Quest (31 page)

He stared at her sternly for a minute and she nodded reluctantly. 'I'll do whatever is necessary.'

He turned back to Herra. 'I'll need you to go outside with me to retrieve the cube, Elder Sister. Do you think you can manage that?'

Herra looked at him strangely. 'The God is speaking through you, Lord Davred, and I hear his words. Of course I can manage. One does what one must. Saving the temple is of more importance than anything else.'

'Can you disguise yourself as an old woman from the Shambles?'

'It would be safer to dress as an old man.'

QUEST Shannah Jay 113

'Yes, of course. Now, where will the thief have taken the cube, do you think?'

Herra spoke without hesitation. 'To Lord Benner. Where else?'

'At the castle?'

'Yes. There or to the main shrine, which lies next to the castle.'

'Can we get inside the castle?'

'We can try. There used to be a way.'

Davred's eyes held Katia's for a moment, then he followed Herra down to the hidden exits in the cellars. He had no need to say anything. His wife knew what he was feeling and how much he loved her.

Katia stood and watched him go, then squared her shoulders, like a person carrying a heavy burden. Mounting the steps of the Statue of the God, she began to organise the defenders, giving orders in a calm clear voice.

#####

The city buildings were badly scarred by the rioting, and the streets were littered with corpses and debris of all kinds.

Scavengers peered out from doorways, but made no attempt to stop two men so poorly dressed. The inhabitants of the Shambles didn’t attack their own. They’d crept out of their quarter to forage, and were looting the shops and houses of the richer quarters with a desperate frenzy. It wasn’t often they had ful bel ies and soft clothes against their skin.

'Lean on my arm and try to look as if you're injured,' commanded Davred, trying not to show the horror he felt at the sight of the ravaged city.

For a while neither of them spoke, then suddenly Herra pinched his arm. 'Yes, boy, I think I can make it,' she whined, her voice that of a weary old man. 'Take me back home and the Serpent will smile upon you.'

A man stepped from a doorway and barred their passage. He wore the black robes of a Servant of the Serpent and he carried a rod of office, with which he continued to bar their path as he scrutinised them.

What he saw appeared to satisfy him. 'It's good to see that some stil know their duty,' he intoned. 'See him right home, lad, then go back to a shrine for the Serpent's blessing. Those who serve the Serpent must look to each other in the struggle against those hags.'

'I'l do as you say, Honoured Servant,' said Davred, trying to make his voice sound young and afraid. 'But there are some who care only for loot and murder. I fear I shan't get my grandfather home in safety.'

The man held out a token. 'Here. Show this to anyone who accosts you.'

'We thank you, Honoured Sir,' quavered Herra.

'Serpent save you!' He made the writhing gesture of blessing with the thick incense stick he was carrying and for a moment it was as if darkness spread over them.

'Save you, Honoured Servant,' quavered Herra. One gesture of her hand and the darkness faded.

They limped on. 'What was that?' Davred shuddered. 'It felt unclean.'

'That was their incense. It's a powerful drug, but one I don't recognise.' She took a deep breath. 'The whole city seems to reek of it today. Can you control your body's reactions to it?'

'Yes.'

A little later Davred commented, 'So much for their ability to sniff out Sister-lovers!'

QUEST Shannah Jay 114

'Stay in character,' hissed Herra. 'There are ears everywhere.'

They made slow progress through the city. All along the Lord's Avenue they were jostled by bands of looters, but either their ragged appearance or the token they carried saved them from attack. Once, when a group of drunken young men surrounded them, ready to torment anyone they could catch, token or no token, the matter hung in the balance for a moment or two. Then one of the men suddenly collapsed, groaning that the wine must have been poisoned, and by the time his friends had tended to him, Herra and Davred were safely out of sight down a side street.

'I must learn that trick,' said Davred, noticing the beads of sweat on Herra's brow. 'I can't leave it all to you.'

They made their way down to the lower end of the smaller ridge where the castle stood, and walked round it to a side gate, where the guards eagerly demanded news of the siege. Davred invented a tale of some minor assault on one wing of Temple Tenebrak, which seemed to satisfy them, and Herra pleaded for a drink of water.

