Eight Will Fall, page 18
“How heartening,” said Elf.
“At least we have a path forward.” Jacque adjusted the sheath at her waist. The soldier had yet to misplace a piece of her armor, unlike the rest of them.
“I’ll lead.” Larkin took the torch from Tamsyn and walked ahead. She needed a distraction. No, not a distraction. She needed assurance. She could still smell Bianca’s blood on her clothes.
“Tamsyn,” Larkin called out, “tell us about the disciples. If it’s true that we’re their descendants, then one of us now has Bianca’s magic.”
“We could always test it,” said Casseem. “Cut someone open and have everyone try to heal them.”
“That tops the list of your stupid ideas,” Jacque replied. “No one is getting cut open.”
Amid the bickering, Larkin sensed Tamsyn’s surprise at her request, followed by pride. But then Tamsyn said something that she wasn’t expecting.
“Elf can name them.”
Larkin paused when Elf said nothing in response, turning around. She spotted Elf’s shadow at the very back of the group, sensing the girl’s discomfort.
“Are you sure you want me to do that?” Elf asked quietly.
“You know the stories well enough,” said Tamsyn.
“All right.” Elf glided deeper into the passage as she thought. “You already know Otheil Kyran and Bianca Elesandre, mender of flesh and bone. Thaos Leander and Daria Monarc were both alchemists, Monarc’s interest being in conjuring weaponry for those without magic, and Leander’s in thwarting luminite. Rahele Ekko … she actually advised Ilona herself before the division of Empaths and the dynasty.”
“Really?” asked Larkin. She couldn’t imagine an Empath willingly working for Ilona, and especially not one of Kyran’s disciples.
“Elf’s actually right with this one,” said Tamsyn. “Ilona said she wanted Ekko to educate her on Empath culture, but historians believe that it was really to cull secrets from her.”
“Mitisan Ralic, the giver…,” Elf continued.
“No,” Tamsyn corrected sharply. “He was a charlatan.”
“I told you, I like my version better.” Elf’s tone was honey sweet. “And finally, Brendis Pellager. He, well—”
“Pellager liked to kill people,” Tamsyn said quickly. “A corpse collector. Some say he was even more diabolical than Kyran, but less intelligent.”
Elf agreed. “Even in my fables, Pellager was the most awful of them all.”
“So can we assume that Devon was Pellager’s,” Casseem concluded. “They both were nasty pieces of work.”
The group quieted. “Don’t speak ill of the dead,” Jacque murmured.
“Let’s focus on evidence and what we know,” said Tamsyn. “Larkin…”
Larkin’s heart sped in her chest. Did Tamsyn also see her connection to Bianca?
“I’m almost certain you are Leander’s.”
Larkin’s stomach fell heavy with disappointment.
“Who did you think you came from?” Casseem asked her with a smirk.
“Why do you think she’s Thaos’s?” asked Elf, intrigued.
“Because of her luminite resistance,” Tamsyn stated.
Larkin halted in her tracks, stunned, and spun around.
“Was that supposed to be a secret?” Tamsyn asked dubiously. “You demonstrated your ability for us. It was the very first thing you did when we entered the Reach.”
Larkin opened her mouth, but nothing came out. No shock emitted from Amias. Did he already know?
“My family is resistant.” Larkin turned and continued to walk. “My mother, specifically. I’ve been that way my whole life.”
Casseem scoffed. “You didn’t think to tell us this sooner?”
“What difference would it have made?” Anger built within her again. Let him feel it burn, she thought.
“So Larkin is Leander’s, which means Jacque is Monarc’s,” Tamsyn declared.
“I don’t make weapons,” said Jacque.
“She was good at wielding them too.”
“If I’m Monarc’s, then Casseem must be Ralic’s,” said Jacque. “We can all see the similarities.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” said Casseem.
Elf piped up. “And me? I don’t really feel like I fit with any of them.”
“This is stupid.” Larkin kicked a rock down the channel. “We can’t uncover our ancestors by mulling over how we act. It’s our abilities, not personality traits.”
