It took Iliana a moment to recover, but she was still the closest at hand, and she grabbed for Naila before she vanished, thinking only to hold on until the others had come to her aid. She got hold of Naila’s cloak, but the woman whirled about, snarling, and punched with a fist that seemed to be reflecting gold. Iliana lost her grip, and by the time she recovered, Naila was gone. The stone closed shut behind her.
They all turned to Lady Mercado, but it was Thiego who spoke first. “Is it true, then? Are you really the . . . are you really her?”
“You didn’t suppose you knew all the cabalists, did you?” Mercado said.
“Yes, but if you’re the head of the Luminoso,” Iliana began, “why didn’t you say anything when Naila claimed the title? You could have stepped forward at any time and denounced her as a liar.”
“Because the Master of Whispers does not reveal herself,” Mercado said. “Salvatore didn’t even know. Only my chief protector.” Mercado nodded at Mota, who inclined his head in acknowledgment. “And the preservation of the code was paramount. Nothing else mattered if the Quinta broke apart, if the Luminoso didn’t maintain its vigil over the wisdom of the Elders.”
Carbón spoke up now, and his voice was thoughtful, as if wheels were turning in his head. “You are Quinta, and you are Luminoso? At the same time?”
“It has always been this way, Carbón. The Master of Whispers is the link between the two. The ultimate arbiter of the code in the city. Before me it was . . . someone else.”
A brief moment of silence, and then Carbón spoke again. “It was my father, wasn’t it?”
Mercado nodded. “Yes. The former Lord Carbón, who raised you from the dumbre. He’s the one who brought me into the Luminoso, who trained me as his acolyte when I was no older than your chancellor.” This was directed at Iliana. “It was a small breach to tell me so soon, but those were the plague years. Lord Carbón couldn’t risk falling ill and leaving the position vacant.”
Iliana’s mind was still reeling. So many revelations, and still one to come, whatever it was that Carbón had hinted at during the heated discussions at the Torre estate. Mercado’s other secret, apparently. It wasn’t this thing, which had apparently caught Carbón as off guard as anyone else. She glanced at Thiego, guessing that it had more to do with her friend than with the rest of them.
And then she remembered their circumstances and let out a groan. “What about Naila? She’s still free, ready to mount another attack.”
“I don’t think we need to worry about Naila Roja again,” Mercado said.
“But she escaped. She got away.”
“She got away from us. She sank straight into the ground. And where does that leave her?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Naila threw her head back and laughed as she sank through the floor. The cries of her enemies faded above her before the closing stone silenced their protests. So amusing their expressions, especially the pain and anger and desperation all stirred up on her cousin’s face when Naila punched her and forced her to release her grip.
If she hadn’t been wearing the gold-lined gloves, but the glove of power instead, she’d have wrenched Iliana’s arm out of the socket and carried it with her as a souvenir. Her cousin had been fortunate to escape unharmed.
Never mind. There would be plenty of time to work her revenge. They would all pay for what they’d done. With the portal shifter, nothing could stop Naila from entering the temple whenever she wished, to take artifacts, to kill those who’d wronged her. To enact quiet, lethal steps to rid herself of them one by one, all the way to the woman who had turned against her at the end.
Lady Mercado. Supposed Master of Whispers. Maybe it was true, but what did that matter? The woman had done nothing to defend her position, so let her lose it. Once Mercado was gone, and the rest, too, Naila would find the others Camastrón had alluded to and bring them into her circle.
It was quiet as the portal shifter carried her lower. The artifact ate through the stone, inexorable in its descent. There would be a moment of action soon, when she dropped into one of the many chambers riddling the hillside beneath the temple. The instant she landed in the room, she’d have to scramble off the portal shifter, throw down her lead-lined cloak, and the get the shifter onto the cloak before it sank back through the stone and left her stranded.
From there, she could work her way out to the cliff face by reshaping the portal shifter and using it to tunnel horizontally. An army of Carbón’s miners armed with pickaxes could not have moved through the stone with a hundredth of the speed that Naila could with her artifact.
