Lon held the front half of the cracked ladder at his waist and hustled away from the dangerous hole. They didn't need a map. He smelled their way back through the damp stone passages. The exercise helped Lon recover and it soothed his mind. He just wanted this adventure to end.
"Lon, you do realize..." Melcart spoke after a time, "...if you saw a glyph on that cube stone..." he paused and then continued, "then Kluth himself showed it to you."
The white-haired lad warmed at that thought. Could that be true? He slowed to a brisk walk again and surveyed what remained of their last torch. They could make it, barely.
"Because of the.. Crols?" Lon asked over his shoulder.
"Hmmm uuum no."
"True pattern?" he asked.
"No. It's the path," Melcart said. "You are on a clean path, and the mysteries of Kluth are revealed to you.'
"Will you tell me then.. What path are you on?"
Melcart didn't answer. They walked on another fifteen paces before he spoke again. Lon heard him mumble.
"...A scavenger's path."
"That's what it's called?"
"That's the kindest term I've heard," Melcart said. "Scavengers' not supposed to tell their path, by the way."
"And Saeya and Val?"
"Solopaths who became symbiots," Melcart said. "That means they can share basics, but not the two-handed Varget."
"Two-handed Varget?" Lon asked, "And please don't ridicule me for not knowing."
"I'm a little foggy on it too. Do you remember in the sheets...? Every time Spertane used two hands? "
"Spertane was Emerald Key, right? Emerald Eyes? We didn't have those in Dundae."
"Atar has all the Emerald Eyes sheets lacquered in his lodge. So Zed says."
"So, what about Spertane?"
"The sheets say, er they stress that Spertane used both hands to turn the air black with tornadoes, and he raised both hands to freeze a wedge and break the river dam," Melcart replied.
"Two handed Varget?" Lon thought back to Gladragos and Blue Key News. There was a time when he could have quoted those sheets from memory. In every adventure the Varget master in the company would produce some spectacular solution to the group's problem. But hand movements were not recorded in those prints. When Sapphire was in Amaran, the print read that Gladragos spoke and fire appeared in the air. In another story he spoke, and a bolt of lightning jumped from his fist. But there was no mention or him ever needing both hands. Was this more of Melcart's malarkey? Or something he was confused about himself because of his sole reliance on Emerald Eyes' accounts.
"Two-handed like the maestro in the fair prince's court," Melcart continued as they walked. "Like the music-conductor in the parade; he waves-in fiddles and encourages horns you see. He uses both hands at once to make one piece of music. "
"Is this your theory? Or something more widely believed?"
"Just my belief. I cannot imagine a Varget construct that would require two hands, let alone know the words or meanings... Tornadoes? I mean. I'm sure its possible."
"Did Atar show you the mill and the gears and cogs?"
"No." Melcart sighed. .
"How did you find yourself on your.. er.. Path?" Lon asked, relentlessly.
"Do you know what a numismatist is?"
"No."
"An expert in coins," Melcart said. "But I'm more than that."
"Oh?"
"Do you know what it means to have hot hands?" That one he knew.
"Like Clyde's hands?" Lon also recalled how the Calbian steamer operator had metallic digits and how he literally had a hot hand.
"Oh? Could be. That would explain..." Melcart took in the new information about Clyde. "Yes well. I'm not like that. I can sense the silver and gold amounts in alloys, especially in coins."
"Huh. Is this proved?"
"You're so suspicious," the rogue chuckled. He clanked his stolen blade against the stone side of the corridor. "This little blade I nicked is chrome-steel and has a silver hilt and pommel."
Lon wanted to look back, but he didn't doubt it was true. "So, you can somehow divine metallurgy?"
"The City of Alda had two regents in the last four years and they both issued a mystery-metal coinage. I could sense the true values. We accepted some at one rate and others less and this caused problems everywhere you understand from the bridge toll to the ferry. Market days would see folks' line up to get my validations."
"You got sent here?"
"That's another story."
"You came on the Havista ferry?"
"I had no choice. Banished. My... My father killed my uncle." Melcart said, "Accidentally."
