However, easy as it was to suspect Cavendis, it was harder to figure why he would be involved in such a nasty enterprise. He was a son of the House of South Mark, which meant he had all the gold he could possibly ever need, at least personally, so why risk association with such goings-on as were taking place beneath this mountain? That liability, the risk of losing the peerage for his family, much less of losing his life, suggested he couldn’t and wouldn’t have anything to do with it. But what a coincidence, then, that he would have been sent out here to gamble in the attempt to gather clues about a counterfeiting operation. Certainly such a thing flouted Her Majesty’s laws and mucked up the economy—and there certainly was counterfeiting going on, as he’d seen it himself. Because of that, Ilbei might have been willing to entertain the coincidence of Cavendis’ arrival as legitimate had it not been for the obvious problem of Locke Verity and that infernal Ergo the Skewer. Cavendis was obviously confederates with both of them, which put great big black-shafted, green-feathered, steel-bolted holes in the likelihood of Cavendis’ innocence. Therefore, Ilbei came to the only conclusions he could make: Cavendis of South Mark was pulling gold from the Valenride side of the Gallspire Mountains; he was willing to kill anyone to prevent the word from getting out; and he was in a hurry to get it done. In fact, he was in such a hurry that he’d resorted to enslaving a wild’s worth of harpies and allowed the torture of Her Majesty’s subjects as part of enforcing the “contract” Sett mentioned.
So why the hurry? Who was he hiding from? Her Majesty or his mother, the Marchioness of South Mark? As far as Ilbei was concerned, that was the only real question left. Was it Cavendis’ operation or his mother’s? The ramifications of that were huge. But, they were also above his pay grade and therefore something he could leave to the general back at Hast. Let the high folk squabble over whose mountain of gold it was in the end. He just needed to get his people out alive.
Exactly as Sett had said, they came to an intersection where the main passage began to bend ahead. Near one wall several large, stoutly made baskets were stacked, each easily big enough for Kaige to recline inside comfortably had he wanted to. Peering up that passage to the left, Ilbei could hear the distinct sound of running water, the rush of a river. To the right, as he crossed over and listened down that way, he could hear the creak of heavy ropes, the clunk and rattle of wooden gears, and the distinctive squeak of a block and tackle at work. Ilbei had been in enough mines to know the sound of a whim mechanism when he heard one. There were voices coming from that way as well. Ilbei was tempted to go confirm it, to see if the whim was the one winding up the baskets of gold from far below, but light began expanding on the wall ahead where the passage curved away out of sight. Someone was coming toward them with a lamp.
He glanced at the baskets and considered ordering everyone to hide in them, but extinguishing the torch would take too long and leave smoke behind. “Go on,” he said, his voice low and urgent. “All of ya, up, up.” He practically shoved Jasper and Kaige into the left passageway, driving them behind Meggins and Mags, who’d responded more quickly to Ilbei’s commands. “Go, go, go!”
Meggins led the way up the sloping tunnel, and for several minutes they climbed, Ilbei lighting the way from behind. He pulled his pickaxe off his back, ready to fight whoever came up from behind as they ran, and he heard more than he saw Meggins slide his axe and dagger free. Ilbei wished he hadn’t left Kaige’s shortsword back at the cave with the harpy’s nest, for the big man wouldn’t get much use out of that giant sword of his in these tight confines. For that matter, nor would Mags get much use out of her quarterstaff. Still, Kaige in a brawl could do more damage with his fists than many men could with clubs and war hammers.
The sound of the rushing river ahead grew louder as they ran. So did Jasper’s panting. Though the incline was not precipitous, it was steady and the corridor was long. It seemed to Ilbei’s ears a contest to see which would grow loudest in the end, the river or Jasper’s gasps.
By the time they found the top of the passage, the wizard could hardly go on, and Ilbei was short of breath himself. Fortunately, the huge cavern through which the river flowed was vacant, a great black expanse, yawning left and right, empty as far as they could see, though the darkness easily swallowed the paltry light of their lone torch.
