As the dragon’s body made its halting progress up the side of the tunnel, its lungs heaving, Aaron saw that it was dragging up dozens of white ropes. They were thrown over its neck like bunches of dangling nooses. The Chalk must have used the dragon, maybe more than one, to drag up the ropes. They were putting the finishing touches on the net. Aaron supposed they used the dragon to haul up the cargo of knives as well, once enough of the net had been built.
The Chalk were focused on the dragon, and the dragon was focused on climbing, so they moved past the opening that hid Aaron without slowing. After about a minute the light was fading. Aaron peered out. He could see the climb continuing. Below him was darkness.
He pondered. He could wait for the odd convoy to finish its business and hope they continued down past him again. Or he could use the opportunity to dig a little deeper, keeping an eye on the convoy and beating them back to the hiding spot. Aaron decided to press his luck. He hadn’t raised an alarm yet. Despite the activity he’d just seen, the tunnel still felt deserted, lonely. Aaron carefully grabbed the net, checked above and below, and resumed his descent, this time without light.
Aaron had only gone another minute or so before he found the bottom. The vertical portion of the tunnel abruptly leveled off. Aaron gratefully put his feet on the ground and turned. There was a large dark opening ahead of him, roughly of the same girth as the tunnel but horizontal. The ropes dangling down the far side, over the opening, had been pinned to the sides, looking almost like a curtain framing a doorway.
Aaron checked above him. The faintest torchlight was visible, though it was difficult to tell if it was still moving upwards or had reached the top. Once they reached the top, they’d presumably dump the cargo, rest for a moment, then come back down. It would be best if he could get back to the small chamber before then, let them pass him again in the darkness. But he had to see a little more of the tunnel before going back up.
Aaron approached the opening, stepping in just far enough that his light would be hidden from above. He unsheathed and raised the blue light to get a better look down the tunnel.
It shone on the white faces of several Chalk, the closest only feet away from him. They leapt towards him, enraged at the intrusion. Aaron hadn’t drawn his sword and had no time before the first two fell on him. He whipped around, pulling his arms free, and managed to kick one in the throat, but five more jumped into the fray. In moments he was dragged to the ground.
Aaron fought in desperation as he felt the Chalk tying him. An overwhelming sense of frustration filled him. His opportunity was lost. He would die down here.
The Chalk tied his hands tightly, then dragged him to his feet. They pulled his sword belt off. Aaron stared tightly ahead, refusing to acknowledge his captors, who moved with efficiency, collecting his light and marching him down the tunnel. Every few steps, they would add a push, preventing him from catching his balance. They also were preventing him from thinking through a way out. From the swift manner in which they had captured, tied, and started moving him, Aaron guessed he was not the first such prisoner to be escorted down the tunnel.
The tunnel ran a long ways, almost straight east, as far as Aaron could tell. There were numerous large chambers dug off the main tunnel, holding areas for troops or more storerooms.
After nearly a mile, just as Aaron was stiffening for another shove from behind, the shove instead came from the side. He flew sideways through an opening in the tunnel he hadn’t noticed in his haste to keep his feet.
Aaron fell hard to a stone floor. He lay there for a moment, panting, his wrists bleeding onto the ropes binding them. The air was still. There was a warm light around him.
“Welcome, Aaron Lorne,” a cultured and lightly accented voice said. “It’s been a long time since we saw each other last.”
Chapter 29. Gelden Carr’s Office
Aaron’s cheek was pressed against the stone floor. It was oddly smooth, a contrast to the rocky and dirty tunnel he had been marched down to get here. It even looked as though it had been swept recently. He raised his eyes to examine the room where he had been brought. It was well lit, oil lamps standing in each corner. The walls, like the floor, were smooth and out of place this deep underground. Four Chalk stood at attention against the wall opposite the entryway. In front of them was a large ornate wooden desk. Seated at the desk was the owner of the voice that had greeted Aaron by name, the thing that he assumed must be Gelden Carr.
