Fox didn’t say a word while he put a fresh bandage on her shoulder. Her silence used to be an expression of the wordless familiarity that connected them. But not this time. Jacob opened the window and poured the bloody water into the night. A few snowflakes drifted in.
Fox stepped to his side and caught them with her hand.
“What’s your plan? Are you going to trade the Dark Fairy the crossbow for your life?” She leaned out the window and inhaled the cold air as though it might drive away her fear.
“A few hundred thousand dead, for my own skin? Since when do you think so little of me?”
She looked at him. “You would have done it for your brother. For him you would have done anything. Why not for yourself?”
Yes, why not, Jacob? Because he’d grown up with the certainty that Will’s life was more precious than his own? Did it matter?
“I’m not planning to trade or sell the crossbow,” he said. “The Witch Slayer used it three times. The first bolt killed an Albian general who took fifty thousand men with him to his death. The second killed the commanding general of Lotharaine and seventy thousand soldiers. A few weeks later, Guismond had himself crowned King of both kingdoms.”
Fox held out her hand into the falling snow.
“I think I know the rest. I’d forgotten that story. It always frightened me.” The flakes planted crystal flowers on her skin. “One day—” she spoke the words into the night as though snatching them from the darkness, “—Guismond’s youngest son was dying. Gahrumet. I think that was his name. A Witch had poisoned him to take revenge on his father for killing hundreds of her sisters. His son was in such terrible pain that Guismond couldn’t bear it anymore. He shot a bolt from the crossbow into his son’s heart, but Gahrumet didn’t die; he was healed. They say he hated his father later on, but he lived for many years.” She closed the window and turned around. “It’s nothing but a fairy tale, Jacob.”
“And? Everything in this world sounds like a fairy tale. I’m dying for having uttered the name of a Fairy!” He stepped toward her and brushed the snowflakes from her hair. “Why shouldn’t there be a weapon that brings death when it’s wielded in hatred but gives life when it’s used out of love?”
Fox shook her head. “No.”
They both knew who was going to have to shoot the bolt.
Jacob took her hands. “You heard Valiant: nobody came out of the tomb alive. You know we can make it. Or shall we just wait together for death to catch up with me?”
What could she say to that?
LIVING SHADOWS
Looking at the valley where the Dwarfs had found the tomb, no one would have guessed that it had once been famous for its flowering slopes. Mirror-blossoms could make even the ugliest face irresistible for a few hours. But the sale of iron ore made riches faster.
The valley lay in the steep mountains of Helvetia, a little under a day’s ride from Valiant’s castle. The country was so small that it spent a lot of effort and gold on appeasing its mighty neighbors. It had once been part of Lotharaine but had won its independence with the help of an army of mercenary Giants. And since a Stilt had stolen the last king’s only heir, a parliament had been ruling the tiny country, keeping peace with the Goyl by allowing them to move troops through its mountains. When Jacob had asked what price the Dwarfs had paid for the permission to scour iron ore from Helvetia’s blooming valleys, Valiant merely replied with an indulgent smile. The country needed tunnels if it wanted to keep up with its neighbors’ railroads and fast highways. And nobody could blast holes through mountains the way the Dwarfs could.
Jacob’s boots sank into deep snow as he climbed out of Valiant’s carriage. The cowering huts around the mine’s buildings did not show any of the wealth that was being scraped out of the earth, and the smoke rising from the chimneys scribbled a dirty future into the sky.
A crowd of Dwarf children were waiting by the cages that would take them down into the belly of the earth. They could crawl deeper into the tunnels than any human could, and they weren’t afraid of the Mine-Gnomes that made mining behind the mirror even more dangerous than in the other world.
“Is that what you call good business these days?” Jacob asked the Dwarf as they passed the pale urchins. “Children scraping for ore?”
“And? They’d be doing it without me,” Valiant retorted blankly. “Life’s an ugly affair.”
Fox eyed the women who were unloading the tenders as they came up from the tunnels loaded with ore. She whispered to the Dwarf, “Did you hear about the mine owner in Austry whose workers sold him to Mine-Gnomes?”
