Princess of Blood

by Tom Lloyd

  While it was blank, without handle or decoration, its surface was beautifully smooth – no general working of stone magery here but something rather more rare and elegant. With his lantern held close and his cheek almost pressed against the door, Bade inspected its surface until he found a slight irregularity. A smile appeared on his lips.

  ‘Finally, a little titillation,’ he muttered to himself as much as the rest.

  ‘What is it?’ Kastelian asked.

  ‘A depression – pressure point I’d guess,’ Bade replied. ‘More importantly, it’s looking familiar. I’ve seen this sort of door in a few ruins which means there might be fewer genuine surprises further down.’

  He straightened and beckoned to the mages. ‘Right, which one of you’s which again?’

  The mages looked at each other. ‘I am Suthari,’ the woman began hesitantly until Bade made a disgusted sound.

  ‘I don’t give a shit about your names, you’re Spade and Fork to me. Just tools, understand?’

  ‘Then I don’t …’

  ‘Your magic, you shaved monkey’s nutsack!’

  The bald woman shrank back at his shout as Kastelian chuckled beside them.

  ‘He’s fire, she’s night – we thought those might be most useful.’

  ‘Right then.’ Bade beckoned to the woman. ‘We’ll try night first. If memory serves it don’t matter a whole lot what magic is used, but best we know what tool we’re using.’

  The woman stepped forward, trying to smother her fear, and Bade jabbed a finger against the part of the door he’d found. Nothing happened, but Bade just gave a grunt and gestured for her to do the same.

  ‘This place’s been locked down for millennia,’ he explained, ‘probably need a spark o’ magic to trigger the mechanism, some power to move it.’

  Suthari nodded her head and closed her eyes. In the light it was hard to make out, but Bade’s eyes detected the familiar shudder of darkness twist around her fingers as she pressed the depression. For a moment nothing happened then there was a whisper of smooth stone and the door began to rotate, sliding up to the left inside the rock face. It took another few moments before any change was visible, then all of a sudden a space was revealed and a gust of dry, musty air washed over them.

  The mage gasped in shock. For a moment Bade thought the stale air was poisoned or something, then the light of his Duegar lantern picked out faint lines of stone running away into the distance. The night mage would of course be able to see far better than that with her magic flowing through her body.

  He gave her elbow a nudge with the muzzle of his pistol. ‘What can you see?’ he whispered.

  ‘I …’ For a moment she continued to gape. ‘It’s huge, the rock is seamed with light – it’s beautiful.’ She made to step across the threshold but before she could Chotel darted forward and grabbed her by the scruff of her neck, yanking her back.

  ‘Easy there,’ Chotel hissed. ‘It’s a pissing labyrinth, remember?’

  She blinked at him. ‘What? But I can see perfectly well.’

  ‘Yeah, ya damn fool,’ he said, laughing, ‘and that don’t strike you as weird?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s a labyrinth,’ he explained as though to a child. ‘Tunnels, passages, twists and turns. Not being able to see where you are and where you’re going.’

  ‘But it’s just an open space.’ she said, turned to look through the doorway again. ‘The roof is high and sloping, I can see flagstones for thirty yards straight ahead to where the roof comes to meet it, but it’s at least a hundred yards of open ground to the left and right.’

  ‘Which makes me suspicious, not least ’cos the buggers didn’t cut flagstones often.’

  Bade nodded. ‘Burner?’

  ‘If there’s nothing there, why not? Nothing to damage and the flames spread nicely.’

  He pulled his pistol again and checked there was another burner in the pipe. Picking the furthest point he could see in the light of his lantern, Bade fired. An orange streak of fire raced away into the darkness, exploding in yellow flames over the stone floor. As the flames mushroomed away they spread only a few yards on either side before they seemed to simply fall through the flagstones and vanish.

  ‘False floor,’ Bade breathed. ‘Now we’ve got a game.’

  ‘You’re up, Spade,’ Chotel said, prodding the male mage forward. ‘Give the floor here a dusting of fire.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Spread some fire around; trust me, we’ve done this before. The false parts aren’t affected, the real ones get blackened up.’

