After ten minutes, the crumbling passageway ended in a medium-sized cavern with large boulders in a looming jumble at its far end. Bazel hopped onto one of those jagged rocks, reached up, and pulled himself over it without looking back. Ileni followed, scraping her ankle on a sharp edge.
The crack between the boulders and the ceiling turned into a low, flat tunnel. She had to lie on her stomach and pull herself forward by her elbows, twisting her hips sideways and dragging her legs after her. In front of her, Bazel wasn’t exactly quiet, but he had clearly done this before, and she had a hard time keeping up with his smooth, efficient movements. The magelight vanished, leaving them in complete blackness. The tunnel got narrower and narrower, until she was pulling herself through by her fingernails, hips and shoulders scraping painfully against the rocks.
She was starting to worry about getting stuck when something thumped lightly ahead, and a few seconds later her fingers hit empty air instead of rock. She wiggled forward cautiously, reaching down and sliding her hands along the smooth rock wall below the tunnel’s end. Bazel had landed with barely a sound, so the ground couldn’t be too far down. Suddenly eager to be out of the stifling tunnel, she pushed hard with her feet.
She slid out of the tunnel, too fast. Suddenly she was out and flying down headfirst. She scrabbled frantically to grab the too-smooth rock, and her sharp scream cut off as she slammed into the stone floor with an impact that thudded through her entire body. For a panicked moment she couldn’t breathe, and then she gasped in a lungful of air that hissed painfully through her chest.
The magelight flared white, revealing Bazel’s round face looking down at her. Ileni scrambled to her feet, a spasm of pain shooting through her back, and tossed her head. The movement sent clumps of dirt flying from her hair, which did nothing to further her pretense of cool assurance.
Bazel muffled a laugh. Ileni’s fists clenched. It was one thing to be humiliated in front of Sorin, or even Irun, but in front of Bazel . . .
“I think that’s about enough of my blindly following you,” she snapped. “Why don’t you tell me where we’re going?”
Bazel just looked at her. Ileni was suddenly aware of how close he was, and how tall. He might be the least of the assassins, but he was still deadly and dangerous. Somehow, she had let the others’ attitude infect her, and she had forgotten.
But he thought she was deadly and dangerous, too. A powerful sorceress. And unlike Irun, he’d had no experience in killing sorcerers. Ileni drew herself up. If he saw her fear, that would cause her death. She tried to be the girl she once had been, supremely confident in her abilities, eager to take on any challenge.
“Tell me,” she said. “Or neither of us is going any farther.”
Bazel set his jaw. Ileni glared at him, then lifted one hand as if to begin a spell. She could freeze him to the ground where he stood. For a moment, she believed it, and whatever he saw on her face made Bazel’s eyes widen.
“All right,” he said. “You should have some warning, I suppose.”
“Yes.” Ileni lowered her hand, but not all the way to her side.
Bazel took a step back, his eyes on her hand. “I suppose Sorin gave you the usual speech about these caves. How we’re isolated and indoctrinated and trained to think of nothing but death.”
“That’s all common knowledge, actually.”
“Right.” The side of Bazel’s mouth lifted in a sneer. He sidled sideways and sat on the edge of a flat black rock. “Well, it’s not that simple. Even here, the rules aren’t always followed. There are entrances into these caves besides the way you came. And things can be smuggled in that aren’t only about our mission.”
Ileni leaned forward. “There are traders who come into the caves?”
Bazel shifted. “Official traders come to designated meeting spots, and are met with contingents from the caves. That’s how we get the food we can’t grow or raise nearby. And then there are . . . unofficial traders.”
Ileni raked her hand through her hair, dislodging more dirt. “That seems like a rather dangerous endeavor. It must be quite profitable for them.”
“It is.”
Of course, the traders who ventured this far into the mountains tended to be an adventurous lot to begin with. Ileni had seen some of them when they visited the Renegai village, but never spoken to any. Sorcerers didn’t get involved in the time-consuming business of haggling for chocolate and spices.
She rolled her shoulders back, cautiously. They still ached from her impact with the ground, but they didn’t protest the movement. “They trade with you?”
Bazel put one foot up on another rock. “And through me, with the others in these caves.”
“Does the master know?”
Bazel’s eyes darted to the side. “If he did, he wouldn’t care. It’s not important enough for him to pay attention to.”
Ileni lifted her eyebrows.
“If it was important,” Bazel said, “he would know. Nothing significant escapes his notice. But he allows us small freedoms. He understands that we can’t be perfect all the time.”
Ileni kept her face carefully blank.
Bazel put both feet on the ground. “If that’s all—”
“One more thing,” Ileni said. If she was going to preserve the illusion that she was more powerful than he was, she should control when the conversation ended. “If you know another way out, why don’t you run away?”
His lip curled. “There is no such thing as running away, Teacher. One can’t escape the master merely by getting out of these caves. Besides, who said I want to run away?”
He turned and walked across the rocky ground, the magelight hovering at his shoulder.
