A Dark Sacrifice

by Madeline Howard

“It would be difficult to prevent them. And since we have not enough to share with them, we must hope for their sakes that the water is wholesome.”

  There was another attack by the ghouls. This time, coming up near the back of the party, where Camhóinhann kept watch, they were quickly repelled, but not before three men had been viciously slashed by the ghouls’ long, curving nails.

  The cuts were very deep, and they continued to bleed even after Dyonas bound them up with strips of linen from one of the reclaimed saddlebags. “I could help them if you removed these silver bracelets,” Winloki said to him. “I could help the others, too, the men who are sick. I am a healer.”

  “A healing would cost you strength you cannot spare,” he answered shortly. “In any case, none are seriously injured—and the pain will pass.”

  There came a time when Camhóinhann announced they were only a short march from the Doors of Corundum, which would provide them a way out of the catacombs. “We may yet win through to safety.”

  Heartened by this announcement, they continued on with renewed strength and hope. All other considerations aside, this news came none too soon. They were running out of torches, and Winloki thought she might have gone mad if forced to continue the rest of the journey by werelight.

  Yet they were all beginning to flag again by the time they saw the faint flicker of blue in the passage up ahead that told them they had reached the final gate. It was Dyonas who knelt down by the sapphire doors and began to chant a spell, while Camhóinhann and Goezenou kept a watch on the tunnels and everyone else waited in a fever of impatience.

  Yet the doors did not open, and an unaccustomed look of strain appeared on Dyonas’s face, great beads of sweat on his pale forehead.

  “What is it?” said Goezenou, leaving his post and coming up behind him.

  “I am not…entirely certain,” he answered, his jaw tightening. “I believe the darkness lies here so thick and deep, it is almost becoming earth. You know what that means: it is growing in intention. And that intention is apparently to hold these doors in place.”

  In the tunnels behind them, there was a fierce clatter, followed by a rolling rattle coming steadily closer. Scenting danger, the horses scattered down intersecting corridors, their hoofbeats echoing off the walls. Winloki turned along with the men, her heart pounding furiously, her eyes straining in the dim light of the guttering torches, searching for the source of the continuing rattling noise.

  And then she saw it: a great mass of decaying and putrefying bodies melded together into one huge creature, inside a coat made of bones and armor. It was not possible to count the limbs, they were so many and various, but it moved on its body like a snake, and the parts had been joined together so badly she could hear bones grinding and the intolerable soft squelching of the fleshy parts rubbing together. In the hollow sockets of the great eyeless head something moved: an unlight, blacker than black, a rudimentary intelligence that Winloki could sense—and knew with a thrill of horror that it could sense her, that it was seeking her.

  There was a soft hiss of steel as all the guards and acolytes drew their weapons. But scarcely had swords cleared their sheaths before the hands that gripped them lost all strength and they went clattering to the floor. For the reek of the thing was beyond all corruption, and wherever it spread, minds grew confused, limbs were chained. Winloki felt a cry rise up in her throat, but her tongue was a stone; the sound shriveled and died while it was yet inside her. Around her, the men made frantic, incoherent noises.

  Of those closest, only Camhóinhann retained sufficient willpower to move. Whipping out his sword, he stepped quickly between her and the lurching monstrosity, raising the other hand in a commanding gesture. For a moment her courage rose—until he opened his mouth, no sound emerged, and the spell died on his lips.

  Outside the ring of silence, she could hear Dyonas chanting the door spell with increasing urgency. “Érodach! Érodach! Riholar ém néma—érodach!”

  The creature had now crept so near the stench of it nearly choked her. But Camhóinhann leaped to the attack, scarlet robes swirling, sword flashing in the last of the torchlight. Once, twice, three times he struck—impaling one of the putrefying bodies, wrenching out his blade, then striking again—yet still the thing continued to creep forward. Lifting his blade, he slashed downward, shearing off portions of decaying flesh—yet the horror lurched on, veering only a little and heading straight for the Princess again.