Aaron should have been more surprised by Carr’s appearance, but a part of him had known this was coming. The increasing pace of the last few days. The recycling of old tales. His own relentless digging, going deeper into the tunnel when he should have stayed above. Sitting in front of him at the desk was the Chalk who had led the Slaughter at Wyelin, the Chalk with the unnatural cleanliness, the chalkless Chalk. The enemy he had hunted since childhood sat before him. And had him tied, unarmed, and outnumbered.
Gelden Carr gave a cold smile that didn’t reach his black eyes. His face was smooth, hairless, misshapen. He had the characteristic high cheekbones, hollow cheeks, short upturned nose, and wide sunken eye sockets of the Chalk. His immaculate pink skin was striking. It made him appear less skeletal, less alien. He instead looked like a warped, twisted approximation of a human. His eyes were pure glittering black, slightly more round and protruding than a man’s, almost insectile. He had no hair, though his scalp darkened noticeably where hair would be on a man. Aaron looked closer and saw that thickening veins of blue-black blood just below his skin created the darkness. His lips were thin and uncolored, almost undetectable. Aaron could see no teeth, but the smile Carr was offering was tight-lipped. Carr was thin and long, like most Chalk, but he sat straight where most of them stooped.
He wore an embroidered black shirt. Dark patterns adorned the sleeves, the cuffs perfectly positioned with visible gold cufflinks. His clothes appeared new and well maintained unlike the rags of the Chalk behind him. Carr’s hands were carefully laid out on the ornate desk, no fingers overlapping. Several gold rings adorned the well-cared-for hands. No weapon was visible.
“Gelden Carr,” Aaron said, pulling himself to a sitting position.
Carr looked curiously at him, then gestured to the Chalk behind him. They hurried forward and dragged Aaron to his feet. A chair was produced and placed in front of the desk while the Chalk untied him. They wiped his bloody wrists with a rag, then retied his hands in front of him rather than behind. They led him in front of the chair and pushed him down into it. Aaron didn’t take his eyes off Carr the entire time.
Carr gave off an air of entitlement, of nobility. He waited with patience as Aaron was repositioned. Aaron sensed a dangerous power in the stillness of the creature. Aaron thought of the disjointed white rope net he had climbed down. The way the Chalk had built the net to resemble nets they had seen but did not fully understand. It looked as if they, or Carr himself, or someone, had built Carr in the image of a human noble, a man of wealth and power.
“You have grown,” Carr said.
Seeing the grim mouth move and the perfect, dignified voice come out sent a fresh wave of revulsion through Aaron. The words dragged him back, unwillingly, to the time a small boy had stood across from the monster, over the corpses of his family and tribe. He pressed his hands apart, longing for a blade. In his mind he was raising his black sword, smashing Carr’s misshapen skull, driving the sword through his black heart, tearing him limb from limb, painting the walls black with his blood. His mother. His friends. His people. His life. Everything this filth had stolen from him remained uncollected. The fury collected at the back of his neck, but his bonds were strong and his hands separated less than an inch.
“Come now, Aaron Lorne, the last of the Corvale that truly matter. Let us speak with dignity. If you attack me like a mad dog attacks its master, you will be put down. And we have so much to discuss. I have looked forward to this day a long time. And most especially I have longed for your company since I learned of your return
.”
Aaron composed himself and stared at Carr.
“Much better. You take direction well. Much like my own creatures.” Carr gestured to the Chalk behind him. “Tell me, how much do you know of the chalk, of the substance that makes us what we are? Surely not enough. I will tell you the story of us. You Corvale like stories, yes?
“We are born in the chalk, in the great pits of S’Kuhr, what you call the Ashlands. Our children, the S’Kuhr’Mar, come out of the womb clean, and are immediately rolled in great piles of chalk, even before their cord is cut. What you call the chalk makes us what we are. It becomes a part of us. It removes the distractions that weaken and divide you humans. Hope, fear, ambition, none of these survive the chalk. We are a people of order and achievement. We waste no time on fighting each other, on art, on study. We thrive and expand. We grow. And we have grown greatly in the past few decades, more than you can imagine.
