Percepliquis

CHAPTER 17

The party had stopped again. Since they’d left the library, their progress through the ancient city had been tedious, as Royce was pausing frequently. Sometimes he forced them to wait for what felt like hours as he scouted ahead-the rest of them sitting among the rubble. This time, he had left them in the middle of what appeared to be an alley with tall buildings towering on either side. Arista sighed and leaned against one wall. Someone ahead of her had stepped on a piece of fabric, the boot print revealing the faded colors of blue and green. She bent down and picked a small flag from under a thick coating of dust and dirt. This one was a handheld version, the sort people waved at celebrations. Looking up, she spotted a window, and hanging from that was an old and

faded banner that read FESTIVIOUS FOUNDEREIONUS!

“What does that say?” she asked Myron, but she was certain she already knew.

“ ‘Happy Founder’s Day,’ ” the monk replied.

Next to where she found the flag, she noticed a small object. Reaching out, she found a copper pin in the shape of the letter P. Now more than ever she wished she could remember the dream from the night before, but the more she tried to recall, the more it slipped away.

Royce returned, waving them forward, and then he led them in a circle back to the boulevard. Here they began to see skeletons. They were in groups of twos and threes, lying crumpled to the ground as if they had died right where they stood. The only way to tell how many there were was by the number of skulls in the piles. As they progressed, the bone count increased. Skeletons lined either side of the road with skull counts of ten deep.

They entered a small square, a portion of which was flooded where the ground was cracked and sank away at a dramatic angle. The same green light that illuminated the sea lit the square and revealed a raised platform on which was a great statue of a man. He stood twenty feet tall, with a strong, youthful physique. A sword was in his right hand and a staff in the other. Arista had seen similar statues several times throughout the city and in each case the head was missing, broken at the neck and shattered.

Royce stopped again.

“Any idea if we are getting close to the palace?” he asked, looking at Myron.

“I only know that it is near the center,” the monk replied.

“The palace is at the end of the Grand Mar,” Arista told them. “That’s what they used to call the boulevard we’re on now. So it is just up ahead.”

“The Grand Mar?” Myron said, more to himself than to her, and then nodded. “The Marchway.”

“What are you babbling about?” Alric asked.

“There was said to be a great avenue in Percepliquis called the Grand Imperial Marchway, so called as it was often the site of parades. Ancient descriptions declared it to have been wide enough for twelve soldiers to walk abreast and that it was made up of two lanes divided by a row of trees. Imperial troops would march down the right side to the palace, where the emperor would review them from his balcony, and then they would return down the other side.”

“They were fruit trees,” Arista said. “The trees that grew in the center of the Grand Mar-fruit trees that blossomed in spring. They used to make a fermented drink from the blossoms called… Trembles.”

“How do you know that?” Myron asked.

She looked at him and pretended to be surprised. “I’m a wizardess.”

They paused to have a short meal on the steps of an impressive building off the main boulevard. Stone lions, similar to those that guarded the entrance to the city, sat on either side. A fountain stood in the street at the center of an intersection. The water no longer sprayed and the pool was filled with a black liquid.

“What books have you got there?” Alric asked, seeing Myron sift through his pack and pull out one of the five that Bulard had saved.

“This one is called The Forgotten Race by Dubrion Ash. It deals mostly with the history of the dwarves.”

“What’s that now?” Magnus asked, leaning over to look closer at the pages.

“According to this, mankind is actually native to Calis-isn’t that interesting? And dwarves started in what we know as Delgos. The elves of course are from Erivan, but they quickly occupied Avryn.”

“What about the Ghazel?” Hadrian asked.

“Funny you should ask,” he said, flipping back several pages. “I was just reading about that too. You see, men appeared in Calis during the Urintanyth un Dorin and would have-”

“Huh?” Mauvin asked.

