Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 456
building. Lavin had only moments as he walked to try to spot
the entrance they believed led down to the catacombs.
He was nearly at the top of the marble flight when he
spotted it, below and beside the stairs. The archway was
invisible from the main entrance because it was behind the
immense sweep of the stairs’ bannisters.
Shoulders slumping in relief, Lavin let himself be guided
forward down the palace’s main hall, and thence to another
flight. The archway was there, and if Enneas was right, below
it the maze of halls contained a chink that led to a ‘spirit walk’.
The spirit walk would be just a narrow gap in the masonry at
the palace’s wall, an exit for ghosts who could slip through an
aperture only centimeters broad. According to Enneas, this
walk had once lain under the processional causeway that ran
through the east gate and to a temple complex that was now
ruined. Over centuries, thieves had widened the spirit walk so
that one or two people at a time could squeeze through it into
the precincts of the palace.
The ruins existed, and so did the hole Enneas had said led
to the tunnel. In any other situation, Lavin would have
dispatched sappers into it, to undermine the east gate. Bringing
the gate tower down would save a lot of lives he would
otherwise lose storming the walls.
There was only one life Lavin wanted to save. Knowing
that Enneas was right both about what lay in the ruins, and
about where a certain door existed within the palace, heartened
him. He had an extra force to use to outflank Galas, if it came
to that.
The audience chamber lay at the top of the second flight
of stairs. The sweep of the main hall lay behind him, and
Lavin heard the sounds of men massing there. He would not
give them the satisfaction of seeing him turn to look, but he