  When she felt a bruising grip on her arm, she knew without looking that it was Goezenou. If Camhóinhann falls, she thought dazedly, Goezenou will sacrifice me to save himself.

  Like a snake preparing to strike, the thing rose up, and a hideous mouth stretched open. Winloki could only watch in helpless terror as that mouth gaped wider and wider, two rows of bony teeth came closer and closer—And Camhóinhann flung himself between, thrusting his sword into the mouth and down the throat, with all of his weight and strength behind it. The teeth clashed together, imprisoning his arm, but the entire mass of the thing shuddered, and there was a high-pitched squealing, agonizing to hear.

  Then it began to melt, the separate parts falling like a hideous rain, drying to dust as soon as they touched the floor. Released from its grip, Camhóinhann dropped to his knees, letting his sword fall to the floor. A dark stain—a darker shade of crimson—spread across the sleeve of his robe.

  Winloki struggled frantically in Goezenou’s grasp, freed from the spell that had held her immobilized, forgetting she still wore the silver bracelets and intent on helping the man who had just saved her.

  The earth shuddered, and there was a loud grinding. Finally responding to Dyonas’s spell, the Doors of Corundum swung open, letting in a sudden blaze of sunlight. Then a rough arm encircled Winloki’s waist. Despite her efforts to resist him, Goezenou dragged her across the threshold and into the dazzling light of day.

  23

  Reluctantly, Sindérian and her companions gave up their horses and weapons, and allowed an escort of dwarves to march them off the road and along a meandering path through the heather. Then she had ample time to reflect on whether it had been wise, after all, to yield without a fight. Foolish to shed blood, to make enemies without good cause, but so little was known about the Corridon—were they friendly or unfriendly? And why had they chosen this particular moment in time to come out of their centuries-long isolation?

  The dwarf in command, he of the golden circlet, was called Prince Tyr. So much she had gathered from hearing the others speak to him. He walked with a tremendous air of self-importance, though surprisingly light footed. In that he reminded her a little of Prince Ruan. Otherwise, they could hardly have been less alike, the sturdy dwarf with his broad, brown face and the slender, light-skinned Faey.

  When they came to a fork in the path, the dwarves chose the uphill turning. It was a well-marked trail, running straighter than the other except when it skirted a stony outcrop or a pile of rocks. Every moment, Sindérian expected to see a cave mouth or crack in the earth opening into their underground kingdom, but none had appeared by the time the slope leveled out and the path ended. If there was spell or illusion hiding such an entrance, it was too slender and subtle for her to detect.

  In the middle of the flat area stood a great boulder—too large and heavy, she would have thought, for a dozen men to shift it. Yet it was so cunningly balanced, a single dwarf rolled it aside, uncovering a door in the ground: a single slab of iron less easily moved, for it took two dwarves, straining against the weight, to lift it. The opening dropped down into a shaft so deep it was impossible to see all the way to the bottom. But there was a series of narrow shelves cut into the side of the pit one above the other like a ladder, and iron rings had been hammered into the rock on either side. By this means, Sindérian realized, they were meant to descend.

  “The Lady goes first,” the dwarf prince said.

  Prince Ruan stiffened and his eyes narrowed. For a moment she thought he would do something foolish. “I shoul
d go first.”

  “I am not afraid,” she assured him hastily, though in all truth she did not relish trusting herself to those narrow footholds, particularly not in the dark of the shaft. “First is no worse than last.” And better down than up, she added silently. That way, at least, her skirts would not hamper her nearly so much.

  A red-haired dwarf with a forked beard reached out to take Faolein. “I will see to the owl.” Silver rings glinted in his ears; like the others, he had a bold, buccaneerish look about him that went far beyond the pair of knives he carried in his belt.

  Words of protest were already on her lips when Sindérian suddenly thought better of it. Wiser, perhaps, not to reveal just yet that the owl was a wizard and her father. Besides, she would climb more easily without his weight on her shoulder. She sat down on the edge opposite the ladder, dangling her feet. “How far down does it go?”

  When the dwarves made no answer, she put a tentative boot on the first step and reached for the handholds.

