Percepliquis trr-6 Page 25

  “She’s not in much shape for a return trip,” Wyatt stated, looking at the princess. “I was thinking that maybe Elden and I ought to stay here and work on her while the rest of you fetch that horn. I could rig a few pulleys in these rocks, and with Elden’s help, I might be able to set a new mast if we manage to find something we can use for one. At the very least, I could run a jib line and reinforce the pole we have. I also think the rudder needs some work and I need to stop the leaks that opened up or she’ll sink on the way back. I have the pitch for that; I just need to make a fire and get the hull out of the water, which the tide should help with.”

  “And if the Ghazel spot you?” Arista asked.

  “Well, I will do my best to avoid that, but if they come around, I suppose we’ll hide among the rocks. I’m hoping that after today, we won’t be seeing any more of them for a while. Perhaps we have at least a few days before another ship arrives.

  “Thing is, I’m on this trip for my sailing skills, right? I can’t handle a sword as well as a Pickering or Hadrian, and I wasn’t brought along for that, anyway. Neither was Elden. Besides, you can leave the excess gear here, and travel lighter.”

  Arista nodded. She did not look strong enough to argue.

  “I really didn’t mean to hit you so hard,” Hadrian told her as Arista sat down on the sand.

  “What?” she asked sluggishly. “Oh no, it’s not my head. It’s just that I feel exhausted, even after sleeping. I feel like I’ve walked for miles and been up for weeks. You know better than I do-do you get that from being whacked in the head?”

  “No, not really,” he replied. “It just usually throbs awhile and aches after that.”

  “I feel sort of like you do when coming down with a cold-weak, tired. My mind just wanders and I can’t stay focused. It doesn’t help that anytime I sleep, I have dreams.”

  “What kind of dreams?”

  “You’ll think I’m crazy,” she said, embarrassed.

  “I thought that from the first time we met.”

  She smirked at him. “In my dreams I’m not me-I actually think I’m Esrahaddon, only it’s years ago, before this city was destroyed, before the emperor was killed, before he was locked up.”

  “That’s what you get from wearing that robe.”

  She looked down. “It’s a really nice robe-very warm, and have you ever seen one that lights up for you?”

  “It’s a little creepy.”

  “Maybe.”

  They sat in silence for a minute. Elden and Wyatt walked around the ship, looking at the hull. They were wasting no time assessing the damage. Alric and Mauvin climbed up in the rocks, exploring like children. Myron sat only a few feet away and appeared to be watching them.

  Hadrian stared at the waves as they rolled ashore, splashing just beyond their feet. They would head off soon, but for now, it was good to sit on solid ground. He would nudge Royce in a bit, but he wanted to give him a few minutes. He expected dangers would be greater from that point on, and preferred Royce to be in top form.

  “I should thank you,” Arista said with downcast eyes and a quiet voice, as if it were a confession.

  He looked at her curiously. “For what?”

  “For the crack on the head,” she replied, raising a hand to rub the spot. She took the bandage off. “Alric was right. I’d lost control.” Her hair fell across her face-an auburn curtain hiding everything but the tip of her nose. “It’s hard to explain the feeling of it-the power-it’s as if I can do anything. Can you imagine knowing you can do anything? It’s exciting, alluring-it draws you in and you want it like a hunger. You feel yourself becoming part of something bigger, joining with it, working with it. You sense every drop of water, every blade of grass, and you become them-everything-the air and the stars. You want to see how far you can go, where the edges are, only some part of you knows-there are no edges.

  “I never did anything that big before. I spread out too far. I joined with it too much. I was losing myself, I think. It was just so amazing, feeling the world respond to me like it was a part of me, or I was a part of it. I don’t know-I wasn’t thinking anymore. I was just feeling and I don’t know what might have happened if you hadn’t…”

  “Whacked you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m just glad you aren’t mad,” he said, and meant it. “Most people I hit wake up with a slightly different attitude.”

