Angelaeon Circle 2 - Eye of the Sword (29 page)

He scanned the rock face, searching for a path up the cliff. Over the swash of the sea and the rush of the wind, he heard a faint strain of music. He turned to Catellus. “Hear that?”

Catellus cocked his head. “The Song of the Dead?”

“Hope for the living.” Trevin grinned. “That’s the harp.” He eyed the caves, hoping to glimpse the harp or at least discern which cave the melody came from. The caves gaped like eye sockets staring blindly out to sea.

Overhead, drifting clouds played with the sunlight, constantly shifting shadows across the cliff. In a moment’s creep of light, a steep path appeared. Trevin clambered over the scree to reach it before shadows obscured it again.

“Look above,” Catellus called.

The small drak had returned. Flying a zigzag course, it crossed in front of every cave. Trevin huffed. Peron or not, she was a distraction.

“Help me listen for the direction of the music,” he said, climbing toward the lowest cave. He heard Catellus following.

Halfway there Trevin noticed the small drak dart from a ledge into a narrow crevice at the same level but some distance away. She flew out and crossed to the ledge again. Pausing to let Catellus catch up, Trevin watched the bird’s back-and-forth flight between crevice and ledge.

Catellus reached Trevin and panted, “Sun’s lowering. I’d rather not be clinging to this wall through the night. On the other hand, I don’t want to be in a fire cave when the keepers come to light their blazes.”

“Let’s try the place the drak keeps flying into,” said Trevin.

“That crevice? I doubt I can squeeze in. Besides, I’m not favorable to trusting a drak, even if she is your friend’s friend. She’s likely leading us into a trap.”

The drak ruffled her wings as she eyed them from the ledge, which lay between them and the crevice.

“We’ll have to risk it,” said Trevin. “We can’t search every cave before nightfall.”

As he headed for the ledge, the drak flew west, out of sight. But the strain of music came clear now, the same sound he had heard from the trees in Eldarra.

He pulled himself to the ledge where the drak had rested. It was only a handbreadth wide, but where it met the cliff face, a cool draft flowed from a horizontal crack, carrying the hum.

Renewed energy surged through Trevin’s tired muscles. He was close. Very close. If he were a beetle, he’d crawl straight in. He eyed the vertical crevice to his right a stone’s throw away. Whether or not it was large enough to enter, he couldn’t tell. He eased toward it across the face of the cliff.

The footing proved tricky. Trevin heard Catellus puffing behind him and turned to advise him to take his time, but before Trevin could speak, the rock beneath Catellus’s foot crumbled. Shards skittered down the cliff.

Trevin grabbed Catellus’s wrist and strained to hold him steady until, panting and hugging the mountainside, Catellus found a secure foothold.

Catellus grimaced and nodded.

Trevin eased himself to the crevice. Once he reached the narrow opening, he edged through it and sighed with relief when it opened onto a wide space.

Catellus hissed as he squeezed into the darkness behind Trevin. “You still here?” he murmured.

“Right beside you.”

“I can’t see a blasted thing.”

“We’re in a cave large enough to stable a horse.” Trevin pointed deeper into the cave where the rock became striated. “It narrows into a tunnel that curves about five paces back.”

Catellus eased to the floor and gingerly touched his right ankle. “I’m no good for going farther. That misstep twisted my foot.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t plunge off the cliff into the waves,” said Trevin. “And we’re lucky the drak led us to an empty cave for the night.”

“Or she’s trapped us. We don’t know the cave’s empty farther in. Even if it is, we don’t know it’ll stay that way.”

Trevin eyed the tunnel. He did sense something—or someone. Not Angelaeon. Not malevolent. Just—he frowned—life. He sensed life.

He sat down by Catellus and dug a couple of dried beef strips out of his waist pack. Catellus handed him some flatbread, and they chewed their salty supper in silence, listening to the hum of the harp.

During the night Trevin awoke with Catellus’s hand across his mouth. “Your sleep is fitful,” murmured Catellus. “You’ve been muttering, nigh onto crying out.”