Amias’s hand grazed hers, and she sensed the brush of high grass and the warmth of the sun. His tranquility. But she pulled away. He wasn’t making anything better. Amias was simply another layer of emotions she had to sift through, a bright reminder of calm on top of her own frustration.
She sensed heat in her abdomen, wondering if he was frustrated with her. But that didn’t seem like Amias. The heat intensified as if coals smoldered inside her, and she pressed a hand to her stomach, discomforted.
Larkin halted. “Tell me you feel it, too.”
“The rage,” Amias announced with dread.
Kyran was here.
Larkin stepped forward, blinking through her haze. Her skin buzzed, her pulse quickened. Show yourself, you coward.
Larkin lifted her torch, surprised when it shone on unearthed roots.
“Trees? How is that possible? We’re too deep underground,” Jacque hurried to inspect the roots, and Larkin lunged forward, catching the soldier by the buckle of her cuirass.
Not trees.
“Careful,” Larkin breathed, releasing Jacque and creeping deeper. The tendrils swelled and threaded together. Light spilled along glistening crimson. Spiked bones punched through the webbed veins, dripping with blood.
Casseem walked past Larkin. “What in Kyran’s bloody name is that?”
They weren’t roots. They were sinews.
A current of rot wafted around her, and Larkin clapped a hand over her nose and mouth. Sweat prickled the back of her neck as she drowned beneath the sludge of her companions’ disgust.
As if Kyran knew she wasn’t paying enough attention to him, the rage intensified. The coals inside Larkin caught fire.
Elf plucked the torch from her, and Larkin gripped her stomach with her free hands, almost buckling over.
“Careful, Elf. He’s here,” Larkin cried. Her eyes darted around. Where are you?
Elf ignored her, dancing along the edge of the web and dipping the torch toward a thread of tendrils, the light catching on a glittering mass of eyes.
A mosaic—a patchwork of thousands of bodies. Bits of bone, appendages, entire mangled corpses. Eyes glinted off the light, hundreds adorning the corpses like gemstones, hands and arms and legs.
“What is it? Tamsyn!” Jacque drew her sword.
“I don’t…” The scholar choked, and retched.
“It burns,” Amias gasped.
Larkin reached out toward him, clawing the air when Amias didn’t grab on. His attention was caught on the thatched grate of rib cages stretching along the ceiling, jaw slack in horror.
Larkin.
The hairs along her spine stood on end. She whirled to the right, and saw a corpse sunken into the rock. It had no legs, no ribs, its spine a twisted, gore-laced tail. One hand dangled from a limp wrist, pointing at her.
LARKIN.
The corpse’s mouth hung open, its eyes still in its skull, bright and wet and glistening.
I can show you your mother. The corpse’s wrist twitched. She is waiting for your father to come home. Thickening the stew with flour. Don’t you want to see her?
Her will crushed like parchment in a fist. “Yes.”
The corpse stretched a finger toward her, cartilage popping.
As Larkin reached out to touch it, someone grabbed her shoulder.
“Don’t,” Casseem warned.
He was on the ground before Larkin knew what had happened, her hand screaming in pain. Casseem sat up, shocked, clutching his face where she’d hit him.
Jacque dragged her backward. “What in Ilona’s name is wrong with you? And why in all hells were you about to touch that thing?” Amias helped Casseem to his feet. He gaped at Larkin, appalled.
“Don’t touch me.”
Larkin shook Jacque off and hurried toward the silhouette of Elf ahead of her. Her head swam, the voice of the corpse echoing inside her.
She was going mad.
“We can’t leave!” cried Tamsyn. “We need to understand what this is.”
Larkin approached Elf, who had halted. A bloody mass unfurled like a spider’s web and barricaded the pathway.
“It’s so angry.” Elf wasn’t so much horrified as she was enthralled. Gripping a femur bone of a rotting skeleton, she twisted until it popped from the cartilage. Then she yanked it free, holding the bone like a sword. Larkin’s stomach lurched, but Elf just calmly held her hand up.
She clenched her fist.
