Destiny

Chapter 12

When Kerian regained her senses, she was being dragged down a murky lane, her toes bumping over uneven cobblestones. She had wit enough not to struggle, instead using the opportunity to size up her situation.

Two men had her by the arms. Her empty scabbard flopped against her leg, but she felt her concealed knife still in place, hidden in the small of her back. Her upper arm throbbed where the Torghanist dagger had sliced it. A crude bandage had been tied around the wound, and the bleeding had stopped. Her captors smelled of wood smoke, goats, and sour milk, aromas associated more normally with nomads than city-dwelling Khurs.

The tiniest lift of her head gave her a glimpse forward. A pair of Khurs carried the unconscious Sa’ida. Several other men accompanied them. The Khurs’ faces were hidden by scarves and broad-brimmed hats pulled low. The progress of the silent procession could be judged by the sound of slamming shutters and doors that preceded them. The locals had learned to make themselves scarce when the Sons of Torghan were abroad.

She first thought they were bound for the Temple of Torghan, but her surroundings told another tale. This was not Temple Walk, where Khuri-Khan’s important sanctuaries were found. Temple Walk was a broad paved avenue. This was a shadowed, mean-looking lane fronted by tall mud-brick houses. The buildings suggested Arembeg, the city’s southern district, a maze of tight lanes and alleys unrelieved by squares or souks. Arembeg was a good place for cutthroats to hide from the khan’s soldiers and his legion of informers.

Her captors halted at a nondescript door in a dead-end alley. One Torghanist lifted his cudgel and rapped a sequence of knocks on the door. The narrow portal opened inward a few inches.

“We have them,” the Torghanist said, and a voice from within ordered them to enter.

The room was wide. Furniture was scant. Common Khurish chairs were short and three-legged, with a single pole sticking up as backrest. Sa’ida was set onto one, her hands tied behind her back. One of the Torghanists holding Kerian’s arms muttered about ill luck befalling those who mistreated a holy woman.

No such worry affected their handling of Kerian. They did not bother with a chair, but dropped her facedown on the dirt floor. When she hit, she contrived to have her left arm fall limply across her lower back.

“What of the beast?” The voice asked. His accent was foreign to Khur, and his voice was loud in the low-ceilinged room.

“It was too fierce. We didn’t have the proper weapons. It killed two of my men and tore up four more. We threw a net over it and left it there.”

Kerian silently rejoiced. Eagle Eye was alive.

“Are the implements ready?” asked the leader.

Kerian heard the clink of metal, and a grunted remark that the irons would be hot enough soon. She had no doubt who the “implements” were for and what their purpose would be. From beneath slit eyelids, she watched the Torghanists come and go from a brazier heaped with glowing coals.

“You were right to watch the temple, my lord,” said one of the Khurs. “How did you know the laddad would return there?”

“I didn’t. But I marked Sa’ida for a traitor long ago. It doesn’t surprise me the elves would remain in contact with her. She was their ally when they were here. Even now she works to undermine your nation and your gods.”

The Khurs’ replies told Kerian that any squeamishness they’d felt at capturing the priestess was fading rapidly. One man asked what was to be done with the laddad woman. “I doubt we’ll get anything out of her,” the foreigner said coolly. “Perhaps if she sees what the priestess must endure, she’ll be more willing to share what she knows.”

The Khurs engaged in ugly speculation about Kerian’s own fortitude in the face of pain. Their leering laughter steeled her for action. When enough of them were looking away, she’d show them what fortitude really meant.

The foreigner uttered a sharp reproof. “Why is the elf not tied?” he demanded. The Torghanists laughed off his concern. They’d worked her over well. She wouldn’t wake up any time soon.

“Idiots. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.” He ordered the closest man to bind Kerian’s hands and ankles.

The fellow’s rag-wrapped sandals advanced toward her. He bent to grasp her slack arm. Using his body to shield the motion, she drew her concealed knife and buried it in the man’s chest. He gasped and sagged to his knees. Kerian put the blade in her teeth and catapulted to her hands and knees. She shoved the dying man at the next nearest thug. Before he could react, she was on her feet. The knife flashed. A second Torghanist collapsed onto the first, his throat slashed.