"Ohh." Lon resolved to leave it alone in the face of such tragedy, but the dark-haired lad continued.
"They were both True Pattern. Twins. They worked it like symbiots but got too close. The Break. It happened."
Interesting. Maybe that's why the rogue was so firm on them not sharing glyphs? He'd seen the ill effects firsthand.
They traipsed back through the smelly snail farm until finally, with his feet in that same ankle-deep puddle they were at the next hole-up. This was the point from which they'd first embarked on this mad caper into the catacombs. The old wooden ladder didn't seem so lightweight anymore and had become progressively heavier and even more unwieldy in the dark. Perforated with millions of tiny insect holes it creaked and complained with every use, but it had never failed the two deepcombers in their ascent from the underworld. Both lads groaned as they raised it up against the last ledge and Melcart applied the pike, same as before. Lon held it firm for his companion's climb.
After he'd emerged up top, Lon rubbed his shoulder and watched Melcart hide the ladder.
Lon grinned at his counterpart; now they were back in the civilized section of the monastery's basement. They were safe.
The lads covered the hole in the floor with the wooden riser. So far so good, but they were not home yet.
Escaping from here back across the river could be the hardest part as the monastery crawled with devout parishioners who prayed to Kluth all evening.
The young masters crept up the creaky wooden staircase and traipsed back through the same dimly lit hall they'd explored earlier when they'd first entered the old section. But things were different now. Up ahead, in a previously empty cloister there were now a dozen monks who chanted at the new moon in a mystical nighttime ceremony.
Melcart chose another corridor which t-boned an unfamiliar hall in the newer part of the complex. The marble was black around fish oil wall sconces. The empty passage was austere and there were precious few places to hide. They sprinted ahead only to discover another T- intersection and both off-shoots curled around and led back down into the cellars. Lon groaned. One doorway led to private quarters and so they shifted to the other aisle. Both lads were annoyed because they had no choice but to infiltrate what appeared to be another food storage area. They crept through this sunken pantry even though they both knew the path would lead them deeper into the undercroft. The two explorers crept through a prodigious basement filled with wooden barrels and stoneware and racks of cheese wheels. In the center of this room Lon found a circular stone staircase that led upwards to a square hole in the ceiling. It was a trap door.
The white-haired lad found the latch and pushed open the floor-hatch to rise in a room filled with polished stone. The cavernous white chamber contained three rectangular blocks that were examination tables. On the far wall, a stone nymph poured water from a pitcher into a fountain that gurgled. This was the same room in which they'd seen Hamlin and his henchfeigors torture Clyde. Lon saw the door behind which they'd sat and spied on the grisly scene. He could still smell the blood in the air. Outside, Tokal's pink moon shone through three openings above and each was well-framed by sheer curtains. The room had a surreal ambiance which he reckoned he'd see and forever feel this place in his nightmares.
Melcart rose through the square door in the floor and kicked the hatch closed. Lon focused his eyes on the rest of the room, and he saw a silk shroud over a lumpy shape on the stone block where the templekin had worked on Clyde. Was this now all that remained of his friend?
He shivered with new fear as he crossed the moonlit space. Bright red blood dribbled down all sides of the white block and there were dried brown sandal-prints on the floor. There were unwashed trays of surgical instruments on a nearby wooden cart and those same nasty clamps. The torture room was empty now, but the smell of Clyde's suffering still lingered.
The silk shroud over the body was pure white and not a speck of blood soaked through the fabric. Lon summoned his courage and pulled back the sheet. He exposed the top of the corpse's head and he saw Clyde's brown hair glisten in the light. A little further and his heart sank. He saw his friend's ashen face frozen in a weird death smile. He pulled the sheet back a little further and saw how his chest cavity was collapsed, broken. It resembled pottery. Red internal organs reflected weirdly in the moonlit. What's going on? Lon ripped the sheet off completely and couldn't believe his eyes. It wasn't a real corpse at all. Laid out before him was a ceramic effigy of Clyde of Barobell complete with heart and lungs and stomach organs and muscles and tissues. It was all coloured in uniform pastel shades and the body gleamed like glazed clay.
