Illengond Page 34

  Elynna spun around. “Back to the walls,” she called out. “Get your packs and your weapons.” Elynna started running back up the slope of the bowl toward where two torches still burned near one wall. The others turned and ran after her.

  Tienna did not follow. She turned back toward Thimeon. Only she and he and the two shapers remained.

  “Gaelim,” Thimeon called. “Breanga. Hurry.”

  The words were barely out of his mouth when the Gaelim and Breanga removed their hands from the water. Their faces were drained from exertion and their foreheads beaded with sweat, but Gaelim held in his hand a small round disc. As he held it out, it began to glow dark blue. He handed it quickly to Thimeon as though it might burn him.

  Now the rumbling grew louder. The ground shook. A loud crack echoed across the cavern. Where there had been only a steady bubbling, water rushed upward out of a hole as though somebody had just broken some dam. Gaelim and Breanga turned and ran toward the wall where the torches burned.

  Thimeon stood staring down at the new talisman in his hand as though in a trance, as water climbed up their legs. Tienna grabbed him by the arm. “Come,” she said urgently. “We must leave.”

  Thimeon looked up. The trance broke. Together they charged up the edge of the bowl.

  At the top, their companions had already gathered their gear and stood huddled against the wall by the torches. Tienna grabbed her cloak and bow from against the wall. She turned and looked back down into the bowl. To her dismay, the water was already halfway up the rim of the bowl and rising at a visible rate.

  The prince handed the ancient sword to Thimeon. “We’d better get out of here,” he said.

  “What does this mean?” Elynna asked.

  “I don’t know,” Thimeon replied. “The book said nothing of the rising water.” He turned toward Dhan. “Where do we go?”

  “Back down one of the tunnels,” the prince said. They stood near the entrance to the tunnel that Thimeon’s company had come through. He turned toward it.

  Tienna thought back on Thimeon’s tale, and a terrible realization struck her. “But both tunnels were blocked! And the one we came up runs downhill from here.”

  Dhan turned white also. “So does the one we came through. As soon as the water reaches the level of the door, it will pour right through. We’d be trapped and drowned.”

  Tienna looked back at the water. It had risen two thirds of the way up, and still kept rising. “Well we’d better go somewhere,” she said. “Or we’ll be trapped right here.”

  “Think,” Thimeon said to himself. “Think. Think. Think.” He turned to Kachtin and Banthros. “Take torches and head around the outside of the cavern. Look for another tunnel. There must be a way out somewhere. One that goes uphill. Call us if you find anything.” The two of took off in opposite directions along the edge of the wall. Others crowded around Thimeon, now, waiting for an order. All of them looked afraid. Jhonna clung to Corandra. Keet was pressed against the wall, on the tips of his toes.

  On opposite sides of the cavern, the torches of Kachtin and Banthros moved along the wall, searching each crack. By the time they had met at the opposite tunnel in the middle of the far wall, the water had risen to within ten feet of the wall. The torches came together. Then separated again and began coming back.

  “Come to the mouth of the tunnel,” Tienna said, as much to give her companions something to do as because she thought they could escape that way.

  The others obeyed at once, pushing into the tunnel mouth or crowding just outside. Tienna felt something cold on her feet and jumped. The water lapped against her toes, as cold as ice. She stepped closer to the wall.

  Kachtin returned first. “Nothing,” he said. “No other way out.”

  Banthros arrived ten seconds later. “I looked again on the way back. The only escape is the tunnel through which Elynna’s company came.”

  “We’re trapped,” Siyen cried in a panicked voice. Others echoed the same thing. Tienna saw panic in the faces of several of her companions. She tried to stay calm even as water swirled around the soles of her shoes.

  “No,” Thimeon replied. “The All-Maker would not have led us here only to trap us. There must be a way.”

  “Look!” Gaelim cried. “What’s that?” Tienna looked and saw him pointing up at the wall above them and to the right. She followed his finger. About fifteen feet above their heads she saw a darker shadow amidst the flickering gems on the walls. Was it a hollow in the wall? Or something deeper.

