“I don’t see any witnesses around here,” he said.
“I’ve got two of my kind outside this door, waiting for me to come back out. More up top, on the surface. You going to kill every last dwarf you can find? You going to tell them you just accidentally shoved that pig-sticker through my tits?”
“It might be worth a shot,” Malden growled.
Balint just stared at him the way she might look at a stain on an expensive carpet. Not a trace of fear showed in her features, even with a magic sword drooling acid inches from her heart.
“Malden,” Cythera said, “stand down.”
Malden lowered his sword, but he didn’t sheathe it. Cythera glared at him but he was damned if he would let this dwarf get away with poisoning Slag and stealing the most valuable treasure in the tomb, especially when he was in the process of robbing it.
“Please,” Cythera said, addressing Balint. “You have us at a disadvantage. We thought we were alone here. We did not know that any dwarves had come to reclaim their property. When we ran afoul of the revenants on the top level, we assumed-”
“Reve-whats?”
Cythera frowned. “The reanimated elves. The spirits seeking justice for past crimes. How did you get down here without encountering them?”
“She didn’t come… through the front… gate,” Slag said.
Balint brayed at the idea. “ You did? I knew you were a fool. But just how stupid are you?”
“I’m guessing-oh, bugger, this hurts-I’m guessing you came… through the escape shaft… in the residential level,” Slag said.
Balint shrugged. “Why don’t you guess in one hand, and shit in the other, and see which one fills up first?”
“But why now?” Malden demanded. “This is no coincidence, all of us here at precisely the same time.”
“Hardly! We had to stick prods up our horses’ arseholes just to get here before you lot. We spent the last week breaking through the seal on one of the emergency exits, and just got here a few hours ago. We almost didn’t make it before you, but then, Urin here always was a tad off in his calculations.” She gave Slag another kick.
“Hold-you know Slag?” Malden asked. “Except you called him-”
“Not now, Malden,” Cythera cut in. “Please, milady Balint, tell me why you’re here. Maybe we can help you with your needs.”
The blueling tapped its way over to where Cythera stood. She allowed it to palpate her foot, though it looked to Malden like she was having a hard time not kicking it away.
Balint deigned to explain a few things. “About three months ago, some big futtock with a red chin like he was drooling blood came to Redweir. Asked a lot of uncomfortable questions about the Vincularium. Even knowing which questions to ask meant he knew too much already. Still, we figured he didn’t have an arsehole’s chance of getting inside this place, so we gave him one seriously nasty look and let it drop. Big mistake. Next thing we know, he’s seen in that piss-pot Ness. Well, they take all kinds in that place, don’t they? Isn’t that right, you whey-faced catamite?”
She kicked Slag again.
Malden took a step forward and raised his blade. “If you strike him again, I’ll shave you bald with this thing.”
Balint snorted in derision. “He deserves a lot worse than that, the fucking debaser. Now, as I was saying, this big red-faced arsehole went to Ness, and there he found the one dwarf in Skrae who would even talk to him. Which meant he actually had a chance of finding a way in here. So we took it upon ourselves to make sure he didn’t get what he was after.”
“The barrels? But Morget didn’t come for them,” Cythera said. “He came to kill a demon that he tracked here.” She shook her head. “Please. It doesn’t matter why we came. You have what you wanted. The barrels are out of our reach. I’m willing to accept that, and surrender them to you without further unpleasantness.”
“Oh, aye? Well, I’m not!” Slag grumbled.
Cythera closed her eyes. “Balint. Our friend was struck by a poisoned dart. I hate to say this, but-I believe you placed that trap.”
“Good one, too,” Balint agreed. “One of my best.”
“Now he’s sickening, and he’s going to die.” Cythera lowered her head. “Since you’ve already won-perhaps you’d be gracious enough, in your victory, to give us the antidote to your poison.”
Balint scratched at her mustache. “Antidote? Now why the fuck would I have any of that on me?”