The room’s dim lighting kept the men from understanding exactly what she’d done. Not realizing she was armed, they thought she was simply making a desperate attempt to overcome far superior numbers. Only their foreign master was disturbed by her sudden revival. Kerian spotted him for the first time. He was seated at one end of a long table on the far side of the room. A lamp on the table before him illuminated his face. Kerian had never seen him before, but he was easily recognizable as a Nerakan. He was past middle age, bald, with bushy brown eyebrows. His thin cloak did nothing to conceal the armor and bejeweled court sword he wore. All of this she took in with one swift glance before he turned down the lamp’s wick.

“Didn’t you search her for weapons?” he barked.

The Torghanists hefted their cudgels and closed in. Kerian dropped to a crouch. She slashed a third Khur across the chest. He let go his weapon and staggered back, bleeding heavily. Taking up his cudgel, she fended off a hail of blows and attacked again. A Torghanist cried out as her knife opened his gut, and the rest backed off.

She gave them no time to organize but hurled the cudgel at the light. The Nerakan, thinking the blow was meant for him, jerked back. The hard wood struck the brass lamp, knocking it to the floor. Oil poured out and tiny blue flames danced across the spreading spill.

“Kill her!” the Nerakan bawled. “What are you waiting for? Kill her now!”

The Sons of Torghan tried. They were rough and ready fighters accustomed to street brawls, but they were out of their depth against the Lioness. Eight Khurs had entered the room with her. Minutes after the Nerakan ordered her death, only three still stood. Meantime the burning oil pooled around the leg of the table and ignited it. Dull orange flames flickered, giving the scene a wild, distorted look.

A Khur landed a stunning hit across Kerian’s shoulders. She whirled, driving him back with knife thrusts but received a nasty whack on the thigh from another quarter. The Khur who struck the blow got a deep cut across the forearm for his temerity.

The room was filling with smoke. The long table was alight, and flames were spreading to a dusty wall hanging. The Nerakan had fled. Coughing heavily, his Torghanist hirelings who could still move were abandoning the fight as well.

Sa’ida still slumped in her chair, unconscious. Kerian cut her bonds and carried her to the door. It was a perfect place for an ambush, but the Nerakan and the Khurs were gone. Kerian paused at the mouth of the narrow alley.

The street was empty and dark and little wider than the alley in which she stood. The fire was not yet visible out here, but smoke was seeping from beneath the eaves. The second-story dwelling above was abandoned. The roof was gone and the shutterless windows showed sky beyond. No one was going to notice the fire until a neighboring structure caught.

The priestess’s weight pulled on her injured arm. She shifted the unconscious woman to her other shoulder. Taking a deep breath, she left the deeper shadows of the alley and hurried away from the house. She prayed she wasn’t following in the footsteps of the fleeing Torghanists.

Her chosen route was north, opposite the way she’d been brought. Heading uphill past a line of tightly shuttered houses, her luck held. She paused several times to listen for sounds of pursuit, but other than the sound of a dog barking, the quarter was calm.

The narrow alleys of Arembeg gave way at last to a wider street. Kerian’s progress was slow, hampered as she was by the unconscious priestess and her own injuries. She had to halt and catch her breath several times. Each time, she tried to rouse Sa’ida, but the human remained senseless. Kerian wished for a fountain with water to revive the priestess, but Khuri-Khan had few public water sources.

After what seemed an endless hike, she came to a small souk. Half a dozen soukats were just beginning to set up for the day’s market. When they realized the elf woman sought water not for herself but for the unconscious priestess of Elir-Sana, a water bottle was promptly produced. Sa’ida commanded the highest respect, and the soukats seemed inclined to think Kerian was to blame for her current state. The Lioness didn’t bother enlightening them. For all she knew, some of them were followers of Torghan. She poured water into her cupped hand and applied it to Sa’ida’s face, all the while urging the priestess to wake.

