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  “She’s got her robe glowing,” Alric said uncomfortably.

  When Hadrian got down, he saw the princess perched on an outcropping of rock. Her legs dangled over the edge, scissoring in the air, her robe glowing white. Whenever she moved, the shadows shifted. Everyone stole repeated glances, as if it might be impolite to stare. Gaunt had no such reservation as he gaped, openly horrified.

  On they went, following the same order, all of them doing their job with a rhythm. They traveled in silence except for the necessary calls of “down” and “clear.” It took five more descents before he heard Wyatt call up, “Stop! I’m at the bottom!”

  “You’re still on the rope,” Hadrian shouted back, confused. “You haven’t touched down yet? You need more slack?”

  “No! No slack! I would prefer not to touch down.”

  “River?” Arista asked.

  “Nope, but it’s moving.”

  “What is?”

  “Can’t really tell. It’s too dark down here. Give me a minute to find a place to land.”

  In time, they all descended to an island of rock that jutted up from the floor of the cavern. Even with Arista beside him, it was too dark for Hadrian to see clearly what lay around them. All he knew was that they stood on an island within a sea of dark movement. He smelled a foul odor and heard a soft chattering coming from the floor. The smell was very much like an old chicken coop. “What is it, Royce?”

  “I really think you need to see this for yourself,” Royce replied. “Arista, can you turn that thing up?”

  Before he finished his sentence, Esrahaddon’s robe increased in brilliance, a phosphorous light illuminating the entire base of the shaft. What they saw left them speechless. They were not actually at the bottom. They stood on the tip of an up-thrusted rock, tall enough to breach the surface of a monolithic pile of bat droppings. The cone-shaped mound of guano stood easily three hundred feet high. Every inch of it moved, as across its surface scurried hundreds of thousands of cockroaches.

  “By Mar!” Mauvin exclaimed.

  “That’s disgusting,” Alric said.

  There was more there than cockroaches. Hadrian spotted something white and spidery darting across the surface—a crab, and there was not just one, but hundreds all scuttling along. There was a faint squeal lower down and he saw a rat. The rodent was scrambling to escape the pile as a horde of beetles swarmed it. The rat toppled and was pulled onto its back, where it floundered, struggling in the soft guano. It squealed again. Its feet, tail, and head quivered and thrashed above the surface as an endless mob of beetles pulled it down, until only the trembling, hairless tail was visible, and then it too vanished.

  “ ‘Crawling, crawling, crawling. They eat everything,’ ” Myron quoted.

  “Anyone want to try walking across that?” Royce asked.

  Wyatt replied with an uncomfortable laugh, then said, “No, seriously, how do we get down?”

  “What if we jump and run real fast?” Mauvin offered.

  This idea garnered several grimaces.

  “What if it’s not solid? Can you imagine it being so soft that you went under, like water?” Magnus muttered.

  “You’re thinking something,” Hadrian said to Royce. “You saw this from above. You wouldn’t have come down if you didn’t have some kind of plan.”

  He shook his head. “Not me, but I was hoping she would.” He gestured at Arista.

  All eyes turned to the princess and she returned the looks with an expression of surprise and self-doubt.

  “You need to provide us with a path or something,” Royce told her. “Some means of getting down the slope of this pile. There’s an opening over there, a crack in the wall—see it?” He pointed. “It will be tight, but I think we can get through. Of course, we’ll have to crawl, possibly even dig our way out. So really, anything you can do to distract the meat-eating beetles would be nice.”

  She nodded and sighed. “I really don’t have a lot of experience at this.”

  “You do what you can,” Hadrian told her.

  “The only other alternative is Mauvin’s idea—we run for it and hope to get out before we’re completely eaten.”

  Arista made a face and nodded again. “Everyone should stand behind me. I don’t know exactly what will happen.”

  “What’s she gonna do?” Gaunt asked. “What’s going on?”

  “Just do as she says,” Royce told him.

  The princess took a position on the edge of the rock and faced the mound. The rest gathered behind her, shifting their feet so as not to fall. Arista stood with her arms at her sides, rotating her palms out toward the mound, and slowly, softly, she began to hum. Then the light of her robe went out.