“It means the Great Struggle with the Children of Drome. You see, the dwarves warred with the elves for centuries, nearly six hundred years, in fact, until the fall of Drumindor in 1705-that’s pre-imperial reckoning, of course-about two thousand years before Novron built this city. The dwarves went underground after that. As it turns out, the early human tribes would have failed-perished-if not for the contact they had with the exiled dwarves who traded with them.”

“Aha!” the dwarf said. “And how do they treat us for our kindness now? Ghettos, refusals of citizenship, bans on dwarven guilds, special taxes, persecution-it’s a sad reward.”

“Quiet!” Royce suddenly told everyone, and stood up. He looked left and then right. “Get ready to move,” he said, and leaving the lantern, he climbed down the steps, heading back the way they had come.

“You heard him,” Hadrian said.

“But we just sat down,” Alric complained.

“If Royce says get ready to move, and he has that look on his face, you do what he says if you want to live.”

They gathered their belongings back into their bags. Arista took one more mouthful of salt pork and a swallow of water before stashing the rest in her pack. She was just pulling the straps over her shoulders when Royce reappeared.

“We’re being tracked,” he told them in a whisper.

“How many?” Hadrian asked.

“Five.”

“A hunting party.” Hadrian drew his swords. “Everyone get moving. Royce and I will catch up.”

“But they’re just five,” Arista protested. “Can’t we avoid them?”

“It’s not the five I am worried about,” Hadrian told her. “Now go. Just keep moving up the avenue.”

He and Royce moved back down the road at a trot. She watched them go as a sinking feeling pulled at her stomach. Alric led them forward at a run, past the fountain and on up the Grand Mar.

This part of the city was familiar to her. This road, these buildings-she had seen them before. Gone were the brilliant white alabaster walls and brightly painted doors. Now they were dingy and brown, cracked, fractured, chipped, and like everything else, covered in a layer of dirt. As in the rest of the city, the columned halls stood on misaligned stones.

Alric led them around a massive fallen statue whose head had severed at its neck and lay on its side, its features bashed and broken. They then leapt a fallen column, and as soon as she cleared it, Arista stopped. She knew this pillar; it was the Column of Destone. She turned left and saw the narrow road Ebonydale. That was the way Esrahaddon had gone to meet Jerish and Nevrik. She looked forward down the Mar. She should be able to see the dome, but it was not there. Ahead was only rubble.

“Arista!” She heard Alric calling to her and she ran once more.

Royce and Hadrian paused near the headless statue, where the algae in the water cast an eerie green radiance to the underside of all things. Royce motioned with two spread fingers that a pair were coming up one side of the street and two on the other. While the two pairs were mere shadows to Hadrian, the fifth was quite visible as he loped up the center of the boulevard like an ape hunched over and traveling on three limbs. His massive claws clicked intentionally on the stone as signals to the others. Every few feet he would pause, raise his head, and sniff the air with his hooked, ring-pierced nose. He wore a headdress made from the blackened fin of a tiger shark, a mark of his station-a token he would have obtained alone in the sea with no more than his claws. He was the chief warrior of the hunting party-the largest and meanest-and the others looked to him for direction. They all carried the traditional sachel blades-curved scimitars, narrow at the hilt and wider at the tip, where a half-moon scoop formed a double-edged point. Like all Ghazel, he also carried a small trilon bow with a quiver slung over one shoulder.

Royce drew out Alverstone and nodded to Hadrian as he slipped into the darkness. Hadrian gave him a minute; then, taking a breath, he also moved forward. He closed the distance, keeping the statue between him and the Ghazel. To his surprise, he was able to reach the platform before the warrior noticed him and let out the expected howl. Immediately arrows whistled and glinted off the stone.

The warrior rushed him, his sachel slicing the air. Fighting a Ghazel was always different from fighting men, but the moment the two swords connected, Hadrian no longer needed to think. His body moved on its own, a step, a lunge. The fin-endowed warrior responded exactly as Hadrian wanted. Hadrian caught the warrior’s next stroke with his short sword and saw the momentary shock in the Ghazel’s eyes when his bastard sword came around, removing his arm at the elbow. A short spin and Hadrian took the warrior’s head, fin and all.

