Soren hesitated, then with a grunt whisked the flashlight out of his hand. Yet before he turned to lead the way again he directed the beam up past the others at Rennor's sweat-soaked face. The man was giving everything he had to keep up, and to avoid a fatal slip on the nearly vertical walls of the pa.s.sage. Soren chuckled quietly as he resumed the descent.

Down into Graxmoar they burrowed, every step an exercise in caution. Eventually the flashlight revealed a smooth floor where the tunnel leveled off at once. Soren leaped the last few ledges, Caleb following soon after; Warren jumped half as far, landing lightly on his feet; Rennor struggled to the last ledge in the rocky wall and sank to the floor in exhaustion.

The other end of a short pa.s.sage ended at a small, dust-covered door. Soren hesitated, his fingers tight around the flashlight as the beam played over the rotting planks. Warren edged closer to his father.

Caleb squatted beside Rennor. "I need you to stay with Warren while Soren and I go inside."

The man leaned back against the damp wall, taking a moment to catch his breath. "Here? Why? And why now?"

"I know, I should have left him by the stone with you. But I need to find out what lies beyond that door before I expose my son to it."

Rennor's gaze strayed to Warren. "There's nothing to fear. What we sense is only memories of evils done with the Second Lor'yentre ages ago."

"Or a prescience of evils yet to come," muttered Soren, glancing at the boy as well. "Your faith in our history and lore changes to suit your arguments. I've tolerated your company this far only because it hasn't posed any real threat to our mission. But I refuse to allow anyone who hasn't taken the Oath to step beyond that door."

Caleb, fuming over Soren's implied accusation about his son, surged to his feet. "What about me?" he asked. "I thought I was unworthy to be a Raen. Or have you forgotten what you said to me the other night?"

The Master Raen glared at him as Caleb pointed at the door. "I'm going in there, Soren. I need to find out whether I'm chasing a dream, or exchanging it for something far worse." He gripped the hilt of his Fetra. "But I'm through putting up with your innuendos-especially your insinuating little glances at my boy. Either accept me as a full Raen, or finish what you started!"

For a moment Caleb thought he was going to call his bluff. Then Soren's eyes lost their fire, and he nodded.

Caleb looked down at Rennor. "What about you?"

"What choice do I have? At least show me the courtesy of telling me when you find something."

"Done," said Caleb.

Warren shook his head emphatically when his father explained this arrangement. Rennor could be charming when necessary, however, and before long the boy sat nervously at his side.

Caleb grasped one of the short branches he had carried down from the surface, while Soren brought out an earthen jar of pitch Rennor had bought in Enili. Caleb soaked a small rag and wrapped it around one end, then after some difficulty lighting it gave the torch to Rennor, leaving extra pitch and a few spare torches. At such close quarters the fresh flames almost blinded them, and they were soon coughing from the acrid smoke gathering along the low ceiling. But the shaft behind provided an adequate vent, keeping the air clear near the ground where Rennor and the boy remained seated.

Soren crept down the short pa.s.sage, Caleb following. The door rose before them, its pitted surface and splitting joints covered in dust and old cobwebs. Soren gripped the rusted handle, but it tore loose at the slightest tug. He stuck his fingers between door and jamb, but no matter how he tried it wouldn't budge.

With help from Caleb it finally opened, though unexpectedly. A brittle crack, and an entire section of the door broke free, throwing splinters in all directions. Gray dust from inside rose up in a cloud. Caleb managed to stay clear, but Soren got it right in the face, and he blinked the dust out of his eyes, coughing hoa.r.s.ely.

Once he recovered he pointed the flashlight into the hole. Only a short expanse of floor appeared, the rest vanishing into a stygian void. There was nothing for it. After a glance back at the others they both squeezed through, the Master Raen carefully leading the way.

20.

Ancient Warning We should be careful not so much what we wish for, but rather what we don't.

- from Etre Obald'aseli AT FIRST they saw nothing but a heavy layer of dust. Yet the whispering echo of their footsteps traveled all about them, and when Soren swung the beam of the flashlight, Caleb followed its flight in amazement.

They stood in a tall, roughly circular cave a few hundred feet in diameter. Giant stalact.i.tes hung from a dizzying nest of formations high above, some reaching the floor in narrow columns. Twisted ma.s.ses of rock like petrified entrails formed the walls. But there was no sheen of moisture or any sign of life to be found-a dust-strewn dungeon that even nature itself had long forgotten.

Caleb gaped at the spectacle, turning slowly. Then a shout brought his heart to his mouth.

"Ykea!"

The traditional warning cry bounded from wall to wall. "Blast you, Soren!"

"Look," he said, pointing toward the center of the cave.

A narrow monolith stood alone in a wide s.p.a.ce clear of stalagmites. Though a blanket of gray covered its top, its polished ebony flanks glistened with the light.

Scattered all about it lay several bizarre forms, a dozen at least, their features blurred by the dust. Caleb stepped forward for a closer inspection. They were corpses, lying like victims left to rot on an ancient battlefield. Tarnished swords were stuck between their ribs, their fleshless hands grasping the curved blades as if still trying to wrench them from hearts long withered and consumed. The ornate hilts, decayed as they were, were all too familiar.

Caleb approached the stone with the Master Raen, his fear and curiosity as one. Soren scanned the littered floor, his face pale and drawn. After threading a careful path through the bones they reached the obelisk, the glare of the flashlight reflecting off its surface.

The top was fashioned into a sculpture of some kind. Soren brushed away the dust, revealing a pair of black hands, heels touching, palms upward as if in supplication. Words were etched in the face of the stone below; dust filled the tiny crevices, offering easy contrast.

