As the upper side of it came into view, he found Seregil huddled there, grasping the handle of his dagger with both hands. Somehow, even as he'd felt the floor go out from under him, he'd managed to drive the tip of the blade in far enough between two of the floorboards to hold his slight weight as he hung from it.
"Throw me the end of your cloak," he croaked, white and shaken. "It's bound to tip down when I come your way. Can you hang on to me if I drop again?"
"Wait a second." Holding the edge of the platform with one hand, Alec undid his belt with the other and worked the end of it back through the buckle.
Securing the loop around his wrist, he flapped the loose end out to Seregil. "Get a good hold on this. I can manage this better than the cloak."
Wedging the dagger more firmly, Seregil gripped the end of the belt and began inching his way toward Alec.
The platform tilted down ominously as he shifted his weight, but Alec hauled him quickly to safety on the stairs.
" Bilairy's Balls!" Seregil gasped, collapsing at his feet.
"And Guts!" Alec leaned shakily against the wall. "This candle thing I had hold of nearly came loose! I can't believe it didn't."
Upon closer inspection, however, he found that it hadn't come loose at all. It was still fixed solidly to a rod that ran back into the wall. When he pushed up, it slid smoothly back into place.
"Look at this," he exclaimed, perplexed.
Getting to his feet, Seregil examined the mechanism. Pushing the sconce upright, he drew his sword and pushed on the edge of the platform. It tilted with precipitous ease. When the sconce was pulled down, however, it remained solidly level. They soon discovered two heavy pins that slid in and out of the wall below the platform to hold it steady when the sconce was down.
"Ingenious," Seregil said with genuine admiration.
"When Kassarie comes down she pulls this and leaves it fixed. On the way back up she resets the trap. That loose board that fell out must have been some sort of brace that held it in place until I got halfway across. It's more dangerous that way, since there was no chance to jump back."
"How did you ever manage to get your knife set in time?" Alec asked wonderingly.
Seregil shook his head. "I don't even remember doing it."
Moving with redoubled care, they continued down. After a few more turns, the walls of the stairwell changed from masonry to solid stone and they knew they were below ground level. Reaching the bottom at last, they found a short, level corridor leading to a door.
Seregil bent to inspect the lock. "It looks safe enough. You better do it, though. My hands are still shaking!"
Alec knelt and took out his tools. Selecting a hook, he grinned up at Seregil. "After all this trouble, let's hope this isn't just the wine cellar!"
40 Flight
The door swung open whine of hinges. Thrusting in his lightstone, Alec tensed with a hiss of surprise.
"What is it?" whispered Seregil, grasping his sword hilt as he moved to look in.
The light was not bright enough to fully illuminate the room, but they could make out the figure of a person seated in an ornate chair against the far wall. There was no movement or outcry, and stepping closer, they saw that it was the withered corpse of a man.
He was nobly dressed in clothing of antique design. A heavy golden torque hung at his shrunken throat, and several rings glinted on the bony fingers resting on the arms of the chair. His thick, dark hair had retained its living gloss and hung in disconcerting contrast against the sunken cheeks.
"Uven ari nobis!"
Seregil exclaimed softly, bending close with his light.
Alec did not understand the words but recognized the reverent tone with which they were spoken. Fighting down his instinctive revulsion, he looked more closely at the corpse's face, noting the fine bones of the skull beneath their thin covering of desiccated skin, the high, prominent cheekbones, the large, sunken sockets where eyes had been.
"Illior's Light! Seregil, this can't be—"
"It is," Seregil replied grimly. "Or was. Lord Corruth, the lost consort of Idrilain the First. These rings prove it. See this?" He indicated the one on the corpse's right hand; it was set with a lozenge of banded carnelian deeply incised with the Dragon of Skala. "It's a Consort's Seal. And this other, the silver with the red stone? Finest Aurлnfaie work. This was Corruth i Glamien Yanari Meringil Bokthersa."
"Your kinsman."
"I never knew him, though I'd often hoped—"
Seregil touched one of the hands. "The skin's hard and hollow as the shell of a dried gourd. Someone took great care to preserve him."
"But why?" shuddered Alec.
Seregil shook his head angrily. "I suppose the bastards get some perverse pleasure out of having their enemy looking on as they plot to overthrow his descendants. Perhaps they swear oaths on him, I don't know. Factions like the Lerans don't persist for generations without a good leaven of fanaticism."
The chamber was about the size of Nysander's workroom, and the hand of a master mason was evident in every line; dry, sound, and square, its walls showed no moisture or moss. The ceiling overhead, though not high, was vaulted and ribbed to give the room a less oppressive feel. It was furnished with a round table, several chests, and a few cabinets against the walls. A low dais with a second thronelike chair stood against the left-hand wall. A broad shield hung on the wall behind it.
"Another sacred artifact," Seregil noted grimly, examining the crowned dragon design painted on the shield. "Queen Lera's, no doubt. I wonder who they're grooming to carry it?"
"I thought she didn't have any heirs?"
"She had no daughters, but there are always plenty of nieces and cousins in these Skalan families."
Riffling through the chests and cabinets, they found a carefully organized collection of maps, correspondence, and documents.
"I'll be damned!" Seregil spread a huge, yellowed parchment on the table. "Plans of the Rhнminee sewers. And see here, next to the draftsman's mark?"
Alec recognized the tiny image of a coiled lizard. "Kassarie's family must have built the sewers."
"Parts of them, anyway. It was a huge undertaking. Imagine what this would be worth to enemy sappers!"
Resuming their search, they soon turned up enough damning correspondence to bring nobles of a dozen houses to Traitor's Hill.
Opening a chest, Alec reached to push aside a rumpled swath of wool. Beneath it his fingers encountered cold, rounded metal.
"Seregil, look what I found!" At the bottom of the chest gleamed eight gold baps still bearing the Queen's Treasury mark.
"The White Hart gold! Our lady's been busy, though. These are shipped in lots of twenty-four. I tell you, Alec, if Kassarie isn't the head of the Lerans herself, then she's in it up to her ears!"
The gold was too heavy to carry away, so Seregil selected a few of the more incriminating letters and divided them with Alec. Turning to the corpse again, he gently removed the rings from the withered fingers, murmuring something in Aurлnfaie as he did so.
He handed Alec the silver ring, and strung the seal around his own neck on a bit of string.
"We're Watchers on this job, and this is Watcher business," he said with uncommon earnestness. "If anything happens to one of us, the other goes on, no matter what. We've got to get at least one of these to Nysander. Do you understand?"
Alec slipped the ring onto his thumb with a grudging nod.
"Good. If we get separated, meet me at the tree we camped under."
"The last time you carried something that way it got us into an awful mess!" Alec noted wryly, touching the seal ring where it hung against his friend's breast.
Seregil dropped the ring down the front of his tunic with a grim smile. " I'm not the one this will harm."