Sa’ida’s eyelids fluttered and opened. She sat bolt upright exclaiming in shock.

“Calm yourself, Holy Mistress. You are safe.” Kerian said, glancing up at the soukats ringing them. None wore a particularly kind expression. “Much has happened, and we should not remain here.”

Sa’ida offered the water to Kerian. The owner of the bottle was displeased, but when Sa’ida thanked him for his generosity, he did not demand its return. Kerian’s throat was dry as the desert. She drank deeply.

When Sa’ida had recovered sufficiently, she blessed the soukats in the name of Elir-Sana, and the two women left the little square. From various landmarks, Sa’ida judged them to be more than two miles from the Temple of Elir-Sana.

Kerian began to relate the events that had occurred while Sa’ida was unconscious. She hadn’t gotten far in the tale when a clangor of bronze gongs sounded. A column of smoke was rising from the Arembeg district behind them. Its base was painted red by flames. The gongs were summoning able-bodied Khurs to fight the blaze. Kerian urged the priestess to a quicker pace and finished telling of their capture and escape. Sa’ida confirmed what Kerian suspected: there was no Torghanist temple in Arembeg.

The smoke was no longer a single column, but a wide curtain. The fire was spreading. Sa’ida pitied the poor folk who would lose their homes. Kerian was not so forgiving. Those were the same folk who had bolted their doors and done nothing when Torghanists dragged two prisoners, one of them a holy priestess, down their street.

“Our attackers may worship the desert god, but they take their pay from Neraka,” Kerian said. She described the bald man she’d seen in the empty house.

“Lord Condortal!” Sa’ida exclaimed.

She identified him as the official emissary of his Order in Khur, holding the rank of ambassador.

Kerian was not surprised. Wherever the Dark Knights went, subversion and violence followed. She described the pan of branding irons Condortal was preparing for them.

“How dare he!” The priestess’s usually calm countenance was flushed with outrage. “When Sahim-Khan learns of this blasphemy, he’ll have the foreigner’s head!”

“Calm yourself. It’s all part of the game. I’ve had brushes with his kind before.”

“Such insults cannot be borne!” Sa’ida insisted.

“Really? Is that the doctrine of your divine healer, or the creed of Torghan?”

Sa’ida halted in mid-diatribe, ashamed. Her steps faltered and she put a hand on the wall of a house to steady herself. She was not a young woman. Her long hair was tangled. Many of the ribbons and tiny bells woven through it had been lost. Her white gown was torn and dirty. When they were thrown from Eagle Eye, she sustained a hard knock, and a sizable bruise darkened her forehead over her left eye.

Recovering her equanimity, she apologized for her outburst and they resumed walking. More calmly, Sa’ida thanked Kerian for saving her.

Kerian asked, “By the way, what was it that knocked us off Eagle Eye and put you out for so long?”

“A powerful spell.”

“Condortal didn’t look like a spellcaster,” Kerian mused. “Do the worshipers of Torghan have magic like that?”

Sa’ida exclaimed, “They do not! There must have been a Nerakan sorcerer at our temple!”

The possibility upset her deeply. She grew more and more agitated at the idea of a foreigner practicing illicit magic in her city. Kerian comforted her with the thought that the Nerakan and his hirelings hadn’t been after Sa’ida. They could have struck at the Temple of Elir-Sana anytime. They attacked only after seeing Kerian’s arrival. Condortal’s hirelings probably had orders to seize any elves who showed up in Khuri-Khan.

“It was simply their misfortune that the elf who showed up was you,” murmured Sa’ida.

When they reached the Temple of Elir-Sana, Sa’ida was astonished to see the khan’s armored horsemen drawn up in the avenue. They surrounded the blue-domed temple like a wall of glittering steel. Kerian was all for slipping away unseen, but Sa’ida had had enough skulking. Dirty, exhausted, and injured, the priestess stormed into the square. Fearing more treachery, the elf woman followed reluctantly in her wake.

“Marak Mali, is that you? What’s going on here?” Sa’ida demanded.

