Then he ran like every demon in the pit was after him, for he could hear the entire Vincularium shaking itself to pieces above him.
Chapter Ninety-eight
When Malden was halfway to Cythera and Slag, the entire hall felt like it had fallen away under his feet. He tottered and fell, slamming onto the flagstones, his hands over his head as if that would do any good, and prayed for the world to stop moving. Eventually the shaking stopped-but when he looked down and saw his own blood on the flags, the drops were rolling to the left as if the floor had been tilted a few degrees out of true.
The elves didn’t stop screaming. The soldiers were running about as if looking for something to attack. The nobles in their finery were shouting for their servants, while the servants in their patchwork clothes were huddled together, crouching on the floor and staring up at the ceiling with wild eyes.
For good reason. A fine drift of powdered stone was raining down from the vaults high overhead.
Malden got back up and kept running. As he passed the cart where Morget and Croy had been bound, he heard high-pitched laughter and stopped to see Balint lying in the cart, staring up at him. Her whole body was trembling with mirth. “He did it,” she said. “He blew the fucking thing up. It’s all over now! We’re all going to die!”
Malden ignored the crazed dwarf and ran to Cythera’s side. She and Slag were clutching each other. They looked confused and very frightened. He grabbed Cythera’s shoulders and tried to force her to look at him. “I think,” he said, when she finally met his gaze, “that we should get out of here.”
Cythera nodded and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “Good plan,” she said. “But how will we-”
“We’ll figure it out. Come on,” Malden said, and grabbed at her arm.
“Help me get the elves moving,” Cythera said.
He could only stare at her. Even as parts of the hall above began falling down to the floor with thunderous crashes, he couldn’t think of the words he needed to respond.
“We can’t leave them here to die,” she said, as if it was obvious.
“Really? I believe we can,” Malden tried.
“Malden-please. You’re not that callous. I know you,” Cythera said.
It was Slag who made the best point, however. “Lad,” he said, “do you remember what you told me, once? That the elves were evil and deserved to be entombed? You still think that?”
“They’ve done nothing but imprison us and try to kill us since we got here,” Malden pointed out. “I’d call that evil.”
“All of them? You’d call ’em all evil, then? Even Aethil? After all she fucking did for us?”
“Well… no,” Malden said. “She treated us well enough. But-”
A chain of explosions far off in the Vincularium made it impossible to speak for a moment. When it was over, Cythera grasped Malden by the arms. “Remember what Aethil said. There was a time when elves and men were brothers-we share the same language, Malden. Don’t you understand? Help me save them.”
Malden thought back to when he had grabbed Aethil, intending to hold her prisoner so they could escape. Was that really so different from what the elves had done to him? Cythera had a point. He needed time to think this through, to make a rational decision.
Unfortunately at that moment giant stones started falling from the ceiling, and all rational thought became superfluous.
He nodded and raced over to where Aethil stood, staring upward at her collapsing kingdom. Before he could reach her, she saw him and came storming toward him, her eyes sparkling with anger. “What have you done?” she demanded of him.
“I survived your little sport, that’s all,” the thief told her.
The elf queen raised one hand and made claws of her fingers. She started to speak in low, ugly syllables, and Malden realized she was about to cast a curse on him.
“Wait,” Cythera said, from behind him. “Your highness, please-listen to me.”
Aethil let the curse dissipate and stared at Cythera.
“Please, Aethil, I know you have no reason to love us anymore. But we must make common cause. If we don’t leave here now, we will all be killed.”
“Leave? Yes, I suppose we must withdraw to the tunnels our ancestors made. It seems the dwarven halls are no longer safe.”
Cythera shook her head. “No, your majesty. I mean we must leave the Vincularium altogether.”
Aethil’s brow furrowed. She didn’t seem to understand. “But we can’t do that. This is where we live.”
“It will be your tomb,” Malden told the queen, “if you like.”
