The Godless (10 page)

With a nod the saboteur unstrapped his axes, pulled off his boots and his shirt. A long series of scars, a lash's touch, ran across his back. They were old, but deep, and the ends of his tattoos entwined in them, his old life, his new. If any of those around him had any thought about it, the splash of the dropping orb was the only statement made. Following its descent, Bueralan watched the burning glow get swallowed quickly. “You sure we can't send the midgets down?” he muttered dryly.

Zaifyr moved to the edge. “Just pray that whoever has possessed the Quor'lo hasn't had time to pull themselves out yet.”

“Pray?”

The man dropped into the water.

“Time like this,” he said, rising from the black and cold water for but a moment, “even a dead god is important.”

Then he plunged downward.

 

6.

 

At first, Bueralan's trouble with the descent had been the cold. It seeped well into his bones before the light was gone and he thought about returning to the stench outside, to the smell that made his eyes water. It only got worse once the sunlight was left behind and the cold stillness of the water pressed in close. Coupled with the inky darkness, it became a psychological weight that combined with the tug of the bladder in his grasp and the saboteur felt a panic set in. Pushing it from his mind and using the physical act of swimming downward as a focus, he moved quickly, the light of the orb guiding him. Soon, Zaifyr appeared next to it, his narrow face gazing upward. Seeing Bueralan, he picked up the orb and moved to his left, swimming into a narrow cut shaft.

A few meters into the shaft, claustrophobia set in. There was nothing but stone and water, the two elements mixing together. Bueralan was soon crawling more than swimming, and the sense of a crushing weight above sent a chill deep into his bones. Again, he pushed the thought from his mind, focused instead on taking a second breath from the bladder in his grasp. The valve had been easy to learn outside but it fumbled in his waterlogged fingers, a second of air bubbling out in a joyful escape. He closed it quickly, moved to catch up to the rolling orb and the shadow of Zaifyr, pushing ahead of him.

Suddenly the man stopped and released the orb, pushing upward, his feet kicking out in an explosion of dirty water. Biting back a panicked curse Bueralan followed, pushing into a new shaft with a rotten ladder on the side. The light lasted but moments, and it went black. With panic threatening Bueralan almost turned around, but a pale green light bloomed around him as he burst from the water. Taking a deep breath and gagging on the stench as he did, he grabbed the edge of the hole and pulled himself out to stand in a small, dug out room reinforced with rotting beams.

A bolt-hole: a miner would sleep, eat, live here for weeks, before the need for fresh air drove him or her up top.

The green light was cast by a seam of stone in the wall, a jagged line that highlighted a tunnel, and without speaking, Zaifyr crawled through it. The saboteur followed and found himself after no more than a dozen movements in a yawning cavern, the roof webbed with lines of crystal that emitted a pale glow. Beneath it were houses built into the walls, built from stone that had long lost its original color to dripping water and were now cast sickly green beneath the light.

“A City of Ger,” Bueralan whispered, pushing himself up.

“Not nearly as empty as it should be,” the other man said, pointing up.

Recent beams had been put into place on the ceiling, the wood large enough that it would have had to be brought in by half a dozen men, and high enough that ladders would have been required. At the top of the beams were small, drilled tunnels pushing deep into the rock, back the way that they had come.

“Two midgets lied.” Bueralan's voice was still quiet, hushed. “Someone has been down here in the last seventy years.”

“The last seven days, even,” Zaifyr said. “Where do you think the holes go?”

“Beneath the roads.” He shrugged. “To the killing ground outside the Spine. They probably dug it out to collapse under weight, making it difficult to move through but easier to kill on.”

The other man nodded. Then, turning, he pointed down through the city. “The Quor'lo went this way.”

