Behind it was a crude opening in the stone.
Ghazel looked back as if this should mean something, but again Magiere shook her head. The girl stood there an instant longer and then grabbed the lip of the opening to pull herself up and in.
Magiere sheathed the falchion and followed to peer into a rough tunnel angling steeply downward. The girl waved her in and led the way as they crawled. In only moments, Magiere caught a taint in the air both humid and unpleasant. They kept on for far too long until Ghazel sat up, but her head didn’t hit the tunnel’s top.
Magiere crawled closer, and the knees of her pants were instantly soaked as a smell choked her. By the crystal’s light, water filled a small, jagged fracture in the earth in which they knelt. Even before Magiere raised a wet hand to lick it, she knew it wouldn’t help. The water was beyond briny, as if a shovel of salt filled her mouth. This might be all that was left of the lake that sunk deep into the earth. Perhaps it was even part of the source that had once created that body of water.
It was no good to Magiere, though an undead could’ve consumed it without harm.
She turned to crawl back up the tunnel, hearing Ghazel following behind her.
Once back in the room, the girl rushed past her to kneel by the robes. She grabbed one robe and the orb key and held both out to Magiere.
“You ... stay ... me?”
Magiere had never before looked at any undead as a victim. To her own disgust, she couldn’t help it now. Yet that didn’t alter what the girl was or that Magiere was here to take the orb.
Once the orb was gone, what would happen to Ghazel?
Magiere gripped the sheathed falchion’s hilt with her right hand.
The kindest thing she could do would be to take the girl’s head at the neck, quickly. She’d encountered vampires turned against their will before, and dispatching them had never made her pause.
What was wrong with her now?
She’d seen ancients—the Children—like Qahhar walk in sunlight. Though she’d never seen Li’kän do so, that frail-looking but powerful, feral woman had been awake during daylight in the six-towered castle where the first orb was found. But Magiere had also seen “offspring” of theirs perish and burn under the rising sun.
Taking Ghazel across the desert seemed unlikely. And later, what would happen to the girl once she was separated from the orb? Magiere had locked Li’kän away below that castle for fear of what might happen once she was separated from the orb of Water.
If the girl grew hungry, she’d eventually be driven to feed and kill, even if she didn’t understand what was happening to her.
Magiere couldn’t stand it anymore. She couldn’t bring herself to kill the girl, but the only safety for everyone else was to leave Ghazel behind. Steeling herself, Magiere stepped in and took the orb key out of the girl’s hands.
The sudden hope in Ghazel’s eyes made Magiere look away. She looped the key around her neck and then tucked her hand holding the crystal under one side of the orb.
Ghazel cried out in fright, but Magiere ignored the girl.
Grabbing the spike’s top with her free hand, she hefted it off the table and headed for the stairs. She heard Ghazel following with a stream of sobbing cries in Sumanese. Even if Magiere had understood any of it, she didn’t dare listen as she climbed upward.
Emerging into the main passage, she didn’t slow, but small hands latched on her lower arm beneath the orb.
“Stay ... you stay!” the girl cried. “Baseem’a ... stay!”
Magiere stalled, almost looked down, and then jerked free of that grip. With greater speed, she hurried for the doors out of that place, even as the child’s scream tore at her ears. The sooner this was over, the better.
Ghazel wouldn’t follow into daylight if she’d spent ages alone in this place ... knowing she couldn’t.
The sound of sobs followed Magiere all the way to the door. When Magiere rolled the heavy orb into one arm and grabbed a door handle to pull, Ghazel threw herself against the door with a cry that carried no words.
Magiere shoved the girl aside and wrenched the door open. She ducked out, choked in the sudden heat, and stumbled away from the building.
In the blinding sun, hunger came burning up her throat as the dhampir inside of her rose up to defend her flesh. Her thoughts clouded as she clung to one purpose only: the orb in her arms.
After perhaps fifty paces, she stopped, gagging for air under a wave of guilt and indecision.
Should she go back?
What if she waited until dark and tried to get the child across the desert by traveling only at night and keeping her sheltered under the cloak by day? Might there be something Wynn could do? Wynn had claimed Chane was feeding only on livestock. Magiere didn’t believe that, but was it possible?
No! She was a fool to think of taking an undead into a city.
Still, she stood there, suffering at the thought of walking away and condemning a child to face the slow death of starvation. Her hand clenched on the top of the orb’s spike.
“Baseem’a!”
At that anguished cry, she whirled. It was too clear to have come from within the building, and Magiere dropped the orb. Hunger failed and heat won out as she screamed at what she saw.
Ghazel’s body caught fire as the girl raced out under the burning sun.
Magiere charged back. “No!”
The girl kept screaming the name of the one she thought had returned to her ... until she fell. On impact, ash rose from her in a cloud amid the smoke and stench of burning flesh. When Magiere reached her, there was nothing left but smoldering, blackened bones that began cracking and falling apart amid the ashes.
Magiere stared down, growing dizzy and sick.
Heat made everything in her sight begin to waver. There wasn’t even a wind to scatter the remains and wipe the sight away. When the climbing sun crushed her to her knees, she looked over and saw the staff she had dropped upon her arrival. Somehow, she crawled over and picked it up and then rose to stagger back to the orb. She barely managed to push up the cloak tent to shield herself. But she refused to go back inside the dwelling. She couldn’t bring herself to do it.
Magiere lay there, barely shaded, and the sight of a burning child wouldn’t leave her mind.
Magiere lay silent, staring up into Leesil’s amber eyes looking for ... something.
What did she want from him? Understanding? Absolution?
She didn’t dare look to Chap for that.
She’d done what she had to, and she still heard Ghazel screaming ... even in the tent’s silence as Leesil said nothing. Or did he want to know the rest after that? Did anything else matter, considering she was here and had brought the last orb?
The girl had died long before on the night that Mas’ud had taken her. Magiere had never felt that she killed any undead. She only finished something that shouldn’t have become what it was. So why should Ghazel have been any different?
Shifting her gaze, Magiere looked to Chap.
—It is done ... either way— ... —And you ... came back ... to us— ... —Think of only ... only ... this— ... —Nothing ... else—
Magiere glanced away. It wasn’t that simple. And then she felt Leesil stroke her hair.
“Rest another day,” he whispered. “We’ll leave when you’re ready.”
She knew Brot’an and Ghassan were in the tent as well, but she didn’t look for either of them. She had no idea what the aging assassin thought, and likely the fallen domin’s eyes and thoughts missed little.
But they’d understand even less about this than either Leesil or even Chap.