by J. M. Frey
“So, who are we looking for?” Pip asks, turning away to squint into the fog as the first monument rises to our left. It is a vain atrocity of raw marble, large enough for all four of us to camp in for the night and have room left over for the Library Lion. The further along we go, the more ornate the tombs will grow, though they won’t get much bigger. There is a limit to the size of slab a group of workers can transport, after all.
“King Chailin was the first of his dynasty,” I explain. “He was king of Hain two dynasties before the present one. Before that, he was the Minister of the Right, and he was appointed ruler in the field, after King Spiche fell in battle against the Centaur Horde. Spiche had no heirs. Chailin called a cease to hostilities and brokered a peace with the Horde, and, in return for the lives saved and his wisdom in calling for peace, the dryads of the forest—in which the battles were mostly taking place—presented him with a gift.”
“The Blade that Never Fails?”
“Yes. I don’t know what it looks like, though, but one can assume that a gift such as that would be buried with Chailin. I know it was not passed down to his heirs, or His Majesty, King Carvel, would have it.”
“He could have it, and you just don’t know about it.”
I level a look at Pip that communicates my thoughts on that possibility.
She giggles again, but it is more mindful and subdued. “Right, yes, of course, Master Shadow Hand. Obviously not. So, we’re just going to go and take it?”
“Borrow it,” I correct. “I see no reason not to return the enchanted knife to the dead king when we are done with it. I’m returning everything else.”
“Which is a damn sight more polite than most heroes do,” Pip points out.
“It is polite,” I say. “It’s the right thing to do.”
“Still, most people would want to hold on to a knife that can’t fail, whatever that actually means.”
“It does not belong to me,” I counter.
“Chailin is dead. It’s not like he’s going to mind.”
I can’t help the shivers that crawl up my spine. “You can’t know that for certain,” I say. “It is safer to ask permission, and to return the knife. Who knows if any curses have been laid upon it?”
In our last village, I made certain to obtain a charm to repel the dead for each of us—Pip and I are wearing ours around our necks, and Karl and Dauntless have each had the charm braided into their manes. I hope that is enough forethought for the Station that always surprises the hero, because I cast no spells save for Words, have no tricks beyond the strength of my blade, and no wards save those I was able to buy.
I am frankly ill-prepared for battling the darker sorts of magical creatures: ghosts, vampires, lichs, and zombies. In this, Bevel Dom’s preparation and knowledge far outpaces my own.
Not that there are probably zombies amidst the tombs of the kings—they are always lain to rest with the rituals and wards to protect their mortal remains from that very thing. I can’t imagine a vampire would choose to make his home amid the tombs, either; mortal travelers are too few and far between to sustain a vampire’s diet, and the creatures are such utter hedonists that I can’t imagine one wanting to live somewhere without velvet and silk, humidors and rich wine. If there are lichs, or ghosts, in this graveyard, they are not those of the great rulers of the past. They would be the leftovers of travelers long lost, or thieves who deserve their fates for trying to rob royal tombs.
I shift uncomfortably in my saddle. Pip and I have come to be thieves, too. What spells will lash out against us, I wonder. What foes will we have to face?
For the first few hours, it seems that the answer to that question is merely boredom and cold. No other opponents materialize to challenge us, and the most put-upon thing I must do is try to nudge Dauntless far enough up the slope of the valley to read the names of the kings and queens carved onto the lintels aloud to Pip. He always dances back to the path with a sense of urgency and relief, and it is becoming harder and harder to convince Dauntless to obey the press of my thighs and knees with each successive tomb. Very soon, I might have to start dismounting to check, and the thought fills me with trepidation. I’d rather remain seated, if I can—Dauntless can run very fast, and his hooves are shod in good dwarven steel, excellent for bringing down upon the head of a creature seeking to attack us.
The sun barely penetrates the gloom at the bottom of the valley, giving the light a watery blue quality and making it virtually impossible for me to guess the time of day. We ride until my stomach begins to rumble for its lunch. But neither Pip nor I are willing to dismount to eat, so we munch on dried fruit and meat as we persuade the horses to move further and further along the river.