  “Give me a torch,” Thimeon demanded. Bandor handed him one. He reared back and flung it toward the shadow. The torch disappeared into the mouth of a tunnel.

  “You’ve done it!” Cathwain shouted, clapping Gaelim on the back.

  “How did we miss it before?” Dhan asked.

  “Don’t worry about that now,” the duke said. “We need to worry about getting up there.”

  The duke was right. Tienna looked at the wall and saw no obvious way to climb it. She looked down. The water had reached the edge of the wall and began spilling out the mouth of the tunnel. And still it rose. It came halfway up her foot. Then came the shock. The water was brutally cold. Impossibly cold. Colder than ice. It numbed her through the sole of her boot. If they fell in, they would freeze almost instantly. She fought against her rising fear.

  “Theo,” Thimeon said. “Can you get up there? Climb up on me if you need to.” He turned around, pressed his back against the wall, and bent slightly at the waist. Theo grabbed his shoulder, stepped on his thigh, then his shoulder. He reached upward and gripped a slight outcropping in the wall—one of the glittering array of outcropping gems. He pulled himself up one, then two, then three handholds high. His feet were a foot over Thimeon’s head.

  Crack! One of his handholds broke free. Theo fell backwards, flailing. He landed in water a few feet away from the wall in front of Thimeon. Tienna’s first thought was that the fall onto rock could cause a serious injury. But the instant Theo hit the water he tumbled backward away from the wall, and disappeared below the surface without a splash, as though his body weren’t substantial enough to disturb this water.

  An instant of stunned silence was followed by several ejaculated gasps. Thimeon lunged forward toward where his cousin had fallen as though to dive in after him. He had no chance. A moment later Theo came up gasping and spluttering. “Drink,” he exclaimed, as soon as he could speak. “Drink! The water. Everybody take a drink. It doesn’t feel cold anymore.”

  Nobody moved. The water was still rising, but they all stood staring at Theo as though he were crazy. “Drink it,” he repeated. “It will protect you.” He cupped his hands under the water. They disappeared to the wrists. He pulled them up and took another drink from his hands.

  At once, Thimeon followed his example. Tienna did the same. She plunged her hands into the icy water and felt them numb almost instantly. She ignored the pain and brought the water to her lips, dimly aware of others around her doing the same. The effect was immediate. The water no longer felt icy. Strength and vitality pulsed through her like blood. She scooped another cup of water and drank it.

  Yet still, the water level was rising. Tienna looked down. It now came up to her ankles and rushed out through the tunnel mouth like a small river. Even if they no longer had to worry about freezing to death in the water, they might drown if they couldn’t get out soon.

  “Look!” Nahoon called out. Tienna turned and looked. To Nahoon’s left, Namha was already halfway up the wall. Despite his size, he was moving like a spider. In two minutes, he was even with the shadow and moving back to the right. The water was up to Tienna’s calves now.

  “Hurry,” Thimeon cried. “Throw him a rope.”

  Braga had already pulled one from his back. Namha caught it on the first throw.

  “Find something to tie it to,” Bandor called.

  Namha yel
led something back in his own strange tongue. “He will hold it,” Nahoon explained. “There is nothing more secure.”

  Noab and Anchara stood closest to the rope. Noab pushed his fellow Ceadani toward it and put the rope in her hands. She tried to climb but couldn’t. Namha called down. “Loop it around her,” Nahoon said.

  Tienna looked at the size of the company, and tried to calculate how long it would take to get them all up. Too long, she thought. The water was almost to the bottom of her knees. The loop was under Anchara’s arms now. At once Namha began to pull. No more than five seconds passed and she stood at the top next to him.

  Regon followed, and with only a little difficulty was able to pull herself up. Then came Jhonna and Corandra. One by one the others followed. And still the water rose. Soon only Tienna, Thimeon, and Cathros stood at the bottom. The water was up to Tienna’s waist. Thirty feet away it rushed through the tunnel mouth like a mighty torrent. Even from a distance Tienna could feel the pull of the current and feared it would take her off her feet.

