The Keys to Paradise, page 55
Petia, somewhat exasperated herself, took Anji’s ear and pulled it close to her mouth. ‘Listen carefully, bratling. I think someone probes for us. Trying to find out where we are. Do you feel it, too?’
The boy’s eyes opened widely. Awake now, fear showed in his face. Petia nodded solemnly at him, and urged him to see if he sensed the same thing that she did.
The boy concentrated, then nodded without looking at Petia. He sensed the other’s thoughts, but they were unfocused, confused. He turned to Petia. ‘He’s unsure – he’s certain we are here, but his mind looks hard for us. What can we do?’ Finally wide awake and eager to help, he was too unskilled to know the next step.
‘We’ve got to create a diversion. He may know we are here, but if we can keep him from finding our exact location, we may be all right.’
‘He’ll tell Onyx, nevertheless,’ Giles broke in. ‘There’ll be a search, but we may be able to avoid them. Why not imagine a roaring fire in another part of the citadel, Anji? That should create chaos to keep them all busy for a while longer. I’ll think of something else as we go along.’
‘Wait,’ Petia said. ‘His probing is all muddled now. His mind runs everywhere, agitated. I have no idea what’s happening.’ She paused, head cocked to one side, as if listening. Then said, ‘It’s gone now. Completely. I don’t know what’s going on.
‘Stay alert,’ Giles pleaded. ‘If it happens again, let us know.’
‘Believe me, I will,’ Petia said. ‘You, too, Anji. Keep your mind tuned to anything that doesn’t feel right.’ The boy nodded.
‘Are we going to stay here or go?’ Keja asked. ‘I’m for moving on. They can’t hit a moving target, that’s an old motto of mine.’
‘I think you’re right, Keja,’ Giles answered. ‘Let’s see if we can get up another level.’ Giles led off down the passageway, praying that Petia and Anji could give them at least some warning. He wanted his weapons out when the soldiers came for him.
Giles found a stairway, swept cobwebs aside, and peered upward in the dim light. They had blown the candle out when they came to the spy holes, the light filtered through the slits in the stone sufficient for them to make their way. Giles lit the candle again to climb the darkened stairway. He made his way to the top and held the candle high so that the others could see the steps.
At the top, Giles said, ‘Petia, describe again Onyx’s private chamber.’
Petia knelt and drew a map in the dust on the floor. Giles nodded and blew the candle out, stuffing it under his belt. ‘If we cross this passage and turn left at the end, we should come out above it. Let’s hope there is a hole we can watch from. Maybe we’ll find out something that will help us.’
He turned and led the way down an even narrower passage, then moved into a wider one. Withing a few steps Petia caught at his arm. Giles stopped.
‘For a moment,’ she whispered, ‘I thought I felt the probe again, but it’s gone. Listen.’
Giles heard shouting ahead. While unable to make out the words, it sounded like Onyx’s roaring voice. He put his fingers to his lips and tiptoed towards the sound. Within ten steps, they heard the voice more forcefully and made out the words. ‘The guards, call out the guards, you idiot.’
They gathered around the stone slit and stared down into Lord Onyx’s bedchamber. Anji, the shortest, stood in front, and the others peered over him. He turned with a look of astonishment on his face and pointed at Ulinek. ‘What?’ he mouthed.
The dwarf sat on the edge of a hassock by Onyx’s bed, his hand over his ears, his eyes shut so tightly they crinkled at their corners. Giles shrugged, not understanding either. Petia gestured to her head, waving her hands in circles to communicate Ulinek’s confusion. She wasn’t sure why, but if it stayed that way she was pleased.
Onyx disappeared from their view; he shouted for guards. He appeared again, shouting at the dwarf to find the intruders. Pain showed on Ulinek’s face as he looked up, pleading with the Black Lord to give him the quiet he needed to do his best.
Petia pursed her lips. Now she understood. She touched Anji’s arm and said, ‘Smoke and fire.’ To Giles and Keja she made a singular gesture. She cupped one hand in the other, placed them on her forehead, then slid them outward, trailing her fingers across the skin, telling them to blank their minds.
