he thought he’d deciphered every variant script in the Tablelands cities. He’d have liked a few moments to study the marks, but Mahtra had opened a grate.
“Wind and fire,” Ruari exclaimed as he crossed the threshold. “We’re flat out of luck, Pavek.”
Zvain used more inventive language to say the same thing. Mahtra said nothing until Pavek was inside the stone building.
“It has changed,” she whispered, staring at a potent bluegreen warding that cut the space inside the building in half. “Grown bigger and brighter. There is no way. That is why Henthoren is gone.”
That was possible. The warding was as thick and bright as any Pavek had seen before; thicker by far than the wardings the civil bureau maintained on the various postern passages through the city walls. He’d guess a high templar had hung the shimmering curtain.
“There was some light before, but there was a passage here, too.” Mahtra indicated a place now hidden by the warding. “We’d use the passage. Now—They showed me what would happen if I touched the light.”
“It must be twice as powerful as the one under the walls,” Ruari said, making a pensive face. He remembered warding from when Pavek had led them through a postern passage on their way to rescue Akashia from House Escrissar. “At least twice as powerful. I can feel it; it makes my teeth hurt and my hair stand up. The other one didn’t. Don’t think your medallion trick’s going to work like it did last year.”
Pavek shouldered his way to the front. He took his medallion from his neck and grasped it carefully by the edges, with the striding lion to the front. “You forget: I’m at least twice the templar I was then.”
A cascade of blue-green sparks leapt to the medallion, leaving a black, wardless space in the curtain. Pavek moved the ceramic in an outward-growing spiral, collecting more sparks, making a bigger hole. His arm was numb and faintly blue-green by the time he had a hole large enough to let them through. He went last; it closed behind him, leaving them in darkness. Pavek sucked his teeth and swore under his breath.
“What’s the matter?” Ruari asked.
“One-sided warding.”
“So? Then we’ve got no problem getting out—”
The half-elf would have walked headlong into oblivion if Pavek hadn’t seized his arm and shoved him against the rough stone wall.
“Death-trap, fool! Warding to keep curious folk out, but a blind trap for anyone who was already inside when the wards were set.”
Ruari went limp against Pavek’s grip on his shirt. “Can we get out?”
“Same way we got in—just have to make certain I’m in front and my medallion’s in front of me,” Pavek said with more good-humor and optimism than he felt. “Wish I had a bit of chalk to mark the walls. Wish I had a torch to see the walls…”
“There’re torches on the other side,” Mahtra volunteered, then added: “There used to be.”
“I can see,” Ruari informed them, relying on the night-vision he’d inherited from his elven mother. “I’ve marked these rocks in my mind. I’ll know this place when we’re here again. Swear it.”
“See that you do,” Pavek said, and Zvain tittered nervously somewhere on his left. “Still wish I had a torch.”
“The path’s not hard,” Mahtra assured them. “I never carried a torch, and I can’t see in the dark. Hold hands; I’ll lead.”
And she did, without a hint of her earlier trepidations. Her grip was cool and dry around Pavek’s fingers, while Zvain, behind Pavek, had a sweaty hand that threatened to slip away with every hesitant step the boy took. Ruari brought up the rear, or Pavek assumed he did. Between his druid training and his innate talents, the half-elf could be utterly silent when he chose.
The air in the passage was nighttime cool and heavy with moisture, like the air in Telhami’s grove. It had a faintly musty scent, but nothing approaching the stench Pavek would have expected from the carnage Mahtra had described. He’d believed her since she appeared on the salt flats. He’d trusted her unquestioningly, as he trusted no one else, certainly not the Lion-King who’d sent her. A thousand ominous thoughts broke his mind’s surface.
“There’s light ahead,” Ruari announced in an excited whisper.
Light meant magic or fire. Pavek took a deep breath through his nose. He couldn’t smell anything, but he couldn’t see anything, either.
“Let me go first,” he said to Mahtra, striding past her.
The passage was wide enough for two good-sized humans and high enough that he hadn’t