“Where were you?” Karigan demanded.
“There were other intruders,” Fastion said, “guarding the entrances. They’d knocked out the Weapons on duty with a sleeping draught infused in their evening tea. The enemy’s resistance delayed us. We did intercept the one chasing you. All the intruders are dead or captured, and those alive will be interrogated and go for judgment before the king.”
“Good.” Karigan closed her eyes and leaned her head back against Queen Whoever’s sarcophagus. It was nice and cold. Maybe they should have left her inside so she could sleep. A blanket and pillow would make it comfortable. Seemed like she’d already done a considerable amount of napping if all her confused dreams of ghosts and Salvistar were any indication. Not surprising what she dreamed about when one took into account her resting place.
Resting place? She frowned.
“I see you found the book,” Fastion said.
Karigan snapped her eyes open. The book! It sat on the floor beside her. She placed it on her lap and flipped through the pages, which were blank. Except for one page.
Karigan eagerly scanned the pretentious script: One cup of sugar, one cup of blueberries…
Blueberry muffins? A recipe for blueberry muffins? Who would copy a recipe into a book of magic? If this were really the right book…
She struggled to stand and was able to do so with some assistance from Brienne and Lennir. “We need to find the high king’s tomb,” she said. “We can read it only in the light of the high king’s tomb.”
The Weapons gazed at one another, then at her. “Which one?” Brienne asked.
“Not Jonaeus,” Karigan said. “They tried him already. And probably not Smidhe.”
Agemon sniffed loudly.
“You have something to say?” Brienne demanded.
“The answer is easy,” he replied.
“That so?”
He raised his chin, looking supremely wise and dignified among such errant children. “There is only one high king.”
The Weapons again exchanged glances. “King Zachary?” Lennir ventured.
Agemon rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes. Of course, King Zachary. That is, unless something has changed up above that no one has told me about.”
Silence.
Then Karigan burst out, “But he’s not dead!” Paused, then in a small voice asked, “Is he?”
“No,” Brienne said.
Agemon looked down his nose and through his specs at Karigan. “The riddle stated the book could only be read in the light of the high king’s tomb. Correct?”
Karigan nodded.
“Does it say anything about the king having to be dead?”
Karigan shook her head and Agemon stepped aside, revealing a sarcophagus behind him. On the marble lid was carved a likeness of King Zachary, looking as though he were no more than asleep, a scepter clasped between his hands. A marble Hillander terrier lay across his feet. Karigan almost fell, felt like the ground shifted beneath her. Lennir grabbed her by the elbow and steadied her.
“But he’s not dead,” Karigan whispered.
“Preparations for the passing of the royal ones begin well before the great event,” Agemon said. “Yes, yes, we would not wish to be caught unprepared. Alas, we haven’t a lid carved yet for the queen-who-will-be.”
“The queen…” Karigan glanced at the empty sarcophagus behind her. She had hidden in Estora’s final resting place. This was truly bizarre.
“The book,” Fastion urged. “Let’s see if Agemon is right.”
The caretaker sniffed again and muttered, “Of course I’m right. Yes, of course I am.”
Karigan stepped up to King Zachary’s sarcophagus, indeed she had to step up on a raised platform of stone, and she gazed down on his likeness. The sculptor had captured his image truly—much better than the wax figure of him in the Sacor City War Museum. He lay at ease, noble and serene, and she wondered if the sculptor had created the likeness while King Zachary slept.
She ran her fingers down his arm, and she wanted to touch the smoothness of his cheekbone, the texture of his beard.
“Ahem.” Fastion.
Karigan stiffened and hastily snatched her hand away, feeling a heat in her cheeks that wasn’t just her fever. Instead she placed the book on the king’s chest and opened it to somewhere in the middle.
At first, nothing happened.
THE BOOK OF THEANDURIS SILVERWOOD
Karigan was about to remove the book from King Zachary’s sarcophagus and tell Agemon he was wrong when the book shimmered with pale blue light, then absorbed the illumination from all the nearby lamps until it was so saturated it seared the eyes with hot white-gold light.
Karigan staggered back from the sarcophagus shielding her eyes, as did the others.
She felt on the brink of some other world. Images assailed her, images of an ancient battle raging in which magic was used as a weapon to devastate opposing sides. Banners fluttered in the breeze, horses reared, swords clashed, arrows rained from the sky, and magical forces exploded. Amid the chaos, she thought she heard the horn of the First Rider and felt herself stirred to the call and—
The images shifted to laborers, bare backs glistening with sweat, pounding on granite blocks, cutting them, shaping them. Hammers, hundreds of hammers ringing on stone. But there was more, a rhythm, a song to it, a song of strength and binding and endurance.
The building of the wall, Karigan thought.
To her horror, sweat turned to blood as stoneworkers, still singing their song, drove knives into themselves, falling dead upon granite blocks and bleeding into them. The granite blocks pulsated with the rhythm, carrying on the song, taking on lives of their own.