Lost Empires - Faces Of Deception Part 21

"Strike, Atreus!" Seema's voice sounded tinny and weak, as though she were calling from a great distance. "Strike!"Atreus swung blindly. The knife bounced off the Dweller's scaly face, and hestruck again.

The blow never landed.

He felt himself arcing through the air until his legs slammed into an alabasterpillar. The impact whirled him around, and he hit the floor spinning like a top. Bothknees erupted into aching pain. He clenched his teeth and scrambled to his feet.His head was reeling and the knife was still in his hand, but when he finally collected his bearings and found the pool, his heart sank.

It was already retreating through the alabaster forest, belly scales clattering onthe floor and Yago screaming in its beak.

"No! Stop!"

Of course, the Dweller did not obey. Atreus lurched after the monster at his bestsprint, but even without aching knees, he was no match for the thing's speed. Thecreature pulled steadily away, growing fainter and fainter until it finally disappearedinto the murk.

"Atreus, wait!" called Seema. "The Dweller does not need light, but we do."

Atreus turned to find Seema approaching with two buckets, a small aura of silverradiance hovering above each. He took one and set off through the alabaster maze,following the Dweller's wet slime trail to the mouth of one of its dark tunnels. Yago'svoice was echoing up from somewhere below, alternately cursing the beast andscreaming in anguished incoherence.

Atreus turned to Seema and said, "You don't have to come. In fact, I'd rather you didn't." Seema raised her brow. "Why?" she asked. "If you are thinking that you will slay theDweller*" "Not exactly, but I've caused you enough trouble without getting you killed." "Getting me killed would be the least of the troubles you have caused me," Seemasaid. "Besides, if I do not come, who will rescue you?"

Atreus nodded, more in thanks than consent, then stepped over a small rim ofloose rock into the tunnel. The pa.s.sage sloped down at a steep angle, with rough-hewn sides and a vaguely circular profile just large enough for the Dweller. Innumerable pa.s.ses of the monster's slimy body had coated the walls in a chalkywhite powder that glistened brightly in the watery light and enclosed Atreus andSeema in a small bubble of glimmering radiance. Yago's screams continued to grow increasingly faint as his captor carried him deeper into its lair, and it was not long before the tunnel split into two branches.

"I hope you have a good ear for echoes," said Seema."We'll have other hints." Atreus stooped down and traced a line in the wet slime onthe floor.

The tunnel became a warren of tunnels, then a maze, and still the Dweller continued its descent. Yago's screams grew sporadic and weak, but the slime trail remained fresh. They had little trouble following their quarry. Atreus lost all track of time and direction, andeventually the ogre's cries vanished altogether. Seema said nothing, but Atreus knewshe was wondering the same thing he was. Had Yago finally died, or had the monstersimply carried him beyond their hearing?

They followed the slime trail down into a tunnel so steep they had to sit on theirhaunches and kick their heels into the floor to keep from sliding. About halfway down,Atreus heard a low moan coming from a side pa.s.sage.

"Yago?"More groans, then came the pained answer: "No." It was the ogre's voice, weak andlanguid with delirium. "Go 'way*" A terrifying, incoherent scream followed, and Atreus's first thought was that his friendwas trying to warn him of an ambush, but if that were so, Yago would have said something simple like, "Watch out for the ambush." Atreus slipped into the sidepa.s.sage, trying not to gag on the awful, b.l.o.o.d.y smell of the place, then advancedwith Seema at his back. Yago continued to groan, but it was impossible to say whether he knew of their presence.

They pa.s.sed yet another side pa.s.sage angling down into the mountain. Low animalsounds began to fill the tunnel, then Atreus saw a pair of red eyes reflecting the lightfrom his bucket.

He stopped and whispered, "It's the Dweller. Stay back."

This time, Seema did not argue. She ducked into the side pa.s.sage and watchedaround the corner as Atreus crept forward, his eyes averted to avoid locking gazes withthe monster. He had advanced only a few steps when the glow from his bucketilluminated Yago's mangled form.

The ogre was lying in a pool of blood, holding one hand over his good eye. Hismangled eye was dangling out on his cheek, and his wounded leg lay stripped to thebone from the hip down. The Dweller was holding him down with two tentacles andshuffling through his cloak with four more. Able to stand the sight no longer, Atreusraised his knife and started forward.

The Dweller raised its head. Atreus braced himself for its attack, preparing a slash-and-dodge defense, but the monster simply opened its beak. There was a greatwhooshing of air, so powerful that a breeze cooled the back of his neck, then the beastraised all six of its uninjured tentacles.

