Steel Sirens

by Maxx Whittaker

  “Thank you.”

  “I don’t have a lot of faith, Cuinn. What I do have I’m investing in you lot. I expect that investment back with interest.”

  “Double your money or the House buys your ale. Be safe, general,” I say, taking his forearm in a warrior’s grip.

  Straithe clutches Brecan to him. “Get them safe and get yourself back.”

  They hold a moment, and Brecan salutes. “General.”

  “Captain. You’re dismissed.”

  I blink hard and look out toward the north tower. Something occurs at the sight of it. “Where’s Pella and Caiminae?”

  “Gone,” says Straithe, sounding clipped. “Along with every scrap of paper from Arkis’s chambers. Hopefully nothing we’ll need later.”

  “Ach. I know where to find them if you do.”

  Straithe smiles. “Time to poke the bear.” He ducks back out onto the parapet.

  We watch the exchange as Brecan leads us in a low crouch to the south tower.

  “I’m tiring,” Myranda calls.

  “I brought you the mage.”

  “Uston, I don’t want the mage!”

  “That’s not very kind. He’s feeling rather small right now.”

  He dangles Arkis’s’ medallion and tosses it over the wall.

  The effect is instantaneous. Men roar, weapons rattle against shields, and jeers from the battlements drown out Myranda’s voice.

  “Ewan.” Siri shakes my shoulder.

  Brecan waves me on.

  It was worth the delay. “I’d pay money to see the look on her face.”

  Siri grins.

  We descend through a pitch-black south tower and into an ancient portion of Castle Lowe, unused since long before Carven’s reign.

  Something occurs to me, listening to the din outside. “Can Myranda reanimate Arkis somehow?”

  “No.” Siri covers her mouth. “Doesn’t work on mages. Their souls belong to the God or Goddess they’ve sworn to.”

  “Emeree used Ora’s power to force a dead slaver answer our questions.” I wonder if this is the same.

  “Cailleach, Valin and Ora; those are your gods. But there are others, and other powers among the worlds. Glaerhanig is a drop in a vast ocean.” Siri steps over a chair, barely disturbing caked dust. “They all desire power. Worship.”

  This follows what Emeree said about the realms. It’s strangely comforting to know there are other gods, other pantheons like mine. Also terrifying that one would give Myranda a hold over the dead. But Cailleach gave the Sirens power; that’s reassuring.

  We reach the castle’s more trafficked underbelly. Brecan leads us through the labyrinth with practice.

  We pass kitchens, still rife with smells that make me drool. In the servant’s quarters thin, wide-eyed men and women huddle in the sparse rooms and watch us pass. They still won’t come out without orders.

  At a set of stairs cut into the grey stone, Brecan whoops, crouching. He turns, holding two stuffed packs.

  He hands one to me, grinning. “Cook made these for you. My idea.”

  “Jack of all trades,” I say as he preens.

  Siri and I sling on the packs. She helps adjust mine around Emeree’s scabbard and laughs. “She’s going to wake up so lost.”

  “Can’t she tell what’s happening around her?”

  Siri lays her hand flat, moves it back and forth. “Somewhat. Many things effect our awareness when inside. How hurt we are, travel. The three of us are intimately connected. Beyond that?” She shrugs. “Like I said, she’s going to need some catching up.”

  Brecan takes us through the scullery, an old buttery, and down a hatch behind the unused kegs. Finally, we descend into the bowels of the castle.

  I’ve never seen a dungeon. In stories they’re dank, wet, horrible places where traitors and criminals are thrown to die slow deaths. Travelers and tinkers would sit by the fire in my village, sewing together tales of adventure and danger, as we sat rapt and half drunk, taken on journeys of words. And in every one of them, if there was a dungeon, it was a distinctively horrifying place.

  So, it’s difficult me for not to slow down, to gape, as we pass through Castle Lowe’s depths.

  There are no cells, no torture devices. Rats don’t scurry from the walls, and the air isn’t chilled or moist. There are no prisoners rattling chains, jeering through broken teeth and unbroken bars.