The commander of the troop, a handsome young man with an elegant mustache, looked past the line of horsemen. Shock bloomed on his face.

“Holy Lady, you are well! Bless the goddess!”

Reassured Sa’ida was indeed whole, he explained that he and his men had been sent by the khan to guard the temple from further attacks. The activities of the night had not gone unnoticed. Unlike the cowed folk of Arembeg, those living near the temple had not turned a blind eye. They ran to alert the city garrison. Sahim-Khan ordered a company of his elite horsemen to protect the ancient shrine and crush the Torghanists if they dared show their faces.

“The old rogue did well!”

Captain Mali chose to ignore the priestess’s disrespectful remark. His gaze fell upon Kerian, standing nearby, and he asked the holy lady who she was.

Kerian would have given her name, but Sa’ida replied quickly, “A courier from the khan of the laddad. She came to see me.”

Mali nodded. He’d known a laddad was about after seeing the griffon tethered in the temple courtyard. As loyal men of Khur, he and his soldiers had not desecrated the temple enclosure with their presence.

“It is irregular to entertain foreign emissaries without the Khan’s approval, holy one,” he commented cautiously.

“I wasn’t expecting her, was I?” the priestess replied tartly. “And before I could do more than greet her, the house of the goddess was invaded by mad Torghanists! They dragged us into the Arembeg district, but we managed to escape.”

He glanced southward at the smoke blackening the predawn sky. “So I see, beloved of the goddess.”

Sa’ida thanked him for his efforts and began to move away. “I must prepare myself,” she explained. “I trust you’ll be here all day?”

“We remain till the Great Khan recalls us.” Brows lifting, he asked, “Prepare yourself for what, holy one?”

“I have decided to go on a journey.”

The Lioness was elated, but allowed nothing to show on her face. It would not do for a mere courier to shout triumphantly. Instead, she emulated the priestess’s dignified exit, following Sa’ida between lines of horsemen to the gate. The priestess carefully closed the gate behind them.

Sa’ida had taken only a few steps when the temple doors opened. Priestesses and acolytes streamed out, many of the latter in tears. They surrounded Sa’ida, loudly proclaiming their relief, praising the goddess for her safe return, and lamenting her bruised and battered state. With some effort, Sa’ida restored order. One acolyte was sent to bring ointments and clean bandages for the Lioness’s injured arm. The others were dismissed to their duties.

Once the youngsters were within the temple and out of earshot, Sa’ida addressed the priestesses. “Thanks to the goddess’s mercy—and the wits of Sosirah here—I am restored to you. I am going with Sosirah to minister to the khan of the laddad. Prepare my baggage for a journey of ten days, and include the instruments for a great healing.”

Bewildered but obedient, the priestesses departed. Kerian and Sa’ida followed them inside while Sa’ida dressed her injured arm. Kerian asked her about her change of heart.

“There is an old saying: ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ The Dark Order and its Torghanist minions have grown too bold. Sahim-Khan will strike back at them, but it is time I do something myself.”

“And helping us may divert the Nerakans from Khur.”

“True, but”—Sa’ida’s brown eyes regarded her steadily—“your Speaker has a great soul. There aren’t enough like him in the world. He should be saved.”

Perhaps it was the fatigue of the long journey or the sudden release of tension after the brawl with the Torghanist fanatics, but Kerian’s relief was so strong she felt tears pricking her eyes. She threw her arms around the woman’s neck and hugged her hard.

“Ah, lady, remember who we are,” the priestess said but patted Kerian’s shoulder kindly.

Stepping back, Kerian cleared her throat and assumed her sternest demeanor. “What did you call me out there Sosirah?”

A smile graced the priestess’s lips. “It means ‘Lioness’ in our language.”

Dawn came, the perpetually cloudless sky above Khuri-Khan brightening from cobalt to azure with a swiftness that still surprised Kerian. While Sa’ida met with the elder priestess who would mind temple affairs in her absence, Kerian went to see to Eagle Eye. He was sleeping in a far corner of the courtyard, still weighted down by a heavy fishing net. Sensing her approach, he awoke. She spoke soothingly to keep him from struggling against the net and injuring himself. As soon as he was free, he stretched his limbs, filled his great chest with air, and gave vent to a full-throated screech. Many of the soldiers on guard outside the wall found themselves unceremoniously tossed to the ground as their horses bucked and reared. Kerian smothered a laugh.

