She took tentative steps further into the tunnel. ‘I recognise this!’ she chimed, her chest growing lighter. ‘The Sands! Coppertan Road’s not far from here!’
‘Hold on,’ cautioned Gallows, appearing behind her. He looked past the old barrier, angling his head, listening for something.
‘What?’ she whispered.
‘Shh…’
‘What are you…’
But then she heard it too.
Snarling.
‘Is that… dogs?’ she said.
Canine footsteps followed, bounding across the stone surface. Even in the dark, Serena could see Gallows’ face pale. ‘Carccias,’ he said.
‘Huh?’
‘Caner Carccias. Hunting dogs.’
The din grew louder, reverberating down the tunnel. At least two.
Then she saw them: Three massive black dogs with dark pearl eyes, galloping towards her, foam flying from their snapping jaws. ‘Oh, shit.’
‘C’mon!’
She followed Gallows as he ran.
‘There’s gotta be a way to the surface!’ he yelled.
Needles lanced Serena’s lungs as she ran. Wooden planks had been set across the floor, covering gaps in the ground. Serena flew over them.
And then Gallows stopped dead in front of her.
When Serena saw why, she stopped too.
A dead end.
A manhole cover was perched twenty feet above them, but the iron rungs leading up to it had been rusted off.
Ravenous, frenzied barking followed them. Serena twisted and stepped backwards. The dogs’ shadows stretched out on the wall, elongated like the tendrils of a nightmare clinging to the mind after waking.
‘Get behind me,’ Gallows said. He unsheathed his sword.
‘You’re gonna kill ’em?’
He swallowed. ‘Don’t have a choice.’
The beasts skidded around the corner, their jaws clamping and opening in rapid succession.
Gallows readied his weapon.
‘Cease!’
At once, the dogs sat on their haunches. They stared at their prey, eyes blazing with malice, jagged teeth slick with saliva.
Confessor Lenis Cronin rounded the corner at a slow, deliberate pace. Filthy stains marked his black greatcoat and boots, but nothing could blemish the pristine grin he wore. ‘Not the prey I was after,’ he began, ‘but well done. I wondered whose scent they’d caught.’
Gallows lunged forward, startling Serena. The hounds sprang to their feet.
‘Sit!’ Cronin ordered again.
The dogs obliged.
Gallows stood in place. Serena watched his face transform. He looked more angry than the dogs. ‘Cronin,’ he hissed.
‘Tyson Gallows.’ Cronin’s eyes shone behind his wire-frame spectacles. ‘I assumed you’d perished in the opera house.’
‘Sorry to disappoint you.’
‘On the contrary—I cannot question a dead man. And you,’ Cronin shifted his gaze to Serena. ‘There are many parties interested in you, little girl. I am placing you both under arrest.’
‘You really reckon we’ll leave with you?’ Gallows asked. He hadn’t lowered his sword.
‘I expect not, Mister Gallows, but I am bound by law to inform you. I am authorised to use lethal force should you refuse to accompany me.’
Gallows didn’t move.
‘Very well.’ The dogs must have sensed what Cronin’s next command would be, because they bared their teeth.
‘Wait!’ Serena yelled. ‘Let him go. Take… Take me.’
‘Serena, don’t,’ Gallows started. ‘You can’t bargain with this asshole.’
‘Do you know what I am?’ Serena asked. ‘Do you know why Enfield wants me dead?’
Cronin’s smile didn’t falter, didn’t betray anything.
‘Ah, I get it,’ said Gallows. ‘You weren’t looking for us, were you? You were looking for Enfield.’
‘Astute,’ said Cronin.
‘What?’ asked Serena. ‘He’s not working for you?’
‘Think about it,’ Gallows started. ‘You saw the gear in the opera house basement. Nav gear you said.’
‘Yeah? So? I saw him fiddle with something in his pocket right before he pulled a gun on me too.’
‘He was broadcasting to the Schiehallion. He must have hooked the gear up to the lights outside, signalled the airship using Bride’s Code. He likely had the Wraiths stationed aboard, ready to strike when he gave the word. Is that right, Cronin?’