She pulled Anji away from the hole and sat him on the floor, sinking cross-legged to face him. ‘Smoke and fire,’ she whispered again, then closed her eyes, conjuring the image in her mind, a roaring fire, flames leaping along the edge of the citadel, thick, black smoke pouring from the windows and down hallways.
Keja fidgeted, trying to blank his mind, but it filled continuously with the scene playing out below them. He saw the dwarf again, pain obvious in his face, the sinister Onyx standing over him, berating him. He shook his head and tried to empty his mind of all thoughts and images. He looked again down into the chamber. He saw the fireplace on one side of the room, the rich tapestries Petia had described to them, the four-poster bed, and the doorway with the mountains carved on it.
Desperately he tried to erase these thoughts from his mind, knowing that he might give away their location and place them all in jeopardy. He closed his eyes, and images came of endless dusty passages and corridors, climbing rungs in stone walls. He pressed his hands to his forehead, trying to push his thoughts away.
The dwarf’s cry reached them. Petia and Anji had been sitting motionless, concentrating on smoke and fire. Their thoughts were shattered by the cry.
‘They’re somewhere in the tunnels!’ The shriek was one of desperation, a shrill shout to get Onyx to remain quiet so that Ulinek might pinpoint the intruders.
A sigh of relief came from the mountain of man striding up and down the bedchamber in his black nightclothes. Onyx drew a key from a drawer and walked to the door with the mountains carved upon it. Unlocking it, he flung it open. Giles glimpsed only a shadowy entrance into what he supposed was yet another tunnel.
‘I know you’re in there, Grimsmate, you and your companions, coughing dust in that honeycomb of tunnels. I deny you escape! Before you can retrace your steps, all the entrances will be sealed.’ His booming laugh reverberated through the tunnels. It took a long time to fade, and once Giles thought that he heard echoes of the laugh meeting each other from opposite ends of the citadel.
Giles shook his head and pantomimed to them that there was no way that Onyx’s men could seal the entrances of all passageways. He beckoned to them to leave their vantage point over the bedchamber. He led the way but had to go back when Keja did not follow. He pulled a depressed Keja to his feet and gave him a shove down the hallway.
At the next intersection, Giles turned left to find another spy hole above Onyx’s bedchamber – and over the door with the mountains carved on it. He paced off the steps he had calculated, keeping his eyes on the left-hand wall.
When he reached the spot, he ran his hands over the wall but found nothing. Anji, behind him, began to jump up and down. Giles started to curb the boy’s enthusiasm; the boy pointed to the opposite wall.
There, at the level of Giles’ head, was an ornate bas-relief. A shelf protruded from the wall, and above it was an exact replica of the mountains, the Mountains of the Lions, with their magnificent profiles cleanly etched in the sculpted stone. Giles stared at it, but Anji, delighted in his find, leaped up and curled his fingers over the edge of the shelf.
It fell away, pulled by his weight, and Petia stepped forward to admonish the boy. A section of the wall crumbled with the shelf. At floor level was a smaller passageway revealed.
The entrance was too small for the adults but large enough for the Trans boy to enter.
Fourteen
‘I’ll be careful, the boy pleaded. ‘Just let me go in for a few feet. I’ll come right back and tell you what I see. If there’s any danger, I’ll crawl right back out.’
Petia shook her head, not wanting the boy to put himself in danger. ‘We can’t let him go in there, Giles. If something happens to him, there’s no way we can rescue him. It’s not worth it.’ She raised her hand for quiet. ‘The dwarf still probes for us. I can feel him.’
‘What do you think?’ Giles whispered, looking at the others. ‘Anji is eager to see what’s in there.’
Keja shrugged. ‘It can’t do any harm. I doubt that the key is in there, but we should take a look. Then we’d know for certain.’
‘Let’s think about this for a minute. there’s something that Bellisar told us when we were in his smithy. By the gods, that seems like such a long time ago! Onyx retrieved the key from the mountains, which is where the map placed it. Bellisar melted the gold key but made a duplicate. We’ve assumed that Onyx wouldn’t take the steel key back to the mountains to hide it. We’ve spent several days inside the citadel, learning the layout, discovering the hidden passages.’ He picked up the bas-relief from where it lay amid a mound of crumbled plaster. ‘This may be the best clue we’ve had. I don’t think we should ignore it.’