  The man opened his mouth to argue then shut it again and quickly knelt. As he tried to place his palm flat on the stones over the threshold his hand passed straight through. He snatched it back again as though it had been bitten and stared at his fingers.

  ‘Hurt?’

  ‘I, ah, no.’

  ‘Then the man gave you a fucking order, Spade,’ Bade growled. ‘Start digging.’

  With fingers splayed the man reached forward and a faint orange wisp began to drift from his fingers. In moments the light spread and billowed, a cloud of yellow flames washing over the flagstones in an impressive display of control. He stretched forward and touched his fingers to it, gripping his fellow mage for support as he leaned out the best part of a yard forward. The fire became snaking tendrils, hungry for fuel. It spread across the real stones like fat worms of light, charring the dust and dirt that lay atop, while the illusions simply swallowed the fire and remained untouched.

  Chotel brought the alchemical globe up to stand right behind the mage, letting its white light illuminate the soot-dirtied path through the great chamber. It was four yards wide and extended ahead after the initial pitfall at the doorway, running towards the centre of the chamber. A second burst of flames revealed its course was straight before meeting a similar path that led left and right.

  ‘Simple enough,’ Chotel said after a while.

  Bade nodded. ‘Aye, once your visitors know the trick to see it, putting too much detail is just playing with yourself. Looks like our Duegar friend’s more of a tease.’

  ‘Or he’s saving his games for elsewhere.’

  ‘Of that I’ve no doubt. This is the upper floor, I’ve seen this mentioned in some of the texts I’ve read. They might be short on detail about what’s at the heart, but several agree about this part. The real labyrinth comes next.’

  ‘Luckily for us,’ Kastelian said drily.

  Bade shared a smile with his liaison as Chotel nodded and the rest looked mystified. ‘Aye, now let’s get moving. I want this door braced and the path marked in case our friend Spade gets his head ripped off by something playful.’

  He carefully stepped forward on to the first real stone block, one hand holding Chotel’s until he was sure it wasn’t going to give way.

  ‘Well, I ain’t dead yet,’ he commented as Chotel winced at the tempting of fate. ‘Now, let’s see how lucky we can be.’

  He pulled out a brass-bound compass from his pocket and gave it a tap. ‘North by north-east,’ he said, looking up at the wall on the far side. ‘That’ll do. Kastelian, get your map out. Spade, heel.’

  As the conversation between Toil and Lastani turned academic, the assembled crowd dwindled quickly. Atieno contributed little, contenting himself to sit at Lastani’s side like a disapproving uncle, while for his own part, Lynx very quickly found himself fighting the urge to yawn and wonder about lunch.

  After the kissing yesterday, he’d had a fleeting fantasy about sharing a long, lazy meal with Toil – honeyed pork, spiced eel and sticky rice parcels appearing prominently in his mind – but it seemed at least three of the gods seemed to be conspiring against him. Toil had eyes only for Lastani and the leather-bound books that Atieno had helped unpack from her bags.

  Instead he contented himself with watching Toil as she spoke, the conversation ranging from discredited academics, the conflicting dogmas of the Revival period and exactly what Mistress Ishie
nne had thought she was doing in the first place. The main bone of contention seemed to be that last detail, but Lynx’s one contribution had been a growl of the stomach loud enough to blunt both women’s irritation.

  ‘Veraimin’s shroud!’ Toil groaned. ‘Can someone fetch Lynx some food before he goes feral? Come on, let’s take a break. We’ve got a lot more ground to cover before tomorrow.’

  ‘Gods, really?’ Sitain said, almost looking startled that she’d spoken the words out loud. ‘I mean, well, you’ve been at it for hours.’

  ‘And if I’m to do what I intend, I’ll need to convince the Monarch of my expertise,’ Toil replied. ‘I don’t want to reveal my prince-in-the-hole if I don’t have to.’

  Sitain shrugged. ‘So draw a map and tell her it’s genuine. Not like she’s got anything to compare it to, has she?’