‘Why, Mister Gallows, I’d say you had the makings of a good Confessor. But alas, I am not a liar.’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Serena. ‘He wants me dead, fine. Why attack the opera house?’
‘To cover his escape,’ Gallows explained. ‘He signals the Wraiths, shoots you and escapes while they gun everyone down. It’d look like another terrorist attack to kill Pyron Thackeray.’
Serena shook her head. ‘Did Enfield give the order to shoot the Prime Councillor?’
‘I doubt it. He’d have moved on Thackeray in the opera house if he was a target. I reckon Thackeray set that up himself.’
‘Conjecture, nonsense and lies,’ said Cronin.
‘The hell it is,’ shot Gallows. ‘What about the truth, Cronin? Huh?’
The Confessor snarled. ‘The truth is whatever the Fayth and the Crown require it to be.’
‘Yeah? Like Outpost One Three Seven?’
Cronin’s lips curved downward.
‘Oh yeah. We got a lot to talk about, you and me.’
‘I fear,’ began Cronin, turning and walking off, ‘you will be too dead to interrogate.’ And then he said, ‘Kill.’
The hounds moved with lightning speed.
Before Gallows had time to react, one had closed the space. He recoiled, seeing its glistening fangs, sharp enough to rend the skin from his bones. He swiped his sword at it, fending it off for a second. A guttural rasp like twisting metal burst forth from it.
There was no way he could take on three of these things.
‘Sit!’ Serena said.
All three beasts did as they were commanded.
Gallows kept his sword level.
‘It’s okay,’ Serena whispered. She stood there, hand outstretched, fingers moving back and forth like a master manipulating a puppet.
‘You talking to me, or them?’ asked Gallows, not taking his eyes from the animals.
‘You. I’m… I’m doing it,’ she replied. Her mouth hung open. She stood with a straight back, feet planted by her sides as though posing in victory. ‘I’m controlling them. I can feel it, like… Like threads, or… I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.’
‘You’re… controlling them?’ His voice sounded grave.
‘Yeah,’ she replied. ‘I totally am.’
‘Serena…’
‘You okay?’ she asked.
‘Wait… Wait here.’
‘Huh? Where are you going?’
Gallows bolted past Serena and the dogs.
He couldn’t be near her, not now—not seeing what she was.
Anyway, this might be the last time he’d get near Cronin.
That bastard can’t have gotten far.
He leapt over the broken remains of the cordon, feet pounding on wooden boards, eyes scanning beyond the weak sunset hue of the lamps.
Serena called after him, but he ignored her.
The tunnel straightened—and there, in the distance, Gallows watched as Lenis Cronin ascended a ladder.
He sped up.
The sword felt good in his hands.
He pounded after him, feet hammering the stone floor like a train roaring over tracks…
But the cordon down here had been set up for a reason.
One of the wooden boards cracked as Gallows put his weight on it, splitting and folding in on itself.
The ground swallowed him.
Chapter Twenty-One
‘Hmm-mm-um-um-um…’
Colours bled into view. Th
e hazy image of Serena resolved before Gallows.
Fresh agony flowed through him like molten steel.
‘Serena,’ he croaked. ‘You…’
‘Take it easy.’ Serena’s voice floated in and out.
What… are you? Where am I?
‘…mm-um-um-um…’
And what in Nyr’s name is that?
Water passed through his lips. He had no idea where it came from, but he grabbed the flask and downed all of it.
‘You’re torn up,’ Serena started, ‘but you’ll live.’
A dog’s bark pierced the air.
Gallows’ hands sought the hilt of his sword, but his sheath was empty.
‘Hey, hey! It’s cool. It’s not one of Cronin’s.’
A thin, grey smudge with an incessant whine and bad leg skidded its way between Serena’s legs. ‘His name’s Scruff.’
The fog cleared. He was still in a tunnel somewhere, but this chamber wasn’t like the others—bookshelves lined the wall, filled with dusty old tomes. A shrouded statue loomed in the corner and a tattered rug in a colourful Phadrosi pattern lined the floor. And then there was the dog. Aside from Cronin’s hounds, when was the last time he’d seen a dog? It angled its head at him, its one eye sizing him up.
