Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Weight
of Wealth
The
gold stretched away, rising like a tide.
There
was no mistaking the distinctive tint, no disguising the truth of the treasure.
All the same, as Isaac emerged from the confines of a concrete tunnel, he found
himself comparing the gold to every shade of yellow he had ever seen before.
The hue was more vibrant than the morning sun. The color was not as pure as the
seed of a mustard. Pyrite—fool’s gold—had a much sharper glint when it caught
the light. Here, the light reflecting from the metal was soft and seductive,
like a piece of lingerie, as if it wanted nothing more than to beckon the eye.
Every
comparison fell short. There was no equal.
This
was gold.
It was
not all in coin, though this made the majority of the plunder. There were
golden rings studded with gems. There were gilded breastplates, the lacquered
pommels of swords. There were entire piles of jewelry, including necklaces,
bracelets, cuff links, brooches, earrings, and medallions. There were golden
tiaras, coronets capped with garnets and emeralds, furred coats glimmering with
amethyst. There were towering stacks of furniture, thrown messily into a pile,
each of the wardrobes and bathtubs and coffers and uprooted thrones shining
with the unmistakable tint of golden wealth.
Beside
Isaac, Zaria’s eye reflected the golden light. Her tawny fur glowed like wheat
upon a field.
“Callin’
it now,” she said. “I’m the best pirate there ever was.”
With
his eyes adjusting to the dim torchlight, Isaac was beginning to see the end of
the chamber. The room was square, a quarter mile in width and length, and the
teeming wealth seemed to cover most of its area. It would’ve taken him weeks to
count it by hand. A fleet of skimmers would struggle to stay buoyant with such
a bounty in their holds. It was more coinage than all the mints of the region
could produce in a decade.
“Isaac.”
On the
floor, or what little of it he could see, there were murals adorning the
concrete, the colorful paints dull and faded with time. He could see figures
hauling coins and jewelry to the feet of colossal figures, giants in bulky
suits with striped flags and helmets made of glass. The gods cast a swarm of
flies upon the faithful. The tiny motes burrowed beneath the skin, and wings
grew from the worshipper’s backs, great plumages made of feathers and wax and
gold.
“Isaac.
Look here a moment.”
Zaria stepped
in front of him, a glimmer of gold outlining her form. The cutlass in her hand
shone like the sword of an angel. “Quite a sight, huh?”
“Sure.”
There
was a pause.
“Look,”
she said. “I know we said all them things about saving
the world, and being righteous, and whatnot. I’m glad we did. I like stopping
evil cunts from raising giant monsters as much as the next lass.”
He
remembered blood flowing over black robes.
“But
this. . . .” She waved in both directions. Each time, her hand gestured over a
different sea of gold. “This is pretty big, is it not?”
“Sure.”
“Look,
love, I know you’ve . . . suffered recently, but where’s all
them fancy words of yours? Surely you’ve got one.”
“Repugnant,”
Isaac said.
“That
don’t sound fun.”
“It
means disgusting. Abhorrent. Offensive to the sense.” He kicked a loose coin
along the cement. “It means a lot of people died to make this treasure.”
“No
different than usual, then.”
He
scratched the sutures on his arm.
“Look,”
she said. “It’s a crying shame, is what it is. It’s a stupid pile of metal
that’s just gonna fall in the hands of your wizard masters. We went through all
this trouble, and now we gotta let our payment lie ‘cause it’s too much to haul
by hand.”
Isaac
let his vision roam over the coins. There were many currencies, each of them
adorned with faces and sigils, engravings and flags. He only recognized a few
of the mints.
“But,”
Zaria said, “here’s the thing. Gold is heavy. It’s heavier than steel is at the
same size. It’s got more—what do you call it—thickness to it, I suppose.”
“Density.”
“They’re
heavy, love. Speaking from experience here. Coin feels like rocks in your pack.
You hear all them pirate tales of men dying in the
desert ‘cause they wouldn’t drop their shiny pebbles. That’ll be us, if we try
the same.”
“Can
you please make your point?”
She
gestured out to the hoard. “I’m countin’ a lot of gems out there. Diamonds,
sapphires, rubies the size of your cockhead. Some types of crystals I don’t
even got names for. Now, gems often got more thickness than gold, but they’re
worth more. Value for weight, if you get my meaning.”
Isaac
shifted on his feet.
“I’m
thinking,” Zaria said, “that we pinch as much of them crystals as possible,
till we’re spillin’ rainbows at every step. Then, once we climb from this tomb,
and abscond through the wastes, I can ply my trade as
a thief, get us in contact with fences and the like. Turn it back into proper
richness.”
