CHAPTER TWO
Catali heard the chirps of rats skittering from her approaching footsteps as the belly of the tunnel swallowed her up. She never did have an affinity for tunnels or dark hallways or any enclosed space where light was not permitted entry, but this particular tunnel made her queasier than normal.
It seemed to stretch on for eternity, for starters. Also, it smelled of urine and excrement. Given it was a temporary hovel for the poor and homeless, vagrants and vagabonds, drunks and swindlers, and every type of ne’er-do-well you could imagine, this wasn’t surprising.
Deplorable types and innocent-down-on-their-luck ones alike gathered here in this desolate, hollowed-out tube of earth in hopes of being granted entry into the Free City of Emyrth. Most would wait another year, until time came again to let a designated number of immigrants in, but some would find their blessings answered.
Strangely, she hadn’t yet encountered one of those hopefuls. The tunnel was, and had been for nearly a mile now, empty.
“Now, here’s a riddle for you,” Catali said to a curious rat eyeballing her. She fit her thumbs between her waist and belt and clicked her tongue. “The Passage to Freedom”—as the tunnel was known—“is deserted for the first time in, well, ever. Why?”
The rat clacked its teeth. It stood on its hind legs, hovering over a small squirrel carcass, claiming the meal as its own.
“Yes,” Catali said, lips drawn tight. “It is strange, isn’t it?” Her voice echoed, and no one answered.
The Free City was a world of dreams and a chance at renewal. Past crimes were forgotten once you were made a citizen, and oppressive laws that governed humanity did not exist there. The shackles that made one a peasant or slave for life did not exist here.
Catali would feel the warmth of summer half a mile ahead, and her eyes would bear witness to the grandiosity of the Free City. Of course, getting there required her to put one foot in front of the other, which currently felt like a monumental task.
The problem lay in expectations. Eight months ago, a dragon had brought her on a one-way trip from Avestas, leaving behind Oriana Gravendeer, or Oriana of Liosis, as Catali preferred calling her—in the hopes of pocketing valuable information about the Conclave’s current doings.
At least that’s what she’d told Oriana. Catali had convinced her that after their cataclysmic use of sorcery to fell the clutches at Torbinen, the Conclave would undoubtedly be aware of their presence and location. The Conclave generally didn’t appreciate such excessive use of sorcery, and they most certainly didn’t appreciate rogue sorcerers like Oriana, Catali, and those who had joined them.
That was entirely true, but Catali had other reasons for revisiting her homeland. The city of Feirdeen, where Oriana had found her, had been stripped of its populace by the Conclave. She didn’t know where they’d gone, only that the sorcerers had marched them right out of the city in an orderly and hasty fashion.
She’d heard rumors of similar evacuations across Baelous. In the eight months since she’d returned here, she had confirmed those disturbing rumors. One of a naive mind might suggest that, since the Conclave was at war with King Fahlmar of the North, the sorcerers were recruiting soldiers.
But Catali had never known the Conclave to employ footmen. And training a bunch of everyday city dwellers to fight against the trained soldiers of Fahlmar? It’d take months, years, even.
Also, if you ever came to question the Conclave’s motives and arrived at the most simplistic answer, you’d arrived at the wrong answer.
If the Conclave had come for the denizens of the Free City of Emyrth, that marked a departure into unparalleled boldness. Emyrth had, since its inception, been a neutral party to all matters on Baelous. Every king, lord, queen, village elder, patriarch—you name it—they all recognized this and respected Emyrth’s sovereignty.
Catali wiped a hand down her dry, bald scalp. Standing there in utter darkness, in the womb of oblivion, brought back bad memories. Painful ones.
She’d been left in her aunt’s care when she was three. She’d run away at nine, but not before having lived a harrowing life locked in the dankness of a black-as-night larder and burned with candlewax each time she wet herself while sleeping. There were other punishments too, all involving that caliginous, musty larder.
She shook herself from that agonizing past and pressed on. Always keep busy, she told herself. Always move. Nightmares latch onto idle minds, but they do not give chase.
