Human tones, Lionheart decided after a moment. Low and rich and frightening. There was no melody in the sound, at least not in the sense that Lionheart thought of melody. But it was powerful and sounded as though it had been going on for hundreds of years.
Through the mist, Lionheart thought he caught glimpses of men in black robes, a few in white. They stood in clusters, and their heads were bowed, so he never saw their faces. This was a strange relief. The idea of anyone in this dark place looking at him gave Lionheart the shivers. There were statues in the gloom as well, huge statues which he only saw when he was about to run into them. But then he could make out the features of a tall man who was simultaneously a tall woman, wrought in black-and-white stone. Other statues were man-and-woman, but also dragon-and-bird. They were grotesque yet beautiful.
Lionheart hated them the moment he saw them.
The emperor led him across the courtyard, which was strangely long, and at last to the first door of the temple. Here he turned to Lionheart, a silken scarf in his hand. “I must blindfold you, Leonard of the Tongue of Lightning,” he said. “Mortal eyes are not meant to see the inner halls of Ay-Ibunda.”
“What of you?” Lionheart asked as the emperor fixed the blindfold in place. “Are you walking blind as well?”
“I am the Imperial Glory,” said the emperor. “I am permitted to see what mere men may not.”
But there was a tremble in the Imperial Glory’s voice. Lionheart realized that the boy emperor was afraid. Mortally afraid, and desperately trying to conceal it. This knowledge did nothing to decrease Lionheart’s respect for the child. In fact, he marveled at how steady young Klahan’s hands were as they tied the scarf, then took hold of Lionheart and gently led him inside.
The smell was different here. It was more like a sensation of heat, followed very quickly by ice-cold. But he felt neither hot nor cold; he merely breathed it. The emperor led him down what must have been a long passage. Lionheart counted thirty steps. Then a left turn and fifteen steps; a right, and ten; another right, and fifteen . . . he lost track eventually. He wondered if the emperor was lost. After all, he had never been here before. But the Imperial Glory never hesitated; his grip on Lionheart’s arm never slackened or tightened but remained comfortably firm.
They stopped.
“Here,” said young Klahan, “you must go on alone if you wish to speak to the Mother’s Mouth.”
“I do,” said Lionheart.
“She may require something of you. Have you anything to give?”
Lionheart had brought nothing with him, not even his bell-covered jester’s hat. He frowned.
The emperor pressed something into his hand. Something tiny and round, no bigger than a pea. “Give her this,” he said. “They are rare. She will like it. Now kneel, Leonard of the Tongue of Lightning.”
Lionheart obeyed. The boy guided his hands so that they gripped the frame of a very low, open doorway. “You must crawl,” Klahan said. “When you reach the end, set this at the feet of the Mother’s Mouth and ask her what you would know of the Mother.”
Lionheart nodded. Then, because he didn’t know what else to say, he ducked his head through the doorway and started to crawl.
He expected this leg of his journey to take no more than a few moments. He was wrong. The low tunnel in which he found himself stretched on forever, and his knees and back were sore and protesting long before he felt empty space above his head again. He still wore the blindfold. The Imperial Glory had not told him whether or not he could remove it. But there didn’t seem much use in keeping it on now, so he slid it down around his neck. It made no difference. Wherever he had crawled was a black void and he could not guess how high the roof might be. But he had come to the end of the tunnel, of this he was certain. When he put out his hands to either side, he could not reach the walls. He must be near the Mother’s Mouth now. If he went just a little farther—
“Stop!”
He obeyed. His heart thudded into the pit of his stomach and stayed there for what seemed a long time. Then it began racing double time. Clutching the little something the emperor had given him tightly in his hand, Lionheart slowly reached out. “I . . . I bring a gift,” he spoke in halting Noorhitamin.
Whoever was in the chamber with him began to speak. He did not understand the words. They sounded Noorhitamin but not a dialect he had ever before heard, not Pen-Chan, Chhayan, or Kitar. This was much older than any of those, more lyrical, though the voice that spoke them was old and unlovely.
“I’m sorry,” Lionheart said. “I don’t understand.”
The voice stopped. When it began speaking again, more slowly this time, it continued in the same language in which it had begun. But strangely enough, Lionheart heard each word ringing through his head in his own tongue. The sensation made him sick inside.
“Have you a gift for the Mother’s Mouth?” the voice asked. It was a woman’s but so ancient as to be almost genderless now.