The Dread: The Fallen Kings Cycle: Book Two

by Gail Z. Martin

  Ed considered for a few minutes and shrugged. “We could try. Not much coin to be earned down here, even with Kir’s brew. I wouldn’t mind going back to Dark Haven, after what I’ve seen of Principality City.”

  A day later, when Aidane’s knee was no longer swollen and her headache was gone, she and Ed made their way back up to the safe entrance she had used. But instead of a broken door on a cracked doorpost, they found freshly mortared bricks sealing the doorway.

  Aidane and Ed exchanged glances. “What’s this about?” Aidane murmured. Together, she and Ed retraced their steps and then headed for the next closest entrance. This time, they found a small group of people milling around a similarly sealed doorway.

  Ed pushed forward. “What’s going on?”

  A thin, bearded man gestured toward the sealed entrance. “It’s clear enough, innit? The topsiders have sealed us in here to die. It’s the same all over the warrens. All the doorways out onto the street are sealed up with bricks or boulders, or boarded over. We’ve tried to break through, but it’s no use. The walls are too thick. It’s the city people who did it. They think if they seal us in, they seal the plague away.”

  “They’ve left us to starve,” Aidane murmured. “We’ll die.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  A somber group trudged back into the depths of the tunnels. Aidane felt the press of spirits closer than ever. When they returned to the tavern, Kir met their news with a growl of outrage.

  “Sealed us in! If the plague doesn’t kill us all, we’ll starve to death before too long.” He turned away, cursing.

  Several people had begun to drift into Kir’s tavern, and Aidane guessed they wanted to drink their share of the ale before it ran out. She found a seat next to Ed and rested her head on his shoulder. “How long do you think we’ve got?”

  Ed shrugged. “We’ve got water; that’s not the problem. Plenty of cisterns down here, as fresh as you’ll find up above. It’s food and good air that are going to be in short supply. Without the doorways and openings to the above ground, the air will foul. ’Course, plague spreads faster like that, too. Food won’t last long. Nothing grows down here except for some mushrooms, and there aren’t enough of those for everyone, even if you were of a mind to eat them.”

  He shook his head. “Once people realize that there’s no way out and they get hungry, some of them’ll go mad, riot. It’ll go from bad to worse pretty quickly then.” He put an arm around Aidane like a protective big brother. “I’m sorry, Aidane. You shouldn’t have come back. Unless something changes, none of us are likely to be alive for very long.”

  Spirits filled the air around them. The voices had a new urgency, and Aidane let them speak to her.

  Please carry a message for me. My wife is dying. She’s afraid. I’m waiting for her, just on the other side. We can cross the Gray Sea together. Please, please tell her.

  My children are dying. They’re alone. Please go to them and tell them that I’m here with them. Tell them I’ll be with them soon. Please tell them.

  Each ghost came with a fresh tale of woe, but the plea was always the same. These spirits had no desire for a carnal reunion with a living lover; they simply wanted to comfort the dying.

  Aidane roused from where she leaned against Ed. “I need to go to where the plague victims are,” Aidane said, meeting Ed’s eyes.

  Ed stared at her. “Are you crazy? Why would you want to do that?”

  “Because it’s better than sitting here waiting for the ale to run out and feeling sorry for ourselves,” Aidane said, as purpose began to replace resignation with anger. “The spirits are all around us—can’t you feel them?”

  Ed sighed. “Not like you can, but I know they’re here.”

  “They won’t leave because they’re trying to stay with their loved ones,” Aidane said, taking Ed’s hand as her resolve grew stronger. “They want me to carry messages for them, to comfort the dying. Ed, we don’t have to wait around to starve to death or die pushed up against a stone wall in some Goddess-forsaken riot. Maybe we can do a little bit of good with the few days we have left. You’re a hedge witch. You could ease some pain. I can carry messages. If you can find Bez and Thanal and the other musicians, maybe we can make it a little easier on the dying, since we’ll soon be among them. Please, Ed.”

  “You’re sure to die of plague.”

  Aidane gave him a level glance. “How long does it take to die of plague?”

