Taker Of Skulls (Book 5) (2 page)

Kormak followed, wondering what all this was about, and whether he was walking into a trap.

THE WALLS OF this inn were old and thick. Their room was at the far end of a dark corridor. Kormak moved cautiously, holding himself in readiness in case anyone leapt out from the shadowy alcoves or doorways.

They reached the last room at the back of the inn, and when they did so, Karnea looked around to make sure they were unobserved and then muttered something. The brief flash of heat Kormak felt from the Elder Sign on his chest confirmed the woman was using magic.

“Nothing has been disturbed,” she said. Boreas produced a key, opened the door and stepped through. Karnea followed him. Kormak went in last and made sure he stepped to one side, keeping his back to the wall as he did so.

“You are a cautious one,” said Boreas.

“It has kept me alive,” Kormak said.

Karnea’s glance passed between the two of them. She suddenly understood she was in a situation where violent death might swiftly ensue, if the wrong thing was said or done. “With your permission, Sir Kormak, Boreas will lock the door and I shall raise some wards that ensure we are not eavesdropped upon by concealed listeners... or by other means.”

Kormak studied the chamber. It was large, and furnished with rough looking wooden furniture. There was a huge four-poster bed in the centre of the room and a pile of blankets thrown on the floor next to a pack that suggested Boreas slept there. At the window was a table and chair, clearly intended to be used as a desk. There was a large wardrobe in the corner which might have concealed a couple of men. He moved over to it, opened it and found nothing but clothing and stowed packs. It looked like he had only these two to deal with whatever happened.

“Go ahead,” he said.

Karnea produced four rune-marked stones from her purse, placed them in each corner of the room, closed her eyes and muttered another invocation. The Elder Sign on Kormak’s breast felt a little warmer as the currents of magic eddied around him.

Karnea’s eyes snapped open. A look of concentration passed across her face. Boreas turned the key in the lock and dropped the bar. Kormak stood ready. If there was going to be trouble, now was when it would most likely happen.

“Good. We are secure.” Karnea said. She slumped down on the bed. Her face was flushed and she sounded a little winded. Performing magic was always draining. Kormak did not lower his guard. It might be a trick, after all.

Boreas put down his hammer, leaning it against the wall beside the window. “Feel a little more relaxed now, do we?” he asked. There was a taunting edge to his words. Kormak merely smiled coldly, not allowing himself to be goaded.

“Before we go any further tell me why we are here,” Kormak said.

“I have orders for you, under the red seal,” Karnea said. “If I may, I will produce them.”

Kormak nodded and she fumbled within the same pack from which she had produced the ward stones. Kormak held himself ready. A wizard might carry many powerful adjuncts in such a place and some of them would enable the almost instantaneous casting of magic. Karnea produced only a folded square of parchment. She moved over to hand it to Kormak. He shook his head.

“Put it on the table and then move away.” She did as she was told.

Kormak removed the amulet from beneath his tunic with his left hand, walked over and touched the paper. It did not catch fire. There was no sizzling sound of a spell being disrupted. No sensation of any magic whatsoever. He returned the amulet to its place and picked up the letter. It was sealed with wax, imprinted with the blurred outlines of an old dragon sigil. There was a slight scratch on the dragon’s breast. It was not impressive. It was not meant to be. It looked authentic.

Kormak opened the letter. In it was a message in a variant of the Old Tongue understood by very few these days. It said:
Listen to what Lady Karnea has to say, inspect the object she bears and then do all within your power to ensure her quest’s success. Keep her alive at the cost of your life if need be.
He recognised the hand-writing of Grandmaster Darius.

Kormak folded the letter, tore it to shreds and threw it into the fire. He stirred the pieces with the poker, until he saw they were all consumed. His jaw tightened. It was all very well for Darius to talk about laying down his life if need be. He would not be the one doing the dying.

“It seems I am to be your bodyguard,” he said. He could not keep the edge of anger from showing in his voice.

Karnea’s eyes widened and she took a step back. “Is that such a terrible thing?”

