“What’s your solution?” said Tali.
“I don’t have one.”
“Then we’d better not get into a battle,” she said quietly.
As she rode, she checked on Lyf again, but her gift was weak today. And all she saw were disconnected images of the temple walls…
“What can you see?” said Holm quietly.
She roused slowly. “How did you know I was looking?”
“A particular blankness in your eyes.”
“Thanks!” She looked again. “Lyf’s pacing. Looks worried. Now he seems to be arguing with his ghost ancestors. No, I’ve lost him.”
Several hours before dawn they reached the rocky little hill which, according to Aditty, should contain the forgotten air shaft. The hill was only a few hundred yards across and rose from the flatlands like a door knob before flattening on top, eighty feet above the plain. They walked the horses up and made camp among scrubby trees and grey-leaved bushes.
“We can’t move until after dark tonight,” said Tali. “I want to get into the Empound around midnight, when the slaves are in their beds and there aren’t many guards around.”
“First, let’s see if the air shaft is here,” said Holm. “After all this time it could have collapsed.”
Tobry wiped his dripping face and twisted around, staring behind him and swallowing audibly. “Get on with it. I’ve got to complete the water-breathing spell and I need peace and quiet.”
“What if you can’t complete it?” said Tali. Part of her hoped he would fail. Hoped there was no way in and she wouldn’t have to go through with it.
“What if you can’t find the shaft?” he snapped. “What if it’s blocked, or there’s no way into the pondages, or — ”
“I think we’d better leave him to it,” Holm said pointedly. The stress was getting to everyone.
“Do you know what you’ve got to do?” Tali said to Holm as they began to circumnavigate the hill, working in along a spiral.
“I ought to, the number of times you’ve asked me.”
Something was bothering him, too. “Sorry. I’m not used to leading a team.”
“I identify and disarm any enemy traps,” said Holm. “When we get inside and you’re inciting the Pale to rebellion, I help Tobry break open the armouries and heatstone stores. Sounds simple enough.”
She stared at him in the red glare from the erupting volcano. “Simple?”
“I was attempting a joke.”
“A joke?”
He chuckled. “You know — to relieve the tension and lighten the mood.”
“Well, don’t!”
Nothing could lighten Tali’s mood save being a thousand miles from here. If the maps were wrong, or this route was known to the enemy, or the traps they would encounter could not be disarmed, they would die.
“Seems to me you’ve got a lot to learn about leadership,” said Holm.
“What’s the matter with you? You haven’t been your normal self since we left…”
“And only now do you think to ask? A good leader has to be sensitive to — ”
“If there’s something the matter, just tell me,” she hissed. “Don’t drop hints so I’ll dig it out of you. I’ve got enough worries as it is.”
“Well, here’s another one. When I was a kid, my big brother used to hold a pillow over my face until I thought I was going to suffocate. Ever since then, I’ve been afraid of being buried alive. Going down this shaft isn’t the deepest desire of my heart.”
“I wish you’d told me.”
“It would have been one more thing for you to worry about,” he said pointedly.
“Speaking of which, have you been keeping an eye on Tobry?”
“I have,” said Holm.
“Would you say he’s more twitchy than usual?”
He ran his fingers through his thin hair.
“Holm?”
“Judging by the heavy doses of potion he’s been taking the past few days, I’d say he thinks he’s not far off shifting — involuntarily.”
“Fantastic!” said Tali. “I’m terrified of drowning, you’re afraid of being buried alive and we’re going down a bottomless well with a madman whom we can’t do without.”
“And that’s the easy part.”
They continued on their inward spiral, probing ahead with sticks so they didn’t accidentally walk into the shaft. Some minutes later, Tali’s stick broke through a layer of rotting vegetation. They cleared it away. Holm unshuttered his lantern and shone it down.
An oval shaft, six feet by five, cut through hard volcanic rock. The light did not reveal how deep it was. Tali dropped a stone. It took four or five seconds before she heard the splash.
“Few hundred feet down to the water,” grunted Holm. “I hope our ropes are long enough.”
“You packed them. You ought to know.”
He chuckled. “Just testing you. Of course they’re long enough, and a bit more.”
She got out the chancellor’s map of Cython, studied it carefully, then folded it and packed it in its envelope of waterproof waxed cloth. She could need the map in Cython, since some parts of the city had been forbidden to her.
It was getting light as they headed back to the camp, but when they were ten yards away Holm thrust out a hand. They stopped in the gloom under a copse of trees.
Tobry had lain his potion bottles out on a flat rock and was measuring the doses into a cup. He held it up in a shaking hand then swallowed it in a gulp. He wiped his face, checked behind him then, furtively, began to measure a second dose. After draining the cup, wiping out the residue with a forefinger and licking it off, he stood up, shuddering.
“A double dose,” Holm said in Tali’s ear. “It’s worse than I thought.”
They continued to the camp. “We found the shaft,” said Holm with exaggerated good cheer. “How’s it going?”
“I’ve done the spell,” said Tobry, wiping his face again.
He was sweating more than ever. This was not going to go well.
CHAPTER 87
“Before we go, it might be an idea to check on Lyf again,” said Holm that night. They were waiting by the shaft, and all was ready.
She used her failing magery to peer through the hazy distance to Lyf’s temple. It took three attempts before she saw anything, but this time she could only see, not hear.
“He’s stalking across to a table,” said Tali. “There’s a small sheet of iron on it — ”
“Iron?” said Holm.
“Like a loose leaf from the iron book he made, but it’s blank. He’s writing on it. No, etching it with a scriber. He used to use alkoyl for that, back in his caverns.”
“What’s he writing?”
“I can’t read it. But it’s only a few words. Lyf’s put the scriber down. Now he’s using his hands, as if working magery. The iron page is rising in the air — no, it’s crashed down on the table. I’d say he’s trying to send it somewhere.”
“I think I can guess what it is, and where he’s sending it,” said Holm.
“Where?”
“We know he’s planning to put the Pale down, so I’d reckon this is the death order. And a highly symbolic one, since he’s written it on a page of the iron book.”
“The Consolation of Vengeance,” whispered Tali. “And the book was unfinished. The ending hadn’t been written.”
“It has now,” said Holm. “What’s he doing?”
“I–I can’t see,” said Tali. Her heart was hammering in her ears, yet so little blood was going to her head that she felt faint. She forced herself to focus. “He’s calling someone in. A servant. No, a courier.”
“What’s he saying?”
“The only word I could lip-read was matriarchs. Now the courier’s put the iron page into a bag. He’s running out.”
“How far is it from Caulderon to Cython?” said Holm. “Quick!”
“Um… the nearest entrance is nine or ten miles, on horseback.”
“Once he gets out the gates of Caulderon, a courier could ride that in an hour, even through the rough country of the Seethings.”
“Add another hour to get out of the city,” said Tali, “and to reach the matriarchs way across Cython, but in two hours they’ll have the order.”