Sentinelspire

Chapter Thirty-Four

As Berun entered the Tower of the Sun, the first thing that struck him was the smell. Back when he-when Kheil-had lived in the Fortress, the tower had been a crumbling relic, an ancient testament to the genius of the Imaskari. The Old Man had renovated the tower and put his own mark upon the place-priceless rugs, tapestries, furniture from east and west. All that was gone.

Berun left the arcane-tinted light of the courtyard and entered the first halls of the tower, and the scent hit him-the thick moist smell of growing things. He pulled the starstone necklace out of his shirt, and its green light lit the hallway about him, confirming what his nose had already told him. Vines and thick stalks of ivy, dripping in black berries, clung to the walls and hung from the ceiling. And it was not new growth. Where rugs and carpers had once covered the cold stone of the hall, at least two seasons' worth of old leaves now made a sort of dry carpet that rustled and shifted with his every step. Berun knelt and swept aside the leaves until he found the floor beneath. Moss and lichen covered the stone beneath the leaves, some of it old enough that it had already begun to crumble the stone. Not far ahead, the shoot of a young tree broke through the rock. How it thrived without sunlight or rain was mystery, but its branches were thick with new spring leaves.

Berun stood and began to make his way forward. The tower had dozens of rooms-some only small storage rooms, while others took up an entire floor. Chereth could be in any of them or in the warren of cells beneath the tower. But Berun knew he had to deal with the Old Man first. Once that was done, he could find Chereth, but until the Old Man was dealt with, neither he nor his master would be safe.

He took the stairway on the left, which hugged the wall of the tower as it wound up to the next floor. As his foot touched the first step, the large double doors at the entrance slammed shut behind him. Berun jumped at the noise and stood stock still, ready in case something else happened. But only a few leaves, shaken loose from the vines by the force of the blow, fluttered to the ground.

Berun turned to the stairs before him. Stealth, at this point, seemed foolish. The Old Man would have to be either deaf or dead not to have heard the fight outside. But the vines that had come to his rescue, entangling Sauk and Talieth…

He'd inferred to Lewan that the Old Man had done that. But had he? If so, why? Why aid Berun against Sauk and his own daughter? If the Old Man was truly aware of the conspiracy then why not catch Berun as well? If he knew that Sauk and Talieth were conspiring against him, then surely he knew they had approached Berun in hopes of securing his aid. And surely the Old Man knew why Berun had come. Why help him now?

Was he wrong about the vines? If it had been Chereth who helped him in the Khopet-Dag, sending the earth spirit and the vision, then could not it have been Chereth who captured Sauk and Talieth outside? If his master could still wield such power, why hadn't he escaped? Where did that leave the Old Man?

Only one way to find out, Berun told himself, but before he continued forward, he quieted his mind and prodded that deep corner linked to the treeclaw lizard.

Perch?

Nothing.

Perch, are you well? Where are you?

Ever so faintly, like the last fading sound of an echo, Berun felt his friend respond. The lizard was outside in the courtyard. The leaves and vines taking on a life of their own had thoroughly unsettled Perch, and he was huddled deep inside the den of a trapdoor spider. The den's owner had provided the lizard with a welcome meal to refresh his energies. Killed the tiger! Perch was ecstatic. Tiger swallowed this Perch. Claw-and-bite-and-claw-claw-claw out of the wet darkness.

Yes, you did, Berun told him. You killed the tiger, my friend. Well done.

More fight-fight?

Not now, Perch. Rest. You have earned it.

Perch was strangely silent for a moment. Berun sensed something unusual in his friend. Something almost like pensiveness, which had never existed in the frantic treeclaw lizard. Look and smell and listen and taste-taste the air. Big stone tree-Perch's understanding of the Tower-smells rot-rot.

I'll be careful, Berun told him, and continued up the stairs.

The second floor-a series of rooms arranged like spokes round the hub of a wheel-proved much like the first. Thick vegetation crowded every surface, even the floor on which Berun walked. Passing by a window, Berun caught the faint glow of the lights outside, but the window was so choked with vines and waxy green leaves that he could see outside only through tiny gaps in the foliage.

Berun kept going up. At the top of the stairs, a door blocked the way between the last step of the second floor and the main landing of the third. Berun tested the latch. It creaked like moist iron that had not seen oil in far too long, but it opened. He pushed it, and in the hall beyond, he heard small things scuttling away through the foliage. Keeping his knife ready in one hand, he held forth the starstone into the hall. Only an empty hall, also covered in leaves, vines, and twisting branches that clung to the stone. Some of the leaves moved, as insects and small lizards fled from Berun's light.

He entered the hall. The foliage was even thicker, the footing uncertain, for the floor was a mass of thick, woody vines with clusters of long leaves shaped like double-edged blades. It seemed that the farther he went up the tower, the thicker the vegetation became, almost as if it had grown from the top of the tower down.

