The lordling looked uncomfortable, but he lit his smoking tube with a nonchalant fireball, and said, "No, I didn't. I just wasn't aware I was telling the truth. Here's my sister, see? Svnae, meet Smith. Smith, you are privileged to behold the Ruby Incomparable, Lady Svnae. And she
is
in mortal danger. It was uncanny precognition, gentlemen."
"You lied to us both," said Willowspear quietly. "You brought Smith here for some purpose. My lord, I will not see him harmed."
The lady looked chagrined. She came and knelt beside Smith, and he was acutely aware of her perfume, her purple-and-scarlet draperies, her bosom, which was on a scale with the rest of her and which could only be adequately described in words usually reserved for epic poetry...
"It's all right," she said kindly, as though she were speaking to an animal. "Nobody's going to harm you, Child of the Sun. But I need you to perform a service for me."
Smith labored for breath, fighting an urge to nod his acceptance. He believed her without question. For all that she was dressed like the sort of wicked queen who poisons the old king, turns her stepchildren into piglets, and exits with all the palace silver in her chariot drawn by flying dragons, there was something wholesome about Lady Svnae.
"Tell me--" Smith demanded. Lord Ermenwyr flipped up his coattails and squatted down beside his sister, looking like an evil gnome by comparison, perhaps one the wicked queen might keep on the dashboard of her chariot as a bad luck mascot.
"There's something hidden in this rock, Smith--" he began.
"It's the Key of Unmaking, isn't it?" Willowspear stated.
"Yes, actually," replied Lady Svnae. "Good guess! Or did Mother tell you about it?"
"Erm ... I've been trying to explain this to them a bit at a time," said Lord Ermenwyr. "Giving them hints. Well, Smith, what can I say? The damned thing's worth a lot right now. I want it."
"
I
want it," said his sister firmly.
"But we can't get it. It's sealed in the rock, and only one of your people can reach in there and get it. That's why you're here, Smith."
"You're asking him to betray his people," said Willowspear. "My mother's people. My wife's people."
"Don't be an idiot!" said Lord Ermenwyr sharply. "The thing's not safe here any longer, don't you understand? The Steadfast Orphans are waiting their chance out there and if they get their hands on it, they
will
use it, Smith."
"All I want to do is learn how it works," pleaded Svnae. "If I knew that, I might discover a way to disarm it."
"Well, let's not be too hasty about that--"
"It's not real," said Smith at last.
The lordling sat back on his heels. "You don't think so? Come have a look, then." He stood and made a brusque summoning gesture to the monks. "Bring him."
Greenbriar came forward and, between them, he and Willowspear got Smith to his feet and supported him. They followed the lord and lady down a corridor cut in the rock, lit only by the firelight behind them and a faint flickering red light far ahead.
"You people didn't make this place," said Smith.
"We found it," said Greenbriar wretchedly. "We came to here to make a garden. The earth was warm, there was plenty of water ... but in the caves we found the piled bones of Children of the Sun. Terrible things happened here, long ago. And in the deepest place, we found the thing.
"We told Her about it. She gave us wise counsel. We buried the bones, we made this place beautiful to give their souls peace. We labored as She bid us do. And then, Her daughter came and asked to see the thing... and we thought no harm..."
"There wouldn't have been any harm if the Steadfast Orphans hadn't shown up," said Lady Svnae, her voice echoing back to them.
"You really ought to do something about your household security," said Lord Ermenwyr. "I'll interrogate your servants, if you like."
"As though I'd let you anywhere near my chambermaids!"
"Well, how do you think the Orphans knew where it was?"
"They probably sat down and read the Book of Fire, the same way I did. There are perfectly blatant clues in the text, especially if you happen to find one of the copies that was transcribed by Ironbrick of Karkateen. But there are only three copies known to exist..."
Smith tuned out their bickering and concentrated on making his legs work. Unbidden he heard a voice years dead: that of the old blind man who used to sit on the quay and recite Scripture, holding out his begging bowl, and Smith had been no more pious than any other child, but the sound of it never failed to make him shiver, all the same
...the dead on the plain of Baltu were not mourned, a hundred thousand skulls turned their faces to Heaven, a hundred thousand crows flew away sated, in Kast the flies swarmed, and their children inherited flesh...