  Darkness swallowed them.

  Their only reference point was the tiny circle of starlit sky that lingered overhead, and in the absence of sight, the chattering sounds of a million roaches echoed. They all stood close to each other, huddled against the black, when tiny lights began appearing. Pinpricks flashed and died in the air before them. While the sparks lived, they swirled and drifted, riding currents of spinning air. More appeared, until Hadrian felt he was seeing the top of a giant campfire. There was no flame, only the swarm of sparks that rose high into the air, carried up as if the shaft were an enormous chimney.

  In addition to the sparks, there was heat. It felt as if Hadrian stood before his father’s forge. He could feel it baking his clothes and flushing his skin. With the heat came a new smell; far worse than the musty ammonia scent, this was thick and overpowering—the gagging stench of burning hair. As they watched, the pile before them began to radiate light, a faint red glow, like embers in a neglected fireplace. Then spontaneously flames caught, flaring here and there, throwing tall demonic shadows dancing on the walls.

  “All right! All right!” Alric shouted. “That’s enough! That’s enough! You’re burning my face off!”

  The flames subsided, the red glow faded, and the soaring sparks died. Arista’s robe once more glowed, but fainter and with a bluish tint. Her shoulders slumped and her legs wavered. Hadrian grabbed hold of her by the elbow and waist.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Did it work? Is anyone hurt?” she asked, turning to look.

  “A little seared, perhaps,” he said.

  Royce ventured a foot out onto the pile. There was an audible crunch, as if he were stepping on eggshells. The surface of the mound looked dark and glassy. Nothing moved anymore.

  Royce took two steps, then returned promptly to the island. “Still a tad warm. We might want to wait a bit.”

  “How did you do that?” Degan asked, astonished, while at the same time shifting away from her as far as the tiny perch allowed.

  “She’s a witch,” Magnus said.

  “She’s not a witch!” In the otherwise silent cave, the volume of his own voice embarrassed Hadrian. It echoed twice. He noticed Alric looking at him, surprised, and he felt suddenly crowded. He stepped off and started walking.

  He felt the surface of the pile crackle beneath his weight, the heat under his boots as if he were striding across sunbaked sand. He shuffled down the side of the pile, kicking the roasted remains of crabs aside. Light bobbed behind him and he knew at least Arista followed. They reached the crack. It was larger than it had seemed at a distance, and he was able to pass through without so much as ducking.

  CHAPTER 9

  WAR NEWS

  The two girls sprinted along the parapet, their dark winter cloaks waving in their wake. Mercy jerked to a halt and Allie nearly ran her down. They bumped and both giggled into the cold wind. The sky was as gray as the castle walls they stood on, their cheeks a brilliant red from the cold, but they were oblivious to such things.

  Mercy got to her hands and knees, and crawling between the merlons, she peered down. Huge blocks of unevenly colored stone formed a twenty-foot-high wall, the squares seeming to diminish in size the farther away they were. At the bottom lay a street, where dozens of people walked, r
ode, or pushed carts. The sight made Mercy’s stomach rise, and her hands felt so weak that squeezing anything caused a tickling sensation. Still, it was wonderful to see the world from so high, to see the roofs of houses and the patterns formed by streets. With the snow, almost everything was white, but there were splashes of color: the side of a red barn on a distant hill, the three-story building painted sky blue, the bronze patches of road where snow retreated before the heat of traffic. Mercy had never seen a city before, much less one from this height. Being on the battlements of the palace made her feel as if she were the empress of the world, or at least a flying bird—both of equal delight in her mind.

  “He’s not down there!” Allie shouted, her voice buffeted by the wind so that her words came to Mercy as if from miles away. “He doesn’t have wings!”

  Mercy crawled back out of the blocks of stone and, bracing her back against the battlement, paused to catch her breath.

  Allie was standing before her—grinning madly, her hood off, dark hair flying in the wind. Mercy hardly noticed Allie’s ears, or the odd way her eyes narrowed, anymore. Mercy had been fascinated by her that first day, when they had met in the dining hall. She had wandered away from the Pickerings’ table to get a closer look at the strange elven girl. Allie had been just as interested in Mr. Rings, and from then on the two were inseparable. Allie was her best friend—even better than Mr. Rings, for although Mercy confided all her secrets to each, Allie could understand.

