Sennar's Mission (20 page)

By the time she’d finished, the sun was nearing the horizon. Nihal sighed with impatience. It had taken longer than planned.

Up in the oak again, she draped her cloak over her face. She’d sleep until the first shadows fell. Then she’d strike.

The crickets had just begun to sing. It was a cool, clear evening. After such a muggy day, the cold gave Nihal goose bumps. The heat beneath her cloak had been stifling, and sweat froze all up and down her body, shocking her awake.

She crept to the hideout’s entrance, picked up a stone, and slipped her knife from out of her boot. From a distance, she observed the guard. It was the lax guard from before. He was at ease, his eyelids sinking with drowsiness. He hadn’t noticed her approach. Nihal addressed him in her mind.
Doesn’t it always happen that way? Right at the moment of utter serenity, tragedy strikes. And then when you die it’s never the way you imagined it’d be. Just like that day in Salazar.

Her fingers tightened around the dagger’s handle. She felt no anger at all. This would be a new experience, far different than battle. She’d have to kill a man in cold blood, a man who’d never done anything to threaten her, a man with no idea that death was crouching in the bushes, waiting to pounce. Nihal had never felt any hesitation in killing. The first time, it had happened too quickly to even realize what was going on. And then war had stripped her of all emotion. Killing had become a habit for her, a routine. But here, stretched out on the earth, far from the deafening clamor of the battlefield, it was clear that killing a man was homicide.

Nihal flung the stone angrily into the trees.
This is for Laio. I’m doing this for Laio.
The vegetation was dense and the stone landed with a loud, papery crash. The guard shook himself awake and scoured the dark.

Nihal stood and crept toward him, slowly, her senses alert.

The guard took a few, timid steps forward, dragging his sword behind him. In a flash, Nihal was on him. With one hand she covered his mouth, with the other she slid the knife across his throat. The man didn’t so much as groan. Slowly, he went limp in her arms. She let him sink to the ground, averting her eyes.

She shook her head.
This is no time to get sentimental.

Returning to the edge of the forest, she gathered the logs she’d cut earlier that day and piled them beside the entrance. With her flint, she lit the fire and took off running. The wood was fresh and would need time to catch, but it wouldn’t be long.

She scrambled up the cliff face, found the passageway, and plunged in. Her knees and elbows burned worse than the day before, but she paid no mind. Her pointed ears stood at attention to detect any noises coming from the cave. For a while, all she heard was her own body, struggling downward through the tunnel.

Then, toward the end of the passageway, she heard a confused babbling, muted and surprisingly tranquil.

Stay calm. The smoke will take a while. You knew that.

Just as the day before, a blade of light pierced the dense darkness of the tunnel. Nihal leaned forward to peer through the fissure. No sign of smoke in the air, though she could already detect its acrid smell filtering in. The men were standing around, sniffing the air. One, two, three, four, five. Two were missing, probably in the other room. Two of them went ahead to scope things out, but there was nothing to discover. The air was beginning to thicken and cloud. Nihal could sense their growing agitation, their nerves jumping as they shifted restlessly about the cave. Then one of them shouted: “Fire!” and everyone broke into a panic, clamoring toward the exit and leaving Laio and the injured thief to fend for themselves.

Nihal’s moment had come. She rammed her shoulder into the thin layer of rock and, just as she expected, it collapsed with a single blow. She fell to the cavern floor and somersaulted to her feet, her sword in hand. There was no time for strategizing now—her body did all the thinking for her. In one quick slash, she dispensed with the wounded thief.

He wasn’t the only one still left in the cave, however. Just ahead, two men were squeezing themselves through the exit of the second room. As soon as one of them caught sight of her, he opened his mouth to hail the others, but it was too late. He was unarmed, and Nihal killed him easily. The second drew a hunting knife and came at her from behind. Nihal spun around just in time as the sharp blade took off a chunk of her hair. The thief came at her howling, but she blocked his attack readily and lunged at him in a fury. Her throat was beginning to burn from all the smoke. There was no time to drag things out. Relentlessly, she assaulted her enemy, until his back was against the wall. In one powerful motion, she pierced him straight through. Blood gushed and the man sank to the floor, lifeless. The cave grew silent.

