“That we do,” said Havert. “Though nothing down here’s free.”
Scorio made no response, and instead focused on carefully scaling the steep path up to the ledge. Both strangers had drawn close to a narrow tunnel at the back, their expressions wary.
Scorio held up both palms. “Honestly. Last thing I’m looking for is trouble.”
Havert stroked his beard, cheroot tilted upward between his clenched teeth, and finally gave a slow nod, but the woman didn’t seem convinced.
She was even shorter than he was, her body lost in a formless coat with sleeves hanging down past her hands. Her hair was a greasy brown and locks of it wound down over her pale, heavily freckled cheeks. Serious brows, a full mouth pulled into a frown, and with all the tense flightiness of an animal on the verge of startling and racing away.
“How long you been in here?” asked Havert, tone gruff.
“I’m not sure,” said Scorio. “A few hours? Half a day?” He forced a smile. “To be honest, I’ve lost track of time.”
“The warren’ll do that to you. You’re lucky to have found the bright stream, though. And to have had the wits to sit and wait.”
Scorio’s smile turned bitter. “Wasn’t much of a decision after the Lasher.”
“Fair enough, fair enough.” Havert wiped his hands nervously on his thighs. “But fortune’ll carry you just as far as wit and good looks, if you don’t lean on it too hard.”
“True enough. Were you both on the Red List? How long have you been down here?”
“A year, both of us,” said Havert. “Almost exactly, seeing as you just reincarnated. Hestia and I were thrown in together, had the fortune to run into Salamander after only a couple of days. He’s been here the longest, going on five years.”
“Five years?” Scorio’s heart sank.
“You should be impressed,” said Havert, tone defensive. The tip of his cheroot danced with each word. “Takes real strength to last that long. But come on. He’ll be wanting to meet you, and if we don’t tend to that wound, you’ll lose the arm and then you’ll be of no use to anybody. Hestia and I’ll collect our moss, and then we’ll take you back to the camp.”
“Hestia said something about a door,” said Scorio, as both strangers reached back to take up rakes with broad sacks affixed under their heads. “That the Final Door?”
“Nah, not the Final Door. What Sal calls the Brass Door.” Havert extended the rake and began scraping at the moss, causing great clumps to fall into the sack.
“What’s that?” asked Scorio, heart rising in his chest. “A way out?”
“Nah.” Havert spoke around his cigar, eyes narrowed as he continued to scrape. “Only death comes through the Brass Door. Opens once a month to let in fresh hell. Great big bloody thing, it is. We’ve never been able to open it ourselves.”
“Not till now,” said Hestia, speaking at last. She paused at her scraping to looked at him over her shoulder. “We’ve been waiting for one more person to be banished down here and join our crew.”
“Why’s that?” asked Scorio, his pulse picking up with excitement.
“’Cause Sal’s got a plan,” she said, turning away again. “He’s rigged up something special, and with your help, we mean to make a run for the surface or die trying.”
Chapter 7
“These warrens were designed as a lure, see,” said Havert, walking ahead of Scorio with his rake propped over one shoulder, the contents of the leather sack glowing through the rough stitchwork, a crude lantern stuffed with moss hanging from the far end and illuminating their passage. “Bastion’s not what it used to be. Hasn’t been for centuries, we reckon. Every now and then it gets attacked, and things get through. Perhaps once long ago those things would be hunted and exterminated, but Salamander says a good third of the city’s gone to the dogs. Collapsing. Those fiends, they go to ground in the ruins, worm their way down into the cracks. Infest the city like fleas on a dead dog.”
Hestia brought up the rear, rake folded in two and slung across both shoulders, her hands resting over the haft as if she were in stocks. “You’ve a way with words, Havert.”
The other man ignored her. “Anyways, years ago, someone smart designed this place and put something here that draws the fiends. Big and small. Like a drain. They come and gather at the Brass Door, and when it opens, in they rush, and get trapped.”
Scorio nodded but made no comment. They’d been walking for a while now, and he was starting to feel hot, his brow feverish.
“Not too long ago, someone decided this was a good way of disposing of Great Souls.” Havert’s voice grew bitter. “This way they don’t get blood on their hands. Sal says they’re afeared of earning a Red Lister’s wrath. That we’d come back in the next life and remember who killed us, and exact our revenge.”
“Doesn’t make much sense to me,” said Hestia softly. “I don’t remember anything.”
“How does Sal know all this?” asked Scorio. “Has he set his Igneous Heart on fire? Does he have… powers?”
“Nah,” said Havert, tone expansive, confident. “All of us were thrown in here within hours of incarnating. No time to learn anything. Sure, we’ve tried to figure it out, but we’ve gotten nowhere. But Sal says there was another fellow here when he was first thrown in, someone who’d come into the warrens on purpose, like, through the Brass Door—mad as that sounds—and stayed a while before leaving again. An explorer, called himself Radert. Explicated to Sal a bunch of things, and said he’d come back one day for him soon.”
“Never did,” said Hestia.
“Not yet, at any rate.” Havert sniffed loudly. “And Sal’s grown tired of waiting.”
“If this place floods with… fiends… every week, how are you all still alive? How have you survived for years down here?”
Havert glanced back to wink at Scorio. “Probably something to do with us being formidable Red Listers.”
“That, or the hideout that’s been in use for who knows how long,” said Hestia. “They’ve been throwing Red Listers in here for centuries, looks like. Over time, folks fortified a cave. Figured out where they could get water, how to harvest enough food to scrape by if there weren’t too many of us.”
“How many are you?” asked Scorio.
“Four,” said Hestia, tone tinged with regret. “Which hasn’t been enough for Salamander’s plan, but with you here…”
“And what’s his plan?”
Havert cut in before Hestia could answer. “He’ll tell you himself if he judges you fit to take part. He’s mighty possessive of his plan. Might cancel it in a fit of pique if we steal his thunder. Anyways, we’re almost there. The warrens are pretty small, all things considered. Mostly a bunch of dead ends.”
“Tell me about it,” said Scorio ruefully. “I must have stumbled down all of them before finding the stream. But one more question, if you don’t mind. If every month a fresh batch of fiends are let in here, where are they now? I’ve only seen the Lasher. Nothing else.”
“They’re all gone by the end of the month,” said Havert, as if that explained everything. “They start to die off once the Brass Door closes. Takes a few weeks, but even the biggest ones wither up. Don’t know why. Part of what makes this place a trap for them, I suppose. That and they tend to eat each other if they can’t get their claws on us. Anyways, here we are.”
He turned into a short, broad tunnel that terminated in a landslide. Heavy boulders had tumbled down along with a great flood of rocks, stones, pebbles, and sand, all of which blocked passage completely.
“Watch this,” said Havert, grinning at Scorio as he set his rake down and moved over to the left side. “Looks like a dead end, don’t it? You’d walk right by, as do all the fiends. But it was all carefully set up ages before we got here, and the trick’s been passed down. See this rock here? It’s not bearing any load at all. Clever, hey? All it takes a good shove, and it slides right in.”