Chapter 18 #2
“She’s not so bad.” But Tallu was smiling, the expression lifting some of the exhaustion and pain from his face. “Truly, you do not think a sea serpent is worse?”
“I think an entire pack of sea serpents would take one look at her and turn tail. The ancient animalia Sea Serpent would hand over its treasure at a single arched eyebrow on her face.” I would have gone further, but the air was becoming increasingly humid, and the tunnel curved up: we were reaching the end of it.
Ahead, Lerolian called out. “We are clear of the lake. The mountains begin.”
For a second, despite the banter and the pretended bravery, I considered turning around and leading Tallu back down the tunnel to follow Asahi and the Kennelmaster.
I would drag him all the way back to the Mountainside Palace, push him into bed, and curl around him.
Then we would never leave, live our lives in luxury, enjoying the benefits of being the emperor and his consort.
But then the Imperium wouldn’t crumble. And then both of us would spend the rest of our lives knowing that we had broken promises, that we had failed to rid the world of an evil when it had been in our power to try.
I couldn’t let that happen. I had trained too hard and Tallu had sacrificed too much for us to let the Imperium stand.
I could tell the moment we stepped out from under the lake and into the mountains.
The air chilled, my breath steaming. The tunnel we had been passing through had been a mix of silty dirt and hard stone, but now, it was solid rock, carved as though an artisan had made a hole and then spent a thousand years rubbing at it with a soft cloth until the walls gleamed.
The blood monks ahead shouted now that they didn’t have to worry about Tallu and me reacting to their voices and giving away their presence to the Kennelmaster and the Dogs.
“We’ve found a room with bodies,” one of them called back.
We followed the blood monks into a cave off the main tunnel.
Part of me had thought that seeing Maki’s workshop was the worst of it. Corpses hung up on walls, the atrocities done to them clear. Nothing could be worse than that.
I was wrong.
The room was littered with corpses, piled high with them. Despite the chill of the air, they were in various states of decomposition. Some had been hacked to pieces, others had their organs strewn across the ground. A single flickering lamp in the corner lit the entire room.
I didn’t say anything. What was there to say?
“These are the men Maki left behind at the outpost,” Tallu said.
I jerked my head sharply toward him, frowning. “What?”
“All that bloodshed and here are the bodies.” He frowned, lips pulling down.
“But Topi said…” I frowned. No, she had told us how many men were with him, and if Quuri was to be trusted, only a fraction of those came with Maki to the Lakeshore Palace. He left behind nearly all of his men at the outpost.
“Most of these men bear the tattoos of the military.” Tallu crouched next to the closest body, pointing with his finger, and I stepped closer, lowering the lantern.
A tattoo, similar to the one that Liku had on his arm, circled the man’s bicep. “This labels him as one of Maki’s men. Based on the age of the ink, he had been with the general for over a decade.”
With the bodies in states of undress or torn to pieces, it was impossible to tell how many men were here.
“So he leaves most of his men at the outpost with the promise that, once he gains access to the Lakeshore Palace, he’ll return with food.
Only a small party can come with him, because no one in the Lakeshore Palace would be fool enough to open the gates if he showed up with an army—especially a starving army that wishes to overthrow the emperor.
” I looked around the room. “But he needs bodies for his work. And he needs to be certain that none of these men will show up at the Lakeshore Palace, giving away the fact that he does not have the support of His Imperial Majesty.”
Tallu was nodding. “And then he begins using the messengers I sent to speak with the king of Krustau. To show his loyalty to the Shadow King, he tells him about the men hiding at the fort. He might have even said they were your men.”
I was seeing it so clearly. Maki had set up each piece like a gamemaster.
“Krustau kills the men, but Maki requests the bodies for his experiments.” I blew out a long breath.
“And at that point, he has proven his loyalty several times over, so the king shows him the secret tunnel under the lake and gives him a stack of corpses: his own men returned to him to experiment on.”
“That means that the Krustavian military has the ability to do what we saw at the outpost.” Tallu’s voice was implacable, and under the iron, I could hear the pulse of fear that beat in my own chest. If they could do that to an army, what could they do to the two of us?
“We go back to the Lakeshore Palace. We wait until we have more men to take with us, or we take the servants. They’re trained as fighters—Quuri said as much.” I waited, trying to catch his eyes, but Tallu shook his head.
“We do not have time,” he said. At my sharp look, he nodded. “I am not sure how much longer I can hold on. I would not see my brother left in the Shadow King’s hands. Jafopo had some medicines that helped, perhaps if he is able to treat my brother, they might help him.”
I blew out an uncertain breath, nodding. “Then we go forward.”
Tallu wouldn’t rest until he had his brother, removing him from the playing board. And then, when I had the two of them, I would drag them away from here. We had doctors in the Northern Kingdom, too. We had medicine.
“You need to keep moving,” Na? said. She was sitting on her haunches in the tunnel, her head turned away from the massacre inside the room.
I nodded and took Tallu’s hand, pulling him up from his crouch. His palm was warm in mine, his grip firm. Despite the evidence of his health, panic built in my chest. Tallu was dying.
Lerolian stared down at Na?, his expression curious.
“Do you think she remembers the One Dragon?” He knelt down next to her, running his fingers over the soft ruffle of fur between her scales. “She said she has the memory of ones who came before her, didn’t she?”
“Why do you want to know?” I asked.
“I should like to know if it is true, about our souls being taken to the river.” He let his lips pull into a slight smile before shaking his head. “I suppose it doesn’t matter.”
