Stranger of Tempest: Book One of The God Fragments (42 page)

He thumbed open the breech to check it was loaded then snapped it shut again. Ashis and Reft moved right towards an open doorway, Teshen and Kas ahead to the arc of pillars that had once denoted the edge of the chamber but was now swamped by foliage. Toil headed left so he followed her with Varain, leaving Anatin to watch over Sitain.

A relatively low curved roof swept down to the pillars. Where chunks of rock had tumbled from a fissure lay a snaking mass of ivy trails. Toil picked her way past with professional caution, checking the open tear in the rock before moving on to the far end, obscured by sprays of yellowed leaves.

Eventually they found themselves at the end and headed on through a deep archway into a similar open arcade. This one was larger in every way with a small tower of stone in the centre, entirely choked by foliage. There were tunnels and large double- and triple-storey chambers off this, all apparently empty and bearing no sign of monstrous inhabitants, so they returned to where they had left Anatin and Sitain. The others had found similar; Teshen and Kas had seen nothing larger than a rabbit, while Ashis and Reft had found a network of chambers all dimly lit by long diagonal shafts cut through at intervals.

It seemed to be the best place for them to rest in safety so, with a pang of longing for the bright autumn sunshine, Lynx followed the others through a crescent corridor and into a broad room with a long pedestal and doorways leading off in three directions.

‘Oh ye gods and evil biting fishes!’ gasped Toil, trailing in last after thanking their Wisp guides. ‘No one move.’

The mercenaries froze.

‘What is it?’ Anatin hissed, gently sliding his second pistol from its sheath.

‘Tomb,’ Toil said, by way of explanation. ‘Give me a moment. Did you go all the way in?’

‘Yes, the other rooms too.’

‘You step into the light?’ she said, pointing at the slanted column of sunlight that illuminated the centre of the tomb, directly in front of the empty pedestal.

‘No.’

‘Right then.’

She pulled a length of cloth from around her waist and balled it up before tossing it through the drifting shaft of sunlit motes. There was a bright flash as soon as it touched the light and a wash of flame swept down from the ceiling to catch the trailing end of cloth and set it alight. It fell to the floor, burning, while the mercenaries reeled back from the sudden, brief heat. Toil just nodded grimly to herself and reached out with her gun, reversed so the wooden stock touched the sunlight.

Nothing happened. She gave a satisfied grunt and withdrew the gun. ‘A sunstore trap,’ she commented to the others. ‘Should be safe for at least half a day now.’

She edged forward towards the centre of the room and stood just to one side of the light, looking up and all around as though searching for something. Toil paused when she faced a jutting door frame but kept looking until she’d scanned the rest of the room before she raised her mage-gun at it.

‘Ice anything that moves,’ she said softly before taking another step. Two more paces took her just shy of the pedestal where she hesitated and turned back to the mercenaries. ‘Reft, toss me an axe.’

The big man did as she asked and Toil caught the weapon, hefted it to check the weight then hurled it at the wall on the far side of the door frame. Nothing happened though she immediately had her gun up and ready to shoot. After a long moment she breathed out and visibly relaxed.

‘Looks like we’re okay.’

The mercenaries collectively gasped.

‘What the fuck was that about?’ Anatin demanded.

‘This is a burial chamber; they’re dotted all over Duegar ruins. I don’t know why. Folk reckon they were dying out so towards the end they had all this space going begging. The oldest tombs are in the deep dark where you don’t want to go, but since these are closer to the surface they got some nasty protections against folk like me.’

‘Like curses?’

Toil snorted. ‘Sure, I almost shit myself over a five-thousand-year-old scribble, not the bloody sun’s rays stored and used to burn your face off.’

Anatin let the scorn slide, aware he’d sounded stupid. ‘What else are we looking for, I mean?’

‘All sorts.’ She pointed to the jutting door frame. ‘That’s not a doorway there, more like a cupboard you really don’t want to open. Things that look like ghosts and turn your blood to ice, crystals that’ll blind you – I once saw a statue rip pieces off a man, just plucking away until someone hit it with an earther and almost buried us all. Don’t walk into a light shaft unless it’s been triggered recently, never stand on a slab of stone with a defined edge or it’ll tilt under you.’ She paused and laughed. ‘And since you’re mercs I should probably add – don’t put your fingers
or anything else
in any holes you see, okay?’