With the edges of the portal shifter pulled up around her knees to create the smallest possible tunnel through the rock, and the lead-lined cape unclasped, spread into the right shape beneath her, she was ready when she dropped through the ceiling.
But when the moment came, she was caught by surprise. It wasn’t one of the low-ceilinged vaults like the one where she’d found the weapons. Instead, she plummeted through the darkness for what must have been a dozen feet or more before she struck the floor.
Something twisted in her ankle with a spasm of pain, and she was already starting to sink into the ground before she got clear of the artifact. She grabbed with her bare hand for the lead-lined cloak, which had flown clear, and dragged it back over, then groped with increasing desperation for the portal shifter. She couldn’t feel well through the material of the gloves.
Naila first located the hole it had created, and her grasping fingers caught one edge of the artifact just as it was about to disappear. She tried to pull it back out, but the lower reaches were already enclosed in stone, and it was pulling inexorably down. A final tug, and then the stone was closing in on her entire forearm, and she yanked herself free just before the rock crushed her arm to a pulp. Moments later, the hole was gone. With it, the artifact. Gone.
Naila threw her head back and screamed in frustration. Her voice echoed in a large, hollow-sounding chamber, and that left her even more shaken. The darkness was absolute.
Don’t panic. Hold your nerve. It’s just another chamber, and you have a light. You can find the exit. There’s always a way out.
She rubbed at her underworld bracelet and called up a dim light. Quickly, before it faded, she rose from the ground. Her right ankle burned with pain where it had twisted or broken in the fall, and she supported herself mostly on her left foot while she waved the light around the room to inspect her surroundings.
This wasn’t a chamber of the temple, with carefully cut and dressed stones, a ribbed ceiling, and a doorway leading her to safety. It looked like a natural cave, with stalactites hanging like long, white fingers from the ceiling, dripping water that left the floor slick as she hobbled forward.
Grim terror wrapped its hand around her heart, and she fought down another scream. A cave might not have an exit. It might go deeper and deeper into the center of the earth. But no, what was that over there in the fading light? She rubbed the underworld bracelet until the light returned.
It was a mine car, entombed in minerals that had dissolved, dripped from the ceiling, and hardened into stone. Other, more thoroughly ossified lumps marked additional cars and mining tools. How many hundreds of years had it taken to form that much stone? This must be one of the mines of the ancients, abandoned when the Elders lifted themselves into another plenty.
But it was still a mine, and that could lead her to an exit out of this cold, damp crypt. A way into the air, maybe onto the cliffside. From there, she could pick her way back up to the city. With rising hope, she limped forward, dragging her bad foot behind her while she continued to rub the underworld bracelet to keep the light from fading and leaving her trapped in the awful darkness.
And that’s when she heard a whisper.
Naila Roja.
She darted her head, and for a split second swore she could see a pair of lantern-like eyes. Then they were gone, and all she could hear was the drip of water, a steady plop striking stone
. Her heart pounded in terror.
Naila Roja.
It was softer this time, more muted by the dripping, which echoed through the chamber to both her right and left. A steady trickle sounded in the darkness ahead. The only other noise was her heavy breathing—half fear, half gasps at the flaming pain in her ankle. Definitely broken—no question of it now. To cut the silence and dull her alarm, she spoke to herself aloud.
“Get hold of yourself or you’ll die down here. Then you’ll never get what you deserve, you’ll never take what is yours.”
Murderer. Blasphemer.
The voice was louder this time. A rustling sound behind her. She whirled and saw a pair of pale lights, right where she had been standing a few moments earlier. A second pair blinked into existence, this time in front of her.
You are warm. Your heart is beating like a fire.
“Who are you?”
We are so cold.
And hungry. It gnaws.
Naila rubbed furiously at the underworld bracelet. The light glowed brighter and brighter. There, one in front and one in back of her, were tall, hunched figures that seemed to be dressed in rags. Water dripped from their clothes, and behind the shroud-like wrappings around their heads, she caught a glimpse of moldy, yawning mouths without teeth.
