipelagic port cities, Ybal stood
closest to the Thilosian-held island of Tortusa, offering by far the likeliest
prospect of finding a vessel to take them north.

“Ybal?” She looked at him as if he had suggested they go for a stroll in
the plaza. “You are the Deliverer. You must go to Hur and reawaken the
Heart.”

“Reawaken the … What are you talking about? What heart?”

“The Heart of the ancient Wall of Fire, set in place centuries ago by Sheleft’Ai to protect us. Beltha’adi extinguished it when he invaded. The
prophecy says you will raise it again and the Dorsaddi will regain their stronghold, from which they’ll drive the Evil One out of Esurh.”

Abramm glanced at Trap, uneasy but intrigued. Though he had no idea
how this heart might be awakened, the notion carried undeniable strategic
appeal. An impenetrable Dorsaddi stronghold in the heart of Beltha’adi’s
empire would surely disrupt his plans of conquest and thus ultimately benefit
Kiriath. Still, as far as he knew, the Wall of Fire was legend, and he was absolutely certain he was not the one to awaken it.

Then, recalling what Katahn had told him last night, he shook his head.
“It’s already too late. Beltha’adi’s pulled two full Hundreds off the Andolen
front. They’re probably invading the SaHal as we speak.”

Shettai smiled. “Shemm will learn what has happened here soon enough.
He’ll hold them off until we get there.”

“Shemm?” Abramm asked.

“My brother.”

Trap’s brows flew up. “Your brother is a Dorsaddi commander?”

She smiled slightly. “My brother is the Dorsaddi king. And has been
almost as long as I’ve been a slave.” Her eyes dropped to the talisman on
Abramm’s chest. “Knowing that Sheleft’Ai has not abandoned us will give
new strength to my people. They will fight as they have not fought in decades.” Her smile grew positively wicked. And the SaHal is not so easy a place
to invade.”

He shifted uncomfortably. This Deliverer thing was growing less appealing by the moment. The thought of people giving their lives in a delaying
action just so he could arrive and fail to do what they were all relying on him
to do was not a happy prospect.

Trap spoke up. “If that is the prophecy, then surely Beltha’adi will expect
us to go there. How can we-“

“There are many ways into the SaHal,” Shettai said. “He does not know
all of them.”

`And that’s where you come in,” Abramm said.

She nodded. “That and the fact that my kinsmen tend to kill outsiders
first and ask questions after. Particularly when they are being invaded.”

“Even knowing the Deliverer is coming?” Trap asked.

“They would trust Sheleft’Ai to see him through safely.”

“Great,” Abramm muttered.

Shettai shrugged. “But I will be with you, and I will know the signs to
make.” She smiled at him. “You see, Sheleft’Ai has provided a way for you.”

He exchanged a dubious glance with Trap. For a moment no one spoke.
Then the Terstan stood and took their cups to the wine barrel. As the trickle
of falling liquid filled the chamber, Abramm asked how she’d escaped
Katahn.

She brushed breadcrumbs from her lap, then folded her legs tailor style.
“When you blew the arena doors open, everything went crazy. Katahn turned
away, caught up by what was happening. Chaos swirled around us, and suddenly I saw myself free to walk away.”

“Surely you’ve had such opportunities before,” Trap said, returning with
the cups and passing them round.

“Opportunity, yes, but little desire.” She drank, then held the cup with
both hands in her lap. “I’ve been defiled in my people’s eyes. By our code, I
should have killed myself long ago. I lacked sufficient courage, I suppose.”

“Or maybe you have too much,” Trap said.

She looked at him dead on, unwavering for a long moment, then shook
her head. “You are a northerner. What is honor to you?”

A little more sensible than Dorsaddi honor, it would seem. If we’d followed your code, your Deliverer would be dead now.”

“He is not a woman,” she said bluntly.

Trap blushed as red as Abramm had ever seen him.

