A Thief in the Night (33 page)

Chapter Sixty-one

M
alden hurried forward through the red-shadowed streets of the dormitory floor, retracing his steps toward the lift. Every footstep made his arm bounce and throb, but it wasn't as bad as when he'd been on the ladder. Every rung had been a new chapter in a book of agony. Now he just ached abominably.

It didn't matter. He had to keep moving. He heard the sound of the knocker desperately tapping its way across the floor, moving fast, its rhythm even more broken than usual. It had nothing to do with him.

The lift cage waited for him in its chamber. The lift shaft was mostly in darkness—the red light from the main shaft didn't reach that far, and the streetlamps had stopped at the edge of the dormitory. Yet there was enough light for Malden to crouch into the cage and close its door and start to pull on the loop of chain inside.

As the cage began to climb up the shaft, toward the foundry level above, he heard one last shriek of surprise from Balint. “Don't you touch me,” he heard her screaming, “Or I'll cut off your prick and use it as a paperweight!”

Something had her. The revenants, or, who knew, Mörget's demon, or—

It didn't matter.

It had nothing to do with him. He kept pulling, and pulling, and pulling on the chain before him. The mechanism was so simple anyone could use it, not just a dwarf with a brilliant insight into engines and devices. You pulled on one side of the chain to make the lift go down. If you pulled on the other side the lift went up.

Inch by inch the cage rose through the shaft. Soon Malden was thrust into inky darkness again. He still had Slag's makeshift lantern, and the flint to light it with, but he kept pulling on the chain, pulling and pulling and pulling until his good arm felt numb. Better, he thought, to balance the searing pain in his bad one.

Even in the dark he could sense when the cage had reached the foundry level. He stopped pulling and let the chain go, so that it rattled in the dark. He pushed the door of the cage open and stepped out. He fumbled with his pack, intending to strike a light. Just getting the knapsack off his back was a trial. He clamped it between his knees and reached inside with his good hand until he found the flint. He drew it out of the pack.

Then, in the dark just behind him, he heard a clink of metal.

The lift chain started to rattle and move and he knew someone was pulling the cage down through the shaft.

The revenants must have finished off the Redweir dwarves. Now they were coming for him.

Panic gripped Malden's brains as he listened to the lift chain rattle. He wanted to sit down and just gibber in fear. He wanted to run away.

He forced himself to stay calm. To stop himself from following his natural instinct—which was to find the darkest place he could and hide there until all the bad things and nightmarish enemies went away.

In a place like the Vincularium, that meant hiding forever.

Malden cast about him in the foundry and quickly discovered what he sought—a long rod of iron, thin but strong enough so it wouldn't snap. He set his lantern down and hefted the rod like a javelin. He watched the lift chain ascend for a moment, then shoved the rod forward as fast as he could, trying to thread it through one of the links. The first time he missed, and the rod was deflected to the side, jangling in his hand. The second time he drove the rod home perfectly, tangling it in the lift chain.

The chain continued to rise through the shaft. As it rose it took the rod with it until the rod hit the ceiling with a sharp crack of noise. It held against the ceiling, obstructing the hole there and keeping the chain from climbing any farther.

Instantly the lift chain froze in place. Malden peered down the shaft and saw the cage stuck down there, well below the foundry level.

The chain jumped and the rod nearly came free. It jumped again, and again, as whoever—whatever—was in the lift cage tried to unjam the mechanism. It was to no avail. The rod wedged the lift in place.

He had bought himself a little time.

It was the most precious commodity he could imagine. One thing mattered, still, and only one thing. He had to get the antidote to Slag. He lit his tin lantern and then hurried through the foundry level, careful not to trip on the red strings that hung loose now from the walls. Ahead of him lay the door of the Hall of Masterpieces. He could hide in there with Cythera and Slag, he thought. They could barricade the massive stone door and—and—

—and wait for Croy to come rescue them. Croy, who was probably dead, and who anyway wouldn't be able to fight his way through a legion of revenants, even with Mörget's help.