  Instead, everything is opulence. There are bars, but the cells are large, and in many cases I can see the remnants of walls that have been torn down to expand them. Blankets, pillows, chairs, and beds adorn the dungeons, their pastel pinks and whites at odds with dark stone walls. Lanterns are everywhere, painted in shades that cast the walls in argent and vermillion bands. Baskets of fruit or hard cheeses rest on the tables.

  Everywhere are signs of sudden departure. Needlework hastily abandoned, fruit half eaten, rumpled bedsheets and blankets; it’s as if a massive crowd was suddenly ushered away.

  The girls. “This is where he kept them.”

  “Yes,” Brecan says over his shoulder, jaw tight. “I used to visit them at the gate, sneak them sweets or bits of gossip from the city. That’s how I wound up exiled to my chamber. Arkis caught me, once. I’d gotten careless with –” He shakes his head. “It’s all over now. And she’s gone.”

  I clap his back. “You never know. This is just the beginning of the end. Freedom will decide if what you both felt was true.”

  Brecan thinks for a moment. “Yeah; thanks.”

  At the rear of the hall is a narrow door of oak. Iron bands bind its planks, and spikes riveted along the edge discourage prying or tampering. Its only adornment is a solid iron lock in the shape of a dragon’s head. Brecan rushes up, hand skimming the wall beside it.

  He freezes. “What the hells?”

  Brecan fumbles. I can make out an empty iron hook in the low light.

  “The damn key’s gone.”

  “It’s always here.” Brecan drops to his knees, searching straw and detritus piled against the wall’s base.

  “Anyone else come through here?” I ask.

  “Carbry lets smugglers in and out through the midden doors now and then. He’s a drunk; probably stuck it in his britches and lost it in the scullery.”

  “Well,” I say trying to sound hopeful, “Maybe we can –”

  “Let me.” Siri braces. Our bond thrums with building strength.

  She swings, her fist flying forward like a cannonball.

  The sound is deafening. Oak splinters spray like shrapnel and wood dust parches my mouth. I leap forward and pull Brecan aside before a hunk of the locking mechanism takes off his head.

  Siri gapes at the damage.

  The door was at least a foot thick, and her single punch detonated it. “That… was not supposed to happen. I mean it was, but –” She stares at her fist.

  Brecan stands up, shaking. “That was… godsdamn amazing.” He blushes at Siri’s wink.

  “Uh, anyhow...At the end of this hall is some rubble, a few broken planks. Maybe more broken planks after…” He waves a hand. “Looks like junk. Under is it a trapdoor. Head through, and I’ll cover it back up after you’re gone.”

  “I don’t think...” I shake my head at the wooden carnage. “Our passage through here is a given at this point.”

  “Right. Yeah.” Brecan nods, surveying the debris. “I’ll start back then!”

  “Thank you, for everything. Tell your father his faith is well-placed.”

  He claps my arm. “Watch your bollocks. Backs! Watch your backs,” he says with a glance at Siri.

  “We will,” she teases. “Both.”

  “You won’t need the torches, so if you have to drop them...”

  “No?”

  “There’s some sort of mold down there. It glows. They used to gather it when the candle stores got low in late winter.”

  “Got it.” We shake hands. “Be well.”

  “You too.”

  We climb the
rubble. Brecan disappears and his torchlight fades.

  Cailleach watch over him.

  We clear the staged debris in a few scrapes, revealing the trapdoor. I grasp its pitted ring and heave.

  It doesn’t budge.

  “Mm?”

  I swat Siri’s hand away. “Not again. We’ll have a tunnel collapse.”

  She doesn’t laugh.

  I stop pulling. “What?”

  “I don’t know. I was stronger than – not stronger. More strength than I expected and it was...unchecked.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No. I think it’s right. It’s you. It has to be you.”

  “No. Not me.”

  “When all four of us were together, I was stronger than that. With only two of us? I should be weaker. I don’t understand it.” She shrugs. “You’re the difference. When we find her, maybe Thora will explain.” She smirks. “She thinks she knows everything.”

  “Does she?”

