Swords of Waar (16 page)

“What the fuck are you talking about, Beak-Nose?”

His smile turned into a snarl, and he slapped me, hard.

“My name is Ru-Sul.
Your reverence
to filth like—”

“Your reverence! The skelshas are waking!”

Beak-Nose glanced at the priest who spoke, then scanned around the sky, suddenly tense. I followed his gaze and saw a few black-winged silhouettes wheeling over the rooftops off in the distance.

Beak-Nose turned back toward the ruins and waved a hand at us. “Paladins, bring them. We must retire.”

***

Ru-Sul’s paladins—which was apparently some kinda fancy name for temple guard—led us through a maze of broken-down buildings, climbing over mounds of rubble and slogging through knee-deep sand drifts as we walked under high, arched ceilings and by smashed statues whose heads and hands had been worn down to lumpy nubs by the blowing sand.

They tried to stay inside the buildings as much as possible, and took every covered passage and underground walkway they could find, but every now and then they had to cross a street or alley, and they’d all stop at the door and check the sky before hustling us across to the next building as quick as they could.

I gave Ru-Sul a look as they shoved us through a door into what looked like some kind of ancient lecture hall. “What’s the matter? I figured you pricks would be all about feeding us to the birds.”

He laughed. “We are not so wasteful. Your death will serve a far greater purpose than that of food for skelshas.”

Lhan got a cagey look in his eye at that. “It must be a great purpose indeed to risk the wrath of the Aldhanan. Surely even the church cannot kill those upon who he has bestowed his favor with impunity.”

Ru-Sul laughed again, louder this time, then stopped and looked at us. “You fools, the church won’t kill you. It is the Aldhanan himself who will kill you. Indeed, he sails here as we speak to do that very thing.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE PIT!

I
stared at him, and couldn’t manage more than a stunned, “Uh, what?”

Lhan did better. “Do you tell me, then, that the Aldhanan has swallowed your pathetic lies and truly believes Mistress Jae-En and I have kidnapped his daughter and son-in-law?”

Ru-Sul looked smug. “How could he not, when you were seen taking them by a score of witnesses? One was even wounded trying to prevent your escape.”

“
We
were seen? We were nowhere near—” I choked as I got it. “Wait a minute. You put some poor bastard in pink paint and a red wig and had him storm the Aldhanan’s castle?”

Ru-Sul smirked. “The likeness was uncanny.”

Lhan shook his head. “I fail to understand why you have gone to such trouble to defame us. Do you truly fear Mistress Jae-En that much?”

“This is hardly about the demoness. Not anymore.” Ru-Sul turned and entered a dark hall at the back of the lecture hall, and our guards shoved us after him. “When she appeared, during the Kedac-Zir fiasco, we warned the Aldhanan in the strongest possible terms that she was a danger, and must be given over to us for the safety of Ora. Instead he gave her honors and rewards. He named her hero of the Empire.”

“Hey! Asshole! How long are you gonna keep talking about me like I’m not here?”

He kept talking to Lhan. “Nor was this the first time the Aldhanan ignored our counsel. Indeed, since he ascended to the throne, Kor-Har has sided with the dhanans and ‘the people,’ and against the Church, more than any Aldhanan since his great-great-grandfather, Kor-Karan, he who is known to the histories as The Apostate.”

Lhan curled his lip. “Aye, and the church had Kor-Karan… killed…” Lhan’s eyes went wide. He stared at Ru-Sul. “This… this has been no trap for us. This is a trap for the Aldhanan! You have lured him here, telling him we hold his daughter in the ruins, and you mean to fall upon him in your black robes, priests pretending to be heretics. This is an assassination!”

Ru-Sul gave him a flat smile. “A shame you haven’t the faith to match your mind. You would have made an excellent priest.” He motioned ahead to where the dark hall opened out again. “We are here. I will introduce you to your fellow players.”

We stepped out into a ginormous room, as big a cathedral, but with a creepy ocean theme going on. There were shell and seaweed designs studded into the marble floor like barnacles, and flaking gold leaf tentacles winding up the massive columns that held up what was left of the roof. A shaft of red sunlight angled through one of the holes up there and lit up a statue of some haughty-faced goddess with a shark-fin on her head at the far end. It made her look like she was covered in blood.

I leaned into Lhan. “Is this one of them false gods you were talking about?”

“Aye, a goddess of the depths. She demanded human sacrifice.”

“She looks it.”