It wasn't a wonderful plan, but there were no options. Malden hurried up to the door and was only a little surprised to find it closed. Cythera was no fool. She lacked any weapon better than a belt knife, and if anyone but he came by, her best defense lay in keeping that door closed. Malden thumped on it with his good fist, then found a piece of iron and started prying it open once more. He expected Cythera to come and help him from the other side once she realized he had returned, but he had to fight with the door unaided, just as he had the last time. A little annoyed, he heaved and shoved at the bar. It took far too long—his pursuers could arrive at any moment!—and it made his damaged arm ache fiercely—but he kept at it, grunting and cursing and pulling until the door opened just wide enough to let him slip inside.

Beyond the door, the hall lay in perfect darkness.

Malden frowned. That seemed odd. Cythera had a good store of candles—there was no reason for her to conserve them, and surely she would not want to sit in the dark in this place if she didn't have to.

He called her name, softly at first—then louder. There was no response. Malden slipped into the hall and held his lantern high.

Gold, gems, glass, and polished stone all threw back bright and cheery reflections at him. Of Cythera, or Slag, there was no sign.

They must have left, he thought. Cythera must have decided to move Slag somewhere else—somewhere safer. Maybe she'd heard something of the screaming down on the residential level. Though that seemed unlikely—there was far too much stone between here and there. But perhaps Cythera had another reason to flee. Maybe the revenants had come here first.

It was just possible that Slag had thought of some way for the two of them to escape the Vincularium, and they seized the opportunity. But surely they would have left some message for him, some words traced in the dust, or, or . . . something.

He could find no clue at all to their disappearance.

There was no sign of a struggle. No blood on the floor. Nothing knocked over or moved out of place. Malden frowned. He very much wished he knew what was going on. Or what to do next.

He slipped back out of the hall, intent on finding his friends. Yet when he looked across the foundry level toward the lift shaft, a new terror crossed his soul.

He could see light there. It wasn't the flicker of candlelight but the great guttering flare of torchlight, and there was a lot of it. He could hear footsteps, and thought there might be as many as a score of revenants coming for him, from elsewhere on the foundry level. He imagined they must have followed him up from the dormitory level, using a flight of stairs he had not seen. They didn't need the lift after all, and jamming it had only slowed them down.

Wherever they came from, though, didn't matter at all—what did was that they were coming closer. Coming right for him.

Malden had a magic sword on his belt, and one good arm to swing it with. He had never trained as a swordsman, though, and lacked any manner of killer instinct. He knew he would be no match for even one persistent revenant, much less twenty of them. He had trained as a thief—and so he did what a thief would do in that circumstance.

He hid.

Chapter Sixty-two

T
he foundry offered a hundred good places to conceal Malden. He considered hiding inside the great furnace. Perhaps up in the smelting ladle—but no, he would be trapped up there. If the revenants spotted him, he would have nowhere else to go. The same difficulty eliminated the Hall of Masterpieces as a refuge: again, there would be no way to escape once he was inside. If his pursuers found him there, he would be cornered.

In the end he chose a hiding place out in the open—a place, perhaps, that would be overlooked in the abundance of more secluded spots. Moving aside some of the pieces of scrap, he buried himself as best he could inside the small mountain of copper heaped up against one wall. He chose the copper because its color was obvious—he had no desire to accidentally bury himself in arsenic, or something else poisonous that he didn't recognize. Once he was concealed, he put out his light, then pulled more pieces of copper on top of himself. He left just a bit of his face exposed, enough that he could breathe, and see.

Then he settled in and tried to make himself as quiet as possible.

He did not have to wait long. Torchlight filled the foundry, and he heard footfalls coming toward him. Many footfalls.

He didn't dare raise his head to see the revenants coming for him. He would have to wait until they came closer.

He was not prepared at all to hear Cythera's voice.

“He's not here, you see?” she insisted. She sounded very tired, and even more frightened than she had been before. It sounded like she was over by the lift room. “I told you. He's a thief. A scoundrel! At the first sign of trouble, I'm sure he fled this place entirely. He's probably running for Helstrow, as fast as his legs can carry him.”