Aside from superficial scrapes and his still-blind left eye, Eagle Eye seemed in fine shape. She led him to the same small pool from which he’d drunk on their arrival. While he quenched his thirst, four acolytes came out of the temple. They carried baskets and a brass tray.

“Food for you and the beast,” said the eldest girl. “Ointment for the creature’s eye.”

Kerian made to take the baskets of Eagle Eye’s provender, but the acolytes bypassed her. Unafraid, the girls set the baskets directly before the griffon. He watched them with fierce head held high then snapped up the pieces of meat, bolting each in a series of prodigious gulps.

Kerian ate more decorously, though not by much. She was devouring her third peach (Khuri-Khan was famous for its golden peaches) when one of the acolytes approached the griffon on his blind side. She held a jar of unguent. Kerian warned her not to get too close. The acolyte opened the jar of unguent and began to sing.

The Khurish tune was a simple one, a children’s song about an injured little girl having a wound dressed. To Kerian’s astonishment, Eagle Eye allowed the girl to anoint his injury. He even lowered his feathered head so she could better reach his eye.

“I’ve never seen him allow a human so close before,” Kerian said.

“All creatures know pain,” the girl replied. “And all creatures understand kindness.”

By the time the sun cleared the intervening buildings and set the temple’s blue dome ablaze, Sa’ida was ready. The entire college of Elir-Sana turned out to see her off. Kerian had worried she would try to take too much heavy baggage, but those fears proved unfounded. The holy mistress carried only two modest-sized cloth bags.

Kerian fixed the pillion pad to the rear of the saddle and buckled a spare strap to the harness. After securing the woman’s bags, she cupped her hands as a toehold for the priestess.

“I’m not so infirm,” Sa’ida said, frowning.

“Humor me, Holy Mistress. I’d rather you not sustain a broken leg even before we go.”

The priestess obliged, putting her foot in Kerian’s hands and letting the elf woman hoist her up. Eagle Eye turned his supple neck to regard the new passenger. Her face paled a bit at his close, steady regard, but she did not recoil, only bade him a polite good morning and thanked him for carrying her upon his back. Blinking, he turned to look at Kerian, and she was hard-pressed not to spoil Sa’ida’s dignified greeting by laughing.

Once Sa’ida was buckled securely in place, Kerian swung herself into the saddle and took hold of the reins. She addressed the throng of anxious women.

“I swear to you all, I will guard Holy Mistress Sa’ida with my life and return her to you safely.”

“Peace and good health!” Sa’ida said, and the women called their farewells.

Because of the added weight, Eagle Eye required an extra step to get them airborne. Sa’ida held Kerian tightly around the waist as they climbed skyward, but when the griffon leveled off, she relaxed.

“How long to the Valley of the Blue Sands?” she shouted into the wind.

“We should reach it a few hours before midnight,” Kerian shouted back.

Wary of another magical attack, Kerian did not have Eagle Eye circle for height as usual. She put him into a steepish climb, due north out of Khuri-Khan. Sa’ida was looking down, staring at the receding ground. Concerned, Kerian asked if she was all right. The priestess lifted a beaming face.

“This is wonderful!”

From the air the city appeared strangely flat, Sa’ida thought, like an image drawn by a skilled mapmaker. To the south, smoke still stained the Arembeg quarter, but she could see no flames. The fire must have been brought under control. She was still concerned for those injured or displaced by the fire, but the fault for that misery lay squarely with Lord Condortal. Her attention was drawn to the palace, glittering like topaz atop its hill. She wondered whether Sahim-Khan had slept well the previous night.

When he received the letter she’d dispatched to him that morning, she was sure his rest would be troubled for some time to come.