‘But no more here?’

‘Someone’s been here already, long ago most likely.’ She shook her head and forced a smile. ‘Should’ve guessed that really, this close to the open air there’s little chance of a tomb that hasn’t been raided. But a cautious explorer is one who’s still got their head attached.’

‘This has been raided?’

Toil pointed to the oval-shaped hole above their heads from which the fire had come and light still shone. ‘Should be a sort of glass up there, sealing it tight – you can sell that to any princip in the world to use as a window strong enough to resist an icer. They’ve chipped the stone out around it.’ She moved towards the pedestal and nodded. ‘This has been opened too, seal’s broken.’

‘They put the stone back?’

‘Nah, broke the clasps and levered it up, it’ll hinge somewhere I guess. You let go of it and it’ll slowly slide back into place.’

‘So this is safe?’ Ashis asked, looking around the chamber, wide-eyed. ‘We ain’t gonna get ’et?’

‘Not by the tomb, anyway,’ Toil said. ‘Maspids I ain’t promising about, but we’ll rig up a grenade at the entrance in case anything comes our way. I’ll check out the rest of the tomb while you do that.’ She beamed suddenly. ‘After that, a good long sleep!’

Teshen grunted. ‘Sounds good to me. Kas, let’s take a better look at the rift before we rig anything over the entrance.’

He nodded back the way they’d come and Kas followed him out, unshipping her bow as she went. Lynx watched them go as Toil headed off through one of the open doorways. He looked at Anatin who shrugged and slipped his pack off his shoulders.

‘Toil’s the expert,’ Anatin commented, ‘she can clear the damn rooms. I want a smoke.’

Lynx hesitated then settled down too, content to sit with a loaded mage-gun on his lap pointing towards the other doorway. The light filtering down through the rock was meagre, but after days in darkness he was happy to bathe in its welcome glow once he’d tested the safety for himself. Lynx sat in the centre of the room as Sitain got up and stretched her aching limbs, walking the perimeter while Reft and Ashis slumped with Lynx. Anatin struck a sulphur match and lit three tightly rolled cigarettes, passing one to Lynx and the other to Ashis.

Before long Toil returned, confirming the rooms off to the side were empty and safe. Lynx felt his eyes sagging before she’d even crossed to clear the other set, but as soon as she was gone from sight he made his gun safe and stretched out on the dry dusty floor. With his head propped up by his pack so he was looking straight at the shaft of light without actually being in the line of fire, he closed his eyes and felt the warm embrace of sleep settle over him.

Lynx dreamed of Govenor Lorfen again, as he knew he would. The time underground had scraped at the scabs of his memory, but Lorfen embodied the bandages Lynx had laid over parts of his soul that would never fully heal. He knew the prison had broken him, however much he pretended and lived his life as though it hadn’t. The face he presented to the world was not just to protect himself from it, it was to contain the damage done. He had tried to return to a normal life, but had found he could not settle anywhere.

Employment as a scribe or a rich man’s bodyguard, Lynx had tried both and more besides, and failed every time. Before long the walls started to look like a prison cell, those he saw each day became fellow inmates and at To Lort you trusted no man. The trusting died, only those who struck first survived and as much as he tried to be calm and joke his way through life, Lynx knew he would one day strike first.

Drunkenness was usually his path out. Picking fights with locals, bitter unpleasantness to the widows who’d thought him a gentle man, it didn’t matter really. He couldn’t contain the bubble of anger for ever, one day it would force its way out and he’d leave or be driven out. You chose the man you wanted to be and tried to live up to that, but a person’s nature could never be denied fully.

‘
Sleep here for the night
,’ Lorfen had said one day as the sun dropped below the horizon and he was tidying his desk for the evening. ‘
The office’s yours if you want it.
’

‘
You want to lock me in here?
’

Lorfen shook his head. ‘
The door will only be locked if you lock yourself in and the windows aren’t barred.
’

‘
Why?
’

‘
You don’t return an animal to the wild in one day.
’

‘
Calling me an animal?
’ Lynx said, hands tightening.

