The Hidden Icon (15 page)

I didn’t need to ask for Gannet to offer an answer. My eyes rose to the cut of his shoulders underneath his heavy cloak, the blonde hair raked by the wind over his collar, bright against the black. I turned the page. I didn’t want to share what I’d read with Gannet. He would correct me, or worse, would tell me precisely what terrible ills the passage promised, and coincidentally, so did I. Besides, if he were to look over his shoulder, he would no doubt find the sketch I had done of his own name on impulse in one of the few blank spaces of
this
page. I’d already searched the book for mention of him. It made no sense that he would carry the same name as his icon, but hardly anything about my world made sense anymore, and thus I indulged where and when I could.

Though I walled myself against him, we were touching still, and I didn’t want him to know what I was thinking. That I was thinking of him. I drew the book closer to me, so even if he should glance aside to me he couldn’t see it. I read like this for some time, relenting and resting my cheek against his back, turning pages and steadying the tome with my chilled hands only when it was completely necessary. As a particularly virulent gust of wind tore across the cliff side, I thought I would lose the book entirely, but I felt an unnatural cold enter my heart when the pages settled askew against each other, one rolled into the spine by the wind. There, flowing from one page to the back of the next, one of the seemingly senseless symbols joined with the thick inked lines of a second symbol, making one I would recognize were I to trace its shape in the dark. It was a holy symbol of my people, a weather ward. My mother had sketched it in the sand for me when I was old enough to toddle over the marks, and shown me later where it stood in relief in stone throughout our home and our city. I later found it in the strangest of places, embroidered or even dyed into our servant’s tunics, and learned better the irony of its prevalence: it never rained.

Heedless of the cold, I lifted the book with my free hand so that I might better see it, and what might briefly have seemed coincidence was upon closer examination intentional. I could even see now the creases in the paper where it had been drawn over one page and onto the next, muddying the lines beneath it in bold strokes. Circa’s step caused the bound corners to bump against Gannet’s back, and he stirred, chin raised as he glanced back at me. Growing by the moment more fond of my secrets, I took note of the place in the book where the symbol lay, and tucked it back into my satchel.

“Your studies in Ambar will be far more extensive,” he observed, though he couldn’t keep his eyes off the path without risking an accident and turned again.

“And you’ve said I’ll have teachers,” I returned, nerves giddy at my discovery and in trying to hide it. “It will be easier to study when I can make some sense of what I’m reading.”

“You assume that’s the point of study.” Tone oblique, Gannet didn’t offer me anymore, and I swallowed the retort that rolled between teeth and tongue. I didn’t need to argue with Gannet to hasten the hours, and I sat as straight in the saddle as the needled trees we passed, arms and legs wound around him enough only to keep from falling off. With wondering over the presence of the symbol and the memories of my family it stirred, the hours we spent on the track seemed slim indeed. Antares delivered on his promise when we slowed well before sundown, my eyes sweeping over the vaulting landscape before us. I had sense enough to appreciate that the time we would take traveling through the mountains would be much less than what would be required to cross over them, but I didn’t think the caverns here would be kindred to those I had called home the last few years in Aleyn.

Circa seemed uneasy as we came to join the others in circling a wide, crude opening in the mountain’s side, like a mouth agape and stained wine-dark. I was far from easy myself.

“We’ll hold here for now,” Antares said, loud enough for all assembled to hear. I could feel his anxiety, like an animal leashed tightly, begrudgingly controlled. Already two of the soldiers had dismounted, the reins of their horses given to others: the scouting party. Circa’s discomfort was like a current passing from her haunches to mine, and I was grateful for the prospect of firm ground. We dismounted, Gannet going first and offering me his hands. This contact was strangely more unnerving than what the ride had demanded, and no more welcome. And unlike the ride, this brief contact flooded me with his feelings. He was a man cornered, resigned to the nearness of something that was making him extremely nervous. I could not, in so sudden and abrupt a touch, ascertain whether or not that something was me, or whatever lay ahead of us in the caves. I looked at his face, but there was nothing there, not even when he met my eyes.

“We’ll have a fire and bread and beer before we go in,” Morainn announced, suddenly upon us both. Her enthusiasm for this turn of events was evident, though I wondered how severe our trials were to come if we were rationing so much already. The three of us joined Triss and Imke, the latter crouched, busy making a fire. I couldn’t keep my gaze from returning to the entrance of the Rogue’s Ear.

“How did you move so many into Aleyn using such a narrow path?” My question was for no one in particular, and I avoided using language that expressly invited too much conversation about the war.

“We didn’t,” Morainn offered casually, as though she spoke of a trade route and not the massive movements of troops. “There’s another way, and many that have come this far with us will turn and take the road to the east. We will not see them for many weeks after we have reached the capitol.”

“But we don’t have that much time,” I murmured, eyes snagged on the dark opening again, like a rent in my vision. I didn’t want to go in, but wanted to know very much what waited within.

“We can’t reach Jhosch quickly enough.”

This from Imke, whose face peeked above a blaze that had only just begun to lick the kindling she had gathered for it. Her fervor was matched among many of the soldiers, and even Morainn quelled excitement at being so near her home. That she didn’t answer Imke’s enthusiasm was a gift to me: I could not hope for such a homecoming.

The beer was poured into sturdy, resin soaked vessels that could be nestled in the ash and earth near the fire to warm the drink, but not burn our hands when we retrieved them. Though tough, the bread was pitted with nuts and dried fruit, and I found that the meal was not an altogether unpleasant one, crowded around the fire for warmth and exchanging bolstering looks with Morainn when I did not stare into my lap or the darkened entrance to the caves.

