Orb Sceptre Throne (57 page)

‘I can’t use this. What am I supposed to do?’

‘Fire off a shot at any hostiles.’

‘Oh, certainly.’

Antsy waved Corien to the right then drew his long-knives. Orchid followed, the heavy crossbow braced in both arms. They advanced along one edge of the wide hall. Far ahead awaited a tall set of double doors, ajar. Darkness lay beyond. They passed portals that opened on to smaller side halls and chambers. Some were dark, others were lit by the glowing feline faces that Antsy figured to be stylized representations of the Children of the Night themselves. From his own memories of those faces he was glad none remained on the Spawn.

Short of the tall doors the air currents brought a new draught to his face and he raised his hand for a halt. People. The unmistakable stomach-churning miasma of latrine-stink mixed with sweat and cooking odours. He motioned to a nearby portal and they slipped inside.

Watching intently, he could now see a shifting brightness flickering from the right side of the hall. Firelight, and people moving. And above the constant groans and rumblings that reverberated through the rock around them came the murmur of voices and the occasional clatter of gear.

‘Now what?’ Corien mouthed.

Orchid motioned to the left. Antsy shook his head. She made an impatient face demanding explanation. Antsy leaned close. ‘They’re ignoring it. Therefore, there mustn’t be any route up or down that way. Yes?’ She appeared unconvinced, but subsided. He motioned Corien close. ‘We need to find a way round.’

‘I’ll have a look.’

‘No—’

He stood up but Antsy pulled him back: a bright light was approaching. A man appeared walking up one of the right-hand halls. He was carrying the smallest of lanterns yet to Antsy’s dark-adjusted vision the light seemed as intense as the sun. The man stopped at a side opening, threw something in that clattered amid debris, then set down the lantern and started undoing the ties at the front of his trousers.

Orchid turned her face away.

A stream of urine hissed against the stone floor.

Wonderful. They were skulking in the cesspit.

Finished, the man hawked up a great mouthful of phlegm and spat, then picked up the lantern and headed back up the hall. Embarrassed, Antsy did not look at Orchid when he motioned them across. He chose the darkest of the right-hand halls, hoping that it would perhaps lead to a way round the camp. Once within it was obvious to Antsy that it was indeed dark, even to him. There was no source of the blue night-light in the hall. A side portal beckoned just beyond and he had started towards it, meaning to talk things over with Orchid – perhaps she could provide some sort of light – when he stepped on someone.

The woman shrieked to crack open the very rock and Antsy leapt backwards. ‘Shit!’

Many voices arose around them, clamouring, shouting.
Sleeping quarters? They’d stumbled into the fucking sleeping quarters?
He waved Orchid and Corien back.

Pounding feet sounded from a number of the side corridors. Antsy pushed Orchid back across the main hall into the maze of left-hand passages. She thrust the crossbow at him and he sheathed his long-knives to take it. ‘What are we doing?’ she hissed.

‘Hiding. Now, c’mon.’

He led them up a side corridor, turned a corner and stopped dead. Now he knew why the left-hand side of the complex was being ignored. The corridor was blocked by heaped rubble. They’d stopped up the route.
Hood take it!
He motioned for a reverse through another chamber. After just a few further twists and turns, the inhabitants of the encampment yelling and rushing about behind them, they came to yet another blocked doorway.
Shit! There’s no other way!
He led them back towards the main hall.
Have to double back, hope to find a different route
.

They came out on to the main hall close to the tall double doors. Antsy stepped out first, crouched, crossbow ready. The hall appeared empty. He listened for a time. All the noise seemed to be coming from elsewhere. He motioned Orchid to him. He didn’t want to have to do it, but back down the main hall was the only exit he could be sure of.

When Corien edged out, sliding along the wall, a lantern was unhooded further down the wide hall and a voice ordered: ‘Halt or we fire!’

He and Corien exchanged despairing glances and it was Orchid who said, ‘The doors …’

Antsy felt his shoulders fall.
Burn take it! The very way he was avoiding
. He motioned her on. ‘Go.’