  Thimeon grabbed Tienna by the arm and pulled her toward the rope. She grabbed hold and started to climb, but before she could pull one hand over the other Namha was hauling her up. She managed to keep her feet on the rocks and in seconds she stood in the mouth of a tunnel. Half a minute later, Cathros and Thimeon stood beside her. The rest of the company was spread out down the tunnel. Tienna could see by the light of the torch that most were wet from the waist down. She looked back out. The water still rose.

  “Where are we?” asked Cathros, the last of them to be pulled over the lip. Tienna looked once more down the tunnel, now crowded with her companions. Other than their wet bodies, the torch revealed only a low funnel-shaped cave, about ten feet wide and six and a half feet high near the front, narrowing as it went back into the mountain. The far end disappeared out of sight. “Where does it lead?”

  “Theo and Braga have already set off to explore,” Bandor answered. “They have not yet come back.”

  “At least we’re safe,” Jhaban said.

  “I hate to say this, friends,” Tienna replied. “But we’re not safe yet. The water is over half way up to us, and it hasn’t stopped rising yet.”

  Just then the torch appeared. Braga and Theo came breathlessly back into the midst of the company. “This passage leads uphill,” Braga announced. “At least for a distance. But it’s low and narrow. We’ll have to walk in single file.”

  Tienna and her companions were soon on the march. Though narrower, the tunnel was otherwise much like the ones through which they had come into the mountain. The walls were of polished black stone, and the floors were smooth. They followed a gradual ascent. They had not gone far, however, before Tienna heard, echoing up from behind them, the disturbing sound of waves lapping rock.

  They went for about an hour without rest. All the while Tienna thought she could hear water behind them, though often their own footsteps muffled it. They came to a spot Tienna had feared. The tunnel flattened out. Fifteen minutes more walking and it turned gradually downward.

  Tienna was just a few steps behind Thimeon and Dhan. He must have had the same fears she had. He leaned over to the prince. “We’d better move fast.”

  “And hope the tunnel doesn’t end at a wall,” the prince added grimly.

  Thimeon nodded. Tienna could not see his expression. He called up the line with word to pick up the pace. Whomever was in the lead received the message. For a time they moved at what for some was a slow jog and for others a brisk walk. Gradually the pace slowed, however.

  Tienna heard murmurs of fear coming from behind. She looked back, and then down at her feet. The front edge of a small stream of water rolled past her on the right. The water was coming.

  “We’re not going to make it,” Dhan said.

  The words were barely out of his mouth when Tienna heard more voices, this time coming from ahead of hers. At first she thought they were cries of fear. She wondered what new disaster awaited them ahead. But the cries turned to cheers, and she soon saw the first hints of natural light.

  Then, rounding a corner in the tunnel, she saw a hundred yards straight ahead of her the unmistakable blue of sky.

  37

  OUT OF ONE FLOOD

  With a cry of relief, Tienna raced the last few dozen yards down the tunnel behind Thimeon and Dhan. In her exuberance to see open sky, she leapt out of the mountain, ignoring the blast of frigid air on her face and arms. With her face and arms to the sky, she breathed deeply of outside air.

  She lowered her head and looked around. The last of her companions—Breanga, Kreeg, and Arreg followed by Hrevia and finally Cathros—streamed out of the tunnel. Their faces showed the same relief Tienna felt at having escaped the flood. She turned her gaze from her companions to the surrounding landscape. She had lost her sense of direction underground, but the angle of the winter sun in the afternoon sky told her they had emerged on Illengond’s southwest corner. They were higher up the slope than where they had entered the mountain. Her new vantage point, a thousand feet above the surrounding foothills, gave a commanding view of the northlands. To her left she could see the familiar crow’s beak atop the distant slopes of Mount Androllin. A forest spread out below her, stretching for miles into the wilderness, with dark evergreens giving way lower down to the grays of leafless hardwoods. To her right, the southern tip of Lake Uustgond was visible between some hills. The snow, though it covered most of the ground, was windswept and hard-backed. Bare patches revealed rock, dirt, and brittle brown grasses,

  As her eyes came to rest on the nearest edge of the forest, she caught sight of movement. Flashes of blue mingled with the dark green of the firs and hemlocks. Her heart quickened. She drew a sharp breath and peered more closely. As her eyes adjusted to the contrasts of snow and rock, sky and shadows of trees, the details of the scene came into focus. Tienna gasped in dismay. No more than half a mile away, right at the edge of the trees and stretching off into the woods, soldiers in the uniform of Citadel were setting up an encampment.

