The pieces of the sarcophagus’s smashed lid were scattered among the kneeling knights. Between them lay the guard against whom Jacob had prepared his knife: Guismond’s shadow, faceless, and as tall as though it had been cast onto the flagstones by the evening sun. The pool of blood around it indicated that the shadow had been brought to life by a spell only Witches could perform—or those who drank their blood. A shadow like that would kill for his master as silently as he had followed him through life. Jacob leaned over the black corpse. A knife stuck out of the shadow’s neck. It smelled of resin. The mistake of pulling it out would immediately bring the shadow back to life. Whoever had killed him knew that. Jacob stood up. For an instant he thought he could hear steps between the columns, but when he spun around, he saw only the vixen behind him.
“Elven dust?” She gave Valiant a scornful look.
Jacob leaned down to her. “Is he still here?”
She lifted her nose to sniff, and shook her head.
Damn! Jacob tucked his knife back into his belt. Not many treasure hunters knew how to get past a Giantling, or what resin to use to defeat a dead man’s shadow. They usually avoided each other on the hunt, but Jacob knew them all, at least by name and reputation. Which one had done this?
“Damned bastard!” Valiant was standing on the debris of the lid, staring down into the open sarcophagus. “He even took the crown!” he clamored. “And who told him to cut out the heart? Are those graybeards in the council now trading with Dark Witches?”
The corpse in the sarcophagus had not decayed at all, but it was missing the right hand and the head, and there was a hole in the chest where the heart had once beaten. The wound, like the ones on the arm and neck, had been sealed with gold. This meant that the body had been buried like this. Valiant reached for the scepter next to the body, but Jacob pulled him back. “You see those leaves he’s lying on? They’re hexed. Why else do you think he looks so fresh?”
He looked around. The tomb’s floor was laid with green marble, and strips of alabaster ran like the dial of a compass from each of the four columns to the sarcophagus. Jacob picked up the mine lamp Valiant had put down next to the sarcophagus, and walked along one of the alabaster strips. It was inlaid with letters cast in white gold. They were barely visible in the white stone.
Houbit westarhalp
Every treasure hunter knew that language. Fox watched Jacob as he paced off the second and third strip.
Handu sundarhalp
Herze ostarhalp
The inscriptions were easy to translate.
The head in the west
The hand in the south
The heart in the east
Maybe the hunt wasn’t over yet.
Jacob went to the fourth strip. Its inscription was much longer than the others:
Niuwan zisamane besizzant hwaz thero einar biegerot.
Fiborgan hwar si alliu bigannun.
“What’ve you got those gloves for? Take that scepter off him!” Valiant clamored. “And he’s still got his signet ring on the other hand.”
Jacob ignored the Dwarf. He was staring at the letters.
Only together may they possess what each desires.
Concealed where they all began.
No. The other one hadn’t found the crossbow. Not yet.
“Jacob?” Fox was still wearing her fur.
Steps...
Barely audible.
Jacob lifted the lantern. He thought he could make out a shape between the columns, dark like the stone it was trying to hide behind. Before Jacob could stop her, Fox was dashing toward it. The vixen’s compulsion to hunt made her careless. Jacob ran after her, cursing himself for not having given the tomb a thorough search. He heard Fox yelp, and nearly stumbled over her. She was lying between the columns, already shifting shape as she struggled to her feet. That instant, the Dwarf cried out for help behind them.
The man who shoved Valiant out of his way was wearing clothes of lizard skin over his own, which was as black as onyx. A Goyl. Just as Jacob took aim, Valiant staggered into his line of sight. The Goyl gave him a little taunting wave before pulling the tomb’s door shut behind him. Valiant screamed, stumbling toward the door. He clawed his fingers into the frieze of skulls and yanked at the door so hard that the bones cracked under his hands.
“Why didn’t you shoot him?” he yelled. “Perishing inside a tomb! Is that your idea of a good death?”
Fox’s forehead was bleeding. Jacob brushed away her hair, but luckily the gash wasn’t deep.
“Why didn’t you smell him?”
“He didn’t have a scent.” She was angry. Angry with herself and with the stranger who’d gotten the better of her.