A high-pitched shriek announced the charge of two more Ghazel. Hadrian always appreciated how they announced their attacks. He was able to step out from his shelter now-the rain of arrows having ended.

The two bared their pointed teeth and black gums, cackling.

Hadrian shoved the length of his short sword into the stomach of the closest. Dark blood bubbled up from the wound. Without looking to see the reaction of the remaining Ghazel, he swung his other blade behind him and felt it sink into flesh.

Hadrian heard fast-moving footsteps and looked up. Across the open square Royce ran at him, carrying a Ghazel bow and quiver of arrows. The thief was making no attempt at stealth, his cloak flying behind him.

“What’s up? Did you get the others?”

“Yep,” he said. As he ran by, he tossed the bow and quiver to Hadrian and added, “You might need these.”

Hadrian chased after him as he ran back up the Grand Mar. “What’s the hurry?”

“They weren’t alone.”

Hadrian glanced back over his shoulder but saw nothing. “How many?”

“A lot.”

“How many are a lot?”

“Too many to stand around and count.”

The party reached the end of the boulevard, which looked nothing like what Arista remembered from her dream. The Ulurium Fountain-with its four horses bursting out of the frothing waters-was gone, crushed by giant stones. To the right, the rotunda of the Cenzarium still stood, but it was a faded, broken version of its former self, the dome gone, the walls blackened. To the left, the columned facade of the Hall of Teshlor remained intact. While it had weathered the years better, the building was just as grime-covered as the rest. Most importantly, the great golden dome of the magnificent palace-in fact, the whole palace-was missing. Before her, only a hopeless mountain of rubble remained. All around the parameter, every inch of space was carpeted with bones of the dead.

Reaching the end of the road, Alric spun around and held the lantern high. “Arista! Which way?”

She shook her head and shrugged. “The palace-it should be just ahead of us. I think-I think it’s destroyed.”

“That’s just great!” Gaunt bellowed. “Now what do we do?”

“Shut up!” Mauvin barked at him.

“Is this as far as Hall got?” Alric asked Myron.

“No,” the monk replied. “He wrote that he entered the palace.”

“How?”

“He found a crevice.”

“Crevice? Where?”

“He wrote ‘Fearful of the drums in the darkness, and afraid to sleep in the open, I sought refuge in a pile of rocks. I found a crevice just large enough for me to slip through. Expecting nothing more than a mere pocket to sleep in, I was elated to discover a buried corridor. On my way out I was careful to mark it so that I might find it should I return this way again.’ ”

They began searching, crawling among the boulders and broken stones. The collapse of the building covered the entire breadth of the broad boulevard with a mass of fallen stones containing hundreds of crevices, each of which might hide an entrance. They had only begun looking when Royce and Hadrian returned, their weapons still drawn and slick with dark blood.

“That’s not good,” she heard Hadrian say the moment he saw the pile.

“There’s a crevice somewhere that leads inside,” Arista said.

“There’s a horde of Ghazel right behind us,” Royce told her.

“Everyone inside that building on the left,” Hadrian shouted.

They ran across the square, struggling over the piles of bones and rocks that blanketed the walk and steps to the Hall of Teshlor. Yelps and cries erupted behind them. Looking back, Arista spotted goblins skidding across the stone, scratching their claws like dogs on a hunt. Their eyes flashed in the darkness with a light from within, a sickly yellow glow rising behind an oval pupil. Muscles rippled along hunched backs and down arms as thick as a man’s thigh. Mouths filled with rows and rows of needle-like teeth spilled out the sides as if there was not enough room in their mouths to contain them.

“Don’t watch, run!” Hadrian shouted, grabbing hold of her arm and pulling her across the loose mounds of bones.

Alric and Mauvin sped up the steps, heaving themselves simultaneously against the great doors.

Hadrian threw Arista to the ground, where she fell, scraping her knee and bruising her cheek.

