Sicarius eased back from the corner. “Watch for him here,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ll circle around to find the practitioner. Concentrating on that trick will be distracting him.”
Amaranthe patted his shoulder in acknowledgment. As soon as he left her side, she drew her dagger. She didn’t know how effective it would be on floating lanterns, but she felt better with the leather-wrapped hilt in her hand. If she needed a bigger weapon, she had Deret’s swordstick laced through her belt as well. She put her back to the wall on the opposite corner, so nothing could sneak up on her. From there, she could lean her head into the tunnel and keep the altar in sight.
With the candles lit, the lantern settled down on the side of the basin. Just as she was thinking the scene was returning to normal—or as normal as a blood-filled bowl in front of a thousand human skulls could be—a soft grating sounded, then a clunk. Something rolled down, bounced on the altar, and landed on the floor. A skull. Amaranthe jumped despite her certainty that this was the result of someone practicing telekinesis. It had nothing to do with hauntings or the spiritual residue from old religions being practiced. She was positive. Mostly.
Something stirred beneath the altar, then a yellowed object drifted out of the darkness. A human femur with a stone or ceramic spatula attached at the end. It rotated to a vertical position and hovered over the basin. A lid on one of the jars rose and was laid to the side. Then the jar itself lifted and tilted, dumping some of its contents into the blood.
Amaranthe shifted, aware that it was the powder Sicarius had pointed out. When a second jar was unfastened and lifted to dump some of its contents, she developed an uneasy certainty that the practitioner was making some of that poison.
She ought to stop it. Stride forward and kick the bowl off the altar. Why not? The practitioner already knew she was there. He wouldn’t bother with a show otherwise. Surely all of this was more easily done by hand.
Yes, let him come out and face her. She wouldn’t be cowed by this display. Amaranthe took a step toward the altar, but a clunk came from the passage beside her, the one parallel to the entrance tunnel they had traveled down. Sicarius had gone down it to circle back, but she doubted that noise had been a result of anything he had done.
Another clunk sounded, followed by a prolonged scuff, like something being dragged over the floor. She fingered her lamp, tempted to light it, step in that direction, and take a look. It wasn’t as if the spoon could see her. The practitioner was probably standing somewhere farther down the tunnel in the opposite direction.
Except the spoon was already stirring the concoction in the basin. Maybe she ought to knock it over before it made any more progress. So long as she didn’t eat the poison or get it into her bloodstream, she ought to be fine, wasn’t that what Sicarius had said?
Another clunk came from the darkness to her side. Whatever had made the noise was closer now.
She wavered, torn about which problem to address first.
“Hurry up over there, Sicarius,” she muttered.
She had no sooner said his name than the spoon dropped, the heavy bone handle clunking on the basin. One of the jars that had been in the air also thunked down, powder flying. The candle flames wavered but didn’t go out.
“Someone was distracted,” she breathed and smiled.
A huge clatter arose from the opposite side of the crypt, the sound of rocks falling. Many, many rocks. The stone floor shuddered. Dust flowed out of the tunnels and dimmed the light from the candles. The ceiling must have caved in. Amaranthe lost her smile. That couldn’t be a coincidence, not in a crypt that had stood for centuries without any signs of such destruction. She was tempted to call out Sicarius’s name, but he would return to her when he could. If he could.
No. She couldn’t think like that. It might have been Sicarius dropping the ceiling on the practitioner, not the other way around.
But would he have done that? After they had discussed needing a practitioner to heal Starcrest?
On the altar, the spoon lifted and returned to stirring.
The scuffing from down the dark tunnel grew audible again. Amaranthe didn’t know if it had stopped, the same way the spoon had, or if the rockfall had simply drowned out the noise. Either way, the sound was closer now.
She opened a storage cache on the bottom of her lamp and pulled out a match. If something dangerous was creeping up on her, she wanted to know what.
Amaranthe eased a couple of steps into the tunnel, so she wouldn’t be visible from the altar—or to anyone standing farther down that passage. She struck the match head to the wall. Light flared.
