Into Darkness

19

Richard didn’t see anyone near the entrance to the palace. No guards, no supplicants, no staff. There was no insurmountable wall or any other method to keep people out as was typical around places of power.

Now that it was daytime there were lots of people hurrying about their business back in the narrow streets of the town. None of them came near the palace—not even close. It was obvious that no wall was needed.

If he was right, and he was almost positive that he was, they had good reason to give the place a wide berth, which would obviate the need for a wall, or guards.

While the palace was not massive in the sense that other castles or palaces he’d seen covered a lot of ground, it was nonetheless still sizable. Rather than being imposing by its girth, it was instead gracefully tall, taller than most palaces he’d seen. There was only one palace he could recall that soared to such heights with similar splendor. That palace didn’t need high walls or guards, either.

He shared a look with Kahlan, and he could see in her green eyes that she was thinking the same thing he was.

As he looked up the soaring white stone wall, he could see in the places where it stepped back as the palace went ever higher that there were ravens perched on the edges of various levels, cocking their heads to look down at them.

Thirteen steps in gray marble with white swirls through it stretched out quite some distance to either side. At the head of those steps there was no grand entablature decorating the entrance; there were no intricate, ornamental moldings. Instead, atop the landing was an elaborate door set back into the white stone. The massive door looked to be made of bronze. The entire surface was covered in rows of orderly, embossed writing, designs, and symbols. Each row was unique.

When he led the others up the steps for a closer look, he saw that he recognized some of the lines of symbols on the massive door. They were in the language of Creation. He ran his fingers over the raised designs as he mentally deciphered their meaning. They were general warnings to stay away, but there were also some critically clear specifics.

With his fingers still on the symbols, he looked back over his shoulder at Kahlan. “This says that none may enter without first being commanded to appear.”

Kahlan stepped up the final step to stand beside him to study the door. She gestured to one of the lines of the writing.

“It says the same thing there.”

“Do you recognize any of the other writing?” he asked.

She scanned the door, then used her fingers to touch some of the lines of symbols to keep her place as she examined the strange designs. She finally gave Richard a grim look.

“At least a dozen of the languages here on this door are those used in the Midlands. That makes sense, given the location of Bindamoon right in the middle of the line of the mountains that divide the Midlands from D’Hara. And, as Shale said, even people from the Northern Waste came here. It would seem that many different people came here for the rare herbs they grow in those fields. It would make sense for there to be a lot of languages represented, so that anyone who came up here could read the warnings.

“I speak most of these languages. Each message is a warning that says the same thing as you read, that none may enter without first being commanded to appear.”

Richard glanced back at the others. “I guess it’s pretty clear by everything that’s happened that we have been commanded to appear.”

“With all those languages being clear warnings,” Shale said, “do you think it wise to go in there?”

“Wise or not, this is the heart of the threat. We’re going in and I’m putting a stop to it.”

No one looked like they had any intention of arguing.

Richard turned a lever, then drew back a bolt. It made a dull clang when it reached the end of its travel. He put both hands against the tall brass door and pushed. He pushed, then pushed harder to get it to start to move. With a great deal of effort, and several Mord-Sith coming to help, the heavy door silently swung inward until the opening was wide enough for them to slip through and enter.

The hushed interior was not nearly as bright as it was outside, but there were a number of high windows that at least let some light stream down from above. Hundreds of candles in ornate metal stands all around the interior lent the place a mellow glow.

Their footsteps echoed softly back from the distance. If the outside of the palace was rather simple and plain, the inside was the complete opposite.

On each side there were a half-dozen steps up to raised vestibules. Above them were convex entablatures decorated with complex moldings. The massive stone structures were held up by rows of fluted stone columns that enclosed each of the areas. The capitals atop those columns were intricate, curling acanthus leaves carved from a pale greenish-gray stone Richard had never seen before.

Between the entablatures were enormous arches leading deeper into the side wings. Each end of those massive arches was held up with four fluted stone columns composing a single support structure. The bases of those arches were so sizable that they had small, internal arches on all four sides of their bases, each held by a stone column, all of them together holding up the more massive main arch. The whole thing was so complex it sent the eye dancing over the elaborate, involved, and interconnected shapes.

The windows beyond those arches were made up of what had to be hundreds of small pieces of beveled glass in a gridwork of stone mullions. That beveled glass sent prisms of colors scattering all across the walls and columns. Beneath and beyond those windows, Richard could see ornate side chambers, lit by countless candles.

In the center of the room, the arches before those antechambers formed a perimeter to support a central dome. Massive square support structures, with square, fluted pilasters, anchored each of the primary arched sections. Inside the top of the dome, small windows all around let in light from exterior rooms above and around the interior dome. All of the stone of the entire place was various shades of greenish-gray, giving the place a uniform, muted theme.

In the center of the massive room, beneath the dome, was a floor with cream and gray stone making up large squares that marched all the way around a central design of a wreath made out of gold-colored stone set against a background of white. In the center of the wreath were more concentric designs that stepped down in size. The floors to the sides, going off into the antechambers, were gridwork designs made of the same cream and gray stone.

In between the fluted columns and the fluted pilasters there were recesses with life-size statues in the same greenish-gray stone. Some were of people, but most were of strange, contorted figures that didn’t look quite human—or possibly were people in great pain. All the figures were clothed in flowing robes carved out of the same stone. The carved robes were so realistic that it made it look like there was a brisk breeze blowing through the place.

Richard had seen a number of magnificent places since leaving his home of Hartland. This was up near the top in the sheer splendor of the complex yet graceful architecture. He had never seen cold stone looking so warm in its intricate stateliness. The whole place made him feel small and inadequate. He supposed that was really the purpose and the point of it all. Those who entered should be humbled before the master of this domain.

Richard and those with him, all standing in a close cluster, stared around at the ornate stonework of the arches and the dome. It was achingly beautiful, but at the same time it was a clear statement that they were in the place of powers not to be trifled with.

In the center of the circular design in the floor, under the dome, the mountain lion sat on its haunches, watching them, its tail slowly sweeping back and forth across the floor.

When the mountain lion was sure that they had all looked around enough, it stood. As they all watched, it turned and started walking away, deeper into the palace, clearly expecting them to follow.