“Wha-” Her protest was silenced as a hail of arrows peppered around them, sparking off the stones. He hauled her to her feet once more and shoved her forward.

“Go!” Hadrian ordered.

She ran as fast as she could, charging up the steps. Myron and Magnus, who had just slipped inside the big double doors, waved at her to hurry. She glanced behind her. Gaunt was just reaching the base of the steps.

Arrows flew again.

Arista heard the hiss and Hadrian pulled her behind the pillars, but Gaunt had no such protection. An arrow caught him in the leg and he fell, sliding to a stop.

He rolled over to his back and cried out as the first goblin reached him.

“Degan!” Arista screamed.

A white dagger slit the Ghazel’s throat, and the princess spotted Royce straddling the fallen Gaunt. Three more Ghazel rushed forward. Two fell dead almost instantly as Hadrian joined Royce, taking one with each of his swords. Distracted, the third turned toward the new threat just as Royce stepped behind him and the goblin fell.

“Get up, you fool!” Royce shouted at Gaunt, grabbing him by his cloak and pulling him to his feet. “Now run!”

“Arrow in my leg!” was all Gaunt managed to say through gritted teeth.

“Look out!” Arista shouted as nearly a dozen more Ghazel charged.

Hadrian’s swords flashed as he threw himself into the fight. Royce vanished only to reappear and vanish again, his white dagger flashing like a sparkling star in the night.

“Back into your holes, you beasts!” Alric shouted as he suddenly ran out with a lantern in one hand and his sword in the other. Mauvin chased after his king as Alric leapt into the fray fearlessly, cleaving into the nearest goblin. Her brother took an arm off his opponent and then ran him through. Arista’s heart stopped as Alric failed to see the blade of another Ghazel swinging from the side at his head. Mauvin saw it. A lightning-quick flash of his sword blocked the attack, sliced through the blade, and killed the goblin in one stroke.

Gaunt was up and hobbling forward.

Arista hiked up her robe and ran back down the stairs to him. “Put your arm around me!” she shouted, moving to his wounded side.

Gaunt put his weight on her. From behind them more goblins entered the square. Twenty-perhaps as many as thirty-ran forward shrieking and yelping, their claws clicking the stone, and a drone came from them like the sound of a swarm of locusts.

“Time to go!” Hadrian declared. Reaching Alric, he pulled the lantern from the king’s hand and smashed it on the stone before the attacking Ghazel. A burst of flame rose along with more cries and squeals.

“I’ve got him!” Hadrian told her. “Run!”

They all bolted for the doors that Magnus and Myron held open. As soon as they entered, the monk and the dwarf pulled them shut. Royce slid the latch.

“Get that stone bench in front of the door!” Royce shouted.

“What bench?” Mauvin asked. “It’s pitch-black in here!”

Arista barely thought about it and her robe glowed with a cold blue light that revealed the entrance hall. Musty and stale, it was much like the library, covered in cobwebs and dust. The white-and-black-checkered floor was cracked and uneven. A chandelier that had hung from the ceiling rested in the center of the floor. Braziers lay toppled, stone molding was scattered, and plaster chips littered the ground. Great tapestries still clung to either wall. Faded and dirty, they were otherwise unmarred, as were long curtains that draped the walls. Stairs led up from either side of the front doors and past two tall, narrow windows that looked out onto the square. It was then that Arista realized how much like a small castle-fortress the Teshlor Guild was.

Boom! Boom! The goblins hammered against the door, shaking the dust off the walls.

Having laid Gaunt down near the center of the room, Hadrian pulled the goblin bow from his shoulder and ran up the steps. He made use of the arrow slits to fire on the goblins outside. She heard a cry for every twang of the tiny bow and soon the hammering stopped.

“They’ve moved off,” Hadrian said, leaning heavily against the wall. “Out of bow range, at least, but now that they know they have guests, they won’t leave us alone.”

