The Lost Heiress

11

For a year they held me underground,

bound with chains.

They tried to enter my workrooms, but the Pit was sealed.

My secrets lay deep. And they were well guarded.

Sorrows of Kest

THE RAIN WAS HORIZONTAL, crashing in sheets. Lightning flickered, white and silent. As Carys waited for the sleep-drug to take effect, she watched it from the window, hearing all the gutters and waterspouts of the tower gurgle their song. Far below, one dim torch burned in the corner of a courtyard.

The third time she checked, the man was asleep, propped on his bench outside Braylwin’s door. She stepped over him, then went back and knocked the cup over with one foot, spilling the dregs. Just in case.

All the way she was careful—doubling back, going by narrow routes, quiet back alleys. No sign of anyone following. When she was sure, she went down into the stone corridors.

It took her a while to find the right dead end, and when she slipped inside, Harnor was waiting. He looked white and agitated.

“Where have you been!”

“Making sure I wasn’t followed.” She settled the crossbow. “Come on. I need to be back before morning.”

He fidgeted, anxious. “Listen. There are things up there. Creatures. They roam the tunnels.”

“You said you’d been there before.”

“Years ago . . .”

“Well then, you can do it again.” She was sharp, irritated. “Now come on!”

He gave her one miserable look and led the way to a door in the corner. She’d need to watch him, she thought. He could lead her anywhere down here. Try to lose her, even. “Remember this, Harnor,” she said. “You get me to the library, or I make sure Braylwin knows everything.”

For the first hour they barely spoke. He led her along filthy corridors and empty rooms, once across a courtyard choked with weeds, high wet walls all around them. Glancing up, she saw dark windows. All these empty rooms. The size of the place made her uneasy. Was it possible no one else knew about it?

They climbed stairs, vast wide steps and narrow spiral ones, lit by torches Harnor kept in various places. Halfway up one she stopped, so suddenly that Harnor stared back in terror. “What? What is it?”

Carys stood still, not answering. For a moment she had seen something amazing, as if a panel had opened in her head. Raffi had been there, and Galen and the Sekoi, all around a fire under some dark trees, vivid and close. She could even smell the burned wood, and Raffi had turned and seen her and called something.

“Have you found the Interrex?” she whispered.

But he hadn’t answered, and she couldn’t see them now.

“What’s the Interrex? Is it here?” Harnor stared around in agony.

“No.” She shook her head absently. “Forget it. Keep your mind on the job.”

As they climbed higher into the warren of rooms and galleries she thought about it, pacing through vast dim halls. Was that the third eye Raffi talked about? It was amazing. And what did it mean? Had they found the Interrex? Galen had said she would know, but was that it? So soon?

Then she realized Harnor had stopped. He was waiting by a gate, a grille of rusted metal. A small entrance had been made by twisting some of the bars. Beyond, the darkness was complete.

“Once in here,” he whispered, “we’re in the Overpalace. Or rather, under it. About three floors below the inhabited parts. You should load your bow.” He took out an old curved knife from behind a stone. “I’ll have this.”

“So what’s in there?” She racked the bow quickly.

He shivered, unhappy. “Who knows. I’ve heard horrible noises, found droppings, chewed food, great holes torn in doors. Often I’ve thought I was watched.”

She nodded. “But you’ve never seen anything?”

“Once I thought . . .” His hands shook on the knife. “Each time, it was harder to come back. Last time I swore to myself I’d never come here again.”

“After this you won’t have to.” She felt heartless, but she needed him. “Right. Now lead on.”

It was darker here. Dust lay thick on the untrodden floors. Harnor seemed less sure of the way. Twice they doubled back through long galleries; once at a crossroads of four passages, he hesitated. Carys watched him gravely, and his eyes flickered to her in the dark.

And there were other things here. She knew it, with a growing instinct, all her training warning her. A scuttle in the dark, something that breathed around a corner. They went slowly now, more carefully, and once they were so near the inhabited rooms, she heard voices through a wall and muffled laughter.

After about half an hour, she heard something else. It was in the distance ahead of them, a regular throbbing that echoed strangely in the passageways. “What’s that?” she murmured.

Harnor gave a wan smile. “That won’t hurt us.”