The frame was in place. A windlass turned by eight elves was set up on firmer ground a short distance away from the pit. The windlass controlled the rope that would lower the explorers into the hole and would raise them up again. A bronze hook dangled at the end of the rope. Hamaramis would descend first. He was adjusting the rope harness around himself. A company of dismounted warriors stood nearby in case of trouble.

Vixona was seated on the edge of the toppled monolith, keeping out of the way until she was summoned. Her attention strayed toward the far-off trees. The usual crowd of silent spirits had gathered to state at the intruders in their domain.

“I must be getting used to ghosts. They don’t seem so frightening today,” she commented.

“Then walk out there and greet them,” Hamaramis said, fastening the bronze hook onto his harness.

Vixona sniffed. Like the scribes, the general seemed to resent her. The scribes she could understand. They disliked revealing the secrets of their male-dominated craft to a female. General Hamaramis’s resentment she could not fathom. She wasn’t usurping any of his rights or privileges, only exercising her own hard-won skills.

“Are you ready?” asked Gilthas. Hamaramis nodded and walked to the hole, the heavy rope dragging behind.

The windlass creaked around. Hamaramis went up, his feet dangling over the black opening. He took a firmer grip on his torch and nodded.

“Lower away!”

Vixona had left her perch. One arm wrapped around the frame for support, she leaned over to watch the general’s descent. The rope was marked in ten-yard increments with dabs of white paint. He descended three marks, thirty yards, then the rope went slack.

“He’s at the bottom!” she called.

Hamaramis jerked on the rope to signal he was out of the harness. It was hauled up, and each of the three warriors made the descent. Vixona was the last to go.

“Good luck,” the Speaker said, smiling.

Shyly, she thanked him. It seemed odd to her that it was he who offered kindness. The Speaker was the patron of all scribes, but he didn’t seem to resent her a bit. Perhaps, having the Lioness as a wife, he was accustomed to competent females.

Since she needed her hands free for writing and drawing, she carried no torch. The blind drop through inky darkness was not pleasant. The creaking noises the rope made as it twisted her slowly around only added to the eerie feeling. She looked down between her feet. Moving lights meant the warriors already were exploring the tunnel with their torches. She hoped someone would be waiting for her when she reached bottom.

Her feet touched a hard surface, but before she had time to stiffen her knees, she lay sprawled on her back. Quickly she got out of the harness and tugged on the rope with both hands to let those above know she’d arrived.

A flaming brand approached. It lit the face of General Hamaramis. “Are you all right?”

She stood, wincing from her hard landing. “Fine, thank you.”

He pulled the harness aside and left it on the floor still attached to the hook. She studied her surroundings.

They were in a circular chamber with a single tunnel leading away. Vixona noted that the tunnel bore due west.

“How do you know its direction?” Hamaramis asked.

She explained that the hoist frame had been raised with its four supporting poles aligned with the cardinal directions. The distance marks had been daubed on the rope’s south side. During her descent, the rope had made six complete twists. From the position of the paint marks now, the tunnel must lead due west.

“You noticed all that?”

She blinked, surprised by his surprise. “It’s my calling to notice,” she said simply.

A shout from within the tunnel had Hamaramis drawing his sword and running for the mouth of the passage. “Stay behind me,” he warned. Vixona assured him she had no desire to be first.

They caught up with the three warriors thirty-five yards along. Vixona estimated the distance aloud, in part to distract herself from her pounding heart.

The warriors stood at a crossing tunnel (which ran northeast-southwest, according to Vixona). They had seen a single figure dart across the opening as they approached. Wanting to give chase, they’d thought better of it and had raised an alarm.

“Well done,” said Hamaramis. “Chasing an unknown is too risky. It could be a phantom.”

During this exchange Vixona had been scribbling rapidly. She pulled Hamaramis’s torch closer to her page so she could see what she was writing. The flame wavered and crackled. There was a draft, and it came not from the shaft where they’d entered, but from the crossing tunnel.

“What do you make of the pictures?” she asked breathlessly.