Royce looked around, scanning the stairs, the ceiling, and the walls. “Question is… is there another way in here? And perhaps more importantly, another way out?” He pulled the remaining lanterns from Myron’s pack and began lighting them.

Arista moved to Gaunt’s side. The short, foul-looking arrow had penetrated through his calf with both ends sticking out. “I can see why you were having such trouble running,” she told him as she pulled her dagger and started to cut his trouser leg.

“At least someone gives me credit,” he growled.

“You’re lucky, Mr. Gaunt,” Hadrian said, coming down the stairs and approaching them. He grabbed the first lit lantern and knelt down beside him. “If the tip was still inside your leg, this next process would hurt a lot more.”

“Next process?”

Hadrian bent down, and before Arista or Gaunt knew what was happening, he snapped off the arrow’s tip. Gaunt howled in pain.

“Get some bandages ready,” he told Arista. Myron was already there holding two rolls out to her. “Now this will hurt some.”

“ This will?” Gaunt asked incredulously. “What you did befo-”

Hadrian pulled the shaft from his leg. Gaunt screamed.

Blood flowed from the wounds on either side of the leg and Hadrian quickly began wrapping and pulling the cloth.

“Put your hands on the other side and squeeze tight-real tight,” he told Arista. Blood soaked through the white linen, turning it red.

“Squeeze harder!” he told her as he unrolled a second length of cloth.

As she did, Gaunt cried out again, throwing his head back. His eyes went wide for a moment and then squeezed shut.

“I’m sorry,” she told him.

Gaunt groaned through gritted teeth.

Blood seeped through her fingers. It was warm-and slicker than she had expected, almost oily. This was not the first time she had found her hands covered in blood. In the square of Ratibor, with Emery in her arms, there was much more, but she did not notice it then.

“Okay, let go,” Hadrian told her, and he redressed the wound. Once again he had her squeeze as soon as he was finished. More blood soaked the bandages, but it was spotty this time and did not consume the whole linen.

Hadrian wrapped another length and tied it off. “There,” he said, wiping his hands. “Now you just have to hope there was nothing nasty on that shaft.”

Royce handed him a lantern. “We should look for other entrances.”

“Mauvin, Alric? Keep watch out the windows, shout if they return.”

“I need water,” Gaunt said, his face dripping with sweat. Arista slipped a pack under his head and grabbed his water pouch. It appeared more of it dribbled down his chin than went in his mouth.

“Rest,” she said, and brushed the hair from his brow.

He gave her a suspicious look.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to enchant you,” she said.

When she entered, her robe illuminated the grand hall with a cold azure light. A great stone table stood in the center with dozens of tall chairs surrounding it. A few had fallen to their sides, as had a half dozen metal goblets that rested on the table. The chamber was four stories tall, with great windows lining the high gallery and skylights in the ceiling. She imagined that they had once filled this room with a wonderful radiance of sunlight. Painted on the upper walls and parts of the ceiling were astounding scenes of battle. Knights rode on horseback with streamers flying from long poles, vast valleys were filled with thousands of soldiers, and castle gates, defended by archers, were assailed by machines of war. In one scene, three men battled on a hilltop against three Gilarabrywn. Those same men were seen in other images, and in one, they were pictured in a hall with a throne where one sat with a crown and to either side stood the other two. Below the paintings, a varied array of weapons lined the room: swords, spears, shields, bows, lances, and maces. The one thing they all had in common: even after a thousand years, they still gleamed.

Words were engraved in a band encircling the room and could also be found on recessed plaques, yet Arista’s training in the Old Speech was verbal, not written. Unable to decipher the meanings, she did spot the words Techylor and Cenzlyor.

A majestic stair gave access to the gallery above and she climbed it. At the top were a series of doors. Some rooms lay open and she spied small chambers, living quarters with beds, shelves, and closets. Lantern light spilled from one.

