Chapter Nine
Chapter
Nine
Unrealized
He woke in pain.
The first thing Isaac saw, as he blinked himself to
awareness, was a rib cage of colossal proportion. The ribs spread across the
night sky like comet trails, curving and falling, and the cartilage studded
along the sternum was glowing a faint yellow, the same color as pyrite. Slowly,
still blinking, he realized that he wasn’t looking at the night sky at all, but
the roof of a gigantic cavern hanging above the rib cage itself, the incredible
weight of rock and stone held aloft by the bones of the titan’s body. The
cartilage cast only a dim light, leaving the space between the ribs hanging in
a starless black.
He was lying on stone. The white fabric they’d used for
shawls had been laid out beneath him, like a blanket. He was shirtless, and his
torso was wrapped in bandages.
He tried not to groan.
His body was deflated. His face felt like a skull wearing a
thin human mask. He attempted to move, and his entire body screamed in
response. There were so many punctures in his skin that he might’ve appeared a
victim of an iron maiden.
He noted, dryly, that his pelvis was also continuing to
ache.
He turned his head. Next to him, Zaria was slumped against a
battlement made of brick and mortar, her chin on her knee, the haft of her
poleaxe resting on her shoulder. She was watching an open hole in the floor,
where the rungs of a ladder curved down from one end. The sluggish blink in her
eye suggested she’d been keeping this watch for some time.
Isaac coughed.
She nearly shrieked in surprise, jumping to her feet, weapon
shaking as it raised. Her wide eyes reflected the gloom of cartilage.
“Hello,” Isaac said.
She lowered the axe, breathing. “Xotra’s cunt.”
“Sorry.”
After heaving another breath, she rested her weapon on the
battlement, walked over, and bent a knee at his side. “So, uh. . . .”
She looked at him. He looked at her.
“How we feelin’?” she asked.
His body was experiencing a number of problems. He had to
pick which one to solve first. He leaned back, licked his lips, and said:
“Water.”
She tilted her head. The cartilage light framed her face in
a pale yellow.
“Water,” he repeated.
“Now, now. Mind your manners.”
He looked up at her with as much indignation as he could
manage.
She shrugged. “You know me. Stickler for rules.”
“Please.”
She reached beneath his head to rummage through his pack,
which he only now realized was serving as his pillow, and pulled out a
waterskin. He tried to sit up off the floor, but he lacked the energy to work
through the pain—instead, she reached down and gently lifted his head, bringing
the waterskin to his lips. She poured slowly, pausing to let him swallow and
breathe. The fur of her hand was very soft.
“Does my squire need further aid?” she asked, tossing the
skin over a battlement.
“Rations. Please.”
She dug into her own pack and tossed him a few cuts of
salted meat, including a bag of walnuts and several dried apples. He attacked
them like a starving animal.
“Gods,” she said, sitting back. “You make a pig seem
miserly.”
He gnawed furiously at the meat, only barely chewing it
enough to swallow. He had never been so ravenous in his entire life. Even the
worst of his uncle’s training sessions hadn’t left his body quite so desperate
for nourishment. It was only when he started on the third apple that he noticed
what should have been obvious.
His hands were freed.
He looked down at them, surprised. He felt as if he’d never
had the privilege of locomotion before. He flexed his fingers, twisted his
wrists, and went through a few mnemonic movements. The more he ate, the more a
languid feeling of power returned to him, deep in the fabric of his muscle.
It felt good.
It made him feel strong.
“I can lift heavy,” Zaria said, suddenly. Her eyes focused
on his hands. “I mean—what I’m sayin’—all the broken machines, right? Stone
doors and whatnot. You need some gallant knight for the heavy lifting, frail
human that you are.”
He stopped chewing.
For a moment, they watched each other.
“And your casting,” Zaria added, nervously. “It’s quite
fancy—lifts the skirt rather well—but in the heat of battle, the point where
every moment counts, you need some solid steel at your back. Simple and true,
that is.”
He nodded, licking salt off his lips.
“And—and you barely know how to lace your boots.” She patted
her chest. “Me, myself, I can tie rope, I can dress wounds. I know plenty on
tactics. I should be the one leading this expedition, really.”
He feigned the casting motion of a spell. She flinched away.
“Mutual dependency,” she said, her hand wrapping around her
axe. “That’s all I’m saying. Trapped this far in the earth, harried by monsters
and thralls . . . well, there’s nothing for it now, between us, but
cooperation. Right?”
“It would be smart,” Isaac said, his hands still raised.
“Aye. Brilliant, actually.”
“I agree.”
