Kal Moonheart Trilogy: Dragon Killer, Roll the Bones & Sirensbane (38 page)

‘I
discipline
him!’ Felix raged. ‘I focus the boy’s divine powers; I
control
him!’

Kal fell back onto the wooden table. Felix moved forward with his weapon raised for a finishing blow, but Kal had the position and quickness of mind to beat him to the punch: gripping the edges of the table with her hands, she kicked out with both legs, putting all the power of her quadriceps into two accurate hammer blows that smashed both of Felix’s kneecaps.

He groaned and dropped down in front of her, then screamed in pain as his ruined knees hit the flagstones.

Kal sat up on the table. ‘So what’s it going to be, Felix?’ she asked him. ‘I can open the door now and let you face the wrath of your ancestor, or I can keep you safe here until we find a nice cosy cell for you down in the city prison. You should be quite secure from any killers in there!’

‘You won’t get away with this, Moonheart,’ he growled, pain twisting his features. ‘You’ll have to kill me now to keep me off your back, and I know that even you are not that cold! I have money and influence, and even from a prison cell I will reach out and make you suffer until my final breath—’

He choked suddenly and gasped for breath. His eyes swivelled madly, and he started spitting blood. Kal watched impassionately as he died in front of her. Then his body slid to one side, revealing Gwyn standing behind with Kal’s bloody dagger in his hand.

‘The bad man is dead now,’ he said calmly.

IV.viii

The World is Not Enough

One of the most spectacular views in the world is when you are standing under the Celestial Gate of the Basilica, looking out over the city. Everything is so close, you can almost count every window, but you are high enough to be able to see everything without hardly needing to move your head. The Godstair drops away to the Forum, where the Kingsway carries the eye down to the bottom of Arcus Hill, where the Cold Flow splits the city in two and underlines the activity on the Embankment, where crowds swarm like ants night and day, bustling to and from the harbour, where the ocean-going trading vessels lie in the shadow of the ringwall, hinting at the world beyond the city.

The first time I saw that view, though, I didn’t have time to even take it in, let alone stand and appreciate it. Ben and I were chased out of the Basilica, not by angry priests or guards, but by a gang of trolls.

We had caught the salty, fishy scent of one of the creatures while we were catching our breath by the tomb of Arcus and Banos. It had been stalking us all the while we were underground, and now it was closing in on us … only this time it had brought friends. We could hear several guttural voices. Running rings around it wasn’t going to be an option now.

Ben was desperately trying to scribble down the words of the riddle, while I looked around for a way out of the Forgotten Tomb. ‘Here!’ I said upon finding a narrow tunnel that led in the opposite direction to the one through which we had entered. Ben shoved his notebook in his pocket, and with one last look back at the final resting place of his divine ancestor, he followed me once more into the unknown.

The tunnel ended at a stone door: but this one had no hinges, handle or lock. Instinctively, I guessed it was a
cover
, so I put my boot to it and it fell forward, slamming down on the ground beyond. We jumped through and turned into a wide tunnel. By the light of our lanterns, we could see we were dashing past a row of statues: men and women, mostly old, but some young, all wearing the same crown and gripping the same sword.

Ben’s
sword!

‘That one even looks like you!’ I gasped as we ran. The sound of the trolls wasn’t far behind.

‘So you believe me now, then?’ he laughed. ‘When we get a chance to stop, I’ll accept your pledge of allegiance!’

‘Never!’ I shouted, sprinting ahead. The tunnel of kingly tombs ended, and a strange new world opened up: a world of bones and skulls. They lined the walls of a maze of corridors that split off in all directions. I slid to a halt, overwhelmed.

Ben caught up. ‘I’ve heard of this place,’ he said, panting hard. ‘This is the ossuary—we’re under the Basilica! We’ve almost made it into the city—come on!’

We kept going, breathless now, taking the turnings that seemed to lead upwards. Around one corner we passed a priest. ‘Trolls coming!’ Ben advised him as we ran. The priest dropped his books, turned and followed us.

