Pikarn asked, “What was this place?”
Meliu’s eyes were wide as she stumbled to a spot clear of gore. “A guardroom. My master had to check in here before heading to the Chamber of the Lost.”
The wardens kicked rats from the remains, covering the bodies with robe remnants. Ivin’s stomach turned but he managed to keep his jerky where it belonged. Meliu crouched against the wall, hands covering her eyes, rocking back and forth.
Pikarn wandered the room, glancing at the faces of the dead. “Do the best we can for ‘em, but do it fast.” He walked to Meliu, crouched beside her. “All right, girl. Where we headed next?”
There were five exits from the chamber aside from their entry.
The girl rocked and stuttered. “Give me a flicker, my mind’s cloudy. I always had a guide. That tunnel there… no. The center tunnel?”
“Godsdamn it.” Pikarn stood and called to Rinold. “See what you think of that middle pass, but don’t be gone long, got me?”
The tracker nodded and disappeared down the dark hole and returned so fast Ivin half expected him chased, but nothing followed. “Its walls are caked with soot, and the smell of honey is strong. Last hole in the world I wanna go down so this is probably it.” He emphasized his distaste with a hack and spit.
Pikarn grabbed Meliu by the hood of her robe and pulled her to her feet. “Let’s go, girl.”
A fire-blackened tunnel greeted them as promised, the floor coated with a thick layer of greasy soot slick beneath their feet. The tunnel was wide for a short jaunt but it turned into a stretch so tight Ivin’s lungs tightened and he felt as if he were being buried alive. He ducked and squirmed, mail links catching on stone, and his helm banged twice on the ceiling, but this claustrophobic hell gave way to a wider tunnel thirty or so paces after entering.
Ivin stepped from the passage and knocked his helmet back on his head, his lungs filling in a relieved rush. “Tell me there’s no more of that.”
Meliu grinned. “Should be the worst spot we meet. It pays to be short and skinny, not sure your man is going to make it.”
Ivin glanced back. Suvarn’s broad shoulders were hung-up in a tight crease of stone, with Puxele scaling the rocks to unhook the man’s gear. She sliced the caught piece, then hammered a jagged stone with the hilt of her dagger to free him. Once Suvarn came muttering from the hole, it took another quarter-candle before everyone made it through this tight space.
Soon as the last man stepped through, Meliu took them deeper, with the journey snaking past several branching tunnels until she led them on a steep switchback climb.
Meliu whispered, “Chamber of the Lost is straight ahead.”
When they arrived their nerves were on edge. Although debris proved a fight took place, it wasn’t the massacre of the previous cavern.
Pikarn lit a trough of oil with his torch, and in moments the flame traveled to circle the cave. The cavern was a rough, twenty-pace pentagon in the center of which sat a table carved from stone. Five stone blocks lay at each side, serving as benches. Meliu dashed to empty shelves carved into the walls. “Here, the books should be here. This is the chamber. Their books should be here.” She scurried through the rubble, turning over debris in her search.
“Lost books of the Lost, no great loss you ask me,” Rinold said, which earned a cuff to the head from Puxele.
Meliu struggled to lift a fallen cabinet and Ivin helped her, but there was nothing underneath. Ivin asked, “What kind of books?”
“The important kind.” And that was all she seemed prepared to say until he helped her dig deeper into the mess. “The Codex of Sol, for one. I shouldn’t even know it’s here, but I heard tell.”
It sure sounded important, Sol’s name didn’t get scribbled on a book for no reason.
“Never heard of such a tome,” Pikarn said.
Meliu snorted in contempt. “Nor should you have heard of it now, but it was here; Ovin said he’d seen it himself… and was threatened a flaying if he so much as told a soul. Sheve’s Journal, the Tome of the Lost, Derdrin’s Map, Istileus’ Histories… they all should be here.”
“Well, they ain’t.” Pikarn kicked at some rubble. “Would these creatures, these Shadows… you think they’d be wanting such books?”
The girl cocked her head. “No, suppose not.”
“Your priests prolly took ‘em. Ain’t no use to looking for ‘em here.”
She thought for a moment before nodding. “We should be moving on. The Shrine isn’t far.”
