Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter
Twenty-One
The
Cost of Silence, Part Two
It was
a squat, ugly thing.
When it
came to the central lair of the necromancer, Isaac had always imagined
something more grand, more grotesquely opulent. She had reigned upon the ruins
of this tomb for millennia, all alone in the fallen bones of empire, and,
surely, that had meant there was some extravagant nest waiting for him in the
body of the colossus—marble columns, fine carpets, glittering jewels, furs and
paintings, braziers alight with necrotic fire, and, of course, the necromancer
herself, splayed on a throne of bones, all the gold of her empire’s conquests
spilling from wall to wall, each of the coins still stained with blood.
Perhaps
he had read too many books.
He
could blame Berith for that.
Now,
here, in the boneyard of metal ships, all Isaac saw was a flat, rectangular
building, nestled snugly against the bedrock of the cavern wall. The walls were
made of the same gray concrete that paved the floor. The closer he came, the
more he was actually able to find some odd signs of wealth—the windows had
glass in their panes, which had been coated in a thick layer of dirt and dust,
and there were metal objects on the roof, molded into the same sort of strange
shapes he had witnessed inside the disassembled ships. There were concave
dishes, long poles, a few bits of scaffolding capped with spheres. It was
clearly not meant for decoration, but he could not even begin to speculate on
their function.
The
walk towards the building had covered more than two miles, winding through the
fissures of concrete, shoals of broken ossein, and several sludging rivers of
sandwyrm blood. There was still a sizable portion of rock hanging above their
head, which the colossus had not destroyed, leaving the barren stretches of
concrete shaded against the reddening light of the desert.
He was
breathing very hard. His limbs were weak. His mind was dizzy. He felt that, if
he stopped to rest now, his loss of blood would cause him to never rise again.
Even still, he kept stubbornly limping at Zaria’s side, because it was all
right there.
After
all this time, after all he had suffered, his destination was finally at hand.
He was
about to meet his father.
“Hold,”
Zaria said. She stopped walking, and the world seemed to lurch with her. “Park
your arse.”
“What—”
Before
he knew it, he was sitting on the floor. It took all his concentration to keep
himself breathing.
She
squatted over him, reaching for his leg. “You’re wheezin’ like a sow, and your
burn needs cleaning.”
Isaac
didn’t have the strength to argue. Using her wounded hand as little as
possible, Zaria slung off her pack and tossed Soren’s cutlass to the floor.
Gingerly, she peeled back the bandages on his thigh, exposing the burn Berith
had given him. Some of his skin came with the cloth. If it wasn’t for the
Soldier’s Rest packed between the mottled grooves of flesh, he would’ve been
screaming in pain.
Zaria
retrieved some new bandages, wetting them with a waterskin. “Isaac, you sure
about this?”
They were
less than fifteen paces from the small, concrete building. He listened for any
hint of sound. He heard none. The cavern was silent, save for the occasional
tumble of rock at the ruins of the necropolis.
“Look,”
she said. “Let’s just go.”
“Go?”
“Beat
sticks. Haul arse. Fuck on off. Something you should’ve been doin’ from the
start.”
“Z, I
can’t—”
He
hissed. She had started rubbing the cloth through the outer edges of the burn,
digging out the sand and grit.
“Gonna
hurt,” she said.
He
nodded, gripping her one leather pauldron. She kneaded his scabbing flesh. He
barely had enough strength to groan.
“He
started all this,” Zaria said. “All your wizards, all of them Orchids or
whatever they’re called, they all conspired against each other, all forming
these clashing deals of offerin’ you up and striking
you down, just by reacting to what he done to you.”
Isaac
stared up at the rocky ceiling of the cavern. He wasn’t sure what was worse—the
screaming pain in his leg, or the breathless feeling in his lungs.
“Can
you honestly tell me he’s changed for the better? You certain, beyond doubt,
that he’s not got some trap in there, waiting for you?”
“Why
would he?” Isaac asked.
“Why
wouldn’t he?”
There
was a single rusted door leading into the building. He saw only darkness
through the holes. Around the sides, the glass windows were thick with dust. It
was impossible to see what was inside.
“What’s
to say,” Zaria said, “he hasn’t been actin’ nice just to make you drop your
guard? Would you really put it past him? After all this?” She retrieved more
bandaging. After gently bending his knee, she began to wrap the white fabric
around his thigh. “Fuck the treasure. Was always a long shot, for me, and
there’s no way we’re pinching more than some handfuls.”
She cut
the bandage with a gnash of her teeth and tied it with a knot. She stood up,
offered a hand, and lifted him with ease. The effort of standing left him
breathless again.
