The Infernal Lands (The Aionach Saga Book 1) (16 page)

Bastille’s first instinct was to pull the door open a little further,
but she resisted, lest the hinges give her away. She heard a series of metallic
clinks, more chains dragging, and then a loud slamming thud. There was nothing
else for several moments. The far-off torch hissed and crackled. Brother Soleil
leaned against the cage door and looked on at something Bastille couldn’t see. Then
there were the beginnings of a slow rhythm, a slap and a gentle thud, followed
by the shambling of the chains.

The rhythm repeated. Again. Then twice more, quicker than the
last. There was another whimper—more like a sob this time—but it was so brief
and feeble that Bastille couldn’t tell what sort of person or thing it belonged
to. She could only surmise that, whatever was in that cage, its spirit was so
broken it had ceased to resist.

Her breath caught in her throat, coarse and ragged. The room
spun. Her skull felt like it was about split open with the worst headache she’d
had in weeks. She dropped to a crouch and closed her eyes, pressed her cheek
against the cold stone wall. Acid surged in her throat, burning her insides
like liquid fire.

Within the room, the rhythm intensified. The problem of
Sister Jeanette’s pregnancy seemed so distant now, so much less important.
Bastille wished she wasn’t alone; she wished she were one of the Most Highly
Esteemed, with a retinue of high priests behind her to storm through these
Mouth-forsaken tunnels and expose Brothers Froderic and Soleil for the heathens
they were. But she wasn’t a high priest; she had no authority to punish them,
and she was all by herself down here. What she wouldn’t give for a chance to
return to the small hours before she’d left her bedchamber, a chance to do it
all again, but with the benefit of some instinct to bring her down a different
path. Maybe the instinct would have told her to stay in her room and study for
just ten minutes longer, or stirred her emotions in such a way that she
lingered outside the sanctuary to listen to the lovely songs of the tetrarchs,
or went inside to pray to the Mouth; maybe the premonition would’ve convinced
her to put off her chores until later in the day, and she would’ve gone to her
preparation rooms instead.

Whatever cruel trick it was that had brought her here—that had
exposed her to this atrocity—it was breaking her. Her stern severity, the icy
exterior and the fervent zeal with which she sought the things of the Mouth;
the rigid discipline she held herself to—they were crumbling. Her faith in the
Mouth itself was crumbling. How could she serve an Order whose corruption ran
so deep? Where could she go now? Who could she tell? How was she to escape this
place without being noticed? The cavity below the stair wouldn’t hide her when
they returned this way, and she didn’t have the key to re-enter the basilica.

When Brother Froderic was finished, he donned his prosaics
once more. Then Brother Soleil took a turn. The light in the room had grown
scant as the torch sputtered, and Bastille could see even less than before
through the tiny crack between the door and its frame. Though her stomach still churned with
grief and worry, she took her extinguished candle in hand and waited in the
crevice for them to come back through. After a long while, no one had emerged.

She approached the door and looked through the sliver again.
The cage door was still open wide, though she saw no keys in the lock anymore.
She couldn’t see either of the two priests, though the light was dimmer now.
She waited there and listened, but she heard nothing.

She found herself wanting to open the door, but before she
made a sound, she had to be sure they were gone. She dropped to the floor and
looked through the space over the threshold. It was a bigger gap than at the
side, but she saw no feet and only the bottoms of the cages to interrupt the
flagstones. Across the room in the opposite wall, barely visible below the
dying torch, was another door. It was open.

Sister Bastille stood and brushed herself off, pulling up her
hood again. Her robes were stained with dark wet splotches from the puddles of
murky water she’d been laying in. Tucking the candle away in her robes, she
opened the door on its squealing hinges and peered into the room. No one was there.

Three cages stood along the right side of the room; two open
and one shut, all empty. All three were of the same size and fashion—great
squarish things of heavy rust-spotted iron about six feet on each side. The
closed cage was empty but for several sets of chains and manacles lining the
inside. The open cages were empty too, but they looked as though they’d been
used recently; brittle hay was piled around their edges, stained with
excrement, sodden with unevaporated urine.

