Beneath the Precinct: Reprise (To Walk the Path 19)

by Paul Smith

the arrival of your fleet. The chamber is entangled with its twin beneath the Acropolis, so we were able to swap them out without anyone seeing.”

  We knew this was likely to happen, Kel reminded herself, forcing her jaw to unclench. There’s nothing you can do about, and there are contingencies in place. Just get on with the plan.

  “Okay fang boy, lead the way.”

  The Myson nodded, waving them out ahead of him and gesturing down the corridor towards the courtyard that stood at the Mission’s centre.

  “Does this mean technically I’m now the Myson Axis?” Rina asked, fingering the bracelet on her wrist.

  “Yes, but don’t get any ideas above your station,” Kel growled. They exchanged a swift smile, Rina raising an eyebrow at the slightly panicked look the Myson agent shot them.

  “Oh do calm down boy, you never heard of coping strategies?”

  He nodded succinctly, stepping out into the courtyard to guide them towards the open corridor on its far side.

  “Just try and remember I’m as nervous as you,” he replied, without turning back to them.

  Rina and Kel shared a silent look behind his back. Tomen spotted it and rolled his eyes, jogging forwards to catch up with their guide. Kel shook her head, shoulders hunching unconsciously as the Myson led them back into the building, heading for a set of broad stairs at the corridor’s far end.

  The Myson led them down into the bowels of the Mission, through layers of security that ceded silently to their passage. Initially thinking only she and the Daiku had any idea of the barriers Kel caught a glimpse of Tomen casting haunted eyes about as they turned down a side staircase and realised he and Rina too could feel the nifl’s ghostly touch.

  Probably a side effect of wearing the bracelets, she mused as the daemon ran icy tongues across her fire, making her shiver. Stop that! The sensation receded, leaving her with the disconcerting impression it was laughing at her.

  She was brought up short as the Myson (really must find out his name) stopped abruptly at the base of the stairs.

  “What?” she hissed, leaning round Tomen, whose broad shoulders were preventing her from seeing what was going on. I’m skulking in a service stairwell wearing couture. Because that’s not suspicious at all.

  “There might be a problem,” the Myson replied, glancing back at her.

  “A problem…?”

  “The Oubliette is open.”

  “The… the Drake is out!?”

  “We don’t know that,” he replied with a level calm he clearly didn’t feel. “They might just be bringing it a snack.”

  “Bringing it a snack...” Kel left plenty of space between each word for the scepticism to ooze freely.

  “Before the fight...” the Myson’s voice died in a squeak as he realised who he was talking to. “I mean...”

  “Who exactly is in there?” Kel asked, screwing her courage into place.

  “I don’t know.” The Daiku raised his hands helplessly at her look. “Calistair rescinded most of my privileges after what happened at the Hothouses. It was only Desan’s intervention that stopped him kicking me out of the Fangs completely.”

  Kelsaro held up her palms, forestalling any further justifications. “I get it. So, possibly an unknown Drake on the loose, possibly not. Neither of which changes the fact we’ve got to get to this sub station thingy. So, why are we still stood here?”

  The Myson opened his mouth, then clearly decided better of it. Taking a breath, he walked boldly out into the foyer beyond, turning towards a side corridor that led away from the vast doors to the Oubliette.

  They froze as one at the sound of clattering hooves on stone. A startled bleat was abruptly silenced as a dull thud reverberated through the floor beneath their feet. The crunching sound that followed was horribly explicit.

  “See,” their guide said with unconvincing calm, “snack time.”

  They regarded the Myson, who had gone a very odd shade of green.

  Kelsaro took his arm. “Come on Dai, time to get us to those switches.”

  The Shadow Fang nodded absently, gesturing them to follow as he set off again down the curving corridor.

  No more stairs, but their path took them through a broad set of doors that clearly de-marked some sort of barrier as the walls of the corridor beyond bore the eerily smooth look typical of the Surfan’s handiwork.

  “I didn’t realise they had a stronghold here,” Kelsaro commented, as they approached the vast chamber at its end. There were no doors at the end, the corridor simply opening into the space beyond, which looked to be filled with rows of enormous sarcophagi. As they stepped out she quickly reassessed her initial estimates of how large the place was. It would easily swallow the Star Way with room to spare.

