Stephen Deas - The Black Mausoleum

The dragon’s tail slashed the air, the tip hissing like a whip past her head, so close she could almost touch it. It had to feel her, didn’t it? Don’t think! Don’t think! But it had its mind elsewhere. The dragon took two quick steps away and lunged towards wherever the Adamantine Men had gone. A hot wind rushed over the ground as it tried to burn them out.

‘Can we run now?’ Siff’s eyes were wild. This time she let him pull her away. The dragon was tearing at the hillside, digging after the Adamantine Men at the foot of the high stone bluffs below the Moonlight Garden. It roared. Frustration. Kataros ran faster. Blood. A drop of blood was all she needed. Whatever Siff had inside him, it stopped her from mastering his will, but she could still burn him and there were other things too. If she could find anything that was alive, she could make it hers. Snakes, spiders, scorpions. Snappers even. Let the forest give her a weapon, any weapon…

Siff pulled her in among more tumbled boulders, behind an enormous rock towards an opening in the ground, too regular to be a cave. Her steps faltered. Even in the sunlight she could see how it glowed. It was a tunnel, like the passages, of all places, within the flying castle!

‘Move!’ Siff hauled at the ropes around her wrists. Kataros winced. Yet the alchemist in her wanted to see now, had to, no matter what happened afterwards.

‘It’s like the castle,’ she said. ‘It’s the same. Look at it. You didn’t know, did you?’ There. That made him stop. In the castle he hadn’t been himself.

‘Is it? I don’t remember.’

‘What’s inside, Siff?’

‘Come and see.’

The earth trembled. Siff dragged her deeper. The light here was soft and soothing and came from everywhere, just like in the castle over Farakkan. ‘What’s inside you, Siff? What did you find?’

He yanked harder, angry. ‘When I found this place, I thought it must have been made by alchemists. But you didn’t make this, did you? Someone else made it. I didn’t know that until your riders brought me to the Pinnacles and I saw that too. You didn’t make that either.’

‘That was the Silver King’s palace.’

‘Yes.’ The passage went on and on, dead straight, sloping down into the earth. ‘And so was this.’

‘The Black Mausoleum.’ She whispered it to herself, a test to see whether she really believed. Although what else could it be?

But no, alchemists knew better. The alchemists, the grand master and a handful of others, they knew what had happened to the Silver King. They kept that secret to themselves, but they’d happily tell you there was no Black Mausoleum, no tomb. Treasure, yes, there might be that, and secrets and powers and, yes, even a way to master dragons. But no half-god.

Siff dragged her on. Down and down into the earth, dead straight until the walls and the ceiling fell back and opened up into a dome-shaped chamber, tilted slightly into the earth, far too perfect to have been made by men and so large she could barely see the other side. The walls were smooth as glass like the passages in the flying castle, like parts of the Pinnacles, like the tunnels that had taken her from the Silver City to the edge of the Yamuna. Siff was right. The Silver King had made this.

A ring of arches stood under the centre of the dome. They were ornately carved from the same white stone and they reminded her of the Pinnacles too. There had been arches there just like these but set into the walls. As her eyes grew used to the gloom, she could see little changes in the light in places around the edge of the chamber. Other passages.

‘What is this, Siff?’

He ignored her and pulled her towards the arches.

‘Where do those tunnels go? Do you know?’

Again no answer. In the middle of the circle of arches sat a flat slab, perfectly round and perfectly white. Siff pulled her towards it, right into the middle. ‘Here. See, alchemist!’

He left her standing there and held out his hands. His eyes changed, filling with glowing silver. The tiny snakes of moonlight curled from his ruined fingertips out towards the arches. They reached further and further, strained and pulled at him. As the first one touched the nearest arch, a silver mirror flowed from the edges to fill the space. One archway after another, until his snakes had touched them all and he had made a circle of mirrors all around him; the moonlight snakes shrank back to Siff’s fingers, but the mirrors stayed.

‘Look!’ he said, full of awe and wonder, and Kataros could only feel the same. ‘Look!’

He stepped in front of one mirror and reached towards it; the snakes from his fingers leapt forward again and the silver rippled as they dived into it, and then it shimmered and changed. Instead of a mirror Kataros saw a gateway to another place. A place filled with liquid silver, an endless rippling ocean of it with a giant moon above.

‘Look!’ he cried again. ‘Look, alchemist. That is where your Silver King has gone. There! Don’t you want to follow him? Don’t you want to see what’s beyond? Tell me, alchemist. Tell me you want to see!’

Kataros stared. She’d never seen anything like it.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I want to see.’

Jasaan jumped and raced and hauled himself along the path up through the rocks. There was no turning his head, no looking back. Skjorl would do what he could. If he fell, that wouldn’t be a bad thing either. Let him stand long enough for Jasaan to reach the alchemist and then finally fall — more than likely that’s exactly what he wanted.

The path climbed up beside the waterfall, went on higher into the bluffs and then vanished to follow the river again. Jasaan passed the place where they’d left Parris to stand guard, out of the way of the fight, or so he’d thought. Parris was gone. When Jasaan glanced over the edge, he saw where. They’d pushed him over. He probably hadn’t even lifted his sword.

Back home, outsiders were called shit-eaters because they had to grovel in the dirt for their food. What people forgot was that in the mountains and the forests finding food could be tricky. Turned them into sneaky bastards, born with hunting in their veins. Two of them were hiding behind the next big rock. He felt them more than he saw them as he ran past; when they came out and lunged, he hurled himself forward so their stabs came up short and skittered off his armour. He was already swinging his sword as he turned. What did they have? Spears? Wooden poles with metal tips. He split one in half with his first swing and pressed them back towards the rocks where Parris had fallen. They were terrified, and so they should have been, and when they turned and fled he let them go and ran on up through the stones, along the ledge above the river. At the end of the ledge the path vanished into a steep scree of loose stone and boulders. The outsiders and the alchemist were at the bottom. For a second Jasaan paused. An eyrie? Had there been an eyrie here?

‘Nice of you to send two more my way,’ said Skjorl behind him. When Jasaan turned to look, there he was, every bit the monster. His armour was spattered in blood. It dripped down the shaft of his axe and over his gauntlets. His eyes were hungry and mad. He pointed. ‘And there they are. Give me your bow…’

His voice trailed off. His eyes weren’t looking at the ground any more. They were looking at the sky.

‘Oh my. Will you look at that.’

Jasaan turned.

There was a dragon in the sky, diving straight towards them. Something about the way it flew struck him as familiar, as if he’d seen it before.

‘You again.’ You could hear the grin on Skjorl’s face. He nudged Jasaan but was talking to the dragon. ‘Remember this one? All the way from Bloodsalt.’ He pushed past and started to run down the slope looking for cover. ‘Come all this way for me, have you?’ he shouted. ‘Think you can do better this time?’