“I must consult with the Hieromagus,” Aethil said. “Surely this cataclysm was enough to bring him back to the present.” She stood up on her tiptoes and looked around the hall. “Where is he?”
Malden searched the crowd of milling elves for the priest-wizard but could find him nowhere. “Aethil,” he said, “he’s gone.”
“Impossible. He wouldn’t desert us at a time like this.”
Malden might have argued with her further, but just then the floor of the hall split open. Cracks ran crazily between the flagstones, and an elf fell into the gap between two stones. His screams filled the air for a moment, then ended abruptly.
Cythera exhaled in frustration and grabbed the elf queen’s forearm. She twisted it, hard. When Aethil turned to face her with a look of rage, Cythera said, “You can save your people. Right now. Or you can wait for his approval. Are you a queen, or not? Do you lead the elves?”
“I-” Aethil stopped in mid-thought. “There was a time when my forebears, the ancient queens of the elves, had that power, but-”
Slag stepped forward and took her hand gently. “My love,” he said, and swallowed thickly. “It’s time to restore your authority. Before we all get fucking crushed to death.”
Aethil’s face slackened for a moment, and Malden was sure she would lose her composure and start screaming. Well enough, he thought. At least he could count on Cythera and Slag to act rationally. And he had done his best to convince the elf queen. If the elves perished now, it was their own fault.
Yet something strange happened then. Aethil straightened up and seemed to grow an inch or more in height. Her eyes snapped into sharp focus and she reached up to straighten her gown.
Then she walked out into the middle of the chaos and started shouting for everyone to listen to her.
And they did.
“Friends. Subjects. Fellow nobles-the Hieromagus is nowhere to be found. So we must proceed without his counsel. You must come with me.”
The elves all turned to watch their queen with a kind of reverence and respect Malden had never seen in human faces. The poor folk stood up straight and rushed toward Aethil. The nobles stopped shouting at one another and gathered their families together.
“We will be leaving this place that has always been our home. Any other place has been forbidden us, for a very long time. Now,” Aethil said, as the hall shook all around her, “we have been given a sign. The ancestors have given their blessing. Together we will return to the world above, and there we will rebuild our former glory.”
There was more to the speech, but Malden bent to confer with Cythera and Slag. “The best way out is probably the escape shaft on the other side,” he said.
“Forget it, lad,” Slag told him. “There’s no way we’ll make it over there before this place collapses.” He sighed deeply. “Such a waste.”
“Surely we can’t reach the main entrance on the top level either,” Cythera said. “No. We must exit by Aethil’s secret grotto.”
“But that’s blocked by the growths of crystal,” Malden pointed out.
“With enough hands, we might clear a way,” Cythera pointed out. “The crystal is delicate. We can smash through.”
“Doubtful,” Slag told them.
“Perhaps,” Cythera went on. “But I’d rather die in the attempt than die here because we wouldn’t try it.”
“That, lass,” Slag admitted, “is an excellen
t fucking point.”
“Good, we’re agreed,” Cythera said. “Now let’s find Croy and go!”
Chapter Ninety-nine
“Croy! No!” someone shouted.
Someone who sounded like… Cythera.
After escaping from the cart, Croy was beset by warriors on every side. It had been all he could do to fend them off. And then half the ceiling had fallen, and was suddenly free of his attackers. Either they’d been crushed by falling debris or had run off in terror. He’d been deeply confused for a moment-and then rocks fell on him, and a small mountain of dust, and he lost consciousness again.
Now hands were reaching for him, dragging the rocks away from his sore and bruised body. He tried to fight the hands away at first, thinking the elves had come back for him, but eventually he realized he was being rescued.
By then he had overcome most of the influence of Prestwicke’s drugged dart and could think again. He at least knew where he was. He saw Cythera and embraced her passionately, though she seemed strangely impatient to escape his arms.
“I thought you were dead,” he told her. There were tears in his eyes.
