Child of Flame - Page 30/400

“Even so.” He led her into the fog.

“Where are we going?” she called, but the mist deadened all sound. She could not even see him, a step ahead of her, only knew he was there by the pull of the arrow’s shaft against her palm.

He knew where he was going. In six steps she stumbled onto a stone step, bruising her shin. She stood on a staircase lined by monsters’ heads, each one carved so that it seemed to be emerging from a stone flower that bore twelve petals. The monster was the head of a snake, or that of a big, sleek cat with a toothy yawn, or some melding of the two: she couldn’t tell which. Some had been painted red and white while others had golden-brown dapplings and succulent green tongues, lacy black curling ears or gold-petaled flowers rayed out from their circular eyes. On either side of the staircase lay the broad expanse of a vast pyramidal structure, too steep to climb, that had simply been painted a blinding white, as stark as the fog. Here and there, paint had chipped away to reveal gray stone beneath.

She followed the old sorcerer up the steps. Despite everything, this staircase up which they toiled nagged at her. It seemed familiar, like a whispered name calling from her memory.

They walked up out of the fog on a steep incline, surrounded by those ghastly, powerful faces. The stair steps went on, and on, and on, until she had to stop to catch her breath. She unsealed the water jug and sipped, cooling her parched throat, but when she offered the jug to the old sorcerer, he declined. He waited patiently for her to finally get up and go again. At last, they came to the top of the pyramid.

At her back, below and beyond, lay the dense bank of fog. Before her lay another city, somewhat smaller than the magnificent city by the lake but no less impressive for its courtyards and platforms laid out in tidy harmony. An avenue lined by buildings marched out from the plaza that lay at the base of the huge pyramid they now stood on. Every stone surface was painted with bright murals: giant spotted yellow cats, black eagles, golden phoenix, burning arrows clutched in the jaws of red snakes crowned by feathered headdresses. The city lay alive with color and yet was so quiet that she expected ghosts to skirl down its broad avenues, weeping and moaning.

Wind brushed her. Clouds boiled over the hills that marked the distant outskirts of the city, and she saw lightning. Thunder boomed, but no rain fell. She couldn’t even smell rain, only dust on the wind and a creeping shiver on her skin. Her hair rose on the nape of her neck.

“It’s not safe so high where lightning might strike,” remarked the old sorcerer.

He descended at once down stair steps so steep that she only dared follow him by turning around and going down backward. Behind, the fog simply sliced off that portion of the city that lay beyond the great pyramid, a line as abrupt as a knife’s cut.

Thunder clapped and rolled. Lightning struck the top of the pyramid, right where they’d been standing. Her tongue buzzed with the sting of its passing. Her foot touched earth finally, dry and cool.

She knew where she was.

Long ago, when she was a child, when she and Da had fled from the burning villa, he had brought her through an ancient city. In that city, the wind had muttered through the open shells of buildings. Vast ruins had lain around them, the skeleton of a city that had once claimed the land. Along the avenues, she had seen the faded remnants of old murals that had once adorned those long walls. Wind and rain and time had worn the paint from those surfaces, leaving only the tired grain of ancient stone blocks and a few scraps of surviving murals, faded and barely visible.

The ruins had ended at the shoreline of the sea as abruptly as if a knife had sheared them off.

Da had muttered words, an ancient spell, and for an instant she had seen the shadow form of the old city mingling with the waves, the memory of what once had been, not drowned by the sea but utterly gone. Wonder bloomed in her heart, just as it had on that long-ago day.

“This is that city,” she said aloud.

The old sorcerer had begun to walk on, but he paused.

“I’ve seen the other part of this city,” she explained. “The part that would have lain there—” She pointed toward the wall of fog.

“But the ruins were so old. Far older than the cities built by the Dariyans. That was the strangest thing.”

“That they were old?”

“Nay, nay.” Her thoughts had already leaped on. “That the ruins ended so abruptly. As if the land was cut away from the Earth.”

He smiled sadly. “No memory remains among humankind of the events of those days?”

She could only shake her head, perplexed by his words.

“Come,” he said.