by Tom Lloyd
‘Ah well, there you’ve got me, but then I ain’t some shit-brained priest with too much time on my hands and a towering sense of superiority.’ Toil shrugged. ‘Well, maybe that last bit, but I can prove most of it. If anyone knows what they looked like, it’d be the Militant Orders, but they’re not the sort to encourage questions. Still a bit touchy on the subject of whether the gods were once Duegar.’
‘They have statues, though, of the gods I mean.’
‘Aye, but they all look different, don’t they, and mostly are just human with some small addition. Each one’s some symbolic aspect of the god, not the god’s face itself. That’s forbidden, folk like us aren’t meant to see that.’
‘How does that make sense?’
Toil laughed. ‘A priest won’t help you make sense of the world, only where they want you to fit into it. If anyone knows what the gods or Duegar look like it’d be the Charnelers. It’s said they possess more god-fragments than any other Order – so either they don’t want to tell us because it’s hard to pray to something shit-ugly or they’re too busy using the pieces to build an arsenal.’
‘Enough o’ that talk,’ Anatin growled. ‘I may not be the most gods-fearing o’ men, but you’re tiptoeing around blasphemy there, girl, an’ we could use a little divine favour right now.’
If Toil had a response to that, she bit it back and they continued in silence. The ornate stonework continued, becoming more fluid and intricate in parts while even the high roofs of the caverns were smoothed over and often bore decoration. Lynx tried to imagine the number of stone mages that must have been required for all this work. Even if the construction had taken place over hundreds of years, the skill had to have been far more prevalent among the Duegar race than magery was in humans.
A while later they came to a huge chamber of worked stone, as big as any they’d come across underground thus far except for the natural caverns. Toil stopped them well short and the mercenaries hunkered down in the deep shadows as the distant, distinctive sound of metal on stone rang out ahead. Past Toil’s shoulder, Lynx could see a huge, dimly lit space with what looked like tiers of steps on the far side and a double bank of pillars behind them, some larger than redwoods with a smaller set further up the stepped side of the huge hall. The source of light was hard to work out, a pale flicker weaker than the light-gardens – and those were gloomy by any normal standard.
‘I think we’re there,’ Toil whispered to the rest. ‘I’m going to have a look around.’
‘You want us to wait here?’ Anatin hissed. ‘Think we’re stupid?’
Her face tightened. ‘Don’t worry, old man. If I screw you over, you won’t have time to see it coming.’
‘That supposed to reassure me?’
‘Fine, Teshen or Kas can come with me. Happy now?’
‘Ecstatic. Teshen, go on. You’ll be hardest for her to get a jump on without making a lot of noise.’
Toil nodded towards the hall. ‘If it’s all of them, there might be patrols too. If you’re not here when we get back, we’ll backtrack the way we’ve just come to find you, okay? Sitain, swap me your lamp, it’s smaller than this.’
The woman shrugged off her pack too and slung her gun across her back, hanging Sitain’s lamp from her belt. The pair set off without another word, walking almost silently until they were in the lee of a pillar and could check their surroundings a little more carefully. After a long, slow inspection Toil set off again and disappeared from view, whereupon they were forced to just watch the sliver of empty hall they could see and listen out for danger.
‘Reckon she’ll ditch us?’ Sitain asked.
Lynx glanced her way but couldn’t make out her expression. ‘Doubt it’ll be her first choice,’ he hazarded.
‘Lovely.’
‘Don’t worry, you’ve got her lantern. She won’t want to leave that behind – even if we’re expendable.’
They fell to silence again, knowing even whispering would carry in the echoing tunnels. The wait seemed interminable to Lynx as the minutes ground past, the shadows deepened around him, slowly tightening their elusive threads around his chest. He tried to put his mind elsewhere, to recall the places he’d seen and others he’d read about, but his thoughts drifted inexorably back to To Lort prison and the mines it serviced. The days of back-breaking labour in almost total darkness, the violence and abuse meted out by prisoners and guards alike, the sleepless nights because of hunger and fear.
