Still, as time dragged by, she had to resist an old nervous habit of biting her nails. Because if some resident of the temple did notice one of the flying eyes, or worse, if her competitors had already spirited her prize away, life would become a good deal more difficult.
Finally, one of the orbs hurtled back into view. It oriented on its maker despite her invisibility, and when she held out her hand, it settled into her palm and started dissolving. A cool tingling ran up her arm as the searcher’s memories unfolded before her inner eye.
Umara blinked in surprise to see that the boy prophet must actually be a prisoner, not the honored guest that she’d supposed. But it was good. She could use that.
The final image presented itself, and the orb faded out of existence. Umara headed deeper into the temple, where sculleries and pantries gave way to spaces that smelled of frankincense and where rows of columns with golden capitals supported vaulted ceilings. Images of the Keeper of the Yellow Sun gazed down with placid indifference, as though even he couldn’t see her, but she didn’t encounter anyone mortal.
Though the orb had looped back and forth and up and down in the course of its wanderings, its memories had still provided Umara with a fairly clear notion of where the prisoner was and how best to reach him. She proceeded to the east side of the temple, and when a staircase provided the opportunity to ascend to a higher level, she took advantage of it.
Eventually, her prowling brought her to a place where a bored-looking temple guard armed with a mace and garbed in blue and yellow stood beside one in a row of little doorways. On the other side, a cramped little staircase corkscrewed upward.
Umara whispered an incantation and flicked out the fingers of her left hand. Shafts of blue light streaked from her fingertips and plunged into the sentry’s chest. He grunted and pitched forward with a thump that echoed off the nearby stonework.
Umara didn’t think the noise was loud or distinctive enough to rouse any of the sleepers in this cavernous place. She was more concerned by the fact that she’d just popped back into view of anyone who might happen to be looking. It was another limitation of invisibility that casting combat magic generally ripped the mask asunder.
She scurried to the fallen guard, and, teeth gritted, dragged the body bumping far enough up the spiral stairs that no one who simply wandered by on the landing below would see it. Then she pulled the iron key from the warrior’s belt and climbed onward.
At the top was a locked grille of a door, and on the other side of that, a little chamber occupying the top of a stubby tower rising from the temple roof. Umara could tell it was a tower because the walls and even the ceiling were mostly clear crystal window. Perhaps the original idea had been to place priests in need of correction in an optimal setting to contemplate the glories of the sun. And if the cell became oppressively bright and hot, that too might encourage the occupant to mend his ways.
Of course, no one incarcerated here since the start of the Great Rain had needed to worry about glare or heatstroke. Still, even asleep on his side on the floor, the boy looked miserable enough with his hands and feet tied and a gag in his mouth.
He looked ordinary, too, and perhaps before Umara went to the trouble to steal him from the temple, she should double-check that he truly was what she sought. She reached into her pocket, gripped the carved onyx talisman, braced herself, and breathed the word of activation.
As before, she felt a twinge of headache as her perceptions altered. But after that, the experience was different.
Seen for what he truly was, Evendur Highcastle had been like a stone so heavy its mere existence threatened to grind her into nothingness. Whereas the boy felt like a vista of endless sky that pierced a person with its beauty and inspired both exultation and calm in equal measure.
And despite the looming, crushing spiritual bulk of him, the Chosen of Umberlee had simultaneously possessed a sickening quality of absence, as though, even if he failed to realize it himself, he was no more than a hole in the fabric of the world through which the Queen of the Depths could work her will. The child remained entirely a person, individual and free-willed, yet also shining with the promise of joy and resounding in the mind like a trumpet call to some heroic endeavor.
It was that call that soured the momentary bliss of revelation when it came home to Umara that, in relation to her life at least, the spirit of optimism the boy embodied was fundamentally a lie. The undead ruled her homeland and always would. In the years to come, she would either grovel, scheme, and kill her way into their pestilent ranks or remain forever subservient, and neither future seemed all that joyful or heroic.
With a scowl, she released the onyx disk, and her perceptions reverted to normal. As a gust of wind clattered rain against the tower, she unlocked the grille with the key she’d found, kneeled down beside the boy, and touched him on the shoulder. He woke with a gasp and, squirming, tried to recoil from her.
“Easy,” she said, “I’m a friend. I heard about what you did in the marketplace, and I’ve come to set you free.” She pulled the gag from his mouth. “What’s your name?”
“Stedd,” he croaked. “Stedd Whitehorn.”
“And I’m Wydda.” It would have been unwise to give her true name. He might have recognized it as Thayan and questioned whether anyone hailing from Szass Tam’s realm, particularly a wizard, could truly wish him well.
“Can you really get me out of here?”
She smiled, drew her dagger, and sawed at his bonds. “I got in, didn’t it? And I have a ship waiting in the harbor to take you away from Westgate.”
“I need to go east.”
“Then you will.” All the way to the Thaymount, she suspected. “My friends and I are here to help you however we can.”
“Thank you.” He rubbed his wrists and then his ankles.
“Ready to stand?” she asked.
He nodded and she hoisted him up. He gave a little hiss of pain, but after that he seemed to be all right.
She kept hold of his hand. “I’m going to cast a spell to help us sneak away,” she said. “It might make you feel strange for a moment, but it won’t hurt you.”
Stedd nodded. “All right.”
He trusted Umara, and while that was what she wanted, something about it gave her a twinge of disgust not unlike what she’d felt when killing the dying rower. Pushing the useless emotion aside, she cast another enchantment of invisibility.
Just as she finished, a fork of lightning flared across the sky. The illumination alleviated the gloom in the tower and gave Stedd a good look at his body fading away. He shot her a grin that reminded her of how wonderful wizardry had seemed when she first started learning it as a girl no older than he was.
She repeated the spell and veiled herself. “Remember that we still need to be quiet,” she said, “and hang onto my hand so we don’t get separated. Now let’s get moving.”
It was awkward negotiating the dark, cramped, twisting stairs while, in effect, towing the boy behind her, especially when they had to maneuver around the corpse. Stedd sighed in a way that made her wonder if he was sorry she’d killed the guard. If so, she couldn’t imagine why.
Once they left the little tower behind, the going was easier. She hoped Stedd wouldn’t want to leave by the front way and join his true followers when they reached ground level. If he did, she’d have to persuade-
A horn blared from the spaces below, the brassy note echoing through the temple. In its wake, a thick voice called out, and a door banged open.
Scowling, Umara wondered what had gone wrong. Maybe someone had found the two dead guards outside the back entrance. Or spotted the rival hunters sneaking around. In any case, somebody had raised the alarm.