“That has to be the work of the Gatherers.” A shadow passed across Briana’s eyes at the mention of the cultists that had kidnapped her. “They believe in the Final Destruction. They want it to come to pass, for the world to be cleansed by the Long Keeper. That was why they murdered people in Praamis. They believed that people needed to be cleansed and branded with the Long Keeper’s mark in order to gain entrance into the Sleepless Lands.”
Evren scowled. “Crazy bastards!” Every priesthood had its fair share of crazy rituals and notions, but this particular belief outstripped them all.
“But what if they’re on to something?” Briana frowned, her expression growing pensive as she stared down at the book in her lap. “What if they, like your Brother Modestus, know that the prophecy could come true? Somehow, impossibly, they have deciphered the meaning of these words and understand that the Final Destruction is coming. The writing is literally on the wall, a warning for the people of Shalandra that Hallar is returning to destroy us all.”
Evren wanted to shrug it off, but Briana’s grave expression made him take the thought seriously.
“The Hall of the Beyond isn’t only filled with power-hungry people like Madani and Angrak,” Briana went on. “There are people who genuinely believe in the Long Keeper, the Seven Faces, and the Sleepless Lands. The Necroseti number in the hundreds, their resources virtually limitless. If anyone besides my father or the Secret Keepers could find the hidden meaning behind this prophecy, it would be them. Perhaps that knowledge was what led the Gatherers to split off from the Necroseti in the first place. If they did know, it could paint all of their actions—including the attempt on the Pharus and the Keeper’s Council—in a new light.”
Evren contemplated the statement, trying to put himself in the mind of a deranged death-worshipper. If the Vault of Ancients held the key to stopping—or heralding—the end of the world, he could see himself doing whatever it took to get his hands on said key. The attack on the Pharus might not have been intended to destabilize the city, but instead a Gatherer attempt to get into the vault to do exactly what Evren planned to: steal the Blade of Hallar and stop the Final Destruction.
“If that’s true, then it’s all the more important that we get into the Vault of Ancients.” Evren’s resolve hardened. “You need to find everything you can in those journals that would help us.”
“I’m working on it,” Briana said, and her face fell. “It’s slow going, but once Hailen gets a better grasp of my father’s secret cipher, we should make better progress. For now, we’ve got this.”
Evren arched a curious eyebrow as Briana reached for a scroll tube that lay on the bed beside her. He took it from her, popped off the cap, and drew out the rolled-up papyrus within. When he got a glimpse of the maze of intersecting lines that could only be corridors and pathways, he sucked in a breath.
“Is this the map of the Serenii tunnels beneath Shalandra?” He’d seen one much like it in Graeme’s secret room behind The Angry Goblin Bookstore—or, the same apparently chaotic network of tunnels that spread throughout the entire underground of Voramis.
Briana nodded. “Courtesy of Guardian Ennolar of the Secret Keepers, on my father’s orders.”
Evren knelt to spread the map out on the ground, and his eyes roved over the lines. It looked like a giant honeycomb, with markings for each of the five tiers, even for ways into the palace. Other markings—unfamiliar symbols and runes that had to be either Serenii script or a Secret Keeper cipher—littered the map.
He whistled. “This is amazing!” He lifted his face and grinned at Briana and Hailen. “We can go anywhere in the city with this!”
“Yes.” Briana returned his grin. “That map is going to be the key to getting to the Vault of Ancients now that I am no longer Dhukari.” Her grin never wavered, but Evren caught the sudden tightness in her face. “We can make copies, but you, Kodyn, and Aisha need to commit it to memory. We’ve got less than three weeks until the Vault of Ancients opens, and we still haven’t figured out how to get it open or what to do once we’re inside.”
“Maybe this will help?” The shy question came from Hailen.
Evren’s eyes snapped to the young boy and found Hailen holding up the long, narrow cylindrical stone—the stone he’d activated with his blood. Yet somehow, it looked different than before.
“I think…” Hailen hesitated. “I think it’s a key.”