“We are all of the chalk, but some of us rise above it. We become the leaders of our people. We are the Awakened. We are named. We are cleansed. We learn your hope, fear, ambition. We master it. We look to our enemies and learn their ways. We lead our people to glory. That they feel no glory is not important. What is important is that we grow stronger.”
Aaron thought back to Cal’s description of Zarus Coff, lines of pale flesh carved out of the chalk that covered the rest of his body. He must have been on the stage towards Awakening. They removed the chalk as some sort of sign of status. Aaron had examined Chalk corpses, he had scraped the white powder off of them. Underneath he found more white, their skin dyed. It was almost like two layers of chalk, one caked on the exterior, but another layer beneath, like it was a part of the vile creatures. The pure flesh, the pink skin he was seeing on Carr must take a long time of cleansing. The whole thing was uncomfortably close to the marking the Corvale had ritualized.
Carr continued, “Among the Awakened, I am of high standing. I lead the western armies of the S’Kuhr’Mar. I command thousands of my creatures, a dozen dragons. You have no army to compare to mine. Yet, you are the reason I am not more. You are the reason my name is now Gelden Carr, the ‘empty cup’.
“The Awakened are a secret. Most humans believe we ‘Chalk’ to be simple creatures. We are not. We only allow you to see the lowest among us, what you might call foot soldiers. You are not intended to see the Awakened and know that we are smarter than you. We plan your destruction tirelessly while you sleep, confident the pathetic fences you have built will keep out the Chalk. Our growth is inevitable, unstoppable. You share this world with us, yet you are not of us. You all must go.
“I was Awakened during a raid on a Vylass settlement. Twenty-five of S’Kuhr’Mar and ten of Jerr hounds attacked in the darkness. We killed the guards, we swarmed the people. All were killed. We looked for others but found none. We prepared to leave. As they walked past me, one of the Jerr hounds paused at a certain spot, looked around, then continued. I stopped walking and watched. A second Jerr hound did the same, pausing at the same spot. I stopped and watched the spot. Twenty-four of S’Kuhr’Mar left with ten of Jerr hounds. I remained. Nothing was said. We do not talk about such things. I stayed. The sun rose. As midday approached, finally a line of darkness appeared at the spot the Jerr hounds had paused many hours before. The line grew wider. It was the children. The Vylass had dug a hiding place in a covered pit. The children were hidden from our attack beneath a trap door covered in ash. I added ten more kills to our numbers. The children were defenseless.”
Aaron fought another wave of fury. He expected his mind to return to his young friends he saw killed at Wyelin, but instead he remembered the small group of Delhonne Corvale children. They were running around to escape the mock minotaur, then absorbing the love in their mothers’ eyes as they were handed their shepra to protect. The Corvale children were his to protect now. Gelden Carr would see all of Delhonne slaughtered. Aaron’s bonds were like iron. He needed to escape.
“When I returned to my camp, I told my leader what had happened. We immediately left for the Council of Ten. When I reported to them, I received my first cleanse. I was given my first name. From there, I grew into the greatest Awakened outside of the Ten.”
Carr leaned back, satisfied. “I earned much glory and respect. Until you, Aaron Lorne, saw me as an Awakened. The slaughter of our old enemy the Corvale should have made me the greatest in S’Kuhr. But you were not to know of our existence. I let a child escape me and tell others of the Slaughter and the Awakened who led it. That you did not tell many, and many you told did not believe you, does not matter. Your life was my failing. Something I will shortly remedy.
“My name was taken from me, replaced with Gelden Carr, a weak name. Though I still hold great power, there are many who doubt me. When I destroy Delhonne, it will shatter the human presence in the eastern part of your kingdoms. It will be the greatest triumph of the S’Kuhr’Mar. I have made it happen.”
“Well,” Aaron interrupted, “you and Grace.”
“Grace. You mock me. Grace was brought to me as a slave, naked and crying, tied hand and foot, on the night we first broke through the floor of his home. I found him surprisingly willing to betray your people. He believes you have wronged him. He craves your deaths as I do. I find it interesting that the house we surfaced in was filled with such a creature. Perhaps all the houses in Delhonne are filled with such disloyal, arrogant humans. Grace believes himself to be grand, yet he has done nothing. He bears a name he inherited. He did not earn it. He is like so many humans, so strong in the belief that they are great when they live such little lives. He thinks the glory of his ancestors is his because his parents gave him their name. He is wrong. There is nothing but what we do. He has done nothing. Your race’s self-deception is pathetic. Another reason you must go.