  “Thimeon,” Tienna whispered, in stunned disbelief.

  Thimeon took a sharp breath. “I see,” he said. He shook his head slowly as though in disbelief. “Never in a thousand years,” he began. His voice trailed off and he called, “Dhan?”

  “I’m looking, though I can barely believe it” said the prince, who stood on the other side of Thimeon. At that moment a slight breeze shuffled across the slope. Several banners, invisible a moment earlier, unfurled briefly near the edge of the trees. The breeze dropped and they fell back down. “Golach and El-Phern,” the prince said with disgust.

  Tienna continued to scan the woods, looked both deeper into the trees and along the edge in both directions. A few hundred yards to the right, what she had first taken for patches of snow turned out to be the white coats of Undeani warriors.

  More of their companions were gathered around now, surveying the scene in horrified silence. “We need to get out of here,” Tienna finally said. “Before they see us.” She looked around. Nothing but open ground stretched along the mountain back around to the southeast. A few small mountain spruce grew scattered across the hillside above them, but nothing that would provide cover. A larger stand of evergreens stood a hundred yards or more away along the slope to the northwest, but only a few large boulders—the debris of some old landslide—dotted an otherwise open slope between her and the trees. And even if they reached the trees, they offered little cover.

  Tienna looked back to the tunnel out of which they had just emerged. The small stream of water had grown to a steady flow. She thought of the growing flood they had just escaped.

  The duke must have had the same thoughts. “Well whatever awaits us out here,” he said, “I fear a more certain death will find us if we try to go back underground.”

  “How did they know to find us here?” Dhan asked in disbelief. “We didn’t even know where w
e would emerge.”

  “I don’t think they did know,” Thimeon answered. “Look. They haven’t even seen us.”

  “Then maybe we have a chance,” Dhan said. “If we’re quick, we may slip past.” He turned to the duke. “Warn the others quickly. Keep quiet and stay low.” He looked back at Thimeon. “Where do we go? You know this land best. Is there a way around them?”

  Thimeon furrowed his brows and looked around. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say a word Elynna moaned as though in pain. “Oh no,” she cried. “No!”

  Tienna could feel her friend’s pain. “What is it?” she asked. But she didn’t have to be told. She knew almost the moment the words were out of her mouth.

  “The Daegmons are here,” Cathros said. He stood staring up the slope behind them. “Two of them.” He paused, then added. “Three.” And then, his voice more despairing, he said, “There are four of them. Four! On the slopes above us.”

  “No,” said the prince. “There are five.”

  Tienna looked up the mountain now. Somewhere far above, where the air was too thin to breath, the three-peaked crown pointed toward the sky. Nearer at hand she saw the creatures she dreaded. Three were spread along the slope directly above her, with the largest of the three right in the middle. A fourth was a little lower and farther off to the right, the southeast, and a fifth sat atop a low ledge to the left.

  Tienna lowered her eyes. Her heart felt empty. All sense of relief at their escape from the mountain had rushed away. She felt as cold and lifeless as the snow. She looked toward Thimeon just as Jhonna stepped up beside him. Tienna could see fear or despair in her gaunt eyes and taut face as she looked at Thimeon. “What does this mean?” she asked.

  “It means,” Cathros said from behind her, “that there will be no hiding from our enemy.”

  The statement was not gentle, but Tienna knew it was true. They would not escape by fleeing across the slope. Again she looked back at the tunnel. The stream of water rushing out of the mountain removed hope of returning that way.