  “Count the steps as you descend,” said Prince Tyr. “When you have counted one hundred and two, look for a ledge on the right-hand side. Step off there and wait for the rest of us.”

  Feeling her way and counting, there was less time to wonder about the depth of the pit. Twice she almost missed her foothold, but by holding firmly to the iron rings she avoided a fall. The shaft became wider as she descended, but it went down at such an angle that the rectangle of sky grew narrower and narrower and the light dwindled. Fifty steps down and her hands were slick with sweat. Seventy-five and her legs began to shake. By the time she had counted one hundred and two, her eyes had adjusted enough to the dark that she could just make out the ledge.

  In the dark of the shaft it was impossible to see how far the ledge extended, but it was very narrow. Once she was there, she stood with her back pressed up against the rock wall, waiting for what seemed like a very long time before another body blocked out the narrow band of light and she heard the scrape of booted feet on the steps above.

  First to climb down was a dwarf, and then came another, moving past her confidently on the slender shelf. Prince Ruan came third. He too edged past, so that rather than lose him in the dark she was obliged to sidle farther along the ledge herself. More dwarves descended before Aell, Kivik, and Skerry were allowed to climb down, one after the other.

  By that time, the first dwarf had produced a lantern from a niche in the wall. When lit, it gave off a feeble blue glow, so dim that daylight would have washed it out completely; it would have been no light at all. Here, it was barely enough to see by after someone up above dropped the door into place. She heard hinges creak and iron groan as the boulder’s weight settled on top.

  “Where is my fa—Where is my owl?” she asked indignantly, for the last dwarf had stepped off the ladder and Faolein was nowhere to be seen.

  “Your bird has been taken to the cave where we will stable your horses,” said Prince Tyr. “No harm will come to it there.” Taking charge of the lantern, he set off along the ledge.

  With dwarves ahead and behind them, Sindérian and the men had no choice but to follow. The cavern—she supposed it was that—proved to be larger by far than she had imagined, and the ledge much longer.

  “Take my hand,” said Prince Ruan, in that composed, faintly arrogant voice she knew so well. “The stone is damp and the way is slippery. Also, it grows a little narrower just ahead.”

  It would be unpardonably foolish, she decided, not to take advantage of his sure feet, his ability to see in the dark like a cat. So she swallowed her pride and put her cold, moist hand into his warm, dry one. His clasp was light and in no way intimate, but his grip tightened each time her feet slipped. She lost track of the time, concentrating on each step, trying not to think about the unknown depths below.

  “Can you see the bottom?” she asked when the suspense of not knowing became unbearable.

  There was a long pause before he replied, which was all the answer she needed. “No,” he said at last, “but I see an opening in the rock up ahead. I don’t think we will have to continue on this way much longer.”

  When the light disappeared, Sindérian’s heart dropped.

  Prince Ruan’s voice came to her out of the dark. “He has passed through the opening with his lantern. But it is only a few yards more—as you see, we are already there.”

  Indeed, on the right-hand side the light, such as it was, shone out again, and there was a tunnel in the rock. She stepped into the passage with a heartfelt sigh of relief, and Ruan released his grip. There was only time to catch a brief glimpse of his face before he turned away, just enough to see the grim set of his jaw, the frown between his eyes. She realized that he was not so unmoved by their plight as he had sounded on the ledge.

  The passage was long and winding, and it led into an intricate maze of caverns, tunnels, and shafts. Sindérian soon lost track of all the twists and turns. She could see very little by the dim glow of the lantern, moving like a firefly up ahead, but she had a vague suspicion that some of the turns were unnecessary, that Prince Tyr frequently doubled back to make the route even more confusing.

  They did not intend that we should be able to find our way forward or back again without a guide. She wondered drearily if it was her own bad luck, the result of Ouriána’s ill-wishing, which had brought them all there.

  At several places there were shallow steps cut into the rock, always leading down. Sometimes there were faint, faraway footsteps or the glimmer of lights in distant passages. Sometimes the lamp would briefly illuminate something in passing—a pinnacle of white limestone, a pendent curtain of crystal like a lacework of ice.