He looked at Anji. ‘Are you sure you want to take the risk?’
Anji lifted his earnest face. ‘I’m part of the company, have been ever since Petia rescued me in Bandanarra. I may be only a little boy, but little is what you need right now. You’re all too big to get through the tunnel. I’m just the right size to squirm through. I can make the right decisions; I won’t do anything stupid,’ He turned to Petia and took her hand. ‘Please, Petia,’ he pleaded.
Petia took Anji’s hand in her own and forced him to face her. She looked closely into his eyes and whispered. ‘Promise?’
Giles watched as Anji nodded and said, ‘Yes.’ A single tear threatened to spill from Petia’s eye. She was becoming more of a mother and less of a thief every day. It would be good for her when this adventure ended. He didn’t intend that Petia would ever reach the Gate of Paradise before him, but he would somehow see to it that she and Anji shared in whatever treasures were there. They could never pass – only one could, and he’d be that one – but there would be enough for them to settle somewhere, buying a dwelling, hire a teacher for Anji, perhaps. By her own admission, Petia had not been a good thief. She got caught too often.
Giles smiled without humour. She hadn’t even figured out the runes on the Gate telling that only one could pass.
Petia let go of Anji’s hands. The boy turned and dropped to the floor. Giles handed him a newly lighted candle. The hole was too small for Anji to crawl on his hands and knees. Wriggling forward on his chest, he disappeared head first into the hole. Almost immediately the tunnel turned to the left and Anji struggled to make his body do the same.
‘Anji,’ Petia whispered. ‘Send back images.’
Giles grinned wryly. She’s still afraid for him, he thought. What will it be like when he’s a little older?
Giles, Petia and Keja stood alone in the dark. The only sound was their breathing. Then, from Petia, ‘He’s turned another corner to the right. Wait, the tunnel is getting even smaller.’
Silence descended again as they waited for Anji to send an image back to Petia. ‘He’s still able to make it, but only by hunching along with his elbows. A tight squeeze.’
Keja folded himself to the floor and made himself comfortable with his back to the wall. He reached idly for something to keep his hands busy and touch the bas-relief. He pulled it onto his lap and ran his fingers over the sculpture, lightly touching both mountains and lions. Somehow it gave him sardonic comfort. The others seemed unaware that he was to blame for the dwarf finding out that they were within the hidden passages.
Time slipped away slowly in the darkness. When Petia received an image she relayed the information. Sometimes she said only. ‘He’s all right.’
Nearly five minutes had elapsed when a voice booming down the passage startled them. It was unmistakably the voice of Lord Onyx, and Giles sensed the pleasure he took in their predicament.
‘Hear me, my friends. Are you enjoying yourselves in the dark passages? A bit dusty, are they not? Forgive me for not knowing that you would be visiting them. I would have had them cleaned for you. But I shall make amends for that. I’m sending something to you now – something which will clean those passages of unwanted filth. It will be there soon, oh, yes. It is deadly and swift, this cleaner of tunnels. And it’s coming for you, my friends. You’ll not escape me this time.’
The hearty, bellowing laugh that the companions had come to despise followed the message through the hollow passages. It twisted and turned, as their stomachs were beginning to do. Anji’s nose pressed close against the floor, and his elbows ached. He ignored the pain and struggled on. He had the opportunity to prove himself, and he didn’t intend to let Giles or the others down. Most of all, he had to prove his capabilities to Petia. He was tougher than she thought, and sometimes she coddled him too much.
He thrust the candle out at arm’s length and peered ahead. The restricting tunnel made it difficult to see past the halo of light. There was little headroom, but the tunnel appeared to slope upward. He scrabbled forward a few more feet and felt the surface begin to slant. He drew a deep breath and inched forward. His elbows slipped on the surface, and he put his fingers down to feel a surface different from that which he had been crawling over. That had been rough stone; this gave the impression of polished steel.