It grew louder as they walked, a cacophony of knocks and ticks and chimes until, as he pulled open a great door, the sound burst out and she saw a vast hall full of clocks. There were thousands of them, candle-clocks, sandclocks, mechanical clocks in every shape, all ticking at different rates, different speeds, a bewilderment of noise.

Carys stared. “Did you bring these all here?”

He shook his head nervously. “I found it like this. I haven’t been here for over a year. As I said . . .”

She glanced at him in instant alarm. “So who winds them?”

He was aghast. He stared at her and went so white she thought he would faint on the spot. “I didn’t think of that,” he breathed.

“Fool!” Carys snapped. She couldn’t help it. She was furious with him. “So much for your secrets! How far to the library?”

“Ten minutes.” He was shaken, and he wiped his face with a damp hand. “Should we turn back?” he whispered. Then, “Please, Carys.”

“No.”

They hurried through the Hall of Clocks. Shuffles moved in the darkness behind them. Harnor was reckless with fear; Carys kept a sharper lookout.

Halfway down one gallery he stopped.

“Here?” she whispered, surprised.

He raised the torch up and she saw a ladder: narrow metal rungs up the wall, climbing into darkness. “Up here.”

She put the torch out, stamping it with her foot. After a second he did the same. The tunnel was dim with acrid smoke.

“You first,” she said.

He seemed to force his courage together; then he was climbing, a thin figure lost in the dimness. Carys put her foot on the lowest rung and her hands up. For a moment she looked sideways, into the dark.

Something slid. She could hear it, for a moment, a soft, scaly sound. Then silence.

Hurriedly she swarmed up after him.

The ladder was high: twenty, twenty-one rungs. Breathless, she clung tight and looked up. “How far?”

Her hiss echoed as if they were in some great shaft or airwell.

“Nearly there.” He sounded as if he were struggling with some weight; a slot of paler dark opened above him, swung to a wedge, then crashed back to a great square, and he climbed up through it and was gone.

Coming after him, she hoisted herself quickly through the hole and stood up, dusting her hands.

They were in the library.

It was vast; a series of enormous arched halls leading one out of the other, and down the centers of them, great shelves rising to the roof, each crammed with books. After a moment she wandered along them, seeing thousands of volumes, each one held by a tiny chain, some lying open on the desks below. What secrets there must be here, she thought bitterly. And how could she look through them all? Where should she even start?

She turned on Harnor, a dim, nervous figure, the great windows behind him dripping with rain.

“Where are the most important books kept?” She came up close to him. “Think! They’re locked up, probably.”

He ran a hand through his gray hair, then turned reluctantly. “Up here.”

Beneath the great ranks of books they felt small, uneasy. They walked quickly, conscious of the echoes of their footsteps, the endless patter of rain. Rats ran before them, scattering with tiny scuttering noises. Harnor hurried through three great halls; he came to a dais of three steps and stopped at the foot of it. “Up there,” he gasped. “But be quick, Carys. Be quick!”

She saw the seven circles of the moons on the wall, vast shapes of beaten copper, gold, and bronze. Under them, standing in a long row, were the Makers. They looked down at her with huge dignified faces as she walked under them; and in the center was Flain, his dark hair bound with silver, his coat shining with stars. In his hands he held a box, and coming up to it, she saw there was a real door in the painting, a tiny door with a shining lock.

She grinned and fished in her pocket, took out a long thin wire, and slid it into the keyhole.

“What are you doing!”

“Opening it. I always enjoyed these lessons.”

Harnor sank in a huddle on the steps; he seemed too terrified to speak.

The lock was difficult, but suddenly the wire clicked around and she laughed, pulling the door wide and putting her hands in.

Harnor squirmed around, fascinated. There were piles of books in the safe, most of them rich with jewels and carved gems, too huge to lift, and she rummaged hurriedly among them, right to the bottom. She was still a moment; then she said, “Look at this,” in such a strange voice that Harnor fought off his fear and scrambled up the steps, and he saw she held a relic in her hands, a very small, gray console with a blank screen. She brought it out carefully, knowing that this was precious, secret, something meant never to be seen. It had been burned once; its edges were black and scorched. Baffled, she turned it over.

“What is it?” Harnor whispered.

“I don’t know. But Galen will.”

“Who’s Galen?” he began, but then he stopped, staring over her shoulder, his face set in a sudden agony of terror.

She spun around.

Far down the halls, up through the open trapdoor, something dark and long, endlessly long, was slithering.