“No, go,” she said, almost too quickly. “I’ve got this. Try to keep Dayne out of trouble.”
The way she said Dayne’s name there, filled with affection and concern. He knew they had been lovers, and he never cared about that, but for a moment her obvious strong feelings for Dayne were so plain and raw, it stung. He knew there was no emotional bond between him and Amaya, and he accepted that. Even though he had not been taking their liaison too seriously, it was suddenly very clear where the depths of her heart still lay.
He wasn’t surprised, or even jealous, but yet it stung. He would have to live with that.
“All right,” he said. “If you don’t hear from any of us by tomorrow, though—”
“I’ll call out the whole Order,” she said. “Where do we start looking?”
“The Necropolis of Saint Terrence,” he said. “And then deeper into the catacombs.”
“Exciting.” She blushed a little.
“What?”
“It’s nothing, just—” She sighed, looking away in embarrassment. “I got you something for Terrentin.”
“You did?”
“It’s nothing. Little thing. Silly—”
“No, I’m touched,” he said. “I should—”
“You don’t need to as well,” she said, kissing him as she went to the door. “Just try not to get hurt.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“See you soon,” she said, and left.
He sighed. She was far more woman than he was worth. He was lucky to have any time with her.
But for now, he needed to find his boots and get to campus.
Asti still had a room at Kimber’s, where he kept some of his gear. For some reason he had felt more comfortable with it here, away from the shop, away from Verci and Raych and the baby. It felt like a way to keep his promise to keep them away from a life of danger and violence. That was why he wanted Verci out of this action today. Perhaps dredging through the tunnels would be nothing. Perhaps it would be the death of him. Verci shouldn’t take the risk. Shouldn’t take any more risks. He had a family to care for.
Asti put on some good solid boots, a decent heavy coat, and Pop’s set of knives at his belt, with another set in the boots and a couple throwing blades squirreled away in the coat for good measure.
Even still, the fact that Tarvis had said the Brotherhood couldn’t be ignored. That was what Liora had said. That was who she worked for. When she took over his head, she told him to “serve the Brotherhood.” Asti still had no idea what that was, but he was ready for answers.
Asti came back out of the room, ready to leave with the Thorn and his gawky friend, when a cloistress came out of Nange Lesk’s room. Nange was taking his time dying, and Asti felt more than a little guilty about that. He was the one who had stabbed Nange in the belly, after all. Nange had asked for someone from the church to come see him, give his last Absolution.
“How’s he doing, sister?” Asti asked.
“A troubled life,” she said. “A long Absolution. We will not get through it all.”
Saints, she was young. Somehow her face was both innocent and weary at the same time.
“He’s had his share of trouble,” Asti said, making for the stairs.
She put her hand on his shoulder. “He’s not alone.”
Asti stopped mid-step, her touch freezing him in place.
“Red-eyed and anointed in blood,” she said in a low voice. “And a gift from God.”
How did she know about that? How could she possibly? Asti wanted to turn to her, demand an answer. Instead, not even sure why he was saying it, Asti said. “I wish I could believe that’s true.”
“It is,” she said. Her hand went to the back of his head, and she whispered ever so quietly in his ear. “Sleep, for he has much work to do.”
Asti turned to her, but no one was there.
“Hey, Rynax?” the Thorn called from the bottom of the stairs. “You all right?”
Asti looked around, wondering what the blazes just happened. “I think so,” he lied. “Just—”
“You were standing there in a daze for about a minute,” Thorn said. “Ready?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, coming down. “Let’s get on with it.”
Asti led them down through the street and across the creek to the abandoned factory. From there, the signs of a scuffle, the tracks to the sewer pipe, they were all pretty obvious. While Asti checked that out, the Thorn rifled through his pack, getting on his gear, including the bow and arrows Verci had made for him.
“What about you, kid?” Asti asked the friend while the Thorn readied himself. “You gonna get suited up or anything?”
