She was right. It sounded a damned sight better than what I had planned.
I felt the pull of my heart from somewhere beneath us. This close, it filled me, thrummed through me like a deep bass note.
“It’s below us,” I said. “My… My memories.”
Sword drawn, lantern raised, Shalayn approached the steps down. Again, I followed.
“We’re definitely coming back for some of the wine before we leave,” she said over her shoulder.
I knew better than to argue.
Sword held before her, lantern raised to light the way, Shalayn descended. She hugged the outer wall to give herself as much warning as to what awaited around the bend as possible. Moving slowly, she took her time with each step, waiting for something to leap out and attack.
At the bottom of the stairs, she paused. A long hall cut the tower in half, with doors on either side. At the far end, another set of stairs continued down. The doors—five on each side—were labelled in a strange, jagged script that glowed like fire in the lantern light. I joined her.
“Can you read that?” I asked.
“Nope. Guild Cant. Secret language.”
“Fucking wizards.”
Ignoring me, she moved to the first door. Reaching for the knob, a round ball of shiny glass, she hesitated. “What if it’s trapped?”
“We could leave it and keep going down?” This close to a shard of my heart, I itched to keep moving. It still lay somewhere below us.
“I don’t like leaving doors behind me. Leads to surprises later.”
“Up to you.”
“Screw it.” She opened the door, peering in. “Whoa!”
I leaned to look over her shoulder. A palatial suite lay beyond. A bed large enough for a half dozen folks to sprawl comfortably lay against one wall. Sheets of grey silk glowed lustrous in the lantern light. Huge armoires of oak and mahogany lined another wall. An open doorway led to a spacious office with a colossal desk and rows of shelves lined with books. Sheets of paper, ink pots, and a selection of quills lay neatly arranged upon the desk. Another open door led to what looked to be a water closet finished in brass and marble.
Shalayn entered the bedroom, and I followed close behind. Crossing to the office, she ran a finger across the surface of the desk.
“No dust,” she said, holding up the finger like I might not believe her.
“Fucking wizards.”
She turned a complete circle. “Is this… Isn’t this too big?”
“For one person, yes.” Though somehow, I felt immediately at home in the luxurious surroundings, like this was what I was accustomed to.
“No, for the tower.”
“It’s pretty big.”
She passed me on her way back into the hall. Crossing, she opened the door on the opposite side. An equally large room lay beyond. Whoever decorated this one preferred gold and purple.
“Wizards are a crass and tasteless bunch,” I said.
“No way it’s this big.” She held up a hand, interrupting me. “I know, fucking wizards.”
“That’s not what I was going to say,” I lied.
In rapid succession, Shalayn threw open the rest of the doors. Each opened to a suite including a massive bedroom replete with a huge bed, secondary offices, walk-in closets, and a room for toiletries. Even wizards, it seemed, had to shit.
After throwing open the last door, she went in to explore. Whoever decorated this room liked forest-green and deep velvet.
“If we’re stuck here,” she said, “at least we’ll be comfortable.”
“You see lanterns or candles anywhere?”
“Nope. Maybe that stuff is downstairs.”
I blew out my lantern. “We should conserve oil,” I said, “just in case. It’ll be awfully dark in here.”
Shalayn headed into the water closet, and again, I followed. It looked oddly clean. A marble toilet sat next to what looked like a knee-high water fountain. Water ran continually, climbing to mid-thigh height. I glanced into the toilet, expecting to see more water but only impossible black lay at the bottom. Sheets of soft paper, no doubt meant for wiping wizard ass, sat piled nearby. Selecting one, I dropped it into the toilet. The sheet disappeared the moment it touched the black.
“What do you suppose happens to wizard turds?” I asked Shalayn, who’d stopped to watch me.
“They probably teleport it somewhere.”
“Could this be our escape?”
“Into a huge underground repository for wizard shit? No thanks.” She tilted her head, thinking. “Anyway, it’s just as likely they incinerate it, or it leads to the bottom of the ocean.”
