Oh, Mother of Mercy. They've given me to Inch.

19.

Cunning as Time

"DO you think Simon could be down here somewhere?" Simon could be down here somewhere?"

Binabik looked up from his dried mutton, which he had been tearing into small pieces. It was the morning meal, if morning could be said to exist in a sunless, skyless place. "If he is," the little man said, "I am thinking there is only a small chance we will find him. I am sorry, Miriamele, but here there are many leagues of tunnels."

Simon wandering alone and in darkness. The thought hurt too much-she had been so cruel to him!

Desperate to think of something else, she asked: "Did the Sithi really build all this?" The walls stretched high above, so that the torchlight failed before it found the upper reaches. They were roofed over by purest black; but for the absence of stars and weather, she and the troll might be sitting beneath the open night sky.

"With help they built it. The Sithi were having the a.s.sisting of their cousins, I have read-in fact, they were the people who were making the maps you copied. Other immortals, masters of stone and earth. Eolair said some still are living beneath Hernystir."

"But who could live down here?" she wondered. "Never seeing the day ..."

"Ah, you are not understanding." The troll smiled. "Asu'a was full of light. The castle you were living in had its building on the top of the Sithi's great house. Asu'a was buried so that the Hayholt could be born."

"But it won't stay stay buried," Miriamele said grimly. buried," Miriamele said grimly.

Binabik nodded. "We Qanuc have a believing that the spirit of a murdered man cannot rest, and stays on in the body of an animal. Sometimes it is following the one who killed him, sometimes it is staying in the place he was loving most. Either way, there is no rest for it until the truth has been discovered and the crime has been given its punishment."

Miriamele thought of the spirits of all the murdered Sithi and shivered. She had heard more than a few strange echoes since they had entered the tunnels beneath Saint Sutrin's. "They can't rest."

Binabik c.o.c.ked an eyebrow. "There is more here than just restless spirits, Miriamele."

"Yes, but that's what the ..." she lowered her voice "... that's what the Storm King is, isn't he? A murdered soul looking for vengeance."

The troll looked troubled. "I am not happy to be talking of such things here. And he brought his own death upon him, I am remembering."

"Because the Rimmersmen had surrounded this place and were going to kill him anyway."

"There is truth in what you say," Binabik admitted. "But please, Miriamele, no more. I do not know what things are in this place, or what ears might be listening, but I am thinking that the less we speak of such matters, the happier we will be. In many ways."

Miriamele inclined her head, agreeing. In fact, she wished now she had never mentioned it. After more than a day wandering in these disturbing shadows, the thought of the undead enemy was already close enough.

They had not penetrated far into the tunnels the first night. The catacomb pa.s.sages beneath Saint Sutrin's had gradually become wider and wider, and soon had begun to slant steadily downward into the earth; after the first hour, Miriamele thought that they must have descended beneath even the bed of the many-fathomed Kynslagh. They had soon found a relatively comfortable spot to stop and eat a meal. After sitting down for a short while, both of them had realized just how weary they truly were, so they had spread their cloaks and slept. Upon awaking, Binabik had relit their torches from his firepot-a tiny earthenware jug in which a spark was somehow kept smoldering-and after a few bites of bread and some dried fruit washed down with warm water, they had set out again.

The day's traveling had brought them down many twisting paths. Miriamele and Binabik had done their best to stay close to the general directions on the dwarrow map, but the tunnels were snaky and confusing; it was hard to feel very confident that they were following the correct course. Wherever they were, though, it was clear that they had left the realms of humankind. They had descended into Asu'a-in a way, they had circled back into the past. Trying to fall asleep, Miriamele had found her thoughts reeling. Who could know the world had so many secrets in it?

She was no less overwhelmed this morning. A well-traveled child, even for a king's daughter, she had seen many of the greatest monuments of Osten Ard, from the Sancellan Aedonitis to the Floating Castle at Warinsten-but the minds that had conceived this strange hidden castle made even the most innovative human builders seem timid.