  Lastani snorted at the idea, but didn’t speak. She’d spent the entire conversation looking pale and nervous – understandably so, for all that her expertise outweighed Toil’s. The weight of days in hiding had clearly taken its toll and she had struggled to answer some questions as fatigue dulled her wits. None of that had been helped by Toil pointing out how Lastani would need to do better if trying to impress the Monarch.

  ‘Anyone claiming to have a map’d be laughed out of the room,’ Toil explained. ‘But there are commentaries and references scattered across centuries, analyses on those descriptions of books now lost to decay or the Orders, and conjecture of wildly varying quality.’

  In contrast to Lastani, Toil seemed brighter and more animated than ever. For all that she was a woman of action, Toil had an inner calmness much of the time, a poise and assurance that were part of what made her so fascinating to Lynx. But now he saw another side; the woman of learning who was intent on reading Lastani’s books during the process of interrogating the owner. For Lynx, a book was a quiet luxury – a moment of peace that took his soul outside of the jagged, cracked shell he’d built around it, but clearly Toil saw them differently.

  There was a pinkness to her cheeks that was decidedly attractive, Lynx realised; a flush of excitement and hunger more akin to lust than academic curiosity. The rush of the unknown drove her right then – the deepest black waiting to be conquered that no amount of lazy luncheon would be able to compete with.

  It’s like a drug to her, he realised, let’s hope it’s not one that ends up consuming her. Fuck, let’s hope it doesn’t kill everyone around her too. I bet she’ll be wanting me to volunteer for relic hunter duty and saying no to her worries me almost as much as going into the black again. Almost.

  ‘So what, then?’ Sitain said, looking put out by the reaction. ‘Do you even know what’s at the heart of the labyrinth? I mean actually know rather than just the old stories everyone’s heard?’

  ‘No one knows,’ Toil replied, ‘not for certain. All the tales about the Arm of Catrac or the great cache were likely just invented by—’

  ‘Ah,’ Lastani broke in, ‘that may not be correct, actually.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The great cache – that might in fact be true.’

  Toil blinked, her mouth working without any sound coming out until her mind could catch up. ‘How?’

  ‘You’re referring to the heresy works?’ Lastani said with a quirk of a smile on her lips at long last. ‘Mistress Ishienne believes …’ She faltered for a moment, her smile vanishing. ‘Believed that Noxeil’s claims might have some foundation given references she found to a man of the same name making up part of the original Brethren of the Shards delegation at Jang-Her.’

  ‘Jang-what?’ Sitain broke in. ‘Have I missed part of this plan?’

  ‘You never knew it in the first place,’ Toil said. ‘Jang-Her – the great conclave of the Militant Orders that broke the old kingdom of Urden into the Riven Kingdom. Where they made all their secret deals, bartered artefacts and Duegar texts. All hundreds of years ago now. The point is that a man called Noxeil supposedly claimed the last centuries of the Duegar saw a religion spring up, venerating the gods they’d lost, and gathering a great cache of God Fragments. They hid this at the heart of a labyrinth, hoping to resurrect one of the gods, but last I heard no one believed it.’

  ‘Unless he was at Jang-Her,’ Lastani broke in, ‘where the concentration of God Fragments had a strange effect on at least a dozen attendees. There are some translations of Duegar texts that came from a time when humans possibly lived alongside the remnants, but most of what we have came from that one meeting. From those men and woman who heard voices and hallucinated a time of grand magics, upheaval and cataclysmic warfare. Between them they possessed insights into the Duegar language that seemed impossible, but overlapped with the others in such a way their veracity was unassailable.’

  Sitain frowned. ‘So this Noxeil was one of those?’

  ‘We believe so, he just didn’t exhibit the same affliction the others did – his gifts took longer to manifest.’

  ‘But if he was there,’ Toil finished, ‘it turns this entirely on its head.’

  ‘Exactly, although the mystery of the labyrinth remains. No one knows why it was built – or when for sure. Perhaps it is a vault for God Fragments that became the centre of an entire religion, perhaps it’s older but was co-opted to another use. Mistress Ishienne’s theory was that it originally had a specific religious purpose, some sort of test of faith to discover divine wisdom at its heart. However, some Duegar writers called it a tomb of the last great queen of the Duegar, others a vault of secrets.’