A low wooden table stood to the left, stained in much the
same way as the stone slab in Bastille’s preparation chamber, though the wood
hadn’t fared as well as the stone. A smaller side table was tucked into a
nearby corner, with a leather packet of gleaming metal instruments spread out
on top. Bastille was familiar with these instruments; they were the very same
surgical tools she and Brother Soleil had used on many occasions.
They’re
doing some other type of experiment down here
, she realized.

The ensconced torch guttered in the far wall as a warm wind blew
from the passage beyond the open door. It was a rough-hewn stone cave, shaped
like a horseshoe and wide enough for several men to travel through shoulder to
shoulder. Bastille scurried to the door and tiptoed down the shallow wooden
steps to the cave’s hardpan floor. The tunnel ran in either direction, but she
didn’t need to wonder which way the priests had gone; the left tunnel was black
as pitch, but a faint glow came from the right. What she did have to think
about was whether it was worth it to follow them. It wasn’t long before she
decided there was little she stood to lose.

By the smell of the warm wind, Bastille guessed she was close
to the surface. She hugged the inside wall and held her hood up as she crept
down the curving passage, using the light ahead to guide her way. She halted
when the torches came into view and leaned out from behind a cleft in the
rock to observe.

Brothers Soleil and Froderic were leading a pair of hunched
figures down the tunnel by chains that were clapped around their necks like dog
collars. Each figure was dressed in a plain woolen poncho and bound at the
ankles in iron manacles. One had the wide hips and slender waist of a woman;
the other had a short, furry body and a long tail.
A tail
.

More than a dozen armed men stood facing the priests and
their two slaves. Some held torches, others javelins, firearms, bows, or
strange curved swords with blades as thick as a man’s arm. Bastille had seen
men like these before. They had grim faces and dark eyes; their skin was tanned
to a sable deeper than polished ironwood, and criss-crossed with puckered scars
that gave it a resemblance to stitched leather. Most of the men wore very
little, baring their chiseled chests and the gnarled symbols engraved in their
skin as if in some prideful display. What clothing they did wear was loose and
free-flowing, loincloths and billowing trousers and simple tabards of gossamer
fabric in whites and creams and ivories. Almost all had their hair set in
barbaric fashion: shorn along one side; woven into braids; tossed forward in a
sheet; blazed into mohawks; or set free in shaggy disheveled manes that hung to
their shoulders. Some accented their garb with goggles or hood-scarves. There
was a film of sand and grit covering them all.

These were nomads; there was no mistaking them. The heathens
and heretics in the city were tanned, but not to such an extent; there was too
much shade amongst the tall buildings of the city. Only the native savages who
lived out on the wastes had skin so dark. The thought of so many of them—half-naked,
rippling with sheets of muscle below bulging veins—was overwhelming, and Bastille
felt her face flush as the blood rose inside her.

“Let me see them,” said one of the savages.

The wind was strong in this part of the tunnel, and it seemed
to carry the words to Bastille across the distance.

Brother Soleil tore the ponchos away to leave the chained
figures naked and trembling. They were both so thin and sallow from
malnourishment that it looked like an effort just to stand. The furry one had
the build of an animal, but it walked upright on two legs like a human. Sister
Bastille had seen plenty of murrhods, but the sight of one was a rarity for her
these days. Wynesring had endured many nighttime raids at the hands of the verminkind.
She’d thought she was leaving all that behind her when she came to Belmond.

As she watched them standing there, a rare bout of compassion
overcame her, and she found herself wishing she had some way to liberate these
poor chained souls—even if the only way to free them was to snuff out their
lives as she had her candle. Even the already-devoured, the heretics, and the lesser
creatures of the Aionach were destined for death rather than endless suffering.
Surely any fate was better than the one these slaves were bound to. Bastille
caught herself when she realized she was returning to her habit of reciting the
scriptures in times of stress. It disgusted her to think that these were the
same scriptures that had been written by generations of Brothers and Sisters as
corrupt as Soleil and Froderic.