'No one allowed in! No one to leave their post!' declared the sergeant. 'Get on your way, old man. What do you think this is? A travellers' rest house?' There was another outburst of ribald comments and laughter.

'Secret entrance further along,' mouthed Herra, hanging heavily on Davred's arm. 'Go slowly. I need to look for the signs. I've never had to use this one before. I'll pretend to fall when we're near it, and you can drag me inside.'

When they found the place, Herra used her powers to shield them from the eyes of those at the guardhouse, but at the last minute a man approached from the other direction. He stopped dead at the sight of Davred and the opening yawning in the wall. 'Here! What do you think you're . . .?'

Herra had just stepped inside and could offer Davred no assistance. Before the man could shout for help, or draw the dagger whose hilt lay ready beneath his hand, Davred twisted him around, slammed his head against the wal and hit him in the neck. Unlike Katia, who hated even to pretend to fight, Davred had taken full advantage of the temple lessons in self-defence, though he was stil not as good as Herra and some of the older Sisters. As the man sank towards the ground, Davred caught him and dragged him inside.

'Don't kill him!' cried Herra.

Davred bent over the man's body to check his pulse, then jerked backwards. 'I - I think I already have.' He stared at the corpse in horror. Easy enough to defend yourself in a class, more difficult to make fine judgments of how hard to hit an opponent when you suddenly had to fight for your life.

'I didn't have time to think, just hit out. He'd seen us, seen the opening. I must have hit him too hard.'

'To take someone's life!' She brushed a shaking hand across her brow, and he realised that her physical weakness was affecting her powers of reasoning.

'Herra, it won't be the last time we have to kill. Even you haven't the strength to
still
all our enemies. We can't let evil prevail, so you must accept the fact that we have to defend ourselves.'

For long seconds they glared at each other, then Herra turned away with a muffled sob. 'Violence has never been our path.'

'You surely don't think I killed him on purpose?'

She stared at him, as if trying to read his soul. 'Then it did - hurt you - to kil him?'

He put his arms around her shaking shoulders. 'How could it not?' he asked gently. 'You trained me yourself in the ways of the Sisterhood, and I didn't grow up with violence in the Confederation. I was a scholar there.' His face became grim. 'But I think now that I must learn to fight more skilfully than your Sisters can teach me, and learn to attack as well as to defend myself.'

'Attack!'

'
This Evil will not be driven from our world by gentle pleas.
' His voice echoed in the narrow passageway.

'Our Brother speaks through you, but such ideas are hard for me to accept,' she murmured.

After Herra had said a few words over the body, they began to feel their way along the narrow, dark passage with its
QUEST Shannah Jay 115

many twists and turns. In some places the wal s were damp; in others, rustlings and chitterings spoke of small animals living in the crevices. Herra led the way, having memorised their route from the maps in the Archives.

Sometimes they seemed to come to a dead end and she would fumble along the wall until a doorway opened in it.

Whenever this happened, another wall of rock would appear to close the passage behind them.

This was not primitive technology, thought Davred, examining one new 'wall' and finding no sign that it was not solid rock, permanently joined to the other walls. However did the Sisterhood manage such feats of engineering? Or magic.

Occasionally a little light would filter in at an intersection, and they would see seeping streaks of moisture and animal droppings among the debris of centuries. Mostly, though, Davred followed the Elder Sister blindly through the darkness, stumbling on the uneven ground and scraping his hands on the rough wal s.

When Herra stopped and laid her fingertips lightly across his mouth, Davred stood still. 'We are near, I think,' she breathed in his ear. She moved forward again, and he followed as quietly as he could, heart thudding.

Around the next corner, a pinpoint of light showed in the wall of the tunnel. Herra stopped and stood on tiptoe to peer through the hole, then gestured to Davred. For him, it was below eye level.

