The tunnels were slick and sheer, about five meters high. Enchanted wall torches burned continually, producing no smoke. There were numerous intersections, each of which had to be navigated correctly. Reznik had told her that if even one wrong branch was selected, the craft would immediately sense it and arise to kill her-but he never told her what form her death might take.
While Satine's horse walked along, the clip-clop of his hooves rang out crisply, and the scent of the torches combined with the fetid smell of damp mildew clinging to the walls. Shivering slightly, she drew her gray cloak closer and began to search for the first of the marks she had surreptitiously scratched into the walls with her dagger the last time she had come here with Reznik.
But as she approached the first crossing, her heart skipped a beat and she pulled her horse up short. Even in the flickering torchlight, she could see that her life-preserving marks had been eradicated.
The partial adepts must have finally discovered her secret. Now she would have to find her way through twenty deadly intersections by means of memory alone.
Turning in her saddle, she looked longingly back the way she had come. She could turn her horse around and leave. She hadn't been through any of the intersections yet, so going back now would all but guarantee her safety. Provided, of course, that one of the sentries sensed her presence and opened the exit. But if she turned back she would never gain her potion, which she absolutely needed to fulfill her sanctions.
She considered abandoning the mission entirely and running. But she had already accepted partial payment from Wulfgar. Should she try to double-cross him, his wrath would be great and his reach long. She had no desire to be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life, continually wondering when one of his vengeful consuls would suddenly come looming out of the dark.
Satine began to sweat. There was no man or blade in the world that she feared. This was different, however. The craft was at work here, and there was nothing she could do to change that. Trying to control her emotions, she looked carefully at the first of the intersections.
Four separate paths branched off in various directions. Wall torches hung at their entrances, beckoning her forward. She felt fairly certain about which path to take at this first juncture. Taking a deep breath, Satine reached down toward her right thigh and slid one of her daggers from its sheath.
She gently spurred her horse forward toward the first path on the right, reaching out as she did so to mark the wall with her blade. That should at least help guide her back during her return.
Providing, of course, she returned at all.
CHAPTER XV
With his short neck craned over the side of the litter and the wind tearing at his hair and clothes, Geldon searched for the Orb of the Vigors. When the destroyed village of Brook Hollow came into sight, he ordered the litter down so that they might search for survivors. When his litter finally came to rest in a nearby field, the hunchbacked dwarf felt his stomach turn over as he surveyed the destruction. The accompanying Minion phalanx landed warily all around him, dreggans drawn.
Most of the village had disappeared, reduced to little more than piles of rubble. Strangely, random areas of the town stood unharmed, as though nothing untoward had happened at all. Smoke and ash swirled in the wind, occasionally blotting out the sun, and the stench of dead and burned bodies lingered with the heat.
Geldon turned sadly toward Ox. The Minion warrior was as overcome as he was.
"Ox never hear of so much bad happen so fast," he said. "Even Minion war party not able make such death in so short time."
Geldon pointed to the haphazard rows of surviving homes. "I want a group of warriors to search those dwellings for survivors. If you find any, bring them straight to me."
Nodding, Ox went to pass on the order, and several warriors immediately took flight.
Geldon removed a handkerchief from his trousers and held it over his nose and mouth as he walked deeper into town. Ox and the remaining Minions followed silently along, the still-warm cinders crunching beneath their boots.
A baby's burnt crib lay here, a father's boot there. Parts of chimneys still stood valiantly, like charred, broken fingers pointing accusingly at the sky. Those corpses that hadn't been completely consumed by the orb's energy lay all about, contorted in death, the remnants of their clothing flapping in the breeze. The charred skeletons of entire families could be seen holding on to one another.
Flies had been feasting here for some time. In the sky, vultures careened and turned.
His first instinct was to burn all of the dead upon funeral pyres. There were enough warriors to do the job, and he felt the victims deserved at least that much. But he couldn't spare the time. Tristan would be aching for a report, and they had to keep moving if they were to find the rampaging orb. Saying nothing, he lowered his head and walked on.
Then, in an open spot in the rubble, Geldon saw a small, charred body. It had been turned to ash, but the shape remained: long hair splayed out and hands stretched forth in a posture of beseeching, as though begging the orb not to harm him or her.
Kneeling down, Geldon found himself saddened, yet mesmerized. It was like looking into the recent past, and seeing a moment captured forever.
A sudden gust came up and scattered the ashes to the winds. Just like the village of Brook Hollow, the memory of the young child was no more.
Standing slowly, Geldon saw that the Minion search party was returning-without survivors. Landing in the rubble beside him and Ox, the officer in charge snapped his heels together.
"All of the standing houses are empty," the officer said. "Whoever once lived in them, do so no more."
Nodding at the officer, Geldon looked over at Ox.
"What do now?" Ox asked.
"We do what we came for," Geldon answered. "We find the ruptured orb, and we send a report back to the Jin'Sai. May the Afterlife grant that we find no more disasters such as this."
Turning, Geldon left the death site of the anonymous child and led the Minions back to his litter. two hours later, they still hadn't located the orb. They knew that finding it would only be a matter of time, for the destruction it left in its wake was impossible to miss. After Brook Hollow, the charred, smoking chasm in the ground was the most telling sign of its passing.
They soon came upon the place where the orb's zigzagging path entered the waters of the Sippora.
The dripping energy had apparently entered the river directly east of where Fledgling House sat quietly nestled at the base of the Tolenka Mountains. Fed by melting snows and glacial runoff, the river was notoriously cold. But as they all looked on in awe, it was clear that the mighty Sippora had been assaulted by a power that even Wigg and Faegan could not have mustered. The Sippora was boiling over its banks.
Multiple geysers of steaming water flew hundreds of feet into the air-so high that the flying Minions had to convey the litter farther up. As the hissing, superheated water landed again, it scorched white all of the vegetation it touched. The heavy steam rising from the river made it difficult to see, and even at this altitude it burned their skin.
The litter rocked back and forth wildly, threatening to buckle in the heat. Geldon had no choice but to order his bearers higher yet. Urgently wiping the moisture from his eyes, Geldon looked down.
Thrown free by the surging geysers, dead, stinking fish lay all along the banks. New plumes of steam and water continued to erupt. It was as if all of the various powers of nature had suddenly joined to go berserk in this one spot. But it wasn't nature that had gone berserk, Geldon realized. It was the very craft itself.