by Tom Lloyd
‘And yet you took the risk,’ the Monarch said before her husband could say anything more. ‘That interests me.’
‘Aye well, as your friend at the back can testify, I’ve been known to be a mite impulsive in the past. It was a risk I needed to take to get the letter to you, given I wasn’t getting inside the palace again.’
She saw the ruling couple of Jarrazir turn at her words to where the fourth of their party stood, carefully back from the expensively dressed nobles. He was a large man, broad and bearded, wearing a dark frock coat and a red scarf around his neck. The light only hinted at the lines in his face, but they hadn’t changed much since she last saw him.
‘Impulsive is one way to put it,’ said the man at last.
‘Is she the one who hired you?’
‘No, but she’s good for the money.’
The Monarch turned back to Toil. ‘So how did your employer know about the labyrinth opening? You couldn’t have heard in time to get here this quickly.’
Toil forced a grin. ‘I told him it was going to happen.’
‘And how did you know?’
‘Academics talk to each other.’ She shrugged. ‘I know a few who’re aware the Duegar are of interest to me, they told me what Ishienne Matarin was trying to do. More importantly, they said she was making real progress. More than I’d realised; I was going to offer my services to her originally, I just had that letter for you as contingency.’
‘Yet what am I to make of such an offer?’ the Monarch mused. ‘Given your employer is a foreign state, one that is no ally to Jarrazir and rarely generous. Or should I simply trust I have your skills and experience at my disposal with no question of reward – all based on the innate, unblemished nobility of that renowned brotherhood, the relic hunters?’
‘Firm assurances are rather tricky to offer,’ Toil admitted. ‘All I’ve got is that we predicted you’d need help and that helping you serves our own purposes. Su Dregir is no friend of Jarrazir it’s true, but you’ve always been fiercely independent and the Archelect prefers that to continue. Whatever sympathies there may be for the Militant Orders here, Jarrazir’s noble families would never accept Order rule unless there was no other option. Better for the Archelect if he helps you find another option.’
‘And you think sending mercenaries into my city will help that? How can I trust them?’
‘Ask the Red Scarves to leave and they’ll do so,’ Toil said. ‘They’ve been paid a retainer to come and offer their services, obey your instructions, make themselves available to you until summer. We could only plan for possibilities – namely that if the labyrinth gets opened, you’d likely need an experienced relic hunter to investigate it and reliable troops available to bolster your armies. It’s your choice what to do with them.’
Again the Crown-Princess and Prince turned back to the large man behind them. He just grunted and inclined his head.
‘And your own relic hunter company?’
‘Too small to be a threat,’ she said with a dismissive wave, ‘just large enough to be useful for my modest purposes.’
‘One might be sceptical that the woman who wants to lead our expedition into the labyrinth disrupted the announcement of said expedition.’
‘There’s lots to be sceptical about. Blackest rift – if you’re feeling suspicious that whole confrontation could’ve been a way to establish my credentials!’
‘Indeed.’
‘If it helps,’ Toil added, ‘bring Sotorian Bade here to me. Picking a fake fight is one thing, ripping the man’s windpipe out with my bare hands another.’
‘Bade?’ the mercenary at the back rumbled.
‘In the flesh,’ Toil confirmed. ‘The one and only.’
‘That explains that, then.’
The Monarch turned slightly, expecting a further comment, but the mercenary commander behind her merely looked impassive.
‘The Knights-Charnel have already withdrawn to the general’s barge amid protests and threats,’ Crown-Prince Tylom said. ‘I think the damage you’ve done there is enough for everyone’s liking. As it is, you’ve given them ample reason to lay siege to the city rather than negotiate with us over entry to the labyrinth.’
‘I gave them the excuse, I’ll admit, but they’d have found another if I’d not been the fool to hand it to them. Or they’d have given up looking and tried some other way. With those fuckers it’s always the same. “Give us what we want or we’ll burn the whole world until we get it.”’
‘That may well be true, but still you made matters all the easier in a city that is not your own,’ the Monarch pointed out. ‘Robbing me of even the chance to negotiate a more peaceful outcome for my home. Would you have been so reckless in Su Dregir?’