It seemed more like a dream now; a nightmare he’d woken from but could never quite shake off and knew would be waiting when he slept again. The man he’d been then was both hardly recognisable and all too familiar. An ache began to build in his head, a sense of pressure. It was something he recognised well enough, the topography of fractures in his mind, as though a light could be shone through the fissures.
It had been a long time after Governor Lorfen had released him that Lynx had finally been able to recognise he’d been broken by the prison – that some fractures never healed. He could bandage and glue parts back together, create a whole again, but that wasn’t the same as intact and perfect. There was no going back to that time, not after the things he’d seen during the war and after it, there was only struggling on with life.
He’d known men to lose limbs in battle. Some railed against the loss their whole life, others learned to live without the missing part of them, the bit that no longer existed. Lynx had learned from their example how to salvage what remained, to accept that some things he’d never be able to do again and set aside what was lost. It was why he wandered the Riven Kingdom so determinedly, never staying for long in any one place. So long as he knew and embraced his impulses and fears, he could control them.
Down here in the dark, those fears were starting to claw at the shell of his mind. The scratching he’d been able to ignore, but he knew it wouldn’t be much longer before the demons started tumbling out.
After far too long, Toil and Teshen returned. Lynx felt a jolt in his gut as they suddenly appeared round the corner, so lost to his thoughts he had to blink several times before he could focus on their shadowed faces.
‘It’s the rift,’ Toil announced quietly. ‘But they got here first.’
‘All of them?’ Anatin asked.
‘Looks like it, I never got a proper count. From the guard positions though, I reckon so.’
‘So they outnumber us and are dug in? Any good news? Can we bypass them?’
‘I don’t think so. There’s two bridges here, about two hundred yards apart and one a level lower. The Wisps said there are more below that but we’d be dead before we crossed. As for others, we’d need to work our way a mile in either direction.’
‘We can’t take either one; they could just drop grenades on us.’
‘And fighting our way across won’t be so easy anyway.’
‘So we strike out for one of the others?’
‘Ah, well, it never just rains, eh?’ Toil said, chewing on a fingernail.
‘What?’
‘On the far side we’ve not many options to leave the city. We take a more southern bridge and we’d have to head back this way or take some real sketchy tunnels. Ones the Wisps reckon will fall on us if they’re not already blocked. We go further north and we’ve got a long time underground, nearer the maspid dens.’
‘How did the bloody Duegar live here with so few bridges?’
‘Most likely they had wooden ones too, or cable cars to get across. Remember – all that’s left of the city is what was formed seamlessly out of rock. Nothing else lasts for thousands of years.’
‘So – what then?’
Lynx just made out Toil baring her teeth in a grin. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan.’
They split into two groups, Teshen leading Anatin, Sitain, Varain and Ashis left out of the tunnel to scout and ambush any patrols while Toil, Kas, Lynx, and Reft went right. The grand hall beyond was silent and empty but still they moved cautiously. Toil hadn’t really needed to remi
nd anyone that any sound could carry to where the Charnelers were stationed, but she’d taken the time anyway. They moved slowly enough that Lynx had a good look at what they were sneaking through. It resembled a stepped assembly hall; the double bank of pillars continued all the way around and half-hid five more tunnels just like the one they’d left, plus an open stretch in the centre through which he could just about see flickering lights.
The steps of the hall were tiers of man-high blocks, six in all, with the ridged slopes running down at regular points for access. Up above there was a strange gantry suspended from the ceiling. It was too high for Lynx to work out what exactly it was, but from the platform hung trailing fronds of some sort of plant, the flowers of which seemed to give off a pale cold light. A peppery blossom scent hung on the air, barely noticeable but a welcome variation on the damp stone and cold earth.
