The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) (103 page)

Several hundred yards from the structure, Keris touched down on a small rise and raised her hand. Shann landed just behind her. Stars shone steadily down on them like a thousand staring eyes. Watching. Judging.

Keris scanned the tower and the undulating ground in between. “We continue on foot. Keep low,” she commanded. The tall woman set off at a gliding run, as if she were one with the landscape. Shann followed, stretching to match her stride. They traversed the distance together in silence. The tower loomed above them as they hunkered down beside the ancient stone. Keris raised herself up and began feeling along the wall, looking for the door and the triangular recess that would allow them entry.

Two thirds of the way round, she stopped. Reaching into her pouch, she found the access module and located an identically shaped niche in the tower wall, lined the device up and carefully pushed it home. The module lit up, casting a gentle amber illumination on their faces. There was a low, purring vibration and a smooth metal door slid open, revealing a pitch dark interior.

Keris drew her staff and cautiously moved past the threshold, peering into the gloom.
This place has been deserted, sealed for more than three thousand turns. Who is she expecting to find?

Shann silently followed the older woman’s lead. Dim starlight barely penetrated the umbral shadows within. The air was musty like a tomb. As she stepped inside she recalled the panel in the wall of the identical tower on the Eastern Plains that had activated the lights in the ceiling. Her hand moved, then she thought better of it. They could not risk alerting the enemy to their presence.

Keris satisfied herself that the entrance room was indeed deserted, then turned to face Shann. The dim light picked out her lean features. Her voice was a harsh whisper. “From hereon in, verbal communication should be kept to a minimum. We climb the stairway to the top of the tower. At the top, you will wait while I locate the avionic and disable it.”

“Avionic?”

“It’s the only way they could have gained access to the top of the tower,” Keris maintained.

“How do you know that someone didn’t just drop them there?”

“And leave them stranded with no means of escape? Unlikely. After I destroy the flying machine, you and I will determine the position of the scout and engage them.”

“Aren’t we going to give them an opportunity to surrender?” Shann asked.

“No,” Keris replied. “No, we aren’t. Let’s go.”

“Wait,” Shann hissed.

Keris turned back. “What is it?”

Shann felt a cold feeling of wrath–a desire for retribution well up within her. She nursed it, then tucked it carefully away for the moment. “As Keltar, you selected people to serve as tributes.”

“You want to talk about this now?” Keris rasped.

“Did you pick out those who were to be taken away?” Shann ploughed on.

“Not usually. But sometimes, when we had to meet a certain quota. What has that got to do with anything?”

“Did you take tributes from Corte nine turns ago?” Shann pressed.

“Maybe. Look, can we deal with this later?”

Shann felt her voice crack. “You took them, didn’t you. My parents. You took them away as tributes.”

Keris paused. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Your trial. You saw your parents being taken.”

“I saw
you
take my parents,” Shann corrected. “Is it true? Did you take my parents away to die in the ore camps?”

Keris’ sigh held a note of frustration within it. “What kind of an answer do you want?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Shann demanded.

“‘The truth lies at the bottom of a pit of serpents’. Have you heard that saying? A lie, even a small one, can provide a morsel of comfort. The truth, on the other hand, can be painful. And whatever you may think of me, Shann, I do not want to cause you any more pain. So which is it to be? The soothing balm of a lie? Or the truth?”

Shann felt the bile rise in her throat. “I want to know the truth.”

Another pause. “Very well. The truth is that I don’t know. Nine turns was a long time ago. It would have been about the time I started service as Keltar. I did visit the towns close to Chalimar, including Corte. At that time, there was not the same casual brutality among the Prophet’s servants that there is now, but a great number of people were taken against their will, nevertheless. I was naïve and idealistic. So yes, it is possible that I impressed your parents into service as tribute. You said before that you don’t recall clearly what they looked like. In any case, I would be unlikely to remember one couple among so many. I…tended to avoid looking at their faces, even back then.”

Shann scowled.
“You don’t remember?”

“I’m sorry if it is not the answer you wanted. I told you, the truth can be painful. If what you say is true and they were sent to the ore camps, then nothing can bring them back. Now, what do you wish to do? Kill me?”

“No,” Shann lied.

“Then we have a task to perform. One for which the others are relying on us. I suggest that we execute that task. Then you may exact revenge. If that is what you want.”

You cannot save them.
The words struck Shann again like a slap in the face. Whatever she did–whatever price she made this woman pay–it would never bring them back.

Keris turned away, locating the stairway largely by touch, then began her ascent. After a moment, Shann followed. Silence fell between them once more. Shann shoved her turbulent thoughts to the back of her mind and channelled every ounce of concentration into the effort of climbing through the darkness. The tall woman’s back was a shadowy outline ahead of her. Vague. Ill defined. She could almost forget that it belonged to the woman who had sent her parents to their deaths. Almost.

The spiral staircase wound around and around, as if it went on forever. The air was cold and dank, with that same long-dead smell. Although she could not see the floor clearly, she fancied that she trudged through dust that had lain undisturbed for millennia. Then, abruptly, the climb ended. Keris crouched down in front of the door that barred their path, feeling for any indentations or irregularities with her slender fingers. She found a latch and pulled it. There was a small clunk, but the door stayed fast shut.

