“Three,” I corrected. “Not counting the endless parade of Seekers who have gotten all glittery-eyed at the thought of pretty treasures.”
Heidi made a throaty Mm kind of noise, as though it was all the same to her.
Carson looked sadly at the picture. “But all that stuff.”
Heidi shared a look with me. And then she softened; just a mite, but that was a lot by her standards. “To be fair,” she said, “I suppose it was about time for you to latch onto that one.”
“The margin does say that most people agree it’s probably a hoax,” Carson admitted slowly. Eyes scanning quickly, he went on, “But then the author goes on to wonder if there’s some truth to it, buried under the lie.”
“There’s not,” I said flatly. “That’s what Ostiagard is: ‘the City of Lies.’”
Heidi fidgeted. It was a subtle sort of squirm, as though a cold breeze had swept through her, but I caught her.
Carson was still stuck on his train of thought though. “But what if it’s not?”
“Then a whole lot of people have been searching in vain for hundreds of years,” Heidi said.
“Thousands,” I put in.
“Mm,” Heidi said again with a nod.
Carson began, “But …”
But for his own good, this folly needed to be stamped out of Carson, the same as it had been stamped out of me, and just as I imagined it had been snuffed out in Heidi. So we continued.
“Every inch of that city has been combed over,” Heidi said.
“Every millimeter.”
“The towers of Maradril?”
“Check.”
“The ancient gladiator pits?”
“Check.”
“The flipping subterranean cisterns of the gold city?”
“Check-a-roonie,” I singsonged, counting off another finger. Carson eyed me, mouth partway open and pulled to one side. I just waggled them at him.
“This myth is so pervasive and has been so long-lasting,” Heidi went on, “that Seekers have even donned scuba gear and combed through the mud in the harbor.”
“With their fingers,” I said, and waggled again, all eight.
“Ostiagard has nothing,” Heidi said. “Nada. Zip, zero, zilch.”
“Zzzz … nothing,” I said, failing to find an alliterative synonym. Then, just to prove I did in fact know a Z word: “Zebra.”
Carson’s peculiar look at me became only more befuddled. “Zebra?”
“The place is empty,” Heidi said, leaning forward and tapping the open pages of Carson’s book and the lie contained upon them. “An empty burrito. Which is what it felt like I ate earlier. Hence the curry.”
Carson’s gaze lowered to the illustration. Looking somewhat melancholy—which was good for him, really, because it got this whole conversation out of the way now rather than later—he mumbled in a distracted voice, “At one a.m.”
Heidi fidgeted, opened her mouth—
“But see, this says,” Carson started up with renewed vigor, “it suggests that the treasure might not even be in Ostiagard.” He ran a closely trimmed fingernail beneath the curiously proportioned text. “Ostiagard was invaded by—”
“Just about everyone,” I said. “Vardinn, Mirrish …”
“Pharo,” Heidi added.
“Pharo’s in the same world, right?”
“Mm.”
“Are the Pharo … like Bub?” Carson asked slowly.
“No,” said Heidi. “Although, don’t get me wrong, the Vardinn and the Mirrish are weird. Not like orcs, though. The Pharo are like us. Ish.” She added, “I’d be surprised that your book didn’t share any pictures of them if it weren’t all lies and false hope anyway.”
No answer from Carson; just a frown into the yellowed pages open on his lap.
I decided to leave it for now. He might not yet be convinced, but maybe he needed some time to reflect. Even better, he might seek to check the truthfulness of our words—and no doubt this library held, somewhere, a thorough history of Ostiagard. Actually, going by the size of this place, and the infamy of the City of Lies, there were probably stacks of exposés. They’d be garbled somewhat, and I wouldn’t be surprised if half took a conspiratorial sort of look at the city’s history. But I trusted that with repeated exposure, Carson would come around and realize that, like all of us, he needed to put aside any hope of Ostiagard holding some great treasure that could forever change our lives.
