The Fifth Vertex (The Sigilord Chronicles) (4 page)

"We took the oath. You could kill us all and we would not deliver you this map," answered Brother Toyce, his voice shaky as he tried to sound determined.

Cailix studied the man who had clothed and fed her for the last few months. Their eyes met, and she knew that he meant what he said. Toyce would rather die, and let her die as well, than let these men have a simple map.

Well, she wasn't about to die today, least of all for some stupid map. What could possibly be so important about a map that monks, of all creatures, would sacrifice their lives for it? What could Anderis find with such a map that was so terrible?

Anderis's face contorted with anger.

"Then we will do this difficult way," he said, standing up. He had to push off against a knee to stand upright, like an old codger without his cane.

He nodded toward Brother Toyce, and his companions grabbed the monk, binding his hands behind his back and delivering him on his knees to Anderis.

None of the other monks made a move to stop them.

Anderis turned his back to Cailix to stand over the monk. If they were going to die anyway, then she wasn't going out lying down crying like a baby.

She pounced.

She landed on Anderis's shoulders, and the man collapsed, his limbs folding and bending at odd angles. Again she heard the sound of bone cracking.

This time he screamed, loudly.

"Get them, there's only two!" she screeched, pointing at the two shocked henchmen.

She hammered a few more blows into Anderis's chest from her perch on his shoulders, looking around for support from the monks.

All of them were on their knees, hoods drawn, chanting in prayer. Rather than jumping at the chance to help her vanquish the men in white, the monks were praying.

Just like everyone else who'd ever said they would take care of her, the monks had lied.
 

Fine,
she thought.
I'll just have to take care of myself, as always.

Before the two henchmen could react, she leapt from Anderis onto the first, climbing up his frame and locking her legs around his neck.

Hollering, she pulled his hair and pounded her fists on his head. This one didn't collapse under her weight, and she didn't hear any bones break. With one hand he reached up, grabbed her by the scruff of her neck like some little animal, and threw her against one of the desks. She gasped in pain as she landed on her back and bounced off the desk.

She rolled onto the floor, fighting for breath, sucking in but not drawing any air. Finally her lungs expanded and she took a breath, just as her attacker kicked the desk over on top of her, burying her under a pile of wood and books.

"This is ridiculous," snapped Anderis. Again he stood and brushed the dust off his robe, with no sign of broken bones or injury. "Who knew the monks kept wild animals as their servants?"

Wild animal, indeed
. She would show them just how wild once she got out from underneath the desk.

"Well, Brother Toyce, since you refuse to tell me where the map is, then your blood will have to tell me," Anderis said, holding his knife to the monk's neck.

"No!" Cailix howled, helpless to intervene as Anderis stabbed Toyce's throat, spilling his blood onto the stone floor.

The leader of the men in white kneeled in the spreading pool, his robe soaking up the blood like fresh paint on a canvas. He dunked his hands in the thick, red liquid and stared into Brother Toyce's dying eyes, both men facing each other on their knees.

"The Woan Map," Anderis whispered.

Brother Toyce's eyes rolled back and blood gurgled out of his mouth as Anderis's henchmen held him up.

Then Toyce spoke, but with Anderis's voice. "Accounting archives." Cailix wasn't sure if she was watching a dead man talk or some kind of crazy magic. It was a gruesome sight and she probably should have looked away, but she stood transfixed, mesmerized by the power Anderis wielded.

Anderis splashed more of the blood up onto his arms and rubbed it on his face. Toyce, or whatever that semi-dead thing was, continued. Her protector and benefactor was dead and nothing Anderis did to his body would change that. She had to survive.

"Regency coffers log, Common Era 412, Harvest Record 23B," Toyce's lifeless body spoke with Anderis's voice.

Anderis gave a short laugh.

"They hid the most valuable map in the world in the most boring set of archives nobody ever wants to read." He stood up and let Toyce's body drop. "Clever, except they left it defended by a handful of pacifist monks."

"What did you do to Brother Toyce?" Cailix yelled.

Anderis waved his men off, and they disappeared down the staircase leading to the archives. He paced idly through the room, flipping through the books and manuscripts. It was a while before he spoke again.

"You have such spirit and fight for a young woman. Why do you not cower in the corner and cry for your mommy like a normal child?" Anderis asked.

"I'm not weak like them. I don't have a mommy or a daddy. Nobody comes to hold me and sing me stupid songs when I cry."

"What a terrible shame."

"It isn't shameful at all. If I'd been crying in a corner I wouldn't have found out that you're a brittle old bastard who can barely stand without breaking his bones," Cailix said, spitting in his direction.

"Perhaps, but then you wouldn't have ended up stuck underneath a desk watching as I bled your benefactor to death."

"You'd have killed him anyway. I'd rather have my dignity stuck under a desk than be without it, hiding in a corner."

"What a fascinating little creature you are," Anderis said, an amused, appreciative look on his face.

"Come closer and say that again."

She was sure that any of the men could kill her as easily as they had Brother Toyce, but that didn't matter. What mattered was not showing any sign of weakness. If you showed weakness, others preyed on you, and she was nobody's prey.

Anderis had opened his mouth to reply when the henchmen returned. One carried a giant tube sealed at both ends with wax under his arm.

"Is that it?" Anderis asked.

"We found it right where the monk said," replied the man who had knocked the desk onto her.
 

"To think that after all this searching, we would find it buried in some accounting archive below a monastery," said Anderis.

One of the men broke the wax seal, withdrew the ancient parchment, and unfurled it onto a desk, knocking aside a pile of books to make room.

