Chapter Fourteen
Chapter
Fourteen
Water
& Flame
The
rest of the necropolis passed uneventfully.
Somewhere
around the abdomen, the great cavity of space began to end, narrowing down into
a network of tunnels and corridors. Despite being underground for the better
part of a day, Isaac had grown accustomed to the wide open space afforded by
the city of the dead—in fact, he had even found a certain pleasure in walking
across the avenues and boulevards, because, to him, it was a completely novel
experience. He had never once been inside a city of this grandeur and scale. In
that regard, he had felt satisfied, even if the shadow of the necromancers
still hung deeply in the corners.
Because
of this, the sudden narrowing of their path felt all the more like an abrupt
departure. It was a reminder that they were, indeed, venturing deeper and
deeper into the earth. The good times were ending.
Isaac
paused at the thought.
Were
they good times?
Was
that how he would look back on this day?
Isaac
eyed Zaria, noting the sag in her shoulders, the exhaustion behind her gaze. He
studied the entrance to the tunnels, wondering if the
puppeteer had laid an ambush. He remembered the way the necromancer had watched
him leave.
He
sighed.
Eventually,
they were more than an hour into the tunnels beneath the necropolis, worming
their way through the roughly hewn corridors, much like food passing through
the intestine of the colossus. Isaac could only guess that there had been an
extensive series of aqueducts running along the district—many of the homes,
most of them carved from the natural granite, had completely flooded with
groundwater. There were entire rivers now flowing through the streets, the
natural process of erosion slowly dissolving all of the carefully sculpted
architecture. In a few places, it was still obvious that, once, there had been
fountains, and baths, and sewage lines, totaling a sanitation system more
intricate than many cities enjoyed today, but, most of the time, it hardly
seemed different than an ocean cove. Within a few more centuries, Isaac
thought, all traces of culture and art would be gone.
They
made their way through the tunnels and caves, leaping over canyons carved by
the groundwater, squeezing their bodies through the teeth of growing
stalagmites. Some streets were still illuminated with bulbous cartilage posts,
but many had fallen into darkness, and Isaac was forced to use several of their
torches, which cast long shadows on the jutting stone. His worry about the
puppeteer only grew worse.
After
what seemed like hours, they happened to spy a vast,
open chamber with a jagged lake in the center. As they approached, Isaac noted
the remnants of ancient pillars, as well as some mosaics barely clinging to
legibility on the floor, which were illuminated by a few bulbous posts of
cartilage. On the walls, there were arched holes carved into a craggy wall,
which he initially mistook for arrow slits.
“Oh,
shite my shingle,” Zaria said, looking around. “This here’s a bathhouse.”
“Is
it?”
“Aye,
look there.”
She
pointed at the slits, which now appeared to resemble ventilation shafts, where
steam from a broiler would pass into the open chamber. This had, indeed, once
been a sauna. Now, it didn’t seem much different than a cave. After so many
years, there was more craggy rock than gentle stone.
“Finally,”
Zaria said, throwing her pack from her shoulder. “I’ve been itchin’
for a bath. Got a lotta gunk ‘tween the legs.”
“I
didn’t need to hear that.”
“Be a
good lad and seal the entrance, would you?”
After
shrugging off his own pack, he cast a ward into his palm, spreading the thin
film of purple light around the mouth of the cave entrance. He doubted it would
do them any good. If the necromancer was determined enough, she could breach it
easily, and the other sorcerer would just command their thralls to blast it
down.
Still,
it was better than nothing.
By the
lip of the pool, Zaria was hastily shrugging off her clothes. Most of her fur
was caked in green blood, but the few unsullied hairs, which were all along her
torso, appeared golden when they caught the light. He could see the muscles of
her back flexing as she unclasped the leather plackart, the shadow of her tail
moving over the curve of her rear, the briefest glimpse of her breasts—
“Isaac.”
He
nearly tripped on the roughly worn stone.
She turned
to him, completely naked, still smeared in blood. “You got some purifying
nonsense in that pack of yours? The water’s rather brackish.”
He
fought a very hard battle, keeping his eyes on her face. “Are you—I mean—can
there be some modesty, please?”
“What
for? We’ve already fucked, haven’t we?”
“That’s,
uh—”
“Isaac,”
she said. “I have tits. Got a cunt betwixt my legs. I trust you were aware of
this.”
He
cleared his throat. “Yes, I do know some—uh, some purifying. . . .” He moved
quickly towards the pool. “Evocations. One moment.”
