Page 71 of Queen Demon
It made an odd contrast to the drawings of the abandoned earthwork the expedition had found earlier. That had looked like a place people lived; Hierarch people, but still. This didn’t. And even this close, there was still no sense that this was a death well at all, let alone the Hierarchs’ Well.
Kai felt broken paving stones under the layer of decayed leaves as the ground sloped up to the tor. He slipped out from under the brush to crouch in the shadow of a broken slab. It was surrounded by tumbled rock, concealing a hollow opening into the base. Kai couldn’t see inside the shadowed hollow without calling an imp, and he was reluctant to risk it. There was no sense of inimical spirits, no heavy pall of death, but that didn’t mean whatever was in there couldn’t sense even a brief touch of the underearth.
Kai picked his way carefully into the hollow and started to feel along the dirt-encrusted stone. He searched methodically until his hands found a smooth section. Someone had knocked the dirt andgrime away not very long ago. Feeling for the edge, his hand slid into a square depression, and he pulled at it.
Kai stepped back as with a faint creak the slab pivoted outward. He looked down a large square hallway, lit by firelight, shadows dancing as the wind rushed in through the now open passage. He stepped in hastily and let the slab close behind him until it thumped him in the back; he didn’t want the change in the air to alert anyone further inside. He moved forward, fast, in case it already had.
As soon as he stepped onto the tiled floor of the hall, he felt it.
Like walking into a stone wall made of sulfur, the aftermath of a lightning strike, bone dust, the lingering scent of rot. A death well. A powerful, quiescent death well.
Dahin was right,Kai thought, and shivered as cold settled over him like a shroud of damp silk.It’s underground, it’s always been underground.The survivors of the Hierarchs’ retreat had covered its opening to the surface to hide it.
He forced himself to keep moving. The mortals might already be dead but he had to see who was here, to see if there was a Hierarch and expositor still capable of using the Well.
Dirt and dust on the floor showed signs of different foot marks, though it was hard to tell in the flickering light. Carved niches probably meant for more elaborate lamps held little clay pots burning something that smelled like dried dung, but with a tang of rot to it. It made the air hard to breathe, though if the inhabitants had died from a stupid lack of ventilation, it didn’t explain who had taken the lost scholars.
The likeness to the Summer Halls made Kai’s hackles rise.
The height and width of the corridor, the turn to the right at a certain distance from the entrance, had a cold familiarity. He came to a large room where a carved stone balustrade separated a square space of dirt floor, most of it in darkness, the earth churned up with rubble and wood debris. Sometime in the distant past it had been a garden court, like those in the Summer Halls, he wassure of it. The resemblance made prickles of ice run up his arms. He looked up but the little pots didn’t give off enough light to see the ceiling. There could be a sun and air shaft up there, now filled in when the rest of the structure had been covered over with dirt. Kai shook off the oppressive sense of the past repeating itself and kept moving.
He had never known the Summer Halls as well as Ziede or Bashasa, but he remembered going through the courts to the hall where the Hierarchs had kept their lavish quarters. He found the walkway along the back wall of the destroyed garden and took it to the next corridor, and found another court, and a set of empty, mold-covered interlinked rooms. This was the same layout as the Hierarchs’ quarters, just on a smaller scale.
The acrid smoke took on a heavier odor of decay, so Kai was half prepared for what he saw around the next turn.
Something lay against the wall, a spot of color against the dark stone. Kai went still, but it was a huddled human shape. It wore felted boots and a long padded wool coat in blue and red, like the drovers and Veile, back at the camp. He crouched beside the figure. A stole of office was wrapped around the neck as a scarf; he pulled it aside and touched the cold skin briefly, just to make certain, but the life there had long fled.
Kai pulled the body over a little so he could see the face. It was pale-skinned, with blond hair peeking out from under a knitted cap, but the forehead and cheeks bore Belithan tattoos. Not the ones for male or female, so this person must be—had been—the Belithan third or fourth gender. One side of their face was bashed in, the fine bones broken under the sunken, discolored skin, blood dried on the stone tile beneath. From the decay, they had been dead as long as three days, so maybe this person was from the second work group who had come to look for the first. Someone had just bashed them into the wall, a blow hard enough to kill almost instantly. And then left them in the corridor, like discarded trash.
The body seemed unmarked by insects, and there were no signs that rodents or lizards had tried to get through the clothing. But since stepping inside here, Kai hadn’t seen any sign of the omnipresent gnats that clustered everywhere that was sheltered from the wind. Even the most desperate scavengers knew better than to enter this place.
Kai eased to his feet, hissing between his teeth. He had a bad feeling that he knew what else he was going to find in here. Something that didn’t need to eat, something strong enough to kill with one blow.
He followed the corridor.
Kai found three more bodies, all Belithan by their dress and tattoos. The first was a woman, her hands scraped and bloody and her fingers broken; she had fought her captor, but had no weapon to give her a real chance. He didn’t examine the other two except to check that they were dead.
Then ahead, down a corridor that should lead to another open court, he heard low, unintelligible voices. Kai slipped up to the next corner and took a cautious look.
The short corridor ahead led to an archway that opened into a huge shadowy hall, with a few fire pots making isolated pools of light, just enough to see curved walls stretching up. This felt like the heart of the building. And that meant the entrance to the Well.
Moving silently, Kai went ahead to the archway for a better view. There was something in the chamber’s center, stone steps leading up to a raised platform, almost Kai’s height. It seemed to take up most of the middle of the circular space and he couldn’t see well enough to tell if there was anything on top of it. He could just make out some long shapes, much higher up, looming over it. A criss-cross of stone arches, maybe?That has to be it. The entrance would be in the center of the platform. And it had to beopen, because Kai could feel the concentrated weight of it as a dank chill on his exposed skin.
He had felt the Well of the Hierarchs every time he had been nearby when they used the Voice. After that first time when the Saredi and borderlander forces had been destroyed, he had never forgotten it. But he had felt it too when he had taken Talamines’ body, the body of an expositor, a living weapon, enslaved to the Well through a Hierarch. That connection had still been there, and all he had had to do was accept it, to wield limitless power and lose every part of himself.
Water dripped somewhere, echoing in the almost-silence. It felt like a much larger chamber than his eyes were telling him…
Movement in the shadows snatched his attention back, and he heard the voices again. Even with the echoes, he could tell it was someone speaking Belithan. Kai shivered. He had been young and innocent when he had taken Talamines, but not stupid, fortunately. But he was still glad this body didn’t have any trace of that old connection to the Well.
Kai slipped around the side of the arch and along the wall until he caught a scent of excrement and unwashed bodies. The shapes in the darkness resolved into a series of pens, or cages, each barely tall enough to stand up in. Inside were figures, some upright, some huddled on the floor. He could hear slight movements, a groan, whispers.
Kai edged up to the nearest cage and sank silently to a crouch. The bars were set close together. Running a hand along one, they felt smooth, like a polished hardwood. The nearest figure stirred, probably subconsciously sensing a living body close by. In formal Belithan, Kai whispered, “Don’t shout.”
It jerked in surprise, drew in a hiss of breath, then whispered, “Who—How—”
“I came with Scholar Sura, sent by the Light of the Hundred Coronels of Enalin and Chancellor Domtellan.” Kai kept his voice as low as possible. The rest of the shapes in the cage had gonedead silent, except for one choked sob of relief. Frantic whispering sounded from the next cage over. “My companions waiting outside are sent by the Rising World Council in Benais-arik.”
“Praise Mercy, Praise Reflection, Praise—” the figure muttered. “Take care, these creatures, they don’t feel pain, they can’t be fought—”