  “I suppose they do.” She pulled the curtain of hair back and tilted her head up at him. She had a self-conscious smile on her face. “I’d also like to thank you for something else.”

  He looked at her once more-confused and a little worried.

  “I want to thank you for not being afraid of me.”

  Her hair was tangled, her face drawn and weary. She had drooping eyes and thin pale pink lips. There was a pinch of sand on the tip of her nose. Creases marked her forehead, thin lines of worry.

  Is there anyone quite like her?

  He fought an urge to brush the sand from her nose.

  “Who says I’m not afraid of you?” he asked her.

  He saw her turning that comment over in her mind and felt it was best to end the conversation before he said something stupid. He got up, dusted the sand off himself, and went looking for his pack. He had just reached the ship, where Wyatt was coiling a length of rope, when the two scouts returned.

  “There’s a passage up that way,” Mauvin announced, grinning.

  They came to the side of the ship, where they found their packs and, pulling out their water sacks, threw their heads back and guzzled to quench their thirst.

  “It’s amazing,” Alric said, wiping the water from his beard. “There are these huge statues of lions-their paws are taller than I am! This really is Percepliquis. I want to go in. We should get going.”

  “Wyatt and Elden are planning to stay here,” Hadrian told him.

  “Why?” he asked, concerned and perhaps a bit annoyed.

  “They plan to fix the ship while we’re gone and have it ready for us by the time we get back.”

  “Oh, okay, that makes sense-good sense. That’s great. Now let’s get our stuff and get going. I’ve waited all my life to see this.” Alric and Mauvin trotted back aboard the Harbinger to find the rest of their gear.

  “Kings,” Hadrian said to Wyatt with a shrug.

  “Be careful,” Wyatt told him. “And keep an eye on Gaunt.”

  “Gaunt?”

  “You’re too trusting,” Wyatt said. He nodded to where Gaunt sat near the dwarf on a large stone slab. “He spends a lot of time with Magnus and he was unusually friendly with me and Elden, like he was buddying up with the drafted members of the party, trying to form a group of dissenters. Remember what I told you on the Emerald Storm? There’s always one member of any crew who’s looking for a mutiny.”

  “And he’s our only hope,” Hadrian replied with a lilt of irony in his voice. “You’d better be careful too. As you know, the Ghazel are no joke. Keep an eye out. Don’t sleep on the ship. Don’t light any fires.”

  “Trust me, I remember the arena at the Palace of the Four Winds. I have no desire to cross swords with them a second time.”

  “That’s good, because this isn’t an arena and there are no rules. Out here they’ll swarm over you like an army of ants.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Same to you and make sure this ship is ready to sail when we get back. I’ve been on enough jobs with Royce to know that while the going in may be slow, the coming out is usually a race.”

  The ruins of the city began at the water’s edge, although this was not entirely evident until they left the sand and moved inland, where they had a wider perspective. The large stone blocks were part of the broken foundation of white marble columns that had once stood a hundred feet tall. They knew this by discovering three remaining columns still upright, yet how they had managed to remain this way was bewildering, as the blocks had shifted precariously.

  They found the passage Alric
and Mauvin had discovered, which began at the feet of two huge lions carved from stone. Each was easily two hundred feet tall, although one was missing its head, which had fallen away. The remaining lion showed a fierce face with teeth bared and a full and flowing mane.

  “The Imperial Lions,” Myron muttered as they passed under their shadow and Royce paused to light his lantern.

  “I’ve seen these before,” Arista whispered, her head back, looking up at the sculptures. “In my dreams.”

  “What do you know of this place, Myron?” Royce asked, lifting his light and peering forward into a vast labyrinth of crumbled stone and silhouetted ruins.

  “Which author would you like to hear from? Antun Bulard did a wonderful study of the ancient texts as well as-”

  “Summarize, please.”