Valiant gave Jacob an alarmed look. “You should keep a close eye on her,” he hissed. He disgustedly shoved back one of the children who’d been stretching a little hand toward his wolf-fur coat. “She already sounds like one of those anarchists who smear their slogans on every factory wall.”
“I liked you better when you were less of an honorable businessman,” Jacob said. He helped the little tyke back to his feet. “Go on, show us the tomb before this cold drives someone to kill you for your coat.”
***
A rusty chain-link fence, surrounding three buildings with copper roofs to keep out the mountain wraiths...rail tracks, smokestacks, a drainage ditch...nothing here gave away that the Dwarfs had found anything else but ore.
Fox looked around. “Can we see the Dead City from here?”
Valiant shook his head and pointed westward. “Unless you can see through that mountain there.”
The Witch Slayer had built his city after Albion, Austry, and Lotharaine had been united by the crossbow, and Helvetia had become the center of his gigantic empire. Silberthur was what he named it, but now it was only known as the Dead City, for all its people had disappeared the day Guismond died. There were stories that their faces still looked out from the crumbling walls like fossils. Jacob had never seen the ruins with his own eyes, for even Chanute had always steered clear of the Dead City. Even after four centuries, it was still considered unhealthy to walk its deserted streets.
Valiant opened the gate in the rusty fence. The chain was loose, and there were footprints leading through the gray snow toward the mine elevator.
“I thought you closed the mine,” Fox said.
Valiant shrugged. “A foreman comes by here every now and then to check on things. They sent in the last treasure hunter about a week ago.” His face showed a satisfied grin. “And I’ve got three ounces of gold on the idiot never coming out again.”
Jacob pushed open the gate. “Three ounces of gold? Not bad. And what did you bet on me?”
Valiant’s smile turned as sweet as elven honey. “How stupid do you think I am?”
Fox shone one of the mine lamps into the pit with the elevator cages hanging above. Valiant looked around furtively, but none of the men who guarded the workers on the other side of the fence had taken any notice of them. “Right. Once more, just to avoid any trouble,” the Dwarf whispered. “I only brought you here to consult with Jacob.”
Fox climbed into the swaying cage. “You’ve told us so often, your dogs can probably repeat it by now. But I forgot the next part. We steal the crossbow, and you get dragged off by Mine-Gnomes before you can stop us, right? Or is it we who drag you off after we steal the crossbow?”
“Very funny!” Valiant growled. “You obviously have no idea of the risk I am taking here! The Dwarf council will have me shot should they ever suspect anything. And nobody outside the council knows of this tomb.”
“Nobody except the council members, their secretaries, their wives, the mine workers who found the tomb...” Jacob lifted the Dwarf into the cage. “I wouldn’t count on your secret being safe. And about you getting shot? Nonsense! You’d talk your way out of anything. I should know. I wanted to shoot you a dozen times already.”
***
The cage descended endlessly into the deep. When it touched firm ground, the light of their lamps exposed the roughly hewn walls of a chamber with a number of tu
nnels branching from it into the darkness. Wooden beams supported the low ceiling. Pickaxes and shovels leaned against piles of rubble. Laid out on a flat stone were the usual offerings for the Mine-Gnomes: coffee powder, scraps of leather, coins. If the Mine-Gnomes disappeared, the miners could breathe easy. If they stayed, one had to expect sharp cries in the dark, rock falls, and spindly fingers stabbing into ears and eyes.
Valiant picked a tunnel leading west, toward where, high above them, the Dead City lay nestled among the mountains. At some point, they reached a crude drill that in Jacob’s world would have stood in a museum, but that Valiant proudly pointed out as the pinnacle of Dwarf engineering. The drill had exposed an arched entrance in the rock face and, beyond it, a broad staircase leading steeply down, lined with burnt-out torches. The metal clamps were covered with soot. At the bottom, the steps opened into a wide chamber. A few forlorn gas lamps created a pale pool of light on the stone floor, and in the middle of it lay a sleeping Giantling. He wore the uniform of the Dwarf army and lumbered to his feet only after Valiant kicked him hard in the side.