Evren climbed to his feet and squinted at the stone. The stone had lost its glow and returned to its original black color, with the same Serenii runes etched into its surface. Yet the stone had changed—yes, Evren saw it now. Four stone prongs, each barely as long as his pinky fingernail, protruded from its tip.
“Look.” Hailen held out a hand for the object, and Evren gave it to him. “It does this.” He gave the object a quick twist to the left, and the prongs retracted, leaving only smooth stone. When he twisted it to the right, the prongs snapped out again.
Evren sucked in a breath. He snatched the key from Hailen’s hand and stared at it. There was no visible seam, yet somehow the stone twisted in his hands to retract and extend the prongs.
He spun to Briana. “Did your father know about this?”
The Shalandran girl’s eyes were round as saucers, surprise etched into every line of her face. “I don’t know,” she breathed. Her gaze dropped to the book and she flipped through the pages, but looked up again a moment later. “If he did, he never said anything to me. And we shared everything, which makes me think he didn’t find this secret.”
“Maybe it only did this when my blood activated it?” Hailen said.
Evren had been standing near Hailen when his blood and those strange magic words—Serenii words—had set it glowing. He’d never forget the low hum of power, which had grown so loud it rattled his bones. The final surge of brilliant light had nearly blinded him. Yet, looking at the artifact now, it seemed almost impossible that it could be anything more than a simple stone.
"If my father knew anything about it, we’ll find it in these pages.” Briana gestured to the book. “Which makes it all the more important you learn that cipher, Hailen.”
The boy winced but nodded. “I know.”
Evren grinned at Hailen. “You’ve got this. At least these books are interesting, right? All that Serenii stuff you need to learn.”
“Which he’ll never learn with you here.” Briana made a shooing motion of her hand.
Evren got the hint. With a chuckle, he left the two of them sitting on the bed, surrounded by priceless artifacts from an ancient civilization, their noses buried in books.
He went to the other room, the one where Kodyn had spent the afternoon planning his break-in. The room was dark, cool, and welcoming. Evren took a seat on the simple chair, the room’s single piece of furniture aside from the crude bed with its reed mattress, and relaxed.
Things are well in hand. A smile broadened his face. Kodyn and Aisha are going to get us the proof we need to deal with the Necroseti. Hailen and Briana are going to find our way in. And me, well, I get to kick back for once.
He reclined as best he could against the straight wooden chair back and stared out the window. The houses across the street were empty, dark, save for one two-story building on the next corner. The light of a single candle illuminated what looked like a dining room, though it was too far for Evren to see clearly.
His smile froze as he caught sight of movement in the shadows down the street. His eyes snapped to the spot where he’d seen it and he squinted into darkness, trying to make out any details. Long minutes passed with nothing of interest. He tried to brush it off as nothing more than his anxiety that had set in after his run-in with Annat.
You’ve been working with the Hunter so long you’re seeing demons in every shadow.
Yet the instincts that had kept him alive on the streets of Vothmot warned him that he had seen something.
He remained motionless, eyes fixed on that spot. Another minute passed, and still noth
ing.
Was it just my imagination?
He was about to give up, to turn away, when suddenly the movement came again. No mistaking it this time. He could make out the shadow of a man sitting on a darkened doorstep.
Cold dread seeped into his chest. Someone is watching our house.
His mind raced as he tried to figure out what to do. He contemplated and discarded half a dozen plans in the space between heartbeats. Finally, he settled on the one that seemed best to him.
Silently, he slipped down the stairs to the ground floor. Nessa sat in the stuffed armchair, reading by the light of a candle.
“Nessa,” Evren said in a low voice, “I need you to take a cup of water out to Hykos.”
“Water?” Nessa’s brow furrowed.
Evren nodded. “Yes. And, when you give it to him, tell him someone’s watching us from across the street.”
Nessa’s hand flew to her throat and her eyes widened. “W-Watching us?”
“Just tell him,” Evren insisted. “He needs to know that there could be trouble ahead.” With that, he turned and slithered through the shadows of the small room toward the kitchen.