‘Doesn’t like people much,’ Serena explained. ‘Except me.’
Gallows examined himself: His shirt and suit jacket had been removed, revealing a mass of yellow-brown welts on his chest. A network of red cuts and tender, pink grazes completed the picture.
‘You’re pretty beat up,’ Serena continued. She sat atop a wooden crate, picking at almonds in her palm. ‘But he patched you up.’ The dog worried at her legs. ‘Sorry, pal, you’re not allowed nuts.’
Gallows sat up. He had a lot of questions to direct Serena’s way, but the first to cross his lips was: ‘He?’
What Gallows took for the shrouded statue moved. Ruby eyes set into a patchwork of pale skin scanned over him before turning to Serena. ‘This belongs to you.’
Serena beamed. She snatched a wrench from a steel-grey hand, flipped it in the air and caught it. ‘Thought I lost it forever!’
‘Mister Gallows,’ the stranger spoke. His voice possessed all the deliberation and weight of a funeral dirge. ‘How do you feel?’
Who the hell was this? He looked like Nyr’s boatman, come to ferry him off across the sea of souls. ‘Beat to shit,’ Gallows croaked. ‘Need to break this habit of running around collapsing buildings.’ Gallows couldn’t decide if he should be afraid or not. ‘I’ve seen you. In Dustwynd. You help the homeless and sick.’
‘I… do my part.’
‘Reckon you’re the only one.’ The man—if indeed that’s what he was—had skin as grey and lifeless as a tombstone. Just like the Wraiths. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name is—was—Enoch tal Meridian. I understand I go by “Stone Man” or “Lantern Monk” now.’
‘“Was”?’
‘A long story, much of it a mystery even to me. Tell me, are you fit enough to move? I fear this place is not safe.’
‘I am. How did you find us down here?’
‘Here we go,’ muttered Serena.
‘What?’ Gallows asked.
Enoch cleared his throat. ‘I was drawn here.’
‘By what?’
Enoch looked to Serena.
‘You gotta be kidding me.’ Gallows laughed, but there was no humour there.
‘I cannot explain it,’ Enoch continued, ‘but I can sense her presence—just as I did in the sewers before—and as I sense the ignicite deep in the earth.’
After a moment, Gallows said, ‘Well that’s pretty damn creepy.’
‘There is… something inside me,’ the Stone Man began. ‘I know not what experiments were performed on me, but I can feel the veins of ignicite in the ground, sense igneus and ignium, like a bristling of hair against my skin. It’s faint, but Serena carries something similar—some trace of the mineral.’
‘You’ve got ignicite inside you?’ Gallows asked.
Enoch answered for her: ‘I don’t think so. It feels… Different. I felt the presence of my… siblings in the opera house as well. I helped evacuate citizens from the destruction when my senses prickled. I scoured the depths for hours before I picked up Serena’s trail.’
‘Well, that makes about as much sense as anything else tonight.’ Gallows had more questions than he could count—but he didn’t have time to ask them. ‘Listen, thanks for saving us, but I got work to do.’
‘Yes.’ Enoch swept a big hand to Serena. ‘So I’ve been told.’
Gallows looked to the girl. The natural green of her hair battled through black dye. ‘What did you tell him?’
An almond hung at her mouth before she continued. ‘Just the truth: That I saved your life in the opera house like a dozen times.’
Gallows leaned against the bare stone wall as he rose to his feet, straining not to topple. ‘Then, since you’re in such an honest mood, maybe you can tell me who you are?’
Her gaze roamed the floor. ‘I’m just a girl.’
‘Who can take over the minds of animals—and whose presence lures sentient zombie statues. No offence, Enoch.’
‘Some taken.’
Serena shook her head and took a deep breath. ‘Okay, so, I found a book on myths and monsters, and… and I reckon I’m one of ’em. A Siren, close as I can tell.’ She looked away. ‘I… I don’t know what it means yet.’
‘What,’ Gallows chuckled, ‘mermaids that sing to sailors and all that crap?’
Serena shrugged. ‘Is it any weirder than everything else that’s happened tonight?’
