The Necromancer's Nephew (7 page)

"I'm sorry," Garrett whispered back.
He was having a little trouble concentrating on anything other than the flowery scent of her dark hair
.

Marla stepped back and turned to arrange a few colored glass bottles on a workbench
.

"Well," Garrett said, raising his voice, "I guess... I should go. Warren's waiting for me..."

"Warren the ghoul?" Marla asked, her face brightening
.

"Yeah," Garrett said, "we're going down to explore the Old City today."

"You're going underneath the city?" she asked
.

"Yeah," he said, and then, with a sudden flash of boldness, "you wanna come?"

Marla's eyes sparkled. "I'll have to ask..."

"Go ahead, Marla," her mother's voice called from the other room, "have a good time."

Marla drew the hood of her cloak down and stepped into the gray light of day. Garrett passed her a worried look
.

"Are you all right?" he asked
.

"Of course, why wouldn't I be?"

"I just thought that the sunlight..."

"Oh," she said, "it's fairly diffuse here, and, in any case, I'm still young enough to resist most of the adverse effects of daylight. It's worse for mother, of course."

"Oh... good," he said as they stepped into the gloom of the alley between shops
.

"What did you think would happen?" she asked
.

"I dunno," he admitted. He tented his fingers together and then pulled them rapidly apart, making an explosive noise with his mouth
.

Marla laughed. "And you still invited me out into the daylight?"

"Sorry," he said, "I guess I didn't think about that."

"I'm glad you asked me to come," she said, "Is this it?"

They stood before th
e great iron-bound door that le
d to the tunnels. Garrett reached up to pull hard at the rusty, twisted handle making the ancient hinges screech in protest
.

"Let me help." Marla grasped the edge of the door with one hand and pulled. Garrett staggered back as the door swung open effortlessly
.

"Thanks!"

The dank smell of the tunnels washed over them as they stepped through the portal. Garrett's witchfire torch flared to life, bathing them with its pale green glow. He descended the winding stone steps with Marla following close behind
.

When he reached the foot of the stairs, Garrett saw Warren stretched motionless on the tunnel floor
.

"Warren!" Garrett shouted
.

"Leave me alone," the ghoul answered, without opening his eyes, "I'm dead! I died of boredom waiting for you to get back."

"Sorry," Garrett said, "Mrs. Veranu needed some help."

"
Yeah, right," Warren groaned, "C
ouldn't have anything to do with that... oh, hi," Warren had just looked over and noticed Marla standing beside his friend. He rolled quickly into a crouc
h and flashed his wolfish grin.

"Hello," Marla said with a wary smile
.

"I... uh, asked Marla if she wanted to come with us," Garrett said
.

"I hope it's all right," Marla said, "I've never seen the Old City."

"...Yeah," Warren said, gi
ving Garrett an angry squint, "T
hat's fine."

"Good," Garrett said, "Let's get going then."

Marla did not move but made a little noise in her throat. She looked at Garrett expectantly
.

"What?" he asked
.

"Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?" Marla asked
.

"Oh... Marla, this is Warren. He's a ghoul."

"I welcome your presence," Marla said, crossing her hands over her chest and bowing slightly.

"Warren," Garrett said, "this is Marla."

"Yeah, nice to meet you... Wait a minute," War
ren said, turning on Garrett, "H
ow come you introduce me as
the ghoul
, but you just call her by her name?"

"I dunno," Garrett said, "I just didn't want her to be scared of you."

Marla stifled a giggle
.

"What?" Warren growled, "You think ghouls are scary and vampires aren't?"

Garrett shrugged. "Sorry, I didn't really think about it like that."

"You wouldn't want the pretty little vampire girl to be scared of the big, ugly ghoul!"

"I didn't...
" Garrett said
.

"So, how do you know that I'm a vampire?" Marla interrupted
.

"Pssh!" Warren scoffed, "For one thing, Garrett won't stop talking about you."

Marla's white cheeks went suddenly pink
.

"And anyway," Warren continued, "you smell funny."

"Warren!" Garrett hissed
.

"No! Not bad funny!" Warren said, "Just kinda... lizardy."

Garrett glared at him
.

"Well, you smell nice enough," Warren assured Marla, "just not like something I'd want to eat when you're dead."

Marla arched one eyebrow. "Thank you," she said, "I wouldn't want to eat you either."

Warren look simultaneously reassured and offended
.

"Can we go now?" Garrett asked
.

"Yeah," Warren said, his eyes still on the vampire, "I wanna see if we can find that collapsed passageway again. We can do some digging."

The three of them followed the brickwork tunnel as it sloped down. Water dripped from the occasional ceiling grate through which shafts of gray sunlight pierced the perpetual darkness. Soon
,
even these
few
reminders of the surface world disappeared, and the eternal, silent gloom of the underground closed around them
.

Garrett felt Marla draw closer behind him as they walked. Without thinking, he reached back, and she took his hand. Garrett's heart fluttered, and, for a moment he wished that he had been brave enough not to wear his gloves today
.

He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze and smiled back at her over his shoulder. Marla smiled as well
.

