“What is it?” Tibus asked.
Briand stepped to the ice-window and put her hands to the surface—she could see gaunt shapes moving like ghosts in the distance, swathed in shadows as they picked their way among the caves and rocks.
“There are people inside,” she said, drawing back.
“It’s a prison cell,” Crispin said. He rubbed a hand across his brow, his throat bobbing as he swallowed hard. “I remember it from when I visited with my father. The main one where they keep all the inconsequential prisoners, the ones that don’t require individual torture or solitary confinement. It’s called the Tomb by the guards. They… they joked about putting me inside. The guards did.”
“Bastards,” Nath said under his breath.
“What’s the smell?” Tibus asked.
“The guards only come to clean out the dead every so often,” Auberon replied. He didn’t sound shocked or angry. He sounded defeated.
The vast prison area was night-like. They stood at the wall of glass, staring inside.
“It’s so dark,” Briand said. “Is it always so dark?”
“Always,” Auberon whispered. “A prison of nightmares.” He turned to Kael. “The key?”
Kael reached for a keyring that was hanging around his neck, part of the guard’s costume. He handed it to the Seeker.
Auberon turned without a word and began inserting keys into the lock that Briand now noticed was formed in the wall. The door blended seamlessly with the rest of the corridor, and all of it made of sculpted ice that had hardened like stone beneath whatever enchantment had spelled it into place.
The lock clicked, and the door drifted open on silent, frozen hinges. Auberon stepped one foot inside. “I need the dragonsayer to come with me,” he said, not looking at them.
“No, you don’t,” Nath said immediately.
Briand’s eyes shot to Auberon’s, seeking his reason, but his face was turned toward the dark.
“And why is that?” Kael inquired, his voice a dark and velvet-smooth knife in the still air of the corridor.
“I need someone to help me with her,” Auberon said. “Based on what I saw in the guard’s head… she’s weak. And it’s dangerous inside.”
They looked at each other. “I’ll go,” Kael said.
“Someone I trust,” Auberon snapped.
“I’ll do it,” Briand said. “There isn’t time to argue.”
“If she goes,” Nath said, “then so do I.”
She nodded at Nath, and he nodded back. His expression was pure terror, but she saw the determination burning in his eyes.
Kael opened his mouth to protest. Briand laid a hand on his chest. His eyes dropped to it, and then slid back up to her face.
“They can’t hurt me,” she said. “Seeker powers blast right off me. I’ll be the safest person inside.”
His dark eyes were unreadable. He tipped his head in acquiescence. She turned to go, Nath beside her, and Kael’s hand shot out and grabbed Nath’s wrist.
“See that she returns without a scratch,” he said gruffly.
“I will, sir,” Nath replied solemnly.
Auberon stood at the door, his hands clenched. “My sister,” he reminded them, and Briand and Nath joined him. Auberon reached up and plucked another of the torches from its sconce, and with it clutched in his hand, stepped into the darkness.
Briand and Nath followed.
Together, they crossed into the Tomb of Ikarad.
~
Nath’s heart pounded, his mouth was dry, and his legs felt like wet reeds quivering in the wind, but somehow, he managed to force himself inside the darkness of the Seeker prison. He kept his eyes on the dragonsayer.
He was here to keep her safe, and keep her safe he would. He had promised Kael.
As if she sensed his terror, she reached back and grabbed his arm, anchoring him as the darkness closed around them like a fist. Prisoners moved around them in the dark, and Nath drew in a shuddering breath as he flexed his fingers on the hilt of his sword. He was in a nightmare.
He would not let their dragonsayer be injured by any of these… these… lords, what had these people become? The ones sliding away from them as they crossed the rocky and uneven floor looked like wraiths wrapped in cobwebs, not people.
A figure stumbled forward in the darkness, drawn to the light of their torch like a moth to a flame. He was skeletal, his clothing in tatters, his gray cloak gauzy and fluttering as if someone had taken an axe to it. The man’s cheekbones jutted from his face, and his eyes were sunken into his skull. He reached out a hand, and they saw that he wore iron gloves on his hands. The skin around his wrists was ragged and streaked with blood, as if he’d tried and failed many times to get the gloves off.