‘I do what needs to be done,’ Toil growled. ‘I might’ve made a mistake, but a Jarraziran life’s worth the same as any other – whatever our indignant Charneler friends might claim.’
‘Not enough reason to trust you, however.’
She shrugged. ‘Got anyone else who can lead this expedition into the labyrinth?’
‘Three noted crews of relic hunters have petitioned the court thus far, in addition to whatever the Knights-Charnel might have offered.’
Toil cocked her head at the Monarch, a crooked smile on her face. ‘Yet you’re still talking to me.’
‘You claim to be a representative of Su Dregir – certainly you are in the employ of the city’s official envoy, though he says you are nothing more than an educated mercenary.’
‘You doubt the Archelect’s seal on my letter?’
‘I remain suspicious on a whole variety of levels.’
‘Who’re the captains of the crews?’
‘Their names are Gorotadin, Fini and, ah, Rubil.’
Toil snorted. ‘Rubil can’t read Duegar – or even the language she speaks, for that matter. As for Hales Fini, he’s just a bounty hunter and not even a very good one at that, a chancer who thinks blowing the crap out of a ruin is the way to explore it. I’m amazed either is still alive, frankly, and neither of them would make it past the guardian spirits most likely.’
‘But you can?’
‘Any decent relic hunter could – all you need is experience and a Duegar lamp.’
‘What about Gorotadin?’
‘Don’t know him,’ Toil admitted, ‘but I’ve heard he’s no fool.’
The Monarch looked at her husband. ‘It seems we share an assessment of all three,’ she said. ‘We also asked who the best relic hunter they knew was. Rubil, ahem, doesn’t like you very much – really doesn’t like you – but didn’t say you were bad at your job. Fini just looked frightened and started to make excuses—’
‘To be fair, I did say that next time I saw him I was going to tear his ribs out of his chest and choke him with them,’ Toil broke in.
‘Quite. Gorotadin didn’t know you, but said somewhat gnomically that your reputation spoke volumes. He did, however, name Sotorian Bade as the best – presumably the Knights-Charnel would have offered us Bade’s services had you not attempted to gut him like a fish first.’
Despite her best efforts, Toil knew the Monarch spotted her tense and she took a moment to phrase her reply rather than let her animosity win out again.
‘Bade’s good at his job,’ she said slowly, ‘but his job is doing what the Knights-Charnel want. Bounty hunter, saboteur, tomb raider, bandit, it’s all the same to him and leaving witnesses isn’t his style. You hire him and he’ll forget that little disagreement soon enough, but you won’t get anything out of the labyrinth either.’
There wasn’t a twitch on the faces of either the Crown-Princess or her husband. Toil realised they’d come to the same conclusion too even before the Monarch said, ‘Hence why I’m here.’
A sharp pair then, to assess all four correctly straight off. ‘I’ve got at least one advantage over Bade, though.’
‘And that is?’
‘The mage – Matarin’s pupil. I’ve got her.’
; The Monarch indicated the doorway. ‘That’s a good start. Get up; you can continue to persuade me somewhere a little more civilised.’
Toil did as she was told, moving slowly to keep her head from pounding too hard, past the Monarch and the tunnel. She paused as she reached the mercenary, however, his stony expression not even twitching as their eyes met. Hard grey eyes and scars half concealed by his thick beard, the man could stare down a rabid dog but Toil merely sighed and kissed the man on one cheek.
‘Hello, Vigilance. Miss me?’
At first there only came an indeterminate rumble from deep in his chest, but eventually Vigilance spoke. ‘Always. Even mother says life is dull when our little hellcat isn’t around.’
‘We all have our roles in this life.’ Toil smiled and headed off down the corridor with the silent guard carrying the torch right behind her. ‘She wishes you’d write more, by the way.’
‘I’m sure she does.’
As Toil shuffled through the dark tunnel, a face continued to intrude on her thoughts. It dragged her back to a place five hundred miles and fifteen years distant – an unnamed animal track to the south-east where, whenever she recalled her life before all this, it had all began. Not when she first met Master Oper nor got on his cart in the grey gloom of dawn. Not when she took her first step underground, nor even when she almost died, but sitting in the back of a cart looking at a cave in the distance.
