David Drake - The Gods Return

Isn't that true, Mistress Ilna?" Ilna looked at him. This wasn't a game any more, but that meant it was even more important that she not lose her temper. "Yes, I suppose it is," she said evenly. "For tonight, at least." "Then allow me to conduct you to your room, Ilna," said the prince as he hopped to his feet. Ilna rose, ignoring the offered hand, as usual. "Yes," she said, "I'm ready to sleep." The room she'd been given was off a cross-hall, midway down the palace's right wing. Rugs and cushions were arranged for a bed; she'd certainly slept on worse. Perrin, as expected, tried to delay her at the door.

Also as expected, she dismissed him without difficulty. The full moon shone through the row of windows just below the roofline. Ilna glanced at it, then used a tripod table to wedge the door. It wouldn't hold long, but it would awaken her. She left a lamp burning. She'd sleep with a pattern bunched in her left fist. Any person who saw it would wish that they were being disemboweled with hooked irons, becausethat would eventually be over. Ilna smiled grimly as she lay down. Of course, she could be completely wrong about the danger here. And perhaps one day pigs would fly.

Chapter 15 "Tomorrow…," said the voice at Ilna's ear. She jerked upright, raising her hands. Usun stood beside her pillow; she tucked the pattern into her sleeve. "… you won't be able to drink the melt water either," the little man said, grinning like a fiend from the Underworld, "but I don't think we'll be here long enough for that to matter. Are you ready to go, mistress?" "When I dress," said Ilna, getting up with an easy motion. From the position of the moon she couldn't have been asleep very long. She'd slept in her inner tunic. She slipped the outer one over her head, then cinched the silken lasso around her waist. "Shall I take the cloak?" "No," said Usun. "We'll be going down, so you'll want to bring the lamp. Another cave, I'm afraid, but you seem to do well in them for all your dislike." Ilna sniffed. "I dislike most things," she said. "I certainly wouldn't find that an acceptable excuse for doing them badly." "We'll go out through the door," said Usun, noticing her glance toward the missing lattice in the row of high windows. "I came in that way because I figured you'd have blocked it from this side.

They didn't put guards in the halls, and they'll wait till the third watch, I'd judge, before they come for you." "All right," said Ilna, lifting the table and setting it out of the way. She took the lamp from the terracotta ledge built into the wall. "Ilna?" the little man said. "Is there any acceptable excuse for bad workmanship?" She looked at him. "No," she said. "There isn't. Not to me." Usun giggled.

"That's what I thought," he said. "Brincisa wassuch a fool when she tried to make a pawn of you." "Are you ready to go?" Ilna said flatly, her hand on the latch lever. "Yes, mistress," Usun said. He giggled again. "We'll turn right and go almost to the end of the hallway." He trotted past her as soon as she had the door open a crack. He wasn't tall enough to reach the latch even by jumping, though she didn't doubt that he could've gotten up there if he'd had to. He prowled along the right-hand side, blending amazingly well with the painted band at the base of the wall. Usun held a stick the length of his outstretched arm. It had a short, sharp iron point and looked useful either for throwing or stabbing. She had no idea where it came from, because the little man hadn't had it when they were in the burial cavern. Apes curled up, often two or three snuggling together, on rugs on the floors of rooms that Ilna passed. One smacked his lips in noisy delight at something in his dreams. A few may have been awake, but even so they didn't track her with their eyes. Usun reached the second door from the end on his side of the corridor. Facing it, he thrust the point of his staff into the lower panel and lunged upward. The staff braced him as he turned the latch. The door swung inward on his weight. Usun's arms were quite strong despite being as spindly as a spider's. The steps beyond led downward. The little man took them in a series of controlled jumps, going down off his left leg, striding to the edge of the next step, and then down again. Ilna hadn't needed the lamp in the hall since plenty of moonlight came through the open doorways. It was pitch dark after she closed the door behind her and followed Usun, however. The stairs were made of bricks which had originally been glazed. Lamplight gleamed on edges where the finish had been protected, but elsewhere they'd been ground to their coarse rusty core. Ilna wondered just how old the stairs were. Her feet whispered. Usun bobbed down ahead of her. He made less sound than even the bird he resembled as he hopped and paced and hopped. What he was doing required a good deal of effort, she realized, imagining herself going down steps of comparable size. He was certainly a wiry little fellow. A moan came up the passage. Ilna thought it was some natural sound, a steam vent or the rush of air through a crack, distorted by its own long echoes. She had to admit that it sounded like a living thing in pain, though. Ilna'd gotten into the rhythm of the descent, so that it was her feet rather than her eyes that told her when the steps changed from brick to being chipped from stone. It was granite and unexpectedly slick. Though the rock was hard, feet had polished it to a high gloss which the porous brick wouldn't take. How many feet, and how many centuries, had been down this passage? Usun led onward.

He'd shifted so that he stepped off his right leg, letting the left side of his body lead. Ilna nodded in approval: she'd learned to vary her posture when she was throwing a heavy loom. You could hurt yourself badly with repetitive work like that; and it was work, no mistake, for the little man. The passage had been squared to begin with; farther down it became rough save where generations of shoulders had brushed it. She didn't think it had been cut with metal tools: at this depth the stairs seemed to have been battered through stone by other stones. Had there been a crack or a natural vent which the human builders had merely enlarged? She didn't know much about rocks-by choice-but she didn't remember ever having seen a vent in granite.

"Master Usun?" Ilna said. How long had it been since they started down? She was never good with time, and the stone all around had robbed her of such facility as she'd ever had. "How much farther does this go?" "It goes this far, Ilna," the little man said. "We've arrived." The stairs ended in a small anteroom, not a landing as Ilna had thought at first. She stepped out to stand beside Usun, facing an iron door. It was at least double her own height, but it was relatively narrow because it had a single valve instead of being double like most doors raised on this scale. She couldn't see either latch or hinges; indeed, from the look of it this might be a panel set in the living rock as decoration or to be worshipped. A polished smear along the left edge at shoulder height suggested that it had been pushed open regularly, but how did you unlock it? Ilna frowned. With only the light of a single lamp wick, the details of the full-length design cast into the black iron weren't very clear, but she could see enough to make her dislike it. A woman in closely fitted armor glared at them. Her face and form were strikingly beautiful, but the expression on the molded features was cruel beyond anything Ilna could recall. One iron hand was closed into a fist; the other held a short trident whose points were barbed. "That's Hili, Queen of the Underworld," said Usun. "A handsome wench, isn't she?" He giggled.

Ilna's frown tightened into a grimace. "How do we open the door?" she said. "Since I presume we need to get to the other side." "Just open it, Ilna," said the little man. "Or here, I will." He put his left hand on the edge of the massive iron panel and pushed. She knew the little man was strong beyond his size, but the way the door swung on hidden hinges was only possible if it had perfect balance.