From the corner of his eye Anji noticed that the ceiling of the tunnel also appeared to be different. Handholds! He reached up with one hand and cupped his fingers, straining to pull his body along. Then he realised how they were meant to be used.
He relaxed again, thinking it through. The candle posed a problem. He needed to turn on his back and use both hands. One step at a time, he thought, and began to turn over. Rolling was impossible in the tight quarters, but bit by bit he got onto his back, without losing the candle flame. He thrust the candle ahead of him and tired to make it stick to the polished stone. He puddled a little of the hot wax, then pushed the end of the candle down into it. But the slope of the tunnel defeated him.
Frustrated by the attempt, he took the candle in his teeth, the flame to one side, and reached overhead for the handholds. He pulled himself along the smooth surface with only miniscule effort. When Anji had covered twenty feet, he noticed only emptiness under his head. He reached backward and found that there was no longer a ceiling close above his head. The tunnel ended abruptly.
Anji removed the candle from his mouth and twisted his head to one side. He stared down into an open room. A narrow ledge ran around the edge of the room where Anji had emerged. He stood cautiously, his back against the wall. Holding the candle high and to one side, he saw the ceiling far above him. Below him stood a room empty but for a single pedestal in the centre. On top of the pedestal lay a steel key.
Anji drew a deep breath and held it. Petia’s mind searched for him. But all he could think of was that he had been right! The bas-relief of the mountains was more than a clue. It was the device that revealed the tunnel and led to the key. All he had to do was jump down into the room and retrieve the key. Their quest would be over!
He sent back an image of the room to Petia. The emotions she returned was one of concern. He expected that, and had become accustomed to it. But the concern was not only for him. He wished that they could communicate better. He saw the image of the tunnel where the others waited. Petia and Keja had their swords drawn and Giles stood with the halberd ready to thrust. Then an image of himself, peering cautiously before he jumped down into the room. She was urging him to be careful.
Anji examined the walls of the room as well as he could with the light from the candle. There appeared to be no door to the room, but he realised that one might be concealed. In the dim white sand. The pedestal itself was of a white stone, perhaps alabaster. It was a simple column, square and unadorned, flat on top. The key rested in the centre of the surface.
Anji searched the room twice. He saw nothing dangerous. He could make the drop to the floor easily. He sat on the ledge, found a place where the candle wax would stick and made sure that the candle was steady and giving adequate light. He pushed off from the ledge and let his knees bend when he hit the floor. The bottoms of his feet stung a bit, but otherwise he had succeeded!
He picked himself up off the floor, dusting his hands of the white sand which covered the floor. Perhaps it had been placed there so that some watcher could see if the room had been disturbed. The gods forbid that anyone should look now, Anji thought. The marks he left were plain to see, even in the dim light.
He walked to the pedestal and, standing on tiptoe, plucked the steel key from the top. Highly polished, it gleamed in the candlelight, sending reflected light dashing around the walls. Anji held it in his hand, admiring the cleanness of Bellisar’s work. The final key, Anji thought, and flashed the image back to Petia.
He was too excited to note that no image came back. He lifted the key, pleased with his achievement. In his glee, he danced about the room, leaving more marks in the sand. He wanted to whoop, but he remembered the need for quiet in time and contained himself.
Finally, his delight exhausted, he tucked the key into his pocket. He checked it three times to be sure it was secure. He walked to the side of the room and looked up at the ledge. Checking the key once more, he bent his legs and sprang into the air, reaching for the ledge. He fell short. When he landed, he slipped on the sand, his feet going out from under him.
A sharp pain shot through his ankle. He rubbed it ruefully and picked himself up from the floor. He brushed away the sand, finding a wooden floor underneath it. When he had a large enough spot cleared so that he would not slip again, he made ready for another try. His ankle still hurt, but he ignored it.
He leaped again and fell short. The ankle protested against the abuse. Anji looked around the room for something to help him. The pedestal! If he could drag it over to the side of the room. He tested it. Whether the stone was too heavy for him or was attached in some way to the floor, Anji could not budge it.