Laio was gaping at his friend. “Nihal! How’d you manage to …”

She ran toward him. “Later. Now’s not the time.” She sliced the rope binding his hands and feet and helped him up.

Laio wobbled, trying with difficulty to stay on his feet. “I haven’t moved in days. They kept me tied this whole time,” he began in excuse, but his words were lost in a fit of coughing.

By then, a billow of smoke obscured the cave’s ceiling.

“Stay down,” Nihal ordered, she too crouching to the ground.

There was nothing to do now but hightail out of the cave, and pray the traps would take care of the rest.

Together, they crawled toward the exit as quickly as possible. No one was left to block their path. One inch at time, they neared salvation, Nihal in front, her mind emptied, her body intent on climbing, Laio dragging along behind her, numb with pain. As they crawled within sight of the cave’s entrance, a torrent of heat swept suddenly over them. Nihal came to a halt, overwhelmed by its intensity. She hadn’t expected the fire to flare up so rapidly. Outside, the flames blazed a blinding white.

“Now what?” Laio asked feebly.

Right. Now what?
“Turn back! Quick!” Nihal shouted.

In a hurry, they retraced their steps. The fire hissed and cracked menacingly. The cloud of smoke continued to descend.

Once again, they were in the cave’s main room. There, the smoke was higher up, still hugging the ceiling, and they lifted themselves to their knees. Nihal glanced toward the hole she’d made in the wall. It was at least an arm’s length or two above their heads, a narrow, smoke-filled artery.
Something to climb up on and reach it, anything so we can breathe!

Nihal spotted a bucket of water in the corner of the room. She ran to it, sliced off two large pieces of cloth from her cloak and dunked them in the water. Laio was coughing convulsively.

“Put this over your mouth,” she said, handing him a piece of the soaked cloth.

In a panic, she scanned the room, looking for anything they could climb up on, but all she found were two straw mattresses and bare rock walls without a single foothold. She scoured every corner, rummaging her brain for ideas.
It’s a trap, we’re trapped in here! And I’m the only one to blame if we don’t make it out!

Nihal ran around the room like some wild beast in its cage as the blaze approached. She slipped into the cave’s other room. A pantry. Of course! Why hadn’t she thought of it? Stolen treasures, large trunks, but barrels, too, and every sort of food imaginable. Just what you’d need to maintain a safe hideout.

“Laio, come in here!”

He came as quickly as his stiff legs would carry him.

“I need you to help me move one of these.” Nihal pointed to a large barrel.

They each took a side and tried lifting, but both were out of breath.

Nihal called upon every ounce of strength in her body. “Just a bit more and we’re there. Let’s go!” she shouted, as a stream of smoke snuffed the voice out in her throat.

In the end, it was sheer desperation alone that allowed them to move the barrel beneath the tunnel opening. Both broke into a ceaseless fit of coughing. Nihal grabbed the bucket of water, dumped half of it on Laio and the rest on herself. Laio’s eyes were red and he was wheezing.

“Press the cloth over your mouth and don’t move. Do you understand?”

Laio nodded.

Nihal ran back to the pantry and began emptying out a giant treasure chest. Candlesticks, golden plates, handfuls of jewels flew behind her head, until she’d cleared the trunk entirely. She dragged it into the other room and signaled Laio to help her stack it on top of the barrel.

Now remained the hardest part of all.

Nihal turned to Laio. “We have to go out the way I came in. The passage is narrow, and the air is thin, but you can’t get scared in there, do you hear me? We can do this. You go first, I’ll follow. Go straight and don’t look back.”

Laio nodded, his chest heaving in search of air. He climbed onto their makeshift tower.

It was a hopeless venture. The tunnel was long, and it would be suffocating inside. Their chances of coming out safe on the other end were slim to none.

“Take a deep breath and head upward as fast as you can,” Nihal shouted, once Laio had reached the tunnel’s entrance.

Laio did as he was told and was swallowed by the shadows.

Nihal clambered up the barrel and eased into the tunnel.

As soon as she entered, her breath was gone. Blended now with the reek of mildew was the acrid smell of smoke. The walls were boiling hot, and seemed to flex and tighten around the two fugitives like a supple, living membrane. Their bodies obstructed the flow of smoke rushing toward the exit and a trickle of clean air made its way down.