“Please,” the man groaned.
“I’m looking for a woman,” Auberon said urgently. “About this tall, scarred face, named Jade.” He held up a hand to his shoulder to indicate Jade’s height.
The man shook his head. He appeared confused by Auberon’s words. Auberon seized the man by the arms.
“Did you hear me? I’m looking for—”
The man made a grab for Auberon’s sword. The Seeker shoved the prisoner to the ground, and then they were running away, the man shouting something after them in a rasping voice.
The light of the torch bounced off the jagged stone walls. Gone were the smooth, magic-crafted columns and doorways. In this Tomb-cell, everything resembled the natural configurations of a cave deep beneath the earth. Pillars of twisting rock hung like teeth from a low ceiling as they ducked into a tunnel. A few figures lay huddled against a sloping wall. Auberon drew close to them, shining the light in their faces. “Jade?” he called.
The figures turned away from him, burrowing deeper into their cloaks.
“Not here,” Auberon muttered. He moved on, heading deeper into the tunnel.
“How big is this place?” Briand whispered.
Nath looked at the rock hanging over their heads. Someone had scribbled phrases of despair and desperation upon it, using what appeared to be blood to write the words. Poems, curses, even a few grim jokes adorned the rough stone.
Auberon was already far ahead, the blue light of his torch flickering like light underwater, and Nath hurried to keep close.
Deeper in, the tunnel split in two. Auberon deliberated a moment before choosing the right. It diverged into a series of small holes that appeared to be personal caves. They poked their heads in several, earning snarls and moans in response from the inhabitants inside.
“She has to be here somewhere,” Auberon growled.
“Should we check the pile of bodies?” Nath asked.
Hands shoved him against the wall, knocking the breath from his lungs. Nath wheezed, glaring into Auberon’s furious face.
“She’s not in the pile of bodies,” Auberon hissed.
“Try that again, Seeker, and I’ll cut your arm off,” Nath promised angrily.
They stared at each other for a moment, both seething, until the dragonsayer grabbed the Seeker’s arm. “This way,” she said, her expression a warning to both of them. “I see something.”
Firelight flickered in the tunnel up ahead. Shadows stretched down the tunnel. Something was moving.
Auberon pushed past Nath to head toward the light and movement, calling Jade’s name. Briand caught Nath’s wrist.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he said, although he was trembling. Despite his feelings about Seekers, he felt pity when he looked at the bundled bodies huddling away from their torch.
They hurried after Auberon, down a shallow flight of steps into a larger, deeper portion of the tunnel that widened into a cave. Fires burned at each corner, bathing them in blue light. Prisoners swathed in tatters of gray cloth turned slowly at their entrance, moving like invalids.
“Jade?” Auberon called. His voice echoed weirdly. He turned a circle, his cloak fluttering.
The fires flickered. They gave off no s
moke, but they emitted a nasty, choking smell, like scalded mushrooms.
The bundled prisoners lurched up. There were more of them than Nath had initially realized. He bumped into the dragonsayer as he took a step back. She grabbed his free hand.
The figures hissed and moaned. They reached out grasping hands as they came forward. Some of them had managed to crack the metal gloves they wore, and fingers or palms showed through.
Nath lifted his sword. “Get back,” he warned the approaching prisoners. His voice shook, and he swallowed and tried again. “Away,” he snarled.
But they kept coming.
“Auberon,” the dragonsayer called out, but Auberon had vanished.
The prisoners surrounded them, hands reaching and grasping, mouths opening to reveal broken teeth and throats like pits of black. Their eyes and noses were covered in shadows and cloth, and they looked like an army of ghosts. One, half of its hand bare, reached for Nath’s face. He jerked back, swinging his sword. The blade collided with the metal on the Seeker prisoner’s hand. The prisoner fell to his knees. But there were more behind him. Nath struck again, knocking another back.
