Chapter 25 #2
Leonhard shrugged. “Call it what you want. But we’re working toward the same goal, you and I.
” He gestured between the two of them. “The hunters have been restoring things to the way they were for centuries before the corruption. But while the church consolidates magic in its control, we can only make so much progress.”
“Let’s say I knew how to get into the dungeons, which I don’t. How do I enter them? I don’t think your token will work this time.”
“For that, I do have an answer. Go to this location, and your contact will explain the rest.” He handed Erich a card with the name of a butcher and a time.
“Then that’s it? I get this person out for you, and we part ways? What about this brand?”
“Oh, nearly forgot that.” He stood up, strolled around the desk, and grasped Erich by the arm where the brand was burned into his flesh.
Up close, he could see the rune marks moving over his skin, sliding up his neck and down to his palm.
Leonhard grasped hold of Erich’s shoulder, and Erich felt a slight pinprick as the marks moved from his flesh and back onto Leonhard.
“There you go, a bit of an advanced payment.”
“You’re rather trusting, considering,” Erich remarked as he rubbed the spot where the brand had been.
“I know you’ll want to help because the person I need you to get out of the dungeons is an oracle, and she’s seen that she’ll guide Liane on how to draw the sword from her back.”
Erich felt as if a cold chill had washed over him. What else had the oracle seen? Was all this preordained, and he’d merely been Leonhard’s puppet all along?
“Who are you, really?” Erich asked him.
“Just a man.” Leonhard winked. “It was nice meeting you, Prince Erich. Maybe someday I’ll call in that favor.”
And with that, Erich was dismissed. He exited the town house and onto the empty street—brandless and with a location and name written on a piece of paper.
He shoved the paper in his pocket and started walking toward his and Fritz’s new rendezvous.
They’d changed inns to escape Leonhard’s attention, but that seemed to have been pointless now.
Everything was coming to a head, and he felt as if his skin were still too tight, like when the dragon was close to the surface.
But it wasn’t the dragon who’d receded to the furthest reaches of his mind.
It was his fear that set his teeth on edge.
He was getting what he wanted. His plan had worked.
Why then did he have this feeling of dread looming over him?
Erich reached their new hideout, asked after Fritz, and was directed to a smaller inn room than they’d had before. Fritz stood up as he entered, relief on his face.
“I was worried you wouldn’t come back,” he said.
Erich slammed the door behind him and proceeded to tell Fritz everything that’d transpired since they’d last seen one another as he paced the length of their tiny room.
“You’ll wear a hole in the floor before long,” Fritz remarked when Erich was finished telling him.
“I don’t suppose you’ve had some convenient vision that might give us the answers we need?”
“Unfortunately, no. This seems to be our only option.”
Erich growled and ran his hand through his hair in frustration. There would be no second chances. Entering the dungeon and extracting two prisoners left little room for error. And the thought of that was paralyzing him.
Erich growled again, and then there was a knock on their door. Both Erich and Fritz froze, staring at their door.
Erich reached for his dagger before inching toward the door and signaling for Fritz to stand back.
The elf didn’t need to be told twice and stepped behind him.
Erich eased open the door and was surprised to find both Liane’s maid and her guard, Ludwig, standing outside his door. He lowered his weapon slightly.
She was pale, and dark circles stood out beneath her eyes. And Ludwig looked no better.
“Thank the stars, it’s you,” she said.
“How did you find me?”
“It wasn’t easy. May we come in?” she asked. “I promise we won’t bite.”
But judging from the glower on Ludwig’s face, that sentiment wasn’t mutual.
Erich looked back at Fritz, who nodded slightly, and Erich stepped aside to let them into the room. They entered and stood in an awkward standoff. Fritz offered them wine, which they both declined.
“What brings you here?” Fritz asked.
“Liane wants you to help her escape,” Luzie explained.
This was the stroke of luck they needed. Insiders close to Liane could make their plans much easier to pull off.
“Can you help us from the inside of the temple?”
Luzie’s face fell. “I can’t. I was dismissed. Ludwig can, though.”
“Are you truly willing to work together?”
“I don’t like it, but protecting Liane is more important.”
They stared at one another for a few moments, in a prolonged standoff, and then Erich nodded.
“How do we get them in and close to Liane?” Ludwig asked. “The Avatheos is trying to keep her away from everyone.”
“I may have a plan for that. Though there are risks involved,” Erich said.
“I’m listening,” Ludwig replied.
And for the second time, Erich explained what Leonhard had told him and showed them the card with the address on it.
Ludwig looked at it thoughtfully for a few moments. “That explains where the tunnel leads.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“There’s a tunnel guarded beneath the temple. I only got a glimpse of it when I was touring the Midnight Guard’s domain beneath the temple. I saw empty carts near there, but I’m not sure what was being delivered.”
“Well, it’s nearly time. Why don’t we go find out together?”
