When she entered, her robe illuminated the grand hall with a cold azure light. A great stone table stood in the center with dozens of tall chairs surrounding it. A few had fallen to their sides, as had a half dozen metal goblets that rested on the table. The chamber was four stories tall, with great windows lining the high gallery and skylights in the ceiling. She imagined that they had once filled this room with a wonderful radiance of sunlight. Painted on the upper walls and parts of the ceiling were astounding scenes of battle. Knights rode on horseback with streamers flying from long poles, vast valleys were filled with thousands of soldiers, and castle gates, defended by archers, were assailed by machines of war. In one scene, three men battled on a hilltop against three Gilarabrywn. Those same men were seen in other images, and in one, they were pictured in a hall with a throne where one sat with a crown and to either side stood the other two. Below the paintings, a varied array of weapons lined the room: swords, spears, shields, bows, lances, and maces. The one thing they all had in common: even after a thousand years, they still gleamed.
Words were engraved in a band encircling the room and could also be found on recessed plaques, yet Arista’s training in the Old Speech was verbal, not written. Unable to decipher the meanings, she did spot the words Techylor and Cenzlyor.
A majestic stair gave access to the gallery above and she climbed it. At the top were a series of doors. Some rooms lay open and she spied small chambers, living quarters with beds, shelves, and closets. Lantern light spilled from one.
She found Hadrian standing near the bed, staring up at the opposite wall as if entranced. He was looking at a suit of armor, a shield, and a set of weapons. The armor was not at all like the traditional heavy breastplates, pauldrons, vambraces, and tassets of typical knight attire. This was one piece and appeared as a long formal coat, but made from leaves of gold-colored metal. It hung from a display with a great plumed helm like the head of an eagle resting on top.
“Planning on moving in?” she asked. “I got a little worried when you didn’t come back.”
“Sorry,” he said, embarrassed. “I didn’t hear any shouts. Is everything all right?”
“Gaunt is sleeping, Myron reading, Magnus is arguing with Alric, Royce still hasn’t returned, and Mauvin wandered off. And what are you doing?”
She sat down on the bed, which promptly collapsed under her weight, issuing a cloud of dust.
“You all right?” he asked, helping her up.
“Yes,” she said, coughing and waving her hand before her face. “I guess the wood rotted over the years.”
“This is it,” he said.
“What?” She brushed the dust from her robe.
“This is Jerish’s room, Jerish Grelad, the Teshlor Knight who went with the emperor’s son into hiding.”
“How do you know?”
“The shield,” he said, and pointed across the room at the heater shield hanging on the wall. On it was an emblem of twisted and knotted vines around a star supported by a crescent moon. Hadrian reached back and drew forth the long spadone sword. He held it up so that she could see the small engraving at the center of the pommel that matched the one on the shield. Then he stood up and crossed the room. As he did, she noticed for the first time that the suit of armor had no sword, but there was a sheath of gold and silver. Hadrian fitted the tip into the opening and let the great sword slide home. “You’ve been parted a long time.”
“Doesn’t quite match anymore,” Arista said, noticing how the sword was marred to a dull finish.
“It has seen a thousand years of use,” Hadrian said, defending it. He looked back at the armor. “The sword was the only thing he took. I suppose he couldn’t expect to hide very well dressed in shiny gold armor.” His fingers played over the gleaming surface of the metal.
“Looks like it would fit,” she said.
He smirked. “What would I do with it?”
She shrugged. “Still, it seems like you should have it. Goes with the sword, anyway.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
He lifted the coat. “So light,” he said, stunned.
Arista looked back down at the bed and, as she did, noticed a small object—a figurine carved from a bit of smoky quartz. She picked it up and rubbed it clean. It was a statuette of three people, a boy flanked by two men, one in leaf armor and the other in a robe. The likeness of Esrahaddon was remarkable, except that this figure had hands. Whoever the artist was had a rare gift.
“Interested in what he looked like?” she said, and held out the figurine.
“He was young,” Hadrian replied, taking the statuette and turning it over in his hands. “A good face, though.” Then his eyes shifted and he smiled and she knew he was looking at Esrahaddon. “So this must be Nevrik, the heir. Doesn’t look like Gaunt, does it?”
“How many generations are there in a thousand years?” she asked. “Funny that he left this. It’s so beautiful you would have thought he’d taken it with him, or at least…” She paused and glanced around the room. Except for the expected silt of a thousand years, the room was neat and ordered, the bed made, drawers and cabinets closed, a pair of boots standing side by side at the foot of the bed.
“Did you… straighten up in here at all?” she asked.
He looked at her curiously and appeared as if he might laugh. “No,” he told her.
“It’s just that it’s so tidy.”
“What, because he was a knight you think—Okay, so there is Elgar, but he’s more of an exception. No one is as messy as he is, but—”
“That’s not what I meant. It’s just that after Jerish left—after he took Nevrik and ran—I would have thought they would have searched this room, tore it apart looking for clues, but nothing looks out of place. And this figurine—don’t you think they would have taken it? Why didn’t they ransack the room? It’s been a thousand years. You’d think they would have gotten around to it by now, unless… maybe they never got the chance.”
“What do you—”
The blare of a horn blowing from somewhere outside the guildhall reached them, followed by the distant beat of drums.
“What’s happening?” Hadrian asked, returning with Arista to the front of the hall, where Alric was once again at the windows. He carried the armor in a bundle and the shield over his back.
Alric shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t see a thing out there. Did you find an exit?”
“No, everything is sealed by rubble. So on the one hand, we’re safe, but on the other, trapped.”
“I think more are arriving out there,” Alric mentioned.
“Get your head back from the window before you catch an arrow,” Royce told him, returning from a side hall Arista had not taken.
She knelt down beside Gaunt and looked over his wound. The bleeding had finally stopped, but his face was still moist despite the chill in the air.