  Allie sympathized when Mercy told her how Arcadius had refused to let her roam the forests near the university. She had suffered equally from similar hardships, such as when her father refused to let her roam their home city of Colnora. Both girls spent long nights by candlelight sharing horror stories of their adventure-impoverished childhoods, rendered such by overprotective guardians who refused to see the necessity of finding tadpoles or obtaining the twisted metal the tinsmith threw away.

  They tried on each other’s clothes. Allie’s wardrobe consisted of boyish outfits, mostly tunics and trousers, all faded and worn, with holes in the knees and elbows, but Mercy found them marvelous. They were much easier to wear than dresses when climbing trees. Allie had very few clothes compared to the many dresses, gowns, and cloaks Mercy used to have at the university, but of course, now Mercy had only the one outfit Miranda had dressed her in the day they had fled Sheridan. In the end, all they managed to do was trade cloaks. Mercy’s was thicker and warmer, but she liked how Allie’s old tattered wrap made her look dashing, like some wild hero.

  Allie let Mercy play with the spare sextant her father had given her, showing her how to determine their position by the stars. In return, Mercy let Allie play with Mr. Rings, but began regretting the decision now that he climbed on Allie’s shoulder more often than her own. Late at night she would scold the raccoon for his disloyalty, but he only chattered back. She was not at all certain he understood the gravity of the problem.

  “There!” Allie shouted, pointing farther up the parapet, where Mercy spotted the raccoon’s tiny face peering at them from around the corner. The two bolted after him. The face vanished, a ringed tail flashed and was gone.

  The two slid on the snow as they rounded the corner. They were at the front of the palace now, above the great gates. On the outside was a large square, where vendors sold merchandise from carts and barkers shouted about the best leather, the slowest-burning candles, and the bargain price of honey. On the inside lay the castle courtyard and, beyond it, the tall imposing keep, rising as a portly tower with numerous windows.

  The raccoon was nowhere to be seen.

  “More tracks!” Mercy cried dramatically. “The fool leaves a trail!”

  Off they ran once more, following the tiny hand-shaped imprints in the snow.

  “He went down the tower stairs, lasses,” the turret guard informed them as they raced by. Mercy only glanced at him. He was huge, as all the guards were, wearing his silver helm and layers of dark wool, and holding a spear. He smiled at her and she smiled back.

  “There!” Allie shouted, pointing across the courtyard at a dark shadow darting under a delivery cart.

  They scrambled down the steps, bounded to the bottom, and raced across the ward. They caught up to him when he neared the old garden. The two split up like hunters driving their quarry. Allie blocked Mr. Rings’s path, forcing him toward Mercy, who was closing in. At the last minute, Mr. Rings fled toward the woodpile outside the kitchen. He easily scaled the stacked logs and scampered through a window, left open a crack to vent smoke.

  “Crafty villain!” Allie cursed.

  “You can’t escape!” Mercy shouted.

  Mercy and Allie entered the yard door to the kitchen and raced through the scullery, startling the servants, one of whom dropped a large pan, which rang like a gong. Shouts and curses echoed behind them as they sped up the stairs, past the linen storeroom, and into the great hall, where Mercy finally made a spectacular diving grab and caught Mr. Rings by the back foot. His tiny claws skittered over the polished floor, but to no avail. She got a better grip and pulled him to her.

  “Gotcha!” she proclaimed, lying on her back, hugging the raccoon and panting for breath. “It’s the gallows for you!”

  “A-hem.”

  Mercy heard the sound and instantly knew she was in trouble.

  She rolled over and, looking up, saw a woman glaring down, her arms folded and a stern look across her face. She wore a brilliant black gown decorated with precious stones that twinkled like stars. At the nearby table, another woman and eight men with grim faces stared at them.

  “I don’t recall inviting you to this meeting,” the woman told Mercy. “Or you,” she said to Allie, who had tumbled in behind Mercy. She then focused on Mr. Rings. “And I know I didn’t invite you.”