While I sat next to Gannet, he seemed careful not to brush against me, or perhaps I imagined that he did. He had said nothing, done nothing, that gave me cause to believe he knew I had perceived his anxiety so briefly before. I felt as guilty for it as I did any inadvertent reading of something so intimate as fear. I remembered that when I was very young, I would run and wiggle between my eldest sister’s bedclothes when I had a bad dream. She would coddle me and cradle me and I would sleep again, but one night, when I was surely too old for it, I stole into her bed only to touch her slim arm and feel with a shock the certainty of her racing heart, her mind heat-clouded over the young man who was apprenticed to our court physician. I had withdrawn from her as though burned, and never said anything to her about it nor gone into her chamber at night again. My sisters had teased her ruthlessly over him, and I supposed she fancied him. But we hadn’t any need for a court physician, or even a court, when we were exiled. I never knew what became of him.

Somehow, I didn’t think Gannet would appreciate my discretion.

The men and women under Antares’ direction did not seem to rest much, but patrolled the perimeter or secured our packs and rations with the horses, who would be led through the caves as a group, tethered together. Only when the two who had scouted ahead in the caves returned, appearing like ghosts in the tunnel’s entrance, were any decisions made regarding our next course of action. A flurry of whispers passed among the guard, and Morainn, not to be ignored, approached Antares directly. When she returned, she brought her anxiety with her, chill as breath from the cave’s mouth.

“He says we can’t go together. Is it true?” She looked at Gannet, and I sensed in him the faintest flicker of surprise.

“They’d have no cause to lie,” he returned, his eyes cutting despite his words to the two men who stood conversing softly with Antares.

“Haven’t you been here before?” I was beginning to feel some of Gannet’s nervousness. He gave me a look that suggested I should’ve known better.

“Yes. But it’s not always the same.”

His explanation was a sorry one, but he offered nothing more, not with Antares now approaching our fire. With various degrees of scrambling, we were all on our feet. Morainn had remained standing, and nodded impatiently as Antares sketched a bow before speaking.

“We’ll have to take the paths in threes,” he submitted, clearly distressed by the news he had to deliver. I had expected perhaps three groups, but he meant for us to travel three at a time. I was surprised that we would be so divided.

“Why only three at a time?”

Gannet shot me a look.

“Consider yourself lucky we don’t have to go one at a time.”

He must’ve considered that explanation enough, for Gannet didn’t say anymore. Perhaps the Rogue’s Ear was no more bound by the rules of the mortal world than it was fashioned for mortal travel.

When Antares continued, it was with a greater measure of confidence.

“If you would permit it, I believe you should travel with me,
Dresha
Morainn.”

Morainn inclined her head in agreement, and her response assumed a tone that suggested she had come upon the idea herself. “I insist upon it, and
Han’dra
Eiren, too.”

Before her sentiment could be fully fleshed, however, Gannet took a step forward. His posture neither challenged nor demanded, but I knew what he was going to say before he said it.

“
Han’dra
Eiren cannot enter the Rogue’s Ear without me.”

His response was met with resistance from Morainn, but he didn’t indulge it. Neither did he return the probing look I turned on him when he finished speaking. Triss and Imke remained silent, no doubt coveting the place I would’ve taken at Morainn’s side, and at the side of her skillful captain.

“Kurdan will go with you, then,” Antares named one of the guard, a stone-faced man I’d never spoken with taking several steps forward. “And you’ll be the last three to enter.”

With nearly an hour between each parting and Morainn, Antares, and Triss among the first, it was a dull time, simply waiting there, watching. I didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to myself, even with my imagination running wild as it was, so I didn’t seek to entertain us with a story, nor did I open the book again. I wasn’t sure I could give either my full attention, anyway, contemplating four days in the dark with Gannet and Kurdan, each strangers in their own way.

When Imke and two soldiers whose names I didn’t know passed into the depths of the tunnel, Imke’s bright hair like a loose flag swallowed in the dark, I stood. I wanted to be ready.

I didn’t feel the same apprehension that I’d felt when we’d waited at the docks in Cascar, nor the confidence that followed. But I didn’t want to, for it had preceded a frightening recklessness. A quick glance at my companions confirmed that their thoughts ran along a similar vein. Kurdan didn’t keep his hands on his weapons, but his posture betrayed a man ready at any moment to spring.

Gannet studied me openly, his look not unlike the one he had given me that day, mere moments before I had caused the ship to sink. That he blamed himself in part for what had happened wasn’t a comfort, but a curse. It was hard enough to live with my guilt alone, but to know that he felt the same, that he considered me to be helpless as an infant, was maddening.

I focused on the cave’s opening, the uncertainty of the journey ahead of us. Because there were only three of us now, and because I would not have much longer to ask, I spoke without looking at either man.

“What can we expect in there?”

The list of what we couldn’t was no doubt far shorter, but I asked all the same. After Re’Kether, after Cascar, there was little that would surprise me. But still plenty to fear.

“It’s not a way meant for mortal passage,” Gannet answered. “We take it now only because we must.”

“So we’re in danger?”

Even as I asked, I glanced at Kurdan. He wasn’t frightened, but I could smell the certainty of death on him. He didn’t think he would see the other side, and the shade in his heart haunted me.

“If you do everything I say and don’t stray from the path, we won’t be in any danger.”

The way he said it made me sure that Gannet thought there was no way I would do as he asked, and I wasn’t sure what appealed to me more: doing as I wished, or doing what he told me and proving him wrong.

The hour expired after what seemed twice the usual length of time, and Kurdan, Gannet, and I approached the Rogue’s Ear, the guard at the head of our party and Gannet at the rear.

“We should stay close together,” Gannet said to Kurdan and I both, and though the older man bristled at being guided by someone without military rank, he made no motion but to acquiesce to Gannet’s orders. “When the path divides, we must not hesitate in making our choice. We are headed north, and no other way.”