The savage stepped forward and scraped the tip of his javelin
along the inside of the woman’s thigh. Something dark and thick flaked off. “You
have spoiled them. Did you not think I would notice? Return my slaves to me
like this, and you will pay extra from now on.”

The savage was no taller or swarthier than the rest, but even
at a distance, Bastille could feel his ferocity. A man who carried himself this
way knew no danger except the kind he wrought himself. Above his gleaming brown
eyes, a mop of curly black hair toppled to one side, like a pillow dared to
balance on end. He wore an alabaster tabard, and his baggy knee-length knickers
heaved in the tunnel wind like plumes of white smoke. His belt and bandolier
were lined with knives, bullets, a sword, and even a small firearm.

“Come now… let’s be reasonable,” said Brother Froderic. He
started to say something else.

“I
am
reasonable,” the savage roared, “and I am doing
you a favor by visiting this forsaken slagheap again. Your trading is poor. You
choose not to offer me weapons or food, and everything else you offer, I take
from the merchants as easily as I wipe the sweat from my brow. And now I come
to find that when I lend you something of value, you return it worse for the
wear.” He gestured toward the slaves and narrowed his eyes at Brother Froderic.
“If only your walls were not so well-guarded, your gates not buried so far
within the borders of the city. The shadow of my tribe would descend on you,
and I would ravage your sacred halls and paint them with the blood of your
Cypriests. Then you would pay what I asked. Not for your perversions, but for
your lives.
Ain gueir duon singurien go calgoar ias muir
.”

The priests exchanged a glance as if they understood, but
neither spoke against him.

“Lethari,” said Brother Soleil, “we are but simple,
cloistered men. We have no great riches. It is difficult enough to find the
resources you require as it stands.”

“Then learn to have more respect for things that do not
belong to you. You have three days to feed and clean them. We leave for Sai
Calgoar after that. If you have not returned them to the same condition they were
in when I gave them to you, I will double the price next time.”

“Your prices are outrageous,” said Brother Froderic. “You
said you would bring us a new pair of slaves today. You pride yourself on being
a man of your word, don’t you? Keep your word, Lethari.”

When Lethari tilted his head, Bastille heard the bones in his
neck crack. He gave Brother Froderic a long look. Without blinking, he hoisted
the blade off his back and severed the priest’s head with a single smooth
stroke. It thumped on the hardpan, rolling to a stop where Bastille could see
the eyes looking down the tunnel at her. The murrhod’s chains rattled when
Brother Froderic’s body slumped over, spurting blood from the neck. Brother
Soleil let out a cry and scrambled backward, dropping his chain and tossing
away the woolen ponchos.

“I always keep my word,” Lethari said. “Now get out of my
sight before I keep it again.”

Bastille clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the scream
that was climbing up her throat. The gore didn’t bother her; it was the sudden
sense of danger that made her panic. Brother Soleil careened down the tunnel
past her, muttering to himself. Again he didn’t appear to have seen her, or
else he was too afraid to care. There was a trembling in Bastille’s chest as
she considered how likely it was that this Lethari and his savages would pursue
the high priest down the tunnel. But when they took the slaves by the chains
and turned back the way they had come, she let out a sigh. The light of their torches
went with them, leaving Sister Bastille in near darkness.

She waited until the last sounds faded before she lit her
candle. Brother Froderic’s body lay in an awkward heap, the head resting near
his legs. Fresh blood was still dripping, and while the ground had drunk its
fill, the stain was spreading across the wool of his prosaics. She looked down
the corridor both ways before snatching the necklace off Brother Froderic’s corpse.

She held up the symbol in the candlelight, suspended from its
simple leather thong. An iron star, caked with rust, rays of sunlight cut from
the hole near its center, another hole bored into each of its three points. The
secret key of the Esteemed bore no resemblance to any of the Order’s insignia.
It had been fashioned by those who had gone before—the architects of the
basilica. With this, she could escape the tunnels and get back inside. If she
could do so without being seen, all the better.