They bent over, hands on their knees, regaining their breath, all except for Jasper, who collapsed to the ground. Meggins recovered quickly enough, however, and with an unspoken exchange, Ilbei sent him back down the tunnel, just far enough for him to see if there was anyone behind. Meggins returned minutes later and indicated that there was not.
“Good,” Ilbei said. “Then let’s be on with it.” With a glimpse down into the water to be sure of the direction of the current, Ilbei made to follow it out, but then came a scream of anguish such as he’d never heard, echoing up at them from behind.
“By the gods,” Ilbei said. “What was that?”
Whatever it was, it was frightening enough to get Jasper to his feet with an effort nearly like a leap. Once again Ilbei could see the white all the way around the wizard’s eyes. Poor Jasper had gotten himself a fearful dose of reality on his first foray out into the field these last few days.
The scream came again, a piercing shriek, someone in unfettered agony.
“We have to go,” Jasper said. His face had gone ghostly pale, visible even in the light of the single torch. “We have to go now. Let’s go.” He took Ilbei by the arm, pulling him downstream. He even reached for the torch, willing to lead. “Come on,” he pleaded.
Once more the scream sounded, rising up through the passage they’d climbed, a long and labored wail of excruciating pain.
“By the heavens.” A shudder ran down Ilbei’s spine.
“Sergeant, please,” Jasper said, yanking on Ilbei’s arm, leaning back and hauling with the weight of his body behind it.
“I ain’t never heard anythin like that,” Ilbei said, unmoved by Jasper’s attempts to drag him along. “And I’m afeared to even speak what it sounds.”
“I’ll speak it,” Meggins said. “I got a silver piece says that’s that Gangue character working at the grill.”
“You don’t suppose they found Sett already?” Mags asked. Her expression was one of horror and of guilt.
“Or he did like I said he would and ran straight to his boss, hoping a confession would spare him the misery.” Meggins looked smug. “I told you. And look what it got him.”
“Damn the tides, I knew it,” Ilbei spat.
The shriek came again, high and miserable. Whatever they were doing to him had him screeching with such energy it might have been a woman’s wail, which had Ilbei grumbling profanities. “Well, damn it, we can’t just leave him like that.” He cursed himself for his own sloppiness. He should have just broken the man’s neck.
Mags and Meggins were nodding that they agreed. Jasper gaped in horror at them. He put his whole body once more into the work of tugging Ilbei toward the promised exit. “We just came up here. We can’t go back now. We have to go.”
“Jasper, if’n that was you down there sizzlin on that rack, some conjurin bastard fillin ya with lightnin, how’d ya feel if’n ya knew we was here but done run off and left ya to it?” A quick upward jerk of his arm yanked Jasper upright. Ilbei stared the slender mage down, burrowing into him with the ferocity of his truth. Jasper didn’t reply right away, so Ilbei asked again. “I asked ya a question, son. How would ya feel if’n that was you?”
“Well, I’d be … well ….” The mage tried to maintain eye contact, but he couldn’t. He struggled to find the right words to get out of what he already knew was an impossible dilemma. But that still didn’t mean he wanted to go down, made evident by the way he began to pout.
“Stay up here if’n ya’d rather, but we’re takin the light,” Ilbei said. With that, the rest of them turned back and went down again. Jasper managed to wait until the glow of the torch had completely disappeared before imagined terrors sent him running after them, willing to face audible ones in the company of his companions and the light.
Back down at the intersection where the baskets were, they waited for the screams to resume. They didn’t have to wait long, and again the awful cries echoed throughout the tunnels. Determining that the sound came from directly ahead, they passed by the baskets and crept warily onward. When the cries died down, there followed a brief silence, heavy and absolute, as if the ropes they’d heard earlier dared not creak and the block and tackle dared not squeak for fear of being treated the same.
