19 #2
The passage dead-ended at a door. It was a large door, and it had been designed by someone who felt that black iron and skulls were integral parts of any décor. Astarion would not have wanted something like that in his bedchamber, but he could see the appeal for, say, a guest bathroom.
Two skeletons stood before it, unmoving. They carried swords, which probably meant they were the smarter sort. Although a single skeleton or even two wasn’t much of a threat, it was possible they were sharp enough to sound an alarm.
He turned to ask Yousen a question, but the gnome was already moving back along the passage, tapping and listening. “Up there,” he finally whispered, pointing up.
The ceilings here were very high. Astarion squinted at a dark emptiness far above.
Yousen’s spider-climbing ability wasn’t as good as Violet’s, but it was still better than Astarion’s. The elf gritted his teeth, watching the gnome carefully scale the wall as if he were picking his way through uneven ground.
I will not take my shoes off in front of him. I won’t. Astarion set his hands to the wall and thought very hard about sticking to it.
“Something wrong?” Yousen whispered after a few moments.
“Not at all. Give me a moment.” Astarion had made it about six feet up and was proceeding by fits and starts.
As long as he kept his eyes closed, he could pretend he was crawling along the floor.
He’d crawled on plenty of floors. Been doing it since he was a little pointy-eared toddler. Nothing to worry about.
“It’s just that you’re—”
“I said, give me a moment!”
Nine Hells, was that a giggle? Did Yousen giggle at me?
No, surely not. If it was Yousen, he’d have apologized by now.
When Astarion finally reached the hole in the ceiling, he shoved his way past Yousen and set his back against the wall.
“Are you okay?”
“I am fine.” Astarion reached for a lie and found one at his fingertips. “I was listening, you dolt. I think we’re being followed.”
Yousen’s eyes went wide. “Who?”
“If I knew that, I would not have had to keep freezing to listen for their footsteps. They’re good, whoever they are, and this place is full of echoes.”
“Oh dear.” Yousen wrung his hands. “Should we go back?”
“And run right into them? I think not.” Astarion studied their surroundings. Some unknown hand had found a crack in the rock and carved the bottom into a narrow passage wending its way slightly upward. The walls rose up, canyon-like, and were lost in shadow.
“It’s over here,” Yousen whispered. He led the way, though he kept glancing over his shoulder.
A faint glow of light heralded the end of the passage. The stone had been carved out here, forming a ledge with a low wall around it. Even here, someone had scrawled a name on the wall, along with a suggestion that they engaged in unnatural acts with kobolds.
Astarion crouched low and slipped out onto the ledge. Yousen gave one last, worried look at the mouth of the tunnel and joined him.
Astarion leaned over the wall and looked out into Hell.
The cavern where the Cult of the Undying Blood conducted their foul and unholy rites was perhaps a quarter mile across, dug out of the rubble of the buried city.
Streets radiated out from a central plaza, lined with the remains of buildings.
Some were intact, while others lacked roofs or walls or had been reduced to outlines of old foundations.
The central plaza had three tiers and looked as if someone had started building a ziggurat and gotten bored partway through. Lights burned along the walls, a shade of green that turned the ragged stones the color of rotting flesh.
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In the center of the plaza, a globe of absolute darkness sucked in the light and gave back only velvet blackness. Some part of Astarion’s mind noted that if he were worshipping a holy relic of the god of shadows, he’d probably keep it in something like that.
The rest of Astarion’s mind was screaming incoherently about the skeletons.
The undead filled the streets of the ruined city, five and ten abreast, a seething mass of ivory and old rags.
It was like market day in Baldur’s Gate, if it had been stripped of color and flesh.
A real market day would be full of speech, though, people shouting and laughing, vendors hawking their wares.
The only sounds that rose to the watchers on their perch was the hollow clatter of bones.
Astarion was reminded of nothing so much as an anthill. Each ant might be on its own specific errand, but together they formed a scurrying river that swirled with currents and eddies, a whole infinitely greater than its parts.
“That,” he said, “is a lot of fucking skeletons.”
“There weren’t nearly as many last time,” Yousen said, swallowing hard. “And there were a lot last time.”
Astarion nodded. He hadn’t planned a frontal assault anyway, but he was beginning to reconsider the entire plan. There were daring heists, and then there were…whatever the hell this was.
“This is as far as I got.” Yousen shrank back toward the safety of the passage. “And as far as I go.”
Astarion nodded, getting to his feet. “Only one thing left to do,” he said, letting a dagger fall into his hand. He turned to Yousen and smiled.
Something about that smile made the gnome back up a step, his eyes going wide. “Wait—”
Astarion struck.