At the right-hand end Toil entered a smaller chamber and ascended a spiral of ridged slope to an upper chamber, then again to a similar one near the ceiling of the great chamber. There were no openings for Lynx to look down at the gantry, just a pair of deep, narrow slits flanking a broader space in the wall. Toil approached that cautiously once she’d turned her strange lantern off. The others followed suit, creeping through the black shadows to peek through openings. For a while Lynx couldn’t make out much beyond until, with a jolt, the view resolved into something far larger than he had been expecting. A scuff of clothes and boots nearby told him he wasn’t the only one to instinctively clutch at the stone as they realised they were looking out over a vast chasm – one significantly larger than the rift they’d crossed, if Lynx was any judge.
The darkness was profound and while the stone was still laced with a tiny bluish tint, there was little light to catch it. The walls were so far away it was almost impossible to judge anything in the distance. He looked up instead towards the roof, but could make out even less and soon found himself tipping forward towards the void until he caught himself.
Somewhere further down there were torches burning – just the pinprick of distant stars in a night sky, but enough to add definition to the scene. There was a broad stone bridge spanning the gap, over a hundred yards long and leading to a wide avenue on the far side. The faint lines of stone suggested smaller roads both above and below that grand avenue, punctuated with regular gaps in the parapet.
Toil motioned for them all to retreat to the back of the chamber and kept her voice barely audible even then.
‘There should be a ridge just below this,’ she whispered, pointing where they’d been crouching. ‘If it follows similar things I’ve seen. I’m going to head along that and see if there’s anything we can make use of.’
‘Like what?’
‘Artefacts, mechanisms, traps – don’t know yet. Point is, these parts may not have been explored so carefully. If there’s anything, we might be able to put it to work for a distraction.’
‘All of us?’
She shook her head. ‘It’ll not be an easy climb. Volunteers?’
Lynx looked at the others. Reft said nothing of course, while Kas shrugged. A sudden sense of distrust took hold of him at the tone of Toil’s voice, however, and before Kas could reply Lynx spoke up. ‘I’ll go.’
‘Sure?’ Toil asked sceptically. ‘She’s a bit more limber than you, I’m guessing.’
‘Reckon you won’t find me lacking there, love,’ he said, affecting a leering tone. ‘Question is, can you keep up with me?’
Toil snorted. ‘You’ll be staring at my arse as I lead the way; men’ve done more for less I suppose. Come on then. You two, head down a level, keep a watch for patrols. We need to keep as silent as we can, right?’
She got two grunts of acknowledgement and then they were off, Toil and Lynx making their way to the edge and feeling around for a ridge beyond the lip. It turned out there was indeed one, but more than a foot below the edge of the opening and close to invisible. In the end Toil had to use Lynx as an anchor and dangle her leg out over the edge until her foot was securely placed. She crouched down on the ledge and slipped Lynx’s grasp, tugging his sleeve gently to indicate he should follow her. Lynx lay flat on his belly, keeping his centre of gravity as low as possible. He knew as well as anyone that in darkness it was easy to lose your balance on level ground. Treacherous visions of slipping down on to the ledge then just continuing past it swam through his mind as he moved.
Eventually he made it down on to his hands and knees, reaching out for Toil only to find himself with a handful of buttock. The woman seemed to stifle a laugh and Lynx hastily withdrew, lowering his hand until his fingers rested on her boot. The pair shuffled on as quietly as they could in that fashion, Lynx doing his best not to hamper Toil’s progress but not lose her in the dark. At one point he could have sworn she was messing with him, seemingly unaffected by the near-total dark, when she stopped so suddenly he almost went face first into her backside, but his reactions were good and he stopped just short. Refusing to be outdone he gave her a gentle pat and Toil started off again without another word.
The memory of her opening the door in Grasiel, naked and blood-spattered, appeared fully formed in his mind and Lynx cursed himself silently. Despite his tangle of anxiety and the current danger, keeping his mind on the job at hand wasn’t somehow quite as simple as willing it so. This close to her, his nose was again filled by Toil’s intoxicating scent. It turned out even his fractured mind preferred the memory of her naked over older ones. He had no idea how long that slow shuffle through the black lasted, but he was far from bored when at last Toil made a faint hiss and stood gingerly up.