  “Right, okay, well, legend has it that this was once a small agrarian village, the home of a farmer’s daughter named Persephone. They lived in fear of the elves, who had reportedly burned nearby villages and slaughtered the inhabitants right down to every man, woman, and child. Persephone’s village was next but a man called Novron appeared in the village. He fell in love with Persephone and vowed to save her. He begged her to leave the village but she refused, so he decided to stay and swore to protect her.

  “He took charge and rallied the men. When the attack came, he defeated the forces of the elves, saving the village. He revealed himself to be Novron, the son of Maribor, sent to protect his children from the greed of the Children of Ferrol.

  “Many battles later, Novron defeated the elves at the Battle of Avempartha and a time of peace with the elves began. Novron wished to build a capital for his great empire and a home for his wife. Although he ruled vast tracks of land, Persephone refused to live anywhere other than her village. So it was here that Novron built his capital, naming it Percepliquis- the city of Persephone.

  “Over the years it became the largest and most sophisticated city in the world. It is chronicled as being five miles across and the seat of a famous university and library. Scholars came from across the empire to study. The Grand Imperial Palace was built here and it was a place of temples, gardens, and parks. Records report that the city had clean water fountains open to the public and baths where citizens lounged in heated pools.

  “Percepliquis was also the home of the imperial bureaucracy, a vast system of offices that administered the empire, controlling its economy and social and political institutions. There were agents responsible for rooting out potential dissidents, suspected criminals, and corrupt officials. And of course, it was home to the Teshlor Guild and the Cenzar Council-the imperial knights and the college of wizards that advised and protected the emperor.

  “Through his bureaucracy the emperor controlled everything, from the forests to mines, farms, granaries, shipyards, and cloth mills. Corruption was held in check by appointing more than one head of each department and by rotating them out frequently. They never appointed local men who might have ties to those they administered to. Even prostitution was regulated by the empire.

  “Percepliquis was a place of great wealth. The center of the empire’s trade that spanned all of Apeladorn and reached even into the exotic Westerlins and north into Estrendor, it bustled with richly dressed merchants and the roads were legendary. They were huge, wide thoroughfares of well-laid stone, perfectly straight, that ran for miles in all directions. Trees were planted on either side of them to provide shade, and they were well maintained and marked with milestones. Wells and shelters were placed at regular intervals for the comfort of travelers.

  “There was no famine, no crime, no disease or plague. No droughts were ever recorded, nor floods, nor even harsh frosts. Food was always plentiful, and no one was poor.”

  “I can see why the Imperialists want to recapture that ideal,” Alric observed.

  “Which just goes to show how foolish people can be,” Gaunt said. “No famine, no drought, no disease, no poor? There’s about as much chance of that happening as-”

  “As you becoming emperor?” Royce asked.

  Gaunt scowled.

  “So what should we be looking for?” Royce asked.

  Myron shook his head. “I don’t know,” he replied, and glanced at Arista.

  “The tomb of Novron,” the princess told them.

  “Oh.” Myron brightened. “That would be under the palace in the center of the city.”

  “Any way to identify it?”

  “It’s a huge white building with a solid-gold dome,” Arista answered for him, gaining several surprised looks. She shrugged. “I’m guessing.”

  Myron nodded. “Good guess.”

  They moved on as before, with Royce in the lead, fleet of foot as always, investigating shadows and crevices, his light bobbing. Alric and Mauvin followed at a distance in a manner that reminded Hadrian of a fox hunt. Arista and Myron walked together, both staring up at their surroundings with great interest. Gaunt and Magnus followed them, occasionally speaking in whispers. Hadrian brought up the rear once more, glancing over his shoulder repeatedly. He already missed Wyatt and Elden.

  They followed a passage that wove between collapsed rockfalls until they reached a street of neatly paved stones, each cut in a hexagon and fitted with stunning precision. Here, at last, the mounds of rubble gave way, allowing them to view the shattered remains of the once-magnificent city that rose around them.

