A Thief in the Night (19 page)

Chapter Thirty-two

T
he five of them moved cautiously toward the center of the room. Mörget moved restlessly around the rest of them, his axe always pointed toward the darkness. Slag moved forward as if there was nothing at all to worry about.

Croy wished he could feel as confident.

The Vincularium was supposed to be empty. That had been a fact of life for as long as he could remember. Every knight of Skrae knew the story of the place, and that it was shunned. The king—and the king's father, and all his antecedents, as far as Croy knew—had always treated the place as something to be forgotten about, a legacy of a dark past no one wanted to dredge up. Everyone agreed there was no need to guard it, because no one would be foolish enough to go inside. Whether or not it was haunted was a question of theology rather than anything practical.

Yet Mörget had tracked his demon here, and now they had proof they were not alone. It was not a question of whether they were in danger inside the abandoned dwarven city. It was only a question of what form that danger would take.

The weathered cobblestones under their feet were the only thing Croy could see in that dark place. His lantern illuminated nothing else for a long while as they moved, so that he almost felt they were wandering through a limitless space with a floor and no other features whatsoever—some other realm, like the pit of the Bloodgod but with less tortured souls and more of the emptiness of pointless existence. He could imagine such a place as the afterlife for those who had been neither good nor evil while alive, those who had accomplished nothing at all. The thought sent a shiver down his back. For a man like Croy, who endeavored always to make the world a better place, such inactivity and pointlessness was the ultimate sin.

Such thoughts did little to ease his anticipations.

When he first spotted a faint pale outline in the distance, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. Yet as they approached, it became more distinct. Something square and light in color, maybe five feet high. When they came close enough to see it in detail, Croy thought it looked like a very small house. It had a peaked roof and plain walls. Dwarven runes were inscribed on one wall, but they were in a formal, overwrought script he could not decipher at all.

Slag saw Croy's interest and waved to get his attention. Then the dwarf pressed his hands together as if in prayer and closed his eyes.

Thinking he understood, Croy drew a small medallion from inside his tunic. The golden cornucopia was the symbol of the Lady, and he wore it always on a chain around his neck. He had received it when he made a pilgrimage to Her shrine at Strayburn. Now, he was asking if the little house was a dwarven shrine or altar.

Slag looked confused. Then he rolled his eyes. With a sigh that sounded like a windstorm in that silent place, he lay down on the cobbles and repeated his earlier gesture, hands pressed together and eyes closed.

Croy understood then, and took an immediate step backward. The little house was a dwarven sarcophagus. Definitely something he wanted to avoid.

Unfortunately he had little choice. As they proceeded farther toward the center of the enormous chamber, more of the mausoleums appeared in their light. First a rare scattering, then more and more until they had to wind their way between the closely spaced tombs, climbing over some in places. They came in a variety of shapes and sizes—some were just slabs set into the cobbles, others stout obelisks, and one was even spherical, standing on four stout legs. Yet they were alike in their plainness and height. None were so high Croy could not see over them.

A city of dwarven dead, a field of ancient bones hidden away in the darkness under the world.

Such a place could not help but be haunted. The hair on Croy's neck stood on end, and he wanted to be away as quickly as possible. Yet the demon must lie somewhere beyond. Only duty could get him through that terrible place.

In time the tombs grew farther apart, and eventually the last of them fell behind, just a pale shadow in the dimness. They kept walking, moving toward the center of the chamber. It seemed impossible that such a large space could exist under the ground, yet the cobbles showed no sign of giving out.

At least—not until they did, with a suddenness that nearly spelled Croy's doom. Without warning the floor simply ended, opening up into empty space. He managed to stop well clear of the edge, but Malden had no warning and blundered into him from behind. Croy spread his arms and legs to try to balance on the edge, but one of his feet went over and he felt his balance shifting. It seemed he was falling into the gloom, into nothingness—and his panicked brain thought that pit must go down forever.