"It's called a fiegorumus or something like that." Melcart said casually.
The sea drover stared at the medical mimic on the operating block before him; it was a near perfect facsimile of the noble friend.
"What's it for?"
"I've never seen one so good." Mel said.
"But what's it for?'
"It's like... He's become a healer, and maybe, The Healer."
"Did he make this?"
"No, err, maybe. I don't know. I'm not a temple-fruit." Melcart's thieving eyes were on the surgical instruments.
"Come on." Lon covered up the ceramic cadaver and made his way across the room to try door they'd previously hidden behind to spy on the operation. To his surprise, he found it locked. He returned to investigate the other door by the water fountain which the acolyte with the blood bowl had used. Thankfully, this door opened and they both exited the room.
They were in the hall and the door opposite, the room where they'd seen the acolyte pour Clyde's blood down the drain hole was also closed and locked.
They continued in silence. Lon wasn't sure if they should turn around and retrace their earlier route or scoot ahead in search of a quicker exit. The austere corridor they explored bent around and suddenly became very posh. The space was filled with tapestries and quilts and a table upon which were metal shears and bolts of fabric. The next alcove opened into a well-appointed library with a fireplace and chairs. The sitting room had plush rugs on the floor and shelves filled with parchment ballooned around a sturdy oak table upon which were several moldy scrolls which the young lads could see were being copied.
"Melcart," Lon whispered, "leave the map here," and he pointed to scribes' table.
"What? Here?" the rogue looked around. "Oh alright." He poked about in his vest's side pocket and produced the folded parchment that was the temple's map of Atarskal.
"Drop it." The white-haired lad repeated and kept his eyes fixed to make sure he complied. Melcart frowned, but then obliged. That was another loose end tied. Now the print would be discovered and sorted back into its proper place and Clyde couldn't be blamed for its disappearance. He'd have rather given it back in person, but right at that moment he wasn't sure when he'd next see his noble friend.
The two infiltrators exited the luxurious parlor and found themselves in the cold marble of the central foyer. They were back in familiar territory again, which was comforting, but they were not alone. Someone with a lantern paced the marbled corridor in the distance. His orbit would soon block their exit.
Now was the time to chance it. The wanderer would surely come this way after he finished whatever business he had in the back. Melcart must have concluded the same thing. They shared a glance and the rogue hiked across the open foyer. Lon followed. They hid again behind the columns at the infirmary doors. Lon stuck his head up first and when he saw nobody was present outside. He ran first this time and Melcart followed. Despite his sore feet, bruised shoulder, skinned arm and smashed face, Lon sprinted across the moonlit monastery grounds and into the bushes on the far side of the compound with some rapidity. Just ahead he could see the lamps on the temple-bridge glowed and that critical-crossing was also empty of residents.
Clomp. clomp. clomp. Melcart's boots and his own soggy sandals drummed across the wooden planks and likely alerted every Calbian with his ears-on; anyone close by would have turned to look and spied them as they passed under the oil lamps.
"Ha, ha," the dark-haired rogue crowed when they were safe on the other side, "we did it!"
Lon smiled at his fellow deepcomber but all his physical pain returned to dampen the joy of success. He looked at his cuts, his bruised arm and his ripped shirt. His sandals were ruined. He wanted to ask about the bath house but then he reckoned he could just wade into the river up ahead where the washers worked. He really wanted to get rid of the grime and rub that dirty rat-world off his body before he slept, and so he pointed at the river lane. He didn't need to speak.
"You wanna wash-it-off huh?" Melcart agreed. "Me too."
The pair passed through the empty construction site where even now, long after dark, there were still some itinerant workers in leather aprons whittling components and crafting the unique pieces they'd require in the complexity they helped the giant assemble each day. They sat around a metal brazier and cooked midnight snacks and drank liquor from wooden cups. One had a wooden fiddle but had ceased to play. Lon could see how they slept in tents under the apple trees behind Atar's lodge. Both lads smiled and gave them friendly nods as they passed.
"Lon listen," Maklin began once they were out of earshot, "never tell anyone what we found... Or that we were ever down there."
