Текст книги "Mark of the Thief"

Автор книги: Jennifer A. Nielsen

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

I felt my way through the cave like a blind man. And like most blind beggars, I knew my fate if I didn’t find some sort of mercy. Darkness was part of any life in the mines. But I’d never been so deep on my own, and rarely without the hope for a lit torch somewhere shortly ahead.

The breathing continued, so quietly that I might not have heard it if everything else wasn’t so still. And though I tried to move away from it, the echoes in this cave made it sound as if the creature was always ahead of me, just out of my reach. Or if there were no echoes, then the creature was moving, like a cat waiting to pounce.

I wanted to call to Radulf to pull me up, but I didn’t. Not only was I certain he would ignore my request, but I also doubted the wisdom of giving away my exact location to the thing inside this cave. That was ridiculous, of course. No matter how blind I was, it clearly knew exactly where to find me.

Somewhere ahead there appeared to be some sort of light. It cast a faint gleam toward me, enough to see the fallen body of the first miner who had entered. He was on his back with his hands like claws frozen in place. His skin was white like the moon, as if all blood had drained from him, but I couldn’t see any sign of injury. It was the look of a man who had died of fear.

I stepped carefully around him, then continued moving. It wasn’t much, and I ignored the bigger question of how there could possibly be any light at all this far below ground. But I felt the pull of the light, calling me toward it. I was a moth to the flame.

When I had first started working in the mines, the dark had frightened me. But my mother had shown me how there was nothing in the darkness that didn’t also exist in the light. Since then, I had never been afraid of moving in the deepest shadows … until now. Because this time, I was certain that she was wrong. Not only was some mysterious creature down here with me, but the closer I came to the light, the more I believed it was coming from Caesar’s spirit. I felt him, still here, drawing me forward.

As real as that seemed, when I got closer, I saw the true source of the light. I was standing in the doorway of an enormous cavern, more vast than any place I’d ever seen underground. The room was filled with piles of gold. There were toppled stacks of coins, thousands of them, and heavy gold bars, each one larger than all the gold we might carve out of the mine in a year. Tossed carelessly amidst the rest were goblets, rings, and trays, all made of gold. But they weren’t the source of the light. The glow came from something on the very top of the highest pile, something I only saw when I stood on the tips of my toes and arched my neck. It was a golden bulla, the size and shape of my fist, with a brown leather strap to hang from the neck. It seemed no different from any other, except for the glow. Admittedly, that was odd. I’d mined gold before, and it never, never glowed. Without a doubt in my mind, I knew this was the object Radulf wanted. It was Caesar’s bulla.

I tried to step into the vast chamber, but by then I had reached the limits of the rope. If I was going to retrieve the bulla, there was no choice but to untie it. My plan was simple and undoubtedly stupid: move fast, grab the bulla, then race back to the cave’s entrance. With any luck, the creature down here wouldn’t fit through that doorway, and if it did, then I hoped Sal was faster with the rope than the creature was on his feet. I hoped for that. But I didn’t truly believe it.

The instant I was untied, I set off on a full run toward the gold. My mind couldn’t even begin to process the value of everything down here. One handful of gold could buy freedom for my sister and me. With another handful, we’d have a life of luxury. The sweetest foods, the softest fabrics. Even sandals for our feet. Radulf had told me to ignore everything but the bulla. But … what if I didn’t?

The bulla was square in my vision as I continued running. If it had jewels inside, as most bullas did, then they could be as valuable as two handfuls of gold. Maybe more.

But the moment my foot touched the first gold piece, I was attacked from the side by something that knocked me to the cave floor. My head banged the ground hard enough that my vision blurred while the creature flew away. I tried to focus my eyes. Whatever the thing was, it had powerful wings, and a long, muscular tail.

I rolled to my stomach, then pushed myself up onto all fours while I got a breath. When I did, the creature swooped down from above, flapping its great wings hard enough to create a wind that rattled the gold pieces. It snatched me up with a giant talon that squeezed my lungs. I didn’t care what this thing was – I’d have it for dinner before I gave up fighting. So I kicked back, landing a foot into its soft underbelly.