...on the Anvil of the World, Forged his fell Unmaking Key, Deep in the bones he hid it there, Till Doomsday should dredge it up. Frostfire guards what Witchlight hides...
"It isn't real," he muttered to himself.
"Here we are," said Lady Svnae, as though they had come to a particularly interesting shop window.
Smith raised his head and flinched, averted his eyes. Frostfire. Witchlight. Doomsday...
All he had really glimpsed was an impression of a spinning circle, the same eerie color as the snow in his dream, and sparks flying within it as though they were being struck from iron. But the image wouldn't fade behind his eyes. It grew more vivid, and to his horror he felt a solid form heavy against his palm, the weight of the iron staff.
He opened his eyes, stared. It wasn't there, but he could still feel it.
"It's only a little recess in the wall," said Lady Svnae soothingly. "The lights and things are just illusions, you see? All you have to do is reach in your hand and take it."
"He's not an idiot," said Willowspear.
"Uh-oh; temperature's dropping in here," said Lord Ermenwyr. "Come on, Smith." He looked at Smith, followed Smith's stare down his arm, saw the fingers clenched around a bar of air.
"What is it?"
"I--my arm's moving by itself," said Smith.
"It is?" Lord Ermenwyr went pale. The arm and hand were turning, as though to direct the invisible bar like a weapon...
Lady Svnae reached into her bosom and pulled forth what looked like a monocle of purple glass. She peered through it at Smith for a moment.
"He's got a Cintoresk's Corona," she announced in a calm voice, and lunged forward and caught Smith in her arms. The next thing he knew he was being dragged backward up the tunnel at high speed, gazing back at Lord Ermenwyr, who was running along behind, knees up and elbows pumping. It was suddenly much warmer.
They emerged into the firelit cavern again, and Willowspear and Greenbriar came panting after them. The other monks, who had now given up any attempt to meditate, watched them fearfully.
"What happened?" Willowspear asked.
"We all came very close to getting killed," said Lord Ermenwyr, wheezing as he collapsed on the cot.
"Get off of there," said Lady Svnae, shoving him as she set Smith down. She took out the monocle once more and examined him closely through it. "Tell me, Child of the Sun, are you experiencing any unusual symptoms not related to the poison? Perhaps voices in your head?"
"No," said Smith dully. He watched as she raised his left arm cautiously, palpitated along it as far as the hand. "It felt as though I was holding something cold. An iron bar."
"You think he was being possessed?" Lord Ermenwyr asked his sister, looking speculative. "Because of proximity to the Key?"
"I think I need to study the Book of Fire again," said Lady Svnae. "I think I might have missed something crucial."
"Well, this is a fine time to figure it out," said Lord Ermenwyr pettishly, groping for his smoking tube.
"Better now than thirty seconds later, when we all might have been blasted with balefire," she retorted. "Child of the Sun--"
"Smith," he said.
"Interesting choice of an alias. Well, Smith, have you had any strange dreams recently? Any kind of psychic or spiritual conversation with your ancestors?"
Smith was unwilling to talk about his dream, but she looked earnestly into his eyes. Her own were wide, dark and lovely. Unwilling, he found himself saying: "I might have. But it didn't make any sense."
"No, I don't suppose it would," she said, and patted his cheek. "That's all right. You just lie down here and rest, now, Smith. And if you feel the least bit odd, especially in that hand, please tell us. Will you do that, Smith dear?"
"All right," he said, too dizzy to be annoyed by her tone of voice. He sank back on the cot and closed his eyes.
He heard the rustle of her gown as she went somewhere else, and the faint thump and crackle as someone added wood to the fire. He heard Lord Ermenwyr settle down, muttering to himself, and a noise suggestive of a boot flask being uncorked and drunk from...
Sound went away, and he was flying over a plain, and he knew so many terrible things.
There below him was the city of Troon. Burning in the air above it was the formula for its destruction: a certain smut introduced into the barley, four ounces of a certain poison poured into its central well, one letter containing a certain phrase sent anonymously to its duke, one brick pried loose from the foundation of a certain house. These things accomplished, Troon would fall. And then...
