“Tell me what happened that night in the foundry,” she said softly, pressing the blade infinitesimally closer; the tension making his mouth taste iron. “How did the Bolg king get past all of you? How many men did it take to overcome my journeymen? Tell me, Omet, how did he do it?”
The artisan said nothing.
With an artless flick of the blade, Esten shaved off a tiny section of beard and the top few layers of skin, drawing but one drop of blood.
“Tell me,” she said menacingly, her voice dropping. “The vein that my knife leans against would be most difficult to close once opened.”
Thoughts of that night flashed before his eyes. He had been awakened, quickly tied and gagged by Rhapsody while Achmed scouted the area.
“Alone,” Omet whispered. “He was alone.”
Esten lifted her head at a different angle, studying his face. “Liar. There were thirteen men and two dozen half-grown boys missing as a result of that night. He could not have been alone.”
“He was alone,” Omet insisted, struggling to breathe with the knife at his neck. “He—killed most of them with—his cwellan.”
“Cwellan?” The knife did not move as her other hand produced a blue-black rysin-steel disk. “The curved weapon he carries on his back, that fires these?”
“Yes,” Omet whispered. “He bound me, and the other apprentices. Vin-cane—fought him. The—Bolg king locked him—in the kiln.”
The cruel eyes glittered. “That explains the stench. Did he kill the slave children? Bury them beneath all that slip?”
Omet thought of the long ride to Ylorc with the rescued boys, Rhapsody and Achmed maintaining order until they could be turned over to the Bolg guards in the northern Teeth.
“Yes. All dead. Buried in the slip. Along with the journeymen.”
“Why? Why would he do that?” The lines of her brow knitted together, drawing her face into a terrifying mask of concentration. “If he is some sort of do-gooder king, off solving the problems of the world, why would he seal my slave boys under a fired mountain of clay?”
“It was—Vincane who upended the first vat,” Omet said quickly; it was the first truth he had told. “He was—trying to get away.”
Esten’s eyes narrowed, and her mouth drew into an even tighter line.
“How did he fire it? How did it become solid?”
Omet struggled to breathe, trying not to encourage the blade point any closer. “I don’t know. He had bound me and taken me out by then.”
“Hmmm. I still don’t know why he chose to risk my wrath by interfering with my work, though it may have had something to do with wanting his mudfilth artisans to be the ones to dig out Entudenin. He is a curious fellow, isn’t he? Well, no matter. He will get what is coming to him.”
Omet said nothing.
“Just as you will, Omet.” Her free hand reached behind her over her shoulder as her knife pressed deeper against the vein in his neck; the world went black for a moment. Omet fought to stay conscious.
When his vision cleared she was holding up a shiny metal flask before his eyes. She uncapped it with her thumb and held the vial to his lips.
“Drink,” she said simply.
“No,” Omet replied. Death as the outcome had been something he had accepted from the moment he recognized that she had come to the mountain; a sense of finality and peace came over him, leaving him fearless for once.
Esten blinked. “You defy me? You are braver than I thought.” She bounced sharply on his chest, knocking the wind out of him; Omet gasped for breath, and as he did, she poured the scorching liquid down his throat.
The heel of her hand was up against his chin in a flash, snapping his neck back and forcing him to swallow.
Omet gasped again, her hand still sealing his mouth shut, as the caustic liquid tore down his gullet. In a matter of seconds he felt the heat spread to his limbs, leaving them weak, useless.
Esten climbed off him quickly.
“If you move it will bring on the coma more rapidly,” she said flatly, straightening her clothes and flicking her wrist; the knife disappeared. “I need you to linger in fever for a while to distract your friends, until the Bolg king returns to the mountain.” She cocked her head and watched him with interest as the heat rose up in his face. “Your mother would be proud of how you met your death, Omet, and I’m sure you are appreciative that I gave you this gentle way out, unlike the rest. At least you do not have to live with the effects of picric exposure, as the others will.”
Her face brightened and she leaned closer. “It really is a quite lovely substance. Those who get it on their skin or breathe it in, as your Bolg and glass artisan friends have done, will find their eyes, hair, and skin turning a glorious yellow, almost the color of goldenrod glass. They will succumb to a variety of lovely agonies—bloody urine, twisted and melting internal organs, convulsions, stupor, eventually leading to a blessed, if painful, death.”
Esten picked up Omet’s right hand, now flaccid and unresponsive, and dropped it heavily to the bed. She stretched out beside him, sliding her arm under his neck, as his breathing grew shallow and his face turned gray. With one last tender gesture, she laid her head on Omet’s shoulder, turning her lips so he could hear the words she whispered to him.
“But for the Bolg king—he has the best in store for him! The glaze we annealed into the ceiling glass—that was picric acid, Omet, a delightful substance when wet, as it is now beneath the wooden cover of the dome. I’m sure you recall it from your lessons in my foundry. When it dries, do you remember what it does?”
Omet, who was breathing shallowly, slipping into unconsciousness, did not respond, but he knew the answer in his last moments of awareness.
Picric, dry, exploded.
He was too far gone to feel the warm kiss she placed on his temple, too deep in the grip of the poison to hear her leave.
51
That night they camped when the path along the seacoast grew too treacherous to be forded in the dark.
They passed the night without a fire, keeping low to the ground, until the edge rains of the storm began in earnest.
Lightning rippled through the sky in waves of heat, becoming more focused as the storm grew in intensity. Crackling flashes shot the heavens through with pulsating light, followed seconds later by the deep rumbles of thunder, echoing off the sea cliffs, frightening the horses.
The travelers broke camp and hurried northward along the seacoast, watching the thrashing waves pound the shore, ignoring the sting of salt spray mixed with the fresh water of rain.
Finally they took shelter in the ruins of a small village on a cold inlet, where the lava cliffs that lined the whole of the western coast rose even more dramatically into rocky ledges and promontories above them. One small brick building with a tiled roof half crumbled away remained standing near a tall seawall; all else was ashes.
They quartered the horses next to the seawall as the sky opened above them, drenching men and animals to the skin, then climbed one after another into the broken building, leaning up against the wall that still had a bit of roof to it, gaining only partial shelter.
A nest of rats that had been the only tenants prior to their arrival scurried out of the half-hut as the three men shifted uncomfortably, seeking whatever dry place they could find. The old man chuckled as the rodents disappeared into the rain.
“I slew the last Seren rat years ago,” he said. “Poor old Nick. I did him the favor of helping him pass through to the Rat Afterlife, if there is one. He must have come on one of the ships of the First Fleet.”
“The rats gained immortality in the passage from the old world as well?” Ashe asked incredulously.
“Aye,” MacQuieth said. “Cymrian rats. And you thought only the people wouldn’t die.” He shook his head at the memory. “Too grizzled for even his own kind to eat. I didn’t have the heart to eat him either.”