“My people will have branded me unclean,” she went on. “Forgotten.
There is every chance they will kill me themselves once they realize who I
am.”

“Kill you?” Abramm cried. “Well, then, you’re not going.”

She smiled at him, clearly unimpressed by his edict. “I hope that by bringing them the Deliverer I might atone sufficiently to remain alive.”

Abramm was already shaking his head. Absolutely not. It’s too great a
risk. What if they don’t agree?” And what will they do when I fail to light their
stupid Heart? “You’re not going.”

“I won’t lose you again, Pretender,” she said softly. “Where you go, I go.”
For a moment all the fire of her love blazed in those wonderful eyes, and his
protests died as emotion filled his throat and chest. What did I ever do to
deserve her? he wondered, and then he had to back away, lest such thoughts lead him into an abyss of sentiment that would undo him.

Her gaze dropped to the orb on his chest. “You are the Deliverer, you
know,” she said staring at it. “You must not doubt that any longer.”

Her words were an exceedingly effective check to his galloping emotion.
He frowned, wishing again that she wouldn’t keep going back to that subject
and that she wouldn’t look so … fanatical when she did. Most of all he
wished she’d stop staring at the talisman that way, for it reminded him
entirely too much of Whazel.

He got up to refill his cup from the wine barrel, breaking the spell.
Thankfully after that she spoke no more of prophecy and was content to sit
beside him, close under his arm, head on his chest. As Trap stretched out for
another of his naps, Abramm lost himself in the wonder of being alive and
having her to hold in his arms. Though he tried to keep it back, his mind
insisted on traveling into all manner of delightful futures, every one of which
involved her at his side, slave no longer, but wedded wife, the mother of his
children, the light and power of his life. With her beside him, he felt there
was nothing he could not do.

Their contact arrived some time later, handing out bags of food and water,
a coil of roughly twisted rope, a sling and pouch of stones for Shettai, and the
two pairs of swords and small fishnets Abramm and Trap had requested for
themselves.

“There’s been a patrol nosing around the bolthole opening,” the man told
them as they divvied up his offerings. “So I’m afraid you’re leaving a little
later than we’d hoped.”

“Where is the opening, anyway?” Trap asked, settling the rope so it
looped over his shoulder and across his chest.

“Not far.” The man handed Abramm a shuttered lantern as the latter finished tying one of the nets around his waist, then crossed the cellar to a stout
wooden door, heavily barred. “You’ll turn left outside and go to the end of
the alley. There’s an old, stone guard shack, long abandoned. The passage is
inside. Not too far in you’ll find what appears to be a cave-in, but if you keep
to the right you’ll see a passage through it. From there it’s straight to the old
cart path.” He unbarred the door and pulled it open. “Sheleft’Ai be with you,
my friends.”

They found the bolthole and the passage through the cave-in without
incident, crawled on hands and knees through the cramped opening, and
emerged easily on the other side. From there the ancient tunnel sloped down
to a narrow crack framing the dim, gray light of the outside world. Shettai
slipped through first, Trap squeezing after her. Putting out the lantern and
setting it aside, Abramm sidled through the gap to join them on a ledge cut
into the side of the gorge that separated North Xorofin from Old Xorofin.
Sheer rock walls plunged inches from his feet to the narrow cove below,
where houseboats floated on black glass, their multicolored fish-bladder lanterns spangling the gathering gloom. On the far side, the northern city’s crenellated walls disappeared into mist, and to the left loomed the dark bulk of
the iron bridge spanning the gap between the cliffs. Disgruntled travelers
packed its length, frustrated by the unexpected closing of the old city.

“This way,” Shettai said, scampering goatlike down the slender spur that
led to the wider cart path below.

At Trap’s gesture, Abramm went next, reflecting grimly that calling this
thing a cart path was a grave misnomer. As he walked, his right shoulder
brushed rough rock even as the left hem of his robe swung over the edge of
the abyss, filled with cool, salt-scented updraft. He fixed his eyes on Shettai
and the time-eroded track ahead of her and tried not to think of all those eyes
on the bridge behind him, nor the fact that somewhere in the mists above
veren glided on the updrafts, searching for their scent. It was said veren could
detect their quarry more than a league away.

