Ciras held a hand up. “Enough. My head is on fire.” He hunched his shoulders for a moment, hoping just saying that would not make it come true.
Borosan smiled, but did not laugh. “I do have one worry here, and it’s not that our perceptions are being changed constantly. With so much magic here, I don’t wonder that it should be easy to use. I wonder if it becomes unconsciously simple to use.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
Borosan sighed, then turned and pulled one of the round mousers from a saddlebag. He held it out to Ciras. “Please, I know you don’t like my gyanrigot, but hold it.”
Frowning, the Tirati warrior accepted the skull-sized ball. “Now what?”
“Stroke it. Pretend it has fur.”
Ciras raised an eyebrow. “Is it time for us to get out of the sun? We can find shade.”
“Just stroke it.”
Ciras pulled a glove off with his teeth, then stroked the bare metal shell with his fingertips. He stared, then did it again. “It feels like fur.”
“I know.”
Then the mouser purred.
Ciras tossed it back to Borosan and wiped both of his hands on his thighs. “What did you do to it?”
“I didn’t do anything to it.” Borosan returned it to the saddlebag. “I have been thinking about it, however, even dreaming about it. I think of it as a mouser since that’s what I built it to do. Out here, I think just thinking about something may manipulate the wild magic and make things come true.”
Ciras frowned. “That makes no sense.”
“Doesn’t it?” Borosan shrugged. “If you are a Mystic, you access magic and use it to make yourself a better warrior. What you are able to do is governed by your discipline and skills, but you can’t control all the magic, so some of it bleeds into the surroundings. The reason you can’t control it, however, is because you’ve been trained to be a swordsman, not a magician.”
Ciras said nothing for a moment, then nodded. “And you would say that magic can be controlled because you, with gyanri, are able to construct devices that channel captured magic into specific ends.”
“Exactly. And we know that magic can be controlled because we have someone like Kaerinus who can use it to heal.”
“And we have stories of the vanyesh who did other things with it.”
“Not just them, Ciras. We know the Viruk can use magic. Even Rekarafi could use it. He helped heal Tyressa.”
“But they are not human. You look around us and see what the vanyesh helped cause.”
The inventor frowned. “Do we know that they did?”
“The stories make it all clear.”
“Sure, but who wrote those stories?” Borosan reined back at the top of the hill. “The history says that aside from Kaerinus, no one returned from the battle. Given the nature of the Cataclysm, that’s no surprise. And yet, we have stories of the Sleeping Empress.”
“So you’re saying we don’t know the truth because the only folks who could have told the truth died here?”
“True-and look at the only evidence we have about the vanyesh. Kaerinus has let himself be imprisoned for ages, but he heals people. He’s hardly the monster the vanyesh were made out to be. Sure, the stories say he returned feebleminded, but how feebleminded can he be if he’s able to use magic to heal?”
Ciras sighed heavily. “You make me think troubling things, Master Gryst.” He really didn’t want to have to think about the vanyesh being anything other than monsters. He still had the vision of one striking his master from behind, and that fit his idea of a villain. But by the same token, he’d also had visions of the same vanyesh killing a lot of very skilled Turasynd.
He gave his horse a touch of the spur and Borosan rode up beside him. “Master Gryst, what you say about the people who wrote the stories is true, but I would counter that the stories are based on the actions of Prince Nelesquin and his vanyesh before the Cataclysm. They would have required some basis in fact if they were not to be dismissed when they were first related.”
“I agree.” Borosan smiled. “Perhaps, however, Nelesquin’s vanyesh were not the only vanyesh. Maybe others came out, fearing the Cataclysm, and tried to contain it.”
Ciras snorted. “They didn’t do a very good job.”
Borosan laughed. “Then again, they might have contained enough of it that all life was not destroyed.”
“I don’t like arguing with you. You riposte too well.”
The inventor smiled broadly, then bowed his head. “I shall take that as you meant it, not as it sounded.”
Ciras screwed his eyes shut as that comment ricocheted through his mind and would have said something in return, but when he opened his eyes again he spotted a dark opening at the base of a sheer mountain cliff. He would have sworn that it had not been there moments before, but the trail down the hill had also seemed not quite so straight, and another hill seemed to have shrunk enough to reveal the opening.
“Do you see that?”
Borosan nodded slowly. “We shouldn’t go anywhere near it.”
“It might be another grave complex.” Ciras settled his hand on the hilt of the vanyesh blade. “Every part of me screams that we should not go there.”
“And for some reason that’s not enough to make you ride away?”
The swordsman glanced at his companion. “Given the nature of how this opening was revealed to us, do you think we could get away if we wanted to?”
Borosan nodded slowly. “Anything powerful enough to hide or reveal that hole probably could have opened this hill and swallowed us alive.”
“I think we were meant to come here.” Ciras pointed down the hill. “In there, I believe we’ll learn what killed the giant and resealed the tomb.”
“And why they left you that sword?”
“Probably.” Ciras shivered. And if they intend I use it to finish the killing of my master, they will learn they have made a very bad choice.
It took them less time to reach the opening than Ciras had calculated, and it appeared to have grown during their journey. Somewhat narrow, the arched opening soared to a height of thirty feet. Just inside it, far enough to be hidden in shadows, stood two guardian figures, but any attempt to identify them failed.
The figures each stood twenty feet tall and, while quite humanoid in shape, lacked any definition. They had been shaped of mud that had hardened, and as Ciras rode past it was easy to pick out places where cracks had been patched. Artistically, they were not much more sophisticated than a child’s snowman, and they lacked any discernible features.
Riding between them, Ciras kept his hand on the vanyesh sword’s hilt. Borosan kept pace with him, his expression fluctuating between wonder and suspicion.
“What is it, Borosan?”
“Those statues were made of thaumston mud. Just one would be worth a fortune in Moriande.”
“Comforting to know.”
They rode forward another twenty yards, having gotten halfway into the tunnel. The reflected light pouring in through the opening revealed another opening further on, but they got little chance to study it as the light from outside began to shrink. In the moments before they were plunged into utter darkness, Ciras turned to watch the entrance iris shut.
“What now, Master Dejote?”
“We keep riding. Don’t look back.”
“Why not?”
“Because I believe the guardians are following us.”
Sitting as tall as he could in the saddle, Ciras gently spurred his mount forward. They rode for another dozen yards, the clopping of horse’s hooves echoing through the tunnel. Ciras strained to hear any sound of the guardian statues behind them, but he discerned nothing. So huge, and so silent. In an instant he knew what had killed the giant, why the monk-stone had shifted, and why he felt they’d been watched.
Up ahead, a series of torches ignited with a blue flame-the blue of the gyanrigot lamps he’d seen in Opaslynoti. Figures shambled forward, bearing the torches high in one hand, knuckling the ground with the other every four or five steps. As they grew closer and Ciras got a good look at them, he resisted the urge to order them out of his way.