“I don’t really have anything special to wear,” the kid said. “I mean, I’m really not supposed to do this.”
Asti pulled out a small dagger and flipped it over to hand to the kid hilt first.
“I wouldn’t know what to do with it,” the kid said.
“Pointy end hurts people,” Asti said. “Just in case.”
The kid took it and shoved it into his belt.
“All right,” the Thorn said, his face covered in shadow. “Down and deep.”
“Is that really necessary?” Asti asked. “I mean—”
“There’s chances I shouldn’t take,” he said. “I’ve already extended a lot of trust to you and yours, Rynax.”
“All right,” Asti said. “Down and deep.”
He took them down into the sewer pipe, and took a piece of chalk out of his pack. Mark on the wall for Verci. Then he lit a lamp and went deeper in.
“All right, kid—”
“It’s Delmin, you know.” Asti found it amusing how guileless this kid was. A strange contrast to the Thorn. Saints, Asti still didn’t know the Thorn’s actual name. Probably best that way.
“What are you feeling down here?”
Delmin closed his eyes for a moment. “There’s definitely . . . something odd.”
“Odd how?” Thorn asked.
“I mean, it’s like . . . can you feel it?”
Thorn shook his head. “You know my senses aren’t like yours.”
“If I had to put it to words, it’s . . . like the numina equivalent to taking a sip of milk that’s about to go bad.”
“Soured?” Asti asked. “Can magic be soured?”
“I mean, that sounds right, but I’ve never read anything like that. I’ve never—but it’s definitely a thing that happened here.” He walked down a way, turning a corner into one of the red-bricked tunnels that were not part of the sewers. Many of Josie’s secret tunnels looked like this, and Asti had made an attempt to map them to little avail.
“Whatever it is, it’s stronger below us,” Delmin said. “Down and . . . north.”
“North it is,” Asti said. “Let’s keep moving.”
Dayne had known fear, he had been afraid many times. Each year he went to his Initiate trials. Facing Sholiar, both times. When he fought Tharek Pell on the Parliament floor.
But none of those moments of fear felt as raw or as visceral as standing outside the gate behind Saint Terrence Cathedral while Maresh jimmied the lock open.
“Is this really safe?” Dayne asked. “What if we get caught?”
“Saints, Dayne, you sound like a first-year heading to the girl’s dorms,” Maresh said. “Relax.” He clicked something and the gate opened. “Let’s move.”
Maresh went in, and Dayne followed his lead, with Hemmit, Lin, and Jerinne taking up the rear.
“Are we sure no one’s down here?” Dayne asked.
“No,” Maresh said. “There might be priests, or other art students, or you know, the giant we’re looking for.”
“I don’t like these jokes,” Dayne said.
“This is what I’ve got,” Maresh said. He took a lamp out of his bag
and lit it. Jerinne did the same, while Lin held up her hand and gave off a glow.
“Cheater,” Hemmit said.
As they entered the Necropolis, Dayne’s fear changed to disappointment, and then annoyance.
The Necropolis was nothing close to what he had imagined.
In his head, it had been a pristine mausoleum, a sanctum of rest for the regal and sacred who had been laid there. Instead it was dank and dusty, with far more skulls lining the walls than he had been prepared for.
“So many skulls,” Jerinne said.
Among the skulls were marked coffins embedded in the walls, as well as niches where unadorned half-skeletons lay in twisted positions.
“I was expecting—”
“Tombs befitting a king?” Maresh asked. “Afraid this place has been vandalized and looted for years.”
“Tragedy,” Dayne said.
Maresh led them down a cramped, dark hallway, and Dayne had to crouch down to make it through. Whoever built this place did not think about a man his size. He pushed his way through, his heart pounding as they went.
Maresh went on as they continued. “For example, down there is the tomb of King Maradaine the Tenth. But it’s been stripped clean, and the plaques have rather nasty things painted on them.”
“What sort of things?” Hemmit asked.
