Chapter Six #4
and a fire-breathing statue, but she was still desperate to flee from her
former shipmates, who had every reason to give her a vicious, tortured death,
and her only hope of survival lay in the hands of a mage, someone who could
also kill her with an equal amount of certainty. She had feigned a lot of
confidence while he was tied and helpless. Now, the reality of her situation
was becoming obvious.
She did
not understand magic. To survive, she would have to trust his word.
But who
was he to her?
An
enemy?
A
powerful, arrogant mage?
He
imagined it might feel like a sailor standing on the deck of a burning ship,
getting ready to jump into the waters of an open ocean. She knew she couldn’t
swim, but, at the same time, staying with the fire was certain death. Leaping
into the waves was the only choice available. This did not make it easy.
He
realized all of this in a moment, watching her stand there, alone and afraid.
It
almost made him feel guilty.
“Zaria,”
he said. “Those eyes are a weak spot. Break them and you’ll break the circuit,
keep it from firing.”
“What,
I’m supposed to toss my polearm like a javelin?”
“Just,
you know—trying to help.”
“You do
it, then!”
He held
up his tied hands. “What do you expect me to do?”
She
shuffled back and forth on her feet, fingers curling around the haft of her
weapon. Her tail tucked between her legs.
“Hey,”
Isaac said. “It’s alright. You’ll be fine. I promise.”
She
stared at the statue. She looked at the tomb entrance just below it. She
glanced behind her, where the morning sunlight illuminated the colossal teeth
and rising dunes. Finally, she looked at him. He nodded, careful to manage his
expression.
She
walked forward with the pace and stance of someone ready to leap away at a
moment’s notice, following the same path Isaac had taken. It led right over the
trapdoor. He fingered the letter in his sleeve. He hoped the statue would
follow its programming. If not, he would rush in to help.
He
didn’t want her to burn alive.
Zaria
stepped on the trapdoor. The heads of the shibboleth snapped down to her, its
teeth swirling, a roar of fire cocked in the depths of its throat. She almost
jumped away, breathing hard. She looked to him again. Isaac swallowed, a bead
of sweat rolling down his face, and beckoned her forward.
She
took another step.
The
floor gave way. She had no time to yell. There was a spurt of dust, a vicious
shunt of mechanism. Moments later, a loud thud echoed from below. There were a
few gasps for air, punctuated with coughing and groans.
Isaac
loosed a sigh of relief. Behind him, the shibboleth had already returned to its
eternal vigil over the mouth of the skull. Trying not to think about the
ancient corpses, or how close he might’ve been to joining them, Isaac paced
over to the trapdoor, squatting down at the edge.
A thick
cloud of dust drifted up from the open hole, scattering from the fall. He
batted it away until he could see further in. The pit beneath the trap door
went twenty or thirty feet down to a bed of rock. Rusted metal bars lined one
wall of the pit bottom. He could see, dimly, that parts of the gate had bent
inwards from a previous cave-in, the pieces of rock just barely held in place.
The complex of pits between the jawbones had likely collapsed sometime in the
previous centuries.
Zaria
struggled back to her feet, coughing through the dust. Her mohawk was coated in
dirt.
“You
alright?” Isaac shouted down.
She
wiped her face with an arm, peering up towards the light. “What happened?”
“I let
you fall into a grave robber’s pit.”
Her
tail flexed upward.
Isaac
took his uncle’s letter from his sleeve. “You should’ve held on to this. I told
you it would grant me safe passage.”
She
breathed out, swirling the dust. “Isaac, you best believe—”
“No,
Zaria, listen to me—”
“Get me
outta here, you sodding ape!”
He took
a slow breath. “I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I only did this because I knew
the fall wouldn’t kill you.”
“No!”
she shouted back. “It didn’t kill me! And you’ll be right sorry for it if you
don’t free me this instant!”
“I’d
advise you not to threaten me.”
She
stood straight, fists clenched, breathing slow and hard.
“Look,”
he said, shrugging his pack off, “I’m going to give you this.” He dug around in
his phylactery pouch, pulling out a glass vial full of green liquid. He let the
vial fall, and she caught it in her hand, twisting the capsule as she peered
inside.
“What’s
this?” she called back. “Some poison to end my life, so I don’t die of thirst?
You call that mercy?”
“It’s
corrosive acid. You’re in a grave robber’s cell. It’s held with metal bars. You
can figure out the rest.”
She
glanced over to the cell bars. A flow of rock was bulging the door inwards, the
rusted metal barely holding to its foundation.
“Of
course,” Isaac said, “it seems there was a cave-in. The tunnels are likely
gone. It’ll take you a while to dig your way to the exit. But, of course,
you’re a hardy pirate with more kills than bathing sessions. I’m sure you can
handle it.”