What he saw made him draw in a sharp breath. In the room beyond the spy-hole stood three men. One was an Initiate of the Inner Shrine in full black and silver regalia, his hands pressed together at his chest, his staff leaning against the wal behind him. The other two men were castle guards, and although they stood motionless, their eyes betrayed their fear, darting nervously from the object on the table to the door and back again. Clearly, they were expecting trouble; clearly, a trap had been set. In front of them lay the bait, the stasis cube. Tools around it spoke of fruitless attempts to open it, but the matt surface was unblemished, though the table it lay upon was gouged and scarred.

On the floor in one corner lay the blood-spattered body of a man, terror still written across his dead features.

Herra moved closer to Davred to murmur, 'That's one of the messengers from the temple.'

'Probably our thief.'

'May our Brother guide his steps nearer to the Path of Wisdom in the next life!'

Davred frowned. 'It's a trap, isn't it?'

'I fear so. And we have no choice but to enter it.'

Herra took a deep breath and Davred recognised the cadences of gathering one's inner forces together. 'Shall I
still
them?' she whispered after a moment.

'Can you manage three at once?'

'I can. But you must get the cube, for I shall have to concentrate on holding them.'

'Wait. Can you tel whether there's anyone else around? How do they intend to spring the trap?'

'That I cannot tell, Davred. The castle is so full of people that I can't pick out clearly where they all are.' She bent her attention to the three men in the room. Beads of sweat stood out on her brow by the time she’d finished, but the men were all standing rigidly, and no alarm seemed to have sounded.

Davred, turning to nod his approval, saw that Herra was swaying slightly on her feet. 'Are you all right, Herra?'

'I'll manage. The important thing is to get the cube. Look - this is how to open the panel - and when we do that, other doors close behind us, so the passage seems to lead nowhere but to the cellars.' Her eyes never left the men, and she spoke jerkily.

'However did your Sisterhood manage to build all these secret ways?'

'Time, Davred. Time and patience. One stone at a time.'

As the wall swung noiselessly aside, she led the way into the room. While she paused to reinforce the Compulsion
QUEST Shannah Jay 116

on the motionless figures, Davred moved towards the cube.

'
Stay where you are! If you move, my men will kill you.
' The voice echoed from somewhere above them. Panels in the wall crashed open to show two bowmen, arrows nocked to their bows, flanked by two guards with drawn swords.

Herra tried to focus on the direction of the sound, but the voice seemed first to be coming from one side of the room, then from another.

Laughter mocked her efforts. 'Do you think I'd risk going near a room with one of you she-devils in it? I know too much about your vicious arts. And even if you did manage to
still
me, Elder Sister, I have a dozen bowmen carefully positioned around the room who could put an arrow through your throat in seconds. It's a very special room, this one.

We've known about your passageway for centuries, though not how it connects to the outside. I shall let you show me that yourself. Later. Once we've persuaded you to be more amenable to reason. For the moment, just stay where you are. Stand very, very still.'

'Who are you?' asked Davred.

'Tut! Tut! It's a disloyal fellow who doesn't recognise his own Lord Claimant.'

'Oh!' Davred allowed fear to show in his voice and stance, and was rewarded by a further chuckle, always from a different direction.

'Oh, indeed! We have you nicely trapped, have we not, Brother Davred? I really can't address you as Lord Davred, you know. And as for you, old woman, if you're thinking of killing yourself, go right ahead. I'd be delighted to be rid of you. But
he
can't kill himself, can he? As the Manifestation of your so-called God, his life is too precious. Anyway, I'd guess that killing oneself requires quite advanced training.'

Herra said nothing. Her body was motionless, but her mind was busy analysing the situation. The more Benner could be encouraged to talk and delay further action, the better.

'Your young friend must have learned a lot, though, in the year you've had him bottled up in your stinking lair. We're going to have a great deal of fun learning your secrets from him- one way or another. But we might be just a little kinder to him - refrain from blinding him, for instance, or leave his manhood intact - if you were to stay alive and help us, Elder Sister. After all, you wouldn't want your precious Manifestation of the God displayed on our altars in pieces, now would you?'

'So be it. For the moment.' Herra's voice and face were expressionless. Benner seemed unaware that she could have killed both Davred and herself almost instantaneously, but Davred was only too conscious of it, and was surprised at how much he wanted to go on living.