Anderis gasped. "The Woan Map. Finally."

It drove Cailix mad that she couldn't see what was on the map, what was so important these men would kill and the monks would die for.

"Somehow I thought it would be harder to find. Seems kind of foolish to leave it unprotected down there," his companion remarked.

Anderis's eyes widened, a look of shock spreading across his face. "The map gave itself up too easily. The seal in the wax, was it a sigil?"

His companions shrugged, fumbling through the broken wax.

"No! Not after all this time and work!" Anderis shouted. "Mirol, the map was warded! I'm going to need your blood."

"What?" Anderis's companion asked, taking a step back. But even from where Cailix lay, she could see the man didn't stand a chance. Anderis's knife slit Mirol's neck open. Rather than spilling down, the blood flowed outward, spraying a fine red mist all over the map just as the paper started to burn. Some of the spray shot past the table and onto her face and hands.

As Anderis held his hands over the map and whispered something, Mirol's exsanguinated body dropped to the floor in a
 
heap. All the while, the remaining monks continued praying, not making a move to stop their attackers.

"Did you save it?" the remaining white-robed thief asked.

Anderis nodded. "The blood preserved the image before the parchment burned. Go get a blank scroll."

As the thug departed in search of a scroll, Cailix felt the heat of the blood dripping down her cheeks and sticking to her fingers. Her heart raced and the heat seemed to transfer from the blood to her body, warming her from head to toe. She was fascinated by the sight, the smell, and the texture of the blood. It was intoxicating.

The henchman returned with a large scroll. They unfurled it and pressed it down on the pool of blood on the table. After a few moments of rubbing and pressing the paper to the wood, they lifted it, revealing a mirror image of the map, drawn entirely in blood. Cailix couldn't help but marvel at the beauty of it.

"Put it over there to dry for a moment," Anderis said.

"And the monks?" the henchman asked.

"Kill them all, and make sure the girl watches."

He nodded. Cailix lay there in silence as the man paraded the monks before her, stabbing each through the heart, piling their bodies there so that was all she could see. Their blood ran down the woodgrain in the floor toward her, soaking into her clothes. It took the henchman just a few minutes to kill all twelve remaining monks.

Anderis rolled up the scroll and slid it into the original map tube. Then the two men turned to leave without another word, as though she didn't exist.

The monks were dead. Without them, she would have no way of surviving in the harsh city. She had already been cast out of the orphanage. With nowhere left to go, the only thing in doubt would be whether the hunger would kill her before the cold.

"Wait," she cried before the men reached the massive doors.

They stopped, Anderis looking back across the chamber with a raised eyebrow.

"Take me with you," she said.

Anderis chuckled, but he said nothing. Instead, he walked back to the overturned desk and squatted atop the pile of monk bodies, resting his weight on the balls of his feet as though he were an agile young man.

Cailix couldn't figure him out. One minute he was as brittle and broken as an old man, while the next he perched like a cat, ready to pounce.

"After we just killed all the monks and left you like this?" Anderis gestured at the mess weighing her down, "Why on Emys would you want to come with us?"

Cailix met Anderis's gaze, unflinching, and said, "Because I'll die without the monks to provide for me. I am a good servant and can earn my keep and I don't want to die out here in the cold."

"Truly the strangest creature I have ever encountered," he said. "If you were just a year or two older, you would have fetched a king's ransom as a whore over in Whiteport."

Her stomach turned at the thought. It turned at the thought of being near this man, too, but she had to be patient and bide her time. Planning her revenge would be enough to fill her stomach and keep her warm at night.
 

"I wonder," he said, his head cocked to the side.
 

He drew his knife and reached for her arm, twisting her hand back so the blood vessels in her wrist bulged.

"No, I can be a good servant, I promise! Don't kill me!" she pleaded.
 

He poked the tip of the blade into the palm of her hand then held the wound to his lips. She could feel him sucking blood from her palm; a warm, disgusting sensation that she would never forget.

When he was done he licked his lips and made a clicking noise, like the nobles did when they tasted the really expensive wines.

Abruptly, he stood up and exchanged looks with his man by the door.

"Get her out from under there. She's coming with us."

4

The steamy air below the arena reeked of sweat and dung.

Performers and graduates alike crammed into the narrow tunnels and staging areas, sharing the limited space with elephants, caged tigers, and a host of other trained animals. But the audience didn't know or care how hot or foul-smelling it might be below the arena floor. The dramatic effect was what they craved, the different acts of a performance surging up through the trapdoors hidden beneath a smoothed coating of desert sand.

Rather than building the arena from a valuable trade commodity like sunstone, it was instead made from the cheap and plentiful sandstone. Nor could they run gaslamp lines out that far, so torches lined the walls, providing just enough light to avoid animal or performer collisions, and more than enough smoke to add to the burn already festering in the lungs and eyes from the foul air.

Urus stood at the bottom of a ramp two levels below the arena, staring up at the hindquarters of an elephant contributing more than his fair share to the odor of dung in the place. He could feel the wood floor bouncing as performers channeled their anxiety into warm-up jumps and rolls, holding back their performances just enough to avoid slamming into the ceiling. Urus had already seen enough and the ceremony hadn't even started yet.
 

A group of graduates squeezed past him and up around the elephant, the metal grommets in their leather armor glinting in the firelight, their fresh new tunics swaying regally, untouched by the faintest hint of dirt or stain. The boys and girls paid him no heed. The only hint they saw him at all were the short steps they took to get around him on their way up the ramp.