Malden almost climbed out of his hiding place then, intending to tell her she was wrong. That he would never desert her. That he had the antidote.

But then another voice spoke.

It was a sneering voice, high-pitched but distinctly male. It dripped with sarcasm and had an accent Malden couldn't place, so thick he could barely make out the words. He'd never heard that accent before, he was sure of it.

“I'm certain you wouldn't lie to me. Humans are known far and wide for their scruples, after all. But I think we'll have a look anyway.”

He heard many people moving around, and then the jingling of the lift chain. “What's this? Look! A piece of iron has jammed itself in the chain, all of its own accord. Fascinating. Pull that free.” The iron rod was removed from the lift chain and fell to the floor with a noise like a church bell ringing out an alarm. Malden's body tensed as his ears thrummed with the noise. They'd found his clever ruse, it seemed. Silently he cursed his luck. There would be no doubt that he had been in the foundry, then, and recently.

“You three—search this area completely. Find him and bring him to me. Don't be gentle about it either.”

Malden tried not to even wince.

He was deeply confused now. The revenants they'd seen on the top level did not speak. Even if they could, he doubted they would sound so jaded or so bored. Who was taunting Cythera? Had some other group of explorers entered the Vincularium? Between Mörget's demon-hunting party, Balint's dwarves, and the revenants, it seemed the deserted tomb of the elves was experiencing a population explosion. But who were these new people, and what had they come for? The mystery was solved quickly enough. His pursuers came into the dark part of the foundry, carrying torches to light their way, and he saw they weren't revenants at all.

They wore the same bronze armor he'd seen before, battle scarred and falling apart, held together with patches and bits of string. They were as gaunt as the revenants, and as pale. And yet—they were beautiful. They were graceful. And they were decidedly
alive
.

The three soldiers who hunted him had long angular faces, their features sharp and elegant. Their eyes were cruel but sparkling, their lips thin but red. Their hair fell around their shoulders but could not conceal their delicate pointed ears. Their skin had little color to it, true. Like dwarves, they were so pale that they might have been albinos if not for their dark hair. Yet if a dwarf's skin was like marble, cold white veined with blue, the soldiers' complexions had the warmth and subtlety of fine alabaster.

They were elves. Living elves, in this place—living, surviving, after eight hundred years in the long shadows underground.

Malden nearly gasped in astonishment.

The elves searched the foundry as if it was beneath them. They poked their bronze swords into various piles of scrap. They picked at the lengths of red string that crisscrossed the floor, the remains of Balint's trap. They seemed wise enough to avoid disturbing the pile of arsenic. When they reached the door to the Hall of Masterpieces, one of them sighed in distaste.

“I suppose we'll have to open it,” he said. He looked to the others and rolled his eyes. One of them snorted out a laugh. The three of them found a bar and started to pry open the door.

Malden knew how much resistance it would give them. They could not be as strong as humans, not with those stick-thin arms, so they would have to struggle with the door. He waited until they were wholly occupied with this task, their weapons stowed securely on their belts and away from their hands.

Then he jumped out of the pile of copper scrap and ran as fast as he could toward the lift shaft.

Chapter Sixty-three

A
cry went up immediately, and someone shouted, “He has a sword!” but Malden paid no attention to the clamor. He reached inside his tunic with his good hand and skidded to a stop as he came before the great furnace.

More elves waited there. More heavily armed elves, and while some of them slouched against the walls, he knew he would never make it past them all and reach the lift unmolested. But that had never been his plan.

Cythera was there as well, all but carrying Slag. The dwarf looked as if he had only minutes to live. Just one guard stood near the two of them, and he looked more confused than vigilant. Malden shifted the antidote to his bad hand—he could barely close his fist around it—and yanked Acidtongue from its scabbard. As he leapt toward the guard, he shouted, “Only one drop!” and threw the vial of antidote toward Cythera's outstretched hand.

The guard was taken completely by surprise. Had Malden any training with his sword, he could have taken the elf unawares and cut him in half. Instead he merely managed to swing at the guard's head, and miss completely.