Chapter Fifty-three
Cythera clutched her hands together, beseeching the dwarf one last time. “You have no antidote. I see. Very well. Then at least take us out of here. Please, I beg of you. Take us back to the surface. If you don’t, he’ll die.”
“If you don’t you’ll be Slag’s murderer,” Malden added.
“Who? Little me?” Balint laughed. “I didn’t shoot him with that dart.”
“What difference does that make?” Malden said.
“All the difference in the world. At least as far as the law is concerned. A dwarf can’t use a weapon, not anywhere in Skrae. So I didn’t. I just built one. Oh, true. I left the thing where he was bound to stumble on it, clumsy fuck that he is. But he could have avoided it if he was a little more careful.”
“You have a funny idea of guilt and culpability,” Malden said. Though he knew she was correct. The law said that a human who killed a dwarf, even by accident, would forfeit his life. Dwarves, on the other hand, were held to a more lenient standard. They could not wield traditional weapons, and they were forbidden from attacking anyone directly. Yet if they caused a death indirectly-through, say, laying a poison dart trap-they were held free of guilt. That loophole in the treaty was why they’d become so good at building cunning and insidious traps-and why humans always watched their step around angry dwarves.
“Ignore him,” Cythera insisted. She implored Malden with her eyes to hold his tongue. He just looked away. “He’s just upset because his friend is dying,” Cythera went on. “Listen to me, Balint. Slag still has a chance to survive if I can reach the surface. I can save him. But down here, he’ll perish, surely.”
Balint shrugged. “As far as the king of the dwarves is concerned, this motherless snot-drip died a long time ago. When we exile somebody, they stop being a dwarf, for all practical intents.”
Balint kept throwing out references to Slag’s past that Malden caught, but time was too short to follow up on them. Still, he filed them away for later. Slag had been exiled? He was a debaser? Whatever that was. His real name was… Urin? Malden had so many questions.
“You,” he said, fuming with anger, “could stop being a dwarf right now.” He began to lift the sword.
A hand grabbed his forearm and he spun around to find Cythera behind him, stopping him from killing the little monster. She slapped him across the face, very hard.
The rage inside him threatened to boil over. His vision went red and he growled, literally growled, in the desire to attack, to kill.
“Malden,” Cythera said, “I understand.”
His rage hit a brick wall. He was so surprised he couldn’t move.
“I understand how you’re feeling right now. Believe me, I do. But if you harm her, then you’ll be throwing your life away. And you won’t help Slag at all.”
“But-she’s so… she’s-”
“She is within her rights, as far as the law is concerned. And you aren’t. I know you break laws all the time. But only because you expect something out of it. This won’t achieve anything.”
“No, please, don’t listen to her,” Balint laughed. “Come on, boy. Try to hit me with that great big whanger of yours. I dare you!”
Malden stared at her. The fury was still inside of him, but instead of howling for blood now it was like a torrent of water penned up like a dam. He would not give Balint what she wanted. “I won’t forget this,” he said.
“No man forgets meeting me,” Balint assured him.
“I assure you, that-” Malden began, but he stopped in mi
d-sentence. Outside the door of the Hall of Masterpieces, he could hear the sound of hammers striking metal. That, and a lot of cursing. Something was up. “What are they doing out there?” he demanded.
“My men? They’re simply buying some time. I’m going to walk out that door in a minute. I’m not exactly wet in the trousers to have you follow me.”
She yanked on her blueling’s leash again and it climbed up her arm. Dancing along like a monkey, it wrapped itself around her shoulders and closed its eyes. In a moment it was asleep. “You know, Urin, I should drag your dog-hearted arse right out of here, right now, and let you die in the foundry out there. You’ve got no right to sully this place-this hall-with your debasing presence. But in a way, I suppose it’s appropriate you’ll die right here. Aye, it’s got some fucking poetry to it, don’t it? Surrounded by all the emblems of what you betrayed. In the place you nearly betrayed again.”
She turned to go.