There was a square of sunlight ahead. We bounded up the steps and suddenly we were in the vast vaulted hall of the Basilica, beneath the great golden dome. Priests, people and gods (or rather, statues of gods) were all around us. We charged through them, scattering the crowd like they were pigeons and we were cats.

And then we were through the entrance to the Basilica and into the sun. The city lay before us in all its splendour, but we hardly noticed; we were too busy watching where our feet fell as we plunged down the precarious Godstair to the Forum. Screams, grunts and roars filled the air behind and above us. People in the wide plaza below were starting to react to the commotion. A squad of guards in shining steel armour and blue surcoats were running towards us …

… and then running
past
us, as they formed a semicircle of spears around the three big stinking sea trolls that had followed us into the Forum. I only looked back once—as soon as we were lost in the crowd, I knew we were safe. There were hundreds of people filling the Forum, more people than I had ever seen in one place in my entire life. Some of them looked even grubbier and more world-weary than we were.

We were going to fit right in.

* * *

We were starving. Ben ducked into a restaurant that looked inviting. He came out shaking his head, though, after looking at the prices on the menu. We left the upmarket environs of Arcus Hill, and found a more modest establishment on the Embankment: Sharpo’s Seafood Saloon.

‘You should sneak back into the crypts tonight,’ Ben said, through a mouthful of battered haddock. ‘Close off the Forgotten Tomb again. It might come in handy as a hidey-hole some day.’

I was tucking into what was apparently all the rage in the city: fried potato chips splattered with vinegar. They tasted good, especially washed down with red wine. Ben had insisted on ordering a large pitcher. I rarely drank back when we lived in the village (and they only served up ale in the White Horse) but it only took one sip to persuade me that I quite liked big city sophistication.

‘Alright,’ I said between bites. ‘Anything else I can do for us? I saw an inn next door. Would you like me to go and book us a room on my way past?’

Ben ignored my attempt at sarcasm and shook his head. He pushed an old brown envelope across the table. ‘No need,’ he said. ‘Remember I told you that the Godsword name still carries some weight here in the city.’

I opened and held up the letter carefully, so as to get as little chip fat on it as possible. It was torn and faded, and looked a couple of hundred years’ old.

‘Anyway,’ Ben added, ‘I don’t think I’ve got enough money on me to pay for this meal, let alone a room.’

I paused with a chip hanging out of my mouth. ‘Then how—’

Ben winked, glanced over his shoulder, then grabbed the vinegar bottle and tipped a large amount into the wine pitcher. He then called the serving lad over.

‘This wine’s gone off!’ Ben complained. ‘Just smell it—it’s awful! I’m not paying for this rubbish!’

* * *

It was getting dark when we eventually found the address in Ben’s letter. Despite its promising-sounding name, Swan Street was actually in one of the less salubrious parts of town, deep in the East End. At one end of the street was some kind of cabaret venue, the Idole Rouge; and at the narrower, less-bustling end, sandwiched between a pawnbrokers and gloomy tavern, was the building we were looking for.

Number ninety-nine Swan Street apparently belonged to a signmaker called Colm Shroomshaw—there were numerous examples of his work nailed up over the window frames. We looked at each other, and Ben shrugged. There was a faint yellow light dribbling through the cracks in the boards over an upstairs window, so Ben hammered on the door.

After what seemed like an age, an unwashed, balding man opened the door. He looked and smelled drunk. ‘I’m closed!’ he snapped. ‘And I’ll stay closed until whatever time I wake up tomorrow!’

‘Bow down before your king!’ I quipped. Ben waved me aside and tried to show the man the letter he had been carrying. I stood by and waited for the inevitable roar of laughter.

‘Deeds for the house, my sorry ass!’ the signmaker said. ‘I’ve owned this shop for nearly ten years, ever since I won it in a bet with the previous owner. You can take your ancient deeds and shove them up your—’

‘So how’s business?’ I asked the man, peeking over his shoulder into the murky interior of the shop. There were piles of wood and tins of paint everywhere, but no sign of any new works in progress.

Colm shrugged. ‘Times are hard, but gin is cheap. Now go away!’

‘The reason I ask,’ I persisted, ‘is because I wondered if you would consider taking up a new career. Have you ever built sets for the stage?’