She found Hadrian standing near the bed, staring up at the opposite wall as if entranced. He was looking at a suit of armor, a shield, and a set of weapons. The armor was not at all like the traditional heavy breastplates, pauldrons, vambraces, and tassets of typical knight attire. This was one piece and appeared as a long formal coat, but made from leaves of gold-colored metal. It hung from a display with a great plumed helm like the head of an eagle resting on top.

“Planning on moving in?” she asked. “I got a little worried when you didn’t come back.”

“Sorry,” he said, embarrassed. “I didn’t hear any shouts. Is everything all right?”

“Gaunt is sleeping, Myron reading, Magnus is arguing with Alric, Royce still hasn’t returned, and Mauvin wandered off. And what are you doing?”

She sat down on the bed, which promptly collapsed under her weight, issuing a cloud of dust.

“You all right?” he asked, helping her up.

“Yes,” she said, coughing and waving her hand before her face. “I guess the wood rotted over the years.”

“This is it,” he said.

“What?” She brushed the dust from her robe.

“This is Jerish’s room, Jerish Grelad, the Teshlor Knight who went with the emperor’s son into hiding.”

“How do you know?”

“The shield,” he said, and pointed across the room at the heater shield hanging on the wall. On it was an emblem of twisted and knotted vines around a star supported by a crescent moon. Hadrian reached back and drew forth the long spadone sword. He held it up so that she could see the small engraving at the center of the pommel that matched the one on the shield. Then he stood up and crossed the room. As he did, she noticed for the first time that the suit of armor had no sword, but there was a sheath of gold and silver. Hadrian fitted the tip into the opening and let the great sword slide home. “You’ve been parted a long time.”

“Doesn’t quite match anymore,” Arista said, noticing how the sword was marred to a dull finish.

“It has seen a thousand years of use,” Hadrian said, defending it. He looked back at the armor. “The sword was the only thing he took. I suppose he couldn’t expect to hide very well dressed in shiny gold armor.” His fingers played over the gleaming surface of the metal.

“Looks like it would fit,” she said.

He smirked. “What would I do with it?”

She shrugged. “Still, it seems like you should have it. Goes with the sword, anyway.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

He lifted the coat. “So light,” he said, stunned.

Arista looked back down at the bed and, as she did, noticed a small object-a figurine carved from a bit of smoky quartz. She picked it up and rubbed it clean. It was a statuette of three people, a boy flanked by two men, one in leaf armor and the other in a robe. The likeness of Esrahaddon was remarkable, except that this figure had hands. Whoever the artist was had a rare gift.

“Interested in what he looked like?” she said, and held out the figurine.

“He was young,” Hadrian replied, taking the statuette and turning it over in his hands. “A good face, though.” Then his eyes shifted and he smiled and she knew he was looking at Esrahaddon. “So this must be Nevrik, the heir. Doesn’t look like Gaunt, does it?”

“How many generations are there in a thousand years?” she asked. “Funny that he left this. It’s so beautiful you would have thought he’d taken it with him, or at least…” She paused and glanced around the room. Except for the expected silt of a thousand years, the room was neat and ordered, the bed made, drawers and cabinets closed, a pair of boots standing side by side at the foot of the bed.

“Did you… straighten up in here at all?” she asked.

He looked at her curiously and appeared as if he might laugh. “No,” he told her.

“It’s just that it’s so tidy.”

“What, because he was a knight you think-Okay, so there is Elgar, but he’s more of an exception. No one is as messy as he is, but-”

“That’s not what I meant. It’s just that after Jerish left-after he took Nevrik and ran-I would have thought they would have searched this room, tore it apart looking for clues, but nothing looks out of place. And this figurine-don’t you think they would have taken it? Why didn’t they ransack the room? It’s been a thousand years. You’d think they would have gotten around to it by now, unless… maybe they never got the chance.”

“What do you-”

The blare of a horn blowing from somewhere outside the guildhall reached them, followed by the distant beat of drums.

“What’s happening?” Hadrian asked, returning with Arista to the front of the hall, where Alric was once again at the windows. He carried the armor in a bundle and the shield over his back.

