Death Sworn(49)

Bazel put one foot up on another rock. “And through me, with the others in these caves.”

“Does the master know?”

Bazel’s eyes darted to the side. “If he did, he wouldn’t care. It’s not important enough for him to pay attention to.”

Ileni lifted her eyebrows.

“If it was important,” Bazel said, “he would know. Nothing significant escapes his notice. But he allows us small freedoms. He understands that we can’t be perfect all the time.”

Ileni kept her face carefully blank.

Bazel put both feet on the ground. “If that’s all—”

“One more thing,” Ileni said. If she was going to preserve the illusion that she was more powerful than he was, she should control when the conversation ended. “If you know another way out, why don’t you run away?”

His lip curled. “There is no such thing as running away, Teacher. One can’t escape the master merely by getting out of these caves. Besides, who said I want to run away?”

He turned and walked across the rocky ground, the magelight hovering at his shoulder.

Within minutes they were clambering through a labyrinth of jagged boulders that leaned haphazardly against one another, stretching as far ahead as Ileni could see by the magelight. Bazel leaped easily from rock to rock, balancing and launching himself from one precarious edge to another with practiced ease. Ileni scrambled behind on her hands and feet and knees, feeling cautiously for footholds. The rocks looked like they might tilt and fall as soon as her weight hit them.

She was concentrating so hard that it was a while before she heard it: a rushing murmur that seemed to come from all around them.

“What is that?” she demanded.

Bazel leaped to the top of a bulbous rock structure, balancing in a crouch, hands and feet gripping the stone. He replied without looking back. “You’ll see.”

“Or you could just tell me,” Ileni muttered, but not loud enough for Bazel to hear. He pulled himself through a tiny opening between two leaning boulders, and she scrambled to catch up, terrified that he would get too far ahead and leave her alone among the rocks and the darkness.

She heard a soft thud, and pulled herself cautiously through the opening after Bazel, holding tight to the edges of the boulders and leaning over. Below her—far below—was a dense blackness and that constant rushing sound. The air smelled different, too, dank rather than musty.

A river, here beneath the earth. If she had kept going, she would have plunged right into it.

Was that what Bazel had wanted?

She pulled herself farther out, then looked down and around for Bazel. She couldn’t see him—but she could make out the faint outlines of the rocks rising behind her, which meant it wasn’t pitch-black. She twisted around to search for the source of the light, and found it when she looked up.

“Come on,” Bazel said, and she saw that he was standing on a ledge several feet above the tunnel’s opening. Squinting, she made out square handholds cut into the cliff above her, leading up to the ledge. Bazel’s voice was muffled by the rushing river, so she couldn’t tell if there was any disappointment in it.

This must be where Absalm had died. Was it how he had died, as well?

“I’ll need help,” she said.

Bazel sighed, loudly enough to be heard over the rushing water, and leaned down. Ileni hesitated before reaching for his hand—if he did want her to drown, this was a perfect opportunity. But it wasn’t as if she had any choice. She clasped his wrist as tightly as possible, though she was under no illusions about his ability to pry her off if he tried. He lifted her up part of the way, and then he paused. Her feet dangled in thin air, and her body twisted slightly, brushing against the rock. The river rushed far below.

“Don’t,” she tried to say, but all that emerged was a whimper. Then he grunted and swung her up onto the ledge next to him.

The rest of the whimper turned into a gasp of relief. Bazel pulled away. “It’s easy from here,” he said. “The path goes down the side of the cliff until it’s level with the river.”

“What river is it?” Ileni asked. She could see nothing but slick blackness below.

Bazel started down the path. “A minor tributary—nothing that would be very impressive in sunlight, I’d imagine. It flows under the mountains for a bit before emptying into the Farlin River.”

Which emptied into the Diannor, which flowed straight to the capital of the Empire. As a child, Ileni and her friends had cursed stones and thrown them into the Farlin, in the hope that some imperial noble would pick one up and have a run of bad luck.