She gasped and dropped the match, staggering backward. A decapitated man in a bloody soldier’s uniform was shambling toward her, arms outstretched.
She almost screamed, but bit down on her tongue instead. There was a logical explanation. There had to be.
In the meantime... she sure as winter wasn’t going to let the thing catch up with her.
She wouldn’t run toward the altar, so she ran in the opposite direction of it, heading down the only tunnel without anything strange happening in it, so far as she knew. Since she had dropped her match, she crashed into the wall at the end, almost smacking her forehead on the unyielding stone. She caught herself with her hands, wincing at the sound when the lamp banged, and felt around. It wasn’t a dead end. There was another tunnel that paralleled the main one. Good.
She glanced back the way she had come, and her heart rate doubled again. The headless figure had come out of the side passage and was outlined by the candlelight from the altar. It had turned toward her—it was following her.
“An illusion,” she whispered. It had to be.
If so, she ought to be able to walk right through it. Before she took a step, she spotted the scabbard at the figure’s hip. A sword scabbard. She remembered the rapier she had seen in the room with Deret’s swordstick, and her comment about another prisoner. Her stomach gave a sick lurch. That blood in the basin... she hadn’t asked Sicarius, but she bet it was human blood. The soldier’s blood. There had been a nametag on the uniform. Rydor? Rydak? Rydoth, that was it. With a sinking certainty, Amaranthe knew: the figure shambling after her wasn’t an illusion. She didn’t know if it was simply a corpse being levitated or something... more disturbing, but she didn’t want to try and fight it. If it was already dead, what could she do to deter it?
Kill the practitioner controlling it.
Amaranthe took a few steps down the new passage. Cobwebs licked her face. She batted them away and struck another match. If anything creepy was heading at her from the opposite end of this tunnel, she couldn’t see it yet through the wispy white shrouds dangling from the ceiling. This time, she managed to get the lamp lit. She headed off, aware of the scuffing sounds of the corpse following her. She would circle around and find Sicarius. By now, she was probably too late to do anything about the concoction in the bowl. It had already been mixed.
She reached a spot where she could turn right. More cobwebs draped the passage, and nothing but darkness lay ahead, but it should take her back to the main corridor. So far, everything had been laid out on a grid with the tunnels crossing at right angles. She checked behind her, expecting the headless corpse to be following her still, but there was no sign of it. The influence of her light didn’t stretch back as far as the corner, so it might be waiting for her and she would never know.
“Let it wait.”
Amaranthe pushed on down the new tunnel. More passages crossed it, some with cobwebs, some without, but she continued straight, believing her route would bring her back to the main one. She kept glancing right, checking for the candles and altar, but all she ever saw was darkness. The uneasy feeling that had never been far from her that evening returned as she grew more and more certain that she had walked too far. Somehow she had missed that central passage. Maybe the practitioner had snuffed the candles and she had passed the altar without realizing it. Or maybe... she crouched and eyed the floor ahead o
f and behind her.
“Bloody ancestors, I’ve been going down.”
She was on the verge of turning back when something glinted up ahead. She took a few more steps, and a door came into view. The sturdy oak boards and thick copper hinges fit the theme of the crypt—with skulls etched in the metal and bones carved in the wood—but lacked the age of the rest of the place.
“New addition?”
Amaranthe tried the latch. She had to throw her back into opening the door, but it did open.
The mingled scents of chemicals, herbal components, and incense wafted out. Before crossing the threshold, she eyed the walls and floors for traps or trip wires. The vault door upstairs probably offered enough security for Serpitivich or whoever roamed around down here, but one never knew.
Warily, she stepped inside. A single room waited, a workshop lined with stone shelves on every side. A table with legs made from bound bones stood in the middle. A black box and all manner of vials, jars, and bowls were spread out upon it. A thick book with yellowed pages rested in the center, open to a page near the front. Amaranthe couldn’t read any of the words but thought the symbols matched some of those on the vault door. She wondered if it might be a book on poisons, and, if so, would it contain information on cures? Mundane, magical, or otherwise?
