The Fifth Vertex (The Sigilord Chronicles) (11 page)

Cailix ogled the activity in disbelief. She was accustomed to people who spent most of their lives indoors, but that was just to escape the cold. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined an entire underground city of strange little blacksmiths and machine-makers. She almost smiled before she caught herself. If she let Anderis see something that pleased her, he could use it against her.

When the ride was over, they climbed out of the bucket and up a final set of stairs, stepping into the foreman's office that was, like everything else around them, clad in shiny metal. Unlike the foundry floor, the foreman's office had glass windows and soft chairs and even a desk made of wood, the only once-living thing Cailix had seen since arriving.

"The blood witch has brought a guest," said the foreman, a man who stood just a hair taller than their guide. He didn't wear the goggles she had seen all the others wearing. His eyes were a brilliant gold color and even seemed to glow a little bit. "The foreman was not expecting a guest."

"She stays," Anderis said, his tone firm.
 

It felt odd, hearing someone actually insist that she stay. Even the monks never seemed to care one way or the other if she was around, except for when the rooms got cold or the coffee ran out.
 

"Business, then," said the foreman, sitting down at his desk and pouring himself a drink of something thick and black.

Anderis straightened his robe, its bright white color standing out like a beacon in the dark pit below the mountain. He shot a quick glance at Cailix and nodded. He wanted her to pay attention. He seemed to enjoy having someone to whom he could impart all of his little lessons. He had been giving her lectures for the two weeks it had taken them to get from Naredis to wherever it was they were now.

Another weakness
, she thought.
He likes being the smartest, most powerful person in the room
.
That should make it easier to kill him
.

"The briene have produced all of the equipment the blood witch has ordered except five buzzwings. The buzzwings will be ready in two days."

"And the manpower?" Anderis asked.

"That too. All will be ready in two days."

"And in position within striking distance of Waldron? We must attack in two days."

The foreman nodded. "All will be in place, so long as the blood witch has held up the blood witch's part of the agreement."

"I have. You will have everything you asked for in two days. I will hand it to you personally just before I give the order to attack."

"The foreman has a question." The man sipped his thick, black brew. Whatever it was, it smelled amazing, and Cailix was suddenly very thirsty.

"I have time for one and then we must be going," Anderis said.
 

He treats these people as if their only value is what they can do for him
, Cailix thought, studying the briene foreman and his funny goggles, aromatic drink, and strange grammar.
Another weakness
.
 

"The foreman has placed scouts all around and below Waldron. They do not move to attack. There are no signs of excavation. They make no attempts to steal the briene's foundries and mines. This is not as the blood witch described."

Anderis sighed, then bent over the foreman's desk, hands clenching the edge tightly enough to scrape the finish.
 

"You stick to what you do best, building things and taking orders, and we will do what we do best. We have sources inside Waldron to confirm their plans. They
will
destroy you if you do not destroy them first."

"But there is no proof—" insisted the foreman.

"Need I remind you that were it not for the gifts and knowledge we have shared with you, your people would have starved to death last year during the drought. You
owe us
."

"The briene are indeed indebted to the blood witches, but—" the foreman said, unsettled, putting his cup down and pacing behind his desk.

"But nothing. That is the end of this conversation. You will proceed with the plans or we take back all that we have given. Then you can sit back and watch as what little remains of your people wither and die like cut vines in the sun."

A long, tense silence passed between the two as the foreman struggled with his conscience and Anderis fought to resist the urge to kill a pest.

Finally the foreman dropped heavily back into his chair and said, "The blood witch did not need to come all the way down to the Myddenhold to ask the foreman for a status update. All is and will be as the blood witch requested."

"Show me the device," Anderis said.

"The device is not ready yet," said the foreman, his tone suddenly shaky, his eyes wide.

Anderis wheeled on him. "I did not ask if it was ready. Show it to me now."

The foreman stood and walked to the wide panel of glass, through which he could supervise the operations of the entire city. Cailix didn't know what they were building, but they were building a lot of it, and fast.

He pointed. "Up there."

Anderis walked to the window, Cailix following, and they both looked up through the glass.

Suspended from a dozen massive black chains, a shiny golden ball hung just below the chamber ceiling. Hundreds of briene worked busily around it, poking it with their firesticks. Thick rods of varying length jutted out from nearly every open space on the surface of the sphere.

"The foreman does not understand this."

"The foreman doesn't have to," Anderis said, wincing as he involuntarily lapsed into the briene speech pattern. "You built it to my specifications?"

The foreman nodded, then poured himself some more of his black brew and returned to the window. "It will do as the blood witch asks, but the catalyst required to activate it…even the briene cannot generate this much power."

"You let me worry about the catalyst," Anderis said.

"The blood witch uses blood for catalyst. This will take a lot of blood. If the device is activated without the right catalyst, it will not reach full power."

"Understood," Anderis said, turning away from the glass.
 

"Is there anything else?"

"I will need the services of a few more of your men, for some labor above ground."

"This was not part of the arrangement. The blood witch takesthe foreman's forgemasters for the blood witch's foundry, making the foreman draw extra shifts. The blood witch takes too many."

Anderis bent over the little man. "I decide what is too many. Since you need men to make your deadlines, I will settle for one worker."

He shot Cailix a meaningful look. She didn't know what sort of meaning she was supposed to read into that look, but it definitely seemed important. Who was this new protector of hers, really? she wondered.