‘
We all are
,’ Lorfen replied calmly. ‘
We’re all slaves to our nature, however much humans can strive to be more than that. You’ve made good progress these last few weeks.
’ He gestured to the papers on the table where Lynx had been working. ‘
I couldn’t have trusted the man I first met to do scribing work, you were too far gone.
’

‘
What, then?
’

‘
On my desk there are your release papers, signed and sealed. A man could easily rob me and escape out of the window should he want.
’

‘
I don’t understand. Is this a test?
’

‘
No. If you want to go, go. If you stay another two weeks, I’ll give you clothes and a horse, a sword too.
’

‘
Why not now?
’

‘
Because I want to be sure you’ll not be killed or hanged a few miles down the road. Best you get used to sleeping out of a cell before you head into the wilds by yourself.
’ Lorfen nodded towards the window, currently shuttered. ‘
Thought you might want to watch the dawn tomorrow, nothing like the darkness for making a man appreciate the sun’s rise. If you’re gone in the morning, it’s with my good wishes – and there’s nothing worth stealing in here that I wasn’t going to give you anyway.
’

Lorfen gave him a long, studied look while Lynx tried to think of something to say. Eventually it was clear the prisoner had no words so the governor simply shrugged and pulled a plain silver ring from his finger, pointedly setting it on the desktop.

‘
In the morning, I’ll tell you what the ring means. Sleep well.
’

He left, taking care to put the key in the inside of the lock before he went. Lynx stared at the closed door a long while after Lorfen had left before finally getting up to lock himself in. That done he sank down in the battered armchair that stood to one side of the desk, gnawing on one knuckle and staring for an hour or more at the ring in the lamplight. He slept badly, eventually making a nest of clothing for himself in the corner of the room. When he realised the first glow of dawn was creeping past the shutters Lynx wrapped Lorfen’s cloak around his shoulders and dragged the chair in front of the window.

When it came, dawn was magnificent. The sun burst through the clouds lingering at the horizon, golden fire erupting up through the sky as the Skyriver’s cold hue turned orange and pink. It wasn’t just a new day to Lynx but a whole new world. Haloed in the soft yellow light of winter it seemed to suffuse his whole being, filling his body with a warmth he’d forgotten long ago.

‘Wake up, sunshine.’

The whispered words filtered slowly into Lynx’s mind, at first coming in Lorfen’s accent before they were repeated in a honey-rich woman’s voice. Lynx wrenched around as panic flooded his body, hands flailing for a weapon only for his wrist to be grabbed in a strong grip. He hauled himself up, his free hand clawed and grabbing at his assailant’s throat with such ferocity he slammed her backwards before his eyes could even focus.

Something jerked Lynx bodily back. He released the throat and tried to turn, but before he could a hasty punch rocked his head. Lynx blinked and realised it was Toil standing in front of him. He opened his mouth to speak just as Reft’s massive arm slipped around his chest and hauled him up in the air, squeezing the air from his lungs, but Toil saw the change in his face.

‘Reft, wait!’

The pressure on his chest lessened and Lynx wheezed. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Oh yeah,’ Kas said in a lazy drawl from behind Toil. ‘I forgot to mention, Lynx is kinda twitchy in his sleep. You might want to be careful how you wake him.’

Despite everything, a wicked grin flashed across Toil’s face. ‘Hey, thanks for the warning. I’ll watch out for that.’

Toil released her grip on his wrist and cocked her head at Lynx while Reft withdrew his arm. She pursed her lips and blew him a mocking kiss. ‘Looks like you needed a proper wake-up anyway. It’s time to go,’ she said as she turned away.

Lynx looked around and realised the others were already pulling their packs on their backs. ‘Gods,’ he muttered as he scrubbed his hands over his face and fetched his kit, ‘how long did I sleep?’

‘Four hours,’ Sitain said, offering him a weak smile. The young woman was looking far from hale, but there was some colour in her cheeks now and she was standing steady. ‘Sun’s just gone down.’

‘You’re good?’

She nodded and raised her borrowed pistol. ‘Good enough.’

‘Looks like the Charnelers got here before us,’ Teshen announced as Lynx readied himself. ‘There’s a stretch more’n a hundred yards long that’s been burned, recently enough that a few trees are still going. We didn’t see anyone but couldn’t poke our heads out far either and there’s a couple of hundred vantage points round here. Might be they passed through, might be they’re waiting. Rest of the ground’s got decent cover, enough to get us across and cloud’s coming over.’