Malediction (Scars of the Sundering Book 1) (29 page)

"You
might do well to tell me what he's planning. What are you working on,
Pancras?"

So that's
your game.
He smiled and looked down, hiding his expression from her.
"I can't say."

"Can't
or won't?"

"Does
it matter?" He turned his head to face the Princess. The corners of her
eyes crinkled as she sipped from her goblet. He felt she knew he would not
betray his oath to Prince Gavril but decided to try anyway. "I don't want
to earn a reputation for being untrustworthy by not being able to keep delicate
matters confidential."

"Of
course not. However"—she set her goblet on the top of the wall and wrapped
her arms around her for warmth—"you may be the first necromancer I've ever
heard of who is worried about his reputation."

"Well,
I haven't practiced necromancy, per se, in nearly a decade." He turned
around and leaned against the wall, using his elbows for support. Princess
Valene stood next to him, sipping from her goblet before leaning on the wall.

"Why not?
Did you get an attack of conscience? Did you accidentally create a ghost or
apparition of some sort from a close friend?"

"I
never did that, even when I was active. I always felt free-willed undead were
an abomination. I only animated skeletons to help me in my lab, and only then
from volunteers. Sometimes, I'd create zombies if we needed them for a battle,
but they stunk up the place too much for my taste. I like a clean
workspace."

Princess
Valene threw her head back and laughed. "You are quite fastidious for a
minotaur." She rubbed his sleeve between her fingers. "And, you seem
to bathe more regularly than other minotaurs I’ve encountered."

"Thank
you." He bowed his head.

"Who
would volunteer to have their skeleton animated? Are the people in Drak-Anor
that restless?"

"Dutiful
minotaurs who felt proud to continue contributing to the well-being of the city
after death. But, after Drak-Anor established formal relations with Celtangate
and Ironkrag, I felt it was inappropriate. We'd driven off the oroqs, and
enough lives were lost doing so, it seemed… disrespectful." He tapped his
hoof against the bottom of the wall and sighed. "I felt like I didn't have
a place there anymore, but my friends convinced me otherwise."

"So you
learned different magic."

"I didn't
have to learn much. I was a generalist before I took up necromancy. Some of my
techniques were a little rusty, but I always dabbled in alchemy, even when I
regularly practiced necromancy. Of course, I was helping with the
administration of the city, so I didn't have to use much magic for that at all.
Politics is dull. Er, no offense."

"None
taken." She touched his arm and smiled. "I find it dull, too."
She drained her goblet and sighed. "My parents sent me down here to marry
Gavril to seal a political alliance neither one of them has ever taken
advantage of. I love our children dearly, but that man… he's"—she looked
down and laughed—"never mind. I should not speak of such things with
you."

She shivered
and tucked her goblet in one of her coat pockets. She put her hand around
Pancras's arm and looked up in his eyes. "I hope whatever you're doing for
Gavril does not put you in conflict with me or anyone I respect. It would be a
shame for us to become enemies."

"It
would indeed."

"Good
night, Pancras. Sleep well."

"You as
well, Your Highness."

Chapter 15

"Get
behind me!" Kale jumped in front of his sister and Kali as the ghouls
charged. He didn't know how frequently he could breathe fire, but incinerating
a pack of ghouls before they ate him seemed like a good time to find out. He
felt the fire within him as he inhaled, and he unleashed a torrent of
dragonfire. The corridor ahead of him filled with an inferno as the ghouls
burst into flame. Their high-pitched wails of agony were deafening, and the
corridor filled with greasy, black smoke.

"
Synnefotone
shifone!
" A swirl of azure energy surrounded Delilah as she shouted,
and by the strap on his bandoleer, she pulled her brother alongside her. A
cloud of flashing, swirling blades manifested between the draks and the pack of
ghouls. With a thought, Delilah sent them hurtling into the inferno.

The
apparition howled in rage as the blades passed through its body. It advanced on
the three draks, leaving its minions to burn in the conflagration. Delilah was
unsure if she knew any magic that could dispatch a non-corporeal entity, so she
followed Kale and Kali's lead when they turned and ran.

An aura of
cold surrounded the apparition, and Delilah’s breath came in puffs of fog as
she ran. The ancient ghost's screams of rage and fury followed her as it gave
chase.

"We need
to get away from this thing!" She felt unhelpful stating the obvious but
hoped Kali would have some sort of plan since she seemed familiar with the
catacombs under the city.

Kali paused
long enough to open a door, pulling Kale inside. She slammed it shut as Delilah
passed through. "I'm open to suggestions!"

That was not
what Delilah wanted to hear. "Great. How do we kill something that doesn't
have a body and is already dead?"

She pointed
her staff at the door as the arms and head of the apparition appeared.
Desperate for inspiration, she glanced around the room. It was small, cramped,
and the only other real feature was a stone sarcophagus in the center of the
room. She herded Kale and Kali to the far side of it.