Shabby tents were set up all around the edges of the room, and an area off to one side had been roped off as a corral for kraes. Disguised priests and paladins cooked their breakfast over campfires and watched us as Ru-Sul led us in. There was also some kind of magic circle painted on the floor in the middle of the chamber, with weird symbols and unlit candles on head-high iron candlesticks all around it.

“What the hell is all that for?”

Ru-Sul smiled. “Set dressing.”

We tramped across the circle toward the shark lady, and I saw that the room had one more interesting feature—a big round hole in the floor right below the pedestal she was standing on. It was about twenty feet wide, and went down so far I couldn’t see the bottom in the murky light. Two paladins with spears in their hands and crossbows on their backs were guarding it.

Ru-Sul turned at the edge and waved a hand like he was a real estate agent showing off a jacuzzi. “Your new home. Also your last.” He motioned to the paladins. “Ready the hooks. Their friends await them.”

Off to one side there were some coils of rope with grapples attached, tied off to various tentacle decorations. The paladins grabbed two of ’em and hooked ’em to the ropes tied around me and Lhan, then kicked us into the hole—no warning, no buildup, just hook, kick, boom.

I yelped like a stepped-on cat as I went into free fall, but the rope pulled tight a second later and I slammed against the side of the pit instead of the bottom. Lhan thudded next to me a second later, gasping, and then I felt the wall rubbing against my face as the paladins started lowering us down into the darkness inch by inch.

Ru-Sul’s voice echoed from above. “You should feel glad it is not a thousand years ago. In that time, the pit was filled with water, and those thrown into it became sport for something known as the God of a Thousand Mouths. Fortunately, the Church of the Seven destroyed that horror, as it destroys all that threatens the security of Ora.”

Lhan snarled. “The security of the Church, you mean.”

“They are one and the same.”

A couple seconds later my feet hit bottom and I toppled onto my side like a sack of laundry. The floor was a deep drift of sand and rocks and broken bones. Not real comfy. Then Lhan fell on top of me, and we just lay there, breathing and staring up at the top of the pit, until something moved in the darkness off to our left.

I raised my head and tried to shift around, but I was tied up tighter than butterfly in a cocoon, and the hook was still in the ropes. I could hardly move.

“Who the fuck is there? Come out where I can see you!”

A face emerged from the darkness, then another—zombie faces—hollow eyes and grimy skin and sunken cheeks. But I’d never heard of zombies with pouty lips or perfect jawlines before.

“Mistress Jae-En,” said the one with the pouty lips. “Is this a dream? Are you but another priestly trick?”

“It is Jae-En!” said the one with the jawline. “And Lhan as well!”

“Get their hooks off,” said the one with the lips.

Lhan and I gaped at them like the fish that probably used to swim in our pit before the sea dried up.

“Sai-Far! Wen-Jhai! You live!”

Yup, it was them, in the flesh, though a lot less flesh than I remembered. They were both as scrawny as Lhan had been when I found him on Toaga. Scrawnier even, but still ridiculously hot. Even covered in dirt and bruises and with their hair all ratty, the two of ‘em looked like they coulda been centerfolds for Naughty Urchin magazine.

Sai got to work untying our ropes as Wen-Jhai gave us hugs and cried over us.

When we were free, Sai clutched our hands. “Mistress Jae-En. Dearest Lhan. I grieve that you have suffered the same miserable fate as we. I had hoped—no, prayed—that you had escaped the reach of the church and found your freedom.”

Wen-Jhai wiped a tear from her eye. “And with you here, trapped, then all hope of rescue is gone, for surely there can be no other with the strength to defeat these villains.”

Yeesh. I’d forgotten they talked that way. Even Lhan didn’t get as Little Lord Fauntelroy as all that.

“Well, actually, your dad is coming.”

Wen-Jhai gasped. “My father?”

“The Aldhanan?” Sai gasped too. “Then we are saved!”

Lhan shook his head. “It is a trap. The priests lure him here, saying that Jae-En and I hold you hostage. They mean, I fear, to kill him.”

Wen-Jhai stared. “They—they will kill my father? But why? Is he not the most beloved Aldhanan of our age? What could he possibly have done to anger them?”

