Page 50 of Harmonic Pleasure


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It left them in the dark, with just the stars. Vega didn’t move - there was too much rubble scattered on the ground to make that safe. She needed her eyes to adjust too, and that took a minute. Finally, she blinked once more and the points of light were clear. “The stars.” She gestured. “Do you know your constellations?” If he did not, he was just going to have to learn, if they kept on with things. No, he’d mentioned appreciating Aunt Ancha’s paper about the stars in art, that suggested he had at least some knowledge.

“I took Astronomy all through Schola, and Time and Place.” Farran sounded amused beside her. “But those aren’t constellations. They’re asterisms, aren’t they? The Little Dipper and—” He hesitated.

“Yes.” Vega cut him off quickly. She didn’t entirely want to say the name out loud. The Pleiades, the stars her Grandmothers were named for, seven sisters dancing eternally in the sky. “Which would you take?”

“Without the context, that one.” She could just barely see his gesture. Perhaps he felt as cautious as she did. Then he took her hand in his and made it plain by touch. “But.”

She nodded, and then pulled his hand, like a tow boat moving a much larger liner, toward the other. “Yes. Can you make a light, please? Only one?”

“I can do something that shouldn’t bother our night vision as much.” He did, producing a deep red glow. He might, in fact, have sufficient astronomy knowledge to satisfy her family. It was enough to let them see the rubble on the floor without ruining their vision in the dark. That done, they could move carefully toward the wall with the Pleiades on it. That wall, however, seemed to be utterly solid. She’d expected some opening, or perhaps a door. Instead, it was smooth stone, as if it had stood for centuries. It likely had.

“Do you? Is there?” Her voice cracked. “We don’t have much time.” Coming back here would be complicated. There were so many more chances Vandermeer might catch a scent or whatever one called it. He was just the sort who’d figure out how to bribe someone to come down here and spend the day with equipment and men with strong arms. Or maybe to bribe people with the right cellars to let Vandermeer dig a hole.

“Give me a minute, all right?” Farran sounded distracted. “Can you hold the lantern?” She reached out and took it and then watched his shadow move. He was feeling along the wall, lightly, with his fingertips. One of his hands twitched, or the shadow did, to the other side, before he shook his head and focused back on the wall in front of him. “Is it a problem if I do a charm?”

“Not that I know of. But I don’t know that it isn’t a problem.” Vega swallowed. “Why do you ask?”

“I know a charm for stonework, and a charm for jammed doors. Well, it works better on dresser drawers, but it’s adaptable.” His tone of voice made her laugh, despite the seriousness of the situation. He took that for agreement, and said, “Right. Stand back a step or two, just in case.”

It turned out to be three different charms in sequence. The first two didn’t seem to do anything she could see or hear, but they made some sense to him. A muttering sort of sense, like he was talking to himself, talking to the stone, maybe talking to whoever had been here long before. She couldn’t make it out.

Then he tried a third charm, and something made a sound. It wasn’t like stone scraping on stone, or wood, but it was as if something took a breath after a long time. Then there was a movement of air, strong enough that it would have put out a candle if they’d had one lit.

Farran took a breath— she could see the shadowy shape of his shoulder move first— and then he put his hands againstthe gap. Something creaked then, and Vega stepped over to bring more light. She could see perhaps six inches of blackness. Clipping the lantern to her bag, she set her hands a bit below Farran’s. “On one.”

Of course, she counted it by habit, “Five, six, seven, eight.” But Farran guessed how that worked, and after eight came one. It wasn’t the only way to count in, of course, but they were used to working with the dancers, who often thought in eight counts. Whatever the reason, it worked, and she could feel the door begin to move. They got it about halfway across the likely opening.

Farran peered at it. “Is that enough space, do you think?”

“Give it a go.” He wasn’t a burly man, but he was taller and broader-shouldered than she was. Though she had more of a bust, that squished down. He nodded, and took the lantern from her when she handed it over, then squeezed through. Nothing trapped him, and she heard a scattering of small stones, then a sound that was like awe and wonder. Like stepping into Jack Cade’s caves, but more so.