“Nothing I care to repeat,” Maresh said. “But some people had strong feelings about his failure to hold off the Black Mage and General Tochrin.”
Dayne’s heart continued to pound like a Linjari drumbeat, even as the tunnel seemed to get narrower and narrower. “Why haven’t the priests cleaned it up?”
“I think they did, and it keeps coming back. Strong feelings last a long time, apparently.”
“But . . .” Dayne sputtered. He couldn’t say more than that, not with the walls pressing into his shoulders.
The tunnel opened up to a wide chamber. Dayne felt his heart calm down, and he went to sit on the stone ground for a moment.
“You all right?” Jerinne asked.
“Wasn’t prepared for it to be this cramped,” Dayne said. “Glad to be out of that passage.”
“And what’s this room?” Hemmit asked, holding up his lamp. Lin lifted her hand up, and a soft glow came from it. Here the skulls and other morbid imagery were gone. Instead, the walls had faded imagery of the sigils of each archduchy in Druthal.
“The Chamber of Unity,” Dayne said in a low voice. “As Druth was reunified, one hero from each archduchy was honored to be put to rest here, together, on equal ground.”
But the ten sarcophagi were cracked open and broken. The bones of these heroes, their relics . . . all gone.
“What happened?” Dayne demanded of Maresh. “Where are Lief Frannel and Sammin Kinnest and . . . great blazes, Saint Alexis?”
“This place has been ransacked for decades,” Maresh said. “Have you not been listening to me?”
“I’m just . . .” Dayne shook his head. “I’m disgusted. In the people who would do this—you didn’t have any part in that?”
“I leave things like I find them,” Maresh said. “Most of the Charcoal Club folks do. Though you know how it is with some folk. They come down here with a few bottles, things get out of hand.”
“Horrible,” Dayne said.
“All right,” Maresh said. “If you thought that passage was tough, this next one will be very bad.” He pointed to a cut in the wall that was little more than a hole that came up to Dayne’s hip.
“That’s the tunnel under the river?” Dayne asked.
“No, it leads to it. About a quarter of a mile of that, elbows and knees, sloped down. It’s not going to be easy.”
Jerinne went and looked down the hole. “There’s no way this giant went down there.”
“We don’t think he necessarily did,” Dayne said. “But the tunnel under the river. You’ve seen it?”
Maresh nodded. “Didn’t go very far, because it was pretty damn late the time a few of us went down there. But that’s a sizable passage. Like, big enough to roll wagons through.”
Hemmit scratched at his beard. “That . . . that seems like a lot of work to build.”
Maresh shrugged. “I don’t know why it’s like that. I’m just telling you it is.”
Jerinne took off her belt and scabbard. “Dayne, shield and sword.”
“What are you thinking?” Dayne said as he took his off.
“We’re not going to be able to crawl through there with them strapped on. Give me your belt as well. I’ll lash them all together and drag them behind me.”
“I can—”
“Dayne,” she said, looking down the hole again. “You’re going to have a hard enough time getting through that passage. You shouldn’t have to worry about anything else. I’ve got it.”
He fought through his usual urges to take care of everything. Let himself accept the help. Jerinne was more than capable. “All right. I should go through last.”
“Yeah,” Lin said, coming over. “I’d say me first, then Jerinne, Maresh, Hemmit, and you.”
“You don’t want me to take the lead?” Jerinne asked.
“I mean, you all would have to try and hold a lamp while crawling along, and that’s going to be a challenge. But if I go first—” Her whole body started to emanate a warm glow. “Then I’m your lamp.”
“Brilliant,” Hemmit said. “In every sense.”
Jerinne finished lashing the shields and weapons together with the belts, wrapping the whole thing in her uniform jersey, and tying it to her ankle. Standing above the hole in her shirtsleeves, she asked, “Are we ready?”
Lin answered by crawling down and going in. Jerinne followed, and Maresh gave Dayne a sympathetic pat on the shoulder before going in himself.
