The Hidden City

‘Let’s do it then,’ Mirtai said abruptly. ‘Let’s get Ehlana and Alean out of there, and once they’re safe, we can start to take this place apart.’

‘After I get my real face back,’ Kalten added adamantly. ‘Alean’s entitled to that much consideration.’

‘Let’s do that right now, Xanetia,’ Aphrael said. ‘Kalten will nag us about it all night if we don’t.’

‘Nag?’ Kalten objected.

‘What color was your hair again, Kalten? Purple, wasn’t it?’ she asked him with an impish little smile.

Chapter 31

There were deep shadows along the western side of the Women’s Palace when Elysoun, Liatris and Gahennas emerged through the little-used door and moved quickly through the darkness to take cover in a nearby grove of ornamental evergreens. ‘This is going to be the dangerous part,’ Liatris cautioned in a low voice. ‘Chacole knows by now that her assassins weren’t able to find Gahennas, and she’s certain to have her people out to try to prevent us from reaching Ehlana’s castle.’

Elysoun looked out at the moon-drenched lawn. ‘That’s impossible,’ she said. ‘It’s just too bright. There’s a path that goes on through this grove. It comes out near the Ministry of the Interior.’

‘That’s the wrong direction, Elysoun,’ Gahennas protested. ‘The Elene castle’s the other way.’

‘Yes, I know, but there’s no cover. There’s nothing between here and the castle but open lawn. We’d better stick to the shadows. If we go around on the other side of Interior, we’ll be able to go through the grounds of the Foreign Ministry. It’s only about fifty yards from there to the drawbridge of the castle.’

‘What if the drawbridge has been raised?’

‘We’ll worry about that when we get there, Gahennas. But we have to get into the gardens around the Foreign Ministry first.’

‘Let’s go then, ladies,’ Liatris said abruptly. ‘We’re not accomplishing anything by standing around talking. Let’s go find out what we’re up against.’

‘Back here,’ Talen whispered to them, coming out of a narrow alleyway. ‘The palace wall runs back to the place where it joins the outer fortifications at the end of this alley. The right angle where the two walls meet is perfect for climbing.’

‘Will you need this?’ Mirtai asked, holding her grappling hook out to him.

‘No. I can make it to the top without it, and we’d better not risk having some sentry up there hear the hook banging on the stones.’ He led them back along the alley to the cul-de-sac where the palace wall butted up against the imposing fortifications separating the compound from the rest of the city.

‘How high would you say it is?’ Kalten asked, squinting upward. It was strange to see Kalten’s face again after all the weeks it had been disguised. Sparhawk tentatively touched his own face and immediately recognized the familiar contours of his broken nose.

‘Thirty feet or so,’ Bevier replied softly to Kalten’s question.

Mirtai was examining the angle formed by the joining of the two walls. ‘This won’t be very difficult,’ she whispered.

‘The whole structure’s poorly designed,’ Bevier agreed critically.

‘I’ll go up first,’ Talen said.

‘Don’t do anything foolish up there,’ Mirtai cautioned.

‘Trust me.’ He set his foot up on one of the protruding stones of the outer wall and reached for a hand-hold on the palace wall. He went up quickly.

‘We’ll check for sentries when we get up there,’ Mirtai quietly told the others. ‘Then we’ll drop a rope down to you.’ She reached up and began to follow the young thief up the angle between the two walls.

Bevier leaned back and looked upward. “The moon’s all the way up now,’ he said.

‘Thinkest thou that it might reveal us?’ Xanetia asked him.

‘No, Anarae. We’ll be climbing the north side of the tower, so we’ll be in shadow the whole way to the top.’

They waited tensely, craning their necks to watch the climbers creeping upward.

‘Somebody’s coming!’ Kalten hissed. ‘Up there – along the battlements!’

The climbers stopped, pulling back into the shadows of the sharp angle between the two walls.

‘He’s got a torch,’ Kalten whispered. ‘If he holds it out over those battlements –’ he left it hanging.

Sparhawk held his breath.

‘It’s all right now,’ Bevier said. ‘He’s going back.’

‘We might want to deal with him when we get up there,’ Kalten noted.

‘Not if we can avoid it,’ Sparhawk disagreed. ‘We don’t want somebody else to come looking for him.’

Talen had reached the battlements. He clung to the rough stones for a moment, listening. Then he slipped over the top and out of sight. After several interminable moments, Mirtai followed him.

Sparhawk and the others waited in the darkness.

Then Mirtai’s rope came slithering down the wall.

‘Let’s go,’ Sparhawk said tensely. ‘One at a time.’

The building-blocks were of rough, square-fractured basalt, and they protruded unevenly from the walls, making climbing much simpler than it appeared. Sparhawk didn’t even bother to use the rope. He reached the top and clambered over the battlements. ‘Do the sentries have any kind of set routine up here?’ he asked Mirtai.

‘It seems that each one has his own section of wall,’ she replied. ‘The one at this end doesn’t walk very fast. I’m guessing, but I’d say that it’ll be a quarter of an hour before he comes back.’

‘Is there any place where we can take cover before then?’

‘There’s a door in that first tower,’ Talen said, pointing at the squat structure rising at the end of the parapet. ‘It opens onto a stairwell.’

‘Have you taken a look at the back wall yet?’

Talen nodded. ‘There’s no parapet along that side, but there’s a ledge a couple of feet wide where the outer wall joins the back of the palace. We’ll be able to make our way along that until we get on that central tower. Then we get to start climbing.’

‘Does the sentry look back there when he reaches this end of the parapet?’

‘He didn’t last time,’ Mirtai said.