* * *

Amaranthium’s brand new theatre,
the World
, opened up three months’ later with a performance of
Banos and Ouila
, a classic tale of god-meets-princess, god-impregnates-princess, and god-abandons-princess-for-a-life-of-adventure. The play was written by Ben, while Colm and I did the real work and hammered together the stage.

We found our actors by simply recruiting those people who had the nerve to come and express an interest in what was going on during the refit of the old shop. The play was a big success, and the World even attracted the attention of Amaranthium’s greatest living playwright, Terrance Deadhand, who offered us an exclusive run of his latest work,
Zandir and Phenolin
. That summer was one of the best of my life; we had queues stretching all the way down Swan Street as far as the Cathouse, and I think we were even stealing their custom. I was the prompt, whispering lines from the wings, and also the understudy for the role of Phenolin. Every day I was a bag of nerves, both dreading and hoping for the day when our lead actor would lose her voice.

When the curtain went down on the final performance, though, I knew in my heart that our brief career in the performing arts was about to come to an end. I wondered if Ben knew it, too. Yet, after I locked the doors on the last of the audience, I found him at his desk backstage, flicking through a heavy tome and scribbling notes.

‘What’s this?’ I asked him. ‘You’re writing next season’s production already?’

Ben sighed and put his head in his hands. He looked exhausted. ‘I have to,’ he said. ‘We’ve had a great year, Kal, but we really need to raise our tickets prices and reduce overheads next year if we want to make enough so that I can enter the Senate.’

I perched on the corner of the desk. ‘Still dreaming about that, huh? Don’t you enjoy what we do now? This life we’ve made for ourselves?’

‘Of course I do, Kal,’ he said, but his expression belied his words. ‘We’ve had a great year, but …’ The struggle on his face was plain to see. ‘… but
the World
is not enough, Kal. I want to raise the Godsword name as high up the flagpole as I can. I want to start a new era for my family … or at the very least put up a fight against the multitude of Firehands who seem to fill the Senate House. Did you know that half of the senators who aren’t named Firehand are still related to the family in some way or other … it’s a corrupt mess, Kal, it’s …’

I let him have his rant, my mind elsewhere. He obviously hadn’t worked it out yet. I could tell him now, or forget about it forever. In the end, as I watched his eyes as he railed on about injustice and inequality in the city, I knew that I had to come clean:

‘I solved the riddle,’ I said.

‘… and then that idiot Felix thinks he’s going to be consul in a few years and … and … What did you say?’

‘I solved the riddle. Come on. It’s a nice night—let’s go for a walk!’

* * *

It had gone midnight; the city’s shops and inns had all shut up, and the Kingsway—the widest and longest street in the city—was almost deserted. We ambled slowly in the direction of the river.

‘How long is this street, anyway?’ I asked Ben.

‘Five miles, all the way from the East Gate, through the Forum, to the Basilica,’ Ben said. ‘Every king and queen of Amaranthium walked this route to their coronation.’

‘Right up to the Basilica?’

‘Yes, the Godstair is still part of the Kingsway—it leads all the way up to the Celestial …’ Ben frowned. ‘… Gate …’

’Cross city streets, ‘twixt gate and gate,

’Neath feet of kings, bones of dead gods wait,

We walked in silence for a while. I could almost hear the gears in Ben’s head crunching as he went over and over the four-line riddle. He was good at creating his own words and stories; but not so great at deciphering other people’s. We stopped on the bridge over the Cold Flow, and that’s when I finally saw a smile flicker across Ben’s lips as he gaped out over the deep, dark river.

‘It’s been staring me in the face every night on stage,’ he said. ‘This is where Zandir and Phenolin were killed: rolled in their mattress, bound with chains and thrown into the Cold Flow!’

On a bed of elemental cold they lie,

In the dark where doomed lovers go to die.

Ben leaned out over the river. ‘
This
is where the old king hid his treasure, and the the bones of Banos and Arcus,’ he exclaimed. ‘In the water under Lovers’ Bridge! Kal, how long can you hold your breath?’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ I said, pointing further along the bridge. ‘Look!’

END OF PART FOUR