Atreus dropped his bucket and fled, flinging himself into the side pa.s.sage just as atremendous whumpf rolled down the tunnel behind him. A terrific impact spun himhalf around, and his entire flank erupted into stinging pain. He bounced off the walland began to roll down the chalky floor.

A few revolutions later, Seema caught his arm and hauled him to a stop. "Atreus!" she cried. "How badly are you hurt?"

He glanced down and discovered that his whole flank had turned wet and redfrom his ribcage to his knee. He found Rishi's knife and cut away the tattered remains of his cloak, revealing a ma.s.s of raw and b.l.o.o.d.y flesh pocked with dozens of tiny punctures. From the bottom of many holes shined the colorful reflections of small gemstones.

*The Dweller must be frightened of you indeed,* Gasped Seema. *To sacrifice itsjewels----*

"I'd rather it had kept them," said Atreus.

He allowed himself a moment to test the strength of his savaged flank, then scrambled back into the main pa.s.sage and advanced by the weak light of his overturned bucket. The Dweller was again snuffling through Yago's cloak, but it stopped and raised its head as he drew near. Atreus lifted his dagger and charged,determined to engage the monster before it had time to hurl some other surprise athim.

Instead, the Dweller let out a long, plaintive whistle and retreated, halting a few paces beyond tentacle range. Atreus stopped, astonished, and cautiously kneeled at Yago's side. The ogre's chest continued to rise and fall, but he seemed unaware that anyone was with him. Atreus took his hand.

"Yago?"The ogre turned his head slightly, but continued to hold his palm over his good eye, protecting it from the Dweller. His orange skin had paled to a sickly ivory."Atreus . . . don't look." His voice was a bare whisper. "Don't want you to ... to see what I let happen."

"Okay, I won't look."

"Good."Yagosqueezedhishand."Atreus... itgot... gotoneofmyeyes."

"No, it didn't." "The eye is here, on your cheek," Seema said. She kneeled beside Atreus, thengently laid the eye back in its swollen socket. "It just fell out."

The ogre sighed in relief, then seemed to realize that something was amiss."Hey, how you'd know?" He uncovered his good eye and raised his head, scowling."Youcheated!"

Atreus nodded.

"You see? I ain't so dumb after all," the ogre said, letting his head drop back to thefloor."AndAtreus,I... Ididn'treallyforgetyourmom'sname.""I know." "It was..." The ogre winced. "She told me not to tell... no one. But I didn't know ifshe meant you."

"It doesn't matter," Atreus said. "You kept her secret."

"Yeah... I did."

Yago smiled, then his hand opened and fell away.

"Yago?"

Atreus pressed his ear to the ogre's chest and heard nothing*no heartbeat, no breath, no final groan.

The strength left Atreus in a rush. He slumped forward and stretched his arms across Yago's ma.s.sive torso, embracing him in death as he had never done in life.It was not the ogre way of grieving, but there were no handy trees to mangle or wallsto smash down. Besides, Atreus was a man, and there was no ogre name for whatYago had been to him*less than a father, but so much more than a bodyguard:Protector, drill-master, dutiful servant, loyal comrade, only friend.

Tears began to well up in Atreus's eyes. Yago would have ridiculed crying as a markof weakness, but even growing up among the Shield-breakers had not made Atreusenough of an ogre to keep from weeping. He sat up and wiped his eyes, determined not to dampen Yago's body with tears the ogre would have scorned.

" Till them mountains crumble," Atreus whispered.

It was the last line of the Shield-breaker requiem, spoken only in honor of faithful warriors whose memories the tribe promised to keep alive. Atreus ran his hand overYago's face and closed the ogre's one good eye. He was overcome by such aprofound sense of guilt that he broke into a sweat and had to turn away.

"I am so sorry, my friend," Atreus said grasping the ogre's cold arm. He couldnot look at the ogre.

"I should never have brought you here. This is my fault."

"I am not so certain," said Seema.

She kneeled next to Atreus and began to go through Yago's cloak. The Dweller let out a warning whistle and slithered closer, but she ignored the monster and continued her search.

"What are you doing?" Atreus asked.

"Was the Dweller not looking for something?" She pulled a handful of small stones from Yago's pocket, and her face fell in disappointment. "Gems," she said. "This is thereason he was attacked. But why did Yago not listen to me? I warned you all not to touch the Dweller's jewels."

"Yago did listen to you. He didn't steal those," Atreus said. He took the gems andtossed them in the Dweller's direction. "Back in Rivenshield, we have chests filled with jewels."

Seema frowned, confused. "How come the stones were in his pocket?" She hadhardly asked the question before her jaw dropped. "Rishi!"