Alric shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t see a thing out there. Did you find an exit?”

“No, everything is sealed by rubble. So on the one hand, we’re safe, but on the other, trapped.”

“I think more are arriving out there,” Alric mentioned.

“Get your head back from the window before you catch an arrow,” Royce told him, returning from a side hall Arista had not taken.

She knelt down beside Gaunt and looked over his wound. The bleeding had finally stopped, but his face was still moist despite the chill in the air.

“Anything?” Hadrian asked.

Royce shook his head; then he looked around, concerned. “Where’s Myron and Mauvin?”

“This is the Teshlor Guild,” Alric said. “Mauvin has wanted to explore this since he was ten.”

“And Myron?”

Alric glanced at Gaunt, who looked up painfully, blinking. Then all of them turned to Magnus.

“Don’t look at me like that. I don’t know where he went. He wandered off.”

“I’ll look for him,” Royce said.

“Wait.” Alric stopped him. “How are we going to get out of here?”

“Don’t know,” Royce replied.

Alric slumped against the front wall with a miserable look on his face. “He’s not serious, is he?”

“You’re the king,” Gaunt said. “You tell us. You wanted to be in charge. What does your family heritage and blue-blood breeding say now? What insight has it provided you that we commoners can’t see?”

“Shut it, Gaunt,” Mauvin ordered, trotting down the stairs.

“There you are,” Royce said.

“I’m just saying that he’s the king,” Gaunt went on. “He’s in charge. So far all that he’s managed is to get me bleeding to death and all of us trapped. This is a perfect chance for him to shine and prove his worth. All the other teams that came in here didn’t have a noble king to lead them. Surely he will not leave us to the same fate as they. Isn’t that right, Your Majesty?”

“I said, shut it,” Mauvin repeated in a lower, more threatening voice. “Have you forgotten he just risked his life to help save yours?”

Alric looked at each of them as they sat around the entrance hall in the flickering light of four lanterns, each casting four separate shadows of everything.

“I don’t know,” he said. He peeked back out the window. “You heard the horn and the drums. There could be dozens of goblins out there by now.”

“I doubt that,” Hadrian replied, and Alric looked hopefully at him. “I would say there were hundreds by now. Ghazel prefer uneven battles, the more one-sided, the better, as long as it is in their favor. Those horns and drums are calling all goblins within earshot. Yeah, I would say a couple hundred at least are gathering.”

Alric stared at him, shocked. “But… how are we going to get out, then?”

No one replied.

Even Gaunt gave up his taunting and lay back down. “And I was going to be emperor.”

“The imperial hunts were massive.” They heard Myron’s voice echo as Royce led him back. “You can see by that tapestry. Hundreds participated-thousands of animals must have been killed, and did you see the chariots?”

“He was looking at the art,” Royce told them.

“They were master bronze craftsmen, did you see?” the monk asked. “And this building, this is the guildhall, the knights’ guildhall. This is the very place mentioned in hundreds of books of lore, often thought to be a myth-the Hall of Techylor-and isn’t that amazing-not Teshlor at all.

“It’s astounding, really, in all the years of reading about the Old Empire I never found anything about it, but clearly it was true. Techylor is not a combat discipline or martial art any more than Cenzlyor is a discipline of mystical arts. They’re names. Names! Techylor and Cenzlyor were the names of people who were with Novron at the first battle of the Great Elven War. The Teshlor Knights were literally the knights trained by Teshlor, or actually Techylor.”

“This is hardly the time for studying history!” Alric snapped. “We need to find a way out, before they find a way in!”

“I see a light,” Mauvin announced. “There’s a fire, or a torch, or some-Uh-oh.”

“What?” Gaunt asked.

“Well, two things, really,” the young count Pickering began. “Hadrian was right. I can only see silhouettes but-oh yeah-there’s a lot out there now-a whole lot.”

“Second?” Hadrian asked.

“Second, it looks like they’re setting up for flaming arrows.”