No scent. Jacob looked toward the shadow and the resin-covered knife stuck in its neck. The Goyl knew his trade.
“We’re going to starve!” Valiant looked around like a rat caught in a trap.
Jacob went back to the alabaster strips and looked at the letters. “Suffocation is more likely.”
Fox came to his side. “I’ll find his trail,” she whispered. “I promise.”
But Jacob shook his head. “Forget about the Goyl. He doesn’t have the crossbow.” He was still looking at the letters. The words were the trail they’d have to follow. A dead man...not yet.
“What the devil are you two doing there?” Valiant’s voice filled the tomb with Dwarf panic. “Do something! This can’t be the first tomb you’ve gotten trapped in!”
The Dwarf was right about that. Jacob returned to the sarcophagus and, with his gloved hand, reached for the scepter. The architects of royal tombs often believed that their master was only sleeping and that he would wake up again one day. So they always left him with a key, even though it seemed even more unlikely than usual that a headless king would awaken and need it.
The door swung open as soon as Jacob wrote Guismond’s name in the air with the scepter. Relieved, Valiant immediately stumbled through the door, but Jacob carefully stepped over the dead treasure hunter in front of it and listened. The hanging knights were swaying gently, and he thought he could hear steps in the distance.
Valiant growled, “How did the Goyl know about the tomb? If the Dwarf council hired him behind my back, then—”
Jacob interrupted him: “Nonsense. If he was hired by the council, then why would he have gone through the trouble to drug the Giantling? No.” He took the jacket off the corpse by the door. “They call him the Bastard, and he’s the only Goyl who’s any good at treasure hunting.”
“The Bastard...of course!” Valiant rubbed his face. The cold sweat of fear still clung to his forehead. “He likes to cut off his competitors’ fingers.”
“Fingers, tongues, noses...he’s got quite a reputation.” Jacob wrapped the scepter in the dead hunter’s jacket.
“Don’t you think it’s only right to let me have that?” Valiant purred, smiling his most innocent smile. “For all the hospitality and my invaluable assistance?”
“Really?” Fox took the bundle with the scepter from Jacob’s hand. “You still owe me half my fee for the feather, but we’ll give you a little discount if you get us horses and provisions.”
“Provisions? What for?” The innocence disappeared immediately. It had looked as out of place on Valiant’s face as a rash, anyway.
“Go back to the tomb if you really want to know. I’m sure the Bastard was not as blind as you.”
Jacob stepped to the tomb’s door and inspected Guismond’s golden portrait. He could only hope the Goyl wouldn’t beat him at solving the Witch Slayer’s riddle.
Perfect. As if having to race against death wasn’t enough.
THE OTHER ONE
The hall where the Crookback received them was so dark that Nerron could barely see his own hands. Any light from the high windows was swallowed by dark blue brocade curtains, and the candles burning next to the throne were low enough so as not to hurt a Goyl’s eyes. The King of Lotharaine was a very smart man. He’d done much to ensure
the comfort of his stone-skinned visitors, for a guest who is comfortable is also less vigilant.
Charles de Lotharaine had fixed his crooked spine years ago with a corset of hexed fish bones, yet the moniker had stuck, very much to the Crookback’s vexation, for he was a vain man. There were rumors that he had the gray in his beard refined with powdered silver and that he was very unhappy about the furrows in his face, which, thanks to his love for tobacco and good wine, grew ever deeper into his skin.
The onyx lord kept his head bowed as he approached the King. The court of Lotharaine had shunned the old-fashioned ceremonies the onyx loved so much. No kneeling, no uniforms, except on official occasions. The Crookback had put the ermine robes and brocade jackets of his ancestors in mothballs. He loved suits of black silk, tailored in the newest fashion, and he was very partial to the slender tobacco sticks the Albian ambassador had brought to the Lotharainian court. He was holding one between his fingers even now. Cigarettes. To Nerron’s ears, the name sounded like a stinging insect. Rumor had it that the Crookback liked to hide behind the smoke so nobody could read his face. Charles de Lotharaine was a crowned cat pretending to be vegetarian while the tail of a mouse hung from its mouth.
