Maze of Moonlight by Gael Baudino (read with me TXT) 📕

too, months ago, when she had told him about Elves, about what the old stories said. Old stories! Christopher was still cursing himself for his gullibility—and for his cursing. Without Natil, the alliance would have been still-born. Without elven help, he himself might even now be locked in a cell beneath the Château. Or dead.

The turbulence of the spring churned moisture into the air. Christopher's face was damp, his hair lank. “You know the way to the passage?”

Paul squeezed his hand. “In my sleep.”

Christopher passed the orders back down the file. One hand on the shoulder of the man in front. Follow. Watch your step.

The men moved slowly along the edge of the rushing water, toward the mouth of the passage that led up to the castle above. This was no martial advance: attack by such an ill-equipped few would have been brave but foolish, and Christopher had given up such idiocy. He was, instead, intent upon the much more practical goal of getting Paul and his people to safety—to Malvern, at least, perhaps as far as Aurverelle.

He suddenly stopped short, his hand tight on Paul's shoulder. Ahead, broken into a faint cascade of glittering sparks by the cataract that fell from the rocky wall and plunged into the pool below, was a flickering light.

Guards.

He felt Paul nod. “They can't have heard us,” said the baron of Furze. “I can hardly hear myself. But you've good eyes, my friend.”

“Fear does that.”

Paul led the party up the invisible path by feel and then ducked behind what seemed to the touch to be a massive wall of boulders. The waterfall was off to the right now, jetting out with such force that it contacted the receiving pool some distance behind the party.

“The drought hasn't done anything to this, has it?” Christopher said in Paul's ear.

“It's a miracle.”

“Whose?”

But their advance had brought them within sight of the passage, for Christopher saw a flickering glow that outlined the shape of an opening among the rocks behind the falls. Yes, there were guards. He murmured a prayer of thanks, realized a moment later that he had addressed it to the Lady whom Natil so frequently invoked. He had asked Her for help before, and his request had obviously been granted.

So much attention he was getting these days! “I'm going in,” he said with a dry mouth, but a massive hand descended upon his shoulder, and the abbot's deep voice rumbled close by:

“And I also, my good lord baron of Aurverelle.”

“You're a churchman.”

“Aye, but once I was a knight. And I have a right hand. And as long as I have a right hand I can pick up a club. And as long as I can pick up a club, I can revenge the deaths of some monks who died praying for the souls of such men as killed them.”

Together, the two went toward the light, inching along a foot-wide ledge with the water jetting out above them; and when they reached the passage, Christopher bettered his grip on his sword and peered cautiously around the corner. The light was spilling from the far side of a turn. The guards had taken up their positions away from the wet.

“Too bad for them,” he whispered to the abbot.

Wenceslas hefted his club. “God be praised.”

The baron grinned wickedly. “She certainly deserves it, doesn't She?”

Wenceslas crossed himself. Christopher clapped him on the shoulder and winced a little at the feel of rock hard muscles. Without waiting, though, he made for the turning; and the two guards who were occupying the dank chamber beyond were caught unawares by the sudden, murderous attack from the downside of the passage. Wenceslas' cudgel smashed one tot he ground with a solid crunch as Christopher's sword tore through the throat of the other before he could even gasp in surprise.

The water masked the sound of the fight and the fall of the bodies. In a few minutes, though, it would have to mask even more.

Wenceslas dragged the dead guards out of the way as Christopher took one of the torches, went back down the passage, and waved the rest of the party forward. Paul led them up, climbing spryly, and when he reached Christopher, he shook his hand. “My thanks, Messire Christopher.”

Christopher grinned. It was time to drop such formalities. “My pleasure, Paul.”

Paul smiled, took the torch, and led them forward, first through the chamber in which the guards had been slain, then beyond. The air was damp and stagnant, the ground stony, the passage narrow and steep. Abbot Wenceslas, a big man, now and again had to force himself through a constriction as though he were shoving a grape through a finger ring.

But a short distance upwards, the passage opened out into a large room that was loud with dripping water and irregular with pits, depressions, and outcroppings of a thousand shapes and sizes. On the far side, another aperture led further up, but immediately above it, the roof dipped down in a cluster of rough boulders that seemed thrust into the room like a finger.

Without comment, Paul pointed at the cluster, and with dour nods, the men set to work. Hammers, picks, clubs: anything heavy that might persuade a stone to break smashed rhythmically against the overhang with the regularity of swiples falling on a floor of wheat. And, as though the men were indeed threshing, Wenceslas himself called the changes in a low voice that reverberated throughout the room, carrying even over the still tumultuous roar of water.

Christopher worked, too, raising a sledge and smacking it home, showing his companions that even the baron of Aurverelle knew how to keep time to a caller's chant. But as he worked, he wondered what Natil was doing. Was she keeping her word? How would he know?

Minutes passed, lengthened. The work went on. The temperature in the chamber rose. The air was sodden with humidity. Dirty, sweaty men strained aching muscles against the impassive stone.

An Elf's word is binding throughout all the Worlds, Natil