“I always believed you were still alive,” she told him. “Croy, please, there’s no time-we need to talk, but only once we’re out of here. Morget did something-he started some kind of avalanche or… I don’t know what, exactly. But Slag insists the entire Vincularium is about to come down on top of us.”
“He used the dwarven weapon,” Croy said. Cythera didn’t seem to understand. “I’ll explain later. Slag is right-I know that much. We need to leave, now.” He looked around and saw the entire nation of elves screaming in terror and running for the exits. “But how will we fight our way through all these soldiers?” he asked. He reached down to touch the hilt of Ghostcutter. Even panicked and in wild disarray, there were far too many of them for comfort.
“We don’t,” Malden told him. “Right now we’re all on the same side.”
Croy frowned. “But… they’re elves. They’re evil. They consort with demons.”
Cythera sighed deeply. “Croy-the ceiling is about to fall in.”
“Let me try,” Malden said. He grasped the knight’s shoulders and looked right into his eyes. “Those weren’t demons. Those things you fought were ghosts. Ghosts of the elves, of their ancestors.”
“Oh?” Croy said. He didn’t understand what that meant, but he didn’t doubt Malden was telling the truth. “But the things I did… I thought they had killed Cythera. And you and Slag. It’s why I did what I did. Normally I would never have-”
“I understand,” Malden said, “but right now you need to grasp this. Everything you thought was wrong. The elves are decent folk, and they’re going to die.”
He stopped talking then as a series of explosions like very close thunder tore across the roof of the hall. Beyond the gallery, the central shaft was a cascade of falling rock and dust, so Croy could no longer see the far side. He turned and looked back at the thief, raising one eyebrow in question.
Malden sighed and closed his eyes. Croy wished he understood what was going on. “We have a couple hundred good, innocent people here who are about to die,” the thief said, “and if they do, it’ll be a tragedy of historical proportions, and-”
“Innocents? In peril?” Croy asked, his heart singing. That was all he needed to know. “Let’s go! We must save them!”
He charged forward, in the direction the elves were already headed. Then he stopped at the cart and gathered Balint into his arms. She didn’t look like she could walk.
“ She betrayed you,” Malden pointed out. “And she tried to kill Slag. Not to mention me. Several times.”
“She’s a dwarf,” Croy said, wondering why Malden didn’t understand. The law required one to protect dwarves. That was enough for the knight.
The great surge of elfinkind headed up a long ramp and into a region of tunnels that were far too irregular and rough-walled to have been made by dwarves. Croy expected the crowd to back up and stall in the narrow tunnels, but someone seemed to be leading the elves from the front and doing a very good job of it. They passed through a wider space where a dozen revenants stood guard before a door. Croy started to draw Ghostcutter, but it wasn’t necessary.
As he watched, the revenants fell to pieces. Bones fell apart, flesh sloughed off their frames. Their bronze armor clattered to the floor.
“The ancestors!” some elf screamed. “The ancestral mass must have been crushed! The magic that animates the revenants is loosed. What hope have we now? What will become of us?”
“The real question,” Slag shouted back, “is how tall you’ll be in a second, when this whole place falls in.” The dwarf hurried forward and grabbed the hand of an especially pretty elf maid. Croy wondered what that was about.
No time for questions, though. He handed Balint’s limp form over to a pair of slender elfin warriors and then hurried to catch up with Slag. He passed through the door with the others and into a very pleasant room, one wall of which had already collapsed. A curtain of water cut across another side of the room, and he thought perhaps some underground river was about to flood in on them.
Then Slag’s elfin friend lifted one delicate hand. She spoke a word and the water stopped falling instantly. They all hurried through a bedchamber beyond, and then through an arch filled with light.
Beyond, there was a cave full of diamonds. Croy’s eyes went wide as he saw enormous growths of crystal protruding from every surface, sticking out in all possible directions. Broken crystals littered the floor like the gem hoard of some ancient dragon. When his feet kicked through the drift of stones, they skittered and chimed away from him.
