Sentinelspire - Mark Sehestedt [45]
"Perhaps because he is dead?"
"Or perhaps because whatever-or whomever-came to his aid is able to hide him from me."
Sauk thought a moment, then said, "This is possible?"
"Possible?" said Talieth. "Yes. Likely? No. But many damned unlikely things have happened of late, have they not?"
Sauk nodded and sighed. "I will be ready."
"Speaking of which, have you been able to glean anything?" She gestured toward the Three Hearts.
"Nothing," said Sauk. "I serve the Beastlord. My communion is the hunt. This relic"-Sauk shuddered, and a hint of sneer passed over his face -"it sings of growing things and deep secrets. I do not like it. I will continue to pry at it if you wish, but I don't hold much hope."
A tremor shook the mountain. Nothing more than a slight vibration at their feet, but it was enough to set stones rattling down the mountain and bring a shower of dirt and grit down upon them.
Talieth wiped the dust from her eyes and picked up the relic. "We have no time for you to fumble your way through the relic's secrets."
"Where are you taking it?" Sauk called after her.
"To someone else," she said, and strode away.
Chapter Fifteen
On the balcony outside his room, Lewan stood dumbstruck. Never had he seen such utter beauty. He'd been on mountainsides many times. More than he could remember. He'd lived in forests entire seasons during his sixteen years. The largest city he'd ever visited was Almorel by the Lake of Mists. It was probably a small city as many in the world would count such things. Perhaps even rustic compared to the grand cities of the West or in distant Shou. But to Lewan, who spent most of his days in the wild, it was a city nonetheless. Mountains, forests, and cities… these things were not new to him. But never had he seen all three come together in such splendor.
His balcony was one of several jutting out from the upper floors of a tower, and it offered a view of the entire fortress. The fortress itself had no walls, for the canyon in which it had been built-or in some places apparently carved-served as a natural and seemingly impregnable wall. Although Lewan had no training in the ways of war, even he could see that the only hope of taking this fortress would be through stealth or the air-and no realm in the Endless Wastes commanded an army capable of such an air assault.
The tower in which he'd been housed was one of several in the fortress-and far from the tallest. The tallest-a massive structure in the center of the fortress-was at least six hundred feet high, perhaps more, and its upper stories looked out over the upper rims of the canyon. From the top of that tower, one surely could have seen beyond the canyon and well into the steppe for hundreds of miles.
All the buildings were of a style strange to Lewan's eyes- one he'd never seen before, all odd angles and interlocking designs of stone, many of which had a decidedly purple tinge. The great tower in the center was strangest of all, for it seemed that great pillars of stone had been twisted braidlike around the entire shaft. They disappeared into the upper stories, and the top of the tower itself seemed a garden or small park, open to the winds on every side. And around the entire tower-indeed around most of the buildings in the fortress-grew vines, trees, flowers, and vegetation of every sort. Some of the flowers ringing the great tower seemed big as shields.
Strangest and most wondrous of all were the statues. Pillars-mostly stone, but there were at least two forged of some silvery metal-rose above many of the buildings, and atop them were great statues. Some were in the form of beautiful men and women. One woman, sculpted entirely from black stone, stood poised on one foot, her long hair and robes seeming to flow out behind her, and one hand held aloft a metal rod at least twenty feet long. Other statues were of creatures that ranged from the beautifully strange-a griffon, a winged deer, a feathered serpent-to the grotesque-a batwinged gargoyle with the horns of a ram, a wolf with three heads, a bearded old man with antlers, and