The Seer King: Book One of the Seer King Trilogy (20 page)

“There,” Tenedos pointed. “There is where we’ll find the entrance to the cavern.”

The face farther from us was far more precipitous, almost a cliff.

I saw no sign of life, either on the mountain or the approaches.

Not far away from where we sat was a draw. We left the trail, and rode up the narrow canyon about half a mile, until it widened into a cleft. There was enough of an overhang to give some shelter.

I ordered the men to dismount, and assemble. From here, we’d move on foot. For the first time, I explained exactly what our mission was. I watched the men’s faces closely. Even as tired, dirty, cold, and wet as they were, I saw no signs of discouragement or fear. My warrants and I had chosen our men well. When I finished, I asked for questions.

“How’ll we gie up t’ th’ mouth of th’ cave?” one man asked. “Creepin up th’ trail?”

“No,” I said. “We’ll go up the cliff.”

A couple of the men groaned.

“Remember,” I said, realizing I sounded a bit like one of my more pompous tactical instructors, “the easy way’s always ambushed.”

Troop Guide Bikaner gave me a look of mild approval.

We assembled our gear into backpacks and, leaving four men to watch the horses, started for the mountain. The land was desolate, with never a tree to be seen, but only the stark brush. In the dry season, it would have been desert, but now it was a sandy, sticky mire.

It was dusk when we reached its base — our timing was perfect. I looked for a dry place to rest, where we’d eat and wait until full dark, but the entire world dripped dankly. We found some thick bushes I imagined to be a bit less sodden than the rest and crawled under.

I remember the meal I ate, wondering if it might be my last: dried beef that had been shredded and mixed with berries and rendered fat, which was extraordinarily nutritious, but as easy on the stomach as digesting a rock; cold herbal tea we’d brewed back in the village the night before; and soggy flat-bread dipped into a fruit jam. I admit, though, I felt better afterward.

I decided it was dark enough, and we set out. I put the hillmen in the fore of the column, since they’d have the best feel for the terrain; then the fat infantry sergeant Vien, myself, Tenedos, the rest of the party, and the rear was brought up by Legate Baner and Troop Guide Bikaner — with this small a party, I must have someone I had absolute confidence in for my rearguard.

We climbed for almost an hour, the grade growing steeper, but still no worse than a hill-scramble. Then the way grew more difficult, and I signaled a halt and ordered the men to rope up — we’d brought twenty-five-foot-long ropes with us. They were fine — no more than a quarter-inch in diameter — but had been given a strengthening spell by Tenedos before we left Sayana. We pulled off our sheepskin jackets and tied them to our packs.

The way was wet and slippery, but fortunately the boulders were small enough to move around, and those we had to climb over were cracked and split, giving us sufficient handholds.

I tried to keep an idea of where we were in my head — there was nothing to be seen but darkness against darkness and the black rock all around. The going grew worse, and we had to traverse left again and again to find a passable route. We were being forced closer and closer to the face with the trail, but there was little I could do to change things. At least the rain had lessened, which was a mixed favor. We could move more easily, but the likelihood of us being seen or heard was greater.

Fingersnaps came down the line, and we froze. A whisper came: “Officer up.”

I untied and laboriously crept over five men, to the front of the column. Sergeant Yonge was on point. When I reached him, I didn’t need any whisper to see what the problem was. I cursed silently. Just above us was mortared stone. We
had
been moving too far left — the road to the cave’s entrance was just above us. We’d have to go back and shift right to a new route. I decided to slip up onto the trail, and see if I saw any sign of the Tovieti.

I was about to lever myself over the parapet when a noise came. I don’t know just how to describe it, but it was a low swishing, or perhaps hissing. I ducked back, and became one of the stones around me.

Something came up the path, something enormous. The sound took about ten seconds to go past, then there was nothing but the night and the rain. I forced myself to peer over the parapet, saw nothing, and pulled myself up onto the parapet and over onto the cobbled pathway. I slipped and almost fell, going to my knees. The slickness was not from the rain, but from a horrible slime that whatever had just passed left in its trail. My stomach curled, and I decided there was no valor in continuing this reconnaissance. Now I knew what that hissing had suggested — it was the sound my mind thought an enormous slug might make as it moved past. I do not know in fact what it was, though, nor do I wish to.