Veins and muscles seethed and dripped away, the brittle bone beneath snapping. Larkin cowered as it fell in chunks, narrowly dodging the falling masses.
When the rumbling stopped, Larkin peered out from under her arms.
Elf wiped a bloody chunk from her forehead, looking at Larkin expectantly. “You going to help, or what?”
TWENTY-THREE
A passage lay hidden behind Elf’s destruction, the path beyond untouched by the lace of the dead. Light glimmered at its end.
Casseem shoved a protesting Tamsyn forward. “Just because you find the aroma of corpses refreshing, doesn’t mean the rest of us do.”
“But the clues to Kyran—”
“We saw everything there was to see, Tamsyn.” Larkin brushed past Casseem to take the lead, not wanting to spend another moment with the bodies.
I can show you your mother. The corpse hadn’t spoken to her. Kyran had. Or she was losing her mind.
Larkin shook her head back and forth, clearing it. Far in front of them, she heard the rumble of water. It wasn’t possible that they’d already made it to the river. According to Tamsyn, they had a ten-mile hike before reaching the bank.
Light grew as their tunnel fanned into the wide expanse of a glowing forest. The trees were strange and polyped, branches covered with new growth that gleamed a soft pink and blue. Their light softly illuminated jets of water spouting from crevices in the walls.
Someone touched Larkin’s shoulder. She tensed, thinking it was Casseem.
She turned to find Amias, his attention caught above, wonder flourishing. She sensed it bloom in her heart, fortifying every muscle inside her. A smile crept over his lips, and she followed his gaze upward.
The trees illuminated the dome ceiling and a menagerie of ancient sea creatures frozen in stone. At least, Larkin thought they were from the sea. She’d overheard fishermen’s tales of ocean monsters enough times, tales that miners had probably picked up from sailors at the docks. Docks Larkin had never seen.
Above her was a patchwork fleet of fins and flippers and barnacled bellies, barred, bony mouths agape and hungry. Ruffled tentacles coiled behind pillowy masses. The cavern smelled like the fish carts in the market square. She held her hand out, mist from the jets collecting on her skin, and then licked her palm. Salt.
“We’re beneath the ocean,” Tamsyn said as he emerged from the tunnel opening.
“I’ve never been to the ocean,” Larkin whispered.
The jets were so loud, she almost didn’t hear Amias.
“It’s beautiful. Someday, I’ll take you there.”
She wondered when he’d seen it himself. The surreal beauty made her ache. She wanted to be above, in the water and the sun.
“How many people have seen something like this before, do you think?” Tamsyn asked, mesmerized.
Elf pointed. “At least two others.”
At the cusp of a shadow, Larkin spotted a pair of corpses propped against a tree and shuddered. She took the torch from Elf and walked toward them, and as she neared, she smelled the rot. They couldn’t have been dead for long. Their flesh was shriveled but hadn’t peeled from the bone. Their eyes were missing, and she knew they’d been plucked and placed within the amalgamation back down the path. Just like Devon’s. And Brielle’s. And those of the villagers. Gods.
“Their armor,” Jacque said, stricken. “These are our soldiers. They made it this far!”
Larkin paused in surprise at the sight of the seal of Demura on armor similarly plated to her own. That couldn’t be. Bianca had said that she hadn’t seen any soldiers pass through her village. Was it possible that they found another way down through the labyrinth?
Something snapped beneath her foot.
“Watch out!” Elf screamed.
Larkin looked up to see a rope holding a large boulder give way. The rock tumbled toward her. Her heart lurched in panic before Elf yanked Larkin back and punched her hand into the air as the boulder loomed over them.
The rock exploded. Larkin ducked to avoid the shards. She could hear the others rushing forward, but by that time there was nothing but rubble and dust.
“Booby trap,” Elf concluded.
Jacque sheathed her sword. “That was incredible.”
“Where did you learn that?” Casseem studied the rubble. “You’ve been holding back.”
“No one blinked an eye when you caused a cave-in.” Elf crossed her arms, defensive.