“You call this standing guard?” the Dwarf yelled at him. “Why are we paying you thrice what we’d pay any human guard?”
The Giantling picked up his helmet and anxiously snapped to attention, even though Valiant barely reached his kneecaps.
“No incidents to report!” he mumbled with a sleepy tongue. “I have orders not to—”
“Yes, yes, I know!” Valiant interrupted him impatiently. “But I have brought an expert who traveled here from afar. This is his certificate of authority.”
He pulled out an envelope so small that the Giantling’s gross fingers could barely take hold of it. Valiant gave Jacob a wink while the guard looked helplessly at the tiny thing.
“What?” Valiant barked at him. “Look at me! I know to you all Dwarfs look alike, but you should at least try to remember my face. I’m the owner of this mine.”
The Giantling suppressed a yawn and adjusted his helmet. Then he pushed the tiny envelope into his uniform and stepped aside.
His huge body revealed a door, framed by a frieze of skulls. The slits above the noses clearly identified them all as the skulls of Witches.
Guismond the Witch Slayer. Chanute had once told his story to Jacob in some filthy tavern. He’d been so drunk, he’d barely managed to pronounce the name. “Guismond, yes, there’s no man ever knew more about witchcraft. You know what they called him?” Jacob thought he could hear his own voice answer, the high voice of a boy: “The Witch Slayer.” That name resonated with everything that had made him follow the old treasure hunter in the first place: danger, mystery, the promise of enchanted treasure to gild his life. His life, which on the other side of the mirror had tasted only of boredom and yearning.
Already Chanute didn’t have to explain to Jacob how Guismond had earned his byname. No human on either side of the mirror was ever born with magical powers, but in this world there was a way to acquire them. It was a sinister way, and Guismond had not been the first one to follow it: One had to drink the blood of a Witch when it was still warm. “How many Witches did he kill?” Chanute had refilled his glass with the acrid liquor that had cost him one arm and almost his mind. “How would I know? Hundreds, thousands. Nobody counted them. He’s supposed to have drunk a cup of blood every week.”
Jacob examined what was left of the crest on the gold-plated door: a crowned wolf, a cup of blood, and there was the crossbow...
Behind them, the Giantling was leaning against the wall.
Fox eyed him pensively. “Your guard’s suspiciously sleepy,” she said to Valiant.
“Elven dust,” the Dwarf replied. “These big idiots always have some in their pockets. Can’t get them off that stuff.”
Jacob listened, but all he could hear was the Giantling’s heavy breathing. Elven dust? Maybe. He pulled a pair of gloves from his bag. Fox had given them to him after a tomb’s protective spell had nearly cost him his fingers. Like all shape-shifters, she was immune to such spells.
Valiant looked uneasily at Jacob. “Why the gloves?”
“You don’t need them, as long as you don’t touch anything. Are you sure you want to come with us?”
“Sure.” The Dwarf didn’t sound too convinced, but there was serious loot to be had, and that outweighed even his fear of a dead Warlock.
Jacob exchanged a quick glance with Fox, then he put his hand against the crowned wolf. It didn’t take much force to open the door. He could feel that others had already done it before him.
The scent wafting toward them was barely noticeable. Tomb-cloves were a simple method to protect the dead from the greed of the living. Their poisonous pollen could survive over centuries. Jacob held Valiant back. Fox took a pouch from her belt. The seeds she offered were barely bigger than the pips of an apple.
“Eat!” she told Valiant, who eyed her suspiciously. “Unless you want to look like a moldy loaf of bread after a few steps.”
“Watch your step!” Jacob whispered. “Don’t touch anything and keep your mouth shut, especially if something asks you a question.”
“A question? Something?” Valiant popped the seeds into his mouth. His wide eyes stared into the dark tunnel in front of them.
The walls were lined with burial niches. Fox grabbed the Dwarf just before he stumbled into one of the mummified corpses.
“Why do you think they were buried here?” she hissed at him while Jacob pushed the mummy back into its niche. “This is the tomb of a Warlock. I’m sure they are easily woken.”