“Let’s
go. It’s the least bit of justice to leave him here, I think.”
He
watched the rusted door. He hadn’t heard a sound, nor seen the slightest
movement. There was not a single sign of life.
He
stepped forward, and Zaria blocked his path, holding out a hand.
“Isaac.
You’re not thinking of . . . giving him your body, are you?”
“No.”
“It’s
the only way he’s gettin’ out of here.”
“I’m
well aware of that.”
“Then
what are you hoping for, exactly?”
He
looked back. In the distance, he could see the scattered bones of the colossus,
the ruins of the necropolis, an orgy of spilled rocks, a low, reddening sun. A
sea of ossein grew into hills and mounds, like sheets of whitened mold.
“I just
want to hear his voice,” Isaac said. “I want to know him, as a person.
Something outside of a story.” He took as deep a breath as he could. “I want to
say goodbye.”
He
tried stepping around Zaria, and she blocked his path again. Most of her
leather plackart was in tatters, the belts on her vambraces had snapped, and
the cloth winding over her hands was as filthy gray as the concrete beneath
her. Sections of fur had burned from the touch of necrotic magic.
“You
don’t want that,” she said. “Trust me.”
He
looked up at her.
“I wish
my father hadn’t tried to save me,” Zaria said. “When I was in the crates, being
loaded up, I had no idea what he’d done. Just thought it was wrong place, wrong
time. Could’ve gone my whole life thinking that way. Still holding him dear in
my heart, thinking he’d be out there and I’d find him
some day.”
She
paused, looking at him.
“But he
did show up, and, even then, I wish he’d been mean. I wish he’d spat in my
face, told me he was glad for the coin of my sale. I could’ve hated him, then.
Could’ve cursed his name and not thought twice. Even then, that’d have been
nicer.”
Her eye
drifted to the floor. Her bare, digitigrade feet shuffled over cement.
“But he
tried to save me, and he was crying his eyes out, and it was plain to see it
was the worst thing he’d ever done, and he was tryin’ so hard to take it back,
and, in the end, he couldn’t. And because it’s that way, it weren’t simple. The
memory cuts like a knife, and there’s no way to settle it. Not anymore.”
Isaac
stared at the building. It was small, plain, and ugly. It could have been a
storage room, a substation, a relay for the conduction of souls. He had no idea
of the truth.
The
redoubt of the necromancer was nothing like he had imagined.
If he
was telling the truth, not a single part of his journey had been close to how
he’d imagined it, from his departure of Berith’s tower all the way to the
bottom of an ancient empire. In some ways, it had been better, and these were
largely due to Zaria, but in many other ways the things he had experienced were
worse than his expectations, and they had been worse beyond even his most
dreaded reckoning, and, now, somehow, this building, without any adornment or
regalia, seemed the worst of it all, because it was just so. . . .
Disappointing.
The
betrayal hurt. Killing his uncle had nearly torn him apart. But the
disappointment only left him empty.
The
emptiness began to gnaw.
“It
wasn’t what happened to me that hurt the worst,” Zaria said. “It was who did
it, and why. Even now, wise as I am, I still wish he hadn’t come around. I wish
I didn’t know better. It’s not the kind of knowledge that makes me stronger. It
just. . . .” She looked away. “It just hurts. It’s always gonna hurt.”
He was
tired. His wounds were aching, his future was lost, and he was tired.
He
struggled to breathe.
“Let’s
go.” She gestured with the cutlass. “There’s nothing here worth turning over.
Never was. It’s best you go on thinking that way.”
He
swallowed what little saliva he had, took a deep breath, and looked up at her.
“Zaria?”
She perked her ears.
“Fuck
off.”
She
watched him for a moment, plainly surprised, before erupting into a loud,
cackling snort. “Right, then. Perfectly said. ‘Scuse me.” She stepped to the
side, beckoning him on. “I’ll still hold your hand through it, if you’re of the
mind.”
“Thank
you, Z.”
“Anytime,
squire.”
Isaac
stepped towards the rusty door, straightening his posture as much as he could.
His robes were filthy, his beard resembled something pulled from a bathtub
drain, and all his spellcasting had left him miserably gaunt, little different
than the thralls Berith had left behind. He doubted anyone from his old life
would recognize him now.
Zaria
gave him one last look. He returned it with something like appreciation.
Slowly, he pushed open the rusty door.
His
first impression of the room was dust. It was so thick in the air that he
might’ve chewed it after a breath, and the swinging of the door quickly
disturbed a cloud, forcing him to wince and wave his hand. After coughing, his