I groaned and heaved myself up, dragging my sorry arse over to squat down beside the statue. The pottery was still covered with a sticky residue of what looked like red wine. I dipped my fingers in and lifted it to my nose. It smelled oddly metallic. I dabbed it on my tongue. Tasted of iron – and magic! A fiery surge of alchemic euphoria blew away the cobwebs of exhaustion, like nothing I had ever experienced before. I felt like a god! By the Night Bitch, no: I’d just supped mageblood. The life-force of other magi surged through my body.
My mental fog was blown away by alchemic-fuelled storm winds. “Son of a sow,” I growled, snatching up the disc of wax. It was the exact shade I’d found in Lynas’ warehouse. I dashed it to the ground and crushed it beneath my feet. Then I stamped on the pottery, exulting in destroying the remains. This was why they killed Lynas – he had been unwittingly importing mageblood, and when he found out what they were doing, the virtuous fool must have tried to stop them. It sounded like something he would do. I staggered to and fro, panting, hands clenching spasmodically as alchemic and strange magics both took hold, wanting to rip and tear something apart. The air took on an acrid, sour scent.
I shook with fury. I’d kill them. Destroy them. Cut them to pieces and swim through rivers of blood. I’d tear into their minds; turn them into my wailing playthings. I would – No! This wasn’t me; I refused to let myself become everything that I despised. This was the alchemic’s influence.
Wrongness assailed me. The air stank like a midden, not the sweetly floral scent I had smelt at first. Neither was the chamber pure white marble, but was instead stained and mottled with a spongy carpet of pale mossy growth. Two mounds of reeking compost lay wrapped in some sort of fibrous cocoon and– Ah. A pair of hob-nailed boots poked out of the bottom of one mound, the tough leather half eaten away. The mageblood smugglers had encountered that recent rock fall and had been forced to carry the jars through this chamber, but some had fallen foul of whatever ancient power lingered in this place.
Charra was curled up on her side and slumbering peacefully. Tendrils of white root had squirmed up from the cracks in the floor and wrapped around her. Where they touched flesh, her dark skin was red and puffy.
“Charra!” She didn’t stir at my shout. I charged over to tear at the sticky roots with my bare hands, heedless of the stinging pain. With a sound like straining rope more tendrils writhed up to clutch at my boots. I opened my Gift, reached for power. Unspeakable agony exploded in my head.
I came to a split second later, mid-collapse. Checking my fall, I crashed down to one knee, head ringing from magical backlash. I’d never felt anything like it. It was akin to a thousand people screaming in my mind all at once. Impotent alchemic-driven rage lashed my ego.
I snatched up my lantern and broke it apart, pouring a circle of oil around Charra. I stepped in close and flung the burning wick down. The room flared bright as flames roared up to encircle us. Roots charred with almost animal squeals and withdrew back into the cracks in the floor. What was left I tore from her and flung into the flames. Red-raw fury throbbed inside me but there was nothing more to kill. My stinging hands burned with the itch to rip and tear and – Charra! – I shook my head, clearing some of the alchemic haze. I’d fought Dissever’s bloodthirsty influence for so long that it helped me shunt the alchemic’s effects aside and squash it down to a dull throb of madness in the back of my head.
I slung her over my shoulder, and carefully lowered myself to pick up our one remaining lantern. Seconds trickled by as the surrounding flames waned. I had to time it perfectly because there would be no other chance. An overwhelming malevolent presence emanated from the statue as it creaked into life, stone muscles flexing as a broken and forgotten idol woke to find more clumsy intruders in its temple.
Before I leapt the flames I spat foul insults at the statue, in a medley of languages. The ground rumbled and more cracks spread through marble. A crazed laugh burst from my mouth: it seemed to understand me. Charra snoozed on, a blissful expression on her red-streaked face. I suppressed an irrational surge of anger towards her and cursed the alchemic taint in my body.
As the flames flickered low, pale roots began reaching towards us again. I held onto Charra for dear life and leapt. Fire licked the seat of my trousers, and then I was past, boots pounding across the marble, crushing clutching roots with every step. I could barely see the crumbled archway out of the chamber, lantern light swinging crazily, praying it wouldn’t fall or dash against rock and plunge me into suffocating darkness. The presence surged up behind us moments after we passed the archway. The doorway shook from the impact.
I glanced back to see the statue stopped in its tracks, seemingly unable to cross the threshold, hacked-away face turned to regard me. It stood immobile in the doorway, still as stone should. Roots trailed from its feet, burrowing into the cracks and into the cocooned people it was digesting. I wasn’t about to wait for it to change its mind and took off as fast as I could manage.
Chapter 19
I ran, heedless of direction so long as it was away. Charra grew heavier and heavier until she felt like a lead weight in my arms. My breathing became ragged gulps and my muscles burned and shook. The false strength I’d been imbued with by that dab of alchemic was fading fast, leaving behind a greasy, queasy feeling akin to a whole-body hangover. It was potent stuff. I forced myself on, to create as much distance between us and that thing as possible.
Lathered in sweat, wounds in my shoulder stinging, I slipped and slid down a set of steps and then staggered across a subterranean stream running through a half-collapsed corridor. My head cracked off a low-hanging stalactite and everything went fuzzy for a second. We fell and I bruised my knees trying to keep Charra and the lantern from crashing to the ground.
I placed her down on a dry area and slumped to the floor, chest heaving. We had to be far enough away from that thing now. We had to be, because I didn’t have much left to give. The back of my throat burned with a little bile that had forced its way up from the effort. I retrieved the whisky flask from the pocket in her cloak. It seemed to take forever for my jellied muscles to prise the cork free. I took a swig to wash the foul taste of bile and alchemic from my mouth, swilling it around and spitting it out, then a swallow to soothe my burning throat.
Charra slept on, peaceful as a babe. I was on my own, buried somewhere in the dark depths of the Boneyards with only a single lantern, an unconscious friend and unknown thousands of the dead all around me. It hadn’t been so bad when we’d had a trail to follow. The darkness closed in around me and my pitiful little light. I started panting, panic rising from within like poisoned water drawn up a well.
“Shite, shite, shite, shite,” I muttered, teeth clamped together, eyes screwed shut. My knuckles whitened around the handle of the lantern. Visions of my fate stormed through my mind as I tried to control my fears; if I didn’t they would consume me. I had to keep Charra safe and see this bloody debacle through to the end. I’d accepted that I was going to die, but not like this, not in this dread place, gone howling mad and blindly clawing at the walls. I folded my legs beneath me in a meditation position and tried to concentrate, to clear my mind as I had been taught so long ago.
Deep Breaths – stuck in an ever narrowing tunnel, unable to turn…
Calm yourself – lantern running out of oil, plunging into darkness…