To his surprise, Tithian wasn’t there. He’d hoped his old squire would see him off, but instead he sent a proxy, a lieutenant whose name Cathan heard and immediately forgot. The Grand Marshal had pressing business to see to, the lieutenant explained; Tithian sent his apologies. Cathan wondered what could be more pressing than this occasion but he had led the knighthood himself, and knew there were endless crises and tasks.
The Kingpriest’s inner circle were at the gates as welclass="underline" Lady Elsa, whom Cathan did not know; Quarath, who watched with aloof eyes, clearly happy to be left running the empire in the Kingpriest’s absence. And Revando … Cathan tried not to stare at the First Son, but their eyes did meet briefly, and the urgency in the high priest’s gaze drove through him like an arrow. The man’s life had been leading up to this moment. Cathan winced and glanced away as if stung.
“My friend,” said Beldinas, noticing his odd reaction, “are you all right?”
Cathan felt his cheeks color. “I’m fine,” he lied, “it’s just strange, riding out again with you, after all this time.”
For the last time.
The Kingpriest smiled. It showed through his aura, and the beauty of it made Cathan want to weep. After today, one way or another, he knew he would never know that smile again. Reaching out, Beldinas laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re with me, Cathan,” he said.
Tears started in Cathan’s eyes. Angrily, he blinked them away. “Thank you, Beldyn,” he murmured.
Beldinas chuckled to hear his old name, the one he’d worn before he donned the Miceram. Only the oldest of his friends even knew it, and few spoke it ever. He beckoned toward the gates. “Shall we go?”
Cathan nodded. Together, friends of old, they turned and strode out of Istar the Beautiful.
Chapter 19
It was a three-day journey from Istar to the Vaults, and it rained the whole way. The knights and Scatas rode silently, or chanted hymns muted by the drumming of the rain on their armor. Their cloaks and the plumes of their helms drooped and darkened. The sky hung heavy; everything seemed the color of lead. Every slow mile they walked, Cathan gave thanks to whatever long-dead Kingpriest had commanded the paving of Istar’s roads: growing up in the borderlands, he’d seen trails washed out or turned to sucking mires by this sort of weather. It would have been the Abyss to make the journey on such roads.
Beldinas was as hard to read as ever. He hardly spoke, only stared ahead, as if he could see past the distance and the gloom to where the Disks lay waiting for him. The rain didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. As he dripped and shivered, Cathan wondered if the weather penetrated the Kingpriest’s aura at all. He imagined he could see drops turning to vapor as they struck him, little wisps of steam that vanished in an instant.
The land rose, changing from rolling hills to time-worn downs fringed with olive trees. To the south, Cathan caught glimpses of the gray sheet of Lake Istar, and once, as evening fell, he thought he could spot the lights of Calah, the island-city where Idar’s ruffians waited in their tunnels. Then they went deeper still into the hills, and the pall swallowed the city, lights and all.
After dark, they stopped for shelter-at a monastery of Paladine the first night, a lord’s cliff-top villa the second. It was impossible to say whether the abbot or nobleman fawned more over the Lightbringer. At dawn, they started again. The olives gave way to spruce, then oak and pine. Rainwater poured in runnels down the slopes.
As the third day was growing dark, Beldinas raised his hand.
“Halt,” he said, his voice so soft Cathan could barely make it out above the rain.
The knights heard him, though, and the Scatas too. As one they stopped, looking to the Lightbringer for orders. Cathan glanced around. There was no sign of anything different about this place … just trees and thick undergrowth on either side, climbing uphill and down. In the distance rose the faint humps of still more crags. He laid a hand on Ebonbane, glancing at the Kingpriest.
“What is it?” he hissed.
Beldinas’s head turned toward him. “We’re here.”
Cathan heard a rustling. He turned toward the sound, Ebonbane coming halfway out of its scabbard. Nothing was moving in the brush; no, the brush itself was moving, vines parting and slithering aside, saplings bending out of the way. When it was done, a new path led up into the woods. A statue of a woman stood beside it, made of alabaster that the elements had long since worn faceless, and spotted with rusty moss. Whether the statue honored a queen, priestess, or goddess, there was no sign. At its base, inlaid in onyx, was a line of faded words.
Sa, Oparbor, they read. Tair apod ni, iufubud, partum ana bolio tam unfifat.
Hail, Traveler, Turn back, if thou art not righteous, for only death awaits thee.
“Come, my friend,” Beldinas said. “The Peripas lie ahead.”
The knights and Scatas formed a protective ring, crossbows ready, as they climbed the path. The woods grew thick, but the trail remained clear, blanketed with pine needles. The going was never difficult. Nary a tree root hindered their way. Cathan wondered what lay ahead. Robbers had come this way in the past, to plunder the Vaults. What end had they suffered? Would he meet the same fate? He was a secret traitor, after all… how could he pretend to be the righteous traveler demanded by the mysterious statue?
Beldinas walked on, confidently, as they passed deeper into the wild, across a small stone bridge that spanned a spring-swollen brook, then through a cleft in a cliff of pink stone, steadily up and up, the chasm so narrow at one point they had to walk single file, turning sideways to maneuver around bulges in the rock. Cathan began to wonder whether Idar’s men could ever hope to find this place-even though Revando claimed to have a map, and had sent them overland.
Then they reached the end of the crevice, and the Forino Babasom stood before them.
At first it was a feeling more than anything else-only the sense of some great structure looming before him in the gathering night, perched on a shelf of rock among the trees. As the company drew closer, two tremendous pyramids of white stone emerged from the dark, their stepped sides eroded to curving humps. Hanging creepers were draped around them, dotted with golden, night-blooming flowers the size of shields. Cathan had never seen their like before. It took him a moment to realize why he could see anything at alclass="underline" The blooms glowed softly, like the moon-crickets kept by Karthayan nobles.
The portico between the two pyramids was wide, and he saw that a stream flowed beneath it, spilling in a series of short cataracts before pouring over the cliff in a rope of silver foam. The columns flanking the Vault’s doors were old, stout, and plain. And there were two statues, strange figures he’d never seen before, carved in crude ancient fashion from crimson stone: lionesses with the bodies of women sprouting from their necks. Their arms were gone, and one had lost its head; the other’s face was beautiful and frightening, wild-featured, and sharp-toothed, with discs of gleaming turquoise for eyes. Staring at the statue, Cathan found himself thinking, oddly, of Fan-ka-tso, the six-armed in the Hall of Sacrilege, and all the icons he had destroyed back when he was counted among the Divine Hammer. Several of the knights signed the triangle, whispering prayers. “Nomas cefud op coitas e sifasom fupulfo…”
Protect us from heathens and their idolatry…
“Be still,” said Beldinas. “These are no heathen idols. They are the Iudulas, the guardians set by Symeon to watch over the gates of the Vault They are blessed by power of the Kingpriests.