It did seem unlikely they’d leave a handy escape portal in their tower.
At the far end of the water closet was a separate room, again finished in white marble. Perfectly spaced holes riddled the ceiling and a drain lay in the centre of the slightly concave floor.
Shalayn stuck her hand in and water immediately rained from the ceiling. “It’s warm,” she said, wiping her hand.
“We won’t starve or die of thirst.”
“And,” she said, “we’ll sleep in majestic comfort.”
“In eternal dark.”
“Doesn’t sound all bad.”
It didn’t. But there was something in this tower I wanted. Something I needed. This close, its call was deafening.
“If nothing else,” said Shalayn, “we can sell some of these silk sheets. The bedding alone is worth a fortune.”
I wanted to stuff them all in the toilet to be incinerated or teleported away just to annoy whatever wizards slept here. I kept that thought to myself.
“There’s that look,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You want to crap on the beds or shove the sheets in the shitter or something.”
“Let’s keep going,” I said, getting impatient. More of me waited below. It felt it like the tug of a fish hook in flesh. I wanted to know what I was, why the wizards broke me.
“No sense of adventure,” said Shalayn, pushing past me and heading back into the hall.
We walked to the far end, peering down into the dark where the curve of the stairs went beyond the light of our lantern. Shalayn was right. This tower was much bigger on the inside than the outside showed to be possible.
We descended.
The next floor looked like a museum. Rows and rows of shelves and tall cases turned the space into a maze. Assorted objects from rocks, to armoured helms, to kitchen implements, to feathers and damned near anything else I could think of, lined the shelves. That strange, jagged script—Guild cant—labelled everything with eerily glowing letters.
“We’re going to be rich,” said Shalayn.
“You’re going to be dead,” said the wizard who appeared before us as the entire ceiling suddenly glowed bright.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Shalayn, who still had her sword drawn, put it in the wizard’s throat even as I started to say “Don’t kill him!”
Her sword was faster than my mouth.
The wizard blinked in surprise like it never occurred to him someone might have the audacity, the utter gall, to put steel in him. He coughed bright blood. His lips moved as if trying to speak. A hand rose, fingers twitching. Shalayn severed it and then stuck him in the chest.
“I think he was trying to cast a spell,” she said, as he crumpled at our feet.
The mage coughed more blood and she neatly slid the blade between the fourth and fifth ribs. He went rigid like all his muscles contracted at the same time, shivered, and relaxed, sagging loose.
“Dead,” I said.
“Good.”
“I hope we don’t need him to get out,” I said. “Couldn’t you have knocked him unconscious instead?”
“No.” She shot me an annoyed look. “An even halfway decent wizard can cast with nothing more than concentration and a few gestures. Only acolytes run around screaming spells like you see in the plays.”
Having no memory of ever having seen a play, and knowi
ng next to nothing about wizards, I decided to let it go.
“My—” I caught myself before I said heart. “The piece of stone with my memories is somewhere in this room. Let’s find it and get out before another wizard shows up.”
I prayed Tien was right and we’d wander out the front door without difficulty. The fact that the rooftop door didn’t open easily from the inside, however, hadn’t filled me with confidence.
Shalayn glanced at the many shelves lined with stones of every shape, size, and colour. “How do we find it?”
“I’m drawn to it. Shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“We’ll split up,” Shalayn suggested. “You get the stone, I’ll look for that ring Tien wants.” She flashed a fast grin. “At least we can see now.” She doused the lantern.
I glanced at the glowing ceiling, half expecting it to begin fading. It didn’t. “Let’s move fast.”
Picking an aisle with shelves loaded with trinkets and jewellery, Shalayn set off.
“Don’t touch anything!” I called after her. “Specially the ring!”
She replied with something rude.