Time and falling debris had crushed much of Asu'a into dust, but enough of it remained to show how matchless it had been. Spectacular as the ruins of Da'ai Chikiza had seemed, Miriamele quickly decided, these far surpa.s.sed them. Stairways, seemingly unsupported, rose and twisted into darkness like cloth streamers bending in the wind. Walls curved upward, then spread out overhead into spectacular fan-shaped arrays of multicolored, attenuated rock, or bent back on themselves in rippling folds; every surface was alive with carvings of animals and plants. The makers of this place seemed able to stretch stone like hot sugar-candy and etch it like wax.

What had clearly been streambeds, although they now held only sifting dust, ran in and out from one room to the other along the broken floors, st.i.tched by tiny, ornate bridges. Overhead, great sconces shaped like fantastically unlikely flowers grew downward from the carved vines and leaves that festooned the ceilings. Miriamele could not help wishing she could have seen them when they had bloomed full of light. Judging by the traces of color that still remained in the grooves of the stone, the palace had been a garden of colors and radiance almost beyond imagining.

But although chamber after ruined chamber dazzled her eyes, there was also something about these endless halls that set her teeth on edge. For all their beauty, they had clearly been made for inhabitants who saw things differently than a mortal could: the angles were strange, the arrangements unsettling. Some high-arched chambers seemed far too vast for their furnishings and decorations, but other rooms were almost frightening in their closeness, so cramped and tangled with ornament that it was hard to imagine more than one person occupying them at any given time. Stranger still, the remnants of the Sithi castle did not seem entirely dead. In addition to the faint sounds which might be voices and the odd shifts of the air in what should be a windless place, Miriamele saw an elusive shimmer everywhere, a hint of unseen movement at the comer of her eye, as though nothing was quite real. She imagined she could blink and find Asu'a restored-or, equally likely, find bare cavern walls and dirt.

"G.o.d is not here."

"What is that you are saying?" asked Binabik.

Their meal finished, they were walking again, carrying their packs down a long, high-walled gallery, across a narrow bridge that stretched through emptiness like the flight of an arrow. The torchlight did not reach past the darkness below them.

She looked up, embarra.s.sed. "I'm not sure. I said, 'G.o.d is not here.' "

"You are not liking this place?" Binabik showed a small yellow smile. "I have fear of these shadows, too."

"No-I mean, yes, I'm afraid. But that's not what I meant." She held her torch higher, staring at a string of carvings on the wall beyond the gap. "The people who lived here weren't anything like us. They didn't think about us. It's hard to believe it's the same world as the one I know. I was taught to believe that G.o.d is everywhere, watching over everything." She shook her head. "It's hard to explain. It seems like this place is out of G.o.d's sight. Like the place itself doesn't see Him, so He doesn't see it."

"Is that making you more afraid?"

"I suppose so. It just seems as though the things happening here don't have much to do with the things I was taught."

Binabik nodded solemnly. In the yellow torchlight, he looked less like a child than he sometimes did. Outlined by shadow, his round face had an air of gravity. "But some would be saying that the things happening are exactly what your church is telling of-a battle between the armies of goodness and badness."

"Yes, but it can't be that simple," she said emphatically. "Ineluki-was he good? Bad? He tried to do what was right for his people. I just don't know any more."

Binabik paused, then reached out a small hand to take hers. "Your questions are sensible ones, and I am not thinking that we should hate ... our enemy. But do not be naming him, please!" He squeezed her fingers for emphasis. "And make yourself a.s.sured of one thing: whatever he was being once, he has now become a dangerous thing, more dangerous than anything you know or can be thinking about. Do not be forgetting that! He will kill us and all of the people we love if his wishes are done. Of that I have certainty."

And my father? she wondered. she wondered. Is he only an enemy now, too? What if somehow I find my way to him, but there is nothing left of what I loved? That will be like dying. I won't care what happens to me then. Is he only an enemy now, too? What if somehow I find my way to him, but there is nothing left of what I loved? That will be like dying. I won't care what happens to me then.

And then it came to her. It was not that G.o.d was not watching, it was that no one was going to tell her right from wrong; she had not even the solace of doing something just because someone else had ordered her not to. Whatever decisions she made, she would have to make herself, then live by them.

She held Binabik's hand for a moment longer before they resumed walking. At least she had the company of a friend. What would it be like to be alone in such a place?