“What about you?” Nessa hissed after him. “Where are you going?”
Evren shot her a fierce grin. “I’m going to go get some answers from our watcher friend.” He hefted one of his daggers. “One way or another.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Aisha settled into the shadows of the alleyway and tried not to worry. Kodyn had been gone for the better part of three hours—far longer than either of them had anticipated. But she’d spent enough time around the apprentices of House Hawk to know that jobs sometimes went awry. Complications and delays were par for the course, and a good thief adapted as the situation demanded.
That didn’t make it any less nerve-wracking for those waiting outside. Even though Aisha knew Kodyn had the skills, stealth, and wits to get out of almost any situation, even the most capable thieves could find themselves in circumstances from which there was no escape.
She tried to thrust the worry from her mind, occupying herself with thoughts of Thimara, the spirit from Briana’s house. The spark of the woman’s life danced through her veins, setting the nerves in her fingers tingling.
Thimara and Uryan. The image of those words etched into the stone windowsill flashed before her eyes and brought a smile to her face. The ghost of the dead Secret Keeper had worried about being forgotten—as did all Kish’aa with no one to remember their names—but Aisha knew at least one person would carry the name Thimara for as long as she lived.
But what about when Uryan dies? Uryan had to be approaching her fifth decade. Her time on this world was limited. When the time came that she joined Thimara in Pharadesi, who would remember them then?
That was why Ghandians celebrated the Kish’aa-annat, the Night of the Spirits. Once a year, every member of the tribe would build an altar to celebrate and commemorate their revered ancestors, the family that awaited them in Pharadesi. Animal skins would be stretched on a wooden frame and every man, woman, and child in the village would paint names of deceased loved ones on the hide. A way to ensure that no one would be forgotten. The Kish’aa-annat feasts always involved plenty of drinking, dancing, and singing, but as a girl, Aisha had always loved hearing the stories to memorialize those passed on to the next life.
The dull humming grew louder in her mind, and Aisha felt her eyes drawn deeper into the shadows. She froze as two blue-white figures materialized before her. A man and woman hovered in the air, their fingers interlaced, their spirits joined in death. The man wore the familiar breastplate that marked him as one of Suroth’s guards, while the woman wore an elegant sheath dress that marked her not as a Dhukari, but as a personal servant.
Two pairs of lifeless eyes fixed on Aisha and their calls echoed in her mind. She felt herself drawn toward them, like a lodestone that called to metal. She fought that pull—she didn’t dare move from her position for fear of being spotted.
Yet her arm reached out of its own accord, hand outstretched toward the two spirits. The spark of Thimara’s life danced between her fingers as if drawing those ghostly figures to her. Aisha glanced up the alley and, finding it empty, stood and slipped in silence toward the blue-white figures floating in the air. The stench of death and decomposing flesh hit her as she drew nearer. She didn’t need to look inside the tied-up canvas bundles dumped into a storm gutter to know their contents.
Her eyes returned to the Kish’aa and again her hand reached out to them. They came to her, responded to her Umoyahlebe power. She could not hear them, but she could sense their pain, feel the emotions that consumed their ethereal beings.
The moment their spectral hands touched hers, a burning, sizzling energy coursed down Aisha’s fingers and up her arms. The spirits seemed to be pulled into her body, and the twin sparks burned bright and hot for a brief instant before settling down to two glowing embers.
Two names sprang to Aisha’s mind—her own memory or the spirits’, she couldn’t be certain. Eldesse and Osirath. Briana’s personal maidservant and her husband, one of Suroth’s guards.
She whispered the names aloud, and the two sparks within her flared to life, confirming her belief.
Suroth had said that the two had played a role in Briana’s abduction—how else could he explain their disappearance? Yet, as Aisha pulled back the canvas and got a good look at the bodies, she found another explanation.
Her ears pricked up at the faint sound of scuffing stone from above and to her right. Aisha glanced up in time to see Kodyn climbing over the wall surrounding Suroth’s mansion. Within a minute, he dropped into the alley beside her. Moonlight shone on his face, revealing a massive grin.