Within minutes they were clambering through a labyrinth of jagged boulders that leaned haphazardly against one another, stretching as far ahead as Ileni could see by the magelight. Bazel leaped easily from rock to rock, balancing and launching himself from one precarious edge to another with practiced ease. Ileni scrambled behind on her hands and feet and knees, feeling cautiously for footholds. The rocks looked like they might tilt and fall as soon as her weight hit them.
She was concentrating so hard that it was a while before she heard it: a rushing murmur that seemed to come from all around them.
“What is that?” she demanded.
Bazel leaped to the top of a bulbous rock structure, balancing in a crouch, hands and feet gripping the stone. He replied without looking back. “You’ll see.”
“Or you could just tell me,” Ileni muttered, but not loud enough for Bazel to hear. He pulled himself through a tiny opening between two leaning boulders, and she scrambled to catch up, terrified that he would get too far ahead and leave her alone among the rocks and the darkness.
She heard a soft thud, and pulled herself cautiously through the opening after Bazel, holding tight to the edges of the boulders and leaning over. Below her—far below—was a dense blackness and that constant rushing sound. The air smelled different, too, dank rather than musty.
A river, here beneath the earth. If she had kept going, she would have plunged right into it.
Was that what Bazel had wanted?
She pulled herself farther out, then looked down and around for Bazel. She couldn’t see him—but she could make out the faint outlines of the rocks rising behind her, which meant it wasn’t pitch-black. She twisted around to search for the source of the light, and found it when she looked up.
“Come on,” Bazel said, and she saw that he was standing on a ledge several feet above the tunnel’s opening. Squinting, she made out square handholds cut into the cliff above her, leading up to the ledge. Bazel’s voice was muffled by the rushing river, so she couldn’t tell if there was any disappointment in it.
This must be where Absalm had died. Was it how he had died, as well?
“I’ll need help,” she said.
Bazel sighed, loudly enough to be heard over the rushing water, and leaned down. Ileni hesitated before reaching for his hand—if he did want her to drown, this was a perfect opportunity. But it wasn’t as if she had any choice. She clasped his wrist as tightly as possible, though she was under no illusions about his ability to pry her off if he tried. He lifted her up part of the way, and then he paused. Her feet dangled in thin air, and her body twisted slightly, brushing against the rock. The river rushed far below.
“Don’t,” she tried to say, but all that emerged was a whimper. Then he grunted and swung her up onto the ledge next to him.
The rest of the whimper turned into a gasp of relief. Bazel pulled away. “It’s easy from here,” he said. “The path goes down the side of the cliff until it’s level with the river.”
“What river is it?” Ileni asked. She could see nothing but slick blackness below.
Bazel started down the path. “A minor tributary—nothing that would be very impressive in sunlight, I’d imagine. It flows under the mountains for a bit before emptying into the Farlin River.”
Which emptied into the Diannor, which flowed straight to the capital of the Empire. As a child, Ileni and her friends had cursed stones and thrown them into the Farlin, in the hope that some imperial noble would pick one up and have a run of bad luck.
Excitement fluttered within her. The river went out. Through the caves and out of them. Another entrance, another exit. And she knew how to swim.
Not that it mattered, since she was in these caves for a purpose. She didn’t need an escape.
Yet.
She followed Bazel down a steep path, narrow and bordered by a plunge into blackness—not exactly her definition of easy. She pressed as close to the rocks as she could until, after a short jump from the bottom of the path, they landed on a blessedly wide area of flat stone. Here the river was at their level, a black spreading vastness, silver ripples skimming along its surface.
Ileni looked around for some sort of raft or boat, but there was nothing on the rock except her and Bazel. The cliff face rose around them, smooth and solid but for the narrow slope of the path they had come down on. “You didn’t ask if I could swim.”
“Oops,” Bazel said.
Before she could respond, a new sound mingled with the rushing of the river: a steadier, more purposeful sound, interrupted once by a splash. Seconds later, a large canoe appeared around the bend of the river, headed straight for them.
Chapter 12
Torches in the bow and stern clearly illuminated the two occupants of the canoe. A blond man with ruddy skin was at the oars, his smooth strokes spreading wide white ripples from the sides of the canoe. In the bow sat a woman with short dark hair and a square face. Her gaze fixed on Ileni and didn’t waver, even when the canoe bottom scraped rock and the blond man leaped out to pull it onto dry land.
“Has your master started recruiting women?” she said. Her voice was surprisingly high-pitched and feminine.
“Not quite,” Bazel replied, and Ileni was startled to see that he was smiling. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
The woman rolled her eyes. “Whether or not your master thinks women are capable of killing hardly affects me. Or their ability to do so, I might add.” By now the canoe was firmly on the rock, but the woman remained sitting, as if she was a queen on her throne.
“This is our new magic tutor,” Bazel said. “From the Renegai.”
“Ah.” The woman’s gaze hadn’t moved from Ileni’s face even as she spoke to Bazel, but now sharpened. “Interesting choice on the part of the Renegai.”
“Thank you,” Ileni said coldly.
At that, the woman focused on Bazel. “What do you have for us today?”
“Two gold earrings, a necklace of black pearls, and a ring set with emeralds.” As he spoke, Bazel knelt on the floor and laid the items out on the ground. Ileni gaped. The jewelry spread on the damp stone represented a small fortune.