The animal dropped me almost on top of the pile of gold and screeched in anger. Only then did I turn to my back where I could see it better. It swept upward and fixed a furious eye on me. The animal had the head of an eagle, only it was as large as a horse’s. When outstretched, its eagle wings commanded the cave, and the creature circled around, always with an eye on me. Once it crossed behind me, I saw the rest of its body, that of a lion.

I knew what this was. The king of all birds and the king of all beasts, joined in one animal.

It was a griffin.

My mother had told me about them, but had insisted they belonged only to the gods. If that was true, then this must be a very special griffin, for she guarded Caesar’s treasure.

That was fine by me. For all I cared, she could guard the entire pile of gold, minus just one thing. That bulla was my only chance of getting back to the surface. Without it, I might as well give up now. My bones would join the rest down here.

The griffin flew to a ledge high above the cave floor and stared down at me. Then she squawked and the rear claws pawed the rock beneath it, ready to attack. I didn’t have much time.

I eyed the bulla, almost within reach. The initials were clearly visible from here. G.J.C. Gaius Julius Caesar. This was the one Radulf wanted. I made another run up the stack of gold, placing my feet on the gold bars, which would hold my weight better than the coins. Once I was high enough, I dove for the bulla while straightening my body. With the bulla’s strap clutched in my hands, I rolled down the pile.

Shrieking louder than before, the griffin shot off the ledge and aimed herself directly at me. No arrow could’ve been faster, or more direct in its target. A talon swiped for me, but I tossed up a golden pitcher, blocking the attack. The heavy pitcher fell, landing on my chest hard enough that I nearly blacked out for want of air.

Now at the bottom of the pile, I only had a short run to get out of this room. Then I’d find the rope and make my escape.

So I got to my feet and ran again, but the griffin found me with her tail, and swiped it so powerfully that it threw me against the cave wall. Never in my life had I taken a hit that hard. With many more hits like that, I might not have much life left. I had to escape this room, get away from that beast. The rope was out there in the darkness. I could still find it, and have Sal pull me up.

The griffin made several circles in the air before landing, then faced me with a low growl that could have come only from something born of the gods. I was trapped.

If I was going to fight this beast – regardless of how poor my chances were – I needed the use of both hands, so I put the bulla around my neck.

A wind swirled up around me when I did. “It isn’t yours,” the wind seemed to say. “It will curse you.”

The threat didn’t bother me – my present situation was worse than any curse from a dusty amulet. My bigger concern was that the wind spoke to me at all.

The wind came again, and bored through me. I felt it inside my bones, and it chilled my very heart. This was what had killed the other miner, what had driven Fidelius mad, I knew it. And though I felt it start to take me too, I clutched the bulla with both hands, instinctively using it to hold on to my life, until suddenly, the wind stopped, almost as if someone had closed a door to lock it out.

Which would have been a fine end to my worries, except for the griffin directly ahead, watching me. That wasn’t natural. At least when she was attacking, I knew what to do, but what was the proper response to a dangerous animal that only stared? I tried speaking to her, hoping to fake enough calmness in my voice to make her relax.

“They call me Nic. It’s only a hiccup of a name, I know, but it means ‘victory of the people.’ One day, all people will be free, and then they’ll call me by my full name, Nicolas Calva.”

The griffin didn’t look all that impressed. Or at least, she took several steps toward me until I could almost reach out and touch her if I wanted to. Which I didn’t, by the way.

I kept talking. “You need a name too.” It wouldn’t matter to the griffin, but it did to me. No matter what she might do next, I couldn’t deny she was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. She deserved a name, and nothing ordinary. “I’ll call you Caela, because you are from the heavens. You have flown with the gods.”

Maybe it wasn’t smart to remind her where she had come from. She might not like the idea of living amongst humans now.

The griffin screeched again, revealing the sharpness of her beak. Sure enough, I had reminded her.