  Ed shrugged. “Cough in the morning, dead by nightfall.”

  “And it takes how long to starve?”

  Ed sighed, and then nodded. “All right. We’ll round up the musicians and then go to the lower levels.”

  They found the musicians crowded together in a dingy cellar. Their bedrolls and personal possessions were stacked against one wall. A torn, dirty sheet hung from a length of rope served as a makeshift divider in a room that was home to a dozen people. A bucket against the far wall served as the garderobe. A jug of poitin and several tin cups sat on a small, broken table next to a block of hard cheese and a half loaf of dry bread.

  Cal, a portly older man, cradled his drone as he listened to Aidane’s proposal. Cal’s wife, Nezra, sat next to her dulcimer. Nezra had been plump on their journey from Margolan to Dark Haven. Now, she was much thinner and her face looked tired and old. Her dulcimer was scratched, with several broken strings. Bez, the young tattooed drum player, kept up a quiet rhythm all during their conversation, and his faraway expression made Aidane wonder whether he had mentally already left the caverns for somewhere untouched by death and sorrow. Thanal, the flute player, looked even shaggier than before, with his long, dirty hair tied back haphazardly.

  “If we’re all going to die, at least we can do some good,” Aidane said, wrapping up her plea. She fell silent, waiting for what she was sure would be a quick rejection from the others.

  Cal turned to Nezra. “Sounds like what we’ve talked about, doesn’t it?” he said quietly. Nezra nodded.

  “I’m in.” Aidane looked up in surprise at Bez, who answered without altering the rhythm his fingers tapped on the drum.

  “Me too,” said Thanal, who withdrew his flute and his pennywhistle from a pouch on his belt and turned them lovingly in his dirty hands. “Playing to an audience makes me feel alive, and I haven’t felt like that since we came down here.” He shrugged. “At least we won’t be alone when the end comes.”

  “Follow me,” Ed said.

  Ed led them farther into the caves. Aidane had never been this far underground. They left the man-made tunnels behind and were soon following a maze of natural caverns.

  After a long walk, the narrow passageway widened and Aidane and the others followed Ed out into a large open space. “Where are we?” Aidane wondered, squinting to see better. Bez and Cal moved up to the front with their lanterns, and Aidane gasped as the view unfolded.

  The cavern opened out of what appeared to have once been a hillside, now just an outcropping of bare rock and dry dirt. A few paces away, a cobblestone road led off in either direction into darkness. Lanterns hung from posts at intervals along the street, casting everything in a smoky haze. On either side of the street, the first two stories of shops and buildings opened onto walkways, but at a second glance, Aidane could see that the buildings’ windows were broken and their signs were missing or askew. What had once been a common area around a well was long barren of grass, now just hard-packed dirt. But when Aidane looked up, expecting to see sky, all she saw was total darkness.

  “Welcome to Ford’s Crossing,” Ed said with forced joviality. “Fifty-odd years ago, this was a busy part of town: shops, taverns, plenty of merchants. Had a sky then, too, and the road actually went somewhere in either direction.”

  “What happened?” Aidane could see that Nezra and the others were also craning their necks for a good look around themselves.

  “The street ran in a narrow place between two hills. A big flood swept through the first two floors of the buildings, killed
a lot of people. Instead of cleaning up and reopening the shops, the people just built arches from one side of the valley to the other and ran the road over this part. They abandoned the bottom floors of the buildings and built new over top.” Ed shrugged. “No one up there probably even remembers. But it didn’t take long for the vagabonds to find it.”

  He swept his arm in an arc. “Now, this is where the sick gather, if they can make it this far.” He pointed across the commons, toward a rocky outcropping in the far hillside. “The tunnels go on in that direction for quite a ways, too. But those tunnels filled up with the plague victims first, so there’s naught down that way but corpses.”

  “Are ye dying?”

  The strange voice startled them. Aidane and the others turned to see a pale, thin man in tattered brown robes making his way across the street toward them. “If you’re not dying, best you go back the way you came, or you will be,” the stranger warned.