Larkin peered into the shadows. “The soldiers knew about the monsters, then. They were trying to protect themselves.” She didn’t want to think of how many of their own they’d witnessed torn apart before their own demise.
“Over here!” Tamsyn cried. Halfway across the misty cavern, he stood in front of a recess lit with lichen. Larkin joined him, followed by the rest of the party, and peered into the opening.
The hollow was filled with bones and rotting fish carcasses, and also familiar items—swords and maces, bedrolls, scraps of Demuran armor. Jacque rummaged through the blades while the others dug in the knapsacks that were lined along the far wall. There was a healthy supply of oil, and new flint. They stuffed their pockets with the useful treasures, and Tamsyn exclaimed in surprise, holding up a thin, leather-bound book.
A journal.
* * *
“Camp twenty-nine. The river is swift and unchanging. We argue constantly about the current we aren’t taking advantage of, though none of us can figure out a way to make a raft. My own feet are bloody and raw and every step is agony.”
“They made it to the river.” Jacque ran her fingers through her ponytail compulsively. “But how is that possible?”
They had quickly cleared out the recess and huddled together. Their fire was smoldering, the air too damp for a proper flame, and no one had the energy to liven it.
“I don’t know.” Tamsyn flipped through the book. “The next several pages are too waterlogged to read. There’s mention of soldiers disappearing: at camps, sleeping, and while treading down the river. The journal writer gets more frantic, the entries shorter…” He turned another page and began reading again.
“The channel has widened to a reservoir, and we have stumbled upon what I can only describe as a channel made from the insides of a carcass.”
Larkin recalled the language on their new map. “The Passage of the Damned.”
Tamsyn continued.
“The walls are constructed of the dead … woven bone and flesh…”
The dread of the party permeated Larkin as the soldier’s tale unfolded before them. She had thought they’d already made it deep into the bowels of this nightmare. They’d hardly begun.
Tamsyn flipped a page.
“We will not survive this.”
Another page.
“… a terrible mistake…”
And another, and another.
“Beasts live within this place. They hunt us as though their only wish is to drive us to madness. We cannot sleep. If we sleep, they will come to feed. Our quartermaster has been swallowed by insanity, feeding his own flesh to the monsters.”
Tamsyn’s fingers trembled as he flipped through the remaining pages. “There’s one last entry.”
“Read it,” said Jacque, although her voice held a quaver.
Larkin pressed a hand to her chest, ordering her heart to quiet. Whatever the final entry relayed would reveal what they had to overcome. Being frightened was a luxury she couldn’t afford, especially when the party could sense it.
She needed to be brave for them. For Garran.
Tamsyn swallowed, flipped the page, and began to read.
“Our quartermaster’s wounds have sprouted new limbs. Hands grow from his chest. He tried to slit his own neck to kill himself, but the wound simply transformed into another mouth. I don’t know if I will die, but I will not leave this place as myself. My only hope is that the battalions who follow us do not take this path, or there is no hope for us at all.”
Tamsyn shut the book.
“No hope for us at all,” repeated Larkin, amazed. “They were right in Kyran’s lair!”
The scholar clutched the book in his hands, his eyes glazed. He said nothing, though his terror spoke more than words could.
“Tamsyn.” Larkin waited until the scholar looked at her. “They had swords. We have magic.”
“Bianca had magic too, Larkin.” Casseem picked at his thumb, staring at the crevice of their small cavern. “What happened to them?”
“The same thing that happened to Brielle.” Amias bowed his head, and Larkin sensed the poisoned weight of his guilt.
Brielle. Larkin wrapped her arms around her body, pieces of their labyrinth journey clicking into place. Kyran had been torturing Brielle right in front of them. “Something was destroying parts of her, something she couldn’t see, driving her to insanity.”
“But what happened to these soldiers wasn’t just destruction magic,” Amias said slowly as he furrowed his brow in thought.
“The mouth,” said Larkin. The quartermaster couldn’t stop the torture, so he tried to kill himself, but his tormenter had refused him even that.
“We know what happened to them. What might happen to us.” Elf bit her lip, her fingers fidgeting at her sides. “So what do we do?”