Laio was moving slowly.

“Did you feel the fresh air? We’re almost out,” Nihal shouted in encouragement. Though in reality they were surrounded by impenetrable darkness and the stench of death.

With Laio’s body obstructing the airflow above her, Nihal could feel herself suffocating. Smoke poured in from every crevice, spiraling upward around them, seeking a way out, just as they were.

“I can’t do it,” Laio wheezed. He stopped moving.

“Yes you can!” Nihal shouted, her voice so hoarse it was unrecognizable. She coughed. A burning, clinging sweat covered her from head to foot. “Keep going,” she said. “I’m right here behind you to help. Just don’t stop moving!”

Laio rallied his strength and began to crawl. Nihal could hear his labored breathing and she stretched out an arm to push him forward. Her lungs blazed, her head spun, Laio’s voice echoed monotonously in her ears: “I can’t do it. … I can’t do it.”

Nihal exploded into a fit of anger. “Stop crying!” she burst. “Did you come all this way to die like a rat? Move yourself!”

Laio picked up his pace, his words drowned out by the anguished rhythm of his wheezing. Behind him, Nihal could feel her consciousness slipping. She went on crawling upward into nothingness.

The rush of air struck them suddenly. Fresh, free-flowing. Overwhelming.

Nihal felt herself collapse. A weak hand gripped her.

It took some time for them to regain consciousness. For a long while they lay on the rock, wheezing, trembling in the night breeze, which felt as cold as a winter chill after the inferno of the tunnel.

Laio was the first to wake. He turned slowly toward his friend and reached out to touch her hand.

“I thought you were dead,” he murmured.

Nihal cracked her eyelids. Above her, the summer sky pulsed with stars. She squeezed Laio’s hand in her own.

The days flew by. After the dangers Sennar had encountered at sea, the journey felt like a walk in the park. The countryside was enchanting, his horse obedient, and the rations the best one could hope for. And Ondine was there beside him.

None of the women Sennar had met in his life was anything like her. The first had been Soana, his teacher of sorcery, beautiful and dignified. After that he’d met a few other young sorcerers, but they’d all struck him as cold and full of themselves. With his wild shock of red hair and his absentminded manner, Sennar stood no chance at gaining their friendship. Then there was Nihal. But Nihal was a whole other story. And Sennar didn’t want to think about that right now.

From the moment he’d kissed Ondine, Sennar’s thoughts had turned into a jumble. He hadn’t been able to keep her from coming along on the journey, but deep down he knew he hadn’t really tried, either. She was so pleasant to be around, always smiling so freely, that he’d stopped questioning it all. After nineteen years of seriousness, he felt he owed himself a bit of light-heartedness. He wanted to take the time to figure out exactly what he felt for her. Who knew, perhaps by the journey’s end he’d realize he was in love.

Things were going well again, his mission was on the right track, the Underworld was filled with marvels. What was there to worry about?

The caravan was extensive. The count’s sedan opened the procession behind two guards on horseback. A cortège of servants and couriers and mules laden with provisions followed behind. Sennar and Ondine brought up the rear, with two guards at their heels keeping watch.

They walked throughout the day, stopping only after the sun set. The count possessed several residences within his zone of jurisdiction, which he employed as vacation homes, or as temporary bases when, once each year, he was required to visit all of the villages under his control.

Once outside of his dominion, they stayed the night at inns along the way or as guests in the residences of other counts. Wherever the caravan stopped, they received princely treatment. The count enjoyed great fame, and even those who were not his subjects waited upon him eagerly. Even so, he was met with the occasional malicious glance. Many wondered what a well-respected count like Varen was doing with One from Above and a new arrival in his entourage.

The king’s palace was located in the kingdom’s capital, Zirea, an enormous, sprawling city that occupied an entire ampoule. It was like no other city in the kingdom. Everything was made of glass: houses, buildings, shops, squares, statues. Opaque glass, to keep prying eyes from seeing inside; colored glass that formed interplays of light along the street; rough, angular glass, so as to magically alter the outlines of objects.