Lemures! Curse all the rotting bones of the Elders, she was looking at the vengeful spirits of the dead. And suddenly she remembered when Camastrón had boasted of the ability to bring up creatures from beneath the temple. This must be where he had drawn them from.
She held up her bracelet, and light flared out of it. “Stand clear!”
The lemures were momentarily stunned and fell back. She hobbled forward, teeth gritted against the pain. Her head felt light, and she thought she might throw up. After a brief reprieve, she felt the lemures following her again.
Naila Roja. Give it to us.
“Give you what?” she cried. “I don’t have anything.”
But you are so warm. You have so much, and we have so little. And we are so hungry. Give it to us.
The light was going out, and all she could see were their eyes, now drawing closer. There were no more flares to stun them—that trick was exhausted—but she could still raise light. She practically blistered her fingers rubbing the bracelet.
The device responded grudgingly this time, and a cry of alarm escaped Naila’s lips at what she saw in its dim light. A third lemure had crept in from her right, this one eyeless, sightless. Its long, hook-like fingers reached toward her.
She whirled around with the bracelet, and when it touched her, it shrank back with a shriek and a hiss of escaping steam, as if it had been burned. A stabbing sensation like a blade of ice shot up her arm. Another whisper, this one deep in her mind.
Give us your warmth. We are so cold.
“It’s an underworld bracelet,” she cried, even as she cradled her frozen arm and rubbed to keep the light from dimming. “An artifact of the Third Plenty. Stay back, or I’ll burn you all!”
But you don’t know how to use it, do you? You don’t understand. You are only a blasphemer from a fallen age, nothing more. Bring in the guardian effects.
Slithering shadows. Pools of black that stole her light. Writhing limbs and snake-like appendages. Faces that formed and melted. Witherers, like the ones Camastrón had called up from the depths, only there were so many of them.
They came toward her, sliding over, through, and around the lemures, and Naila turned with the bracelet just in time to drive them off. They fell back, hissing and dissolving and reforming again. She waved her hand desperately, and the witherers kept advancing and falling back.
Long, leathery fingers closed around her wrist wearing the underworld bracelet. It was the eyeless lemure, come up beside her while her attention was on the witherers. Smoke rose from its hand, but it didn’t let go. Cold seeped into her flesh until her bones ached with it as it radiated up her arm.
You are so warm, Naila Roja. Burning with treachery and deceit. And blasphemy so hot it scalds. Give me your warmth. Feed me.
Others approached and took her arms, her neck, tore at her clothing so they could get to her bare flesh. Her body seemed to be turning to ice. The eyeless lemure opened its mouth wide, wider, and enveloped her entire face in a damp, rotting kiss.
Naila had time for one final scream before it sucked the last warmth from her lungs.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lieutenant Anderos and his companions escaped the trap set for them by the Basdeenian and Torre agents on the road outside the construction encampment. The three men were veterans of military campaigns, former spies and scouts with experience slipping through hostile territory undetected to bring reports to Lord de Armas of enemy movements, supply trains, and unit strength.
Carrying the weapons Naila had given them from the temple kept them wary, and Anderos didn’t trust the cabalist any more than he trusted the Basdeenians and Quintanans on the far side of the Rift. So after they crossed the Great Span and took horses from the stables outside the encampment, he sent his two companions galloping ahead with saddlebags laden with regular muskets, while he took the magical weapons up a separate path through the ravines and hillocks to the south of the road.
The two decoys were soon set upon by riders, who chased them up the road for two miles before finally running them down a few hundred yards short of the barracks where de Armas’s men trained. The pursuers were still congratulating themselves on having narrowly stopped the attempted escape, when Anderos reached the heights and came down onto the Quintana Way several miles beyond the camp. Undetected.
By the time Lord Carbón and Thiego crossed the Rift and discovered that the two riders had been decoys, traveling with nothing but flintlock muskets, Anderos was far away to the east and galloping toward Dalph.