‘Some folk call ’emselves seafaring men,’ the bearded man driving the cart had declared, throwing an arm out wide. ‘Married to the waves so they are, ever drawn to the sparkle of water and cry of the gull.’
He cocked his head and gave them a small, dangerous smile. ‘We’re no different, not really. We just heed a different call. The deepest black, that’s our mistress and oh by the shattered gods is she a hard one to please. Sailors like to curse their love for being a fickle bitch and I’m sure the sea is, but our black queen is all that and more.’
‘It’s just a damned cave,’ the largest recruit muttered, a square-jawed lump called Hoyst.
Toil thought for a moment the bearded man would explode at that, but he did no such thing. There was murder in his green eyes, that much she could see – that much she’d learned to see in her short span of years – but no weapon was drawn.
‘Just a cave,’ the bearded man whispered. ‘Well now, that’s a thing to say.’
Sotorian Bade, Toil reminded herself. That was his name.
She looked around the crew Master Oper had assembled – three old hands, Bade the oldest of the three, and four wide-eyed recruits, herself included.
‘That’s no simple cave,’ Bade continued, sidling towards Hoyst. ‘You’ll see my boy, you’ll see.’
Toil had to admit it looked like a cave, and not much of one at that, but she wasn’t such a fool as to speak up. An attractive young woman in the company of men couldn’t afford to look stupid or thoughtless – and this was her first adventure away from home. She knew there’d be more than enough opportunity to look naive without bringing it on herself.
‘There’s a scent in the air,’ Bade continued, affecting a wistful air. ‘A lover’s perfume, for those of you who take the black queen as your mistress.’
‘Probably just Toil,’ Hoyst said, prompting a barking laugh from the man beside them, a spotty youth of Toil’s age called Fittil.
Toil leaned forward in the wagon and took hold of the big man’s earlobe, giving it a sharp tug. Hoyst growled and drew his fist back, intending to cow her into an apology, but Toil just raised an eyebrow.
‘Put it away,’ she advised him, ‘or you’ll get more’n an ear-twist.’
‘Touch me again and I’ll break those pretty lips, little girl.’
Toil gave him her best smile and lazily reached for his ear again. Hoyst made to grab her hand but she snatched forward like a striking snake with the other. She pinched his top lip between strong fingers and twisted hard. Hoyst yelped and swatted her hand away with a stinging swipe, but howled as he did so – Toil not giving up her prize easily.
A sheltered upbringing had its advantages, Toil reflected as Hoyst clamped his hands around his mouth, a trickle of blood running down his teeth, if when you’re stuck in the one place, some o’ the dirtiest fighters on the continent are welcomed in like family.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ called their employer in a deep baritone from the cart behind them, ‘I don’t recall paying any of you to brawl among yourselves. Master Bade, please shoot the next person to step out of line.’
‘With pleasure, Master Oper,’ Bade said with an evil glint and a pat of his holster. ‘Now then, where was I?’
‘Something about me taking a mistress,’ Toil said before she could stop herself. Dammit, what happened to keeping quiet? Anyone’d think I was my father’s child.
‘Ah, yes, so I was.’ Bade beckoned them forward as though they were walking rather than riding in a cart loaded with supplies. ‘There’s no arguing with love, Toil – but we’re not sailors, are we, girl?’
She made a show of looking around at the tall grasses skirting the track and long bank of willows on their left, then the cart they rode in.
‘Nope, doesn’t look like we are.’
‘Very good, girl, you’ll go far with observation like that. No we ain’t, boys and girls – a sailor falls in love with the sea or he doesn’t. But the deepest dark, it don’t care for your love – it’s a hungry mistress and it ain’t one to take no. It falls in love with you, my boys and girls, it sinks its shadow teeth into you and either chews you up or leaves its mark for ever. Fickle she ain’t, but a monster she is.
