Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars 2)

“The torches burn so strongly,” added Erkanwulf. “It’s uncanny, it is.”

“Hush,” said Lavastine from behind, although the tramp of so many armed men through the tunnel could not be hidden—or at least not by any gift she possessed.

They walked steadily and, like the torches, without flagging. She realized now that the journey out of Gent had taken so long for the most part because they had gone so slowly, and because the refugees had been mostly frightened children or the weak and the wounded. With forty robust soldiers behind her, she could lead at a brisk pace.

“What’s there?” muttered Erkanwulf even as she realized that in the far distance ahead she could see a dull lightening cast of fire. And as they neared she saw that, indeed, it was fire: A wall of it stretched from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, leaping and burning in the tunnel with all the frenzy of a gleeful pack of fire daimones at their dance.

“Defended!” said Lavastine angrily.

Liath stared. Defended. But why, then, had the Eika not used the tunnel as a way to ambush Lavastine’s army when it first arrived?

“Stay back,” she said to Erkanwulf. She strode forward with her torch outthrust to make a barrier, but as she neared the wall of flame, it faded in her sight to become a whisper, a haze, a memory of fire, nothing more.

“Eagle!” She felt Erkanwulf dart forward to grab at her as she stepped into the blaze. He screamed. She stopped and turned round to order him back only to see the look on their faces, as much as she could see expressions in the torchlight. Only Lavastine watched impassively. Erkanwulf staggered back, a hand thrown up to shield his face from the heat. The rest murmured or cried out, or covered their eyes to hide them from the horrible sight of a young woman burned alive.

“It’s an illusion,” she said.

Erkanwulf fell to his knees, gasping and coughing.

Lavastine stepped up beside him. What courage it took him to do so she could not imagine. Would she do the same, if she had only another’s word to go by? Around her, the ghost fire shimmered and leaped, burning rock no less than air.

“If Bloodheart has guarded this tunnel with illusion,” asked the count, “doesn’t that mean he must know of it?”

“Perhaps. But then why wouldn’t he have used it for an ambush? Nay, Count Lavastine, I think there is fire above, on the plain, and his illusion is all of one seam. Have you ever seen an orrery? A model of the heavenly spheres?”

“Go on,” said Lavastine curtly.

“As above, so below. His illusion may be one seamless part, and thus exists below the ground as well as above it. It’s possible that these illusions would be seen by anyone attempting to approach the city, that Bloodheart cast them without knowing they would extend here, too.”

“Or perhaps his soldiers wait for us, beyond.”

In answer, she stepped through. A man shrieked, was brusquely ordered to be silent. Beyond the wall of fire lay the silent tunnel, dark and quiet. She turned and could not see the fire from this direction at all, only a misty haze and the men waiting on the other side.

“Nothing,” she said. “Unless Bloodheart ordered his men to wait for us on the stairs. It would be very hard to fight up those stairs and win.”

“Making it a better place to set an ambush, then,” said Lavastine. “But what choice do we have but to go forward?” He nudged poor frightened Erkanwulf with the toe of a boot. “Come. She has the true sight. We must trust in her.”

“We must trust in St. Kristine,” she said suddenly, “for without her intercession we would never have found the tunnel. The heat will not burn you.”

“I can’t go through,” sobbed Erkanwulf, still with a hand flung up to protect his eyes.

“Nay, boy!” said Ulric from the back of the group. “Think of Lord Wichman and his stories. They saw illusions at Steleshame, but that was all they were.”

“I will lead.” Lavastine gripped his sword more tightly and walked forward into the fire.

Even so, Liath felt him trembling slightly as he halted beside her. One by one, with increasing confidence, his troops came along after. Only a few shut their eyes as they passed through the illusion.

They went on.

After a time, she stumbled on a bottomless abyss, too wide across to jump. But even as she stared, the gulf of air solidified into the rock floor, littered with pebbles and scored by old footprints unstirred for months by the passage of wind or any other traffic, even the tiny creatures of the dark, over them.

This time, when she moved forward across the gaping abyss, Lavastine walked right beside her—though when he took the first step out over the yawning chasm, she noticed that he shut his eyes.

She called back over her shoulder. “Shut your eyes! Shut your eyes and walk forward. Your feet will not lie to you.”

In this way the soldiers followed, shuffling behind until the chasm lay behind them. With mounting confidence they went on. The torches burned steadily without consuming themselves.

“Are you a mage?” asked Lavastine softly, beside her. “Why do you possess this power to see through illusion? Where comes it from?”