‘Fire!’

They ducked. Crossbow bolts slammed into the stone walls around them. It occurred to Antsy that they must be at the very limit of the lantern light. He and Corien backed up, covering Orchid, who ran first through the tall yawning doors. They followed her in and took up positions covering the opening. From the echoing sounds around him he knew the room they’d just entered must be immense but he had no time to think about that just then.

Feet slammed and the light bobbed as lanterns neared. Antsy levelled the crossbow and Corien braced himself, sword and parrying gauche at the ready. But their pursuers did not enter. Instead, the doors began grinding shut. Antsy and Corien exchanged further uncertain looks. What to do?

‘You’ve run to your deaths!’ someone laughed.

‘Fools!’

Antsy dropped the crossbow to grab an edge of one door. ‘
What’s in here?
’ he yelled.

Laughter answered and a blade chopped at his fingers. He yanked his hands away. The doors slammed shut, cutting off the light.

Antsy stood frozen in the darkness. To one side Corien panted his tension. ‘Orchid?’ he whispered into the black. Even this faint murmur raised echoes from distant walls.
A damned large open space here
. ‘Orchid?’ Silence.

‘Corien?’ Antsy said.

‘Yes?’

‘I’m coming to you. Don’t move.’ Arms out, Antsy edged his way towards Corien’s loud breathing. His hand brushed a blade and Corien gasped in surprise. ‘It’s me.’

‘Yes. Sorry. Where’s Orchid?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘You have the lantern?’

‘Yeah. In my bags. I’ll try and light it.’

‘Okay. I’ll cover you – though I can’t see a thing.’

Antsy knelt and yanked off his bedroll and bags. Rummaging, he found the small metal box then dug out his tinderbox. ‘Pray Oponn’s with us,’ he murmured, and readied the flint and iron.

He tapped down into the gathered tinder and kept at it until a glow betrayed itself. He blew gently, hands cupped. Between blows a tiny flame climbed to life within his hands. He held the wick to the tinder, turning it slightly to catch the fibres. A yellow-orange flame grew to life. Antsy carefully handed the box over to Corien then repacked.

‘Well, at least there’s no wind,’ the lad offered, his smile bright in the strengthening light.

‘Just like a gods-damned mine,’ Antsy grumbled, drawing a single long-knife. He took the lantern. ‘Let’s have a look.’

The weak flickering flame hinted at an immense room. Fat pillars of black stone serried off into the distance. He could just make out an arched ceiling. The polished stone of the floor appeared to be inlaid with what looked like a near infinity of gems.
An unguessable fortune – yet none have claimed it
.

He didn’t want to find out why but was afraid he was going to anyway.

Carefully advancing, they found Orchid standing motionless at the far end of the chamber. She stood before a chair – a huge seat carved from black stone. Antsy raised the lantern to see her staring upwards, seemingly enraptured.

‘Orchid,’ he whispered. ‘Are you all right?’

Blinking, she glanced at him as if not seeing him then smiled, motioning all about. ‘Isn’t it wondrous?’

‘Orchid,’ he began gently, ‘we can’t see a damned thing.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry …’ She clapped her hands and gave a command, a single word in Tiste Andii. An ice-blue glow arose from the gems at her feet and expanded in all directions. The inset gems blossomed to life all about the huge chamber, on the floor, the pillars, even the ceiling, until it was as if they stood suspended among an infinity of stars.

Antsy and Corien turned full circles, stunned. Antsy blew out the lantern.

‘The Sacristy of Night. Perhaps,’ Orchid supplied.

Most of the lights were mere tiny diamond-like pinpricks. Just like stars at night. But some were large pale-blue balls suspended overhead like moons. The room was now fully lit, but it was the cool silvery light of a full moon on a clear starry night. There was no sign of any sun anywhere in the sky.

‘It is said that this is a representation of what one would have seen from the homeland of the Andii,’ Orchid explained. ‘Perhaps. I don’t know for certain, of course.’