“Balint,” Slag moaned. “Tell me… one thing.”
She sighed dramatically, then turned to look at him.
“What will you-ugh-do. With the bloody barrels?”
Balint frowned. “I’ve got my orders. I’ll set them ablaze. Watch them burn, every little bit.”
“But… why? They’re priceless!”
“They’re worth about as much as a whore’s hand-rag to me. They’re history.” She made this last word sound like a profanity far worse than anything she’d used so far. “It’s taken a long time for our people to forget, Urin. To forget what we once were. The king doesn’t want anyone reminded of what we can never be again. Now-you tell me one thing.”
Slag looked up at her.
“What the fuck were you going to do with them?”
Slag managed to chuckle, a little, before his chest seized up and he lost himself in a wheezing cough that made tears squirt from his eyes.
“My plan was to sell them to our king. In exchange for… for
… letting me…” Another half chuckle. “… letting me come home.”
Balint nodded in understanding. Then she shrugged. “It’d take more than that to earn his forgiveness. As far as he’s concerned, you stink worse than a goblin’s codpiece.” She strode toward the door. Just before she stepped out of the room, she turned to look back at the three of them one last time. “Farewell, cock-sniffers,” she said, and then she was gone.
Malden stood there holding Acidtongue for a while, trying not to shout in frustration. Finally, careful not to drip any acid on himself, he sheathed the blade and went to Slag’s side.
“Your countrywoman’s got a nasty streak,” he said.
“Not to mention an uncivil tongue,” Cythera agreed.
“Yes,” Slag whispered. A wistful smile crossed his face, despite the pain. “Wasn’t she magnificent?” His eyes fluttered closed and his breathing grew shallow, if ragged. He had fallen asleep.
Cythera stood up and walked to the door. She placed a hand against it and held up one finger for silence. “I can’t hear them out there. They must be gone.”
“And good riddance,” Malden said.
“No-hark, Malden. I’m relatively sure Balint was bluffing.”
“About what would happen to me if I struck her down? Believe me, I considered that it might be worth it.”
“Not about that. About not having an antidote. Did she strike you as a fool?”
“What? No-not that. Not a fool, at least.”
Cythera nodded. He could see in her eyes that she was thinking hard. “She laid the trap. Coated that dart with poison. The first thing Mother taught me about working with venoms and toxins was that you should never even consider it unless you had an antidote at hand. What if she had accidentally pricked herself while loading the dart into the trap? She must have something that can help Slag.”
“And you want me to steal it from her.”
“Exactly.”
Malden laughed. It would be a pleasure.
“Follow her closely. Even if you can’t get it-or if I’m wrong, and she doesn’t have the antidote-you’ll at least learn where the escape shaft is. But be careful! We’ve already seen she’s a mistress of traps. Whatever her people just installed beyond this door is sure to be deadly.”
“Ah. So you want me to go alone.”
Cythera blushed. “I need to stay here to look after Slag. I know this is dangerous. But it may be Slag’s only chance.”
Malden looked down at the sleeping dwarf. “How could I refuse? But give me a kiss for luck, before I go out there into certain peril.”
She sighed and tried to peck his cheek. He swung his head around in time to steal a kiss, a real kiss, from her lips. She looked slightly shocked.
“I’ll be back before you have a chance to miss me,” he told her, and slipped out of the Hall of Masterpieces before she had time for a clever retort.
Chapter Fifty-four
Malden stepped carefully outside the door, watching the floor carefully for trip wires or pressure plates before he put a foot down. He had Slag’s makeshift lantern in one hand, the other free to react to whatever he found.
It did not take long to find the trap. Indeed, it had clearly been designed to be seen immediately. That fact made Malden’s heart sink. Clever, easily avoided traps relied on subterfuge-the hidden dart, the covered pit. Traps that drew attention to themselves tended to be far more deadly and far, far more difficult to circumvent.
Balint’s men had filled the entire foundry with this one.