Heidi had seemingly decided the same, because she exchanged a look with me and swallowed a yawn. She stretched. It was time for bed. I still had marachti and Borrick and the Tide of Ages and Heidi dying to sleep off.
Just as I opened my mouth to say goodnight to Carson, already beginning to pivot on my heel—
“But what if—” he started.
I groaned. “Carson …”
“Just hear me out,” he said.
“It’s one in the morning,” Heidi complained.
“Which is the perfect time for a curry, apparently,” said Carson.
Heidi hesitated. Her lips twitched, clamped firmly together. No riposte this time.
“Look, I’ve heard what you’ve said,” Carson began.
Have you?” I wanted to say, but didn’t.
“And here’s what bothers me,” he went on. “It’s a city. A huge one, going by this. Like the … the New York of this world. But more like the New York of … of a hundred worlds, or a thousand, or …” He grappled, eyebrows drawing into a line; probably about to ask just how many worlds there actually were feeding into Ostiagard. The inquiry was sidelined though, because after a moment he said, “Doesn’t it just seem a bit ridiculous to you that a city like that doesn’t have some kind of treasure? All the other ancient empires have something. You’re really saying that Ostiagard doesn’t?”
“Look,” I said. “How much debt do our two nations have, combined?”
“Err … how would I know that?”
“You’ve just got that look about you,” said Heidi.
“Uh …”
“I don’t know how much it is either,” I said quickly. “I’d have to Google it, or whatever. But the amount is irrelevant, other than the fact that we do have debt. The point I’m making, Mr. Yates, is that it’s very easy for an empire not to have anything to their name. All you have to do is spend more than you take in. Carry on doing that for, oh, I don’t know, a few hundred years, and you don’t have a treasury. You have a room full of dust.”
“But you still have treasures,” said Carson. “Remember when we met? Before I helped you with the Chalice Gloria, you said I should check out the National Gallery. And that’s jam-packed with things. Things like the Chalice.” He pointed past us.
I glanced around.
Atop the fireplace, stood as perfectly centered as I could get it, was the Chalice Gloria. The dimmed lights from overhead were faintly mirrored in the gems that encrusted the goblet. An even more ghostly reflection danced in the undersides of the gemstones: the flicker of the flames lighting the floor, bouncing back and forth softly, softly.
I felt a guilty stab. If not for Carson, the Chalice wouldn’t have been here right now. And that tour of the National Gallery I’d recommended he go on? I’d made it with the intention of getting rid of him.
“And our Fort Knox,” he continued, then corrected, “Well, Federal Reserve now, I guess. We might have, like, trillions of dollars in debt, or whatever …”
“Knew you’d have some idea,” said Heidi.
“It’s the glasses,” I said.
“Like a little accountant.”
“But it’s still full of gold,” Carson cut across us. “Empires don’t just hit zero on their balance sheet and have nothing to their name. I’ve studied a little accounting—”
“No kidding,” Heidi said.
“—and Ostiagard might have had debits, but they would’ve had assets too. So how is it that you and everyone else are so sure they didn’t have anything valuable left at all?”
No. He didn’t. Whatever assets had once belonged to Ostiagard had been, I don’t know, sold or something to fund the city’s expansion. The coffers were empty, which had been proven to be the case by three invading armies and over two thousand years’ worth of independent Seekers.
There couldn’t be anything left.
Yet I found myself unable to say so, because …
I glanced at Heidi, wondering if she felt it too.
She glanced at me. She was caving, I could tell; her posture had loosened, and she’d slumped, softening.
She had no arguments. Or maybe she did. But there was something else in her eyes—and it was the same as what I was certain was in mine, because a quiet moment of understanding passed between us … and then she nodded. Just once, and very small; acquiescence more than agreement.
I glanced back toward the fireplace.
The Chalice Gloria. My quest. We’d come together, worked together, and found it.
We’d done the same in seeking the Tide of Ages for Heidi.