The tunnel twisted and coiled. In some places Catali sensed the ceiling bearing down on her, as if sagging from tons of mud and rock. She wondered if—or when—it would collapse. How much death would it bring?
She thought about death a lot.
Rounding the last corner brought a glimpse of golden bands of light into view. They filtered in bright and unfettered, like sunny slivers through rainy clouds. The pungent smell of stale urine remained, but now Catali sniffed the freshness of air too.
She squinted, eyes stinging from the sudden burst of light. A few blinks later and a couple more steps forward, her vision cleared and she saw the vastness of the Free City. Or rather, the vastness of the Free City’s wall.
Nothing else was visible quite yet—only an enormous mudbrick wall that inched ever higher as more of the horizon crept into view.
She heard no sounds. No voices. Only silence. The Free City was many things, but it was not quiet.
The immense wall of sun-bleached brick loomed closer. Several steps later, as she left the tunnel behind, that wall came to dominate her vision in its entirety. She looked up and up and up some more, till the back of her skull touched her shoulders.
She saw nothing but the sheer face of aged mudbrick staring back at her. It was a sight that, if not for the oppressive heat sticking to her like vapor, would have made her feel cold and lonely and very small.
She liked feeling cold and lonely and small. It motivated her.
Forty-foot portcullises jutted out from either side of the wall, anchored into the mountainside through which the tunnel burrowed. Those gates were the only way into the Free City, and currently they were, curiously enough, open.
Catali blinked. She tilted her head one way and the other. Still the steel-latticed gates were open, not a guard in sight. Her stomach churned.
Hands on her hips, she sighed, then headed toward the right entrance. As she passed through the portcullis, she hoped a booming voice would reach her ears, ordering her to stop at once. When that didn’t happen, she hoped as she rounded the bend that a cacophony of voices and a blend of tongues from a hodgepodge of cultures would drone like the buzzing of bees.
That didn’t happen, either.
This is what did happen.
A city of grandeur swept her in and embraced her with its seemingly boundless limits. There were buildings tall and short, squat and rangy—structures plain and those of intricate design. All shared the brilliant shades of tan of the terrain of shale and sand that surrounded them.
Each wall was thick and ample, made with fired brick that consisted of loam and sand, sometimes straw if any could be found. The corners were rounded, roofs often smooth and flattened. Some were capped with domes speckled with flecks of gold, while others welcomed you in beneath smooth arched doorways.
The Free City was filled with character, but not, at the moment, the animate kind. Catali stood on a barren, sandy road that’d been stamped into shape by millions of feet; only hers were now present.
She shielded her eyes from a brutal sun and pushed onward. Strung beads and transparent draperies hung from the doorways of shops, and signs urged you to come and peruse dresses and leathers and slippers.
Catali peeked inside one of the shops. Saddles and various accessories crowded the shelves, but no merchant stood watch over his wares. She could have taken anything without so much as a slap on the hand.
And take she did. She nabbed a new pair of gloves and some oiled-up saddle horns. Thievery didn’t move the needle on her mor
al compass. If it benefited her and she could get away with it, then she did it. Maybe that didn’t make her a wholesome woman, but so be it. When you grow up young, you do whatever you can to survive. And bad habits are hard to kick.
She stuffed the gloves and horns into her pockets and continued on, shuffling mounds of wind-tossed sand out of her way and coughing out granules that blew into her mouth.
In the distance, on a rump of fine and salty sand overlooking the city proper, lay the colossal Palace of Freedom. Catali figured if she had any chance of finding someone in this empty, seemingly abandoned city, it’d be there.
She thought that about the keep of Teurm too, and the fortress of Silfmar. She’d been wrong; there had been no leftovers in those places. No traces of life having even existed; it was as if an architect had swooped by, set up tables, chairs, some scones, and a few sundry decorations, then left without bothering to populate the place.
