Scavenger of Souls (6 page)

“Quiet,” Nessa said, gesturing with her eyes toward the cave opening. Light from the tunnel threw a guard's silhouette against the curtain.

With a visible effort, Wali lowered his voice. “Well?”

“Let me know your alternative,” I said, keeping my voice down, “and I'd be happy to listen.”

“You weren't so interested in my alternative before,” he said. “But I'm sure they're petrified now that they think a scrawny kid's in charge.”

“Someone has to be in charge,” I said. “The last thing Aleka told me to do was take over from her. Which is exactly what I did.”

“And you're doing such a brilliant job, too,” Wali sneered. “You tell him your name, you let him lead us into this maze . . . What's next? You going to offer Bea and Keely as his personal slaves?”

“Did you see the women?” Nessa whispered. “It's like they actually are slaves. And don't you think it's a little suspicious that—”

“That's what I'm saying!” Wali cut her off. “The whole thing's suspicious. And Querry's working on ways to get us in so deep we'll never get out.”

“I'm still waiting to hear your alternative,” I said.

Wali paced to the cave's mouth. The guard's shadow didn't budge.

“I'm trying to figure out a way to get us out of here,” I said. “Alive. You think I trust Asunder? You think I don't see
what he's doing? But I'm not about to put everyone at risk just to show how tough I am. We've lost enough as it is.”

Wali turned from the cave mouth and glared at me across the shadowy space. I stared right back. His hand clutched at his throat, like the missing string was a lifeline he was grasping for, or a noose he wanted to slip around my neck.

Nessa looked back and forth between us. Then she hooked a hand around Wali's arm and pulled him away from the curtain. When she got him in front of me, she stopped and smiled. I thought she was going to make us shake hands or something equally ridiculous, but instead, she released him and leaned over, her long braid dangling to the ground.

“Go on,” she said to me. “Take it.”

At first I thought she meant her hair. Then I saw, nestled securely in the strands of her braid so it was hidden when her hair hung down her back, the handle of a pocketknife.

“I can't loosen it myself,” she said. “Take it.”

I reached out and gripped the handle of the knife. She'd woven it so tightly between the links of the braid a few strands caught and I had to yank it free.

“Ouch,” Nessa said, but when she lifted her head she was grinning.

“How did you . . . ?” Wali said.

“Well, while you boys were busy being no help at all . . .” She smiled again, a devilish smirk I'd never expected to see on her pertly pretty face.

Wali tried to hug her, but the best he could manage was a rough shove. “Did I ever tell you I love you?”

“Thankfully, no.” She held her hands out to me. “The first thing a leader has to learn, Querry,” she said with a wink, “is to never underestimate the deviousness of his subordinates.”

I stifled a laugh, then fingered the blade open and laid it against the brown ropes binding her hands. The cords had a springy, living feel beneath the metal.

Adem had stood and joined us. Everyone in our little huddle leaned over the knife as I sliced the ropes. As I'd expected, they resisted in a rubbery way, but in a second I had Nessa's wrists free. Wali shoved his hands toward us next, and I gave Nessa the knife so she could do the honors. When all of our bonds were cut, Wali started for the curtain, but I grabbed his arm to hold him back.

“Get off of me,” he said, shaking me loose. He was older and stronger, and I didn't try to fight back.

“We're staying here,” I said.

“What are you talking about?” he said. “This is our chance!”

I shook my head. “You said it yourself. This place is a maze. If we try to escape now, we'll be right back where we started. Except without our one weapon and with someone like Archangel watching us. We need to wait for them to drop their guard before we make our move.”

Wali paced to the curtain and stood there for a second, quivering with anger. Then he returned to me.

“So let me get this straight,” he said. “You give them the green light to lead us here, where you knew we'd get lost. And now that we have our one chance to get free, you tell us we can't, because we're lost. Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“My side,” Nessa said. She reached out and touched my hand, then loosened and retied her braid with the knife held securely in its links. Next she retrieved the ropes from the floor and, making sure to disguise the knots, tied them loosely around my wrists and Adem's. I did the same to hers.

Wali watched the whole procedure in silence. When Nessa reached out to retie the cords around his wrists, he flung himself away and retreated to a corner of the cave. She started to follow him, but fell back when she saw the murderous expression on his face.

I played what I thought was my trump card. “Wouldn't Laman have wanted us to stick together?”

He gave me a look of pure hate. “You don't know what Laman would have wanted. He taught me and Korah to fight. What did he teach you?”

I was trying to come up with an answer when Nessa spoke. Her voice was filled with sorrow, but her words were made of steel.

“Korah's dead, Wali,” she said. “We know how much you loved her, but you can't bring her back. The question is, are you going to help us keep the others alive?”

Wali's eyes blazed, and when he spoke, the words came
out bleeding and raw. “Screw you, Nessa. You were always jealous of what me and Korah had. Why don't you and your freak boyfriend go end your miserable lives? In fact”—and he took a step toward us, hands knotted in fists—“why don't I just do it myself?”

Nessa didn't back down. Her eyes, I thought, glistened with unshed tears. But she took my arm and steered me away, while Wali hurled curses at our backs. They echoed loudly in the tiny cave. The guard outside remained motionless. Adem covered his ears and sank once again into his corner.

“Well, that went just the way I planned,” I said, trying to smile.

“Give him time to grieve, Querry,” Nessa said softly. “He's in so much pain right now, but he'll come around. I've known Wali forever, and I know he'll do what's right for the colony.”

