by Aaron Pogue
Corin wanted to pummel Kellen then, to drag him bodily down the stairs, but there was no time. With that limp, the soldier likely wouldn’t have made it if he tried. He might buy Corin time to get away, though. Furious, the pirate captain tore himself away and threw himself down the narrow stairs and into the cellar’s gloom. A moment later, steel clashed on steel overhead, and someone cried in pain.
Corin forced himself to run on. He could not have fought five men. Not without some trick, and he was out of tricks. His only choice had been to run. Anything else would have only gotten two men killed or captured instead of one. It was Kellen’s noble right to sacrifice himself. And for the greater good.
Not a word of that made running easier. Corin fought himself for every step until the narrow passages and the heavy stone walls cut off the sounds of fighting behind him and above. Then for the first time, he took some stock of his surroundings. This was not the wide, airy wine cellar he had expected of such a mansion. These were catacombs, close and cold, walled with ancient stone. The corridor was not more than a pace across, and every dozen paces it branched off to the right and left, or else it opened on a room filled with old crates or moldering documents or bones.
Every crossing corridor looked just the same, every storeroom identical. This might be a fine place to secure a precious relic, but Corin couldn’t guess where to begin. He saw no sign of Avery, either. The gentleman was well and truly gone. Corin cursed, showing aggravation to hide his fear, and moved deeper among the passageways.
Corin stepped into one of the storage vaults at random, out of sight, and stood for some time straining to hear any useful noise over the pounding of his heart. He could imagine the distant clang and crash of weapons, but he heard nothing else at all. No footsteps. No voices. No pursuit.
Perhaps Kellen was winning.
Corin dashed the thought. It was not worth hoping for. Kellen the Coward? Cruel though the reputation was, a soldier didn’t win such a name through battle prowess. Corin forced down the hope and focused on making the yeoman’s sacrifice worthwhile.
For now, he was mostly hiding. The catacombs made an excellent place for that. Strange magic flames provided some illumination at every crossing corridor, but shadows lay heavy between them, and the darkness in the vaults was almost complete. Only Corin’s well-trained eyes allowed him to recognize the shapes of crates and shelves.
The darkness made for excellent hiding but lousy searching. So, too, the extent of the catacombs, which at a glance seemed to cover at least as much ground as the sprawling mansion. Corin could easily have spent days searching among the vaults before he could find the one that held his object.
But it was not so difficult a thing as that. He knew that Ephitel had moved quickly, rushing from the dungeons to his home and then back to the palace. If he’d come into the cellars, he would not have wandered far or aimlessly. He would have chosen some special vault, or one that was nearby and handy.
Corin didn’t dare return to the rooms nearest the stairs, but they seemed unlikely candidates anyway. Too easily accessed. Corin set his hope on a more secure stronghold and, still straining his ears for any recognizable noise, he set off deeper into the gloom.
He’d made two turns in his first hasty flight, just to get out of sight, but now that he was farther from the stairs, he worked his way back toward the central corridor. That did seem the most likely. As he approached it, he paused again and again, expecting some sign of searchers, but there was none. He peeked around the corner when he reached it, then eased his stolen sword within its sheath and slipped onto that path.
No one met him, but at the next room he passed, he felt a little thrill of vindication. While the doors of the others stood open through empty stone archways, the rooms along this hall were sealed with iron doors. He felt the pockets of his cloak, searching out the flimsy lockpicks he’d borrowed from Parkyr, and tried them against the first door he came to.
The lock’s mechanism was not a complicated one, but it was heavily made and tough to turn. Corin quickly found the combination to the lock’s tumblers, but when he tried to turn the lock, Parkyr’s miniature tension wrench snapped across its middle. For one long, miserable moment Corin stood staring down at the easiest lock he’d ever failed to open. Then he remembered the torn handle of old man Bryer’s tin cup. He found it in a pocket of his cloak and bent it to the task. With a little force and an unfortunate metallic skreek, the heavy iron door fell open.