"I was
hoping you had a plan bringing us in here, Kali. This is a dead end."
Neither the blades she conjured nor Kale's dragonfire seemed to have an effect
on the ghost. The room was too small in which to throw a fireball at it, and
she was almost out of options.
This is what I get for concentrating so much
on fire and conjurer's tricks.

"I
don't think you should say 'dead' when we have a ghost chasing us, Deli."

The ghost
pushed its way through the door, smiling a jagged-toothed grin when it saw the
three draks were cornered. Delilah wracked her brain, for something to do,
anything.
Maybe I can distract it.

She leveled
her staff and pointed the skull at the apparition. "
Kalee'steen enoch
leetiké goyna!
" The azure tendrils swirled together, forming a furry
ball with legs and teeth. With a pop a boggin appeared. It was not a glowing
blue boggin she used for carrying messages, but rather a real, flesh-and-blood
boggin, conjured out of the air by her sorcery. She continued gathering threads
of magic, and more boggins appeared on the floor and on the cover of the
sarcophagus. They hopped from foot to foot and yipped, the rows of sharp teeth
in their mouths clicking together in anticipation.

"Boggins?"
Kali's voice strained. "Are you planning to feed it?"

As if on
cue, the boggins snarled and sprang toward the apparition. They leapt to
attack, passing through the sickly olive mist of its body. The ghost stabbed
with its spear, impaling one of the boggins. It shuddered and squealed as its
fur changed from black to grey and its body became gaunt and withered. Two
other boggins leapt toward the desiccated husk and tore it apart. The ghost
turned away from the draks and stabbed another boggin as the rest of the pack
continued leaping at it and snapping their teeth as they passed through it.

"Run!"
Delilah ran around the sarcophagus and threw open the door. She hesitated,
looking both ways to see if ghouls approached.

"Right,
go right!"

Heeding
Kali's instructions, Delilah ran to the right. The yipping of the boggins and
screams of the ghost faded as she ran. Within moments, both Kali and Kale
caught up to the sorceress. "Do you know where we're going?"

"Yes!
Keep going, three more niches and then left. After that, look for an open grate
in the floor."

Kali took
the lead and ran toward the grate. From the odor, Delilah knew it led nowhere
she wanted to go.

"Get
in!"

Kale
grimaced and pinched his nose. "Down there? Does stink repel ghosts?"

"Don't
be a baby!" Kali dropped to the floor and disappeared into the grate.

"We
should've stayed in the palace tonight, Kale." Delilah cast a furtive
glance down the corridor whence they came, searching for signs of the ghost. A
screeching wail told her it was on the move again.

Kale dove
headfirst into the grate. Delilah swallowed her reluctance and followed. The
short drop from the grate jolted her tailbone and then turned into a slimy
slide. Her staff provided scant illumination as she scrabbled against the rock
and tried to control her descent. The slide emptied into a cistern, and she
flew through the air, landing in the water near Kale. Hitting the cold pond was
like slamming into a brick wall. She sank, the foul-smelling liquid filling her
nose and mouth. Delilah kicked and swam up, spitting and coughing when her head
broke through the surface.

Iron rungs
set into the wall led back up to the catacomb slide. Kale and Kali paddled
toward a corridor on the far side of the cistern. Delilah swam to join them,
relieved when she felt packed earth beneath her feet. In the corridor, the
water covered the floor to a depth of a few inches.

"Are we
anywhere near where we're supposed to be?" She wrung out one of the hairy
fetishes on her harness, and then she removed her dripping cloak to wring it
out as well. Delilah shivered and feared her bones might snap from the violent
tremors. Kale made a sour face, coughed and spit into the cistern.

Kali looked
around the corridor for a moment and counted off something on her fingers as
she made some mental calculations. "No, but I think I can get us back on
track. I wasn't counting on an undead infestation."

"I
thought Pancras said there weren't more undead in the catacombs, Deli."

Delilah bit
her lip and nodded. Pancras indeed said that, but he also said he couldn't be
sure. Her eyes widened when she realized he fell asleep with the gilded tips
covering his horns.

"I'll
bet he necromatized in his sleep again."

"Necro…
what?" Kali look at Delilah and then at Kale, her brow furrowed in
confusion.

Kale rubbed
the back of his neck. "Pancras has been having bad dreams lately, I guess.
He might've animated some undead accidentally in his sleep, but I thought he
wasn't wearing his focus anymore when he slept, Deli?"

"He
forgot to take off the golden tips from his horns when we dozed this
afternoon."

"Wait,
wait." Kali held up her hands to silence the twins. "Are you telling
me your minotaur friend created these undead?"

Delilah
pursed her lips and looked at her brother. It didn't seem fair to blame Pancras
since they weren't sure that's what happened.

"Maybe."
The twins answered together.

Kali covered
her eyes with her hand and shook her head. "Let's just get to the mines
and do what we came down here for. Maybe that thing will stay up in the
catacombs."