Anderis was the outsider, the only one like him for miles, surrounded by a city of people who could turn on him in a moment, and yet he walked among them as though he owned the place. Maybe this was another lesson about power and respect, or maybe just power.

Do they really respect Anderis, though?
Cailix thought.
Or is it just fear? Is there a difference?

The foreman raised his hands. "All right. The foreman will send a worker to the upworld gate to meet the blood witch, but when this campaign is over, the foreman wants the foreman's forgemasters back."

"Thank you, foreman. You will be compensated."

"The foreman just wants the blood witch to stop taking the workers. Or maybe just to never come back."

"I would like nothing more than to never see this dirty hole again, foreman," Anderis said, waving for Cailix to follow him.

They left in silence, weaving their way back through the foundry and up the seemingly infinite number of stairs and ladders until finally reaching the steel door that marked the edge of Myddenhold.

For a city, it seemed to be missing a lot of city-like things that Cailix would have expected to see. There were no inns, no houses that she could see, no schools, not even any kind of fancy building to hold the nobles or the lawmakers. For that matter, she hadn't seen any children either. Anderis was silent, staring up the cave shaft toward the daylight as they waited. A few minutes later a briene emerged and closed the upworld door behind him.

"The foreman has sent the worker to assist the blood witch," said the briene, giving a little bow.

"Dig a hole." Anderis pointed to the soft dirt ground.

The worker shrugged, then gave them each a questioning look before dropping to his knees, pulling two trowels from specially made holsters on his belt and digging. Cailix was used to seeing men with sword sheathes on their belt, but the briene wore tools and gadgets with just as much pride.

"Stand next to it," Anderis said as the worker finished, having produced a hole about two hands deep and just as wide.

The briene nodded and stood next to the hole. Anderis shrugged in his robe, thrusting his hands forward. A little dagger appeared in his hand and, with no hesitation, he sliced open the worker's throat.

He held the gurgling worker over the hole until his heart stopped pumping blood out through the wound in his neck. It seemed to take forever, and Cailix marveled at the sheer amount of blood that came out of the little man's body. The hole was now filled with dark red briene blood.

Anderis tossed the body aside like so much refuse and bent down in front of the blood pool.

"This, Aerlissa, is what power looks like. Never forget this lesson: The lives of those who do not have power belong to those who do, to do with as they see fit."

Cailix nodded in silence, horrified and in awe at the same time. There was so much blood, and that poor little man might have had a family, though she couldn't remember seeing anything that passed for family in the depths below. She could smell the blood; the smell of a cold anvil in a smithy. Even though she knew where it came from, she found the odor electrifying and breathed it in deeply as she stepped closer to the pool.

"So the workers the foreman sends, they're not actually working for you," said Cailix. She knew the answer, but wanted to know how Anderis would respond.

"Oh they're working for me, all right," Anderis said with a smile, an expression that looked alien compared to his natural state of concentration or anger. He dipped a finger into the pool and swirled it around, creating a spinning current. The faster it swirled the more the slough of blood changed color, from deep to light red to almost the color of clear water. "Just not the way the foreman thinks."

"And Waldron isn't really planning on invading their foundry, to steal their resources?"

Anderis chuckled. "Of course not. That is your next lesson: Find what motivates people and use that to exploit them. The briene won't fight for just any cause, but they will fight to defend their homes and their precious mines."

She definitely knew that lesson, and she intended to use it against Anderis as soon as she was able.

Cailix bent, gazing through the now-transparent blood. On the bottom of the pool she could see the ceiling of a white marble chamber, suffocated by ivy and hanging candles. A moment later a face appeared, an ancient face, all wrinkles and pockmarks and black mustache. The face appeared to be leaning over something, as though it were looking down the same way Cailix and Anderis were looking down. The effect made her a little dizzy.

"You have news," the face said. The sound didn't quite match up with the lips, and the water rippled as if vibrating with the speaker's words.

"I do, my Lord," Anderis said, bowing to the image in the undulating puddle.

The being's dark eyes focused on Cailix. "I see you have brought your pet."

Cailix bit her tongue, holding back a torrent of insults she had ready for pockmark man.

"The briene will be ready in two days. The siege will proceed as planned."

"And the map?" asked pockmark.

"It was warded, but I used a blood veil and captured the inverse of the map."

"A blood veil? Where did you get enough blood?"

"I had to take it from Mirol. A loss to be sure, but the map needed to be preserved," Anderis answered. Cailix thought she could detect a faint crack in his voice.
 

He's afraid of the pockmark man,
Cailix noted to herself.

"There was no other suitable source?" the face in the pool asked, seemingly unaffected by discussing the murder of their cohort.

Anderis gave Cailix a look, then gazed back into the pool. "No."

"Because it was for the Woan Map, I will let you live, this time. Disappoint me again, however, and I will skin you alive and let all of your blood go to waste. Am I understood?"

"Yes, my Lord."

For all of Anderis's claims of power and control, Cailix watched him cowed by his superior. If she was going to have power, she wanted the power of the man on the other side of the pool, the one pulling all the puppet strings.

"What of our operation in Kest?" Anderis asked.

"There were some complications, and we encountered far more resistance than we ever thought possible, but all is well," said the older man.

"So the vertex has been destroyed?"

"Yes, the first ward is broken."

Anderis exhaled a sigh of relief. "This is heartening news."

"I am trusting you to deal with the others. Do not fail me."

"I will not fail, my Lord." Anderis stood as the pool grew opaque and then returned to its original color, the face of his superior replaced by still, cold blood.

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