  Great buildings of rose or white stone, tarnished by age and curtained in debris, had lost none of their beauty. What immediately captured Hadrian’s attention was how tall they were. Pillars and arches soared hundreds of feet in the air, supporting marvelously decorated entablatures and pediments. Great domes of burnished bronze and stone-crowned buildings with diameters in excess of a hundred feet were far larger than anything he had ever seen before. Colonnades supporting a row of arches ran for hundreds of yards as mere decoration, standing out before load-bearing walls. Statues of unknown men were exquisitely sculpted such that they might move at any minute. They adorned silent fountains, pedestals, and building facades.

  The grandeur of the city was stunning, as was its rattled state. Each building, each pillar, each stone appeared to have dropped from some great height. Blocks of stone lay askew and shifted out of place. Some teetered beyond imagination, loose, twisted, and misaligned so that it looked as if the weight of a sparrow would topple a structure of a thousand tons. The devastation was not even or predictable. Some buildings missed whole walls. Most no longer had roofs, while others revealed the shift of only a few stones. Despite the disarray, other aspects of the city were astonishingly preserved. A seller’s market stood untouched; brooms remained standing, stacked on display. A pot stall exhibited several perfect clay urns, their brilliant ceramic glazes of red and yellow dimmed only by a coat of fine dust. On the left side of the street, in front of a disheveled four-story residence, lay three skeletons, their clothes still on them but rotted nearly to dust.

  “What happened to this place?” Gaunt asked.

  “No one knows exactly,” Myron replied, “although there have been many theories. Theodor Brindle asserted that it was the wrath of Maribor for the murder of his blood. Deco Amos the Stout found evidence that it was destroyed by the Cenzar, in particular the wizard Esrahaddon. Professor Edmund Hall, whose trail we are on, believed it was a natural catastrophe. After crossing the salty sea and seeing the state of the city, he concluded in his journal that the ancient city sat upon a cavern of salt, which was dissolved with a sudden influx of water, thus causing the city above to collapse. There are several other more dubious explanations, such as demons, and even one rumor concerning the bitterness of dwarves and how they pulled it down out of spite.”

  “Bah!” Magnus scoffed. “Humans always blame dwarves. A baby goes missing and it was a dwarf that stole it. A princess runs off with a second son of a king and it was a dwarf who lured her to a deep prison. And when they find her with the prince-lo, she was rescued!”

  “A king is stabbed
in the back in his own chapel, and a princess’s tower is turned into a death trap,” Royce called back to them. “Friends are betrayed and trapped in a prison-yes, I can see your surprise. Where do they get such ideas?”

  “Damn his elven ears,” Magnus said.

  “What?” Gaunt asked, shocked. “Royce is an elf?”

  “No, he’s not,” Alric said. He looked back over his shoulder. “Is he?”

  “Why don’t you ask him?” Arista replied.

  “Royce?”

  The bobbing light halted. “I don’t see how this is the time or place for discussing my lineage.”

  “Gaunt brought it up. I was just asking. You don’t look elven.”

  “That’s because I am a mir. I’m only part elven, and since I never met my parents, I can’t tell you any more than that.”

  “You’re part elven?” Myron said. “How wonderful for you. I don’t think I’ve ever met an elf. Although I have met you, so perhaps I have met others and don’t know it. Still, it is quite exciting, isn’t it?”

  “Is this going to be an issue?” Royce asked the king. “Are you planning on questioning my allegiance?”

  “No, no, I wasn’t,” Alric said. “You’ve always been a loyal servant-”

  Hadrian started walking forward, wondering if he had returned Royce’s dagger too soon.

  “Servant? Loyal?” Royce asked, his voice growing lower and softer.

  Never a good sign, Hadrian thought. “Royce, we need to keep moving, right?”

  “Absolutely,” he said, staring directly at Alric.

  “What did I say?” the king asked after Royce resumed his advance. “I was merely-”

  “Stop,” Hadrian told him. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but just stop. He can still hear you and you’ll only make matters worse.”