So it was only fair …
I tried to keep from groaning, knowing how this would turn out. But it was the right thing to do.
“All right,” I said, “we’ll look into it.”
Carson’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?” he breathed, as if he didn’t dare hope.
“Sure,” I said. “What harm could it do? Let’s, you know, tread in the footsteps of the greats and see if we find something they’ve missed.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Heidi said kindly. I shouldn’t have been quite so surprised by her tone—but then how many times had I heard her sound so agreeable? I could count on the fingers on one hand, I was sure.
Carson leapt up, pumped a fist. “YES!” Then he grappled both of us into an awkward hug—Heidi’s half more awkward for the oversized book Carson still gripped with one hand, finger positioned to keep his place.
“Uh …” she said.
I laughed. “Easy, tiger.”
Carson backed off. “Sorry.” He grinned sheepishly. “Just excited. A quest. It’s cool, you know?”
“Definitely,” I said.
“And I think I know just where to start, too …” And he veered around us, mumbling a quick goodnight, and buried his face deep in the pages once again.
Behind him, Heidi and I exchanged another look. She looked resigned. And I suppose I did, too. Guilty, as well, I was sure because we were certain to come up empty-handed. And on the road to that point—on the road to Carson’s dreams shattering—an awful, awful lot could go wrong.
3
This place was dusty.
Not a great first impression.
We’d ridden the Underground most of the way through South London, almost to the termination point. These were the parts of the train ride I always found weird: where we left the central, most used zones, and the tube spilled out overground instead of surging through the cylindrical tunnels that wound under London like catacombs. It was just too bright, and much too quiet.
Of course, it was nothing like the place we’d stepped out into after we cut our gateway.
I exited first and immediately turned up my nose. There was an unpleasant smell in the air, some strange mix of fire and encroaching rot, a sour undertone that hadn’t been able to truly take hold.
With my first step, I stumbled. My foot came down not on solid ground, but on metallic rubble that formed a mound around our exit point. I jagged sideways, throwing my arms out, and bit back a curse just as Heidi stepped behind me, exactly in time for her to see me land on my knees.
“You’ve accomplished much, Brand,” said Heidi, “but I have a lesson to share which I trust you’ll listen to.”
“What’s that?”
“Always look where you’re going.”
She took much more careful steps through the wreckage underfoot and took my arm.
Carson appeared behind us. He opened his mouth to say something—and immediately misstepped, yelled, and slid onto his backside. His manbag smacked him in the side of the head on the way down, eliciting an Oof! I wasn’t sure whether it was proof the universe was cruel, or that it had a sense of humor.
“Watch where you put your feet,” Heidi told Carson as we climbed back to him.
“Sorry,” he wheezed, then cleared his throat. “Um. Little help?”
Heidi helped him up—although I’d struggle to call it that. He wobbled madly, and Heidi, half his size, barely managed to remain standing.
“Sorry,” he said again.
She replied with a throaty noise of discomfort, then stepped away, looking discomfited.
All our scrabbling had kicked up a cloud of tan dust. It lingered in the still air like a veil. The heat didn’t help matters: the dust immediately clung to our already sweaty skin.
Carson coughed. Rearranging his manbag at his side then taking his glasses off to check they weren’t broken, he glanced around us. “Where’d we come out?”
As one, we eyeballed the place our gateway had exited from. Gargantuan and dark, its metal surface might have glimmered at one point. Now it was dull. Subtle lines were carved all across it, reminding me of patterns on a circuit board. Dust, reddish like the surface of Mars, had filled in the lines, making them hazy and indistinct.
Only one clean spot remained: a vaguely oval space where we’d come through. The gateway’s exit had apparently forced all the dust from this great …
“War machine,” Heidi said, as if hearing me grope for the word.
Carson breathed, “Do you think it still works?”
“Don’t know,” said Heidi. “Don’t care.”
“Even if it did, it’s not really going anywhere, is it?” I said. “We’re in the middle of a debris field.”