  Aidane stepped forward. “My friends and I aren’t sick. We came to give comfort to the dying. They’re minstrels,” she said with a nod toward Cal, Bez, Nezra, and Thanal. “Ed’s a hedge witch, and pretty good with herbs. I’m a seer.”

  The thin man looked at them sharply. “If you thought to loot the bodies, there’s nothing to take. The people who come here have nothing and leave with nothing.”

  “No, of course not,” Aidane protested. “We’ve come to help.”

  The thin man crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve been down here for several months, I reckon, and no one else has come to help. I even marked the tunnels to keep people away and help the dying find their way here. Why would you come if you didn’t mean to steal from the dead?”

  Ed exchanged glances with Aidane. “The topsiders have sealed off all the entrances. I imagine there’ll be more business for you in a few days than you’ll be able to handle, once the hunger sets in.”

  The thin man’s eyes widened. “Truly? We’re sealed in?”

  “I hope you weren’t planning on leaving.”

  The man shook his head. “No. When I came down here, I knew I wouldn’t leave.” He paused, and then extended a hand to Aidane and to Ed in greeting. “I’m Brother Albert. Welcome to Ford’s Crossing. To my way of thinking, it’s a peaceful place on the shores of the Gray Sea.”

  “You’re a healer?” Aidane asked as their unexpected guide greeted the musicians.

  Brother Albert shrugged. “No, I’m not. But I do have a talent with potions and herbs, and a little bit of magic with plants. It was enough to win me a position at a noble house. Then fever took the lord’s son, and he blamed me. He cast me out, and I wandered, since no other manor would have me.”

  “How did you end up down here?” Aidane asked.

  He shrugged. “Truth be told, I blamed myself for the boy’s death as much as his father did. I was tired of my existence, but not quite ready to end it.”

  Aidane watched Brother Albert carefully, trying to reconcile what her magic was telling her. She met his gaze. “You’re vayash moru.”

  Albert nodded. “I lived here in Ford’s Crossing long ago. Before the flood. Before I was turned. After I left the noble’s employ, I was going house to house with my powders and elixirs, treating whatever ills people would pay coin to cure.” He grimaced. “It’s a myth, you know, the idea that all vayash moru are well-off. I wasn’t wealthy before I was turned, and my luck didn’t change after I was dead. I still had to earn a living.

  “Anyhow, Buka had started terrorizing the people in the lower parts of the city, and some of the ruffians blamed the vayash moru.” His gaze was haunted. “There were burnings, innocent people staked through the heart, heads cut off. I thought if Ford’s Crossing still stood, I could come here and be safe. I have seen too much killing.”

  Brother Albert gave a bitter laugh. “I wasn’t the only one who remembered the stories of Ford’s Crossing. Others came, fearing Buka, the mobs, the war. But they didn’t bother me, and I didn’t mind the company. Down here, we were safe from Buka, but they couldn’t hide from the plague. I realized that I had a chance to atone. I hadn’t known how many people were living down in the tunnels, but it didn’t take them long to find me. Now, they come as soon as they start to sicken, or they bring their dying to me and stay on to die themselves. There’s naught to be done for them except to give them some water, wipe their brows with a cold rag, and say a litany over them when they die, but it didn’t seem right for them to die alone.”

  “Why do you stay?” Ed was looking at Brother Albert skeptically.

  Brother Albert laughed. “Why, indeed? I ask myself that question each day, and I have no answer. Perhaps the Lady has her share of fools and isn’t in a hurry to add a new one to her collection. But for now, I have nowhere else to go, no one who will miss me when I’m gone, so at least here, I’m needed.”

  He looked at the musicians and their instruments. “Well, if I haven’t frightened you off, then follow me. I’ve done a little bit of singing to keep my own sanity and comfort the dying, but my voice is no treat to listen to, I assure you. I’d welcome some music, and I know it would give comfort.”

  Brother Albert looked at Ed. “You’re a hedge witch?”

  “I can do a little magic, very little.”

  Brother Albert harrumphed. “ ‘Very little’ is quite a bit when I’ve been accustomed to doing everything myself. I’ve got work for you.” He grew quiet as he studied Aidane.

