Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King, Book 1) (45 page)

He glanced at Cooper. “My lady, if I did, I do not recall it. It is possible I
misspoke, I suppose. Things were confusing that morning. As I recall there
was that dispute with the merchant of silks and brocades.”

“He was trying to rob us,” Cooper added. “Remember?”

She did not remember, because it had been Cooper who’d done the talking and in a language she had not understood. “I remember you arguing with
a man. That’s all.”

“Perhaps I misheard Master Danarin in the confusion,” Cooper added. “I
was still not proficient in the Tahg.”

“It was simply a misunderstanding, my lady,” Danarin said. `And even had
I done it apurpose, what good would it have done? Surely you could see them
at the next contest.”

She frowned, feeling confused. He was right, of course. A deliberate
attempt at deception would have been pointless. And he had just saved her
life. Moreover, if he had at least a cart and a traveling party, he was in better
shape than she was, so why bother with her at all? Especially since the whole
question of his being after Abramm had become moot.

His attractiveness made it difficult to hang tightly to her distrust. She was
so relieved to have been delivered from the Esurhites, and he looked so …
distressed.

She drew a breath. “Well, perhaps it was just a misunderstanding. I was
very disappointed that day.”

`And you have never trusted me.” His dark eyes twinkled, and a corner of
his mouth twitched upward. “Have you?”

“I trust very few,” she said, lifting her chin.

“Will you come with us, then? It will be safer-the roads will be full of
soldiers. This Dorsaddi thing is just beginning, I fear … and away from their
chain of command, well, some of these men are not always as controlled as
one would like.”

She frowned at him, wanting to trust him, to like him unreservedly. “Very
well. We will go. And thank you for your generosity.”

It’s my fault, Abramm thought miserably. It’s all my fault.

He sat with his back against the wall, clutching a talon-pierced, halfdrained water bag. His companions-one dead, one alive-lay on the rockand bone-strewn floor in front of him. The pale shimmer of the healing
power now enwrapping the live one-Trap-enabled him to see them both.
And to see clearly the solid rock walls that imprisoned them.

He had crawled reluctantly from the unconsciousness that had followed
the vomiting to find his contact with the Terstan’s healing session had again
reaped unexpected benefits. His nausea was gone and the scar on his arm
quiescent. And if his head still ached, it was from being slammed against the
cliff. His other pains-shoulder, hands, and ribs-could also be attributed to
plain physical abuse, though even they seemed lessened.

He had spent some time clearing away the rocks and bones to make a
space where he could lay out Shettai’s body properly. Carefully, stoically, he
had positioned it on her cloak, straightening her limbs and arranging her glorious hair so that it covered most of the signs of the wound that had killed
her, though he left her new Terstan shield in view. Then he sat looking at her,
unable to tuck the robe over her as he’d intended.

If only the Terstan’s power had washed away his guilt and grief along with
the other wounds.

She was dead. Dead at his own hands as surely as if he had held the
implement that killed her. If only he’d been quicker on that ledge. Quicker
to see what she’d intended, quicker to bring the net to bear so she wouldn’t have felt compelled to protect him. Fire and Torment! What was she thinking?
She had no sword, no chance at all!

If only he hadn’t allowed her to come, hadn’t given in to his desires to
have her with him, hadn’t deluded himself with the notion that all would
work out well because all had worked out well so far. He’d known what kind
of odds they faced. Whatever was he thinking not to assume they’d be
attacked by veren precisely where they were attacked?

If only he hadn’t given in when she’d confessed her love for him. If he’d
kept his wits about him then, realizing to let it go any further would only
hurt them both, she’d still be alive. Never knowing he’d shared her love, she’d
surely have stayed with Katahn, safe in Xorofin …

The accusations burned in his breast, adding layer upon layer of condemnation. He had sinned-against Eidon, against the Holy Words, against even
the tenets of honor held by the true heroes of Kiriath. It was part of the
hero’s duty to protect the weaker sex, to honor their chastity and virtue, to
acknowledge the rights of the men who were or would one day be their husbands. Yet he had spurned that, had lain with a woman not his wife, the
beloved slave of his master, in fact. He had compromised her virtue and
destroyed his own, all for the sake of satisfying his own lusts. And he dared
to think himself a hero?