There are only the sounds of hooves on gravel and grass, our own breaths, my heart in my ears, the shift of leather and clothing and tacking. No birdsong. No rustle of the wind. Not even the sound of anyone following us, which might or might not have actually been welcome, at this point.
Time passes—slowly, quickly, I cannot tell—and everywhere, skin-itchingly thorough silence. Pip is waiting for it, too, whatever it is going to be, the great plot twist, eyes rolling left and right so often now it almost appears as if she is watching a metronome.
If only the infuriating waiting for it would be over, I might just welcome this horrible twist.
“Intolerable!” I finally hiss. The sound of my voice cuts across the laden air, and Pip jumps in her saddle. “Apologies,” I say. “I didn’t mean to surprise you.”
“There’s the next tomb,” she says. She tries to coax Karl off the path, but he refuses to go.
“I will look,” I say, and Dauntless takes a bit more heel than is usual for him to obey.
I have to read the name three more times before I am certain that it is King Chailin’s tomb. But it is. We have found it. For some reason, this all feels too simple. Too easy. Perhaps too much of a trick. But the name doesn’t change on each successive read, and the styling of the tomb is correct for Chailin’s dynasty—all organic shapes and curved lines, the product of an era obsessed with nature and the attempt to recreate her in precious stones and delicate filigree. The plinths look like oak trees, and the panels of the door have been carved with leaping stags bearing tree-branch antlers, blossoming fruit trees, waving garlands, and nymphs and satyrs at play.
Such optimism Chailin’s rule had ushered in. The Spring King, they had called him. The man who began what his great-great-grandson, my King Carvel, has continued: the prosperous peace between the races. It is this that my brother enforces with his quests, routing the bad apples from humanity and the magical races alike to ensure that the peace prevails. While I may not prefer my brother’s methods or attitudes, I cannot deny the worth of his deeds and the benefit it has had on Hain. On all of the Four Kingdoms.
When I return to the path, I don’t get lost, or enchanted, or even tripped up. Pip is even right where I left her. Together, we dismount and draw our swords, just to be prepared. Pip is getting better with her own weapon, but always seems to halt our practice just as she is beginning to pick up a new technique. It is almost as if she fears becoming too proficient, which is a strange thing indeed to worry over.
We approach the tomb, but the wind does not pick up; there is no fateful moaning, and nothing screeches in to block our path.
Some of the stone of the portico’s knotwork has eroded so much that there are holes in the sculpture, and we loop the horses’ reins through one such gap, not at all confident that they won’t follow their clear desire to be elsewhere and abandon us if given the option.
I retrieve the Wisp lantern—repaired at the last village and supplied with a new Wisp—and gently stroke the creature awake. Once she is conscious and glowing, I close the glass door to protect her from the damp, and she jostles against the side of the glass, lifting the lantern in the direction she wants us to go.
“Bossy,” Pip says, but she says it with a smile, and I get the feeling that the Wisp approves.
At least the little thing isn’t scared of the gloom which stains the valley.
Pip tries the door of the tomb, and it, surprisingly, is not only unlocked, but easy to shift. It swings outward soundlessly, the silence of the hinges more eerie than a rusted squeal might have been, as it was the latter for which we were both braced. Swallowing down my fear and raising my sword, I hold the lantern aloft.
The shallow chamber beyond the threshold is just deep enough to hold a large stone box, roughly the length of a man, with enough clearance around it for mourners to attend the sarcophagus without banging their elbows into the walls. A row of shelving, at eye level, runs the entire perimeter of the tomb. Upon it, someone has placed those things which must have been sentimental for the deceased: a favored bow and arrow; small paintings of a woman and three young children; a second painting of the young children looking significantly more grown-up; a small chest opened to reveal a games set; a second chest framing a signet ring, a crown, and a chain of office not unlike the one I wear during official business as Lordling of the Chipping, but significantly more finely wrought and laden with a merchant’s wealth of precious stones; a child’s cuddly toy, the nap of the fur loved into patches, the glass eyes dull and cracked from thousands of childhood adventures; and a hundred other things that my eyes skim over.