“Dragonsayer!” he shouted, a note of panic in his voice.
“Hold on,” she ground out.
Another Seeker prisoner latched onto the dragonsayer with a bare hand. She closed her hand over the skin of the prisoner and shut her eyes. The prisoner flew back with a screech. She reached for another, catapulting the Seeker into the wall.
Auberon appeared in the far entrance to the cave. He spotted them battling the prisoners and rushed at them with the torch outstretched to fend off the horde. Together, the three of them pushed the prisoners back, and then they sped toward the mouth of the tunnel.
“I turn around, and they’re on you both like rats,” Auberon panted. “Stay close.”
“You’re the one who ran off,” Nath gasped. His pulse was pounding in his ears so loudly that it was difficult to hear.
The tunnel curved. Ahead, he heard a thundering sound. A roaring. They turned the corner and skidded to a stop. A thundering waterfall poured down from the darkness overhead, spitting mist into their faces.
“Look!” the dragonsayer said, pointing.
The waterfall ended in a great, rippling lake the color of ink. Steps coiled down to a spit of rock that reached across the lake. There, next to the water, ringed in the light of a half-burned torch, was a Seeker figure, kneeling beside a heaving shape.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“JADE?” AUBERON CALLED. His voice, hopeful and fearful at the same time, was barely audible above the sound of the falling water.
“Ari?” The figure stiffened, then whirled. “Ari?”
“Jade!” Auberon shouted, louder this time. He thrust the torch into Nath’s hands and rushed toward the steps that led downward, his cloak swirling behind him in the dark.
Part of Nath wanted to grab the dragonsayer and run back to the others. A very, very large part. But he found himself instead descending the steps with the dragonsayer at his side, moving toward Auberon, who had fallen beside his sister at the water’s edge. As Nath drew close, and the light of the torch illuminated them more clearly, he saw that the Seeker’s sister was bald. Her face was a mass of scarred skin.
And she was covered in blood.
She didn’t even notice them. She had her arms around her brother. Nath looked around; they were standing in near darkness, except for the sputtering blue torches. The roar of the water was so loud it drowned out most other sounds.
It was a bad place to linger. They could easily be ambushed by more ghostly prisoners.
He kept his hand on his sword, and the dragonsayer, he noted with pride, had a knife in each hand. They were thinking the same thing.
“Jade,” Auberon gasped. “Are you—where are you bleeding? What happened?” He ran his hands over her shoulders, her arms, looking for the injury.
“It’s not my blood,” she said breathlessly. She gestured behind her at the shape that lay on the ground, pale white and gleaming in the misty darkness. “It’s Snowball’s.”
“Snowball?” Nath repeated. He stepped closer to see what she was talking about, what sort of dog or other animal she might have in here that she was taking care of, but Jade blocked his way with a bundle of rags.
“Hold this,” she commanded, thrusting it into his arms.
Nath tucked the bundle in the crook of his nondominant arm so he wouldn’t have to put down his sword. He stared down at it. What was this?
A soft, weak mewing sound came from the bundle.
“That’s the only one that made it through the birth,” Jade said. “Snowball was too weak. They don’t give us much food, and we have to fight for what we are given. There wasn’t enough…” She breathed out heavily, her eyes growing unfocused.
“Jade?” Auberon said, shaking her.
She was unresponsive. She swayed, and he wrapped his arms around her. “Jade,” he said. “Jade!”
“What’s wrong with her?” Nath asked in alarm.
“They’ve messed with her mind, no doubt,” Auberon growled. “Who knows what they’ve done to her—Jade!”
His sister blinked and moved again, turning her face toward him. “Ari,” she said, bringing up a hand to touch his face. “You’re here.” She frowned. “I already knew that, didn’t I? What were you asking me?”
“Who is Snowball?” Auberon asked. He sounded breathless with relief.
“Snowball is—was—my pet,” Jade said. Her voice filled with tears. “My only friend in this place. She saved my life in here. And now she’s gone.”