  ‘The place of seeds,’ Toil intoned as though remembering some distant lesson. ‘The taproot of the Duegar, the stone of light – more bloody names than you’d think entirely necessary. They were a dramatic and self-important lot, those Duegar writers.’

  ‘But let me guess,’ Lynx broke in, ‘not so good on the details of what nastiness waits for anyone who actually enters the labyrinth?’

  ‘Yeah, funny that – almost like they didn’t want us to rob it. Up until now, that didn’t matter so much, the puzzle of the Fountain had everyone stumped for thousands of years.’

  ‘Up until last week,’ Lynx said with a sinking feeling. ‘And now it’s open and trouble’s just waiting to pour out.’

  ‘Only if the Militant Orders get inside first,’ Toil said with feeling. ‘Whatever is down there, it might overturn the balance of power across the continent, so let’s beat them to it and tip that balance in our favour, eh?’

  ‘Sure, sounds easy.’

  Chapter 14

  Progress around the upper level of the labyrinth was slow but steady under Bade’s lead. He stood out front with the fire mage, using a long wooden staff to tap and prod each paving stone he reached before he trusted his weight to them. The mage was there to confirm each coming stretch was real. Though the effort was soon visible in his manner, he had the sense not to complain or hesitate as Bade ordered him on. Only once did they have a delay, one of the yard-long slabs proving real but counter-weighted so it tilted under the weight of Bade’s staff. Anyone stepping on it would have pitched sideways into whatever lay below, before the stone slid neatly back into place.

  The mage beside him trembled at the idea, but Bade only felt a frisson of delight as he watched the mechanism reset. There were few city-ruins with such deliberate defences, while this labyrinth had been designed with keeping people out entirely in mind. This was a rare challenge for the purist – not just another crumbling cavern system where maspids and the like hunted.

  This place has been sealed for millennia, most likely, he reminded himself excitedly. Warded against water intrusion and all the burrowing nasties that prefer the dark – a puzzle waiting patiently to try and kill whoever comes to test themselves against it. And now the game’s begun; just me and this beautiful, lethal puzzle-box. Just this once I’m willing to say the anticipation’s better than sex.

  Behind them came Chotel and the night mage, a contrasting set of expertise from each as they kept watch on everything beyond
the next step. A pair of Bade’s regular team followed them, marking the stones with white paint that would shine in the alchemical globe’s light. At the trap-stone they put a large cross on the top. The Duegar lamps were the primary light, but Bade was well used to navigating by such dimness and the strange light they cast would illuminate any Duegar markings they came across.

  With regular pauses to check the count of steps, consult the compass and mark on a map, Bade was already expecting to have arrived at his destination when the night mage gasped and pointed off to their right.

  ‘Glyph?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes – a large one, with ornate decoration around the outside. A doorway below.’

  ‘Good.’

  Bade squinted off into the darkness. It took him a moment but eventually he spotted the faint play of glowing lines on the rock wall. He took his time as always, knowing haste was the first danger of the dark, but it wasn’t long before they were all safely brought to the foot of another door, recessed slightly into the natural line of the rock wall. It was identical to the one they’d entered by, smooth with a slight depression, but still Bade spent a while inspecting it and the surrounding stone before doing anything more.

  ‘What’s that glyph say?’ he demanded of the mages as he went about his checking. ‘I don’t recognise it.’

  The night mage cleared her throat. ‘It, ah, it appears to be some sort of composite word. The character for “Honoured”, I believe, the other I do not recognise.’

  ‘You?’ Bade asked the other.

  ‘I, no. Sorry, I don’t think I’ve even seen it before. It’s more complex than most Duegar script.’

  ‘Mebbe a name then,’ he decided with a shrug. ‘We’ll worry about that another day. Doesn’t seem to be a warning, that’s the main thing, and I reckon I know where we are.’

  The night mage opened the door in the same way she had earlier, only this time the armed members of the group had their guns drawn and levelled. Unveiling the large globe lamp, its white light outlined a familiarly dull chamber and tunnel.