The passage led to a door made of heavy iron, which stood ajar, swung halfway into a wide, low-ceilinged chamber. The chamber was roughly circular and well lit by lamps mounted on its curving walls and placed, here and there, upon long tables. The lamplight glittered and gleamed all around, for the tables were heaped with gold. Mounds and mounds of it. At the center of the room was a large hole, three spans across and looking rather like a well, cut right into the floor. Above it was a pair of whim mechanisms, the hoists that Ilbei had heard before. Unlike the traditional varieties he’d seen before, however, these were counterbalanced boom cranes, each with a short boom end that reached out over the hole and a long, weighted end that stretched all the way to the arced walls several paces away. The shorter end of each had block and tackle affixed, through which ran ropes as thick as Ilbei’s wrists. One end of each rope dropped like a plumb line into the hole, while the other ran back along the arm to the center post, over an angled pulley and down to a large cylinder that turned by the workings of wooden gears and a crank. From the longer end of the arm, near the walls, short platforms dangled, held in place by chains. Upon these platforms, and arrayed around them, on and under a nearby table, were iron cylinders of varying size, some as small as the tip of Ilbei’s thumb, some as large as an ale keg. There were numerals cast into the sides of the larger ones, and likely the smaller ones as well, though Ilbei couldn’t verify that from a distance. He didn’t have time to contemplate it much, the whole of it taken in at a glance, but it seemed obvious to him that both whims also served as giant scales.
And there was a lot to weigh. Around each of the center posts were baskets filled with gold. Basket upon basket upon basket of it. The more Ilbei looked, the more he saw, and while he couldn’t see the left side of the room, he supposed, given how many baskets were lined up along the far wall, there were more out of his sight. A king’s ransom to be sure, gathered and stored in baskets like picked fruit, with still more baskets sitting empty and waiting to be filled.
Ilbei also saw that the chamber was occupied. He could see six men working inside, four at the nearest of the cranes and two at the one across the hole, the lot of them hauling up gold in an obviously long-practiced routine. Two of the closer men had just cranked up a basket of gold, and another man, standing near the center post, threw a lever that allowed him to swing the short arm of the boom over the edge of the floor with surprising ease. A fourth worker disconnected the hooks as the two fellows from the crank joined him, and together they dragged the basket out of sight somewhere left of the door. The man at the center post went to help his two comrades on the other crane. They had also just cranked up a basket full of gold. The three that had hauled away the first basket reappeared, and two of them went to help with the other load, while the third set himself to attaching an empty basket to the hooks, preparing it to be swung out over the hole again.
It was a busy and rapid sequence, the men’s movements quick and sure. They worked in rhythm with one another, grunting occasionally but otherwise at their ease in the way of draft horses drawing a loaded wagon along a good road. They must have been at it a long time, for they were all huge, each of them shirtless, revealing heavily muscled frames that gleamed golden with sweat in the lamplight, the play of light and shadow emphasizing the brawn acquired by lifting baskets of heavy metal, day after day. Brawny as Ilbei was, even as Kaige was, neither soldier could claim the nearly inhuman bulk of those six men.
Once again, a shriek of agony issued forth, and it came from inside the room, to the left, somewhere behind the open door and out of sight. None of the laborers looked up as they heard it, which Ilbei saw as evidence of their long conditioning in this chamber. Despite the racket, they simply worked together in perfect unison, as if the screams were but wind in the trees or the crackle of a hearth fire.
Ilbei shook his head. There wasn’t going to be any way to deal with those screams that didn’t take them straight through those brutes inside. Everyone with him saw it the same. He set his jaw and nodded to Meggins and Kaige. To Mags and Jasper he said, “Stay back. These boys ain’t fer ya, not unless ya got somethin ya can spell fer us, Jasper.” Both nodded that they understood.
Whoever it was being tortured continued to wail; it went on until breath failed and silence came at the end of misery’s fading rasp. It occurred to Ilbei once more that it sounded like a woman in there.
“Come on, then,” he said in low tones. “Let’s have at it.”
Meggins nocked an arrow and put another in his teeth. Kaige drew his sword off his back, and Ilbei was glad that at least the big man would have room to wield it. He kicked the door open the rest of the way, and together they ran in.
There were eight of the big fellows, not six. Two more were sitting in chairs near a closed iron door, apparently taking a breather while the other six worked. It was the seated pair that spotted them first, and one of them called out, “Oy, who’s that lot?”