They headed out into the city, one by one, so as to not draw suspicion, with plans to meet up at the address on the card.
Erich made his way through the tangled rows of streets that made up the holy city, looking over his shoulder every few blocks.
He made half a dozen turns, and he was certain Ludwig led him past the same street at different intervals several times, as if he were making sure they weren’t being followed before he’d take them to their destination.
Eventually, they ended up in the butcher’s district.
The smell of blood and rot made his stomach roil.
The streets were stained red-brown, and the walls were speckled black by flies, which burst into flight the moment you walked by, then settled back down again.
The address Leonhard gave him led him to an unassuming butcher shop.
A man in a bloody apron came to the door, looked him up and down, and then nodded.
“Another one? Are you the last of them?”
“I believe so.”
“Go back around with the others.” His eyes lingered on Erich a moment, which made a prickle run down his spine.
Erich went around the back as instructed, past a pile of rotting castoffs.
There was a cellar door propped open, and Erich could hear Fritz, Ludwig, and Luzie talking in low tones.
He walked down the bloodstained steps into the cellar.
A half-carved pig was laid out on the block, and a cleaver stabbed into the wood.
The butcher joined them, wiping his hands on his stained apron as he closed the cellar door, leaving them in the dim gloom of candlelight.
Erich hated being in enclosed spaces in general, and the stench of meat, blood, and fear clung to the place and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
“Leonhard didn’t say he’d be sending four of you. I was expecting two.” He looked them up and down.
Then Leonhard had found out that Erich wasn’t working alone. The thought unsettled him, but he pushed it aside for the time being.
“They’re working with me,” Erich said. “And you’re paying off your debt. Does it really matter?” Erich was taking a stab in the dark. He had no idea if the man had a debt or not, but knowing Leonhard, he probably did.
The man shrugged as if it didn’t matter to him one way or another. “Either I pay off my lost winnings, or die. Not sure it’s worth dying at the hands of the Midnight Guard if one of you squeals, though.”
Luzie yelped when the butcher’s eyes narrowed on her.
“None of us is going to reveal your secrets,” Fritz assured him.
The butcher shook his head and gestured for them to follow as he stomped over to a cabinet at the back of the room.
When he threw open the doors, another set of stairs going down was revealed.
He headed down, without glancing back to see if they were following.
Ludwig went after him. Then Fritz. Luzie lingered a moment, eyeing the stairs dubiously.
“I’ll take up the rear,” Erich assured her.
She nodded and followed Fritz and Ludwig down.
Erich held his breath before joining them.
It was colder down in the tunnel, and he felt the faint echoes of faded magic.
Another vein that had dried up, he’d guess.
The stairs ended in a tunnel filled with large blocks of ice that dripped from the baskets that held them.
“This is where we keep the bodies until the church retrieves them,” the man said.
Erich walked over to one of the said bodies. It was what appeared to be an elk, but disfigured and transformed, with scaled protrusions along its body and a serpentine tail along its back.
Erich recoiled at the sight of its lolling tongue.
“You’re delivering chimeras to the church?” Erich asked.
“That’s how they make it. Stardust, or something very like it, is extracted from the chimeras caught in and around the capital,” Ludwig said. “They give stardust to the Midnight Guard and priests to awaken their powers.”
Erich felt a chill run down his spine. “How did you learn this?”
Ludwig nodded toward Fritz. “He helped me put it together. I told the guards that I had been a user once and recovered. They tested me, and I was found worthy.” There was a wry twist to his mouth.
“I thought the Midnight Guard and the church were meant to protect the people. But for every person who can withstand the magic, another three wither away. It’s unspeakably cruel. ”
Erich looked at the chimera on the table. This was why Leonhard was allowed to continue his coliseum and operate in the city. If it gave the church the means to keep producing stardust, they could continue to control the flow of magic—who had it and who didn’t…
Erich turned to the butcher. “And what can you reveal about Leonhard’s grand plan?”
“I’m your transport, so to speak.” He gestured to a cart, piled with corpses, along a track that disappeared into a dark tunnel.
Erich already felt sick to his stomach at the thought. “You want me to pretend to be a body?”
“For a short time. There’s only room for two, though. You’ll have to draw straws, I suspect.” He rubbed his nose and sniffled.
Delightful. As horrid as the prospect was, Erich knew he’d have to go through with it.
“I can meet you on the inside,” Ludwig suggested.
“And I’ll wait at the rendezvous point with a carriage,” Luzie said.
Which left Fritz, who was staring at the pile of bodies, his face the color of fresh milk.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Erich asked him.
“We have no other choice. I need to be with you in the dungeon. I don’t know why. I just know I do,” Fritz said. His voice had taken on that eerie prophetic tone.
Everyone turned to look at him. His breaths were rising in clouds of vapor, as the temperature of the room seemed to drop. They all looked at one another, bound together by their desire to protect Liane. There was no turning back now. The only way out was forward.