The room turned as silent as a mausoleum. Like burning coals, Gallows felt the glare of the Stone Man on him. And then there were the Wraiths, the amaraxes, that goddamned snake… ‘Guess not.’
‘Fascinating,’ muttered Enoch.
None of this makes sense. Gallows ran fingers through his grimy hair. ‘How did we even get here?’
‘I sent the dogs running down through the hole in the tunnel, the same one that brought us into the sewer. I barricaded it then climbed down to find you. That’s when I met this guy and Scruff.’
‘I call him Shogarth,’ said the Stone Man.
‘After Deolira’s hound?’ asked Serena.
‘Feria’s—he was the God of Journeys and Shogarth was his companion; Deolira is the Lion Goddess of the animal kingdom.’
‘This is neat,’ said Gallows. ‘Thanks for saving me and all, but I gotta keep moving.’
Cronin was the only prey that had ever mattered, and Gallows had let him escape. Some Hunter.
‘Hey, Gallows,’ said Serena. ‘Why were you there tonight?’
Gallows found his shirt and jacket in a dark corner on the floor. With considerable pain, he got dressed. ‘Never mind. Tell me—can you use your powers on humans?’
‘Just animals. So far, anyway. Look, I… don’t have the answers yet.’ Serena’s hands started shaking, and she hid them behind her back. ‘But it’s why Enfield wants me dead. He sent the Watch after me. He thinks I’m an Idari weapon. And… And I think he set my crew up on our last water run.’
Gallows had been too focused on Sera before, but it made sense now. ‘Reckon you’re right: Major Fallon and I found journals from a weapons lab—they said they had access to remotely control the Spires. That ain’t public knowledge.’
Serena’s face paled. ‘He also sent a watchman named Edlond to kill me but… he made a mistake. He killed someone else.’
‘Marrin,’ Gallows muttered.
The skin around Serena’s eyes creased. ‘You knew?’
‘Yeah. What happened to the watchman?’
‘Myriel and I captured him. She wrote the book on monsters.’
‘The Mages’ Guildmaster? You keep some strange company.’
‘We locked him in her basement then holed up with one of her friends. She went to find a way out of the city but never came back. I don’t know where s
he is.’ Serena turned away, her eyes squeezed shut. ‘If anything’s happened to her, it’s my fault.’
Gallows wanted to reassure her—but he didn’t have the words. Anyway, she was probably right, and why inspire false hope? Genevieve Couressa was wrong—hope didn’t keep you alive, it got you killed.
‘If what you say is true, your enemies will not rest,’ began Enoch. ‘You should both leave. I can help; the tunnels under the city are near-infinite.’
‘Can I trust you?’ Gallows asked Serena. ‘Have you been using your powers on me all night?’
‘No!’ Serena jumped from the crate. ‘Look, I don’t know what I am or, or how it works. I tried to use the… power on Enfield but it didn’t happen. I was going to make him talk, make him stop-’
‘See, that, right there. You can’t do that, you can’t just invade people’s minds! That’s exactly what the Idari did.’
Serena’s eyes narrowed. ‘And I can’t let more people get hurt because of me.’
‘To break into someone’s mind like that, to violate their free will…’ Breaths cut through Gallows’ mouth with the same swiftness as Osa’s shamshir. ‘It’s the worst possible crime.’
Serena’s eyes fixed on his. ‘Worse than killing? Like your pal back in the opera house?’
Now it was Gallows’ turn to avert his gaze. ‘Damien’s different from most people.’
‘Right, for him it’s okay but for me it’s a crime?’
‘It’s not what you’re capable of, it’s what you do. Killing in cold blood and taking someone’s free will are both wrong, but Damien saved both our lives. And he’s always in control.’ Gallows justified his friend’s actions to himself, but the sight of him saturated in blood, the sheer joy in his eyes…
‘“Always”? What, he’s tried before?’
Gallows wiped sweat from his brow. ‘I… I know of his… urges. I thought… I thought he was better.’
‘Well, I used what I can do to save our lives, too. And they were only dogs.’
‘Yeah, this time.’
‘Screw you, you’re not the boss of me.’
Symphony of the Wind Page 43