Laboriously we reversed our course, and went back to our right. Eventually we found another way that seemed to go. The closer we climbed to the cave’s entrance, the harder it rained. At last we’d climbed to the same level I thought the cavern to be on, and once more we traversed left. Again we came on the mortared stone, and I peered over it. The path came to an end here, on a level, parapeted terrace, a balcony with the cave mouth behind it. I saw no sign of guardians, human or otherwise. I ducked back, out of sight.

We’d made good progress — it was still two hours before dawn, I guessed. We would wait for at least an hour. Climbing had raised a sweat, and we’d paid no attention to the wet and the chill. We put our jackets back on, but clinging to the near-vertical rocks, the cold seeped through into our bones within minutes, and I was hard-pressed to keep my teeth from chattering.

Over the howling of the wind, I thought I could hear chanting, or perhaps only shouts, from the cavern. I tried to forget about my misery, and go through, again and again, just what Tenedos had told me he’d “seen” in his brief seconds inside the cavern.

The sounds from the cavern stopped, and there was nothing but the storm. I heard another sound: boot heels that I hoped were human, clattering on the cobbles above us.

Sentries. There were two of them. Once again, we became lumps of sandy stone. But there was little real danger. I doubted the guards would bother peering over the edge — there was nothing at all to see, and they must be near the end of their watch. I’d never really entertained the hope that the entrance to the cave would be wholly unguarded.

Very slowly, as slowly as anything I’ve known, the sky changed from black to the darkest of grays. Now I heard more footsteps above, and the clatter of armor and weapons. Voices came — a challenge, a response, inaudible words, then some laughter and the sound of the relieved watch marching away.

It might have been better to take care of the other sentries, knowing how cold and tired they would be, and hence easy targets. But when their relief showed, they would have cried the alarm. I listened for another space, and was somewhat impressed. These sentries did march their complete rounds, rather than huddle against the weather. Nor were they talking and telling stories. I listened to them pass, then return, counting the interval. I would rather have done that half a dozen times, to ensure I had the exact time, but the sky was growing lighter all the time.

I crept up to Sergeant Yonge, and motioned. Two fingers, two fingers — fingers stiffened whisked across my throat, fingers pointing at the ground, then looping back in an arch. Yonge nodded, and I saw the stumps of his teeth flash in the dimness. He pointed to three other hillmen. They slid out of their packs and gave them to other men. Knives came out of sheaths, and the four moved up to just below the parapet.

The footsteps came back, passed, came back once more, and four figures went over the wall. I heard the scuffle of booted feet, the very beginnings of an outcry, then, over the hiss of the rain, a falling gurgle.

I went over the parapet in a leap, Sergeant Vien behind me. The two sentries were sprawled, their seeping blood being washed away by the downpour. I saw in the growing light one of the hillmen looking shamefaced, and knew he must have been the one who almost spoiled the killings. Sergeant Yonge would deal with him harshly if we lived through the next hour.

The rest of our party came over the low rampart.

“Yonge,” I ordered. “That body … throw him far out.”

Yonge frowned, not understanding why I didn’t wish to dump both corpses, but motioned to his men, and one of the sentries was hurled into blackness. I listened, but heard no sound of the body striking.

“The other, put facedown … there.” I pointed to a rock about fifty feet back down the rise, a rock it would take some scrambling to reach.

Four men maneuvered the second corpse downhill, then carefully positioned the corpse as I’d wanted.

It would be in plain sight to anyone who peered over the railing, which was exactly what I wanted. Not even Troop Guide Bikaner seemed to understand, so I briefly whispered why I’d arranged matters as I had. If someone came out on the terrace, and saw it unguarded, the first thing they would think was there’d been an accident. They’d rush to the parapet, peer out, and see poor dead Mathia, or whatever his name might have been, where he’d fallen. They would shout for help, for men to climb down and see if their comrade yet lived. That hue and cry would warn us that our escape route had been blocked, and that it was time to find another exit or plan. Or so I hoped.

