Kushiel's Chosen

Trusting to Kazan to keep order, I returned to the warehouse space. Joscelin and the others were waiting; there had been no one else present, only rows of oil jars and stacks of dried goods, as Sarae had claimed. She was pale-faced and shaky, and Micah was attempting to soothe her. Joscelin met my eyes as I returned.
    "She killed a man in cold blood," he said. "It takes one hard."
    "I know," I said. "Where did you get crossbows, anyway?"
    "We took them from the guards at the watchtower at La Dolorosa." He glanced at her with pity. "I thought it would be safer for her to carry one. We're doomed anyway if we're caught, and she's not skilled with the daggers."
    I unfolded my cloak and shook it out, settling it over my shoulders and shoving the bent brooch-pin through the woolen fabric and fastening it. "Her ill luck to be a good shot," I said wryly. "Mayhap 'tis better they know such things, before they choose to battle their way to the north-lands. Prophecies never name the blood-price they exact."
    "No." Joscelin roused himself with a shake. "The others?"
    "Dead, but for one," I said. "He's agreed to show us the passage. I promised him his life for it."
    "Let's go, then."
    Another torch and a few lamps had been found and kindled, and by their light, Cervianus led us to the rear of the warehouse. He had donned the deep-blue tunic of Asherat's attendants, the emblem of her starry crown worked in silver thread on the breast, rich and glimmering amid the Illyrians who surrounded him, but his eyes looked like dark holes in the mask of his face.
    "It is there," he said faintly, pointing at a mammoth clay vessel, shoulder-high to Kazan. "Beneath the jar."
    With a doubtful grunt, Kazan set his shoulder to the jar and shoved. It tilted beneath his force, being empty, and two others joined him in rolling it carefully to one side. Cervianus had spoken the truth. Beneath lay a trapdoor, set flush into the stones of the floor. Joscelin grasped the iron ring and hauled up on it; with a faint screech of hinges, the door opened to reveal a gaping square of darkness below, smelling of stale air and mildew. There were worn stone steps leading downward, the first few visible by torchlight.
    "And this leads to the Oracle's balcony in the Temple proper, yes?" I asked Cervianus.
    "Yes." He turned his hollow gaze on me. "Beneath the canal."
    "And the Oracle does not preside from thence over the ceremony of investiture?"
    "N... no." Cervianus hesitated, and shook his head. "Only twice a year, at the Fatum Urbanus. I think. I do not know, for certain. I am only a junior attendant, and a Doge has never been invested in my lifetime. But..."
    "But they would have told you, were the tunnel to be opened for the Oracle's usage, would they not?" I asked gently. "That you might make ready to receive her, until she could return unseen."
    "Yes." He stared at me with bitter hatred in his shadowed eyes. I did not blame him. "It is our duty, to keep the inventory and ward the passage. They would have told us."
    "So." Joscelin knelt beside the open trap door, holding a lamp and peering into the darkness below. "Are there guards within the tunnel, or at the other end?"
    "There are no other guards!" Cervianus spat out the words in fury. "It was our duty, our sacred duty! No one knows of this passage. A thousand and more years ago, the masons who built it were slain to keep it secret."
    "Charming," Joscelin murmured. Sarae made an involuntary sound, choked at the realization of the extent to which her great-great-aunt Onit's death-bed tales had betrayed the trade-secrets of the order that had sheltered her for most of her life. I sat on my heels, thinking.
    "Cervianus," I asked, "what is happening in the Temple now?"
    He gave a sullen shrug, then winced when Kazan Atrabiades prodded his ribs with a dagger. "The Priestess of the Crown and her six Elect hold a vigil, praying that Asherat-of-the-Sea will accept the people's choice as Her Beloved and a true bond may be forged. So I am told. At dawn the preparations begin, and when the sun strikes the crown of Her image which overlooks the harbor, the procession will begin from the Doge's Palace to enter the Temple."
    "Then," I said, "we had best make ready."

SEVENTY-THREE
    1 he steps leading down into the tunnel were narrow and treacherous, overgrown with a slick coating of mold. I could well believe this passage was used but twice a year. We went in single file, with Joscelin in the lead. I followed close on