Tome of the Undergates

mind like a bubbling pot.

She winced, folded her ears over themselves. They ached terribly; why did they hurt so bad? With a pained expression, she reached up and rubbed them gently. Her horror only grew at the flecks of dried crimson that crumbled out into her palms.

‘Ah, yes,’ she muttered, remembering. ‘Screaming.’

‘Plenty of it,’ Denaos confirmed. ‘So, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to do this nice and quietly.’

‘Do. . what?’

Denaos rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘I’d like to get out of here without having anything stuffed inside me that I didn’t put there.’ He eyed her warily. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? Because I’m starting to think this might be easier if you were dead.’

‘Get out of here?’

Kataria looked over her shoulder. The great stone slab loomed at the end of the hall, the cracks in its grey face made haughty, shadowy grins against the emerald torchlight. It was mocking her, she realised, as she recalled what had happened. As she recalled who lay beyond it.

‘We aren’t going anywhere,’ she muttered, rising to her feet. Her bones groaned in protest. She ignored them, as she did the throbbing of her ears, the agony of her body. ‘Not without Lenk.’

‘I’m sure he appreciates the sentiment.’ Denaos crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. ‘However, given the fact that he’s behind Silf knows how much solid stone and we’re out here and. . you know, alive, he probably wouldn’t hold it against us.’

She ignored him, collected her bow and quiver from puddles of salt and slung them over her shoulder. With equal contempt for the limp she walked with, she trudged to the stone and ran her fingers down it.

‘It’s rather large, if you hadn’t noticed,’ Denaos muttered. ‘And thick. I checked.’

She looked over her shoulder at him with an even stare.

‘Admittedly, with not much care.’ He sighed. ‘There was the issue of the half-dead shict to attend to.’ He clapped his hands together. ‘But you’re up. You’re moving about. Whatever else is down here is distracted, thus leaving us a fairly good opportunity to do that activity I enjoy so much where I don’t get my head chewed off.’

‘You could have run already,’ she replied, turning back to the stone.

‘I stand a better chance with you watching my back.’

‘And we’ll stand an even better chance with Lenk watching both our backs. Help me look for it.’

‘For what?’

‘A switch. . a lever. . something that moves this thing, I don’t know. You’re supposed to be good with these things, aren’t you?’

‘With hopeless situations?’ He shook his head. ‘Only by virtue of experience. If there was anything that could move that thing, I’d have found it. The only chance you have at this point is to bash it down with your ugly face.’ He sneered. ‘Granted, while it seems tempting. .’

His voice faded into another babbling tangent, easily ignored as she pressed her ear against the rock. The noises were faint: scuffling, splashing, something loud and violent. Through it, though, there was a familiar, if fleeting, sound.

He’s alive.

At least, he sounded alive to her. It was difficult to tell; what she heard was but a fragment of his voice. It was a weak and dying noise, there and gone in an instant. Perhaps, she wondered, she imagined it?

A trick of her mind or her bloodied ears? Or maybe, in her heart if not her mind, she knew he was already dead and heard the last traces of his breath escaping this world before he followed it. Either way, it was a flimsy, weak excuse to linger in a forsaken fortress filled with demons.

Still, she thought as she cracked her knuckles, I’ve gone off less before.

‘Hurry it up,’ she growled as she leaned down to inspect the bottom of the slab. ‘He’s not well.’

‘Compared to you?’ She heard Denaos’s long sigh. ‘Good luck.’

She turned at the sounds of boots scraping across the stones. Denaos, with no particular rush or hesitation, stalked down the hall towards the drowned section. She quirked a brow.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Let’s not belabour this, please. We all knew there was going to have to be a parting of ways, eventually.’ He threw his hands up in resignation. ‘I did what I could. Let Silf bear witness.’

‘You did nothing!’ she spat at his back, as though her words were arrows. ‘I know your petty round-ear God rewards cowardice, but I don’t. Now get back here and help.’

He could feel her eyes boring into him, that emerald stare that he had seen even Lenk flinch at. But he was not Lenk. He was not Gariath. He was not Kataria. He was a reasonable man. He was a cautious man. He was a man who knew when to run.

Keep telling yourself that, he thought. Eventually, you’ll believe it. He stooped, making certain that the shict wouldn’t see his bitter frown, hear his sigh. Don’t turn around, he reminded himself, don’t turn around. She doesn’t deserve a second look from you. None of them do. You told them. You warned them. They didn’t listen and this is what happened.

It’s not your fault.

He paused at the edge of the water, blanched at its blackness and noted that it wasn’t nearly black enough to hide the frowning face that looked back up at him.

No. . still don’t believe it.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a bowstring drawn. He couldn’t say that the sight of her eyes, narrowed to venomous slits over a glistening arrowhead, was particularly unexpected.

‘No clansman is left behind,’ she snarled, ‘ever.’

Steady now, he told himself, holding his hands up for peace. She’s clearly lost what little mind she had.

‘Must we do this now?’ he half-whined.

Brilliant.

‘It should have been done long ago,’ she hissed, pulling the fletching to her cheek. ‘I’ve been lingering amongst your diseased race for too long. I wanted to believe the stories my father told me weren’t true.’ He caught the briefest sliver of a tear murmuring at the corner of her eye. ‘I wanted to believe that.’

Sweet Silf, she’s completely mad. Mad, he realised, and perceptive. His hands twitched, fingers eyeing the dagger at his belt. She responded, string drawing taut, teeth clenched.

‘But every time I try, every legend proves true, every story about your cowardice and sickness. .’ Her eyes went wide, like a crazed beast’s. ‘All of it was true.’

Grief-ridden, perhaps, he suspected. Gods know Lenk was a decent man, but this seems a bit extreme. He noted the trail of blood that had dried upon her temple. Maybe that last blow did it. . His attentions were drawn back to the arrow. Either way. .

‘If I can’t do anything for Lenk. .’ She growled, her fingers twitched anxiously. ‘I have to do something.’

‘He’s not a shict.’

Her fingers twitched, bowstring eased just a scant hair. Good enough, he thought as his hand slid a little closer to his belt.

‘W-what?’ Her expression seemed to suggest she hadn’t contemplated that fact in some time.

‘He’s human, you know,’ the rogue continued, pressing a thumb to his chest. ‘Like me, not you.’ He raised one hand in appeal, all the better to draw attention from the other. ‘You call him “clansman”, like that means anything to him … to us. But it only bears any weight on long, notched ears.’

There might still be a way out of this, he told himself, you don’t have to kill her. Yet, as his fingers brushed the weapon’s hilt, it seemed to add: But just in case. .

‘Lenk’s. . not like you,’ she muttered without much conviction.