  A grimace. “Usually.”

  I grasp the rung again and tug our thread. Strength floods me, racing through my muscles in a flood of power. Before the effect worsens, I tug, pulling the trapdoor open with a scream of protesting metal. It drops to the floor with a clang that echoes down the tiny passage.

  “Can you sense her?” I’m curious if Siri can feel Thora the way Emeree felt Siri.

  “Faintly. Aleska is close; it’s easier now with Emeree’s augmentation. But Thora? I can barely feel her.”

  Damn. I’d hoped that the remaining Sirens were close. I’d once snuck into Egan’s cottage when he was out on watch. I’d wanted to touch the sword he’d brought back from the Midlands, but ended up poring over a tattered map instead. Shaped like a moon with a huge chunk cut from its right side, Glaerhanig seemed so vast as I’d traced its valleys and mountains with my little hands. It felt like the whole world, not just one kingdom. Now I know better.

  If Thora is as far as Siri thinks she is, it could be weeks of travel just to get to her. Maybe more. And all the while, my brother and sister move further away. Talos will track them; I have that at least.

  The darkness in the hole is absolute. I can’t tell how far the drop is. I run my hand along the ground, find a tiny stone. Holding it above the hole, I release. It falls for only a few seconds before landing, marked by a tinny impact below.

  “Where’s the magic mold?” Siri demands.

  “Must be further along.” I dart back along our path, pull a guttering torch from the wall near the shattered door.

  Siri nods when I return. There’s no point in waiting, so I jump down. I seize my connection with her again, sending a surge of power through me as I drop. My feet impact hard stone, and I bend with the impact, rolling out of the way, dropping the torch well away from myself.

  Something, awareness, slides along our bond along with my tug, and Siri is just behind me, landing only seconds after I do. If I hadn’t moved, she would have crushed me. Interesting. “How did you do that?” I ask as I raise, brushing myself off.

  Her shrug is the slightest movement in the shadows cast by the torch, the tops of her shoulders barely illuminated by the hole above. “Our bond isn’t as strong as I share with the Sirens, but the stronger it grows, the more I can sense you. Your place in the world. Your intentions. Your emotion. Try it.”

  I remember the game I played with Emeree, what feels like weeks ago. I cast out my soul, sending it back along what is now a rope only slightly less thick than the one I share with Emeree. I open myself to Siri, to her mind, and almost stagger as I take her inside. Her strength and determination, her raw power and fiercely simple intelligence. It buoys me, fills me with her animal ferocity, and I gasp.

  But I don’t pull away. So far, I can feel her, but not her movement, her intentions, like she just did with me. I extend my mind, try to sense her need, her desire, her mind.

  She’s… Damn!

  I dodge, avoiding her fist by less than a finger’s width. It was so sudden, I never would have seen it coming, let alone moved fast enough to dodge it. But there was something… An itch at the back of my mind, and a heartbeat before she threw the blow, I knew it was coming. Like with Emeree.

  I huff, releasing our connection. “Damn. That would have taken my head off. What if I hadn’t been fast enough?”

  “Then you’d be dead and wouldn’t be worthy of the bond.”

  Fair.

  Emeree shakes with silent laughter.

  I pick up the torch, casting about. We’re in a small chamber carved into the stone. There’s only one exit, an ominous passage with an opening like a predator’s mouth. The stone walls are slick as I push into the narrow tunnel. I can only see a few feet beyond the torch’s sputtering illumination, but from what I can see, the path pitches down, into the earth.

  Siri removes her axe, hefting it as she follows me. She has to duck as she enters the tunnel. “This better not get any smaller,” she grumbles.

  “You can shift forms. I’ll carry you.”

  “I won’t be able to help if you’re attacked.”

  “By what?” Does she know what Straithe was hinting at?

  Siri's voice is pitched low. “Going underground is never good. Dark things live below.” She pushes past me, taking the lead, every inch of her muscled body pushing against mine as she moves past. A body I remember from only hours ago. My breath hitches.

  She laughs huskily as she takes the torch. “Come.”