Turning away, I followed the pull of my heart. Passing several aisles of swords, assorted weapons and armour, I found one where the shelves were covered in rocks. From tiny shards little more than grains, to skull-sized boulders, they came in every colour imaginable. Chips of slate-grey shale lay next to nuggets of gold. Crystals of purple amethyst caught the light and sparkled the ceiling in rainbows. Diamonds, rubies, and emeralds lay everywhere. If we could carry out even a fraction of this, we’d be set for life.
I stopped, staring at a fist-sized diamond with thousands of facets. Glinting hard and bright, it was somehow menacing. Why didn’t the thought of an easy life of luxury appeal to me? I realized I was more interested in the wealth as a means to fund my search, than as an end in itself. I liked Shalayn, a lot. Maybe I even loved her. But did I want to be with her forever? Did she want to be with me?
“But I’m happy with her,” I whispered.
So why not leave it at that? What could be better than being happy and wealthy with a good woman at my side? I remembered the speed and utter lack of emotion with which she killed the wizard. Could I do that? I wasn’t sure. I’d murdered the trapper because I had to, and I’d been more animal than man at the time. And I’d split my own skull, though again it seemed like I had no choice; one of us had to kill the other to get at his heart.
What about that youth, the Septk? Him, I didn’t have to kill.
I pushed the memory aside.
I found the shard of my obsidian heart lying amidst a mix of equally nondescript black stones. Had they thought to hide it from me? Did the wizards think I wouldn’t immediately know which one was me?
I reached for the stone and stopped. The last time I touched one it sank into my flesh and tore through me on its way to my heart. After, I spent an unknown amount of time sprawled on the ground, unconscious. Much as I wanted what was in this stone, I couldn’t do that without first warning Shalayn. And this probably wasn’t the best time for unconsciousness.
“You find the ring?” I shouted.
“No!”
“I found my memories!”
“Hold on,” she called. “I’m coming.”
A moment later Shalayn appeared. She bit her bottom lip, chewing nervously as she eyed the arrayed stones. “There’s a fortune in here.”
I nodded agreement. “One of those little black ones,” I pointed at the shelf, “is me.”
“Okay.” She studied me now.
I decided to tell her. “When I pick it up, things will happen.”
“Bad things?”
“Well, painful things. It’ll sink into my skin. I’ll probably flop around on the floor screaming in agony as it moves through me.”
Pale eyes narrowed. “Where is it going?”
“To my heart, where it will join the chunk of stone already there.”
She looked from the flake of rock, to me. “You’re telling me you have a heart of obsidian, black and brittle and sharp.”
“It sounds bad when you say it like that.”
Shalayn snorted an unladylike grunt.
“Last time,” I said, “I lost consciousness for a while. A day, maybe two.”
“A wizard could pop in at any moment,” she pointed out. “The ceiling,” she glanced up, “might go dark. I’d rather not be trapped in a pitch-black wizard’s tower with an unconscious guy.”
“I’ll take the stone, but make sure it doesn’t touch my flesh. That should do. Then, once we’re somewhere safe, I’ll touch it.”
“Fine.”
Shalayn dug a kerchief from somewhere and handed to me. I used it to collect and wrap the stone and dropped it into a pocket.
We stood, staring at each other.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Let’s find Tien’s ring and get out of here.”
“Do you trust her?”
“She would never hurt me.” She winced. “Well, not physically. That said, she is a thief.”
“Right. Let’s not touch anything we don’t have to. I have a bad feeling about this place. I think everything in here might be dangerous.”
“Like your obsidian heart?”
I let that slide without comment.
It took us an hour to find the ring. During that time, no wizards arrived, and the glow of the ceiling remained unchanged. Careful not to touch it, we wrapped the ring in fabric and I pocketed it.
“Let’s make sure we can open the door to get out,” I said. “Then we’ll decide what we’re taking and rob the wizards blind.”
“Good plan. And we’re taking at least one bottle of wine.”
“Deal.”