  “I sense magic in you, but not a mage’s power. You’re not a healer. What are you?”

  “I’m a seer. I can carry messages from the dead,” Aidane said, meeting Brother Albert’s gaze. “They’re the ones who asked me to come. They want me to comfort their loved ones.”

  Brother Albert regarded her in silence for a moment, and she felt a tingle as his magic touched her. “Your magic has a strange feel to it. You’re more powerful than just a fortune-teller. You’re a serroquette, aren’t you?”

  Aidane sighed and looked down. “I used to be. Not anymore. I had to run away from a powerful employer. It was dangerous for me to stay. I meant to earn a living topside talking with the ghosts instead of letting them use me, but things didn’t work out.”

  Her sincerity seemed to win over Brother Albert’s skepticism. His expression relaxed. “No one expects to end up down here, but it’s where our paths lead us. If you can make their passing easier with messages from beyond, you’re welcome.”

  “How is it the people haven’t starved down here?” The question came from Thanal, the young flute player, and it was so unexpected that they all turned to stare at him. “Just wondering,” he said, turning his hands palms up as if to indicate that he meant no offense.

  Brother Albert chuckled. “Two of the buildings had storage cellars that partially collapsed during the old flood. No one bothered to make the effort to see what was in them when the top was covered over. Turns out, there were several rather large wine cellars, a hundred or so casks of brandy, and a nice deep cistern, plus some storage rooms full of pickled vegetables and dried fruits, all kept high and dry with powerful preservation spells.” His smile widened. “I move the spell back a little at a time to take just what I need to feed everyone. Most of the people who come down here aren’t well enough to eat more than broth, and I don’t eat much. Once or twice, I’ve ventured up above for some dried meats and sausages, waxed cheeses, things I can preserve with a keeping spell of my own. It’s held us well enough.”

  Ed looked at Brother Albert warily. “How about you? What do you eat?”

  Albert turned to look at him. “I assure you, I don’t drink from the sick. There are more than enough rats to keep me fed. As I told you, I’ve seen too much killing.”

  As Brother Albert walked with them toward the largest of the buildings, Aidane looked around at the eerily silent former street. “Are there other tunnels that lead here, besides the way we came?”

  Brother Albert nodded. “Most of the main tunnels have a way to connect to Ford’s Crossing
. Back in its day, it was quite a popular place, and after the flood, it was still a main cut-through between the caves. So the people who need me find me.” He opened a warped door to usher them into what had once been the fine entranceway of a grand building. Its walls were stained from the water of the long-ago flood, and the soot from torches marred the marble walls. Rooms opened off the huge entranceway, and in the dim light, Aidane could see bodies lying shoulder to shoulder on ragged blankets. Low moans greeted them, and a few of the sick called out incoherently.

  “This is my hospital,” Brother Albert said. “There are three rooms here, and sometimes they’re all full. I live upstairs. There’s room for you up there, if you really plan to stay.”

  “What happens to the dead?” Aidane asked in a low voice.

  Brother Albert met her eyes. “Every morning, I gather them up, wrap them in their blankets, and carry them to the empty buildings across the street. Nothing I can do except to stack them like cordwood and put a stabilizing spell on them so they don’t stink. In the time I’ve been here, I’ve filled two of the buildings’ first-floor rooms with bodies stacked high as my waist.”

  “And you do all this yourself?”

  Brother Albert gave another sharp, bitter laugh. “Who else would be crazy enough? When I’m gone, that will be the end of it, I imagine.” He looked to an hourglass on a shelf. “Nearly time for my evening rounds. You can come with me,” he said with a nod toward Aidane and Ed. He looked toward Cal and the other musicians.

  “Why don’t you set your instruments up here in the entrance? That way all the rooms can hear you. Play whatever you want for however long you like. I can bring up some water for you, and later on, I’ll make some soup.” He paused. “I’m sorry for not being more welcoming when you arrived, but I’ve been alone down here for a while now.” He paused. “You do know, you’re taking a terrible risk, coming here. You’ll get plague sooner or later.”