“We’ve got the bastard!” he hissed. “We’ve got the proof we need to get Lady Callista to clap him in irons and string him up in Murder Square.”
Triumph surged within Aisha’s chest—though it could simply have been the bright-burning sparks of the two spirits. “Yes!” Things were finally falling in their favor; Briana would have vengeance for her father’s death, beginning with the priest that had evicted her so cruelly.
“Let’s get back and show the others.” Excitement edged Kodyn’s voice.
Aisha went first, keeping an eye on the Path of Gold ahead for any sign of Indomitables. Thankfully, patrols were scarce at this hour—with more than sixty Indomitables guarding the one gate that led into the Keeper’s Tier, the Dhukari had little to fear.
Just before they slipped onto the main avenue, Aisha and Kodyn shrugged out of their dark cloaks and rolled them into tight bundles. Now, with their headbands, they looked like two Dhukari servants on an errand to deliver something for their master.
The guards at the gate to the Defender’s Tier glanced at them, but one look at their headbands—Hailen’s green-and-gold headband for Kodyn, and for Aisha a red-and-gold headband Kodyn had swiped from Industry Square on the way to his meeting with the Black Widow—and he waved them through.
They hurried down Death Row with the purposeful gait of low-ranked attendants on an important errand for a demanding master. With only a few people moving around the Defender’s Tier at this time of night, they made good time, reaching the gate to the Artisan’s Tier in less than an hour. Again, the Indomitables waved them through—only truly important errands would take a Dhukari’s servant out at this hour.
Once, the sparks of life within Aisha flared to life, so hot that it set her hands tingling and a shiver of heat running down her spine. When she looked around, she thought she caught sight of a dark shadow following them thirty or forty paces back. But when they reached the Artisan’s Courseway and turned west, the three spirits fell silent, the heat diminishing.
Just to be certain, she signaled to Kodyn, “We might have a tail.”
With a nod, the Hawk ducked down a side street, doubled back twice, and crossed nearly one quarter of the Artisan’s Tier through the back alleys and narrow lanes before returning t
o the Artificer’s Courseway. As they passed through the now-silent Industry Square and crossed Trader’s Row, Aisha found no sign of pursuit.
She did, however, see those strange words painted onto the side of stalls in Commerce Square. One proclaimed “Child of Gold” in big, blocky letters, while another a short distance away bore the words “Child of Spirits”. The Prophecy of the Final Destruction had come to the Artisan’s Tier as well.
Rothin’s hand dropped to his sword hilt as she and Kodyn emerged from the shadows of the alley, but stopped as he caught sight of them. “Master Kodyn, Mistress Aisha.” He released his grip on his sword and stepped aside to let them enter the back door.
Aisha nodded a greeting as she passed. Good to see he’s awake.
The smell of spices, herbs, and chicken grease still hung thick in the kitchen, setting Aisha’s stomach rumbling. She’d been too nervous to eat more than a few bites of food before she left with Kodyn. She snatched a drumstick that Leya had left out on the counter and devoured the tender meat in a mouthful.
Kodyn hurried up the stairs ahead of her and burst into Briana’s room. “We’ve got him by the bollocks now!”
Briana and Hailen’s heads both snapped up, startled.
Kodyn produced a neatly folded parchment from within his robes, unfolded it, and slapped it down on the bed beside Briana. “Hah, the bastard can’t wiggle his way out of this!”
Aisha stepped closer and frowned down at the parchment. The words “Bill of Lading” were printed in big, bold letters. Beneath it was a list of goods, quantities, and expected sale price. Aisha had seen similar bills piling up in Master Phoenix’ office—brothels required mind-boggling quantities of liquor, food, clothing, and other sundries.
Briana lifted it to the light of the candle and read over the contents. “I don’t get it,” she said after a moment of study, and turned a frown up at Kodyn. “How does a list of shipped goods help us against Angrak or the Keeper’s Council?”
Crucible of Fortune: An Epic Fantasy Young Adult Adventure (Heirs of Destiny Book 2) Page 24