Shann cursed her own lack of foresight. If she had been thinking clearly and not been so wrapped up in her own problems, then she might have foreseen this. Both the tower on the Eastern Plains and the one she had discovered in the Cathgorn Mountains had been left open. However, Rael had told her that the tower here on the Plain of Akalon had remained sealed. She should have anticipated that the exit to the roof would also be closed off.

Keris was performing a fingertip exploration of the wall around the doorway. Shann sat on her haunches and thought back to the time when she was at the Cathgorn Tower with Rael. There was an area on the topmost level full of strange machinery that operated the great silver globe. Maybe it operated the door, too? She backed up, descended the first flight of stairs once more and began looking for the room she remembered.

She entered an open doorway and found the familiar panel on the wall. Lights in the ceiling clicked on. Keris would no doubt object, but there was no way Shann was going to be able to figure out anything in the dark. There were the same banks of machinery and consoles set with a myriad of different switches, dials and screens.
If I were a door release switch, which switch would I be?
If only Rael were here. He would be the one to figure this stuff out.

She ran her eyes over the array. Pushing things at random did not seem to be a very good idea. Then she spotted it, a lone pedestal at the end of the room with the familiar shape of a scalene triangle set into its surface. She ran her hand lightly over the indentation. It seemed to be the right size.

“What are you doing?” The tall figure of Keris loomed in the entranceway.

“Do you have the access module?” Shann held her hand out. Keris walked over, reached inside her pouch and placed the transparent device with its intricate workings in the girl’s palm. Shann fit it into the pedestal. The initial saffron glow switched to bright red. “Try it now.”

The other woman opened her mouth, then closed it again and headed back up the stairs. Shann retrieved the module and followed, keeping her distance.

When she reached the outer door once again, Keris already had her hand on the latch and was turning it gingerly.
Clunk.
The same dull mechanical sound. Keris winced. This time, however, the door moved outward a crack. Keris stopped and turned to the girl behind her, holding out her palm. Shann placed the access module in it. Keris closed her fingers around the device and nodded once, then she pointed down at the floor with a thin forefinger.
Wait here.
The dark-haired woman pushed the door a little further open, slid through the narrow gap and was gone.

~

Keris crouched in the corner of the parapet nearest the door, blending into the shadows. She scanned the roof of the tower. The great silver globe rested at the centre of the platform, held in place by four huge clamps. In front of it she recognised the sleek outline of an avionic. The spy was here, just as she had anticipated. She began to move, gliding along the low wall, keeping to the dark places. As her perspective shifted, another shape became visible past the globe, on the other side of the stone roof–a tent.

Keris crept silently across the platform and hunched down next to the canvass, straining her ears. After some moments, she detected a faint shuffling.
He’s inside.
The spy would be using the ‘eaves’ to monitor developments at the Dais, probably planning to make his move as soon as the party had garnered all four of the components. Perhaps he was going to call in reinforcements to take the components by force? Or maybe he planned to escape with the knowledge and then pilfer them at some later time.
Sorry. Your little scheme ends here.

The strategy was simple enough. In Shassatan terms–Dam and Dagger. Cut off the enemy’s line of retreat. Then strike. The tower’s lodestone platform was the perfect setting to make full use of the flying cloak’s capabilities. Two armed with flying cloak and staff against one ground-bound spy who had no idea that he had been compromised. It was going to be a short fight.

Her first target was the flying machine. Disabling it was a simple enough matter. She had effectively put one of them out of action at the isolated house in the hills above Kieroth, shortly after their arrival in this world. The panel containing the delicate control mechanisms was just forward of the cockpit. Keris used her staff to carefully lever it open, making as little noise as possible, then ripped out as many parts and severed as many of the multicoloured wires as she could access. Satisfied, she turned back to the roof exit where Shann was hiding–and froze.

A steady drone
–like an insect, only too regular. Keris’ fingers flexed on her staff, and her eyes flicked over the stone platform, but she could not see the source of the sound. Then a sudden movement. A bronze sphere flew from the direction of the tent, coming to a stop and floating in the air a few feet in front of her. It had an irregular, indented surface and was set with a clear orb at its centre, giving it the appearance of a large mechanical eye.

Keris dodged to her left and shot past the eye toward the exit door. She pulled it open and beckoned to the girl crouching behind it. “We’ve been discovered. Quickly.”

Keris led the way back toward the tent. The eye had gained height and was tracking them from high above. As they approached the tent, the flap opened and a figure emerged. Keris skidded to a halt, uncertain what to make of the creature. It was unlike anything she had seen before. Kelanni furs seemed to enhance the unnaturally broad shoulders. But this was no Kelanni. Pallid skin. Round face. Piercing blue eyes. However, the thing that caught her eye most of all was the strange profusion of facial hair.

The hair parted to reveal a gaping mouth and a gruff voice. “Visitors. I assume you are with the group over there. You discovered the eaves and traced me here. Well done. When I set a watcher all the way up here, Susan accused me of being paranoid. However, I have learned over the years never to underestimate your people. I am called McCann. My friends call me Mac–so I suppose that means you will be calling me McCann. I would be fascinated to discover how you made it all the way up here.” He looked from one to the other with an expression of detached amusement. “I hope you’re not going to tell me that you flew?”