The Seeker woman looked at them as if coming out of a fog. She blinked again. “Briand? What…? I thought I was hallucinating you. You’re really here?” She glanced at Nath. “Who is he? He looks familiar.”
“We’ve come to rescue you,” Auberon said.
Jade passed a hand across her eyes. “Are you insane, brother? There’s no way out of Ikarad.”
Auberon smiled a little.
“There is if you have a dragon,” he whispered.
Jade’s eyes widened. She burrowed against Auberon, who wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
The bundle in Nath’s arm wiggled again, and a tiny white paw reached out and grazed his forearm. It was warm, and he felt curiously protective of the tiny thing, whatever it was. He tucked the paw back in the rags.
“You got my message,” Jade was saying. “I can’t believe that worked.”
“Believe it, sister,” Auberon said. He pressed his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry.”
Shadows danced on the far wall, and a faint howling sound filled the air. Nath lifted his sword and shifted his arm so he was holding the bundled baby critter more securely. “We’ve got company,” he warned.
Jade looked upward, and Nath saw the scars lining her throat. She shrank back at the sight of the shadows.
“Quickly,” she said, pulling on Auberon’s elbow. “This way. Those sound like Skullsplitters, and we don’t want to meet them.”
Nath’s eyes snapped back to the shadows. They’d vanished, and the howls had quieted. Was there some kind of animal running loose in this prison? Was this what she’d created a pet out of?
“Skullsplitters?” Auberon asked. He followed her as she stepped over a still, bloodied body of her pet—it was big, Nath thought, bigger than a normal-sized dog—and across a few stones that protruded from the flowing water. She leaped across them with practiced ease and then scrambled up the bank on the other side. The dragonsayer and Nath followed, both watching the place where they’d seen the shadows appear.
“To survive inside the Tomb, most prisoners join one of the gangs,” Jade explained. “The Skullsplitters, the Bonecarvers, the Fangbreakers.”
“I thought it was an animal,” Nath said in relief as he followed her across the water and up the bank.”
“Most of the prisoners are animals, now,” Jade said quietly. “Their minds have been broken compl
etely by the interrogations and tortures they have endured. They no longer know who they are. They no longer know anything but this place, and their bloodlust.”
She paused at the top of the bank. Tunnels leading to more caves branched away in the darkness beside the waterfall.
“What’s the fastest way back to the door in?” the dragonsayer asked.
Jade bit her lip. “Fastest is that way,” she said, pointing to the middle tunnel. “But it isn’t the safest. It leads right through Bonecarver territory.”
“Well, then,” the dragonsayer said. “What is the safest way back to the exit?”
Jade led them into the tunnel closest to the waterfall. The rocky ground here was slippery and wet. Nath’s boots slipped, and he steadied himself against the wall with the hand that held his sword. The sound clattered loudly. Jade winced, grabbing ahold of Auberon again. The Seeker took off his cloak and wrapped it around his sister’s shoulders.
“You’re doing well,” he told her. “Keep walking. I’m here.”
It was the gentlest Nath had ever seen the Seeker act.
But Jade was shaking her head. “I can’t,” she whispered as she slid down to a crouching position against the wall. “I can’t do it, Ari. Not that way…” Her eyes unfocused again, and she leaned back against the wall.
The Seeker dropped to the ground beside her. His pale hair glowed in the torchlight, and his face, when he turned it toward the dragonsayer, was gaunt with concern.
“Dragon girl,” he said urgently. “Look into her mind. Please.”
“I—” the dragonsayer began.
“Please,” Auberon said. His forehead wrinkled, and his eyebrows drew together as the word scraped off his tongue. “Please, dragon girl. We have to get out of here. I don’t know what she’s trying to say.”
The dragonsayer looked at Nath, who stood dumbly with his sword in one hand and the wiggling, whimpering bundle of unidentified newborn pet tucked under his other arm. “Nath?”
A Court of Lies Page 22