Atreus nodded and rolled Yago onto his face*a Shield-breaker custom to protectthe eyes of the dead from crows*then stood and started back up the pa.s.sage ata hobbling trot Seema grabbed her bucket and followed close behind. "You don't think..."

"I do," Atreus said. "Rishi set this up so he could steal theFountain of Infinite Grace... and everything else." "I saw him hit the wall," Seemasaid, her voice far from confident "He did not even groan. He had to be dead orunconscious." "Or a good actor," Atreus added. "And Rishi is a very good actor."

Chapter 18.

By the time they found their way out of the Dweller's warren, Atreus's wounds ached as terribly as his heart. His whole flank was sore and swollen, and everystep sent a fresh rush of agony surging through his joints. He did not care, nor didhe make any concession to his injuries, pushing his body through its torment asonly a man raised by ogres could. The question in his mind and Seema's was thesame: had Rishi planned Yago's death?

They knew the answer as soon as they climbed out of the tunnel. Save for a faintaura of radiance still lingering over the Pool of Gems, the alabaster palace was asdark as a crypt. Even from the edge of the vast chamber, they could see that thestairs into the temple were dry, as was the hallway leading to the exit Rishi had stolen the Fountain of Infinite Grace, and no doubt everything else on the altar aswell.

"I'll kill him!"

"You mustn't say such things, not even for what Rishi has done," Seema told himin a voice as sad as it was gentle. "Your anger will destroy you as surely as hisgreed has destroyed him."

"It's Yago that his greed destroyed," Atreus countered. His hand ached from clutching the knife so hard. "And Langdarma.""I do not see how that makes him different from you. Had you awakened uglytomorrow, would you have left the cup in its place?"

Atreus answered in a bitter voice, "NowI'll never know, will I?" He set off toward the exit, not looking at Seema. She was at least half right Theresults for Langdarma would have been the same whether Rishi stole the cup or hedid. Perhaps it was a blessing to have escaped the temptation. Had he yielded,Atreus had no illusions about how he would have felt about himself.

Atreus reached the exit and stepped out onto the gallery, then heard Seema gaspas she followed him through the door. The reflecting pool below had turned as brown as the Dweller's blood, and the meadow beside it had faded to the dead gold ofparched gra.s.s. Even the vast valley of Langdarma itself was fading from emerald toamber.

At the edge of the meadow stood the milky-winged figure of the Sannyasi, weepingtears of silver. Atreus's rage turned instantly to remorse. Had Seema not been standing behind him, he would have retreated into the palace and gone to losehimself in the Dweller's warren.

The Sannyasi's silver eyes rose and lingered on him, looking less angry thanshocked. Atreus could not bring himself to move or speak. It required all his strengthsimply not to look away.

After a time, Seema took Atreus's hand and led him down the stairs. "Have no fear. The Sannyasi would never harm us, no matter what we have done."

This seemed a small consolation to Atreus, whose own guilt was eating away at hisinsides. He would almost rather have been stricken dead on the spot, but there wa.s.still the matter of Rishi to deal with.

The Sannyasi watched them descend the stairs and cross the meadow, then turnedhis silver gaze on Seema alone.

"You brought this man here?"

Seema stared at the ground and said, "Him, and his friends Rishi and Yago."

Something inside the Sannyasi appeared to collapse. His wings drooped, he seemed suddenly smaller, and his eyes grew old. Seema continued, "There was a fight. The Dweller killed Yago. Rishi stole the cup ofshining waters and probably six other sacred items as well."

The Sannyasi only nodded and turned to look out over the valley. He remainedsilent for a long time, then spoke without looking at Seema."You have done the unpardonable. Langdarma will suffer terribly for it. I doubt your healing magic will return."Seema squeezed her eyes shut, but could not quite keep the tears from flowingdown her cheeks. "I understand," she managed to say.

"There is more." The Sannyasi still did not look at her as he said, "I will go and organize a search for this Rishi and the Seven Sacred Gifts. If they are not recovered, Ifear you must leave Langdarma and never return."

Seema started to nod, but this was more than Atreus could bear.

"You're not being fair," he said. "Seema isn't to blame. I forced her*"

"That is not so," interrupted Seema. She grasped Atreus's arm. "My reasonsfor bringing you here were as selfish as yours for wanting to come. To claim otherwiseis to cheapen what there was between us."The word "was" hit Atreus like a hammer. Though he had already guessed the price of his betrayal, this was the first time Seema had confirmed the loss.The Sannyasi studied Atreus for a moment and said, "I am sorry. This pain I cannotbear for you.""And what of his wounds?" Seema gestured at Atreus's mangled side. "Will you heal them?"