Her hand was still on her weapon. “Do you?”
“Sure.”
“Good. Great.”
“Thanks for saving my life, by the way.”
“Oh, think nothing of it.”
Neither of them moved. Around them, the city was deathly
still.
“Zaria,” Isaac said. “I do agree with you. I need your help.
I wouldn’t have made it through the catacombs without you. There is a place for
dumb, brute strength.”
“No need to qualify my talents as such, love.”
“It’s accurate, isn’t it?”
“To a point, I’d like to think.”
“Look,” he said, lowering his hands. “You can trust me. You
can do so because I have told you, repeatedly, that you can.”
She shrugged, as if helpless.
“Look,” he repeated. “I have no intention of revenge. For
both our peace of mind, I’ll just ask one favor of you, and then we can bury
the hatchet. Okay?”
She nodded. “Sure. Gladly.”
“Come closer.”
She looked at him, unsure.
“Closer,” he said.
She hesitated, almost said something, and decided to
approach. When she was on her hands and knees above him, he grabbed the strap
of her one leather pauldron, trying to yank her down. She hardly budged. It
felt like bending a tree.
“Let me pull you,” he said, irritated.
Zaria rolled her eyes. When he yanked again, she pretended
to collapse over him, as if he had caught her by surprise. Her snout hovered
above his nose.
“I told you so,” he said.
She made a face. “That all?”
“Yes,” he said, releasing his grip on her armor. “That’s
all. Consider the matter resolved.”
She stayed above him. Her eyes roamed. When he met her gaze
again, her ears were twitching beneath the pale yellow light. A moment passed.
He forced himself not to shy away. Eventually, she cleared her throat, sat up,
and leaned back against the battlement, adjusting the strap of her pauldron.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’ll listen, now on.”
He did not answer.
Minutes passed. Zaria continued to hold watch over the
ladder. For a time, Isaac’s only concern was tearing through the rations.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“A watchtower, looks like. It’s got
high cover, one way in or out.”
Isaac looked down at the open hole in the tower floor. She
must’ve climbed up the entire ladder with his limp body hanging on her
shoulder.
“It’s a city out there,” she said, gesturing.
He pulled himself up between two battlements, gazing out.
Buildings stretched down the body cavity of the giant
corpse, their rooftops covered in shadow from the distant, hanging lights. It
was a much bigger city than the one he had grown up
next to. In the distant past, it might’ve held a population in the tens of
thousands. From where he was, he could see streets and shops, the occasional
pillar of watchtowers, water mills and granaries, signs written in a language
that hadn’t been spoken in millennia.
From what he could see, all the buildings were made of
stone. Most were still in remarkably good condition. There was no sunlight to
beat on their roofs, no rain to erode their walls, and not a single footprint
in the dust that covered the streets. It was all so well preserved that he
imagined he could stroll into a house and still see the mummified remnants of
food on the table, though he already had a sobering idea of what the
necromancers usually ate.
“It’s a necropolis,” Isaac said. “A city for the dead.”
“Ain’t that just a big graveyard?”
“No. This was an actual city meant to house the dead. This
empire practiced necromancy as commonly as agriculture. They conquered many
nations, transformed them into vassals, and demanded a regular tribute of
bodies and prisoners, which they’d use to sustain their unnatural lives. The
bodies would be processed deeper in the city. If some of the bones were not
used, they would be dumped into the catacombs to act as a sort of kennel.” He
shrugged. “Or a granary.”
Zaria tossed a loose brick over the edge of the tower. “Glad
they’re gone.”
“They’re not all gone. There’s still one left.”
“I’d be glad to fix that.”
“So would I.”
For the first time, he became aware of the silence around
him. It wasn’t just a lack of sound, like he’d experienced in the desert. The
silence had a weight to it. It felt full and heavy. He scanned the streets for
signs of movement. He saw nothing.
The silence remained.
“Well,” Zaria said. “I travelled a good way through this
place, and I saw nary a soul. Wherever she is, she hasn’t been up here for
centuries, at the least.”
“We’re probably safe,” Isaac replied, agreeing. “She’ll need
time to consolidate her forces again, especially with the other sorcerer
already ahead of us.” Gingerly, he returned to his blanket, stretching out his
limbs. “Give me a moment, and I’ll cast a warding spell on the floor. It will
keep anyone from climbing up.”
“You can do that sorta thing?”
“I can do a lot of things, if I’m given the chance.”
She hesitated, closed her mouth, and went digging into her
pack for a waterskin. He went for a third round of food. They lay next to each
other in silence, sating their various needs.