“If he doesn't—”

“He will,” she said, putting a finger to my lips. “Now let's make our plan. Whatever happens tomorrow”—and her eyes flashed in the semidarkness—“I want us to be ready for it.”

Asunder's men came for us
in the morning.

At least, I assumed it was morning. Spending the night in an enclosure more substantial than a tent was a first for me, and where I expected sun, all I got was more gloom. But the warriors who threw aside our curtain and prodded us with the butts of their spears were obviously anxious to get going, so it seemed the day had dawned.

I'd spent a restless night. For one thing, I discovered that Adem made up for his lack of intelligible speech with a surplus of snoring. I'd never noticed it when we slept out in the open, but in the tiny cave his snorts and snuffles just about rattled my brain. More importantly, I kept turning over in my head how we were going to get out of this trap. Wali had finally relented and let Nessa retie his cords, but I still didn't trust him not to foul up our plan. And I had to admit, it wasn't much of a plan. Figuring Asunder might ease off once he'd
gotten whatever he wanted from us, Nessa and I had agreed we should play along for the time being, not confront him openly. That might not win our freedom, but it might open up space for us to operate, and it was sure better than charging headfirst into a nest of armed warriors. Still, it was a pretty slim hope, and as the hours of the night marched relentlessly toward dawn, it started to feel slimmer and slimmer.

Every time I closed my eyes, Wali's question returned to haunt my thoughts. What
had
Laman taught me? Lots of things. How to tie a knot, how to hunt for food and shade, how to scout for Skaldi. He'd told me never to give up, always to keep looking toward the future. But at the moment, it felt like the most important thing he'd taught me was this: stick together. If you're going to fight for something, fight for the colony. Because in this world, nobody makes it on their own.

I didn't want just one or two of us to get out of here. And I didn't want to lose any more lives. I wanted the colony together, and free. Wali might not think I knew how to fight, but I was ready to fight for that.

I glanced at Nessa as the guards pushed us out of our cell to face their leader. She nodded and discreetly touched her braid. Knowing we were still on the same page definitely helped. Not knowing what lay in wait for us definitely didn't.

They led us down the third branch of the tunnels to a short flight of stairs carved into the rock. There Asunder met us,
emerging from a recess in the wall that must have led to his sleeping quarters.

“You stand near the very heart of the Sheltered Lands,” he said, speaking no louder than a whisper but with no loss of clarity or power. “In our tongue we name this place
Grava Bracha
, the Spring of the Blessed. Here you will learn our ways and partake of the gifts we have to offer. Do not doubt what you see. It has been prepared for those who wander and are lost.”

With that, he ascended the stairway. At the top, he faced us once more, smiled, and threw aside a curtain of the brown material, letting a flood of brilliant light bathe our upturned faces. When he disappeared inside, the rest of us followed. One of the warriors held the curtain, and I stepped into the light.

Despite Asunder's words, I couldn't help stopping in shock.

My first thought was that I'd walked through a gateway into another world. As far as I could see, thousands of multicolored lights floated in the air a hundred feet above my head, and I had to stamp on the ground to convince myself I hadn't drifted off into space. I craned my neck and squinted at the soaring vault to try to make out what these lights were and how they hung at such a dizzying height, but they dazzled me and made it impossible to tell. Gradually I realized the light came from the ceiling and floor and distant walls of a cavern so huge I couldn't see the end of it. An array
of luminescent colors spilled from the rock itself: blues far brighter than any sky I'd seen, pinks that put the healthiest of the little kids' cheeks to shame, yellows and greens and purples that shimmered like the curved bow the old woman told us used to come after a rainstorm. In the approximate center of the cavern lay a pool, its surface dotted with countless points of light, the water kept in constant motion by a bubbling fountain that seemed to harbor a pure white radiance of its own. Reflections from the water swung lazily across the room, keeping time with the soothing sound of the fountain. So much light poured all around me I half expected to look at my own hands and see them glowing with an inner fire.

And there were people seated on brown mats throughout the cavern. Lots of people. I'd been hoping the twenty or so warriors we'd seen were the total of Asunder's forces, but I counted close to a hundred more, scattered in groups of five to ten. Most of them were warriors, but some were women like the ones I'd seen last night, wearing brown wraps around their chests and brown bands around their throats. Like the warriors, they mostly appeared young, possibly no older than Nessa. But while the men lounged on their mats, talking quietly in their own language, the women worked noiselessly on one job or another, heads lowered to their tasks. Some mended mats, others stirred pots over a small fire, others washed brown garments in the fountain, wrung them out, and draped them over another fire to dry. Two women sat with a circle of children, heads lowered as if they were leading
them in some sort of prayer. Studying the group more closely, I realized with shock—but also with relief—that some of the children were our own, except they'd been clothed in the cave dwellers' uniforms. Their bellies showed pale and scrawny next to the bronzed bodies of our captors. But they didn't seem distressed. In fact they seemed to have found new playmates among the children of the cave dwellers, all of whom, it appeared from their hair and clothing, were boys. Only Zataias kept a wary distance from the cave-children, and when he caught my eye he nodded slightly as if to show me he was still on my team.

I searched for the adult members of our colony, and in a moment I found Tyris and Nekane, sitting under the guard of a group of warriors. Unlike the children, whose hands had been freed, theirs remained bound. The only people missing were Aleka and the old woman, and my heart dropped at the realization.

“What have you done with the others?” I asked Asunder.

“They are well,” he answered in an unconcerned voice. “Their needs are tended by our healer Melampus.”