The Sannyasi glanced down at Atreus's knife, still brown and crusted with theDweller's blood. "The wounds will heal in time, but for now it is better to let paintemper his violent heart.""Temper my violent heart?" Atreus's anger returned in a flood. "You don't know violence until you've traveled with Rishi Saubhari. He's a murdering thief who won't hesitate to kill everyone you send after him. Help me catch him, and you'll save adozen lives."

"And take one." The Sannyasi's eyes grew stern and he continued, "You are asmuch a killer as your friend, and I will not help in your wickedness. To slay a man over the shining waters would be an evil beyond redemption. It would draw a cloak of darkness over Langdarma so black that the Serene Ones would neverfind us again." The Sannyasi paused to calm himself, then spread his wings and turned towardthe edge of the meadow.

"You will not defy me in this."

He stepped off the cliff and dropped into the valley. A moment later his silverwake was curving around the Turquoise Cliffs into the basin where Seema lived.

As soon as the gleaming trail had faded from the sky, Atreus turned to Seemaand said, "I have no right to ask you for anything, and I'm not asking for myself, but your Sannyasi doesn't know Rishi."

"He knows you."

Seema's eyes dropped to the knife in Atreus's hand.

Atreus thrust the weapon into his belt. "You must understand what I'm saying. Rishi has a plan ... just like he did when he tricked the Dweller into attackingYago. He wouldn't have risked that without knowing that he could escape me. Ifhe can escape me, no one from Langdarma is going to stop him. He'll kill anyone who tries."

Seema remained silent for several moments, then looked away. "I can't defy theSannyasi," she said. "Not in this."

"You'd rather let Rishi steal the cup?"

"Than let you kill him over it? Yes."

Seema stepped back, met Atreus's gaze, and shook her head.

"You are a good man, Atreus, but a weak one," she said "You are no match for your pa.s.sions, and if I help you again, you will only end up killing Rishi or stealing the cup for yourself... or both, which would be as bad for you as for Langdarma."

"I am also a man of my word," said Atreus. "I swear on my life*no, on Yago's memory*I swear to return the cup."

Seema glanced out over the browning valley and considered his words for a long time, then finally pointed to the knife in his belt. "What of Rishi?"

Atreus closed his eyes and slowly exhaled, letting go of his anger, or trying to. Certainly, Yago would have expected a fellow Shield-breaker to avenge his death, and in his heart Atreus longed to do his friend this honor. But he could see for himself the harm that killing had already brought to Langdarma, and he knew that the Sannyasi had not been exaggerating when he claimed that Rishi's death would destroy it forever. For now, at least, Atreus would have to put aside the ogre part of his nature.

"I doubt I can ever forgive what Rishi has done." Atreus opened his eyes againand held out the knife. "But," he continued, "I think I can find the strength not killhim." "Good. You will be a happier man for it." Seema took the knife, then said, "I remember Rishi talking about the ways to leave Langdarma. If he and Yagoinvestigated this as carefully as he claimed, he will know he can escape only by theRoaring Way." "The Roaring Way?"

"The great gorge at the end of Langdarma," Seema said as she turned and pointed toward the haze-shrouded cliffs at the far end of the valley. "It is the onlyroute the Sannyasi will not block. There is no return, and no one knows where itgoes, so no man has ever been brave enough to enter it" "Then that's exactly what Rishi will try," Atreus agreed.

Seema glanced up at the afternoon's graying sky. "Let us go." She started acrossthe meadow, then added, "Even Rishi will not run the gorge in the dark. If we hurry,we can be there waiting at dawn."

Seema led the way back along the ledge and through the cave, then they spent therest of the day descending a long, steep trail into the main valley below. By the timethey reached a tiny hamlet on the river, dusk was already falling over the little shanties perched on the sh.o.r.e. Even at this late hour, the townspeople were gathered in thevillage circle, murmuring in their strange language and lamenting the brown tide sweeping their valley.

As soon as Seema heard their angry voices, she took Atreus's hand and circledaround the outskirts of the village. On the other side, they found a dozen flat-bottomed boats beached on the muddy sh.o.r.e, half hidden beneath a copse ofdrooping willow trees. She selected a pair of huge oars from an a.s.sortment leaning against a low-hanging limb, slipped the nearest boat into the water, and quietlyguided them into the current.

The river was one of those flat giants that swept along spinning off huge eddiesand churning up water-heads the size of elephants, and it was not long before theswift current had carried Seema and Atreus hundreds of paces downstream.

Once they were safely beyond earshot of the village, Atreus asked, "Isn't stealing frowned on in Langdarma?"Seema shrugged. "Our need is great," she said, "and I do not think the villagerswould have been very kind to you had we asked."

"I wouldn't have expected them to be."