Now I took the lead, Laish Tenedos just behind me. I put my best men behind him — they’d already been told their deaths were a small matter compared to Laish Tenedos’s and I knew they’d obey.

Then we entered the cavern of the Tovieti.

The cave’s mouth was V-shaped, and reached almost 100 feet above the floor. About fifty feet inside, it rounded, and became an arch. Now we were out of the wind and rain, and a warm, soft wind blew toward us. It was far warmer than the caves I’d explored as a boy, and I wondered if this mountain had once been a volcano, and if its heart still held fiery lava, or if the Tovieti heated it sorcerously.

The light from the outside grew dimmer, our way now lit by torches set in niches cut into the rock. The torches were burning low, and I hoped mightily that all those inside were sleeping.

The tunnel’s roof lowered sharply, until it was about ten feet above us, and the passage narrowed, no more than thirty feet wide in places. I saw some of the men look a bit worried, and hoped the way grew no narrower; there is no way to keep from giving in to certain terrors, and the fear of being closed in is one of the strongest. But the passageway grew no smaller, but twisted and turned between natural stone columns, like mushroom stems, that stretched from floor to ceiling.

This cavern was not only excellent shelter, but eminently defensible — a tiny force could use those columns as cover to fight behind, or mount sudden counterattacks from behind them.

The passageway increased in size and there were side passages that led in different directions. But Tenedos’s sense of direction was sure, and he unhesitatingly waved us on, keeping us in the main tunnel. There were also rooms opening off the sides, and from some of them we heard the snores and shifts of sleeping people.

The cave opened into a great room, its ceiling at least 200 feet above us. There were several levels in the walls of this chamber, with openings like balconies of some enormous tenement, such as I’d seen in Nicias.

Torches weren’t needed here. Instead, mineral formations hung from the roof and grew up from the floor. These growths were translucent, and lights of many colors ran up and down inside them, sending a constant color kaleidoscope shimmering across the cave.

I thought for a moment this could be the great chamber Tenedos had seen, but he shook his head and led us on, across the floor, toward one of a myriad tunnels. He chose one, the widest and tallest, and we followed.

This passage ran as straight as if it had been laid with a plumb for about 200 yards, and then the cavern opened once more.

This was a truly enormous room, its walls made of the most wonderfully colored minerals. Again, there were landings and balconies studded everywhere in the walls, and those startling colors from nowhere provided the illumination.

This
was the chamber Tenedos had “visited.” I saw the throne in the room’s center, patterned closely after the one Achim Fergana sat in Sayana, although it didn’t look as gem-encrusted.

Behind it was the drum-shaped altar, and, to one side, high-piled treasure the Tovieti had looted from their victims.

The room was full of sleeping people, the white-robed Tovieti, sprawled everywhere. It looked as if their priests had stopped in midceremony and cast a sleeping spell over their flock. I hoped that was true, and that it would take another incantation to rouse them.

Tenedos pointed toward the throne, and I saw, on either side of it, rows of elaborately carved chests. I lifted an eyebrow, and he nodded — he sensed that in those was what we sought.

So we crept onward, weapons in hand, stepping over and around these sleeping people. There must have been several hundred in the room. Tenedos’s lips were moving, and he touched his eyelids several times. I guessed him to be casting a spell of sleep, or perhaps increasing the power of the one the Tovieti masters had already laid.

The chests were made of wood, and locked, and we used spear-shafts and daggers to pry them open. The wood screeched, and I shuddered, but none of the sleepers stirred.

The one I opened held all manner of marvelous things: I saw a queen’s diadem, a skull, a wand, a stone too large to be precious else it would be worth a kingdom, and many more things. But no mannequins. I tried another, and this one was equally full of wonders, but again, none of the dolls we sought.

Fingers snapped, and Svalbard was beckoning. I hurried to the chest he stood over, Tenedos behind me, and there were some of the dolls, stuffed unceremoniously inside. I waved my men over, and we hastily began stuffing our packs full. Other chests were opened, and we found more dolls.