“What good is that?” Alric asked. “This place is stone. There’s nothing to burn.”

“Smoke,” Hadrian replied. “They’ll smoke us out.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Gaunt said.

“Another locked room,” Hadrian said to Royce. “How many is this? I’ve lost track.”

“Too many, really.”

“Ideas?”

“Only one,” the thief said, and then looked directly at Arista.

She watched Hadrian nod.

“No,” she said instantly. She stood up and backed away from them. “I can’t.”

“You have to,” Royce told her.

She was shaking her head so that her hair whipped her face, her breath short and rapid and her stomach tightening, starting to churn. “I can’t,” she insisted.

Hadrian moved toward her slowly, as if he were trying to catch a spooked horse.

Her hands were starting to shake. “You saw-you know what happened last time. I can’t control it.”

“Maybe,” Hadrian told her, “but outside that door are anywhere from, I’m guessing, fifty to a few hundred Ba Ran Ghazel. All the bedtime stories, legends, and fables are true. I know firsthand, and actually, they don’t tell even half the story-no one would dare tell the real stories to children.

“I served as a mercenary for several years in Calis. I fought for warlords in the Gur Em Dal-the jungle on the eastern end of the peninsula that the goblins took back. I’ve never spoken about what happened there, and I won’t now-honestly, I work very hard not to think about it. Those days that I lived under the jungle canopy were a nightmare.

“The Ghazel are stronger than men, faster too, and they can see in the dark. They have sharp teeth and, if they get the chance, will hold you down and rip into the flesh of your throat or stomach. The Ghazel want nothing better than a meal of human meat. Not only are we a delicacy to them, but they also use their victims as part of their religious ceremonies. They will make a ritual out of killing us, take us alive if they can-eat us while we still breathe. They’ll drink their black cups of gurlin bog and smoke tulan leaves while we scream.

“That door is the only way out of here. We can’t sneak out, we can’t create a diversion and hope to catch them off guard, we can’t hope for a rescue. Either you do something or we all die. It’s as simple as that.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking me to do. You don’t know what it’s like. I can’t control it. I–I don’t know what will happen. The power is-it’s-I don’t know how to describe it, but I could kill everyone. It just gets out of control, it just runs away.”

“You can handle it.”

“I can’t. I can’t.”

“You can. It caught you off guard before. You know what to expect now.”

“Hadrian, if I go too far-” She tried to imagine and realized she did not want to. There was an excitement in the thought of the power, a thrill like standing on the edge of a cliff, or playing with a sharp knife; the exhilaration came from the risk, the very real fear that she could step too far. It lured her like the still beauty of a deep lake. Even as she spoke about it, she remembered how it felt, the desire, the hunger. It called to her. “If I reach beyond-if I go too far-I might not come back.” She looked at Hadrian. “I’m scared what would happen. I don’t think I would be human anymore. I’d be lost forever.”

He took her hands. Until he touched her, she had not realized she was shaking. His hands felt warm, strong. “You can do it,” he told her firmly. He stared into her eyes and she could not help looking back. There was peace there, a gentle understanding familiar to her now, comforting, reassuring.

How does he do it?

Her hands stopped shaking.

An arrow whizzed through Mauvin’s window, just missing him. It streaked a thick dark smoke that stank of sulfur. It flew to the far wall and bounced off the stone, continuing to smolder and burn. Two more managed to find their way into the narrow slits while outside it sounded as if it were raining. Then a line of smoke began to leak in through the cracks of the door.

“You have to try,” Hadrian told her.

She nodded. “But I want you with me. Don’t leave me… no matter what happens.”

“I swear I will not leave you.” His voice and the look in his eyes were so sincere, so resolute.

Degan began to cough, and Mauvin and Alric climbed down from the stairs.

“Everyone gather,” she told them in a soft voice, trying to keep her eyes on Hadrian. “I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. Just try and stay as close as you can, and don’t you let go of me, Hadrian.”