Tallu’s hand was still tight in mine. We walked further up the tunnel, the cool air not easing the strain of the climb. Every so often, we hit a vent of warm steam that wafted with hints of sulfur. Somewhere in the mountain, the lava that had birthed the black rocks still flowed.
“Tallu, do not come in here,” Lerolian said intensely from up ahead. His tone was so stern that I automatically took a few steps inside, tugging Tallu behind me. Tallu froze just inside the doorway.
Lerolian reached for him, but his hand passed through Tallu’s shoulder. He and the other blood monks took a few steps back, as though distancing themselves from what was inside.
Electric lamps hung from the walls, illuminating a room similar to the one we had just passed. Only, instead of corpses, this one contained living men.
I jerked away from Tallu, taking a few steps inside before I froze.
No. These men were not alive.
Half of a man crawled in a circle, his neck attached to a chain that hung from the ceiling. Wires punctured his ears. His entire bottom half was severed, the wound so old that no blood or viscera dripped from it. As his arms pulled him around and around, his eyes moved side to side helplessly.
On the wall, another man gaped, blinking slowly, his mouth working. “Help me.”
The words dragged over his dry throat, practically voiceless. A spark of electricity danced from the electric light to the wires in his ears. Every time he started to slump, the light flashed again, his body jerking and coming back to this parody of life.
Another man stood in a cage, staring blankly out at us. I took a step closer, and he jerked into motion, grabbing hold of the bars of the cage and screaming at me, the sound rough as blood poured from his mouth. Electricity danced from the bars of the cage to the wires on his neck.
“Maki did this,” I said. “We have to end him.”
But what did I know of electricity other than how to kill an electro mage?
I turned back to Tallu. The coolness melted from his face, his expression becoming all teeth and wide eyes.
“Help me,” the man on the wall begged.
In the electrified cage, the other man screamed, his hands beginning to smoke.
Tallu didn’t say anything, stepping forward and extending both hands as he pulled the electricity out of Maki’s machinery. All at once, the electricity from the lights in the cage and the wires surged toward him, a ball of it as thick as a sea serpent’s tail.
I could hear the voice inside it screaming in my ears. The electricity spoke with Tallu’s pain.
Let this end. The ball of electricity snapped, sparks brushing against Tallu’s fingers, the rings on his hands.
Let this end let this end let this end let this end let this end.
Tallu crushed his hands together, smothering the electricity and the voice with it.
We were in darkness; Tallu had absorbed everything, including the electricity in the lamp I had been holding. I dropped the lamp and stilled my body, standing tense and waiting for the slightest sound.
Nothing. Beside me, Tallu was panting, and I reached out, catching hold of his shoulder and using it to guide me up to his face, where I cradled his cheeks between my hands.
“Tallu,” I whispered.
Moisture dripped over my fingers as I rubbed my thumbs over his sharp cheekbones. His body shuddered, convulsing, although he didn’t make a single sound.
When his body stopped jerking, he blew out a breath, raising his hands to cover my own.
In the darkness, he whispered, “This is what the war was like. Bodies that should have been at rest, should have been allowed back to their families, were forced to live again and again, unable to find peace even in death.”
He gasped, the rush of air cool against my damp fingers.
“Tallu, we must move.” Around us, the walls had begun to glow, the slight luminescence in some of the rocks giving me just enough light to see his outline.
He nodded, reaching down and sending a spark back into the lamp. I bent to pick it up, and he turned his face away, wiping at the tears on his cheeks.
He coughed, covering it with his sleeve, and when he pulled his hand away, blood stained the hem of it. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to say nothing. What could I say? We had no time right now, and he was fixed on this quest to save his brother.
Grabbing his elbow, I dragged him behind me as we climbed further up. When I couldn’t stand the quiet anymore, I asked, “I wonder if the insects can only control the living body?”
“What?” Tallu’s voice was hoarse from tears.
“Yes, they controlled the headless corpse that Krustau sent to the Mountainside Palace—but it wasn’t a real control.
It was an amateur puppeteer pulling strings.
It wasn’t like the corpses back there or like the monsters we fought.
It definitely wasn’t like Asahi. Maybe that’s why the Shadow King is interested in Maki.
If Maki can bring men back to life, the insects can control them. ” I was guessing, grasping at straws.
Or maybe he just wanted Maki’s knowledge—if he went to war with the Imperium, he would only benefit from having General Maki’s vast understanding of imperial warfare.
Ahead, Lerolian held up a hand. “There are men in the tunnel. Let me go ahead and see who they are.”
In one second, Tallu had extinguished the electric light, the snap of electricity disappearing into his skin with a whisper of keep him safe.
I began to understand why the imperial court had believed Tallu had more spies than fish in the sea. If he could walk into a room knowing all the details of a secret meeting, why wouldn’t they think his network was so vast that any member of court could be part of it?
I pushed Tallu back, forcing him against the wall of the tunnel, positioning my body in front of his.
“It’s Vostop,” Lerolian called. If he had been alive, his voice would have echoed. “He has men with him.”
I tensed, crouching low and drawing my blade silently.
Tallu tried to move, but I used my free hand to hold him back against the wall, forcing his body into stillness.
When he tried again, I fisted my fingers in his shirt, trying to convey my worry.
Understanding what I was trying to say silently, Tallu relaxed in place, and I let myself close my eyes, listening for the first sounds of attack.
Instead, a voice called down the tunnel, “I am glad you understood my message, Emperor Tallu. May we come forward?”