Part 23 (1/2)

Liza drew in a slow, calming breath. ”No,” she said, her face hard and filled with hatred. ”You meant to kill him and you did. He would not go to his knees to you, would not do your bidding, so you destroyed him. You tortured him and you killed him because your love was spurned.” Her chin raised. ”Because he wanted no part of you or what you offered, your jealousy took him away from the both of us, and one day, you will pay for that mistake!”

”You don't know-”

”I know you for what you are. A man obsessed with power, with having all those around you bend to your will.” She took still another step closer. ”But Conar wouldn't bend, would he? He wouldn't bend and he wouldn't break, so you simply decided to crush him.” She forced herself to put a hand on the Arch-Prelate's shoulder, although the contact made her sick to her stomach.

He looked at her, saw her face bright with the light of triumph.

”But you know something, Tohre?” she asked, her voice calm, infinitely sweet. ”In killing him, you a.s.sured him immortality, for his people will never forget him, and they will never stop hating you for what you did to him. And one day,” she said, her voice going low and silky, ”there will come a warrior who will make you pay for what you did. He will reach out with steel-mailed fists and crush you as you crushed Conar McGregor! There will be a war the likes of which this land has never known.”

”When that day comes,” he hissed, shrugging aside her hand, ”I will win!”

Liza's smile was lethal, her laugh rich and throaty, filled with contempt. ”Never!” she whispered. ”Never!”

Chapter 13.

”Hold up that d.a.m.ned light, Tarnes!” Holm snarled as he tried to decipher Brelan's rambling scrawl on the makes.h.i.+ft map. In the dim torchlight, the captain could see little inside the narrow walls of the bluff. He had been coughing and sneezing since they had left the sulfurous lava bed over which they had carefully crossed the natural arched stone bridge.

Dyllon McGregor leaned over his shoulder. ”I never could read Bre's scribbling, either.”

Coron also peered over Holm's shoulder. ”Looks like that way,” he pointed to a dark tunnel, ”leads to some kind of underground lake.” He tried to focus on the wild handwriting. ”Unless I miss my guess, this pa.s.sageway leads around the lake and comes out near what looks to be a forest.”

”There ain't no forests on Tyber's Isle,” Tarnes snorted.

”Well, that looks like trees!” Coron defended, pointing at the map.

”A garden, maybe?” Wyn asked, looking at his uncles.

”Possibly.” Coron took the map and studied it. ”Looks like corn stalks.”

Tarnes walked carefully toward the pa.s.sageway the map had marked as an alternative route into the penal colony. He held his torch high and inspected the footing, the walls. ”We ain't going to find it standing here jawing!” He started into the pa.s.sage.

Holm shouldered Dyllon to one side. He plowed into Tarnes' back. ”Get the h.e.l.l out of my way!” Holm s.n.a.t.c.hed the torch.

”Watch out for them beasties Lord Saur warned you be lurking about in these caverns!”

Holm turned, a hint of worry on his weathered features, but then he recognized the shot as ill-concealed petulance. ”Remind me to demote you to cabin boy when we return to the Queen!”

For more than an hour, the men followed the tunnel deeper into the craggy cavern. They heard the faint rumble of water splas.h.i.+ng against stone and knew they were near the underground lake. The going was rough, the pathway so narrow only one man at a time could walk it, but the darkness around them was getting lighter and the air fresher.

”Captain, didn't you say Brelan told you there was a shaft of some sort a few feet from where the hidden opening would be?” Belvoir asked, walking behind Coron.

”Aye. He said we'd see it before we reached the shamrock stone.” Holm wished he'd asked Saur to be more explicit. All he could remember the boy saying was that if you pushed on the second stone, the hidden pa.s.sage would open.

”Does that look like it might be a hole of some sort-up there?” Belvoir inquired.

”Lower them torches!” Holm ordered. The men put the torches to the floor, while Holm squinted. ”I think that's it. Just ahead.”

They walked about fifty feet and stopped, gazing at a small hole high above in the bluff.

”Now where the h.e.l.l is that shamrock stone?” Holm asked, holding the torch about him and realizing they had come to a dead end.

”What's a shamrock stone?” Wyn asked. When everyone turned to Holm instead of answering, Wyn saw the captain's face turn red in the torchlight.

”Well,” Holm procrastinated, ”he said I'd know it when I saw it.” He looked away sheepishly. ”I didn't ask him to describe the thing.”

”If he said to press the second stone,” Belvoir said, running his hand along the outcropping of rocks, ”then there must be a first stone and maybe a few more.” Belvoir began to push against each stone he saw.

Holm sighed. There must be well over a hundred stones jutting out from the wall. He leaned against the far section. His old body wasn't accustomed to this long trek from the desert, through caverns and such. He rested his arm on a triangular section of stones to his right and realized the three made what could well be a good stanchion for his torch. He shoved the rushes through the wedge between the first and second stone, then gasped as something behind him moved.

”That's it!” Wyn said, hearing a low rumble.

A white blur of light shone from about three feet above the captain's head to within a foot of the cavern's floor. Fresh air poured in and with it, the smell of rotting vegetation, damp earth and manure.

Holm saw the crack in the rock face. He wedged his hand into the slit, widening the opening. Cautiously, he stood in the lighted crack and peered out.

”What do you see?” Coron asked, his hand on the Captain's shoulder.

”Corn.” Holm poked his head around the crack. The opening was, indeed, to one side of a garden with head-high corn

and tomato plants. ”And not a d.a.m.ned soul.”

”Do you hear anything?” Dyllon asked.

”Nary a sound. Eerie feeling, it is.”

”Well,” Dyllon said, ”someone's got to go out there.”

”Me,” Mister Tarnes said, hitching up his breeches.

”You?”Holm gasped.

”Of course!” the old salt said. ”We can't let Belvoir go out there. He looks like a warrior. You can't, Cap'n, cause you

might be recognized. If we lose one of His Graces, or the Prince's son, it'd be h.e.l.l to pay.”

Holm stared at the wizened little man. ”And if we lose you, it ain't no big deal!”