With three passages exiting the room they again took the central tunnel from their entrance. The passage climbed straight, with only a few side passages they ignored. Torches revealed dried blood in spots, but their only company was bats, rats, and the sound of their own feet. They slowed as their passage widened and sent Rinold ahead.
He returned in a few flickers, swiping his forehead of sweat. “Ain’t like nothing I ever seen afore, but we’re here, godsdamned guaranteed.”
19
DIAMOND AND SHADOW
An eternal Eclipse in a static universe,
a ring of Fire and pupil of Black,
blazing petals of a cosmic black-eyed Susan.
Stasis, the lack of crackle between ears,
the dead sound of a universe Dead.
—Tomes of the Touched
Nine Days to the Eve of Snows
They entered the Hall of Burdenis to stand on a crenelated balcony with curving stairs leading to the floor on either side. A beam of sunlight entered through a fissure in the hollow above and reflected off a massive mirror before striking a shrine with a burst of brilliant white light, illuminating the hall.
Black masses dotted the floor of the cavern, some human, but twisted into unnatural shapes, while others were oil pots overturned and burnt out. Ivin had grown up with brazen tales of the glories and horrors of war, but what they found here wasn’t the result of fighting alone. The bodies suffered teeth marks to the bone, many shattered to suck the marrow. Broken and empty skulls still with faces stared at him without eyes. One corpse lay open and where a heap of intestines should have lain, the cavity was empty.
“Somethin’ had a godsdamned feast down here,” Rinold said.
Meliu hid on the balcony, her back turned to the horror, and Ivin wanted to join her. He shook the chill from his spine and dipped the tip of his sword, tossing empty, bloody robes to the side. A shimmer caught his eye. A sparkling crescent symbol marked the floor, drawn with a silvery powder. He assumed the sparkle was a reflection of light from the shrine, but as he circled, his shadow didn’t diminish its shimmering beauty.
He took a few steps and kicked an overturned oil pot, revealing a symbol in the shape of an eye. “Look for more symbols hidden under things.” Ivin’s voice echoed louder than expected, and he grimaced.
Pikarn sucked his teeth as he studied the symbols, and the wardens announced more finds: Horse and leaf, several stars, and a spear. The old man looked to the balcony above. “Girl, what’re these symbols?” He spoke in his normal voice, but in this cavern it traveled.
“I work with books, not arcana.”
“Get down here and take a look.”
“No.”
The Wolverine rubbed his forehead. “Godsdamned girl. What do you think, Choerkin?”
“There are symbols—runes—at Skywatch, and the bones. They’ve hundreds of symbols but I couldn’t put a name to one. And this? Glowing?” He shrugged.
“Wards,” Meliu said, “to keep something out or in.”
Pikarn glanced to the stairs. “What was that? Come down here and tell me.”
“No.”
This time the Wolverine chuckled. “Crescent moon?”
“Don’t know, shape probably doesn’t matter. Drawn with what?”
“Hells if I know. Powdered crystal?” Pikarn kneeled and rubbed the rune.
“Crushed diamond, probably enchanted with Life prayers, or Spirit,” Meliu said.
“If this is life ma
gic, remind me to stay away from death magic.” Pikarn kicked at the rune, but the diamond stuck to the floor. He snorted.
Puxele kneeled twenty paces from them, her fingers dragging the ground and coming up shining. “There’s loose diamond over here, and a small bag of the stuff.” She shook her fingers, watched the mystic trail of glow as it fell from her fingers. She snatched the bag, sweeping up as much loose powder as she could.
The Wolverine grinned. “That’s our Little Sister, always trying to get rich.”
She smirked. “Little Sister always trying to stay alive.”
Pikarn nodded toward the shrine and they meandered that way, moving scraps of cloth and overturned braziers that covered the ground so long as it didn’t disrespect the dead. Several pieces of debris concealed symbols, or blobs and streaks of glowing diamond.
Pikarn said, “Creatures are smart enough to cover these sigils; Awakened Dead wouldn’t much bother.”
Ivin figured he’d beat Puxele to the corrective punch. “As the priestess said: Taken.”