“Quite a lot, I fear.” Lhan frowned. “If I recall, your father, early in his reign, discovered that priests in Pinau had falsely branded a Dhan a heretic in order to purchase his lands and holdings at a reduced price. The Aldhanan forced the Church to return the lands, and had the offending priests executed. There was also the case of the Temple in Hucarrah, which was selling water tokens at inflated prices and transferring the overage into private accounts. The temple of Ormolu denied this was happening, and your father was forced to expose them himself in order to get them to admit it. Indeed, the Aldhanan has been the most vigorous critic of the church and its corruptions since—”

Wen-Jhai moaned and finished his sentence for him. “Since my great-great-grandfather, Kor-Karan, who they also killed.”

Sai slumped back against the wall. “By the Seven, we must get free. We must warn him. He cannot be allowed to come.”

Wen-Jhai sobbed. “But it is impossible. We are trapped! Trapped!”

Sai looked up at me like a hopeful puppy. “Unless perhaps Mistress Jae-En could jump out of the pit?”

Wen-Jhai clasped her hands together like Rebbeca of Sunnybrook Farm. “Oh, but of course! Mistress Jae-En is magnificently strong. It will be nothing for her to escape the pit!”

Well, it was nice of her to say so, but it wasn’t gonna happen. “Sorry, kids. That’s about twice what I can jump. There’s no way.”

She pouted, crestfallen.

Sai was still hopeful. “Can you perhaps climb out?”

It was hard to see the walls down there in the dark, but I ran my hands over ’em. No good. They were made of close-fitted granite blocks, and though they were weathered and cracked, it wasn’t enough. They were still too smooth. I woulda needed Spiderman powers.

“Nope. No can do.”

He sagged too. “Then all is lost.”

“Not necessarily.” Lhan looked around at the rocks and bones. “We may have an opportunity when they pull us out. We must arm ourselves in anticipation of the moment.”

“
Will
they pull us out?” Wen-Jhai looked doubtful. “If their aim is to kill my father—”

“It is more than that.” Lhan glanced up at the top of the pit. “His reverence, Ru-Sul, spoke of drama, and set dressing. And then there are the elaborate disguises of the priests, all pretending to be heretics. Your father’s murder will be a play, meant to be seen, the story of it brought back to Ormolu as truth by unassailable witnesses.”

Sai nodded, getting it. “And we are all supposed to play parts in this play.”

Wen-Jhai put her hands on her hips. “Ha! If they think I shall play a role in my own father’s murder, they are quite mistaken! Do they expect me to say lines? Do they expect me to do as they ask?”

I hated to be the bearer of bad news, but… “I don’t think you’ll have many lines.”

Wen-Jhai’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

I jerked a thumb toward the surface. “They’ve got the whole place dressed up like a satanic ritual up there, and I think you and Sai are gonna be the sacrifices. I think they’re gonna wait until your dad and whoever’s with him bust through the door, then they’ll ‘perform the ceremony.’”

“Kill us, you mean.”

“Yeah. That. Then your dad’ll run in, trying to save you, and get jumped by all the disguised priests, and he’ll die too.”

Lhan raised a finger. “But someone will survive. Someone will return to Ormolu with the tale, and your bodies.”

I pointed to my chest. “And ours. That’ll be the proof that we kidnapped you like they said.”

Sai threw up his hands. “But what is it all in aid of! What do they hope to accomplish with this murderous charade?”

“Other than ridding Ora of an Aldhanan the Church dislikes?” Lhan leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. “My guess is that there will be, among the Aldhanan’s party, a secret friend of the church whose part it will be to play the hero. It will be he who chases off the ‘heretics’ and ‘saves’ the witnesses. It will be he who ‘slays’ the kidnappers and returns to Ormolu clothed in glory. And it will be he whom the Church suggests as the next Aldhanan.”

I raised my head, frowning. “And they’re not gonna leave that slaying to chance, are they? They can’t risk us blowing the game and warning the Aldhanan. I’m guessing we’re gonna be pre-slayed, right before the old man gets here.”

Lhan nodded. “Or perhaps drugged.”

I groaned and lay back, looking up at the rim of the pit, so close, but yet so far. “We gotta get outta here.”

“Aye.”

But nobody had any ideas.

***

Half an hour later, I was still lying on my back, and nobody still had any ideas. Lhan was lying beside me, muttering under his breath as he tried to come up with something. Sai and Wen-Jhai were snoozing, so weak from starvation it was about all they could manage. I was half asleep too, watching the light from the hole in the temple ceiling crawling down the side of the pit as the sun got higher, and wondering if I’d live to see another sunrise, when suddenly Lhan jumped to his feet.