Masque of Death (Kormak Book Nine) (The Kormak Saga 9) (13 page)

“And next you are going to tell me that you found it,” said the fat priest. It seemed to be his chosen role to disbelieve. Anders felt the compulsion to prove the fat man wrong settle on him, and he fought it down. Hungover or not, he knew that was what the fat man wanted, and he was not going to get out of here alive by giving his captors anything for free.

“You are saying you are former soldiers of the crown?” the Guardian said.

“Why else would the Governor grant us an audience. We served him well in his wars with the natives.”

“The Governor never mentioned that,” said the fat priest.

“It would not surprise me if there were a lot of things he never revealed,” said the Guardian. Was it an act, Anders wondered or had they just revealed a gap in their knowledge that he could exploit? Best to stick to the truth for the moment. That would serve them best. Or keep them alive longest.

“So a whole company of you just happened to go off into the Desert of Demons?” the fat priest said. “And you just happened to find a lost city there.”

“You sound as if you have been around the colonies longer than I have,” said Anders. “You must have heard the rumours of lost Xanadar.”

“I know it is a dream of madmen and sorcerers,” said the fat priest. “I doubt some half-witted mercenaries just stumbled on it when men have sought the place for fifty years.”

“But we did not just stumble on it,” Anders said. “We were led there by an old prospector who needed us to protect him from the Guardian demons. He was right too, but we could not keep him alive in the end.”

The fat priest grunted in disbelief. Anders fought back the flood of memories, of monsters and sand demons, of old Henrik’s final moments when he died screaming, not a league from the treasure house he had sought all his life. Of the deadly metal monsters that had emerged when they found the sarcophagus. Of Sarge’s final order and the last wild ride on the wagon out of the city and into the desert. Of Donal being dragged screaming from the back of the wagon by the metal horrors. Of the way their pursuers had stopped so suddenly at the city’s edge and refused to follow even though they could have easily overtaken them.

He realised he had fallen silent and that the priest and the Guardian were staring at him. Had they asked him a question?

“I said how did you get to this place?” the Guardian repeated. “Answer me.”

“Don’t tell the bastards anything,” Gregor said. “The rest of the treasure is ours. We swore that one day we would go back for it.”

The Guardian cuffed him casually. Gregor’s head snapped back, and the chair tipped over. It threatened to fall to the floor, but the Guardian halted it by stretching out his hand. He was both quick and strong. Anders knew he would not want to get into a fight with this man.

“I told you earlier—you will tell me everything I want to know. You can do it willingly or unwillingly. I don’t care which.”

“Then it’s unwillingly you fu . . .” Gregor’s shout of defiance was stopped by a scream of agony. The Guardian had stabbed him with something. Blood pumped from his shoulder. The Guardian twisted whatever he held in his hand, and more blood came forth.

“The stiletto is tipped with acidworm venom,” he said. “It sterilises the wound but at the same time makes it agonisingly painful. If left untreated the poison will make its way along the nerves, burning them out as it goes. It is excruciating, and it is fatal. It takes its time. I’ve seen men last for days, begging for death the whole time.”

“Wanker!” Gregor shouted, his face a rictus of pain.

“That’s amusing,” said the Guardian. Anders was not sure whether he was talking about Gregor’s comment or his agony.

“Stop it,” Anders said. “I’m telling you what you want to know.”

Gregor had turned pale, and a stream of gibberish and cursing flowed from his mouth. Anders had seen him this way before when the chirurgeon was sewing his leg after the battle of Borgata.

The Guardian stared at Anders. The man’s grey-eyed gaze was chilling. Very slowly he took out a vial of something, touched it to the stiletto’s tip and then poked it into the wound. Gregor screamed again, but his agony visibly faded. Beads of sweat showed on his face.

“I have more interesting venoms,” the Guardian said. “And more destructive ones. You might want to bear that in mind.”