The oblong shrine dedicated to Burdenis bore mountains carved in relief along its edge with eagle heads at the corners, and its brilliance resulted from powdered diamond struck by the sun. The floor surrounding the shrine shimmered with dust, but it wasn’t uniform.
“They hurried here, or ran out of diamond,” Ivin said. He circled the dais and spotted something resting at its base, hidden in the blinding aura of enchanted diamond and sunlight. He reached in to find it was soft.
The world wavered, and a flicker later the air above the shrine rippled and pulsed, a wave of sound pushing everyone a few steps back. Ivin tumbled from the shrine with a leather-bound volume in his hand. The pulse lacked an echo; its woomph died once beyond their ears. The wardens congregated at Pikarn’s position with weapons drawn.
Ivin dusted himself off and held out his prize for Pikarn to see. “One of the holy books, I’d wager. Locked.” He feared to force the latch, such things carried curses.
“Liar,” came the girl’s voice. She popped her head over the wall. “What’s it look like?”
“Brass latch, boiled-leather-bound. No words.”
Her booted feet flapped down the stairs and sprinted straight to him. She stripped the book from his hands and clutched it to her chest. “That’s not for you. We agreed.”
Pikarn looked liable to kick the girl in the ass, but he planted his foot with a nod. “Aye, we agreed.”
The world wavered again and this time the pulse collapsed to a point several feet above the shrine. They staggered as the force passed, staring. The air rippled in glossy waves, and from the center slithered a tendril of darkness impenetrable by the light.
Meliu’s feet pattered for the stairs before Ivin understood the birth he witnessed. The thing fought and wriggled as if escaping the air itself. It launched in an arc, past the diamond dust, and landed with the silence nothingness would make.
Puxele stood as close as anyone. “What the hells is that?”
The thing writhed on the ground like a mute and blind newborn pup. Buds formed and tendrils sprouted, lifting itself from the ground with hazy arms.
Ivin drew his sword and swung, the blade disappearing in its darkness, but the thing didn’t so much as twitch. He snagged a torch from Rinold and plunged it into the creature’s chest. The being’s darkness swallowed and snuffed the flickers of fire. The dead torch rattled on the floor as the demon grew more distinct, more like a shadow a man would cast, except this Shadow turned to look Ivin in the eye with a featureless face. A shiver shook his spine with the malevolence of its gaze.
Pikarn shouted what Ivin’s muscles itched to do. “Run! Get the hells out of here!” The rush to the stairs was a mad scramble with Pikarn and Ivin guarding their backs. The thing wasn’t coming for them, not yet. Rinold reached the balcony first with Puxele on his heels, and they spun and nocked arrows to give cover if needed.
Right then Meliu shrieked from the tunnel. “Priest! Taken priest!”
The remaining wardens stopped but Pikarn was having none of it. “Go, damn you! There’s only one way out, priests be damned!”
They trotted into the tunnel, weapons, shields, and torches to the fore. A priest waited for them, his arms and legs crooked, and his lower jaw missing. His eyes were wide and white as blizzard, and a spear went through its head before Ivin got close. It collapsed to the ground, but he could tell the thing wasn’t dead as he passed. The priest’s twisted body twitched and oozed thick black blood that sank into the ground as if it were sand instead of stone.
The party ran, driven by fear, their breathing labored.
“Slow ’er down! We’ve got a long jaunt ahead,” Pikarn yelled.
The rush of fear and combat tried to convince Ivin he could run forever if need, but the Wolverine had the right of it, and as the tunnel weaved and undulated death could lurk around any bend. They needed a disciplined pace to make it from these caves alive.
The girl was in the middle of the group, still clutching the book tight to her chest, and three men formed the lead with shield and spear, while Puxele and Rinold watched their backs. Ivin and Pikarn walked on either side of Meliu.
Pikarn’s eyes kept glancing to the girl’s prize. “So, li’l priestess, which book you got?”
She stared straight ahead. “I don’t know.”
“A hundred pages that might well be chicken scratch and you hug it to your bosom like your long lost mama? Tells me you know something.”
Meliu shrugged and when Ivin put a hand on her shoulder, she might’ve run if there’d been anywhere to go. Ivin said, “It’s okay, Meliu. We don’t want the book, we just want to know if it’ll help explain what’s going on here. Funny coincidence, that book sitting at the foot of the shrine.”