"Fine," Lon said. He was already thinking about how good it would feel to clean the cobwebs off his skin. He could feel that horrible place in his mouth and smell it in his hair. His eyes drifted out over the cool clear water of the mountain stream as they walked further down the river lane.
"You know something," Melcart said, "this whole time you haven't asked me what I found?"
"I haven't?"
"...Which makes me think you found something even better?" Melcart said.
"I have nothing," Lon turned out his trousers' pockets and produced the brown egg shells he'd put in there on his first morning and the blue ribbon hair tie which he'd removed after being ridiculed in the stables. He proffered the paltry loot and smiled. His real treasure was safe in his head.
"Well," Melcart studied the items and then stayed true to his pledge, "I found something."
"Ohh?" Lon raised an eyebrow. Deepcombers were supposed to say that while standing over their discovery, if possible.
"But we can't be expected to share it cause there's only one." The incorrigible thief produced his secret treasure and Lon's eyes went wide in disbelief. He held a small shard of smilkstone.
Lon pushed his companion into the sunflowers. They stood near where he'd slept the night before. The smilkstone was the size of his finger, and it glowed with milky white light in Melcart's left hand.
"Oh no. Why?" Lon asked.
"Why not?" The rogue answered, "it's worth a fortune."
"You'll be discovered. We'll be discovered. Oh no. How could you? Now we'll have to go all the way back down there and put it back." Lon said. He groaned at the thought of having to make the entire journey again.
"No way," Melcart said, "they'd never let us down there. If they knew.."
"At least... I'll wear my boots..."
"Kings have fought for less."
"Oh Kluth... Oh no." The white-haired lad knew he'd have to return it, and now it occurred to him he may have to do it alone, or with others... He'd take Jarl and Tharus.
"Now look, we have enough to..." Melcart tried to articulate a grand plan but Lon interrupted again, not having any of it.
"We have to put it back. In secret."
"Just touch it." Melcart held it out for him to try. "Feel it."
"No. I don't want anything to do with it." That was the truth. This was Horne's weapon and Lon considered it equally immoral. After Zed labelled it a connivance, he'd lost any desire to possess or even learn any more about the substance. Now it haunted him again, but only because it made him a co-conspirator in a treasonous heist. He suddenly felt sick.
Lon turned his back and walked away from Melcart and his mind reeled as he thought through this unfortunate turn of events. He walked alone in silence all the way down past the hen house and to the flagstone riverfront where the washerkin worked each day. He saw there on the rocks convenient jars of powder and soap and horsehair brushes. He stripped off all his clothes and picked up the soap. Melcart had followed him and now he watched him enter the cold water.
It felt good. The sea drover liked how the crisp cold water cleansed his cuts and massaged his body. It was tough love and he relished its caress. He dipped his head underwater and stayed there to drink in the shock and reveal in the chill. He was going to be fine. His arm hurt but was not broken. His lip was split apart, and his teeth hurt but they were not broken or chipped. His eye would be black tomorrow but was not seriously injured. His smulcrum was frosty and full to the brim. It was stuffed from being so deep in such a groundsmilk-rich environment. Hah he chuckled at that irony. He'd gone deepcombing-on-empty and returned full of smilk! He remembered how the torch burned so fiercely next to that white cube and how his body soaked up the power in the bubble with equal intensity. When Lon rose up he saw Melcart had also stripped and was ankle deep in the waves and moved toward him. He was also naked, but his right fist glowed.
Neither spoke and there was an awkward silence. Lon scrubbed his hair. Melcart held forth the white shining sliver of rock.
"Lon. Just touch it. You'll see what I mean. It's priceless."
"You just need me to share the blame. The momentous consequences."
"No. If we're discovered, I'll accept the blame." The rogue held it forth. "Consider it part of your education." He was naked and shameless and in the face of such a gesture the sea drover was forced to consider the request.
Reluctantly, Lon raised his uninjured left arm and accepted the shard. It was finger-shaped and smooth on all sides but jagged on the end as through broken. Perhaps it was originally affixed to a chandelier? He felt the smilkstone's power the second it touched his hand.