Trevin sat up, sweating, trembling, his aching hand drawn to his chest. His terror-dream had returned.

He took over the watch and centered his thoughts on Melaia—her smile, the way he sensed her silvery presence. As the light of dawn seeped into the mouth of the crevice, he whispered to her, “Wait for me. A few more days. Wait for me.”

“Shades!” Catellus grabbed Trevin’s arm and pointed at the walls. What Trevin had taken as striations in the rock were instead faded drawings, figures lining the cave wall. “It puts me in mind of Varic’s art,” said Catellus.

“Did you have to remind me of him?” Trevin grumbled. He studied the crowd. Men, women, sylvans, dwarfs. “Look at their clothes,” he said. “Some are in skins; others are robed shoulder to toe.”

“Robes were the style two hundred years ago during the Angel Wars.” Catellus broke off a hunk of flatbread and handed half to Trevin. “These watchers knot my stomach.”

The drawings made Trevin uneasy too. Maybe it was the way Catellus described them as watchers. He felt as if they knew he was present, as if their thoughts lay only a whisper beyond his hearing.

“How is your ankle?” Trevin asked.

“Swollen big as a melon.” Catellus winced as he pulled back the cloak he had used as a blanket. “I’ll be no good for nosing around in tunnels today. I’d be lying to tell you otherwise.”

Trevin secured his knife and dagger. “Keep watch with these ancients, then. I’ll be back with the harp.”

“Try for some rope too. You may have to string me down the mountainside.”

Trevin peered into the tunnel. Figures lined the walls as far as he could see. “If I don’t return by tomorrow’s dawn, try to get back to Tigerre,” he said. “I’ll meet you there.” He headed toward the curve of the tunnel. He missed the reassuring sound of Catellus behind him, but he could move more quickly without the bulky mountain man.

Trevin intended to follow the hum of the harp, but it faded the farther he went, until finally he could not hear it at all. Instead, he felt as if a noisy crowd pressed in around him. He had never sensed such a thing before and attributed it to the cave paintings. They were flat, still, and silent but so realistic that he felt they could step out to join him at any moment. Whoever painted them had done a perfect job. He shivered. No wonder he felt as if their thoughts floated around him.

Ahead, the tunnel turned right. He paused. The music had come from the left. Unless he was turned around. He brushed aside the fleeting thought of turning back. He was not ready to give up on this path.

As Trevin followed the tunnel to the right, a faint light appeared ahead of him. After a few more paces, he saw that the light came from a larger cave.

Once again he heard the harp. He also sensed the presence of malevolents and smelled the sharp stench of gash. He rubbed his aching hand and crept forward, intent on sensing the direction of the malevolents as well as the music.

The larger cave turned out to be massive. Trevin peered from the tunnel, feeling as if he were looking out a tower window at Redcliff. Half the palace would fit in the cavern, towers included. Above him the rock walls rose to a high stone ceiling. The opposite wall held more caves. Below, the wall dropped to a floor that held row upon row of stone statues.

The ghostly snatch of a memory flitted through Trevin’s mind, vanishing before he could catch it. He drew his aching hand to his chest and steadied his breathing. A shaft of sunlight fell from a break in the ceiling, slanting through the cavern and illuminating a figure dressed in flowing white striding across the wall. “The Ibex,” whispered Trevin. He knew she was crossing a ledge, but she appeared to be walking on air a dizzying distance above the cavern floor. He picked out two caves above her, one to the left, one to the right, where he was fairly certain malevolents stood.

The hum of the harp caught him again, drifting from above. He scanned the rock at each side of his tunnel and realized that narrow stairs had been cut into the wall, leading from one level of caves to another.

He waited until the Ibex disappeared into a cave on the opposite wall and the aura of malevolents receded. The shaft of sunlight was vertical now. He breathed easier and sidled out of his tunnel.

The stairs on the wall had no railing, nothing to shield a misstep. Trevin wiped the sweat from his eyebrows and, avoiding a glance across or down into the open air of the cavern, he edged up step by step. Twice the stairs angled off in two different directions, toward different caves. Each time, he listened for the harp and followed the sound.