She
clenched the vial in her fist. “So help you and your furless neck, once I’m
clear from this—”
“You’re
not going to follow me,” Isaac said. “I’m going to enter the tomb now, and the
shibboleth will end your life if you try.”
The
dust had mostly settled again, and Isaac could finally make out her eyes. She
was glaring up at him, her hackles raised
and her lip curled to a snarl, revealing a pair of wicked yellow fangs. He was
very glad there was a twenty-foot drop between them.
“By the
way,” he said. “Do you still have my map?”
“That I
do,” she replied. “Want to come down for it?”
“No,
actually. I want you to keep it. In fact, check the markings for me.”
She
continued to watch him.
“Go on.
I can wait.”
With
reluctance, she slung her pack from her shoulder, nudged her poleaxe along the
floor, and took the rolled map from a side pocket.
“Check
the south-eastern edge of the Charnel Waste,” Isaac said. “I’ve marked a star
on a little fishing hamlet, close to the flood plains. You see it?”
“Aye.
There’s a—” She squinted at it. “What’s these letters say?”
“It’s
the name of the Diet contact we have in the region. He goes by the alias of
Sparrow. The rest of that writing is the code phrase he’ll expect you to
recite. ‘The snake flies alone.’ Can you remember that?”
“Oh,
aye,” Zaria said, “the snake flies alone, just like you and your cock, never
tasting a woman’s clunge.”
“There’s
no need to be rude.”
“Fuck
yourself, squire. This is the dumbest cloak-and-dagger shite I’ve heard in my
life. Vekra’s tits, you’d be laughed outta every port in the Nine, if you tried
spoutin’ this nonsense.”
“The
important thing,” Isaac said, “is that Sparrow operates a safehouse for mages
working on Diet business. He owns the tavern in the middle of town, third
building to the right of the well. He knows how to ward off assassins. He is
free of foreign scrutiny. Go to him and say that phrase. He’ll look at you
funny, but he won’t ask questions. You’ll be safe.”
“What
game are you playing? You trick me into a trap, and expect me to blunder into
another?”
“I’m
offering you protection from the band of pirates trying to kill you. This is
assuming, of course, you can get there in the first place. There’s not much I
can do about that, but, again, you’re pretty resourceful. I’m sure you’ll
manage.”
She
looked at him, silent.
“Go to Sparrow,”
Isaac said, as if reciting a lesson, “say the phrase, and wait for me in the
tavern. Do you understand? I’m going to return there on my way back to Khador,
and, when I do, I’ll have a provisional survey ready for you to sign.”
“Whatever
that is,” she said, “you can stuff it up your arse.”
“It
will be a legal claim to the treasure of the necromancers. All of it. The
entire wealth of nations.”
For a
moment, they blinked at each other.
“What?”
Zaria asked, nonplussed.
“There
will be some taxes,” Isaac continued, “but the fortune will be yours, fair and
legal. You can pay off any bounties you might have. Start your life again.
Maybe you could buy your own fleet of ships and sail beneath a royal flag. The
kingdoms don’t tend to be scrupulous, according to you.”
She
leaned back to peer at him, mohawk flowing above her eyes. “Oh, what, I’m
supposed to believe that? You’d give up all this wealth to some cutthroat you
barely know?”
“I
don’t care about the treasure. I just want my father back.”
She
scoffed.
“I want
to say this again.” He leaned over the edge of the hole. “I’m sorry, Zaria. I’m
sorry for doing this to you. I’m sorry you’re being punished for doing
something good.” He glanced down at the rope around his wrists. “You did a
brave thing, trying to help those children. And I think you deserve a reward
for it. There’s no trick. It just seemed like the right thing to do.”
He
stood up straight. Outside, the desert sun creeped in through the gaps of giant
teeth.
“I’m
trying to save your life,” Isaac said. “I hope you realize that.”
“Isaac.”
“Goodbye.
Hopefully, we’ll see each other again.”
“Isaac,”
she said, voice rising.
He
walked away from the open trapdoor, eyes set on the
tomb entrance.
“Isaac!
Isaac!”
First,
he needed to cut off his restraints.
The
shibboleth did not accost him as he passed back within its range. Feeling bold,
Isaac made his way over to the pool of bodies spread below its feet. His goal
was to find a weapon. It was likely he wouldn’t find anything that hadn’t
turned into a rusty hunk of iron, but even the poorest implement would have to
suffice.
He bent
down, pilfering through rotted bone and tattered garments. He vaguely
recognized the age of some of the bodies just by the clothes on their
back—there were turbans and robes, a doublet that hadn’t been fashionable for
centuries, old chainmail, boiled leather. Most of it had decayed to scraps and