The gray haze surrounding the King was so thick that the onyx lord suppressed a cough before he stopped an adequate distance from the throne.
“Your Majesty.” The old onyx’s voice betrayed none of the disgust he felt toward humans. His dark face hid his hatred as effortlessly as it concealed his insatiable hunger for power. Nia’sny. His name meant “darkness” in their language, and it described his appearance as adequately as his heart. He’d given Nerron strict instructions to remain invisible until called upon. Nothing easier than that. A bastard was practiced at being a shadow.
“Your treasure hunter was unsuccessful, just like the men the Dwarfs hired. I am very disappointed.” Crookback waved at a servant, who was standing behind the throne with an ashtray. “You were obviously exaggerating when you praised his skills.”
Nerron wanted to stub the tobacco stick out on the Crookback’s forehead. Calm, Bastard. He is a King. But he’d never been good at controlling his emotions, and he wasn’t sure whether that was a skill he ever wanted to acquire.
“He managed to open the tomb, just as I promised. And he will find the crossbow! May I remind you that if it hadn’t been for our spies, you never would have learned about the tomb? The Dwarfs like to think they are, like us, at home in the deep, yet the womb of the earth has no secrets a Goyl won’t discover.”
No. The old lord could not mask the arrogance in his voice. He was onyx. The most noble skin a Goyl could have—until a carnelian Goyl had declared himself King. The onyx hated Kami’en with a passion that nearly melted their stone skins. In order to depose him, they had revealed the positions of Goyl fortresses, and they had filled the Crookback’s wishing sack, into which he made his enemies disappear, with so many of Kami’en’s spies that it had finally refused to take any more. It was a miracle that the King of the Goyl was still alive. Nerron knew of a dozen assassins the onyx had sent out, but Kami’en’s bodyguards were the best in their trade, even now that the Jade Goyl was gone. And he also still had the Dark Fairy on his side.
The old onyx turned around.
Finally.
The Bastard’s cue.
Nerron moved out from where he’d been standing behind the pillar, and stepped toward the throne. The armrest was supposedly carved from the jaw of a Giant. No matter...stories like that were just another attempt to prove that humans had always been the rulers of this world. The history books of the Goyl knew better. In contrast to Elves, Fairies, and Witches, humans were infants. A salamander had more history than they did.
Crookback eyed him so disparagingly that Nerron imagined ramming the bones of the Lotharainian King’s hexed corset between his ribs. Not that the Goyl wasn’t used to such looks. He did not possess what would have shielded him from them—neither beauty nor a noble heritage. When he was a child, he told himself that a Fairy had cut him from the marble of the night and that the green speckles in his skin were the traces of the leaves she’d used for it.
The malachite that dappled his skin came from his mother. Officially, onyx only ever paired with onyx, but many of them had a strong appetite for anything that wasn’t theirs. They had different expectations for their bastards than for their legitimate sons, and Nerron had caught on to that very early. A bastard had to be like the snake, crawling and wriggling in order to survive. But he had also mastered the other virtues of the snake: the art of invisibility, deception, the ability to strike from the shadows. Nerron bowed his head as low as the old onyx had done. To the left and right of the Crookback stood two of his bodyguards. Their eyes were as cold as the ponds from which they had come. The King of Lotharaine entrusted his protection to Watermen. Their skin was nearly as impenetrable as Goyl skin, and their six eyes were perfect for the task.
“So?” The look Crookback gave Nerron was not much warmer than that of his Watermen. “If you really did make it into the tomb, then why are you not handing me the crossbow right now?”
The powerful were all the same, whether their skin was as soft as a human’s or made of stone. They thrived on power, and they always wanted more, more, more.
“It never was there.” Nerron’s voice did not sound like velvet, like the Crookback’s or the onyx lord’s. His was like the rough garments of a servant.
“Is that so? And where is it?”
“In Guismond’s palace, in the Dead City.”
Crookback flicked a speck of ash from his black trousers. “Don’t talk nonsense. There is no more palace. It disappeared on the day of his death, together with ten thousand of his subjects. My nannies told me this story already. After all, he’s one of my ancestors. And you have nothing else than this treasure-hunter yarn for me?”