Pip stops beside the toy and tentatively, carefully, rubs one of the round ears between her fingers. “Still soft,” she murmurs. “He must have loved this teddy bear a lot when he was a kid. It’s sort of sad that it’s not in the coffin with him.”
I make a noncommittal sound, and make my way over to the sarcophagus. As I expected, there is a bas-relief carving of King Chailin on the cover. His eyes are closed, as if in slumber, and for all that he was a crowned king when he died, he is dressed in the comfortable, simple clothing of a scholar. His house robe is patterned with the royal crest, however, and on his brow is a circlet made of actual gold and woven with green and yellow gems. Pip takes the lantern when I hold it out to her and stands by the head of the sarcophagus, inspecting the mosaic mural that fills the entire wall.
My eyes are for the dead king’s carved belt—and yes, there, on his hip, sits the dagger given to Chailin at the end of the Bloody Battle of Bigonner, which signaled the end of the human-centaur wars forever. His palm rests over the pommel, obscuring its shape, fingers loose against the guard, symbolizing both the peace this blade represents and his preparedness to use it to strike at those who would threaten it. That it was carved into the tomb lid gives me great confidence that it was buried with him. Now, to simply open it up without breathing in too much grave rot, or triggering any curses.
I check the seams of the sarcophagus, but there doesn’t seem to be any spells or wards carved, or melted into wax and placed along the seal. I give the lid a bit of a shove, pushing with both my arms and my hips, and am startled when the lid gives easily. There is no sucking pop of a broken seal, but I hold still all the same, listening, waiting, fingers curled on the lid and palms tacky with sweat and tomb-dust.
Silence.
A breath.
Nothing.
Relief floods through my limbs, but is very quickly chased away by dread.
Why was the seal so easy to break? And why were there no wards to rupture? I do not like the answer that occurs to me, and make haste shoving the lid all the way to the side. Pip hands me the lantern back, and I peer into the box. Oh.
No.
By the Writer, no. The coffin has already been shattered. The lid has been punctured by what appears to be a sharp blow, the dark wood scattered out of the way, the light wood exposed like vulnerable flesh.
King Chailin’s hand is visible, and if it was ever preserved before, the careless, crude, rude way in which his final sanctuary has been violated has let in the damp air. The hand is bloated and gray and half-turned to slime.
The smell hits me hard, and I reel back, gagging, trying very hard not to make the inconceivable sin of vomiting on a king. Pip makes a choking sound and turns her face away, both hands covering her nose. I bury my own in the lapel of my robe, which I bring up to shield my mouth and nose, and screw up my courage to look into the coffin again.
The knife was carved over the king’s right hip, which is where I assume he probably wore it in life. It is the right hand that is dissolving. Using the tip of my own sword, I nudge it aside at the wrist, and it leaves a smear of watery flesh and fat on the clothing in its wake. I half-brace myself for the hand to suddenly become animated, to clutch with unholy strength at my blade, or to try to reach up and throttle me. It only falls to the side, the bones breaking free of the meat like they do from an overcooked chicken.
I see the belt now, and with a second nudge, the scabbard of the dagger becomes visible.
Only the scabbard.
“It’s gone,” I manage to squeak. “Dear Writer. Pip! The knife. The scabbard is still here, but it’s empty. Someone’s already taken it.”
“What?” she says. “Let me see!”
She leans over the lip of the sarcophagus, her shirt pulled up to protect her nose, and moans. She directs my sword into more prodding. “Someone got here before us!”
“Yes, but a long time ago. Years, it seems. Maybe even decades.”
“Son of a bitch!” Pip snarls. “How’s that for a plot twist! Goddamnit!” She slams her palms against the side of the sarcophagus, making the whole room boom with her frustration.
“Careful, Pip,” I caution. “Respectfully, if you please.”
“Right. Sorry,” she apologizes to the king’s corpse. “That was out of line. I don’t suppose you want to tell us who took the Blade that Never Fails? We’ll fetch it back for you.”
She peers down into the abyss of the coffin for a long moment. The king makes no reply.
