told Slag. “Though not in such company.”
The queen led them through the bedchamber to a broad archway. Myriad glinting beams of light emerged from beyond the arch. One by one they filed through, into a cave of unsurpassed beauty.
At first Malden thought the walls were decked with snow, and that icicles of impossible size and profusion had grown from the ceiling. It was no colder in this hidden cave, however, than in the rest of the Vincularium, and he quickly determined that the “snow” was in fact a dense encrustation of rock crystals. They covered every surface, sending up faceted spearheads both minuscule and gigantic, sticking out in every possible direction. One spar fifteen feet long crossed the cave on a diagonal slant, and as Aethil’s light touched it, beams of pure color shot out to dazzle Malden’s eyes.
“This is my personal grotto,” Aethil explained. “For centuries, only royalty have been allowed back here. Please, don’t touch that!”
Malden looked up just moments after he’d touched a rock so covered with crystal spines that it resembled a sea anemone. Even the softest contact was too much, as it turned out-the crystals snapped off one by one and fell to the floor to shatter.
“Oh, they’re so delicate,” Aethil said.
“I am sorry,” Malden told her.
She shook her head prettily. “Never mind. Come this way.”
Deeper in the cave, its natural shape curved around an entire pipe organ’s worth of standing crystal columns, each thicker and taller than the last. In the next section a perfectly still pool of water covered most of the floor, with islands of crystal rising from the yellowish water here and there. Still farther on, a narrow path led upward, fringed on either side by perfect growths, like a garden of diamonds.
Slag must have seen him slipping crystal shards into a pocket of his robe. The dwarf shook his head and leaned back to whisper, “They’re worthless, lad. Too fragile to use as gemstones, and common as crap.”
Malden frowned. He’d thought perhaps to make his own fortune here. He still hadn’t forgiven himself for failing to rob the Hall of Masterpieces when he had the chance. Yet all expression left his face when he followed Aethil up the path-and sunlight fell across his hands.
Real sunlight.
The light of day-the light of the surface world.
Its color, its warmth, its clarity, all proclaimed its provenance. He hurried after the queen, and nearly trampled on a patch of crystals grown into the shape of flowers.
“Here, stand just here,” Aethil said. She showed Malden the exact patch of cleared ground she meant. “Now. Look-there.”
Malden looked up, following her pointing finger.
And saw a patch of blue sky.
It was beyond being beautiful. It was the coolth of summer shade, the first taste of ale after a day of thirst. It was perhaps six inches on a side. The cave stretched onward and upward, he could not say how far-perhaps hundreds of feet. It opened on what must be the side of the mountain, a natural exit from the Vincularium. Too bad, then, that it was so encrusted with crystals that not even Balint’s knocker could have fit through that gap.
Of course, if one were to break the crystals out of the way, say with a hammer, uncaring of their beauty in the desperation of one’s need to get out “Let Sir Croy look now. He feels the need the most,” Aethil said.
Reluctantly, Malden stepped away from the viewing place and let Slag take his spot.
“I used to come here when I was a young girl, and dream of what strange lands might lay out there,” Aethil confided. “I think even then I knew that my lover waited for me out there in the other world, waited for the day when he would come find me. Is it not beautiful?”
The tears that came to Slag’s eyes, Malden thought, might be tears of desire. Or they might be tears of irritation-a dwarf’s eyes were far too sensitive for the sun’s pure light. He could not know.
“Aye, lass,” Slag said. “Pretty as a fucking picture.”
Chapter Eighty-eight
Morget slammed Dawnbringer against the side of a dwarven tomb. The blade flared brilliantly, shedding daylight stronger even than the light of the false red sun behind him. The revenants threw up their arms to protect their eyeless faces and staggered backward, away from the barbarian.
A few of them had the strength of will to try to surge in low, under the sword’s glare. Croy smashed in their heads with Ghostcutter and sliced off their hands before they could grab Morget and quench his light. The revenants shook and their feet scrabbled on the cobblestones as they tried to escape. Yet they could not, for just behind them another wave of undead elves was rushing in, rushing to attack, to destroy, to avenge themselves.
Croy could sympathize, in a way. It didn’t stop him from slicing them to pieces.
One of them came straight at Croy, a bronze flail whirling around its head. Morget smashed through its rib cage with his axe, the bones splitting apart like dried wood, the bronze armor squealing as the steel axe tore through it like paper.
On Croy’s other side a revenant rushed at him with nothing but its bare hands. Croy got his shoulder down and leaned forward into the revenant’s charge. He caught his shoulder in the arch made by its rib cage and sternum and then stood up straight, lifting the dead thing up into the air. Its fingers grabbed for Croy’s hair, but Morget smashed the revenant away with his sword. Light blossomed over Croy’s head and the revenants drew back, arms flailing in horror.
“Quickly, dwarf,” Croy shouted. “We can’t keep this up much longer!”
Morget made his sword ring on the cobblestones again. Did the revenants fear the light because it reminded them of their failures in the world above? Did it remind them of battles lost, and hasty retreats? Or was it simply that they were unholy monstrosities, and the pure light of the Lady’s sun was enough to pain them?
It didn’t matter. The revenants attacked and were repulsed. The light drove them back, and the steel and iron blades hacked them apart.
The two warriors had been holding them off for nearly half an hour this way.
“Just a little longer,” Balint shouted back.
The revenants seemed far less aggressive when the red sun shone on them-or perhaps Croy had simply learned better how to fight them. Their attacks were nowhere near as fast or furious as the first time he’d faced them, back when he first came into the Vincularium.
Perhaps he was the one who’d changed. Perhaps the need for vengeance drove him now just as it propelled them. Back then he’d come here to slay a demon. Now he just wanted death, endless death. One could take strength from a drive like that, he knew. Patriotism, piety, vows sworn, and the hands of ladies fair, those things gave a man the spirit to fight. But hatred trumped them all.
“I just have to make a-what’s the word-a fuse,” Balint shouted back. She’d wrangled the five barrels around until they encircled the massive, arching support pillar. Now she took a hammer from her belt and knocked a hole in one of the barrels.
Morget struck the stones, and his light bought them a moment’s breathing room. Croy looked back and saw black dust spill from the hole Balint had made.
“No!” he cried. “You were wrong-it’s rotted away to dust over the centuries!”
“Don’t take me for a dizzy virgin. That’s what it’s supposed to look like,” Balint told him. “For fuck, it’s pretty. Now-if I’m right, I can fill this pipe with the powder, and it’ll burn steady as a candlewick. Just one touch of fire will be enough to bring this place down. And then no dwarf will ever be tempted to come back here.”
Morget’s sword rang. A revenant came in from the side and Croy cut it in half. “What? I thought you did this for revenge, like myself.”
Balint shook her head. “I didn’t care about Murin and Slurri that much. It’s not elves I hate, but this place. Its history-it holds my people back. How can they face a dismal future knowing what glory they once possessed?” She glanced up from her work to stare at him. “But why do you care what my reason is for doing this? You’ll still have your revenge, and the pillock will still slay his demons.”
Croy scowled. He didn’t like this. His own thirst for revenge had not receded, but he understood now that