  “We think it was a cache point for them, nothing more. There’s a cave-in a hundred meters down the passage at the far end, blocking access to the outside that we think was triggered intentionally. Though by the time we found the place whatever they’d done it to protect had already been stolen. So we re-purposed the space.”

  Kelsaro nodded, gazing about at the humming tombs that surrounded them. To the naked eye they were inert lumps of carven stone, but her fire told a very different story. The room was alive with light, traceries of it running this way and that in streamers that emerged from depressions in the stone work to disappear into conduits in the roof.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” The Myson offered her a tight smile. “Come, I’ll show you which bit we need to break.”

  Nodding, she allowed him to lead the way, motioning to Rina and Tomen to keep a look out for trouble.

  Kelsaro looked at the gap in the rock before her and the hissing stream of incandescent energies that streamed through it.

  “In there?”

  “Yep.”

  She turned to Daniel (he’d confided his name), eyes narrowing. “You’re sure?”

  “My Circle maintains this stuff. ‘Bringing light to your world’ and all that.”

  “I’m aware of that. Why don’t you do it?”

  The Fang sighed. “Because it’s the nature of your flesh, and the interaction between it and the current, that will do the breaking. If I stuck my arm in there I just won’t have an arm any more. Someone out in the Orchards might notice one of their street lamps flicker, but apart from that...” He gave her an imploring look “...the signal’s gone up. We need to do this now.”

  Sighing, Kelsaro nodded, screwing her courage down as she stepped up to the niche in the sarcophagus before them. Like its siblings, this one was constructed of a lustrous black stone in sweeping lines that somehow conveyed the impression of ‘tomb’, whilst also whispering (to her at least) ‘what I contain might not be human…?’

  It was a sly insinuation she did not appreciate.

  All that said, she didn’t have the slightest idea what part a corpse might play in the channelling of power. Suspected the thing’s form here owed more to some ancient Myson’s twisted sense of humour than anything else.

  And now I’ve got to stick my hand in it.

  Taking a deep breath, she thrust the blade of her palm into the gap that ran canyon-like through the side of this particular monument, at what might roughly have been the elbow joint, if the implied contours did indeed conceal a body.

  The flow was cold, and slightly wet to the touch, almost as if she’d pushed her hand into a stream. A fizzing sound reached her ears, growing in volume as she kept her palm there. She glanced questioningly at the Myson...

  “The flow must break,” he reminded her, nodding encouragement.

  The fizzing continued to rise, until the sound came to resemble the cataract rush of some vast waterfall more than a stream. Her teeth had started to chatter, and she realised with a start that she could feel her body drinking in the energy rushing past. Could feel it spooling up inside, filling previously unknown vaults in her body.

  When it came the shock was visceral, leaping through her to ground out in the stones about her feet
. Light arched about her in weaving serpents as the room screamed.

  And abruptly, darkness…

  “Hello…?”

  “I’m here.” The Myson’s hand on hers. “Are you okay?”

  Kelsaro looked down at her smoking fist, flexing the fingers experimentally. “Improbably, yes.”

  “Good.” The Myson cupped his palms, blowing into them, only to have the resultant light globe burst. “Bugger.”

  “What is it?”

  “I forgot seferiks don’t work round you lot. And I didn’t bring a lamp...”

  “I can see.” She took his hand. “Full night sight. One of the perks of the package.”

  “Oh! Well then, lead the way.”

  Kel guided them back to the entrance, where Rina and Tomen were stood by the light of a match flame.

  “You okay?” the river trader asked.

  Kel nodded, gripping hers and Tomen’s arm. “We’re going to make a crocodile, like at nursery school. Fang boy, you’re at the back. Ready?”

  The others nodded, Tomen extinguishing the light. Rina took a firm grip on her hand and they set off, heading back up the corridor towards the Mission proper’s undercroft…

  “Mr Myson?”

  “Yes Ms Wraethi?”

  Kel decided not to bridle at the implied spinsterhood. “What was the plan with that dragon.”

  Silence. Kel slowed as they reached the door, glancing back over her shoulder to raise a questioning eyebrow. Realised belatedly from the slightly blank expressions of everyone else that they couldn’t see her.

  Still not enough ambient light. There’s a joke here, surely, about the Blind leading the