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I didn’t say anything, either, as they came closer. Or move. Or even breathe. I tried to tell myself to act natural, but it wasn’t working so great. And I wasn’t the only one. Suddenly, the only movement in our small group was the wind whipping our robes around, and the camel thing chewing on Casanova’s hair.
Until the guards passed by, and grabbed a couple of kids who had been playing on the rocky edge of the precipice. A frantic mother came up and retrieved them, already sobbing even before one of the men started telling her off. I swallowed sand and hung my head, and poured some of the water over my hot neck until they’d gone again.
“It is good,” Rian said, clearing her throat. “For it shows that the master is worried. There are at least three times the usual number of guards on duty, perhaps more. Something that would not be the case if he didn’t consider himself to be vulnerable.”
“He thinks we can do it,” I said, translating that.
“He thinks we’ll be stupid enough to try to do it,” Casanova corrected. “The guards are to make sure we don’t succeed!”
I stared at the gate, which had a huge, old-fashioned portcullis at the top, its jagged teeth cast in some kind of black metal. The tips glinted dully in the light’s last rays, as if they’d been dipped in blood. I glanced at Caleb, who was looking at them, too.
And unlike Casanova, he and I didn’t have an out. Rosier had promised Pritkin recently not to attempt to assassinate me again, but I wasn’t sure how that worked when I was the party on the offensive. But even if it did apply, it left a whole host of options wide-open—none of which I was likely to enjoy. And as for Caleb . . .
“If you want to go back, I’ll understand,” I told him quietly.
He pursed his lips slightly, and shot me a glance. It almost looked like he was trying to hold back a grin, except that Caleb didn’t grin. It seemed to be against the war mage code or something. And because it would have been crazy under the circumstances.
“You going back?”
“No.” It wasn’t like this was going to get any easier later.
He stood up and stretched, corded muscles rippling under the thin material of the robes. “Guess I’ll go when you do.”
“Oh, for—God preserve me from brainless heroics!” Casanova snapped.
“Didn’t think you believed in God.”
“I believe in Satan,” he said, pushing the camel thing away from his hair. “I ought to. I’m standing on his bloody doorstep!”
• • •
If Satan’s doorstep was impressive, his atrium was breathtaking.
We passed through the gate into a chasm of a tunnel, the fading light from behind us washing along the ceiling like red water, too late in the day to really light our way, but too early for the lanterns that glinted in intervals overhead to be lit. I navigated by letting my fingertips trail over the rough, rocky surface of the nearest wall, which still held the heat of the day and probably would for hours considering the thickness of the stone. And felt some of that initial awe creep back.
Despite the air in here, which was pretty funky from too many bodies pressed too close together, and the constantly jostling crowd, and my seriously aching calf muscles, I still felt it—the weight of centuries pressing down like an extra atmosphere.
Caleb had been right; this place was old. Older than our pyramids, older than anything on earth. Maybe as old as this world itself, since there were chisel marks on the dark red stone, but no mortar lines that I could see. It was as if it had been carved instead of built. As if some giant had whittled away a mountain from the top down, leaving the pieces that fit his crazy blueprint and carrying away the rest.
It should have been impressive, and maybe if I was a tourist it would have been. As it was, it was more intimidating. I felt the knot in my stomach draw a little tighter, even before we stumbled out the other side a few minutes later.
Into something that looked a lot like a souk.
Shops lined streets going in all directions like spokes on a wheel. And selling everything from spices to live animals, bright metalware to gauzy clothing, pottery to vegetables, fish to leather goods, and wool to fresh-baked bread. Merchants called out offers to us new arrivals even as they tried to roll up the awnings over their shops, or light the lanterns strung like stars over the streets, or slap fresh meat onto grills, sending up mouthwatering aromas to tantalize our dust-covered taste buds. It was loud and raucous and crowded and strangely jolly, but Caleb didn’t appear enthralled.
“Servants, my ass,” he muttered.
It took me a moment to realize what he meant, because most of the people hanging around the gate, waiting for friends and family to come out, looked like a mix of those on the road. With one exception. A depressing number had what looked like slaves following along behind, thin men and women, and in some cases children, in bare feet and simple tunics, their arms reaching for packages and boxes or the reins of animals.
Most of the slaves didn’t look native. Some of them didn’t even look human. I was staring, probably rudely, at one with mottled blue skin and what looked like a few extra arms when Rian grabbed my sleeve.
Because yeah.
The guards were thick on the ground in here, too.
They were slightly less obvious, lounging by food stalls or interspersed with the crowd by the gate. But there were plenty of them, scanning the new arrivals with the watchfulness of cops and security forces everywhere. And they didn’t look like they missed much.
But they missed us, thanks to Caleb.