Here was Konen Feyy-in-the-Trees. One water conduit casually vandalized and one firebrand tossed into a certain tree, hung with moss, would begin the sequence of events that would kill the city. And its survivors might flee, but not to Troon, and then...
Here was Mount Flame City, seething, pulsing, so overripe with clan war that all it would take would be one precisely worded insult painted on a certain wall, and all four of its ruling houses would lie in ashes. And so would the great central marketplace of Mount Flame, and so would all the little houses who depended on it.
Here was Karkateen: a brick thrown through a window. A suggestion made to a shopkeeper. A rumor spread. A sewer grating removed. These things accomplished, in a certain order and at a certain moment, and Karkateen would be gone, and with it its great library, and with the library all the answers to certain desperate questions that would soon be asked in Troon, in Konen Feyy, in Mount Flame. Deliantiba and Blackrock were already in the throes; they'd need only the slightest push to complete their own work. And Salesh...
But wasn't it grand, to have secret knowledge of such terrible things?
His arm hurt.
But wasn't it a finer destiny than he had ever supposed he was intended for, high and lonely though it might be? Being the Chosen Instrument of the Gods? His arm hurt but he was flying high, beside a sharp version of himself that was cool and clever as he had always wanted to be, an elegant stranger made of diamond and chrome, the Killer, sneering down from a great distance at the insects crawling below. Stupid bastards. Wasteful. Quarrelsome. Banal. Ignorant and proud of it. And every year more screaming brats born to swell their numbers, and every year more urban blight on the land to house them all. Better if the whole shithouse went up in flames. Everyone said so. His arm hurt.
"Heavens, what've you done to your arm?" Mrs. Smith was peering at it.
"It really hurts," he told her, obscurely proud. "It's turned into blue steel. Isn't it fine and lonely?"
"You ought to run that under the cold tap, dear," she advised.
"No!" he said. "Because then it'd rust. It's better to burn than to rust. Everybody says so."
She just laughed sadly, shaking her head.
Smith sat up, gasping, drenched with cold sweat, and saw Lord Ermenwyr scrambling to his feet. The monks were hastening out of the chamber. Someone, somewhere, was shouting.
"What's happening?" Smith asked.
"The Steadfast Orphans have called for a parley," said Lord Ermenwyr.
"What are we going to do?"
"Nothing," the lordling replied. "They don't want to talk to us. I think we'd best eavesdrop, though, don't you? Just in case the holy brothers allow themselves to be persuaded, and we have to make a hasty escape?"
"Can we do that?" Smith got to his feet and swayed. The room spun gently for a moment, and he found Willowspear beside him, keeping him upright.
"He should rest," Willowspear told his lord, who shook his head grimly.
"Not alone. He needs someone to keep an eye on him, don't you, Smith? We're not going far. I found a nice little spy hole while you were asleep. This way, if you please."
They set off down another of the winding corridors in the rock. Smith walked without much help, and was mildly surprised that his foot wasn't giving him trouble. He had a feeling that if he took his boot off, he'd never get it back on; but who knew how much longer he'd live, anyway? His arm, however, was still throbbing.
They rounded a bend, and he was temporarily dazzled by what seemed a blaze of illumination at the end of the passage. As they approached, it resolved into wan afternoon light, coming through a barred and partially shuttered opening in the rock. Closer still and he saw that pigeons had nested in here for generations, and the last few feet of the passage were chalky with ancient guano, littered with feathers and bits of old nest.
"Phew." Lord Ermenwyr drew out his smoking tube and lit it. "Nasty, eh?"
He stuck the tube between his teeth, clasped his hands together under his coattails, and stood scowling down through the bars. Smith and Willowspear edged closer, treading with care, and looked down too.
They saw the ranks of green tents, and the assembled Yendri standing in tight formation before them, tall unsmiling figures each in an identical baldric, each one bearing a simple cane tube. A shimmer in the air, a faint haze only, betrayed the presence of the Adamant Wall that kept them from coming closer; now and again a hapless bird or insect struck it, bouncing away stunned or dead. Close to the Wall stood the Yendri leader, cloaked in green sewn with white stars, and he was addressing someone unseen, speaking at great length.