Corin darted into the room and pushed the door very nearly closed. He dropped the tin handle into the gap to keep the door from closing all the way, then turned away from the door and waited for his eyes to adjust.
What he found, to his surprise, was paper. Stacks and stacks of the stuff. Most of it was tied in bundles, wrapped in coarser parchment and bound with twine, but nearer to the door he found some open packages. Paper. Expensive material, by the feel of it. Soft and thin. Corin might have expected it for some manner of counterfeiting—perhaps to draft more of those writs of provender—but the sheets were too small. Any given piece was barely larger than Corin’s hand.
He wasted no time puzzling over it now. His goal was to find the sword, and it wasn’t in this room. The corridor outside was still deserted. Corin was able to force the next lock much more quickly, but inside that room he found only barrels. They were heavily sealed, and none of them tall enough to hold the sword, so he left them unexamined.
The next door opened smoothly, its lock newer or more carefully maintained, and Corin found a little workshop. A table against one wall held a set of heavy tools, an extinguished lantern, and a scattered pile of the small sheets of paper. On the left side of the table, stacked in a neat pile, were small bundles of the paper, wrapped into careful little cylinders that Corin could have easily concealed within his palm. He picked one up, surprised at the weight, and gashed the paper with his thumbnail.
Heavy grains spilled out across the back of his thumb, and the sulfur scent immediately warned him of danger. Dwarven powder. Not the fancy starlight stuff Corin preferred, but the explosive black powder that drove his ship’s huge cannons.
Tucked inside the paper packet, with a neatly measured dose of powder, was a single iron ball. This was a shot. Every packet was a shot, ready to cut a man down at sixty paces, and easier to load than anything known even in Corin’s time.
Corin remembered the stacks and stacks of paper. He remembered the crates he’d seen nearer the stairs. Were those full of musket shot? He groaned under his breath. The barrels. How much powder did Ephitel already have? How much more did he need from the dwarves to arm his regiments?
Too many questions. Corin had to carry word to Oberon. There was no more time for farces, no more time to play at madness. If the king did not act quickly, he was doomed. Corin grabbed a handful of the packets to take back as proof, but something panicky and hot burned behind his breastbone as soon as he did. He had no love for dwarven powder. Especially this sort. It had only burned him once, and only superficially, but it was devilish stuff. He settled for one packet and tucked it carefully into an inner pocket. Then he tore the rest apart, some minor strike against Ephitel’s plans, and scattered their dust across the floor.
For a heartbeat he wished he had some flint and steel, some spark, that he could use this bit of powder to reduce all the precious paper to so much expensive dust. But paper was not hard to come by, and Corin’s heart quailed at the very thought of lighting the powder. No. He would settle for this scattering. He gulped a calming breath and turned back to the door.
And saw the shadow of a man. His panic redoubled, but Corin fought it down, stealing closer to the door for a better view. He just had time to recognize Avery before the figure began to move again, back toward the stairs where they’d left Kellen.
Before he could go more than a step, Corin whispered, “Pssst. Nimble Fingers.”
Avery spun, stopped himself from crying out, then dove toward the door. Corin let him in, then eased the
door almost shut again. He waited for a count of ten, then heaved a weary sigh and asked quietly, “Avery…why are you crying?”
The gentleman didn’t sob. He dabbed a handkerchief to his eyes and answered gravely, “Because we’re going to die. Ephitel gets to be a god, and we all have to die. There’s no justice in it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“I’d like to slap you,” Corin said. “You and Kellen both. Keep calm and keep quiet. Isn’t that what you told Kellen?”
Avery shook his head. “That was before.”
“Before what? What have you seen?”
“Heard,” Avery corrected. “I found Ephitel.”
“Down here?”
“Indeed. And he has the dwarves.”
“That’s good,” Corin said. “They’ll keep him busy while we—”
“You don’t understand. He has the dwarves. They’ve already made a deal. He gets all the powder his wretched heart desires. The sneaking gnomes are even making him his hand cannons.”