Then Mörget's massive hands caught his arms and roughly hauled him back, away from the edge. Croy let out a desperate breath and calmed himself. He brushed down the front of his brigantine and tried to control his vertigo.

Malden mimed an apology, spreading his hands outward in supplication. Croy nodded brusquely, then reached up to quietly slap Mörget's arm in thanks. The barbarian just shrugged.

The five of them spread out along the edge, their lights showing only where the floor ended and the abyss began. The edge was curved, like the wall they'd left behind, but it was more obvious here. It seemed the center of the round room was only empty space.

It was not perfectly featureless, however. The little light that strayed down into the abysm showed it was lined by a sheer wall of closely fit bricks. Knobs of some colorless fungus stood out from the bricks like ears and noses.

Slag held up one hand, two fingers pointing down. He bent and then straightened each in turn to suggest a pair of legs walking down a flight of stairs. Croy nodded and together they headed around the edge of the pit, careful to watch their footing.

They found no stairs leading down. However, off to the left the featureless floor was interrupted by a pillar of smooth rock that stretched upward into the dark. The pillar stood athwart the edge, descending into the depths just as it lifted upward. Bolted to this pillar was a massive iron chain, as thick as Croy's bicep, that stretched across the pit, much like the line Slag had used to bisect his charcoal circle. Malden was already examining this chain as if he intended to walk on it.

Mörget stripped off his pack and rummaged inside it. He took out a carefully folded tent and started ripping it to pieces. It quickly became apparent what he had in mind. He broke a piece from one of the tent poles, then tore a strip of canvas and wrapped it tightly around the end of the pole. The canvas was waxed to make it waterproof, but that also made it highly flammable. Lighting it from the candle in his lantern, Mörget soon had a wildly burning torch in his hand.

Before Croy could stop him, the barbarian whirled around and tossed his torch far out over the face of the abyss. It fell rapidly away from them, letting them see a little more as it fluttered past.

The pit was illuminated only for a moment, but in that time Croy made out several interesting details. The opening in the floor was at least two hundred feet across. It was perfectly circular, and it was crossed only by three massive chains like the one Malden was investigating. The chains met in the center of the pit, where they anchored an enormous round globe of crystal, thirty feet across.

Croy could not begin to guess what purpose that globe served. He was far too busy, anyway, following the brand with his eyes as it fell into the depths. He could see the pit went down for hundreds of feet, maybe even a thousand. It was perfectly cylindrical in shape, and its walls were everywhere streaked and encrusted with the fungal growths. It was not, however, totally uniform. Around its circumference countless openings showed—some small and square, like windows, others very broad like galleries. The pit must be like a vast tower turned inside out, so that its various floors were on the outside of its wall. Floors was the correct word, he thought—from where he stood, he could look down on dozens of levels of the dwarven city. Every one of those galleries might open on whole suites of rooms, broad halls, winding tunnels—even other shafts like this one.

For the first time Croy had an inkling of the vast size of the Vincularium. He had seen what the dwarves called cities in the North, and was disappointed by how cramped and narrow they were. He had always imagined the Vincularium would be the same: a small village's worth of homes and workshops built into a series of enlarged mine shafts.

This city, though, might be as big as the Free City of Ness, if all of its houses and churches and palaces and shops and manufactories were stacked neatly on top of each other, then buried under a mountain. The entirety of Helstrow could have been dropped into that central shaft and not filled its volume.

“By Sadu's burning arsehole,” Malden swore aloud. After the prolonged silence, Croy felt the words like rocks raining down on his shoulders. He tried to shush the thief, but the others ignored him.

“Indeed,” Cythera said. “Slag, did you have any idea it could be so big?”

Even the dwarf looked awestruck. “Fuck no.”

Chapter Thirty-three

I
t seemed to take hours for the torch to fall through the shaft, though it must only have been a few dozen seconds. It landed on something wet, but it went out so quickly and so far away that it was impossible to tell what it had struck.

Then the shaft was dark again, and its secrets were hid once more.