Of course, she followed right away, pushing against the door to get her last foot through. The light wasn’t strong, but even so, she could see why he’d been amazed. There were mosaics or something of the kind on the walls, niches for burial or worship or maybe both along both sides of the room. “More light, please?” Her voice shivered at the last word. “I want to see.” Then, she realised what else she was feeling.

The talisman in her pocket was vibrating, strongly enough it was more like a tambourine than anything else. “The talisman,” she said. “Can you hold up the light?”

Farran nodded. “Let me make it brighter, all right?” He extinguished it just for a second, then a warmer golden light was back, and much brighter this time. The space must have been some sort of temple or particularly valued place, because yes,those were decorations all over. Some were geometric, a few glittered with reflective stones. Others made patterns, bulls and horses and people, a fountain, a pond. And then, above them, a night sky, with constellations picked out.

“That way, I think.” She could feel the pull more clearly now, to an area across the room, not quite the furthest niche. “Careful, there’s a lot of fallen rock.”

They picked their way through, moving slowly, a few feet apart, in case anything unexpected happened. Farran glanced around between steps. “A lot of the fall here looks recent. The ceiling there, some down the wall, there?” He gestured with his free hand. “Construction nearby, maybe?”

“Maybe.” That was entirely beyond Vega’s scope of knowledge. Then they were standing, looking at a small enclosed bay with a niche built into the end. It might have been an altar at some point, or a shrine, or something of the kind. It drew the eye to something on it, or maybe in it. Now, she stopped and looked at it more carefully. “What do we think this was?”

“Some sort of temple. Underground, maybe. A Mithraeum, I’d think, but there aren’t nearly enough bulls.” Farran gestured again at the ceiling. “Your Grandmothers, maybe?”

“Not the right number of niches for that.” There were ten. Muses, maybe, Muses came in nines. “Do you think I should go forward?”

“I think your particular Grandmother might have had that idea. The stars. And we’re short on time. We can’t dither about it for hours.” Vega realised with a start he was right, glancing at her watch. They really had very little time at all. She took a breath, then made her way forward, step by step. After each one, she waited to see if anything moved or shifted. There was more rubble here, from gravel-sized pieces to a couple as big around as her head. It brought her in front of a space about three feetwide, with about another foot beyond that on either side of the niche. The base looked like it had been painted at one point, perhaps brightly, but now it was a little dingy with damp and faded to hints of blues and greys.

The tug from the talisman was so strong she could feel it like her heartbeat. All Vega could say, when it came to it, was “Grandmother Alcyone, guide my hands.” There was a burst of that scent of nighttime flowers again, then Vega was reaching to brush dust and gravel off the top of the flat surface. Her fingers found it first, a surge of magic against them.

She brushed more, frantic now, to reveal something like a torc. There it was, a circle of metal with an opening at one side, but small enough she thought it might be meant to be a bracelet instead. She picked it up, feeling the magic of it pulse, before it settled. As if it knew it was in the right sort of hands now, and could stop fussing. It made her think of the way the youngest cousins, still babies, reacted when one of their kin picked them up. Mama was best, or their favourite auntie, but any of the other people they knew as family were just fine. This was like that. She was not the person who would keep this, and she didn’t need to be. Vega was simply the one bringing a treasure home to be properly tended.

“I have it.” She turned, finally. Some part of her was afraid that Farran would change in that moment. Or that Vandermeer would appear out of the shadow and gloom. Vega hated that thread of fear. But the magic of the torc rose like a wave, washing away that fear. When she blinked again, Farran was smiling. “Good. Do you need a cloth to wrap it up in?”

He didn’t take it. He didn’t even try to touch it, or her, while she was holding it. When she didn’t say anything, he just rummaged in his satchel, pulling out an absurdly large silk scarf, the sort women would fold and tie over their hair. She carefully wrapped up the torc, then settled it gently into her ownsatchel, nestling it into an interior pocket and fastening that as well as the outer buckle. Only then did she turn back. “We should get back to Bill and Frank.”

“And promptly,” Farran agreed. “Are you all right, though?”