“I won’t take any more of your gold,” I said. So much for my plans for a life of luxury. All I wanted now was any life at all. “But you must let me have this one piece. Please!”

Caela flapped her wings angrily, then quickly drew them in again when another wind swirled through the cave. It distracted her, and I took my chance. I darted beneath one wing on a full sprint for the exit. I might’ve had a small hope of escaping, except now that it was around my neck, the gold bulla seemed heavier than before and the weight of it pulled me to the ground. It shouldn’t have. More than once, I had carried heavy sacks of raw metal to the surface on the strength of my back. One bulla shouldn’t be this hard.

Seeing me start to fall, Caela swiped a claw at me, which cut across my shoulder like a knife. I heard the rip of my tunic and immediately felt as if my shoulder had exploded. With a cry of pain, I fell to my hands and knees while black splotches marked my vision. I raised my arm and was half surprised it didn’t fall off. How could it hurt so much and still be attached?

With my other hand, I fumbled about for the bulla to be sure it was still there, but this time, it had become warm. The heat from it poured into my hand and traveled up my arm, straight to my injured shoulder, still throbbing with pain. What I felt there was so fierce that I would’ve sworn fire had licked it. I tried to grab my shoulder and massage the pain away, but I couldn’t reach it, so I had to content myself with letting it burn. The only good news was that I didn’t feel any blood, which seemed impossible considering that it felt like the griffin’s talon had touched bone.

I rolled to my back and saw Caela staring down at me. Why didn’t she take one final swipe? I knew now how deep those claws could go. It wouldn’t take much.

Caela screeched again, but this time her tone had changed. This wasn’t anger. It was a warning. The ground beneath us shook, some sort of earthquake. I scrambled to my feet and stumbled toward the opening from where I’d entered. With the bulla’s glow on my chest, it was easier now to see. I found the rope, but a rock instantly dislodged from above and landed directly on it, not far from my feet.

I needed that rope. It was my only chance to escape this cursed place. So while trying to dodge other falling rocks, I clutched at the rope and pulled with all my strength.

It was a mistake. I didn’t see the rock coming straight for me until it was too late. Even as it crashed onto my head, I thought about how meaningless my life had been, and how quickly I would be forgotten. This was never the way I had wanted to die.

There was no possible way to explain my waking up.

I lifted my aching head long enough to guess at which of the nearby rocks had struck me, but it didn’t much matter. Any of them were large enough to have finished me off.

The scratch on my shoulder still burned, but less than before. Maybe in the chaos of fighting a griffin, it had seemed worse than it really was.

And I felt for the bulla around my neck, breathing easier once it was in my hand again. It was already hard to imagine myself without the bulla, which was absurd, of course. But it should be mine. I had claimed it from the bitter wind. From Caesar’s ghost.

I wished I knew how much time had passed since the earthquake. Was it minutes, or hours … or days? Was it worse on the surface, or had they even noticed it?

I heard breathing again and realized the griffin’s warm body was right behind me. She must’ve dragged me away from the entrance after I fell, or else I’d have been buried there. Either she had nestled into me now, or somehow in this cold cave I had moved closer to her. She seemed to be asleep.

Being so close to a griffin should’ve horrified me, and my instincts should’ve begged for me to run. But they didn’t. In fact, all I felt was the desire to stay close, as if this creature who had so recently threatened my life was now the only one who could save it.

Or more likely, thoughts like these had been the beginnings of Fidelius’s madness. If I moved carefully, maybe I could find a way out of here without disturbing her. But then what? Another cautious peek made it clear that the opening from where I’d come had collapsed. This room was sealed. And somewhere above us, more cracking sounds could be heard. I knew those creaks from other mine shafts that had failed and taken many good men with them. Whatever held the rest of this cave together was slowly crumbling to dust.

As slowly as I dared, I sat up, but I was only halfway to my feet when the griffin lifted her head. I backed up and raised my arms, a pathetic way to fend off another attack, but it was the best I could do in that moment.

She sniffed me, and I tried to convince myself it was only out of curiosity – not hunger. If she had wanted to eat me, she’d had plenty of time for that while I slept.