By the time they had slept three times in the ruins of Asu'a, even its crumbling magnificence could no longer hold Miriamele's attention. The dark halls seemed to breed memories-unimportant pictures of her childhood in Meremund, her days as a captive princess in the Hayholt. She felt herself suspended between the Sithi's past and her own.

They found a wide staircase leading upward, an expanse of dusty steps with bal.u.s.ters carved into the form of rose hedges. When Binabik's inspection of the map suggested that this was part of their path, she felt a rush of happiness. They would be going upward, after so long in the depths!

But something more than an hour plodding up the apparently endless stairs soon cooled even that excitement; Miriamele's mind went wandering again.

Simon is gone, and I never had a chance to ... to really talk to him. Did I love him? It would never have come to anything-how could he care for me after I told him about Aspitis? But perhaps we could have been friends. But did I love him?

She looked down at her booted feet, climbing, climbing, the stairs pa.s.sing beneath her like a slow waterfall.

It's useless to wonder ... but I suppose I did. Thinking this, she felt something vast and unformed struggling inside her, a grief that threatened to turn into madness. She fought it down, afraid of its strength. Thinking this, she felt something vast and unformed struggling inside her, a grief that threatened to turn into madness. She fought it down, afraid of its strength. Oh, G.o.d, is this all there is to life? To have something precious and to realize it only after it's too late? Oh, G.o.d, is this all there is to life? To have something precious and to realize it only after it's too late?

She almost stumbled over Binabik, who had stopped abruptly on the step above her, his head nearly even with hers. The troll lifted a hand to his mouth, warning her to be silent.

They had just mounted past a landing where several archways led outward from the staircase, and at first Miriamele thought the quiet noise must come from one of them, but Binabik pointed up the stairwell. His meaning was clear: someone else was on the stairs.

Miriamele's contemplative mood evaporated. Who could be walking these dead halls? Simon? That seemed too much to hope. But who else would be roaming the shadow-world? The restless dead?

Even as they backed down toward the landing, Binabik fumbled his walking-stick into two pieces, pulling free the section that held a knife blade. Miriamele felt for her own knife as the sound of footfalls grew louder. Binabik shrugged off his pack and dropped it quietly to the stone floor near Miriamele's feet.

A shape came down the darkened stairwell, moving slowly and confidently into the torchlight. Miriamele felt her heart pressing against her ribs. It was a man, one she had not seen before. In the depths of his hood, his eyes bulged as though with surprise or fright, but his teeth were bared in a bizarre grin.

A moment pa.s.sed before Binabik gasped in recognition. "Hangfish!"

"You know him?" Her voice sounded shrill to her, the quaver of a frightened little girl.

The troll held the knife before him as a priest might a holy Tree. "What do you want, Rimmersman?" he demanded. "Are you lost?"

The smiling man did not reply, but stretched his arms wide and took another step downward. There was something terribly but indefinably wrong about him.

"Get away, you!" she cried. Involuntarily, she took another step backward toward one of the arched doorways. "Binabik, who is he?"

"I know who he was," the troll said, still brandishing the knife. "But I am thinking he has become something else...."

Before Binabik had finished speaking, the pop-eyed man moved, scuttling down the stairs with shocking speed. In an eye-blink he had closed with the troll, grabbing the wrist of Binabik's knife hand and wrapping his other arm around the little man. After a moment's struggle, the two tumbled to the floor and rolled off the landing to the steps below. Binabik's torch flew free and bounced down the stairs ahead of them. The troll gasped and grunted with pain, but the other was silent.

Miriamele had scarcely an instant to stare open-mouthed before several large hands snaked out of the shadowy archway and folded around her, seizing her wrists and clutching at her waist, the fingers rough but somehow tentative where they touched her skin. Her own torch was knocked to the ground. Before she had finished drawing breath to shout her alarm, something was pulled down over her head, shutting out the light. A sweet odor filled her nose and she felt herself slipping away, half-formed questions dissolving, everything fading.

"Why will you not come and sit beside me?" said Nessalanta, like a spoiled child denied a treat. "I have not spoken to you for days."