A sharp, new nausea rolled up in him, and he groaned, clutching the
water bag to his chest as the misery intensified. I should have died on that
ledge, not her! He deserved it, after all. Sin upon sin upon sin … Yes, he
deserved it.

And from the look of things, he would be making due payment before
much longer. They would most likely die of dehydration, since he had only
found the one water bag between them, the others lost along with their food
in the battle with the veren. They’d die, trapped like rats in a ship’s wall, no
deliverance accomplished, no awakening of the Dorsaddi’s Heart. Just a
quiet, ignominious end, attended and marked by no one. She died for
nothing.

He groaned again, and at his feet, Trap stirred.

Abramm swallowed the sharp, hard lump lodged in his throat and wiped
the tears streaking his face. Grimly he wrestled his emotions back under
control.

Meridon sat up with a groan. A kelistar flared to life, and as always, Abramm was unprepared for the way it captivated him. The light so clear
and clean and beautiful, the sense of a thousand voices raised in joyful song,
the warmth that reached down into his soul, spawning memories of sundrenched afternoons in fields of golden, shimmering grass. For a moment it
even overruled the grim specters of grief and guilt and despair that haunted
his mind.

But only for a moment. Aware of the Terstan blinking blearily at him,
Abramm tore his gaze from it, and the comfort vanished like a candle flame
in a gale.

Trap frowned at the chamber around them. “Where are we?” His voice
was hoarse, but as before, there was no sign of ichor, no sign of injury beyond
the cuts and scrapes engendered by their encounter with the cliff face-and
the contest in the arena before that.

Abramm handed him the water bag and, as Trap drank deeply, recounted
the fight on the ledge. But when he came to Shettai’s death he could not go
on, overcome by a fresh wave of grief. It did not seem possible she was gone.
Yet there she lay, unnaturally still and stiff, cradled in the cloak and rocks that
would be her burial cairn.

His tale forgotten, he leaned forward to adjust the fall of her hair away
from her face and, after a long moment of stroking the dark locks, leaned back
again.

Trap was staring at the golden shield on her chest.

“She touched the talisman right before she died,” Abramm explained.

Meridon’s eyes climbed to meet his own. “She is truly free, then.”

Abramm swallowed hard and turned aside, blinking back more tears,
fighting to control himself, and hideously embarrassed by his failure. He could
not speak at all, and long moments went by until finally he dropped his head
into his hands and gave up.

“I am sorry, my lord,” Trap said quietly.

Still with his head in his hands, Abramm let the grief roll through him. “I
was the one who was supposed to die,” he croaked. “Not her.”

“Only Eidon can decide such things. And she is with him now,” Trap went
on. “Beyond the veil of tears and shadow, happier than we can imagine.”

“She is with me-” the ghost-man had said.

But that was a hallucination. Had to be. No man could see Eidon and live.
The Words said so. It was all just wishful thinking brought on by shock and the gathering storm of his reaction to the veren poison. It must be.

Mustn’t it?

He grew abruptly aware of the Terstan talisman’s warmth upon his
breastbone. Simultaneously the spore in his arm writhed and a sudden inexplicable fear broke over him. He backed away from the disturbing notions
that were presenting themselves.

Hallucination. Nothing more.

“If you could see her now,” Trap said softly, “you would rejoice.”

There was no doubt in his voice, only a rock-solid conviction that
Abramm found himself envying. Even at his most devoted as a Novice Initiate, he did not think he’d ever believed as strongly as Trap seemed to. Now,
though he believed almost nothing, the other’s words brought comfort.
Maybe they were true. If they were … it was a wonderful thought.

