A World Without Heroes - Brandon Mull [111]
She was a quarter of the way around the island, picking her way carefully so as not to turn an ankle, when she noticed a shadowy opening some distance up the slope from the shore. Could it be the mouth of a cave?
As she approached the opening, she saw that it extended back into the pile of rocks for some distance, sloping downward. The tunnel looked ripe for a cave-in, until she noticed that the chinks between the rocks of the walls and ceiling had been filled with mortar.
Rachel walked down into the shadowy tunnel. The farther she descended, the cooler the air became. The potent stench of the lake faded. She inhaled greedily, grateful for the reprieve from the intense heat.
The tunnel extended a surprising distance. Just as she was estimating she had to be at or beyond the center of the rocky island, the round tunnel opened into a domed chamber with a floor of solid rock and a pool of water at the center. The purplish moss she had seen outside grew plentifully. Several other shafts extended upward at various angles toward the surface. All were smaller than the tunnel by which Rachel had descended to the chamber, and most were inaccessible because they were too high on the domed ceiling. Daylight filtered into the chamber through the shafts.
Why was the chamber so cool when it was encompassed by the heat of the lake? And how had this place not been flooded by white goo years ago?
“It has been ages since I’ve had a visitor,” a weak voice greeted.
Rachel jumped, eyes darting to find the speaker. She noticed the head of an old man on the ground near the edge of the pool, half hidden by a stone. The head smiled as she made eye contact.
Before knowing Ferrin, this sight might have been sufficient to make her pass out again. Even so, the severed head was disturbing.
“Are you a displacer?” Rachel asked.
“That I am.”
The head had a long white beard and long white hair but was bald on top. The beard reached high onto the cheeks, hiding all of the face except the eyes, nose, and deeply creased forehead.
“Where is the rest of you?” she asked.
A movement glimpsed from the corner of her eye caused Rachel to turn. A wrinkled arm, severed just below the shoulder, wormed over the stone floor.
“That’s all I have left,” the head said.
Rachel turned back to the head. “How do you survive?”
The head cocked a bushy eyebrow. “I eat moss. It’s specially engineered, full of nutrients, a strain devised anciently by some wizard. My arm brings it to me. My arm also brings me water from the pool, cupped in my palm.”
“What happened to the rest of you?”
“You are full of questions.”
Rachel opened her mouth to respond, but the head cut her off.
“I don’t mind. It is pleasant to converse. You aren’t a delusion, are you?”
“No, I’m really here.”
“Why have you come?”
“I’m working with Galloran, hunting for the Word.”
“Then Galloran lives!” the head exclaimed. “I expected if he still lived, Maldor would have fallen by now.”
“Galloran failed,” Rachel said.
“Tragic news. The odds have ever been against us. At least others continue to take up the cause. In answer to your previous question my body lies at the bottom of the sea. Would you care to hear the story?”
“Sure.” Rachel squatted beside the head.
The head blinked and smiled. He seemed delighted to have an audience. “Long ago I did the unthinkable. I spied on Maldor.” He whispered the part about spying.
“For years I had served him faithfully, so I was a potent spy, deeply entrenched, and I helped frustrate him many times. I had come to trust a man called Dinsrel, from Meridon, who convinced me we had to depose Maldor and prevent an age of tyranny. I believed that Dinsrel could incite a revolution.
“I was cruising northward on a warship off the western coast when I discovered that Maldor knew of my treachery. I had been spying for almost a year, and I was embroiled in what was to be my most consequential betrayal.
“I knew I was in trouble when I awoke bound securely inside a canvas