“There used to be more of us,” Slag said, when the shock of the Vincularium's size had worn off a bit. “More dwarves. There had to be.”

“How many more?” Croy asked. It seemed the rule of silence was utterly broken. “I would imagine the entire population of the dwarven kingdom could live here, and not feel crowded.”

Slag nodded. “Surely. There are maybe ten thousand of us left.” His lips moved quickly, as if he were doing some calculation in his mind. “This place could have held millions. And just look at the design! Hmm. Interesting. Central shaft for ventilation and access. Stratified construction, probably with reinforcing spars on each level—of course, you'd need more at the bottom, to hold the weight of the upper levels, but then what keeps the mountain up? This is some very complex engineering.” He shook his head. “We've lost so much. My people couldn't build one of these now if life depended on it.”

“Slag,” Cythera said, “that giant crystal ball hanging in the middle of the shaft—what is its purpose? Mother has one but it's only the size of a cabbage. She uses it to scry with. Is this something similar?”

“No fucking clue,” Slag said. “But no. I can vouch for the fact no dwarf ever peered into a crystal ball.” He strode away from the edge and took his piece of charcoal out of his purse again. For a while he just wandered around, looking for somewhere to draw more figures.

Poor dwarf, Croy thought. He's looked on the glory of his ancestors and now he needs to draw more magic charms to protect himself against sheer awe.

“All right,” Mörget said. “Enough gawking. Let's make camp.”

Croy stared at the barbarian in pure surprise. “Here? Now? When we know there's someone out there, willing to do us harm?”

“I'm tired. I'm sure the rest of you are exhausted. So yes, here. Unless you wish to trek back to the barricade,” Mörget told him. “This is the most defensible spot we have. The—The upside-down graves over there,” he said, gesturing behind him.

“Mausoleums,” Croy said.

“The dead dwarves will screen one flank. Anyone trying to get through there will be slowed down, at the very least. On the other flank we have the pit.”

“Something might come climbing out of it,” Malden suggested.

“The mountain could fall on our heads at any time,” Mörget pointed out in return. “I'll stand watch while you rest, little thief. Anything that comes out of the pit,” he said, and brandished his axe, “will find me waiting.”

They placed their lanterns together in poor imitation of a campfire and sat around them in a circle. Croy was not surprised to see that Malden fell asleep almost at once, or that Cythera lay down with her head against the thief's shoulder. He was glad they could take some comfort from each other's presence, his betrothed and his best friend. Slag sat unquiet, however, passing his piece of charcoal from one hand to the other. As for himself, Croy was unable to rest—he was too aware, always, of the vast quantity of darkness surrounding him. He must have been born on a sunny day, he thought. This impenetrable gloom frayed his nerves and made him jumpy. He would be all too glad when the demon was slain and they could leave again.

Admit it
, he told himself.
You're frightened.

Like most boys of Skrae, Croy had grown up believing knights were supposed to be fearless, that they charged into danger without a second thought. That illusion lasted until he fought in his first real battle. He'd vomited while he waited for the enemy to arrive, and tried to cover up his shame by burying his sick. Sir Orne, a fellow Ancient Blade, had laughed at him but then told him the secret of being fearless.

“It's an act. A mask you wear, to help frighten your enemies. Just as they pretend to be unafraid to frighten you. But honestly we're all ready to run away, every time, run until we find our mothers and can weep into their skirts.”

“But how do you conquer the fear?” Croy had asked.

“That's one fight you can't win. All you can ever hope for is to keep your mask from slipping at the wrong time,” Sir Orne had told him.

He'd never forgotten that lesson.

To pass the time, he spoke in low tones with Mörget and the dwarf.

“What can you tell us of this place?” he asked Slag. “You seemed as surprised as any of us to see how big it is.”

“Aye, lad. There's little enough to tell, as even the most learned dwarves think of the Vincularium as a piece of the past, perhaps better forgotten. It was a grand city in the days before men came to this land, but ye knew that already. I know it had a different name back then, which was Thur-Karas.”

