Sanet falls quiet as well and then speaks without prompt. “If you want a bit of truth, I was told how much they’re worth.” She whispers this last part as if she isn’t allowed to admit it but can’t help herself.
“Yes, please,” Bernard and Iahel ask with eager curiosity.
“Ten thousand an ounce,” Sanet says coolly.
Calm. Lincoln, what are we getting into?
“Ten thousand coin?! No wonder those men were trying to snip it. I just may have to lift that piece myself,” Iahel jests.
“Lincoln, what do you do with all that?” Bernard asks.
I’d pay off the Victors, Logan thinks. I could be happy.
“I don’t know. I figure it could give me a bit of independence. Perhaps I could use it to learn a little more about my past—”
“Freedom, you mean?” Logan corrects.
“That’s what I said.”
“No, you said independence. You’d still be tied to the coin. And all the friends who beg you because you’re heavy. You’d be free, yes. But you wouldn’t be independent.”
“I’m not finding Acolyte Logan that attractive either,” Sanet jokes.
Iahel turns to him. “Don’t piss on the joys, Logan. It’s exciting. It’s a treasure hunt. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
And now the world shifts. Before, they stood against Sanet. Now, they stand against me. Why am I so angry?
Over the years, Logan struggled to settle in a relationship, each one falling apart for any number of reasons. His traveling. Their jealousy. Their infidelity. His infidelity. And recently, the distractions of his father’s sendleft and the fear of the Victors’ punishments. What drives him to anger now is that in a few weeks’ time he will have to leave them. And he is tired of moving on. He is the one who wants independence. And he longs to be in single souls. Sanet makes his stomach flutter, yet she treats him so callously. If only she understood him. But the closer they are to parting, the more he finds himself distancing from them—to ensure that when he does, they won’t stop him.
Sanet continues, “If Grumps over here doesn’t mind, in two weeks’ time, we’ll be near the stonetin entrance, and even better, only a few miles from leaving these Tunnels forever.”
“And then Yikshir?” Bernard asks.
“Yep. Haynest. Finally.”
“Do you have any family there?”
“I’m not sure. A ranpart found me seven years ago, and I don’t remember much before that . . .” She trails off.
“A ranpart, what is that? Is that your employer?” Bernard asks.
“Yes. And no. He actually doesn’t know I’m still looking for them. But, how do you describe him? He’s a researcher. He studies the Land. He travels. Full of secrets for sure. I know there are a few others like him, but I’m not sure how many. Ranparts, I guess, are the ones who keep an eye on things. They find little artifacts and secrets and study them. Sometimes for naught.”
“So, his interest in this brass, you think, has something to do with that? With the Land?”
“Perhaps. I guess brass is not a very common metal. Or at least, these pieces aren’t,” Sanet replies.
“I hear they’re ghastly,” Iahel doubles. “Ranparts, I mean.”
That’s what I know about them, not someone to trust. And the more Sanet speaks, the more there’s truth in it.
“You’re brave to associate with a ranpart, from what I’ve read,” Logan doubles.
“Bodies aren’t always what they seem, as I’m learning,” Sanet says in defense.
“‘Bodies’? I haven’t heard that term in ages.” Iahel smiles.
“Yeah, though I find ‘friends’ to be the much more pleasing of the classes.”
“Anything’s better than ‘denizens,’ which I’m stuck on saying sometimes. Stupid Tunnels.” Iahel spits on the ground.
They travel on, discussing all the various details of life in Radiba versus Yikshir versus the Tunnels. Logan attempts to join in, conflicted by the companionship he feels and the anxiety of what’s to come. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t take long to begin laughing with them.
On an excursion away from the girls, Logan comments to Bernard on how well he acts in the face of his apparent internal struggles. How affable and mature he acts.
“Logan, I’ve done what must be done to survive. I’m Radibian.”
“I guess I am too . . .”
“You are, good friend. You are.” Bernard squeezes his shoulder, and Logan cowers away, the strength of the grip unnatural.
