from the opening disappeared behind them around a corner, and the walls closed in, and a hot wind began to blow from the blade strapped to Gideon’s arm.
“So, what is an undercity, exactly?” Taziri asked. “Bastet mentioned it to me once, but I never asked about it.”
“Is it really a city?” Wren asked. “Because I was in a place called the Sunken Palace once, and it wasn’t much of a palace. They used it as a cistern.”
“It’s a city, all right,” Gideon said. “I hate to spoil a humbling, terrifying, and mystifying surprise, but I will tell you that it’s big. Bigger than Alexandria.”
“How is that possible?” Taziri asked.
“Anything is possible,” Asha said. “If you have enough slaves to make it possible.”
The tunnel curved around them, turning gently to the right in an endless spiral as they trekked lower and deeper into the earth. The walls alternated between smooth bricks and rough-cut stones, and sometimes Asha saw soft earth in the crevices, and even tiny roots poking out into the naked air.
The heat from Gideon’s sword reflected off the walls, and the hot air rolled back along the tunnel ceiling, growing thicker and more oppressive by the minute. Asha felt the sweat trickling down her neck, but she said nothing. Wren pulled a black ribbon from her pocket and tied her long, curling red hair back from her face and shoulders, and Taziri tied her own brown hair back with her blue scarf. Asha left her hair as it was, ignoring the heat and focusing on the sounds.
Their footsteps echoed and clattered in the narrow tunnel, but there were other sounds to be heard. Asha’s golden ear roared with the anxiety of three other people right in front of her, including the duet sung by Gideon and his sun-steel pendant, and the little chorus of Wren and her fox and her shred of Omar Bakhoum. Beyond those living rhythms, she heard the strange warbling drone that came from the tens of thousands of souls sealed away in the sun-steel blade that lit their way.
How many souls are in that sword? He said once that it was the most powerful one in the world, and the worst one in the world. Not from killing people, but from shattering other seireikens, from releasing thousands of enslaved souls, only to swallow them up within itself.
One day, there will be no more seireikens, and then what will he do? How will he destroy that thing on his arm?
The four of them spiraled on and on, down and down, and then quite suddenly the tunnel stopped, the brick walls fell away, and the vast subterranean chamber of the undercity was revealed. The light of Gideon’s sword reached far out and up, painting the cyclopean columns in white, gray, brown, and red. Before them stretched the vast avenues, wide and empty, and lined by obelisks, towers, and monstrous pyramids.
“My God.” Taziri stared. “How did they build this? How old is it? What sort of stone? How did they raise the stones for the columns? And the roof! The roof is supporting the weight of Alexandria! How is that possible?”
“Nine hells,” Wren whispered as she gaped at the sprawling city in the darkness. “Why would anyone do this?”
“Pride?” Gideon shrugged. “Vanity?”
“Selfishness.” Asha strode past him, setting out down the empty road.
“Selfishness?” Wren caught up to her. “What do you mean?”
“Whoever built this had incredible resources and power,” Asha said. “They could have built gardens and schools and hospitals, not just here but all across this country, maybe all across Ifrica. They could have given great things to the world. Instead, they built this. An entire city of palaces and tombs for princes and priests, and they hid it away underground so their corpses could sleep soundly with their worthless gold and jewels.”
“So you don’t think it was a real city?” the girl asked. “It’s a necropolis?”
“What else? There are no farms, and no stables or pens, which means no food. There are no shops or markets, so there was no trade.” Asha shrugged. “I don’t know, but I can’t see how people would have lived here. But I can easily imagine it housing the dead. Gideon?”
“Maybe,” he said, as he passed her to take his place at the front of their procession. “I’ve only been here a few times, and well, I was always eager to leave. I never gave it much thought. And I never asked.”
Asha fell back behind Wren and Taziri, and focused on listening to the yawning chasm, to the souls of the bats and the rats, and…
“I can hear them,” she said softly. “I can hear Lilith’s creatures. Lots of them.”
“Are they close?” Wren asked.
“No,” Gideon said. “We’ve got quite a long walk before we reach them.”
Asha frowned. The sounds in her dragon ear were shifting, changing pitch, changing volume. She looked up. “They’re coming. They’re still far away, but they are coming this way.”
Gideon glanced back at her once and nodded, and then continued on.
They walked briskly down the center of the avenue, turning when Gideon turned, and otherwise simply staring in silence at the huge columns and pyramids all around them, wondering what lay inside. But eventually they all began to hear the soft patter of bare feet in the distance, and the huffing, grunting sounds of labored breathing.
Something screamed, and the scream echoed across the city.
“They’re close,” Asha said. “We should stop and wait for them here.”
“Should we take cover?” Taziri glanced off toward a slender tower nearby.
“No. We stay together, here in the open.” Asha checked her bag for the steel needles coated in the sedative. “Remember the plan. Wren herds them, you pull the needles out, and Gideon melts them down. Every needle we destroy makes Lilith weaker.”
They nodded and shuffled their feet, waiting. Taziri checked her switches and wires, and jostled the shoulder straps of the black box on her back. Gideon leveled his blade at the road ahead and stood as still as a statue. And Wren stood in front of them all, playing with the eight bracelets jangling on her wrists.
“Do you think they’ll all be like Horus and Isis?” the northern girl asked. “Animal heads and legs? Or will they be something else? Something… worse?”
“I think they’ll all be the same as the others we’ve seen,” Asha said.
I hope that’s all they are.
In the distance, at the very edge of the light cast by Gideon’s sword, the strange mob appeared as a dim, writhing mass of faces and bodies.
“Here they come!” Gideon slammed the levers of his gauntlet into place. “Be ready!”
Wren glanced back at him, and smiled. “Just stay behind me, all right?”
Chapter 28
As Lilith’s horde of monstrous slaves came closer, Asha began to pick out the details among them. Wings and horns stood high above the crowd, and in large numbers. Tails lashed the road between the stampeding feet and hoofs. Within the roar of the crowd, Asha heard the cries of birds of prey, the growls of hunting cats, the hissing of serpents, and other sounds that she did not recognize at all. The mob raced forward, loping and galloping, and screaming.
Wren sat down in the middle of the road.
“Wren?” Asha looked from the girl to the beasts and back. “Wren? Are you all right?”
“Hush please,” she said.
Asha frowned. The creatures were getting closer, and looked to be moving faster. She could see the wild white-in-white eyes now, and the dripping fangs, and the long sharp claws all shining by the light of Gideon’s sword.
“Wren?” Asha grimaced.
What if she can’t do it?
Did I ask her to do more than she can?