“Listen,” I said, continuing my ridiculous strategy of speaking in Latin to an animal that communicated in screeches. “There must be another way out. This cave isn’t safe anymore. If you don’t fly us out, we’ll both be crushed when the rest of it collapses.”

Caela cocked her head as if she understood me. If she could, then she probably also knew that I had told her a half-truth. Yes, the cave might collapse, and yes, she’d be crushed if it did. But flying me out of here wouldn’t make any difference to her. I was absolutely irrelevant to her survival. If I was lucky, she wouldn’t figure that out.

Before I dared get her help, I needed her to trust me. Or more important, I needed to trust her. So I started walking around Caela, brushing my hand along the black feathers of her neck, and then running my fingers through the short brown fur along the lioness half of her. Caela arched her back at my touch and I felt a rumble inside her. The lion was purring, and I dug my fingers deeper. She crouched lower, but did not lie down. Was she moving so I could better reach her, or inviting me to climb on her back? I took a deep breath and tried to shake any doubts from my mind. Maybe I was wrong, and the consequences for misjudging a griffin couldn’t be good. But the cracking sounds were growing louder. I knew how my story would end if I did nothing.

I continued scratching her fur until I came to her other side. Then with a whisper to the gods for help, I grabbed the hook of her wing and swung onto her back. Would the gods help me now? For surely if anyone had ridden this griffin before, it was them. The wound she had given me protested my movement, but I ignored it. Being crushed by falling rock would hurt a lot worse.

I held on extra tight, expecting she would try to throw me off, but she didn’t. Instead, she widened her wings and flew upward on a steep climb. Some mornings, as I prepared to delve deeper into the earth, I watched the birds soaring upward in the air. I often wondered what their journey must be like, so weightless, so powerful. But feeling it now for myself was so much greater than anything I had ever imagined. When we were as high as we could possibly climb, Caela arced around and then dove at a sharp angle toward the floor. Near the bottom, she straightened out and I was certain we were about to collide with the black cave wall. Only when we were upon it did I see the change in shadow. It was a tunnel, plummeting even deeper into the earth. Deeper wasn’t what I had in mind.

Caela couldn’t use her wings in here, but she had built up enough speed in the dive to carry us through the length of the tunnel. I noticed water building on the ground below us. It seemed shallow at first, but the longer we flew, the more there was. Eventually, she had no choice other than to fly directly into the water, which she seemed perfectly comfortable with. I was less enthusiastic about where we were headed. I had the swimming skills of a lead pipe, and wherever we were, I needed Caela’s help now more than ever before.

From the first moment we went completely under, the water pressed in on my lungs like a vise. Caela was moving so fast that I could see nothing other than bubbles and blurry images, and could think of nothing but how fond I’d always been of air. After only seconds underwater, I was already in trouble, but finally I saw a light above us. We were heading to the surface, and just in time.

When we finally broke through, I was so breathless I nearly let go, but with a wide lake below us, that would hardly be helpful. Now that we were in open air, Caela slowed in her flight. She skimmed the lake’s surface, letting one talon cut a line across the water.

I leaned my head against the back of her neck. “Thank you,” I breathed. “Thank you.”

Her gentle caw back at me wasn’t angry anymore. Either Caela had become mine, or I had become hers. I didn’t know why or how this had changed, or whether it would last. But for now, I didn’t need an answer. This single moment was enough.

We were crossing Lake Nemi, called Diana’s Mirror by most of the other miners. They had warned me never to look at it, and never to ask questions about Diana’s temple, which I easily spotted on the hills of the opposite shore. I couldn’t see why any of their warnings mattered. It was beautiful here, and the bulla glowed through the grip of my fingers. I took it as a sign from Diana that she approved.

As we flew back toward dry ground, I began to wonder again how much time had passed since I had first entered the cave, and what surely had happened since then. Radulf would’ve blamed Sal for the collapse of the cave entrance and probably punished him. In turn, Sal would punish the other miners for not making the entrance stronger. They’d report my death to Livia and then tell her not to mourn since she should’ve been expecting it.