She tried lifting the lid on the black box in case some useful solution waited within. It didn’t. Amaranthe leaped back, stifling another scream.
“Should have known,” she panted. By the size alone. The young soldier’s severed head was inside, stored for what purpose she didn’t want to contemplate. “You’re a sick man, Serpitivich. I can’t believe Mancrest almost voted for you.”
“Perhaps if he and a few others had,” came a voice from behind her, “you wouldn’t be stuck in this situation, about to die.”
Amaranthe turned slowly, keeping the desk between her and the door, irritated with herself for not having heard the man coming. Serpitivich wore a smock rather than his typical pressed suit, and bloodstains spotted the front, some old and brown, some fresh and crimson. Underneath the smock... he wore one of those dark green robes. Not surprising at this point. He wasn’t working with them or for them—he was one of them.
Instead of carrying a book, as he usually did, he held a pistol. It was aimed at her.
“You’re not going to kill me with magic? Or poison?” Amaranthe asked. “That’s disappointing, as I’ve been admiring your art all night.” She wanted to ask him about Sicarius, but was afraid of the answer. If he was here, maybe Sicarius had already been... dealt with. It seemed impossible to imagine him thwarted by a sixty-year-old politician after all the enemies he had slain, but Serpitivich was obviously more than they had all thought. Was he just a poison maker, or was he a practitioner as well?
“The poisons are... simply a hobby,” he said. “I never thought to use them on anyone, but this year has been... eventful.” He adjusted his spectacles, looking far more like a schoolteacher than a murderer. “It’s a shame you and your knife-flinging friend concerned yourselves with my affairs. I had no particular distaste for you—indeed, you did us all a favor by getting rid of the corrupt and inflexible empire and creating new opportunities for everyone.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Now that your friend is dead, I’m afraid it’s time for you to join him. This is a sacred place. Visitors aren’t allowed. Step away from the box, please. I’ve already started working on the head. I would hate for you to damage it with your death throes.”
Uh huh. She would be sure to accommodate him so he could more easily shoot her... Amaranthe was beginning to see why Starcrest had put these people off. Maybe he’d had some notion of the grisly rituals that went along with the religion.
“Are the human sacrifices necessary?” she asked. “You might have trouble finding followers and gaining mainstream acceptance if that’s required for your religion.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Serpitivich strolled into the room, perhaps trying to step around the clutter-filled desk, so he could target her chest more easily. “We Turgonians are a bloodthirsty lot. Just look at how many sign up for the military. A career that makes killing people socially acceptable.”
“Yeah, but those are usually people on the other side of a war.” Amaranthe stepped around the end of the desk to keep it and his precious box between them. Her hand drifted to her dagger—with all the books and jars in the way, he shouldn’t see the movement—but she hesitated. The swordstick might serve her better. If she could remove it from her belt without being obvious about it. Too bad she had stuck it behind her back where it wouldn’t impede her.
“There are plenty of murderers and criminals who can also be put to death without disturbing the general populace.” The corner of Serpitivich’s mouth twitched as Amaranthe continued to keep the desk between them. Irritation? He stopped and shifted his weight—he wasn’t going to let her maneuver toward the door.
“Is that what this fellow was?” Amaranthe pointed to the head. At the same time, she loosened her belt with her other hand. “A criminal?”
“He was one of Starcrest’s men we captured for bargaining purposes, until he tried to escape.”
“In other words, he was a loyal soldier.”
“I believe we’ve chatted long enough, Ms. Lokdon.”
“I’m having that feeling too.” The swordstick dropped to the floor, cracking on the old stone.
Serpitivich frowned downward, distracted for an instant. Amaranthe ducked down, grabbing the stick. A shot fired, but she was already below the table. The bullet struck the wall and ricocheted into the room.