The door closed behind him. Not a slam this time. But he heard it creak shut, and when he turned to look, three woody vines were falling away from the door, like arms going back to rest after having done their duty.

The knife in Berun's hand went suddenly cold, like grabbing an icicle through silk gloves. When he turned to face the hall, eyes were watching him from the darkness just beyond the reach of his light. Three sets of eyes-he saw one of them blink slowly-reflected his starstone's light back at him. Two glowed from about a man's height to either side of the hallway, but the third set-slightly farther back-was looking at him from near the ceiling. From their odd angle, Berun realized that the watcher was hanging upside down, as if clinging to the vines.

Everything around Berun seemed to come into sharp focus, and although his heartbeat did not increase, it beat with a stronger rhythm, and his breath came in deeper draughts, as if his body were seeking to draw in and sort every scent. Berun recognized his body's reaction at once. Fear. The old childhood fear of the dark and the unknown, the first true emotion he'd understood as an orphan on the streets of Elversult. As a young man under the tutelage of the Old Man of the Mountain, Kheil had learned to harness that fear and ride it into a formidable aggression. Take your fear and give it to your enemies, Alaodin had told him. Make them fear the dark. Make them fear the night. You must become fear. You must become the night.

Berun crouched and brought the knife up into a guard position. Another set of the eyes blinked. Berun brought back his hand holding the starstone, intending to throw it farther into the hall so it would bathe the three watchers in light while leaving him in shadow. But in the instant before his arm came forward, he felt something wrap round his forearm and constrict. He tried to pull away, but the grip tightened, and another snaked around his right leg up to his knee. He looked down and saw that the vines were wrapping round him, just as they had around Sauk and Talieth in the courtyard.

He slashed at the vines with his knife. The blade cut through them as easily as a new razor parting cobwebs, but even as he pulled his arm free, more vines rose up, grabbing both arms and then his waist. He managed one more slash before his knife arm was caught. The feeling of the vines and leaves moving against him, gentle but unyielding, almost brought a scream to his throat. But the sound of the vines was the worst. The leaves rustled and hissed, not like a breeze through boughs, but more like a snake through spring grass.

The more Berun struggled, the tighter the vines squeezed, and more came, detaching from the walls and ceiling, even rising from the floor. In moments his entire body was wrapped up to his chin, though the starstone still dangled from its leather cord in his fist. The vines tightened and pulled, lifting his feet from the ground so he was suspended from the ceiling. He hung there, slightly swaying, like a dressed pheasant hung from the eaves.

From out of the darkness, the eyes came forward, and as they entered the nimbus of green light cast by the starstone, Berun saw their true forms. Berun's first thought was that they were elves, but he dismissed that almost at once. Their ears had sharp points like elves, and their eyes were angled so as to gather even the faintest light. But their limbs were lithe and too long for elves, and the tint of their skin was only a shade lighter than the surrounding foliage. All three were male. Two of them walked, and they moved as if their joints did not fit together in the usual fashion. The third was creeping along the ceiling, either holding onto or being held aloft by the thick vegetation. As they came near, Berun caught their scent. It reminded him of a rain-freshened breeze blowing through spring blossoms. But there was an undercurrent, too, something bestial and primal.

The two walkers stood in front of him, the third still hanging from the ceiling, all watching him, expressing neither malice nor compassion. Merely curiosity. The one on Berun's left reached out and plucked the knife from his hand. Holding it with both hands, he closed his eyes, brought the knife just under his nose, and inhaled, like a nobleman testing the bouquet of a fine wine. As he did so, the fine etchings of vines and leaves that ran along the blade glinted green, then faded to a glow, almost as if a spark had lit in dry leaves before fading to an ember.

The creature opened his eyes and smiled at Berun. But there was no humor or goodwill in the smile, merely a drawing back of the lips over teeth that were pointed and sharp. Quick as a scorpion's tail, the creature's hand flicked out with the dagger, drawing a shallow gash across Berun's cheek. Berun winced and tried to pull away, but the vines held him fast. The creature reached out with one finger, wiped a bit of the blood, then brought the redness to his tongue. His companion stepped forward and did the same, but the one on the ceiling only watched.

"What are you?" Berun asked.

The one holding the knife cocked his head at Berun, but did not reply.

"They are called killoren," came a voice from the darkness. A voice Berun recognized.

Berun heard the sound of footsteps along the leafy floor, and a figure emerged from the shadows. A cloaked figure in a deep hood. In the dimness of the hall, the fabric seemed dark as winter pine needles.

"Ashai!" said the three creatures. The two standing drew back from Berun, and the one on the ceiling dropped to the floor. All three bowed.

The figure ignored them and stood before Berun. Two hands emerged from the folds of the cloak and pulled down the hood, revealing a wizened face, hardened by the years, but still the face Berun knew.

"Welcome to my tower, Berun," said Chereth. "I have missed you, my son."