Livia.

If it weren’t for her, I would have begged Caela to keep flying forever. To a place without mines or chains or whips. Somewhere I had any chance for a future. If such a place still existed in this world, I knew Caela could find it.

But I wouldn’t leave without Livia – I had promised that to my mother, and it was a promise I intended to defend with my life. Left alone at the mines, Livia would be swallowed whole.

I wrapped one hand around the bulla again and pressed it to my chest. My heart seemed to beat just to get closer to it. Or maybe it was still beating because I was close to it. This was no ordinary bulla. I understood that now, though I couldn’t figure out exactly what made it so different. Was it the reason I had survived when hit by that rock underground?

I had to return to the mines for Livia; there was no question of that. But if Radulf was still there, I would have to give him the bulla, and that infuriated me. I hated that Radulf would be able to take this from me. I hated that it would become his simply because he was a general and I was nothing.

Once I got back, I would give the bulla to Radulf, then beg him to fulfill his promise to take Livia and me to Rome. I would ignore what I had overheard of his threats to the empire, and pretend he hadn’t smiled when I told him I might not return from the cave. Even if we were his slaves in Rome, it was better than working in the mines.

By now, Caela was flying us over a grassy knoll on the west side of the lake. The gray mines already seemed far away, only a memory of another life, another me. It was a good thing I had already decided to return for my sister, because if I hadn’t, nothing else would’ve convinced me to go back.

Suddenly aware of how hungry I was, I began scanning the valley for any sign of food. As if the gods had granted my wish, almost instantly I spotted a large patch of wild strawberries, ones so fat and red I could see them from up here. How could they feed us nothing but tasteless crusts of bread each day when so much fresh fruit was this close?

“Put me down, Caela.” I pointed out the strawberries. “Over there.”

Rather than take my orders, Caela merely tilted her body and literally dropped me off. Luckily, we weren’t too high off the ground, or it might’ve hurt worse, and the second I landed, she speared forward, probably hunting for food of her own. I was glad for that. It meant Caela wouldn’t be eating me. More good news.

I ran down the hill where she had dropped me and dove into the patch. I ate greedily, stuffing whole handfuls of berries into my mouth and swallowing almost without tasting. Although it wasn’t often, Sal sometimes got strawberries. He ate them right in front of us, and we privately grumbled that he wanted us to see him eating so that we would understand how far beneath him we were. Since I would probably never have this chance again, I ate until my stomach ached with pleasure. Was this how the wealthy felt after every meal, ill with happiness? I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to live a day without hunger gnawing at each step.

If I could have, I would’ve stayed forever in that strawberry patch without a worry in the world. I stretched out on the ground to soak in the sun and to rest from the ordeal in the cave. I tried to feel for Caela’s scratch again, but couldn’t quite reach it. Finally, I gave up trying.

As my eyes grew heavier, I realized there might be another option than giving Radulf the bulla. I had fought the griffin, not him, and nearly died in the cave because of it. The bulla was literally the only thing in the world that was mine. Maybe I could claim that I’d never found the bulla, that if it ever was in the cave, it was lost to the ages now. With that thought, I tucked the bulla beneath my tunic and twisted it around so it hung under one arm and fell to my side, where it was less noticeable. The bulla lay against my skin with a comfort and familiarity as if it had always been with me. And if I was successful in keeping it hidden, it always would be.

The foolishness of attempting to hide the bulla was only outmatched by the likelihood of failure. So in the end, if I had to give it back, then I hoped it was cursed, just as Caesar’s whisper had suggested inside the cave. Only then could I tolerate losing it.

Caela eventually returned to my side, and nestled in the brush beside me where she immediately fell asleep. I curled into her soft feathers, surprised by how calm I felt when she was nearby. Miners are never allowed enough of anything, especially sleep, and with the fragrance of ripe berries, warm sun, and my full stomach, my eyes were quickly lulled closed.

That was where they found me.