“What does that name mean?” Mörget inquired.

Slag shrugged. “ ‘Place of the Long Shadows' is the best translation I can make. Which means as fucking little to me as it must to you.”

“It sounds baleful,” Mörget said, looking grim.

“Names are often meaningless, or chosen for reasons we cannot fathom,” Croy said. “My own, for instance, means nothing of value.”

“Truly?” Mörget asked, sounding surprised. “I would think a man of rank like yourself would have a name of importance.”

“You do me too much credit. My mother chose the name. Before me, it belonged to an uncle, her favorite brother. That's all.”

“It must have come from somewhere,” Mörget said.

Croy shrugged. “I imagine my uncle was named after another Croy, perhaps an ancestor. How far back that chain goes I cannot say. Malden and Cythera could probably tell you similar stories. Such is the custom in Skrae.”

Mörget shook his head. “Names should have power. In my land, in the East, we say a man's name is his destiny.”

Croy raised an eyebrow. “An interesting notion. So when you meet a man, you know something of his character right away. Very practical.”

“If you have to fight a man, you want to know if his name means ‘killer' or ‘coward.' It's useful information.”

Croy opened his pack and took out a jug of ale. He sipped at it, then handed it to Slag, who took a deep pull on it. Mörget, of course, drank no spirits, so the dwarf handed it back to the knight. “So,” Croy said, “what does Mörget mean? Something violent and forceful, no doubt.” He pumped one fist in the air and laughed.

“Hardly. It means simply that I am the son of Mörg. Mörg's get.”

“And who's Mörg when he's not at home?” Slag asked.

Mörget looked as if he'd almost rather not say. It was the first time Croy had ever seen the barbarian look less than enthusiastic about something. And yet he knew from Mörget's own lips that his father was a great chieftain of the barbarians, a commander of men.

“Sometimes they call him Mörg the Wise. He's the closest thing we have to a king,” Mörget said, his eyes dark.

Croy spread his arms wide. “There you go. A proud name indeed.”

The barbarian ran one thumb along the blade of his axe. “It is not meant that way. It is meant as a mark of shame. Among my people, no man is worth anything but what he seizes for himself. My name is meant to always remind me that I am not special, nor am I to be favored, just because I am the whelp of a great man. I must achieve something great in my life, or my people will always remember me as someone's
child
.”

“Once you kill this demon—”

“Then I will change my name. I will have earned a better one.”

“I can see why you would travel so far to carry out your quest,” Croy said.

“Yes. And now you know about my name, for what good it does you. You. Dwarf.”

Slag looked up. He'd started dozing halfway through Mörget's explanation. “Huh, yes?”

“Your name seems strange to me. What is a ‘slag'?”

“Slag is a waste product of the smelting process. It's just what humans call me. A sodding insult, to be true, though mostly they mean it affectionately.”

“I knew it was unusual,” Croy said, slapping his knee. “I was under the impression all dwarf names end with the suffix ‘in.' Like Murdlin and Snurrin and Therin.”

“Many do. It means ‘descendant of.' Murdlin, for instance, is the seventh direct grandson of Murdli, the dwarf who invented the blister process of making steel. One of our great heroes. In our land, that
is
a mark of honor.”

“We come from very different worlds,” Mörget told the dwarf.

“You're not fucking kidding.”

Croy laughed. “But what's your actual name, then, Slag? I hate to think this whole time I've been calling you after some noxious substance, when you had a real, proud name I could use.”

“It's not important,” Slag told him.

“Of course it is,” Croy said. “I have nothing but respect for you, and wouldn't want to insult you, even in affectionate jest. Why, I—”

“Be still,” Mörget said, jumping to his feet. The axe in his hand pointed out into the dark.

“I told you, it's not fucking important,” Slag said, squinting at Croy.

The knight was too busy staring at Mörget to hear him.

“What is it?” Croy asked.

“I hear footsteps. And they're close.”