The trail snaked around uneven walls, and they rounded a bend to find
the false tunnel Hanoch had warned about, gaping in a fold of stone across
from them. Other openings peppered the wall above it, and Abramm realized they must be tombs. Just beyond the tunnel a huge yellow slash in the
rock eradicated all sign of the trail. That would be where the pegs were.

Before they faced that, though, they had to negotiate the newer rockfall,
where a slab had peeled away from the cliff face below the trail, reducing the
path to a scant two feet in width for a distance of about ten strides. At the
far end it narrowed to less than a forearm, but that was only for a few strides
before the path widened again.

Abramm eyed the narrow part reluctantly. If the veren came while one of
them was stuck on that, it would be disastrous.

Shettai faced the cliff and shuffled sideways along the ledge, careful but
moving quickly, her grace and balance never more in evidence. As she
reached the narrowest part and slowed, Abramm faced the wall himself and
edged out along the constricted section, feeling for handholds. His nose
brushed the stone, the smell of iron strong and biting. At his back, air filled
his robes, the fabric tugging gently at his shoulders as it lifted.

Shettai reached the far end and turned back to watch.

Abramm was fifteen feet from her when the ledge dropped away beneath
him, leaving him to cling with fingers and the balls of his feet. Briefly he
imagined plummeting into the depth behind him, floating like a bird for a
few glorious moments, then crashing upon the rocks like a rag doll. His stomach knotted, and sweat dribbled down his side. Banishing such thoughts, he
forced himself to concentrate on feeling for grooves and handholds in the
gritty stone, on moving no matter what. Behind him, Trap’s scabbarded blade
scraped against the stone, marking his progress.

Shettai had just reached the point where the ledge finally widened again
when a hair-raising screech reverberated up the canyon.

“Torments?” Trap hissed behind him. “That didn’t take long?”

Shettai looked up past Abramm, and her face went white. He clenched
his teeth and breathed deeply, slowly, blotting out everything save the need
to move and feel for holds.

Air whooshed around him, and he sensed the creature’s bulk, heard a
hissing throb of wingbeats. Then it was gone.

“It’s circling back,” Shettai hissed. “Hurry?”

Abramm planted his left foot on the wide ledge and lurched up beside
her. A heartbeat to gain his balance, and he swung round, the sword hissing
from its sheath as his free hand untied the net from his waist.

Here it came, bursting out of the mist, bigger than he was by twice and
heading straight for them. He shook out the net, feeling as if he were armed
with a broomstraw and cheesecloth. Maybe the Terstan talisman would help
him again.

The dark wings flared wide to brake, ebony talons reaching for his face.
Then, just as he moved to snap up the net, Shettai flung herself unexpectedly
in front of him, straight into the creature’s grasp. With a bellow of horror, he
shoved her aside, stabbing blindly into a thick, scaly leg. His sword point
punched through tough skin into tougher cartilage as an odd cold sizzle
rushed down his arm. White light blazed at his chest and the veren launched
itself off the wall with a scream, ripping the sword from Abramm’s hand.

A dark wing slammed into him, hurling him against the cliff wall in a flash
of re-ignited agony. He bounced off the stone and went down gasping, trying
to throw himself forward as he scrambled for a hold-and found it. He came
to a painful stop with one hand jammed into a vertical crack along the ledge’s
outer edge, the other closed around a sharp, rocky upthrust. One leg was
hitched up over the ledge, while the other dangled over awesome space.

Dizzy with the pain and loss of breath, he held very still, gasping, shaking,
his heart chattering in his chest. On the ledge before him Shettai huddled
against the wall a good five strides up the trail, her dark hair in disarray. Her
back was to him, and she appeared to be doing something to her chest. Blood
was everywhere.