He was so busy looking at the glittering detritus at his feet that he walked right into Malden, who had stopped in the middle of the cave.
“What’s the problem?” Malden asked.
“The Hieromagus,” the thief told him.
Croy looked up and saw an elf standing in the middle of the cavern before them. He recognized this one-it was the same one he’d heard describing ancient elfin torture techniques. The one in the black robe covered with tiny brass bells. Apparently he was called the Hieromagus.
“Hold,” he said.
Slag’s pretty elf maid bowed to the dark-robed elf and said, “Exalted presence whose shadow is like the cool blessing of night, please, get out of our way!”
“History… is… here,” the Hieromagus announced. “So many lifetimes… have I waited. In darkness.”
Behind them something massive crashed to the floor. The whole cave shook so violently that crystal shards were launched into the air. More than one of the elves fell down and cut themselves on the gemstone growths.
“We must pass,” Malden said. “Cythera, if we have to hurt him-”
“This time I understand, Malden,” she said.
“I’ll take care of him,” Croy announced, and drew Ghostcutter. He strode forward, toward the black-cloaked elf.
The Hieromagus lifted one hand from beneath his garment and squeezed it into a fist. Croy’s arms pressed tight against his sides and his legs locked at the knees. He couldn’t move-he fought desperately with his own body but could not move one inch. He just managed to move his eyes far enough to see Malden beside him, also immobilized in mid-stride, the thief’s arms twisted painfully before him.
Only Cythera was still able to move, but she was not unaffected. Painted flowers bloomed on her left temple and her right wrist. Creepers slithered around her throat, as if to strangle her. Vines ran up her arms and into her sleeves.
She screamed in frustration and tried to run past the elf.
He brought up his other hand and pointed directly at her. His mouth started to form words in a language both ancient and evil. Sores erupted on his lips as if the words themselves could corrode his skin.
“You can’t hurt me. I’m immune to your magic,” Cythera protested.
Then her back arched and light shot from her eyes.
&nb
sp; The Hieromagus coughed blood into the air, but he kept chanting. Croy could almost see the evil magic in the air between them, a distortion of reality itself.
He could not turn his head to look, but behind him he heard a noise like bedsheets being torn, only much, much louder. The sound didn’t stop, but rolled on and on. He understood that the Vincularium was tearing itself to pieces. If this went on much longer they would all be killed, stopped from escaping by a sorcerous duel.
The painted flowers on Cythera’s face bloomed, and wilted, and bloomed again. Vines and tendrils and fronds curled and lashed across her features. No patch of skin visible on her body was uncovered. Her mouth opened and smoke began to trickle out.
“We must stop him!” Croy shouted.
Beside him Malden nodded, almost imperceptibly. The fingers of his hand twitched as he reached for the hilt of Acidtongue.
It was hopeless, but the thief kept trying. Croy struggled and fought with his own legs to make them move forward. He could do no less.
Cythera screamed. Her body shook convulsively as the Hieromagus’s endless stream of curses poured into her.
Yet the elf was suffering as well. His lips pulled back from colorless gums. His skin lost what little color it had and started to crack and bleed.
Cythera managed to take one step toward him. Then another. She shot out one arm and grabbed his hand.
When their skin touched, the Hieromagus bellowed in anguish and thick blood leaped from his mouth. His bones glowed with infernal light until they could be seen plainly through his skin.
And then he slumped to the floor, his face burning with green flames.
There could be no doubt that he was dead.
Instantly the immobilizing spell was lifted. Croy ran forward, intending to wrap his arms around Cythera and hold her forever.
“No!” she shouted. Croy grunted in horror when he saw that even the whites of her eyes were covered in tiny painted flowers, and that her hair had taken on the appearance of writhing vines. Every inch of her skin was covered in writhing tattoos that seemed to fight each other. She was suffused with dark magic, carrying more of it than he’d ever seen on her before. “Stay back-all of you. And close your eyes!”
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