A single pair of footsteps were marked between worn stones, the edges of a street long gone. Following them, Bueralan wondered how they would be able to bring the Quor'lo back. The swim would not be viable, but if there was a second entrance, such as the one used by those who had set up the trap above them …

The rough dwellings gave way to extravagant houses, rising into two-story buildings with blunted, crumbling balconies that peered over the street they walked upon. Broken lamp posts rose no higher than Bueralan's chest, the remains now part of the ground, lying next to the broken blades and hacked skeletons, a grisly reminder of the purging that had taken place once the gold diggers had settled on their state.

The saboteur heard the sound of moving water, the noise emerging from the slow drip of moisture in the cavern. Soon enough a chill began to seep into Bueralan, and the smell of fresh water reached him, pushing back the noxious odor that had followed him out of the stagnant mining tunnel. He paused there, turning his gaze to the pale-lit river to where the light turned red.

“The people in this city must have read omens into this,” Zaifyr said, standing beside him. “All manner of murder and betrayal.”

“You sure know how to reassure a man you just met.”

“They believed that Ger would rise again,” he said. “They wanted a god, and any god would do, I suspect, but Ger was one of the first to react against the killing of Linae, and the reprisals that followed. He spoke out against both sides, and when neither listened, he began to stride across the continents, placing himself into the battles, stopping them with his sheer size and strength. At least that is what the cultists here believed. To them, he was a figure of responsibility, a guardian who would keep them safe.”

“And the light was for what the gods did?”

“For themselves, too. After all, they were killed while as close to Ger as they could be. Surely a betrayal for them.”

“Surely,” Bueralan echoed dryly.

Half a smile slipped across Zaifyr's face and began to follow the river. It was not strong, but soon the red light enveloped them both, lighting the tracks of the creature and its slow, injured walk. With each step along the path Bueralan's muscles tensed, his back straightened as he waited for the burned, half dead figure of the Quor'lo to burst out of a narrow cut in the wall.

Nothing.

Nothing except the edge of the river disappearing into a collapsed wall.

Zaifyr followed the water through the jagged rocks, so focused on the task that Bueralan believed himself forgotten. The saboteur began to believe that a personal desire had taken over the other man, had taken over any task of finding the Quor'lo for Heast—a notion that was only reinforced when he finally stepped through the collapsed wall and stared down off an almost sheer edge into a lake.

There, in a still, red-lit lake sat a huge building. Spread out in the water as if it were a long leech that had latched onto the dirt and drew nutrients until it had grown monstrous, it was one of the longest buildings that Bueralan had ever seen. In terms of height, it appeared to have been made with a reverse in mind, as if its intention had been to dig through the rock of the mountain and push itself as deep as its design would allow. At the bottom of the wall Bueralan joined with Zaifyr, and they walked across the uneven rock toward the building and the slight shadow that knelt at the water's edge.

“Leave me,” the Quor'lo whispered harshly, not turning at their approach. “Your presence is only angering here.”

Unmoved, Zaifyr said, “Who are you?”

An ugly, bitter smile twisted the burned remains of its face. “I'm one of the faithful, not one of the faithless.”

“I asked for a name.”

“It is not important.” The dead man sighed, a ragged breath escaping the damaged chest. “I am dying. I am stuck in this body and I am dying. Who I am will be gone soon enough. I might as well take a name that is meaningless, a jumble of letters, and present it to you as truth.”

“Dying men traditionally have no wit,” Zaifyr said, moving to stand next to it.

A dry laugh escaped it. “I die before truth.”

“You die before an old building.”

The Quor'lo shook its head and turned, as much as it could, to Bueralan. Beneath the roof's red light it was a ghastly figure: skin torn, lips split, one eye closed and broken bone exposed and fractured. Yet there was no fear, as there had been when it had run from them at the pyres, no look of desperation on its face as had been when it stamped on the wooden cover of a mineshaft. There was a serenity that, given the nature of the creature before him and the pain the man or woman controlling it was feeling, was not easily identifiable.

“I can only imagine how I must look to you,” it said, its voice struggling to be heard over the crash of water. “I cannot see this body. I only know there is blood, I can feel it—not here, but where I truly am. My skin is stained with it. Yet here I know only what is before me.”