But Emyrth would be different, she’d convinced herself. You had to have hope in this life, she held, or you had nothing at all. If she could find someone, anyone, she’d have a lead. She’d have information on what was going on—maybe only a breadcrumb’s worth, but crumbs lead you to the whole loaf.
Catali made way over a temporary dune that the wind had created. She’d seen footprints in other emptied-out villages she’d come across, but no such evidence existed in the Free City. Here, nature covered up any and all evidence of departures.
Hiking up an ascending slope, she eventually came before the Palace of Freedom. From far away, you’d see it was octagonal in shape, but from where Catali was standing, it simply looked like one amalgamation of smooth earthen plaster. It had a rich golden cornice and four corner towers capped with fat crystal globes.
A single door fifteen feet in height stood before Catali, its iron frame painted blue and decorated with ornate golden designs. It was ajar.
This isn’t at all ominous, she thought. Nipping off bits of flesh from her cheek—nervous tics die hard—she turned sideways, thinning herself to fit through the gap. Doors tend to creak, and if anyone remained in this palace, she didn’t want to alert them.
She felt carpet at her boots, but couldn’t see it. The palace innards were dark, gloomy. The sconces that she wagered hung on the walls had been extinguished, the braziers too, along with the candelabra above.
Catali took one step forward and paused. Something, somewhere, made a noise. Might have been the wind thrashing against the palace. Might have been her imagination.
Might have been something else. She held her breath and listened.
There it was again. And again, in rapid succession—two dull thumps coming from inside the palace. Sounds like someone’s stomping.
She waded deeper into the darkness, her eyes adjusting and peeling away the shadows and obfuscations. Pillars came into focus then, and so too did a vaulted ceiling and an enormous dais.
Off to the side spiraled a staircase. There were doors too, leading to who knew where. Figuring one path was just as good as the other, she took the stairs. She managed one step before hearing it again. Thump. Thump.
“Where in the hells is that coming from?” Catali said aloud. She waited, listened. Another set of thumps—this time three in succession—came moments later. “Not up there,” she decided. She put a finger to her lips, then pointed thataway, at the near wall.
She jiggled a door handle and was through, standing in what seemed like a wide corridor; it was difficult to be sure with the lack of light. She ambled down the hall, which spun this way and that.
The thumping droned closer. In that room. Or was it that one? Why were there so many rooms in this hallway, anyhow? She wondered how large Emyrth’s court of nobility was and if all of them lived in the palace.
Catali quieted her thoughts and her breath, listening. Then she heard it, but not the it she expected. Instead of another thump, there came a muddled voice that said this:
“Come on, you cow’s rump.” Another thump. Then, “Agh!”
Catali smiled. She snapped her fingers at a door with a brushed steel handle, certain the voice came from within. I’ve got you.
She tried the door, but it didn’t budge. Locked. Of course it was. She frowned, chewed her cheek a bit, and tried again. Same result.
The thumping, Catali realized, had stopped. She pounded on the door. “I know someone’s in there. Open up.”
Not a peep.
“Listen,” she said, resting her shoulder against the molding, “I’m not here to hurt you.” When silence answered her, she sighed. “Hard to believe, I know, but I want answers, not a prisoner.”
Catali regretted not carrying a weapon. Like, say, a hammer. A big heavy hammer that could chew through the door and put her on the other side. Thing was, she didn’t have use for a weapon. She had the power of mind sorcery, able to influence another’s thoughts. If someone wanted to kill her, she could make them want to fuck her instead. Not that she would ever do something like that…
The corollary to that was that her target needed to be near, as in not behind a thick wooden door and beneath a pile of bedsheets.
Catali puffed an imaginary strand of hair from her eyes and pondered a way in. She could probably find something in the spacious room she’d come from that would knock a door off its hinges. A chair, maybe, or a steel poker that stirred fires. But the mute who’d been thumping about was obviously frightened. He could have had poison and a plan to use it as a means to end his life quickly if threatened; she’d seen it before.
Lying wouldn’t do, either. He’d see right through any attempt by Catali to place herself as a savior who’d come to free the poor man from his plight.