The man they found a few steps in had been dead only a few days. The tomb-cloves had covered him with a carpet of deadly green blossoms. The whispers began as soon as Fox stepped over his corpse.
“Who are you?” The voices came from the burial niches.
Valiant froze, but Jacob pushed him along. “Don’t answer!” he breathed. “They are harmless as long as you don’t reply.”
The mummies wore weapons belts and armored breastplates over their rotting clothes. Most of Guismond’s knights had followed him to his death, though if historic records were to be believed, only few of them had done so voluntarily.
They found five more fresh corpses: the treasure hunters who hadn’t returned. In addition to being covered in tomb-cloves, some of them also showed sword wounds. And the dead whispered all around them. Jacob had never seen so much fear on Valiant’s cunning face. Even Chanute used to grow a little paler in tombs than in other places. Jacob was usually not affected. In his experience, the places of the living were much more dangerous. Yet as he walked past the burial niches, he could feel the moth like a cold hand on his chest. Look at them, Jacob. Soon you’ll look like them. The leatherlike skin, teeth exposed, and spiders nesting where your eyes used to be. His breathing grew labored, and Fox noticed. She silently pushed past him and walked ahead, as though that could draw death’s attention from him. The tunnel took a bend. The scent of the tomb-cloves was now so heavy that it clung to their skins like perfume, and then they came upon the curtain of corpses. Twelve mummified knights hanging from the ceiling, blocking their path, but one of the bodies ended beneath the ribcage. Someone had hacked off the rest with a saber. Not the most elegant way to get through a corpse curtain, but it did the trick. Maybe the Dwarfs hadn’t hired only amateurs after all.
Valiant cursed disgustedly, though he was the only one who could walk upright under the mutilated corpse. The reward came just beyond the curtain: another door, inlaid with the golden likeness of a man.
The crown identified him as a king, and the cat-fur coat showed him to be a Warlock. On his shoulder sat a Gold-Raven, the symbol of limitless wealth, and his feet stood in Seven Miles Boots to symbolize the vastness of his empire. He was holding the crossbow in his right hand. Supposedly, the Witch Slayer had sold his soul to the Devil to get it. Stories. However, Jacob had already seen too many of them proved true on this side of the mirror to dismiss this one.
The door with Guismond’s
portrait stood open a crack. The treasure hunter whose corpse they found just inside had probably thought himself at the goal of his quest, and he had obviously forgotten that traps were usually left invitingly open. His body was uninjured, as far as Jacob could make out, but the horror on the pallid face spoke clearly. Fox peered over Jacob’s shoulder.
“A shadow-spell?” she whispered.
Yes, probably. Jacob put his lamp on the floor and drew his knife. The resin he rubbed on the blade brought the smell of tree bark into the stale air. Behind him, Fox was shifting shape. Sometimes the vixen’s senses were more useful than an additional pistol. Forget this is about your life, Jacob. Enjoy the hunt. There it was again, the familiar thrill mixed with fear and the desire to conquer it. Irresistible. He’d never had to explain that to Fox. She slipped through the door ahead of him.
The tomb was enormous.
The frescoes on the walls still glowed in vibrant color, thanks to the centuries of darkness that had cocooned them since their creation. They were depictions of hell, rendered so masterfully they made one feel the fire on the skin. One of the walls showed Guismond himself riding through the flames in the armor of a knight. The Devil he was riding toward didn’t have much in common with the Devil Jacob knew from the other side of the mirror. Except for the horns, he looked like an ordinary human dressed in the clothes of a wealthy merchant of the time. The frescoes on the ceiling showed a battlefield, the spirits of the dead departing from their lifeless bodies. The columns that supported the ceiling were hewn from the same black marble as the sarcophagus standing in the center of the tomb. Four knights knelt around it, each leaning on a sword as black as its wings.
Jacob heard Valiant behind him, muttering a disappointed curse.
The sarcophagus was open.
They were too late.
Jacob looked at Fox. It wasn’t easy to tell what she was feeling when she was wearing her fur, but through the years he’d learned to read her. The despair he saw in her eyes was even worse than his own. The hope that he might yet save himself hadn’t lasted very long.
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