It turned back to the submerged building, leaving the saboteur to follow its gaze. After the gods had died there had been temples, buildings erected to house the remains, relics and beliefs that were no longer in practice. Bueralan had never before seen one—they were, mostly, ruins now—and he felt a chill, as if a gaze had settled upon him. It enveloped him so fully that he did not know if he could step outside it.

“Do you feel him?” The Quor'lo's voice was barely audible.

“Yes,” Zaifyr replied.

Bueralan said nothing.

“We cannot find the remains of his wards,” it whispered, not concerned with his response. “They are the air, the dirt, the fire, the ocean: Ger shattered their chains to him with what strength he had left. We are told that their remains are the anger in our weather, the floods, the droughts, the cyclones, the fires. They are lost to us.”

“They are not lost. They are here. They live without him, just fine.”

“No!”

The cry was sudden, angry, a denial that snapped Bueralan's attention away from the submerged building and forced him to take a step back, reaching for the cold dagger strapped to his leg. What started as a surge of the Quor'lo to its feet ended with a shudder. It fell to its knees. “You and your kind,” it whispered. “I will not listen to you and your kind.”

And there, its voice stumbling in an inaudible whisper of defiance, it fell still.

 

7.

 

Away from the Spine of Ger, Ayae dug her nails into the palms of her hand and fought for control. Part of her urged returning to the stairs to confront them all, to strike out, scream at the injustice of it just once; while another part urged her to keep walking, ignore the warmth at the tips of her fingers and the heat that soaked into the palm of her hands as her anger threatened to overwhelm her.

As the Spine fell behind her, Ayae found herself walking toward the Keep. Her first glance at the emerging structure saw her step falter, but as she drew closer and the gates that led to the empty gardens appeared, her step strengthened. Fo had not explained the curse enough to her—he had hidden everything behind his fanaticism, behind his dislike for Reila, and she had been in no condition to push him. Orlan was not entirely right that they were the only people to turn to about curses in Mireea, but they would certainly know the most, and she would press them for more information.

She was led from the gate by an elderly guard, his beard slivered with silver and his eyes the color of wet stone. The warm, spice smells filled the Keep as the corridors twisted left and right, leading up flights of turning stairs cut into solid stone. With each step a series of doubts cracked beneath her, each one ending in the desire to turn around, to leave. To pave over what was broken. But the silence that she was treated to from the guard, and the way his back remained straight as if the muscles had frozen in place at her arrival, served to remind her of why she was making the trip. She knew that she could not walk away.

There were four towers in the Spine's Keep, each designed to mirror the towers that sat along the Spine, though without the practicality that those battlements actually had. The Keep's towers were named after the directions that they faced and were symbolic before anything else. The West Tower offered no strategic advantage, unless an army managed to climb the sheer drop it faced—and it was to the door of that tower Ayae was led by the guard, who left without a nod.

Alone, she stood before the door, her hands balled tight at her side. What would she say once she entered? Fo was a powerful man. He was a member of the Enclave, a Keeper who was, she had heard, over a thousand years old, and had a worldview unlike her own. Ayae did not hate anyone with a curse—in truth, before today, she had never met anyone cursed—and she would not have raised her voice like Keallis, nor given into fear so easily, or at least she hoped; but she was not someone who enjoyed confrontation, or who saw it as a way to resolve her problems. How long she stood there lost in thought about how best to proceed, Ayae was not sure. It was entirely possible that she would have continued standing if a person had not emerged from the twisting halls of the Keep behind her and stopped at her side, his white robe stained in blood, his hands even more so.

He was a handsome man. When he smiled, faintly and with a hint of mockery, she felt herself respond. “I believe you are the cartographer's assistant, yes?”

She said her name.

“Ayae,” he repeated. “You are obviously not from Mireea, with that name.”

“Sooia.” She felt awkward. “Some people struggle with pronouncing it. Few get it right the first time, unlike you.”