Lord Of The Silent Kingdom Part 29

Osa murmured, "Where did all the bones come from?"

"Ancient times. Brothe used to be a lot bigger. The early Chaldareans brought their dead down here. For centuries."

"Some of them had some pretty weird bones." Osa pointed at bones that were humanoid but unlike the rest. This can't be the right place."

"Yes." Hecht stared at a clot of darkness. It had been just about there that he had sensed the something awful before. He felt nothing, now.

His amulet offered no warning. It was never inactive in the Chiaro Palace. He no longer noticed that low-level tickle.

Osa said, "We headed away from the hippodrome when we took that second turn. We should've gone the other way."

"How could you know that? You've never been down here."

"True. This is all folklore to me. But I have a perfect sense of direction."

"Oh?" Something to keep in mind. "Lead on, then."

Osa did so, returning to the cross pa.s.sage where, he believed, they had gone astray. "The dust gets worse going this way."

That dust made breathing miserable. The lanterns had trouble reaching far ahead. Hecht's amulet remained quiescent, but- He pointed, directing the strongest lamplight.

Footprints. People had pa.s.sed this way.

"You good on fuel, Osa?"

"I'm fine." Whispering. Following the tracks.

"Shall I take point?"

"I'm all right. I'll bite them in the b.a.l.l.s."

Hecht let it ride. For the moment. He did draw the short sword that served as a mark of his status. It was not much of a weapon. But it was the tool he had.

His amulet began to respond to the proximity of power. Feebly. "Stop," he whispered.

Osa froze.

"Where would we be if we were upstairs?"

"At a guess, roughly, somewhere just north of the hippodrome. Within a few hundred yards."

A squeaky creak came from up ahead. It sounded like a huge stone sliding across other stone.

Hecht focused on his amulet.

No change there.

"What?" Osa asked.

"I'm listening." True at a figurative level.

Princ.i.p.ate Delari had come down here hunting something big and wicked. Something at least as terrible as a bogon. Maybe something darker, considering his fear last time around.

That power would be wide awake and angry if Delari had stirred it up.

"I'm point, now. I insist." Hecht eased past Stile. And wished he had a falcon rolling along behind, charged with silver and iron. "Oh."

"What?"

"Something just occurred to me. Something I knew without fully understanding what it meant. I'm going to follow these tracks."

He did so slowly. The stone sound came again. A chill crawled his spine. His amulet responded mildly. There was something there, but... They came to a pile of rubble, loose stone from the pa.s.sage wall. Ages pa.s.sed. The advance grew slower and slower. The dust became as much as an inch deep. Then, in a few yards, almost vanished, all blown outward.

Hecht spied a glimmer, a sliver of silvery light. It proved to be a spot of moonlight, come through a small gap high overhead. Rubble nearly blocked his path. A chamber lay beyond, dimensions indeterminate because of the collapse and lack of sufficient light.

"Obviously not the main cave-in," Osa said.

"No. We'll need to make a huge effort to find all the places like this. Otherwise, the city will keep falling in under us."

"Princ.i.p.ate Delari," Osa said. To keep him on task.

"Yes." He was tired. It was past his bedtime.

He was getting old. And soft.

Life in the west was d.a.m.nably seductive.

He heard that noise again. Closer. "What does that sound like?"

"Stone on stone. Or the lids of those big terra-cotta jars or grain storage."

"You're right. That does sound like one of those being dragged off the mouth of a jar." Those huge pottery containers forestalled mice and rats.

"Sshh." Hecht heard voices.

"I hear them." In a breathless soldier's whisper.

Hecht adjusted the shutter on his lantern till it shed almost no light. Osa did the same.

Hecht went on, thinking that he must have an affinity for the world underground. Here, now. Al-Khazen, during the Calziran Crusade. And Andesqueluz. That had been terrible. Despite there having been no living thing inside the holy mountain of the extinct cult.

His amulet tickled him as the terra-cotta on stone sound recurred.

The rattle of a small rubble slide followed.

"My point," Osa breathed. "I'm shorter."

Hecht yielded. Light flickered ahead, limning hip-high flows of rabble. Those had washed into what resembled a deep mine where large blocks of material had been left to support the earth overhead. There was almost no dust here. The little still in the air gave the light a pumpkin hue.

The voices were clearer but no words stood out. Hecht decided he was hearing a foreign language. Two men were arguing. A third added a tired whine while a fourth rambled through a "Why me?" soliloquy.