  I pull my bow, ready to draw, and follow her into the deep.

  19

  It doesn’t take long until I’ve completely lost my sense of time and space. The descent lasts what’s likely only a few minutes, but is so unchanged, so endless, that I can no longer orient myself. Beyond our torch’s wan glow are walls of oppressive night, so black that they seem as solid as the rock walls that scrape our shoulders.

  According to Straithe and Brecan will exit in the foothills beyond the lake. Based on my rough judgement as we’d travelled through the castle, I think we must be underneath the city proper by now.

  But if I’m honest with myself, I have no idea. We could be beneath the lake already, or the mountain, and I’d never know it. We exist in a tiny bubble of light, making it impossible to tell if the path is turning us gently or is straight as an arrow.

  The only sounds are our heavy breaths, our feet scraping the stone floor, and the rattle of our packs and armor as we jostle the narrow walls. Siri's bond vibrates with confidence, assurance, and I return the same, but that is our only communication. To speak aloud in such a quiet, undisturbed place seems profane.

  Maybe it’s just that we’re listening for the danger that no doubt lurks in here.

  Making it all worse is the fact that the walls are utterly smooth, as is the floor and ceiling. The path is so perfectly cut that it seems impossible that it’s manmade. Every so often, we find a rune carved into the wall. Siri had examined the first one we crossed, tracing it’s twisting lines and whorls with her finger, and then had shrugged and moved on. I brushed my hands across it as I’d followed, somehow finding its curved etching more sinister since Siri hadn’t recognized it.

  Time ceases to have meaning, and I completely give up trying to orient myself. In my mind we’ve gone miles, far past the bowl Minster Lowe dominates, but that can’t be right.

  A strange sort of lassitude settles over me, and my mind drains of thought, of worry. The quiet, the pace, is so absolute that I feel strangely hypnotized. What seems like a lifetime ago, I would sit at night in the high branches of the massive oaks of the Fortingall, mind as blank as it is now. Lulled by the whisper of wind through the trees, the sway of my perch, I’d extend my senses across the forest for hours, just existing.

  The folk of my village acted like I was a witch, or something unnatural, when I’d describe how the meditation allowed me to detect things faraway, unnatural occurrence or not. A bear taking a prize a mile away, or a buck falling in a brook and breaking its leg equally distant; I could
feel it. But, after being greeted with suspicion and narrowed eyes when I’d tell someone about such things, I kept them to myself.

  I wonder if this is part of why the bond with the Sirens works like it does. Why I took to it so naturally. Half of me always felt like it existed outside my body. Perhaps existing inside these women is the next natural step?

  Something itches the back of my mind. Something at the edges of my awareness.

  Siri is a few feet ahead of me, and I push forward, touch her shoulder. She startles, spinning in place, bringing her axe up so fast it almost takes me in the chest.

  She backs a step, eyes wide, and for the first time since I met her, she seems almost shaken. “Sorry. It’s… This place.”

  “I know,” I whisper, holding a hand up. “There’s something…” I cock my head, listening, but can’t hear anything, yet. “Something’s coming.”

  Siri turns in place, scanning our little pool of light. She grunts in frustration. “Where?”

  “Not sure. Just… I can feel it. Trust me.”

  “I do.”

  She’s so sure, so without a hint of doubt in voice or through the bond. I motion for silence, closing my eyes, and extend my senses.

  Twitching. Skitting. Little movements, bit by bit, far enough away that I can’t hear them, yet. But I can feel them, somehow, in a way I can’t explain. Like my bonds with the Sirens. I can’t explain how I can see them, feel them, in my mind. I just can. And in the same way I’m sure those bonds exist, I know that something is coming.

  From...Above.

  “Move, move,” I whisper urgently, moving further down the path.

  Siri backs up, eyes everywhere. Her crimson blade flows like liquid in the firelight. “Where?”

  I point up, and her eyes follow.

  Just behind us, where we stood moments ago, is a long crack in the ceiling. As thick as one of Siri's arms, it extends ten handspans. Rent jagged, as if something had forced its way from the smooth rock long ago.