“I am a Guardian of the Order of the Dawn,” Kormak said. “It is my task to uphold the Law, not watch over sorcerers.”

“Not all sorcerers serve the Shadow.”

“In my experience those who don’t usually serve themselves.”

Her cheeks flushed and her eyes narrowed. She suddenly looked a lot more menacing. “Perhaps you should hear me out before you judge,” she said.

“Show me this thing that the Grandmaster writes of,” Kormak said. Karnea rolled up her sleeves. A metal band glittered on her forearm. It hung there loosely, as if it had been made for a larger arm and poorly adjusted to her more slender limb.

She stepped closer and held it up so he could see it. Inset in the metal was a rune. It shimmered like quicksilver.

“Notice anything unusual about it?” Karnea asked.

“It’s dwarf work, of an odd sort.”

“Notice anything else?” Her tone was that of a teacher disappointed in a pupil being slow of uptake. It was a tone Kormak had heard quite often during his training on Mount Aethelas, when Karnea had sometimes lectured there.

“There is something about the rune. It is similar to those on my blade.”

She let out a long sigh. “It is. Have you ever seen its like before?”

He thought for a moment. “No.”

She smiled at that. The dim pupil was showing some sign of intelligence after all.

“And you won’t have. It is one of the Lost Runes.”

“What?”

“Of the one hundred and forty four great runes, only sixty-three are currently recorded.”

“Then how do you know this is one of the Lost?”

She walked over to the fire, thrust her hand into it, picked up a red hot coal. She walked over to where he stood and opened her fingers. Kormak could feel the heat radiating from the coal. Her fingers were not burned though. She showed no sign of discomfort. She tossed the coal back into the fireplace and then touched his cheek with her hand. It felt cool. Her touch was curiously intimate.

She stepped back. She opened her hands and spoke a word. A runic symbol the same as the one on her arm appeared between her fingers, written in lines of fire that slowly faded.

“This is Mankh, the Rune of Firebinding. It absorbs heat and then unleashes it at the user’s command. It is a tool, a protection and a weapon. It is referred to in ancient tales but nowhere have we found a copy. Until now.”

“How did you come by it?”

“It showed up nine months ago, carried to my home by a trader who had heard of my interest in dwarven relics and felt he would get a good price.”

“Did he?”

“Not as much as he deserved. This is a treasure without price to students of the Khazduri.”

“And that’s why we are here?”

“I questioned the merchant to find out where the rune originated. The trail led here.”

“You believe it came from Khazduroth?”

“He bought it from a prospector here in Varigston who found it in the deeps below Khazduroth. He told me the rune had been found by looters amid the remains of a dwarvish forge.”

“Where is this merchant now?”

“On his way back to Northrock, having been told that he will get the same price if he brought me more.”

“You told him what it was, of course?”

She pursed her lips, perhaps resenting the fact that he was mocking her. “Of course not.”

“You did not want him suspecting the true value of what he had.”

“It would be impossible to tell him the true value. Such runes have powerful magical properties—as I have just demonstrated.”

“And you feel there might be more like it.”

“Where one Lost Rune is found, there might be more. Khazduroth was only rediscovered just over four summers ago. Who knows what’s down there?”

“You want to find out.”

“What Khazduri scholar would not? But that was not all. Do you recognise the metal the rune is inlaid with?”

Kormak shook his head.

“It is an alloy of netherium.” Kormak found he was holding his breath. Netherium was the metal the dwarves had taken in payment for the forging of blades like the one Kormak carried.

“That cannot be.”

“I assure you it is.”

“The Order scoured the world for netherium over a thousand years ago. It found none. The dwarves refused to make any more blades because the Order could not pay them.”

Karnea sighed and once more he felt like a slow student. “No. They made no more blades because they could not. Netherium and its alloys are an integral component of the creation of such weapons.”

Kormak understood now why the Order of the Dawn had sent him. No such blades had been forged in a thousand years. The dwarves could not even repair some of the ones that were damaged. The merchant had indeed no idea of the treasure he had sold, but then how could he? Very few had encountered the metal in the last millennium.