It took Anderos eleven days of hard riding, changing horses twice before Dalph, then setting forth with ten other armed men, before he arrived on the outskirts of de Armas’s military encampment. By then, Anderos had already learned the secrets of the guns Naila had given him: their range, how to concentrate fire on a single enemy or deal damage to massed targets, and how to recharge.
He arrived just in time. De Armas’s forces faced a surging horde of Scoti raiders filled with confidence after a string of victories. Lord de Armas’s forces had been hard-pressed to even slow the enemy assault. Front-line units had suffered heavy casualties, and the new recruits rushed up to fill holes in the ranks had proven inadequate to the task. Recognizing the opportunity at once, de Armas quickly took the new weapons and dispersed them among his most trusted lieutenants.
The first battle delivered a crushing defeat to a superior Scoti force. The new weapons killed hundreds, and more importantly, sowed panic in the enemy, who were soon convinced that the ancients had risen from their graves and called down the power of their gods.
De Armas pressed his advantage, killed three Scoti commanders in a follow-up raid, and captured or destroyed several hundred wagonloads of arms and provisions. The enemy’s will evaporated, and the Scoti were soon fleeing toward their new territory in the Cheksapa, with the Quintanan army in pursuit, eager to finish the war.
There was a brief reversal when de Armas outran his supply lines and fell victim to a savage counterattack. He might have died on that battlefield, which took place among the ruins of an ancient river port west of the Cheksapa, but Anderos himself took up one of the ancient weapons and melted twenty men, forcing the Scoti back.
The next day, enemy soldiers appeared under a flag of truce and begged to end the war.
De Armas marched back to Quintana, triumphant, and the city braced itself for his return. With the permission of the Luminoso, Lord Carbón’s sappers tunneled their way through the temple walls and found the secret vault of weapons. Thiego and Mercado distributed several of the ancient weapons to Captain Plata of the watch, and made sure his men were trained by the time the military lord crossed through the abandoned Basdeenian encampmen
t and reached the Great Span. It appeared that there would be a second, more brutal civil war to decide the fate of Quintana.
But here Lord de Armas refused to cross the bridge. Instead, he sent across an emissary with a note closed with his seal. In it, the lord pledged his obedience to the new leadership of the city, that mixture of Luminoso and Quinta that had been negotiating with Grosst and the other Basdeenians. De Armas would maintain the ancient code that prevented him from entering with his forces until instructed otherwise.
In turn, de Armas demanded the right to keep the weapons Anderos had delivered into his hands, which had won the war, and would now be used to enforce peace with the barbarians, both the defeated tribes on the Cheksapa, and the larger number of unbeaten Scoti still hungrily eyeing the nations of the south from their northern homelands.
Lady Mercado hadn’t proclaimed herself the leader of the city, and Carbón and Thiego were doing everything possible to ensure that she wouldn’t become the de facto duchess, but it fell upon her to agree to de Armas’s terms.
In the end, she gave de Armas what he desired and asked him to return with his army to Dalph. By the following morning, the military lord and his army were gone. Peace had been maintained.
Chapter Twenty-Four
From Carbón’s vantage, the stone emerging from the Rift looked like a child’s building block, but as it rose on chains it soon became apparent that it was the size of a small rail car. According to Quintana’s chief engineer, each cube of granite weighed over ninety thousand pounds. A hundred men could have strained at ropes and pulleys and not lifted the stone two feet off the ground, but the Basdeenian crane and winch pulled it inexorably skyward, powered by dynamic fire from the ancient furnace in the Rift.
There had been a riot in the lower terraces when work crews first arrived to build new stone arches to support the Wood Road. The engineers also carried written plans to blast out a new terrace, construct an aqueduct and new staircases, install new septic tanks, and build a host of other major improvements. A new dynamic fire-powered cog rail line would travel all the way from the Thousand to the bottom of the Rift, where a small town was already growing in one of the safe zones delineated by the Luminoso. Reacting in fury, the dumbre had threatened to mob the lower wall and attack the upper terraces.
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