She needed his trust, so only the truth would do.
“I’m not here to rescue you,” Catali said. “I can’t even promise you freedom if you open this door and talk to me, but I will promise you whatever I’m able.”
A rustling, then, “W—who—are you with them?” His voice quivered.
“Tell me who they are, and I’ll give you an answer.”
More rustling, then something skidding across the floor. “Y—your name. I would like—I want your name.”
“Catali.”
“No surname? You’re a bastard?”
“Does that matter? The answer is no, by the way. I simply prefer to not keep fragments of my past, if at all possible.”
The man coughed. “I’d heard gossip of sorcerers of the Conclave. They were taking slaves all across the West, emptying out villages and towns. You would’ve had to be deaf not to hear the rumors. But I never thought they’d come here.” A pause. “Are you a sorcerer?”
“Yes,” Catali said. “But I’m working against the Conclave, not for them.” She waited, breath caught in her chest. A simple no would have been advisable, but sometimes a well-placed, highly audacious nugget of honesty buys you more goodwill than offering the answers someone obviously desires.
From within the room, there was a slapping across the floor. Then more skidding that grew distant, like the feet of a chair being dragged away from the door.
“I see,” the man said. There was a click. Then a jangle. And the door inched open. Through a crack no wider than a finger peered a single twitchy eye. “No tricks, now. You hear? I’ve got—I’ve got ways of dealing with tricks.”
Catali doubted that, but she nevertheless lifted her hands in a placating showing of trust. “No tricks.”
The door swished open, revealing a man who made Catali grateful she had no hair instead of his hair. The strands were as gangly and yellow as peeled squash. His eyes darted across the room and back as he picked at the numerous scabs on his face. He was delicately thin and ghostly pale and dressed in rags.
Also, he bobbed uncontrollably.
Catali squeezed past him, into the company of wreckage and destitution. Shelves had been ripped off the walls and chairs overturned. Shards of stained glass littered the floor, and sheets had been torn into chunks and scattered about.
She could handle a messy room, but the smell that lingered within? It made her want to puke. The stench of urine burned her lungs, and the heaping of shit piled against the wall made her heave.
“Solitude,” the man said, taking note of Catali’s hesitance to take another step, “it, er, takes its toll.” He picked at a squarish scab on his chin, and blood trickled out.
She pulled her shirt up over her nose. “How long have you been held up in here?”
He counted his fingers, paused, counted again. “Six days at least. No, no! Ten. No less than ten.” His eye twitched. “Ah, that seems low too. It’s been too long. Far too long.”
Catali knew too well the effects of solitude. Her aunt Luane would beat her during her wine binges and then stuff her in the larder for days, weeks sometimes. It was hard. Painful. Depressing.
“Name’s Nape,” the man said, “if you care.” He snorted for seemingly no reason.
Catali sat on the edge of a bed cluttered with scraps of wood. “Nape, do you know what happened here?”
Nape licked his lips. He threw his head back, sighing and gurgling. “Ah, goodness me. It’s terrible, isn’t it? I seen it right away, but thought—I thought I ain’t a thief. And I’m not, see. But—”
Catali put a hand up, intending to interrupt and inform him that he’d lost her, but Nape kept on, barely taking time to catch his breath.
“They came when I was low. You know? It’s not my fault. I was low.” He squatted and wrapped his arms around a small steel box, its top sealed by an iron lock. “I didn’t want to break it, but… I just knew Master Gibbels had some stashed away. All the prims and propers in Emyrth do. And I needed to feel it again.”
Nape cried and slammed the box against the wall, eliciting a familiar thump. It did not break.
“Damn it all! I know you’re in here. I know it!” He slammed it again and again, spit dribbling down his chin.
He fixed his hands into claws and stabbed ten jagged nails into his cheeks. Then he slowly dragged them downward, gnawing off strips of flesh and leaving behind hot red streaks. Blood trickled into his mouth and dripped off his chin.
Reign of Gods (Sorcery and Sin Book 2) Page 2
