the world ten thousand years ago.’ He looked out at the gloomy,
rearing pile. As Bevier had noted, the main structure was backed
up against the wall that separated this part of Cyrga from the rest
of the city. Shorter towers stair-stepped up to the large central
tower that shouldered high above the rest of the palace and grew,
or so it seemed, out of the wall itself. It appeared that the palace
had not been built to look out over the city, but rather to face the
white limestone temple. The Cyrgai clearly looked at their God,
and turned their backs on the rest of the world.
The door which Talen had unlocked to provide them entry
into this storehouse creaked as it opened and then closed. Then
the soft glow of Xanetia’s face once again dimly illuminated the
area around her.
‘We’ve found them,’ the Child Goddess said as the Anarae
set her down on the flagstoned floor.
Sparhawk’s heart leaped. ‘Are they all right?’
‘They haven’t been treated very well. They’re tired and
hungry and very much afraid. Zalasta took them to see Klael,
and that’s enough to frighten anybody.’
‘Where are they?’ Mirtai demanded intently.
‘At the very top of that highest tower at the back of the palace.’
‘Did you talk with them?’ Kalten asked intently.
Aphrael shook her head. ‘I didn’t think it was a good idea.
What they don’t know about, they can’t talk about.’
‘Anarae,’ Bevier said thoughtfully, ‘would the soldiers in the
palace let Temple Guardsmen move around freely in there?’
‘Nay, Sir Knight. The Cyrgai are much driven by custom, and
Temple Guardsmen have little cause to enter the palace.’
‘I guess we can discard these, then,’ Kalten said, pulling off
the ornate bronze helmet and dark cloak he had purloined in
the lower city. He touched his cheek. ‘We still look like Cyrgai.
We could steal some different uniforms and then just march in,
couldn’t we?’
Xanetia shook her head. ‘The soldiers within the palace are
all kinsmen, members of the royal clan, and are all known to
one another. Subterfuge would be far too perilous.’
‘We’ve got to come up with a way to get into that tower!’
Kalten said desperately.
‘I already have,’ Mirtai told him calmly. ‘It’s dangerous, but
I think it’s the only way.’
‘Go ahead,’ Sparhawk told her.
‘We might be able to sneak up through the palace, but if we’re
discovered, we’d have to fight, and that’d put Ehlana and Alcan
in immediate danger. ‘
Sparhawk nodded bleakly. ‘It’s just too dangerous to risk,’ he
agreed.
‘All right, then. If we can’t go through the palace, we’ll have
to go up the outside.’
‘You mean climb the tower?’ Kalten asked incredulously.
‘It’s not as difficult as it sounds, Kalten. Those walls aren’t
built of marble, so they aren’t smooth. They’re rough stone
blocks, and there are plenty of hand-holds and places to put
your feet. I could climb that back wall like a ladder, if I had to.’
‘i’m not really very graceful, Mirtai,’ he said dubiously. ‘i’ll
do anything at all to rescue Alcan, but I won’t be much good to
her if I make a misstep and fall five hundred feet into the lower
city.’
‘We have ropes, Kalten. I’ll keep you from falling. Talen can
scamper up a wall like a squirrel, and I can climb almost as well.
If we had Stragen and Caalador along, they’d be halfway up the
side of that tower by now.’
‘Mirtai,’ Bevier said in a pained voice, ‘we’re wearing mailshirts.
Climbing a sheer wall with seventy Pounds of steel hanging
from your shoulders might be a little challenging.’
‘Then take the mail-shirt off, Bevier.’
‘I might need it when I get up on top.
‘No problem,’ Talen assured him. ‘We’ll bundle them all
together and pull them up behind us. I do sort of like it, Sparhawk.
It’s quiet, it’s fairly fast, and there probably won’t be any
guards going hand-over-hand around the outside of the tower
looking for intruders. Mirtai’s had training from Stragen and
Caalador, and I was born for burglary. She and I can do the real
climbing. We’ll drop ropes down to the rest of you at various
stages along the way, and you can haul up the mail-shirts and
swords behind you. We can get to the top of that tower in no
time at all. We can do it, Sparhawk. It’ll be easy.’
‘I can’t really think of any alternatives,’ Sparhawk conceded
dubiously.