“Do you feel ready to move on yet, my lord?” Trap asked presently.

Abramm lifted his head. “Move on?”

“I doubt they’ll send anyone after us. It’d be easier to box us in and let us
die of thirst. We’re supposed to be dead already, so this way they won’t have
to bother with any awkward rumors getting spread around.”

Abramm eyed the walls surrounding them. “Where exactly did you have
in mind to move on to?”

“We’re trapped by illusions, my lord.”

“I know that, but…” He touched the wall, hard and cold as ever. “What
do you propose?”

“We’ll just walk through it. But we’ll go inward, rather than out. I’ve had
enough verens for one day.”

“Walk through it.”

“Sure. Watch.” Trap stood, still holding the water bag, and walked into
the wall at the back of the chamber, the orblight left bobbing on the air currents disturbed by his passing. A moment later he reappeared, plunging back
through the wall. “See?” he said. “Simple.”

“What’s on the other side?”

“More tunnel. Certainly a way out they won’t expect us to take.”

Tentatively, Abramm stroked the rock’s surface. It was still hard and cold
and rough.

“Here,” Trap said, holding out a hand. “Take hold and I’ll pull you
through it.”

Abramm glanced between hand and wall, then gave a skeptical nod.
“Very well. Let me finish with Shettai first.”

With great care and deliberation he wrapped the cloak about her, hesitating a long moment before he could bring himself to cover her face. Then,
dry-eyed and numb, he covered her with a layer of rocks. Seeming to sense
his need to do it alone, Trap made no move to help, watching him in patient
silence.

At last it was done. Standing, he drew a deep breath and turned away.
Trap held out his hand, Abramm took it, and they walked forward into the
wall. The stone hit him hard enough to make his eyes water but gave way
like soft butter as Meridon drew him on.

Then he stood at the Terstan’s side looking down a dark tunnel. Trap had
conjured a second orblight to replace the one that had not followed them
through the illusion. Unlike the spell on the outer opening, this one worked
both ways, for even though he’d just walked through it, the stone felt as hard
and solid as any normal rock.

He frowned at his companion. “How did you know it was there?”

“‘His Light pierces the Shadow and destroys the constructions of evil,’”
he quoted. “‘Where Light comes, Darkness must flee.’”

“That’s from the Second Word.”

“Aye.”

Meridon conjured a third orblight, set it carefully against his shoulderwhere it clung-and started off, leaving the other one drifting slowly to the
ground behind them. After one last, long glance backward, Abramm followed
him.

The tunnel was unremarkable, narrow and barely high enough for
Abramm to walk upright. Periodic openings led into narrow, empty chambers
whose use was at first a mystery. Then they found one that was not empty
and realized they were tombs-possibly dating from pre-Cataclysm times
when the Ophiran Empire still reigned. The thick layer of dust on the floor
looked to have been undisturbed for centuries.

As the corridor wound on and on, tunneling ever deeper into the rock,
Abramm began to worry that the only exit might be the way they had come
in. When he expressed his concern to Trap, the latter admitted he, too, had
considered that.

“But I don’t think it’s so. The tombs at the beginning were unused, remember, and the chambers few. We’re passing lots more now, all used,
which makes me think the front door’s still ahead. I suspect the opening we
came through was carved long after the bulk of the tombs were filled-making an easier way to get into the chambers at the rear.”

What he said made sense, but Abramm’s concern continued to nag him.
With every turn of the tunnel and still no sign of the end, he grew more and
more convinced they should turn back and take their chances on the cart
path.

Assuming they could find their way back out.

Again he spoke to Trap, and again his friend insisted they were on the
right track, that it wouldn’t be long before they found the front entrance. But
still his uneasiness mounted, spinning out a rising reluctance to go on. Fear
nipped at him, cold and stomach-turning, as he grew steadily more convinced
that disaster lay ahead. A dead end, a trap, an ambush by shadowspawn-
perhaps even the veren awaited them at the end of this trek.