He put his hands to his temples and squeezed his eyes shut. All he could see was Maija sneering at him, Maija casting the spell that had knocked him out, Maija stretching her mocking grin into a thin, cruel smile. Her words raked across his heart: “I lied.”
No, damn it! he thought. That wasn’t Maija, that was the Fleshrender. Maija is still there somewhere—trapped in her body, powerless to stop what the fiend made her do and say. And if Maija is still there, then there’s hope.
He opened his eyes and looked at Dania, who still gazed dumbly up at the ceiling. And that hope lies in Dania, he thought, as crazy as she seems right now. I have to trust her.
With that thought, new memories sprang into his mind. He remembered when Maija first introduced him to Dania, and so many joyful, exciting, harrowing adventures they had shared since then. He remembered the conversation he’d had with Dania—was it just the night before? He realized he had no idea how long they had been in the cell. And then he remembered the couatl they had watched as it danced across the sky.
“Krael,” Janik said, “our bargain is concluded and our alliance ended. Go where you want, but we will follow Dania. We won’t harm you as you leave this room, but if I see you again—”
“Oh, you will see me again,” Krael said.
“If I see you again, I’ll do my level best to kill you. Thank you for your help. Now get out of my sight.”
Without another word, Krael stalked over to the massive door and threw it open, Sever following close behind. And then they were gone.
“Oh, thank the Sovereigns,” Mathas said quietly.
Janik placed a gentle hand on Dania’s shoulder. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Dania’s eyes met his again briefly, and she smiled a faint, beatific smile. “Up,” she said quietly.
Mathas used his spell of levitation to launch himself up to the gallery, then he tied a rope to the balustrade so the others could climb. Once her feet were on the gallery floor, Dania set off toward one of the small doors, leaving Janik to help Auftane over the railing and pull up the rope before hurrying to catch up with her. She led them along narrow hallways, not even hesitating when the passages branched. Here and there, they made their way up short flights of stairs, marking their gradual progress toward the top of the ziggurat, assuming that Dania was correct.
As they walked side by side down a long wide hall, Janik held Mathas back briefly and spoke to him quietly.
“What do you make of this, Mathas?” he asked.
“There is definitely a presence in this place,” Mathas said thoughtfully. “I cannot distinguish it—to me, it’s almost like being in a dark room and feeling someone else with you, but not being able to tell whether it’s a friend or a drooling monster.” He paused. “I must say, I wish that comparison were not so vivid.”
“So why does Dania hear it so much more clearly?” Janik said. “She claimed she could hear two voices, the binder and the bound. How does she know she’s following the right one?”
“Dania is far more sensitive to the realm of spirits than you or I, Janik. I believe she knows what she is doing.”
Auftane hurried along and caught up with them, pointing ahead to the end of the hall. “Excuse me,” he said, “but she seems to have found something.”
Dania had reached a door and thrown it open, revealing a staircase spiraling upward. She quickly reached the top of the stairs and pushed open a trap door in the ceiling, releasing a flood of argent light into the hallway. As Janik watched, she climbed through the trap door, a small dark shape silhouetted against the warm radiance, and disappeared. Cursing himself, Janik ran to catch up to her.
He stormed up the stairs and through the trap door, then stopped dead. Behind and below him, he heard Mathas gasp and Auftane swear quietly as they reached the top of the stairs.
They were at the pinnacle of the ziggurat, it was clear. Long, low windows set into the massive stone blocks offered them a spectacular view of the city around them and the desert beyond. Somehow, even the barren golden desert seemed vibrant and alive in what must have been midday sunshine—as if some spirit of the ancient jungle still remained, teeming with the life of its thousands of inhabitants.
The chamber was hard to see clearly in the intense brightness. Their eyes were accustomed to the dim light of Janik’s lantern in the dark passages, and the daylight alone would have made them blink and squint. Janik tried briefly to convince himself that the daylight was the source of the radiance that had spilled into the hallway below—but that did not explain its strange silver hue.
No—the stone chamber was on fire-blazing with silver flame, or perhaps the Silver Flame, for all Janik knew. Lines of argent fire covered the entire floor in an intricate pattern, like snakes twisted in endless coils. Where the lines crossed each other, they sometimes flared as high as Janik’s knees. Dania was kneeling in the midst of them, numerous tongues of flame caressing her, but she was clearly not in any pain.
Dania was on her knees, her body erect from her knees to her shoulders. Her head was thrown back, her helm lay on the floor beside her, and her arms were spread wide to her sides. Her eyes were open and seemed fixed on some point out the window ahead. Her face wore an expression of utter rapture.
The flames pulsed along the lines on the floor. The rhythm of its movement reminded Janik of the couatl’s flying dance, and he began to feel a connection. As he looked at the elaborate stonework in the chamber, he noticed serpent imagery everywhere—snakes ringed the windows, their heads meeting above the center, and the columns were shaped into majestic winged serpents.
What is this place? Janik thought. Why would a cult of giants and rakshasas dedicated to the imprisoned rajah build this shrine to the couatl that bound it?
As he resolved to pursue further research about serpent cults among the giants, the floor erupted into a storm of leaping flames. What had been tiny rivulets of fire exploded into blazing ribbons reaching almost as high as the ceiling, roaring like a hungry tiger. Janik drew his sword instinctively, and he felt Mathas and Auftane startled out of their own reveries.
Dania did not move.
The flames closed around her, forming a ring and then a column to engulf her. Janik started to rush forward, reaching out to grab her and heave her free of the fire before she was consumed, but the instant he touched her, the fire stopped. The column winked out, the lines on the floor went dark, and the daylight seemed dim by comparison.
Dania’s arms dropped to her sides and she slowly rose to her feet.
“Dania?” Janik said quietly, gently lifting her by the elbow. “Are you hurt?”
She stood, her head hanging limply and her hair covering her face. Slowly, she brought a hand up to her throat. She lifted her head to look at Janik, brushing her hair out of her face. His gaze fell first on a gleam of silver at her throat, a torc shaped like a twisting serpent coiled around her neck. He was quite sure it had not been there before the fire engulfed her.
Then her eyes met Janik’s, and he took a step back in surprise.
They had been a dusky blue, like the sky before a storm, but not any more. They were like pools of quicksilver, firmly focused on him and, he felt, seeing perhaps more than he would have liked.
She smiled, and her eyes glistened as she took his hands in hers. “I’m fine, Janik,” she said. She held his gaze for a moment longer, then her eyes settled on Mathas and Auftane, lingering for a moment on the dwarf before turning back to Janik. She raised a hand to touch his cheek and smiled at him again. “Do not let your heart be troubled, Janik. I have chosen this path, and I am not afraid.”