Before he could embarrass himself by saying “what pictures?” Hamaramis saw them. The walls were covered with murals painted in delicate hues. The wall before them depicted a host of elf warriors on griffons and horses.

“It’s Balif,” Vixona said. The warriors, intent on searching the darkness for signs of trouble, didn’t heed her, but Hamaramis prompted her to continue. “This painting shows Balif leading the armies of Silvanos Goldeneye on the Field of Hyberya.”

She didn’t ask whether he knew the details of the story, but simply launched on an explanation. Some clans in the western provinces of Silvanesti had refused to acknowledge Silvanos as their overlord. Small companies of warriors were sent to enforce the Speaker’s will, but one by one they were ambushed and destroyed. Speaker Silvanos sent Lord Balif with the royal army to subdue the rebels. Balif swept the troublemakers away. In a forest clearing called Hyberya, the recalcitrant western elves pledged fealty to the Speaker of the Stars. The battle was one of Balif’s greatest triumphs.

Obviously later generations had forgotten it. Hamaramis was frankly astonished. “You mean elf fought elf?”

She nodded. “Hundreds died. As a result, the western forest was divided into military districts, each with its own garrison. The society of Brown Hoods, believed by the Speaker to have been behind the rebellion, was ruthlessly suppressed.”

“Brown Hoods?”

“A league of rural clerics and wild magicians. The most famous Brown Hood was Vedvedsica.”

By now, all the warriors were listening. They regarded the young scribe with new respect.

“How do you know all this?” Hamaramis asked.

“I’m a scribe. I read.”

The draft grew stronger, forcing the warriors to shield their torches with their bodies. Hamaramis considered their next move. The southwest leg of the crossing tunnel would take them beneath the woodland and away from their camp. Northeast led directly to the circular stone platform. Hamaramis thought it likely that if the tunnel system had a hub, it would be found under the huge platform, the valley’s dominant feature.

They headed northeast, with the breeze at their backs, walking in single file. Hamaramis led, followed by two warriors, then Vixona, and finally the last warrior. Vixona kept count of her paces, measuring the length of the tunnel as they traveled. They’d gone about a mile when the wind abruptly grew stronger. One warrior, caught with too light a grip on his torch, found it snatched from his hand. The burning brand bounced ahead of them for quite a distance, sending out sparks with each impact. It finally came to rest against the wall. By its light they saw a figure struggling on the floor.

“Help!” The plea was in the Common tongue, flavored by a human accent. “Help me, please!” The man was clinging to the edge of a wide pit. Only his head and arms were visible. The elves ran to him, and two warriors dragged him to safety.

He was a human of middle years, dark haired, and dressed in brown leather. When the warriors saw his scabbard and knife, they drew their own weapons.

“Who are you?” Hamaramis demanded.

“My name is Jeralund. I’m a hunter—”

“How did you get here? There are no humans in Inath-Wakenti.”

“I chased a stag through a narrow ravine in the mountains and emerged in the valley. It wasn’t on my map. Last night, before I could get out, some sort of floating fireball touched me. Next thing I know, I’m in these caves.”

One of the warriors relieved Jeralund of his weapons.

Hamaramis eyed the human’s sword with suspicion. It was a war blade, “Are you a soldier?”

“I have been.” So had most of the able-bodied folk on the continent.

A further search produced a pouch of coins, new ones. Steel coins usually turned brown after a month or two in circulation. His were still bright and free of rust. They were also Nerakan.

“I’m afraid you must consider yourself our prisoner, at least for now,” Hamaramis said. The man protested, but Hamaramis cut him off. “It’s for the Speaker to decide what’s to become of you.”

Vixona, who had moved away from the interrogation for a peek into the pit, called for the general to take a look. The pit was extraordinarily deep. She doubted there was enough rope in the valley to plumb its depths. But that wasn’t what interested her.

“Take the torches away and look down,” she said. A warrior took their lit torches and moved a short distance away. In the ensuing darkness, a faint, bluish aura could be seen far, far down in the pit.

“And listen,” Vixona said.

From the deep shaft came a slow, regular thud. It sounded very much like the rhythm of a beating heart.