‘Let’s do it then,’ Mirtai said abruptly. ‘Let’s get Ehlana and
Alcan out of there, and once they’re safe, we can start to take
this place apart.’
‘After I get my real face back,’ Kalten added adamantly.
‘Alcan’s entitled to that much consideration.’
‘Let’s do that right now, Xanetia,’ Aphrael said. ‘Kalten will
nag us about it all night if we don’t.’
‘Nag?’ Kalten objected.
‘What color was your hair again, Kalten? Purple, wasn’t it?’
she asked him with an impish little smile. ‘
CHAPTER 31
There were deep shadows along the western side of the
Women’s Palace when Elysoun, Liatris and Gahennas emerged
through the little-used door and moved quickly through the
darkness to take cover in a nearby grove of ornamental evergreens.
‘This is going to be the dangerous part,’ Liatris cautioned
in a low voice. ‘Chacole knows by now that her assassins weren’t
able to find Gahennas, and she’s certain to have her people out
to try to prevent us from reaching Ehlana’s castle.’
Elysoun looked out at the moon-drenched lawn. ‘That’s
impossible,’ she said. ‘It’s just too bright. There’s a path that
goes on through this grove. It comes out near the Ministry of
the Interior.’
‘That’s the wrong direction, Elysoun,’ Gahennas protested.
‘The Elene castle’s the other way.’
‘Yes, I know, but there’s no cover. There’s nothing between
here and the castle but open lawn. We’d better stick to the
shadows. If we go around on the other side of Interior, we’ll be
able to go through the grounds of the Foreign Ministry. It’s only
about fifty yards from there to the drawbridge of the castle.’
‘What if the drawbridge has been raised?’
‘We’ll worry about that when we get there, Gahennas. But
we have to get into the gardens around the Foreign Ministry first.’
‘let’s go then, ladies,’ Liatris said abruptly. ‘We’re not accomplishing
anything by standing around talking. Let’s go find out
what we’re up againSt.’
‘Back here,’ Talen whispered to them, coming out of a narrow
alleyway. ‘The palace wall runs back to the place where it joins
the outer fortifications at the end of this alley. The right angle
where the two walls meet is perfect for climbing.’
‘Will you need this?’ Mirtai asked, holding her grappling hook
out to him.
‘No. I can make it to the top without it, and we’d better not
risk having some sentry up there hear the hook banging on the
stones.’ He led them back along the alley to the cul-de-sac where
the palace wall butted up against the imposing fortifications
separating the compound from the rest of the city.
‘How high would you say it is?’ Kalten asked, squinting
upward. It was strange to see Kalten’s face again after all the
weeks it had been disguised. Sparhawk tentatively touched his
own face and immediately recognized the familiar contours of
his broken nose.
‘Thirty feet or so,’ Bevier replied softly to Kalten’s question.
Mirtai was examining the angle formed by the joining of the
two walls. ‘This won’t be very difficult,’ she whispered.
‘The whole structure’s poorly designed,’ Bevier agreed
critically.
‘i’ll go up first,’ Talen said.
‘Don’t do anything foolish up there,’ Mirtai cautioned.
‘Trust me.’ He set his foot up on one of the protruding stones
of the outer wall and reached for a hand-hold on the palace wall.
He went up quickly.
‘We’ll check for sentries when we get up there,’ Mirtai quietly
told the others. ‘Then we’ll drop a rope down to you.’ She
reached up and began to follow the young thief up the angle
between the two walls.
Bevier leaned back and looked upward. ‘The moon’s all the
way up now,’ he said.
‘Thinkest thou that it might reveal us?’ Xanetia asked him.
‘No, Anarae. we’ll be climbing the north side of the tower,
so we’ll be in shadow the whole way to the top.’
They waited tensely, craning their necks to watch the climbers
creeping upward.
‘Somebody’s coming!’ Kalten hissed. ‘Up there – along the
battlements!’
The climbers stopped, pulling back into the shadows of the
sharp angle between the two walls.
‘He’s got a torch,’ Kalten whispered. ‘if he holds it out over
those battlements -‘ he left it hanging.
Sparhawk held his breath.
‘It’s all right now,’ Bevier said. ‘He’s going back.’
‘We might want to deal with him when we get up there,’
Kalten noted.
‘Not if we can avoid it,’ Sparhawk disagreed. ‘We don’t want
somebody else to come looking for him.’