Read Online Citadels of the Lost by Tracy Hickman - Free Book Online Page B

down the hall.
    Come past the dead in the dying light . . .
    Come to the bliss of the night.
    Mala took a tentative step into the hall.
    Face now the truth
    And the death of your youth . . .
    Mala rushed down the hallway, the pulsing glow from the distant lightning lighting her way.
    â€œStop, Lyric!” she called out, but her voice was swallowed up in the continuous crash of thunder outside.
    She rushed after the other woman, desperate to catch her and bring her back to the safety of their group. In front of her, the Lyric laughed at the game, and kept ahead of her with frustrating ease. Quite suddenly, Mala realized that the woman had led her into a complex warren of subterranean rooms—some lit by the same ceiling panel arrangement as those she had just passed—and that the Lyric was taking her deeper into the ruins beneath the mountain. The hall turned, opening into a room where one wall had completely fallen, a raging stream of water rushing out from behind it and coursing down across the dim mosaic that covered the floor. The Lyric was still ahead of her, running now, splashing the water up behind her. Mala quickened her own pace, following the madwoman through a succession of several rooms. Brilliant light suddenly surrounded her, followed in an instant by an explosion of sound. Mala screamed, cowering by instinct from the overwhelming noise and glancing upward in fear. The fading light showed a circular shaft that ran up through the mountain, vines reaching down toward her from the opening several hundred feet overhead. The walls were lined with stone balconies and black doorways, each looking down on her. Rain fell straight down the shaft, soaking her hair and clothing before she recovered and rushed into the opposite opening where the sound of the Lyric’s laughter echoed its taunt in her direction. The water in this room pooled above her ankles as she ran toward the arched hall on the other side. No lights penetrated this darkness, but the laughter led her on, Mala’s fingers running against the smooth mosaic tiles of the curving hall. She stumbled on something that clattered at her feet but kept on, believing that the voice of the Lyric was closer now. She could see something now as she continued: the end to the curving tunnel and a grateful return to the light.
    She stepped into a great circular plaza. A curving staircase descended from an upper level. This plaza, too, was open to the sky above where the great overhead dome had cracked and part of it had fallen, its stones having crashed into and ruined the finish of the polished stones that formed the floor. This open fissure extended across the ceiling of the plaza where one wall had collapsed into the courtyard, revealing an enormous room more than thirty feet wide and a hundred feet deep. Its arched ceiling rose up nearly a hundred feet to where it was split by the end of the overhead fissure to one side, cascading water down one wall and illuminating a gigantic statue at the far end. Water also tumbled down the staircase and flowed across the floor, washing away the dust and revealing the ancient shine under the pulsing flashes penetrating from overhead.
    The Lyric stood before the statue, gazing up at it as she swayed back and forth.
    Soaked to the skin, Mala carefully climbed over the rubble of the fallen wall and entered the enormous arched hall. There were stone benches set in rows here, all facing the statue which lay in shadow at the curved back of the room. The lightning had subsided for the moment and Mala found it difficult to see.
    â€œLyric?” she called. “Come back with me. It isn’t safe here.”
    The figure standing before the statue lifted up her arms slowly but did not turn around.
    â€œPlease, Lyric . . . or whoever you are,” Mala called, her voice quivering and uncertain. She remembered that who the Lyric thought she was could change at any moment and without notice. If she was to respond at all,