“Well, it was worth a try.” She sighs and rocks back on her heels.
“Now what?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Can we skip this and move on to the next Station? Maybe keep our ears out while on the road, see if we get another clue?”
“No,” Pip says. “It has to go in order. We have to find the knife first. Dammit, I thought things were going too well.”
And that’s when a flash of gold leaf on the wall catches both the light and my eye. I take a step closer, and the colors reveal themselves to be a mosaic of Chailin and a dryad. Between their fingers is balanced what can only be the Blade that Never Fails.
Incredulity swoops into my gut so quickly that the world actually spins under my feet. I have to lay my free hand on the corner of Chailin’s tomb to remain upright.
The knife in the mosaic is blocky and crude, the hilt gilt and patterned with precious stones that are arranged to mimic blooms.
But, above all, the blasted thing is familiar. The last time I saw it, it was slightly tarnished, half of the precious stones missing, and embedded in my ballroom floor, scant breaths away from my fencing boot, waggling at me like a taunt.
Sixteen
I cannot manage to make the campfire grow beyond a sizzling, popping misery of smoke and embers, which is probably a good thing. We are chilled, but the light of the fire would probably attract some of the less savory denizens of a graveyard, if there are any.
There is not enough time before nightfall to backtrack out of the Valley of the Tombs, and I don’t know how much farther it is to the exit on the other side, either. Neither of us wanted to be caught here after dark, but we have no other options. We are too heartsick, and the horses too tired, to go on.
Desperate for shelter but still wanting to be respectful, we build our campfire and lay our sleeping rolls on the marble balcony of King Chailin’s portico. It is just wide enough for Pip and I to wind together under the blankets without fear of tumbling down the three steps to the ground. The fire is at our feet, and the horses are crowded up as close as they are able to come. Karl and Dauntless refuse the gray-green grass and must be nose-bagged. They champ warily on oats and watc
h the mist, flanks shuddering.
What little light the fire offers is reflected in the sparks of precious metal that have been hammered into the veins of the marble around us. It throws up a sort of eerie luminescence that makes it hard for me to fall asleep. Pip drops off as soon as she’s snugged in beside me, head on my shoulder and knee hitched up along my hip, breathing even and slow, if shallow. She is tense in my embrace, ready to wake at any moment.
I don’t recall drifting off, which is why, when I awaken, it takes a moment for me to figure out what’s changed. I can hear Pip—her soft, low moan, the unbearably sexy intake of her breath—but the blankets beside me are cold, thrown back to allow the chill in. I shiver all over and stand, pulling on my boots and wrapping my belt around me, adjusting the fall of my sword against my leg as I trot down the stairs. Pip makes that incredible hitching sound that always lodges in her chest when she is close to her peak, and I am both aroused and confused as to why she is making such sounds elsewhere.
Surely she hadn’t decided to wander off, alone, into a potentially haunted graveyard to pleasure herself, when all she had to do was wake me if she was feeling like she needed attention. Surely?
“Pip?” I call softly, hoping she’ll be able to hear me over the sounds she’s making. I can only just follow them, the noises strangely muffled by the mist.
Another moan, this time louder, almost as if in answer. I pluck at my flies to relieve the pressure and round King Chailin’s daughter’s tomb. “Pip, what are you doing out here? Come back to bed.”
This time, the moan sounds like a word: “No.”
“No?” I echo, and peer around the corner, smiling, ready to tease. “Why do you say—”
I stop. Shock slams into me, so profound that it feels as if my feet have been grabbed by corpses and I am being pulled under the topsoil.
Pip is standing, half curled over a man’s arm in the moonlit mist. She has got her hands in his pale wrist, digging in with her fingernails and drawing blood. Her face is hidden by the ebony fall of her hair, but what little of her neck and jaw I can see is red with rage, or arousal. She is sobbing; I am close enough to hear it now, pained and frustrated. And, clearly, it has been going on for a while. It reminds me sharply, shamefully, of the terrible crying jags to which I had accidentally borne witness in Turn Hall. It occurs to me that I am a stupid twat for believing they had simply stopped as soon as we’d begun our adventure together.