‘The sailor may read the wind, see the rise and fall of waves, and know his time has come. He may know his fickle love affair is over and his sea-wife has cast him aside, but our black queen don’t play that way. There’s no warning with our mistress, no sign nor whisper. One moment she loves you and the next she don’t.’
‘And what happens then?’ Fittil asked.
Toil eyed him. The youth was lapping Bade’s bluster up. Sheltered she might be, but she’d seen his sort – every colour and cast.
Shattered gods, my own da spins a tale this way. I’ve heard it since before I could walk – turns out there was a lesson in it for me too.
‘Then?’ Bade asked slowly, as though only now hearing the question. ‘Oh, my boy, then …’ He let out a deep sigh. ‘Then if you’re lucky, there’s just a click and a snap.’
As though to demonstrate, Bade slapped his palms together and Fittil jumped at the sharp sound.
They rode on in silence, but after that Toil noticed Bade paid no attention to the youth, not even to look at him or give instructions. As the carts crested the rise and the cave mouth unveiled – as the recruits gasped, the veterans chuckled and Oper let out a rumble of approval and opened the next flask of wine – Fittil had ceased to exist in the eyes of Sotorian Bade.
They set up camp well short of the cave mouth – the entrance, Toil realised. A great, hooded arch of stone rose up from the ground to invite them down, but Master Oper ignored it as he set his camp and waited for morning. In the distance behind there was a tower, slender and vast – ten times higher than any tree Toil had seen, but the riches were to be found deep underground, Bade told them around a campfire that night. The tower had been scaled in generations past; there would be no wonders to be found there now.
Toil still wanted to climb it, still wanted to feel the mage-worked stone beneath her hands and look out on the world from the place of birds, but the adventure she craved was underground. Deep down, where the darkness was a living thing according to Bade, and horrors stalked the unwary.
‘Fortunes are made there, in the black,’ Bade said, eyes glittering darkly in the firelight. ‘A tavern of your own perhaps, Toil, an army commission for you, Hoyst?’
Hoyst grinned at the prospect. ‘I’d go east,’ he said in a hungry voice, ‘sign with the Knight-Artificers, Knights-Charnel mebbe – fight the heathens of Ik
ir or Ei Det.’
‘Might be I could give you a nod in that direction,’ Bade commented, pulling at a pipe as he spoke. ‘If you show the right stuff.’
He looked from Hoyst to Toil but she said nothing. She had no grand plan for her life. Her brother had joined her father’s company and acquitted himself well, by all accounts. There would be a place for her at the Red Banner for sure – that grand sprawling way-station on the road to Su Dregir which the Red Scarves called home – but right now she wanted adventure. A life away from her great-hearted tyrant of a father and implacable, imperturbable mother. A life where she was child of neither, but Toil Deshar herself.
‘Me, I’ll be a barge-master,’ Fittil piped up, ‘see every corner of Sinabel.’
‘Sure, sure,’ Bade murmured, never taking his eyes from Toil.
She glanced at Fittil. The youth’s gaze was distant, lost in dreams of his future. A future that Toil knew he’d never have, as though Sotorian Bade had looked into the young man’s soul and seen some crack or flaw that his mistress, his black queen, would reject.
He’s dead already, Toil realised, unable to find the words to tell Fittil and warn him off, but ever more certain with every passing moment that Bade was correct.
The deepest black will take him. He’s dead already.
Chapter 8
(One week earlier)
‘Fancy taking a walk? I want to see one for myself.’
Lynx paused and looked up at Toil. The newly appointed Princess of Blood stood in the doorway, wearing a long leather coat and hat. She had a gun-belt in her hand, freshly oiled by the smell, and another around her waist. Toil wore it so the buckle sat on her hip, the holster behind her back – hardly practical for fighting, but better than being stopped by every passing watchman.
‘One what? Oh, the entrances. Aren’t we supposed to be on guard duty?’
Toil shrugged and handed the gun-belt to Lynx. He looked it over briefly before nodding. There were eight unobtrusive pouches with icers cradled inside steel tubes.
‘The Monarch’s busy, what with entrances to the underworld opened up. She’s presented her compliments to Envoy Ammen and offered an audience tomorrow.’