Jatal disagreed with this order of march but the captain bowed, murmuring, ‘Yes, Princess.’ It seemed that the members of her entourage were used, or trained, to defer to her. Stepping over the obscene corpse of the Thaumaturg guardian, Jatal followed the captain.
The tunnel complex wound on. All openings were corbelled arches, an ancient architecture Jatal recognized from the written narratives of travellers through the region, even those of thousands of years ago. He glimpsed in passing what looked like dormitories, study halls, and small meditation or prayer cells.
He thought he’d gained something of an insight into these Thaumaturgs from this hidden maze of structures — presumably their true habitation. It was as if the surface was of no interest to them, or was used merely as sleight of hand to deceive and mislead. Their true vocation and interests lay beneath, hidden or shielded. And from what he’d seen so far, these practices struck him as detestable and obscene.
They passed more sprawled corpses, these of older men and women, all Thaumaturgs, or their servants. None of the bodies bore any obvious wounds. All lay disfigured, bloated, or, in some cases, with their flesh traumatized and torn as if having burst from within. The stink of sickness and rotting flesh was unrelenting but by now Jatal was able to endure it without his gorge constantly licking at the back of his throat.
They entered a larger chamber, its flagged floor crowded with bodies. At first he thought it some sort of infirmary or training centre for physicians. Corpses in various stages of dissection lay on stone plinths, while the weak torchlight hinted at mummified bodies along the walls. The ones hung on the walls appeared to be aids in instruction: each displayed a differing system within the human body. On one, the musculature lay exposed and preserved in all its ropes and cable-like twinings over the bones. On another, the circulatory system of veins and arteries lay highlighted and tinted like so many streams, channels and rivulets upon a map.
In an instant it struck Jatal that what he observed was not a ward for the healing and reknitting of the flesh, but rather its opposite: a theatre for the systematic disassembling and deconstruction of the human body. The insight left him dizzy with revulsion. For an instant his only thought was to flee. He felt as if his very breath carried into his body some sort of contagion or contamination that could poison it.
One of the guards leaned over to heave up the contents of his stomach and the captain cursed the man. In the quiet following the ragged gagging and gasping, slow shuffled steps sounded from the darkness of a tunnel opening. Jatal gradually shifted his blade in that direction as did everyone else, all in complete silence. Andanii’s bow creaked next to Jatal’s ear as she drew it fully back, the bright needle point of the arrow steady upon the opening. He knew that from this distance it could punch through solid iron plate.
Instead of the expected giant yakshaka, however, a dark-robed stick-figure of a man tottered unsteadily out of the dark. A Thaumaturg mage. One pale hand groped the air blindly before him while the other clutched at the wall. As the theurgist stepped further into the torchlight Jatal grunted his shock upon seeing that the man’s eyes gaped as empty pits while his face was smeared in gore, as if the orbs had melted, to dribble like melted wax down his cheeks. Burst sores at his neck oozed a clear fluid down his robes.
Swallowing his dread, his visceral revulsion, and the acid pressure from his stomach, Jatal managed to speak. ‘What has happened here?’
The blind Thaumaturg cocked his head. A smile that might have been contemptuous, or one of self-mockery, climbed his lips. ‘It has been said,’ he began, ‘that flesh is stronger than iron. Yet this is not so. For are we not all heir to the countless failings of the flesh? Are we not in life only one step from its corruption and decay?’
Snarled loathing from Andanii announced the bow’s thrumming and the figure jerked back a step.
Yet he remained standing. From a mere few paces the arrow had passed completely through him.
The smile broadened and blackened blood welled up through his lips as the man spoke again: ‘Tell me, children … what would you sacrifice to live for ever?’
Bellowing his rage and horror the captain leaped forward, sword swinging, and the Thaumaturg’s head flew from his shoulders. The body slumped to the floor. The captain turned to them, his chest heaving, his eyes white all around. ‘By the ancestors, what is happening here?’
‘I think I may know,’ Jatal answered. He gestured to the opening. ‘We should go that way.’
The guards scrounged lamps from the classroom, or theatre, or whatever the chamber was, and lit them.
Andanii readied another arrow. ‘I will lead. Jatal — will you accompany me?’
‘Of course.’
Two guards held lamps close as he and Andanii edged their way down the damp chill tunnel. ‘So what is it you think?’ she whispered. ‘I am not so dense as to imagine this has anything to do with our mercenaries.’
‘You are right,’ he answered, low. ‘I am beginning to suspect we did not come alone, my princess.’
She frowned at this, uncertain of his meaning. But he remembered the bare footprints. He knew a group who spurned all such trappings of so-called civilization: sandals to protect their feet, clothing to warm themselves, even fires to cook their food. And add to this all the talk of flesh and corruption.
He wondered now which of the two he dreaded the more: the Thaumaturg magi, or these mad Shaduwam priests of Agon.
They next entered a nest of smaller chambers with numerous side tunnels and portals. The stench of decomposition was so thick here that Jatal felt as if he had to blink it away. Everyone breathed now in short quick gasps, barely allowing the fetid air to pass their lips.
The crash of iron on stone and a scream brought Jatal about. Their rearguard had been cut down by a yakshaka that must have stepped out from a side portal. In the narrow tunnel only the next guard in line could reach the giant and he chopped frantically, chipping the bright reflective stones from the creature’s chest. But the two-handed yataghan the monster wielded next appeared in an eruption of blood from the leather armour of the man’s back. The corpse slid backwards off the broad wet blade.
The captain was next and he adjusted his stance, sword ready in both hands.
Andanii’s great bow creaked like a bending tree trunk just next to Jatal’s ear. ‘Down!’ he bellowed.
The captain ducked just as the yakshaka reared up for a two-handed descending cut and Jatal marvelled once more, for the blade came to within a finger’s breadth of the tall corbelled arch of the tunnel and he realized that this entire complex had been designed precisely to accommodate these guardians.
The bow released in a punishing snap.
The creature’s helm shattered in a flurry of shards as the arrow took it through the vision slit to burst out the rear of its skull. The giant tottered stiffly backwards, rocked like an unbalanced obelisk, and fell in a crash of stone.
Jatal, the captain, and the two remaining guards all turned their wondering gazes upon Andanii. The captain bowed, sheathing his sword. ‘Magnificent, my princess.’
She inclined her chin a fraction, pleased, then drew another yardlong arrow from the bag at her side.
As they renewed their careful advance, Jatal asked aside, ‘How did you know …?’
‘I didn’t. I just tried it.’
‘I see.’ There, it seemed, lay the profound difference between them. He needed to know before he would act. She, it seemed, required no such assurance and would simply act, unhesitating, decisive. While he admired such supreme confidence, he could not shake the suspicion that it would also lead to disaster.
They entered into the largest chamber yet of the subterranean complex. The flickering lamplight suggested it was a great circle, the distances lost in the gloom. Glassware, tools and instruments glinted from the middle of the broad chamber, while serried about the circumference of the room lay countless stone sarcophagi. The rotting flesh stench seemed to be emanating from these stone beds.