I am going to kill you slowly, Anders thought. Don’t know how. Don’t know when. But it is going to happen. He said, “I will bear that in mind.”

“That would be clever. Now go on with your story.”

Anders told him about Xanadar and its monstrous metal inhabitants and the endless traps and mazes and evil magic. He stressed how deadly it was. The Guardian listened intently. The fat priest went from disbelief to silence.

Anders piled on the concrete detail, wanting to convince them, needing to convince them. In the end, he thought he had succeeded, when the Guardian said, “And you intend to go back there.”

“We intended to go back, but we got distracted spending the money the Governor paid us.”

“And there were more coffins like the first one you found.”

“Yes, but they were guarded. The defenders only emerged when we disturbed the first one.”

“Nothing bothered you until you did that?”

“Indeed.”

“Now you will describe how you got there.”

“And then you will kill us.”

“I might. It might become a choice between dying swiftly and dying in great pain.”

“In the end, it’s all the same.”

The Guardian shook his head. “It might be eternities of agony before you pass over to the other side.”

Anders expected Gregor to shout with defiance again, but he merely shook his head slightly. Anders said what he had been angling for, all along.

“We can guide you there. We know how to find our way through. We spent enough lives doing so.”

“I think we can figure out anything you did,” said the fat man.

“You might get yourself killed in the process. And it might just be as slow and painful as the deaths you are threatening us with.”

Anders rather hoped they would try it and be caught by death, in the same way, most of the company had been. At least he might get some revenge from beyond the grave. That said, he would prefer to get it while he was still living. He was sure Gregor would as well, once he got over the venom.

“Tell us how you got there,” the tall, slim priest said. Anders looked at the Guardian, but Kormak did not contradict his companion.

Anders shrugged as best his binding let him and described their route in. They had come from the south, past Dhargon’s Beacon and into the Desert of Demons.

“Describe this Beacon,” the Guardian said. He clearly was looking for a distinctive sign post.

“Tall as a small mountain worked with similar runes to those in the lost city. Glowing runes on the side, visible at night from leagues away.”

The Guardian looked at the thin priest. He had the look of a man who had been told something they recognised.

“It sounds like Dhargon’s Beacon.,” said the priest. “It is a relic of the Elder Races. Sacred to some of the desert tribes. Shunned by most sensible people.”

“Interesting,” said Kormak.

Anders was not sure exactly what had happened, but he sensed that something had changed in the room when he mentioned the Beacon. Had he gone too far, given them too much of a clue as to what they needed? His stomach did a flip-flop. He expected to be put to death momentarily. Instead without saying a further word their captors left the room.

“Now what have you bloody well done, mate?” Gregor asked.

“I think I may have just saved our lives.”

“I certainly bloody hope so. I wouldn’t want to go through that again. It was like having wild dingoes gnaw my bollocks.”

“Now is not the time to chat about your hobbies.”

“Hah-bloody-hah!”

They fell silent, wondering what their captors were up to.

“
Y
ou believe
that pair of drunkards?” Orson asked. They stood outside the door of the cell once more.

The false Kormak smiled. “They are too scared to lie. I have been trained to weigh the words of men, and I felt truth in the one called Anders. He plans on doing us harm if he can, but he understands his best interests lie in cooperating with us. It is nothing less than the truth.”

“He might just be telling us what we want to hear,” Balthazar said.

“How could he know? And if he was doing that he would not have spun us the tale of monsters.”

“Perhaps he wanted to offer his services as a guide.”

“I see no reason why we should not accept them. At least until we find what we are looking for.”

“You think this is it then? This is what you were looking for?”

“I do.”

“I want to go with you,” Orson said. “I do not think it would be wise to stay in Maial.”

“Of course. We will have need of a fighting force if what the drunk says is true.”

“It sounds dangerous,” said Balthazar.

“Orson, you are a wealthy man, and you have warriors in your employ. Find some more.”

“We cannot trust any outsiders,” said Balthazar looking at Orson.

