Kull cocked an eyebrow. “Is that fear I detect in your voice?”
“It’s reason. An attribute you’ve yet to possess.”
“I disagree.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” Heidel answered.
“Perhaps you could stay here,” I interrupted. “We’ll need someone to keep watch.”
Heidel worked her jaw back and forth. “Fine. I will wait for you here.”
“Are you sure?” Kull asked. “You will be alone and exposed. It may be safer to come with us.”
“No. I will not enter the tombs.”
“Very well,” Kull said with a sigh, as if he were used to dealing with his sister’s stubbornness. He turned his attention to the stone. “And now to find our way inside.”
I studied the runes and determined that some of the characters could be a written spell. Most spellcasters never wrote down their spells for fear they could be used against them. But in this case, they may have needed a way to get inside and carved the characters into the stone. It was my best guess, anyway. “It may be spellcasted,” I told him. “I may be able to use a spell and open a gateway or—”
Kull placed his hands on either side of the stone, and his cheeks turned red as he pushed it aside. The grating sound echoed through the ancient pillars, loud enough to wake the dead entombed underground.
“Or you could just push it,” I finished.
A dark, cavernous hole lay beneath, with a ladder stretching to the bottom. Swirls of fog wrapped the metal rungs. Kull replaced his sword in its scabbard and started down the ladder.
Heidel turned to me as her brother descended. “Be cautious,” she said. “There are not many places that our people fear, but the tombs are an exception. There is a reason why we do not travel here. Be cautious.”
I nodded. “I will.”
I followed Kull down the ladder and into the tunnel. My shoulder gave me trouble, but I found that if I climbed without fully extending my arm, I could manage to hold on. The deeper I descended, the less chill there was in the air. I would have felt grateful for the temperature change if I weren’t in complete darkness. The pinprick of light overhead wasn’t enough to illuminate the ground beneath.
“Are you there?” I called to Kull.
“Right below you. I think I’ve found some torches.”
The blackness disoriented me. The ladder’s rungs were my only link to reality. Below me could have been an abyss, and I would’ve never known it. I called on my other senses to make up for my loss of vision. The sound of booted feet on the metal rungs. My fingers grasping the cold metal. The pain throbbing through my shoulder.
A sputtering sound came from below. Flickering orange light glowed beneath me, and soon I descended to the tunnel’s floor.
Kull held two torches and gave one to me. “We’ve made it,” he called up the shaft.
“Very well.” Heidel’s voice sounded miles away.
As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I took in my surroundings. The thin air smelled of dust. A broad corridor lined with black stone stretched before us. Tombs rested inside niches in the rock. Elaborate images of skeletons and winged angels with hollowed-out eyes stared from the wall carvings.
Kull started down the hallway, and I followed. He pointed at the runes engraved in the walls. “This is odd,” he told me. “These markings are written in the modern language.”
“Modern language? How could that be possible?”
Our footsteps filled the silence as he searched for an answer. “The souls who perished here only two decades ago may have been buried in these catacombs.”
“The souls who were slain by the Regaymor?”
“Yes. It is possible that these tombs were in use only two decades ago. The modern language is proof of it.”
“Then let’s keep moving. I suspect that whoever has taken my godson’s soul will be in hiding. We should inspect the older tombs.”
“Agreed.”
The tombs stretched on. I stared in fascination at the elaborate carvings. This was artistry untouched by nature. The history of the Wult belief system sprawled before us like an open encyclopedia. The further we walked, the more the new gods gave way to the old. The image of the sacred mjölnir—Thor’s hammer—became more prevalent with each tomb we passed.
We entered an open chamber with a domed ceiling. Thick pillars lined the outer edges of the room. Firelight from our torches sputtered and flickered, making the pillars cast long shadows across the floor.
Several arched doorways surrounded the room.
“Where should we go from here?” I asked.
Kull walked around the room, inspecting the runes carved above the stone archways. “These are family names, I believe—some of the first families who crossed. Gunter, Brudnik, Mog.”
“I don’t suppose any of them say where my godson’s attacker is hiding?”
“Afraid not.”
I paced around the room, praying I would find something that might lead me to him. “We’ll have to check them all. How far do you think these tunnels go?” I asked him.
“I cannot say.” He turned to me. “But it doesn’t look as if anyone has been in these parts of the catacombs for a very long time. I am not sure what you’re looking for, but I have followed tracks since I was old enough to walk. If someone had been down here recently, we would have seen footprints.” He scuffed his boot. “This dust is thick enough to leave marks.”
I chewed on my lip, hoping Kull was wrong. “We aren’t dealing with the type you’re used to hunting. Spellcasters can erase tracks. Still, we should find evidence of a presence here. Something is down here. Something led me to my godson.”
He nodded. “We’ll meet in this chamber after we’ve searched the corridors.”
“Agreed.”
Kull exited through one of the doorways. As he left, the feeling of being alone sank in. Fear sped my heart. I clenched the torch tightly to keep my hands steady.
Stay calm, Albert Einstein said.
I tried to push away thoughts of the Dreamthief. But in