Oh, the rage of the Goyl. Nerron felt it like oil boiling in his veins. In Lotharaine, they used to feed their kings to the Dragons if they couldn’t get the winter to end. They’d probably like your smoked flesh, Your Crooked Majesty.
Nerron!
He forced a smile. “Guismond’s corpse was missing the heart, the head, and a hand. Which means he used an old Witch spell. You take three parts of the body and hide them in far-apart places, and whatever you wish to conceal will disappear. It has to be hiding his vanished palace. The clues in the tomb were clear. Could there be a safer hiding place? It will reappear as soon as the corpse is put together again.”
There. The eyes behind those heavy lids now showed a little more respect.
“And? Do you know where to look for the three missing pieces?”
“It’s my business to find things that were lost.”
And he would find them. Unless Jacob Reckless beat him to it. Of all the treasure hunters of this world, it had to be Jacob Reckless who’d appeared in the tomb! And Nerron had even taken care of Guismond’s shadow for him. If Reckless had shown up just a couple of hours later, the inscriptions on the floor would have been illegible. He’d already had the bottle of acid in his hand. Annoying. Very annoying.
Their paths had nearly crossed a few times before. Reckless had beaten Nerron to the Glass Slipper. Back then his face had been on the front page of every newspaper. Nerron had cut the pictures out and burnt them, in the hope of putting some bad luck on his rival. But Jacob Reckless had only grown more famous, and if you asked anyone the name of the world’s best treasure hunter, his was the name you’d hear.
For now, Nerron.
This time he was going to beat Jacob Reckless.
The Crookback’s eyes were as dark as peacock jasper. The world was a mouse hole, and he was the cat sitting in front of it, waiting for his prey. Let him believe you’re nothing but another mouse, Nerron. It was the only way the powerful would let you go on the hunt by yourself.
Crookback whispered something into the ear of one of his Watermen. It was always stunning to see how nimble they were on dry land.
A shaft of light fell into the dark room as the Waterman exited through one of the high doors. Charles de Lotharaine inspected his fingernails as though he was comparing them to the claws of a Goyl. “That crossbow,” he said, “would give Lotharaine the weapon with which we could finally check the warmongering of your species. So I am sure you will understand that I can’t leave the search for it to a Goyl alone.”
Goyl. He pronounced the word as they all did with their soft lips: as though they had something rotten on their tongues, something that needed to be retched up and spat out.
Nias’ny’s face turned into a mask of black stone. There was nothing for which the onyx hated Kami’en more than for forcing them to ally themselves to the Doughskins. The mere scent of a human made Nia’sny nauseous. Yet his voice gave none of that away.
“Certainly, Your Majesty,” he said with perfectly pitched reverence. “And whom do you have in mind to support his quest?”
The Waterman returned. He whispered something to his master before resuming his position next to the throne. Charles de Lotharaine’s soft forehead creased into a frown. Human skin was as defenseless as a worm wriggling in the sun. It was a wonder they didn’t dry out.
“I am told that my son Louis is out hunting.” The King’s voice betrayed his anger as well as his reluctant love. “But we shall have everything ready for him to depart as soon as he returns. This quest shall be an excellent training for his future responsibilities as my successor.”
Louis of Lotharaine. Nerron bowed his head. What was he hunting? His mother’s maids? Nerron had heard a lot of things about this crown prince, none of them very good.
“I cannot possibly guarantee his safety.” Nerron’s voice barely concealed his anger. He worked alone. Always alone. And this was the most important hunt of his life.
The old onyx shot him a warning glance.
What? Whoever found the crossbow would be the best—forever. Power. Land. Gold...there were many things for which the onyx and the Crookback would have sold their wives and children. The Bastard wanted only one thing: to be the best in his trade. There was nothing on or below the earth he desired more. He was never going to find the Lost Palace, or the crossbow, if he had to babysit a prince along the way. Especially with the competition he was facing. Nerron hadn’t told the onyx about Reckless. It was far too personal. They would learn about him when the hunt was over and Reckless had lost.
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