  Once she heard the Skyrran princes speaking together in low voices just behind her. “If they meant to harm us, I think they would have done so already,” said Kivik.

  “I would not depend on that,” answered Skerry. “By all the old tales that ever I heard, they don’t readily admit strangers into their underground kingdoms. Will they be any more ready to allow us to leave again?”

  Meanwhile, the dwarves were silent. It did not seem to be a hostile silence, but how could she tell? It had been hard to read their faces when she could see them clearly, and trying to sense their emotions now was like trying to pierce stone. They were manlike, but they were not Men.

  “You will begin to find the way more difficult just ahead,” said Prince Tyr. “Only a few feet of rock divide us from the catacombs.”

  Sindérian could already feel it: an increase in the weight of the air, which created a resistance like moving through water; a pressure of darkness that made every step a labor to be accomplished only by a concentrated act of will. Her eyes felt gritty; the taste of earth was in her mouth. She realized they had come to a place where the density of darkness was increasing, in the process of altering to something more solid. As a natural transmutation, it was supposed to be the work of centuries, of eons—if it was palpable here, something had occurred to hasten the process.

  We are truly in the belly of the earth, she thought. It was a region whose mysteries wizards did not wholly understand.

  But at last the pressure of darkness grew less. There was a faint pallor of light, which became stronger as they drew nearer, as if it were spilling out from some brighter place, and there was a low rumble as of many voices.

  An archway loomed up out of the darkness: dressed stone of a greenish hue, carved all over with complex figures that might have been ancient runes, long forgotten in the world up above. Even without the symbols she would have known there was a gate spell, one so powerful she sensed it even before the first dwarves passed through. Sindérian wondered if she would be able to follow them.

  But the ward opened to admit her, and she walked under the arch without any impediment. It was not a weakness in the spell; neither had it been Prince Tyr’s doing—of that much she was certain. She had felt herself weighed and measured, identified in some way, then allowed to pass. It seemed that someone of greater authority w
as already expecting them, or, if not aware of them before, would be expecting them now.

  “This is the fortress of King Yri,” Prince Tyr announced. “His kingdom of Reichünterwelt extends from Penadamin to Min Rhuidain, and goes nearly a mile deep.”

  The prospect before them was truly awe inspiring, a cavernous hall of vast extent rising hundreds of feet above their heads. Doors, archways, cross corridors, passages—a bewildering number opened out on three sides, leading on to further immensities. There seemed, too, to be an infinity of staircases ascending and descending, landings and galleries joining those staircases, balconies looking down on the hall from dizzying heights. In the regions above there was a great traffic of dwarves coming and going by the light of more of the glowworm lanterns, and there were glimpses of more brightly lit spaces beyond and farther in.

  “We have entered my father’s palace by a back door,” said Prince Tyr, “for I hope to bring you before the King without creating a disturbance. Your presence among us unannounced would surely cause an uproar.”

  He set a faster pace, crossing the great expanse of floor, then passing through an opening on the other side and down a long corridor. From there they threaded a path through kitchens, sculleries, storerooms, and pantries, all of them showing signs of long disuse. Sindérian was reminded of the great hill fortress at Saer, where she and Prince Ruan had wandered long through subterranean chambers much like these. The reminder was not a pleasant one, and stealing a sideways glance at Ruan to see if he was thinking the same thing, she read tension in every line of his body. Aell, too, appeared troubled and wary. But at Saer they had walked unknowing into a trap, believing they would find friends; here at least they were on their guard.

  “Put yourself into our hands,” the dwarf prince had said, “and it may be to your advantage.” Yet that offered cold comfort, for he had made no promises.

  They climbed a broad stone staircase with shallow steps to accommodate the short legs of the dwarves. Rich scents of cooking came down to meet them, as from a kitchen nearby that was still in use. Her stomach growling, Sindérian wondered if the dwarves intended to feed them when they reached whatever place they were heading. It had been so long since her last meal, even bread and water would be welcome.