In the black he could only just make out what she was doing and felt a moment of panic when she slid herself left on to some sort of platform. Lynx scrabbled to follow as Toil ran her hands around the sloped walls to make the dimensions out. He glanced warily back at the flickers of light on the bridge, a torch illuminating two figures patrolling the length of it, then pulled himself up beside her.
‘Alone at last,’ Toil purred in his ear.
Before Lynx could think of a clever reply she’d slipped away, further down the platform, the rasp of her hands on smooth stone just about audible. Apparently satisfied with what she saw she reactivated her lantern and the walls glowed pale blue once more. It was a welcome sight even if it wasn’t anything close to bright. Lynx saw they were in a low attic-like chamber perhaps thirty yards across, with sloped walls. The rear wall was a featureless sheet of stone, while the few open yards they’d crawled through were repeated three more times down the bridge side.
‘Well, shit,’ Toil said, looking around the space as though the shadows might unfold to reveal rather more useful artefacts than the entirely empty chamber actually held. ‘Ulfer’s horn, this could’ve been more helpful.’
‘What now?’
Toil was silent a while, long enough for Lynx to experience another sense of foreboding. ‘Now?’ she said eventually. ‘Now it’s time for plan B.’
‘Am I going to like that one?’
‘We’re outnumbered ten to one in a place of near-total darkness,’ she said, moving to the rear of the chamber in case the glow of her lantern was noticeable to those below. ‘Not sure there are many likeable plans.’
‘Not much of an answer, that.’
‘What are you, my mother?’
Lynx shook his head. ‘I’m a suspicious bastard who doesn’t have a whole lot of faith in others. Certainly folk who’re rather more devoted to a cause than the average mercenary.’
‘Meaning?’ Her hand didn’t exactly hover over her gun’s grip, but there was a stillness in Toil that spoke volumes.
‘That I’d prefer to talk things through rather than watch you do something rash.’
‘Me? Rash? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘No one told me about sending the Princip out the window like that. Reckon even Anatin got a surprise there and it made escaping a sight harder.’
Toil shrugged and seemed to re
lax a little. ‘We couldn’t have the Charnelers pretend like nothing had happened now, could we?’ She took a step towards Lynx and her voice softened to a purr. ‘Don’t you trust me, Lynx?’
Inwardly he smiled. ‘Not a whole lot.’
Another step, one hand holding up the lantern until the sloped stone above her face glowed enough to show off her eyes, wide and innocent. ‘We need to trust each other if we’re going to get out of Shadows Deep alive.’
‘There I agree.’
She was inches away from him now and Lynx couldn’t help but breathe in hard. His fingers tingled, aching to slide around her waist. ‘So I’m in your hands as much as you’re in mine,’ Toil added huskily. ‘A union, if you will.’
Lynx smothered an awkward cough, trying to ignore the sensation of being a transfixed teenage boy once more. ‘Do you smell oil?’
‘What?’
‘Oil, can you smell it?’
‘I’m trying to have a moment here,’ Toil said sharply.
‘I know what you’re trying to do.’
‘You’re now adding insult to disregard? Can’t a girl have an honest moment with the man in front of him?’
‘Sure. Let me know when honest is happening and I’ll brace myself.’
‘Quite the fucking charmer, aren’t you?’ Toil tossed her head back and set the lantern down at her feet. ‘Can’t blame a girl for trying, though, eh?’
‘Oh, I think I can.’
She went still again, just for a moment. ‘I advise you keep any blame to yourself,’ she said, ‘in my line of work it’s not welcome.’
‘Fair enough. What now?’
‘Now? Well, you have your misgivings about plan B, despite not having heard it, and you can smell oil. Or was that just bullshit to stink up the comradely mood I was trying to inspire.’
‘Comradely?’ Lynx had to fight the urge to laugh. ‘Woman, I’ll not hold it against you, but don’t pretend you weren’t messing with me there. Once we’re out in the sun again and safe, I’ll gladly and breathlessly assist any comradely mood you want to create, but until then don’t you insult me either, eh? I wasn’t born yesterday and I have seen a beautiful woman before, have been led a merry dance by one too.’