What were they doing? They could be up to no good. Not down here.

Osa stopped him with a touch. The boy set his lantern down, crept forward.

Hecht breathed hard, heart hammering. He sweated. His exposed skin grew muddy.

Stile had not lost his Sha-lug skills. Which meant there was hope for a Sha-lug captain seduced by western decadence.

Osa sank down behind a rubble sprawl. Hecht joined him, looked at six men on what might have been a tiled floor as expansive as that of the underground cathedral. Most of which was now buried. All six wore monk's robes. Their hoods were up and their faces were concealed by cloth--because of the dust, not any desire to be sinister. Though that effect resulted.

The argument continued between two of the six. Another two kicked in randomly while a silent pair stood on the far edge of the light cast by six earthenware lamps. Those two seemed obsessively intent on something in the darkness beyond them.

Now that he could hear them clearly Hecht felt he ought to be able to understand what was being said. He had heard that language before.

He thought he should know the voices, too.

The grinding returned. It came from beyond the silent watchers. Grumbling, the whole band surged that way, into the darkness.

"I don't understand," Hecht breathed to Osa. "I don't like this."

"They have a prisoner. It keeps trying to get away. They're waiting for instructions. They've sent two messengers. There's been no answer. The argument is over whether to send another."

"You understand them?"

"They're speaking a Creveldian dialect. Hard to follow but what they're saying is pretty basic. They can't go but they're afraid of what will happen if they stay."

Another heavy groan of terra-cotta.

Osa finished, "They're Witchfinders. And they've caught something that won't let them go."

The two who entertained themselves arguing returned to the light. Which was like none Hecht had seen before. It was not just the dust that made the lamps burn an odd color.

They must do the same work as Princ.i.p.ate Delari's lanterns.

And the more so when one Witchnnder removed his face covering to clear his nose by blocking one nostril while blowing through the other.

He was the man who had given Hecht dispatches for Sonsa when he and Ghort were about to sneak out of Brothe.

Osa squeezed his left arm fiercely, cautioning him against sudden movement.

Time pa.s.sed.

The argument resumed. The whiners became more involved. They were all tired and thirsty and hungry. And nothing useful was happening.

Hecht did not need to speak the language. He had been a soldier all his life.

What to do? There was no obvious way to bypa.s.s this bottleneck. This was a fool's errand. They had no plan and no intelligence. Pure storyteller's heroic nonsense.

The argument peaked in a furious exchange.

One of the silent pair threw his hands up, frustrated, then stamped away into the darkness. The others did not catch on immediately. Then the argument became much more heated.

Osa breathed, "These five believe that six Witchfinders is the minimum needed to control it."

"It?"

Stile shrugged. "Or him. Those two want to get out of here while they still can without being recognized."

Hecht now caught the occasional phrase. He could not disagree with the catamite's interpretation.

He did not like being at the mercy of someone he trusted so little.

He smiled. Chances were, Osa did not like being at the mercy of Piper Hecht, either.

Earthenware ground against stone. The Witchfinders shut up. The one Hecht had identified took charge.

The sound grew louder and more malignant. The Witchfinders reacted with the speed of those who knew they had just one desperate chance. To the sound. Fearfully. As a babble of Old Brothen echoed all round.

For an instant Hecht thought his left hand was being ripped off his wrist.

"What?" Osa asked, startled.

"Smacked my knuckles against a rock." He had, in fact, done just that, responding to the sudden pain.

"That was dumb."

The pain faded to a throb, like a wound an hour old. Hecht had lived with that before.

Shouts of anger and fear. Groan of terra-cotta ground against stone. Shouts of triumph. Hecht's pain faded.

Osa had been about to cross the lighted area when the self-congratulations started. He dove back into shadow just in time. Two Witchfinders supported a third who was unable to work his legs. They settled in the center of the light.

The injured man pa.s.sed out as soon as his a.s.sociates set him down. One said something like, "We've got to get out of here! We just used up our luck."

The last two men stumbled into the light.

The Witchfinder in charge gave orders. Three men hurried back into the darkness. They began making noise.

The senior Witchfinder opened his unconscious a.s.sociate's robe. The man wore little underneath. Hecht saw no obvious wounds or traumas.

"They're piling stones onto something so it can't move," Osa said.

One of the three leapt back into the light, babbling.

Osa translated: "The other two just ran away. He wants this guy to haul a.s.s with him. This guy says they can't leave their buddy behind."

Hecht breathed, "Maybe we shouldn't be here, either."