At last he reached the mouth of a tunnel where the hum of the harp seemed to originate. He slipped inside.

From where Trevin crouched, he could tell that the low-ceilinged tunnel ran straight, sloped gradually upward, and opened onto a chamber at the far end. He could also see an elongated shadow across the far wall of the chamber. The shadow wavered, suggesting a person standing before a flame. A hearth fire? A lantern? He sensed no malevolents, so he slipped out his dagger and crept closer.

A second shadow appeared, slanting across a gray marbled column. A few paces more brought a second column into view near the first, and between them a pedestal. Holding a kyparis harp. All was quiet except for its hum.

Trevin’s right hand ached as he clenched his dagger, but his blood coursed like thunderlight through his veins. If the shadows were two guards, they were not malevolents. He could take down two.

He eased forward and spied the narrow rift he had seen from the cliff wall. It jagged high across the back wall of the cave, drawing a draft of air across the harp strings and carrying the melody into the outside world.

He also noticed a third shadow, this one across the floor. Three guards?

Pressing his back to the wall of the tunnel, Trevin inched ahead, then caught his breath. Not three guards, but five. All made of rock.

One drew him like a lodestone. He couldn’t turn his eyes from its face.

“Melaia?” he whispered, chilled to the bone. The sight of the statue lured him into the chamber. He stood rooted before her, his arms limp at his side.

“It’s Dreia.” The man’s voice sounded warm and weary.

Trevin spun on his heel and came face to face with a young soldier. An old shepherd. A seated woman. A robed girl. All carved of stone.

Then from the shadows beyond the figures came the rattle of a chain. A flesh-and-blood man rose from a bench.

Trevin hardly breathed. This was the picture in Melaia’s book: the figures, the flickering torch, the cave—and the man. Dark hair. Square jaw. Intense eyes.

Benasin, the immortal Second-born.

Trevin stepped back, aware of the dagger in his hand. The last time he had faced Benasin, Lord Rejius was murdering him.

Benasin narrowed his eyes. “You? Rejius’s apprentice? From Redcliff?”

Trevin sheathed his dagger and rubbed at the pain in his hand. “I serve the Angelaeon now.”

“In that case I suppose you’ll say you’re here for the harp.” Benasin wove his way through the stone figures until the chain around his ankle pulled taut, leaving him in the midst of his motionless company. “Hand me the key to my chain. It’s on the pedestal. Behind the harp.”

Trevin turned to look for the key but was arrested again by the statue. “Dreia,” he murmured. “Melaia’s mother.” His chest tightened. He had last seen Dreia alive, carrying a harp. He stepped back and cleared his throat. “Why are the statues here?”

“These are tombs,” said Benasin. “Their spirits live imprisoned within them. My dear brother, Dandreij—or Rejius, as you call him—has taken it upon himself to enshrine in stone every person I love.” Benasin pointed to the soldier. “My best friend and comrade in the Angel Wars.” To the old shepherd. “A treasured mentor.” To the seated woman and girl. “My wife and daughter. Rejius calls them my idols.”

Trevin felt numb. “And Dreia?”

“She’s here because I loved her.”

Trevin squeezed his eyes closed. His breath came shallow. He wished he could rewrite the past. “And Jarrod is—”

“Silence!” Benasin hissed. “Everyone I love ends up here. I’ve learned to avoid making my relationships obvious.” He clanked back to his bench and sat. “Those who wanted to live died. I who want to die must live for all time.” He raised his eyebrows. “The key?”

Trevin eyed the stone pedestal. The key lay at the back as if someone had casually set it down. He took it to Benasin. “Why isn’t the key hidden?”

Benasin bent to the metal cuff around his ankle. “First, it’s to taunt me—in sight but out of reach.” One twist of the key, and his cuff clanked to the floor. Benasin massaged his ankle. “Second, my brother wants me to escape so he can start the hunt again. It’s part of his game.”

“I can get you out before he starts the hunt. The way is steep, but we can be in a safe place by nightfall.” Trevin could hardly believe his luck. Not only would he bring Melaia a harp but also a treasured friend.