Benigaris turned from the railing of the rooftop garden. Below him, the first fires of evening had been lit. Great Nabban twinkled in the lavender twilight. "I have been occupied, Mother. Perhaps it has escaped your attention that we are at war."

"We have been at war before," she said airily. "Merciful G.o.d, such things never change, Benigaris. You wanted to rule. You must grow up and accept the burdens that come with it."

"Grow up, is it?" Benigaris turned from the railing with his fists clenched tight. "It is you who are the child, Mother. Do you not see what is happening? A week ago we lost the Onestrine Pa.s.s. Today I have been told that Aspitis Preves has taken to his heels and Eadne Province has fallen! We are losing, this war, d.a.m.n you! If I had gone myself instead of sending that idiot brother of mine ..."

"You are not to say a word against Varellan," Nessalanta snapped. "Is it his fault that your legion was full of superst.i.tious peasants who believe in ghosts?"

Benigaris stared at her for a long moment; there was no love in his gaze. "It is Camaris," he said quietly.

"What?"

"It is Camaris out there, Mother. You can say anything you wish, but I have heard the reports from the men who have been on the battlefield. If it is not him, then it is one of our ancestors' old war G.o.ds returned to earth."

"Camaris is dead," she sniffed.

"Did he elude some trap you set for him?" Benigaris moved a few steps closer. "Is that how my father became duke of Nabban in the first place-because you arranged to have Camaris killed? If so, it appears you failed. Perhaps for once you chose the wrong tool."

Nessalanta's face contorted in fury. "There are no tools in this country strong enough for my will. Don't I know that!" She stared at her son. "They are all weak, all dull-edged. Blessed Ransomer, if only I had been born a man-then none of this would have happened! We would not be bowing to any northern king on a chair of bones."

"Spare me your dreams of glory, Mother. What did you arrange for Camaris? Whatever it was, he seems to have survived it."

"I did nothing to Camaris." The dowager d.u.c.h.ess rearranged her skirts, recovering a little of her calm. "I admit that I was not unhappy when he fell into the ocean-for a strong man, he was the weakest of all. Quite unsuitable to rule. But I had nothing to do with it."

"I almost believe you, Mother. Almost." Benigaris smiled thinly. He turned to find one of his courtiers standing in the doorway, looking out with poorly-hidden apprehension. "Yes? What do you want?"

"There ... there are many folk asking for you, my lord. You said you wished to be told ..."

"Yes, yes. Who is waiting?"

"The Niskie, for one, my lord. He is still outside the audience chamber."

"Have I not enough to occupy me? Why won't he take the hint and go? What does the d.a.m.ned sea-watcher want, anyway?"

The courtier shook his head. The long feather in his cap swayed before his face, fluttered by the evening breeze. "He will not speak to any but you, Duke Benigaris."

"Then he will sit there until he dries out and lies gasping on the floor. I have no time to listen to Niskie chatter." He turned to look out over the lights of the city. "And who else?"

"Another messenger from Count Streawe, Lord." Lord."

"Ah." Benigaris pulled at his mustache. "As expected. I think we will let that wine sit in the cask a little longer. Who else?"

"The astrologer Xannasavin, Lord."

"So he has arrived at last. Very grieved, I'm sure, to keep his duke waiting." Benigaris nodded slowly. "Send him up."

"Xannasavin is here?" Nessalanta smiled. "I'm sure he has wonderful things to tell us. You'll see, Benigaris. He'll bring us good news."

"No doubt."

Xannasavin appeared within moments. As though to take attention away from his own lean height, the astrologer carefully lowered himself to his knees.

"My lord, Duke Benigaris, and my lady, d.u.c.h.ess Nessalanta. A thousand, thousand pardons. I came as soon as I received your summons."

"Come and sit beside me, Xannasavin," said the d.u.c.h.ess. "We have seen too little of you lately."

Benigaris leaned against the railing. "My mother is right-you have been much absent from the palace."

The astrologer rose and went to sit near Nessalanta. "My apologies. I have found that sometimes it is best to get away from the splendor of court life. Seclusion makes it easier to hear what the stars tell me."

"Ah." The duke nodded as though some great riddle had been solved. "That is why you were seen in the marketplace d.i.c.kering with a horse merchant."