Serpitivich cursed. Good. She hoped the bastard had shot himself. She popped up and hit the release on the swordstick. The wooden case flew across the table, striking the man in the shoulder, and leaving Amaranthe with the bared blade ready to use. She raced around the table herself, knowing she had to reach Serpitivich before he sent some mental attack at her.
He recovered quickly, whirling toward her and lifting the pistol for another shot. She used the rapier to knock the box toward him, sending a silent apology to the dead soldier. Whatever Serpitivich had been doing to that head, it must represent a lot of work, for he reflexively lunged to catch it before stopping himself and whipping the pistol toward Amaranthe again. By then, she had run around the table. She slashed the sword across, knocking the pistol away and cutting into his hand. She stabbed him in the gut before he could jump back. If not for the fact that Starcrest was out there somewhere, dying of poison, she would have run him through for the garish things he was doing down here.
“You cursed bitch,” he snarled, stumbling back. He snatched at a jar on the table and threw it at her.
Amaranthe ducked it easily and stabbed him again, wanting him incapacitated enough that he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on magic. When he grabbed for something else, she kicked him in the shin. He pitched into the table. She jumped over the fallen box—and its gruesome contents—to land behind him. She grabbed him by the shoulder and laid the blade on the side of his neck.
“Time for you to lead me out of here,” she said. “And why don’t you show me where you dropped that pile of rocks on the way out?” She wouldn’t believe Sicarius was dead until she dug his cold body out herself.
He snorted. “I don’t think so. You’ll die with the thousands of others who have died down here.”
“You’re awfully confident for someone whose pistol is...” Dear ancestors, it had fallen in a pile of brains that had tumbled out of the box. Amaranthe clenched her fist. She wanted to ram the sword right through Serpitivich’s back and out the other side. “Start walking.”
For a long moment, he didn’t move. Amaranthe pressed the blade harder against his neck. He tried to jerk away, but she still held him with her other hand, so she dug her thumb into the pressure point between the tip of the shoulder and the spine. He flinched, pulling in the other direction, toward the blade. Skin tore, and blood dribbled
down to his collarbone.
“I’ve had a long, rough night,” Amaranthe said, “and it’s making me crabby. Start walking now.”
This time, he complied. He walked slowly toward the door, and Amaranthe didn’t let him out of sword’s reach, though she did grab the open book in case Tikaya could read it and find anything useful within. Since she needed to carry the lamp as well—and keep Serpitivich from making trouble—she stuffed it into her shirt. Sicarius’s shirt actually, which was fortunate, because it was baggy on her and had room for fat musty tomes that made her skin itch. She needed a bath badly. And another vacation.
Serpitivich walked through the door and started up the tunnel. After only a few feet, he halted so quickly Amaranthe almost jabbed him with the sword again.
“What—” she started, then stopped, her jaw descending.
Sicarius stood in the shadows, a robed figure draped over his shoulder. Dust made his blond hair a shade paler, and a few scrapes were visible on his face and hands. He must have been caught at least partially in that rockfall. He hardly appeared dead though, something Serpitivich clearly deduced as well, for his shoulders slumped. Had he been hoping that the other robed fellow would come help him?
“You did not wait at the appointed location,” Sicarius said.
Though she’d had a good reason not to wait, she blushed at his statement, nonetheless. Amazing how a man speaking in an utter monotone could convey that he had, in exasperation, walked all over a crypt with an unconscious enemy slung over his shoulder to find her.
“Sorry,” Amaranthe said. “I was being chased by a headless corpse.”
He gazed at her, his face expressionless.
“It’s true,” she said, though if he hadn’t seen the corpse himself, she could understand where skepticism would arise... “Who’s your friend?”
“The practitioner,” Sicarius said.
“Oh? I thought he was the practitioner.” She nodded toward Serpitivich. And if he wasn’t, Amaranthe had poked him full of holes unnecessarily. Oddly, she couldn’t manage to feel bad about that.
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