Page 18 of Fateless

He gave a very flashy bow, grinning brightly as he straightened. “You won’t regret it,” he promised. “You have Halek the Fatechaser with you today, and fortune smiles on me more than most. So shall we go and see what Fate has in store for us, Lady...?”

Despite myself, I felt a smile tug at my lips, but I quickly shut it down. Halek the Fatechaser wouldn’t be around long enough for me to get to know him. “I’m no lady,” I told him. “But you can call me Sparrow.”

“Sparrow,” he repeated, and gave a single nod. “It is an honorand a pleasure,” he said seriously. “Shall we go, then? I will follow you, until Fate dictates otherwise.”

“Sure,” I said, turning away. “Just try to keep up.”

I didn’t tell him that he was probably going to die down here.

Seven

As luck—or Fate—would have it, we found the door not long after.

Halek was never completely silent. Even when he was just following me through the tunnels, he sang softly or hummed under his breath. He did have a very nice singing voice, I noticed, but I was uneasy at how much attention we could be drawing to ourselves. Maybe in the sewers, all we would’ve attracted were curious rats, but down in the undercity, anything that took notice of us would probably be very dangerous.

“Tell me about yourself, Sparrow,” he urged after a few minutes of walking. “What do you do? Have you lived here long?”

I eyed him warily. “Why do you want to know?”

“Just curious.” He shrugged with that disarming smile. “I meet so many interesting people on my travels. I like to get to know them a bit before moving on.”

“I’ve never left Kovass,” I said, deliberately ignoring the other question. “I was born in the city, and I’ve lived here my whole life.”

“Oh,” Halek said. His tone was faintly sympathetic. “No desire to go anywhere else? See what other places are out there? See what lies beyond the Dust Sea and the Endless Dunes and the Broken Plateau?”

I hesitated. Many times, I’d imagined myself hopping aboard one of the sand striders and traveling across the Dust Sea to the lands beyond. I thought of the small box of treasures in my room, holding my dreams of someday getting out of the Thieves Guild. But I knew they were just fleeting daydreams. There was no way I could leave Kovass. I belonged to the guild, but more than that, I was a simple thief. That was my fate, my place in the Weave. I didn’t know how to be anything other than what I was.

But it was too hard to explain all this to Halek, so I just shrugged and said, “Not really.”

“Pity.” Halek didn’t elaborate. “Well...” He shrugged. “If you ever get the desire to leave the city and see the world, I know of several places that shouldn’t be missed.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I muttered, then came to a dead stop in the middle of the passage. Across the channel of dark, sluggish water, a narrow door was set into the stones. The faded image of a skull wearing a pointed crown had been painted on the wood.

You’ll know the door when you see it, the instructions had said. This had to be it.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Halek commented, observing the door with mild curiosity. “If I were by myself, that would definitely be a door that begged exploring.”

“Lucky for you,” I said, moving toward the edge of the walk, “that’s exactly where we’re going.”

“Oh, well, Fate continues to smile on me today.”

We hopped across the channel, Halek easily leaping the distance. At least he was fairly agile, from what I’d observed. I didn’tknow if he could keep up with me over the rooftops, but he could jump a gap without falling in.

At the door, I hesitated again, glancing at my companion. “Are you sure you want to keep following me?” I asked. “This leads into the undercity, where they say a Deathless King used to rule. The whole city is under an ancient curse. I don’t know what we’ll find down there, but I do know it’ll be dangerous. You really should leave now.”

I was trying, again, to scare him away. Usually, mention of a curse would make even the most stalwart hesitate. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten that Fatechasers did not react to danger like normal people.

“Undercity? Deathless King?” His eyes practically glowed with excitement. “I had no idea. I was intrigued before—now a pack of wild sand wolves wouldn’t be able tear me away.”

I ground my teeth. “All right, fine. But no singing.”

The door was locked, but the lock was weak and simple and I had it open after a few minutes. I pulled the door back. It gave a rather ominous groan, and an eerie breath of wind whispered out of the opening, ruffling my hair and smelling of dust and decay. Beyond the doorframe was a tiny room with a trio of rusty copper pipes running from floor to ceiling. Beside the pipes, a circular hole with a metal ladder descended into the unknown.

My skin prickled, the hairs on my neck standing up. But the feeling wasn’t coming from the hole. Stepping away from Halek, I turned back and gazed down the tunnel we’d just come through, peering into the gloom and shadows. The passageway was empty, but my heart beat faster, a chill crawling up my spinelike a spider. I couldn’t see anything in the clinging darkness, but fear suddenly clutched at my heart with icy fingers.

Something was coming. I didn’t know how I knew, but I was absolutely sure I didn’t want to meet it.

“Sparrow?” Halek touched my elbow, making me jump. I wasn’t used to being touched, especially by strangers, but his blue eyes showed only concern. “Are you all right?” he asked. “You’ve gone pale. Do you hear something?”

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