Each day of the next two weeks strains them more and more and lasts longer and longer. Bernard’s childlike quality dwindles to falling asleep with the rhythmic walk of the krake, the rattling of its scales.
Shink.
Shink.
Shink.
The glow of the yellow neon entrances.
Their moods perk when they arrive at Krakes Pit, a northern version of the Barwolves Pit. Here, the friends attempt to bargain for jewelry and various items of divination and communicating with the left.
An older friend waves a string of garons at the passing crowds. “Ward off welkings. Ward off welkings with green garons!”
The gang, knowing they’re close to their real destination, push through the crowd and head back into the darkness.
After leaving the Pit and going back into the lonely Tunnels, Sanet speaks. “My guess is that the passage to the stonetin is a little over three hours from here.”
With shared excitement, and a desire for something new, their pace unconsciously quickens.
Around full sun, they come to a small nook. Sanet stops and leads the krakes into an enclosure to tie them off. By Sanet’s suggestion, Bernard leaves Brute behind, telling the creshwillow to stay with the krakes. Brute gives him a puzzled look, craning his head. He then turns to the krakes, which are licking their lips.
“I won’t leave them hungry.” Bernard laughs, pulling a few pieces of neox and tossing it to the two krakes. As they eat, Brute watches them and then hops over to a corner, digging into the ground. “I’m never sure if that frek understands me or if it’s only a kiptale,” he says to Logan as they leave the three freks behind.
Afterward, Sanet and the others continue hiking through the tunnel thoroughfare. After a few hundred strides, they turn east at an intersection. A broken line of neon above them sets this new path into a long-forgotten darkness. Iahel and Sanet flip on neonlights to illuminate the trail ahead.
“I have to say,” Bernard comments, “I don’t like the glow of those neonlights. I’d much prefer my frontz torch.”
“Frontz torch?” Iahel inquires.
Logan speaks up. “Radibians like to sustain from the Land. We found that frontz leaves burn best for light.”
“They also provide heat and can be used as a weapon in some circumstances,” Bernard doubles.
“Yes, but can they make different colors?” Iahel switches hers from blue to red to pink, then back to white.
“Lincoln, how useful,” Bernard says sarcastically.
Ahead, the trail narrows. Eventually, the gang squeeze through two collapsed walls. Logan looks upward to the neon where the walls close in, crushing them and darkening the light.
“I was told an armincrok collapsed this tunnel over a hundred years ago. Sealed off this stonetin,” Sanet states.
“Were friends trapped down here?” Bernard asks.
“Rumors were, there was a group of bodies sent left from starvation when they were unable to escape.”
“You don’t believe in welkings do you?” Iahel says with a shiver in her voice.
The others ignore the comment. Welkings are a children’s tale of the left who’ve been reanimated into deformed freks that grow superfluous arms and legs and other heads.
“Yeah, me neither,” Iahel responds sheepishly.
The gang continue to squeeze through the tunnel before coming to its end. Passing through, the four come to the start of a large, wide staircase that half-circl
es a large stonetin below. It stands quiet and impressive in size. Two cylindrical spires rise from either side of the large but otherwise mundane building.
Stonetins are built as places of worship, whether for religious purposes or political. Unlike taverns, or grewsts, or haynests for families and friends, stonetins are private spaces, each one built with a singular purpose. They earn their designation because the architects of a stonetin hide scraps of tin somewhere in the building’s foundation, bringing prosperity to those who enter the building, whether it be for the worship of Lincoln, Dustian, or whatever other deities the Land offers or for the assembly of a council to oversee a state’s law. They are often found to be quite ostentatious and bursting with mystery.
The cave itself is lit by a turquoise neon hidden in shelving across the ceiling. The light, set back and unseen, casts cool blue-green shadows. Closer to the stonetin, they find its walls covered in odd symbols and characters, presumably in a language from before everything transformed to the common Merigen. At its front, tall, cracked stone doors hang open, one half off its hinge.
They step through.