He remembered being tied to the red ring on the rowboat and how the wind gripped the hastily rigged sail; the hand of Kluth himself had moved the heavy relic and his body over the sea. They'd sped toward the island so smoothly; the small craft had seemed unusually stable in such rough water. Here again he felt that power, like a wind filling an oversized sail and of-being totally helpless in its thrall. But he was not helpless. He felt like he could control that wind. He felt ten-feet tall and if he turned around, he could stop the water. He knew if he yelled right now it'd be the loudest sound anyone ever heard and he wanted to try, but common sense forbids it. Look, he thought, just calm down. It's the shard's power that's making these wild thoughts.
Incredible, Lon realized, this rock was a smilk-magnifier. Just like how a voice in a cone makes speech louder, but this was as if his mind was in the cone. His smulcrum brimmed and Lon noticed something else. The circle under the line was twice as thick. This little shard of brightstone in his hand had its own supply of smilk and it made his own mind much sturdier.
"Don't you just want to try a glyph with that in your hand?" Melcart interrupted.
"Yeah. I do." Lon said. "I really do."
Horne used smilkstone when he spoke Varget and this was why! He must have picked up a templestone one day and felt this power where others could not. He must have known it would help his mind control. His fist-sized lump held his source of smilk which he used to control other feigor's minds.
*
The pair entered Winterhouse in silence. They walked past the scene of last night's stand-off, the table, chair and the unlit lantern. They both clomped up the steps and past the emotionless red-skinned sentry. It was now well past midnight, and Valari and Saeya's doors were shut tight .
Lon nodded politely at Melcart and the two parted company to enter their separate rooms. He closed the stick-pattern door.
Now he could relax and let his guard down. He shed his dirty clothes and sat on his bed and scrawled the newly acquired mark on his late; it was a gift from Kluth. He gazed upon it and studied its four appendages and central spindle. Then he wiped it out and drew the narma blocker. Then he wiped that out and drew the slashed-triangle air-push, and then he came back to the many-not-thought glyph. He drew it again and there on the slate, framed by wood, he reveled in the triumph of possessing it.
Lon erased the icon. He'd leave no trace. This was his alone. He could imagine it at work; he knew already just how it'd function. The axle that connected the four individual glyphs was the ideal drive shaft for his millwork. All he had to do was speak aloud the command. Ah but there was the problem. What was the command?
Making it work required verbal intonations; this had to be more than just 'not thought' or 'Nar Gor'; this plurality would need be expressed with a multiplier of some kind and Lon didn't know the Varget word for many, or group, or quad? If this did what he reckoned, and that it to say, if this was a group not-thought glyph, then he would need to know the word for 'many'.
Regardless this was a triumph and just the last and best step forward in a day filled with victories. He'd started off angry but then he'd seen the augury and overcome his wild emotion. He'd practiced, made, and used his first Varget constructs, and he'd tamed Melcart. Thinking on it though that situation may be worse now in light what the rogue nicked from the bubble-cave in the catacombs below the temple. Was that where he got it? Yes. He'd found it one of those crates. Now they'd have to put the smilkstone back tomorrow night and that would waste another precious evening. And the manticor... and the open doorway to Oub... What a nightmare.
He dreamed.
Bells rang in the Port of Ligne. The bells in Garrison Castle rang and hundreds of townsfolk whistled and cheered as a deepcomber company appeared. The crowds in the bleachers roared as the company approached. Sketch artists drew the six deepcombers and their wide array of weapons and charms and their little wooden wagon as they paused before the Great Door.
The emerald key turned in the lock and a crack appeared in the Tall Wall. Six figures pass.
Lon's dream shifted. Now he imagined himself with Melcart, Saeya and Valari at the bottom of the catacombs on the Traveled Path and they walked past the alabaster panel. Huge yellow green cat eyes appeared in the darkness ahead. They hear the beast issue its piercing cry but once again the creature is not seen. Instead Lon recalls the terror in Melcart's face and he sees and hears Saeya and Val scream and run. The only escape was the black door, and down, down down that terrible stairway with the perfect handrail.