"Urmanayan?"

"Yes, but it's in an ancient dialect," answered Soren. "I think I can translate it well enough, though." In a slow, halting voice he read: IN THE FIRST YEAR.

OF THE MOST HIGH AND n.o.bLE.

REIGN OF GRONDOLOS,.

HERADNORA.

WAS VANQUISHED BY.

THE KING'S COURAGE

AND HIS WISDOM.

HERE HER EVIL SPIRIT LIES,.

FAR FROM LIVING FOLK,.

AND LET NO ONE HENCEFORTH.

SET FOOT UPON THIS GROUND,.

LEST IN SO DOING.

THEY SUMMON HER MALEVOLENCE.

FROM THE VERY DUST OF HER TOMB.

"This tells us nothing," Soren said, disappointment in his voice. "There's no reference to the Broken Lor'yentre at all, or where it might be found. If these stone hands once held it, it was a long time ago."

"Or it was never here in the first place."

Soren pointed at the nearest corpse. "What about them? What secret did they discover?" He swept his gaze over the dust-covered bones and shook his head. "Raeni do not kill one another. The Second Lor'yentre is not some trinket to be fought over like children!"

Caleb, no surer than his companion of what to do next, finally shrugged and brought out one of the torches. "Looks like we'll have to do this the hard way. But it's going to take a while."

"We can't go snooping around like that, Caleb Stenger. You heard the translation! Orand only knows what we'll find."

"The Broken Lor'yentre, that's what! I can't believe you've come all this way preaching the Oath only to back out at the last minute. Besides, anything dangerous would have happened by now."

The old man glanced at the shattered door, perhaps remembering their confrontation in the tunnel. In any event he eventually muttered a curse and s.n.a.t.c.hed the torch from Caleb's hand, trading the flashlight.

Lighting the stubborn thing in the stale air proved to be a ch.o.r.e. But at last it was done, and they began a methodical search, splitting up, starting from the obelisk outward in ever-widening arcs. They paid close attention to the areas near the corpses. Minutes pa.s.sed into hours, forcing Soren to stop several times to refuel his torch or to light a new one. Caleb reentered the tunnel occasionally to rea.s.sure Warren, and to update the increasingly fretful Rennor on their progress.

They reached the walls of the cavern. Soren and Caleb faced each other across the distance, the feeble flames of the torch casting spectral shadows among the dozens of stalagmites between.

Caleb stretched his sore back. "Are there instructions on the other side?"

"I already checked," Soren answered. Nonetheless he returned to the monolith and scanned it on all sides again in case he had missed something. He paused a long while, his fingers resting against the stone; then he s.n.a.t.c.hed them away.

"What's wrong?" asked Caleb as he approached.

Soren shook his head. "I'm not sure. Perhaps it's only a reaction to its immense age."

He only inspected the immediate area for a few minutes, then faced his companion with an air of finality. Caleb had no choice but to accept the obvious, and followed Soren back to the door, his heart sinking.

Rennor, with nothing to do for hours but stare at the flickering walls or comfort a fitful child, was in no mood to be humored once he learned of their failure. He groaned at the prospect of the long ascent, and not without cause: the climb back proved much more difficult. The others waited without comment, however, as Rennor paused several times to recover, his breathing raw and labored. Warren kept pace for the most part, having slept for a while in the pa.s.sage below. But he needed his father's help in spots where there were few footholds, forcing them to rely almost entirely on the strength of their arms.

Soren and Rennor had long since flung their torches away, relying on the flashlight; the flames still burned at the distant bottom of the shaft like a pair of tiny, fluttering eyes. The climb seemed to take hours. But eventually they caught the wormy odor of topsoil, and saw a dawn sky dotted with a few remaining stars through the opening above. The final stretch proved the most difficult, as Soren had discovered earlier; both Caleb and Warren needed a lift from his helping hand after he struggled out of the hole. Rennor was finished. Already exhausted, the last few yards of dirt were simply too much for him. Like Soren, Caleb was beginning to lose patience with him, and muttered a string of curses as he dropped down into the hole again to help the debilitated man back to reality.

They all rested in the gra.s.s near the stone. The cold dawn breeze as it swept about the hill felt good on Caleb's sweat-soaked face. The brightening world looked vast and empty after that dark cave, and he longed for Ekendore more than ever. But he was still an outcast. Now that his hope in Graxmoar had faded there was no telling how long his search for Kseleksten or any kind of cure for Warren might last.

They brushed the dirt from their filthy clothes as best they could and gathered their belongings. Caleb contemplated the prospect of searching for some other place on this world to live, some faraway country where they had never heard of Orand or the Yrsten Prophecy. But he knew it would be only another escape, another endless path without any chance of a life with Telai-or, eventually, even his own son. With a final shrug in an attempt to mask the despair that had settled over his heart, he hoisted his pack and trudged down the hillside.

Warren had already made it halfway down, as if weary of adult company or purposes. Caleb and Rennor followed, while Soren stayed behind to cover the ragged hole with a few cut boughs of pine. Caleb kept silent, loath to hear the tone of failure in his own voice. In any case they were all dead tired, save perhaps Warren. Their sole purpose now was to hike far enough from the hill to make camp.

The sun's first rays leaped over the horizon, and the land brightened swiftly. Colors returned; far ahead an owl wafted toward its roost after a long night's hunt. Caleb noticed Warren scrabbling at something near the foot of the hill, and his eyes stung with bitterness. The boy looked like a mindless forager, an animal in the dirt.

"Warren! We've got to get going."

"Let him dig," said Rennor, approaching.

"What?"

"Don't you see where he's digging?"