Inside, they view a massive cathedral. Engravings on the walls detail stories from one of the many Yikshir religions. Logan, a nonbeliever, is unsure which religion is detailed here. From a far west wall comes the sound of dripping.
Light fades as they walk, and the nave runs cooler than outside. The only light inside comes from the blue-green neon beaming in through slits and small windows. On the ground are the remains of both old and recent traffic, prints of freks and friends alike.
“Looks like others have come through. You sure the fragment is still down here?” Iahel wonders.
“I’m sure many have explored here over the years, but none had a key.”
They continue along the rows of broken and dust-covered pews. At the back of the nave, a tablatur stands in front of a giant statue of a human-shaped frek, carved with two heads. One that smiles. One that frowns. A growl comes from a distant room. Logan steps closer to the gang, gripping his pistol.
Sanet stops. “Now, I was told there might be some freks down here,” she comments offhand.
Bernard takes Iahel’s hand, who yelps from his firm grip.
“Apory.”
When they reach the two-headed statue, Sanet sets her neonlight on the nearby tablatur and begins to put her weight on it, attempting to push it aside. Seeing her struggle, Logan quickly steps over to help her. Together they grunt and inch the statue away from the wall. It scrapes and echoes through the cathedral. Something reacts, shuffling in the shadows. Iahel spins around, shining her light down through the other parts of the nave.
Logan and Sanet continue to push the large statue, cold and dusty to the touch, and soon uncover a small opening that is hidden behind it.
Bernard steps up. “Lincoln, who knew?”
Sanet stands, wiping her brow, and grabs her neonlight. “This way.”
She squeezes between the statue and wall and slips into the opening. Logan and the rest follow. The stairway here is small, making everyone hunch over and hold on to the walls as they step downward. The air cools as they descend, a welcome change from the heat above.
“I feel like we’re headed to another protnuk’s nest,” Bernard comments.
“No protnuks down here,” Sanet assures them. “Though there might be some of those welkings Iahel cares about.”
Logan stops, causing Bernard and Iahel to stop behind him. “Welkings?” he asks.
“Yes, but that’s only rumor. No one believes it, right?” She looks back and smiles before continuing downward.
The other three look at each other with worried eyes, pondering the thin line between brave and flam. Odd how she’s careless now, but back at Greren and Tapsters, the plan was unwelcome.
Sanet shines her light into a room ahead, where the bottom of the staircase opens into a chamber stacked with boxes and barrels. As Logan and the other two follow her into the room, Sanet walks around, pointing her light across the walls in search of something. “Down here there should be a dark stone. One that’s different from the others.”
As she investigates the chamber, the others follow suit. The room is medium in size, unlit and covered in webs and grime.
After a major, Iahel focuses her light on a brick in the wall, darker than the others around it. “I think I found it.”
Sanet steps over, shining her own neonlight. “Good findings.” The brick is near the ceiling, beyond her reach. “Logan, would you mind pulling that block out?”
Without question, Logan hurries over. He reaches up, finding it a bit out of reach as well. Looking around, he takes a nearby wooden crate and drags it over. Bernard helps.
As they watch Logan, a shadow steps into the room from the staircase behind them. Sanet turns first and immediately bolts it with her crossbow—shunk. It stumbles backward. The frek is terrifying to behold. It walks on four boney legs that carry the bare-chested torso of a human. It has a single arm and abnormally long fingers that extend into thin serrated claws. Its face is gnarled and severe, and it drools from a mouth of sharp fangs. Its eyes are blood red. A welking.
Bernard and Logan both lift their guns and shoot simultaneously. The boom echoes through the chamber as the welking is stopped but unscathed by the bullets.
“We have to tear its heart out!” Sanet yells at the others.
It scuttles toward them with a snarl and snap of its jaw, reaching out its arm and slashing. The gang separate into the four corners of the room, each brandishing a dagger. The welking stands in the middle of the chamber, then turns for Sanet.