“You told the Grandmaster this?” Kormak said.

“I visited Mount Aethelas before I came here. I spoke with Darius.”

Kormak remembered gossip from when he had been an initiate, that Karnea and the Grandmaster had been lovers back then. Of course that was before Darius had risen to the heights of power he now occupied.

“And he put me at your disposal,” Kormak said. He was unable to keep the sourness from his voice. He had been pulled from protecting human beings from the powers of Shadow to aid this woman in her quest. Despite his resentment excitement grew within him. If they could find what she was looking for…

“It was not quite that way,” she said. “If I could have done this without telling anyone, I would have. If word gets out, there are those who would kill to prevent such knowledge being rediscovered.”

The Old Ones certainly would. And there were those who would wish to keep such lore as the Rune of Firebinding to themselves if they knew it existed. It would grant them a tremendous amount of power. Indeed the Order itself would probably take steps to secure such potent secrets. Perhaps that was why he was really here.

“So why can’t you do this yourself?”

“Because there are strange monsters lurking in the depths of Khazduroth.”

“You are a sorcerer, and by all accounts a powerful one, could you not guard yourself?”

“I am a scholar not a war wizard.”

“So you need the aid of a man with a dwarf-forged blade.”

“Darius thought it would be better to direct a single Guardian here in secret rather than send a force.”

“He did not want anyone to realise the importance of your quest, you mean.”

“Your grasp of the situation is sound.”

“What have you done so far?”

“We have been awaiting your presence before proceeding with inquiries,” she said.

“You have gold?” Kormak said.

She nodded. “Solari disks and letters of credit drawn on the Oldberg Bank in Vermstadt.”

“I doubt anybody would be too interested in taking those here,” Kormak said.

She gave him a sharp smile. “You might be surprised. A number of reputable merchants have representatives here. A surprisingly large amount of money passes through this place.”

“The scavengers?” Kormak said.

“I believe the preferred term is prospectors,” Karnea said.

“They are picking the bones of a dwarf city,” Kormak said.

“It is better than letting all the treasures never see the light of day,” she said. She shrugged. “If you want the truth I am pleased to join their ranks. I have long wanted to see a Khazduri city.”

Kormak wondered if the woman was entirely sane. The ruins of Khazduroth were a famously dangerous place, full of ancient traps, crumbling stonework, hideous monsters, and prospectors who would cheerfully slit their own mother’s throats at the prospect of profit. Since the gates of the city had been rediscovered five years ago countless people had died there. She did not seem to find the idea of going there at all intimidating.

“Would it not be better to send someone else to find what you seek?”

She looked suddenly shifty. “It’s not that I don’t trust you or Boreas, Sir Kormak, far from it. But I will know what I am looking for when I see it. It would take me years to explain all the little details to you and still you might make mistakes. No, I think it best that I lead this expedition in person.”

Kormak weighed her words, hearing the evasiveness in them. It might be as she said. It might be that, like many another sorcerer, she had no wish to share her secrets. Or it might just be that she was excited by the prospect of visiting Khazduroth and did not want to pass up the opportunity.

“Anyway, now that you are here, we should be about our business,” Karnea said. “I must confess I am quite excited by what we might uncover. We’ll need to find tools and supplies, and maybe porters and a few guards as well. A guide from among the prospectors is necessary, someone who knows their way around the Underhalls.”

“That’s a lot of loose lips.”

“I doubt any of them will realise what we are after,” Karnea said. “They will think we are just treasure hunters like themselves.”

Kormak doubted that. Karnea seemed as unlikely a tomb robber as he could imagine. At best people might assume she was a rich dilettante looking for thrills. There seemed no reason to tell her this though.

“Then let’s make a start,” Kormak said. “We’d best find the guides first. They can tell us what we’ll need by way of supplies.”

THAT EVENING THEY spent long hours trawling through ever sleazier taverns, climbing ever higher on the ridges above the town and closer to the outskirts. They showed Karnea’s rune to people, making light of its worth yet letting them know they would be interested in finding more like it.