She shrugged his hand away and pursed her lips.
Pikarn huffed. “Look here, girl, we wanted that godsdamned book we’d take it, nothing you could do to stop us.”
“I don’t know, I said. But you wouldn’t be able to read it, anyhow.”
Pikarn chuckled. “You think I’m so unlearned I can’t read?”
She shot him a scathing glance. “Not so learned as to read this one.”
“Then you do know what it is.” Ivin tried not to sound cocksure, but the girl had talked herself into a trap.
“No, or rather maybe. But whether it is or it isn’t, it ain’t for the likes of you.”
Pikarn glared. “Uppity little bitch considering we sewed her scalp back on, don’t you think?”
Her knuckles whitened with her grip on the tome and she fell back a couple steps to keep an eye on them.
Ivin said, “Ease up on the girl.”
“I’m not a girl, I’m a priestess. And a woman older than you.”
The Wolverine snorted at the both of them as they stepped into the Chamber of the Lost. “Don’t go worrying that scarred head of yours, girl. We make it out of here alive we’ll make sure the book makes it to all our betters at Istinjoln. And Puxele, Rinold… put an arrow in her back if she runs.” Pikarn stepped to Ivin’s side and drew him from the girl. “Istinjoln, straight away. And if we can get a peek in that book before we get there, all the better.”
When they reached the climb down not a soul complained or hesitated to take the treacherous path to the floor, but the pillar and its shoulder-knocking chasm made them stop to stare, not a soul was eager to go first. Suvarn said, “I’ll go last, in case I get stuck again.”
Pikarn ended the procrastination. “Squirrel first, then smallest to largest, except we put the priestess in the middle.”
Rinold slipped into the crevice and his torch disappeared in a bend. “Clear.”
Ivin exhaled along with others who’d held their breaths. Waiting his turn gave him time to think: A slithering Shadow birthed from empty air, and either these creatures or the twisted priests fed on the dead. If indeed the Shadows possessed the men, it made more sense the Taken fed on flesh. Revelation struck, obvious, a piece h
e hadn’t considered.
Ivin glanced to the Wolverine, noting the priestess was already gone. “The first party killed and eaten was almost a year ago. These things didn’t just arrive.”
“Aye. You’ve a head on them shoulders, Ratsmasher.”
“They contained the Shadows with symbols for a year. Didn’t warn a soul. They lost control, brought the mine down to keep the creatures at bay. After so long, how’d they fail?”
“Better question is, how many are there? ’Cause more seem to be a comin’. Get your ass in there, Choerkin.”
Ivin slipped between the tight walls sideways, bobbing and weaving, and snagging his gear only twice. Pikarn followed right behind, and a few flickers later Suvarn, missing his pack.
The big man grinned. “I left it for decoration, nothin’ I can’t replace.”
Ivin’s smile was flat, the humor lost with knowing what waited for them in the next room. The blood and rancid odors were unchanged, but they marched through the carnage unmolested. Ivin breathed easier in the fresher air beyond, happy to be away from the stench. Everyone’s pace picked up through the wider passages and Ivin was eager as anyone to set foot on those treacherous stairs, but as they reached the bottom of the Crack, Rinold hissed and threw his hand up, crouching.
Ivin ducked and stared into darkness.
Pikarn asked, “What’d you see?”
“Thought I heard somethin’, but the fear’s more in my gut than my head.”
The Wolverine spat. “I trust your gut more than most folks’ wits, but we ain’t got a shittin’ choice here, we gotta get across.”
It was fifty strides from here to the stair, but anything could hide in the dark torches wouldn’t reach.
Rinold said, “They were Wakened Dead we’d draw ’em out easy enough for a straight fight.”
“No guarantee we could even win a straight fight with these damned things.” Pikarn shook his shoulders and huffed. “You take it slow as a snail uphill, and you see a godsdamned thing…”
The Squirrel grinned, adjusted his steel skullcap, and nabbed a second torch from Puxele. “I know how to run better than I know slow. May the gods bless the shit in my britches.”
Eve of Snows: Sundering the Gods Book One Page 17