‘And this?’ Antsy motioned to the seat. ‘Is this … some kinda throne? Is this like a throne room?’

‘I don’t think so. More like a temple to Mother Dark, I should think. Sacred—’ She broke off.

Antsy had seen them as well: shapes approaching. Like rippling cloths of pure black darkness. They’d seen one just like them before: the guardian who’d tried to kill them. He moved back to back with Corien.
Damn it to Trake! What could they do against these?

One addressed Orchid in a whispered breathless version of Andii. She answered, then translated: ‘They say we are polluting sacred ground and that they will cleanse us.’

‘Ask for the way out and tell them we’ll go right away.’

She spoke again and the same one answered. Orchid translated: ‘It says the way out is the way we came in.’

‘Perhaps there is a back door?’ Corien asked, raising his sword and gauche.

The shapes were crowding very close now, almost a solid sheet of impenetrable black surrounding them. Orchid spoke again and was answered.

‘What did it say?’ Antsy asked.

‘You don’t want to know,’ Orchid said, her hands falling.

‘Try that incantation thing again,’ Antsy told her.

‘That won’t work here. We really
are
trespassing.’

The scrap of elemental night gestured then, an unmistakable sign of dismissal or end of debate, and Antsy wondered whether munitions would have any effect upon them.

Suddenly a new voice rang out in the Andii tongue, loud and firm. A man stepped through the ring. He was obviously Tiste Andii with his night-black skin, but there were differences from other Andii Antsy had seen. His eyes were the same almond shape but more lifeless-looking, being black on black. His hair was dark as well, and very long. He wore it loose, hanging to his shoulders. His clothes were dark yet rich: a shirt, vest and open robes all of a velvety cloth. He was also rather heavier-set than most Andii Antsy had met.

The man faced an amazed Orchid, looked her up and down, and smiled. ‘I was meditating … saying my goodbyes if you will … when whispers reached me through the night of the True Tongue spoken by a young woman. At first I could not believe it. All were sent away. Yet here you are speaking the Noble Language. I cannot tell you how pleasing it is to me to hear it once more.’ He bowed, smiling even more broadly. ‘Forgive me, but it has been a
very
long time.’

One of the shades spoke and the man frowned. He gave a curt answer but the shape replied firmly. The man turned from Orchid, crossed his arms. He spoke again, and while his tone seemed light enough Antsy sensed the iron beneath the words. It also seemed suddenly rather cold in the chamber. Antsy edged away from the man and noted that the gems beneath his boots no longer gave off light. It was as if they were dead, or had had all the light sucked from them.

Then, raising the hair on Antsy’s neck, the entire ring of shades bowed to the man, murmuring. Orchid paled, a hand going to her throat as if to cut off what she almost blurted out.

The shades withdrew and the man turned once more to Orchid. ‘My apologies. They have their duties. One mustn’t blame them for being true to their assigned tasks.’

Antsy sheathed his long-knives. ‘Well, thanks for intervening. Do you know if there is another way out of this place? If there is, we’ll be on our way.’

It was as if he’d not spoken at all. The man continued to study Orchid, his chin pinched between his fingers. ‘What is your name, child?’

‘Orchid.’

‘Orchid? In truth? That is an Andii name. Did you know that?’

Orchid’s face darkened even further in a blush. ‘No, sir. That is, no. I did not.’

‘And what’s your name?’ Antsy asked loudly. Corien set a hand on his elbow.

The man’s unnerving black eyes slid to him. ‘You may call me Morn.’

‘Morn? Right. Well, you just point us in the right direction and we’ll leave you in peace.’

The eyes slid back to Orchid. ‘Perhaps you should remain here. You would be safe and welcome.’

If anything the girl paled even more to a sickly near-grey. ‘We must be moving on.’

‘What is it you seek?’

‘The Gap. We just want to get out of here.’

The man frowned almost as if hurt. ‘Really, child? Don’t you wish to remain? To learn more of your inheritance?’

Swaying, she barely whispered, ‘What do you mean?’