“I mean,” Hemmit said with a self-deprecating chuckle, “it would hardly be seemly to let them go without us at this point. Even if it is . . .” He stopped himself. “Fear is nothing but an enemy to be conquered, right?”
“You’ve been reading Escarian, haven’t you?” Dayne asked.
“Guilty,” Hemmit said. “I’ve actually been digging through all the Elite Order narratives. Have you read—”
“Start crawling!” Maresh yelled from inside the passage.
“Another time,” Dayne said.
Hemmit got on his knees, and with a deep breath, went in.
Dayne blew out the lamp that Maresh had left on the desecrated tomb of Saint Alexis, leaving himself in the darkness save the faint glow coming from the narrow passage. He was glad to not have to look at this room any longer. He couldn’t believe that such a rich part of Druthal’s history, the legacy of the nation and its founding, the sacred rest of some of the people who died for the nation—that all of that would be so callously treated, desecrated. It broke Dayne’s heart, more than almost anything he had ever seen. What had become of these bodies, the relics and artifacts that had been interred with them? Were they lost forever? Dayne hoped they could be found again, placed somewhere with care and security, but he feared that there was no chance of that. Kinnest’s helmet was probably being used to hold down papers on some desk somewhere.
Tragedy.
“Dayne!” Hemmit called from the passage.
The light was fading. He needed to go, move forward. The only way out was through, now. Taking a few deep breaths, he got on his hands and knees, and started to crawl into the tiny space.
It was tighter and harder than he had imagined. He pushed and crawled; every inch was a struggle. There was almost no space to move his arms, no way to slip through without scraping his body against the stone. Every breath was a struggle.
He could barely force himself forward. There was no way to go back. The light from Lin had vanished. He was in darkness, pressed on every side. His friends’ voices were far in the distance.
Nowhere to go.
No one with him.
He pulled himself another inch. Another impossible victory. This all was impossible. There was no way he could possibly—
Darkness.
Alone.
Pressing down.
Crushing his chest.
Can’t breathe—
Can’t survive—
“Dayne!”
A hand curled itself into his.
He opened his eyes. He didn’t remember closing them.
Jerinne facing him, a soft glow of light coming from behind her.
“Why are you—” He had to force the words out.
“You were screaming, I came for you,” she said.
“You shouldn’t have,” he said. “I . . . I’m going to die here. I failed . . . I always fail.”
“Don’t say that,” she said. “You’re closer to the end than you think.”
He heard her, but his thoughts dwelled on all his failures. Lenick. Master Denbar. Sholiar “No, no, I let so many people down, Master Denbar would be alive . . . .”
“Dayne,” she said quietly, squeezing his hand gently. “You remember the contemplation exercises? Calming your mind at the end of the day?”
“Always hated those.”
“Same,” she said. “But right now, slow your breath, hold the flame in your thoughts. Keep it controlled. Breathe through the fear. Let the calm fill your body.”
“Those aren’t the words,” he said.
“Still,” she said. “That’s what I need you to do. Then I’m going to start to go down; you’re going to come with me.”
“I can’t—” He closed his eyes again, trying to hold back the tears.
“Eyes on me, Candidate,” she said. He opened them again, focusing on her caring eyes, her kind face. “I’ve got you. We’re going to move together.”
“I—”
“Tell me about the Line of Cedidore,” she said as she moved back, still gripping his hand. “Kings at the beginning of the Shattered Kingdom. River Wars, Quarantine Wall, all that?”
“Right,” he said, letting her strength help pull him forward just a bit. “Of course, Shalcer was the king at the actual shattering of Druthal, and when he died the lords of Maradaine and the ruling council wanted to find someone strong to rule them. Shalcer’s son, Prince Malceen, was considered completely unfit. Some sources say he was even dumber than Shalcer, unable to speak in complete sentences. The court sequestered him off in a forgotten wing of the castle, and the lords selected one of their own, Cedidore, the second cousin of Shalcer, to be the new king.”
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