Circumnavigating the outer wall, looking for the door, we found it, a slab of plain iron with glowing script scrawled all over it. We found no hint of hinges and nothing to grip or pull. There was also no keyhole, not that we had a key.
“I don’t think we should touch it,” said Shalayn.
I agreed. Even being close to it made the hairs on my neck and arms stand straight and filled my mouth with a metallic tang.
Without getting too close, we examined the door.
“There isn’t even room to wedge the tip of a sword between the door and the wall or floor,” I said.
“You try and do that to my sword, and I’ll smack you.”
We spent hours looking over the slab of steel. Then we searched the rest of the room, still careful not to touch anything. Shalayn kept her sword drawn, ready for violence. We found nothing to aid our escape. No other wizards appeared.
“Do we touch it?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
“I’m hungry.”
“I’m thirsty,” she said, sheathing her sword.
“There’s news.”
We returned upstairs to the kitchen area. While I put together a meal of preserved fruits, and vegetables soaked in olive oil, Shalayn selected a bottle of red wine that was, according to the label, over sixty years old.
There was no dust on anything. It felt like someone finished cleaning moments before our arrival.
“How long does olive oil last?” I asked.
“About a year,” answered Shalayn as she hunted through drawers, looking for a bottle opener.
“Do they restock every few months?”
“That, or this stuff is magically preserved.”
Finding what she sought, she had the bottle open seconds later.
“Want wine glasses?” I asked, eyeing the many cupboards.
“Nah.” Taking a long drink from the bottle, she sank cross-legged to the floor.
Carrying the food I’d gathered, I sat across from her.
We ate and drank, passing the bottle back and forth, in comfortable silence. The fruit tasted juicy and fresh and the wine had a soft musty flavour with hints of strawberry and chocolate in the bouquet.
“I could get used to this,” said Shalayn, finishing th
e last of the wine.
I could too. “We can’t stay,” I said. “Eventually—”
“Don’t ruin it.”
“—another wizard will come. We can’t kill him this time. Somehow, we have to use him to get out. We have to force him to bring us with him when he leaves.”
“Won’t work,” said Shalayn, shaking her head. “The only reason I got that one was because he appeared within stabbing distance and I already had my sword drawn. Unless you surprise a wizard, you’re pretty much fucked.” She glanced around, eyeing the thousands of wine bottles. “And I’m betting they can appear anywhere in here.”
“If we stay alert, maybe we can get the drop on one. If we hide in one of the bedrooms, we can jump him when he enters.”
“If he’s an idiot.”
“Got another plan?”
“We try the door downstairs.”
After trooping back down the stairs, I reached tentatively toward the door, ready to snatch my hand away. Pressure built as I got closer and then with a snap a bright spark arced out and stabbed my hand. Howling in pain, I flinched away. Once she realized I wasn’t seriously harmed, Shalayn had a great time laughing at my expression as I sucked on the palm of my hand. I hadn’t got closer than a foot.
“I think if I tried again, if I threw myself at it, it would blast me to ash.”
That had been a little warning. I felt sure the door was capable of much worse.
Shalayn calmed down. “Right then. Let’s try your brilliant ‘jump a wizard’ plan.”
We picked one of the bedrooms and hid in two different armoires, shoving aside the clothes hanging there to make room.
Several hours passed in tedious silence before Shalayn started making jokes about how we could better pass the time if we both hid in the same armoire. Finally, after the third hour, she said, “I’m getting a drink.”
Rather than feel like an idiot in an armoire, I followed her back to the kitchen and watched her select another bottle of red wine.
“Are we going to hide again?” I asked.
“Go ahead.”
We ate paper-thin sheets of salted ham wrapped around olive-oil soaked artichoke hearts with slabs of crumbling cheddar, and washed it down with more wine.
When the wizards failed to show up and kill us, we picked another room and went to bed.
Black Stone Heart (The Obsidian Path Book 1) Page 10