Isaac
made a face.
“We’re
gonna need that coin, love. Both of us got manhunts comin’ our way, and the
only way we’ll survive them is turning our tails. That costs money, if only for
bribes, and not food and passage.” She shrugged. “And don’t tell me it won’t
feel a little nice, carving off some of that ill-gotten wealth from the claws
of your wizards. They’ll notice what you done, and it’ll just be more piss in
their porridge.”
Isaac
let his gaze fall on a marble bed frame, its every post glimmering with gems.
After a moment, he said: “Sure.”
Zaria
leaned down into his vision. “That’s fine, then?”
“I said
it was.”
“Well.
If you’re sure.”
With a
grunt, Isaac shrugged off his pack, holding it out to her.
She
didn’t take it. “Not gonna help?”
He
raised his other arm, still in the sling.
“Right,”
Zaria said. She took his pack. “‘Scuse me. Mighta got
. . . carried away, seein’ all this. I promise, I
ain’t bein’ cruel, by acting eager.”
Isaac
did not answer.
“Course,”
Zaria continued, ears flattening. “Never you mind. I’ll pinch the sweetest
booty. You just . . . rest a spell.”
He made
to leave through the concrete doorway. As he turned, she grabbed his arm.
“Hey.”
Isaac
did not look back. His wounds were beginning to ache. The numbness was
subsiding. The pain seemed to come from everywhere, all at once.
She
squeezed his arm. “You don’t wanna look around a bit?”
“Why
would I?” He grunted, shifting his weight. “It’s not like it matters. Most of
it will never be ours.”
“Aye,
no, but. . . .” When he finally spared a glance, she was gesturing. “This is
historical, love. I mean, biggest treasure pile there ever was, and by quite a
margin. There’s jewels and swords and thrones and probably everything else you
could imagine. I’m liable to try a swim.”
“It’s
not a liquid.”
“And
that ain’t the point. You and I are never gonna see anything like this again.
No one will. It’s once in a lifetime.”
He
gazed around the room. The walls often vanished beneath mounds of coin and
royal furniture. There was nowhere in the vast chamber that was not tinged with
the distinctive luster. Wherever he looked, his vision was swallowed by gold.
“I
realize—” She cleared her throat. “I mean, don’t you want to just . . . savor
it a bit?”
“No,”
Isaac said. “I don’t.”
She
looked down at his pack, then back at him.
“I’ll
be outside,” he said, and walked through the door.
He
climbed back up the stairs, limping at every step. The air was suffocating. The
walls were pressing in. He needed to breathe.
As he
paused at the top of the stairs, feeling winded from
the short climb, he saw the open door of the sorcerer’s chamber at the end of
the hall. Beside him, there was another door. It seemed completely plain,
though he caught a similar glint of gold through a gap in the hinge.
Breathing
hard, feeling the lack of blood in his veins, Isaac pushed open the door.
The
room was small and littered with tools. Most of the surrounding shelves were
covered in dissected machinery. There was a bench in the center, scarred with
lines of solder. On the workbench, there was a thin sheet of metal. It was
green and highly corrugated—Isaac had only a basic knowledge of voltaics, but
he managed to recognize certain sections of the metal as the gated channels for
the flow of lightning, as well as slots and sockets for the addition of
modifying devices. Whatever it was, the green metal sheet seemed like some
highly advanced device for channeling electricity. He could not say what its
purpose had been. At the moment, the study of voltaics was a novelty, more than
anything.
After a
moment’s examination, he noticed flakes of gold next to the wafer-thin metal.
Judging by the welding tools on the wall, and some black residue on the sheet
itself, it appeared as if the sorceress had been attempting to inlay the metal
with gold. From his studies, he knew that gold held an exceptional affinity for
the transfer of power.
Of
course, the sorceress was dead, and the tools were rusty, and the room was
covered in dust, and there were dozens of other green metal sheets, broken and
cracked and tossed into corners, and it did not appear as if anyone had worked
here in centuries, even though the sorceress had only died a few decades
before. The air smelled of time.
Isaac
was growing sick. He needed to leave.
He
closed the door, stumbled down the hall, and entered the sorceress’s chamber
through a veil of dust. He walked through the laboratory, ignoring the
skeleton, ignoring the half-finished experiments, focusing only on the red
sunlight filtering through the open door. When he made it to the exit, his
urges overcame him, and he glanced over his shoulder, and he saw the empty
device again, the place where his father’s soul had rested for all Isaac’s
life. No matter how hard he tried, he could not tear his vision away.
It was
just an empty cylinder, sitting in a dark and dusty corner. There was no light.