“It is no matter. Grace deserves no respect, no place in our discussion. He has no dragons, he has no worthy lieutenants. He bears no marks. I do note, however, that he was brought to me bound hand and foot, much as you were. You disappoint me, Aaron. You must be bigger. You are the child who defied me, escaped me. For you to be so weak is an embarrassment to me.
“I will see his marks,” Carr said to the Chalk behind Aaron. They swarmed around him. White hands pulled his limbs in all directions as he struggled. They tied his arms to the arms of the chair, then cut away his shirt.
Carr stood for the first time. Aaron noted his height, he was half a head taller than all the other Chalk. He approached Aaron at a stately walk and leaned over the chair, examining Aaron’s marks. He nodded in approval. “Yes, you have done well. This is good.” He hissed as he arrived at the image of S’Rghat Prison. “Excellent. I will gain much honor for your death.”
Carr straightened, standing near Aaron’s right hand. “You have no marks of me. You do me insult. That you have seen me and lived to tell about it is your greatest accomplishment. Our dragons met in battle over Delhonne. Your lieutenant slew mine the other night. Yet you insult me by not recognizing me.”
He leaned in close to Aaron, his clear voice now cloudy with anger, “I will slaughter your people once again, child, then you will show me the respect I deserve.” He turned to walk back to the desk. “I should have you painted. Have you ever been painted?” After a pause, Carr continued, “I see by your lack of fear you have not.”
Carr removed a small jar from a shelf in the desk. It looked like it might hold perfume or cosmetics. He opened it. There was chalk inside. “This is the pure chalk from the great pits. When we travel too far away from S’Kuhr, we sometimes need to refresh ourselves. My soldiers put a small dot on their foreheads. If I were to do that to you, your mind would die. We have studied its effects on many people. The dragons have greater resistance, but it still works on them.”
Fear crept up Aaron’s spine. He had seen the men in S’Rghat Prison who had been painted. They lived, but as shells of their former selves.
Carr walked back to Aaron. “I should have all your marks painted white. Yo
u would lose your mind before we finished. I have seen it many times. But I have something different planned for you. Still, it seems a shame to deny you a taste of the chalk from which we come. It has a very interesting effect on outsiders.”
Carr dipped a finger into the chalk, then ran it down Aaron’s tied right wrist. It was cold to the touch. Aaron was more repulsed by Carr’s touch than the greasy white powder. Carr crossed the line, making a T-shape on Aaron’s wrist, then replaced the cap and carefully wiped his hands clean. He looked expectantly at Aaron.
Aaron felt nothing at first. With Carr and the Chalk staring at him, he nervously probed his body and emotions and found everything intact. He found anger, he found sadness over the possibility of his failure, shame over his easy capture, faith in his friends, joy over the society of Corvale he had found, Miriam. His arm started a cold tingling. Then his emotions started sliding away. He was struck for a moment with the image of the mansion above, his feelings and ambitions stacked like boxes in the great hall, and then a tunnel opened up below him and swallowed them all into blackness. An all-consuming despair pulled him down into its depths. Once that wave of emotion had passed, nothing returned to replace it. He was alone in the dark, hollow. There was no point. There was nothing ahead but death. What he did between now and then didn’t matter at all. For the second time in his life, Aaron surrendered. There was no point. He let his chin sag onto his chest. His eyes unfocused.
Aaron had reached the destination Carr was guiding him to. “Now that you are ready to hear me, I want you to understand the scope of your failure. You returned to Delhonne with dragons. I do not know why. It does you honor that you tamed the dragons, but you will still die down here in this tunnel I have built. I will capture your dragons. My S’Kuhr’Mar will pour through Delhonne and kill every human in it. Delhonne will burn to the ground.
Night of the Chalk (Spies of Dragon and Chalk Book 1) Page 21