“I—I wasn’t even sure the tombs remained intact.”
“They do. For now.” Chelsa’s features darkened.
She worries about Silk’s excavation, Karigan thought, as well she should.
“But if I may say,” Chelsa said more brightly, “we are probably more in awe that you are here in . . . in our time. I confess, I had my doubts about all this, with old messages and whatnot. It is a great honor to meet you, Sir Karigan. You are rather legendary.” She bowed, and so did the Weapons.
Karigan’s cheeks warmed. “Er, just call me Karigan, please. The ‘sir’ is not necessary. It is frankly a relief to see you all. You are not from my time, but you are of my time.”
“Aptly put,” Chelsa replied.
“I would like to know,” Cade said, apparently coming out of his daze, “what this place is and who these people are.” His eyes were full of questions, and he, too, now regarded Karigan with some awe.
Before Karigan could say a word, one of the Weapons, with a deft flick of his wrist, reversed the gun in his grip and struck the back of Cade’s head with the butt. Cade crumpled to the ground.
“Cade!” Karigan cried. She thrust Raven’s reins into Joff’s hands and raced to Cade’s side. She knelt, checking him, lightly patting his cheek, but he was unconscious.
“Was that necessary?” she demanded of the Weapon. “He has been studying the old ways, training to become one of you.”
The Weapon did not look remorseful. “He was not expected here. There are things he should not know. As it is, we shall have to keep him in the tombs or kill him.”
Karigan stood. “You will have to kill me first.”
THE SECOND MESSAGE, AND THE THIRD
“Please, Sir Karigan,” Chelsa said, already forgetting Karigan’s request not to use her title. “This is not necessary. No one will be killed.”
Karigan looked warily at the Weapons who now encircled her, but none made an aggressive move. Cloudy—no, Scruffy—rubbed against Joff’s leg and casually sauntered over to her, first rubbing her knee and purring loudly, then climbing onto Cade’s belly and kneading his coat.
“This man came armed,” said the Weapon who had struck Cade. “We cannot trust him.”
“He was just keeping watch over me,” Karigan replied, though she did not know exactly what he’d been up to. But why else would he have come? Whether he had followed her because he didn’t want her to come to harm or because the professor had decided he could not trust her, she did not know, but whatever the reason, Cade did not deserve such harsh treatment. She removed her jacket, rolled it up, and placed it gently under his head. Scruffy, curled up now, rose and fell with Cade’s deep, even breaths. At least the cat was content.
Karigan stood and placed her hands on her hips, giving the chief caretaker and the Weapons a good, assessing gaze. At first no one moved or said anything.
Eventually Chelsa broke the silence. “I shall ask a death surgeon to attend to your friend.”
This might have been an alarming statement had Karigan not been somewhat familiar with the ways of caretakers. In the royal tombs, death surgeons not only prepared the dead for interment but also served as menders among the caretakers. “Thank you,” she replied.
Another silence descended on the group. “I was summoned here,” Karigan reminded them.
Chelsa shook herself. “Yes, do forgive me. It is not every day we receive a visitor from the long ago past—alive, that is. Shall we go in?”
“You will permit it?” Karigan asked with some surprise. “And you will let me leave after?”
“Yes, of course. It is well documented in the past that you were permitted into the tombs and allowed to leave, although one occasion involved deceiving the chief caretaker of that time.”
Karigan nodded. She’d been dressed in the black of the Weapons, by the Weapons, so she could go into the tombs despite the taboo that forbade all from entering except royalty, caretakers, Weapons, and of course, the dead. Many Weapons spent their entire careers guarding the dead, and the other secrets buried in the tombs. Any other unauthorized soul who somehow stumbled his way into the tombs would not be allowed to leave and must spend the rest of his life as a caretaker.
“Come to think of it,” Chelsa mused, with a light, impish smile, “Agemon did complain in his log books quite a lot about the mess, as he put it, that you left behind.”
Karigan had played ghost, borrowing some royal raiment to scare the Second Empire thugs who had invaded the tombs. There had been a bit of spilled blood, too, that had required clean up. For all of Agemon’s complaints, much worse could have happened that night had she not made a “mess.”
“Shall we?” Chelsa asked, gesturing toward the Heroes Portal.
With one last look at Cade to ensure he would be all right, Karigan retrieved Raven’s reins from Joff and tethered the stallion to a nearby tree. She gave him a sound pat on the neck and told him to behave, then joined Chelsa at the door. Before they entered, Dash presented the bonewood to her with a bow.
“We have only heard about these,” he said. “None ever found their way below.”
Karigan took it with thanks, shortening it to cane length, and after the round door was opened, she followed Chelsa into the corridor she had never expected to enter again. Joff and the female Weapon accompanied them, leaving the rest to watch over Cade. Their steps thudded around them in the tubelike corridor, and when the iron door shut behind them, the rest of the world ceased to exist. There were no more sounds of small forest animals scurrying in the brush and leaf litter, no breezes rustling through the branches of the woods. Just their footsteps and breaths and the blanketing quiet of the tombs.