"Junction left," Warren called out as he reached a Y intersection in the tunnel. The leftmost branch sloped steeply down and echoed with the sound of a steady rivulet of dirty water emptying into the shaft
.

The shaggy ghoul braced his long arms against the walls of the narrow tunnel and began his descent. Garrett and Marla followed, leaning on one another for support
.

The light of the witchfire torch glistened on the damp gray tile fixed in spiral patterns across the tunnel wall. As they descended further beneath the city, the tiles presently gave way to smooth, seamless white stone. The thin layer of mortar that held the tiles to the wall had crumbled away from the polished rock
.

A broad pool of dark water marked the leveling point of the tunnel's slope. Warren's big hind paws sent waves sloshing up the curved walls. Garrett's boots splashed with every step. Marla had released his hand and waited at the edge of the pool until the two boys had reached the other side
.

"It's not very deep," Garrett said
.

"I know," Marla replied, her eyes flickering across the surface of the water. Suddenly she moved. Her soft gray boots made no sound as she hopped lightly from one side of the pool to the other
.

"Nice jump!" Garrett said
.

"Thanks"

Warren harrumphed and turned again to the tunnel ahead
.

Garrett started to reach for Marla's hand again, but she did not notice. She looked past him toward a strange swirling rune engraved on the tunnel ceiling
.

"Garrett, Do you know what that is?" Marla asked, an expression of delight on her face
.

Garrett hastily withdrew his hand, pretending to straighten the hood of his robe. "I dunno," he said, "They're all over the Old City."

"It's draconic," Marla said. This is pre-fall architecture."

"Ah," Garrett said, "What's it say?"

It was Marla's turn to look embarrassed. "I don't know," she admitted, "something about... singing."

Warren snorted
.

"Maybe there was a music hall ahead?" Garrett said
.

"Hmn," Marla
said,
squint
ing
at the runes, "not necessarily true. Singing was an integral part of the dragons' language. Everything in Draconic is sung."

A chill ran across Garrett's skin. "You mean a dragon wrote that?"

Warren's hooting laughter echoed through the hall. "You think a dragon could squeeze his big butt inside this tunnel?"

Marla frowned. "Not all dragons were very large," she said, "and, in any case, Wythr was once an elven city. Elves are more than capable of inscribing Draconic runes."

"Oh," Garrett said, a little relieved. He had never seen a real elf before, but they had to be better than dragons
.

"Well, whoever used to live here, they're gone now," Warren said, "Let's have a look around."

"Why did the elves leave the city?" Garrett asked, looking back at Marla as he followed the ghoul down the tunnel
.

"Humans came and conquered the city," Marla said, her eyes still on the runed walls as she walked.

"Chadirians?"

"No." Marla smiled. "T
his was long before the rise of the empire. It was a war between humankind and the children of the dragon."

"So elves were made by the dragons too?"

"Yes," Marla said
.

"What about ghouls?" Garrett asked
.

Warren snorted.
"Ghouls came down from the moon! Nobody made us."

Garrett gave Marla a questioning look
.

She shrugged. "I don't know exactly where ghouls came from," she said, "They aren't Fae, but they aren't completely natural either."

Garrett hesitated before speaking again. "What about vampires?"

Marla smiled shyly and glanced away. "We were once human," she said
.

"Ah," Garrett said, "so you and your mom got bitten by a vampire or something?"

Marla laughed. "No," she said, "I was born a vampire. Mother was too."

"And your dad?" Garrett asked
.

Marla stopped walking, her face troubled
.

"I'm sorry," Garrett said
.

Marla raised her hand to silence him. She looked back over her shoulder suddenly as a ghostly white shape sprung at them from the darkness
.

"Die, wyrmspawn!" the creature howled as it leapt upon the vampire girl
.

Marla and the creature rolled across the tunnel floor
.

"Warren!" Garrett cried out. He reached for the knife Cenick had given him, but found the scabbard hanging empty on his belt
.

Marla now held the knife to the white furred creature's throat as she pinned him to the floor
.

"Norris, you fap!" Warren shouted, "You're lucky she didn't kill you!"

The white ghoul looked up at Warren with a long-toothed grin. "Just playin', cousin," he said, his voice a low growl
.

Marla stood and stepped away, glaring at her attacker as she passed the knife back to Garrett
.

Norris rolled onto one elbow and lifted a long-fingered claw toward his cousin
.

Warren ignored it, stepping over the prostrate ghoul as he addressed Marla, "Are you all right?"

"Yes," she said
.

"I'm sorry about that," Warren said to her,
and then
turned on his cousin, "What's wrong with you?"

Norris helped himself up and dusted off his white haunches. "Just a bit o' fun, cousin," he said with a gravely purr
.

If the two ghouls were truly cousins, they were distant ones. Norris possessed a far more wolf-like and stooped appearance, seemingly ready to pounce at any moment. His sleek fur shone a ghostly white, unlike Warren's shaggy gray mane. Norris’s placating grin bore an unsettling feral quality, and when he spoke, his voice waivered somewhere between a whine and a snarl
.

"Where you off to then, cousin?" Norris asked, stroking his long-nailed fingers over his hairy knuckles
.

"We were on our way down to Nuna," Warren answered.