Orson said, “You are correct, and haste is of the essence. Send out the word to your secret brethren. We want all the fighting men we can assemble, and they need to be ready to go as soon as possible. We will need beasts and supplies. We will need to prepare.”

Balthazar said, “There are brethren in Helgarde on the boundaries of the Desert. They will help us if we can get to them.”

“I think we should not rush into this. We might have missed something.”

“If you would prefer to sit here and wait for the Guardian to come and get you, feel free, friend Orson,” said the changeling. “Provide me with some men and our prisoners and I will go ahead myself.”

The changeling had spoken very quickly. Was this what he had been angling for all along? Orson did not trust the assassin out of his sight. He sighed. He was afraid of the man, if man he was, but he also wanted whatever it was he sought. Finding it would give them something to negotiate with the changeling’s masters. Orson could envision a future fast approaching where he might need to seek refuge in Lunar lands.

“Very well. Let us go and seek this fabulous treasure. I only hope those idiots you captured know what they are doing.”

“We shall soon find out,” the changeling said.

Balthazar shot the false Kormak a look. “I will gather the secret brotherhood. We will meet you in the courtyard of the Temple of Xothak before dawn. There will be crowds there for the last night of the Masque of Death. They will cover our approach. There is a way of using sorcery to aid us. This is a most sacred night to the worshippers of Xothak, and the Temple is holy ground. There may yet be a way to salvage this situation using magic. The followers of the accursed Sun may yet be overthrown.”

“Good,” said the changeling. “Let us go and speak with our soon-to-be companions. Tell them the good news.”

Balthazar reached up and touched the keystone that would unlock the secret door to the Old City. It turned smoothly on its hinges revealing the tunnel behind. Orson wished the sorcerer had not done that. The changeling’s eyes had followed every move he had made.

Balthazar vanished into the tunnels. Orson wondered if he would ever see the sorcerer again.

* * *

“
Y
ou awake
?” Anders asked. The cell was very quiet. Somewhere in the distance water dripped. In the shadows, small red eyes gleamed. There were rats out there. How long had it been since their captors departed? He could not tell. He had drifted off into half-drunken sleep. He looked at one of the skeletons hanging on the wall. Who were you? he wondered. How did you get here? What happened here? Did this cell date back to the time of the Old Ones or did the Church build it for its own nefarious purposes?

“I am now,” said Gregor. “And I was just having a nice dream, Monika and Marketa were in the bathtub with me and soaping my back and each other’s . . .”

“How are you feeling? That poison looked pretty nasty.”

“I haven’t felt so bad since I caught my tadger in that brothel door in Kendravil. That wasn’t a lot of fun; I can tell you.”

“I believe you. The question is, how are we going to get out of this place?”

“I was hoping that you would tell me that. You’re the smart one.”

“Nice of you to finally admit it.”

“You think these guys are going to let us live?”

“For just as long as they think we have something they need.”

“That why you started babbling about Xanadar.”

“Yea. It seemed like the only way we were going to get out of this.”

“I’m glad you’re so confident.”

“We’re still alive, aren’t we?”

“We’re tied to chairs, in a dungeon someplace we don’t know. The people who have captured us have a whole Inquisition on their side. We don’t have any weapons. We’ve had the shit kicked out of us.”

“We still have our wits.”

“Then we’re doomed.”

“We would be if we were relying on yours.”

“You got a plan?”

“Give these guys what they want till we get a chance to make a break for it.”

“That’s it?”

“It’s a start.”

“That’s your brilliant plan?”

“If you have a better one, I am all ears.”

“First chance we get we need weapons.”

“Might want to get free of these bonds first.”

“Bloody hell, I never thought of that, genius. Anything else?”

“Stick close together. We get a chance to run, we run.”

The chances of that happening were small, but Anders wanted to make sure Gregor got the message. They might only get one opportunity, and he did not want to miss it.