“Guns,” Corin said, but Avery shook his head.
“That name isn’t large enough. I heard how Ephitel spoke of them. I saw Ephitel smile.”
The gentleman shook his head in tired melancholy, all the fight gone out of him. Corin sighed and stepped closer. “So?”
“So we are lost.”
“And that’s the end of it? Do you really want to die down here?”
Avery shrugged his shoulders.
Corin crowded closer still. “Do you want Maurelle to die? Because that is what comes next. A battle in the city streets.”
Avery narrowed his eyes. “Of course I don’t.”
Corin jabbed a finger in his chest. “Do you want Ephitel to win?”
“No!” Avery snapped. “I want him dead!”
“Good. Then we have work to do.”
Avery nodded, a spark finally catching in his eyes. “Of course! You’ve found the sword. That’s why you were waiting here.”
Corin had to sigh. “Alas. I haven’t found it yet. This is…just a storeroom.”
“Perhaps he’s wearing it. We could go and check.”
“You saw him?”
“From a distance, yes. He has another room like this, but wide as Oberon’s throne room. He’s meeting with the dwarves there.”
Corin frowned. “A room that large for Ephitel and three dwarves?”
Avery swallowed hard. “No. You must come and see.”
Now that he was in control, the elven thief showed an uncanny sense of direction in the gloomy maze. Corin tried to track the turns, but Avery moved as if on instinct. He picked a path deep into the cellars, until Corin felt confident they must be out beneath the lawn by now. Perhaps beneath the teeming plaza, though Corin had no guess which direction they’d traveled. What was west of Ephitel’s estate? Or north? The edge of the city?
He was pondering these things when Avery abruptly stopped. The gentleman’s voice shook a little as he said, “It’s just ahead. Around that corner. Move with care.”
Corin eased forward, and his straining ears picked up the sound of distant voices, blurred to a murmur by the earthy echo. He slipped around the corner and into a corridor that ended at an open iron door much like the ones Corin had picked before. This was another storage room, like all the rest, but the far wall had been torn down. The work had been done recently, for crumbled mortar and broken stone still littered the floor. Corin stepped past it, his attention drawn to the gallery beyond.
Despite what Avery had said, this room was nothing like the other vaults. It was an artificial cavern, wide and low, its unfinished walls of dirt, not masoned stone. Pillars every ten paces propped up a latticed ceiling of heavy wooden beams. Attached to every fourth or fifth pillar was one of the small barrels Corin had found in another vault. Black powder. Terror froze Corin in his tracks while his eyes picked out dozens of the little barrels, reaching deep into the distant gloom.
“He’s undermined the city,” Corin breathed.
“The Piazza Autunno,” Avery answered. “All the way to Marvolo’s, I think. And to Green on the west. And nearly to the palace bridge.”
“But how?”
Avery nodded toward the distant sound of voices. “As I said, he has the dwarves.”
Corin moved in that direction, flitting from pillar to pillar but avoiding any with a barrel at its top. As he moved toward the sound of chatter, he also found more and more light, not from the eerie magic flames, but from lanterns. Dozens of lanterns. Hundreds. Thousands. Corin pressed himself against a heavy pillar, showing the narrowest sliver of his face as he looked out on an army of dwarven miners, hacking away at the city’s bedrock. Ephitel and the three dwarves from the carriage stood watching them work.
“How can you claim this is not enough?” one of the dwarves demanded. “All seven of the Dehtzlan mines are sitting idle while we work for you. Three of our clans will starve if you do not deliver!”
“It is not your work that I find wanting,” Ephitel replied with the aggravated air of a man repeating himself yet again. “I need more powder!”
The dwarf rolled his eyes like a panicked horse. “How can you need more?” He sounded desperate. Terrified. “We have stocked this mine. We have stocked your troops, and more waits in your cellars. You must have enough by now!”
Ephitel’s lip curled as he looked down on the wretched dwarf. “For today, perhaps,” he said coldly. “But when I show my force, consider who will come against me. I need more for tomorrow.”