Behind him, he heard a great clattering of bronze armor as the other elves—he didn't bother to count how many—came rushing to attack him. The guard he'd threatened lifted his own weapon high in both hands, ready to defend himself.

“What a fool,” one of the elves said. “Take him.”

It had never been Malden's plan to fight his way out, however. “Hold,” he called, and shoved Acidtongue back into its glass-lined scabbard. “I surrender.” He lifted both hands in the air, fingers spread wide to show he meant it.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Cythera dab a drop of the antidote on her finger and stick it down Slag's throat.

The dwarf gagged and spat, but she held her hand where it was.

“What is she doing?” One of the elves came forward. He wore a circlet of fine silver on his brow, and his armor was in far better condition than the others'. He had a short cape across his shoulders made of very fine cloth, and as he walked he leaned on a slim-bladed sword as if it were a cane. Malden decided he must be the commander of this elfin company. He grabbed Cythera's hand out of the dwarf's mouth and held it up to the light.

She stared at him with fierce defiance, but the look in her eyes burned out quickly. When she'd lost her rage, she stared down at her feet.

“Milord,” one of the soldiers near Malden said. “What should we do with him?”

The lord's face flared with anger. “Get his sword away from him, obviously! And then strip him naked and check him for other weapons. And then—and I really shouldn't have to tell you this sort of thing
again
—beat him until he can't get up.”

Malden's eyes went wide. He considered drawing Acidtongue and fighting desperately for his life, but he knew that was futile. Reasoning with the elf might prove the better course. He kept his hands above his head as an elf soldier unbuckled his sword belt and took away his bodkin. “I offer you no resistance. I've hurt none of you!”

The elfin commander favored him with a thin smile. “And I have express orders to take you alive, if possible.” His eyes twinkled. “But you know, I've never actually seen a human before. I'm curious what color your blood is. Finding out might alleviate a little tedium.”

An elf grabbed Malden's cloak and tore it from his neck. Malden's bad arm was wrenched badly in the process and he cried out in pain.

“No!” Cythera shouted. She tried to run toward Malden, but the elf commander still held her hand. He must have been stronger than he looked, because she couldn't break his grip. “No, you can't, I—I love him!” she screamed.

“Why, that just adds a certain—” the commander began, but then stopped abruptly and stared at Slag.

The dwarf convulsed around his middle and made a horrible gagging sound. Then he leaned forward and vomited all over the foundry floor. Great gouts of black liquid rolled across the flagstones, edging toward the bronze boots of the elfin soldiers.

Every single one of them danced backward, gasping in disgust. Not one of them stood their ground—not even the commander, who yelped like a girl.

Suddenly Malden, Cythera, and especially Slag were standing alone, with no one guarding them or in a position to stop them from running away. Malden would have made a break for it, except that he was watching Slag. The dwarf slumped forward, falling down into the pool of his own sick. Then he vomited again. The elves cringed backward again, while Cythera bent down to grab Slag's shoulders and pull him back before he drowned in his own vomit.

“In the name of the ancestors—what a stink!” the elfin commander wailed. He pulled his cape up around his nose and mouth and wiped at the tears that dripped from his eyes. “I'll have no more of this.” He turned and started walking toward the lift.

One of the soldiers managed to regain enough composure to ask, “But milord, what should we do with the prisoners?”

This is the moment he orders us all killed, Malden thought. This is the end.

But it seemed the lord had lost his desire to see the color of human blood. “Follow your orders! I don't really care!” he shouted back over his shoulder.

Stepping gingerly over the mess on the floor, the soldiers moved in and grabbed at Malden's arms. He offered them no resistance at all. Others grabbed Cythera, who didn't even look at them—she was clearly too concerned for the health of the dwarf. There was a great deal of discussion and argument over what should be done with Slag. None of the elves wanted to touch him, and they argued bitterly over which of them should have to do it. In the end, the three of them were searched and all their possessions taken way. Then they were marched toward a section of the wall that looked different from the rest. It was made of crude brick, and when an elf pushed on it, it opened like a door. Beyond lay a narrow tunnel bored inexpertly through the rock.