Carson distractedly tore his gaze from the abandoned ruin, scouring the immediate vicinity. “Right.” But though his eyes roved across the rusted scatterings of shattered buildings, crushed weapons, and fragments of broken armor long robbed of even the bones occupying them, he did not seem to take it in.
Of course, I didn’t blame him for his distraction. This battleground bordered the crumbling city. We were right on its doorstep.
Carson stared at the broken city wall.
“The attackers did a real number on it, didn’t they?”
“It’s still standing,” said Heidi dryly.
“Not much of it.”
No, not much at all. The top of the wall was gone entirely, and the destruction rained down upon it had rendered the upper edge a mad scrawl that forked up and down without rhyme or reason. In places, the metal supports around which the wall had been constructed reared skyward, unclad and naked. Some remained straight, but most were twisted and blackened.
The city was bared for us to see.
It too had been devastated, buildings felled and the rubble left. Yet most stood—the ransackers had decimated the city wall, but their task of razing the city to the ground had been left incomplete.
“Those buildings look … kind of big,” Carson pointed out. “Right?”
“Of course they are,” Heidi said.
“Right.” Carson nodded, swallowed. “The Vardinn are cow people.”
We stood in uneasy quiet for a moment more. Here, bracketed by the ruins of a city on one side and the hulking remains of a war machine come to crush it, standing amidst the debris of a long-ended battle, we were caught in limbo. And I had no idea whether to proceed, or just follow the butterflies in my stomach and cut another opening on this behemoth behind us and go back to London.
Heidi chose for us. “Let’s go, shall we?”
“Right,” Carson agreed. “Yeah. Let me just …” He frittered in his manbag, retrieving his phone. He tapped, opening the photograph of a map he’d taken—yay for technology. “I’ll lead.” One step later he flailed, sliding down the rubble and cursing.
“Eyes on where you’re walking,” Heidi said.
“Right.”
“Same goes for you, Mira,” she said. “I’d rather not hold your hand if I can help it.”
I pointed. “Maybe you should hold his.”
Carson had almost gone over again. Straightening, he called, “I’m okay!” and continued his trek to the city wall.
Rolling her eyes, Heidi followed in Carson’s wake. I brought up the rear.
We must’ve looked an odd bunch. Carson wobbled every other step, throwing out his arms and contorting his body but never finding secure footing. I stumbled my own share of times, but never as wildly as he did. And Heidi navigated the route with ease, somehow finding stable spots amidst the detritus where she could put her feet and remain balanced. I was reminded of a cat moving through a minefield, somehow slotting its paws exactly into the right places.
We came to a section of the wall where it had been almost razed to ground level. Dust blanketed it.
Carson climbed over. On the other side, he grumbled, frowning at the dusty marks left on his trousers.
Heidi, behind him, said, “Note to you, Carson: better footwear. Loafers aren’t built for this.”
“I like them,” he said.
“I don’t, and neither does anyone else your age. Unless you’re secretly an old man.” She crossed, and eyed the dust now covering her own legs. “Ridiculous.” She glared over her shoulder. “Stupid Vardinn. Make your city somewhere with actual water, why don’t you?” She brushed her backside as she grumbled, loosing dust where it had stuck to her.
Carson looked intently in a different direction, lips pursed and cheeks blooming.
After a few moments of this, I said, “You want to keep moving?”
“Right.” His eyebrows darted sideways at Heidi—still very focused on loosing every speck of powder from her bottom—and then turned away. “Let’s go then.” And off he went.
Heidi frowned behind him. “What’s gotten into him?”
I shook my head. “Keep up, Luo.”
The streets were littered with debris too, though nowhere near as thickly as area beyond the wall. Most of the rubble here came from the felled buildings, so it clustered where the damage had been done. These wrecks were barely recognizable; untouched for centuries, the blanket of dust making them look as if the ruins had been draped in a thick red-brown blanket.
The City of Lies (The Mira Brand Adventures Book 3) Page 2