Stephen Deas - The Black Mausoleum

When Siff wasn’t watching, she picked at her fingernails. Keeping them short, for the most part, but keeping them sharp. Claws. The first weapon she’d been born with. Her blood might not touch Siff any more but that wasn’t what she was thinking about.

After a week, when she thought he wasn’t looking, she scratched herself on the ankle as they were climbing out of the boats one evening and then stumbled and fell into the water. A tiny drop of her washed away.

Worm! Wherever you are, I call you!

Deep within the wilderness of the Raksheh Forest, overlooking the Yamuna and the Aardish Caves, lies what has come to be called the Moonlight Garden. Myth had long held that the Silver King planned a mausoleum to be ‘built in black marble across the great river from the endless caves’, an idea that actually originates from the fanciful writings of one of the earliest Taiytakei travellers who visited the Silver City before the time of Narammed. Nevertheless, Speaker Voranin sent dragon-riders to scour the great rivers of the realms for it, and thus the Moonlight Garden was discovered.

The garden is bounded on three sides by marble walls, with the river-facing side left open. The marble appears black but is actually of an unusual colour found nowhere else in the realms — a dark blood-red, veined with mustard yellow. The garden-facing inner sides of the wall are fronted by columned arcades, while the wall is interspersed with small domed buildings that may have been viewing areas or watchtowers. At the far end, away from the river, there are two grand red sandstone buildings that are open to the sides. Their backs parallel the western and eastern walls, and the two buildings are precise mirror images of each other. They were once exquisitely decorated, but they have no interior structure and their function is a mystery.

Later interest moved to the surrounding Aardish Caves as the most likely location of the Silver King’s tomb, before Speaker Vishmir ultimately abandoned the search, and the Moonlight Garden has since been left to return to the forest. The garden is still sometimes visited by riders making use of the temporary eyrie above the caves.

Bellepheros’ Journal of the Realms, 2nd year of Speaker Hyram

The Black Mausoleum. He’d never even heard the name until he met the alchemist. The days on the river passed and he couldn’t think of anything else. It was calling him. It was calling the thing inside him, the thing he’d taken away from it, calling it back. He didn’t know why. When he closed his eyes, all he saw were the waterfalls, the crags of rock either side, the little beach where he’d piled the dead bodies fallen from the dragons, the hole smashed into the ground, the caves, the tunnels, the strange arches, the shimmering silver and the tiny serpent made of moonlight, so much like the ones that came from his fingers. The closer he got, the more he saw it. The gaps were coming thick and fast now, but it was starting not to matter any more. They were becoming the same, the two of them. Most of the time that understanding filled him with a satisfied calm. Sometimes it was a terror worse than death.

He started to see things he remembered. A certain tree by the bank that reminded him of someone whose name he couldn’t remember any more. A stone the size of a barn, lodged in the river on the next bend. A cluster of fallen logs all jammed together. And then, around a corner in the river, they were there. Pale cliffs rose from the banks in the distance. If he squinted, he could see the beach where three dragons had once piled bodies while a fourth had stared down at him. The sound of the Yamuna Falls whispered to him over the wind.

‘There.’ He couldn’t help the glee in his voice. He nudged the alchemist. ‘There. Do you see it?’

She shook her head. ‘I was never here, Siff. Only you.’

‘Yes. Only me. The place you called the Moonlight Garden, it looks out over those falls.’ He pointed. ‘On top of those rocks. The tomb..’ He couldn’t finish. His throat was choked. After so long! After so long what? He didn’t know and he didn’t care any more.

‘The caves begin underneath the garden. I know that much, Siff. What do you think you’re going to find there?’

‘I already know what I’m going to find there! A gate to another place. The place where your Silver King went.’

‘The Isul Aieha was slain, Siff.’

‘It’s a gate to where he belongs!’

‘And you’re going to open it?’

‘ You’re going to open it!’ Ancestors! There it was, the only reason he’d brought her here, the only reason he needed her, and he’d gone and let it slip out. Now she knew. Pox! He clutched his head and clawed at his face. Why did I tell her that?

‘Where does it go?’

Stupid alchemist! He had to hold himself back from wringing her neck. ‘I already told you! It goes to where the Silver King went!’

‘How do you know?’

‘ I know! ’ He screamed it at her, making her wince and screw up her eyes. He took a deep breath. What’s happening to me?

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You need me to open it. Then that’s what I’ll do, if I can.’

Another deep breath. Slowly mastering himself. He blinked a few times, trying to clear his head. ‘You will?’

‘Yes.’ She held out her hands, still bound in front of her. ‘It doesn’t need to be like this, Siff. That’s what I came here to do anyway. I came to find the Silver King. I’ll help you either way. It’ll be easier if you let me go.’

‘Then you’ll take it for yourself!’ he raged. She closed her eyes and shook her head, but she would, he knew that as sure as he knew the sun would rise in the morning. The Silver King. She wanted him.

They watched in silence while the cliffs drew nearer. As they paddled towards the beach, Siff jumped to his feet. He waved and shouted and pointed. ‘There! There! Take us there!’ He’d never felt something like this. Like his chest was about to burst with joy. ‘There!’

The canoes changed their course. His heart was beating as though he had a snapper at his back.

‘Siff?’ He barely heard her. ‘Siff, this is the place. Are you sure we can’t do this together?’

‘Shut up, woman!’ He waved her away. Do this together? It was his, not hers! She’d take it, take all of it away and leave the rest of them with nothing, because that’s what alchemists and riders and all their ilk did. Always.

‘Then I’m sorry it couldn’t have been different.’

The words washed past him, lost in the draw of the waterfalls. He might not even have noticed if the canoe hadn’t bucked a moment later, the nose of it lurching out of the water. Siff staggered and sat down heavily. The man at the front, who’d been spearing fish, turned and looked at them all. His face was white, his eyes wide as plates. His mouth worked, but no sounds came out.

Something hit the canoe from underneath, hard enough that the front flew high up out of the water. Everyone tumbled backwards and the canoe rolled and toppled them into the river. Siff caught a glimpse of a huge shape, as big as the canoes themselves, vanishing under the surface.

‘The worm!’ someone wailed. ‘The worm!’

A few yards away the water seemed to boil and then a great plume erupted, hurling a man into the air. He crashed back into the water, and there was that shape again. It rose, broke the surface and, like a giant maggot, rings of pale flesh ending in a mouth that was nothing more than a hole surrounded by a circle of hook-like teeth, swallowed him whole.

‘The bank!’ Siff shouted. ‘Swim to the bank!’ Did they know how to swim, these outsiders? They had boats so he supposed they must, but it didn’t look like it.