He
crouched down at the edge of the pool, trying very hard to force the blush from
his face. True to her word, the ancient water had congealed into something
brown and full of sediment, with a film of pond scum floating in a rotten heap.
After a few careful mnemonics, soft beams of light shone from his palms, which
dissolved the dead plants as easily as fire through straw. Over the course of a
minute, the light crawled across the entire length of the pool, leaving the
water almost pristinely clear.
Zaria
slapped his back. “Gods, I woulda loved havin’ you at some of them water holes,
up in the waste. The number of times I shat some foulness back into the sand.”
“I really
did not need to hear that.”
“Thanks
a bunch, love.”
Isaac
cleared his throat, trying not to imagine her standing behind him, naked, her
breasts bouncing level with his head.
A
moment passed.
“I
might,” Isaac said, his voice catching, “start charging you for this.”
“Oh?
Truly?”
“I
don’t work for free.”
In the
water, he saw her shadow move. She had leaned down to his level. When she
spoke, her voice was right in his ear. “What’s the price gonna be?”
He
didn’t answer.
After a
long moment, she stood up, slapped his ass, positioned her feet at the edge of
the pool, and dove headfirst into the water, before he could retaliate. Her
body twisted nimbly beneath the surface. Through the dim light, he could see
her doing flips and somersaults, the thicker tufts of her fur waving with the
motion. Her hips seemed to curve in such a way—
He
stood up, almost went to eat some rations, remembered he was covered in dragon
blood, and made his way over to the opposite end of the pool. Gingerly, he
removed his own clothes, wading into the shallows. The water was freezing cold.
A film of green blood spread around him as he ventured up to his chest. He
scrubbed his skin with his bare hands, scraping through a heavy layer of grime,
fluid, and sweat. It felt, for a moment, like he was rubbing off the collective
weight of his journey.
He
realized, suddenly, how far he had truly come.
Weeks
ago, he had ventured from the only home he had ever known. He had travelled a
great distance, through plains and forest and desert and sand. In every
encounter, he had survived against seemingly impossible odds, from pirates to wyrms to wielders of ancient magic. But, now, instead of
feeling hopeful at the closeness of his destination, instead of imagining the
face of his father, he could only think of the sorceress and her oceans of
bone.
She was
manipulating them. Her machinations were not even
particularly subtle. Summoning the sandwyrm during the parlay with Soren had
been a particularly ingenious maneuver—the dragon had already been agitated
enough that its attack couldn’t be avoided, so she had merely focused its
strike on the intruders in her tomb, which would direct the beast to kill her
opponents, or otherwise force her opponents into killing the beast. Either way,
she would gain some advantage.
The
necromancer was crafty, to be sure. Isaac would give her that.
Now,
she had spared their lives in the hopes that they would help her defeat the
puppeteer. Once again, Isaac could not help but play into her hand—parasite
magic was incredibly powerful, the puppeteer had clearly amassed a sizable
army, and they would almost certainly be hostile to a member of the Diet, such
as himself. Whoever this interloper was, they posed just as much of a threat as
his father’s captor herself.
Still,
he thought, it didn’t make the sorceress’s attempt to divide her opponents any
easier to swallow.
For
now, they were safe in this bathhouse. But, come tomorrow, they would likely
have to face off against the puppeteer, and Isaac was all too aware that his
alliance with the necromancer was little more than a reprieve. Once the
puppeteer was dead, the conflict would resume. Her betrayal would come without
question.
He
would have to do the same.
“Isaac!”
Zaria called, head bobbing on the other end of the
pool. “Come on over! Water’s lovely!”
He blushed
again. He was beginning to hate how easily he did so. “I’m fine.”
“That
weren’t a request, squire! Get over here!”
“I
don’t—” He looked into the deep water. “I don’t know how to swim.”
She
stopped paddling. “Truly?”
“Why is
that surprising? I’ve told you. . . .”
“I
mean, didn’t you say your tower was next to a river?”
“Yes,”
he said. “I saw it every day. I’d fall asleep to the babble. I’d
bathe in the water frequently. But I never—” He rubbed some crusted blood from
his chest. “No one would ever teach me, and I was always too scared to wade
further in. I kept imagining the current dragging me under, and I’d just . . .
get discouraged.”
She
stroked closer to him. “I could show you some lessons now, if you wish.”
He
paused, looking at her only by the reflection in the water.
“Isaac?”
she asked.
He
grimaced.
“Come