* * *

A
nders knew
he must have fallen asleep again. When he woke, the Guardian, and the fat priest were confronting him. A group of hard-looking men stood nearby. They were of a sort Anders knew very well—high-grade mercenaries by the looks of them, and well paid for their jobs, judging by the quality of their gear.

“Time to get up,” the Guardian said. “We are going to take a trip to Xanadar, and you are going to guide us.”

Anders did not know whether to be relieved or terrified. They were not going to be killed immediately. On the other hand, the prospect of going back to that haunted place did not delight him.

“You are going to the lost city?” Gregor asked. He was staring at the fat priest. “I hope you are better prepared than you look. We lost almost a company of hardened fighting men going in there last time.”

“Oh, forgive me, you are right,” said the Guardian. “How could I be so foolish? That means we have no need of your services, and we might as well kill you.”

Anders cursed Gregor and his mouth. He never knew when to shut up. The Guardian wore a vicious smile. Anders knew that he would quite happily kill them if the mood took him. Much as he disliked it, Anders was forced to speak. “It’s the way things are,” he said. “The place is dangerous, full of monsters and traps. We thought we were prepared, and we were not. We lost a lot of good men.”

“It’s just as well that we have you to guide us then,” said the Guardian.

“You’ll need more than that. You’ll need soldiers and supplies. Water. Food. You need to get across the wastelands, and they are bad enough. Haunted by sand demons and worse monsters.”

“Why don’t you tell me exactly what you think we’ll need and why?”

Anders began to talk. The Guardian was a good listener. After Anders had finished, he rose. “We will be leaving this place soon. I want you both to be ready to go and to make no trouble. If you behave well, you will be treated exactly like any other member of our expedition and take home a share of the loot. If you behave badly, your last days will be very painful. Do I make myself clear?”

“As air,” Anders said. Gregor said nothing. He merely glared around murderously. Anders knew that this was not going to be easy.

An urgent knocking sounded on the door. “Enter,” said the fat priest.

Lorenzo came in. His face was pale. “Master Orson, the house is surrounded.”

The fat priest raced out the door to see what was going on. The Guardian followed him.

* * *

K
ormak looked
across the street at Orson’s mansion. There was no sign of a celebration here. There was none of the abandoned air that uninhabited buildings had either. Kormak would have bet gold that there were people in there waiting.

Zamara lined up the marines. A group of them hefted an improvised battering ram. More of them carried thick cloaks to throw across the spikes on the walls.

“You think the sorcerer is in there?” Shahad asked. His arm had recovered from its numbness. The man seemed more nervous about facing another wizard than he had about facing a building full of armed men earlier. Kormak was not surprised. Magic had that effect on some people.

Frater Ramon studied the building but said nothing. He coughed blood into his handkerchief and looked embarrassed about it. He appeared exhausted by the simple act of walking from his home to this place.

Ezra and the rest of the Governor’s soldiers had cleared the street. There were no revellers here although some curious people watched from gateways and high windows. Kormak guessed they had not seen such a strong force of soldiers in this quarter before. They might see a lot more before the season was out.

Orson, Kormak thought. He had suspicions about the man since his voyage on the
Pride of Siderea
but who would have guessed he sat the centre of such a web.

He wondered if there was some connection between Orson and the shapeshifter. Was it possible that the two were the same? If it was the case, how could he have failed to spot it? He had spent a lot of time in the merchant’s company aboard the ship.

Zamara gave him the thumbs up sign and a confident grin. He looked as if he was enjoying himself. Kormak turned to Rhiana. “Sense anything?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. No magic of any sort I can feel. Does not mean it’s not there.” She looked significantly at the Frater Ramon

He shook his head. “There are the usual wards that any wealthy merchant would have in place—protections against the Old Ones, against scrying, against curses and other things. They are well made, as far as I can tell. And if they are underground in the cellars, just the weight of earth and stone would block any magical signatures.”

Kormak looked at Zamara. “We are none of us getting any younger. Tell the men to batter down the door.”