Logan steps in behind it and stabs it in its back. The welking’s skin is soft but thick. The creature reacts, attempting to confiscate the dagger, but its single arm is ineffective at the task. Remaining on the opposite side of the swinging arm, Logan, finding the skin hot and sweating, which causes him to slip and trip against the spinning frek, tries to pull his blade out. The dagger remains piercing the frek. As the welking stomps around, swinging and trying to remove the blade, Logan rolls out of its way, barely missing its clomping, long-nailed feet.
Bernard tries next, stepping in and slicing the welking’s arm. It howls in pain as it spins toward him but misses as Bernard jolts backward. Iahel runs in at full speed, screaming and stabbing its side, the force of which knocks them both to the ground. It kicks its legs, and a hoof lacerates Iahel’s stomach. She reels in pain. Sanet takes her turn, stepping on the welking’s arm before it’s able to stand. Bernard follows suit, attempting to grapple the frek motionless. It wriggles and howls at them. Sanet begins to knife into its chest as it attempts to escape with wild thrashes. Logan hurls himself onto the welking’s body squishing and squirming underneath them. He uses his entire weight and muscle to keep it pinned. Its hot, sweating skin feels like boiled flesh. Sanet screams with each dig of her dagger, gradually cutting a ragged gully in its chest. After each cut, she attempts to jam her bare hand into the small cavity, slitting with her knife to widen it. Iahel winces as she stands up and steps toward them.
Logan, tiring, uses his whole strength to hold down the frek that, with each passing minor, becomes more hysterical. “Can’t hold much longer, Sanet.”
“I’ve got its arm for now.” Bernard sweats and shakes, holding the welking’s arm, its claws reaching treacherously close to his face. Bernard’s effort, however, appears nearly trivial compared to the other three’s.
Sanet grits her teeth, both hands digging into the welking’s chest. Tugging. She holds her breath. Grunting. And then, she falls back, flinging the welking’s heart into the air, and at the same minor, it collapses. Sent left.
Bernard and Logan release their holds, breathing loudly and heavily.
Iahel stumbles over to it and kicks the frek in its side. “Proshing frek.”
Taking a breath, Sanet sits and recovers, her hands covered in its thick red blood. She pulls herself up, walks over to a corner of the chamber, and vomits.
Bernard wipes his brow before remarking, “I’ll say, seeing the Land has been a much different spin than reading about it.”
Logan smiles to himself.
Recovered, Bernard helps Iahel bandage her stomach. The welking only cut the surface. Sanet cleans her hands with a bit of cloth and spit. Logan returns to the dark brick. He positions the crate and stands on it to dig around the black block and remove bits of loose dirt with his dagger. After a major, he maneuvers the knife against the side of the block and wiggles it from its setting. Sanet watches, while Bernard and Iahel stand guard for other welkings that may wander down the staircase.
Finally, he’s able to remove the brick and hands it down to Sanet. She in turn hands Logan her neonlight and the chrome key she recovered at the Carvinga Treasures.
Shining the neonlight into the empty space, Logan spots a small keyhole about an arm’s length back. He reaches in, using his hand to feel around for where to insert the key. After considerable effort, the key snaps into place, and he’s able to turn it. For a minor, nothing happens. And then, a soft click. He pulls his arm out and hops down from the box. “It’s in.” Sanet grins at him.
Taking the neonlight back, Sanet moves over to the other side of the chamber, where she presses her hands on the brick wall. Nothing. She moves a few inches to the east and presses again. Nothing. A few more inches. Then a few more. And then, a reverberation. A moan in the room around them. Dirt spills down along a thin line above as some of the bricks swing inward, revealing a slender doorway. “And here we are.”
“Who would build such a place?” Iahel wonders.
Sanet steps through the new doorway. Like before, Logan and the others follow.
Chapter 13
INTO THE TEMPLE OF KRAKES
The door opens into a long, wide hallway where the walls and floors look like polished black rock that reflects Iahel’s and Sanet’s neonlights in elongated streaks. In front of them, a massive rectangular pit opens in the floor, and as they peer down into its darkness, the neonlights are unable to reach all the way to the bottom.
Advent of the Roar (The Land Old, Untouched Book 1) Page 14