That
suggestion suited Delilah fine. She put aside her worry about returning to the
palace and concentrated on the task at hand. She knew she would have better
luck dealing with slavers than with a vengeful ghost.

* * *

The route by
which Kali led Kale and Delilah to the salt mines was circuitous and took far
longer than she intended. Although, Kale didn't know how much time they spent
in the sewers, it seemed like they spent half the night tromping through near
freezing waters. By the time they reached drier corridors, both Kali and
Delilah were shivering hard enough to make their teeth chatter. He tried
holding both of them close while they proceeded, but they kept tripping over
each other's feet.

Soon, the
deep, rhythmic pounding of the mine echoed in the dark. In a way, it reminded
Kale of home. In Drak-Anor, someone was always digging to expand or renovate.
The dormant volcano in which they lived contained no precious stones, per se,
but digging through the hardened lava required many of the same tools. Recent
trade agreements with the dwarves brought many new tools and techniques to
Drak-Anor, and the draks and minotaurs were finally able to fully expresses
themselves in their architecture as they built their homes.

The air was
thick and almost briny; yet, the stench of refuse from the water through which
they waded clung to the fur linings of their cloaks. Kale was certain his sense
of smell was permanently tainted by the odor.

Kali held up
her hand, indicating they should stop. She crouched low to the floor and peeked
around the corner and then waved Kale and Delilah forward. She stopped Delilah
before she turned the corner.

"Kill
that light."

Delilah
extinguished her staff, and together with Kale, crept forward behind Kali.
Ahead, there was a wooden walkway with a railing attached at about the height
of a drak's head. The tunnel in which they stood formed a three-way junction
with the corridor. Kali dropped to her stomach and belly-crawled forward until
she could look over the edge of the walkway, signaling for Kale and Delilah to
join her.

The pathway
overlooked a cavernous, white-walled chamber, and it attached to the wall near
the ceiling. Below them, Kale spotted workers pushing carts laden with white
blocks to and fro. The cavern was illuminated by translucent stones set in
sconces similar to the lighting in the palace. Thin, wispy clouds clung like
puffs of cotton to the ceiling of the cavern. Kale tasted the salt in the air.

Kali pointed
toward the left. The catwalk angled down and led to a set of steps. She
motioned for Kale and Delilah to fall in behind her. The three draks followed
it around the side of the cavern, down the stairs, and into a corridor carved
into the rock. The surface of the stone felt gritty beneath Kale's feet and
under his fingers as he ran them along the walls. Fine white powder clung to
the scales of his fingers. He licked one of them clean. Salt.

With tool
alcoves and storage rooms regularly spaced along the corridor, the three draks
found it easy to hide from patrolling guards and workers as they made their way
deeper into the mine. They found their way to an antechamber off the main
cavern in which half-a-dozen orange-scaled draks chipped away at the rock with
hammers and chisels and picks. Kale was surprised how closely their scale
colors resembled Kali's. The draks digging were crusted in a layer of salt,
their scales dull and cracked where Kali's were shiny, smooth, and supple. They
were thin, on the verge of starvation, and their breaths came in ragged gasps.

One of the
older draks spotted them. His eyes lit up, even as Kali held her finger up to
her lips to quiet him. She pulled him over to their hiding spot.

"Kali?
Is that you?"

"Father!"
She pulled the old drak into a tight hug. "I've come for you. Where are
the others?"

"It is
not safe. You should not be here, you should not have brought—" He glanced
at Kale and Delilah. Then, as if noticing their stripes for the first time, his
eyes widened, and he dropped to his knees. "These are your allies?"
He prostrated himself before Kale and Delilah.

Kale coughed
and shuffled his feet. He looked away as Kali helped the old drak stand up .
Delilah studied a chip in the wall, scraping at it with her claw and tasting
the salt. "This is Kale and Delilah… I… I forgot their clan name—"

"Windsinger."
Kale smiled and waved at the old drak. He averted his eyes and lowered his
head.

"They've
come from Drak-Anor. They're going to help me free the clan."

"Clan?
Your whole clan?" Delilah pulled Kali aside. "You said we were going
to free a few draks. How are we going to smuggle a whole drak clan out of
here?"

The other
draks in the room now stared at them. Kale wanted to be anywhere but the center
of a drak clan-mass rescue.

"Yes,
my whole clan." Kali straightened and held herself high in defiance of
Delilah's disbelief. "For too long have the Firescales toiled in bondage
to the human who owns these mines. I mean to kill him and free my people.
You're here now and can't get back without me, so you might as well help."

"Firescale?
You said your name was… oh." Kale buried his face in his hands. He never
wanted to get involved in a full-scale revolution, even it if was against just
one human.

"Kale."
Kali placed her hand on his shoulder. He peeked at her through his fingers.
"I lied about my name because I have to in the city. I can explain why
later, but I need your help. Your sister's too. Nothing has changed."