“Ask the heavens for more stars! Ask the seas to make more waves. We have buried you in powder—”
“There must be more. Find me more. Everything depends on powder.”
The dwarf scrubbed his hands over his face. “We have stripped the world of it. We have gained the suspicion of every clan by buying out their stores. Our alchemists work day and night—”
“And yet some filthy manling walks into my city with half a pound of the stuff in a leather bag.”
“I have told you, that would not have been our work. No one has sold powder to a manling.”
“Then he stole it. Where are there still stores to steal? I’ll send thieves of my own—”
“There are no stores. I swear by sand and stone. Search everywhere within this world, and you will not find another grain.”
Ephitel stood for a long moment glaring down at his confederates. He growled low and animal. “Make me more. Find me more. And do it quickly, or I will see that more than three clans starve.”
The dwarf went pale at that, and stammered, “No. No, my lord. Give us time. We will…we will find some way.”
“There is not much time to give. You have your orders.”
The exchange was quickly coming to a close. Corin pulled away, slipping far enough into the shadows to hide from sight, but still close enough to keep an eye on Ephitel.
Avery rejoined him, silent as a shadow by Corin’s shoulder until he whispered, “You see? What are we to do?”
“We must warn Oberon,” Corin said. “We shouldn’t even have come to see this. We must warn the king and quickly.”
“Warn him of what? What do you understand?”
“I understand that Ephitel has guns. He has the banned black powder—barrels and barrels of the stuff—and he’s asking the dwarves for more. The only thing I do not understand…” He trailed off, his gaze drifting up a nearby column to the powder keg bound up against the ceiling joist. “What does he have planned for those?”
Avery sighed, distraught. “I have been considering that. As I said, this cavern reaches nearly to the river bridge, and that’s the direction the dwarves are extending it. When the lord protector’s troops are ready, he’ll gather them here, explode the powder, and bring down the ceiling, opening a path straight to the palace.”
“Oh, no,” Corin said slowly, a new horror sinking into his heart. “No, that’s not his plan. He is the lord protector. He doesn’t need a secret tunnel through the city. He could march rig
ht in.”
“Not with ten thousand men.”
“Perhaps,” Corin said, thinking of the narrow doorway from the catacombs into this chamber. “But he could not bring that many men through here, either. And he doesn’t need that many men when he has guns.”
“Then why all this? It was no easy task to tame so many dwarves.”
“He means to bring it down,” Corin said. “He will collapse the plaza and everything up to the bridge. After his riflemen are in the palace. The regiments won’t be able to come to Oberon’s aid. No one will be able to reach the palace for hours. Maybe days.”
Corin thought of the crushing press of bodies in the plaza, the always-busy streets of the city, and a fire kindled somewhere in his belly. “He will kill how many thousand innocent people in the process? Gods’ blood, this will not end well.”
“I told you,” Avery said, his voice edging toward melancholy again.
Corin made no effort to soothe him this time. His eyes were on the imposing figure of the prince, moving now. The ruby on Godslayer’s pommel flashed and burned within the gloom. Corin watched the dancing flame cross the wide cavern, leaving all the dwarves behind. The pirate let Ephitel gain an easy lead, then dragged Avery after him.
“Aye,” Corin said. “You told me right. We are all going to die.”
“Then why are you smiling? What do you intend?”
“I intend to take that sword.”
“We don’t have time. Believe me, Oberon will grant an audience—”
“I need more than an audience. I need that sword. It’s the only way I can escape the madness that is coming.”
Avery stopped, stunned. “You think taking that sword may let you save Oberon’s life?”
That hadn’t been his meaning at all. Corin had no more hopes of thwarting Ephitel. But if he caught the prince off guard, if he could just wrest that sword away and run, he might yet leave this place before the waves came crashing down.
He could hardly say as much to Avery, though. Instead he nodded and said, “Aye. I think it is the key.”
“Then we must find a way to take it from him.”