  “Forgive us, Your Eminence,” the two door guards said in near unison as they rushed forward, the foremost taking a rough hold of Allie. The second guard grabbed for Mercy, who scrambled to her feet, frightened.

  The lady raised a delicate hand, bending it slightly at the wrist, and instantly the guard halted.

  “You are forgiven,” she told him. “Let her go.”

  The guard holding Allie obeyed and the little girl took a step away, looking at him warily.

  “You’re the empress?” Mercy asked.

  “Yes,” she replied. “My name is Modina.”

  “I’m Mercy.”

  “I know. Allie has told me all about you. And this is Mr. Rings, correct?” the empress asked, reaching out a hand and stroking the raccoon’s head. Mr. Rings tilted his snout down in a shy gesture as he was awkwardly held to Mercy’s chest, his belly exposed. “Is he the one causing all the trouble?”

  “It’s not his fault,” Mercy blurted out. “We were just playing a game. Mr. Rings was the despicable thief who stole the crown jewels and me and Allie were on the hunt tracking him down to face the axman’s justice. Mr. Rings just happens to be a really good thief.”

  “I see, but alas, we are in the middle of a very important meeting that does not include thieves, axmen, or little girls.” She focused on Mr. Rings, as if she were speaking only to him. “And raccoons, no matter how cute, are not allowed. If you two would be so kind as to take him back to the kitchen and ask Mr. Thinly to make him a plate of something, perhaps that will keep him out of mischief. See if he can also find some sweetmeats for the two of you—toffee, perhaps? And while he is being so kind, you might return the favor by asking if there are any chores you can do for him.”

  Mercy was nodding even before she finished.

  “Away with you, then,” she said, and the two sprinted back the way they had come, exchanging wide-eyed looks of relief.

  Modina watched them race out, then turned back to the council. She did not resume her seat but preferred to walk, taking slow steps, circling the long table where her ministers and knights waited. The only sounds in the room were the crackle of the fire and the click of her shoes. She walked more for effect than fr
om need. As empress, she had discovered the power and necessity of appearances.

  The dress was an outward expression of this. Stiff, tight, restraining, noisy, and generally uncomfortable, it was nonetheless impressive. She noticed the expressions of awe in the eyes of all who beheld her. Awe begot respect; respect begot confidence; confidence begot courage, and she needed her people to be brave. She needed them to cast aside their doubts even in the face of a terrible growing shadow. She needed them to believe in the wisdom of a young woman even when faced with annihilation.

  The men at the table were not fools. They would not be there if she thought them so. They were practical, clear-thinking, war-hardened leaders. Such romantic notions as the infallibility of a daughter of Novron did not impress them. The count of spears and a calculated plan were more to their liking. Still, even such efforts she knew to be futile. Warriors on a battlefield and the belief in a demigod empress would stand equal chance of saving them now. They had but one hope and—as a goddess, or as a thoughtful ruler—she needed their blind acceptance to raise the payment needed to buy time. So she walked with her head bowed, her fingers tapping her lower lip in apparent contemplation, giving the impression that she calculated the number of swords and shields, their positions at the choke points, the river dams set to be broken, the bridges set to be destroyed, the units of cavalry, the state of preparedness of the reserve battalions. More than anything she did not wish to appear to these old men as a flighty girl who held no understanding of the weight she bore.

  She paused, looking at the fire, leaving her back to the table. “You are certain, then?” she asked.

  “Yes, Your Eminence,” Sir Breckton replied. “A beacon is burning.”

  “But only one?”

  “We know that the elves are capable of swiftness and stealth. It’s why we had so many signal patrols.”

  “Still, only one?”

  “It’s no accident.”

  “No, of course not,” she said, pivoting on a heel so that her mantle swept gracefully around. “And I do not doubt it now, but it shows something of their ability. Out of twenty-four, only one man had enough time to lay a torch to a pile of oiled wood.” She sighed. “They have crossed the Galewyr, then. Trent has fallen. Very well, send orders to clear the countryside, evacuate the towns and villages, and break the dams and bridges. Seal us off from the rest of the world—except for the southern pass. That we leave open for the princess. Thank you, gentlemen.”