Eyelets had been hammered into the walls, and between them were strung countless lengths of woolly red yarn. They crisscrossed each other from the floor to the ceiling, like the laces of an unbelievably complicated corset. They reminded Malden of a far more delicate version of the chains strung across the entrance to the Vincularium.
Of course, this was a dwarvish trap, which meant the threads would not be cursed. He would not be burned alive if he touched them. Yet they were taut as lute strings and he knew something ugly would happen should he disturb them in any way. Escape could not possibly be so simple as cutting or burning them either.
He sighed and looked for what they might be attached to. In the dim light he could only make out the square lines of a machine erected at the far end of the room. The threads all converged on a lever sticking up from its side. A shim had been jammed into the lever’s pivot so it couldn’t move, but it looked like the slightest motion would knock the shim loose. So if he tugged the threads, they would pull that lever. And then…? He could not say what would happen then. But he was certain it would be lethal.
Looking up, he could see the threads reached all the way to the ceiling. So he couldn’t just climb up there and somehow traverse the room above the threads. No, he was going to have to make his way through them.
It was not impossible. Though when viewed head on the threads seemed to cross every cubic inch of the foundry, in fact they were far enough apart that he could slip between them if he was very deft and very careful. Malden knew he was at least one of those things. Tentatively, convinced he might set the trap off merely by breathing on it, he ducked under one of the threads and stood up on the far side.
The hair on the top of his head brushed a thread and set it vibrating.
Malden ducked low and covered his eyes. When nothing exploded or caught on fire or rained boulders down on his head, he allowed himself to breathe once more.
The next thread ran across the room at ankle height. It was easy to step over it, but he had to lean back to avoid catching another thread with his throat. Twisting at the waist, he passed under that one, then held his left foot still in the air so as not to trod on the thread beyond.
With infinite care he slid his hand and shoulder between two threads, then braced himself against the floor as he lifted his legs carefully through the gap. Directly ahead, three threads crossed the room, close enough together that he could not pass between them. He moved sideways, walking like a crab, watching always what was ahead of and behin
d him, until he found the place where the three threads crossed each other. There was a gap underneath just big enough for him to roll through. He passed his sword and lantern over, then tucked and rolled forward, coming to an abrupt halt when something touched his face.
Every muscle in his body locked at once. His bones held his tremulous flesh back as he tried, desperately, not to twitch in his fear. He could feel something fuzzy stretched taut against his left cheek. His left eye saw nothing-but his eyelashes felt it.
Moving absolutely nothing but his arm, Malden reached over and picked up the lantern. He lifted it by inches toward his face, taking great pains not to let the candle flame touch a single thread.
When the light came within a foot or so of his face, Malden saw what he was touching. A thread, just like the others, stretched across the room. Except that where the others were bright red, this one was dyed black. It had been invisible in the dark room. Which was the point. Anyone foolhardy enough to try to climb through the red threads wouldn’t be expecting a thread they couldn’t see.
Malden would have laughed in admiration, if he dared move at all. Balint truly was a master-she had hidden a cunning and undetectable trap by concealing it inside a blatant one.
Moving very slowly, he craned his neck back to release the pressure he’d put on the black thread. Then he stood up, making sure to look above his head for any more black threads he might have missed.
There was one right above him.
Looking to the sides, he spotted more of them-and those were only the ones his light could illuminate.
Taking a deep breath, he started forward again, climbing through the threads while avoiding so much as touching any of them. Checking for black threads slowed his progress to a crawl-and with every minute that passed, Balint and her men were getting farther away.
He kept expecting Cythera to call to him, demanding to know what was taking so long. Worse, the slow pace was taking a toll on his muscles. Malden had trained his body to be a fine instrument. He had spent years climbing spires, jumping across rooftops, and most importantly, running very fast whenever the authorities came for him. Yet he had spent little time training himself to hold perfectly still in contorted positions. His legs were beginning to cramp from being held in unnatural attitudes, and his arms had started to shake.
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